The safe house, crouched like a wounded animal against a tree line, its windows boarded, its foundation sunk deep into earth that had never known consecration. Maryanne had bought it with blood money years ago—payment from those who preferred their secrets buried rather than exposed. Tonight, it would serve its purpose.
Inside, candles threw dancing shadows against walls marked with symbols that hurt to look at directly. Protective wards, each one carved with desperation born of necessity. Each symbol pulsed faintly—remembering the sins it had been carved to contain. The house breathed with the weight of old fears, but it was clean. Safe. Hidden from eyes that searched beyond the water and the wind.
"Show me," Maryanne said, voice taut with both authority and a thread of fear she rarely allowed herself to show.
Marietta sat cross-legged on the wooden floor, palms pressed flat against the boards. The house had been built over a forgotten spring—water flowed beneath them, ancient and patient. She closed her eyes and let herself sink into the current.
The sensation came slowly at first, like drowning in reverse. Her consciousness spread thin, following the underground streams that connected everything—the wells, the rivers, the distant ocean. The ocean called to things better left sleeping. Each drop carried whispers. Each flow held memory.
"There," she breathed. "Three miles north. Something watches from the old quarry."
Anne Faith knelt beside her sister, pressing her ear to the floor as if listening to a heartbeat. "Not something. Someone. The covenant marks run deep here. Like trenches. And... I think... it could be Dan, The Covenant of The Drowned knows..."
Maryanne's jaw tightened. She had hoped Dan was acting alone, a rogue hunter drawn by old blood. But if the covenant was involved, if they were rebuilding... and targeting her daughters specifically...
"Again," she commanded. "Both of you. Together this time."
The sisters joined hands. Marietta's gift flowed into Anne Faith's spiritual sight, and suddenly the world became layered—the physical realm overlaid with the flow of power that moved like veins through reality's darkest corners.
Anne Faith gasped. The water-sight, I see threads of light and shadow stretching across the landscape like a vast web. Some threads pulsed with warmth—life, love, hope. Others writhed with hunger, cold as snow, and darker than a shadow.
"The quarry is just the beginning," Anne Faith said, her voice hollow with revelation. "They've marked seven sites. A pattern. A ritual circle spanning the entire county."
Marietta felt it too—the way the underground streams had been diverted, channeled into fractured shapes that made her skin crawl. "They're using the water to carry something. Voices, or commands, or corruption It's like... like they're building a telephone system for the dead."
Maryanne moved to the window, peering through gaps in the boards. The night beyond was too still, too quiet. Even the insects had fallen silent.
"Your father could do this," she said finally, a tremor in her voice betraying the fear she carried. A tear fell. Sorry girls, Maryanne composed herself "Guy, your dad... God rest his soul. He felt the currents too but they took him and almost took me to. But he was alone, and that made him vulnerable. And me I was lucky enough to have warriors of faith on my side." She turned back to her daughters, and in her eyes lived the weight of every nightmare she'd survived. "He'd be proud of you two, not because you're strong... but because you have each other, and that's strength. That changes everything.
Maryanne's voice softened, and for a moment, she seemed to look through the walls, through the years.
"I never told you girls this but... I watched your grandfather with Alzheimer's fade for twenty years," she said. Maryanne fights tears until they break through.. Maryanne tries to compose herself and grabs a tissue. " I Prayed with him even when he couldn't remember... We took the Eucharist together even when I didn't know he could grasp."
The candles flickered. The daughters leaned in closer.
"And I learned something timeless through it all: Love persists through memory, through erasure through everything... God doesn't abandon you. You don't need to be enough. You're already loved."
She met their eyes, and in that moment, they saw not their mother the hunter, but their mother the witness.
"The loss is real. The fear is real. The pain is real. But so is God. IN the losses. IN the fear. IN the pain. Delivering you THROUGH it. Not promising you'll survive. But promising love is worth it."
"The residue of love—that's what lasts. That's all that matters."
She pulled two objects from her pack—a compass that pointed to magnetic north, and a silver pendant shaped like an eye.
"Marietta, this compass will spin wildly when you're near places where the barriers are thin. Anne Faith, the pendant will burn against your skin when spiritual corruption is present." She paused, meeting each daughter's gaze. "But remember—your greatest protection is your bond. The covenant knows how to break individuals. They've never faced sisters who share their power."
Outside, something howled in the distance. Not a wolf...wolves, tearing apart their prey viciously.
The candles flickered despite the still air.
"Practice time is over," Maryanne said, checking the locks, reinforcing the wards with fresh anointing, pouring sacred oil. "Tomorrow, we hunt."