Chapter 8

Howard watched the two head back to the house and the window disappeared. 

"Should I trust them?" he asked the crow preening its feathers on the bed. He had locked the bedroom as soon as he got inside. 

{They are supernatural hunters, those two that is. If I am not wrong since she has a kind of ward around her, that eye that she is covering might be a divine-level artefact. I also suspect that your cousin can sense me. Every one of your team has had exposure to high-level artefacts.}

"Good thing you aren't an artefact then, huh crow?"

It ruffled its feathers angrily at him, {I am not an artefact. I am the god of time.}

"Yeah, yeah that's what you keep on claiming," Howard muttered and ducked as Chronus took a diving sweep at him.

{Where did you get that injury?}

"That's where Violette held a knife against me," he said absent-mindedly rubbing his neck.

{No the one on your neck healed as soon as she removed the knife, I mean the ones on your hands.}

He scanned his hand and saw two paper-thin cuts on his finger and across the back of his hand. They were still glowing an angry red but not paining.

{That doesn't look like it will heal soon, what damaged you?}

Howard shook his head wondering where he got cut. He took a mirror to confirm that the cut on his neck had indeed healed. He saw the crow eyeing him suspiciously.

Three hours later, at nine pm, a silver van trundled down the driveway out of the property. Frank and Howard were seated up front, with Frank behind the wheel. The other three were at the back. 

The van had been stripped and refurbished to act as a movable operating base. Juma had stayed back to operate the communications aspect from the house. The five all wore body suits that were equipped with an internal communication device as well as hidden body cameras. All of which had been purchased beforehand.

"So where we are going is an abandoned piece of extensive land. It was slated to be one of these agricultural farms but the owner died suddenly before any groundbreaking could be done. Later squatters tried to take over the land but they too left. This was twenty years ago. Right now the land is overgrown with weeds and trees as well as several fauna." Howard briefed them.

"What we are looking for is a Fabergé egg, Cherub with a Chariot to be specific. Each of you has been equipped with a handheld metal detector that is powerful enough to detect metal down to a range of a kilometre. Your scanners have also been tuned to a specific frequency to filter out anything that is post-1905."

Frank stopped the car at the end of the road and they all got out. 

"I will stay back at the van," Howard said handing out the devices. "I will be the communication point between Juma and you and keep an eye out."

Frank paired up with Winjoy, Kuronike with Violette. The four of them strapped the paper-thin screens to their forearms.

"I am not expecting trouble or company but be on the lookout," he told them and watched as they melted into the darkness. He shut the back door of the van and got inside from the driver's seat.

{You humans have a way of jinxing moments of items with your mouths.}

The crow appeared and sat in the driver's seat beside Howard. Howard turned off his mic and looked at the crow.

"What do you mean?"

{Just what I said} the crow looked outside. 

"Where is your hammer?" Violette asked her short companion.

He patted his left shoulder twice. 

"You better equip it," she warned him, "We have company."

Nike held out his hand and a hammer materialised in it. The hammer was a shiny silver weapon that was encrusted with emeralds, sapphires and diamonds throughout the hilt. The head was shaped out in two different forms at each end. On one end it was flat-faced and rimmed with more diamonds. The other end tapered off into an axe-like blade with a serrated edge. 

"What are they?"

"Shadow People," came back the whispered reply. 

"Oh fuck!" Nike cursed and heaved the hammer on his palm twice. It glowed bright green on both blades.

{We've got company. Peripherals}

"What are they?"

{Peripherals are part of the Shadowkin and they are ethereal souls that target guardians. They usually go for younglings but if they don't succeed they go for teenagers and older people. They stay away from aged ones though. Old people have no sense of fear but children have the highest and most primal form of fear. They target children to convert them to the dark ways but target adults to destroy them.}

"Should I be worried?"

{You aren't a guardian and even if you were, you have nothing to fear as you are under my protection. They cannot sense you in that manner. No, it is the dwarf and the visionary that need to worry about themselves. This can be a good challenge for them} 

"But why are they here now?"

{The cosmic waves of the Fabergé egg have synchronised with my proximity and opened a destabilized zone enabling passage between realms. Shadowkin are always the first to pass through any rift in the curtain. Unfortunately, the dwarf and his visionary are the two brightest stars now.}

Kuronike and Violette stared into the darkness. The starless darkness that covered the land didn't help them in finding where the Shadowkin were. Their eyes played tricks on them as the shapes of the bushes and trees deceived them. The temperature of the air dropped down a few notches to the point they could see their own breath.

Had they had any doubt of the presence of the Shadowkin, it was now removed. Silence also settled over the area making Violette frown. Something wasn't right but she couldn't dare remove her eyepatch. At least not immediately.

So she relied on her other instincts and decided to close her other eye. She knew with Kuronike watching her back the two were a team to contend with.

Nike on the other hand, stood still as a frozen statue. He was throwing out all his senses when the silence and cold enveloped him. There goes his senses and perception. Good thing Magnarr was primed for battle. Magnarr was his faithful weapon that was almost sentient. He had been in many battles with Magnarr after finding it ten years ago.

With Magnarr's help, he extended his PSI range and stood at the ready. He knew they were there just at the outskirts of his personal sphere of influence watching and bidding their time.

He also knew, where there was a swarm of Shadowkin meant that a Shadow Duke was nearby. His best bet would be to get rid of the leader first before it gets any harder. He felt Violette back into him and her left foot and he readied himself.

The first wave almost caught them off-guard. They jumped from the darkness; masses of dark shadows whose only indication was their very eerie shade of darkness and red glowing eyes. 

Nike remembered the first time he encountered them. He knew what they were at that time and he expected them to smell of death and decay but surprisingly they had no smell. The only indication he had of being attacked was the ice-cold gashes he had received on his exposed skin. He had also felt the most excruciating pain like he was being split into two equal parts. Then the fear which came in relentless waves washing over him, he never wanted to experience that again.

Even as he thought about his first experience, he felt the tattoo on his left shoulder heat up as the sigil provided the needed protection against the fear that was emanating from the horde. 

The shadows tried to break the PSI but he raised his hammer in the air and slammed it onto the ground with much force. On impact, the flat side of the hammer glowed very bright illuminating the whole area. The shadows screeched in terror and tried to hide but a large number of them were vaporised by the light.

Having revealed his card, the remaining Shadowkin watched, their presence betrayed only by those dull red eyes. Magnarr went dim again, the only light being the glowing diamonds around the flat hammer end. 

"He's making his move now."

Howard watched as the first wave of Shadowkin attacked the two on the field. He watched in awe as the hammer appeared out of thin air and how it shone brightly upon impact.

{Does that hammer remind you of anything?}

"Thor's hammer Mjöllnir?" 

The Crow nodded. {That is a divine artefact, fashioned after Mjöllnir but it has the same divine energy as the original.}

"Like a lesser version of Mjöllnir? By the way, I have a question what is the difference between divine artefacts and say you?"

{Let us survive this battle first and then I will train you personally.}

A thought popped up in his mind, he looked at the crow strangely before turning back to the screen.

Winjoy and Frank wandered deeper into the woods following the readings from their screens. Unlike Violette and Nike who were talkative, the pair only conversed when necessary. They both enjoyed the silence and that's why they always paired up.

In her opinion, the worst matchup would be for her and Violette. Not only because she was a fellow woman but she was unruly talkative and very impulsive especially when she decided to use both her eyes.

Another reason was Winjoy had hidden romantic feelings towards Frank though she never displayed it. A rustle behind her made her look back ready to attack. Frank's hand lightly held her shoulder as he told her it was just a small red fox. She turned to look at him and felt waves washing off his body.

Each of them had a different form of PSI. Frank was like a RADAR. He could send out waves from his body to determine his environment. Unlike the other three, his PSI was an external influence, very hard to properly utilise but very effective to discover hidden enemies. 

That was another reason she paired up with him. Her PSI type allowed her to compliment his type perfectly. While both she and Violette had the same type of PSI, she wasn't a stealth type. She was more of a defence type. Initially, her PSI flowed around her like a cloak but she could extend it to cover anyone or anything within a ten metres radius.

Another big difference between her defence PSI and Violette's was that hers was very durable and nothing short of a nuclear missile could dent it.

She envisioned a brick-like-wall spreading outwards for three metres covering her and Frank. He nodded as he felt her PSI form.

"The Shadow Dukes are here," he muttered. "The last time I fought one face to face I suffered a twisted ankle, from running away from it."

Winjoy had never fought a Shadow Duke so she did not know what her partner was scared of. She could sense a wave of fear wash over him.

Then she could feel it. Just at the boundary of her collaborative PSI field with Frank, she felt a cold icy sensation intertwined with theirs. She envisioned a brick wall of fire rapidly being constructed to counter the cold.

"Shadow Dukes are psychological and mental attackers. We have to put up mental barriers until Violette decides to be serious," Frank said, regaining his composure under her barrier.

"Barriers are my forte," Winjoy muttered. She closed her eyes and started visualising barriers protecting her and Frank.