Chapter One: Ex. 7:14-24

Thanks to my beta, Tafferling! Updates will be Sundays, both our schedules allowing :)

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This is what the LORD says: By this you will know that I am the LORD: With the staff that is in my hand I will strike the water of the Nile, and it will be changed into blood. The fish in the Nile will die, and the river will stink and the Egyptians will not be able to drink its water.

— Exodus 7:17–18

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The hunters were tenacious little fucks.

It had been a long time since they had been hunted with such fury. Since they had been hunted at all, rather.

Isska was finding that it was a thoroughly unpleasant experience.

"This world has degraded," Gaddy complained, and kicked at the mold-covered wood of the dilapidated barn they were cowering in like frightened sheep with the wolf at the door. At her touch, the wood groaned and splintered into ash. "The last time we were here, it was much more… welcoming."

"Well, who do we have to blame for that?" Sergė spat, looking up from where she carved strips of dripping meat from the still twitching pig. "If it weren't for you, this would still be our world and we wouldn't be stuck in these… vessels."

Like they could hardly even be called vessels. Her sisters all looked ridiculous. She looked ridiculous. Forced to inhabit the first vessels they could find, they were a motley collection of all the shapes and sizes a human could take, and all falling to pieces.

Gaddy in a boy-child body with a scabby lip and tattered pants made of a stiff blue material that she picked at uncomfortably.

Sergė in a woman, barely grown, skinny as spit and with wide brown doe-eyes that Isska had no doubt were the reason the vain bitch had even chosen it.

Verpi, the smartest and oldest, in a man twice as broad as the rest who hid her fragility behind a bushy beard and cold dark eyes.

Audeja and Metan in a husband and wife, captured together, the two sitting close on a wooden beam and saying little. Conspiring against the rest of them, no doubt.

Nukirpeja was an elderly man and Isska thought of scoffing at her choice of vessel as well, but there was a canny sharpness to the body that made her think again. It was a pity that that one was melting twice as fast as the rest of them. It could have been useful.

And hers. Her stupid vessel. Stronger, physically, than the rest at least. It wasn't degrading anywhere near as quickly as the others, allowing her to take her time finding another, something the others didn't have the benefit of. Knowing the body was easy, as easy as inhabiting it had been. Man. Late twenties, educated, married, a father. Had been a father.

She smiled, feeling the face curve at her desire. Not a father anymore.

Now just transport.

"Others hunt us," Nukirpeja said suddenly, raising her head and staring at the door of the barn. Outside, a storm raged, barely covering their tracks. "I think they discovered the mess you made of your vessel's family, Metan."

"I was hungry," Metan whined, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. "We're all hungry. Why are we running? We should take what we need. Like any of these pathetic humans with their iron can stop us."

Isska ignored them, slinking through the barn and leaving her quietly bickering sisters to self-destruct. Idiots, the lot of them. She was sick of picking up after them. Sick of cleansing the messes they made.

But she'd keep doing it, because that was what family did.

A section of the wall flapped loose, and she pressed herself down, peering through out into the blustery night. Trees whipped around wildly, casting looming shadows on the ground, the rain threatening but failing to fall quite yet

"Hunters?" said a high voice behind her. She didn't even need to turn her head to know it was Gaddy. "The two that track us? The men?"

Isska narrowed her eyes. The moon did little to illuminate the world, but it did enough.

Heavy cars pulled up with their lights off and people slipped out of them. People in dark clothes, weapons held confidentially, moving as a pack. More than the hunters.

She counted. Then smiled.

Of course. Once again she would deliver salvation to her family while they argued mindlessly. She would deliver their salvation to them on a silver platter.

They needed vessels that were as connected as they were for their powers to return, for them to be more than cut-rate demon scum. And here, moving around the barn in a tight group that communicated wordlessly, six fresh vessels. Six fresh strong vessels.

Only six, but she was sure she'd find another soon enough. Maybe one of them had a child. Or a lover. Once her sisters owned them, they would see.

"Let Verpi ride the leader," she instructed Gaddy as the moon caught the face of the one the others obviously followed; a man with dark hair and a fiercely focused expression. "Fight amongst the rest as you please. Do not kill any of them. We need to be joined for our strength to return, and I can hardly think of a family more joined than those who hunt together."

"Delicious," Gaddy said, grinning. There were gaps in the smile where the vessel had lost teeth. Disgusting creatures. "Shall we?"

Isska grabbed her. Her sister laughed once in her silly boy-child voice, and then screamed.

The people moved towards them swiftly, summoned by the sound of one of their young in distress, heedless of their fate.

Heedless of their importance.

But they'd know soon enough.

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"Fan-fucking-tastic, the feds beat us here." Dean slammed his hand against the dash angrily, wincing at the hollow sound. Sorry, Baby, he thought guiltily. You did your best.

"What do we do?" Sam asked, his hand on the door handle and eyes locked on the hulking shapes of the empty SUVs up ahead. "We can't just let them walk in there. They have no idea what they're up against, Dean."

Yeah, good old bleeding heart Sammy. Of course he was worried about the g-men in this shit-fest of a situation. Seven new demons, seven old as balls demons, on the loose and Dean ten steps behind them. They'd already carved a path of destruction through Georgia that was going to be drawing all eyes to them.

A bunch of dead feds would add to that.

Not to mention; Dean wasn't exactly super keen on the idea of letting anything happen to them anyway, pains-in-the-arse or not.

"Come on," he instructed his brother, reaching back for his shotgun on the backseat. "Bring your knife. Let's go gank some demon scum before they make messes of our badge-wielding buddies."

Of course, things never went as smoothly as Dean expected.

He should really stop expecting smoothness.

They rounded the barn and found themselves face to face with a man that Dean would have bet his best bottle of scotch on no fucking way is this dweeb a fed.

"FBI, drop your weapons," the man said coolly, raising his piece, and Dean took a single moment to admire the sweet revolver the guy was wielding. Nice. The ridiculous fed's partner, a dude with a glare that basically screamed government employee, stepped around to cover his back.

"Okay, we're not who you're after," Sam said, holding his hands out in an attempt to look innocent, right as a little boy popped out from a broken hole in the side of the barn and giggled.

All of them looked at him. Dean raised his gun.

"Verdi was supposed to have you," the boy said happily to the actual-fed, whose face didn't even fucking twitch. Stone cold man, whoa. "But I don't like sharing."

And that's when it all went to shit.