Whitestripe

Chapter 9

Rayne Whitestripe

I knew someone was here, not that I knew how they got here or how close they were. “ENOUGH!” The presence bellowed in front of me. My cat sulked, the voice was commanding, demanding attention, and you would be a fool if you didn’t listen. Gryatt and I both stopped. I couldn't move anyway since I ran face-first into chest o steel and looked up at him. During my leap of escape into Mr. Demanding, he had to grab ahold of me to keep both of us from toppling over. I should say to keep me from rebounding off of him. He didn’t move, but he caught me and righted me. “What the hell is going on here?!” He yelled. Gryatt righted himself from the stairs.

“The w***e attacked me!” Gryatt shouted. “She hit an elder! She needs to be deported! Or just executed!” I shrank. He was right, I did hit an elder. “Security cameras! Now!” I felt his anger was more directed at Gryatt than me, but I was the one being drug up the stairs. He bent down and grabbed my cell as we were walking and handed it to me. Gryatt had a s**t-eating grin on his face. It’s almost like he forgot that he was the one who assaulted me first, though at this point I wouldn’t be surprised if I was the one who was reprimanded for this little display. I was drug into the security room where the cameras were at. My jailor, I want to call him “grabber”, but I would probably end up laughing and getting in more trouble, entered some keys in, and the recordings on the 7th floor showed on the displays. Jailor reversed the cameras until the time when I walked out of Gryatt’s office. It was indeed three feet before a blur came out and you saw Gryatt pinning me against the desk. Jailor switched angles to the side as the audio was re-living the entire conversation. Grabbing boob entered stage left and my skull cracking into Gryatt’s face entered after. Mr. Jailor paused the display and directed his fiery crimson stare on to Gryatt. “She attacked you? It appears to me that not only did you attack her first, but you sexually assaulted her.” He growled as he released my arm. I was thankful because his grip was so tight it was bruising. Gryatt didn’t say anything for once. His eyes were downturned towards the floor. “Gryatt, leave” Jailor demanded. Gryatt didn’t balk he just left. Who was this guy to put this type of fear into the spawn of hell? “Five minutes. We can’t give you five minutes before you get in trouble can we?” Jailor sighed. I recognized his voice when he wasn’t yelling at me. Jailor was Alexander Firewing, my new reporting elder. Oh hell…

“I don’t appreciate being fondled against my will” I growled quietly and looked at the floor. I wasn’t trying to be disrespectful to him, he was obviously way out of my league, but my cat didn’t like feeling 2 inches tall. This man made me feel uneasy. I had never felt this kind of power before, he wasn’t one to be challenged and he demanded respect. I don’t give it unless it’s earned, but with him, I didn’t have a choice.

I’ve heard of him, but I’ve never met him before. He wasn’t one to get in the middle of things, and he didn’t take on regular cases. He was very very old, the records I’ve read of him go back many centuries. Shadows records before then weren’t kept up to date with regular paper methods, but journals. He was mentioned then, as were his files. Part of the training I had when I was first picked up was to learn about the elders and the cases that they were over. Gryatt was boring, most of his information was about his past and how he was turned. His cases were boring, riddled with inconsistencies but overall easy to go through. I was able to find a lot of mistakes that were made, he also didn’t like to get his hands dirty. Instead of going out with the Hunter, he usually sent them out alone or with a partner. A lot of the other elders took on that same mentality, very few of them ventured out into the field. Most of the time they didn’t have to, the task at hand was fairly easy and the hunter was able to wrap it up with ease.

The reason for the training was to maybe see if there was anything that anyone missed and to be tested about what you would have done yourself. Firewing only worked the most difficult cases, he wasn’t out on the field much at all, but when he was, the cases could take him months up to a couple years depending on the severity. His case files were detailed, and some took me weeks to go through and he was always out on his own without a hunter. He was thorough, that's for sure. It dawned on me, I didn’t pay much attention before, but if Firewing was assigned to this case; it would be more difficult than I thought. I only knew of the one death that I came across. I wonder if there were more casualties that were being kept from me. My heart sank, what am I balls deep into? I sat there as Firewing replayed the security footage from the 7th floor to me running down the stairs and picking up his call, my pausing to answer and then Gryatt yelling, then my continual descent down until Gryatt crashed into me. He didn’t fly into me, he just jumped off the previous flight of stairs. Then the fight played across the screen and then Firewing appeared. It was just that, a ball of smoke and fire and he was just there. I wanted to ask how he did that, but I wasn’t going to bring attention to myself. “You attacked an elder” was all he said after he logged out of the footage. “Yes sir.” I didn’t deny it, damn; attention back on me. “You know the penalty.” He stated. He didn’t ask, he knew I knew the penalty. I thought those exact same thoughts as I descended the stairs.

I'm certain I was in deep shit