“We have your daughter,” Keith shouted. “Show yourself. Pretty sure I managed to blind you before you went chameleon on us.”
“Let me go, hooligan,” Liturgy said. “Witch! Sorcerer! Utter… not-nice fool. By the holy flame in my heart, my love of God will protect me from your foul touch.”
“Ouch,” Keith mocked. “Tank, ordered retreat. We gotta get away from the barn before the men show up.”
The group retreated, but Sacred with his rash remained between the teammates and Theo. He swirled a switchblade. Step by step, Theo got separated from the group.
The Mirrorgnost pumped V toward the water bottle in his bag to ready Sliver for a blinding maneuver.
“Can you take that back?” Sacred asked, nodding at his rash-y arms. “Jesus, this itches like mad.”
Theo shook his head, never taking his eyes off the man. His team was fading into the fog. Nobody was noticing his absence, too busy watching out for Genesis.
He was about to call out to them when Sacred closed the switchblade, tossed it aside and raised both hands. “Can we talk?”
Theo stared. What?
Sacred seemed impatient and scratched his rash-covered scalp. “Gene’s not going to do a thing while they have a hostage. I swear. Can we *talk*?”
“O-okay?” Theo said. “T-t-talk.”
“I want out.”
“You…”
Sacred scratched his arms. “Damnations. Can you make this stop? Seriously.”
Theo recalled Glowy’s influence and Sacred’s skin cleared. If this was a delay tactic it was working. Theo didn’t even know where his friends were at this point.
Sacred’s demeanor collapsed from cocky to pathetic.
“What you did to Euch…” The Redeemer shivered. “That soul-gasm thing, it made him confide in me. We all want out. I mean, our parents are hecking crazy, right? I’ve been- Master Adam, grandfather, he’s too stupid to monitor our internet use properly so I’ve researched and- Listen, I’ve been an atheist since I was fifteen but the devils are *real*. They’re flipping real. You know it. And I signed a pact with arch angel Gabriel. How am I supposed to just fricking *leave*?”
“You know n-nothing bad is going to happen if you say ‘fuck’, right?”
Sacred gave him an ‘are you serious’ look. “I have leverage. We’re hunting the same thing, pretty sure. And I know more.”
Theo forced his tense shoulders down. “Damn, okay. I wasn’t really looking to feel sorry for you. Your ‘leverage’ will be appreciated. *If* we get back to my friends, you can explain yourself.”
A deep sigh and a moment of silence. “Okay. This way.” Sacred walked off and picked up his dropped knife as he passed it. “You coming?”
Theo hurried after the suddenly bossy hunk.
Sacred led them straight to Keith, Fulin and Coralline, who’d joined up with Godrick and Dawn. He gestured Theo to go ahead.
“Theo!” Fulin said and hurried over. “I was about to go looking for- Watch out!”
Theo pushed against Fulin’s pecs. “Stop. He’s here to talk.”
Sacred emerged from the fog, glanced around the quiet group and took a deep breath.
“We kids want out. All three. I think Eucharist needs meds. Or therapy or both. Has for a while. But that’s a no-go with his parents. And Liturgy is… deeply unhappy. Everything she sees is tainted and perverted and she can’t even eat right anymore.”
“Damn,” Coralline mumbled.
Fulin relented. “He’s honest. Doesn’t mean he’s speaking for the other second gens but he’s honest.”
Sacred squinted at the Primal, then absentmindedly tapped his forehead. “You’re a banshee? Changeling?”
Fulin shrugged. “Names we’ve been called in other places. Keep being honest.”
“We’re a cult, right?” Sacred asked. “I was trying to leave once. There’s resources for that. But none for- Demons are *real* and I promised the archangel Gabriel to fight them.”
Keith stepped in. “Back up. You what?”
“When my parents took me to Rapture’s chapel, I was thirteen. I thought it was going to be a boring trip with lots of praying. And then an angel descended and made a contract with me to hunt demons. That was real, right? I didn’t make that up.”
Theo recalled the dossier. Sacred’s older sister, Rapture, had been haunted by a demon and set fire to a chapel, dying in the process. The Smith family’s senior generation had become Redeemers then or shortly after.
“We call it the Pact Maker,” Keith said. “Generic name because it takes so many forms. It didn’t *say* it was an arch angel, right?”
“Not that I recall.”
“Your parents are a little gullible and so was thirteen year old you. That was no angel. But yes, you have been given the power to… contribute to the ecosystem. You’re just bad at distinguishing the good and bad guys.”
Godrick raised his hand. “Hey there, fellow Redeemer. I can show you the ropes. Make sure you hit only the nasty creatures that feed on people.”
Sacred blinked heavily, swallowed and straightened. “I’d like that.”
### ### ###
Team delta-2 and the allied Redeemers Godrick and Dawn were back at the barn office, where the alpha had torn an escape for them.
According to Sacred, the building had been a whole labyrinth when his family had investigated the day before, which had been a slog to get through, suggesting an abandoned sanctuary. Even now the place wasn’t fully done contracting back to its earthy proportions.
“We can assume it was a powerful Outsider,” Keith said. “Either well fed or bound by someone even greater and made to exert itself. The fact it’s still kinda Vestige-y like that apartment full of dream wisps suggests, uh… something?”
“We might find more clues,” Dawn said. “Back in you go. Or just us superhumans, if you’re not feeling it. You’re the junior team.”
“I’d have a look,” Keith said. “Keeping in touch with Juniper, Cor?”
Fulin laid his hand on Theo’s shoulder. “Boyfriend, are you going in?”
The Mirrorgnost — the title was growing on him — half-shrugged. “I don’t feel useful. Let’s stand guard at the hole you rammed.”
“Phrasing,” Godrick said. “Tank can be your personal rearguard another day.”
Theo gestured. “No really, he slammed his body through- I’m just making it worse, huh?”
Godrick’s raven familiar Rosamunde broke through the fog. “Badass hunk incoming.”
Sacred practically flew at them with his ranger powers. He held a small, black note book. “Here’s what we found in there. A schedule, all encrypted with abbreviations. I’ve made sure my family looks elsewhere for now but it would be better if I can have that back.”
Coralline started photographing the pages.
Theo couldn’t make sense of the random abbreviations but one date in September was clearly marked as extra important, the events getting denser leading up to it, a red underline on this one day alone.
“Fuck me.”
“Gladly,” Fulin mumbled, as if automatic.
Theo pointed. “That’s the day I overslept so hard. Hours and hours, through every alarm. I had off work or my life would have been over. That had to be a dream wisp.”
“Possible,” Keith said, now climbing after the friendly Redeemer duo into the barn office. “Now I’m wondering if we’d find a citywide wave of oversleeping that night. Maybe we should even check across the whole state.”
“That’s what woke my powers,” Theo said. “The Watcher showed up that day. Birds on my windowsill, eyes on magazine covers following me, reflection where there aren’t people. He got subtler after and I was too groggy to think. I didn’t make the connection until now.”