The night’s rain doesn’t hold back on him. Brandon watches from the roof of the two-story building as the woman finally comes out of the mini market. This woman is unknown to him.

  She is mostly covered, though her legs can be seen as she speaks to herself underneath her hoodie, making an attempt to rush out of heavy rain by speed walking. She can feel the cold regret on her legs of wearing shorts.

  “Gosh darnit,” she tells herself. “The one day I don’t check the weather, and it turns out like this. All week it’s been unbelievably warm. How can a warm night suddenly turn to this?”

  Brandon doesn’t lose sight of her. The words that his grandfather left him with repeats in his mind. She is the last of our kind – find her. Find her and the age of witches can be saved.

  He could only picture his grandfather sick in his medical bed in his room. He couldn’t get that image out of his head when he thought about the man who raised him. This was the last scene he had in his head of the elderly witch.

  According to his grandfather, the woman he was looking for would have maroon coloring in her hair, just as Brandon did. Like himself, she was the other half of the magic circuit that could complete the False Bound Ritual.

  Obviously, he couldn’t see her hair, due to the hoodie she was wearing. Though with careful concentration, he taps into his own mana to feel for her mana. If she truly was the one she he was looking for, her mana would expose her to him.

  There it was. He could feel it. A very low frequency of mana, but he could feel it. It was clear that she was trying to suppress her mana, though Brandon was gifted in his line of magic. He was extremely talented in his tracking abilities, overshadowing most witches that could also track other supernatural beings using their mana.

  Magic was believed to be nonexistent at this point, seeing as the race that relished in it, the linage of witches, were nearly wiped out. The same curse that killed Brandon’s father…that killed Brandon’s grandpa…had swept through all the witches that once roamed the earth. It came in the form of a disease to mortals, but the ones who perished to it, knew the mysterious plague to be a curse.

  Mortals simply shook it off as a cold. They would get sniffles, a sore throat, or even a slight fever. Nothing life threatening. They carried it first and paid nothing for it.

  Brandon leaps down from the roof, landing in a puddle that doesn’t splash loud enough over the rain. The woman in front of him keeps going, strolling through the rain as she speed walks for cover. The two walk through an open area of the metropolis city. Brandon catches up to her, stopping her with a light grab to her shoulder. She quickly turns around.

  Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  The small amount of groceries nearly go out of her hand as she gets startled, Brandon puts his hands up in a surrendering motion.

  “Whoa. My apologies. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “No, it’s ok.” She gathers herself. “I just didn’t think there would be anyone else crazy enough to be in this crap storm.”

  Brandon nearly freezes in place. He isn’t sure what to say next. He stares at the woman who was getting slammed with the bad weather, unsure as to how to put what his grandfather told him, into words for her. They were strangers. He couldn’t just ask her to come with him. To trust him. To partake in a ritual that could be life threatening, if done wrong.

  “Do you believe that witches still exist?”

  Brandon comes up with this to say.

  The twenty-three-year-old woman seems stunned by his question. A look of confusion comes in between the two, as she pauses in place without an immediate response. She eventually pushes out a laugh. A short-lived low laugh.

  “Is that your pickup line?”

  She obviously no longer takes Brandon seriously, though now he is the one confused, his facial expression showing misjudgment and a lack of understanding.

  The woman known as Ulysee walks off. Brandon stands in place, no longer knowing what to do. He spent most of his life training, he never had time to deal with girls. He wasn’t a violent guy – though he wasn’t shy. He was simply puzzled at this point. He was watching the only person that could break the curse that would eventually wipe out the remaining witch existence, leave out of his reach. He balls up his fist and shouts, “You’re doing a piss poor job at suppressing your mana!”

  She stops at the sound of his voice. His words touch home.

  “Even when it isn’t raining, you hide your maroon hair stripe, don’t you?”

  Like all witches, Brandon held a maroon coloring in his hair. The tips of his standing hair were covered in an effortless maroon, something that he was born with.

  He couldn’t see it, but from her facial expression, she knew her cover was blown. Ulysee wants to touch her stripe but doesn’t. The coloring of her hair that she has always wanted to get rid of, has always bothered her, even in grade school. Even in high school. It was so unusual and had always drawn attention.

  “Who are you?”

  She turns around to face him. Brandon doesn’t hesitate to answer.

  “I’m a witch, just like you.”

  Brandon removes his hoodie, allowing the rain to pour down on his curly hair.

  “I was sent here by my grandfather to look for you. You…sigh. You probably don’t know him, but you were important to him. I mean…you’re important to all of us. The future of our kind needs you.”

  Ulysee is once again confused. She wants to say something but doesn’t know what to say. Brandon is about to continue, when suddenly…he feels it. A surge of mana spikes without warning. He could feel it in the distance behind him. He didn’t have time to pinpoint exactly where, but the threat level was felt.

  Transferring mana into his feet as quickly as possible, Brandon’s feet began to glow. A flaming blue radiation of energy nested underneath him, allowing him to quickly shift into a skating motion across the city streets. His speed was unusual by this point, closing the distance between the two within two successful blinks. Brandon makes contact with Ulysee, just as a bolt of red lightning strikes the area around them.