Chapter 363

363 When A Hunter is Late

Micah Chase commandeered the nearest plane he could find idle at the airport, leaving his family behind to track down the newest threat that had shown up on his radar. The pilot had said something about routine check-ups, but the hunter didn’t listen to all those excuses. Something bad was about to happen and he could feel it deep inside the core of his Chase being.

The blood lust coming off the rogues that had caught his attention demanded immediate attention. The plane flew as fast as he could force the pilot to take it, but a feeling of dread filled him. Along with this feeling came deep regret... ‘Will I make it?’ he constantly asked himself. What was worse about this ability they all honed at such a young age was that they didn’t know exactly what they were looking for. Micah was chasing a mere gut feeling... one that kept getting worse by the minute.

By the time he was sure of where he was supposed to jump off the plane, the blood lust he’d detected was starting to diminish. It made sense to him now that they were running, “Open the door,” he ordered the pilot. The pilot was caught off guard, but one more yell from the hunter was enough to get him moving.

He flipped a switch without further complaint. Micah was out before the pilot could complain about this decision anyway, “Hunters are so daring these days, I guess. Either that or they just keep getting dumber,” the man exclaimed, banking the plane to look for somewhere to land. ‘I’m glad I checked the parachutes before flying the plane.’

Micah had leapt from the plane with a parachute, but even as he descended, he felt the culprits tearing away from reach at an alarming speed.

He cursed and closed his eyes with the aim of increasing his radius of detection, but the rogues only dashed faster than his parachute could descend.

Micah scanned the river below him and caught a hint of red and glided toward it. By the time his feet touched the ground, the world had gone quiet once more. The blood lust was gone and he felt what he always did when he showed up too late, ‘regret.’

The hunter balled his fists in frustration, feeling the need to scream out in fury. He’d detected this blood lust from Lycaon. There wasn’t enough time for him to make the trip, but he’d travelled anyway, not wasting a moment of time. Nevertheless, it hadn’t helped. The rogues were gone... and he now felt he was going to miss something else that was just as important.

Brushing away his troubling thoughts, Micah started walking downstream, searching the river and soon enough, he found what he’d seen on his way down, blood on a rock. Two sets of tracks rushing downstream and the sign of a short struggle by the river. He ran upstream and noticed they were supposed to be three sets of tracks... ‘One of them fell into the river.’ Judging by the river’s roaring sound, it would have been a stupid move.

.....

The scene played in his head as clearly as he could decipher from the tracks that were made in the soft soil of the river bank. ‘They were hunting a wolf, but I can’t tell any more than that. The one that jumped into the river must have been certain of death if they’d gotten caught. After all, the chances of surviving in this water are next to none... Generals?’ he thought to himself before retrieving his phone from his pocket and dialling a number.

Waiting for a moment, the voice of the pilot came through, “What is it, sir?”

“Can you tell me if there is a town or any settlement close to the place I landed?” Micah asked.

“Not really, sir. Not far upstream would be the capital of Sirius where I am headed now to land the plane. Will I be seeing you soon, sir?” the pilot responded.

“No, that’s not where these wolves were coming from,” Micah mumbled, noting the absence of paw prints further upstream. Is there a town further downstream from where I am?” he asked the pilot.

“Well, there is one that I know of. A beautiful small town with wolves and humans alike. One of those towns that live in harmony with both races, but it’s quite a distance from where you are,” the man said to him.

“I see... In that case, I will go to the capital and get a car to take me to that town,” Micah concluded.

“Very well, sir. Am I dismissed then?”

“Yes, you are. Thank you for your service,” the Chase hunter replied, hanging up the phone and starting his walk upstream. ‘Who would have wanted to go to the capital so badly and who would have wanted to keep them from making it there? I know there is something crucial I’m missing at the moment.’

The memory of the missing woman of the Golden moon pack flashed in his mind, but he shook his head in disbelief, “That pack is so far from here. She wouldn’t be able to make that trip running through the woods. This is all so confusing.”

........................

Micah reached the Sirius capital and made it to the Hunter’s Agency where he requested a vehicle that would take him to the small pack that was apparently two hours away from the capital.

His reputation as one of the Chase hunters sped up the process and without resting too much, the man was on his way to the small town the pilot mentioned. This was all based on a hunch, but he wanted to leave no stone unturned before closing his investigation.

‘We cannot save anyone, even with the abilities that we have, there will always be someone we’ll never be able to get to in time, regardless of how early we get the sense that they are in danger,’ a phrase that had been repeatedly drilled into his mind while growing up.

What made it even more painful and realistic though, was what he found at the town he’d gone to investigate. The whole town was in a state of panic and ambulances had just arrived, taking casualties... or was it, bodies away from an inn. Micah filtered through the people and searched for anyone that could have the information he was looking for.

That’s how he found Carla, the receptionist of a small inn from which three of her customers had been killed. The woman was struggling to keep her sanity. The very concept of how she was still alive along with that of how the rogues had killed without second thought roared through her mind, sending her into a dazed state.

The only words that she was able to utter for Micah to make the most sense of were, “They had red eyes.”

Everything else that came out of her was incoherent. He understood her situation though... Normally, those red eyes would have been the last thing anyone would see before getting killed. ‘So they were in a hurry to leave. They must have known one of us would show up if they kept this up.’