Hidden in Shadow

Chapter 3

"Two dead kids, Bane! Two! Missing I can handle, but dead!?" Leonin Avalon, one of the twelve Elders, looked livid.

Stubby grey beard, balding grey scalp and nearly lifeless grey eyes. Grey was the colour that best described Avalon. However, at this point of time, the most ideal colour would be red, blood red in fact.

Bane stared at the Elder in silence. He knew what this meant, and that he would be blamed for his negligence. After all, Wormwood was under his charge, and for nearly a year now reports on missing kids have been coming in from time to time. Mages have tried in vain to locate them in the forest; it was guarded by the Will o' the Wisp, a creature with a fog-like creature who enjoyed mind games and hallucinations.

Missing children were bad enough. Dead ones were worse.

"Well?" demanded Avalon, flushed and breathing hard. He seemed ready to explode.

"I'll get a team, and I won't rest till I find out what's happening," said Bane, his voice dangerously soft. He was burning inside, burning at the fact that two innocent lives had been lost because of him, that his lack of attention had resulted in such a disaster.

"Don't come back till you find Panzer Longfang!"

"Longfang?" said Bane.

"That's right!" Avalon snapped. "This is his doing, I tell you. That no good Chaos wizard."

Panzer Longfang was at the top of the Silent Circle's wanted list. He was suspected of heinous crimes such as kidnappings, torturings and murders. The victims were usually teens, and sometimes fellow mages. Longfang's dwellings in Chaos magic were also infamous in the magical world, and Avalon pinned every unsolved crime on the man.

"Right...I'll go get my team." Bane made his exit.

Standing just outside the door was a young man with wavy blond hair and unearthly green eyes. His ears were long and pointed, unlike other humans'; that was probably because the man was no human. He was an elf.

"Tobias," Bane called. "Wormwood, let's go."

Tobias Bolt put down the file he was studying, sighed, and gave a curt nod. Bolt was new to the Circle, one of the few pure elves left in existence. He had been partnered with Bane once, and they defeated a vampire together. In fact, Bane had saved Tobias' life.

But it was not only that which made Tobias feel obligated to obey Bane. In the magical world, Justin Bane was perhaps the most well-known name around. The founder of the Silent Circle was said to be his ancestor, and a direct one at that.

Grabbing his staff, Tobias followed Bane out of the Main Office.

*** *** ***

Channels, that's what they were called. External tools that allowed a wizard to maximise his potentials and channel magical energies through. They could be anything; they used to be staves, but as people grew more wary of the supernatural, they became common weapons. Guns, swords, knives, even electronic devices. They could all be Channels.

Cerberes shimmered in the half moon's glow. Most Channels could not feel, but Cerberes felt hungry.

A towering building stood before him, nearly forty stories high. Cerberes quivered in his master's hand, the master who could not be seen. The master who called himself the Shadow Hunter.

The building was called the High Order. The Shadow Hunter watched, unseen in the night, as several lights went off. People began leaving the building, people who appeared drained and weary. The Hunter clutched his katana--his Channel--and muttered a few words. Soon his vision changed, and he could see a spectrum of colors.

As he suspected, a series of dark purple were emanating from the red and green bodies of the individuals exiting the High Order. A common man with heat-sensitive binoculars would find it strange (that is to say, if they could even see the odd streams of purple energy), but the Hunter did not.

Chaos energy, that's what the purple auras were.

Invisible in the shadows, the Shadow Hunter took off. Cerberes was waiting, hungry, but that would have to wait. There were more urgent matters at hand...