“Penny for your thoughts?”

“Don’t think they’re worth that much.”

Charmian accepted the proffered drink and sipped it, eyes sweeping across the room as if she was scoping for a new boyfriend. Of course the party goers weren’t to know that she was actually checking them all for signs of possession. Truth be told none of the revellers paid much attention to the two conservatively dressed women sitting on the couch and that was as they preferred it. Charmian was in a plain black dress, Carmel in blue. If they were running around in the same attention grabbing outfits and working the room like the rest of the women in there they’d be far too conspicuous and easy for demons to spot. They still blended in fine, they weren’t so drab they’d be the subject of derision, but they weren’t out to be seen. Scantily clad was not the order of the day.

They’d also be far too easy for the host to spot and he wasn’t supposed to know they were there.

Carmel frowned as she sat back down and followed suit, scanning the crowd. The large cocktails she’d procured would do nothing to them, alcohol didn’t affect avengers, but they were props for the ‘nothing unusual here’ performance. She was on the lookout for Annabelle, though Charmian would have had a fit if she’d known. It didn’t matter how grown up and mature her friend was trying to be – the first thing they were taught was to trust their instincts and hers were screaming that Annabelle was off. The rationale Charmian had given for her strangely glowing appearance wasn’t implausible in the least but Carmel had that tugging in her gut telling her something was up. She was going to listen to it with or without approval.

“I’ve been wondering why Justin kept this from us. He knows he’s supposed to stay away from unfamiliar people and this place is crawling with hangers on and social climbers.”

“Give him a break,” Charmian said. The nervous hand brushing her hair back betrayed her otherwise cool demeanour. “He’s under huge pressure and wanted to let off some steam without the immortal bodyguards looming.”

“It’s not worth his safety, though.”

“Trust me, I know him. He needs this little rebellion to still feel in control of his own life. He’ll still be smart.”

Inwardly Carmel doubted that. The boss really didn’t sound too sure.

Another of her many instincts was that Justin was pulling away. Between the new hook up and his lack of communication he was distancing himself from the people trying to protect him – namely, the brunette heading them up. Maybe she was wrong but it seemed to her like he’d got tired of hitting the brick wall Charmian had built up around her feelings. A sneaking suspicion said it was killing his faith in the entire bunch of avengers.

It wasn’t that she could blame her. They were hand picked precisely for their ability to compartmentalise and suppress their feelings; the transition to immortality very purposely heightened that ability. It was necessary for the job. In any event, losing the love of your life over and over again would make anybody put up defences. Loving Michael had over the centuries cost Charmian a great deal. Yet still this new “if he stays away from me he might live” tactic seemed counter productive to Carmel. It was making Justin distrust them all and driving him to risky behaviour - like inviting the whole world into his house for a party Dionysus might have found a little too rowdy for his tastes.

Nathaniel had a theory that the Greek Gods were loosely based on immortals, putting Charmian in the possible roles of Nemesis or Artemis, maybe even Athena. She had merely snorted and said there was no way anybody was mistaking her for the goddess of wisdom (Nate had been referring more to Athena’s link to battle strategy) but Carmel would have bet good money on the Nemesis thing. If the archangel Michael was based on their big boss she saw no reason why the goddess of divine retribution couldn’t be based on Charmian, especially since she was originally Grecian.

“Zac?”

“Yes Mel?”

“Did you get any further with that digging on Annabelle?”

“I spoke to the guardians, nothing we didn’t already know. She’s got nobody specific assigned but they watch her anyway because she’s a total mess and easy prey. Serious coke addict, eating disorder, general self-loathing and inferiority complex that she channels into needing the public to worship her while lording it over people behind the scenes. All very standard, aura’s clean though.”

“Eating disorder you say?”

“Yep. Why?”

“For somebody substituting food with cocaine she looked plenty fleshed out and healthy to me on that golf course. I smell a serious rat, Zac. I’m going to scope her out tonight.”

“You know if Char realises what you’re doing you’re going to be doing weapons drills until your hands bleed, right?”

That was quite a threat, given that it would take some seriously raw flesh to cause a problem for their super speed healing. “You have duly warned me.”

“Good, because if she finds out I had nothing to do with this. Fill me in if you come up with anything. Oh, and also, Lucas found out and while he’s not snitching he gave me that look like he seriously disapproves and next time either of us spars with him we’re probably getting flattened.”

“Ugh. I get why Lucas falls in line but he just doesn’t get that in matters of the heart, even Charmian can be in denial.”

“You’re quiet.”

“Oh.” Carmel was startled back into reality. Her boss was looking at her with that horribly shrewd and knowing expression.

“Who?” Of course Charmian knew she’d been using telepathy. Thankfully their messages were by invitation only, other immortals only heard them if the sender intended it.

“Oh, only Zac. He’s been checking some sources for me.” It was not a lie. It lacked details but it was factually accurate in all parts.

“You keep an eye out; I’m going to see if I can find Justin.”

“Okay.”

Carmel watched Charmian get up and start winging her way through the crowd, looking for a better angle on their host for the evening. Hopefully she could remain off his radar because it was doubtful he’d be happy if he realised his avenger free plans had been foiled. She felt for the guy, if she was being hunted down by Hell and ordered around by the good guys she’d probably need a break too.

Charmian made her way to the bar. Of course Carmel had already got her one drink, but she’d left it behind purposely because the bar was a good vantage point. Besides, from where they had been sitting you couldn’t make out every face crowding for drinks. It was a good excuse to go check through all of them. The hunt showed up the first and only demon of the night – it was a very minor infection however and probably unrelated to everything going on. One quick brush of her arm later and the lady in question was going to suffer nothing worse than an inconveniently timed stomach bug, so the demon couldn’t have been in place for very long.

She looked down critically at her outfit, wishing she could be in her proper battle gear. What Justin had referred to as her ‘She-Ra’ transformation (she didn’t understand the reference but he’d been too angry at the time for her to query it) only took a few seconds of magic. It was merely easier to wear sensible shoes and pants in the first place. She could fight in stilettos and occasionally they made a great weapon, but it was not the most practical way to go. Though the dress wasn’t revealing and it was still stretchy enough to fight it was not exactly a fashion win; dressing up for parties was not her forte.

“Hey there beautiful,” a tall and clearly drunk man to her right slurred. “Wanna drink?”

“I’ll get my own, thanks.”

“Hey now, what’s with the lack of friendly?” He threw a sloppy arm around her shoulder and she began to get irritated. She had better things to do than deal with him and she thought her curt tone had been quite enough. It usually sent most would be suitors running but clearly this one found it a challenge.

“Not interested.”

“Oh sure you are. I know you girls, you’re just playing… WHOA!”

It was wrong and she knew it. It was too conspicuous, it made a scene, but his hand was never going to be allowed to meet her buttocks. She grabbed his head by the hair and violently shoved his face into the bar before yanking him back up. He was whimpering and breathing heavily, making noises like a wounded animal before he stopped and realised that he wasn’t actually injured. That was another mistake – of course Charmian was quite precise enough to bring him within a millimetre of the marble top without harming him but for normal humans the odds were tiny. To the shocked observers he had been going too fast and come too close to the bar to be unscathed when it looked to their mortal vision like his nose had made contact and should have been smashed.

“Get. Gone.”

He didn’t have to be told twice.

“That was stupid. Fun as hell to watch but stupid.”

“What can I say; my patience is wearing thin these days.”

“So much for keeping a low profile.”

“There’s nobody here anyway Mel. Place is dead for demons.”

“Nobody except Justin who’s looking at you like you’ve grown another head. Though the amount of times he does that we should be up to head number five or six by now.”

“Shut up.”

In truth she was feeling a little admonished. Carmel was right, it had been stupid, but she was not in the mood to play helpless. Maybe it would teach the guy that women were capable of defending themselves.

She felt even more chastened as Justin grabbed her arm, yanked her off to the side and glared at her.

“Can you please not smash my guests into a bloody pulp? You could have killed him.”

“His head was never going to hit the bar; I was just teaching him that sexual harassment isn’t clever.”

“What are you even doing here?” He hissed. “You weren’t invited.”

“Justin, you have a lot of evil fiends after you and while I understand how much you would like a break from the divine bodyguards we cannot afford to do that. We already found one major demon in your midst.” She tried to say it kindly, calmly. It wasn’t a good idea to rile him any further. “We have to keep watch on you.”

“So next time please send Zac or Lucas who maybe won’t start murdering all my friends.”

“Was that guy really your friend?”

“Well…”

“Are any of these people really that close to you?”

“I have my crew here, Annabelle…” It was a low blow but she’d earned it.

“Great, and I’m glad you’re still living your life and hanging with them. But the other hundred people in the room?”

“It’s none of your business!” He wished he had a better response.

“I am not trying to be a hard ass here or stop you having fun but you’re very lucky that this room is clear of demons, Justin. This is just the kind of opportunity they love to use. At least Carmel and I were here to make sure you’re safe.”

“Which you’ve ascertained I am, so can you kindly fuck the hell off and quit making scenes?”

“Look, Justin, I…”

Out of the corner of her she noticed something odd at his neck and stopped cold. With unexpected speed she yanked at Justin’s collar – the force was a little too much and it nearly had him off his feet. It ripped his shirt, exposing a good deal of shoulder. Unfortunately that little glimpse was on closer inspection exactly what it had looked like.

“What the fuck is your damage, woman?”

Charmian was too busy being furious to listen. She clung on tight to his collar, ignoring his futile attempts to resist her hold. It felt like the skin on his clavicle was melting where her gaze seared into him. He really didn’t understand what her problem was or what she was staring at.

“Who have you been sleeping with?”

“What?” He yelped, unable to understand why nobody was paying any attention to the fact that the extremely famous host of the party was practically in a chokehold. That was a neat little magic trick on Charmian’s part – to anybody else it looked like they were chatting amicably. He didn’t understand the inappropriate question either. “What damn business is that of yours? Let me go!”

“It became my business when you managed to get yourself branded. Who have you been having sex with?”

She didn’t understand it. The obvious answer was Annabelle but Annabelle had been checked out by her personally. She was clean. So why was he marked?

“What the hell do you mean branded, there’s nothing there!”

“You’re mortal, you can’t see it, but you’ve been branded like fucking cattle and now for the love of all things holy you had better tell me who you’ve been fucking, Timberlake.”

It seemed odd to hear her swearing so freely and vociferously. Justin was almost afraid of her. Apart from the fact that she could very easily kill him in the position she had him in, her eyes had turned from a light chocolate brown to an ominous grey. He almost expected them to burst into flames or throw out lightning, she was so visibly angry. He hadn’t seen her like that since he’d found out what she was. Her entire body was shaking and it was no hyperbole to say she looked homicidal.

Amongst the confusion and fear Justin had a brief moment to idly berate himself for not being more careful what he’d wished for. Charmian was certainly reacting now.

“I didn’t do anything! I’m in a relationship, there’s nothing wrong with…”

“So Annabelle?”

Justin paled. He shouldn’t have said that. “You’re not going to…”

In a flash she had dropped him and raced back off into the crowd. Justin picked himself back up, panicking, and found himself face to face with a very worried Carmel.

“You’re all fucking nuts, the whole fucking bunch of you!”

“Be mad at me later, tell me what happened now.”

“She ripped my shirt open and flipped!”

Carmel’s hands went immediately though much more delicately to the wrecked collar of his shirt, looking to see what had set Charmian off. She saw the mark and grimly wished her instincts hadn’t been so close to the mark. Still it was a turn up even after her suspicions – she’d thought it was some kind of spell, not this. This was rare; she’d thought most of them had died out after the nineteenth century.

“You can’t see it but there’s a snake brand on you, JT.”

“That’s what she said before demanding the details of my sex life, what gives?”

“It means that you…” It was painful to tell him. “Recently had sex with a succubus.”

“A what now?”

“They’re a specific type of demon. Seductresses. They prey on men, lure them into bed, and leave a brand on you that makes you extremely susceptible to demonic influence. You can’t see it but it’s like a magnet for things that go bump in the night.”

“What?”

Justin really wanted to throw up. Even though he could see nothing there suddenly the spot itched like crazy. Of course it was psychosomatic but he didn’t care, apparently he’d just had a demonic GPS tracker stuck on him.

“Get it off, get it off,” he begged as he clawed at it with his nails.

“Don’t scratch, you’ll only hurt yourself. We can get rid of it but I’ll need to take you to Nathaniel… I assume you only slept with Annabelle, right?”

“Succubuses are movie stars? How is that even…”

“The plural is succubi and she’s not the real Annabelle, Lord only knows what they did with her. They can take on any form they want to entice their victims.”

“Oh God…”

He whimpered, unable to shake a horrific mental image of himself in bed with a green skinned Medusa. All thoughts of anger and irritation with Charmian’s behaviour had flown out of the window and instead he felt like a scared child in the dark. His breathing was laboured and heavy. Carmel placed a sympathetic hand on his shoulder and spoke to him as calmly as she could manage.

“Don’t beat yourself up. This isn’t your fault, you couldn’t have known, but I need you to tell me where Annabelle went because I need to run after my boss and stop her killing the bitch before we get any useful info.”

“I… cigarette break. Roof.”

“Stay here, I’ll be back and then we’ll go to Nate and get that pesky thing washed right off. Don’t move.”

He wasn’t entirely sure what possessed him to bolt after Carmel. Maybe it was morbid fascination. Maybe it was fear and not wanting to be left alone. She was very hard to keep up with; he was very physically fit and did a lot of running but she was leaving him in the dust. He almost tripped over his own feet in shock when out of thin air Zac and Lucas appeared, sprinting upstairs along with Carmel even as they materialised. He started taking them two at a time in a doomed attempt to catch up but his lungs were burning. Why was he trying to keep up with them anyway? They’d get there in about ten seconds and he’d get there in ninety, was it really worth the coronary?

When Justin finally burst onto the roof feeling like he was about to vomit up his lungs, he saw both Lucas and Zac struggling to restrain Charmian. She had ditched the party dress and was in her full battle gear, leather and armour. Now her eyes were bright red. He hadn’t realised their eyes could change colour like that until he’d seen the grey downstairs but it was disconcerting to say the least . He liked the red even less; she looked like she wanted to rip into Annabelle with her bare hands. His first instinct was to jump in and try to help the cowering girl who was on the floor with Carmel’s sword at her throat, but then he remembered she wasn’t who he’d thought she was.

“Let me go, fuckers!”

“Not until you quit with the crazy, boss,” Zac grunted.

“That fucking bitch…”

“Has information that we’re not going to get if you prematurely send her entrails flying.” It was a new and alarming thing to see Lucas straining with effort.

“So,” Carmel said cheerfully, as if none of this bothered her in the slightest. “You can either co-operate with me and I’ll make sure you die easy or you can be awkward and I’ll let her at you. Who you working for?”

“A…Anton,” Delilah spat out with difficulty – Carmel’s foot was heavy on her ribs and made breathing harder. Justin recognised that name, hadn’t Lucas mentioned something about him?

“What was the game?”

“M…mark him. Gain his trust, access the inner circle. Create an in.”

“For Anton?”

“I… ahh, yes, Anton!” She yelped as Camel let the sword’s blade lightly nick her throat. It left a nasty burn which bubbled up the skin.

“And has Anton been anywhere near Justin recently?”

“I… he said he’d… if my essence gets to the pit and he knows I told…”

“Come on, who you more afraid of? Anton or the rabid avenger over there who’d really like to eviscerate you right now? Holy swords make quite a mess of things like you, you know.”

“Yes, they’ve met.”

“And which dumb pseudonym did he… what the fuck?”

She stepped back in disbelief as Delilah started screaming. Her whole body erupted into a set of evil looking purple flames and she burned to ash before their eyes. The whole process couldn’t have taken more than ten seconds. Even Lucas and Zac had stopped fighting Charmian in order to gape open mouthed, but that was okay because she was also so shocked she’d stopped struggling. She was now hanging from their grip looking incredulous.

“And what in the blazing hell was that?” Zac asked.

“That was new,” Carmel responded mildly.

“You think Anton somehow rigged her to blow if she tattled?”

“Who knows what kind of fucked up curses that guy has access to... what do you say we just grab Justin and worry about this on our way to get him cleansed?”

Justin was about to step forward and make himself known, but Charmian had woken back up from her stupor and was turning on her lieutenants again. Roughly she shook the boys off before spinning around and glaring venomously at them.

“See? This is why you should have let me kill the fucking slut.”

“And not get even the little information we did? Geez, Char, calm down.” When even Lucas was objecting to her behaviour you knew she had stepped far across the line.

“I will not fucking calm down, the succubus that none of us noticed managed to mark my guy and now I don’t get the pleasure of dispatching the damn bitch because somebody else got there first!”

Carmel tried to gently interject. “You’re the one who taught us that information is the priority, not payback.”

“Screw priorities.”

“Umm, boss, don’t you think that the petty vengeance is making you just a little bit mental right now?”

Lucas glared at Zac. He wasn’t wrong but his phrasing was, as Nathaniel would say, about as helpful as a chocolate teapot. It was like throwing a bomb into a gas fire.

“Oh yeah?” Charmian hurled her sword at Zac with tremendous force and he let out a loud yelp as the hilt clocked his temple. “How about we let you fall in love with somebody nine times over and watch her die eight times in a row and have you kill yourself trying to stay away from her so she has a shot of surviving and then you watch her have sex with a demon that you didn’t notice was there and LET’S SEE HOW GOD DAMN MENTAL YOU’RE FEELING AFTER!”

Suddenly Justin didn’t feel like making his presence known. He quickly turned and bolted back down the stairs before anybody could see him, determined to be back where Carmel had left him so nobody could possibly know he’d witnessed all that.

So maybe she did care.