Note: I do not own "Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel". Michael Scott own this wonderful series.:) Please read and review. This is my first fanfic and I want to know what people think.
Demon Slaying
Chapter1
The woods of mount Tamalpais were quiet in the cool light of the full moon. No creature stirred, even crickets were silent.
The moonlight glinted off the armor of the huge creature moving through the trees. The monster stopped, scenting the air with a forked tongue, a scorpion tail poised over it's back, multiple legs softly rustling the leaves that carpeted the ground. It's huge night eyes turned to where in the distance the lights of San Francisco glittered. The enticing aroma it had caught on the wind was coming from that place.
The smell of prey, of warm blood, flesh, of auras and memories in huge numbers. Unlike the place it had come from, in this place there was a feast to be had.
Moonlight reflected off its scales as it moved through the trees towards the city, following the scent.
Billy the Kid raised the gun to his shoulder and looked out from the fortress, across the field. Nothing moved. They'd better not, he thought, or else they'd be eating paint before they could blink. He loved paintball. It was great to be able to shoot someone without actually maiming or killing them.
Well, not usually maiming or killing. When you were playing with immortals it could get a bit more dangerous than it perhaps should.
Especially if you were playing the "anything goes" version, where, well, anything went. And immortals have much more up their sleeves to break out for that version than most people want to hear about. Ever.
Billy jumped down from the haybales. The "fortress" was really just a haybarn that for paintball purposes was given a grand name and occupied. It wasn't much of a fortress, or even a barn, just 3 walls and a roof, 20 feet tall and the same width, 30 feet long, but the gap between the walls and roof was good to shoot from and hard to aim into, and it was easily the most defendable place within the alloted area.
Three teams were playing, his, one led by his friend Black Hawk, and the third led by a next generation named Tanya Sinouav.
He walked over to where the rest of his team had set up a strategy conference.
"Any guesses as to where the other teams are based?" inquired a teammate.
"I haven't got a clue where Tanya will be, but i think Hawk is most likely here," Billy said, pointing to a spot on the map, "maybe under the bridge. Tanya might be in the hills north of here, but there's no way we can send scouts, they'll get annihilated by the wolves."
Tanya had what he considered an unfair advantage in two half siblings that were spirit wolves from one of the northern packs. Unlike their European relations, Torc Madra, they were incredibly smart, strategic,and above all dangerous. They would be running watches through the area.
Jackson, another immortal, frowned. "That's for sure. As usual we'll have to settle for attacking Black Hawk first, then going after Tanya."
"We'd better hurry up, whatever we do. We're visible here, and the other teams will not be wasting any time attacking us because of that." He thought for a moment. "We'll send out scouts into Black Hawk's territory. If they hit on his base camp we'll launch an attack, but I want most of us back here at base incase they beat us to the punch. Whoever we send needs to be quiet about it though, I don't want anyone to have a clue what we're up to."
" They're sending out scouts into Black Hawk's area, to try and locate his base camp"
Tanya Sinouav nodded to herself. That sounded like what Billy would do. No surprises there. The young woman next to her continued.
"But he'll be keeping most of the team's force nearby to defend their camp in case of an attack."
Tanya grinned at her companion. " I don't know what we'd do without you Kate."
Kate returned the smile. "Well you'd probably lose a bit more than usual."
Katherine Barlow didn't look like much. Unless you knew her, or could sense auras, you'd never know she was anything special. She was short, and everything about her, hair, eyes, skin, was pale and uninteresting.
She was, however, currently the youngest immortal in the world. She'd been born with the sight, but as she'd aged it had intensified until every elder in America was desperate to claim her as their own. Things had come to a head suddenly when a car wreck left her near to death .
Her master had healed her with immortality, leaving her 17 for eternity. She was glad to leave her old life behind. In the human world she'd been considered a freak for her predictions, but as an immortal she was respected and appreciated for her rare gift.
"Any insights on what Black Hawk is up to?" Tanya asked. If Kate had a polar opposite, that person would be Tanya Fenrira. With pointed teeth, deep brown hair, skin a shade lighter, golden eyes,and the kind of face that belongs to a trouble maker, she was all too noticeable. If Kate was unnasuming, then Tanya was neon screaming "dangerous".
Kate frowned, searching the threads of time filtering through the back of her mind. A sudden revalation made her grin.
"Oh this is perfect. Black Hawk is launching a one man mission to take out Billy, then attacking us in force."
Tanya grinned dangerously, teeth savage in her mouth. " So we wait for Hawk to take out Billy and then beat him at his own game."
"We've got attackers!" Billy snatched up his gun and ran for the wall. Looking over he realized it was just one attacker, Black Hawk. He checked, no flag of truce.
The Kid started shooting.
" He's got grenades!" someone yelled. Sure enough, a grenade came sailing into the barn and exploded, blowing green paint in every direction. Nobody was missed.
"Oh come on!" Billy yelled, kicking the wall hard enough to dent the sheet metal.
" You are dead! You are so dead!" Hawk was yelling up at him.
"That has to be illegal! even if it's not, that's just plain evil!"
"Look who's talking, hypocrite! Ah ah, you can't throw rocks at me! You're dead!"
Swearing, Billy dropped the rock he'd been about to throw.
" Drop dead, Hawk!"
To his incredible shock, Black Hawk did just that, falling flat on his face, a splash of red across his back. He sat up with a stunned look on his face.
"Where did that come from?"
They both looked in the direction of the shot. A quarter of a mile away, a flash of red appeared in the tree tops and launched a glider into the air.
Tanya waved her gun at them while controling the wind to carry her closer. She pulled her Blue tooth from her pocket. The two immortal's phones rang.
" Game Over." came Tanya's voice.
Black Hawk was seething,"You may have got me, but my team is still out there, and even if you cut off a wolf's head, it can still bite you."
" True," came the reply, " But I don't think I have much to worry about." she unhooked a walkie talkie from her belt and spoke into it
"Two flares," she said simply.
Everyone turned to look as two flares of red rose shrieking from the woods above Black Hawk's base camp.
" Like I said, Game Over."
Twenty minutes later, thirty very paint spattered immortals came trudging up to the Dorms. The Dorms were the center of nearly all the immortal activity on the West Coast. Half the immortals in California lived there, and the rest still reported back to the dull cinderblock building on the outskirts of San Franscisco for orders and news. Nobody asked who anyone else's master was, and if you picked a fight with someone because your elders disliked each other, then you were fined and kicked out for the minimum of a month. That was the rule after the Civil War.
Kate and Tanya sprung up the steps, Kate laughing as Tanya demonstrated the look on Black Hawk's face when she'd shot him. Both women were completely free of paint. The guys came behind them, both looking like the end of the world, Billy covered in green, Black Hawk with a huge splash of red between his shoulder-blades.
"One of these days we really have to find their base camp! I'd like to see them act so cocky if it was actually a fair fight. They're becoming insufferable! It's the fourth time in a row they've won!" Billy was ranting as they came through the door. once inside, however, his mood changed from aggravation to confusion.
"What's happened?" The usual crazy atmosphere of the dorms was gone and had been replaced by a stunned silence, and everyone had a worried look on their face.
Calpurnia Rivers, the dorm head, wordlessly tossed him a newspaper. He caught it and scanned the headline, Black Hawk looking over his shoulder.
It was the same as it had been for the past three days: TERRIBLE MURDERS! MUTILATED CORPSES FOUND NEAR CITY PIERS! DEATH COUNT NOW AT FOUR! POLICE BAFFLED!. They'd all wondered what was going on and marvelled at the ineptitude of the police, but no-one had been worried.
"So?" Black Hawk asked the dorm head, " It's the same as yesterday's." but stopped as next to him, the Kid's eyes went wide in shock, fixed on one spot on the page.
The name of the latest victim. His mouth fell open as he read it.
"Oh no."