“My lord Grievous, the hunters have arrived” a young man said as he entered a large room on the fifty-first floor of the Hunters base in New York city, Maximillian Barbados Grievous looked at the man from where he stood watching the city below, “Show them in” he said in his cold and uncaring voice, the young man nodded and moved to the side to let the other hunters in.

The room was just a meeting place; one long table with five chairs was all it held with one wall of windows to look out at the city. The ten hunters that walked in didn’t move to take the seats but instead stood at the far end of the table, Maximillian turned around and walked to take his seat at the chair far to the right, once he was seated a door behind the chair on the other side of the table opened.

A woman in her early thirties walked into the room, her black hair tied back and her body clad in black leather, she sat down at the end of the table. Black eyes looked at the young man who still stood in the door, the man couldn’t take his eyes off of her, she was perfect in his eyes and she stayed perfect even as he took a pen from his shirt pocket and shoved it into his own neck.

The hunters that stood closest to the man looked worried but not surprised at what had happened, none of them dared to speak or look at the woman who now looked at them, “These are the ones you want to take?” she asked and Maximillian just nodded his head, “Remember your place boy, speak when the Master commands” and Maximillian answered this time with a “Yes Milady” as he too looked at the group of ten, their ages ranged from late twenties to late thirties but each of them had an air of death about them, each of them had killed before.

“These will not be enough to defeat her, or him” Grievous didn’t look at her, he knew that strong as he was that not even he could survive a look into her eyes, “I will accompany them as well, and I will do the Masters will myself” the woman smirked at his words. “If my sister could have been defeated by you Grievous, then she has lost her touch. Her head, his head or yours, I will leave it up to you to decide which is laid before the Master” the old man seemed to hold back words of anger towards her and she enjoyed the feeling that it brought to disrespect a man as great and old as he was.

The woman closed her eyes for just a second before looking down at the table before her, she nodded once and then returned her gaze to the hunters before her, “The Master wants me to send along Michael, to make sure that his will is done” this angered Maximillian even more, he did not need this witch’s second to come with him, his own second was already sent away to deal with another problem because he did not want him to interfere. Maximillian wanted Hayden all to himself, he wanted to be the one to kill that woman and to deliver her head to the master but now this woman and the master wanted to take that from him by letting the prodigy of the hunters accompany him. “Michael is too young” he tried but he couldn’t even challenge the woman by staring in her eyes, “Michael is the same age as most of the children there, the same age as Arthur’s own son and my sister would not be able to fight to kill if he was to be her opponent” he could feel her deathly gaze on him, it begged him, whispered and screamed at him to just take one look but he was used to ignoring the call of death that her eyes held.

“Where is the boy?” he asked to show his acceptance, though he knew that she did not believe that he had accepted this outcome, “He is already there. We sent him on ahead to verify something” as much as Maximillian wanted to know what they had sent the boy to do he knew that they wouldn’t tell him if he didn’t need to know, and neither would the boy because the boy never talked to anyone, it was just how the boy was.

Alone once again in the room Maximillian stood and stared out of the windows, he watched the people below go about their lives, they looked like ants to him, ants that he had the power to crush at any moment but was instead raised to protect. “My Lord, we are ready to move out” one of the ten hunters from earlier said from behind him, the old man didn’t even turn or show that he had heard him, “We are born to protect humans, to die for them to live and yet they don’t even know about our fight against the monsters they have turned into books, movies and myth, the monsters they now desire and crave” the hunter didn’t understand his words, he was still young, too young to understand the ramblings of a hunter that had seen both world wars.

“Move out, let us go hunting” he said finally when he turned around and left ahead of the young hunter, it was only then the hunter saw the sword he held with the light catching on the silver it was forged from and then he knew how this Lord Hunter had gotten the name of Silver Death.

The woman watched from her place on the roof as Maximillian and his group left for their hunt, her black eyes never leaving the man as he got into the car that will take him to the airport where their plane waited, she turned her gaze up to the sky, “Prepare sister, for I have sent your death to your doorstep. Prepare sister for you are going home… to rest” a single tear ran down her cheek and it would have seemed like she cared if not for the maniacal smile she wore on her face.