17

That was what he feared. What if she wasn't acting on her own? Every day now he woke up with the fear that his past was catching up with him. He had done everything in his power to protect his only daughter but if his enemies extended their revenge to her, he would have no other choice but to exterminate them.

Even Attor.

After all, as the sworn protector he could do just that if the life of a dragon was threatened.

"I need to find this professor, I need to know who gave her permission to carry out this action. Stay with Sarah, I'll call some of the other boys to keep watch."

"Yes, sir."

But he had barely started to leave when a doctor showed up with a test result.

Edgar eyed her curiously. "Well, have you found out what happened to my daughter?"

"Apart from the hit she took, we found traces of poison in her bloodstream, they are not harmful but they were lethal enough to put her out for a long time."

Edgar felt his stomach clench at the news. It kept getting worse.

"And did you find its source?"

"We took the liberty of searching through her things and found a sandwich and some muffins. The muffins were the source."

Grim faced Edgar thanked the doctor and turned to Aaron. "Find out where she got those muffins but call the other guys before you leave. I'll be going now but I'll be back as fast as I can."

Edgar stood outside the apartment complex on 4th Street in District 5. It was a strange place for a professor. Shouldn't she be a resident in the official estates for academics?

But this was the place his source said she would be. It was crowded. There was a party in the apartment down the block and it seemed like everyone on the block was headed there. He liked that. If he had to confront this Klavan woman he didn't need witnesses. So with his shoulders squared he started up the stairs to the third floor to the apartment number 10B.

He was ready for whatever happened but as he put his hand on the doorknob he paused, feeling a strange pulse go through his body. The change in the current made the hair at the back of his neck rise. He was being watched but not from anywhere around the half-empty hall. In fact, it seemed to him that the few neighbors who walked briskly down the hall to their rooms were too tired after the day's work to notice his presence.

Whoever was watching him was watching him from within which meant someone knew he was coming.

Klavan?

Undeterred he pushed the door open, claws protracting immediately to ward off the sudden slash of blade that appeared before his face as soon as he entered the hallway.

In the still-dark hallway, the blade moved again and though Edgar was quick and his sight sharp, for the life of him he couldn't quite see what it was that was attacking him. It seemed like a disembodied figure swung the blade expertly to fight him. When the blade made a slash at his neck he reached beyond it at an angle and his flesh came in contact with a strong hairy arm.

He frowned.

But he had no time to think before the arm was wrung free and a strong leg swung to catch him in the head. Had he not raised his forearm to defend himself, the force of the kick would have knocked him out.

Tired of the one-sided fight, Edgar twisted his forearm such that he held on to the leg that kicked him and tugged.

A whine echoed in the dark room.

Frowning, he buried his claws in the solid mass of muscular leg and another whimper flowed, this time whatever it was he was fighting swung the blade wildly again and this time buried it deep into Edgar's hand making him release his grip with a curse.

Before he could recover he saw the shadowy movement of whatever had attacked him move down the hall to the living room. He followed, determined to know just what he was fighting.

Was it Klavan? And if it was her what was she?

Her movement was like an animal's.

Whatever it was though was obviously grievously injured from where he had buried his claws in its flesh because it was limping. Edgar was fast to close the distance between himself and the figure and just when he thought he had it cornered, the figure moved to a window and jumped out.

Edgar rushed to the window in time to see a hooded figure land gracefully, too gracefully to be human, on the ground three feet below into an empty back lot. He watched as whoever it was ambled away into the night without looking back. He should go after the person but the street was packed with too many partygoers and he didn't want to draw attention to himself.

Cursing at his lack of efficiency he turned back and searched the room for a light switch and when he turned it on realized the apartment was nothing out of the ordinary except that there was blood on the floor. His blood and the other person's.

His hand was healed already but his claw held the blood of his attacker.

He took out a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the blood off his claws. He would hand it over to Aaron to find out what sort of creature the blood belonged to because he was sure that whatever Klavan was if that was her, she was an enemy.