CHAPTER ONE

The scent of blood hung so thick in the air that Aideen Phillips was not sure she could stand it. She had not fed in days, and now her bloodlust was out of control.

Sensing Aideen's predicament, Spencer Connelly took her arm and gently asked, "Can you control it?"

"I'm not sure," Aideen admitted. "It's been a few days."

"Do you need to feed before we get there?"

"No," she said. "We're close. I can smell them."

"Are you sure?" Spencer asked cautiously.

"Yeah... I'll be fine, Spencer. I'll just need to feed when we get there."

"You generally end up tearing someone's throat out when you hit that point, Aideen," he pointed out.

"Your point? I'll make sure it's a warlock," Aideen replied with a smirk.

Spencer shook his head. He had to admit that he found her response amusing, but he knew better than to encourage her by laughing. "Just be careful, Deenie," he said.

"I will be," she promised.

"Fe-fi-foe-fum, I smell the blood of a warlock that's dumb," Jesse Rodriguez said.

"How close are we?" Alexander Paxton asked.

"Maybe a hundred feet away." Jesse was a lycanthrope. To be more specific, he was a polywere, but his wolf was his most dominant beast by far. Jesse could generally smell blood even better than the vampires, such as Aideen, could. Of course, unknown to most people, Jesse had been turned into a vampire not all that long ago. If Aideen hadn't arrived when she had, he would have died.

"Alex, we'd better not bring the non-slayers too much closer," Dylan Messina advised.

"Alright, Kids," Alex said. Cassandra Jones shot him a nasty look but said nothing. She despised being called a kid, and Alex knew it. Still, now was not the time to argue. "Let's be careful about this. Aideen, Arnie, Cassandra, and Dylan, come with me. Jesse, Randy, stay with the others and keep them safe. Cierra, Spencer, Jade, and Melissa, I want you to help us out with spells, okay?"

"Ay, ay, Captain!" Arnold Gelman, known to anyone that didn't wish to die a painful death as Arnie, said with a salute.

"Alex?" Bethany Ashford asked quietly.

"Yeah, Beth?" Alex replied.

"What about me?" She looked at him a little awkwardly.

"What do you mean?" Alex asked.

"You didn't give me a job."

"Oh, right..." Alex hesitated as he considered the situation. "Just stay close to Jade, and keep your blocks up, okay?"

Beth nodded, reluctantly accepting her lack of an official assignment. When Alex, Cassandra, Aideen, Arnie, and Dylan walked away, she sighed. "Why do I even bother coming with you guys? I'm useless," she said.

"You are not," Jade Collins replied quickly. "You're just new to the psychic stuff, Beth. You need more time. You're not useless, I promise."

"I hate my power... What good is empathy?"

"You can heal people," Melissa Morgan said with her usual enthusiasm.

"Not without taking on their wounds to the point of nearly killing myself," Beth reminded her.

"Well, you can work on that." Melissa shrugged. "Beth, you're our sweetheart, okay? You give us hope. We need you. As far as the supernatural goes, you'll find something you're good at soon, I'm sure of it."

A scream pierced the night air. Everyone turned their attention toward the clearing. Nearly a hundred warlocks had come out for the blood moon sacrifice. There were eighteen victims lined up, tied to stakes.

"Are they going to burn them at the stake or something?" Melissa asked. "That's so Middle Ages," she added sarcastically.

"They might," Cierra Denton replied seriously, "but chances are they're actually going to cut them up first. It's the blood moon. Logically, they like their blood moon sacrifices to be bloody. It's all about symbolism."

"Well, blood is very powerful," Jade said.

"Yeah, and they need a lot of power to prepare for Samhain," Randall Schwartz, better known as Randy, added.

"Leave it to warlocks to take a perfectly cool Pagan holiday and turn it into something evil," Jesse said, shaking his head.

"Well, they're not original enough to come up with anything on their own," Melissa pointed out. "It's either Christian holidays or Pagan ones, but nothing is actually theirs."

"And that's not even original," Cierra said. "They stole that idea from the devil worshippers."

Jade stiffened at the mention of devil worshippers, but said nothing. She had been raised by devil worshippers in New York, and had only escaped the cult after killing her parents and running away to Salem. This had all happened in the beginning of September, and it was only the middle of October now. The wounds were still very fresh for her.

"Aideen, behind you!!" Jesse shouted suddenly.

Aideen turned around to face a particularly nasty warlock. She could sense his power just by standing next to him. He was one of the higher-ranking warlocks in Massachusetts. Since Aideen's father had been murdered only a few weeks earlier, she had developed an even stronger hatred toward warlocks than she'd already had. Warlocks had murdered her father, all because they wanted to unleash the Apocalypse in a Box. Aideen and the rest of the Silver Society had prevented that from happening by destroying the key to the tomb that housed the apocalypse, but she was still angry. She didn't have quite enough closure yet. She wanted to make every single warlock pay. She wanted to make her father proud.

If you wanted to make him proud, you'd feed the bloodlust, Aideen reminded herself. Her father had always lectured her about her habit of not feeding as often as she should. But he's not here to yell at me for that, she added.

She knew it was childish to risk her health to spite her father for dying, but at the same time, she was half hoping that he'd resurrect himself just to lecture her again. She missed his lectures. They'd annoyed her an insane amount when he had been alive, but now, she longed for them.

Aideen had always been close to her father. She'd been kind of lost since his death, just going through the motions and trying to figure out what to do with herself. Although she had taken great satisfaction in finishing what he had started, and in killing both the so-called friend that had killed him and the other so-called friend that had caused the entire situation to begin with, she still felt like she needed to do more. She needed to prove something, but she wasn't sure what it was, so for now, she was determined to kill every warlock she came across.

Suddenly, Aideen could not deny the bloodlust anymore. She could feel the warlock's pulse through his flesh. Time for dinner, Aideen thought to herself before allowing her fangs to come out. She sank them into his flesh before he had time to react. As he struggled against her, his blood began flowing freely into her mouth, and Aideen felt the bloodlust becoming sated.

She took her time, being slow and deliberate as she fed. She was enjoying the game of letting the warlock think he stood a chance. She knew he was in terrible pain, as she had not bothered to trance him before biting him, and she took satisfaction in that fact. Perhaps it was sadistic, but he was one of the monsters that had taken her father away, and she wanted him to feel as much pain as she did.

"Deenie, watch out!" Arnie shouted.

Aideen was too absorbed in torturing the warlock she was feeding on to realize that Arnie had said anything. Arnie recognized this quickly and hurried to her side. A warlock with long auburn curls held an ax as she headed straight for Aideen. Unwilling to watch his best friend lose her head that night, Arnie attacked the warlock with the ax. He managed to get it away from her.

"Ha!" Arnie cried out triumphantly, just before another warlock came up behind him and plunged a sword into his back. It came out through his chest.

Beth collapsed and began bleeding from her back and chest. "Not again," Jade mumbled. "Spencer, help me ground her before we lose her."

Spencer wanted to help Jade, who happened to be his new girlfriend, but he was too worried about Arnie. "It's too likely I'll lose her right now," he admitted. Arnie was one of his best friends, and he was in bad shape.

"I'll do it, Jade," Cierra volunteered. "I'm so unempathic, it's funny."

"Thanks," Jade replied, taking Cierra's hand and focusing on saving Beth.

Aideen cursed, suddenly in pain. Arnie, she thought. Arnie's dying. Stop playing with your food and go save him!

Arnie was her vampiric human servant. She could feel his wounds, and that finally snapped her back to reality. Aideen quickly killed the warlock she'd been feeding on, and then killed the one that had attacked Arnie with one swift plunge of her dagger.

She looked at the warlock that had been attacking people with the ax. "Are you feeling lucky?" She asked. "This is my moon. You don't mess with me this time of the year."

It was true. Aideen's soul became stronger between the blood moon and Halloween, which happened to be both her soul's birthday and her incarnated one. She was in her element, and it was foolish to cross her.

The auburn-haired warlock ran, but Aideen threw her dagger through the air and it went through the warlock's chest. The warlock fell to the ground. Aideen pulled her dagger out of her chest and was satisfied to see that the warlock was dead. She hurried back to Arnie's side.

"Don't die on me, Arnie," she whispered. "I'll bring you back and kill you myself if you do."

Arnie weakly opened his eyes. He was in bad shape. He tried to offer Aideen a reassuring smile, but all he managed was a sad half-smirk.

"Alex! Dylan!" Aideen shouted.

Alex and Dylan quickly joined her. "What's wrong?" Alex asked before he got a good look at Arnie.

"He's hurt. It's bad," Aideen replied. She struggled not to cry as she realized just how serious Arnie's injuries were.

"I've got it," Dylan said. "Take care of the rest of the- Oh, no," he mumbled as he glanced at the non-slayers and saw Beth lying on the ground with Jade and Cierra trying to pull her back.. "Alex, go take care of Beth before she bleeds to death."

Alex cursed. "She really needs to learn how to use her blocks," he said. He hurried away.

"Don't let him die, Dyl," Aideen said softly. "He's only in this situation because of me."

"What do you mean?" Dylan asked as he began healing Arnie's wounds.

"I got too lost in feeding. It was me being sadistic. I didn't realize Arnie was trying to warn me that someone was about to attack, so he tried to take her on... Oh Gods, if he dies, I won't forgive myself."

"He won't die," Dylan said soothingly. "He's critically injured, but I can fix him. Just give me another minute and he'll be as good as new, or close to it, anyway."

True to his word, Dylan had Arnie healed a minute later. Arnie sat up and gasped for breath. "That hurt," he complained.

"I'm sorry, Arn," Aideen said, hugging him as tight as she could.

"Not so tight, Deenie. It still hurts," Arnie said, but he hugged her back.

"Arnie?" Melissa called, seeing that it was relatively safe now that Cassandra had scared away the few remaining warlocks. She ran toward him. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, Missa," Arnie replied. "It's just a flesh wound."

"Don't you dare quote Monty Python right now, Arnie. You scared the hell out of her. There's no need to further traumatize the girl with bad British humor on top of it," Dylan said with a grin. He happened to be a big fan of bad British humor, but that was not the point.

"Where's Beth?" Arnie asked knowingly. He had once been the new empath on the block, and he knew that Beth had probably lost control of her blocks when he'd gone down.

"She's busy bleeding," Melissa admitted.

"Is she okay?" Arnie asked in concern.

"She came around a few seconds before you did. It took Alex, Jade, and Cierra to pull her back."

"She'll get the hang of her blocks eventually."

"Let's hope you're right," Aideen said. "That girl loses way too much blood. She's lucky she's not a vampire."

The others joined Aideen, Arnie, Melissa, and Dylan.

"How are you feeling, Beth?" Arnie asked gently.

"A little weak, but I'll be alright," Beth replied.

"Are you okay, man?" Randy asked Arnie.

"Yeah, I'll be fine, thanks to Dylan," Arnie said.

"And no thanks to me," Aideen added with a sigh. "I'm really sorry, Arnie. I didn't mean for you to get hurt."

"It's okay, Deenie. I understand. Besides, you needed to feed."

"It takes a much shorter amount of time to feed than that. I did it slowly. I was torturing the bastard. Still, you're more important than torturing morons."

"I'm okay. It's not a big deal." Arnie didn't want Aideen to feel bad about what had happened. She had been having such a rough time since her father's death, and he was the only one she had really opened up to about it. He understood. His own parents had been murdered by warlocks when he was nine, and just like Aideen, he had come from a slayer family. Besides, Aideen's family had become like his own, and Benny Phillips had helped raise him. He'd practically lost a second father when Benny had died, and Aideen knew that he understood her pain, at least to some extent.

"Just try and pay more attention in the future, Aideen," Alex said. "As for tonight, everyone makes mistakes."

"Stop writing it off and just tell me that I screwed up majorly. I prefer honesty, damnit," Aideen said in frustration. "Arnie could have been killed because of me. That's not just a mistake. That's a serious issue."

"But I wasn't, Deenie," Arnie insisted. "It's okay."

"No," Cassandra said, "she's right. Aideen screwed up because of a vendetta she's developed. Now, the vendetta may be justified, but it has absolutely no place in battle, not when other people's lives are at risk. Risk your own life with suicide missions and torture sessions if you want to, Aideen, but do not risk ours."

"Come on, Cassandra, go easy on her," Jesse said. It was rare for someone to speak up against Cassandra, the number one slayer in all of Salem, but Jesse was very close to Aideen and he didn't want her to get upset.

"No, Cass, don't," Aideen said. "Thank you. I appreciate your honesty. I'm not some porcelain doll, guys. I won't break if you dare to tell me that I stepped out of line. I went too far tonight and it could have gotten Arnie killed. If I hadn't just lost my father, you guys would have flipped out on me over this, so stop treating me like I'm fragile. I've never been fragile."

"Well, I never sugar coat, and you know that," Cassandra replied.

"Yeah, and I really appreciate it. I wish everyone would be that honest with me."

"Sorry, Aideen," Alex said. "You're right. We're all trying too hard to indulge you, when what you clearly want is to go back to the way things were. I'll try and keep that in mind for the next time, assuming there is one."

"There better not be," Cassandra said.

Suddenly, Jade visibly tensed. "Jade?" Beth asked. "What's wrong?"

"Death," Jade whispered.

"What do you mean?"

"Death... It's in the air. It's overwhelming... My head hurts..."

"Well, a lot of warlocks just died, so maybe that's it?" Dylan suggested.

"No," Jade replied. "This is farther away. Someone's dead that shouldn't be."

To confirm Jade's vibes, a portal in the form of a door suddenly appeared in front of them and, moments later, her son Joey stepped out of it.

"Joey?" Beth asked. "Sweetie, what are you doing here?"

Joey could open portals to take him anywhere he needed to go by using a dimension he was the key to. The members of the Silver Society were still getting used to this unusual talent of his. He was just under two years old, but he held the understanding of someone much older than that, and most of the time, he could hold conversations with adults that made sense.

"Why aren't you at home with Maggie and Lewis?" Jade asked. She feared that she knew the answer. Jade and Joey lived with Maggie and Lewis Ashford, Beth's parents. They had taken Jade in when she'd met Beth, and upon finding out about Joey, they had accepted him as well, although Jade could tell they wanted to ask questions that she wasn't ready to answer regarding where the child had come from.

"They hurt," Joey said. "Real hurt."

"What?" Beth asked. "Oh my gosh, what happened?"

"Bad men."

"Were you hurt?" Alex asked Joey as Jade wrapped him protectively in her arms.

"I okay," Joey replied. "Maggie and Lewis not moving."

Beth looked panicked. Randy held her to try and comfort her before she could end up getting empathically pulled to her parents. She relaxed slightly in his embrace.

"I'm sure they'll be okay," Jade said.

"They will be," Aideen said firmly. "Joey, take us to them. Open your world and bring us there, okay?"

Joey did as Aideen said, and the members of the Silver Society followed him to the Ashford house. They were suddenly in the living room. Maggie lay in a pool of blood, her breathing shallow and her pulse growing weaker. Lewis lay motionless on his back. His eyes were open in horror. He was clearly dead.

Beth began to sob hysterically at the sight of her parents. Randy held her closer. Aideen was visibly horrified by what she saw, but she pulled herself together quickly. "It's okay, Beth," she said. "I'll fix him."

"Are you sure you can do it?" Alex asked. "Was it his time?"

"No," Jade said, "I know it wasn't his time. Neither of them are supposed to be dead."

"Even if it was, I wouldn't let him stay dead," Aideen added.

"You don't even know him," Jade said, confused as to why Aideen seemed to take Lewis's death so personally. She picked Joey up and held him close to herself, not wanting him to have to look at Lewis and Maggie in the state that they were in.

"Actually, I do... He's my lawyer and he'd good at his job," Aideen replied. "Besides, Beth needs her parents. She has good parents. She deserves for them to be alive."

Jade accepted this because Aideen, after all, knew the pain of losing a good parent. It seemed like a good enough explanation for her reaction, although Jade's instinct told her that there was more to it. She ignored that feeling. She was probably being paranoid.

Alex set to work on healing Maggie. Her breathing evened out and her heart began beating normally again.

Aideen knelt beside Lewis and placed her hands over his chest. "Breathe," she whispered. "Come on, Lewis, breathe..."

Slowly, Aideen felt Lewis's blood begin flowing through his body again. She'd started his heart. It was progress. "Breathe, Lewis. Don't you dare die on me," she said softly.

After a few moments, Lewis took a pained breath and Aideen sighed with relief. "He's breathing," she announced to the others.

"Daddy!" Beth cried. She ran to her father and hugged him. Luckily, as she had resurrected him, Aideen had also healed his injuries, or Beth might have taken them on.

Lewis looked at them all in obvious confusion. "Who's up to modifying memories today?" Cierra asked.

"I'll do it," Spencer offered. "Arnie's still recovering." He looked into Maggie's horrified eyes and Lewis's confused ones and whispered three words in Latin. Suddenly, Maggie and Lewis's faces went blank. "Clean this place up before I bring them out of this state," Spencer advised.

Beth's parents were about as mortal as anyone could be in Salem, and seemingly had no real knowledge of the supernatural, although no one was sure how they managed to accomplish that. They had grown up in one of the biggest supernatural hot spots and it seemed odd that they had been untouched by it all considering both of their children were involved with the supernatural. Regardless, due to their lack of knowledge on the subject, their memories had to be modified for their own sanity.

After the blood was cleaned up and everything was calm again, Spencer gave Maggie and Lewis a false memory of the evening. When everyone except for those that lived in the house had left, Maggie and Lewis emerged from their trances.

"Girls?" Maggie asked in surprise. "When did you get home?"

"Just a minute ago, Mom," Beth lied. She kissed each of her parents on their cheeks. "Let's get to bed, Jade."

"Okay," Jade replied. "Thanks for watching Joey," she added to Maggie and Lewis before carrying him upstairs behind Beth.

"Why would someone attack my parents?" Beth wondered aloud when they reached her bedroom.

"I don't know," Jade admitted. "Are you okay, Beth?"

"I'm pretty freaked out, but they're okay. That's all that matters."

"Joey, did the warlocks say anything to you?" Jade asked.

"No. They no see me," Joey replied.

"Were they after you, Baby?"

"No, but they talk about Aunt Beth."

"What did they say?" Beth asked.

"I no know. No words I use."

"It's okay, Joey," Jade said soothingly. "Let's not think about it for now, okay? It's time to go to sleep, Baby."

"Read me stowy?" Joey asked.

"Can I do it?" Beth asked. "I need to take my mind off of what I saw downstairs."

"Joey, do you want Aunt Beth to read to us tonight?" Jade asked with a smile.

"Yay! Aunt Beth tell stowy!" Joey replied enthusiastically.

"Alright, Beth," Jade said. "We're all yours.."

Jade had Joey curl up beside her as Beth read them both one of Joey's favorite fairy tales. She was relieved that the warlocks had not been after her son, but at the same time, she didn't like hearing that they had been after Beth. Ever since Jade had met her, Beth had been getting attacked by warlocks and demons, and she had absolutely no idea why. If they didn't find out soon, Jade was worried that something might happen to Beth that she would be unable to fix.