++++++ I'm going to give you guys some advanced noticed here, my grandmother is dying and may have been given a few weeks left to live. They're doing more tests but the outcome is not good. So if you suddenly see me just vanish for a while-this will be the reason why.

I'll be putting these notes on all my fics as I update.

Thanks in advance guys.

On a sadder sidenote-RIP Alan Rickman.

Raise your wands…

I have another fic running at the moment called Altered Perception, it's a DC-fic and features some of my OC's as well as normal characters.

I hope you enjoy.

I do not own ++++++

Thirteen

The cops were at the doctor's surgery when I arrived almost half an hour later.

Lighting a cigarette, I leant up against a telephone pole and watched as the small tow coroner came out with what was left of the doctor inside. "Well fuck that," I whispered. Behind him came his assistant and some cops who were carrying biohazard bags full of body parts. "Ghouls, I hate fucking ghouls."

"Everybody hates ghouls," Talia pointed out. I glanced down, Talia stood beside me looking around and watching what I was watching. She looked sad for some reason and different…her red hair was a darker shade and her skin was paler. "I see you've found an angel."

I nodded. "Yeah. We've found an angel."

"Your original assumption of the man taping into the angels powers and killing her in incorrect," she advised. "I hear a lot on the grape vine, so it were, the preacher in the middle of this healing business-he was not bound for heaven."

I frowned. "If the preacher wasn't bound for heaven then please tell me how on earth Imogen was carrying him to heaven?" Slowly it dawned on me as Talia stared at me. "Imogen is fallen?"

Talia nodded. "She is. Angels don't know when another angels falls. In fact, angels are compartmentalized in their own little world so they very rarely meet each other."

"It's a sad day when ghost know more than what the living know," I mused. I took a puff of my cigarette and dropped it, using my foot to put it out. "Best be getting back then, let the masses know what is going on."

"Tessa…there is one more thing I need to talk to you about," Talia frowned.

"Talk, talk, talk," I spoke, walking off.

Talia followed me. "This is serious. I will always be here, never traveling to heaven or hell because of what I did to you…everyone is picking sides Tessa…ghosts, vampires, werewolves and the other races are picking their sides, with every day heaven is losing more and more soldiers and allies. This will be the last time we speak as sisters. Next time-we won't be anymore."

I stopped in the middle of the street. "So what you're telling me is that you're picking a side? Huh-I always thought you'd pick me. Guess I was wrong."

"There's two ways that this can end," Talia told me. "You leave and live to see another day or you die here."

I cocked my head to the side, knowing that I must have looked like a complete idiot talking to myself. "So this is how it ends, huh? You and me on opposite sides of the field. Twice betrayed by my own flesh and blood. You know I won't leave."

"Then you have to die," she replied.

"You know Talia," I sighed, "you really should have paid close attention to my little experience with the helm-I had a vision of you with me fighting Lucifer. You had wings and you were an adult, an angel. Guess you fucked that up in spades." I could make out movement to the left of me, the stench in the air said ghoul.

I drew my blade. "Time to take the trash out," I grinned. "And I don't mean you, Talia."

Leaving a trail of ghoul bodies behind me, I took off running towards the barn where Imogen was being kept 'safe'. I knew John had warded the place from evil so I could only hope to god that the wards would hold.

I bust in through the open door, a few ghouls right behind me. The moment they touched the barrier they were stopped. I gasped, seeing Imogen there holding Zed's neck, ready to snap it. Every hair on my body stood to attention, seeing the angel…feeling something that was supposed to be pure good tainted by such evil.

Imogen's black wings tensed suddenly. "The half-breed," she hissed.

"Yeah that's me," I shrugged with a grin.

Imogen turned her attention onto me. "I can smell the demon taint on you."

I laughed. "Her name is Claire, thank you very much. And you're holding my friend." I rushed her as she tightened her grip on Zed's neck. I pulled the angel blade out of the back of my jeans and drove it straight into Imogen's heart.

"Tessa, no!" Michael shouted seconds before I drove the blade straight through Imogen's chest.

Breathing heavily, I stared the fallen angel right in her eyes and she laughed at me. "Stupid human…I wanted to be free…to make my way with the world but all you've done is make it one step closer to releasing him…our brother."

I smirked at her. "I know, Imogen. The death of an angel at the hands of a believer is one of the Lucifer seals but letting you kill my friend…the first friend I've ever had in my life…I wouldn't want to live in a world where destiny overrules the passion humans have in their hearts." I twisted the blade and drove it in further until her body dropped to the ground.

The blood that spilt forth from the wound was black, it covered the blade and my hands, burning into my flesh.

"Do you have any idea what you've done?" Michael scowled,

I watched in a mixture of fascination and horror as the blood was absorbed into my skin, a series of lines and swirls appeared on the inside of my arm. It was some kind of Enochian-twisted and dark-I couldn't read it but I knew it was a brand of some kind. "Well, if that's the kind of thanks I get for helping heaven then next time you can sit on it and rotate."

"Tess you don't understand," Michael frowned, crossing over to me. "The language you have branded on your arm and on your soul is words from Hell's Bible. It brands you as a worthy bride of Lucifer. You killed one of his-his most loyal."

I snorted. "Yeah right. And Talia is the Stay Puff Fresh Marshmellow Man." I cleaned the knife on my jeans and shoved it back in my bag, "if anyone's looking for me I'm going to find the nearest bar and get shitfaced, find a pretty guy or pretty girl-both if it takes my fancy-and be really naughty."

A smile crept onto my face at the thought of Bride of Lucifer making a kick ass tattoo…it was all I could do to not think about Talia and my twice-betrayal. I really needed a drink.