Mal Lilystone

Leo was beside Mal; an imposing figure although she really was not that much shorter than he was. Mal was lost in her thoughts, a song prancing about her head and calming her nerves as they spiked at the idea of this investigation coming so close to being closed. They'd already lost so many of the others to the events that followed Dorian's death and it would have made her shiver had her skin already not been ice cold.

Leo was apologizing for something and Mal knew exactly what it was, but she also knew the he didn't. That was something he had always done: been ready to apologize without ever actually understanding why. This never made his apologies any less sincere, it just didn't make them any bit effective either.

There was never a guarantee that he wouldn't just become a repeat offender.

She looked over at him and he was completely inside of his own mind, not paying attention to a single thing other than whatever it was that went on inside of his skull.

"The voices?" Mal inquired this because she knew a little more about Leo than most. She knew that she was the one person in the entire world that Leo had entrusted with his darkest fears and the horrible things that his own mind had tricked him into believing. At some point, these thoughts slowly started becoming his own and he couldn't differentiate between what he actually believed and what they wanted him to believe.

He nodded his head at her question and there was a shame in his face that didn't need any words to be spoken to be heard.

Leo had never been this bad before, and Mal knew that it was because of the case. Being this close to all of these events made him worse.

This is not healthy for him.

This wouldn't be healthy for anyone.

"Maybe you should step away for a bit? Take a break and then come back when you've calmed down a little bit? You need to take care of yourself," her voice was hesitant, mostly because she knew how he would take it. Solving this case was not worth anything to her if it meant Leo completely lost sight of himself proving that he could solve it.

Leo's head twitched as he got lost in his own head again and Mal gave him a few moments for internal discussion with his council before Mal had requested to know what they were telling him. Curiosity had been the one thing that had kept Mal asking him questions about his circumstance.

"They think that you want me out of the picture so you can get all the credit for solving the case," he replied sheepishly. He couldn't look her in the eyes and he hung his head so that he may appear a hell of a lot smaller than he actually was. This was also something he had always done; try and shrink himself so that he wasn't as noticeable.

Mal frowned as she felt the sting of this statement puncture her skin and inject itself into her bloodstream. She had never thought that the beliefs of the voices inside of her friends' head would mean so much to her.

It's not like he truly believes that I would behave in such a way towards him, right?

"Not that I think you would do such a thing," he finished this statement hurriedly and peeked at her really quickly to judge her reaction.

The fact that he was aware how hurtful such a thing was meant something, at least.

The air had suddenly shifted; whipping around them in violent gusts of wind as a purple haze descended upon the warehouse that sat in front of them.

When they entered the warehouse (despite the protests of both of their instincts AND the voices inside of Leo's head) there stood a honey-eyed Enlightened. His complexion was warmed by the humming flicker of the flames in front of him and Mal couldn't quite discern between this making him more or less sinister in appearance.

The space in front of this man was taken by a forge that was needed for their investigation. This was the very forge that had created the Godsmetal dagger that had taken the life of Dorian H'Langraash.

"I've already killed off a Wraith by the name of Liam, Demon by the name of Brandy, and an Unseelie by the name of The Cachail... do I need to add a Vampire and an Enlightened onto that list?" the man asked them this and he laughed softly at their confusion.

"The two of you have interrupted the Revelation and the Preparations," the haunting voice of the man was carried upon the breeze that the loss of his sanity had fueled. He hovered in the air and turned to face them. His lips were turned upwards in a seemingly perpetual grin.

"We merely wish to take a look around and then we will be on our way," Mal spoke first in reply and took a step towards him.

"This forge allows me the perfect opportunity. I can create Godsmetal, sell it on the market to those needing a little help taking out the immortal garbage, become rich and have all the power I want without having to sacrifice any sense of myself. Do you even comprehend how incredible that is?" his statement ended in a laugh and there was this look in his eyes that made Mal want to recoil in disgust.

"At the end of the day, all you'll be is a power-hungry piece of shit," Mal couldn't stop herself from speaking her mind and it wasn't like she really wanted to anyways, "Your power does not make you any less mortal; it only holds a concrete testament to the malleability of a human mind and just how pathetic you are,"

There was a ferocious anger written on his face and he lunged at Mal; wrapping his fingers around her throat and squeezing tightly to constrict her airways. Being that she was dead, Mal never had the need for as much Oxygen as a human would.

She wanted to laugh in his face but kept calm and merely fluttered her eyelashes. She was not scared of him one bit, and maybe it was because she had seen Leo in such a state that it meant nothing to her anymore.

Mal didn't have to wait a second longer before Leo jumped into action and rescued her from the grip of this madman.The two of them were wrestling on the ground until Leo had gained the upper hand and used it to pummel his fists into the Enlightened's face.

Mal wanted to be afraid of Leo in this state; seeing him in this primal nature where he listened to his insanity rather than shying away from it. She wanted to be afraid of him here, and she knew that she should be, but she wasn't.

Leo might hate himself for what his father had forced him into becoming, but he also needed to learn to understand that this did not define his actual character.

Mal knew that had Leo been a puppet to the voices in his head, he would not have saved her.

She placed a hand on his shoulder when it was obvious that the enlightened was deceased and pulled him out of his murderous stupor. His eyes were vacant and Mal knew that this was him disconnecting from whatever monster he believed himself to be.

Mal reached into the pocket on the inside of the man's coat and pulled out an ancient piece of paper scribbled with fae writing. It was drenched in magic energy and the back of it had the shape of a sword etched in blood red ink.

"What does this mean?" she asked this question out loud even though she knew that Leo would not have the answer.

"It means that this investigation only gets harder the further you dig," Vlad's voice echoed within her head and her frown mirrored that of Leo's.

Had he heard it too?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ace Acadia

MISTOOK COCAINE FOR SUGAR AND DIED OF COOKIE OVERDOSE

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Foster S. Phoenix

WENT TO BED AND BUMPED HIS HEAD AND COULDN'T GET UP IN THE MORNING

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The Cachail

 Something had changed. The Cachail knew this, and yet he could not discern the nature of the change itself. The world around him must have shifted slightly, while his back had been turned; the weather could have changed, or the mood in the air, or the way his colleagues chose to present themselves. Somehow, all of these seemed true at once. The weather and the mood and the people were different now, and the Cachail could not perceive how.

He had emerged from Charmeine's house disoriented, clutching the godsmetal dagger in his left hand with no concern for what it meant. The night sky had spun before his eyes, pinpricks of starlight slowly trailing across an indigo backdrop, and the ground had rumbled under his feet. The technicians had spoken to him, but he had not heard them.

Couldn't one go back, if they tried?

The world was wrong somehow. It was wrong now, while the Cachail sat in the lobby of the precinct and closed his fist around empty air. He could not recall how he'd gotten here, or who had taken the dagger from him; all he could remember was Charmeine's silver-eyed stare and the eight notes they had hummed from the shadows. For a moment, when the Cachail closed his eyes, he was no longer in the precinct but standing in the back hallway of Charmeine's home. Strips of color bisected his vision, yellow and pink. Then they were gone, and the Cachail found himself in the lobby once more.

The Cachail did not know where he had come from.

This was a strange thought to have, considering that the Cachail did not indulge mental distractions while he worked. (Was he working?) But as he sat in a rigid wooden chair, surrounded by an array of empty sofas and potted plants, the realization came to him regardless. The expanse of memory in the Cachail's brain encompassed countless investigations, trials, verdicts, but nothing came before that. It was not that the Cachail didn't care enough to remember. Before today, perhaps, he might not have cared, but he expended the effort to think of his history now, and nothing was there to think about.

A specialist was reading the godsmetal dagger. The Cachail recalled handing it to her in the back rooms just hours before. She'd advised him to get some sleep, but instead he'd come here to wait for the results. Soon she would emerge and announce the location of the forge, and the Cachail would be on his way once again.

His left hand shook. He thought of the dagger.

Wasn't godsmetal strange? Wasn't the weapon strange? The dagger was only a tool, and yet it retained the story of where it had been. Its entire history was seared into the very material from which it had been forged. This was convenient for the Court, and for the Cachail, but it was strange, wasn't it? Tools didn't need histories.

The Cachail imagined a shadowy blacksmith, their face masked, their hammer shaping a glowing mass of metal. That moment of inception—that birth of the dagger—would remain with the weapon all its existence. Even if it were to be melted down again under high heat, its shape changed and its form unrecognizable, the godsmetal itself would remember where it had come from and what it had been.

But the dagger was unlikely to change, of course. If it was kept cool enough, it could serve all its life in the same mold, accumulating memories that it didn't deserve because it was only a tool—

The Cachail blinked. He looked down. The armrests of his chair had frosted over, and his fingers had turned so pale that they verged on bluish-purple. His hands and forearms had gone numb.

But the Cachail himself was calm. His breathing was even, and his gaze was steady, and his mind was clear.

How long had he been sitting here? He considered the question for a moment, and the correct answer seemed to come in a flash—you have sat in this chair for three hundred and thirty-three years, and nothing has changed—but then the Cachail shook his head, and his thoughts rearranged themselves, and he had only been waiting for the dagger for a few hours.

It occurred to the Cachail that he was falling apart.

"Sir?" said a small voice from behind him. He turned toward the rear doorway, where the red-haired specialist stood with a file folder and a pen. "Sir," she said, "we have located the forge."

"Of course." The Cachail rose from his chair, melted ice slipping between his fingers. "I plan to pursue this in the morning. Tell Willow where I have gone."

"Of course, sir."

He took the folder from her hands. For one instant, the paper glowed white where it met his fingertips, and crystals of ice materialized on the outside of the folder. Then they were gone, as was the Cachail.

***

He could barely drive. He should have waited until dawn had broken, or until an employee of the Court had been able to escort him across town. But the Cachail did not waste time, and these early-morning hours allowed for freer investigation.

He had no plan, other than to travel to the forge and collect evidence. Ordinarily, he would have lingered around the precinct and reviewed the available information, ensuring that his work in the field would be efficient and cost-free. But today the Cachail found himself acting without deliberation. This was all right. The Court wanted the case to be closed, and so the Cachail would close the case.

His fingers vibrated on the steering wheel, alive with an energy that did not reach his head. His vision was split. One part of him saw the road, and another part saw the sherbet-colored painting from Charmeine's house. In certain instants, the road turned pink and the sky turned yellow and the horizon burned. Sometimes the Cachail thought he saw Charmeine's face in the washed-out stars above the city. Sometimes he saw only the asphalt in front of his car, and he realized that he was driving in two different lanes.

Something had changed. The Cachail knew this, but he could not discern what had changed because it seemed to be everything at once.

Just as his sight was divided between truth and illusion, the Cachail's mind was divided between two investigations, one professional and one personal. The professional investigation demanded that he review facts while he drove, but the personal investigation was more flexible. It changed shapes as he drove, and it consumed the crevices of his brain that were not actively engaged.

At one point, the Cachail found himself pondering a case he'd solved five years prior. A prominent realtor had been poisoned, and he and the Court had found ample ground to investigate. Every aspect of the realtor's last days had been suspicious—the party at which the poisoning had taken place, the unfamiliar people who had attended, the odd position in which her body had been found—and the Court had urged the Cachail to point fingers in as many directions as possible. But the Cachail had realized that too much had been suspicious. The realtor's entire world had turned stranger over the course of a week, but this had not been because of criminal doings behind the scenes. By ignoring the flashier leads, the Cachail had discovered the truth: circumstances had seemed so strange because the victim had invited them to be so. The poisoning had been a suicide, and the party and its guests had only reflected the deteriorating condition of an unstable host.

In hindsight, the solution had seemed obvious. But the lesson had remained—if the world surrounding a person seemed twisted and wrong, the world was often not to blame. A person impressed their identity on their environment.

The Cachail thought about this as he left the urban trappings of Chicago. Again and again, he thought of the poisoned realtor, and he witnessed the road turning pink and yellow. A person impresses their identity on their environment, he thought, and he watched his surroundings melt around him, and he idly wondered why everything was changing.

The forge was located less than an hour outside the city, in a warehouse that the Court had not been monitoring. None of the factions could have known about this place—the town in which it was situated, Long Grove, only catered to humans, and the warehouse had been reported to be derelict. But the dagger could not have been created anywhere else. A skilled magic-user might have cloaked the forge, making it appear to be an abandoned warehouse, or the forge might be located underground. Regardless of specifics, the Cachail's newfound knowledge ensured that the forge would not remain hidden.

A couple of obvious questions remained, questions that the Cachail might have discussed with Willow had he waited to depart. The forging of godsmetal was a difficult process, and smiths who created godsmetal weapons only did so for great reward. Whoever had asked for this particular weapon—Dorian H'Langraash's murderer, hopefully—had provided enough incentive for the smith to illegally produce the dagger. What had the buyer promised?

The other question was one of particular concern to the Court. While godsmetal smiths came from several factions, most of the smiths were highly-trained Fae. After all, certain Fae possessed the necessary magic to transmute common ores into godsmetal, whereas only the most resourceful of the other factions could attempt the process. If this illegal forge was managed by a Seelie, well, that was the Seelie Court's concern. But an Unseelie producing this dagger meant that the Court had partially contributed to Dorian H'Langraash's murder. Which faction had created the dagger, and could the Court be blamed for the dagger's offenses?

Considering this should have thrilled the Cachail. It had thrilled him before, after all—Unseelie involvement in the case meant that the Cachail could see it to completion. Whether or not the outcome reflected poorly on the Court, a part of the Cachail had hoped that the Unseelie would be bound to the case, thereby binding the Cachail as well.

But today the Cachail felt none of his former eagerness. Completing the investigation meant nothing. The realization that it meant nothing also meant nothing, but the Cachail did not have time to dwell on any of this, because his car was rapidly approaching the warehouse.

The forge had been hidden well. From a glance, the Cachail could discern that the warehouse visible through his windshield was not truly present, at least in its apparent state. The walls seemed to have corroded, giving the entire structure a reddish-orange color, and the size was not nearly enough to house the sophisticated godsmetal-forging equipment. But a slight shimmer surrounded the warehouse, and the Cachail knew instantly that something worth hiding lay behind that magical veil.

Again, the Cachail did not have a plan. He left his car on the side of the road anyway, and he began to approach the warehouse. The forge was far enough from the main streets of Long Grove that it and the warehouse would escape attention, so the Cachail hoped that security would be minimal. This early in the morning, no one would be around; the only obstacle he might encounter would be a defensive shield, and the Cachail had not prepared for that.

But there was no defensive shield. The Cachail passed through the veil easily, and the warehouse transformed before his eyes. What had once seemed old and minuscule was now a hulking, multiple-story structure, large enough to channel the necessary magics for godsmetal refinement. For an instant, the walls of the warehouse appeared pink and yellow, and then they became a brightly-painted white.

The front entrance was a giant gap cut into the side of the warehouse. The Cachail did not hesitate to enter. Other infiltrations had involved back entrances and careful planning, but the Cachail no longer compared his actions to a precedent. This way, he was inside the building more quickly, and he worried significantly less.

Perhaps the Cachail was too calm as he surveyed the godsmetal forge before him. The instrumentation was a tangle of ancient and modern equipment, connected throughout the warehouse like strangely-shaped monoliths. In the center was the great vat for common ores, elevated above the ground so that magical flame could heat it. Glass tubing led from the vat to other chambers around the room, one for aeration, one for filtering, one for refinement. Most of the equipment was beyond the Cachail's knowledge—after all, only extensively-trained Fae understood the entire process—but he knew enough to recognize the forge for what it was. The setup was both highly impressive and highly illegal.

"The preparations have been interrupted."

The Cachail was still calm as he turned to his right. At the furthest wall of the warehouse stood a figure in a long robe, their long hair floating around their waist. For a moment, the Cachail thought he beheld Charmeine; then he spotted what should have been the right arm of the figure. An inky tendril sprouted from the arm-socket of the robed Other. Only an Enlightened could have been transformed in such a way.

"The preparations," the figure said again, and he took a step forward. His voice was like the whistling of wind between barren tree branches, natural and disconcerting. Even at this distance, the Cachail could perceive that his eyes were glowing holes in his skull, empty cavities imbued with power beyond the physiological.

In that moment, the Cachail and the Enlightened stared at one other. All was quiet. The Cachail blinked, and for a second he was back in the precinct lobby again, sitting in that wooden chair, his hands frozen to the armrests with century-old ice. Then he was in a warehouse he did not recognize, and a tendril was bursting from a strange figure's body like an engorged snake.

The tendril spiraled toward the Cachail at blinding speed, and he ran.

The Cachail was not a runner, but today he was not himself, either. He could hear the tendril whizzing behind him, and he ducked behind a hanging stretch of glass tubing. Beside him, the tendril stopped in midair, then retracted; when the Cachail peered around the tubing, he could see the Enlightened staring back at him, eyes still glowing in the dark, tendril hanging loosely at his side.

"The Revelation must not be interrupted," he said.

The tendril shot out again, and suddenly it stopped, because it was encased in ice.

The Cachail's entire body was shaking. He was calm—he had been calm for what felt like years—and yet his hands were trembling, and his breath was short, and frost was shooting up the tendril of the Enlightened as if the frost itself were alive. When the Enlightened was consumed by the frost, the Cachail remained calm; when the body of the Enlightened fell, and when it collapsed with a clunk onto the warehouse floor, he was calmer still.

A paper had fallen from the left hand of the Enlightened, covered in Fae script and adorned with an image of a dagger. It fluttered to the floor, and in the instant that it hit the polished tile, the Cachail knew that the Enlightened was dead.

He sat there behind the tubing until the sun rose, until the pinky-yellow hues of dawn had crept through the gaping entrance of the warehouse. If a passerby had entered the warehouse at that time, they would have recognized very little of what they saw. They would see an entire room covered in a layer of ice, thick and impenetrable; a body would lay on the floor, but it too would be unrecognizable, for it would only appear a bump in the slick, glassy sheen of the warehouse floor.

Sometime between the Enlightened's death and the dawn, it might have occurred to the Cachail that he was falling apart. But the observation would have come late, because he had fallen apart already.

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Melia

Smoke curled from the end of a cigarette the same way a cat's tail flicked back and forth— with the slow calculated prowess of a hunter waiting for the perfect time to pounce. The world was darkened through her stolen sunglasses. Not the diamond encrusted ones she'd swiped in front of the prince, but a darker pair made more for hiding the eyes of the wearer than protection from the sun. Still, Melia's eyes studied the warehouse in front of her carefully, watching without expression for any sign of movement from inside.

Her foot rested casually on the gas pedal of the car, hand still clutching the gearshift as if at any moment she would be nothing but a blur of gravel and dust as the wheels yanked her safely from the parking lot. But she didn't move, didn't take her eyes off the heavy steel door leading to the entrance of the building in front of her. Even the cigarette in her other hand, half-poised out the window, had barely touched her lips. It wasn't worth it to break her concentration, even as her body fluttered with a nervous energy she was not used to experiencing.

The building pulsed with magic. She could feel it coming off of the foundation like the breaths of some ancient, sleeping god. Though Melia lacked the ability to see what it looked like, there was no denying its presence. The magic was like acid down the back of her throat, scalding and corrupt as if it was a virus trying to eat her from the inside out. It yanked on her muscles, pulling the tense sinew as it burned through her nerves— telling her to run, to turn back, and never step foot near this cursed place again. But the sky was beginning to darken, casting shadows across the earth yet doing nothing to diminish the faint glow from inside the windows. This was her only opportunity.

On instinct, she looked for Alec in the seat beside her and found it empty. Fiddling with the phone in her lap, Melia pulled up the last text he had sent her and smiled at the sight of the dragon buried beneath the weight of his dog. Safe and happy at home, where he should be. It would be more suspicious if he were here, she tried to convince herself. Although the words were true, they did little to stop her stomach from coiling into cold knots of uncertainty. Alec was her secret weapon— nobody ever suspected some washed out iron-infused fae to have a dragon at their back.

The phone screen darkened just as the quiet crunch of feet against gravel filled her ears. Slowly, she turned off the car engine, sliding the keys into her pocket as she allowed her foot to slip off the pedals. Breathe, Melia. Acting on the order, she took in a breath, pushing the sunglasses up onto her head as she tried to hold it in for as long as possible. You've got this. It's just a walk in the park. The footsteps were coming closer, approaching the car as she dropped her cigarette into the dirt and began to reach for the door to the car. A walk through a park in hell, but still a park.

"Hello, my dear." The voice was like velvet grinding against sandpaper. Smooth, at first, almost soft enough to reel you in, but beneath it there was something jagged and sharp. Even with those few words, the hairs on the back of her neck began to rise, pulse quickening the closer the silhouette of a man became in her peripheral vision. "It's been so long since we've seen each other face to face." Melia could see his fingers, long and white, curled around the edge of the open window.

She didn't allow herself to turn, to move her eyes even a fraction of an inch from the building. "You know me," she answered curtly, refusing to give in to the weight of his eyes boring into her skull. "Always working."

From the edge of her vision, she could see his pale teeth begin to smile. "Is that what you're calling it now?" he asked. She bit her tongue, holding back all the bitter words that came to mind. He's trying to piss you off. It was harder talking to him in person. There were more rules, more hoops to jump through to ensure her safety. He never gave her time to answer, poising his next question with as taunting of an edge as he could muster. "Where's your friend? I hoped you'd bring him." Images of Alec strapped to a table flickered to mind, a burning light above him illuminating every edge of his skin as a cold dagger carved away pieces of him. Melia could almost hear him shouting and feel the heat radiating off of his body to the point that sweat began to bead across her forehead.

"Home." It wasn't a lie but the relief that it brought her was minimal at most. "He didn't need to come here." Get out of my head, is what she wanted to say. The image of Alec's face, contorted into knots of furious pain as he was skinned alive, wouldn't leave her. Melia knew it was him, she knew. But the only way to get it to stop was to wait—to keep her eyes on the building and refuse to give him what he wanted.

There was a pause, a moment of unspoken disappointment passing between the two parties before he spoke again. "Pity. I should have asked you to invite him."

A thousand different responses ran across her tongue. Next time, she might have said. Or, you should think about these things. None of those were good options. They were promises to something wicked, to the chains she was already bound to, and she did not want to increase their weight. Instead, she nodded. "You should have," Melia agreed, sliding her hand upwards to free the sunglasses from her tangled hair.

She could feel the frustration radiating off of his body. If she refused to play the game, then there was no sport in it. And there was nothing he loved more than winning. We need to hurry this up. The sun was growing dimmer on the horizon. Soon, there would be no time left. Her foot drummed impatiently against the floor of the car as he spoke again. "You should be home with me," he began. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see him guesture to the bare and dusty parking lot she sat in. "Not out here, with them." His body leaned forward, head almost resting on the window. Don't look, she reminded herself, eyes straining to keep steady on the building. "You'll love the new things I've added to my collection." In her mind, she could see it. Cold, darkened walls covered in cases of every size. The bloodstained horrors they held within was enough to cripple even the coldest fae with fear. And between them, photographs from a lifetime ago. Shattered, faded pictures from memories she no longer cared to recognize. "I even got a new frame for your favorite piece. I know how attached you are to it."

"You have an invitation to a party." Melia cut him short, her tongue as thick as the lead settling in her veins. "I need to get inside. Are you going to let me in?"

Another pause. Quieter this time, more contemplative. "Why don't you step out of the car, Melia?" he suggested. By way of answer, she pulled the keys out of the pocket of her coat and forced them back into the ignition. Immediately, the lights on the dashboard began to glow, ready for her to turn over the engine and leave at a moment's notice. His fingers tightened on the window, straightening up to his full height as he ordered, "Step out of the car." Melia paused, fingers still wrapped around the key, but unable to disobey. Just go, she wanted to scream. Go. But she was stuck, unable to make any movements except for the ones that obeyed.

The car fell cold and silent again, keys put back in their pocket as she opened the door to the car and slid out of the driver's seat. He closed it behind her, letting the metal slam. Keeping her eyes firmly in the dirt, Melia stood in front of him. "Better?" she asked, but he did not answer.

It felt like ages before he spoke again, eyes staring down at her as the wind blew around them. With strained ears, Melia heard something whispering from beneath the breeze. It was in a language she did not know, but one that she had heard many times before. "If you can behave," he spoke at last, as soon as the words had ceased, "I'll take you inside."

"One more request." Her throat felt as dry as the stones beneath her feet as she lifted her hands up to tug on her earlobes. "These need to come out." Again, he didn't answer, but she felt something change inside of her as if a burden had been lifted from her shoulders. Relief spread across her aching muscles as she began to pull the jewelry off of her body, setting off a spark of magic deep in her chest that expanded her lungs like cold, fresh air. Frantically, she shoved every piece into her pocket, letting them mingle with the keys there.

His hand closed around her wrist, skeletal fingers tight and unyielding. "Don't lose them," he growled, and even as she nodded and tried to pull herself free, he continued to hold on.

Together, they walked towards the building, his grip cutting off circulation to her fingers despite her efforts to flex them. The gravel shifted and crunched beneath their feet, sending dust and small spiders skittering away in an attempt not to be crushed beneath them. As the warehouse grew closer, the magic surrounding it grew stronger. Waves of nausea crashed into her chest, sucking the air from her lungs. Melia could feel it coming off of him as well— not as strong but just as twisted, born from a power that was never meant to be.

He pulled open the door, steel bowing beneath his fingertips even though his thin body never should have been able to move it. Melia peered into the darkness, feet unwilling to carry her forward. Fae were not allowed inside, not unescorted—nobody was. He pulled her through the door as if she was stepping into a gateway to another world. Nothing about this is right. Every part of her screamed it to be true. This is unnatural. This is wrong.

"I don't think my friends will like you very much if you think that," he whispered, breath so close to her ear that the hairs around it shifted with his words.

As her eyes began to adjust, Melia shook her head. "I don't think I give a shit," was her response, yet her voice was quieter than before. The magic was stronger now, pulsing like the steady beat of a rotting heart, sending out its putrid blood to veins long collapsed by decay. Around her wrist, his grip only tightened, body rejuvenated by the very force that made her sick. "Let me go," Melia requested, trying to pull herself free. "I have work to do."

She made the mistake of turning her head too far, and his grin bleached the darkness even within the black, cavernous space of his mouth— from both mouths. "I missed you so much." It wasn't an answer, but he released her anyways.

Without the contact, she felt freer from the magic than before. The connection had been broken, allowing her own magic to rush forward to meet her. It was an overwhelming feeling, almost too strong for her to handle, but it allowed her teeth to sharpen and her body to change, becoming little more than a shimmer of glamour in the darkness. Melia was no longer who she once was, every one of her features had changed into something new— something vicious and camouflaged. Without a word of thanks, she pulled herself further away from him, allowing the dim lighting of the room to swallow her whole.

As she moved, unseen and unheard, she did her best to ignore the shapes around her. Fires that glowed, but projected no light. Bodies that hung, dripping and fresh, from hooks suspended from the rafters. Things to be collected, things to be sacrificed, and a place to speak to whatever was beyond this realm—whatever connected them to this earth. Some of the corpses she passed were familiar, foolish detectives that underestimated the strength of the warehouse. Harvested. Mutilated. Carted away like insects to be displayed.

No sooner had she dove into the depths of the building, swallowed whole by the scent of warm meat and decay, did she find the Enlightened she was looking for. The woman was standing in front of a table packed with jars, waiting patiently for something to happen. As Melia approached, she looked up, colorless eyes seeing right through her with a smile that boasted more teeth than should have been possible. Her body was covered in dark cloth, hiding her skeletal frame, but the power of the building pulsed from her. She was the twisted heart fueling the horrors around them.

"Have you lost your way?" she asked Melia, tilting her head ever so slightly to the right. "You're Fin's girl. I know you well." Melia said nothing, letting her speak as she cautiously approached. "He speaks so fondly of you." Her eyes darted to the table, to the sheet of paper crammed between two jars as if it was nothing more than an afterthought. "Get rid of that glamour, child. It won't help you." With a wave of her hand, Melia felt the magic snuffed out inside of her quicker than the death of a candle flame. Lips parting, she breathed in too deeply and felt the Enlightened's own magic inside of her body.

It twisted and writhed like a worm, gnawing away at her insides as if she was a feast for the ages. Pain spiralled through her, too fast for comprehension as she doubled over with little more than a cry. The world began to burn at the edges, too hot, too bright, blinding her from the soft footsteps of the woman who approached. "You come to kill me in my own home?" she asked with a sigh. "I thought you were so much smarter than that."

Melia couldn't answer. Her body trembled, trying to force words from her throat only to choke on them. Bare it. There was no strength left in her body for her to grit her teeth. Only to begin to crumple, body pitching itself forward as the magic attacked her limbs, immobilizing her as her knees collided with the concrete. "You tried to ruin our preparations," the woman hissed. "For that, there isn't a way I can spare you."

Her whole body was on fire. Tears squeezed from between her shut eyes as the woman stopped in front of her. With what little energy she had, Melia wrapped her arms around her chest. Bare it. Bare it. A cry ripped free of her body, head almost bowed to the concrete. Every muscle in her convulsed, trying to flee from an enemy on the inside. Bare it. The Enlightened was so close. So close that she could feel her presence pulsing with energy, driving needles through Melia's spine with each sharp glare.

The woman started to speak once more, but there was no time. Melia tore herself free from the pain, body jolting forward as she buried a godsmetal dagger into the Enlightened's stomach. Immediately, the pain slipped away like a coat worn too long. Bare it. Bare it. Bare it.

A hand touched her shoulder as she curled back up, head resting on her knees.

"What a wonderful show, my love."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Brandy Alva

There were few things more difficult than walking through wet gravel in heels. Every time the woman thought she had finally steadied her own feet, she'd take another step and feel the heel end of her shoe slip into the mud and rocks again, scuffing up the material and coating it in dirt. Hundreds of years perfecting the art of walking had apparently done far less for her then Brandy had hoped.

The whole situation would have bothered her less if she hadn't been in such a fowl mood. Once again, she'd been forced to have a very strict conversation with Oz that morning about the reasons why he would not only not be coming along, but also why he was going to stay in the

apartment and vacuum the living room as "punishment." On top of that, Adam had run late because of a car issue, and then they'd taken a fucking hour through traffic to find the rundown warehouse they were looking for. Not only was it disgustingly filthy and smelled of petrol, but there was absolutely no one else around for miles. And for the cherry on top, the heatwave currently hitting the city had risen to a sweltering one hundred degrees.

Sweat dripped down Brandy's back and soaked her tank top that was little more than a few strings and an old print of a dreamcatcher in front of her stomach. It was to let as much of the muggy breeze touch her skin as possible, not that it was helping any. The woman wiped her forehead onto the back of her hand and sent an expectant glance back at Adam. He was faring little better, but wearing a smile on his face all the same. How he could do that she didn't understand. There was nothing to smile about. They were on a job that was going poorly and she smelled like three gallons of sweat had been dumped onto her head.

"I checked the red building on the right. Nothing's there either," Adam announced as he jogged up to her side, panting from the heat. A few gelled hairs had fallen from his smooth hair style and fallen into his face to glue to his forehead instead.

Just what she wanted to hear. Brandy tucked a strand of her own hair behind her ear and checked on her ponytail again with a small tug to make sure the hairband was holding. "Terrific." With a roll of her eyes, she pulled her phone out and checked her phone again. They'd wasted another thirty minutes and weren't any closer to finding a scrap of evidence. The closest thing she'd found to a clue thus far was a sink that'd been shoved into the corner of one of the empty metal shells and was currently being used by a family of mice as their new apartment.

"You okay?" She glanced over at Adam's concerned expression and sighed.

"I'm fine." The answer came out bitter, the fae's face softening as he tried to make her feel better with a sweaty arm slung over her shoulders.

"It's no harm if it's a dead end," he promised, shaking his head and loosening more unruly strands of black hair. "Then we check the next place." Adam reached out and pointed ahead of them. There sat two warehouses left, both with their doors thrown wide open, and a few windows broken out on the one on the left. "Besides, we're almost done."

Brandy nodded, "I suppose."

"You used to love doing this," Adam reminded, trying to nudge her in the ribs with his elbow.

Brandy laughed. Her head shook as she slipped her hands into her pocket and away from the the fae's playful jabbing. "The investigations weren't really what I liked," she admitted after a moment, her tongue jammed against her cheek. It was the company. Her lip was bitten between her teeth as the thought crossed her mind, though. There was no way she would tell that to Adam. He clung tight enough as it was sometimes.

"Not even the arson case of '77?" he asked, a grin slipping onto his face. He knew he'd trapped her with that look alone. "You literally took my gun and burst in like a classic Sean Connery." She laughed again, shaking her head and letting her hair fall into her face. It made Brandy feel a little younger to talk about things like this. Not much younger, of course, but maybe that wasn't really the word she was looking for. Carefree. That was it. The taste was a savored feeling on her tongue.

"Okay, one time," she relented as Adam brushed his shoulder with hers while steering her towards the parking lot. "But that was it."

Adam relented with no more than a shrug of his shoulders, his cheeks burning from the sun and smile wide. "You check right and I'll check left?" he offered.

Brandy gave him a slight nod and watched as he removed his arm from over her shoulders and jogged over toward the open building, one hand resting over where his gun was tucked into his waist. She rolled her eyes and made a more casual stroll over to the last blue warehouse that was barely standing on the corner posts it was built on.

As she stepped inside, the metal gave out a loud groan of protest, and a chirp was shot down at her from the rafters.Looking up, Brandy caught sight of a small family of birds. The mother sat inside the nest while another bird came down to snap at her, tweeting and swooping down low over her head. "Okay, okay," she relented, ducking low beneath one of the birds attacks and feeling the fabric of her shirt cling to her stomach. "I'm going. No need to rush me." If there was an enlightened around there would be no need for any living thing. The Other would have killed off the small family a long time ago.

Leaving the barren warehouse behind, Brandy walked back across the gravel courtyard alone. She had no problem taking her time, assuming Adam would come out in another moment, also alone, also with zero clues. It really was such a waste of time. Too bad they couldn't have gotten a more useful lead.

Brandy stepped into the newer warehouse, sunlight hitting her face through one of the broken window panes.She put a hand over her eyes and peering into the dark. Her blood froze. There, at the other end, Adam was pressed to the ground with a foot atop his chest and a knife pointed toward his throat. The demon held her breath, hardly daring to move forward soundlessly.

"What do you think you're doing?" The enchanted asked him, leaning down over him. Brandy could feel the magic radiating back toward her. It was more than just powerful, the taste of the soul on her tongue making her dizzy. It tasted of something black and sticky and burnt, as enlightened souls often did. They'd all been ruined by their own research. It made Brandy's stomach twist uncomfortably.

"Looking, for something," Adam admitted between gasps. Brandy's heart squeezed painfully at the look on his face. There was fear hidden there, twisted up behind the sneer he was giving the woman who had pinned down both his arms.

"And interrupting the Revelation?" she shook her head, short black curls moving as she did. It was a miracle she had any hair left. Brandy moved closer still, almost at the gun. It lay just below a desk full of notes that must have caught Adam's attention and distracted him the first time. There were full sheets all on Godsmetal from what Brandy could see. Her eyes caught Adam's for a brief moment from where he was positioned on the floor as she crouched down to pick up his gun. "Why is your heart beating so fast then? What are you looking at?"

Eyes turned, neck craning and pinning Brandy where she crouched. A short gasp of a breath left her lungs. The enlightened twisted her frown into a smile. "Oh, that's why!" Brandy tried to move, but a force pinned her there that she couldn't see. Magic swirled around and coated her in the thick scent of burnt ash. It was a struggle to breathe. "You didn't tell me you had a friend, Adam."

The demon's eyebrows knitted in confusion. She opened her mouth to speak,but her body was suddenly yanked up along with Adam's, facing him like some demented puppet show was about to take place as the enlightened grin grew wider. "No, no, more than friends. That's why it's beating so fast." She placed a clawed hand over the fae's chest and drew a circle over where his heart was meant to be.

Brandy's body was thrown again, her butt landing in an old, wooden chair that sat by the desk scattered with papers. A grunt of pain escaped her lips, hair falling into her eyes and body stiff. Pain rushed from her hand, blood welling up from a cut she received from being tossed like a ragdoll. "Hey," she growled to get the woman's attention but was promptly ignored.

"Should I let her watch then?" The finger drew its way up from Adam's heart and back to his neck, the enlightened turning her face away from Brandy to focus on her first prey.

Searching the desk, Brandy's eyes caught hold of a piece of paper just close enough for her to bend her arm to. With shaking fingers, Brandy gathered the blood up at the edge of her fingertip and began to draw. She knew little about having magic of her own. It wasn't something demons were naturally born with, but Brandy had learned more than her fair share of sigel's. She drew a skewed line intersecting with another and crossed over the circle around it, pain throbbing up and down her arm, ignoring what the enlightened was whispering to Adam. With a final drop of blood placed on the mark, the demon slammed her hand down upon it as best she could.

The release was instant. Her body toupled from the chair, no longer held in place. Adam fell across from her, and Brandy scrambled up, grabbing the piece of paper and rushing over to him. "Come on. Let's get out of here."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Alexander King

It was funny how all of the old history books had written dragons to be giant reptiles. The tales had spun out of control over years, forked tongues and red eyes and suddenly they were forty feet tall and made of scales and leather. As if they were relatives with dragons, or some such shit. It was ridiculous to picture that dragons now were supposed to be equivalent with the kind of bearded dragons and other lizards that could be pulled out of any pet store and dropped into a glass case for entertainment. Of course, real dragons were mammals and that was a fact of nature. Although, that didn't mean they could enjoy the idea of sitting on a warm rock on a hot day.

Alec lay on the hood of his car, soaking in the rays that came from the sun above. It was just reaching eleven, not yet hot enough to be burning up his skin but not too low that the frost was still on the ground. He twisted against the metal, readjusting to better get the rays hitting his stomach. A soft sigh slipped past his lips. The back of his eyelids were painted a deep red, and he threw an arm over his face to hide them better. Melia had stolen his sunglasses when she'd walked away to go explore.

There was a part of him that felt bad for agreeing to stay behind. What if something happened? It'd be all his fault for not protecting her. Then again, it was just an empty warehouse. Melia had handled tougher shits than Alec had, too. He was only worrying because of what had happened at the pawnshop. Melia had said he'd been overreacting since then. And knowing her, she was probably right. What Lear had said was caught in Alec's head, though.

In fact, the dragon had a lot of things on his mind he couldn't shake. One example was what Imariel had mentioned. Of course, Alexander had already made his decision not to pursue that. It was stupid. And childish. And a waste of time. So why was Dorian's property still on his mind? It wasn't like he had the fire power to take over anyway. Related or not, Alec was little more than an insect in comparison to the titans that would be baring teeth at each other and fighting tooth and nail for control over a good section of North America.

Alec brought a cigarette to his lips, letting the sun hit his eyes again as he took a drag. He opened his eyelids barely, the sunlight hitting his vision directly and turning everything into blurry, shiny blobs as he watched a stream of smoke blow from his lips. It curled into the bright sky and disappeared seconds later in the atmosphere. Swiping his tongue over the inside of his cheeks, Alec sighed with an aftertaste of tobacco in his breath.

The vibration of his phone disturbed the boy's rest. It shook the hood of the car, and Alec sent a sideways glare at the device before picking it up. So much for a peaceful rest. Staring at the caller ID didn't make him feel better either. Two calls in one day wasn't unlike Isaac, but it did sour the dragon's mood. Tasting char at the back of his throat at the picture of the werewolf with his scar split by his wrinkled nose, Alec allowed himself to answer.

"Hello?" He asked lazily, pressing the phone to his ear and tilting his chin to stare at the warehouse in the distance. The heat made it shimmer like a mirage, the long concrete path up to it covered in chunks of rusted metal and a single car tire that was likely melted permanently to the pavement by now.

"I'm surprised you answered." There was a slight bitterness Isaac held in his tone that made Alec's lips twist into a frown. He knew that if they had been having this conversation face-to-face, Isaac would have already gotten as close as possible and slipped himself in between Alec's arms in whatever way he possibly could. Forced to rely on phone call, his temper flickered as fast and short lived as the dying ember on the edge of the dragon's cigarette.

"It's been busy," he replied, taking another breath in through his cigarette and out through his nose. It wasn't a lie, not exactly. Even if it had been, Alec wouldn't have hesitated. Sometimes, you said whatever you had to say.

There was a small lapse in conversation before Isaac laughed, as if he was just remembering he was supposed to be acting polite. "So busy you can't take a break?"

Alec rolled the cigarette between his lips, sucking in another breath and puffing it out before answering. "Kind of." It was a lie and it wasn't. His main concern was how Isaac would react to the gauze layered thickly over his shoulder to stop his wound from bleeding further. It'd been enough trouble to wrap it up and take care of it. All he wanted was for it to heal already. Invincible skin shouldn't have taken more than a day in his opinion.

"So I guess you forgot about dinner?" The question was a trap. Alec could taste it on his lips. He rolled his head back, hearing the metal pop beneath the weight of his skull. Blinking up at the sky and pulling the papery tube from his lips to breathe, the boy sighed.

"I did, didn't I?"

There was a pause after the words, a hesitation where all Alec could make out on the other end was a gentle breathing. "Amari's." The name was stale on Isaac's tongue. Alec's heart sank, cursing himself silently as he sat up and slid his feet onto the floor.

"Shit." The dragon used the three fingers that weren't currently clutching a cigarette to scrape over his hair and rustle his hair up. "That was this Friday." It wasn't a question this time. He remembered, as uncomfortable as the feeling was. Normally, Alec had no problem juggling his work and the people he was seeing. It was all laid out on a careful calendar inside his phone, but for some reason this case was getting on top of him and weighing down like a cement brick set atop his chest. Maybe he was too close to this one.

"It's fine." The response came with a dejected sigh. At least that was something the boy could count on. Isaac was as easy to forgive and forget as easy as he was to get steamed up about something. "Maybe we can-"

Whatever was said next was drowned out by a crash that sounded from inside the warehouse. Alec's eyes flickered up to the ajar door Melia had walked through not too long ago. He mouth was dry within the instance. "Can you hold that thought?" He asked Isaac, lowering the phone from his ear slightly to strain his hearing toward the metal building before him. Nothing.

Frowning, Alec crept up along the long path toward the door and the truck entrance that was conveniently rusted closed. The feeling in his bones grew worse the closer he got. It wasn't fear, but a similar rising of unease that tickled the back of his throat and swirling inside his gut. He let his gaze flicker once to his cigarette still clutched in his hand. It was flicked into the gravel and dead grass that ran along the side of the building after no more than a second of consideration.

"You still there?" Isaac's voice was a faint crackle of static poised in Alec's hand just below his shoulder. Close enough to hear but not close enough to distract him. A hissed 'shh' left his lips as he reached the foot of the entrance.

Alec peered into the room. It was wide and empty, nothing in sight but a concrete floor and a few empty pallets stacked beside him in the corner. As careful as he could, Alec stepped over the threshold and out of the sun, the darkness of the warehouse engulfing him almost immediately. Squinting in the dim light, Alec took a few steps forward and heard a crunch. His gaze went down for only a moment, catching the sight of a paper tucked beneath his foot. With careful, silent fingers, the dragion bent down and retrieved it. On the front of it was the design of a sword scribbled down in what looked like messy charcoal, Alec's hand smudging the edges.

"Alec, what's going on?"

The phone dropped to the ground, Alec feeling all the air leave his lungs. His back hit the wall with a tremendous pain racing along the deep cut in his shoulder. A shudder raced through his body, and as suddenly as the blow had come, Alec fell back to the ground, crashing onto the knees.

Above him, he heard the disapproving click of a tongue and the struggle of breath, feet shuffling on the dirt covered floor. "I told you you shouldn't have lied." Alec looked up, blood boiling hot at the two women before him that had appeared out of nowhere. Teleportation, most likely. The first held the other in a tight lock around her stomach, Melia struggling and making no impact on the strangling hold.

"I didn't." The hissed words spat from the fae's mouth almost made Alec smile.

Standing up and gaining his footing again, he stared down the stranger. It wasn't hard to taste the magic on her. It swirled around her form, not weak but poisonous. Corrupted. Alec's tongue flicked from his lips, tasting the air to sense for what she was feeling. There wasn't fear, but something close to disappointment. It could have even been regret, but everything was masked in the thick dust and forgotten magic that was pent up inside the warehouse.

On thing was for certain, she had no intention to fight him. It was clear from the way she'd pulled what was his close to her chest as a shield, one foot positioned back in an attempt to run. It was true she had magic, but not enough for more than a few party tricks. A bit of levitation, sure, but the pallets laying broken against the wall proved she couldn't even lift him.

A smile of cold confidence snaked onto Alec's lips, more so than he felt but less than he held. "You want to tell me what's going on here? Or are you going to hand her over and let this end peacefully?"

Melia glared daggers at him from where she stood. If it wasn't for those damn earrings, the fae could have handled this nuisance herself. Still, Alec couldn't help but have a little fun with the situation dropped into his lap. It felt too easy, but honest after the fucking horror show he had had this week? They were due for a win.

The enlightened stumbled back a step. Her grip on Melia tightened, nailing digging into her stomach. "I can't let you leave," she argued, glaring back at him. "We've been preparing for too long."

"We?" Alexander sent a quick glance past her to check behind for anything suspicious. There was no one there still.

The enlightened clamped her mouth shut tighter, working her teeth with an angry grinding noise. "Tell you what. You give me that and we trade."

"This?" Alec blinked, lifting up the paper he had stepped on, barely remembering it was in his hand. He received a slight nod as an answer.

Melia rolled her eyes. "What am I here? Do I not get a say in this?"

The dragon couldn't help the laugh that escaped from his lips. Instead of agreeing, he folded the paper and stuck it into his pocket instead. "I'll tell you what," he mimicked, raising a hand up to point at the girl holding Melia like a little kid mimicking a gun. "You let go or you find out how good of a shot I am." Warmth flowed from his fingers, beginning to swirl around his hand in the form of sparks of fire. They pooped and fizzled, fanning his face with warmth as a crooked grin split across his face.

"Don't you dare fucking shoot me," Melia warned, glaring at his even harder than before as she fought once more against the girl and ground her heel into the enlightened toe's.

"Go ahead." The words were said with a dark promise behind them, but Alec didn't think to care. He cocked his thumb back and with one eye squeezed shut to aim, he let loose a flame from the tip of his fingers.

Bells rang out, water spilling down. Alec tasted rust in his mouth, stumbling back in surprise.He spat out the taste, wiping off the disgusting water onto his hand. " Why in the hell do the sprinklers work?" He shouted to no one in particular, looking up to glare at the enlightened again and finding her scrambling away through a small gap in the warehouse wall. "Shit." He cussed, following Melia through the rainstorm inside and following up until they got to gap. It was too small for his shoulders to fit through, but Melia was already slipping through before he could stop her.

"Hey, cool it." He grabbed her arm without thinking, yanking Melia back so she was caught inside and outside at once. The fae whipped back to give him a glare.

"Let me go. I'll get her," she insisted, eyes burning up as much as Alec's were.

"And how the fuck are you going to do that?"

Melia heistated, searching his face for an answer. Then, she froze as if something had hit her. There was a pause as her lips parted and closed as if a silent question had left them, and then she shook her head, reaching up with her free hand and to his surprise plucking both the earrings from her ears and shoving them into his hand as she slipped from his grip.

"Hold these," his girlfriend ordered.

Alec blinked, letting her run away after the enlightened. He gazed down at the iron sitting in his hand. It was too good an opportunity to pass up. Without thinking, without daring to wait for Melia to come back, Alec heated up his palm until it was scalding hot. The iron melted into his palm, and he tilted the liquefied metal onto the ground.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Iris Bell

DID NOT HAND IN

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Avacado Marissa

Taxi's were confusing. They didn't show up when they were needed, rarely actually went as far as desired, and their payment systems seemed to change with every passing second. Still, given that Ava hadn't passed a driving test in over twelve years, their own option was to call a taxi and get out there. The vehicle was a slender one, squared off around the edges, and almost looked like it was pouting from the front. It smelled oddly of tacos, the ones from Rio Taquiro if she wasn't mistaken, and the driver smiled at her as she sat in the backseat.

"Long way out. Visiting family?"

"Something....like...that." It sounded smoother in her head, but Ava didn't have time to waste. The guy, still smiling, nodded his head at her and begun. It was a half hour's drive out to the warehouse but as she reached into her pocket to pull out her earphones, she realized that her pocket was surprisingly empty.

Shit. At least her phone still had good reception. She'd just have to watch the stupid videos on mute, or risk social embarrassment by listening to videos in front of the man without showing him them as well. She quickly typed out something vague and oddly specific about the way taxi's felt and hit send with her tongue half-way out her mouth in an inspired grin. That was out there, one of her iffy tweets, but immediately two of her followers liked it. Somehow, she'd already gathered ten-thousand followers despite only using it for six years. Perhaps were shitposts were just specific and oddly funny enough.

Or not, given as she didn't get another notification for the rest of the half-hour ride to Namelessville.

"Thanks," she said, getting out and handing the guy her credit card. He swiped it, had her input her email address, then drove off. The dust lifted from the back wheels as he went, smoking up the area until all she saw was a blur of black and yellow and a mirage of dust and uphoria as she breathed in the toxicity of the world.

The warehouse wasn't exactly within the city limits, but it was close enough that she could pretend that she was definity going to walk into that red barn instead of the old sweat-shop looking building that reeked of Enlightenment.

Just breathing it in made her shudder, but it was too late to call Foster and have him meet her there. No, she wanted to do this on her own. Everything else had been through others, but for once, she was going to walk in and find the guy who made the godsmetal dagger. If her suspicion was right, they were also the killer, and this case would be wrapped up within seconds. Pushing back her hair, she started walking down the dirt path that led to the building.

Trees lined the way, telling her stories of the olden days when they were but buds within the earth. Like all beings, Ava felt alive when she walked past something alive. In the city, though Chicago tried it's very best--read: it got a C- and celebrated because that's not failure!--there wasn't much to make her feel at home. There, though, she could breathe in real air that was only partially tainted by the disgusting creatures that called themselves humans. To...be fair....Others are just....as shitty.

A few white flowers fell from the blooming trees, dripping into her hair, and she didn't dare disturb them. Maybe now....I can....instagram. It was a shallow thought. Those were the ones that brought little smiles to her faces. With her phone in the pocket of her jacket, she pressed through, finding herself going up the path until she reached the building itself. A large lock waited at the doors, glaring down at her and laughing at her uselessness.

"Shit." It felt nice to say it out loud, but it didn't make the situation any better. If anything, she just felt stupid. Going with a team would have meant she could've actually gotten in.

Still, if she knew anything about buildings, it was that walking around them would make the situation worse, so she sat down on the other side of the building and leaned against the cooling vents. There, she could watch the trees and the little flowers that scurried off in the wind, and realize that she'd lived a long life within her death of doing absolutely fucking nothing. Sure, she worked as a morticiation and did great at that, and then worked for the institution and does okay there, but life as an inspector? Trying to put together the puzzle of someone's death? It wasn't for her. The last two, perhaps three if she stretched enough, cases had been enough to wear her out, and they hadn't lasted more than forty-eight hours at most.

Aside from the dragon, most people didn't get cases that lasted over that time. They were deemed cold, stuffed away, and the bodies remained just that: bodies.

But no. A Prince had to go and get himself killed. He couldn't even be resurrected, given how hard it was to keep them alive, and how viciously he fought against his revival. For all she knew, he orchestrated his death and just wanted to die. No,....who the....hell...does that?

Just as she was getting ready to give up, a car pulled up outside. The engine purred as it turned off, shifting in the rocks as it fell into park. Doors slammed and a figure went out. She wanted to walk over and see who, but something told her to remain out there, hidden. At least for a moment. They went in and the doors slammed behind them. They seemed to have a thing for loud noises, that was for sure. And given how the immediate area suddenly felt as though the cosmos had thrown up, she knew that whatever being that was, they were mad. Bonkers. Enlightened.

Her phone was out of her pocket but it wasn't Twitter she fell too--instead, Foster's number came up and she sent him a text that basically said 'get the fuck out here' with a google link to her location. To the groupme that the investigation heads had sworn would come in handy at some point, she sent 'Enlightened at warehouse' and then stood up, pressing herself against the wall as though she were waiting for someone to find her at any second. She wasn't quite certain how those creatures worked. They seemed to know everything, yet still, they could die the same as anyone else. Getting the damned dagger had certainly taught her that.

Foster showed up at the same time that Melia and Alexander did--all getting out of their vehicles at the red barn and walking up the same path she had to get the warehouse. She met them by the edge of the woods and pointed at the building.

"There....he's....inside."

"You sure he owns this place?"

Ava nodded.

*

The building was cold. Not the regular type of cold either, but the type of cold that made her go, 'oh shit', because that building was death and she entered through the gates of hell to another dimension entirely. It was quiet, almost entirely dark, and though she could hear the Other walking around somewhere, it was impossible to know just where they were. Everyone seemed to have some sort of gun, but Ava hadn't thought that far ahead, so she just held out her phone with the flashlight turned on and hoped for the best. If anything, she didn't really feel afraid.

Ever since they'd left the Fallen's house, all Ava felt was nothing. A blank slate that covered her being, exposing every inch of corroded skin with it's touch. Soon, she knew, that would be all that existed. Soon, it would be time to fade into the nothing that called her name at night. To die within the ground like all others had.

That time felt too pressing, but she would forge on. One last case. One last mystery before she discovered her own faith and met with the edge of creation and the blissful touch of everlasting death.

As a zombie, she'd spent her life in more luxury than a ghost. She'd gotten the opportunity to have sex, eat and drink as though it would actually help her, and wear clothing that looked cute. Ava even got to go on dates. To wake up next to a warm body and know they actually knew she was there all night, watching them sleep. Ghosts just got to be sad and shit around the earth. Wraiths were even worse, though she wouldn't be telling that to Liam anytime soon. All that a wraith could ever be was a bundle of raging emotions, like a boner but somehow more exciting.

In all the time it took her to shine her flashlight over a table, she spotted a typed sheet of paper. It detailed the creation of a godsmetal blade with deadly precision. Near the bottom of the page it had been crumpled, ripped, and drops of blood infused the page with a delightful and disgusting twist. She wrinkled her nose as she picked it up, thankful that she didn't have fingerprints to stain the page.

Three shots rang out and she turned just in time to see the Enlightened rip off Foster's head. The phone dropped but the light remained shining on him as the others shot out, one claiming his forehead, one his neck, and a third finding home in the splendid tender heart that beat so violently against him. Blood came out like a fountain, drinking all around, but it was less than she would have expected.

It was another death, yet all she held was shock. Should she care that the lives of others were there, burning up as they came, so quickly extinguished by the likes of others? Should she care that she'd slept with him, joked with him, worked with him?

Or should she care that they'd just killed the man they desperately needed to get information out of?

If anything, as she reached behind her to grab the paper, then down to pick up her phone, Ava wasn't certain if caring was even an option.

They had his plans. Hopefully, his blood as well.

How many lives would Dorian claim from the grave?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Leo Wilder

Mal walked beside Leo silently; knotting her fingers together as they pursued their next lead in the case. At the rate of which other investigators were dying off, it was safe to say that they needed to ally up. Mal and Leo may have had a falling out, but at least they still knew that they could trust one another. That in itself was hard enough to find these days.

"I'm sorry," Leo said this to her even though he wasn't quite sure what it was he needed to apologize for in the first place.

"For what, exactly?" she inclined her head towards Leo and raised her eyebrow.

Leo still couldn't conjure up exactly what it was that he had done to upset her so much the last time they met.

What did you do to make her hate you, Leo? I mean, other than be yourself of course.

I don't know.

Of course you know, think about it.

A cursed Vampire hates the doomed Enlightened who would sacrifice his own sanity for power. What could go wrong there?

Are you saying I made her mad because of the way my dad forced me to be? That doesn't make any sense..

"Leo? Are you hearing voices again?" A sweet singsong melody injected itself into his head and forced the frantic thoughts of his insanity aside.

Leo clamped his mouth shut as though he did not know how he wanted to answer that question. So he nodded his head sheepishly and and clenched his jaw.

"This case is making it worse, isn't it?" she probed, tucking her hair behind her ear so her charcoal eyes could peer up at him.

Leo nodded once again, afraid to look at her knowing that she would be able to see the shame swimming in his eyes.

"Maybe you should step away from the case?" her voice rose up at the end to make it a question when it was clearly more of a statement.

Is she trying to get you out of the way? Take all the glory for herself when she solves the case?

No... Mal wouldn't do that to me..

Are you sure?

"What are they saying to you Bear?" she inquired softly as if she already knew but wanted to confirm it anyways.

"They..." he trailed off as he tried to find a way to continue without completely offending the one friend he had left in the world, "they think you want me to go home because you want to get all the recognition for solving the case," he finished this abruptly, almost speaking too fast as he threw the words out of his mouth like vomit.

"Is that what you think?" she asked lightly, being one of the only people who he talked to about his circumstance that cared about him and not his voices. The hurt that was bleeding into her eyes made Leo recoil. He hated seeing her so vulnerable.

"No, not at all," he shook his head furiously as something bouncing in the air electrified his skin and his nerves were going haywire.

"Is that...?" Mal stopped in her tracks and looked up at the sky. The atmosphere around the large metal warehouse in front of them was twinged with a deep purple haze.

"An Enlightened," Leo stated this sharply, his stomach plummeting to the ground beneath them.

This is not good.

Seems like we really are gonna have to out-crazy ourselves this time.

Leo could feel the smile in the voices as they racked his brain and he cringed.

This cannot end well at all.

Despite their better judgement, the two of them decided to enter the building. In the center of the warehouse was a lit forge and standing directly in front of that was another enlightened. His eyes were the color of Amber; cast in the illumination of a perpetual fire.

He wasn't looking at them, but it was clear that he was well aware of their existence in the universe.

This man knows sacrifice, I can sense it from here.

Let's show him that we do too, Bear. Please. Can we?

Not right now.

"I know you can sense me and that my power is palpable in the air so either you're just as crazy as I am or you have a death wish. Which is it? I'm genuinely curious," the man finally turned to look at the two of them and a grin had stretched his lips into that of the cheshire cat. His teeth were pearly white and it was evident that he was using his power on the opposite end of the spectrum from sparingly. He was using it now even as he walked- no, scratch that, floated- about the room. He didn't focus on the pair of them for more than a few brief moments.

He flicked his hand in the air and and sighed as he tilted his head to the left in consideration.

He hears them too, Leo, perhaps more unceasingly than you do.

He hears them right now. They're telling him to kill us.

I'm aware, thank you.

"So why are the two of you here? Do you wish to join your fallen comrades? The annoying Dragon, the oddly-named Zombie, and the... cute but slightly conceited Unseelie?" he blinked once after each person mentioned as if he were mentally imagining their respective faces.

Funny thing is we all know exactly who he's talking about with those adjectives, don't we?

"We wish to examine the forge for clues towards a murder investigation. We aren't here to bother you," Mal stepped forward without fear in her face and this was something that Leo had always admired about her.

Why can't you be more fearless like Mal?

Why must you look like such a pussy next to her?

Okay, firstly, she has lived a hell of a lot longer than me. She has had many years to overcome her phobias and make peace with her monsters. My entire life has been spent being terrorized by and about mine.

Is he talking about us?

I think he is..

"This forge is mine now, and I don't give a single shit about some the murder of some overrated jackass. He's dead and eventually the two of you will meet the same fate, so why are you wasting precious time?" his question is rhetorical and he showed no interest in their answer.

"What interest do you have in this forge?" Leo asked softly, his eyebrows furrowed as he searched for some crack in this man's exterior.

He would prefer to not have to lose sanity for the sake of defeating it's antithesis.

"This forge specifically has the ability to create godsmetal. Do you know how valuable this type of weaponry is? How much buyers would pay to get their hands on it? It kills Dragons. This market will make me rich and with this I will gain power I don't have to sacrifice a single piece of myself for. That's the best kind," his laugh echoed on the metal sheets lining the walls as he retreated back to the indentation on the floor in front of the forge. His eyes were now more a reflective gold and less the color of honey.

Is this what you wish for me to become? A power-hungry, greed-filled asshole?

Yes, now you're getting it.

Can we kill him now, I'm getting bored of this back-and-forth.

"Wanna know the best thing about the Enlightened?" Mal asked him and he turned to face her, a curious look resting on his face and resonating within the liquid gold being molded into visions of power within his pupils.

"What?" his voice was casual, as though he had already lost interest in the conversation.

"They have all this power at their disposal and all this knowledge of the universe. However, at the end of the day, they forget to remember just how mortal they are. You are still human, and it's incredibly evident within the malleability of your mind and how you became who you are," Mal took a bold step towards him; her hands tucked behind her back and her chest puffed out as a sign of intimidation.

He snarled and lunged at her, his claws outstretched to attack her face and she didn't move an inch. She wasn't even going to try and defend herself.

His hand clamped around her neck and he lifted her in the air. She didn't even grimace or flinch.

"You two have already gotten in the way of the Revelation and the Preparations. I should kill you for that," he paused and his lips curved back into that nasty grin, "I will kill you for that,"

Mal's indignant bravery has led her down a self-destructive path of standing up to a lunatic.

Maybe we should help her?

In a split second, Leo had tackled the other enlightened to the ground and had begun ravaging his face with his fists.

Mal stood to Leo's side and watched with curiosity, tracing Leo's movements like a laser beam.

Leo didn't stop until all energy had been drained from his body and his knuckles had been turned an array of blue, purple, and crimson red.

His chest was racked with heavy breaths and he couldn't even find the will to stand on his own two feet. Mal placed a hand on his shoulder and sighed softly, smiling as he looked up at her.

"You would have let him kill you?" Leo's question was so soft that it was almost a whisper. She shook her head and laughed lightly.

"No, because I knew that you wouldn't let me die," she replied as she reached into the front pocket of the man's suit and plucked a piece of paper from it's spot.

The back of it was covered in his blood, but Leo could make out the distinct shape of a sword on the back.

"What does it say?" Leo asked her and she shrugged her shoulders before showing it to him.

It was an ancient piece of paper; covered in archaic Fae writing and emanating Magic. Even if Leo were to move to the other end of the warehouse he would be able to sense the enigmatic origin of this paper.

What does it mean?

I do not know.

Leo gulped and stood up, letting Mal support him as she draped his arm over her shoulder and helped him back into the cold of the night.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Liam Hughes

Foster's car was like him, oldish and well loved. Liam thought that Foster was well loved because, well, everyone loved him. Who couldn't? He was just about the hottest guy Liam had ever met. And he was so sweet and caring. Liam would do anything to protect Foster, not just because Foster was his anchor. Well, yes because Foster was his anchor, but that wasn't the whole reason. Liam loved Foster. Well, love might not be the right word. He was attracted to Foster. He wanted to screw Foster. He cared very deeply for Foster. But he wasn't fully in love with him, not yet. If anything happened to Foster, Liam's world would come crashing down around him. Literally. If Foster died, it was all over. Liam would dissipate into the spirit world as visions of Allison danced around his head, cackling and screaming over and over and over. She was shaking him, plunging her hands into his body with the knife and screaming his name.

"Liam? Liam!" she laughed.

"Liam!" Foster was to shaking him, seeming surprised that he could actually touch the Wraith. "Liam, we're here." Liam looked out of the window at the crumbling warehouse in front of him.

"Are you sure this is the place?" he asked doubtfully.

"It... is," Ava muttered from the backseat. Miss Swan wasn't there. Unfortunately, she'd been eaten by a demon so Ava had agreed to come with them. There was nothing wrong with strength in numbers, and Liam liked to think he shared a special connection with her now. You can get that way after possessing a person.

"This is where the metal was forged," Foster was saying. "Why, what's wrong?" Liam was shivering involuntarily as he gazed out the window. He could sense a very large disturbance in the spiritual dimension.

"An Other of considerable power is here. We should be careful."

"How... can you... tell?" Ava asked doubtfully.

"I can feel it," he muttered. "It's probably an Enlightened."

"In any case," Foster said getting out of the car, "we still need to investigate. It's the only way to find out who the murderer is." Ava scowled.

"Nine people... have... died... so far," she muttered. "Nine... people for... one dragon."

"Really?" Liam asked. "That many?"

"Amari... Garnon... Ciki... Penny... Michael... Aboleth... Gene... Limerik... and Seymour."

"Do you really think Seymour should count?" Foster asked.

"He's dead... isn't... he? It's like... Saving... Private Ryan... all... over again."

"I guess so," Foster muttered, "but it's important. If this guy can kill the tenth most powerful dragon in the world, imagine what he could do next."

"Let's just stop talking about it and get this over with," Liam snapped. "I don't like the feeling of this place." Foster and Ava nodded and they headed into the warehouse.

The door creaked loudly as they stepped into the warehouse. Foster winced slightly and pushed foreword. Ava and Liam followed him. They gazed around at the floor strewn with broken pieces of metal and burned paper. Liam walked over to one of the walls and gazed at a coppery red stain. He touched it and immediately heard the scream. He jumped back and panted heavily as the scream slowly faded from his ears. Ava and Foster turned to him.

"You okay, Liam?" Foster asked, gently trying to touch his arm. Liam shook his head and looked more carefully around the room. He could see white shimmering outlines everywhere where Wraiths used to be.

"We need to get out of here now!" he yelled.

"Woah, woah, woah," Foster said. "What happened?" Liam swallowed a wave of nausea and looked around wildly.

"There were Wraiths here. Three, but they were destroyed. It's an Enlightened, I knew it! We need to get out of here now!"

"No... those Others... won't... die for... nothing. We'll... get what... we... came here... for," Ava scowled.

"If we don't leave right now, we'll have died for nothing!"

"Fine," Foster said, "how about you go back to the car and we can investigate." Liam nodded dryly and walked towards the door along with Foster. Suddenly, he felt like the wind was being knocked out of him. He turned and saw Foster knocked to the ground. A man was standing near him, laughing hysterically.

"You'll ruin all the fun!" he shouted as Foster tried to stand up. "You'll ruin the preparations. Don't ruin the revelation and the preparations!" Foster stood up again but the man knocked him down again. "What's this?" he squealed in delight. "You two aren't alone!" In the excitement and chaos, Liam had forgotten to keep himself visible. He was now standing behind the Enlightened. "Come on out little spirit!" the Enlightened was shouting as he knocked Ava off her feet. The Enlightened grabbed Foster and hauled him to his feet. "Your connected with this one! Anything I do to him I do to you!" He grabbed a knife out of his cloak and trailed it along his neck lightly. Liam could feel a prick along his own neck and looked down to see beads of black ectoplasm forming a line. He growled with rage and tackled the Enlightened with all of his ghostly strength. The Enlightened kicked him off easily and sent Liam flying into the wall. Liam ran towards the Enlightened and stuck his hand through his chest, being sure to make his arm unsubstantial.

"This is for messing with my friends!" he screamed as he made his arm solid again and pulled out with all his might, pulling the Enlightened's heart out in the process. The Enlightened choked, and fell backwards, his eyes rolling up in his head. Foster and Ava stared at Liam as he dropped the heart on the floor.

"Ten," he said breathlessly. "Now it's ten people who died." Ava raised an eyebrow.

"Let's make... sure... he didn't... die... in vain... either," she muttered as she bent down to look at the body. Foster was still staring at Liam.

"Wait, why did he say you're my anchor?" he asked. Liam sighed.

"When you saved me, you became my anchor," he admitted. "That means you basically keep me tethered to the human world. So if anything happens to you I'm dead unless I can find another anchor quickly." Foster looked shocked.

"So when you saved me, that was just because if I die you die?"

"Partially. I also actually care about you. And being an anchor comes with its perks."

"Like what?" Foster asked raising an eyebrow.

"You're the only one that can touch me, even when I'm not substantial."

"Oh," Foster said, "so that means I can do this?" He ran up to Liam and grabbed his arms, kissing him deeply. Electricity flowed through Liam as Foster's lips collided with his and slowly faded away as he drew back. Liam was stunned as Foster smirked and walked over to Ava.

"I found... this," she muttered, holding up a freshly printed piece of paper. "It's a... formula... for... godsmetal." Foster nodded with satisfaction and followed Ava out of the warehouse. Liam sped after him.

"Wait, what the hell was that?" he asked, grabbing Foster's arm. Foster smiled at him and continued walking.

"I always wanted to kiss a Wraith."

"So what happens now?" Liam asked as they got in the car with Ava.

"You tell me."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ozias Alva

Time: a slow march towards the inevitable. The destruction of all things, both good and bad. In the end, we're all susceptible to time. To decay. It's the one thing we all fear more than anything else: the future. Time is the promise that one day, somehow, even immortals will die. One day, your secrets will come to life and they will swallow you whole. All the what-ifs that keep us up at night will either become reality or bring us to some equally unflinching, bloody present.

More than anything else, sometimes time can be a real pain in the ass. Especially when it meant sitting in the back of a police car while it parked in front of a concrete warehouse on the edge of town. I caught sight of myself every once in a while in the rearview mirror, with my ever-growing collection of bruises and the dark circles beneath my eyes proving that it had been more than a rough couple of days.

My body jerked forward as we came to a stop, gravel crunching beneath tires as Adam parked. In front of us, there was nothing but empty highway and short, shrubby grass leading off into the horizon. Only a few houses propped up against the side of the road and the distant shine of traffic gave any indication that there was life here at all. Other than that, it was empty. Quiet. The kind of place you'd set up shop if you knew you were doing something you shouldn't be.

Seatbelts unlatched without a word, the engine ceasing its hum as Adam pulled the key from the ignition. Slowly, mom turned around to look at me through the metal grate that separated me from the front seat. She looked at me sternly, lips still puffy with bruises and smeared with drying blood from where the Fallen had hit her. "Stay in the car," she ordered.

My lips parted in protest, body straining forward as I started to argue. "No, I—"

"Oz," Adam cut me off with a heavy sigh, eyes flickering upward to meet mine in the rearview mirror with a look somewhere between sympathy and finality. "You aren't going anywhere after what happened with the Fallen." My teeth grinded against the inside of my cheek until I could taste blood. "Listen to your mom for once and stay here."

For once. The words stung more than they should have, hitting my heart hard and only forcing more opposition from my mouth. "But—"

"No," they said in unison, both turning around to stare me down. With a huff, I sat back against my seat, looking out the window to avoid having to make eye contact with either of them. I'm a good kid, I told myself, but for some reason it was more difficult to believe than it should have been. The doors to the car opened, letting my mom and Adam out while I was trapped safely inside.

My cheek was going to be raw by the time I was done gnawing on the inside of it, letting blood flow over my tongue and coat the back of my throat. I watched with indignation as the two of them approached the front of the warehouse— the warehouse that I found— and exchanged words that I couldn't here for a plan I wasn't allowed to be a part of. "I can't believe this," I muttered as their figures grew smaller and smaller. "Locked in the back of a police car, and why?" It made no difference to rant to the open air, but somehow getting the words out of my thoughts loosened the knot in my throat. "Because Oz just so happened to remember to steal the dagger they were sent to get in the first place. Not mom, not Adam. Me." I wrapped my arms across my chest, gesturing loosely with one hand while the other kept a death grip on my bicep. "And what do I get in return? Noth—"

"Oz?"

I jumped out of my skin, hitting the roof of the car with the top of my head as an, "Oh, Jesus!" escaped my throat. Even now, I'm not entirely sure what my hands were doing. It was somewhere between trying to punch invisible assailants and grabbing on to some, but not all, of the most vulnerable parts of me. My heart pounded in my chest, fingers scraping against the cloth of my shirt as if that would somehow stop it from racing away.

At the window was a girl, one I knew but only barely. Her tiny nose was covered in freckles, scrunched up into a look of confusion as she peered into the backseat of the car. On her fingernails, I could just barely make out cat faces painted onto each nail. She was wearing a pale pink shirt with a name tag still slightly askew by her left collar. Rebecca. "Why are you in the back of a police car?" she asked, voice muffled by the thick glass.

I stammered over an answer, partially due to the rush of adrenaline I was coming down from and the thought that the pretty diner girl actually knew my name. "It's, uh...it's complicated," was what I finally forced myself to say. "What are you doing out here?" The question was a pitiful and transparent effort to change the subject, but her look of confusion only deepened. Did I upset her? For some reason, that thought worried me more than it should have.

"Hold on," she said at last, voice rising with each word as she cupped her hand around her ear. "I can't hear you." Relief flooded through me, coming out in something that could only be described as the lovechild of a laugh and a sigh. Her hand dropped back to her side, and as I watched the door to the backseat popped open beneath her touch. "There, that's better." She stepped back, satisfied with her work and I was all too eager to escape the prison that was the back of that car—no pun intended.

I slid out of the car, feet hitting the old gravel with a crunch. Maybe I got a little too much satisfaction out of closing the door behind me and stretching up on my tiptoes to work the stiffness out of my legs, but god did it feel nice. "Thank you," I told Rebecca, watching a tiny smile work its way across her glossed lips. Now that I was free, I could see the bicycle propped up in the shade close by. Does she live around here? I meant to ask, but her little smile and the loose tufts of hair that were coming out of her ponytail made me forget any sort of intelligent speech at all. "What are you doing here?" I repeated, only slightly fumbling on the words as her smile grew.

"I take pictures of old buildings in my free time," Rebecca answered, trying in vain to tuck her hair behind her ears. There was something strange in the movement, a jerkiness to her action that I couldn't quite place. Nerves, I thought. Maybe she's nervous to see me too? It seemed like wishful thinking, but so did meeting her out here in the first place. "Someone recommended me this one, so I came to check it out."

She gestured towards the building, giving me enough time to do a half-turn towards it to look at the place properly. The rusted door looked like it had been through ten tornados and lived to tell about it, askew on its hinges but too stubborn to fall off entirely. Whatever paint there had once been was long gone, leaving only cold concrete walls and an off-white garage opening that probably hadn't worked since before I was born. "Oh, oh, that makes—yeah, that makes sense." Honestly, there was nothing in the building that looked even remotely worth the time. At least from the outside.

"It's not..." I struggled to find the words, the taste of grave dirt and fear filling my mouth as I tried to come up with a good way to put it. "It's not really safe in there, though. The place is falling apart." It wasn't a lie. Anyone with eyes could see that it was a safety hazard in every sense of the word. But if you squinted hard enough against the sun and tuned out the quiet rumble of the road, you could see the way the walls wavered ever so slightly as if they weren't quite there at all and hear the whispers of something calling you in—something old. Something evil. That's what I wanted to keep her from.

Rebecca seemed to consider this for a moment before she shrugged her shoulders, giving me a coy smile. "I've been in scarier places." Quickly, she stepped forward, looping her fingers through mine and holding onto them tightly. "Just come with me, Oz. Keep me safe."

I opened my mouth to argue, pressing my lungs for words that wouldn't appear. "Look, we shouldn't." But she was already pulling me towards the door, a half-giggle of adventure rising in her throat as I was helpless to stop this determined girl. The closer we got to the warehouse, the bigger it seemed to be. From the car, it looked like a small and discrete place. By the door, it was almost mountainous. I tugged on my hand, trying to pull it free of her grip as she pried open the door. Five cat faces stared up at me as her nails began to dig into my knuckles like a vice. Something is wrong. Their eyes were more realistic than before, no longer playful doodles but detailed drawings. "This is really a bad—" One of them winked.

And I realized that I'd never gotten up the nerve to ever tell this girl my name.

I don't know when unconsciousness took me, only when I woke up next. My head throbbed with pain, body screaming in protest as if I'd just run a ten mile hike with no breaks. Everything hurt, and even with my eyes squinted the darkness of the warehouse was too bright for me to handle. As I adjusted, the shapes began to grow clearer. Chains rustled above my head, raining rust and dirt down on the floor below. I could hear the shuffle of feet, the swing of something heavy moving with the wind that crept through the cracks in the roof. For a moment, the pressure building in my skull seemed normal, in light of the circumstances. Yet, when my eyes widened and absorbed the room in front of me, the strain of my muscles started to make sense. Everything was upside down, as if the world had been rotated on its head—or I had been rotated on mine.

"What the—" I tried to pull my arms from behind me, greeted only by the clanking of more chains as I felt cold metal press into my skin. Twisting, I tried to get a better look at how I was being held, but only succeeded in learning that my head was swinging a feet feet from the floor.

A heavy sigh chased away all of my panicked thoughts, followed by a sweet voice that made my stomach turn. "You know, I really didn't want it to be this way." Rebecca was there, sitting in the center of the room, only visible if I tilted my head as far up as it would go. As I stared at her, confusion breaking into horror, she started to rise and step towards me. "But you just had to make it difficult, didn't you?" As she spoke, she reached out to pinch my cheek forcefully, extracting her anger in controlled doses.

I could see it now, everything I hadn't been able to before. The way her eyes peered through you as if she was peeling back all the layers of your muscle and bone, peering into your soul and then beyond. Her dimples that I so admired were more like hollow bubbles of flesh trying to desperately escape the skull they were attached to. She was falling apart, peeling like an old sunburn, yet there was a strength behind her grip that whispered in a voice I couldn't understand.

The dagger. I struggled not to let a gasp slip through my lips, the heavy pressure on my lungs increasing as my eyes darted around the room. Where is it? Does she have it? Overturned crates and steel canisters were all I could find, accompanied by graffiti sprayed walls that were decorated with symbols I didn't have enough oxygen to understand. Other bodies swung around the room. Their skin peeled away or simply waiting, as if they would someday be released despite their inability to draw breath. But there was no sign of the dagger, no sign of anything except—

Long grey hair covered the face of the woman suspended from the rafters across from me. Even from there, I could see the streaks of blood that dripped from her scalp and onto the floor below her. My heart plummeted, taking the last of my breath with it. "Mom?" I called, straining against the chains to try and reach her. That had to be her, it had to. But why wasn't she moving? Why didn't she hear me? Or why didn't she answer?

"Oh don't worry, sweetheart, I haven't killed her yet." Rebecca stepped back, casting a glance her way and revealing a similarly hanging shape beside mom's body. "There are some pieces that are only valuable while the meat is still alive."

Adam's eyes met mine, alert and wild with fear and fury as he realized the situation. "Oz?" There was a crack in his voice when he spoke. I'd never seen him scared before, but he was now. "It's going to be okay, kid," he told me, as if we weren't in the same boat. "Just hold on. I'll get you out of this."

The Enlightened giggled, ending it in a happy sigh as she cupped her chin in her hands. "That's so sweet," she commented, poisoned honey dripping from each word. "I love seeing families working together." Her posture shifted, eyes hardening, smile vanishing as she looked fully at Adam. "You interfered with the Revelations, officer. You really think, after everything that's been prepared, you're going to slip away easily?" Hatred leaked from her voice, something dark and sinister overlaying the innocent look she once had.

Adam started to speak, but something held him back. With his lips half parted, breath caught in his throat, his features began to contort in a look of horror that I wished I could unsee. Sputtering gasps of air left his body has he started to thrash, eyes glazed over until he was little more than a coil of agony suspended from the rafters. Bile burned the back of my throat as his cries ripped through my eardrums. I turned away, clenching my eyes shut to try and drown out the sight of him. My temples throbbed, lungs constricting as the blood pooled in my skull.

Rebecca laughed. Not a real laugh, but a chuckle, one that echoed inside of my thoughts as if it existed nowhere else. "Why do you close your eyes, Ozias?" Her voice filled my head, drowning out everything else with its quiet torment. "This is what you wanted, isn't it? To be at the top of the food chain?" It wasn't. It wasn't what I wanted at all. I wanted to beg her to stop this. To let us go. I wanted to go home and find suspicious ham in the back of our shitty fridge and cook it up in a grilled cheese sandwich just the same. But I couldn't speak. There were no words. "Just like a demon. Except..."

There was a pause. A long, hollow pause where I was suspended in a void of blackness without even my own thoughts as company. Never before had I been so alone. So empty. Somewhere in the darkness were her eyes, looming beneath the shadow of something larger. My body was burning, fire boiling inside the pit of my stomach as I tried not to choke on my own spit. "You're not a demon. You never have been."

Those words were enough to break the bubble I'd been trapped in, releasing my eyes from their grip long enough for me to open them again. No. I shook my head, sucking in a breath of air as she leaned over me. "Oh, please." Long fingernails clutched my cheek, pink polish dyed red from the blood that flowed beneath her grip. Her breath warmed my face, the scent of rot beneath the sickly sweet mask of fruit. "I could smell the essence of fae in you from a thousand miles away." Fae. The word echoed in my ears like a heartbeat, settling into my veins with a static buzz. Fae. Slowly, her tongue began to protrude from between her lips. Cold, wet muscle met my throat as she tasted me, licking all the way down to my chin. "There's nothing sweeter," she told me with a giggle, pressing her lips to mine.

If she was going to say more, I would never know. A look of confused defeat crossed her face, brows deepening into a scowl. It was only then that I realized that the cries had stopped. Adam's screams had stopped. As well as the rustling of chains. Blood began to stain the front of her pale pink shirt, growing into a dark flower of death that left her paralyzed to the spot until Adam yanked the dagger from her back.

When she fell, something slipped from out of her free hand. A scrap of folded paper, depicting a sword on one side.

"It's okay," Adam was whispering feverishly as he stepped away from the body. I couldn't do anything but watch her choke, blood spewing from her lips into a dark stain below my head. "It's okay." I could feel the chains rustling, lowering me to the ground, but never before had the thought of freedom been so unappetizing. "I've got you, kid." Rooting through her pockets, Adam revealed a key that unchained my feet and hands. I tried not to look at his own, which were covered in blood and something white I hoped wasn't bone. His hand extended downwards to help me up, but when I tried to take it I couldn't bring myself to do anything more than stare. At him. At the hand. Listening to the word fae as it repeated in my head in a ceaseless melody.

Time: a slow march towards the inevitable. The killer of secrets and monsters—both good ones and bad ones alike.