Malevolent

The Ravenwood Manor

"Do you think she'll ever wake up? She's been unconscious for four days."

"You'll have to give her time. I don't think Jason's dogs were being too careful when they abducted her."

"Mortals die awfully easy, don't they? Weak little things"

Four days. She'd been sleeping for four days.

She had to wake up.

But she couldn't. Her dreams came on to her like torrents of water, each more vivid than the former. Figures of darkness crashed and blended into one another. She saw her father, tied up at the tower of a cathedral. She saw Olive, a crown of bones around her head. She saw herself, like watching a recorded tape, but her tightly-curled, carroty hair was now straight and black and her eyes were like cesspools of darkness. When she opened her mouth, spiralling smoke came out. Figures in black clothing running at her with blazing swords, and their weapons slashed through her skin like paper.

Then she saw angels with white wings. Angels falling from the sky.

And she woke up.

*****

She couldn't move. She felt as if her eyes have been gummed shut, and she imagined her skin peeling apart as she forced them open and blinked for the first time in days.

The faces of two people were bearing down on her, a little blurred, and so close that she could decipher their eye colours. A green pair and another pair she could not easily note its color. She shifted and groaned "Ow"

"She's awake."

"Oh, thank God."

"Get Jason, go, go!"

A figure stood and left the room hurriedly. Maddie blinked. Without her glasses, she could only make out that the figure that stood before her was a girl, the owner of the other eyes, staring down at her and furrowing her brow.

"So you're awake. I'm not sure Jason will be pleased. He thought you'd probably die in your sleep." She said.

Painfully Maddie pushed herself into a sitting position, and was rewarded with a banging pain to the head.

"Owww!" She groaned again.

"Sorry" The girl said "Here, drink this."

A glass of greenish liquid was forced into her mouth. Maddie gulped gratefully. The liquid tasted unpleasantly like boiled grasses and salt, but at least it was warm. She hadn't realised just how thirsty she was: It seemed like ages ago since she last ate or drank anything. She thought of the bagel she was supposed to eat and groaned the third time.

"The pain would go soon." The girl reassured her.

"My...glasses." Maddie croaked and the girl handed it to her. Maddie put on her glasses, the blurred image befor her eyes getting clearer, then took a good look at the girl perched on the edge of her bed. She was smallish in stature, her long, blonde hair packed into pigtails. She wore so much eyeliner that her eyes stood out vividly, and looked so washed out she was like a bleached-white piece of cloth. Her eyes gave off a kaleidoscopic feeling as they kept changing colors, from grey to hazel to a deep brown and back to grey. Staring into those eyes gave Maddie vertigo. The girl was so small that for the first time in her life, Maddie felt big and overweight. She looked like a replica of Harley Quinn, only more waif-like.

"What are you looking at?" The girl asked sharply.

"Your eyes," Maddie said "Are they always like that?"

"Yes. I can sort of control people's minds with my eyes." The girl replied and her eyes changed to a pure-white consistency, similar to cataracts.

"You can–what?"

"Stop, Cassiopeia. You're creeping her out." A voice said and two boys stepped into the room. The older one looked a lot like Cassie, though much taller, with the same washed out look, his shoulder-length hair more white than blonde. The green eyes that scrutinized her seemed to draw her in like green lakes of magnetic energy: she couldn't look away. The younger boy had a kinder face framed by chocolate-brown hair, and shared the other boy's green eyes. He scratched his nose as he looked up at the older boy nervously.

"She's not scared of me" Cassie said "Are you?" She asked Maddie.

"N-no," Maddie shook her head vigorously "Where am I, please?"

Moving closer to the bed, Jason crouched until he was eye level with her. "Do you know who we are? Or better still, what you are?" He asked.

Maddie's brow furrowed "What am I? What do you mean?"

Jason locked eyes with her. He was silent for a moment, his eyes radiating a fierceness that scared her. "There's a bit of demon blood in you, that much we know. Well, all Hunters are part demon. You're indubitably part-human too. But do you possess the qualities of an angel to be worthy of being a Hunter?"

Maddie scowled. "What are you talking about?"

"There are, of course, Hunters all over the world."Jason continued as if she hadn't said anything. "We have to be everywhere, because demons are everywhere. But you're not a Hunter, yet you are part demon. What. Are. You?"

"You're crazy, that's what." Maddie said indignantly. "I want to go home, please."

"Jason, that's enough." Cassie cut in.

"I don't think so." Jason didn't so much as spare a glance at her.

"Jason! Drop it. I'll take care of her." Cassie repeated, placing a hand on Jason's shoulder. Still looking at Maddie, Jason rose and took a step back.

Cassie moved closer to Maddie and put a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Look, this may seem hard for you but we really have to get to the bottom of a matter, and we think you're related to it, indirectly or not."

"I don't know what you're talking about. I just want to go home to my dad. I think he's in trouble"

"Jason will go to your house and take care of that." Cassie glanced at her twin brother and gave him a pointed look "Won't you, Jason?"

Jason gave a noncommittal shrug and left the room, Ethan in his wake.

"What the hell is going on?" Maddie asked. "Where am I? Who are you people?"

Cassie replied "Do you know anything about about Hunters?"

Maddie paused, then said "In the literal sense, yes. But I have a feeling that's not what you're asking me about."

"Well, that's who we are. Hunters: part demon, part angel, part human. Sort of like tribrid creatures. We were born to hunt and take out the demons in this world, gifted with the blessings of angels, and we've existed for as long as the normal human race, maybe even longer."

When a demon stumbles into this world, it's our job to find it and kill it. Hunters are born with special abilities, what you mortals might call 'super powers', and we definitely live longer than mortals, if we don't die in battle. For instance, I was born with the ability of conviction. My brothers, Jason was gifted with the ability to read minds. Ethan, on the other hand, was gifted with the power of words that cannot be said.

"From the beginning of time, it has been our Mandate to protect as much of this human world as we can, from the impact of demonic forces. Demons are everywhere, Maddie, and mortals like yourself cannot see them. You have to be part demon to see the influence of a demon."

Demons come from other worlds. They're interdimensional pests. They come to a world to savage, destroy and suck out the life in it. They drain a place to ashes and when they're done, they move on to the next one. And the only thing between demons and the destruction of this world as you know it," she waved her hand to indicate everything "Is Hunters"

Maddie stared in consternation at the other girl. Some New Yorkers were definitely bat-s**t crazy.

"I appreciate your story and all that, but I'm not ready to be dragged into your demonic shenanigans. I don't see how any of this concerns me anyway. Thank you for keeping me here, but I want to go home, please." She said.

"I'm afraid you cannot, Maddie. Not just yet." Cassie placed a kind hand on Maddie's clenched one. "Not until we figure out how you're connected to our findings."

"So you want me to believe all these things you just said are real?" She asked.

"Very real, Maddie." Cassie said "Do you believe me?"

"Oh, definitely not!" Maddie said, shaking her head. "It's all like some story from one of my books, or a very weird dream. I actually do not believe in the existence of angels, or demons, or..."

"Just because you don't believe in it, doesn't mean it isn't real.." Cassiopeia replied, eyebrows raised. She stood from the bed and started to pace the room, her blonde pigtails fanning out behind her.

"Lately there's been weird demon-like activity around New York. Mortals going missing, bodies turning up days after, mangled and blood-stained. The mortal police think it's homicide, but we think it's not. It's definitely the work of a demon, presumably a Greater Demon, as far as our Sensors can tell. We also began to notice a weird but consistent demonic presence around a particular girl in New York" Cassie stopped to glance at Maddie, then continued pacing "We took your blood when you were asleep and tested it. You're not a full demon, Maddie. There's still a human aspect of you. What this means is that you cannot give off a strong demonic energy unless there's a demon around you, which there is. You only give off faint ones, because you're part human"

Maddie's head felt like she was being forced to take a crash lesson minutes before an exam.

"I don't–understand"

"Maddie, we also had an old-fashioned DNA test taken on your blood. We compared it to the DNA test taken off a little blood we found on the victims. The two results paired off perfectly" Cassie paused, took a long breath and stared at Maddie as if egging her on to the answer.

Realization dawned on Maddie "So what you're trying to say is–"

"What I'm trying to say is, your mother is alive" Cassiopeia said "And her name is Aosoth"