Summary: Okay, I'm not good at summaries, but here we go. Secerno is an immortal Thief hunter ( a thief is a vampire who feeds on souls basically and I'll write a story about them later) who fears getting close to anyone around him because they always get hurt. However, he let himself get close to one person: his best friend, Darius, an ancient warrior who found happiness with a modern woman. Now, their eleven year old daughter's life depends on him killing someone he has never met. Someone who, incidently, turns out to mean something to him...Now he must chose between friendship and an unstable love. Rated R for future violence, future sexuality, and extreme angst...in the future. Obviously, this chapter is just the beginning. Kind of boring, so please come back and read later chapters: It will get better.

Chapter 1

It was a somewhat chilly Tuesday night in March when it happened. Secerno, who normally was never surprised by much of anything, was forced to consider this unexpected development as a the tip of a sharp, lethal, and primitive-looking spear was pressed against the column of his throat. How interesting...the Thieves, it seems, were getting sneakier, and far smarter.

He sighed, and moved the spear away from his throat with a wave of his hand. They had picked a rather bad moment to turn up and ambush him, sadly: right in the middle of Cilia's birthday party. Oh, they were going to pay for that. He sighed heavily, and glanced at Darius nad his wife, Sarah. They seemed mildly annoyed, but not fearful, and he didn't blame them.

“What do you want, Natrix? Someone as foul as you has no business interrupting our celebration.” Secerno said calmly, his voice cool as frost. It was Cilia’s birthday, and this band of Thieves had no right to come and destroy a young girl’s eleventh birthday party, especially when everyone had thought she would die from a weak heart before she reached eight years old. Every birthday since then was a miracle, and they treated it as such, and anyone who ruined Darius and Sarah’s happiness would answer to him. It was surprising, however, that Natrix would come today, of all days; Secerno had been expecting him to attack him much sooner, since as of late he had been distracted with preparations for Cilia’s party, and finding the perfect gift for the odd little girl: a pet flying squirrel named Diablo which would probably drive Sarah mad, but would make his beloved god-daughter happy. He loved the child like she was his own, and that was saying something, considering he had always found children in general to be an extreme annoyance: Cilia, however, was different, a devil in an angel’s skin, pale and beautiful as the moon but with a will and strength that cowed all others.

“You should know, o pretty hunter,” Natrix said mockingly, his words laced with disdain over Secerno’s physical appearance. If it had been anyone else on the receiving end, the comment would have offended them; however, Secerno only sighed, and continued to look tiredly into Natrix’s sneering face. It was how everyone reacted when they saw him, enemy or no: his impossibly stunning countenance had been ridiculed for ages, envied by men and drooled over by women ever since he was a little over thirteen, and the only exceptions, of course, were Darius and Sarah, bless them. His looks made him the subject of many cruel and heartless jokes by every man he knew, and, even though he knew it would stop the teasing, he had refrained from telling them that they needn’t be jealous of him and hide their wives and daughters whenever he came near. He had never, and would never, be interested in women, a fact which Darius and Sarah had accepted, and probably even appreciated. However, they were the first, and only, ones he had ever told: Natrix and those of his like still viewed him as a threat to their women as well as to their society, and nothing Secerno could say would change that. He looked at Natrix, who stood tall and nearly as beautiful in front of him, an unusual glint in his eyes. To Natrix’s credit, he had managed to keep his ugliness on the inside, and didn’t look a day over twenty, and Secerno knew him to be thousands of years old, one of the big Thief leaders that Secerno regularly worried about every year. The other, of course, was Ian, and, while he only killed sinners and very rarely did it, he and his people had a feast about once a year: they wiped out roughly two hundred homeless people in the two hours they spent feeding. Secerno hadn’t seen him and his goons in a while, so he had stopped worrying about what Ian was doing. The only time he ever worried was on May 2nd, when the bastard had his feast, every damn year in the alleyways of the city. The man was tough as hell to find unless he wanted to be found, and so at the beginning of of every April he started searching, only to find him minutes too late. It was only one other thing he had too worry about in the month of March, and he didn’t have time to worry about Natrix, since the man was usually more of an amusement than a threat. However, now he didn’t look amusing: he looked like the old monster he was, his lineless face seeming evil in its perfection, and his straight, coal black strands of hair looking like tiny knives in the dim light. Flashing his white teeth, filed down to resemble the those of the vampiric creature he was portrayed as, he looked like the predator of the night he was, and Secerno almost believed he was serious this time. Almost.

“Well, then, if you're a man, let’s go away from here and have our little battle,” Secerno announced pleasantly, wanting to get him away from the party goers who had now begun to stare at them, but mainly at the primitive weapons they carried. Darius and Sarah would understand: the others would not, and he didn’t want to have to answer questions, or, heaven forbid, have any of them be hurt. However, instead of taking the bait Secerno had dangled in front of him like he normally would have, he smiled a truly cruel smile, one that put Secerno on instant alert. There was nothing safe or calm about that smile.

“Oh, not this time. I am not here to kill you, Secerno. I have…a proposition for you.”

“No,” he said, not hesitating. He wanted nothing to do with Natrix or his dirty dealings, and he especially wanted nothing to do with the drugs he sold and no doubt sampled. However, Natrix laughed, and in an instant, Secerno, Darius, Sarah, and Cilia were transported to a dim alley, with only the light of a single streetlamp to cut through the darkness. Secerno blinked at the newly discovered power. Apparently, Natrix had been practicing, or found an alternant energy source to instantly transfer them to another place, almost flawlessly. However, Secerno smiled when he saw the subtle signs of a bad teleportation, like the frayed cuffs of his shirt and the somewhat lopsided tilt of Natrix’s eyes, which soon corrected its self. Apparently, he hadn’t been practicing enough for a complete teleportation, but the automatic correction of the mistakes startled him. Yes, something new was definitely in the picture.

“You didn’t even hear me out, Secerno,” he said silkily, threateningly. With a speed faster than Secerno had thought him capable of, he snapped out a hand and pulled Cilia away from them, and Secerno released a cry of outrage before he could stop himself. Secerno’s heart beat faster in panic. Natrix might not be that strong, but he could still hurt a sick little girl if Secerno tried to get her away from him. Secerno didn’t want anything to happen to her, a fact which Natrix and his henchmen obviously knew, judging from the pleased looks on their faces at his instinctive reaction.

“Now, let me explain this proposition to you, Secerno, if you don’t want anything to happen to little Cilia,” he said almost sweetly, and brushed a hand across Cilia’s hair in a gesture that chilled his heart. Cilia looked terrified, and again, Secerno thought of her small little heart, beating quickly in her tiny chest, and he wanted to scream. What if she stopped breathing, or had her heart give out from fear? His poor little angel would die, and he would be left alone, losing the only true acceptance he had ever had, the love of a child. Darius and Sarah loved him enough, he supposed, but not like Cilia, not with a love without conditions or the fear he could smell on them when they thought they had hidden it. No, he couldn’t lose Cilia. His decision was only reinforced when Cilia whispered fearfully.

“I’m scared. Mommy, Daddy, I’m scared.”

“It’s alright, sweetheart. Your godfather’s just talking to the man. Everything will be alright,” said Darius, with a voice made to comfort, a surprising sound coming from a ruthless man who had once decimated thousands of soldiers in battle. However, Cilia calmed somewhat, and Secerno heard her heart slow down, just a little, but enough to be healthy. Still, he couldn’t let Cilia panic again, or something bad might happen to her. With a sigh, he looked at Natrix with a coolly hateful look.

“Speak Natrix, and be quick about it.”

“Very well, Secerno, I live to please,” he said, and handed Cilia off to a man to his right, and not to Darius or Sarah, as Secerno would have liked. Then, the man covered her ears, and Secerno knew in that instant that Natrix’s proposition was something worse than drug dealing.

“I want you to watch someone for me, Secerno, for three months, that’s all. This particular person is a seventeen year old boy named Tech, or High-Flying Tech, as is his nickname.”

“You want me to watch someone? A boy, no less?” That was certainly not what he had expected, and not what his instincts told him was the entire proposition.

“Why yes, nothing more. Unless…” he continued, a smile on his face. Secerno watched as the man continued to cover Cilia’s ears. They definitely didn’t want her to hear this part.

“Unless what?” Secerno asked impatiently. Cilia needed her medicine, she needed to eat her birthday cake, and he didn’t have time to waste on Natrix. The bastard even had the nerve to smile slightly at his harshly spoken question.

“Unless, towards the end of those three months, our friend starts to experiment with silver nitrate. If he does, you will kill him.”

Secerno took a deep breath. This was what he had expected from Natrix, and his mind whirled as his morals battled with one another. Kill a young boy to keep his god-daughter alive? There was more to this proposition than what Natrix was telling him, he knew. There was something the Thief could gain from this boy’s death, or at least by watching him. Why Secerno had been chosen to monitor him, he did not know.

“Why me?” he asked softly. He did not want to hurt this boy, even though he did not know him.

“Why, because you are expendable, of course, and hard to kill, besides. This boy is…unique…and somewhat dangerous. He has certain qualities that make him tricky to apprehend, or even spot, with my men.”

A reasonable explaination, but Secerno knew there was something he wasn't telling him. Something about silver nitrate.

"What is the importantance of silver nitrate?" Secerno asked, looking attentively at Natrix out of the corner of his eye. If it meant so much to a Thief, he couldn't possibly do this, even to save Cilia. His heart was saddened by this.

"No importance, really. Just a slight annoyance."

He lied, that much was easy to tell, and Secerno inteneded to find out why.

"Very well. Give me back my god daughter and I will do this." If Natrix would give him back Cilia, maybe he could just blast the bastard and beat the information out of him, without risking harming his darling. However, whatever had enhanced Natrix's power had also enhanced his intelligence, because he just wagged his finger at him and continued to smile.

"Naughty Secerno. You know better than that: my men will keep Cilia until you come back."

Impossible. "Three months! She has medicine, she has school, you can't just keep her!"

"Yes, I can. And, besides, three months will pass quicker than you think," he said, a slight quirk to his lips, as though he knew something Secerno did not. Secerno had no idea what he was talking about, and simply sighed, looking at Darius and Sarah questioningly.

"Secerno, we will go with you," Darius said, but the words had barely left his mouth before Natrix shook his head.

"No, he must do this by himself, alone: it is of the utmost importance. You two will stay here and keep your daughter calm." Natrix only brushed Cilia's cheek with his hand, but it was enough to terrify Darius and Sarah, Darius' small wife quivering against him. Silently, he swore that if he ever had the opportunity again, he would kill Natrix for putting his friends through this rollercoaster of fear and anger.

"Fine, you bastard," Secerno said, resignedly. "What does this Tech look like, and where the hell can I find him?"

Natrix smiled thinnly, acknowledging his victory over the undefeated Thief hunter. It was about time Secerno lived by the will of another, and this Tech boy would cause him serious problems if he wasn't taken care of. In a way, he could kill two birds with one stone, since he doubted Secerno would be able to function well after killing an innocent man. Perfect, he thought with a smile as he pulled something out of his pocket.

Secerno's eyes were riveted on the object. It was a thin black disk with a large amount of round buttons across the surface, surrounding a glinting glass orb in the center that caught the light of the moon and made it glow. Sercerno had never seen such a contraption. Natrix pushed a series of buttons, and a multi-colored light flooded from the orb, forming a somewhat foggy image of a young man in black clothing. My god, a hologram...where had Natrix gotten such a thing? Secerno hadn't heard of a single one being successfully invented.

The image turned slightly clearer. Now that he looked closer, he could make out the details of his clothes, made of a shiny black material Secerno had never seen before, complete with an odd-looking trenchcoat of sorts. All of his attire seemed to radiate darkness and stealth, and it was only completed by the three thick, ink black braids that trailed down his back to his waist, and his head was covered with a small triangle of cloth similar to a bandana and a pair of sharp-looking sunglasses. He looked like a burglar, or a Thief, and it seemed impossible that someone so fierce-looking could be so young.

"This is our last sighting of Tech, when he was fourteen. Since then, he has been easily losing my men when they try to tail him, and so this time I'm sending you."

"I repeat, where does he live? Don't you have a city, a state, even? Surely a seventeen year old boy couldn't have thrown you that far."

Secerno had a very, very bad feeling about this when Natrix smiled, and slipped the holographic producer back into his pocket.

"Yes. Tech lives here, in this city...nine hundred and sixty-one years in the future."

Secerno looked at him disbelievingly. That can't be possible, he thought, but he didn't have time to do much else. In the span of a few seconds, a violent wind began to blow through his hair, tug at his clothes, yet it left the others uneffected. He felt the breeze sweep around him with a roar, and he heard Darius and Sarah shout out a warning, a question, fear lacing their voices. He looked at Natrix, who smiled at him in return, and he cursed his hide, his voice lost, before the wind picked up, and carried him away.

000

What did you think? Remember, review if you think I should continue this story, because I won't if nobody likes it. Go read "Devil's Appeal" if you haven't already. : )