Present day…

With his eyes closed, V took a series of deep breaths. The air was heavy, tinged with the faint scent of antiseptic. The sounds of doors creaking open and slamming shut worked in concert with unfamiliar voices and muffled footsteps to disrupt his focus.

V would have loved to have those factors shoulder the blame. Exterior disruptions can be eradicated, but how does one quiet raw misery?

He had tried to enter his angel mode a countless number of times, each attempt as fruitless as the last.

Fragments of what he lost consumed every iota of his being.

He could hear Summer’s laughter, see Connor’s glare, smell his father’s aftershave. Even recalling Trevor’s heartfelt thanks yanked him deeper into despair.

V grimaced as a wave of pain shot through his left arm. Despite the discomfort, he embraced the feeling, distracting him from his thoughts for a time.

There was a knock at the door.

“Come in.”

A man entered, rail thin. He wore expensive looking sunglasses and his dirty blonde hair had that faux messy look. V had seen similar looking men walking the streets of Santa Cruz.

Tailing him was a heavy-set woman in a navy blue pantsuit. Her long brown hair was in a ponytail, but a few strands messily fell over her restless gaze.

“Victor,” the woman said. “I’m so sorry.” She wiped her eyes with a tissue.

The man tenderly rubbed her shoulder while presenting a forced smile. “Is your name even Victor? I’m still a bit confused about this whole thing.”

A glint of joy peaked through the layers of gray. Seeing April and Jake after all these years was a jolt to his system.

“I almost didn’t recognize you guys,” V said.

“You’re one to talk,” Jake said. He spoke in a relaxed, sing-song cadence, raising the pitch of his voice at the end of each statement. “How’s the arm?”

“Itchy.”

April approached V and grabbed his free hand. “When Melek told me what happened, I didn’t believe it at first. I can’t even begin to imagine what you’re going through.”

There was a time when V would have brushed her comment off with a quip. But feeling her genuine sorrow elicited his honesty. “I came back fully expecting to never see them again. It was tough, but I knew my mission was more important.” He gripped her hand. “Having them ripped away from me again is just… it’s just not fair.”

The room fell silent.

V had already spent days wallowing in his woes. He had to shift the tone. “Look at you guys.” V grinned. “Jake, the famous composer. And April, the real estate extraordinaire.”

“We wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you,” April said.

“It was a team effort.” He recalled his embarrassing behavior after they killed the demon at the sanatorium. “I was pretty immature back then. I’m sorry for how I acted.”

“What are you talking about? You guys saved my life.”

“I was a brat, thinking only about myself and—”

“Enough of that. You faced off against a demon, as a teenager no less, all for my sake. I will not accept your apology.”

“That means a lot. I think.”

“I’m happy I was able to help,” Jake said. “I know it’s just money, but—”

“It’s not just money,” V said. “You could have easily moved on with your life, but you chose to fight the good fight. I don’t know how much my opinion matters but, I’m proud of you guys.”

The door swung open. A man donning a zebra print jacket swaggered forward. He looked to be in his mid thirties, possibly younger if not for his unflattering buzz cut. A solid black eyepatch covered his right eye, accentuating his left eye’s emerald green color. “How you feeling?” he asked, calm and measured.

“I hate hospitals.”

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“Then we have something in common.”

“Melek!” April screamed. She ran to embrace him.

He warmly patted her back. “I know.”

Jake extended his hand. “I’ve heard a lot about you. I’m Jake.”

“Ah, the musical genius.” He shook Jake’s hand with April still clinging to his torso. “I doubt we would have gotten much done without your help.”

“I should have been here. I abandoned you guys.”

“There’s nothing you could have done,” V said.

“Either way, I’m not going anywhere.”

“All that destruction caused by one person,” April said. “La’el is pure evil.”

“That reminds me,” Melek said. “Victor, I need to hear details about the attack as soon as possible. I couldn’t get much out of you on the way here.”

“Of course.” V knew the importance of describing the attack—or more accurately, massacre—that occurred, but the wound was still too sore.

April released her hold on Melek. With his eye glued to V’s necklace, he approached the bed. “Arc—I mean Connor and Summer carried a pendant just like that.”

V clutched his amethyst. “I don’t remember much after La’el left, but I do recall your jacket. It’s quite unique.”

He smirked. “Based on how tightly you held on to that necklace of yours, I think it’s safe to say my jacket holds a similar place in my heart.”

V studied Melek’s striped jacket, wondering how anything could relate to the significance of his necklace. “You’re nothing like I thought you would be. When I heard about the existence of a demon slaying order, I never expected one of its members to be so friendly.”

Melek raised an eyebrow. “Demon slaying order?”

Did V make a mistake? Should he have kept the order’s existence a secret? If there was an error, he had to shift the topic of conversation. “I heard that you’re the best—”

“Hold on. Demon slaying order? Please, explain.”

He really doesn’t know. “I was told that there’s a group of demon slayers created to rid earth of hell’s escapees. I assumed you to be a member, but the look on your face is telling me otherwise. Unfortunate. We need all the help we can get.”

“Who told you this?”

“When I died, I met the overseer of earth… who also happens to be my mother.”

Jake removed his sunglasses. “What?”

“Isn’t La’el the overseer of hell?” April asked.

“Correct. La’el is my uncle. And Melek, you’ve already met my other uncle, Lucius.”

“I have?”

“The giant creature with the golden and white cloak? That’s Lucius, the overseer of Heaven.”

“Your family tree is ridiculous,” Jake blurted.

“The funny thing is, his dad was probably the most intimidating of them all,” Melek said.

“You may be right about that,” V said. “Strange how none of this information seems shocking to you.”

“I no longer have the luxury of being surprised by the supernatural.”

“I know the feeling.”

A revelation came to V. He was so swept up in seeing those familiar faces that he never questioned their knowledge of his return. “I was only in Covington for a day before La’el attacked us. When did any of you hear about me coming back?”

“Summer called all of us the night you got here,” Melek said. “She filled us in on your current situation.”

Jake chuckled. “She was talking a mile a minute. I had trouble understanding most of it.”

“Ditto,” April said.

“Summer called all of you at the same time?” V asked.

“She set up a conference call,” Melek said. “Her spirits were so high that I thought she was drunk.”

“There was a time when she was pretty much always like that,” April said. She stared at V’s cast, losing herself in it. “Loss changes people.”

Silence enveloped the room once more, her words lingering in the air.

“Victor,” Melek said. “Tell me more about La’el. I want to know as much as I can before I fuck him up.”

“I don’t doubt your skills, but his strength is on another level.”

“You sound defeated. That’s not the Victor I used to overhear your friends talking about.”

Being reminded of their bond was the last thing he needed. The truth was, La’el’s display of power instilled terror in him, which in turn led to guilt over his hesitancy. His inability to enter his angel mode only compounded his inner turmoil. “I’ll tell you everything I know, but I’m currently in no shape to help.”

“How long until your arm heals?” Jake asked.

“Screw my arm. If I can walk, I can fight.” V sighed deeply. “But at the moment, I can’t access my powers.”

“Oh yeah, your ‘angel mode’,” Melek said. “I remember Connor bringing that up a few years back.”

“To unlock my abilities, I have to enter a meditative state. I trained for years to reach the point where it only took one breath for me to power up.”

An image of Lance’s beat up Honda Civic struck him like a bolt of lightning.

How could he have left V so unceremoniously?

La’el’s appearance, and the subsequent killing of V’s loved ones, had almost erased how suspicious Lance’s departure truly was. He said they would meet again, but when?

“Guys,” V said. “A friend of mine came to Covington with me. A skinny guy with messy black hair, goes by Lance. He left once we reached the farmhouse.”

Their collective blank stares put a halt to his inquiry.

The disappearance of someone whom he owed so much to still loomed over him.

He thought back to one night in particular, in which the heavy burden of his responsibilities reached a fever pitch.

Five years ago, he collapsed onto his carpeted floor, placing a hand over his pounding heart. His sanity hanging by a frayed thread as he searched for anything to provide him solace.

Just as his panic attack reached its apex, he recalled one of Lance’s jokes:

“I was at the funeral of a friend of mine. His wife asked me if I could say a quick word. I stood at the front, cleared my throat, choked back tears, and said, 'Plethora'. ‘Thank you,’ his wife said as I sat back down. ‘That means a lot.’”

Refusing to give Lance the satisfaction, V had refrained from laughing when he first heard it. But something about that stupid joke tickled him at that moment, soothing his nerves.

“You came here with someone?” Melek asked.

“I did,” V said. “But he vanished without a trace.”

“Any clues?” Jake asked.

“He said we’ll meet again, then he sped off.”

“Rude,” April moaned.

V smiled. “Yeah, but I wouldn’t have made it this far without him.”

V went on to explain the history of his relationship with Lance, skipping over details regarding his peculiar personality, focusing only on how pivotal he was to the development of his powers.

“I could have used a Lance when I was starting out,” Melek said.

“I owe him a lot. And if it wasn’t for Summer, I doubt I would have gotten a grasp of my powers the first time around.”

“She tried to get me into meditation, but I just can’t do it. I have a low tolerance for things that bore me to death.”

“You don’t know what you’re missing,” Jake said. “If I didn’t have a means of grounding myself, Hollywood would have swallowed me whole.”

“If you don’t mind me asking,” V said. “How does a demon slayer even access their powers?”

Melek pointed to his temple. “Music is my trigger. Well, it’s really just one song in particular, but that’s about the gist of it.”

“What song?” Jake asked.

“Blood in the Streets”

“Mr. Ironman himself,” Jake said. “Easily the second best Wu-Tang member, behind Method Man, of course.”

“Oh please, Ghostface raps circles around Meth.”

V shot April a bemused glance. She responded with a shrug.

“I thought dancing got you ready to fight,” April said, poorly holding back a smile.

“Dancing?” V said. A visual of Melek prancing about almost made him burst into laughter.

Melek sighed. “That’s… part of it—”

“What’s wrong? You look a bit rattled,” V jabbed.

“You want a cast around your other arm?”

They shared a laugh, evaporating the dense cloud polluting the hospital room’s air.

With his mood momentarily lifted, V got an idea.

“I personally never considered this, but it’s possible to enter a meditative state while focusing on music.”

“No harm in trying it out,” Melek said. “Rage is the key to my strength. Without it, I’d be nothing more than a one-eyed sex symbol. My song of choice never fails to get me pissed off.”

“You’re a lot more talkative than the last time we met,” April said.

“You can blame my roommate for that. I think some of her personality rubbed off on me.”

“I like this version of you. Give her my thanks.”

“Absolutely not.”

“If I’m remembering correctly,” V said. “Rage also fueled Summer and Trevor’s powers. But anger won’t help me enter a meditative state.”

“Meditation is all about peace and love, right?” Melek said. “Are there any songs that make you feel that way?”

A taste of Heaven while living in Hell.

“Even better. I have an entire album to choose from.”