Page 27 of The Secret of Pain

"Good morning, Remy. I'm Ben, it’s a pleasure to meet you, again," he says and shakes my hand, the calluses on his rough against the soft skin of mine.

"Hi," I respond, unsure what else to say because this feels awkward as hell.

"I'll see you soon. Love you, Rem," Maddie says and waves, leaving the two of us alone in the small room.

“Come, child, I know this must be a lot for you to take in. Now, before we complete the ritual, I want to go through some things with you. I know your family may have started to explain some things about who and what the Hunters are, so why don’t you tell me what you’ve got a grasp on so far and I can expand from there.” Ben’s kind eyes make me feel better in all of this madness. The Elders, from what I can make out from the little I’ve been told, sound kind of terrifying, but he’s a good guy. I remember when he would visit when I was a child; he always had so much patience—I guess that’s why he’s the guide. Though I dislike that he also kept secrets from me, I understand.

Kind of.

Hopefully I’ll understand more soon and this underlying betrayal that I’ve been trying not to pay attention to, simmering away inside of me, will start to die down. I don’t like feeling this way, it’s why I’ve not acknowledged it, but that doesn’t mean it’s not there.

Taking another deep breath, I try to focus on what he said and organize what I want to say before speaking, rather than the word-vomit that usually happens to me.

“So, this all still sounds ridiculous inside my head, and even more so when I try to say it out loud, but essentially, monsters are real, and I’m a monster Hunter.” Well, I failed at the no word-vomit thing. Heat creeps up my neck as I blush, the words still feel absurd, even though I know their truth.

“Do not worry, child, in these modern times when the fear of the supernatural is merely just something for the movies, you are not alone in your hesitance to believe. Both your brothers and your friend, Creek, struggled with accepting the reality we live in.” His voice is warm and smooth, and his words make me relax. I try not to smile at the thought of Bauer trying to accept this as truth, sometimes it’s hard to remember that he’s only five years older than me when he acts like I’m eons younger than him, but I remember when we were kids, he’d ridicule us for watching scary movies, berating us for being scared of something so obviously untrue that we were only scared of our imaginations.

“Thank you.” I smile at him.

“Let me start from the beginning, shall we? So, as I’m sure your father told you, we, the Hunters are Nephilim. Of Angel blood. Our people have been around since the beginning of time, protecting the humans and ensuring they never become aware of the true world. Our faction is governed, if you will, by the Elders, and each Elder looks after their own territory, which we usually refer to as a guild. We are not immortal, but we are pretty hard to kill thanks to our blood, and we are reborn if we are killed. You, I believe, are on your twelfth rebirth, and in each life you have chosen the life of a Hunter, so you will have many memories coming to you. You may not regain all of your memories of your past lives, which is why we do this fun little bit in each life, so you have the facts. You may regain all of your memories, but usually the process takes around six months. After that point, anything that is missing is unlikely to come back.” He pauses and watches me as it all sinks in. Twelfth life. I mean, I know my dad told me that already, it just hadn’t sunk in until now. Well shit, maybe that explains all the fucking sex dreams recently. My heart skips a beat as I think of Jack and the look on his face when I broke off the engagement; my ring finger still feels bare.

“Now, the reason you are finding out now, rather than when you are younger, is because of the power of the memories and the steps of the ritual. Your powers as a Nephilim do not awaken until near your twenty-first year. I’m sure you’ve noticed some things already, more strength than you had before, maybe better sight or hearing, being faster and more graceful than you once were. That is your body finally accepting the power in your blood.

“We must wait until your power is accepted, because otherwise the memories, the sheer intensity of the power, would kill you. So do not be too hard on those around you.” He looks at me knowingly. “They left to protect you. New Hunters are less on guard, they have to learn, but once our memories are fully restored and we can be sure of our words and actions, it is safe to be around our young again. I understand you had a small taste of what happens when knowledge is given too soon.”

He looks at me and I blush a little. He’s not wrong. I swear I can still feel a ghost of the pain in my head.

“Any questions about the Hunters yet?” he asks, and I shake my head.

My mind hasn’t stopped whirring since I found out what I really am, so I just want to listen and soak it all in. While training has been one thing, I haven’t given myself a chance to focus on the fact that monsters are real, and that’s what I’m training for. I’ve always been great at compartmentalizing, and I’ll be fucked if I didn’t shove that little nugget in a box so far down into the depths of my psyche.

“Not about Hunters, about the ritual, but not Hunters,” I reply, and he smirks at me.

“If I could tell you, I would, but honestly, it’s better to go in blind. I promise it’s not bad, it’s just easier not to overthink the maybes.”

“If you say so,” I mumble, rolling my eyes. ’Cause not knowing is so not going to make me overthink it.

He chuckles at me, shaking his head.

Glad I amuse him. Ugh.

“Okay, so now you know more about us, I’ll explain a little more about the other factions. There are our enemies, the Dracul, who you would associate with vampires as the modern world has deigned to call them. They are not sensitive to sunlight as the myths describe, but they do prefer to hunt at night, so they’re essentially nocturnal, also garlic, wooden stakes, crosses, all of that is utter nonsense. The Lycans, again, you would probably know them as what cinema has called werewolves. You’ve got to love the modern spin on everything.” He shrugs with a smile and a sparkle in his eye, as if he’s teasing me. “Again, not sensitive to silver as the myths would have you believe, but a lot of the rest is right. They’re a patriarchal system for the most part, led by alphas, and are stubborn and pig-headed.”

Leaning back, I try to process his words. Even if I knew some of this from researching, it is still all a fucking lot. Especially hearing it out loud.

“These two factions are a drain on our world. They prey on the weak, the humans. They feed on them, kill them for sport, or keep them as pets. Both factions can be made as well as born, but those who are made, if not done properly, are even more dangerous—they are the scourge of the earth, and the filth must be destroyed.” His warm voice, now cold and venomous, shocks me. His eyes bleed with pain, and I imagine that when my memories come back, I’ll feel the same sort of hatred he does. How dare these factions treat humans this way?!

“And then, then there are the Witches. They are a torn faction, some work with us, some for the filth, and others will simply work for whoever pays the most. They are rarely a loyal bunch to anyone outside of the coven, though this isn’t always true, as you yourself will come to remember, but we do occasionally need their gifts.” The venom in his voice lessens, but I can tell that he doesn’t like the fact that Hunters must rely on the Witches for anything. One thing I have noticed is that Hunters are a proud, stubborn, egotistical bunch. None more so than the Elders. Though, considering what Fallon told me when she announced she was a Witch, this little bit of information isn’t something I didn’t already know, but I’m not going to interrupt him when he’s obviously working toward something.

“The Dracul and the Lycans, while they are tough to kill, it is not impossible. We have blades and bullets made with materials that are deadly to them, their one main weakness. A Dracul’s weaknesses are different to those of the Lycans, but you will garner all of this in your training and from your memories as they come back to you,” he tells me and pats my hand, gone is the angry cold warrior, his warm, soothing demeanor back. It throws me that he could be these two very different people, but I guess with many lives, and the many different people you are, personality whiplash is to be expected.

“Have we known each other before?” I ask hesitantly, and he smiles.

“We have. When we are reborn, it is always to the same lines, and our eyes or birthmarks tell us who we are. Your eyes have always been the bright violet you possess, in your first life, you were almost condemned by the humans to be a Witch because they are so unusual. But it is how we always know that you are Remington Bennett, along with the birthmark on the inside of your left wrist.” I gasp and look down at my wrist, the strange star there that has always been. “It is the sign of the Bennett line, each of your family has one, and then they each have their own differentiating marks too.”

“This is so weird, so my brother is always my brother?”

“I can see how it could be that way, but yes, if your brother is reborn in the same life cycle as you, then he is always your brother. Sometimes new lives are born, for example, in your first life, it was just you and Bauer. Colt didn’t appear until your third life. But you don’t all always appear in the same cycle. So, some of your cycles, you’ve been an only child, some were all three of you, sometimes, just two of you. There isn’t an exact science as to how or why, it’s more about the need of time. Anyway, as I was saying, Creek isn’t always reborn when you are, he didn’t show up until your fourth life I believe, but when he is reborn, we always know that you are coming. The two of you have been friends for centuries. The Fates play a very strange game with us all.”

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