NEFAS

by cupcakeriot

Nefas (n.):Latin. Something contrary to divine law. Sin. Monster. An impossibility. M for violence and sexual situations and soul bonds.

This was previously entered in the Seven Deadly Sins Twific Contest and won the award for Graphic Goddess Mina Rivera's favorite!

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The Seven Deadly Sins Twific Contest

Beta'd by: AliCat0623, LunaDiSangue85, and LeCrepuscule

Summary: Nefas (n.):Latin. Something contrary to divine law. Sin. Monster. An impossibility.

Warnings: Violence and sexual situations

Disclaimer: The author does not own any publicly recognizable entities herein. No copyright infringement is intended.

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NEFAS

"That hurt," she mutters, licking at the blood on her lip, nose wrinkling at the sharp taste of iron on her tongue. She inhales through her nose, taking in the acrid scent of the nail polish she used earlier – the dusty blue was smudged, now. Of course it was. She had no luck.

"Fight back," says her familiar opponent, feet already sliding into a ready stance, weight bouncing on toes. He tilts his chin back. "Not my fault you broke a nail."

She snorts. "I didn't break a nail. Jesus."

His cornflower eyes flicker to the small array of nail supplies on the scratched motel coffee table. It wasn't much – nail file, a few polishes in dark, subtle shades, polish remover. She didn't see much point investing money in flashy, abundant product, because her nails usually ended up ruined anyway.

"What's the hold up, then?"

"Cramps," she says flatly, rolling her eyes when his expression changes, abruptly turning uncomfortable as he wraps his mind around female problems. She takes the moment to launch herself at him, using her smaller stature and lighter weight to throw her elbow into his sternum, heel slamming on his instep.

He grunts as she swings the side of her palm against his ear and then the vulnerable crease of his neck and shoulder. "Fuck!"

"Language," she chides, skipping back, already prepared for defensive measures.

He doesn't move, though, except for his hand rubbing tenderly at his neck with the opposite hand – she would bet that his left arm was absolutely numb, which was an accomplishment on her part. "You're such a fucking girl," he tells her grumpily.

She quirks a brow. "Sorry my lack of penis offends you, Jazz."

Her cousin shakes his head, blond curls flopping in his face as he folds heavily across the ratty lounge chair. Jazz looks at the nail polish again. "What's up with this shit anyway?"

The fact that Jazz could revert so smoothly, acting as if he hadn't randomly jumped at her when he walked into the motel room, might have said something about his personality. She was sure he was a sociopath. Or maybe it was the life style. It's not like she would know the difference, really.

She shrugs a shoulder, peering at her ruined manicure as she sits back down on the floor, reaching for one cotton ball and the polish remover. "Thought I'd give it a try."

Jazz doesn't say anything. He can't, really. Ignoring the fact that he was male, Jazz always liked the traveling, liked being on the road constantly, and genuinely enjoyed the fact that he didn't have to put down roots in high school. He didn't understand. He couldn't.

They simply weren't the same.

She could see things other people simply couldn't see. Knew things other people didn't know – things people didn't want to acknowledge. The sins were color coded in her sight, bright and distractingly loud. Too much. It was always too much, but it was also her burden to bear, this curse passed down her bloodline.

The curse stole the lives of her parents.

That was fine, though. She made peace with that when she was sobbing over a filling grave, dirt suck beneath her bitten nails, hands too small to cover her tear tracks, too small to grasp the idea that Mamaí and Dadaí would not be coming back. Maggie had been moved into the home of her Mamaí's sister, Esmeralda, and raised with boys several years older. And though Esmeralda and Mamaí shared blood, they did not share the curse that had been passed to Maggie – not a single living soul understood Maggie's plight when the curse started not three days after the double funeral.

It had scarred Maggie for life.

Between the constant moving during her childhood, and living out of cars through her teenage years, the only connections she had were to her relatives – and even then, the curse kept her distanced from those who shared her blood. It was a peculiar type of loneliness, being surrounded by family, yet being utterly alone, because nobody knew what she was talking about when she said she saw the aura of a demon surrounding a perfectly normal person. They didn't understand, not at first, because Maggie was too young. She wasn't making it up. The distracting stains of colors never lied, and for that reason, neither could Maggie.

As soon as Esmeralda began believing, though, four-year-old Maggie was inducted into the harsh training regimen of her older cousins. Tending to young Maggie's wounds, Esmeralda had always firmly said, "If you can see these things, then you need to be able to kill them. Now, stop crying. Be a brave girl."

If Maggie was anything, she was brave – to the point of recklessness. To Maggie, there was only the truth and it was what she lived by. She had to be steadfast in her convictions. There was no other option.

She frowns at the color that comes off with the cotton ball, glancing at the polish bottle with a wistful expression before pushing the longing away. She wasn't a normal girl. As her lips pull in expression, her attention is drawn to the stinging pain on her lower lip, her tongue pushing against the wound. "I can't believe you split my lip," she tells Jazz. "I have to go to school tomorrow."

Jazz shrugs, shooting her a particularly arrogant grin. "So what? You'll just be the hard ass that nobody wants to mess with."

Maggie's eyes narrow at him. She stands silently, gathering her nail polishes, and relishing in the fact that by this time tomorrow, Jazz would be sporting a nasty black eye. He totally deserved it, too.

In the bathroom – which was decorated in a truly terrifying shade of 70's peach – Maggie stashes her nail polishes into the toiletry bag she kept beneath the sink, her eyes catching in the mirror before she can stop herself.

Malachite.

That was the color.

Once, when Maggie was almost seven, Esmeralda had insisted they stop at a geological museum in South Carolina – she said it was so Maggie and her cousins would be able to identify the gemstones witches sometimes used. It was one of Maggie's favorite memories…or, it would have been, had the trip not been tainted by her discovery. Jazz and Eddie had been looking at moonstones at the time, listening to Carlisle tell them that the stones could be used to stop a werewolf shift, when Maggie had stopped in front of a display. The rings of the shining stone were dark green, shifting to shades lighter and back, mesmerizing and soothing in pattern. The color of the gemstone was so familiar, a shade and pattern she saw in her reflection. Esmeralda had noticed her preoccupation and stepped up behind her. "That's malachite," she had said, hand tightening on Maggie's shoulder, faint Irish accent thicker for a moment as she named the stone. "It's used to draw negative energies and trick demons. Your eyes are the same color…just like my sister. It's a gift and a curse."

It took a long time for Maggie to make peace with that dichotomy – not only the fact that she was inborn with a trait that was particularly helpful, but that this very trait was the thing that both connected her to Mamaí and caused Mamaí to be taken away.

She could see demonic auras – her eyes were specifically designed to trick demons, draw them in, get them close enough so that she could kill them. It was a skill that Esmeralda and Carlisle didn't hesitate to take advantage of, and by the time she was nine, she was being used as a demon tracker and as a tempting decoy. Her first kill came soon after that.

Childhood and the family business – for lack of a better term – weren't mutually exclusive. And Maggie new that Esmeralda and Carlisle were harder on her than they were with Jazz and Eddie, because she had a legacy, a destiny on top of obligation, to be better, to work harder, and to sacrifice more. Now that she's older, Maggie appreciates that her relatives made her tough, because it's saved her ass more than once, especially now that Jazz and Eddie were old enough to hunt alone, which meant that Esmeralda and Carlisle could run off to track and research before Maggie and the boys cleaned up the messes the monsters created.

Maggie sighs, studies the rings of green in her eyes, dark and bright, completely unforgiving of the smudged reflection in the mirror, repeating the same words Esmeralda often told her in quiet near-maternal moments. "The life of a hunter isn't rewarding, Mags. There are no thank-yous or moments of peace. There is righteousness and bravery and those are our constant companions," she tells her reflection, face twisting. "You're right about that, Aintín, but I'm so tired."

She looks away and hurries out of the bathroom – doesn't bother comforting herself, because she's pretty sure she lost touch of most of her emotions between the funeral of her parents and her first broken collarbone. In this life, there is only the work; and for Maggie, there is always the knowing.

And it never, ever ends.

"'bout time to write in your diary?" Jazz asks, obnoxious as usual, as she crosses the flat, matted motel carpet, socked feet sliding over the grit. His head is lolling over the arm of the chair he's on, legs dangling over the other side as he twirls a switchblade between his fingers. Jazz had a preoccupation with knives. His collection was both scary and impressive. He named his favorite one, the one currently in his callused hand, Alice after a blind psychic in Mississippi that he always stopped in to see if they came a hundred miles too close. It was cute and stalker-ish and wholly Jazz.

But Maggie isn't in the mood for Jazz and his teasing – not right now, anyway.

Maggie narrows her eyes. "Fecking chancer," she says lowly, drawing on the slang of their shared Irish heritage. It was an unspoken warning between the cousins that as soon as the slang slipped out, someone needed to step back. Collectively, between the three of them, their relationships often walked the line between violent and teasingly affectionate. But growing up like they did, it was always possible for things to get ugly quick – the slang was the only warning that was ever taken seriously.

Jazz, wisely, gets the message, and backs off, fancifully flipping his knife to the opposite hand and looking away. Maggie can't see her face, but she's sure her expression says enough – and Jazz was never unnecessarily cruel. She knew that he would make a comment about mood swings later, though. That was just the kind of relationship they shared.

She sits heavily on the faded floral quilt, ignoring the cloying scent of cheap perfume that stuck to the fibers of the bed, and closes her eyes, head tilted back, mind wandering. It was a weird time of day, that handful of hours between mid-afternoon and dusk, and Eddie was using his particular charms to look up public records, since he actually liked libraries. Usually, Maggie would tag along – but she and Jazz had needed to visit the school so she could be registered. Again. It wasn't like she was stupid or disliked learning, because she already had her GED from an online high school. But she was young, looked younger than her age sometimes, and this time, she needed to integrate because of where she'd seen the aura as they passed through this town.

It was annoying, sometimes – being the youngest, that is. Sixteen, still a virgin, and perpetually stuck going undercover at high schools across the country when the time called for it. Maybe it was because, despite her malachite eyes, Maggie looked innocent. It was probably the red hair or the freckles. People tended to trust her on sight. She didn't look like a trained killer, unlike Jazz, who could pass for positively unhinged; and Eddie was probably too good looking to be of much use surrounded by hormonal teenagers, anyway. It had to be Maggie.

She wondered what they would do when Maggie was older and couldn't pretend to be fifteen anymore.

Maggie opens her eyes and stands. She hadn't ever been able to sit still long. "Want to go for a run?" she asks Jazz, reaching for her beat up Goodwill Converse and a lightweight hoodie.

Jazz nods, pushing a hand through his curly hair. "Sounds good. Need to scope out the town, yeah?"

Maggie snorts. The town was tiny – right off a highway with one main street boasting a gas station, grocery store, post office, and the motel, and maybe five side streets of residencies. On the other side of the highway were slightly newer looking homes and a train track; a mile or so down was the all-grade school and a convenience store, along with a larger cluster of homes. The town was run down and seemed to be stuck in the 80's, with a population less than a thousand and a library that doubled as a city hall. "If you can call it a town, sure," she says as they begin a light jog, crossing a narrow side street.

"Village, then?"

"That works."

Maggie kept her attention focused, examining the air for any color, as was her habit. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary – nothing drew her attention from the steady slap of her feet against grass, gravel, and concrete. Too normal, maybe, as the minutes flew by and the streets began to look familiar.

The day was overcast and gray, which seemed to match Maggie's mood. She was oddly pensive. Something wasn't quite right and she couldn't put her finger on it. The running helped, especially since Jazz liked to make it into a competition once they'd scoped out the motel side of the highway and were circling back. Maggie was fast with a mean sprint that made up for Jazz's superior height – they tied, reaching the motel door in the same second, Jazz leaning against the wall to catch his breath as the rumble of an old engine grows closer.

Eddie pulls up in the vintage black Ford Mustang – Carlisle's old car that was gifted to them when the family separated – and steps out, holding a bag of deliciously greasy fast food, heavy brows furrowed. "Want some beak?"

Maggie raises a brow at his tone, guessing from the slang that whatever he found in the public records didn't satisfy his curiosity. Typical. Jazz might tease, but she's sure he realizes that Eddie is way moodier than Maggie ever has been. She always thought it might be the effects of some middle-child syndrome brought on by her permanent inclusion in the family travels when he was only eight.

Eddie shoulders his way into the motel room, dropping the take-out bag on the fiberboard-laminate-fake-wood table, sitting heavily on a bright coral vinyl chair. "Nothing weird is happening here," he tells them as soon as the door closes. "Not for months."

Jazz quickly opens the paper bag, unleashing the unrestrained scent of burger and fries. "No drinks?"

Eddie just looks at him, shrugging.

Jazz widens his eyes.

Eddie glares.

Maggie sighs – she never understood their silent conversations. "What was the last weird thing to happen?"

Eddie looks up at her, scratching his ear as he leans back in the chair. "Uh, unseasonable snow storm in 1972."

"Seriously?"

"I wish I was kidding. This town is quiet."

"There has to be something," Maggie insists, toeing her shoes off. "I saw a glimpse. There's something here."

Jazz stops digging through the bag and looks between Eddie and Maggie. "If there is," he says ominously. "Then it's not being talked about."

Perfect, Maggie thinks with a great sigh, reaching forward to snag one of the burgers and retreat to the couch before Jazz and Eddie devoured them.

Just what we need - a demon that hides.

Early the next morning, Maggie wakes up to Jazz throwing his pillow at her face and Eddie's long-suffering, "Turn that thing off!"

Maggie lobs the pillow back at Jazz, her aim off slightly so that the pillow lands on the floor beside his motel bed as she reaches for her cell phone on the coffee table, blinking tiredly once the shrill beeping of her alarm-tone finally turns off. She felt incredibly unsettled as her eyes sharpen, filtering the all-human aura of her cousins before that side-effect of her curse fades – it was bad enough she always saw demonic auras and she couldn't imagine what life would be like if she saw everyone's aura all the time, regardless of their human or demon status.

Maggie's issues with her curse might have stemmed from the fact that she had literally no control over her eyes or auras that are perceived. She couldn't turn it off or on, just like she couldn't stop that niggling sixth – seventh, actually – sense from detecting lies. She just wanted some control. If she had that, maybe the curse wouldn't be so bad after all. Or maybe it would be tolerable.

She forces those thoughts away, irritated at herself for entertaining them in the first place, standing from the crappy motel couch and scratchy sheets, automatically falling into lingering stretches, a routine that had been seared into her muscle memory from a very young age. It was important to be limber and ready for the day, which is also why Maggie's shower is efficient and why the clothes she wears are in layers. For a hunter, everything was about being prepared.

Jazz once said that hunters are like serial killing boy scouts.

Maggie didn't disagree.

After Maggie is done pulling on her boots, she quietly wakes Eddie, who groans and shoves his wallet in her direction. "Food," he tells her as he rubs sleep from his eyes. "Something with bacon."

Maggie nods, pulling out a few bills. "You and Jazz need to cool it on the bacon, you know. It clogs arteries."

Eddie smiles sardonically. "Because hunters need to worry about dying from cardiac arrest."

That was a good point.

The breakfast Maggie brings back from the convenience store does have bacon in it, wrapped up in a greasy English muffin, fake-eggs and hash browns. She makes a point to buy little cartons of pulpy orange juice, though, to balance out the general unhealthiness that was the diet of a hunter. She drops the bag beside Jazz and munches on her own breakfast sandwich while she waits for Eddie to finish up in the bathroom, idly checking their weapons supply between bites.

It isn't until they are in the car that Eddie starts in on his predictable Be Safe tirade. "Remember, do nothing to draw attention. Just be a-"

"-average," Maggie interrupts. "I know, Eddie."

Eddie nods, bronze head bobbing in a quick nod as his blue-green eyes dart towards her, one hand on the steering wheel. "Right. Just, you know, don't-"

"-Do anything to draw attention. I know," she repeats. "It's not my first time."

Her cousin nods again, slowing the car down, his brows still furrowed. Eddie was different than Jazz, especially with his emotions – he was open about them, honest with his heart on his sleeve, even if he was prone to brooding.

So, when Maggie accuses him of being worried, she's confident in her deduction – Eddie isn't terribly subtle, either.

He casts a sidelong glance. "Whatever's happening here? Not good. Wrong. Weirder than normal. This town is…I don't even know. You're the one with the-" He stops, waves a hand at his own eyes as if in explanation with a frustrated noise. "So, yeah, I'm worried. This isn't like anything I've ever seen."

"You're only twenty, Eddie. I'm sure there's loads you haven't seen."

Eddie frowns. "I called Da," he confesses.

That was a surprise – Jazz and Eddie were stubborn in the extreme and had inherited the classic Cullen pride. The fact that Eddie got worked up enough over this town's lack of weirdness – which was seriously strange in their line of work – to call Carlisle said a lot to Maggie.

Eddie wasn't just worried.

He was scared.

For a hunter, having fear – even the smallest inkling – was a call for death. With fear came wariness, which led to over caution, and then hesitation. And when a hunter hesitated? Death was soon to follow. Hunting was an old business and every hunter was raised to eschew fear and embrace bravery, because the bedtime stories little hunters were told put Grimm fairytales to shame.

Maggie relaxes her expression, turning the full force of her malachite eyes on Eddie as he pulls to a stop at the curb of her new school, reaching one hand forward to pat his shoulder. "We'll get through whatever is happening here, Ed."

He stares at her for a long moment before his lips pull into a wicked scowl. "I hope you know that you're the only one I let use that name."

"Oh, I know," Maggie smirks, opening the door.

"Don't slam the do-"

Maggie wiggles her fingers at Eddie as the Mustang's door slams loudly, drawing idle attention to her and the car. Her cousin glares at her, revs the engine, and drives away; and Maggie takes a deep breath, turning on the heel of her bargain-buy Doc Martens and striding through the crowd of arriving students with her chin held high. She ignores the inquisitive stares aimed in her direction and plasters on a vaguely enthused smile as she waits for the secretary in the front office to finish highlighting the map for her new classes.

As she enters the clearing hallway, the warning bell already having rung, she mutters under her breath, "I hope I'm out of here by Wednesday."

Her hopes weren't very high.

Rightfully so, as it turns out.

Because even if Eddie didn't find anything in the public records, Maggie did – in increasingly weird amounts and situations.

Jazz was right – the townies weren't talking about it.

Why?

The influence was subtle and demonic - but in such small amounts that had she not been actively looking for it, Maggie would have completely missed the aura signatures and the subtext behind overheard conversations.

The townies didn't talk about anything weird happening because, to them, none of it was weird.

Maggie's first clue was some girl named Jessica. Even without demonic influence, she was sure that Jess – as she insisted she be called – would have already been the bitchy mean girl that seemed to be present in every high school across the nation, cliché or no. But Jessica took it to a whole other level, almost impressively rude and blatantly obvious about it. She didn't even bat an eyelash when she pulled the hair extensions from another girl's head while simultaneously pointing out the jizz stain on the girl's short skirt before leaning forward to dab at her lip gloss.

In fact, Jess smiled at Maggie when she did it, and went right on talking about the football scores of their team versus the rival school twenty miles south.

And maybe Maggie wouldn't have thought that was so odd – the extreme outtake from Mean Girls, complete with doll-like tilt of the head – except that when it happened, Jessica's aura bleeped bright red for the span of a second.

Normal, then definitely demonic, and back to normal – all between the beat of a heart – as if nothing had happened.

And it wasn't only Jess.

During lunch, a pair of boys started a particularly violent fight, then went right back to chatting about comic books as if nothing had happened. Again, each boy had a bright bleep of red aura before mellowing out again.

Maggie looks away from the sight of one of the boys wiping blood from his lip with a smile, glancing at the teenagers around her, looking for anyone who thought that what just happened was odd. But it didn't seem like anyone noticed. Everything was normal.

She frowns, pulling out her phone – which was embarrassingly old in comparison to Jessica's flashy one – and shoots a quick text to Eddie.

Know anything about an entire town being brain-washed by demons?

Only moments later, Eddie replies: What? No. Not possible.

Apparently it is, because that's happening here.

On it.

Maggie slides her phone back into her pocket, checking subtly that one of her hunting knives is still tucked into the back of her jeans. It was reassuring having a weapon on her, especially around all of this – whatever this was.

The only thing Maggie was certain of was that it was more than one demon and that they were planning something. This was orchestrated. Elaborate. Part of something bigger.

But what was the big picture, here?

Maggie couldn't imagine this little nothing town being vital in any demonic plans. Demons were dramatic creatures, after all, and largely preferred big cities – better for their dirty deeds to get lost in.

Whatever she and her cousins stumbled across here was important. This hunt would be life changing.

"You saw what?" Eddie demands later, after he and Maggie return to ground zero, leaning forward on his elbows as Maggie dropped her bag onto the floor near one of the motel beds.

"Nerdy little freshman," she says again, regaling the story that she'd been telling on the way home from school. "He just started wailing on this jock senior, used his tuba to break this guys face."

"Impressive!" Jazz injects from his place on the couch, surrounded by carefully organized bullets, guns, and knives, cleaning oil and rag in hand.

Eddie and Maggie roll their eyes. Maggie is convinced that Carlisle should have done a psychiatric evaluation on Jazz before handing him a sawed-off shotgun. The safety of the world would likely be largely improved.

"Not impressive," Maggie corrects. "Because his aura was so out of whack. It's not funny, Jazz. Stop laughing."

Jazz ignores her, predictably.

Her more-sane cousin grabs her attention again. "Like possession?"

Maggie frowns. "Not quiet. Too quick to be possession," she tells him, tilting her head back, trying to gather her thoughts well enough to put into words. "It's like…I poke you and you feel it, but the pain fades really quickly. Like the demon just brushes over long enough for an influence to kick in, but doesn't even bother lingering to enjoy the show."

"Demon darting done delightfully," Jazz supplies helpfully, laughing loudly at his own alliteration.

"Dude," Eddie deadpans.

Jazz cackles. "Demons doing ding-dong-ditch!"

"Oh, my God," Maggie sighs, exasperated. "Did you give him sugar, or something? Jesus."

Eddie's brows are furrowed and he seems to be actively ignoring Jazz, which was probably for the best, since Jazz was unpredictable at the best of times, not to mention when he fixated on something he thought was hilarious. It's like a five year old lived in the body of an almost-thirty year old man.

"Jazz isn't wrong, though," Eddie says thoughtfully, eyes suddenly glinting. "That's exactly what the demons are doing – playing a game of ding-dong-ditch. They're teasing."

"Preparing," Maggie disagrees. "There's a reason for all of this."

"Which is why the townies are under some sort of mind control," Eddie says after a moment, as if something suddenly became clear to him. He stands quickly, crossing the room to pick up one of the tattered leather books that he constantly carried on him. "I think I read something about this, actually. An ancient ritual in demon lore, way before the time of Christ – it's supposed to be a myth."

"Awesome," Maggie tells him. "Can I do my homework now?"

"Geek."

"Shut up, Jazz."

On the fifth morning at the motel, and the third day of actual high school for Maggie, seven precise knocks sound on the thin motel door, each beat paced evenly, almost cheerfully. Neither Eddie or Jazz seem particularly inclined to go to the door, so Maggie is the one to get up, sending a half-hearted glare towards the crappy couch she was sleeping on because that thing was starting to kill her back.

She opens the door a crack, wincing at the cold rushing into the room, and feels both of her brows rise in genuine surprise – and not a lot surprised Maggie these days or ever, really. "Bella?"

The young woman on the other side of the door was just shy of nineteen; all pale skin and tumbling chocolate hair straighter than a pin brushing against her hips, with huge toffee eyes and a secretive curl to her lips. "Mags," she greets jovially. "Let me in."

Maggie steps back, pulling the door open and rubbing at her eyes. Bella was, as far as Maggie was concerned, her closest friend, if not her only friend – a hunter-witch who also happened to be engaged to Eddie. They had separated on this particular trip because Bella's coven down in Florida had needed her for a group spell, and Bella had bowed to the request, loyal to those who had raised her even if their paths now were so very different. She dressed in natural materials and was completely vegan, which Maggie couldn't even fathom, because Maggie loved leather and meat. Bella also had a particular way about her that commanded the room in a way that Maggie almost feared.

Bella clicks her tongue as she steps into the room, oversized hemp bag heavy on her shoulder. "They have you sleeping on the couch?"

"What? Oh. Right." Maggie wasn't operating full throttle given the early hour and Bella's unexpected visit. "Yeah. We flipped coins."

Bella rolls her eyes. "Those jerks," she says, striding to Eddie's bed and yanking his pillow from under his head. "Morning, baby. You're in so much trouble."

Eddie blinks sleepily. "Bella?"

"Always give Maggie a bed!" Bella tells him, pretty face pulling into a scowl. "Gods, you weren't raised by wolves."

"Close enough," Jazz injects, sitting up and scratching his chest.

Bella points a finger sharply at him. "You hush. Your mother is a lady."

Maggie smiles at the familiar interactions, feeling a piece of family click into her heart. She hadn't acknowledged it, but she'd missed Bella and her bossiness.

Jazz scowls and flops onto his back, pulling a pillow over his face.

Eddie reaches his hand up, tangling his fingers with Bella's. "What are you doing here? Thought you'd be busy in Florida."

"Got a call from Alice," Bella replies, turning to fix Maggie with a steady gaze, as if searching for something. "She thought my time would be better used up here."

"She was wrong," Jazz says from beneath his pillow, tone grumpy.

Bella smirks. "Don't be so cranky just because Alice doesn't want your number."

Jazz doesn't reply, which is just as good as him telling Bella that she was right, because Bella and Maggie share a highly amused glance while Eddie smirks in the general direction of his brother.

It doesn't take long for Bella to be filled in on what was happening in the town, and she quickly directs Maggie towards the shower with promises of returning with breakfast and coffee; meanwhile, Eddie phones Bella's mother for any lore in the coven archives that might help the situation. By the time Maggie is coming out of the bathroom towel drying her hair, the boys have already eaten and Bella has taken the phone from Eddie, hanging up with a perturbed sigh.

Maggie sits on the couch, methodically pulling on socks and her boots, slipping a thin knife beside her ankle. "Anything?"

Bella's direct gaze is just shy of disappointed. "Coven archives don't have any actual lore about this – no spells or anything. It's just myth."

And that just wasn't good. In fact, that was exactly the opposite of what Maggie wanted to hear. Bella's coven dynasty was centuries older than the Cullen bloodline, and since the Cullen clan was one of the oldest hunter families in existence, that meant that the oldest records didn't have any real information. Which was terrible.

Hunters were only as good as their weapons and their resources.

But if there were no resources – no records, no theories, no lore – to pull from, then what good would a weapon do?

Hunting blindly was asking for death.

Eddie places his hand on Bella's shoulder. "Then we treat the myths as lore," he says reasonably. "Every myth has some truth in it."

"Yeah," Jazz says solemnly, scrubbing a hand over his face. "But do legends begin from truth?"

Maggie didn't say anything, but she didn't think many legends had any truth in them at all – which dampened the mood of the entire room, because the truth was that they were flying blind here.

After Maggie eats only half of the fruit cup that was bought for her, Bella drives her to school. Any other day, Maggie would be secretly thrilled to be spending one-on-one time with her honest-to-whatever-higher-power-exists role model, but she can't seem to summon the enthusiasm today.

Bella, of course, notices her preoccupation. "You're really worried about this."

"A psychic sent you up here."

"A psychic, who is our friend, sent me. Yes."

Maggie quirks a brow, rolling her head to the side to stare at Bella. "A psychic, who typically predicts catastrophe, and who is our friend sent you up here. I think the dooms-day aspect of Alice's visions cancel out the fact that we baked a lopsided cake for her birthday."

Bella nods. "You might have a point."

Maggie laughs softly, one huff of amused breath, but says nothing. She prefers to relish in the moment of someone finally admitting that she was right about something. It's actually kind of beautiful.

Bella bites her lip, glancing at Maggie for a long moment as she pulls up to the sidewalk beside the school. "Can I talk to you about something?"

"Yeah."

"I just – don't get offended."

Maggie sits up straighter, fiddling with the clasp of her scuffed messenger bag. "I'm curious now."

Bella stares at her for a long moment, seemingly studying her face. "It's just…You've gotten prettier. Like, a lot. Not that you weren't before, but now…And I don't think it's just growing up."

Maggie reels back in surprise, eyes automatically darting to the side-view mirror attached to the passenger door. She saw penny-bright copper hair, pale skin dusted with freckles, too-full lips, and wide malachite eyes, her features almost unbalanced due to how large they seemed – almost too big for her face, but somehow managing to work with her small nose and gracile jaw. She wanted to deny what Bella said, but the thing was, she had noticed it, had been noticing it, and had been avoiding it because she was afraid of what it meant.

"Mags?"

"I – yeah?"

"Are you…Is anything weird going on?"

Maggie snorts, turning away from her reflection, brows furrowing as she shakes her head. "Weirder than normal? No. Not anything that…"

"Do you want me to look into it?"

Maggie nods silently – because that was exactly what she wanted. Bella was a good researcher and had magic at her disposal, which was why witches who were also hunters were especially proficient. If anything was wrong with Maggie, Bella would be able to handle it. And Maggie trusted Bella with her life, with keeping whatever this was concealed until it could be dealt with.

Deep in Maggie's gut, she already knew what it was, where the problem began. Malachite eyes. Not normal. Not wholly human. Not right.

The feeling sticks with Maggie throughout the first half of her school day, distracting her enough that she doesn't even blink when a girl fight breaks out in the hallway during lunch. She remains relatively zoned out until her Chemistry teacher doesn't show up for class and room 204 is ushered into the gymnasium instead of learning about covalent bonds.

What snaps her out of her daze is a man with an aura that was just….all wrong.

She couldn't get a solid read on him because she'd never seen anything like his aura before, which was a startling electrified blue and clearly demonic in origin – but he was in control and there wasn't any demon near him. It was as if the demon was part of him and at the same time, separate from him, too.

Maggie stutters a step back, letting her temporary classmates move around her as she hopefully fades into the background, eyes trained on the tall man with the weird aura. Against her back, she can feel a demon-blade tucked into the back of her jeans, ready to be used at a moments notice, even though she was sure she wouldn't actually have to use it.

Hunters were trained to be keen observers. They had to be. There was a Code to be followed – hunt those who hunt us – because hunters had to be sure they were hunting the right monster.

Maggie, trained to be a hunter from before she could read, keeps her head down and her body alert, going through the motions, mimicking her classmates as they were separated into groups for volley ball.

The man was a substitute gym coach, that was obvious – nobody really knew his name and he wasn't familiar with the students. He didn't take initiative with the students aside from tossing volley balls to the groups. If Maggie didn't know any better, she would have thought he was observing them like a hunter would.

Which was impossible.

Wasn't it?

She makes a point to avoid eye contact with him all the same because she isn't sure what to make of him and part of her is afraid that he might react to the malachite of her eyes, which is the last thing she needs. The strangeness of his aura keeps her mind occupied as she tries to figure out what it all meant and Bella, who picks her up from school, immediately detects it.

"What happened?"

Maggie shakes her head, rubbing at her temple. "I'm not sure. I think I need to call Alice."

Jazz, immature as he is, "excuses" himself from the motel room when Maggie dials Alice's number. Any other time and Maggie would have been laughing – but she's so shaken by the man and his aura that she can't focus on much else. What's worse is that Alice doesn't have a clue.

"Describe it again?"

Maggie huffs, frustrated. "Blue but wispy – like, not really there even though it was? And I just got a sense of demon from it, even though it wasn't really….demonic?"

Bella and Eddie exchange frowns when Alice hums over the line. "I haven't Seen anything about this. It's probably nothing."

"Alice," Maggie deadpans. "It's definitely something."

"Not anything too important, then."

That was the thing about Alice – she was all about the big picture, which was nice because everyone else tended to get caught up in the details, but it did have drawbacks. For example, this aura clearly was important. Alice was ready to brush it aside because it didn't affect the big picture, but Maggie wasn't ready to let it slide, which she communicates to her cousin silently as Alice hangs up.

Eddie exhales, squeezing Bella's hand. "Then we just have to watch him."

Bella nods. "When would the best time be?"

Maggie leans back against the side of the couch, brainstorming quickly in her mind, remembering brightly colored posters in the school hallway and taking a moment to appreciate how completely ironic her life could be. "Today. In a few hours. There's a football game."

"Fabulous."

It wasn't fabulous.

Really.

Maggie hated crowds. Crowds sucked in general – loud, shoving, stupid – but especially because she was raised to be suspicious of them. Nothing good ever happened in a crowd. Demons in particular liked to dance through crowds in order to evade hunters.

The hunters dispersed between the home and away benches, separated by the width of the football field, blending into the crowd of student and parents with a visual on the substitute gym coach. Maggie was stationed closer, right beside steps that led behind the bleachers, because she was the fastest and the smallest, which meant she was the easiest to forget, especially dressed in tattered skinny jeans and a loose charcoal cowl-neck sweatshirt, pulled up to cover her copper hair. Her hand rested casually on the metal rail she leaned against as she analyzed the man down in the field.

There wasn't anything suspicious, really, aside from the bright blue aura that made it easy for Maggie to keep sight of him. He had an obvious lack of investment in the game, which was easily overlooked because he was a substitute anyway. But Maggie could have sworn there were times that he moved with predatory grace.

The plan was standard for their operations: observe, follow, attack. Maggie saw her opportunity to follow as the substitute coach separated from the players during half time, passing right below Maggie to go behind the bleachers, probably for the bathrooms. She makes eye contact with Jazz, who was on the other side of the bleachers, and tilts her head to the side, tapping the side of her nose once, and then lopes down the stairs and around the side of the bleachers without hesitation.

Her hand is already reaching behind her for the knife tucked into the back of her jeans when the heavy weight of a much larger body slams her against the side of the bleachers, the noise masked beneath the roar of the crowd in response to some nonsensical cheer on the field. Maggie's body moves on instinct, twisting to remove the knife, ducking low and spinning to force the body back into the space she had just occupied, blade already against skin.

Maggie is sure her expression is fearsome as her demon blade digs into the back of a pale neck. She blinks, reeling out of her instincts as she recognizes the bright blue aura that is now tinged pale yellow with caution – and the blade, which glows faintly, as if detecting demonic presence but not demon.

She eases the blade off the neck and takes a half-step back, watching with narrowed eyes as the substitute gym coach flips around, back pressed to the metal of the bleachers.

And…wow.

He was very attractive. Maggie wasn't sure how she hadn't noticed that before, because it was almost painfully obvious now, after she had already attacked him. Pale ash-blond hair styled in an almost fauxhawk, darker blond stubble on his jaw, and vibrant peridot green eyes, which are studying Maggie with startling intensity.

In fact, his stare is so intense – is so different and exciting than any stare Maggie had ever gotten before – that it shocks her back into action, and her demon blade is against the jugular vein of his throat, pressing hard enough to indent the skin, but not hard enough to draw blood. She complexly ignores how warm and firm his body is against hers, and how she has to strain onto her tip-toes in order to assert her control over the situation she was suddenly in – or she tries to ignore all of these distracting details, which makes her voice waver slightly when she speaks.

"What are you?"

"Alistair," he answers, voice a deep, soothing baritone. He isn't reacting to the knife at his neck or the fact that she is clearly threatening him – and Maggie is pretty sure that his pupils are dilating.

"That's…that's not the question I asked," she tells him, adjusting her grip on the knife. "What are you? Not human, at least, not completely human. Demon blades don't lie."

"Right," he replies with a short nod. "I'm a hunter."

"A hunter. With demonic energy."

He nods again. "That about sums it up."

Maggie is, for lack of a better word, dumbfounded. And not just because this guy – this apparent hunter who calls himself Alistair – is staring at her like she's the only thing in the world. She doesn't know what to make of him, which is extremely confusing. She's a hunter. Split-second judgment is vital.

But he's not – and she can't –

"Come with me," she orders, stepping away completely, feeling all kinds of flustered and off-balance and why would she feel like this anyway? Maggie slips the knife back into her jeans, sending a quick text to Eddie, keeping a wary eye on Alistair as he straightens his Nike jacket, never letting his gaze waver from her. Maggie doesn't acknowledge him, aside from tilting her head to the left. "Let's go. My cousins will meet us."

"Sure," he says agreeably, tucking his hands into his pockets.

Maggie makes a point of walking beside him through the darkened parking lot, noting his aura and the feeling of not-demon-demon that she was getting from him. She wasn't entirely sure what it could mean, though if she were to guess, she thought he might have demon blood in him – as in born that way.

"I've never seen a demon blade," he says when they reach the Mustang.

Maggie's brows rise. "Never?"

Alistair scratches the back of his neck. "Didn't really need one."

She frowns skeptically, because almost every hunter she knew carried a demon blade. "What are you?" she asks again.

"I can answer that," Bella injects as she approaches them quickly, Eddie and Jazz on her heels. Bella holds her hand out, flicking her wrist. "He's half-demon," she says, twirling a finger, faint glow growing from the digit.

Alistair jumps back. "Wait, wait. I hunt demons," he says quickly. "I mean, I am half – but I hunt them now. Really. I swear."

"Demons lie," Jazz says lowly.

Maggie frowns, looking to Eddie with a shake of her head; Eddie, likely the most humane of them all, responds quickly, covering Bella's hand with his own. "No," he says to his brother. "Let him explain, at least. Maybe he knows something about the town."

"I do," Alistair confirms. "It's wrath demons."

Maggie's mind blanks out for a second.

Wrath demons.

"You can't be serious," she says.

"I am serious," Alistair insists, strength in his voice.

Shit.

This…wasn't good. In fact, it was so much worse than anything she and Eddie had been thinking.

Because demons were old-hat, standard for possession and being weak to holy water – demons were just demons. They didn't specialize. They weren't supposed to. But the ones who did, the ones that chose a sin from the deadly bucket, those were the ones that were from legends and myths – the same myths that boasted apocalyptic fates. If wrath demons were here, then…

"Well, we're fucked," Jazz says.

Yeah. That sounds about right.

The half-demon Alistair had his own car, but Eddie and Jazz wouldn't let him drive it to their motel; Maggie and Bella sat with Alistair wedged between them in the backseat of the Mustang, tension thick in the air. Bella had two fingers poised, a spell on her lips, while Eddie half-turned in his seat with a gun lazily cocked. Jazz was silent and appeared to be relaxed, but Maggie didn't think that meant anything, because Jazz was a loose canon in the worst way. For her part, Maggie was silently overwhelmed by Alistair's proximity and her own awareness of the effect he was having on her – it was too much, too soon, and too wrong, because Alistair was part demon, even if he was a hunter.

Or, at least, that's what Maggie tried to tell herself. Convincing her mind that Alistair was bad became increasingly difficult. There was a bloom of rebellious thoughts in her mind that were drawing her closer to Alistair and he didn't seem to mind; in fact, Alistair frowned minutely when he noticed Maggie jerking her thigh from his.

And it was insane, because she'd only known Alistair for less than a day and had just finished threatening his life. By all counts, she shouldn't be feeling attraction or affection for him – but she was. Surely it had to be a demon thing, even though Maggie hadn't ever heard of anything like that in all of the research she had done over the years. It was possible, of course, that there wasn't anything to find because the demons kept it secret, whatever it was. Or maybe it was only a half-demon thing.

When they get to the motel, Jazz pushes Alistair into the room, forcing him onto the couch while Eddie keeps his handgun steady, pointed directly at the half-demon. Alistair appears distracted, though, his nose flaring as he stares down at the couch, and then at Maggie with a knowing glance, as if he knew that she slept there.

She doesn't get a chance to ask, because Bella's hand is on her shoulder as they stand slightly behind Eddie while Jazz steps closer to Alistair, eyes too bright.

"I'll kill you if you lie," Jazz says casually, nodding his head in Maggie's direction. "And believe me, we'll know if you lie."

Had it been any other time, Maggie would have been thrilled that Jazz was putting faith into the side-ability of her malachite eyes – she could see the fluctuation in demonic aura that indicated lies – but as it was, Maggie was actually concerned for Alistair. She knew Jazz would keep his word, regardless of the Code or Eddie's moral compass.

Alistair didn't seem concerned as he shifts on the couch, relaxing into the hard cushions. "I have no reason to lie. I'm half-demon on my father's side. I'm a hunter. And what's happening in this town is because of wrath demons straight from the flames."

Maggie tries not to flinch when every eye in the room locks on her for verification. She tilts her chin up, examining Alistair's clear, bright aura. "Truth," she decides easily.

The sound of Eddie clicking the safety on his gun is loud in the room, and seems to be a signal that Jazz and Bella can relax, too; Bella sits on one of the beds, crossing her legs at the ankle, gaze curious; Jazz falls across one of the shitty motel chairs, limbs akimbo.

"Fine," Eddie says, pacing the room as he is prone to do. "You're a hunter."

"Half-demon hunter hunting demons," Alistair reiterates.

"Guess it's not a family business."

Alistair's peridot eyes are cool when he looks at Jazz. "Not really."

Maggie doesn't comment when Alistair's aura flares deep orange with regret and grey with grief – he deserved his privacy, even if Maggie was able to piece together the subtext to his words. Alistair's family was dead. Maggie could relate.

"Why are you here?"

Alistair's lips twitch. "Hunting. I followed the trail of bizarre happenings from the east."

"You're certain these are wrath demons?" Bella injects, leaning forward. "I thought those were just myth."

Alistair's chiseled face is serious as he answers, brows furrowed. "Earlier today was the first time I actually saw one in action," he says. "But I knew immediately what it was. It's a demon thing."

"That's handy," Jazz snorts.

Alistair doesn't share his amusement. "You have no idea. Demons instinctively know the basics about other demons. There are so many demons in Hell, more than you can possibly imagine. It helps me uphold the Code."

Maggie is riveted. "So you just knew?"

"Without a doubt," Alistair answers with a smile.

Some part of Maggie is deeply pleased by Alistair's confidence in his own abilities – someone finally understands.

"How many demons are there?" Eddie asks

Alistair quirks a brow. "Here, or in Hell?"

"Both," Bella answers.

"If all demons ever escaped from Hell, they would overpopulate humans two to one easily. But there's a system. That many demons getting out at a time just doesn't happen. There are three types of demons; the ones who rule over the regions and legions to keep order, the ones who kill their way to the surface just to cause pain and chaos, and the ones who are granted freedom above-ground. For the record, my great-grandparents had permission to get out of Hell," he tells them with a pointed glance at the gun tucked into Eddie's pants. "Here, though, there's at least twenty wrath demons. Ancient, too. And they clearly have a plan."

"How are you so sure they have a plan?" Eddie demands, gesturing to the closed-curtain window with wild hands. "If there's so many and they're leaving a trail-"

"Someone is controlling them," Alistair interrupts. "Wrath demons don't just get out of Hell. They have to be summoned from the Pits, woken from hibernation, and that takes some serious juice."

"Who summoned them?" Maggie asks, sitting down beside Bella, her head spinning, as Alistair's gaze turns soft as he looks at her.

"I have no idea," he says honestly. "The texts are so ancient. But it is someone powerful, probably one of the Princes."

"The Princes of Hell are real?"

Alistair's gaze is solemn as he looks at each of them. "Everything you've ever read, heard, or feared about Hell is real. Never doubt that."

Jazz is the one who speaks what is on all of their minds, his grin predatory. "Then that just means we have to kill them all."

Alice, of course, is the first call that is made – and, predictably, she doesn't offer any usable advice under the umbrella of the If-I-tell-you-this-the-future-might-change clause, which Maggie is almost certain means that not even Alice knows what will be rising in this town. The second call made was to Bella's coven, who offers to do a séance to search for answers, which neither Jazz nor Maggie has much confidence in. The final call was a surprise to them all; Alistair contacting a duo of British hunters, Charles and Makenna, who dabbled in black magic to raise demons. The contact he had with this pair seemed strained but professional, and the British couple promised to get back to him soon about any information they….gathered from their sources, which Maggie thought was a thin euphemism for torturing summoned lower-class demons.

It was three days before any progress was made and, oddly, before anymore wrath demons showed up.

But when it rained, it poured, as was typical for hunters.

Bella's coven woke the group of cousins at two in the morning with urgent news on who was raising the demons; moments after the phone rings and Bella answers, Alistair was pounding on their door; and chilling echoes of screams from miles away sounded through the early morning hours.

Maggie answers the door, absently absorbing Alistair's sleep-mussed appearance with his ash-blond hair mashed to one side of his head, with half her hearing trained on Bella's rapid-fire questions. "Alistair?"

"Charles just called me. It's a Prince," he says, pushing into the room, hand clenched around the handle of a beaten duffle bag. "Specifically, Amon. He's a Prince of forty legions of wrath demons and one of the seven circles of Hell and he's-"

"Rising right now," Bella finishes for him, toffee eyes wide as she ends the call from her coven.

"Right," Alistair agrees. "We need to get our asses in gear."

"I love a good fight," Jazz comments, already tugging on his armor-enchanted jacket, the one that was similar to what Bella gifted their group when she and Eddie were engaged.

Alistair ignores him, setting his bag onto the bed beside Bella and unzipping it. "I hope you know enough charms for all of this," he says. "I can't really make them holy."

Maggie can't stop herself from asking. "Then how do you…?"

It was a good question. Even the most seasoned hunters relied heavily on holy water, devil traps, and ancient Latin exorcisms for demon kills – but obviously, a half-demon wouldn't be able to employ these skills and demons were notoriously difficult to kill.

Her heart jumps at his answer, the confident twist of his lips. "Strength."

Maggie didn't doubt it for a second, and felt heat rising to her cheeks for the first time in her life as she notices the curve of his biceps beneath his black Henley. Totally not the time for this, she thinks furiously, turning away from Alistair and reaching for her own leather jacket and a thick pair of jeans, taking both to the little bathroom to quickly change. Bella trades places with Maggie as soon as she steps out, making a motion for Maggie to begin the charms on the weapons that Alistair was unloading.

Maggie kneels beside the bed, quickly opening a box of silver bullets and removing the antique silver cross from around her neck, placing the chain over the pile with the crucifix warming between her palms. Bella had made a point to teach Maggie the most basic of holy enchantments that were used by witches – they were stronger than the kind Esmeralda favored, and Maggie was actually better at the magic-driven ones. She finishes the chant and shoves the bullets in Alistair's direction, reaching for a finely polished machete, pausing when she doesn't sense Alistair moving.

"What?" she asks, focusing on the purple undertone of his aura. "You can't touch the bullets?"

"I can," Alistair says quickly. "I'm human enough that they only burn a little. It's just…that was magic."

Maggie frowns. The first time Carlisle had seen Maggie perform the spark-driven holy spells, he'd been incredibly disturbed, and it bothered her that Alistair was behaving similarly. "And?"

Alistair's peridot eyes study her for a long moment before he shrugs nonchalantly, reaching for the charmed bullets to load into a clip. "Nothing, I guess."

They work in silence as Jazz and Eddie empty clips onto the bed for Maggie to charm and Bella comes back from the bathroom to work a more powerful holy spell that forces Alistair outside. Distantly, Maggie is thrilled that they all work so well together – it boded well for the success of the upcoming battle. And, if Jazz and Eddie began to trust Alistair, perhaps more hunts in the future.

Soon enough, Bella calls her coven as the cousins and Alistair slip various weapons into their clothing and belts, and once the coven has given a relative location – the high school of course – they all pile into the Mustang with Alistair once again wedged between the only girls in the group.

"Amon will be more powerful than any demon we've ever faced," Bella says as the Mustang idles in the school parking lot. "He'll probably get out of this alive. But if we can lodge a bullet into his skull, the coven will be able to track his next locations."

Maggie hears Bella – but some part of her is protesting deeply, so much so that she doesn't even want to exit the car, hesitating until Jazz reaches in and pulls her out by her elbow.

"Don't wuss out on me now," her eldest cousin says. "We need you to find the eye of the hurricane."

Maggie nods, grasping for the cool comfort from years of training. She exhales heavily and turns her eyes to the horizon, searching for the largest cluster of bright red auras. "There," she says, already moving in the direction of the football field.

"How many?" Eddie asks as Jazz walks ahead of both of them, Bella at his elbow.

Maggie glances back at Alistair and his soothing bright blue aura. "I don't know – at least twenty but…weakened."

On Eddie's other side, Bella nods. "Sounds about right. The coven said the demons had to sacrifice a lot of power to bring Amon up. Even if he is a Prince, it's hard getting to the surface without blood rituals."

Alistair moves forward, tiny daggers slipped between his fingers. "They'll know we're here soon enough," he says after a very human scream echoes from the field. "Let's not waste time."

Maggie wants to protest – she doesn't feel ready and something inside her is screaming protests, urging her to turn around and worse, turn a blind eye to what was happening here. And her eyes begin hurting as she grows closer, making her fall several steps behind. The light of demon aura is blindingly bright and she has to lean heavily against the brick wall of the concession station, eyes squeezed shut, the sudden weight of a hand on her shoulder startling her into squinting her eyes open.

And so it's Maggie's fault when they are ambushed – because everyone was distracted by Maggie's hold up that they had stopped and turned around, leaving them open for the hoard of wrath demons flying into the little tunnel that leads to the football field. Jazz is trigger-happy, the sound of bullets too loud against the powerful incantations Bella murmurs that force the wrath demons away just enough that the hunters are able to dodge around a corner.

"We need cover," Eddie says as Bella continues her chant. "But we should separate."

"Concession stand has salt," Alistair says. "I'll hold the fort down while you guys get to the thick and take this fucker down."

Alistair stays behind, kicking his way into the concession station, already ripping apart packages of salt to barrier the demons, while Maggie, Bella, and the cousins slink back into the hallway.

But Maggie's not focused – her head is killing her and there is something wrong. She follows along silently, demon blade in hand, until the screech of a demon chills down her spine and the group ducks around another corner.

And then, she's talking. "I need to go back," she hears herself say.

Jazz ignores her, but Eddie's attention is instantly hers. "Are you kidding? No way."

"I have to stay," she says, desperation in her voice. "I can't – there's something – I can't get too close. He'll see me."

"Who will see you?"

Maggie looks at Bella with wide eyes. "Amon. He will kill me."

The group of hunters is silent, all staring at their youngest member and the sudden glow of malachite eyes – eyes that had always been not quite right that were coupled skills in magic that had been unexplainable. There is fear in those eyes, fear for the Prince of Wrath, fear of him finding her. Naked, truthful terror.

"Go," Jazz says. "Do something to get rid of these wrath demons. We'll take out the boss."

Maggie nods, ready to run, and Bella grasps her elbow.

"I didn't get a chance before," Bella says, leaning closer to Maggie. "But I meant to tell you what I found about why you've gotten so pretty. It's – the magic you can do isn't magic, Maggie. It's something else, something old, something you shouldn't be able to do. You are different. And whatever is making you different? It's changing everything about you."

Maggie – she doesn't know what to make of that. It could mean anything. She doesn't do magic-magic? She does not-magic-magic? Could her mother, the bearer of malachite eyes, do not-magic, too? It was horrible timing. There wasn't a moment to spare to ponder Bella's revelation, because Maggie had to go, because something was pulling her in the opposite direction.

She shakes her head at Bella. "I- I can't. Not now," she says, pulling away, backing up. "Be careful."

Eddie, who had been watching on with wide eyes, nods once, the serious mask of the hunter sliding onto his face, matching Jazz's expression. Bella lets her gaze linger before she reaches into the little hemp pouch on her hip, offering one intense look at Maggie's back as the younger girl darts away.

Maggie allows the tug in the center of her chest to lead her back to the concession stand, her breath catching in her throat when she sees Alistair's brute strength throwing the aura-flaming wrath demons into each other. He moved like none Maggie had seen before, but also in a way that favored his left side, where a large bloody gash revealed shredded skin and muscle.

Without thinking, Maggie launches herself at the closest wrath demon, her blade slicing through charred, inky skin, digging and twisting as Maggie pulls the knife out, turning to the next demon. Quick on her feet, Maggie manages to maim a few of the demons before reaching Alistair's side, her demon blade sticky with blackened blood. She nods her head towards the open concession stand door. "Get in," she tells him. "Open more salt and line the door."

"What?"

"You're injured," Maggie tells him. "I need to take care of it. And then I need to work a spell."

Alistair pauses, his palm falling to press against the wound on his side before he rushes to comply, following the self-assured orders of a teenager. He keeps half his attention on the petite copper-haired girl with the green-ringed eyes and her well-trained movements as she defends the door of the concession stand. He's almost done lining the doors with salt when Maggie stumbles backwards with a pained wail, his bloodied hands managing to catch her, hold her against his chest as the wrath demon that injured her is rebuffed by the salt-barrier. He slams the door and spins Maggie around, eyes falling on the shredded jeans and skin of her leg, the wound deep, stretching from the top of her hip to the middle of her inner-thigh.

"Shit," she gasps. "Jesus. That's bleeding a lot isn't it?"

It was. She knew it and he knew it, but Alistair didn't say anything, only protesting when Maggie shakes him off. "I need to put pressure on-"

"Let me go," Maggie demands. "The spell has to be worked now. Can't you hear them? Salt-barriers won't work for long and my cousins need time."

As if on cue, the screech of a wrath demon sounds loudly outside the door, forcing Alistair to step back and watch with wide eyes as Maggie dips her fingers into the bleeding wound on her leg and draws a series of sigils directly onto the door. The markings were ancient. Alistair hadn't seen anything like it.

"What is that?" he asks quietly, examining the lines in greater detail as some part inside him screamed and clawed to get away from the door. His demon found the sigil disturbing.

"Angel sigil to kill demons," Maggie answers distractedly. Then she stops and looks at the door with wide eyes. "How do I know this? I don't know what this is."

Her voice is beyond hysterical as wrath demons slam against the outside walls, the doors, the metal shutters. She stares at the image she'd drawn with her own blood, feeling a strange sense of dissociation – because the spell had only just popped into her mind and what she just called it, an angel sigil, was not magic. Magic had demonic origins and didn't look anything like what Maggie had just drawn.

Bella was right, then. It wasn't magic, not really.

But angels didn't exist – at least, no hunters had ever found evidence of one outside the Bible.

Or – were angels in hiding – were they –

"Maggie," Alistair says with force, as if he'd been repeating her name for several minutes. "Maggie, do the spell. The salt-barrier is breaking."

Maggie looks down at the messy line of salt, at the cracks forming between the grains, and then up at the sigil.

She presses her bloody hand to the center of the sigil and instantly, gold-white light explodes through the room – and Maggie can feel the light expanding, flooding the building and out to the football field, wrath demons quieting as the light kills them in seconds.

A pained groan from behind her makes Maggie's heart stop.

No.

Not him.

She hadn't even thought about it – but Alistair was half-demon. It was utterly silent beyond the door, all the wrath demons completely obliterated from the angel-sigil-not-magic-magic Maggie had just performed that she didn't even know she could do. Alistair could be dead because of it.

She drops to her knees beside him, pushing a hand against his too-hot forehead with dread in her stomach.

Maggie blinks quickly, grappling for any remaining stoicism she might have left, and pulls her hand from her side. There's enough light in the room that she can see the dark stain of blood on her hand, echoing the throb of pain in her leg that she'd mostly been able to ignore. I'll die here, she thinks suddenly, pressing her hand against the deepest wound on her inner-thigh. I'll die here alone.

She looks at Alistair, who was passed out, long body heavy against the dirty ground, wound in his side bleeding sluggishly. But he was breathing. Alive. Somehow he was alive.

"Not completely alone," she amends in a whisper, watching him with careful eyes, remembering how her heart stuttered at the sight of him for the first time, even with the demonic aura outline.

Her heart leaps to her throat when Alistair groans lowly, chest rising with a waking gasp, head lolling towards her, peridot eyes squinting open. "Not alone," he grinds out, brows pulling into a furrow. "Won't…let you be."

What does that even mean?

"You look at me different," she whispers, confessing to the observation, to the sense, she had noticed – and tot the thoughts that she had been too intimidated to address. "Why is that?"

Alistair closes his eyes, head falling back with a low thump. "Because you are different."

"Why?"

When his eyes open, they are clear and bright, matching his aura in tone. "Because you're mine," he tells her directly, something inside him shuddering in relief. He could say something, tell Maggie now that they were alone. "Demons, even half-demons, mate for life. We find someone and we just know. I knew the second I saw you in that stupid gym class as you tried to fade into the back. And even if you won't have me, I will protect you. I will die for you because that's my right."

Maggie's mouth is dry, heart thundering in her chest. There had been something indescribable about Alistair from the first time she laid eyes on him and she knew, in the depths of her soul, that this wasn't some teenage infatuation. She just knew.

"Live for me," she says. "I'd rather you do that."

Alistair is silent, pain-tinged eyes roving her face, before he nods, determination set in his jaw. "I want to. But I won't heal fast enough and you're bleeding too much."

And just like before, with the angel sigil on the door, an image pops into Maggie's mind and she is dragging her fingertips through the blood seeping from her thigh, drawing lines with obscure meanings onto the dirty ground beneath her knees. Alistair watches with furrowed brows when she sits back, reaching for his hand, coating his fingers in his own blood. "Trace that," she tells him.

"What is this?"

Maggie frowns. "It's…a bond. I don't know. But we need to do it. It will help us."

"Maggie-"

"Hurry," she interrupts, a chill shooting down her spine at the sudden feeling of being watched. "We don't have much time."

"How do you know?" Alistair asks, hand hovering over the set of three sigils scrawled onto the ground.

And Maggie – she didn't know how. It was instinct, deep in her bones and blood, a subliminal message that guided her. But she trusted the sense. It felt pure, right, and necessary.

"I just know," she says.

Alistair doesn't hesitate then, wincing when he has to stretch to finish tracing the symbols. As soon as he's done, Maggie grabs for his hand, moving to kneel by his hip, ignoring the thick pool of slightly-darker-than-red blood beneath his body. As her injured thigh presses against the wound in his side, the sigils on the ground glow bright white, lighting the room with unforgiving illumination.

Maggie's hand tightens around Alistair's when her injuries begin knitting together – and when she looks at Alistair's side, his wounds fade too, blood drawing back from his skin. A buzzing rush of energy zaps through her body and Maggie feels better rested, healthier than she had in years. The buzzing fades into a shiver of energy beneath her skin, burning hot with every pump of blood through her veins.

And then Alistair's large, hot hands are closing around the sharpness of her hips, dragging her body over his until Maggie is sprawled across his chest, straddling his narrow hips. His fingers curl into the hair at the nape of her neck, drawing her face closer to his own as he moves to sit up. When their lips connect, it's electric.

The following moments are abrupt, heady with pent up passion finally being released and a sudden crescendo of energy radiating from the white light slowly fading from the room. The moments are freedom – without responsibilities or the nightmares that they hunted or fear from the rising Prince on the football field.

Chests pressed together, Alistair pulls Maggie's hips down, grinding, circling, as he cants upwards, and somehow managing to hit a spot that Maggie didn't even know existed through two layers of thick jeans. She pulls away from his mouth, head tilted back as she gasps, fingers tightening on his shoulders. His hands slip from her hips, sliding up along her ribs and tightly grasping her breasts, allowing Maggie to writhe on his lap, seek pleasure from the sizable bulge pressing delightfully against her clit as he mouths the column of her throat. A thumb circles her nipple and Maggie bucks, a wave of slickness sticky in her panties. Her hands fall to the button of Alistair's jeans, the sharp whisper sound of a zipper accenting the tiny gasps and low moans in the room.

Maggie isn't sure what she's doing as her hand grasps Alistair's length – but it's hard and hot and because of her, and so she tightens her hand around it, pulling her fingers up, lips against the shell of his ear.

"Fuck," Alistair says lowly, his fingers sharp against her body as he pulls open Maggie's jeans, slipping his hand directly into her panties in spite of the weird angle.

Maggie bites down on his ear when his middle finger slides down her slit, dragging wetness back up as he firmly circles and strokes her clit with an unforgiving rhythm. It's more than electric, this feeling, it's-

Amon is coming.

Maggie gasps, eyes jerking open as a powerful, ancient voice fills her mind, rattling her bones because it's too loud and she can't-

"Amon," she tells Alistair, wrapping her hand around his wrist to stop him. "He's-"

"What?"

Maggie shakes her head. How could she be so stupid? This was so ill-timed. "We need to go. Now."

Alistair's eyes dart between hers, studying the resolve in her face, before he nods, buttoning her jeans before painstakingly tucking himself into his own pants, wincing as they stand, adjusting their clothing.

Down the corridor, an amused, dark chuckle echoes – and it's so close to the concession stand that, had that too-pure, too-powerful voice not entered Maggie's mind, they would have been caught unaware. As it is, Maggie doesn't even bother to scramble for her demon blade, a deep part of her soul knowing that it would be useless against one of the Seven Princes.

The door to the concession stand blows open.

Amon didn't have his own body. No demon did, really – all demons possessed human bodies, wore skin like models wear clothes. But in myth, it was speculated that Princes only had a limited number of vessels available to them to possess. The blood in the body had to be just right.

Olive-skinned, dark haired, built lean and only a handful of inches taller than Maggie, Amon stood in the doorway, posture impeccable, eyes glowing red like cooling embers. He wore a feather in his ear – likely an owl feather, if myth was to be believed.

He smiles at them predatorily. "Oh, look. More hunters," he says, laughing when he looks at them. "Well, not really hunters, right? A half-demon and….what are you?"

Maggie feels a furrow in her brow despite her best efforts to repress the show of expression. She was human – Jesus, was she human?

Amon stares at her intently. "It's the funniest thing," he tells them conversationally. "I come out of Hell raised by loyal sacrifices and the first things I encounter are angel-touched hunters. Even that witch whore has been touched by an damned angel. And you…"

Maggie tenses – because she can feel the weight of his words, the truth of them. He wasn't lying. Demons were supposed to lie and he wasn't.

Amon steps back, tilting his head at her, eyes darting to the bloody sigil on the floor. "You are more than angel-touched. Just my luck for those sanctimonious pricks to plant one of their halfies."

For a short second, Maggie is sure Amon is talking about Alistair – but no, his eyes are on hers and his smirk is entirely too pleased. He knew, right as he said it, that he was revealing something unknown.

"It's the malachite that gives you away," he says, turning on his heel. "Come along now. I don't want to have a show down in this dingy place. Have some class."

Alistair doesn't hesitate to follow Amon, his face drawn in a tense glare; Maggie is half a step behind him, part of her screaming in fear, seeing the roaring, out of control bright red aura that trails behind the Prince like smoke.

The football field is littered with corpses when they arrive, and bound by invisible tethers in the middle of the field are her cousins and Bella, bloodied, bruised, and unconscious, but living. Angel-touched apparently – something that protected them from death?

Amon abruptly spreads his arms to the side, inhaling deeply. "My wrath demons have done beautiful work, I have to say. It's a shame you had to kill them all with that wretched sigil. But look around us! I love the smell of death, don't you, half-blood?"

Neither Maggie nor Alistair answer, each unsure as to who is being addressed by the Prince of Wrath.

The Prince turns, pointing a finger directly at Alistair. "It's in your blood to love that smell. Don't shame your ancestors! In fact, you of all the half-bloods should love death and destruction more."

"Why's that?" Alistair asks, voice tight. "Because I share the blood of murderous-"

"Because you share the blood of the King! Find your family tree, boy! You're more Prince than I am, Son of Baal."

Maggie's stomach drops.

Any hunter worth their salt knew of Baal, the King of Demons. He was mentioned countless times in lore and mythology, his existence confirmed by hunters as recently as five hundred years ago, though those sightings were varied and unpredictable.

But each mention of Baal had one thing in common – end of days.

Just like that, it all clicked in Maggie's mind.

It was the fucking apocalypse.

Amon laughs, wagging his finger at Maggie, red eyes glowing. "There it is! There it is! It makes sense now, doesn't it?"

"We'll kill you," Maggie promises.

The Prince doesn't seem concerned in the slightest. "Oh, I'm sure you will. But not today. You're too weak, even for a halfie," he says, looking between Alistair and Maggie with a too-amused expression. "Oh, this is just rich. Look at you two. The descendent of Baal getting down and dirty with a halfie. You just reek of sex. And it's so ironic, like a tragic little play."

"What's ironic?" Maggie demands, feeling this close to loosing her grasp on reality – every thing sounded true, everything Amon said was true, and it meant so much more than Maggie was prepared for.

Amon throws his head back, laughing. "And the halfie doesn't know!"

"Know what?"

"You're a halfie," Amon tells her. "Human with a dash of angel – enough angel to make you half. And you don't even know! Where did you think those eyes came from? Only one angel has malachite eyes! And I'll tell you right now, Gabriel will be so pissed that you bound yourself in holy matrimony to one of Baal's own blood!"

Kill him.

Maggie reacts without much forethought, allowing herself to be guided by that voice in her mind that she now suspected was an archangel – not that it mattered in that moment. Her body moves, both hands shooting up palm-out, subtle white glow in her fingers, lips moving in ancient chant.

Amon smirks, rolling his eyes. "Oh, that's cute," he laughs, shifting his eyes to the rolling clouds. "But you won't be killing me today, Gabriel! She's not strong enough, even with a pump of demon energy from her new little bond. This will be fun later on, though."

Before Maggie can blink, Amon flicks his hand out and her body flies halfway across the football field. She's sure one of her ribs is broken now. He appears before her, crouched down at her side, ignoring the shouts of Alistair as he runs in her direction. The Prince reaches towards her face, and a tinge of white light zaps at his hand as he touches the skin of her cheek.

"Still protected, even if you are whoring yourself out to Baal's grandest son," he mutters, red eyes shifting into a glare. "You might kill me eventually, daughter of Gabriel. You might kill us all. But you will never kill our King. Mark my words. The end of the world is coming."

Amon disappears instantly in a cloud of tumbling black smoke, the smell of fire crisp in the air – and Maggie's mind is totally blank, though she can now feel a sense of something watching her. Gabriel? She didn't know.

Alistair reaches her quickly, hand pressing over her rib, as if he knew exactly where her pain was. "Are you okay?"

"No," Maggie says. "Not really."

Alistair nods – like he understands that she's not talking about being physically okay. So much had happened so quickly and she was struggling to keep up. Her cousins and Bella were alive. She was apparently mated – accidentally – through some angel bond to Alistair. And she was part angel.

Nothing and everything made sense. She would need time to truly sort it all out.

"I think it's going to be the end of the world."

Alistair cups her cheeks, beautifully chiseled face tense and truthful. "We'll be ready for it."

Maggie glances at the mangled bodies on the football field, the blood soaking into dull green grasp – and imagines countless scenes like this all across the world. She wildly imagines that Gabriel is showing her the horrible reality that could be the future if the hunters didn't do something.

She looks up at Alistair, a piece of her soul, of her destiny, falling into place in the span of a second.

"We'll have to be," she says resolutely. "It's the apocalypse."

---

A/N: Obviously, this story was heavily inspired by Supernatural (I LOVE the show and fandom, it's ridiculous and I want my own Dean...and Castiel...together, too, because I totes ship that). It WILL be continued eventually!

~cupcakeriot