The knife was pretty light. It's grip was falling apart. One nail from the wooden stock was missing, I could see some marks where it had probably once been secured to the end of a rifle. There was dirt at the base of the handle. I absently raised my hand to scrape it off with my nail. I was wrong. That's just more accrued rust.

"If this is such a strong weapon..." I mused to myself as I raised it. "Shouldn't there be some kind of smoke, or fog, or thunder and lightning?" My eyes went to my ceiling. "This is highly underwhelming."

"We feel the same." Mike replied dryly.

I dropped my gaze to glare at him. "You don't need to be mean. I don't know why I was selected."

"She's blessed." Lou replied blankly and shrugged with one shoulder. "Of sorts. The essence in her from the two of us has probably grown enough for the knife to recognize her as a worthy candidate."

"Wait, King Arthur was resurrected too?"

"No." Mike rubbed his face. "'The Lady Of The Lake' at that time was a rogue angel who had stolen the weapon. The only reason the human didn't burn down upon putting his eyes on them was because the angel's glory had been stripped. They transferred a substantial amount of their leftover essence to the human and then went into a deep sleep to recuperate." Mike paused and dropped his hand. "However, the angel was found and punished accordingly. But the weapon couldn't be taken back."

"But... I have both demon and angel essence."

"You might be the first." Lou took a long sip. "Another part of the story is that Arthur's enemy were imbued with demon essence to counter the angel's idiocy."

Mike's essence flared up. "But Arthur was stronger."

"Not against his own knights."

I frowned as I heard the real lore unfold behind the scenes of the myths I'd read. Demons and angels impact on history might be considerably more than I'd ever be able to assume. I tightened my grip on the knife as I raised it again. Once comfortable, I cut through the air to try it out.

I heard the stools clatter and looked away to see my two guests on their feet. Their tensed stances made it clear why they'd jumped up. So did Lou's angry words.

"Watch where you swing that thing, Ryleigh!" He snapped, his eyes roiled to break free. "It's dangerous!"

"T-the demon is right." Mike was a bit more battle-ready, hands raised and body crouched. "It's dangerous."

My eyes moved to the slivers of orange glow that were visible around their aura and I felt my lips turn down. "Right. I'll just..." I placed it on the counter and backed away from it. "... not touch it again."

"That's also not an option." Mike still didn't relax. "It's yours now. No on else can wield it."

"Yeah, well... there's a difference between 'no one else' and 'not want to'."

Lou gave me a dry look and relaxed his form slowly. "That's just stupid." He shook his head. "You need to calm down. That knife is yours, but it doesn't mean you have to wield it."

"Yeah, you'd be pretty happy if I didn't, right?"

"I'd be fucking ecstatic." He admitted as he eyed the bayonet again. But he didn't sitting back down. "Do you still want to head back to the bar?"

I scratched my head. There was nothing else to do. The reveal had been pretty underwhelming, and that was it for my nights excitement. "Yeah..." I sighed and waved at the counter. "Help my pack all these guns and the knife back up first."

"Pass the bag." Mike replied, still crouched, still scared. "I don't want to go near that thing."

I shrugged, picked up the empty duffel bag with one hand and flung it over. "I need to pee. Put it back in in this cabinet." I pointed down at the kitchen drawer I'd taken it out of. "Put the knife back in too."

"You're not taking it with you?" Mike asked as I started to turn away.

"No." I waved a hand dismissively. "No point. You guys are mostly nice to me. I don't think I'll ever need it."

"I would be touched, but this is a grave matter..."

I ignored Lou's words and walked into my bedroom. It was clean now, but the state Trace had left it in still haunted my mind. I hated this apartment now. But I had nowhere to go.

Lou and Mike had refilled their glasses when I came back out. The bag had been repacked and the knife was missing. Somehow I knew that it was back in the bag and not in one of their hands. The sharp, glowing ends came back into my view as I stepped past them into my kitchen. "I'll get a snack and then we'll head back."

"An ideal idea." Mike sighed. "I do not want to be in it's presence any longer."

"Unfortunately, Ryleigh." I looked over my shoulder as Lou spoke up. "We're going to have to leave you again tonight. This needs to be reported... and you need to be reported."

"Okay." I shrugged indifferently. "I was right though. There was something important in that bag that those guys wanted."

"You still have to elaborate on the men that broke into your apartment." Mike warned.

"I'll hand them to you when the time is right." I pulled out a bowl of curry and rice. "As of now, please forget about it."

"Is that your snack?"

"Yeah." I unwrapped the bowl, placed it in the microwave to heat up beside the rice. "I cook extras and eat the leftovers. It's healthier."

"And you're feeling the sudden need to be healthy... why?"

I threw a glare at Lou. "Would it kill me to watch what I eat and not have people comment on it?"

Lou raised an eyebrow and his hands in defeat. "My bad. Do what you want."

I ignored him and turned to look at my food rotate in the microwave. I'd felt the need to get stronger ever since I'd been caught off guard by yet another person whom I'd trusted. If Trace had been armed, I'd be left to his whims. All I'd been able to do was slide down the wall and stare at him in disbelief.

It was the most logical decision that had formed in my mind after that day. I was rather glad that the demon brain had taken over. This was a time to be numb. This was a time to distance myself from emotions. There's a war brewing, and now I'm in the centre of it. I can't take sides. All I can do is maintain the peace and not let anything around me escalate. Trace is out of my life.

Lou dropped me back outside the bar and vanished. Mike didn't come back either after I reopened. I'd barely been gone for half an hour and the buffer time between me shutting down for humans and opening for the supernatural was around an hour. No one noticed my absence.

Axel dropped by to helpfully remind me of the agreement I'd gotten into in order to contact Lou. I waved him away, told him to give me a few weeks to sort out some shit. Luckily enough, he understood. He'd been there to see the blow that I'd been struck that night, and everyone in the bar had definitely noticed how I'd struggled to look normal over the past week. I was pretty social around the demons while I worked and somehow still kept to myself. But there's a clear difference in the posture of a private person and a sulking person.

Once the veil lifted, I waved off the last few demons cheerily and exhaled loudly as soon as they were out the door. It had been a busy night. A good kind of busy night where I didn't have time to do a lot of thinking. The rusty knife... the World War 2 bayonet in my apartment was a piece of the supernatural world. A piece that was the cause of millennia of discord was now somehow my possession.

Could I get rid of it? Sell it online as some war memorabilia I happened to get my hands on? Having it out of my life would make my generic existence much more easier. I have enough on my plate right now with the auras, the essences, the demons, the angels, the no-sleep, the Tr-

"Good morning, Ryleigh."

Surprise crossed through me as I heard that voice. My hand paused in the process of wiping down the counter as I looked up to meet a pair of dark eyes... and several bright blue ones. "What the..." I didn't even feel any warm gust from them. When did they arrive? "Uh... good morning, angels. What can I-uh get you?"

There were five of them, all with eerily blank faces and eyes, dressed in formal black suits with not a single thread or hair out of place. They cocked their head. One smooth coordinated motion that sent chills down my back. "This is not a human."

Lou sighed tiredly, frustration leaked into his voice as he spoke. "I'm pretty sure the feathers you sent to watch me made the circumstances of her condition clear."

"This is the wielder?"

"Yes, she is."

My eyes flickered from speaker to speakers. The angel's voices vibrated in my head. I could see only the middle angel's mouth move, but it sounded like a choir in my head. There was an odd pressure I felt from them despite not being able to see their auras. It's best not to say anything.

"The female seems rather weak." Ouch.

"She's still mostly human. She can however see auras and essences, courtesy of the feather's essence. The demon essence seems to have severely stunted her emotions and sleep cycle."

"Does it not know how to suppress grace?"

Grace? Mike had mentioned that once.

"The angel never taught her." Lou's eyes looked me over. "It's barely there anyway."

"Rather dangerous to roam around flaunting it." The voices had given me a headache. Their blue eyes hadn't moved an inch from mine. I don't think any of these angels have even blinked this entire time. "And where's the weapon?"

Silence. Expectant eyes on me. It took me a moment to realise that they wanted me to speak. "Home." I replied curtly.

"Lies."

I grimaced. The pressure of that one word was more intense than what they'd spoken yet for a while now. "No. It's really at home. L-the demon was there when I kept it back. Even one of your kind was there."

"The angel known to you as 'Mike'-" I could hear the contempt in his voice as it was forced to utter a human name "-is currently serving a punishment for not following orders and disposing of evidence."

Poor Mike. I nodded once. "Yeah. So the knife is back at my place in the same bag with the other useless metal bats."

"I do not believe the evidence consisted of 'metal bats'."

I could see why Lou was frustrated. "It's another way of me saying 'useless guns'. They're no better than metal bats because they have no ammo."

"Please refrain from using your human lingo when conversing."

Blink already, you freaks in human suits. "I'll use what I want. The weapon isn't here. Unless you want a drink, I'd suggest you don't be here either."

"We have come to inspect the weapon."

"I don't have it."

"It is here."

"It isn't."

"It is here."

"It isn't.

"It is here."

"It's not here."

"It is here."

"It's. Not. Here."

"It is here."

It's-" I cut myself off before I looked down and exhaled harshly. Was the demon essence dissipating? I haven't felt this pissed in a while. They just keep repeating those three words like a robot. No change in expression, no emotion in the voice, no movement of the eyes. "It's really not here. I don't know what else to tell you."

"It is here."

"For fuck's sake." I threw my hands up as I turned to the side. The wet towel went 'splat' as I threw it on the counter and moved towards my bag. "It's not here. It's not on these premises. And look..." I grabbed my bag. It ripped it wide open with a loud screech of the zipper and I turned it upside down. "It's not here eit-"

Thunk.

The loud noise cut me off. My head turned down to look at the wooden floor.

And there it was.

It glinted dully under the ambient light as if it mocked my resistance. The fucking bayonet.

"That's the weapon."

"Y...es." Lou hesitated in his reply, sounding as confused as me. "I don't understand... I saw her put it back in the drawer."

"Early documentations have talked about the weapon never leaving the possession of it's chosen master."

"You're shitting me." I blurted out, looking up from the floor and back at the unblinking eyes. "It's going to follow me?"

"In a sense."

I pressed my knuckle to my lips as I shook my head and backed away from it. "This shit's haunted. I'm not taking it."

"You don't have a choice."

You. They used 'you'.

"Take it back, angels." I shook my head as I met their eyes again. "I don't want it."

"We wouldn't have ordered it for disposal if we'd known what it was in the first place." Was that regret? "However the weapon only shows its presence once it has chosen a master."

So, selling it wasn't an option. It would just come back to me.

"It is fortunate one of our kind was there to monitor it. Or else the human would surely have never realised it value."

Fucking duh.

My eyes went to Lou. My mind was blank. I genuinely had no idea what to say or do. "What... What now?"

Lou shrugged as he met my eyes. He looked as clueless as me. "Fuck if I know, Ryleigh. Your situation seems to be getting more convoluted by the day." He turned to the angels. "However, this means the truce is back on. The weapon is back in play, and in the hands of a neutral party with no particular bias to either side, or the chance to get possessed by one. The opposing essences in her body have ensured that. Do we need to renegotiate the terms of the peace once again or shall we keep on keeping on with the previous ones?"

"The previous terms of the treaty shall be kept in play." The blue eyes finally moved away from me to look at Lou. "The wielder shall no longer be monitored by the angels or the demons. The wielder is now on their own and shall not be agitated to avoid damage to either of our kinds." Their eyes moved back to me.

Their eyeballs must be so dry. I can almost hear the sound as they grate against their eye sockets. "The wielder shall keep quiet about the new purpose for their existence, and the existence of the weapon for the wielder's own safety. Does the wielder understand?"

"I..." I want a different name. King Arthur probably had a cool name too that wasn't King. Arthur. "The wielder agrees." I replied, slightly deflated. If I was that important of a figure, the least they could do was give me a cool nickname. Or atleast address me by my name. "And please, call me Ryleigh."

They promptly ignored that and turned back to Lou. Their motions almost felt like that of an animatronic. "The search shall end. The treaty shall resume. Demons and angels will not fight anymore. The wielder shall be a witness to our treaty, and the wielder shall bear the agreement of this treaty as well."

I raised an eyebrow. "An agreement? Like a contract?"

"The seal of the angels and the demons shall be branded on you." Branded? "Shed your clothes, wielder."

"My... clothes..." I shook my head. "No thanks. I don't want to be branded like I'm cattle."

"You're not cattle." Lou crossed his arms across his chest and turned to face me. The angel's eyes turned back to me as well. "You're the wielder. And through history, the wielder has borne the seals of both angels and demons. It protects you from either of our kinds, in case any angels gets a bright idea-"

"Likewise, for demons." The angels cut in.

"Yeah, yeah." Lou waved a hand dismissively. "She gets it, okay? Anyway, it's important."

"Are you going to add more essence?"

"No. No essence. It's just a brand." Lou replied.

"So, you're permanently scarring me?"

"It won't be visible."

"But what if I don't want to be branded anyway?"

"We don't have to be in contact with you to form a brand, wielder." The angel replied instead. "Shed your clothes."

I knew there was no point in fighting against them. Either of them. They'd get what they want one or the other. And one way was through my submission, while the other was them forcing their brand on me as I stood my ground. My consent might not necessarily be submission. But somehow with these beings it always felt like that.

"Fine." I sighed as I rubbed my forehead. "Let's do it at my place. Give me a moment to lock up."

I kicked the knife aside as I walked over to lock the cash register. The drying glasses were wiped down for good measure before I placed them back in their racks. Lou shoved all the stools under the counter without even a word from me while the angels stood there, took up space, stared, and did nothing.

I locked the door, Lou transported me to a block away from my building, and then vanished once again. They all waited in my living room as I walked in. The blue eyes immediately moved to me. Dry eyes tracked my every movement.

"The weapon?" They spoke up first. My headache had just subsided, dammit.

"I left it at the bar. I didn't want to touch it." I replied easily.

"Rather nonchalant with it, aren't you, Ryleigh?" Lou replied. His hip leaned against the couch.

"If it can follow me from my apartment to the bar, it follow me from the bar to the apartment." I dropped my bag on the kitchen stool, unzipped it and reaching in to prove my pount. My gut curled as my fingers brushed against a rough metal surface. I'd had some hope that it wouldn't be there when I reach it. That hope died as I pulled it out. "Told you." My voice was tight as the knife dangled from my fingers.

"That makes for one hell of a magic trick."

"You're telling me." I mumbled, dropping the knife on the marble countertop with a loud clatter. "Where will I be branded?"

"Your back." The angels replied.

"Will it hurt?"

"Briefly."

"Great." I turned to the side. "I'll change and be right back."

In my room, I tugged my shirt off, unclipped my bra and threw it to the side. I looked at myself in the mirror and turned to the side to see my bare back. They said it wouldn't be visible. But everytime they said brand, I'd imagine a tattoo. I'd never wanted to get a tattoo, never felt the need to. I'd had friends who had an obsession with them, I'd had friends who believed it was against their religion. I'd had friends who had some meaningful tattoos... But I'd never had something meaningful enough happen in my life to even think of having it permanently dug into my skin. I'd never been religious either.

With the minimum wage jobs I'd worked ever since I'd gotten out of high school, it always seemed like a frivolous expense. And I still hadn't lost that mindset unfortunately.

I rubbed my arms to absently ward off the chill before I grabbed my bathrobe. With the belt wrapped tight around my waist, I stepped out. I should probably feeling embarassed about being almost topless in front of strangers. However, I felt nothing.

Eyes shot to me immediately once I reached the hallway. I grabbed a stool with one hand and dragged it over the one step partition between the kitchen and living room. I sat down on it with my back to the angels and demons. The robe slid down my shoulders. It bared my entire back. My hands held it together to cover my chest at the front.

I exhaled softly. I felt kind of vulnerable. Very vulnerable, in fact. I had no idea what those guys would do back there. "Uh, begin whenever, I guess." I mumbled, body party tensed.

I shivered as I felt the temperature drop sharply around me by a few degrees, before it immediately flared up with a familiar heat on my right. It would almost pleasant if it wasn't for the polar opposites on either side of me. I couldn't help my flinch as I felt a cold hand touch my back where Lou was. On the other side, a hand that felt like it had just emerged from the microwave settled.

"Ready?" Lou asked.

I shrugged. Hard to get ready to become a peace treaty between species. "Go for it."