Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Are you sure we’re not trespassing?” Lena asked as Kara’s old Range Rover pulled up on to the crunchy unkempt grass underneath the spindly bare branches of an oak.

“Ms. Grant said she got permission from the owner,” Kara’s boots crackled against the brown leaves along the ground as she hoped out, her phone flashlight barely illuminating a two foot radius around her. “I don’t see why she would send me to cover a story like this unless she had prepared for it in advance. I mean, she was prepared enough to give me this fancy camera and all this other ghost stuff. Besides, if we get arrested, you can always just bail us out.”

“Ha, glad to hear the real reason you invited me,” Lena switched on her much brighter maglite flashlight; she wasn’t one to come unprepared either. As prepared as she could anyway. There wasn’t much prep work she had time for or could do given how little warning and details Kara had given her just an hour and half ago when she called with the invite. “Personally, I figured you and James would have partnered up on this one given his photography skills.”

“I kind of think that was Ms. Grant’s initial plan, but James and Winn were already working on a different assignment,” Kara grunted as she pulled her heavy book bag over shoulders. “At least, that’s what James said. But I think it’s because he’s scared.”

“Because of all of the ghosts?” Lena smirked as she arched an eyebrow.

When Kara had called Lena earlier that night asking if she would be up for going to the abandoned Maxwell Lord Asylum with her that evening for a story she was writing, Lena couldn’t have been more suprised. With October already in full swing, Cat Grant sought to bring a younger demographic to Catco by straying away a bit from their normal sweater weather and pumpkin spice content and stirring more towards millennials' much loved Spooky Season. Since the Maxwell Lord Asylum had been closed and abandoned for decades, it had developed a reputation as the most haunted place in National City, and, being known as the eager reporter that she was, Kara was chosen as the perfect candidate for the job. Always looking for any excuse to spend an evening with the blonde reporter, Lena immediately agreed to join her.

“That is not something to joke about Lena,” Kara snipped back.

“Oh please,” Lena rolled her eyes. “Everyone knows that ghosts aren’t real.”

“Yes, they are! Now put this on.” Kara held out a necklace and Lena immediately took a step back, hiding a flinch as she ducked her head.

“Is that a crucifix?” Lena asked, holding up one hand in front of her.

“Yeah, to ward off the ghosts and evil spirits,” Kara pulled one of her own out from under her blue sweater. “See, I have one on too.”

“Kara, I’m not wearing that,” Lena said.

“Why not?”

“Because," Lena bit her lip, her eyes tracking anywhere but the swaying crucifix dangling from Kara's hand. "It clashes with my style.”

“Lena,” Kara whined.

“Kara,” Lena replied, leveling her gaze with her.

“Ugh, fine,” Kara tossed it into the backseat of her car through the window. “I guess it can keep my car from getting possessed.”

“That would be a fun insurance claim.” Lena stepped towards her friend again, careful not to shine the flashlight in her face.

“Oh please like insurance would cover that.” Kara took the lense cap off the camera and flipped the flash up before aiming it at Lena. “Say cheese!”

Lena blinked in shocked as a sudden flash blinded her.

“Gosh, Kara,” Lena grumbled as she rubbed her eyes. “A little warning next time!”

“And the camera works!” Kara grinned as she pulled up the digital photo of a squinting and irritated brunette. “If this whole CEO thing doesn’t work out, I think you’ll have a great career in modeling.”

Lena rolled her eyes. “Are you ready now?”

“I guess so,” Kara turned her flashlight over to the cracked sidewalk covered in dead, dried out weeds that lead up to the steps of the main building. “Let’s just get this over with.”

Following her side closely, Lena fell in step with the blonde as they walked up the path illuminated only by their flashlights. The dried out leaves and plants crunched underneath their shoes while a crow cawed in the distance which made Kara jump.

“It’s just a bird, Kara,” Lena said.

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Kara took a shuddering breath. “I just wish we didn’t have to do this at night.”

“I mean, I’m fine with coming back tomorrow in the daytime.”

“But Lena…” Kara paused in her step to look at the brunette next to her, “that’s not how ghosts work.”

“Ghost’s are not real, Kara,” Lena said, returning Kara’s question gaze with her own. “The time of day doesn’t matter when they don’t exist.”

“This is just one of those times where you’re going to have to admit that you’re wrong because I have proof!” Kara proudly proclaimed as she whipped out what looked to be a black remote control with a colorful scale on the front.

Lena blinked unamused. “What sort of proof is that?”

“It’s an EMF reader! It’s supposed to tell us when ghosts and the paranormal are nearby,” Kara flipped on the switch and it immediately lit up with a buzz. “Okay wow, this place is a hot spot, I guess.”

“EMF readers were initially designed to locate potentially harmful EMF radiation from nearby power lines and household appliances which were common in older structures and houses,” Lena explained, her brow twitching at the splitting sound. “And we’re right next to an old abandoned building that probably has plenty of radiation coming from it. That thing will probably be going off throughout this building.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Kara grumbled as she switched it off and threw it in her book bag. “Why do you always have to use science to take the fun out of things?”

“Because I’m a scientist. That’s what I do.”

“Well, are you ready to be a ghost hunter for the night?” Kara asked as she approached the stone steps leading up to the cracked and splintered double wide front door. “Because that’s what we’re about to be tonight.”

“I prefer the term Urban Explorer who is thankfully up to date on their tetanus shots,” Lena said, stepping over a brittle piece of wood jagged with rusted nails that laid across the steps in front of her and stumbling slightly in the dark.

“Oh gosh, watch out,” Kara offered her hand to Lena who readily took it as she steadied herself.

“Always coming to the rescue, aren’t you, Ms. Danvers?” Lena asked with a coy smile.

“Uh, yeah, of course,” Kara mumbled as she thanked the darkness that hid her immediate blush.

“Well, ghost hunter,” Lena said, standing up straighter, “lead the way.”

“Right, uh,” Kara immediately dropped Lena’s hand as she reached for the door and almost immediately missed the other woman’s touch, but did her best to press on. “I think this door is unlocked. Oh, yep! Just gotta push it open.”

The heavy door groaned while Kara grunted as she pushed it open, revealing a dark foyer before them. Shining their light into the building, the two women were surprised by just how large the space actually was as their flashlights cast dim shadows of light on the back walls. Dusty curtains hung torn on the windows as pockets of plaster dotted along the walls. Frames, tables, and chairs scattered the dirty floor in pieces as if they had been destroyed in some fit of rage rather than left abandoned. Kara did her best to tell herself that it was simply caused by vandals as some graffiti adorned the walls and floor, but the hair on the back of Kara’s neck told her differently. This world may have abandoned this place, but something from another world had moved in.

“It’s sad, isn’t it?” Lena said as she shined her light on an overturned antique wheelchair. “It’s as if it's a statement on how society treats those with mental and physical disorders: just complete and utter neglect.”

“Yeah,” Kara gulped as she felt her mouth went dry. “Hopefully that’s the scariest thing we run into here.”

Cautiously, she took a step forward. The floorboards creaked slightly under her weight but other than that, it remained sturdy. Other than the fine scratches and blotches that lined the hardwood floor, they seemed to be adequate conditions. Besides, Ms. Grant wouldn’t send her out on an assignment to a structurally unsound building, would she?

“Watch your step,” Lena called out as Kara headed off in front of them. “I don’t trust some of these boards to hold.”

“I’ll be fine!” Kara called back. “I kind of want to check out one of these other rooms.”

“Okay, I’ll be right behind you.”

The foyer branched off into what looked like three or four different hallways, but since one hallway looked as if it had been boarded up a while back, Kara settled on the next one over. While a dark stained overturned bed took up half the hallway, she couldn’t help her curiosity and get closer to it. Reaching for her camera, the blonde snapped a few photos just in case something would show up like a specter on the film that she missed. Of course, it wasn’t until she was looking at it did she realize those dark stains had a red hue with broken straps on either side.

Quickly turning her camera back off, Kara hastily made her way back to the foyer to put some distance between her and the blood soaked mattress. Unfortunately, what direction she thought was the foyer was actually just deeper into the hallway. And the overturned bed wasn’t an isolated incident. More scattered the hallways along with bent wheel chairs and rusted metal chairs among the splintered remains of countless other objects Kara couldn’t quite place but still somehow just as unsettling. The hallway remained long with doors lining the sides - some open and some closed, but none of them looked any more welcoming than the last.

The hardwood floor turned into tile and Kara suddenly realized that Lena was nowhere to be seen. Spinning around and shining the light back down the hallway, Kara realized that she was completely alone.

“Lena?” Kara called out but silence only answered.

A musty smell filled her nose as her feet shuffled back until she felt the press of cold, rigid tile against her spine and, with a swipe of her phone’s flashlight, she realized she was standing in a large shower area. A single drop of water dripped down from the showerhead above her, leaving a brown stain on the shoulder of her sweater and a coldness blossoming in chest. It was so cold and somehow so violating as if the room had somehow touched her. Springing away from the wall with a gasp, Kara stumbled as her boots slid slightly across the uneven, dingy tile.

Trembling, Kara reached into her bookbag and took out the EMF reader. While Lena said it would just give false positives since it was an old building, Kara's eyes widened and she let out a shuddering breath when she turned it on and the reader was silent. Still, Kara couldn’t shake the feeling that she wasn’t alone. Voting to choose the creepy hallway over the creepy shower room, Kara hastily retreated with her phone’s flashlight and EMF reader lighting the way.

However, it wasn’t the hallway that Kara had found herself in, but an entirely different room all together. This was a larger room with old metal beds lined up in rows along either side of the wall. Some of the beds had yellowed hued stained mattresses on them still while others had their rusted springs exposed. Kara frowned, but rather than attempting to cross through the shower room again where she already got turned around, Kara decided to press forward and hope that it all looped back around to the foyer or that Lena had found herself on this side of the building too.

“Lena!” Kara called out as she took a few more steps forward, but her only response was a blip on her EMF reader.

Moving the EMF reader back and forth in front of her, Kara noticed that when she moved it to the right of her, the reader’s activity monitor jumped. With her camera at the ready, Kara favored the right side of the room as she walked, careful not to touch the beds just to be safe from any possible cuts from the rusted metal.

Which was why Kara’s heart skipped a few beats when she heard the hiss of the bed dragging its legs against the floor.

Kara jumped back as the EMF sounded off. Her fingers fumbled as she tried to reach for her camera, but her hands were already full. Holding her breath for several seconds, Kara and the room fell silent as Kara aimed her flashlight on the bed, her eyes locking with the rusted exposed springs and chipped paint on the frame just waiting for it to move again; however, the bed remained still.

Until it wasn’t.

Just as Kara’s breathing and pulse were slowing down, they spiked again as the bed began to rattle. It’s metal legs hissed and crackled against the floor while it shook violently to the left and right in front of her as if it were a cat calibrating before it pounced on its prey. Kara jumped back, her breath suddenly robbed as she watched in horror before the room fell silent once again with the bed becoming motionless.

A chill ran through the air, sending another wave of goosebumps down Kara’s spine that stood her hair at the base of her neck on end. The already dark room turned impossibly darker as her flashlight flickered and EMF reader blared, but Kara could have sworn there was movement next to her. When she threw out her hand, she caught nothing but air as her boots kicked rusted nails and shattered glass forward. Her quick breathing was only outmatched by her heart rate as her soon quivering hands reached around for her book bag for whatever she had that could protect her, her light flickering as she held both her phone and blaring EMF. She had to hold it together long enough to find Lena. Lena needed her. But right as her fingers found the spray bottle, the lips of another ghosted by her ear, taunting her with a sickly sweet giggle of “Are you afraid?”

“Be gone demons!” Kara cried, whipping out her holy water and spraying her bottle all around her in the air. The EMF read slipped from her hand and its blaring ceased as it cracked against the hardwood floor.

“Ah, damnit!” Lena yelped from behind Kara.

Kara spun around, swinging her light to see Lena cradling her hand in her dark. She immediately stopped spraying and rushed to her side.

“Are you okay?” Kara asked, gently touching Lena’s shoulder.

“Yeah,” Lena replied, shaking out her hand and wiping it off on her pants. “I touched that chair and got a splinter. It’s nothing.”

“Are you sure? I can help you get it out.”

“It’s fine, really,” Lena insisted, hiding her hand behind her back. “I’m just glad I found you again.”

“Oh, yeah, same,” Kara said, stepping closer to the brunette. “But you missed it, Lena. I swear that bed over there was just shaking.”

“That bed?” Lena asked, arching an eyebrow and shining her brighter flashlight over to the rusted metal asylum bed. “That one that is nailed to the floor?”

“Oh.. I didn’t realize that,” Kara said as she noticed the rusted nails still plainly visible on brackets latching the bed to the floor. “Okay, I know it sounds crazy, but I swear it was just moving. Like back and forth.”

“Then why aren’t their scratch marks on the floor around it? It’s a wooden floor. Moving around a metal bed like that would leave evidence on the hardwood.”

“I, uhh,” Kara scratched the back of her head as she looked at the bed and floor again. “I don’t know.”

“I think this place is starting to get to you, Kara,” Lena said.

“Yeah, I guess you could say that,” Kara said with a slight sigh. “But where did you go? I thought you were right behind me.”

“I was, but I guess I lagged behind more than I realized because I looked up and you were gone.” Lena noticed something at Kara’s feet. “Oh no, is that your EMF reader?”

“Oh shoot!” Kara picked up her now cracked EMF reader and flipped the switch only to have nothing happen. “It’s busted!”

“I’m sorry, Kara,” Lena frowned. “But hey, at least we don’t have to listen to that sound anymore. It was rather annoying.”

“I guess we’ll just have to continue our adventure without it,” Kara threw the now broken EMF reader into her bookbag and pulled it back on over her shoulders then grabbed her camera that still hung around her neck. “Besides I really need to start taking more pictures anyways. Say cheese!”

“Kara!” Lena groaned as she shielded her face against the flash.

“Beautiful as always,” Kara grinned as she looked at the picture preview.

“...you think I’m beautiful?”

“Uhh…” Kara gulped as she suddenly found her throat very dry. “Let’s keep going! We still have a lot of old asylum to see!”

And Kara set off, much more ready to risk the paranormal than having that sort of discussion. Her pace was quick despite the amounts of glass and nails scattered across the floor or even though Kara lacked knowledge of where she was going. She just needed a little bit of sudden distance between her and what she just said.

“Kara, wait!” Lena called out after.

But just as Lena was about to catch up to the blonde, Kara walked through a doorway only for it slam shut behind her, cutting her off from Lena completely.

“Lena!” Kara cried out.

First jumping from fright, Kara immediately tried to pry open the heavy wooden door, but it wouldn’t budge regardless of how much she pushed or pulled. The metal handle was cold and frail looking in her hand but try as she might, she couldn’t get it to turn. What was the point of going to the gym if she didn’t have the strength to open a single old door?

“Lena, can you hear me?” Kara called out.

“‘Yes, I can hear you just fine!”

“Look, I’m trying to get the door open, but it won’t budge!” Kara said just before she slammed her shoulder into the side of it, groaning slightly in pain as her body met a very solid door.

“Trust me, Kara, it’s no use! We’ll just have to try to meet up again.”

“You sure? I can’t even tell you where I am!”

“Don’t worry, I’ll find you. I promise. Just stay where you are.”

“Wait, Lena!”

But she was gone, and Kara realized she was all alone.

Well, expect for the cracked sets of eyes that were staring at her.

Jumping back against the door, Kara realized with a fright that she must have been in the children’s ward as the room was filled with broken toys lying along the floor and broken furniture. Wooden blocks stood both stacked and scattered on the floor and stuffed animals laid on the beds with stuffing dangling out of their ripped off limbs. Everything looked sad and empty. And of course all the dolls' heads were turned facing her.

With a slow breath, Kara attempted to control her breathing and not freak out like the hairs on the back of her neck wanted her to. Memories of when she was younger suddenly came to mind where her mom would tell her that if she were to ever get lost, then she should stay in the same place. With Lena looking for her and clearly already on the search, logically, the best thing to do is stay in this room like Lena told her. This room with the creepy dolls. Creepy dolls that seemed to follow her as she moved.

Closing her eyes, Kara took a deep breath. She could do this. Lena would find her. She would write her article. Ms. Grant would promote her. Everything would be okay. In the meantime, Kara could just do her job and do her best not to think too hard about it.

Quickly, Kara snapped a few pictures, sure to keep her back against the wall just to be sure that nothing could sneak up on her from behind. Still sure to keep her holy water at the ready, Kara reached into her bag and pulled out a small radio like device: a spirit box. Winn had given it to her before coming because it was supposedly a way to talk to ghosts by giving them radio frequencies to manipulate into words. A small light turned on as she flipped the switch before she turned the dial which tuned the sound and the speed of the frequency change. A loud static suddenly filled the room as Kara listened closely to see if anyone had anything to say.

“Hello?” Kara stammered, clearing her throat. “Anybody there?”

Shhcccttttzzzzzzhhhhhhwwwsss

“Ya’ll, uh, have a nice place here,” Kara continued looking around. “Nice high ceilings. Good open floor. You could honestly probably fit my apartment in this one room.”

Whhhrshhhshccc-- get out --whzztzhh

“What?” Kara asked, spinning around in the empty room.

Chhesszzzzst -- leave --ffsssszzz

“Why don’t you want me here?”

Kara jumped as she heard a thud and then let out a yelp as the dolls heads spun around so they were now facing the door at the other end of the room.

Fzzzttshhhhhh-- she’s here --sctttccchhh

“Who?” Kara demanded, her flashlight scanning light a spotlight. “Who’s here?”

Fcccchhhsssschhh-- she’s coming -- Szzzthc -- run -- shcttsszwww -- RUN

The door suddenly flung open and Kara ducked, hiding her face with her hands as she waited for whoever “she” was to get her. This was the end. This was she got for not staying home and eating that pint of ice cream in her fridge. This was why she should have just been honest with Lena and not run.

“Kara?”

Kara peaked out from behind her hand, shining her bright light on the squinting figure of her raven-haired colleague now standing in the doorway. Her finger found the off switch on the spirit box as she did her best not to scream out of fright or relief.

“Lena!” Kara let out a deep sigh as she gripped her chest where her heart pounded away. “How did you find me so fast?”

“I guess I got lucky and chose the right hallway,” Lena said as she carefully stepped over the scattered old broken toys and glasses. “What were you doing?”

“I was, uh, using a spirit box,” Kara said as she turned it over in her hand. “It jumps through all the different radio frequencies really quickly so it’s supposed to only be static, but it’s also supposed to help ghosts communicate through it.”

“Ghosts?” Lena quirked her brow as she gave a skeptical grin. “Talking through a fancy radio? Come on, I can’t be the only one who finds that a bit far fetched.”

“No, it’s true! They were just talking through it. Listen.”

Kara flipped on the spirit box once again, biting her lower lip and holding her breath as she looked at Lena and waited while the uncomfortable buzz of the static echoed around the dark room.

Wssszzzchhhhhhhhzzzzzzzzssfffttt

“That’s nothing but static, Kara,” Lena said after a few moments.

“But I’m telling you,” Kara flipped off the spirit box. “It was just working a few seconds ago. It’s like they were trying to warn me or something.”

Lena’s smirk fell. “Warn you about what?”

“I don’t know,” Kara shrugged. “They just said ‘she’s here’ and to run.”

“Interesting,” Lena said, blinking slowly. “Well, just do me a favor and don’t lose me again. Someone has to keep you safe after all.”

“I think that’s the other way around,” Kara said, puffing out her chest. “I’m the one with the crucifix and holy water after all.”

“Well, I guess I’ll have to stay close by then,” Lena said, letting out a slight laugh.

“I’d like that,” Kara said, slowly slipping her hand into Lena’s. “Is this okay? I just don’t want to lose you again.”

“Absolutely,” Lena smiled, adjusting her fingers so they interlocked with Kara’s.

Kara returned the smile with a brighter one of her own. This was it. This was the moment she’d be dreaming about for so long. Definitely not the setting, but she could do her best to work with it. Even if the dolls heads were definitely turned back around and now watching the two of them.

“Okay, so don’t freak out,” Kara said slowly, “but the dolls are definitely watching us.”

“Kara, be serious,” Lena sighed with a roll of her eyes.

“No, seriously,” Kara insisted. “I think that one just blinked.”

Kara stared at the doll sitting up on the bed with the cracked porcelain face and blue eyes that had enough life in them to make the blonde shudder. While doll’s red hairs were frayed and its blue dress stained, a force radiated from the small trinket that made Kara only hold Lena’s hand tighter.

“Kara,” Lena said slowly.

But at that moment, the doll decided to jump from the bed to the floor.

“Oh my gosh, Lena!” Kara squealed, dropping Lena’s hand, her eyes wide and focused on the doll now lying still on the floor. “The doll moved! THE DOLL MOVED!”

“Really?” Lena said. “I didn’t see anything.”

“What did you not see?” Kara demanded, her flashlight bouncing back and forth from the doll on the floor to where it was on the bed. “It went from there to there. Oh my GOSH, it just blinked again. IT BLINKED AGAIN. How did you not see that?”

“I didn’t see a thing,” Lena said, more forcefully this time as she glared at the doll.

“What are you talking about?” Kara swung the light over to Lena’s face next to her to see the raven haired woman with her gaze fixed on the red haired doll in front of them. From the shadow of the light, Lena’s green eyes appeared almost black, before Lena turned her head to look at Kara.

“I didn’t see a thing,” Lena repeated, much calmer this time and even tilting her head a little to the side as she looked over at Kara. “I think your eyes are just playing tricks on you, Kara. I told you you should have brought a better flashlight than just your phone.”

“Flashlight… yeah,” Kara shook her head. “You’re right. And this place is giving me the creeps. It’s definitely messing with my head.”

“Dark abandoned asylums tend to do that to people.”

“You seem fine, though.”

“You forget who you’re talking to,” Lena barked out a laugh. “I’m a Luthor. We don’t scare. We do the scaring.”

“Right,” Kara mumbled with a nod, as she looked down at the light shining down on her feet. “Well, for what it’s worth, I think you’re anything but scary.”

“You’re too sweet,” Lena said with a smile before she dropped her gaze. “If only you knew…”

“Hey,” Kara caught Lena’s hand in her’s and urged the raven haired woman to return her gaze. “I know enough. I know that you are the kindest, most compassionate, and bravest woman I’ve ever met. A woman I couldn’t help but be attracted to since the day I first met.”

Lena’s green eyes darted back to Kara’s blue, her fine dark eyebrows raised in hopeful shock. Her hand gripped Kara’s tighter, and Kara took a step closer. Electricity sparkled between them the space separating them shrunk from feet to inches. The musty smell of the room became nothing but a memory as Lena’s lavender perfume filled Kara’s nose and clouded her mind. All fears and surroundings were forgotten and there was nothing but this raven-haired woman in front of her. When Lena’s lip parted as her eyes closed, Kara couldn’t resist pressing her lips against hers.

And it was perfect. Everything Kara had imagined and more. Right here in her arms. And Kara in hers. It was perfect.

When they parted, Kara kept her arm around Lena’s waist and Lena’s kept her arms around Kara’s neck where they had climbed during their kiss. Lena’s eyes remained closed as she let out a soft hum of content, holding the blonde close to her as Lena nuzzled into her shoulder, deeply inhaling her scent.

“I’ve been waiting for you to do that for a long time,” Lena sighed.

“Same, honestly.” Kara let out a laugh before a groan. “Oh gosh.”

“What is it?” Lena said with a frown as she leaned back to look at the blonde.

“I cannot believe that I just kissed you in this haunted house,” Kara groaned, covering her face with her hand.

“I think you mean creepy abandoned asylum,” Lena corrected. “And I hope you’re upset about the setting and not the action.”

“What? No, NO,” Kara cleared her throat as she moved her hand from her face to Lena’s shoulder. “I’ve been wanting to do that for ages too. Really. Just not here.”

“Yeah, I would be kind of concerned if you had,” Lena said with a slight chuckle. “But we should definitely do it again sometime.”

“Absolutely,” Kara slid her hand down Lena’s arm to her hand. “Just not anywhere near here.”

Lena laughed. “Are you finally ready to go?”

“Beyond ready.”

~~~

They made it out of the building surprisingly quickly with Lena leading the way. If Kara hadn’t known any better, she would have sworn Lena knew the way, but really they weren’t very far from the foyer where they started from. Kara had evidently just walked in a large circle. In less than five minutes, they were back sitting in the front seats of Kara’s Range Rover with Lena checking her phone as Kara reviewed the pictures she took on her camera.

“Holy crap, Lena,” Kara gasped. “I think I may have actually captured proof of the paranormal.”

“Oh, okay,” Lena scoffed.

“No, seriously look!” Kara held up her camera, showing the digital screen in Lena’s face. “It’s a hand! Reaching towards the camera!”

Furrowing her brow, Lena took the camera and tilted her head to the side as she studied the dark photo of the Asylum foyer with a white blur on the side.

“Looks more a smudge on the lens if you ask me.” Lena said, scrunching her nose as she passed the camera back.

“Are you serious?” Kara snatched the camera back. “There is like a finger there and there… I think.” She squinted her eyes as she looked closer at the picture. “Alright well, maybe, but I definitely think it’s something. That was at the beginning though. I’m sure there has to be more evidence in here somewhere.”

“Oh yeah, I’m sure,” Lena leaned forward in her seat, smiling as she watched the blonde. “Because ghosts leave plenty of evidence.”

“Ugggg,” Kara groaned as she flipped through the pictures on the camera.

“What?” Lena asked, laying her head on Kara’s shoulder to look.

“One of my lenses must be messed up. Some of the pictures are all out of whack. Like this one of you looks like you have horns and something on your back. And a tail?”

“You don’t say,” Lena hummed.

“Dang it, I knew I should have just had James calibrate the color balance for me.” Kara groaned. “Ms. Grant is going to kill me.”

“I’m sure she’s not going to kill you,” Lena said, her hand finding Kara’s and lacing her own fingers between Kara’s. “Besides, for what’s it worth, I will gladly accompany you to any sort of ghost adventure assignments she has planned for you.”

“Oh really?” Kara grinned as she turned her head so her nose brushed against Lena’s. “Don’t tell me I’ve made a believer out of you already.”

“Hardly, but someone has to keep you safe, and I suppose I'm up for that task,” Lena grinned before her lips found the blonde’s once again.

Chapter Text

“I cannot believe you ate an entire box of Ritz crackers on the plane.”

“What? I offered to share them with you.” Kara dusted off the remaining crumbs from her blue button up shirt and white wash jeans. “Besides, it’s not like planes ever offer enough snacks anyways.”

“It was a two hour flight. How many more bags of pretzels did you expect them to give out?” Lena asked, adjusting the shoulder of her bag.

“A heck of a lot more for us sitting in first class. Really I don’t see why you insisted on paying extra to bump us up from economy.”

“Because I like my space,” Lena said as she dug through her bag. “Especially from loud snackers who insist upon eating loudly the entire flight.”

“You didn’t have to come with me, you know.” Kara said with a smirk.

“And let you wander around the city of New Orleans on your own? Absolutely not.” Lena slid on her massive, dark aviators, effectively shading half her face. “Especially with the nefarious destinations Cat has you headed.”

Since her first spooky assignment of touring the abandoned Maxwell Lord Asylum had gone viral, Kara’s boss, queen of all media Cat Grant, had assigned her a flurry of locations and legends to investigate around the National City area. Winn and James would usually volunteer to go with her depending on the place, but Lena had continued to join Kara on every trip even though she wasn’t compensated and always left looking less than impressed. Despite all the reassurances from Kara that she was really fine to go alone, Lena always insisted, even now when she was sent all the way to New Orleans, Louisiana to investigate one of the most haunted cities in America.

“Ghost tours are not nefarious.” Kara rolled her eyes. “Neither are the supposedly haunted cemeteries and abandoned places. They’re a main source of tourism here. Besides, I thought you didn’t believe in ghosts?”

The brunette scoffed as she flipped her dark hair. “Please, ghosts have nothing to do with it. It's the charlatans and conmen I don’t trust. With your luck, they’ll rob you to the point where you can’t even afford a phone call home. Coming here with you now is just saving me from making another trip later in efforts to find you.”

“Well,” Kara grinned as she slid her arm through Lena’s, “I’m very grateful to have you here to save me.”

“I’ll always be here to save you,” Lena replied without a second thought.

“Which is why I’m so fond of you.” Kara grinned ever wider. “Come on. Let’s go find us an Uber.”

~~~

“Okay, so the carriage tour is our first event, but I thought it would do us some good to get here early,” Kara said as she rooted through her bag as they stood beside the large equestrian statue in Jackson Square. “Would you want to hold a Go Pro camera too? That way we can have multiple angles for the video?”

Lena frowned. Even though they had been outside for a short time, their faces held a slick glen of sweat and their clothes clung uncomfortably to them, and the last thing Lena desired was to have any of her current look on film. Unfortunately, Kara’s eyes glimmered in the way they only did when she was hot on a story and Lena struggled to resist them.

“Fine,” Lena sighed as she took the camera Kara held out to her. “I still don’t see why you can’t just stick with writing articles. Since when did Cat get into making videos?”

“Since those guys on Buzzfeed got so big doing it.” Kara shrugged before perking up and digging out her phone from her back pocket. “Oh! I forgot to post a TikTok updating viewers that we made it to Lousianna!”

Lena rolled her eyes at the poor joke. “I’ll pass on that one.”

“Oh come on, Lena,” Kara stuck out her lip. “Just once? Or maybe just an Instagram Live later?”

“I don’t know how you keep with all of them.” Lena shook her head. “But really Kara, I’m not exactly presentable at the moment for a camera.”

“That’s because you’re wearing long sleeves, pants, huge sunglasses, and a massive hat.” Kara said, her eyes flicking over her girlfriend’s very clothed body. “Really, Lena, the sun won’t kill you, you know.”

Lena let out a high bitter laugh but didn’t respond. Instead, she just pulled the brim of her hat down further over her face. “Just let me know when the night tours start.”

Kara fiddled with the settings on her camera as she squinted up at the sun and their surroundings, trying to remember all Winn and James had told her about color balance and working with outdoor lighting. Their carriage was set to pick them up in about twenty minutes to give them a brief tour of the city and daytime shots of the places that they would be visiting later on when it was night. In the viewfinder, she centered a statue of the horse and a rider as this one of those sites that they would be filming again in just a few hours.

“You know Jackson Square is supposed to be haunted, right?” Kara said, sneaking a glance at Lena who now stood with her arms crossed in a small dark patch of shade. “A bunch of people have claimed to see ghosts walking around here at night.”

“That’s what happens when you hang innocent people demanding basic human freedoms,” Lena replied darkly.

Kara’s eyebrows shot up as she lifted her head. Through her research, she knew Jackson Square had the grizzled history of being the place where many once slaves had been executed here after mock trials declared them guilty. The square may stand in the shade of many cathedrals, but God had forsaken men and women here for centuries.

“You know about the hangings they did here?” Kara asked. “I didn’t know you were a history buff.”

Lena scoffed, her back bristling. “Injustices just tend to linger. And my family would know a thing or two or about that.”

Her huge sunglasses blocked her eyes, but Kara could have swore Lena was looking at someone although they were alone. Kara just pushed past it; it wouldn’t be the first time she had impractically assumed things like that. Lena was just like that sometimes.

“You know you’re not your family, right?” Kara asked, quietly, slipping her hand into Lena’s. “They don’t define you. You are your own person.”

Lena sighed but returned the squeeze. “You don’t know how much I wish that were true.”

~~~

They jostled along on their carriage tour for hours as the tour guide took on a leisurely pace through the French Quarter and surrounding city, detailing much of the city’s grim and ghostly past that Kara planned on circling back to later that night. Lena remained mostly quiet through the tour, filming whatever Kara instructed her too and looking unamused by any of the tour guide’s jokes or pun attempts. Then again, she was rather hard to read behind those massive sunglasses and massive sunhat. Even when Kara did try to get her in the shot, Lena simply shooed her away. Despite being the most beautiful person she knew, Lena had always been rather camera shy. Kara looked forward to that evening when Lena would have no use for the cameras and mics, and she could see the full face of her girlfriend once again. 

When the tour finally ended and the sun began lowering in the sky, Kara pulled her girlfriend into another Uber that drove her off to the next place on Cat Grant’s itinerary for them: the home of Inza Nelson. 

Inza Nelson, once Inza Cramer, and her husband, Kent Nelson, were considered two of the great occultist of their time as they seemingly dabble in just about everything supernatural. Although now much older and considered retired, Inza Nelson was once the go-to woman for poltergeists, possessions, and curses. According to legend, she had banished several nefarious ghosts and demons, even slayed a Lord of Chaos once. She was legendary with each story Kara read being more badass than the next. Inza was the main reason Kara had pushed Cat Grant for a New Orleans destination in the first place, but unfortunately Lena didn’t seem too thrilled.

As soon as their car turned down the drive, Lena went impossibly paler. The closer that large white house with a wrap around porch came into the view, the shallower Lena’s breathing became. She swayed her seat before leaning her head against her now very sweaty palms perched on her knee and left a damp trail against her forehead as she wiped at it. Talismans and other relics hung from the large spindled oak trees around them, and Lena kept jerking her head away from the window when they caught the light just so. When the car pulled to park, Lena looked as if she were going to be sick.

“You know, Kara,” Lena said, her voice wavering slightly as she stood up out of the car after Kara. “I should probably go. You can handle this interview on your own.”

“Woah, what?” Kara caught Lena as she stumbled. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Lena managed a weak smile but her warm eyes flickered dark before she closed them. “I’m just not feeling so great.”

Kara’s eyes widened as she tightened her grip on her girlfriend. “Do you think it’s something you ate? Or from the plane? I can take you back to the hotel--”

“No, no,” Lena assured her swiftly with a squeeze to her arm. “You have your interview. That’s important. I’ll just see if I can call the Uber back here.”

“Are you sure?” Kara asked. “I really don’t mind.”

The brunette gave her a weak smile before brushing her off. “No, go. Your interview is important. And you’re already here. You don’t need to be late.”

“I’m sure they’d understand,” Kara pulled Lena towards the porch steps to sit. “Here, I can at least sit with you until the Uber gets here.”

“ No! ” Lena jerked her arm back as her voice wavered in a deep vibrato that made Kara freeze and stare. Closing her eyes again, Lena took a deep breath and pulled her arms up close to her chest as she took another step away from the porch before she said in a much softer voice, “I’ll be fine, Kara, really. I just need to go lie down. Please, don’t let me ruin your evening.”

“You never ruin my evenings…”

Lena let out a gentle scoff and waved her hand. “You’re too good to me, Kara Danvers. Go do your interview. Please. I’ll be fine.”

Kara hesitated before her shoulders slumped in defeat. “If you’re sure. Call me if you need anything, okay?”

“I will,” Lena assured with a nod.

“I’ll try to keep this short, okay? Nothing longer than an hour.”

“Take as long as you need, Kara,” Lena said with a small smile continuing to back her way from the house. “I’ll be fine. I promise.”

“Okay,” Kara said, reluctantly walking up the porch steps. “I’ll come as soon as you need me, you know.”

“I know,” Lena smiled.

With a deep breath, Kara knocked on the heavy wooden door. And before she could even fill her lungs again, the front door flung open to reveal a tall, older woman in a high collar yellow dress. Silver ankh crosses hung from ears and her dark hair was slick back in a tight ponytail, highlighting her aged skin but vibrant green eyes. Her red small lips pursed together tightly at the blonde in front of her, the crows feet around the corner of her eyes wrinkling.

“Hello!” Kara waved excitedly with a wide grin. “Inza Kent? I’m Kara Danvers from Catco! I talked to you earlier about doing an interview?”

“Oh yes, Ms. Danvers,” the woman gave a nod and stepped aside. “Please come in. We’ve been expecting you.”

“Thank you so much! I also brought my girlfriend with me.” Kara gestured behind her to Lena who still stood rigid in the middle of their driveway. “I hope you don’t mind.”

At first, the woman opened her mouth to accept, but then her eyes flashed upon seeing Lena and her jaw snapped shut. Narrowing her gaze, the old woman’s nostrils flared and her lips curled into a snarl as she reached for the bracelets around her wrists and if Kara didn’t know any better, she would have sworn those ankh cross earrings flashed white. But with the sun where it was in the sky, they must have just caught it as she jerked her head.

“She’s not welcome here.” Inza declared, her eyes still locked with Lena who was still slowly backing further out of the driveway.

“I was just leaving.” Lena replied, the steel in voice carrying across the yard. Despite her sudden pale sickly appearance, she still looked enough like herself to be offended. 

And why wouldn’t she be, Kara thought. Who was this old woman to say someone like Lena wasn’t welcome? Sure she was kind of pale and looked a little sick, but that still seemed rather extreme for that sort of outburst.

“She’s just waiting for an Uber,” Kara said slowly, looking from the old woman to the much younger one. “I don’t see what the problem is.”

Inza’s gaze darted over to Kara and studied her with enough intensity that the hairs on Kara’s neck raised and she considered jumping in on that Uber ride with Lena as the car pulled in to pick her up.

“Oh look, there's her Uber.” Kara said with a forced sigh of relief as she waved Lena off. “I knew it wouldn’t take long. Are you ready for your interview?”

“Of course,” Inza said, turning back towards her house with her head held high. “I just put a kettle on the stove.”

Relieved to be past the earlier drama, Kara stepped inside the Nelson home, welcoming the cool relief of air conditioning from the humid Louisiana heat. But before Kara could take three steps, Inza latched on to her wrist, pulling it with a surprising amount of strength as she jerked it around in front of her as if looking at it from every angle would accomplish something.

“Woah, what are you doing?” Kara asked, her arm tensing in the womans’ hold as she rapidly attempted to decide if it would be rude or even possible to yank her arm free.

“Where is your mark?” Inza said, grabbing her other arm and turning it over.

“What?” Kara frowned, confusion slackening her limbs.

“Didn’t she mark you?”

“Um,” Kara’s brow furrowed as the woman lifted up her hair to look at the back of her neck before she stepped away. Mark her? Lena barely left more than a hickey throughout their relationship. “What are you talking about?”

“The Devil’s mark!” Inza snapped, her eyes flashing again as they roamed over Kara’s neck and face. “The mark that they use to claim you and control you through. The one that demons use to make you a servant of their bidding.”

Kara blinked. “Yeah, I have no clue what you’re talking about.”

“Kent, bring the sage. We must cleanse her.”

From another room, Kara could hear a rustling and an older man, one who Kara recognized as Inza’s husband, Kent Nelson, stepped into the room in his signature blue suit with yellow undershirt and tie.

“Cleanse me?” Kara blinked as she took another step away, her back pressing against the front door. “Of what? I just came here for an interview.”

“From that woman you were with,” Inza explained. “To free you from her.”

“Lena?” Kara asked, blinking at the older couple. “She just didn’t feel well and went back to the hotel. I mean if it’s germs, I think some hand sanitizer will do the trick?”

“I must have some talisman or some relic,” Inza muttered, patting her pockets before finding a necklace and whipping it into the air, the crucifix on the end dangling in Kara’s face. “Free this woman! Begone demon!”

Kara blinked and slowly pushed the old lady’s hand away from her face much to Inza’s and Kent’s astonishment. This had to be some kind of hazing the two of them did to all reporters, Kara assured herself. This was the Inza and Kent Nelson after all. She just had to do her best to roll with it until she had enough content to cut together into a video.

  “Um, nice crucifix? Looks a lot like the one I have.” Kara chewed the inside of her check as she pulled her necklace out from under shirt. “See?”

Inza’s eyes became impossibly wider and she shared a look with her husband. “You’ve worn that all day?”

“Yeah,” Kara said, rubbing the back of her neck. “I wear it all the time on these ghost hunt things. I bring this and holy water. Sometimes a Bible. Can never be too careful, right?”

Inza and Kent shared another glance that only made Kara feel even more left out of their inside joke. “Interesting. Very interesting.”

“Yeah,” Kara agreed although she didn’t know why. “Can we do that interview now?”

~~~

“So how was the interview?” Lena asked as she towel dried her hair.

Kara returned to the hotel only an hour after Lena, a little perturbed she hadn’t been able to wrap the interview as quickly as she would have liked. Her mood only brightened when she saw her girlfriend in a much better mood and health waiting for her half dressed on the bed. With a quick kiss, Kara pulled out her work computer, eager to wrap the final parts of work for the day.

“Kind of weird.” Kara said, saving the footage from earlier onto her laptop. “Like they wouldn’t stop staring at me? And they wanted me to take all these relics and stuff? I know they were probably just trying to be polite, but it was so odd. Made me super uncomfortable too. Especially when they wouldn’t stop touching me.”

Lena froze mid towel dry to turn and look at her girlfriend with wet stringy dark hair haloing her face. “Touching you?”

“Yeah, it was so weird.” Kara clicked around on her computer as she typed up a quick email to Cat. “They said they were looking for a mark or something.”

“A mark,” Lena whispered.

“Yeah, I have no clue,” Kara shrugged. “Like I said, weird . But I guess that's what happens to ghost hunters when they retire. Something we can look forward to, I guess.”

She just sent her update email off to Cat Grant when she felt the mattress shift beside her. Looking up, she saw a very somber Lena sitting next to her on the bed with her shoulders hunched and eyes morose staring at the floor. 

“Hey,” Kara said softly, slipping her hand into Lena’s. “Are you okay? Did the shower not help like you said it did?”

“Kara,” Lena chewed her lip as she looked down nervously, but her grip on Kara’s hand only tightened. “You know I would never mark you, right?”

“Um,” Kara frowned with a tilt of her head. “You mean like a hickey? Cause like, you are the reason my turtleneck and scarf collection has grown so much the past couple of months.”

“No, Kara…” Lena sighed heavily. “That’s not what I meant.”

“Then what do you mean?”

“I…” Lena pursed her lips as she looked up at the ceiling and blinked. Kara wasn’t sure if it was the light or tears she saw glistening in her girlfriend’s eyes. “I just never want you to feel like I’m controlling you. That you’re still your own person. That you’re free.”

Kara’s forehead creased. “I know.” Her hand squeezed Lena’s again. “And so are you.”

Lena let out a small watery laugh. “Sometimes you make me forget that I’m not.”

~~~

“Kara, you know places can be visited during the daytime right?” Lena asked, shining her light around the vacant lot they now stood in.

“But then how would I try out this night vision setting on my camera?” Kara exclaimed as she fiddled with the settings on her Go Pro strapped to her chest. “How else are we going to get those awesome ghost hunter shots?”

“Shots of what? We’re literally in the middle of nowhere,” Lena turned her head as she looked around them. “There is nothing here for ghosts to even haunt.”

“Okay, but that’s where the excitement sets in!” Kara rubbed her hands together and leaned forward. “We’re not after ghosts here, but demons.”

For several silent beats, Lena only blinked at Kara, her eyelids twitching as she stared in disbelief before she let out a long sigh.

“Demons aren’t real, Kara. You’re only wasting your time.”

“See you say that,” Kara said as she dug through her backpack, “but what if I told you we were on the site of one of the first victims of the Goatman of New Orleans?”

Kara could have sworn Lena’s back went rigid for two seconds. The Goatman had been a cryptid that plagued the town for about a year in the early 1900s. He took over a dozen victims; killing half of them and maiming the other. No one ever discovered who he was and all his victims were random, but he stopped as soon after he started with only a letter he supposedly wrote to the paper to name himself. He was the urban legend of today and still struck fear in the occasional tourist. But before Kara could give Lena’s reaction much thought, she relaxed to her normal posture and rolled her eyes. 

“That was just a man claiming to be cryptid. What does a demon have to do with it?”

“According to his letters, he was a servant of the devil and since he was never caught, I think it’s safe to say he was a demon or at least possessed by one.” Kara pulled out a container of salt from her bag. “And before you say anything, I’ll put this salt ring around us, that should protect us from getting possessed ourselves.”

“Salt.” Lena’s voice went high before she cleared her throat watching Kara with wide eyes pour a thick line of salt in a circle around them and she took a steadying breath. “Why would salt work to protect us?”

“Demon’s can’t cross salt lines,” Kara explained as she walked behind Lena, continuing her large circle of salt. “I want to make sure we’re safe before we try to contact him.”

“Contact him?” Lena weakly rolled her eyes, but she still eyed the now complete salt barrier that surrounded them. “Please tell me you didn’t bring that spirit box here. I cannot stand the noise of that.”

“Nope! Just a good old fashioned Ouija board!” 

Kara flopped down on her knees across from Lena and pulled out the board from her bag. She laid it down between them and placed the arrow on the board and nodded for Lena to touch her finger tips to it like she was. Lena reluctantly agreed and together they both leaned over the board with only the flashlight as their one source of light.

“Goatman of New Orleans, are you here?” Kara asked, her fingers still lightly touching the arrow.

Across from her Lena rolled her eyes. “You can’t be serious, Kara.”

“How else am I supposed to address him?”

“I don’t know, but I can’t imagine he enjoyed that nickname.”

“He did give it to himself... I think.”

Lena pursed her lips. “I suppose that’s valid then.”

“Let me try again.” Kara cleared her throat, closed her eyes, and leaned back. “The Goatman, are you there?”

But after several long moments, their fingers and the pointer remained still on the board. 

“Don’t you technically need to break the salt circle for the demon to come in and communicate with the ouija board?” Lena asked. “Theoretically,  if the salt circle worked, that is.”

“Oh yeah,” Kara said. She reached out and brushed a small patch in the salt and Lena’s shoulder’s slackened. Clearing her throat, Kara called out. “Goatman, hear us! Are you with us?”

And then the pointer began to move. Kara’s jaw went slack as she watched the pointer slowly move towards YES.

“Oh golly, Lena did you see that?” Kara gasped, but Lena seemed too focused on the board to give an answer. “Okay, um, Goatman, are you the only demon with us?”

“Kara.” Lena breathed, her gaze flicking towards the blonde.

“It’ll be fine, Lena, really.” Kara assured her as she felt the pointer beneath their fingers start to move. “I have plenty of holy water with me.”

The pointer drug itself towards NO. Kara gasped louder.

“Oh gosh. This is insane. Who is the other demon?” Kara asked.

Slowly the pointer moved towards L. 

“Kara, this is ridiculous.” Lena insisted although her gaze didn’t move past the board.

“Are you kidding?” Kara almost squealed when the pointer moved towards E. “Oh my gosh, do you think it’s like Leviathan or something crazy?”

As the pointer traveled towards the next letter that seemed to be in the middle of the alphabet and for the shortest moment hesitated over the N, Lena gritted her teeth and suddenly the course changed so the next letter was A, then V.

“I think it’s telling us to leave, Kara.” Lena said, her eyes now staring at something past Kara that caused her nostrils to flare, but Kara didn’t see anything when she turned her head.

“Okay, I guess so.” Kara said in a defeated voice. “Let me just close out real quick.”

Lena quickly helped her say goodbye and together they walked across the salt circle line. Kara pretended not to be concerned by the large sigh Lena let out as they did.

“I don’t know about you,” Lena said, holding her head higher than she did with the Ouija board out. “I could use a drink.”

Kara beamed. “I actually know just the place!”

~~~

“So this carousel bar is really something,” Kara slurred as she stirred her straw in her drink in a fancy glass. “They really know how to make a good hurricane.”

After their eventful night, Kara finally relented to Lena’s plea to go someplace that wasn’t dark, isolated, or haunted. With it being a city like New Orleans, the night life only ever died off when the sun started to peak over the horizon. Insisting that it would be an insult to the city if they avoided, Kara drug Lena to the French Quarter’s famous Carousel Bar and Lounge. The bar itself was designed like a carousel at a fair and would spin the patrons at a lazy speed as they sipped on their drinks. While they were both excited to find a spot to sit together, Kara’s excitement led her to drink through two fancy drinks before Lena even finished half glass of straight whiskey and then keep going. Of course, Lenad didn’t mind; she always enjoyed any reason to keep a closer eye on her cheerful radiant girlfriend.

“That’s what you said after your last three,” Lena said with an amused smile as she patted her girlfriend’s arm and waved over a bartender for the check. “Perhaps it’s time we call it a night.”

“But the night is still young,” Kara blinked her blue eyes up at the brunette as she stuck out her lower lip in a pout. “We haven’t even danced.”

“Darling,” Lena breathed a chuckle as she passed over her card, “I don’t think you could walk without my help so much as dance.”

“Ha! I'll show you!” Kara immediately jumped to her feet, but automatically gripped the counter as she sagged against it with a groan. “Gosh, since when did the room spin so fast?”
“Since you insisted we drink at a bar actually spun us around,” Lena laughed as she stood up and offered her arm out to the blonde. “Come on, let me take you back to the hotel.”

Kara slung her arm through Lena’s and took a clumsy step forward, but even when she stumbled, Lena managed to hold her up without much strain and continued to lead her down the stairs.

“You know, you’re really strong,” Kara told her. “We should go to the gym sometime. We can get ripped together.” She flexed her arms in a failed attempt to show off the muscles hiding beneath her cardigan, but Lena thought it was cute anyways.

“I think I’ll leave the bodybuilding up to you,” Lena said with a small smile as she pulled her towards the door. 

“Hey, since you got drinks, let me pay for the cab,” Kara said, reaching for her phone.

“Nonsense,” Lena waved her hand and pulled her girlfriend in the direction of their hotel. “We’re only two blocks from the hotel. We can just walk. It will be faster than waiting for one to pick us up.”

“Only if you insist,” Kara smiled lazily, sliding her fingers into Lena’s as they walked together. “And I get to hold your hand.”

Lena breathed out another laugh. “You always get so handsy when you drink.”

“Just wait till we get to our hotel,” Kara huffed, bumping her hip against Lena’s. “I’ll show you just how handsy I can be.”

“Only after you drink several glasses of water,” Lena laughed, holding her girlfriend tight.

“Boo! Party pooper.” Kara pouted.

As they walked, the street lights flickered and cast dull light over them in the empty street. The late hour had sent most tourists and residents to their beds, and Lena had hoped that meant they would make it back that much quicker to their room with no crowds to push through, but unfortunately, they weren’t the only ones on the street that night. 

A single man stepped out in front of them, blocking their path with a broad stance. He wore a sickening sneer and wrinkled baseball cap. Lena pulled Kara to cross the street, but another large man with a beard and denim jacket was already crossing towards them with his arms out as if he was ready to catch anything that would go by it. Attempting a retreat, Lena pulled Kara back, but the horrid stench of cigarettes wrinkled their nose. Now, a greasy longhaired blood in a stained wife beater shirt blocking their path. With nowhere else to go, Kara and Lena found themself back into an alley with three strange men blocking their path.

“Now what are two pretty girls like y'all doing out here so late?” The one with the beard and ripped denim jacket asked. 

“We were just leaving,” Kara said quickly, but her voice wavered.

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you the streets weren’t safe here this time of night?” The one with the wrinkled baseball cap and crooked yellow teeth said as he stepped closer.

“She said we were just leaving.” Lena said coldy with a dark uncurrent beneath her tone. Kara couldn’t help but lean closer to her as Lena’s grip around her tightened as she stepped in front of the blonde.

“Ohhhh, look boys, we got ourselves a tough broad,” sneered the greasy blonde in front as he took several steps closer. From his pocket, he took out a switchblade, the metal flashing in the street lights. “Let’s see just how tough she is.”

“Lena…” Kara whispered.

Kara tightened her grip to a bruising hold on Lena, but she was shocked to see Lena not doing the same. When she looked over at her, she saw Lena’s red lips pulled back to reveal white, pointed teeth. She had always known Lena’s incisors to seem a bit longer than normal, but they had never looked almost fang-like like this. And those green eyes she loved staring into were now clouded with a deep black that encompassed all of the eye. Perhaps it was the darkness or alcohol, but her girlfriend didn’t quite look very girlish. Maybe more ghoulish?

“Touch her and perish.” Lena growled, her voice vibrating with an unearthly power that sent the hairs on Kara’s neck on end and caused the men to step back, looking over at each other uneasily.

“Bitch, I don’t know what you’re playing but you need to chill.” The man with greasy blonde hair said, swinging his switchblade in front of him with a sick grin as he looked over the blonde. “You don’t want your friend here paying the price for any funny business.”

Kara gasped as Lena’s normally chilly skin turned ice cold under Kara’s touch, and she jerked her hand away. Turning her head to the side, Kara’s eyes widened when she saw just how white the street lights bleached Lena’s already pale skin. Wait, was Lena taller? Was she wearing a kind of jacket or had a peculiar shadow cast across her back? If she didn’t know any better, she’d say they were leathery wings of some sort.

“Leave now,” Lena snarled with that same deep vibrato, now eye level with the man in the front. “Or suffer.”

While the two other men scurried several steps back, the greasy blonde in the front stood his ground, holding out his switchblade so its tip was just mere inches away from Lena’s chest. 

“You think you scare me, girl?” he sneered.

“I will.”

The air chilled. Wind whipped around them, whistling in their ears and kicking up trash around their ankles and feet. The weak sparse street lights around them flickered off, adding a layer of grim darkness with only the weak light of a sliver of a waning moon and sparse stars to illuminate the alleyway. Then the rumble started. It started like a train in the distance then morphed into the rumble of a bass in a neighboring car before twisting into the shrill unearthly sound of bones against concrete and the gnashing of teeth. 

Never before had Kara felt so alone. She reached for Lena but she wasn’t there anymore. Someone, no something , else entirely had consumed her and a hauntingly dark figure had taken her place.

It grew even larger before them at a speed just slow enough for them to be certain they could witness it. Twisted horns spiraled from its head, piercing the sky while jagged nails swelled from its fingers, scraping the ground. Large leathery wings stretched from its back, casting an even darker shadow over them. If it had grown so tail, they would have hit Kara, but she still ducked her head, cowering from it from behind. She knew she should have reached for her camera or Go Pro to capture this, but Kara struggled to think of anything but the cold loneliness filling her.

A dark stain grew on the pants of two men in the back as they pissed themselves before running in separate ways down the street. The leader outfront turned to follow but the creature snatched him by the front of his stained shirt and lifted him several feet into the air. His legs and arms failed dramatically, but the creature showed no sign of difficulty as it lifted him higher in the sticky cold air. 

“Let me go, you bitch!” the greasy haired man cried before attempting to plunge the switchblade into its arm, but the blade broke against its ghastly white flesh and the color drained from his face.

“ How many have you hurt like this? ” the creature that now stood in Kara’s girlfriend’s place snarled, shaking him in her fist as she dangled him above the sidewalk as if he were a stuffed toy. “ How many weak and innocent humans have you prayed upon? ”

“Please let me go! I promise I won’t ever do it again! I swear!”

“ Why should I believe filth like you? ” 

The creature curled its fist, constricting the shirt so the collar constricted on the man's windpipe. His sharp gasps filled the alley as he struggled weakly against its hold, his face turning red then blue. 

“Lena?” 

The beast snapped her head over to the blonde woman, its eyes large and black, its face sunken and white, its teeth snarled and sharp. Those black eyes locked on Kara’s blue and after a moment, they softened and a sliver of green shone through.  With a thud, the man landed on his back against the ground, large gaping gashes now in the front of his shirt. In a flash, he flipped over onto his feet and ran off in a stumble as the creature’s shadow shrank. 

Almost holding her breath, Kara watched as the creature’s wings folded in as the nails and horns retracted. What little color she had returned to Lena’s face as she was returned to her size of just a few inches shorter than Kara. The air around them lost the chill and the dull lights over head flickered on. With a weak smile, Lena pushed back a few strands of her raven hair while her green eyes stared at the ground by Kara’s feet. Nothing was said as they heard a car drive by several streets over.

“So now you know,” Lena said so softly Kara almost didn't hear.

“Lena…” Kara opened her mouth and closed it again as she shoved her hands in her pockets. “All this time? You’ve…”

“Lied, yes.” Lena gulped. “But I swear I never meant to harm you.”

“Harm me...” Kara repeated as her eyes widened and her gaze suddenly became unfocused. The next second, she began pacing, her hands wringing her wrists as she started a freeform ramble. “This means they’re all real. All of them. All the demons and curses and ghosts and spirits and ghouls - they’re all real. I mean like I always thought but never truly believed, you know? Like something else had to be out there but I never thought I’d face it.  And, oh golly, I’ve just been walking into them? Unprotected?!”

“Kara,” Lena started, but Kara was too deep into her ramble to let her speak.

“I mean, I guess I haven’t been completely unprotected. I mean I had the holy water and the salt and the crucifixes. They had to work, right? I mean, they wouldn’t be so popular if they didn’t. Wait.” Kara froze mid step and whipped her head towards Lena with wide eyes. “Did they work? Did they hurt you? Did I hurt you?”
“Um.” Lena cleared her throat as she pulled her sleeves down to cover her hands. “No?”

Kara’s face fell as she rushed forward before covering her face with her hands. “Oh gosh, I did. I’m so sorry. I swear I didn’t mean to. Gosh, you must think I’m a monster.”

Lena blinked. “Kara, you literally just saw that I was a monster. Like a literal monster.”

“Oh please,” Kara scoffed as her pacing began again. “You are the most non-monster person I know. You give like over half your salary away to charity and spend most of your Saturday mornings in soup kitchens. Heck, there is a whole wing in the National City’s Children’s Hospital named after you.”

Lena worked her jaw but it took several seconds before words came out. “Kara, I just about killed a man. In front of you. Without thinking twice.”

“Someone who wanted to hurt us.” Kara waved her hand as she kept her frantic pacing. “Basically self defense and there’s nothing wrong with that.”

“Kara!” Lena snapped, forcing Kara to stop her movement to look at her, but it only made Lena’s shoulders sag all the more. “Kara, I’m not a good person. I’m a demon. An actual demon. One that comes from a very powerful family. We didn’t get that power without doing some very awful things.”

Kara took a moment to process this before she shook her head. “I don’t buy it.”

“Kara,” Lena sighed. “Why do you think nothing has ever touched you throughout all of your paranormal investigations? It’s because they don’t want to piss off me!”

“So you’re saying you’ve come with me all this time to protect me.” Kara cocked her head to the side with a small smile. “Sounds like something a good person who would do to me.”

“You’re impossible.” Lena swore as she ran her fingers through her hair and forced herself to take a deep breath. “My family is one of the most notorious in demonkind. People fear us for good reason. We’re anything but good.”

With a small smile, Kara took a small step forward so she could reach out her hand to Lena’s check, who thankfully let her. “It’s not our family that defines who we are, but our actions.” Kara’s thumb rubbed softly against Lena’s jaw. “And it’s your actions that make you a good person. And that’s exactly why I love you.”

With a small gasp, Lena’s green blinked up at Kara’s. “You love me?”

Kara bit her lip and nodded. “I mean, I think I’m a little bit in shock about this whole demon thing, but I swear I was planning on telling you that I loved you on this trip and this hasn’t changed that.”

Before Kara’s heart could take it’s next beat, Lena’s arms were around her, pulling her tight against her with enough force that Kara wasn’t sure if she could breath for several seconds, but being in Lena’s arms made the pain bearable.

“I swear, I will never stop trying to be good around you,” Lena said in a quick huff. “I promise.”

“I know,” Kara let out a quick laugh and shook her head as she pulled back. “And I’m sorry if I said the l word too quickly. I just wanted you to know what I felt, but I don’t want to pressure you or anything to say it back.”

Lena rolled her eyes. “Of course, I love you. Why do you think I keep going with you on all these stupid assignments to protect you?”

~~~

“Where do you think Ms. Grant will send us next?” Kara asked, her fingers drumming along the side of Lena’s shoulder as they lounged together on the park bench at the edge of City Park.

“Hopefully somewhere with fewer gators and humidity,” Lena sighed as she rested her head against Kara’s shoulder. “I thought National City was hot, but this wet heat is something else.”

“Well you know Charleston and Savannah are both considered some of the most haunted cities in the United States, right? And they both still have gators and humidity.”

Lena scrunched up her nose as she frowned. “It’s probably just the heat going to everyone’s head.”

“I mean, they are places with a lot of traumatic history. That kind of past could generate a lot of negative energy. Isn’t that what you said anyway?”

“Yeah.” Lena huffed. “I supposed there is always Salem. But as far as I know, that had more to do church politics and hysterical children than anything else.”

“So wait.” Kara stiffened. “Do witches actually exist? Like actual witches?”

The brunette smirked and looked up at the blonde. “Don’t worry, darling. I’ll keep you safe from all the ghouls and ghosts and anything else that comes your way.”

Kara’s heart fluttered in her chest. “I knew this job had its perks.”

Chapter Text

“Lena, you have to look at these leaves. Like right now. Please.” 

“You do realize I have to keep my eyes on the road if you want us to get to our hotel, right?”

After almost a year of documenting paranormal investigation for Catco and spooky season nearing its peak, Cat Grant had sent Kara on assignment to a tiny town with a haunted history nestled away in the mountains of Massachusetts, Blithe Grove. As always, Kara’s favorite paranormal partner joined her for the ride despite the fact Kara’s boss refused to pay her. Of course that didn’t mean she regularly double checked that Lena would be joining or even moving the dates to coincide with Lena’s own busy schedule as the CEO of L-Corp. The past year had amounted to an impressive number of loyal followers for the two women whose fans, undoubtedly with the influence of the Queen of Media, had dubbed them the Ghoul Gals: America’s favorite lesbain couple ghost hunters. A title that Lena regularly rebuked as well as scoffed at the mention of the existence of ghosts, instead insisting on facts and science. Kara, however, proudly headlined the Ghoul Gals title on her LinkedIn, despite Lena’s regular eye roll at it.

“But the trees, Lena!” Kara exclaimed, her voice somewhat muffled with her face and hands pressed against the glass of the passenger door window. “I didn’t know that leaves could turn this shade of yellow. Or orange! Oh - that one is so red it almost looks like it’s on fire!”

“It’s New England in the fall, Kara.” Lena replied, not so much as turning her head to look at anything but the curvy mountain road they meandered. “Leaves tend to color in cities where there is an actual climate unlike in National City.”

“But it’s more than just the leaves! I mean, just smell that fall air!” Kara pressed down the button to roll down the window and a fierce gust of wind blasted into their rental car, tossing their hair and papers all around the cabin. 

“Kara!” Lena gasped, the car swearing ever so slightly.

“Oh sorry.” Kara mumbled before rolling up the windows. “My bad.”

Despite her incredibly tinted and gaudy sunglasses that covered up most of Lena’s face, Kara could still see the little grin toying at her ruby lips. Besides, with how harshly Lena had tied her dark hair up in a bun, the wind hadn’t even knocked so much as a hair out of place. 

“If I had known Massachuetts would make you so excited, I would have brought you here much sooner.” Lena said, still struggling to hide her smirk.

Kara let out a short laugh. “I watched so much of Bewitched and Sabrina the Teenage Witch as a kid that I've been dying to come here for as long as I can remember.” Her smile faltered though. “Well, that was before I learned that witches were actually real, that is.”

While Kara had always believed in the existence of the paranormal, it wasn’t until a few months that Lena actually confirmed it for her, and just how much of her natural life was actually supernatural. Apparently, the woman Kara regularly bought chinese take-out for, binged Forensic Files with, and slept next to most nights was actually a bit of a demon. Or well, full demon. A full demon who just about every supernatural being feared due to the ruthless reputation and incredible power of her demonic family. But even with that, Kara still had never met someone who cared about humanity more than Lena. Heck, even just her continued participation in Kara’s ghost investigation proved that. If Lena hadn’t been joining her for all these adventures since the beginning to unknowingly protect her, who knows what would have happened to Kara?

“You know witches aren’t all that bad, right? Wicca is a rather peaceful, open, and accepting religion.” Lena turned her head to look over at Kara, but those dark shades obscured her usual comforting green eyes. “A majority of them are allies to humanity. The idea of hexes and human sacrifices mainly come from muddled legends and rumors.”

“Yeah, but I saw your face when I told you my assignment.” Kara picked at the hem of her red sweater. “I guess the Witch of Blithe Grove was a bad one.”

Lena’s already white knuckles tightened around the steering wheel, but her tone remained even. While her girlfriend may be difficult to read to most, Kara had become quite keen to pick up the subtle slips over the past year they’d been together, seeing through to the truth in most of her white lies. 

“The anniversary of a witch’s death, especially a violent burning one like this one, tends to stir up some dark energy.” Lena pursed her lips. “A particularly powerful dark energy that tends to peak on their death day.”

“Well, hey, at least it’s only the 299th anniversary,” Kara said with a shrug. “That helps, right?”

“Yes, it does a bit.” Lena said slowly with a nod. “If it were the 300th, we would not be within a hundred mile radius of this place.”

Kara cringed. “That bad, huh?”

With a deep sigh, Lena shook her head. “For the most part, the witch trials of centuries ago were simply the result of church politics, hysteria, and people in hard times seeking a scapegoat. Unfortunately, that scapegoat turned out to be a lot of innocent women. As I told you before in New Orleans, injustices tend to linger. They can fester some very nasty spirits. If that spirit is that of an actual witch, the town could be potentially sitting on a powder keg.” Lena’s mouth twitched. “Especially if that town feeds it this sort of attention of making it a mockery each anniversary of their death.”

Despite the town’s small size, Blithe Grove threw an impressive annual witch festival every fall. People from across the state and New England would travel to the small town to partake in a full day event featuring local vendors, witch costume contests, hay rides, and pumpkin carving competitions all with the evening crescendoing to the great witch burning. A large effigy would be brought to the center of the town and placed on a stake before the town sent it up in flames and cheered as they watched it burn. Upon hearing of this, Cat Grant thought it would be the perfect material for Kara to cover for Catco.

“Oh, that’s fun. Can’t wait to make a video on that or anything else that could potentially piss her off more.” Kara forced out a small laugh before she chewed her lip. “You don’t think the Witch of Blithe Grove was an actual witch though, right? I mean, wouldn’t we have heard something about the town receiving backlash before now?” 

Lena pursed her lips. “I don’t know. There is a chance she could be dormant and simply biding her time until she gains enough strength. Or something could be blocking her such as a power binding spell. It doesn’t help that history tends to get a little muddy for the supernatural, especially with all the he said, she said tendency of it. We probably don’t even know half of what really happened.”

“So then maybe it’s nothing but an old legend with no sort of paranormal elements whatsoever?” Kara said hopefully, but Lena shaking her head quashed that hope as quickly as it rose.

“The energy here, Kara, it’s…” Lena hesitated, her slightly pointed white incisors flashing between her parted red lips. “Something happened here. Something really bad.”

“Great.” Kara slumped back into her seat. “Of all the small New England towns, Ms. Grant actually picked the worst ones. That’s just great.”

“Hey,” Lena reached over the console and interlaced her fingers with Kara’s. “We’ll be fine. We probably won’t even have to spend more than a day here. Besides, I’ll be right there with you the entire time. I won’t let anything happen to you, I promise.”

Warmth blossomed through Kara’s chest as she squeezed Lena’s hand and smiled. “That’s one of the many reasons why I love you.”

~~~

When they pulled into the town of Blithe Grove, Kara wasn’t entirely sure what to expect but a massive stone statue of a grotesque caricature of witch certainly wasn’t it. The gray stone twisted and curved into stringy, wild hair; a crooked, warty nose; mismatched, broken teeth; a massive, bulging humpback, and gnarly, wrinkled hands wrapped out a twig broom. The statue defined every meaning of hideous, foul, and disturbed. To make matters worse, the town had hung a sign underneath it reading “Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead!” and another with “Wicked that Way She Goes to Hell!” It was enough to make Kara’s jaw drop.

“Gosh,” Kara gasped. “I sure hope she wasn’t a real witch or at least not that powerful of one, because her spirit would have plenty to be mad about.”

“There’s a reason they tell you to respect the dead.” Lena murmured, her nostrils flaring ever so slightly and glaring over her sunglasses while curling her hands tight against the steering wheel.

To further lean into the celebration of the anniversary of the witch’s death, the city of Blithe Grove hung posters, garland, and other notices of the fall festival happening that night. Policemen already started redirecting traffic away from the main street where vendors were already starting to get ready for the night to come. One poster even advertised a ‘Worst Dressed Witch’ costume for the night which Lena wrinkled her nose at as they passed. 

“This is just insulting to anything remotely supernatural at this point.” Lena said. 

“Seriously. And I thought you thought the town with the Moth Man festival was bad.” Kara stared at the group of giggling college girls dressed in their attempt at a sexy witch costume, clearly already a few drinks in.

Lena rolled her eyes. “I still cannot believe I actually went with you to that.”

Kara grinned. “Don’t act like you didn’t love that Moth Man pizza.”

“I like a lot of black olives on my pizza.” Lena shrugged. “It didn’t have anything to do with what those black olives were arranged in the shape of, especially if that shape were that of moth human hybrid cryptid.”

“Mmhm.” Kara nodded with a grin. “Whatever you say.”

“Oh, stop it.” Lena said, but Kara could see the smile she tried to hide. “Just tell me how to get to our Airbnb.”

~~~

Chosen deliberately for its location, their Airbnb was only a few blocks from the main street and the festival. Once inside, they quickly unpacked their bags and readied themselves for a night out. Much to Lena’s annoyance, Kara pulled Lena into her introductory video for Instagram and Tik Tok, announcing their arrival and plans for the day. Then Kara affixed the GoPro camera to her chest and grabbed the other one to hold in her hand, so she could be sure to get plenty of footage from multiple angles to work with. Despite being one of the “Ghoul Gals,” Lena always requested to be in the footage as little as possible, but Kara always made sure to have plenty of it featuring Lena’s best side. Of course, Kara always double checked that no supernatural activity nor any of Lena’s demonic slips made it into the final video, but the camera footage rarely caught it. Lena had later informed her that most paranormal creatures could alter any digital footage of them, which never sat well with Kara. What was the point of even creating a ghost hunting video if its subject could change it? But it wasn’t as if she could tell Ms. Grant that.

After they settled in, the two women headed towards the town, their hands intertwined in a loose grip. They had barely walked a block before Kara’s nose pulled them into a little coffee shop filled with homemade apple cider donuts. Insisting it was for research purposes, Kara ordered a dozen donuts and two cups of apple cider donuts for them to drink as they walked the rest of the way to town.

“With that stomach of yours, I don’t know why you don’t do more food centered videos.” Lena said before biting into a donut and brushing away the sugar that fell off of it.

“Trust me, I’ve tried.” Kara said after swallowing her fourth one. “Apparently, I’ve built too much of a brand on this ghost hunting stuff though. Ms. Grant doesn’t want me confusing the audience or something.”

“That’s a shame. Maybe I’ll have to have a talk with Cat to see if I can convince her.”

“Good luck.” Kara snorted. “I know you may be powerful, but I doubt anything could change Ms. Grant’s mind once it’s made up.”

“Hmm.” Lena pursed her lips. “I guess that means I have no choice. I’ll have to buy the company.”

Kara’s blue eyes bulged and sugar crumbs fell from her mouth as she momentarily forgot how to chew. “You can’t be serious.”

Lena shrugged. “Maybe more than you think. I’ve been a bit bored with running just L-Corp lately. I’ve been looking at branching out and trying something new. And if that something happens to benefit you, then all the better.”

With a quick swallow, Kara shook her head. “Lena, that’s too much.”

“Is it?” Lena gave a sly grin. “After all, it may be the only way I can ever free up my schedule from all these trips I take with you. Do you know how many board meetings I had to push back for this trip alone?”

“But you love it!” Kara held up the bag of donuts. “Just think of all the snacks you’d be missing out on if you didn’t come along to all of them.”

Lena laughed. “I’m sure you’d still find a way to get them to me. Especially with how you’re already sneaking more food than I thought possible into my office.”

“It’s not my fault I show love through snacks of service!”

Lena tossed her head back and laughed, and Kara’s heart swelled like it always did when she scored a laugh like that from Lena. For a woman seemingly so cold and harsh to the outside world, Kara relished knowing that she knew the true warm side of Lena that loved cheesy puns and holding hands under blankets on the couch. She had grown so used to it over the past year that Kara couldn’t imagine her life without it now. A warmth curled in her belly and her front left jean pocket felt heavy. This was definitely the right day.

Suddenly, Lena’s laughter stopped behind her. Still grinning into her cider, Kara turned around to see what happened, but her own smile quickly fell. Her girlfriend stood frozen in place on the sidewalk, her pale face blank as she stared ahead seemingly at nothing, but her normally green eyes now completely black.

“Lena?” Kara half called, half whispered. While Kara may have seen Lena in her full demon before, just even a glimpse of it never failed to unnerve her.

With a sudden sharp inhale through her nose, Lena’s hands curled into a tight fist around her paper cup of cider, the hot liquid sloshing to the ground and dripping down her arm into her sleeve. Then Lena blinked and her now once again green eyes stared down at her hand, just then realizing what she had done.

“May I have one of those napkins, please, Kara?” Lena asked quietly, her eyes still affixed on her hand.

“Yeah,” Kara quickly passed over the wad of napkins in her hands. “Are you okay?”

For several moments, Lena didn’t respond as she patted her hand and arm dry. Her skin remained as pale as ever despite the piping hot apple cider that just ran down it. Still, this did nothing to assuage the dread pooling in Kara’s stomach.

“After this festival,” Lena finally said, “I think it would be best for us to leave this town.”

Kara nodded. “We can leave now–”

“No,” Lena quickly assured her. “It’s fine. Something is blocking her. Some sort of magic is holding her back. I just… wasn’t expecting it, that’s all. I’ll be fine… she’s just a bit stronger than I expected.”

“Oh.” Kara’s hand shook slightly, jostling her own cider. “So the Witch of Blithe Grove was an actual witch.”

“Yes. And she’s angry.” Lena swallowed. “Very, very angry.”

~~~

The next two hours were rather tame considering that they were in a town with a restless witch spirit. The two women ventured through the festival with Kara’s cameras in tow to capture all of it for a video later. With how many families that they passed and children ran around them, Kara could barely believe that a malevolent spirit laid dormant here. Everything seemed too normal, especially considering some of the destinations Kara and Lena had been to. There were no abandoned mental institutions or creepy dark alley ways. Instead, the setting sun poked through the colonial style buildings and a crisp breeze blew the scent of hay and popcorn down the street. The two women almost forgot just where they were as they milled through the vendors, stopping to browse through their handmade apparel and other household items, all featuring some sort of witch or Halloween theming. When they came across a booth of candles in the shape of cauldrons, Kara couldn’t resist buying a few, especially when she saw the fond way Lena rolled her eyes at her. 

Doing her best to remain discrete, Kara kept an eye on Lena most of the night. Even though she knew Lena would simply brush it off, Kara knew that her lapse of control earlier had shaken her. Throughout all of their adventures together, Lena had never shown a slip such as that unless under the duress of a holy symbol or sacrament. What happened earlier wasn't normal. The Witch of Blithe Grove held more power than Kara cared to think about, and the idea that the spirit caused any ounce of pain or worry to Lena made Kara want to put as much distance between this town and them as possible.

But Kara feared the sooner they left, the greater chance Ms. Grant would be further less than pleased and send them back, which Kara definitely did not want to happen again. If she could just take a few hours to film and gather some possible details or evidence about the history of the Witch of Blithe Grove, Kara may just be able to pull this off and cross the entire state of Massachusetts off forever.

“So, I was thinking I may go check out the town archives.” Kara said, her arm linked through Lena’s as they walked down Main Street in between fall festival booths of face painting, candy apples, and a line for a hayride. “Maybe I can find some old documents or something going back to the Witch to use for the video.”

Lena nodded her head. “Good idea. Cat is always a fan of that sort of thing. I can go with you of course. I think it’s just in the library up the road.” Then her phone began to ring. She looked down at it and cursed as she picked it up. “Damn it, it’s work. I have to take this.”

“No worries, babe.” Kara assured her with a quick squeeze of her hand. “I’ll just meet you up there when you’re done, okay?”

With a quick nod, Lena turned away and answered her phone. From what Kara could hear, something had gone wrong with a prototype set to debut tomorrow, and Lena possessed the only skill sets to fix it. It brought a small wave of pride over Kara; her girlfriend was an actual genius. Despite how much she may wipe the floor with Kara during scrabble, Kara just couldn’t get over just how attractive Lena’s brain could be sometimes.

Shaking her head as she smiled, Kara began her walk towards the town library and pulled her blue sweater tight in front of her as a sharp breeze blew through, bringing goose bumps to her skin. Upon arriving at the library, Kara found it all surprisingly quiet as most people were out enjoying the festival except for the lone older librarian who claimed she took this shift simply to finish her current read in peace. When asked, she directed Kara towards the stairs leading towards the basement and assured her that if she were to find anything about the original Witch of Blithe Grove, it would be down there, but for her to not expect it to be an easy find as most of the files had fallen into disorder several years ago when the county attempted to digitize them.

Several blinking fluorescent bulbs lit up the library basement and Kar wrinkled her nose at the dank, musty smell. Her boots clattered on the cement floor as she perused the shelves full of boxes of files in hopes of finding anything dating back to roughly three centuries ago. The careless arrangement of the boxes did little to help; they would flip between chronological and alphabetical in random places, as if the person sorting them continually changed their method as they went.

Then there were the artifacts. At least that's what Kara thought they were. Why else would there just be loose items like watches, dishware, and jewelry rattling around in a poorly labeled box? God forbid anyone waste time wrapping them in bubble wrap. Every time Kara went to pick up a box of files she thought could be relevant, she’d run the chance of dropping it as the weight of whatever rock or pottery they deemed historical cast a ridiculously heavy load on it. At one point, a box slipped, and she thought she heard something shatter. When opening it, her eyes widened at the shards of antique porcelain within. That box soon found itself behind several other boxes with a small apology written on it.

After what felt like hours but probably just twenty minutes, Kara stumbled across a box labeled Blithe Grove 1720s . Holding in a squeal of delight, Kara dragged the box to the rickety table underneath the least flickering fluorescent bulb, but once she got underneath it, it seemed to blink just much as the others. A bit odd, but manageable. Flipping off the lid, Kara began to flip through the yellowed documents and files in search of anything remotely useful. Most of them were simply certificates of birth, marriage and death. Several pages went on about some sort of famine that had gripped the land and lack of supplies from England due to the Spanish Armada blockade, which led to several deaths due to starvation. 

Other pages went on about a possible scandal of the town’s governor having an affair with the minister, which led to quite the uproar in the town. Talk about scandalous in the Puritan culture of 1700s Blithe Grove! Allegedly a little girl had caught them and had told the town, but from her reading, Kara found no mention of the girl’s name or any follow up about what happened afterwards. In her notebook, Kara scribbled down the names and dates of the two men, resolute on Catco reporting on this later. All while interesting, did little to shed light on the witch situation. 

There were the artifacts in this box as well. With no label specifying their importance, Kara had no clue just what several pieces of wood and a cloudy mason jar with nonsensical words and symbols written on them even meant. She decided to just take them out of the box and leave to the side for now. A chill ran through the room when she did, as if the air conditioner just kicked on. Buttoning up her sweater further, Kara pushed her focus to the documents at hand. 

Towards the back of the box, Kara finally stumbled upon what she had been looking for: an order for the arrest of one Siobhann Smythe for witchcraft for October 26th, 1723. At least that's what she thought it said. The three could have been a two or a five. The paper was tattered and slightly water damaged while the ink was a bit smudged and difficult to read especially towards the bottom with the date, but this had to be her: the Witch of Blithe Grove. This was the only document stating an arrest for witchcraft, so who else could it be? Sure, the document wasn’t easy to read, and Kara had to squint to make out the year, but this had to be it. After recording it all on her camera, Kara reached for her phone to call Lena with the good news, but she hesitated.

“Siobhann Smythe,” Kara muttered.

Why did that name so sound familiar?

Putting aside her phone, Kara ran back through the documents again, but this time stopped on the death certificates. The document of arrest for Siobhann Smythe may have been difficult to read, but the certificate of her death was not. 

“October 28th, 1722 .” Kara whispered aloud as her insides turned to ice.

A whole year before what the smudged year on the date of the arrest said. Kara’s lungs fell to her stomach and she briefly forgot how to breathe. This wasn’t the 299th anniversary like everyone thought; this was the 300th . 

And she and Lena as well as this whole town were sitting on a potential powder keg of supernatural mayhem.

In panic, Kara leapt towards her phone. Lena had to know, now .

Just as she unlocked her phone, the room started to shake. Dust rained down from the ceiling, gray particles clouding Kara’s blonde hair. The shelves and tables swayed with a cricketing roar, prickling the hair on Kara’s neck. She started to run, but something cold and hard slammed into her shoulders, shoving her back.. Kara’s breath halted in her throat as she pitched backwards, her hips colliding in with the rickety table too hard for it to take her weight.  The entire structure gave way with a shuddering crash.

The air rushed out of her lungs as she fell hard on her back. The box of files scattered its contents through the air and yellowed antique documents fluttered down around. In a split moment of desperation, Kara threw her hand out to try to catch the artifacts she had placed on the table, but her fingers just brushed one of the pieces of engraved wood right before it and the cloudy mason jar shattered on the concrete floor. 

Due to her clumsy nature, Kara was very familiar with the experience of shattering glass so it didn’t bother her too much when she heard the sharp tinkling of glass colliding with the hard floor. However, Kara had never seen wood shatter before. Perhaps these pieces of wood were just too old and untreated to sustain their shape anymore. They hit the concrete wood and broke into tiny splinters and greenish gray dust, all flying out at the force. One of the little slivers shot right into Kara’s awaiting palm and Kara cried out as it broke her skin. Gritting her teeth, Kara cradled her now injured hand as she tried to just narrowly avoid the broken glass of the mason jar. 

The room had finally stopped shaking as Kara sat up, but just as she adjusted her glasses, Kara realized she wasn’t alone. In front of her, a hazy image of a woman in dark fog stood. Despite being made of fog, Kara could see her dark eyes and evil grin very clearly. With a gasp, Kara threw her hands out behind her and scrambled back, crying out in pain as shards of the glass cut into her hand. Her hand felt wet and sticky against the dirty concrete floor. Lena’s name sat ready in her throat as she tried desperately to cry out for her, but tongue refused to form anything longer than a single syllable. 

Just as quickly as the room had stopped shaking, it started again. Kara did her best to push herself up against the wall as she gripped the tiny box in her front jean pocket tightly, determined to get through this. Suddenly a sharp cackle filled the room and a burst of energy expelled out from the foggy form in the center of the room. With her eyes wide, Kara watched the shelves begin to sway and then tip into the one next to it, causing a domino effect that would soon lead the shelves on either side of Kara, leaving her trapped in a musty library basement forever.

Scrambling to her feet, Kara pushed herself towards the door, begging the heavens that whatever force has pushed her back before wouldn’t be there again especially as the thuds of heavily falling shelves echoed around her. Thankfully, she pushed her way through the door just before the final crescendo. 

Knees shaking, Kara barely managed to sprint her way up the stairs and through the library onto the street as her heart hammered in her chest and barely being able to see through her dust covered glasses. She had barely taken several steps down the sidewalk before she felt familiar hands grab her shoulders.

“Woah, Kara,” Lena said and Kara thought she saw a smile on her face. “Don’t tell me you missed me already.”

Barely managing to clear her throat, Kara whispered in a quivering voice, “Lena. Thank God.”

Whatever smile on Lena’s face vanished and a fierce glare took its place, but Kara knew it wasn’t at her by how Lena instantly pulled her closer. “What happened?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know.” Kara gasped. “I was just looking through these archives in the library basement and then the whole room started to shake. And something pushed me and these artifacts broke–”

Lena’s nostrils flared “Something pushed you?”

“Yeah, and I fell–”

Cold fingers wrapped around her wrist and Kara flinched. “You’re bleeding.”

“It’s a splinter or something. Maybe some glass too.” Kara explained, trying not to look at her dark red blood smeared with gray brown dirt along her palm. “From some like really stuff that broke when I fell. It’ll probably get infected if I don’t get it out soon.”

“Hold still.” Lena murmured. 

With her dust-covered lens, Kara couldn’t quite make out Lena’s movements, but without the use of tweezers, the splinter and glass pulled itself out of Kara’s hand in just seconds. She couldn’t help but grit her teeth as the pain, but Lena quickly soothed it with the cool touch of her thumb.

“Are you hurt anywhere else?” Lena asked, her voice oddly soft as she held both of Kara’s hands in hers.

Kara shook her head. “I... I don’t think so. I mean, I can’t really see much right now.”

With quick hands, Lena snatched off Kara’s glasses, had them cleaned and returned before Kara could blink twice. When she could finally see again, her heart stuttered slightly when she saw just how dark Lena’s eyes were. Not completely black, but definitely not her normal green either. Still, her hands continued cradling Kara’s injured one as her gaze darted around them, as if she were searching for any potential threat to protect Kara from. When she finally did speak again, an unfamiliar deep accent hung from her words.

“I’ll take care of whoever did this.” Lena growled and Kara could have sworn she saw the flash of fangs.

“Lena, wait.” Kara grabbed her arm. “They got it wrong. They misread the archives. They got her execution date wrong.”

After what she had just experienced in the basement, she couldn’t quite bring herself to say who, but Lena caught on all the same.

Narrowing her eyes, Lena hesitated. “How wrong?”

“By a year. It wasn’t 1723, but 1722! Today is the 300th anniversary of her death!”

Whatever color on Lena’s face drained away, but before she could say anything a massive clap of thunder boomed across the sky. The fall breeze from before turned into a mighty gust, slamming doors shut and forcing Kara to stumble, but Lena caught her quickly and pulled her close. Kara looked up at the now very dark and cloudy sky just in time to see lightning flash and briefly cast the shadow of a crooked nose, broken teeth, pointy hat wearing woman across the sky. A chill ran down Kara’s spine, but it wasn’t from the wind.

“Kara,” Lena said slowly, her voice even and her head turned skyward. “When you fell, what exactly did you break?”

“Um, there were these pieces of wood and this mason jar thing? They looked pretty old too and had some strange symbols on it that I couldn’t make out.”

Lena’s jaw clenched. “Did you say her name?”

Kara hesitated, wracking her brain as adrenaline still surged through her. “I, uh, think so? Maybe when I was reading the documents?”

Lena sucked in her breath sharply beside her as she muttered a curse. Then her hand tightened on Kara’s injured one. “ Please tell me you didn’t press your bloodied palm to the floor after.”

“Uhhh,” Kara’s mouth somehow lost even more moisture. “I think I did as I tried to stand up.”

Another gust of wind blew down the streets, this time with enough force that it pitched some of the fall festival vendor’s tents in the air. Some people screamed as others rushed to catch them and tie them down. When the thunder rumbled again, Kara could have sworn she heard the thrill of a high pitched cackle too.

“Fuck.” Lena swore.

Before the weather could get any worse, Lena pulled Kara back towards the library. Once inside, Lena ushered Kara to the bathroom and locked the door behind.

“Wait, Lena, what is going on?” Kara asked warily as she watched Lena busy herself with grabbing a fist full of paper towels and wetting them in the sink.

“Remember how I told you there was some sort of magic blocking the Witch’s spirit?” Lena wrung the paper towel out over the sink. “I believe it was in whatever was smashed with you down in the archives. You may have accidentally freed her.”

“I didn’t smash it,” Kara mumbled. “The whole just started shaking and it fell.”

“I’m not blaming you, darling,” Lena assured her as she gently pressed the wet paper towel to Kara’s bleeding hand. “If anything, I blame myself. I should have been there.”

“You couldn’t have known–”

“I should have,” Lena said coldly before she shook her head. “I knew how powerful her spirit was even when bound. I was careless leaving you alone and unprotected like that. She took advantage of you. When said her name, you invoked her. The wood pieces with the jar were likely talismans and they worked together to bind a majority of her power. Breaking them was just part of the ceremony to release her; your blood was the other part.”

“Oh God,” Kara whispered, her eyes prickling as she ducked her head. “So I inadvertently freed a malicious spirit who now wants to destroy this town? People are going to die because of me?”

A cool hand gently cupped her cheek and rubbed a tear away with her thumb. “This isn’t your fault, Kara. You’re a victim in all of this.”

“But I–”

“No.” Lena cut her off with a squeeze to her injured hand. “You didn’t do anything wrong. There is still a chance we can fix this, but I need you with me, okay?”

“Fix this?” Through the small window, Kara saw lighting spidering across the dark sky and tree limbs quivering against the wind. “How?”

“We need to find where she’s buried. Once there, we may be able to stop her. But I need you to help me find it. Can you show me how to get to the library basement?”

With a small sniffle, Kara nodded. She threw away the dirty paper towel and led Lena silently to and down the stairs to the library basement. Her hand in Lena’s was limp, almost hoping Lena would get the hint and drop it; she didn’t deserve any sort of comfort after possibly dooming an entire town. But her girlfriend’s hold remained firm. Finally, she reached the door to the archival room and pulled it open. Her eyes widening, she quickly ducked her head even further when she saw its state. 

Just an hour ago, the musty room had at least a semblance of order with the shelves of boxes lining the wall, but now, it looked as if it had been raided. Not a single shelf stood as they all now either laid on the floor or in a pile on top of one another. Papers in varying colors littered the floor and the white cardboard boxes sat overturned on the floor, their contents shattered and strewn across the floor. Even one of the hanging fluorescent lights had broken and now dangled into the room, spinning on its one suspended chord. Kara wasn’t entirely sure what the damages would amount to, but she had a feeling she’d be in debt to the town of Blithe Grove till she died.

“You were in here?” Lena asked, her jaw agape.

Kara nodded and pointed towards the tipped over table with a broken leg across the room where a heavy shelf now laid on top of. A small puddle of dark red liquid stained the floor. “That was where I fell before I ran out.”

Just seeing how close Kara had come to more serious harm caused her hands to sweat. She cradled her injured hand closer to her chest as she fought back a small shiver. Lena stood silent beside her, her jaw and fist clenched.

“I swear to you, Kara,” Lena’s voice was quiet, but lethal, “you won’t have to worry about her after tonight.”

Kara gulped but didn’t respond. She knew without a doubt that Lena would remain true to her word, but reminders of the sinister power her girlfriend was capable of didn’t always bring much comfort.

“So how did you want to start?” Kara finally asked. “I can take one side of the room, you take the other, and we just put the documents we don’t need in the boxes? Or we could start in the middle?”

“Or,” Lena’s dark green eyes roved to the center of the room, “We could just ask them.”

Kara frowned at a clearly very empty room. “What do you mean?”

Closing her eyes for a moment and taking a small breath, Lena put her hand on Kara’s bicep. “To make matters easier, would you be opposed to me putting a small spell on you?” 

“Spell?” Kara spluttered. “You can do spells? Demons can spell?” Cringing, Kara shook her head. “Like that’s not just a witch thing?”

With a small forced smile, Lena squeezed her girlfriend's arm. “If a demon is powerful enough, yes. I promise, it wouldn’t be painful, maybe just slightly uncomfortable for a few moments. It would just simply… open your eyes a bit, temporarily.”

“Open my eyes?” Kara repeated.

Lena bit her lip. “Due to a number of forces at play, humans don’t tend to notice the supernatural around them. It’s one of the ways both kinds can live in harmony. To ensure your safety for tonight, I don’t intend to let you out of my sight, but I believe it would be… beneficial if you could see just all there was to see.”

Kara blinked and frowned. “All there was to see? Are you talking about ghosts?”

Her girlfriend pursed her lips. “Partially. There are several in the room right now with us.”

“In the room right now with us?” Kara whipped her head around, still unable to spot a thing, but her breath caught regardless. “Where?”

“There are three standing in the middle of the room.” Lena squeezed Kara’s arm once again to draw her attention back. “I can talk to them without you, but I just want you to know that you have the option. I wouldn’t normally suggest this, but I think…” Lena took a steady breath, “I think it may help protect you a bit. And… you deserve to know what it is you’re getting into. With everything. Including me.”

Kara’s brow furrowed. “Including you? Lena, I’m pretty sure I have a pretty good idea of who you are by this point. We’ve been dating for almost a year and have been friends for a while before that.”

“It’s just,” Lena swallowed, “I don’t exactly look like this. I have several forms, but this one is just a facade. You saw one of my forms in New Orleans, and I know… that scared you. And I really don’t want to scare you, Kara. But I also don’t want you to think I’m lying to you.”

“Hey,” Kara took Lena’s hand in her own, “It’ll be okay. I know who you are Lena, demon or not. And I trust you. If you think doing this spell thing will help me, then let’s do it.”

“I can take it off of you as soon as you’d like,” Lena swiftly assured her. “And I promise, I won’t be offended if you don’t want to hold my hand or anything after.” She closed her eyes as she forced down another deep breath. “I know it’ll be a lot to take in. But I promise, I’m still Lena.”

Kara squeezed Lena’s hand in her own. “You’ll always be my girl, demon or not. Let’s do this.”

Lena returned Kara’s smile, but stress wrinkled around her eyes. Her mouth twisted in an almost unnatural shape as foreign, indiscernible syllables flowed out of it and soon it sounded as if multiple voices spoke from her at once. Kara’s eyes began to sting and her ears burned as Lena’s voices turned into a raspy buzzing. She clenched her eyes shut and went to cover her ears, but Lena’s grip on her hands remained steadfast. The putrid scent of burnt hair and flesh tickled Kara’s nose and just as she started to retch, it all stopped.

Lena’s hand fell away from Kara’s as she slowly opened her eyes. Her vision blurred together and she blinked rapidly to clear it, and slowly, her girlfriend came into view, except, it wasn’t Lena who stood in front of her.

A deathly pale woman stood in her place. Her ghastly white skin stretched over her gaunt figure, her cheek and collar bones cut so harshly she appeared almost skeletal. Despite her eyes being blacked, they somehow also glowed, as if they were black holes sucking in every fragment of light around them. Her dark hair remained down like when Lena wore hers like that, but this was much longer and more wilder, much different than Lena’s normal corporate look. Sharp dark brown horns spiraled from her scalp like those of a ram and a slender tail with a spade at the end flicked behind her. Besides the clothing which was almost laughably mundane for a demon, Kara didn’t recognize a single thing about the creature in front of her as her girlfriend, so she quickly took a step back.

As soon as she did, the creature’s face broke and suddenly, all Kara could see was Lena. The way her shoulders sagged, the downturn of just one corner of her mouth, the wrinkles around her eyes. Kara had spent so long trying to read those minute details of her girlfriend that she would recognize them anywhere. Suddenly, the realization that she offended Lena crushed her, and Kara swiftly took a step forward and did her best to put on a kind smile as she searched for the other parts of Lena she recognized.

“Sorry,” Kara said, reaching forward to take Lena’s hand, careful to avoid the long, sharp nails. “I just didn’t realize you could get any more pale.”

It was a weak attempt at a joke and both women knew it, but Lena gave a small smile back regardless and returned Kara’s squeeze of her hand.

“You’re not scared of me?” Lena whispered, her voice sounding much deeper and raspy than Kara had ever heard it.

Kara shrugged. “It will just take some getting us to. I mean, you got used to my morning breath so I feel like this will make us even.”

When Lena’s smile grew, Kara knew she meant it.

“Could you both please get on with it?”  A voice behind them snapped.

Whipping her head around, Kara’s eyes widened when she saw three semi transparent figures floating in the center of the room. All of them were white, middle aged men

dressed in varying black and white puritan garb. The one in the center wore a white powder wig, while the one on the right wore a black puritan hat with a buckle on the center, and the one on the left held a rifle. Even though she could see through the rifle, that didn’t mean she found it any less alarming. 

“Yes, by all means,” the powdered wig one added as he crossed his arms. “It’s not as if there is a mad witch destroying the town as we speak.”

Lena narrowed her eyes and stepped in front of Kara, shielding her from their view, but Kara couldn’t help but bulge her eyes at the sight of the massive, dark leathery wings folded on Lena’s back.

“And just who might you be?” Lena snarled.

The man narrowed his eyes as he somehow stood up straighter. “Morgan Edge. I was the governor of this area from 1715 to 1725.” He gestured to the man on his right. “This is Hank Henshaw, a former minister.” Then waved to the man on his right. “Ben Lockwood, former militia.”

His name rang a faint bell in Kara’s mind and she couldn’t help but poke her head out from behind Lena. “Morgan Edge? You weren’t the governor who had the affair with the minister, were you? Was this the guy?”

Despite being semi transparent, Morgan’s glare sent a small shiver down Kara’s back. Leave it to the puritans to take the fun out of everything.

“If you had done your reading, you would know that it was nothing more than a rumor started by a silly girl.” Morgan sniped. “She learned her lesson, but it’s clear you two have not. I’ll have you know that some of us actually know how to resist temptations of the flesh.”

“But you admit you were tempted.” Kara quipped. Even if these ghosts freaked her out, the snort she earned from Lena made it worth it.

“You two are proof the world has been consumed by total depravity.” Hank cut in. “It’s a wonder the Witch didn’t escape before now with your incompetence.”

The room chilled as Lena narrowed her eyes, her voice almost a growl. “Perhaps she never would have escaped if you bound her properly.”

“We don’t claim to be proficient in the dark arts as you do.” Morgan snapped through gritted teeth. 

“It’s not dark arts to simply select a better hiding place for your binding talismen.” Lena spat.

“The place worked perfectly well for almost three centuries.” The ghost's eyes flicked angrily towards Kara. “If someone hadn’t gone looking for trouble or just left when we asked, none of this would have happened.”

“When did you ask?” Kara frowned before she gasped. “Wait, were you the one that pushed me?”

“A last ditch effort that I should have known a swine like yourself would ruin,” Ben Lockwood sniped.

A fierce growl echoed across the room and Lena’s wings twitched. “How dare you–”

“Don’t try to scare us, demon filth. We actually had the self-respect and righteous faith to not choose to sell our soul to the devil to eternal damnation for a measly ounce of power like you. We did what we could to protect this town, and we’ve spent the past three centuries paying the price.”

The room impossibly chilled even more around them. When she exhaled, Kara saw the white wisp of her breath.

“Do not speak as if you’ve known what I’ve done,” Lena spoke in a low snarl, her voice sending goose bumps across Kara’s skin. “Unless you want to experience it yourself. You’re still on the earthly realm which means you’re on my domain: I can still cause you pain.”

The hairs on Kara’s neck stood on end. While this form of Lena may not have been super familiar to Kara, Kara knew when Lena neared the end of her rope, which is why she quickly stepped forward and in between her girlfriend and the ghost.

“What she means is,” Kara started with a voice much higher pitched than she liked. “Could you possibly tell us where the Witch’s grave is? That way we could stop this mess.”

Those cold transparent eyes bore holes through Kara’s, but eventually they seemed to relent.

“She was burned as a witch,” Morgan Edge conceded, his face grim, “so she was buried in an unmarked grave.”

Behind her, Lena snorted. “Of course, but where ?”

Morgan Edge narrowed his eyes. “We did not put ourselves in this purgatory wait before heaven to take requests from a demon like you. You think we would put our eternal glory in jeopardy like that?”

 Behind him, the ghost of Ben Lockwood took aim with his rifle. Fluttering her wings, Lena snarled at the threat, causing Kara to gulp and her legs to shake, but she remained firm.

“Where exactly did you bury her then in her unmarked grave?” Kara asked, her voice wavering.

“Five miles south of here,” Morgan Edge replied, his hard stare not leaving the menacing form behind Kara. “Can I trust you two to destroy her or should I wait upon the next buffoon that releases her to stop her?”

At that, Lena stepped forward, but Kara stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. 

“Not here,” she murmured in her attempt as resolute, but came out shaky. 

Whether through trust or pity, Lena relented and let her lead her out, but not without a small flick that sent the rifle in the ghost’s hand careening across the room. Lena then looped her arms through Kara’s and led them out of the room, shutting the door to the library basement swiftly behind them before freeing Kara of her hold.

“They can’t, uh, follow us, right?”Kara asked, her fingers twisting around her wrist. “Like I just, don’t know how well confronting this witch will go if they do. Or how I’ll do.”

“Hey,” Lena’s ghastly white hands with sharpened talons grasped Kara, but she was too unnerved to flinch. “They’re bound to that room. Whatever items they bound themselves to or unfinished business keeps them trapped there. You don’t have to worry about them ever again.”

“They just…” Kara shivered. “Something about them wasn’t right. They just felt… horrible.”

“They’re vile creatures.” Lena’s eyes flashed as they looked back towards the basement door. “And they will pay for what they did to you. I’ll make sure of it.”

“Lena…” Kara sighed. “You don’t need to do anything. They already seemed pretty miserable as is.”

Lena offered a weak smile with her pale lips. “Welcome to Puritan culture. It revolves around a deprivation of human pleasures, humanity’s innate evil, and predestination. It’s arguably a focus on one of the worst sectors of North American culture.”

Kara wanted to laugh but couldn’t. Her grip on Lena’s hands slackened as she struggled to meet her girlfriend’s now very black eyes. “Lena… what he said about you selling your soul to the devil… that wasn’t true,was it?”

Lowering her head, Lena bit her lip as her grip stayed limp around Kara’s hold. “I’ll admit,” she took a shuddering breath, “I have done things I’m not proud of. Things I regret. I wish I could blame it all on my family, but I am responsible for my own decisions and the consequences of them. However, I’m not the same as I was decades ago. I’ve become better.” Her hold tightened on Kara’s hands for just a second. “You’ve made me want to be better and continue down that path.” Closing her eyes, she hesitated. “I haven’t always been the Lena you know now, and there is no excuse for that. All I can ask is that you’ll have me as the Lena I am now.”

Seeing Lena in this demon form with her fangs, horns, and talons, Kara found it very easy to believe that this was not the same person she currently dated and loved. But as she held her hands in her own, she felt like she was at home. Never once had she ever questioned her safety around Lena; maybe against other supernatural beings but never Lena. Through all the countless problems they’ve faced, supernatural or mundane, Lena had never left her side, and Kara had no intention of leaving Lena’s side either. Lena was hers. Well, however much a demon could be hers, but she would take every bit of her that she could get, demon be damned.

“Hey,” Kara said with a small smile as she squeezed Lena’s hand, coaxing her to look up. “I only know the Lena I’ve seen. And that Lena is pretty freaking awesome. The most awesome actually.”

A watery sheen coated Lena’s black eyes reluctantly staring into Kara’s blue as she forced a small smile. “You deserve to know everything before you say that.”

Kara shrugged. “Maybe one day I’ll know, but it’s no big deal if I don’t. I’m with you because of who you are now, not who you were.”

With a small shake of her head, Lena bit her lower lip. “I wish it were that simple.”

“It can be for right now.” Kara squeezed her hand. “Come on, we have a town to save, remember?”

They made their way back to the car. Lena took the wheel while Kara pulled out her phone’s compass to ensure they were indeed heading south. As they drove, the wind blew countless flyers, discarded popcorn containers, and even some hats through the air as the storm only further increased in ferocity. Fat rain drops and what Kara hoped wasn’t hail clattered against the car and bounced off their windshield as they drove out of town towards the woods on the mountain above it.

“I think you can turn here,” Kara called out, pointing her finger towards a dirt road that led them impossibly deeper into the woods.

Following Kara’s directions, Lena turned the car and flipped on the bright headlights as the thicker tree canopy blocked even more of the light from the dark sky. Around them, many of the trees swayed dangerously in a dance with the wind, and Kara struggled to dwell on the thought of any of them falling, but they became difficult as the wind only grew worse.

“How do we even know we’re going the right way?” Kara asked, just realizing that she had no way of knowing once they’ve gone five miles south of the library.

“I think that giant green light ought to be a pretty good indication!” Lena shouted out over a burst of thunder rattled overhead.

Squinting, Kara peered ahead and faintly in the distance, she could make a tiny green light glinting through the raindrops on their windshield.

“I don’t know if I would call that giant,” Kara replied. “It’s pretty small to me.”

“Small?” Lena shot her questioning look. “Kara, it’s the size of a tree.”

“Oh…” Kara rubbed her eyes but her vision didn’t change, so her mouth went dry. “Do you think your vision spell is wearing off on me?”

Quickly, Lena shook her head. “It’s not possible. In a sense, my spell lifted the veil. It will only return when I use the reversal spell.”

Kara fiddled with her phone, the screen flickering undoubtedly due to the close supernatural forces. “Maybe I should have worn better glasses?”

Lena pursed her lips. “It’s not unheard of, but sometimes, things can appear different to some people. Especially depending on what they want to or don’t want to see.”

Choking out a laugh, Kara slumped back in her seat. “So I just have a really bad case of denial?”

“Not necessarily…” Lena’s brow wrinkled in thought, but it didn’t stay wrinkled for long. “Shit, Kara, hold on!”

Just as Lena swerved the rental car off road, a tree limb the size of a small tree crashed against the road, directly where they would have been. Holding on tight to the door handle and her seat belt taunt around her waist and chest, Kara desperately tried to calm herself as Lena steered them over the bumpy forest terrain, jerking the wheel to avoid any large branches the wind carried their way. Eventually, Lena brought them back to the road, her jaw tight and eyes hard all the way.

“I hate witches,” Lena muttered under her breath, her grip tight around the wheel as she sped even faster towards the green light, growing bigger by the second. They were easily just a couple hundred feet from it now, and the witch was anything but happy about it, especially with how many tree limbs and branches crashed around them, some so large that they shook the car when they hit the ground.

“Can’t you, um,” Kara hesitated as she made a wild gesture with her hands, “do something?”

Lena shot her a dark look. “We’re still alive, aren’t we?”

“Sorry.” Kara mumbled, ducking her head.

“No, I’m sorry.” Shaking her head, Lena’s tone became softer. “I’m just a little out of my element. She’s much stronger than I realized, probably stronger than any witch I’ve met. I want to be sure I’m saving my strength just in case.”

“Oh,” Kara gulped. “Are you sure I should have come with you?”

Her girlfriend’s spine became impossibly more rigid. “Since you’re the one that freed her, we’re likely going to need you to bind her once again. But I swear I’m not going to let anything happen to you.” Lena’s dark eyes fell to Kara’s hand. “Not again.”

Closing her injured hand into a fist, Kara crossed her arms over her chest, hiding her hands under her arms. Why did she always have to make things worse? 

Suddenly, a bright flash of light burst in front of them, and Kara lurched forward as the car slammed to a stop just before a massive old oak groaned over and struck the ground with an earthshaking thud, its long spindly branches coming right towards them. Closing her eyes, Kara heard the sound of shattering glass and Lena rapidly whispered something under her breath. She covered her face with her hands and braced herself for impact, but nothing came. Peeking through her fingers she saw that the windshield was now a web of shattered glass but remained intact even with the massive wooden limb it supported. 

“Are you okay?” Lena asked, carefully placing her hand on Kara’s thigh.

Slowly Kara nodded her head before whispering, “did you stop that tree from hitting us?” 

“For the time being.” Lena gently pulled on her arm. “Come on - we don’t have much time.”

Clambering over the console, Kara followed Lena out of the driver side window as the tree had effectively blocked off every other exit from the car. As soon as she set foot outside the car, the wind blasted into Kara, striking ice to her very core and sending a shiver through her whole body. They were just a hundred feet from the tree with the green light at the base of it. This close now, it looked like the form of a human - a ghastly green witch like human from the caricature the town put on. Above her, a stream of dark clouds swirled into the sky with light flashing in them as if they carried dozens of mini storms inside of them, only feeding the ever worsening storm above them.

“ Go away ,” shrieked a voice that felt like nails dragging down Kara’s back.

Lena’s hand around arm tightened. “Stay behind me, Kara. Don’t let her get to you.”

While it may have been a little late for that, Kara stumbled after Lena, grateful for the hold her girlfriend had on her because without it, she feared the wind would have swept her away. The closer they neared, the grotesque the witch’s green figure became and with horror, Kara realized that she was growing. Yellow light seeped in around her, filling her and billowing out, withering the grass and trees around her.

“ Turn back or die ” the witch cackled, causing Kara to stumble, but Lena pulled her up before she could hit the ground. 

“You need to stop this!” Lena shouted at her, now just ten feet away, her wild dark hair whipping around her in the yellow light. “These people aren’t the same ones that wronged you. This town has changed!”

A high pitched laughter paired with lighting assaulted Kara’s ear drums. “ Do these people not mock me all the same? They wanted a witch; now they have one! ”

Lena ground her teeth. “This is your last chance - stop now or I will stop you.”

Instead of laughter this time, the witch remained silent as she turned her hooked nose towards Lena and sized up the demon before her. Her figure made of yellow green light flickered, but then her mouth curved into a nasty grin of crooked teeth. 

“ I’d like to see you try ,” the witch smirked.

Throwing out her hand, yellow green light arched out of it towards them, but Lena moved before Kara could even think. Her leathery wings snapped out, blocking Kara completely as Lena’s taloned hands deflected the lightning to a nearby tree. As Lena muttered something foreign, the air around Kara rippled with a chill as a dark energy shot out of Lena, meeting the witch’s yellow green light in mid air. The forces collided in the space between them in a stalemate, but neither supernatural being surrendered. Soon the witch added another hand in her assault of power and Lena’s demonic form started to shift to the one Kara recognized back in New Orleans; the one that still haunted her nightmares on dark nights.

But as they fought, Kara noticed the witch’s figure flickering. The wicked witch form would flash into something much smaller and meek. The hooked nose and pointed hat would disappear and something much more youthful took its place before switching back just seconds later. With the rain and wind still whipping around them, Kara thought she was simply imagining it until something clicked in her.

“Siobhan…” Kara whispered. 

At the mention of her name, the witch’s gaze flickered towards the blonde peeking out from behind her opponent, her face contouring to snarl. 

“ How do you know my name? ” she shrieked.

“I… I was the one that freed you,” Kara said, slowly stepping out from behind Lena’s shielding figure. 

With a surge, the witch flung off Lena’s attack, sending it behind her and blasting through several trees. The witch cocked her head as she looked down her crooked nose at Kara. “ Funny, you don’t look like much. You look like nothing more than a doll to play with. Do you want to play with me? ”

“Don’t you touch her!” Lena snarled fiercely, but Kara could see the exhaustion tugging at her eyes even as she threw out her arms once again.

“No, wait, Lena!” Kara grabbed Lena’s forearm. “Don’t you see?”

The witch threw back her head with a wail that shook the trees and clapped thunder across the valley. “ No one ever wants to play with me ”

“Kara, stay behind me!” Lena ordered, her wings spreading in an attempt to force her girlfriend back. “I don’t want you getting hurt.”

“Lena, don’t you see?” Kara attempted to shout over the roar of weather around them. “She’s not an evil witch!”

As the witch raised her sparking hands once more, Kara made the split second decision to run for her. Leaping out from behind Lena's protective stance, Kara dashed towards the witch, praying that neither her legs nor heart gave way in the process.

“Kara don’t!” Lena shouted and her talons snagged on to her girlfriend’s shirt but it was too late.

Gritting her teeth as she struggled against the harsh wind, Kara grabbed the witch's hand.

~~~~

In a moment, the wild stormy dark forest shifted to a calm sunny day with bright sunlight filtering through the leaves overhead. Behind her, Lena no longer held her demon form, but her human one, although this one looked a few years older and a bit more tired, but the lines on her face. The biggest change however was that of the witch; her yellow green ghastly figure had become that of a little girl with dark hair and wide brown eyes. The little girl yanked her hand out of Kara’s and stumbled back, staring baffled at her hands as she did.

“Siobhan?” Kara said softly, sharing a quick glance with Lena. “It’s okay. We’re not here to hurt you.”

The little girl's gaze fell to Lena who stood meekly behind Kara and her lip quivered. “She wanted to.”

Flinching, Lena ducked her head and hid her hands behind her back, unable to look at either of them.

“She didn’t know,” Kara told the little girl soothingly. “She was just scared.”

“They were scared too.” Siobhan’s face flickered yellow green. “They did this to me!”

“Hey, hey,” Kara said softly, kneeling down in front of the little girl. “People can sometimes do bad things when they’re scared, but that doesn’t mean they’re bad people.”

“They hurt me though!” Siobhan’s hands curled into fist.

“So you hurt them back?” Kara tilted her head. “That just sounds like an awful lot of people getting hurt.”

“You don’t understand.” Siobhan stomped her foot. “I didn’t do anything wrong!”

“Actually, Siobhan, I think I do.” Kara moved to sit on the ground in front of the little girl, doing her best to move and look as calm as possible. “You caught the governor and the minister together doing something they shouldn’t have, didn’t you?”

Siobhan nodded her head. “I went back to church for my jacket and I saw them kissing. Minster Henshaw always said that only husband and wife could kiss, so I told my parents about it when I got home.”

“And they didn’t like that very much, did they?” Kara asked.

Sniffling, the little girl shook her head. “They called me a liar. And when I said, I didn’t lie, they called me a witch. They said I was sent by the devil to ruin the town. That I was the one who was causing the famine. That I was the one preventing the ships from coming with new supplies. But I wasn’t! I didn’t do anything!”

“I know you didn’t.” 

“I just miss my mom.” Siobhan now had tears running down her face. “I want my mom.”

“Oh honey,” Kara automatically opened her arms. “Come here.”

Siobhan fell into her arms and cried as if Kara were her real mom. She burrowed her face into Kara’s shoulder as Kara rubbed her back, telling her would be alright. Slowly her cries calmed down and when she looked up, she saw Lena now sitting behind Kara, offering a small wave to the little girl. While Siobhan didn’t return the wave, she didn’t hide either which Kara took as a good sign.

“I’m really sorry that happened to you, Siobhan,” Lena said softly.

The little girl stared at her. “Does this mean I’m now a monster like you?”

Kara didn’t need to see her girlfriend to know that she had gone rigid at the comment. Leave it to children to know the sore spots to strike.

“Lena’s not a monster,” Kara told Siobhan. “She was just trying to do what she thought was right.”

“But she’s a demon.” Siobhan said. “And I’m a witch. That makes us monsters.”

With a small sigh, Kara glanced over at her girlfriend who looked impossibly small before turning back to the little girl. “Just because you are born something doesn’t mean you are that. You are in charge of who you are. You don’t have to be what people make of you. If you don’t want to be a monster, then you don’t have to be. As long as you’re trying to be your best self, then there is nothing monstrous about you. And no one can take that away from you.”

“But what about what I’ve already done?” Siobhan asked. 

“Sometimes all you can do is ask for forgiveness and try to put it behind you,” Lena said, softly from behind them. “It doesn’t always make the pain go away, but it’s a good starting point.”

 Biting her lip, Lena approached them. “I’m sorry, Siobhan. I just got so caught up trying to protect my girlfriend that I ignored everything else. I’m sorry.”

With a small smile, Siobhan replied, “I forgive you. I’m sorry I tried to hurt you. Do you forgive me?”

“Of course,” Lena said automatically. 

“Well look at that,” Kara beamed, “the three of us are friends now.”

Siobhan giggled but then her eyes went wide as she saw something behind Lena.

“What’s that?” she asked.

Turning around, both Lena and Kara squinted against a light as bright as a mini sun now shining several feet away through the trees. An odd warmth filled Kara and for the first time that evening, she actually felt at peace.

“That’s the Light,” Lena told her, her voice wavering ever so slightly. 

“It looks scary,” Siobhan whispered.

“It’s not so bad.” Lena smiled kindly. “It’s actually how you can get back to your mom.”

At that Siobhan perked up and jumped to her feet, but she hesitated. “Will you two go with me?”

Before Kara could reply, Lena cut her off. “Kara isn’t able to, but I can take you as far as I can.” Hesitating, Lena held out her hand. “Would you like to hold my hand?”

Nodding profusely, Siobhan grabbed Lena’s hand and pulled her towards the bright light, With a small nod towards her girlfriend, Lena walked with the girl towards the Light, holding her hand until she faded away.

~~~~

The sunny day shuddered into night in a cold wet forest. No trees shook in the wind and the rumbling clouds rolled away as quickly as they appeared. A bright full moon now shone down on the forest and Kara wondered if they would have enough light to find their way back to their rental car, especially through all the fallen branches that now littered the forest floor. Turning around, Kara’s heart lifted when she saw her girlfriend back beside her, demon form in all, and she couldn’t resist wrapping her around her in a fierce hug.

“Kara, I’m sorry,” Lena spluttered, her voice thick with tears. “I never would have if I had known. I should have listened to you earlier. I was so angry and scared that I didn't see things correctly–”

“Hey, it’s okay,” Kara squeezed her hard. “You didn’t know. You were only trying to protect me. It’s okay.”

At that, Lena sagged against her girlfriend as she started to sob. In all their years of knowing each other, Kara had never seen Lena cry like this. Sure, there had been some tears in the occasional Netflix movie night, but never full on body wracking sobs. So Kara did all she could and just held her close, gently rubbing her back while being mindful of the wings. Somehow the fact that Lena was still in her demon form made the moment all the more special to Kara, and made her love her all the more.

~~~

“Is everything okay?” Kara asked as they walked back to their Airbnb.

While they had made it out of the forest in one piece, their rental car surely did not. The windshield was completely removed and Lena already prepared the check for the hefty fine she would be paying the next morning when they returned it. Of course, none of this would be recorded for the Catco video. Nope, Kara was insistent upon using exclusively the footage from the festival before and dealing with the wrath of Cat Grant when she found out they had no footage of the crazy pop up storm that swept through the town, destroying most of the festival. After everything they had been through that night, Kara definitely needed a break from these ghost hunting videos anyway. She had been all too happy when Lena had removed her vision spell. The less she knew about the supernatural being around her, the better.

“It just really bothers me,”  Lena said, stopping in front of the town’s large statue of the gross wicked Blithe Grove witch that had somehow survived the witch’s storm. “This town hosts a celebration each year of the burning of an innocent child. They even have a permanent statue just so they can mock that poor girl more and more each year. It’s disgusting.”

“Well,” Kara shoved her hands in her pockets and looked around the empty streets. “It really sucks that the storm destroyed it.”

Lena shot her a questioning look. “What are you talking about? It’s right there in all its insufferable glory.”

“I mean, who knew lightning was that powerful,” Kara said, wiggling her eyebrows as she jerked her head upwards.

Frowning for a moment, Lena’s eyes widened in realization. “Oh, right. I understand.”

Flicking her hand out, the sound of stone sliding against metal pierced the air before the statue tumbled and crumbled face first on the concrete sidewalk below its pedestal. From a fall that short, Kara knew the statue probably shouldn’t have broken so completely like that, but who was she to critique her girlfriend’s job well done? Lena’s ruby lips curled into a grin as she admired her handiwork.

“Wow, well that settles that,” Kara said. 

“I think L-Corp may sponsor the replacement. Perhaps something showcasing women supporting or something along those lines. Especially after I rid the town of those despicable ghosts in the town archive. I cannot wait to see what is store for them.”

With a bright smile, Kara looped her arm through Lena’s. “Look at you changing the world one town at a time.”

Lena rolled her eyes as they resumed their walk back towards their hotel. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I certainly don’t intend to go to every small New England town and rid them of whatever witch’s spirit or curse that lays upon them.”

Kara choked out a laugh. “Yeah, seriously. If we could leave it to just the one, that would be great. That was certainly enough supernatural for me for a while. I think I may need a vacation from this vacation.”

Beside her, Lena slowed, bringing them to a stop. When Kara turned to look, she saw Lena biting her lip and looking down at the sidewalk.

“I am sorry, Kara. For earlier, I mean. I didn’t think a lot of things through like I normally do, and I didn’t fully consider the consequences of some of my actions, especially what they would do to you. I know seeing me for so long in my demonic form wasn’t exactly… pleasant. I promise, you don’t have to see that ever again, if you don’t want to.”

“What? Lena.” Kara laced her fingers with Lena’s. “I never want you to feel like you have to hide yourself from me. When I tell you I love you, that means all of you: demon form and all.”

“I just know it can be quite a shock…”

Laughing, Kara shook her head. “Shock or not, it hasn’t changed how I felt about you for a second. If anything, I may actually somehow love you more and if I hate anything, it’s myself for not doing this sooner.” 

With a small sigh, Kara reached into her jeans pocket and grabbed the box she had been carrying with her the past few days as she waited to work up the nerve, but now felt like the moment. Lena watched questioningly as Kara dropped to one knee in front of her before her face fell open in shock. 

“I couldn’t ask for a better travel partner nor a better life partner,” Kara said softly, not taking her eyes off Lena’s green. “I love you Lena Luthor; all of you. And I can’t imagine my life without you. Will you marry me?”

Despite all her tears from earlier, Lena somehow found more.

“Yes!” she croaked out, falling to her knees in front of Kara, wrapping her arms around her neck. “Always yes. For as long as you’ll have me.”

Kara chuckled into Lena’s dark hair as she pulled her close. “Then it sounds like we’re stuck together forever.”

Chapter Text

“How about this one? It’s so close to Catco you can actually see it from the living room.”

Lena passed her tablet over to Kara who laid stretched across the couch with her head on one arm rest and her legs over Lena’s lap. 

“Huh,” Kara frowned, swiping through the photos on the listing. “It’s nice, but I’m not sure how I feel about waking up and always seeing my place of work. Especially when I have a deadline I’m struggling to hit.”

“We could get curtains?” Lena suggested, her hands sliding under her fiance’s leg so she could massage her thumbs into Kara’s calves.

“Hmmm,” Kara sighed. “A little lower. A little more.”

Lena snorted. “If you wanted me a foot massage, you could have just asked.”

“Well since you offered.” Kara grinned. 

Even though she rolled her eyes, a small smile still tugged at her lips. “Just look at the listings.”

“It’s just so weird sorting by the highest price first rather than the lowest.” Kara mumbled, scrolling through Zillow. “This one has a bathroom with glass walls. Like it’s just all glass. You can literally watch someone in the bathtub from across the apartment. Did they not understand the need for privacy? Also cleaning that must be a nightmare - just smudges everywhere.”

“Darling, I’m sure whoever buys that one will be paying for someone else to clean it.”

“Still seems like poor design if you ask me. Okay, wait… this one actually has a bowling alley in it. With multiple lanes?? Why would anyone want that?”

Lena shrugged. “Probably for the same reason you want to live above a restaurant that serves pot stickers.”

“Hey - that is a dream everyone would be happy with. Who wouldn’t want to be just one elevator ride away from the greatest food ever invented?”

Kara’s body shook as Lena laughed underneath her. “I’ll be happy with whatever you pick, Kara, regardless of glass walls, bowling alleys, or pot sticker availability. My only request is that you decide on a place soon so you don’t have to move all of your things twice.”

“I have a list!” Kara had successfully narrowed down her picks for apartments from ten to five earlier that day. She had only a few days to whittle that down to one so her and Lena could sign a lease that would begin next month. That was proving to be much more difficult than she had expected. “I just haven’t fully made up my mind yet. I just want to make sure I make the right decision, that’s all.”

Lena gently squeezed Kara’s feet. “Any of them will be perfect, Kara. I can always decide if this is causing you too much stress.”

“No, no, I got it,” Kara waved her off. “You were the one that initially gave me the list of possibilities to begin with. This is the least I can do. I just want to be sure I’m not overlooking anything crucial or something.”

“I understand.” Lena shifted to better look at the blonde, but still kept her hands massaging Kara’s feet and ankles. “How has packing been going? Has Alex been much help?”

Kara rolled her eyes with a groan. “Ever since Maggie came back into town, Alex keeps blowing me off to hang out with her.”

Lena’s eyebrows shot up. “Maggie’s still here? It’s been almost two weeks.”

“Yep. Morgan Edge hired her for some kind of private investigation work.”

Lena’s lip curled. “Yuck. That man is a slime ball.”

“Right?” Kara threw her hands up. “She’s been pretty tight lipped about whatever it is she is doing, but she’s roped Alex in on it. I’ve only seen her like once these past two weeks and that was when she came over to take some of these old lead tests I bought back when I first moved into my apartment. And like yeah, I get that helping your sister pack isn’t exactly something anyone wants to do, but she could at least swing by and drop off the Home Depot moving boxes she bought for me last week. Trash bags seem to be working with my clothes but I don’t think they’ll be much help when it comes to my books.”

“You’re packing in trash bags?” Lena blinked, then shook her head. “I’m sending Jess over tomorrow to drop off some plastic storage totes you can use.”

“You really don’t need to. I’m fine.” Kara flipped the tablet off and tossed it on the table. “I’m mostly just annoyed that Alex is even spending so much time with Maggie. Like she’s her ex-fiance for a reason. And she’s leaving in a few days to go back to New York which is only going to break Alex’s heart all over again.”

“Do you think they could get back together? Long distance is always an option.”

“Maybe. I don’t know.” Kara flopped her head back into the couch cushion. “I just thought Alex had moved on after two years, but I guess not.”

“Love can be irrational like that.”

“Yeah,” Kara snorted before sitting up, “and love can also lead one to follow their partner into every single paranormal investigation they’ve been assigned just in case they need supernatural protection.”

A light blush bloomed across Lena’s cheeks as she ducked behind a curtain of her raven dark hair to hide her smile. “I suppose it can.”

With a wide grin, Kara leaned forward and pressed a kiss against Lena’s cheek. “It’s one of the many things that made me fall in love with you.” She slid her fingers into Lena’s, running her thumb over Lena’s engagement ring. “And another reason I can’t wait to marry you.”

“Oh!” Lena sat up suddenly and knocking Kara off, but quickly wrapping her arms around her waist to catch her from falling off her lap. “I’m sorry it’s taken me a while, but it finally arrived in the mail today.” 

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small cloth pouch. Slipping her fingers inside, Lena pulled out a golden ring and Kara gasped, gripping on to Lena’s arm to keep herself steady. Engravings of leaves and vines twined along the thin twisted gold band, leading up to a cloudy tear dropped shaped diamond mounted in the middle. It almost seemed to glow in Lena’s pale palm.

“Lena…” Kara breathed.

“I know we haven’t set a date yet and we’re more focused on moving in with each other right now, but I was hoping you would like this.” Her green eyes sparkled as she pushed her hair behind her ear.

“Of course I like it.” Kara tightened her hold on her. “Lena, I love it.’

“It may not look like much and it’s not some new creation from Tiffany or Neil Lane, but it holds a lot of significance…”

Kara cut her off with a kiss, her fingers gently stroking Lena’s cheeks as she held her close. “It’s perfect. I’d be happy if you gave me a piece of string you tied together. Anything from you is perfect.”

Lena smiled one of those sad smiles that made Kara’s heart hurt. “I don’t know if I would go that far. But there is something about this ring you should know.” She slowly slipped it on to Kara’s outstretched ring finger, sending a soft tingle down Kara’s spine. “It’s enchanted. Whenever you’re around a dark force, supernatural or otherwise, it’ll let me know even when I’m not with you.”

The diamond on Kara’s finger flickered in the light as she moved it. “Oh wow.”

Lena bit her lip. “I realize that sounds a bit controlling, but it’s just a way I can look out for you on your ghost hunting trips even when I’m not there.”

“Oh yeah, no I get it. I mean, I guess I can’t keep expecting you to join me on every assignment Cat puts me on.”

Cold fingers pushed Kara’s blonde hair out of her face. “You know I would love nothing more than that. But with Winn and James joining you more frequently now and this becoming your main topic to report on, it’s becoming less feasible for me to join you. That and I unfortunately do have a company to run and investors to answer to.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Kara grumbled, leaning her head on Lena's shoulders and pressing her nose into her neck. “I just miss how it used to be. Just you and me and no one else.”

“Me too, darling,” Lena pressed a kiss to Kara’s forehead and as she wrapped her arms around Kara. “I just want to make sure I can still keep you safe even when I’m not there.”

“Can’t let there be any more bigoted puritan ghosts or powerful misguided witches out there try to get their hands on me,” Kara joked, but she felt Lena tense underneath her. Despite Kara’s many reassurances, Lena still carried guilt from their trip to New England last fall. “I’ll be sure to wear it wherever I go, I promise.”

Lena relaxed at the promise. “Thank you. I don’t think you fully realize just what kind of magnet you seem to be for the paranormal sometimes.”

Kara laughed, looping her arms around Lena’s neck. “It brought me to you, didn’t it?”

Lena hummed, pressing her lips against Kara’s. “I suppose I can’t be too upset about that.”

~~~

“Come on, Alex,” Kara whined into the phone as she walked into the elevator of the Catco building. “You’ve hung out with Maggie every night this week. I have to be out of my apartment by next week and I still don’t have my kitchen or living room packed up yet.”

“I know, I know,” Alex sighed. “Maggie’s just leaving soon and I want to spend all the time I can with her.”

“Then bring her with you tonight,” Kara suggested. “We can make it like a packing party or something.”

Silence crackled through the line for several seconds. “But you hate Maggie.”

“I don’t hate her,” Kara rolled her eyes. “Am I that fond of her after she broke your heart and left town? Not really.”

“Kara…”

“But I’m willing to overlook that if that makes you happy.” The elevator door opened and Kara slipped between several men chattering and blocking the hallway. “I don’t want to miss out on having a sister just because of who she is dating.”

“We’re not dating.”

“Yeah, sure, whatever, and I didn’t have half a dozen donuts this morning. I don’t really care whatever you may be, but I do want to spend time with you. And I really need your help moving around some of my living room furniture. I’m really hoping I can get my security deposit back but that’s not gonna happen if I scratch the wood floors.”

“Hasn’t Lena been able to help at all?”

“Not really. L Corp is trying to get an office set up in Japan so she’s been having to work really odd hours lately. Like tonight she’s working till like midnight because she has all these video meetings with investors there.”

“But isn’t she like stupid rich? Can’t she just hire movers for you?”

“It’s the principle of it, Alex. Besides, I don’t like the idea of some strangers going through all my stuff.” Kara dropped her bag next to her desk, switching on the monitor as she plopped down. “So what do you say? Wanna bring your ex lover over and help your little sister pack? I’ll even bring pizza.”

“Oh God, you have to promise to not call Maggie that tonight or ever again.”

Kara sat up straighter and grinned. “Is that a yes?”

“Yeah sure, whatever, I’ll try to bring her tonight,” Alex sighed. “She has some work and meetings to do this afternoon so I’m not sure what time she’ll be free, but I can come over after work.”

“Thank you!!” Kara spun in her office chair. “You’re the best, Alex! I’ll be sure to get one with mushrooms and jalapenos on it just for you!”

“How kind,” Alex said dryly. “You still keep the spare key under the fire extinguisher, right?”

“Yep, the one down the hall,” Kara looked up and saw her tiny, blond boss, Cat Grant, staring daggers at her from her office. Her stomach dropped when she saw her crook one finger her way in a ‘come here’ motion. “Oh shoot, I gotta go. I’ll see you tonight!”

Kara hung up without waiting for Alex to reply. Scrambling to her feet, Kara hastily straightened out her shirt and brushed away any sandwich crumbs that may have lingered from lunch as she hastened her way to her bosses office, her thoughts tripping over themselves as she tried to think of just what may have put her boss in bad mood.

“You wanted to see me, Ms. Grant?” Kara asked once inside her office.

“Kiera, our user engagement has dropped thirty percent this past month.” Cat sat down in her desk chair, her elbows on her desk and her fingers steepling. “We haven’t had a video hit trending status in two weeks. And our subscriber growth has remained stagnant. And do you know why?”

Kara swallowed. Of course, she knew all of this. A main part of her job involved obsessing over these numbers, particularly on her own work. She studied the trends so she could work with them, enhance them even if she could. It was no surprise to her that her numbers were down. She hadn’t hit a million views on a video in almost two months and she had a new video just about every week. Her articles barely made it on the Twitter trending page anymore when it used to be that she had to turn off her notifications to save herself from a flood of them.

“I’ve been trying, Ms. Grant. I swear–”

A wave of the hand silenced her. “You know exactly why they’re down.”

Kara cringed. She did. Or at least she suspected. The decline noticeably coincided with the last video that Lena was in. And Lena hadn’t been in one of Kara’s video’s in two months.

“Ms. Grant, I can’t just drag my fiance into every single piece of work I do,” Kara sighed.

“And why not? You had no trouble doing just that in the beginning. Do you have any idea of the number of emails and DMs I get daily asking me what happened to their beloved Ghoul Gals? People are under the assumption that you’ve broken up.”

“We haven’t broken up!” Kara gasped, raising her hands in exasperation.

Her boss tilted her head. “I see you finally got a ring.”

A fierce blush gripped Kara’s neck and face as she fought the urge to shove her hand into her pocket. She was never good at talking about her personal life. It was one of the reasons why she and Lena had agreed that she should take a step back from Kara’s video in the first place. That and much of the press surrounding Lena quickly became associated with the supernatural rather than the scientific field she was involved in, which was problematic in a whole host of other ways.

“Lena was never an employee of Catco,” Kara said. “She was never paid or compensated for any of the work she did here so she’s allowed to decide just how much she wants to participate in my work. Besides, she’s busy running her own company. She’s been meeting with investors from Japan every evening this week. She doesn’t have the time anymore.”

“Then it’s on you to stop acting so dead on camera.”

Kara blinked. “What?”

Cat’s nostrils flared. “The reason your videos did so well in the beginning was because of your chemistry with Lena. She brought you to life. That was your dynamic; she was the cold serious one and you were the bubbly happy one. It’s one of the oldest tropes in the book: sun and moon, yin and yang, golden retriever and pit bull. Take your pick. Now with Winn and James, you’ve become nothing more than a background character.”

The blonde’s jaw dropped. “I…”

Cat leaned forward. “This isn’t a warning so much as it is a wake up call. Figure out how to fix this or figure out something else to do.”

Her stomach twisted and those donuts from earlier rolled in her gut. Her glasses began to fog and she quickly blinked to try to clear them. Her tongue felt like cement in her mouth, but she somehow managed to speak.

“Yes, Ms. Grant.” 

She slowly shuffled back to her desk in a haze and slumped in her chair. It was a good thing her sister knew where the spare key was because it sounded like it was about to be a long day in the office for her.

~~~

It was dark by the time Kara stumbled the hallway to her apartment. She had three pizzas now having ordered an extra one that she planned on stress eating later after Alex and Maggie had left. She wished she had called earlier to cancel, but her lease was ending too soon. Besides, maybe it will be good to have them around tonight. Nothing like their awkward sexual tension to make her forget about she was about to lose her job.

She heard movement in her apartment as she approached her door so she knew her sister had had no issue finding the key. Taking a deep breath, Kara did her best to mentally prepare herself for what may be on the other side of the door. Best case, Maggie and Alex would have already packed everything for her. Worst case, Maggie and Alex would be doing something entirely inappropriate on her kitchen counters. 

Fortunately for her, it wasn't the worst case scenario.

Unfortunately for her, it was so much worse.

"Oh my God," Kara gasped.

Her kitchen table, couch, and coffee table had been pushed against the wall.. The few boxes she had packed were now stacked up haphazardly in the corner with one near the top tipped over and a waterfall of q-tips and cotton balls poured down the pile of boxes. The center of her open concept apartment was now empty of furniture and her belongings, and in the middle of it stood her sister and Maggie. And someone else… slumped over and tied to a chair… unresponsive.

What the fudge?

“Kara!” Alex whipped her head, jumping at the sound of Kara’s voice. Her gaze snapped over to Maggie, then the slumped over man, then back to Kara. “I swear this isn’t what it looks like.”

With a hazy glance over her shoulder, Kara kicked the door closed behind her. “What it looks like is that you and your ex brought some guy who is unresponsive into my house!”

Alex winced. “Okay maybe, but I swear it’s more complicated than that.”

Dropping the pizza boxes on to the counter, Kara took a step closer and her jaw dropped. “Oh my God… is he dead??”

“Um,” Alex chewed her lip and flicked her eyes over to Maggie. “Sort of.”

“Sort of?” Kara choked. “What the actual heck does that mean?”

“We have a plan!” Alex said, gesturing towards Maggie, who throughout all of this, still stood tall and proud of herself as if she hadn’t done anything wrong.

It was then that Kara noticed the many lit candles around them, their flames flickering as the AC unit kicked on. Underneath them, a massive red pentagram covered her hardwood floor with a texture almost like paint. In the center sat the dead man tied to a chair. Around him, several dots of wax had dried to the floor, as if the candles had been lit in haste. 

“Oh my God,” Kara dropped to her knees to inspect the red pentagram. “Is this paint? That is so not allowed with my lease.”

Alex opened her mouth and then closed it. “Wait what?”

“You’re going to make me lose my security deposit!” Kara exclaimed, standing back up, spinning back to look at her furniture and the dim flickering shadows dancing across her floors. “And please tell me you didn’t drag my furniture across the floor. I really cannot afford to fix scratches in my wooden floor.”

Alex blinked. “What?”

“Oh, relax,” Maggie rolled her eyes. “We didn’t scratch your floors.”

“Great,” Kara narrowed her eyes. “So you just painted them then? That makes things so much better.”

“It’ll wash off,” Maggie waved her hand. “We can deal with that later. Right now, we need your help with this.”

“Oh right,” Kara crossed her arms over her chest, “the crime I unknowingly became an accessory in.” 

“Would you relax?” Maggie scoffed. “It’s just one quick ritual and he’ll be good as new.”

Kara choked. “Ritual?!”

“Yeah…” Alex rubbed the back of her neck as she bit her lip. “Maggie’s kind of a witch.”

A shudder shot through Kara as she thought back to her and Lena’s trip to Blithe Grove and their encounter with a witch then. Sure, it may have ended well, but Kara could have sworn that on stormy nights, she still saw the lightening arch through the sky into the outline of that scary witch she had seen then. That experience alone had been enough for Kara to cross off any potential cases involving witches ever again.

“A witch…” Kara breathed.

“And a pretty darn good one I might add,” Maggie flipped her hair. “It was why Edge hired me. He needed me to track down someone via magic for him.”

“Okay,” Kara’s eyes flitted over to the slumped corpse of him. “Then why did you kill him?”

Maggie at least had the decency to look embarrassed because of that. “I didn’t exactly mean to.” She chewed the inside of her lip. “I went to him today to tell him I had finished the job for him, and he insisted we celebrate with a drink. He made a pass at me, but I refused. He got aggressive, and I tried to defend myself with magic but I guess I pushed too hard. He fell, hit his head on the corner of his desk, and then just didn’t get back up.”

“Huh.” Kara looked over Edge again. She knew he was a sleaze from what Lena had told her so the story at least sounded possible. “But why didn’t you just leave him there and claim self defense?”

“Oh yeah, I’m sure everyone is going to listen to a nobody woman of color,” Maggie gritted her teeth and ran her fingers through her hair. “Not to mention, I can’t exactly explain the entire story to the police especially given the magic involved.”

“Still, this feels a bit extreme.” Kara twisted her fingers around her wrist. “Bringing someone back from the dead isn’t really recommended.”

“How would you know?” Alex asked, arching an eyebrow.

Kara’s neck turned red. “Well, you know, I am a ghost hunter person. You’d think that there would be a lot less ghosts out there if it were that easy to bring someone back”

Maggie snorted. “Don’t tell me you’ve actually come across anything paranormal in those videos.”

Kara barked out a loud laughing snort that had her choking on her spit and wheezing too hard to answer.

“Look,” Alex said. “We just need your help. Maggie said these things typically go better when there is a party of three even if two of us are non magical. Three is just the ideal number. Are you in?”

Kara blinked at her. “You’re saying that like I have a choice.”

“Look it’s just one simple resurrection,” Maggie cut in. “It’ll be over in like ten minutes and then we can help you pack. You scratch my back, I scratch yours. Okay?”

“Yeah sure okay, because everyone knows the favor of raising the dead in one's living room is the same as packing up a few boxes.” Kara threw her hands up in defeat and slumped against the counter. “God, I can’t believe I brought pizza to a freaking resurrection.”

“Oh, just get over here and take our hands,” Maggie snapped.

Abandoning the stack of pizzas on the counter, Kara took the hands of her sister and Maggie as they all stood around the red pentagram with Edge’s body in the middle of it secured to one of Kara’s dining chairs. Kara did her best to not think about how someone off Marketplace had already agreed to buy her dining table and chairs, and was coming tomorrow to pick it up because now did not feel like the best time to bring it up. Closing her eyes, Maggie’s mouth twisted in an unnatural way as guttural foreign words poured out. The flames around them sparked to a foot tall as the red pentagram in the middle of them glowed. Darting her eyes over to Alex, her sister only offered her hand a slight squeeze of reassurance. 

“Alright, we can sit down, but keep our hands together,” Maggie ordered. 

More foreign words flowed from her mouth, and a book floated over to her, opening itself and hovering over Maggie. When Maggie opened her eyes, they glowed a bright white and soon her book glowed a similar color. Shrinking back, Kara turned to look anywhere else, but that only made things worse. The pentagram continued to glow and warp in front of her, and suddenly Edge’s body even began to twitch. White foam bubbled from his mouth and dribbled down his chin, emitting a pungent sulfuric smell. Kara gagged and struggled to hold her breath. Thoughts of Lena passed through her mind, and Kara wished desperately she was here with them. This was the first supernatural encounter she had ever had to face without her fiance and she felt absolutely naked without her.

Suddenly the candle flames turned to bonfires, shooting flames into the air. Edge’s body lurched, his head throwing back with an unearthly scream. Kara wanted to close her eyes but couldn’t. Then suddenly, a dark haze rose from the red glowing pentagram and rushed for Edge’s body in the center. A blast of air billowed across the room, snuffing out the tall flames in a few seconds. Only a few lamps remained on to illuminate the room. Holding their breath, all three women looked at the still body in front of them.

“Mr. Edge?” Maggie asked, her voice breaking. “Is that you?”

Slowly, Edge’s head lulled forward towards Maggie’s voice. A smile stretched across his face, but when he opened his eyes, a void looked back at them.

“Not quite. I am Abaddon, the destroyer.” Edge’s body snarled with pitch black eyes. “I will tear you limb from limb before feasting on your entrails.”

“Oh shit, oh shit,” Maggie scrambled to her feet and began frantically flipping through her magic book.

A deep laugh boomed through as the ropes around Edge began to fray and snap one by one. “I can taste your fear in the air. It’s been so long since I’ve had the meat of a young woman, let alone three of them.” Around him, the pillows and books of the living room began to rise and spin. A wind picked up despite the enclosed space, whipping their hair around, casting grotesque shadows against the flickering lamplight. The kettle on the stove boiled over and wailed into the night.

Alex stepped forward, her gun drawn and aimed right at his chest. “No one is feasting on anyone today, not if I have anything to say about it.”

“Foolish mortal.” The demon waved his finger and the gun flew from Alex’s hand, slamming into the window and leaving a long spindly crack in the glass.

“Oh God,” Kara groaned. 

“God has forsaken you!” He cackled.

“And so has my security deposit.” Kara sighed, noticing the scratches in the hardwood floors appearing as the chair jumped and dragged across it.

“That's not exactly a concern at the moment, Kara!” Alex snapped. 

The objects whirling around the room came to halt mid air and the roaring wind ceased. The pitch black eyes of Edge whipped towards Kara, his pale skin growing somehow paler as he took her in.

“Are you… are you Kara Danvers?” he asked in a small voice lacking the throating timbre of before.

“Uh, yeah. That’s me,” Kara held up her hand and awkwardly waved. “Hi.”

Those black eyes grew impossibly wide. “ Shit .”

With a crashing thud, everything fell to the floor. A dish shattered against the counter and a remote clunked against Maggie’s head. Suddenly all the lights turned on once again and a pillar of black smoke rushed out of Edge’s face like an actual bat out of hell, leaving his lifeless head slumped over his shoulders once again. 

“What…What just happened?” Alex asked, slowly moving to pick her gun up off the floor.

“I have no clue,” Maggie said, her hands still frozen over her book as her eyes darted around the room. “Abaddon is a pretty powerful demon. I mean like one of the top ones. Legendary even. He had no reason to just leave like that.”

Suddenly, the lights flickered again and the pentagram on the floor lit up again. The corpse jerked and his head snapped back with a sickening crack. When Edge’s head looked forward, an unnaturally wide grin stretched across his face with once again completely black eyes. 

“I am Gozrad, the bringer of thirst and famine,” he rasped. “I will remove the bones from your body and grind them with my teeth before shoving the splinters of them under your fingernails. I will…” his gaze fell on the blonde, “wait… are you Kara Danvers?”

“Yeah, hi, that’s me,” Kara waved somewhat more confidently this time.

“Nope, nope, nope. I was never here.” And Edge’s head once again whipped back with another plume of smoke abandoning his corpse right as the lights turned back on once again.

“Okay,” Maggie snapped her book shut and whirled towards Kara, “what the hell?” 

“Kara, do you somehow know these people?” Alex asked.

“Demons.” Maggie corrected. “Not people - demons! Creatures from hell! And they’re scared of you? The blonde white girl who still sleeps with a stuffed animal half the time?”

Kara gasped at Alex. “You told her about Mr. Snuffles?”

Alex’s left eye twitched. “So not the point right now!”

The room started to shake and the crack on the window spread with a crackle. As the lights flickered, another dark force channeled its way into Edge’s body, taking up residency by further battering his corpse and breaking bones. When those black eyes looked at them, Kara couldn’t help but groan.

“Careless humans! You’ve provided the perfect vessel to bring upon your own destruction! It tis I, Asmodeus and I–”

“Save it, demon man,” Maggie said with a roll of her eyes. “This is apparently freaking Kara Danvers.”

Maggie had barely finished talking before the lights turned on, and Edge’s body was still once again.

“You’d think they could at least clean up a little bit before they go,” Kara sighed, eyeing the new scratches in her hardwood floor. “I don’t think I have enough Pledge to get that out.”

Maggie gritted her teeth and she fisted her hair. “Kara, what the hell is even happening? Do you have any idea how hard it is to scare a demon? Let alone three of them in less than five minutes??”

“Yeah about that…” Kara started but her pocket began to buzz. She took out her phone to see Lena’s name. “Oh one sec.”

“No! We need to talk about this!” Maggie cried, Alex just barely grabbing her before she lunged for Kara’s phone.

“Hey, babe, what’s up?” Kara said, dancing out of reach for Maggie’s wildly grasping hands. 

“Kara!” Lena breathed. “Are you okay?”

“Me? Oh yeah, never better! How are you? How’s that meeting with those Japanese investors going?”

“Kara,” Lena sighed, “is there any reason why during that meeting I received not one or two, but three notifications that you were in the presence of dark supernatural forces?”

“Oh… that.” Kara bit her lip. “Well, um, you remember Maggie right? Alex’s ex fiance?”

“Please get to the point, Kara.” 

“Right. Well, she’s kind of a witch. Guess I have actually met one before Blithe Grove. Well, she accidentally killed Morgan Edge earlier today. And she tried bringing him back to life in my apartment. Rude, I know especially without asking. But I guess she did it wrong or something because now all these demons keep showing up in my living room–”

The dull beeps of an ended call interrupted Kara’s ramble. Frowning, she looked at her phone before swiftly redialing, but her call went straight to voicemail.

“You cannot go telling people I’m a witch!” Maggie seethed. “Do you have any idea how much trouble you’d be in if my council found out you told someone?”

“You literally summoned like three demons in my living room- I feel like I get a pass.”

“Look–” 

Suddenly, black shadow appeared and unfolded in front of Kara, and soon Lena stood in front of her, her skin far paler than Kara had seen in it in a while. In her hand held a crumbled mess of plastic and glass that Kara could only assume used to be her phone.

“What the hell? ” Maggie jumped back, her eyes darting back and forth from Lena to Alex. “How did you do that? Are you a witch too?”

With a scoff and sneer, Lena rolled her eyes.

“Uh, not exactly,” Kara said slowly, eyeing her girlfriend.

Just then, the lights begin to strobe and a dark smoke fell across the room, settling into Edge’s body, jerking his spine and head up with a nasty creak. A smile stretched so wide that it tore his skin so blood dripped out of his mouth adorns his face. His head tilted unnaturally to the side, lumpy bones protruding from his neck as his black eyes raked over the women in front of him. A high pitched hum escapes his mouth as his gaze lingered on Kara, but Lena quickly stepped in front of her, her teeth now sharp and bared.

“Get out,” Lena snarled in a deep vibrato, her eyes flashing black.

Recognition then fear flashes across his face before suddenly the body jerked and black smoke plumed out of his mouth, leaving the body slack and broken behind.

“Shit,” Maggie blinked and took several steps back, pulling Alex with her. “You’re a demon? Alex, your sister’s engaged to an actual demon ?”

“And Kara’s sister holds a previous engagement to a foolish witch,” Lena’s lip curled back as she seethed and took a step forward. “What kind of idiot creates a pentagram without locking it? You just made a front door for any demon to use. You’re lucky to be alive!”

Maggie’s mouth snapped shut, and her nostrils flared. “Well excuse me for not having the same sort of experience working with dark magic as some people do.”

“That’s precisely why you shouldn’t be messing with it!” Lena hissed through bared teeth. “You cannot bring souls back after they pass from this life to the next - it’s a basic principle of magic! Even if you had been successful in creating the pentagram with the proper fail safes, the Edge you brought back would be nothing but a deranged fragment of what he once was. You put Kara at risk for nothing but selfish arrogance!”

Maggie’s fists clenched. “Now look here demon freak–”

A sharp crack and the flicker of the lights cut her off. 

“Oh hell, who is it now?” Lena cried, whipping her head back towards him.

“Now is that any way to treat your big bro?” Edge drawled, his lips curling back in a grin to expose his now broken jagged teeth.

Lena’s back went rigid and her eyes flashed. “Lex.” Slowly, she squared her shoulders and lifted up her chin. “What are you doing here?”

“Well it’s not everyday that a prime vessel such as this just opens up.” The black eyes flicked over towards Kara peeking out from behind Lena. “Or I get a chance to meet the human you’ve placed off limits.”

Lena’s own eyes turned black and her lips pulled back as she spat out a snarl, stepping further in front of Kara, blocking her from his view. “Don’t even look at her.”

Lex threw back Edge’s head with a cackle. “Wow, you do have it bad, sis. I can’t wait for the wedding.” His smile grew as he saw Lena’s eyes widen. “Oh yeah, I know all about it. You’re not as good at hiding these things from me as you think. We are invited, right? I cannot wait to see what mom has to say about your new little blonde toy. When do I get a turn?”

Kara blinked, and suddenly Lena had her hand around Edge’s throat, choking off his laugh as her now talon nail dug into the flesh of his neck as she lifted him into the air. Blood leaked down her wrist, saturating the white sleeve of her blouse. Her figure had elongated so she now held Lex’s vessel several feet in the air, toeing the line between her demon and human form, horns poking through her tight business hair bun and fangs piercing her ruby red lips. When she spoke, a deep vibrato rang through her normally alto voice.

“Mention her to Mother, and I will end you.”

Lex coughed up blood, but he still managed a smirk. “Careful, sis, your demon is showing.”

Baring her pointed teeth, Lena flicked her wrist and hurled him into the tv console table, crumbling it beneath him. From all the different vile possessions Edge’s body had gone through, his body now twisted in ways one would expect from a car crash victim. Snapping the neck back in place with a disjointed arm, Lex sat up in the mangled corpse, displaying the many different pieces of glass and wood gouged into his chest and back that slowly oozed blood. The sight combined with the smell had Kara’s stomach turning.

Glass and wood crackled beneath Lena’s heels as she approached him, her body now back in the human form Kara was used to, but her normally green eyes remained black and white teeth sharp. Standing over him, she crossed her arms and glared down at him with enough hatred in her eyes that Kara felt her skin crawl. While Lena rarely spoke about her family, she had made it clear that she had never wanted anything to do with them again. After witnessing this interaction, Kara wondered if anyone would live through the next Luthor family encounter.

“You had your fun, Lex,” Lena growled. “Now leave.”

Lex rolled the broken neck towards Lena with an awful glint in his eye. “So soon? But I’ve barely gotten to meet your girl. There are just so many stories I’m dying to tell her. Remember all the fun we used to have? The Spanish Inquisition for starters. Or the Crusades! Oh, or your vigilante era?” His black eyes darted back towards Kara. “You should have seen what she did to Jack the Ripper - or really Jack the Ripped-Up-Into-Pieces-and-Scattered-Across-the-Streets-of-London when she was done with him.”

He cackled at Kara’s horrified expression. Bending down, Lena grabbed his jaw and forced him to look at her.

“That’s enough, Lex. Go home. Now.”

The humor left his face as glared at his sister. “She doesn’t even know who you are, does she? Why you’re one of the most powerful ones in our family or what you’ve done.”

“She knows who I am now,” Lena replied coolly. “That’s all that matters.”

“Bullshit!” Lex spat blood on Lena’s white dress shirt, staining the collar and the front. “You’re the daughter of a monster and that’s all you’ll ever be!”

“Goodbye, Lex.”

Holding his jaw still firmly with one hand, Lena lifted her other hand to cover his forehead with one thumb over one of his eyes and her pinky over the other. Edge’s jaw dropped open with an ear piercing scream and a black smoke rushed out of his mouth. The pentagram around them glowed white hot before shattering. The earth rumbled around them, the destruction triggering a mini earthquake that rattled plates and picture frames off the shelves. The electricity  blinked. But within just a few seconds, it was all over. 

Lena slowly stood up, her shoulders still stiff under her jacket 

“Lena?” Kara whispered as she slowly stepped forward.

Her girlfriend still didn’t turn around. “I’ll take care of Morgan Edge’s body. Make it look like an accident. Maggie won’t have to worry about getting in trouble. Nor Alex.”

“Lena…”

“And I’ll clean up the apartment.” Lena took a shuddering breath, but her frame only seemed to tighten as her voice remained disturbingly neutral. “Alex, Maggie, you’re welcome to stay at mine for the night. Kara has the key. It will look as if nothing happened here by the morning.”

“Lena, please, look at me.” Kara rested her hand on Lena’s shoulder. It broke Kara’s heart how Lena flinched away.

With a ragged breath, Lena tightened her arms around her as she stepped further away. It was then that Kara realized she was shaking. “Kara, please.” Lena winced as her voice broke. “I need you to leave. I’m barely in control right now. I don’t want to hurt you.”

As much as it hurt Kara to do so, she did as Lena asked and pulled herself away. Grabbing her eyes, she walked out the front door with one last look at her partner who still stood with her back to her shaking. Alex placed her hands on Kara’s shoulders and led her out of the apartment to their car below. After putting Kara in the passenger side and buckling her, Alex shifted the car into drive and began the trip across town to her apartment. 

“So Lena Luthor is like THE Lena Luthor.” Maggie heaved out a deep sigh from the back seat. “Damn.”

“Wait, you’ve heard of her?” Alex asked.

“Yeah,” Maggie scoffed. “She’s basically the princess of hell. Everyone’s heard of her. And your little sister is marrying her.”

“She’s not like that,” Kara mumbled.

Maggie snorted. “Yeah, right. All those demons left as soon as they saw her because she’s just so nice. Definitely didn’t have anything to do with her reputation or anything.”

“I said she’s not like that!” Kara snapped, glaring at Maggie through the rearview mirror.

“Kara,” Alex said softly next to her. “You saw her tonight. We all did. She was kind of terrifying.”

“She was protecting us.” Kara clenched her jaw. “We wouldn’t be here without her.”

“I know, I know,” Alex said, placing her hand on Kara’s thigh. “I just think you may want to take some time to think about this. It’s a lot to take in. I mean, I’m sure you’ve known for a while, but it’s different seeing it in person after hearing it. She’s quite literally a monster.”

 Kara shoved Alex’s hand aside. “She’s a hero. She’s done nothing but protect me for the past three years, and I’ll be damned if anyone says otherwise.”

“Kara-”

“I know who she is, Alex, and I love her! So just shut up and drive!”

Alex and Maggie thankfully listened to her and didn’t speak to her for the rest of the drive. Upon reaching Alex’s apartment, Kara stalked over to the guest room and slammed the door behind her without another word.

~~~~

Weak rays of sunlight blinked through the crowds by the time Kara made it to Lena’s apartment in the morning. She hadn’t slept the previous night. Instead, she paced back and forth the foot of her bed most of the night, her fingers spinning the engagement ring on her finger as her mind flickered through everything that had happened the night before and the way Lena had looked at her. Was she okay? Did she need someone to talk to? To comfort her? All of her texts and phone calls to her had gone unanswered, so showing up at her apartment seemed like the next logical choice.

But of course, Lena wasn’t there. In fact, the entire apartment looked as if no one had been in it since the night two nights ago where Kara laid her head on Lena’s lap and swiped through Zillow listings together. How she wished they could be having that kind of boring mediocre night again tonight and every other night for the rest of their lives.

After calling in sick to work, Kara spent the rest of her day on Lena’s couch snuggled under a rotating pile of blankets that smelled the most like her fiance. Last night had scared her and it was with the ever growing horror that she realized that she had never had a supernatural encounter where Lena wasn’t there by her side during it and holding her after it. Every encounter she ever had with a nefarious paranormal creature had left her feeling cold deep inside her bones, and without Lena to warm her up again, it just lingered, festering further bouts of anxiety and depression that not even a marathon of Golden Girls could warm. 

By the next morning when Lena still hadn’t returned, Kara called Jess, Lena’s assistance.

“I’m sorry, Ms. Danvers, but Ms. Luthor’s away dealing with a family emergency.”

“But doesn’t she have an emergency line?” Kara pleaded. “Can’t you patch me through?”

“I’m sorry, but she didn’t have one set up for this time. All calls are set to go to her acting CEO, Ms. Arias, throughout the time of her absence.”

“Okay fine.” Kara pinched the bridge of her nose and let out a deep sigh as she flopped against the back of the couch. “Did she give you give you any idea of when she would be back.”

Jess was silent. “I thought you would be the one that would know that, Ms. Danvers.”

Kara’s heart lurched into her chest. She tried to clear it, but only tears formed instead. “Gotcha,” she whispered. “I’ll call you if I hear anything. Thanks, Jess.”

She hung up before Jess could respond. 

Ms. Grant had told her that Lena had brought Kara to life. Now, without her, Kara never felt more dead.

~~~

Around 2 am, Kara noticed something moving in Lena’s apartment that wasn’t the television screen. It was Lena. Even though her face was paler and her eyes darker than the last time she saw her, it was her Lena, regardless. Kara’s eyes blinked rapidly and her fingers pinched her thigh to tell herself it wasn’t a dream.

“You’re awake,” Lena whispered softly. “You should be asleep.”

“I was worried about you,” Kara slurred as she sat up and stretched before turning off the tv.. “How are you?”

Lena exhaled out her nose but a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “It always amazes me how you never seem to think about yourself, you know. You literally encountered several powerful demons with your sister just a few nights ago and you still want to know how I’m doing.”

“Because I care,” Kara frowned, sitting up. “You were gone for almost two full days.”

Lena blinked. “Two days? Has it really been that long?” She pulled out her phone from her pocket that suddenly seemed to come alive with text messages and other notifications. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry Kara. I didn’t think it had been long. Time moves differently there.”

Kara cocked her head. “Where is there?”

Lena chewed her lip. “It’s…. another dimension. Of sorts. Some humans may call it hell but it’s a bit more complicated than that.”

“Hell….” Kara repeated, her brain still running through as many anxious thoughts as possible. “What were you doing there?”

Lena crossed her arms. “It’s where my mother currently resides. After that encounter with Lex, I wanted to make sure she was still where I left her.”

“Where you left her…” Kara rubbed her face with her hand. 

Lena’s nostrils flared as her lips pursed. “It’s not quite that simple.”

“Then tell me, Lena, please.”

“Kara,” Lena’s chest heaved in a deep sigh that loosened her arms, but she remained standing. “I’m not sure if I can explain it to you. It’s just a very complicated situation.”

“But I want to know,” Kara leaned forward, holding the blanket she had over her tighter to her chest, “I want to understand.”

“But I don’t know if you can,” Lena whispered, her shoulders drooping. “I don’t know how much a human and demon can really do this, Kara.”

Kara’s lungs dropped to the floor and she forgot how to breathe for several moments. Surely she heard wrong. Her fingers gripped the blanket tighter, the ring on her finger becoming extra pronounced between her fist’s tight grip. “What are you saying?”

Lena let out a pained sigh as she dropped down on the chair furthest away from Kara.

“I’m saying that you almost died two nights ago,” Lena’s voice broke. “Died. And I wouldn’t have been able to stop it.”

“But you did.”

“Only because I got there before my brother did. Kara,” her gaze leveled with hers, “he would have killed you if I hadn't been there. He would have torn you apart and I wouldn’t have been able to stop him if I hadn’t been there.”

Kara licked her now very dry lips. “But you were.”

“But what if I wasn’t? Kara, you go on so many dangerous excursions to some highly active paranormal spaces that demons and malicious spirits hang out in. I don’t think you realize just how many times I’ve saved you from suffering or death. And I can’t keep doing that - it’s not feasible or healthy for our relationship. It’s not fair to me, but it’s especially not fair to you. You deserve a life that doesn’t have nearly as much supernatural coloring to it.”

While Kara’s thoughts may have been going too fast for her to understand them, her heart rate had slowed to the point where she was almost sure her heart had skipped a beat. “What are you saying?”

Lena’s face crumbled as she ducked her head behind her hands and struggled to speak. “I’m saying that I think it’s unfair you’re dating a demon. That it’s putting you at too much risk. That you deserve to be happy with someone who doesn’t bring so many threats of harm upon your life.”

That was when Kara’s thought’s finally ceased. The static of constant chaotic anxious thoughts in her head ceased to nothing, not even a whimper. She sat frozen on the couch, her fingers still tangled in the soft blanket that she had spent the past two days inhaling for comfort. Out of everything that she had thought could happen, this never crossed her mind. And now she couldn’t even think of what to say, but somehow, words still fell out of her mouth.

“You know,” Kara barely managed to whisper. “I was kind of glad when you told me you were a demon.”

Lena’s head snapped up.

“Everyone I love just seems to die.” Kara picked at the thread on her sweater sleeve. “My parents, my aunts and uncles. Basically everyone in my family, except Clark, but he’s like hours away and I barely even see him. Heck, even the last guy I dated, Mike, died. I know it’s none of their fault and it’s just life, but after the like fifth death, the only common factor seems to be me. It just makes me feel unlovable.” Kara’s voice broke, but she swallowed down the sob threatening to escape. “Any time I so much as have an inkling of a crush on anyone, I find myself wondering how they’re going to die and what I’m going to do to accidentally cause it. So I try to put these walls up. Keeping people close enough where I can still love them, but always keeping it toned down. But then with you… I suddenly didn’t have to worry about that.”

“Kara…” Lena whispered.

“I know, I know, you’re a demon and it’s complicated, but my feelings for you are simple. You make me feel safe. You make me feel loved. You make me have hope.” Kara wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “My life has just been a mess of trauma and abandonment, and I always try to hide it with smiles and quirks because everyone has always told me that even though I was stuck in storm clouds now, the sun would come back out soon. But you were the first person to give me an umbrella.”

Lena leaned forward, her cool finger wiping away the tear on Kara’s cheek. With a shuddering breath, Kara closed her eyes and fought against the urge to lean into her touch.

“I know I’m not exciting or smart or bring much in general to this relationship, but I really really don’t want to lose you.”

“Hey, look at me,” cool hands cupped the sides of Kara’s face as she slowly opened her eyes to see glimmering green ones staring back at her. “You are the most exciting, smartest, kindest, and most wonderful person I’ve ever met. I love you, Kara. I love you so much. But I couldn’t bear it if something were to happen to you. Especially if it were because you are with me.”

“Nothing’s ever happened to me because you are with me though.”

“But what if I wasn’t? Kara, you don’t understand just what sort of powerful forces you’ve encountered but have been oblivious to on your paranormal investigations. New Orleans, Charleston, old battlefield grounds, abandoned asylums: they are beacons for demonic and other evil beings - that’s where they get their power from. I thought I could protect you from it, but that I can’t be around you forever. You deserve to still have your own independence, your own life, without me.”

“But I want you in my life,” Kara whispered. 

“I want you in my life too.” Lena’s thumb stroked Kara’s cheeks. “But I promised you a long time ago that I would never control you. That you’d always still be your own person. That you’d be free. And lately I feel like I’ve done nothing but slowly take away more of that freedom.”

“How?” Kara frowned. “Because we’re moving in together?”

“Yes,” Lena’s hands dropped from Kara’s face to drag through her hair. “I didn’t even ask you if you wanted to stay in your old apartment. And then I just gave you a list of apartments to choose from rather than let you look for one you wanted. And then the ring I gave you informs me of who you’re with and if they’re supernatural which is a huge invasion of privacy now that I think about it–”

“Lena, Lena,” Kara’s hand squeezed Lena’s thigh. “None of those things are stripping me of my freedom.”

Lena raised her eyebrows as she chewed her cheeks. “How are they not?”

“Because we’re in a relationship. Relationships are about compromise. Us choosing a place to move in together is a compromise of what we both want - neither one of us is asking the other to do something that they aren’t willing to give up themselves? You’re moving out of your apartment too, remember? And we both need to have input on where we’re going to be living next because we’ll both be living there. And this ring isn’t a violation of my privacy. You told me what it was and I consented, remember?”

Lena’s jaw worked as she bit her lip before she asked in a small voice. “Are you sure?”

“Absolutely.” Kara took Lena’s hands and squeezed them. “You’ve done nothing wrong.”

“That’s certainly not true,” Lena scoffed. “I apparently abandoned you for almost two days, which I am so sorry about. I never would have stayed gone that long if I realized. Not to mention destroying your apartment the other night. There isn’t an excuse for that.”

“I think saving me from your demon brother is a pretty good excuse,” Kara said with a half smile.

Lena’s frown curved into a sad smirk. “Yes, I suppose as far as meet-the-family moments go, that couldn’t have gone much worse.”

“It was memorable at least.” Kara gripped Lena’s hands tighter. “We can still have more memorable moments, right though?”

Lena’s throat bobbed. “Only if you’ll have me.”

Kara let out a wet chuckle. “Then it sounds like we’re stuck together forever.”

~~~

“Ah, Kiera,” Ms. Grant said as she pushed her glasses up into her hair. “I was wondering when you’d finally decide to show back up to work.”

“I’m really sorry for missing so many days of work, Ms. Grant,” Kara started but was stopped by her boss holding up a hand.

“Save it. I really do not care for whatever miserable excuse you have prepared, especially when it meant you did nothing to help us with the field day of coverage that came with business mogul Morgan Edge’s accidental death.” Her fingers typed something onto her laptop. “Although I suppose Ms. Luthor being unavailable for comment since it happened may have something to do with it?”

Kara gulped. “We were dealing with… things.”

Ms. Grant arched an eyebrow. “Oh? Interesting. Sounds like there could be an interesting story there.”

Digging her nails into her palms, Kara gave a nervous chuckle. “Not really.”

Her boss tilted her head. “Your blush says otherwise. But enough of that.” She leaned forward, steepling her fingers on her desk. “What have you decided? Have you been able to convince Ms. Luthor to join us once again?”

“Uh actually,” Kara kicked her foot against the ground as she took a steadying breath, “I think I’m ready to be done with the Ghoul Gals.”

For the first time, Kara thinks she may have actually stunned the Cat Grant into silence. “Excuse me?”

“You said it yourself, I’m more like a background character in the series now especially with James and Winn leading it now. I think they deserve the freedom to make it their own and I work on some different things.”

“Different things?” Ms. Grant repeated. “Like what?”

“Reporting on current events, for starters. Snapper said they needed another beat reporter to fill in with James taking a step back from it. You said my work was dead lately and I think it may have to do with focusing on so many dead things, so I think being present and in the field could really bring some life back into my work.”

“Interesting… But you're most known for your work on your vlogs. Having you shift into a serious reporting and political commentary role so suddenly would be jarring for our customers. No one would take you seriously.”

“That’s why I think it could be gradual. And I thought I could start a different series to help bridge the gap. One that would focus on redemption.”

“Redemption?” Ms. Grant scoffed. “Catco isn’t known for having a religious take on things. Maybe you should try Hallmark.”

“Maybe rehabilitation is a better word? I want to focus on people that have done great things even with a dark past. To show that there is a capacity for good in people, even some of the most dark and damaged.”

Ms. Grant smirked. “I’m assuming Ms. Luthor would the inspiration behind this?”

Kara’s ears felt hot. “What do you mean?”

“Oh please,” Ms. Grant rolled her eyes. “It’s no secret that she has a dark past regardless of how mysterious she may be. But still… I suppose it could be interesting.” She leaned back in her chair, tilting her head as she bounced her leg. “You have one week. Bring me a copy of what you’re thinking and I’ll decide from there.”

Kara almost squealed. “Thank you so much, Ms. Grant! I promise you won’t be disappointed.”

“Don’t get too excited, Kiera. I haven’t even said yes yet.” She pulled her glasses back down. “And I also still need you to get me an exclusive statement from LCorp about Edge’s death.”

“Of course, right away, Ms. Grant.” Kara said before running out of the office. 

It wasn’t until Kara had shut the door, that Ms. Grant finally let herself smile. On her computer screen, she had up Kara’s original job application with the comment she had added on the side: Beat Reporter. It was about time that girl had finally figured it out.