***

It was getting dark when Josephine finally parked. She had been driving through the city aimlessly hoping to confuse Charles and whoever the Order had sent to hunt her down. She only stopped momentarily to bind her two bullet wounds in makeshift tourniquets before continuing with her aimlessness.

Despite that, her wounds still bleed—albeit much slower—as she looked into the rearview mirror of her motorcycle. A large, dark red spot had spread over her shoulder. She didn’t bother to look down as she was sure the lower part of her left leg was drenched with dark blood.

The pain was manageable then, but now it was like a roaring fire. Damn it to hell, she cursed to herself. She looked up at the very recognizable large yellow arch over a white building with a blue roof.

This was a Golden Arches, a fast food burger joint. Usually, when she was with the Order, she’d go to a church and heal. However, since she had left, she had to make do with this place.

Lots has changed since the beginning of the Order. In the past it was just a ragtag of different organizations around the world, each calling themselves “Hunters” and fighting the evils of the night. Then a near world ending incident had the Vatican consolidate most of the organizations into one known entity as the Vatican’s Order of the Hunters or the Order for short.

Such consolidation prompted the sharing of ideas. One particular idea was to have other sanctuaries for its soldiers that wasn’t so obvious to their enemies to know. So it came to be that the Vatican offered blessings, particularly newly built buildings, in the guise as a kind of heavenly good luck. In reality, they were to become sanctuaries for hunters like herself to heal and recuperate.

This Golden Arches she chose on purpose as her recovery site. After all, she knew who had blessed it. A smile spread across her face. She had killed him this morning.

She got off of the motorcycle and limped toward the back. She stopped and hid in the shadows when the backdoor opened up. A dark-haired, olive skinned woman wearing the blue and white uniform came out with a bag of trash. She watched the dark-haired woman throw the trash bag and then cursed as the trash bag landed on the ledge of the garbage bin. The dark-haired woman then kicked the garbage bin only to have the trash bag fall off the garbage bin and onto the ground. The woman shrugged and then went back inside into the fast food building.

Josephine hadn’t seen that worker before. She must be new. She moved out of the shadows and toward the back door. She rummaged in the hidden pocket of her jacket for a key, grimacing as she felt a new burst of pain from her right shoulder.

Once she found the key, she unlocked the door and entered. She quickly turned right into a small enclave where a boxed fire extinguishing was hidden away. She peeked out from the enclave just in time to see the dark-haired woman conversing with a man who was wearing a solid blue polo-shirt and white pants. By the uniform on the man, she recognized him as the manager of the Golden Arches.

“I know this is just your first week and I don’t expect you to remember all the items on the menu, however…,“ said the manager.

Josephine shut her mind off from the conversation as a wave of pain emanating from her calf nearly knocked her into a blackout. She had to go to the restroom quickly or else the employees of Golden Arches may find her passed out here.

Silently, she slipped out of the enclave.

Nobody seemed to notice her. This was the high time for demand for their burgers and the manager was still conversing with the new employee which she noted was the same one she saw earlier taking out trash. She continued onward, quietly going through the aisle way and around the kitchen toward the restroom area.

Along the way she picked up an “Out of Order” sign on a counter before putting it on the handle of one of the restrooms she had prepped before. Once inside, she aptly locked it. This particular restroom she had chosen due to the lack of traffic and not often preoccupied due to its awkward position near the kitchen.

However, if there was anybody in here at this moment, she’d have to take them out. She quickly hobbled around with a hand on her silencer and debated whether to shoot or just knock anybody she found. She finally let out a sigh of relief when she confirmed no one was around.

Josephine then went to the sink and turned the hot and cold knobs in a certain sequence until she heard a click. She grinned as the mirror above the sink opened up.

When she had been scoping the city and chosen this place as her safe house, she had secretly installed this secret compartment. It was no easy feat as she had to bribe some schmuck contractor to come into this facility under the lie of updating the plumbing.Then she made sure the contractor could not tell anyone about this when the job was done.

She found her medical kit and a water bottle next to some spare clothes before shutting the mirror. Slowly, she undid the tourniquets, biting down a groan as her right shoulder and left calf throbbed. She was not worried she’d bleed to death and was sure that the bleeding had stopped the moment she entered the fast-food joint. She then removed her jacket and the clothes underneath, leaving her bra and underwear on. She tossed them to the wall behind her, guns in holsters and all, without any care.

Josephine, with her hands on the sink, saw in the mirror herself. She made a face as she noticed her blonde hair looked like a wet shaggy dog. Even the hair tattoo of three arrows, her family crest, over her under shave glistened from her sweat.

Then her eyes wandered over to her shoulder where the bullet wound had stopped bleeding but there was an ugly mixture of puss and dried blood. She looked backward and down to see the same thing with her left calf.

“Nothing that holy water couldn’t fix,“ she grumbled to herself.

She opened up her medical kit and began treating her wounds. She took out some clean rags and opened up the water bottle. Carelessly, she splashed them onto her wounds. Her wounds made a hissing sound, and she wiped away the dried blood and puss with the rags.

As Josephine wiped more and more of the puss and dried blood, she could see her wounds beginning to close up. An hour later, two bullets popped out. Then her wounds fully healed leaving behind two scars.

That was one of the gifts of an ordained hunter or “Ordained” as they were called within the Order.

She couldn’t recall exactly how this came to be, but she knew the reasoning. As the spawns of evil became increasingly more dangerous, there was a need for hunters to be on par with them. Each Ordained was given a special blessing that granted them various supernatural abilities. Enhanced healing was one of them, but only if they were at a holy site or drink holy water.

As great as that sounds, the enhanced healing has its drawbacks. It wasn’t like a werewolf’s near instantaneous healing when they shifted into their beast form or the vampire’s perfect healing that left no scars. On her body were scars from previous wounds she had gotten. Some were minor nicks, and some were large, nearly death-ending types of wounds. There was one particular one she had across her well defined six-pack abs.

A werewolf, the largest she had ever seen that towered about nine feet, had given her that. If it wasn’t for a friend, she would probably be that werewolf’s meal. Another scar, not life threatening, but it was meaningful as it was her first scar as an official Hunter. She traced the faded scar over the ridge of her nose.

Suddenly, she was tired. That was the second and main drawback with the healing. This healing gift always took a toll on one’s body, leaving one to vulnerability. Something that the creatures of the night took to their advantage and many Ordained before her fell.

She moved to the back wall and leaned on it, sliding down until she was sitting next to her clothes. She closed her eyes and slept. How long did she sleep she didn’t know, but the hard knock had her eyes fluttering open and her hands reaching for her guns that were still in their holsters.

"Hey, yeah, I know this isn’t out of order. I cleaned it last evening. So,” said a voice from behind the door. There was an incoherent grumble. “I can smell you through the door and I know you need a place to sleep and all being homeless. Look, this is the first week for me, so I shouldn’t be doing this but I will keep the sign until the end of breakfast. After that, you have to leave.”

There was an awkward silence. Josephine was not sure what to do. Then she sniffed her forearm and scrunched up her nose. Apparently, her time in the trash pile had gifted her with its smell.

“Okay,“ said the voice, breaking the silence. "I’ll take that as a yes. Remember, end of breakfast.”

Josephine could hear the footsteps fade away. She let out a sigh of relief. She recognized the voice belonging to that new employee who also seemed to think she was a homeless person.

At least she was decent enough to leave me be for the moment, she thought. Feeling much more rejuvenated, Josephine got up and went back to the mirror. She repeated the sequence and opened up the mirror once more. There she started to clean up. Once done, she put on her spare clothes and she wore her Golden Warriors jacket she had hidden behind the mirror as well.

At first she was going to put on her holster, but she found a note in her pockets. It read, “Please, just have fun and relaxed when you can.” She recognized the curvy handwriting belonging to her good friend.

“I should, shouldn’t I?“ she said to herself. After all, she took down one of the men and women responsible for her father’s demise. It had been months in the making, and she finally did it.

She nodded. She deserves a bit of peace before she moves to her next target. Hopefully, this down time will also cool down her trail and confuse Charles and whatever pursers the Order may have sent.

She put away her guns behind the mirror. She will retrieve them later. Her stomach growled, and she patted it. “Right on time,” she said.

Josephine, after cleaning up any dried blood or stains that would show her presence, exited the bathroom. Her mouth watered as she entered the dining room. A line had formed, and she saw the new employee helming the ordering as if she always belonged at the fast-food joint.

The hunter smirked as she got into line. Now that daylight was filling the Golden Arches, and she wasn’t preoccupied with her wounds, she could see that the new employee was cute despite the uniform. She licked her lips. Perhaps even fun.

Josephine waited until it was her turn at the counter.

“Welcome to the Golden Arches! Happily serving over one billion customers. What would you like to order today?“ said the new employee, sunlight bouncing off of her silver small plate name tag.

Josephine read the name tag on the new employee. “Leora.”

“Yes,“ drawled Leora. “That is my name. Okay, so, m’am, what would you like to order?”

“I think I will go with the number one meal. Yes, make it extra and, uh, could I get you to go out for an evening with me?“ said Josephine.

“Gotcha, one number one meal. Extra. What was the other part?” said Leora as she was typing in the order cash register.

“Uh,“ Josephine cleared her throat. Usually that worked. “I said if you wanted to go out tonight?”

Leora looked up from the cash register. “Oh, Ohhhhhhh. Huh, I, ah–”

“That’s a yes,“ said the manager who swooped in out of nowhere.

“What?” said Leora. Her dark eyes went wide.

“Don’t worry, I have you penciled out for the evening. You are doing such a good job right now I was already giving you this evening off. Besides, she’s hot,“ said the manager who nudged Leora with a mischievous grin.

“So?” smiled Josephine and gave a thankful nod at the manager.

“Um, yeah.“ said Leora.

“Good, you got a pen? You’ll need my number,” said Josephine.

The manager pulled out his pen and took a napkin from a nearby pile. He placed them in front of Leora. “I’ll just leave these two here,” he said before winking at Leora once more and then going off to the drive-through window where a worker needed his help.

“Okay, yeah,“ said Leora with a deep breath. She pushed the pen and napkin to Josephine.

Josephine jotted down her number but realized she also had to give a name. She couldn’t give her real name. Just in case, maybe, Leora happened to know someone in the Order. Though she doubted it. Mostly.

“Hmm, sorry, uh, I think people are getting anxious,” said Leora in an awkward smile.

Perhaps her subconscious mind was still lingering on her last kill, but she wrote, “Georgie.” She pushed the pen and napkin back to Leora. “Call me with a time and I’ll give a place,” she winked.

“Okay, Georgie,“ nodded Leora.

With that, they sealed their fate for that evening.