A lone youth observed the shadow beast’s departure as he crouched, motionless, among a thick tangle of fallen tree branches and overgrown bushes to avoid detection. He was balanced on one knee, prepared to take off in an instant if the phantom turned towards him, but there was no fear in his pale face. Despite the chill, a trickle of sweat shone at the edge of his short, sandy blonde hair. His bronze eyes - cold and cunning and quick to follow each and every one of the specter’s movements - remained watchful and unsurprised long after the beast had come and gone.

Even then he waited a while, discretely adjusting the cuffs of the black, military style jacket he wore buttoned in gold all the way up to his throat. Uniforms were one of the many displeasures of his life, particularly when he was crouching behind raspberry bushes to escape certain death. Tonight, however, was a good night - the shadow beast had headed in the opposite direction of him. He knew it was truly gone when the cold wind that had accompanied its passage took on the warm tint of spring once more, and the frost that had been creeping slowly up the trunks of the surrounding trees began to melt with steady, echoing plops.

He then rose stiffly, brushed the dirt from the knees of his trousers until the crimson trim on them was acceptably discernible from the black, and turned to walk still farther in the opposite direction of the specter. Reconnaissance missions came with their own trials, compared to his usual work. In this particular case, the investigators would have to use a memory read to see what he had seen. No magical or electronic recording devices could be used in such close vicinity to a highly magical target – no doubt it would have noticed and attacked him as soon as he came within a hundred meters of its location. It sucked when people had to root around in his brain, though it sucked moderately less than being ripped apart by a monster.

Bek Trent was thinking these things as he pushed offending branches out of his face, straddled old and dying logs propped against towering, moss-coated stones, and slid on sopping leaf litter. His uniform remained meticulously clean despite everything, and he remained unflustered. Cars were also not a good idea around highly magical targets. Or in the middle of the woods, far from roads and other convenient things.

But Bek had no complaints. He had gotten used to trekking through remote, uncivilized places long, long ago, and the forests of Northern Washington were highly preferable to rainforests in South America or the more remote regions of the Kalahari. He had the scars on his legs to prove it.

Eventually, he stepped out into an open clearing with trees stretching off to every side, the peaks of ancient mountains just visible in the west, and only the sky in its entire star-filled magnificence overhead. Before him was a sea of waving silver grasses, and he waded in to his waist, completely oblivious to the rabbits and snakes that stirred in the wake of his passage, until he reached the center of the clearing. It was very distinctly empty. Still, he cast around the open air with his hands for a few moments until his palms found cool, hard, invisible wood. Then, he pushed.

All around him, a towering building flickered into being. The moon shone down on pale, skeletal walls ribbed in white so stark they might actually have been constructed of solid bone. Windows were placed high in the walls, which rose very nearly to the height of the most ancient trees in the forest. The arched oak doors that lay before him were inlaid with metallic figures of all sorts locked in deadly battle and, in particular, where the boy’s palm fell, a dragon and a unicorn grappled rather gruesomely for their lives. A broad overhang had come into being over his head, and it cast him in shadow as the doors swung open to admit him. Bek strode forward.

Instantly, he was blinded by the harsh, honey yellow glow of the building’s interior, and deafened by the accompanying chaotic ruckus. Red carpeting and ancient planked wood formed the floor of the entire building, which he knew had been changed very little in the last three or four hundred years. The walls of the main entryway, which reminded him of a grand hotel reception room, were the most ostentatious in the entire building. The one opposite him, which immediately greeted the eyes of any visitor, was gilded entirely in gold, and was dominated by a massive clock. Two sculpted hands turned slowly around the clock face, making it the gaudiest pragmatic chunk of art he had ever seen. Above this, the skull and several neck vertebrae of a once great dragon erupted from the wall so that the beast leered down at them all at every hour of every day. Its mouth was open still, the horns and teeth – as he had been told numerous times – repaired after the creature’s last great battle. Now the bones upheld the foundations of the entire building, charging them with enough magical energy to make secretive measures, like invisibility, possible.

Closer to the doors was a black iron arch surrounded on either side by wrought iron fencing – incidentally, the kind that would stretch to meet the height of whomever stood nearest to it, and seemed to take a liking to waiting until an intruder was midway through hurdling it before shooting skyward. He strode unhurriedly beneath the arch, feeling its familiar heat raise the hairs along his neck, and stopped in front of another, dark-haired young man.

“Hendricks.”

The dark-haired guard dipped his head and they saluted each other quickly – the hand from the head over the heart and arcing slowly across the chest and back to their side – and then each visibly relaxed.

“Welcome back, Trent. A success, I trust,” the young man, evidently Hendricks, asked.

Bek nodded curtly.

“I’m to report immediately.”

“A memory read, then,” Hendricks questioned slyly, “I don’t envy you that.” Already, the two of them were striding towards a counter to the right, behind which several men and women sat working through their daily secretarial work; one seemed to be attempting to polish a set of Ancient Egyptian jewelry. Hendricks tapped the desk, pointed at Bek, and then escorted him to the elevator, also on the right side of the room.

“He’ll be awaiting your report, Trent,” Hendricks said as Bek stepped into the elevator, pressed a button, and watched the heavy metal doors slide shut. Hendricks did not come with him. There was a brief moment of silence punctuated only by the soft whir of the elevator gears in his ears. Then the elevator stopped, the doors slid open, and Bek stepped out into an incredibly normal hallway. He quickly found the door he was looking for, entered it, and turned a sharp right to find himself facing yet another open door and a large room.

Seated at the far side of the room behind a dark mahogany desk was an older gentleman, his hair a steely gray and his dark eyes sharp as they lit briefly on Bek’s features. The gentleman wore a military style black and crimson uniform similar to Bek’s, but his was trimmed in gold and accented by the silver chain that identified him as director of the MASO research department. Bek supposed the chains and trim and even the more regular military accoutrement of the MASO uniforms would be befuddling to anyone who had not strictly lived their life around the place, but they had a purpose. Allowing a normal civilian to catch a glimpse of anything the Magical Censorship department worked to keep from unknowing eyes, after all, would cause problems, to say the least. And there were always the radicals who believed magic should be made known to all the world, or who disliked the government’s policies in regards to werewolf rights, or who were willing to strap a bomb to themselves and slip into someone’s office to set things right – he had dealt with such a case the week before. Uniforms let everyone know who belonged where…and who did not.

“Jorik, sir,” Bek stopped at the door and inclined his head slightly. The man said nothing for several moments, apparently having returned to staring at a thin sheet of paper held lightly between his fingers. After a moment, he slowly lowered it to his desk.

“Ah, Trent. How did it go?”

Bek was not fooled by the older man’s falsely relaxed demeanor; there was nothing like relaxation in any singular aspect of the director. There was also no hint of kindness in the steely set of his jaw, or the angular square of his shoulders. He might as well have been pounded from iron fresh out of the forge. Jorik’s eyes held Bek unwaveringly in the doorway, and they remained with him as he strode to a slow stop at the edge of the desk.

“Very well. A figure of some kind did emerge from the target area, and from the ground, no less. Unfortunately, it moved away before I could identify it.”

“The Caverns?”

“I would not know, sir,” Bek answered somewhat stiffly. Jorik turned back to his paperwork with a dismissive gesture.

“Well, the memory read may allow us to identify the creature. Is there anything more to report?”

Bek bowed his head again.

“There were wolves out tonight.”

“Wolves?” Jorik prodded.

“Of the ordinary kind, I think, but there may have been tree wolves as well. They sound similar over long distances.”

“I would find a wolf of the ordinary kind more interesting,” Jorik mused, “Whatever would one be doing here, I wonder? Thirty or forty miles out maybe…but the tree wolves guard their territory jealously.” Once more, Bek knew better than to answer as the older man turned his chair slightly to regard the large oil painting behind his desk. It was of a crimson dragon, coiled possessively around a clutch of spherical eggs.

“Before the read, Bek,” Jorik said, not looking at him, “I have a new mission for you. We will be relocating you in two days time.”

“Relocating?” Bek repeated, his surprise evident only in the slight rise of his eyebrows.

“Yes, relocating, to a school in the neighboring town. You’ll be living with your mother, practicing no magic that is not strictly necessary. There you will have some access to the MASO through the local library, but will otherwise have no contact with us. You will be placed into the classes of a particular girl whose family has been under observation for several months.” Jorik finally turned from the painting to flip the top page of the paper in front of him and display a thumbnail picture of a high school girl with a lopsided half-smile. It was a terrible picture, but it was obvious it had come from her driver’s license, so Bek was hardly surprised.

“Check the logs if you wish, but the reason we’re sending you in is that there’s hardly any information available on them. No history that isn’t forged. No criminal records. ICE flagged them for illegal immigration, but the case moved to us because of some oddities in the paperwork. No relatives, no travel lines, no fiscal transactions…but a trace of magic. You understand what I’m asking of you?”

“Yes, sir,” Bek answered promptly.

“The possibility that the whole family consists of magic users makes this worth investigating. Otherwise, we’ll pass this back off our plate. We have enough to worry about without chasing illegals around the state.”

“Yes,” Bek said again, reaching up to loosen the collar of his uniform uncomfortably.

“This child’s name is Silver Alurian. Your mission is to get close to her, as close as you can, and see if you can get anything out of her. Be discrete. You’ll have a week before our first check-in, and I expect a lot from you.” Bek nodded curtly. “If you have any doubts, bring her here for testing. And at that time, treat me as a grandson should his grandfather.” Jorik regarded him steadily for a moment, frowning severely as he tapped a finger against the paper on his desk. “That shouldn’t be too difficult.”

“Yes, sir,” Bek repeated, his head still bowed to avoid the director’s gaze.

“You have your orders. Prepare to take your leave. Have the results of the read to me by tomorrow morning.”

Bek turned to go and was at the door when Jorik’s voice caught him once more.

“Oh, and Bek, if you encounter any wolves…”

“Yes, sir,” the youth responded.