Act 1 Scene Two: Colliding With Our Fate

Laura spent the next hour and a half sorting through the contents of the book safe, examining the blackened wooden handle, turning the pieces of metal this way and that, holding one up to the light and noting how it reflected the sun's rays. It looked like a perfectly ordinary blade and Laura couldn't determine why her father would keep a broken knife around without going through the trouble of re-forging it.

Laura rubbed her eyes and glanced up at the clock on the wall. It was now six thirty. Her father wasn't due home any time soon so she had plenty of time to figure out how this knife came to be in her father's possession and why he guarded it so…

Laura's ears perked up as something caught her eye in her father's study. She was sure she closed the door after her little venture with the books but now it stood wide open, banging against the wall as wind coursed in through the open window (which she couldn't remember opening.)

Laura edged over to the closet where she kept a cricket bat at the ready for just such occasions. Pressing her back flat against the wall, she carefully edged around until she got to the opening. Silently counting to three, she spun around into the room swinging her bat wildly.

Laura stopped when she realized she hadn't hit anything. She chuckled nervously and was about to turn around and write it off as her mind tricking her, a plaintive meow –came from behind her father's desk.

Laura jumped about a foot in the air and swung the bat in an arc, looking for the source of the sound. She finally worked up the courage and peeked over the top of the desk. A large, brightly multicolored cat sat in her father's chair as if she owned the place. Strangely enough, she carried a large gold pocket watch in her mouth and looking at Laura like she was supposed to take it.

Taking the silent cue from the cat, she accepted the watch and put her bat down to examine it. It was about the size of an Oreo but about thrice as heavy. She opened it up to reveal the silver hands on a clear crystal face which currently read six thirty five. She turned it over to see an engraved message in the back of the clock

TO Luke

Happy Sixteenth Birthday

Love Mum and Pan

Laura absently wondered who Luke was as she turned and started to walk out the door when someone from behind yelled

"GOTCHA!"

Acting on instincts gained from watching nineteen straight hours of Chuck Norris movies, Laura spun around and swung her bat in a perfect arc, colliding with her assailant. Something white and fluffy crashed headlong into the plank and sailed out the window into the neighbor's rose bush like a furry baseball.

As Laura ran to the window to investigate the source of the calamity, a boy of about sixteen fell out of the bush under the window, clutching his face and writhing in pain. Laura lunged forward and, with a move she learned from a Walker Texas Ranger episode, dragged him in the window and slammed him down on her dad's desk.

"Alright then, who are you?" Laura demanded, pointing the tip of the bat at his chest like a sword.

"Agh…you hit me in the bloody face!" He cried, still clutching his nose

"I didn't hit you; I hit the fluff ball you threw in the window now as I was saying…"

"KAMEO!" he cried throwing Laura off his chest and jumping out the window into the rose bush. He emerged carrying a slightly dazed looking artic fox with bits of thorns stuck in her fur.

"OH BLOODY HELL!!" the fox spoke from her spot in the boy's arms. "She hit me in the face, Luke!"

"Well if you hadn't snuck up on me then maybe I wouldn't have to…" Laura quickly shut up when she realized what was going on. The tiny white fox had just spoke from the boy's arms. Laura opened and closed her mouth in a feeble effort to make something that could pass for intelligent conversation but the sight had rendered her speechless. She leaned out the window to get a better look but she lost her balance and fell head over heels into the bush the boy occupied only moments earlier. Her cricket bat flew up and hit her in the forehead as it came crashing down. The last thing Laura remembered before darkness swallowed her vision was the strange boy running to her side…

"Not so funny, now is it?"

Laura groggily opened her eyes to see the fox leaning over her with a small smirk playing across her features.

"Aww Luke, looks like Sleeping Beauty is waking up. I thought you needed a kiss from a prince…" The fox mocked as her human partner appeared by her side.

"Hi, um…how are you feeling?" The boy, whom she figured was named Luke said.

"Guhhhh…how long was I out?" Laura asked, sitting up to find herself on the couch in her living room.

Luke flipped open his newly recovered pocket watch. "About ten to eight. We moved you here after you blacked out. I figured you lived here so I thought…"

"Course I live here! Why else would I be lurking in the study with a bloody cricket bat?" she snapped, rubbing her pulsing head.

"Err…right." Luke said sheepishly fiddling with his watch chain.

Laura shakily propped herself up on the couch and surveyed the intruder with suspicion. If he was here to rob or kill her, he would have done so already instead of staying to make sure she was alright.

"Where'd that cat get off to?" She asked groggily

"Dunno. She must have run off when we weren't looking." Luke answered

"So…care to explain how you found yourself sitting outside my window with your magical talking fox, which I'm still thinking is some kind of aftereffect from the knock on the head?"

"Aftereffect?" the fox said sitting up in an indignant fashion. "Moi? If I was an aftereffect then how is it that you heard me before you took a graceful swan dive into the hydrangeas?" the fox retorted smugly

"Touché." Laura conceded, still not believing that she was holding a conversation with a fox. "So…what are you anyway?"

"I'm a daemon, aren't I?" the fox said as if it should have been plainly obvious that she was a daemon.

"A demon? Like horns and fangs and fiery brimstone kind of demon?"

Luke and the fox shared a confused expression. "No, Kameo is just a regular daemon like everybody else's. Like yours"

"Mine?" Laura asked.

"Yeah…the daemon you were born with…" The fox called Kameo said in a tone that reminded Laura of a teacher trying to teach multiplication to a particularly thick student.

"Yeah, we hadn't seen him around so…" Luke began

"I thought he was a tick or something." Kameo finished earning a glare from Luke

"Okay, look, I don't have any clue what you're talking about but I have never heard of talking fox demons. The only ones I've heard of are the big red honed ones that spit fire and prey on the souls of the innocent. A demon is…something evil."

"So…what you're saying is that…you don't have a daemon?" Luke said slowly as if he was trying to comprehend something impossible.

"Nope." Laura said with a sense of finality

"No." Kameo breathed disbelieving

"Yep. No one does."

"But that's insane! Everyone has a daemon, otherwise they wouldn't be human!" Luke said.

"Well I've never seen mine. I think I would have seen a talking fox by now." Laura said wearily

"You…must have a daemon. It…just…must…be….invisible!" Luke said finally, trying to justify this new revelation.

"You know I hate to interrupt this metaphysical speculation but…do you know that you two are spewing about six different kinds of chocolate coated INSANITY." Laura said, standing up. "If it weren't for the fact that I heard the fox talk for myself I would call the cops and cart you off to the funny farm! The fact that she's spewing anything at all is the only reason that the two of you are still breathing free air!"

"Wait, where are you going?" Luke asked, standing up with her, writing off her tirade as a side affect of the bat to the head.

"To the kitchen. I'm getting hungry. You hungry?" Luke nodded, getting up and following her with Kameo at his heels. . "Good. Then the two of you are going to explain everything to me over dinner! God… I don't know why, but I have the strangest craving for omelets and Coke…"

A dark young man stroked his chin thoughtfully as he surveyed the scene before him. A thick black pool swirled before him revealing a small English kitchen where a blonde haired girl was scrambling eggs in a bowl while a dark haired young man was struggling to comprehend the complex inner workings of a Coke can.

"So how do I get this open again?" The boy's voice called out from the pool, his image rippling as he turned the can this way and that.

"Just…pull the tab back." The girl said, now melting butter in the pan.

The young man nervously looked over his shoulder as the door opened behind him, casting a thin beam of light in the otherwise dark room. Four figures obscured the light casting long shadows into the room

"You asked to see us Monsieur Morelon?" A smooth American accent asked the young man from the door.

Morelon sighed. "Ah yes, come in gentlemen." The four figures strode into the room and promptly shut the door, obscuring their faces so that only their profiles were visible.

"I understand that you four have a knack for…ah…apprehending those that have proven themselves elusive, oui?" the man went on

"You bet! Best bounty hunters in the known galaxy!" The largest of the figures said proudly in a thick Jamaican accent, flexing his large muscles.

"Bon." Morelon said with a faint smile that was swallowed by the dark he gently touched the water revealing Luke holding the exploding can of soda away from his face as it spewed its contents all over the kitchen, soaking Laura and Kameo. "You see these two? I want you to bring them to me."

"Dead or alive?" a soft feminine voice asked from her spot beside the large one.

"Oh! Alive!" Morelon said flustered. "Yes, yes…I don't want them harmed…permanently at least. Do everything you can to bring them back alive and unharmed."

"And…what kind of compensation can we expect for our trouble?" the final figure, tall and cloaked up to his eyes, spoke from the corner.

Morelon reached under the pool and pulled out a large sack and set it on the table with a clink. The first figure stepped forward with the sound of a sword being drawn from a wooden scabbard. A flash of silver and two parallel slashes appeared in the bag, spilling thousands of marble sized diamonds on the table and into the black pool.

"You get this one now and five more when you bring them back to me. Do we have a deal?"

The swordsman stepped into the light cast by the swirling pool. His pale face and long white hair was illuminated in a way that made him look like a ghost. He sheathed his double bladed sword and held a diamond up to examine it. Smiling he turned back to Morelon with a slightly sinister grin.

"Congratulations, sir. You have procured the services of the Marauders …"

Ooooooo! Thanx for reading! Disclaimer: You know i don't own HDM...