Chapter 1

A man with brown-red hair and brown-yellow eyes walked into a Brazilian bar at noon. Despite the sweltering heat outside he was wearing a crisp navy suit with all the buttons done up. The only other occupants of the car were the barkeep, an old man with a bored expression on his face, a man sitting with his back to the door and a scraggly man in the dark corner of the room.

Overhead a canvas fan that looked about fifty years old circled lazily, not doing much to circulate the air in the bar that hung low with the heaviness that only hot humid air has. The man in the suit did not feel any of the weight, however, and he walked with an ease that made him look as if he was gliding on the air. He searched the almost empty bar with his sky blue eyes before finding what he was looking for. The man sitting with his back to the door, at a table dealing himself a game of solitaire.

The man had a gold tooth that replaced his front tooth, which he claimed to be lucky. He was dressed almost completely opposite to the man in the suit, he was dressed as you would expect someone to dress in the heat of the day, wearing a singlet, cargo shorts and thongs. He was overweight and you could see his pot belly through the stained singlet. He wore a straw hat on his head that looked as if it had been forced on and was probably cutting off the circulation. At regular intervals he used on of his dirty fingernails to try and pick some old, half rotten piece of meat out from his teeth but he never succeeded.

The man in the suit walked over to him and thumped an expensive black suitcase down on the table next to him. The overweight man jumped slightly but then turned to see the man in the suit and smiled lightly.

"Amigo." He said, talking more to the briefcase than the man. The man ignored this and just said, with a low voice.

"You have the information." The man in the suit said it rather than asking it and by looking at him you could tell that this was not the man to cross.

"Of course. This is the money?" The overweight man asked with a heavy accent, gesturing to the case to which he'd referred to before as 'friend'. The man in the suit just answered this with a look and the overweight man held his hands in the air, he didn't want to cause trouble. Especially not with this guy, on a scale of one to ten of people not to cross this guy was one hundred. One of his looks could kill a man. Literally. He'd heard that this man had turned to ash after receiving one of those looks.

The overweight man quickly snatched the briefcase off the table and held it to him tightly. The man in the suit observed this coldly and when he didn't leave the man looked up at him before quickly realising he'd just missed his cue. Out of the pocket of his cargo shorts he dug out a grubby piece of paper and handed it to the man.

"This is the address. It took me a while to get it. Your friend isn't easy to find, I'll tell you that. Had to pull a lot of strings." The overweight man was clearly trying to squeeze some more money out of the other man but the other wouldn't have any of it.

"You're getting paid well." The man shot the overweight man a look and the overweight man withdrew. It was worth a shot. The man in the suit shook his head, how the man who could find anyone with the vaguest description without even a country to reference to managed to do this whilst living in a remote village was still beyond him.

The man in the suit cast a glance towards the scraggly man in the dark corner and threw his blazer at the overweight man.

"Hold this." He grunted as he rolled the sleeves of his light blue shirt up to his elbows. His forearms were revealed to be quite muscly, this wasn't the guy to mess with. He walked over to the scraggly man with a sunken in face and bloodshot eyes and grabbed him by the collar and dragged him towards the door. The man protested, although he wasn't strong enough to actually do anything about it.

Then about halfway to the door the scraggly man transformed into a small animal like demon thing with huge teeth and even bigger claws. It started scratching at the man's arm, obviously the reason he had rolled up the sleeves. You didn't want to ruin a good suit while killing a demon thing. The man ignored the scratching that was going really deep so that it was well on its way to making the flesh get completely ripped off the man's arm.

But when it reached outside there was a squealing sound and the man came back into view of those in the bar a few seconds later, brushing off his suit and rolling his sleeves back down. His arm was regenerating and the scratches were disappearing in front of their eyes and it became very clear to the overweight man that he should leave as soon as possible before he got on the bad side of this magical man who had just killed the local demon.

So the, now terrified, overweight man threw the blazer back at the man as he was running out the door, clutching the briefcase closely to him. The man caught the blazer and put it on himself and straightened it out. He buttoned it up and put the grubby piece of paper in the inside pocket of the blazer. He brushed the blazer off one last time before scanning the remnants of the bar before leaving it theatrically, opening both sides of the Western movie style doors and walking out onto veranda.

He scanned the practically deserted town before walking to his Lear jet which was parked in the middle of it all and climbed in before asking the pilot to go to the destination written on the piece of paper. LA, California, USA.

Fred Burkle had just finished her lecture and the class was getting packed up. Fred had her back to the class, fiddling around with some text books and the mid term papers that she'd collected at the start of the lesson.

"Ms Burkle?" She heard behind her and turned, holding the books and papers. Then her eyes widened when she saw who had spoken. A young man with brown hair with a red tinge in it and brown eyes with a yellowish quality in them. Russ.

"Are you okay?" Russ asked, a grin playing behind his concerned face. Fred's eyes widened even more and her surprise had reached its maximum quota.

"Russ?" She asked, dropping the books and papers she was holding. Russ quickly went to pick them up and when he looked up she saw, instead of Russ' handsome face, the face of one of her male students.

"Are you okay miss?" He asked as he handed her the books and papers and she pushed her glasses up, flustered.

"Yes James. Fine. Thankyou." She said and the student grinned at her as he flipped his dirty blonde hair out of his eyes.

"My name's Jim." He said, and Fred could tell that he was laughing on the inside at the fact that he had flustered her. Not that it was too hard to do, she thought.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Jim." Fred said, correcting herself and resisting the urge to blush in front of the student.

"It's cool miss. Um, I was just wondering about something..." He juggled his own books and grabbed the textbook that he was talking about and opened it up at a page. He continued, "Were we in love?"

Fred looked up at him, completely shocked. She asked him, not able to keep the disbelief out of her voice, "What?"

"I said, 'Is there another way to do this?' You know, another combination." He said and then continued, genuine concern on his face, "Are you sure you're okay miss?"

"Yeah. Yes. I'm fine. Um, no there isn't another way because then the energy input and output would be different and as we all know, that's impossible," Fred said and laughed nervously. Jim just looked at her for a second, as if really judging if she was okay before nodding and looking back at the question.

(Okay, so the question and answer was incredibly stupid but I'm not a physics genius like Fred or the students in her class so I just had to make something up. I don't even know if what I said fits in with physics stuff... Lol, ah I suck when it comes to science.)

"Okay, thanks miss." He shut the textbook and joined his friends that were waiting for him at the door and they walked off joking between themselves. Fred sighed as they left, after she first remembered Russ a week ago she kept getting visions of him and more than once she had made an idiot of herself when she saw him. And she kept getting flashbacks to the last few minutes that they'd had together.

Fred. I need you to listen to what I'm saying next...

She packed up all of her material and pushed up her glasses before walking out of the room, turning off the light as she went. She cast the lab one last glance before shutting the door and locking it. She juggled the keys and the books and papers and her purse until she got her keys into her purse, got her purse onto her shoulder and was carrying the books and papers in her other arm.

I am one of the Powers...

She walked out to her car and got into the old, small, beaten up blue Ford. She put the key into the ignition and prayed that the car would start and after stalling for a few minutes it finally stuttered to life. She reversed out of her spot that was one of the worst ones available for the staff and started the long drive home.

I haven't got long before I have to leave... My job here is done...

She stopped in front of a red light and kept the replay of the last night running in her head. As she stared out at the road in front of her where cars were speeding across the intersection. Then the car behind her beeped her and she woke up with a start and urged the car forward and it reluctantly went forward, never letting the needle pass 30mph.

You're the one and only thing that I've loved since the beginning of time...

She finally reached her apartment block and drove into her personal spot a block away from the actual building. She let the engine idle for half a minute before turning it off and getting out, holding the papers that she had to mark and the books that she would get the answers from. Or the textbooks that she would reference to, to check if the students had just copied it from the textbook like some were infamous for.

You won't remember me after I leave...

That was one thing that Russ had gotten wrong. After that dream she remembered everything clearly. His grin, the tinge of yellow in his brown eyes, the shade of red in his brown hair, the look he got whenever he was actually serious. The way he told her he loved her or that she was beautiful. He was definitely good for a girl's self esteem. But that wasn't the only reason he was good.

I love you.

He made Fred feel like she never had before. As if they were the only two people in the world and the rest of the world had just fallen away and all that existed was the here and now.

You are so beautiful.

Well it was the 'here and now' back then. No matter how much it felt like it was recent Fred had to keep reminding herself that Russ wasn't here or anywhere remotely near LA.

But, unknowingly, this time Fred was the one who was wrong.

The Lear Jet touched down in LA airport and the man in the suit stepped out and thanked the pilot like someone would thank a bus driver for a trip downtown. He crossed from the jet to the limo that was waiting for him in a few steps. The limo that the pilot had called ahead to tell that they were coming home early.

The chauffeur held the door open for the man and he stepped in coolly. The chauffeur quickly closed the door and stepped into the driver sear and sped off the tarmac and hastened to the penthouse apartment the man in the suit owned.

The limo pushed eighty as it sped around the city, knowing where the normal traffic spots are and avoiding them. They passed through many a red light and got more than a few honks from the neighbouring cars. To which the limo driver returned the love.

Not too long after leaving the airport they stopped at the apartment block. Or should I say directly in front of the expensive looking apartment block that probably cost over a million a piece. The penthouse, being the most expensive of them all, cost close to three million (now I'm just making up outrageous prices here so don't flame me for not knowing how much LA realty is. Hey! I live in Australia okay?).

Anyway, the limo stopped within an instant of the chauffeur applying the brake and the man in the suit stepped out, completely ignoring the chauffeur who had attempted to scramble out to open his door but had failed dismally.

"Thanks Pierre. Nice driving, as always." The man in the suit said and the chauffeur smiled at him before shutting his door and driving off.

"Poor mute bastard." The man in the suit said, feeling real sorrow for him but so used to the bitterness that it came out sounding like an insult.

Then he got a rush of the feeling again. That empty feeling. He looked up at the apartment block and tried to keep it down. Soon. At least he narrowed it down to one city now. Soon the empty feeling would be just a memory. All he had to do was find her and it would be gone.

He just had to find her.