Author's Note: Next instalment delivered as promised, SyfyGuy2


Fallen

Book 3: Missing Girls and Mystery Monsters

Chapter 1

- The Student -

It was not difficult to find the Carver siblings, even though they were travelling at the speed limit on a wide country road at night. Ava arrived in their vehicle, which Katie knew as an RV or a campervan, and remained invisible to their eyes whilst she looked around. There was only one bed in the van, a narrow cot which doubled as a seat and a storage box when its lid and mattress were lifted. Glancing through the wood of the bed, she saw a healthy supply of different weapons inside, their type and style common to most hunters' collections. The rest of the van was a combination of generic normalcy, (a small gas stove and grill, a tiny television, and one of the dreaded microwave machines, along with a flushable toilet and sink in a separate back room) and hunter-specific paraphernalia (bottles of holy water, rosary beads, stakes of various different woods, drying herbs hanging from the roof, books about myths and monster lore, and newspaper clippings, photographs and crime reports taped up over every vertical surface of the van).

The siblings were sitting in the front of the vehicle, with one of the twins— Pippin, Ava saw—driving. There was also an argument in progress.

"Are you sure you don't want me to take over for a while?" Merry asked.

"You're a terrible driver," Pippin replied amicably.

"It's not my fault these idiots do everything back to front," Merry huffed. "I mean, what kind of a moron puts a steering wheel on the left side?"

"A moron who drives on the right-hand side of the road," Danny replied.

"Exactly," Merry said. "Americans are so uncivilised."

"Riiight," Pippin said, rolling her eyes at her younger brother. "Because the historic reasons for driving on the left side of the road are so very civilised."

"Of course they are," Merry agreed. She ignored her sister's sarcastic tone. "The right hand is the sword-arm, so it only makes sense that you ride your horse on the left and fight with your right. And very sensibly, the same rules of the road applied when cars were invented. Driving on the right is for left-handed barbarians."

Ava, crouching in the back of the van, approached the front seat from behind, and manifested fully. It only took a few seconds for her presence to be noticed; the next time Pippin checked her rear-view mirror, she saw the angel, let out a squeak of surprise, and sent the vehicle briefly into the opposite lane before regaining control. Luckily there was nothing coming the other way, and she slammed on the brakes right in the middle of the road.

"What the hell?" she demanded, turning her head to look at Ava. "Where did you come from?"

"Japan," she replied.

"What are you doing in our van?" Merry asked, scowling at the newcomer.

"I wished to talk to you of what happened in Knott," Ava said calmly. Why were these people reacting so angrily to her presence? Bobby had never been angry with her like this. Irritated, at times, but never angry. And though Sam and Dean didn't entirely trust her, they tolerated her. She would have thought that people—hunters especially—would be glad for the presence of an angel.

"Oh, that. Well, don't worry. We salted and burned the body, and buried the remains."

"You missed an awesome show, though," Pippin grinned. "After that witch bled enough, all this energy came out of him, all purple and black, straight up into the clouds. An hour later the sky went grey and it rained. As in, natural rain."

"Why did you disappear, Avariel?" Danny asked. "Pip and Merry told me what happened. Why didn't you stay to say goodbye?"

"I am not very good at saying goodbye," she admitted. "Angels never say goodbye to each other."

"Well, you want to say goodbye now?" Merry asked.

"No, we have business to discuss." She looked out of the rear window. "Though you may wish to move your vehicle, there is a truck coming, and I do not think the driver will appreciate you blocking the road."

"There's a layby up ahead," Pippin said. "I'll pull in there."

The vehicle rolled into motion once more, and when they reached the rest stop, the young woman pulled over and put on the hand brake. Then she turned in her seat, as did Merry and Danny.

"What do you want?" Merry asked bluntly.

"Dylan, the witch I killed," Ava said, "spoke of when he and his friends read from a magic book and summoned a demon. I believe his friends may be performing similar spells, doing things to aid the demons and the apocalypse. I wish to stop them, but I will need your help."

"Why do you need us?" Pippin asked. "Can you just... you know... zap them with your angel powers?"

"My 'angel powers' don't work like that. I can't just 'zap' somebody. I need to find these witches and put a stop to them as I did Dylan. Unfortunately, since he is dead, I can hardly question him on the identity of the other members of his coven."

"How can we help?" Danny asked. "I mean... you're an angel. If you can't find them, how can we?"

"Danny," Merry said, a tone of warning in her voice.

"C'mon, Mer," he replied. "She saved your lives, after all. And she's an angel."

"Allegedly."

"I am indeed an angel," Ava replied, though she suspected it wouldn't do much good. Merry seemed determined to remain suspicious.

"How about you tell us what you want from us, Avariel," Pippin said, "and we'll tell you if it's do-able?"

Merry scowled at her sister's suggestion, but she did not object.

"Very well," Ava began. "I believe Dylan's family may know the identity of some of his friends, but I can hardly question them myself, as they know me and will be suspicious that I disappeared at the same time as him. Presuming, of course, the body hasn't been found. If it has, they may even suspect me in his murder."

"Seems like a long shot," Merry said dismissively.

"But it's the only shot I have. Even if the family know nothing, if you can learn from them which college he attended, I may be able to find further information there."

"Why don't you know what college he attended already? I mean, he was your boyfriend, wasn't he?"

"No," she replied, frowning at the implication. "I am an angel. I have no interest in pursuing relationships—physical or otherwise—with humans. During my stay in Knott, I became familiar with several of the people there, and Dylan was but one of them. Let me put it this way; the sooner I learn the identity of the witches, the sooner I will be gone from your presence."

Merry and Pippin looked at each other, whilst Danny watched them, an expression of pleading in his blue eyes. Eventually, Pippin sighed.

"Alright. We're on a job at the moment, but as soon as it's done, we'll look into your thing for you."

"Thank you. What job are you on?"

"A young woman's gone missing from her room in the halls of residence at Saginaw Valley State University," Danny said.

"And you suspect foul play? Of the demonic kind, I mean?" she asked.

"Demons, or something else," Pippin said. "She didn't go missing. She was taken."

"What makes you think that?"

"Well," Danny said, reaching into the glove box of the van and bringing out a small portfolio, "several of her fellow students saw her enter her room the night she disappeared. Nobody heard anything, or saw anything, but the halls are smack bang in the middle of campus. When she didn't turn up for class, her friends called campus security, who had to unlock the door to gain entry—it had been locked from the inside. They found her bed a mess, and a window open, and signs of a struggle. But that window was on the second floor so nobody human was getting in there and taking her out of the window without making a noise."

"Not unless they had a ladder and chloroform," Merry said.

"What do you know about the missing woman?" Ava asked.

Danny handed her a newspaper clipping, and then summed it up for her as well. "Kayleigh Rebecca Sumner, nineteen years old, in her first year of an undergraduate program in chemical physics. Described by her friends as 'happy, fun-loving and studious'. She's got a family in Detroit; both parents, two sisters, both of them younger. Last time they spoke to her was by phone, about three days before her disappearance. Last person to see her on campus was her class-mate Celia Lowe. Says she said goodnight to Kayleigh at eleven o'clock, and nobody's seen her since. The police have no suspects and no clues."

"Was Kayleigh involved in anything suspicious?"

"What, you mean like a secret dark satanic society?"

"Yes."

"No, nothing that anybody's aware of. She's a member of the university's chem club, but there's nothing dark or satanic about that."

"I wouldn't be so sure," Ava told him. "Chemistry is a direct successor of alchemy, and many alchemists were little more than educated witches and warlocks who thought they could find the secret to immortality without having to deal with a demon to do it."

"Um... right. Well, I'm fairly certain Kayleigh wasn't an alchemist. Just... you know... a science nerd."

"I see," she said thoughtfully. Then, she made a decision. "I will help you with this case."

"We don't need your help," said Merry immediately. "You'll only get in our way."

"Then I'll investigate the matter on my own."

She teleported out of the van as Merry tried to object further, and arrived in room F226, which she had read in the newspaper article belonged to Kayleigh Sumner before her disappearance. As soon as she arrived she opened herself up to anything paranormal, and got... nothing. There was no sign that a demon had been here. No sign of a ghost. And when she searched the room she found no hex-bag, which ruled out witchcraft.

There were photographs around the mirror of the desk, pictures of blonde-haired Kayleigh and her family, pictures of the girl with her friends, and there was nothing at all out of the ordinary about them. A pad of paper on the desk held only chemistry notes, though Ava double-checked them just to make sure there was nothing alchemical or satanic about them. There wasn't.

Opening the top drawer of the desk, she rifled through but found only pens, pencils, and other items of stationery. The second drawer held makeup, hair ties and a hairbrush, but nothing else of interest. The last drawer was full of uni books, but none of them held anything of import between their pages. There was a space on the desk where a laptop had been sitting, but it was gone now; taken by the police as evidence, she suspected.

Just as she was about to give the task up as useless, she heard a sound in the corner of the room. A hamster in a barred cage had been woken by the noise she made, and it had started running in its wheel. Ava walked to the cage and opened the door, calling out for the hamster. It stopped, wrinkled its nose at her, then scurried onto her hand, sitting still on her palm. Closing her eyes, she touched its tiny mind, taking it back to the night Kayleigh had disappeared.

A breeze as the window was opened from the outside. A smell. Musty. Cold. A sound like old paper rustling. Fear, terrible, primal, instinctive fear. The hamster scurried back into its plastic house, where it felt safe. It heard a commotion. Somebody being silenced and restrained. More of the sound, and then silence.

Thank you, she said to the tiny animal, putting it back in its cage and letting it resume its short life. After closing the cage door she went to the window, and examined it. The lock was undamaged, so Kayleigh must have left it unlocked. She probably thought that, being on the second floor, she would be safe. But other than the lock, there was nothing of interest about the window. At least, not this side of it.

She looked down at the bare ground directly below the window and teleported into that space. Again, there were no signs of demonic activity, but as she looked around, she found something. It was a piece of translucent, scaled skin; a partial cast from a snake. This cast, however, seemed unnaturally large; it was bigger than her hand. This job was getting more and more curious by the minute. She put the dry slough skin in her bag, and teleported back to the rear of the van, which was a few miles closer to Saginaw now, but still several hours away.

"I agree with you, Danny," Ava said, making all of the humans jump in surprise. "It would seem something unnatural did befall Kayleigh Sumner."

"What did you find?" Pippin asked, her eyes firmly on the road.

"If I told you, that would be 'working with you'," she replied. "I thought you didn't want that?"

"Look," Merry said, sounding defeated, "we don't want to work with you, but you're obviously just going to get in the way and do your own thing anyway. So you can work with us on this job. Then we'll get that info for you. After that, we're done. Agreed?"

"As you wish," Ava nodded. There were, after all, plenty of people who needed her help. People who might actually be grateful for it.

"So, tell us what you found."

"No EMF, no sulphur, no hex-bag."

"It's been days since Kayleigh disappeared," Pippin said. "Traces of EMF or sulphur would have faded by now."

"I'd still detect them," she replied. "Angels are much more sensitive to such things than your primitive equipment."

"So I guess that rules out demons, ghosts and witches," Danny said. "Can't be a werewolf, either; the lunar cycle isn't right. Vampire, maybe? They're more discerning about their victims than a lot of other monsters. They like to pick them personally."

"Possible, but unlikely," Ava told him. "Vampires do not usually leave this behind." She opened her bag and handed the skin to Danny, who turned it over in his hands before handing it to Merry. Pippin glanced at it briefly, before turning her eyes back to the road.

"Where'd you get this?" Merry asked.

"Outside the victim's window."

"Huh. This is a new one for us. Do you know of anything that could leave this behind, Avariel?"

"A very large snake," she said, pleased with her logical deduction.

"So our working theory is that Kayleigh Sumner was eaten by somebody's escaped boa constrictor?"

"No, whatever it was, it opened the window from the outside, so it must have hands. And it stayed for only a few minutes; long enough to subdue and take Kayleigh Sumner, but not long enough to consume her."

"Gross," said Danny, sounding briefly like a typical American teen despite his marked British accent. "How do you even know that?"

"There was a hamster in Kayleigh's room, so I reviewed its observation of that night and—"

"What, you can read minds?" he asked. He sounded excited about the prospect. Why did humans always get excited about the idea of telepathy?

"Human minds? No," she told him. "Otherwise I would have known Dylan was a witch. But I can read the minds of animals. Though perhaps 'read minds' is not the right term. I can form a psychic connection to the mind of an animal, and use that to tap into their senses, emotions and memories, or to issue commands, or—"

"I get it," he said, holding up his hand to stall her litany. "So what did Boo show you about that night?"

"Boo?" she asked. "I don't think that was the hamster's name. It responded to 'Charlie'."

He shook his head. "Forget it, not important."

"Very well. The hamster conveyed a feeling of fear. Also a smell of musty coldness. This is in-keeping with the snake theme, as snakes are a natural predator of hamsters. In particular, several species of venomous—"

"So," Merry interrupted, before Ava could tell them about the venomous species of snakes that preyed upon the small rodents. "Know of anything snake-like that sheds it skin, has arms, and can steal a girl from the middle of a populated campus without being seen or heard?"

Ava gave it a moment of thought, then offered up the only suggestion she could think of. "Kukulkan."

"The Mayan feathered serpent god?" Danny asked in disbelief. "That's actually real?"

"Yes, very real. Though he rarely leaves the jungle. I wonder what he's doing all the way here in Michigan," she mused quietly. "Or why he's abducted this particular girl. It's all very strange."

"How can Kukulkan be real? I thought there was only one God. Don't you serve him?"

"Yes, of course," she replied. "But the pagan gods are very real. And quite vindictive at times."

"But... but how can monotheism and polytheism both exist at the same time?"

"Because of human belief," she said. Humans seemed not to understand the power of their own belief, at times. It was as if they were oblivious to it. How did they think gods got their power?

"You mean... we make our own gods?"

"In a sense, yes. Some of them existed as supernatural beings before the dawn of humanity, and became more powerful when people began to worship them as spirits, and then gods. Others are formed entirely by the belief of humans, imbued with the power of faith."

"But... what about God? I mean, the God you serve?"

"My Father is real," she assured him confidently. "He is the creator of all. Heaven. Earth. The universe. He made angels, and he made humans. Through him were the other gods given flesh and form. Had he wanted them gone, he would have destroyed them, so I believe he must have some purpose for them."

"Can we skip the theology lesson?" Merry asked. "This isn't getting us any closer to finding Kayleigh."

"I think it's kinda interesting," Pippin replied. "Hey, Avariel, what's Heaven like?"

"It is a place where good souls go after they die, where they can exist in eternal happiness."

"Potted plants and all," Merry grumbled quietly.

"And why are you here, on Earth, now?" asked Pippin.

"To stop the apocalypse, of course."

"Can it be stopped?"

"I wouldn't be here if I didn't think it could."

"But you don't know for sure?"

"Nobody knows for sure. Not even angels."

"And where have you been until now?" Merry asked. "During all the wars, all the murders, the genocide?"

"Mostly in Heaven."

"And you never thought about coming down here to help out? To stop the suffering?"

"Do you have children, Meredith?" Ava asked quietly, angered by the girl's words.

"No."

"Imagine that you do. Imagine that your child is playing in his bedroom with his toys. And you tell him 'play nicely with your toys, and clean them away when you've finished'. But the child does not play nicely; he throws his toys around, smashing them up. And he fights with other children, for their toys. He turns his bedroom into a mess. Then he whines at you, and complains that it isn't fair, and demands that you fix his toys and clean up the mess he has made. Would you?" Merry said nothing, so Ava decided to drive her point home. "We are not the servants of petulant children. Humans were given rules to live by, and you broke those rules, turning to sin and vice. You were told 'Thou shalt not murder.' And yet you do. Many of my brothers would sit back and watch this world cleansed of humanity. Be thankful that I am here to try to stop it, and do not act like an ungrateful child in my presence again."

o - o - o - o - o

Ava was so angered by the words of the foolish girl, that she immediately teleported at random, and found herself high upon a hill, surrounded by the ruins of an ancient civilisation. Green mountains were all around, and to the east, a dense canopy of forest stretching off over the horizon. She walked amongst the ruins of Machu Picchu, listening to the sounds of night-insects and a colony of monkeys living nearby as she dwelt on what Merry had said.

Gabriel had been right. Humans did think the universe revolved around them... though quite how the universe was supposed to revolve around anything was a mystery to her. She was fairly sure, though, that getting angry was not the best way she could have dealt with the situation. After all, she was dealing with people who were nothing more than ignorant children. Since the moment they had developed the ability to think and reason logically, they had told themselves that they alone were special. That they had been picked out and raised up by God or evolution, singled out and placed at the top of the evolutionary ladder. In fact, they were just one branch of that evolutionary chain, and it wasn't even a chain that was complete. Evolution did not stop just because it found a 'clever' species. Her Father had not made it to do that. But the humans, in their pride, thought that they were the ultimate creation. The end result of everything. How arrogant and mistaken they were.

Unfortunately, regardless of their arrogance, she needed these particular humans to help her with her task. Although she could of course go to Bobby and request his assistance, she wanted to prove to herself that she could do something without him, that she was not reliant on any one person to survive. Gabriel would probably call her stubborn but she didn't care. She had to do this. She had to stop the witches. It was her responsibility.

When the sun began to crest over the hills, she decided it was time to return to her task. She located the RV in a parking lot in Saginaw, and teleported there immediately. Danny was in the van, lying on his front on the small bed as he worked a laptop, and as soon as she arrived he sat bolt upright and backed into the wall of the van, his eyes wide in fright.

"Please don't smite me," he said.

"I'm not going to smite you," she replied.

"Are you going to smite Merry?"

"No, I'm not that kind of angel."

"But... you killed that witch, right? My sisters told me what happened. He flattened them, destroyed the potion, and you wasted him without even breaking a sweat."

"That was different. I don't smite ordinary humans."

"Well that's... good to know," he said, and relaxed a little on the bed. "So... uh... how can I help you?"

"I must find the missing girl."

"Ah, yeah, right. You need to find her so we can help you with that witch thing."

"No, I need to find her because she is missing, and she may be in trouble. Where are your sisters?"

"They went to check out the crime scene."

"And they left you here alone?"

"Yeah. They usually do. I find the cases, I do the research, they get to have all the fun."

She glanced at his laptop. "Have you learnt anything more about the case?"

"Not yet." He ran a hand through his shaggy brown hair. "I've been trying to ID this monster for the past four hours, and I can't come up with anything better than Kukulkan. But I really, really hope it isn't him, because Mayans were pretty big on human sacrifice, right?"

"That's right. We need to find her, and quickly."

"But there's one thing I don't understand," he continued. "I've looked at the history of Mayan sacrifice, but it seems to be predominantly animal sacrifice, and blood-letting or self-mutilation. When they sacrificed humans, it was usually to ward off the ill-effects of something like a disease, or to consecrate a new temple. And most of the time, when they needed to sacrifice people, they sacrificed prisoners. So it doesn't really sound like this kidnapping is the Mayan M.O."

She looked at the boy. He'd spent years reading books, researching things on his computer... he might be as valuable a resource as the sisters, she realised. "You're right," she told him. "Your research is quite correct. Kukulkan was only my best guess. My only guess, in fact. I know of no other monster that would fit the established criteria. Do you think you could use your computer to determine if anybody else has gone missing recently?"

"Already on it," he said. "I'm running a search of local newspapers for missing persons reports, and I'm working on a hack into the local P.D. mainframe." He gave her a nervous look. "The last part is... um... slightly illegal. I won't go to Hell for that, will I?"

"Man's law is not God's law," she assured him with a smile. "If your actions can help us solve this mystery, then you need not fear divine retribution. Just... try not to get caught."

"Huh. You're pretty cool," he grinned. "I'm sorry about my sisters... especially Merry. She can be a bit... brusque... at times."

"It's been my observation that the average human does many things which he or she should apologise for. You should not apologise for anybody but yourself, Danny. It is not your place, or your responsibility."

"Yeah. Right. But still, I think she was out of order. My sisters might not have read the Bible, but I have. I know that angels aren't here to make us feel better. You guys are like... divine warriors, right? Every time an angel appears in the Bible, everybody falls to their knees out of fear. There must be a good reason for that."

"Yes, people in the Bible had much healthier survival instincts," she agreed. "But I promise I won't start smiting people, no matter how disrespectful they may be."

"That's a relief," he admitted. "So... what now?"

"Now I must speak with your sisters, and see if they have discovered anything new."

"Okay. So, I'll see you later, then?"

"I imagine so, yes."

Ava teleported to the halls of residence at the university, manifesting in the corner of the room near the hamster cage. Both sisters were present, and they both jumped in surprise at her entrance. Merry had the grace to look guilty—a little. Pippin closed the door of the room, so that they could speak in private.

"We didn't think you'd come back," she said.

"Yeah," Merry agreed. "Look, I'm sorry for what I said, alright? I have a bad habit of speaking before thinking, and it's gotten me in trouble more than once. I didn't mean to offend you, or imply that angels have any sort of responsibility for fixing problems of our own creation."

"Your words are forgiven," Ava said, looking around the room once more. Despite the fact that it was daytime, which allowed her to utilise visible light to observe her surroundings, she saw nothing new, and nothing worthy of note. "Have you found anything?" she asked.

"Not a damn thing," Pippin sighed. "This girl was clean."

"Yes, she appears to have possessed good personal hygiene," Ava said, observing the cleanliness of the room. It had obviously been tidied and dusted on a regular basis.

"That's not what I mean. We talked to some of Kayleigh's friends, asked a few questions, to see if we could come up with a suspect or a motive. We found nothing at all. Kayleigh was a nice girl. Studious. Quiet. Most kids, when they hit college and university, they live the wild party life. Kayleigh only went out on Saturday nights... seems she knew how to pace herself."

"And you did not find a single person who might wish her harm?"

"Not one," said Merry. "Checked for the usual; jealous classmates and spurned lovers. Turns out Kayleigh had neither. Seems she was rocking the whole 'virgin' scene. Couldn't even find a pissed-off ex-BF frustrated over not getting to... whichever base Americans call sex."

"That in itself may indicate motive," Ava told them. "There are spells and rituals which involve the blood of a virgin or the sacrifice of a virgin. Perhaps that's why she was targeted, despite being housed on the second floor."

"Not a bad deduction," Pippin said, with grudging respect. "Are we still rolling with the Kukulkan theory?"

"No. Before coming here I visited your van, and Danny brought up the inconsistencies between this situation and Mayan sacrifices. I do not know what we are dealing with."

"How can you not know? You're an angel, aren't you? Shouldn't you... y'know... know everything?"

"You humans have an inaccurate understanding of what angels are like," she told the girl.

"Well," Merry said, "I think we've learnt all we can from this room. Would you show us where exactly you found the skin last night?"

"Of course," she replied, and lifted her hands to teleport the twins.

Merry stopped her by stepping back, and raising one hand defensively. "Wait a minute. You can't just go teleporting people around places. It will raise suspicions if Kayleigh's dorm-mates saw the girl's two British cousins enter the room, but not leave it. Just give us a few minutes to finish up here, and we'll meet you down there, okay?"

The girl raised a good point, Ava decided. She had never really considered before, but it would appear a little... incongruous to any witnesses. Humans beings were not naturally capable of teleporting by themselves. Perhaps she should have thought of this earlier. "Very well," she agreed, and took herself out of the room, down to the ground below the window. She passed the time by watching a ladybird crawl up a blade of grass, and hummed to herself a tune that Katie had sung as a child.

Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home, your house is on fire and your children are gone. All except one, and that's little Anne, for she hid under the frying pan.

When the insect reached the top of the grass stem, it spread its wings and flew away, looking to find food, or a mate, or one of the other myriad things that animals needed.

The door of the halls of residence opened and the twins stepped out into the sunshine, shielding their eyes from the harsh glare of the midday light. Ava did not have that problem; she merely reduced her eyes' capacity to process visible light. It was an easy enough thing to do, if you weren't a human being limited by your own biology.

"Alright, where did you find the skin?" Merry asked.

"Right there," said Ava, pointing to the place where she had noticed the translucent slough.

Both girls spent several minutes looking around the area, for other signs of skin, or perhaps possible tracks. Ava did not bother to tell them she had already done just that, and with much more efficiency, since she could process not only visible light, but infrared, ultraviolet, and a whole host of other radiation types which were undetectable to human beings. It seemed as if the girls needed to use their own eyes, their own senses, to interpret their world. It was then she was struck by a profound, philosophical thought. Humans made their own world. They could not see or hear a full spectrum, as an angel could. So each human lived on his or her own Earth, determined by how much of it they could perceive. It was one of the things which made them unique. Angels all saw things the same. Even grigori, who could observe many things at once, only saw what other angels saw. But humans all saw things differently.

"I've got nothing," Pippin said at last.

"Me neither," Merry sighed. "I suppose the only thing we can do now is get back to Danny, and see if he's had any luck identifying this thing." She slapped the side of the building in frustration. "A whole campus full of students, and bloody nothing. CCTV on the corner of every building, and bloody nothing. If only we had a single witness!"

"We do," Ava reminded her. "Charlie, the hamster."

"Yeah. No offence Avariel, but that doesn't really help us. What are we going to do with an eye-witness account from a hamster's point of view? Put out an APB on a funky smell?"

"As you wish," she replied. She extended her celestial presence from her body, reaching out with her consciousness, touching the minds of all the animals around the campus. They were legion; rats in the sewers, blackbirds in the trees, bats in the rafters, cats in the frat houses, dogs chained in yards, owls sleeping in their roosts, rabbits caged in their hutches, mice hiding in wall cavities... and those were just a small selection of the minds available to her. She conveyed to each of them the rustling sound of leathery paper, the smell of something old and musty, the sense of coldness and fear.

"What are you doing?" Pippin asked worriedly. "And why are your eyes... silver?"

"I am putting out an APB on whatever took Kayleigh Sumner from her bed. And my eyes are silver because that is what colour they are." When she was certain her message had been conveyed, she withdrew fully back into her vessel, and felt her eyes turn to blue once more. "There are thousands of animals in the immediate area," she explained. "And each of them have senses which can pick up scents and sounds barely perceivable by humans. There must be more creatures than Charlie with knowledge of this foe."

"So you just put a message out on the Twilight Bark?" Merry asked.

"I don't believe I'm familiar with that term. It's not a reference to that terrible vampire film, is it?" Ava asked her. "I firmly believe that making vampires into sparkly brooding heroes will only end badly for many teenage girls."

"Uh... no. Think of it as an animal APB."

"Then yes, I put a message out on the Twilight Bark. It may take some time for results to emerge. I suggest we see what your brother has come up with."

"Alright," Pippin said. "Let's check in with Danny, then maybe—"

Ava teleported all three of them to the outside of the RV, and the twins wobbled a little as they found their land-legs again.

"Will you stop bloody doing that!" Merry swore as she put a steadying hand on the side of the van.

"Why?" Ava asked. She couldn't imagine why anybody would have a problem with teleportation. It was the most efficient way to get from place to place, and unless she attempted to teleport through time, it was barely draining at all. There wasn't anything wrong with being efficient, was there?

"Because," Merry said, "you can't just keep jumping to the end of a chapter. You have to read the whole thing."

"You... wish to experience the ennui of walking from one point in space to another?"

"Yes. Walking gives us humans time to think about things. To process stuff and to talk to each other. If you just go zapping somebody around the whole damn world, how do you expect them to adjust and have chance to mentally absorb everything that's going on?"

"I don't understand. I merely transported us approximately one kilometer. What do you think may have happened during that time?" she asked, now thoroughly confused.

Merry sighed. "I can't do it. I can't explain philosophy to an angel. Pippin, you try."

"Well," the other twin spoke up, "it's like this, Avariel. A lot of people... a lot of humans... think of life as a destination. A goal to be achieved. And as long as they get from here to there, they don't care about what happens in the middle. It's just fluff, to them. But you can't just read the beginning of a story, and the end of a story, and claim to know what it's all about. Life is more than just a beginning and an end. It's more than just a destination. It's about the journey. Because not everybody reaches their destination, but if they've had a great journey, and walked the good paths, then the ending doesn't matter."

"I understand," she said. "This is Zen." In Pippin's words she recognised something; it was the second lesson she had learnt, since leaving the monastery. Now, she recounted both lessons to herself. One: By our perceptions we make our own world. Two: Life is not a destination, but a journey. Perhaps, she reasoned, she should write these things down. But for the moment, she had more pressing concerns. "Should we see what Danny has come up with?"

"Good idea," Merry said, reaching for the door. She pulled it open and stepped inside the RV, followed by Ava, then Pippin, who closed the door after her. It was a tight fight, with four people in the back of the van, but the twins wedged themselves against the back of the front seats, and Ava sat down on a locked trunk.

"Find anything at the scene?" Danny asked from the bed, as they attempted to make themselves comfortable.

"Nada," said Pippin. "What have you found?"

"Very little, I'm afraid," he sighed. "There have been a few missing persons reports filed with the police, but all except Kayleigh have turned up safe and well. One guy was in hospital, a woman got drunk and spent the night in an alley, and a kid turned up at a friend's house after running away from home. No abductions and nothing shady."

"What about our mystery monster?" Merry asked.

"Exhausted every monster-identifying resource at my disposal. Checked the books, checked the websites, even anonymously emailed a couple of other hunters just in case they'd heard of anything. In the end I got desperate, and asked google."

"What is 'google'?" Ava asked.

"Well," Danny said, "it's basically the God of search engines."

"Google is a God? Is it pagan?"

"Uh... no. It's a computer thing. But it has the answer to pretty much everything you can think of. Here, look." He turned his laptop around to her and typed in .

"Interesting," she said, fascinated by the idea of a computer having all the answers. "Ask it where God is."

"Err... what?"

"God. One of my brothers is looking for our Father. It may help him if your google-god can tell us where the real God is."

"Did you... um... check Heaven?" Danny asked, looking both amused and confused.

"Yes, he's not there, and hasn't been for some time."

"You lost God?" Merry snorted.

"Of course not. God is not lost. We just don't know where he is." She leant forward and addressed the laptop, speaking in a clear voice. "Please tell me the location of God." She waited for a moment, but nothing changed. "I do not think this deity is as powerful as you claim. Personally, I would take the Oracle of Delphi over this 'google' any day."

"Google doesn't know where God is," Merry said firmly. She turned to her brother. "Danny, did you have any luck at all?"

"Yeah. I got one possible match. Here, have a look at this."

He handed the laptop over to his sister, who began to read aloud from the screen.

"Yuan-Ti are a feared and venomous serpent race, descendant of the prehistoric reptilian creator race, the Sarrukh. Heirs of an ancient fallen empire and considering themselves the apex of sentient species, their ultimate goal is to restore their domain on Faerûn, serving as leaders and guides of all other races. Play a Yuan-Ti if you want... One, to be serpentine. Two, to be sly, cunning and deadly. Three, to be a member of an adaptable and skillfull race with affinity to poison. Four, to be a member of a race that favors the Rogue, Ranger, Fighter, Barbarian, Wizard, and Warlock classes." She looked up at her brother, an expression of disgust on her face. "Danny, this is a Dungeons and Dragons wiki page."

"I said quack, and google said duck," he shrugged. "Go back a page, and click on images. There, you see? The Yuan-Ti are, essentially, large humanoid snake monsters with arms and enough intelligence to work a window latch."

"Danny. Dungeons and Dragons isn't real. It's make-believe. A group of fantasy nerds invented it."

"Maybe so, but the only other thing that google returns on a search for 'monster snake' or 'snake man' is tales of a large prehistoric boa-constrictor species in the Amazon, and a whole lot of male pornographic images that are probably going to scar me for life."

"Tulpa?" Pippin suggested. "With enough people thinking about it, perhaps this Yuan-Ti thing has materialised from their thoughts."

"Doubtful," said Merry. "If D&D nerds were behind this, we'd most likely be dealing with Elves, Dwarves or Orcs. They're the preferred races. No, it's more likely we're dealing with something completely new."

"Oh, that's right, I forgot," Pippin grinned, a wicked gleam in her grey eyes, "you were into that stuff for a while."

"God, I went to one session of table-top, and you hold it against me for the rest of my life!"

"Or maybe," Danny said, ignoring his sisters' dispute, "the Yuan-Ti were real, once. Perhaps they survived as nothing but a verbal legend, and some nerd just decided to make them a monster in a game. What if it's not something new we're dealing with, but something really, really old?"

"Well there's a pleasant thought," Pippin said. "Old things should just know well enough to stay gone."

"Hey Avariel, do you think Kukulkan could be a Yuan-Ti?" Danny asked.

"I don't know," she said. "Let me see the pictures." Merry handed her the laptop, and she looked at a few of the images. Then she shook her head, and handed the computer back to the boy. "No, Kukulkan looks nothing like this. He is much more feathered."

"As entertaining as this speculation is," said Pippin, "it doesn't help us to find Kayleigh."

"Maybe it does," said Danny. "I've been thinking. Snakes are cold-blooded, right? And we're hardly in a southern climate here. So maybe these Yuan-Ti things have to hole up somewhere warm. If they're exothermic, like real reptiles, maybe they can't generate their own heat."

Merry closed her eyes, her forehead creasing as she frowned in thought. Then she opened her eyes, and looked at her siblings. "Alright. Danny, see what you can find online. I want locations of anywhere that could possibly generate heat. Landfill sites, natural hot springs, geothermal vents... whatever you can find. And plot their locations on a map, relative to the campus building where Kayleigh disappeared. Pippin, load a couple of revolvers, one with iron rounds, one with silver, then sharpen a couple of knives. I refuse to believe we've hunting a monster from a bloody Dungeons and Dragons manual, but just in case, that wiki page said they can be hacked into bite-sized chunks, and I want to be ready for when we've got a location."

"Do you have a task for me?" Ava asked.

"You... just do whatever it is angels do," Merry replied. "I'm going to nip out and get us a bite to eat. I'll be back soon. Try to stay out of trouble while I'm gone."

"You wouldn't think she's the younger twin," Pippin scoffed, as the van door closed behind the departing Merry.

"She reminds me of another hunter I know," Ava said, thinking of the headstrong, and sometimes difficult to deal with, Dean Winchester.

"You know many hunters?"

"A few, personally. Others by association or observation."

"You wanna help me plot the map, Ava?" Danny asked. "Can I call you Ava?"

"You may," she nodded. "But I believe you will plot your map faster without me getting in your way. I will stand outside and reflect on the complexity of life."

"Is that what angels do?" asked Pippin. She picked up a whetstone and began running a blade across it.

"It's what I do."

- o -