Chapter 1
A trifle drop of blood, from a simple and innocent wound … became a weary, deep, and painful wound that helplessly stimulated blood to drain out of my body if I didn’t apply the right amount of pressure.
“Not as strong as you once were, are you now?” The darkness asked.
“(Breathes heavily)D-Do not … under-estimate me, you … (grunts)(stumbles to the ground) ignorant … monster,” I said weakly.
“Admit it, you are far too weak to even bother to beat me,” He said.
The darkness was right. I … really was too weak to win against him. I barely had enough strength to stand up, but … not enough to win against my arch-enemy. Every time I forced a move on him and kept getting knocked down, the weaker I acquired. I managed to move out of the way, every time he tried to stomp on me or hurt me.
“You’re not putting up much of a fight. How pathetic,” he said grinning.
“The only pathetic one … is you,” I growled at him.
His grin of pleasure, turned to a murderous, sharp, and angry frown. I could tell by his glowing red eyes that I’ve pinched a nerve. Quickly turning to my watch and my crystal, I wondered how much magic I had to get back to HQ without having anything bad happen. “Just about enough,” I thought to myself. Turning back to the darkness, I gasped when I saw his fearsome weapon gleaming threateningly under the glowing moon, as he held it over his head. Swinging it back down to the earth, I quickly made myself disappear from the meadow, back to HQ. Panting with a great heave of fear, I weakly hopped back to my feet and made my way into a room where they stored some medical supplies. I quickly bandaged myself up and washed up a bit before walking back into the hallways. Putting my black jacket back on, I acted as casual.
“Izzy!” James said, swinging up to me,
“Hey, Jamie! What’s up?” I asked him.
“A night full of sky, that’s what’s up,” He answered joyfully.
I laughed as I squeezed an eye in the aching pain.
“Where have you been? I’ve been looking for you for hours. It was like playing hide an’ seek!” James said exaggerating.
“Ah, don’t exaggerate James. I wasn’t gone that long,” I told him.
“To me, it felt like months!!” He said.
I laughed again, but had to immediately stop when the wave of shocking pain struck me once more.
“You … sure you’re alright?” He asked, looking a bit more concerned.
“Perfectly,” I denied wincing and holding my breath.
“Something happened,” James said.
“Something always happens. This … is nothing to worry about,” I winced, holding onto the wall gasping.
“Well, it’s obvious that you can’t hide it. Tell me what happened,” James said.
I looked at him, and he smiled warmly. Looking into his eyes I could tell that he was saying ‘you can trust me.’ But … before I could say anything … We were interrupted by the voices of our trainers. Dimitri and Cornelius.
“There you two are,” Dimitri said.
I sighed in relief and we both turned around to face them.
“Seriously!! How do you keep finding us!!” James asked, stunned.
“Watches,” Cornelius answered.
James gasped, looked at me and then back at Dimitri and Cornelius.
“They’re spying on us!!” James said, faintly.
“Calm down, James. It’s clear that you exaggerate so much,” Dimitri said.
“I do tend to joke around,” James said, smiling proudly.
“Well get your seriousness out,” Cornelius told him strictly.
“What’s the mission?” I asked them.
“Usually Detective Bear would take this case. Unfortunately he’s out, since he wanted to spend more time with his son. The mission that you will be taking is unknown and unclear to all of us,” Dimitri said.
“Then … how is it a mission if we know nothing about it?” James asked.
“This sounds very mysterious. Are you sure … that this is a real mission and not just some Halloween prank that some child pulled up?” I asked.
“Izzy’s right. Besides, it’s that time of year again, where kids are just pulling up bloody pranks on everyone. Scaring people, tricking them, and all that mischievous stuff they do,” James said.
“We are aware of that. But … we ourselves studied this mission a bit, to make sure it wasn’t just a prank. Are studies came to the conclusion when these magazines came out,” Cornelius said, handing me a page from a printed newspaper.
I looked at them curiously, before turning to read the page.
“‘It’s that time of season again where all kids go haunting each house and asking for treats. Only this year has awoken beasts from the dark, in Calvron Clover Town. Nightmares crawling under everyone’s bed, draining not only their energy but leaving them hopelessly weak, pale, ill, and nearly half dead. Some have been found on the streets with deep wounds and almost bled out. Others seemed to have awoken with half their soul sucked out of them. With Halloween coming up, I’m afraid that this will be taking an unexpected turn, with a curse arising over the town.’” I read out loud.
“Not only that, but it says that there was a strange fog or mist rolling into the town and the strangest noises crawled out from under them,” Dimitri said.
“This is just giving me the creeps just hearing about it,” James said.
“How many miles is this exactly?” I asked them.
“It’s only about a day if you go by train, 48 hours away if you drive,” Cornelius answered.
“Can’t you send the Monster hunting agents to deal with this kind of thing? I’m getting goosebumps just hearing about it,” James said shivering.
“Everyone else rejected this investigation,” Dimitri said.
“And you assigned this mission to us, why?” I asked.
“We think that it’ll be good for the two of you to go and see something out of the ordinary,” Cornelius answered.
“We see things out of the ordinary every day!” James told them.
“James is right. Besides, I’m starting to get very suspicious about this mission,” I mentioned.
“That’s why we’re assigning it to you two. We know that you’re …. Capable of finding a solution to this mystery,” Dimitri said, smiling almost nervously and proudly.
I squinted my eyes and crossed my eyes.
“You two are very talented agents, you got this,” Cornelius said, encouragingly almost in the same exact tone that Dimitri was using, almost as though they were both hiding something.
In fact, I think they were.
“You two are hiding something,” I blurted out.
Dimitri gasped too noticeably to sound like he was offended.
“Izzy! How could you say something like that?!” He asked.
“Izzy’s right. It does look like you’re hiding something. You usually come up with a better reason for sending us on some difficult mission. But a haunted one? You have clearly come up with the lamest reason for assigning us to this mission,” James said.
Cornelius laughed nervously. Dimitri as well. It was clear that something was definitely up.
“What’s the real reason?” I asked.
“Ah! Look at the time, let’s go buy your tickets so that you can get there by the afternoon,” Cornelius said, looking at his watch and walking away with Dimitri by his side.
“Off we go, and you two get ready to head off!” Dimitri ordered.
“Did you see that?” I asked James.
“The way that they just avoided your question?” James said.
“Yeah,” I answered, still watching Dimitri and Cornelius rushing out of sight.
“You are a scary one,” James said playfully, grinning as he looked at me.
I punched him on the arm and turned towards the stairs.
“What was that for?” James asked, running to my side as he rubbed his arm.
“Wasn’t what I meant,” I said, smiling at him.
“I know what you meant. I was just playing with you,” James said.
I grinned at him and he smiled back.
“But you’re right. It was really weird how they just … avoided your question. I have a feeling that they’re hiding something,” James said, frowning.
“There must be something they don’t want us to know,” I said, stepping on the next floor.
James jumped off and joined me. We walked down a hallway, toward the west wing side.
“What do you think they might be hiding?” James asked.
“Don’t know,” I replied.
An agent ran up to us and abruptly blocked our path.
“Sorry, Light. Can you please excuse us?” James said.
“Dear me, am I blocking you from getting somewhere?” Light asked.
Light was an agent like us, but worked on certain cases alone. She said that she didn’t want a partner. A permanent one at least. She has blond hair like James, her eyes were blue as a morning sky on a clear day, and was about the same height as I was.
“In fact you are,” I said.
Light glared at me coldly and crossed her arms at us.
“So I’ve heard that you took a cursed case,” Light said.
“We didn’t take it,” I said.
“It was assigned to us,” James finished.
Light grinned.
“What are you smiling about?” James asked suspiciously.
“Oh what?! Dimitri and Cornelius didn’t tell you?” Light asked, sounding surprised.
“Tell us what?” I asked.
She laughed and shook her head.
“Well all I can say is that I wish you good luck and hope you don’t die on us. Come back to us alive, so we don’t have to go pick your bodies at the end of fall,” Light said, walking away.
James and I looked at each other.
“I have a bad feeling about this mission,” James said as we watched Light walking away as she laughed.
“And you should,” A creepy voice mentioned from behind us.
James and I jumped and quickly turned around.
“You damn idiot!” James growled angrily at agent Thomas.
Thomas was a year older than we were, and even if we worked in the same agency, he worked as a spy and an undercover agent. He has short light brown hair, and forest green colored eyes. He wore the usual spy uniform, with nearly all black, except that his undershirt was white.
“Who are you calling an idiot, James?” He asked in a serious tone.
“You of course,” James said.
“I’d be careful if I were you?” He warned.
“Are you saying that James should be careful of what he says?” I asked him.
Thomas turned to look at me.
“No. But that too,” Thomas said.
“What are you talking about then?” James asked.
