His long blue hair was now tied up in a bun and the fedora was placed snugly on top. His black leather gloved hands were hiding in the pocket of the long black overcoat, his breath creating small clouds of mist in front of his face as he paced down a cold, dark street. Johnathan Toole had been ridiculously easy to find. It turned out he was quite a famous member of the Gentry in Bath.

He was a banker and the kind of person that has no idea the true value of money. He was born into a big house and when his parents died all the money went to him. There wasn't a single time in his life where he would have felt troubled or worried for his safety. Beau had to question why someone who already had it all would do such things, would try and involve themselves with such a group. He could only put it down to insanity, or maybe the greed of men.

The police were arranged to pick him up tomorrow, although Beau didn't know that for sure, all he knew was that he returned tonight, the Creed meeting was due to take place on Wednesday. Someone entirely different to Johnathan Toole would be waiting for them.

----------------------------------------

Johnathan had got back from a tiring journey. Travelling in England is a pain in the arse, literally. The cobbled streets do nothing good, even when you're sitting on a cushion. His butler had welcomed him in wordlessly.

Johnathan was too tired to look or care. He made his way through a large door frame made of oak wood, varnished to the point of perfection. Waiting for him was his favourite chair along with a beautiful decanter filled with an expensive scotch whiskey.

As he sat down he noticed that one of the glasses was missing. He shrugged it off and rang the bell placed at the side of the chair to summon his butler. A man appeared at the door. In his hand was a whiskey glass filled with just the right amount of the bronze liquid.

Before he could say anything there was a clink in the chair. He looked down to find spikes coming through the chair and piercing through his hands, it was the same for his feet. His blood slowly trickled down his fingers and onto the expensive cream carpet. A pool of blood was slowly forming in his shoes.

“AAARRRRGGGGHHHHH”

“There we go...”

“What... What is this? GET THESE OUT OF ME!”

“No can do Mr. Toole.”

“Who the FUCK ARE YOU?”

“Calm yourself and I will explain...”

The masked man with the whiskey set the glass down on the table. Johnathan took note of the mask covering his face which somehow managed to portray the amount of hostility in the air. He then pulled one of the other chairs in the room so that he was facing Toole.

“Why do you think I'm here?”

“Money?”

“Ordinarily no, but you have so much stuff here I might just accidently borrow some on my way out.”

“So... what is it then?

He was now speaking through gritted teeth, trying to ignore the searing pain in his hands and feet.

“I'm here to question you about your involvement with the Creed.”

Johnathan went wide-eyed. His reaction solidifying his recognition of the word.

“What about it...”

“What did you do?”

“That's of no concern to you.”

“You're right...”

Silence.

“Do you have a family?” The man in the mask asked quietly.

“Not anymore... I made sure of that.”

“You...? What did you do?”

“I killed them, like I'll kill you.”

The man in the mask lurched upwards but it was too late, a huge spike of pure mana had pierced through his shoulder. Johnathan slowly and carefully got out of the spikes on his hands but before he could free his feet Beau made the top of the spike larger making it impossible to lift his feet up.

“Bastard!”

The mana dissipated and Beau was left with blood trickling down his torso.

“Tch, I didn't expect you to be a magician as well...”

“How are you even alive, my staff are magicians as well, it's not possible to get past all of them.”

“I did struggle with a few. Unsurprisingly most of them realised you weren't worth dying for.”

“Those little shits.”

“You really have a horribly rude mouth.”

“Shut UP! I'll give you money, a title, I'll even throw in some land.”

“What's happening at the meeting on Wednesday?” Beau asked, completely blanking the pathetic man's pleading.

“Oh! I'm sure you'd like to know.” Toole tried again to use magic this time the mana spikes just bounced off Beau.

“I have my shield up now, you can't break it.”

“How are you doing that?”

“Shut your mouth Toole, tell me what the meeting's about.”

“NEVER!”

Just as the word left his mouth a fist smashed against his left cheek. Before Toole could say anything an icy voice interrupted.

“That one's from anyone you've harmed. This next one's just karma.”

------------------------------------

Ella-Mae Watson had her head in her hands. She was currently sitting on the sofa in Johnathan Toole's house looking at an undoubtedly dead man. The surrounding room looked like it had been thoroughly searched.

She got up, reaching for the same cup Beau had put down the night before and took a sip of the expensive whiskey.

“Strip the body.”

“Wh-h-hat?

“You heard me, Spencer, strip him. I need to look for something.”

“Y-y-y-yes Ma'am.”

After stripping and examining the body she nodded her head and left the room. Hurrying to catch up Spencer stammered out a question.

“W-w-w-what did y-y-you find?”

“What I was looking for.”

“Wh-wh-what would that b-b-b-be?

“The mark of the one-winged angel. We still have no idea what it means but it's identical to his previous victims. Which means I finally get my crack at White Demon.”

“White demon?”

“He wears a white mask and he only kills the angels, what better name?”

“When do you think he died?” A new Inspector joined the conversation, apparently just finished his round of the house.

“I'd say around 4-5 hours ago.”

“What did the servants say happened?”

“They realised that they didn't have a chance and were locked up in the pantry when we found them.”

“Spencer!”

“Y-y-y-yes Ma'am”

“Take Inspector Johnson here and question the servants, then I want you to sweep this house and find anything that could point us in some sort of direction.”

“Y-y-yes Ma'am”

“What did the rogue leave for us this time?”

“We couldn't find anything, Ma'am.”

“How dare he stand me up! I'm getting bored of that last message...”

“Ma'am?”

------------------------------------------

Beau had been massaging his hands for hours now and they still felt like the eighth level of purgatory. Despite this, he sported a wild grin which was thoroughly creeping out the customers currently browsing his wares. Not only was Johnathan a high ranking Creed member, Wednesday, it turns out, was just an opportunity to premeditate before the bigger meeting on the weekend, Beau's plan was to listen in on the meeting then go from there. He returned to fiddling with a new magic item. This one was going to be vital for the coming raid.

------------------------------------------

Wednesday rolled around and The Treasury displayed a closed sign despite it being mid-morning. Beau was on his way to the academy. It was probably one of the largest buildings in Bath. It was made of beautiful laid bricks and set a huge shadow with the sun being almost at its apex. He entered a rather fancy lobby where a young man greeted him.

“Hello, I'm here for Mrs. Saunder's class, my name's Beau.”

“Ah yes, here, I'll show you to the classroom.”

“Thank you.”

He could see the class through the glass windows. He saw Marianne in between two boys then her friend wearing the hairclip she bought from his shop behind her. Then there was the teacher. She was middle aged with short brown hair. Everyone was looking awfully bored. Beau knocked on the door and Mrs. Saunders, apparently looking for any excuse to stop talking, rushed to the door to let him in.

“Good day sir, you must be Beau Ignatius?”

“Just Beau is fine, thank you for having me.”

“Oh no, thank you for coming, the kids have really been looking forward to it.”

Safe to say at this point the girls were smitten and the boys had developed an inferiority complex. The blue hair was just too powerful.

“So, I'll leave the floor to you. Do you need the board?”

“It would be useful, for learning's sake, magic circles are purely visual after all.”

“Of course, of course. Go ahead when you're ready.”

“Alright. Listen closely.”

Beau quickly drew a basic magic circle on the board then a diagram of the human body showing the mana veins that only magicians have.

“Influencing mana without the aid of a staff, wand or magic circle is very limited. Most people choose to change the mana into some sort of element after it leaves the body as it is more efficient but if you're really good you can manipulate pure mana. Not only is the amount you can manipulate limited but the speed, you can only really move it as fast as your body can move.

So, you have certain ways of making your magic easier to manipulate, the most common being wands and staffs. These act as an intermediary between your internal mana and external solidification of your mana. The next way is magic circles.

This is the most efficient way of performing complex spells. Once the circle is created you just insert your mana into the circle, which powers it. The circle acts similarly to a maths formula. When you enter in one thing, another comes out. It's basic energy conversion. They are also very good for doing things not possible through manipulation. Layering magic circles can create radically different results. There is also calculation and trial and error making completely new magic circles. For example, the hair clip I sold to the lady sitting right there. There are four in there. One for the memory of each hairstyle, one for opening the clip, one for the movement of the clip and one for closing the clip. All from just simply injecting mana.”

Jessica, being put on the spot shuffled slightly but did a quick demonstration of her hair clip which got a few gasps.

“I have a couple of examples for you to pass around. For example this one, you inject a minuscule amount of mana constantly, and it lights up, it's very bright so don't shine it in your eyes.”

He proceeded to pull out a few of the gadgets he'd been tinkering with over the past few days. The students were exuberant, even during the explanation. Startled as well, that there was a whole world of magic they had yet to explore. Beau taught them the very basics of magic circle creation and its uses.

He found himself for the first time in a while honestly enjoying himself. Not once did he think of the horrors of the past or the uncertainties of the future. An hour flew by, they had all thoroughly fallen in love with magic circles at this point. Beau couldn't help but smile at the future customers he had no doubt secured himself.

Alas, every good thing must come to an end. Beau slowly left the academy, wishing for anything to distract himself from what he had to do this evening. He had something to do tonight, it was quite simple really. He needed to bug the rented hall that some of the Creed members were meeting at. He'd go in ahead of the Creed members, leave a few voice recording devices, then wait till they're finished before collecting them. That way he'd have their plan recorded and with all the luck in the world maybe some evidence to hand over to the police, not that they'd live long enough to find out their sentence.

Bugging the hall was relatively easy, it wasn't the big nor was it the most secure. Some very basic stealth techniques were more than adequate to break in. Then came the hiding of the voice recorders. He hid some under chairs, some under floorboards and even some in the bathroom. After that, it was just a matter of waiting for the criminals to arrive.

Collecting them up again was even easier. He thought he'd leave these guys alive for now, it was all the same whether it was today or on the weekend. It was now deep into the night, Beau was just an umbra moving through the empty streets. The fewer people that saw him snooping around at night the better. Although, tonight was not his night.

Turning the corner of his street he saw a group of police officers, two on the pavement in front of his house and three in the middle of the street looking up. Luckily Beau had his mask on him so he hid it in his inner coat pocket. He then approached the group of police officers looking at his shop the whole time. The glass all over the floor said enough.

He'd been robbed.