1 CHAPTER ONE: ARSONIST

Indifferent to the people in scrubs who scurried to make way for him, Detective Wilbur strode the hallway with a stern air of merciless authority and the confidence of an oppressor. He walked with but one intent and nothing would stop him, not even the doctor who waddled next to him, timidly insisting that he let the girl rest for a bit. That she was still in shock after the ordeal she'd just been through.

"I'm not here to walk on eggshells, Doctor," Detective Wilbur cut her off, ridding his back of the suit that he wore, then mindlessly handing it to the woman. "Nor am I here to disturb the peace."

"Yes, but—"

"This won't take too long." Wilbur burst through the room doors to find the girl in question, Maeve, in her bed. She looked bewildered. Bewildered by things only she knew.

He walked to the far end of the room and dragged a chair, snapping Maeve out of her transfixed state. He silenced the reporter on the television before taking his seat. Then he looked at the doctor and said, "leave us." Her eyes danced around the room, unsure of what to do. "Now." The doctor spared no second and fled.

Wilbur began to fold the sleeves of his shirt, legs crossed elegantly. "Maeve Moloi, my name is Detective Richmond Wilbur. I work for—"

"I know who you are," Maeve interrupted, face stoic and voice droning, "You came to ask my parents a few questions two months ago after my brother's funeral."

"Quite."

"You're here about the car, aren't you?"

"Naturally."

"Well I don't know what happened, so you can go ahead and put that in the official statement."

Wilbur scoffed dryly. "Tell me, Maeve, how did you do it?"

That earned him a scowl from the girl. She swallowed carefully so as not upset her raging migraine. "What're you talking about?"

"The car, of course, Wilbur answered as-a-matter-of-factly. "What I want to know is how you managed to make a car spontaneously combust while inside with the two dead victims, rest their souls, and yet walked away without so much as a first degree burn on your fair skin."

"It wasn't me!" Maeve snapped, "I— I don't know what happened. But it wasn't me."

"Call me old fashioned but I'm a stickler for a pesky little thing called evidence. And all evidence at hand points to you being the culprit here."

Maeve's gaze fell upon the muted television. The car was ablaze on the news; people had taken videos. And for a moment something happened: A flash. A jolt in her memory.

She seemed to recall a deathly cloud of black smoke that billowed in what seemed to be slow motion, taunting the people below. It rose into the sky like some dark, distorted genie emerging from its lamp. And its lamp was a ghostly echo of what was once an ordinary street.

Ashes danced in the air like snowflakes, ebbing and flowing before finally sticking against the sweat stained skin of the civilians.

"Maeve?" Detective Wilbur snapped her from the memory and she blinked it away, finding herself in the hospital room again. "You looked like you remembered something just then."

"Well, I didn't," a lie through her pearly whites.

Her migraine intensified suddenly, drawing a wretched wail from her. Her eyes shut, she didn't see the detective burst from his seat. All she saw was pandemonium. An ugly, desperate commotion as the fire burned away in the night under a dying streetlight.

Then, without so much as a warning, she was plucked by an unseen force from her hospital bed and, suddenly, she was in the car again. In the back seat, a noose around her neck, hands tied behind her back and mouth sealed effectively shut with duct tape. She heaved a breath through her nostrils when she saw her kidnappers up front. The driver kept his eyes on the road while the man in the passenger's seat had a gun pointed at her.

"You're an asshole, kid, you know that?" the gunman said, "You take after that dead brother of yours."

Maeve shifted in her seat, seething at the words. Were these two hoodlums her brother's killers? Did the same fate await her? Her heart thump, thump, thumped so hard against her chest that she felt a strange warmness there. Warm like a fire on a cold, winter's night.

The gunman cackled. "The boss is going to have a field day with you."

"You know," the driver began, eyes on the road as the car moved past a Choppies truck, "All of this could've been avoided if you'd just given us the book."

"And the Wishing Rod," the gunman chimed in.

The wishing Rod? What were they talking abou— The crystal!!! She suddenly remembered. The purple crystal in her back pocket that she'd found in the shoe box with Thami's things!! That's what they were after? Her dead brother's weird rock? All this 'cause of a stupid rock?

Maeve reached in her back pocket and clutched it. It was still there. And it was warming, too, like her chest which was starting to get really uncomfortable. She glanced down at her breast and frowned curiously when she saw an orange glow through her shirt. The cotton caught fire instantly and she began churning out muffled screams, fidgeting in her seat.

"Hey, what's going on back there?!" the driver demanded.

The gunman twisted around to face Maeve and his eyes went wide with sheer terror when he saw the fire. "Oh, shi—"

The next thing Maeve knew, she was crawling from a burning car with a crystal in her hand and duct tape on her mouth. The explosion had been so violent, so gut-wrenching, so traumatic, that her mind had erased the bit where she saw the driver's head burst, brains splattering on the window. But she clearly remembered the gunman's eyes and how they turned glassy the moment the heat of the flames reached him. She remembered how his skin seared and bubbled like a pot of hot soup and how his gun just melted away like butter in a pan.

She remembered the civilians with their camera phones and bewildered eyes. They flocked around her as though she were some side show novelty.

Then she blacked out.

She drew in a shuddering breath and found herself on the bed again, Detective Wilbur by her side, placating.

"Are you alright?" He asked once she had settled down and sat up on the bed. Wilbur stood up and loomed over her like a towering building. Then he said, "I don't know how you set that car on fire, and I don't know how you survived the explosion, Maeve Moloi. But two people are dead. So you can count on it when I tell you that I'm going to find out. I swear on my husband's life." His final words. He left glaring daggers at the girl.

Maeve wiped away a bead of sweat above her lips and turned to look at the bedside table. There, atop it was her phone, burnt to a crisp, the remote for the television, and her brother's crystal— the 'Wishing Rod.'

***

The shop usually wasn't this packed. Especially during the final hours of the work day. Buck assumed that most of the customers here were gearing up to start the night-shift. Maybe their usual coffee place had closed down or something. Six stores had closed down in the area recently. Rumours of a mysterious new buyer had spread like wildfire. Maybe this buyer would take this place under their name, too, and he'd lose his job.

He didn't want to think about that.

He filled the Styrofoam Cup with a chai latte and handed it to the man on the other side of the counter. "Here you go, Sir," Buck said in a smile. The man, eyes glued to the television mounted on the wall, produced the money and sipped from the cup without minding its piping hot contents.

"That's crazy," the man said, sporting a security guard's uniform.

Buck glanced at the TV as he worked the register for the change— he could do it blind with one arm if he had to, though he always had to be sure to steer clear of the dangerously jagged edges of its one broken corner. A news report about the blown up car had taken up the screen of the television. That's all the news had been about for the last two days: The exploding car and the sole survivor; some poor girl who was now hospitalised.

"Yeah." Buck handed him his change. "Pretty nuts."

"You know, I heard that the chick who survived the explosion wasn't even hurt."

Buck puckered a brow. The man registered his curiosity.

"That's right, no burn mark or nothing. The more you hear about this whole thing, the crazier it gets. Probably used some kind of spell or something to shield herself from the blow."

"Can you do that?" Buck asked.

"Who the heck knows, man? These people can do anything from what I hear."

Buck gave him a weak smile. 'These people.' He wondered how the man would react if he showed him the markings hidden under his sleeves. If he lifted his apron and shirt to reveal that he, too, was one of those people. Well...not officially. Not yet, anyway.

"Have a nice night." He walked towards the door as the next person in line—a doe-eyed Indian girl—walked up to the counter. She smiled sweetly and rested her forearms on top of it. Buck couldn't help but return the smile. She seemed nice.

He cleared his throat, struck nervous by her seductive green eyes and enticing plump, full black lips. "H-hi! What can I get you?"

She shrugged flirtatiously, flicking her shoulder length emerald hair to the side.

"Let me guess." Buck scrutinised her. "You seem like an espresso kinda gal."

She smirked, biting her lower lip. Buck felt a pressure build in his pants. "Ahem! One espresso coming right up."

He stepped over to the coffee machine and started her brew while she traced his every move with her striking chartreuse orbs. Buck stole a glance at her reflection in the machine. Maybe he should ask her out. Fat chance! A girl like her wouldn't waste her time with a guy like him. She seemed so cool with her black leather jacket and her edgy piercings and her short skirt and her grungy boots. While he was just a scrawny guy who worked at a coffee shop. Maybe after. After his initiation tonight he'd be cool enough to walk up to girls like her and ask them out.

No. Not maybe.

...Definitely!

He smiled at that thought as he placed the coffee in front of her. She smirked.

"That'll be nine bucks, chatterbox," he joked and she giggled, taking out the money from her back pocket.

Then she said something to him in sign language and Buck felt like a complete jerk.

"Oh! I'm so sorry. I didn't— I didn't know that you were—"

She signalled that it was fine, chuckling, before she took out a pen and paper from her jacket's pocket. Buck watched her write something. She turned the paper so that it was facing him and he read what she had written out loud, "I like your voice. Oh! Thanks! I actually get that a lot."

She smiled, gulping down her espresso while Buck readied her change. He hissed suddenly and she tensed up, a startled expression on her face. She signed, "What's wrong?" and Buck showed her a bleeding finger. He had cut it on the register's old, sharp, rusty corner.

"Damn thing!" A humph while he searched for something to wrap around his index finger. "I keep forgetting to let my boss know about it."

The girl took his hand and encased the bleeding finger in her curiously toasty mouth. Buck hung his mouth open, the pressure from earlier now getting uncomfortably strong. She slid the finger out slowly and gave it one final lick before letting go of his hand.

Then she smiled that smile of hers. The sweet, sultry one that made Buck's heart flutter in his chest and Buck Jr. down there stand up with excitement. Who was this chick? Where had she come from?

"I..." he was at a loss for words, "thanks."

She took the paper again and put down one final thing before winking and disappeared off into the city. Buck took the paper and smiled when he saw a phone number scribbled elegantly across it. There was a little heart at the end of the row of numbers. He folded it and placed it in his pocket, eagerly counting the minutes until his shift was over so he could call her.

Text! Not call!

She couldn't speak. "Duh!" Buck reprimanded himself. "Next customer, please."

He served nine more customers before the clock struck eight. The alarm buzzed loudly on the table behind him, announcing the end of his shift. But he couldn't just abandon the rest of these people so he attended to as many as he could before Lorato finally decided to show up. She begged forgiveness while she put on her apron and Buck took off his. "Save it for the customers," he said, heading for the door after he'd gathered his belongings and clocked off. This was the only time he and Lorato ever saw each other, this little window in the evening where their lives were permitted to intersect. Yet, somehow, they'd grown thick as thieves.

Buck had thought about making a move on her but that would've ruined what they had. Their friendship, if you could even call it that.

He fished the paper and his phone from his pockets and entered the number in as he passed under a lamppost with a faulty light. He saved the contact as "Green Girl." Fitting, he thought.

He texted her:

BUCK: Hey, Chatterbox

The reply was immediate.

GREEN GIRL: Hey .

BUCK: So WYD?

GREEN GIRL: You know, just...hanging around. Waiting.

BUCK: Waiting for what?

GREEN GIRL: For someone

BUCK: Who?

GREEN GIRL: You.

Buck halted and creased a brow, smirking just a tad.

BUCK: I don't get it. Where are you?

Passing by a dark alley, he watched his phone intently for the reply. But it didn't come. He began to write down a—

Something snatched him into the darkness! He was moments away from screaming for help when he noticed it was Green Girl. He heaved a sigh of relief, chuckling nervously as she pinned him against the wall of a building.

"You scared the crap out of me."

She smiled, writing something on her phone. She showed it to him: 'That was the point, dummy.'

Buck's eyes met the ground. He was too bashful to look straight into hers. Every time he did, he practically exploded with desire.

She giggled and showed him what she had written again: 'You're so cute. I just want to eat you up.'

Buck's cheeks reddened. "You think I'm cute?"

She nodded. That's when he went in for a kiss. Green Girl drew back and peered into his soul. He felt mortified that she'd rejected it. But she hadn't actually, because she reciprocated immediately after. They made out for some time before Buck stopped to catch a breath. He seemed giddy. He sure couldn't believe his luck. After all, girls like her didn't go around snogging boys like him.

She resumed their steamy, hardly appropriate canoodling by claiming his neck, kissing and smelling it. This drew gasps of immense pleasure from the boy. Next she fondled him and his eyes widened while his whole body tensed up and shivered uncontrollably. Then he eased into the sensation and let himself melt into her groping. "You're really good at that," Buck commended, blushing, euphoric with a breathy, moaning voice.

And then she stopped.

"Why'd' you stop? Did— did I do something wrong? I'm so sorry, it's just that I've never—" He silenced himself when he noticed that she was looking at his tattoos. His markings on his forearms. Caressing them ever so gently with her fingertips curiously. "They're runes," he said, "I'm still getting the hang of 'em."

She smiled and locked eyes with him once again.

"I'm going to be an Ink-skin by the end of tonight," he said proudly, "And if I practice my craft hard enough, I might end up being Rune Master one day." He found himself lost in her eyes again when a brief silence fell on them. "Hey, your eyes are really pretty. Are you wearing a glamour?"

She shook her head no, chuckling, before leading him farther into the dark alleyway. He followed her like a little puppy, holding her hand excitedly. He couldn't help it, the way she kissed him. The way she claimed him for herself as if she was entitled to him. Her sensual, tender touch. It all drove him wild and he wanted more of that feeling. He needed more of this beautiful stranger! She had an obscure way about her...an alluring mystique.

It was only when they made it past a homeless man by a pair of dumpsters and some crates that he remembered something...he hadn't asked her for her name!

"Hey, what's your name? I never got it."

She stopped. A moment passed with her facing the other way.

"Hey, I asked for your name." Buck stepped closer, shaking a feeling in the pit of his stomach that something wasn't quite right here. He placed a hand on her shoulder and in one, slithering, impossibly fast motion, Green Girl left the shape of a beautiful young woman and took the form of an enormous, green feathered snake. Buck stumbled back, screaming his lungs out. The serpentine creature lunged at him and wrapped its length around his body, drawing all the air from Buck. He wheezed, the veins in his neck and forehead popping out and he whimpered a faint, "Help," but no help would come. Not here. Not this time of night.

His vision began to give out as the snake, all in its shimmery green feathers and razor sharp fangs, gaped at him and began to swallow him whole. Her insides were hot, that much he knew, and that was the last thing he would know.

With a hiss and one swirling motion, the snake wriggled and writhed into a human girl again. She stood there, face emotionless. "Demonica," she said in a voice not her own, a voice far too masculine to belong to her, "My name is Demonica."

And then she sauntered away into the night, leaving behind nothing but a lone Converse All Star, the only thing reminiscent of Buck.