Lily gave a small nod of her head as she brought her eyes back towards the table. As soon as possible meant too soon for her to sort her head out, to organise the mess of thoughts and issues in there. Oh well, maybe she would die before she had to sort all that out.

“How should I do it?” She lifted her head and leaned back in her chair, drawing in a lungful of air to clear her mind. “Do I go to him on my own, or should all of us be there when I talk to him?” Either way it could work, she doubted her father would kill her on the spot. If he did, that would be a shock to her system. The question was if her father would bat an eyelid as Finn’s wings and Callisto’s magical rebirth or not.

–

Veles hadn’t given Xevon anything other than a sharp glare as the vase went shattering to the floor, to the living it appeared as though he was looking at the ceramic shards. Meanwhile, his eyes were fixed on the searing gaze of Xevon beside it.

The living had jumped out of the skin with a yelp of surprise. “This place is strange, things move on their own.” Veles tried to justify to the pair, they didn’t seem convinced as he led them into the heart of his room.

“What is this place? It looks too big to be in this building.” The woman’s head was tipped back to look up at the ceiling, slowly stepping in a circle to look around. Veles stood patiently as they pottered a little bit, soon enough the man lifted his head too. That was when Veles let his hand snake its way out into the open, eyes darkening with malice. He knew the distance his lantern could reach with free souls, from where it sat in the very corner of the room tucked away, he knew it would reach.

He shot over from where he stood and grasped the man, human hand gripping the hair of his crown and drawing his head painfully backwards. The man shouted with surprise and then pain as his bones began to grind against each other at the contortion of his spine.

Veles’s black cloaked hand made its way up to the man’s neck and dug the claws deep into the viscera, hooking around the tendons and trachea before ripping them out in an extravagant fashion. The blood splatter reached the woman who had turned to gape at them, eyes widened in fright as the hot blood poured over her. The soft gurgling of the blonde in his arms continued as she began to scream and stumble over her own feet to flee the room.

Veles’s lips were pulled taut in a sick grin, the blood had dashed across his own face and neck as well, beginning to drip down into his shirt. He let the body fall to the ground without a care, it hit the boards with a dull thud and he felt the lantern pulling the blonde’s soul towards it as the life drained from his body.

Smeared with blood, lips split in a hungry almost pant, Veles looked over towards Xevon. His predatory gaze sharpened. “They can’t work together now.” He purred, his tongue flicked out to clear some of the blood that was covering his lips.

Callisto’s expression became one of blank annoyance at the term “Great Callisto”. It wasn’t a moniker he had given himself, it was some silly thing the new age of the cult had created. The grandfather of Mors Aeterna, eternal death, the name of the cult that had been adopted after his passing. In truth, this entire thing had spiralled out of control like a ball of yarn being dropped down a cliff side.

Lily made a small disgruntled sound before she nodded, they were going to have to keep the urge to bare their teeth at the cultists. Which for Lily was going to be a big problem, if the burning sensation under her skin wasn’t enough of an indicator that the claws in her hands wanted out at the mention of all of this.

“I think it will work.” She twisted her head to look over at Alma, furrowing her eyebrows together in concern. “Are you sure you want to come with us? You made it out of this mess once, I feel horrible that this has dragged you back into it all.” That and she felt heavy guilt for not helping more like her.

–

Veles was setting about dragging the now lifeless form of the man to the hallway, his head only lifting up as Xevon’s words turned to something harsher. The hostility behind them actually made the god stop what he was doing and lean up to his full height. Holding the body upright by the collar of the shirt.

A short laugh came from him, creasing the corners of his eyes. “You think I dictate who that lantern takes in?” He shook his head quickly. “That thing is older than I am, I cannot tell it what to do. In fact, if it had dragged that bastard Callisto’s soul into it, my life would have been a lot smoother. For that matter, if it had taken you in as well, I would have preferred that. Alas, here you stand, well..hover.” He added on nonchalantly with a small shrug as he set about moving the blonde to the hallway, useless meat now.

“If I were to take a guess,” Veles’s voice was quieter now as he shoved the body aside. “It didn’t think you were eligible to be absorbed. Be it violence, volatility, stubbornness, or it simply didn’t like the taste of you.”

Lily’s eyes flicked down to look at the finger that had been pushed towards Finntello and then to herself. However, it was the words that came with it that made the woman tighten her jaw. Tensing the muscles in her neck to prevent a sound from coming from her. Cursing herself a little internally, she’d met this woman yesterday and she needed to get herself back under control. A simple wish for another person not to be harmed wasn’t exactly unusual for a person to possess, but after her experience it seemed like a blessing to have that wish be aimed at herself.

“It depends on if you think your dagger will deal better damage or we will.” Her hand moved towards Callisto and then back to herself. “I can take him to my dad tonight. I’ll find him.” She pressed, fiddling with her hands in her lap, passing them over each other.

“He won’t want to take us to the hall tonight, he will want to prepare his following to see Callisto.” Lily stole another glance up towards Alma before she squared herself and looked to Finntello for his answer.

–

Veles’s eyes lifted and followed Xevon as he drifted upwards, an eyebrow raising as the man vanished without uttering a single word. Strange. Well, he was human at one point in his life and all humans were strange in his opinion.

He dealt one more shoving kick to the corpse and it went flying down the hallway, he could deal with that mess later. For now, Veles approached where the lantern was softly glowing in the corner of the room. Bending to grasp it properly, feeling the familiar coldness at his fingers. It thrummed with energy and it felt lovely in his palms, feeding him the energy it absorbed readily. He didn’t really need to touch it, but it was a more pleasant experience this way.

Lily frowned as Alma went on to explain what may be affecting Xevon, it was an interesting notion. She had heard of this philosophy the Egyptians had, but clearly not in the amount of detail that Alma had.

Callisto on the other hand was looking over at her bewildered. For the majority of his time with the three of them, most of his thoughts had ended in ‘these people are strange’ and yet again they were doing it.

Lily went to stand up, gesturing for Callisto to follow her. It was the afternoon now, but to get where they needed to go it would take hours at least. Her home was on the other side of Mexico City from Santa Fe, without her car they were going to have to walk and use public transport. Which she was sure Callisto would make a scene about. That and they certainly weren’t going to sprint there as lions, they would be shot no doubt.

Callisto reluctantly raised to his feet and waited for her next instruction, deciding that it was best to simply do whatever they wanted. It meant he could get back to Xevon sooner rather than later.

“Oh, you should call me if you need me.” She blinked, turning to look over at Finn then suddenly remembering Alma as well, glanced her way. Reciting her number once at least one of them was prepared, her phone was probably near dead, but hopefully she could pull up to charge it somewhere along the line.

–

Veles’s figure didn’t turn around as the pulse of energy shot down into the room, instead he tensed his muscles expecting a strike that never came. Carefully, he went to place the lantern back down from where he had pulled it from.

“This is a little soon, is it not? I thought you wanted to join this side of things.” Veles trailed off, slowly looking over his shoulders towards the mess that made up Xevon’s form, broken and ruined. A small bit of smug satisfaction that he had been the one to win that day washed over Veles.

Finn dipped his head briefly before pausing. "You--you could take my car if you want," he said briefly and stood up. "I definitely can't drive it anymore. Not with these," he fluffed the wings out and hurried back to his room. He returned with a pair of keys and a key fob.

"This one is to start it, this one will unlock the door. The key fob doesn't work. Never has. It's the little red Ford Focus out on the driveway," he pointed out the window and held the keys out to Lily.

It wasn't until she had taken them that he moved to piece through the bookshelf. There were several books and he had access to Alma's computer as well... he'd figure out all that he needed to know.

A wraith... that was a big deal. It gave him a name to the being and a way to hopefully help soothe him and help him once they had dealt with the god. Whether or not he would have a body as well... Finn didn't really know. It was more of a backup plan in case he didn't.

---

Xevon's eye was more or less unseeing. He didn't even bother reacting to what the god was saying. That hatred and sheer desperation of wanting to go to this supposed home was overwhelming. Veles was a mere obstacle in this goal. Him and his stupid lantern.

Xevon's lips parted again in a shrill noise, launching forward to try and force his way into the glass of the lantern. It would accept him one way or another.

...

because he was desperate to not be alone again. And he was tired.

Her walk towards the door had paused as Finn piped up, glancing over her shoulder at him as he began to pick his way down the hallway. It was only a few seconds before he popped back up in front of her and Lily found herself holding a set of keys in her palm.

“Oh thank you.” She hummed, offering him a bright smile, it was a relief they wouldn’t have to trek their way all the way over to her house. That and she was a baby when it came to heat, even if it wasn’t summer at the moment, Lily always found herself overheating quickly. Air con would be greatly appreciated.

Once she had managed to usher Callisto out of the door despite his complaints about not trusting a giant metal beast not to kill him, she settled into the drivers seat. It took her a minute to adjust the seat, her legs were far shorter than Finn’s. When the engine ripped back up to life, Callisto let out a yelp and grasped the door handle of the car and went to open it. Except Lily had locked him in, anticipating his dramatic flailing escape.

Rolling her eyes as he shot her a panicked look, she began to pull away and head back out to the tarmacked road. Callisto scrunched up his eyebrows and grimaced as the vehicle bumped over the dirt floor, he hated cars already.

–

Veles widened his eyes as the flurry of rage came straight for the lantern, he almost dropped the thing on the floor as he tried to whip it out of Xevon’s path. He almost managed it, but the other man just caught the edge of it and sent the metal contraption tumbling to the floor with a clatter. There wasn’t a hint of damage on the thing and Veles turned to face Xevon.

His eyes lit up with a fire familiar to his more beastial form, wrenching out his arms with the coating of black slurry of feathers, bone and muscle. What on earth had sent Xevon into this fury? He grimaced tightly, all the muscles in his jaw and neck tensed as he slashed his arms out towards Xevon. Slamming the spiked mass into his side with a resounding thud, a sharp grunt of effort pulled itself from Veles’s throat at the movement. He certainly preferred him relaxing on his lounge rather than this crazy creature trying to smash himself into an object.