This is something I'm not too sure about pursuing. I have the plot for it. It's another ridiculously long complicated slow-slow burner.
I promised myself I wouldn't start another long story until after I had finished Breathe for me but this idea won't leave me alone so I thought I'd post it.
It's AU, and although there are elements of canon.
Summary: Brendan Brady is a hunter of the supernatural. He was born into it, forged to be a weapon to good at it and he is; demons, incubus, lycanthropes, vampires, he's killed them all as well as a few other things. Ste is a half demon, half human with a destiny he was born for, a destiny that could spell the end of the world as it is known. When the two meet neither they nor the demons realise the implications nor the consequences.
Warnings: Violence, guns, mentions of torture
Pairing: Brendan/Ste eventually.
Disclaimer: I don't own Hollyoaks or any characters. I am not making any profit.
This is basically a taster. An intro into the world. See what you think.
It wasn't meant to happen like this. They were never meant to have the numbers. Never meant to gain the foothold. So many had died trying to stop it. So many lives sacrificed, all for nothing. It was guerrilla warfare rather than a true battle field, one side lined up against another, enemies clear to see even then they would never have the numbers to stand their ground never mind win. There numbers are just nothing in comparison.
The world on the brink of a tidal wave of evil that would wipe all human kind into slavery for the unlucky, or death for the fortunate.
For his entire life Brendan Brady had fought against it, or what seemed like his entire life. Unfortunate enough to be born into a family of hunters, born into the war, fate had decided he would be a hunter like his father, he was the eighth generation.
The Brady's, underground renowned, civilian's didn't even know about them, but the world of knowing the truth they were world famous for their hunting, for their skills, for their ruthless destruction of all things evil that crossed their path.
He had been trained for as long as he can remember, maybe since before he could understand what training was, everything was training. He was beaten and forged into the weapon he was today. His father Seamus was a living legend. Brendan was never good enough, never fast enough, never smart enough to live up to his father. No matter how many times Seamus beat the lessons into him, he was just not good enough, would never be good enough.
He had made a name for himself, he was better than most, more ruthless than the majority of hunters. He had made himself cold hearted, or maybe the hunting had done that to him, he can't remember the last time he cared that he was killing human's as well as demons. Collateral damage was all the rage these days.
"Get some rest Bren." Cheryl, his baby sister spared from the training, spared from the realities of just how bad the world was, spared the beatings because her mother ran with her, away from Seamus, away from the life. She had kept running until the day a demon that Seamus had pissed off had turned his attention on Seamus' family and had decided that weak targets were more fun.
They had arrived too late to stop Cheryl's mother being ripped to pieces, barely got there in time to save Cheryl whose body now bore the scars of that night.
Seamus had handed Cheryl over into his care while he went off to try and avenge, well that was a load of bollocks, Seamus had gone on a crusade and hadn't needed to be held back by his critically ill daughter and his not good enough son. Had gone off to destroy the demon and hadn't been heard of in five years. Not that Brendan missed the bastard, not at all. The life was hard enough, scattered with enough hard choices that he hadn't needed Seamus lording it over him, hadn't needed to be told that nothing he ever did would be good enough.
"Night." He stated and watched Cheryl disappear up stairs. She won't sleep at night, won't sleep when there's no one else in the house. Refuses point blank to do anything but sit behind bolted doors with a .45mm safety off until Brendan's back from the hunt and the sun is up.
"She's right you know." Simon Walker stated sitting down opposite him and unfurling his leather bound roll which held his knives.
"No rest for the wicked." He replied breaking from cleaning his gun to take a mouthful of whiskey.
Simon Walker had been a police officer, weapons trained, specialising in undercover work. He had made the mistake of going after a demon without knowing that was what he was up against, he had assumed it was just another criminal gang, he was wrong. He and his younger brother had been captured and been tortured for fun.
He had blamed Brendan for his brother's death, for not being quick enough to rescue them.
He hadn't known that they were even there. He had just gone to kill the demon and happened upon them. There was no saving Cam. He was too far gone. The torture had broken him. Left him a shell. Within five days of being saved from his cage he had taken one of Brendan's guns and blown his brains all over the kitchen floor.
Walker had gone at him half crazed with grief but he'd managed to hold him off, tie him up and gave him enough time to work out that it was the demon, not Brendan to blame. That it was the demon that Simon should kill, not just the closet target.
Simon and he were now on an even keel or as even as they were ever going to get. They were working together here and there to get the job done when it was more than one of them could handle. Most of the time they worked alone but when they did work together they were a pretty decent team.
"The sun came up an hour ago." Walker points out as he starts to lovingly sharpen his knives.
For being essentially a civilian turned hunter later in life Walker had certainly embraced the lifestyle and the killing easier than anyone else he had ever met. He was still alive after six months which was more than most managed.
"And?" Brendan ask raising an eyebrow. "What does that matter?"
He's got a line on a demon and his minions. Night, day, what did it matter? It might be breaking an unwritten law or three but he's not done. He'll kill as many as he can before the evitable.
He had killed two vampires who had broken the rules and attacked a hunter, killed him, claimed self-defence like they could. Vampires were worthless and no one gave a shit if they were killed, they weren't even worth a reprisal. Hunters were precious, good hunter's valuable and very good hunters invaluable in this war.
Demons though. Demons he had to be careful with. Hunters couldn't go straight to the top, they had to work through the ranks. Kill a high power and the vacuum left behind could destroy a city, even a country. He knew he had to be careful, the demons were already holding too many of the cards, building their ranks by corrupting the souls fallen into Hell, so many to choose from, so many to break and mould. Rise them back to Earth and put them in a body and there was a lower demon to fill the ranks of any of the major players demons that had been around centuries, who had rose through the ranks.
The demons had built an army and it was ready to sweep away humanity.
"You moving on soon?" Walker asked.
He frowned, considered it then nodded a little.
"Can't stay here for much longer." The demons would be starting to notice him, starting to get annoyed, not that he was bothered for himself. Let them come and see how far they got however he had responsibilities and those couldn't just be brushed aside.
"Where to?"
"See where we get to. Cheryl will want to stay in Britain." He wanted to go to the continent and get a real break from the confides of being a big fish in a little pond. Go somewhere that Cheryl's safety wasn't constantly under threat because of him.
"She'll want to stay here." Walker says. "I think I'll skip the tantrum and head towards Liverpool. Carl has a line on some players in the smuggling game."
Cheryl hated the constant moving. She had only just gotten used to this city, made a few friends, gotten herself settled. She would bitch and moan but she would come round.
"When?" He doesn't need Walker for any of what he has planned.
"Couple of days."
He nods.
"Let me know when you're going." He states. He doesn't want to assume Walker left only to find he hadn't. It was always better to know where he was. "Did you get the hollow points?" Walker had said he could get a good deal on the bullets.
"Didn't get any change." Walker pulls out a couple of cases from a holdall and plants them on the table before sliding them across.
He opens them and checks the quality.
"Good enough I'm not going to ask for it." The bullets were worth a lot more than the five hundred he had given Walker.
He reassembles his gun with his usual efficiency and pulls his spare clips from his hunting bag and starts to load them.
"What's the security like on this one?"
"Good." Brendan replied. "But not good enough."
He doesn't need Walker tagging along.
"Try not to have too much fun without me."
He gathers his supplies, checks and double checks his guns are fully loaded, straps a knife to his arm and another to his ankle. Wraps his guns straps around his hips and fastens them to his thighs, his two favourite guns slip into their holsters, his spares to the top of his bag, the full loaded clips slide into the belts that Cheryl had made specifically for the task. He has five grenades if he really needs them. A couple of bottles of holy water for if things get desperate and an exorcism that his father had drilled into him running through his head. If he's using that he's defiantly in dire straits.
He nods to Walker once, pulls of his trench coat that will cover his weapons, slips his hunting bag onto both shoulders, and opens the door, strides out into the back alley behind the house. He waits a few seconds to hear Walker bolt the door and turn the key.
It's grey and overcast, rain not too far off, a little cool but not too bad. He doesn't bother even trying to avoid the CCTV on the main street. One of the demon's police officers could be watching or he could be lucky either way he's a day from leaving, now the decisions made. The demons will watch his movements but it's a likely a mid-level who has no interest in taking out a hunter that isn't coming directly at him.
The people of their way to work ignore him, he's just another weirdo, not even that, just another person that they aren't interested in. He supposes he should care that they ignore him afterall it's him and his fellow hunters that are keeping them in the life their accustomed too for as long as they can.
He doesn't know when the demons are going to make their move but everyone agrees it will be soon. But soon is all relative in his experience. Soon could be a hundred years or next week.
He's the one putting his life on the line time and time again to kill demons that want nothing more than to wipe all the people waking by him out, take their lives, the lives they know and they couldn't give a shit.
He couldn't give a shit about them most of the time. Being a hunter is what he is, what he's been made into, killing demons… Well there are worse things he could be doing with his life.
The warehouse is big and has seen many better days. The rust on the fire escape is testament to it. It creeks and threatens to give under his boots but he needs to use it, walking through the front door may be fun, maybe exactly what he wants to do but sometimes what he wants and what's good for his health are too very different things. Thinking of Cheryl usually stops him being too reckless, too careless with his own life. He doesn't want to die but when he does he wants it to be in a blaze of gun fire staring down his enemy on his terms.
He picks the padlock, so simple, years of practice and it barely needs more than a few seconds to get it to open. The door is rusted, the hinges look on their last legs, it tells him that this is not going to be a silent entrance and he pulls a gun from it's holster because chances are he opens the door and it's going to creek so loud that it's going to give him completely away. It might not. He might be lucky. He snorts to himself, he's never considered himself lucky. He takes a deep breath and takes the safety off his gun, licks his lips, lets the nerves build. He needs the nerves, the adrenaline buzz to make sure he's completely alert. He's lapsed before and he has paid the price. It should be easy to get nervous, he's about to confront an unknown number of demons and or creatures that could kill him in a heartbeat, that are stronger, faster but he's confident he can kill them before they can kill him. Not arrogant, the arrogance had been beaten out of him, he'd bled his arrogance all over his father's shoes once. When Seamus had half stitched him up all he had gotten was that he was stupid and unworthy, an idiot and not fit to be called a hunter, that he wasn't good enough to bare his name and once he was no longer in danger of dying from the rapid blood loss, when it was under control, Seamus had handed him the needle and told him to finish the job himself, that if he hadn't spent so much time training him that he would have left him to die. That was the bit that none of the hunters let themselves think about. Every time he met them it was always how great his old man was, how lucky the world was to have him on their side. They didn't care what kind of man he was, they only cared what kind of hunter. The rest, well that was nothing they wanted to worry about because they'd never had to live with it.
The door does creek, and whine but it isn't as loud as he had thought it might have been. It's dark inside. The windows boarded up, the only light is coming from the holes in the colligated roof. It creates an almost glitter ball effect without the turning. The dust is thick on the floor and in the air. There are big brown boxes everywhere. He's in the storage area. He almost trips over the first demon, lying in a sleeping bag just to the side of one of the rows of boxes. He quickly holsters his gun, he doesn't want the rest to know he's here just yet, pulls the knife from his ankle he lines up and stabs down hard to hit it's heart. Break the connection between the demon and it's host, send it back down to the meat market of hell and make it wait for the next body it's allowed. It'll be back, sometime. But it's gone for now.
He pulls the knife free easily, the body is disintegrating at its normal accelerated rate. It'll be nothing but a pile of clothes with what looks like a mass of vomit in it given a few minutes. The body whether dead or alive when the demon invades, is not designed to hold a demon, centuries or a few minutes it makes no difference as soon as the demon is gone there is nothing to hold the body together and it breaks down into slop.
There is another near the open door leading into what looks like an open area. He stabs it in the heart again. He takes a look out of the door. There are ten of them on the ground floor that he can see, awake and working loading a light goods van with boxes baring the same marking's as those from the room he had just been in.
He steps back and takes out both of his guns, taking the safeties off both. Heart shots, and it has to be a heart shot are difficult to make clean when the chaos descends, when they start running for cover. He doesn't really want to start this from this position but there is no cover.
He drops his bag to the floor, stuffs a couple of clips into the back of his jeans and takes off his trench coat. He needs to be able to move free of restriction.
He picks two from the mental image he has, takes a breath and steps out on the metal gang way to the rail as quickly as he can, lines them up and shoots the two he had aimed for, he misses the left gun shot, he couldn't have been far off but far off may as well be a few hundred miles away. The effect is the same. The demon lives. It's injured but it will heal quicker than any human, it has control of it's host body and it can fix it, it just needs a bit of time to do it. He's not planning on giving any of them time.
The others scatter and he gets a few more shots off, aiming for legs and torso, knee caps if he can line the shot up well enough. He has five down and crawling before he is tackled from behind and slams into the rail which doesn't hold and he and his assailant fall backwards. He pushes the attacker away from him as best he can before he lands heavily on a stack of boxes, it winds him for a second yet the adrenaline is flowing, he doesn't even register any pain, just gets himself clear of the boxes and back on target. The one that tackled him is getting to his feet having hit concrete. Heart shot and it's melting.
The other four have done a runner, he's not following in daylight. There's no way he can get away with shooting anything on the streets not with most of the police force taking bungs.
The five he had shot are still trying to crawl away. He stands over them one at a time and takes his time to kill them, looks them in the eye as they shout poision at him. That they'll be back. That he's making a mistake. That they will rip his insides out and feast on them. That they will make him beg for death. He watches their eyes, all dark silver. He can see them. Years have taught him to look past the mirage and see their true eyes. Silver that gleems when their alive and turns black a split second before their bodies decay.
He doesn't bother looking around the rest of the building. He doesn't know if a civilian had heard the gun shots and called the police. They might not be able to charge him with murder, after all there will be no bodies but he's got weapons on him and they wouldn't think twice about banging him up for that.
He climbs the stairs back up to the top level, shrugs on his trench coat and his bag before leaving the way he came in and locking the padlock behind him.
Less than an hour and five less demons to worry about, Cheryl might not notice he went back out. But then he's never been that lucky.