It was ten days to Christmas. Not that Keller cared, she had never been the jolly holiday type. Neither did she particularly hate it, but she noted it now as the main cause of her irritation. There were so many people! Crowding, jostling, shouting, laughing, pushing their way into shops lest all the good gifts disappear in the ten seconds it would take them to adopt a more leisurely pace. She scowled at a small child who was screaming at his mother to take him into the sweet shop they were passing. She had never been one for children either. Why oh why was she in a job that required so much tolerance of other people? She was being a grunt, and she knew it. But she couldn't help but let it get to her. She was in this job, she reminded herself, because she was the best. And she loved it – tracking, hunting, protecting, it was what she did best. And they were getting in her way! She didn't need anyone to remind her just how important her mission was today. Her flashing green eyes took on the steely glare they always got when she was utterly focused on the job at hand. Nothing would ruin this. She paused next to a shop selling sporting wear, one of the only ones that wasn't flocked to today. Closing her eyes, she expanded her senses – stretching out with her mind she could feel the body heat of all the humans around her...but not the one she was looking for. She growled under her breath, stretching further and further...but no. The only non-human she could detect was Winnie, who had taken the east of the mall while Keller patrolled the west. Winnie, just like Keller, was different. Winnie was a witch. An exceedingly powerful one, who could manifest pure power between her palms and blast anyone who threatened her. She was a fighting witch, and one of the best, which was why she was there with Keller today. Keller wasn't a witch. She was a shape-shifter. A panther, to be specific. And though she was technically half-human, she was one of the best and most powerful fighters Circle Daybreak had to command. Completing their small team was Nissa, a pale and slim – but completely deadly – vampire. The first thing Keller had learnt about Nissa, was not to get on her bad side. Since that day they had been inseperable, and unbeatable. Keller wouldn't choose any others to fight with her. They all trusted each other implicitly, and were willing to die for their cause. Today, that cause just happened to be a human. Well, not exactly. Iliana Dominick was a lost witch, a person who didn't know and didn't understand their powers. She had lived among humans for all her seventeen years, but today life for her was about to change. And not necessarily for the better, thought Keller grimly. It wasn't the easiest job, snatching a human teenager and informing them that they belonged to a supernatural race, could do magic, and oh – that they had been born with a very special power that just might prevent the apocalypse from wiping out every being on the earth. No, it wasn't the sort of thing one just volunteered for. That was where Keller came in. Not only were she and her team the best fighters, she was no-nonsense and straight forward. It wasn't good news they were bestowing, but it was necessary, so Keller would do it.

"Hey Boss!" Winnie's voice crackled into her ear.

"What's up?" Keller replied. "You got anything?"

"Nope not yet, just checking in. I don't think she's here yet."

Well we were fast, Keller mused. She touched her earpiece. "Niss? You okay out there?"

"Fine, boss." Nissa's smooth voice drawled back. "Ready to make a quick getaway."

Keller's lips twitched, the closest she ever came to smiling. Her team had never let her down, and wouldn't start now.

"Wait -" Nissa's voice crackled in again, sharper. "There's something here...a car."

Keller's stomach dropped. "Night people?"

"Think so, boss." Nissa replied grimly. "They're getting out now...yep, two vampires. And, a boy...maybe a shapeshifter? I can't tell. They're heading in the west entrance, the escalator. Want me to come in?"

Keller had snapped into live mode. Every cell in her body twitched, ready for action, ready for transformation. "No Niss stay there, we're gonna need to get away real fast."

"Winnie?"

"Yes boss?"

"She must be here now. Can you feel for her?"

"Hang on a sec boss," Winnie went quiet for a moment "Yes, got her! She's on the upper level, kinda close to you...but oh...she's not alone..."

That was all Keller needed. This was not going to happen. She had been there first, she was prepared...Iliana was NOT going to be taken from under her nose. She expanded her senses again, feeling what Winnie felt...the definite aura of a witch, almost directly above her. How had she snuck in?! Keller would blame herself later. Now, it was time for action. On quick, light feet she strode to the centre of the pavillion space she was in. Looking up, there were two more floors above her. Iliana was on the middle one, and the escalator was crowded with slow humans. She pinched her nose and breathed deeply. She needed all her wits about her for this. What was important was getting Iliana out of there, away from them, not concealing her identity. Throwing caution to the wind she crouched her legs, bunching all her muscles underneath her, pinpointed the spot on the railings she wanted to reach, and jumped. She heard the gasps of shock and alarm as she went sailing through the air. She knew what it must look like, a tall slim girl with dark waist-length hair suddenly shooting up from the floor, but she didn't care. She noted this in the small, faraway part of her mind that noted things like that. She swung on the metal rail for a split-second, before hoisting herself up onto the second floor. Abandoning her human senses entirely, her eyes glazed over with a predatory look as she spotted just inside a shop, three tall, dark haired night people. She couldn't even see Iliana, but she knew she was there, with them. It looked like they were speaking to her. Oh goddess, thought Keller. I have to do something, I have to...but before she could move, she saw Winnie...both heard and saw her at the same time, striding angrily toward the shop, and muttering in her ear "speaking to her, they can't speak to her, do they even KNOW just who they're speaking to.."

"Winnie, NO!" Keller gasped, horrified as Winnie conjured up a fiery ball of power and lunged it at the vampire on the left. He was thrown back, but before Winnie could take another step the boy in the middle, the one that Nissa couldn't place if he was a shifter or not, turned. The flat black of his eyes seemed to grin evilly and Keller's stomach turned to jelly just looking at them. He didn't do anything...or did he? She thought she might have seen the barest flick of his wrist and Winnie was thrown back as the dark power hit her like a brick wall. She slammed the cash register with an almighty crash and collapsed behind it. Keller gasped involuntarily. Not just for her friend, who was unconscious, but for the boy...who was a dragon. Keller had never seen one, indeed nobody who had been alive in the last 30,000 years had seen one...but she was sure of it. To wield such power and to expend so little energy doing it...he was the most evil of all creatures who had ever walked the earth...and the most dangerous. And he hadn't seen her. She knew this as he turned straight back around to the girl. Keller could see her now, even though the second vampire had grabbed her when Winnie had fallen, stopping her scream with a large, cold palm. She was tiny, at least a head shorter than Keller. And pretty...very pretty. She had seen a photograph but it hadn't come close at all to capturing the beauty of the girl. She wasn't just short, she was slim...frail and pixie-like, as if one blow would break her in two. And her hair...the palest blonde, it was as light as Keller's was dark. It reached to her waist also, cascading down as if spun from the finest silk. And her eyes...currently wide and terrified, Keller could clearly see their amethyst hue, the colour that marked her heritage as a lost Harman witch. But they were more than that. They were beautiful. It only took Keller a second to process all of this, but it was a second she didn't have. The boy was already leaning over his fallen comrade, attempting to wake him it seemed. Right. Stealth. That's what panthers had, if nothing else. She had only this one chance with the element of surprise, and boy would she made it count. She crept forward with the cool calm that comes from the deepest anger, for Winnie, and for the fools attempting to ruin their operation. She smiled her deadliest smile when she got close enough, they still hadn't seen her. And then, she leaped. She willed her body to change mid-leap, the air around her shimmering as she became a deadly black panther, and your worst nightmare, she added silently to the dragon before she landed on his back. Her jaws clamped around his throat, cutting off his squeal of pain before it began. Her claws were imbedded in his back as she tossed her head from side to side attempting to separate his head from his body. Her cold fury burned on as he writhed beneath her in pain, and then...pain. Not his, hers. A pure jolt of black electricity flowing into her from him, blurring her vision, twisting itself around her muscles...If Keller had been human at that point, tough as she was, she would have cried. But she grimly held on, stubbornly refusing to let him go, though the dark energy was, she knew, killing her. Through a haze of pain she heard voices, yells, screams and then...darkness.

"Boss?!"

"Boss, wake up!"

"Winnie, don't slap her."

Keller's eyelids fluttered open. She was human. She was on the floor. And the pain was gone. Well, most of the pain was gone...her muscles still burned like she'd been attacked by a dragon. Oh wait, she had. But...

"What happened?" she asked, alert and confused. There was Winnie, and Nissa. There was Iliana, unconscious it seemed, in the arms of... "Who're you?" Keller growled. She was in too much pain for pleasantaries.

"Boss, he helped us. He's a shifter!" Winnie piped up. "He was outside the shop when I got blasted, and he stopped...that thing from killing you. Nissa came in after that and got the other blooksucker – sorry Niss – and when they saw they were outnumbered they left."

Keller sat up and looked the boy over. He looked about their age, seventeen or eighteen, and was very good looking. Slim, fair skinned, dusky blonde hair falling over green eyes, he looked every bit the fairy-tale prince having rescued his fairy-tale princess from the evil dragon. But a shapeshifter? She could tell what Winnie had sensed, she sensed it too...but she couldn't figure out what animal he turned into and that was strange.

"And why," she glared at him menacingly "is he holding our girl?"

"She fainted after seeing you change, boss." Winnie was gazing at her enraptured. "She's a pure soul, she can't deal with violence or shock of any kind!"

According to prophecy, Iliana was not only one of the four Wild Powers, destined to save (or destroy) the world. She was also the Witch Child, the girl with legendary powers destined to marry the Prince of the Shapeshifters to bring together two houses end end 30,000 years of opposition. Looking at her, Keller wasn't sure that Iliana could stand up to a school bully, let alone the coming apocalypse. But her job was not to question, only to retrieve.

"Let's get her out of here." Keller pushed herself to her feet, trying to to grimace. "Before any more dragons show up." Because I won't live through that, she thought to herself.

She walked over to the strange boy and held her arms out for Iliana, who was sleeping as peacefully as an angel in his arms. Keller noticed how smooth her skin was, fair but with a faint blush underneath. It only made her prettier. She tried to push the thought away from her mind, as well as the pain, to think clearly. They would have to exit swiftly, more and more people were beginning to crowd around the shop, and those ridiculous human 'policemen' would start showing up any moment now.

"I want to go with you."

"Sorry, what?" Keller pushed all other thoughts from her mind as she focused on what the boy was saying.

"I want to go with you. I'll carry her for you, you're weak, and in pain."

Fury engulfed her quicker than the dark energy had. "Excuse me?!" She growled, seeing red. "I am the boss, not you. I don't even know you, you could be one of them. And I am stronger than you will ever be."

The boy looked taken aback, and instantly sorry. "I – no – I didn't mean that you are weak, just that I'd like to help...and no, I could never be the fighter you are." He bowed his head moderately, but Keller's fury didn't cease.

"Boss, um...maybe we should just take him. You and Winnie need to recharge, and I need to drive. He could watch her." Nissa was always the voice of reason, but Keller didn't want to hear reason right now. But she knew when she was beaten.

"Fine. You can carry her to the car, then get lost." And if you try anything – anything – I'll make you sorry you were born. This last she thought to herself, but she could tell that he had read her gaze. He looked as if he wanted to say more, but she turned away.

"Right. You," she pointed to the boy. "Behind Nissa, in front of me. Winnie, behind us and make sure no one follows. Lets get out of here."