Whoever knew I could be so good at this hiding out and laying low business? Especially when I'd always been more of the 'stand out' kinda guy. I suppose it had become necessary somewhere along the way. Even if it had started out as something else entirely. I'm not even sure what. Grief I suppose. After Kat left. I still remembered that day so damn clearly it hurt. I remembered asking to her wait, asking her to explain, I remember her walking away in the rain to find this Viktor or whoever the hell he was. I remember thinking she was throwing her life away and I wasn't enough off a reason for her...not too. Grief does that, I suppose, it makes you think things that might not even be real and yet somewhere in that veritable black hole she had left behind in my life I'd managed to think a lot of things that probably weren't true. I was confused I suppose. Angry. Upset. I was all these things I'd never felt before- especially not over a woman and yet she had stopped being just another bed warmer years ago. That's how long we'd been together after all. Years. Kat had become so much a part of my life I hardly knew what to do without her. Even when we were together and she'd go off hunting I'd wait up for her. Every night. Even if I never told her I did. I'd been able to sleep without her once and yet, somewhere along the way I'd become so used to her in my bed that I was awake any time she was gone. I worried every time she was out even if I knew she could take care off herself. Hell, we both knew the one who couldn't was me. Now she'd gone to find some guy who actually wanted to kill her without telling me where or why. She was just...gone.

In the days that followed that I think, was when i learned exactly how to lay low. Not that I'd made an actual effort to do it. I just didn't leave the house for days. I didn't do anything- for days. If someone had been waiting to take me out then they gotten bored and left in that time. Hell, maybe ithad saved my life, turning into a ghost for well over a week and not setting foot out of the front door. I didn't see the point. Not without her. Some part of me hoping she might even come back. She didn't. I don't remember much after that. I must have decided at some point to go to France and back to the only real family I had outside of Kat herself. Viktor and his people, I guess, never expected me to leave the country. I'd been almost on autopilot when I did. I'd left the cameras though. The ones I'd developed myself. So tiny they could barely be seen- scattered throughout the apartment. In truth I'd forgotten to deactivate them. I'd forgotten all about them. It was only three weeks later after Etienne and Elena had given up trying to get me off the couch that my laptop screen shifted to that recording- showing me the footage of my apartment then and there. Those cameras triggered by movement. I didn't know they guys. Three of them- one of them notably unattractive, the other two were maybe 6's on a good day- not that thats important here but hey. The fact two of them were carrying guns gave me a pretty damn good indication of why they were there. Thank god I wasn't. What the hell had Kat gotten herself into?

I suppose thats when I realised I had to go back. Even despite every part of me mostly assured that was bad judgement. I couldn't...leave her there. If this Viktor didn't know where I was then I had the upper hand. He wouldn't have sent an assassin squad to my house if he'd known I wasn't there. How I'd ever managed to fool him the first time I don't damn well know. Luck I suppose. Simple dumb luck. I'd scared Elena and Ten that night. Firstly with the fact i was actually moving- I hadn't done that in awhile. Grief is weird and unattractive thing- and secondly with that announcement I wanted to go back to the city where the people trying to kill me were. I couldn't.....leave Kat to.....face it alone. Yet I couldn't let her know I was there either. She'd told me once I distracted her. Personally I liked being a distraction but not this time. I needed her to think I was safe somewhere as much as this Viktor guy. She could focus then and hopefully he would just keep chasing his own tail. He probably didn't have a girlfriend. Viktor that is. People with girlfriends don't have the time to carry on with all this damn nonsense. So I went back home. At least- back to the city I called home. I wasn't foolish enough to go back to my apartment.

I broke into the Hunter Council Headquarters first. When everything is controlled by computers its hardly as hard as it seems. When those computers are all guarded by rather pleasing twenty-something year old Hunter women unaccustomed to my charm its even easier again. I stole just about every record they had on Kat and anything I could find on Viktor in turn. Not that it was much when it came to the later. If I could work out where Kat was then it would be that much easier for me to make sure she was alive. I'd spent half my damn life being told I was gifted, maybe it was about time I put it to use. Azrael was the one who helped then. Not intentionally. He'd taken Kat to the apartment and triggered the cameras again. It was the first time I'd seen her ages. He made her promise to check in every week. Maybe I owed him for that. Even if I might never understand why the hell the guy was so angry all the time. Tracking Azrael's phone records was easy enough after that. I'm ninety percent sure he's in a relationship with a witch, but hey, whatever floats your boat. Even so, i waited for that call from Kat every week to show up. After all it proved she was alive too- and it gave me an idea of who I needed to find first. If this Viktor guy was taken care off then all this could stop, right?

I'm not exactly into the whole...murder thing and I didn't really have any belief I could find Viktor himself- but his 'employees' seemed attracted to Kat like a moth to a flame. All i had to do was keep and eye on Kat, wait around for one of Viktors men to do the same and then follow him home. I've always been good with computers so i figured why not use that? Traffic cameras are easy to hack. So that's what I did. I watched Kat- and the men Viktor kept sending to follow her. Most of them never did anything, they just...watched her. What for and why I have no real idea. Once they left it was them I followed through any camera I could hack into. I found out where most of them lived. One by one. Like I said, I'm not into the murder thing so I didn't kill anyone. I just waited for them to go out again before breaking in (im really good at that now) and accessing their computers. The amount of stuff these guys were storing on Kat was ridiculous. So I deleted it. All of it. I set up fire walls in theri computers, I riddled them with virus or I wired them to make sure any information they found on Kat after I'd visited (if they were lucky enough to get their computers up and running again) was transferred to me at the same time. Fighting was never my style but this- this I could do- and if i bought Kat more time then that's all that mattered. It annoyed Viktor though. Having his movements sabotaged at every turn. I was careful, as much as I could be. I hadn't so much as used a credit card in weeks. I suppose if there was any rather distinct advantage to having so many....female.....friends, let's call them, it was that the majority of them were willing to let me crash at their place for a night or two. So I moved from one apartment to house to townhouse to the next every few nights. Women seem to like cooking (most women anyway I'm pretty sure I've never seen Kat so much as boil an egg) but in the least it meant I didn't need to buy food or pay rent or anything else that was going to leave a trail. All I needed was an internet connection.

How Viktor found me in the end I still don't really know. It's my first time trying espionage, that I managed to derail his plans for this long was remarkable as it was. I thought so anyway. I don't even know how it happened. I was checking up on Kat. I tried not to do it a lot if only because I didn't want her to see me. It was easier that way right? Yet I....I just....I liked being near her I guess. When you love someone I suppose your allowed to be ridiculous. I thought about her all the time. Every day. What I wouldn't do just to be near her again... She suspected that time, I think, at least she seemed to think someone was following her so I hardly followed her far before heading back toward the house I was staying at night. I don't know what happened after that. Something hit me. This is what I get from trying to avoid sidewalk cracks and not looking where I was going. When I woke up I was, well, here I guess. Wherever here was. I had a hell of a headache. My eyes trying to bring that world into focus. It was dark and...cold too. My efforts to move were quickly hampered. My hands clearly tied behind my back and tied to....something. A steel pole? Was that why I was cold. God this ground was so unsanitary. I could feel the germs practically crawling up my legs. Great. Maybe I could stand? No, that was a bad idea. I could hear someone talking and yet it was too dark to see who it was. Their words were muffled and yet I'm almost sure I heard Kat's name.

"She...won't come."

The voices stopped. I think they were looking at me. I couldn't really tell. Shit. They'd taken my sunglasses. Maybe it would be better if I didn't look around. "Oh, she'll come for you. You have been causing so very, very many problems for us. Did you really think you could hide her from us?" Who was that? I hardly got the chance to answer. Everyone in that room suddenly going quiet. I was starting to see better in that inky darkness. Two men hurrying out of that back room then and into the warehouse beyond. I don't think i've ever hoped so much that it was and wasn't Kat all at once. I could hear my heart beating in my ears. If only I could reach the card deck on my belt....


k o h l
so you want to play with magic?