Aline stood out on the balcony, gazing out to sea. The sun sparked on the water, a dazzling display of light. The sea had always fascinated her. It was beautiful, and she loved it. But at the same time, she feared it. Not that anyone would ever know. That would give her reputation hell. Aline the ruthless government hunter, scared of the sea. She would never hear the end of it. Nope, best that nobody knew.

"Hey." Sher joined her, leaning on the railing of the balcony. "How is he?" he asked. She didn't need to ask to know he was talking about Nelo.

"Awake, if that's what you mean. At least, he was a while ago. I think he's resting now."

Sher nodded. "Whatever happened to him back on that island, probably took a lot outta him."

"You think?" her voice was laden with sarcasm.

"I do think." Sher's answer was equally sarcastic.

They chuckled together, as if on cue. It was nice to have someone with your same wry sense of humor working with you. It made the job less... serious, at least. She sighed, a sigh that was a mixture of contentment and exhaustion. She hadn't slept since the job yesterday- too busy taking care of what she liked to call her 'paperwork'. In reality, it was spending hours on the phone trying to convince her 'boss' to get her more blue orbs. Though he wasn't really her boss. Just the guy she pestered for more orbs.

"So," she began. "any luck identifying the artefacts we found?" her tone was all professional now.

"Yeah, some." Sher answered smugly. She could tell he was glad she had asked- he enjoyed anything mechanical, and anything to do with demonic artefacts. And his ego enjoyed other people taking an interest.

"Most of them are just petty little curses, y'know." he told her. "Like, a curse to cause a cold, et cetera. But some of them are really powerful- like one that causes the wearer to be subject to natural disasters."

Aline whistled lowly. Now that was definitely dangerous. Good thing they had gotten there first, instead of some mindless tourist with a hankering for antiques.

"Anything of use to us?" It was important to know.

"Yup." Sher grinned broadly, pride practically oozing from his smile. "We managed to hook us a charm against the cold, and another for protection- really powerful."

"Great."

"But Aline, one thing." he looked puzzled. "The guy we found- I tried to identify his sword, see if it was some sort of artefact- 'cause it's not every day ya see a sword like that, and I was kinda bored-"

"Get to the point already." she sighed.

"Well- it's a demonic artefact of some sort, but... I have no idea what kind. It's like the thing doesn't want me to identify it."

"Weird." she noted.

"Weird doesn't begin to describe it." Sher huffed. Aline smirked slightly, careful to hide it from Sher. That must have ben quite frustrating for him.

"Hey, Aline. You remember how we met?" ...And now for something completely different.

"...yeah." she shrugged. "Not like it's something I'd forget all that quickly." she stared out to sea again. The sun was setting, almost seeming to touch the water...

—

The young brunette swiped a sweater up from its usual place on the back of a chair. Hastily unhooking a set of keys from a peg on the wall, she turned and addressed her mother.

"Me voy a pasear, vale, mama? Volveré más tarde."

"Cuidate, eh? Que hay bandas de niños muy malos por las noches. Y vuelve pronto." Be careful, don't be out too late, et cetera. How many times had she heard that before?

The girl rolled her eyes. "Si, mama." she sighed.

She exited her house, shutting the door perhaps a little harder than she should have. More and more lately she had found herself preferring to be outside, alone... she found the atmosphere at home oppressive, almost. A lot of people would say this was only natural for a girl of her tender age, fifteen. Natural for them to seek adventure. Bullshit. At least in her case. She wandered around more and more lately because of the uneasy feeling that she was missing something, that something was not quite right. Like, some small detail of life and the world that she had somehow let slip by unnoticed. It bugged her.

She was walking down a relatively (or completely) deserted street now. The wind tugged playfully at the hem and sleeves of her coat, and at her hair, pulling stray locks away from behind her ears. Absently, she put the hair back in its place.

Then she stopped.

The feeling of something not being quite right had intensified to the point it was almost palpable The air was so thick with the not quite right feeling, it was almost like a mist. Or a fog, even.

"Joder!" she swore to herself, stamping her foot on the ground and knowing how childish it looked. She took a deep breath, because for some reason she was completely unnerved.

And then it had happened. The something that put everything back into place for her. Now, some people- most people- would have thought that would be the perfect guy walking into her life, and it would be love at first sight, and... not a chance. Instead, what she got was a low growl from somewhere above her. She jerked her head upward and saw...

Well, she wasn't quite sure what it was she saw. For the simple reason that she had never seen anything like it in her life. It was a sort of... monster... a skeletal form, half concealed by a ragged cloak. It was standing on the roof of the building, almost directly above her, a cruel-looking scythe in its hands- if the bony appendages could be called hands. Its eyes glowed a malevolent red... and were fixed on her.

Unable to do anything due to the fear that had wrapped its iron fist around her so suddenly, she merely stared up at the creature, praying to anything, anything at all, that it wasn't looking at her. But whatever small hope she had of that crumbled like so much dust, as the creature sprang off the roof, landing directly in front of her. She uttered a small squeak of fright now, and tried to turn to run away, but somehow her legs didn't want to obey, and she fell heavily onto the ground.

Shit! It was walking towards her, placing one gnarled foot slowly, deliberately, in front of the other.

Oh, no.

It was going to kill her, she realized. It was going to kill her, her life was going to end with its scythe in her chest, she was going to die and there was nothing she could do...

A shot rang out, rolling off the walls of the buildings and echoing back and forth between the houses.

"Heeeey!"

The creature, prey momentarily forgotten, turned its head away to look at this new and unwanted distraction. It came in the form of a man with brown hair, wearing jeans, boots, a leather coat and, most noticeably, several belts carrying things that looked suspiciously like ammo and grenades, standing at the opposite end of the street. In his hand he carried a gun.

To her surprise, the creature-who at that point was practically standing over her- began to turn around, dragging its feet in the man's direction. And what the heck-? The man was waving. With one arm he was gesturing violently sideways and down. He was telling her do get down, to get away, she realized.

Well, that was encouraging.

She hurriedly ducked behind the nearest thing she could find- a tree. Okay, so not the most effective of shields, but it would have to do for the moment. And not a moment too soon. As the man strode towards the creature, there was another loud bang, and a howl of rage from the monster. Moving faster than she would have thought possible, it dashed over to the man. He fired a couple more shots, then- in the nick of time- ducked to avoid being sliced neatly in two by the thing's scythe. However, he moved too slowly to completely dodge the next swipe. The pole of the scythe caught him on the elbow, causing the gun to spin out of his grasp. He didn't have time to reach for anything else. The monster lifted his scythe for the blow that would surely be the finishing one, and...

Bang.

For a moment nothing moved. Then, with something like a sigh, the strange creature dissolved into a small heap of sand.

The girl lay sprawled on the floor for the second time in as many minutes, eyes shut tightly, knocked back by the recoil from the gun that was still clutched in her hands. She opened her eyes slowly to find the man standing above her, hand extended. Ignoring the had, che righted herself on her own.

"Qué demonios era eso?" she demanded, gesturing wildly.

"Em- sorry- I don't understand Spanish." the man responded in as mild a tone as he could- which is generally a good idea when someone happens to be waving your gun erratically around.

"I said 'what the hell was that?'." she switched immediately to a clipped English with no trace of an accent.

So, you speak English. Good." he looked pleased. "Now, will you please give me back my gun?"

"Not before you tell me what that was."

He sighed, turning his eyes heavenwards.

"A demon obviously." his tone was nonchalant.

"You're kidding." Well, at least a step up from the usual 'A what?' he got from most people, he thought privately.

"No joke, girl." he held out his hand expectantly. Instead, she asked another question.

"So that would make you a...?"

"Hunter, of course. Now, can I please have my gun back?" he fought to keep the irritation from his voice. The girl tilted her head to one side.

"Just one more question."

"Fine, shoot." he said, exasperated.

"How do I join?"

—

Aline chuckled.

"I also remember you laughed at me when I asked to join... until I pointed out I had just killed my first demon anyway."

"Yeah, still..." Sher waved that away. "I remember you laughed at my name."

"Well, what was I supposed to do? Not like it's the least effeminate of names out there."

"And that's suddenly my fault?" he protested.

"Aww, is poor Sher upset about his name?" she mocked, punching him lightly on the arm. He took a swipe back at her, which she evaded with ease.

"Yeah... I'm so upset about my name I think I'll go cry in a corner... and shoot anyone who comments on it." Aline knew he wasn't kidding. It had happened more than once- the shooting, anyway. Not the crying in a corner.

She stretched, perhaps a little ostentatiously.

"Well, I'm wiped out. See you in the morning, or whatever."

"Yeah." Sher nodded. "Oh, by the by. The sword also had some demonic inscription on it. Ya might wanna ask the guy-"

"Nelo."

"Yeah, him- anyways, ya might wanna ask him if he knows what it says, I don't know enough to translate."

"Looks like our guest is getting more interesting by the minute, huh?"

"What, ya like him?"

"No!" she laughed and punched him on the arm again- harder this time.

"Ow, hey! I was just asking!" he grinned broadly.

"Tough. And keep your speculations to yourself." and with that, she marched back indoors, trailing amused indignation with every step.