"Are you sure about this? Did you check everywhere?" I ask, hoping my face didn't betray the fuming anger the report caused.
"Yes ma'am, nobody saw them leave the manor. And we found no trail despite searching everywhere," the Werewolf with an eye patch responds while lowering his head.
The black-haired agent is from a distant branch family and one of my most loyal Trackers. And I didn't expect him to not find anything. Avoiding his keen senses and powerful spells that allowed him to pinpoint the position of a grain of sand from the other side of the planet isn't a mean feat.
And it's even more impressive when considering that this was done right under our nose, under our own roof.
This means they somehow knew about my intentions and prepared counter-measures without alerting me or the personnel. I am proud in a certain sense since I know my agents' capabilities, and it wouldn't be boasting to say they are some of the best-trained Enforcers in the world.
So slipping under the radar despite all those obstacles means they are more competent than I give them credit for.
*Or they had the help of someone else, maybe it's that human? We don't know anything about him...*
However treason seems unlikely since I know my children well enough. They aren't interested in usurping a power that will soon be theirs. They are also aware that infighting in our current situation will cause the death of our entire Family.
I suppress the growl caused by my negative thoughts and dismiss the Enforcer who lowers his head before disappearing into the shadows.
Slouching on my chair doesn't help me relax and makes my shoulder pains flare up, causing an unsightly grimace to appear on my face for a moment. But my honed instincts take control and replace it with the poker face I wear everywhere I go. This habit became a second nature after all those years in the Council.
A quick glance at the old picture of a young, smiling man on my desk makes my heart ache and causes many memories to resurface. From the first day we met to our children's first steps, and the tragic day when everything went wrong…
I hide the picture frame in my drawer to stop the flood of painful memories. The blood and screams are still too fresh in my mind.
I sigh and use various healing spells on my shoulders to calm my worn out joints. I flinch when they crack.
*It took longer than last time… I'm getting old, aren't I?*
My doctor keeps telling me that I need to rest and I should stop working so much. But what does she knows?! I had my limbs ripped off countless times and still fought until I passed out from exhaustion! So I won't be defeated by some stiff shoulders!
But I need to focus on the cause of my irritation rather than submerge myself in memories of battles fought long ago.
It's on the front-pages of the local HiddenNet: The sudden attack of a powerful mage in a lecture hall was thwarted at the last second by two Werewolves and a human wielding an assault rifle.
The two Werewolves are my own children, and the human had been resting here until a couple hours ago. This leads me to another report, this time from Liandra. She's my chief doctor who took care of him during his brief stay.
My good-for-nothing son said the human was hit by a Death Beam, something I found hard to believe. But I know the muscle-brain, and he isn't a liar. Which is troublesome: Liandra said the boy is just a regular human. Yet he bears no traces of damage at all, which is even stranger.
I know he was wearing a personal shield. But it was a cheap, mass-produced one that wouldn't offer any real protection against a power of this magnitude. This is already suspicious, but the real problem is the fact that he has no mana in his body at all.
This is common for Outsiders but unheard of for any resident of the Hidden World. This leaves me with two options: Either he's a cripple from a powerful family that hid his existence, which I doubt, or there's a security breach.
Sadly my sons' actions after he woke up all but revealed that the second option is the truth, and they are somehow involved in all of this.
Otherwise, they wouldn't have disobeyed a direct order. They were supposed to bring the human for interrogation, but they fled without a trace.
*So we have rogue Enforcers who broke the Rules and, as if it couldn't get worse, they are my own children.*
It's certain that I'm not the only one to discover that John Thomson is an Outsider. Families with better intelligence gathering capacities than ours probably already investigated this case.
And that means the Wolfheart's involvement will soon be known.
I really hope those idiotic sons of mine have a good reason for involving an Outsider and not informing me. Or else I will smash them into a pulp.
This entire situation gives me a headache: The disappearances, and now this…
We'll be lucky if we keep our heads by the end of the week.
...
"FUCK!" Riley shouts as he kicks a crate and ends up covering his foot with the dreaded black sludge.
This only makes him even more enraged, causing him to kick more crates in a vicious cycle of anger and rotten fish.
Steve and I watch as the Werewolf vents his anger on decades-old crates for ten minutes. He calms down once the smell of rotting flesh becomes too overwhelming and makes him gag.
Riley sighs and glares at the cause of his outburst, a giant icicle lodged into the wall. It had appeared in the middle of the ritual and is now melting into a puddle.
"So, have you calmed down?" Steve asks.
Riley nods at the question and takes deep breaths. His furious glare is still focused on the ritual smeared with his own blood.
Blood that is still dripping from the wound caused by the icicle that pierced his chest before anyone could react.
"This bastard…" the Werewolf mutters as he drinks another vial of red potion, causing him to grimace and shudder as his organs and bones regenerate.
"The worst thing is even if we had defused the trap in time, following the trail would make us land in the middle of an active fucking volcano!" he says after kicking a piece of wood that shatters under the force of the impact.
The hopelessness of our situation is something we are all aware of. The trail left behind by the mage was the only clue we had on his whereabouts.
And it had been a trap all along.
"So what do we do now?" I ask, breaking the heavy silence.
"I have no fucking idea!" Riley shouts and grimaces since his outburst causes another crimson stain to appear on his clothes.
"We need to stay calm, I'm sure-" Steve's expression turns grim when his phone rings, "For fuck's sake!"
He shows us his phone and we all say profanities under our breath: There had been another attack two hours ago.
This time it was a shopping mall in the next town and the casualty reports were already bone-chilling even if the bodies were still being counted.
It's likely that the total body count is in the triple digits.
The disgusting pictures makes me avert my eyes: Blood and body parts covered the aisles, and there are piles of cadavers everywhere.
My heart sinks since there's no way we can defeat someone as powerful as this mage, even if we are able to find him.
The stupidity of my actions hit me.
What was I thinking, opposing someone like that? The Mermen incident made me underestimate the Hidden World, and I should have realized sooner that my survival back then was just a fluke. After all, I barely survived the encounter despite knowing how everything would play out.
Even with the Rewinder, what can I do to oppose someone who can kill hundreds, or even thousands, in a few minutes? The worst is that I dragged my friends into this mess without a second thought, persuaded I could just rewrite the timeline if things didn't work out.
And now they are being hunted down by their own family while my death inevitably approaches.
"Shit, this isn't good!"
Riley shows me the contents of his phone, taking out of my stupor. The headline makes my jaw drop and destroys the last shred of hope I still had.
The headline announced our demise in big, bold letters:
ANNUAL COUNCIL MEETING TO BE HELD TOMORROW IN RESPONSE TO THE RECENT ATTACKS!
...
I punch straight through my desk and the shockwave sent hundreds of pieces of paper flying around the room.
But I am too blinded by rage to care and punch the desk again, turning the finely crafted piece of furniture into a charred pile of wood chips.
*Those bastards, how dare they! After all I've done!*
The reason for my anger is an official summon letter from the Council. I glare at the piece of enchanted paper: The meeting has been rescheduled to deal with the rogue mage. But I know the cutthroats at the Council, and the truth behind all the flowery language is clear.
This isn't just a Council meeting, but a trial to decide the fate of my Family.
The attacks provided a convenient excuse for the families conspiring against us for generations to band together. They made us look like incompetents who neglected their duties and abused their power. Stories about extortion, stealing and unwarranted violence appeared all over the HiddenNet and showed no sign of stopping.
*The timing is just too perfect, isn't it?! They're not even hiding their involvement anymore!*
The effects of the smear campaign are already hitting us. Our patrols report that people flee as soon as they show up, and some civilians even attacked them. I was forced to order everyone to not respond to the aggressions and to come back home. Fighting back would just make the people hate us even more.
A timid knock on the door takes me out of my thoughts. The door creaks open as a terrified werefox secretary hands me a phone with trembling hands.
"T-This is the Patriarch of the Scalebound family..."
She lets out a meek scream as lightning flares around me. The secretary nearly faints when I raise my hand to dismiss her, and she runs away as fast as she can.
The Scalebound is a large family of Dragonewts whose territory borders ours. It's an open secret that they have their sights set on our territory, and they can be considered the leaders of the ones who are conspiring against us. So far they had no successes and all their attempts to usurp our power were stopped, and they always paid a heavy price.
But the recent events made them sense weakness and motivated them to try again. I also doubted that the Patriarch wasn't involved in the disappearances and the rogue mage. Especially when considering his past involvement in unsavory plots.
"Alice, it had been a long time since we talked. How have you been?" Hearing the grating voice of the Patriarch nearly makes me crush the phone.
"Erdis, I've been fine, and what about you? I hope your leg isn't acting up too much, I read that cold temperatures are bad for this kind of thing…"
I can almost hear the change of expression caused by my question. One of our agents, who received a promotion once I heard about his heroic actions, completely crushed the Patriarch's leg by blowing up the house of a group of drug dealers that he was in. The damage was so severe that Erdis now walked with a limp and needed a cane despite the Dragonewt's superior healing factor.
"Don't worry about it, I'm fine," he replies while grinding his teeth.
"I'm so glad to hear it. But I doubt you called to exchange pleasantries."
"As sharp as ever! I heard there was another attack on your territory. And from the initial reports, it's the same mage who attacked the lecture hall a few days ago. Now, tell me if I'm wrong but the fact that an Outsider helped stop the first attack, and with all the disappearances that show no signs of stopping… Are you sure you can handle it? The Scalebound are happy to provide aid since you are having difficulties."
*This bastard doesn't even hide his happiness… And the casual mention of an Outsider means he knows too much already.*
"Erdis, listen carefully, what I will say is very important." My tone betrays the amount of killing intent I have for the Patriarch, but his last remark made me drop all pretenses. "Go fuck yourself!"
I then end the call by crushing the phone between my fingers.
...
Nobody says anything, we just sit here in a daze, unable to accept the reality displayed in front of us. Even the enthusiastic Riley is staring at the ground in silence while despair and anguish are swirling in his lifeless eyes. Steve, on the other hand, takes out his anger on the surrounding furniture.
We are doomed, and there's nothing I can do.
I rack my brain to find a solution, but I see no ways of getting out of this alive. Negotiations aren't an option unless we kill the mage, and even then my chances of survival are small. Riley and Steve might get out of this scot-free, but I am a criminal in the eyes of the Enforcers and their Council.
*For fuck's sake, I don't even know what this bloody Council even is!*
A quick search on the HiddenNet answers my question: It's an organization formed by the most powerful local Enforcers Families. They meet once a year to discuss various problems, solve issues and the likes.
And also apparently murder anyone they didn't like.
"So…" an out of breath Steve break the silence, "Anyone has any idea? Or are we going to sit here and wait for some Council lackey to arrest us?"
"We can't do anything unless the mage appears in front of us and surrender..." Riley answers with a resigned voice.
"Fuck, is there nothing we can do? Are you sure we can't escape? There must be a planet similar enough to Earth somewhere…" my muttering makes the Werewolf sigh.
"That would only prolong the inevitable. We are still under Earth's jurisdiction even if we flee to a planet with different Rules than our own. Like I said before, the Enforcers there would just drag you back here so you can be judged."
"So what can we do? To make it clear, what is likely to happen at the Council meeting?"
Riley cups his chin, "Well, the attacks and the disappearances on our territory are making our Family look bad, so the Families that are our enemies will push for sanctions. And if those bastards banded together then who knows what they could accomplish. They may even judge us as abusive and negligent. And that would mean a Family-wide extermination."
My eyes bulge at the revelation, killing an entire family is just too brutal!
"And that's for us, for you the situation is different… Unless we find this mage then you will die."
Dying isn't something I like doing, so I rack my brains to find a solution.
We need to find the mage but with the Council meeting that's just around the corner...
*Even if we found him it would be too late to influence their decision. If only we had more time, then-*
Wait.
Something clicks in my head. The slaughter at the shopping mall caused the meeting to be held earlier than normal, so maybe-
I turn my head towards Riley, "Hey, do you have a way to silence a large area?"
The Werewolf nods, "Yeah, I could draw a ritual that would block any sound from leaking out from somewhere, but-"
"And how much time would this take?" I interrupt.
"I don't know, it depends on the size. For example, I would need about half an hour for something as big as this warehouse. But why are you asking?"
"I think I have an idea. Do you also have something that could act as some sort of tracking device?"
"We have some in our armories, and we could snatch one or two without being noticed." Steve is the one who answers. A spark of hope is shining in his eyes. "Do you have a plan?"
The plan in my head takes shape as I pull out my phone. I take a deep breath: I know it's a shot in the dark and might make the situation worse.
But I am out of options and, quite frankly, doubt that anything could be worse than the current situation. If my plan succeeds then the Council meeting will not be rescheduled and we might get a real opportunity to get our hands on that mage.
*Or this idea will just get us killed.*
I shake my head, now isn't the time to be haunted by doubt. For all I know Enforcers are closing in on our location right at this moment so I have to make a decision.
I close my eyes and press the Rewind button.