"So they dug your grave, and the masquerade will come calling out at the mess you made."

- Imagine Dragons

                                                                             ***

The truck stopping woke him, his eyes flying open at the sudden lurch as Caleb put it in park. After a moment to orient himself, Sirius pushed himself away from the door, groaning.

He was stiff and sore. His head ached and the back of his throat burned, but he didn't feel loose and disconnected from his body. He rubbed his eyes, falling back against the door.

"Coffee," he rasped. "I need coffee."

"Yeah, I figured," Caleb said, opening his door. The squeal of the hinges had Sirius cowering away from the sound, covering his ears. He thought he heard laughter, but then he was nearly falling out of the truck as his own door opened.

"Easy there, Fido," Rick said. "Come on, protein helps the hangover."

Sirius squinted against the light coming from the west. "What time is it?"

"Dinner time," Rick answered as Sirius finally got out of the truck. "We're hungry and Alex gets bitchy if she doesn't eat."

There was a muffled scoff. "I think you mean you get bitchy," Alex retorted. "Who's the one who couldn't even hold out to the state line?"

Rick grinned over his shoulder at his sister. "We've still got an hour to Colorado."

"Wimp," Alex teased, then laughed when Rick flipped her off.

Sirius trudged after Caleb, flinching at the bell that went off when he opened the door to the diner. Red vinyl and 50s rock assaulted him, making him wonder why Hunters couldn't eat at restaurants like normal people.

They filed into a booth—Caleb and Alex on one side, Sirius and Rick on the other—ordering drinks before Rick let out a long sigh.

"So now we have the knife," Rick said in a low tone, and Caleb's hand reflexively went to his jacket, where Sirius assumed the demon blade was safely hidden. "What next?"

"How much does Logan know?" Sirius asked, looking at Caleb with as much wariness as he could muster.

The waitress came back, but all Sirius could register was the cup she set in front of him. He grabbed it, the sides warm on his hands, soothing the ache in his knuckles. It was hot and black and felt good against the raw back of his throat. He startled when Rick jabbed him with an elbow and looked up to find the waitress staring at him expectantly. His mind blanked, and he stared back for a moment.

"He'll have what I'm having," Rick finally said when the silence had stretched to a length that had the waitress looking at Caleb questioningly.

She wrote everything down on a little notepad before retreating quickly to the kitchens. Caleb propped his chin on his hand. "Sober up no problem, huh?"

"It's been a long night, Hunter. Don't test me," Sirius warned half-heartedly before going back to his coffee.

"Been a long week," Caleb muttered, crossing his arms and slumping back in the booth. Alex yawned, as if to punctuate his statement.

"So?" Sirius raised an eyebrow. "Logan?"

"I told you," Caleb said, voice unsympathetic. "You're the one who has to tell him. I just asked him and Rhys to meet me and a few friends in Wyoming."

All Sirius could do was stare. "He doesn't know?" he finally said faintly. "He doesn't know she's been dead for better than a week?"

They all shifted uncomfortably at that. Then Alex said, "That's really not the kind of thing you say over a phone call."

Sirius glared out the window, just to be met with a dull reflection in the double-paned glass. His eyes were red-rimmed and there was still a little blood just under his nose. He scraped that away, still staring out into the twilight.

"He's going to try to kill me," Sirius finally said with a sigh. "You know that, right?"

"You blame him?" Caleb said

"No," Sirius replied evenly. "But Logan's no joke. He might just manage it."

Rick snorted. "You said only a blade from Hell could kill you."

"Yeah, well," Sirius drank the last of the coffee and signaled for another cup, "he could probably put me down enough that I'd wish I was dead."

He'd known that since he'd met the witch. Power had rolled effortlessly off Logan, enough to make his skin prickle anytime he'd been near the man. While Galloway had explained to him that Logan didn't hurt people, Sirius just didn't think that mercy would be extended to him. 

The waitress came back with their orders, and Sirius stared in disbelief at the bacon cheeseburger she put in front of him. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Rick digging in, but all his stomach could do was lurch.

That had been her last meal. 

He pushed the plate away, fighting hard against a wave of nausea.

"Sirius, you have to eat," Alex said, making him snap his gaze to her. "You're no good to us if you don't."

Idly, he wondered if he could starve to death. There had never been anyone to test the theory, but his stomach twisted with a different kind of pain and he decided he didn't want to be the first Hellhound to give it a whirl.

Slowly, he reached forward and pulled the plate back to the space in front of him. Alex sat watching him, eyes narrowed until he picked up a french fry. Rolling his eyes, he took a bite and said, "There. Happy?"

"Just eat," she said with a sigh, going back to her own meal.

Sirius ate another fry, then a third.

"How can you eat those?" Caleb asked after a few moments of quiet, making Sirius and the other two Hunters look up at him.

Rick's eyes went to the fry Sirius was holding, then set down his drink. "Huh. That's a good question."

"What are you talking about?" Sirius said crossly, not thinking about it as he finally took a bite of the burger. "They're just fries."

"They have salt on them," Alex pointed out. "Shouldn't that burn you?"

"Not unless the cook blesses it first," he said dryly. "Shouldn't you guys know only blessed salt works on spooky, supernatural crap?"

Caleb's mouth twitched. "Regular salt works on ghosts just fine. No need for a padre."

"You don't need a priest to bless something," Rick said. "Just the right words and a solid intention. Blessed salt works better than the stuff you put on everything." The last bit was said with a pointed glance at Caleb's plate.

"First," Caleb stabbed his fork at Rick, "it's pepper I use on everything. Second, how do you know that?"

"'Cause I spend more time doing my actual job than chasing tail?" Rick said, with a sideways little grin.

Caleb grinned back. It was obviously an old joke between the two, further evidenced by the way Alex sighed and rolled her eyes, but didn't otherwise react.

Sirius, for his part, snorted and raised a skeptical eyebrow at Rick, who kicked him under the table, making the dishes rattle. Caleb and Alex both frowned at them, but Sirius just went back to eating.

"Going back to your original question about what's next," Caleb finally said, glancing at Rick, "we go to Devils Tower, then we..."

"Go to Hell," Sirius said, wiping his fingers off on a thin napkin. 

"Sure." Alex tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "Easy-peasy. Should be a peach of a trip."

Sirius gave a dry look, then shrugged. "Actually, getting there isn't that bad—"

"Speak for yourself," Rick muttered.

"It's the getting back that's going to be problematic."

"How problematic?" Caleb asked. "Because there's a sliding scale. Like forgot to pay your taxes problematic? Or like we're not coming back home problematic?"

They all fell quiet at his words and Sirius looked at them, his eyes scanning across their faces. It had obviously occurred to them before that they might not walk away from this, but this was the first time any of them had really said anything.

"Well," Sirius said, "that depends. Where does killing a bunch of demons just to get into Purgatory fall on the scale?"

They all stopped dead at that, staring at him. Alex put her fork down, her fingers lacing themselves tightly together on the table. Caleb raked a hand through his hair, leaning back and putting his arm over the back of the booth. Rick laughed.

"You're kidding, right?" Rick asked, still grinning, though something dark flashed in his grey eyes.

Sirius just shook his head. He picked at a stray piece of bacon, thinking about how to convince them the path through Purgatory was the only way. 

She would be too fragile to make the jump straight to Earth.

"You want to send three, four," Caleb hastily corrected himself, "Hunters through Purgatory? Frickin' monster Hell? That's your genius idea to get through all this?"

"It's not a genius idea," Sirius said wearily. "It's my only idea. The gates are going to be locked down once we grab her. Everything will be, except maybe Purgatory which, as we all know, is Hell-adjacent."

"Maybe?" Alex said skeptically. She sighed, rubbing her eyes. "So we maybe go from Hell to Purgatory. What then? Just a hop, skip and a jump to Wonderland?"

"No," Sirius said. "That's where it gets tricky."

"Oh, good. I was afraid the other stuff would be the tricky bit," Rick deadpanned. Caleb huffed a laugh through his nose, stirring his straw around in his soda, staring into the dark depths.

"So what happens if we get to Purgatory," Alex asked. "How does it get tricky?"

"Aside from all the monsters we've sent there ourselves, you mean?" Caleb said. "That place will be like a freaking all-you-can-eat of weird, creepy and clawed."

"Yeah, aside from that." She gave him a small smile before turning her attention back to Sirius.

"Where it gets tricky is that only humans can leave Purgatory." Sirius ate a final fry, then pushed the plate away, wishing he had more coffee, but definitely feeling better than when he had woken up.

They all blinked at him, and he sighed. "I would like to leave Hell, if you all don't mind?"

Alex blushed, like she'd momentarily forgotten he was a monster. Her fingers drummed out an inconsistent beat on the black table, her brow furrowing while she thought. "So how do you get out?" she asked tentatively.

"What about Galloway?" Caleb asked before he could answer. "Can she get out of Purgatory?"

Sirius nodded to answer Caleb's question, then turned his attention to Alex and shrugged.

"That's not an answer," she said, sounding unhappy. Then she narrowed her eyes at him. "You already know how you get out, don't you? Otherwise you wouldn't have said anything."

"Purgatory's the only way to get Galloway out in one piece," he said with an almost-indulgent smile. "Her Soul will be too shattered for her to survive a trip through the gates proper."

"What makes the gate to Purgatory any easier to get through?" Caleb asked, making Sirius frown. 

The Hunter posed a valid point. He wasn't truly sure they would be, but the trek through Purgatory to the portal would hopefully give her some time to pull herself together enough to survive the trip.

"And how does this keep demons from just chasing after us through to Purgatory?" Rick added.

That, at least, Sirius had an actual answer to. "When I say the gates are locked, I mean all of them. I plan to kill Theron. Slow. And bloody. After that, it will take them a while to find someone with his strength. As far as I know, he's the only one controlling traffic in and out of Hell. They won't be able to follow for a little while at least."

"Why can you get in and out so easily?" Caleb asked, brushing a strand of hair back from his face.

"I..." Sirius sighed, not seeing why it mattered. But he knew by now that the quickest thing to do would be to tell them what they wanted to know. "Because Hellhounds were originally from Earth. Arawn and Hades parlayed thousands of years ago to make their respective breeds and used canines as the... foundation, to build what they wanted. I have Hell and Earth in my blood, that's why both places welcome me. Why we and no others are allowed to slip so easily through the veil."

Alex sat back in her seat, mouth parted slightly at that.

"Well, as interesting as the history lesson was," Rick said, "that brings up another problem."

"The other Hellhounds?" Sirius said. "Yeah, that might be a little tough."

"A little?" Caleb echoed. "You cause enough damage all by yourself and you don't want to kill us."

"At the moment." Sirius smirked slightly when Alex rolled her eyes. "Look, that's why you have the demon blade. You'll have that, you'll run with Galloway out of Hell and I'll hold them off as long as I can."

"By yourself? No way." Rick shook his head, as did Caleb.

"Well if you guys have a better plan, I'm all ears." He tilted his head from side to side, sighing when he got the bones to pop. "I hate it just as much as any of you, but I don't see any better option."

"I might have something," a woman's voice said. "Unless you'd like to try and murder me again?"

Sirius groaned, slumping forward to bury his face in his hands. "Why do you keep showing up?"

"I'm like a bad penny," Persephone said, pulling up a chair to sit right in the middle between Caleb and Rick at the end of the table. 

She was wearing a pure white sleeveless shirt and matching dress pants, golden bangles sparkling around her slim wrists. Her purple eyes were framed by thick lashes the color of ink. She brought the scent of irises with her.

The Hunters glanced at one another, then at Sirius, then at Persephone. She tucked a strand of rich brown hair behind her ear, raising an eyebrow at Sirius. "Well," she said, "aren't you going to introduce me?"

He let out a lengthy sigh. "Hunters, Persephone. Persephone, Hunters. There, now you're introduced. You can leave."

All of them scowled at him. He just stared back blankly, not wanting to say a word more to Persephone than he absolutely had to.

"And after all I've done for you," the goddess demurred. "It was no easy feat pulling your darling Hunter-girl out of Hell. Harder to make her solid enough for you to hold."

Sirius looked down, hands tightening into fists in his lap. Trying to keep his voice polite, he said, "Lady Persephone, these are the Hunters I've been working with. Caleb Powers. Alex and Rick Winters." He gestured to each of them in turn. "I hope you all already know Lady Persephone. Or at least of  her."

Persephone laughed, the sound more like a purr than anything. "Look," she said, "press the right buttons and he's absolutely charming."

Sirius snarled under his breath, then jumped in shock when Rick grabbed his forearm, keeping him from moving. The Hunter shook his head minutely, giving a warning look that clearly said: behave yourself. 

Persephone smirked at him—making his blood boil and his teeth turn sharp in his mouth—but Rick quickly intervened. "Might I ask why we have the pleasure of your company, my lady?"

Both Alex and Caleb's mouths dropped open, like they couldn't believe Rick had been the one speaking. Sirius wasn't particularly surprised, knowing that Rick had plenty of experiences with goddesses. Still, it was almost comical how courteous the generally rough Hunter could be when he needed to. 

"Oh, I like this one," Persephone said. She reached foward and touched Rick's cheek, then snatched her hand back with a startled breath. Eyes never leaving the Hunter's, she murmured, "But it would appear he is already taken."

Rick shifted uncomfortably, and Sirius caught Alex and Caleb sharing a confused glance out of the corner of his eye.

"Why are you here, Persephone?" Sirius said quickly, both in a bid to remove everyone's attention from Rick and to speed this process along.

She reached for Caleb's glass. "May I?"

All he could do was nod dumbly, and Sirius had to suppress a snicker. Obviously this was his first time with a goddess. 

Persephone sipped delicately at the coke, and his patience was already worn very thin. "You said you had—"

She flicked her hand at him and he suddenly found himself unable to speak, an uncomfortable pressure on his vocal cords. He coughed, or tried to, a hand flying up to his throat.

"What did you do to him?" Alex demanded, leaning forward and reaching out to Sirius, who was starting to feel smothered. He gasped, trying to wave her off, but then Persephone flicked her hand again, freezing Alex in place.

Caleb made a strangled snarling sound, but Rick's hand flew out stopping him from doing anything more.

The barest scraps of air were able to slip past the invisible grip on his throat, but he tried desperately to suck in more air, slumping sideways into the glass of the window next to him.

Rick's gaze flicked between his sister and Sirius. He swallowed hard, face tight with fury, but stayed calm as he spoke to the queen of the Underworld. "Is this necessary?"

"Well, lovely, as well versed as I'm sure you are, I've been around Hellhounds for a long time. They require a firm hand." Persephone smiled brightly again, taking another sip of soda. 

Sirius was staying very still, his body trying to make as much as it could of the limited air. His eyes were on Rick, but flicked to Caleb when he said, "Are you going to tell us anything useful, or just keep playing with us?"

"I'm a god, darling," Persephone said, shaking her dark hair back. "Humans were made for us to play with."

Caleb opened his mouth, looking like he was about to say something stupid.

Persephone sighed. "Fine. I'll get to it then." 

She took off one of her thin golden bracelets and tossed it to Rick. As soon as it touched him, it started to glow, the light somehow dark. His eyes widened and he quickly placed it on the table, watching it warily.

"Do you know what that is, Hunter?" she asked softly, eyes glowing.

A muscle in Rick's jaw twitched, thrumming violently before he spat out, "That's a summoning charm."

"Very good," Persephone purred, reaching forward to tap a purple nail lovingly against the bracelet.

Sirius tried to warn them. He knew exactly who that summoned, and he would have no part of that particular entity if he could help it. But the words lodged in his throat like rusted hooks. The dark magic pulsed lightly, brushing against his skin and making his hair stand on end.

"If you need help," Persephone said, locking eyes with Sirius, "and you will, this will bring to you the only being who will give you a real chance."

"Would we still have to go to Purgatory?" Caleb asked curiously, dark head tilted consideringly as he stared at the piece of jewelry.

It glittered almost innocently in the fluorescent lighting of the diner.

Persephone didn't even pause to consider this, which instantly made Sirius suspicious. "You won't have to if you make the right decisions."

"What does that—" Rick started, but Persephone snapped her fingers.

Alex slumped back into her seat and Sirius dragged in a ragged breath, oxygen flooding through him. When he looked up again, every trace of Persephone was gone except the charm she'd left behind.

"Don't touch that," Sirius snapped as Rick reached forward to touch the bracelet. He snatched a napkin from the holder on the table and grabbed the bracelet. Moving quickly, he folded it into the thin paper and shoved it in his pocket.

"She said if we use that we don't have to go through Purgatory," Alex said, rubbing at her most likely stiff neck.

"No, she said if we made the right choices we wouldn't have to," Caleb corrected. His eyes were stormy. "That sounds like a loophole if I've ever heard one."

"You would know," Sirius rasped, making Caleb shoot him a dark look. 

"Who does that thing summon?" Rick turned in his seat to face Sirius fully. "Or should I ask what?"

Sirius hesitated, feeling the full weight of all their gazes on him. "No one you want to have around," he tried, not meeting any of their eyes.

"Just tell us, dammit," Alex said. "If they can help—"

"No!" Sirius snarled. "No, he can't help. He won't. He's not the helping type, and that's the end of it."

"Nice try," Rick said, not moving when Sirius pushed at his shoulder to let him out of the booth. "Tell us who, Sirius, or we sit here until you do."

"It came from Persephone," he hissed, then stood up on his seat, nimbly launching himself over the table. He landed lightly on the black and white checkered linoleum floor and turned back to the Hunters. "Who do you think it summons?"  

With that, he turned on his heel and left the diner. His chest ached and his eyes burned.

He'd sworn he'd pay any cost, but he couldn't pay that one.