"Caleb wants to kill her!"

"I know."

"But I mean Caleb! Reid I would understand, even you, or me, but Caleb?"

"Tyler. Calm down."

"I can't calm down! My best friend wants Maddie dead!"

"I know!" Pogue screamed. Tyler had been freaking out and repeating the same thing over and over for the past hour. They were in his truck, driving around, desperately trying to find either Caleb, Chase, or Maddie. So far, no luck. And Pogue was getting irritated at Tyler's stubbornness when it came to this wild goose chase.

"You think I don't realize how bad this is?" He continued. "I'm the one stuck in the fucking middle and at the moment I feel like I'm the one that's the most sane! Were all divided, and all equally screwed because of this and this fucking girl! One of us wants her dead, one of us is madly, blindly almost stupidly in love with her, the other is suffering from post-ascension shock and can't move and probably wont be able to for at least another day, and the last, me, is stuck in the middle! This is the end of the world, Tyler! Doomsday, the apocalypse, the end of everything we fucking know! There are very little ways that this can end, and neither of them are very good and have a nice, pleasant, happy ending for an outcome!"

Tyler stayed silent.

"Sorry." He mumbled. Pogue smiled weakly.

"Don't worry about it." His face suddenly lit up and he rummaged through his pockets. "Caleb gave me this. It's the diary of his ancestor, the one that killed Maddie. There might be something useful in here…"

Tyler nodded, and Pogue put the small leather-bound book back in his pocket.

They kept driving for another half hour before Pogue spotted something on the side of the road.

"Hey. Isn't that your girlfriend. Clea?"

Tyler peered through the windshield and stopped the car abruptly. It was Clea, still in her dress, sitting on a bench by the side of the road, staring at the cars whooshing past. Tyler hopped out of the car, followed by Pogue, and approached her cautiously.

"Clea?"

She looked up at him, a look of surprise on her face.

"I'm really sorry I abandoned you like that at the formal, I just had this stuff to do and…"

"Don't worry about it." She said sweetly. "I forgive you. Would you mind giving me a ride back to campus?"

"Of course not, c'mon."

He watched her stand up, and walk past him slowly and get into his car on the passenger's side. Pogue, who was sitting there originally, frowned but didn't say anything and got into the backseat.

The truck zoomed towards Spencer academy, the three people inside completely quiet. Tyler was concentrating a little too hard on the road, Clea was staring out the window into nothing, and Pogue was looking at both of them.

"So Clea." He started casually. "What were you doing out here all alone?"

Clea glanced back at him and Tyler sighed with relief, thankful his friend had asked the question that had been bugging him.

"Oh, well, I got a ride with some people, except the car broke down so we all stopped there. We all started walking eventually, I must have gotten lost and separated from the group."

"That sucks." Pogue said. He examined her carefully. "Nice coat."

Tyler glanced over at Clea and choked. She was wearing a black coat over her cream coloured dress, a black coat that looked familiar to him. Primarily because in the pocket of the coat a black leather glove was sticking out, a glove that he recognized because he had been wearing it a while back and remembered the hole at the summit of one of the fingers. And also because hours ago a girl that he had been a jerk to had grabbed that coat from her closet and stormed out of her dorm. And he hadn't seen her since.

"That's Maddie's coat."

"Huh?" Clea looked at him, puzzled.

"That's Maddie's coat. The one you're wearing. She was wearing it a few hours ago, then she disappeared." Tyler stopped the car in the middle of the road.

"No its not." Clea said. "It's a black coat, lots of people have black coats. Its mine, I bought it a month ago."

Tyler reached over into her pocket and pulled out the gloves that were in there.

"Maddie leant me these gloves a few weeks ago." He said, waving them in her face. "I know these are the ones because there's the hole here," he pointed to it, "And I spilt some green paint on it, here." He showed her the stain, right at the wrist. "What are you doing wearing Maddie's coat?"

Clea looked over at him, than at Pogue, a panicked expression on her face. Her gaze flashed from one to the other, until she undid her seatbelt quickly and darted out the door.

"Clea!"

The two sons of Ipswich rushed out the car and ran behind her. She managed to run quite far, until the headlights of the car were little glowing dots in the distance, before they caught up to her and grabbed her.

"Who are you?"

Pogue had grabbed her by the wrist and was holding her slim frame high, so her panicked face was right in front of his. Tyler was behind him, watching the whole scene with shock in his eyes. When Clea didn't answer Pogue's question, he repeated it louder, crushing her wrist in the process.

"Who are you?" he growled. Clea yelped in pain. She looked up at him with her big pleading green eyes. When he didn't budge, she changed tactics. The green flashed to black for barely a moment and Pogue dropped her in shock.

Clea landed on her feet and made a dash for the road. Not fast enough however, because Tyler had used his power to stop her dead in her tracks before she could reach it. He slowly dragged her back to where he and Pogue were standing.

"Who are you?" Tyler asked this time.

"Don't bother. He's not going to answer." Pogue said grimly. Tyler looked at him, puzzled.

"He?"

Clea started to cackle. But her voice had changed, it was now a low, manly growl that emanated from her voice rather than the sweet feminine tone that she spoke in before. Tyler released her from the spell, and took a step back.

"Funny, I always thought that pretty boy here was the dumb one out of all of you."

Pogue balled his hands into fists.

"But hey, I was wrong. He's the only one that figured it out. Proud of yourself, Pogue?"

Clea stood up, wiping the dirt and grass off her dress. She looked at Tyler.

"And baby boy, I never knew you swung that way. You were all over me! Pogue, did you know your buddy here is gay-"

Tyler, who still wasn't quite sure what was going on but knew that whover Clea really was deserved it, took a step forward and gave Clea a sharp left hook in the side of the jaw. She was flung back a few feet, and landed on her back on the ground. But she was up moments later.

"Jeez, Tyler. That's two girl's you've hit today. You should really stop that…"

"Cut the crap." Pogue said, menacingly. "We know who you are."

"Correction. You know who I am."

"Chase, stop it!" Pogue yelled. Tyler froze.

"Chase?"

"The one and only." She said with a smirk. She bowed clumsily, then, in a puff of smoke reminiscent of the old cheap horror movies, disappeared, only to be replaced by Chase.

But it wasn't the old Chase.

It was an old Chase, for sure, but not the one that Pogue and Tyler were familiar with.

The last time they had seen Chase he looked like any normal eighteen year old, with dark blonde hair and an athletic body. Now, he looked at least fifty. The dark blonde shade of his hair had almost disappeared, leaving room for a lot of grey and white speckled across the top of his head. His eyes had kept their youthful glow, but they were wrinkled at the sides, and dark bags were very noticeable. His skin was beginning to age, wrinkling especially around his mouth and hands, who had the same claw-like aspect as Caleb's. When he noticed Tyler and Pogue staring, he laughed.

"Surprise!" he said. "I'm surprised none of you noticed sooner… Clea Nischols, Chase Collins…" He turned his attention to his hands. "I hear that this little affliction has been causing trouble to our buddy Caleb, huh? And its all because of that cute little blondie that I just recently met…"

"You lay a finger on her and I'm going to-"

"To what, Tyler m'boy?" He smirked at them both. "Hurt me? Kill me? You don't have the power or the guts. And besides, why do you want to save her so bad - and don't give me the bullshit about how you love her. You clearly don't, you abandoned her for me with breasts. All you do is hurt her, didn't you notice the nasty bruise you gave her?"

"Shut up, Chase." Pogue said, stopping Tyler from attacking him. "You don't have any reason to hurt her. And dressing up as a girl? That's lame."

"Well, it worked, I've got exactly what I want. This lovely lady is a dream come true, you see? I keep her alive, all of you age and wither away… I threaten to kill her, baby boy wills me his power. If he doesn't, I wait a while and see how he likes aging abnormally once all his friends are old and withered and six feet under."

"Chase-"

"You want to fight, Ty? Well good luck, we all know you're too weak… and none of your friends can help you. Hell, the only person that can help you right now is God and he isn't too fond of you…"

And before the two boys had time to blink he had disappeared. No smoke, no evil cackle, no sarcasm, he had just vanished.

"Tyler. Maybe we should go check out the church. He said something about God and…"

Before he could finish Tyler was dashing towards the specks of light that marked the position of his car. Pogue sighed, and started running after him.

The sons of Ipswich were never the religious types. So being in the town's only church was a different experience than their usual escapades.

The inside of the building proved that the faith of the citizens of Ipswich was enormous. So enormous that they went to incredible lengths to preserve that faith in god as intact. The church must have received a few couple million dollars in donations in the past few years to make the nessecary decorations.

The walls were made of a deep, dark stone, each block individually engraved with various religious scenes or icons. Included was the crucifiction, the virgin mary, st john the baptist, and alot more, enough to cover all the walls between the stained glass.

There were ten of said stained glass windows. four on each wall, one above the front door and one huge one that composed the ceiling and skylight, an exact reproduction of the sistine chapel's painting entirely made of fused and dyed glass. The eight on the walls were stages of Jesus' life, and the smaller one above the ornate door was simply the lord welcoming visitors into his church with open arms.

There were one hundred rows of pews. The aisle down the middle was covered in a deep red carpet. The altar at the front rested in front of a huge sculpted cross with a bronze man attached. There was an altar covered in candles on the right wall.

Pogue and Tyler spent a second admiring the church from the inside. The ceiling, the walls, the cross. And then they remembered why they were here. But no one was in the church else than them.

"He could be hiding." Pogue said, unconviced.

"This is useless!" Tyler kicked a pew with his foot and a surge of power, makinag a huge dent in the wood. "Why the hell isn't he here? he told us to come here!"

"Dont you see?" Pogue started bitterly. "He was just distracting us, so we dont try to find him and instead just blindly follow the clues he gives us. He thinks were stupid and we are because we just walked into his trap. Maddie is probably dead by now."

"No she isnt." Tyler said through gritted teeth. "He doesnt just want her dead he wants us to see her die. So he hasnt killed her yet."

"Lets get real here. Either way, she's scrwewed. He's most likely torturing her right now to cause us more pain."

There was a moment of painful silence. Pogue broke it by approaching the altar and lighting a single white candle with his lighter. He then clumsily placed his hands together in a form of silent prayer.

"What the hell are you doing?"

"Lighting a candle. And praying for Maddie. She needs all the help she can get."

Alrighty, so the deal is a while back i felt 'inspired', perse, for the end of the story, so i wrote it in advance. and now i've caught up to the part of the story thats prewritten, so i have twenty-something pages of already written story. So the updates are going to be super quick, mostly because i'm trying to finish this story before i leave for the summer holidays the 28th (maybe its a bit over-zealous of me, but we'll see.)

Oh. and the past few chapters are sortof dedicated to drica-chan, for guessing everything. Clever little thing, arent you?