Reasons Why One Should Not Wander About In the Muggle World

Karma was, once again, bored. Any other summer she would be content to sit in her house and sharpen her many daggers, read something from one of the two libraries, hope that the portraits had some new stories, but it was now the summer before her fourth year, and she was suddenly... dare she say it? ... Defying orders.

Before, coming and going had never been an issue. Alyssa didn't care whether she was home or not, they barely talked anymore, and they still had nothing close to a mother or figure of a parent. Sure, Karma had Cobalt, but she hadn't seen him since she'd walked out of his office after being trapped in his prison, and that wasn't exactly a happy memory.

So she'd gotten the bad habit of wondering. Earlier it had led her to the old ice-cream shop in Diagon alley, then out into the muggle streets, but now it was getting dark, and she was in a shadier neighborhood. She was not scared in the least, however. Not every almost-fourth year was armed to the teeth.

Nightmare was, of course, in the shadows beside her, blending as easily as a chameleon. Karma could also blend into shadows if she wanted, she was wearing jeans and a deep red tshirt, but the idea wasn't really a necessity. She was just wandering.

Then she came upon the house.

It had boarded up windows and the door was slightly off its hinges. It looked and smelled empty, though she was sure it had had someone in it before, not to live in, but as a meeting place of sorts. Without a second thought, she was up the walkway and standing right outside the door, her eyes and ears waiting for anything to tip her off on someone inside.

Nothing.

With a smile at her cat, who had reappeared to show her disapproval, Karma pushed open the door and stepped inside.

The entire house was in shambles, much like someone had blown it to bits. Karma's eyes widened at that thought, but she ignored it. There was no way it was the same house.

She wandered around the first floor, and finding nothing of interest, headed for the steps. They were in complete ruin, planks of wood barely staying, but that did little to stop her. In a few minutes she was on the second floor, looking down both sides of the hallway before turning right.

There, behind a half-rotted door, was a dark room drenched in shadows only diluted by the faint moonlight coming through the hole in the ceiling. Karma cautiously stepped into the room, her eyes trained on the little glimpse of sky she could see through the hole. She stepped carefully around fallen debris until she was directly underneath it, bathed in moonlight. She could see the stars....

The creak of a floorboard from just outside the room made her jump. She spun toward the sound, but couldn't see anything through the shadows. "Who's there?" She asked, her hand going to the small of her back for her dagger. Nightmare had dissappeared into the shadows, and she was hoping for a meow of apology, but that wasn't what she got.

She got the last thing she expected.

Jack stepped into the room, the remains of a study, with his combat shotgun held loosely in his hands and a small smile in place. He and his team of six armed police officers had been given the job of responding to any proximity alarms around the destroyed house of a back-bencher who had been very anti-magical. The job was well done and it stank of professionalism but some parts of it didn’t, some parts of it were obviously the work of someone less skilled. They’d set up proximity alarms on the off chance that the less professional one came back to the scene of the crime and it had apparently paid off. Jack stalked quietly into the room, three of his team members behind him with sub-machine guns aimed at the girl in front of him. The reason for Jack’s rather twisted grin however was that the proximity alarms only went off if the person crossing them had a magical core,

“Hello there.” He greeted the little witch with happiness that wasn’t false but also wasn’t friendly in any way, “This isn’t a place for a little girl. There was an assassination here a few weeks ago. A little kid like you shouldn’t be wandering around here after that. Even a witch like you.”

Karma was listening hard for signs of life when the man started talking. There were four maybe five different sets of footsteps on the floor. At the very least, she was almost sure they were drug dealers, shady muggle men that should not be that much trouble.

Her eyes widened at the word 'witch' and her hands folded behind her back, one grasping the hilt of the dagger, the other ready with another. "A witch, sir?" She asked, looking left and right. "Here?" She stepped backwards off the mound of rubble. "Is it safe to be here, in the presence of a witch? My mom said on killed a bunch of people in a neighborhood. I should head home.." her eyes narrowed at the weapon he held in his hand, but she fought to keep fear and thinly disguised distrust in her voice. "Why do you have a gun...? Are you a cop or something?"

Jack was still playing around with the young witch in front of him. He knew exactly who she was after all. There were some pretty thorough reports on some of the more powerful students from their undercover agents within Hogwarts so Karma Black, apprentice to Professor and Wetboy, Cobalt Smith, was not unknown to him. He wasn’t a rookie and he knew that the girl had reached for something behind her back but he smiled a little and flicked the safety on his gun, holding it with the barrel pointed at the floor,

“Why yes, this appears to be the work of a witch I’m afraid.” He smiled at her, “But a young girl shouldn’t be worrying about such things.”

At the question of why he had a gun, Jack looked down as if he’d forgotten that he had been holding a shotgun,

“Oh this?” he shrugged a little, “I’m part of the military little girl. A very important man was killed here after all.”

He turned to his men and sent them away with a couple nods. Without turning around, he grinned a little,

“You know you shouldn’t be here right?” he asked, keeping his nice guy routine up. Without warning, Jack spun round as fast as possible, smacked the heavy butt of his shotgun into the side of Karma’s head, sending her sprawling. Spinning the shotgun round so that he was aiming between her eyes, Jack smirked as he flicked the safety off, “You should know never to return to the scene of the crime Miss Black. Got anything to say? Any frantic denials? Go ahead. I’ll wait.”

"Shouldn't be her-?" Before she could finish her sentence, A blinding pain split across the left side of her head, sending her to the floor.

Karma hit the ground hard, the dagger flying from its sheilf and skidding across the floor. She was sick of the ground. She pulled herself up on her elbows, pulling herself along the floor toward the dagger. Trying despritely to regain her wits, Karma flicked her wrist in a minute movement that sent a dagger sliding into her right palm. She flipped to her back and tried to use her feet to slide her farther away from him, her eyes taking a scared widened look as she looked up at the man. "I... I don't.." With another minute flick of her wrist she threw both daggers, one for between his eyes and one for his heart, and staggered backwards to her feet, stumbling into a wall. She threw two more, one aiming for his left theigh and the other for his stomach.

"Nightmare." She muttered the pain in her head worsening. "Nightmare..." she said again, wavering on her feet.

Jack took no pleasure in hitting a child, he wasn't a monster, but hitting an over-confident witch across the face with the butt of a shotgun? Didn't have a problem with that. After all, the magical teenagers hadn't had any problem tormenting him and his brother whenever they'd showed up in the wizarding world, just for being squibs. He let her scramble around on the floor, content to watch her simply floundering around. When she threw her first load of knives, Jack was surprised. He moved just enough so that the one aimed for his head missed but the other stuck fast in his chest. The second load of knives impacted his stomach, one of them having strayed off target from his leg.

He just frowned a little.

Striding forwards, Jack kicked Karma in the ribs as hard as he could with his steel-toe capped shoes. He thought he heard some ribs crack but that might just have been wishful thinking. Making sure that she could see him, Jack pulled out the knives, all of them free from blood. He threw two of them away but knelt down with the last one,

"Muggles aren't as useless as you thought, huh?" he scowled at her, stabbing the knife into her left shoulder and twisting, "You think you're all high and mighty because you have magic? You're all just little stuck up monsters. Your pureblood movement?"

He twisted the knife again to make sure that she wasn't trying anything funny,

"A foolish attempt to remain 'pure' through inbreeding. Weeding you all down to weak, frail little things who focus only on honing a 'skill' that can be taken away from you now." he stood up and smirked down at her before delivering a vicious kick to her stomach, "Didn't know that did you? Yeah... we can take your precious magic away from you now. It's only temporary. But when it's gone... you're weak. And when it's gone you are so very easy to kill."

Karma collapsed into herself as she felt the steel toed boot hit her in the ribs, the answering crack insuring some were broken. She was cursing fluidly in her mind before she even was turned towards the man. She watched with rapt attention as he pulled each of her daggers out, her eyes widening as she realized there was no blood. Shit. This guy was more professional then she had originally thought. She could have dealt with a Drug Dealer, but not a Witch Hunter, if the rumors were true.

Her thoughts went back to what had been said at one of their meetings. There was a muggle group much like their own Order, and Karma'd bet this guy was one of them. She needed to get out.

"I don't think-" The dagger that dug into her shoulder silenced her. It wasn't that much pain, compared to Cobalt's prison, but it was distracting enough that it was slowing her reflexes. Therefore, when she reached for another dagger, and he twisted, she ended up not moving at all.

"You're..." her nostrals flared as she tried to smell him through the scent of her own blood. "Magical." She said through clenched teeth. Damn it all, she had to get out of here. She made a small sound in the back of her throat. "Why... are you... Doing... This?" She met his eyes, stalling for all she was worth. "I haven't... Done... anything... to you..." She absolutely refused to look over his shoulder. She absolutely refused to look over his shoulder. She absolutely refused to look over his shoulder...

She looked over his shoulder and smiled a huge smile.

There was a growl.

Nightmare, in full panther form, leapt over Karma and tackled the man, her claws and teeth tearing into his stomach, chest, and head. Karma strugged to move, not bothering to pull the dagger from her shoulder. The loss of her blood was making her seriously hungry. She needed to get out of there. She could feel the odd feeling of her ribs healing. Thank Merlin for her Vampire blood. She took the straighest route to the door she could, before something occured to her. She was going to have to...

She turned and aimed her wand at the man, making a small sound in the back of her throat again to make sure Nightmare moved, before whispering "Stupify!" as not to tip off the others in the house. Nightmare moved to in front of her, her hairs on end and her eyes on the man.