Young Writers Society

(Hello, and welcome to *coco and I's story. It's fantasy/thriller, I suppose, and sort of Young Adult. We take themes from the "Demon's Lexicon", most vampire books (minus the dreaded "Twilight"), and several lovely other novels. Basically, we put our own spin on things--and by "things" I mean werewolves, vampires, magic, demons/devil spawn, and monsters. Epic right? Anyway, comments would be appreciated [I think], and, yeah, I'm writing Caleb's POV and *coco is writing Lucan's. Enjoy.
P.S. It's rated 16+ for language and potential violence and, yes, that does make it ironic I'm writing it, too. But, hey, I was introduced to LOST and Stephen King's works at a young age...)

///

PROLOGUE
CALEB




To say the least, I wasn’t the happiest person alive.

Sure, I cracked jokes with the rest of them and could figure out the games guys at bars watched pretty easily, but I knew I’d never have that perfect little life.

You know the life? The one with the white picket fence, golden retriever, two point five children, and a wife that cooked, cleaned, and cared for the kids because society frowned on them if they did anything else?

Well, to begin with, I never really wanted that life. (Okay, so when I was a kid I’d wanted that life so I could have the parent aspect of it, but don’t be so judgmental.) I also had a golden retriever, sort of. But I was pretty sure he was some mixed creature covered up with magic so he looked normal--I’d seen his eyes look like fire, anyway.

Oh, yeah, about that last thing. See, you know when your parents tell you there are no monsters under the bed, in your closet, etc.? Well, they’re lying to you. On top of that, you’re also probably not going to be famous either. You’re going to be average, like the rest of the world--you lucky buggers. Or unlucky, I guess. It depends on what you think lucky means.
I think I’ll align the word lucky with anathema--to the Greeks it meant gift of the gods and to the Hebrews it meant cursed. It’s all on how you look at it.

And, well, I don’t think I was that lucky, even if I’d never chose a normal life, not now. I mean, there’s freaking little magic buggers everywhere! I’d freak myself out wondering where they are all the time, because then I couldn’t see them.
Yeah, I can see magic. And I can see everything in between--the guardian angels everyone are always yapping about, demons, half-bred monsters, and everything else. It’s a problem of mine. I see right through the glamour holding their secret world together. I mean, otherwise you’d notice the half-wolf half-men stalking around, half stooped over (they look like hobos to you), the giant things I have yet to explain, the spiders, the pixies, etc.

And, yes, as you can imagine, my childhood was very disturbed (but we’ll get to that later). Basically, my parents died, my brother, Lucan, was sent to a foster home and I was probably almost sent to a mental hospital. Of course, I wasn’t and that’s probably an overstatement, but you should have seen the looks on my foster parents’ faces when I asked them why a funny lion with bat wings was lounging in the backyard’s hammock. And none of the kids had ever liked me much either. They were a nasty bunch of buggers, those kids.

Oh, and yeah, the thing (the wannabe Chimera) sort of killed someone in front of me, a few days later. It’s hard not to wake up screaming because you have night terrors about seeing someone eaten (swallowed whole, luckily--bloke didn’t feel a thing) and for no one to even notice.

That was probably the worst part, though, the fact no one noticed.

Now, well, a lot has changed.

You want to know more? Well, okay then, whoever you are...

Oh, right, and just let me mention the worst part--you know all that flack about werewolves and vampires? Yeah, they exist, too--sons and daughters of Lilith, maybe. They’re the worst of them all, most deadly. And they’re the most human, which makes it worse.

I’d say keep an eye out, but you can’t; since you can’t see them in the first place. I guess you’re not a partial monster then, like me, huh?

///

CHAPTER ONE

LUCAN MERCER

“According to the legends of the ancient days before history, the human realm and the supernatural realm were joined together as one world. Demons were free to roam the land as they pleased causing chaos, death and destruction in their wake. Some bred with humans, siring offspring that became known as half breeds. Part man, part demon. Devil-bloods. Monsters. Two among them took the name Lucan and Caleb Mercer. Both swore to deliver humanity from the tyranny of the devils, and the fury of their battle with the demons continues to shape our world today...”

The above was an extract from the diaries of Dr. Erasmus Crawford, a Demonologist and Professor at Longdale University. Ridiculed by his peers, the man spent his entire life writing about the existence of demons and the discovery that there lived among the human race, two half-breeds - half-demon, and half-man, who defended the human race from Satan’s cruelty.

Closing the diary, I leaned back on my chair and let out a sigh. I’d been reading Crawford’s journals for over a month now and his work continued to amaze me. Who would’ve thought that at least one human would end up actually getting something right for once? I mean, as far as getting his facts straight on the whole half-breed thing, Dr. Crawford really managed to hit the nail on the hammer. Heck, the guy even mentioned my brother and I by name. Too bad no one believed in his theories, though - or maybe it was a good thing they didn’t. In our line of work the last thing Caleb and I needed was publicity.

Being a half-demon was never easy for the two of us. The whole ‘being eternally damned’ thing as well as having Satan constantly trying to win our souls contributed to a life that sucked almost as much as those damn Twilight movies. We never really knew our dad. The little we did know was that he was a demon named Ramses, and that he split just before we were born. But growing up I remember sometimes seeing him in my dreams. In his human form he looked just like us, tall, dark eyes, strong features, lean build, but in his demonic form...he was something else...

Caleb and I didn’t know much about our human mom either. Apparently, she died giving birth to us. After that, social services split us up and put us in foster care where our part-demonic blood got us into constant trouble. Caleb had it the hardest though. While being devil-spawn for me brought with it anger/intimacy issues, regular painful demonic surges and insomnia – for Caleb it brought with it the ability to see other demonic spirits. Needless to say this ‘gift’ of his managed to get him into some pretty bad situations. I can still remember the day his foster parents nearly sent him to a mental asylum. Apparently he’d been yapping on about some lion-like animal with wings prancing around in the back-yard. The idiot. He never did know when to keep his mouth shut.

Luckily, I managed to stop them. I was twenty-three at the time and already out of community college earning some money as a low-level mechanic. I had a small apartment that I rented from my boss and decided to have Caleb move in with me. The place soon became our office, somewhere we’d base our supernatural business. You see, Caleb and I both knew that Satan was at war with us, we knew that he wasn’t going to stop until he’d kicked our asses back to hell with him just like he did with our dad, but instead of waving the white-flag we both decided to wage our own little war on him and his kind. Like Dr. Crawford said, Caleb and I made it our life’s ambition to protect the human race from the evil of the demons. We tracked their movements, performed exorcisms, and anything else that needed to be done to catch them and send them back to where they belonged. It was an occupation we’d get a kick out of doing. Heck, it was like sticking a middle finger up at Lucifer himself, and who wouldn’t love that?

It turned out that this business of ours (as unusual as it was) did surprisingly well. Within a month our reputation among the supernatural realm just sky-rocketed to the point where we were a topic of daily discussion, whether it was in the castles of the great vampire houses, the lairs of the witch’s tribes, or the underground tunnels of the werewolves. Even humans knew about us. They’d call us the ‘Demon brothers’, not because they knew we were demon-spawn, (heck, if the humans knew that then Caleb and I would be in some deep shit), it was because we were known to handle demons well. Once Caleb finally started pulling his weight around things got so good that we managed to save enough money to buy our own garage and get ourselves an even bigger office.

Deciding on this new building of ours was difficult, even with a top property agent by our side. We’d spent months looking for the ideal place until our search brought us to a small town just north of the city called Longdale. After doing some research on the area, I found out that the town had a long and disturbing history of demonic activity. The building we’d located for our new office was an old abandoned warehouse slap-bang in the middle of Longdale, with a huge ground floor and enough room upstairs for three large bedrooms as well as a large office space.

“What do you think, sir?” asked the middle-aged female property agent who was showing us around. She had a little too much make-up on and wore a silky blouse unbuttoned at the top with a pencil skirt that looked like it had been painted on. For some reason she was batting her eyelids at me the whole time. Strange. She obviously found young men with scruffy black hair, a three o’clock shadow and dark and dangerous eyes attractive.

To my credit, I pretended like I hadn’t noticed. “It depends on the price,” I responded, my voice normal - emotionless as always.

“Well, I’m sure we could come to some sort of agreement on that part,” she smiled suggestively.

Man, I figured all I needed to do was just use some bad-boy charm and the woman would be willing to hand this place over to me for free, but she wasn’t my type, I always preferred natural beauties. Plus I was never one to use my looks/charm to help me get what I wanted in life. That was always Caleb’s department.

“I don’t like this place,” cue my annoying little brother.

“Why not?” I asked him, shooting him a look. It was a look he knew very well.

“Because, Luc, on our way over here I saw no strip clubs. Not a single one!”
I rolled my eyes. Strip clubs to Caleb were like water to human beings. An essential necessity for survival.

“Well, Mr Mercer, that’s because there are no strip clubs around here for miles. As I’ve mentioned Longdale is a very small town with a very respectable community...” the agent explained.

Caleb glared at her like she’d just grown two heads or something.

“Well that sucks!” he concluded, finally.

“No strip clubs around for miles, huh?” A ghost of a smirk suddenly appeared across my face. This was perfect. No more having to haul Caleb’s drunk ass from the police station at crazy hours in the morning.

I immediately turned to face the agent and smiled. “We’ll take it.”

Three Weeks Later

I stepped out of my office and headed down to the garage noticing that the place seemed a little too quiet for my liking. Looking around, I spotted Caleb with his head down on the counter and had to fight the urge to kick the crap out of him.

“Caleb!” I shouted angrily, marching up to the slob. “This is the third time this week you’ve fallen asleep on the job!” When he didn’t move, I raised my right hand and clipped him on the back of his head.

That did the job. Caleb jolted awake as if struck by lightning. “Wha-” he winced in pain and rubbed at the spot. “I weren’t sleeping, I was just...thinking...”

I glared at him – very irritated. He was the only family I had left but man that didn’t stop me from sometimes wanting to run his damn body over with a truck.

“We haven’t got time for this,” I growled, picking out a pair of flash lights from the store shelf behind the counter. “I just got off the phone to Shang...”

Caleb’s face seemed to liven up at that. “Ah, our fellow half-breed cop friend...” he smiled, rubbing his hands together in excitement. “Does this mean he has a job for us? Another Amityville horror case, perhaps?”

“I hope not.” The last dad that gunned down his family claiming the 'devil told him to'...well, let's just say it didn’t end too well. “Apparently there was an attack last night at St. Jude’s college campus during a Halloween party,” I explained while pocketing some more necessities inside my jacket; syringes and a couple of ‘special’ knives. I figured we should be prepared for anything, partly because I had no idea what we'd find once we got to the crime scene.

“Interesting. Do they have any ideas who did it?” Caleb asked, walking towards me.

“No, that’s what they'd like us to try to find out. According to them, whatever killed those kids wasn’t human.”

“Well then...” Caleb smirked. “We’d better get going.”

An hour later, we arrived outside the crime scene. The entrance to St Jude’s campus was covered in yellow tape and flashing ambulance trucks surrounded the building.

“It’s looking good already...” Caleb commented, as we stepped out of their car.

“Quiet!” I hissed.

At that moment, a familiar young Asian man dressed in the crime scene uniform, came out to greet us. He looked only a few years older than us, in his mid-twenties, and had a large scar on the right-side of his face.

“Shang...” I acknowledged as he shook my hand.

“Evening, boys,” he nodded at us both with a friendly smile. “Glad you could make it. Please, follow me...”

“At first we thought this was a shootout, y’know, an angry ex-student who was probably kicked out once upon a time decided to come back for revenge...” Shang explained as he led us towards the back of an ambulance truck. “But then we saw this...” he pointed inside the vehicle. Caleb and I stepped inside to see a bloodied body in the uniform of a cop. The poor guy seemed to be writhing in pain while emergency staff tried their best to calm it down.

“Officer Dawson,” Shang introduced us. “He and a few other cops were hired for the night to make sure the party didn’t get too out of hand. Dawson was the only survivor of the killings. When he could, he crawled out of the building and dialled 911. We arrived at the scene to find him covered in blood and screaming in pain...”

“Where are the other bodies?” I asked.

“Still inside the building,” Shang responded. “We sent a small unit in a few minutes ago to swipe the whole place, but they could only go so far as checking the ground-floor entrance before they got spooked and ran out. Apparently they heard noises...”

Caleb scoffed. “Bunch of babies...”

My dark eyes narrowed in on him warningly. I turned back to Shang. “So, what does that mean? Are there more survivors left inside?”

Shang shrugged. “Either that or the killer is still in there somewhere...”

Caleb and I swapped an uncomfortable glance.

“That’s why you two are here,” Shang explained. “We want you to perform a quarantine operation inside the building. Retrieve the other bodies and, if possible, locate the killer.”

That would prove easier said than done but I nodded anyway. “First things first, we’re gonna have to take a proper look at the Officer’s body to try and assess the damage...see if we can determine what could’ve done this...”

“Sure,” said Shang, before ushering us into the truck.

CALEB




"So..." I say, rocking back and forth on my heels, "you'll examine the body?"

"We can both examine the body," Lucan responded dryly. "I said..."

I cut him off. "True, true, but if you were to do it alone then I could go run a perimeter," I suggest. Unfortunately, his "No" was pretty strong. And any possibility of me making a run for it was cut off when Lucan grabbed my arm and about hauled me into the back of the ambulance.

"Don't do that, you'll make me trip," I mutter in annoyance, but he didn't respond, and that didn't help my urge to pin Officer Dawson down so he'd stop thrashing around like a fish without air.

"Stop curling your lips, it's not his fault he's bleeding," Lucan growled at me, noting my expression, I guess.

I shrug my shoulders, not willing to apologize. "Blood creeps me out."

"One of the few things that does," Lucan muttered under his breath, before pushing me so I was facing the main EMT or whoever along with him. "We're specialists in animal mauling cases and..."

"This person was mauled?" one of the two ladies in the van about shrieked.

I covered my ears pointedly, but she didn't say sorry to me. But rarely ever did apologize to me.

I just glanced up at Lucan to see what he thought of this. His eyebrows were just sneaking up under his shaggy hair as he gave the lady an incredulous look. "Of course; can't you see the claw marks?" he asked. "I'm guessing some idiot brought in a cougar or a black bear, or maybe a large dog with big paws. Maybe for a dare or something like that." He shrugged his shoulders.

The lady looked downright pale at that news. It always amazed me what humans would believe--if only to keep their sanity. "Why would anyone...?" she began, whispering, before becoming too quiet for me to hear.

And now you're being quiet.

I about laughed, though; thinking her expression was just, like, funny--sort of like the constant screaming of the lead lady in the original War of the Worlds movie--but Lucan elbowed me in the gut before I could. His eyes were locked on the other woman in the van for some reason.

I coughed, trying to cover the fact it hurt. I shoot him a glare, but he doesn't even seem to notice. I frown and glance over at the other woman--she's younger, with a small chest, tiny waist, button nose, and tangled brown hair. She wasn't exactly anything special. And she wearing EMT clothes. I give him another look, confused.

"Just let us handle this, ma'am, we're just going to make certain what sort of animal we'll be dealing with then you can cart him off to the nearest hospital--or maybe our group's center," Lucan said smoothly, facing the easily-freaked woman again and ignoring me.

"And what is your...?" the lady started to ask.

"Ma'am, he's bleeding out on the table," Lucan said, speaking in metaphors once again. I never understood why he did that, or how common folk thought metaphors made sense. Well, he was sort of bleeding a lot, actually...but he wasn't on a table... I snap back into attention as he finishes. "...so we really need to see him. Could you maybe, you know, leave?"

"Sure," the lady said, scuttling away and stepping down out of the ambulance. The brunette girl glanced at Lucan in confusion and he waved her off, staring after her butt as she left. I jist grinned up at him, amused, and then made the mistake of going straight back to the job at hand. The Officer was thrashing, partially sedated perhaps but it didn't seem to be working well, and blood was flicking everywhere. My grin dropped off my face. I felt vaguely light-headed and, well, sick.

"Try to stay focused," Lucan hissed at me quietly. Says the guy with his first crush. "We can't blow our cover and I most certainly do not want you puking on my one pair of good shoes."

I just half-heartedly smirked, ignoring the latter comment; but I felt myself gag a little as the guy coughed up a bit of blood. Not that I didn't keep my everything-is-okay-game-face on. "Nasty..."

Lucan then punched me in the arm. "Act human, would you?" Obviously he didn't notice how freaked out I was. But that was good.

"But I'm not..."

He punched me again.

"Now they're giving us weird looks..." I complain, about whining as I move away from him.

He rolls his eyes. "I don't care. Just start looking at him already, would you? Or would you like another life gone because of us?"

I say nothing, just quickly move forward and start to peel back the guy's navy blue police shirt. I didn't want to think of that. Blood and death were my two weak points.

I tried to not focus on the blood, though; I pointedly just watched Shang out of the corner of my eye as he stepped up into the back of the ambulance and came to stand next to Lucan.

LUCAN MERCER




I watched as Caleb slowly peeled open the Officer’s shirt like he was scared the man’s guts would pour out or something.

“Just rip the damn thing off, Caleb, seriously, before I kick your ass!”

Caleb rolled his eyes and with one pull he finally managed to tear the shirt open. Immediately, the Officer’s body started to writhe more violently.

“Hold him down!” I told Caleb.

He wrestled to control the body while I reached for the inside of my jacket and pulled out a small syringe filled with bright blue liquid.

“What’s that?” asked Shang, looking a little concerned.

“A sedative,” I jammed the needle into the Officer’s wrist. A few seconds later, his body fell limp.

Caleb immediately let go, breathing hard like he’d just run a mile. “Man, that guy was strong!”

“I don’t remember sedatives being bright blue...” Shang commented pointedly.

“...A special kind of sedative,” I corrected myself. It was the one I'd normally use during exorcisms to calm the bodies of the possessed humans.

“I see...” Shang didn’t question me further which was what I expected. He and I had a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy when it came to my 'methods'.

Caleb pulled out his flashlight and began examining the Officer’s body. “Okayyy...” he started, “...let’s see what we've got here...”

I dumped the empty syringe and Shang and I started following Caleb’s gaze across the Officer’s bloodied torso. There were at least four slashes across the upper part of his chest. Thick streams of blood oozed out of each cut and they were so deep you could see the muscles, tissue and bone underneath.

“Ouch!” Caleb commented, stupidly.

I threw him a look. “A bit of an understatement, don’t you think?”

Caleb shrugged before returning his attention back to the body. “Y’know, call me crazy but maybe this was just an animal attack...” he concluded, looking up at me and Shang. “I mean, it could be possible, right?”

“No,” I said simply. I'd only suggested the officer was mauled to get the shit-scared EMT’s off our case. But, after standing over the body and looking at each slash with my own flashlight, I realised something. “These aren’t just random slashes. Look at how they’re positioned...”

Caleb lifted a brow in confusion before looking over the body the way I was. “What am I supposed to be seeing here exactly?” he asked, still confused.

Truthfully, I wasn’t sure myself. To me, the slashes seemed to roughly depict the shape of an upside down crucifix with what looked like a serpents tail coiled around it. Either that or my disturbed mind could be playing tricks on me. Wouldn't be the first time...

“So it’s definitely a supernatural case, then?” asked Shang.

I shrugged, my brows furrowed in contemplation. During some of the exorcisms I’d performed over the years I remembered how, in some cases, the demons that possessed a human would force its victims to self-harm themselves with different anti-Christian garb and scars similar to the one on the officer.

“Maybe he’s possessed,” offered Caleb, looking down at the officer. “Maybe he killed all those kids back there without even knowing he did it.”

I rubbed my jaw thoughtfully. It wasn’t a crazy suggestion, but then again it wouldn’t explain how he managed to call 911. If the officer was truly possessed the demon possessing him would prevent him from doing such a thing. “We’re gonna have to take him to our headquarters for further inspection," I told Shang. "I suggest you get the EMT’s over there while we start searching the campus...maybe get the rest of the bodies out...”

Shang nodded. “Shall I send in a team to assist you two inside?”

“No,” I said flatly. “It’s best we do this on our own.”

“Yeah, they’ll probably slow us down, anyway...” Caleb commented.

CALEB



"So, what are you thinking?" I ask Lucan, whispering of course, as we move away from the now-wailing ambulance. "And who exactly is going to fix up those slashes? I mean, we just told him to..."

"About what? And Shang will, of course, get him patched up before they dump him at the garage, nimrod," Lucan said, with a roll of his eyes.

I duck my head without thinking momentarily, and then look up at the school. "So, border run and then interior investigation?"

"Caleb, what were you asking about?"

"The pattern of the slashes," I mutter in defeat a moment later. I'd wanted to know, but I figured I was supposed to know already. It seemed like that happened a lot.

"I don't know," Lucan said and I glance up in surprise. His mouth was drawn into a scowl and his eyes were unusually dark.

"You don't know?"

"Don't be so surprised. I'm not bloody Gandhi."

"That makes no sense."

"I don't have to make sense. Now, you go left and I'll go right and we'll meet up at the back of the building. Oh, and here."

I take the brutal-looking, crooked dagger from Lucan as soon as he hands it out, sheath-covered blade facing himself. I run my fingers over the kinks in the metal, thinking about how much damage such a thing could do.

"Are your pockets like Mary Poppins's bag or something?" I question.

He just rolls his eyes and stalks off again.

I gulp and just put the dagger through a belt loop, before walking off myself, heading leftward towards the tangle of thorns and shrubbery that ran along the side of the old stone college. Wouldn't want to fall on that...

Not that I'm not used to pain.

But, you know, once again, I was wondering more so about why we didn't have guns. You'd think it would make it simpler or something. Of course, Lucan was the one who knew how to kill the critters best. I was good at brute force, but he knew lore--he was a walking Encyclopedia on the mythological and freak-of-nature, for freak's sake--so maybe I shouldn't wonder.

He knew best.

I just shake my head, not wanting to have that thought in my mind. Ugh.

I continue along on my border patrol, the sound of sirens fading behind me and the sound of walkie-talkies and officers' voices silencing. It makes me vaguely nervous, but I can't say why. I glance up at the dark windows, inlaid in the red brick, and look them over. Nothing moves; no one's there. I feel like I'm being watched, though, and the hairs on the back of my neck rise.

I pull the blade out of its sheath, tucking said sheath in my pants, and walk with fingers tightly coiled around the black handle.

I look up at the building once I'm roughly twenty feet down, then glance back at the bushes to my other side. Something just felt wrong. I couldn't explain...

Then there was a shadow, a whistle, and a thump--right in front of me.
And I'm pretty sure I screamed. Lovely.
Surefire way to get yourself noticed.

LUCAN MERCER



You only had to look at the structure of the campus, with its cathedral-like gothic stone walls and intricate stain glass windows, to know that it was a college for the upper-class kids of Longdale, those with parents that had ancestral connections to the town, lived in mansions, drove around in limousines and spent their days kissing the mayor’s ass and their nights hosting plush charity events.

I jumped over the ruined wrought-iron gates and easily landed on the ground on my two feet. Keeping my eyes and ears open for any sudden movements, I slowly followed the long line of shrubbery to the right-side of the building where I spotted a seriously damaged arched side entrance. Its thick oak doors lay battered on the ground and the entrance structure itself looked like it would crumble at any moment. Whatever the killer was, (or ‘killers’ as it was starting to look like) this was definitely used by them as a point of entrance.

With my guard still up I turned on my flashlight and stepped inside the building. The place was pitch black and eerily quiet. Black ash fell from the charred, holey ceiling above and the floors cracked under my boots. Using the flashlight to guide me, I cautiously followed a narrow hallway. Tattered banners hung from the ceiling walls and the many display cases were toppled over; the trophies, plaques, medals and certificates scattered across the floor. I carried on down the narrow hallway until I emerged into a circular room. With my flashlight I looked around and saw that I was in what looked like the campus lobby. Like the hallway, the place was bathed in darkness and the floor was covered in debris and dust. Two sets of double-doors stood at each end. The doors on the right were still intact but the doors on the left were hanging from their hinges.

Slowly unsheathing the twin blades strapped on my back and hidden under my jacket, I turned the flashlight off and switched my sight to aura vision – just one of the many tricks I was picking up from Dr. Erasmus Crawford’s diary on demonic powers. Instantly, my surroundings turned a bluish-grey. As my eyes fully adjusted, I slowly began to approach the damaged doors to the left. As I got closer, I could practically smell the stench of death and decay. It only got worse as I opened the door.

What I saw inside left me speechless, which is saying something considering I’ve been doing this sort of thing for over four years now. The grand hall that had once been the scene of a Halloween party looked more like the back of a butcher’s shop in a Freddy Krueger movie. Pools of blood covered the wooden floors along with footprints so long and large they couldn’t have belonged to a human. I followed a line of blood streak marked walls and floor which lead to a pile of dead bodies.

“Damn...” was the only thing I could come up with. The foul stench of dead human flesh was almost unbearable. I sheathed my blades and approached the bodies, kneeling down to examine them.

The corpses were completely mutilated to the point where I couldn’t tell which was male and which was female. If Caleb saw this, the poor bastard would probably pass out. Suddenly, the sound of loud gunshots and growling could be heard from another pair of doors leading off from the grand hall. Maybe it was Caleb. I quickly unsheathed my blades again and kicked down the doors with a single blow.

I had no idea how to react to what I saw next. Standing in the middle of four very pissed off looking werewolves was a hooded and extremely athletic female. After blowing off the heads off two of the werewolves she turned towards another one just in time to see it leap towards her. Holstering her guns she withdrew twin blades from inside her cloak and also leaped into the air, jamming her blades into the belly of the creature with animal-like ferocity making it roar in pain before collapsing dead onto the floor. The remaining werewolf charged towards her in anger throwing her into the air before grabbing her into a headlock and attempting to stab her with her own blades. Just as the werewolf pushed the blades further and further towards the girl's neck, she teleported on top of the werewolf's head and with her feet twisted the werewolf’s neck. There was a sickening crack before the final werewolf collapsed to the floor like a furry heap of waste. She grabbed her blades from the wolf's hands and stabbed them into its neck.

Once the werewolf took its last breath, the female stood up to reveal a young girl with pearly white skin, sharp cat-like green eyes, dark painted lips and long fiery red ringlets that bounced as she pushed back the hood of her black cloak. If it wasn't for the whole emo-look she had going on, I'd probably find her strangely attractive...

One thing was for certain, there was no way she was human.

“Impressive,” I said, looking at the pile of dead werewolves around her. I should've known that werewolves were responsible, from the little I'd read about I knew they liked to hunt humans for pleasure. Then again, the same could be said about vampires...

Her eyes snapped towards me, as if noticing me for the first time. She glared at me intensely, taking in my appearance with a look of anger and distrust.

“You smell of Demon,” she hissed. She had a thick Russian accent.

“And you smell of Vampire,” I responded as I approached closer towards her. “Question is what are you doing here?”

CALEB




Was it normal for your skin to make a sound like ripping paper? I wasn't sure. It was pretty certain that wasn't normal. But it wasn't normal for college girls to fall out of the sky and land like a sack of cabbages.
Going on instinct, I responded to the first, well, first. Unlike the average person.

I quickly stabbed out with the knife Lucan had given me, feeling half blind by how fast things were moving, and whoever hissed at me--baring long fangs.
Ah, a vampire.
Why did they always have to pop up at the worst times?

I shook my bloodied hand, glancing down at the nail marks on it, before turning my attention the the spectacle in front of me. There was a female vampire, black-haired and dark-eyed. Her clothes were ripped and covered with what had to be dried blood and her mouth was smeared with the same. I could only gulp. It was obvious she was wounded, though; maybe from the fall, or something else. The wounds were odd, though; one on her left thigh and another on her right shoulder blade. They looked infected, of all things. I could only stare as she continued her low hissing, hovering over her prey.

I backed up a bit, knife still in hand--disturbed on way too many levels, not just by the fact the girl, similar to the she-vamp in looks but actually dead, who was lying in a pool of her blood and who knows what else. I couldn't even tell if the fall was what killed her.

She hadn't screamed. She'd been dead before. Well, probably.

But, like I said, that hadn't been what bugged me. What bugged me was one small fact: I could hardly see her. I could see the dead girl and a woman, but the vampire traits were fading in and out of my vision. What the heck? I saw a spark and backed up a little farther, staring at her clothing.

Fire? How?

The vampire smiled coyly at me and then was gone. I wanted to curse. Loudly. But what good would that do? I did it quietly; a compromise with the smart half of my brain and my pissed off attitude.

I swallowed hard, shaking my hurt hand again as I finally started to recognize the pain, and moved the knife to my other hand. I glanced at the dead girl and just was glad that her eyes were closed. I walked over and kicked her, hard, anyway. She didn't respond, which made me hope she wasn't, well, a vampire. She didn't look it, but I was feeling blind about now. Things still seemed blurred around the edges. I took note of her cracked skull and decided to move on.

And then I heard the gunshots.

I tensed and glanced sideways at the building. It was coming from inside and none had left the building, as there was no sound of broken glass.

So, is it the coppers or the bad guys? Big question, that.

I just shook my head, hoping for things to sharpen up view-wise, and plodded along, faster. If I knew my brother, he was already in the midst of it all.
And he said I was prone to acting stupid.

We really should have gotten a pair of walkie-talkies. Who knows what he's done now?

I sigh and finally reach an entrance. I listen for more gunshots and just try the handle. "Shit!" I jerk back, hand warmer than it should be. Great. To top things off...

I growl and just back up, before kicking the door. The wood splinters and cracks, before giving out entirely--the doorway itself falling in with it. I meet the sight of a charred hallway.

"Well, this looks promising," I grumble, not caring if I'm talking to myself, and I enter the building; whipping out a flashlight and flicking it on.

There isn't much to see; a bunch of empty frames and a half-burnt rug is about all. I smell something foul, though.

Embers flicker as I move along trying to be as silent as possible in the echo-prone hallways. I hear a few more gunshots, then silence. Things flicker just out of sight, shadows too dark to be shadows, and I know something's very, very wrong here. A light flickers, a single one; pale as a candle-flame. I try to spot it, but it's gone. I frown.

My eyes widen slightly as I realize I hear voices; voices that just started up, too muddled to make sense of. I can tell one belongs to Lucan, though.

Please let him have found a live victim. I think hopefully, before switching off the flashlight and moving in deeper, following the sound like some bloody bat or whatever. I trip a few times, but manage to get close. I begin to make our what they're saying...

"Question is what are you doing here?" And that would be Lucan. But who was he...?

A sick smell hit my nose, like gasoline and lilies. "Of course I smell of vampire. I am one, moron. The real question of the matter is why the pitiful little humans sent you into the belly of the beast? Don't they know you're the devil's little pet?"

I glanced out from my hiding place. Werewolves, a few, laid sprawled--probably dead--and Lucan was facing the normal emo guy's idea of a perfect girl--red curls, sharp features, blue-tinted lips. She looked like a fox, half-starved; too smart for her one good and hungry.

I could only freeze and immediately began praying that Lucan knew what he was doing, and if he didn't, I'd have the bloody time to stab the murderess.
I couldn't help but wonder at the same time what exactly was going on here.
Nonetheless, I assumed dead people, a half-dead cop, a vanishing vampire, and my brother staring down a vixen of a deadly she-vamp all added up would not end well. And that was the understatement of the bloody millennium.

LUCAN MERCER



I switched off the aura vision and just raised my brow at the she-vamp's clever little insult. The devil’s little pet? Hardly. I would’ve responded with a come-back of my own but I had bigger things to worry about. Like what the heck was going on. “Just answer my question, vampire. What are you doing here?”

From the corner of my eye, I could see Caleb standing at the other end of the hall. A part of him looked like he’d just crapped in his pants out of fear. Another part of him looked like he was just waiting for the vamp to try something so he could attack her.

The she-vamp hissed at me. “That is none of your business, demon!”

I looked down at all the bloodied corpses on the floor in front of me and then looked back up at her again. “Innocent humans have just been massacred here, and you and your werewolf friends are standing right in the middle of it all,” my gaze turned cold. “I think you’ll find it is my business...”

The she-vamp glared at me. “I am not responsible for what happened here!” She practically spat those words. “Can’t you see? Morbeus and his Pack of werewolf scum are what killed your precious humans...”

Who the heck was Morbeus? I humoured her anyway. “What are you doing here, then? I find it hard to believe that your lot had nothing to do with this too. I only need to look at your face to see how hungry you are.” It was true, the veins around her eyes were blackening, popping out from under her skin, and her nostrils were flared. She was practically seething with blood-lust.

The she-vamp looked down at the pile of dead werewolves and smiled manically. “I am here to finish what my great ancestors began...the complete annihilation of Morbeus and his werewolf scum!”

I rolled my eyes. The age old Vampire/Werewolf feud was really starting to bore me...I guess this ‘Morbeus’ was probably the new leader of the werewolf pack or something.

“So, did you bring other vampires here to help you with this...Crusade of yours,” I asked, “or did you come alone?”

“I came alone,” she said proudly. “I need no help to kill a bunch of rabid dogs.”

“She's lying, Lucan!” Caleb chose at this moment in time to open his big mouth.

The she-vamp whipped her head to face him. “Another demon?” she hissed, this time much louder, baring her silver fangs and all.

Caleb ignored her. “I saw another vampire on my way here!” he said. “She was drinking blood from some of the dead bodies and then she just burst into flames!”

Either it was my imagination running wild, or the she-vamp suddenly looked a little worried. She eyed Caleb dangerously.

“What did she look like?” it was more of an order than a question.

Caleb made a face like she’d just asked him for his kidney. “I-I-I...” he struggled.

The she-vamp teleported to Caleb with a flash and pinned him violently up against the wall. “Answer me, demon!" she hissed, her silver fangs ready to strike. "What did she look like?”

Caleb swallowed hard. “Uh, she was tall...she had black hair, dark eyes and...she was dirty...like...” he looked around, struggling, “like her clothes were ripped and stained-”

Before he could finish his sentence, the she-vamp let out some sort of animal-like growl. “Sonya!” she hissed loudly before teleporting into thin air. First a Morbeus, and now a Sonya? Who the heck were these people?

Caleb immediately removed his back from the wall and steadied his breathing. “Well, thanks a lot for the back-up, Luc!” he puffed with sarcasm. “That blood sucker could’ve killed me and you just stood there-”

He moaned some more but I wasn’t paying any attention. My eyes continued to scan the heap of corpses scattered about the floor, human and werewolf alike.

Something told me this...whatever the heck it was...was only just the beginning...

///

CHAPTER TWO
CALEB




Was it a bad sign if you couldn't remember your own name? I'm pretty sure it was. Everything was a wild blur. I remembered a girl on my lap--with braided, black hair with beads that clinked--and I remembered drinking, a lot. Beer, after beer, after beer, until I was totally wasted.
Yeah, I could remember that.
I remembered getting kicked out, too.

I couldn't for the life of me remember how I'd managed to end up back at the garage, however. I had the weird inkling it had to do with pixies, but that made no sense.

I lurched forward, wishing my feet would just listen, and kicked the door. I could hear yelling. I couldn't tell where--oh, right. That was me.

I leaned forward and let out a small groan. Dang, my head was throbbing. How did that work? I hadn't even slept yet.

Ugh.

How much had I even drunk, anyway? Gah.

LUCAN MERCER




Back at headquarters, I stood at the centre of the garage basement beside Officer Dawson’s unconscious body as he lay on an operating bed. Caleb being the grade A chicken that he was, bailed straight after we finished inside the College, so I had to rely on the help of Shang and the brunette EMT to turn our garage’s basement into a temporary makeshift hospital to treat the Officer. To be honest I didn’t want the brunette there. She was a human after all, but for some reason Shang seemed to trust her, so I didn’t argue.

At the other end of the room the remaining dead bodies recovered during the quarantine operation were all lined up against the wall. The corpses were separated into three rows; one row held the bodies of the victims that were ripped apart by werewolves, the second row held the bodies of the victims that were drained from their blood – probably by the vampire Caleb spoke of or the one I ran into (I still wasn’t sure), and the final row held the bodies of the dead werewolves that I’d seen the latter vampire kill.

To say that I was confused about what was going on and why would be the understatement of a century. Even after replaying everything I’d seen and heard over and over again in my head, I still couldn’t work any of it out. It was obvious that the werewolves were responsible for what happened, but why? And what about that crazy she-vamp? Apparently, she came alone and had no hand in the carnage, but Caleb swore he saw another vampire at the campus drinking blood from some of the dead victims’ bodies which later turned out to be true. Did that mean that the she-vamp lied to me? It wouldn’t exactly be a shock to the system if she did. Vampires were known for being good liars. But then again, I remembered her reaction when Caleb spoke of the other vampire...Sonya...She didn’t look like she’d just been caught out. She demanded to know what the vampire looked like and then teleported away in anger. Why?

With a frustrated sigh, I wiped a hand down my face and decided to focus my attention back to Officer Dawson, the only survivor of the attack. I slowly approached his unconscious body and pulled on a pair of operating gloves before beginning to re-examine the suspicious looking slashes on his torso. When I first saw the cuts back inside the ambulance, I thought that my mind was playing tricks on me when I thought I saw some sort of pattern in them. But, looking at the slashes again, I realised that I was right the first time round; the cuts really did look like an upside down crucifix with a serpents tail coiled around it. Maybe it was some sort of insignia or mark. But what drew them in the first place, the werewolves or the vampires? If so, why, and what the heck did it mean?

My thoughts were suddenly interrupted as Shang approached me. He’d been speaking with the Dean of St. Jude's College for the past hour and a half trying to come up with a full list of names of the victims so that their families could be given the bad news.

“Where’s Caleb?” he asked me, looking around the basement.

“It’s a Friday night, where’d you think he is?” I growled back.

Shang nodded as the answer came to him. “Strip club,” he mused aloud. He shook his head with a smile before walking over to Officer Dawson’s body. “Any luck with the investigation?”

“No...,” I replied. “The only real lead I have to go on is the markings on his torso,” my eyes returned to the upside down crucifix and the serpent’s tail, “To me it looks like some kind of insignia, or mark. If I can find out what it means, we might be able to get to the bottom of all this...”

“What makes you think it means anything?” Shang asked.

“Well, when I'd perform exorcisms on humans whose bodies had been possessed by demons, it was common for the demon to make anti-Christian marks on the bodies of the humans. Anything blasphemous, anything that insulted Jesus..." I trailed off and returned to the subject at hand, "On top of that, there’s this book I remember reading on the history of supernatural creatures. With the vampires and werewolves - besides the fact that they've spent most of their existence trying to kill each other - both have a common enemy which is the humans who have hunted their kind down for centuries during the Purge. According to that book, the werewolves and vampires that managed to survive the Purge turned to using things like markings and insignia’s to help them identify each other or safe-houses, and individual clans, all in a discrete way without attracting attention from the humans.” I turned to look at Dawson's body. "This could just be one of those insignia's...the million dollar question is who does this insignia belong to and why would they put it on him?"

Shang didn’t answer. Instead, he chose to ask me another question. “How are you going to find out?”

“No idea...” I responded. Truth be told I was at the deep end here. Vampires and werewolves weren’t really my speciality. Sure I’d read about them occasionally but I was no expert in how to deal with them. Caleb and I were always busy with our own problems with the demons. But it looked as though all of that was about to change now. Removing the operation gloves from my hands and chucking them in the trash can I stalked back up the stairs to my office.

“It's going to take a while...”

CALEB




I huffed and let my forehead fall against the door.
"Ouch," I say, after about five seconds. That hit rather late.
Eh.
"Bro? You there, man? I'm really, really drunk or somethin'..." I grin and look down. "There's pixies if you wanna see 'em, too..." I yell.
Bloody little blighters were tugging at my pants' hems now. Odd looking critters--sort of bluish-green and with big ears. "Did ya hear me? Hey! It's cold, too, and...um..."
I blink a few times, vision reeling. "I don't feel very well," I mutter.

LUCAN MERCER




“Make your move, boy.”

The voice echoed around the dark Cathedral walls. I focused on the square-chequered chessboard in front of me. My opponent leaned in closer to the game until his face was lit up from the candle-light above; pale, hollow, and ghost-like...the face of the devil...

After a few seconds of silence, I sighed in defeat.

“I can’t,” I replied, “You have me trapped. You’ve won the game.”

My opponent broke out into a smile.

“It seems that way doesn’t it?” he asked, his pupil-less eyes fixed on me. “Why don’t you take another look?”

With a look of confusion, I returned my attention to the game. As far as I could tell my king was trapped, there was no way out. Unless...

“It’s a stalemate,” I smiled, only just realising. “My white king has no legal move but it isn’t in check, so the game ends in a draw.”

“That’s right,” my opponent nodded slowly. “You see, my boy, in many ways this game sums up our relationship.” He reached out and picked up his black king piece, examining it under the light of the candle above. “Ever since you and your brother came into this world, I have been doing everything in my power to trap you both and win your souls...” he returned the black king piece to its original position on the board before continuing, “and every single time I thought I’d gotten somewhere, every single time I thought I had you both within my grasp, you somehow managed to find a way to escape from me...”

I leaned my back on my chair smugly. “Just like our father,” I smiled.

My opponent sat up, a bigger smile across his face. “Ah, but you see your father gave up to me eventually and - sooner or later - so will you and Caleb...”

My face hardened. “Is that a threat?”

“No, my boy,” my opponent responded calmly, reaching out a pale thin hand to capture the light from the candle, “It is not a threat, it is a promise.”

And with that, the Devil was gone.

My eyes instantly snapped open. I quickly looked around me and realised I was in my office sitting behind my desk with my head buried on top of the pages of a thick tattered old book I’d been reading about vampire houses. There was a small rolled up weed joint in between my fingers and for some reason I wasn’t wearing a shirt. I looked up bleary eyed at the clock just above the office door and saw that it was almost 4 o’clock in the morning. I probably fell asleep while trying to find out the meaning behind the mark on the Officer’s body. Frowning, I flicked the joint into the already overflowing ashtray beside me and wiped a hand down my face.

Suddenly, I could hear our pit-bull Huck barking loudly downstairs. There was yelling coming from outside too. The voice sounded drunk and familiar...

“Caleb.”

I walked out of the office and down the steps to the garage entrance to find our Huck staring at the door growling fiercely like he normally did whenever strangers called at this time of night. He turned his head my way as I approached the door and gave me a look.

I slid open the garage doors and Caleb fell in straight away, holding his head in his hands and groaning in pain before his drunk-ass stumbled headfirst onto the cold hard floor. I didn’t bother picking him up. It served him right.

“You look like shit,” I said flatly.

Huck leapt on top of Caleb’s chest and snarled angrily at him.

CALEB




All the air in my body left with a whoosh as Huck jumped on my belly; his amber eyes staring daggers into mine. "Ugh, get off me, dog," I muttered unhappily.

I let my head fall back and I looked up at Lucan. "Sorry for being displeasing to your eyes," I said, sarcasm weak but effective even if I did feel odd, still. Being inside helped, though; somehow. "Did you get to see the pixies?"
Okay, maybe not too much. That sort of came out of nowhere; total word vomit.
I shook my head as best as I could and Huck just started to lick-attack my neck, snarl gone pretty quick. "Get 'im off..." I grumbled at Lucan.
I was tired and I just wanted to sleep. I was in a bit better control, but the alcohol was trying to make me insane again.

When Lucan didn't do anything but tut at me, I finally just shoved Huck off. He let out a small growl at me, but I ignored him. The dog was awesome--like the Siberian tiger of dogs or whatever--but he was a pain in the butt sometimes.

I tried to sit up. Another whoosh; silent this time. The sound of my mental capabilities and vision going. "Whoa." I flop back and just stare up at the ceiling.

LUCAN MERCER




“Oh, please, don’t get up...” I told Caleb, sarcasm dripping from my voice. “Why don’t you just lie there on the floor with your little pixies while I work my ass off on the case? In fact, why don’t I just grab you a pillow from upstairs?”

“Alright, alright, I get it...” Caleb grumbled, wiping a hand down on his face. “Just give me...” I watched him look at his fingers like they weren’t supposed to be there. It took him a minute to figure out what he wanted to say. “...five minutes,” he declared finally, putting up six fingers instead. Talk about being wasted.

Feeling my damn brotherly instincts kicking in, I decided to heave him up from the floor. Huck helped too in his own way, he started taking off Caleb’s sneakers and throwing them across the room. I threw him onto the couch in the garage waiting area. No way was I dragging his sorry ass all the way up the stairs. I then grabbed a bottle of water and some Advil before handing it over. Caleb’s mind was functioning enough to be able to help himself.

“Could you tell the pixies to leave me alone now?” he slurred to me.

“I can’t see them, you douche,” I responded before chucking the book that I’d been reading onto his chest.

“What’s this?” he asked.

“Something for you to do while you nurse your little hangover. It’s a book on vampire houses. Go through it and see if the mark on Officer Dawson's body matches any of the vampire Houses. I’m gonna try and go through some of the books on werewolves and see what I can come up with...”

Caleb made a noise, something between a groan and a yawn all mixed in one. I ignored him and left him to it.

///

CALEB




Green eyes...gold eyes...cat's eyes... Blurriness. Shock-y light. Smoke.

"So, how are you doing?" Warped. Female?

Dark.

Another flash of light, displaying a smile with pointy teeth.

"Ah!"

I shot up, breath loud in my ears, and I glanced around. I was...in the waiting room of the garage? When did that...? Why...?

I blinked repeatedly. Oh, well. No sense in confusing myself, right?

Shake it off.

I looked around, as best I could with the limited light and my still-blurred vision. Windows--normal, door closed, potted plant collecting dust, Huck lying at the end of the couch close to my feet. All good.

Something sticking out from under the coffee table...

I grabbed a mag and rolled it up, before prodding it. Nothing. I set the mag back down on the table, its shiny cover displaying the sort of home decor people who go to car garages probably wouldn't like.

My vision cleared a bit more.

It's a book.

Moron.

The air kicks on and rattles the blinds, sending me hiding from the outside spotlight. After all, light was most certainly the enemy of all drunks (and sometimes vampires).

Luckily, it falls back into place and I can take my hands off my face. "Hm." Huck is looking up at me with his reddish-amber eyes, looking annoyed.

"What?" No response. Of course, he's a dog.

I sigh and twist around, going for the book. I pick it up and put it on my legs, before grabbing the water bottle. I drink some down and the pounding in my head goes away minutely.

And then I look down at the book.

A strangled, surprised sound leaves me and I'm staring at the exact image on Officer Dawson's body. "Lucan!"