Azazel ran down the stairs to his brother, his mind racing at a hundred miles an hour. As he ran into the living room, he saw his brother sat on the red velvet sofa, whiskey tumbler in hand and a pensive look across his dark features.

"We need to talk," Azazel said. He gave a quick look over his shoulder, checking Mildred wasn't hovering behind him, then turned back to his brother. "But not here."

Balthazar blinked several times, slowly coming back to reality, then turned his attention to his sibling. Downing the remainder of his alcohol, he gave a single nod, stood up, and marched towards the front door.

Following Balthazar outside, Azazel stopped for a second on the threshold, squinting his eyes at the bright sunlight. "It's daytime?"

Balthazar, several metres ahead, stopped and looked back at his brother. "Yes, Azazel. You've been asleep for nearly fifteen hours. It's not just daytime, it's early afternoon."

"That was a good sleep," he said, jogging out to meet Balthazar. "I think I could have slept some more."

"Please," Balthazar said, gesturing towards the house. "Don't let our impending doom stop you, feel free."

Azazel narrowed his eyes at him. "Since when do you do petty sarcasm?"

"Since I became fed up of this life and wanted out."

Balthazar stormed off, not sparing Azazel another glance. After a second or two, Azazel ran after him, falling into stride at his side as the two headed towards the empty pub.

"Is this going to be far enough away?" Azazel asked, eyeing up the old mansion behind the hedgerow.

"You have the same powers as me, Azazel," Balthazar said, pressing the palm of his hand over the lock on the back door. "Figure it out yourself."

The lock sprung open allowing the two demons inside the once thriving building. Balthazar took the lead, heading straight into the kitchen.

"Here will be fine," he said, looking around the empty room. "More than enough room."

Azazel frowned. "For what?"

Balthazar folded his arms across his chest and sighed, meeting his brother's eye contact. "Let's look at some cold, hard facts, shall we? Mildred is a ghost. That's cool, we've met plenty of them before. But she's a lot more 'alive' than she should be, right? And she still has access to her magick. How?"

"I'm guessing it's something to do with that damn pendant hanging around her neck," Azazel replied.

Balthazar nodded. "Exactly. We both know that ghosts aren't normally anything special in the ether world. They're nothing more than souls without a shell, an engine with no home. And witch ghosts need a physical body to aid their soul to manifest its magickal abilities into physical form, right?"

"Right. But she's got no body. Her bones were laid to rest in the churchyard which is outside the Worthington estate. If the grave was inside the estate boundaries, you might be able to claim she's drawing energy from her brittle old twigs but it's not, so she can't be."

"Her coven," Balthazar said. "The Helios Coven, maybe they have secrets we don't know about? We know they were highly secretive and super powerful. Hence, they took it upon themselves to be judge and jury of this world and the ether world."

"Maybe," Azazel said, shrugging his shoulders. "When they had physical bodies, their power was greater than ours, but when the old hags finally gave up and died, they should be nothing more than a regular ghost."

"Or maybe we have it wrong. She's drawing energy and power from somewhere and she's using it as if she were still physically here. We need to do some research."

Azazel rolled his eyes. "I know exactly what that means. For fucks sake, Balthazar. It's such an arse ache. Do you have to?"

Balthazar ignored his brother, closed his eyes, and relaxed his shoulders. He flexed his neck from side to side and took a deep breath. Summoning objects was not an easy task. Creating them was far easier compared to mentally locating them, handling them, opening a portal, and bringing them back. Even the mind of a demon could wane under the taxing complexities of magick.

Lucifer had a vast library in the cool depths of his basement. Spanning the size of Canada, Lucifer's collection was a golden nugget of information that would never be found by anyone who didn't need to know of its existence. Because the old devil himself suffered with a severe form of OCD, of course never admittedly, the library was a breeze to navigate through.

Like a Kindle Store category selection, Balthazar pictured himself in the library and moved through the different genres and sub-genres to find himself in the right area—History > Ancient History > Magick > Witches > Covens, Societies, and Groups.

The few hundred books assigned to this specific section were going to take a while to sift through, but he could work with that when he physically had a hold of them. The driftwood shelves they were on weren't much bigger than a standard double bedroom so wouldn't take too much manhandling either.

He imagined himself growing big enough to wrap his arms around the section of books he needed. The key point to making transportation work was detail which meant he couldn't be too big or he wouldn't be able to transport himself. He then said out loud, "Cogito, ergo sum."

A silver speckled portal began to open in front of him, its yawning, dark abyss enticing him in. Balthazar dove through it, embracing the shelves of books he so desperately needed. Clinging on to his precious cargo as if his life depended on it, Balthazar repeated the same three words before launching himself back out of the portal.

The tiled kitchen floor absorbed the loud thud of his body hitting the floor and the clatter of books falling loose all around him. The portal closed behind him with a 'pop', as if someone had blown a bubble in their gum.

"Thanks for the help," he said, looking up at Azazel.

"You looked like you were more than coping," Azazel replied, bending down to pick up an old red book.

Balthazar jumped to his feet and looked at the heap of old books and encyclopaedias scattered everywhere. He couldn't help but smirk at the thought of Lucifer seeing his precious texts out of order and not being treated like fine china. Balthazar would suffer a punishment worse than being stuck with his obstinate brother for two millennia if Lucifer could see this.

The two siblings fell into comfortable silence as they sifted through the books, speed reading with a single touch whatever they picked up to try and locate the information they needed.

After a dozen or so books, Balthazar came across an A5 sized hardback book with a dark blue cover, the threads between the spine and the front cover the only things keeping it intact. Its pages were yellow and crinkled with age, crinkling like a crisp packet as he flushed through them. It was more than delicate.

Turning it over, he very nearly didn't even bother speed reading it until he spotted the tiniest of symbols on the back cover in the bottom left-hand corner. The tell-tale symbol of the pent-hexagram.

He frowned, his dark eyebrows furrowing together as he looked at the small book. Surely a group as powerful as The Helios Coven would warrant an entire encyclopaedia on its own, not this small, barely noticeable mere few hundred pages.

Placing his right index finger on each page, he absorbed every word within minutes, the words flooded his mind like a tsunami, speaking to him like an audible book on warp speed.

When he finished, he stood still, staring into space for several minutes whilst he contemplated what he'd just understood.

"What?" Azazel asked, glancing quickly at his brother before returning his attention to the current book in his hand. When Balthazar didn't respond, Azazel looked back at him, narrowing his eyes. "Balti? What's up?"

Balthazar, in a daze, threw the book at his brother, not caring for its fragile state now its contents were lodged in his brain, burning into his consciousness with a frightening scar.

Azazel dropped the chunky yellow hardback book he currently held, letting it drop to the floor with a smack. Catching the little book his brother just threw at him, he pushed it against the middle of his chest. Taking a deep breath, Azazel pressed it into his skin, pushing himself forwards against his own pressure. With a little more force, his skin flexed, then broke.

Corner by corner, his bronzed skin parted as if it were a seam being picked apart. Azazel winced, a stream of curse words leaving his pink lips as his face contorted with the discomfort. Once the corners were fully sunken into his flesh, he stilled for a moment, took another deep breath and held it, then closed his eyes.

Two seconds ticked by before, with one swift move, he clenched his right hand into a fist and bashed the centre of the book, sending the entire thing flying into his body.

A heavy ache settled in his chest, sticking in his throat like a bad case of indigestion. He let out an enormous burp, cracked his neck, rolled his shoulders, then flashed his brother a grin.

"Have you quite finished?" Balthazar asked, rolling his eyes. "Why you have to do that is beyond me. There are more painless ways to absorb information."

"For two reasons, dear brother. Number one," he said, flicking his left hand up into the air and holding his index finger up. "It's a challenge and I do love a good challenge. Number two," he said, putting up his middle finger. "I like the pain. It makes me feel alive. Although it's barely a tickle it does resemble something."

"And what exactly have you gained? You know how much it drains your magick and energy to absorb a physical object, let alone the risk of screwing up the fine line between blood and tissue. If you ever get that wrong, Lucifer will flail you with a blunt toothpick."

Azazel clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, his eyes glinting with mischief as a sadistic smile curved over his lips. "Oooo, Balti, stop talking dirty to me. It's really not an appropriate time."

Balthazar glared at his brother with a deadpan look that said nothing more than 'Are you freaking kidding me?'

"Just to ease your worries," Azazel said. "I haven't forgotten that our demon blood would incinerate anything we absorbed. I've gotten it down to a fine art, we're all groovy, baby."

"Can we get back to the matter in hand?"

"Of course," Azazel said, clapping his hands together and rubbing them with glee. "It seems we have ourselves quite a problem with dear old Mildred, doesn't it?"

"Do you think the witch is working with her?"

"What makes you think that's not her?"

"It can't be. If she had that much power, she wouldn't still be a ghost, would she?"

Azazel waggled his finger at his brother, a cheeky smile on his face. "Thems the brains. That's why I'm handsome and you're clever."

"Azazel, can you just be serious for two minutes, please?"

For a brief second Azazel debated creating a countdown timer for two minutes but figured that might be a step too far right now. "Ok, fine. So, Mildred is getting help. It can't be a coincidence that this witch has appeared right as Mildred is getting more powerful. You know I don't believe in coincidences."

"Any ideas how to find the witch?"

Azazel snorted in disbelief. "Ummm, no. Why would I want to think of a stupidly insane idea that would lead me to the one thing that can whoop my ass?"

"Because you're a demon, Azazel. And we're not afraid of anything, are we?"

"Ha. You speak for yourself." Azazel folded his arms over his chest and said, "I think our history is a clear indicator that we're both afraid of a lot of things."

"What?" Balthazar frowned.

"Come on, Balthazar. We've lived in this weird relationship of ours for two thousand years. You want out so isn't it time to get it all out and bury the hatchet so to speak?"

Balthazar nearly rocked back on his heels. "I'm sorry. Did I step into a philosophy lesson by mistake?"

Completely ignoring his brother, Azazel continued on, the words in his brain just needing out. "Look, the way I see it is I was afraid of losing my identity as a man, hence being away from Cassia so much. When you took her from me—"

"Azazel—"

"WHEN YOU TOOK HER FROM ME," he said, eyeing his brother with a steely glare to keep quiet. "I was then afraid of life without her, and oddly, life without you, even though I wanted to kill you myself. Since we've been like this, I've been afraid that you would leave me, and lo and behold, you've finally taken the first step to do that."

"You hate me," Balthazar said, shrugging his shoulders. "I've had two millennia of our weird dynamics and it's time we go our separate ways. You're never going to forgive me for what I did and that's fine, I understand it, I get it. It doesn't mean we both need to suffer this forever, does it?"

"But," Azazel said, his voice dropping ten decibels. "This is better than the alternative."

Balthazar frowned. "What do you mean?"

Azazel rolled his eyes. "Jesus Christ. You're supposed to be the clever one, remember?" Azazel let out a long sigh. "Alone, Balthazar. I'm afraid of being alone."

Silence fell between the two, stretching on for painful seconds, filling the air with a heavily pregnant pause as each of them tried to work out the shifting dynamics in their relationship.

"But...but you never want me around, Azazel. You kill me at any given opportunity. I don't get it."

"If anyone knows I'm complicated, Balthazar, it's you." Azazel let out a sigh. "I don't want to be alone and I'm also absolutely petrified of finding someone I care for in case...I let them down again, in case I can't protect them when they need me, in case I can't bear the twisted turn of events life may throw at us."

Balthazar stared at his brother, dumbfounded at the words coming out of his mouth. If it weren't for the fact aliens didn't exist, he would have thought Azazel had been kidnapped, cloned, and replaced.

"And you," Azazel said, continuing his speech. "I think you're afraid that you won't ever find your own Cassia, and if you do, she won't forgive what you did. You're afraid of being stuck like this forever, and you're also afraid that I might get my second chance and you'll have to live through all of that all over again."

Balthazar stared at the floor, motionless.

"You're afraid of doing it again, aren't you?" Azazel asked, realisation dawning on him. "You're afraid of me finding happiness, and you wanting my life again, my wife, my child, your own child. You...you can't control yourself, can you?"

"I'mafraid of losing control," Balthazar whispered.