Prologue

Prologue: Into the Darkness


Kaleigh ran down the streets as fast as she could make her burning legs go. Her heart was beating so hard she was sure it would burst out of her chest.
She had lost Brandon a few minutes before when he dashed down an alley, leaving her fighting one of the Phantom's chasing them.
It had only taken her a moment before her glass ealantean whip crashed through the Phantom's Casing and dispersed it's energy. But by then, she had already lost him.

Turning sharply down another alley she leaned against the wall, panting and trying to get her heart beat down. She could hear the whisperings of the Phantoms reaching out to her like tendrils of smoke that sent chills down her spine. She took a minute to glance around her surroundings.
She was in a dead end. Lovely.
The wall she was leaning on at the moment was the back of a small fish cafe. It reeked of dead fish, and decaying scales, making her want to gag. The cafe was actually a small building, she realized, as she walked over to the dumpster, her sleeve over her nose as she closed it.
She jumped onto it easily, her well tuned sense of balance helping her feet get a grip on the icey top. She reached over her head and grabbed the roof's edge. Not for the first time, she thanked her brothers' and Brandon's persisting (to the point of annoyance) that she work out.

Atop of the roof, her bright blue and silver eyes swept the roof tops and she noticed something orange hanging on the corner of the roof next to her, standing out against the snow that covered the roof tops. She could also see the footprints in the snow and smiled. At least she was on the right track. But more importantly, she heard the whispering grow louder, the chill dropping several degrees colder.
It were getting closer.
She ran across the short roof, and flung herself into the air.
For a split second, she was perfectly suspended. Then gravity claimed her, and she quickly reached out for the taller roof. Her fingers burned as all her weight was supported by them when they caught the gutter. Her feet found the top of a window frame and she pulled herself onto the roof.
She saw the flash of orange again, and snatched it before running towards the next roof. Glancing down at the item in her hand, she rolled her eyes as she placed the orange baseball cap on her head, bill backwards, and then focused on the upcoming jump to the next roof.

Ahead she could see the outline of a figure in a black snow jacket, waiting just a few roofs away.
She quickly made the jumps between the roofs, when she noticed he was moving towards her. She smiled and pulled down on the hat to make sure it didn't fall off by the wind howling.
Kaleigh noticed, that as he grew closer, he was trying to say something, but it was hard to hear over the wind.
Behind you! His voice yelled in her head.
She hadn't imagined his voice in her head, his voice was actually in her head. Having been Bonded together by an ancient ritual, the two shared a telepathy link that allowed them to talk to each other across great distances.

Kaleigh's body went into attack mode. She could sense a blow to the back of her head, and quickly dropped to her knees. Pivoting on one knee, her whip licked out like a deadly snake, biting the Phantom in the leg. She pulled her arm back, the whip tightened around his leg until it cut it clean off.
When she had first fought a Phantom she had expected flesh and blood to be everywhere. But Phantoms weren't made out of flesh and blood like humans. They're simply made up of energy they soak up from things around them. So even when she did kill one, it wasn't dead. The energy just went back to what it had come from, and the Phantom was left to hide below the surface, and soak up more until it could get what was called a Casing, a fake body. It too was made up of energy, but it disguised the Phantom as human so it could blend into the crowds.

She heard the familiar zing of her Partner's ninja stars as they zipped past her head and dug themselves into the Phantom.
Kaleigh pushed her long, raven black hair out of her eyes as she watched the Phantom's Casing melt away slowly, revealing the ugly posterior. The Phantom's black-grey skin was crackled, and reminded her of rock. The energy flowing in the creature could be seen through the cracks in the rock like veins of fire. But as the stars pierced through in several different places, the Phantom melted away.

A hand was offered to Kaleigh, pulling her back up to her feet. She smiled up at the boy and said thanks. A smile crossed his lips, showing his dimples on each cheek that Kale thought was just too cute. His stormy grey eyes were kind and full of relief that nothing had happened to her. He did, however, look rather strange with out his usual orange baseball cap on top of his spiky brown hair.
"Thanks for getting my hat." He said, appreciatively, as he reached to grab it from her head. She held onto it and slipped out of his reach.
"Uh-uh! I found it, I get to wear it!" She cried with a playful smile.
Brandon sighed, his breath forming into a cloud as the warm air came into contact with the cold.
"Well hey, at least I know that hat's good for something." He said with a wink and crooked smile.
She crossed her arms, and cocked an eyebrow.
"Oh? And what's that?" She challenged.
"That it makes you look even better when you wear it backwards." He said with a growing grin.
Kaleigh attempted to scowl at him, but her lips were too eager to jump into a smile.