Blair POV.
It had been a week since I’d first arrived at the house. Well mansion really. Zacky and Val had been showing me around the past couple of days and I still hadn’t seen most of the house. I was currently sat talking with Val in one of the smaller living areas. I smiled as she finished telling me how her and Matt first met. Having a Soul Mate certainly gave a new meaning to love at first sight.
“Have any of the other guys found their Soul Mate?” Val nodded.
“Jimmy met Leana about two years ago and Zacky found Danger about six years ago.” I was surprised about Zacky. From the way he acted every time I asked about Danger, I would never have guessed that they were Soul Mates. Any further conversation was cut off by Zacky walking in.
“Sorry to interrupt the girly chat, but I’m gunna steal my sister.” I got to my feet.
“Where are we going?”
“I’m taking you to meet Danger.”

~*~

The main living area and driveway of the house were in chaos when we walked in. Zacky groaned.
“They were meant to be gone already.” He mumbled, watching Brian, Jimmy and Johnny bicker as they loaded up a SUV with what looked to be a mobile arsenal.
“What are they doing?” I asked quietly. I had never seen a gun before in my life, except on TV, now I could see what looked like every type of gun under the sun. Zacky was silent.
“You need to tell her Vengeance.” Rumbled Matt as he appeared behind us. Zacky turned to face him and sighed.
“I know, but it’s only a few days since I dropped the last bombshell on her. I was going to wait a couple more days.” Matt shrugged.
“The truth is the only way to explain away that.” He waved his hand at the driveway and walked outside as he attempted to restore order to the chaos.
“Zacky, what do you need to tell me?” Zacky sighed again.
“It’s our job.” I felt the blood drain from my face.
“Are you gangsters?” Zacky shook his head.
“No. We’re mercenaries.” I just waited for him to explain. I knew what a mercenary was and it sounded worse than gangsters to me. “It’s not how you think. Yes, we’re guns for hire. But we also take on other work, like search and rescue, recovery, bodyguard jobs.” I cut straight to the question that was at the front of my brain.
“Do you kill people?” The pause before Zacky’s reply was my answer.
“I won’t lie to you. Yes we do kill people sometimes. But we only take on jobs like that when there’s no other alternative or, well, sometimes some people just need to die.” He sighed and shook his head again. “I’m sorry, I should have told you sooner, but I didn’t want to scare you.” I closed my eyes and counted to ten, trying to calm myself down. Despite what they did, everyone here had been nice to me, they’d told me the truth, promised to help me and they all seemed like decent people. I didn’t have the right to judge them by their career choice. I opened my eyes and smiled at Zacky.
“It’s fine. You don’t need to apologise. It’s what you do, I can accept that.” He nodded and smiled back.
“Thank you. You still wanna go meet Danger?” I nodded back. “Right. Christ! Come on, we’re leaving!”

~*~

I don’t know what I was expecting from the mysterious Danger, but a trek through woodland wasn’t it. I was surprised when Zacky turned away from the garages and headed into the gardens surrounding the house. Gradually, the landscape changed from beautiful, well-tended gardens into slightly more rugged woodland that gradually grew more and more wild. As we forced our way through a low-lying patch of brambles, I was thankful that I had put jeans on this morning.
“Where are we going?” I asked, trying not to sound too breathless. The most exercise that I was used to was climbing my stairs. To Mom, education was more important than physical activity.
“You’ll see.” Grunted Zacky as he pushed a young sapling out of the way.
“We’re almost there, just trust us.” Added Johnny, holding the young tree out of my way. Both of them had better eyesight than me in the pitch blackness, so I was stuck walking between them. We walked seemingly with no real direction for what felt like ages, but couldn’t have been more than ten minutes until Zacky finally stopped in front of a lightning struck tree. I frowned, not really understanding what was going on.
“Is this it?” Zacky nodded.
“When I first told you about the Fae, I mentioned Faerie didn’t I?” He asked, as he began to walk around the tree clockwise. I nodded.
“Yes, but you said that only those with Fae blood could enter.” He nodded again, coming to a halt and walking back around the tree anti-clockwise.
“That’s normally true. But I also said that the Fae don’t tend to think like anyone else.” He paused and tapped the tree three times in a certain pattern. “Danger changed the rules. Through this doorway, and this doorway only, we can enter Faerie without having Fae blood.” He circled the tree clockwise again.
“Is that why you’re doing this?” I gestured at his strange behaviour. Behind me, Johnny laughed.
“That’s just Faerie’s idea of a joke. Every doorway has its own individual way of entry. Personally I think that they’ve got CCTV cameras on the inside so that they can sit and watch us do stupid things to get in.” Zacky smiled and tapped the tree in a different pattern. He stepped back and grunted in satisfaction as the tree began to morph into a large oak door. The door was carved with intricate patterns of flowers that opened out to create space for a bronze sign that read; Home is not where you live, but where they understand you. Zacky waited until the door had fully materialised before he reached forwards and gripped the handle. He turned it, but didn’t let go and the door didn’t open. We waited a couple of minutes before Zacky finally released the handle and the door swung open. I noticed, with some mild shock, that the bronze handle was smeared with blood and that it was slowly absorbing it. Zacky didn’t pay it any attention but stepped inside, beckoning me to follow. Uneasily, I stepped in after him.