Stars burned my vision against the endless black, and they expanded like a paint splatter and joined one another until I woke up in agony and screamed myself awake. I squirmed against the concrete road, my hand reaching for my aching skull. Someone in the distance cried out and it rang against my recently deceased and now resurrected ears. I didn't think I'd ever get used to dying, now it had happened twice in a week and really, it's not something to write home about. My skin tingled and burned to life like acid was swashing its way through my bloodstream, pins and needles erupted in my right leg and with an effort I pushed myself up causing something else to shriek somewhere. Distorted voices called in from everywhere some sounding more static than others. I rolled onto my back and held myself up by my elbows to take in my surroundings. The sky was ebony, and the town was wide awake and crowding around me. How did I get here? It was dark but there were people everywhere being held back by police tape and the officers themselves. There was a siren going off nearby that I wished would stop. Why was I in the middle of a crime scene?

Then I saw the bodies and wept. I crawled to the body of a young boy no older than sixteen. An officer turned around and jumped in fright, but I grabbed the head of the young boy and cried harder as I recognised his eyes to be Humphrey's.

'Oh, my gods...' I whispered. I rolled my head to another fresh corpse lying a distance away branded in pink and red. 'No!'

'Miss, are you alright?' the officer, a woman knelt down a little far from me like she was afraid I was going to lash out at her. I couldn't process how paranormal this must have looked because all I could feel was death.

I stared between Humphrey and Martha my face crumbling into despair. 'NO.'

Magic roared in my blood and something else, something foreign and ran around my bloodstream and spoke softly in my head. It was a cool voice trying to dull me, but it could not rip me away from their bodies. The veil slipped over my eyes, and I died again on the inside when I saw no light emitting from my best friend or from the boy. They had moved on to Hades. The voice whispered names and my upper lip curled into a sneer. I didn't realise the officer was still speaking and I didn't care. The voices of the crowd were drowned out by the temptations whispered in my head and I felt the shadows unfurl from my body before I'd worded a command. My whole body shuddered with each breath as my skin darkened to a starry night and my shadows encircled my body to lift me above the ground. Humphrey's head fell with a gross thud on the concrete. I saw the world from three perspectives the shadows grew a new body, large new legs, and four long sinewy arms. The crowd screamed below me as I shifted and grew twenty feet past them into a creature of the night. I slid my tongue over newly sharpened teeth and flexed my arms to admire their strength and their colours.

The sky was littered with stars only I could see, and the dust wove amongst them in a beautiful display. I didn't have time for the distraction, and I crawled across town, through the wilderness, weaving trees like a serpent towards Mavros Manor. The mantra of "blood must be paid" was on repeat in my head.

Calix fought tirelessly against Lazarus' punk-arse group of parasites but with no daylight to pull from he was using most of the energy from within and was starting to break a sweat. Ten vampires came and went. Coco survived the first round but then another wave of twelve more with two rabid werewolves who had lost their humanity long ago tackled Coco to the ground and ripped out her throat.

The butler's loafer slipped on a pool of blood, someone's blood and he staggered back as the vampires crowded around him. Lazarus was in the lead and like any villain wanted to savour the moment. He couldn't believe that the Darlings were behind this, in his mind, his memories, it didn't make sense. He was a gifted student at their school, he had risen high in command. Why would the Darlings help all this time only to betray him like this? He could believe that Lycius had done something to upset them but when and why? and why should Calix suffer the consequences of it? Lazarus had never been high in the ranking. He didn't have the suave, the class nor the intellect and yet here he was about to kill him. Could Calix have really been wrong about all of it? Calix would die sitting on the toilet than be taken down by a vampire like Lazarus.

Lazarus stepped forward and leaned against his sword like a common walking stick. 'Where's the human?'

The woman on his right answered, 'Last I saw he was upstairs.'

'Let's hope they're done with each other and saved us the workload.' He grinned and the rest of the vampires laughed with him. He frowned. 'Quiet.'

Calix panted and felt himself grow heavier with every breath. 'They won't let you get away with this.'

'Oh, you've been dragging your delusions long enough. You can't be this smart and yet so blind to what's in front of you.' Lazarus cackled. 'You really still believe in them, don't you?' Calix bit his tongue. 'My God, look at him. He still thinks he's here to help the boy get better.' Lazarus prodded the sharp end of his sword at Calix's chest and the vampires roared with laughter. 'They're opportunists Mr Dermont. That's all. You were the illusion, and the Darlings can't afford to keep it running.'

Calix didn't flinch as the vampire struck like a viper and pointed the end of his sword at his neck.

'Let's eat him,' the woman suggested.

Lazarus sighed disappointedly. 'No-no it has to look like humans did it. Someone give me a gun.'

A black mist rolled across the floor, it cascaded down the stairs like a silent waterfall and flooded through every door and window. There was a low feminine chuckle and each echo was louder than the last like it was bouncing off the walls of a cavern. Everyone stiffened, they looked to the left, to the doors on the right, to the front of the house and in the gaps of the balconies trying to find where the new figure was hiding. Meanwhile, Calix felt this newfound dread, it leaked from the mist and sauntered up his legs weakening them to jelly. He could detect magic from all corners, and it was overwhelming how thick it felt against his skin, like an electric vibration coming from an invisible heart. It had the powerful bass from big speakers but with no sound, except for the jittery noises from the vampires and the werewolves whimpering in their chains.

'Oh my, what a situation,' a smooth soft voice called from the distance and whispered in his ear. If the rest hadn't flinched Calix might have believed the voice was speaking in his mind.

'What trick is this?' Lazarus snapped holding up his sword. 'Come out! You little witch! This time I'll cut off your head and feast on your blood.'

'Shut up!' Calix hissed through gritted teeth. The terror curdled his blood.

'You dare speak to me that way? You who are the lesser version of my own perfected inventions. It's why Gods should leave most acts of creation to the Goddess...' The voice chuckled warmly. 'But my little artisan is getting impatient. Say hello, Rhea.'

Calix's attention drifted to the skylight and the three heads peering inside with white stars for eyes. 'What the—' the creature tapped its sharp talons against the glass, and it instantly shattered over the vampires and Calix who scrambled behind the staircase to avoid impact. He caught the shadowed creature floating down but closed his eyes as he listened to teeth snapping on bone. He winced when he took a peak and watched a black tendril of magic and darkness curl around the neck of a vampire and suffocated him while the three-headed figure focused on smacking the vampires away as if it were swatting away flies. A cloud of blackness thickened across the floor and engulfed Calix completely. It took away his sight but also flooded him with an insincere trepidation and astonishment. He heard screams of misery, furniture cracking and more glass breaking, then a horrible crunch and a dying gasp. He heard the doors slam and the voices quickly hushing to silence. He heard the creature climb up the stairs and it took the darkness with it. It released Calix and he watched the snake-like shadows disappear to the west wing completely paralysed.

Giannis' pungent aftershave polluted the west wing and anger coursed through me as I questioned what the fuck was he even doing here again! I shrunk down to fit through the doors and climbed up another set of stairs, the screams still ringing in my ears and the disappointment of Lazarus' escape tainting my deceptive joy of the moment. I hovered up the stairs, the magic mist carrying me to Lycius' bedroom. My heart sank when I saw the windows were left open, the chains ripped from the floor and blood staining the curtains from something climbing to get out. I squeezed through the window and dug my claws and shadows into the stonewall to crawl up up its length. My real body was contained within the dark body and curled in a foetus position as I watched through Hekate's many eyes. I clambered up to the top hearing the scrapes, the shouts, and the snarls of a fight. I peered at Giannis' backside as he took another shot Lycius' dying body. Only it wasn't Lycius, it was the thing feeding off him. I screamed a horrible sound, something more like a demon than an animal and hovered on the roof tiles using the chimney to hold me steady. Giannis turned around, his eyes wide with blood lust, but filled with a new kind of horror at another strange beast watching him. I got to see a bit of my reflection in the windows and passing mirrors, I had a crescent moon crown glowing white-blue on my forehead. My eyes were silver moons, all six of them, and my mouths had pulled back to my ears only they were invisible under the night skin that blended my feature into a smooth almost flattened face. I could feel the shadow arms writhe out from my back, like the snakes of a gorgon as I narrowed in on the mortal man. I decided to treat him like the vampires below, like a pest I needed to swat away. With one sweep of a hand, I slapped Giannis off the roof and his scream was a siren song in one ear then a whisper out the other as I cornered the rabid werewolf. One that lost his consciousness to the curse and whose violet light was fading. He snarled when I reached out to touch him and he got on all fours and prepared to lunge for one of my heads.

'Lycius,' I said. 'Calm down.' The werewolf didn't recognise the nyxta body, so I stretched my real arms out within the starry mist that contained me, and a hole opened up giving me a way to climb out. The rush of the cold air stung my senses and I wobbled on my legs feeling completely vulnerable in the nude, but I focused on Lycius' monstrous face.

'Are you going to behave?' I said. He growled in warning, his eyes blacker than my hair. His clawed hand moved faster than I could process and the nyxta hand engulfed his wrist, then grabbed his other and lifted him in the air. He fought against the grip and squirmed like a dog trying to avoid a bath only with a sense of lust for my blood riddled in his expression. 'Sh, you're gonna be okay. It's just to keep you stable.'

I followed his body closely as it was brought to the centre head and looking at it from this angle was jarring. It was a different version of Hekate from the one of my dream in death. She was a smoothed-faced monster that mirrored the starry night. This figure was the personification of the night and nightmares and had mixed my figure and features into it like it was a blend of Hekate and me together. The other two heads had eyes but lacked any mouths or other facial structures like a nose and cheekbones. There was something alien and aquatic about them. The hair I could tell was more me, it was long with stars flickering in and out, and the ends of the hair turned invisible as it floated around like a mist clearing.

Lycius, or whatever was left of him didn't like being handled like a doll nor held up in the image of a werewolf Jesus nailed to a cross. He yapped and yowled and threatened death with every snap of his jaw so Hekate, with a mouth stretched to her ears, opened wide and swallowed the raging werewolf whole. As he slipped into the sheer yet murky frame of the Goddess, I watched him pass into a deep sleep within seconds. His body noticeably shifted and shrunk down—now with no pressing threats to trigger him—to his human body. His brow that was tightly furrowed eased and his lean legs folded into his bony chest, I paled at how thin he had gotten in a matter of weeks. The beast and this curse were eating him from the inside out and I wanted to cry at how he was becoming a husk of what he used to be. I had no time to be teary, Hekate was already whispering a new word of caution and we snapped our attention to a rumbling noise over the edge of the roof.

I ambled towards Giannis, Hekate following close behind me, attached by three tendrils embedded in my back. The man was holding onto the gutter for dear life, and I couldn't help but be amused. Those dark eyes sparked with misery mixed together with confusion as I stared over my bare breasts at his stupid face.

'Good, you're still alive. I did act rashly when I threw you off,' I purred.

'Rhea? Wh-what's going on?' he said.

'Consequences, John.' I shook my head and smiled with mocking sympathy. Then a stab of maliciousness punctured its way into my expression. 'Consequences.' Shadows whipped out and roped around his legs. I-we, flipped him upside down to hang him like a freshly caught fish; he flailed around like one too.

'This is the pest?'

Giannis cried at Hekate, frightened either by her faces, or her voice, most likely both. 'Wh-what is that?' he said. I leaned forward unafraid of falling off the roof, dying twice and resurrecting will flood you with new confidence, and I felt devilish and invincible. I stroked Giannis' jaw and summoned a shadow to gag his mouth.

I walked ahead of Hekate as she carried Lycius in her tummy and towed Giannis across the floor through the house. She was curious about the manor and I answered her questions as best I could, then assured her that should Calix still be alive he would happily give her the tour. I revelled at the thought of Calix's petrified face as he looked upon the grandest deity.

I paused halfway down the stairs when the weathered butler burst from the dining hall, he had a first aid kit and chain necklace with a moonstone glowing on his chest. The rest of the ballroom was caked in blood and littered with bodies, werewolf turned human in death and vampires greying into the colour of ash.

'Miss Drakos.' He inhaled a tight breath. Evidently even in a crisis, he was still conscious enough to be embarrassed by seeing a naked body attached to a titan. He averted his gaze. 'Give Lycius to me.'

I narrowed my eyes. 'What do you think I'm going to do with him?'

'Rhea,' Hekate said. Calix visibly shivered at her voice. 'I can feel him dying.'

I knew it was right to hand him over immediately, I couldn't help him heal and the goddess was right. With my physical link to her body, I could also feel Lyicus' life wither away as if he were inside of me. I clutched my stomach and shot daggers at Calix. 'You work for the Darlings; how can I even trust you anymore?'

Calix huffed. 'We don't know all the facts.'

'They tried to kill all of us, I bet it guts you more to know that they invited me to attend their school than the idea that they sent a psycho to kill Lycius.' I could feel my eyes threatening to burst through my skull, I knew I wasn't thinking straight and Calix raised his arms pleading as if I had lost my own humanity.

'I will help him, if we drag on this Lycius might not have long, they used silver bullets.' I had to give Lycius to Calix. I had to. Why was I resistant? Why was I being so possessive? Flashes of Martha, of Humphrey, and of Arianna dampened me. I knew Calix would do all that it would take to look after him. He was betrayed by people he respected and if they keep the company of things like Lazarus then they were not to be respected. Arianna was an incentive to get me to abandon this life, though why the Darlings wanted me was incomprehensible. This fantasy family were an enigma and yet I could tell they were possibly the most powerful bullies to exist. They were a mystery, a legend, a teacher to a few, a saviour for some and a curse for the rest. The palms of my hands stung from digging my nails too deep and I realised everyone was waiting on me, Calix too nervous to push me and Hekate simply inquisitive.

I reluctantly handed Lycius over, or at least the goddess did by regurgitating him at Calix's feet. My anger subsided for a moment as Lycius' eyes fluttered open and weakly shut again as he rasped. Blood formed and drooled out from his chest. Calix attended to him directly and choosing to trust him I went for the other end of the ballroom.

'What are you going to do with him?' Calix said in a murmur. We both looked over our shoulders to him then to Giannis who was still crying and suffocating under the hold of our shadows. I refused to answer and left the manor.

The goddess whistled a foreign tune as I led us through the forest on the way to the ritual pit now growing all kinds of unrecognisable fungi and moss. Owls gathered at the bare branches of the trees, I caught something slither across the forest floor towards the pit, it was as if the wilderness was eager to watch us. Drawn to the power the titan exuded merely by existing and absorbed the nocturnal beasts' attention. She made the air feel charged with energy; electricity would hum over my skin as the air was thick with magic. She was all magic and sorcery. I stood at the edge of the pit and with a flick of a wrist, Hekate swung Giannis around and dangled him over the hole by one ankle. The contrast to Thetis dipping Achilles into the river for protection.

I smiled suggestively at his distressed countenance. 'What's the matter Giannis? I thought you liked seeing my naked body.' I ran my hands over the swells of my chest and laughed. The goddess waited quietly behind me, but I could feel the eagerness in our infernal link. We ungagged him and listened to his pleadings.

'I didn't know, I didn't mean for it to happen. I didn't know he was going to kill your sister. I swear. He promised me revenge on Lycius. That's all! That's all! He didn't come to the funeral! He's a monster...'

Blah-blah-bah-blah blah. He only confirmed what I had suspected.

I tilted my head to the side. 'Do you like the grave plot Giannis? I dug it up just for you.'

'No, please! Rhea, I love you!' Giannis sobbed helplessly. 'I love you.'

'Maybe in your next life, you'll learn to not be such a cunt.'

His eyes flashed with outrage. 'If I knew you were worse than him, that you two were both fucking demons... Wait! Wait!' He panicked as we started to lower him to the pit. Little did he know that it was to be at eye level so I could spit on his face, but I basked in his terror like I was taking a nice steamy bath. Then the discomfort rose, it woke me up to the reality of what I was doing and sent a shudder through my body.

'You could let him go, but by sunrise, you will come with me to Hades.'

Giannis' eyes brightened. 'Yes! Let me go! I'll never bother you again! I swear! I'll move! I'll never tell anyone what I've seen!'

I grabbed a fistful of his hair and drew his head close to mine. 'Apologise to my sister when you see her.'

Giannis screamed while I sharpened a shadow arm. I stuttered that shriek by stabbing the point of darkness through his neck. I felt it like it was my own hand digging deep and felt the hot rush of blood ooze on my skin. I whipped my arm back and the shadow copied. I forced myself to watch Giannis writhe and choke before his body went limp in Hekate's hold. A strong gust of wind heaved me onto my back as Hekate swam down into the pit with Giannis in her clutches.

With a choked sob I was thrown into a deep sleep.