Some hours earlier

"Please let this be the end" Melody Graves pleaded in to the darkness. Blood spattered across her clothes and face. Exhausted and beaten she pulled her new favourite blade from the guts of the….. 'thing' that finally lay motionless across splintered floorboards.

"Lib! Libby!" she croaked out as loud as she could, completely unsurprised how shaky her voice sounded.

Her cousin quickly came running into the room, weapon out ready to attack whatever maybe there. Libby Graves the older of the pair by one year, tentatively kicked the monster ensuring it was dead before helping her cousin to her feet.

"You ok?" Libby asked, it was a stupid question but Melody found herself nodding in acknowledgement anyway. She really didn't have the words to explain how she actually felt. They had spent years getting to this point. An unexplainable mixture of fear and anticipation was running through her mind as she held the blade up to the moon light.

"Well, at least we know it works" she said to Libby letting the light catch the etched symbols embossed on the twelve inch silver blade with an iron core.

Libby looked at her cousin nodding with determination. They now had the means to kill a demon. Which meant it was time to find the particular one they had been waiting ten years to exact revenge on.

Melody looked down again at the dead demon and tucked away the blade. The battle was done for the evening but it left a hell of a lot of clean up.

It was still pretty early in the night when the two girls made it back to their camper van. A hotel down the street had a reservation waiting for them, but walking through the lobby with so much blood was just asking for trouble so they cleaned up as best they could in the back of the van.

Melody looked at her reflection in the tiny portable mirror and sighed at the vision staring back. She was barely recognisable to the girl she had been back in high school. Her once bouncy dark hair now hung lifeless and ratty past her shoulders and the face that had radiated youth and beauty just looked plain tired.

In high school Melody was that girl who had everything. She had grown up with money. By the time she was in senior year she had the car, the clothes and the boyfriend. The biggest worry in life had been getting accepted to college.

Now she was twenty-six years old, living in hotel rooms with her cousin. Those days of floral dresses and beach parties were well and truly over. Now pretty much everything she owned was in an overnight bag and they never stayed in a town long enough to be invited to a party, beach or otherwise.

'Oh! how the popular have fallen'.

She turned away from the view of herself and towel-dried wet hair. She had scrubbed away the demonic blood on her face but could still feel it and it made her sick.

"I don't know about you but I could seriously do with a drink" Libby said appearing behind her.

Melody nodded realising just how good that sounded then they headed to a bar they'd noticed on the way into town.

There was a time when neither girl would have been seen dead in a place like that. Shady people, nothing on the jukebox post 1986, dubious sticky floors. But times had changed and there was an atmosphere in dive bars that was a lot easier to handle than the overcrowded social drinkers of a sports bar.

Melody sat back in the booth and could feel cold metal of the demon-killing blade against her back. Now they had a weapon that worked there was no way she was letting it out of her sight.

The girls sipped whiskey in silence both taking in the enormity of what they had achieved. They could now go and find the demon that had killed Libby's mother, Melody's Aunt and actually have a chance of destroying it. The end to the horrible nightmare was in sight and both girls found the thought a little overwhelming.

While Melody wanted to just sit in quiet contemplation she realised that wearing a bright pink vest to this kind of joint may have been a mistake. But living out of the back of a van gave her little option for clean clothes and the vest was about all she had. It stood out among the grey's, blacks and dark greens that seemed to be favoured by the other patrons.

She could feel eyes upon the two of them and it was starting to agitate her. Being a girl of 5'10" had left Melody with an insecurity. Childhood taunts on her lofty height had made her uncomfortable receiving any sort of attention. Libby on the other hand could handle it. Having blonde hair, cute freckles and big blue eyes, her cousin learned early on how to handle unwanted interest.

Three guys over at the pool table were proving to be the biggest problem. Melody could hear whispered laughs and leering aimed in their direction. Libby who had her back to all this could see an unease growing in her cousin and tried to get Melody to ignore it. There was a concern that her short-tempered cuz was still on the offensive after their earlier demon encounter which wouldn't bode well for the average annoying human.

There was a guy sat over by the bar that wasn't helping matters. Melody had watched him arrive a little earlier. A big leather jacket with the collar up hid him mostly from view and his head was bowed low as though the weight of the world was holding it down. When he did lift his head his eyes seem to find Melody's direction. He had a darkness about him that unnerved her and she prayed that he, along with the pool table guys stayed just where they were.

No such look, a good ten minutes later the shortest of the three pool table guys headed in the girl's direction. He had a beer gut, a nasty looking trucker cap and such a smug expression that Melody wanted to slap it from his face the moment he came into view.

Libby took charge listening to the drivel the guy was spouting. A hundred unoriginal lines poured from his lips and the older girl smiled sweetly and tried to give him the gentle brush off but he wasn't for biting.

Melody stayed silence watching trucker-cap struggle to take No for an answer until she couldn't listen any longer. Her impatience got the better of her and she rose to her feet squaring up to the guy. Melody couldn't remember the exact words she said to him but they were not sugar-coated and they didn't beat around the bush. Trucker-cap was plainly informed of the imminent pain he would suffer if he didn't leave them alone.

As the dude walked back to his pool table friends Melody was aware of the bar guy's stare. He had been watching from the moment trucker-cap came over. He looked tired and beaten but still managed to be intimidating as hell.

Melody engaged his stare challenging him to the same treatment she had dished out to trucker-cap but prayed that he wouldn't take her on. Thankfully after a few moments he looked away.

She sat back down calming herself after all the events of the evening and finished her drink. Off in her peripheral vision Melody caught the bar guy get up and walk to leave. She couldn't help but look over at him as he walked away. There was a little exchange between them that strangely made her stomach flip but then he was gone.

That night as the girls lay on comfortable hotel beds Melody was surprised to find sleep come easily. The events at the bar drifted quickly out of memory on a day when they had killed a demon for the first time. The stresses of the day threatened to invade her dreams but instead her thoughts filled with a calming influence. She dreamed of colours flowing into each other. Greens and Pinks carried in waves across her mind.

Melody had no idea what they all meant but they left her feeling at peace and unafraid.