"The struggle goes on. To be alive and to be human is to struggle for what is right and against what is not."

- Ronald Reagan

                                                                                 ***

It was more like a day and a half to get to Devils Lake. Caleb seemed to have less respect for speed limits than even she did. She leaned against the door sleepily, an only slightly uncomfortable silence filling the cab.

Caleb had grilled her about the Hell-gate legend, asking things she hadn't even thought of. He'd learned not to ask about Sirius—possibly from how she had torn into Rhys over the phone. Instead, he'd turned to asking about her once her knowledge had been exhausted.

She wasn't sure she liked that topic all that much, either. But Caleb was persistent and mule-stubborn. Once something caught his interest, he was difficult to put off.

Galloway was relieved when Devils Lake finally came into view.

Caleb whistled, looking around as they pulled into the windblown town. "This place doesn't look like it's changed in the last fifty years."

He drove until they reached the center of the small prairie town and parked in front of a decent motel. He turned to stare at her for a long moment. "Would you believe I don't have enough cash on me for two rooms?" he asked.

She rolled her eyes, then frowned. After a moment's hesitation, she said, "I might."

"I kind of feel like there's a conditional statement coming."

"If we're going to go wendigo hunting, you're giving me a gun." She smiled at his instant balk. "Caleb, there is no way I'm running around in the dark without any kind of weapon. What do you think I'm going to do? Put two in your back as soon as you turn around?"

"Gun won't kill a wendigo," he hedged.

"Then you shouldn't have any trouble giving me yours." She grinned in triumph as soon as he sighed.

Getting out of the truck, he said, "There is one thing that's bothering me here."

"Just one?" she asked dryly, stretching with a groan. They walked into the motel and she watched as he paid for their room.

He hadn't been lying.

As soon as they got into the empty elevator, he said, "What's a wendigo doing here?"

"What do you mean?" She frowned at the doors, wanting them to open. She wasn't very fond of elevators.

Caleb gestured around, the movement encompassing the town and its surroundings. "There aren't any forests here. I thought wendigos liked heavily wooded areas?"

Galloway frowned as she thought about that, stepping quickly out of the elevator as soon as it stopped. Chewing thoughtfully on her lip, she waited as he unlocked their door. "Territory?" she finally offered.

"Sorry?"

"It's just like you said. You've seen like six wendigos this year. And those are just the ones you've heard about. There could be dozens more if monsters really are cropping up like you said they are. Maybe it's just a space thing."

Caleb sat at the small table near the front of the room, staring at the abstract scarlet, cream and deep gold patterned carpet. He pursed his lips before he tilted his head. "Maybe. I mean, I don't have a better guess, so why not?"

"Your faith is overwhelming," she said wryly, staring out the window, down onto the moderately busy main street.

"You haven't really earned any."

"I thought you said you had years of it?" Galloway turned to him, folding her arms over her chest.

Caleb ran a hand through his hair. "That's kind of back when I thought you were human."

"Yeah, well," she snapped. "Being human's not all it's cracked up to be."

He gave her a disgusted look. "What's that supposed to mean?"

She inhaled, wanting to spit something venomous, then exhaled slowly. "Nothing," she said, voice tired. "Never mind. How are we doing this?"

Caleb plucked a map of the town off the table next to him and spread it out over the flat surface. She watched out the window for several moments, then turned to him. His dark head was bent over the paper, eyes narrowed with forceful concentration.

Quietly, she sat cross-legged on the bed nearest her, taking this rare opportunity to study the Hunter. He was a little on the thin side, but she knew that meant nothing. Size didn't always mean strength, and it hardly ever won a real fight. She supposed he only looked so thin because of his height.

She still couldn't reconcile the time-smudged memory she had of him with what she saw now.

She'd found an eight-year-old boy with a cloud of dark curls and a missing tooth trying to break into his parents' room that night. He'd screamed at her to go back when she'd picked him up to take him out, not wanting a child underfoot while she battled the wraith.

In retrospect, she should have known. He hadn't screamed because he was scared. He'd screamed because he was mad.

Now, he was a fully grown man. A lady killer by all accounts, with eyelashes that probably started hurricanes and a jawline you could cut yourself on. His scarred fingers were the only outside evidence she could see of what he really was.

Not simply a pretty man, but a demon hunter. Someone who went into the darkness to make sure it didn't creep into the light. Who took all the abuse and misery this life heaped on him and kept going. She'd introduced him to this, and a growing sense of responsibility was dawning on her with every hour she spent near him.

She blinked when she realized he was staring back. 

"It really is kind of scary, you know," he murmured. Her eyes narrowed and he said, "Sometimes I look at you and it's like I'm back there all over again."

She leaned back, directing her gaze toward the window once more. With a sigh, she said, "Your family's death made you strong." She met his eyes. "Mine broke me."

"I was thinking on the way here," he started, then hesitated. When she didn't try to pry his thought out, he laughed softly and said, "If you hadn't done what you did, if you hadn't made a deal, I'd probably be dead, too."

"Yeah. I tell myself that a lot. That I make some kind of difference." She smiled, but the expression was only a denial of pain. "I don't. Neither do you. I mean, not really. You kill a wendigo here, you go to the next place and end a few vamps. Then you go to the next place and the next and the next. It's not ever going to end, Caleb. Monsters will keep getting made and people will keep dying bloody and there's nothing you or I can do to stop it."

"Well, aren't you just a bucket of sunshine." Caleb stood up, tapping the map. "All the missing persons say that this is the area they disappeared. The northern tip of Devils Lake. So we'll start there."

He eyed her momentarily, then said, "How do you feel about hiking?"

She rubbed at her eyes. "I need a jacket."

                                                                            ~~~

Galloway shivered as Caleb continued to shuffle things around in the toolbox that was in the bed of the truck. Her breath smoked out in front of her and every whisper of the never-ending wind through the grass sounded like something hungry coming toward them.

When he re-emerged, she snorted in amusement at the jerry-rigged flamethrowers he was holding. "Black market must be less impressive than I thought."

"Hardy-har," he said dryly, then cracked a smile. "Yeah. There's no way I want to be running around with a couple pressurized tanks of very flammable material. Not with the minor explosions that seem to come with this job. Besides, these work just fine."

He tossed her one and she caught it, catching a whiff of kerosene and acetone. It immediately made her eyes water and Caleb grimaced before tossing her a gun, then a lighter. The first she checked was loaded, then tucked into the back of her belt. The other she flicked open. As soon as it sparked and held, she closed the lighter, killing the flame. 

Examining the homemade flamethrower a little more carefully, she asked, "You ever wonder why fire works on so many monsters?"

Caleb shut the toolbox carefully, trying to mitigate the sound. He shrugged, and they began walking along the rim of the lake. "Fire's associated with God."

She stopped dead in her tracks, staring at the back of his head. "What?"

He turned to look at her, brushing that rebellious chunk of hair back once again. "Fire's associated with God," he repeated. "The Hebrews saw Him as a pillar of flame in the desert, Christians believe they'll be tested by fire when this whole shit show winds down. God didn't make monsters, so fire and monsters don't mix."

They started walking again, Galloway silently processing this. "You could say the same thing about humans," she finally pointed out. "They don't mix well with fire, either." Then, she said, "You believe in God?"

Caleb snorted. "No."

Galloway's eyebrows jerked together. "So then what was all that?"

"Something someone told me once." Caleb shook his head, sweeping the beam of his flashlight over the grass in front of them, the light jumping out over the water every few steps. "If there is one, then He's doing a pretty crappy job running this little experiment down here."

"You know I'm from Hell, right?"

"You work for Hell," he corrected, startling her into silence. Since when did that make a difference, especially to him?

Eventually, she gathered her thoughts enough to say, "Same difference. How can you know Hell exists and not believe in God, too?"

Caleb stopped, going quiet as he stared hard into the dark about fifty yards to their right. They both turned their flashlights in that direction, but nothing stirred save the grass. Once they started walking again, he said, "Because bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people and it sucks but that's how it works."

"How does that explain you not believing in God?" She took a moment to make sure her hair was secure in its ponytail, then swept the beam of her flashlight out over the prairie grass again. The gentle lapping sound from the lake was making her nervous.

Caleb waited until she turned back toward him. "Because if He was really there, you and me wouldn't be out here looking for something that wants to eat us." She frowned, but he continued speaking. "If He was there, I would still have my parents and my brother."

A deep silence descended after that and she couldn't find any way to argue. Then, Caleb barked out a laugh, making her start. With another hoarse laugh, he said, "If there was a God, we'd be normal, I'd have met you three years ago instead of twenty-two and we'd have had two kids by now."

Galloway's lips parted in surprise and her eyebrows couldn't decide if they wanted to be entertained, confused or irritated. They settled on entertained when he grinned wryly, rolling his eyes at her.

"Caleb," she said with a snicker, "I'm old enough to be your grandmother."

He shrugged, giving her a speculative side-eye. "Still pretty hot, though."

Now she heaved a sigh. She didn't know if it was just because they had both found common ground out here in the freezing air with death maybe a moment and a wrong move away, but she knew this camaraderie between them probably wouldn't even last out the night.

Her heart twinged and she turned her concentration away from who she was hunting with to what they were hunting. An easy silence fell between them as they arced farther north, but nothing was to be found. With a sigh, she said, "Are you sure it's a wendigo up here?"

"Rick didn't know what else it could be. I mean, people are disappearing and they aren't finding anything. Wendigos are about the only thing that eat all of a person. Not even rougarous do that. Why?"

"It's just..." She trailed off at a swish through the grass that didn't sound quite right. After a few moments of stillness, she whispered, "None of this matches a wendigo's usual territory. No cave to squirrel its victims away in. Like you said earlier, no forests to hide in. This just isn't a very good hunting ground."

She drew to another halt. Turning to her right once more, the lake at her back, she glared into the darkness. She wished the wind would cease for just a few seconds—just long enough so she could hear properly.

"Do you hear anything?"

Caleb looked around. "Just the water."

A chill that had nothing to do with the cold ran up her spine. "Something's out here with us," she said, whispering now.

Carefully, she placed her flashlight on the ground and dug the lighter out of her pocket. Caleb swept the beam of his flashlight across the rippling grass. They waited a few more seconds in breathless anticipation. Galloway's eyes strained against the dark.

What she wouldn't give for Sirius' night vision.

The thought struck her like a bolt of lightning and she gasped, the lighter sliding between her fingers. She saw Caleb turn toward her as it thumped into the sandy dirt beneath them. A blur tore the night in half and she ducked just as Caleb went flying. There was a splash, but she couldn't make sure he was okay.

Her hands scrambled in the dirt, locating the lighter. She picked it up and flicked it, swearing when it stuck. The rapid patter of feet warned her and she leapt to the side like a matador dodging a bull. A rotten stench of mildew, underground and copper surrounded her and she blew hard into the lighter's mechanism, dislodging any sand that could be jamming it.

She flicked it again and it caught. There was a shriek that sounded right next to her and she lit the flamethrower, not hesitating. Fire arced out in an orange rope, lighting up the night, baking the air around her.

The wendigo snarled at her, its face dead white and horrible, two massive tusks poking out of its lower jaw. Its arms dangled down, long and grotesque and wrong. Its concave chest heaved and its clawed feet dug into the dirt as it paced just out of the reach of the flame.

Galloway heard cursing behind her and the wendigo bolted forward. A clawed hand flashed out and raked just along her ribs. She skittered to the side, preventing it from hooking those claws inside her.

There was more splashing, then another tongue of flame burst to life behind her. She turned to find the wendigo clawing and hissing at Caleb, who was soaking wet, his clothes plastered to him. His hair dripped in his eyes and he stumbled backwards, the flame going out for just a second.

The wendigo lunged.

Right into a burst of flame. Its ragged white skin caught like oil-soaked paper and it screamed, thrashing as it tried to put itself out. Galloway sucked in a ragged breath as she slowly lowered the flamethrower she'd used to kill the creature.

The wendigo twitched and some of the sparks fluttering from its corpse tried to light the dry grass. Galloway and Caleb worked to stamp the small sparks out, then Caleb came to stand next to her as they watched it burn.

When its skeleton started to crumble to ash, Caleb sniffed, shivering. "Told you it was a wendigo." He spit and shuddered, then said, "You know why they call it Devils Lake?"

She sighed, sagging suddenly in exhaustion as her adrenaline rush burned itself out. "No, Caleb. I don't know why."

He wrung out the edge of his shirt, water pattering down onto the damp sand. Pushing his sopping hair out of his face, he said, "It was a mistranslation. The Native Americans that lived here said the lake was spirit water. Except the settlers thought it meant bad spirit and the name turned into Devils Lake over the years."

She stared at him, her mouth hanging open, and he just continued to wring the water from the edge of his shirt, shivering in the freezing air. Finally, she shook her head, snapping back into an actual thought process. "Thanks, Alex," she said. "I'll take obscure names for five hundred, please."

He snorted, then laughed, his teeth chattering. "You're bleeding," he said.

She looked down to find a large patch of red staining the side of her shirt and shrugged. "I'll live." She picked up her discarded flashlight and aimed it at him. "But your lips are blue. Let's go before you freeze to death."

"Yeah," he agreed shakily. "But think of how good my corpse would look. Might even go for an open casket if I die like this."

"Dude, no one's dying tonight." She turned back toward the truck. "Come on, move that overly tall ass of yours."

Caleb stuck his tongue out at her and tried to catch up, but stumbled, almost falling as his legs refused to work. Galloway let out a sigh and turned back. Carefully, feeling a little weird, she wrapped her arm around his waist and draped his arm over her shoulders.

His skin was clammy and cold, his normally tanned face looked salt-white. Concern trilled through her as he leaned heavily on her, his muscles stiff and uncoordinated. It hadn't seemed that cold to her. Then again, she wasn't the one who had taken a swim in the lake in North Dakota in January.

Plus, he was one hundred percent human.

By the time they got back to the truck, Caleb was trembling uncontrollably and he was having a hard time stringing a sentence together. Galloway was no expert, but she thought those might be some of the signs of hypothermia.

Leaning him against the truck, she tugged at the door and swore when it was locked. She whirled back to him and he tried to dig into his pocket, but his fingers didn't seem to be responding. 

Great, she thought sourly.

Carefully, she slid her fingers into his left pocket. The soaked material fought against her and she had to dig more forcefully into his pocket, trying to find his keys. Like he couldn't help himself he leaned into her, shivering, and she tried to ignore how cold he was.

Her fingers brushed something metal, but the keys still wouldn't come loose from the wet denim. With a muttered curse, she pressed her hand into the top of his thigh, trying to pin the excess fabric down. 

"You should at l-least buy me a drink f-first," Caleb said, stuttering.

She yanked the keys free and quickly unlocked the truck, lunging across the seat to jam the keys into the ignition. The engine started and she turned the heat on full blast before helping Caleb up into the cab. He didn't resist, huddling forward as he shook and she bit her lip, waffling.

Then she swore and started pulling on the buttons of his shirt. The first three came free, then he batted her hands away. He frowned drunkenly and said, "Knock it off."

"You knock it off!" she hissed, fighting her way through the rest of the buttons. She managed to get the soaked flannel off of him, but he wouldn't let her touch the t-shirt he was wearing under it.

Finally, she slammed the door shut in frustration and went to the driver's side.

She climbed in and turned the truck back toward town, driving as quickly as she dared. Caleb curled in on himself, his arms tucked around him as he shuddered, and she went a little faster until finally the motel came into view.

Thankfully, there was another entrance so she didn't have to drag the soaked Hunter through the lobby at three in the morning. Caleb tried to help as much as he could, but was almost more of a detriment as they struggled up the stairs. Both of them were breathing hard by the time they reached their floor and her side was aching and stinging fiercely.

When they got to their room, she opened the door and helped him inside before letting him fall face-down on the bed. She went into the bathroom and turned the water on, making sure it was only lukewarm as she dialed Logan's number.

She heard him pick up and, before he could even finish saying hello, she said, "How do you keep someone from dying from hypothermia?"

Logan sighed heavily. "Black fingertips?"

She went back into the bedroom to find Caleb curled under one of the blankets and tugged at his arm until he gave her his hand. "No."

"Okay. So then just warm him up. Don't put him in too hot water or you'll shock his system. Fix him something warm to drink. It's going to hurt. Like he's being stabbed with thousands of hot needles."

"Okay, let me call you back." She hung up before he could say any more, then started tugging at the blankets.

Caleb resisted, and she said, "Dammit, kid, work with me!"

He mumbled something as she struggled with first one boot, then the other. 

"I can't understand you," she said.

"I'm n-not a k-kid," he stuttered.

She rolled her eyes and climbed up onto the bed next to him. "You are to me."

He jumped when she unbuttoned his jeans, then helped kick them off. She peeled his soaked t-shirt off, then helped him into the bathroom where he slipped into the half-filled tub. His lips were still blue as she sat on the floor next to him, her hand pressed into her side.

After about three minutes, Caleb started swearing and she said, "You have to stay in there."

He sent her a glare as she stood up. "You got something to numb it?" she asked, smirking down at him.

Caleb nodded jerkily and rasped, "Bag."

She pointed at him. "I mean it. Stay. I'll be back."

Quickly, she called Logan back and he gave her a few more pointers before she warmed up some coffee, splashing a healthy amount of the whiskey she'd found in his stuff into the cup. She went back into the bathroom to find Caleb with a white-knuckle grip on the side of the tub.

She knelt next to him. "Stop being such a wimp. It's not that bad."

"How's that?" he gasped, nodding toward her side.

Galloway looked down at the blood dripping on the tile. "I've had worse. Here. Drink."

Not trusting his grip, she helped him take a sip of the coffee, then took one herself before she set it where he could reach it and went to the mirror. Peeling off her shirt, she frowned at the three ragged gashes in her skin and swayed a little, the fatigue catching her in a rush.

"I can help," Caleb whispered.

She smiled slightly to herself, then turned. "Just warm up. Like I said, it's not bad."

He sat up, the water sloshing around him and she caught a glimpse of a tattoo on his side. Tree branches twisted over his ribs, words twined like ribbons around them. They might have been names.

He pulled himself to his knees and waved her toward him. "Come on."

She just shook her head and gestured at the coffee. "Drink more of that."

When he opened his mouth to argue, she snagged a few hand towels out of the cabinet beneath the sink and retreated into the large room. Before she closed the bathroom door, she said, "I'm okay. I'm not as breakable as you are."

His face paled, but not from cold. She bit her lip as she saw him remember the fact that she wasn't really all that human. "Call if you need anything," she said softly.

With that she closed the door and attended to the scratches, trying not to think about how she'd almost killed him. About why she'd made such a mistake, dropping the damn lighter. 

Most of all, she tried not to think of him.