The Hunter

Springing the Trap

Finn stepped from the house and into an alley. The door faded into the brickwork behind her and was gone in a moment. She shifted her small bag on her back and wrapped the heavy woolen coat around her tighter, the sword and belt sat just out of this reality, which she was glad of as she stepped from the alley into a crowd of people moving along a busy street.

Her red hair was a shock of colour among all the brunettes that was in this tour group, but that didn't matter to her. Finn stayed with the group until they entered the museum and passed the reconstruction on the medieval wing. She waited for them to move on and entered the construction area, ducking under the barriers as she pulled her hair into the severe bun she was most used to. She pulled the hood of her coat up and found a convenient alcove to stand in.

She could feel her target across the room. It sat as still as her, watching its surroundings, waiting. She would wait as well, although she knew what the price was likely to be. The museum closed and the first patrol of security passed her by. She watched them as they progressed past her and out of her field of vision.  Conversation from the other side of the wing carried along the marble walls, too soft for Finn to make out, but her target obviously knew one of the people intimately as its focus went from everywhere to hyper focused on the other end of the wing.

Finn listened to the clack-clack of shoes approaching rapidly and watched a shadow crawl up the floor. The owner of both turned towards her target and she drew in a deep breath, allowing the sword to appear and the coat to fade. She felt the glance her target cast over her area before it focused on the newcomer again. Finn waited and listened.

"This is amazing." The voice was older and feminine. "To think a book this valuable was just sitting in this wing this whole time." Finn felt the urge to slam her forehead into the wall at the level of cliché in what she was hearing. She heard a page turn.

"A preservation spell? Ooh, and these ingredients are so basic! And this would work!" The shadow appeared again on the floor as Finn stepped slowly and quietly from her alcove. She finished her step watching the shadow and paying attention to her target.

As the shadow shifted again on the cement but the sound of shoes didn't continue Finn stepped forward carefully. Her target was completely engrossed in what was happening in the next section and she sent out a silent prayer that she would be in time to prevent the kill and she stepped up to the sheeting covered scaffolding that blocked her view of the area. She heard a page turn and a sharp intake of breath and cursed.

Stepping from around the vision barrier Finn swung her sword up blindly. Connecting the flat of it with a book that had launched itself off the table where it sat at an older woman in the stereotypical clothes of a history professor. The book snapped shut, it's teeth - which Finn knew from experience would have only just appeared - crunching into the metal brace of the scaffolding. The metal screeched and the book with it's new metal chew toy flipped into the shadows.

"What the hell-" The woman started  before she noticed the sword in Finn's hand. Finn watched the shadows a moment before she glanced at the woman. A trickle of blood on her hand was the only sign of the papercut that had sealed her contract with the demon that existed within the book. 

"Consider yourself lucky and stay there until security comes through again." Finn ordered before she stepped into the shadows, pulling a small bundle of cords from her pocket as she cast her eyes around looking for the book in whatever form it had taken now. She expected the demon to have shifted to a form to hide better, expected it to have realized the tie that bound them together. Instead she found herself falling to the floor and scrambling back as an impossibly muscled man with a tiny charm of a book on a necklace around his throat swung the chewed metal bar of scaffolding at her head.

"Just can't help yourself can you? We should stop meeting like this." He said as he advanced on her, the bar in his hand. Finn growled and teleported herself to a standing position a few feet away with more room to make use of her sword around her.

"Twice isn't exactly a habit, and this will be the last time." Finn answered his barb.

"Three times by my count." He laughed and saliva dripped from his maw. "Or do you not count the time I took those girls?"

Finn growled and brought her sword up towards his head. He parried easily with the bar and shoved her back down and to the ground where Finn scrambled up and faced him again. "I've only hunted you twice. There won't be a third time."

"Glad your skinny, scrying ass foresaw your death at my hands." He lunged and Finn stepped back, allowing his arm to graze her shoulder as he swung the bar down, and shoving her sword into his gut. He roared and stumbled, casting the sword away from his body and glaring at Finn as his torso healed itself.

"Heh, didn't do your homework right did you?" He stood and bared his teeth at Finn in a rictus of a smile. "There's the insult, now for the injury." As he stepped forward Finn turned and tried to sprint away. The ball of cords in her hand now wrapping around her fingers.

She felt his hand grab onto her shirt and pull her back, spinning her into his arms and holding her in a viselike grip against his chest. She brought her knees up and slammed them into his thighs.

"Wonder what you taste like. Your brother said you were pure, are you still?"

Finn jerked her arms up and stumbled as she fell to her feet. In her hand the book was bound by the cords from the spell she had been holding. They wouldn't hold long, but they would hold until she could get him away from collateral damage.

"You'll never know." She said as she stepped past the woman on the ground. The guards had just gotten to the entrance to this wing and Finn waved them over, calling out as though afraid. "Help! The professor's hurt!"

As the guards ran towards her she stepped back from the area with the book tucked under her coat. The sword was back in its sheath and hidden from the world. The guards ran past her and she ran out of the wing and to the doors to the outside world. She whispered a spell and stepped through them and into the street where she joined a group of bar hoppers and revelers out for a good time.

As with nearly all museums there was a park nearby and Finn took the book there, tossing it unceremoniously onto the cement before pulling chalk out of a pocket of her coat. One of the cords snapped and whipped across her wrist, numbing her hand. She cursed and grabbed at the book. As the rest of the cords snapped apart she ran to the small shed and threw open the door, dragging the shaking book in behind her.