A.N.: The fact that dividers don't translate into fanfic's document setup irks me.

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|Chapter One - Stains|

There were so many of them. Scampering about, leaking their blood all over the place. Snarling their little snarls, their constantly fresh wounds glistening in the moonlight. There were hundreds if not thousands of them, covering every inch of the ground. Crawling over rocks and grass, clinging to trees. And all of them came from one person.

She could feel her lips curling into a growl. Watching them sit on that beat up car, the moon and city lights down below making them a living shadow. A shadow that deserved to die. Her fingers clicked off the safety on her handgun.

The shadow turned, looking straight in her direction, and she faltered. Did it hear her?

"I can hear you, you know." It muttered, and it leaped off the hood of the car. It was no use; they knew she was there. "I fucking hate guns." The glint of a sharpened blade appeared in its hand as it made its way in her direction. "Come out of hiding; no use doing that now that you've been idiotic enough to give yourself away."

She steeled herself and stepped out from cover, the bushes no longer obscuring its sight of her. The growl on her face was still plastered there, and she clung hard to her gun and the shadow came closer.

"Oh, a girl I see. Is, is that blonde hair? I fucking hate blondes, too." It flipped the blade in its hand, catching the handle. Taunting her. "This kill will be fun, don't you agree?"

Taking a deep breath, she smirked at the shadow, her finger on the trigger. "Why yes, it'll be fantastic."

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He lunged at her, the blade in his hand aimed at her neck. He was going to hit the jugular. A particularly fun spot to slice with a blade.

Except, she dodged.

He stumbled, irked, and turned around. The blast of the girl's gun rang through the air, and he grimaced as it snagged in his shoulder. She was starting to piss him off. Putting a hand to his shoulder, he growled and lunged at her again. The girl was too caught up in her pretentious feelings of self-accomplishment, and he grinned as he felt metal connect with skin. She gasped in pain and backed up, her hand now applying pressure to her waist. Oh, he had her good.

"Fucking guns. Fight me for real, you coward." He roared, but she only shook her head, shooting another round at him as he charged. When the bullet caught in his forearm, the same side as his wounded shoulder, he cursed her uncanny precision and the fact a bullet could stop him in his tracks. Something wasn't right about the girl. She was defending herself, instead of running. She was quick enough to avoid his attacks, and he grumbled with spite that even he couldn't be faster than a bullet. But god damnit he'd try. "How is this even fair, bitch?!"

"People like you don't deserve fights the way you want them." She said with a flat tone, despite her waist leaking precious life-fluid.

"People like me? Do I even know you?" He stumbled from blood loss. He hated being shot, too. Damn it all.

"No. And I don't know you. But I know enough that you deserve to die. All of your killing has come to an end."

He scowled and ran to her left, yet dove to his right, to fake her out. He smirked; she turned the other way, opening her left to complete annihilation. His blade swung high, eager to cut up more flesh.

And the heel of her left foot came to meet his chin.

Caught by surprise, he almost fell forward, his now bloody hand letting go of his arm and rubbing at his jaw. Pissed off and getting the feeling this fight was too familiar, he turned to see her aiming at him with that damned pistol. It suddenly hit him that the whore had the same determination to beat his ass as 'that one girlfriend he would have had but didn't'had. Hopefully, this girl wasn't as good enough to leave him hypothetically bloody and covered with glass like what happened before.

Another blast from the gun rang out, and he was happy enough to realize it missed him as he rushed her again. Though, the bullets in his arm hurt. A lot. And he found himself stumbling past her as she dodged. He turned around again. He felt like one of those bulls in Spain. With the pompous jerks that waved flags in their faces. Every time he lunged, he missed his target. It was pissing him off. But then the pain from the bullets would distract him from his pissed-off-ness. He really hated guns.

"You look a bit weak, gonna give up yet?" The blonde taunted, and he snarled. Nobody taunted him without getting their heads sliced off. And that's where his blade was aiming, until she dodged yet again and clocked him hard in the back of the head with the butt of the handgun. In fact, she hit him so hard he fell to the ground. He struggled to a stand, realizing blood loss was really eating on his ability to stay conscious.

"Who the fuck are you!" He felt faint. No, no, he can't faint; he never faints. The only time he faded to black was when… when that bullet took off half his face. He couldn't faint, not now. This girl had that damned pistol aimed at his head. He had no idea if he was still… that thing he had been before. If she killed him… well wait, who did he give a fuck if he died again or not? This whore deserved it if it all broke loose again. Yeah, that's it, she'll be torn up into beautiful little red giblets, and he'd get a free ticket back to the mortal life. Maybe he'd finally get that damned coat-

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She stood over the person's body, her gun held lazily in one hand. It was hard to see any features on them, since the darkness was very thick out in the hills above the city. The demons all scowled at her when they realized their host had fallen, and melded into his body. Yet he wasn't dead. She could barely see his stomach rising and falling in the moonlight. Fainted. Then she remembered that blood loss tended to make people faint.

Her left thigh vibrated, the vibration sending a fresh shock of pain through her cut side. She sighed, reaching in her pants pocket and pulling out a cell phone. The soft blue light illuminated her face as she read the caller I.D.

"Jenny?"

"Yeah, hi Andy." A smile spread on her lips, and she tucked her gun in its holster on her hip. She chanced a glance down at the person. Blood hadn't pooled around him just yet; he happened to fall to the ground in the perfect position to keep the blood pooling in his bullet wounds. The blood coming from her waist was small; luckily, he hadn't cut deep enough for it to be inhibiting.

"Did you find them?"

She unconsciously nodded her head as she spoke, "Yeah, I got him. But he's still alive." She could hear him sigh over the phone. "Andy, this guy, I swear he has so many demons they'd fill up a quarter of a football stadium."

"That… sounds intense. Look, I need you to bring him here, now that I know that."

"Are you sure? Do you think you could handle it?" She looked back down at the unconscious person. Now the blood was starting to leak. She made sure to step away. If the blood got on her shoes, it would never come off. Her shirt was already stained; no need to get the shoes mucked up, too. "He's obviously really dangerous. You might have a bad reaction-"

"No, I want to see him. This person must have seen a lot in his life to do what he apparently did. He's weak, and we need to keep him alive so I can talk to him. He might know something. A person like him, he's got to know something."

She bit her bottom lip, a frown on her face. They both had no idea what they were getting into, and they both knew it. She looked down at him again. More blood. She took another step back. "Okay, I'll bring him. Keep the back door unlocked. Bye." Her thumb found the 'End' button and she disconnected the call. Flipping the phone shut, she stared down at the person as she slid the phone back in her pocket, "Well, at least he looks light…"

Of course he wasn't. She hooked her hands in his armpits and tried dragging him along the ground, ignoring the wound in her side, but she felt herself catch and stumble. Her eyes looked over his thin frame. What could have possibly made him heavier than he looked? And then she remembered that her cell phone's backlight was strong enough to potentially blind a person in pitch darkness. She took her phone out and flipped the top open, aiming it at his chest. He was wearing a trench coat. Squatting down, making sure the blood didn't get on her shoes, she flipped one side of the coat open.

Affixed to the lining were tons of knives and other implements of murder. Namely, because they were hand-made and almost all of them were coated in the dark red splotches of life-fluid. The other side of the coat was lined with knives too. And as she moved the light of the cell down to his boots, she saw more killing utensils carefully tucked away, and she realized the person even had blades in the toes and heels of his boots, activated by switches on the inside of the shoes.

With disgust and an odd sense of wonder, she removed each blade and set them aside. When she tried dragging him along the ground again, his body complied, and she almost fell back, now underestimating his lightness. She frowned in annoyance and stood up, tucking her phone away and pulling him along the dirt road. The sound of gravel being pushed aside by her shoes and his body was the only sound in the forest. If she had been younger, it would have given her the chills.

She heaved his limp body in the trunk of her car. It's not as if she liked having bloody murderers in her trunk, even though it was ironic, it's just that it was too much of a hassle to toss him in the back seat. She was proud to say she had one of the coolest cars she thought the 90's could ever produce. A pristine, dark green '98 Pontiac Firebird. A two-door beauty with legitimate leather seats. This meant, of course, she'd have to fiddle with the levers to lower the passenger seat in order to throw him in the back. And she didn't want to deal with that; too much effort. Moreover, she refused to drive home with his possibly diseased self relaxing in her passenger's seat. It just wasn't sanitary. And the leather would stain. She hated stains.

The knives, though, had been carefully wrapped up in the trench coat he had worn and set in the passenger seat. God forbid the blades be tossed haphazardly in the trunk and end up impaling the wretch. Plus, they were interesting to look at. Maybe she'd keep a couple, possibly give one to Andy as a belated birthday present. On the other hand, maybe not. She grimaced at the thought of Andy holding a custom-made killblade. There would be too much death on that blade for him to hold it and still act sane.

She started up her car and flicked on the high beams. She always drove with the high beams on. As she pulled out from her car's hiding spot off the side of the dirt road, she wondered if she should stop doing that. She decided she would go on the internet later and see if high beams were just as dangerous to the car itself as they were to drowsy cross-country drivers on mountainsides. Thank goodness nobody drove by her house. She would blind too many people.

Her eyes zoomed to her waist for a moment. The blood had hit the waistband of her jeans. She frowned. Hopefully, she would get back to the house in time to wrap herself up and bleach the hell out of the stains in her clothing. Goddamned stains.