Violet was in her bedroom with the lights off. The curtains were drawn against the harsh winter light. Where they didn't quite overlap, white knives of light carved the darkness, provided just enough ambient light to see her book by. It was a coffee table book of photos taken inside abandoned mental asylums and hospitals. The works focused mostly on areas that had been partially reclaimed by nature and were very pretty, if a bit grim due to their locale and individual histories, which the author carefully detailed in small print beneath each.

She looked up when the door nudged open and Tate came in. Sucking a last drag off her cigarette, she put it out in the ashtray on her bedside table then set the book aside, leaving it open to the page she had been looking at.

"Hey," she smiled.

"Hey," he responded and trudged over to where she was. "What're you looking at?"

"A photo book." She glanced at it. "It's of all these abandoned asylums and things. See this one?"

She pointed to a large picture taken from the inside of an old building from the vantage of looking out through the window. The pane had no glass in it, broken years ago. The paint on the window sill had peeled back in thick curls.

"That's neat," Tate admired. He liked the way the sunlight played on the leaves of the tree that was right outside the broken window.

"It's a window where a patient jumped to her death," Violet said. "What's weird, though, is the window is in a part of the hospital that was always locked. There's no record of how she got up there without anybody seeing her."

Tate examined the photo for several silent seconds, digesting that. "Somebody probably pushed her."

Violet pushed her long hair behind an ear to stop it blocking her view of the photo. "Yeah. Probably. Not like they could ask her afterwards, since she was dead. Makes more sense than her getting past security, through locked doors."

"Yeah," agreed Tate.

He climbed up onto the bed then, crowding against her side until she scooted over to make room for him. He slipped his arms around her waist. He liked her waist, which was so narrow he could circle his arms snugly around her in a way that made him feel securely rooted. She pet his messy hair and for a moment everything felt right in his world. He was tempted to just drift in that moment, to let it extend indefinitely and forget the physical plane entirely. But, the problems of the real world wouldn't go away just because he ignored it, and they wouldn't pause either.

"Do you think Michael's evil?" he asked after a few precious seconds of quiet bliss.

Violet's hand stopped petting. "I…Yes?"

"Why?" He shifted so he could see her face better, needing to see the nuances of her expression.

She thought about the question. "Well. He was born to be. I mean. He's, like, the Devil's son."

Tate made a face. "But he's my son." He paused, then added: "Does that make me the Devil?"

"No," Violet said promptly. "Of course not. You were just…You know. A conduit."

For years, Tate had accepted that idea, but it wasn't enough for him now. "But I made Michael. So, what's that make me?"

A soft sigh escaped Violet's lips to vent her growing frustration. She had feared this sort of conversation once upon a time, but it had been years since it had been a concern. Why it was coming up now was a mystery. So, she employed her father's technique.

"What's going on, Tate? Did something happen?"

He didn't want to give up the debate, but she was looking at him with such concern that he felt obligated to answer. Reluctantly he told her about the Dragon and Evangelina, and Michael's plan to use the new guy to try and get her back.

Violet stewed on the information for a bit, petting his hair to help her think. "What happened to you and—and to my mom," she said, faltering because she still found the thought repugnant. "That wasn't you and it wasn't her. Not really. That was the house. Or whatever controls it."

She tipped her head back and looked up at the dark ceiling. The shadows were complete up there. It was like looking into a void. Something she could fall into forever.

"We still don't really understand what it is," she said quietly. "All we know is what Father Jeremiah said about the place belonging to the fallen angels. Demon, fallen angel…Whatever it is? It used you both to make Michael."

Violet knew Tate's conception was odd too, involving one of the ghosts in the house, but Constance had sworn her to secrecy on the matter. Knowing might offer some clarity for Tate, but Violet wasn't sure it would be worth the upset it would cause him. She didn't mind risking Constance's wrath, but she didn't want to hurt Tate with information that wouldn't really help him. His capacity for handling information that challenged what he wanted to believe was very low. For reasons not entirely clear to her, Tate desperately needed to believe his father was a Mercedes dealer who'd been driven to the arms of another woman by his cheating wife.

Part of it was self-defense, she knew: It was Tate's only shield against Constance's controlling tendencies. Even Violet had to fend off the woman's prying, demanding ways more than once over the years. Being told his father was actually Charles Montgomery would call into question everything Tate believed about what happened between Hugo and Constance. It would cast uncertainty over everything he thought he knew about his life and his death, and reshape his self-image, and likely not for the better.

No, in this matter Violet knew it was best to keep Tate in the dark. Even Moyra believed that and she had no love for the teen boy, dead or alive.

"Are we supposed to hate him?" Tate asked, breaking the silence that had fallen over them. "I feel like I should only…I don't."

"I…don't know," Violet said slowly, chewing on the question. "Godly religions preach you shouldn't hate anybody, from what I've read. But a lot of them do."

"Shit. Religions hate people the most." Tate squeezed her waist and pressed his cheek against her tummy. "I miss the kid he used to be. Why'd that part have to go by so fast?" Thinking about it made his eyes water.

"The best parts always do," she said with sympathy. "Hey. Maybe you could ask him to tell people to stop the all the sacrifices and crazy shit. If he tells them, they'll listen to him. If he does that, you'll know he's not, like, irredeemable. You know?"

"Maybe," Tate agreed. He thought about it some and warmed to the idea. "I'm going to the Hollywood sign tonight when they do the ritual. See what that's about. Maybe I'll talk to him then."

"I'll come," volunteered Violet.

He thought about it and smiled. "Cool. It'll be like our dates in Grand Theft Auto, only for real."

She snorted a laugh and kissed him lightly on the lips. Her soft hair tickled his face. "Just no crazy flips or roll-overs. Okay?"

…

It was Violet who drove up to the hills, in the end, using the car Patrick normally took into the village when Chad sent him to the market for something. Driving was the best way to ensure they arrived at the same place at the same time but Tate's stop-and-go method of riding both the gas and brake pedals was an inefficient process the girl just couldn't sit through. She commandeered the vehicle after two blocks.

Once Violet was behind the wheel, they made swift progress, arriving at the fenced-off area of Griffith Park quickly. The chain-link fence was rusty, and half fallen over. Plants choked what was left of the barrier. Anything could easily access the steep climb that led up Mount Lee to the Hollywood sign. Putting the car in park, she slid out of the driver's seat; Tate got out as well. Together they headed up into the overgrown foliage.

They followed a narrow path that had once been wider, a way that trespassers once took to get closer to the sign but was now used mostly by animals. The steep trail cut straight up into the hill, following a natural rain runoff.

Despite living and being dead in Los Angeles his whole existence, Tate had never been so close to the Hollywood sign. It had never meant anything to him beyond a kitschy bit of silver screen nostalgia. The way up to it was hardly worth the trip. It was steep, rocky, and badly overgrown. To make things easier, he and Violet had to pass through the knotwork of branches or else they'd be there all night.

Coming around a large rock, Violet stopped short and Tate quickly saw why: There was a woman on the trail ahead of them. Her clothes put Tate in mind of the things he'd seen Mrs Nora wear, though this lady's style was from the 30's, not the 20's. The woman had short hair set in a finger-wave and a dreamy, melancholy expression. Dressed in white, she had an ephemeral quality the teens instantly recognized.

"Oh!" the woman said, as surprised to see them as they were to see her. "Pardon me."

"No worries," Violet dismissed. "Are you—Where are you going?"

The woman looked down. "Nowhere, I suppose. I came here to—to end it." She covered her face with her hands and started to weep. "But I couldn't."

Tate leaned close to Violet and whispered, "Should we tell her?"

Violet pursed her lips. Tact seemed prudent. "Why would you want to kill yourself?"

The young woman's shoulders quaked from the restraint she was showing in order to keep her sobs delicate. Wailing was gauche and she refused to embarrass herself in such a way. "I'm a failure! My whole life, all I ever wanted was to be a successful leading lady in pictures." She sniffled and tried to collect herself, dabbing at the corners of her eyes with a hanky pulled from her bosom.

"What's your name?" Tate asked, thinking perhaps he might recognize her.

"Peg," she said tearfully. "Peg Entwhistle." She focused on Tate then and desperation lit her pale blue eyes. "Tell me. Do you think I'm pretty? Do you?"

She drifted over to him; her feet barely touched the ground. Her sudden attitude shift sounded an alarm for Violet, and she put herself between the woman and Tate without pause for thought.

"That's not something you should be asking my boyfriend," she said.

The woman glared at the teen girl and her melancholy features twisted into a mask of rage. She gave a terrible shriek that stretched her mouth so wide that the corners tore. Her jaw unhinged as she continued to howl, showing several rows of pointy teeth. She lunged at Violet, who was momentarily stunned by the hideous display.

"Go away!"

At Tate's shout, the apparition vanished. There was a tense pause that followed while they waited to see if the thing attacked again. When the crickets began to chirp again, killing the eerie stillness, Tate looked at Violet. She looked back at him with round eyes.

"I wasn't sure that would work outside the house," Tate said with a tight smile. "Good to know."

"Yeah," she said. Then she pulled a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of her sweater and lit one. "Holy shit. That was something." She pulled a long drag then tipped her head. "I wonder what makes some ghosts like that. You know? All gnarly and monstrous."

They started up the hill again. "Shadows," Tate said as they went.

"Shadows?"

"Yeah. It's like…" Tate looked down at the dark rock-studded ground as he fished for the memory. It was vague and took time to latch onto. "There was this guy who said that every person is really two people: The light and the dark. The light's what makes people want to help each other and share things. The shadow's greedy and loves temptation."

"Just…some guy said it?" Violet's poke was a blend of playful tease and genuine curiosity.

"A psychiatrist. Carl Jung!" Tate said triumphantly when the name surfaced. Then he remembered something. "You know, the Cherokee people have a belief like it too. They call it the fight between two wolves. The story goes: One day, this old Cherokee man is talking to his grandson and the kid asks him about these feelings he has. And his granddad, who's this wise old guy, tells him the feelings come from two wolves. One wolf is anger, envy, sorrow, greed, and all those bad things. The other wolf is joy, kindness, generosity, compassion, and that kind of good stuff.

"So, the old guy, he tells his grandson that everybody has these two wolves fighting inside them. And the grandson asks him…which one will win? And the old man says: 'Whichever one you feed.'."

Violet tipped her head, struck by the metaphoric wisdom. "Huh. That's pretty profound."

"I know when I 'feed' my shadow, it does pretty crazy shit," Tate admitted. "It feels good to let it go. Too good."

Violet wanted to pursue the matter further because she could sense an opportunity to ferret some answers out of him for once, but just then the sky above them lit up brightly for a few seconds, brilliant red light followed by an explosion. Someone had set off a firework from the hilltop.

"Looks like they're starting," said Tate.

"Shit," Violet cursed the interruption. "Let's go."

—

Author's Note:

Things are finally starting to settle down for me following the unexpected death in my family. However, since it's nearing Halloween, my prop business is kicking into high gear, which means I'll be traveling to California twice in the next 4 weeks. After Halloween, things should be a lot less crazy.

So, in all the chaos, I guess I lost track of how long this Episode got. We've got one more chapter before it's done. We're heading up the hill to check out what Michael's doing, then we can roll credits. The next Episode after this one is quite aptly named "Sacrifices". But first we have to get through Michael's plan to summon the Dragon.