Darkness permeated the area, darkness so eerie and black that even the light of a thousand suns couldn't penetrate the never-ending void. The air was thick, heavy, filled with the stench of death and decay. The worst part about this darkness, though, was the warmth. A warmth so unnatural and unnerving, so vividly penetrating to every sense, that it was a wonder how breathing was even possible. This warmth wasn't that of the sun, there was none to speak of, no this was the warmth of a thousand fresh corpses all left to rot. In the middle of this darkness a man stood, able to see every detail of his body. Markings adorned his body, markings all across his chest, face, appendages, no inch of his body was left uncovered. These markings were indeed blood red, because they were written from the corpses that surrounded this man. He could not see them, but his other senses were burning from their very presence. This was a situation he was quite familiar with.

Any minute now thousands of beady red eyes would open, their view burning and accusing, cursing into an eternity in damnation. The eyes would part, leaving two bloody skeletal hands, pieces of flesh dangling from their exposed bones. Yes…as predicted the eyes did come, breaking the darkness and revealing corpses. They stood in the horrid red glow, swaying from side to side. Their eyes were missing, their clothes removed, their flesh rotting, and their eyes were no longer there…only hollow and empty sockets. The eyes floated behind this wall of living decayed flesh, always accusing and cursing the man standing in the center of this wave of death and guilt. A few moments under their watchful gaze felt as a few eternities would, yet all things must come to an end. The eyes began to split apart, leaving the tattered hands to linger where they had once remained. The man in the center watched, the marking coming to life now as they spun around his body. The hands began to move closer, the markings kept circling around and around and growing ever faster as these skeletal hands got closer and closer. Now within a few inches of his face, the hands began to cup themselves and reach towards the man's heart. The guilt and fear of a thousand lifetimes ran through the man's blood as the hands now glided just before his exposed chest. It was only a moment, but that moment was the single longest period of time that would ever be experienced in this world of misery. The hands touched his chest and, upon brushing against the flesh of man, sent pain equal to the very fires of hell through every ounce of this man's body, but not only was it through the body. This man wished he could cry, wished he could scream, but as much as he struggled to release his agony it only increased the pain to his body and soul. As he stood their in silent agony, an unnatural flame sprung around his feet and slowly engulfed him in their touch.

John Finnigan sat up abruptly, a cold sweat running down his face. He lifted his arm, toned and firm from years of training, to rub his temples. His fingers brushed against the stubble on his face, he'd have to take care of that. He shook his head for a moment, peering around. In his Spartan-looking living quarters his eyes darted to the alarm clock by the side of his bed. "Three in the morning." He grunted, his voice dark and full of gravel. He shook his head, his short curled hair following along with him. He let a few moments pass before he pulled the covers off of him, examining every inch of his sculpted and muscled body for the markings. He gave a sigh of relief, seeing that none of the markings from his dream had followed him. He stepped out of the bed, still weary, as he stumbled to the bathroom to get a drink of water, his throat being parched as it usually was. When he walked towards the bathroom he felt a tugging sensation around the far edge of his left arm. His eyes darted in that direction and he spotted a humanoid figure leaning against the wall in the darkness.

He couldn't make out the specific details, his eyes still trying to get used to the lack of light, but he knew well enough whom this was. The silhouetted figure pushed itself off of the wall after being discovered and gave a sigh. "You know, John, I do wish you'd stop sleeping." It said, the voice obviously male, albeit not as deep or serious. "You do realize that whenever you dream I have to watch it, right?"

"Yeah, like I'm going to stop sleeping so you can avoid being a little uncomfortable." John grunted in reply, turning to face the man in the darkness now. "What's going on, Jack? I thought you'd be out partying by now, corrupting innocent women with your wiles and charm."

The figure reached out, flipping a light switch to his right. The light was blinding to John, his eyes squinting in the flash. When his vision cleared his eyes fell upon the familiar smirk that Jack wore on his smooth and cleanly shaven face. His gaze lifting up slightly he tried to look into Jack's eyes as best as he could, though it was difficult considering he wore a pair of aviator sunglasses. "Well that woke you up." Jack chuckled, placing his hands into the pockets of his black leather jacket. He began walking towards the bed that John had just crawled out of, his gray converse shoes squeaking on the bare wooden floor, and began to fold the comforter.

"Answer the question Jack." John stated firmly. He was in no mood to deal with these shenanigans.

Jack ignored the other man, finishing his work with the bed sheets before finally standing straight up. "We have a job." He said, turning his head to look at John as a smile was plastered on his face.

"You're usually not so happy to go out into the field." John said, his attention now focused on his partner. "Where are we going?"

"Oh we get to go to a college campus!" Jack replied, almost hopping up and down in anticipation. "Oh think of it, all the little girls fresh out of home. So insecure, so frightened, so ripe for me to pluck."

John rolled his eyes at Jack's antics. "I should've guessed." He sighed. "Alright, Jack, I'll need the specifics of the job."

"I'll explain when we meet up with Alex and Richard." Jack commented happily. "Just pack enough clothes for a few good days, remember to bring fresh underwear, socks, all that fun stuff."

"Whatever." John sighed, walking over to his dresser to put on a pair of jeans and a button up black flannel shirt. "Do the others know about this job?"

"Yep, told them a little while ago. You know their sleeping habits, it didn't take too long." Jack said, pacing around John as he shoved a few more articles of clothing into a suitcase. "Any chance you could hurry this up? College girls!"

"You're lucky I don't have you neutered." John said, closing the suitcase and putting on a pair of combat boots. He rolled up his sleeves up to his bicep before giving a quick yawn. "Alright, let's go downstairs and wait for the others to show up." He mumbled.

The two proceeded downstairs, the way down creaking and cracking with every step, noisy enough to wake up just about every tenant in the building if there were any. Upon reaching the bottom stair the two found themselves in a fairly large room, an oaken desk sitting in the middle of the wall facing the door out, a sofa and a chair close to the right side, and a pool table sitting in the center. John continued to grumble as he sat down roughly in the sofa, laying his head back as he closed his eyes, hopefully trying to get a bit more sleep before Alex and Richard showed up. While he was waiting Jack had set up a game of nine-ball and was playing it, rather skillfully, as he gave happy ramblings about innocent school girls. John grunted and turned his head to the side.

A few minutes passed and John actually managed to doze off, though the sound of a car and the appearance of headlights in the window made him stir as he swore under his breath. "Ah the rest of the gang's here." Said Jack, hastily opening the door to let the other two in.

The first in the door was a very well-built man, standing at least three inches taller than Jack. He, like jack, also wore a pair of sunglasses. Adorning his body was a fairly expensive looking pinstripe suit. He had a cold and emotionless expression on his face as his hand scratched his bald head. "What's with you, Jack? Normally you're not so anxious to get a job done." He said, his voice eerily calm and deep.

"Alex is right, what gives?" Came a much younger voice. Behind the first man. His hair was styled and molded to something oddly resembling that of a male model, five o'clock shadow adorning his face. He looked fairly pale and held a toothpick in his mouth. He wore a plain black flannel shirt, sleeves rolled up and shirt unbuttoned. Under it he wore a t-shirt with some unidentifiable logo on it, obviously the shirt had been worn a great deal. His eyes were what would usually grab the attention of most people though. He had a pair of almost unnaturally blue eyes, which darted around the room suspiciously.

"Two words, Richard." Jack said, a smirk on his face. "College campus."

This got Richard's attention, a smile breaking out on his face to reveal two sharper-than-normal canines. "Oh, that does sound exciting."

"Just remember we're there for business and business alone." Alex said, re-adjusting his sunglasses. He sat down on the oaken desk, arms crossed.

"Ah get the stick out of your ass, Alex." Richard said in retort.

"I will when you get your head out of yours."

"Ladies, ladies, you're both beautiful." Jack interceded, a smirk on his face. "As much as I'd like to see you two duke it out, we do have a job to get done."

"As much as I'd hate to admit it, Jack's got a point." John said, leaning forward. "What have you got for us?"

All eyes now rested on Jack as he bounced around in his leather biker jacket. He sat down in the chair behind the desk, sliding backwards before taking in a deep breath. "See we've got ourselves a small town, about on the border of Tennessee and Virginia, well the dean of the college has found a few girls have gone missing. Three confirmed though this has happened in the case of three weeks so we're assuming another one's going to go poof." To add a bit of theatrics to this Jack closed his hands and opened them shortly after. "So I got this email earlier today asking for some help, given that the police can't do anything about it."

"Anything else we should know about?" Alex asked.

"That's all I've gotten so far."

"Let's stop wasting time and get going then." John said, standing up and going for the door.

"Any ideas as to what it may be, John?" Richard asked, following behind along with Jack and Alex.

"If I had to guess, three young women going missing over the course of a few weeks…a witch coven." John replied, stepping out into the cold night air. He spotted their mode of transportation. A sleek black 1980's Chevy Camaro.

"Well that doesn't make things any easier on us." Richard shrugged, opening up the driver's seat and placing himself firmly behind the wheel.

"Mind if I bring something to drink with me?" Jack asked, a smirk still plastered on his face.

"Go to hell." Richard spat, almost leaning protectively over the car's perfectly clean inside.

"Been there once, didn't exactly suit my needs." Jack chuckled, hopping into the back along with John. Alex sat quietly in the passenger seat, not bothering to comment on the idiocy of his companions.

The car revved to life as Richard turned the key, pulling back into the less-than-crowded three a.m. streets of New York City's back roads. Once they got onto the road Richard began to relax now that the threat to his car's safety was gone. "You got the address, Jack?" He asked, looking over his shoulder.

"Yeah, pass me the GPS and I'll put in the address."

"Oh no, last time you did that I had to burn the old one and get another, more expensive, one. Where's the address?" Richard asked, glaring at the offending party.

Jack sighed in mock exasperation and gave the address without too much prodding. Punching in the appropriate address the four were now on their way south, a drive that would last about ten hours if the GPS was correct. "Looks like we'll be at it for a while." John said, sliding down. Good, perhaps he'd get some sleep. "Who's turn is it to get the first round of music?"

"I believe it's Jack's turn." Alex said, looking out the window with a bored expression on his face that was evident even through the sunglasses.

"Oh goody, could you put it on to Z100?" Jack asked almost too innocently.

With a wary expression, Richard turned the radio on and flipped it to the correct channel. What assaulted their ears was a wave of generic pop music which caused everyone in the car, except for Jack, to groan. "Come on, you don't even like this pre-generated pop garbage!" Richard said, grinding his sharp teeth together.

"You're right, but I find it more entertaining to hear you complain about it." Jack said happily, leaning back as wide smile stuck to his lips, peering about at his annoyed companions.

"How long until we get to switch the channels?" Alex asked, obviously barely containing his annoyance.

"About two and a half hours." Jack said happily.

"Damn it." Alex grunted, doing his best to focus on the road they were on. John could already tell one thing about this job, the way there and back was going to be a nightmare.