Yeah, that’s me. Six feet tall, brown hair, freaky eyes. Athlete. Brainbox. Sister. Daughter. Hired killer.

What? That surprises you? Then you ain’t the judge of character people make you out to be.

I was born in New York on the 10^th of November 1984, along with my twin brother Hunter. We were separated soon after birth, and each of us was led to believe that the other was dead. My path was decided for me by ironic fate. As a quarterling, my body has in essence four parts: werewolf, lamia (born vampire), witch and human. The irony of it all is that I am a vampire slayer and a vampire at the same time. Fate, it seems, does have a sense of humour.

I was trained from an early age in martial arts, languages, and in the four art forms of elemental magic. My tutor was a skilled technician, and I picked up my technical ability from him: by the age of 10 weeks I could hack my way into Kingdom Come. I was a quick learner, willing and able to be taught.

But the lessons I learnt concentrated more on my abilities as a Slayer than developing the other sides of my nature, the ones I didn’t know I had. For the first three months of my life, my vampiric nature lay dormant. I had a conscience; I knew what guilt was. To some extent I still do, although I often repress the feeling of it. ‘Cos on February 10^th 1985, I learnt the true meaning of the word death. The apartment my tutor and me lived in was attacked by vampires. Not lamia, lamia don’t often sink so low as to kill their kin directly, but turned vampires, human-demon hybrids.

My gut instinct, as they attacked my tutor, was to run like hell. But one of the vampires was blocking the doorway; a second was barring the fire exit. I was too naïve to know any better, so I charged the third vampire, who was attacking my instructor, only to be flung aside like a small toy. Then, one of the other vampires grabbed me, and dragged me into the bathroom, where the third had filled the bath with water. I was thrown, face down, fully clothed, into the water, and my head was held under until I thought my lungs were going to burst. A transformation came over me, and having learnt now of a vampire’s sense of smell I’m surprised that the bloodsucker holding me under the water didn’t notice it too. I stopped struggling, as I felt my pulse grow weak and then stop. The leech pulled me out of the water, and the stench of human blood hit me. The vampire lay me down on the floor, then turned his back on me and called his cronies into the room. In the few seconds his back was turned, I rose to my feet, and felt my true demonic nature surge to the surface of my face. My guardian had concealed weapons in every room of the house, and I quickly found the small axe he had hidden in the bathroom for me. Fangs bared, I hissed territorially and swung the axe, cleaving through my would-be murderer’s neck, turning the parasite into dust. The ability to kill exhilarated me to a point where I scared myself, but I didn’t care. I felt control. For the first time in my life, I was the director of the world around me. I wasn’t learning any more; I wasn’t in a controlled environment. As the vampires died by my hands, I felt no remorse. I was the vengeful spirit, the Angel of Death, the Ruler of Pluto.

I was invincible.

But this invincibility came at a price. Once I was done with the three vampire blockheads, my body was overwhelmed with an intense feeling of bloodlust. For a three-month-old, this extreme torture is overwhelming. I fell to the floor, and I believe I momentarily passed out. When I regained consciousness, I felt drained. My invincibility had left me, and I was barely able to pull myself up to my feet. My tutor, in the next room, lay in an increasing pool of his own blood, barely alive. The vampire had bitten into his throat before its buddy had called him off to come and check me. Blood was still spurting out of the wound, and I didn’t know what to do. The apartment had no telephone, so I had to run next door to call the emergency services. But even there, I couldn’t escape the carnage caused by the three demonic comrades. It seemed that they had killed everyone in the apartment block, and this theory was backed up by my werewolf senses coming into play. To a human, blood is a source of nausea; to a vampire, it is the source of life. To a werewolf, blood is a trigger to transform. Had I not been concentrating on finding a phone, I assume I would have mutated into a bloodthirsty killer. So I rang the cops, and ran.

I lived on the streets of New York for three months, and that was one hell of a culture shock. Back then, I was able to sleep, although I often slept during the day and visited my parents’ graves by night, where I also honed my vampire slaying skills. I ran with a gang called the Diablo gang, all fully human, all 100% street kids. They were, to me, my friends, but I was always an outsider to them- too young, too smart, too self-confidant.

Too different.

That all ended when we were attacked by more vampires than even my ability could handle. The Diablos were all sired- turned into vampires like our attackers- and I barely got away. I ran from New York, and ended up in a small town hospital. My gran, my mum’s mum, had me released into her care. She taught me how to heal, how to channel my energy, and I manipulated this ability, transformed it into a fighting technique.

But the first turning point of my life came on the day of my first birthday. Still unable to sleep at night, but now unable to sleep during the day for more than a few hours, I was dressed in my finest, awaiting the arrival of the Night World Council. I had a small bag slung over my shoulder, packed with all my possessions, and my gran gave me an amulet for healers. My ability to learn had shocked even her, and she felt that the time had come to hand me over to the Council for further training. But the Council never made it to me in time. Instead, I was taken from my gran by the vampire with a soul, on the same night she died in a fire. Accidental death, they said.

The vampire with a soul returned with me to New York. He became my new educator. My fighting skills were excellent, and my educational abilities were unnerving, but he didn’t teach me those things, just refined them. What he taught me was self-control. He taught me how to best tap my genetically inherited, environmentally modified power. Then we swapped blood, and I was left on the doorstep of an orphanage in New York, aged 2.

I was in and out of institutions until my 4^th birthday, when a young human couple decided to adopt me. I lived happily with them for a year, hiding my inhuman sides, concealing my Slayer habits. But then came the fateful night, when my uncle, fully lamia, set fire to the house I was staying in. I had just returned from a patrol, so I smelt the smoke and tried to wake my adopted parents. They wouldn’t wake up; I tried for 10 minutes, hammering at their door, until I could feel the heat from the flames on my back. So I ran out of the house, but as I ran I tripped, and fell with the right hand side of my body into a pile of burning waste. My right arm, torso, and most of my face were badly burned, but I couldn’t scream. I wasn’t even able to cry. I put all the energy I had into getting the hell out of the roaring inferno which had once been my home. My parents weren’t so lucky. I was still there when their burnt corpses were brought out.

It was the first, and last, thing that ever made me heave.

One of the cops took me to the hospital, although I had no wish to go. The doctor said he wanted to keep me in over night, cleaned and dressed my burns, then put me on a drip and some medication. Sleeping pills, I had no need for them, they didn’t work. Normal painkillers were a blow-out too. He ended up giving me adrenaline shots, which do not mix with sleeping pills at all. The next day, I discharged myself from the hospital, taking the medication with me, and within two weeks I had somehow managed to hitch hike from New York to Los Angeles. It was after this that I started not to sleep. Part of it was the meds, but a larger portion of it was paranoia. I knew by this time that my uncle was after me, and I was afraid to sleep in case he found and killed me.

My first night in LA was spent patrolling, and while doing so I came across a Torkoth demon guarding a warehouse. There was a hint of evil around the brute, and I sensed that he had no right to be there. As I watched, a boy walked out of the door into the figure guarding it. The demon grabbed him and covered his mouth before he could scream. He was maybe two years older than me, the boy, but he was helpless in the grasp of that huge figure. I darted from my hiding place and cannoned into the beast’s back, left shoulder first, my right shoulder still incapacitated from the fire. The ogre released the boy, who backed away but didn’t run off. I pulled a dagger from its sheath at my waist, dodging blows as I did, but was knocked off my feet onto my right arm before I could get a lethal blow in. The dagger skidded off, and landed by the boy’s feet. Wincing in agony, I was unable to push myself up with my arm, so I was helpless in the face of a fresh attack from the Torkoth. The demon had pulled a short sword from about itself, and, with a cruel, arcing stroke, carved the flesh from my stomach. Yet I found myself still able to breathe, still able to move, the wound healing fast and my dagger back in my right hand. Balancing myself on my left arm, I kicked upwards, two-footed, and pulled off a kind of somersault so I was once again on my feet. My antagonist staggered backwards, and I shifted the dagger from my right hand to my left, which didn’t burst into flashes of agony every time I moved it. Slashing upwards, I was able to breach his not very well maintained defences and send him, metaphorically at least, back to whatever dimension he came from. The boy, seeing his would-be killer dead, walked up to me.

"I was sent to find you," he said, "my father did not know you were so close. Thank you for saving me."

I shrugged, and immediately regretted it as pain ran through my arm like red-hot pokers. I figured his dad was psychic, and cautiously followed the boy back into the warehouse. I kept my knife in my left grip, as I was getting steadily better at controlling my weaker hand, and steadily more cautious with it.

Once inside, I was amazed at how big the building was from within. A small anteroom opened onto a slightly larger office, which in turn opened up onto a seemingly endless hall of shelves, full of books. Even my initial training hadn’t prepared me for anything like this. The place was a tardis.

"Huntress Redfern."

The sudden voice behind me made me spin around, in a jumpy manner, which is no longer present in me, as the voice that had spoken was unfamiliar to me. I saw what looked like a middle-aged man there; a dark-haired taller version of the boy from the alley. Only his eyes gave away his true, infinite age, and a sense of sadness. I knew somehow that this man was no danger, and saw that he was looking at the point of my dagger, which I had instinctively raised to his throat. Modestly, but unashamed, I lowered my arm and sheathed the blade where I could easily get it should my first impression be wrong.

"Yessir." I decided to take the uniformed way out and focused on a point beyond my interviewer’s left ear.

"Welcome," said the boy, "to the Forest."

"The family tree of every family in the world is stored here, as is a personal file for every living human," continued the man, whom I assumed was the boy’s father. "It is my family’s duty to keep the documents safe. I am David Kaos Jr. I believe you’ve already met my son, Jack." With that comment, he motioned for his son to enter the office. "Come, Jack, you have nothing to fear! The Saviour will do you no harm. Do sit down children "

David Kaos Jr had the ability to pronounce capital letters, and his calling me the ‘Saviour’ appeared to have some meaning to the family that I was unaware of.

"Who the Hells are you? Why’d you call me that? What do you know about me?" I was annoyed; my right arm was screaming in agony within me, and people I didn’t know were expecting me to believe what they were telling me.

"One question at a time, dear girl, one question at a time. I am, as I have said, David Kaos, and I am known to various councils as the Keeper, as was my father before me, and as Jack will be after me. As for you, we know very little, although an ancestor of mine was able to translate an ancient Latin script, which appears to prophecise your role on this earth. Unfortunately, this translation was lost, and now only the original is in our possession. Were you able to read Latin I would show you the scroll, but there is little chance that such a young child would know such a dead language."

"I am more than able to translate Latin, sir, if you could get me my file."

I was playing the naïve, innocent little child any other girl my age is, and I saw the look of amazement in my questioner’s eyes. I knew why. I had, in the space of five minutes, changed from a dagger-happy, bloodthirsty maniac into a well educated, reasonably polite young five-year-old. David Kaos, apparently stunned into silence, simply left his seat and wandered off into the gloom of the endless halls. His son, Jack, sat down in a seat next to mine, and looked at me inquisitively.

"Are you really the Saviour?" he asked. He had the same talent for pronunciation as has father. I shrugged, non-committedly. I hadn’t read the scroll, and was therefore unsure of what I was. In all my lessons I had never once heard of "the Saviour", but then, my teachers hadn’t been the type to either own or believe in prophecies. They were the type to push their students to their upper boundaries physically and mentally, not giving a damn about any damage done. But then again, with me they never had to.

Just as I was starting to get impatient, a second old man walked into the room where I was sat. He was every bit as old as David Kaos Jr, plus a little more on top.

"Hello, Jack, who’s this pretty little thing? Bit young for dating aren’t you?"

I glared silently at him, and he took a step back, stunned into silence. Jack shuffled uncomfortably in his seat, and I sensed that this guy was important to the boy too. I lowered the tone of the glare by about fifty per cent, and he started to breathe again.

"My name, sir, is Huntress Redfern."

"You’re the Saviour? But you’re so young!"

"She killed a Torkoth demon, right outside the door," said Jack. "It would have killed me if she hadn’t. Something wanted to make sure that we didn’t find her."

"That you didn’t find the Saviour," I corrected, and the ability to pronounce capital letters seemed to be catching. "I don’t believe that I am the ‘Saviour’, and until I see that scroll, I ain’t gonna."

Right on cue, David Kaos Jr came strolling back into the office. In his hand was a file a couple of inches thick. I must admit it made me raise an eyebrow as I flicked through it. Half of it was in Gaelic Irish, and a lot of the remainder was in Latin. Then there was the scroll. It was an ornate piece of work, if scrolls can be considered ornate; all decorated and amazingly written, it must have been pretty old. And there, on paper, plain as the burns on my arm was my prophecy. I almost fell off my chair in shock, as far as the prophet who wrote it was concerned, I was to be the saviour of the world. Try having that dumped on you at five years of age. I felt like screaming, so I did; only I didn’t open my mouth. It was a mental scream, but a telepathic one, which had Jack holding his ears and the two older men wincing. I hadn’t known I was telepathic at the time, although now I am able to use it as both a defensive and an offensive mechanism. I can knock a human out a 100 yards just by willing it to be so.

If this is getting you down, then remember you don’t have to keep reading. I didn’t ask you to, and I have no right to force you to keep going. This is just my way of keeping track of time. I need to write everything down, or I’ll… well, not forget, I was cursed with a perfect memory, but it is necessary any way.

So anyway, here I was, five years old, with this whole burden on my shoulders. So I took it upon myself to be the best. Sure I’ve made more enemies than friends across the years, and some of those enemies have been top class. I am still in existence, the majority of them aren’t. Go figure. I’m eighteen years old at the time of writing, and I’m thinking of stopping ageing this year. We’ll see…