The Lost Girl

We live in a world of duplicity. Everything, it would seem, has two sides: good and bad, life and death, fact and fiction, choice and fate. Of these it would seem that choice and fate are the two that garner the most attention from man. Are we destined to live the life we lead, or are we carving our own? I cannot speak for anyone else, but I found it to be true that, whether we are free willed or not, our choices make all the difference.

Even places in the middle of nowhere have to have a bad part of town. For our hometown of Claremore, it was behind the local grocery store, and in the apartment block. In the next town over, Tulsa, it was 11th street. Being the upstanding citizens that we were, Greg and I found ourselves walking 11th street at the worst time of night.

"I'm not gonna lie." Greg said. "If it was my car, I would never leave it parked in this neighborhood with the windows down." He looked back over his shoulder and squinted to see if my 68' Lincoln Continental had been lifted yet. All that could be seen were the whitewalls against the inky backdrop.

"I locked the doors." I said, continuing forward towards the center of town.

"And the windows are down." He replied.

"So?" I said. We passed under a buzzing neon sign, proclaiming "Always Vacancy" at the "In n' Out" motel.

Greg shook his head. "All I'm saying is, I am not walking home. So if your car gets stolen, you're paying for bus fair."

I nodded. I looked up from under my hood and peered through my sunglasses at the quarter moon. The stars were invisible in all the light pollution. This place was nothing like home. You could always see the stars there.

My long black coat and hood made me look somewhat Unibomber-esque in our surrounding context. Greg's glaringly white and blue clothing, covered in religious markings, accented by his negative-white sunglasses made him stick out like a sore thumb.

As we waited on a stoplight a woman in tattered jeans shorts, a low cut top, and heavy makeup walked up to us. She looked us over.

She looked us over, slowly, top to bottom. "You two aren't from around here, are ya?" She smacked chewing gum between clauses.

We looked at each other. "Nope." I replied. Gregg was staring off into the distance, wearing his usual, "Hurry it along" look.

"You two wanna party?" She asked, inching closer to us.

"No thanks." I replied. "Working." The "walk" symbol appeared on the opposing light post, and we began to cross the street. She followed.

"Me too. So why don't we help each other out. You look stressed, I need to pay the rent." She laid a hand on my shoulder. "Everybody wins."

I stopped. "You're blood smells of heroin and your close stink of meth. Your heart is racing and you're covered in sweat that smells like Crown Royal. Rent?" I raised an eyebrow and then turned away.

"We've all got our vices." She shouted at us as we made it to the other side of the street.

Greg and I continued down the street a little way until he spoke again. "Why are we here, anyway?"

"It's the most crime ridden area of the city. I figured we'd have a good chance to find something to occupy our evening." I replied as we ambled down the street.

"It's been pretty slow lately." Greg was straining up at the sky, hoping to catch a glimpse of the sky. "I wonder why?"

I shrugged. "I'd say it's our effectiveness, but considering that no one seems to know that we exist, I'd say it's just an ebb in the flow." I looked down at my watch. It wasn't very late, just a bit past nine, but it was already dark. The summer sun had dropped below the horizon and the pink and purple had turned into black. Even without the sun baking the pavement, the thermometer on a nearby sign still read "108."

"Wanna get something to drink?" Greg asked me as we neared the only gas station for on the street.

I nodded. "Sure." I stopped for a moment and surveyed the block. What made 11th such a magnet for crime was the composition of its establishments more than anything else. Houses, apartments, and duplexes were intermingled with business of all kinds, hotels, bars, stripclubs, venues, grocers, as if the city planners had no idea exactly what they had hoped to turn the district into. The heterogeneous element had turned it into its present state more than anything else.

We stepped into the convenience store and after exchanging some odd glances with the clerk, walked back towards the fountain drinks. As I reached for a 32 ounce cup I heard it. It's the sound of the safety being turned off. No one else heard it, not even Greg. I finished filling the cup to the brim and step over to the table with lids and straws.

"Something wrong?" Greg was staring down at my cup confused. I had put a straw in it, but not bothered to put on a lid.

I nodded and tilted my head back, gesturing to three men walking towards the counter from the back of the store. We took our spot in the line behind them, waiting to see what would happen.

"This all for tonight?" The cashier asked as he tabulated up the cost of their various drinks and snacks.

"Yeah." Said the man at the front of the group.

Greg shrugged. "Guess you were wrong."

The man at the front of the line handed the cashier a twenty. The kid behind the counter popped open the register and looked up to see a gun pointed at his nose.

"Empty the register." He said. The two men with him had pulled out pistols as well and one of them was watching the door. The other had his gun trained on the only other two people in the store, Greg and I.

"Either one of you motherfuckers moves, and they'll be washing you off the floor in a few hours, got it?" He inched towards us. "Now put your hands up."

Neither of us made any movement.

"You deaf, or just stupid? I said put your motherfucking hands in the air!" He screamed.

"Just do what he says!" The kid at the register was about to wet himself from the look of things.

My hood was still pulled down well in front of my face, but over the brim of my sunglasses I could see the sweat dripping from the forehead of man holding us at gun point.

"No." I said.

He put the gun at my chest. I was still holding one hand down at my side and the other was suspended at chest level, holding my drink.

"You wanna die?" He asked me.

I shook my head. "Not really worried about that." As I said this I threw the soda in my hand at his face and disarmed him with my free hand. Greg turned to the guy who had been watching the door.

"Sleep." He fell limp to the ground.

The situation drastically altered, we now stood in a semi-circle. Greg stood at my left, arms crossed, and to my right was the now disarmed man who had held me at gun point. I held his gun on him for a second before letting the clip fall from it to the floor. I then ripped the barrel in half.

"What are you?" The thug holding he cashier at gun point had lost focus, and was now trained directly on me.

I said nothing.

Greg held out his hand. "Give me the gun." The gunman watched his hand reach out and place the gun in Greg's hand. He passed it to me and I promptly tore it in half as I had the first.

Everyone stood frozen for a few moments.

"How-" The thug that had held me at gun point was interrupted by the impact of my fist against his head. Greg looked at the last thug standing. "Would you rather he hit you or for me to Obi Wan you again?"

"What are y-" I knocked him out before he could finish.

"I get so tired of that question."

I picked up the two thugs that I had laid out and sat them outside the door. Greg tossed the hypnotized door guard on the pile. Greg reached into his satchel and pulled out a measure of cord. We tied them up to the light pole directly by the door and then walked back inside.

I picked up one of the drinks that the would be robbers had in effect purchased and looked at the cashier.

He quivered a bit. "It's yours man." Greg did the same as we walked out. The sound of sirens in the distance did nothing to speed our exit.

"Think the cops will actually take them in?" Greg asked.

I shrugged. "I doubt it. It'll be an hour or two before they show up. By then they'll have come to and someone will be dumb enough to untie them."

As we walked back up the street towards the car we noticed something odd.

"It seem a little…empty out here to you?" Greg asked.

I nodded. "Yeah, everyone's gone inside. That's pretty rare for this time of night." As I said this the familiar "woop" of a police siren wailed around a corner and pulled up next to us, lights flashing.

"And that would be why we're the only ones out. Beautiful." I shook my head. I put my hands in the air and turned to face the car. Greg did the same as the officer exited the car shouting.

"Well what do we have here?" He pulled out his flashlight and shined it in our faces.

"What do we have here?" I snickered. "Who writes your lines? Leno?"

He snarled. "I don't recall telling you to say a goddamn word." He walked up to us. "I've got two freaks walking the street in the middle of the night, exhibiting suspicious behavior, less than a block from a robbed convenience store. I'd say that's reasonable suspicion to take you both in for a mandatory 72 hour date in the holding tank." He looked Greg up and down. "I got a couple real big guys in there right now that'd just love to meet you." The light on the dash cam blinked at us through the glare of the headlights and his flashlight.

"Look," I said. "I have absolutely no desire to be put on wanted posters for assaulting an officer of the law, but I'm not going anywhere, and neither is my friend. So unless you've got some real reason for taking us in, other than profiling based on our appearances, then I suggest you let us go before this ends in a bad way for you."

"That a threat boy? Take off that hood so I can see your face." He shined his light on me again.

"No."

He snarled again. "I said do it!"

"No."

He swung the butt of his flashlight at my face, I caught it at the last second, and crushed it between my fingers.

"No." I said again. "Can we got now, please?" The officer was clearly at a loss. "Look, bacon, I got places to be." I let go of his flashlight and he slowly backed away.

"I don't want to see your faces around here anymore." He didn't take his eyes off of us.

I turned away. "Pff."

The squad car pulled away, lights flashing so that he could run the nearby redlight.

"Fuckin' fuzz." I said flipping off the general direction of the now departed officer. "That's totally fine, we'll do your job, and then you can hassle us!" I turned to Greg. "I swear it's like living in a movie based on Fifties Southern America."

He shrugged. "We kinda do." He pondered that for a moment, "Except we're costumed vigilante metasapiens."

"Truth." I replied.

As we got back to the car, which to Greg's surprise had not been lifted, we found a note tucked under the driver's side windshield wiper blade.

"What's it say?" Greg asked.

"423 N. Main, I'll be in the back"

He raised an eyebrow. "Think they had the wrong car?" I shook my head. "We're not gonna go are we?"

"I was planning on it." I said opening the door and sliding into the driver's seat. The "woosh" of my coat caused the rosary that hung from the rearview to swing back and forth for a few seconds.

"So," He opened his door and joined me in the car. "are we just going to ignore the glaringly trappy…trapish…trap-esque nature of this? It's probably a note from the cops."

"The cops don't leave notes." I said turning on the engine. "The hold you at gun point while their buddies hit you with stuff."

He shrugged. "Valid point." He turned on the radio. Simon and Garfunkel's "Sound of Silence" eerily crept from the speakers. "Who do you think left it?"

I shook my head. "We'll know in just a few minutes." We drove on, until we found ourselves in familiar territory.

"427, 425…423?" We stopped, and parked in front of 423 N. Mainstreet, Tulsa Oklahoma. To our shock, it was the location of one of our favorite haunts, Cain's Ballroom.

"Well, if they're going to kill us, at least there'll be good music." I said as we stepped up to the box office.

The woman behind the counter looked us top to bottom. I had to suppress a laugh; whenever she moved her head, her nose piercing looked like it was exploding because of the neon lights it was reflecting. "Here are your tickets."

"But we didn't pay you for them…" I said looking over to Greg.

He shook his head. "Don't look at me, I haven't said one word."

"A guy came in earlier, bought three tickets, and said that there would be two guys by later that looked like they were really lost, and to give you these and point you to the back booth. So, here are your tickets, your friend is waiting in the back booth."

I raised an eyebrow. "Ok, thanks…" I looked down at her name tag. "Liz."

She shot me a terse glance. "Whatever."

Greg and I opened the door and were bombarded by "Holiday in the Sun" by The Sex Pistols, who were about to start their encore.

"Bloody Hell!" I said, lighting up as the familiar sound lit my ears. "Not a favorite of mine, but better than what I expected."

We walked to the back booth, which was empty.

"He'll be right back." The girl in the booth immediately to the right, leaned over the back of her chair to face us. "He said if anyone came up looking like that. To tell them that he'd be right back."

"Why does everyone keep looking at us like that?" Greg asked.

I gestured out with my hand. "You're covered in religious markings, and I-"

"Look like the Unibomber." A middle aged man, wearing a business suit, sat down in front of us.

"Who the hell are you?" I asked waving over a waiter.

The man laughed at me. "I don't have a name, just a title." He sobered for a second. "And I'll thank you to not take that tone with me, boy." He then went back to laughing.

I ordered a coke from the waiter and returned my attention to the man. "How exactly can I help you?"

"You know, it's nearing midnight. I don't suppose I could convince you to take off that hood and those sunglasses could I?"

I smirked, "When you don't sleep, the sun becomes just another 100watt bulb."

He chuckled again.

"Who are you?" Greg asked.

"That won't work on me, boy." He seemed insulted. "Are you really that eager to get down to business?" He sighed. "I'm the Emissary."

"The Emissary." I repeated.

He nodded excitedly. "Yes! Is there a parrot in here or what?" The Sex Pistols wailed on in the background, and he seemed momentarily distracted.

"The emissary for who?" I leaned forward.

"Death." He smiled. "And he wants me to give you this." He reached down into his side of the booth and pulled up a manila envelope. "He needs you to take care of something for him."

He laid the evelope on the table and pushed it towards me. I was sucking down the coke that had been brought to me. I eyed the envelope.

"Why us?"

He shook his head. "Not us. You."

I corrected myself. "Why me?"

"That," He said, standing. "You'll have to take up with Death. I just deliver his messages, I don't ask questions."

I picked up the envelope. "I'm not killing anyone."

He burst into full out laugher. "Kill someone? That's certainly not something Death needs help with. Whatever it is, it's something you don't really get a choice in that much you can be certain."

He walked into the crowd, and disappeared.

"What the hell man?" Greg said. He had been sitting dumbfounded.

I turned the envelope over in my hand. "Should I open it?"

"Hell no." He said, scooting away from me. "It might be poison or something. I mean, come on! You can't really believe that wackjob works for Death? Death isn't a person. It's what happens when your brain doesn't get enough oxygen."

I stood and walked outside. "I'm gonna open it." Greg looked down the street and, seeing that it was clear, ran across the street.

"Ok, now open it!" He shouted from across the street.

I flipped him the finger and then opened the envelope slowly. Inside was a single piece of paper, with one sentence written on it in black marker.

"Well?" He shouted, inching slowly back across the street. "What the fuck does it say? Was it covered in anthrax?"

I turned the paper towards him.

He read aloud. "Find the Lost Girl…What the fuck does that mean?"

"John?" Brian was yelling at me through all the stacks of books. "John, are you in here?"

I glanced up. "Yeah, same place I've been for the better part of a month now."

He made his way through the stakes and piles and found me at my desk in the castles library. "Any luck?"

I shook my head. "Nah, you?"

"Nothing that we hadn't already found. There are mentions of "The Lost Girl" in tons of different texts, most of them concerning the end of the world, but none of them tell us who or what that is, let alone what to do with her." He sat down on the floor. "Are you sure this is legit? I mean, Greg is right, it could have just been some crazy guy wanting a laugh that picked your car at random."

"I'm sure." I sat the book down. "The way he talked to me. The way he was staring through me. He wasn't human."

Brian shrugged. "Just wanting to be sure. You've been held up in her for three weeks and haven't found a damn thing. What makes you think that'll change now?"

I picked the book back up. "Haven't looked through all the books yet, there are hundreds of shelves in here that we have never even touched before, let alone cross referenced in this instance."

He grabbed a pile of unopened books and headed for the door. "Well, we'll keep looking, but you need to come out and rejoin civilization soon. You'll go crazy if you don't."

I nodded and went back to researching. I had been reading for three weeks straight. "The Lost Girl" She showed up in dozens of doomsday prophecies. She was one of the few characters that, if you got old enough translations, everyone seems to agree exists. But who she was, and what she was, had escaped us.

I picked up a book on Greek mythology and flipped through the pages till a stumbled on a drawing of the Greek god Hades and his bride Persephone. They were weeping, and the words "Amissus Pupa" were above it.

"The Lost Girl" I mumbled.

I read the paragraph. "And she was spirited away, daughter of Persephone and Hades, taken from the underworld, and hidden amongst man. The Fates took her, fearing for mankind. They left only a note behind: 'Daughter of Hades and Man, heir of Death, holder of humanity. The Deceiver will find her, and as she leaves her ides corrupt her. And then she will bring about the fall of man.' Never to be found, the daughter of Hades and Persephone, became simply The Lost Girl."

Below it was another picture, this one captioned: Staff of Hades. In the picture was a crude drawing of a scythe.

I laid the book out on the large circular table in the Main Hall.

"So," Devon was the first to pear over the pages. "have you completely lost your mind, or just any sense of logic in concern to this particular situation?"

I flipped him off. "I really think this is it."

Devin spoke up from the back of the room. "Dude, how do we even verify that this Lost Girl isn't just another legend?"

Saul turned his laptop screen around to face the group. "She appears in over three hundred distinct legends, myths, and oral accounts dating from at least 3000 BC. She appears across cultural, religious, and geographical boundaries. Either she is a real being or the most traveled myth the world over. The name "The Lost Girl" or something very similar appears in Arabic stories predating Arabian Nights, Egyptian burial scrolls, and Native American cave drawings. She's called "Missing Daughter" in Japan, and she is considered a death omen, or a sign of the end times in each and every culture that she appears in." He turned the computer back towards himself. "It's not even a leap of faith to believe she exists. It's an existential venture. It's almost a guarantee."

"How'd you find all of that out?" Devon nudged Devin out of the way so that he could see Saul.

"The internet is good for more than just porn and bootlegging." Saul replied.

"Ok," Devin said. "But that just gives credence to the theory that this was just some stupid prank. I mean, if she is so common of a legend, then the moron at Cain's must have just been yanking the chain of the idiot dumb enough to leave his windows down in the worst neighborhood in the state."

Brian shrugged. "That's a pretty flimsy theory." He picked up the book. "I mean, judging by the book John had to scrounge up," He blew dust off the spine, and pointed at the publication date, of which only the beginning "16" was legible. "and the sheer volume that I know that I've read, not counting what everyone else has gone though, the whole "Lost Girl = Daughter of Hades" doesn't seem to be appearing seasonally on Jeopardy."

"It's the best lead that we've got. And if she is tied in to the end of days like everyone, ever, in the entire history of recorded man seemed to think, I suppose we might want to look into it."

"But where the hell do we even begin?" (Dillon) exclaimed. "I mean, does she look as old as she's dated to be? Is she immortal? Is she human? Is she a thing? Is she even a living being? Can any of you answer me even one of those questions?"

I shrugged. "Daughter of Persephone and Hades means full blooded paranormal being."

Greg shook his head. "That's not a whole lot to go on, Johnny."

I nodded. "(Dillon), Devin, Devon, you three get to keep working the stacks in the library. Brian, Greg, you two help Saul here and see if you can find more online."

"What are you going to do?" Ben asked. "What am I going to do?"

"You're going to go to the public library and start going through news paper reels. See if you can find anything mentioning lost or found girls over the last century in this area that seem out of place or strange." I picked up the book. "I'm going to try to translate this passage down here that's in Arabic."

I looked around me. "Why are you all still standing here?"

No one moved.

I slapped my hand to my forehead. "….well…I'd like you to go sometime today…"

I looked up from the book and rubbed my temples. "How long have I been sitting here?"

Saul spun around in his desk chair to face me. "About 8 hours." He looked down at his watch. "You're really not so good with the time thing. We should have been walking into school right about now."

I sighed. "I'm sure Greg will have taken care of it like all the other days we miss."

"You're probably right." He ran his hand through his hair. "I really hope no one ever gets wise to his Jedi mind tricks."

I nodded. "You find anything?"

"Nadda. You?" He replied.

"I'm making some progress, but I'm only about halfway done translating the Latin paragraph." I looked around, "Where'd Brian and Greg go?"

He pointed to the door. "They said they needed some fresh air, I think they went to get some food or something."

I nodded, rubbing my temples again, going back to work. It was another few hours before I woke. Brian and Greg returned and went back to work, and Brian and Saul fell asleep before I spoke again.

"I think this qualifies as bad."

"Sweet Jesus, I'm awake!" Brian sat bolt upright. Greg was roused from his lull as well.

"Sorry…" said looking at the paper that bore my translation. "I just finished the translation."

"I didn't think Arabic would be that hard to translate, I mean it's not exactly a totally lost tongue." Brain said rolling his chair to the table and setting his elbows on it.

"Well the portion was added much later than the original Latin, but it's in a very weird dialect. I had to walk it through a few languages first. It wasn't exactly simple." I closed the book.

"So?" Saul said. "What does it say?"

"If it's a take-out menu, I'm gonna be pissed." Greg said joining us along with Saul at the table.

I read aloud. "The Fates took the girl, knowing the Deceiver would come for her and hid her someplace only they could go. They took her…"

"Where?" The trio asked in unison.

"The closest I can figure this word to mean is "after" or "forward' but that doesn't really make sense." I replied.

"Future?" Brian asked. "You mean they brought her to the future?"

I cocked my head to one side. "That'd make sense I suppose…" I continued reading. "They took her forward. To be hidden and protected. Afforded a normal life on the blood of men, she must be protected at all costs, for she is corrupted, the end comes."

"Well, they don't ever have anything good to say in old creepy books written in archaistic languages, do they?" Greg said shaking his head.

"So let's recap." Brian stood and started to pace. "They took the daughter of Hades, who we modernly see as Death, and his lover Persephone, and brought her to the future, left her on someone's doorstep and said 'Good luck kid, don't end up evil?'" He laughed. "They did a shitty job on this whole saving the world thing."

"So, Death must want us to keep her from this Deciever guy, then?" Saul suggested.

"Must be." I shrugged. "or her wants her himself. But I can't see the guy who can blink us all dead in an instant needing help ending the world if he feels like it."

"So why pick you?" Brian asked. "Why not pick the President, or someone with some swing? Someone with a way to actually get to her."

I thought for a second. "We must already know her. He thinks she'll trust us."

"But I thought she was a baby?" Saul raised an eyebrow. "You…you don't exactly know very many children, let alone babies."

"You were a baby once too. Is it easier to corrupt someone for evil when they're old enough to want to be bad, or when they're afraid of the dark closet?"

We stood there, drained and vexed. "We gotta find her." I was the only one still awake enough to break the silence.

"We'll have to narrow it down from 'girls we know.' Otherwise we'll be knocking on doors for the next year." Greg said.

"Pff, cause you totally know all the babes." Brian said laughing. "But he is right, we do need to narrow this down."

"To the Hall of Records!" I shouted.

"Where?" They replied, stagnant.

"To the Court House file room!"

We pilled into my car and, as usual, when I turned the ignition the radio blared to life. "What is and What Should Never Be" washed out and filled the car as we did.

"So what exactly are we going to be looking for, and why am I amongst the unlucky bastards who have to be awake for it while everyone else gets to sleep?" Brain asked from the passenger seat.

"We're looking for birth certificates and adoption paperwork that's strange or peculiar."

"Like, 'was born with three noses' strange or 'no birth mother and father' strange?" Greg asked.

"The latter."

We drove through the gateway, and the rest of the short way to the court house.

Brian chuckled. "B & E on the courthouse, God we just love our felonies don't we?"

"You and Greg watch the door, make sure no one comes in." I pointed to Saul. "We're going up." I put my hand on the door and fried the lock with a jolt of electricity.

"What about the alarm?" Saul asked.

"If it survived that surge, they deserve to catch us." I replied.

We made our way to the file room.

"Doors locked." Saul said, trying it a few times.

I motioned for him to step aside, and then I forced the lock. "Not anymore."

We rummaged through the piles of birth, death, and adoption papers going back two decades, and ended up with a candidate pool of thirty young women, all about turn 16, that had something strange enough in their file that made them seem like a fit.

"A lot of people in our county don't seem to have any parents at all.' Saul commented.

I nodded. "Fucking rednecks."

We came back down stairs and drove home.

"Tomorrow, we start running these down." I said.

"How do we determine when we've found her?" Greg asked.

"According to the lore, saying her mother's name in her presence will make her 'appearent' whatever the hell that means." Saul replied.

The clock rolled over to midnight.

"Let's get started." I said cackling.

One Month Later

"How many names do we have left to check?" Ben was throwing darts at a picture of our Superintendent.

"There are four names left to check. You and Saul take Cynthia Allen, Devon, Devin, and Dillon, you guys can take Ashlyn Spielberg, Brian and Greg, you guys take Billie Jameson, and I'll take the last one."

Everyone broke off into their groups and we set out to find "The Lost Girl." I drove by the girl I had picked house, only to find it empty.

"Can't say I'm surprised, she's never home." I waited.

One hour passed. Nothing. Then another, and another. After four hours I gave up, and left. On my way back I had to drive up the hill at the edge of town that had a reputation for murdering young idiot drivers. I drove past yet another car crash. Contrary to the norm, this one had been the result of someone swerving into the side of the hill, just a ways from the guard rail, rather than driving off the side.

"What a damn shame."

I parked my car in garage and walked inside. As I neared the door I heard Greg and Brian's voices.

"You will not believe what just happened to us!" Brian shouted. His voice boomed against the walls of the room and nearly dropped me to my knees. Sometimes having keen hearing was not a plus.

I stepped through the door, ears still ringing. "Let's use our inside voices and tell us what happened."

Greg was being tended to by Dillon. "Vampires. We got jumped by vampires."

"What?" I flipped my hood back. "Did either of you get-"

"No." Brian said. "We can handle ourselves. But these bastards were mean. Weren't afraid to come right out and get at your face. But no, nobody got sucked on." He gestured over to Greg. "Greg might have gotten a broken wrist though."

"So break it down for me man." Saul said. "What happened?"

Brian cracked his neck. "We were coming around the corner from Billie's house and ran right into them."

"At first we thought they were just another group of dumbass kids from the high school." Greg added.

"But then they changed." Brain was staring into the distance. "I've fought vampires before, but there were just so many of them. And they were determined to get to Billie."

"Oh no." The implication struck me.

"Maybe they don't have the list." Ben said, sensing my tension. "Maybe Billie just pissed off some vamp kids?"

"I never made contact." I looked around the room. "Did you guys all come up dry?"

Everyone nodded.

"Then it has to be her." I turned around and started running for the car. "They'll be headed there next!"

Everyone started running after me. "John!" Brian shouted, hobbling, "Man, we could have the profile wrong!"

I turned to face him. "You really wanna risk that?"

We pulled up to find the door to the house wide open.

"Don't vampires have to have an invite to enter a home?" Devin asked.

I nodded, "I'd say they got one."

Saul was following behind me in his Camero. We had split into two groups and crammed into the two cars to save time.

I parked the car on the front lawn and went inside the front door. There, her father and mother lay, unmoving.

"Oh God." Devon said. Saul leaned down and checked the mothers pulse as Dillon did the same for the father. I left the group behind and ran upstairs.

She was there backed into a corner. Five of them stood around her.

"Persephone!" I shouted. Her hair and eyes fluoresced bright orange. At the sound of me the five of them turned and rushed me, with only a moment's hesitation.

They piled on me, trying to take me to the floor. One of them stabbed me in the knee, which took me down. I was flinging them off, but they were crawling and dragging themselves back on quickly.

"You shouldn't have come alone!" One of them shouted.

Finally I flung one of them out the window. As he landed Brian let out a concentrated sound wave which sent another one of them falling to its knees before it's head literally exploded into a cloud of embers and dust.

Before he could aid me further one of them jumped off me and on to him. I grabbed the one off my back and the one on my legs and threw one outside and the other against the wall.

I extended a long claw from my forearm and held it behind my back. He charged me. Before he knew what had happened, his body was dissolving on the other side of the room and his had was dissolving on the floor in front of me.

The last one jumped off Brian as Saul ran up and kicked him off. He fled out the window.

After a moments breather I turned to her. "You okay, Gloria?"