Ryan Kapoi gave Emma and Mattox the hand signal indicating it was safe to enter the alley and come to his location.
“Tell me again exactly why we’re doing this?” Mattox questioned the master hunter.
“End of the alley, just above those boxes. Do you see it?” Kapoi nodded in the direction he wanted them to look.
Emma squinted into the darkness not having the same keen eyesight as a hunter. Kapoi had been elusive and wasn’t giving any clues as to why he had woken her and Mattox up in the middle of the night only to stop at the alleyway near her old apartment. But thinking back to those days, Emma got a chill and froze.
Kapoi looked at her then, “Your stalker is back. I figured you two would want to take this one out personally.” Hunters knew netherwalkers. Not only were they stronger and faster than other guardians, but their senses were off the charts. If Kapoi said this was the beast that had hunted her when she was naive to the secret world she was now part of, then it was.
Emma gulped hard not realizing when she volunteered for novice hunter training she would be face to fang with the beast that had actually stalked her. She gathered her courage. “I saw you and Lourdie banish it. Why is it here?”
“Hoping to pick up your trail.” Kapoi answered coolly.
“Well, it’s not going to feed on me this time!” She hissed. “I’m ready, give me an orb.”
“Easy there, Kill Bill, I’m collecting data first remember? We need to know if shepherds are truly invisible to them before we banish it. And, if I’m in contact with you, does your ability also cloak me?” Kapoi stated. “It’ll be just like we practiced in the virtual chamber. Emma and I will walk into its snare while she concentrates on creating a shield around us. Mattox you get as close as you can while shielded then drop your shield for a moment and agitate it so it transforms. If we’re lucky, it won’t see any of us in either of its forms.”
“Gotta love being the bait.” Mattox looked on the rooftop hoping backup had arrived. Two hunters signaled with their lights that they were in position.
“You make such a pretty lure.” Emma teased.
Mattox brushed a strand of her hair away and kissed her lips. “Be careful.”
“You too.”
Holding his hunter relics, Ryan Kapoi clasped his hands shut and whispered a word against them. As his hands parted a translucent purple orb began to grow between his palms. It hissed and popped, eager to consume a netherwalker. Emma never tired of watching the spectacular creation hunters were able to manifest from thin air. Kapoi kept the orb small, limiting its growth for the moment. “You ready?” He looked at Emma.
She nodded and focused on the orb hoping not to get zapped by it. “Yes.”
Gently, Kapoi placed the orb in Emma’s hands, “My orb is yours.” He looked at Mattox who reluctantly nodded his readiness. Kapoi repeated the process for Mattox and placed an identical orb into his hands.
Emma opened her senses up to the creature, but shielded her emotions completely as Kapoi placed his hand on her shoulder. She concentrated on extending her shield to the hunter as well and nodded at Mattox to begin. Her heart pounded out of her chest as they entered the alley behind Mattox. Emma and Kapoi stopped just inside the radius where the netherwalker could manipulate their minds. Through the novice hunter training Kapoi taught, Emma focused on blocking out the unwanted emotions the creature attempted to send out and concentrated on what she knew was real and right in front of her.
Mattox stopped, put his orb behind his back, and yelled, “Hey!”
Emma let out a breath of relief the minute she felt Mattox put his shield back up. The creature vibrated and floated down off the brick wall. Mattox moved back slowly careful not to make any noise as he stepped out of the monster’s snare. Being a guardian now, Emma knew that if agitated or frightened it was impossible for a krim to stay in its shadowskin form. Its dark shadows rippled into black opalescent skin as it slithered from the wall. Fiery reds morphed into emerald greens underneath its slick black skin and the air around the guardians cooled to just above freezing. They all took care not to breathe and give away their locations. The soft pink scar on Mattox’s cheek served as a reminder of that.
“Ow!” The orb Mattox had been holding dropped to the ground. The krim now in full corporeal form snapped its head in Mattox’s direction and dug its claws into the pavement. It was preparing to attack. Whether it sensed Mattox now or not was unclear.
Mattox! Emma’s mind screamed. Before she could send a mental warning to Kapoi, the hunter was already moving in front of her.
“Now!” Kapoi yelled, letting go of Emma’s shoulder and drawing his weapon. He ran at the beast as guardians from the rooftops shot at it with their stun rifles, but the beast refused to go down. She knew stunning krims didn’t always work, especially large ones gorged on the essence of dociles. This one had just fed.
Emma heard a loud crack like lightning whipping the ground as Mattox picked up his orb. With a painful grunt he threw the orb to Kapoi just as the netherwalker whirled to face the unshielded hunter. Kapoi caught the orb and let it grow, encasing the beast as it struggled to break free. The orb vibrated and hummed and the krim howled its displeasure. Emma dropped her shield and stood in front of the orb. The beast within whimpered, seeming to realize the young girl it had once stalked was now a guardian in the King’s Court, strong and unafraid.
As the orb imploded, taking the beast back to the Netherworld, Kapoi whipped his head to the far corner of the alley. “Emma, orb! Now!”
Startled to attention, Emma threw the orb to Kapoi who encased a secondary beast that she didn’t recognize at first. She gasped when she saw leathery wings struggling against the translucent orb. Dragon! She thought. Through her classes at the Academy, Emma knew how rare they were, but also knew that things within the King’s Court had been extremely tense as of late. She wondered if there was a correlation between the two and made a silent promise to help out her fellow guardians in any way she could.
As the second beast disappeared, Emma rushed to Mattox’s side. He had to be hurt by the orb, she’d heard the awful sound it had made when he picked it up.
Mattox grabbed her hand, reassuring her both mentally and verbally he was alright. “I swear, hunter orbs have it out for my family!” he laughed. “At least it’s not broken,” Mattox said, mocking that his brother Malcolm had actually indeed broken his arm in a similar incident. He stopped swinging his arm around like a madman and bent down and kissed Emma softly. “I’m okay, Em.”
His nickname for her sent an electric current down her spine just like it had the first time. She brushed the scar on his cheek and smiled. “I know.”
Just then a voice came over the earpieces that Kapoi had given them. The device was smaller than a dime, as clear as if the voice was right beside them, and was tucked away out of sight behind Emma’s ear. She was shocked when told it was standard equipment for hunters and novice trainees like herself. The King’s Court and its high tech gadgets never ceased to amaze her.
The voice explained that a fracture had just been spotted in Central Park and guardians on the scene were requesting backup. Emma shivered, recalling images she’d seen during training in the virtual chamber. She pictured the dark shadows from the netherworld pouring out of the golden ribbon of light like smoke falling to the earth leaching out over the landscape. The beasts would scatter under the light of the full moon, hoping to slither away and avoid being detected. Shadowskins roamed the earth and fed on humans for their masters the Nevra-Hsi in the Netherworld. It was an undeniable truth and the world Emma now lived in.
Kapoi rushed over to the couple. It was obvious he was eager to join his fellow hunters in Central Park. “So did it work? Were you able to shield us?”
Emma looked from Kapoi to Mattox with a devious smirk on her face. The Netherworld had no idea what was about to hit them. “Oh hell yeah!”
†††