Marcus stood silently in a dark corner as orderlies ran back and forth before him. The sounds of air pumps and dinging bells filled the hospital signalling that all the patients were being properly cared for. Marcus enjoyed these jobs a lot more ever since soap had been introduced to the medical profession.
Seeing his opportunity, Marcus dashed from one shadow to another when he didn’t think anyone would see. He lifted a scroll fastened around an arrow and let it hover above his hand to point the way. As expected, it pointed to the most heavily fortified portion of the hospital, the maternity ward.
Warning lights flickered in the halls and an alarm sounded, but Marcus stood still. He knew he hadn’t tripped any of the new fangled machine traps, so he waited. It wasn’t long before security escorted one of his fellow hunters right past him. He recognized her blue tattoos contrasting on her red skin. Having worked with her for decades, he knew she was good at their job. It was clear she’d tried to use her smoke bomb, the residue was all over her tunic and sleeves. Probably blown back at her by some sort of fan or bellows. Marcus wouldn’t repeat her mistake.
As they rounded a corner, Marcus noticed her tail grabbing at some kind of card on a guard’s belt. He’d seen the same cards on several of the hospital staff as well, but this time he could see that the card had metal grooves of different shapes. “Key cards, of course.” He would need to get one if he was to properly pursue his target.
He waited next to a door for several minutes, invisible and out of the way in a potted plant's shadow, until an orderly stopped to take a breath before proceeding. In two heart beats Marcus silently cut loose the keycard and slipped it beneath his shadow cloak. The orderly relaxed and pushed open the door unaware of his extra shadow following his every motion.
The Maternity Ward was loud and chaotic. Custom alchemical concoctions brewing in the halls to suit each mother’s needs. Low and high pressure pumps with gasses to help treat a wide variety of curses or maladies that might befall a newly reborn child.
Marcus slipped away from the orderly and took up a new shadow. Glancing down at his contract scroll on the arrow he saw the timer counting down, he was close, but was he close enough?
The keycard got him through three locked halls with ease until he could feel his target only 20 feet away. The arrow showed him which room to enter, but he saw wards etched into the doorframe, it would never permit his entry. Instead, he pushed a small stick of near odorless incense under the door before tracking the lines of pipes in the ceiling until he found a suitable gap.
When no one was looking, he jumped up and placed a mouse from his pocket into the piping. Another jump and he slipped into the mouse’s shadow. She was well trained and did precisely what Marcus wanted of her. Following the scent of incense, the mouse crawled into the birthing theater bringing Marcus with her.
He waited in the mouse’s shadow as nurses consoled the young mother-to-be amid her pain. Marcus thought to himself, “The humans really are getting good at this technology stuff. In a few generations they may stop dying at all, like us.” He pondered on how the gift of reincarnation allowed the humans to grow so fast, retaining knowledge from one life to the next, but how much faster they might grow if they never grew frail, if they never had to regrow their strong bodies from infancy. It was, of course, the only way Marcus had ever known life. Never aging, never growing, always what he was. A Hunter, a servant to the granters of life.
As his scroll ticked down, Marcus focused his attention upon the doctor helping with delivery. An obsidian cage was wheeled up behind the doctor and Marcus’ eyes went wide. How could humans have figured out the obsidian loophole?
Marcus panicked and lept out from the shadow. Diving toward the doctor, Marcus suddenly felt his chin horns impacting metal armor as screams rose from nurses and doctors alike. Rolling and tumbling, Marcus and his foe smashed into equipment and sent everyone who could fleeing from the room. Marcus found an ankle by his face and took a bite.
“AAAHHH!!! What? Marcus?”
Marcus looked upon his demonic foe and chuckled, “Samus? What are you doing here?”
Samus rolled up to a standing position and patted down his armor before helping Marcus back up on his hooves.
Marcus ignored the cries of the humans and gestured toward the baby laying in the birthing pan. “That’s my target. Her father sold her two lives ago and I’m here to collect.”
The human on the bed looked up to her husband, pinned to the wall with fear. “You what?”
The male looked down to his wife, “No, I, I mean, yes, but that contract should be void. I promised my first born for a potion, but that potion got me killed. The contract only carries over in cases of suicide.”
“Yup, and picking a fight with a dragon is considered suicide. As is jumping from a gryphon’s back, which is how you died last time, both times without having had any children. So this one is your payment.”
Samus tapped Marcus’ shoulder. “Actually, this kid is my target too. She didn’t return her dowry after breaking off her engagement. She hid it before throwing herself onto a pyre.”
Marcus smiled to his older companion, “Well, then you two are going to be staying with my master for some time waiting till she’s old enough to tell you where she hid it. She's got her own guardian demon now.”
Samus stood with his mouth open for several seconds before closing it again. “Crap, you’re right. I’ve gotta stick with her and keep her safe till her part of the contract is paid. How do these humans keep getting the better end of our deals?”
