“Why do I have to do it?”

“Because you’re the only one who hasn’t had their head bitten off yet.”

“And I’d like to keep it that way,” Katherine protested.

“Nuh uh. Your turn.”

“But…”

“Now, now, children.” Nate looked up from his papers, eyes twinkling and voice dripping with amusement. “It’s only Charmian.”

Micah snorted. “No. Whoever Little Miss Dominatrix is in there, it’s not Charmian. Charmian’s reasonable.”

“Well maybe if you didn’t keep barging in unannounced…” Carmel pointed out sardonically, never looking up from the dusty book.

The avengers, when not out hunting, were taking shifts helping Nate. They were methodically trudging through every historical account he could find of demons targeting a particular mortal for anything beyond the every day business of being demonic. Needless to say, every shift the avenger in question left complaining of sore eyes and severe boredom. Centuries might pass, but illegible handwriting never changed. Still, it was necessary research; they were looking for some precedent which might clue them in to what was happening. Lucas’s dining room had been taken over by the many volumes and papers Nate had brought with him. Without the books it looked modern and trendy, all done in bare untreated wood with minimal decoration other than a few splashes of colour. This careful design had however been masked by the huge stacks and now it looked like the very messy back storeroom of a museum.

“She’s the one who wanted regular updates!” Micah protested, defensively crossing his arms.

“Yes, but maybe after she’s finished trying to calm Justin down?” She grumbled, still refusing to meet his eye. “If you hadn’t guessed, trying to explain to the eternal love of your life that you’re the one who needs to protect him after already getting him killed eight times while he freaks out about being the eternal love of your life isn’t exactly a five minute conversation.” Grumpily she wished to herself that they could have less complicated lives. Preferably lives which didn’t require such lengthy run on sentences.

“That’s true, but Car…” Katherine tapped her fingers against the oak table, leaning back in her chair. Her usually Cupid’s Bow lips were pursed together in a tight frown, lines etched into her forehead through her worry. “You should have seen her last night on patrol. Dominatrix was right – it was head to toe black leather and she was kicking ass like she was on a serious vengeance run. And this was after telling me that it was a strict recon mission and we were just trying to scope out the level of activity. She seems a little… erratic. And really, really…” She caught herself before she let the word slip out. “Uhh, irritable.”

“Well so would you be.”

“No excuse for being a bitch to your colleagues. Oww!” Micah rubbed his shin. “Bitch that hurt!”

“Do not insult my boss in front of me, I will hurt you,” Carmel helpfully warned him after the fact. “Hey!” Micah had given her an almighty prod in the ribs, so she retaliated by slapping his arm.

“Fucking hell woman, are you iron?”

“She’s an avenger you moron, of course she’s going to beat your ass.” Katherine rolled her eyes. “Try picking a fight you can win next time.”

“As much as I hate to interrupt play time in the nursery, have we found Anton yet?” Nate asked.

“No. Why, anything we should know?” Katherine immediately straightened up in her chair, all childishness forgotten. They might bicker like siblings but they knew when to remember their ages and this was that kind of time. There was something in Nate’s tone that rang alarm bells; it didn’t seem like an idle question.

“I’m not sure.” Nate pulled off his glasses and absently chewed on the left ear piece. “His name does seem to be appearing in quite a few of these stories, but I’m not sure if it’s significant. It could mean he was involved in the incidents in question or it could simply be that he saw events unfolding and took a look to see if there was an opportunity in it, it’s impossible to tell. Maybe if we had some visibility of his current movements I could check for a pattern, but some of these anecdotes are patchy at best.”

“Any of these stories we’d know?”

“A few. Plenty wouldn’t show up in the history books but ones we do have…” He slipped his glasses back on and started reading from his scribbled lists. “Definite sightings with Jim Jones and a convincing but not fully verified mention with Genghis Khan. An unconfirmed suspicion that he was in on the twentieth century rise of fascism and there’s also a suggestion that he influenced Machiavelli.”

“Who’s Jim Jones?” Micah asked. It was sad but they came across so many villains that remembering them all, even the more famous ones, could be difficult. “Name sounds familiar…”

“Cult leader,” Nate replied. “Led hundreds of people to mass suicide.”

“Was he possessed?” That was always the next question. Unfortunately, the answer wasn’t always in the affirmative.

“No. Cult of personality, it’s something that’s happened throughout human history.”

As soon as he said it, the sirens in Katherine’s head started ringing all the louder and she practically jumped out of her seat. “Cult of personality!”

Carmel finally looked up from her book and eyed Katherine suspiciously. “What about it?”

“Nathaniel, are the less famous stories all similar as well?” She asked breathlessly, ignoring Carmel in her excitement. “Some charismatic type either spreads some bad philosophy around the place or leads a bunch of slavish followers into badness?”

“Well…yes, I suppose many of them are. Where are you going with this?”

“Don’t you see?” She was practically bouncing up and down on the spot, unable to believe that their minds weren’t immediately rushing to the same theory. “Fascist dictators, cult leaders… all evil yet charismatic bastards who had a bunch of people so slavishly in thrall to them that they’d do anything. Mass genocide, mass murder, all things that are going to guarantee damnation? Cult of personality.”

Once again she expected them to catch her drift; once again she was met with blank stares. She slapped the table as if the emphasis would catch them up quicker, impatient for them to see what she saw.

“What if that’s Anton’s big game, or at least his superior’s? Find people who naturally attract others to them, people who are capable of mass popularity and big things, set them on the road to hell and bring all their followers along with them. Let one shitty human do the work of a few hundred or even thousand demons while avengers can’t do a damn thing because neither they nor their followers are possessed!”

Finally Katherine got her wish – Carmel caught on and her face immediately drained of colour. “Oh my God, Justin… even back when he was Michael he was always on the verge of fame and big things before the premature death. And now he’s got millions of fans, not to mention that Anton’s been working Hollywood for a while. Shit shit shit that makes sense!”

“Wait a minute ladies, let’s not be too hasty,” Nate rushed to add a note of temperance to the conversation before they got too carried away with their new theory, but he had to admit it was plausible. “Not all of these accounts are verified, after all. And like I say, he could simply have been an opportunistic observer.”

“Yeah, but Nate…” Even Micah had unfolded his arms and was now half sliding half slumping into a chair. Rubbing a weary hand over his face, annoyance with Charmian forgotten, his mind was racing along the same lines as Katherine’s. Sometimes he was a little slow on the uptake – he was much more task oriented on each individual soul he had to save than one who studied the grand plan – but once he caught on he grasped things very quickly.

“Think about it,” Micah continued. “Even somebody like Machiavelli… okay, he wasn’t like the people who actually gave out evil orders or anything, but how many people do you think wound up damned because they followed the ideology? There are the leaders who acted that way, the underlings who had to enforce for them… and that’s before we start on those who didn’t need somebody like that to put the idea in their heads. It’s genius. You let the humans do all the work themselves and the whole pesky free will thing means that avengers aren’t allowed to stop them.”

“More to the point, Anton’s just the type who could do this and well,” Carmel interjected. “He’s a master manipulator. He can move and schmooze with the best of ‘em so even if he’s not the big brain behind it, he’d still be the perfect person to execute a plan like this. He passes as human a lot better than most.”

They all fell silently, each contemplating the possibility. In some ways, it seemed ludicrous not to have made the connection before. However, Nate grimly thought to himself, it was so simple as to be brilliant. They all knew that humans were more than capable of terrible things without demonic infection, and since the avengers couldn’t act against them it was perfectly logical for demons to try and capitalise on it. Of course when somebody posed a cause for concern the avengers would check for demonic possession – but once they ascertained that the individual in question was clean, there were no grounds to intervene. The most they could do was keep an eye out in case a demon did choose to take advantage and hitch a ride. It was true, using a cult figure was the perfect cover for any demon who was skilful enough to work from the shadows and without the advantage of possession; it was much harder to manipulate humans from the outside but if you could do it then you got all the gain and far less physical risk.

Better yet even if you were caught and killed your handiwork would live on – the corrupted mortal still running under their own steam and safe from the avengers.

“God.” Katherine finally broke the silence. “At first I was surprised that Anton could be smart enough for this but then the more I think about it… we never heard his name that much. Mastema, Narjin, Loki, those guys, how many times have we found out one of them is behind our latest issue? But not Anton, though he used to be one of them. He’s even one of the few not dumb enough to try and catch Charmian… well, at least until that one time. Most of the upper levels all attempt at least one pop at her but not him.”

“Heh. Even that one time we got the impression that he wasn’t acting out of choice, direct confrontation’s never been his style” Carmel responded grimly. “No, you’re right. I’m starting to think we underestimated him.”

“I still urge caution, but I do admit there’s likelihood in all this,” Nate said carefully. Frantically scribbling notes and writing down page references even as he spoke, his shoulders were stiff and his cheeks flushed red. “Anton has the necessary subtlety both to manipulate and to remain inconspicuous. We’ve always viewed him as a more minor player precisely because he seemed so less prolific than his colleagues… but perhaps he was just as if not more so. Just more covert about it.”

“Which, let’s face it, is why you guys haven’t killed him already,” Micah pointed out. “Because whether it was right or wrong, you thought he was less of a threat.”

“Yeah.” Carmel threw her hands up, looking deeply annoyed about it. She scratched at her arm as if she were taking it out on herself with her nails. “He’s been useful to beat up for info, but even the other day me and Char and Lucas were discussing whether maybe he’d been giving up some shit just so he could hide the rest. God, why didn’t we see this earlier? Eight freakin’ deaths for Michael and when it’s so fuckin’ obvious when you think about it?”

“To be fair, it wasn’t just us,” Nate said mildly. “Even our superiors have failed to consider such a thing. Since it’s a naturally occurring human phenomenon it’s not surprising that demonic encouragement wouldn’t strike as obvious - still, the pieces do slot together. Why they’d be so tenacious in their targeting of Michael, why we’ve never noticed their interference before… after all, it’s only in the last few weeks we’d really caught onto any pattern. But it’s certainly a credible theory.”

“Not to put a damper on this…”

The new voice made them jump. Turning to the door, they saw Zac lounging leisurely against the frame. He was smiling innocently at them, t-shirt and jean clad, clearly enjoying the shock he’d given them.

“How long you been there?”

“Long enough to hear your theory. Which, not bad at all, but you seem to be missing something.”

“Then do you care to share instead of being all creepy and sneaking up on people?” Carmel asked tetchily. “Nobody told you it was rude to eavesdrop?”

“How does Charmian fit into this?”

“Charmian?” Micah echoed, clueless.

Hands in his pockets, Zac wandered into the room proper and took his place next to Nate. Unlike his impatient and tightly wound friends, he seemed in no particular worry or rush.

“You guys are right; it makes total sense that if a demon can get a clean human to do the dirty work then it’s a great way to damn a whole bunch of people without us catching word, especially since we can’t kick a human ass even if we do,” Zac said. “But that still doesn’t explain the whole unending love connection or her being tapped as a guardian when she’s an avenger. Especially since if it’s true then the game isn’t to possess Justin – and what use is an avenger against a clean human? That’s still one for the bodyguards.”  

“True… but then an avenger can kill the demon pulling the strings better,” Micah thought out loud.

“But we could do that without depriving him of the protection of an actual guardian.” As much as she hated it, Carmel had to agree with Zac. “He’s right, that part still doesn’t add up.”

“It’s a good question,” Nate said as he finally rose from the table, closing the books and stacking them up to be put back, “but you’re wrongly conflating two separate issues. Tapping Charmian as guardian is the Light’s reaction to a demonic threat. The former does not need to make sense in order for the latter to do so.”

“Then what do you suggest?” Zac asked.

“Be logical. You have a plausible theory - go out and see if you can prove it. As for the Charmian question, we’ll have to keep working on it.”

“Which goes back to our original problem of she’s in a foul mood, busy with lover boy and not very accessible right now,” Micah groaned. “She doesn’t want to hear from us.”

“Fuckin’ A, how’d you get to be that old and still so stupid?” Zac rolled his eyes. To think he as the youngest was supposed to be the less savvy one; clearly being older wasn’t everything. “You honestly think she’s not going to want to hear that you’ve potentially ID’d the asshole who’s after her boyfriend and that we finally have an explanation for why she’s spent the last few centuries watching him die over and over?”

“Oh. Good point.”