Eve's face is filled with fear as she slept, her dreams filled with digging holes in the middle of the desert. But it soon turned into a nightmare as she entered every Midnighter's home, woged, and kills them after waking them up to see the fear in their eyes. She walked inside the home of the last Midnighter she had to kill, Emilio. She walks into the bedroom and sees him sleeping peacefully, takes out one of her blades as she walks closer to him. Once she reaches the head of the bed she placed the blade against his throat causing him to wake up she smiles before slitting his throat.
Eve then shots up straight in bed and was breathing heavily. She looks around and sees that she is in the room that she shares with Emilio. She looks to her left and sees that he isn't there, the feeling of guilt and worry start to weigh heavily on her.
"Eve, are you alright?"
She turns her head in the direction of the voice she heard. When she sees that it is Emilio, her guilt and worry leave her conscience.
"Yeah, yeah, just had a bad dream." She answered.
"You've been getting a lot of those lately."
"Well, with Midnight about to become a tourist destination, I would be surprised if I didn't have them." She shot back.
"True. Do you want me to wait for you and we can go get breakfast?" He asked.
She shook her head as she got out of bed and walked to him."No, you can go ahead and I'll meet you there. Be sure to save me a seat."
"I will." He said before they kissed.
When the kiss ended Emilio left to join the others for breakfast, while Eve went into the bathroom to brush her teeth and take a shower.
After brushing her teeth and putting the toothbrush away, she felt a very sharp pain on her right temple and as she holds her head as the pain begins to get worse until she woges and then shatters the mirror as she gives a screaming roar, She soon retracts and looks at the mirror shards before her eyes glowed and fixed the mirror, but as she looks at the fixed mirror she notices her nose is bleeding.
She picks up a towel and cleans it, but when she looks down at the blood, she sees that the blood is black. Her eyes glow purple and the towel burns, and nothing is left behind. Eve then carries on with her morning by taking a shower, getting dressed, and meeting everyone for breakfast at Home Cookin'. When she arrives, she notices that her brother isn't there and assumes that he and Creek are busy with each other, and takes a seat next to Emilio.
Sometime later Manfred joins them and they continue on with their morning with eating their Breakfast. Eve thinks about what happened in her dream with deep thought, but it soon ends when she hears a whisper and looks around the room. Olivia and Emilio chat over breakfast, Joe and Chuy sit, deep in conversation at the opposite end of the table, while Fiji sits on Bobo's lap as she feeds him, and her brother across from her. She hears the whisper saying that she should kill them because it would only be a matter of time before they kill her. Eve then reaches down to her ankle to grab a blade she had hidden, but she stopped when she heard someone asks, "Eve, are you alright?"
She looks up and sees Emilio, who placed his hand on her shoulder and sit back up.
"Yeah, I-I'm fine. Thought I dropped something for a moment." She replied. They then carried on with their breakfast.
"Mmm. It's not nearly as good as Madonna's." Emilio commented on the food.
"I know." Olivia agreed. "I hope she's having fun on her cruise while we all starve."
"That's like a hockey puck." Emilio joked.
When breakfast ended, Olivia gets up from her seat and shuts the doors to the Midnighters room, "Hate to disrupt our tasty breakfast. But we have business to discuss."
Olivia goes back to her seat and pulls out her computer. Everyone gathers around her and her computer as she relays all the information she's dug up on the new owners and renovation.
"Dug up some information on the hotel renovation. Not sure why the cone of silence, but they didn't have a website until yesterday. And now it's some sort of spa retreat thing called-"
"Crystal Desert." Fiji interrupted Olivia with frustration, "That is my territory."
"Sorry, Fij. And get this. They're fully booked for the next month." She added.
"Why so suspicious?" Bobo asked.
"Have you met Olivia?" Fiji told him.
"Why would anyone wanna visit Midnight?" Joe asked. "I mean, it's not exactly a tourist destination."
"Because of him." Olivia pulls up a picture," Healer Kai. Has a huge following of the desperate and delusional."
"Well, if it quacks like a cult," Bobo commented
"How do you know he's not legit?" Emilio asked.
"He's wearing Lululemon." Olivia then noticed Manfred spacing out and asked, "You okay? You're quiet."
"Uh, I haven't been sleeping well." He answered, "But don't worry about the hotel. It'll be out of business in three months tops." They all look on in silence, wondering just what he means." Ghosts. Me and Eve saw them when they started the renovation."
"He's right. Haunted hotels aren't rated well on Yelp." Eve added.
"Yeah, well, ghosts or not, the eight of us are going to that grand opening," Olivia said to them.
Manfred pulled out his phone and said, "I gotta go to Dallas for a reading. Probably be back later today."
"Alright, I'll go pack the Kit, and we can leave," Eve said
"Act-Actually Eve, I-I'm gonna do this alone."
"Are you sure, Manny?" Eve questions, "The last time you went solo, you ended up getting possessed for almost 2 days, and I by the time I found you were chasing a deer and saying that you were a deer too," Everyone looks at Eve in silence, "The spirit had mental health issues when he was alive."
"I'll be fine Eve it's just a regular routine reading. And if anything goes wrong, I'll let you know. I promise."
Eve nods her head letting Manfred know that he can go and leave for Dallas. A while later and everyone heads home and prepares for the grand opening of the crystal desert. As Emilio and Eve walked back to their home, Eve questions why her brother wanted go to Dallas alone.
"It just doesn't make any sense." She said, "I don't understand why Manny wants to go solo, and he's even insisted that I join him to make sure he won't do anything crazy if he gets possessed."
"I don't know, but I know that he will tell you in time," Emilio said in a calm voice.
"I hope so." Eve turns to him," But in the meantime, let's go to the church, get our work done and then go home, relax while we can and prepare ourselves for tomorrow." She kisses him.
"That's a wonderful idea." He kisses her before they finish their walk to the church.
The next day, the Midnighters meet up as per Olivia's demands. They watch as Hipsters flock Crystal Desert for its grand opening.
"Hipsters. In Midnight." Fiji said with displeasement.
"And I thought Colconnar was bad." Olivia voiced her thought.
"Let's try and keep an open mind." Emilio reminded them. As they walk through the build, Emilio stops and asks,"Feel that?"
"The breeze, or the pretension?" Olivia asked.
"The energy. It's incredible." He commented.
Fiji wanders over to a table with crystals she picks up a jar with crystals in it and her eyes widen in shock at the price of one of them, "Are you kidding me?"
The others walk over to her to find out what is wrong.
"They're charging ten times what I do."
A woman approaches "You're in the crystal business, too?" she asked Fiji.
"No. Yep. What? I'm, uh" Fiji stumbles before Creek saves her.
"Fiji owns The Inquiring Mind. Hi, I'm Creek, by the way." She introduced herself before introducing the others, "Oh. This is Olivia, Eve, and the Reverend Emilio Sheehan."
"Please, call me Rev." Emilio said.
"Hello. I'm Patience Lucero." Patience introduced, " My husband Kai and I own the hotel. Y'all are very lucky. Midnight is a special place."
"Oh, yes, it is. You know, I'm just curious. Why here? Sleepy little town, no freeway exit. It seems like an odd place to buy a hotel." Olivia questioned Patience.
"To be honest, darling, before this we kind of functioned as a traveling circus. Going from town to town. Healing people. But it was exhausting. Not to mention draining on Kai. So we decided that we needed to find a spiritual center that we could call home." She explained
"Rent too high in Sedona?" Fiji quips as she turns the jar back over.
"Or Lilydale or Glastonbury?." Eve added.
"None of those places hold a candle to the energy in Midnight." Patience comments.
"You're not wrong there." Eve agreed with Patience.
Eve looks over to Manfred and sees that he is just mindlessly staring at the impluvium. As Emilio approaches him, she soons hears the voices again and they take over her thoughts. The next thing she sees is her brother lunging at Emilio and forces him, head first, into the impluvium. While others gasp in shock and try to help Emilio, Eve just stands there and drinks her struggles to be released but he's unable to free himself until he drowns in the shallow pool.
A bell rings in the distance, bringing Eve back to reality. Eve joins emilio, Creek, and others as the approach Manfred.
"Uh, I gotta get out of here. Work." Manfred said before leaving but Eve couldn't help but feel as if something was wrong.
The striking of a gong pulls her out of her thoughts. Everyone watches as two women usher in, who she can only assume is Patience's husband, Kai Lucero. He stops just shy of the impluvium before taking a step onto the water, literally walking on top of it.
As the crowd murmurs in awe, Fiji immediately dismisses it, "Hidden platform," she muses.
"Welcome. And thank you, all of you, for coming." Kai bids them. "Today's It's truly an astonishing day. This is the realization of a lifelong dream. A dream of of helping people."
Before he's able to continue. A paraplegic man in a wheelchair interrupts him,"Make me walk, please. My daughter's getting married next month. To walk her down the aisle, I'd give anything."
Patience stops him,"I'm sorry, sir. Um, we'd be happy to schedule you an appointment later - in the week, but-"
Kai stops her, "Patience, Patience, it's All right, it's all right. Enter the pool. No, out of your chair and on your own."
the man pulls up his legs and falls onto the cushions that line the impluvium. He drags himself into the pool of water. Kai cradles him and lays a hand over his leg.
"Do you believe?" Kai asks the man.
"Yes, I do." He answered.
Kai leans in close to the man, close as if going to kiss the man or to take in his breath. " All right, now get up" He commands the man. The man stands and is able to walk again. The crowd is overjoyed, though Olivia, Fiji, and Eve are not.
Night falls and the Midnighters head to the Cartoon Saloon to wind down. Bobo, the new owner, Joe and Eve, the new bartenders, man the bar, serving patrons their drinks.
"Hey, you're a natural." Bobo commented Joe.
"Heh, yeah. Bartending suits me. At least until I figure out what I wanna do for the next 1,000 years." Joe then looks over at Eve as she makes the drinks, "Your pretty good at this Eve."
"Thanks", She said, "I was a bartender at this club in L.A for almost five years."
A raucous drunk patron grabs a hold of a female patron. she tells him to stop, garnering the attention of Bobo. He calls out to Lem and nods towards the drunk and for him to handle it. He does so, grabbing the drunk by the collar and forces him out.
Eve joins Olivia and Chuy at there for her break and they began talking about Kai.
"Chuy, he's a con man." Olivia told him, " And that guy in the wheelchair, he's obviously a paid actor. It's the oldest trick in the book."
"So he's a con man. But maybe he's a harmless one." Chuy reasoned.
"Uh, no such thing." Olivia scoffs, "People don't just settle down in Midnight. They come here when they're running from someone or they got something to hide."
"What about you Eve what do you think about Kai?" He asked.
"Well, I've dealt with a lot of con men and so far Kai is acting like them but as he healed that guy in the wheelchair i couldn't help but feel something in the air as he did it." Eve answered.
A while later Eve sees her brother walk out of the bar she stops and thinks why he's been acting weird lately but with her break over she returns back to work. As Eve pours drinks she couldn't help but notice a familiar face was walking to her.
"So, what brings a holy man like yourself to a place like this?" Eve asked Emilio with humor.
"I heard that the Cartoon Saloon had a beautiful bartender and i had to see if it was true." He answered with a smiled. They reached over the bar and kissed.
"My shift ends in a few minutes, but in the meantime what's your poison?"
"I'll have water for now."
"Sure thing, but if you want to pay extra you can have holy water." Eve joked, which Emilio responded with a look," Come on, do you know how long it has been since a holy man has gone into a bar that i work at." She explained, "I wonder why Manny has been acting weird lately, I mean I can let him going to Dallas alone slide but him acting weird at the Crystal Desert. I just have this bad feeling that something is going on and he just won't tell anyone."
Emilio took Eve's hand in his and said, "He will tell us when he is ready, we just have to be patient.
"Maybe your right." She looks at the clock, "I just a few more minutes then we can leave, why don't you go hang with Olivia and Chuy, right over there, their talking about Kai."
"See you after your shift," Emilio says before kissing her and sitting down with Olivia and Chuy.
After her shift ended, Emilio and Eve returned to their home and went to bed. While Eve slept, Emilio went into her trailer and looked at a labrys before walking back to the house and into their bedroom with it. As she slept, Eve couldn't help but get this feeling that she was being watched, she opened her eyes and saw Emilio standing in front of her with the labrys in his hand.
"Your kind must be ridden of," Emilio said with disgust.
Before Eve could say anything the labrys had swung down and decapitated her. Eve then shots up straight in bed breathing heavily. Her hands went up and felt her neck. After a moment she calms down and looks to her right and sees Emilio asleep. She then looks out the window and it's still dark she then looks at her phone and sees that it is only 5:48, but she gets out of bed and goes to brush her teeth and take a shower.
After she brushed her teeth and put the toothbrush and toothpaste, she looks in the mirror and sees that black blood is coming from her nose. She cleans it off and destroys the towel before there was a knock on the door. Eve opens the door and sees Emilio.
"Good morning, Why are up this early ?" She asked.
"I could ask you the same thing." Emilio shot back.
"Touche. Well, I just woke up and didn't feel like going back to sleep, and everything is fine if your wondering."
"Good, I'm just worried about you."
"Don't be." She placed a hand on his cheek, "I know that you're worried but you shouldn't be. I am perfectly fine."
"Alright," He said, "Why don't we go get some breakfast together."
"I'm sorry, Emilio but I promised Fiji that I get some Caraway from my trailer for her." She lied, "Can I get a rain check?"
"Sure. See you later," He said before kissing her, "I love you."
"I love you too. Bye."
When Emilio left, Eve closed the door and got in the shower. Once she was finished and got dressed, she went to her trailer but it wasn't to get something for Fiji, it was to see if she can figure out what was wrong with her.
Eve opened once of her books and found a potion that can diagnose what was wrong with her. After following the instructions and ingredients all that was left was to had a drop of her blood into the mixture Eve pricked her finger and squeezed the blood into it. After a moment the mixture soon began to sizzle then it drips out of the bottom of the glass beaker and through the table, and the floor, and eventually into the earth.
To any person who saw this would wonder at what it meant, but to Eve it meant that something was dreadfully wrong with her.
"Well, that's not a good sign," She commented.
Eve then spent the rest of the day looking through her books to find anything that could help her but all she found were hexes, curses, transformation spells, potions, Hexenbiest beauty treatments, etc. Eve then realized that she would need to speak with her Grandfather about this and at that moment she knew that she was really desperate. But just as she was about to contact him, there was a knock at her door she then opened it, and it was Olivia and Manfred.
"What are you guys doing here?" She asked.
"Look i don't have time to explain but i need your help finding Creek." Manfred answered.
The three then got in the car and drove out of midnight to find Creek. They drove further in the night to Blanco Canyon in their search for Creek.
"Okay, tell me what happened again." Olivia said to Manfred.
"Uh, we got into a fight and she hitched a ride to Blanco Canyon. She was acting crazy." He explained.
"Doesn't sound like Creek." Olivia commented
"I'm telling you, she's not herself."
Manfred, Eve, and Olivia make it to the canyon, but Creek's not there.
"Creek? Where are you? Babe, are you okay?" Manfred calls out
"So she ran away to the middle of nowhere. Doesn't make any sense." Olivia said her thought aloud.
"Trust me. A lot of what Creek did tonight doesn't make sense. Wait." He then stops and ask, "Did you hear that?"
Olivia becomes suspicious and pulls out her knife, "What's going on? Where's Creek?"
"Ooh. Cute knife." Manfred taunts.
"It won't be so cute when it crushes your trachea." Olivia then tries to attack Manfred but before she could Eve knocked her out.
Eve looked down at the now uncoussis Olivia and said, "That's for tazzering me, Blondie." Before looking up at her brother.
"Well, Well, Well, nice to know that i'm not the only one with demonic cancer. So, nice of you to join me, sister dear." He said as he saw demon blood coming from her nose.
"Couldn't let you have all the fun, brother mine." Eve said before she wiped the blood off.
Manfred drags Olivia towards one of the grave he's previously dug and kicks her in. Creek's had enough time to get out of the bindings and escape. With Manfred's back to her, she whacks him in the head with a crowbar as he turns around and did the same to Eve, knocking them both out.
"I'm claustrophobic, you dick!" She yelled at him.
She gets in the car in the hopes of making her escape, though the keys are nowhere to be found. She then, reluctantly, gets out of the car and searches Manfred for the keys. However, he wakes up with the keys in hand, " Looking for these?" He said.
He then attacks Creek. He strangles her as she chokes out for him to get off of her. Lemuel arrives just in time to leech Manfred until his unconscious, though he immediately throws up black demonic blood.
"Thank you. Thank you." Creek coughed,"How how did you know?"
"Psychic connection." He answered, "Olivia's in danger."
"He got Olivia, too?"
"He got lucky." Olivia clarified as she walked towards them after she got out of the hole.
Suddenly there was a screaming roar and the all looked to see a woged and angry Eve. She ran at them to attack but Olivia shot at her with a very powerful taser. Eve collapsed to her knees as she convulsed before passing out on the ground.
Lem then picked up Manfred and Eve and placed them in the car. While Creek and Olivia drove back in the car, He ran back to warn Fiji to prepare.
Back at Midnight Pawn, Manfred and Eve are bound to chairs as Fiji attempts to cast out whatever is controlling Manfred. Bobo, Lemuel, Creek, Olivia, Joe, and Chuy watch as their friends suffer and bleeds black from their eyes, ears, nose, and mouth.
"Any fowl or evil force may now and forever return to its source." Fiji chanted but it didn't have any effect.
"Witch!" Eve and Manfred shouted as they tried to lunge at her.
"Uh, you don't know any other spells?" Bobo asked.
"There's not really a spell for this." She answered, "Uh, I wouldn't have even recognized it as demon residue if it wasn't for Colconnar. I could research. But that would take time."
"We don't have time. Look at them." Olivia said pointing at them
"Manfred. Manfred. If you're in there at all, I just want you to know that I love you." Creek said as she kneeled down to him.
"You have to kill me. Do it. Before I kill you. Please."Manfred said before shouting in a demonic voice," Kill me! Now! Now! Now!" causing Creek to jump back in terror.
"No one's killing anyone." Emilio announced as he walked in with Kai and Patience.
"What are they doing here?" Olivia questioned.
"I can help." Kai told them
"Don't tell me you drank the Kool-Aid." She said to Emilio
"I know you have doubts. But when I walked into Crystal Desert, I sensed it was a special place, that Kai was special. I just believed, and I think with an open mind, you can too. And I would do anything to ensure Eve will live." He explained.
"You have no idea what you're dealing with." Lemuel warned Kai
"And you have no idea what I've dealt with." He states, "Your friends are afflicted. And I'm afraid if I don't step in, they may die."He then turns to Eve and said, "Let me help you." as he approached her.
"No, Help Manny!" Eve demanded," He's human, I'm not. I can hold on a little longer, he can't."
Kai turned to the others and told them, "This is a good sign. She's fighting the evil."
He approaches Manfred and grabs his forehead."Be at peace. Be at peace, brother." He commands.
He approaches Manfred and grabs his forehead. He commands him to be a peace. Manfred grows still until he vomits up black, demonic residue. Kai leans in and kisses Manfred, drawing out the remnants of the demonic residue. Kai collapses on the floor and coughs up the demonic residue.
"Oh, baby, you okay?" Patience said as she rubbed his back.
"And so it is done." He said before standing up, "Now to help her."
"Yeah, about that," Eve then breaks free of her bindings, pulls out the blade she had hidden at her ankle, and holds it at them, "I've changed my mind."
"Eve, you have to let him help you." Emilio tried to reason.
"Not gonna happen," She shot back,"His kind are all the same."
"And what kind would that be?" Kai asked calmly.
"Parasites. All your kind does it take from people." Eve answered
"You speak from experience."
"In a way. I spent almost five hundred thousand dollars to any healer i could find, real or not, I was desperate."
"Why?"
"His name was Tommy and we were briefly engaged." she answered.
"What happened?"
"We had only been dating almost a year before he proposed. He told me where to meet him and when i got there was candles, yellow rose petals because he knew i loved the wizard of oz when i was a kid. He then got down on one knee and proposed, and like anyone I said "Yes." But it was what he said when we hugged."
"What did he say?"
"He said, "Your grandfather will be so happy about our engagement." I knew at that moment that he worked for my grandfather and he said that he was sent to find me, gain my trust and make me fall in love with him and bring me back to my grandfather at any cost. I told Tommy that I never go back to my grandfather, but he said I had no choice in the matter. I then woged and so did he into a Zauberbiest. We fought, we each landed a few good punches before we used our powers and when he charged at me I sent him flying back causing him to be impaled on a metal pipe and I killed him."
"Can you tell us what happened after?"
"I knew that my grandfather would never leave me alone, so after I took care of the body I went to every healer that I could find and told them that I needed to get rid of an evil that was in me but they did nothing to heal me. Another after another and all they did was nothing."
"What was the evil you wanted to get rid of?"
"My hexenbiest spirit," Eve answered. "Without it a Hexenbiest becomes human, and I thought that if I got rid of it, then my grandfather would leave me alone. Tommy was the only one who I let into my heart, the only one besides Xylda and Manny but when he betrayed me I put my walls back up, and I've never fully trusted another person since then."
Kai slowly approaches her, "Eve, I promise that you can trust me." he takes her hand and lowers it, "You need to be at peace."
Kai places his hand on her forehead and commands her to be at peace. Eve then collapses on the ground and seizes until she becomes still then suddenly she vomits black, demonic residue. Afterward, Eve loses consciousness and passes out. Kai leans in and kisses Eve, drawing out the remnants of the demonic residue. Kai collapses to her and coughs up the demonic residue.
While Patience helps Kai up, Eve still remained unconscious. As Emilio kneeled down by Eve's side and crateled her, the others released Manfred from his bindings. Suddenly Eve woged and gasped for air as she woke up. After a moment Eve retracted and Emilio helped her up off the floor. Manfred and Eve then proceed to clean up and up their mouths.
"I don't know what to say. Or how to thank you. I mean, we were gonna die. And you saved our lives, and theirs." Manfred said to Kai.
"Well, you let us help, and that's thanks enough." Kai said.
"Kai's right." Patience agreed, "We're just happy to be a part of Midnight and call this place our home."
"Well, you earned it." Eve said, "And as much as I hate to admit it your the real deal."
"You guys, I put you all in danger." Manfred told the Midnighters." I lied to you. I betrayed your trust."
"Which took us so long to earn but we didn't want to mess it up." Eve added, "And if you don't want to talk to either of us again, we understand."
"Manfred. Eve. You're not to blame. Neither of you weren't exactly yourself." Joe said.
"Trust me. I understand." Chuy told them.
"We don't deserve your forgiveness."
"The only reason this happened is because you tried to save us from Colconnar." Fiji told Manfred and Eve. "Just next time, just you come to us."
"No next time, please." Manfred said. Fiji held up her hands.
Manfred looked around the room and said,"Where did Creek go?" He then rushes off.
"Hey, um, Emilio could we go home?" Eve asked.
"Of course we can." He answered, "Are you alright?"
"Yeah, I just want to go home." She answered, her voice filled with exhaustion.
The two left the pawn shop and returned to their home. Once they had gotten home, Eve changed into her pajamas and got into the bed, Emilio soon joined her and held her close as they slept.