For the Hopeless

"How did you know that we could do this?" Samara asked as she knelt beside the corpse, her hands hovering over its face. The man's eyes were wide open, his mouth hanging open in the same horrified way, but the girl didn't seem remotely bothered by it. Even the blood that still oozed in little spurts from the deep tears in his neck and torso didn't seem to faze her. Bailey smirked as Tawny shuddered again at the thought passing through Bailey's mind, but she made no comment to the sweet little telepath.

"That you could extract information from the minds of dead corpses?" the devil asked, and Samara nodded without looking up at her. "Just a lucky guess, really." Well, technically, it came from the same source that all of her information about the supernatural came from: centuries of experience. But who would want to hear about all that?

Samara looked up at her now, a knowing smirk on her face. "I'm sure you make those a lot."

"I wouldn't say a lot, per se," Bailey chuckled. "Just every now and again. When it's convenient." She crossed her arms over her chest, and she realized how nice it was to not feel the weight of the wings on her back. It was nice to be clothed, too, even if it was just a pair of old jeans that she was just now gaining enough weight to fill and a T-shirt that fit just the same. And to have her own pale white skin back...

Samara laughed softly, but turned her attention to the corpse beneath her fingers. The glow of her eyes increased, the rich amethyst reflecting brightly on the man's fair skin, and her body went still as the corpse began to move. It was only his lips, opening and closing as if he were gasping for air, but Tawny still shivered beside Bailey, and she felt the girl move closer to her. She slipped an arm around her small shoulders and pulled her closer still, finding the warmth of her friend, of her love, at her side to be of immeasurable comfort to her, and she wasn't even afraid.

"What do you want to know?" Samara asked in a gravelly voice, her face drawn beneath the strain of controlling the corpse.

"Where are his allies?" Bailey answered, all thoughts of comfort gone from her mind. The sensation of Tawny at her side vanished; there was only the mission. "Where is their headquarters? Where can I go to end this?" She vaguely felt Tawny's body stiffen, but it barely registered.

"You don't think you're going by yourself, do you?" she asked, but Samara spoke over her.

"Washington D.C. Where else?" Samara answered, more than a hint of bitterness to her tone. Whatever she was seeing in this man's mind – or whatever she was hearing or feeling or whatever – was doing plenty to infuriate her. The strain on her face melted into raw determination, and Bailey smiled to herself. Samara was a girl after her own heart.

"We should've seen that coming, I guess," she said, still smiling, though her eyes had focused on a point in the distance. "Are there any other clusters of humans and Traitors in the city?"

Samara was silent for a moment, but she soon answered, "Not beyond a few stragglers. The men you just wiped out were the last large group, and it seems that they were actually preparing to leave for the national headquarters."

"Do we know exactly where that is?" Bailey asked, her smile vanishing to leave her face the unmoving visage of a porcelain statue.

"Yes," came the answer, clipped and rough. "If there's anything else you want to know, ask now and ask fast," the girl went on, the words tumbling out of her mouth in a jumble. "This is starting to hurt. I can't hold on for much longer." Her hands began to tremble violently over the man's face, where his lips still worked furiously as he struggled to speak or breathe or whatever it was that zombies needed to do most.

"Does he know where any other sects of humans are?" Bailey asked swiftly, rambling almost as quickly as Samara had. She needed as much information as possible. She needed to hunt down every one of these bastards that she could and wipe them from the face of the Earth. "Where they're hiding any captured Novie, performing any human training, anything?"

"No," Samara rasped, and Bailey watched her shoulders beginning to rise and fall with each heavy gasp for air. It was like her own power was smothering her, trying to force her to stop. "He only knows of D.C." She toppled onto her side suddenly, eyes shut and body still, in a dead faint.

"Samara!" Tawny cried, slipping from Bailey's arm to kneel at the girl's side. She shook her shoulder gently, but the girl didn't rouse. Bailey's eyes drifted to that point in the distance, lips drawn into a tight, thin line. "Samara, are you all right?"

"Out...side," the necromancer whispered suddenly, her eyes fluttering open only to shut again. "Look...out...side..."

Bailey's body jerked into action before her mind had even become fully alert. She jerked the curtain aside hard enough to tear it from its metal rod above the window of the front door, letting the silk slip from her fingers without a second thought. She went cold all over, a great feat for a devil.

Standing outside, in the still of the night, was an entire human mob, complete with guns and flaming torches. A few Traitors hung at the edges, identifiable by glowing eyes, glistening fangs, wolfs' tails, and so much more. They smiled right at her; the humans maintained their stern demeanor.

"It's her!" the man at the front of the crowd cried, and she recognized him as a pastor she'd seen on the news multiple times over the past month, spewing nothing but nonsense and Novie hate speech. He thrust his torch into the air, and in a booming voice, he shrieked, "Burn them all!"

The cliched nature of it all brought a smile to her lips. "Treat me like Frankenstein, will you?" she murmured, something nasty rising to wakefulness within her. "Threaten to burn my house to the ground with the people I love inside it, will you?" Her grin grew to match the nastiness that flourished within her very soul, and she felt her slowly growing fangs pressing into her bottom lip. "I'll show you how a professional goes about killing someone. I'll show you why you should fear and revere us instead of simply hate us." And she was suddenly out in the chill of the night, a set of bat-like wings ripping through the back of her shirt as her wicked cackle tore through the air.

-?-

"Are you sure you're all right?" Aven murmured, her glowing hands hovering over Dameon's cut and bruised torso as she smiled down at his bloody face. "I mean, really? Mentally and all?"

He grinned up at her, sprawled across the mattress, nude, and enjoying the pampering. Maybe she would give him a massage once she'd healed him. That would be excellent. "Yes, I'm fine," he told her laughingly, though the concern in her gold-flecked eyes didn't fade. "No matter how many times you ask, I'll continue to be fine."

"But that man downstairs," she began, her hands shifting to a deep gash lower on his stomach, "didn't you do that? Doesn't that bother you?" She was talking quickly, obviously nervous, and if he hadn't been in such a precarious position with Bailey, with things leaning toward actually happening for once, he might have pulled her to him, kissed her, told her how cute she was. He might have cared.

"I've seen worse than that before," he told her, still grinning up at her uncertain frown, "and I've definitely done worse. I've become a bit desensitized, I suppose."

"I guess that's good," she said, though the look in her eyes said otherwise. They were silent for a moment, his gaze drifting to the ceiling as her hands moved just a bit lower to continue their healing journey. Then, suddenly, she blurted, "Did anything happen with Bailey?"

Dameon's grin abruptly shifted into a frown. He'd forgotten – she wasn't there when Bailey had kissed him, when Bailey had admitted her feelings for him; she didn't know.

"Actually," he started in a soft whisper, turning his gaze to her face once more, and the way her eyes jerked to his face, the way they filled with a knowing pain, nearly broke his heart in two, "something happened with her before we even left the house."

"She kissed you," the girl whispered as she lowered her gaze, the golden glow leaving her pale hands. "I saw."

"And she told me that she needed me," he murmured, the look on her face making him hate the information he had found so uplifting and wonderful only minutes ago, "that she needed me and Tawny both."

"So she can have two lovers, but you can't?" she commented, the glow returning to her hands as she wiped her face clean of emotion and resumed the healing process – becoming his doctor and not his friend.

He caught her chin gently, tipping her head back and forcing her to look up at him. Tears welled in her eyes. "Aven, being with you has been fun, but..."

"I understand," she said, her voice cracking, the healing glow vanishing once more. "We weren't really together. This was just a fling. I'm not what you're looking for. All of that good stuff, right?" She tried to smile, but she quickly broke into sobs and buried her face in her hands.

Dameon withdrew his hand, wondering if he should've lied, should've kept all of this to himself. But that would only have been a temporary fix, and he knew that. He knew that, while he had no desire to hurt Aven and while he wished her all the best, he didn't want her like she wanted him. He couldn't have brought himself to lie to her and to drag this out.

"Please don't cry, Aven," he pleaded, sitting up and pulling her into his arms. "Please don't take it that way."

"How am I supposed to take it?" she managed between sobs, not leaning into him but not fighting him. "I'm not good enough for you. I'm not even worth having as a relationship on the side."

"Exactly," he said, and she drew back, a look on her face that said she was about to slap him. But before she could strike him, he looked her dead in the eye and said with a little half smile playing across his lips, "You're worth much more than that. You deserve to have someone who can give you his all, not someone who's so hung up on one crazy bitch that he can't give you the attention you deserve."

She could only stare at him for a moment, her eyes desperately searching his face for something, but she smiled eventually, though tears continued to roll slowly down her cheeks. "You're a good man, Dameon," she said softly. "Bailey doesn't deserve you."

His lips curved in a crooked grin. "No," he whispered, "I don't think I deserve her." A shriek of laughter from the devil herself jerked his head around, a frown instantly overtaking his smile. The noise was followed by several shouts and gunshots, and he was on his feet in a heartbeat, sprinting out the door and down the stairs. The fact that he was naked didn't bother him one bit, didn't even enter his mind as more than a quickly forgotten afterthought. His mind was on Bailey, on the nonhumans the house was filled with, on all of the things he tended to focus on first. His man bits swinging freely in the breeze were the least of his concerns.

-?-

"Get in the basement," Tawny said to the crowd of Novie gathered in the kitchen. They'd come up to see what all the noise was about, and Tawny thought they must've had a collective death wish. Had getting captured and taken to a government testing facility taught them nothing at all? "And hurry!"

"What's going on?" the most vibrant of the lot, a tall man with short brown hair and a jagged scar along his left cheek, asked, his thin lips drawn into a tight line.

"We're being attacked," Tawny answered, gesturing toward the dimly lit stairwell as she ushered the rest of the group down the stairs. Fortunately, most of them obeyed; only the man and two frail-looking women remained. "Somehow, the humans have found us. But there's no reason to worry," she added, forcing what she hoped was a reassuring smile. "Please, just go downstairs. I'm sure it'll all be over soon."

"We'll help," said one of the women decidedly, drawing herself up to loom over Tawny, the other woman, and nearly the man. "We've gotten most of our strength back by now. We can help."

"Bailey's got it," Tawny hurried to say. "It'll be much better if we stay inside and let her handle it."

"She already risked her life to save us once," the other woman chimed in, shorter in stature than the first but just as determined. "We can't let her do it again, not while we're strong enough to save ourselves."

Tawny opened her mouth to speak. She wanted to argue, wanted to tell them to go to the basement so they would be safe, but she knew that look in their eyes, that look of raw determination. It was a look she'd seen in Bailey's eyes before, in Dameon's eyes, even in Madeleine's eyes and her own. To tell them to go downstairs and let themselves be protected would be the greatest insult in the world, and she couldn't bring herself to say it.

"Fine," she eventually agreed, her voice as stern as she was sure her face was. "They're out front." The trio started toward the door to the dining room, and she added, "But be careful, and stay out of Bailey's way." They acknowledged her words with a glance and a brief nod, and then, they were gone.

"Are they going out to fight?" came a voice from behind her, and she turned toward the man who now stood in the basement doorway. He was old, his skin wrinkled and pale and his beard and shaggy hair the salt-and-pepper coloring of the elderly, but the look in his eyes made him seem so much younger – that determination that she knew all too well.

"Yes," she said softly. She knew what was coming.

"I should join them," the man said, and she nodded.

"You and anyone else who feels they should," she responded with a slow nod. The result of her words was a shuffling on the dusty stairs and the appearance of a horde of Novie, all looking grim and bearing that determined gaze. "And I assume that means all of you?" Solemn nods answered from all around. "Go, then. They're out front." The crowd began to move past her, and she could barely keep herself from stopping them. Some of them were too young to go into battle, too weak, too unprepared. How could she let them do this? How could she let them go off to die like this? But in the end, all she did was whisper as they left the kitchen, "Be careful. And don't get in Bailey's way."

-?-

"Bailey!" She heard a cry of her name and turned from the man she held by the throat, her too-sharp nails digging into his skin to send blood dripping down her fingers. Dameon stood on the front porch, butt naked as he always seemed to be these days, and she saw his breath as a puff of steam in the cold air when he yelled over the sounds of raging battle, "What's going on?"

"Get inside," she said, squeezing the man's neck until it popped like a grape. Gore exploded all over her arm, and his head and body dropped to the snowy ground without a sound. "You're still injured, and I can handle it myself." No sooner had the words left her lips than three of their rescuees bolted through the door behind Dameon, two women and a male, all wearing the faces of warriors – all determination and the will to kill. They rushed past the nude werewolf without a glance and dove into the fray where a group of Traitors was trying to fight off her red mist and on the brink of winning.

Bailey sighed and turned to fully face Dameon. "Well, now I have back up. Go inside." Another mass of Novie burst through the front door, and she put her head in her hand. "Oh, Jesus Christ! How about everybody just throws themselves into the fight?"

"Okay," Dameon responded cheerfully, and his pale skin suddenly shifted to dark fur as his human form changed to that of a wolf. He leaped from the porch and disappeared into the writhing crowd of bodies – which was lucky for him, because she wanted to wring his neck right now.

A blade suddenly tore into her back, sliding through her intestines with ease. She felt every second of it, refusing to let her senses be overcome by the pain. "For fuck's sake," she growled, glaring down at the tip of the knife that stuck out of her stomach. Without any other comment, she spun, flooring the man who had stabbed her with an outstretched wing. She reached back and caught the hilt of the knife in her bloodied fingers as the man gazed fearfully up at her. She bared her fangs in a wicked smile and jerked the dagger from her back. "Do you guys ever play fair?" she mused, then threw the knife with a flick of her wrist. It embedded itself right between the man's eyes, and he toppled over, dead.

She turned her back on the corpse and let her gaze sweep across the battlefield her front lawn had become, the tingling of her back and stomach healing present but firmly placed at the back of her mind. Many humans had fallen, but twice as many remained, still aided by all of the Traitors who'd accompanied them. Two of the Novie on her side had already fallen, but all of the humans' remained. She couldn't see Dameon, but she hoped he was all right. She could still feel him nearby.

"I should've told you to go inside," she murmured to the corpses that lay yards away from her. "I should've done a better job looking out for you."

"Or perhaps you should try looking out for yourself," came an oddly deep female voice, and Bailey was sent sprawling front-first in the blood-red snow that covered the yard. "They told me you were strong," the voice went on, a knee jabbing into Bailey's back as she tried to rise. It pinned her to the cold snow, already melting against the heat of her skin, and when she tried to turn her head to see who the voice belonged to, she only caught a flash of red skin before a hand in her hair forced her face to the ground. "But now, I see that they were referring to the state Espixilon had gifted you with, not your natural state."

Espixilon? Bailey wondered. Her vague recognition of the name quickly turned into full-blown realization. Espixilon was the name of the devil who had alternately hurt and helped her for a few days, the one she'd had to kill in the end despite all of his flawed-but-good intentions. It was a name he'd only mentioned once in a passing shout, but it was a name she would likely never forget.

"No matter," the woman behind her continued, and Bailey's thoughts shifted to all of the possibilities that could explain the presence of a second devil in this war. Had the humans hired her? Had she come for some good ol' devilish fun? Had she been a friend of Espixilon who had come for – "Revenge is all I'm here for, and the easier it is to kill you, the better." There it was, a good old cliche. Why had she expected anything less?

She heard the unmistakable ringing of a dagger being pulled from its sheathe; she saw the harsh, silvery glint of steel as the light spilling through the open front door fell upon the blade. "I don't owe you this," the woman murmured in her ear, her breath warm as the smoldering embers of a dying flame, "but I'll end you quickly. It would be no fun to toy with someone so weak, anyway." The hand tangled in her hair jerked her head back, and the chill of the blade pressed against her throat. "Any last words from the slayer of Espixilon?"

"Yeah," came a deep male voice, a familiar one, a warm one, one that sent shivers running down her spine though she could never figure out why. "Die, bitch."