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1986
VENUSWAS FIVEYEARS OLD when it happened. A visit from a group of her father's "old friends", (in her uncle Arturo's words), that ended in the massacre of her entire family. Two parents, two grandparents, four aunts and uncles, and nine cousins, all members of the infamous clan of Castillo hunters...dead within minutes.
Arturo swore to his older sister, Ximena, in her last moments that he would never tell Venus the truth about what happened that day or why it happened. And he managed to keep that promise for years to come. But he couldn't take away the truth about what Venus saw and heard that night before being pulled away by him to safety...
"Ishim please," Venus heard her father's voice from her hiding spot beneath the stairs, "Spare my family, brother. You can slay me where I stand but let them go first."
"Your family?" Ishim scoffed mockingly, "We are your family. Where is your loyalty to us? To our oath?"
As Venus watched her father beg for her life, one of the men in Ishim's group turned in her direction, feeling eyes on him. He knew his squadron's orders despite Sabrael's pleading; kill every member of the family. It was a brutal task assigned to them from heaven and he would be lying if he didn't admit he was confused about its purpose.
But it became clear as he stood in the foyer of the Castillo home. The reported Nephilim wasn't as easily detected as one would normally be simply because every soul within the home was branded with some of the strongest protection sigils any of the angels had ever seen. Finding the witch responsible for that was their next order.
The man locked eyes with adolescent brown ones hiding under a staircase clutching a red stuffed toy to his far right. The young girl flinched in horror once her eyes met his and he swallowed harshly, dreading the borderline sinful acts he would have to commit that night.
"Castiel?" his attention was drawn back to the matter at hand by his commander's voice, "Are you still with us?"
The angel cleared his vessel's throat as he turned to face Ishim. "Yes," he answered without hesitation, wanting to get this over with.
"Great. Read him the sentence for his crimes," Ishim commanded with a dark grin.
Castiel stepped forward, meeting the cherub's guilty eyes, "Sabrael, for your crime of fostering a Nephilim, thus breaking our sacred oath, you are hereby sentenced to death."
The remaining angels in the squadron slowly brandished their angel blades, preparing for the slaughter ahead.
But before they could commence their attack, a flood of arrows, bullets, and knives rained down on the group, seemingly coming from nowhere. The hunters knew that their weapons would do nothing to harm the group but they managed to successfully distract the angels, which is all they truly needed at that moment.
