The echoing dark expanded through the room, seeming to move and engulf the space. Tiny, tired candles sputtered in their doomed attempts to fend off the ever encroaching night. There was something moving in the inky black, sliding between the rings of candlelight as most would walk through a door. A milky white eye opened, darting back and forth, before closing once more.
"You're late," Xavier said sternly, tapping his fingers against the bicep of his folded arms.
"This one is never late," replied the figure crouched on the shoulder of a mouth-less statue. "This one arrives when it is this one's time to arrive."
"Your time to arrive is when I tell you to."
"Scornful one may believe in controlling every facet that is life, but this one knows that cannot be." The voice was purposefully quiet, half melding with the shadows surrounding them. The one in the darkness was more comfortable there; a place to hide and to strike.
"One so cowardly to never show your face couldn't hope to understand anything." Xavier rolled his eyes as he restrained the urge to lash out for his subordinate's inappropriately waggling tongue.
The answer was a soft growl from above his head.
"I have a new hunt for you," he continued, ignoring the cold breath that pass by his ear. It vanished a moment later.
"This one is listening."
"A girl who walks on moonlight."
"Moonlit one must be special prey."
"She is; you won't be killing her."
A whine of disappointment filled the air. Xavier heard fists slam against the statue his hunter was on. A huff followed, mumbling soon after that. It was hard for a predator to simply take a prey rather than slaughter it. However, a shaper was far too valuable to waste their blood on the ground.
"Are you done with your temper tantrum?" Xavier looked down at the toe of his boot to see a rather large, recluse spider resting there rather arrogantly. He flicked his foot, sending the brown arachnid through the air.
There was a crunchy, wet thud and the spider was pinned to the side of a candle with a narrow, six-inch long needle. Its gangly legs flailed momentarily, before they all curled in and it moved no more. A single streak of dull green goo dripped to the floor.
"This one is resolved," said the shifting shadow as a white eye closed back into nothingness.
"I'm glad to hear it," Xavier answered, tossing his ponytail over his shoulder. "I would hate to give your hunt to someone else."
"This one thinks scornful one would enjoy that."
"Well, of course either way I get what I want."
"This one thinks scornful one would want to torment this one with the lost hunt, with this one's chains. This one thinks scornful one gets off on it."
A serpentine smile twisted Xavier's lips into a mockery of a positive expression. His tongue slipped between his lips as he felt a familiar thirst claw up his throat. The nameless buffoon had not been satisfying; an infuriating sense of serenity had dominated the idiot's last moments. Still, he gave up more information on the girl than he could know. All Xavier needed was patience.
The shadow above him growled, and the sound softened as if the source was moving away. Candles coughed, one by one going out as their wicks finally accepted their fate in darkness. A cold gust of air passed through the room, transforming into a mimic of low wails as it passed through carefully designed and manipulated coils of metal.
"Do you think her moonlight will touch you in your beloved shadows?" Xavier pushed away from the wall, pacing the silent steps of his hunter.
"This one doubts," was the scattered reply. The voice whispered from any dark spot in the space. "This one will extinguish moonlit one."
"What did I say about killing?"
"This one understands."
"I don't think you do," Xavier spat, scowling. "If you make her useless to me, I will end your existence in despair and pain."
"Moonlit one will be returned useful to scornful one." The door on the other side of the room clicked, opening just as Xavier reached it.
However, he did not even see his hunter leave. Light flooded in, casting him into sharp relief and spilling a long shadow behind him to the floor. The fear of light was so intense, the hunter had escaped before the room was illuminated. All the witnesses had said the girl had stepped from moonlight itself. But in the night, shadows far out numbered the moon's silver gaze.
There was the soft scuff of a shoe against the floor that made Xavier pause. His eyes narrowed as he looked over his shoulder into the room. No other sound reached him, but he could feel the gaze of another. It was calculating, easy, yet intense and full of intent. Then it was gone, with nothing accompanying it that would trigger his senses. Xavier scoffed, tugged the cuff of his gloves straight, and left.
The hunt had begun.
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