The door opened as we approached up the short path through the garden and a giant stood there, a warm smile on his face. He must have been approaching seven feet in height and had the broad shoulders and rippling musculature that reminded me of the drawings of Hercules or Thor that I’d seen once.

He wore jeans and a plain t-shirt as though they had been painted on and I could see every single muscle group moving beneath his skin as he lifted an arm in greeting. The shoulder length mousey blonde hair and square jaw were enough to weaken my knees a little. I was tempted to sneak a quick pic with my phone to send to Evie.

“You’re just in time,” he said by way of greeting with a hint of an accent that I couldn’t quite place. “Jo’s just finishing getting ready.”

“Excellent,” Marie said. “Now you be a good boy and go get the trunk from the boot.”

“Happy to,” he said and smiled showing straight white teeth, removing any hope I had that he’d have some kind of physical imperfection.

He gave me a quick appraising glance as he passed me, turning almost sideways to avoid knocking us from the path. A quick up and down with his eyes and the hint of an approving smile and he was past.

“Is he… you know?”

“Plenty of time for that dear,” Marie said as she gestured for me to enter the house.

I held back on the eye roll and wished just once that I’d be given a straight answer. Heck, that I’d be given any type of answer.

Once inside I exhaled softly and held my mouth firmly closed. I seemed destined to be constantly reminded of how crappy my little bedsit was, and that everyone else seemingly had a great deal more money than me.

The house was tastefully decorated in natural colours that seemed to highlight the artfully placed furnishings. There were high ceilings and wide windows that would allow in light and warmth during the day.

A stand beside the door had several coats on it, while the shoe rack beside it held men and women’s shoes and trainers.

Marie kicked off her own shoes and placed them on the rack and indicated I should do the same. My tattered trainers looked out of place and I couldn’t help but notice the socks I had chosen to wear had holes in.

I followed the older woman along the hallway and into a sitting room. An enormous fireplace was set into the wall opposite the door, drawing the eye of any who would enter. Several long and incredibly comfortable sofas were arranged in a rough semi-circle around it.

A stunning redheaded woman lounged on one of the sofas, an oversized t-shirt that I guessed belonged to the giant man was the only covering she had.

She looked up from the book she was reading as we entered and a crease formed between her immaculately plucked eyebrows.

“Marie,” she said, distaste dripping from the name as she spoke it.

“Delilah,” the older woman said with more than a touch of venom in her own voice. “I thought you’d moved on.”

“And leave all this?” she said as she stretched languidly and waved a hand that held a half-full wine glass at the room around her. “Why ever would I do that?”

“Because you don’t serve any purpose dear,” Marie said.

“I wouldn’t say that,” a voice replied and another woman entered the room. She was as tall as the red headed Delilah and moved with the lethal grace of a panther. Brown eyes regarded me warily as she crossed the room to lean down and share a brief, yet passionate kiss with the seated woman.

“Children!” Marie said so quietly that I doubted anyone besides myself heard. She shook her head slightly as Jo finished her kiss and turned to face us.

“Who’s the kid?” she asked and I bristled. She’s probably only a couple of years older than me herself.

“Selena,” I said. “You can call me Lena.”

“I’m Jo,” she said with a nod. Her tightly curled hair was cut almost as short as my own and for once I didn’t feel entirely out of place. “This is Delilah and… where’s Patrik?”

The last question was directed at Marie who inclined her head towards the door as the man in question came into the room. Once again he was forced to turn sideways to enter while carrying a large wooden case.

Square and made of oak, stained with age and use. It bore many dents and scratches in its sides and ironwork was set at the edges. A large padlock held it secure and I realised it was almost exactly the same as the one I’d seen bolted to the floor of Abe’s van.

“What’s this?” Jo asked as Patrik set the case down with a grunt.

“Heavy,” he said. “That’s what it is.”

“A gift,” Marie added. “From Peter and me.”

Jo gave a curt nod of thanks as she took the key the older woman held up and slipped it into the padlock. It turned with a heavy click and she pulled it free before lifting the lid, her eyes widening in surprise.

“Woah,” Patrik said as he looked inside. “These were yours?”

“Once, long ago, yes.”

He reached in and lifted out a large axe. A two-foot long wooden handle, carved with an intricate series of runes and sigils along its length, it had a curved head of silver with a vicious looking spike extending from the back of it.

“This is mine,” he said as he gave it an experimental swing.

“Keep it,” Jo said. She’d pulled out a sheathed dagger. The blade was perhaps a foot long and once again, made of shining silver. The handle was bone and the pommel, carved to resemble a wolf’s head.

“That,” Marie said as she indicated the knife. “Belonged to my grandfather. He claimed he’d carved the handle from the bones of an ogre.”

“Your grandfather?” I asked and she nodded.

“My family have been hunters for generations,” she said. “Peter and Abraham were brought into the life through shared tragedy but I was born to it.”

“As was I,” Jo said.

“What about you?” I asked the big man who grimaced as he tested his thumb against the blade of the axe and drew blood.

“You could say I was born to it,” he said with a grin.

“Patrik is Shadowborn,” Marie said. “Like you.”

"And you live here with a hunter?” I asked. Patrik looked at me appraisingly once again as though re-evaluating his earlier impression before he nodded.

“Ja,” he said. “We make a good team.”

“What exactly do you do?” I asked him since Jo was ignoring me for the moment as she pulled a number of items from the case and inspected them.

“We kill monsters,” he said with a shrug as though it were the simplest thing in the world.

“Help me get this stuff into the back room,” Jo said to her partner as she placed each of the items back in the case and stood up, brushing her hands together. “Then we’ll sit and have a talk.”

“I’ll go and make some tea,” Marie said and followed the other two out the door leaving me alone with the red headed Delilah who watched me curiously.

“Are you a hunter too?” I asked and she laughed.

“Lord no!” she said. “I’m just here for Jo.”

“Oh.”

“In fact,” she continued as she rose to her feet and swallowed the last of her wine. “I think, I’ll leave you all to talk. I’m sure the conversation in here will be nothing less than dull.”

“Aren’t you curious?”

“About what?”

“Well… me, I suppose. Whatever the talk will be about.”

“Sweetie, there’s nothing about you that is in any way interesting to me,” Delilah said and walked from the room as I stared after her with my jaw hanging almost to my chest. Bitch!

Jo and Patrik came back and gestured me to sit on one of the sofas. I took a seat with a rueful shake of the head at the ridiculousness of the whole situation and they settled down onto the opposite sofa.

“How old are you?” Jo asked. Her voice was almost gentle and I had the impression of compassion from her. I couldn’t imagine what she saw in Delilah.

“Twenty-one next month,” I said and she nodded, her eyes flicking towards the man.

“You’ve just discovered your powers?” Patrik asked.

“Literally today.”

“What can you do?”

“We’re not entirely sure dear,” Marie said as she bustled in with a tray full of mugs that steamed gently. “Perhaps we should start by explaining a few things to her before questioning, yes?”

The hunter and Shadowborn both looked over to Marie in apparent surprise and then shared a look with each other that spoke volumes.

“Okay,” Jo said as she took a mug from the tray. “Simplest way to start is to explain what we do.”

“Kill monsters?” I said and received a smile in return from the other woman as Patrik laughed at my echoing of his earlier reply.

“Something like that,” she agreed. “Most hunters out there work solo or occasionally with another hunter. We’re different.”

“Ja,” Patrik agreed with a grin.

I lifted a cup from the tray and Marie set it down on an end table before sitting beside the others. I couldn’t help but feel like I was in an interview and that if it didn’t go well, I wouldn’t just not get the job, I wouldn’t leave either.

“How so?” I asked.

“What do you know about hunters and the supernatural creatures?” she countered. I paused and then recounted the little I knew. She hadn’t asked about how I knew it, so I left out the part about my family.

“Okay, so some supernatural races have… I’d like to say integrated, but it’s more like they’ve adapted to the modern world. They’ve learned how to survive without killing people, which means hunters leave them be.”

“Usually because they don’t know about them,” Patrik added.

“Yeah. Most hunters follow death reports, odd news items and the like,” Jo said. “We take a more proactive route.”

“What do you mean?”

“Shadowborn, have a gift,” Patrik said. “We can see other Supernaturals.”

“It means that we can find the ones that have learned to hide their feeding,” Jo said. “We don’t have to react when one is noticed. We can do what hunters should do and actually hunt the damn things.”

“All supernaturals?” I asked with a sinking feeling.

“The ones that kill humans,” Marie said. “Patrik can find them and then we observe. Once we are sure they are killing, then we stop them. Or rather Jo and Patrik do.”

“Just the two of you?”

“For this team, yes,” Marie said before the others could speak. “There are other teams that we finance, but Jo and Patrik are our best.”

“You finance them?”

“Of course,” she said with a wide smile. “This house is owned by Peter and me. We provide somewhere to live, equipment and a small stipend.”

“Without it, we’d have to get jobs and that would limit what we could do,” Jo said with a tilt of her head towards the name emblazoned on my work shirt.

“So what’s your goal?” I asked. “The elimination of all supernaturals?”

“No,” Jo said with a shake of her head. “Only the ones that kill. We want to save people from them, more than anything else.”

“Some don’t kill then?”

“Most werewolf packs manage to keep to themselves, very few actually turn man-eater. I heard there was one in Leeds a couple of weeks ago and a hunter took it out. Some of the other supernaturals have found other uses for their talents too.”

“Abraham killed it,” I said. “I was there.”

“Really?” she said as her eyebrows rose. She looked surprised and thoughtful for a moment. “You’ll have to tell me about that sometime.”

“Later,” Marie said and the other woman nodded acquiescence before turning her attention back to me.

“Each of the teams set up by Peter and Marie are comprised of a Hunter and a Shadowborn,” Jo continued. “We work as a team and share the risks. The hunter usually focuses on the kill while the shadowborn is support.”

“What sort of support?” I asked and Patrik looked to Marie who nodded. He rose to his feet and closed his eyes.

The room dimmed. I wasn’t sure how, the lights were still on and didn’t dim, but it seemed the world around the large man did, as though the shadows themselves were fighting to beat back the light.

His eyes opened and he took three steps towards the fireplace where he picked up an iron poker from its stand and held it in his hands. His gaze was fixed on mine as he flexed those large muscles of his and seemingly effortlessly, twisted the poker almost in two.

“My powers,” he said. “Allow me to enhance my strength and make my skin much harder.”

“Harder?”

“Yeah,” Jo said as she stood up and crossed to stand beside him. She lifted the twisted metal from his hands and swung it with all her strength to strike him in the jaw. He barely flinched.

“How?” I asked. I knew I was gawking like a bumpkin fresh off the farm but it was hard to believe even though I’d just seen it with my own eyes.

“Our gifts from our fathers,” Patrik said and I could practically feel the hatred and seething anger behind the word. “We can access them. Usually, to do so, we need to be using our negative emotions.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Hatred,” he said. “Anger, rage, jealousy, call it what you will. Demons are creatures of chaos and torment. That is what allows us to tap into their gifts.”

My mind went back to when I’d used my own power. The anger I’d felt. No, not anger, the rage. I’d wanted to hurt the ghoul and had found the means to do so.

“Can I do that then?” I asked. “Make myself stronger.”

“Depends on your father,” Marie said. “Demons are associated with different aspects. One of our Shadowborn team members had a Tempesta for a father.”

“A what?”

“Storm demon,” Jo said. “Most of them were catalogued or translated from older documents when Latin was the written language. Their names are the ones we know.”

“Patrik here, his father has the aspect of stone, earth. When he accesses his gift, it becomes as though he were made of stone in a way. His skin, his muscles, all work as though made of granite. Perhaps a very fluid type of granite since it doesn’t make him into a statue, but that’s pretty much it.”

“Storm and rock,” I said. “Elements then? A storm would generally be water and electricity in the form of lightning.”

“Indeed,” Marie said with a warm smile. “Many of the demonic aspects are elemental equivalents.”

“What about mine then?” I asked and her smile faded. Jo and Patrik both looked to Marie, though their eyes kept flicking back to me. Their curiosity was plain and I was almost scared of their reaction.

“Your gifts are older by far,” Marie said. “Something truly ancient walked the world when you were created.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Back way before the start of, well, everything,” Marie began as she made herself comfortable. “There was light and dark. Call it what you will, but I always liked to think of it as life and death.”

“Chaos and order,” Jo added softly.

“Where the light and darkness met, on the very edges, shadows were born. The first demons.”

“Really?” I couldn’t help the scepticism in my voice but the older woman didn’t seem to mind.

“This is all lore that has been passed down since the very dawn of mankind,” Marie said. “From a time when we were much more connected to the universe than we are now.”

“Okay, so the first demons were born, then what?”

“Creation happened,” she said with a smile. “The big bang, God making the universe, call it what you will. Our reality filled with life and the shadow demons were forced further into the darkness. They reacted badly to that.”

“Why?”

“Because they were the firstborn children of this reality. The creator had seen what they were and instead chose to turn from them. She created a new race of angelic beings to serve her will.”

“Wait… you’re saying demons were pissed because God made angels?”

“Yes,” Marie said. Her eyes had glazed as she stared into the distance. “Many of those shadows embraced the darkness fully, nurturing their hate and seeking to wage war on the light.”

“They lost of course,” she continued. “The darkness gave way before the light and all of the demons were locked in their own realm, away from ours.”

“You mean Hell don’t you?” I said with a shake of my head. “You’re saying, that Hell is real and demons and angels fight each other.”

“Hell is very real,” she agreed. “Full of the souls of those who deserve torment. The demons rule it and take out their anger on those souls.”

“What about the shadows then?” I asked.

“Not all the demons embraced and were twisted by the chaotic darkness,” Jo said. She spoke almost reverently, as though recounting some long held belief.

“That’s right dear,” Marie said. “Some of the original shadow demons were forced into the darkness but kept apart. Looking often to the light that they longed to be part of, but forced to dwell in the dark.”

“They’re the closest thing to being good as a demon can get,” Patrik said, bitterness loud in his voice. “My father was not one of them.”

There was something in his voice that spoke of long-held pain and grief. I daren’t ask and in truth, I didn’t think I could handle knowing. Just more sorrow in a world full of it and I’d had enough.

“No one’s father was one of them,” Marie said. “Not for a very long time, until you in fact.”

“Me?”

“The original shadow demons very rarely come to this world,” she said. “No one is sure why, but it has been a very long time since one of them visited and even longer since a child was sired during that visit.”

“They aren’t like the others,” she continued. “They don’t feed off the chaos and misery like the common demons and any child is born of a willing union with the mother aware of what she was doing. For one to have been here, to stay as long as it must have done to make your mother pregnant, it must have been a powerful reason.”

“What do you mean?”

“For them, the place they live is indeed hell, but this world full of light and life is worse. It reminds them of everything they were forever denied.”

“Which makes you unique,” Jo said. “I think it’s time we learned what you can do.”