(Private Residence) Beacon Hills Preserve, California June 18th 06:32
Raleigh McKenna was not like most seventeen year old girls. This was a given, she had weapons tucked away in every nook and cranny of her house, she could kill a man seven different ways with her pinky and her boyfriend was a werewolf.
But right now she felt very normal. Raleigh was cocooned in a warm bed with strong arms wrapped around her. It had been a tough past six months and she had finally managed to snag two weeks with Jackson, no phone calls no missions, and no distractions.
Especially with everything that had been happening recently. It had been a little over eight months since Faith and Constant had been in Beacon Hills and since then Constant had gone missing and was presumed dead by most. Her brother, Jack, had died and it was one of the hardest funerals Raleigh had ever had to sit through. But Jackson had been there, holding her hand the entire time. That coupled with the fact that Derek's uncle, Peter, had worked some kind of weird mojo on Lydia, despite having crushed his efforts months before, and come back from the dead. That had been frustrating and Raleigh had come to understand why the entire pack practically hated the man. His use of calm sarcasm made her want to rip her hair out.
Faith was still looking for Constant refusing to believe the girl was actually dead, Raleigh wanted to help but the older woman had declined and instead set her and Jackson up in a small isolated cabin about an hour from Beacon Hills.
Raleigh adjusted in the bed and felt Jackson's arms tighten against her, making her smile automatically. She managed to roll over and bury her face in Jackson's neck, inhaling deeply before closing her eyes again. Here she was safe and loved and perfect, she never wanted to move again.
122 Swan Lane, Hamilton Alabama June, 18th 08:49
Faith Stamen had been through a lot through her life. Bad, bad things had happened to her, things that made her question her sanity. But none worse than this. "Hey, babe," She called loudly, "Have you seen my cell phone? It was right here five minutes ago."
The response was slow, considering that she knew that Damien had heard her. He poked his head in their bedroom door with a slight grimace. "Why do you ask?"
"Because I can't find it, what did you do with it?"
Damien cleared his throat in a gentlemanly way, "I may have put it up, seeing as how you promised me a week to ourselves; alone."
Faith stood up placing her hand on her hip, "Whoa, I said no work; I did not say no cell phone."
Damien made an exasperated face, "When it comes to you a cell phone does mean work."
And yes, Faith might have leaned her head back and made an absolutely childish whining noise. Damien took a few step and grabbed Faith's hands, "Don't do that; you promised."
Faith pursed her lips, "If I can't kill, main, steal, blackmail, or scheme what the hell am I supposed to do with myself?"
Damien's eyes glinted in the light as he smiled, "You could always kiss me."
Faith pretended to ponder Damien's words and certainly did not giggle as her husband leaned in for a deep kiss. Faith moaned responsively running her hands up to Damien's shoulders. He slowly started walking them back towards their medium sized bed and laid Faith out like a treasure.
And Faith really did hate being sappy but between Damien treating her like the most prized possession in the entire world and rubbing his hard on against her thigh she broke the kiss with a tiny gasp and looked up at him. "Hey."
"Hey." Damien replied laying a trail of small bites and kisses down her neck.
"I love you."
That made Damien look up and stare into Faith's hazel eyes. He always looked like a little kid at Christmas when he did that; he smiled brightly, "I love you more than anyone could possibly understand."
Faith rolled her eyes, "Stop trying to one up me and get back to business."
Damien grinned dangerously and pulled Faith's shirt off so fast she heard fabric ripping. He pushed her down onto the bed, his mouth continuing the trail down to her stomach while she carded her fingers through his hair.
His hand had just touched the button to Faith's jeans when he suddenly stopped and looked up at her, "Do you hear that?"
"Hear wh-"
With no warning at all there was a huge crash that shook the entire house. On instinct Damien covered Faith's body and rolled them into the floor. "What the fuck?" She shouted.
"Stay here." Damien ordered before running out of the room.
Faith scoffed, "Yeah, right." She jumped up pulling her slightly torn shirt back on and grabbing the P226 Equinox that she kept on the dresser, hearing more crashing and commotion.
She switched the safety off and leaned out the bedroom doorway. Almost immediately Damien's body was tossed down the thin hallway faster than anyone should have been able to throw. Faith watched as her husband flew into the kitchen and finally landed, or rather slid into back door.
She stepped out into the hallway, pistol drawn and ready when she actually got a look at their attacker. It was at least seven feet tall and five feet wide, made of solid stone. Faith personally had never seen anything like it before and fired three times hitting the creature directly in its rock face.
The bullets didn't seem to do any good, the creature barely acknowledged that it was under threat and started beating its way into the too small hallway. Sheet rock and wood particles were flying down the hallway at her but Faith tightened her grip on her weapon and kept firing, taking steps back as she did.
Surprisingly, over the uproar of a monster beating her house down, Faith heard another loud boom similar to the first. From behind the first monster Faith saw a second one bust through the front wall of the house.
"Faith!"
She turned and saw Damien standing in the kitchen with something suspiciously looking like a grenade in both hands. She instantly ran down the hallway ducking so that her husband could throw the explosives. Faith charged right through the back door feeling Damien right on her tail. The grenades went off and there was the sound of faint roaring.
"What the hell are those things?" Faith asked reloading another clip into her SIG Sauer, not that it would do too much good.
"I don't know but they're gonna keep coming." Damien replied trying to steer Faith away from the house.
Unlike the other two monsters Faith and Damien got the chance to hear and see a third creature fall upon them. It fell so fast their eyes barely registered it was happening until it crashed about forty feet away from them into a bare field with a thunderous impact that shook the ground. Chunks of dirt fell everywhere and Faith only slightly noticed that she'd been hit in the side of the head by a piece of gravel.
"Basement?" She asked pulling on Damien's arm.
Damien nodded compliantly, running to the basement was better than staying out in the open with the mobile home destroyers. Faith had been using this particular house for a few years now; it was one of her preferred safe houses so she'd had the basement completely decked out. Buried six feet deep into the ground, surrounded by a foot of concrete and six inch thick steel door on the outside.
She was grateful for Damien's superhuman strength because picking up the door would have winded her. They jumped down the stairs and entered the basement while Damien barricaded the steel door with a large book shelf.
"That's not going to hold them for long, Faith."
Faith nodded and grabbed some ingredients off the shelf, "Grab some supplies, we are getting the hell out of here."
Damien complied grabbing a duffel filled with various weapons and an emergency clothing bag dropping them together, "We're gonna jump?"
She spared her husband a glance when the basement's door shook mercilessly, "See another way out of here do you?"
Damien rushed over to the door slamming his weight into it to keep the stone creatures at bay, "Well hurry up then!"
Faith rolled her eyes mixing some foul smelling scents into a bowl. There was already a huge vertical spiral painted on the wall and she splashed the scents on it. Faith took her boot knife out and cut her hand shallowly wiping it on the wall hissing as the liquid burned her wound. "Plana viribus mea aperies imperio. Volo ire quo eripe me de terra. Corpus meum erit rectorque meus, um, meus… uh, Damien what's Latin for knife?"
She wasn't looking but Faith could just imagine the look on her husband's face while trying to fend off their attackers, "Ferrum!" He grunted out while the steel door quickly bowed in on itself.
"Is that old school or new school?"
"Faith!"
She growled stabbing her knife into the wooden table, "Well, excuse me for not wanting to wind up in the Land of Oz! Meus ferrum domum meam editi. Hoc est praeceptum meum. Semitam meam aperire!"
There was a sonic like boom and an explosion of light that had Faith covering her eyes and ears. It leveled off in seconds and before her there was a huge circular portal. Faith moved fast grabbing the two duffels and throwing them through. She looked back at Damien who was struggling, the rock creatures were going to be through the door in seconds it seemed. "Damien!"
The demon wolf was putting all of his strength to keep the door closed, roared, "Go!"
"Not without you!" Faith yelled back, they've spent too much time sacrificing themselves for each other; she was not about to risk leaving him behind.
Damien visibly braced himself and he bounced off the door, not even a second later it flew off its hinges and crashed into the corner of the concrete room. Faith's hand had only just barely grasped Damien's when she pulled him into the portal. As usual Faith's body was electrocuted with magic and power and the need to vomit passed through her.
The two were suddenly and unceremoniously dropped onto an unforgiving ground, and Faith had just been lucky enough to land on one of the softer duffels. Damien groaned and rolled over in the grass, "Where are we?"
"Dunno." Faith responded, "But on the bright side now we have a whole forty eight hours to ourselves." She said with a little grin on her face. Damien groaned again and let his head drop back to the hard ground.
(Paddlesack Roadhouse) Broken Hill, Wentworth, Australia 2648 June 19th 21:28
Constant needed to get drunk tonight, and not just drunk. She needed to get where the fuck am I, what's my name again? drunk. So that's why she was straddling a stool in a fairly nice bar, four vodka tonics deep and several more to go. Constant was hating herself for listening to Fate, the damn bastard had come to her and asked a favor, she'd been bored, and moving on in the sense her friends meant was not what she'd wanted.
Constant spent five years traveling through time with Fate. She'd considered it a very long summer break. Her brother and her friends had been hassling her about her life and what she was going to do with it. It was bad enough she was a twenty something year old pretending to be a nineteen year old and had just graduated from high school, but then everyone had jumped on her about going to school and becoming a police officer or some bull shit.
And really come on, Constant was a killer, a thief; she started revolutions in countries most would never hear about and was a Guardian on top of that. Why the fuck would she want to go to community college? So, yeah, she'd stupidly gone along with Fate. Five years later he'd dropped her six months from where he'd picked her up. And just maybe Constant had thought that not much would have changed, sure she'd just up and left one day but she'd left a note. What part of I'll be back did her friends not understand?
Constant was a little proud however to see that Cara had stepped up and taken care of a lot of shit that she didn't have to, namely babysitting Becka and Meggie. Constant had hoped that her absence would help the other Guardians learn to pull their own asses out of the fire, but she had to remind herself that they weren't trained killers.
As if that wasn't enough the day she'd come back, she'd arrived home and found no one there and a large bloodstained floor. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what happened, plus she'd read the official police report and even the note Jack had left behind. Constant inhaled deeply, she wanted to punch her adopted brother, bring him back to life just so she could kill him again. Why the hell would Jack just decide one day that she wasn't coming back? And the bullet in his head, made Constant feel sick. Just another death that was on her hands; Wednesdays were always the hardest, she decided.
Constant bit her lip and swallowed the rest of her drink; signaling the barman for another, her eyes slid across the bar to a very nice piece of Aussie Ass. She smiled and gave him the bro nod; the guy smiled and blushed a tiny bit. She was out of practice but Constant still had it. Most people said what they wanted about her, but to this day no one had ever said her coping techniques didn't work.
The strapping brunette finally got the nerve to stroll over to Constant and that made her smile; worked every time. The bartender hooked her up with another tonic and Constant sipped lazily on it when a body dropped onto the stool next to her, and she knew it was not Aussie. Her body stiffened and her senses went crazy, the man was sitting next to her was a killer. And worse she knew him.
Constant cleared her throat, "What are you doing here?" She asked watching Aussie walk away looking completely dejected.
"Don't you mean what am I doing alive?" He asked in a heavy English accent.
Constant turned on her stool to face the man, "It's kind of all in the same context."
He smiled and tapped his fingers on the wooden bar, "You know exactly what I'm doing here."
The hairs on the back of her neck stood up; yeah she knew what he was doing here. "Well, you have seriously bad timing man. Because tearing my limbs off in a crowded bar is not going to make you happy, Charming."
Charming's smile grew, "What makes you think I'm here to kill you Constant?'
She pursed her lips and took another sip, "Oh, I don't know maybe because the last time I saw you, you were screaming about how your vengeance was going to fall upon us like hell fire. You remember; you were there."
Charming chuckled lightly, "Yes, I do remember." The laughter left his voice, "Like it were yesterday."
Constant hummed, "Three hundred years and it seems like yesterday, huh? That tiny box really did drive you crazy." She paused looking down at the bar, "So do you want to tell me why you're not trying to kill me or should we just go on with this pointless conversation?"
"I have a proposition for you."
Constant batted her eyes and raised her drink, "I wouldn't sleep with you for all the money in the world." Charming shot her a confused look, "Sorry, 'm a little tipsy, continue."
Charming started hesitantly, "It, uh, seems we have a mutual acquaintance. Friend or foe though, I'm not really sure."
Constant tossed back her drink and motioned for another, like hell she was letting this son of a bitch ruin her night. "Hmm, someone stupid and pissed enough to go to Salem and dig your ass up. I wonder."
Charming grinned again and it was sickening, "He seemed very adamant that you die."
The barman set another drink in front of her and Constant stared at it hard for a few seconds taking in Charming's words. Truth be told not many people knew about hers, Faith's, and Raleigh's unplanned trip to Salem. "Yeah, well most of my exes are like that."
The man chuckled, "You actually courted that… boy? Really Constant I expected better of you."
Constant shrugged, "Nobody's perfect."
The warlock turned on his stool, "Be that as it may, we both seem to be in easy reach of people we both hate. Why not," Charming paused giving his best innocent look, "Trade, and let's not make this any harder of a situation as we have to."
Constant's stomach dropped. On their trip some... things had happened and in that very second Constant realized why Charming was really here. "Even if I wanted Nick dead that bad," Constant started, "Why the hell would I trade you Raleigh, one of best friends, for him?"
Charming became suddenly un-charming, "Because I could take her if I wanted."
"I'd like to see you try."
Charming scoffed, "Spoken to Faith lately?" Constant froze. "Probably not, since I sent some of my… friends to say hello. I don't expect for anyone to see her anytime soon."
Constant glared at Charming dangerously, "You're a fucking liar."
"Am I?"
Constant pulled her cell phone from out of her back pocket and dialed from memory. Faith always answered her phone, always. There was barely one ring and the phone beeped, "This is Faith, you know what to do."
Constant slipped her cell phone back into her pocket very slowly and calmly. This was a truly fucked situation. She palmed her flat black SD 9 and drew it quickly firing into the ceiling four times. The bar patrons ducked and screamed. She turned around and flashed the bar a murderous face, "Get out. Now!"
The crowd quickly cleared out leaving Constant and a very stunned Charming inside. He jumped off his stool with a grin while Constant finished her drink and did the same, both giving the other plenty of space.
"I haven't been around here long," Charming said with a wicked smile, "But I'm fairly sure that is not reasonable behavior. Are you really so worried that I'd hurt an innocent person?"
It was Constant's turn to scoff again, "No, but being a fugitive is highly over rated, so you've got about five minutes before the militia shows up on their shiny white carriages."
"And what happens when I kill them?" Charming asked smile still standing, fist clenching in preparation.
Constant's body locked up, ready for the first attack, and she'd make him throw it. "Not my problem." Right as she uttered those words three chairs flew at her at very high speeds. Constant refused to flinch as the furniture hit a small thin purple-pink wall not two inches from her body.
Charming tutted and rolled his eyes, "I did always hate that trick." He then pouted his lips, "And I was so looking forward to finishing our last skirmish."
Constant grinned as flames skittered up her knuckles and enveloped her entire fist, "Then let's get to it."
Charming took a step in swinging right and following close behind with an uppercut. Constant dodged it fairly easy and grabbed one of Charming's arms as well as the collar of his shirt heating the flames on her hands hotter before pushing him back hard. To her disappointment her opponent did not fall, instead just brushed his half melted coat off and smiled, "Glad to see you still have a few tricks up your sleeves."
And then the entire bar went pitch black and Charming disappeared. The flames on her hands went out and she untucked her pistol listening carefully. The place was completely silent and dark. Constant looked out the windows and not even the light from the streets could be seen.
She heard rather than saw rapid movement swooshing in circles all around her, the bastard was taunting her. Constant's grip on her pistol tightened and she began slowly trying to make her way to a wall. These warlock types always like to pop up behind you when you weren't looking.
From the moment she moved the swooshing stopped and Constant aimed her gun carefully trying in vain to see anything. She heard some sort of scuff from her right and turned instantly firing towards it. In the darkness her muzzle flash showed Charming inches away from her side.
She felt Charming's fist connect with her face and a hand grasped her throat squeezing hard. He was faster than her; the result was a sudden coldness and a sharp pain in her side.
Constant's body froze up in shock and she half collapsed to the floor but Charming caught her and in spite gently laid her to the floor, shushing her quiet, pained whimpers. She brought her hands up to his jacket, gun gone; lost, and gripped as hard as she could, but Constant's strength was leaving her as fast as the blood was. The hand around her throat tightened and Constant's legs kicked for purchase.
With a flick of his wrist Charming twisted the blade, causing Constant to let out a scream of pain. Even after all these years, she'd never been too good at hiding it when she was hurt. Charming chuckled pulling the knife out roughly and her breathing came in short bursts; groaning, slamming her head back onto the unforgiving floor to block out the pain.
Charming's voice was suddenly in her ear, "I'll be taking what I want now, and good little Nick will be helping me." He backed off removing a few strands of hair from her face with a bloody hand. "Now you just stay here like a good little soldier and die."
At that comment her hands grew hot but not hot enough for an actual flame and Charming pulled away from her and stood up casting her, a genuinely amused look. "Fire's a good look on you by the way, or was I should say." He tilted his head and disappeared, making the bar lights flash back on temporarily blinding her. The air filled with the sounds of sirens, they weren't close, not yet.
Constant choked on her pain and slid the band off her left ring finger off and mumbled, "Please work, please work, please." She begged and watched the ring glow and burn. "Please, please."
The sirens were getting closer now, way too close for comfort. The ring was now pulsing gathering up energy, the last Constant could muster with her injury, "C'mon, c'mon!"
A sudden high pitched whine emitted from the ring and there was a huge burst of sound and light, everything went black and Constant felt herself falling. Her ride was short and the ending was hard, she fell on something flat and hard that buckled under her and she dropped another foot. The air was knocked out of her and she was pretty sure she could hear someone talking loudly.
Hands were skimming over her and one covered her wound with harsh pressure making the world come back to her full speed. She hissed kicking her leg out and it connected with someone's shin it sounded.
Constant opened her eyes to see Derek Hale and Stiles Stilinski hovering over her worriedly, she flopped her hand up and grabbed at Derek's throat in urgency, "Where's Raleigh?"
"She's not here." Stiles replied quickly, panic rising in his words.
"Tell her he's- he's back." Constant forced out in one breath as the boys grew blurry, "and he's pissed."
"Who?" Came Derek's rough voice and he shook her slightly, "Who did this?"
Sight gone and sound failing, Constant felt her body numbing despite the pain, she was losing her grasp on Derek, "P.C." She whispered before the whole world fell away and she slipped into unconsciousness.
