Malevolent

The Wait

The Caucus of Hunters was a tight-knit group of representatives from the best Hunter families. They consisted of seven members from different families across the New York metropolis, and acted as the governing body for the race of Hunters present in the city.

George Ravenwood, Celia Ravenwood's husband, was the head of the Caucus. He had been away on some Hunter business concerning the dead bodies when Maddie had been brought into the Manor, so she hadn't had the liberty of meeting the man.

Celia his wife had summoned the Caucus to the manor shortly after Maddie had regained consciousness, to discuss the next step to take on her behalf. They had walked into the manor in all their numbers, and Maddie hadn't been given the chance to see them. She had been pushed rather unceremoniously into a room adjacent the study, where the Caucus were supposed to have their meeting.

Maddie found it unfair that Jason, Cassie and Ethan had been allowed to attend the meeting that would somehow decide her fate, while she was being forced to wait it out in a dingy room. She stared out the window of the room she was kept in, an extension of the study. She could hear their almost imperceptible murmurs and whispered as they discussed in the study.

She'd tried to entertain herself with a few books she found on the shelves in the room, but apprehension had robbed her of her concentration. They were discussing about her, some delegated members of the Caucus, the Sword Sisters and the Ravenwoods. She couldn't possibly stay still. What if they sent her away? She had nowhere else to go that would be safe for what was definitely coming for her. Or worse–

What if they decided to kill her because she was too dangerous?

The thought was so scary that she groaned and stood up from her perch, pacing the room. She'd seen several of those blades that the Hunters used on their enemies. One even stood in a glass case in the study. She imagined how quickly it would cut through human skin.

"You know about the Sword Sisters' diagnosis, don't you?" She turned to see Jason standing at the doorway, turning a knife in his hands as usual.

"Yes." Maddie turned back to the window, a frown creasing her forehead as she thought of her session with the Sisters, where after waking from her fainting fit, the Sword Sisters had summoned Jason's mother Celia Ravenwood and told her that Maddie was a very unusual phenomenon. "They think I'm a freak"

"Not necessarily a freak" Jason pointed out, coming to stand by her at the window "I mean, in this normal world, we Hunters are all freaks. You're more like an exception to a norm."

"Well I'd like to be a part of that norm" She grumbled and pushed her glasses up her nose.

Jason watched this small, bespectacled red-haired girl grumble and stare out the window. He smiled.

"Sometimes, being the norm isn't as fun as you think. I think, as an exception, you're given a lot more slack than you think. Since I was ten years old I'd had to train to be a warrior. It's hard, Maddie. This life of killing and bloodshed. You should be happy you were not born into it"

This life of killing and bloodshed. Maddie looked at Jason, at the hard set of his jaw and brow, at his green eyes that looked so old and yet were so young, at his long blonde hair tied into a ponytail, and wondered just how many bloodsheds he'd had to witness as a young boy.

"What I don't seem to understand is why my dad kept all of this from me. If he'd told me who I was and who my mother was a little earlier, I might have been able to understand all of this more, might have been able to save him from being kidnapped. And now he's missing and God alone knows where he is" The tears that so betrayed her was coming again. She wasn't so much sad as she was angry at her dad, and when she was angry, Maddie tended to express it in tears.

Jason looked at her for seconds, then cleared his throat "Can you stop crying, please? I am a bit deficient in the art of consoling weeping maidens"

Maddie glared at him "Oh, shut up"

"I cannot help it"

Maddie could not help but smile through her tears. However tough Jason looked, he sure had a weird sense of humor.

Jason stopped twirling the blade in his hands and handed it to Maddie, hilt first. "I want you to have this"

Maddie collected the knife and held it in the sunlight that spilled from the window. "Why? I'm barely a warrior"

Jason chuckled "But you're a Hunter. Every Hunter has the right to a Celestial Blade"

Maddie turned the knife in her hands. It had a leather handle and a bronze blade, engraved with more strange symbols that seemed to move snakelike up and down the blade.

"And speaking of where your father is, I have an idea about where he could be kept"

Maddie felt her heart jump to her throat "Really?"

"Yes. But this house is not the best place to talk about it. My mom has forbidden us to do any more research about Aosoth or anything relating to her, and has instructed us to leave it to older, more experienced Hunters. But one thing you'll learn soon enough from Cassie, Ethan and I, is that we tend to defy authority. Let's go."