Young Writers Society

Everything happened too quickly for Edward to really comprehend it - he had prided himself on good, fast instincts thanks to his time working for Schadel, but he hadn't been prepared for the sudden cold or the reactions of both the man and Kratzer.

Now all he could do was stare at him.

In retrospect, the man didn't actually look that old. He looked as old as Edward would forever look - on the cusp between being a teenager and adulthood. And he seemed so scared. He glanced over at Claire. She was watching him with the same look as Edward had been only seconds before, worry in her dark eyes.

"We need to calm him down-"

"We should make him less scared-"

Claire and Edward both stopped when they realized the other was talking. It seemed like they both had the same idea. Before Edward could begin to reassure the boy before them that things would be alright, Claire suddenly started to take off Edward's hoodie and denim jacket.

"What are you doing?" Edward said.

"Stealing your hood," she replied, jerking the last sleeve free from his arm. The denim jacket was returned to his lap, while the hoodie was promptly slipped on. She pulled up the hood so her face wasn't as easily visible. Claire was smaller than him; the hoodie swallowed her up.

"Sorry for accidentally possessing you," she apologized, turning back to the stranger. "I don't know how I did it, and I didn't know how to get out. You should be okay, though - he says he's been a medic before, so your leg should be better in no time."

She gestured at herself. "I'm Claire. Edward's the one I just stole the hoodie from, and Kratzer's the guy with the accent."

As the ghosts spoke, Kratzer shrugged off his shirt entirely and ripped another strip off it, tying it around the kid's leg above the wound as a tourniquet to slow the bleeding. He wasn't too concerned; with regeneration like he was certain to have, he'd be fine given a little time.

"Wh-wh-what--"

"Stop talking and listen," Kratzer interjected as he bundled up his shirt and pressed it to the wound, the smaller piece of fabric already soaked. "I don't know vhat suspicions you've had about the supernatural, but just to be very clear, they're ghosts, not...vhatever else you might assume. There was a slip-up and then accidentally possessed de vrong people."

The boy's eyes widened and Kratzer heard his heart rate pick up.

Damn it.

"Hey, hey, breathe, kid, it'll be fine. None of us are goin' to hurt you, buddy. Just...hold tight and chill and ve'll fix this. Okay?"

The demon boy nodded wordlessly before Kratzer turned, once again, to the two ghosts. How the hell were they going to "fix this"?

"Don't look at me," Claire said in response to the look. She folded her arms and plopped down on the ground. "I don't even know how we got here. I was just painting when I suddenly ended up in him."

"I was watching Sanders Sides," Edward replied. "Then I ended up in Kratzer's-"

He faltered, remembering that there was a very, very scared boy a few feet away from him. Mentioning that someone was Kratzer's target would bring all sorts of images to mind, and he knew the boy was terrified as it was. He'd have to be careful with what words he chose.

"-friend from work," he finished. He shifted and sat down beside Claire. "There has to be some kind of explanation."

"Maybe there isn't," Claire said, resting her head in hands and propping her shoulders on her knees.

He gave her a look.

"The forest didn't have an explanation," she elaborated. "Not one that you knew about, anyways. You and Schadel were just minding your own business when you ended up there with a bunch of other kids from worlds and realities that aren't ours."

Kratzer sighed, running his fingers through his hair. "Vell, ve can't exactly just keep him here." He glanced over at the demon. Maybe if he could figure out where he was from, he could patch him up and bring him back and scare him into not saying anything. Even if someone did catch wind of this...what were the odds of them actually catching him? He couldn't exactly just kill the kid. "Vhat's your name, kid?"

"C-c-c-corn-nyx," he stuttered. "B-Blackthorne."

Cornyx Blackthorne.

"The boy's been dealt with," her words rang in his ears, emerald gaze boring into his. "Don't speak of it. If the Paladins were to catch word..."

"Ja, ma'm," he dipped his head, the mask over his face barely cloaking the concern etched across his countenance...

..."Cornyx Blackthorne," Viper was saying. "That's all I know. He's on Earth. The literal incarnation of Wrath...can you imagine...."

..."He's the crown prince of Hell," Diamond pointed out with a shake of her head. "We'd all better cross our fingers that he's a decent guy or we're all f***ed."

"Verdammt!" he growled, throwing his arms in the air in frustration. "Wirk-fickin'-lich?!" (For f***in' real?!) The son of Sathanus...if anyone found out Kratzer had had involvement...if Boomslang did. A long, vehement string of colorful German terms followed as his mind raced for a solution. Should he kill him? Bring him to Boomslang? To Sathanus? To the Paladins? The Guild? The Order? Let him go back home and hope no one heard of this encounter? No matter what he did, his life was on the line.

Edward and Claire exchanged a look as Kratzer started swearing. Even though it didn't seem like Cornyx knew who he was, Kratzer apparently knew who Cornyx was. And it didn't seem to be a good thing - he was swearing, though the words were lost on Edward.

"Kratzer," he whispered, keeping his voice calm and low, "you're going to scare him more."

"Edvard," his voice dropped and he leaned in close to the ghost, "that boy is the son of Sathanus. Do you know how many people will want my head if they find out about this? Every single faction on this vorld vants him. Every vone. That's not even mentioning Boomslang, vho..." he shook his head. "I'm ficked. He probably is, too."

"Kratzer," Edward said, "I don't even know who Sathanus is."

The name sounded almost like Satan, so he had his theories. Cornyx's importance helped support them, but he wasn't going to jump to assumptions in a world he barely understood.

"But me knowing him doesn't matter," he said. His voice somehow became even softer than before. "He's terrified right now, Kratzer. He didn't ask for this, and we're just going to scare him even more by letting ourselves get too worried."

"Vhat do you suggest ve do?" he asked, glancing at Cornyx, who was exceedingly pale. "Ve can't exactly bring him to a hospital or just drop him off back vherever he came from like this. If ve keep him vis us, we're going to get a helluva lot of trouble on our asses, and I don't know how much of a threat that'll pose to you. Lord knows if Boomslang knew of your existence ve'd be ficked. He should be scared. Hell, it might even help him out at zis point--means he can defend himself, no matter how human he zinks he is."

"I'm not worried about Boomslang," Edward said. Being a ghost gave him a certain lack of worry, and being close friends with a grim reaper - even though she wasn't there with him - gave him even less fear of powerful supernatural figures. "We need to break this to him gently. He might know what we should do, but we can't afford to scare him - it might make him more defensive, but he might not trust us and we won't be able to help him then."

"You're doing a great job with the trust part," Claire helpfully added in. "All of the ominous whispering a few feet away from him must be doing wonders for his mental state."

"Ja, vell, I'm still alive, and so is he," Kratzer pointed out to Edward. Claire had a point, although he wasn't exactly sure what to do. He'd just shot the guy for god's sake. "So far I'm still not hearing suggestions," he pointed out to the other ghost, glancing back at Cornyx. "Vhat am I supposed to tell him? 'Oh, by ze vay, you're a demon and I'm a vampire and zese all are ghosts, don't vorry, ve'll avoid the multitudes of demons and angels and supernatural assassins and mercenaries and bounty hunters zat'll come after us ze moment zey hear about your existence.'"

"Yes," Claire replied. She didn't even skip a beat. "You can't lie to him. I'm just as clueless as Edward is about your world, but I do know how people work - if you don't tell him now, it's going to bite you in the butt later."

Kratzer stared at her for several moments. Seriously? This is how she wanted to play it? A long sigh left the vampire's lips and he looked up at the ceiling. "Vhy me?" he asked the air, half-shaking his head as he strode back over to Cornyx and knelt beside hi. He was a hitman, damn it, not a babysitter or...whatever.

"Hey, kid, this is going to sound crazy, but I need you to hear me out, ja?" he said, and the demon regarded him with a wary gaze. He didn't object, however, only dipped his head in a silent and nervous affirmative.

"Okay. I don't know your history but I'm going to hazard a guess that vierd scheisse has been happening for most of vhat you can remember. Strange coincidence. Things that shouldn't have been possible. Being different, nein?"

Silence from the lad as he watched him in complete and utter quiet. Alright, well, he was just going to take that as a yes and bite the bullet.

"Vell. Ah...that's because you are. To give you an idea, he's a ghost, she's a ghost, I'm a vampire, and you, kid, are a demon."


This was crazy. It was all completely nuts. Cornyx would consider himself a religious man but that didn't exactly extend to this sort of extent. Ghosts? A vampire? Him, a demon? What in the hell did this man think he was doing?

The demon's eyes narrowed as he studied the scarred German who seemed entirely serious. He'd seen a lot of crazy in his life but this was just off the rails. This man didn't belong in prison--he belonged in a mental hospital.

Not that it mattered, because he had a gun, and Cornyx didn't.

"Pl-please, just let me go," he said, and Kratzer rose, turning pointedly to Claire and Edward.

"Case in point!" he said, gesturing to the demon. "It doesn't vork! It never vorks! Does anyone else vant to give zis a try or can we just move on to vhat ve're going to do vis all of this?"

Claire was silent for a minute.

"It's a start," she said. "You're terrible at convincing people, by the way."

She walked over to Cornyx and knelt down beside him. Edward tried to read her face as she moved into a sitting position, but it was still hidden within the depths of the hoodie she had stolen from him.

"Hi," she said. Her voice was gentle - he had heard her use the tone before, but it was rarely one she used with strangers. "I'm sorry about possessing you earlier. It was an accident; I don't even know how I got there."

She shifted a little.

"I know it's hard to believe what we're saying, but I know how to prove it," she continued on. Edward was already starting to figure out what she was planning on doing - when she unfurled the sleeve of the hoodie and held out her notably burned hand to him, Edward knew he had been right. "If you try to touch my hand, you'll go right through it."

"Ja, vell, it's my job to kill people, not convince them," he mumbled under his breath but didn't fight it as he went to stand next to Edward and let Claire handle the kid.

The kid in question stared at Claire for a moment before reaching out a shaky hand and touching his fingers to hers.

Touching his fingers to what looked like hers but was actually air.

His eyes widened and he scrambled back in surprise. His leg buckled under him as he tried to get to his feet and he hit the ground again. His breath was cloudy in the air. It was cold. Dreadfully cold, like the early morning of winter when the frost was coming in for the first time.

Ghost. Ghost. She was a ghost. She was a ghost. She was dead. He could go through her.

Jesus Christ, he was unprepared for this. He could handle violent. He could even handle crazy. But dead? No. No. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. He wasn't fool enough to believe it a dream and he wasn't stupid enough to think that it hadn't been real because he'd seen it and he'd felt it and so far at least three different psychologists had decided that he was damaged but sane and he couldn't just jump from fine to hallucinating in no time at all, so it had to be real.

He knew that there were things he couldn't explain. The cold, for one. The flickering lights. The blood. But this...this wasn't that. This was something else altogether. His fingers threaded around the cross that hung around his neck through the pale fabric of his shirt as he stared at her with a pounding heart and uneven breath.

"Y-y-you're a-a-a--" he stumbled over his words, silver flickering through his black eyes. "You're a ghost...A ghost. Okay. O-o-okay. Ghosts. Ghosts are a thing. Oh Lord. This is crazy. This is...this is just crazy. This...no. No. No, no, no, no. No. I am a person and he is a nutcase and you...you are dead. You're dead. I can handle that. But n-not...Not that. No. Just let me go. I-I-I don't know what you want with m-m-me now, but pl-please, I won't tell anyone, just let me go home. Just let me go home. Please."

Home. Where even were they? He was on parole, for God's sake, how long had he been gone? Was he out of the city? That was against the rules. Oh God, was he going to end up in prison again at the end of this?


The demon ceased to make sense about two sentences in, but Kratzer didn't interject, merely watched from the sidelines in silence.

Edward joined Claire at his side.

He had absolutely no idea what the best way to handle this situation was, but the first thing that came to mind was getting him to calm down. "Try taking a deep breath," he suggested. "Have you ever learned any breathing exercises before?"