Prologue
In the 21th century there was a girl with ice-white hair. She have had a best friend from when she was little, his name is Jasper. The white-headed Ruth didn't realize that Jasper had a major crush on her for years. The two started growing apart the night when they celebrated Ruth's upcoming seventeenth birthday and she disappeared.
Chapter 1
the exceedingly beautiful boy
The anguish of dozens of sweaty people on the dance floor is almost unbearable, thinks Ruth. But her stubbornness tells her that you just once get to pre-celebrate your seventeenth birthday with your best friend in a popular club.
'So suck it up.' She whispers to herself. 'What did you say?' Jasper asks. 'Nothing. Can you get me anything to drink? I'm sweating like an dripping crane.' Ruth complains. Jasper wrinkles his nose 'Sure, stay right here. I'll be back in a minute.'
Ruth counts to sixty in her head and figures that it's going to take a while. She looks around the dance floor scanning her Jasper's head, that's the first time she sees him.
On the other side of the dance floor stands a boy who is probably seventeen years old. He stares intensively at her, and confused Ruth stares back. After a minute of staring at Ruth the boy looks over to a other boy who walks over to him. The boy is very good-looking with his dark, almost black hair and is about a year older than the boy who stared at her. The boy whispers something into his ear and they both walk off the dance floor. Ruth, who is still confused, starts walking after the boys without even thinking about it. The boy who stared at her is exceedingly beautiful with his half long golden coloured hair and his perfect facial features, he has a strange attraction to her.
The two boys disappear in to a forbidden access room. Ruth opens the door an inch, and she sees nothing but darkness. She considers her chances and takes the risk of stepping in to the dark room. When she is in the room, it's not completely dark. She sees the two boys talking to a girl around her age. Also the girl is very good-looking and she is holding a rope in her hand. When Ruth follows the rope to its end with her eyes she breathes in loudly, covering her mouth.
There, on the floor lays a boy with tied up hands and feet. But she doesn't really worry about his tied hands and feet, his eyes are terrifying blue, and terrifying means in this case luminous blue. Maybe he is wearing contacts, Ruth thinks, trying to calm herself down.
The boy with his beautiful golden hair interrupts her thoughts. He opens his black jacket and draws a large, luminous sharp looking knife and starts walking towards the boy.
Ruth can't hold herself silent anymore and jumps up from behind a big music box where she was hiding. 'Stop.' she yells with a surprisingly calm and steady voice. The four persons turn around with surprised faces. 'What is this? Who are you?' asks the boy with black hair. 'That doesn't matter, let him go or I'll call the cops.' Ruth says while she looks at the tied up boy.
'I'm afraid we can't let him go and I'm afraid you can't call the cops either.' says the boy with the golden hair.
'Why not? What are you going to do with him? And why do you three have such weird tattoo's?' she asks pointing towards the two boys and the girl.
'At first, you can't call the cops because they can't see us. The second answer on your questions is that we are going to kill him, and last but not least, what exactly did you say about weird tattoo's?' asks the golden-hair boy frowning.
'You three have weird symbols on your skins.' Ruth responds.
The girl stares at her with open mouth 'Is she who I think she is?' she asks the two boys with a small voice. The boy with the golden hair looks relieved and a strange kind of elated at Ruth 'You're right Abigail. She is it. We have been looking everywhere for you.' he says to Ruth.
'I beg your pardon?' Ruth asks besotted when the two boys start moving towards her. I have to get out of here, maybe Jasper is looking for me, she thinks.
She is looking for the door and shuffles backwards.
'No, no. It's okay! We are not going to hurt..' the boy starts but never got to finish his sentence because the tied-up boy breaks free from the ropes with a loud scream. He runs towards the door, but has to go through Ruth, who is almost there. The two boys try to grip his arms but he is already at her. Between two steps the boy, with his luminous eyes, changes.
He changes in to one of those creatures you only had seen in one of the scariest horror movies you wish you wouldn't have seen. Ruth tries to turn away but the creature takes hold of her arm and an immediate burning, terrible painful sting shots through her arm. She yells when the creature throws her across the room. She crashes against the wall.
The creature is now at the door but can't get hold on the door handle because of his tentacles. Tentacles? she thinks.
The last thing she sees before she loses consciousness is the beautiful shimmering of the golden hair when the boy drives his knife in to the creatures hart.
Chapter 2
Shadowhunters
The weird dreams come and go. Ruth sees all kinds of things, a golden shimmering, weird looking knifes, symbols and black blood.
Finally, after the feeling of being in a hibernation for six months, she wakes up.
She opens her eyes and sees a dimmed light. She's in a hospital it seems. Very slowly she turns her head, and looks at the table where the light stands on. Beside the bed she is laying on, sits the boy with the golden hair, and he is asleep. Carefully, not to wake the golden-hair boy, Ruth tries to sit up straight but muffles a scream when she feels the pain in her ribs. She grits her teeth and is sitting up straight. Her next task is to get out of this bed and get out of here. She kicks the blanket away with her feet and sees that she is wearing a white t-shirt and black trousers, not her own clothes. Who has put her in these clothes?
With her eyes on the boy she tries to take hold of the nightstand, but wasn't prepared for the glass of water on it. She knocks it off, and it falls into a thousand pieces. Ruth jumps up with a face contorted with pain. The boy with his golden hair shoots awake and jumps up. When he sees her standing next to her bed with her arms wrapped around her ribs he tries to calm her down. 'It's okay! You're safe now!' she says with his hands up in the air.
'Who are you?' Ruth asks with eyes full of tears.
'My name is Bill. You're safe now, there's nothing to be afraid of anymore.' he says with a calming voice. 'What's your name?'
'It's Ruth and what happened?' she asks, rubbing her arm covered in bandage.
'That thing you saw me kill in the club, can you tell me what you saw?' Bill asks.
'I saw that boy change in to a disguising creature with tentacles.' She answers, remembering the burning pain.
'Yeah, right. Well, that creature we call a raum-demon. They normally are very stupid, but this one had a few tricks up his sleeves.' he says. Ruth just looks at him like he is talking Chinese to her. He gestures for her to sit down and so does he.
'Okay, now you have calmed down for a bit, I would like to ask you a few things.' he says looking at her.
'Okay.' she says.
'First of all, have you ever seen a creature like this one?' he asks.
Ruth shakes her head 'No, of course not'.
'Hmm, okay. Second question, have you ever seen people like me before?' Bill asks nervously.
'Well, I've seen people before with those weird tattoo's if that is what you mean.' She answers.
He studies her and waits a minute before he asks his third question 'What about your parents?'
'What about my parents?' she asks, feeling the familiar wave of sadness hitting her. Apparently it was showing on her face because Bill kneels in front of her, patting her knee.
'I meant, do you know if your parents can see people like me?' he asks with a calm voice.
'I don't know Bill.' She says backing away from him. 'My parents died in a car accident ten years ago, how would I know if they could see you? Are you invisible or something?'.
'I'm very sorry about your parents Ruth. Mundane people can't see us when we use a invisibility-rune.' he says.
'What? A rune?' she asks.
'Yeah, well I was coming to that. Okay Ruth, you have to listen very carefully to me. You can't talk about what I'm going to tell you to anyone except to people like me, with the tattoo's. Do you understand me? He asks, glancing at her.
She nods.
'Okay. People like me, we call ourselves Shadowhunters. We hunt on demons like the one you have seen. Normal people can't see the demons but they're there and cause serious trouble. They kill, they destroy and they feed themselves with people. Demons are shapeshifters, so they can look how they please. Because they hunt on people it's our job to kill the demons and keep the mundane safe. The runes give us supernatural power, but it's temporarily. The thing about you, why you can see us although we use a invisibility-rune must be because you have shadowhunters-blood. Can you follow me so far?' he asks after taking a deep breath.
Ruth thinks his words through, and remembers flurries from before she lost consciousness. 'Yes. But I don't get one thing. The first time you saw me, you stared at me. Why?' she asks.
'Because I thought that I finally had found you.' he whispers back.
'In that room you said that I was it, what did you mean by that?' she asks with raised eyebrows.
'Look, normal people can't see our runes let alone when we use a invisibility-rune. And back in our land there's a married couple. They have spent years looking for their daughter.' Ruth says.
'And what have I to do with that?' she asks.
'The man and woman didn't lose their hope just because years have passed. A month ago they started a new search action. Every person within our community had to look out for a white-headed girl who would be like sixteen, seventeen years of age, and seem to react on our runes, because for that one special girl we wouldn't be invisible. When I saw you in that club scanning the crowd with your green eyes, I saw pieces of that woman in you. Your hair colour, the green eyes, thoughtful look and above all you have the same build as her.' Bill says with a shrug.
'I know that it's a lot to take in for now, so I want you to think things through and get your rest. If you need anything, just yell and I'll come.' He says with a reassuring smile. He walks towards the door but turns around one last time saying 'I really do think it's you.' before he leaves and closed the door behind him.