2006, 24th January

Labrador Sea

James was beginning to notice Lucia grow ever more distant.

Not that she had ever been eager to confide in him before, but her aura of unapproachability seemed more amplified than ever.

He also noticed how she moved, unnaturally, as if she was posted on spring loaded joints, and whenever she set her eyes on him, they seemed to pierce right through, as if noticing a hundred details about him, and yet, not taking notice of him at all.

She was growing increasingly in resemblance to her father.

It sent an apprehensive shiver down James’ spine when he felt her eyes trained at his back, at the base of his skull.

Lucia was still wrestling with the revelations of the previous night.

There had been no hunt scheduled tonight, merely another ritual- not a sacrifice fuelled blood magic ritual, but an entirely mundane religious one.

Tonight, the great bear’s heart was to be offered to Grandfather Winter.

She noticed James fidget, subconsciously shifting his torso to keep her within line of sight.

She also instinctively knew exactly how to escape it, which way James would turn, given the uneven weight distribution on his feet, to keep her within his field of vision, and she knew the route she would take, at her current maximum achievable speed, to put his brainstem within striking distance while he struggled to even catch a glimpse of her.

Quite simply, she knew how to kill him.

James fidgeted once more.

Obviously, she hadn’t hidden her train of thought very successfully, and the prey had been alerted.

But that was fine too. Mental fatigue induced by wariness of an incoming strike was yet another advantage she could spin her way.

The time to strike was drawing closer- The prey would not sit idle, paralysed by indecision and fear forever.

But not right now.

Right now, she had something else to focus on.

She remembered the werewolf from the night before- not any kind of prey, but a competing beast, feats of physical strength unreasonable even by the standards of muscle packed within that almost 900 kilogram humanoid frame, and natural weaponry, claws and fangs that would put a pickaxe to shame.

That hadn’t even been the part that had made an impression.

No, that would be the philosophy of the man behind the beast.

A so-called naturalistic world order with humans occupying their assumed rightful place in the food chain.

She remembered how Hilda’s eyes had gleamed with passion with every word that man had spoken.

Restlessly, she rose to her feet.

James flinched, muscles tightening all at once, but she barely even paid it any thought, and traced her path to the ritual chambers once more.

Making her way to the heart of the ice palace by tracking the scent of blood, sharper and sweeter than anything she had ever sampled before, proved to be no challenge.

Things took a stranger turn when the blue white ice beneath her feet started to take on a deep crimson shade.

She had not yet decided the merits of Victor and Hilda’s worldview; a view she would have discounted as impossible without a second thought just a month or so earlier; yet she had quickly learned to take nothing for granted.

And if she were opposed to the proposed so-called reinstatement of the natural order, she still would prefer not to leap immediately into action, one way or the other, unless her hand were somehow forced.

The ice grew darker still as she approached the central chamber, suffused throughout with what was obviously blood.

She reached the central ritual chamber to see a spike of ice rising from the floor, the heart of the beast they had hunted impaled upon it, dripping with impossible amounts of blood for a vessel of that size.

There was something else in the air- something not entirely physical, and even though Lucia had no way to sense it, she instinctively knew it was there, regardless.

Hilda was the only one who noticed her approach- and oddly enough, this time, her expression remained entirely opaque, facial muscles locked tight.

It raised Lucia’s guard in a way nothing else had managed so far- Something momentous was to happen, anytime now.

She had a feeling her hand was about to be forced, one way or the other.

The walls of ice around her were dark crimson, entirely opaque, and the matriarch herself knelt before the impaled heart, which still seemed to beat, unnaturally enough.

The air around the central dais flickered, as if caused by a heat haze, at two specific points.

Lucia noticed Hilda’s eyes track the flickers as surely as her own, then rest on her for a split second, before turning to the matriarch.

Moment of truth.

The light seemed to bed around certain thin lines before materialising into what looked like strings, wrapping themselves around the matriarch.

Erik, standing by her side, instantly moved, wrapping steely fingers around the ethereal strings, and tearing them apart with one swift motion.

The other point of shimmering air had coalesced for an instant into something in resemblance of a humanoid form, and the energy surrounding them had taken a malevolent shape, as if directed by whatever that creature was, to drive any intruders on it’s claimed territory away.

Lucia was also keenly aware of the fact that Hilda did not look the least bit affected, her posture barely shifting at all.

By this time, the matriarch herself had sprung into action, pulling back her sleeve to reveal a serpent of what appeared to be solid silver, wrapped around her forearm.

The serpent uncoiled, in defiance of its own makeup, and the matriarch lashed out with it, using it akin to a whip, the tip whistling through the air at the second creature, while Erik still tangled with the first.

And the serpent's head touched nothing at all, cutting harmlessly through empty space.

Lucia’s pupils constricted.

This would be it- the matriarch had overextended and come up empty, off balance.

She instinctively recognized it as the perfect time to strike.

And if she did, then so did Hilda.

Putting her weight on her leading leg, Lucia charged forth.

Crashing right into Hilda, intercepting her on her path.

For the briefest moment, she thought she saw hurt on her face, though whether it was the result of Lucia’s decision, or merely the physical harm from the collision, she could not say.

Then the hurt slipped away, replaced by a mask of neutral acceptance.

Before Lucia called on the power of her blood, and their surroundings were shrouded in a cloud of pitch darkness.

The darkness devoured the ethereal creatures’ will, and could harm even them, immaterial though they were- This, Lucia knew, as more of the darkness rushed to feed on them, drawn like moths to a flame.

A clammy hand wrapped around her right ankle, dragging her knee deep into the ice.

Clenching her fist, Lucia allowed the blood to flow through it drawing power into her muscles, and bringing her fist down, she shattered the ice.

Sleet was scattered through the space surrounding her.

One moment of displaced balance, and- Lucia hunched her back purposefully- one point of maximum vulnerability.

Anticipating the only strike Hilda could go for, Lucia readjusted her center of gravity, regaining her balance in a flash, and grabbed at where she knew the strike would be coming from-

And felt little more than air brush against her finger, with the dawning realisation that Hilda had managed to anticipate her as well, and readjusted her position accordingly.

Almost instinctively, she made to leap out of the crater she herself had created in the ice beneath her, and shifted her weight to her left leg-

An oblique kick lashed out from ice, extending her knee the wrong way, and she was carried out of the crater by the force of the blow, slipping on the ice- reflecting that Hilda, capable of moving through solid ice, had one more dimension to work with in this battle.

Bone deep instincts screamed at her to retreat from unfavourable territory, but by the time she had risen to her feet once more, weight parked mostly on her right, she had suppressed her fear, jaws clenched, and reached deep into the power of her blood once more.

The shadows pooled around her, even thicker, and the pained yelps from the surroundings told her her hunger had bitten into the Matriarch and Erik as well.

The shadows transmitted the energy they leeched back to her, and she felt movement in front of her, ripples of motion transmitted through the ice.

Realising exactly how Hilda sensed her in the pitch darkness, she pulled deeper on her hunger, devouring even the kinetic energy pooling around them- and the both of them were rendered effectively blind.

But the shadows were hers to command, and she sensed Hilda when she breached the surface of the ice, pouncing at where she had last sensed Lucia.

Remember.

Lucia remembered where the flickering air creature the matriarch had attacked was, at her back- 7 o’clock, to her centre.

The matriarch, poised to attack, weapon in hand fueled by centrifugal force and supernatural sorcery alike- at 2 o'clock- waiting for the shadows to recede.

So she let them recede, just a tad, and the room flooded with an unearthly crimson glow.

Reliably, she saw something silver whistle through the air, on its way to breaking the sound barrier.

Hilda was coming in fast, the sliver of visibility akin to floodlights to her senses- and the temperature dropped dramatically as she inhaled, then exhaled a cloud of frost- blocked by Lucia’s outstretched left hand, cold seeping bone deep leaving her hand brittle with frost.

The whip moved through the air- even as she moved to grab it’s center and alter it’s trajectory- leaving a deliberate opening against her own instincts screaming against her decision.

Hilda’s outstretched hands clamping around her left arm, squeezing, and Lucia’s arm snapped like a dry twig.

Quite simply, she had given in to her instinct of attack, and tunnel visioned.

Lucia grabbed one central portion of the whip cord- even that portion retaining enough velocity to bite into her palm- and the silver snake head arced through space- another segment wrapping around Lucia’s left shoulder- and tore through the right side of Hilda’s face, leaving a crimson weeping crater where her right eye and the top of her skull used to be.

Silence for the briefest moment- then Hilda smiled, said something Lucia did not understand- be it her reversion to whatever her native tongue was, or the cracked, broken speech-

And fell forward into her.

Hoisting her up, Lucia bared her fangs, and sunk them into Hilda’s throat.

Something seemed to howl approvingly within her as lifeblood richer and sweeter than anything she had sampled before flowed down her throat, and she did not tear away till the last drop was depleted, feeling strength return to her limbs, somehow even amplified.

She was snapped forcibly out of her reverie by a violent kick between her shoulder blades, and she fell forward, whirling around while still slipping on slick ice to see James, who had chosen this opportunity to strike.

A single strike that illustrated what he really was- prey lashing out at a predator, a strike from behind that should have been a lethal one, but instead, was a less than potent attack that only served to widen the gap between them.

But circumstances being as they were, this could only go one way.

She should retreat- her knee was popped, and an arm compromised beyond reason- but he would catch up, she wasn’t currently in a condition fit to avoid him.

James locked eyes with, and her muscles began to lock up momentarily as he exerted his will on her, but she shrugged off his influence, rising to her feet.

A moment’s hesitation later, he pounced.

He was fast- his advanced age and powers manifesting in a marked physical margin- while she was able to avoid the brunt of his blows- to the solar plexus, the jaw, the orbit- but was unable to move entirely out of the way.

Until the silver whip cord whistled through the air once more, and tore through his back with an audible snap.

Snarling, he hopped away, and disappeared into the corridors of the ice palace.

And the matriarch approached, and offered Lucia her hand.

“Lionel has chosen his heir well.”

Lucia rose to her one working foot again with a grimace, unsupported.

Erik gestured wildly in the background.

“We’re losing the rhythm of the ritual.”

Indeed, the heart impaled on the spike of ice had stopped bleeding quite so profusely as before.

Deep in the back of Lucia’s brain some awareness of a being awakening in the deeps below, nearly paralysed her with fear, akin to a frog caught in the gaze of a viper- a sensation she had first felt all that time ago, in presence of her father.

The effect on the matriarch and Erik was even more pronounced, going still akin to statues, expressions of abject terror frozen on their faces.

At that very moment, without evidence, without logic or reason-

Lionel Bellone, fingers folded in front of him, calculating the destiny of his empire several decades ahead, suddenly snapped out of his mental exertion, sharp gaze moving to where he knew the north was-

Azhar, choosing to hunt as he always had, pulled his reddened lips away from the snapped neck of a wild bactrian camel, drained of blood, looking to the west, nostrils flaring-

Abas Khan, puppeteering the moves of dozens of bodies scattered throughout the solar system and even beyond, and indeed, deciding destinies hinging on his slightest decision, was broken from his concentration for the briefest moment-

Three of the greatest apex existences on the earth, absolutely without peer, incapable of being threatened-

They felt another being awaken, once lost to the depths of history- a creature that stood as an existence to rival their own.

A lone ship patrolled the black waters of the Labrador sea, and atop it, Hans Muller smiled.

“Found you.”

At that very moment, a passenger flight touched down at Reykjavik, and Lucien Bellone disembarked from it.

“Well. What have we gotten into now?”