The Wallace family was as wealthy and influential as the entire Santana estate. The families were by no means rivals, although they did occasionally acknowledge each other as ships passing in the night. There were two major differences between the two. The first being that while Mr Santana and his son kept an aloof distance, supporting the community with their wealth; The Wallace family was actually apart of the community. They were integrated practically everywhere, and it was rare that you met someone from Willowstream who didn't personally know at least one Wallace or a cousin.

The second, glaring difference was Witchcraft. The immediate gathering of family were all Witches, operating a small unit of five members. To most folk, they were merely an old family with roots strong in Willowstream, that were just a little odd. Perhaps eccentric or strange, but always kind and friendly.

But then again, Willowstream had always been a home to the strange.

Always kind and friendly would be almost the perfect way to describe their entire family, if it were not for one Micah Wallace, the youngest child. If they say every family produces a bad egg, an apple that was rotted before it grew. Micah was that egg.

From selling small charms as drugs for a tidy profit, providing 'little accidents' for people who paid the right price, to activities a little crueller, he fancied himself the hidden puppet master of the school yard. A mob boss of sorts. And he had, had dealings with the group in the past.

Needless to say, he was more than a little vengeful when they refused to add him into their little fold. When he discovered that Yasmine was a Witch, he did his best to worm his way within her graces. Teaching her of magic, giving her a link to an entire world she was just beginning to explore. But she couldn't be with him. Even young, Yasmines ability to see into the heart was strong, and she saw he was dark.

It met a turning point when, after having put up with the denial of his advances long enough, he turned to what he did best. Magic. He tried to ensorcel her, warp her mind so that she would be his and his alone.

From then on they were at a stalemate. A deal was struck. Micah would leave Yasmine and the group alone, his family would not know of his dealings and additionally: Alaric would not kill him. It was a stalemate purely because they were never sure that Micah's family would actually act against him, and Micah was never sure that Alaric would never kill him.

Regardless: Micah promised to stay away, and as everyone knows: a Witch never breaks a promise.

The air was much colder now that they had pulled up outside the Wallace house, which sat on the slightly wealthier side of town. It was a large building, not quite as big as the gothic manor of Alaric's home, but much better maintained on the outside. The walls were an almost perfect white. The colour visible even in the midnight light, where the glow of gentle lights from the interior lit the building with twinkling gold. The grass was cut low and uniform, a complete contradiction to the veritable bounty of flowers covering every inch that was not grass, or the thin driveway.

It all sat neatly contained by black iron fence that stretched around the entire plot. The group exited the car, and stared upwards at the heavy gates.

There had been quite the debate on the way over as they recounted what went down in the morgue to Rhys and Marshal. Alaric insisted that he go alone as it was much easier for him to get in undetected. Alice argued that if anyone was going to butcher Micah: it was to be her. Rhys said that there's no way to be sure that it definitely was him that killed Yasmine, and Lilly asked why they didn't simply knock on the front door and ask to see him?

They had agreed to go with Lilly's idea. It was all of them, or none of them. Alaric stepped forward to the heavy gates, halting his finger above the intercom buzzer when the sudden cry of a crow caused all but him to jump slightly.

It sat perched and alone, atop one of the stone segments that supported the iron fence at various intervals. It's head twitched to the side as it gazed at them with it's obsidian eyes, glistening like jewels in the dark. Holding the sparkle of a lone star in a blanket of pitch-black sky. The crow ruffled its feathers, puffing it's chest once more as it picked at it's wings and then something between its toes.

"Aw, it's so cute!" Lilly swooned. The crow arched its wings proudly in response before letting out another loud caw, and flying off in a flutter of silken wings.

"You are very brave coming here. Or stupid." The indisputable voice of Micah Wallace came from beside them as he stepped around the corner of one of the pillars and he leaned against the cool, carved, stone with his arms folded across his chest. His hair was a dark brown, although it looked black in the dark. His eyes sparkled in their mixed hazels, displaying a confident swagger that seemed to beget his wiry, thin, frame.

He held the uttermost smugness that challenged Alaric for it's insufferableness.

"You're brave coming here alone like this." Alice retorted in disgust, mildly disguising the subtle confusion on her face. She hadn't heard or smelled him coming, and she couldn't even now. It unnerved her to the point where she briefly considered coming to face him, without preparation, a bad idea.

"Because he's not being brave." Alaric sighed, his distaste evidently dripping from every monotone syllable. He turned from the intercom button and stopped low to pick up a small, evidently decorative, rock. He tossed it up and down in the palm of his hand as if playing with the weight of it, before whipping it in the direction of Micah.

Unsurprisingly to Alaric: Micah didn't react or move, not that he would have been fast enough to anyway. The rock merely gave out a metallic pang as it flitted through Micah's chest, with all the resistance of a light breeze, and clacked against the iron fence behind him. "The coward isn't even here, its an illusion."

"Very good." Micah mocked with a hearty chuckle.

"How did you know we were here?" Rhys asked, his eyes darting to the side as Micah simply was gone in the blink of an eye, as if he had never been there at all.

"Are you kidding? I've had wards set up around here for years. This is my home you dumbass. Now, give me one reason why I shouldn't force you to leave." Micah said as he nonchalantly walked along Lilly's car, feigning at losing his balance as he kept himself entertained. Lilly would have protested, but Micah wasn't actually touching her car, so she felt she had no grounds to argue.

"Alright, fuck it, straight to the point: Did you hurt Yasmine?" Alice snapped looking up at the strange boy who spun on one foot, and fell gracefully to sit cross-legged on the roof of the car where he looked at her with a gaze that oozed with playfulness.

"Why would I hurt Yasmine? She may have been as idiotic as the rest of you, but it was our destiny to be together, there's no reason to hurt my future mate. Not unless she asks for it nicely." He purred with a sickening grin. Watching as Alice squirmed beneath his words. Her teeth were grinding together, her jaw tight and her knuckles white from where they were clenched.

"It wasn't your destiny you deluded asshole. You just wanted a fuck toy that could keep up with you and birth your gross babies." She spat

"Our children would've been perfect, and you know it! And powerful too. It was blind ignorance to deny what we could have achieved. The sheer pleasure we could've had together, would've melted the stars with envy"

"You're fucking disgusting. Give me one reason to believe you."

"You have no reason to believe me of course! So I can't give you that. But it doesn't matter to me whether you believe me or not. I know what I did and didn't do, and I did not kill her." He said with a tired yawn, smiling softly to himself as they all searched for him again, only to find he was now sat atop one of the pillars with his legs swinging over the edge.

Alice looked to Alaric and the others for guidance. For something.

"He's not here. I can't hear his heartbeat so I can't tell if he's lying." Alaric whispered as quiet as possible, knowing that Alice's sensitive ears would be able to hear him.

"Now, now. It's rude to whisper in front of company!" Micah announced stretching as he stood tall. "If you don't mind, I'm getting tired. So would you kindly: fuck off my property? This is getting old."

The group were silent as they stared at him expectantly. It wasn't so much that they had nothing to say, but more of challenge. Daring him to do something, because Alice alone was just looking for an excuse to attack indiscriminately.

"How about a deal?" Lilly announced, to which Micah smirked.

"I'm not going to make a deal with you, Lilly Flowers. Don't make deals with Lilly, remember? Yasmine told me that one." He remarked coyly, watching as an embarrassed blush sprouted from Lilly's cheeks.

"I didn't mean-- I meant, yes. With me, but by proxy, as its with the group as well and I wouldn't be the one making the deal."

"Oh? And why would I make a deal with any of you? I've never seen so many people, so close together, and still so beneath me. It's frankly pathetic and gross."

"We saw her body. We have good reason to believe that it could be a hunter that killed Yasmine. Which means not just us, but you and your family are in danger as well." Marshal answered, stepping forward to look up at Micah who now lay on his back, and hung his head over the edge of the pillar.

"So?"

"So... Help us find them?" Rhys answered and gave off his cheesiest, kindest, grin. "Please?"

"Well, what's in it for me Half-breed?"

"You uh... you get to live and not be hunted?"

There was silence for what felt like the longest time, as Micah appeared to be rolling the idea around in his head. He seemed to peer at each member of the group one by one, as if speculating what each one could possibly be thinking. Or, most likely, how to mess with them.

"Hmm..." Was the only sound that anyone had made in a minute or two, and it came from the smiling mouth of Micah.

Then the group were left alone at the front gate, answer-less, as the form of Micah slowly faded from view like smoke on the water. Pillowing out from atop the stone pillar, and like the Cheshire cat: leaving nothing but the brief memory of his grin amongst the curling grey clouds.

It was late when all was said and done. Due to Micah's penchant for helping nobody but himself, they couldn't be quite sure whether he had agreed to help them or not. Although on two things they did agree: The first was that the answer was probably no. Micah would not help. The second was that talking to Micah hadn't gotten them anywhere. But with school in the morning, there was little more than they could do now, and with that: they went their separate ways for the night.

A/N: So there we have the introduction to the one and only: Micah Wallace. What do you guys think of him?
Regardless: thank you very much for reading. ^-^