Helena’s first attempt at figuring out what was going on backfired.

She’d stormed out of the club room with her head held high, only to get out of sight and immediately remember she had a take-home midterm.

So, she’d spent the first night doing that. Cursing and wishing she was investigating local cults the whole time, but she did it. Handed it in. And then, for real, marched out into the unknown.

There was really only one lead, but she had every intention of snooping like her life depended on it. After all, it potentially did.

Years ago, Children of the Lone Angel had held most of their operations in a barn at the edge of town, by a lake. When Helena had moved here, they’d been in the process of making it a historical landmark.

Because nothing was a greater chapter in your town’s history than that one time a bunch of freaks stole and sacrificed peoples’ dogs.

Now, they’d gone a step further and were apparently turning the place into a museum. At least, that what was a sign outside said:

LONE ANGEL MUSEUM

OPENS NEXT SPRING

EMBRACE A PIECE OF WALDER’S DARK SIDE!

“Walder’s dark side,” she repeated aloud. Oh, these shmucks had no idea how dark it got.

New chunks of wall and roof stood out like fresh skin grafts, bright against the old wood. The place was fenced off, but it was nothing she couldn’t climb over. She’d done worse back in high school.

Her fingers went for her rose quartz pendant. Even in the late autumn chill, its coolness was grounding.

She took in a breath. Her fingers slid between the metal links and took hold. She climbed up to the top and for a moment sat there, content.

The sun was setting. She’d hoped to be done with all of this before dark, but that’d been wishful thinking this late in the year.

At least it was pretty, reflecting on the lake like that. Scarlet streaks danced across the surface in ripples. The reeds were rendered silhouettes, swaying gently back and forth. It looked like a painting her mother would’ve owned.

“Well, this has been nice,” she said. Then she dropped, hitting the ground feet-first. Good to know I’ve still got it, she thought with a grin. I might be the token human, but at least I’m cool.

The barn loomed over her, and up close, the rot was clear. Some older planks had dents in them, small and round, like…

Wait.

Helena got closer. Ran her hand along the mark, cringing at the dampness. Her mind went one place, and one place only.

She reached for her phone, the phrase walder barn cult shootout rattling around her brain. There hadn’t been any of that in the article’s she’d read, but maybe she’d missed something.

Just as she was typing it in, she heard a bang from above.

In the barn.

She looked up, switching on her phone’s flashlight. A pair of eyes glimmered in the dark, peering down at her from a hole in the roof.

Helena yelped, and her phone slipped free. It hit the mud with a squelch. She bent down to pick it up, but kept her eyes on the stranger above, who reached out a hand and…

Waved. Just waved. Then they clambered out onto the roof and asked, “Hey, do you have permission to be here?” It was too dark to make out any features beyond the fact they were tall and wore a long, hooded coat.

Phone in hand, Helena stood up straight. Willed herself to stay calm. This was probably just someone working on restorations. Some regular human person. What were they gonna do, call the cops?

“What’s it to you?” Helena hollered back. It was nice being rebellious again.

“You seem fun,” the stranger remarked, a playful lilt in their voice. “Guess I’ll have to scare you off.”

Without another word, they threw themself off the roof’s edge.

Except then they didn’t fall.

For a frantic moment, the stranger hovered in their air, coat billowing in the wind like sails. Then, slowly, they floated down to meet her.

The stranger tore their hood off. They were dark-skinned, with hair dyed a stark red. Its coiled locks didn’t go past their ears. Their face was sharp, made sharper by dark, sharp makeup. They looked vaguely like a cute goth girl Helena had crushed on back in first year.

“Are you done staring?” the stranger prompted.

Helena nodded. She opened her mouth to say something, but no words came out. What kind of threat was she dealing with right now? Another vampire? Some kind of fey trickster?

The stranger, however, took her silence in stride. In fact, they outright lit up. “Okay, you’re freaked out, but not as freaked out as most would be. You are human, aren’t you? N-No, don’t tell me, it’s on the tip of my tongue.” They groaned, snapping their fingers together.

Helena watched them go at this for a minute, and was about to introduce herself when they blurted out, “Jane?”

And despite it all, Helena laughed. “Nope. The other one.”

“Right. Right. Apologies. Um… Helena, right?” They held out a hand. “I’m Rainbow. Rainbow Wallace.”

Helena hesitantly shook it. “So,” she said, trying to make light of everything. “For a Rainbow, you don’t wear an awful lot of colour.”

“Only when I’m sneaking around,” they assured her.

“Fair enough. Sorry for being a jackass about this, by the way. Thought you were some kind of, y’know…” There was no easy way to say it. “Some sorta normal person. But instead, you’re…?” She trailed off more intentionally this time, hoping Rainbow would tell her outright. She still wasn’t sure how you asked supernatural beings exactly what they were.

Fortunately, Rainbow picked up what she was putting down. “I’m a witch, if that’s what you were wondering. Like your friend Rachel, but I didn't get the... mothy genes.”

“A witch,” Helena repeated. “And not a ‘crystals and tarot’ kind of witch, or the mothy kind, but a witch that can jump off buildings.” Okay. I’ll add that to the list of supernatural beings that exist.

Rainbow chuckled. “I mean, I like crystals, too.” A hand slipped into their coat, and they pulled out a stone on a chain. “Labradorite. I wear it everywhere.” Under the moonlight, it glimmered, like a sliver of the aurora. “And you’ve got something on, too, right?” They pointed at her pendant.

“Rose quartz,” Helena confirmed.

“Oh, we’ve got a romantic on our hands,” And before Helena could respond, they went on, “I feel like we’re beating around the bush. You know, the both of us hanging around an old barn that once housed a cult.” They said it all so matter-of-factly, like it was a part of their daily commute. “Ladies first: what’re you doing here?”

Helena shrugged. Really, what was she doing here? She settled on, “Research. I want to learn more about Walder’s shady history, especially after an encounter we had at our school club.”

“The Freakspotters?”

“Yeah.” She hesitated before asking, “Is there some kind of, like, supernatural being grapevine where you guys talk about us?”

“Something like that,” Rainbow said. They must’ve seen the look on her face, because they quickly added, “That’s not as bad as it sounds. Really, I don’t know much.”

Helena raised a brow. “What do you know?”

“Uh, let’s see.” Rainbow stroked their chin, their gaze sliding elsewhere. “Some rogue groups are trying for world domination again, and this time, they’ve recruited a bunch of wide-eyed college kids of the Old World. I also know they keep fucking up, most recently with the werewolves infecting a previously uninvolved student.” Their eyes met Helena’s again, a teasing glimmer in them. “Did I miss anything?”

“It’s not world domination,” Helena said, though she wasn’t all that sure. “They describe it more as… assimilation. And only for Walder, I think.”

“You realize how bad that still sounds, right?”

Helena grimaced: yeah, it sounded pretty damn bad. “Okay, yeah, but they recruited us to be the empathetic aspect. To keep them from going… y’know, too far.” Ugh. She was digging herself into a hole, here. She changed the subject: “What’s the Old World?”

“This is.” Rainbow stuck their arms out, gesturing vaguely to the overgrown field, the too-still lake, and the remains of the barn behind them. “Geez, you guys must be really kept in the dark.”

Helena shook her head. “All I know is what you’ve said so far: supernatural beings want to stop living in the shadows, but they’re keeping us around to make sure they don’t… like… commit war crimes or whatever.” That was an insane simplification, but considering everything, she didn’t care.

“Okay, okay, I’ll keep this extremely simple.” Rainbow held up their right hand. “This? Planet Earth? Where we are right now? This is the Old World.” They held up their left hand. “A long time ago, one very powerful witch built a sort of sanctuary, where magical beings wouldn't be persecuted. That’s the New World--the Witchlands.”

“Got it,” Helena said, though she didn’t really get it at all. “So, why are people still starting shit here if there’s a whole other world for them?”

Rainbow shrugged, trying to play it off, but they couldn’t hide their smile. Helena got the feeling they not only had this debate often, but changed peoples’ minds with it. “They want things to be how they were before. Back when they were the thing in the woods, or the thing in the lake, or some other… entity to be appeased. Have you noticed that a lot of them have kind of… the deposed nobility vibe?”

“The fey and the vampires kind of do,” Helena agreed.

“Yeah, that’s because no one else wanted to stay here,” Rainbow said. “Most of us were persecuted, so most of us left. But the people who had power? They stayed, but what power they had waned, and now they want it back.” They laughed, a sound with no humour to it. “Problem is, they all hate each other, and they don’t really have a plan beyond taking Walder."

Helena found herself nodding along, not really thinking about it. She stopped herself. “Why are you telling me all of this?”

“Because things aren’t as they seem,” Rainbow said. Like it was somehow simple as that. “These aren’t victims trying to punch up. They’re former oppressors that want their old regimes back. And you need to tell everybody that.”

“Oh, like they’d listen to me,” Helena muttered. “Wait.” Her eyes narrowed. “Why are you telling me this, anyway? Why not confront these people yourself?”

“Let me show you.” Rainbow stepped closer, and instinctively Helena drew back.

“Show me how?” she asked, straining to keep her voice even and her gaze sharp.

Rainbow frowned. “How did you think? I was just…” They reached for their sleeve, pulling it up. “These are, uh, sigils.”

Helena had to squint in the dark. Sure enough, Rainbow’s dark skin had been marred with bone-white markings. From a distance, they would’ve looked like tattoos, but the longer Helena looked, the more they resembled scars.

“Shit,” she murmured. “What do they do?”

Rainbow pulled their sleeve back up, suddenly sheepish. Their gaze slid to the ground. “Basically, I can’t enter any domain controlled by the fey or the vampires right now. If I try, my arm burns and my lungs, like… close up. Anyways!” They perked up, like they hadn’t just detailed a horrifying curse. “That’s why I need you to play messenger.”

“I don’t know if they’ll listen to me,” Helena admitted, blushing. “I’m, y’know, the token human.” And truth be told, she didn’t want to kill everyone’s excitement. She couldn’t imagine how cool it was, having all these new powers and this new role in life. “They might just think I’m jealous.”

“Iif that’s your concern, why didn’t you say so?” Rainbow beamed, scrounging around in their coat pocket. “Shit. Uh. Could’ve sworn I had it on me, but…”

“Had what?”

“It isn’t a proper Awakening kind of thing, but…” Rainbow sighed, their hands dropping. “I have a bunch of these, like… arcane trinkets. That let humans simulate having magical ability.”

Helena’s heart skipped a beat. “You’re going to give me superpowers?”

“Kind of? Sort of. I guess. Magic theory is still complicated, and we don’t know...” They gestured towards her vaguely. “Why, say, I have powers and you don’t. We know it’s genetic to a degree, but...”

“But?” Helena echoed, hopeful.

“But we do know that humans have potential to wield magic, if they get…” Again they paused, fumbling for words. “If they get, um, exposed to the right environment.”

And maybe it was the way they couldn’t really meet her eyes, or the way they couldn’t sit still, but Helena stopped herself suddenly, excitement smothered again by suspicion. “And how do I know this isn’t some kind of sacrificial ritual?” She meant it at least somewhat as a joke, but the words came out sharp. “After all, you’re hanging out at an old cult lair, and you kind of dodged the question when I brought it up.”

“I didn’t dodge it!” Rainbow exclaimed, throwing their hands up. “We got sidetracked! The conversation flowed in a different way!” Helena opened her mouth to object, but they went on, “I’m here because I’m also doing research.”

“Good research, right?” Helena teased. “Research that doesn’t involve weird assimilation plots?”

Rainbow blushed, their hands dropping. “I like to think so. Groups like this cult and what your friends are wrapped up in are what I’m trying to fight back against. When people realize they have magical powers, others might… take advantage of them.”

“Like using them to forward their own agendas?”

“Exactly!” Rainbow said. “Like, it wasn’t that long ago I was in their shoes. Someone saw that I had potential, potential they wanted to make their own. Things are nicer in the Witchlands, I swear.” They smiled, a wistful look in their eye. “I want to take people there. To show them that the world of magic isn’t what these people are trying to sell. That there’s more.” They gave one last check to all their coat pockets, and then sighed and said, “Okay, let’s make a deal: meet me back here tomorrow, and I’ll have what I need to help you.”

“Can I bring a friend?” Helena asked. “It’s not personal, I just…”

Rainbow shrugged. “Yeah. Sure. Why not? It’s good to be on your toes when dealing with magical beings, and I’d totally do the same. Just know you’re doing the right thing, okay?”

“Okay.” And Helena laughed, because she didn’t trust herself to say anything more.