C8 Chapter 8

It was almost two in the morning one night in April. Sean Thiel, dressed in a police uniform, without his mask or cloak, was leaving a house in a residential area of the city. It was a two-story cream-colored building with a brown roof and a small flower-filled garden out front. A carriage surrounded by four Hawks wearing uniforms without the unit’s insignia, waited for him. They stealthily approached Sean, who was walking toward them leaving the building.

"This idea of wearing police uniforms was a good one," said one of the Hawks in a low voice.

"But is it too much? We should have disguised ourselves as crooks," muttered another.

"We can always blame the assassin if necessary," said Sean Thiel as he approached them. "Remember, the story is we are here because an informant tipped us off."

"Yes . . . sir," replied dubiously the eldest Hawk in the group.

The lieutenant continued walking toward the carriage.

That night he was on an elimination mission. He had been less than impressed by the optimistic outlook and complex plan that the assassin had presented to him days before, so Sean had decided to carry out the mission himself. Instead of poisoning the target’s food with different substances throughout the day, which would make it difficult to detect how he had died, Sean decided to kill him with a simple spell after putting the other members of the household to sleep.

"What are our orders?" asked one of them.

"Nothing, let’s go," replied Sean.

Everyone got into the carriage. The first men to get in started to write a brief report in a notebook. At that moment a hooded silhouette on horseback emerged from one of the side streets. The sound of hooves on the paved road put Sean Thiel on alert, and he stopped in the middle of the road. When the figure came closer, the lieutenant recognized the rider as his subordinate. The masked figure stopped in front of him and jumped off the horse. He took a deep breath and then spoke, his enraged voice echoed down the street, attracting everyone’s attention.

"What the hell did you do!?" he asked in Kiltish.

Even with the mask in place, he was clearly worked up, nevertheless, he maintained a firm and defiant stance in front of his superior, whose expression became serious and full of contempt.

"I just did my job. The job that you didn’t want to do," he answered. "As well as the second one you left unfinished."

The hooded figure took off his mask, throwing it aside furiously. The sound of the metal hitting the road reverberated down the street. Nobody spoke until the sound of the helmet bouncing on the cobblestones dissipated. The glistening wavy brown hair of the previously masked emissary only partially covered her face.

"Kantor . . ." said Sean.

Emma Kantor, wearing her emissary uniform, but with her face uncovered, took her Aurora Stone out of her bag. When the stone did not activate, she ran, frightened, into the house. As she went inside, she could sense multiple traces of magic. One trace was stronger than the others, it was dark magic, and she followed it to a room on the second floor. When she opened the door, she could see that the traces were emanating from a ten-year-old boy who appeared to be sleeping peacefully in his bed. When she got closer and quickly checked the child, she confirmed that he was dead. She took a few steps back, horrified. Somebody had cast a spell on the child’s internal organs, killing him instantly.

Some time ago, after she had first heard the word ’fatesmith’, Emma had begun to use her Aurora Stone to find out exactly what a fatesmith was. The signal that her stone detected led her to a very quiet part of the city where she had discovered that her ’enemy’ was a ten-year-old boy. There was no doubt it was the child, as her stone reacted and glowed faintly as she approached him. The boy’s innocent appearance perplexed her, and she could not get it out of her head for several days. She had expected fatesmiths to be dangerous and threatening individuals, so, incredulous, she spied on the boy’s house for a week. She discovered that his family did not have any ties to any illegal activities. The mother was an accountant and the father a lawyer, both of them came home everyday at the same time, a few hours after the boy and his twelve-year-old sister returned home from school. In the same way that Emma had helped take care of her own sister when she was still living in Kilto, the young girl helped her brother with the household chores and then with his homework. Emma stopped spying on the family after that. Over time and with the help of an informant, she discovered that the boy’s father was a lawyer for a merchant who the government had wrongly accused of corruption. Two hours before Sean killed the boy, her informant had told her that the boy’s father would be the target of one of the ’clean-up’ assignments to be carried out by the emissaries that very night.

Emma stormed out of the house in a fury, running into Sean at the door, who blocked her exit.

"What have you done lieutenant!?" She took a step backward, poised for battle. They were both speaking in Kiltish.

"He was a fatesmith and the son of a former civil servant who . . . did not repay a few favors, or so I am led to believe." Sean’s uniform changed color and design, reverting back into his usual white military uniform. "I don’t enjoy killing people either, but somebody had to do it, and well, it was not a mission for you."

Emma Kantor looked around for a way out. Now that she was cornered, she feared for her life. She knew she could not win against the lieutenant. He was an incredibly skilled mage, capable of fighting prodigies much older than himself.

"Don’t try anything. The whole family has been put under a sleeping spell. There is nothing you can do to wake them up."

"What are you trying to achieve? Who do you think we Kiltish are?"

"You are Kiltish. I am Albionese. Oh, wait. I am not that either. Who knows where I truly belong." He took Emma’s mask out of his pocket, which he had collected off the road earlier, and held it out in front of him. "I would have liked to have seen how far you would have gone. Blame it on your superior Jorkast, he sent you here, to one of the few places where he has complete control." As Sean spoke, a thick bright purple electric cloud enveloped the mask and his fingers holding it. The dark magic spell reduced the mask to rust, dissolving it in seconds. "I told you, you are not made out for this job. Grab her." he ordered coldly in Albionese, pointing to her.

Two Blue Hawks approached Emma from behind. After seeing the way their lieutenant’s uniform had changed, they were feeling a little hesitant. Nevertheless they did not dare disobey an order. Emma noticed their uncertainty. She could not let them capture her. Sean realized they were taking too long and raised a hand to cast a control spell on them. He repeated the order. Emma was shocked to see him use magic; it was strictly forbidden. Suddenly the two Hawks moved toward her, emanating a strange magical trace with vacant looks on their faces. Emma was familiar with the type of spell he had used and she slowly backed away. They heard a shot outside, followed by an agonizing cry. The sound distracted the lieutenant just as the Hawks lunged at Emma, and she quickly used two fire spells to cause an explosion in front of each of the two men, destroying the ground beneath them and causing them to fall. Sean turned back toward Emma, but he was only able to catch a glimpse of her as she disappeared, escaping behind a wall.

"Sir, a sharpshooter is attacking us!" a Blue Hawk shouted while desperately running inside the house. He hid behind the door. He noticed his two comrades picking themselves up off the floor and looked confused. Sean reversed the control spell. The only thing that they could remember was that for some inexplicable reason, they had unquestioningly and determinedly followed the lieutenant’s orders. "They killed Smith! We need back up!"

"A sharpshooter?" asked Sean, with irony. "Aren’t you supposed to be good fighters?"

"But sir, they are out of range!"

Sean sighed. He did not like being in command of a unit with a flashy name, comprised of police officers that were supposedly highly-trained fighters, but who in fact could not even remain calm in an attack. For a moment he thought that he might have been better off staying in the Navy.

"It will take him a few minutes to reload, let’s go," said Sean Thiel.

"We have to go after him!"

"Let him escape for now," said Sean, to the Hawk’s astonishment. "He has an advantage at night. Let’s go out the back door where he can’t get us."

"But—"

"Forget it" Sean stated as he moved his hand in circles above his head to cast a memory loss spell on the Hawks, making them forget the uniform transformation they had just witnessed. At the same time, he reactivated the enchantment on his clothing, converting it back into the police uniform he had been wearing earlier. The men only felt a kind of sleepiness and then a feeling of confusion, but quickly realized what was happening around them.

That was the last order Sean Thiel gave that night. As Emma escaped into the shadows, Sean smiled in spite of the fact that she was getting away. He now had the perfect excuse to get rid of her and choose his own emissary.