“Ugh,” Ana grunted. Something in her gut cramped. She felt strangely... bloated. She ignored it. There were more important things right now.

“Everything alright?” Leah asked, shooting Ana a glance from the driver’s seat before returning her gaze to road.

“Just a headache. It’s been a very long day,”she sighed. She didn’t know why she was lying. Somehow she didn’t want to admit to having lower body cramps. Leah took one hand off the steering wheel and gently laid it on the side of Ana’s head. Ana recoiled away from her.

“Don’t,” she scoffed. “Save your damn powers! It’s only a headache!”

Leah looked slightly taken aback, but didn’t press the point, since it was at that moment that they arrived at the Hotel. “Ah dammit!” Ana cursed when she saw the police cruiser parked in front. “I shouldn’t have come. I’m still wanted!”

Leah bit her lip, and Ana for some reason felt a tiny flash of arousal. She was so pretty when she did that. After a moment, Leah turned to her.

“Yeah, but it’s too late now, isn’t it? I’m going to have to charm the clerk anyway if I’m going in there without you. Would be best if we could just walk in without that, but that option’s out the window—and I’d rather not split up.”

Ana frowned. “I don’t like it.”

“Neither do I. Want to go back and tell Josiah that he should kill the girl?”

“Of course not!” Ana said. Part of her felt confused, however. Why should she care if anyone lived or died? Sure, Leah was her Sister and if something happened to her, that would be bad on some level. Same thing for most people. Lots of trouble every time someone lost their life. She felt like she was supposed to be feeling different about this. She was supposed to care if people lived or died. She was almost certain that not too long ago, she had. She pushed the thought aside, because it didn’t matter, especially not in the case of Jordan. Jordan was important. Jordan needed to live.

“Well then,” Leah said, raising Ana from her thoughts. She opened the car door and got out, leaning back in as she spoke. “Then you better get your amnestic incantations ready, because we’ll be using them. Luckily, it looks like there’s not many police. Let’s hope it stays that way. I’m not as firm in that school as Dimitri or Marius, or you”

Leah paused for a moment, seeing the unease in Ana’s eyes. She smiled mildly.

“Ana. I’m not judging you. If there was ever a time to use it, it is now. Don’t hold back.”

Ana nodded and got out as well. She hadn’t used an amnestic spell since her training years ago. She had always detested how good she’d been at it. It was such an immoral thing. Now, she couldn’t explain the sense of excitement she felt to be able to use that kind of power.

They entered the reception area and approached the front desk. No one was giving them a second look. Ana had given them a magic veil that didn’t make them invisible, but very hard to notice. An acne-scarred young man was behind the desk, raising his eyebrows as they approached. Ana had tried to stay behind Leah, but it hadn’t really worked. He was just about to shout something, when Leah gestured his way, and his eyes glossed over. It was the simplest of mind-addling spells, and Ana could tell that Leah had executed it crudely. The clerk’s mind would return to him in minutes. Leah turned her head and nodded for Ana to proceed, and Ana approached the desk.

“Hello, may I have my room key please? Cara Waters. Room 313.”

The clerk mechanically reached behind him and gave her the key she’d asked for. She took it and with another magic gesture, they left him blinking and stunned as they walked for the stairs.

“We’re not the druids you’re looking for,” Leah smirked, affecting an accent that wasn’t her own, like she was doing a voice. Ana didn’t get it.

“We’re not druids, what are you talking about?”

“Ughh... forget it.”

They made their way to the third floor and turned left. They could already see the policewoman stand guard at the end of the hallway.

More mind magic, Ana thought. She remembered distinctly the intense distaste she once had for that sort of spell. Controlling people’s will was a supremely useful skill, but it wasn’t something that should ever be done lightly. The Order had explicit rules about it to keep its member from abusing it under the pain of punishment. But right now, Ana didn’t care. Less than care, in fact. For some reason, the idea of controlling people’s minds had become very exciting to her. Her stomach squirmed painfully. She bit down on it, skipping a breath or two. Leah was already on her way—she’d never been one to dwell overlong on pondering what to do next. Ana followed her.

The policewoman noticed them when they were a couple of steps away. Even Ana’s distraction spell couldn’t gloss over the fact that they were walking straight at her through an empty hallway. It did, however, keep her blind to the way the both of them were dressed. Either that, or the woman was very professional.

“Ma’am, please move on, this is an—”

Leah weaved her arms in a complicated motion, and the woman went cross-eyed for a brief moment, her brow furrowing. Her whole body seemed to tense, and Ana could swear that she could see her arm twitch toward her gun holster.

“What? What did you just—”

Leah cast another spell, and the woman gasped softly. This one was much stronger-willed that the young desk clerk. But even a strong will was shockingly easy to subjugate. Compared to turning yourself invisible, or augmenting your strength, it took almost no effort. It was perverse. One more reason to forbid its use unless absolutely necessary.

“Please don’t...” she said, but her voice had grown soft, and Ana could tell that she had intentionally made herself sound more gruff and authoritative before. Now, she sounded much more feminine.

With a last gesture, the woman’s eyes went blank. A soft shiver of forbidden excitement went through Ana, and she wished that she had been to one to claim the woman’s mind instead of Leah.

“Is there anyone inside?” Leah asked.

“No,” Said the woman calmly.

“Will anyone come here soon?”

“Not that I know of.”

“We’re with forensics. There’s still work to be done. No one else can come in here. Now let us in.”

“Yes,” the officers said, and stepped aside. Leah opened the door and stepped inside, and Ana could hear her softly whisper an apology under her breath.

Ana looked at the entranced female officer. She was very pretty. Like Leah, but taller, and with long hair, braided in a ponytail. It felt so hot to watch her empty, mindless expression. An image flashed through Ana’s imagination, of herself, leaning forward and kissing the woman. Licking her neck. It would be so easy, and she wouldn’t notice. Wouldn’t remember. Ana could just… have her!

She blinked, and went in after Leah—only to find her staring at her with a look of alarm. It wasn’t difficult to tell what had caused it. The room was completely empty.

Her suitcase was gone.

Jordan tapped her foot as she sipped on her tea. An awkward silence had fallen. Josiah was upstairs, where he had cell reception, and Jean was busy carrying stuff across the basement, softly muttering under her breath in French.

“What are you doing? Can I help?” she said tentatively. She felt quite useless.

“Don’t,” said Brother Felipe next to her, shaking his head. They were holding hands, even though they’d only met an hour ago, and hadn’t spoken a word since. Such were the strange, fucked up times she lived in. His hands were softer than Josiah’s at least, even if they were a bit clammy. It was getting uncomfortable.

“You don’t have to hold it the entire time,” she said, nodding down. “It’s enough for you to be around. I’ll just shout ‘evil!’, or something. It takes a couple of seconds even in the worst case—and even if I turn all the way, you can still get me out of it.

“I just like being careful,” Felipe said. She shot him a more annoyed stare than he probably deserved, and he let go.

“Thanks,” she said. He nodded, his lips tight.

“So... what is she doing?” she asked, keeping her voice low. He bit his lower lip, hesitating. He hadn’t looked Jordan in the eyes the entire time. He was obviously uncomfortable with this entire deal. She couldn’t really blame him for that, seeing how she was a demon-possessed sleeper agent of ancient evil, but it was getting frustrating.

“I’m not going to bite, Felipe,” she said. “I’m on your side.”

He winced.

“You know... Josiah stabbed me through the heart, and I’m still helping y’all. Even he seems to trust me.”

There was another pause, until, finally, he looked at her. He wasn’t exactly... young. But he wasn’t old either, or even middle-aged. He was somewhere in that undefinable late-twenties-to-mid-thirties area.

“She’s putting back the reliquaries,” Felipe said, as Jean was carrying another gold-encrusted lock-box out of the back room. Jordan chuckled softly, and raised her eyebrows.

I wonder if they got Jesus’ foreskin.

“Josiah asked her to clear the room for a ceremony, so she stocked it for a Pan-Abrahamic sanctus.”

“That’s a thing?”

“Yes it is,” said Jeanne, as she heaved the lock box into a large storage container on wheels. It looked like the kind of container that musicians used on tour to transport cables and equipment. Black with silver rims.

“So there’s...” Jordan began. “There are Christian rituals that actually work?”

“Oui,” Jean said with a factual nonchalance that left Jordan speechless for a full five seconds.

“So God is real?!” Jordan shouted. Her head was spinning with the enormity of the revelation, and also, rather strangely, an intense sense of dèja vu. Why did she feel like she’d already asked that question today?

“No,” Felipe said, at the same time that Jeanne answered “Yes.”

Jordan blinked, taken aback and confused. Felipe was about to say something, when Jeanne raised her hand, quieting him. “Something is real,” Jeanne said. “Something that answers to the name of God. Something that can manifest power. But we do not know what it is. It may be the thing that all Religions of the world worship. It may be Zeus, or Vishnu, or Odin, listening to our misguided prayers out of pity, or it may be something else entirely. Something magical, something that science has not yet discovered. An intelligence that formed itself in the Aether, in the energy of all things. It might have created the universe. It might have not. It might be the universe itself. It might be an ancient human that grew immortal and unimaginably powerful.”

There was a moment of stunned silence.

“Whatever it is—it is real. But we do not know its nature, and cannot draw conclusions about an afterlife, or the nature of the human soul. Because we know that all the religious texts are incomplete, fallible images of the truth, and we do not know which parts of them are accurate and which ones have been embellished or invented.”

“Well, at least you’re one step further along than the rest of us,” Jordan said.

Jeanne smiled softly.

“C’est vrai”, she said, and closed the container, brushing her hands against the lower part of her robes. It seemed like she was done.

“So... the Aztec Tzitzimime that Ana was talking about... The thing she researched. They were also that... presence?”

“No. They were the demons.”

“So, there’s more than just Lilith.”

“We think that she is one of many.”

“And I guess it’s the same deal as with God? No one knows what they are for sure? But I guess they’re not on the same side as the Big Guy?”

“Exactly,” Jeanne said. “Depending on the text, they may not be strictly evil. Some are described as tricksters, some as outright good. It is impossible to tell the truth of any of it. The Order has never encountered any Demon that fit any description exactly. Except...”

“Lilith.”

“Oui. Lilith is the Mother of Lust. The Goddess of temptation, the first succubus. She walks this plane in the form of flawlessly beautiful woman with black eyes and deep red skin, and horns and sharp teeth and claws.”

“Such a cliché.”

“Sometimes reality is just... exactly what you expect,” Jeanne shrugged. “The universe does not care about twists or exciting subversions. The accounts of the Order agree universally, at least on that much.”

“What do you mean?”

“Her appearance in the material plane. The rest is much more patchy. What exactly her powers are—what can be done to stop her. The order was fortunately always able to stop her. But it was never able to study her.”

“Too busy saving the world to take a step back and see what she’s like,” Jordan scoffed. “Yeah. Makes total sense. Every witness mind-controlled or dead. No one there to tell them wh—”

Her eyes went wide.

“Holy shit, why hasn’t anyone asked me already?!” she shouted. Felipe put his hand on her reflexively, and she felt a painless wash of coldness roll through her. She waited it out in order not to scare him, then swatted him away. Her heart was beating with grim excitement. This wasn’t going to be comfortable, telling them about the sex and the lust and the urges, but... holy shit, was that ever privileged knowledge!

“You need to get something to write!” she said. “I’ve got some stuff to tell you!”

Josiah was in the parking lot of the library. Another two of his Brothers had arrived; The Hunters: Brother Muhammad and Brother Lars.

“We went to the medical practice, but there was no sign of them,” Brother Lars said in his smooth baritone. “We were too late. Our amulet of Jordan was going haywire around the place, so it was impossible to catch a trail, even after we cleansed the place. I can’t feel them at all now. When I last did, the amulet was pointing me West.”

“Surely they haven’t left town,” Josiah said. “They wouldn’t abandon this place like that! Lilith’s power is anchored to this place, no matter where they desecrate the earth with their vile blood.”

“They could have gone a little way,” Muhammad suggested. “Not too far, though.”

Josiah nodded, thinking intently. Even a ’not too far’ was farther than he would have ever expected. Why would they do this?

“They’re buying time,” he concluded. But for what? “They must be planning to birth more demons, to bolster their numbers. They know they have no chance to overcome all of us by themselves.”

“Let them come,” Muhammad said, smiling grimly, but Lars shook his head.

“No, Brother,” he said. “Let us gather all of our strength and find them as soon as we can, as long as their numbers are still small!”

Josiah considered this. The rest of the Order were scattered across town. It would take at least half an hour to get them all together, and who knew how long after that to find the Demons. He hadn’t foreseen this. He always calculated his odds with the Demons staying close, being drawn to the epicenter. Faced with this new reality, there was no telling how long it would take to find them. And even if they did, the Demons seemed to have adapted a twisted kind of guerilla warfare against them. Something that none of the ancient texts spoke of. He had expected a straight fight. A straight fight would have been easy for them to win. It seemed that the cursed mother of demons had come to the same conclusion.

“They will try to evade use until they are certain that they can take us on and defeat us,” he said, finally. “They already ran from a fight once when we came close.”

Brother Muhammad frowned. “What do we do then? Wait until they overrun us? This is unwise, Brother.”

“We have another option,” Josiah said. “Right now, Our Brothers and Sisters are gathering that which is needed for a ritual to cleanse the third Herald.”

“We have the third Herald?!” Muhammad exclaimed. “Why have we not killed her yet?” Lars asked, his voice coarse and audibly upset.

“Because there might be an alternative! Are we not sworn to protect life? I have spoken to the Herald. Her mind is clear and bright, and she wants nothing but to help us!”

“She is tainted! She will deceive us!” Lars said.

“Her mind is free of Lilith’s influence, brother! I cleansed her blood with the power of the divine, and only the barest sliver of corruption remained in her. A sliver that will grow, and take control if unchecked, yes, but it can be held at bay!”

“You are making a mistake!” Lars growled, taking a step closer towards Josiah until Mohammed physically held him back. Josiah didn’t back down.

“I have pierced her heart with a sacred blade,” he said, his voice hard as iron. “If our options run out, I will not hesitate one moment to end her life, and mine in turn.”

Brother Lars scoffed. “Is that the reason you tarry, Brother? So that you may live? Because I will gladly take my sword to end this, right now.” He looked towards the library. “Is that where you keep her? Let me vanquish this evil. It will be a good death. A better death than anyone could ask for.”

“Brother Lars, stop!” Josiah boomed. “You will not harm her! We almost lost so much already today! We can save an innocent life!”

“And risk our own?!” Lars shouted.

“Never,” Josiah replied through gritted teeth, taking a step forward, confronting him. Brother Lars was half a head taller than him, built like a tree trunk, with a thick beard and steely eyes. Most men would be intimidated by his presence. But Josiah stood his ground, and met his angry gaze with his own righteous fury.

“Never again cast doubt on my commitment to the Order, Brother,” Josiah said, his voice a cold whisper. “I have devoted my life, and will give the rest of it without hesitation. But I have made the same oath that you have. Protect. The. Innocent.”

Lars braved his gaze for another heartbeat, then averted his eyes.

“Yes, Brother,” he said, and Muhammad let go of him. Josiah cleared his throat, and looked around. No one had noticed their shouting. Brother Felipe’s amnestic spell had done its work.

“What about the poor souls they seek to corrupt? Are they not innocent?” Brother Muhammad asked. This gave Josiah pause.

“Follow their power,” he said, finally. “Find them. You do not need to fight them. You only need to keep them on the run. As long as they are running, they’re not harming anyone. If you see the opportunity... of course, kill them. If there’s just the two of them, they are no match for you. Even Sister Ana was able to kill one of their ranks.”

His Brothers gave him a short look of doubt. He knew that they both thought he was being too soft on this. Just kill Jordan and be done with it. He could see it in their eyes. But he couldn’t do it. Not unless he had to.

“I will send Brothers Marius and Dimitri to help you as soon as they have returned from their current task. After that, it should not be long before the last Herald falls, one way or the other. Now go, and God be with you.”

“Yes, Brother,” Lars said, and they turned away, to do as he had told them. As they walked away, he cursed himself. They were right to question him in this. Killing her might be their best option. This might be a mistake. It wouldn’t be his first mistake today. He had mistaken Ana’s frustration and exhaustion for a lie. He hadn’t seen their enemy’s strategy coming. And perhaps worst of all, he had made the mistake of talking to Jordan.

If he’d just killed her, and cast himself onto his own sword, and been done with it...

Then he wouldn’t have grown to like her.

Renford Museum was on the opposite end of campus, only a short walk away from the library. It was a rather large edifice, with broad stairs leading up to an immense portico that spanned over two stories. The colonnade ran almost the entire length of its front, and there were large banners suspended from its facade advertising the upcoming opening of the exhibition.

Marius and Dimitri were at the side of the building, at the delivery entrance. Dimitri was standing guard, mostly out of habit. It was an unnecessary abundance of caution. They were both invisible and inaudible—Marius’s incantation; Dimitri was still recovering from the significant amnestic spell that he had cast on the police precinct.

Usually Felipe would have also been with them, but he was needed at the library, to keep the police there unaware. It wasn’t as if they needed three Mages to pull off this heist. This was barely a two-person job. The only thing unusual was that they were actually going to steal something as opposed to just taking pictures and leaving without a trace. That was usually the task. Private collections of despots and dictators, excavation sites in war zones, the archives of the Vatican or the vault of the headquarters of Scientology. Hidden or protected knowledge. That kind of thing.

“You know, Dimitri, I read about the Constellation—about the way it ripples through reality whenever Lilith returns,” Marius said as he carefully traced his fingers across the locked steel door. Dimitri said nothing as he stood guard.

“There are reports that it has a strange way of causing coincidences, Lilith being the personification of chaos and all. Bells tolling or thunder clapping at just the moment something important happens. People arriving at the exact same time, or just happening to be there when they are needed.”

“So?” Dimitri said dismissively.

“Come on! What are the odds of there being a prestigious Meso-American exhibition five walking minutes away from the epicenter of the Constellation, having just the kind of ceremonial tools that we need?! ”

“Just be glad that it is the way it is, no?” Dimitri said.

There was a soft click beneath Marius’s hand, and the door opened. He listened for a moment, but there was no alarm, which meant the spell had worked. He would have been surprised if it hadn’t.

“It’s open,” he said, and Dimitri turned and came toward him. They entered the sous-terrain together. The door led them to a loading area, with shelves and empty crates lining the walls.

“Do you sense anyone?” Marius asked.

“Watchman at his desk, first floor, next to entry. Slow heartbeat. Three or four others on the far end of first floor, working.”

“Good. The girl said that the knife and vessel are probably on the second floor.”

“You trust her?” Dimitri asked, as if he were asking something trivial, like what time there would be dinner.

Marius scoffed, raising his eyebrows. He opened one half of a double door at the other end of the loading area, which opened into a marble hallway. “With this information, probably,” he said. “Hardly a reason to lie about that... quickly and easily verified. Trusting her intentions... that’s another question.”

“Would be easier to kill her,” Dimitri said as they walked down the corridor, toward the staircase. They didn’t have to watch for cameras or tread quietly. Their magic was taking care of that for them.

“Yeah, probably,” Marius sighed, scratching his head. “But I guess it doesn’t hurt trying it another way. We’ve already won. We’ve got her, safe and locked up, with three of us watching her. We can still kill her if we have to.”

Marius felt the words come out of his mouth, and they tasted bitter. He knew he wasn’t wrong. But it felt crass to just talk about killing someone like that. “It would be nice if we didn’t have to do it though, wouldn’t it?” he said.

Dimitri just shrugged.

They had arrived on the second floor, and they followed the signage to the part of the exhibition marked ‘Human Sacrifice’.

How utterly thematic. Marius thought, and again he was reminded of the coincidences that he had read about. He did feel strangely like he was part of some huge clockwork that was aligning itself, like all hands pointing up at midnight. In a way, though, wasn’t that what every single moment in history was like? Things aligning just the way they needed to in order for whatever had happened to happen. But that wasn’t destiny. It was barely even a coincidence. The concept of inevitability, of destiny, was nothing but human hindsight bias, missing or ignoring all the equally likely things that hadn’t happened.

“You’re thinking too much again,” Dimitri said, almost making Marius jump. “Should have been Scholar, not Mage. Too much in your head, Brother.”

Marius nodded his head quietly. They had arrived. The room was dimly lit, but he could clearly see the walls, covered in photographic wallpaper, depicting vistas of sandstone pyramids and ruined cities. Blocks of text were stencilled on the wall next to inset glass showcases, containing various artifacts. Vestments, tools, jewelry, a split skull. But what they were looking at was in the very center of the room, framed dramatically beneath a spotlight, atop red velvet. And as they approached, Marius believed that there was a chance this might actually work. Stepping closer, he could feel the divinity radiating off it like a low hum in his aura. It felt at once completely different from the power that emanated from holy Abrahamic symbols, yet at the same time undeniably similar. Like... the hotness of peppers and the cold sharpness of radish. It was more primal, and more urgent, and distinctly closed-off, like it would not share its power freely.

They had done the next part often enough that they didn’t even need to talk while they did it. Dimitri wove an illusion around the display, and for a moment, the dagger and the vessel shimmered otherworldly before settling back into mundanity. Marius, meanwhile, twisted his wrists and moved his hands cleanly through the glass of the showcase as if it was thin air. He took the dagger and vessel, and where they had stood, an incorporeal copy of them remained, indistinguishable from the real thing. As he held them, he could feel their energy. They were definitely powerful. It was if they were alive—and he could tell that they did not want to be apart. He put them in the large duffel bag that he was carrying around his shoulder.

“Can you feel that, too?”

Dimitri grunted in a way that meant ‘yes.’

“We better get back,” Marius said. “I’m pretty sure this is going to change everything.”

“Where did they take the evidence, Officer?” Leah asked, voice tense. Part of Ana was glad that Leah was doing the talking, because all she wanted to do was to punch the officer in the face for this whole situation. She knew that wouldn’t help, but it would feel good.

“To the precinct,” the officers answered.

“Where exactly?”

“I don’t know, but evidence is usually bagged and catalogued before the eggheads come in and look at it.”

Egghead. Ana hated that word. Even leaving aside the fact that is was fucking stupid to insult someone for being smart, what the fuck did that even mean? She clenched her jaws, and looked away from the bitch of a policewoman, instead focusing on Leah. She was so pretty. Despite the constant annoyance that Ana felt at everyone and everything, she was still somehow very glad to be with her. It felt... correct for the two of them to be together. Just the two of them.

Part of her wanted Leah to be angry though. Angry at the bitch for being unhelpful, for being so fucking stupid. Angry like her. Like her. The thought rolled through her mind like thunder, and shook her deeply. She shivered. Something seemed to gently shift inside her, but not in an unexpected way, more like a puzzle piece falling into place.

“Ana?”

“What?” she said, blinking. She’d lost her train of thought. “Sorry, I was thinking how to proceed,” she said. It was only partly a lie. They needed to get her records, to free the young black woman... Jordan. Yes. Free her. Then all of this would finally be right again.

“I was already there,” Leah said, already starting to move. “At the precinct. Only a couple of hours ago. Before we picked you up.”

It took Ana a moment to find her bearings and catch up to her.

“So?”

“Marius and Dimitri put a massive amnestic spell on the whole place! We can just walk in and take it! They won’t even notice us! All we have to do is cast a ward on ourselves so we don’t forget what we came for.”

They exited the hotel and got back in their car. Ten minutes later, they were at the precinct. As they parked, they could see an officer in uniform stepping out, taking a few steps, scratching his head, then walking back in. When they approached the front door, the same officer came out again, repeating the exact same actions.

Pathetic Ana thought.

“Wait,” Leah said. “I’ll go in first. Marius’s and Dimitri’s mind magic is much stronger than ours. Just making sure our wards will hold. I’ll go inside and count to thirty. If I still know why I’m there, I’ll call you in. If you don’t hear from me, call my name until I come out again, and we’ll double the wards. Sound good?”

Smart. Ana looked at Leah, looked into her eyes. They were dark black, yet bright with concentration and will. Her face was resolute. She was so goddamn attractive. Ana felt a sudden, overwhelming need to have her.

Leah was staring at her with those beautiful eyes. She was waiting for an answer. Shit.

“Yes,” Ana said. “Sounds good.”

“Alright, wish me luck,” Leah said, wasting not a second before striding into the building. Ana thought she could see the air subtly shimmer as she crossed the threshold.

Thirty seconds later, Ana could hear Leah call out.

“We might get a headache if we stay too long, but it’s fine! Come in!”

As soon as Ana stepped inside, she could feel the power of the spell push down on her mind like a lead blanket. Even with her magic ward shielding her, it was as if her thoughts were wading through knee-deep water. Beyond the reception desk, there was a glass wall, and beyond that, she could see across rows of desks, separated by four-feet tall dividers. Inside, police officers were walking up and down in a simulacrum of normalcy. Picking up stacks of documents, carrying them somewhere else, then returning them where they came from. She saw someone take a phone call, their eyes clearing up slightly, writing down information, then putting the piece of paper on a messy stack.

“Dimitri’s work,” Leah said, as they walked past the reception, straight into the main room. “He’s always so blunt. Poor people. They’ll have one hell of a hangover tomorrow.”

They stopped in the middle of all the desks. Leah looked pained, and sighed deeply.

“But I guess what’s done is done,” she said. “At least we can do this.”

She took a deep breath, then bellowed at the top of her voice: “Who here has the dead librarian’s case?”

No one even turned a head. No one except one rather plump man with a mustache. He was slightly cross-eyed as he answered, his brows furrowed deeply, like a toddler trying to figure out how daddy had taken his nose.

“I do,” he said. His voice was strained with concentration.

“Where is the evidence from the Hotel?” Ana asked, beating Leah to it.

“Evidence Locker. Back there,” he said, pointing toward the back of the building. As they followed his direction, his arm had already gone limp again, and he turned away to pick up an empty coffee mug to mechanically drink from.

Ana’s head swam, and it wasn’t just because of the magic field around her. Something inside her was... pushing... trying to assert itself. Like a painful truth she was trying to ignore, trying to forget about. She only wanted all of this to end. All of this bullshit. Be back at the library, where she belonged. Being out here had brought her nothing but pain and grief. She wanted to be back home, safe. With Leah.

All they had to do was defeat that fucking demon queen, and they could be together. Without the stress, without the pain, without all the fucking cunts that hated her so much.

Just the two of them. She wanted it so much.

Just the two of them. Alone.

The evidence locker was a dim, cavernous room, sliced into thin strips by ceiling-height metal shelves, filled to the brim with cardboard boxes and the occasional plastic bag containing whatever didn’t fit into the former.

At the entrance was another desk, almost like a little counter. There were two police officers standing on either side of it, blankly staring at an open suitcase between them.

Ana’s suitcase.

One of them was holding one of her books without really looking at it. After a moment, he put it back into the suitcase. The other officer then took it out, looked at it, and put it back again.

Pathetic.

“They’re caught in a loop,” Leah said. Her voice was somber, as if she were describing something tragic rather than exciting and inexplicably arousing. “It’s impressive they made it even this far, remembering to carry it all the way back here.”

Something deep inside of Ana reared up, and her lower abdomen cramped painfully. She hid it, wincing silently. She looked at Leah. Something made her. Ever since the Order had arrived, Ana had felt this inexplicable... attraction, and right now it was overwhelming. The room around them was closed off, secluded, dim.

They were almost... alone. The air felt heavy on Ana’s skin. She was sweating, and she finally realized that she... she was... horny.

What the fuck is wrong with me?! she thought. She shouldn’t be fucking feeling this way! Why was she feeling this way?!

“Ana, what’s wrong? You’re acting strange,” Leah said.

Ana looked at her. She was so fucking hot. Ana wanted to taste her lips so badly. To have her. To be alone with her. To have her all to herself!

“Officers, get out of here, your boss is asking for you” Ana heard herself say. Her voice sounded dry, but the officers did as she told them.

Leah stepped closer to her, looking deeply concerned. Ana could see the pendant around her neck. A cross. Only a cross. Not the dead.

Ana felt intoxicated. Close behind her, and also a million miles away, she could hear the sound of a door, falling closed. They were alone.

“Ana!” said the beautiful, hot, woman in front of her.

Ana could only focus on the sound of blood rushing through her ears, on the squirming of something that seemed to come alive in her lower body, cramps of pain that had suddenly become the most wonderful sensation in the world. Her skin seemed to burn with a roiling heat. What was happening to her? She felt so warm.

Some part of her suddenly wanted to warn Leah. To tell her to run. Some impossibly old and useless part of her.

Fuck that. They were alone. It was all she wanted. Yes. She had been waiting for this. She realized this now. She had been waiting for this the entire time—so she could have her. This was what she wanted—what she needed—what she had to do! She raised her hands, and before Leah could react, she executed the practiced motions, weaving the arcane energies around her, and lifted the protective ward from Leah’s mind.

Leah’s eyes went wide in a moment of shock and surprise and utter betrayal. Then, the magic field slammed into her mind like a freight train. She had no time to raise her ward, no time to even scream.

Leah’s eyes went dim and Ana moaned with pleasure. Yes! she thought. Yes! The heat overcame her, swallowed her up, finally unleashed. Her thoughts spun and swirled and coalesced into dark, terrible clarity as the Mother’s embrace reclaimed her mind, and she remembered what she was. What she had done.

“Mistress,” she whispered breathlessly, “my flesh serves.”

She saw Leah, staring at Ana without seeing her, her mind utterly blank and vulnerable, and it made Ana’s cunt drip with heat. Ana stepped forward, and violently kissed Leah’ssoft, unresponsive lips. She licked her tongue across that round, innocent face, breathing in the scent of her hair, slipping her hand across the helpless woman’s chest, squeezing her tits through the layered fabric of her Healer’s robes—and Leah didn’t resist. She didn’t move. She didn’t protest.

“You’re mine,” she hissed, leaning back to see if Leah was showing any reaction at all. To her surprise, she saw a tear in the young woman’s face. Her blank stare had turned a delicious shade of desperate. She wasn’t able to move, but Ana could tell that in the depths of her controlled mind, she was fighting it.

No. That’s not the game we’re playing.

Ana took a step back, circling her arms, muttering the arcane formulas under her breath. I was always too good at this she thought, remembering the first time she had practiced mind magic—learning that out of all the schools of sorcery, she happened to be naturally talented in the only one that was virtually forbidden. Unlike every other discipline, which quickly drained her or eluded her entirely, bending the perception and opinion of others had from the start been as simple and effortless as breathing.

The fact that she excelled at such an immoral art had ever been a burden on her mind—ever been a source of self-doubt and self-loathing. That was over now. Those pitiful illusions of morality were dead. They had died alongside her pathetic notions of compassion or mercy, replaced by something so much better. Her dripping wet mind bathed in the sadistic pleasure of taking over someone else’s will, and it was so much better and hotter than her old self would have ever been able to comprehend.

With a flourishing motion with both of her arms, she clasped her hands together around Leah’s head, and this time, Leah did scream. Yes, cum for me, bitch! Ana thought, feeling the Mother’s dark pleasure well up between her legs, and along with it came a primal instinct. She drew back her hands, leaving Leah softly panting. The young healer’s eyes were now so utterly devoid of life and thought that Ana wanted to cum right then, but she knew there wasn’t much time for the thing that she knew she must do.

“Listen and obey my words!” she commanded Leah, loving the coldness in her own words, loving the control, loving the utter deadness in her heart, where once she had cared for her former ‘Sister’.

Yesss... Soon, Leah and her would be sisters of a much better kind.