RED TWILIGHT

RED TWILIGHT

LONG DISTANCES RUNNERS

Dustin Feyder

Copyright © 2012 by Dustin Feyder.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012915916

ISBN: Hardcover 978-1-4797-0851-2

Softcover 978-1-4797-0850-5

Ebook 978-1-4797-0852-9

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

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CONTENTS

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Prologue I

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Sonata to the Everlasting .................................................................15

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Prologue II

A** CT **** I**

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Call me N ........................................................................................19

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Chapter 1

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Ascend Heartless Angel ..................................................................27

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Chapter 2

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Into the Darkness.............................................................................39

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Chapter 3

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Painted Blake...................................................................................71

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Chapter 4

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Money .............................................................................................81

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Chapter 5

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He Who Touches Heaven ................................................................93

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Chapter 6

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Shadow of the Watchers ................................................................105

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Chapter 7

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Back to the Front ...........................................................................125

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Chapter 8

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GV .................................................................................................141

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Chapter 9

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Crossroads .....................................................................................155

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Chapter 10

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The SOP ........................................................................................179

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Chapter 11

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Broken Messiah .............................................................................201

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Chapter 12

A** CT **** II**

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The Man with No Name ................................................................219

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Chapter 13

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Infiltrators .....................................................................................237

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Chapter 14

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Symphony of Nightmares..............................................................243

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Chapter 15

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Shattered Wings ............................................................................253

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Chapter 16

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The Edge of Divinity .....................................................................261

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Chapter 17

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Two Worlds ....................................................................................273

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Chapter 18

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Snake's Tale ...................................................................................287

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Chapter 19

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God Sear "the Book Never Written" .............................................293

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Chapter 20

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The Grinning Cat...........................................................................303

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A Word from the Author ..........................................................................................9

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Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

A** CT **** III**

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Thee Ascended ..............................................................................315

Man That Sold the World ..............................................................335

Brothers .........................................................................................345

REM ..............................................................................................353 Corruption .....................................................................................359 Concerted Effort ............................................................................365

The Brothers' Tragedy ...................................................................377 Nirak ..............................................................................................389 Shadow Sun ...................................................................................399

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Chapter 30

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Waltz of the Watchers ....................................................................409

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Chapter 31

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Snow on the Meadow of Heaven ...................................................421

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Chapter 32

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Evergreen ......................................................................................429

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Chapter 33

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Fall .................................................................................................435

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Chapter 34

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The Man Called Devil ...................................................................439

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Chapter 35

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Circles ...........................................................................................445

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DEDICATED TO

James E. Feyder and

Victoria L. Blumingtrit

A Word from the Author

I am, to my core, a weaver of tales. My favorite stories are and always well be fantastic. But I would like to take a moment of our time too spin a web of true words. The world is a place where truth is passed from one to another, and I have discovered a truth that I wish I had not.

The last Sunday of November 2009, I was robbed (the first draft of this book was amongst the things taken) At 10:30 a.m., I was called by my work and asked to come in early (I had been scheduled to work second shift, but they told me they needed help over lunch). So I packed up my backpack like I did most every day. I grabbed my sketchbook, a bag of pencils, a three packs of cards (I was playing "magic the gathering" extensively with one of my coworkers), my computer, and memory cards. I tucked a pin into the spine of my notebook and I was on my way.

I arrived at work at ten forty-five. I placed my bag on the table nearest to me as I spoke briefly with my boss to get a grasp of the situation; my boss had bought me breakfast that day. Behind me a group of young Arab men walked in. I knew them; they came in for breakfast three times a week. The oldest of them reached around me and picked up a glass for water. We approached the drink station side by side. We shared a greeting. Why shouldn't we? We saw each other every couple of days. His younger brother (he had only one eye) paid for their meal with a credit card.

My boss called out to me, "Dustin, your order is up." I looked at the Arab and told him to have a good day, and so we parted ways.

When I looked back after picking up my plate, the group of men were gone, without their meals even and so was my backpack. I checked the security cameras to see what had happened. At 10:48 a.m., the four young men ran out of the dinner, one of them with my book bag slung over his shoulder.

At 10:55 a.m., I called the police; at 12:15 p.m. they arrived and took my statement. I gave them everything they asked for--my name, an itemized list of the

9

DUSTIN FEYDER

contents of my bag, the license plate number of the car of the men that robbed me, the credit card number of the younger brother, a photograph of the thief, and a copy of the security tapes showing the theft.

Months passed; every other week the brothers showed up for dinner. I kept calling my caseworker, letting them know "the suspect in the robbery back in November is here."

It didn't take three, maybe four months before I was told that "the trail has gone cold" and "it's not likely we can do anything." I felt appalled by the level of ineptitude the SLP police department showed me. "The value of the bag is insufficient to count as anything over a mister meaner."

For almost a year I have been furious. To be honest I still am as I'm typing these words. Through outstanding generosity of my community, I have replaced most of the contents of my lost bag. The only thing I couldn't replace is my sketchpad; art is unique. I had to start my book all over again. That was costly, but maybe this time it will be better.

I'm not a hateful individual, and I don't like being angry. I in fact advocate against such feelings. I think prejudices, racism, sexism are all medieval ideas that have little or no place in the way we think today. But still I found myself harboring anger toward the men that wronged me. And that got me thinking, "Do I 'need' to be a slave to me feelings?"

Some of the ideas that I entertained once it dawned on me that justice would not be mine were bestial indeed. "If I can't have justice, maybe satisfaction would be good enough." The most recent of the rancid fantasies were that of pinning their car in our parking lot and assaulting them all with the ice pick out of the garage.

But why should I have thoughts like these? Why waste my imagination on so much filth? (Why should I still love someone who left me in 1998?) I do not have the answerers. But I do have an idea--not one of hate and anger, but something far more worthy of my attention. My every thought, my every feeling, they belong to me. I am in command of myself just so much as you are in command of yourself, and heaven forbid anyone took that away from us.

Fear, anxiety--these are products of the lower brain. They are "elemental." If thought has a physical effect on reality as we understand it, then why should we let our oh-so-valuable perception be occupied by ideal rage? I don't want vengeances; vengeance is hot, it is powerful, and it is corrosive. Dare I say even sexy? (Justice is cold and methodic, and law is best left in unpartisan hands.) And besides when you prescribe to vengeance, what are you left with in the end?

10

RED TWILIGHT

I have grown weary of all this pain. I don't want satisfaction, and I don't need justice. What I need is relief. To this end, I have turned me expectations around. What if I don't surrender to animalistic desire but instead offer forgiveness? What if the next time the ones that offered me anguish, I offer kindness? I cannot say if these things will come to pass, but I will record my testament here nonetheless.

I know the man that robbed me, and I know that he knows I know him. If I let my anger go and simply turn to him and acknowledge these facts, what will happen next? I can hope; I can have expectations, but the world as it is today has no absolutes that I can see. Maybe salvation can be found in letting old wounds heal. Thank you for entertaining these thoughts, and I wish that my experiences may help you expand your mind.

PS: Let me turn for a moment to lighter topics and more thought-provoking ideals. Last, we had this opportunity I spoke of a friend now passed. Marcy Walker imparted in me a wisdom that I still today have not fully taken in, but I still feel that I should immortalize these words.

All things that are have always been. All energy as we understand is a tiny segment of a cosmic consciousness. And should we fail to understand this movement of these energies we are destined to become trapped within ourselves. Every life has been lived once and will be lived again.

"This is apparent when we come across one we have never met in this world to our knowledge but yet we know them instantly; Dustin, we knew each other in another time and another place. I knew you when we first met. One of us did something to the other. I can't say what, but I can say that the purpose of us meeting again was to resolve the transgressions of the past . . ."

Marcy Walker 194*--2006

11

S** PECIAL **** R ***ECOGNITION*

I would also like to take a moment to thank the following people for making this

book possible:

Benjamin Feyder

Joesph Feyder and Sandra Feyder

Sakny Ten

Jared Kruze

Prologue I

Sonata to the Everlasting

Marks awakes from his sleep, images from the most powerful dream in his life burned into his brain; he has seen himself passing a book from his withered and worn hands into the hands of a younger self. Marks swoops down to pick up his cat, Nuku, with the intent of traveling to his office in the tower. He grabs his hefty black overcoat from the door but fails to grab a shirt.

Nuku lies quietly in the jeep as her gentle master drives to work in the early hours of the evening. Nuku likes to drive; every day she rides in the car with him, and when they arrive at work, she gets a cookie.

Marks' eyes gloss over with anticipation. Marks struggles to contain his excitement; all the mysteries of the last near hundred years have been revealed unto him. He has become the vassal of unspeakable power; the end game of his life is within reach.

Marks grips his cat firmly in his arms like a child as he makes his way up the hundreds of steeps to his office with a vigor that might make a man in his twenties envies. He has the energy of a schoolboy, empowered by his dreams. The way to his desk is lit almost solely by a lone spotlight. All doors open in his wake.

Nuku leaps from her keeper's arms to the spot on the table where she typically sits; she feels as if something is horrible amiss. We're here too early, she thinks. Where is the hairless __man with my cookies? He meets us at_ the_ door every day?

Marks slaps an empty notebook down on the table. Before he is done today, this one and maybe a dozen more will be full. Marks lifts a pen high up over his head

DUSTIN FEYDER

and dramatically strikes ink to paper. His teeth grind as his pen flies from corner to corner; his face takes on an almost wolf-like expression as he goes over the book, digesting every line as he writes. His lip curls and he cackles as the images he constructs start to divide out before him.

All the works of Marks' life have been adding up to this moment, this glorious moment. A coworker of Marks had once said to him, "Loathe me for I am becoming death." Marks is about to do the opposite. "I will conquer death. I will rob the reaper of his power and the predator of his teeth." Like a composer demanding strength of his orchestra, he thrusts his arm to the side, throwing ink into the air, crossing his "T's," then again accenting the notes he need to remember. Finding he lacks the speed he needs to finish his calculations in a timely fashion, he employs a second pen to write in a second book calling on the greatest of dexterity.

All strife, all heartache, his every experience, good and bad alike, is needed to align in this one instance of triumph. His adulterous wife, his deceitful best friend, the words of a monk in a distant land, his failure to protect one daughter, and the absence of another--all these events give him the passion to bleed out the poetry that must be his final works.

Like a painter he lashes his pens. His liquid silver hair flows around his body like a typhoon, his hardy black jacket flutters like batwings in the night, the pages of his books thunder a warlike chant as page upon page flashes by. Marks laughs in madness, throwing his first completed book aside to make room for more. The work must go one. The doors remain locked long into the day, the lights remain off; Marks cannot be interrupted now.

Nuku sees her master's pain in his heaving breaths and the sweat rolling down his skin. She sits up and places a paw on his thermos, inviting him to stop for a drink. Marks is feverish; he struggles for air as he works maliciously. He must not stop even at the cost of his very soul. His hands are cramped and arms become numb with hunger; his veins grow dark, but with nerves of steel and a heart of stone, he pushes against his own mortality to carry on. Light trails from his pens as he slashes them across his body; his eyes burn with intellect.

Nuku pushes a plush mouse with a bow wrapped around its waist to remind her owner that it is approaching dinner time. Marks falls to his knees and loses the strength, focusing to maintain his grip on his secondary pen. He throws his third and fourth books from the table and focuses with all his might on his fifth. Perspiration runs in abundance from his face and hair. He slaps the table hard with one hand, and the old man forces himself upright.

16

RED TWILIGHT

He has found the soul--the very essence of life and humanity! A piece of coding in our neuroses that hides the tiniest pieces of our being that defines the differences between artificial-intelligence and true intellect. With this knowledge, he will become the master of destiny. His useless wife and her shallow ideas will be the first to see the truest extent of Marks Vigeta Karingson's near omnipotent might than the fair-weather friend of his that is her boy-toy; his power will be their unmaking.

His foolishness has seen the end of enough lives. This foolery will mark the end of it all; when this work is finished, there will be no more sins. This revolution beyond the limitations of physical existences will be the end of everything for him. No more death, no more hunger, no more sickness. Dr. Marks Vigeta Karingson will cure all the ailments of humanity with this strike of his pen. "We will ascend, we will endure. Hark unto ye, all the day of giving is upon us. The end of suffering is here and all men will be with their brothers and sisters, lovers and beloved. We will see the time of eternity as one mind. This is my last and finest gift unto humanity. We need not gods and messiahs; our saviors are ourselves and the endless reaches of the mind and our own consciousness. Christ offered you eternal forgiveness. I offer you eternal life."

Marks drops his pen; the last of his strength has left him. He lays his head on his desk and wraps Nuku in his arms. The slender black cat looks at him with a slight look of distaste and a hint of scolding in her eye, but loving adoration follows quickly as she places her paw on his shoulders and rubs her noise in his ear in her own act of forgiveness. What goodness and humanity is left in this cold and hardened vessel seems to have leaked away and found its way into this motherly feline. With the loss of his children, Marks has become more metal than man. The hardest part of this ascension has passed. Tomorrow the next phase can begin; till then this old man can pray for the cleanliness of peace-giving sleep.

Prologue II

Call me N

Reizuki Lowe stands before the vinyl player in the restaurant chosen for his upcoming job. Looking carefully over the selections of multinational music, he finds an Irish waltz "The Islander," which looks like it might fit his mood. He reaches into the front pocket of his jeans and withdraws a dollar, three quarters, two dimes, a nickel, four pennies, and a bag of mandarin-flavored suckers.

Reizuki unwraps a sucker and places a dollar and a nickel into the machine to bump his selection to the top of the play list. Reizuki is a particularly weak man; he is always drowsy. Terrible illnesses from his youth have done uncorrectable damage to his muscles making it so that he always stands slouched over; there are deep aging marks around his eyes. Rather than lifting his head to speak, he finds it is more productive to turn just his eyes to address someone. When that is inappropriate, he moves his whole body to square with one. He finds he must always speak slow and deliberate in order to be heard at all.

Lowe takes a kabuki mask from his belt; today he has brought with him "the Uni," a red bird-like mask with a long nose and a large toothy grin. Reizuki finds his weakness has emboldened him and allowed him a fascination with details, his collection of masks being a tribute to that precisely. The young eccentric dances interpretively along with the waltz for a moment, dances has interested him since his youth, in spite of his sicknesses dance is something he has always done.

Reizuki's phone rings, four times telling him that it is time for work. He rolls the mask onto the back of his head and places his hands in his pockets as he shuffles over to the table where a fellow "Letters" awaits.

DUSTIN FEYDER

"Good evening, Fox. Is all well?" Reizuki asks as he leaps into the booth alongside his friend. Fox is a tall, slender man with sandy brown hair with just a hint of gray mixed in. Fox isn't an old man, just older than Reizuki. A life of hardship has doubled his years. Fox was once a sheriff but due to events of nature he wishes not to discuss. He had left the force in favor of a life as a photographer. Reizuki has never asked him to explain.

Fox leans in to whisper to his fellow teammate. "OK, our client is one Ambassador Laurence H. Walker. Laurence seems to be interested in a drug trade that he believes hails from our fair home--New York, New York."

"Narcotics?" Reizuki drops his sucker into a cup of chocolate milk that has been placed before him.

"Pharmaceuticals," Fox explains.

Reizuki's eyes turn upward. "I see. And what interest would an ambassador have in commercial drugs do you think?" Reizuki twirls his drink.

"Let me be honest with you, N. I don't know how I feel about this job. We have snuck into hospitals, insurances companies, and courthouses, but military RND, that seems a little heavy."

"It's not the work that interests me. It's the truth." Reizuki leans forth nose to nose with Fox.

"Who's truth?" Fox lays his hand across the table, offering his counterargument.

"That is the question, isn't it?" Agent N bites on to one of his fingers, staring wide-eyed at his comrade. "Hmm . . . the only truth that truly matters is that which we preserve for ourselves, there, for the quest for truth, truthfully, is inherently flawed." Reizuki never speaks with inflection; in fact, he always speaks in a monotone. He has lost the ability to raise or lower the pitch of his voice, only the tone. Also, he has learned to pause on words he believes are important to give his listeners time to reflect on the statements made.

A dark-skinned man approaches the table at which Fox and agent N await. He is clad in a coat made of red snake skins, his hair is short and curled, he has a blue silk shirt under his snake coat, and his shoes are polished to a mirror-like shine. His taste is clearly rich; he is donning a ring on each hand and one on a chain around his neck. He has a handkerchief of bright yellow sticking out of his breast pocket as if to draw attention to it. In his front pocket, he seems to have a gold chain supporting a watch that can date back a good number of years.

20

RED TWILIGHT

Reizuki is intrigued by the stranger; he rolls the finger he had been biting into from side to side, brushing his teeth with it, his eyes bright with anticipation of the fascinating hour about to come. "Ambassador Laurence H. Walker, I presume?" "You guess right!" he proclaims boldly.

The ambassador examines his surroundings momentarily. "You I know. You're Fox Giovanni. You work for TheFish-wrap. You're a journalist."

"It's The Onion and I'm a freelancer, journalist. I don't Bring home a salary, I work off commission."

"You I don't know." The ambassador looks at Reizuki.

Reizuki pulls his sucker out of the milk and slowly wraps his mouth around it, staring deep into the ambassador's soul, looking for that which he tries so hard to hide. "Call me N," he finally answers. Reizuki places one foot on the ground, hugging the other to his chest. "Can we get this started?"

The ambassador laughs. "Your friend is somewhat strange, Fox."

"And you, Ambassador, if that is your title, are a habitual liar. But nonetheless I am interested in what you have to say," Reizuki challenges the ambassador's inhibition.

The ambassador takes off his shades to see Reizuki clearly. "And what makes you think that?"

"Your appearance is all wrong. Your posture is too straight for a man that sat behind a desk for half his life. You have glide in your stride like that of a pop singer or a movie star. Your clothing is non-conventional, possibly offensive to your host. Nothing about you speaks of nobility, at least not in any way I can see. There also seems to be a stain on your paints high on your left side. I would think if I were one in your so-called position I would take care to make myself more modest looking. No need to draw attention to myself and all." Laurence grins widely. Clearly he is impressed with Reizuki's observations. "No, you look more like," Reizuki bites onto his sucker as he rolls his eye upward, "a member of the KGB pretending to be a pimp. Or maybe you're the real thing."

"Regardless of who I am, I still have a job for you and I'm offering cash." Walker drops a stack of money on the table. Reizuki doesn't even look down to count it.

"We are not interested in your ill-gotten gains. Are we, Fox?" Reizuki speaks up at the palliation.

DUSTIN FEYDER

Fox eyes the mess of cash that has been placed ahead of him. "No, not at all," Fox declares weakly.

The slimy aristocrat begins his speech. Reizuki is fascinated; if what this stranger claims is true, then mankind is on a course to life being on sale and the perfection of the human body going to the highest bidder. In future people like him will no longer exist--people with weakness, people with uniqueness.

Reizuki places both feet on the chair and pulls his knees apart with his elbows; his mouth is slightly open and his eyes are in a frozen fix. He rolls his tongue slightly, pushing his sucker off to one side after a long moment of silence. Fox on the other hand looks stupefied. "You're talking about bio-molecular manipulation on an unprecedented scale. By the method you just described, sickness can be bred out of an animal. You could command the genomes to make one younger. On a fetal level, you could control height, weight, ethnicity, intellect. You would remove evolutionary processes from the picture entirely."

Reizuki slouches forward, settling his legs in a butterfly stretch. "Let me tell you something about myself." He removes the mask from the back off his head and sets it on the table. "I possess a condition called 'Park-Jacob Syndrome.' I am quite literally rotting to pieces as we speak. My body produces an acid that has dissolved away 20 percent of my muscle mass. My lower brain has holes burned into it. At ten years old, I stopped dreaming. At fourteen I forgot how to sleep. At seventeen, I found I could no longer feel temperate change except in the most violent of causes. Last month I noticed I can now only taste salt and sugar. I am changing into something that will soon no longer be recognizable as human. And I believe that this evil you are describing will make you into something even less human than I."

Walker looks at Reizuki firmly. "I just want to know if the rumors are true. Can you do that?"

"Yes. But you will never possess this power. No one ever will, if it is real . . ." Reizuki Lowe is a man that deals in absolutes; if evil applications are present, then surely evil will come, and there is no such thing as necessary, only a tolerated presences.

22

ACT I

Chapter 1

Ascend Heartless Angel

The elevator door smoothly slides open. Marks steps out, dressed in his street clothing: a hefty black leather duster-style overcoat and matching chaps. His long, thick gray hair is tucked into his jacket. Under one arm, he carries with him a cat's crate. His long-time companion travels with him, a slick black tabby named Nuku; she wears a red collar. Marks is nearing eighty years old but looks young and vital as a man half that.

Marks strolls across the elegant lobby of the R&D office at which he works. Leaning against the security desk is a fellow doctor, Juan Sanchez; he is a Spaniard with dark hair tied up in corn rolls and a mustache. He's switched out of his work clothes and into an outfit only a college professor would wear--a green silk shirt with a patchwork sports coat and faded slacks. It looks as if he was engaged in a powerful conversation with the security operator, a colored man named Dwight Egget; he appears young, strong, and bold.

Dr. Sanchez waves to call Marks over. "Dr. Karingson! Got a sec?"

Marks looks down at his watch, a hint of distaste on his face. I really don't. Marks begins to approach the desk.

"Good evening, Dr. Sanchez, Officer Egget." He greets his coworkers with a slow deliberate tone.

"Working late?" Sanchez makes pleasantries.

Marks looks down at his watch again, anxiety getting the better of him. "in a matter of speaking, I haven't been home in almost week to be fare" he whispers to himself.

Dwight had begun talking, but Marks has heard only half of what he said. "So your kid had some kind of an accident? That's rough."

Marks hastily replies, "It was no accident. I attempted to conduct a procedure I was not qualified to conduct. In my arrogance, I made a fatal mistake." "What was the problem?" Sanchez inquires.

"Hemophilic glucose disorder crystallic mutation. It's a type 1 disease. I'll spare you the details."

"What possessed you to think you could treat that . . . ?"

Marks cuts him off again, "Prior to my employment with Claw Co. International, I had served at DC's Pentagon Health and Human Service Department vaccinating soldiers. I was granted a pharmaceutical license as part of my formal training." Every question those two mutter is completely predictable; Marks has answered every one of them twenty times already around the office.

Marks tones out again for a moment as he feels around in his pockets, checking for an assortment of tools he is carrying on him. Egget speaks up, "Marks, if there is anything you need . . . ?"

"Yes, thank you." He reaches into Nuku's cage and unclips a portable hard drive from her collar. "Take this down to 'B Ward' next chance you get and plug it into my desktop." Marks hands over the tiny tool as he makes his way to the parking garage door. "Also, can you tell me if VP Ako Karingson is still in the building?"

Dwight laughs. "You could just ask me if your wife is in." He looks down at his log book.

Marks mumbles to himself "a minor formality"

Dwight nods "Looks like she is with AC Dem-Row and your former lab assistant Allen Wesker, they are at a budget meeting." "Good. Could you detain her?" Marks steps out.

"How long?" Dwight questionably jokes.

"Indefinitely," Marks yells back as he is on his way to the subterranean levels.

Dwight looks at Juan. "What does he do here anyway?"

"Only: cryonics, bionics, cybernetics, gene slicing, genetic research, and robotics."

"Is that all?"

Juan shakes his head. Dwight holds out the USB drive. "You handle this shit. I don't want to risk breaking anything that might be worth more than my penchant."

Marks walks briskly through the silent parking ramps, making haste as he is a man with a purpose; it would seem strange that only ten hours ago one could not find a parking spot in this lot as every inch was covered, but now the only car in sight is Marks' jeep. It's the middle of August, but already there is frost on the ground and a stiff chill in the air. Marks unlocks his car door and places Nuku in the seat alongside him; the back is filled with an assortment of devices. Atop his dashboard rests a camera the size of a deck of cards. After starting the motor, he flips on the camera.

"Vigeta, my old friend, I'm sorry things had to go this way." Marks starts the engine. "I had hope for sixteen more months to work, but it would seem that the 'powers that be' have forbidden that from happening. I have no doubt you will have many questions about who we are and mayhap what we were. You will certainly find your way to my office, read the files I have written, but words on a computer screen do no justice when compared to the expertise that comes with seventy plus years of life experiences."

Marks turns the jeep around and makes his way down the street and onto the side roads. "You will hear many things about who we are. Allow me to illuminate a thing or two with the moments we have left together. My only true regret is that I will not be present to watch you being born. That will have to be left to far less loving hands. First off, we are wed. Our wife's name is Ako Esuna-Karingson. We have been together for fifteen years as of October, but we do not love each other. Our union is one of conveniences. Shaun Clawed saw me as his own personal Nicola Tesla, a rock star of the scientific world, and it simply would not do to have a single superstar. So a wife was bought and paid for in our name. If she loved anyone it would be our old friend Allen Wesker."

"Next, we had a child. That is true, but we killed her. Her name was Tara. She was conceived as part of an experiment involving in vitro birth and such was pivotal in our project alongside Mercedes Vixon. I digress, Ako and I both donated DNA for this project, hints why we were allowed to keep her. There was a deformity, and as a result of my attempt to correct the anomaly . . . well, you'll figure it out . . . she would have been ten."

Marks makes all efforts to stay out of sight, staying on the side roads, weaving in and out of alleyways; he stays well below the speed limit. "Some may say that we consort with demons in order to harness our magic. This is not true. All that which we have, we have worked for. However, to say we know nothing of witchcraft would be far too modest. You will quickly come to find we possess certain abilities that are quite uncommon."

"After the 'Big One' we moved to Tibet for some time, wherein we came to know a golden-eyed Taoist who offered to teach us a very old and spectacular martial art he referred to as Ki-Ho, the blood sword style. With this knowledge in hand, a masterful individual could in essence separate their mind from their body and wield their spirit as an extinction of their will. It is no mystery why some perceive this as magic or devilry. You have this power as well, I only wish we did not need it."

"You too will need a Nuku by your side, so I have arranged for this to be so. You will find in my office, your own Nuku 2 or maybe I could say Nuku Nuku? . . . Poetry was never amongst my greater passions . . ."

"My dear Vigeta, in the time I have worked for Claw Co. R&D I have seen things that were never meant for the human eyes. I have seen into other men's fantasies. I have witnessed the fantastic evils that come from science that is conducted without moral or restraint. I have even looked into the book of life beneath Cronos' (God of time) arm, and I have both penciled in names and rubbed them out."

"Vigeta, we have done things in our life that we would not wish for any to ever speak of again. I have killed off over two hundred men with my bare hands, and weapons I have constructed tenfold of that, modestly speaking. I'm told that when a great age comes to an end that sometimes it will leave behind a rage that will burn away the past and a curse is then born. You are my curse. There are so many things I wish I could change. But now my faith lies solely with you."

Marks is swift and he is silent, but in spite of that he is seen. Allen, his former partner, has followed him step by step till at last he reaches a place where he can do his bloody business without being seen. Allen drives an armored car disguised as a luxury sedan. He drives slow and stays quiet; he leaves his lights off and tracks his prey via a tracking beacon hidden within the jeep. Allen is a young man still in his thirties; in spite of his occupation, he is a fit man--six feet tall, 200 lbs; he wears his hair short, spiked up and pulled back.

Allen pulls in close to Marks. He flashes his lights only once in warning as if playing a game of tag, then pounds the gas in his armored car, slamming harshly into his back end, pushing him into a building.

Allen steps out of his car and walks slowly to Marks' Jeep, expecting that the "old wizard" will not die easily.

Marks sits stunned for a moment, then smirks, whispering to his friend without having the need to lift his head in confirmation of his approach. "Allen, my friend,

I wasn't expecting you to be so jolly on the spot today."

Allen smashes in the driver side window, reaching in with one gloved hand. He grabs the old man, dragging him to the street. "Tough luck, old wizard. We have known for weeks you had plans to run." Allen's eyes glow like flashlights beneath the thick glasses he wears, reflecting a yellow glow onto his face. He is garbed in a tuxedo that would seem to fit the rich well; as for whatever Allen would be (murderer, assassin, contract killer, take your pick), it looks almost comical.

"It looks as if time has been good to you. Have you been keeping up on your studies? Frankly, I'm surprised you came after me yourself. With your level of power and privilege, you had no reason to come all the way out here in person," Marks asks tauntingly as he is thrown to the ground by the deceptively strong corporate executive.

Allen reaches around behind himself, pulling out a rich-looking handgun. "What was the alternative? Hiring death-dealers? You would have killed them before they could get within fifty paces." Allen cocks his gun and holds Marks to the ground with one foot.

"I have a question, old friend. Will you look after Nuku when I'm gone?"

"Of course, she was mine first anyway." "Thank you," Marks grins.

Allen points down at Marks, drawing back the hammer of his pistol. "Aren't you going to fight back at all? Struggle, yell, anything?" Marks just grins and shakes his head. "What part of this do you find amusing, old wizard?"

"I'm wearing a biometer."

"So what? Someone is going to know your time of death."

"Oh, that will be only the beginning. When I die, I will become more powerful than you can possibly understand."

"Old man, you have finally lost your mind." Marks laughs the laugh of a lunatic as he is shot three times, twice on the chest, once on the head. The echo of the gunshot is silenced well before the laughter of the doctor has gone . . .

Allen waits and watches as Marks bleeds out on the cold blacktop. He kneels and checks Marks' pulse. There is no question that it is done. Allen turns his back on his fallen friend; there is nothing left to do here. "The job is done. Send a cleanup crew."

"Marks Karingson, we're not through with you yet," a menacing voice calls through the void.Marks burns away . . .

Allen returns to the Claw Co. R&D building only to find the storm shutters bolted down. Allen rips down one of the doors with his monstrous strength and reaches for his phone. "Someone tell me what the hell is going on!" he demands.

Lights are flashing on and off. Radio chatter makes all communications broken. The first full statement to come over the PA is a frantic call for help. "The goddamn hardware has come tolife." Next, "There is something fucked up in bionics. I need backup."

Allen replies to the latter, "I'm on my way."

It is late in the day; most of the staff has already made their way home. The elevator seems jammed; Allen makes for the stairs. Along the way, he is joined by a number of his fellow executives--first Ako Karingson, then Shaun Clawed, who is being accompanied by AC Dem-Row. Ako is the youngest in the group, aside from Allen at barely forty. Shaun is middle-aged pushing fifty but is still built like a barbarian with wide shoulders and a stiff back. AC Dem-Row is an aging man; old and rich, he stands hunched over, shuffling his way behind them.

Doors open and close of their own will all around the group as they hastily push their way down the halls into bionics. The PA has begun transmitting gibberish, mostly white noise with the occasional name seemingly coming up in a purring voice. Dwight Egget waits for them at the end of the next hallway. But in spite of all that has been seen already, the most horrifying sights have yet to come.

The voices do not lie; the tools in the bionics lab are floating around a magnetic sphere, pounding, screwing, and fashioning together an alien device. It starts with the heart, twelve magnets arranged in a sphere--eight on the outer ring, three on the inner ring, and one in between. As the heart comes to life, the inner and outer rings press against the lone disk and begin to spin, creating a perpetual force. A set of pistons fall into place, attaching a set of spider-like legs to the heart which then pull together into a ribcage; next, a human skeleton begins taking shape. Two arms and two legs are assembled out of the cylinders' field with a white liquid, then wrapped in a hefty aloe silver gray with a hint of blue in unearthly looking material. Near the wrist, a mass really system forms, a tiny Sentra-fusion generator; a set of hands snap into place made with the latest 32 point movement technology.

A skull made of steel lowers into the sight of the spinal column still attached and ties into the spiderlike chest, and finally, a human brain is implanted. Sown with a web of electrons hidden within a contaminated field, the brain is loaded into the mechanical monster. A long sequence of muscles crafted out of cavalier plating are woven onto the bone followed by a rubber sealant. At last, a synthetic skin is drawn over the form and hair is weaved throughout the body in order to complete the human masquerade.

Tendrils of light enter the magnetic globe and drill their way into the newly formed man, twisting around him like a great and evil angel's wing. "What the hell is that?!" Shaun calls out. Needles weave in with silver steal hair.

The monster lowers to ground level, and a team of robotic arms dress it in black slacks, dress shirt, and a trench coat with the Claw Co. seal on one sleeve, three lightning bolts, and a red banner. Assortments of belts snap onto the body, securing the outfit in place. At last, the beast has come to life, and the wing vanishes leaving the monster alone to do as it wishes. Allen replies to Shaun's inquiry, "It's Marks!"

Slowly Marks' feet touch the ground; he reaches behind himself, flinging his hair back, revealing its length, swaying around his knees like a might maim mighty mane in its metallic glory. "He has grown young?" proclaims Ako.

"He is a monstrosity," Allen declares.

Marks smirks, "Mr. Egget, this would be a good time for you to leave." Dwight runs without a word, disappearing from the rear of the group. Marks pivots to face his former comrades; his skin is cold and gray in the pale light. His eyes once green are now red.

"What is he going to do?" Ako asks. Marks raises one hand and snaps his fingers; an invisible blade flies from his fist and cuts though his trader of a wife, severing her seamlessly into pieces.

"Run," Allen whispers to Shaun Clawed and AC Dem-row. Shaun shoves Dem-Row, almost dragging him out the door as he retreats. Dem-Row chokes down a chuckle with devilish glee.

Allen adjusts his glasses as he steps into the room with the cyborg. "Interesting trick, old wizard, but why?"

Marks lowers his head and closes his eye, a strange look of content burned into his expiration. "You never answered me, Allen. Are you keeping up on your studies?"

Allen raises his fist ready to fight. "Well enough to beat you, I would say."

A spectral wind howls around Marks, blowing his hair up and back into the shapes like fluttering wings. Allen quick-draws his sidearm, unloading the magazine on the seemingly defenseless Dr. Karingson, the bullets burn out of existence mid-flight. Marks lifts his hand and snaps again, summoning another ethereal edge. Allen discards his gun and hold out both arms to catch the Ki attack, knowing well what it is. The attack cuts deep into his hand and drags him across the room before he can dispel it.

Marks lift his other hand and points with two fingers, summoning a spear of light and launching it at his competitor. Allen jumps left; Marks throws a second spear, and Allen jumps right. At the next, he runs up the wall, then jumps to take initiative. Allen kicks and punches, hoping to take his teacher off his feet. Marks is fast, too fast; Marks dips and twists away. Allen launches a flurry of kicks; Marks lifts his leg only slightly to knee block, then steps in with a shoulder push to end the assault. Marks is playing with him, not bothering to take his hand from his pocket since moving into mala rang e. He really shouldn't play with his food so much, but how often do you get to fight a Ki master (pronounced key)?

Allen refuses to be intimidated; this thing only looks like Marks, and it can't be Marks. After all even if it were him, he killed him once already. Allen begins anew; rushing forth, he hocks left, then right, then jabs. Marks plays with his old friend, walking backward, giving him a feeling of power, but not for too long . . . one devastating knee to the sternum and Allen collapses, his strength sapped with what could have been a fatal blow to a weaker man.

Something goes wrong; the room starts to heat up the metal in the room sparks, the blast doors begin falling shut, and the BOW containment field in this sector has been activated. Allen jumps to his feet with all his remaining strength. The containment field is designed to kill any living organism, through mass acceleration bombarding them with macro-waves till every particle divides resulting in spontaneous combustion. Allen understands that the moment the blast door seals he is dead and no technology can bring him back after that.

Allen runs; Marks lifts one hand, preparing another spell. Allen dives, sliding under the door as it locks. Rapid barrage of energy blast launched by Marks bends the door and nearly melts it before it is seemingly silenced. "I want that thing studied if it is still intact after this . . ."

Juan walks to the upper floors, looking for Marks' office as instructed; the room number was on record, but there are four room 1080s to choose from: 1080N, 1080E, 1080S, and 1080W. The only way it could have been harder to track the office down would have been if he was in room 440, then it could have added the "C" ward to the circuit.

Marks' office is something straight out of an Ann Rice novel; two giant springs hang from the ceiling, a constant stream of electricity connecting them. A dozen half-assembled bodies are spread across the floor. There is a leaning tower of monitors in one corner; there are no visible light fixers. In the center of the room is a lone desk upon which there is a computer in good repair and an army of radios in less so.

Juan makes his way around the room, trying desperately not to step on anything, and a strange feeling of panic takes hold as he slowly moves about. Without warning, all the monitors come to life, and the almost phantom-like image of Marks appears dressed in his black overcoat with white makeup. Juan yelps and falls on his back after the images begin to speak in union.

"Good day, friend, I'm sorry about the rude awakening. In better times, I would never have dreamed of so much treachery. If we are speaking now, it means I have failed, and it is time for 'plan B.' I am dead and you, friend, are the last hope I have," Marks purrs.

"Do you remember Mercedes Vixon?" I do, and she was fine and strong. She had a vision, and I was more than happy to help her realize it. Mercedes saw then as I do now that there is a fundamental problem with computers. Try if you must to understand all that a computer is and all that we believe a computer must be. A computer can help us remember what we need as the grocer reminds us to change the oil in our cars. They can help us keep track of our friends and family. Soon they might even fly planes and drive trucks.

"But in spite of all this, will a computer ever cook your dinner for you? Tuck you in at night? Wish you pleasant dream, then help you pick out a tie to wear to the office? Can your computer go to the market for you when you're sick? Do you love your computer? Does it love you back?

"Call this the last wonderful dream of a deranged mind if you must, but I believe it can. And so did Mercedes. This wonders technology is real. There are only four like it, and I wish to give you three of them under the strict understanding that you must take it out of here and it must be tonight. Shaun Clawed knew only that we had developed something like there has never been but has no idea what that might entail. This give us an advantage. They who wish us harm are looking for something strange and something revolutionary. What I offer you would hardly be so easily identified as say a touch phone.

"So now I ask you to risk your life. Why? Because it is worth it. Do as I say and you will live to see sunrise one more time. I can guarantee you that much. After that, I'm sorry to say you will be on your own." As the ghastly Dr. Karingson monologues, Juan finds his feet.

"Now should you choose to accept this mission, here is the first thing you must do." Juan heeds the voice. "To your left in the desk there are four cabinets. The one on the bottom right is unlocked. Open it!" Juan stumbles to the desk and frantically starts looking for the unlock cubby. "Inside there are four devices. First you will see a sphere, like a baseball made of aluminum. Don't touch it. Next to it is a black box. It looks like a pack of cigarettes with five lights on it. Take it as well as the pistol! Finally there is a phone. You will need that as well. This recording will now self-destruct." The screens go blue, and a error message pops up.

As soon as Juan finds the tools described, the phone starts ringing. Bamboozled, Juan picks up. "Hello?"

"Thank you, my friend. You follow instructions so swiftly." "How are you doing this?" Juan asks in jest.

"The device in your hand now is a SI simulated intelligence. It has been programmed to play a prerecorded set of messages and to recognize a sequence of predicted questions and answer them before shutting down."

"Dr. Karingson, you are amazing," Juan whispers into the phone.

"Thank you. Let's get started. I have set this and a dozen other programs to execute at the time of my death, amongst them being a rather troublesome bug that has caused the building's quarantine protocol to trigger. If you wish to escape, I have arranged for a safe path to travel. Leave the room now!"

Juan steps out of the room; he looks left and he looks right. "What am I doing?"

"Your objective is to reach the parking garage. You must enter from the E-block entry. Start by going to the N-C skyway."

In just the last several minutes, things have gotten strangely out of hand. Light are flashing on and off; doors are opening and closing on their own. Round the next corner, the fire suppressant system has gone off, drowning the hall in white chemical fumes.

"The shortest bath would be to go through 'test zone'. Don't go that way. Go to the brake room. Use the cipher device to bypass the lock when you reach the skyway."

Juan walks the way Marks instruct, making his way past an untold number of dangers before finally reaching the lower floors where Dwight seems to be waiting for him. The two men share a puzzling moment before receiving their final instructions.

Juan looks at his phone. "Now what?"

"At dock number fifteen, there is a truck labeled 'Hot-Dog Tacos.' The keys are in the ignition. Take it and leave," Marks orders.

"And then?" Juan asks.

"Nothing. I leave you two to your own devices. If you're still alive in forty-eight hours, I'll be very impressed. The treasure hidden in the back of that truck is programmed to be fully self-sufficient and replicating. So long as Shaun Clawed never gets his hand on them I'll be happy." The phone dies.

Dwight looks at Juan as they start the truck. "Do you have a plane?"

Juan shakes his head. "No, but I have friends."

Chapter 2

Into the Darkness

(Watcher Archive note by "Watcher" A. L. Gallard, segment taken from "Hunter S." Richard Blake's journal 0, recorder 09-10-01)

His name is Criss. Most people seem to think we're twins; I'm OK with that. The truth is, however, he is ten months older and I'm two inches taller. But we are brothers. Criss is lean and straight as in an arrow; I tend to be as impartial as a polar bear. What a pair we make! Criss is always sharp as a whip. I'm more blunt than a spoon.

As far as I'm concerned, he and I are just a pair of average twenty-year-old jack offs. I guess I've always been a tad strange. When I was a child, I thought I could see things that were invisible, light, mostly circles, floating over and through people. I was told I was crazy. My brother, Criss, knew I was telling the truth; he reinforced and told me to practice with my gift and see what else I could do. Before long I could move objects around, only pushing them at first, then levitating them and dragging them into myself. There were only small things back then, nothing the size of a human. Today I can lift and throw a beer keg in whatever direction I like.

Our parents are from Ireland. We moved to the United States when we were still really little. Hidden in our father's collection of first print books was a book labeled only with the letter "W"; it was leather bound with a steel clasp on it. Hidden within the pages was the key to my powers. It is called psionisism. It manifests in many ways--most commonly telepathy (I don't have this one), the ability to see into another's mind and on one level or another converse and manipulate it. Next is called clairvoyance; one or more of your senses are enhanced to superhuman levels. Maybe you can see though others' eyes or feel the world around you in a way that is more than just empathetic. (I can see emotions, that is what the globes of light I saw as a kid were.) Psi-co-partition: you, or at the very least your conciseness can move though space or time without the need to cover both simultaneously (teleportation and astral projection fall under this category); psi-co-metabolics, the ability to breathe under water, heals instantaneously, massacred as in animal, weird shit. Telekinetic (this would be what my ability to move objects was categorized as) can fuck with the rules of reality, to some extent speed up/slow down time, light shit on fire. I wish I could do that. Apparently this is like any skill--use it or lose it.

The book suggests one in fifty children are born with one or more of these talents, and as they grow up, they forget how to use them.

That is not important really in the long run. Let me get back to the point. Criss and I are living together again, just me, him, and his lovely fiancée. Her name is Pink; she is an Arenuse (don't know what that is, don't threat. I just figured it out for myself. She has red skin and a tail if you look at her in the dark, like that of a cartoon demon you would see on the billboard for a nightclub. Cast her in full daylight on the other hand and she looks like a teenage girl. She is just one of a thousand life forms otherwise referred to as extraplanners.)

We live off reputation. Floating from town to town, we are "monster hunters," not like the ones you see on TV running around with cameras and EMF readers. We're not interested in ghost stores and the like, local roomers. We are looking for real monsters, giant dogs escaped from hell, bats from the abyss that sum up how wound up in New York humans are being used like martinets by jellyfish from the fucking moon. And let me tell you, we find them, kill them, and then just before we claim the glory so, the damn shadow cult cleans up our mess and makes us all look like nut balls.

Every day just before sunrise, my brother would rouse me from my slumber and slap a book in my hand and take me out to train. "Richard, you are a psion. You're faster and stronger than I can ever hope to be. Now take up your sword and fight!" Ya, Blake is my name by the way, Richard Blake.

We meet swords just as we do every day; Pink heads out to get us breakfast. The match goes as it seems to every time Criss plays with me, for a time letting us draw at 2-2 for a time. Then he starts to get tired, and it's time for him to take command. (Criss loves sword play. After one of our jobs, rather than take the cash we were offered he talks us into taking this antique glaidus.) We end our match for the day at 12-4, his favor.

August 20 was when it all started to change. At 4:00 a.m., I'm kicked awake, but not by Criss, but by an old man with a cane made of glass; he has a skunk-striped beard and a limp so bad he nearly drags one leg behind him. He has a deep husky smoker's voice and dresses in a green velvet sport coat.

When I had fallen asleep, Pink was in the middle of the bed, I was behind her, and Criss in front of her so . . . you can imagine the fright I felt when this old, gray face was suddenly against my nose. "Put some paints on you bum," he commands. I fall out of bed and on to the floor with a great thump. I soon would find this is just the first of many such encounters.

Criss and Pink are in the main room of the hotel. Criss is somehow showered and shaved already. Pink is in a night gown. I find my pants and my tan overcoat, but there seems to be no shirt in sight. The old man is called Dove; he has the same tattoo on his hand as is engraved in my brother's book. I can feel he saw that to. "So you think you're monster hunters? If so, I have a job for you." We all nod in damn near union. "Good! There is a demon running around town. He calls himself Cravixs. Find him and find out if he is afraid of anything. You don't have to engage him yourself. Do this and you can name your price." Pink speaks up, "One million dollars." "Done!" Dove proclaims.

"Cash," Pink requests.

"In advance," Criss adds.

"No," Dove replies.

"Then cut us a check, and if it's any good we'll take your job," Pink plays with the old man.

"Do the job, and if you're any good, I'll cut you a check," Dove announces.

Soundsfair to me, I thought.

(Note by L. Gallard "Watcher SS": Joseph Dove had been trailing the movement of a unregistered plane shifter at the time he first encountered the Blake family; their interaction at that time was unwarranted. The action was forgiven by the council due to the exceptional skills brought forth by "Hunter S." R. Blake in spite of the plane shifter's escape. It is also my feeling (even if not acknowledged by my superiors) that the recovery of John T. Hacker's journal was a contributing factor in this lenience.)

This job like most others begins with a trip to the library. The demon in question is seemingly very elusive; the text on hand gives no clues as to where to start our search, nor did it help to unravel its history. It turns out Pink had more to say than properly noted. Upon returning to the hotel, she takes her true form for us and begins to weave a tale.

"My home realm is called Aether. There are many Arenuse that worship Cravixs. They call him the 'Keeper.' He is the great mist that divides Aether from 'Earth Prime' and 'Red Twilight,' your realm. My sisters claim he is a 'changeling,' a man that can mimic any other man perfectly. He can be man or beast. He can sleep for a thousand years. He has the strength of a hundred or more lives, and he can summon 'Mana' the life stream to his aid."

I know what a changeling is. That means a lot all ready, but God, I don't believe it. He is only a man. OK, he might be ten thousand years old and he might be able to command animals the same way I can read auras, but that is nothing more than a barroom illusion in the end, nothing some cold steel can't deal with. I've never been a god-fearing man after all.

Frankly, I find it hard to comprehend. Pink has just handed me the key to the perfect truth, a key to unlocking some of the greatest mysteries of all time and I'm too stupid to understand it. If never again I breathe a breath of truth, let this be known. Heaven IS hell IS earth; the only difference is where are you standing. It's in the songs we sing, the poetry we read, and in the words we speak. Think about it; it will all come to light soon.

"How do we find it?" Criss asks at the end of the tale.

"It will find us."

The next day is a strange day. Things just don't feel right. I sleep with Pink again; this time Pink sleeps facing me. I don't wake up till half past ten; Criss doesn't wake me. In fact, I don't know if Criss even sleeps. When I get out of the bath, Criss is sitting up in the living room staring into a mirror on the other side of the room. Pink waves one hand in front of him; he fails to react. She tells me, "He has been sitting there for most of the night, I think."

I snap my fingers a few times. "Criss? Criss!" He refuses to move. I ask one more time, this time a bit harder and with the back of my hand. Criss falls out of his seat and looks normal.

"What's up?" Criss asks.

"You first," I insist.

"Have you ever sat and stared into a mirror?"

"Yes."

"Does the reflection always follow you?"

"Far as I can tell." It seems clear to me that he can see something that I cannot. That's when the phone starts to ring, a strange ancient ring like that of a rotary phone; in today's world that is almost an alien sound. We all turn to the telephone; it's old and made of wood with a bronze reserve. Funny, I don't remember having even seen a phone yesterday. I nod my head at Pink; Pink looks at Criss. Criss waves me on; I pick up.

"Hello?" Wind howls so loudly on the other end that it echoes in the hotel. Metallic grinding fills the air; glass all around us creaks and cracks; I drop the phone and start to spin about searching for an explanation for the phenomenon. I'm not alone in my quest.

A whisper drools through the phone sharply, all other sounds deaden. "You're looking for the Cravixs. You can find what you are looking for at 1515 Dolphin on the seventh floor. Go there if you dare." Silences comes next; strangely I'm not relieved.

"Did everyone catch that?" It's not really a question; I know everyone did. But in the off-chance I have lost my mind, I ask.

There's no hesitation, no discussion; Criss goes for the phone book and looks up the address. It's real, a hotel; we're on the road in no time. Criss grabs his sword and asks me if I want mine; I laugh. A decade in the field of monster hunting and I haven't seen the monster yet that was more afraid of a blade than my "Jessie James" revolver.

We make our way to the location described, there forth to be known as mistake number one if I do say so myself; the hotel is a upper class kind of place--glass doors, all hard wood construction on the first floor. There are six uniformed crew members waiting to check us in. Turning left from the entry way, there is a bar and grill; maybe we'll grab a bit after this snoop job is over. Pink checks the directory, Criss the elevator; both come to the same conclusion that the hotel is only six floors.

I go to see the young lady at check-in.

"Checking in?"

"Yep."

"How many?"

"Myself, the young lady, and my brother."

"Our two bedroom suites run for three hundred a night."

"Ouch, how much for one bed?"

"One seventy-five. Did you have a room in mind?"

"Anything on seven."

Her voice seems to change slightly. "OK, great!" She chuckles a manly chuckle through her teeth and hands me a key. "First night's on me, love." The tone is low and devilish like a dozen people talking at once.

"I beg your pardon?"

She turns her head and coughs into one shoulder to clear her throat. "Elevator is on your right, just around the corner." There is clearly something sinister here; if only I had seen it.

I clap twice and point at the elevators; Criss and Pink fall in behind me. "Richard, there is no seventh floor," Criss points out.

"I know. Let's see if the hotel agrees." The elevator moves painfully slow. It seems caged in, a whiplash from the eighteen hundreds; there is a fan ten feet long about eighty feet overhead and dark light pours in through the ventilation.

Semi-tangible shadows seem to surround us. From every which way, things move without being seen. Pink shifts into her demoness form, red skin tail and all. She yelps as if to suggest that something tried grabbing her from behind. So begins a nightmare that I had hope to never live through, but yet I can see now it will never end.

The doors open; it is clear that we are no longer in the hotel. Everything is wrong; the world is dilapidated. The walls are flesh toned; the ground is made out of rusted metal grating. There is no more light falling from above; now the only light comes from a fire burning a mile beneath our feet. Where doors might have otherwise been, there is nothing more than flesh stretched across the openings, some still containing features of the animal that it must have once been.

Criss pulls his sword out and gently pushes Pink in between us; I draw my iron. It feels as if we are being led; slowly we march into the center of the complex. Slowly, we move away from the safety of the light; some doors open in front of us, others are closed. Below we can see the first flickers of life--Thallads' gray-skinned faceless humanoids, no eyes, no nose, just a mouth; some look male, others female, but it feels like a mockery, a wax body with no face. They move in inhuman ways, walking backward, on all fours sometimes, crawling along walls or swinging from the roof. Almost none of them seem to feel the need to cover themselves; they would be beautiful if I didn't think them so horrid.

Chain gates rise in our wake, cutting off some hallways; it is clear that they want us to see something. We are led to what must have been the common areas of the hotel. There in the wide open space of this rusting world stands an effigy made of some form of crystal; humanoid in nature, it stands in a dominating posture, one arm back, the other forward. The back arm clinches a scythe with a chain wrapped around its torso; in the other, it holds a globe and is reaching for the sky. The being is robed; its hair blows across its face, hiding all but its eyes. Faces can be seen in its clothing; human shapes crawl up its body. It feels both elegant and evil.

"What the hell do you think this is?" I find myself asking no one.

Criss throws out his thoughts first, "It is what we came here for."

Then Pink says, "He is Adam Crow, the Avatar to Cravixs. When the lord moves from world to world, he inhabits a mortal form, throughout the course of history as you understand it, that has been his vanguard."

"This hunk of rock is a god?" I find myself spouting out.

"It's an effigy, a piece of art made to look like a man or god," Criss throws across as if I didn't know.

"Do you know what the most painful thing a biological life form can be subjected to?" An unknown voice comes from behind. "Being alone, and that is revealed only by the heartache of being forgotten." The voice comes from a shrouded entity that looks mysteriously like death himself--black hair, white skin, and glowing purple eyes set deep into its skull. Black light spill from its body, sinking into the heart of this world. The dim fairy lights grow only dimmer as they are choked out by this devil . . .

Gradually the light comes back as a gray-white fog pours upon like a hunger mist freezing the environment before us. Our eyes turn to the sky only to see the world seemingly enveloped by an astronomically huge beast, completely inhuman; it is a purple pink mass of slime with a void as its heart; these vortices are never-ending. It has teeth lining its spiraling core pointing into the great nothingness. It breathes an icy breath that coats the world in a thin layer of ice. I lack the power to describe the truly overpowering presence that is this thing; the only word to comes to mind at this time is whether it is divine.

It feels as if my feet are frozen to the ground; I stare in mortal awe. My soul drinks deeply of the sensation that was never meant for it. Frozen earth begins breaking apart; the splintered pieces are dragged into the air and into the black hole of a beast orbiting around us. Pink is the first one of us to regain her senses. She grabs Criss with one hand, me with the other, and shouts, "Come on, come on! Let's go!"

We run; I'm the fastest, quickly taking point, leading the way back along the trail we have previously traveled. Things don't go as well as expected; the tower starts to shake to pieces. The land is dying; a hole opens in the ground beneath my feet. I make it over the hole without a thought. Pink jumps over and I catch her; Criss goes for it. He falls short; I go to grab him. I'm too slow. Criss vanishes. He yells up to us, "Just run!"

Pink is devastated by what she assumes to be our friend and brother's horrid demise; I feel the same way. Pink nearly collapses in tears; I grab her, nearly dragging her along as we sprint through the nightmare hotel.

The Thallads stop hiding and come out to confront us; maybe they think this was our doing. I can't say for sure; I don't stop to ask either. The first gray-skinned monster to step in our path is confronted by the blunt of my psionic force, a blast of raw energy that nearly shreds the monster to pieces upon hitting the metallic floor. The next is a horde that gets shattered like bowling pins. By the time they gain their bearings, we're long gone.

We go round the corner, down the hall, and back to where we started--the elevators. What made me think this was a good idea is beyond me at this point. The door slides open and I step in, the chamber jars, nearly taking us both off our feet. Pink goes to step in behind me; something grabs her from behind, throws her off into the mist. I go to chase after her; I'm cut off.

The biggest Thallad I've seen yet blocks the way; seven feet tall, a diamond-shaped head with a hinge-like jaw, and dressed only in a cloth around its waist, it is armed with a claymore.

I don't have the time or energy to summon anther psychic attack so quickly; I raise my Jessie James and start shooting. The doors slam on me; I hit nothing. The claymore smashes through the door. I hold against the wall to get away; the elevator starts to plummet. I can hear the monster overhead. He lands atop the elevator. I aim and take a potshot; it stabs down at me in return. I duck; we dance around the room that way. I shoot; he stabs till at last the ceiling can't take it, and the monster falls through the floor. We both stand stunned, staring each other down (its eyes look to be in its mouth); he swings his sword. I swing my arm out and hit him with a psychic blast; his sword flies off course and into the wall. He growls at me; I stick my gun in his mouth and blast a hole through him. The elevator screams to a halt. I feel strangely satisfied.

As the doors slowly creak open, I can hear the sound of music being played on a gramophone. I feel a sensation of renewal; I find myself dreaming of the doors swinging open and I'm back in the hotel. Everyone is safe, or better I'm safe in bed; we haven't even left yet.

I'm not that lucky; the doors open to a walkway four feet wide with a twenty-foot tall fan blocking me off from the exit. I'm still in THIS hell, and just now it seems I'm noticing that I'm here alone. I put my back to the wall and walk slowly. Carefully I listen for voices, footsteps anything that might give me some clue where I'm going. I feel my foot hit something heavy. I look down; it's Criss' sword. I can't decide if I'm relieved to know he made it this far or devastated by the idea that if I have his blade he doesn't. He wouldn't have dropped it, that's for damn sure.

I don't know how long I stumbled around in the darkness, likely only a minute or two, but as far as I know it could have been three days. There are no landmarks. I keep moving in a straight line, but time and time again, I keep finding myself standing in front of the elevators. That damn music is playing on a loop. I find myself singing along, "All I have to do is dream, and I know you will be there. In my dreams . . ."

The fans stop, and I find I can slide beneath them. I find my way past the steel doors. I walk into another world; shards of broken glass sixty feet tall by ten feet wide surround me. I weave my way through knee-deep powered glasslike sawdust; my nose is assaulted by a scent I can't quite place. It's a bit like "titami tea" (a industrial comical bamboo is soaked in to be petrified for building purposes). I can now see what Criss was saying about mirrors; these ones don't seem to be mirroring me so much as shadowing me.

Finally, I see blue skies again, but they are alien. There are too many stars. The nebulas are too close, the colors too bright. Everything in sight is made of crystal, but looks broken or half complete.

A voice with an echoing whisper speaks to me, "Welcome, worthy friend, to Tamriel." Glowing purple eyes shimmer at me across the mystical terrain. A black flowing cloak, a mass of bird feathers blow around the newly formed man that now stands before me; he feels like an angel of despair. It finally hits me that I have seen this thing before; the effigy, the white-skinned phantom--he has been like a specter just out of the corner of my eye from the moment we met the estranged Mr. Dove. He must be the monster Pink called Cravixs "or what's left of it at least." He spins around as if to admire the broken realm.

(I should like to make note that I say "he" more so out of habit than to suggest that this monster has an easily defined gender. Though its voice is a hard baritone, its smooth skin, long silky hair, and sharp eyes are very feminine. It would be more fair to say it is asexual, but to say her or him every time I refer to him would be unfair.)

"Who are you?" I square myself off with the demon.

He tucks his hands in his pockets and flaps his cloak up and down like a set of wings. "The most obvious of questions, but least relevant. How can one truthfully yet fully reply to such inquiry? 'Fear and harken onto me for I am the Lord' comes to mind. 'I are thee how is called I am' or 'we are the Alpha and Omega.' I am to dawn as is dusk. We who rules the midnight air: I the destroyer."

"You are God?"

"I am what you would call a god, yes."

I hate everything about the guy; I raise my iron and take a shot. I can take this guy out. No problem, one shot. 'That's that' is what I think. The devil slaps my bullet out of the air like a bug, and suddenly I find a rusty chain linking my chest to his hand. The thing called Cravixs tugs his hand forward and I fall at him. I don't give up; I clench my fist and take my brother's sword in both hands with hopes of knocking the fucker's head clean off. He grabs my wrist and forces it down. He stares into me; his eyes are narrow with hatred and lust. He pulls his hair away from his face, then wipes the sweat from my brow. I can taste his breath; it's hideous. His skin is so cold it burns; his lips touch mine and I am paralyzed. In the moments that follow, I experience what must be the limit of mortal suffering.

One of his legs wraps around mine, and he lays me down; his lies on top of me. I barely notice. The anguish of my body is nothing compared to what I see within him. He is the void; I fall into his eyes, and past them is a vortex of cycling souls reaching for me, screaming, trying to pull me in, trying to pull themselves out. For them it is too late; they are a part of the nothingness, and in a moment I will be to. I can feel it almost immediately; they take away my dreams, then my memories. They eat me from the inside, working their way out. I turn what is left of my strength inward. Foolishly I think, I, the mighty psychic, Richard Blake, can standagents the void.

My feeble efforts are not only meaningless but flat out laughable; he tears apart my defenses like a hand grenade tears a part rice pudding. It seems needless to say I am crushed beneath Cravixs' cosmic strength. I remember hearing him say or maybe think a word "Ju-on?" I can't remember anything that happens thereafter. Time passes; for all I know, he takes my virginity.

I awake hours, maybe days later. I'm beaten to a dry but bloody mess; my clothing is torn to barely adequate. My mouth is filled with sand (a feeling I find I'm somehow getting used to). I search myself for what is worth for any physical evidence of my most recent memories. The only thing I find is that I have a death grip on Criss's sword. That's proof enough for me that what I thought I saw I did see.

I'm standing on a dirt road; there is nothing in sight but miles of corn. I start walking, and it's not long before I'm approached by a black 1980s' style Jaguar. The rear window rolls down; the windows are tinted to hide whoever is inside. An English woman's voice comes from the back asking me, "Are you Christopher Blake?"

"No," I respond, and start to try to relate what has just transpired, but I am interrupted by a silver and blue gun peeking out the window. I hear the bang and I see the flash, but I don't feel the impact, not at first. I reach down and feel my chest. I pull out a dart; it has a syringe attached to it and three needles. Next I feel rage; I can hear my heart beat loud as thunder. My vision blurs; I raise my gun and cry a primal roar. This time I don't see the flash, only feel the darts hitting me, a dozen of them. My heart slows to a stop.

That was three weeks ago . . .

(Watcher archive note by "Watcher A." L. Gallard--for the sake of accuracy Richard Blake was shot six times with an injector gun filled with a neurotoxin called INT-23. Typically a single dose would render one immobilized and disable their ability to formulate memory for several days. According to (Hunter U. H.) Wright Von Richton, she fired one shot. He (Blake) appeared resistant so she fired five more times. He awoke only several minutes later and became hysterical, so she shot him again, this time with a sedative called CON-5 at which time he lost consciousness.

As a rule of thumb, stories of the nature that I have just shared find their way into a special section of the archive known as the "unknowns" stories that contain material we simply cannot verify the authenticity of. As I was sorting this material, I was approached by my intern, a young Fay named Amarant Springfield, who pointed out that there are now three stories throughout the archive speaking of a glowing-eyed monster like the one Blake describes, one by the son of the perverse Von Richton, Joseph, the other by the reputable Joe Dove, currently the second highest rated Watcher. I have taken the liberty to add these sections for quick references in the future.)

* * *

(Section by "Watcher C" Joseph Von Richton's journal 4: January 27, 1947/

January 28, 1947)

In the past years, in the days before the watchers, I recall my father spinning tales about "the timeless ones' living gods," "immortals." He would sometimes say "Ju-on," silent wars, thirteen angels, and thirteen sister demons. No matter the story, there are always links; the living gods are forever young. They have the power to bind the world, and they always carry swords. He would tell that he once saw two Ju-on's fight and he saw what happens when a god dies.

So if a god can die, then that's not a very good god, is it? I think that the swords are the key; the blades have the power. So if I had one, I would be a god and I would have the power to do as I please. Be that as it may, my true concern is the protection of my own kind. It looks as if man is small and weak. I will take the Ju-on's sword, and with it, man will become strong again.

Poland is where I execute my plan. There is a Ju-on there, one we have followed for years. I have read the "Watchers diary." I know everything, I know where he lives, and I know where he works. "Maxwell Foust" is the name he is going by today, an American spy posing as a German secret service agent.

I sneak into his office under cover of night and hide on the rafters of the ceiling till he goes to sleep. I do as any good Watcher does; I record what he sees and what he does. He looks very strange for a German, doesn't even look right for an American. His hair is long and dark; he keeps his hair tied up with a red ribbon. His skin is almost bronze in color with a hint of red; his eyes glow a metallic yellow. I watch as he removes his army uniform, he wears a necklace with three rings on it. One looks primeval made out of hand-cut stone, possibly jade; the second is ancient, skillfully carved out of white silver with wing-like shapes on it, and the last is modern and of simple gold with writing on the inner ring. I can't read it; I'm too far away, and even if I were to get a better look, the language may be one I can't read. He has a scar on his arm, like a brand; it is an early Christian symbol maybe--a cross with a handle could also be from the Cleopatra dynasty--the Isis seal 'the Ankh'. He is built like a dancer, slim and toned.

He engages in a complicated prayer as he removes the blade from his hip. It looks like an oriental sword. He wraps it in a black velvet blanket, folding the cloth around the blade, kneeling before it, slowly turning the blade after every fold. It sounds to me as if he is whispering something in Mongolian and clapping his hands every several steps. The process of tying the blade in cloth takes nearly half an hour before he finally wraps a tassel around the reverently tied sword and sets it against the wall alongside the bed.

(Note from Archives: This section has been abridged due to a conflict during translation. The full version is still available on request from the archive center, Wales, England. For more information, speak to a Rank S Watcher.)

I arrive at the trolley station at dawn just as planned. From here, I will take a train to the next county and a dirigible back to England, flawless as always. The finest art that the "Holy Order of the von Richton Society" has to offer is to make one's self invisible in broad daylight, and I am a master at age fourteen. I can stand next to anyone and look like I belong. A handy trick, I might say.

Early in the morning I was an urchin; after breakfast I became the son of a duke. Yes, everything is perfect, and now it is time for me to look at my prize. I start to pull back the delicate black cloth as I am seated on the train and we are safely coasting down the tracks . . .

(Note from the archive: the following conversations were recorded in French. They have been translated for use in your region, see the office for more information.)

"That I do not think belongs to you," a voice speaks to me in a light tenor tone.

Impossible, no one __could have followed me. No_ one_ saw me board the train, I think, but nonetheless I raise my head only to see Maxwell Foust back in his SS uniform sitting in the chair alongside me. The door didn't open. I heard no noise at all; he is just there, flashing gold eyes and all.

I leap to my feet, shouting words I will not repeat. There is only one way out. Foust leans in to grab at me, I fall backward out the window and skillfully climb onto the roof. I should make a note that running along the roof of a boxcar is neither fun nor easy as the romance writers of this decade would make it seem. I make my way toward the engineer's car only to find Foust waiting for me; as soon as I leap to the next car I freeze and reverse my advances. "Come on, kid, give me my sword, and this will all be over."

Running against the train seems less difficult. Swiftly I dash down one car after another, leaping and rolling with the utmost of ease. Foust cackles at me as I run; the bastard thinks this is funny. We approach a large bridge. I leap down to a guest car and shove my way to baggage and the caboose. I swing open the last door; I see that we seem to over a river. Foust is no more than a dozen steps behind. "No place to go, kid. What are you going to do now?"

I look at Foust, then at the blade at my side, finally down into the river two hundred feet below. "Can you swim?" I hold out the blade, threatening to throw it. Foust looks concerned and holds his hands up In objection.

"I can!" I shout, taking one last step off the side of the train, plummeting into the waters below.

(Watcher Archive note by "Watcher A" L. Gallard: the following sections describe Joseph's week lost in the wilderness (section has been omitted, available at the online archive if needed for review ). His next encounter with the unknown continues in the evening of 2-6-1947.)

Strange things have been happening to me since my little swim down river. I have fallen ill with a strong sniffle, my skin feels cold, and I can't sleep. But physical pain aside, my real worry is in that I don't know which city I'm in. I can't spot any other Watchers and I'm surrounded by members of the German Socialist movement.

I break into a museum with a plan to holed up for the night. I have no money left and no friends to turn to. All that is insignificant because I still have the sword; once I learn to use it, I can fix everything.

I'm beginning to feel strange yet; I can hear voices whispering to me. I look around and see nothing; shadows move around the museum, following me, sometimes even tipping over displays as I swear they reach out to touch me. I now it is all in my imagination. It's my fever, nothing more; once I reach England everything will be fine.

Nearing midnight, I find a place to lie down; it's beneath a sculpture of a plane and between two pieces of modern art. It looks safe. My eyes barely close before I hear a voice call my name loudly. "Foust, he found me here? __The river must have carried_ me_ a hundred miles, how is he here?

"von Richton, I know you're here. Come out and hand over the sword. You lose."

I stand; there is no place to go. He's right, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. I unwrap the sword and grab the handle. The walls are crawling; I can hear a dozen voices whispering inhuman chatter. My fever is getting deathly. It feels like the ground is shaking, or it might be me.

Foust stands in the darkened doorway before me. "You can't be here," I mutter.

"You're still on the train."

"Hand me the sword, kid." Foust walks slowly, watching my hands nervously.

"This is it, the key to your power. With it, I can be you."

"It doesn't work that way."

"Teach me."

"If you don't drop the sword in five seconds, you're going to lose something you're going to miss." He seems not to be looking at me anymore but instead passes me to something on or in the walls.

Can he seemy hallucinations? I start to draw the blade out. "Don't do it. You'll call all of hell down on you."

"Prove it."

"I won't say it again!"

He looks angry. I step forward in rage; my hand squeezes the handle. A crossbow slides down Foust's sleeve and snaps open. I barely see the medieval weapon before he has taken aim. He fires two darts, almost simultaneously it would seem. One hits my right leg just above my knee; the other shoots clean through my wrist as I raise the blade.

The magic katana slips from my fingertips as I fall on my face. The weapon flies away from me in slow motion. The blade splits into two and folds in on itself in a scissor-like fashion, then snaps back into place. Had my hand still been on the handle, the vice would most likely have taken my whole arm off. Foust dashes forward taking his sword out of the air as he rushes past. I roll onto my side and grip my injuries.

The flashing white blade back in its rightful owner's grip seems to push the darkness away. A spotlight shines down on the swordsmen. The darkness takes shape. A personification of fear and anger, the shadows grow faces, then hands, becoming a living swarm before me. The spirits grow and lash out at Foust. Foust does not quiver in the face of evil; he instead relishes in the glory of combat. It seems clear that Foust needs not a blade to fight as his hands seem to cut down the evils fine without it. Courageously, he dances almost teasingly into the fray of the ineffectual demons. The way he mopves, the way he fights I can only attribute to some form of omnipresence as he seems to not see so much as feel the world around him.

I can hear Foust in my mind; he speaks as clearly as if we were face-to-face. "What are youreally after, kid?"

"Thedarkness."

"Is __that so? Then why do_ you_ need A sword?"

"Theancient ones were right. The darkness is alive."

"Leave __the darkness to me. I_ want_ to know what youwant."

"I don't want to be afraid __of the dark. I want_ to_ fight it. I wantto be what you are."

"I am Sal-la-day-namO. __I am_ an_ Avatar, chosen to stand __forever against the evils that plague this world._ You_ can't be what I __am. But if you want_ to_ fight alongside me . . ."

* * *

(The remainder of this document was destroyed in a fire in 1962 as well as many other chronicles left by the Watchers. No one can tell me what Foust said to Joseph, nor can Joseph himself, as it appears that he died in 1958. He was married to an Asian woman named Aska. His last name was not recorded. He had a daughter named Wright. Wright was granted her place as the speaker of the council in 1970 where she still sits today. It would seem too that she is the youngest speaker in the council's history.

This last section was taken from diary No. 46 of Joe Dove (Watcher S): 08-28-2001.)

After you have been in the field for a year or two, you start to just know when someone has something to say. So you do what anyone would do: follow them, to hear what they have to say. I'm on the streets of New York; it's three in the morning and its cold as hell. I spot my prey--a middle-aged man with dark hair and dressed in black. He has the look of a man with something on his mind. The streets are crowded as always, and I like it. The streets of "the Big Apple" make for a good place to tail someone without being seen.

As I walk behind my mark, I feel as if I know this guy, someone I tracked once before. He steps into a rickety-looking building with a demolition tag on it. He goes to slam the door; I slide one foot in to hold it. The dark man swerves between some drifters clogging the condemned building's halls. Then he walks up the steps; I keep my distance. He gets ahead of me for a time, but I catch up with enough time to see his coattails slip into a room with an emergency generator set outside of it. It must be the only room with lights. I stand against the door and pull my notebook out of my pocket. The first words I hear are "Mr. Dove, would you please come in?"

The whole scenario sounds like an early 1960s' bomb shelter; it seems like a good idea till you come to notice that you're really sitting in a hole in the ground with your head between your legs. I walk through the door; things start to look clear. I know who I've been following. I've been following him for years; it's damn near my life's work.

It's the demon called Crow; it's an empty room aside from a table and two chairs. You would think he was expecting me. I accept. "It's been a long time, Mr. Dove."

"I don't seem to recall having ever met you face-to-face."

"You? No. The men you represent on the other hand I know very well. Every decade or two, we have a heart to heart like this."

"How charming!" I make no attempt to hide my love of sarcasm.

"I don't mean that literally. Of course, it would be a waste of both of our times if I were to rip your heart from your chest right now."

"That's reassuring."

"I trust you know who I am."

"Adam Crow, Vampire, Warlock, and demonic prince. Am I close?"

"Sometimes I am also called Filius-Mammon, king of Tamriel. One of three

at least."

"How lucky for them!"

"Can the jokes, old man, before you become a late-night snack."

"Look who's calling who old. Well, it looks to me that you planned for me to be here, so what are you looking for?"

"I want you to place your holiest of holy book on the table before you and do what you Watchers do."

"And for a second there I thought you wanted me to suck you off." I place down my diary as asked.

"I'm going to speak and you are going to write. Or is that too hard for you?"

"Maybe I should call for backup. Do you mind waiting for about half an hour," Crow growls, making an unearthly sound, and throws me into the chair before me.

"Should I take that as a yes?"

"Now start writing." Crow takes a seat in the opposite chair. His head drapes back, and his long dark hair falls away from his face. "Would you believe me if I told you only a handful of centuries ago this world was an united being? All races, humans and animals alike, spoke a singular tongue?"

"Is that a rhetorical question?" I know it is but I ask anyway.

"Mr. Dove?"

"Yes."

"Be quiet."

"Do you want me to record that as well?" I'm already writing.

"Mr. Dove, we are not friends. In fact I deeply hate everything you stand for, and after this speech I was going to tell you how I laid a hex on you and that your son is going to murder you."

"I don't have any kids."

"Ah . . . how silly of me. I didn't realize you're a seventy-year-old virgin that has never even touched himself."

"Do you know what narcissism is?"

"What you're full of."

"A witty demon! We are going to get along great."

"What did I do to deserve this?" Crow rubs his eyes momentarily. I don't waste an instant; forty years ago, I swore to do everything in my power to rid the world of monsters like Crow. Now I have a chance to assassinate the king himself. I'm going to take it. I twist the handle of my cane and withdraw my Iai-do blade without a word or a sound. My blade strikes home, digging deep into Crow's chest and into the seat beneath him. Crow's eyes roll downward. "That was uncalled for. Do you mind if I continue now or shall we proceed with this foolishness? You see, Mr. Dove, many hunters mistake me for a night stalker. That simply is not the case. Mr. Dove, I am God. Your pitiful assault is nothing if not meaningless." The humor melts from my face as I slowly sit back down.

Crow slowly slides the blade out of his body and takes a moment to admire the art of the oriental edge. "This is a finely crafted blade. Whereabouts did you happen to come across it?" Crow asks as he courteously hands the blade back to me.

"A friend."

"Anyone I might know?"

"Who knows? The world's not that big after all." It's strange, or maybe not so strange, that Crow doesn't seem to bleed. He doesn't even seem to care that I attacked him. I tap my pen on the table. "Please go on."

Crow places his feet on the table as he rests back in his chair "Mr. Dove, this world is not your world. It is in fact my world. You had stolen it from me several thousand years ago. I lived on this world and you worshipped me as well as my two brothers and my sister. We were your beloved. But one day someone became greedy and asked, 'Why must my life be one of bowing and groveling?' Naturally the faithless would be 'Willed' out of reality. But somehow this one gained power, enough so that he had ability to harm the immortal overseers. You found weapons that could cut our flesh, armor that could deflect out magic. You even had stolen a fraction of the power of creation. Not enough so to really do anything but enough that one day you might. That on top of the fire and fertility you already had pillaged from us made you a worthy enemy."

I feel the need to cut in, "You're immortal. How can we have harmed you?"

"Move world to world for a time and you'll find that you become susceptible to some of their rules."

"Traveling makes you weaker?"

"I'm not at liberty to discuss that at this time."

"I'm deeply sorry."

"The point is, you have something that belongs to me, and I plan to take it back. I'm not unsportsmanlike. I understand you are somewhat attached to this world, and I will give you the opportunity to keep it. The world as you know it is coming to an end. Trees will walk, animals will talk, and humanity will take its rightful places back as messengers to the ancient gods. The transformation will begin with the burning of a mighty church, then four-fifths of all men will die. Beasts will override your cites, rivers will run black like oil, and the oceans will swell. Yea, they that love me will be spared my wraith. On the last day of the purging, the sun will set and shall not rise again till man and monster sleep together in acceptance of the coming of the Lord."

"And when will this last day be? How long will the transmutation take?"

"Nine years."

"Nine! Why not ten? Some astronomical event occurring that we should be aware of? Some aligning of planets?"

"No, I simply think nine sounds right."

"I think you're full of shit. I don't think you have the power to do everything."

"No?"

"And even if you could, someone would stop you."

"Like who?"

"Sal-la-day-namO."

Crow finds his feet and leans forward; he manifests a bottle of wine and two goblets made of gold with gemstones. He pours into the glasses and passes one to me as he thinks about the statement made. "Sal-la-day-namO, my younger brother. It's true he might still have the power to stop me, if he were still a god, or reobtained his divinity. Good luck with that though. No one has heard from Sal-la-day-namO in over fifty years, I would wager."

Uncharacteristically, Crow sighs after taking a drink. "I think it is truly sad what became of him (Sal-la-day-namO). I love retribution as much as anyone, but justice should be fast and passionate I feel, not what Laus-deu-O subscribed. This is not the first world Laus-deu-O created, and humans were not its first inhabitants. The Greeks were more or less right. There were many gods at one point. We have been somewhat wasting away with the passage of millennia. We have a set of conducts we follow. Amongst them is a law stating that once a race is strong enough to survive without our direct interventions, we let them grow on their own till they can pass over into our reality. Sal-la-day-namO could not comply. He loved one of you, mortals I mean, more than our elder brother. So he was condemned to live on this rock, stripped of everything but his timelessness till the end of history."

Crow sits in deep thought. What can he be __thinking about? Is it anything_ I_ couldeven comprehended?

"I'm sorry, Mr. Dove, but I grow weary. I wish to retire for the evening. Can I call you back to finish this another time?"

Gods get tired?"Yeah, no problem. You have my number." Hastily I collect my notebook and cane. As I walk out of the door, I hear Crow speak one more time.

"Joe, my brother traded his soul for ten years of pleasure. Did he get a good deal?"

Standing in the doorway, I recall my own tortured past. "I've known people to settle for less. Whether or not that's a good deal, I'm in no position to make wagers."

* * *

Tail crawls out of bed at the crack of noon; Blake is her new roommate. He is asleep in the folding chair alongside the bed still fully dressed. Von Richton has provided them with new accommodations, far superior to the icebox she lived in last month, but not as nice as the room at Claw Co. Tower. Tail gets up on all fours and looks around the room, trying to find her jeans, T-shirt, and laptop. "Hmm . . . two days of frozen pizza and it looks like a college dorm room, not bad." Tail picks up her shirt and finds it half covered in tomato paste. "How did that happen?"

Tail exhales sharply, taking her soiled clothing to the bathroom to soak in the sink. She spends some time combing her hair, brushing down her fur and straightening her whiskers. She wags her cluster of tails and laughs at herself in the mirror and at the irony of her being the sexy fox she is.

The first week in a new apartment is never easy and seldom as comfortable as one would imagine, or hope. Knowing that there are cameras hidden throughout the walls would make most uneasy as well but that you become callus too. And if you like walking around in your underwear, sooner or later you'll start doing it regardless of who might be watching.

Tail steps into the relatively compact den; it is still filled with boxes of amenities donated by the Watchers to make this a more livable space, seeing that Blake has nothing and everything she has is . . . being withheld. Tail sets up her computer and turns on the media player, tuning into some punk rock; she finds the willpower to start sorting the boxes. "Clothes?" She opens the first box. "Women's jeans, size zero and below? Well . . . if the eating fad ever passes I might need this, or if my butt falls off." She throws the box off to one side.

"Novelty shirts! This is relevant to my interest." Tail starts looking through another box. "Fear Factory" Zero Signal, "Nobuo and the Black Mages 'Sky's Above,' Prince and the Batman 'Party Man,' Rise Against 'Like in Angel,' Metalica 'Blackened,' and finally, Michal Jackson 'Smooth Criminal.'" Tail dances in place, amused by the selection.

Next box in line is filled with cups, plates and canned goods. Tail takes a coffee cup, fills it with raw coffee beans, and starts drinking. Much cleaning leads next to a need for lunch. Tail dances into the kitchen and searches about. "Flour shells, don't see hamburger. Lucky Charms, no milk. Baking soda, I can't eat that. Hotdogs and instant noodles?" Tail turns on the stovetop, boils the noodles, and starts cutting up hot dogs, all along dancing to her music, hips shaking, tails wagging, head bobbing.

Blake stumbles out of the bedroom and stands in the hallway, admiring Tail's energetic dance. "What's cookin', Doc?" Blake calls over.

"Ancient Chinese magic, Roman Hot dog," Tail jokes. "Hey, Blake, do you ever think about marriage?"

"I don't think we have that type of relationship."

"I don't mean us. I mean marriage in general. Why do we still have it? It's a completely arcane ritual that totally has its roots in paganism. It defies the natural order of the sexual animal and is a tool of slavery even in the modern world. There's nothing romantic about it. Romantic love never existed between the betrothed anyway even in the romantic Victorian ages. It's, love I mean, between the fruitful adulterous. Then to even more so complicate this dark age stigma, it weaseled its way out of the church and into mainstream politics, so now we have government practically paying people to fuck and calling it a public good. As if we couldn't do it without monetary compensation. That's gotta be criminal. Taxing people for being single? . . . Could I petition to have marriage delegalized and legalize hemp in its place?"

"Tail, it's early and I'm still feeling the whiplash off that drug from last, day, week, night, month? I'm not ready for advanced stuff," Blake mumbles.

Tail spoons up the soup and leads Blake to the modest table in the room. "Well, what do you say we start small? Really, this is the first time we have been together and one of us hasn't been incarcerated or incapacitated. Word on the beat is you have some badass magic at your disposal."

Blake shakes his head as he begins eating the meal placed before him. "Magic, it's not my thing. The only magic I can do is make light dance. I can't even do that for more than a second or two before I become too tired to sustain it. I'm a Psion. I do tricks of the mind. I can see through other people's minds, and I can levitate stuff."

"Stuff?"

"Small things mostly. Sometimes I can do something big when I'm scared."

"Like me?"

"Not you. You're too big. I've never moved a human." Blake veers off topic. "What about you? I heard you toasted a guy the other day."

"It's called pyromancy. I can create fire. But . . ."

"But what?"

"Well, it is based almost solely on my emotional state. I can't conjure at all when I'm sad. It's exhausting when I'm happy, and I do it by accident sometimes when I'm angry . . . or in heat."

"Well, I can see that being a problem."

"It's OK. I have violent menstruations."

"How would that help?"

A third voice comes into the room, interrupting the conversation with a thick British tone. "Ms. Vixon?"

"Jesus Christ!" (Tail pronounces Jesus as Ha'-Zeus.) Tail falls out of her chair; Blake leaps to his feet as the haunting and awesome presence of Wright Von Richton appears in the room.

Von Richton is the overseer of the Watchers; she dresses in sanguine red sportscast with matching slacks. Her vest is buttoned up around her neck, leaving only the collar of her tie visible. Her tie is clasped with a ring embroidered with an early Christian symbol; her left hand is tucked into her pants' pocket, her right clenches tightly a cane made of a crystal ore featuring the same symbol as her tie. Her skin looks almost pink due to the reflection cast by her thick bronze glasses; her eyes are invisible there through.

"Morning, Boss. What's new?" Blake asks in an almost joking fashion.

"America is under siege by religious extremists hailing from Egypt, Pakistan, and Israel." Von Richton tries to pass the news off completely nonchalant as she then fades seamlessly into her next point of discussion. Blake sits stunned, trying to deduce whether or not that was all a joke or if his host is heartless enough that the threat of war is meaningless to her.

"I have good news for you. Now make yourself decent if you don't mind. You too, Mr. Blake," Von Richton commands. Tail and Blake fail to hesitate as the powerful British woman follows them back to their bedroom. "Ms. Tail Vixon, you claimed to be born in New York City. You told me you had a mother that is human, and she cared for you. You're sad that you did not know the name of you biological father and that your mother would never tell it to you. Not even your birth certificate, which strangely you have, contends that information. After investigating these claims I have concluded . . . you are correct on all accounts." Von Richton turns her back on them as she removes her glasses to clean them.

"The records we have unearthed suggest you were born in Claw Co. Tower. Your mother is recently deceased, and you are in fact 100 percent human, based on the loose definition of human some of our councilors seem to be using." As Von Richton speaks, Tail throws on a green T-shirt that has two interlocking Fs on it, a rainbow belt with blue jeans, and a Hawaiian yellow and red over it, with a pair of skating shoes that are checkered.

Richard Blake dons an almost Dick Trace look with a tan overcoat, black tank top, and blue jeans with work boots.

"That being what it is, Ms. Vixon, it turns out you are entitled to certain privileges, amongst them being I will not be hanging you anytime soon and I cannot legally hold you here in the 'grotto' any longer. That also entails you are now subject to rules that I failed to press upon you earlier."

Tail whispers to Blake, "Why do I get the feeling I'm going to like being a monster even less than I liked being an alien?"

"Unfortunately, Ms. Vixon, it turns out you have siblings that you failed to tell me about, and they like you are under investigation. Yet, one or more of them may not be as human as you are."

"I have siblings?" Tail inquires.

"According to the information I was delivered, you have a brother and two

sisters."

"No one told me that."

Von Richton walks back into the living room, turning her attention now on Blake. "As for you, congratulations! You are now officially a member of the Von Richton Monster Hunters Organization. You survived initiations."

"I thought I was to become a Watcher?"

"Very astute, circa 1970 you would have been, but status quo seventy-one. There was a great conflict of interest in and amongst our holy orders. There the Watchers were broken into factions hints why we call ourselves the Von Richtons. Here under my offices there are two factions. First, the Order of the Watchers, as led up by L. Gillard and Joseph Dove, and then there are the Order of the Hunters vanguarded by myself. You will still receive your Watcher diary, handbook, and manual, but in addition to the responsibilities of a Watcher, you will be given special sanctions to carry out, not so indifferent from the one you just disembarked from." "What do you mean conflict of interest?" Blake asks.

"I typically don't like disclosing archived information like this, but I envision you and I being close in the future so . . . after the fire at the central office, my predecessor suspected arson and mobilized the Watcher. At the time, that was all we were called--Watcher, and set out on a campaign to find the lair of the monsters responsible for decimating a thousand years of studies. They found a door, one that led them away from earth and into the lower realms. There was endless debate as to what was there, and so thereafter each head Watcher took a section of the remaining body of the organization and began to study this thing independently . . ." she trails off.

"What did they discover?" Tail leans in.

"The world you would call hell." Von Richton seats herself in one of the armchairs in the living room. She crosses her hands over her mouth, hiding her face almost wholly; she leans slightly forward. "Mr. Blake, I do believe that Mr. Dove is waiting for you in the study of the mansion. I would like to speak with Ms. Vixon a little longer."

Blake nods; Tail looks over at Blake, shaking her head in protest. "Don't leave me alone with this gargoyle."

Blake steps out of the room after tucking his sword down the back of his coat and his gun into his thigh strap.

It's not more than a moment after Blake leaves that the door slams open and half a dozen men in suits rush into the room, grabbing Tail and throwing her to the ground. "What the fuck is this shit!" They pin Tail's arms and legs and start pulling at her clothing. "Ha, watch it. That doesn't come off. You? Do I know you? Do that again and I think you're buying me dinner and a show." Tail wrestling with the guards protests. Von Richton smirks devilishly. "This is less than civil."

"I thought I told you once already. Freaks don't have rights."

"I thought you just told me I'm human."

"That doesn't make you any less a monster."

"Are you getting off on this?"

"In a matter of fact, I am."

As she is stripped, one of Tail's hand burst into flames and then the other. Slowly the flames creep up her arms, and her eyes flicker with fire. Tail is a wild mage; her "talent" as it is called is pyromancy. When hurt or afraid, Mana flows into her, invoking the element of fire; fire is rage, and fire is anger. It feeds, it burns, and it consumes. Only a truly gifted pyromancer can avoid the flames, taking tribute from even its conjurer. Tail is not that powerful yet; if the flames are allowed to burn, they will consume everything around her. Then when there is nothing left to feast upon, it will devour her in retribution for its service.

"Ms. Vixon, if you set yet another of my men ablaze, I will see to it that you lose that which identifies you as a woman." Tail claws and she kicks, but she stokes her own rage till a messenger ends up coming to her aid.

"Madam von Richton!" It is a boy likely close to Tail's age. Von Richton holds up her hand in protest, and everyone seems to freeze in place. Von Richton crosses her hands back over her face and turns her eyes to the young man. Tail stripped down to the bone looks around puzzled at the reaction to the simple hand gesture.

"Soldier, what is your name?" she asks briefly.

"Victor Lee Valentine," the young man responds.

"You are a member of Cerberus's team, are you not?"

"I am."

"Cerberus represents the face of Watcher law. You are the team responsible for recovering rouge agents. I do believe."

"Yes." He seems puzzled by the statement. Von Richton knows well who Victor is and knows well what Cerberus is.

"Then try to look the part. Straighten your caller, tie your shoes, and make sure your belt is secure before addressing me!" the overlord of the Von Richtons demands.

"Yes, madam." Swiftly Victor adjusts his clothing.

"Now speak your mind."

"Ms. Von Richton, messengers from the Jesuit have been IDed. They seem to be moving this way . . ."

"How many?"

"Two--Paladin Mace Hammer and Father Abel Nightingale."

"Damn . . ." Von Richton looks strangely upset. "Well, Ms. Vixon, it looks like we will need a rain check on your abject humiliation." Von Richton tucks her cane under her arm and swiftly makes her way out; her guards fall in behind.

Tail pants for a moment, calming herself, then walks over to her cup of coffee. She grounds and eats another spoonful. "If you're raped by a gangster on your way home from the mall you call the police, who do you call if the police join in when they arrive?"

* * *

Blake makes his way out of the underground of the facility and back into the mansion that Is the upper floors. The estate is monstrous in size and has a 1700s' gothic appeal. Much of it looks like it was taken from a church and had the house built around it--stone and hard wood inner walls, braziers hanging from the walls, and stained glass covering most the windows.

The main room of the castle seems to be the entryway; this room is three stories tall with two stairwells that wrap around each other. One leads to the second floor, the other to the third. They start from the same place but split at the thirteenth step becoming individual halfway to the second floor. There are gargoyles and suits of armor lining the stairs. In the gap near the divide, there is a twenty-five foot tall broke of a goddess bridging the distance between the second and third floors.

There are seven balconies like opera booths looking down at the doorways, and a red carpet leads around the room. Fine art fills the ground level in a haunting way. It's not fine art by the traditional methods wherein you might find lovely young women and lords on horseback, but instead a much darker version there of death, a torment well lit in vibrant colors to caress the eye round the room.

A plump old man awaits Blake on the second floor; slowly he hops down the steps one hand outstretched in greeting. Blake's eyes are drawn to the brand burned on his right hand. Blake nearly recoils in shock as his mind is finally clear: the old man's hand, Criss's book, Blake's tattoo, they're all the same--the letter "W" with three rings enshrining it. Blake can't help but refer to the brand even before greeting his host. "Your hand?"

"Yes, sir, I'm property of the Von Richton's as well."

"Would that make you a . . . ?"

"Abet? No, I'm one hundred percent human and I have the scars to prove it."

"What does that word mean?"

"'Abet',--is a man that possesses cretin traits that are uncommon of their brethren, like an Asian that's seven feet tall or an African that can throw a knife three hundred yards and peg in ace or anyone that can read minds . . ." "That's not how it works . . .

"I know. You told me already." Dove holds out a book. "Do you know what this is?"

Blake's eyes lower to the leather-bound book in Dove's hand. "That is my brother's book, the one about Psionicist."

"No," Dove cuts him off. "This one is your book."

Blake takes the book and looks at the first pages. "There is writing in here. It's my penmanship."

"Yep, you gave it to me almost ten days ago. Now I'm giving it back to you. Welcome to the Watchers."

Blake shakes his head. "Since I met you I have been shot, nearly stabbed, poisoned, and turned into someone's bitch in a state penitentiary. What if I don't want to be a Watcher?"

Joe walks over to the double door at the front of the room. "I bet I know you better than you know yourself. Here is the door. I can tell you if you walk out right now no one will follow you and you will never see me again. But in spite of that, I bet you won't do a damn thing. Do you know why? It's because you want to know what you will see tomorrow if you stay. Am I right? Are you leaving?" Dove knows well Blake won't leave. And he doesn't. "That book, get used to it. We expect to see no less than seventy pages turned in at the end of each week. Fail to deliver and you don't get paid," Joe yells back as he disappears from sight.

"Do we have uniforms!?"

"Do we look like the MIB: " Somehow Joe's voice is distant as if his yelling from another wing of the estate.

Dove slaps Blake on the arm, ensuring him they will speak again soon, as he waddles away. Blake opens his book and starts looking around, almost instinctively cataloguing the paintings and the rest of what he sees before him.

There's a pounding on the front door; as Blake opens his notebook, the door flies open . . .

* * *

Joe makes his way out, and I feel it may be best for me to familiarize myself with what would soon become an extension of my arm. I start by walking around the stairwell, searching for paintings hidden around them. It looks to me as if there are twenty-five photographs, fifteen of which are black and white; one is yellowed by the acid in the paper and failure to protect it from sunlight and oxygen. I find the photos hold very little interest for me.

Behind the goddess statue, I find a slight incline in the floor that leads down six steps to a door that looks boarded shut; I would wager that at one time this might have been the elevator that led into the Grotto. It seems like someone has tried to masquerade this as a shrine of sorts by placing a painting in front of the boarded-up door. It is an interesting painting at least.

The painting is seven feet wide by nine feet tall; in the foreground, mostly shadowed, out there are six men. The one that is clearest is a man with a sharp Don Keota-like beard with a curly Q; he has warts and his face looks dry and chapped. His clothing is earth-toned and he is armed with a torch; he has a musket slung across his back maybe a conquistador judging by the jowls he wares. The meat of the painting looks to be two young women dressed in vibrant cloaks, one blue, the other green. One girl has red hair; the other is blonde, and they are both tied to long wooden stakes tipped away from each other, creating a V shape within the painting. Flames kiss at their heels. The background is a cloudy sky blackened by the smoking stakes, but still an eerie orange glows looms overhead.

My trance of study is interrupted by a pounding behind me; it is clear someone wants in. I hide under the steps and watch. I get the feeling that what is to come is going to be infinitely more fun than what I was previously doing--pounding, pounding some more, tapping on the steps. Two titans approach.

The front door smashes open and a pair of men storm in. The one in the lead is a hairy man with red hair and a flat top; his skin is worn and redden. A tan burn covers his face; he is dressed in a gray pair of slacks and a matching shirt. His partner is a middle-aged man with bifocals; his skin is pale and he has salt and pepper hair. He has heavy garbs and hides himself well.

From down the steps, the mighty Von Richton descends dressed in her blood-red suit. She stops partway down the steps and squares herself for battle as it would.

The man in the lead with red hair points at Von Richton inquisitively. "Wright Von Richton!" he shouts. "You are a disgrace to His Holiness!"

Von Richton tucks one hand in her pocket, facing down at him. "This is not Italy. His Holiness has no power here!"

"You insult us with your zeal!"

"Strangely, Paladin Hammer, I do not care! Your very presence on my property is an offence to our statues as in agnostic people!"

The one called Hammer sets foot on the stairs and threatens to make his way into arm's reach in the heat of the debate.

"Know your place, Paladin! Take another step and this is an act of war!"

"His Holiness will not stand for your insults. You were appointed guardian of this province and you have failed! The growth of demon activity here is self-evident thereof! We, the Brothers of Jesuit, will see to it you are punished for your treachery! Our Lord . . ."

Von Richton stands bleeding, moving closer. "What will your impotent God do? Your God has failed to deliver you from evil a dozen times already. Your prayers are quaint but utterly meaningless. Your worship is misplaced. The world will not be spared the never-ending darkness by any unseen father figure! Nothing but sweet hot blood spilled upon cold earth can hope to fulfill your miserable hallucinations of peace. I am the sword and the shield that will deliver you from the grip of sorrow. Only I can materialize your dreams, and I will cast away despair and I will do it if I have to send us all to hell first!"

"Blasphemer! You will see what the anger of the divine means when His Holiness arrives!"

"Let him come! Send _me_your lords and your kings, your sisters and your brothers, your bishops and your fouls, sinners, and saints. Let them all come and be enveloped by my rage! You can have your war, and when it ends I alone will rise as a goddess from the ashes of dissilience you shall leave behind. Your lord will grovel in disarray at the power I shall unveil." A shadow slips smoothly along the ceiling as Von Richton monologues. I know who it is. It's Von Richton's pet monster; his name is England.

Hammer is completely unaware as impending doom crawls toward him, slithering along like a serpent bathed in black and brown. The other Jesuit seems no more alert, as he is doing now what I was doing half an hour ago, looking over the bleak galleries.

Hammer moves in so close to Von Richton that from where I'm sitting it looks as if they could be kissing. "We the Brothers of Jesuit demand--"

Von Richton doesn't let him finish. "You demand nothing," she speaks in a whisper. "You and your zealots bore me." She elapses as the shadow of the demon England is cast over the Paladin. "Kill him." This time she speaks to her pet, not Hammer.

England is a man of monumental size; six foot nine easily, he has horns that look like a crown hooked around his head, skin that looks like tree bark, and a grin so sinister it could stop a clock. England chuckles to himself as he moves one hand up and his fingers shift into an evil rake. With one swipe of his claws, he can shred the priest apart, and that is what he plans to do.

Somehow I failed to note the second priest move. It just seems that I blink and the gray-haired man is standing between Hammer and England. I crawl along the ground in search of a better vantage as I have lost sight of both Von Richton and Hammer. I can't imagine it took me more than a few seconds to move to a paralleled corner of the room, but things seem to have escalated severely.

Hammer is lying on his back at the second floor divide, skittering backward away from Von Richton, who now is brandishing a Estoc (a French sword crafted for armor-piercing thrusting attacks).

The second priest is engaged in battle with England; he seems to have mimicked England's attack in that one of his hands has turned into a silver talon. They are locked in a power struggle; it looks as if at any moment one may throw the other to the ground and execute a killing blow. I could help; I should help, but I feel inclined to sit and write instead.

Von Richton holds her blade firm to Hammer's neck. "Move and you die," she whispers to him. "Brother Nightingale!" she addresses the other priest. "Look carefully at your opponent. He is a Baatezu from the realm called Phlegethos. He is thought to be the most beautiful and powerful of creatures in his land. You being a Valhallan from Sojouri likely have adequate power to defeat this one, but how many more?" She gives him a moment to think before speaking again, "You Valhallans are hardly wise or elegant, but you are inspired fighters and you tend to know your art well. Consider this, England is my banneret. What would that imply about the rest of my operation?" (A banneret is a sixteenth-century flag bearer sent onto battlefields before wars to mark the approach of the rival forces known. Understandably, the banneret is killed after delivering their message.)

Nightingale takes the bait. He drops his guard and England disengages as well. Von Richton smirks, holding back a laugh. "I've decided to let you live assuming you leave without another word. Tell your Holiness I can see his hands are as dirty as mine and that it is in his best interest when it come to us to leave the past buried. When one submits something to the ground, it is often for a reason."

Von Richton throws her sword into the ground. England kneels at her side, and the two priests swiftly make their leave. "I'm sorry you had to see that, Mr. Blake. What transpired here was not meant for your ears, and it would be best if you simply discarded your feelings at this time. They will do you no good."

How can shehave known? She can't possibly have seen _me._I tuck my book into my coat and slyly slip away, or so I think.

Chapter 3

Painted Blake

El looks in his mirror and reflects for a moment longer on the men that were his team for a day--Lances Jacob, Snake, Larry Gekks, and Charlie Belmond. He cracks a smile, knowing that though not everything is OK, they will cross paths again. This isn't the end of a journey; they all have a part to play in this game, even if they don't understand it. As they begin their trek, Lacerti crosses his arms, lying back in his seat. "You're still thinking about them," he says lazily.

"They're good people."

"Your father wouldn't approve."

"Maybe some tunes?" El says, changing the subject.

"You never listen to the radio."

"I think now is a good time to start." Lacerti chuckles a little at El as his heartless facade fades away, revealing, momentarily, his loneliness. El reaches for the radio and turns the dial, looking for a working station.

A woman's voice comes on. "You are listening to KOTOR. Next up we have Iron Maiden and 'The Long Distance Runner'" Time is long, and things are not going to improve. The next adventure rests just on the other side of the valley.

* * *

The Lamia's Back behind them; the two truckers find their way back onto the interstate and press on. They have lost time to make up for and have gone for over twenty-four hours without sleep already. As for decent food, it turns out that half the truck stops in the country serve food that's better than the MRE-'s that they forced down back in Nam. El and Lacerti are soldiers; they can take it. "Eat now, taste it some other time," Private First Class E. Presley would say that most every day. He had a good point. Food doesn't have to be good, only filling.

As they pull up to their next weighing station, El rubs his eyes. Lacerti looks over, a clear exasperation of concern on his face. He reaches out to take El's arm.

"You all right?" the giant asked his balled friend.

El shakes himself off. "I've had a headache since we left Vern."

Lacerti nods in understanding. "Do you need anything from the shop?" he asks in his low husky voice.

"Salted nut bar and something spicy."

"Drink?"

"Light."

"Got it."

Lacerti steps out of the truck and heads into the station. El turns his attention to the radio and notices that it has been on static for some time now. El takes a moment to search the dial just for the hell of it. A signal starts to come in; a man's voice comes over the speakers. "That was the Surgeon's hit single 'Your Heart is in My Hand.' Next up we have the Laundrymen with 'Hanging you Out to Dry.' You are tuned into KDUM. I'm Johnny, be good now."

El shakes his head in disgust. "No, thanks, Johnny." He clicks off the radio. El lays back in the truck. Reaching into his pocket, El withdraws a tape recorder. He rewinds to the beginning of his last entry as he takes in his own voice. He begins to recall the events in vivid detail.

"September 10, noon, Double fetches me from my den and reminds me that 'the client' is expected to arrive shortly. Lacerti and I exchange a glance, and we both know what is coming. I make my way to the normal spot. I have the usual drink placed at my left hand. I sit with my hands folded. Lacerti is across the street. He can see me. The client can't see him. I lay down the rules. The client disapproves."

* * *

The Cuban has drawn his gun, a 13 mm Jackal, limited edition. It's a good gun. Too much gunfor most to handle, El thinks to himself while examining the firearm. He is completely without fear as he stares down the muzzle of the gun with his head held high. He adjusts the collar of his gray, economy-class suit with matching tie, then crosses his arms atop the table. His eyes are deep brown and seem to hold back a fiery evil, and his imposing presence even as he sits makes it clear that he would stand over six feet tall.

"Mr. El, your price--it's just too much!" the Cuban man yells out. "Seven thousand for only one truck?"

"Plus seven grand more on delivery, plus expenses." El's face is stone cold as always.

"What do I pay for?" the Cuban asks.

"Insurance," El responds, his voice calm and piercing. "No questions, guaranteed. I provide the tools and the training. If I fail, my replacement picks up where I left off . . . ." El continues in his soft but demanding voice, "Before you think anymore about shooting anyone, are you any good with numbers?" "No, why?" the Cuban questions.

"It so happens to be that I'm exceptional, so let's play a game. Count with me. If you look around right now, you will see there are twenty-seven men looking at you in addition to myself. Twenty-five of them are carrying guns, twenty-four of which are pointed at you. Half of those guns are 9 mm Berettas, the favored gun of the CIA, a third are .45 Dostoveis, a Russian hand cannon. The rest are United States .50 Desert Eagles, and there's one man outside with an M18 an assault rifle, which the army will started using in 2008. So tell me, how many rounds are there between them?" The Cuban tries to count on his fingers as El continues, "Its 388 not counting your Jackal. You fire, you're not getting out of here alive."

"I see your point, Mr. El." The Cuban puts his gun down and El takes it.

"I trust the package is outside, like in the deal?" "Yes," the Cuban man responds.

"Let's all take a look."

* * *

The mission from moment one looks like it would be atypical. The Cuban brings with him a partner, a Negro; neither man look like the local scum I deal with on a daily basis. Both men look off balanced; it is clear that they want me to think that they are mobsters, but to anyone that has ever worked with the mob there are clearly problems with how they moved. The two men walk in step, side by side. Every gangster I had ever met make a point of walking with one man ahead of the rest of their group; it's like a status symbol.

Both men are wearing suits. Both still have the factory creases; these suits are less than a week old. The way they walk, the way they talk, slapping each other and speaking in hushed tune--more likely they're college boys. But the real giveaway comes when the Negro asks me if I was a killer. No mobster worth his weight would dare ask a question of that nature. When you hire a driver, you expect that they are ready to do whatever it takes to get the job done, up to and including killing the Computation.

The client did something I didn't expect; he provided me with a map that he wanted me to follow. The map outlines a path leading from Vern, Florida, to Taiwan, Mexico. Not a tough ride, I've made it hundreds of times. But the path is winding; lots of dirt roads even take us past Taiwan by some ways, then turn around.

Something happens partway that is simple unacceptable. I get lost . . .

* * *

"This map shows my intended path. If this is not acceptable, you can set a new one. I will arrive at the rendezvous in seven to fourteen days. Once there, I will make two attempts to deliver the package, thirteen hours apart. If there is any sign of danger, I will leave and come back in one hour. If there is no one to meet me, I will take the contents and sell it myself. If I get there and there is no money or it's not the right amount, I kill the messenger, call my assistants, and have them kill you, find your address book, and take the remainder of the money from your accounts. So don't mess up again."

Everyone agrees, and El sets off, everything according to plan. Less than a block away, El picks up his partner, Lacerti. A giant of a man with dark red hair and a matching beard, Lacerti is reminiscent of the Vikings. He seems to stand over eight feet tall and has a highly trim, but muscular, physique.

The drive from Florida to Mexico is long and unfriendly, but one that El and his partner have made dozens of times, just like their fathers had made and their sons will make after them. El's family has been in the same career for generations, moving and transporting anything and everything, and always with the same set of rules.

On the fourth day, they hit a snag. A road that's on El's map isn't actually there in truth. El turns the truck around, and they return to the last town for both gas and directions. They stop at a diner where there seems to be a biker gang dining as well.

Inside, El approaches the waitress and calmly asks, "Miss, can you help me?"

She is chewing gum and smells heavily of a watermelon-scented perfume. "What's up, stranger?"

"Ten miles up the road there is supposed to be a bridge that leads into the town on the other side of the mountains."

One of the bikers pipes in. He is a man with black hair and has a face torn up from years of drug use. "That's old Navu, isn't it? The bridge is gone, but there is still a road that goes through."

"What happened there?" El inquires with curiosity.

"Some acid or radiation or something spilled all over the place. The cops closed the bridge and barred the road. They say it's unlivable now," the biker explains.

"Still some folks live 'round there, though."

"Can you tell me how to get there?" El asks in his always calm tone.

"No, but I can show you. The eight of us are heading that way," the man answers.

"Take a load off. Have a beer. We'll be leaving soon."

El cracks a smile. "We don't drink, but thank you. We will sit."

As El and Lacerti wait around with the bikers, they learn that the one who spoke with them is named Pistol. The rest of the talk, though, is almost incoherent blabber. After a time, they leave, El and Lacerti following the bikers around the mountain to "the hangout."

* * *

The place looked unsavory from the get-go. There were dozens of trucks out front, most of which were unmarked. In and amongst smugglers this is a business card, our little way of saying "your logo here." Should you have one ear to the ground one might think the place looks like a death trap. Steel doors, no windows, no exterior lights, it's the Alamo: one way in, no way out. If between the two of us we had any good sense, we would have gotten right back in the truck and looked for a different place to spend the night.

Lacerti had a hand full of drinks and made his way to the restroom. I spent a moment to take in my surroundings; unfortunately the local flavor wasn't to my taste . . .

* * *

The place is not quite El's style, but it's the only stop along the way, if they want to stay punctual. He goes to the front bar to sit by himself while Lacerti makes his way to the restroom and the rest of the group finds a table together to continue their heavy drinking.

Some commotion begins, but El pays no heed until the bartender takes his cup and growls at him, "Time to pay your tab."

El looks at him and quickly notices that something is not right. Blood begins to rain from above, projected by the sprinkler system, and the bartender has grown a second head. Neither head resembles anything even remotely human looking. He leans over to grab El, but El kicks his chair back out of reach and leaps to his feet. The bartender jumps onto the bar and crouches like some kind of wild animal. El round-kicks him in the side and then ax-kicks him to the ground. The mutated bartender grabs El as he gets back up and throws him over the bar.

"Bleed for me!" the monstrous bartender ferociously orders.

El stands and cracks his neck in a prominent show of defense. The bartender stretches his rubbery necks and snaps at the man. El grabs a nearby fire extinguisher and swings. It gets caught in one of the monsters' mouths. Having bought some time and wondering where the hell Lacerti is in the surrounding ruckus, El raises his new gun to blast that mutant's second head to pieces. By this time, the room is crowded with dozens of beasts of all shapes and sizes. "It looks like the mail will be late today," El mutters.

One shot, one kill, El thinks to himself as he's blowing both heads off the bartender with a single bullet from his Jackal. Never be wasteful.Every movement must count. Nothing seems to escape El's eagle eyes. Zombies start leaping over the bar at him. El grabs the nearest one, bends it over the bar, and drives a steak knife from the table into its chest. He backhands the second to spin it around, grabs its head with both hands, and cracks its neck. The third comer he round-kicks into the wine rack, impaling it with a second kick.

El hears a girl scream, turns toward the sound, and spotting a monster carrying a young girl, raises his Jackal to attempt to snipe the flyman. Just in time he spots his partner. "Lacerti," El says over the ruckus, nodding at him. Lacerti nods in return and continues his pursuit of the monster and girl. El leaps back over the bar and tries to find a clean shot, but instead he is forced to shoot the eyes out of three other closer zombies. This clears a path to the pool table, where El grabs a cue.

Meanwhile, Lacerti runs at the door to save the girl, but he is met instead with an unmovable object as the iron door slams on him. Lacerti looks at El, disappointed. El catches the glance and nods in understanding. Nothing Lacerti can do now but resume his primary objective of protecting El--as if either of them needed protection.

* * *

. . . Pandemonium is the best word to come to mind as to what would come next--a nearly endless descent into hell as it were. I quickly come to find we are as great a threat to each other as the demons we slay; in retrospect, I feel we handled the situation handsomely. The group of us now includes Lances Jacob, incapacitated at the time, Snake Gekks, Larry Gekks--Larry has suffered an injury of the most unnerving variety, Mohamed Quinn, previously introduced himself as Spooky, Lucia Wingate--she has been referring to herself as Trash, myself, and Lacerti.

Charlie Belmond is still MIA . . .

* * *

Snake laughs in irritation. "Well, Mr. Wizard," he says, covering his eyes as if a headache seems to have set in. "Do you get a kick out of busting my balls?" He smiles forcibly. "I mean, really, is there anything you don't know?" "If so, I haven't figured it out yet," El replies sassily.

"Ouch!" Larry yells. "Incineration! You set the high score!" he jokes.

"OK." Snake starts undoing his tie and shirt. "That's it, Coin Dexter. I am sending your ass to school."

El exhales hard. "You're not really going to do this, are you?"

Snake cracks his neck. "The name of the class is Pain. My name is Professor Gekks, and I will be your instructor."

Snake throws down his coat. He steps into El, throwing a punch. El grabs his arm and spins him around, tucking the appendage behind its owner. El places his free hand on Snake's shoulder, bending him over. He jars upward, pushing Snake's own elbow into his shoulder blade.

Snake raises his head and starts shouting nonsensically. El cocks Snake's wrist downward. "Will you look at this?" he says, taunting. El starts dragging Snake around the room, bent over. "It seems I have your arm." He pushes his catch into a wall face first. "I think I might just chop it off." "Oh, fuck no!" Snake cries out.

"Why not?" El whispers to him. "It's mine now to do with what I want."

Lacerti knows well that El is simply playing with him--not that El couldn't rip Snake's arm off right now. To the contrary, he could have snapped his spine just as quickly. But El doesn't kill people that don't need to die. Killing those people is myjob, Lacerti thinks, snickering at the fruitless conflict. Pistol stares on in shock, not knowing whether to help Snake or stand back and let El have his fun.

El is a combat artist. He could have thrown Snake to the ground and he wouldn't have felt a thing, but instead he twists Snake's arm a little farther. El wants him to feel it, and he does. "You want to know about pain? Let me take you to school, wise ass," El teases him. "Pain is a nervous response of the body stimulated by the interruption of the brain's electromagnetic resonation. There is a thin line when it comes to pain. If the resonation is slow and rhythmic, we perceive it as pleasure. But if it's fast and violent, even a good touch can turn into a painful one. The trick is to learn the differences."

"Snake," Larry yells, "are you OK?" Larry rushes over to help his brother. Lacerti holds out an interposing hand.

"Fight back! Fight me, you worthless maggot!" El commands, smashing him into the wall again. "Prove you're not as worthless as you look!" Snake can do nothing but call out for help. "Goddamn it!" El shouts as his inner demons make their way to the surface. "Do something. Do something! Do you hear me? You sack of shit!"

"I can't," Snake cries.

El squeezes his wrist, and the bone starts to make a tense, pulling sound. El smiles devilishly. He understands that Snake is helpless, and if he squeezes any harder, all the cartilage in his arm will be destroyed. "How disappointing!" El spins around and throws Snake partway across the room onto his back. "Now get the troops organized. Figure out who knows what about what and stop wasting my time with banter."

"Holy shit, Snake," Larry whispers as he helps Snake to his feet. "It looks like you just got owned."

Snake nods as he grabs his shirt and coat, redressing. "I guess I did." He cradles his arm. "What are you going to do?" he says, looking up at El.

El rubs his eyes. "I have to think."

* * *

El clicks off his tape recorder and slides down in his chair. His eyes turn up to look at the weighing stations sign; his eyes narrow as the numbers start to roll through his mind. Something is not right. "A 101 boxes weighing between twenty and forty-five pounds each?" He recalls the Cuban's description of the cargo. "Four thousand five hundred and forty-five pounds of cargo max. Ten wheels, three axles, refrigeration unit . . ." El feverishly divides out the components of his truck and their weights, sensing something's not adding up. "Five thousand nine hundred rounded out to the nearest hundred. We're over a thousand pounds overweight." In sheer irritation, El slaps his steering-wheel. "We've been had."

Lacerti makes his way back to the truck holding a taco and a hot dog in one hand and four liters of diet soda in the other hand.

Chapter 4

Money

As Snake and Moses discuss the value of gold, a hand takes Larry's shoulder. He spins about, catching a glimpse of a man at the door to the bar fifty feet away grasping a duffle bag and vintage revolver. The strange man then vanishes into the blackened depths of the Lamia's Back. Larry watches a moment, trying to decide whether or not he believes his own eyes.

"OK." Moses nods after several minutes of arguing. "I'll pay it, but I'm not happy."

"I don't give a shit. Do you have any idea how hard this much gold is to get a hold of? Besides, supply and demand, I have the supply on hand, and I want cash."

Moses laughs at Snake and his clever crime savvy. "Snake, you piece of shit, you have more lives than a cat and are just as cunning. Follow me home and I'll get you the rest of the money."

"Good." Snake nods and retires his gun to its holster in his overcoat. He calls over, "Lances, kid, come on. I'll give you a ride to the next town down. You're on your own from there, though. Larry, let's go. Moses is taking us to his place."

The group of them gathers into Snake's car and begins their journey, Snake driving, Jacob in the passenger's seat, Larry and Ashley in the back. "Lances, I just noticed you're wearing a ring." Jacob looks down at his hand as Snake talks. "Opal stone for the back, set gold, diamond-shaped, etched, inscribed with the letter G. You're a knight, aren't you?"

Jacob nods. "Snake, it's not a man's past that makes him who he is. It's his future."

Snake nods. "I know, Father. The circumstances of one's birth are not so significant to his life as the choices one makes and the path he carves through history."

Jacob nods, dumbfounded by the seeming clairsentience of the other man's words.

"So, Father, where will the future take you?"

"The Church of Jesuit. I will tell them my story and take my rightful place amongst them in my fight against evil."

"The warrior priests of the first Masonic right organized 400 CE, right?"

"Yes, that is absolutely right. How did you know that?"

* * *

The ride into town is far quieter than the night before. Traditionally, Snake likes life fast and loud, but after what he had just seen, the two thieves are ready for some relaxation.

Larry was hurt in a fight yesterday. Something bit him; the wound just won't stop bleeding. For the most part, the pain has passed, but anyone that knows anything knows that a snake bite requires medical attention no matter how minor. Snake and Larry are both wanted men in the United States. They need to get to Mexico if they want to get help and avoid federal integument. Thankfully Moses is here; without him, the brothers would be lost.

Navu is only an hour up the road. Moses is the fun-loving type; when they arrive, the first place he wants to stop is a place for a drink. Snake and the others need to find a phone . . .

. . . Outside a steak house, Snake finds a pay phone and leaps out of the convertible and walks away, leaving Larry, Lances, and Ashley to their own devices.

Lances leans over the back set and begins whispering to Larry.

"Larry."

"Lances?"

Lances reaches over the set and grabs Larry's good arm. "Larry, your brother can't help you."

"Hmm?"

Lances exhales heavily. "Larry, you're dying. Snake can't help you. The Jesuit and I can. Come with us. We can heal you."

Larry shakes his head. "I don't think so, Jacob." He reaches up to push Lances' hand. He freezes and looks at his hand, almost jumping at the sight of black and green scales crawling up his hand. Peeking out beneath his cuffs almost tooth-shaped horns mark the edges of his growth. "Jesus!" Larry falls off to one side of the car, holding his arm out in disbelief. Ashley pushes against the opposing wall in fright as well. Lances stares at Larry as if waiting for him to speak with an expression that almost shouts, "Told you so."

Ashley breaks the silence with possibly the most uncomfortable statement one might muter at the moment. "Does that hurt?"

Snake is completely unaware of the fright back in the car as he is arguing with the cops over the phone. "I don't know how much more clear I can be! I'm telling you there is a blood bath at the nightclub Lamia's Back! There are like three hundred wrecked cars and twice as many dead bodies!"

The operator's voice comes from the other side. "OK and how did you come across all of these?"

Snake runs his fist into the phone booth. "Are you fucking stupid? I'm telling you I can help you solve hundreds of missing persons' cases and you're making fun of me! Fuck you! I want to speak to your LT!"

"Calm down, sir. Please tell me your name and we will send a detective out to meet you."

Snake is feverish with rage. "You want my name! Snake Gekks! Fucking

Google it if you want."

"Right, gecko snake. Son, this is the PD. Don't waste our time with jokes."

"You peace of shit!" The operator hangs up without giving confirmation as to whether or not officers are on the way. "Fuck! Cocksucking son of a shit." Snake slams down the phone not once but three times, then kicks the phone.

* * *

In the police station, Officer Kelly places his headset down and chuckles at the prank call he had received. He tips his head back and comes face-to-face with a yet unfamiliar face. A young Chinese--English American with mid-length unkempt black hair, half his face hidden thereby. He stands slouched, thumbs tucked into loops of his belt, wearing a white long sleeved T-shirt and blue jeans. He has the look of a man that has far more on his mind than how he looks. He is clearly only a boy, but endless hours of reading, an unhealthy diet, and narcolepsy have undoubtedly left their mark as his eyes are lined with dark lines shadowing them.

Officer Kelly turns in his chair to face the young man. "Hey, if you're going to be in here, I need to see some credential."

"Reizuki Lowe, Federal Bureau of Investigation. I'm here to assist in the investigation of the mass vehicle disappearances," Reizuki speaks in a single breath; his voice is drugged and slow.

"You're a federal agent?"

"Indeed." Reizuki spins a chair backside out and leaps into it, sitting like a gargoyle; one arm is tucked under his chest, the other pulled over his body, and he bites into his hand as he stares down the sluggish looking cop. "Who were you speaking with?"

"Please sit down, Agent Lowe." The esoteric investigator can taste the mutinous intent of his otherwise ally.

"Impossible, I always kneel. Sitting would place me in a compromising position. Who was the caller as I entered the room?" Lowe leans in close enough to smell the opposing officer's aftershave. It is almost as if Reizuki never blinks, and his fellow enforcer begins to sweat under his inquisitive gaze.

Kelly swiftly turns away and starts to meaninglessly arrange papers as an escape from Reizuki's glare. "Some kid with a reptile fetish. He wanted me to believe his name was snake gecko."

"Hmm . . . I don't know any geckos. But I have heard of a Snake Gekks. He is wanted for questioning for dozens of petty thefts, racketeering, sedition, privateering, drug smuggling, and is a suspect in two ongoing murder investigations. His kid brother was also accused of rape five years ago down in Virginia, but the prosecutor ended up dropping the charges . . . ?" Reizuki trails off, looking entranced as he searches his memories for more information.

"Really?"

"Both brothers are well on their way to the top ten list in my opinion. It is also my feeling that Larry Gekks was involved in an espionage case in which a number of sensitive files were stolen from bureau headquarters. Mind you, this was Internet piracy, almost impossible to track with our current tools but still . . ." He gets lost in thought again mid-sentence. "Why would someone like Snake Gekks want to talk to the police?"

"He was talking crazy. He was willing to say anything It would take to get me to dispatch units to this truck stop twenty miles from anywhere." Kelly tries to protect himself with a bold statement.

"No doubt you're right. This is nothing but a joke, but let's send a car there anyway just for the fun of it.

"Whatever Snake said was true or not, he would not have called the PD unless there was truly something urgent going down. A man like him is too smart to prank call the police. A man like him survives by outfoxing the opposition," Reizuki deduces. "On the point of foxes, I wonder if this is a job my Fox would be interested by."

* * *

From the steak house, it is only a hop, skip, and jump to the church Lances had requested to be dropped off at. After climbing out, Lances reaches over the car to lift Ashley out. Lances turns his attention to Larry, who has taken off his coat and tied it around his arm to cover the strange growth. "This is your last chance, son."

Snake cuts Lances off, "I'm sorry, Father, but I don't believe in voodoo. I respect your struggle and your commitment to an idea, but my brother is sick and I really don't think that hokey religions and dark age magic is going to do anything to help him."

Lances exhales heavily, removing his glasses for a moment to clean them. Ashley starts to speak out in protest of Snake's bullheadedness. "For the love of . . ." Lances places his hand on her arm to stop her verbal beratement.

"I'm sorry you feel that way, Snake. I supposed that between Charlie and I, we might have changed your mind."

"It's not happening, Lances. You and I will never see eye to eye on this."

Lances lightly tugs on Ashley's arm and leads her to the door of the church. Snake and Larry watch for a moment as the door is pulled open by an angler looking man with raven hair; he speaks in a strange sounding language that Snake assumes is Romanian. It looks as if he is going to slam the door on Lances, but Lances sticks his foot in the door to stop him and presents the monk with the blade off the tail of one of the Thralls they had encountered the other day. Quickly the monk changes his tune, opening the door wide, inviting in the old priest and his daughter. That would be the last Snake and Larry are likely to hear from their one-time friend . . .

* * *

A day and a half pass. Moses grants the pair the money they asked for, and they found their way in and out of a Spanish hospital, but that was far from the end of their problems. The thieves speed thought the Texan deserts far form the road, the two have reason to run, things at the hospital did not go as well as Snake would have hoped . . .

Larry holds out his hand now covered in black scales; his fingers have in extra joint and his nails have taken on the texture of bone. "Eczema! Eczema? Maybe it's eczema. Maybe I just need a really good skin conditioner. Maybe it's eczema, Snake. What do you think? Because I think it's eczema!" Larry jumps over the backseat into the front as he is talking.

"Stop acting like a nut," Snake grunts at his younger brother.

"Acting like a nut? This is coming from the guy that just shot up a hospital?"

"Well, I wouldn't have had to do that if you hadn't killed the head physician. Besides it wasn't like it was HCMC. The whole staff was only like eight people."

"He called me the devil and threatened to chop of my head with a pair of garden shears." Larry gets progressively louder as he shouts, "What are we going to do know, Snake?"

"Were going to go to the Mayo clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. They have like the best facilities in the world. Someone there will know what is going on."

"Yah, we'll just drive there, right? Snake, we are wanted for murder in three states."

Snake cuts him short, "And two counters as if three o'clock." (understanding that after their last ordeal likely booth the Amarican and Spanish police are looking for them.)

Larry strangely calms a tad. "I wonder how high on the most wanted list you have to be before they name a satellite after you?"

"How much cash do we have on us, Larry?"

"Like eight grand, plus my credit card."

"That's not good enough."

"Are we really going to do this, Snake? Just drive cross country with the Feds on our tail?" The brothers' argument quickly accelerates out of control to the point in which only the other brother can understand each other's train of thought, if even that.

"You make it sound like I'm the crazed one here. I guess you just forgot about that 'Rock Candy' thing . . ."

"Yah, which one of us had the bright idea to bomb a Halloween party anyway . . . ?"

"I have a pretty good idea that was you. You know she was like fourteen, right?"

"So what? I was seventeen . . ."

"No, asshole, you were twenty-three. You pretended to be seventeen to get in the party."

"She asked for it anyway . . ."

"Yah, right, and you two were such good friend that we skipped town as soon as we heard a whistle blow."

"Hay, it's not like you never fucked me, cocksucker."

"You were the one that sucked the cock, if I remember correctly."

"Do you remember that time I got sick when we were out with the 'fat cats' and you got so fucking toasted that you covered me with PBJ and had that dog eat me."

"At least she didn't try to mount you."

"And then after that . . ."

"Stop! We agreed not to talk about that ever again, remember?"

"I'm your brother, you sick son of a bitch."

"Stop!" Snake reaches over and slaps his brother on the side of the head to silence him in a fatherly display of dominance and affection. Larry hushes himself without needing any further provocation. Now speaking only slightly over the roaring of the engine, Snake takes Larry's good hand. "How do you feel, big guy?"

Larry reaches up to adjust his glasses and rubs his eyes, forgetting that he had lost his glasses earlier. "Like I might need a flee caller soon, Snake. I don't want to be a crocodile."

"Don't worry. It's just some kind of rash. When we get to Rochester, we will get this all fixed up, then we're off to Vancouver to live the good life. It's going to be dark soon. Do you want to stop in the next town for a 'tall, cold one' and maybe some 'TNA,' hmm?" Larry is at the tip to get easily frustrated, and on top of that, he suffers a wide assortment of neurotic complexes, social anxiety, and a long list of phobias, which make up the tip of the iceberg. If they try to drive though the night tonight, Snake feels tomorrow Larry would be insufferable.

Even if it had not been for Larry being ill as he is, Snake has had time to work out a series of little tricks that have allowed them to live on the road at almost no expense. Why sleep in your car when someone might just pay you to sleep in their bed for them?

Trick no. 1: Change gang--all you need is a pocket full of small bills and loose change. Walk into any establishment, gas station, diner. Make a small purchase, pay with a big bill (twenties work best), wait till the cashier starts counting change, make small talk to distract them. After they give you your change but before they lock their till, offer to buy with a smaller bill (grab your change first). Then as they scramble to do the new arithmetic, start counting up change yourself, then offer to give them perfect change. Ask for your last bill back and pocket your cash as they count out your change. You just got your product free plus fifty to a hundred bucks extra if you are quick on the draw.

Trick no. 2: The one up--drive into any fast food place in order. Start talking on your phone as you pay (pay with a fifty or greater). Wait to take your change till after you are given your food. Tell the cashier you want to return your food and get your money back. "Something has come up." When they give you your change, place that in your pocket and pull a separate cash of change from your coat sleeve that is "a little short." Let them give you back double your money and take off before they have time to count it out.

But today calls for a bigger hustle than that; today the brother employs "the pidgin drop" and "the card trick." These tricks need two people to pull off.

* * *

"The card trick"

To start the evening of the card trick. Buy two packs of basic playing cards and go to any bar. Keep one pack sealed; pull a single card out of the other. Snake takes out the "ace of spades"; one brother goes out in search of a likely victim. Anyone who has three or more drinks sitting in front of them is likely a safe bet. Larry makes the first move.

Larry sits down next to his unlucky sap--an older man in a red flannel over shirt with a beard with skunk strips. "How is it hanging, skipper?" Larry greets the old man at the bar. The drunken lumberjack-looking man speaks; Larry doesn't listen. Larry just nods and replies with some generalized statements. "Yep, I hear you on that one." Then after several minutes of small talk he throws in, "Sounds like the daily grind." That is Snake's signal that Larry has found the first domino in their line.

"Evening, gents." Snake sits on the other side of the pigeon. "Life is good, isn't it?"

"Shut up, clown," Larry orders.

"What if I told you I would give you $200 bucks if you could bet me in a game of chances, and if you lose, it would only cost you fifty."

The pigeon looks up interested; the brothers know they have this in the bag.

"How is the game played?" The inebriate looks at the conmen.

Snake slaps the pack of cards on the table.

"You want to play? Open this up, shuffle it up, count the cards if you must, then place fifty bucks on the table." Snake places down his two hundred, Larry his fifty. As the patron reaches into his pocket looking for his cash, more members of the bar approach interested by the steadily rising ante. Snake reaches into his pocket and slaps atop the pile of cards an envelope (tucked carefully underneath the ace of spades). "One empty envelope. Take the top card from the stack and without looking at it place it inside and seal it." The man in red sweater follows instructions. "Now anyone that wants in on these, slap down your cash and write on the envelope your predictions and your initials."

Larry steps up first, writing down the black ace just as they had planned. A fourth party steps up, placing down another stake of cash. Before they know it, fifteen or more people that had been eavesdropping on their bet have approached, wanting their chances at the big bucks now up for stake. Quickly, people have forgotten who had even set up the game, and word of mouth carries the wager around the bar. It's not long before close to a grand is on the table.

Snake calls out, "Open the letter. Let's see who is the winner."

A young man that was amongst the last to bet picks up the ballot and opens it up calling, "Ace of spades, LG." Larry cheers and claps; most of the rest of the players join in, and Larry pockets the cash. In the midst of confusion, he slips out the back door. Snake packs up his card and waits twenty minutes before joining him. Another perfect scandal!

* * *

"Pidgin drops"

This one takes a little more setup and you don't make as much money per hit. But you can do it more times in a day and are less likely to get caught. You need a road map and two billfolds, one with eight to nine hundred dollars in large bills in it, the other filled with construction paper. You need a spotter and a hit man. Your spotter stands outside any hotel around check-in or checkout with the roadmap and the billfold filled with paper. The spotter stands outside and asks for directions, suggesting that he is waiting for his friend to get the car. Wait for someone that is in the mood to stand and chat. The hit man waits nearby, car hidden alongside the building.

Today, Snake plays the spotter. A dozen people pass him by as he plays up the tourist role, but then . . . "Hey, someone told me there was a theater around here? But I . . ."

An older man comes in. "I think I know the spot you talking about." He stands over Snake, looking at his map.

Larry spots the two talking; it's time to move in. Larry comes in from one side and knees next to the two men "picks up" a lost wallet. "Excuse me, sir. I think you dropped your wallet."

Snake reaches around himself. "No, I have mine," Snake suggests confusedly.

The older man feels up his pockets and shakes his head.

Larry shrugs. "Maybe there's an ID." Larry pauses. "Jesus, there's like a grand in here." The old man and Snake both lean in to look; Larry offers the wallet to the old man to look at first. "I suppose I could look in the hotel see if anyone is asking about it." As Larry is talking, Snake reaches over to pick up the wallet to look at its contents. "If no one seems to know anything, we could split up the contents?" Snake hides the wallet full of cash under his map switching it for the one filled with paper.

"I'm waiting for someone," Snake explains.

"All right, what if you two wait here while I step inside and then we deal with this?"

Larry raises his head, thinking, Would you guys mind __fronting me a few buck in good_ grace?_

The old-timer looks apprehensive; Snake pulls two fifties out his pocket. "I have a hundred on me."

"What is the collateral for?" the man asks. "I don't have the wallet."

Larry looks around. "Where did the wallet go?"

Snake holds it up; Larry points at the old man. "Why not let him hold it?" Snake nods, handing it over. "Do you have a hundred on you?"

The old man wants a cut of the grand. Who wouldn't? And having already seen Snake fork over his hundred, the old man reaches into his pocket without another thought, handing Larry the money.

"I'll be right back." Larry walks away.

Snake and the old man stand around for another minute before a car pulls up, and disappointedly he looks at his comrade. "I gotta go. When the other guy shows up just split it between you." Chances are by the time your victim even thinks about the possibility that he had been duped, you're already working on your next job.

* * *

There is a difference between a robbery, a con, and a heist. For the most part, here is how it breaks down. In a con, you need to be fast and a good actor at that; you need to talk your posy into giving you something, preferably without them even noticing that they handed it to you. In a robbery, you plan to take something and it doesn't matter if you are seen or not. In a heist, you take something and you can't be seen or the gig is up. For this, you need every trick of the trade at your disposal, and if you don't have it, you find some that has what you are missing, Snake doesn't like sharing his loot, but it has come up in the past.

* * *

After a hard night of helping others with their short-term investment planning the brothers settle in for the evening.

"Snake, do you know how hard it is going to be to play arcade games if this won't heal?" Larry points at his swelling arm after taking off the blanket he had been using to cover it.

"Thought hadn't really come to mind."

"So the plan is still to go to Minnesota, right?"

Snake 'face plants' on the bed, arms out-streached as he lies down still in his suit. "Yep."

"Then what?" Larry asks, discarding his coat and slacks.

Snake rolls onto his side, making room for Larry to share the bed. Snake's eyes slide back as he drifts into a fantasy for a moment, envisioning the perfect tomorrow for him and his little brother. Snake reaches out to hold the sides of his brother's face in his hands as he lies down, pulling him in close. Their foreheads touch as Snake whispers to his beloved brother, "We swing by the Mayo clinic. We have you all patched up within an hour, then we go up to Fargo and sell that junk-heap of a car downstairs for a mountain's worth of gold. We buy some backpacks and hunting outfits and all the canned food we can carry. Then we can through the rest of the money out on the street because we won't need it anymore. After that we will start walking north and we won't stop till we meet up with 'Dougly Dowright' or we see igloos, whichever comes first. And for the rest of our lives, we will never be in need or want again."

"Really, no more guns or robbers, fast cars, or fast women?"

Snake laughs with Larry. "We'll be in Amish country, Amigo. You wouldn't want to be with any women out there." The brothers turn to face away from each other. The fantasy is fun, but neither of them expect things to go that cleanly.

Neither brother sleeps soundly in the night.

Chapter 5

He Who Touches Heaven

Marks opens his eyes. The last days, maybe even weeks, seem to be gone from his memories. His eyes roll from side to side. He is at home, in his suburban house with techno-colored walls and thick carpets, retro furnishings, and contemporary art. It doesn't take Marks but a second to notice that things are not as they should be. He is standing in the kitchen, leaning over a blank space on the floor, staring as his hand is reaching out for an invisible milk saucer. Next his eyes move decisively to the right, searching for the laundry room that is hidden behind the pantry, but it isn't there. Next to the left there is a spiraling staircase that leads to his and Ako's bedroom; the stairwell is there, but it leads into a blank wall.

Marks stands up straight and makes his way over to his record player; he thumbs through his disks. They're all blank, as if erased. The television turns on as if of its own will. Marks watches as his face comes into view. "Hello, Vigeta. I know what you're thinking. Sir Emit Brown would not approve." The face on the TV references an eighteenth-century philosopher he learned about in school. "But seeing I am the dead speaking to a ghost, I'm confident it can be forgiven." Marks takes a step, intrigued by the phantom-like image before him.

"Vigeta, you have been damaged. Your body is in horrid disrepair. It's nothing that the repair mechanism I implanted within you cannot handle. But that is only the beginning of the conundrums we are in. We are behind enemy lines, and your hardware is being tampered with as we speak."

Marks leans off to one side, studying the image closely, crossing his legs and resting on one arm. Marks speaks to his reflection, "Seeing the nature of our relationship and your less then impeccable reputation, I'm sure you can understand why I find it difficult to believe you, friend."

The image on the TV leans in close. "You don't trust me? Good, I wouldn't either. So allow me to expand your horizons. If you are indeed Marks Karingson, then clearly you should remember your youth. What year were we born?"

This is unbelievable, sitting here having a conversation with one's television, but why not play along? Likely this is some kind of joke set up by Allen or Ako. "I was born November 15, 1912."

The face on the screen grins. "That would make us eighty-nine years old, wouldn't it? Do you feel like a man nearly a century old? Do you look like a man that was in America before the automobile? You need to look no more other than at your own reflection to see the all too adverse truth. You are an artificial life form, or more appropriate, we are the life form. You are a reboot program, and I am your operating system."

Marks rest one hand on his check, a single finger floating alongside his eye in ponder. "If that is so, then by what paradox are we aware of each other as separate but equal entities, and then furthermore why should one of us have knowledge above or beyond that of the whole, in this case whole being the entity initialed there before?"

"This would all be far simpler if you would accept this 'we are one' idea. As a student of Cid Arthur and passionate disciple of Buddha, one may expect you to be more open-minded."

"Let us assume for a moment that I believed somehow you and I are both Marks Karingson, then how would you explain this place we are in and why I find it both comforting and alien?"

"Thank you," the image speaks. "This is the 'catch' here. Vital system information is stored in case of 'data crash,' 'short circuit,' or 'date refresh.' The alien tingling you are experiencing is inspired by 'file corruption.' We at the moment are running of the minimal 'specs' needed to run our 'AI.' Much of our advanced programming was damaged alongside our 'hardware.' Now I have one more thing to say that is of the utmost importance. In order to rebuild ourselves the way our designer intended us to be, we will need the backup program. It is stored on an MSD or disk of some kind. I don't know the exact specifications, but we _need_it."

The room starts to fall out of focus; something is tinkering with Marks. The room fades to a soft white, and he can feel himself changing--into what he yet cannot say. The experiences most be that of birth--dizziness, disorientation, a gradual shift from wakefulness to sleep with no clear line between them. It is as remarkable as it is terrible.

* * *

Allen leads Dr. Rhys, a neophyte computer technician, into the robotics lad where the seemingly debilitated martinet still lies. "Rhys," Allen speaks up, "I understand you worked alongside Dr. Karingson on a project shortly after you arrived here."

"Yes," the young doctor explains briefly but upon spotting the broken droid looks shocked. "Shit! What is that?!" He runs over to the crushed device.

"Frankly, I hoped you could tell me. We found it in Marks' lab after the security malfunction last week. We can't be confident, but it looks like an advanced SI or AI."

"It _looks_like a T-series android."

"I don't watch movies."

"So," Rhys turns to his employer, "what do you want me to do with it?"

"Equip a control device, bring it on line, and monitor it. A fantastic piece of machinery like this could make your career." Allen leaves Rhys to his work.

For most of the day, Rhys stares blankly into the images produced by a series of scanners he has attached to the android. The amazing complexities as alien to him as would be are pictures of the human brain. Yes, it is there; yes, we can see how it works; no, we can't understand why it works yet. The only thing that Rhys finds he can do is install an antenna into its spinel structure, a modem near its lower brain, and a behavioral modification chip near its heart. With these things in place, he can transmit data from this creature to any laptop of his choice.

Rhys find that he barely has time to stitch up the monster before it starts to come to life like some brute out of a horror movie. Eyes snap open and the composed life form sits up; it turns to face the mad doctor with what should be lifeless eyes but somehow that show intelligence and murderous intent. The monster stands; Rhys backs away, placing his back to the wall. What should be a moment of glorious conquest is overshadowed by an overwhelming terror and grief. "It lives! For God's sake, it lives!" Rhys boasts in madness.

Marks stares at the young doctor that seems to be suffering temporary insanity. "I don't mean to brag, but I do have training as a physiologist. I might be able to help you get your life back in order. Now tell me how long have you had these feelings of overwhelming emotions? Are you Jason Rhys by any chance? I understand that you're are a new arrival to our little family here."

It takes a moment or two for it to dawn on Rhys that he is not Victor Frankenstein and Dr. Karingson isn't a homicidal giant. "Late in my high school career was when I first started to notice I had some trouble keeping my imagination under control. And yes, I'm Dr. Rhys. I was transferred here form Snelling lab where I was in IT."

Marks is no monster; in fact he is no less human than anyone else as far as Rhys is concerned. Had he not seen the scans, he would have had no reason to think that this isn't Dr. Marks V. Karingson in person.

"Dr. Karingson, you have a marking on your neck. Do you know what . . . ?" "It is a prison tattoo. It reads 52757-84472," Marks interrupts.

"Where did you get it?"

"A freedom camp I visited in Virginia."

This conversation goes on for hours; Rhys is captivated by Marks' stories about love and war and about his travels across the world. Rhys stares at Marks, almost unblinking, waiting for any signs of his inhuman nature. There is none. He breathes, he blinks; every satiety of motion we consciously or subconsciously expect to occur. It is mesmerizing to think that he is not a man. Smart, witty, lucid, he is not just a man, he is a great man, with amazing insight into Rhys' most intimate problems.

* * *

Early in the morning, Allen goes looking for Rhys, finding him right where he left him--in Marks' lab. Quickly, Rhys uses his remote to deactivate the old doctor, then jumps to his feet in attention. "Mr. Wesker, we need to talk." Rhys grabs his superior's arm. "Buy me breakfast." He nearly pushes Allen out of the office.

The two of them make their way down to "the canteen"--their on-site all-purpose eatery. Allen takes a seat that has been reserved for him and his upper-class friends. "I trust that this means that you were able to repair my damaged piece of hardware." Allen sits patently for Rhys' reply.

Rhys wiggles in his chair and starts with a vocalized pause. "Ahhmm, yes, I was able to bring unit 52757 online, but it's not at all what you think it is--"

Allen raises his hand to cut off Rhys next thought, "Can we control it?"

"Well, . . . no, not really. Marks has an advanced personality system. It's not like anything I've seen before. He is clearly programmed to execute orders, but also has the option of ignoring them."

"He is not Marks, but that aside, can you override this protocol?"

"Well, that's a no with a but or a yes with an although. We could feed him falls sensory input and make it so everything he remembers or copies we can see and then regurgitate just the information we want him to have or delete things we don't want him to know."

"That sounds good. Can we make more of him?"

"I can't figure out how the hell we made this one. The wiring, the software, the way it is arranged is out of this world."

"Marks was amazing, wasn't he?"

"The basic outline isn't too complex. It looks more or less like one of our cyber dons, but it's not the hardware that is the real magic here. It's the way he moves . . ."

"Is it janky, unnatural?"

"No, it's insanely accurate. He sighs, he breaths, he blinks, he pushes his hair way from his face, he sweats . . . Can you believe it, a computer that sweats!?"

"Can you imagine the possibilities of having a Marks Karingson in every laboratory?" Allen grins maliciously.

Rhys shakes his hands out in front of him in protest. "Impossible! Did you forget the part of 'he can disobey orders?' He might just freak out one day and go Arab on us, and with the type of armor he is packing, we'll need to drop a building on him."

"Well, that's ironic." Allen chokes down a smirk. "Now, friend, here is what I want you to do. Set up your mind control gizmo. This thing thinks he is Marks. Let's play along with that. I want you to tell him: first off, the night of the fire did not pass. Ako is not dead. She was called on by the US government to assist in a type-4 classified case and may not contact him for an extended amount of time. She took Tara with her when she left. Let him know that he has placed his apartment up for rent, feeling that it would be for the best if he were to stay here in the labs till his wife and daughter came back. In fact on the day of the so-called fire, he didn't even come into work. He was helping his family set up for their trip."

Rhys scrambles for his notebook. "Is there anything else?"

"Yes, when he came back yesterday, he had found that his office had been vandalized and one of his experiments is still unaccounted for."

"What is unaccounted for?"

"Four specimens that were part of the Tail project."

"Is that true?"

"As a matter of fact, yes. And I believe that our former security guard took them when he left."

"Do you want me to tell him that too?"

"No, he will figure it out. You know, just for good measure why not line him with explosives while you're at it?"

Rhys is plagued by a foul taste in his mouth while Allen spins his tangled web of lies. What evil did Allen do to this old man that would summon him back from the dead? There is no way that 52757 is a computer program; he is alive, and he is looking for something. Rhys has a good idea what it is too. But for now there is nothing he can do but what he is told. God help us! Although Rhys did have at least one good idea. If Marks is a ghost, he is going to need friends, so Rhys volunteers for the job.

* * *

It's not long after Marks comes back online that he is ready to track down his missing hardware. He makes his way down to "Armaments," nearly dragging Rhys behind him and starts assembling an assortment of artillery that would be emasculating to most armies. "How long has Officer Egget been MIA?"

"Since the fifth."

"Likely he has gone out of state," Marks theorizes. "Tail-0.1 is self-sufficient. She could have been moved by any conventional method. Tail-2.1 'Nile' is only pushily developed. She could be operating at 25 percent power and still pass as human but not likely. Tail-9.0 and Tail-NEARO were still in development last I checked and have the mentality of children at their best. They can't be pulled out of cryonics for at least seven more months without severe difficulties. They could only be transported within subzero conditions, and that limits our target escape routes."

Marks picks up an assault rifle that folds up into the shape of a briefcase, then a handful of grenades. "Wait, Marks, what are you doing? You're going to bring them back alive, aren't you?"

"Tail? Yes. Officer Egget? No," Marks explains coldly. "Officer Egget most likely made his way to filmier grounds. Family friends and friends of family might be receptive to his need, and therefor would sympathizes. That means, in order to smoke our rouge out we need to go after his family first."

"Are you sure?"

"In his place, that's what I would do. All we need to do is start killing relatives till he turns himself in."

"What if he won't bite?"

"Freedom means having nothing left to lose. If we kill everyone he knows and he doesn't come here begging for forgiveness, that means we need to look to other sources. Money for example is a fantastic motivator to those that have little of it. Start offering street punks a grand to start chasing him. Suddenly gas stations become hazardous to one's health."

"What is Tail and what makes 'it' that valuable?"

"Self-sufficient, self-replicating, and self-repairing super computer. She has full spectrum of emotion and freewill. She has a wireless Internet jack built into her brain, and her batteries will never die. She is the most dangerous weapon I ever designed and the most beautiful . . . She is worth killing for, even dying for, if need be it."

Rhys thinks carefully about the words Marks chooses to use. Marks seems to use his linguistics consciously; every word has a meaning and therefore . . . "Wait up. I get it, I get it! You built a computer into a human being. What the hell were you thinking--"

Marks cut him off. "To be fair, it is more canine than human. A splicer grows faster than a human and there are fewer civil actions protecting animals than humans. Besides our investor on this project was more concerned with time than anything else. The money was becoming tighter with every day without results, so I pushed for the project to follow the path of least resistance and lust . . . a fox was the simplest choice, next to dolphin, but . . ." Marks trails off into his own thoughts. "Officer Egget has family living in Tampa I do believe. How quickly can you get me there?"

Rhys points at himself. "Me?"

* * *

After leaving the pub and after entrusting their cargo to a mercenary, Dwight looks at Sanchez. "That man is going to kill us."

"Only if we're lucky," Sanchez jokes. "I think seeing that we were government employees up till last week it's more likely we'll be gunned down by assassins."

"Where did you meet this guy?"

"Never did. My cousin down in Mexico is a pharmacist on the drug cartel's payroll. Sometimes the service of a man like that is necessary when times get tough."

"So what do we do next?"

"Marks didn't say. Do you know anyone down here that could hide us out maybe?"

Egget lifts his head in ponder. "Did you just say your cousin is a Mexican drug lord?"

"No, you can't be so ethnocentric. There is no FDA international. So when there are drugs pending approval here in America, my cousin can buy them direct at half their retail price and sell them back to American consumers. It's a good deal really. Last I heard the profit margin is so great that one of his clientele can almost single-handedly pay off his living expenses each month, and it is still cheaper than traditional healthcare around here."

"That is just sick . . ."

Marks sits quietly, watching his prey from a car down the way. Where any other man would need a scope to see, Marks can make out his target perfectly. Where are theygoing? Where is their car? Where is Tail?

"Marks, what is going on?" Rhys demands. "You know I'm your lab assistant. Covert-operations, are really not in my job description."

"You're here as my friend, not my partner." Marks steps out of the mid-sized

Subaru. "Let's see how well direct confrontation works. I want Tail back." Rhys leans in and shouts at Marks, "I don't remember you being like this."

Marks tunes him out as he walks briskly down the road to his co-conspirators.

Rhys takes action; Marks will kill those two no doubt. He calls the police.

Egget stops and throws his arm out to stop his traveling companion. "Is that Marks?" he asks.

"Dr. Karingson," Dwight yells once he is confident it is. "Are we glad you're

here . . ."

Marks withdraws a long-barreled pistol from his overcoat. Sanchez is the first to react, stepping in front of Dwight. Marks shoots the Spaniard in the foot, then shoves him over as he pushes his way to his target. "It's not fatal, but the blood loss will be if you don't pack the wound," he explains as he steps over the doctor. Dwight steps back in fright as it dawns on him that this is not the Marks Karingson he knew, but instead the metallic monster he watched being constructed.

Marks' hand rises to grab Dwight by the skull. The crushing force of Vigeta's hand thrusts Dwight onto his knees. "You will tell me where Tail is and then you will die." His voice is cold, heartless, soulless.

Sirens blare in the deep. Marks detects flashing lights over his shoulder. These two are __either very clever or very_ lucky._ Dwight struggles to stand, grabbing at Marks' arm for leverage. The cars squeal to a stop. Police pour out on to the street, looks like a dozen of them at first glance. A tadliberal, don't you think? There are more coming from the other direction; Marks can feel them.

Marks grips Dwight's wrist and twists it firmly; pivoting about, he lifts upward, forcing Dwight to his feet and tipping him back. The crazed doctor whispers in his ear, "Examine your predicament carefully. If you pull away from me or drop to your knees to try and escape, the weight of your body will be forced on your sphenoid. Your arm will be severed in a way that only bionics can fix. You can't afford that on your income. So don't move." Marks places his long-barrel on Dwight's shoulder, aiming at the nearest enforcer's vehicle.

The police encircle the old warlord. One officer shouts out, "Release the hostage and place your firearm on the ground!"

Marks speaks up slightly so the cops can hear him, "I don't see where that would be inclusive to my interest. You see these men are thieves, if not kidnapers, and I desire my property aka partner to be relinquished as so much returned to my care or embrace. As it were, I do not believe you are capable or qualified to perform the actions therein described as well as required, so a partnership of cooperation is impossible."

The enforcer in the lead steps out from behind his car. "You are surrounded. There is one way out."

"You make an unwise assumption in that my plan involves escape."

"Stay calm. we can work through this. You say that man is a thief. Hand him over to us, and we'll take care of things from here." The agent slides in closer.

Marks pushes up slightly more on Dwight's arm, forcing him onto tiptoes. His back binds; Dwight screams. "You wish him dead, by all means keep walking. As for your proposition, I'm not convinced that the litigations of your antirepublicanism would be cascaded in a direction that would satiate my needs. No deals will be made if you press the issue henceforth. These men will die, and so will you and your team. If you wish this resolves without negativity you will leave without hesitation."

"I see ten armed men facing you down and ten more will be here any minute. You can't win if you fight. Let your hostages go."

"You are a terrible negotiator. I hope your captain knows that." A dark light spirals around Marks; spectral wind embraces the warlock . . . but then it recedes. Marks suddenly notices a lack of energy; his kie won't come forth. Somehow something is blocking it. But that is impossible. Kie is not Mana; it doesn't come from the earth. It never fluxes. So long as the energist summoning it is healthy, it is self-sealing, a bottomless well of power conjured into existence by its wisher.

The police officer standing before Marks whispers to himself, "What the hell was that?" The officer taps the microphone on his caller. "Take him down."

Marks squints as his peers into the face of the law enforcer. With magnificent force, he thrusts himself upon Dwight and launches him into the cop, throwing them both to the ground. Marks spots a sniper crouching in the grass a dozen yards away; in a display of superhuman reflexes, he turns a half circle and fires the long barrel once. The bullet strikes the chamber of the rifle, jamming it.

The officers open fire on the machine of war; two more cars come into sight. Marks stands strong, fearless in the face of the ever-growing force. The artillery connects, and yes, the bullets do sting, but Marks is confident that they will never kill him. Marks lowers his hands to his side and two globs drop from his sleeves. The globs strike the ground; developing insectoid legs, they run at the cars, exploding in a column of fire that bounces two of the cars fifteen feet in the air.

Shock and awe rapidly dominates. The polices scatter having drastically underestimated the resolve of their enemy. Emboldened, Marks walks into the fray. The police drastically tries to reorganize in the midst of chaos, but Marks is in control. Marks shoots one cop in the legs two times each and another he pistol whips, sending careening through the air. The lieutenant he sees fit to steal the firearm from as he walks past into the flames. Marks snatches up Sanchez and carries him away residing Egget to his fate.

* * *

Darkness overtakes Marks as he steps back into Rhys' car. All at once the world changes. Marks finds himself back where he had started, standing in the living room of his loft, looking down at where his cat dish should be. His own voice comes from behind. "Hello again, Vigeta, do you believe me yet?"

* * *

Rhys and Allen quickly find themselves seized from their daily affairs and brought before their benefactor. At the top floor of the eastern tower rests a lone room with a window twenty foot tall and two hundred feet across. The carpet is red with fine stained wood around the exterior. The entirety of the top floor is the private suite of Shaun Clawed. Shaun is both intellectually and physically imposing. He is a man of wealth and fame. Shaun is no larger than the average man but has a powerful persona to make up for what might otherwise be overlooked presence.

"My friends," Shaun acknowledges his guests, "I understand that we, as a military class operation, enjoy a level of sovereignty. For the most part, no one asks me any questions. I like it that way. I like many of my coworkers like to abuse that privilege from time to time by doing things that the general populist aren't promoted to do. Now what I need you two to understand is that with that privilege comes a need for a level of discretion." Shaun stands before his window with his hands crossed behind his back, looking out into the night sky.

"We can't very well, for example, go around picking fights with law enforcement, seeing how some cops have trouble understanding our chain of command, and you know I have a real problem trying to come up with a believable excuse as to why one of my employees so think fit to call down alien TEC. To smite a dozen civil servants."

Rhys cuts in, "The type-37 spider bomb is no longer IDed as alien TEC. Not since it was purchased by Black Ops. It's now considered B-list." "Rhys," Shaun calls out.

"Yes?"

"I don't care. Since 8:00 a.m. I have been on the phone with FBI, CIA, NSA, ATF, CDC, ICE, Interpol, and every other government organization with an initializem, trying to explain how six beat cops ended up hospitalized after an industrial accident."

Allen throws down his two cents, "You know, considering, six is a fairly low body count."

"Allen, you are not leaving base again without my permission. Rhys, I have another job for you. Don't bungle this one up."

Chapter 6

Shadow of the Watchers

I love Tail; in all honesty I do. But after where I have been, the things I've seen, and that which I have done, I am wholeheartedly afraid to even try again (I saved the life of an angel once, bet you didn't know that). Besides, Tail needs more from life than I can give her. I am a drifter, a fighter, and now under the offices of my new "masters," I suspect soon I will be a slave.

It has been sixteen hours since Joe Dove gave me back my book. I have been writing nonstop, scribbling down every thought I have had as if I believed somewhere within the depths of this book lies a truth that could save my soul. It is strange; the spectrum of emotion that I have felt these last few hours--fear, anxiety, depression, lust. It is as if every page came with its own life.

I strangely find myself wondering if whoever collects these at the end of the month is eagerly awaiting an insight into the sexual needs of the author. I'm not too prude to confess I would.

It seems that Mr. Dove calls for some sort of a training class for all off duty Watchers. Tail and myself were invited to attend. I find Joe to be dull as hell. Looks like Tail finds him somehow captivating. I tried to pay attention for the first half hour. But then I found myself caught in idle thoughts like, Would Tail like __it if I reached over and tugged_ on_ one of her tails? __I wonder_ what_ it would feel like __to have a tail. I wonder what it_ would_ be like to be __a girl._ If_ I could, would I have sex withmyself?

I look around the room; I try to identify some of my class mates. I think I have seen the dark man in the back corner around; his name is Mr. L. Gillard. There is a women two seats down from me called Ms. Davis; I think she might be a Psion like me. Next, at the front of the room are two guys younger than me--J. Wisdom and E. Dijon. Tail and I are rear center.

"Choice is at the center of the universe. Agency is the key to the endless planes of reality. Every action you take, every thought you think can shape the world around you. Most of the time, the changes are too minute to see or even understand. At others, the changes are explosive. This is symbolized in chapter 4 of the Hunters' handbook under the subsetting 'Theory M.' So long as you're at it, you might read on to chapter 5: 'The Observer Factor.' Should you need a more tangible explanation than the mindless dribble in the book, maybe I can shed some light on things. Imagine you're at home watching Animal Planet. The lights go out. If you're like me, this sounds like a good time to start playing with your joystick. For you, lady, jeopardy is probably more your pace. But what if you're not?

"Maybe you think that this is a good time to call your kids or your old folks. I'm not going to assume anything. So you are now at the crossroads of choices and there is nothing you can do about it. Maybe you will pick up the phone. May be you will want for the light to turn back on. Maybe it is time to take a walk. You could take the bridge or cross town. There's the bus, but why not drive? Ha, it's only a block or two to your buddy's house. You might want to hit up the bike trail or how about that hot thing next door? Maybe this isn't a bad time to check on their relationship status. You decide.

"Your answer really doesn't matter. You see, simply the thought has created a ripple in the continuum of space and at the same time manufactured hundreds if not a hundred thousand counter diminutions in which every possibility has accrued. Murphy's nightmare in action." A lone shadow slips into the doorway as Dove monologues; I barely notice. I'm miles away in my own dreamland. Dove notices and takes action. "Looks like it might be time to take a break. Tomorrow I would like an open desiccation about existentialism, the effects of God on our world and the theory of past life intruding on present time."

Dove locks eyes with me. I'm most of the way asleep, fantasizing about desperate acts of passion that I'm never likely to indulge. Dove calls out to me, "Blake, can you tell me about the effects of cross-dimensional travel on the biological being?" I sit up and spend a second trying to understand even the words that were spoken.

I'm tired, cranky, even agitated to a small degree. I'm in no mood to talk. "I know nothing."

"Yes, and do you know why?"

"Because I was too preoccupied ogling girls to listen to you."

"Well, I thought it might be because we haven't started talking about that yet, but it is good to know that you have a hobby. Now I believe that you have some studying to catch up on, so I recommend you talk to Ms. Vixon and Ms. Davis about helping you with some reading."

Joe starts to walk out the door, but again freezes as he seems to remember something. "Oh, Blake, Ms. Duphran from Acquisitions would like to meet with you tonight to discuss outfitting you for your next job."

"You mean this time you're going to give me time to prepare. As I recall, last time you drove me to my job in the trunk of a car and gave me a bag of spare parts for weapons." Dove pays no heed. "I wonder how I'll know this Ms. Duphran."

Tail pipes in, "If past experience is worth anything, she'll know you."

Davis is much like Tail it would seem, which is to say a nerd of epic perorations. Moments after sitting ahead of us, Charlet (Davis's first name) make references to Tail's laptop set alongside her. "Is that the AW 99 pro?"

Tail scoffs at the inquiry. "No, it's the 20&1 Gamer. The pro can't deal with the need of a multitasker. The 99 will crash before I even finish opening my spreadsheets."

Charlet looks interested in Tail's remark. "You a Bata?"

"Starcraft Protas overseer 98-00." Charlet reaches across the table to give Tail a high five with a victorious call of "yes." "You?" Tail counters.

"Hive mind, Bug Queen97." The two ladies take each other's hands in a most lustful way. I decide to cut in before they start kissing.

(Note by L. Gallard: Blake failed to follow up on these aliens and their codes, so I looked it up for him, suspecting mischief. It turns out that they were talking about a RTS game, and these mystical numbers represent their rank and the rank of the guilds in their game. I frankly feel embarrassed that I felt so alarmed.)

"Ladies," I point down at the books sitting between us, "homework." Almost immediately, I regret my choice.

"Right," Charlet claims herself, "Blake is way behind on his work."

"Way behind? Today is the first day?"

"For you, yes. For the rest of us, we're in our thread quarter if not second plus year. Which means that we have a lot to go over. Have you even started studying extraplanners?" She can see the confusion in my face just as I can see the disgust in hers. "Let's just start at the beginning." And what is a beginning? "The __point in time or space_ at_ which something starts, comes into existence, or is first encountered." Am I right? That being the case who decides how something begins?

Charlet's take on the topic seems to start us somewhere around the history of the so-called "holy order." The society was originally founded by monks; for the first hundred years after the founding, the "scripture" as they called it was carried in an oral form. There were dozens of accounts of contact with otherworldly life during that phase, but all accounts of the alike have been discarded for the inability to verify and legitimize . . . I must be frank; I feel as if I am saved by the bell when Dove returns and requests that Tail and I follow him.

* * *

"Ms. Vixon, If you would be so kind as to look to your demi-human handbook and refer the section on safe zones, I would be much obliged." We are taken to the garage and shown into the backseat of a limo, wherein Von Richton is waiting for us. She taps on the glass with one hand, and the car begins it move. She holds out to us a bottle of sparkling white cider. I feel nervous about accepting any gifts from the ghoulish Ms. Wright Von Richton.

Tail looks antsy. She is pressed against the door to my left; she can't seem to stay seated as she wiggles about, twists and turns and grabs at anything she can hold onto. I can taste an uncharacteristic amount of fear from her.

Joe Dove is on my other side. He is the most relaxed looking of us as he proudly takes the cider and drinks deeply. Von Richton sits alone. "Ms. Vixon, if you have been reading your handbook, you might have noticed that there is a section that describes that there are areas around the cities where you are allowed to walk around freely. These are called safe zones. I felt it might be generous of me to show you one, as a sign of my good faith after our disagreement this-morning."

Tail leans in sharply, snapping at Von Richton. I pull her back into her chair. She barks, "You sent men to my house with clear intent to forcibly insert their manhood into me vaginally." This statement catches my interest. I look to Von Richton for an explanation.

"Sex was not on the menu, my dear. My assistants were there to help demonstrate proper dress edict."

"Fuck you!" Joe helps me restrain Tail. "You beat me and stripped me, and whether it was intentional or not, one of your boys slipped a digit."

I need no more provocation. I turn my attention from Tail and onto Von Richton. I know Tail is telling the truth. Von Richton has hurt her before and clearly could do it again. I reach out to grab her. I'm stopped by her cane at first, then I notice Joe's gun. "Now, Richard, we can act like the friend I want as to be. Or you can make an ass of yourself," Joe points out.

I have no doubt I can take Joe on in fisticuffs, and I have an inkling my magic is stronger than Von Richton's, but with Tail in between us, I don't think I want to try.

I feel the need to ask, "Where are we going?"

Von Richton lowers her cane; Joe hides his gun. "Have you heard of the garden of Babylon?" I nod. "It was a magnificent structure, four towers with dials, levers, and pulleys. Between them rests a stone slab a hundred feet long that housed a greenhouse like construct . . ."

"It's not real," Tail calls out. "The structure was too big to support itself. No rope made of anything would allow it to stand that way. It was designed after the trees were planted."

"Semantics aside, behold."

The car has came to a halt at the epicenter of four spires fifty feet overhead; there is a swimming pull with a glass floor and what looks like a garden. There is an elevator at each corner. And mystifyingly beautiful creatures fill the air, staying hidden within the shadows of the towers.

Over the years, I've spent so much time locked in tiny rooms or crawling through caves that I never would have thought that there would be places like this. This can only be the closest place to heaven. The sky is a corona, shimmering in a way that I don't fully understand. There are orbs of light fluttering about like butterflies that seem to become nearly microscopic people or animals as they pass by closely.

Von Richton removes her glasses, and she has rose-red eyes and her skin in the strange light seems to change to match. She untucks her hair from her coat and it flows to a length I would not have imagined. At last, she removes her coat and slacks; beneath that she is covered by a skintight bodysuit deep red in color. Wisps of light trail behind her like wings of energy. I can't tell if this is real or another of my fantasies. "Tail, go play." She waves Tail off and takes me by the arm, holding me in a way that is almost lewd.

The magic of this place is thick in the air. As we are seated, my eye is caught by a mouse maid knelt down, tending to carrot steaks. I've seen monsters not so different from her in other places, but they were vicious. This one looks so innocent.

Not far off, there are two cat girls engaged in a game of tag with a cat boy. It seems clearer and clearer that in spite of what I have been told, the monsters that Von Richton wants us to hunt are not like humans; they are humans. Hunting, killing--suddenly it all looks so much more inhumane. But that it would turn out is only the start of my problems today.

I remember the conversation I had with Von Richton when I first awoke. "You said that we are under attack?"

Von Richton breathes deeply and tips her head to take in the light. "Yes, our Middle Eastern friends as it were broke their non-aggression pact and sent suicide bombers here. In their blitzes-Krieg, they destroyed two landmarks and launched an attack against one military target also, but that was less then successful."

"You're frightfully calm."

"What would you expect from me, Dick? Do you want to go fight the Arabs yourself? Do you want me to send my men in there after them? Do you think it is the whole of the Arab world that is to blame? Dick, it was six men armed with nothing but heartless determination and ruthless cunning. Nothing would have stopped them today. And it will take an army of very sophisticated people ten years to find out how they did it." "You're . . ."

"No, I am the keeper of a truth that is not yet yours. Think hard about humanity. When is a man at his strongest? In times of fear and weakness. Am I right? In an age of complacence, we grow weak and lazy. At least, that is how a malevolent god would see it. As would I relate. My friend, here is the truth I promised you. In New York today, there is a man named Dan Kroguse. He is a fire fighter, and today he will run faster and fight more diligently than he ever has before. Why? Because he is empowered by the twenty-seven of his brethren that died yesterday. In Mississippi, there is a man named Phillip Conuse. He is a USMC drill commander. He leads eight groups of eight men in their training every day. Today they will all shoot sharper and punch harder than they ever have in their lives. Why you ask? Because two days ago, they were fighting for money. Today they are fighting for their way of life. You see, Richard, if you attack a group head-on, they will pull together and become stronger. We need an enemy, and our Middle Eastern comrades have volunteered themselves for the job. So I have no fear. The weak will die and the strong will prevail, then from the ashes of battle, new life will be born. So it is written. So shall it be done." Something about Von Richton seems so magical in that moment. She feels so old, so ancient, like something that has swum through the oceans of time from some faraway place to beseech this wisdom onto me.

I'm not certain I have ever understood my feeling toward this woman; she is like a god queen, and I am some tiny creature quivering in her shadow.

"Wright, I want to ask you something." She looks at me; she doesn't say a word. Instead she waits. "What is this thing between us?"

She looks almost stunned by the statement as if she wants to say, "What are you talking about?" But the words never come.

So I add them in myself, "Whenever there are other Watchers around, you look icy and uncaring. But when it is just you and me, things are different. You look . . . happier. Do you--"

She cuts me off there, "Even if, Mr. Blake, that were the case, let me make it clear that you and I will never be together. There is simply too much keeping us apart--age, experience, social/economic class. I am a noble and you are--"

It's my turn to take control of the conversation. "A romantic." I feel compelled to lean into her. Something about this place is driving me mad, it would seem; my abilities tell me she is feeling the pull as well. What sort of man am I? My brother and my lover are barely in the ground and here I find I'm attracted to two different (very different) women. It doesn't take me long to realize my aim is off. I step into Von Richton, placing my hand on either side of her and make my move. I lean in for a kiss, my first real kiss in some time. She leans away, and I find myself in a most uncomfortable position. For me, my manhood is at the wheel. Then I find Von Richton places her glasses on again, and my mood goes to hell fast.

"What do you say we talk about your next job?" she asks. I feel sheepish all of a sudden. I shy away from her, and my fantasies of this estranged Brit fade away. She sits up as I back away to a comfortable distance. "I had mentioned that it was discovered Ms. Vixon has siblings?"

It's not really a question; I nod along. "Our investigation turns up that our lovely vixen was taken from Claw Co. R&D." She is reiterating; we had this conversation already. "It would seem that 'she' is not unique. But I would prefer it if she were, if you catch my drift." A spark of fire seems to glitter from her glasses like embers form a righteous flame.

Oh, I catch it all right, and I am outraged. "You're talking about Genocide!"

"Yes, I am. If Tail and all of her kind were identical, then we would not have a problem, but . . ." She delays her explanation; she is judging my reaction, waiting to see just how upset I am.

"What?"

"We know there are at least three more of whatever she is, and one of them is not like the others."

"Yah, we went over that. Three girls, one boy, so what?"

"There is more to it than that. Have you heard of Yggdrasil?"

I think it sounds familiar, but I can't place it. I throw down the first thing off the top of my head. "It's some kind of center to the universe myth, right?"

She looks impressed. "You're not far off, Mr. Blake. In our reality, all things move in a spiral. All things move to a singular destination. Some find that it is simplest to think of this as a spring-like effect. At one end, there are worlds that have yet to be at the opposing worlds that never were. In the outer space and inner space, we find realities that escape any definitions, ultimate truths, inexplicable absolutes. But all things hold a constant--one thing that cannot change. Everything began somewhere. And the beginning of beginnings lie within Yggdrasil."

"Where are you going with this?"

Von Richton leers in frustration. "Mr. Blake! There is a 'heaven' and there is a 'hell,' and someone is playing with the line in between." She seems to like her bibleology (theology) for an agnostic. "Let me cut straight to the point then. One of the other Tails was not born of human technology but instead out of divine intervenient. A 'thing' that belongs in heaven cannot, and should not, be allowed to stay here on this earth. Seeing no other alternative, you can keep your Tail. The rest will die." The stunned look on my face must have surely been something to behold. "I understand you have some attachment to Ms. Vixon, so I felt it would be appropriate for you to be the executioner that I send to purify them."

I can only manage to mutter a lone statement. "I need time."

"Mr. Dove, would you kindly start checking credentials? I think that some of our guests may have overstayed their welcome."

* * *

Tail takes the time to explore the sky-bound park; she chuckles at the irony of the superhero mythology associated with walking along the rooftops. The centerpiece of the park seems to be the garden. There is a jungle gym tucked away in one corner, a large pool that follows around the crest. Lots of grass compliment the innermost areas.

But what captivates Tail's interest the most is a skate park offset and almost isolated from the rest of the garden. Tail approaches cautiously. Much to Tail's delight, the park is just like the ones she has seen on TV--bowls, pipes, rails, and lots of kids around. Tail has skated before and has watched a lot of movies about skating.

Where she lived before, there was very little pavement to skate on. So she would take her board and more or less jump off walls and over tables in the dining room in the middle of the night or slide down the steps for a change of pace whenever she would be allowed. Never has she seen anything this extravagant.

Tail spends several minutes walking around, looking at all the wonderful "toys" the park has to offer before she seems to catch the interest of one of the kids--a mouse girl dressed in pink overalls with a wool cap and lots of scraps and cuts covered by tape. The marsupial dismounts from her board, kicking it up into her hands as she marches up to Tail. She turns her eyes up at her aggressively (Tail stands almost three feet over the halfling). "You skate big stuff," she says.

"LOL (pronounced L-all-zes), noob, everyone skates," Tail taunts.

The skater mouse snaps her tail viciously and threateningly grips her board in two hands; Tail steps back and readies herself for a fight. A spectator calls out, "Cops are here! No brawling, Mazziea!"

The girl called Mazziea drops her board and wipes the sweat from her brow. "OK, let's do things this way. You say you're a skater. I see you're tall and have fat hips. I bet you're a grinder. Not good for a course like ours. Let's see if you can hit my lines."

"Well, let's be fair. I'm more like a 'lipper' than a vertigo or a grinder," Tail adds in her two cents.

"You got a board?"

"Didn't bring it with me."

"Give her a board!" Mazziea demands of the audience that has been gathering.

A Syter (goat man) answers the call. "Take mine and shut that tree-hugger's mouth." The goat hands Tail his skateboard with a commanding thrust, nearly knocking Tail down.

Tail nods. "OK, one of you fairies have some pads for me?" Tail tries to act tough but is quickly embarrassed as a flickering light floats over and hands her a set of knee pads and elbow pads; a second wisp hands her a helmet. Tail has a vocalized pause, then takes the gear.

"Is there anything else you need?" a voice asks from an unknown location.

"Nope, that will do," Tail explains in a stumble.

A rabbit boy holds up a radio. Striking the "play" key, opera music begins to play. The song is "Walking in the Air," as presented by Nightwish a Norwegian rock orchestra. Tail hands her book bag to the nameless rabbit, then nods at Mazziea, accepting her challenge.

The competition starts out slow and sweet as Mazziea feels out Tail's skills. Mazziea jumps into the half pipe and dismounts on the other side, then kicks her board into her hand and snootily grunts, turning her nose up at Tail on the other end.

Tail chuckles; she meets Mazziea's challenge, one-upping her by following the track but adding a "lip trick," stalling on the ledge and pivoting in a 180-degree turn to land alongside her.

The game heats up; Mazziea leaps back into the pipe and starts a chain of vertical tricks--nose grab, tail grab, 360s, and ends her chain with a stunt where she picks up her board mid-air and passes it left to right, then lands on it again. The trick is too tough, and Mazziea "eats some plank" as some of the others put it. Tail follows along till she sees Mazziea "bail." Tail ditches her board and hops down to see if her skating partner is all right. As the mouse finds her feet and shakes herself off, Tail places a hand on her back to help her regain her balance.

Mazziea insulted by the action elbows Tail in the underbelly. Tail coughs, stepping backward. Tempers run high; Tail demonstrates her pyromancy by igniting her hand. Mazziea snaps her tail and stands bleeding. "Your move!" Mazziea taunts.

Tail glances about, noticing Dove walking near the park. She quickly draws in her flames, then kicks her board into her hands. "Shut-up and skate." Tail takes the lead this time. "Let's see if you can hit my lines."

Tail runs several steps and throws her board ahead of herself; she leaps on it and slides up the bowl. She pivots on the lip and jumps into a manual with a kick flip (manual is to skate with only two wheels on the ground). Mazziea stands awe-stricken as Tail then jump-kicks off the lockers and runs along the bleachers, dismounting her board only to meet it on the other side, jumping back onto it. Tail ends her run by hopping her board onto the bike racks and sliding along the tops of them. At the edge of the rail, Tail kicks her board into the air and grabs it out of the air on its way down.

Mazziea shakes her head in disbelief. "Where did you learn to skate?"

"Sieachi Yagami, Korean pop star. He has some bootleg vid's online. He has mad skating skills. You should check out his on-the-rail shuttle loop. I mean, OK, it is shopped as hell but the rest is real enough."

Mazziea tucks her hands in her pockets and rolls over to Tail. "You know what, you're kinda cool. Maybe we can hang awhile."

Tail looks uneasy a moment, but then nods. "Cool."

A cheer seems to come from the park as Tail is accepted into the group. The boy that had handed Tail the board originally calls out, "Hold onto 'her.' I have another."

Tail and Mazziea roll casually around the park for some time, hitting each other with cheap jokes before Tail cuts in with something real. "Look, Mazziea, you're the first . . . whatever you are I've met and I just want to know. Do you know anything about the Von Richton house? I'm sort of a guest there, but I don't know anything about who . . . what the Von Richtons are."

Mazziea looks puzzled by the word "guest." "I know about the Von Richtons, but I've never met anyone that was their guest. My mother spent four sessions there as a prisoner. My elder sister Jeana was born into their custody. It wouldn't be unfair to say that the Von Richtons are slavers. My mother of course bargained for her freedom. She did some espionage work for them. Then she was told she could have citizenship under the understanding that she can't go outside during daylight hours unless within these quarantine zone, and she could only have sex under Watcher supervision and would need to buy a license to give birth." "That is all kind of fucked up," Tail protests.

"Well . . . it turns out the small print on that article also expresses I'm subject to the same rules. Kobolds living on this planet aren't allowed to breed without permission. If I somehow got pregnant and was unlicensed at the time, your friends, the Von Richtons, would be fitting me with cement boots."

Tail looks questioning. "They can legally do that?"

"Wright Von Richton is the law right now. Things were deferent fifty years ago

I'm told. People from all over the place used to come here to hide. But now . . ."

"You're trading a tyrant you know for a devil you don't," Tail finishes for her.

"What's it like in the castle?"

"Not as nice as you're thinking. So what became of your mother?"

"She is still around. She spends most of her time here in the garden. She likes botany. You know strange as it is, there is a human out there fighting to get us recognition in the Senate."

"You mean not a Watcher?"

"He is a hotshot from Africa that calls himself Luna Walker."

"Moonwalker?"

"That's what people say anyways."

"Just for sake of argument, you aren't allowed to have sex with a man. You could get pregnant that way. But what if you were to sleep with a girl? You know anything happens that way to you, it would be the first." Tail plays advocate for a moment.

"Are you saying you would have sex with me?" Mazziea asks.

"Well . . . I guess, if the question came up, where you ask me to follow you in the shower, then stick your tail up my nose and told me to lick it, I might, no, I would, I think. I've never licked carpet before, but I'm not against the idea." Tail is clearly off guard; Mazziea laughs at the comment but seems more than a little tempted by the suggestion. Who knows maybe getting licked by a fox girl would be exciting? Besides, they're both young and experimental. What could go wrong?

* * *

The reprieve from monotony is limited to say the least. Tail and I are thrust back into the underworld as it were. I question what the repercussions are of failure to obey with this plan for mass murder. Dove explains it all to me. The short version is: I'll be taking a long walk of a short pier. I'm instructed to go in search of "Ms. Davis." She would tell me everything I need to know for the duration of this mission. Dove takes Tail with him when he departs; looks like I'm in the company of me again. I don't mind saying I don't like the way this is going.

When I find Charlit, she is under the stars where I was hiding earlier, also admiring the "burnt offering" painting. "Looks a bit like Ms. Von Richton, doesn't it?" she ask me.

"The angel in the foreground or the demon in the back?" I can't help but let my dark side be seen.

"The angel."

"You're right."

Charlit holds up a envelope. I take it from her; the contents are every bit as gruesome as I expected, if not more so. My first objective is to break into a military compound and burn it to the ground. Next to track down three rouges and execute them. Finally use personnel files stolen from the compound to track down government officials associated with the Tail project and bring them to justice. It looks nice and neat on paper, but the actual content therein is staggering. The job can be described as nothing shy of an eraser job.

"You're fucking with me. Destruction of government property, political assassinations--this is insane. Why am I doing this job?"

"Frankly because Wright likes you. She thinks you can do this without being seen."

"There is no way I can do all this alone. I'm going to need like a year to plan and a dozen men . . . and . . . and . . ." I freeze; I know I won't have anything to work with. It will just be me; that's the way the Watchers work.

"If you're lucky, here is what will happen. You'll get your operator, one back up, but they're not there to help you. They're there to recover your diary if you die, and if you know how to kiss some ass, you might bet three thousand bucks to hire a specialist or buy some tools with."

"I will need a specialist, and I think I know who. So what positions do you recommend kissing ass in?" I know who I need; I need the Gekks brothers. As far as the underworld is concerned, they are artists, and that is what I'm going to need.

"I like the Hail Mary position, down on one knee, leaning forward. That way you have the ass right in your nose, real easy access." I can't believe she carried the joke on. "By the way, have you been down to Requisitions? I work down there part-time. I'm in charge of maintenance of the artillery. By the way, if you happen across any 'out-of-state' goods, could you bring them back for me?"

I find Charlit's line of questioning somehow dizzying. "No, I haven't yet, and OK."

"Great!" She leads me around the estate to a service elevator that leads below the Grotto, to a second underground, not the one the bunker is in but somehow separate. From there, we board a train. As best as I can tell, it only spins in circles, but we are definitely somewhere different. We must be deeper underground.

"Charlit, I wanted to ask you." I point out to her as we are on the train that she has antenna and a tail with a maze-like shape to it. "What sort of alien are you anyway?"

"Officially? I'm human. But the truth is a bit more complex. I'm what we call a hybrid, not so different from you, I guess."

"I'm no alien."

"But humans don't read minds."

"I don't read minds."

"Yes, you do."

"How do you know?"

She whispers into my mind, 'I do too.' It is a strange sensation, one that is hard to describe; it is somewhat like in electrical shock. The voice sounds like the person projecting it but with a faint crackling distorting it. I feel myself backing away from Charlit briefly but then take control of my actions once more.

"How does it work?" I feel the need to ask.

"Well, clearly it is different for you than it is for me. My tail has a link into my medulla-oblongata. It both sends and receives information relevant to the interest of the lower brain, such as it informs me if the people around me are sick or hungry, and it registers sexual fantasies as well . . ." Somehow I feel that explains why she was so jittery earlier; she was picking up on my daydreaming. "My antenna are linked into my cerebra cortex. It allows me to speak subliminally, send ideas, and to a small degree influence actions. But honestly, my tail can do that better."

"So then the better half of it is all about sex?"

"Richard, everything is about sex. Any biologist could tell you that. It's practically a sin that we have these interlocking bodies and don't use them for their intended purpose. That's the big secret. That's what every animal in the universe has in common. And you know that! Don't think that I don't know what you were thinking about this morning during class!" She lifts her tail and drops it as she talks as if to draw attention to it.

The train finally stops. Looking up the tunnel, it looks to me as if it corkscrews forever. That had been my first impression boarding it, and it seems to have held true. We leave the station and follow down yet another flight of steps. At last, we emerge into something that looks like sophisticated grounds. But to a man bordering on "seasickness," any bright light and stationary earth is a welcome sight. Where we have come to looks to me like a customs station for unearthly things. Men and women in uniforms stand alongside metal detectors and x-ray scanners and God only knows what else, looking after and searching monsters, some of the likes that I have never seen.

I try to avoid rubbernecking by sticking to small talk. "So how any people

are . . . like us?"

"Ballpark figure? Thirty three percent, ninety of which don't know about it or choose not to display their abilities. Ultimately, that is probably for the best."

"Really? One in three people have abilities like ours?"

"Could be more. Let's think of it this way. At least, one-third of people's biochemistry suggest that they can pass on the genes that allow for powers similar to what we possess."

We pass by a large watery tank, twenty feet around at the equator. Suspended within is an almost two-dimensional-looking pink amoeboid; it looks oily to the touch, having an almost flowering aria. From the top down, it looks as inviting as a man-eating-plaint. I turn my eyes slightly down and stare into its underside. A thin crust protects its underside and hides a black hole there-under. It is just like the void. I am intransient, lost within the heartless bliss and premise of everlasting relief from the pain of the flesh it seems to grant. I feel a strange pull against me. I'm reaching for my gun . . .

Smack! I'm struck from the side by someone or something that outweighs me several times. I come crashing to the ground, and life fills me once again. Thoughts of death and pain are ejected from me like yoke from an egg. Standing over me is a woman best described as a tan-furred kangaroo with quad-jointed legs; she must be nine feet tall, but it is impossible to judge on sight seeing that she stands crouched and hunched over. She has dark eyes and magenta hair; half of one of her ears is missing, and there look to be holes in the other. There is a mark on her neck in the shape of a three-fingered hand. She is dressed in a jumpsuit pink in color with a patch on her arm with an ark and stair like that of a naval commander's and a second on her breast that reads "Malaguard."

She sneers at me. Hate and anger are stained on her face. I start to sit up; I'm pushed back down by her tail as I walk by. She yells back at me mockingly, "Hand off the merchandise please! Ever costly, you can't afford it!" A group of men in hazard outfits wheel away the massive fishbowl.

Charlit looks down at me in concern. "Introducing Millie Malaguard. She is one of only a handful of aliens that Von Richton allows to work outside the compound. She is on the recovery team." Her tone changes from one of excitement to grief as she goes on. "She and her team were down in the city the other day examining an unknown spectral trail when that thing showed up. The official report hasn't been released yet, but the word on the beat is that thing over there ate her unit. Millie managed to subdue 'IT' with her 'RONA.'" (I didn't think to ask at the time, but I looked into it later and made this note: In the "Stith" special forces (Stith--Millie's home world and consequently how they refer to their race), the rona is the standard issue heavy arm. It stands for Rapid Organic Nuclear Acceleration device.) "She told me about it when we were at 'the Hall' for lunch. Understandably she has been feeling a-bit physical ever since." Wonder what she is like when she is in a sensitive mood? "Typically, she is a really . . ." She never finishes the sentences. I can only imagine what she was trying to say. I could see her being an interesting friend. (As I am making this note, I can hear Charlit laughing at me. She looks bashful. Apparently she knows something about Millie that I don't.)

Charlit takes me by the arm and almost drags me deeper into the compound. Monsters are on all sides of me. Much to my shock, at least half of them I find charming or magical to behold. Not surprisingly, the majority of the monsters here have a very human appearance. (Mostly in the regard that they have erect skeletons, two arms, two legs, and a definable head, but that's not to say that that would be the gist of what anything really is.)

We find our way to a service elevator. We go even farther below ground. I have trouble even wagering where we are now. "So where are we going?"

"The armory is located at what are Tairx allies call minimum safe depth. One point one mile below sea level." "One point one? Why?"

"Some of the artillery we have been given by our importer are . . . combustible. So in order to minimalize the possibility of accidents, we store all are unconventional weapons down here."

"How is all this paid for anyway?"

"We have deals with some historical societies. That covers a good deal of it. We get regular grants for the scientific community that helps. We own the copyrights on some common household amenities, and . . . about a decade ago, one of our members made a joke about us being an offshoot of the department of defense, then suddenly we started getting a cut of government funds. I find that funny as hell."

I'm taken deep underground and into a strange room filled with strange things. I'm quickly greeted by a beast that is half man and half monkey. He gives me a hefty box explaining that he has been waiting for me and that my order is already filled to specifications. Then he hurries me out of the door. It is just as well; I might have liked to look around, but God knows I wouldn't have known what I was even looking at. My next stop--track down Von Richton. I need a favor.

* * *

The giant alien vortex is led into a large laboratory-like room that is poorly lit with an observation room overlooking it. The water is drained, and it is moved into a smaller saucer-like dish from its fish tank. Millie never leaves its side: Joe Dove, Wright Von Richton, and her pet demon England stand in the dim observatory, watching with grim interest.

The scientists below remove their normal garbs and are equipped with special "clean suits"--full body coverings made out of rubber that has been irradiated with built-in breathing apparatuses and masks with closed-circuit radios.

Von Richton and Dove put on their headsets in order to communicate with their team below. "Ms. Malaguard, can you hear me?"

"Aye, aye."

"What can you tell me about life form 2-1-5-0?"

"Code named Exzoner, it is aggressive, no signs of intelligence, parasitic, approximated mass 1500 lbs . . ."

Dove whispers, "That thing was a ton?"

Millie continues, "No signs of any natural biology. We're going to have to cut it up for more details. I'm not unhappy to say I look forward to seeing the insides of this abomination."

"Keep that shit to yourself, Millie," Dove commands.

England leans into Wright. "That thing is dead, isn't it?"

"The damn thing was hit with the nuclear mass of a hydrogen bomb. I hope it is dead."

The scientists move into position to begin the dissection of the monster. One of them calls over, "Release the air seal! Lift the tank!"

The glass plate lead across the beast hisses as it is lifted slowly. For the first time in a day, oxygen brushes over the Exzoner's ectoplasm. A small section of its lip rises, and it begins to take a breath. As it inhales, a tremendous vacuum force encapsulates the room. As the monstrosity on the lab table lifts itself, the force becomes hundredfold more powerful, lifting tables and tearing down overhead compartments, dragging their contents into nothingness. Next, the scientists start to fall prey to the beast's demonic hunger.

Millie takes decisive action. The powerful kangaroo girl leaps atop the crane that lifts the prison and with a mighty stomp dislodges the glass slab. The falling weight stops the succession. The black hole seems stunned. Millie drops atop it and crouches, adding her weight to that of the glass, waiting for several moments to be certain that the fight is gone from the monster. She snarls, showing her saw-shaped teeth as she barks at the monster. "Yap! I showed you, didn't I? Oooh, I'm a big scary black hole and I'm going to eat you. Well, suck on this!" she slaps herself on the rear quarter and yelps thumping her tail and growling.

The air is still as silence replaces the unearthly echoes the vacuum has left behind. As Millie taunts the creature, the remaining workers gasp for fresh air. Von Richton and Dove are stunned; England looks amused. Once she has recaptured her wit, Wright Von Richton spins about and takes Joe Dove by the collar of his coat, lifting him a foot off the ground. She shakes him viciously. "Joseph! I want that thing dead! I don't care how you do it! That monster and any like it on this planet must be purified! Do you hear me?!"

Joe grins sarcastically. "Gee, that sounds like a swell plan. I'm very excited to hear about how you want as to get rid of them."

"Napalm, one hundred thousand pounds worth. Will burn them till not even ash remains!"

"I don't think that is going to work."

She places Joe on the ground and adjusts her glasses, looking in control again. "Go get Tail. Tell her she has been transferred to the biology wing. It's time for her to pay her keep . . ."

* * *

Tail returns to her room early in the evening. She sits at her computer and begins what was once her daily gaming--looking up puzzles, reading the buzz on upcoming software, and scouting video game "artists." Her quest for fun is drawn to a close as she is reading her e-mail. Someone it would seem has mailed her a puzzle.

* * *

Bw: enw xb jzuzggku

Bw ju ewakr ty qdxyrc, bwrzu xc z rzdl rzu, bwjwddwe jzu ty yayh rzdlyd __exbnwvb uwyd nykg. Ey kxay_ xh_ z ewdkr eydy jwhyu __szh gzu qwd qdyyrwj, zhr mvcbxsy xc qwd_ czky._ X tykxyay bnxc xc __vhzssygbztky. Mvcbxsy xh bny gydqysb_ iwkr_ xc vhyfvxawszk. Xq uwv __qyyk bny X rw bnyh_ dyzr_ wh. Ju hzjy xc __Dxovlx Kwe zkcw szkkyr "H," X zj z_ hyhtyd_ nq z pdwvg bnzb fvycb qwd z tybbyd bwjwbbwe.

X nzay cyhb bnxc __jycczpy yhsdugbyr. Enu xc bew_ qwkd:_ exec xb xc bw __gdwbysb jucykq zhr hny wbnyd"Kybbydc," bny wbnyd bw bycb __bny ryrvsbxay atxkxbu wq bny_ dysxgxynb._ Bnxhl wq bnxc bycb __zc zh zggkxszbxwh. Xq uwv_ cnwvkr_ oxcn bw lhwe jwdy __bnyh zkk uwv hyyr bw_ xc_ skxsl: "Dygke," xh "Cytmysb __Nyzrxhp" bugy bny kybbyd "H," bnyh xh bny_ twru_ bugy "Ey vhrydpcbzhr," X exkk cyhr z __cyswhr kybbyd bnydy zqbyd exbn jwdy xhcbdvsbxwhc zc bw nwe bw_ swhbzsb_ jy.

Jzu ey jyybcwwh

"H"

* * *

"Aahh, what?" Tail stares, puzzled. "An advanced encryption with no cipher?! . . . This might take days." Tail can think of only one thing to do. She loads up her media player and looks for some high-speed techno to help her think. Tail walks over to her bed, and as a dancey beat starts, she jumps on her bed, places her hands on her head like a second set of ears, and wags her tails, jumping to and fro playfully.

Blake walks into the room and glances at Tail with a puzzling expression. "Excuse me, but what?" He holds his arms out to express his confusion.

"The Von Richtons seem to think I'm a paleontologist all of a sudden, and I just got an e-mail from the CIA . . ."

"What did it say?"

"Don't know. Can't read it. That's why I'm jumping on the bed."

"Hmm."

"Helps me think. How about you?"

Blake shakes his head. "According to the boss, I leave to do this thing after breakfast or I'll be dead before lunch. You are to offer me technical support. I'll have a Watcher following me in case I fuck up, and I'm being given a company credit card to cover expenses with."

"Budget?"

"Didn't say."

"That sucks."

"How did you know that you got a letter from the CIA if you can't read it?"

"It's this little thing I learned about e-mail called piggybacking. I more or less read the subject heading, and there was the numerical value of a 'do not enter sign.'"

"You are a dangerous friend to have, Tail."

"I know. Aren't I great?"

Day breaks and the two friends see each other for what will likely be the last time. Tail disappears into the depths of the Von Richton estate and Blake is out of the back door.

* * *

The good-bye between Tail and myself is the type that I had imagined would have been the good-bye my brother and I would have shared--slow, reluctant, and ultimately acquired. We say it as a formality more so than anything. We know and don't simultaneously that this would be our last. Optimistic pessimisms in the line of work we are now . . . It is the best you can wish for or at least expect.

Marin Duphran is following me for the moment. She is a Fay. Her hair is green as are her eyes; her ears are as long as her shoulders are wide. They come to sharp points like elves do in pop fiction. She dresses in a purple skirt and suit coat. Typically Fay like bows and knives. Marin chooses a different walk; she has a .50 Eagle hidden on her belt. She refuses to talk to me. She claims that her job is clear. Kill me if I become a liability. Recover my journal. No need to speak beyond that. What a pain in the ass! At least she smells good.

"So you're really not going to talk to me this whole trip?" I know the answer already.

(Note: It would seem that a strong scent of flowers is a passive sexual trait of the Fay. I would wager to say that all Fay, male or female, begin to excrete a perfume that resembles a flower's scent through their epidermises after reaching puberty. I can't confirm this at this time, but it seems that Fay have no body hair outside of that which is on their heads. I wonder if anyone else has observed that to this point.)

Chapter 7

Back to the Front

El jumps out of the truck and walks around the outside, calling to his partner who is already getting into position to execute his orders. "Start counting aloud as you're walking!" El throws open the trailer. Furious, he whips box after box as he makes his way to the front of the truck.

Lacerti yells, "Thirty-six!"

El calls back, "Thirty-two?" He places his hand on the back of the trailer, feeling the cold wood. "There is a false back to the wagon!"

Lacerti hops into the truck to help El out. Lacerti punches one corner, causing the wall to partly cave in. El takes it by the base, and the two soldiers remove the wall of the storage vessel.

The two stare in shock for a moment, taking in the contents of the newly discovered compartment--three large refrigeration units each attached to a suspension chamber made of crystal and each housing a bestial creature that is both human and canine. The first is a female with red hair and orange fur as well as other fox-like characteristics (sharp ears, diamond-shaped nose, and a fluffy tail), ruffle 5'10", second, a male, same fur brown hair, black patches on his nose, ears, tail, and around his wrist about 5'8", the last female has white fur and hair with a yellow strip that starts under her muzzle and ends at her crotch, 5'5".

"What in the . . . ?" El starts.

Lacerti finishes his thought. "Hell are we looking at?"

"Three packages, improperly wrapped, human cargo. I would call this a deal breaker. What do you think, LT?"

Lacerti tips his head, examining the living cargo. "Any idea what they are?"

El walks forth, picking up a clipboard he spots on the wall. "I know a guy that works for 'navy intel.' I remember him telling me about what he called the 'indispensable sciences of the next generation.' Liquid oxygen suspension. The idea is that you put someone to sleep, drop them in a box like these, and they stay there in a semiconscious state till you wake them up. They don't age and are just shy or impervious to harm while in the deep freeze. He told me they were having a little trouble with the waking up part."

Lacerti looks concerned. "What kind of trouble?"

El flips through the pages in the file on hand. "That during waking the bodies of the test subjects kept falling to pieces." Lacerti scoffs as El talks. "If they were frozen in pieces, it was fine. You could unfreeze a body part, reattach it, and it would work almost sixty percent of the time without fail." El and Lacerti share a quick laugh.

"Looks like they have names. The white one in the center is called Karin, the one on the left Nile . . ." As El is listing off names, Lacerti reaches for a shotgun hidden inside his coat's inner pocket. El hearing that sound doesn't need to look to know what is happening; the old soldier drops his papers and withdraws his "Jackal." Karin, the white-tailed fox, has opened her eyes.

El whispers under his breath, "Tell me I'm not seeing this." He starts to pass toward the icy capsules. The liquid oxygen seems to boil therein; Karin's hair starts to flutter upward. The gun in El's hand begins to pull down; El struggles to hold it steady, but it is impossible. Its mass increases one hundred times; no human could hold on. He grunts as the gun drops.

Light erupts from the chamber in which Karin sleeps in; the glass cracks. Lacerti grabs El and thrusts him back behind himself as the chamber explodes. Karin floats out gliding through air as if it were water. Lacerti understands at once that this creature does not belong in this world. Karin need not speak; her thoughts are simply broadcast into the minds of the recipients. Discard your weapons __and step away from us_ or_ . . .

Lacerti holds his shotgun in one hand, stepping into Karin, demonstrating

Valhallan courage. "Or what?!"

Karin lowers her head slightly as she reaches into Lacerti's mind, taking control of his body. Lacerti struggles against the attack as his own hands turn against him. Lacerti's gun tucks itself under his chin. Lacerti grips his hand and wrestles with himself.

El, who has been lying on the ground stunned, looks up and desperately grasps the situation. Canthis thing be real? he asks himself. El's gun "the Jackal" is on the ground ahead of him. It quickly dawns on him that Lacerti will die without his help, and without Lacerti, he doesn't have much time left either. El thinks about grabbing his gun. Karin reacts to his thoughts, turning to face him.

Lacerti acts on instinct more so than concise thought; in unison, all three know what must be done. All three know just how they're going to pull it off. El dives for the Jackal, Karin burns with power, commanding his heart to stop beating, Lacerti with the split-second delay between the order and the reaction snaps one arm out and wraps his hand around Karin's head. With her eyes covered, her mind-bending magic is interrupted; she stands frozen in his grip, it would appear.

* * *

Most magic must be activated manually with signs and seals or activation words. Karin's mind bending is different; most of her spells are elective, but some are passive and involuntary (like breathing--you can choose not to breath, but you don't think about breathing). Karin can see surface thoughts passively, and she projects her thoughts as naturally as most of us speak, but most terrifying of her powers is the ability to read and copy living memories whenever she makes physical contact with someone for the first time.

Karin's mind is deep and powerful. It's easy for her to take in mass sums of data and sort through it in only a matter of moments. But Lacerti's mind is strange, enigmatically expansive. Lacerti's living memories span thousands of years and every country; there can't possibly be another mind like his!

El sees the two standing stunned; Karin and Lacerti see something very different. A thick white fog has walled them from the material world, and they emerge in the psychic realm. Karin turns into a ghost and floats away from Lacerti's grip. In all his lives and in all his experience, this is unlike anything he has seen before. "You know what I am, don't you?" Lacerti asks. Karin nods. "Then in return you know what you are." She shakes her head.

In the psychic realm, you see yourself and others in the form of your perception, a body that exists within one's mind. Lacerti sees himself as a primeval titan warlord wearing glowing white armor and a fur cloak; his hair flowing red passes his shoulders. With his beard braided, it swings around his belt and his skin is tattooed with endless patterns of ink and war scars; his image as a warrior is one to make Thor envious as he shows his true colors, that of a Nordic war hero. Karin is a near negative to him; she is tiny by comparison and she looks as young as he is ancient. She is a flawless beauty to contrast his scars. He's clad in ancient titan armor; she wears a red velvet coat buttoned to the neck in high fashion with skintight rubber pants. He is battered as she is pristine, one frail but both indomitable.

Karin's eyes refuse to choose a color as she confronts the Herculean mammoth. "You are a son of Zeus?" Lacerti shakes his head. "Am I?" He shakes his head again.

"We are something from a darker time, something older than the Olympians gave birth to us."

"I know who gave birth to me. Even if I have never seen her face-to-face, she is not a god or demon. So what are we to do now?" Karin asks.

"We could kill each other," Lacerti proclaims almost in a joking tune.

"Teach me."

Lacerti glares, attempting to follow the white fox's logic. "You just attacked me."

"You attacked. I responded."

"That's not the way I saw it."

"You saw wrong."

Lacerti considers his possibilities; he is justified in killing this fox, but the grace of ages guides him toward different ends. She is young and arrogant; he is old and reserved. In time, she will come to understand what they are, but today mercy will teach more than war.

"Is time passing while we're here?"

"Detached from physical form, we are moving at ten times our normal speed and our thoughts are passing between us at an accelerated rate. Take your hand off my head and I will not erase you."

"I expect you will explain all of this. Some of us aren't mind readers." Lacerti looks eruptible. "How do we get out anyway?"

"You sent us here when you touched me."

"I've never done that before."

"Likely you never will again."

* * *

El's gun finds his hand; the old soldier takes aim, but he freezes . . . Lacerti and the strange fox beast seem to be frozen, both asleep standing up. El inches forth to examine the situation more closely. He stands alongside his partner and snaps his fingers--no response; he whistles--no reaction.

Lacerti's eyes open. "El, we're letting them go." El need not ask why; he lowers the Jackal.

Karin floats away from Lacerti as he softens his grip. "Open them," she speaks into Lacerti's thoughts. Lacerti commences to do so.

The three foxes free, El heads back to the driver's seat of the truck. Lacerti follows with a look of protest. El and Lacerti stare at each other; in silence, they converse till finally El breaks the stillness. "No, they're not coming with us."

"It's ten miles into the next town. They have no clothing and no--"

El cuts him off, "I don't care. We have walked three times that distance barefoot."

"We're soldiers. They're civilians. And children."

"I'm going to leave them. If they live, good for them."

"You can't leave them here. They're kids."

"Watch me." El turns on the truck and starts to pull forward. Lacerti stares El down, watching as the three foxes become distant in the mirror. El stops and looks at his partner again. "I hate you." He hastily pulls back, coming to a halt only a foot away from where he left the foxes.

El leans into Lacerti, standing eye to eye with the giant. "This is against the rules and you know it."

Lacerti whispers back, "This is an isolated incidence, one shot deal."

"We have rules. There are good rules made for good reasons . . ."

Lacerti interjects, "Look at them. Aren't they adorable?"

"You had best be joking about that. Protocol, you remember Protocol, don't you?"

"We're already stopped a bit too late for second thoughts."

"It is a tradition that we drive alone. We have been doing it that way since our great-grandfathers' fathers started the pilgrimage . . ."

"That's not a hundred percent true . . ."

"Everyone loves to break the rules." El leans back in his set "Even me. Game time." He slaps Lacerti. Lacerti nods, understanding what El wants.

El leans out of the window and looks behind him where the foxes seem to be awaiting instructions. "Here is what is going to happen," El calls out. "You are going to come with us as far as 'Vern.' Two of you will hide in the topper, one of you at Lacerti's feet. None of you will talk, especially not you." He points at Karin. Nile laughs at the prospect. "If you make a noise, my friend makes a noise." He points at his Jackal. "And he can make a lot of it. You will eat what we give you or you will not eat and you will sleep where we tell you. If any of this is not acceptable, you will be on your own. We will find you clothing. If that is unacceptable, you don't have to wear them. That is of no interest to me."

El steps out of the truck and looks at the kids, then at Lacerti. Lacerti follows suit. El waves inward. "White tail, you will be in front. Follow Lacerti's lead. You two come around this way and climb around behind the driver seat. You will see a ladder. That will take you into the overhead. There is a stack of blankets and a roadside recovery kit. You will stay there till told to do otherwise." The kids don't protest. All three quietly do as told.

* * *

El turns the truck around and starts on his way back down the East Coast. El remains as methodical as ever for the first half of their trip. He stops twice on the first day of the drive--once to buy chips and juice for himself and his passengers, once to use the washroom at a truck stop.

The latter stop is tense; El waits outside the truck stop till his is the only truck in sight. That is a long and painstaking endeavor. When the station is clear of all prying eyes, El calls to his cargo, "Boy, you and Lacerti will be the first to go in. You have fifteen minutes to shit, shower, and shave. That is three times as long as you should need. When you come back, Red, White, and myself will go in . . ."

Nile speaks up, "You're going to watch us go to the bathroom?"

"Yes. You will also have fifteen minutes. If you are not finished within the allotted time, you will be dragged out. I don't care if you are in mid-lather, I will drag you back out to the car. Whatever you do, do not be seen. If someone sees any of you, it would likely result in panic, and panic would lead to a body count that might become quickly unacceptable. If I have to start making people disappear, this ride will suddenly become much more difficult." El reaches over and slaps Lacerti, seeing their opportunity. Lacerti nods as he reaches into the overhead. He picks up the young fox-boy and tucks him under his arm. The two of them make their way into the rest stop's bathroom.

* * *

The rest stop's bathroom resembles that of a high school shower room: large, dark, and only one way in. There is a water pipe that jets out of the center of the room with four showerheads. Which is a ridiculous concept seeing that there are almost never multiple people utilizing them; in fact, in near countless years as a "driver," Lacerti can't seem to recall the last time he has even used a public shower. At worst, he wants to wash blood off his face and out of his beard; for that, dunking one's head in the sink seems to do just fine.

As a warrior, one learns a number of survival techniques; look for vulnerabilities in your surroundings, identify threats, search for improvised artillery, and you learn how to apprise circumstances, like whether or not you're in a strategically dangerous position, if you're at risk of ambush, and when you are most likely to find yourself off guard or in a place of weakness. The place where you are at your most compromising condition would be in the bathroom, wherein you are most literally going to be caught with your pants down. If you've paid heed to your training whatsoever, you know to get in and out as fast as humanly possible.

The fox is nervous, almost stuttering in the shadow of Lacerti; he struggles to try and take the opportunity to speak with his hosts. "I . . . I . . . gather that your name is Lacerti," the boy stutters.

Lacerti grunts in agreement at first, then shakes his head. "Lacerti is a title, early

Latin, means 'power of the body.' My name is Mattimeto Whitewolf of Blight."

The boy soaks himself as he speaks, "What is Blight?"

Lacerti turns his eyes to the sky, remembering lives long past. "Blight was the name of a town in Norway during the Judean age 3000 BCE."

The boy keeps his back to Lacerti, talking to him over his shoulder. "Can you tell me about your home?"

Lacerti turns his eyes down, hiding from oceans of voices calling to him from the past. "That would be a long story, kid, and we don't have time for it today. How about you instead?"

"What?"

"What's your name? Where are you from?"

"Jude. At least that's what my sisters call me. Dad calls me Ra."

"Which one do you want me to call you?"

"I like Jude."

Jude, Lacerti thinks to himself. "The Beatles" Paul McCarthy's eldest son was also namedJude, wasn't he?

"I was born in New York 1997 CE."

Lacerti turns in ponder; the kid is only four years old, but looks like he's twice that. OK, granted it is difficult to judge the age of a non-human, but nonetheless it's pretty brazen the differences between a kindergartener and a near pubescent boy. Lacerti sees nothing but bares the fact in mind. "How many sisters do you have?"

"Two older. I don't know how many younger. My dad kept me separate from them."

"Nile and Karin are your sisters?"

"Nile, yes. Karin, no."

"Are you human?" Lacerti can't resist the question; the answer is simply too titillating.

Jude is shocked by the inquiry; his voice squeaks as he protests, "Of course, I'm human! What do I look like?!"

"Do you know what a lycanthro is?"

Jude steps into Lacerti almost threateningly, his voice still squeaking in nervous anticipation. "I'm just as much man as you are!" He places his hand on Lacerti's stomach and thrusts his weight into him violently. The ninety-pound fox boy finds himself embarrassed when he knocks himself over as his tiny body cannot move the possibly six-hundred-pound mammoth that is Lacerti.

Lacerti laughs hardily and picks Jude up, tucking him under his arm like a sack of potatoes. "I think we're finished here." Jude struggles with the titan, but he is helpless.

* * *

El marches the girls into the showers. He moves swiftly and with discipline. Karin and Nile are clearly comfortable around each other. Nile pokes at Karin and whispers things to her. EL keeps his back turned to the girls, respecting their privacy to the best of his abilities, but a man is a man and curiosity can get the better of anyone. He can't help but peek.

Nile stands close to Karin; she intentionally raises her voice for El to hear. "So what do you think of our host?"

El doesn't hear Karin's reply.

Nile speaks again, "I think you're right. He is cuddly, isn't he, in that rouge sort of way?"

Karin playfully shoves Nile; Nile throws a handful of water at her in return.

"Beats the hell out of the nursery too. I still miss Dr. Karingson." She sighs.

El's interest is peaked. "Red, do you mean Marks V. Karingson by chance?"

Nile looks confused. "Do you know him?" Nile steps into El and grabs his shoulders.

El shudders in her grip briefly but still struggles to keep his focus. "Marks Karingson is a war hero. He fought in the battle of Hiroshima. He was in the head of 'Team 108 AL.' It was heavy artillery unit. Mission was a goddamn mess. General Karingson's team got cut off from the invasion force in a pincer attack. They dug out some trenching, laid down some separation fire. The attack lasted three weeks. Karingson's team was assumed KIA till the smoke cleared. They found Karingson and his unit standing deep in enemy territory, no guns, a barricade made up of broken armaments, and the general himself standing atop a pile of two hundred Japs. Karingson held the line armed with little more than his knife for days on end. Some soldiers whisper still about how Marks Karingson was almost single-handedly responsible for the Alliance's victory that day. I think he is amongst the greatest American hero to live.

"The story goes on. Karingson returns home, well to friendlier territory anyway. Becomes a superstar in the Alliances. The Axis Powers began to see him and his team as the things nightmares are made of. The AP run their campaign on stealth. Karingson changed the rules. He employed tactics not seen in five hundred years. He wanted to be seen. He began to dress his elites in feral makeup. Karingson didn't even want his enemies to assume him human anymore. Psychology became his favored weapon. Even recommended setting loose sociopaths and employing radios as means of jamming communications, overwriting them with false signals."

Nile is perplexed by the concept of El idolizing a monster of this type, but does not speak. "I have to be honest. I don't know anything about stuff like that. Marks is a white-haired old man. He's a pharmacist as far as most of us know. Nicest guy in town." Nile is shaking her head in disbelief. "What you're describing is like a demon worshipper."

Karin feels the unrest and places a hand on Nile to pull her back.

El turns to face the girls. "The difference between a killer and a hero is this. A killer slays for glory, a hero kills in the name of the flag."

Nile look aggravated. "And what would that make you, El?"

At first it would seem that El is in no mood for this banter, but then . . . "Can a man be both?" he speaks softly.

* * *

The night is restless for El; he rests forth, lying his head on the steering wheel, squeezing his eye, struggling not to cry out in agony. Every moment that could have brought rest is disrupted by memories of wars--domestic and foreign. The nightmares faced in that godforsaken bar having proven, only to bring the old scars closer to the surface.

At first light El slugs Lacerti, calling out, "Hair of the dog."

Lacerti grunts and sits up pointing forward. "Make it so . . . ," he groans, only half aware.

Early still in the day, the party has found its way back in "Bram city." El whispers to himself, "This is where we met Charlie the other day."

El stops in front of the first boutique he can see. He looks back at the kids.

"Give me your measurements. Be truthful or you will not be happy."

Nile is the first to respond, "Teens size six."

El shakes his head. "This is North-Strum, not K-Mart. You will need to be much more specific."

Jude speaks up, "I've never been shopping for myself. I don't think I've ever been shopping."

El rubs his eyes and breathes deep to keep his focus. "Never mind, I'll guess." El steps out of the truck.

* * *

North-Strum offers a five-star shopping experience to its shoppers--bright lights, hand-crafted wares, branded names, if you're into that kind of stuff. The floors are hard wood and stained red. The ceiling is thirty feet above the main door which is made of blue tinted glass. El is to the point as always. He swiftly makes for the service desk.

A blonde girl stands at the desk, likely mid-thirties. She is dressed in a white formfitting dress and a suit coat to match. She is wearing an ensemble of gold bangles, tasteless in his opinion; her perfume smells like vinegar and petroleum. "I'll need a personal shopper," he explains briefly.

"I would be happy to help you with that, sir. What can I help you find?"

El talks like he moves, with a purpose. "Three full sets of threads. First: female 5'10", 34, 36, 32, chest type 'c,' late teens, blouse white, solid, knickerboxers to match, skirt blue, knee socks striped, boots leather, 6.5, slim, heeled, 2" black Simi casual." The shopper is fumbling for a pen as El talks; El reaches into his inside pocket and pulls out one for her. "Take mine." Then he continues, "Second: female 5'5",32, 30, 32 chest type 'b,' mid to early teen, blouse white soled, knickerboxers to match, skirt blue, knee socks striped, boots leather, 5.25, common, heeled, 2" black Simi casual . . ."

The shopper interrupts him, "Sounds like you're putting together some school uniforms. Need some Ascots to go with them?"

"Yes," El responds, pulling out a money clip. He holds out a twenty. "Don't interrupt me. Male 4'9", youth, 24, 24, 27, chest type . . . negligible, full button-down top, off white, belt leather black silver clip 20/30, undershirt plain, boxers white plain, slacks, service blue, socks, white plain, boots low top, black 5.75 wide. Tie black plain. Tie clip, silver."

"Great, how would you like to pay today?" The shopper looks overjoyed at the request.

"Cash, small bill."

She nods as she looks over the list. "Is there anything else you will be needing today?"

"Yes." He places before her a bag containing the coat he had worn yesterday. "I purchased this at your location in St. Louis. I need it replaced."

The shopper lifts up the coat, examining it. "It looks like you were attacked by a bear!"

El reaches into his pocket for his money clip again, producing five more twenties; he replies softly, "Dogs. Don't speak again. I need everything in triplicates."

The shopper disappears into the depths of the store in search of El's request. She returns a time later pushing a cart filled with clothing and starts to describe to El what she has picked out for him. He holds up his hand to stop her.

"For your blouses, I was thinking something by . . ."

"Names don't interest me, so long as those boxes are filled with the items discussed. What is my total?"

"Six thousand five hundred eighty-two fifty and seventy-nine." El nods and starts counting out his money. "Would you like us to have someone carry this out to your car for you?"

"No, thank you."

El returns to the truck and starts distributing clothing. The girls look impressed, Jude less so. Jude looks at El. "Their outfits are more elaborate and colorful than mine."

"They're girls. They just are more complicated than you or I and remember what I told you" El starts to sound almost fatherly, but then . . ." If you don't like what I picked out, you don't need to wear it."

* * *

As the day goes on, El starts to look more relaxed, as far as relaxed goes for El anyway. El follows the rules; he drives till dusk, then looks for a hotel. He stops twice to eat. He pays for everything for the kids as well. For breakfast there are biscuits, eggs, and cheese from a commercial kitchen. For dinner there are two dozen tacos from a Mexican diner that they pass on the roadside. He keeps the kids hidden. The kids don't protest, seemingly understanding El's strange ways.

Arranging for a place to sleep that has basic comforts is a more difficult task than should be. He finds a hotel with rooms on ground level that's away from the expressway. El slips the kid in through a window.

"Nice digs," Nile expresses; it would seem that to date she has never slept in a conventional bed. The hotel is barely adequate; the floors are carpeted with thin red fabric that looks little burned, the walls are an avocado green with fading floral patterns. There is no artwork--only a bed, TV, bathtub, and toilet. "Everyone live this well where you're from?" She looks at El.

"Most of us can afford better, but it meets our needs," El replies.

Nile sits on the bed. "El, I want to thank you . . . for everything."

"Don't." El finds himself a nice place on the wall to sit. El is a man of routine. He does his best to never stray there from. He and Lacerti both reach into their overcoats and start withdrawing their arsenal; it's dark, they're safe behind walls. Time to maintain their equipment. "Lacerti, call Chase. Let him know that the deal is off. I want the Cuban and his Negro found by the time we're back in town." Lacerti nods.

Jude kneels before El, examining him. Jude places one hand on El's head as he is cleaning his gun and tips it back. El looks up, no signs of amusement in his exasperation. Jude rolls El's head, studying him.

After only a few moments, Jude releases El with a nod. El looks almost disturbed; El puts his weapons away, pushes his knees into his chest, and lays his head back against the wall. His eyes turn down briefly. Karin has chosen a place on the wall across from him; she looks at him deeply, her knees up as his are, one arm wrapped around her legs, one hand resting under her muzzle. They lock eyes, seemingly struggling to understand what they see before them.

El's eyes squeezes shut; he forces himself to rest.

El's rest is interrupted quickly as Nile calls his name. "El! . . ." El's eyes snap open. "I want to talk." Nile is down on her stomach on the bed, her legs tipped up, arms under head. She looks almost as if she is smiling. Everyone else seems to be asleep. "I want to know more about you."

"You don't know anything as is?" he speaks in a whisper.

"Not true." Nile swallows a laugh. "I have a good Idea that you are a soldier. Likely fought overseas. Probably Vietnam, maybe Grenada, but I think Nam. You see, I think there is a lot that you can learn by watching the way someone walks."

El doesn't respond to the remark, but he does force back a smile of his own. He whispers back after a short delay, "Alexander Bell, you're quoting Professor Bell. 'We can learn much if only we learned to look not only see the things about us. A man's heritage is written on his face, his livelihood in his hands, and his mannerism can be seen in the lint adhering to his waistcoat.' Bell loved to perform Parle tricks, cold readings, mostly where he would take a man for an audience and guess at their work and breeding. He was remarkable spot-on."

When Nile speaks those words, El feels something he can't remember ever feeling before. It's frightening but somehow exciting; he tries to pay no heed. "What do you do for a living, El?" Nile crawls forward half a step, partly leaning off the bed.

"I'm a driver."

"What does that entail?"

El drops his head into his legs. "Sleep now, talk later." El closes his eyes again. He reopens them, feeling warmth on his face. He finds Nile's nose nearly pressed into his.

"Where did you meet Lacerti anyway?"

The inquiry narrowly avoids inspiring rage. El finds his feet and takes Nile by one ear. "You are absolutely incredulous, aren't you?" El takes three brisk steps to the bed, then places his hand on Nile's breast, and shoves her onto her back. Nile laughs as she lies with her knees bent, her arms out in a vulnerable state. Playfully, she tucks her tail between her legs as if to hide herself beneath it, giggling calling attention to herself.

El rubs his head hard, his headache retuning. He looks up at Nile; she has noticed his change in expression and has leaned in, concerned. "Nile, once we are safe at my place, we can talk about whatever you like."

Nile places one hand on El's chest to hold him up as he begins to look dizzy. "Do you get these headaches often?"

"No, they just started earlier this week."

She takes his arm maternally. "Here, come into bed with me." She pulls him onto the bed and lies behind him. She cradles the driver in her arms. El isn't the type that takes to leaning on others. But sometimes it is best not to protest.

There is a __fundamental flaw in the way_ we_ build computers . . _._ ._ Computers_ can't feel love.

* * *

Vern is a town that from the outside is no different than any other. The streets are quaint; people greet each other as they are on their way. Everyone gets a smile and wave from their neighbors. But there is something about Vern you can't see. Everyone in the town is a gangster, and El is the don.

The Lay family has been in the driving business longer than anyone knows (aside from possibly Lacerti). The business has just gotten larger over the years. There was a time when one horse was all you needed to be a driver. Then came the times of carriages; suddenly it became necessary to have a partner for your own protection. Today, it is almost impossible to be a driver without a whole team of men for backup.

Police call them "street Warriors." The price for fighting them is too high for any office to take on. "You see a SW, you do what we do. Keep your head down," many men have said. What El and Lacerti must have done to earn the fanatical loyalty of them must have been unspeakable.

Why leave them alone? You know where they are send in the troop, right? The SW have their own system of law and order not so different from "the US marshals field operations manual" and a code of conduct to match. They only fight with each other; they only seem to kill criminals, and so long as the Feds keep their distance, no one ever seems to get caught in the crossfire. They are the most law-abiding group of criminals there has ever been, possibly best organized also--ranks, titles, three distanced uniforms, training regiment, and they work in shifts. El runs his town like a warden runs a prison; routines and discipline are always in demand.

Vern is on the southeast bank of Florida; El's house sits on a hill overlooking the town, but he is almost never there. He spends most of his time in the warehouses or at the pub. El never drinks; it just acts as his base of operations. That is the final destination for today.

Pulling into the Pub, three of El's SW officers are awaiting him: Sp. Double, office of communication; Sp. Chase, office Intelligence; Sp. Cobra Mp, office of detention.

El and Lacerti step off the truck in synchronicity. The SWs salute. El and his partner square their shoulders and mimic. "At ease, Warriors." El lowers his hand. Lacerti reaches into the truck and pulls out Jude first. Chase is first to notice the strange creature and exclaims with fear of the half dog, half man-beast. Double and Cobra have similar reactions, Cobra's accompanied by him reaching for his pistol. El looks up and orders him, "Keep it in your pants, Soldier!" The warriors compose themselves.

"Now!" El demands. "Gentlemen, I want status reports!"

Chapter 8

GV

Larry seems to become less human with each passing day. The corruption that has taken over him is spreading like a horrible cancer. By the time sunrise comes, half his chest has been consumed. To hide this, Snake takes a bed sheet from the hotel and stitches it into a makeshift poncho. The color is fading from Larry's skin and hair alike; his eyes have turned yellow and bloodshot, almost like a heroin addicts would after years of the habit.

Snake takes Larry by the arms and carries him out to the convertible. "Put a bullet in me, Bro. I'm done," Larry whimpers.

Snake fakes a laugh. "You're fine. Just a head cold. I'll light you a 'fatty' in the car and you'll forget all about it." He rolls his eyes, throwing his brother in the backseat. "Besides we talked about that yesterday in case you forgot." Snake jumps in the front and pulls out a joint for Larry.

Snake is terrified, but there is no need for panic right now. Things are out of his control, and the only thing he can do is stay strong. Larry needs him. There will be no sleep tonight. Snake needs to be in Minnesota by morning.

* * *

September 14:

2:45 a.m.: The Gekks brothers arrived at the Mayo clinic yesterday. I (Marks V. Karingson) was called in to examine their case. Subject Larry Gekks is suffering from an illness I can only describe as tri-mutagenic. He is devolving, but if that weren't strange enough, it looks as if his evolution is un-unilateral as it were. His mind is transmogrifying to meet his body. It is sometimes claimed that simplicity possesses domination over complexity.

To see this in its purest form, look no farther than bacteria--a single cellular organism almost completely unchanged after endless lifetimes of Darwinism. Larry is in contrast to this. His body is turning let's say Cro-Magnon for the moment. His mind is becoming more complex, it would seem.

I was asked to come here as a specialist in the fields of biochemistry and microbiology, rightfully the individual that first observed the "Gekks Virus" (I think I will refer to it as GV from here on out), assumed it to have been induced by an oral fungal cross contamination. (I'm not prepared to comment on that as of yet.)

By the time I arrived, his body was 45 percent malignant: left arm, left leg, 30 percent stomach, and 40 percent chest covered by this hostile plague. I was of course captivated.

I have started observing rotten examinations. Vitamin treatments, medicating . . . At this point amputation would prove meaningless. (Losing the hand to save the arm won't work if there is more infected flesh than salvageable.)

On a side note, it looks as if Snake Gekks has chosen to stay in the hospital. It disturbs me the way he passes up and down the halls. I will ask a nurse to give him a tranquilizer.

* * *

Snake paces tirelessly up and down the hall of the hospital most of the day, every hour on the half. He pounds on the RN desk, looking for Larry. They had rushed him into a back room only seconds after he passed through the ER door. The nurse quickly runs out of things to tell him.

"Mr. Gekks, you need to be seated. We will let you see your brother as soon as we can."

Snake slams his hand on the desk furiously! "Miss . . ." He peeks at her nametag.

"Rose, don't you think 'soon as we can' is a bit loose!"

Rose leans over the desk. She is a young women with brilliant blue hair and deep tan skin. "SnakeGekks! You will lower your voice or I will come out there and sing you a lullaby."

Snake is taken aback by her aggression. It takes him but a moment to piece things together in his mind. "She is a former field medic, and chances are she is still packing."

"Your brother is ill. We don't have the tools to treat him on hand. In fact, based on your loose description of how he came to be as is, you will be lucky if we even can treat him. Now get your sorry ass in that chair!" she demands.

"I am not recommending this place to my friends." Snake walks backward away from Rose. Snake tips his head and squints as he watches her walk away. "Her shadow . . . it's not moving right. She looks . . . just like the snake monster that had attacked Larry." Snake is tired; he can't be confident of what he is seeing. His first instinct is to reach for his iron and see if "Rose" can dodge bullets. He restrains himself.

Dr. Marks Vigeta Karingson arrives by helicopter early the next morning. He is a strange-looking man. His skin looks like bronze; his eyes are a pale brown that looks almost red from a distance. His hair is tucked into his overcoat; there is a barcode on his neck. The way he walks looks somehow wrong, but Snake can't place it. "It's almost like El." He is greeted like a superstar, clapping and shaking hands as he passes.

Marks approaches Snake steadfast; the moment Marks extends his hand to meet Snake, Snake can tell what he hates about Marks. Marks is proper, prim, and urgent; none of these things can Snake admire. "You must be Mr. Snake Gekks. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Dr. Karingson, Marks Karingson." Snake fakes a smile in spite of the sour taste in his mouth he is choking down. Snake takes Marks' hand in a stout grip, locking thumbs.

A handshake can tell a man volumes about he who stands before him: If you show someone your hand and then refuse to take it, then there is a liar. If they squeeze your fingertips, that makes them tame or cowardly. They roll your knuckles, they're dominating, and if they grip your thumbs, they're pompous and arrogant.

Snake is both.

"Mr. Gekks, I would like to inform you that things are well in hand . . ."

Snake's skin crawls in the good doctor's grip. His inner voice seems to call out to him, "This dude is bad news. Run while you still got time." Snake shuts out the whisper. "This guy could be a goddamn hoodoo witch doctor. He is still the only chance of getting though this I can see."

The first day in the hospital has been hellish; the following day does not improve. Things start to look progressively more surreal as time goes on. Maybe it is only Snake's imagination, but the halls seem to become more and more still with each passing hour. As day starts to break on his third eve, Snake feels as if he is alone in the south wing. It seems like beds, wheelchairs, and IVs roll by without aid.

As Snake continues his repetitious streak, he stops to try to follow one of the self-propelled pieces of equipment. He fails to unravel this mystery as his monotony is shattered by the reappearance of Nurse Rose. "Snake." She grabs his arm. "Marks asked me to give you these." She hands over a bottle of pills. "And to tell you Larry is being moved to a 'clean-room' in the west wing." Snake nods.

* * *

September 15:

Larry Gekks has slipped into coma. No change was observed over the course of the last nine hours. That is the good news. On a less optimistic point, it looks as if GV is contagious. A dozen members of the hospital staff have begun to show symptoms since my arrival.

Know the fact that GV is transferable and inescapable. But the method is mind-boggling. Examination of Larry's body revealed a kaleidoscope of inquest.

Outside of the obvious, Larry also seems to have suffered numerous ballistic wounds, some old, some more resent. He has fresh laceration marks on his back (less than a week old). There are also four puncture wounds on his shoulder (these interest me a great deal)--clear evidences of bacterial infection around the wound (typical of bite wounds). This seems to have been covered with field wrappings (looks like the type one might have learned at a day camp).

I would like a clearer picture of how these injuries were sustained, but that seems unlikely at this time.

My first thought after noticing the punctures was that GV perhaps is the result of some form of animal self-defense methodology. Terrifying as this is, that would be easily contained. I'm disappointed I was wrong. (Or that GV could have jumped the species barrier, this is equally horrific.)

As is, one truly bizarre apparition is now on the cusp of a micropandemic.

Forgive me, that was a bit alarmist. Let us stick to facts.

It is 8:39 a.m. The Gekks arrived 53.57 hours ago. The hospital staff had known instantly that they were not equipped to handle the situation at hand. Over the last several hours, a dozen members of the hospital staff began showing what I now recognize as early symptoms of GV (dizziness, sudden pigment shift in skin, redness of eyes, sensitivity to light and sound).

I will refer to these individuals as subjects 2-13 for purpose of this document.

Subjects 3, 5, 9-11, 13 experienced cardiac-arrest less than in an hour after reporting symptoms, 3, 9, 10 were found dead. Subjects 5, 11, 13 seemingly drowned during resuscitation attempts; they were proclaimed dead on the operating table. Like "Calera" it seems GV possesses a 50%+ mortality rating.

Subjects 2, 4, 6, 7, 12 are even more interesting. (Germination period in mind it turns out that Larry himself is tolerant to GV.) Approximately one hour thirty minutes after infection was detected, each of the individuals observed began their own unique metamorphosis. (This was of course accompanied by all subjects joining Larry in quarantine.)

Changes observed thus far included are varied. Subject 2: female, mid-twenties, Melato descent. Over the course of infection, it would seem that her ears have fallen off, eyes widened, her jawline has lifted, cuspids receded, incisors have pressed forward (front teeth have enlarged perforating over the lip line), long thick whiskerlike hairs have begun to form along the cheekbones; lastly there has been noticeable engorging of the tailbone (in fact, three extra vertebrae have grown in). Thick semi-pubescent hair has grown around the tail like a protrusion. Psychological changes include heightened sensitivity and childlike behaviors; it seems she is also developing an oral fascination.

Subject 4: male, mid-forties, Hispanic, seems to have suffered some change in the structure of Ischium resulting in difficulty in standing upright; he is instead walking on all fours. Eyes have moved together, brows swelled, jaw lengthened, hair is growing at abnormal speed (in and amongst other changes, this one seems negligible). Subject 4 shows signs of enhanced aggression, territorialism, especially in the presence of older women.

Subject 6: female, Cambodian, early twenties, a strange secondary skin has formed around pelvis, thighs, legs, feet seem to be losing muscular structure, ball joints forming around hips, secondary injector style teeth forming around gum-line. Jaw looks somehow to be fragmented. (I'll elaborate on this as soon as I can.)

Subject 7: male, forty-five, Ethiopian, complains constantly about hunger pains, cartilage has formed over feet pushing them into a clove shape, tongue is spotted, hair is brittle, subject is walking hunched over, hairline is receded, bone fractures push through skull, shape of skull itself seems to be changing . . .

Subject 12: female, nineteen, French, skin has become silky, hair greased and vibrant, has lost the ability to breathe oxygen, requires di-hydrogen oxide, becomes quickly dehydrated, body must be kept completely submerged.

As would be expected, the transformation period seems quite . . . uncomfortable. I had remarked in an earlier document that the transformation is "nonpartisan." Let me elaborate on that at this time. Twenty hours after quarantine was declared, it seemed that the first infected had completed their transmogrifications.

Subject 2: the end of her growth cycle resulted in her becoming a "Vermanen" (cone like in nature)--long ears, nose tipped upward, and has grown a short tail. To "ye that knew her" this is of course horrific. In my opinion, it's not without its charm.

Subject 2 seems to have no recollection of her life before today. Strangely she still possesses all knowledge associated with her schooling but has no understanding as to where the information derives form. She can walk, talk, and has fundamental understanding of hand gestures; her knowledge of current events is within expected parameters. Specifics of her life on the other hand are gone. She has six children ranging in age from 1 to 9 and three husbands, none of which she remembers.

It looks to me that subject two has developed some form of recuperative property to replace this loss of memory. I allowed her most recent husband to view her through an observation window. He suggested she looks ten years younger than she had been when last they were together. He was understandably unmade by what he witnessed, and that make this evidences more or less anecdotal.

In spite of this, speaking to the husbands has opened my eyes to possibilities that I dared not entertain prior. Subject 2 even before her run-in with GV was a clinical nymphomaniac.

This insight has led me to call the emergency contacts of all that have been affected, searching for other trivial pieces of information that may lead to a better understanding of what is GV. It's almost like a "Divine Comedy." Can it be that GV has a sense of humor?

Subject 4 has a night job as an attendant at a puppy farm. He himself seems to have become an alpha wolf (most specifically a North American Minnesota gray timber wolf, based on the shape of his new ears, tail, and his yellow eyes) or at least more wolf than man.

Subject 6 has taken on a serpentine appearance; the stripes on her back and tail suggest she is a Burmese python. Unfortunately nothing in the stories her roommate told me seemed to explain this in any way that I could interpret. No night jobs or nocturnal habits involving snakes . . . (Snake? . . . Some part of this seems provocative.)

Subject 7 ultimately grew two feet after his transformation. All of it in leg length, it looks to me as if he has become part antelope. His hunger pains are a result of abnormal cardiac and respiratory behavior. When standing still, his base heart rate is 164/90; when walking or running, it seems to restore balance. (As a side note, his sprinting rate clocked at twenty-six miles per hour. That is impressive.) He has lost the ability to speak altogether. But retains the cognitive reasoning necessary to understand he had relationships with the people around him and reacts more or less accordingly. (or as a pachyderm would).

According to Subject 7's mother, his career as an RN was a backdrop. His passion was in Olympic class running. For a decade, he has been training for track and field. Every week Monday, he runs from his house to the clinic (distances 27.70 miles following the highway.)

Subject 12 is the least human of them all at this point. She has become completely aquatic; only tiny pieces of humanity still visible within her. She has a dorsal fin, winged ears, her eyes are on the sides of her head, all her hair has fallen out, her legs have fused together. She still has hands and arms but they're webbed, and her face shape is more or less human.

Subject 12's upper brain was destroyed in the transformation. She has lost all memory as far as I can tell. Her behaviors are nothing shy of animalistic, her every action revolving around the prospect of eating or identifying mating options. Her "human" appearance is nothing more than a masquerade to attract suitors.

If ye be so pleased, this brings me full circle to Larry Gekks, and maybe more interestingly Snake Gekks. And this is why I am immune to GV myself; reason seems clear enough. Snake on the other hand, why is he immune? . . .

The facilities here are inadequate for my needs. We will need to move to better campuses. I will summon some "Hawks" to help me transport my guest, and we will bring Snake with us when we leave. I have no doubt that there is some part of his physiology that we will find extremely interesting.

* * *

Marks watches Snake with a fierce determination; it seem like hours that he stands in the doorway between the lab and the waiting room staring out at him. Snake finds after a time that it would be best to pay no heed.

There is no one in the waiting room anymore. Snake stands stunned for a moment at the sight. 'Is this what Larry sees every time we find ourselves here?' Only Dr. Karingson and himself remain; not long after he is completely alone.

The still becomes unstill around midday; a number of police officers arrive, followed by men dressed in hazmat gear. Something within Snake tells him things are not as it seems. Snake follows the officers.

The "cops" move in formations--twin, single field lines shoulder to shoulder clearly in step. They hold weapons closely at hand. One seems to be wearing a dog collar with a tag on it that reads "UBC Private First Class Harris."

Snake sneaks in close. He follows the so-called "enforcers" through the hollow halls of the hospital. Alien noises assault Snake's ears as he tails his prey--shrieks and sequels, squawks and shrills; he can't even imagine the origins of hunters of these quarters.

Soon Snake stands in the shadows of the ones he stalks. Snake is swift and smooth. He stands close enough to whisper in the ear of his prey, and the stocky has no idea he's even there. Snake stand over his shoulder in optimum position to plant a knife if he felt the need. His second query has a tattoo, small and tasteless, an eagle with an olive branch in one claw and a flag in the other; below the flag it reads "Urban Blockade Commandos."

"Holy Shit, they're goddamned Mercs," Snake whispers to himself. (Merc: a Merc is a gunslinger for hire. Traditionally ex-military, but from time to time mobsters, gangsters, and dishonored law enforcement officials are given the same title. Anyone else willing to kill a man in broad daylight for five hundred bucks might get the name as well. If your honor is for sale, you just might be a Merc.)

Snake recalls a time his brother was approached by one of their recruiters. Snake saw to it that they put in a change of address from the same day. Mercs have a habit of working alone or in team; there are at-least a dozen of them in the hospital. "What the fuck is going on here?" Snake asks himself. An answer comes from an unaccepted angle.

Marks approaches in a way that is fast and so quiet it seems he floats. He takes Snake by the back of the neck with a firm hand; the grip is almost violent "Hello, friend, I'm glad you're still with us."

Snake twists to face the mad doctor. Marks rests his hand on Snake's chest, shoving him to the wall with a gentle touch. "What the . . . ?"

Marks cuts him off, "Fuck is going on? I heard you the first time. Allow me to illuminate you. Follow me." Marks turns to a solitary-looking hall with steel shutters over the window and coded locks on the door. "Your brother is quite ill." "I know that already!" Snake is irritated.

"Of course you do. Actually this is amongst the most extraordinary transformations I've seen so far." Snake follows in behind Marks, watching him closely with a most disgusted expression. "Not in that the physical Gilgamesh, and it is impressive, but more so in the idea that change is imperfect. That in of itself is just far unheard-of."

"Doc, what is the chase and how do I cut to it?"

"I see." Marks stops before a door labeled "S-6." "Well as of current, I have been having some trouble in understanding some aspects of this case. Maybe you can help me. Do you have any idea how or when you brother may have be exposed to whatever had infected him?"

"No, not really . . ." Snake sounds uncertain.

"Lying to me isn't going to help anything."

"We were in a bar and got into a fight . . ."

"With what?"

"With a thing."

"A thing?"

"Yes."

"What sort of thing?"

"Well . . ." Snake struggles to come up with a method to describe his thoughts.

"A thing like this?" Marks opens the shutter leading into the room housing Subject 6. Snake is paralyzed recognizing what was once Nurse Rose, now a serpentine monster closely resembling the Lamia he met the other day, chained to the bed beneath her.

Snake doesn't need to say a word; Marks can see into his thoughts. "That is precisely what I was hoping for." Marks withdraws from his pocket a syringe. Frozen in place, Snake fails to see Marks position himself behind him; he barely notices when Marks cocks his head off to the side and buries the needle into his neck. Snake feels the burn as the unknown chemical fills his blood.

Snake places one foot on the wall and kicks against it with a ferocity enough so to knock back even the war machine Marks. Snake elbows Marks in the side and staggers away holding his neck. Marks stands with his feet together and his hands folded in a triangle over his chest. Snake glares. "What was that?" Snake pants and begins to sweat, gasping for air.

"Distilled blood."

Snake tries to ask, "Who's?" But it is only noise.

"Hers." Marks points at the serpent.

The venomous blood burns in his veins for only moments before Snake begins to hallucinate. Nightmares flash in and out of his reality; Snake thrashes his arms out denying this reality. He fights the sickness with all that is him, but still the darkness persists. The walls flash with flames; metal clanking assaults his ears.

Marks himself fades between three beasts: part man, part bird, and part bat.

"What seems to perturb you, Mr. Gekks?" Marks asks as if he doesn't know.

Snake struggles to stay upright, gripping his neck with one hand. "I am going to kick your self-righteous ass."

"Let's see if you survive the night first."

Every inch of Snake is under attack, and Snake responds with regal fury. Snake as he begins to collapse finds power in madness. He reaches for his iron; withdrawing a single revolver, he begins a prayer worthy of "the brothers of steel." "Sword be true, Strike down thee enemy's with holy vengeances in the name of glory!" Snake's arm begins to lift; Marks stands defiantly over him. Snake howls like a wild beast. But in spite of his rage, the fever overtakes him. Snake faints, passing wholly into his fantasies.

* * *

The nightmares are lucid; they have scent, color, and depth that is uncommon in the eyes of the common dreamer. A hell of twisted metal entangles him. A colossal talon embraces him and a descent begins into the underworld. Snake never fails to struggle, and his vigilance is rewarded.

A six-winged figure reaches out to take him by the hand. The six-winged stranger has no face, only a light from which it hides beyond. The struggle for salvation has only begun.

Sleep that can't have lasted more than half a night feels like years. Snake finds his memories corrupted, his fantasies twisted; there is no rest. Snake finds himself climbing a stairwell forged of mirrors, every mirror a window into his life but never a door in sight. The darkness that fills his blood manifests, taking shape as he ruminates of thoughts, things forgotten and forsaken, your every sin returning for retribution.

At last the top of the stairs.

There waiting for Snake is Larry as he knows him, as well as a demon wearing his skin, and there between them is Marks, but not as Snake remembers him. Marks is changed; his face is covered in white clown paint with diamonds beneath his eyes, covered by a dark robe; he has a batwing on his port and an angel's wing in starboard.

The stairwell of mirrors comes together to create a lonesome world as Snake understands it. He, his brother, the demon, and Marks are lone three-dimensional objects in a suddenly two-dimensional world. Marks stands at the fulcrum in waiting. The lights of the mirrors seem to hold the deformed memories at bay.

Snake is exhausted from his run up the steps. He enjoys a moment of rest with which he uses to fill his lungs with much wanted air. "All right." Snake exhales.

"You aren't trying to eat my brains yet so you're not zombies, so . . ."

"You think this is a dream?" Marks asks.

"Isn't it?"

"Where you came from was the dream. This is real."

Snake is bamboozled. "Then where in the hell are we?"

"Hell's not far off. This is purgatory . . . for you at least. You see it changes depending on the expectations of the suffering."

"Bullshit."

"How so? You're dead after all. Have been since September 11, 8:45 p.m.

Eastern time."

Snake approaches Marks viciously. "Then why are you here?"

Marks eyes close as he smirks. "To save you."

"Why?"

"Like so many stars in the sky, you Snake, are a light shining though the endless night. You have the power, as so few other do, to banish the darkness that plagues our world. That power is yours should you choose to accept it. Will you fall or will you fight? Only you know."

Snake laughs at the thought. "So God sent you to give me a pep talk? How underwhelming that the Almighty would . . ."

Seamlessly, Marks is gone from the summit and a galactic visage has come into view in his likeness. "Let it be known, I can be kind, as can I be cruel. You find yourself on the cusp of something of a scale that makes your limited understanding nothing more than Planck. Your ordinary comprehension cannot hope to embrace what is to be. You are a cog in a machine, a lonely antibody in a ocean of single cellular life forms, barely conscious as is. Can a soul Cardin atom hope to divine its nature in contrast to its twins? I think not. But you nonetheless have a destiny apart from that which is common to your kin. Cometh a new dawn, the axis of history will fall on your shoulders as it will back dozens of others . . . Now will you fight, or will you let this day pass unmarked?"

* * *

Snake beats himself against the back of a hospital bench till he awakens. He falls off the chair. His clothing is half torn from his body; he is in a cold sweat. His head feels three times too big and his eyes are throbbing in his skull. Snake feels himself up, making certain he is still himself, then feels his neck, questioning what he thought he saw he really did.

Finding nothing, Snake makes his way to the bathroom to take one more look. It seems most of the day has passed while he was napping. Everything looks fine, no signs of change at all. There's no way Marks injected him with that poison. Is there?

* * *

September 17

We are preparing to change offices. The facilities here are simply inadequate for my need. I have wired ahead to my colleagues in Manhattan. Allen seems overly excited with my findings and wants to be included in my research. AC Dem-Row is overjoyed as well. This make me uncomfortable. My former assistant and my sponsors this interested in _bioresearch?_Shaun Clawed's response seems much more up to speed. He is apprehensive. I like that.

Rhys, he is terrified. I asked him if he would feel more comfortable working on another project. He ensures me that he wishes to stay by my side. I must say I love Rhys. I'm pleased that he has chosen to stay in the end.

It's time to make the move.

* * *

Thereare no signs of life anymore; Snake can hear the sounds of the fans on the other side of the building running. Snake discards his coat and shirt in the bathroom and stares at himself in the mirror. Snake rolls his body, looking over his shoulders and down his back, searching for wounds and evidences of what he thought had happened to him.

The tattoos running down his face and neck continue down his back and chest. A seven-headed dragon covers most his body: "Teamat the hallow" the dragon mother, child of "Chaos mother of Creation." The dragon has two heads looking up, casting fire from their eyes. Three heads are facing down in remorse of the emptiness she feels. Her other heads are facing in opposing directions in symbolism of choices. Snake is "Teamat," hunger that knows no end, lust that can't be satisfied, and always at the crossroad of choices. Teamat wishes for purity but can't help but succumb to indulgences of the flesh.

Snake redresses and makes his way back to the waiting room. Dazed, he picks up a copy of GI Magazine (a weekly electronics magazine). "Nothing happened. I imagined all of it," Snake tells himself, time and time again trying to convince himself.

The stillness is interrupted; footsteps are moving toward him. Snake looks up. He expects to see a nurse or Marks; either way it is good for him. Snake has questions, and he needs them answered. Snake doesn't get what he expects. He sees instead the UBC rifles in hand. Another door opens; Snake hears a yell, then a gunshot, and everything goes dark.

Chapter 9

Crossroads

Interstate 66 is one of the longest and harshest roads in the country. Marin and I have been riding on it for the better part of a day. Marin hasn't spoken a word, even made a sound, since she took the wheel. Marin is the coldest person I've ever met. Her focus, her steely gaze, only now can I truly see how inhuman she is.

"Marin, you're really not going to talk to me this whole trip?" She fails to acknowledge me. "For two days you are going to sit there and not make a sound?" Nothing. "You're not going to eat, sleep . . ." Still not a word. "Do you want me to put in some tunes?" It seems hopeless. "Want to pull over and have sex?"

Marin looks at me. "I'm not talking to you. What makes you think I want to reproduce with you?!"

"Eureka!" I can't help but laugh out loud; finally she speaks. I cheer triumphantly.

Marin lowers her head and covers her eyes briefly, knowing she has been duped. Not that I wouldn't, mind you.

"Blake, Richard, let me mind you, we are not friends. We are not partners. I am here to do a job just like you are."

"And why can't we be friends?"

"Connections are weakness. Your enemies will employ every tactic to stop us, including the use of violence against one another in an attempt to distract us from our goals. We can't afford that."

"Victory at all costs, ah?"

"Yes, victory at all costs. Your life, my life, expendable."

"That's it. You're off my Christmas card list."

"You were going to mail me a Christmas card?" Marin seems genuinely moved by the statement. I wonder if Marin has ever had a relationship in her time on this planet. "Why do you care about me?"

"Do I need a reason?"

"Most do." I think I get it know; Marin is who she is because someone or something hurt her, scared her so bad that the only escape she can find from her fears is in this ridiculously stoic persona.

It's like the story of the warrior sparrow from Hindu folklore. A cruel Shogun was disappointed in the farmers from his homeland and so sent his Samurais to punish the farmers. The farmers seeing the approach of the feudal lord and knowing the anger that he would bring took their children and hid them, the youngest of which was called Sparrow. She was hidden in the well. Sparrow sat quietly till the fighting ended, then sat for ten days more. No one would come looking for her, not her mother nor father, nor even her brother and sister. Twenty more days, and Sparrow called out to Buddha. "Why will you not let me die?" she called in prayer till at last a response came.

A walking monk heard the cry in his passage; he looked down the well and saw a girl of age not so different from his own. "Maybe you're not ready," he yelled down. The monk reached into the well and took Sparrow by the arm, lifting her back into the sun-backed world.

The walking monk was only a boy, but he was a worldly man; he was a master of calligraphy and familiar with the dancing sword, even claimed to have seen "the legendary monkey stick fighting."

The sparrow wished to learn everything that the walking monk could teach her. The time in the well changed Sparrow forever. Sparrow grew to be a women lovely enough to allure anyone she could wish, but her mind was twisted. Never would she allow herself to be touched by human hands. Her every thought and dream was that of revenge.

The walking monk tried to turn her from this path, but Sparrow had chosen her destiny. She wished to fight; she wished to kill and ultimately to die in a duel against her enemy. The walking monk pleaded with her, begged her, and prayed for her to change her mind. The walking monk led Sparrow far from her homeland across the East Coast and down the silk road to meet every priest, wo-jin, and monk he knew to try to teach her humbleness and grace.

The walking monk was disappointed; Sparrow chose death. On the eve of her seventeenth birthday, Sparrow walked into the court of the shogun and in fiery rage killed seventy-seven of his guards, then turned her knife on herself. She called upon Wo magic (to be Wo is to belong to the Wo-jin); as the blade pierced her heart it too pierced that of the shogun's.

The walking monk found Sparrow lying amongst the ruins of a city her Wo magic leveled. He kneeled before her and whispered, "Have no fear, Sparrow, as you close your eyes. You were born in fire as you wish to die in fire, and so flames can never harm you as I will never harm you. I will reach into the well once more and rescue you again as I have done before, not once, not twice not even a dozen times, but always."

Sparrow was cursed to die fighting ten thousand and ten times, and the walking monk had sworn to save her and so had cursed himself to live seventeen thousand and seventeen years as a child. The walking monk can never die and Sparrow will never live. And that is the path they have chosen for themselves.

Sparrow was a phoenix in a human skin. Perhaps the monk when touching the phoenix in its hour of death was drawn into its lifecycle of birth and death, some part of the bird imprinted onto the man.

I'm lost in thought for some time. Marin takes me by the arm to draw me back to reality. "I want to talk about the job." I look to her. "How do you know the Gekks brothers are in Minnesota?"

"I asked Joe to look into it for me."

"There is a Watcher assigned to cover the Gekks?"

"It turns out that after the boss lady read my journal and learned that they had encountered El Driver she sent out a dozen men to track him down."

"Von Richton? So you're going to turn him in then? I bet the bounty is huge."

"Not a chance. You see breaking into military compounds and assassinating government officials it turns out are both federal offences, so I need the help of the only criminals I know if I want to live to tell the tale here."

"You know these low-lives?"

"I know them. They don't know me. What is Von Richton's interest in El Driver anyway?"

"Apparently El is four hundred years old. The way I see time, that makes him a teenager but for you humans that is bordering on impossible."

"Fay have a twelve-hundred-year lifespan?"

"Even knowing they're in Minnesota doesn't amount to much."

"They'll be at the Mayo Clinic."

"How do you know that?"

"Snake is selfish, greedy, and violently obsessive. Larry is dying, and as far as Snake knows, that is the only place he might find help."

Marin turns to look at me, a soulful look on her face. "And what sort of asshole is this guy?"

"The type that lives as if he has nothing to lose." And that is the worst kind.

* * *

I pick up a newspaper on my way into the hospital. I feel it's a good way to "keep face" as it is sad. No one walks into a hospital as if they owned it, not even those that do. My senses tell me something is wrong right off the bat. I move slow. I look into a mirror as I pass under it. I think someone is following me. It's not an unfamiliar feeling. I hold my breath a moment as I wait and watch the reflection--not a dammed thing.

For nearly twenty minutes, I stalk the halls looking for Snake. I know he is here; I saw his car in the lot. I swear as I glance at the windows going into various rooms there is a shadow looming over my shoulder that isn't mine.

I see Snake. He is napping on a bench in "the red room." I start to walk forward; the door across the room bursts open. Snake jumps to his feet; a group of pseudo cops rush the room in militia-like formations. I clutch against a wall to keep out of sight. "Snake!" I call out. A soldier shoots Snake in the chest. Snake faints. It's not a bullet; it's a dart. It's just like the one Von Richton shot me with!?

I want to know what's going on here. I need to know what's going on here. This lot are a bunch of trained fighters, but they are trained to fight each other. I'm something wholly different. I take my first strike, quick and quiet. I kick his gun out of his hand, knee him to make him kneel, then finish him off with a hammer strike. The soldier eats dirt and never sees me.

I focus a moment on my "aura sight." This lot all have a faint gray light about them. I see that light most every day; gray light signifies someone whose free will is oppressed, someone following orders. No need to kill, only debilitate. I can search their minds after the battle to see who they are.

I steal the gun of the soldier I dropped. I run, ducking to the next in line. I stomp on the back of his knee. He falls over; I crack the rifle over his head to see to it he doesn't get up. The third sees me; that makes things more difficult.

A kick to the ribs stuns him, another to the arm makes him drop his weapon. A jab at the chest and he is on his back. Stealth is no longer on my side. The rest of the team has zeroed in on me. I can't keep quiet anymore; things get nasty. The armed forces drop out the cartages of sedatives and load them with cold lead. I hate it when I get shot at.

I summon psychic fury. A telekinetic blast sends weapons flying and throws their welders to the ground. I lose myself for only a moment in the passion of the fighting. I lift my advisories into the air and consider the possibility of crushing them into goo. That's when the impossible happens.

Someone manages to sneak up on me! No one, I don't care how quite you are, can sneak up on me. Every half-sentient creature I've encountered larger than a horsefly casts energy like a flashlight. I can spot a raccoon in the middle of the night from four hundred paces away in a tree, but I can't see this guy?!?

A doctor gets the drop on me. He grips me by the back of the head and thrusts me into a wall. I fall to my knees; I'm seeing stars. I gain my bearings just in time to see a six-foot tall fossilized monster marching at me, looking like a walking tower or monument out of a Hebrew fairytale from my perspective of lying on the ground. His hair glows like steel; his skin shimmers like bronze.

I summon up my strength. I thrust my hand at him, scampering to my feet. A wave of influence flies between us. I got him; this guy is fast but not fast enough to outrun a thought . . .

I am of course wrong. His hair blows about. His clothing flutters as if pushing against gale force winds, but the man refuses to halt his advances. His hand raises; his aura at-last becomes visible but only around one arm. It is black and blue; it looks displaced flickering like flames.

Something happens, something I assume only I can notice. Everything is bathed in gray light outside myself. The world around me freezes in place. I don't dare ask why. I run. I grab Snake, throw him on my back, and run as if my life depended on it. The distortion lasts not more than a handful of seconds, then it is gone. I smell smoke; I hear the crackling of fire. I don't care to know where it is coming from, but it is no doubt time to leave. I thank my good fortune; I don't know if it is God or the devil that has taken a likening to me, but I thank whatever saved me for the backup.

* * *

Snake's vision is fuzzy; as it clears, life homes into crystal clarity. He is in his car, on an open road. The horizon shows daylight, but the streets show nighttime gravel--shadowy streets, hazy trees, and white skies. Larry is in the backseat, not sick and crippled, but strong and healthy, the way he always is in his memories.

Snake examines his surroundings, dazed by the abstracts. Larry leans over the seat and places his hand on Snake's shoulder to assure him of his presence.

Snake looks at his brother as he drives down the impossible road. "Where are we?"

Larry shrugs. "I don't know." Larry shifts his glasses closer to his nose

"Somewhere in between you and me, I guess."

Snake squints. "What do you mean?"

"Look around you. Have you ever been here? Is this really? Or is this real for you?"

"This is a dream?"

"Yes, a lucid, horrifically graphic hallucination, wherein you are going to confess your love to your brother who is most likely dead and you in the form of me will forgive yourself for your shortcomings as a human being, which is utterly meaningless but somehow will give you the strength to go on in life even if as a self-hating Shiite turned pagan in the presence of a absent god."

"You know the most disturbing part of this is that you are acknowledging yourself as a dream." Snake struggles to remain snide even to his inner voices. Snake takes a deep breath, choking on his own tears. "I'm responsible. I'm the older brother. It's my job to protect you."

"I know, and I also know you will chase the ones that hurt me barefooted into hell to avenge me."

Snake wipes his face on his sleeve. "Yes, I will."

"Snake, that's not what I want. This is the inevitable ending to our lives. We both knew that. The three stars burnt into our palms meant this exactly. Remember . . ." Larry counts out his fingers as he lists the symbolism of his branding mark. "Prison, hospital bed, and death." Larry reaches out to embraces his brother. "Now let me tell you what I do want . . ." Snake not wanting to hear his brother's voice further shakes his head and fights the dream, struggling against himself, fighting to find reality.

* * *

Snake leaps into awareness in a world no more familiar to him than the one he had struggled to escape. Still drowsy, he sits up and takes in his surroundings.

He is in a twin-bed hotel room. The floor is a fading red; there is a bedside table piled high with pizza boxes and cupcake wrappers. There is a bathroom to his left with the lights on and the door half opened; ahead of him there is a TV stand and tube that might be older than he is. There is a clock on the table as well; it looks to be half past eight. As his head rolls off to the right, he sees an armchair, old and broken; sitting in it is a red-haired man with a tan overcoat waiting for him, slouched forward.

Snake scrambles backward, half aware of his surroundings, and reaches for the gun in his inside coat pocket. The red-haired man remarks, "Your gun isn't loaded." Snake reaches into his other pocket and pulls a second gun. "That one isn't either." Snake reaches behind him, dropping his first gun to draw a third.

The red-haired man sits back and hold his hand forward. A revolver flies from the strap on his leg into his hand. "Want to bet on whether or not this one is?"

"Who the fuck are you!?"

"That would be complicated," he responds as he lowers his gun in good grace and withdraws from his pocket a needle with three prongs. "Ever see one of these before?"

"Answer the question, dirt bag!" Snake yells.

"Let's take a moment to examine which of us is a known murderer . . . Sigh, I'm acquainted with your brother . . ."

Snake cuts him off, "Bullshit."

"Will you lower your weapon please? You're making me uncomfortable." Snake leans in and stands atop the bed; he starts to shuffle to the door.

"OK, padre, here is what's going to happen. I'm going to pop on out that door." He picks up the keys off the nightstand as he moves. "And you're . . ."

The bathroom door opens; a green-haired women steps out, a sniper rifle in hand prepped and ready. Snake turns his focus on her; she lines up her shout. The red-haired man projects his will to steal Snake's guns; the green-haired one steps into Snake and uppercuts him with her rifle.

* * *

Snake is on the ground for some time after Marin's assault and understandably so. Marin isn't afraid to die. She's said so much already, and she is certainly not afraid to kill. She holds nothing back. Marin is a small woman. I wouldn't expect too much from her. I think she expects that, as does Snake.

I do him the favor of wrapping his head in a wet towel. I wish Snake weren't the asshole he is right now. I have an inquiry, and I think he has the answers. But I'm not a mind reader. Even if I were, I don't think a doped-up junkie with his bells all scrambled could give fair info.

I decide it is time to call Tail; I've been on radio silence for some time already. Too bad, I'm not calling to check in. The phone rings four times before Tail's voice becomes clear over the line. "Operator." "Tail," I reply.

"Dick!"

"Are we going to really going to go through this again?"

"Blake, what do you need? (And) where are you?" She didn't stop to take a breath between questions, but for simplicity of recording, I thought it best to change that here in my journal.

"I'm three blocks from nowhere, in a trucker's hotel looking after a homicidal menace. But I did find Snake on the other hand." Tail laughs with me on the remark.

"I need to know. Where do the Von Richtons buy their drugs from?" "Why?" Tail seems to fail in grasping the question.

"Snake was drugged with the same shit Von Richton pumped me full of."

"INT-23, wasn't it? It is licensed to 'Karingson lads' and distributed through

'CCI,' I think."

"Claw Company International? Distributed to who?"

"Officially . . . nobody. You can't buy it in America and it is illegal in Europe."

I roll the dart between my fingers as I take in Tail's input. I can hear her typing as we talk. "So were the hell is this shit coming from?"

"Best guess? Mission Six, Central Intelligence Agency, Tri-edd, guys like us . . ." Tail trails off, naming dozens of agencies and organizations many of which I assume to be fictitious.

"So then you have no idea?"

"There are no credible genius stories here. We know where this drug was made but nothing after that. _And_due to INT-23's evil step-sister, I don't think we ever will."

I ponder Tail's statement. "Sounds to me like you found something."

"Yes, a man going by the pen name of 'Letter N' published an article in a British tabloid telling a tale about a drug called 'WIS Bata Zero.' It looks to have the same principles as INT-23 with the notable exception of the effects never wear off. And further more . . ." She is reading the article softly to herself and summarizing for me as she goes. "WIS Bata zero impairs the upper brain, blocking the development of memories. In high doses, this even causes the inflicted to lose the ability to distinguish fantasy from reality, in effect bringing dreams into the wakening world of the victim." I think to myself what that might imply. To some, this might turn your world into a porno that never ends; to others this would result in an unending nightmare but regardless it's still a one-way ticket to a padded room.

"It drives you crazy?"

"Completely and totally," she states thoughts, words with seriousness than I have heard out of her yet. "Blake, you were given a lethal dose of INT-23, and you came back. You were lucky. Don't get shot again."

"So this WIS stuff, it's covering the dealer's trail?" It's not really a question; I know the answer already. "Karingson lab . . . ? That sounds familiar."

"I think I have mentioned him before. Marks Karingson was my father, twenty percent or so at least."

I feel this is important; I want to know more. "Tell me about Marks." "Marks is the coolest man in the world . . ." Tail recalls her youth.

* * *

Most of Tail's childhood was spent living in a cage--a glass box five feet wide by eight feet long and six feet tall, and that room was placed inside a larger box twenty feet by ten feet by twelve feet, most of the outer space filled with cameras and instruments used to monitor her vitals from a distance. A balcony hangs over her room filled most every day with a dozen and a half men looking down at her, writing down things Tail can only imagine. She is eleven at this time. She can vaguely recall a room even smaller that she was in before, and then there were a lot more people watching her.

Tail is not human, but she is not an animal either; that much she has guessed all on her own. Tail comes to find that it is somehow fun to watch "them that are watching her"; day to day faces change. Sometimes it is younger men that stand in the room overhead staring at her, others it is old men, but they all seem the same somehow--all but one. A man that is young as he is old, he stands just a bit taller than anyone else that is watching; his shoulder seems just a tiny bit wider and his back slightly straighter. Every inch of this strange man is more human than human.

Maybe he is "superhuman."

All the strange man's friends dress in white and blue and carry books under their arms all day. They all wear the same wire frame glasses; they all lean on the glass peering at her, mouths draped open, and have the same plain haircuts. Tail's "superman" dresses in black; he doesn't need glasses. His eyes can see far and clear without them. He also doesn't need to carry his books. He remembers everything, just like the cameras outside; his hands are free to play with a tiny fluffy animal that rests on his shoulders day and night with him, and his hair is long and flows proudly like a cape behind him. Tail doesn't know her "superman" yet.

Tail lives like a monk; she eats food that is little more than vitamins and grain. Her food is slid under her door every day at: six, noon, and then six again, and water flows freely into a dish mounted on one of the walls kept full and clean by an unseen hand. Every day the lights turn off at 10:00 p.m. The blinking lights of the monitors in the conjoining room frequently keep her up. It's never quiet. Beeps and clicks, scratches, and growls can be heard at all times from her bed.

Clothing is a meaningless endeavor. When she turned nine, one of the white-coated men gave her a long white poncho. For warmth, it was useless; it's always 88.7 degrees in her room, and as for concealment, she knows that she has been photographed every day from every angle conceivable, so what is there to hide? So the poncho remains untouched, hanging from the doorknob to this day.

Life is tedious. Tail has spent an untold amount of time studying, measuring, and analyzing every diminution of her tiny world. She has listened to the men around her speak and has dissected their languages. Tail can not only understand them, she can speak as well; she has even chosen her favorite dialect from amongst her "teachers" and no one knows.

Tail even thinks that she can understand the alien symbols on the devices surrounding her room. She wants to move in closer and see. Tail collects the tools from her dinner plate; she folds and pinches them into a more useful form. Tail crafts a screwdriver and a pick out of a fork and spoon. After lights out, she hides herself within the poncho and uses her tools to break the hinges of her door and ultimately remove it.

For a short few minutes Tail is free, and with her freedom, she wishes for nothing more than knowledge of the next world outside of hers. The interments instruments filling the room become toys on a playground. She looks at every wire; she glimpses at every lens and monitor and she presses every button. That is where things go wrong.

Tail spots a button on the wall with strange symbols on it; the one that interests her the most is a quarter circle with a jagged line over it, which looks mildly reminiscent of the shape of her tails when she looks into the mirror in her room. Tail's eyes gleam in anticipation as she thinks, What mighthappen when I push this?

The drive for gratification is overpowering. She needs to know what happens when she presses the button. She pulls her hand back and with all her might and glee she thrusts forth to press it. An inch away, a large hand wraps around her arm, stopping her short. It is a powerful hand--a man's hand, gloved in leather; it is attached to a long thin arm covered by a black coat and leads up and into a narrow chest and atop it a head, maybe two of them, with a face. The face is unknowingly familiar to her. "It is my mystery man!"

The older man with shining white hair speaks to her; he is the only person she can remember ever speaking to her. "I don't think you want to touch that. It will make a bad noise and in three minutes will be under water. She doesn't like water." He nods his head slightly off to the side, rubbing his cheek across a tiny animal mounted on his shoulders. The animal makes a low musical sound in response to the touch. Tail is stunned, flustered, and floaty; she tries to speak up, but the sound gets caught in her throat. He speaks again, "Hello, Tail. Do you remember me?"

"A-r-g-e . . ." Tail is speechless; she swallows hard, trying to contain her excitement.

"My name is Marks. I am your father, as it were. She is Nuku. She was born at the same time as you. Almost down to the second."

Tail finally manages a cohesive sound. "I've seen you."

"You speak." Tail nods.

"Do you recognize these markings?" He points at the symbols across the button she was reaching for.

Tail shakes her head.

"Hmmm . . . then you don't read, I imply. This is language. These are signs that connote sounds, the written word. I will teach you." He looks at the door. "But first, beyond this room you will find that the temperature sharply drops to 57.3. Without proper attire, you'll freeze your tails off out there."

The time spent with Marks was life-changing. Under his guidance, she would learn to read and write. Marks would share with her everything that is his, and under his wing she would find no more locked doors, alas but one: the large glass door on the ground floor of the "tower," the door that leads into an even bigger world.

Marks gives Tail clothing--cute girl clothes. Marks likes knee-length skirts and brightly colored blouses on her. He plays strange games with her, where he will give her a book or plug her into a machine and ask her questions or perform mundane actions. Scoring well in the games grants her a sugar cube and a rub between the ears.

Time and time again, Marks tell Tail as they play these games, "Your cognitive abilities far exceed anything I could have hoped for," and other pleasantries like "Your performances are bordering on perfection," and even once, "My, Tail, you are exquisite."

Tail enjoys her twelfth birthday in the spring. As part of her calibration (mind you, this being her first party), Marks reserves the cafeteria on the twenty-first floor. For the past four months, Marks has spent most every hour of his day with her, and for the first time, he feels it is time to give her music. He transforms the cafeteria into a ballroom.

Tail's first dance and banquet meal is there, alongside Marks Vigeta Karingson. The music that plays on the jukebox is that of a nature she has never heard. Brass and strings create a sound deep and heavy. Marks offers Tail a hand as he half bows to her. Marks takes her by the hand and leads her to the middle of the floor.

For the event, Marks has given Tail a long dress made of a black fabric that glistens in the light flashing white and gold. Marks has turned in his leather overcoat for a formal blue-black crushed velvet tuxedo; he has enriched his skin with a light powder, giving him a near vampire-like glow. He has an opal mask tucked into his breast pocket, and his collar is buttoned high to complete the ensemble.

Marks wraps one hand around Tail's hand, the other around her waist. She climbs onto his feet to learn the steps as he leads her in dance. Tail is overtaken by unknown feelings; her skin feels warm, and her breath feels heavy. She feels as if her fur is glowing like her dress. She quickly learns the 'two step'.

Tail can't tell how long the music goes on or how long she has been dancing, but the fluttering in her chest possesses her to lean on Marks and follow his lead inevitably; she lays her head on his chest. The hand that had held hers finds the back of her head and holds her there; the other hand moves softly down and parts her fourth tail from the fifth. Tail's eyes squeeze shut; she finds herself short of breath. She half barks in excitement; Tail doesn't understand her reaction, only that she likes it whatever it is.

Marks wraps his hand around her fifth tail and rubs down it. In an adiomotor response her, tails rise; she growls in exhilaration. Waves of heat overtake her and she claws at Marks' back. The moment is shattered; Marks seems to change his heart. He steps away from Tail, holding her at arm's length. The lights seem to dim slightly as without a word he turns away from her and vanishes into the darkness of the tower.

Marks and Tail never speak of that day again. From that point onward, he seems almost to avoid her. Tail can still feel Marks watching her. Even if they seem divided by a sudden unseen ocean, it would take Tail years to understand what had come between them.

From there on, life becomes a race for knowledge--talk to everyone, learn about the tower, learn about what "they do there, and learn about the outside world." Tail takes to defense; much of the "staff" lives on the premises. At midday she breaks into rooms, sneaking about, picking locks; she shows affinity for code breaking. She swipes odds and ends from the faculty: computer parts, her skateboard, software, hardware.

She learns about programming (she writes a program she calls ELIS (electronic librarian and interface system), it searches e-books for key words and sorts them using a dissenting value algorithm) and engineering. Things go on that way for three years; Tail is now over twenty. There is nothing left for her in the tower. Tail grabs her skateboard, computer, swimsuit, and a change of clothing, stuffs them in a bag, and jumps from a third-story window down onto the streets. Tail runs from her home and the man that she thought of as her father, looking for a new adventure.

* * *

"Blake, I loved Marks. He didn't love me."

"Tail, how long has it been since you were home?"

"Claw Co tower? Fifteen months."

"How old are you now?"

"Twenty-eight."

"How about when you left?"

"Twenty-four."

"You're aging at four times the human rate?"

"So . . ." Clearly Tail already knew what I was coming to know; Tail was fully grown at five and won't live to see thirty. So she lives day to day because she can't afford to do otherwise.

I almost think aloud, "I'm sorry," but it is pointless.

"About the drug, how long will the effects last?"

"In you? Three days. In anyone else maybe a week."

"Shit." My head drops to my hands; this is going to be a miserable couple of days. "Well, looks like I'm grounded then tell he sobers up."

"Blake, have you ever had phone-sex?"

I'm about to respond, but then my senses detect Snake is coming to; it's time for me to go. "Tail, I'll call back soon."

Snake rolls out of the bed; one hand covers his eyes as he squeezes them together. His head is clearly spinning, but he looks calm, by comparison at least. I look up at him in concern. "Snake, how are you feeling?"

Snake slouches over; he lays both hands on the sides of his head as if to physically stop the spinning. "Like Puff the Magic Dragon just kicked my ass. If I go to the bathroom, will the 'New Jersey Sniper' bust my balls again?"

I shake my head; I want to say, "If you're lucky." But there is no need to exasperate things more so.

Snake sluggishly shuffles toward the back; he pauses a moment. "That gun of yours, is it a replica of the Colt and Wesson Jessie James six shooter?"

"No, it is Jessie James six shooter. Jessie James was like me, a slayer."

Snake tries again to shake the stars out of his eyes. "Remind me to ask about that tomorrow." I didn't think he would understand.

Who was Jessie James? You might be asking. Right around 1960, the name was adopted by a film actor, but before that it belonged to a gunslinger. Jessie James was a desperado. Punching out bankers and knocking over trains was his nightly commute. But there was more to the man than just the legend. Jessie was also a card-flipper, the tipe I can relate to. His favorite game was three card stand; today we call it Texas hold am. The way the story goes, Jessie would never let a man leave the table so long as there were chips to be won once he started dealing card.

One day a stranger sat alongside him and made a deal. "We gamble for your mortality. You win you're immortal, you lose I take everything." And when the stranger said everything, he didn't mean his life. He meant everything that matters--his wife, his kid, his horses, and the clothing off his back. That is what the stranger took from Jessie; Jessie didn't like that one bit. He went in search of the stranger for a chance to win it all back.

He went in search of a mystic to teach him how to do it. He learned he would need a special gun; his gun would need to be made using very specific parts. The hammer would need to be Italian silver, the handle Indian redwood, and the barrel would call for nothing shy of lunarian steel (also called meteor steel), and only the most talented craftsmen alive could put it all together in the end, so he needed a hunter turned missionary; for this he needed Sam Wesson. The job cost seven hundred and fifty-five pounds in gold. I haven't got the slightest clue how much that is in today's economy.

Jessie had his revenge, and when he was done, he rode off into the night in search of yet another devil to hunt. Looks like once you're a slayer, you die a slayer.

* * *

Snake staggers to the bathroom, a drunken glaze to his eyes. Snake turns on the shower and climbs in, hoping that the cold will sober him. Snake is nearly in tears as he lies against the shower wall. He covers his eyes with his arm, collapsing into a heap on the ground.

A shadow falls over him as the lights half retreat from the room in a most unnatural way. The shadows come together into a visage familiar to Snake. Larry is stretched across the floor leaning on the bathtub. "Snake, I don't want this from you, and I don't want you to come looking for me."

Snake nearly starts hyperventilating as his eyes meets his brother's. The wall between wakening life and dream is getting harder to decipher. Snake knows he is awake and he knows Larry isn't here. But there he is, as he always is.

Larry rolls over to sit face-to-face with Snake. "Bro, let me tell you what I want." Larry places his hand on his brother's face and touches their foreheads together. "Go to Canada, throw my remains into the Mississippi on the way. Live out the rest of your life away from all this pain, all this death we are so close to."

Snake reaches out to embrace his brother, sobbing only to find his senses clearing and that he is lying on the ground hugging himself. Snake stands up filled to the brink with rage. His anger so hot his skin turns feverishly red. Snake thrusts himself against the wall, wailing with ferocious heartache. Snake cries out in a tizzy to the point of exhaustion. At long last, he finds a moment of clarity, concluding that it is time to find out who his mysterious host is.

He half dresses and heads back to the main room. Weak and tired, he looks at Blake. "OK, Double O Seven, what the hell is the game here?" Blake's expression is one of depth and hopelessness as he opens his mouth and inhales before answering.

* * *

Wright Von Richton walks out the back door of the mansion accompanied by a swarm of agents worthy of a royal procession; she walks, swinging her cane as she marches to the helipad. Her eyes are cold and filled with hatred. The roar of the engines is low and deep; the wind is heavy. To Von Richton's left is Joe Dove; to her right is her pet demon, England. Surrounding them are dozens of fellow Watchers awaiting final instructions before their senior most officers depart.

Joe pants, winded slightly by trying to match Von Richton's stride. "When we land, the president is going to meet us at the Delpheno building, the private suite on seventeen."

Von Richton nods. "Good." She stops before the helicopter; her silvery yellow hair blowing around her body. Joe slips in as she addresses her underlings. "I'll be departing for six days. Mr. Dove and Mr. Gillard will be in charge." Joe hands his walking stick to England as he sits. England shifts into a doppelganger of the old man as the stick reaches hiss claws. "We are approaching a dark hour, my comrades, and these times of darkness call for unity, faith, and strength. I expect maximum effort from all of you. I expect initiation to continue to stride even in my absence. I need every hand on the streets till I return, regardless the cost."

A brown-haired man with a loose-fitting overcoat calls out, "And what of the Jesuit?"

"I will see us in hell before I accept their help! So help me God." Von Richton slams the door and disappears into the night sky.

The ride is routine; Dove leans into Von Richton, staring at the brooch between her breasts. Von Richton removes her glasses, revealing to him her flashing pink eyes. Her skin is rosy, her smile is bright as she follows his stare down to her gold-plated platinum-lined "Iron Cross." "That belongs to my wife," Joe states plainly.

Von Richton reaches up with both hands and flicks her hair back, "Do you like it?"

"No, I don't like it. In fact I'm getting a little bored of you dressing up like her."

Von Richton sees the bitterness in Joe's eyes and the anger in his heart. "Lighten up. She has been dead for over twenty years now. Don't you think it is time you bury her? Besides, I would say it is about fifteen years too late for us to end our charade." For a moment, Von Richton sounds like the dark noblewoman so many know her as, but then something different comes forth. Von Richton leans forward out of her set and wraps her arms around Dove's neck, climbing into his lap. Joe seems overwhelmed.

"I'm getting too old for this crap," he whispers to himself; he then looks at the pink-skinned woman atop him. "Can we win? Is there a end to this ridiculous game of keep away? I don't want to be doing this when I'm a hundred."

Von Richton whispers in his ear, "That sounds remarkably silly coming from a man that has been in a fistfight with two gods. You have luck enough to beat the devil. So long as you're with me, I believe we will win. We will cast every demon from this world and kill any god that tries to stop us." She forcibly kisses Joe with her final word. Hungry, she rubs her hips up his legs, playing with him to amuse herself. Even just grinding fabric against fabric, the warmth of a human body brings her all the exhilaration she needs to gratify herself.

* * *

Tail follows along with Charlit. "What's up, Doc? Where are we heading?"

"It's this fun little place we call 'the vault.' It's where we hide all the little alien things we don't know what are. That's where they have me working right know. It's my job to keep the place clean."

"Neat."

The vault is absolutely what it sounds like it should be--a steel door twenty feet tall with a wheel-shaped locking mechanism and an I-bar lying across it, secured by two comically oversized padlocks. All the locks come undone as Charlit approaches. Behind the door is a prison-like evidence room, fully outfitted with chicken wire around the windows.

Tail's eyes roll around the room. "Do you have any idea how silly this looks? We are like . . . sixty-eight feet below sea level in a bomb shelter . . . and you have shatter-resistant glass over your display case over there." Tail points out. Tail begins looking over a wide assortment of strange items. "How would you even pay for stuff like this?"

An elf child in a green coat with red hair and glasses answers, "Private investments, stocks, and patents. We own the rights to a handful of specialty products, royalties off them pay for a good deal of our expenses--liquid display television, electronic dictionaries, cyber glasses, vanilla, and corn oil," the young boy lists off in a charming Cagney accent.

Charlit adds on, "But truth be told, money isn't real. That is what economists have been struggling to understand for the last hundred years. How can money disappear? It wasn't there to begin with."

Tail taps a case, pointing at a bodysuit made out of what looks like paper-thin silver chain cut into diamonds. "That looks remarkably uncomfortable. What is it?"

"A gift from the Spider people of 'Orchid.' Husk sister of Tusken I think gave us that one," the elf boy explains.

Charlit elaborates, "It is a personal cloaking device."

"I have a pair of PJs. That look a lot like this."

Charlit laughs. "I would be willing to bet your nightgown isn't infused with

Uranium-235 with polygraph lead and nickel."

"No, mine is 60-40 cotton and nylon," Tail jokes around.

The elf adds to the remark, "Disappointingly, this is actually highly volatile. When exposed to copper and oxygen it triggers a cataclysmic event of rapid expansion. The uranium cell expels outward rapidly dividing, devouring all oxygen cells within 2,500 yards at the speed of light . . ."

Tail finishes, "Resulting in an explosion equal to a 350 megaton fission bomb!?"

The alien and the elf reply together, "Yes!"

Charlit carries on, "And that's why we're not allowed to remove it from the vault."

"So what are these 'things' anyway?"

"The Orchid you mean? They're a culture of hunters." The elf boy pulls out a mask seemingly made of steel with two long straw-like appendages coming out of the bottom, similar to a elephant's trunk, three growing out the back, and what looks like a hairdryer sticking out the front. "Silent killers, they favor stealth over power. They will use their cloaking armor to move in close to their prey." He lifts up a titanium spear with an ax head on one side and a trident on the other. "Impale their food, then decapitate it. They will then preserve the head as a trophy of valor and vomit on the body to cause it to rapidly decompose and drink the remaining fluids through these tendrils for sustenance." He points at the hairdryer as he speaks of vomit and the straws for drinking.

"Yummy." Tail looks mildly disturbed as the scholarly elf explains. "What is this thing?" Tail points at what looks like a flashlight cast in platinum with wing-like shapes coming out of the bottom forged in gold.

"Tell you what," Charlit slaps her on the butt. "If you can figure that out, you can keep it. A knight from Leathander named Arcanine traded us that for three months' rations. As far as I can tell, whatever that is supposed to do . . . it doesn't."

The elf boy hands her the tool; Tail looks at him. "Did you give me your name?"

"No, I don't think I did. It's Amerant."

"Thanks, Amerant." Tail accepts the gift. "Leathander?" Tail looks at Charlit.

"Did you see the white-feathered humanoids with the pink yellow plumage?" Tail makes an understanding sound. "They are the denizens of Leathander. They call themselves Taresours."

"Got it." Tail nods. "And what do they say this is?" "It is the side arm of a Surathein knight," Amerant explains.

"So what is a Surath that they should need knights?" Tail asks.

"Politicians, noblemen, scholars. The Suratheins are guardians that employ powers much like your Richard Blake's: telepathy, clairsentients, telekinetics, mind control," Charlit answers.

"And this is a secondary weapon in case mind control doesn't do the job?"

Amerant cuts in, "More like a third. Their secondary weapon would be two swords joined by an elbow somewhat like a Nogenata (Samurai twin-bladed spear)."

"It will take me the rest of my life to come to terms with all of this." Tail's phone starts ringing. "Whoops, looks like the big lady is calling. Gotta run." Tail pockets the unknown interment instrument and departs from the company of Charlit and Amerant.

Tail loses a good deal of time as she tries to find her next destination, a dungeon-like area in the lowest reaches of the estate. She thinks to herself as she is walking, This __looks like where they brought_ me_ for--processing. I wonder why I'm back here.

Joe Dove approaches Tail, having tracked her down. Tail peers at him queerly; Dove is grinning just a touch too wide and is swinging his cane a little too far as he walks and is standing not quite straight enough. "Tail!" He wraps an arm around her. "The field guys just brought us something new to look at."

"Oh good, I get to pretend to be a paleontologist again." Joe pushes Tail along with him as he briskly walks into a laboratory. "This is where you had that 'Black Hole' with teeth yesterday." Tail looks about. "You got it really clean."

The window that Joe leads Tail to contains an insectoid with a flat head, no visible optical nerves, no audible; it has four functioning appendages and seemingly two more nonfunctional. It's hands end in scythe-like shapes and its mouth has three joints, allowing it to open larger than its head. It has four sets of fangs and the roof of its mouth is lined with scaled teeth that attach to muscles that roll side to side to grip and tear. It has a spined tail that has a pincer on it, not indifferent from a vice.

"Holy fuck!" Tail yells as the monster seems to feel her presences, and it jumps at the window to grab at her fruitlessly. "What the hell is that?! As if the name would mean anything to me I asked," Tail stutters.

"You think that is fun. Watch this." Joe presses a key on a remote he is carrying; a section of wall slides over to reveal a second room where a nearly identical monster is waiting. This second one lacks the scythes but has wings growing off its arms.

The two giant bugs walk toward each other, and as their bodies brush one another, they synergize. The first grows wings, the second an extra set of arms with bladed hooks. "Well, they're Xenon-co-dependent, likely hive-minded, obviously carnivorous. Maybe Mesozoic in descent. That first one looked like a blottodae, the other a culicidae, now they're both Anisoptera . . ." Tail starts talking to herself inaudibly.

Joe leans in uncomfortably close, planting his hand on Tail's hips, whispering into her ear, "Do you think they're useful?" Tail spins to face him with a look of shock and panic as the voice was wrong; it was deep and growling, a voice like no human has. Tail's eyes leap side to side for a moment as she thinks hard about what the words she has just heard might mean.

"I'm going to go know." Tail dashes away.

Joe folds his arms, grinning as he watches Tail flee. "We will talk again soon, bitch," he growls. "Till then keep wagging those tails, baby," he whispers to himself, his attention turned downward.

Tail runs all the way back to her room; she slams the door behind her, still confused by what has come to pass. "That wasn't Joe, but how . . . how come I didn't sense it wasn't him? I know right away that von Richton wasn't . . ." She marches forth and yells at her computer, "Run newest wave files." Her computer complies and music begins to play starting with Aerosmith's "Dream on." Tail drops her new toy on the bed followed by herself.

Even when Tail was living in the tower with Marks, she was unnaturally adept at understanding concepts, even the ones bizarre in nature. Marks found that quantum physics suited his way of thinking and so passed his ideas onto Tail; she grasped easily. "The observer theory, the act of looking at something gives it absolute value in space, attachment theory, objects in space created simultaneously are inexplicably connected to one another, entwinement, the idea that objects are alienated from each other is subject to controversy. It is possible for two objects to occupy the same space simultaneously, and in fact multiple objects may even appear as one wall. Entwined hints at the apparition of mind sharing a single spark of notion."

Tail ponders obscurities to calm her mind as she begins disassembling the gift she acquired. She pulls out a set of electrician's tools and carefully begins prying the pieces apart. She stops partway down as things seem to become clear. "A nautical geometer?" She turns her head upside down, looking into the heart of the device with one eye. "A metronome? LED?" She rolls the head of the device in her hand. "A prism?" She find two pieces of quartz holding the pendulum still; carefully she removes them. "Light enhanced reverberation, photon drive?"

Tail looks inside the casing, finding an inscription: "The dawn 'I' bring onto the world atop a chariot fire." Tail pauses. "Dawn-bring-er, . . . Dawnbringer, a name maybe?" She reassembles the parts with the quartz removed, and as she rolls it in her hands, a blade forms out of white light. It narrows into a long thin Chinese's dancing blade. "Sweet!" Tail swings around her new toy for a bit, playing with it.

The evening rolls on; Tail is ready to call it a night when there is a knock at the door. Tail's ears rise as she make her way to the door. She hides her Light Bringer in her deep front pocket. She takes the handle and twists it halfway; the door jars open, pushing Tail back. Dove strides into the room, wrapping one hand around Tail's neck, forcing her head up.

"Kitsuna!" he roars; Tail staggers toward the large armchair in the room. Tail twists her body slightly and plants one foot hard into the ground; she rolls her shoulder and throws one arm over Dove's. Twisting in a quarter circle, she breaks free of his grip and in fact reverses the grip pinning his arm under hers. Tail leans forth to throw the elderly man over her hip, but the so called Watcher has both skill and luck as he grips her by the back of the head and thrusts her into the ground.

Tail snarls and jabs her elbow back into the monster as he lies atop her, rolling him off to the side. Tail rolls her legs up and goes to leap to her feet. Dove reveals his true self as he melts in a demonic metamorphose. Joe Dove is the demon England. In his twisted form as Tail stands, he grips her leg and her belt dragging her onto all fours. He laughs and extends his tongue in an unnatural way, slurping the side of her face.

One of England's hands shifts into a claw with nail-like fingers pinching her cheeks and holding her by the nose; he grips her lower belly with his other hand in a similar hooked fashion. England's neck stretches as he touches his face against hers; he whispers to her. His teeth are a flesh yellow and curl in like shark teeth; his breath smells of decomposition, and his voice is deep and groaning. "Kitsuna, I need you," he whispers, one clawed finger brushing over her crotch, creeping down, almost tucking between her legs, scraping the fabric of her jeans. "I am going to kill Von Richton. I need you to help me."

Tail wiggles her head, trying to look at the monster; he squeezes her nose in protest. "And why would I want to do that?"

The hand between her legs moves slightly down more; Tail growls and tries to push the demon off her, but his strength exceeds hers. "Humans are trash, but yet somehow they overpowered you and I, Kitsuna. We deserve revenge. We are powerful, we are everlasting, we are holy, we should rule over these monkeys, not wait on them."

"And what if I feel otherwise?" Tail starts to reach for her pocket with one hand. England snickers at her as he drills one finger into her scalp just enough to draw blood and starts to grope her lips through her pants. Tail's eyes shoot down, England's animalistic impulse being just what she had hoped for as a distraction. She drops the Light Bringer under her arm and activates it. The blade slides smoothly between her arm and her chest and deep into his ribs. England falls off Tail, gasping. Tail leaps to her feet; flipping the blade about, she points it at him.

"Why, Kitsuna? Why not help me? Why forsake your proud name for the life of a dog?"

"Because I'm not Kitsuna. I'm Tail."

The monster lies at her feet for a long moment, both combatants considering their next move.

"How did I mistake you for Joe anyway?"

"I am a Baatezu. I can be anyone I want to be." Blood pours from the wound thick and black as tar hissing and bubbling as it oozes onto the floor; it has a ranking stench to match.

"Why are you calling me Kitsuna?" Tail's hand starts to lightly tremble under the weight of the mythical blade in her hand.

England takes notice; a curl finds his lip, and he chokes on a laugh. "Are you not Kitsuna? I had a cousin born in Canein, the seventh valley of ice in my homeland of Phlegethos. She looked just like you. Kitsuna is what we called people born there: with the wide eyes, the sleeky fur, the fluffy tails all nine of them. And most of all the lighthearted curl to your lip that hides your killer nature."

Tail is distracted; she fails to notice the blood has stopped flowing. The wound in England's chest is mending, and neither of them seem to notice the visitor watching from the door.

"So that feeling me up gig, do people find that romantic where you're from?"

"Yes, back in Phlegethos that is how everyone shows their affections."

"Well, forgive me for not apologizing. What about those xenomorphs? That is your plan for them?"

England removes one hand from his ribs and it shifts into a jagged spear. He lunges up at Tail with a bloodcurdling cackle. With the slightest flip of her wrist, Tail knocks the spear away, and she stumbles off to one side to duck his next attack. England's other hand become a rake, swiping from the other side. He is back to his feet in the blink of an eye.

"Well, it seems you heal pretty fast." Tail giggles nervously. One claw reaches for Tail; she fumbling spins her Light Bringer and clips off two fingers. England comes in for yet another strike. Tail is nearly defenseless as she can find no solid footing.

The visitor from the door interjects; he is a short, plump-looking man with dark skin in an orange and black suit that only looks proper on a native African. He has a pair of glasses he doesn't wear so much as balance on his noise. He holds a silver ordainment between them, placing it to England's nose; the symbol is in the shape of a knife with two snakes circling it, facing one another. "I would say that is quite enough out of you," he commands the demon.

England looks even more bestial than ever; his eyes look a broken red, even narrower and more soulless than before. He stands hunched over, glaring at the holy symbol--hands bent into hooks, his gaze locked.

England tries to sidestep the old wizard; his opposition matches his movement, holding him at bay. This carries on for several minutes before England loses his patience and twists his coat about his body, vanishing through the door.

"I would say you just earned yourself some coffee." Tail looks amazed by what has transpired.

The old wizard tucks his hand in his sleeves, hiding the holy symbol. "Forgive me, I have been rude. My name is L. Gallard. I heard the commotion form my room and . . ." He motions to the door.

"Thank you," Tail cuts him short as he hesitates to finish his statement. "But how did you . . ." Tail makes a similar gesture of confusion.

L. Gallard makes his way into the kitchen, following Tail. "Mr. England is a demon as his name suggests, and so he believes that my little toy has the power to . . . send him home. Life in captivity is not ideal for anyone, but life as a beggar here is still better than the life of a prince where he was born."

Tail presents L. Gallard with a cup of coffee, then sets herself with a cup full of coffee beans "El, so what sort of world is England from? Is hell really hell?" L. Gallard holds up his hand to shush Tail.

"My name is not El, nor is it Al, or even Eli. It is L. Gallard, nothing less." He shakes his head and lowers his hands. "And thank you." He picks up his cup. "He is not from hell. He is from what we are calling a demi-plain. It is a mirror-like refection of a nether world. But yes, Phlegethos is that bad. It is a world of starvation where the weak plead for death and salvation, but never do they have it. Night after night, our friend England would die, but with the rise of the sun he would awake again only to live the same life of nothingness yet forth more."

"And what about the infamous Wright Von Richton? Where is she from?" Tail eats a fistful of beans, waiting for L. Gallard to respond, but he never will.

Chapter 10

The SOP

By the order of their leader, the mercenaries El call comrades calm themselves. Mercs make good assets so long as they can be kept under control and control is in art where he comes from.

Chase, the technician on staff, leads El, Lacerti, and the rest of their company down to his offices. "Let me tell you, Boss. I don't like this job at all. Something about our client is off."

"Noted." El keeps it brief.

"I mean, look at the demographics, one Columbine. OK, we've seen them often, and one New Yorker. What city boy without mob or governmental bankrolling has the revenue to pay your fees?"

"Irrelevant. If you have money, want something moved, and don't want to answer questions, you come to me."

Lacerti pipes in, "Has the cargo hit inventory yet?"

Chase nods as he unlocks his office door. "Yes, sir. It housed just under a thousand pounds of Xiroc brand paper and a dozen garbage bags."

"That's disappointing." Lacerti lowers his head, disgusted. "You know I was hoping it was black market hardware again."

El scoffs. "Like we would ever run out. I think we have more guns in storage right now than Siberia."

Chase jokes, "That's what happens when the majority of your friends are Latin drug lords." Chase walks into the office and starts to boot up his PC. Nile shakes her head off and leans over Chase, looking at the antique of a device.

"Is that a Com-64?" Chase nods in agreement of the statement. "Is that OS. a SCMODS?" Again Chase nods to Nile. "Are you running this thing of a hard line?" One more time he bobs his head. "Your computer is like twenty years out of date. A handheld game has equitable processing power to this POS."

"Well, not many people are giving away computers with the ability to hijack government software," Chase tries to defend himself.

Nile spins to face her siblings as well as El and Lacerti. "I can rebuild this thing and make it a hundred times more efficient if you can bring me some parts." She boldly places her hands on her hips, looking almost like a comic book hero.

El looks to his tec. "Is she telling the truth?" Chase hesitates so El makes a call for him. "Right, Nile, Chase will give you whatever you need. Now find me our client."

With speed and grace, Nile rips apart toasters, TVs, and microwaves and begins reassembling in strange-looking ways. She takes a hammer and smashes apart a wall, pulling out phone electrical and even television cable wires. El watches on in intrigue, Chase in horror. Nile's pet monstrosity quickly starts to take shape.

El finds Chase's office claustrophobic and decides to take a seat in the hall outside. The building where Chase had set up shop was once a courthouse and still has most of the furnishings--stained redwood benches, plastic plants in marble planters, and stained glass over the windows; the building is comfortable to say the least.

El sits down hard. He reaches into his breast pocket and withdraws his tape recorder. He lifts his eyes lightly at the sounds of birds outside. Across the way from him, Karin seems to have followed; she sits silent on an identical bench, her hands folded over her lap. Somewhat unsettled, he watches her watch him. The sounds of bird outside becomes louder as do other natural sounds of calming. The drilling and hammering behind them become inaudible. A sweet scent fills the air, and El lowers his head in rest momentarily.

El raises his tape recorder.

"I find myself taking a moment to reflect on myself and the endless miles of road behind me. I loved my mother and hated my father. I hated my home so much so that at fifteen I ran away. Ironic as it is, I use many of the same skill that my father had pushed upon me to find a way to live. I forged myself a identity, crafted a fake SSI, fake birth certificate. My parents hadn't named me David Lay. I made that name up for myself. Why? So I could join the Maurine corp. I wanted nothing more than to be ranked amongst the USMC, the finest group of men to walk on this soil.

"And yet again the thing I hated in my old man became things that were lifesaving in the service. At sixteen, I had the fighting skill to take down men twice my size. I could shoot straighter, run faster, and take more abuse than anyone ever to walk though the recruitment doors or so I was told. I was a regular terminator.

"The service was everything I hoped it would be, but better. For the first time in my life, I felt a real since of camaraderie. For my first six months, I was a stone-faced ghost in the crowds, then came Private Arian E. Presley. A Texan, he had short greasy hair and a vibrant way of talking. God only knows why he chose to talk to me. Arian liked to dance and sing. I remember he took some tools from the station to assemble his own trashcan guitar that he played for your unit more than once.

"Arian as far as I could tell marked the first days of Vietnam, and only a week after his arrival came my first deployment. (Arian's time in the service was short. He was sent home with a hip injury shortly after our arrival over enemy soil. Shot in the back while transporting a wounded comrade.) As for me, my first mission ended with me labeled MIA. I spent time in a Vietcong camp. I spent four weeks submitted to what the cong called torture (easiest four weeks of my life). It wasn't long after that I met Lacerti for the first time as my partner.

"I was chained to a chair at the time with a bag over my head and a car battery hanging from my nut sack. So I couldn't see what was going on around me, only hear it. The sounds all around me were sounding not so different than that of a full-scale assault--artillery fire, mortars exploding, the screams of combat, sounds I have become all too familiar with already. The sounds of bone crushing came not long after, then the sound of a blade cutting stone (that is one that took some time to comprehend) and my jailers being crushed by a splattering weight.

"I am freed from my captivity by what I can only have assumed to be the blunt of an allied strike team. When the bag is removed from my head and my dignity thrown back in my face, I see only the colossus Lacerti standing over me in regale splendor, covered in the pulped remains of his enemies in his left hand. He holds me in his right. He brandishes a seven-foot long blade bounded out of silver and wrapped in leather bandings, a tool that would look fine in the hands of a second-century gladiator.

"He tells me that very moment that 'I am now El' and that 'my father was killed in action.' To this day, I still don't know why, but my response wasn't 'we must return home' or 'how did it happen?' My first words to Lacerti were 'It can wait.' There was work for us there still.

"Why am I so full of anger that I can't feel grief? Why do I feel the pain of loss today and not then? I hated my father. I have told myself that more times than I can count. But I attribute my everything to him. And I loved my mother. That part is no lie. But still I hated her cowardice. My father was wicked, and my mother was weak. Now I live as the testament to all that came before me. By day I am strong. By night . . . who am I?

"Am I a ghost? Am I a memory? A man once said to me that there are three great glories in the world: friends, family, and work."

El is scarcely aware of Karin sitting across from him at this point; he is lost in memories.

"Only have assumed to be the blunt of an allied strike team? Was it a strike team?"

El is sprung back to alertness by Karin's whisper. He stares at her for a long moment, studying her, contemplating possible responses. "I assumed so." "Was it a strike team?" she asks again.

"I didn't see any evidences of a team."

"Lacerti came to your rescue alone. You also never did ask about your father's death, did you?"

El looks aggravated. "My father was a man of honor. He died nobly . . ."

"Your father was the victim of human sacrifice. He was betrayed and murdered by one of his clients. The client walks free . . ."

"Stop it!" El demands, not wanting to know more.

"Lacerti chased him down but could not kill him. You met the killer in fact just the other day."

El has no calm left; his voice is filled with fire, his eyes with rage "What do you mean Lacerti couldn't kill him?"

"Lacerti has encountered this man a half dozen times in the past. He is Lacerti's polar opposite. He is Adam Crow. He is a harbinger to the void and he is a blighter.

Where he walks, oblivion follows."

"Why?!" El commands, placing his hands at Karin's sides.

Karin's eyes drop. "Maybe it's not that he can't. Maybe it's that he won't." El's eyes turn to Karin's neck; thoughts of murder intrude upon his mind. "Ask him yourself," Karin whispers to him. "Ask him 'who killed your father.' Ask him, 'Who is Adam Crow?' He will tell you." El turns away, crying out a whale of frustration.

El storms out to the street in search of his partner. Lacerti has found his way out to the phone switch box with Nile. Nile is down on all fours, her tail up as she is working on rewiring the box; Jude has also followed. He and Lacerti alike have their heads tipped, watching Nile in amusement and confusion.

El grabs the giant's arm to twist him about; El is a powerful man but is devoid of the power to perform this task. Lacerti plays along, facing his friend. "You, me, bar now. Move it, Soldier." Lacerti grunts and shrugs, following along.

* * *

El finds his table; it is empty as always. No one but he, his partner, and his father have sat at this table in four decades. El calls out to one of his workers,

"Double, I'm not taking any more calls today, and bring me a tall cold one!" "Russian?" Double asks.

"Virgin, hard on the ice."

"Anything for you, Colonel?"

Lacerti takes a seat and lifts his head in ponder. "Hmm. Two Shooters, a Cilia, Hot Saki, and keep it coming." Lacerti places his hands on the back of his head and stretches out, waiting to hear what El has to say. "What's on your mind, David?"

"Karin."

"She is cute, isn't she? Thinking it might be time to hang up your keys and leave the driving to a younger lot?" Lacerti smiles at the thought. "You know most of the 'El's' call it quits a bit sooner than you are."

"Shut up! She was talking about Michel Lay."

Lacerti groans uncontrollably. "My former partner."

"My father was labeled KIA? Was that the case? Did he die on a job?"

Lacerti pulls back on his first drink, then snaps for Double to get him a refill. "Your father had a weakness that you do not share. He made a lot of friends and a lot of the wrong kind of friends. And it was one of his own that turned him over to his enemies."

El folds his hands and leans onto the table. "Who? Why?"

"Why now?" Lacerti leans off to one side lax, taking another round of drinks as he waits for El's next remark. "It's been close to thirty years, I think."

"It seem you remember fairly clearly." El's eyes sharpen to a bladed star. "Who is Adam Crow?"

The inquiry is startling to Lacerti; he thinks hard and deep, searching his emotions for an answer. "If you want to know what Adam Crow is, you first must understand where _it_comes from. That won't be easy."

"Try me."

"El, you are analytical, methodical. You believe in what you can see. You're not fooled by illusions and trickery easily, and that is why I don't expect you to understand what I am going to say. I know that this will shake the foundations of the world as you know it."

"Spare me the theatrics," El orders.

"In a place before time, in a world without memory, there was only 'the Nothing.' The world was perfect in every way. Never was it hot, never was it cold. Nothing steered in the night. For Nothing was all there was, as was Nothing all that is. In this place outside of reality, for reasons unknowable the Nothing began to feel, and its feelings took shape. Within the heart of Nothing, a tree was reared--a tree with two root systems mapping what would become the elemental directions in four-dimensional space.

"Now with feelings in place, dreams soon followed and the dreams manifest into a gardener, a lonely entity, that cared for the tree of elements, and the gardener gave the tree her name, Yggdrasil. The gardener called out to the Nothing and pleaded, 'I am lonely, Mother.' The Nothing saw this to be true and took the blood and the body of the gardener and gave him two brothers.

"Soon from the tree a fruit dropped, and as it fell it become a great serpent. Into the darkness, the serpent would fly, and when it returned from the deeps of the nothing, it returned with an egg. Placing the egg at the heart of Yggdrasil, the egg turned to stone, and when the stone grew around the base of the tree, gravity was born.

"Now the brothers took their names. The gardener become the sources of all light and would be called henceforth onward Laus-deu-O. The youngest brother reached into the earth and became one with the art of creation. His name become Filius-mammon. The last brother saw the fruits in the tree and felt the power of life rising from within, and he became the embodiment of life Sal-la-day-namO. The brothers gave the great serpent a name as well. She is Chaos.

"Chaos flew again into the depths of the Nothing and returned with another egg, and this one she placed within the eye of darkness and the stars were born.

"The brothers reached into the fruits of Yggdrasil and began to extract the essences of existences and reality: water, fire, wind. With each fruit, they grew greater, becoming more like the Nothing. And then they found a human heart within the tree. This power would give the brothers and the great serpent the power to give life, just as the tree created the snake and the Nothing created the gardener. With the power followed a powerful question. 'After we have created life, how do we manage life? Do we give them the power of agency as we have? Do we let them dream? Will they partake of Yggdrasil as we do?' Laus-deu-O asked his brothers.

"'We are not equal to our father, so it is "his way" that the son worships his father,' Filius-mammon explained.

"'I won't have it,' Sal-la-day-namO commanded.

"Laus-due-O looked at his brother. 'So what would you do?'

"'We will give our children everything we have. They will command fire, they will own the water, walk on the air . . . and we will give them more. We will sleep and they will be the keepers of our home.'

"Mammon was infuriated by this, and he turned his magic on his brother, bathing him in flames. Sal-la-day-namO denied this attack and countered with a wave of light. Mammon wrapped himself in darkness to hide from the light. Their cosmic powers collided meaninglessly for times untold.

"The Nothing was aggravated by their squabbling and called into being three women, judges for the gardener and his brothers. They were the fates; each was one-third of a person but together they could become greater than that of the brothers.

"Bashaba, with black skin and black hair, saw only sin, Timora with skin of gold and hair of silver knew only forgiveness, and Tesselhorn was half of each. She was balanced. The fates passed their first decry. 'Gods may not use their divine influence against one another.' Then after hearing the root of the argument their second 'all intelligent life would be given the opportunity to live with or without divine intervention. The living would have to choose for themselves whether or not to live in the shadows of the gods,' and so it was that man and mankind found their way to earth and thousands of other world like it.

"At first the brothers tried to cheat the fates. They appeared before men in human skins or in the form of the elements. The fates were not amused and passed their third decry. 'The gods will fall subject to the ruling of dominion. They could only walk where they have walked before. Only when invited before a man may they speak to the man, and their magic will only be granted by their worshippers. As for touching the living, that is right out. A god would never again fall subject to material desires.' Sal-la-day-namO found this unacceptable and so discarded his godhood in order to live amongst the beasts and men he loved so deeply.

"The brothers were devastated by the loss of one. Laus-due-O reached into Yggdrasil, calling forth all the strength he could muster, willing into existence hundreds of petty gods and goddesses to fill the void of power left by the lost brother, and then he slept. Maybe he is still sleeping. The petty gods constructed a great glass kingdom in the honor of their father that they called Tamriel.

"Filius-Mammon then alone in Yggdrasil found himself driven to the brink of madness. He confronted the fates, commanding that they had outstretched their limits. The fates cast out the vengeful god. The brothers were then none. Mammon did not sleep, and he did not die. He plotted as only a god could. With time not a concern, he called out to the Nothing and became a part of it once more. The Nothing was tented by Mammon's anger. Mammon became the beast called Cravixs, and the Nothing became two beings--the Alpha and creation on one side, then Omega the void on the other. At last there was a start and end to the universes and time was born."

"Adam Crow is the physical body of the void. He is Filius-Mammon in the flesh.

And he is most responsible for the deaths of your family," Lacerti monologues.

El looks blank for a moment. "I don't believe it."

"I didn't think you would. El, you are taking your first steps into a world far larger and darker than you can imagine. The story doesn't end there either. The battle between night and day was just coming into swing with the fall of Mammon and the birth of Cravixs. Chaos saw what was coming to pass and tried to take measures to minimize the damages. When she noticed the Nothing was ill she ate from Yggdrasil. She then called into being tens of thousands of eggs with which to try to fill the Nothing in hopes that her gift of creation could heal its wound, but she exhausted herself.

"The fates understood what the great snake was attempting to do and so sent out the petty gods to protect the serpents' eggs. But seeing that between them, they had not the power to stop the cancer from spreading, they instead cut out the infected portion, then placed a wall between them to see to it that they could not become one again--"

El cuts him off, "That is just ridiculous." Lacerti has acquired a pile of drinks around him. EL's drink remains untouched. "What is a petty god anyway? And this wall? What was it made out of?" El seems strangely interested.

Lacerti waves for another round of drinks. "Petty gods are elemental. When they're doing their jobs, you don't even see them. They are emotions. They are wind and water. They are changing sessions, hunting animals. They make you age at the right speed, tell you that you're hungry, thirsty, horny. Everything you see in a day is there because the petty gods put them there. Now when one does something they're not supposed to, that is when someone will take notice. When humans burst into flames, that is a petty god playing a joke on someone. Same with if rocks bleed, mirrors don't reflect, and when it snows in the desert.

"As for the wall, it is made up of souls. All the dead from all the worlds awaiting judgment stand as a wall, keeping the worlds apart. But the fates aren't stupid. They thought, What __if we need to move_ between_ the worlds? How could __we do that and leave_ the_ wall intact at thesame time? So they placed holes in the wall, big enough for them to pass through but not the void, 'the pillars of reality,' a dozen objects on each world that when brought together would allow the fate in or any other god to manifest. Then they assigned messengers, humans and animals that would become the mouthpieces of the gods, allowing them to speak with one another and with us without the need to abandon their native elements.

"That would be where things went irreversibly astray. Cravixs saw that the door swings both ways. When a god moves, he could stick his toe in the door and look on into the other side. This allowed Cravixs to mimic the fates' technology, or whatever you would call it.

"So now there is a evil god strolling about the edges of reality with boundless power. He can do anything that fates could do and more, and for him it doesn't require three casters to summon his power."

El creeps in closer. "So what does it require?"

"The sources of the god's power come from two directions. First there is worship so long as you know a god's true name and call it out. You give the gods permission to access your thoughts and dreams. Dreams have remarkable power. Second, Mana, a river, flows out from beneath the Yggdrasil tree and its water touches all of Chaos's eggs and gives them life. The water penetrates all of us, giving us each a power unique to us all. Man and god alike partake of Mana, all things great and small. When we rest, the water fills us." Lacerti leans in nose to nose with El. "But if you are a blighter like Adam Crow is, you can steal the Mana from others to heal yourself."

"Need one die in order to do this?"

"No, not if you take only a sip of life away from one like in the case of the redheaded biker the other day, but if you take all of it, then your victim ages to death instantly." El is left speechless by the story. "And to that end, I would like to say something. El, we have been together for a long time and I'm thinking soon . . ." El's phone begins to ring, EL holds up his hand in the stop gesture. Lacerti freezes mid-sentence.

"Didn't I say no phone calls, Double?" The voice on the other end explains that Nile has found "the client."

"I understand."

* * *

Jude is joined with Nile and Chase in the computer room. Nile leans forward, her forearms on her crossed legs. "Chase, who is El?"

Chase removes one of his pairs of glasses and wipes them on his over shirt. "That depends on who you're asking. I think El is a lunatic. Ten years ago he sprung me from prison. He offered me a new life as what you see today. In exchange for my freedom I was asked to forget my identity."

Jude looks at him. "Why were you incarcerated to begin with?"

"I did something stupid. I played a little joke on Manhattan Island. Some of my high school buddies and I remotely shut down the power grid and threatened to do the same thing to the water filtration plant if the governor didn't pay us five--$550,000. We were bluffing. The filtration plant was interlocked. We needed to shut it down from the inside. The governor sent a goddamn headhunter after us. School boys like me talk a good talk, but we are no match for Special Ops--against. One of my friends got a bullet in the ear. Another got his hand shot off. I pissed myself and surrendered without a fight. A week or two later, here comes El saying,

'Come with me if you want to live.' Now here I am. I gun for hire."

"Great story, bro." Nile slaps him on the arm playfully. Chase cringes.

"As for complete assholes, I'm not the only one here. Ask Cobra where he came from if you dare."

Jude scratches one of his ears, then turns to focus on Chase once more "When you put it that way, I would rather ask you."

"Did you read that Jenifer Taller story in the paper a handful of yours back? If you did . . ." Chase nudges his head off to the side. "He's that guy."

Nile grips Jude by the arm as she leans in to explain, "Three-time sex offender Richard Enrick escapes from prison during a power outage in the dead of winter. He runs barefooted fifteen miles to a suburban household where he breaks down the door and adds murder and child molestation to his riot act. Cops show up to pick him up in the middle of the act. Somehow neither he nor the cop car ever find their way back to the station."

El and Lacerti show up and interrupt the storytelling. "Stop scaring the kid," El orders. "What did you find?"

Nile spins in several circles in her chair. "Officer Dwight Reddog Egget with the NY security enforcer's office. I also found his criminal record, credit card number, and home address."

Chase looks up at El, disappointed, knowing well he couldn't have done half of that in the allotted time. "We also came up with his driver's license number and SSI."

"He is in Harlem, New York," Nile adds.

"Outstanding!" El compliments. "But how?" "I hijacked the department of welfare's data base." "The DOW has that much intel?" El asks.

"No, but once I had his name, it wasn't that hard of a trick to look up banking records."

El ponders for only a moment as to his next action. "What about the Cuban?"

Chase shakes his head. "Haven't found 'em yet."

"Lacerti, grab our provisions, meet me at the garage." El departs swiftly.

* * *

El stands at the mouth of the garage; Lacerti steps up moments later, carrying a backpack and two army class duffle bags. El looks down for a moment and stares at the miscellaneous bag. "What's in there?"

"My box lunch."

"Afraid we'll run out of salted nut rolls?" It's clearly a joke. "Anyway, what should we drive today?"

Lacerti looks about the hundreds of cars and truck in storage. "How about the 350?"

"We're going to Harlem. I think an armed forces emergency rescue vehicle may look out of place."

"H1?"

"Counting on us coming under ballistics fire?" El sounds appalled. "I was thinking more like the Caddy."

"I don't want to ride in the trunk."

"I see your point. Wind Star maybe."

"It's Harlem, not Palm Springs. Besides we haven't changed the SCU since the

Detroit job."

El nods. "You're right. Let's take the Ram."

The two nod together, choosing to drive a half-ton utility truck with topper.

* * *

The drive is short which the two have made hundreds of times together. They stop halfway to change into their combat gear, hiding their armor and weapons under their street clothing. El comes to a stop half a block from their destination.

He rubs his eyes and groans furiously.

Lacerti reaches over and takes his arm. "El?"

"I'm all right. It's that same head pain I've been having since we left the bar." El looks around the streets of the community they're in. There is a caged-in basketball course with eight young men playing a game on it, and a car set up on cedar blocks with an old man in overalls under it, working. There seems to be a man on his front steps with a hibachi, handing out hot dogs to passersby. "Lacerti, look around and tell me what do you see."

"Looks like a tight place. It's going to be hard to hit this guy without being seen. What is your plan?"

El rubs his neck, thinking. "I think I'll have to go with the 'devil in gray' routine."

"I thought you didn't like that game, psychological warfare and all."

"I don't. But once I'm in, I figure I have around ten minutes to pull this off before cops start showing up and we're looking at a bloodbath. I don't want to have to blast my way out of here like last time."

Lacerti nods again and grunts. His eyes roll off to the side, and he points at a conveniences store. "The tall glass of water at the till with the knitted cap, isn't that our target?"

El grabs a pair of binoculars from the backseat and looks where Lacerti points. This time it is El that grunts in agreement. "It looks that way. I'll go off ahead and set things up. Set the radio to walkie-talkie. I'll send you two clicks every five minutes as in 'all clear.' If I fail to check in, you know what to do." EL jumps out of the truck, throwing the goggles in back once more. He pauses a moment, thinking he has heard an alien sound at that very moment but shakes himself off, continuing on his way.

Lacerti calls out a reminder to him, "Game time."

El agrees in echo, "Game time." The friends part ways in preparation for the grisly work ahead. Lacerti makes his way behind their target's den, El for the fire escape to the rusty-looking building.

* * *

Dwight's house is modest; he is a simple man with simple interests. His kitchen is small with no fancy tools--just the necessities: a grill, a pile of pans, and some cooking oil. By the look of things, he eats noodles for most of his meals. He has a trash can that is of the ilk you would see in a toolroom. His living room consists of a TV that looks like it was fished out of a garbage dumpster and a couch to match. He has no dining room. Hanging from the walls are a number of sports memorabilia; El's assumes he likes hockey.

El arrives at the fourth-floor suite with a short time to set up. El takes a knife from his coat and sets it on the kitchen counter in easy view, then coats the bathtub with liquid soap. At last, he reaches into his inner pocket, taking a moment to make certain his gloves are firmly attached to his hands, and withdraws a four-foot length of titanium cable tied around a set of hon-bo (two-foot long sticks smoothened and fire treated, used as a farming interment during the Chin dynasty). El coils the wire around itself, forming a loop. He hides behind the door to the bedroom, gripping this wire in both hands.

Dwight walks in, discarding his sweater; his eyes lock onto the knife on the counter. El peers at him through a crack in the door; he looks unnaturally jittery. Dwight crawls along the wall to his bedroom, feeling around on his belt for his sidearm as if he were unaware he wasn't carrying it. Dwight isn't a step and a half into the room before El ties the wire around his neck. Dwight gasps and falls to his knees, grabbing at the cable adhered to his esophagus. He gags as the wire easily cuts into the sides of his tender throat, sending a thin stream of blood down his sides.

"Howdy, Mr. Dog?" El taunts his prisoner. "Do you know what titanium cable is?" El starts to pull him backward. Dwight's feet kick at the ground, following El's movement, struggling not to let the wire cut any deeper. "It is a fabulous tool really. Musicians use it to create one of the most high-pitched and delicate sounds you will ever hear." He kicks open the bathroom door. "Stone masons also call on the same tool to cut clay more cleanly than any other tool on earth possibly can. Even the CIA and Black Ops have found uses for it. It's light weight and thin enough that you can hide it within the inner lining of your boots. One could saw through led pipes if need be." El loops the wire around the shower head. He tugs hard on the wire to force Dwight to stand tall.

El slaps him on the chest. "You look a bit uncomfortable. Let me give you a hand." He slides two thin wedges of wood around his neck; it slightly relieves the pressure, allowing him to breathe normally. El jumps up and seats himself on the sink in the room. "What do you weigh? 210, 225? Give or take."

Dwight locks his knees and holds himself as still as possible, noticing the bathtub glazed with soap. "200 flat."

El draws his Jackal. "That's bullshit, but it doesn't matter. A group of contract killers during the age of the Hun carried serrated iron rope, not so dissimilar from the one around your neck. They called their weapon Tet-Sie-Ga. It was meant to be used to break away their opponents' armor. But it was found if say sixty or more pounds of force was applied, it would cut apart bone and flesh. If the head was struck, it would only require twenty pounds of force and it would slide between vertebras, slicing off the head. Truly, it is far cleaner than using a traditional hemp rope. So watch your footing."

"What's going on here, man?"

"We are going to play a game. You are going to sing me a song about sex, money, and betrayal." EL cocks his gun. "If you sing off-key, I'll let you know."

Shock and fright have robbed Dwight of his breath; he points and whimpers, "if this is a game, then there needs to be a way for both players to win. There needs to be rules, right?"

"There are always rules: if you scream, you lose, if you touch that wire over your head, you lose, and of course if you die, you lose . . ."

"How do I not lose?"

"I start asking questions. if you answer all of them before time runs out, You win."

"how many do I need to answer?"

"Timer has already started, Mr. Dog. Let's begin." EL attaches a suppresser to his Jackal. "First question: Have you ever had any kids, Mr. Dog?"

In a panic he yells out, "Yes!"

El fires his Jackal into the upper-right corner of the room, spilling debris into the room. "You are wrong twice, Mr. Dog. You have no children nor have you ever had any children. If you do not understand the question, ask for clarification. Question two: before today have you ever seen the weapon I am now holding in my left hand?"

"Juan Sanchez! That is the gun he bought at the art fair last spring. He gave it to you."

"Correct. Third question: Why are the two of us here and not at the extraction point previously discussed?" Dwight starts to waver in places slightly. "Mind your footing. Try to remember that you're on the heavy end of 'chop your own head off.' Thank you."

"The computer doctor Karingson hid in the back of the truck. He came looking

for it."

"Correct . . ." El's eyes change slightly; he narrows he gaze trying to decide if he heard what he thought he heard. "Karingson?"

"The head of Research and Development at the tower. He made some new computer. He asked Juan and I to hide it. Then he came hunting us down. But it wasn't him. It was someone wearing his skin."

El jumps to his feet. He holds the gun forward threateningly; his eyes look like stone, his hand steady and true. El is a killer, Dwight knows it; he has seen this more than once. "You're not going to shoot me, are you?"

"Why not? I have shot lots of people." El cocks the hammer; resolution fuels his desirers. But then El becomes dizzy; his gun becomes heavy and his vision foggy. El starts to strafe, trying to find his balance.

Dwight starts yelling, "Take it easy, man. Calm down!" He starts shouting nonsense, trying to get the attention of anyone that might be nearby.

El sheathes his gun. He unties Dwight's bonds, but does not let him go. He takes Dwight by the neck pulling up on the scruff that he does not have, nearly carrying him in one hand. "You're coming with me, Dog." EL thrusts him out of the apartment and down the fire escape, then on to the street, making his way back to Lacerti, shoving Dwight every step.

El opens the trunk of his truck; he lifts and thrusts against Dwight, rolling him over the lip of the trunk and throwing him in. "Bones round. Open the door you die.

Touch the windows you die, it's a 120 mile to my favorite gas station. Remain still tell then, you get a prize."

Lacerti looks at El, a mildly shocked look on his face. "What?"

"Lacerti, I think I discovered the sources of my headaches." EL walks around to the rear passenger side door. El grabs Karin by the ankles and drags her out onto the street. "I assume you knew about this." Lacerti grunts in protest. He is clearly attempting to mislead El. EL reaches for his Jackal. Karin lies on the ground arms outstretched overhead, knees up, slightly dazed. El breathes heavily for a moment before the sound of sirens in the distance helps him come to consciousness. "Get back in the car."

* * *

Fleeing from the scene of a crime is a matter of speed and discretion; looking like you belong where you are is critical, and looking like you're running is a surefire way of getting caught. Move slow; don't look around. Don't attract attention to yourself; find ways to stay out of sight. The easiest way to do that is to be part of a crowd. You can outrun a man, not a radio. Changing the plates of your car on the fly might be a possibility, and so long as you're not carrying cargo, changing cars is not an unacceptable option.

El chuckles to himself at the simplicity of their escape. Why can'tevery job go this _well?_he finds himself thinking. He turns his eyes to the rearview mirror. "Karin, why did you follow us?"

Her voice resonates from the backseat. "You are thinking about fighting Adam Crow. I can help you."

"How can you possibly know that?"

"She is omnipotent, or at least close to," Lacerti replies.

"Omnipotent! That, my friend, implies an information source just a bit more powerful than Google," EL scoffs.

"David, I need to talk to you. My friend, we need to stop . . ." Lacerti begins.

"Stop, we still have three hundred miles to drive before sundown."

"No, I mean we can't keep going much longer. I'm tired, El, so are you. It's time for you to retire, and it's time for me to go home." "Home?" El asks.

"El, I am a god, well, 25 percent at least that's what Crow meant when he called me a 'Demi'. That being the case I am only allowed to sleep on the ground I was born. I need to leave for Sparta, Greece. Soon."

El sighs heavy-heartedly. "Then there is one thing left for us to do together, assuming I don't think you're full of crap. I want revenge."

"You do want to fight Adam Crow?"

"Can you beat him?"

Lacerti covers his eyes with one hand, thinking. "No," he whispers.

Karin whispers to El, "I can."

Lacerti continues, "Not so long as he has his Avatar."

El comments back on a delayed reaction, "Did you just say that you're a god?"

Lacerti nods. "Well, not completely. Truth be told, Karin's blood is cleaner than mine."

"And you didn't bring this up earlier?"

Lacerti just shrugs. "I really don't see what difference that makes."

"What does it mean to be a god?"

Karin whispers to him, "What does it mean to be human?"

The insistent sound causes El to reach up and rub the side of his head as if swatting at a fly. "Will you stop that?!"

The conversation is interrupted by the flashing of light in the rearview mirror. A sheriff on a motorcycle comes up alongside them, waving them off to the side of the road. El comes to a stop, lowering one hand to the side of his chair. Down by the handbrake, he has hidden what the air force used to call "the ladies' pistol." A small handgun easily concealable within the palm of one's hand, it carries only a single low caliber bullet.

A hairy-looking cop strolls up to the driver side window; he has shaggy hair and a handlebar moustache. He is wearing reflective sunglasses and is chewing strawberry-flavored gum loudly. He knocks on the glass twice, then slaps the side of the car to get El's attention. "Howdy, Andy?" the cop greets El.

Howdy Andy? El thinks. "The safe phrase," this was one of the ideas of El's father. El's father was a recluse and innovative man. Many of his ideas were unpopular amongst the others, but the word of the driver was law. In the twenty years El's father was in charge of the guild, a good deal of underhanded contracts were written, amongst them being a large some of law students, cops, and lawyers being unofficially welcomed into the company. This part-timers were paid to erase criminal records and keep names off the news and out of papers. They identified each other using codes. This man isn't here for any reason other than looking for an advance on his next paycheck.

The sheriff reaches into his pocket and holds up his ID. It reads Larz Lynch. El has seen this ID before; it's a fake. El doesn't know this man personally, but he knows his type. Larz and his ilk aren't like the disciplined solders he has trained; they are more like pickpockets that have a pact with one another. El hides his ladies' pistol up his sleeve and opens the glove box; he reaches in and pulls out an envelope. "Good afternoon, Larz." El hands over the letter.

"I'll tell you, Andy, it has been a hell of a week." He picks up the letter and hides it in his pocket. "I just got a call from a buddy of mine saying he found a goddamned graveyard hidden in the basement of a fucking bar."

"Is that so?"

"I can scarcely believe some of the things that I've been hearing as of late . . ." Larz starts to ramble; El fails to hear it all. El's attention is drawn to the mass number of uncontrollable circumstances around him: Karin in the backseat, Dwight in the trunk. A man that likes to ramble complicates things a good deal, and El hates not being in control.

Larz's eyes turn to the backseat. Time slows for El as he looks at the math: The overwhelming majority of law enforcers only have six week of combat training. Their training also largely reflects drilling. If Larz is the cookie cutter cop he appears, there are a number of things that are likely to be true: First, Larz's gun has a locking device attached to it to prevent it from falling out of its scabbard or being grabbed from front; second, before he draws his gun he will take a step backward. If he is a sharp shooter, he will unlock his gun before back-stepping. He will lift his gun and brace it on his forearm or with his palm. Third, he is going to take three seconds to observe his surroundings before lifting his weapon if there is no visible danger and will offer three warnings before opening fire, if he were a by-the-books type; if not it's a quick-draw competition, Larz's training versus El's experiences. Larz will be dead before he has time to take aim.

"What in the name of Sam's hell is that?" Larz points at the blanked-over Karin's head.

"I found an injured dog. I'm taking it to the shelter on Continteen Boulevard." El lowers his hand slightly, letting his gun hide in his palm; a flick of the wrist and he is ready to fight.

"Show me," Larz demands.

El and Lacerti share a glance. Lacerti nods; El shakes his head. Lacerti reaches for the blanket. Anxiety runs high for El; things are getting complicated. El doesn't like complications. Karin's voice echoes in El's ear; El struggles not to respond. "He won't see me."

With a flick of his wrist, Lacerti unveils a tiny pink-nosed coyote that only Larz can see. Larz laughs. "That's no dog. That's a dingo." Larz slaps the roof of the truck several times. "You wily sons of bitches, get the hell out of here."

El looks back into the backseat as they start to drive again. "I expect an explanation all of this."

* * *

After arriving back at home, El deposits "Mr. Dog" at the garrison to begin training for his new life, then takes Karin to a hidden room behind his bar. It's a tiny room with little more than a table, two chairs, and a mirror in it.

"A friend told me once that if God doesn't pick up the phone when you call you should try the devil," El explains, locking the door.

"what would you like to talk about, El?" Karin's voice whispers.

El spins his chair backward and sits, instructing her to do the same. "Frankly I want to know everything. Like why since I met you has time seemingly been running in reverse?"

"Time's not moving backward, David."

El places his gun on the table. "Say David again and I start taking your digits!"

"I haven't really said anything."

"I noticed!" El rubs his eyes with his thumb and pointer finger. "Every time you don't say something, I get a hard burning sensation behind my eyes."

"So then how should I start?"

El puts one leg up on the table, resting. "How about with, how does it work?"

Karin sets her hands on her lap, fiddling with her skirt. "I make copies of people when I touch them. No, it's not just their memories. It's more like their mind as a whole. I can see their dreams as they're dreaming them. I can feel your feelings. Your every thought thereafter passes through me before entering into you. Yes, it becomes continuous. Lacerti is inside me as we speak. I know what he is doing. I know what he is thinking. Yes, there are limitations. I am bared to my form. What that entails is that I am a girl. However strange I look, I will always be a girl.

Also, I am five feet tall and can simply not mimic the actions of a eight-foot tall man. Just because I know how to do something doesn't mean that I can physically perform." Karin is answering questions before El has time to ask them. "When you touched me at Dwight's house, I copied you too. That part I can't control. So long as skin touches fur, it happens. You're right, there are other ways too, but this is how the strongest link occurs. I can simply establish a mind link as we call it, but that is difficult to maintain. That's what lets me whisper to your mind. I can't create thoughts, and no, I can't control your action. Not completely anyway. I don't know how to do that. I've never tried."

El sits, mouth draped open in complete disbelief of what he is hearing. The water cooler behind him bubbles, and a cup floats over, setting itself before El. El reaches down to take a drink and manages to choke out the words, "Thank you."

"You want to know more about what we are. I can tell you that none of the others are like me. Why? Because unlike Jude or Nile, I was born. I have a mother who gave live birth to me, and more so, I know her name. Tail Vixon gave birth to me at the biological equivalent of twelve years old. In truth, it was closer to five physical years. As for my father, well, I'm sorry to say I have touched no one that knows the name of the man responsible for me. Why didn't Tail know? I'm sorry to say she simple didn't. No, Tail isn't a goddess, and she didn't give emasculated birth. She gave birth the same way as everyone. How would she not know who she was with? Her memories were altered the experience simple removed from her mind. How? The same way Jude and Nile were given artificial memories norcohypnotic-subjection--birth through dreams.

"Jude is a computer, so is Nile. Nile is a relations program. Her function is to analyze data and arraign it in an easily understood format. Jude was made as a composition tool. He supposedly collects information and stores it. It is unclear as to whether or not he is fully functional. The two of them also have a hidden periodical. A self-maintenance and reproduction commands. It has only been proven functional in Tail. The others seem to be suffering from fragmentation. They need Tail to give them the completed program. Have no fear, Tail is safe. And there for, you are seeing the beginning of a new race."

El shakes his head of trying to numb the pain of the mind link. "Will you please stop that?"

"As far as I know, I can't talk."

"At least stop reading my mind. It's very rude. Tell me, what is Lacerti hiding?"

"Honestly? Nothing, it's not a matter of hiding. It is a failure to ask the correct questions."

"Then what do you know about the man that killed my father?"

"Nothing that you don't already. I know that you plan to fight him, or is 'it' the correct adjective ?"

"They're both right. Can we beat him, assuming he really is a god or whatever?"

"If it is three on one, Lacerti's strength, my mind, and your courage? Yes. And yes I will fight. Why? Because I can."

"I told you to stop reading my mind."

"I'm deeply sorry."

El sits up for the better part of two days, letting Karin tell him of all forms of things--the nature of good and evil, philosophies of life and death, the strange world that we chose not to see. It doesn't take long for El to put his gun away and simply lean in, absorbing the mass amounts of information.

At last El stands. "Come on." Karin looks mildly disoriented. "I have a phone call to make, and we need to get ready for work."

"A phone call?"

"I know a guy at the James Randy Academy that I think might be holding some cash for me."

"You're not going to put me on display like a sideshow beast."

Years ago, the JamesRandy Academy for Higher Learning offered the world a challenge. Show up at the headmaster's office and make whatever supernatural claim you want: read someone's mind, raise the dead, spin straw into gold or whatever you can think of. Perform your trick for the headmaster, then again under the observation of the Joint Sciences department, and if your trick works under that scrutiny, you get to go home with one million dollars. No one has claimed the reword yet.

"What's wrong? Can't think of any charities that would appreciate a cash gift?" It's clearly a joke.

* * *

El takes Karin and Lacerti to begin preparations for what is likely to be their last mission--a quest for vengeance, a quest to undo the dishonor of a past life, and ultimately a quest for pride. Karin is given armor to wear under her dress much like the Kevlar vest the others wear, and Lacerti provides her with a set of tonfa (weighted short staves) and a Chinese short sword. El offers her his Jackal; she refuses. Lacerti adds a heavy cleaving sword to his artillery. El brings a string of fragmentation bombs and some choice hand-cannons to supplement his arms in addition to all the ammo he can fit in his pockets. The three are ready for war.

Chapter 11

Broken Messiah

Marks stands atop the Towers; it's early evening. The night is bright; the sky burns with wind and lighting. A wall of rain is strewing in the east. Marks looks to the top of the radio tower. He leaps to its highest point and teeters at its peak, balancing on one foot. The wind is brisk as the rain pours upon him. His eyes close and his arms outstretch into the heavens. The sky opens and a white reflection of Marks falls from the stars and into his outstretched arms.

The air grows heavier as the angelic apparition passes through the metallic devil. As a perfect paradox, the two stand back to back, the metal demon rain-drenched, eyes turned to the sky. The white shadow is cleanly dried and a chalky warm white in opposition to the cold black that is the other, his eyes turned to the ground.

The white angel locks its hands around the demon and whispers to his opposite, "Hello again, Vigeta."

Marks tries to look to his shadow but can't seem to spot him again. "Am I dreaming?" Every movement is matched with equal and opposite one.

"No, you are Vigeta. You are me, as I am you. We are one broken into two. But still we are imperfect."

"I'm finding this hard to believe," Marks replies.

"We are injured. That injury is making it difficult for me to maintain my hold in this world. There is a solution to this problem. I anticipated that this could happen, and so at the time of your birth, I created a partner for you--Nuku."

Marks lifts his head further; his eyes drift close as he thinks back, struggling to remember Nuku . . . her voice, the soft touch of her nose to his face, the slick caress of her back to his hand, the affectionate kiss of her tongue. Yes, Marks remembers Nuku; he remembers her absence from his dreams. At such a time, it seems even a monster can shed a tear of loneliness.

The reflection continues, "If all is as I anticipated, Nuku is waiting for you on level B-6."

Marks looks to the earth that seems miles away. "B-6? That's the overflow lockers. Place is a scrap yard. It would take a man a hundred years to search that place."

The shadow nods. "A man yes, but not you. Nuku will be drawn to you and you to her. Find her, Vigeta. Then we will have our revenge."

"For what?"

"The perversion of a lifetime's worth of work. Have no fear, you will understand soon." The reflection let goes of Marks, and he falls from the tower. Marks makes no attempt to brace himself for impact; instead, he allows himself to fall back to the roof. Somehow, something allows him to land without sound, and with catlike grace, he lands, standing on point like an exquisite French dancer, then lowers himself back onto flat feet. The red of Marks' eyes flares as he looks to the door. A new power begins to flow through him; the false spirit within him still has command, but once again he can hear his own thoughts. Who am I? __What am I? I most_ know!_

* * *

The Canteen is the tower's on-site diner; everyone goes there from time to time. It's fast, it's cheap, and the atmosphere is a far cry from that of the rest of the tower. It's warm, it's quiet. Everyone from sales associates to the executives find themselves gathering around for grilled steaks and ice creams on Friday, and today is that day exactly.

Rhys has chosen to take this opportunity to unveil his department's latest toy. He wheels a dolly with a blanket thrown over it to the table his superiors dine at. Amongst them are Shaun Clawed, the president and owner of the Tower, Allen Wesker, newly appointed head of development, and AC Dem-Row. His position in the tower is unclear to Rhys, but it is clear he holds some power over the others at the table.

"Ladies and Gentlemen!" He pulls down the blanket, revealing a cyborg with rubbery-looking skin and a body that looks like it was chiseled out of stone. It has a handlebar moustache and squared off features. "Tank-6000S !" Rhys jumps excitedly, pointing at his creation.

Shaun is the first to reply as he sits stunned by the sight. "It looks like the governor of Minnesota?"

Allen speaks up next, "And what per say is this, Dr. Rhys?"

"This is Marks," he stutters, "for the most part." He rolls his hand uncomfortably. "Really it's more like a rough draft. We ran mechanical synopses and diagnostics on Number 52757 which was clearly modeled after the T-3.h. With some, let's just say weird modifications, we tried to make a copy of him, of it, but there were, uhmm, things in there we just didn't know what were so made some substations. Number 52757's memory, is, are encrypted in language I simply don't understand, so I had my staff add some simpler protocol systems. We tried to write a logic program. That didn't work so well. We ended up programming him with a defense department tactics network . . ." Rhys trips over his tongue, trying to find a simple way to explain what he has.

Shaun looks confused for a moment. "Why couldn't you make him like Marks?"

Rhys becomes defensive of his work. "Frankly! Marks is . . . was a mad genius, and I can't mimic that! OK, so my robot can't think, it doesn't walk and talk like Marks can. But given my limited parts catalog, at least I came up with something, sirs."

Allen questions, "And what is it you have created?"

"Tomorrow's law enforcement officer."

Dem-Row looks impressed. "You made a toy cop?"

"Well, at the moment, this one is programmed to be more like a bodyguard, but yes that was the idea, with your permission, sirs."

"I still don't get why he looks like that," Shaun adds.

"Well, it was the feeling of myself and the majority of the staff that Jessie Ventura the biker turned civil servant just kind of screams bad ass cop."

Allen throws in his two cents. "What about that Austrian boxer turned soap opera star--"

Rhys cuts him off, "You're talking about 'Mr. Mom.' No, not a chance would I have allowed that."

"Why? It's just cosmetics'."

"When I think security, romance novel heroes just don't come to mind," Rhys argues.

Shaun adds, "He did star in that movie about time travel in the late seventies.

I did like that."

Dem-Row interjects, "On a more important point, did you at least try to find a way to read Marks' code?"

"I asked Officer Summer to go to his flat and look for any notes he may have hidden there."

All eyes turn to the back corner of the half-circle-shaped booth to a middle-aged women with short blonde hair with black and red highlights; she is dressed in a blue blouse and skintight leather biker pants. Dem-Row looks at the toned woman. "Did you see anything of interest at Dr. Karingson's home?"

Summer reaches into her breast pocket and withdraws a notebook. "That would depend on what you consider interesting." She flips through a number of pages looking for her notes. "After entering Dr. Karingson's home, the first thing to catch my eye was a chain drawn across the door that would lead to the second-story stairwell. Also in his living room, there seems to have been a vinyl player. Examining his records, the gist of his collection was made up of Tchaikovsky musicals. The basement was completely empty aside from a hundred pounds of dry cat food. Entering the second floor, the bedroom housed a strange collection of 480 pink plush rabbits, as well as a wall scroll of a dancer with a signature in the lower left corner. It appeared to read: 'The Black Swan, Swan Lake 1978.' In a treasure trunk hidden under his bed, there is an opera mask with long bird feathers flowing down the cheeks and a Tutu cut for a feminine man." Summer closes her book and looks at the group for approval.

Dem-Row leans in. "And the code?"

Summer breathes deep in frustration. "I didn't even see a computer in Dr. Karingson's apartment, nor a TV or a radio or any other electronics outside of his record player."

The small twisted-looking Dem-Row claps his hands on the table and rolls his eyes in irritation. "Mr. Rhys, can we talk in private?"

Rhys nods and mumbles, "Yeah." The old man and the young doctor disappear into the darkness of the bar, leaving the others and the new metal monstrosity behind.

Summer jokes around with the others a bit; the last thing Rhys hears as he is being almost dragged away is "You know, that monster is almost cute."

Dem-Row grips Rhys firmly by the forearm and whispers to him, his voice turning deep, almost inhuman, "Rhys, you are Dr. Karingson's predecessor. That being the case . . . where is Tail Vixon and her child?" Dem-Row's eyes shift to a darkened purple.

"Who?" his voice filled with naivety Rhys whispers back.

Crow struggles to maintain his calm in the face of his so-called friend's incompetence. Being a god, hiding amongst men has one inescapable drawback. No one knows you and no one can hope to understand you. If there were one thing outside of man's betrayal of god that could be accountable for their downfall, it would be the unspeakable loneliness that they must all feel today. Cravixs may have found a remedy for his suffering, at least a temporary one, and the Vixon child is the key.

* * *

Marks wastes no time in finding his way into the lower levels to began his search for his beloved Nuku, but as fate would have it, time is shorter than he would have liked. A voice on the intercom demands his attention in the upper floor labs. "Right now it would be dangerous to let on that I'm aware of the mind control device I was installed with. Best to act normal."

* * *

As Marks returns to his office, he takes note that Rhys is inside, already sifting through stacks of papers; he looks finicky. Marks sneaks in; he folds his hands into a diamond. "Good evening, friend," Marks leans in to whisper in his ear. Rhys screams as he drops what he is doing to face Marks.

He takes a moment to catch his breath, then speaks, "Evening, Marks" Marks reaches around Rhys and begins sorting the piles of clutter Rhys has dropped.

"You seem distressed. Is there any way I may be of assistance?" Marks rolls his eyes to Rhys.

"Let's just say things are piling up in my life." Rhys quickly tries to change subjects. "Marks, did someone named Tail Vixon ever work here?"

Marks carefully examines the question. "I don't recall anyone by that name working here, no. But I do know who you would be referring to." Rhys looks surprised. "And I would be willing to speak of her." Marks shoots a sharp glances.

"At a price."

"What do you mean?"

"There is a gambler's term that I think fits here well. The term is tit for tat. What it comes down to is we both need something that the other player has and so we agree to or not agree to assist each other. If one player gets what they need, then in the end both players have what they want. If they fail, then that means that they failed together. Do you understand?"

"What do you want, Marks?"

"I'll start. If you lie, I lie. If you tell me the truth, I'll tell you the truth. Am I Marks Karingson?" Marks asks, sounding almost joking at first but then seems deathly stern.

Rhys laughs. "Of course, you are."

Marks steps in uncomfortably close. "You are mistaking."

Rhys understands the mistake he made. "No, you are a cybernetic life form called M-52757-Vigeta. You were created by Marks Karingson as his last invitation before dying in a fire several months ago. But you knew that already?"

"Your turn, ask a question."

"Why can't I reproduce your work even with your notes?"

"If you had my notes, you could. Marks Karingson, I, fought in World War II. There during war, I, we, found the usefulness in coding sensitive information. What you found on my computer and in my home made up only half the notes on my larger, more important works. My turn. When you repaired my body after Allen tried to microwave me, did you make any alterations?"

"Uhmm, yes. At the request of management, we added a tracking bug to your spine, a radio receiver to your head, and a kill switch to both your arms and your chest cavity. If I understand what we're doing, that makes it my turn. Why did you ask me a question you knew the answer to?"

Marks grins at the potential of the statement. "I needed to see your 'tell,' so I asked a question I knew you would lie about. I can see your heart beating, I can hear your lungs popping, and your body temperature, I can feel it from here. I know if you believe what you are saying. I would wager you can't do the same of me. Now why did you ask me about Tail Vixon?"

"I just wanted to know." Rhys is sweating; anyone with half the intuition to try could see he is lying. "Where are your notes, Dr. Karingson?"

"I gave them to a former apprentice of mine named Mercedes. Do you have the code to deactivate the kill switch?"

"No, that software is solely in the hands of management."

"I believe you."

"Dr. Karingson, where can I find Mercedes?"

Marks grins, closing his eyes, knowing well that his partner will never understand how far astray he has fallen. "2650 Marmoreal Ave. and Veteran Drive, plot number 176. Ask the caretaker to show you the way."

"You have to tell the truth, right?"

"Yes. By any chance have you seen a black cat with a red collar walking around the labs?"

Rhys starts to think more critically, beginning to understand the nature of the game Marks is playing with him "No, I have seen no_cats_ walking around the labs. Did Dr. Marks Vigeta Karingson die in a fire here in the Towers?"

Marks nearly laughs out loud, noticing that Rhys is starting to play along with him. "No, Marks was shot and killed trying to escape from the tower after learning of Allen's betrayal of his trust. Allen Phillip Wesker had been stealing from Marks and falsifying his research. Allen had also knowingly been sleeping with Marks' wife Ako Karingson. Seeing the marriage was a sham to begin with, this was forgivable. The theft on the other hand was not. Have you made any attempts to copy my memories or protocols into any other formats?"

Rhys nods, still somehow stunned by the story. "I tried to copy your protocol onto a security bot my staff had constructed. Why did you try to run? Why not report the problems to someone up the ladder?"

Marks raises one hand and with a single finger points to the tiled ceiling. "I feel the answer to that may be over your head."

Rhys shakes his head, offended. "You don't think I can understand?"

"No, I don't think I said that. I think I said the answers are over your head." Marks pulls out the chair at his desk and climbs atop it. He reaches up, pushing aside a tile, and lowers from a hidden compartment a stack of compact discs. Each and every disc is labeled with a score of slashes and dashes. Marks thumbs through them, pulling out a discreet-looking disc almost as if by instinct. "I feel what you are searching for maybe here."

Marks loads the disk into a player on the desk. A faint sounding voice comes over the speakers as Marks fast forward through half the tracks, skipping what he believes to be unnecessary. "Three months ago, I had begun making copies of all my work in triplicate. Two copies would be made in electronic format and a final in longhand. The first copy would go to processing and from there no doubt to HR and Development. They too will make copies. The second will be on the RHD in my office, the final within books that I have scattered about within the floorboards and ceiling tiles. The first file I copied in this way was chemical CON2. Official status, experiment suspended, chemical proved fatal in 70 percent of test subjects. Remaining 30 percent suffered a wide range of other side effects, including sudden appearance of ulcers, rapid decomposition of cell structure, difficulty birthing, urinating, and sudden loss of lucidity. I had recorded the original formula here in my private journal. If all had been as it seemed, my notes should match that of the notes on record in Development. My notes did not match those in the archive center or on my laptop. Second test INT-23, status: experiment expired. All findings on this compound were ordered under lock and key, I found the directors' copy hidden under B-list. Experiment was still live. I wascut off. Test three project Tail-01. Tail is unique and all my intuitions tell me it should remain that way. I requested the project shut down. Tail should remain with me. What happens when science loses its sensitivity? What happens when 'should we' is replaced with 'could we?' I have become the father of two abominations. I am an abomination. I am told that my will has been done. The experiment on Tail has been aborted. I find that I have been lied to. Not only has the project not been shut down but Tail has been placed in liquid oxygen suspension and she is pregnant! Furthermore two more Tail(s) are in development. This time one was allowed to be male! Time and time again, I am lied to! My experiments have not failed. I am simply meant to believe they have! I have begun one final project, one that will never be allowed into the hands of others that are without vision, one that will amend for this injustice. Shaun, Allen, Ako, they have stained my soul black. I am their Darin Gray, their Black Swan! So be it. They will hear my swan's song! And as I fall, so too shall they! My love might have saved the world from unending devastation, instead my hate shall purge their lives! Whoa for me for I shall drink off the life's blood, and with it I shall become everlasting! I need no more proof of this foul play. My notes have been altered, my findings falsified, my work marginalized. And for what? So my medicines can become drugs? So my machines can become weapons? So my beloved can become . . ." Marks pauses the disk and looks at Rhys.

"I know why you ask me about Tail. Shaun wanted her to become a disposable soldier. But without the original to make copies with or me to program the synthetic uterus, it is useless," cold and concise, he explains.

Rhys feels overwhelmed; everything seems to add up in some strange way. Marks is telling the truth about everything. His employer is a murderer. His best friend is a robot masquerading as a human. He is building alien life forms in the basement. It is all too strange to be a lie. "What was INT-23 and CON2 meant for?"

"It's not your turn." Marks laughs. "But I'll play along. INT-23 was designed to be a memory rejuvenation supplement. It was going to make people smarter for all intensive purposes. CON2 was a solvent for regenerating dead muscular tissues." Marks covers his eyes for a moment. "It's predecessor CON1.96 was acutely successful with one minor drawback. It allowed tissue to continue to grow even outside its host. We deemed it a monumental failure in ourselves and never published the work."

Rhys gasps, trying to imagine all of what he could imply, then snaps himself out of it long enough to deliver a message, "Doctor, a delivery arrived for you. It was sent down to 'the clean rooms' and is awaiting your evaluation." "Delivery?" Marks stands, awaiting more information.

"Nebraska State University sent it. It's some kind of virus."

"Is it live?"

"I didn't look at it. Not after what you brought in the other day, I'm not touching a thing you bring into this department."

Marks nods and takes his leave on course to see his latest toy. It's an unfortunate diversion, but perhaps a key to a fascinating lore.

Up till a week ago, the clean rooms were reserved for the storage of sensitive medical equipment. But today it has been converted to look almost like a prison. A dozen rooms fill the first corridor, each housing a terrible and beautiful monster. Marks walks between them without fear. Their cries echo loud and clear--screeching, howling, hissing. The smell is that of a barn, the sounds that of a jungle, the appearances the soft ambience of a well-maintained office, Marks himself a perverted ringmaster of death barely more human than the devils under his wing.

In the medical office awaits Marks a coffin-looking device with stainless steel finish. Inside awaits a strange green jelly within a glass tube, hidden there under it a child with skin that looks like marble and hair to match. Marks finds a physician's note inside with the child's name and vital statistics recorded on it. "Lizzet Jacob?" Marks grins. "I can't wait to see what you're made of."

Marks works for a day and a half tirelessly before Rhys comes looking for him. Marks holds his hand up to his friend to halt his progression. "Is your environmental suit sealed?" Rhys nods. "Make sure the air vent is clear please." Rhys looks down at the oxygen can on his hip and nods again.

"You didn't go to the desk for check-in this morning," Rhys explains with a hint of concern in his voice. "I didn't see you at breakfast either."

Marks nods as he is working on transferring chemicals from a beaker into a Petri dish. "I never left the lab. Also, it dawns on me that I haven't eaten in weeks. I simply watch you eat at meals."

"You're not wearing your hazmat mask?"

"Yes, the explanation to that should be self-evident."

Rhys moves in close. "What are you working on now?" Set on the table before Marks is a line of cups filled in part with a translucent jelly; one by one, Marks adds to each cup a drop of a coppery red liquid, then vacuum seals the dish with a cellophane lid.

"The package that arrived yesterday, it was another sample of the Gekks virus. It seems to have squired from the anticipated evolution. I'm attempting to artificially grow the new strand in order to better understand it."

Rhys places a hand on Marks' arm in order to speak more indemnity. "If it evolved, how can you tell it's even the same thing?"

Marks smiles at his friend. "Because so did ours."

Rhys pulls Marks down to eye level. "How did ours change, Marks?"

"After leaving the body of subject zero, it broke into three strands. I'd be happy to show you." As if by the will of Marks, a projector lowers from the ceiling and the lights dim. Rhys stares on in absolute horror as the screen begins flipping through a sequined cluster of images: the first canting a single-cellular organism with a syringe-like growth clearly used for impregnating healthy cells and no doubt scrambling their code to make them alike. On a second, the same virus has traded in its stinger for a fan-like blade likely granting it greater speed. The third has what looks like air pockets on its sides to allow it to move through air. The last has mandibles. This one doesn't infect; it kills.

"Marks, is this as bad as I'm thinking it is?"

"Worse likely," Marks replies with a strange exhilarated smirk.

"How bad can this get?"

"I would say cataclysmic." Marks begins readying an experiment.

The door to the lab opens again; the young and bold Allen Wesker walks into the lab. "Dr. Karingson, there seems to have been a mix-up in transporting. The protein cell delivered to pharmaceuticals was--"

Marks cuts him off, "No, there was no mix-up. I sent you a dead protein sample. Anyway, I'm happy to see you, old friend. I seem to be having some troubles with my OS. Would you mind taking a look at it for me?" Marks points at the desktop in the room.

Allen begins moving to the computer. "Why would you send us a dead cell?" As he reaches his hand down to the keyboard, a phantom salute starts to phase into the monitor, and a voice comes from the speakers crackling through the white noise.

"Hello, friend, are you taking good care of Nuku . . . ?" Allen's first instinct is to smash the computer, then kill Rhys and Marks; he pulls away from the keyboard instead and keeps his cool.

Marks looks over. "Is something wrong, Allen?"

Allen looks over. "I don't do IT anymore. We'll call someone from Tec-support to look at this."

Marks offers Allen a sharp glance out the corner of his eyes, lighting almost courses between them as Allen can feel Marks' gaze. "No works go unsuffered, dearest friend."

Allen's teeth grind as he struggles to maintain his facade of control. "Nonsense, old wizard. A prized dog never plays fetch, a Broadway performer never does birthdays, and the president never answers his phone. Why should I waste my time with such trivial games?"

Allen is deathly envious of Marks; even after death, it seems he continues to mimic his old master. Marks can see right through Allen; it is clear to him that Allen saw Marks' new metal body and sought out to recreate himself in the same image: Allen's eyes are bionically enhanced as is his muscular structure. His arms and legs have both been rebuilt to make him the paragon of humanity. Allen is almost more metal than man. Marks find this amusing.

"Regardless of your personal feeling, I need the proteins," Allen demands.

"That's not going to happen. The virus isn't leaving this room under any earthly circumstances I can control."

"And why would that be?"

Marks picks up a blood sample out of the cooling chambers. "I'm glad you asked." He adds the blood to one of the dishes. "Allow me to demonstrate. I'll use an almost randomly chosen person's blood for this example. Allen, watch closely." The blood inside turns clearly cancerous; it grows, expands, and spills out onto the floor, cold dead blood fueling the sickness enough so as to give it an almost human-like form on the ground. A semi-human leach forms with legs but no head or arms, a dozen eyes and no nose; in moments it is the size of a child and crawling about on the ground. "Dr. Rhys, would you please hand me the silver nitrate?" Rhys fumbles over handing the bottle to Marks. Marks uncorks the bottle and pours the contents onto the monster. The demon on the ground hisses for only a moment before bursting into flames. "I trust you understand my concerns now?"

"I see." Allen steps out of the room as Marks trips the fire surpassing system to put out the dead monster on the ground that now closely resembles a charred marshmallow. Allen watches his old teacher and his dog work for only a moment from the doorway before reaching down onto his hip and pressing a button on what looks like a grange door opener. Marks' body is flooded with electricity, and he arches his spine in an unnatural way as he howls and collapses on the floor. Allen steps back into the room and looks at Rhys. "Marks is to be disassembled at once.

Do you understand?"

Rhys looks up, aggravated into action. "That's a negative, Commander."

"He is clearly insubordinate. Marks is dangerous, and it seems that the control chip you installed in him is not functioning. Now shut him down permanently."

"Turn him back on and take your sorry ass out of my lab!" Rhys grabs Allen by the cuffs of his suit and shakes him. Allen is clearly not intimidated by the tiny lab worker but complies anyway.

"Very well. But this incident will be logged."

* * *

In the following days, Marks works tirelessly, toiling day and night to find a way to fight this abomination of a virus. But as it would turn out, in spite of his efforts to keep the Geeks virus under wraps, a monsoon of complications have arisen, forcing the buildings into emergency lockdown mode. Ren is the name of Claw Co.'s director of environmental services; she is a short but tough-looking old woman. She unlike most of the other employees of the company likes striped shirts, blue jeans, and red leather boots. A clear sense of urgency in her step, Ren smashes open the door to Shaun's office, failing to notice the group of others surrounding the CEO as she marches up to the desk proclaiming, "It is time to leave, now! Call off lockdown and get everyone away from the towers!" Shaun, Officer Summer, AC Dem-Row all look to Ren. Ren's eyes roll from side to side, looking at her fellow members of management "Why are you still standing there?! Get moving!"

Shaun looks at her. "Is there something you would like to say, Ms. Videll?"

"Yes, boiler E is malfunctioning, and I can't get down to it to fix it."

Summer nods in understanding. "Floors B-1 through B-8 are all locked due to contamination regulations. I sent a team of UBCs to try to contain the problem but no call back yet."

"Contamination?" Ren asks.

Shaun slides a stack of photographs across the table, showing her strange ant-like monsters with spider claws and scorpion-like tails with erect skeletons crawling on the walls and floors taken from security cameras. "Ms. Videll, do we have any alternative to that previously discussed?"

"I went to school with a bunch of flyboys. We had a pretty standard joke about boilers. If you get confused as to whether you're looking at a hydrogen bomb or a water heater, remember this. A bomb needs a detonator to explode."

Shaun's head drops to the table as he undoubtedly gets the joke. "A water heater doesn't need a detonator, only a faulty pressure gauge," he mumbles to himself. "Could you fix it if you were able to access the basement?" He looks up.

Summer interjects, "I just told you a UBC team couldn't get down there. You can't send a civilian."

"Hey, I'm not that bad of a brawler myself," Ren explains.

"Then you and the security droid Rhys built can escort her," Shaun retorts simultaneously.

Dem-Row looks at Ren. "What happens if the boiler reaches critical mass when you're down there?"

"Then I take a saws-all to the primary water main and drown the thing."

Summer shakes her head in disbelief. "And us?"

Dem-Row cracks a smile. "Necessary evil! I like the way you think."

"I'll see myself dead before I let that thing take out the tower."

Shaun raises his head finally. "Could it really do that?"

"That depends, if the blast is contained under our feet and is localized to just the unit. Yes, it will take out this building and maybe the two parallel to it. If the chain reaches the other four units we're talking six blocks vaporized and slash damage the another three."

Shaun leans on his desk. "Let me get you a gun then. I trust you know how to use one."

"Of course, look up my 'arcade' scores. The shooting rank has me down for a dozen honorable mentions."

Shaun complies, opening the records on his computer. "Most hours logged in, in a week. Most confirmed kills." Summer escorts Ren out as Shaun is reading. "Most friendly fire? Wounded a partner during training ops?" Shaun picks up the intercom frantically. "Summer, don't give Ms. Videll a gun! Please."

* * *

Marks steps out of his lab and locks the door after filling out his daily logs. He takes a moment to check on his specimens and records changes to his test subject. Once confident that all is as it should be, Marks goes to continue his search for Nuku.

There is a lone elevator that runs all the way from the top floor to the lowest basement Marks chooses to employ. Stepping in, he is met by Ren, Summer, Tank, and a handful of men dressed in UBC outfits all armored and ready for combat. Summer sidesteps to make room for Marks in the lift. "Evening, Doctor."

Marks pivots to face front. "Storage please." Ren reaches over and taps the button which seems to have already been lit up.

Summer taps Marks' arm. "You know about the lockdown, right? No one is supposed to leave their rooms till quarantine is lifted."

"And yet it seems we are both here?"

"Do you have a sidearm, Doctor?" one of the UBCs asks.

"Don't suspect I'll need one."

The same man reaches onto his hip and presents Marks with a 9 mm mec-gun. "Just in case."

Marks takes the gun and hides it in his inside coat pocket. "That is exceedingly kind of you."

Summer confronts Marks. "There are giant ants downstairs. Do you . . . ?"

Marks interjects, "Madralock, yes, shot for the heart. The head is empty, and should the fangs coming out of the side of their necks happen to sting you, do us all a favor. Shoot yourself."

Ren looks at him. "What?"

"The stinger of a Madralock doubles as a sexual organ. One stinger injects ovum roughly 2.75 seconds after grabbing someone, the other ejaculatory fluid five seconds after contact is made. There is around a fifty-five minute incubation before the Mandralock eggs hatch and become its lavaric state," Marks explains.

Ren shakes her head in disbelief. "I would ask . . ."

"Don't. The answer wouldn't benefit you."

The ride is slow and tense. Before the doors open, Ren and Summer take a few moments to brief the team, Marks being accidentally recruited. When the doors open, Tank is the first out, followed by two UBC members--Tank with a tactical shotgun held before him one-handed, the soldiers with assault rifles held at high ready position; Ren, Summer, and Marks are hidden at the center of the formation.

The walls look like cold red stones; there is exposed piping and wires stretched across the ceiling. The temperature is nearly unbearably hot. Clouds of steam fall from above and dew saturates the walls; the corridors are thin and claustrophobic.

Summer whispers to Ren as they're walking, "It's hotter than hell down here."

"The heaters are trying to vent. The overflow or the cooling system is casing most of this."

"So what are these over our heads right now?"

"Half of them are intake pipes, the rest heating pipes."

"What happens if we punch a hole in one of them?"

"Intake, nothing. The other, it gets a hell of a lot hotter. The pipes up there are carrying water sometimes over three hundred degrees, pressurized."

Tank replies, "New mission parameter understood. Protect human targets, eliminate hostiles, do not damage infrastructure."

Ren jokes with Tank, "How is that difference engine working for you?"

"Functional."

(A difference engine is a program written by Claw Co.'s staff of engineers deigned to appoint values to objects and allow their security systems to analyze possible threats and filter out unnecessary data. With more time, this may even allow for more complex protocol to be added, maybe even becoming a learning program.)

"You're a great conversationalist."

The party encounters a crossroad; Ren points "that way." Their progress is impeded. A set of spider-like claws jump out of the ventilation ducts, blocking one path. The road back is barred by a breaking water pipe and boiling water spilling into the tunnel hundreds of gallons at a time. Chaos ensues as six mutated semi-insectoids drop from unseen places. Tank wraps on arm around Ren, lifting her onto his back, proclaiming, "We must move." He turns to carry her down what he anticipates being the safest path. Tank is intercepted by a monster wearing fragmented armor with the UBC patch on it. He slaps the monster with his shotgun; he then blasts it once and marches away briskly whether or not the target is neutralized being insignificant.

"Priority target must be protected."

The UBC creates a ring to cover each other, opening fire in nearly all directions to clear out the beast. One drops in front of Summer; Summer raises her .45 Wilby magnum (semiautomatic pistol), her first blast resulting in a massive blood spray. She is the first to find the Mandralocks bleed liquid fire. Her leather jacket bursts into flames; she quickly strips out of it and stands bladed, pushing the monster with six more shots to the chest, attacking with ferocious vengeance, following the monster to the ground and firing one more time for good measure.

The ants attack as one would expect--with overwhelming numbers. The soldiers manage to suppress their attacks for some time with controlled fire. Marks turns his attention on the mandibles coming out of the wall from their intended path. Fearless, he ducks under a claw swipe and steps into the beast's shadow. He draws the mec-gun from his coat and fires three bursts into the shaft. The monster spider grabs at him. He steps in too close to grip and fires three more rounds; the monster retreats.

"Fall back," the captain of the team orders as he notices his ammo running low and imagining everyone must be facing similar concerns. "Jefferson, what do you have?!"

"Two clips!"

"Andrew!"

"Last mag!"

A third fighter yells out, "Out of standard! Switching to concussive." "Where are Videll and Dylan?!" the captain orders.

The merc called Andrews calls out, "Videll ducked, left with the 6000-S! No copy on Dylan!"

"Copy that, Soldier! I want a phalanx at my twelve! Get small and get fast!

Follow that droid!" the captain yells.

Jefferson pivots, turning his back on the north tunnel "You go it, Wirlly."

Marks is drawn deeper into the east west corridor by a shady motion. Marks drops his gun and lays chase. Summer yells out, "I'm going after Marks!" She swoops down, picking up Marks' discarded gun. Marks is far faster than Summer and quickly vanishes from sight.

* * *

Marks encounters a water pump connected to the boiler that has been cut open. He kneels down and finds a vial taken from his office shattered on the ground.

Marks' head lifts as he attempts to understand what he is seeing. There is only one logical solution. Climate control wasn't malfunctioning; it was sabotaged. Marks' body courses with lighting as he is struck by the power of the kill switch again.

"How many times do I need to kill you, old wizard?!" Allen screams at Marks approaching from behind.

"I loved you! Everyone loved you! I wanted you to love me! I wanted to be like you! I wanted to be you!" Allen picks up a piece of piping and begins to smash Marks across the back with it repeatedly.

"You were perfect! You never aged! You had the admiration of women! Men! Even Shaun! For my whole life, everyone compared me to you! Even my family thought I should be you!" Allen upper-cuts the defenseless doctor, throwing him onto his back. "I've been to see the musical 'Lohengrin' thirty-seven times with you. Did it make me a better person?"

"You were just so good I had to kill you! But now you mock me! In death, you are still you! And I'm still being told how perfect you are! You're not real! You're just a toy! A meaningless hunk of scrap!"

Marks opens his eyes and looks up at Allen. "I'm sorry you feel that way, Allen." Allen steps away from Marks in maddening horror as the estranges doctor sits up.

Allen grips the iron tight and smashes it across Marks' face one more time.

"You're not real!"

"Ha!" A voice comes from down the hall followed by a gunshot. Allen crouches confused for a moment, then runs away. Summer comes rushing to Marks' aid; she helps the should-be elderly man to his feet. "Marks, please tell me what is going on."

"Allen Wesker has poisoned the water in the building. I think he diluted the Gekks virus and with intent of letting it loose in the air conditioning system."

"And the Man-dra whatevers?"

"Only the beginning of our problems," Marks explains, finally straining his back ready to continue the chase. "Summer, you must take the others and escape. Save whoever you can." "And you?"

" . . ." Marks never does respond.

* * *

Shaun sits in his office, head still down. "What the hell went wrong?"

Dem-Row beside him sits back in his chair, and years melt away from his face; his skin becomes blue as ice and shimmers like glass. His eyes go sharp and shimmer a gem-like purple, his nose twists slightly straighter and his jaw bone rises, giving him an elongated look. His voice growls deeply "Hell? . . . No, it's more like holy vengeances."

Shaun jumps to his feet. "Oh god, . . ." "Yes," Adam Crow replies.

"You're?"

"The Avatar of the Cravixs, Adam Crow."

Shaun howls a barbaric war cry as he grabs one of the many blades hanging from his wall and thrusts forth at the demonic entity. "Really? Again?" Cravixs twists his head slightly to one side. Shaun flies at one wall, then at another, then from floor to ceiling several times. Shaun is at last allowed to fall to the ground exhausted. Crow's lips curl into a devilish grin; he folds his hands into a diamond and all lights vanish from the tower, then all at once every door slams shut and locks.

"Shaun Clawed, you can keep your life if you want it, but my thirst must be quenched. Give me your dreams." Crow kneels before the CEO and wraps his lips around his. With that motion, Shaun's eyes go wide as his life force is drawn from his body, not enough to kill, but more than enough to wound. "Your feelings will fill my veins for days to come." And with that one swift motion, nightmares all around the towers come to life. From deep within the minds of the tenants, hell begins to spawn.

"All suffering be unto you, for you are wed to the truest of evils."

Chapter 12

The Man with No Name

If nothing, the thing that defines what is a man is this: Man is __the simian that is hairless_ and_ utilizes handheld tools in order to manipulatehis environment. Think about it, reader. Right now are you carrying a phone or a flashlight? Or maybe you have a knife strapped to your belt? We all carry tools; we all use them too. Snake Gekks is no exception.

How you use your tool states a good bit about who you are. I have seven pens in my cargo pocket and a notebook sown into the inside of my coat, as well as a crowbar I keep that slides down my back and a knife tied to my ankle.

Snake's tools are far more inconspicuous and a bit more devious. Hidden in his billfold is a screwdriver, in his shirt cuff is woven a lonely nail, in his breast pocket is a magnifying glass, a bottle of petroleum-based jelly, and a vial of something called blade oil; then tucked into the back of his paints is a pair of wire cutters and a miniature tool kit containing a pair of pliers, a bottle opener, measuring rod (like a yard stick but only counts up to eleven inches) and three different grains of nail file. I can only imagine what some of these things would be used for.

I explain to Snake my plan; he seems enthusiastic. "This sounds like a great plan--death and mayhem. Sign me up. I like anarchy just as much as anyone else."

"The plan sucks, but given the limited parts catalog it's the best I can come up with."

"So you and me," Snake points between us, "we're going to drive your car through the front door of a military compound. I'm going to pop the guy at the desk, then you're going to do your magic thing to disarm the rest of the guards and then blast our way up the stairwell. We save my brother and you cut off the head of the building's director of research and then we set everything on fire for three blocks.

That's it, right?"

"Yeah, that's about it."

"Great, let's get started." Snake starts to stand up. I admit I'm thrilled that he is suddenly so agreeable. "Oh, but one more thing. I think we might get a little farther if we do a few things differently. First, I need my suitcase out of my car, and then I think we should start from the parking depot."

"That might be harder than it sounds." Snake looks at me with a sour exasperation. "In case your memories are a bit foggy, we did shoot our way out of the hospital."

Snake brushes down his short hair and sighs, mumbling to himself, "Strangely, this isn't the first time." To be fair, I was the one that did all the shooting.

"Also we're going to need a new car."

"Where is yours?"

"My lady friend just took it to be incinerated."

Snake nods for a moment, considering the logic behind the aforementioned action. "Yap, I can see that. That is definitely a reasonable response." He then takes a long breath and blows it out slow through his teeth hissing. "So let's go shopping."

Snake and I leave the motel. We make our way across the parking lot, looking at an assortment of possible forms of transportation. Snake is a connoisseur of engines. He seems to have a taste for fashion--small cars with big engines, muscley, sporty, imported. This seems to be where his head is at as we look at pros and cons of the latter. He seems to have a feeling that the Italians make the most classy of cars. I think the same thing about Detroit--nothing says love like an eight cylinder with a full steel frame in my eyes.

It takes some work but we come to agree on the utility of a "Dodge Neon"--small, discreet, and fresh off the assembly line. OK, really neither of us are happy with the fiberglass nightmare, but it is good enough.

I go for the driver side door, Snake for the trunk. Snake starts to say something as I'm reaching for my crowbar. "OK, this thing most likely has E-locks. You can override them by . . ." He stops abruptly as I smash out the rear driver side window. Snake seems unapproving. "You and I are going to need to work on communicating better."

I open the door and jam my crowbar into the steering column and with a slight twist break it open. Snake looks at me as he climbs in the passenger side door. "I assume you can bypass the starter?" I ask. He lies down across the seats and pulls the pliers off his belt.

"It's not the starter I'm concerned with. It's the ignition," Snake explains as he starts cutting apart and pinching together wires.

I find my thoughts momentarily turning to my brother and a story he told me about a man getting locked in the trunk of his car. I guess that it would have been triggered by what I prevented Snake from saying just a moment ago. But then something catches my eye--a light from the backseat that only I can see.

"Be wary, Augustus, for I am the 'letter' sent to speak of your death," a low monotone voice comes from behind.

"Prone fighting" is a skill extremely useful to one like myself. This is the skill to function normally under unpredictable conditions, like lying down or sitting on your knees. This is a skill I wish I had. I twist about in my char and draw my gun. A tiny Asian in blue jeans, a turtleneck, and a bird mask off to one side is on his knees behind us.

One foot comes up and pushes my gun up and away from him, then the other smacks me off to the side. I'm stunned; Snake seems to understand something is astray. He sits up drawing two guns. The little man in the back wraps his legs around Snake's head and thrusts him against the dashboard, then hops into the front with us. Snake tries to find a clean shot, but the monkeylike boy is struggling fast. He reaches around Snake and jams the hammer of his gun with what appears to be the stick off a sucker, then steals the magazine out of the other.

I regain my balance and thrust out with a psionic blast, knocking the door off its hinges, launching the kid out of the car. He lies on his back, baffled by my power, but his exasperation fails to show it. Snake nimbly jumps down and kneels atop his quarry. Snake grips him by the shirt and slaps him against the ground several times. "How the fuck are you? And how the fuck did you do that shit?"

"I am the letter N."

I step over the boy "N," and I hold my gun down at him. He doesn't sweat; he doesn't even blink. "N" has no fear of death; he's not intimidated in the least. In fact he mocks us. "Shoot if you like, but I think that might not be relevant to your interest." He sits and watches for several seconds strangely as it is staring Snake and me down. He isn't defeated; he could get up and maybe even take one of us out. But he doesn't. He waits to see if one of us is going to make a move.

Snake looks at me. I look at him. I hesitate. "N" has seen all he needs to. He slides one foot beneath and shoves him off gently. "Seeing you haven't killed me yet, let's go inside for a word," he mumbles as he stuffs his hands in his pockets, withdraws a peppermint, and pops it in his mouth. He walks slouched over, hands deep in his pockets. He has strange eyes, but something tells me to trust him.

(Note from Archive Watcher S, L. Gillard: Typically when a Watcher turns in a note that has clearly controversial nature I like to cut around the questionable content and get straight to the heart of the story. I struggled a good deal trying to decide if the words written in the following pages of the Blake book were truly meaningful. Ultimately I have decided to leave the following segment untouched as I feel understanding the writer and his friends may be significant to latter pieces.)

"I have been following you since you crossed over the Texas border. I was curious what a three-time loser like you would be doing calling the police." He is referring to Snake. "I'm happy I took the hint because you see it turns out that you and I have a common goal. I'll spare you the specifics, but it turns out we both have business at Claw Co. Tower. And it is of less than a reputable nature. I would have gone in with my own team, but it turns out that revenue is a green light, manpower is not. So I am going to ask, what do you need from me?" We step into the room I rented.

"That depends. What can you do?" Snake leads off the conversation.

"N" kneels next to the radio and starts fiddling with the dials. "I have friends working in the CIA, KGB, NATO, M6, a couple of less sterling places also. So I repeat, what do you need?"

"First off, a decent battle strategy, second off I lost some of my gear when dickless over there picked me up." Snake starts off

"N" leans in, biting onto one finger, awaiting more information.

"I need a 'skimmer,' a set of 'dead keys,' a 'blank card,' 'EMF reader,' and a 'memory stick' 10 g minimum." Snake rants

"N" looks up. "Is that all?"

Snake nods. "I would say that's a good start."

"OK." The way he nods, you would think that Snake had asked for nothing more than flour and eggs. To tell you the truth, I don't know what most of that stuff is. Sounds like some real James Bond stuff. "N" pulls a phone from his pocket; he flips it open, revealing a keyboard, and types a quick note. "A young lady will be coming here soon to drop off the tools you requested."

Snake whacks his head tapping it against the back wall of the room mystified by the swiftness of the statement. "That's it? It's that easy?"

"None of what you ask for is illegal to possess. They're small-time black market devices. True you can't walk into just any hardware store and acquire these without earning a strange look, but on the other hand, there are legitimate reasons to have any of them."

"It took me half a year to put together that little toolbox."

"Understandable." "N" stands. "Do you like music?" I shrug; I've taken out my book at this point and am working on it, actively taking notes.

Snake on the other hand nods and proclaims, "Yes." "N" seems happy; he turns the radio on at last. He has keyed in the local classical station; the song playing when the music starts, I believe is one of the Franz Schubert symphonies.

"N" twiddles his hands over his head in the pantomime of dance. (Don't ask me how I know this.) The music is slow and threatening. N responds with the mime of evil; he holds his arm up and stretches his back, then curves his fingers mimicking a bird. He dips, lowering his wings, back steps and flaps again, standing upright. He walks halfway around the room this way. As the music slows, N's legs drift apart, and he falls face first to the floor. A lighter melody intercedes; N starts to rise back to his feet, slow and delicate, reaching out like a flower looking for sunlight.

This interpretive art persists for close to twenty minutes. Snake seems shocked, disgusted, and yet captivated. The performance is interrupted by a knocking at the door. A young women stands waiting outside with honeycomb hair, bifocals, and a black leather bodysuit. She refers to N as "Reizuki," Reizuki to her as "Lichi." She drops off a suitcase filled with the devices Snake was looking for as well as a twelve pack of brew and a box of hamburgers.

Snake and I pull back six beers a piece over dinner. Reizuki doesn't take a one. It's my feeling that N would be happier as some form of clown or carny. He has a beautiful child-like playfulness; as Snake and I are eating, he starts juggling the room with anything we would hand him. He shows us some cheap magic tricks and even swindles us conmen in a game of poker late in the evening. But he is fair about it; he lets us in on the joke.

I think it would be fair to say Reizuki Low is just what Snake and I needed--a brilliant mind when needed, a fun-loving brother when we don't. Yes, N isn't afraid to die, but he isn't afraid to live either. I had more fun that night in the motel than any day before that comes to mind.

I awaken with bloodshot eyes and my head spinning. I'm sitting on the chair with my back to the wall, notebook in hand with the paper drool-stained. Snake is face down on the bed, pants unbuttoned, one hand squeezing his chest, the other on his junk. N on the other hand is wide awake standing in perfect swan stance in front of the bathroom door, one leg behind him, on one foot, arms outstretched, fingers down and together.

I sit with one eye open for some time watching him. His eyes look hard and focused, but the rest of his face is cold and unmoving. His posture remains firm as rock. I must have sat watching for fifteen minutes; if it wasn't for his breathing, I might have thought him actually made of stone, a manikin blocking the door. It is somehow magical. Yet eerie . . .

Finally I close my book and he takes notice. Reizuki places both feet firmly to the ground and slumps over the way he had yesterday. "Good morning, Richard." His gaze is piercing. I can only imagine that this is what it is like when I look at someone. "Did you sleep well?" He is polite.

"Like the restless dead. Did you sleep?"

"I never sleep anymore." He sidesteps, twisting in a playful cyclone, making room for me to step into the bathroom as he falls into the wall collapsing like a ragdoll in a heap.

"What were you doing?"

"Kiba-ditchi."

"What is that?"

"It's kind of like a dance."

"How long were you standing like that?"

"Three hours, give or take."

"Incredible." I splash some cold water on my face and step out of the restroom. N is now standing on his hands, looking beneath himself at me, hooked into a C-like shape. "That is just strange. How long can you hold that?"

"All day."

"Why did you say that stuff about spies last night?"

"Two things: first, I don't think you believed me in the first place and who would believe you anyway? Second, as far as anyone is concerned we are both dead already or should be." I offer a puzzled look to my new companion. He knows what is on my mind, so he simply continues, "What that is to say is that the Gekks brothers have injured more than a handful of people during their exploits across the America's, amongst them being half a dozen federal employees. This isn't official of course, but the feeling in most law enforcement officers right now is 'if you see a Gekks brother, shoot to kill' and so." He pauses there to let me join the discussion, or maybe he is waiting for me to catch up on my notes.

"and what are your feelings?"

"Philosophically speaking? . . . I don't want to see the 'bad guys' dead. I want to see them humiliated. I want them marched out onto the streets naked, their names tattooed on their forehead, and those of everyone they harmed cut into their arms. Their rap sheet branded on their backs. I want them stood under spotlights so everyone can see them clearly, and once that is over, I want them locked in a box and stored in a tiny room like the ones in kennels. No, I don't want them dead at-all. I in fact would prefer them kept healthy. Why after all that keep them alive? Because I want to know everything they know, and they might be having trouble remembering details right now. Surely they'll remember sooner or later, and when they do, I want someone like you, Richard, there to write down whatever they might say." I feel flabbergasted; I lose my grip on my pen, and it takes me several seconds to find it and finish recording that mouthful.

"And in this fascist fantasy, you would be right behind Snake getting tattooed, I assume?"

"Do you remember what I said last night when we first met? . . . Look it up in your book if you need to."

I try to recall off the top of my head. "Be afraid for I have the letter telling of your death."

"Be wary, Augustus, for I am the 'letter' sent to speak of your death," he quotes himself. "Back around the turn of the first age, the world was entwined in the first real world war. No one called it that mostly due to the lack communication between cities and townships. If you were a gambler at the time, the safe bet would be to say Augustus the Sicilian would become the ruler of the world. He was a bronze age Colonial Gaddafi. People liked him. He was a military leader turned king. His ideals were a decade ahead of his time. He had the aid of the at the time 'orthodox church.' Worst off, he was smart. He built forts with their backs to the oceans and towns on hillsides."

"I don't see where this is going."

"You see, the church got scared. Augustus was unpredictable. They tried to pull the plug. Augustus got the picture and cut off the church, but still wanted to fight his wars. Reaching him with words and uniformed militia became unlikely, so the church hired privateers to assassinate him. Augustus was murdered at his dining room table by his date, and the wars he started defused themselves."

"Is that all true?"

Reizuki hops up on the table and starts to suck on a sucker crossing his legs. "Not likely, but the story offers presidents for governments to hire professional infiltrators, pickpockets, and ruffians of all types. Licensed criminals to everyone that matters . . . Let's say I have a license to kill. And so long as it's clean and quiet, no one ask me why."

"You a contract killer?"

"No, I am a letter."

I try like hell to get more information from him, but N doesn't seem to feel like talking anymore. Snake is finally awake and alert around half past four. So we eat and start on the road to our next battle.

* * *

While they walk around the mansion, Tail takes Lincoln by the arm. "Wait! Lincoln, if I know that someone here was conspiring to kill someone what could I do to stop it?"

Gallard looks at Tail. "You would find a Cerberus member and tell them what you know, and you had best be able to find another Watcher to vouch for you. Giving a Cerberus misleading information is subject to fourteen days' lockup."

Tail takes a deep breath, then explains, "England is a demon and is portending to be Joe Dove. He has brought several alien life forms into the mansion and intends to murder Wright Von Richton."

Gallard looks over the tops of his glasses. "Do you have proof?"

Tail nods vigorously and starts tugging his arm. Partway down to the observatory where Tail and England had previously met, Gallard contacts one Officer Freemen to take notice of the event.

Tail stops outside the door. The Cerberus called Freemen looks at Tail with a steel gaze. "So . . . ?" He steps in close to her "What am I looking at?"

Tail grunts, "You tell me what they are." She points at the door. "There are two of them, and it looks to me like they feed off each other to grow bigger."

Freemen creaks the door open, ushering the others to stand back. "Two? I see three goddamned flies--eight foot length, with mandibles, pincers, and stingers."

Tail looks fearful. "That doesn't sound right."

Freemen closes the door and looks at Tail. "The Cerberus have a saying. 'If you fight, you will be respected. If you kill, you will be honored. If you die, you will be remembered.' So . . ." He reaches down onto his hip and pulls out what looks like a shotgun mounted on a pistol's handle. "You looking for a little honor?" He offers his gun to Tail; she looks at it and starts mentally dissecting the tool. Freemen draws a second gun for himself.

"Does everyone carry two guns around here?"

Freemen nods. "I personally have three." He creaks the door open again to take one more inventory of the room. "One on the left wall, one in back, last is front and center. I'll take the front and back. You grab the last. Got it?"

Freemen kicks in the door with Tail's go-ahead. He launches from his gun spears that explode on contact. The first two monsters never see him coming. Tail fires but misses. The last monster swinges it's tail at her and steals the gun. It snaps its tail out to pick her up, in the same movement throws Freemen on his back. Tail back-steps and raises her hand, throwing a cone of flames from her arm; the beast's oily body burns into nothingness in the stream of flames.

Freemen nods at Tail in shock at the strange event. "Good work!" He is stunned. "Next, let's grab England."

Tail returns home with a sense of accomplishment, because of what she has done; she knows that the monster called England isn't going to hurt anyone anytime soon. Doing good doesn't require any reward. She jumps into her bed and sighs a joyful sigh. Tail takes a moment to loosen up and relax. She unbuttons the Hawaiian shirt she is wearing as well as her jeans, then unbuckles her belt. Prideful, she giggles wondering if this stunt might buy her some newfound respect. Tail's victory would not last.

* * *

Von Richton returns from her trip in the first hours following midnight. On her return, she is greeted by trusted friends and coworkers at the landing bay, amongst these friends being Mr. L. Gallard from archives, Mr. E. Frog from Cerberus, Ms. C. Davis from research, but someone is missing still--her pet dog Mr. England.

Where he should be standing is instead Ms. M Malaguard.

"Ms. Malaguard? Where is Mr. England?" Von Richton asks.

Frog intercedes; Frog is a middle-aged man that wears his hair long to try to hide his age. He has a hefty smoker's voice with a deep growl to it. "Specs tells me he is being held in detention."

Joe Dove replies, "After fifteen hours talking to the president about short-term financing options, I doubt that is what she wanted to hear."

"And why would my most trusted friend and bodyguard be being held in detention?" Wright inquires.

"Suspension of conspiracy to commit murder."

Von Richton's eyes almost burn with rage. "I want to see the officer that filed that report in my throne room at the turn of the hour. And so long as you are intent on making my life difficult, would Cerberus like to say anything else?"

Frog nods. "We resaved a call from Sinister Walker. He is sending one Secretary Kristal Bell to help us with an audit."

Everyone looks irritated. Von Richton grunts. "Then let me tell you what I want you to do when Ms. Bell shows up. I want you to inform her that she is on private property and that before you can escort her around the property you will need to see her ID. She is going to fail to provide proper documentations and you are going to slay her. Do you understand?"

Frog growls, "Hey, I slay monsters, not people! Got it!"

"Edmond!" she shouts. "If you can't do the job, I will find someone that can!"

"I can't let you do that!" he shouts back.

"Watch me!"

Frog steps in threateningly; Captain Millie Malaguard steps in between him and Von Richton as does Joe Dove. Von Richton grips her cane and starts to twist the handle, ready to draw a hidden weapon from within. Dove grabs Von Richton's arm to still her. Edmond opens his coat, showing off a crusader-style knife with ornamental flair.

The two long-time coworkers are held apart like children on a playground looking to brawl. Gallard offers interjection, "Maybe we can find a solution with less collateral."

Von Richton takes his hand off her cane. "Mr. Gallard, what do we know about Senator Walker?" Seeing that conversation has resumed, Edmond grunts and stands down.

Gallard folds his hands as he speaks, "He is an activist for demi-human rights. He is a Fay. He belongs to the Luna clan . . ."

"How much does he know about us?" von Richton adjusts her glasses as she asks.

"Enough to make our lives somewhat uncomfortable."

Dove ponders for a moment. "I think I did an interview with him some time ago. I remember him resisting some piece of poetry. Lincoln, the phrase 'I am the

Letter,' does it mean anything to you?"

"Spooks, nothing but ghost stories, brother. The Letters were supposedly a group of super elite soldiers, invisible people recruiting invisible people to do invisible work."

"I don't think I like the way this is going," Frog adds.

Joe nods. "I think Ed is on to something. Lincoln, can you prowl the books and find me any stories that might link the senator to a group that is or maybe the so-called Letters? I think we should put this to the test. See if this ghost story holds water."

"I can, and I shall."

"Good!" Von Richton proclaims. "Ms. Malaguard, I want you to go with Mr. Frog to escort our Cerberuses to my room as well as any other witnesses to this so-called conspiracy. Mr. Dove, I need you to check on to all phone calls and e-mails received by the Watchers in the last three months. So long as you're at it, I want all of you to start checking badges around your departments. If there is anyone in the building whose identity you're not one hundred percent on, call me."

All in unison say, "By your command, Ms. Von Richton."

"Good. Dismissed."

* * *

Tail has only started to drift off to sleep when she is called to alert by a strange scent. She opens her eyes to find the Seth, Captain Malaguard, slipping into her room. Tail rolls off her bed and picks up her sword. Which turns out to be a meaningless but still funny proposition, as with the first step back she goes to take, she trips over her pants, having neglected to notice they have slipped down to her knees.

The giant kangaroo looks over the bed at her. "Is everything all right, Ms. Vixon?"

Tail lies on the ground a bit, her bells ringing. "Hand please." Millie reaches one hand down and lifts Tail not only to her feet but briefly off the ground with one hand. "Thanks." She pulls up and rebuckels her pants.

"Ms. Vixon, you have been summand to the royal banquet hall to give testimony against Hunter HU code named 'England.' You are being asked to attend dressed in your service blue uniform, and you are to appear unarmed. You will need your 'Watchers' diary,' and you are allowed conferences from a Watcher of equal or greater rank and decoration. You may decline any or all of this services. You do so at your own recourse. If you do not have a service blue uniform, I am to have you fitted with a 'royal white.' If you have no councilor, I am to afford you one. You have one hour to shower and to seek council. I am to accompany you for both. Will you comply? Take note if you refuse to comply, I am authorized to hold you in contempt of the court."

"These are my rights as a witness to a crime? What if I were a criminal myself?" Malaguard refuses to answer; she simply repeats the same speech. "OK, I get it. Get me a set of royal whites and give Joe Dove a call. I want his help on this. I really don't know what is going on, and Joe seems like an upfront sort of guy."

Millie indeed does as asked; she calls Dove and has an outfit delivered for Tail. She also follows Tail into the shower as she claimed she would. It is uncomfortable for both of them and more than a touch unsettling for Tail to have another girl watching her in the bathroom. Tail tries to make fun of the situation with remarks like "Want to jump in?" and "Wash my back for me, will ya?" Millie is not amused; this is for work not pleasure. Most would see this as a violation of civil-liberty, but as Von Richton has pointed out as well as to many others within the order, liberty belongs to humans and civilians; freaks like Millie and Tail are neither.

* * *

One by one, Von Richton invites her Cerberus members into her chamber to review their stories. She has everything she needs to pass judgment well before Tail arrives. The chamber is a lavish room. The ceiling is twenty feet overhead lined with stone arches. The floor is a hard gray stone with an early church emblem drawn across the floor. The room is lit by coal burning brasseries; the centerpiece of the room is a stained glass window with the Watchers' crest adorned upon it, and the ghastly Wright Von Richton herself waits on a magnificent chair with two cats making up the arms with their backend's in the air presenting, a faceless gargoyle perched atop it.

Von Richton has her mouth covered in part by one hand and is leaning off to one side reading aloud to herself as Tail walks in. "To my would-be friends, today is a dark day. Tomorrow may be even darker without your help. We live in a world where money can pay for freedom and justice is for sale. I believe this is unacceptable. Justice in the perfect world is unequivocal. If you feel the way I do, then please read on. My name is Reizuki Low also called 'N.' I am a member of a group that quests for a better tomorrow . . ." She halts her reading there to turn her attention fully to Tail. Her glasses flash a bright yellow as her head lifts to meet Tail's glances. "Yes, in the perfect world justice would be unequivocal, wouldn't it?" Tail just nods.

Tail nods. "Yes, I guess so?"

"I've looked through all the relevant facts, and it seems that all is as you claimed. But that doesn't mean that you have been truthful. I've gone through your e-mail and your phone records. It seems to me that you have had contact with a potentially dangerous individual. Tell me, Ms. Vixon, what do you know about the terrorist called 'N'?"

Tail shakes her head. "I have no idea who you're talking about."

"You have never heard of a man calling himself 'N'?" Von Richton leans in, dropping the paper. "You have an e-mail from him." Tail shakes her head again. "Well, then let's move on." Something seems wrong about the way she has stated this; Tail can sense that that was too easy. "Tell me about your relationship with Mr. Blake please."

Tail's ears raise in ponder as she tries to interpret the question and its reinvention. "He's been my roommate for almost a month now. I've cooked for him. He has seen me dancing around in my knickers, but that's not uncommon. Most the people here have far as I can tell. The three days we have been home at the same time I've slept in the bedroom, he in the front room."

Joe Dove slides into the room, staying hidden in the back corner. He slouches forth onto his cane; he watches with great interest. He fails to escape his guardian angel's gaze. Von Richton leans in; she rests her elbows on the backs of her cats and folds her hands in front of her face. Her glasses flare a brilliant yellow. "Good. Now another question. Why would you, Ms. Vixon, have any interest in protecting me, the exulted Aska Wright Von Richton?" "Aska?" Tail whispers.

"Do you want money?"

"No."

"Do you want fame?"

" . . ."

"You want my admiration and gratitude?"

"No."

"You lie." A strange pink glow filters through her glasses.

"You want to know why I felt the need to protect you? Fine, every life holds weight. I protected you because I thought you needed to be protected."

"You have made a terrible miscalculation, freak."

"You have a meager inferiority complex, you know that?"

"Such insolences." Von Richton stands. "You're going right back into the freezer! Seventeen days' isolation! And I don't care whose eye you catch!"

"You wrench, selfish cunt!" Tail protests as enforcers start to flood into the room from unseen doors.

"Hold it!" Dove shouts. Everything in the room seems to freeze instantly with the exception of Tail. Tail's head has lowered in expectation of impact. She back-steps and looks around.

"T--hell just happened?"

Joe smiles. "How about house arrest instead?"

* * *

Snake has taken the wheel; Blake sits in the passenger seat, Reizuki in the back. Blake's Elvin accomplice never did return. One of "N's" coworkers has brought them a new set of wheels--a small Euro-style sports car, red with a yellow strip running down the center. Reizuki sits on his knees, a sucker sticking out the side of his mouth, staring at Blake; Blake is staring at his phone. They are only a handful of miles away from the "Claw Corporation Towers." The sun is setting.

"N" questions, "Waiting for someone?"

"No."

Low turns his head, nearly upside-down. "A girl maybe, a coworker. Anyone I might know?"

"No."

Reizuki nods. "I see. Tell me, Richard, have you ever seen one of this?" He holds up a tooth-shaped device with an antenna. Blake takes the surreal-looking tool, pinching it between two fingers. He is ready to ask "what is this?" but Reizuki beats him to the punch. "That little toy might just be the most indispensable communication device since the telegraph in a year or two. But today it's just a gizmo that rich kids like to play around with. It's a satellite communication device, tentatively called a tooth. You can see why. It functions similarly to your cell phone. It's just smarter. Tell it who you are trying to call, give it their SIM number, and assign a keyword to them, and anytime you say that word it will contact the person in question. If you don't know their SIM, it will work with telephone numbers just as well. Give it a try."

Blake rambles off Tail's name and number, then follows Reizuki's instruction on how to hook the gadget around his ear. Not but a moment later, Tail's voice comes over the wire. "Operator," she announces.

Blake looks somehow surprised by the clarity the so-called tooth offers. Reizuki rolls his hand, signaling for Blake to talk. "Tail? Can you hear me?"

"Howdy, partner, how goes the trails?" Tail fakes a Texan voice.

"I'm approaching my first objective ETA ten minutes. Do we have tactical support waiting?"

Tail laughs. "I grow up there. I've got everything but the code to the owner's locker."

"Look for it. I might need that too."

Tail can be heard typing over the line. "We have security hacks. We have artillery data, building schismatics, shifts, utility data. Tell me what do you need. Brother!" she cackles a playful bark

Blake's head falls back as he thinks. "Stay on the line. Have you ever read SKIMS actively?"

Tail nearly barks, "I was trained to do hardware to wetware interactions. Of course, I can read a SKIMS."

The three unlikely allies look at each other, fear and hesitation visible on the faces of the hunter and the thief, as well as determination, the thief also showing jealous passion in his eyes; as for the man called "N," his eyes tell no tales. As the others work, looking over their inventory one last time, the Letter N eats another peppermint. N never sweats, N never shows fear, N is almost more mechanoid than man to an onlooker. Who is N? What is N? Not even Blake knows the answers yet . . .

ACT II

Chapter 13

Infiltrators

When you operate a large compound or employ large sums of personnel, you will often come to find that finding skilled individuals to perform a specialized task can become a tiresome job. For this reason, employers working out of a metropolitan area often find it to be cost-effective to invite private contractors to manage these odd jobs. Very few offices have their own electrician or their own plumber on staff. It is simply cheaper to have one on call. So when someone sees a utility truck pulling up to a government-owned building and two men dressed in brown overalls step out and start walking around, snooping about, it doesn't seem to put anyone on alert.

El and Lacerti take advantage of this sauntering attitude, briefly costuming themselves to walk around the outside of the Claw Co. Towers and map the exterior. El takes inventory of the surroundings: five structures, four buildings, three sets of skyways, a helipad on the north most side, a radio admitter mounted on the west building, possible entrances to the subway on the west, water tower on the same side, likely subterranean levels also, probability of conjoining structures high. As a 'seek and destroy' mission, this looks nearly impossible without civilian causalities.

Lacerti looks at his partner as they're walking the exterior. "Want to cut the lights?"

El shakes his head. "Can't be done from here. The power grid runs under the streets. Those are nothing but phone and cable lines." El points out the overhead wires.

"So how do you want to go in?"

DUSTIN FEYDER

EL stops to think. "I think we should check the library. Take a look at the mass transit lines and the waterways."

"You want to go crawling through New York filth to come in from ground level."

El nods. "Yep, that was pretty much what I had in mind."

Lacerti looks at the main gate. "Why not go in that way?"

El shakes his head with a look of dismay. "Are you out of your mind? They have motion trackers, night vision, proximity devices, cameras, and god only knows what else. We can't possibly go in that way without drawing a bull's-eye on our backs."

"Could be fun." Lacerti shrugs. He of course believes and trusts El.

Their work pays off fast. The two of them find a maintenance tunnel that shares a conjoining wall with the underground parking lot. El chokes down a laugh as they discover that factoid. El memorizes the map, then proclaims to Lacerti what they will need to make their plan work. The top items on the list are gunpowder, kerosene, and a long rope . . .

The shopping list filled, swiftly the trio of El, Lacerti, and Karin make their way into the underground, El leading them with remarkable mathematical precision. Knee deep in water spilling in from drains overhead, Karin girlishly squeaks (this much higher, more childish voice clearly coming from her body, not her mind).

Lacerti holds overhead two large barrels filled with the legendary black powder El requested and two backpacks slung over his shoulders. He grunts sympathizing with Karin's discomfort.

El walks slow, counting his steps as he goes. He looks over his shoulder, briefly recounting to make sure he is where he believes them to be; satisfied, he points at a wall. "From here." He walks out twenty-six more paces counting aloud. "To here." He points out another section. "This is where the towers share a wall with the service aria. Lacerti, see of you can find a soft piece of wall and get to work." El stands back and supervises as Lacerti starts to feel around on the wall.

Lacerti calling on his experience as a spelunker taps the stones and holds his ear to the wall, carefully feeling around for any soft stone. El speaks to him, "Whitewolf, I'm still poking around with that whole polytheistic thing you threw at me. Some parts of it just aren't holding water. OK, nothing became something. That is basic reversed mechanical logic. I can live with that. But then, if there were a god, and god is perfect by definition, then what need would god have for companionship? And if the powers of god are boundless, then why would he need a court to set up

238

RED TWILIGHT

rules for him? Then there is the part about two gods fighting. Couldn't one of them snap their fingers, and puff the other is gone? I'm sure you guessed where this is going, so I'll cut to the chase. If the gods are only slightly more evolved than you and I, why should we call them gods? Why humanize that which we worship? It kind of takes away the value of divinity if god is just one of us."

Karin looks about, sniffing slightly. "What is that smell?" she whispers to the other as Lacerti proclaims, "We're all set up."

El nods. "Good! Let's move." He then turns to Karin as they're walking back around a corner, dragging the kerosene-bathed rope with them. "That is the smell of dead blood. Lacerti, the total contents of the crate's volume is?"

"Approximately . . ."

El stops Lacerti. "Approximately? Come on." He waves. "We're moving back another yard. I'm not getting burned by approximately again."

Lacerti reaches into his coat pocket; pulling out his lighter, he splashes another drop of gas on the ground around his rope, then using a sparkler sets the gas aflame. Moments later, the combination of "black powder," magnesium sulfate, and petroleum triggers a magnificent explosion. El grabs Karin's ears to protect her and covers them with his jacket; Lacerti holds his arm over his face and laughs at the boom. "I love it when that happens!" Lacerti shouts playfully.

The three walk back down the walkway to admire their handiwork; just as planned, a hole roughly eight feet in diameter has opened. "Aren't you glad we stepped back a yard?" The party notices that the blast might have been slightly larger than calculated.

Lacerti looks up. "That is why I don't buy industrial grade explosives." "At least, the ceiling didn't come down on us, again." El whispers.

The three walk into the hole in the wall. The walls on the other side seem to be lined with blue and violet flowers, a slight red hint to the stems. The air is thick and clean with a forest atmosphere. Light is lacking in the underground with the seeming exception of light rising from the ground as if created by the flowers themselves. Lacerti persists with his previous thought. "You're missing the point of what a god is. The gods aren't perfect. You wouldn't want them to be prefect anyway. The perfect god would be a fascist god--"

El cuts him off, "Lacerti, do you see anything wrong here?"

Karin looks around. "What are these?" She moves in close to one of the flowers, examining it carefully. Lacerti looks around, taking notice of what El and Karin have already.

DUSTIN FEYDER

"Lunar Velvets and Celestial Roses. Flowers like this mark where the blood of the divine has been spilt."

Water is bubbling out of the drains. The coppery scent of blood coming from beneath quickly overpowers the scents of flowers. Karin whispers, "I smell darkness. The devil is close by."

The comrades enter the main building, appearing in the first-floor reception area. The exit is covered by a steel plate as are the widows. The team fans out momentarily to take a look around. El walks behind the desk while Lacerti examines the entryway; Karin looks at the other doors.

The computer monitor reveals that seemingly everyone in the building is sleeping. But then El spots movement on one screen; El can't seem to fully grasp what he is seeing. It looks like a scorpion with a human head and arms growing out in place of two of its legs; it must be fourteen feet in length.

His time of ponder is quickly shattered. Two hands and a face come out from beneath the desk followed by a body that looks like it has been partly gnawed away. It has no eyes, only a mouth, and is dressed in a security uniform. El walks back several steps, mumbling curses to himself. El draws his Jackal; he places it to the monster's forehead. "You got one second to speak," he whispers to it. The monster freezes but fails to make a noise, feeling something touching it. El shoots three times into the monster, destroying its head almost entirely. "Lacerti! Tell me I didn't just shoot a zombie."

"You didn't shoot a zombie."

"Damn! It was a zombie. I hate zombies." El takes another moment to look about, then looks up and mutters, "Game time." Lacerti nods silently and moves over to Karin with a slight grunt.

Karin recognizes the glance that El and Lacerti share. One would expect Lacerti to ask El "Do you want to keep going?" or "It's not too late to turn around." But he doesn't; you would think El would say, "I can't believe this," then "Let's get out of here." Instead the two heroes turn dungeon happy. Lacerti pulls his sword and hides it under his arm in a prone position, and El holds his Jackal at a low ready position. Karin innately understands every look, every nod, and every movement El makes. She holds her tonfas against the backs of her arms. The mission stands; that is clear.

"How many times in one lifetime can the same shit happen?" El asks rhetorically as the team take tactical stations at the fire entrances. Mission objectives: find and

240

RED TWILIGHT

kill Adam Crow and Shaun Clawed, rescue civilians, outside of primary objective, zero body count. El won't let his friends die today.

* * *

High above the earth in the north most tower, Crow sits in the chair formally entertained by Shaun (who now is chained to the ceiling in the iconic crucifixion pose), staring into one of his mystic eyes, an orb only slightly larger than an average man's fist. The fine meal he has ingested has made his skin glow like candlelight; he feels good.

Crow turns his eyes to Clawed. "Tell me, why do my worshippers constantly disappoint me? Isn't it the responsibility of a worker ant to bring good omens and tithing's to their patriarch? I pay you, don't I? I give you money and facilities. You never had to produce anything. Didn't I make it clear that one day I would ask you for one little thing in return for my blessings? A child. That is all I asked you for."

Still filled with pride, Clawed calls down, "You could have just fucked some hellhound you soulless piece of shit."

"Yes . . . Ceto Echidna Rydia, the mother of monsters, wonderful serpent. During the prehistory, she came up with some wonderful ideas for monsters. The three-headed wolf was a fantastic idea in my opinion. Ultimately, for the earth's closer to Yggdrasil, the pin holders felt Aphrodite's ideas were more easily manageable. Shame really, I would have thought people like yourself and dozens of dice-throwing nerds worldwide would have loved the opportunity to come face-to-face with a man with the body of Avon. Think of it as a lost allegation."

Crow's eyes are drawn back to the orb. He smirks and claps his hands. "David Lay and Mattimeto Whitewolf, I see they survived their battle with Job the Endless, and they have Karin Vixon with them. And is that Richard Blake as well? How convenient!" He looks up at Clawed again. "Maybe you're not useless after all.

Maybe it is better to be lucky than smart from time to time."

"If I ever get down from here, I'll . . . ," Shaun starts to threaten Crow.

"You'll what? You might be immortal. You might have the power of a Ju-on at your disposal, but you are only a man. You still must adhere to mortal laws. I do not. You lack the power of Mana, the power of the mind, the blessings of the gods. I have these things. You are a small man with a small mind and small dreams. I am a God.

Now look on in wonder as I rain hell on your world," Crow theatrically expresses.

Chapter 14

Symphony of Nightmares

Snake works with strange grace; I don't understand what he is doing, but the goal seems to be to remotely unlock the door ahead of us. He holds what looks like a credit card in front of the control panel with one hand and with the other is manipulating a calculator, it would appear. I look over his shoulder as the device counts down from a ten figure down to a four digit code. "Easy money!" Snake hoots and hollers.

The garage door slides open, and a wave of darkness flows over us. Reizuki and Snake both faint instantly upon the darkness overtaking them. Something seems to protect me on the other hand. The purple-eyed demon who is burnt into my memories cackles at me through the evil mist. I know what this is. I've seen it a dozen times now by proximity. This is the first time I have felt the darkness hands-on.

I can't let fear take hold. I pull out my Jessie James and start looking about. Lances Jacob's memory tells me that the demon is close at hand; he will come to feed off his sleeping prey. I see a light, like one I have never seen. I have seen this demon before, but today it is different; maybe it was hiding its strength before and is letting me see it today or maybe it is lying this time, and the smaller light from before was real. The monster comes into my crosshairs, falling on a stream of holy fire.

The devil's skin is ice blue; its hair is living shadow. Its eyes look past me into my heart, the hate that sustains it clear and rich in its dead gaze, an angelic mask hiding whatever that thing is underneath. I don't wait for it to state its desire; I open fire.

My shots pass through the demon like water; a parable comes to mind: "A sparrow cannot hurt the wind by flying through it nor the wind by sliding under its wings." Birds cycle round the devil; as he extends one hand, the satanic flock grip each other and form into a reaper.

This blackened beast took my brother from me, took Pink Too; everything that was once mine, he took away, leaving me with only my life, all the weapons I could carry, and a taste for vengeance. The monster he was a month ago had no body, but this shape looks like flesh to me. I will kill it, regardless the cost.

I dash at the beast, thrusting out with my psionic wrath. The wave of energy passes through the monster; he steps back to hold his balance. I grab my brother's sword from within my coat. I got him--a mighty slash from my blade. The demon is fast, fast enough to push down his scythe to defend. I twist in an about-turn and come in for another strike from above. The monster interrupts the attack by jabbing me in the gut with the butt of his stave. He backhands me with force enough to lunch me into the air, then down to my back. He rolls his hand to call on his elemental force; shadows course around him, forming into a dark flame.

"Have no fear, child. I'm not here for your life today."

I roll up to my shoulders and back to my feet. I point with my sword. "Save it. I got beef. Let's go."

The fiend smirks tauntingly, "Save your rage. You'll need it. Tell me instead what you desire."

"What can I possibly need from you?"

"How about Pink and your brother back?"

Do I feel __tempted? Yes, I do. Who_ wouldn't?_ The opportunity to have __back that which you have_ lost._ Do I believe he would give them? Not achance. "What if I did? Why would you give my anything? I'm a hunter. You're the hunted."

"Simply I want to hear you say a handful of simple words. 'I give you promotion.' That is all." He closes his eyes with a grin.

I need to ask. The question is too obvious. "I give you promotion for what?" I feel him take something form me with those words, what I can not know.

"Close enough. I do love how predictable humans can be. You give me promotion to enter your world. There are twenty keys that lock the door in to this realm, and you hold one. After all the keys are forfeited, the door that divides this world from its nearest tenants crumbles to dust and my master will devour existence. Nothing more."

I start to move in to confront the monster again; I'm not ready to call it quits just yet. I still believe that all this so-called power is nothing but smoke and mirrors. The purple-eyed man pushes his hand at me, and the dark flame leaves his hand and drifts into my chest. My feet are frozen to the ground; oily black ice rolls up my back. My joints feel stiff. It's not like paralysis. I am completely aware of myself. I try to move, but with the exception of my head and neck, nothing responds. I'm still breathing but hardly.

"I do find it amusing, almost downright awe-inspiring. Who readily your kind fight and die, even in the face of insurmountable power: you, your brother, Shaun Clawed, Joe Dove, Lances Jacob, all drew your swords in the presence of true nirvana and were ready to surrender your lives before your souls. That was just this year. Where do you find the strength?"

Nirvana? "So you really think you're a god? Why not eat me and get it over with?"

Strange, he finds the question somehow comical. It seems whatever magic holds this Avatar to its god is loose; the man behind the mask is clearly laughing but swallows the sound. I can see the border between the identities waver ever so slightly. The god is reverent, the man whose skin he wears is prideful, maybe even lustful. "Eat you? I wouldn't dream of it. You see, I can't possibly kill you today. You have too much work to do. I will see to it in fact that not only will you not die but I will use every spell at my disposal to see that you remain perfectly healthy for some time still. Besides, I owe you a favor and I do feel generous today."

"Why?"

"I hate to speak of my shortcomings, but there are things even I am not allowed to do. So I ask a human to help me overcome this restriction, and as I was on my way to claim my prize, I noticed you here so . . ."

"Gods have limitations on their power?"

"That aside, is there anything you would like to wish for . . . Friend."

What is he __trying to do to me?_ I_ don't __get it. "Snake Gekks and Reizuki Low live!" OK, a stupid request I know, but I need to_ get_ I feel for thisguy's angle.

"Why should that interest you?"

"What became of my brother and Pink back in that place?"

"I think you're missing the point of all this."

"So what can I wish for then?"

"Did I say wish? Why don't I let you sleep on this and we'll talk in the morning?"

Everything seems dark for a moment; my eyes snap open and I seem to be on the ground alongside the car. The door is open; I have one foot in and one foot out. We are just where I thought we were (outside Claw Co. towers ) (notation added by Watcher archives, L. Gallard: clarification on "Hunter Blake's" story requested by peers). But something is wrong; the skyline looks as if half a day has simply vanished from my last moment of awareness. I roll onto my back to see a glimpse of a phantasmal apparition floating to the summit of the north most tower, one that may have easily been mistaken for myself viewed through a gray lens.

I regain my bearings and look at Reizuki and Snake: sitting atop them seem to be two semisolid translucent amorphic hominoid life forms. Fingerless hands wrap their faces and mouths, tied in a forced non-consenting unconscious kiss. In the moments, I watch the shapeless life forms begin drinking away the form of their host.

* * *

Reizuki looks around. He is standing hunched over, fists in pockets atop a lake, the water is a deep red and there are mountains in the distances shaped discreetly like birds. He seems to walk on the water as if it had the properties of a jelliton. "This is an interesting illusion." Music can be heard whispering from the horizon--"Akira Yamaoka's Acceptances," a composer from Reizuki's father's hometown he recalls.

Red light fills the world as far as the eye can see and the relative peace of the crimson water is broken by the appearance of another. A tall, slender man with heavily tanned skin floats out of the water and stands before Reizuki. Reizuki knows him; he is a Letter as well, one that he punished; "Ichi Kogotana" was his birth name, but everyone that knew him called him "the Letter K."

The Letters have rules, ones that K seemed to have trouble abiding. A Letter doesn't kill. A Letter works for the well-being of others, a Letter has no interest in political affairs or gain, and a Letter vanishes into the night at the end of the day, leaving nothing behind, not friends, not family, not memories; the Letters have no place in the world of man outside of upholding justice. This as one may have guessed is idealism; no one can be expected to live by these rules. They're impossible, but they do outline a code of conduct.

The two acknowledge each other's presence.

"K?"

"N."

Ichi and Reizuki began working as field operatives around the same time; they had been coupled together in several jobs by the senior most member of the Letters, their former teacher. He was called "W." Ichi and Reizuki were both geniuses, calculating to the last and had nearly identical ideology. Their last case together sent them to France; a noblemen's youngest child was kidnapped by a group of political extremists. The local law was tied up in logistics. N and K on the other hand had little trouble in running down the suspects.

That was where their differences in world view came into play. Everything looks too simple to K. There they are, four kidnapers with a seven-year-old girl tied to a chair in a boatyard. They are criminals, they are guilty, and there is no room for interpretation. Their crime is disgusting. There is only one logic solution; criminals most be punished. Ichi carries with him a quarter spear (two-and-a-half-foot-long staff with an arrow head); he wants to use it. N stops him; they call for backup.

The work of K and N saved the life of this girl, but French law did not find the kidnappers guilty of any crimes. What could have gone wrong? Everything was there, clear as day. K learned that day that the law isn't perfect; sometimes things get in the way of justice. Therefore justice must become absolute.

N's next case: K is the target. K has been listed as a rouge agent. K had murdered W in order to gain access to the "criminal database" and all banking records the Letters had on file. K had all the recourses of the Letters at his disposal, and he used them to start administering his own brand of justice, using drugs, poisons, and bombs to execute anyone he saw as unjust, regardless the nature of the crime. Order without compassion is not justice.

N followed the patterns, followed the clues, and ultimately set a trap for his partner. N disarmed K, taking away his weapons. K begged for N to join him in his crusade to free the world from fear, but the words fell on deaf ears, then K pleaded for N to judge him; N could not comply. At that time, passing judgment was not to N's interest. Revenge is passionate, vengeance is sexy, justice is not. Justice is cold, methodical, and (hopefully) without prejudices.

K was taken to the Letters' cabinet wherein the quorum thought fit to subject Ichi to the highest punishment that had ever been executed. They did not kill Ichi; they took away his name and his freedom. K still lives today, locked in a box, chained to the ground in a room with no windows and only one door (under normal circumstances, sometime he is ofcourse aloud to move about under strict supervision). N was there the day the ruling was passed. Ichi laughs at the judge drunk on his power his eyes filled with fire; for a handful of days, Ichi had what he thought to be "Shinki" perfect control. Reizuki can still feel his laughter today--so cold, so feeling less. For only a moment, Reizuki wanted to know what that power felt like.

The ghoulish Ichi floats toward Reizuki. Orbiting around his partner, he whispers to N, "Come with me, N. Become like me." He reaches out to touch N; N takes no action. "Feel my power. Let it fill you. Know the power of life, the god-like chi, hot blood on your hands. There is nothing like it!" N refuses to hear the words K mutters. "You can be everything. All that you can feel, all that you can know, it is without equal. Let the hot lust fill your vains, know pleasure like no other." K moves faster and faster in his orbit, his caress draining at N's will.

Blue light fills the air like the flickering of stars. The stage is divided, half belonging to Ichi and his blood-red light, the other Reizuki and his star-bright blue. The orchestra's tune changes to "Franz Schubert: Rosamunde." Ichi jumps back in fear, not understanding how Reizuki can cast influence onto this world as he is.

"I don't know what you are, so-called 'other' Ichi, but I think I do understand what you are doing. You have invaded my mind, broken down the wall that divides the waking mind from the subconscious. You called out my nightmare and corrupted the engine that distinguishes between reality and fantasy. But make no mistake, Ichi. I know where we are and I know what you are doing."

Ichi throws his head back in laughter, his eye burning red-orange. "Is that so?"

N sighs. "'The Kingdom of Arthur' act 4, the Battle at Swan Lake. Baron Arthur king La'Fay is dead killed by the hand of his twin sister. His sixty-six sons have broken his estate amongst themselves. The hag that had killed Arthur is not content. 'The king is dead but his magic sword is not yet mine,' she had proclaimed. Clearly, Ichi, you are playing the rule of Krahe lord of the birds, and that would mean that I am Caspian Fikure the knight also called 'the Prince of Swans.' You are going to convince me to kill myself out of grief. 'With Arthur dead and your brothers thrown to the wind what is there to live for? lonely one.' I remember the story from my youth, and yes, Fikure was the character I found the most attractive in the later acts. But honestly, you should have chosen Foust."

A wall of swords ascend from the water, gripped in the talons of birds. Reizuki deftly leaps into the air, soaring clear over the wall of blades. "Love me in despair, for I am the lord," Ichi commands in a hellish deep voice his eyes falling to velvet.

The army of birds descend onto the heroic Reizuki. With skill and grace that would be inconceivable for one of his nature, he dances around blade after blade, pressing forth to meet Ichi in a hand-to-hand conflict.

More birds, more swords. Ichi redoubles his effort to stop N, Ichi half panicked. "Why can't I stop his charge?" he thinks loudly

"You have nothing, K. This is my world and here all power is mine. Why? I never dream. I am perfectly aware of your every thought even know I can see your true face." N jumps in face-to-face with the monster, and it loses its form, becoming nothing more than a ghost before him, a mobile ice sculpture wearing K like a Halloween mask made of a hardy rubber. The monster tries to run, but N is in control. N locks the door to his mind, sealing the monster in place. "You have only what I give you, and I give you nothing, nothing and disappointment . . ."

* * *

Reizuki's eyes are open. He is clearly awake and aware. His arms come up in embrace of the monster that lies atop him. The monster tries to run, but N holds fast. I jump up and grip my sword; with a mighty slash, I run my blade up the back of the beast. It shatters to dust like glass . . .

* * *

Snake drums his steering wheel, barking like a madman, the music of Ozzie Ozborn howling hard under the roaring of his car's engine. His hair is slicked back and his brother Larry sits alongside him, hollering into the hot Arizona air in celebration of another job well done. The Gekks brothers are invincible! Snake leans into his brother, offering him a playful kiss planting his lips to his brothers forehead, then focuses on the road ahead. Snake is powerful, Snake is sexy, and he is in control of everything unequivocally. The brothers cheer with roguish glee.

Snake starts to feel lucid. Some part of where he is isn't quite adding up. Something is missing. The music grows soft, the headlights dim, the sounds of his car grow distant. "Larry!" he calls. "Where are we heading?"

"Where do you want to go?"

He tries to shake off his feelings of dismay. "How is your arm?"

Larry looks down at himself. "I'm fine, you're fine, everything's cool, dude. Do you need a drink?" Magically Larry produces a beer. As Snake takes the can from his brother's grip and turns his eyes to the sandy valley ahead, the road is gone and he is no longer in his car but someplace just as fun.

A bar that is dark with music playing and mostly naked girls strolling about. Larry laughs and taps their cans together. For a moment, Snake starts to fall back into his character. He glances about, taking in the sights and atmosphere. At a booth near the front of the establishment, there are two filmy faces, two statues in the shapes of Reizuki Lowe sitting on his knees on the table and Richard Blake in a chair, leaning back, reading a book. A slight tingle pulls at his mind whispering to him "there not hear, thay never have been . . ." reminding him that he didn't know the two of them back when.

Snake looks about more critically; more faces come into view. His friend Moses is here, so is Lance Jacob, Charley Belmond, El Driver, Mohamed Quinn, and dozens of others that have no earthly business here . . . mostly because their people he and his brother have killed on their crime wave!

Snake hops to his feet as the Lamia that had cured his brother jumps out from under the table and nearly into his lap, calling in a hiss, "Good morning, love." Everyone around Snake with the exception of Larry stand as well and take on animalistic features.

The fire suppressant system activates, and nearly everyone in the bar run in to bullrush Snake. The first to arrive is the Spanish dwarf, Moses, shrieking almost monkey like as he leads up to grab Snake round the neck; Snake twists in a pivot, throwing the tiny man with his own weight. Lance Jacob, the old priest, is the next to arrive, swinging a baseball bat. Snake jumps on the ground, rolling under him. El kicks Snake out of his roll, knocking the thief on his back. The vampire-looking El swoops down and grabs Snake by the back of his shirt, then body-slams him onto the bar table with almost one swift movement.

"Larry!" Snake calls; El leans into him with a showing of his teeth. Snake places a foot to El's abdomen and with a sharp thrust pushes El away. Lance grips his shoulders, reaching around the table. Snake kicks the table and rolls head over heels, flipping himself over Lance. Quinn sucker-punches Snake; Snake grabs a chair and slams it across Quinn, shattering it.

Snake pounds his chest. "Come on, is that all you got!?" Belmond pulls his whip, snatching Snake by the arms; Snake leans back and twist inward on an advancing guard. Belmond loops the whip over Snake's head, momentarily disorienting him, and the whole team takes advantage, beginning to slap the rouge in every which direction. "Larry!" he calls again.

The beating stops for a moment; Larry parts the crowd and kneels over his wounded brother. Without warning, he opens his mouth, becoming a frog, and swallows Snake in a single gulp.

Darkness surrounds Snake. He finds himself floating in night thicker than water. The air itself has the consistency of spider silk. The thief is bound by unseen chains. Loneliness. Snake's truest fear, takes hold.

But then . . .

* * *

Reizuki calls me the moment he can move. "Save Gekks." I draw my Jessie James and take a single aimed shot and punch a round from ear to ear in the wraith. Snake jars awake. "Quickly," Reizuki replies, "did everyone that had a tactile event with one of those monsters experience a hallucination?"

Snake is the first to respond. "I've seen that before. That was no hallucination." He is gasping.

So I finish his thought. "That was a metaphysical attack. Those things act just like Adam Crow. They were trying to kill us by severing the connection between body and mind." I think it over again. "No, I'm wrong. It's not like Crow. Crow only needs to be within eight hundred or so feet of someone to drain them. Those monsters needed to establish physical contact."

Reizuki nearly cracks a smile. "Funny you would mention crows. There were crows in my fantasy." He climbs out of the car and makes his way to the underground.

I try to intercept him, asking, "Don't you need to know more about this thing?"

"Not really. If your Crow is a man, then this is nothing more than technology. If it is an animal, then we're looking at a simple poison, venom, or toxin. If he is the devil, we have nothing to fear. If we hide in the light and if it is god, then it is blasphemy that we survived and are dammed already. So there is nothing to be afraid of." So cold, so cocky, so arrogant, I must say I'm glad he is one of us. The real nightmare is no doubt at the bottom of this descent.

Chapter 15

Shattered Wings

Crow walks an arc of circles around the office, spilling from his hand a mix of salt and ash, whispering a prayer, "Hectic, daughter to Ceto, Sister to Arachna, Mother of Siren, and of Harpy, I the Ancient and Mighty Crow call to you!"

He hasn't even finished his prayer before a woman with cream-colored skin and rainbow hair and feathered legs and wings to match manifest in the room. She has a smile like sunshine and taloned feet as well as introverted knees; her posture oozes with sexuality. Hectic giggles. "Like I won't answer, maharishi." She playfully covers her face with her glowing starlight tail.

Crow steps in, placing his hands on the sides of her face. "Hectic, my lovely princess." He offers her a kiss. Crow kisses many people and beasts alike; more often than not, this is a sign of domination more so than affection, but the kiss is not of that type. Hectic is not one to be dominated; she is in fact dominating, and that makes her Crow's equal and the kiss one of passion at least for the moment. "Do you remember Hercules?" he breaks of the kiss to ask.

She nods, placing her wings on his chest. "Yes?"

"He killed your brothers, Landon, and Cerberus, didn't he?"

"Yes."

"Would you like the opportunity to avenge them?"

She steps away, walking over to sit on Shaun's desk; Shaun is still hanging from the ceiling. "What is the occasion?"

"My wedding day."

"Anyone else I know here?"

"Crane the plaguelord. She brought Mandralocks. I also sent an invite to Akasha and her husband Cain, but they were unavailable and sent their eldest son Harm in their absence."

"Harm? That sadomasochistic necrophight? How . . . thoughtless of them! You deserve better than a vampire with a superiority complex--"

Crow cuts her short, "He will do well enough as a witness. I have no other need of a night stalker. But I would like Hercules incapacitated before the ceremony. Can you take care of that for me?"

"All right, but you could marry me so long as I'm here."

"No, I need something more like me as my mate. But thank you nonetheless."

Hectic giggles once more. "Suit yourself, I guess, but if you change your mind . . . Who are you marrying anyway? All the respectable goddesses are already spoken for, aren't they?"

Crow grins sinisterly . . .

* * *

Miasma seeps through the floor around the feet of the trio of soldiers, hideous cackles hunt the room, and the walls come to life, bending around the group to isolate them from one another. Stretching and distorting, they take unearthly shape.

El shoots a meaningful glance to Lacerti; Lacerti canvasses his thoughts to EL with only a slight nudging of his eyes. Lacerti jumps over to Karin and lifts her off her feet. The movement is subtle, but both men know what the other wanted. With only that glance, Lacerti spoke a mouthful. Silently Lacerti had told El, "I have this under control. I will protect Karin. You need to get to the stairwell. I'll catch up in a second." And El believes him. No magic can divine the connection El and Lacerti share. Only implicit trust and years of learning each other's rhythm can give one this knowledge.

El follows the unspoken plan; he dashes across the room and smashes down the fire escape door with a flying tackle. The door regrows behind El, seemingly made of feathers and hair. Another day goes, another cursed night begins.

The shattering becomes an almost liquid mass, forming a floating head anchored by a neck emerging from the still solid walls. Lacerti grunts in understanding as he watches the phenomenon. The wall calls to him in an orchestral tone. "Hercules?!?" Lacerti hides Karin behind himself as he squares off with the floating head. Lacerti needs no words; he draws his steel. The wall giggles, locking eyes with the giant. "Come with me to paradise!"

* * *

El climbs to his feet and runs up the stairwell. He peeks through the door to the second floor. It seems to be a lone room, six hundred feet long, completely void with the exception of a window, two doors, and a bed with ventilator and some other life-support devices attached. El's heart sinks; he shakes his head and turns back to the stairs, whispering to himself, "Fuck that."

The stairwell is blocked off by a stone wall covering the way up and down. Phantom chains grow out from the bed and fly across the room and into the doorway, grabbing at El. El reaches for his gun, but it's too late; he is thrown down on his face and dragged into the room. Next thing El knows, he is tied to the bed.

Worm-like probes, needles, and tubes tunnel into his skin, fusing him to the cradle. El struggles briefly, letting loose with a mortal cry. The monster tubes bleed liquid into his veins, and El grows tired and weak.

The machine takes over his life; it breathes for him, orders him to sleep, replaces his blood with synthetic oil. It makes him age; it takes from him his will. Time loses its meaning.

A voice calls to El in his enchanted slumber; it is a voice El has never heard but one that he quickly recognizes. "On your feet, Soldier." It is a soft voice almost feminine.

El shakes his head, trying to drag himself from the grip of subconscious sleep.

"I can't move!" he calls weakly.

"This is your nightmare, your truest fear? Mortality? I was once like you. Scared to death to live. But not anymore. I can save you from your yourself. But first you need to get out of that bed."

"That voice?" El struggles. "How is that?"

The voice becomes stern, not angry but instead commanding. "I can't help you if you don't want to be helped. Now open your eyes and find your feet."

El growls, forcing himself awake; he snarls, reaching across his body to start pulling out probes. Almost animalistic, he barks. El sits up and grows young just as the bed had made him old. Shrouded in spectral wind, Marks stands alongside him in the legendary clown makeup his comrades spoke of, his hands folded over his stomach in a diamond-like fashion. His hair flutters about as a glowing white mantel almost wing like, his body hidden by black leather garbs. "General?"

Marks smiles. "Good. Now fly!"

El need not ask a thing; he falls to the ground, and staggering, he runs not needing to be in a full upright position to start his sprint. He runs to the exit and smashes it apart only to find he has fallen out of the closet on the opposite side. The bed grows back its evil tendrils and is reaching for him again. Marks stands over the bed, observing the situation.

EL forces his way past the bed and right back out of the exit and then out of the closet again. He pauses briefly looking back, seeing that he can see himself on the other side of the room, ready to fall right back into place. "This is insanity," El mumbles to himself. But the bed is crawling to him; no time to think, only act. He runs across the room again to reset the environment; he calls to Marks, "General?"

Marks looks around the room. "There is nothing I can do. I can't interact with the world you are in."

"Sir, that is bullshit, sir." Once again he loops round the room, jumping into the closet and coming in the exit.

"How many times are you going to repeat the same mistakes? The exit isn't that way. It is this way." Marks points at the window.

El ducks under the bed, rolling beneath it, then leaps to his feet following Marks' instructions. He tumbles out the window and lands in the same place he had leapt from. "Sir, the situation seems to have not improved, sir."

Marks points out. "Not so. Look at yourself. Look more closely at your surroundings. This is indeed a great improvement."

El takes a moment to look at himself. He is not young or old, not from his perspective anyway. He looks like himself dressed in his combat gear. The bed too has changed; the room has rolled: He, Marks, and the window are on ground level, but everything else is upside down. The bed now houses another El, this one mummified in what looks like plastic wraps, giving it an inhuman appearance.

The bed stands upright and encapsulates itself in rusted razor wires; like serpents, the chains creep along the ground. The bed stands upright, floating along the ceiling. It grows arms to hold itself in place and seems to bleed tar, burning holes in the ground as it inches ever closer. El looks desperately at Marks. "You have been here before. Nothing has changed. Kill the wraith and you will live."

"Sir, how do I do that, sir?"

"You did it before by understanding the truth. This is a nightmare. The wraith is making your lower brain attack your upper brain. This is little more than an acid illusion. You are reacting to a hallucination. Reach into your coat, pull your gun. Now understand this, what you see before you is a physical manifestation of a psychomagnifieric life form. That being the case, the phenomena falls subject to the boundaries of your psyche. You are you. That is an intruder, your weapons, antibodies. Think of it this way if it helps. Your gun is logical discourse, and with it you can assign value to all that you see. Now erase that blight!"

Yes, El has done this all before; last time the nightmare brought him back to the forest in Vietnam, and he fought toe-to-toe with the ghosts of men he had killed. This time he is fighting his own fear of aging. Death doesn't scare El; he is ready to die, but pre-death--that is another demon internally. Can El overcome this monstrosity? Yes, he can. Yes, he will. If this is in his mind, and all evidences claim it is, then this is just another battle, even if it is against himself. El is better; El will overcome.

The wraith launches its attack, the tendrils sprawling the ground, jumping; this time El can see them. Calculated, El leans ever so slightly to one side letting the cable-like creatures fly by. As they strike the ground, the warrior slams a foot down to hold them in place; he then points down with his Jackal and with one shot burns them to ashes. With a steel gaze, El squares off with his shadow. The bed nearly cackles, calling on more slithering spears. EL breaks left, rolling under the attack; the living spears change direction. El dips and dives, then lifts his Jackal, taking another shot; another tentacle burns away.

Two more razor-like wires pierce the ground, attempting to pincer El between them; El whispers to himself, "I'll never disarm that thing like this." He assesses his surroundings; there is always a balance to any equation. El thinks he may have spotted this one.

El dashes over to the door; the monster presets its attack, chasing the mathematician just as he expected. El steps into the exit and comes out of the closet just as before; he pivots off on one foot as the spears carry forth, impaling the bed at the center of the room, still trying to chase El. A paradox of physics, in effect allowing the chains and the monster to exist twice in one's reality, the demon touching itself dispels the horror. The monster throws an endless attack, launching spears at itself through the portals with exponential growth: first two, then four, eight, sixteen, thirty-two, sixty-four, one hundred and twenty eight . . .

Marks looks at El with an approving grin. "Interesting! What did you do?"

"I divided by zero. You claimed that this is my world. In my world, one is one always, and all things have absolute values, and one minus itself is zero, therefore cannot be." El, warrior savant, turns to face his Idol. He salutes; the mad doctor returns the favor. The mist starts to rise; El beckons to his hero. "Thank you."

"There is no need. I only ask that as I have saved you, you can save me."

"What?!"

"You are now free. I am still imprisoned."

"I'm on my way, General."

The fog clears. El is back in his own body. He is on his back. A glass fiend sits on his chest; it seems to be paralyzed. EL draws one hand across his face to shield himself as he pulls out his navy pistol (a small handgun for fighting in close quarters). He fires three times on the beast, shattering it into crystal shards. The warrior takes only a moment to dust himself off, then it's back to work.

* * *

Crow walks up the stairwell to what should be the rooftop; opening the door reveals another stairwell. This one seemingly leads into the stars themselves and a church comprising an interlay of mirrors. On the steps of light awaits him a man in priestly robes and a collar to match. His skin is white, his body a piece of artwork, eyes that look like silver, teeth filed into nails, his head carefully waxed, blades of cold steel protrude the back of his head, twelve earrings run down both ears. Similarly twelve rings run down his spin revealed by the open back of his robe; two broken spears can be seen driven through his hands. Crow imagines he has more flair as well, but that is all he can see. "Avatar," the vampire announces, "still sending little birds to do the work of kings?"

"Harm, son of Akasha. Don't bore me with your theatrics."

The blood god grins at Crow. "How many more of your peers do you plan on sacrificing to Whitewolf?"

"Lacerti won't kill Hectic, and she is not my peer, nor are you." The two meet and match on horizontal plains, Crow stepping up, Harm stepping down; the two offer each other a hard gaze, bloodlust in their eyes.

"There is something I have been concerned about since my mother told me about you, Avatar. What gave you the right to stand in our presence? You are mortal and we are the gods of death, but still my parents quiver at the sound of your voice."

Crow squints at Harm, infuriated but still choking back his rage. "If you think your teeth are sharper than mine, by all means demonstrate your power." Harm holds out his arms, and bloody tendons appear, entangling Crow's arms and legs. Harm steps in to sink his fangs into the evil god to demonstrate his superiority. Crow turns to mist, fading out of the snares; with an invisible hand, Crow grips the blood god by the esophagus. Harm almost chuckles at the childish attack but then comes to understand what his true intention is, a catalyst for a spellbinding circle to prevent him from casting anymore spells without Crow's consent.

"Being a blood god, have no doubt that you can comprehend what I am telling you now. You and all the other petty gods have one thing in common. You are incomplete, and only in the presence of another born at the same instance can unlock your true form. You are an empty shell, Harm. I can free you of your weaknesses if you want . . ." Crow slows his speech to give Harm time to think. "Would I be right in saying you heard of Job the Endless's retirement? I am in need of a new dark angel. I want you. Will you comply willingly?" The phrasing says it all; there is no arguing this but blood gods are notoriously vain and Harm will not kneel readily. But he will kneel.

"What need do you have of a slave? With nothing more than a thought, it is claimed you can dominate a human mind?"

The dark dimension fades ever so slightly as the shadow of the cosmic Cravixs, the world-eating monstrosity, forces its way into the world so as to let Harm experience its true overwhelming aspect. The beast itself speaks to Harm in the celestial tongue; Harm hears and understands "humans make fine fanatics, but poor slaves. They lack a sodality that is essential when passing through ages. Crow is a fine vessel but still experiences human hungers and needs of flesh. If I desire to wear this skin of another thousand years, it will need maintenance. You will give

Crow everything he needs that I cannot."

Harm is overwhelmed as any would be. "So much evil."

Crow taunts, "How uncomfortable those words must be!" A new angel is chosen, a new guardian in place. Only one thing is left to do before moving on to the next phase of his conquest. "Let me tell you what is next to come . . ." Crow tells Harm of the future and that there is an unknown variable, one he cannot control. "She (Karin) will be reborn upon being touched by Crane. For the first time in her life, she will be fully aware of what she is and what she will become. I cannot tell you what will happen in the moments that follow, but I can tell you Lacerti will try to save her, but he will be helpless to change this. At that moment, you must use your shadow walking power to bring the child here."

* * *

Marks finds himself in the flat he once lived. He looks about. "Why do I keep coming back here?" The front door is chained shut, the windows covered by bricks. The apartment is empty; the stairwell to the next floor goes to nothing. "What am I meant to do?" Marks paces about knocking on walls. "There needs to be a way out or some clue as to why I'm here." He stops before his cat dish, which is still not there.

The old wizard approaches the door, staring at the wall of chains covering it. The chains are heavy made of a material Marks can't identify; the wall on the other hand is nothing more than wood and plaster. Marks steps onto his back foot; he presses his thumb to his palm and locks his elbow rigidly. He lifts his hand to a ninety-degree angle. The wizard points his hand at the door and calls forth his kie, drawing in light from all around the room into a pinpoint of pure light, resulting in an otherwise perfect darkness. Silently the light collides with the door, redistributing with cataclysmic force, utterly distorting the door.

But this reveals nothing; yes, the door is gone, but there seems to be no world on the other side, only more darkness, seemingly eternal darkness spreading as far as the eye can see past his room.

The television reappears in the room, and the face of the sinister clown that was once Marks is in it shouting to himself, "Don't be a slave to your fears. Fly, fly to freedom."

Marks need not look back; he is perfectly aware of his predicament. "That is enough from you, court jester." He points his hand back at the television and with two fingers emanates yet another blast of light, this one blowing the TV to pieces.

The darkness calls to Marks with the voice of a child, "Come to me, daddy. Come into the darkness and find me."

Marks turns his head to the void, staring into the nothing. He silently protests his own thought, then decisively calls forth, "No, I don't think I'm ready for that either."

All voices are silenced. There is no longer a road forward nor is a way back defined.

Chapter 16

The Edge of Divinity

Von Richton goes to visit her pet monster. England is locked in a cage in the lowest bowels of the estate. He has been stripped off his dignity; the dog collar he once wore for intimidation factor now chains him to the ground. His arms are bound and his feet nailed to the ground; a ring is drawn on the ground around him with mystic emblems that forbid his shape-shifting. Von Richton grins devilishly at her companion. "I'm disappointed. Where is your demon's pride now?"

England grimaces darkly. "How long before they find fit to have you in here with me?"

"Then you confess?" Von Richton asks.

"I made a mistake."

"Waging war against humanity?"

England laughs hideously. "No, enlisting outside assistance. It doesn't matter anyway, he_is coming, and when _he gets here you too will be judged."

"What are you hiding from me?"

* * *

Reizuki, Snake, and myself travel together for only a short time before Reizuki reveals the next part of his plan to us. We are in the underground parking lot, looking down to the next level which looks almost completely submerged. "We are three men with three goals faced with a five-way crossroad. I see only one way to confront this circumstance. We will divide our efforts."

"This is almost a shittier idea than Blake's," Snake criticizes.

"I didn't proclaim that you're on your own from here. I want Blake to make his way for the nerve center of the complex and provide you and I with tactical support. Once you and I have reached our respective checkpoints, we will arrange for localized convergences, then as a unit execute the last of our objectives as a single action," Reizuki briefs us. Personally I think Snake might be right. This idea sounds like shit. We have a pissed-off demigod on our heels and this guy is talking like Napoleon Bonaparte.

"Richard, you're going to need to take stairwell 1-B. There is a 342-foot-long hallway between the exit and the building itself. You'll find it southeast of our present location. As for you and I, Snake, our trek is a tad longer. We are going to need to go to the lower levels to find our extraction points."

Snake cuts in, "How much lower?"

"We will likely end up swimming. Richard, when you find the central control room for the tower's security network, I would like you to call Snake and I."

Snake interjects, "I don't have a phone. I gave mine to a friend."

"Why didn't you bring that up yesterday? . . . Find one and contact Blake when you do." I tear a page from my notebook and give it to Snake with my phone number.

I feel the need to inquire about Reizuki's knowledge of the complex. "How do you know where the exits are?"

He points back and to the left. "I glanced at the map on the wall."

I shrug and depart from my friends, calling back to them, "Good luck." If all goes well, we will be back here in no time. How strange, how calm I feel right know!

I enter a long hall near where Reizuki had pointed, and it is just as he (or the map) claimed---342 feet to the stairs and fifty stairs to the next door, it looks like. "This is terrible building planning," I whisper to myself as I climb.

"Tail!" I call into the device Reizuki has given me, and almost instantly I get a reply.

"Present."

"Do you have a lock on my location?"

"Transmitting loud and clear. Central parking ramp, terminal to south side." I see what looks like a fire door before me. There is a keypad on it. Almost on instinct, I pull out my crowbar, and I rear up to smash it apart almost, failing to hear Tail explain, "Six point lock dead ahead. I'll unlock it for you . . ." Mid-swing, door opens; funny, typically I need to hit at least once.

As I step through the door, Tail barks at me, "Stop!" I freeze in place. "Look up." I lift my head; hanging over me, there is a long silvery cylinder with what looks like a drum attached to it and several rings of horseshoe magnets. I mumble to myself, trying to understand it. Tail explains everything, "XX Silver-Storm EM (electromagnetic) Canon. Ever hear of the Vulcan AAC (Anti-Aircraft Canon)? This little thing is next year's model. Two hundred rounds per second, fires off fucking ball bearings at 8.9 times the speed of sound. Walk in front of that thing, and it won't turn you into cheese. It will liquefy you, for fuck's sake."

I notice something that doesn't add up to me; it's not pointing at the door, as if to keep me out. It's pointed down the hall and up the stairs. "It's facing away from me?!"

"There are one of those bad boys behind every exterior door on ground level. You're going to need some way of disconnecting that thing from the power supply if you are going to sally forth--something big, heavy, with a bit of leverage. Is there a crane or pulley or something around?"

I look down to my hand wherein I'm still gripping my crowbar. "Tail, I have an idea." Using all my knowledge of electronics and mechanical engineering, I scientifically and forcibly apply myself to the task at hand and with the utmost of care remove the turret from the ceiling. It comes apart surprisingly easily once the claw of the bar breaks the drum.

I turn my thoughts back to my phone and then to my friends, Snake and Reizuki.

"Tail, did you say there are one of these in front of every door on ground level?" "Yeah," she claims queerly.

"Tail, why are the guns facing down the halls?" "Ahm . . ." Tail pauses.

"Is there a way to remotely deactivate them?"

"Yes if you were on the top floor of the north building or south building's control room."

"Then that is my goal."

Tail barks enthusiastically, "Right! Then it's 'I point you punch.'"

Now the next question worth asking would be how do I get upstairs? At the moment, it looks like there is only one road open to me. So I push onward, a slight feeling of malaise hovering about me.

* * *

Tail's ear twitches as she stares at the computer screens around her as if something were brushing against her. Several times she reaches up and slaps one of her ears down, then looks about for what is causing the discomfort. After failing for a fifth, maybe sixth time, she nearly growls, jumping up to her feet. Tail shakes herself off and walks to the bathroom; without turning on the lights, she turns on the water and splashes herself, trying to understand her unsettling feelings. Is it that suddenly Claw Co. has come back into her life? Is it that Blake is risking his life again for an nondescript purpose?

Tail's eye is caught in the dark room by a flashing red light in the mirror. Tail spins about and looks up at the air-conditioner in the bathroom, and focusing on it, she can hear a hum, far too subtle for human ears to detect. But to her it is like the buzzing of flies--nerve-racking, teeth chattering, and relentless. But from here?

No, the sound she heard before was far closer.

Tail leans in close; through the AC, she can see a camera, hidden in the grills. From there, her ears point her to the fan on the ceiling, then the heater in the hall; walking around her bedroom and the bathroom, she spots close to sixty cameras looking at her from near every conceivable angle.

"I don't believe this!" she mumbles to herself, taking inventory. "Somewhere between the time Millie escorted me to court and the time I came back, there were maybe a hundred _bugs_planted in my room." She giggles. "Big brother must have a hell of a hard-on. And this one's not unilateral?"

Tail walks over to her computer and turns it slightly, noticing a microphone hidden inside the cooling vent. "I wonder who is on the other end of this. Von Richton most likely? Maybe Joe? I don't suppose you want to talk about this?" she speaks into her computer. She removes the back of her computer to pull out the mic, with the intent of reprogramming and listening in on the listener; as she pulls it out, a piece of paper comes out with it. Tail picks it up and unfolds it. It is a note that reads: "Put it back, Tail."

Tail verbally freezes, looking at it. "Well . . . I guess that makes some sense. She has more eyes on me than Oprah Winfrey. Well, now that my boss has gone John Edger Hoover on me I wonder what is coming next." Tail's eyes roll from side to side as she thinks for a moment about her situation. Tail stands up and approaches her front door with an irritated movement; she jerks the handle only to find that it is sealed tight. She peeks out the peephole and can see with some effort that there is a indistinct shadow of a man alongside the door. "Wow, when they say house arrest, they're not kidding."

Tail walks back into her room and sits at her desk with a concerned haze to her gaze. Only a moment ago she was thinking about how much better life was here than back at the towers, but now she can see that it is just the same. She has but a single trustworthy friend and a whole lot of prying eyes; she escaped one prison and now she is in another. Again a moment of consideration informs her that she knew all this already; she fooled herself with pretty new paint and a nicer bed. But then again none of this is really hers. She is a house pet; this belongs to Blake.

Tail takes inventory of the room. Looking at what she really has here: a book bag, a laptop, her skateboard, a pair of checkered low tops, two pairs of pants, one dress, six pairs of underwear, and two dozen T-shirts, oh yes and a phone and headphones. OK, so it's an improvement from a toolbox and a blanket, but the idea is the same. Ten minutes ago she was a guest, maybe unwanted, but a guest nonetheless. The key difference? A guest has the right and ability to leave. Tail's rights have been taken away but not her abilities. "Is this why Millie was so afraid when we were talking? Is she in the same predicament?"

Tail finds that she and Blake have yet another thing in common all of a sudden. She focuses her mind and tunes out the humming of the microphones. She has to see what becomes of Blake, live or die; she needs to know once that is over then . . .

* * *

Reizuki and Snake stand before the ramp to the next level. Clearly once down this ramp, they will be completely submerged. Reizuki takes the candy from his mouth and places it within a plastic baggy he hides in his back pocket. He then reveals a necklace with what looks like a harmonica attached to it. "Snake, do you swim?"

Snake cocks his head, nearly upside down at the statement. "Dude, I'm from Arizona."

"Is that a yes?" Snake coughs uncomfortably. Reizuki almost looks upset. "It doesn't matter. This is a portable self-contained underwater breathing apparatus. It functions off electrolyzing principles. Water goes in. As your breath is filtered down into base components, air goes out this end, hydrogen out the other. It is hydro magnetic, so there is no chance of it running out of current."

Snake shakes his head in disbelief. "You just happened to be carrying SCUBA gear with you?"

"Here is what is going to happen next. We will walk into the water together. Once we go under, I will use the breather to start to guide us lower into the compound. We make our way to the nearest exit. Tap my arm at any time and I give the breather to you, and then we do the opposite. I tap your arm when I run out of air. When we reach the b-2 exit, it is three hundred feet to the stairs. After that, you are on your own."

Snake tries to talk Reizuki out of this obviously flawed plan, but there is no hearing of it. Reizuki grips him by the wrist and pulls him into the water. The last words out of Snake's mouth before his head falls into the water is "What? Why is the water hot?"

Without hesitation, Reizuki jumps in. The water is nearly clear with a faint rainbow underscore created by distant lights and oil on and below the surface thereof. Once in the water, Reizuki is nearly dragging Snake behind him. The ceilings are twelve feet; the water is clean, almost pristine, once ten feet down. The walls are a cold gray; to Snake being in water is like being in another world.

The way through the strange standing waters seems far longer than it truly is. N and Snake trade the machine back and forth a dozen times. Something lurks behind--a faceless six-armed giant with strange biological armor and a thorned tail that doubles over its body length. Snake slaps Reizuki as they're swimming to try to point out the armored fiend, but when N tries to look to where Snake points, the fishy devil is gone.

At last, there is a break in the road. Snake and Reizuki work together to pry open the steel door, leading to the next leg of their journey. Snake takes one last breath from Reizuki's device, then starts down the long chamber to the exit. Reizuki turns to go deeper yet.

Three hundred feet underwater, it is a difficult task for even a fantastic swimmer, but for a mundane one, a near unreachable feet. But thoughts of vengeances keep Snake straight. Only halfway, he feels the water move as if something is moving behind him. Snake looks back and can see in vivid detail--six feet wide, twelve feet long, two muscular upper arms, shriveled lower arms, a head with no discernible human futures, but feelers and two mouths and an armed chest. It grabs the door with two of its arms and jumps through to lay chase like an alien shark. Snake tries to scream, then slaps his mouth shut and swims with all his might.

Knowing well that this beast would have no trouble swallowing him with one bite, the monster is fast, Snake ducks against the wall at a corner to hide. The monster rounds the bend and flies past Snake; unfortunately, there is no way back, so now it is Snake that chases the monster. The fish demon flips about, folding its body into two to look at the tiny human.

Underwater is an inimically complicated battlefield, conventional weapons traditionally don'twork: for example with narrowly in exception ballistics the require gun powered will not function when wet, in the early days of the musketeers this was a major problem, and clubbing instruments are nearly useless. Snake spots at his feet what looks like a length of aluminum tubing, the kind used for covering high voltage wire alongside downtown offices. With some strain, he lifts the tube slightly, and then braces himself against it anticipating impact. The charging monster lunges down at Snake, disregarding his defensive maneuver until the pipe punches into its armor. Snake takes the moment of confusion to pass under the evil fish and dashes for land.

Snake never looks back, but he can feel the monster is coming again: a hundred feet, seventy-five feet, his chest burns; fifty feet, he can see the stairs up ahead. Twenty-five feet, he feels his arms getting heavier and his eyes pulsing. Ten feet, he wants to take a breath; he is dying to take a breath. Snake has never been in water anywhere near this long. Five feet, his fingertips find air; at last hungrily he takes a breath of clean air, and it is more amazing than any air he has had before. He crawls up the steps, laughing madly having forgotten what lies behind him.

The fish demon reminds him of his presence, heaving itself from the water and atop Snake, crumpling him onto all fours. Snake growls like a wild beast, hate, rage, and hunger clear and loud in his eyes. Snake thrusts himself backward driving his elbow into the monster hemorrhaging ribs; the monster recoils. Snake steps back, snarling, thrusting into him half a dozen times. The monster brings its head down in a bit but meets Snake's elbow to its chin instead. The demon crawls back several feet to regain its balance. Snake leaps to his feet and grabs one of his guns.

The monster at last reveals it has legs as four new appendages grow from within its body; two thin bone legs grab at the walls and two at the ground as it lifts itself into a standing position. Snake sneers, pointing at his firearm. He pulls the trigger twice; with nothing but a saggy "click," his arms drop to his sides and with a snooty voice he whispers to himself, mimicking Larry, "Of course, your gun won't fire, Brainyack. It's wet and the flash powder can't reach ignition point." He changes back to his normal voice. "Fantastic! Got any other ideas?!" Snake turns to run up the steps. He turns back to Larry's voice "Well, there is that door over there." He starts to reach out to smack his brother then realizes he is talking to himself.

The creature is far slower on land than in water, Snake easily reaches the top of the steps well before the monster. He body checks a locked door, praying it will crumble under his weight. Wishful thinking, but no, he bounces off the door, then notices the electronic locking device. "Oh! Come on! What happened to the days of bolts and hand locks?!" Snake pulls out his screwdriver and with a sharp downward motion rips off the keypad revealing the wires beneath. He then pulls out a bottle of oil and a flint. A quick spark and the oil burns up in a flash, short-circuiting the door, and it springs open. "Yes!"

The monster makes its way to the top floor. Snake steps behind the door; the monster goes to walk in after him. Snake sidekicks the door, smashing the monster's arms in it. The monster is unimpressed by the tactic and smashes back, throwing Snake to the ground. The monster dives onto him. Snake covers his face with his arms as the monster comes down to rip him apart. A strange hum and the monster freezes in place, then falls on him lifeless.

Snake peeks around the body, trying to understand, then spots the turret gun overhead. He has just missed tripping it, but the monster walks cleanly into its path; it's still firing. "Holy shit!" Snake mumbles. Snake is not a ballistics expert. But he is guessing that the cannon overhead would be more than enough to burn though a human. This thing's shell must be the only thing protecting him right now.

Snake rolls onto his back and grips the lower arms of the monster and starts dragging it over him as a living (kind of?) shield. He carries it with him till he reaches a glass door, which he rolls through.

He lies on the ground to catch his breath in a lush-looking lobby. "That was some bullshit." He sighs painfully. He flops against the wall and slides down to seat himself for a moment; he knocks his head against the wall twice to regain his focus and prepare himself to continue his mission.

* * *

For Reizuki, water is second nature. To spite a life of constant sickness and broken bones, he has always loved water--swimming, sailing fishing. Not his typical intellectual appeal, but somehow the water still holds interest. Reizuki himself is like water: strong as he is gentle, powerful as he is weak, and always soothing, even cold as ice.

The water here in the parking lot is strange; the water seems dark. The submerged cars have an otherworldly appearance. It is almost like bicycling on a moonless night; the world looks blackened and serene. He descends not only into a lower plane, but into a different world altogether; the hazy depths feel to be marking the edge of reality as he perceives it.

The monsters that Snake had warned of never appear before Reizuki, but what does is nevertheless magical. As he swims down to the lowest level of the lot past a dozen levels of more cars, he finds the water littered with flowers of colors he has never seen and would be hard pressed to describe. At last his door is in sight.

A being blocks his path, this time not a giant flesh-eating ghoul but instead a woman of striking appeal. Her face is clean and kind in appearance. She has long, thin ears; her skin looks to be carved of stone, right down to the shades of gray. She has six breasts lining the front of her body and a long tail ending in a horizontal fin; bubbles run up her back as if she were breathing out of her neck. There is a pink strip of skin marking where her stomach ends and her tail begins going vertically down her pelvic region being the only color on her that is not a shade of gray.

Reizuki freezes a moment to assess whether or not to believe his eyes. A mermaid?! That is the __only explanation. But more anatomically_ and_ physiologically correct than theart of the romantic era would suggest.

The merfolk moves in close. She has an illuminating smile and a hungry gaze in her eyes. Her hands find Reizuki's chest and her lips his cheeks; her tail brushes his hip and legs. Reizuki has never known the warmth of human skin than alone any others. Reizuki can't feel heat at all anymore, but he can imagine, and at this moment he is imagining something kind and beautiful that he is hardly deserving of. The embrace of the merfolk is something out of a fantasy; a lesser man wouldn't want to be awakened from this dream.

Reizuki fusses, taking only a moment to satisfy his curiosity by rubbing up the soft silk skin of her tail and pelvis, her lusting flesh egging him on. But then his reality sets in. Time is short; lives are at stake. His lust, his happiness are insignificant against that which he embodies. He tries to push back away from the merfolk; she playfully pushes back, holding him to a wall. Her mouth drifts open and her tongue rubs down his chest. She fiddles with his clothing as if it were some alien matter. She can taste his blood through the water, and she wants it; she wants every part of him in every way imaginable. And let it be known that his protest is only more than half-hearted. Even one as him is subject to the needs of the flesh.

The merfolk's head moves down to his waist; with great force of will, Reizuki manages to find the needle hidden in his sleeve. He grips the weapon in between his ring and middle fingers. He tries one last time to pull away before employing his tool. Greedily, she lifts herself up his body and rubs her tail against his pelvis one last time attempting to provoke the young man. Reizuki offers a sympathetic stare as he takes his needle and with a sharp precise jab smacks her on the side of the neck. The jab results in temporary paralysis. The merfolk is shocked; Reizuki offers her a pat on the arm in apology, then swims away.

Reizuki emerges from the water in what looks like a train station. He walks about for some time, a strange stillness broken only by his footsteps at first, then the desperate crying of a lonely cat.

Reizuki follows the cry mostly out of morbid curiosity. He is led into a cable car and under a seat near the conductor's booth. He kneels down and discovers a cat's cradle and a black cat locked inside with a collar. "Nuku?" He reads the label. "Dr. V. Karingson?"

The cat looks up at Reizuki with her dark speckling jaded green eyes, then opens her mouth. Reizuki, of course, expects a pleading "meow" but falls backward and crawls to the wall awe-stricken when he instead encounters the phrase "please unlock my cage" in a childish feminine voice coming from the cat . . . Reizuki is frozen in place, seemingly struggling to comprehend the absurdity of a child's voice coming from a feline body. After several moments of contemplation, the cat mocks, "What's the matter, 'Ronma Tendo'? Never hear a cat talk before?" Reizuki understands the reference to the manga "Ronma ½."

Reizuki catches his wit. "Not everyone from Shinto reads comic books." He gets up on all fours and crawls to the cage, opening it. "I trust I'll get an explanation for this."

The cat sassily strolls out of the cage. "That depends. Are you interested in truth or fact? The truth is there is a rouge cyborg in the building somewhere, and if I don't disarm him, he will likely bring this place down around our ears. Facts on the other hand are in shorter supply. There is another 'Nuku.' She is a human, like you. Find her, then sally forth."

"Nuku? What does that word mean?"

The cat calls back as it walks away, "It was a joke between Capt. Allen Wesker and Gen. Marks Karingson. Nuku is a bastardization upon Neko which simply is cat 'Vash the stamped.' Another manga references this time to 'Trigun.'"

"Now that was just racist."

The last words from the cat are "At least I didn't call you 'Sun Wukong.'" This time it's not a comic but a piece of Edo mythology specifically the Shen Goku legend.

Reizuki lays chase to the Nuku Two in hopes of finding answers to the steadily growing questions and hopefully to find this so-called Nuku Three.

* * *

Just outside Reizuki's vision, yet another cat sits and watches from the back of the train. A phantom wind howls, and the stillness congeals into the spectral form of the old wizard. Marks grins slightly pleased by what he sees. The wizard remarks, "Commendable, truly commendable against Lowe." Marks looks down at his cat. "With warriors like him even if we all lose are lives in the war yet to come, we may still have a fighting chance to save our souls. Already he has outrun the void once and managed to somehow hide himself from the prying eyes of the so-called devil."

Marks kneels a moment to look at his cat eye to eye. "Only a bit longer, Nuku, and we can go home." He holds his hand out to the cat. Nuku purrs and rubs her head into her owner's hand. With that simple touch, she discards her mortal body and becomes a thing of energy like him. Once to her the ghost seems solid, she jumps up his arm and finds herself a cozy perch on his back. "Now to pay Alan a visit, then we leave the rest to Vigeta and the humans." Marks floats backward on an ethereal wind, then returns to the astral plains to continue his otherworldly works.

Chapter 17

Two Worlds

Take a moment; think about every great story you have ever heard told. Think hard about that which all stories have in common. In the perfect world, there would be no conflict and in return no stories to tell. In a near-perfect world, good men would never die, the incident would never be wronged, heroes would always prevail, and the wicked would always be punished. In the semi-perfect world, good guys would all have white hats, bad guy black hats, and there would be no gray in between.

In every story of intrigue, I can recall there was always a wise old wizard whose job was to outline the hero's goals, to tell the farm boy doing right what must be done in order to achieve his dreams, or some magical animal would show up and explain the history of things to come or maybe explain why the world is the way it is. But regardless of whether it is a withered old sage, a grinning cat, or a caterpillar with a corncob pipe, the heroes are never left to find for themselves. What I wouldn't give for some fairytale logic right now!

I stand at the bottom of an elevator shaft. I look down and see a closet of a room fifteen feet down lit by a shop lamp with a fistful of discarded tools around; water is beginning to fill the shaft. There is a mechanism at ground level that runs the crank powering the elevator. I imagine it won't work flooded as it is. I look up; there are four sets of weights attached to the walls and the booth itself is about a hundred feet overhead.

I can hear strange sounds coming through the floor, the sound of steel against stone. Not an unfamiliar sound, but I don't think I have ever heard it so loud--devilish laughter, a nightmarish cry, the sounds of industrial groaning. Strangely, I have been in worse places.

I look at my hands, the armor Marin gave me; there seem to be tiny orbs on the palms. I recall the armor being referred to as "spider silk." Apparently this armor gives one the ability to climb up smooth surfaces. Well, now seems like as good of a time as any to give it a try. I place my hand firmly to the wall; I feel a magnetic pull. I don't understand how it works; maybe it is for the best I don't try. The armor calculates my weight and seems to fire the magnets appropriately; if I pull away from the wall, the magnets deactivate. If I push toward it, they fire again. I sucked at the rope climb at school so . . . this should be useful.

I throw myself at the wall. The magnets on my hands and feet all activate at once, and I am thrust against it with a fairly greater force than I would have expected. I groan and push myself upward as I begin my ascension.

* * *

As Lacerti engages the living walls, Karin makes for an exit. Her first thought is the elevators; she thinks a moment, The waythe walls are moving they seem linked. One of the walls grows a face and appears to look at Karin.

Lacerti takes note of the change in the living walls' behavior. He flips about his broadsword, raising it overhead in a thrusting action almost spear-like. He runs at the face, but his path is barred by a foot falling from the ceiling made out of building materials; the wall face looks at him, laughing. "Where are you off to, lovely?" The wall turns back to Karin.

Lacerti swings his hefty blade, smashing apart the stone foot; the foot is replaced by the components shifting into two hands that grab at him from either side. The golem's hands squeeze him, crushing his bones. Lacerti roars like a wild cat, pushing against the apparition; his raw force cracking and breaking apart of the constructs. Again the effort is empty. Attacking the manifestations is meaningless as two more hands come up, one from below and one from above to clap him between them as he breaks free from the first two.

Lacerti's strength is great but not limitless; he calls to Karin, "Run!" The stone head shifts over to Lacerti, and its tongue falls from its mouth, revealing a mess of electrical cables. The cables ensnare Lacerti and began shocking the life from him.

Karin extends her senses, searching for the sources of this evil presence. She detects two life forms both hidden within the walls; Karin claps her hands together, and as she pulls them apart, the elevator door is torn asunder. Karin holds forth her hand and grips onto an invisible object hidden in the shaft.

A pair of winged arms outstretch, becoming tangible, then a phantasmal bird-like monster appears before her. It smiles seductively. "Hello, lovely," it taunts Karin. The rainbow-colored monster outstretches its wings, diving at the fox girl. Karin sidesteps and thrusts her hand down, using her telekinetic art to throw the monster into the ground. In a blink of light, the monster vanishes from sight and reappears with its wings wrapped around Karin. Karin's mind-melding power activates on touch as it always does.

* * *

Instantly Karin knows her enemy. Her name is Hectic; she was born in a land called Midian. She is not immortal, but she is unaffected by the passage of time. She has a hundred brothers and two hundred sisters. The eldest brother was named Landen, but he was killed in a duel with a man called Hercules. Hectic believes that Lacerti is Hercules. Hectic loved Landen; she loved him so much that the first egg she laid she named Naga and gave it to him as a gift.

Hectic can remember a time before the time of the Avatars, before the age of Cravixs and the perversion he brought. Midian was a place of calm and serenity. The Misidians lived and died in a nearly carefree world; only Hectic's mother was immune from this circle. But after the passage of the last king, Ceto (Hectic's mother) was enraged, for his death was not a natural one.

Crow came to offer condolences; Crow made a deal with Ceto. "I will offer you and yours protection from time, sickness, and ailments alike, and you will remain as beautiful as youthful stone. Never need your children experience the heartache of withering for after their first breeding never again will they encounter such discomfort. All you need to do is pay me a tribute."

Ceto wanted to give her children this gift; after all who wouldn't make such a sacrifice for their ilk? Is any price too high for a gift of that sort? "What sort of tribute would one like you require?"

"All of your eggs are mine to take should ever I wish for them, same with those of your children and your grandchildren. Thereafter, the gifts of youth and power are yours unequivocally and eternally." Ceto accepted, wholeheartedly unaware of the extent of such an offering--eternal life for eternal servitude. But there was a proviso as is the law of the pantheon: "No man is to be tried beyond that which is common to thy brethren, lest they be afforded an exodus." And so all of the children of Midian were offered a potion of tin and iron. To drink this potion was to sacrifice their dark gift and be banished from their motherland. As far as Hectic knew, no one chose to take the potion.

Instantly Hectic was fearful of Crow; she explained her fears to Ceto. Ceto was unimpressed by her child's claim. Ceto's counter argument was that she would learn to love Cravixs just as she loved Cravixs. It seems that Ceto was right. Today Hectic has come to care for Cravixs or at the very least his personal incarnation Crow. Why? Can anyone truly understand the mystical forces of emotion?

If there is one thing Hectic truly understands about her condition, it is this. The moment her mother accepted Crow's gift, her life fell subject to religious predestiny. The gift Crow gave manifested slightly differently in every one of the kids. Hectic herself gained the ability to move though space with a supernatural speed and to warp matter with her thoughts.

* * *

In a flash, Karin has absorbed yet another mass cluster of knowledge. She opens her eyes and looks back at her mutual combatant. "Such an extraordinary life you have lived but yet always alone," Karin whispers to her mind.

Hectic distorts space, sending them into the elevator shaft. "You better be able to fly, witch." She drops Karin from the sixth floor, then grips the wall, distorting the light to become translucent. Karin begins to plummet . . .

Her free fall is interrupted by a mysterious helping hand and the phrase "I got yah."

* * *

My hand wraps around the arm of a falling child. I don't think; I act. Her hair is white as December snow, her eyes blue as ice and soft as goose feathers. I match her gaze, hanging nearly upside down like some late 1960s' cereal hero. As I stare at her, I can't help but notice the shape of her face, her eyes, and her tiny hands. Her breasts rise and lower with fear and excitement. I mumble, "You look just like Tail."

"Tail?!" She opens her mouth with the faintest of a squeak. I feel something strange in the air, something I've felt once before. In the hospital I felt a wrinkle in time, and touching this girl, I feel it again. What is this? Where is it coming from?

A deeper voice conjures within my thoughts. Above you! It is the child's voice but older, more mature. I look up just in time to see what I can only describe as a harpy deciding upon me. I jump off the wall and grab on to the other side as she dives past. The child grips the wall as well. Clearly she chooses to stand alongside me in this nightmare. I'm thankful for her stance.

The harpy turns to mist after gliding past us, claws extended. The fox childs attention is divided; one eys is clearly on harpy, the other is looking into the wall, it would seem. I can't help but wonder what is she looking at. I hold my sword fast to my side, looking around. "Where the hell did she go?"

The monster leaps out of the wall to grab the fox; she passes through harmlessly. The bird hits the wall and vanishes again. It looks as if the fox and the harpy have similar powers; several times they jump at each other, bouncing off walls and turning to smoke upon hitting one another. I can only watch in amazement. Ever since the day I became a "Von Richen," I have seen things that never fail to amaze.

I almost feel as if the harpy has forgotten me. I break the monotony with a handful of gunshots. The harpy looks up, freezing in place. The fox punishes her with two quick slaps across the face with a pair of sticks. The harpy angered phases into the wall. The wall starts to shift behind me. I jump the chasm to the opposite side yet again. A head grows out of the steel, smirking at us, followed abruptly by the supports morphing into the shapes of talons. "This is unbelievable! Climb!" I call to the fox as I start jumping up the shaft, hopelessly trying to stay ahead of the hands.

The fox follows me for several steps, then looks down at the head. She whispers, "Your sword." I have nothing to lose; I dive swinging my sword at the monster. I miss, hitting slightly to the right. It laughs; I hear the shattering of stone, and I recoil, searching myself to see if something hit me, frankly expecting to be impaled. The monster looks shocked as it retakes its human-like form, a blade having shattered the wall and grazed its cheek. In short order, I fist follows, and the monster is grabbed and ripped through the wall itself, crumbling the shaft to dust.

I look out the massive hole in the wall. The room on the other side looks nearly imploded; most of the second floor must have found its way down here. Dry wall and other pieces of office ware are piled waist deep nearly all around the room. Before me is a giant dressed like Johnny Cash, holding a buster sword in one hand and the harpy in the other.

The giant pushes the harpy down onto all fours, then slaps her onto her side, commanding her, "Go home, Hectic."

She cries, "I want my vengeance, Hercules."

"I'm not Hercules. Hercules died a long time ago."

"You are Hercules. Only you could have killed the great snake Landon."

"Well, that much is true . . . but it wasn't murder. It was an assassination. Isis offered sixteen pounds of silver to hundreds of men to try to kill him."

"Isis was my brother's wife."

"Yes, so what?"

"They loved each other."

"Isis was a siren, one of your children, I think. Lots of people loved her. If anything, you should be upset that Landon chose to try to lay eggs with her instead of accepting the one you offered to give him."

"You lie!"

"you're wrong, I don't need to."

The giant grunts and waves at the fox; she jumps up, running at him. The harpy vanishes in a spectrum of lights. I follow suit; I need to ask this colossus some questions. I chase down the giant; taking him by the arm, his skin feels like warm stone. The only sign of life I detect is he is clearly breathing. "I've seen you before!

You are Lietenant Whitewolf with the US Armed Forces. USMC." "Artillery Division," the fox adds in.

The giant replies, "You should probably go."

"Your profile had you labeled as KIA? Why? You were one of the most decorated men of the last century."

Whitewolf grunts and turns to walk away. I go to grab at him again, calling,

"Hey!"

He shakes his head. "Don't do that again."

"You are also wanted for questioning in a racketeering act. Can you tell me about it? And . . . what are you doing here anyway?" The monstrous man looks down at me; he starts to pull back a vengeful hand, but the fox steps between us. Whitewolf picks her up and walks up the stairwell. I don't dare intercede again. My inquiry goes unappeased.

* * *

El is unclear as to where he is, but it looks something like an industrial laboratory. He walks with his pistol at low-ready position. There are thick glass walls that make up a majority of the room. White curtains hang from the ceiling, sectioning corners of the floor; large cylinders made of cold steel line one side of the room with ice smilingly rolling off them. But as he continues his aimless wandering, his eyes are drawn to something far displaced from the reality he expects.

El kneels beyond a corner, peeking around at a room paved in red stone. A dozen and a half men in SWAT-like armor in gas masks march into the room a group of people with semi-animalistic features. At the head of the room waits a man in priestly garments with nearly marble white skin with shards of mettle sticking out of his back.

The devilish priest is holding his arms out in embrace as his "worshippers" approach. "Harkin on to me for redemption I bring onto you. Bring me your suffering, and I shall deliver onto you peace, We the order of the Necrophights, the children of Harm and Akash, laidy of blood." The first worshipper is pushed down onto his knees alongside the priest. The priest lowers his head and bites his own wrist to bleed the vein; he draws on the face of the kneeling man in his own blood, then slides two fingers into his mouth, making the worshipper drink off his body. Almost instantly, the worshipper's skin seems to change texture, becoming nearly glue like and partly melted, almost stretched by its own weight. The "deacons" bring forth a mask and place it on the face of the newly ordained member. The mask burns into his flesh, becoming a part of him.

El can only watch in horror at the demonic display. It doesn't take long for

El's analytical nature to take hold. This is __a rescue_ mission._ This rabbi or whatever __he is, is clearly an aggressor, as are_ his_ bodyguards and disciples. There seem to be __eight captives, twelve captors. Field oppressions suggest to assume captives to be unskilled and untrained noncombatants. Unless uniformed, they are_ expected_ unarmed and disabled . . . assets . . _._ Nothing_ outside_ of myself and my __training. That part was easy._ Terrain,_ high coverage, urban, interior, nightmarish for a __firefight, unfavorable for melee combat--best case scenario? Lone gunman takes initiative, takes out priority_ targets,_ starting with the ranking __officer then guards: a, b,_ e,_ and f. Enemy force is off balance, __rescue targets, perform organized fallback, continue with primary_ objectives._ Yes, it's that easy.

El rounds the corner to execute his plan; he utilizes his Jackal. One shot to the perverted priest clearly a hit. The priest falls back against the wall with a metallic clank; two shots over the shoulders of the captives and into the captors and they fly backward in a heap, then finally two for the guards at the far end of the room. El is a dead aim; half the targets in the room are incapacitated without having even seen him. But seven potential hostiles remain, and they are very much aware of El's presence. El calls out, "Run if you value your lives!"

As the animaloids break off for the exit, the two lesser priests start after them slowly and methodically. El takes a moment to examine their otherworldly appearance. If sin had a tangible manifestation, truly these two would be it. Two women in sadomasochist dark leather gear, their skin is full of rashes and red black as if the whole of their bodies are diseased and cancerous. They have no hair as if it were burned off; they have no eyes or ears that El can see. They have no nose, only a mouth with no teeth. Their fingers are stained deep brown and their nails look like they're dipped in metal. The temptresses sway toward El like hunting cats, making a strange growling sound. The devilish priest stands up and holds out his hands to show off his body wordlessly, proclaiming his miraculous healing.

El squints, trying to understand the strange monsters that stand before him. He snaps out of his stunned state and takes aim at the approaching temptresses; he shoots one in the mouth, and it steps backward, taking a moment to regain its balance. El repeats the procedure for the opposites with identical results. The evil priest smiles and waves forth his beastly women. "Go forth. Bring me my tithings." His voice echoes with great weight.

El mumbles, "Shit." Then he banks left, stepping out the room with all haste. The devil girls fall onto all fours and start striding at the mercenary. El hides round the corner as he ties a slipknot in his razor wire; the first monster nearly runs past him. He punishes its mistake by throwing his wire over its head and pulling it in as a living shield. The second follows a moment later and leaps in to maim with its nail-like fingers.

El steps halfway around his bound monster and haphazardly it rends into its partner with the intent of digging into the warrior. El dissects what he sees in a flash.

My __gun failed to kill this_ thing,_ didn't even rip flesh, __but they can harm one_ another._ Interesting! El spins in a circle and pushes the bound monster at the active one, then pulls upon the cable to lure it back in, strangely knocking the second off its feet. The masked guards start to file into the hall. El tucks his gun under the arm of his ghoul and lays down suppression fire. The guards scatter just as El anticipated.

Fight and flight are baser instincts; unfortunately, flight typically leaves your problems to bring you grief later. The odds are not favorable to El in this hallway; it would be best to look for more ample surroundings, a place easier to manipulate a more reliable weapon than turning their claws on one another. El pulls a wire cutter from his pocket and cuts loose his shield.

El dashes down the halls, trying to calculate another counterstrike. One minus one is always zero. Life has an __absolute value. Therefore, life plus_ life_ equals life, life without __life is death, death plus life equals death by life greater_ than_ death (1--1 = 0, __1 =_ 1,_ 1 + 1 = 2, 2 = 1, 1 - 0 = 1, 0 + 1 = 1>0 . ..). The equation balances. Numbers don't lie, peopledo.

El finds a maintenance closet and looks in with delight. Weapons are good, but sometimes tools are better. The average closet has the tools to build some horrific weapons in of itself. El recalls discovering mustard gas when trying to develop a better stain remover than bleach as a young boy. That was his first brush with the powers of science and maybe the most important; he will never forget collapsing in a heap in his laundry room, the previous El (his father) and Lacerti picking him up, wearing particle masks, pushing through the airless room. El's father wasn't mad; El somewhat wishes he were. He seemed almost happy, at least as happy as he ever looked in front of him; they simply waited outside the house overnight for the gas to burn away. Amazingly, no one got hurt that night. El spent weeks trying to understand what had happened that day. At last he did, and he loved the endless possibilities attached thereto.

Salt, methane, chlorine, iodine, hydrogen-oxide, phosphorus alone harmless maybe even beneficial in their own right; together in a sealed conduit even in small amounts is an outstandingly deadly chemical reaction waiting to happen. For faster results, apply heated.

El seals himself in the closet to mix his deadly cocktail; the conditions are ideal for a combat engineer. There is a fan four feet in diameter overhead; the door to the room is made out of aluminum, and there are dozens of half-empty detergent bottles in the shelves. In a minute, the bogies are at the door, pounding away, and in three times that, his home-cooked "big boy" is hot and ready to fly.

This isn't El's first dirty-bomb; the gas it will create is thick and will be pushed down and dispersed in a fairly limited radii. If one can get around twelve feet over the red zone they would be pretty much safe, but if they were to run, they would need to be about two hundred feet away to be out of the blast zone. El takes his canteen and opens the door to see six masked monsters on the other side. Calmly, he thrusts the picture at the one front and center and grunts, "Hold this a tick." Then he takes a deep breath and shoots the lid off the bomb with the gun in his other hand while slamming the door again.

The hefty door keeps out the relatively limited explosion that ensues, and before the gas can start to seep in, he punches in the fan and starts to climb to the next level.

* * *

It seems the POW El had rescued intuitively knew what to do. El is barely pushed down the next fan before a hand is reaching down to help him up. El looks to and fro; his unintended teammates are a sight to behold. A man looks to have inverted joints and feathers growing out his neck and around his eyes; another man is hunched over and has oversized hands and eyes are pushed together, almost forming a single eye. Then there is a woman whose body hair has grown thick and turned red; her ears are pointed as are her fangs. She looks lengthy; there seems to be only one human in the midst, and he looks jittery to say the least.

El stands tall and looks amongst them. He takes out his jackal and looks down at the sight, then checks the magazine. "Listen fast. I speak German, French, Italian, English, and Vietnamese. I will repeat this message in each of those languages. If one of you doesn't in some way imply you can speak a common dialect to me before I'm finished, you are useless to me and I start collecting heads . . ."

El hasn't even finished once before the bird-like man calls out, "Sir, I speak

English and Spanish fluently. Sir, myakka."

El looks at him and walks over, staring him down. "Say that again, Soldier."

"Sir, English. I speak it. Sir, myakka."

El tips his head, puzzled. "One more time."

"Sir, English, sir. Myakka."

"Why are you ending every statement with a squawk?"

"Sir, the private does not know. Myakka." "Name and rank," El demands.

"Private First Class Andrews UBC. Myakka."

El mumbles under his breath, "Goddammed sell swords," El stands strong. "Well then, Private, give me the name of the ranking officer on staff and your superior."

"Sir, Corporal Robins is my direct superior. Sir, ranking officer on staff is Sergeant Major Wesker, sir. Myakka," the bird man replies.

"And are Corporal Robins and Sergeant Major Wesker present?" the soldier requests.

"Sir, the major and the corporal are MIA. Myakka."

El salutes. "Well then, Lietenant David Lay at your service. Happy to have you and your men at my six, Private."

El and the UBC operatives discuss the transcriptions of the earlier week, but it is unfortunate that the information the UBC can offer El is lacking in juicy detail. Two weeks ago, a truck pulled into the Depo that seemingly had no driver and no cargo; the next day an appointive on their payroll goes AWOL. A handful of days' later, monsters start showing up, then the AC goes out, and the UBC are to escort some engineers underground. Next thing they know they're in a fire fight, and a day later, most of the teamare MIA and half the compound is under water.

As the conversation is underway, the jittery-looking doctor runs up and grabs El. El almost by nature kicks the doctor into the wall and draws his gun in almost a single motion. He steps forth into position to neutralize the apparent threat. The doctor cuts in, proclaiming his intent swiftly and nervously, "I know why the security team is acting strangely!"

El lowers his gun. "Go on."

"We experienced biological contamination. A viral strain we had been experimenting with somehow got into the ventilation unit. There are two variations on the contaminant tentatively named GVA and GVB. When GV enters the bloodstream, it has epidemic fallback, jumps from body to body, reproduces on an exponential scale till it finally implodes after seventy-two hours if it can't find fresh host . . ." Faster and faster, he starts to call out numbers and names that El finds he can't calculate.

"Take a breath. Slow down," EL demands. "What is GV?"

"The Gekks virus is a carcinogenic mutagen that destroys the brain and dominates the body. You become the subject to its will. A carrier, almost like the Brazilian brain slug in ten out of twelve subjects in 1948, there was nothing left of the host we could identify, not a thought or action they could perform that resembled the original."

EL squints. "Five-sixths? What of the remainder?" The doctor starts to rant to himself. El's eyes nearly glow with rage. "Answer me!"

The doctor wipes his face in his hands and leans in, mustering his courage. "Put away your gun and we can talk," he growls.

"Sounds fair." El slides his gun back into his coat. "I'm guessing you're not armed forces after all."

"No," he insists. "I'm Dr. Jason Rhys. I'm a major in software and digital technology with merits in microbiology and chemistry, not special weapons and tactics."

"Well, if you don't suddenly sound like a big shot. Keep this up and I'll just have to tell you about my merit badges. Now tell me more about GV," El teases.

"We got our first whiff of this . . . frankly I don't know what to call it, it's not a bacteria or a germ of any type by traditional definitions. Marks called in the first recorded case about a month ago, well . . . who we call Marks anyway. The real Marks died in a lab fire, so I'm told. OK, so some of our records are a little spotty but--"

El cuts him off, "Stop, elaborate on that last point."

Rhys thinks. "Do you mean the fake fire or the fake Dr. Karingson? Why? Did you know him or something?" "Yes," El sharply replies.

"There is no doubt in my mind Marks Karingson is dead, but I don't think he died in any lab fires. He's just too . . . calculated to die that way, or maybe I just don't want to think someone like him could die that way. I think he was professionally wasted by the UBC over there. I think he died because of something he was working on. He created a lot of really weird things, probably the weirdest being the thing I've been charged with protecting--an anatomical sentient computer that can mimic human behavior spotlessly. He thinks Major Wesker killed him."

"That is interesting. How many of this computer were constructed?"

"From what I can guess, one, and it was programmed to activate at the time of his murder."

El thinks a moment about it. "Murder? Not death."

"If I know Marks the way I think I do, he is dead because he wanted to die. No gunslinger with a four-digit income could have outrun or have out-fought him from what I have seen. If he was afraid of that lot down yonder, he would have turned the barracks into a hazmat zone or just leveled the floor that they're stationed on. He even might have turned the internal defence network against them. Marks is . . . was . . . sociopathic. He had no fear of anything. The man whacked a NYPD tactical team like grade-schoolers the other day." Rhys starts talking to himself again.

"Focus!" El orders. "The fourteen percent of those inflicted with the Gekks virus not turned into animals. What happened to them?"

"You mean the fourteen percent not turned into animals or killed? Seventy-two hours after exposure, they got better. No, better than that. They owned the infection. It made them stronger."

"Really? And how do you make the distinction between the healed and the lost?" El ponders.

"In the later stages of the corruption, if they can still talk there is hope, but till the last stage of infection it is unclear."

"How did you avoid becoming infected?"

"The virus can't reproduce in temperatures below 30 oC."

"You sat in a refrigerator for three days?" El squints at him. Rhys bobs his head in confirmation. El stands up. "Then I know what needs to be done." The bold old man looks at the unit. "Ten hut!" The servicemen line up, standing at attention. "If you are talking to me right now, that means that you are still alive and still human. That being the case, that means that there is still work that we can be doing. I cannot lie. Each and every one of us might die today, but is that really any different from any other day? You still have feet to stand on and you still have arms to carry. Today we are marching into a hazard zone. Many of us are sick already. But if you are still alive in three days, you will be fine. I have no doubt some of you have friends here, may be even family. We can still help them. We will systematically walk up and down every hallway in this compound. We will open every door. We will bring everyone we can to safety. We will not be unopposed: Our enemy will attack our bodies and our minds. Our enemy will take everything way from us. We will each do what we must to protect each other and ourselves, for God and for country. That is the vow we all took. Now let's make our words count. Fight with me, and let's come back to tell the tale." There is a moment of jubilant cheer; for some it is only a moment.

Chapter 18

Snake's Tale

Snake squeezes the sides of his head in frustration, groaning. He mumbles to himself, not yet having taken the time to look about. "Why didn't anyone tell me about that?" He looks at the monster he dragged into the room. "How about you? Why didn't you say, 'Hey, look out for that auto gun over there?' Getting shot at I typically fined to be a serious turn-off, don't you?" Snake jumps up to his feet and runs over to his fallen adversary and starts stomping on it. "Answer the question, fuck-wad. Talk to me, you piece of shit!"

After a dozen kicks, Snake stops to take a breath, suffering a dramatic mood swing. "Do you know what I do for a living? I'm a professional 'Runner'. Do you know what that means?" Snake freezes a moment as if waiting for the corpse to reply. "Of course you don't. You have more holes in you than a Bruce Campbell movie." Snake sits back down, taking in his surroundings--a decorative receptions desk, a dark red carpet, the ceiling looks to be three hundred feet overhead. "What that means is that I'm small and fast. My job is to take something from one scumbag scoundrel and take it to another. Getting shot at is seldom part of the deal. I'm more the middle management type than the rank and file type. I got shot at enough as a kid. I don't need this stress anymore . . . Really I'm lucky to be anywhere. If not for my brother and his hijinks, I would still be picking pockets to buy bread."

Snake pulls out several of his pistols and starts to wipe them down and clean them out to the best of his ability with whatever tools he has handy. "You see, Mr. Body, that's the real essence of what I'm doing here. I love my brother more than life itself. Now my brother is sick, injured, and in God only knows what sort of perils because of my Hew Heffner ESC cavalier's attitude toward life. So you see,

DUSTIN FEYDER

I'm pretty much in a bowl of fucked soup here. But then crazy as this is, a pair of wisecrackers show up and say they can help me. Not only that, but they don't need anything in return. Isn't that kind of a fuckup in of itself? The first is a librarian that looks like something out of the 1940s, kind of dreary kind of dry, you know the type 'the weight of the world is on my shoulders,' OK? The other guy is a real piece of work also. He is this wild-eyed super spy with this crazy hair and buzzer speech impediment. He almost looks more dead than you if you get my drift. So . . . I should get back to work. It's been great talking to you. You are a fantastic conversationalist." Snake reassembles his guns and walks once around the room to get a sense of directions.

* * *

Snake recalls the old days, what he calls today "the bad days." Growing up an urchin in the 1980s was almost ideal if you were smart. Crime, violent crime anyway was at pretty much a low. So sex and drugs were at a considerable high, but nobody ever got hurt by that stuff, right? For years, pan handling was a way of life. But the Gekks brothers wanted more than their share of the pie. Larry proposed stealing some golf clubs in beating the cash out of pockets instead of just asking. Snake had a better idea. There was no need to beat the life out of people for the coins in their pockets. "Why not take some slugs at each other? You know, 'play fight.'"

So what Snake came up with was to have one brother walk into a crowded room, start talking to someone, and a moment later the other would come in shouting. The aggressor would run up to the fellow con and take a pot-shot at them, then to fight for a moment, and if all goes well, their pigeon would step in-between them. Brother number one would then lift the wallet, car keys, or anything they can grab in the confusion, then both boys would leave via different exits just a little richer. When betting on good nature, your odds are good because most people are. Your luck needs to be fairly foul to end up trying to lift the loot of someone with their eyes on yours, not to say it can't happen.

Snake's rotten luck often looks like serendipity in disguise. Day after day, the Gekks brothers would play the same game. One day they tried scouting a target, someone that looks like they might have some real money on them, someone with gold teeth, a thousand-dollar gold watch, snakeskin boots, a convertible, and who buys their cigars with hundred-dollar bills. The boys follow their mark to where he gets his tobacco of choice. Larry follows him into the smoke shop and starts

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his normal chit-chat; Snake walks in shouting just like they rehearsed. Their mark behaves just the way he should right up till Larry reaches for the stack of cash in his coat. Larry finds instead of money a gem-encrusted magnum, followed closely by the little thief, getting his arm grabbed.

Snake steps in to protect his little brother; next thing he knows the shopkeepeer is armed with a pump action shotgun. Snake and Larry alike stand firm in the face of death; both brothers world weary stare down the barrel of a gun without fear or remorse, prepubescent psychopaths both of them.

They come to find the man with the jeweled gun is called Moses; he isn't a "crime boss," so to say, more like "a guy with a lot of friends." Moses doesn't kill the boys; he doesn't even threaten them. He adopts them, not in any messy legal way, more so in the way one adopts a stray animal. He brings them home, cleans them up, and gives them work. Moses finds the brothers' bold façades impressing.

Working under Moses is life-changing. The two garner respect, discipline, and sophistication. Larry gains an appetite for the new and the exotic. Larry learns he likes computers and electronic games and gizmos; he takes a liking to reading and pop-culture in general. Larry identifies himself with various heroes and villains alike and crafts himself to meet such expectations. He watches a movie about boxing, and the next week he is talking to Moses' friends about learning for himself. He reads Dracula, then goes out to find an encyclopedia about vampires and black magic. Larry wants to press the limits of life; he feels a need to find the boundaries between the unlikely, the difficult, and the implausible for himself.

Snake takes the opportunities granted in a more practical light; he talks to everyone he can find. He learns everything Moses can teach, then goes out to find anyone that can teach him just a little more. Every waking hour is dedicated to looking after his brother and keeping him out of trouble or practicing with the tools of their trade. Larry is an idealist, Snake a realist. The brothers are as similar as they are different.

Times are good for them. Their first jobs under Moses are rank and file in nature. Starting at ground level, "whistle-blowing" is what the old crooks call it. "Easy stuff to get started." You have a handful of kids stand outside someplace where the "vets" are doing a "pickup," and if anyone that's not part of the team comes too close, just blow the whistle. It's Fun and easy till the boys find out south-town cops think it is more fun to shoot at whistle-blowers than arrest them. By fifteen, the brothers have graduated from watchdog to full-blown "team members." From there, it is only a small hop to getting to help organize "projects."

DUSTIN FEYDER

Moses likes to talk in code; what the real meanings of the words he uses is a mystery to everyone, but whoever needs to know the code, some words aren't too hard to figure out like if Moses tells you that "you had your picture taken," that means that you were seen at the project's location or you left something incriminating lying around and he had to go "do a pickup." That also means that you have lost five percent of your next "paycheck." Then if Moses tells you he is "talking to the old lady," then you're going to get twenty percent of your pay garnished. Then if Moses is "mailing out flowers," then it is time to leave town because you just lost your job and he'll never let you work with him again.

What are the worst of times for Snake's team turns out to be the best of times for him and his brother. It is a "drop box" project, which is a lot like a "bank job" plus an even exchange. You take a wax mold key into a bank, walk into the safe deposit room, take out a box, and trade its contents with another's. Then you send in someone to take out your new contents--two steps, almost flawless by design.

The man that Snake sent in to do the switch wasn't a pro like him. He didn't go straight for the "jewels." Instead, he lined his pockets with small change from the wrong box. The hardest part of being a thief isn't the heist itself but instead "the behind the scenes." What the rooky didn't know was that the job was set so that for six minutes there were no eyes on cameras and no alarms, but after that the gig was up. That time it was Snake that did "the pickup." Snake got to sneak into an evidence room and loot the place.

Thereafter, the brothers were all but off the ground. The rest of their carriers would be only the toughest jobs: "hard targets"--Snake's favorite kind. During high-profile "hits" Snake and Larry found that logistics became part of their job descriptions. The brothers' final job together involved a "withdraw," separating an armored car from its precession, masquerading as federal agents, leading the car astray, hiding beneath an overpass, seizing vehicle contents, diving amongst team members, burning the remains, fast and simple.

During the seizing, Larry was the first on scene. He was overzealous; he rushed to the passenger side seat, punched out the window with his gun, and dragged out the guard. He laughed madly, shooting the ground alongside his victim four times just for good measure, and then put two in the engine just for the fun of it. The driver hopped out to intercept. Snake caught up just in time to save his brother from the cop. Snake came in from the other side of the truck, grabbed the cop's shoulder, twisted him about, and backhanded him with his pistol, shattering his nose for sure and possibly his jaw after he collapsed. Yes, it was a good day.

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The brothers followed the plan from there on out; they ditched their car and grabbed another, then hid their goods in the trunk under the spare wheel, then finally, they went to the pickup spot where Moses would meet them and hock their goods--gold for cash, that was the idea.

* * *

Snake wonders silently if things will ever be like that again; his heart sighs. He chokes on his own thoughts; his eyes fill with fire as he growls vengefully. He points one of his guns over his shoulder, taking a potshot at his fallen foe. He blows a hard breath and shakes himself off as if looking for his "cool."

* * *

Larry has slept for days on end, but at last he is awakening. His eyes narrow into serpentine slits in his head; a second set of eyelids close to protect him from the icy water in which he seems to be seated. He looks down at his hands; they are three-fingered claws. Then he looks down at his feet and chest; the whole of his body seems to be covered in black-scaled skin almost like that of an alligator. Larry is no longer human; he has become a monster.

A hazy shadow of a man comes into sight; all Larry can see clearly is a pair of glowing violet eyes as well as a lock of raven hair. A voice comes to him from all directions. "Your wish is granted. All the power a man can ask for is yours. The strength to do whatever you want. Now show me what you can do."

The glass tube in which Larry is floating shatters into a mirrored wall of dust as the dark shadow fades away. Larry grips onto the walls with both clawed hands and launches himself across the room. He lands perfectly; leening backward, he throws his arms in the air like a dinosaur. Larry feels hungry, hungrier he has ever felt. The air is rich with senses he has never smelled before; the smells drive him mad. He thrust his hands out, smashing everything in sight. Larry is aware of himself but not in control. He is lost somewhere deep within the depths of this monster.

"Snake!" he calls out, but only in his mind. "Snake! Where are you, Snake?! Help me! Please!" The monster twitches its nose. He can smell Snake, and the thought of fulfilling his hunger with the flesh of his brother is more than titillating.

Chapter 19

God Sear "the Book Never Written"

I lie on the cold tar, the mangled wreckage of my car behind me as my beloved friend walks away with the smuggest of looks carved into his face. Mercifully cold, I stare into the moonlit sky one last time. I knew this would happen and in fact I was counting on it. Yes, things accelerated beyond my likening but not outside the realms of expectation. "My life was not an empty one" were my last mortal thoughts.

"Old man, you have finally lost your mind." Those were my beloved friend's last words to me as a man before he murdered me. My mind is without calm; I think about that which I leave behind. How strange! Every precaution I could take to finalize my mortal affairs and still I can't find peace.

A life of opulent decadence is not without its shortfall, every material desire fulfilled, but at the cost of spiritual dire. I do not curse God; I am instead embarrassed by the hellworthy notion thereof. No small portion of my life was spent debunking the humbug and downright heinous Hippocratic evils inherited within this monolithic zeal of self-suffering idealist.

The notion of a soul is one I dare not rationalize. I know there is a soul, and I cannot explain its origin. I don't want to even try; it would be self-destructive. But the xenophobic or maybe ethnocentric franchising of faith subjecting the enshrinement of a living god that is in whole consumed with the well-to-do of us all is simply inconceivable, If there is a unifying force within nature that truly dictates our behaviors, this would be petty, bordering on fickle to say the very least, and cruel malice to boot . . . Well, enough of that. Needless to say, you would think that any self-respecting father would distance himself from a rouge son like me.

For as long as I can remember, my nights have been plagued with dreams of falling. I do not fear heights; I never have. When I fall, it is never from some great height and never to the earth that I know. Only a fall, one from nowhere to nowhere; the only sound I hear is the fluttering of my coat. As my last drops of life perform their exoduses, I fall one last time.

The sod at my feet gives way to an endless abyss. I fall, but as I do my strength starts to well, even overflow. I become stronger, strong enough to grow wings and command my flight. I can't go back the way I came, but I can choose my own path. Death would be easy--return to the nothingness, return to a peace I can't possibly remember. But no, I don't need peace. I want more. As such, he that awaits me seems to condone that very indulgence.

My flight of fancy takes me into the arms of a cosmic skeleton, one mammoth compendium of what must be a hundred thousand smaller beings in a masquerade of one single secular life. It calls to me, "Key Master, dead man from a dead world, but nay, not all is lost. Come hither, I will tell you of that which is and that which may yet be."

A small, nearly microscopic key levitates in the skeleton's hand. "Beyond time we wait, far from our enemies' sight, but not beyond his reach. Go forth to the echoes of the past, fall though the wrinkles of time, unmake Nothingness, save others like you have been saved, save all life. I offer you this chance to be my vessel. Welcome me, the Time Lord or Cronus if you will, into yourself and be your own messiah." The dead king as he seems to be is a pure salesman but offers an interesting product. "You will live twice within us, a power even the Nothing would find envious."

But I am no easy sell. "And what good is it to live in death?" snidely I call out to the dead king.

"To live once is to live and to die, then return to the darkness from which you came. To live twice is to live with the light of knowledge, then to build and rebuild in your own imagination. I can give you dreams like never have been had." "Brave words from a massive conglomerate of unlife," I heckle.

"Foolhardy man, I have been kind. I too can be cruel."

"If you are so mighty, why should the devil not fear you? They say, 'Thou shall not temp a god.' Then again 'they' say a good deal. I will tempt fate. I will make a mockery of all their insolences. I will see heaven weep. For I shall kneel to no idols."

"You invited the devil into your home just as I did, and you engineered your own death just as I had. My death was to bring you life that we may see one last battle against the night. Angels will fall as you have fallen. The master of Zion will reap his blade and he will wound this eternal evil, but without the concerted efforts of all your realms' heroes, your exalted one cannot win."

I smile like a cat, discreetly, humorlessly, as if at a jest only I can understand. "Then it is as the monk claimed it would be. I will not battle the darkness, merely be present to watch it die. My goal is not to be victorious, simply to see to it my foe isn't. Wonderfully poetic."

"The first step in your path is to understand the relations between you, me, and the devil we are at war with." The voice of the dead king is like that of a voice in a cave, crying from a mile away, air and soft. "You are what I was. You will be what I have become, if failure befalls us. I was a man. I wielded the 'keys of Salvation,' the only human ever to hold all the keys. It was I who gave you yours and the others to whom they rest. The key changes the weilder, giving silent strength. But to invoke the key's power for greed brings the carrier suffering." He goes on to explain he is the guardian of my "realm," which he calls "Red Twilight," and he knew the golden-eyed monk that I had understudied. The monk (at the time called "Son-Cloud") and the knight ("Sordiditus" he called himself) and the warlock "Adam Crow" (latter to be called "Cravixs") had been friends. The three companions uncovered a "hole in the earth," which led them to the "tome of that which must be hidden." It was there that Crow became Cravixs and Sordiditus learned Son-Cloud's true name (but that he would not tell me at this time).

The monk banished Crow to a land called "the Great Ether," but that was treating the symptom, not the disease. Son-Cloud did not have the strength then to defeat Crow and could only hope by the time he found his way back he would. Son-Cloud told Sordiditus the rules. "The unspeakable evil has laws it must abide: It must be invited. It cannot enter a world protected by the keys of salvation. It calls forth Avatars to feed it, worship or fear alike will do; once the darkness has entered your world, not even the gods can send it away twice."

The things that the dead king tells of are great and terrible in a way I can hardly describe. Things I can't say we shouldn't know of; the Avatar of Cravixs flourishes in times of war and famine as a world and its people grow weak and weary. He grows strong. He has all time at his disposal and the ability to see the most likely outcome of any of his endeavors. Cravixs' vessel which contains only the smallest denomination of the beast has more strength than fifty common men. He has had over two thousand years in this world to steer history on his desired course, and we who would fought him have less than a dozen left to unmake the millennia's damage.

But it is not hopeless; he goes on to explain, "A key master without a key still has power, the power to limit the influence of the dark vessels. The presence of one key master will cloud his vision. The efforts of all key masters in a single world could chain the monster to that world."

The plan becomes ever so clear with those words; to tether the demon to one world would ensure the safety of its neighboring worlds, but that then induces a powerful inquest. "And once the nemesis is chained, how do the warriors within make their escape?"

The dead king's counter argument is brief and less than assuring. "Escape?"

* * *

The other Marks sits in silences within his dorm; all seems to have rebuilt itself after his fit of rage. The metallic sorcerer finds his feet as an evil presence steps into his sanctuary. Marks smiles. "So you have come at last. You saw fit to have me killed already. What more can you possible want with me?" His voice is not angry, scared, or confused; it is snide, sarcastic, and bordering on playful. The warlock, Adam Crow, comes into being, birthed from a swarm of flies; his skin is like ivory, his eyes like crystals, his robe like birds' feathers. Marks need not look at the warlock; he can feel him. "You are everything Son-Cloud told me you would be."

Crow's reply is of a different nature. "You think you're a smart sorcerer? Even in your unlife, you try to hide." His robe grows blacker, his eyes grow brighter, and his complexion becomes more that of pearls.

The nature of the sanctuary at last becomes clear to the old wizard. His room is the force of his will, a place his cerebrum can hide while his body is at sleep. Dr. Karingson had created a synthetic soul and Vigeta is it. The two powers clash at the battlefield of Marks' mind. The world shifts to a great desert, a grand spire of clockwork, glass, and steel, atop which Marks stands strong against the impending evil. The sky is the richest of blue at that moment but quickly shifts to red as Crow summons the night. Crow's presence is represented in the subworld by a mountain of shapeless flesh. Crow's presence is all-consuming and infinitely corrupting. Marks' dreamscape turns nightmarish as more and more of Crow's monolith shatters the desolate earth.

The titans stand tall, posturing for one another. "Ere forth cometh thee night ever last. Thou I shall not fear this evil for thou darkness be'ith encaged by the coming of daylight, and thee terrible morn vanquish the horrid dusk. Face me, vile, for I hath power to heal thee." A wall of wind storms forth from all directions to protect the machinist.

Crow mocks the poetry, "To kill the dead is to heal them. Give me the key and I will leave you in peace."

Marks need not contemplate the possibility; it is clear already. "You will leave this world in pieces."

"For being nothing more than a replica of the sorcerer Karingson, you sure are feisty. You are already lost. Simply surrender to me what is mine."

"Death first."

"Granted! I have slain a thousand guardians like you already and taken from them their worlds! What gives you the impression you can stand against me,

Wizard?!"

"I am unlike anything you have fought before. I have proven that fourscore."

"Your pride is a misaligned machine. You have tasted the smallest of powers and believe it an ocean of might! I will show you power if that is your wish!" Crow bellows. "You think yourself so smart, hiding as you have, but I have eternity on my side."

"Maybe, but is your master so tolerant? How long do you think before that husks' homunculi demands his next tribute? And what happens to you if this world isn't in your grip status quo? I am very interested, aren't you? I understand that your master's hunger is quite illimitable."

Crow chuckles softly to himself. "Your monk is very informed, isn't he? But there is something you must understand, wizard. This key you protect, you need not give it to me. I can take it from you."

"That would be against the rule. Your master in all his grace surely understands that he cannot conquer whatsoever he pleases. That is against the way of the eternal lords. You cannot interfere with agency."

Crow lowers his head for a moment as if to contemplate. "You may be correct in that statement, Vigeta. The Tamriel kings have been forbidden from touching or even conversing with 'mortal men,' but do you think that rule applies to you? And better still to me? You forsake the gods in life and now you have the audacity to seek their protection today?"

"Isn't that the very reason your twin brother was ostracized--touching a human?" Marks smugly asks.

"How on earthwould you know of _that?"_Crow rubs his eyes. "Let me clarify this. It wasn't touching a human that was the death nail. It was having sex with a bird after that (sex) became a taboo, thanks to deliberation by our ladies of fate. Thank you very much." Crow bridges the nearly mile-long gap they converse from to face his adversary nose to nose.

When it comes to confrontation, there is very little in the world more disorienting than your enemy coming from in inconceivable purgatory, such as jumping out of the ground or falling from the sky; you never expect it. Crow draws his hand back and his giant scythe flies into his hand, narrowly missing Marks' head as it flies by. Crow doesn't need to miss. He does so more out of curiosity than anything else. He wants Marks to fight.

Marks leaps backward, diving back off the relative safety of his tower. Marks exhales softly as he falls, calling forth his favorite spell; he presses his thumb to his ring finger and with a "snap" sends forth a dozen walls of invisible energy streaming out of his body as blades. He whispers, "Den-Ko-Ha." Crow doesn't see the attack coming; he more so divines the casting and fades away into a fog of gnats, the attack falling nearly harmlessly through him.

Crow reappears to Marks left, but then phases right to confuse the old wizard. Both Crow and his shadow hold their arms up and call forth lighting that arcs between them like a Tesla coil. Marks jumps off the air and flies into the clouds to find an escape, moving like a jet. Crow appears on all sides of Marks, mimicking his movements almost to a "T" but replicating with each attack. Crow now holds their hands forth, summoning a butterfly each made of living flames.

Marks wraps himself in spectral force, calling a mystical wind to hide behind. The butterflies flutter in, and each explode with earthshaking force. Marks is flung into the ground like a comet, his magic absorbing the blunt of the blow. He lands on his knees. Bold and definite, he finds his feet.

Crow isn't finished toying with his prey; his grimace clearly expresses the joy he finds in his game. In a flash of blackened light, Crow and his now eight living shadows stand before the metal image, each raising its hand to the sky; lighting encapsulates the lot of them.

But what would be inevitable victory is interrupted by a lone stream of light breaking the darkness. Only one of the nearly dozen Crows look up to the light. The darkening sky gives way in spasmodic burst to pure daylight; stars burn out of the sky to reveal a glowing blue dawn. Pillars of dawnlight strike down the Crow clones as they shatter into flies. The last Crow cowers from the light, seemingly not bearing the thought of exposure to such purity, instead revealing in the corruption of his own gloom. Crow in a subtle blur becomes viperous soon, being only eyes, then nothing.

Marks stands slowly, retreating back to the locked room. The second angelic Marks is waiting for his return, accompanied this time by Nuku. "We have learned something of our adversary. He fears us, as he fears the passage of time. If not, then why should he harbor so much rage?"

The robotic Marks' matches his comment, "I do not doubt your powers of perception. But still this information is the very least scant granting our predicament."

The angelic Marks looks briefly unclear. "And which predicament are you referring to?"

The cyborg replies, "We are still prisoners in our own body." The wall starts to rot out as glass nails shatter the ceiling and wall; a girlish voice laughs at the one that is two as the world breaks apart around them. The angelic Marks starts to fade from reality, again losing his grip on his body. He looks down at himself, watching helplessly as he turns to a shadow, then explodes in a buff of feathers. "Hmm . . . this is a spot of bother, isn't it?" Gears and cogs rain from on high as glass spiders throughout the room, infecting it with its surreal, nearly dreamy manifest.

* * *

The angel falls though the black, yet again this time falling into water. The world in which he falls is unlike the world he knows; the sky is filled with doors as is the water. There are likely ten thousand visible forms where he lands alone. Marks pulls himself from the water, floating above it; he reaches down to pick up Nuku as well. Endless doors surround them on all sides, seemingly all doors leading to nothing as they look like nothing more than mockups.

Nuku climbs onto Marks shoulders and lies across him like a snow muffler. Marks observes the wonderland. Some doors are made of water and winds, others of fire, lighting, and ice. Yet others are vaporous black mist, some wood, yet others look like rolling veins of blood, chains, or living phallic plant matter, bone, ivory, gold, and pearls. The world is chaos incarnate. Everything moves and seldom in a predictable or even sensible fashion. The theory of dark matter makes itself evident as Marks starts to levitate to drier grounds. Objects scurry away from the strange doctor. Ethereal monsters hide from Marks as he lands on what looks like earth as if he were emanating his own sheer darkness . . .

Marks reaches up to tickle Nuku under the chin. "It looks as if we are being herded. What do you think, Nuku?" Nuku doesn't answer in any way Marks can understand, but she does narrow her eyes and growls near silently.

The landscape opens up into a mistily lit arena. There waits a man sixty foot tall, dressed in a suit of plat mail covered by gold and volcanic black steel; he has shoulder-length hair pulled back high and tight, held by a ribbon. His skin is shining white like marble, but in contrast to his extraordinary features, his eyes and face are clearly human. He sits behind what looks at first like an ornate chessboard.

As Marks moves in close, the man seems to talk to himself. "There are no safe moves. It looks like the game is just about over." He moves one hand to rub his eyes. "Looks like they're no winning this time . . . unless . . ." Marks observes the chess pieces and the placements of the board. All the white pieces are centered in the middle of the board, covering each other. There are clearly too many squares on the board and not all the pieces seem equal. There are twelve white pieces and they all look human, some young, some old, but all look weary and battle frayed. Coming from all sides, on the other hand, black contains bats, cats, and dogs, wolf men and fish demons, then giants, both man-like and bestial, then at last what looks to be a moon that covers a mass section of the board, making it inaccessible. A handful of men are fighting an army of a thousand others, most not human. "I can change the rules." He pulls from his sleeve a new chess piece, this one clearly shaped like Dr.

Karingson himself.

Marks floats up to the table as the colossus places down the new piece. "Welcome back, son." the giant greets him.

"It looks as if your chess board is uneven," Marks comments. The very appearance of the doctor seems to have changed the board somehow. The situation is no less dire, but somehow the weak and weary white army has been invigorated; new vigor emboldens the white team. They stand diffidently in the face of such an insurmountable enemy. Clearly they will be overrun, any man would think, but they look ready nonetheless to show their opposition how true warriors live and how true warriors die.

"You are of course right," the giant comments. "These are Enjhariar (En-hare-'E'-are) Idollens, representative of souls living and dead that have the power to open and close the doors between worlds. It is they, your fellow mortals, which must face this evil. The weak will fight against the strong. The few will fight against many."

Marks cuts him off, "I've heard enough, King of the Dead."

"I can't make you do this, son. You have to make a choice. I have spoken to the 'soul reveres.' They're never going to come looking for you, so if you want your eternal rest, simply turn left and walk through the door you see down yonder. That will take you to Valhalla, where men like you and me belong. or turn right and go to a place where gods cannot go and no man has every tried to venture."

Nuku jumps down from Marks' arm and begins exploring the expanse of the game board; she is clearly amused by the intricacies of the pieces. Marks is less impressed. "And to what end do I want this? What notion informs you that I have any interest in self-sacrifice?"

The dead king bobs his head in understanding. "To be frank, my ends are only minutely less selfish than that of the monsters I would claim superiority over. I am alien to your land, this is true, but there are people there and things that I found lovely indeed and I would have them preserved."

"And by what authority do I have the right or privilege to conduct such pilgrimages?"

"I was like you, Son. I was a man who had tools and training not common amongst my peers. I lived my life just like you, hip deep in gluttony. But then I saw something I found outrageous. I found that for every friend I could buy, I made twelve enemies. With the fortune I had, it didn't take but one lifetime to have fanatical enemies enough so that men would light themselves on fire in my wake to express their fear and anger. I then decided that my immortality must be spent searching for forgiveness."

"You're dodging my questions," Marks points out. "I care little for who you were or where you came from. My interest is not the past, it's the future."

The dead king smiles almost viciously. "Then the real inquiry should be, 'How long do you want the future to be?'"

"That statement is hideously miss constructed," Marks whispers quietly to himself.

The dead king looks frustrated; he leans away from the chess board. "But there is nothing saying you can't simply turn around and find your way back through the turning haze and onward your meaningless wandering."

"You fancy yourself a god, Dead King. But I am not a meek man. I fear not you, any whips or chains you bare, nor any divinity you hide behind. I believe there is not prestidigitation you can muster that I cannot mimic and dispel. Show me your greatest spells, Conjuror, and cower as I wave it aside."

"Trust me, Doctor, I'm counting on it."

Marks makes his leave, scooping Nuku under his arm, then marching boldly into the unknown--a most peculiar ally in step.

* * *

The glassy wraith that is a feminine clone of the demonic Adam Crow kneels before the cybernetic Marks Karingson, her fingers dug deep into his forehead. "How delicious your dreams are!" His veins glow like black gold. "So much like Jappedo the toymaker you are. You crafted a mockery of a man, then the man became a mockery to your life. Now, Pinocchio, it is time you join me in tireless sleep. For I am the puppet master, and to my song you will dance."

The fingers of the wraith draw slowly out of the skull of the mad doctor; his eyes fill with oil and fade to a flashing red. There is no scar from the drilling; it is more like the scalp had turned to jelly as the wraith touched him and now returns to its more tangible form. As Vigeta lowers himself off the table upon which he had been sleeping, the ghost slips around behind him and slowly wraps her arms over his shoulders and legs around his waist; she sets her head alongside his and fades from sight. Only shadows reveal the puppeteer.

The evil magic of the wraith corrupts Marks' kie, filling him with hate and rage. Through the wraith Marks comes to find he no longer needs his soul to cast spells. He can feed off fear just as well. Few enemies are more deadly than the Vigeta, and now with the wraith's evil amplifying him straight, it seems he is only more so.

Chapter 20

The Grinning Cat

N watches as the cat walks to the stairwell leading out of the train yard; his eyes drift down, then left to right, following a web of cables and cameras lining the platform. Then he notices what seems to be broken concrete at the base of the stairs. The possibilities roll through his mind as to what could have caused such damage in such a new and sterling construct. Only two possibilities stand out as being likely: first, artillery fire, second . . . "Stop!" Reizuki calls out.

The sassy cat fails to heed his call, and soon as her paw touches the bottom step, a laser light shines in the cat's eyes and the cackling of machinegun fire fills the air. The first shot seems to be deflected by the cat's armor. The second knocks her into the air and shreds the skin from her face, revealing the clockwork underneath; several more shots strip her bare of her artificial skin. It seems the cat's muscular structure is made of seemingly floating plates made of an unidentified substance. Many times she tries to gain her balance, but the volley is relentless.

Reizuki steps alongside the wall, pressing his back to it. Nuku's body seems to be __made of some ultra-dense alloy. It seems to be protecting her from the cannon_ at_ the top of the __steps. Likely that won't hold forever. The targeting_ system_ is programmed to lay __continuous pressure on any intruder._ Proper_ motion sensing. Any object __of X mass moving at Y speed would trigger the self-defense system to activate. A small_ nimble_ object might pass without __detection. Reizuki pulls a dart from his sleeve. Hopefully this thing_ isn't_ equipped with multi-targeting capability. Reizuki turns the corner in part enough so as to only to throw his dart straight. He clips the camera atop the gun, and it starts spraying wildly. Nuku escapes the kill zone with N's help.

N turns back to the train yard. "I think it's best if we find a different way around." Nuku Two chases after him. "What's up, Seto Kiba? Where are we going? How are we going to get inside?" the robotic cat calls.

Reizuki looks a train up and down, then examines the ceiling. "My name is 'the Letter N.'"

"That robo gun is going to keep firing, you know. With its targeting all gimpy, it's completely out of control. You could cut off power, and its IPE (internal propulsion engine) will keep it running for days."

"That's true," N whispers softly. He starts to climb the side of a train.

"You're not going to drive a train into it!" Nuku protests.

Reizuki takes off his novelty teddy bear backpack and holds it down to the cat. "That wasn't part of the plan, no. Grab on please." The cat complies, climbing on the bag, then onto Reizuki's back.

"Then what?"

"This building seems to have a central air unit. The vent will likely be around one foot high by two feet wide. Useless for a grown man, but a young girl or a cat might be able to squeeze in. I'm going to hoist you up. You could get almost anywhere in the compound from there. After that, I'll figure something out. Maybe there's an electrical panel I can slip under."

Nuku after being placed in the vent turns to face Reizuki. "You don't have to go on alone. There is someone that can help you. Marks has one more creation hidden down here. Another robot. A girl, looks to be early teens. She is as strong as he is, but she hasn't been woken up. When she wakes up, she is going to think she is a ten-year-old girl with hemophilia."

Reizuki seems mildly confused. "Why would she think that?"

"She will answer to the name Nuku. Just like me, it's part of her serial code. But she is indeed Tara Anally Karingson, the good doctor's lost daughter."

"And how would I wake her up? A kiss?"

The cat giggles. "There are 480 pink plush rabbits in the room at the end of the hall in my father's apartment. One is missing. You figure out why." The sleek black cat vanishes into the air conditioned room.

Reizuki jumps down from the train, thinking about Nuku's cryptic clue. "Four hundred and eighty pink plush rabbits. There are forty-eight weeks in a year. If he bought one rabbit a week, he would have 480 in ten years. Marks Karingson had a ten-year-old girl."

Reizuki sneaks around the train yard, moving wearily in anticipation of other traps as he searches for the clues that would lead him to Nuku Three. The train yard is like a ghost town; there should clearly be people here. All evidence points to the idea that this area was a buzz only moments ago. But then all life receded in the blink of an eye. Paper is scattered about, clothing and tools lie abandoned. This place wasn't left; the life was sucked out of it. As Reizuki looks into train after train, his eye is caught by a toy set in a window, a bunny small and pink, not particularly nice or realistic. Its fur is long and shaggy; its legs are outstretched in an almost running posture as if frozen mid-jump. It's eyes are simple buttons; the rabbit is only extraordinary in its normality. Anywhere else this toy would be easily bypassed as mundane, but here this vanguard of childishness seems alien in an adult's world.

The eerie symbolism begins to unfold for the man called "N." Marks Karingson, whoever he is, has an opposition. Life and death are as one to him; the predator and the prey coexist. The light and the dark are a single entity divided only by those who persevere. The cat and the rabbit are inexplicitly linked in the same way in the eyes of Dr. Karingson. "What a strange mystery we have stumbled across!" Reizuki remarks to himself. "Can this mean that he has no perception of right and wrong or that he understands far greater than even I can imagine?"

Reizuki opens the door to the car with the rabbit in the window. The interior looks like something out of children's literature; a long glass cylinder is scrolled across the floor wherein a girl is suspended in frozen sleep. The almost casket-looking glass bed is blanketed in flowers in a rainbow of varieties, hiding the features of the girl within. The child has a doll-like appearance: bright pink hair, slightly yellowed skin (not unlike Reizuki's) but nonetheless flawless as if painted on by a most elegant egotists of an artist. The ice obscures sight, but it is clear all the same that she was frozen in the nude. She has the outward appearance of a gymnast. Folded neatly atop the bed of glass is a schoolgirl's outfit that looks almost identical to the ones Reizuki would see when he was in school: red skirt, knee-high stockings, bikini-style knickers, white blouse, and a red tie.

Reizuki's attention is grabbed by a sudden sound similar to the sound an old television makes when warming up. Reizuki turns in a half circle, searching for the source of the sound. He discovers a computer monitor having seemingly materialized alongside the door he stepped through. The monitor shows Reizuki himself; intrigued, he waves at what he expects to be a camera, but the image fails to wave back. Quickly Reizuki takes notice that the reflection is imperfect. The reflection stands too tall, the shoulders are too square, the eyes burn metallic green, and it takes deep breaths, pushing its chest forward. Reizuki brings one hand up and bites onto a knuckle as he peers deeply into the reflection; the green eyes looking back at him are clearly not his own. They're too dark, too cold.

At least the fake Reizuki breaks the silence, "Hello, friend, I've been expecting you." The voice isn't his either, only the face; the voice is older but lighter.

"Who are you?" Reizuki inquires.

"If I thought my identity imperative to our meeting, I wouldn't have worn a mask. What is imperative on the other hand is that you regard every word I speak as the truth. You are a man of science with little regard or tolerance for the unexplainable. I find this commendable. But nevertheless you are being pursued by demons. You managed to outrun one such monstrosity in the tunnel that runs perpendicular to this very one. There will be more. I can protect you today and give you the tools you will need to fight them tomorrow, but only if you do as I say. Now reach below the chair marked as twenty-seven. There you will find a box made of redwood, it and its contents have no earthly business being here, but you will need them."

Reizuki cuts in, "How are you talking to me?" He leans from side to side, searching for a camera still.

"If you wish to die, by all means continue to ignore me. Now fetch the box."

Reizuki wastes only a moment considering the possibilities before adhering to the image's request. The specter in the TV is correct; there is a box hidden below the set. Reizuki unlatches the box and examines its contents. "These were the tools of the trade your ancestors held in such esteem. What you are seeing is as follows: a pair of gloves with hooks lining the palms. They are called 'Soka,' armed hand-guards with climbing tools hidden within. Next are 'line-men's grieves,' the equivalent to the gloves but manufactured half a world away, a century later. Next thing you are seeing is a 'Kama,' a shortened stave with a hooked blade, easily consolable, terribly effective as an assassin's tool. If you don't understand . . . guess. Next you will find a 'Jade needle.' I trust you know what that is. Lastly, a 'Nako mask.' That is just for fun. I understand you have a collection." Reizuki laughs inwardly, all the tools in the chest look like they belong in the Ming dynasty, hand carved and jeweled with the utmost of care.

The image continues, "Next look here and tell me what you see." The computer monitor begins to fade into a binary sequence. Reizuki stares, watching the numbers roll by seemingly endlessly, but the code he sees is not the code presented. Reizuki sees past the code on the screen and into a code hidden within.

"I know this game," Reizuki explains. "A number of my college friends in school played a game like this. After lunch, we would place our student IDs on the table and add our ID number to that of the person to our left, then add the sum of the last number to the total of the current. We would continue for a set amount of time, then add up all the numbers. We had to see what we would end up with. My ID number was 1946. 'B' my would-be girlfriend's was 2012: 1946 + 02012 = 3958, 3958 + 2012 = 5970, 5970 + 3958 = 9928. And so forth, some of us called the game Filipacchi's numbers. Officially there was no name or game for that matter. But many of us had books full of this meaningless code."

"Amazing, you don't even realize what you're looking at, do you?"

"Yes, I do. I can see the matrix feed you're showing me. I can also see past it to the real numbers hidden inside. But my gift is not without a price. You should see my medical history. In the last ten years, I've had a dozen broken ribs, dislocated my shoulder, tore my LCR, and I have been diagnosed with deteriorating spine plates.

That's all aside from the real problems." This game inspires memories in "N."

* * *

Reizuki Lowe, "the Letter N," was born with the name Justice Law. Many people have heard of dyslexia and dysculcactariea; not so many people understand what these things are or where they come from. These conditions are in fact one and the same--two different sets of symptoms for a single condition, an abnormality in the white matter surrounding the brain. It is a seemingly random mutation that weakens one quadrant of the brain, but in some allows others to develop in strange and exciting ways. This unexpected development is sometimes called savantism. It is as much a blessing as a curse. Reizuki has learned to live with his mutation, even embraces his weaknesses.

Early in life, Justice felt the calling of his namesake. He was born to a normal family and lived in a normal town in the heart of England, a normal place with normal problems. Before the crippling sicknesses he would experience began to really set in, he began forming an obsession: fairness, law, order, justice, the upholding of society's principles.

When Justice began formalized education, he was always quick to stand and fight when he saw others mistreated in spite of being by far the smallest in any of his classes. He would fight the good fight and promptly find his way in need of medical attention. He had a knack for exposing liars and cheats all over the school yard, oftentimes students, sometimes faculty.

Needless to say, the first four years of Justice's schooling were hellish. That fallowing year, a new doctor took over overseeing the school health and nutritional needs. Her name appeared to be Chie Novami, supposedly a native of India that had been schooled in the UK. Justice instinctively knew there was more to her story. In short order, he set out on a quest for the truth. Chie, he discovered, through unofficial channels was also called "B." He came to the conclusion she was a spy working under the orders of a man called "Kha" (pronounced as Chough).

Being of cynical nature by default, Justice expected the worst when he found the good "Dr. B" in his home talking to his parents. Mr. and Mrs. Law seemed captivated by Chie's company; she used words he didn't understand to describe his behaviors. She understood he was "ill" but had "special skills." She went on to explain that there is a "private school equipped to meet his needs" and she would "cover the expenses." Justice's parents signed away their ownership of him into B's custody the very next day.

It wasn't long thereafter, Justice became "student number 1946"; he would then take the name Reizuki Lowe for himself and in the not so distinct future be given the name "N." Justice Law would simply be unmade.

Student 1946's new life was magical by comparison; the women "B" became his mother by proximity. The school had around 350 students by his headcount and a similar number of faculty, all living on campus; this number was difficult to quantify because it was unclear where when someone stopped being a student and started being a teacher. The school seemingly was governed primarily by those in attendance. The first idea impressed upon Reizuki was that here "the needs of the community comes before all else." This suggested a great deal in a very few words. It was the responsibility of everyone to look out for the well-being of everyone else. All decisions were apparently made by committee. The older and stronger students seemed to take it upon themselves to take care of the weak. To Reizuki, this looked like his ideal world, and he quickly embraced it.

The school had no name, but it was clearly a school for the gifted. The students made their own curriculum, practicing and studying what they pleased, for the most part when they pleased; not to say, there was no structure, but the structure was more or less nonlinear, and at any time there could be a rule reversal where a student would take over a class from the instructor should the student have information that the teacher may have missed.

Most of the residents of the school had gifts similar to Reizuki's--gifted mathematicians, linguistic experts, artists with photosynthetic memory, guru cryptographers. Maybe there were some of the greatest minds on earth hidden in a school that could be a hundred miles from anywhere, in a nondescript valley with no landmarks in sight, nothing to even indicate approximate geography.

Reizuki still didn't fit in easily, but at the very least he wasn't viewed as the freak he was before. In his early teen years, "B" adopted another (who she also called B). Reizuki was supposed to refer to her as his half-sister, but everyone knew there was no relation. She was a year older than he was; she was student No. 2012.

Till Reizuki met student No. 1983, No. 2012 was his only equal. No. 1983 Reizuki learned was the son of a Japanese real estate giant named Li Diuska-Kogotana, owner of one of the largest low income housing communities in the country. His real name was Ichi Kogotana. Ichi would be given the name of "the Letter K." "N" and "K" were nearly shadows of one another. K was tall, well-spoken, self-assured, wore high-class clothing, and had trimmed short hair. Both were interested in law; both would become skilled trained espionage artists.

The three long-time friends were invited into the innermost sanctum of the nameless school to meet the upper management. Reizuki was skeptical, but the management insisted that the school was only one of many with a history dating back to pre-renaissance. "In this school we train our most gifted youth to become true patriots." They would say, "We will teach you to fight in the name of justice." They'd go on, "We all have gifts, and we all must use our gifts to better mankind. We can show you how to do that." "B" was more than happy to accept them at their word. "N" wasn't neatly so charitable, but with "B" and "K" at his side, he went through ahead with his training.

It was only a year later that the three exceptional kids became recognized as the best in their business; that earned them their names. With a name came privileges, most notably information, knowledge of a hidden world filled with secret governments. Soon it was in their jurisdiction to regulate this shadow government and to perform works within the legitimate ones as well. "The Letters are the champions of the people. Protecting civilization from the shadows and never waiting around for thanks. Good work needs no justification."

But this friendship was not made to last. As is the case with many friendships, politics got in the way. "B" was the first of the three to break the disciplines of their oath of service. She chose sides; she chose to abandon her neutrality to serve the UN as a translator. She is still recognized as a Letter, but she is no longer welcome within the walls of the school. She is no longer permanently a field operative. Then "K" did the unthinkable and murdered one of his coworkers and tried to overthrow the management. "N" chased him down and arrested his friend, choosing work before self. His two only true friends were now distanced from him. "N" became secluded; work now being all-encompassing. "N" continued to live in the school, but he kept to himself. His heaven turned inside out into a self-sustaining hell.

"N" is calloused to the silence--no more games, no more friends, no more dreams, only the greater good remains . . .

* * *

"On the brighter side I do have prefect teeth." Reizuki manages a smile.

"You can see past my code. That's good. Now take the 2120th. Variation on it and enter the sequence into the computer there"--he points back and to the left--"to awaken your sleeping beauty."

Reizuki slides over to the computer and begins keying in the code as described, his mind a mess from the seeming breakdown in this place between what he believed to be reality and an artist's fantasies. Reizuki can accept these things for what they are. After all, three hundred years ago everyone knew that the sun revolved around the earth; two hundred years ago everyone knew that the shortest route between New York and Oregon was the Panama canal, and now Reizuki knows that the world of dreams is far closer than a catnap.

The glass bed recedes, revealing a child in her late teens, her hair a light burgundy, her skin smooth as silk and lightly yellow and tanned; her physique is that of a gymnast. As the cold air brushes across her, she reaches into the air and makes a sound somewhere in between a meow and a yawn. Her eyes open, showing off their jade glow. She sits up and looks at Reizuki as she reaches out to hug him. "Good morning, Dad!" She stops as she is holding him. "Dad, that's kindof a new look for you, isn't it?"

Reizuki stands frozen, the young girl's bare body pressed into his.

The computer speaks up, "Happy birthday, Tara. I'm sorry breakfast isn't on the table. Looks like I'll be stuck at work a touch late."

The girl looks at the computer. "We'll that's a bit of a bother." She begins to blush as she looks down at Reizuki standing lifeless as stone in her embrace. She squeals, noticing her nude form and the unnamed man she is touching. She hides behind the bed, then reaches over to take her clothes. "And who is this?!" she cries.

"He is a police officer and he is a friend," the computer explains.

"That's talking a lot of faith," Reizuki whispers to himself.

"He needs our help, Tara, and we need his. Take him up to my office. Get the shuttle key. By the time you get back, I should be here waiting for you. We're going to take the train home tonight, if you don't mind."

Now fully clothed, Tara looks up at the computer and points, "That's not hard. Your office is: end of the hall, up the stairs, take the skyway to red block, then the elevator to thirty-four, right?" Her expiration is that of mild confusion.

The image in the computer seems to be distracted; it looks past the youngster to something hidden in the depths of darkness. His glance fires back to the kid's and his expression turns somehow colder than before and the softness is gone from his voice. "Nuku, execute protocol: 8-21-14-20-5-18-3-1-20. Protect Mr. Lowe at all cost."

Before he can finish his command, the wall behind them peels apart and a mammoth of a man jumps in through the hole in the wall; his eyes look like flashlights and he is covered in beetles. Tara screams as he appears and hides behind Reizuki. Reizuki lifts his head slightly to see the beast. "Yes, that seemed like a rational response." As the monster stomps toward them, Reizuki examines his features. "Hmm . . . it's Jessie Ventura. I wouldn't have expected that." Tara processes the code she was given. Her posture changes suddenly from childish to that of a trained warrior. Her eyes feel hard as steel; she stands bladed. In spite of Tara's diminutive stature, even if Reizuki were standing upright she would still stand four inches over him.

The Tank-6000 jumps up to their level and throws back its arms, howling like an animal. Its body sparks; clearly it is malfunctioning. The monster rips a seat out of the floor and swings it like a bat. Nuku Three jumps at Reizuki, pushing him over. She whispers to Reizuki, "That's one of my father's T-6000 security bots, the next gen in office security. Imagine a guard that never gets tired, never needs to eat, and never makes mistakes, isn't it great?"

"So swinging cumbersome objects at unarmed men is standard procedure?" Reizuki whispers to her.

The swing of the mammoth's makeshift hammer shatters the computer in the room and most everything else as well. A swift pivot and the monster brings the object overhead for a second swing. Reizuki twists his body and rolls the two of them out of the reach of the monster. Reizuki whispers to Tara, "This appears disadvantageous." Reizuki cartwheels forward over Tara and produces the Kama. Tara kick-flips up and establishes her footing.

Reizuki has seen Nuku Three's stance before or more appropriately lack of stance; she seems to be trained in a Mid-Eastern style called "Shoraru" (Show-Ray-Rue). The Shoraru are calculating fighters; their stances change based on their environment. If the ground is uneven they stand with their feet far apart, if smooth they shuffle about. There is a stance for when fighting only one man, another for fighting many. There are even stances for when dueling a man of similar size and for one of greater stature.

Tara stands with her feet at noon and nine, her hands held close to her chest, elbows tucked in. Reizuki stands slouched, feet shoulder with apart, his back hand hiding his weapon, his front swaying dead before him. Tank looks between them; he takes an arcing swing to try and take both combatants off their feet. Reizuki ducks and rolls in too close to hit; Nuku Three catches the makeshift hammer and struggles to steal it. Reizuki stands from his roll and swings his Kama across the back of the monster's legs to make it crouch, then in a swift twist slaps it across the face with the blade.

Tank drops the hammer and instead wraps his hand around Reizuki's head. Nuku Three gasps and dashes in to rescue her partner. An elbow to the solar plexus, knuckle across the temple, and jab to the chin, and the monster throws Reizuki, turning its attention on the pink-haired girl instead. Tara's assault stuns the beast for hardly a breath; Tank retaliates with the back of his hand flinging Nuku Three across the room and through the wall. Reizuki tumbles to his feet and chases after Tara.

Tara stands little worse for the wear. "Tara, your father built this monstrosity? How do we stop it?"

Nuku Three thinks for a moment. "I think it is powered by a split fusion kinetic battery," she snaps triumphantly. "We'll take the batteries out."

Reizuki looks almost enthusiastic. "How do we do that?"

"We just need to cut around his Kevlar muscle and unscrew the titanium plate underneath to expose the control panel, piece of cake." Nuku laughs proudly.

Reizuki's head drops into his hands, and he rubs his eyes, disappointed. "Any other ideas?"

Tara places one finger on her lips as she strains to remember something. "The 'T-series cyborgs' are cosmetically appealing but do have a design flow we could exploit. Faulty AC makes it so they overheat a lot faster than the 'M-series.'"

The monster lumbers toward them. "How much faster?"

"Model M can withstand temperatures ranging from--300F to 600F. The model T can only withstand--120F up to 400F. Anymore than that and they go into auto shutdown and need to be manually reset." Clearly Reizuki is trying to find some way to make this information useful but seems to be having trouble.

Reizuki's eyes turn upward and his head rolls slightly; his vision grays as he starts mapping the building's plumbing and electrical work mentally. Streamlines of color start assigning values to various sections what he believes to be the important and the disposable sections. "Ms. Karingson, how closely would that abomination follow me if I issued a direct assault?"

"The difference engine will automatically establish the shortest route between itself and its target, disregarding only the impossible and knowingly self-destructive paths. It won't walk through walls or water to reach its targets."

"That will work." Reizuki charges headlong at the monster in a seemingly suicidal rage; he places his cat mask over his face and holds his Kama tucked behind his back.

Tara cries, "What?! Reizuki!" Reizuki cannot stop; the monster swings out its arm to interrupt his attack, just what Reizuki expected. Reizuki swings his Kama down and springs over the monster in a vaulting leap; Reizuki grabs the side of the broken train and climbs atop. The monster Tank turns to face Reizuki. Reizuki swings his Kama upward, loosening the wires in the ceiling.

Demonstrating its superhuman power, the mechanical horror mimics Reizuki's heroic jump onto the train. Plottingly, Reizuki walks backward away from the beast. The monster Tank stands tall and menacing, tearing its way through the webs of wiring Reizuki has dropped in its path.

The monster presses forth as Reizuki starts running out of train to stand on. Reizuki looks up at the last handful of feet of car and smirks, spotting just what he was looking for--a plug for a service light. Reizuki produces two of his needles and rips a piece of wiring down himself; he inserts the needles into the dormant wire, and as the beast comes within arm's reach, he jams the dead wire into the plug.

A massive influx of energy flies through the broken wires, illuminating everything as if in a bolt of lightning. Reizuki jumps down off the car to relative safety, tumbling away. The monster Tank is not so lucky; the monster is burnt to a melting mass of steel, its electronic brain destroyed by the shock. The backlash burns out the breakers, darkening the basement nearly completely.

Nonchalantly Reizuki recovers from his jump; he tucks his Kama back into his teddy bear bag, then steps onto the train to pick up the pink plush bunny. Reizuki takes a moment to search for Tara and holds the bunny out to her as well as one of his hard candies.

Tara looks befuddled. "How did you . . ."

"Would you kindly pick up that trash receptor?" Reizuki moves his cat mask onto the back of his head and places a sucker in his mouth as well.

Tara tucks the rabbit into her shirt, its head sticking out from between her breasts. She nods. "OK, but why?"

"I would like you to throw it at the stairs." He starts to walk over to the stairwell. It is only a precaution; Reizuki knows already that he has destroyed the Mec--gun with that stunt, but in the off chance it has a secondary power source . . . it's best to play things safe.

Nuku pitches the can up the stairs as Reizuki instructs; just as he thought, nothing happens. It's not inconceivable that the grid has a secondary power supply, but for the moment the road ahead is clear.

Chapter 21

Thee Ascended

Tail watches the computer screens around her intently; almost as if unknowingly, one hand reaches over to a pinnacle and starts scribbling out the code she had seen earlier.

"Bw ju ewakr ty qdxyrc, bwrzu xc z rzdl rzu, bwjwddwe jzu ty yayh rzdlyd exbnwvb uwyd nykg. Ey kxay xh z ewdkr eydy jwhyu szh gzu qwd qdyyrwj, zhr mvcbxsy xc qwd czky. X tykxyay bnxc xc vhzssygbztky. Mvcbxsy xh bny gydqysb iwkr xc vhyfvxawszk. Xq uwv qyyk bny X rw bnyh dyzr wh. Ju hzjy xc Dxovlx Kwe zkcw szkkyr 'H,' X zj z hyhtyd nq z pdwvg bnzb fvycb qwd z tybbyd bwjwbbwe.

"X nzay cyhb bnxc jycczpy yhsdugbyr. Enu xc bew qwkd: exec xb xc bw gdwbysb jucykq zhr hny wbnyd 'Kybbydc,' bny wbnyd bw bycb bny ryrvsbxay atxkxbu wq bny dysxgxynb. Bnxhl wq bnxc bycb zc zh zggkxszbxwh. Xq uwv cnwvkr oxcn bw lhwe jwdy bnyh zkk uwv hyyr bw xc skxsl."

Tail's eyes turn in part to the code; code breaking in general is more time-consuming than difficult if you assume a handful of things to be enviably true: First, the code can be broken, second, the code was written in a known language, third, the writer of the code wants it to be broken by someone, fourth, the writer obeyed the rules of their native tongue. If these things are true, then that means (particularly when dealing with alphabetical ciphers) that the code by its very nature betrays itself. Languages are limiting, words are limited; therefore, if you look at the two-, three-, and four-letter words first, the code will start to unravel with logical deductions. Take "BW," for example; one of these letters must be a vowel. If the "W" is in "O," then the most likely possibility is that "B" is now equal to "t"; that would mean that the word "bwrzu" is "today." You know now that "R = D, Z = A, and U = Y"; things are coming together.

Tail's concentration wanes; her eyes drift between her work and her code. She snaps herself back to attention when she notices her lock on Black's location starts to drift; he seems to jump back and forth between several locations in the compound. His pace has not changed, only his local.

Tail turns on her headset and calls out, "Black! Can you read me?"

Her partner's voice comes in over the wire; he sounds echoy and out of breath. "Loud and clear, partner. What's the scoop?"

"Black, where are you?"

"Around twenty, I think. Why?"

"I'm having trouble keeping a lock on you. Your signal is jumping all over the place."

"Radio interferences?"

"Black, I'm tracking you with the 'global positioning system,' GPS kido, way bigger bandwidth than traditional radio. No, you are physically moving between two or more places without passing the space in between."

The voice sounds confused. "My brother once mentioned something about 'Psicoportation,' 'dream travel.' Sometimes people or objects can be moved within their own Chranosphere (relative position in time and space) via the will of the 'dreamers'. It's like the way I move objects telepathically, just way more sophisticated."

Tail thinks hard a moment. "If this is legit, then Professor Hawken's spaghetti theory is pretty much shot to hell." "Spaghetti?" Blake asks.

Tail takes a deep breath. "Object exposed to a gravity vortex distorts the fourth wall of reality. In that time itself failing to adhere to the law of relativity, the vortex stretches, twist, and pulls against object on a molecular level, allowing live matter to contort infinitely as it passes through the void in time. Hypothetically, this means that a gravitational vortex could allow one to pass through space without time, but if light can't survive this journey, then it seems unlikely at this point that organic matter could, unless we were able to move at speed that would shatter the visible light spectrum wall, still sustaining structural integrity, which might not be inconceivable. A British physicist did claim in a scientific journal that using a retired 'atom smasher' retrofitted with a single puller electromagnet he was able to force a neutron to exceed point seven five past light speed. I guess that means the big daddy Einstein E equals M C square is now E equals greater than backslash M C square sometimes assuming that this experiment can be recreated."

"Tail, do you know how I know you're smart? I can't understand most of what you say." There is a brief elapse. "Tail, have you ever had any kids?"

"Remember what I told you when we met? I'm a virgin."

"I didn't ask you if you've had sex. I asked if you have any kids."

"Reasonable deduction insists that there is correlation between these events. If I haven't had sex, then it would be likely that I have no kids."

"Likely, yes, but I seem to recall a handful of stories wherein women claimed to have had emasculated birth--Jesus Christ, Hercules, the Prophet, Adam of Eden, Josephus of Tiana, and Cid Arthur I think. Then on top of that in nature, there are a number of animals that can naturally produce both semen and ovum in times of need. Even today's medical science is making it possible for human to mimic this behavior--"

Tail cuts him off, "You're taking about AE. I know all about it. I'm a test tube baby myself. According to my file in the lab, there are something like fourteen people that donated chromosomes to me, and God only knows what else is in my genes."

Blake murmurs, "I can think of one thing that might be (in your genes)." "What?" Tail asks fruitlessly.

"But you still understand that what I'm saying isn't inconceivable?"

"I would think if I had ever given birth I would have some recollection of it. Why do you ask anyway?"

"Just a moment ago, I saw someone that looked almost exactly like you. Same hair except that it was white, not red, same facial structure, same eye shape, blue not green. She didn't have your cluster of tails, but the texture of her fur looked similar too."

"Could it have been one of those clones or whatever?"

"No, too similar or not enough, depending on what way you want to take it. When you make a clone of something, you want it to be identical or a near match, not fifty-fifty like a kid."

Tail's voice sinks slightly as she considers the possibilities, however ridiculous this sounds. "I'm not liking where this is going, Blake. Find it whatever it is."

"I slipped your name. She recognized it."

The computer starts to flicker; the phone crackles out. Hair, as if suspended in water flows from the monitor in cascades; it splashes onto the floor and crawls up the walls, then moves spider-like onto the ceiling. Tail falls from her chair and calls out for the guard waiting at her door.

The sounds of a violin fill the room as the hair forms into a humanoid shape sitting in the armchair in the room. The first truly human part of the demonic entity is a pair of glowing purple eyes followed by hands holding the violin, and at last, the monster solidifies into the white-skinned demon Adam Crow, dressed in a flowing black garment with a high-cut collar and dyed sheepskin leggings--perfect formal wear for a druidic ceremony.

Crow lowers his violin to his side. The room has changed partly into a lavish ballroom with marbled floor and stained-glass windows thirty feet tall. "He's not lying, Tail," he explains. "You do have a child, and she is a queen amongst men." Tail snarls and reaches for her Light Bringer; Crow lowers his head in disappointment. "Do we have to go through this again? Why does my very presence inspire fear and prejudices?"

"Give me one good reason not to start . . ." Tail starts to try to make a threat, but Crow lifts one hand and her mouth vanishes from her face, and she falls to her knees horrified and confused.

"You're dying, Tail. Like a lovely rose, you were not made to last. But I can change that. You have royal blood in your veins already, namely mine, but it is little and it sleeps. But given only a kiss from my lips and a piece of my tongue and your blood will boil. You will grow young and strong. Life will well within you. Eternal life will be yours, as well as beauty unrivaled and secrets untold. I have eaten off your flesh. Now taste off mine." Crow turns his hand's palm up and runs two fingers down his hand; his nails cut like razors making clean deep wounds. A drop of blood drips from his fingertips, and as it touches the ground, flowers sprout from the earth around him. His skin glows like gemstone; his blood smells sweat as cinnamon.

Crow's gaze makes Tail feel drunk. Tail's intellect tells her of Crow's untainted evil: The racing of her pulse, her choppy breathing, her quivering hands all say otherwise. Tail being an individual that trusts her mind before her sexual yearnings shakes herself off; the illusion having passed, she stands and backs herself into her desk. Stuttering, she shakes her head. "No, you lie, your evil incarnate. Something like you knows nothing of love, faith, or truth. The very act of hearing your voice poisons me."

Crow's hair drifts in part over his face, and he begins to fade into a living shadow. "I have little need of lies. The truth is so much more interesting. You know me, we are the dearest of friends. Your beloved father washed your memories of me and hid your child. Now that I have found her, she is called Karin, she will take her rightful place at my side, and you may join her. You need only take my hand." Crow extends his arm.

The pheromonic scent Crow induces redoubles; Tail's mouth waters. Tail falls forward onto all fours like a beast and crawls over to Crow hungrily, her human mind lost momentarily to the bestial rage the demon inspires.

"Think for only a moment, my vixen. Your lovely mind, your pyrokinetic abilities, all that you are, can it be anything but the work of gods?"

* * *

(Note from Acting Archivist Ammerant Springfield. Section taken from the journal of Watcher S, Joe Dove.)

I had a guest late in the day. I chose to see him in the library. He didn't give his name, only assured me that "I am the best friend you can hope to have in these darkened times." He is an older man; coming from me, you can imagine what that means. He has hair like mine, only long and straight. His eyes are a vibrant green; his skin looks like its been powdered. His clothing is heavy-looking, black leather head to toe, a trench coat almost like that of the German secret service, matching slacks, and steel-toed boots with thick heels and driving gloves.

Immediately upon sitting down, he drops a hardy antique book in my lap; it's sealed with a bronze clasp green with age. The title is etched in gold lettering barely legible; it reads: "White Down: Epic of the World Walker." It looks worn. My first instinct is to try to break the clasp off. My new friend stops me; I look at him asking, "So what is this?"

"The life story of your enemy, written by his own hands." His voice is pitched higher than I expected. He crosses his legs and leans back in his chair smugly.

"You've read it?"

"No, I'll leave that honor to you, if you have the necessary conviction."

"You have the key?"

"No, the key is around the neck of Adam Crow, discussed as a wedding band."

"How do you know?"

"How do you know I don't?"

"Why give it to me?"

"Mutual acquaintances insisted. Besides Crow trusts you. Only you can get the key from him."

"It's not like he gave me a phone number. I can't just ask him for the key."

"I wouldn't have expected such."

"So what do you want from me?" I lean into the stranger sternly; something is remarkably strange about this man.

"That is simple enough. Take it from him."

"Do you have any idea what you're talking about?"

The stranger's eyes are colder than stone; yet his voice is somehow soothing, a paradox in of itself. "I know far more than I should and yet less than I would like. For example, he is here, if not I wouldn't be."

I am ready to reach over the table and slip this guy silly and start shouting, "What the hell is your malfunction?" and all sorts of other salty language. I could teach this geezer some respect. I could, I would even, in fact I'm going to. But that's when the door gets smashed in and Hunter Woemak dashes across the room and takes me by the arm. I look to my would-be friend to ask him to wait here, but he has vanished like the autumn wind.

Woemak is one of the youngest members of Cerberus unit, blonde with black streaks in her hair; she has a heavy build and soft features. She made the team as I recall for her outstanding hand-to-hand skills. I'm told she once killed an Ushiuna (cow demon) with her bare hands. She drags me down to the barracks. I grab L. Gillard and Hunter Freemen on the way as well as my cane and a crossbow.

Woemak fails to tell us what is going on, but if a Cerberus rank hunter is in a tizzy and looking for me it must be big; how big I dared not ask. When we arrive in the barracks, it is as if something is toying with the rules of reality itself. The halls have grown long and twisted, and wouldn't you know it? It all starts with Richard Blake's room. God knows that anyone that sympathizes with monsters is bad fortune.

I knew from the get-go that there was something "rotten in Denmark," but what happened next I would never have expected. Freemen employs a typical SWAT maneuver. Gillard, Woemak, and myself are pushed to the side as Freemen shoulders the door down; he drops into a marksman stance and establishes there are two targets. He recognizes Tail and therefore concludes that the purple-eyed demon is the aggressor. The kid has no idea what he is in for. As for the rest of us we file in behind. I hate to say it, I hesitated. The monster of my dreams is here, the thing I have dreamed of killing since my youth within spitting range.

Tail is on her knees, crawling over to It. The monster needn't bother looking up to know we're here. He acknowledges me, "Joseph, I was hoping to see you. I would like to set an appointment to see you again. The day of Octoberus Caesar, the hour of the inverted trinity, we will meet in the house which you and I first set eyes."

I can't help but grin manically; I lift my bow. Together L. Gillard and I have slain every abomination to set foot on this world, every demon, every monster known to man, and I know I'm going to kill God. It's an insanity I know but how exciting.

Freemen makes the first move. That's a mistake, one he can't afford. The bullet passes through the air slowly enough that we can watch as it rusts then turns to ash well before reaching the demon. The gun rusts and melts in much the same way; only a moment later, Freemen falls to the ground folding up like a rubber suit of a man, whatever was within his body seemingly removed, leaving an empty skin.

In a horrified rage, Woemak reaches around herself for a set of nightsticks. With a blink of his eyes and in an inaudible growl, Crow picks Woemak up by an invisible hand, drags her to him, then pushes her through the wall behind Gillard and myself.

This battle is suicide, but Gillard and I silently agree; it's better to die on our feet than on our knees. Gillard reaches round his neck for a mystic charm in the shape of a cross with a ring around it and a cross coming off each corner. Gillard pulls a flashlight from his blouse and shines it on the back of his mystic charm, casting its shadow on the monster. Crow hams it up like "Christopher Lee" in _Dracula_hiding his face from the light.

I can see it's a joke, but this is as good of a time as any; I fire my bow.

Crow turns to a living shadow; he grabs my bolt out of the air and drives it into Gillard's thigh with the same force as if mechanically driven. His leg is broken. I can see that from here. He refuses to scream. Crow twists his arm, shattering his shoulder and making him drip his charm. All I can do is reload and threaten to shoot again.

The devil rests one hand on my friend's cheek seductively. At his touch, Gillard's skin grays and ages unnaturally; he looks mummified. I shout my command, "Drop him, Crow or . . ."

"Or what?" Crow looks at me. "Five on one, seems a touch unfair. Would you like to call for more of your friends?" What I'm feeling at that moment I'm not sure; I know the words to descry. The look in my eyes as I stare down death could only be that of a monster: heartless, soulless; my eyes I can feel are wide with ambition.

I'm grinning in sadistic amusement, choking on a laugh of devilish glee. We are all died and I am invigorated. "A tiger __is at its most furriest_ in_ the hour of its __death," The Diary of Allen_ Corderman._

"There is no way out of this, Crow. Put everything back as you found it, then die."

Crow drops his head; his exasperation is mournful. His breath chills the room; his voice is empty as I am filled with rage. "You don't yet understand, Joseph. This is all a game. When you are immortal, you can afford to play some convoluted games, with deathly conscience. Killing your friend, perverting the rules of nature, bringing your dreams to life, and watching how you react to your own fantasia, I do it all for my amusement. Why? Because no one in this world can stop me. In your world no laws bind me, no king can crucify me, no interment can soothe me. My will is all but absolute," he growls inhumanly as he turns to meet my gaze. "The game is already in progress. The only question that is significant is: will you play your part or will you not?"

"What are the rules? What do I have to do?" I command.

"I am going to bring my legions to this world and we will devour all we see. If you let us. You can try to stop me."

"And how is that?"

"Twelve men, with twelve keys, kings on a chessboard if you like. My army cannot invade so long as the kings live. One king is dead already. Protect the others if you can."

"What if I don't want to play?"

Crow's head drops as if he were thinking about the possibilities. "Frankly, without someone to play against, there's really very little plusher to be had in this event. I could set the world on fire. Transform this tiny rock into its own sun. See what rises from the ash . . ." I don't won't to believe him, but somehow I do. I'm not the type of man to show sympathy for demons but this one, if any, I could. Not today.

I spot the chain around his neck; I approach the monster to give him a Germen curtsy. I flip my crossbow around and slap Crow across the face with it. He turns his head and laughs. I grip his collar connivingly. I slap him with the bow again and with a sharp jerking movement snap the chain off from around his neck. Were both laughing at the absurdity of my action. I wind up for a third swing. Crow slaps the bow from my hand and grabs me by the face, then launches me at the ground. He drives his knee into my chest and whispers to me, "I want you to fight with me. Since you were a child, I have wanted you to fight with me. But not like this. I believe the term you like is 'the game's afoot.' Come on, Joseph, play with me." As fast as he came, he is gone. Blue black fog rolls along the ground and walls, then sinks away into nothing, leaving everything as it was, with the exception of I now have one dead Watcher on my hands and two injured.

I call for a cleanup team. Tail is taken down to the inquisitor's office, Gillard and Woemak to the infirmary. Freemen is crumpled up and thrown in the dumpster; it's an unholy mess. The medical officers tell me Woemak should be back to work in six months; she managed to avoid serious injuries. Sounds like an understatement to me. Gillard will make it if he survives the night.

*In Gillard's absence Springfield has taken over as head of archives. I don't like it--the idea that a monster has unhindered access to every book in the archive.*

But that's only the beginning of my problems at this point--dead friends, demonic spies, aliens running amok, and the Jesuit pounding on my front door.

I return to my room only an hour later with the intent of continuing my bookish learning; things are not as I left them. An envelope is on my nightstand; a new book has found its way onto my shelf. My first response is to pull my gun from my coat and sneak around my own room.

*Best case, Aska is playing games with me. Anything else, someone will be answering to my "Smith and Weston." It's a crying shame to waste Italian silver, but wouldn't you know it? Four-fifths of every monster I've seen hates it, or maybe they just don't like being shot.*

I find nothing that disturbs me. Curiosity gets the better of me though, and I can't help but take a closer look at these new articles in my collection--newspaper articles, biblical accounts, genealogy records pulled from a hidden file (the markings on it tell me it was taken from a church in Utah). It's all a puzzle.

*And I bet Crow's ring is a piece too. Looks like I'm in for a late night.*

(Note from Archivist Amerant Springfield: as I was filing through the hard and soft copies of "the Watcher's Chronicles," I found several discrepancies. I have gone back and added in the missing articles. I have marked them with "*," a minor oversight to be sure, no doubt clerical errors or problems with translations, but for reason of protecting and preserving the thoughts of the authors I have made these edits. I will continue my search of the archive. I am excited to see what other lost books and documents I find down here. On a side note, I find it interesting that Joe Dove made references in these documentations to Aska Von Richton, the wife of the former chairmen Joseph Wright Von Richton, also assumed deceased.

I wonder what that can mean? Wright, the current chairman, being the only known descendant of the two to still be living.)

* * *

Tail is taken to the dungeons below the barracks by two suits. She is led to a red steel door where outside as if standing guard is her acquaintance Charlit, arms folded, her strange reptilian tail wagging behind. Tail tries to greet her but is shoved past the door instead. Before Tail can fully gain her balance again, she is greeted with a slap on the back of the head. Upon her vision finally clearing, she finds she's lying on a table in a gray stone room.

Tail sits up and look around for what had hit her, spotting no one or thing in the room but the table and the monstrous kangaroo Millie. Tail reaches around behind herself; rubbing her head, she finds her hand soaked with blood. Still queasy from the last hit, Millie doesn't afford her the time to calibrate herself. Millie strides the room with only one or two skips; Millie slides Tail over one shoulder and tramples over the table, barreling into the wall, slapping Tail against it with her overwhelming size. Tail slumps over winded and disoriented.

"Am I going to be asked a question at some point or are you just going to beat my ass?" Tail manages to mumble in amongst the savage beating.

Millie grunts and tosses Tail across the room with a backhanded lob; before Tail stops skidding along the ground, Millie is atop her again, holding her to the ground with one foot, a foothold on Tail's body length. The Stith contorts herself so she can stand nose to nose with the fox while still upright (or at least standing bent over at the waist and neck outstretched). "Tell me about the demons!" she snarls.

"you know this is the problem with torture changeses are I don't know anything but I just might make something up to get you off may case" Tail sights "This sounds familiar. Millie, think about this for a moment. I'm a pet. Why would I know anything about this monster you're talking about?"

Millie head-butts Tail hard enough to bounce her head off the ground and tear the skin above her right eye. Tail brings her arms up to protect herself from the next impending attack. "Don't patronize me. I know what you are, Android!" she growls viciously.

"Think about that, Millie. I'm not a demon or a monster or freak or whatever else Von Richton might have called me! I'm a construct, golem. I know nothing outside of the books you gave me and the comic and stuff I could get my hands on back at Claw Co."

Mille growls; lifting Tail into the air, she holds her overhead and spins in a 180 degrees, thrusting her on the ground opposite of her former position. "Since you showed up, three of the men under my command have turned up dead and know the biggest baddest monster we have ever seen turns up in your room. Explain that!"

Tail gags and rolls onto her side, nearly chocking on her own blood. "How much different is that from any other day!? I'm a nerdy, comic book reading, skateboarding, gaming, dice throwing, card flipping, punk rocking, dog girl. All this garbage going on here, I know nothing of it. This is all way outside my pay grade."

A brush of humanity flashes in Millie's eyes and her exasperation softens; maybe it's maternal instinct, maybe her bloodthirst has been quenched, or maybe Tail swayed her. Regardless Millie picks up the table, flipping it upright and picks up Tail. "You look pretty rough. Let me help you out."

Tail blacks out for several minutes; she wakes back up to the stinging sensation of a needle being threaded through her flesh. Tail starts to sit up but is held down by Millie's foot on her sternum. In a remarkably tender voice, Millie whispers to Tail, "You have a concussive lasher on the back of your head. That's not too bad. It will take care of itself. This cut over your eye is a tad worse. I can sew it shut, the gash I mean. It will look a little funny and I don't know if your hair will grow back around it, but it shouldn't be too bad."

Tail cringes from the tugging of the wire dragging through her skin. "I guess I'm lucky you're a girl."

"Why is that?"

"If you were a man, you might have stumped my head clean off."

"Truthfully, that's one of the things that surprised me when I got here. Where I'm from, the biggest males are only about half the size of the average female. At the peak of our culture, if you could call what we had culture, men were kept as breeding toys, sold and traded for the amusement of the dominant families. We hid them away during times of unrest in underground cages, which was for my entire lifespan and that of my grandmother's as best as I know."

"How is it you came to find yourself in the company of the Von Richtons, Millie?"

"Some of the more intellectual of my tribesmen looked at the advancements of the wars. They saw how we were coming up with progressively more creative ways to kill each other, did some quick math, and noticed that war was a way of life. We had more fun blowing each other up than anything. So we noticed that with these endlessly engorging bombs in less than a hundred years, we would end up driving ourselves to extinction, if not destroying our planet entirely. So one of my tribesmen with some political sway assembled in underground city, then sent out a number of questionnaires to find the strongest, smartest of his kin, and invited them to join her in the shelter. Fourteen women and one man made the list in the end. I was chosen for being the twelfth-most physically capable and therefore one of most likely to be able to survive in whatever the world would become. Once underground, the doors locked and wouldn't open again for 222 sessions. We were all instructed to mate to our hearts' desires. We did so. Our numbers swelled expectedly. The first years were rough, living off cave moss and licking water off stone. We had a cannibal problem.

Things went well after we solved that."

Tail interrupts the story, "How did you deal with the cannibals?"

"How would anyone? We tracked them down, then quartered, killed, and cooked them. I can only imagine we missed the worst of the worst. The fifteen of us, now almost ten times that, left the underground together to find the world no longer recognizable. The sky was burned black. The ground was covered in a snow of density never seen before. We never again saw daylight. The sun and the moon alike seemingly died when we slept. In the time of my mother, axes and spears were the weapons most dominant. When I was young, cannons and hovercrafts became commonplace. What happened while we were underground, I can hardly fathom. False stars were constructed and rain of fire burned all that lived on the surface. There was nothing left to be had at home. So we found a way to extend our reach to the stars above. A number of our young were fantastic tinkers. They took the technology our surface-dwelling kin left behind and adapted it to our new ideas. They took airships, gave them new engines so they could transmute particles in the air into fuel, gave us freezer suits to allow us to sleep indefinitely without need for food or water, wired us into our own devices as to allow for near pilotless exploration. We then broke into teams not so different from before, ten women to each man, then we went to sleep and let the ships take over."

"So how did you ultimately end up here?"

"The ships were programmed to wake us as soon as we encounter any number of pre-chosen conditions. I was awoken when we resaved a radio broadcast. 'Bach's second symphony' being transmuted via a fellow ship named Voyager 2, I think.

That's what pointed me here."

"What? First you were saying 'us,' now 'you.' Why?"

"I was the only one that woke from the freezing. We were asleep for untold years. Parasites, system malfunctions, or maybe just time destroyed the other freezers. I'm the only remaining member of my crew. My ship set down somewhere off the coast of Brazil. I was picked up by the Von Richtons just like you. I was brought here and branded into slavery."

"Why not run?"

"To where? I have no place to go, no family, no home. Tail, I want to die. I've been fighting everyone with half a mind. To do so hopping one of them would do the job. I'm most certainly not going to punch my own ticket. Let me tell you nonetheless. The Von Richtons are the evilest, most xenophobic bastards I have ever encountered. They are afraid of monsters corrupting their world and killing their children. Tail, this world looks much like mine did in the years predating its destruction. Be warned. Men are more likely to kill each other than we are." Millie sits Tail up. "OK, I think you'll make it." Her tone changes abruptly.

"So that's it? You're a slave, end of story? What happens next? Why was I brought here? I should be looking after my partner," Tail starts to ramble.

"I was asked to beat you senseless, then turn you over to Charlit who would stick her appendage down your throat looking for anything interesting hidden in your brain."

"That sounds disgusting, so why patch me up?"

"Two things: first, Charlit likes you, second, you don't know anything. You're this amazingly advanced learning computer that has never been allowed to do what you were meant to do. That's obvious. Tail, what the hell are you?"

Tail stares blankly. "Can I go home please?" Tail thinks about telling Millie about her plan to leave when Blake gets back; she thinks about asking Millie for her help. She even considers telling her she'll help her escape. But she doesn't.

Millie waits a moment longer to see if Tail has anything to add, but then just nods. "I'll walk you home. I'll tell my boss the truth. If he doesn't like it, he can lick my pouch."

Tail giggles girlishly as ever. "That sounds vulgar."

"Sexy too. Do you know when the last time I got licked was? Honestly, I don't remember."

* * *

"Tail! Tail!" Blake calls onto his headset, then drops his head in disappointment, accepting he is now on his own. As he looks back up, he can see what Tail meant about sporadic movement. The passage above him looks twisted and the markers on the walls are inconsistent to one another. The world looks stretched. His first thoughts turn to the wraiths, but no, this is not the same. The binding looks more physical and less surreal but still not natural. His head turns downward again to witness the same thing happening back the way he came, the passage twisted into an almost watery-looking drain spiraling into a pinhole.

Blake shakes his head. "I have to get out of here." Blake makes haste, dashing up the walls, looking for any way out of this hellish vortex. The next door he encounters looks like something out of a "MC Escher" painting, the door laid on its side in space and nearly fifteen feet long. He pulls his crowbar to try and open it, but the steel is warped and cannot move. Next thereafter is in the process of breaking apart; similarly, this one he can pry open in time to jump in.

The hall on the other side is twisting like something in a funhouse; it settles with the wall as the floor on one side. The opposite end is completely upside down. Blake wrestles with his own thoughts as he walks. This is __unreal. Can the very presence_ of_ this demon be having __this effect on the world?_ Yes,_ demons have a strong __effect on their surroundings, but this is ridiculous._ Spontaneous_ combustion and levitating objects are one thing,but . . .

Blake's sixth sense kicks him in the head to snap him back to attention; through the wall he can see another life form moving. The room on the other side looks unaffected by the madness that seems to have taken everything around it. But then he notices two of Crow's wraiths following the new "light." The man behind the wall looks almost like a wraith himself at first glance. Blake sees his aura flickering blue and black. The man himself is more metal than man to begin with; the heart, brain, and skeleton are present, but the rest looks like it's been rebuilt and made over to look "normal."

Blake finds the door leading in and stands alongside it, watching his target through the wall. The door is made of 4-40 steel, not bulletproof, but it is flame retardant and damned close to bulletproof. The wall on either side on the other hand is not so much so. Blake pulls out his "Jessie James," holds it to the frame of the door, and angles it down; he pulls the trigger, and the bullet bounces harmlessly off the floor and into the ceiling on the other side. The man behind the door pulls a gun and takes several random shots around the room, trying to find his aggressor.

Blake yells into the room, "I see I got your attention! What's your name, Cowboy?!"

"Dr. Allen E. Wesker. And who might you be?" Wesker asks sharply.

"I'm a journalist. Mind if I ask you a few questions?"

"Now really isn't a good time. If you would like to make an appointment with my secretary, maybe we could work something out."

"Sure! Not a problem. Would your secretary happen to be one of those young ladies fluttering about the room?" Blake plays with Allen; Allen is clearly frustrated by the jest.

"On second thoughts, come on out and we will talk now." Wesker reloads his gun.

"I'm not much of one for Mexican standoffs. Place your gun on the desk in front of you and I'll come in."

Allen chuckles to himself. "OK, it's done." He holds his gun up, taking aim, having now discovered Blake's location.

"Dumb-ass, I know right where you're standing. I know there are two demonic wraiths in the room with you. I know that's a US .45 Eagle your carrying. You think I don't know you haven't put down your gun yet. Now you can put down your gun or I can take it from you."

"I'm only one man in a white lab coat. How frightening can I be?"

"You're wearing a UBC letter jacket. I don't know if you're really a commando but that is a government-issued firearm, and I don't want to know the truth."

"You can see an offal lot from behind a door." Allen pivots, pressing his back against the same door and holds his gun low and ready. The two men square off, both waiting for the other to seem off balance in any way. The wraiths float back into the walls hiding from the impending battle.

"You're right, Allen. I'm a man of honor. Lies don't do me justice. I'm sorry I'm not a journalist. I probably could have been, but I'm an assassin. Your name is on my hit list. I recommend you run."

Almost in unison, both men turn to the door. Allen summons his superhuman strength to punch the door down. Blake raises one hand and projects his will to open the door and shove Allen off his feet instead.

Blake gets his first look at Wesker as he flips back to his feet. Allen's eyes are like flashlights burning white. His hair stands on end sparkling with electricity; the way he stands and the way he locks eyes with his prey seem almost feline. Allen growls bestially. "Of course, you're possessed. That's why there are wraiths following you around," Blake explains matter-of-factly.

Allen is done with words; briskly he walks to engage his opponent. Blake backsteps and takes aim. Much to his dismay, Allen is in too close for a clean shot. Allen takes Blake by the arm, twisting it to make him drop his gun. As Blake leans backward to regain his center of gravity, Allen delivers a chop to his chest, dropping the Watcher on his back. Allen follows up by drawing his hand back to drill it into Blake's chest as he lies on his back.

Blake summons an unseen wall to absorb the strike. As Allen is distracted by his failed attack, Blake wraps his legs around Allen's and pulls up on them to take his feet out from under him. Blake rolls to his feet and raises his guard. Allen cartwheels back upright. Blake takes the offensive, stepping in with a jab, cross, backhand, and uppercut. Allen's hand-to-hand skill exceeds those of Blake as Allen responds with a pushing block, hook, and paks (a slap to the arm to mislead an attack). He crouches the backhand, but then is caught by the uppercut and stumbles back, falling onto the desk. Blake holds his hands off to both sides, summoning back his gun and taking Allen's away. Blake aims down with both weapons, crossing his hands over, bracing them against each other, raining lead on his mark.

A phantom wind howls as Allen calls his kie to protect him from the assault; bullets burn away mid-flight as if passing through water. But Allen lacks the discipline of his teacher and cannot sustain his defence; one shot pierces his shoulder, another his hip. The air turns cold. The air develops watery crystals floating throughout; the ground becomes icy, and frost covers the room.

Blake lowers his guard, confused by the whole of events. Wesker is not so easily distracted. He jumps at Blake and steals away his gun, then drives his fist into Blake's gut. The wind is knocked out of the psychic, and he falls to his knees. With great effort, Blake lifts his gun and takes several shots at the monster in man's clothing. One wraith drops from the ceiling to block the attack against its employer, the other grips Allen via the arm, and with a kiss on the neck of the mad scientist, the three demons are gone.

Blake rolls over onto his back to catch his breath, three or four little jabs from his opponent today seeming like the beating of a lifetime. For a man with such a normal appearance (give or take), he hits like a pro-boxer. After his heart stops pounding and his lungs burning, Blake finds his feet and finally looks around; by some strange luck, it seems he's found his way to the security room after all.

It seems the cameras are still working as are the computers. Blake slouches onto the desk, examining what is visible. Every screen looks like a monster movie or disaster flick, maybe a touch war noire. Blake runs his hands through his hair suddenly feeling more alienated than before. It's not that he doesn't know what was going on, but it is easer for him to think that the demons exist for only him. The horrors visible on the TVs make it so much more real.

* * *

In the glass pyramid that now sits atop the four towers, Crow has summoned a precision of minstrels to surround him and appease his desires; he twirls and dances in a strange ecstasy. Alien flowers fill the dance floor; blood-red flower petals make up the carpeting of the room. The atmosphere is that of a dark-age masquerade but with humanity being the mask, hiding the real monsters underneath. Men are animals in disguise as the opposite would be true. Crow extends his arm to Harm. "Please, come dance with me." Harm too has been given a druidic robe to wear, but his serious demeanor doesn't take to dancing as he simple looks down at the hand of his slave master and groans silently to himself. Crow nods. "As you wish." Then he prances off on his own. "You and Tail could have shared a corner somewhere and played wallflower, should she have come."

Seldom is Crow in a light-hearted mood, and he almost never is in a giving state of mind; today is an exception. Those that know him well are wise to take full advantage of such events. Emissaries from across worlds do so to flock to Crow's side on days like today and pray for riches and protection from his wrath in coming years; the selfish pray to him for strength and immortality. Few are gracious enough to pray for the well-being of others--perhaps a testament to the cruelty "the Crow" embodies.

Crow dances alone from time to time and with others as it fits his fancy; Crow never misses an opportunity to fulfill his taste for flesh--pulling a tail here, rubbing an unsuspecting crotch over there or a chest, a little playful bite on a hand or two. Lust is an art to those who wish it, and Crow has lust to spare. The young and the fertile receive the most attention. Men, women, and beasts alike fall subject to his longings. No one with the will to live denies him.

Crow's party is interrupted by a triplet of his Wraiths hiding in the shadow of a bird statue twenty-two feet tall, forty foot wingspan; Crow dismisses himself from his company to humor his slaves. The Wraiths fall onto all fours in the shadow of their god; they hide their eyes and bow low, dragging their chests over the floor. They address him, "Our beloved king, we bring you good omens. Like golden apples at your feet, we have found keys aplenty, be it far beneath the floor."

Crow begins to look bitter, but the sweat scent of young blood in the air reminds him of the party at his back. "There are nine hundred billon stars beneath which the keys may be hidden, twelve or more on every one which there is. Each key may only change hands once every thirteenth year unless stolen or its bearer dies. If ten or more keys find their way into a single hand, then all on said world perish as with the one hundred nearest star, should at that time ten more key bearers should fail these equation proliferates. My dears, there are many keys to be had, and I am at no lack of time to gather them. It is four clicks of the clock from the witches' trinity. Now is a fine time for dancing. I'll kill the key masters another time."

"If you have so much time, could you spare me a moment of it?" a familiar voice calls to him. Crow's eyes slowly roll over his shoulder, and his head follows, revealing onto him what looks like a feminine Asian child: With long, sharp ears, narrow eyes, brilliant predatory yellow at first glance but then fading into green, hair red as fire tied into a fountain adorned with beaded tips, her nails are filed into thorns and decorated with glitter and red paint; she wears Shinto prayer robe, white splashed with red.

Slowly Crow turns to face his guest. "Princess Meyu Darklair, you should have RSVP-ed."

Draklair cuts him off, "Do I address Adam Crow, the Cravixs, Fillieos-Mammon,

or . . . . ?"

"Princess, no need to be so cold." He reaches out to stroke her face.

"I would be most grateful if you were to keep out of arm's reach."

Crow lowers his arm and bows. "As you wish, Princess. Care for a horsd'oeuvre?" He snaps and a skunk man and giraffe girl dressed like a pair of maitre d' lead along a nude man whose sanity has clearly broken; his eyes are dead, but he is covered in bite marks as if just pulled from a serpent's pit and yet he laughs.

Meyu looks humorless. "I'm not here to join you and your cult of void worshipers. I'm here to talk business."

Crow gazes hard upon her. "You know, it sends chills down my spine how much you resemble my brother, your yellow skin, your hunter's stare . . ." He stops himself. "What is your pleasure, Princess?"

"Leave this planet. Rain your hate upon someone else, anyone, I couldn't care less. Think about it, Crow. You have family . . ."

Crow loses his patients; his skin takes on the texture of melting wax, his eyes shine like fire, his body dulls all light, and his robe melts into the ground as if made of darkness. His body stretches and hunches over like a crooked tree. "If you are my brother's messenger, tell him to come here with all haste. Deliver this plea himself! I will hear my brother's voice, not yours."

Meyu becomes a living flame to match Crow's towering darkness. "Sa-la-day-name-o has spoken to no one in four decades! It is not him! I am here for! I, beg you."

Crow shrinks back to his more human state with raven hair and skin like pearl. "I feel you do not lie, but no, Princess, that is a request I can no longer fulfill. You see the wall between the worlds has already begun weakening."

"We beat you before."

"Yes, but at such a cost, do you think you could do it again? You betrayed and murdered Adam Crow. Sordiditus Black died during the fight. You became sealed in that ridiculous human body. I took a bit out of the world itself and you 'healed' it by drinking dry the 'Mana streams' and building a wall of souls to lock the way back. You erased people's memories of me, and the best you and Sal-la-day-name-o's union could do was banish me for a century or two. In the time I've been away, my appetite has only grown. Somehow I doubt there is enough 'holy blood' left below this rotting soil to perform that miracle again. Meyu, my darling, there are no more heroes, no more guardians." Crow leans in close, blinking behind her to whisper in her ear, "If you fight again, it will be alone."

Meyu shrinks back down to her natural form, turning to face Crow. "There will be more that will fight you. There will always be more. Lous-day-O . . ."

Crow becomes fervent again. "Lous-day-O's hands are tied! He answers no one's prayers! The Sun God and Son of Man are sleeping titans. They dream tirelessly in silent ecstasy. You have been abandoned. Like Job the Endless, a sacrifice to their bliss. My eyes are not blind! I have seen the end of time. You, Meyu Darkair, will die! My teeth at your throat. Your kiss made me into a devil. I return the favor."

"You are full of nothing. I wallow in misery. I am sorry for what I did to you, my child." Meyu's hand finds the ice-cold flesh of Crow's face and runs her nails across it sorrowfully. "The time for our kind is coming to an end. The age of kings has gone. The time of man is upon us. It is time for us to sleep. Why do we still wake?"

"You sound so much like him," Crow whispers in Cravixs' voice.

Meyu paces back away from Crow. "Come with me, Fillieos." She steps onto the railing marking the edge of the pyramid; she outstretches her arms and in a mighty leap vaults herself atop it. With a playful grin, Crow follows. Meyu looks down at the strange twisted mess that is the Claw Co. Towers and from there off into the cityscape. "Spires of glass reaching their arms to the heavens. Looks like home, doesn't it? Once you were the source of all light. When you embraced your other two halves, you were the center of the universe. You were at the heart of all creation. Reality formed around you. You looked down on the world and were pleased with your masterwork, and so you rested. You sat and watched for years without number and basked in the pleasure of your creation. Fillieos, why do you wish to burn all that you created?"

Crow's face is unreadable as he looks down at the world from on high, somewhere between loneliness, lust, pain, and pride. "Meyu, my beloved, you have drunk the world's sweetest wine. You have partaken of forbidden fruits. You sleep in the lap of the purest of beings. Shrine keeper as a goddess to those that look upon you, the desert men, and their seafaring brothers fear and worship you, but do not forget that you eat nothing but table scraps and what you taste of divinity is only a taste. You have not drunk from the bottomless sea of knowledge that I have. I grow bored of this game. I see little amusing left in this piece of art, and I hunger for a less bitter brew. I will eat my mistakes away, and I will start anew."

"Without your brothers?"

"I have given birth to a new sister to fill their void . . ."

Disgusted, Meyu walks for a step and shakes her head. "I have nothing left to say tonight. Perhaps another time we can finish this. Please think it over. Our time will come again, but we have no places left in the world today." She jumps off the tower and is taken up by a flock of bats that form around her to carry the princess away.

"Yes, another time."

Chapter 22

Man That Sold the World

The phantom wraith leaves her misty form and drops Allen in the CEO's office, Shaun still tied to the ceiling where AC Dem-row had left him after revealing himself as Crow. Allen is irritated by his scuffle having been disrupted. "I would have beaten him," he explains to the wraith.

"That is why we stopped you. His life is more valuable than yours."

Allen pushes up his glasses with a bitter exasperation. "Who is he that he is worth protecting?"

"We need not explain the will of our master to you."

"I am your master."

"Only for today. Tomorrow we will belong to another, but always we serve the void." In a cool breeze, the wraith becomes invisible.

Shaun calls down, "Would you be a chap and let me down please?"

Allen turns his eyes up to look into the face of his employer. "What's wrong? Doesn't the view suit you? Personally I think it's a nice accessory, you up there, out of the way."

"Stop playing games, Allen."

"Dem-Row put you there, didn't he? Who am I to cramp his flair?"

Shaun struggles to understand his predicament. "Dem-row is . . . , how did he get here? The rules of Tamriel say . . . Allen, are you a void worshipper?"

"Isn't that part clear?"

"Why?"

"Shaun, God has returned to earth, and he is in a very bad mood. The way I see it we have only two choices we can make: carry out the will of the lord or feel his wrath. I choose to do God's work."

"At the cost of your soul?"

"Wouldn't you, given the chances? I think it might be better to be a slave to an undying Sovran than to fade away into nothing as the food for an immortal."

"How? Why? I don't understand."

Allen walks over to the desk and starts digging around within it. "Let me tell you a thing or two about our favorite blue boy. I'm sure that you have heard the stories, Marks, an old world warlock, and that rot. Well, you might have guessed it. Some of it is true. Marks has claimed to be a raging atheist for almost as long as I can remember. It's more than that he is a believer. He has passed his beliefs onto me. There are some key differences. Marks rejected the faith. I stayed true. You see, I too am a warlock. We both have reached through the mist and discovered the power of the void. Marks was old and weak. He had to die. What really surprised me is that he found a way back, through a robot nonetheless. At first I found this a bit upsetting, but thanks to your heroics and turning on the microwave unit in the lab I was able to . . . get into Marks' head. Now I am the wizard master and he is my student. The rapture is upon us. The Lord has come. We are all dead already, but some of us are coming back, and I plan to be counted amongst them."

Shaun shakes his head in disgust. "You have no idea what you have summoned here. You can't possible understand the repercussions of your actions."

"And what would you know of it?" Allen looks up, truly interested in what Shaun Clawed has to say.

"For so long as time has known, evil has attacked men from behind the vial of reality, but always there have been guardians in place to push the evil back into the darkness. The void is the enemy of all existences. It knows not love, hate, or fear. It knows only hunger, and if you feed the darkness, it will eat."

Allen lowers his head. "And I thought you might have something interesting to say. So long, Shaun, forgive me for not putting in my notice of honorable discharge." Allen departs in search of an escape path.

* * *

El's team grows even stronger. His force is joined by Officer Eleanor Summer (formally known as Staff Sergeant Summer, US Core of Engineers), Jason Rhys, Private Ben Andrews, and Corp. Keith Jefferson. The journey into Claw Co. Towers has been like a journey into a past life for El, twisted and unwanted but somehow necessary. El looks back over his shoulder for only a moment, expecting to see Lacerti standing behind him, but yet he is not. He feels an unfamiliar loneliness but must force his way; he faces front and readies his weapons.

The halls are dark and getting darker; Rhys stays close to El. Summer brings up the rear with Andrews by her side. As the team marches, the halls creak and squeal, floorboards and light fixtures snap and fall inward, taking on the appearance of a mouth ahead of them, then the hall itself becomes cylindrical, looking almost like an esophagus. "Double back!" El demands as the building starts to breathe.

Rhys looks at El. "Good call, Captain."

"Lieutenant!"

A clattering off to one side of the chamber calls the team to attention. The party stands at the sides of an office door. El nods Andrews forward. Andrews nods in understanding, Andrews pulls one leg back and sidekicks the door, breaking the handle off. He nods at Summers; Summers turns the corner and performs a visual sweep with her firearm held up and prone. El stands back and to the left, double-checking her sweep.

The office is in ruins, the lights shattered. Glass powder ankle-deep covers the floor; water pipes have broken through the floor, creating what looks almost like bamboo spears to El. El turns his head side to side, slowly there is a frightful familiarity to this all. Andrews whistles and points at the storeroom off in the corner of the room. "Mukka, look over here, _Mukka."_El follows his teammate, Summer alongside him. Jefferson walks backward, pushing Rhys into the room as he watches the door.

Slowly El reaches for the door. He flings it open to reveal the Spaniard, Juan Sanchez, ducking in the corner, hiding. El strides into the room and grips Juan with both hands, pulling him up. "Good day, Client." He backhands Juan into the wall.

Summer protests, "Hey! I think we have more pressing matters than whatever

this is."

Jefferson calls out, "Shut it!" He calls for the attention of his squad.

El picks up Juan in one hand. "You're coming with us."

The party stands ready as lights flash down with thunderous clatter; a ghostly howling marks the coming of the unknown. The roof starts to fall in, and there from brains with legs and long tails funnel in. "Shit," calls Jefferson as one jumps at him; showing off that of the underside of its body is little more than a mouth and endless-looking cyclones of teeth. The team lays down a suppressing fire to push the monsters into one side of the room. On contact with artillery fire, the brains explode into a goop with the consistency of apple sauce. Holes rip in the floor and more crawl in like spiders from a trapdoor. From the doorway, a feminine form can be seen. A necrophigh, __like the ones in the_ church?,_ El thinks.

Jefferson gets grabbed round the neck by one's tail, and he holds his arm before his face to hold it back as it tries to swallow his head in one bite. Summer takes the knife from Jefferson's sling and with a backhanded swing lops off its tail. Jefferson throws the monster to the ground and stomps on it. Another grabs Rhys from behind, biting into his back, its claws dug deep into his chest and shoulders. Andrews sticks his gun into its mouth and with a powerful thrust spears it into the ground.

In a fit of insanity, Rhys giggles madly and runs out of the room, Andrews cries out to him, "Mukka!_Rhys! _Mukka!" Rhys pushes his way past the swarming monsters, then past the necrophigh. The demoness looks back and forth between the easy prey and the more interesting. Momentarily hesitating, she comes to the conclusion killing the flock would be more rewarding than the one.

The necrophigh jumps up and down twice girlishly, then holds up her hand, cartwheeling into the room. This one like the last dresses in skin-tight leather masochistically; its skin a solid blue, it has no eyes, nose, or ears, only a large grin that arcs halfway around its head to mark its face. It has short masculine-looking hair nightshade in color and a provocative body shape, its charm only being offset by its glowing black veins and dead-looking stillness. It clearly is not breathing; its head it frozen in place like a mannequins; its fingers look as if they were dipped in steel. Only its thumb, ring finger, and pinky can be moved.

The silence of the beastess is defining; she lands from her tumbling to stand before Jefferson. She rubs one hand over his cheek and kicks back one leg playfully; she seems to emanate a charming field that disarms Jefferson as he drops his weapon when touched. Her other hand drags across his gut, cleanly bleeding him out, seemingly painlessly as he dies without a sound on his feet. In and amongst the confusion, the others scarcely notice.

The monster flips around to face Andrews; reaching out to grip his face as she had before, Andrews drops his guard also. Summers steps in to protect him, smashing her gun across the demon's back. The two square off; Summer steps in for a tackle. The two of them roll about on the floor, slashing and slugging. Summer is strong, Summer is skilled, but unlike the Necrophigh, Summer is human; Summer gets tired.

The Necrophigh gains control, rolling Summer on her back; seductively, the demon climbs over Summer, setting her legs at her sides. One hand finds Summer's breast to hold her, the other rises overhead branding her claws. Andrews regains his bearings and reaches out to grab the temptress. El sees the struggle and momentarily abandons the fight with the brains to assist. El takes one of the demon's arm to impale her on her own claws. With her dying breath, the brains seem to die as well. The nightmare ends, momentarily.

The UBC let loose a sigh, then make their way to their fallen comrades. Andrews weeps the passage of yet another friend; Summer embraces him in comforting reply. El does not share their sentiment; El's heart is cold as stone. He approaches Juan instead, holding his Jackal before him. "Prove to me you're not useless."

Juan shakes his head. "Please, Mr. Driver, I don't understand."

"You're frozen with fear. Fear is a meaningless emotion. Get rid of it."

"You're holding a gun to me, what do you expect?"

"This is about the gun? It's your gun." El flips the gun around and places it into Juan's hands, then digs the barrel into his own ribs. "Now that you have the gun, what will you do with it?" Juan looks down at the weapon and tries to fire it but lacks the strength and the resolve. El waits nearly thirty seconds for Juan to summon his courage. His eyes grow ever more sour. El hooks both arms upward, pincering Juan's wrist. The force of the strike forces him to drop the gun; in flash reaction, El drives his fist into Juan's nose, dropping the man on his back.

"I'm a bean counter. I do payroll and taxes for the company. I'm not equipped to handle this."

El swoops him up and thrusts him into the wall with a mighty clatter. "You're a financial consultant? Where did you go to school?"

"Ivory Road University, Manhattan." Juan is in tears.

El tips his head in an almost approving nod. "What did you think of it?" El lowers him to the ground. Juan can only shrug and shake his head, having nearly lost all control over himself.

"Congratulations, client, you are going to be only the second person to steal from me to not be murdered. Your new name is Whiskers. You will be given a new birth certificate and SSI number once we arrive back at my place, assuming you're still alive. Any crimes you have committed are forgiven. You now work for me. You are now a warrior."

Summer turns to face El. "What do you do next? We're down two men."

"We continue the mission." El cuts the badge from Jefferson's uniform, then reaches round his neck to take his dog tags. Summer looks mystified. El walks to the door and calls back, "Fall in."

* * *

Rhys runs down the hall, howling madly for a brief time before being grabbed and pulled in by the hands of Allen Wesker. "Dr. Rhys?" he asks. With a handful of hard breaths, Rhys manages to take control of himself and finally understands what he has done.

"I just abandoned the UBC back there."

Wesker steps around Rhys, nearly dragging him along. "They can take care of themselves. You and I, on the other hand . . ."

"I don't think you understand. The monsters Marks made, they're not the only things in here. All hell is breaking loose."

"No, not all of it," Wesker explains. "It's not really hell anyway. It's the cross-dimensional vortex, the Void."

Rhys looks at his acquaintance. "A void, dark matter?"

"No, Void with a capital 'V,' the beginning of time breaking loose, other worlds intruding on this one, marking the end of time as we understand it. You and I are a part of a microclasm, a pin hole in space collapsing, localized apocalypse."

"I didn't think astrophysics were in your curriculum." Rhys looks at his strangely calm company.

"It's not."

"Then . . . ," Rhys starts to ask, "then how would you know anything of the sort?" But he is cut off by a roar seemingly arm's width away.

"Snake!"_the inhuman voice cries again and again. "_Snake!"

The wall ahead of the team shatters as if crystal; a ten-foot tall frogman appears in the midst of sand and stone. Its head is broader than its chest. Its arms are half the width; therefore, they drag on the floor and its fingers are half the length of his forearm. His mouth is lined with nail-like teeth, his feet end in three large claws.

Allen reaches into his coat, producing his gun; the frog throws one hand at him, knocking the weapon out of his hand, then the other hand flies. Allen summons the magic he had learned from Marks to anchor himself to the ground and hooks his arm out to stop the giant claw. Rhys ducks and jumps for cover. Allen's eyes burn with devilish rage, flaring between red and yellow.

Allen flies at the monster and drives a fist into its chest. The monster lowers its head and with a sharp upward motion shoves his adversary back. Allen's inhuman power allows him to land the throw harmlessly; blow for blow, the two jump, punch, and claw. Allen is faster and he knows it. Now had his discipline been greater, he would be able to fling energy, not just manipulate it, but Allen is hasty, always looking for the shortest path to his goals, making him more like the demon before him than he truly understands.

Allen jumps off the wall to flank his enemy; the monster flicks his arm off to the side to bounce him back into it. Allen slides along the ground and kicks at its shin; the monster falls forward, threatening him with its teeth. Allen back-flips, doing a handstand to go out of reach. "You're big but uncoordinated. The battle is mine," Allen mocks.

The monster is unimpressed. Allen might be the strongest man on earth, but he is unimaginative to say the least. The frog opens its mouth and a spear tongue darts out. Allen is punched through the chest with what should be a fatal wound. The monster reels Allen in; Allen places one hand on the demon's upper jaw, the other on its lower, holding it still. Looking into the mouth of the beast is a paralyzing sight. Its mouth is more than just a mouth. It's a blinder, layer on layer of teeth go down and down forever.

Rhys crawls out from his place and takes Allen's gun. Clumsily, he aims and fires, the recoil knocking back. The monster flings Allen to one side out of frustration at being shot and turns his gaze to his new victim. Allen runs and hides, leaving Rhys for dead. Rhys crawls backward; he finds the balance to fire the gun several more times, but the monster doesn't even bleed. With a vengeful hop, it is atop Rhys, claw overhead. Rhys pulls his arms over his face and hides; the claws come down.

The monster misses its mark, slapping the ground and looking up. A faint voice can be heard in the distance. "Larry?!"

* * *

The lower leaves of the towers have morphed and merged into a paradox of burning waters, the wall look as if red stone, water pours down the wall in a blanket of sparkling blue mass, the building itself sounds as if it were crying, the scent of gas in the air is nearly suffocating. The floor beneath Karin's feet gives way like sand, Lacerti grips her by the scruff of her coat to pull her back to more firm grounds.

Karin turns her eyes up to Lacerti in silent thanks. Lacerti nods lowering his eyes ever-so-slightly. The two walk together moving as briskly as can be in a realm were wall are as fecal as water, ever-moving, ever-changing. "Lacerti, aren't we going after David?" she speaks to his mind.

"El is fine, i'm going after Crane."

"The spider queen, and mother of the Mandrilock. You think she is here?"' Karin ask

"When you touched me didn't you copy my energy sense?"

"Yes, but I can only feel what I've felt before"

"The children of, Ceto, the snake goddess are all in allegiance with Crow, Hectic was one of them and soon as I saw her I could feel a half-dozen others appear"

"That's bad"

"only if your human. Crow is the real problem; his slaves are the icing on the cake." Lacerti places a hand on Karin's head. "Do you have a voice? I only ever hear you in my mind."

"Yes but my true voice is small and weak."

From a crossroads ahead the two of the see a man with spider appendages running backwards, its head is down and it is hissing, the grinding of steels defense out the sounds and a giant mettle mandible spears the monster to the ground then drags it away. Karin and Lacerti look to one-another "in case there was any confusion that was a Mandrilock." Karin nods in understanding.

Moments later a metal monstrosity loops the corner, one claw flings the dead Mandrilock onto a bed of spikes on its back. It has a human head and chest, but they are nearly invisible against the background of a boiler and a number of other devices woven into its body, sewer pipes are its arms and legs, electrical wire drags around it as if it were hair, as it moves more and more of the building becomes intertwined in the monster, fire rolls form its mouth and eyes as a thick liquid. On it's spiked shell it is towing nearly twenty monster it has speared.

"That one have a name too?"

Lacerti shacks his head "not that I know of." he dawns his hefty blade

The nightmareish entity cries "mine, mine, mine" it stomps its mandibles as it drags itself closer to Karin and Lacerti. Its tail of garbage scraps and clanks chipping apart the stone behind it, as-if drawn by magnetism bits and pieces of broken metal get sucked into it steadily increasing it's mass. "Mine, mine, mine." it looks to the duo it's eyes fixated on Karin "Mine, mine, mine." one of its tendrils stab at the fox girl. Lacerti sidesteps and swings his massive blade down as a shield.

Karin steps backwards and fades into the shadows only to reappear floating over the monstrosity she lays one hand on the monsters human part and steals its memories. "Ren" she whispers, "your human?, or you were." a second image becomes visible to Karin once she has absorbed Ren's mind, A wraith seemingly tethered to her by a spectral chain.

Lacerti looks disturbed by Karin's magical aptitude; he grunts to himself but then sets his mind back on the battle at-hand. With a vengeful lunge Lacerti stabs at the inhuman beast. It thrust a claw down at him, with a twist Lacerti changes detection and swings his blade diagonally up rending its claw in half. Karin floats back to land alongside her protector. She pleads with him "she is human."

Lacerti fails to acknowledge. The monster swings down with its other front arm to try and crush the tiny looking giant. Lacerti pulls his sword across his face and tips it at an angle to guide the attack off-course, then he jabs with the hilt in retaliation, the attack is equally meaningless, Ren lowers her head and vomits liquid steel down on Lacerti. The attack is devastating, yes, crippling, yes, but Lacerti's holy strength protects him.

Karin is frozen with moral dilemma. She has no desire to fight a human, but can see few alternatives. As Karin stands stunned Ren and Lacerti continue their duel of steel, Ren takes advantage pushing Lacerti, she wraps her arms around him and lifts the giant into the air. Karin regains her nerve and holds out her hand gripping the monsters mind. She shouts to it's ego, "Stop, I command you to Stop!"

Ren drops Lacerti and grips the sides of her head screaming from the strange feeling of having a second mind somewhere when in itself. Lacerti grips his sword tightly and swings down in a mighty crush, Ren is broken, and she sprays a tsunami of boiling water out of her broken pieces as she collapses.

Karin pulls the tails of her coat before herself to shelter her form the spray. Lacerti stands in it's mist. Karin drops her coat and looks to Lacerti in plead "But. She was human."

Lacerti shacks his head "she was" Lacerti discards his coat and shirt as they are burned beyond usefulness. He then discards his burned skin reveling a new skin crisp and clean beneath

The Wraith watching from far beyond flees the battle in the confusion cursing the duo. "Why must I let Hercules live. Time and time again he kills our most beautiful monsters. Only by Cravixs will do you still breathe."

Chapter 23

Brothers

With much trial and error, Reizuki has found his way to a laboratory filled with books, whiteboards, and cabinets. Reizuki unbuckles his pant and produces a camera from within the buckle. He shuffles about the room, opening cabinet after cabinet, photographing their contents, then the whiteboards. He frisks every inch of the room before freezing, looking down at a scrap of paper with an innocent-looking initialism, "I.M. Med-x. Intellect Miterea?" Nuku leans over Reizuki. "What is it?"

"This is what Lawrence Walker wanted me to find. I just am shocked that it is real."

"You still haven't told me what it is."

"Intellect Miterea was first mentioned in the Cambridge Journal of Medicine. About thirty years ago, one esteemed geneticist, I forget his name, out of the blue throws down a cockamamie theory claiming that the injection of fetal fluids into dying matter would revitalize it. He claimed that he had tested his hypothesis, but his work seemed to die out there, not to be heard of again till now it would seem. I vaguely recall a New England pharmacist claiming that one could isolate cancerous material by programming the blood to clot around such undesirables, suffocating them. This might be a spinoff, but I can't say. This on the other hand is the same."

Nuku looks bored. "So what are we going to do now that you have it, whatever

it is?"

"We are going to find Richard Blake and Snake Gekks, then blackmail Claw Co. right off the map."

"Why? Isn't this stuff 'big medicine'?"

"Could be. Or it could be one of the most lethal weapons developed up to date. Imagine it, Nuku, the power of life and death, a contagion that lets the user choose the parameters of who gets sick and who doesn't. You could, hypothetically speaking, engineer your own personal plague. In the world as it is today, just think what an Eastern European oil prince could do with a drug so . . ."

Nuku looks frustrated as she stands nose to nose with Reizuki, bent slightly over to meet him at eye level. "Is that really what you think would happen?"

Both stop and turn to look at the cooling vent as a soft noise becomes audible. Reizuki whispers to himself, "Akira Yamaoka, that's Ichi's song."

"Who is Ichi?"

"My partner."

"Aww, what happened to her?"

"Him."

"You mean?"

"No, I'm a virgin. He is a fellow detective."

"You're more like a spy."

"Sleuth would be the correct slur for what I do. I have a license to steal."

"Is he a ghost or something?"

"No, he is in prison. It seems someone would like me to think so though."

"What for?"

"Murder in the first, espionage, conspiracy, murder in the third, grand theft, petty theft, assaulting an officer, resisting arrest, sedition, and emblazonment. He is serving natural life, no parole. That was all off-the-record stuff. The list goes on, but he was given some immunities due to his work in the public sector." Slow and deliberately, Reizuki follows the sound. It seems to be a lonely violin. The source leads him to a door in the room that had seemingly not been there before.

The door opens to reveal a disjointed hallway filled almost to the brink with zombified monstrosities; Reizuki's eyes drift across them with an almost mischievous glee. He looks into their deadened eyes, the way they sway directionless, their overall shambling appeal. "Oh look, zombies," Nuku squeals. That catches the monsters' interest.

Reizuki nods to himself. "That makes good sense. No optics, no feeling, but they can still feel vibrations." Reizuki closes the door on the approaching armada of the dead.

Reizuki turns to look at Nuku and brings one finger up to his lips and slowly exhales. Nuku calms herself momentarily but quickly becomes screamish again as pounding can be heard at the door. The man called "N" runs his eyes around the room, calculating his options. Nuku yells in a hushed tune, "Reizuki! There are zombies out there!"

He nods in turn. "Yes, it looks that way, doesn't it?" He walks in a quick loop-about. "More importantly the door that led us here isn't, and the way onward is a broken mess of unrelated halls and pits nearly three hundred meters."

Nuku runs around the room. "What do you mean the door isn't?" Soon she comes to find what Reizuki had.

"I just had a thought. No real evidence to back it up, but a thought nonetheless." Reizuki falls to his knees and folds his hands. "Join me on the floor. Sit still and watch me."

Nuku complies. "Why?"

"Focus." It takes but moments before it seems that the monsters in the next room have forgotten about them. Reizuki stands, ushering Nuku to follow him as he peeks in the door again. The monsters have fanned out, spacing themselves strangely evenly around the room.

The interment of Reizuki's torment can be seen at the far end of the chamber; a shoda-boy (pronunciation: Show-Duh, noun, a man with overwhelmingly feminine or childish qualities or characteristics) at first glance, but under even the slightest scrutiny, it is far more like a grasshopper with a human face painted over it. As for the violin, it too is a prop; the sound is coming from the scraping of its hind quarters.

Reizuki is off like a dart, leaning forward as he runs, holding his hands tightly down at his sides. Nuku hesitates a moment, watching as the heroic nameless one dashes in and amongst the undead, ducking just beneath their noses with an almost mechanical seeming precision. He leaps gaps; he kicks off the walls and swings from fixtures, all silent as can be. Reizuki reaches up his sleeves as he reaches the last of his jumps, drawing out a fistful of his darts. Without a sound, he lands atop the grasshopper, crushing it; in the same motion, he slams his darts into its spine. It dies without having even seen Reizuki coming. It seems the zombies and grasshopper were linked in that as soon as the grasshopper falls so do the undead.

The walls start to close in. Reizuki calls to Nuku, "Come on." The android nods and mimics Reizuki's path as best as she can. As the room comes apart, more bug men start to crawl out of the walls. Reizuki needs little time to calculate this one. "Let's move, Nuku. I feel it would not be in our interest to fight all of them."

The floor becomes more unstable and the darkness below grows a fleshy red light, revealing a fallopian shape below, a twisting pulsing cylinder leading to God only knows where.

The jumps are long, the path unclear, but Nuku dashes nonetheless. A bug demon jumps out of the floor at her; it wraps its head around hers. In a flash reaction, Nuku grips the sides of its mouth and tears it asunder, then kicks the remains back into the pit. More leap out at her, and Nuku jumps on and over them as platforms. Reizuki grins, entertained by the display.

One of the bugs tries to take advantage of Reizuki's distraction. Reizuki turns out to be a much more astute prey than thought. It drops from the ceiling and threatens him with its long fangs; it steps forth and it swings its mean arms at him. Reizuki sidesteps with a kick to the knee, then to the chest as it starts to fall. The monster retaliates with a backhand; Reizuki replies by hooking his arm around it and flipping over its back to break its arm. The bug howls; Reizuki silences it with a stab to the back with his needles. Reizuki whispers to the beast as it draws its dying breath, "I envy you and the place you are going. Tell me, what do you dream?"

Nuku lands alongside Reizuki and looks down at the monster he has slain. She gasps in surprise, knowing well that this monster's strength far exceeds his. "How do you keep doing things like this?"

"Any man can judge crude matter. I've just given you something more difficult to calculate." Reizuki digs his hands deep into his pockets, slouching over as he turns to the road ahead. "I've outsmarted a computer and outfought a monster. What do you think I will do next?"

* * *

Snake lifts a hand to his mouth and yells down the twisting corridor. "Larry!" He spins in a loop, yelling down one chamber, then the next, looking for any sign of his brother, having sworn he heard him calling not but a moment ago.

But it is not Larry that is the first to respond to Snake's cry; it's ghouls. The bloody walls come apart like cocoons, and men with dog-like teeth and dead leather skin pour out. Snake has seen ghouls before; they're nutritiously difficult to kill without a blessed gun, but Snake is blessed. Even if it wasn't, El had demonstrated if you rip their bodies to bits, they stop moving. Snake back-steps, and pulling out a gun with each hand, he crosses his hands over, shooting the nearest flesh-eater in both eyes, removing the top third of its head.

The shambling mess of beast comes from the left, then the right. Snake ducks the first swing, and then captures the arm of the next. He twists around the monster, using it as a shield as he takes another shot. Snake is a no-nonsense gunfighter, shoot to kill, not to cripple, and since his experience at the bar from hell a few weeks ago, he has become far more trigger disciplined. After only two or three more shots, his shield has become more trouble than it's worth to hold onto and pushes it to the ground and stomps the fleshy mess into mud. The nuisance of brutes offers little in breathing room as they continue their swarming. Vengefully, Snake flips around one of his guns as a hammer to stun the nearest monster with a quick hook, then as it staggers finishes the job with a blow to the crown.

The duel of hammer and gun do the would-be swashbuckler a world of good as slash and tap tactics force the devils onto the defense. Snake is relentless; he reloads his weapons and with a barbaric war cry rains fiery death on the undead. But the nightmare goes on. A demonic cow fiend takes the stage as Snake's next leg of the gauntlet. Snake dances backward to give himself an advantageous position, trading blows from his gun; he hits his mark, but four blows to the head isn't nearly enough to stop this rampaging mauler. The cow demon slips his horns under Snake and thrusts him into the wall, knocking his primary guns from his hand.

"Why does these shit always happen to me!" he curses, wrapping one hand around his fist, driving his elbow into the skull of the bull. The bull drops the rouge, then hits him again. Snake is stunned, his strength depleting, but a hunter at the end of his life is the most fearless. Snake draws out his skinning knife from within his coat and as it comes in for a third ram drives the knife down its gullet. In burning passion, he roars like a mad cat; he pulls his knife back and slams it into him repeatedly till he's claimed its head for his own and mutilated the rest.

Snake wipes the blood from his face just in time to see that a wolf nearly ten feet in length has taken notice of him. Snake locks eyes with the wolf as he kneels down, picking up one of his guns in one hand, and tightens his grip on the handle of his long ornate knife. Tasseled remains of a hospital gown are tied around his neck; his eyes don't seem to follow his body. His eyes are human and filled with pain, his body gigantic, all long teeth and bloodlust. Snake on the other hand has the eyes of a killer. Once it was Larry that was the scornful; only now it seems Snake has taken on that aspect of his brother as if by mitoses.

The wolf jumps at Snake; Snake strikes it across the jaw with his knife. The wolf tips his head to take Snake in his jaws; Snake stabs his long knife into its chin, pinning it close. The beast swings its claws; smacking Snake to the ground, it stomps forth. Snake takes up his other pistol (which he finds upon falling) and fires both guns in a lead storm into the nightmarish dog. The first six shots it seems to shrug off; the next inspires a blood loss enough to slow and dizzy the beast. Snake's guns click dry; he crawls, placing his back in a corner, and reaches into his coat for his third gun and his second knife. The monster limps hatefully to the hunter. Snake fires three more shots; the monster slows more so. Snake stands as the beast kneels just out of arm's reach. The wolf that was a man stares pleadingly up at the man that is a wolf. Snake kicks the monster onto its back and slams his blade through its chest mercifully.

More zombies can be heard approaching, Snake has no time to reload, only collect his guns and his knives; he needs his blades. Tonight the love of a brother will stain this tower red . . .

* * *

I stand with my hands planted firmly atop my head, my eyes wide with disgust, and surprise I might add. (The very idea that the computers and cameras still work in this nightmare is mind-boggling.) To see and understand all that which is flashing by on the screens overhead would be an inhuman act; I try nevertheless. I see Snake on a rampage, smashing his way past in the army of the dead, I see Reizuki sneaking around like a fly on the wall, then I see a band of soldiers marching down the halls. The mapping makes no logical sense, but then I start to think I can see past the illusions for a split second. The soldiers, Snake, Reizuki, a mammoth of a frog, and a man somewhere in between divine and demonic all seem to be strolling into a fatal collusion.

I hear a voice in my head louder than my own, almost painful to hear, "Fly now!" it calls. "Or never again shall you have the chance." I feel the need to do so. I hide my arms and rush out the door, no real direction, just instinct.

I dash out into the halls, the twisted nightmares growing evermore horrific. I tap my earpiece and yell out for Tail. "Tail!"

Almost intently I hear her voice half panic-stricken. "Blake, you won't believe what I just saw."

"Not now! Tail, can you trace my movement?"

Tail hms and ahms a moment, then excitedly exclaims, "Look left."

I turn without looking, head-butting my way through a door. Tail jumps giddily with a yelp. "Yes! Right, turn right." I take the next turn and Tail neighs, "No, other, other right!"

Frustrated I call, "Tail?!"

"You're making a two-dimensional knight move in three-dimensional space."

"I don't get it."

"It's a quantum theistic spacial matrix, pit-map style continuum."

Again I call, "Tail . . ."

"Right! You don't speak geek. Long and short, I can read this map by flattening it out and drawing it like a j-peg. I know you don't understand, but stay with me on this. Left my way."

Rounding the next bind, the wall seems to breathe and pulsate, quivering like warm flesh. The icy shade of a wraith falls alongside me; floating lightly off the ground, it whispers in my ear sensually, "Hello again, soulless one. Does it hurt to be half a man? Do you feel cold inside?"

"Shut it, witch," I command, trying to force on my work.

"I'm trying to help over here," Tail protests.

"Not you." I look back at the wraith. "Soulless?"

"You gave me your soul, you remember? Well, what qualified for a soul anyway? Keymasters don't really have one."

"Go straight."

"What is a keymaster?"

The wraith finds my ignorance amusing. "Every planet has a number of pillars of light that control its orbit. Your so-called soul was one of them. Was." I raise one hand and try to blast the monster into the wall with my force of will. The wraith resists and pushes back. I eat wall. The monster giggles and floats away, leaving me dizzy on the floor. I find myself on the ground a lot.

The next few minutes are foggy at best. I must have pushed myself to my feet before I knew what happened; I walked some distance. I can hear Tail calling to me, but I can't understand the words she is saying. Slowly, the white mist rises from around my eyes and I see Tail before me, but not my Tail, and not just one, maybe fifteen, twenty.

I mumble to myself, "She told me three." The foxes all around me clean my wounds and bind them. I find that I'm reaching across my body for my brother's sword. I hear Tail on the headset again calling my name; this time I choose not to hear her. I'm in a room with glass walls like an aquarium. There might be as many as fifty more Tails growing under the glass.

I can scarcely believe the thoughts in my head are my own. I start repeating to myself, "I'm not a killer." On the headset, Tail is still crying to me. I can't heed her words; I wish to God I could, but I cannot. I pull my blade overhead and stab down into the nearest fox. It makes no effort to protect itself; none of them do.

I say it again, "I'm not a killer." I expect the Tails to fall apart like robots in some cartoon, but they don't; they bleed just like a human. I am the robot; one by one, I thrust my sword into the helpless foxes, and after everyone I whisper to myself, "I'm not a killer." I try to talk myself into it. For my last bit of retribution, I pull out my crowbar and smash the electronic uterus to bits in which the other Tails sleep.

Tail is pleading for me to explain what is going on. I take off the headset and stuff it in my pocket to silence the voice. I wrap one hand around my face and weep as I fall to the ground. Never have I felt so weak, so dirty, so violated. I've never been subject to forced intercourse, but I can't imagine it feels much different than this. I have just killed, and this is clearly different from hunting; on a hunt, at least my prey fights back. The Tail clones (or whatever the correct term would be) didn't. I have been asked to kill by the Von Richtons before; last time I failed to adhere. I wish I had today as well.

I'll say no more. Now I close my book; what happens next will go unwritten . . .

* * *

Tail squeezes her headphones to her ears, shouting into the microphone, "Blake! Blake! Richard! Dickerd, Dick . . . Cock, . . . Fuck! OK, he hung up on me, Tail states to herself as if she weren't in a dark room alone.". Tail frustratedly narrates to herself. She slumps over her computer, watching the tiny blips on the map.

Chapter 24

REM

Jason Rhys lies on the cold stone floor battered and bruised; the frog demon failed to kill him off. Yet now he is more alone than ever before. Rhys is a man of doubt and regret; so much of what he thinks of now is little more than "what if." Rhys' life is overflowing with that statement, "What if." Rhys knows more about the dark dealings of Claw Co. and it's clientele than most anyone. But never did he speak out. Rhys was a fly on the wall.

For the last twenty or so years, Rhys has had privilege to the details of his coworkers' affairs, their backdoor politics, their small-time thefts, and so much more. He knew Allen's plan to kill Marks; he knew about the chemical weapon test that would follow. Yet he still bites his tongue. Why? Rhys was afraid. "Where there is money, there is power and influence," he would tell himself that many times, but that's not the whole truth. If Rhys had been a decisive man, he would be living the sweet life somewhere on the West Coast and probably have kids to. But he has nothing.

Rhys wonders and dreams of another life. Being a learned man, he knows it is too late for that to be. GV is already setting in. He feels his heart rate hastening; the blood pressure rising, his breathing becoming sporadic. Rhys has nothing to do but calculate the possibilities. El and the other soldiers might catch up with him, but in less than an hour, he might be nothing more than a flesh-hungry beast man. Allen isn't coming back; frankly Rhys would rather he didn't anyway. What if Marks shows up? No, there is only one thing a sophisticated man would want right now . . .

Rhys waits and bleeds for a time. Looking at the floor, he establishes that he should have bled out some time ago. His hearing is all but gone; he can feel his heart pounding through his skin. His skin has taken on an elastic property. Rhys pulls himself to his feet; his blood crawls along the ground as if under its own influences and as if by photosynthesis re-absorbs into Rhys' body.

Rhys walks the deadened halls of Claw Co. Tower, silently praying for someone to end his march. Rhys can see already he is the living dead. Monsters stand in his wake but part like water, letting him by. His vision clouds; he sweats a chilling river almost like he were a water balloon precipitating porously.

Slow and staggering, Rhys finds his way to the office on the uppermost floor. Phantoms scurry into view. Rhys' esophagus has swollen to the size of a twisted straw, his eyes almost losing their color completely. The phantoms around him start to speak to one another as if playing out a prerecorded skit. "Gentlemen and lady, things are not looking well today. It has been too long since we have been in a good scrap. And as we all know, when there is no fighting to be done, people get fat and forget what hardship is like." The voice belongs to Pr. Shaun Clawed. "If things don't make a turnaround soon, we are going to have to trim some fat."

"What of my husband? He hasn't done a thing but sit in his office for day, him and his cat." It's Ako Karingson. "Any idea what he is working on?"

"Hopefully something that will make us some money. The man hasn't done anything useful since Ms. Vixon was suspended," Allen Wesker comments. "Maybe our golden goose has laid its last fertile egg."

"Put a lid on it, Wesker!" Shaun calls out. "Marks' work put us back on the map after that embarrassment in Manhattan."

"And now he is a liability. He is old. He is crippled. If the old wizard can't perform, we will just need to look the other way."

"I like the work that wizard has done here," AC Dem-row comments. "It's so . . . untraditional. Maybe he just needs something to motivate him again." "Mr. Dem-row, what did you have in mind?" Shaun asks. "What do you know about GE?" Dem-row sneakily asks.

"I like the way you think," Allen adds equally despicably.

The phantoms of the past turn to face Rhys in the present. Rhys staggers backward, falling into the toolroom where he had first seen the mechanism that became Marks. Allen walks over to the burnt device and slaps it across the face out of vengeful spite then looks at Shaun.

RED TWILIGHT

Shaun nods at the robot approvingly. "My god, it is beautiful, the most beautiful thing Marks ever constructed. Allen, rebuild it."

The ghost of Allen looks at his superior. "But, sir?"

Shaun steps forth powerfully. "Do it, and add a control device. Surely someone in robotics has something of the sort lying around."

"By your command." Begrudgingly Allen nods.

Rhys steps out of his own body to join the conversation as Shaun fades away. The specter of Rhys explains, "I know just the parts you're talking about. Yes, I have a control chip." He looks at the half-melted body of Marks. "What is this mess?"

"A military contract waiting to happen." Allen holds up his arms in explanation. "A man made of steel, faster, stronger than even the greatest of us could hope to be. Smarter too and best of all bulletproof." The borg starts to awaken as Allen talks, and the lot of them back away from the undead (or maybe redead) monster.

Again a short stumble and Rhys finds himself in his own office. A memory of Marks stands over him. "He lives again," the shadow of Rhys explains.

The image of Allen vaporously comes into being nearby. "Good. How does it work?"

"By remote mostly. There are also voice commands. That's for backup more or less, you know, if the remote runs out of batteries or whatever. And just in case, I also added one more little thing . . . ," the phantom Rhys goes on.

"And . . . ?" Allen irritatedly asks.

"A second brain. Kind of a Jimmy Cricket. It nudges him to think what we want him to think about. Ho, and there's also this little self-destruct button."

"You wired him to explode?"

"No! To melt down, his power core can be triggered to overheat."

There is a jump in time as the real Rhys watches the last six months of his life playing out with him as the audience. Rhys had hardly left his workplace for the gist of such time. When the phantoms come back into focus, Allen is tied to a table with an army of doctors around him. Rhys stands over him as they're making their final preparations. "Allen, I would like to point out there is a very real possibility you won't survive this. I understand your ambition, but cutting out your brain, storing it in a jar, replacing your bone structure with aluminum, and running carbon wire through your muscle mass to effectively become 'the terminator' sounds somewhat extreme."

"You forgot the part where I fill my bloodstream with antifreeze and implant a radar in my skull," Allen jokingly adds.

"I hope your earthy affairs are in order."

"Nonsensical, there is definitely a very slim chance I'll come out ahead."

"If not, I have your brain on my coffee table." Again time fast-forward away, and Allen rises from the operating table. For seven days, Allen had slept, but now he is raised almost as if by black magic. But he and Rhys know the truth; this is alchemy not indifferent from that which Marks used. "How do you feel?" Rhys asks.

Allen looks at himself, rolling his hands slowly. "I feel fantastic." Allen looks around twitching with nervous energy. "Hand me something."

"What are you looking for?"

"Anything." Allen points. "That paperweight." Rhys picks up the weight and hands it to Allen, Allen grips the stone in his hand and squeezes it; the rock crumbles between his fingers, and Allen thrusts back his head, laughing with almost lunatic madness.

His thoughts heavy with "sin," Rhys closes his eyes and tries to outrun his nightmare. Rhys' skin putrefies and becomes disfigured; his arms and legs start to turn bulbous. It isn't long before he is little more of a walking water balloon made of flesh than a man. Thoughts of rabid lust and hunger start to replace his every feeling. Like an animal, he starts to sniff about following a heat trail in search of life.

A voice falls upon Rhys's ears, a soft but deep voice. He feels no life, only warmth. A cat walks between his feet, and the demon that was Rhys turns to follow the cat. "Sloth, my could-have-been friend, is the crime of indecisiveness to sleep when one could work, to hear a cry for help, and to let others do what you could have, . . ." Rhys' eyes lock with those of Marks Karingson, not a phantom this time and not a golem but the real man.

Marks' eyes glow greener than jade; he is wrapped in a spectral wind. His hair and angelic white coat blow around him by a wind only he can feel. The cat jumps up on Marks' body, sitting atop her master lovingly. "Jason, you have fallen from the light. You are now without peace. But have no fear, the devil lays no claim to your soul. Nonexistence is your fate, and I have come to absolve you of your sin."

Rhys stares blankly for only a moment before his animalistic nature starts to become clear; he barks and growls threateningly. Marks twists his wrist, placing his thumb to his index finger. Marks lets out a slow, calming breath, lowering his eyes; his index finger slides to his palm. Rhys bursts into a sanctifying white flame,

RED TWILIGHT

and the evil is burned form his body. In but an instance, Rhys burns to ash and he is ascended.

Marks lowers his head with a hint of remorse, noticing that Rhys failed to survive transcension. Regardless, he swoops down to dig through the remaining clothing and ash, from which he produces a vial and injector gun. "Thank you, my friend, this will be useful." The holy doctor walks backward, turning to wind.

* * *

Crow pays Shaun Clawed a visit as the dawn hours near, "My friend, dusk is falling. The third act of this masquerade comith." Crow looks up at the crucifix with a light sigh. "Why not come down here? I am in a giving mood." Crow waves a hand across his body and the chains holding Shaun up break. "To spite your stunning incompetence." Shaun stands and wordlessly reaches for his blade. He charges forth with all desire to thrust his blade into the demon sorcerer. Crow squeezes his fist, gripping the warrior's heart with an invisible hand. Shaun falls to his knees. "Can't you come up with anything more inventive? Everyone wants to stab me."

"Go to hell, monster. Damn void worshipper, demon egg sucker!"

"How unimaginative! Do you think hell can hold the greatness that is me? Hell was made for hereticals and blasphemers, not kings." Crow explains, "Traders, gluttons, sloths, bigamists, murderers, cutthroats, heathens, vandals, idallens, and . . . megalomaniacs. Anyone who finds prosperity in blood." Crow stands over his co-conspirator. "And you are about to be an accessory to genocide. That has to make you feel privileged."

"Tell me, what does this all mean?" Shaun fights with all he can muster to face Crow.

"All? Not even you, Ju-on, have time enough for that story. How about just the parts that relate to you? You, a man that will never grow old and a man that cannot die by any earthly weapon, developed a hunger for silver and gold, and that is where I came in. You see, my indispensable boy, all that I am, all that I can do, has a limitation. I cannot call into being that which has never been. If I desire something that doesn't exist on any other world, my magic cannot craft it. The power of indiscriminate creation is beyond even me. And so I need you." Crow waves his hand down to Shaun. "I gave you half the treasures of Miduse, and even his hand, all for what? So you can create something from almost nothing. You accepted my gift. Now I want my pay."

"Why? Can't you divine where your little fox is?"

"Yes, I can. She should be here any time now." Crow's voice fills with rage. "Someone is coming to kill you, Shaun. They will not succeed, but you have far more to fear than death, Ju-on."

"What are you afraid of, Crow?" Shaun smiles at his minor victory.

"You would do well to remember who you serve, lest you lose your will." Crow takes Shaun by the sides of his face; the color melts from Shaun's eyes. Hellfire creeps through his veins, flaking way the skin around Crow's fingertips. Flames drip from Shaun's cheeks; Crow has half a mind to wish Shaun out of existence completely, but his usefulness has not yet run its course. Instead Crow eats away Shaun's lower brain and removes his will to live. Shaun is a powerful beast, with the soul of a Ju-on. This action won't kill him, not outright, but his heart will stop beating. His muscles will suffocate, then his body will slowly turn to sand. His flesh will become uninhabitable; only then will the Ju-on die.

Shaun tries to fight; he tries to find his feet and do battle with the soulless voidmage, but it is hopeless. By the time Shaun understands what Crow is doing, his body is already disintegrating and his mind corrupted. Within his grasp, the man Shaun was is dead, and all that remains is a body waiting to die as a puppet.

"Now my toy, let me tell you what comes next." Crow drops Shaun, reaching around himself. A child steps out from behind him, a girl with a Spanish complexion and reddish hair. But she looks just as undead as him. "Lizzet Jacobs is her name. Sit here with her till a man comes to claim your life. Foolish as that seems, offer this child as an exchange for your life. The man that comes for you will accept. Then you will turn to ash right here on your office floor. Do you understand?" Shaun can find no words to say; he just bobs his head and blinks near lifelessness. "I like you more this way. I should have done this long ago."

Shaun Clawed and Lizzet Jacobs stare at each other with blind eyes; a whiff of life sweeps under his nose, and he reaches for the girl. He takes her in his arms, searching for something in this world to hold on to. Lizzet whimpers without a voice, finding herself leaning on the crouched man, almost holding him upright. Shaun's eyes start to look of burning charcoal; Lizzet's heart on the other hand has turned to ice.

Chapter 25

Corruption

Karin walks behind Lacerti as they search for the root of the evil Lacerti has been smelling; she sniffles and sobs shake her to the core by what has just transpired. "It gets easier," Lacerti explains. Karin looks at him in both fear and confusion. "Killing, I mean. You've never seen blood, never felt life drain from a mortal body."

Karin whispers to her partner, "Should death be easy?"

"You and I, we're not human. We're destined to fight. Eat or be eaten, that's about what the world has in store for our kind." Lacerti tries to be soothing, but it's not in his nature.

"Lacerti . . . where are we from?" Karin searches for the meaning of life in the query.

"Surely you know where you're from?"

"I was born here in Claw Co. Tower. But I mean, our kind, Tamrielins."

"I would be 'nowhere' or 'everywhere' depending on how you look at it. But that's only the true-blooded Tamriel kings. There were only every four of them, six of you counting the nexus and Yggdrasil herself."

"Four?"

"Laius-day-O, the first king, also called 'One' and 'the garden keeper' or 'child of the sun.' In some tongues, Sal-la-day-name-O the 'child of man,' the second of the 'Brothers' as they are called. 'Fillius-Mammon' is the last 'Brother.' He sacrificed himself to the Nexus to calm its hunger and allow for the worlds to be formed as they are today. That's what some think anyway. They have a sister, the fourth of the kings of Tamriel. She is called 'Chaos,' the 'Dragon Mother' or 'Mother of creation.' They're the only real Tamriel."

"So what are we?"

"Mongrels, mutts, half-bloods, the end result of our parents' failure to adhere to the hands of the policy gods now have. But you know all this."

"I am significantly younger than you. I shouldn't exist, should I?"

"But clearly we are both here."

"Have you ever been there, you know, to the sources?"

"I've never left this planet," Lacerti protests. An unhallowed cry shatters the stillness. A dozen Mandralock descend onto them, claws, stingers, and teeth flailing. Lacerti shoulders into one, then backhands it into the wall. Any normal man would have been broken by such a strike, but the Mandralocks demonstrate their fortitude; body half destroyed, it rips off the broken bits and grows even more insectoid. Lacerti swings his blade into the next, a crushing blow across the ribs adequate to send one to the ground in pieces.

One rushes Karin; Karin holds her hand out, freezing the mutant, wills the beast to drive its own claws into its chest. The bug can't contest; by her will, it rips itself asunder. The next in line to attack swings in with its tail to grab at the child. Karin forces the piping apart overhead and launches the beast into the air, with her thoughts pinning it to the ceiling.

More bugs circle; Karin and Lacerti stand back to back, standing ready for the charge. But it never comes. The Mandralocks keep their distances, the crowd parts and all fall to their knees. A woman of diabolic beauty walks forth; her skin is gray as stone, and her hair is a living mass all of its own. Large spider-like mandibles protrude from her back as do wings; every inch of her body seems to ooze with an invisible liquid through which her voice can be heard by her children. Two of her extra appendages cross over her chest, hiding her bosom.

Lacerti locks eyes, whispering to himself, "Crane, queen of the mire, mother of all Mandralock."

Crane walks seductively, maternalism dripping with her every movement. Her tongue penetrates her lips; it is blacker than her eyes and shaped as a spear. "Come to me, my slave." She raises her hand to Lacerti. Lacerti squeezes his own head, trying to resist the command. Lacerti turns his back on the demoness and staggers away desperately.

Karin looks at Crane. "What are you doing?"

RED TWILIGHT

Crane places one finger on her nose. "Men hunt with their noses, for both beasts and women. I turned his nose against him. My lust will overpower him in time, and then he will be my child."

"You don't belong in this world." Karin steps forth and summons an astral blade. "I will send you back to which you came."

Crane drops down low to the floor. One hand held behind her back, the other placed on the ground for balance, she raises her back end in the air and hisses like a screaming beetle. Karin holds her spectral sword back and down, her other hand outstretched only slightly. The duel is interrupted by the Mandralocks who start jumping forth to attack the dog girl. Karin anticipates their attack countering with deathly precision--a slash to the underbelly, a stab to the back of the head, a stunning jab to the sternum followed by a rib-cracking thrust into the side.

Mandralocks are steadfast warriors, but soon they quake with fear of the fox. Crane is not impressed on the other hand; she orders the attack continue with reckless abandon. Another wave, Karin proves indomitable, she worps around the wave, severing arms and legs, cutting necks, breaking bones. Karin returns to the middle of the room just in time to watch her enemies crumble to the ground. "Your affront is meaningless, Queen of Bugs."

Yet more and more monsters fall into sight. "There is one of you, little Oni. We are endless."

"You lie."

"Why not use your mind magic and find out?" The next wave moves in for their strike . . .

* * *

Lacerti pulls his head from his hands and looks about distraught, only now noticing he has abandoned Karin. A voice from long ago befalls his ears; his first thought is of disbelief. "Welcome home, little sheep." Harm, child of Akasha, holds his arms out in embrace. Lacerti barks like a rabid beast, gripping his blade tightly and explodes into his holy form.

Lacerti's hair burns golden; he grows a whole foot and his arms and chest burst out of his clothing, his eyes flashing stone white. The undead god presses his hands down to grip the blade, his body crackling with black light. Harm looks like a negative of Lacerti; Harm is small and shady, nearly shambling in appearance. Lacerti has skin of perfectly crafted stone tan with long flush hair; Harm is bald, gray-skinned, and covered head to toe with scars most self-inflicted. The vampire bares his teeth. "How good to see you're well, boy!" Harm taunts his aggressor.

Lacerti howls long and low, pressing forth, tossing his enemy back. Lacerti steps in, swinging his sword in an upward slice several times. The vampire jumps off the blade, flipping backward with each swing. After regaining his footing, Harm takes a deep breath and pulls his fist into his chest. Harm tugs at Lacerti's soul, attempting to rear it from this body.

Lacerti grips his own chest, groaning, "Nice trick." Lacerti summons his will, thrusting his arms down to his sides to shatter the unseen hands gripping at his life force. "What have you been practicing with? Humans?" Lacerti takes his sword overhead; gripping it tightly, he stabs down at the vampire. The blade slides between his shoulder and neck and exits over his left hip, barreling itself harshly into the stone at his feet, contorting the monster into an inverted "C" shape. Lacerti reaches onto his hip; producing his "gunblade," he unsheathes the short sword and steps back to take a killing blow.

Blood sprawls from the vampire in unmentionable quantity. The blade pinning the monster to the ground lifts out and falls to the ground. Harm stands upright and outstretches his arms in prayer. Lacerti reflects on Harm. Harm is not a god; he is a demi, a man that has transcended his humanity. Harm is the eldest son of Akasha, the queen of blood and lust, a demonic goddess, but his father was a man, and no man is born a demon. He has a soul. He chose to become what he is. Harm constructed a church in the early iron age in dedication to his mother. He used his unnatural powers to make himself look like a prophet, then to make others into living pieces of artwork. Pleasure, pain--Harm can't tell the difference. He might be a failure as a god, but he is a real monster. The Avatars were sent to pass judgment on Harm and his cult "the Necrophights." Harm and his ken were banished to limbo by orders of the pantheons. Not even his mother Akasha could save him from his fate.

"Die already." Lacerti swings his blade high to severe Harm's head. Harm drops to his knees, and a spear of vertebra erupts from his hand and finds Lacerti's ribs.

Lacerti swings his arm down and smashes the spear. Harm snickers, "We could be at this for days." Lacerti punches at Harm with a hefty hand; Harm catches his fist and quivers as he grips him. "Mark my word, Paladin; you will be dead before me." Harm pushes against Lacerti, forcing him to back-step "Your weapons simply cannot pierce my armor."

RED TWILIGHT

Lacerti jabs with his other hand; the bayonet of his gun snaps on contact with arm but launches him in the air nevertheless. Lacerti flashes gold, burning with power; he swings forth to grab Harm out of the air. Harm passes through his enemy as a dark mist and takes him by the cheeks, offering him a deadly embrace. Harm's teeth find the soft tissue of Lacerti's collar . . .

Chapter 26

Concerted Effort

El, Summer, Andrews, and now Juan (also known as Whiskers) push their way through a tower filled with silence. It isn't long before something comes to call--voices, screams, the sounds of conflict. El urges his team to move carefully, but many of them are young, filled with dreams of glory.

A flight of steps, then the party finds a hall stacked high with severed remains of dozens, maybe hundreds of human bodies. The battle cries they had heard are closer yet. Doors start breaking down around them; they are ready. The undying flood out of the rooms at all sides of the hall, their skins blue, black, and violet, their eyes empty. The warriors follow the lead of their veteran hero. El wastes no actions--one shot, one kill, push your nemesis to your desired position. Waste no time. Once your target is on the ground, press forth. Choose your goals carefully. Know what you're firing at. The party can see ahead that they are not alone. Others fight as well. A thundering echo shrieks down the halls. "Snake!" It is close, on this floor to say the least.

"Stay close! Be conservative! If you can't down your target with your first shot, save it."

"Mukka,_we have a live one! _Mukka," Andrews exclaims, rushing ahead.

"You dope, keep formation!" El starts to call, but Andrews doesn't hear him.

Snake drives his knife into the ribs of one beast, then turns his attention on Andrews; Snake grabs him by the shoulders from behind and drives his knife deep into his spine without a second thought. Summer cries out and raises her weapon; El reaches up to take it from her all in the blink of an eye.

Snake drops the bird man and with a quick twist steps in to attack Summer as well.

El grips Snake by the wrist and the two lock a gaze. "Hello, Snake," El whispers.

"El . . . ?" Snake tips his eyes queerly. El answers with an elbow to his chin, pushing the much smaller man to his knees.

El hands his coat to Juan. "Whiskers, tie this around Andrews. See if you can get him back on his feet."

Juan looks at El. "Did you see what he just did?" "Do it!" El orders.

Summer takes her gun back from El and takes aim on Snake. "You better have a powerful good explanation for what you just did."

"He doesn't. He's just a rabbit."

Snake looks at him. "El?!"

Summer looks at the old warrior as well. "What do you mean?"

"Next time you see a dog chasing a rabbit look to the man next to you. If he happens to be a blue-blooded Virginian and you ask him who is in the lead, he will say 'the rabbit.' You see, you and I we fight to eat. He, the rabbit, is fighting for his life."

"He just stabbed one of my men," Summer points out.

El nods. "Yes, he is an asshole, and I don't give a damn if he lives or dies. But he is a useful asshole. He and I fought side by side in my last mission. And I would rather you not shoot him yet." "Yet!" Snake calls out.

"Wait till we're outside," El adds.

"Are you fucking nuts?!" Snake asks metaphorically.

Juan looks about as he is trying to bandage Andrews' wounds. "I think our problems aren't over yet." The dead in the hall start to rise again.

"By the way, do you still have my phone?" Snake is suddenly calm. El holds forth his Jackal, seeing that the nightmares have only just begun. In their last meeting, Snake and El were not fast friends, but they did learn to set their libidos aside and trust in one another's fighting prowess. El knows Snake is an animal on the battlefield, but so long as he is facing the right way, he is useful. Snake knows that El is a professional and his loyalty is unwavering.

"Talk later. Reload your guns. You're a better marksman than brawler," El orders Snake. "Whiskers, can you get Andrews vertical?"

"Are you kidding?! Did you see what happened . . ?

"Get him up or give me his gun!" El cuts him off.

Summer kneels down with Juan, whispering to him, "How bad is it?"

Juan packs the wound, then ties it off with the strips of El's overcoat. "I can't believe he is breathing." Juan is not an EMS, but you don't need to be to see what a horrific gash Snake's knife has left in Andrews' backside; broken bones and blood speak for themselves. Summer lies forth, holding Andrews, cradling him as he struggles for breath, the color slowly bleeding out of his feathers. The sounds of ballistics overhead are a clear indicator that a new battle has begun.

After a short time, Andrews takes a hard breath and holds still; his eyes grow cold as he lets the last breath leave his breast. Summer lowers her head, crying for what she feel may be the last time. Andrews' wing comes up and over Summer's shoulders as he hugs her in return. His beak parts, letting loose a wet grumbling moan. His head twists as he opens wide. Juan stares blankly. Summer feels the lifeless breath on her neck and pushes Andrews away; he falls in a heap, then following the flow of her movement jumps up at her.

Summer skids along the ground for several steps, then pulls her gun. Andrews crawls after her, dragging his broken parts. Summer fires her gun a multitude of times into his head, and Andrews falls to the ground, dead for real this time. She dries her face and looks down at the last of her friends, now just another monster dead on the floor. She looks down at her gun, considering the possibilities; her math is clear. We're all dead already, she thinks to herself. It's just a __matter of time before we are all like_ Andrews._

El looks down at her as he reloads his weapon. "It's tough, isn't it? Looking down the barrel of an empty victory like this, knowing that even if you survive today, you'll be the only one. Wish I could say I've never been there. Do you know what you have to do? Get tougher. Know that next time will be different. If only Because you don't want to go home the sole survivor of two battles. Take Andrews' tags. Weave them into your key or your belt. That's what I do."

The moment of peaceful revelation is shattered as a dark shadow steps into sight; only Summer seems to see Marks float down the hall and raise his hand. Summer sees the flash of dark light as Marks call forth this kie, then casts the same spell that had killed Ako Karingson. Summer barely has time to call for the party to "get down" before carnage begins to ensue. The invisible walls of energy tear zombies apart, ripping them to bits at the joints.

Snake has luck like the devil as he presses his back to a wall and the light bypasses him by inches. Summer pulls Juan to the ground, lying over him to pass under the attack. El is less lucky; the light scrapes over his shoulder on one side across his wrist and one cheek on the other.

"Some sort of energy rifle?" El calls out to his team. "Stay close to the ground."

Snake shouts back to him. "Is that your bullshit idea of skepticism?" "Well, what do you think?" El asks.

"Magic, motherfucker. We have seen it."

Vigeta holds both hands out, and a wall of crystal-like darts spiral ahead of him. The crystal darts fly down the hall with an echoing sonic crash, whipping the dead into the air as projectiles and shattering the stone walls, threatening to bring the roof down.

Summer calls out, "Your orders, sir?!"

"He is going to bring this place down on us at this rate," El whispers. Then he calls to his team, "Run!"

All aggression that had been on Snake and the others has now found its way onto the maverick war machine. Vigeta is unstoppable; wave on wave of monsters charge in and are quickly thrown aside. With a wave of his hand, the cadavers are thrown to the wall and then through it. A dog-headed man charges in; Vigeta grips him by the head and holy light pours out the dog's eyes, then he explodes.

Snake, El, and company find a bathroom to duck into and start frankly whispering to each other, conveying their thoughts on their experience. "Magic?

Don't be childish. No one can throw lighting from their fingertips." "Nikola Tesla," Juan states.

Summer nods. "Good point."

"That's not magic. That's science," El contests.

"You're not a skeptic. You're just in denial," Snake intersects. "Have you taken a good look around lately? Someone is fucking with the line between dreams and reality, Bub."

Summer starts to explain, "I know who that was. It's--"

El cuts in, "General Marks Vigeta Karingson." "Do you know how fucked we are?" Summer asks.

"Very." El nods.

"Not to threat. I have backup," Snake proudly jumps in.

"I hope your backup comes with anti-artillery weapons and fragmentation mines." El looks sour.

"Better, I brought my own wizard."

"Jesus Christ, are you joking? Who did you find? Sister Cleo?"

"Did that joke just arrive in a Delorean? This isn't 1979."

Juan cuts them off, "If that's a Christopher Lloyd joke, I think that 1982 would be the year you're looking for." Something scrapes the wall, pouring drywall atop them.

"Something is in the general's head, some form of mind control. I'm going to try to subdue him."

Snake protests, "No, man, don't be stupid."

"Do you think you have a better chance?"

"Why do you care about him? Let's just take him down."

"General Karingson is my hero." And before Snake can offer his counter-argument, El runs out of the room to stand face-to-face with the metal angel.

Vigeta's body moves, but his eyes are dead. Marks' hand rises as he gathers his magic; EL stands his ground. With what can only be precognitive intuition, Marks throws his blade of darkness and El sidesteps it. "General!" El calls to him. "I'm here to save you." Marks' eyes burn red with hellfire as a ring of diamonds come into being around him. The magic missiles rain down around El. Emboldened by valor, El runs at his hero to engage in fisticuffs.

El is fast; El is strong. If Marks were a man El, could almost surely overpower him. But Marks is not a man. El swings with a hook, then crosses over in a jab. Marks ducks and back-steps out of reach, then retaliates with a knee strike. El pulls one arm over his chest to block, but Marks' weight pushes El off his guard. Marks takes full advantage of the situation, pushing his palm into El's chest and projecting his kie into the elderly fighter, launching him to the ground with earth-shaking force.

Snake steps out from his hiding spot nearby to take a potshot at Marks to protect El. The shot burns to ash as it approaches the magus. Marks' eyes burn with hellfire as his arms are thrust off to the side; a sonic wave of darkness flares from his body, lifting anything not nailed down into the air and throwing it across the floor. The walls themselves are blown to pieces at the same time.

After digging each other out of the dirt, the team tries to gather their strength to stand before the heartless angel. Summers and Juan cower before the dark power.

El is battered and kneels in pain and dismay. Snake alone has the blinding zeal of rage and the hopeless ambition of courageous love to stand tall in the face of the towering force of nature that Marks has become empowered by the darkness.

* * *

As their drudging march through the tower presses onward, Reizuki and Nuku find some welcome yet unsettled silence. They move upstairs and downstairs with no known logic. Passively at first but then in greater interest, the man called "N" watches the numbers before doors and runs up the stairs with ever more intrigue. He recalls the map he had seen in the parking lot and begins coloring in the map in his mind. The pieces start to fall into place as the towers seem to start to form as a two-dimensional object in three-dimensional space with a most staggering lack of continuity yet strange predictability. Then the dead end hits.

The latest hall the two of them step into suddenly shift and what would have been an open passage suddenly is a window looking down a perilous plunge, showcasing the twisting intertwining helix-shaped towers of nightmares. As the two of them look down, Nuku looks at N. "Other way, I guess."

Reizuki turns to look back as a shambling hulk starts their way. He reaches for his needles, then observes as a second monster comes to view--a giant cancerous maw atop a blob of a body separated by a neck not so different from a worm or camelopard. The bulbous mess of flesh swings its head down and in a single clasp of its jaws bites the comparatively smaller hulk. With a blink of his eyes, he begins to imagine all the possibilities of what may next ensue. After a moment of careful consideration, Reizuki nods his head.

"How far down do you think it is?" Nuku asks, still looking down the hole.

"Sixteen hundred feet maybe." Reizuki recalls the 'pursuit matrix' the letter "B" had written back at the academy and how closely it followed the rules of predator versus prey relationship construct. For the persuaded to "win" often boils down to nothing more than the prey being willing to do something the hunter cannot or just doesn't want to. The probability of a man in top physical form being able to jump a forty-foot gap and land safely on the other side is about 12 percent; add on the added stress of a target zone roughly 4'/8', the likelihood is closer to 7 percent. And the way "N" is seeing it, that's close to six hundred times more likely than taking down this beast in a fist fight.

With that in mind, "N" turns his mask to face front, then runs full throttle at the window and throws his hands out like Superman, leaping across the chasm. Nuku cries out in disbelief as Reizuki flies out the window. "Reizuki!" Nuku looks around, trying to understand what just happened. As she sees "N" smash through a wall on the other side, she hardens her will and crouches at the ledge, then leaps across, following her keeper. The bulbous monster runs to try to catch them but refuses to leap, instead turning to look for another way around. Reizuki fights with the steadfast might of a man that is expecting to die.

Nuku lands on her knees and quickly takes inventory in search of Reizuki. Reizuki has already found his feet and dusted himself down; he reaches for another sucker. "After all that tomfoolery more candy?! Why?!" Nuku yells at him.

"What do you mean? Why did I jump out the window or why do I like candy?"

"You're a mad man."

"I disagree. Logic dictates my behavior more so than any external factor. I jumped out the window because it was the most logical course before me. As for my candies, I have a blood disease. Keeping my blood sugar level high minimizes the havoc it wreaks from day to day." Reizuki looks around the room. Seeing they're in an office, he starts digging about for any tools that may be of interest. "Seems it gives the cancer something to eat aside from me." The only thing to catch his interest is a tennis ball. (Not to say there were no weapons. It looks as if most the staff keeps a 9 mm pistol under their desk, but marksmanship is not amongst Reizuki's many skills.)

As the two walk side by side, the halls twist, and Reizuki notices that at least three times the two of them find their way back to the same room from different angles. It looks like a room that is a half mechanistic workshop and part dermatology lab. As the various angles come to light, Reizuki freezes. His eyes roll from side to side, locking on to the pettiest of details: scuff marks left by shoes being dragged along the floor, a chip in the wall freshly plastered over, smoke stains on the ceiling, a light yellow comical burn in the corner.

Reizuki's feet follow the shuffling; he begins to dance about, following where he believes they came from and where they were going. He bounces off the wall, then falls flat on his face; he jumps to his feet and runs across the room, then falls to his knees in an overdramatic death enactment. Then he runs to the other side, examining a keyboard on the wall, then runs into an imaginary door.

Nuku shakes her head. "What are you doing?"

Reizuki leans over backward, noticing a crises running around the outer parameter of the room. He runs around the room following it. He then makes his way to the center of the room. "This room is a gigantic microwave." He mimes a tornado. "There was a fight here between two men, one locked the other in then. Zap! He turned it on and cooked the unlucky fellow." He points at the comical stain on the ground and looks puzzled. "Or were there three combatants and . . ." He freezes again, trying to follow the footprints. This is what Reizuki practically does for a living; gathering intel like this is almost a game, natural as walking or breathing.

Nuku looks impatient on the other hand; she points at a door. "Come on, Einstein. Let's keep moving. There is only one door left." She nearly pulls Reizuki with her.

* * *

Blake lies on the ground in the cryonics room, mostly covered in blood, physically and mentally out of breath. Weakly, he tosses his diary to the side; it nearly lands on a pile of dismembered bodies. A woman in high heels walks in, picking the book up almost without breaking her stride. Blake speaks to her without even lifting his head from the floor. "Marin, I was wondering when you would catch up."

"I see you failed." She cocks her shotgun and holds it out in one hand, ready to kill Blake. "But you're still breathing. That is a problem." "You're not going to shoot me. Stop kidding yourself." "And why not?" she asks coldly.

"Your body is glowing blue, fading to gray. You're upset, not upset enough to

kill."

"Get up. You're not dead yet."

"Have you ever killed, Marin? Not in self-defense, not because you had to, but because someone told you that you should."

"I killed two of my sons to prove my loyalty to Von Richton. What did you have to do?" She isn't looking for an answer; no answer would be good enough. "I repeat, get up or I will kill you on grounds of mutiny."

Blake sits up and looks heartfelt. "Von Richton asked you to kill your sons for her?"

"I have another still. And so long as I am in Von Richton's good grace, he will be protected." Marin's hand starts to shake; she trembles, sucking down her tears. Blake stands up and approaches her; he lowers her gun to her side and takes her in his arms. Marin submits to his grasp. "Blake, what names are left on your list? Who did you come here looking for?" she asks in a whisper.

"Dr. Marks V. Karingson, Dr. Mercadeis L. Vixon, Dr. Allen Wesker, Prs. Shaun Clawed Licutuse. I know that Wesker is still alive, at-least he was an hour ago. I couldn't kill him. Something was protecting him. I really don't know about the others."

"Are you going to finish the mission?"

"Would you?"

"Yes."

"Well then, I guess I have to try. Marin, why do you serve the Von Richtons?" Marin never does answer, but her firm grip on his back tells Blake enough. She didn't want to work for them; they bribed her into it, with what Blake can only guess.

"Blake, I'm going to help you."

* * *

As Marks holds his hand out to launch his next attack, a rubber ball bounces off his back, shattering his concentration. Like something that belongs in anima, the man called "N" steps into sight of Snake and El, one hand in his pocket, the other held down at his side, his hair slumped over one eye and a teddy-bear bag slung over his shoulders, his mask turned onto the back of his head again. In foolish optimism,

Snake jumps up in cheer. "Yes!"

"Maybe I could be of assistance?" N utters.

Marks turns in a half circle to face Reizuki, holding up his hand; a powerful wind encapsulates the heartless angel. Light is drawn into his body, darkening the room as he calls on his favorite spell; his hand rolls palm up and he whispers, "Den-Ko . . ."

Nuku jumps in his path, grappling his arm with both hands, thrusting upward against him, crying, "Father! No!" Marks' spell follows the ark of his hand, launching into the air, blowing the next several floors apart as the dark blades fly. Marks' eyes burn as he brings up one knee, pressing into Nuku's chest and shoving her away; he twists into a side kick. Nuku matches his speed with her own, effectively falling out of range. Her sweetness melts away as she jumps into a combat ready stance. "You're not daddy. You're just another monster!"

Marks hops forth to take another kick. Nuku hooks her arm over his leg, catching it between her ribs. She then jabs him in the chest several times and wraps her leg around his. She thrusts in with a palm strike to knock Marks to the ground. Marks catches her palm with his wrist; snaking his arm around hers, he brings his other foot up and drags it across her face, knocking her off balance. Nuku twists to the ground but quickly finds her footing. Marks floats to the ground, landing softly on his feet. Nuku re-takes her stances and charges forth with an elbow drive, backhand, and upper cut. Marks skillfully pushes her attacks away, walking backward. Marks retaliates with a snap kick to the side of her head; he then goes for a second. Nuku sees him and performs a rising block to top him, then twists in for a kick to his knees. Marks meets her halfway, lifting his foot to kick her leg aside.

The two of them match steps, blocking and counter-blocking. Marks is wind; Nuku is fire. Reizuki sneaks around the battle to meet up with Snake and El. Snake looks on in amusement. "That girl can really fight!"

"Yes, but she can't win. Her mark has experience on her, and her youth is not a boon. We need to help her help us," Reizuki explains.

"Well, this guy is bullet proof," Snake points out.

"Maybe, but he isn't flame retardant. I'm going to need you, Snake. I'm going to need all of you." He looks around the room.

El looks on in near disgust. "Who are you? What are you talking about?"

"Fear me, Caesar, for I am the 'Letter' sent to speak of your death. I am the Letter 'N.'"

Snake jumps in as the two egotists face off. "His name is Reizuki Lowe. He is a friend of mine."

El nods. "I trust you, Snake."

N looks at the battle still underway. "Nuku, follow me please." Reizuki turns to run back the direction he had come from. The party follows; Marks chases his prey.

* * *

From the journal of Dr. Marks V Karingson:

Theoretical mathematics and astral physics are the order of the day. Experiment parameters--a proton moving through spaces encounters an unmovable object. How does the said proton respond? Hypotheses: gravity should slingshot the said object, allowing it to continue onward with resolute being little more than a rerouting of direction appropriated by mass and volume of our dark matter . . .

Thesis: All mathematics concur. Our theory seemed to work in simulation when dealing with a single aspect of matter. Something unexpected happened on the interdiction of consecutive aspects. A multitude of occurrences resulted in corruption of data (not so difrent form the 'twin pendulum effect' for any of you who fallowed that study). The slingshot effect of gravity on protons over several cycles induced a wave affect wherein the matter began to move backward, seemingly in exponentially faster cycles, reaching speed approaching 100,000 rps or .102 under light speed. (Notation: The atom smasher we used for this experiment was built sacra World War II and our margin for error is fairly large. If anyone could duplicate our experiment using more sensitive equipment, I would be very pleased to read your reports.)

A wave affect ensued as we attempted to plot the course our atom followed, creating the illusion of a plethora of objects appearing in our test chamber. Using a micro cam, we attempted to still-frame our discovery (we went in for a closer look), and strangely the wave was broken and our speed reduced dramatically. My only thought on the phenomena is that the act of measuring distance in of itself changed the behavioral habit of the observed. (time and distance could not be observed paralleled. The way I hear it astrophysicist speculate on this often. )

Introspection: I recall a article I read some time ago in a book of alternative physics. "Super-space" and "The Watchers Effect" I believe were the titles of the articles that stood out to me.

If I recall the paper, in "The Watchers Effect," tennis balls covered in chock were fired from a ball launcher for several hours with the point of impact being methodically measured. It seems that there was almost no dissidence in POI. But when the ball launcher was run overnight with no one mapping the course, suddenly there was a much broader strike zone. The students performing this study assumed that the act of watching the device changed its basic behaviors. How this can be I don't yet understand.

In "Super-space" it was theorized that all objects in existence produces "Shadows" that traverse in an astral state, making them visible through parallel "planes" (this lands some credibility to the event referred to as "simultaneous creation," which I think would sound better as "unanimous conception," but I digress) or even allowing one object to appear twice in a single world. Vis-á-vis two persons sharing a time of conception and birth may actually be one person living twice at one time, thereby the implication being that all life is in a state of ontology wherein matter has no mass till an exterior object lays claim there too--one soul a multiplicity of bodies.

Being a man that had spent time in the Middle East, I can relate to this on one level or another. I spent time living with a Buddhist family and was subject to their traditions. But transition, transient projection, and reincarnation are not scientific theory; they are religious principles. However much I would like to believe, we all live twice. I have thoughts, and I think that the paradoxical nature of a life within a life would prove cataclysmic for any man. (Not to sound like a sexist but on some off chance if this theory could be tested under scientific scrutiny, I feel that a woman might be less likely to implode upon touching herself in this astronomically unlikely event.) But please if anyone in the field of theoretical mathematics could explain this principle to me in finer detail, I would be more than grateful for your input.

This article then went on to explain that this means that all objects in motion will follow every available path to them. I wish I could explore this in more completeness, but I honestly have no idea how to refine an experiment for this project.

Hypothesis: Pending for further studies. Please contact Mad-cats@ Karingsonlabs.com with your thoughts on this and other studies currently underway (submitted for peer review August of 1990).

(Notation from archivist Ammerant Springfield: As I was reviewing active missions, I stumbled upon the name Marks V. Karingson literally a hundred times. It seems we have more of his work on file than some of our own agents. This led me to believe he may be a retired Watcher, but there seems to be no papers on him other than medical logs and weapon development credits. It seems a dozen agents have tried to make contact with Dr. Karingson, but none seem to have persuaded him to sign on with our side, not even Von Richton herself.)

I found that the name mad cats sounded familiar somehow, so I looked it up. "Mad Cat" seems to be a reference to an early 1980s' television show called "Inspector Gadget" where a cybernetic man, which resembles Inspector Bean from "Pink Panther" if I recall, is in a worldwide chase against a super villain named "Dr. Claw." Claw has a tabby cat that he calls "Mad Cat." I feel this is a strange event seeing that Mad-Cats lab works out of the Claw Co. Towers in New York. It's just a thought; surely this means nothing . . .)

Chapter 27

The Brothers' Tragedy

With amazing endurance, the team runs; twisting and turning, they nearly jump off walls as the war machine follows only a few steps behind. The man called N looks to his team. "Nako Gall, Cat Girl, in two hundred feet there will be a turn in the path. Take it. In about 120 feet, you will see a switch on the wall that will activate the fire shield in the hall. Activate it, and then double back."

Summer calls out, "I assume you'll be waiting for me here?"

"Not likely. You're free to do as you will once this mission is done."

"I plan on finding any survivors in this place and leading them out of this hell!"

"I wish you the best." Summer makes the turn as dictated. Marks' shadow jumps off the ground and follows her. El staggers on the next turn and nearly collapses. Reizuki points to him, and Nuku nods in understanding, picking him up. "Nuku," N explains, "at the next intersection I need you, our balled friend, and the accountant to break away. Look for the next security shutter and turn it on."

As Nuku leaves, another shadow rises from the ground, following her and her group. Snake huffs and puffs nearly out of breath. "N, what is the big idea? Between the lot of us, we might have overpowered this guy."

"At the cost of how many? What is an acceptable sacrifice? The big idea is for all of us to live to fight another day. You see the difference between English and Chinese special forces lies in the idea that the Chinese are expected to complete their missions. English special ops. on the other hand are expected to come back to do it again. Snake, at the crossroads fifty feet ahead, I want you to turn right. At every crossroad thereafter, continue to turn right till you see me coming from the other side. This monstrosity should be less than a dozen steps behind. Shut the door once after me. If all four doors are not locked, the microwave cannot be turned on, and this chivalry will be for nothing." The two part ways yet again, having only been reunited but both with a mission ahead of them yet.

* * *

Snake turns right, then looks left to try to map the area and look for danger; there seems to be a bottomless pit a yard ahead. He looks down to see the streets what looks like a mile below. Seeing nothing of interest, he grips his knives tightly in hand, then looks right again. Larry as the frog demon stands over him and with one gigantic hand picks him up and pushes him into the wall. Snake is petrified; he drops his weapons and stands helplessly in his grip. "Snake," the monster whispers, pulling his big brother into his chest, holding him tightly. The demon kneels, wailing in pain as he holds his brother. Snake takes the beast by the back of the head and pats him, suddenly understanding what has happened.

"Larry." Snake looks deep into the monster's eyes and slowly, hidden deep under the monster's skin, Larry comes into view, not sick like most would see him or cursed as he is now, but in a state of tranquility that he has never had in life. Larry was born unwell, his mind never at ease, his spirit twisted by some unseen force before he was ever born. Only Snake could see the purity within him and only in brief childish outburst.

Larry's true voice whispers to Snake's form somewhere beyond. "Thank you, Snake. Thank you for coming for me. Thank you for loving me, protecting me.

Thank you for being who you are, for your unconditional understanding." "Larry?" Snake struggles not to cry. Snake is shaking.

"Snake, I can't come home. I can't leave this place."

"I can fix this. I can fix all of this."

"No, you can't. I've been dead for almost a week already. I'm not in here anymore."

"Yes, you are. You're just, just . . ."

"What? A little de-evolved?" larry giggles through his pain.

Snake forces himself to become angry and authoritative to control Larry as he would have when he was young. "Just listen to me--"

Larry cuts him off, "No, you listen to me this time. We always knew one of us had a future. Now here is what you have to do. Leave, just leave. Sell the car, buy a backpack, fill it with food and as much lamp oil as you can carry, and a tent. Go to Minnesota's 'International Falls' at three in the morning. Swim to Canada. Whatever money you have left, use it to build a Lincoln log style cabin. Spend the rest of your life camping. Be a better person. Have a kid with an Amish girl. Name your firstborn Larry, even if it's a girl." Snake starts laughing with a sob as Larry jokes around with him.

"I don't understand how all this happened," Snake explains.

"Evil has a terrible hunger, Snake. It tasted our blood. Now one of us has to die if the other wants to live."

"Does it have to be you?"

Larry nods. "Yep, I think so. You're better than me. You'll be all right." Larry walks to the window and looks down at the streets below. "The devil wants to use me. He wants me to make everyone down there like me."

"Hey, hey, hey, watch that ledge, bro. You're getting a little close!" Snake steps in to grab Larry and pull him back. The clean pristine Larry vanishes as the frog demon swings his arm back, flinging Snake across the room. It falls onto all fours and jumps at Snake. Snake screams, pulling his arms into and over his face to shield himself as the monster's teeth start to come down. Under the weight of the mammoth crushing, Snake is defenseless.

"Snake? No!" Blake calls, seeing the monster land on Snake. Blake holds one hand forth, and calls on the last of his energy, throwing one last force of will. Blake has called on more of his energy with this blast than any he ever has before. Larry is sent hurtling through the air and out of the window at terminal speed. Blake runs over. "Snake, are you OK?"

Snake sits up. He reaches for his knives and slides them into his coat, his expression enigmatic and calm. Blake's aura sight is flickering on and off; he is too hungry and tired to even focus on this almost passive skill. But in the brief moments he can, he sees the white-blue light he has only seen once before, in his own reflection, the day his brother disappeared. His eyes turn back to the window and he shakes his head. "Oh no . . . Snake? I'm sorry. I didn't know." Snake holds his hand up to silence Blake.

For a long moment, the two of them stare at each other in uneasy silence before

Snake speaks up, "Reizuki needs us."

* * *

Summer finds the switch she was pointed at, and as she reaches up to flick it, a hand reaches up from behind her to hold it up. She looks back to see Marks standing over her. He shakes a finger at her in the "tsk-tsk" motion and clicks his tongue. Summer reaches for her gun. Marks takes it from her and breaks it to pieces with one hand. She wraps one leg around his and tries a take-down maneuver. Marks shuffles one foot back to center himself, reversing her tactic.

Summer presses both arms into Marks' chest to push him away. Marks leans in, gripping her by the head with one hand; with a sharp inward motion, he bounces her off the wall. Summer falls limp, the back of her skull cracked from the impact.

* * *

El, Nuku, and Juan are the next on scene, appearing in the door just to the left of Summer. El starts to pull down the lever to lock the room then hears Summer groan upon hitting the wall. El steps out to examine briefly. Marks appears standing behind them.

"Look!" Juan exclaims. Marks silences him by pressing his foot into Juan's knee, then kicking him across the face to knock him down and stomping on his ribs to knock the wind out of him. Nuku turns around to try to help. Marks grins evilly; the support pillars reach out of the walls to tie her up before she can act.

"Summer!" El calls as he pulls out the Jackal. He fires on Marks shadow, but the shadow is as equally vulnerable to gunfire as he is.

* * *

Reizuki arrives in time to see the chaos of the battle he had interrupted reinstated. He brings one hand up and bites onto a finger completely, beside himself in confusion. "Two? Two of him? How can that be? He is so strong. He is impossibly strong. The rules of the natural world don't apply to him. All scientific reasoning is in defiance."

The old wizard reaches around Reizuki and pushes him into the wall. One hand grips his chest and raises him into the air, dragging the tiny spy overhead. Overwhelmed by his world views shattering before his eyes, Reizuki can do nothing but stare down horrified. Marks starts to bring in his other hand, his arm bursting into black flames as it moves.

The wraith hiding with the steel body mocks, "Give me the keys to your world and I will make this quick."

* * *

Coming in from the last hallway, Blake looks at Snake sarcastically. "Is this what you were expecting?"

Snake calls out, "Help El and Summer. I'll take care of Reizuki!"

As they dash into the fray, Blake looks at Snake. "This might be a bad time to bring this up, but I'm fresh out of magic."

"Great, why not knock my metro-sexual hair cut while you're at it?" Snake jumps onto the back of (the) Marks fighting Reizuki. Marks summons a set of black feathered wings, and a burst of dark light knocks Snake to the ground.

El and Blake stand shoulder to shoulder squaring off with yet another. Blake draws his sword with one hand and Jessie James in the other. El holds up his fist, whispering, "Save your ammo. It's useless."

The two warriors step in, attacking Marks' shadow from its flanks. Skillfully, the shadow ducks and twists between them. After a handful of swings, Blake's magic sword clips the shadow's arm and the beast turns to glass. Blake is momentarily stunned, reminded of the dying world Cravixs had shown him. El is unhindered and grabs the shadow by the back, leans it forth, and drives his fist into its belly a dozen times, pushing it back. The shadow regains its balance. It sets one foot on the wall, then the other and starts walking up it. El draws his wire and tries to entwine the monster with little success.

Blake pulls his gun and takes a shot; it seems that his shot connects and the shadow loses its grip on the wall and falls to the ground. El looks over; Blake explains, "Magic gun." The wraith giggles and breaks apart into glass dust and starts blowing around the room; the glass dust becomes a choking fog and the party quickly starts to subdue.

The wraith laughs. "So much power you all have. When I bring you to Crow, surely he will fall in love with me and I will be given a name. This world will be my gift to him. All of you give me your souls, give me your keys. And your suffering will end."

Blake coughs. "Keys? That word again. What does it mean?"

"We can't fight wind!" Snake gags.

Desperately, El starts looking for something, anything to aid them, but this lab is set up for a quarantine. He pulls his gun and tries to shoot the fire suppressant system, but he can't seem to hold his gun straight.

Reizuki looks up, spotting the clockwork cat he had seen in the subway crawling along the pipes. The cat jumps down onto Marks' head and locks eyes with him. Marks' eyes shutter like a camera coming into focus; he drops Reizuki, and the shadows get sucked back into him. The dust clears from the room, making the air breathable. Marks' internal repair network comes back on line and his antibodies start fighting the alien infection.

Marks staggers into the middle of the lab; the wraith explodes from Marks' chest. She turns to face him and brings her hands down to try to choke him and force her way back into his body. "I want to be inside you," she explains as he grabs her and tries to force her out, the two of them in a deadly duel for control of his vessel.

Reizuki gets to his feet and yells out, "El, Snake, Blake, lock the doors!" The men run off to the four doors in the room and quickly trigger the lockdown. Reizuki intuitively starts keying in what he feels are the most likely combinations to activate the microwave. With both skill and luck on his side, after only several tries he finds the code.

* * *

The doors slam around Marks, the clockwork cat, and the wraith. It seems the wraith might be in control before the microwave turns on. Sparks start to fly; Marks smiles devilishly as he erects a shield with his kie to protect himself and his cat. A phantom wind blows about the room; the wraith loses its grip and tries to run away by seeping into the floor. Marks grabs her by the leg and holds her in the room.

The ice starts to break from around the wraith, exposing her soft skin underneath which quickly turns black and swells; she shakes her head in protest, trying to fly away. Marks grips her firm, holding her up like a trophy fish till she howls and bursts to pieces in a blue mess of frozen blood.

With the wraith dead, Marks lifts a hand and snaps, blowing the microwave ammeters off the walls. He looks at the room Nuku and Reizuki had run to. He holds one hand out, and as he closes his fist, the door folds up as if made of aluminum foil.

The intercom turns on in the halls; Marks' voice emanates from them. "I would like to thank all of you for your help. I think it is now time for us to leave this godforsaken place. You have done well, and I would like to apologize for my poor behavior. I will see to it that you are all paid well, and I look forward to working with you all again in the future."

Marks steps into the hall with Reizuki, Juan, and Nuku. He looks at Nuku, and her binds shatter like glass from around her; he looks at Juan, and his wounds close as he is restored to health. "I recommend you follow El," he calmly expresses. He then looks at Reizuki. "There is one more thing I would like to ask of you if you have the time."

* * *

After letting Juan into the hall with him, the hallway behind El starts to warp, changing shape yet again. A double door appears and breaks open, revealing the penthouse office. El walks to it with Juan only a step behind. El cocks his gun as he looks around. "Shaun Clawed." He looks at Shaun as he is seated in his chair, breaking apart like burned charcoal. Sitting on the desk in front of him is Lizzet Jacobs, her eyes flickering off violet like gemstone.

As El steps into the room, his eyes go dead; he and Shaun start conversing as if reading pretyped dialog, completely unaware of their surroundings. "Mr. President,

I have come for your life."

"El?" Juan whispers to him.

El cocks his gun and holds it up to Shaun; Shaun fails to react. "Please, my life you cannot have. Instead take this gift." In a comical puppet-like motion, Shaun swings his arm out at Lizzet.

Juan shakes El. "What are you doing?"

"I accept your gift." El picks up Lizzet by the hips, and she hangs off his body, her legs around his waist, her arms over his shoulders. He raises his gun and takes a shot at Shaun; the gun clicks dryly but a bullet wound appears in Shaun's head nevertheless, and he falls to the ground. No blood pours from wound, only sand. "It's time to go home, my child." El turns to walk back the way they came, a stairwell appearing before them.

Juan follows, calling out, "El . . . El . . . say something."

* * *

(Page taken from the journal of Hunter: Marin Duphran)

The spirits are hungry; our ancestors cower. I can hear the wailing of the dead strong in the air. Death fills this place, the wrong type of death, death without honor or meaning. I have resolved to help Hunter Rank S: Richard Blake, in spite of my orders to keep my distance. If anyone is armed to handle this nightmare, it's me. I am Fay; we are the natural enemy of the darkness. I have traded away my ancestral sword and bow for the modern cold steel fire staff of today's finest warriors.

In the darkness, I can see a light; I feel the calling of my fathers and brothers leading me on. I do what any Fay would; I listen to their call. My father's whisper in my ear of a struggle of three souls in the imminent moments ahead; they ask me to do what I do. Watch the battle, record the victors name, and bless the dead that they may find peace and wisdom in the next life.

I come across a man dressed in all black, wearing dark tinted glasses even as he stumbles through the darkened maze of these twisting enigmas. He is twitching nervously; he is mumbling, "Why won't this place let me leave?" The spirits tell me to pay him no heed; I press on.

I find it strange that I have had to fight my way for every inch this far but know there is nothing hindering me. The ghost of this place simply let me by.

Next I find Reizuki Lowe in a confined office. The dead tell me to watch him. Reizuki pulls what looks like a gun out of the desk with a forked spearhead on one end and a spool of yarn on the other. He hides it in his book bag. He picks up a photograph off the table, and I feel the spirits whispering to him also. I wish I could hear them. I feel eyes on me. That simply cannot be. I am like the wind, invisible and deadly; my ancestors made me as such.

The man with glasses finds his way to the office. Reizuki looks at him with deft piercing eyes. "Allen Wesker," he expresses. "By the power vested in me by the good people of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, I hereby place you under arrest for war crimes up to and including willful neglect for the sanctity of life and crimes against the flag. Will you comply?"

"Who or what are you?" Allen asks coldly.

"If you will not submit to mortal justice, then I will call on higher powers."

"What are these crimes of neglect?"

"You are a member of a NGM (non-government militia), a death squad. You betrayed and murdered one of your own. Marks Karingson. Would you like me to explain how?"

Allen pulls back his fist. "You will be in hell before me." He starts to call on his kie.

Reizuki rolls his head, cracking his neck. "I have a feeling we are already there." Wings seem to sprout from Reizuki's back, the TVs in the room come to life, the doors slam, the face of a holy being is visible on the monitors, and a voice echoes across the room.

"When I was young, you worshipped me. When I was old, you scorned me. When I was weak, you hastened me onto death. Now I have been with Buda to the place of wisdom and have returned with the gift of immortality. Now what shall you do?" Allen quakes with fear as Marks steps out from the shadows like an angel glowing white and black, as the symbol of balance, as good as bad, as clean as dirty, as divine and diabolic.

(Marin stops writing abruptly to watch more carefully.)

* * *

Allen shakes his head. "You can't be?! . . ." He pulls out the remote to control him; it fails to work.

"My dear friend, have you been keeping up on your studies?" Marks smirks.

Allen triggers the self-destruct on the device. Reizuki groans, digging around in his pockets, and drapes a cluster of computer chips on the desk. "I'm afraid that isn't going to work. I pulled the flints out of your bombs." The astral wings growing from Marks flap once, brushing the walls at the far ends of the room. The wings snap down and vanish, making the shadows of the room grow deep.

Allen turns to the door and sees the impossible--Tarra Karingson, a few years older than he remembers but clearly her; he hears the meow of the cat Nuku as well as the clockwork cat jumps onto Marks' back. Reizuki looks around as the color melts from Wesker's face. "Well, it looks like your sins have all manifested, haven't they?" Reizuki slightly lifts his head to peer into Allen's face.

Slowly Reizuki steps up onto the desk, then flops down crunched, his hands tucked between his knees. "Let me see how much of this twisted story I can piece together." The televisions in the room start to show what look like home movies demonstrating what Reizuki explains. "When you first saw Marks, you were an airman fresh out of the academy. You were suffering from repression and struggling with your identity. You came from a male-dominated oppressive household wherein your father was a war hero and insisted that you do what he bid. That did not suit your needs. You were no fighter. You were a writer, maybe an actor in your own rights. Marks was a younger man back then. He came to visit the bass you were working at to do an unveiling. The nature of the demonstration was more or less inconsequential. What was important to you was he is a man that is, not necessarily physical, but spiritually is everything you thought yourself to be--brilliant, artistic, theatric. You found that you became infatuated, maybe outright obsessive. You took the money from the air force, went to school, learned a trade. You became a technician. Good, but not good enough for you needs. You tracked down the object of your affection and placed yourself in a position where you could move ever closer to your goal of being with your idol. You tried to apprentice under him. Marks took you in. You became confused at this point, your own self-doubts confusing the time and attention of a master teacher with the calm compassion of a friend or love."

"Marks did not love you, and you knew it. Just couldn't except it. Marks never loved anyone, with the possible exceptions of his coworker Mercedes Vixon, his fraternal daughter, Tarra Karingson, and his creation, Tail Vixon, which I don't know if counts since she isn't technically alive."

Briefly Reizuki looks at the girl Allen believes to be Tarra, who shrugs in return.

"So what can one do but retaliate against one whom you love but do not love you hand in hand? I'll tell you. You used your tech savvy to steal from him. Marks made medicines. You made them into narcotics. Marks made guns. You tested them through underground means and sold them to shadow governments. He made robots, . . . you tried too. I understand that didn't work out the way you hoped. Then you arranged to marry his wife and do away with him in a hoaxed car accident, not because you loved Ako but simply because Marks didn't love you. Your whole life wasted chasing a boy you could not have. You did understand that Marks' marriage was a sham, right?"

Allen nods at the statement.

"But just then things started getting even stranger. Marks had programmed the factory down the hall to anatomically construct a new life form after his death. That life form killed your new girlfriend, no skin off your nose really, but the real hit to your ego was just as you were considering trying to make yourself into Marks in every significant way, here comes this droid stealing your act. Lucky you though, Marks' body was radio sensitive. You deactivated it and retrofitted a polarizing secondary cybernetic mind, honestly only slightly more sophisticated than a walky-talky. That clashed with his primary programming, allowing you to whisper orders to him and only after his death defame him. You ordered him to kill a number of police officers in broad daylight. You tapped his mind to construct a biological weapon and were trying to decode the key to his indestructibility. Am I close?"

"Yes." Allen nods. "Extraordinarily."

Reizuki produces a tape player and whispers into it. "Please note that the suspect has confessed to all accusations."

Allen looks around for an escape route; Marks walks around in front of him. Allen raises his guard; Marks lowers his head, lifting his eye menacingly. "You took away my will, my dear friend." Allen's hand reaches into his coat and withdraws his gun. Allen struggles, seemingly trying to drop the weapon as it makes its way to the side of his head. Allen shakes his head in protest, shouting for Marks to stop. "Now I will take away yours."

Reizuki steps between them. "I can't arrest him if he is dead." Reizuki cringes at the sound of the gunshot behind him. Reizuki looks back at the body on the ground, mumbling to himself, "What a waste . . . what the . . . ?" There on the ground Allen's body looks more like a mannequin than a body. His head is destroyed, but underneath it there are only cables and pumps like those of a puppet's, a highly sophisticated puppet.

Marks explains, "Allen has been dead for some time now. He found me with black magic, and magic comes at a cost. Blood and bone, the more he used his magic to mimic me, the less human he became. I'm so sorry, Allen. May you find peace in the other world." Marks lowers his head somberly.

The peace is shattered by an earth-shaking sound, a high-pitched cry that cracks stone and causes the room to shatter. Reizuki grabs his head and faints, crying out as well . . .

* * *

(Notation by Archivist Ammerant Springfield: In the time that I have been the standing archivist, there has been one thing impressed on me more than any other. The Watchers hate ebonic speech and hyperboles. I have been asked to avoid these things whenever possible. But there are times when it is inconceivable what is true and what is not so. I am forced to take the hunters at their word when a page like this hits my desk. Please bear with me and decide for yourself what is and what is not. A short time ago, Richard Blake was found in downtown New York along with Marin Dophran. He was covered in ashes and in critical condition. He woke up hysterical. These are the first words he had written after regaining lucidity.)

I find a woman crawling around in the tower on all fours. She is covered in blood, a horrid wound on the back of her head. I have seen her before; she was alongside Reizuki and the man called El during the battle with Marks. She has rosy pink hair and cat's ears; she is dressed in a police uniform and has the word Summer written on her breast. There are military dog tags wrapped around one of her fists. I lay her on her side; she fights a bit, but she is in no shape to do much but make noise and flail about. I pull my knife from one pocket and use it to cut the hair away from her festering skull, then cut apart my coat to use as field wrappings. I recall that you're not supposed to cover a wound on the back of the head till it stops bleeding or you'll run the risk of blood clotting or seizuring. The bump on the head is the worst of her ailments but far from the only one. Her arms are bruised, her breasts are burned, and that's just what I can see with her clothes still on.

After a time she calms. I try to talk with her, but she is not interested. I can't blame her. That is when I hear a sound that is unlike any I can describe, so high pitched that it is hardly audible to the human ear but loud enough to break stone. Blood trickles from my eyes and ears, same as Summer's, but she isn't awake to notice. Then I hear my name on the wind. I know the voice; it's Tail's daughter. She is calling me. She begs me to save her, then there is a light, a light that blots the light from all else, a light that robs the world of colors--no depth, no shadows, no shapes, only the searing white . . .

Chapter 28

Nirak

As the struggle between Lacerti and Harm rages, the darkness grows ever darker. Karin is more than capable of fighting off the mandralocks all day it seems. Lacerti and Harm seem to be in a deadlock, no one landing a decisive blow. A voice comes forth from the darkness. "Crane, it's time." The glowing eyes of Crow seep into the room. "Bring me my sacrifice."

The vampire, Harm, abandons his fight with Lacerti, turning to fog and grappling Karin from behind to aid the queen of bugs. Crane steps into the helpless snowy fox and thrusts her jagged tail into her tender underbelly. At first, there is a moment of frozen silence. Lacerti freezes, shocked and overwhelmed. Not in lifetimes has he seen so many Celestics in one place.

But then the silence is broken; Karin's absorbing power is triggered. Karin cries out in mortal agony. Her human body falls to the floor slain, but she leaves behind an astral form that looks as Lacerti remembers from when Karin touched him, a red-robed woman (not girl this time) with hair made of gold and eyes a flaming violet (not blue green as before). The astral form holds Crane by the tail.

Crow grins and claps joyfully at the sight of his bride. Lacerti looks at Crow. "What the hell have you done?"

"Bird's blood. She is more beautiful than I had hoped," Crow explains, walking slowly to her.

Crane joins Crow in admiring this newly born goddess. The astral fox speaks with a low feminine voice as she licks her nose. "I want you inside me." She holds her hand up to Crane and a mouth forms on her palm. The mouth opens and takes a deep breath; the black hole of a mouth drinks the skin off Crane at first, then draws the rest of her body in like water down a drain.

Harm steps away in fear and confusion; Crow stops dead in his tracks with an equal exasperation of bewilderment. "There's nothing left of her in there?" Lacerti whispers. The anti-Karin throws her head back and cries out, drawing in all darkness, creating an impenetrable light around them. Lacerti looks at Crow. "This wasn't part of your plan, was it?"

* * *

(Richard Blake's memoir continued . . .)

As the terrible light overtakes me, all shape and color are lost. I feel myself shouting. I call out into the burning light; I call for Job the Endless. Yes. I prayed, not to God, not to Jesus. I called to an angel--one I knew, one I thought might hear my prayers, one that owed me.

The light physically assaults me; it hits with the force of a car dragging me into invisible objects. I gain my balance and fold my arms over my chest. I know my magic is gone; my mind can't call forth any more energy, but I try anyway. I try to call down a shield to weaken this unholy power that has overtaken me. It works, but I pay with my own life force; holding the shield out feels like a heart attack. I feel wounds long healed ripping open again. It's not long before I start to ask myself if it wouldn't be easier just to roll with the punches as the very act of standing is even more strenuous than being crushed against the unseen walls.

To be fair, I'm more than a little surprised when I hear the flapping of wings and the four-winged black-haired, ornately robed Job the Endless stands over me. "Job, I need your help," I growl.

Job's wings outstretch far, shielding himself from the light. He looks at me in regret. "My savior, there is nothing I can do to protect you. Your mind is eating your body. Your soul is dead. Your body will catch up soon."

My arms start to drop as he whispers to me. Sweat rolls down my face in rivers; my chest becomes too heavy for me to hold up. But then another voice echoes in the dark light. "Job, my brother, I summon you." I have never seen the man whom the voice belongs to, but I know who he is. It's President Shaun Clawed Liqutuse. My eyes roll at him; he looks even worse off than me. His body has turned half to ash; one arm has fallen off. Ember spills from his torso like flames rolling from a log.

"I owe nothing to you, Ju-on," Job explains.

"Crow has summoned onto us an evil even greater than his own, and if I cannot console it, it shall befall more than just this tiny world," Shaun explains.

"I hear you're essence of ice and stone. What do you need of me?"

"This skin I wear, it is old and weak. I need a new skin to inhabit." He points at me. "Give me his skin to use for this day," Shaun demands.

"You understand what you are saying? You will not survive the transformation.

He may not also."

"Then my soul will belong to him, my power and my curse his to command." "I will not."

"You have done before and you will do again. Act fast, Job the Endless. Broken bones I can mend, a broken mind I cannot. Soon his body will be as worthless as this one."

"You make your case, but it is not your word I need." Job looks at me. "Richard Blake, it is you who must give the word. I can save you, if you would like."

I don't think. I act. I hold my head up high and plead for the angel to work his magic. He does without hesitation. He places one hand over Shaun's heart melting into a black tar. Shaun slips into a dead sleep, sinking into the darkness that is Job the Endless. In an instant, Shaun is nothing more than just another piece of the legion.

Job the Endless was once a slave under the power of Crow. For countless years, it was Job's responsibility to meet the earthly needs of Crow; this largely came in the form of gathering sacrifices, but Job was not a willing retainer. He often fought against his master till Crow grew weary of his adolescent insubordination. Crow buried Job deep within a tome; that's where I had found him.

Job places his hand over my heart next, and he turns to the same oiled shapeless mass he was when he devoured Shaun. It seems as if he is to do the same to me. It's OK; frankly I welcome the serenity of death at this point. Besides the dead know no pain, right? But it seems death is not in my future. Job regurgitates me. I hit the ground feeling revived; in fact, I don't think I have ever felt stronger. "Blake, you have tasted of the purist of things today. A Ju-on is life, solid magic personified. They are to the earth as angels and demons are to the light and dark. Protect the Ju-on and it will protect you. Let it not see the face of its own kind and you will enjoy life more so than most any can." I can feel the new so within me. I have memories that are not my own. I am filled with life. My lungs are filled with ice; my fists feel as if they are carved of stone. I like it.

* * *

The anti-Karin holds her hand out. "I am Nirak, the white fox, the voice of wisdom and grace and queen of the dawn. Come to me, King of the Dusk." She holds her hands out to Crow.

Lacerti steps in. "My friend, don't be an idiot. You did see what she just did to Crane." He meets Crow with an intercepting hand. Hungrily Crow grins. "She is just like Job. She eats live and takes them into herself. She has touched me and gained my strength. She touched Crane and Harm and whatever bird's blood is, and I have no idea what that did to her. What do you think touching you will do to her?"

Crow lowers his head teasingly. "Make her evermore extravagant."

"It will make her into you but four hundred times crazier. Can you handle that much power and that much madness? Do you even want to try?"

Crow burns with darkness, becoming a living shadow dripping with liquid evil. "Stand in despair for I am the Cravixs. Love me in agony. Worship in terror. I want my sacrifice." His voice grows ever more hollow.

Lacerti summons all his might, swinging his sword into the ground before him. His hair stands on end, turning to gold; as he grows discreetly taller, his muscles creak like rubber, bulging out, making him 10 percent larger, and his tattoos come to life as the inked beast hisses and roars in feral rage.

Crow claps as he watches the divine display. "I remember you now. You're the child that had stolen Ambrosia from my palace back when the door between our worlds was still open. How do you like being a Tamrian? True you're not a king, but you still enjoy most of the perks. It seems you evolved into a druid spirit . . ."

"Enough talk, Crow. Show me your steel," Lacerti demands. Lacerti's eyes roll over his shoulder, noting that Harm has taken position behind him. Lacerti feels excitement mounting; he breathes deep to keep his pulse down. He knows if he gets too excited he will wear himself out. Taking his divine shape drains his energy fast and he has little to spare. He knows both Harm and Crow have experience and age on their side. He has only his instincts and strength to fall back on; he need to defuse these two fast. With luck, his first blow will fall Harm and he can focus on Crow. But that is not likely. More likely, Lacerti is dead. Worst case he is a slave under Crow's power before this is done.

Nirak moves to Lacerti's flank, pincering him from three sides. Crow grins, knowing he is in control. Lacerti swings back one arm, elbowing Harm in the forehead; he then steps in to swing his massive sword down at Crow. Crow sidesteps. Lacerti twists off to the side, taking a second swing. Crow's arm and Lacerti's sword meet in a flash, pushing against one another. Lacerti grips his blade in both hands, lying his weight into the cleave. Crow holds strong in a hooking block.

Harm regains his balance in methodical laughter. Harm holds his hand before him, and a dozen holes rip in space. From each door pour chained spears. Lacerti breaks away from Crow to hide behind his sword, cutting the chains from the air. Another door opens in space and a monolith spirals out of the earth like a screw breaking wood--more chains, more spears, more doors, and more laughter. The vampire godchild holds his hands up in prayer, gracing his bloody mother. A chain takes Lacerti's sword. Lacerti reaches one hand down to pick up Harm to intimidate him. A spear grabs his arm, another his left leg, then his right; two grab him by the chest. Only then does Lacerti drop Harm.

But Lacerti is far from done fighting. A chain pierces each hand, drawing his arms back. Lacerti pulls against them. The chains flow into the monolith. Lacerti leans forth, marching at his foe who is grinning with mad delight. The monolith cracks and splinters as the chains cut into it. A chain finds Lacerti's chest at last; he is airborne, being flung into the stone spire.

Nirak flings her hair back in glee. Crow steps up to Nirak victoriously. "Don't be bitter. This was the only possible outcome." He teases Lacerti as he takes Nirak by the hips. She rubs her hands up his body, examining Crow. Crow rubs down her pelvic arch while moving slowly to her naughty bits. Nirak growls hungrily as her hands move to the bare skin of his face; she rears her teeth.

Lacerti sees that Nirak will eat Crow just like Crane. He howls, pulling his arms forth to shatter the monolith with intent to save the demon sorcerer; who knows what she might become with his power too.

Lacerti swings the mammoth stone, using the leverage from the chains to gather the required power. Harm sees the stone coming; he knows that his abilities are not so different from the monsters he has crafted in his own image and that he is vulnerable to his own weapons. Harm retreats into one of his magic doors to hide.

Crow stops Nirak short of kissing him to look at Lacerti. "You are more than pestiferous." Nirak is reading Crow's mind; she sneers with bitter satisfaction. Crow lifts his right hand, Nirak her left. Crow flings nightshade lightning; Nirak enters Lacerti's thoughts and orders him not to protect himself. If it were but one, he may find the strength to fight back, but between the two of them his will just isn't enough. Lacerti lets loose a long howl, fighting as long as his body will allow, but ultimately he falls to his back. Crow walks forth, holding out his chain lightning far longer than he needs to just prolong the pain. Nirak jumps giddily, cheering on Crow's masculinity.

"Cravixs! Voice from beyond the worlds, whisperer of the dead, he that is nothing, that which cannot be." Job the Endless descends onto the battlefield, wings outstretched arms held far to the sides proclaiming his approach. "You see yourself as the God of this world. You are not. You are but a echo calling to man from beyond the universe, a faint shout from across the cosmos. You are not welcome here, go. Leave this place in peace. I know your secrets. You are no god. You're not even a demi. You are an Avatar to a god long ago dead. You are powerless without your angels. Prove me wrong!"

Crow looks on in disappointment. "Job the Endless, the purest soul this planet has ever seen, swallowed by darkness nevertheless. I have taken the bold. I have taken the strong. I have taken the innocent, and I have taken the zeal. Then I took you. You were a good slave once." Crow knows Job's weakness. His body is powerful, but his mind is soft by comparison. Without need for another word, Crow's eyes meet Nirak's. Nirak gazes deep into Job; a hideous sound can be heard by only Job, and he shakes himself off in hope of escaping the sound.

Job cries out, "Take Karin and run!" This is a suicide mission Job could see that from the start. Job breaks himself apart into thousands of faceless, featureless bodies to swarm and overbear his enemies.

Crow cackles. Against a mortal man such an attack would be devastating, but against Crow, childish trickery is amateurish. How could Job think that a spell he taught him could harm him? Crow throws his arm to the side, sending out a wave of raw magic to trample the waves of bodies. Sure Job has consumed a hundred thousand dead heroes. Crow has devoured twice as many worlds. But to overpower Crow was not the idea at all.

Blake, now infested by the Ju-on called Shaun, crouches low under the bodies weaving about. Shaun has lived many lives in many creatures, and he carries the memories of each life with him into the next. He has seen Crow many times: his power, his arrogance, and his cruelty. The most he can hope to hurt Crow is to embarrass him. Shaun knows what and who Nirak/Karin is; Crow has spent most of a human's lifespan constructing this monument, this trophy. A perfectly willing and subservient being that can match his power but never undermine him is a prize worthy of any wizard king. But Shaun has the power to take that away.

In one of his early lives, he recalls a geomantic sign that would force a man into waking sleep--no memories, no ability to communicate. This was a punishment to those that used it, a human alternative to death, but easily mistakable therefore.

The combined magic of Crow and Nirak washes away wave after wave of Job's attacks, but he keeps coming as long as he can, summoning and resummoning his empty shells to throw at the god and goddess.

Blake stands up before Nirak and grips her by the arm; with a slash on his palm, he bleeds a insignia onto her face. There is a spark of light between them as the spell triggers; in one last act of rage, Nirak copies the spell onto Blake, and the two of them are blasted apart by the magical backlash. Both faint.

Crow in irritation but wholly unaware of Blake holds one hand in the air, casting a banishing spell to remove all of the souls Job had collected and drains them into himself, Crow steals Job's strength and adds it onto his own. With Karin now in a state of unlife, the burning light is gone, and all sucked into it are returned to where they had been taken, all but Crow and Job who are left alone with each other.

* * *

Crow violently picks up Job. "Where is my sacrifice!?" Job snickers, proud of his act of rebellion. "You're going to spend the next hundred years as a piece of wall art, my pet." Crow drags Job back to his pyramid in the sky. Crow makes good on his word to hang the angel from his wall, but not in one piece. Crow peels the skin from his body and stretches it like leather on a canvass. Crow looks down at his subject. "Do you know what I love about what you are?" he asks. "I can cut your heart from your chest all day and new ones will keep cropping up," he sneers. "I could fill my ice box with just you. Serve a banquet with bits of you in each entree."

Job is still awake, but he refuses to entertain his master's devious glee. The wraiths enter Crow's laboratory. "Our lord, your guest would like to see the bride."

"Tell them to return to their home worlds before I turn them all into spiders."

One Wraith looks concerned for Crow. "Was she not to your liking?"

"She was fantastic. There has just been a setback. I will have her." Crow's eyes find Job's (not necessarily in the same place anymore as he is a living wall). "The part I don't understand is how did you do it? How did you hide Nirak?" Job refuses to speak. Crow grins. "That's fine. You don't have to say a thing." Crow approaches a writing table as he pulls a set of Talus from one pocket. Harm reappears alongside his new lord. "And where have you been, you spineless vampire? Never mind, I don't care." Crow starts flipping cards onto the table. "I know you had nothing to do with this, my brother, the Sun God."

Crow laughs madly as the cards start to speak to him. He looks at Job with insanity burning in his eyes. "The Ju-on? Really? A liar and a cheat, damned from birth. Dare he stand to face me from beyond the grave one more time? Death not good enough? How about nonexistence?" Crow calls to the void, summoning the bulk of his might to perform a demonic miracle.

A hole opens in space between the towers as a negative sun forms. The towers begin to turn to dust and fall like sand through an hourglass into the heart of the shadow star. Crow thrusts back his head, flinging his hair about, crying out in malicious ecstasy at his irrefutable victory. All that the dead sun touches burns to sand. "Lois-dayO, Sal-la-day-name-O, I dare you to stop me!" He beats his hands into his chest as his magic burns the world under his feet "Come on! Do it! Destroy me! Your judgment so great, your power so insurmountable? Stop me from destroying yet another world!"

Crow holds his arms out, waiting to be judged. "Can't you do it?! What's wrong with you? Do it! Punish me! Judge me! Take me home!" But Crow's prayers go unheeded . . . "Producible." Crow starts to slump down, his energy drained by the summoning of such a powerful spell. This world is weak, it's magic miniscule.

Crow must leave this world soon to heal. * * *

(Hunter Richard Blake's journal continued.)

During the fight with Karin, I stand between Crow's feet and go undetected. I grip my sword and it's clear to drive it into his spine. I think maybe I can end this monster's rain right here right now. But a voice whispering in my ear tells me to do otherwise, tells me such a childish action would be for what. So I press on; I go after Karin. I don't understand how I did what I did. I must have been whatever Job had done to me, the thoughts, the memories, the voice, a new soul added onto my own.

I reach my hand out to Karin; I touch her, She touches me. Then there are several flashes of light. With the first she faints; with the second I am thrown to the ground, then with the last I feel her in my mind. She is sending me her final thoughts. Or so I might have thought. Something I understand now that I hadn't then is that when people with abilities like ours touch each other, there is a "transference." Momentarily, a telepath may become a clairsentient; a telekinetic might be a transporter or any other combination. For just a moment, I was a diviner.

What I see is difficult to understand and even more so to try to describe. I see an hourglass. I see clouds; time is passing. I see storms brewing. I see a tsunami, a wall of water over 90 feet tall crash onto the East Coast of the USA. I see a great fire in the sky. I see the moon fall from its orbit. I see the sun; I see the sun eclipsed by a massive shapeless glob.

Next I see Snake; he is standing at the top of a cliff. He holds his arms out and he jumps off. I see Reizuki. I see him floating. I see the serpent's eyes open in the air disembodied and a pair of feminine hands to match; they wrap around Reizuki and his eyes bleed and his skin turns white as salt. Then I see Von Richton; she is cradling a skeleton dressed in Dove's clothing. She then turns into a bird and flies away.

I see walking trees. I see Tail running on a red autumn road; the trees reach for her. I see a sword fall from the heavens. I see a bird fighting with a wolf. I see an empty city, maybe an empty world. I see Crow standing alone in the remains of the human world. I see a newspaper; it reads Geeks virus has spread on the first page. I see stars, then teeth, hundreds and thousands of teeth fluttering to the earth like snowflakes. Then I see the world shrinking, then the universe; then all that can be seen is the Void, a waterfall of putrid flesh and leech-like fangs speeding into infinity. The last thing to flash before my eyes before I'm too inebriated to see is a lonely tree sticking out of the heart of this eminent evil.

Karin, I'm sorry I couldn't save you.Richard Blake, former member of "the

Holy Order of the Von Richton Watcher's Society."

Chapter 29

Shadow Sun

"Mr. Driver, Mr. Driver! Please get up!"

El grips himself by the forehead. "What is it, Whiskers?"

"That." Juan points down one end of the hall that the three of them had collapsed in at a variable army of undead animaloids. "And that." He points the other way at much of the same.

"This might be a problem," El explains, jumping to his feet. El would like to ask what has been going on, but there is no time. The animal army is nearly on top of them; El pulls from his coat a pistol. He walks to the fray, meeting them halfway, sending forth a hail of bullets, but El is a sniper; he doesn't shoot till he knows he is going to hit. When one gun is out he pulls out another. Much of the front row of monsters are dead before they can reach him. "Stay close!" he orders Juan and Lizzet.

El is masterful at gun-play, but his hand to hand is nothing to be mocked. Once in arm's reach, he has no fear of sticking his targets to stun them prior to an excitation. As the horde falls upon them, El knees the nearest to stun it, then hammers it to the ground with his gun. A swift back kick staggers one from behind, a pistol whip keeps the next at a distance.

"Where are we going?" Juan asks.

"Does it matter?" El replies.

Juan and Lizzet are not skilled or trained combatants but are not helpless either. The advantage of fighting undead over the living is their single-mindedness, the disadvantage the same. The dead flock around, noise and warmth making them a powerful but slow-moving adversary. One's best hope in such diverse conditions is keep moving. Let them attack where you were, not where you are.

El's rampage of fist fight and a bullet dance leads them into a cafeteria. "We are going to get overrun sooner or later you realize," Lizzet points out.

"I would expect a different outcome." El seems confident.

"We don't all have your training," Lizzet protests.

"Do one of you smoke by chance?"

Juan looks at him. "Why?"

El looks at a gas valve in the corner of the room. "I can use a light."

Juan follows El's gaze and shakes his head in disbelief. "No."

"Yes." El nods. "Find me some tools."

Juan and Lizzet scatter about the room; looking around, Lizzet calls out, "I found one of those grill torches."

El calls back, "Good."

Juan yells out, swinging open the closet, "Mop." "Are you kidding?" El protests.

Lizzet rushes over to look as well. "Ice pick."

Juan looks at her. "Why do they have an ice pick in here?"

Lizzet shrugs. "To clean the freezer?"

El takes the pick; with a dozen swings of it, he smashes through the pipes, spraying gas across the room. He finds a wastebasket filled with food wrappers and sticks the touch in it to set it ablaze. Juan looks at him. "I bet you went to public school."

El looks at them. "Put your back to the wall. Stay close to me" El holds his arm to his face as he throws the burning bucket at the approaching monsters. In a flash, the pipe sends a wave of flames across the room, throwing the monsters to the ground and setting the floor aflame. A ten foot wall of fire protecting them, El pulls a string of what look like grenades from his coat.

Lizzet looks at him. "What are those?"

"Shape chargers. I'll tell you about them later. I'm going to need a few moments to set them."

"Mr. Driver, what are those things going to do?"

"Give us a way out of this place. That or blow as all the way to 'Dave Jones locker.' I would be OK with this regardless. Better than becoming a chew toy anyway," El jokes around.

RED TWILIGHT

As the wall of fire putters out, El stands alongside the outline of a door he made and triggers the charges. In a contained blast, the chargers ignite, punching a hole in the wall for them to step through.

Lizzet turns to El once through the door. "How did you learn to do stuff like that?"

"My old man was a survival fantastic." El finds a folding table and sets it over the hole in the wall. The others start picking up other objects in the closet they have found themselves in and start piling them up to reinforce the barricade.

"I hope you have more chargers. I don't see a way out of here," Juan points out.

El looks around the enclosed room. "Who makes a room with no doors?" "Someone not planning on leaving," Lizzet claims snottily.

"When I started working here, they were renovating. They just bricked up several doors in this building best as I recall. This is more or less in the wall," Juan explains.

"Why would they do that?" El looks at him hard.

"Because thirty doors a hall looks better than thirty-three?"

Lizzet jumps in. "A cosmetic decision?"

El shakes himself off as he looks at the hole in the wall. "Unbelievable."

"I hope you brought more grenades." Lizzet playfully slaps El on the arm.

Hands start reaching through the barricade at them; there is more than enough room to walk out of reach, but sooner or later the weight of the dead will push down the wall. El takes his gun and starts shooting through the barrier at them. As time passes, El lowers his gun and pulls his knife. "Always save on gas in the chamber," El remembers his father once saying, and El follows, one built left. Besides he can scarcely tell if he is doing any real damage to them. How do you know when you have killed the dead without burning them away completely?

El pushes the others back as he stands his ground, knife held backhanded and one arm up defensively. The dead pound hard on the walls. "What do we do?" Lizzet cries.

"Fight to the last breath." The barrier starts to crack. El rolls his fingers up his knife. The wall on the other side of them is pounded against. The party pulls in close to each other. It's just a matter of which wall breaks down first.

The rear wall gives way, revealing the giant Lacerti, Karin slung across his back. "Quite the posse you have out there."

"What can I say? I'm a posse magnate," El dryly heckles with his partner.

Lacerti walks over to the barricade; he sets one hand on it and starts to push against the army of the dead. Soon he is more than holding them, but gaining ground shoving them back. Lacerti's giant strength hauls the horde back to the wall. He hands Karin to El as he puts his full weight into the effort crushing the army. The wall gives out and the dead fall in droves out of the building and get sucked into the black hole; the party freezes a moment, looking out at the impossible force floating in the air. No more words are passed between the lot. The only thing left to do is run . . .

* * *

Summer kneels atop Blake, having awoken well before him. The walls are splintering; depressurization is beginning to occur in the hall in which they have collapsed. A stiff wind is pulling apart the walls around them. Summer grips Blake, shaking him. "Come on!" she shouts, pulling up hard on his coat. "I'm not going to carry you!"

Blake's eyes open halfway, but he is not awake; a ring burns into his face and spirals down to his nose, then a dash runs through it. His eyes fog over and he groans, trying to pull himself up. His body acts, but without his mind to back it up, he falls over with an empty grunt.

A phantom hand of black smoke pulls down the wall as the gravity well grows even stronger. "We are running out of time!" Summer tries again to rouse him. "I've put two friends in the ground today. I'm sick of death. Now get up!"

Another feminine voice comes from behind. "Stop wasting time. He isn't getting up. We are carrying him out of here."

Summer looks at the blue cloaked woman. "Who are you?"

"It doesn't matter," she replies. The blue lady grips Blake under one arm, lifting him upright. "Give me a hand," she orders Summer.

"What's wrong with him?"

"Have you ever read 'Sleeping Beauty'?" She points at the sign. "There's the apple."

* * *

Reizuki lifts his head to find Marks has started carrying him down the tower, Nuku and the clockwork cat only a step behind. Reizuki pulls away and slaps Marks

RED TWILIGHT

on the arm in appreciation. Reizuki walks a short way ahead of the group, then turns to face them; he is ready to ask what has been going on, but the words never come out. Instead one wall of the stairwell rips away, revealing the black sun. Quickly Reizuki's exasperation goes from thanks to concern. "Wizard, can you stop this?"

Marks freezes time momentarily, summoning the power the king of time gave him. Hundreds of shadows rise around Marks, acting out every possible recourse that he and his friends may take against the evil magic conjuring this catastrophe. He looks back as the spell wears off. "Any attempt to stand our ground will result in failure. I have not the power."

A giant hand reaches out of the sun at them. Reizuki dives down the stairs as the platform underfoot is eaten by the super-gravity. Then the hand turns to swing at Marks; Marks holds his hand out, calling down an unseen wall to protect him and the 'Nukus'. Marks calls down to Reizuki. "The demon sorcerer has not the power to sustain this calamity. He is injured and his spell will fail." "How long?" Reizuki asks.

"Too long I fear, A quarter of an hour at worst. Get underground at all cost." The hand wraps around Marks' wall of force. Lighting courses through the hand as he struggles against it. A second hand comes forth and breaks apart the stairs at Reizuki's other side.

Reizuki looks back and forth, looking for an escape path. The buildings are tipping inward and hooking around each other. It's less than a fifty-foot jump to the next building. Base jumping sounds like the plan. Reizuki pulls out the grappling gun he found earlier and takes aim--a light downward angle and fire.

The spear leaves the tip of the tool and lodges into a stone that was ahead, then retracts. Reizuki flies though the air and slams into the wall. Reizuki looks down and peels himself from the slab. "That could have gone worse . . ." Reizuki reloads the tool and looks down at the next plateau. With several shots to practice, Reizuki gets the hang of the endeavor. With steadily greater proficiency, he scales the wall, the twisting of the buildings making for easy jumping.

Strange gravity nearly drags Reizuki up numerous times. The breaking walls slowly float higher and higher. Reizuki finds himself over a rising platform. He stands and runs around to the underside, the reversal of physics allowing him to walk upside down and make the jump even farther downward.

As he makes it closer to the ground, the rules of the world start to return to something more logical. Reizuki falls through a window and finds his way back inside.

The gluttonous giant he had seen before is waiting for him. Reizuki loads the gun like tool one more time. As the monster walks to him, Reizuki fires the spear into it. "N" ties one end of the tool to a splintering piece of wall and hits the retraced button. He walks away, letting the beast get dragged into the wall to await the cruel sun to suck it away.

Now __to get back to the_ train,_ Lowe thinks to himself.

High above, Marks watches the daring escape. Once he feels Reizuki is safe, Marks starts to fight back. Marks forces out his aura, breaking the spectral hand's grip; before the force of nature has time to regain its balance, Marks holds his hand to the floor and blasts it apart to begin to fall to the lower level.

* * *

Snake wakens to a strange stillness. He walks slowly across a skyway, looking up at the miraculous hole in space. He watches as the castle in the air floats away. The world itself looks twisted, but Snake feels only calm. As if led by a power outside himself, Snake walks steadily, unhindered by the evils of this place. It seems that the monsters simply let him pass.

Water flows up; stone falls into space. The sound of silence is all around Snake as if walking through a vacuum. Snake finds a fire ladder and climbs down it, all the while pulling against the upward momentum. Time and time again, he thinks he can see Larry walking ahead of him lighting the way. Snake's walk is unearthly. Snake is by some providence allowed to simply walk down and out of the tower.

ACT III

Chapter 30

Waltz of the Watchers

Von Richton joins Joe at the local theater to watch a comical display of men dressed as animals, not entirely for amusement; he is following someone. Von Richton takes the seat next to him to whisper.

Joe starts, "You know, my favorite part of this play is how close to life it is. The man playing Asparagus over there, you notice he keeps looking at Fin-rear. Fin-rear is sleeping with Elizabeth, but Elizabeth is married to Artemeteas, Asparagus's real name, and none of them know that the others know their secrets. Did you realize that Artemeteas's cat makeup is not makeup at all?"

"We found agents Blake and Duphran. Duphran is dodging our questions.

Blake is injured. We are taking him down to the infirmary."

Joe turns his eyes to see Von Richton. "Has he told you anything?"

Von Richton whispers to him. "He was shouting about a world-eating monster and a tower reaching into the stars."

"Where had you found him?" Joe asks.

"About three blocks from where there was that plane crash a month ago," Von Richton explains.

"Any thoughts on what he might have been talking about?"

"No."

"How about his book?"

"It's nonsense. Nothing useful."

As Joe waits, a man a dozen rows ahead stands to leave part way through the play. Joe gets up to follow. "Keep an eye on them."

The shadowy man leads Joe outside and down the street till things start to look all too familiar. Joe looks around to find himself right back at the abandoned building where he had met Crow for the first time. The lights are on, and there is Crow looking down on him from the window seven floors above. Joe breathes hard a moment, then walks in.

Again a nearly empty room awaits; the two men stare each other down a moment before Crow waves Joe down. "Please be seated."

"I don't think it has been a lifetime already," Joe jokes.

"Joe." Crow sits down, putting his feet up as he places one hand to the side of his head resting. "Where is Sal-la-day-name-O?" Crow rolls his eyes slightly. "Where is my brother?"

"You mean you don't know?"

"That's what I thought you would say." Crow sits up, looking at Dove. "So let's get to the point. The world is going to end and I want someone to stop me."

"Why me?"

"You?!" Crow throws his head back in laughter. "Not you, you are going to bring me someone to fight. This is a game. I need an enemy. There are, let's say, twelve people on this planet that can fight me. You will find them and you will bring them to me. If you find them first, I leave you alone for let's say two hundred years.

You don't, in nine years everything ends."

"Find them first?," Joe whispers. "What do you mean end?" Joe asks.

"It has already begun. In two years' time there will be more of my slaves on this world than men. People will die at an unprecedented rate. The dead will feed on the living. In the last hour before I rise, the moon will fall from the sky, the sun will set never to be seen again, trees will walk, fish will talk, and your home will burn. As for you, you will see none of this," Crow monologues.

Joe jumps to his feet. "Dammit, Crow! This doesn't need to be this way! I know everything! For God's sake, Crow, you were one of us! You might have been the original Watcher! Do it again! Fight alongside me! End this war without it ever needing to find the streets!"

Crow roars demonically, punching the table before him, standing nose to nose with Dove. "This man is nothing but a body. I am God. I am the Cravixs. I will rise with the dawn. I will consume your tiny sun. You will see my majesty for I am the cosmic horror, larger than this solar system. I will devour everything. You will be nothing but my dreams in the end. Fall to your knees and worship me, coward magi."

"Make me," Joe demands.

Crow holds up one hand, levitating Dove; with a nudge of his head, Crow thrusts Joe into a wall, then drags him up it and across the ceiling. "You doubt me? You doubt what I am? I am power. Absolute power. I have seen the beginning of time. I walked the great tree from moon to moon. I flow through the never with Chaos at my back. I have seen things you can never understand. This world of yours, your small ideas, they are meaningless. I blink my eyes and a thousand years have passed." Crow drops his head, smashing Joe though the table. Dominatingly, he places one foot on Joe's chest as he gasps for air. "Make no mistake, I will do as I wish, and you are powerless! Your fate is sealed! It is not your life you struggle for. It is you soul!" Crow looks up, becoming momentarily calmed. "There are twenty-six keys that seal the door to this world. For every one of them I find, the end of the world grows closer. I have one. And already it makes me stronger. Find the others, Joseph Dove von Richton. This is your only chance to survive."

Joe gags and struggles to get out from underfoot. "Help me, Crow! For the love of your own bloodline, come back. Be one of us, a protector of this world."

The evil voice echoes from deep within Crow's body. "I admit I did find a good host, didn't I? Strong enough to withstand 'worldwalking' and the passage of five hundred of your lifetimes. I want my ring back, by the way." Crow holds his hand over Dove's chest, floating the chain out of his pocket and back into his chest. "The original of this world's gatekeepers gave this to me as a gift. It unlocks more than just that book you know. It is also the key of the mana stream. However weak, it is here."

"He gave the key to Adam Crow, not Cravixs."

"We are one and the same." Crow melts into the shadows, leaving Joe alone and beaten on the floor. Joe, struggling, reaches into his coat and calls for backup. One last sound comes from the darkness, the echoing of Cravixs' voice whispering in Joe's ear. "My brother traded his immortality for a lifetime of pleasure. Did he get a good deal?"

As Joe lies on the ground, he whispers to himself, "Yeah. Maybe he did."

Blake awakens in the hospital deep within the bowels of the Von Richton estate. A number of devices are tied to his body, all of which seem to be broken as no signal is registering. Blake sits up and looks about. Von Richton herself is sitting over him, Joe Dove standing behind her. Blake looks around, feeling himself up and down, fully aware of the horde of injuries he had sustained, but strange as it is, he seems to be in perfect health. Blake looks at Joe in fear and confusion. "Joe, what is going on?"

"Where have you been for the last three months?" Joe asks coldly.

Blake thinks about it. "You sent me on a mission. I was in New York, the Claw Co. Towers last I remember."

"I sent you on a mission, but you were nowhere near where I sent you. I sent you to Nebraska chasing Wolfins."

Blake shakes his head. "No, no, no that was my entry exam. Passed with flying colors, remember?"

"You were on leave. We were settling you in with a room when you got up and left." Von Richton comes in.

"No, that's not right. You had looked into Tail's story about being genetically engineered. She is a biological computer designed by Karingson labs. She was legit, you told me, but there were others that were housing alien DNA. You wanted me to eliminate them and find out how the aliens got here."

Von Richton hides her face under her glasses. "I have no such recollection." "You sent Hunter Duphran with me to keep tabs!" Blake becomes flustered.

Von Richton nods. "Yes, it seems Ms. Duphran was with you."

Blake looks back at the computers and points. "Why aren't these things on?"

"They are," Joe points out as he slides one hand in his coat, "but it seems there is a problem." Joe pulls a gun. "Wherever you were, you have been exposed to an alien comical yourself. You are clinically dead. Have been all day. Looks like your brain is still working but." Joe shoots Blake in the head, and he falls slowly backward. Sand spills from the wound for a time, but then slowly runs back into his body and he sits up.

Blake yells at Joe, "What the hell was that?!"

"You're a Ju-on," Joe explains, then turns to walk out of the room. "But you weren't a week ago. So . . . maybe we can cure you. Till we get this straightened out. You need to stay here." Von Richton steps out after Joe, and then the door is bolted shut.

A voice shouts to Blake, calling though two doors to reach him. "Blake!" it bellows. "You know what this means! You and I, we are going to rot here! Together!" He knows the voice; it seems his new neighbor is the demon England. "But it doesn't need to end this way! I am a wishmaster, a crossroad devil! I can get us out of here! All you need to do is ask me . . ."

Blake cuts him off, "No thanks." Blake crosses his arms under his head. "I think I'll wait here for judgment day."

"What about Tail?! What is she going to think?"

Blake rolls onto his side. "Ask me again around the turn of the century. I get the feeling I have all the time in the world to think about it."

"Blake! Don't ignore me! . . . Blake . . . Blake! You owe me!"

After a time, Blake gets up and sits against the door "England. I need to ask you something."

"What?" The demon sounds calm but distant.

"Why didn't Joe or Von Richton remember the job they assigned me?"

The demon spends some time thinking about it. "Did you see Cravixs or any of his void magis, maybe void priest?"

"Yah, I think I might have."

"Someone you know got caught in a wrinkle in time. They were erased. You shouldn't remember anything. You must have been close by when the wrinkle appeared."

"How close?"

"Within arm's reach or holding something that belongs to them. Both would give you a moment of invisibility to the wrinkles effect."

"Thank you, England."

"So what happens next, Ju-on?"

"Crow said that word, so did Dove. What does it mean?"

"It means anger. But what it means and what it is are not the same."

"I'm going to sit here and write. It's the only thing I can do. I have seen things, England, but I don't understand them. Maybe if I write down everything I saw, something would make sense."

(Blake's journal, unread.)

And so I did. I spent days writing down my every thought, my every memory, then combing through it all looking for meaning, looking for a straight-line narrative, but there isn't one. Not one I can see. I'm missing something, something big. If only I knew what, maybe I could have changed something. It's like reading a book with the first act missing. All the characters are there; there's just something missing. Where does it all start? What is the end game? I feel like I need to know, but I don't think I ever will.

After lying on my bed for a day or week--there are no clocks or windows in my room--I can feel Marin watching me at the door. I call out to her, "Is it cardinal visit time?"

"I have no idea what that is."

"Do you remember where we just were?"

"Yes. So does Tail. Is there anything you would like me to tell her?"

"Yes. Tell her I'm sorry. And tell her to run."

"I understand." That would be the last time I would hear Marin's voice. Next I need to expect I will never hear Tail's again. For that I grieve, never having told her the things I meant to. It's just like with Christopher or Pink. And with this I feel despair.

* * *

Marin delivers Blake's message, and it doesn't take her long to understand its hidden meaning. Blake is home, but he is a prisoner; he has become just another of Von Richton's playthings. As a monster, he will be experimented on. Tail has seen that done firsthand. Von Richton will find the best way to kill him. That is just what Von Richton does.

Tail waits till the end of the week acting as if she knew nothing as she is waiting for another message, but it would never come. So she packs her bag, her computer, a book bag full of clothing, Light Bringer, and her skateboard, then by cover of a moonless night makes her escape. A jump from the rooftop, a sketch off the back of a truck, then it's off to the streets--never to look back.

Then the hard part. Tail has always been an indoor pet. Her survival instincts are not as keen as they probably should be. The weather is getting colder. Tail has never seen snow or even autumn leaves. The mystery of the changing seasons will soon be hers. Tail remembers the maps she had seen at the estate; she knows where the Watchers like to travel and she knows how to keep her head down.

Tail familiarizes herself with the ways of the street urchins. She finds closed shops and shuttered buildings to use for shelter when it rains. She learns to keep her ears open and slides out windows if people get too close; she learns to stay close to the ground to stay out of line of sight of those that may wish her harm.

Even with Tail's extraordinary learning curve there are some things that lead to discomfort. The first snowfall of the year proves nearly fatal. It's more luck than anything that her fire calling has grown stronger with her. Tail is in the best shape of her life during this run to nowhere. But time and time again, she feels the call to go back home, to try to find Blake. After all to love and protect her keeper is her programming. In the end, maybe that is hardwired into all of us. Often she is cold, with little more than tears to keep her warm; a fur coat does little to heat a chilled heart.

Tail spends the long winter well off the beaten path; she finds a farmyard old and decayed to hide in during the worst of it. Her rapid aging quickly catches up with her as her brilliant red hair turns to silver in only a few months. With the thaw comes time for the unwilling pilgrimage to continue. Tail and her worn-out board are back on the road.

In the bright sunrise on a Sunday morning, Tail sees the first man she has seen in weeks, maybe months. He is a tall man with a dark overcoat; he walks with his hands folded in prayer, his face hidden by long hair. His eyes burn golden, and flowers seem to follow in the dark stranger's wake as if he called down the summer with his very presence. Tail sees only the eyes at first and drops her bag, pulling out Light Bringer. "Cravixs" is the only thing to come to mind at the sight of the traveler in the woods.

Tail thrusts her hand at the traveler, calling on her pyrokinetic, flinging a burning arrow. The traveler chuckles softly to himself as he leans off to one side and grabs the arrow out of the air; it turns to a moth in his grip, and he lets it float away. Savagely, Tail growls and steps into the traveler fearsomely, swinging Light Bringer. The traveler seems to like this game as he plays along; he tips forth the sword wrapped in red silk on his hip and grips it in one hand. As Tail gets into range, the traveler withdraws his sword, placing the butt of it to her chin, then with a quick twist taps her on the back of the head with an open hand.

Tail turns to face him, swinging her blade again. The traveler ducks under her swing; he places a foot on one of her legs, pushing it slightly to the side, then taps the other forward to trip her. Tail punches the ground, snarling; Tail jumps in to grapple him. The golden-eyed warrior tucks his sword behind his back and turns off to the side to poke Tail in the tails; as she turns to look at him, he places a hand on her arm and hooks his knee under hers and with a slight push lays her on her back.

Studying his movements, Tail can see he is playing games. Tail rolls back onto her shoulders and kicks up to her feet. She holds her sword in both hands and grinds her feet into the ground, taking a front-footed fighting stance. The warrior holds his sword overhead, tipped forward, one hand high up on the handle, the other softly gripping the butt of the sword open palmed. Tail steps in, taking an overhead cleave; the roinan drops his sword onto his shoulder, creating a ramp for Tail's sword to follow. Tail starts to fall to the side, and the Samurai twists his sword in a full-moon shape, preparing to bring it down. Tail electively goes to her knees and holds the Light Bringer in two hands, bracing it to her arm for balance. The blades meet in a flash of white light. The traveler slides his blade to the side and kicks backward at Tail as he steps around her.

Tail falls on her back. The traveler spins his sword and slides it back onto his hip. He puts down his hood and flicks his hair back. He holds his hand down to Tail to help her up. Tail locks eyes with her mutual combatant. "I was just thinking about getting pregnant."

The man before her laughs to himself, murmuring, "I might be able to help you with that." He then tips his head in brief confusion, "Do you typically start conversations that way?"

"Not what I meant." Tail shakes her hands. "Have you ever had someone walk up to you and confess that 'they're having a baby'? When that happens you are expected to say, 'OMFG, I'm so happy. We are all proud of you. Do you have a name for it?' or some variation there on. But when that happens to me, if it ever had, I would think that my first thought would be more like, 'I'm sorry. How did that happened? Did you get in an accident? Are you OK?' As if I didn't know. I mean if you really think about it, it's almost like you have an invasive parasite living under your skin, stealing half your body's nutrients. Or maybe it's like a gender exclusive STD? You wouldn't run up to one of your friends, would you, and say, 'Dude, check it out? I have Crabs,' would you?" The traveler shakes his head, laughing again, finding Tail's indulgence amusing. "You're not Cravixs, are you?"

"No, but you're not the first to think so."

"What are you then? Why do you look like him, her, it?"

"Well, that's abstract, isn't it?" The traveler thinks a moment. "If my elder brother was all that is in heaven and my younger brother was all that lives on the earth, then my twin sister and I would be all that they share between them."

Tail gasps as if she's suddenly understood. "Then you are . . ."

"Complicated?" The traveler never stops smiling. "You're damaged. You're experiencing rapid aging. I can heal you if you like."

Tail nods in understanding; she knows that she is less then fifteen years old and has the body of a fifty-year-old. The traveler pulls her into him, placing his hands on her shoulders; she sets her hands on his chest. He brings his head down, touching his lips to her muzzle; like dust in the wind, her aging form blows away, leaving behind a younger self, her hair a bright orange again, her features vibrant and youthful. Tail shivers, feeling warmer and more alive than ever before. Slowly, she pulls her head away, giving the traveler a smile in return, then licking his face playfully. "Where are you off to, stranger?"

"Well . . . I spent the better part of the last twenty years in Chiwawa, Mexico. I was thinking about banking left here and making my way to Santa Carla, California." He looks about, feeling his surroundings.

"What do you have to do there?" Tail asks, still slightly shaking from the feeling of growing down.

"Going to raise a little hell. See if I can bring a friend or two back from the dead. The standard stuff." "Need a traveling buddy?" The traveler nods.

"What should I call you anyway?" Tail asks.

"I change my name on average of once a decade. What do you want to call me?"

Tail giggles to herself, then looks up to him. "How about Mac?"

The golden-eyed man nods his head. "It's as good as any other name."

* * *

In the time they are together, Tail learns much of magic and fighting. Tail finds that as long as she stays with Mac, she is eternally young and strong. The blessings of being friends with an Avatar are plentiful. Tail never goes hungry again, never feels cold, never gets sick. His strength and immunities float onto her as if by mitosis. The two of them travel together in search of new friends, ones that are brave enough to peer into the darkness with them and stand against the impending night.

Mac is drawn by the sound of music coming from a condemned building. Drums and guitars call to him. Like a shadow, he slips in quieter than darkness itself to spy on a group of teenage girls dressed up in glam-rock outfits. He learns their names. The lead guitarist is Charisma. She is of Spanish heritage. Her hair is magenta, and she is the tallest of them. The base player is Faith; she is a natural brunette with darkly tanned skin. Lucia is the drummer. "She is a witch, a real one, but does she know it?" Mac asks himself.

As the lot of them practice their songs, Mac jumps up the banisters, humming along for a time, then when they restart, he jumps in operatically, singing in unwritten accompaniment. The lot of them stop and look up at Mac, who has taken on an almost romanticized vamperic persona.

Charisma pulls a street fighter's knife from the back of her tights. "Who the fuck is that?"

Mac smiles, thinking about it. "I am an angel come here to make your dreams come true." He turns to lighting to worps back down to ground level. Charisma drops her knife awestricken. Lucia stands up crackling with magic herself as she starts whispering a spell.

Tail calls down from where she has been seated on a window sill. "Don't waste your time. He is magic proof."

Charisma looks up and points. "Is that a werewolf?"

Tail snickers, "If I were, I would be a werefox, but no, I'm a biological computer."

Faith looks around, jittery. "All right, wishes what the catch."

Mac looks around the group. "I hope none of you are afraid of the dark. And

I've always wanted to be a member of a Casanova band."

Faith looks at him. "That first part sounded mildly important."

Tail hops down to their level. "Where Mac goes demons follow."

Mac continues, "You want money, you will have it. You want fame, I can make that happen. You want power; you will have it, all you can handle, and more." "And . . ." Lucia waits.

"Do as I say and you will live long. Fight against me, it will not end well. Because we are talking evil things will come looking for you, I can keep them at bay."

Charisma laughs at Mac. "And if we think you're full of shit?"

Lucia looks hard at Mac, remembering her time with Charlie Belmond and the trial of nightmares she survived. At last she remembers the mural of the apocalypse at the Lamia's Back. Lucia stops the others. "He's not! A lair I mean. He's a god or guardian. I think he is Thor or Ry-don." "Not anymore," Mac explains.

Faith looks at Lucia. "So which one is he?"

"They're the same person."

Under the gaze of Sal-la-day-name-O, the girls would all grow wealthy and strong. In only a few short years, they will find their names written in lights and they would hear the cries of thousands chanting their names. In their finest hours, tens of thousands would stand at their feet in one of the most beloved orchestra halls in the world, but it would be demons, not men that stand before them. Faith would be their weapon, and Sal-la-day-name-O their salvation. The man they will come to call Mac will draw his flashing sword, but that will be a tale for another day.

* * *

Joe goes to see Gallard still in the infirmary after almost a year. Gallard is a stubborn man that fights death even today. Together the two of them were proud monster hunters; Joe thinks he still is. Joe takes a seat alongside his longtime friend.

Gallard rolls his head. "You don't look well, old man."

Joe laughs. "Look who's talking. You're a walking skeleton."

"Next time you want to fight a demon wizard, bring some kids with you. Leave me in the library where old men belong." The two of them share a smile.

"Lincoln, things aren't going so well right now. The streets are a buster with lycanthrobs, and I can't find the manpower to fend them off."

"Where is your sister?"

"I'm not calling my sister."

"Why not?"

"Because no."

"So what are you going to do?"

Dove lays his head back, thinking, "We are going after El Driver and his pack. We also have a lead on the whereabouts of the Belmond." "You are talking about some dangerous peoples." "We need them," Joe goes on.

"And Ms. Von Richton?"

"That is a gamble . . ."

"You know," Gallard looks at Joe, "this sounds just like that rat problem he had all those years ago. How did we deal with that again?"

Joe takes a deep breath. "We set fire to ten square city blocks."

"Ho yes. Let's not do that again."

Joe leaves the side of his friend to find himself a drink; waiting outside for him is the old man that gave him the book White Down. Joe drops his cane to grab the old man and thrust him into the wall. The old man smiles at him, amused by his fire. "Who are you?! What do you know about this! The war! Tell me about the war."

The white-haired man places a hand softly on Dove's chest and guides him backward. "Little more than you, Mr. Dove."

"You knew about Adam Crow! You had the book! You told me about the key! Why!?" Joe pushes the elderly man again.

The old man takes it without a word. "I hoped you could bring him back. A god without an Avatar is far weaker. He was one of your men, wasn't he?" "Yep, like my great-grandfather seven centuries removed." "What did he say to you?" the old man asks.

"That we are all dead. And that the biblical apocalypse is just around the corner."

"You and I, Joe, we can beat him." The white-haired man seems confident.

"You still haven't answered my question."

"You have been trying to contact me for two lifetimes. You know who I am. But you are right. To beat Cravixs, you will need Belmond. You will also need Sal-la-day-name-O."

"How do I find him?"

"He will hide in the light of day. He loves to be admired. People will find him attractive, and when he joins the fight, men and beast alike will swoon in his presence. Besides, you were the last person to see him alive. You called him Faust. But you knew that."

Joe's eyes grow cold. "I will save this world even if I have to send us all to hell to do it . . ."

Chapter 31

Snow on the Meadow of Heaven

Reizuki falls down a flight of steps, rolling head over heels. He lands hard on his back and stares up for a time watching at the black hole. He has reached the subway, and the hole in space has consumed all four of the monoliths in the immediate area. The distance between him and the gravity well feels like it's little more than feet. Reizuki pushes his heels to the ground, crawling away as the stones at his feet break apart. His hair and clothing pull up against him as phantom hands reach for him through the darkness.

Marks swoops down, taking Reizuki by the collar, and drags him onto the train. The sun crushes into the earth, the earth pushes back, and the spell burns away leaving nothing but a crater. The buildings are gone, the courtyard between them as well as the roads all burned away, leaving little more than a footprint of industry.

Nuku turns on the power on the train and sends the lot of them soaring down the tunnel as it starts to come apart around them. The four of them easily outrun the cave-in and find their way to safer grounds.

Nuku goes back to the passenger car to meet up with Marks and Reizuki. Reizuki has jumped up onto a chair with arms overhead, swinging from the handrail. Marks sits with his legs crossed, staring across at him. Reizuki looks at Marks. "I think I have some answers coming, don't I?"

"That depends on the questions."

"What just happened back there?"

"An evil, dream eating, demi-god, sorcerer just failed at his latest attempt to use us as playthings. He had called on his most malicious of spell, and by grace of whatever power you believe in, we were allowed to escape." "And what are you?" Reizuki leans in.

"I am Dr. Marks Vigeta Karingson."

"And them?" Reizuki points at the cat and the girl.

"They are both called Nuku. The girl is a copy of me for all practicality. The cat is a walking toolbox."

"Practicality?"

"To be more fair, she is Tara Karingson, Ako Karingson, and bits and pieces of me to fill in the blank spots. You see, I didn't have the life's works of my wife or daughter on DVD like I did my own. Nevertheless, Nuku is every woman in my life."

"Remarkable."

"Reizuki, something evil is coming this way, and I need your help to fight it. The things in that tower are not contained. They're coming out, and when they do, we will fight them."

Reizuki lowers his head. "I don't know how much help I can be."

"With no weapons and no knowledge of what lies ahead, you seemed to handle yourself well enough."

"I have a condition . . ."

"I know." Marks pulls a bottle out of his pocket. "That is why I brought you this."

"Is that?"

"IM, the very drug you had gone into the tower looking for, the cure for what ails you."

"The cure for mortality?"

"No, Nuku and I brought that to the grave with us quite literally I would say."

Reizuki looks at the bottle. "Is there more of this?"

"No." Marks shakes his head. "And no way of making it either. All the notes on IM were in the tower as well as the man how had synthesized it in the first place."

"Destroy it." Reizuki groans. "The contents of that bottle have no more place in this world than the monsters we killed."

Marks watches him, waiting to see if he changes his mind. "I'm talking about a cure."

"We are what we are. That makes us different from them. They are monsters.

We are men. We must embrace that which makes us who we are."

Marks looks disappointed. "You keep it. Just in case you change your mind."

Reizuki hides the bottle in his sleeve. "How did you know what I came here for?"

"Your employer told me." The train slowed to a stop at a section above ground, miles from the tower or even from the city--a lone stop with nothing but a helicopter pad and a wall to mark the spot. A hovercraft of military make is waiting for them as the train comes to a stop. Walker is waiting for them in the doorway in his snakeskin suit. Reizuki looks aggravated.

Walker yells to Reizuki, "Come, we have much to talk about." The moon seems to lower in the sky to cast its shadow over him. Reizuki stands and steps out of the train.

Reizuki's hands fall deep into his pocket as he looks across the field to him. Walker holds his hand out, inviting Reizuki over. Reizuki shakes his head. "No, I think not." Reizuki turns to walk off into the wilderness alone.

Marks approaches Walker. Walker looks at Marks in ponder. "So . . ."

Marks lowers his eyes. "The future is unclear."

"Are you going to follow him?"

"There would be no point. He is more trouble than you." The old doctor and the young politician share an uneasy moment.

* * *

Reizuki walks for a day and a night, thinking hard about what he has seen. Even though the horror is behind him, his mind is still scarred by what he has seen. Reizuki wonders about what yet might be there. If all that he had seen had truly been there, then what else has he failed to consider? The world just got bigger and not in a way that he likes.

The day grows cold as he continues his walk, and with the setting of another sun comes in unseasonal snowfall. Overwhelmed by the unexplained he has seen, Reizuki finds a tree to fall on and stares into the night-sky. Snow half covers his body as the night rolls by. Reizuki doesn't feel the cold; that ability he has lost. Time starts to slip away.

The squeaking of birds pulls Reizuki from his rest and in flickering light catches his gaze. Reizuki dusts himself off and follows the light. The smell of burning pine hastens his step. Reizuki exits the woods to find a pasture and small house in the distance, flames sweeping across the grass. Reizuki pulls his phone from his pocket and calls the first number to come to mind. He doesn't wait for any questions; he keeps it brief. "W, I need emergency services. Follow my GPS." He sticks his phone back in his pocket and starts to run across the burning field.

Reizuki doesn't feel the flames, but he knows they're there. He runs with all the might he can find, as he runs into the door of the house now harshly in flamed. The door comes off the wall with hardly any effort. What was once likely a comfortable home is now a hell-scape; the second story is crumbling away at the first, the fire nearly tainting Reizuki as he looks for signs of life.

He looks left to an impassable wall of ash. He looks right to the kitchen now inhabited by the upstairs bedroom. He looks ahead to a stairway that is breaking apart. For the briefest time, a voice calls to him. Reizuki runs up the stairs without another thought.

The walls fold up around him as he runs; Reizuki pushes his way past. On the second floor, the ground has half given away, but he can see one door not yet in flames and he makes his way to it. Reizuki is aware of the heat all around him, but he cannot sweat. A swift kick and the door opens for him. For a moment, Reizuki thinks he sees a flaming demon atop a child's bed, but it seems to vanish as he steps into the room.

Reizuki dashes over to the bed to find a girl on it, not possibly over ten, her body blistered from the flames, all signs of life nearly faded. He pats the flames from her body and scoops her up. The flames creep into the doorway, threatening to cut off their path. Reizuki pays no heed as he runs back out the door. He takes the girl back to the woods and lays her in the snow. He turns to run back to the house to search for more tenants but stops as he sees what can only be described as burning wings entwining the house and eating it away.

Feeling nearly defeated, Reizuki falls to his knees and watches the house get spirited away well before rescue can arrive.

* * *

EMTs and fire separation teams arrive on scene with little left to do, but stomp out some brush fire. The child is taken away by the EMT; Reizuki follows along. The doctors have questions of course; Reizuki is talented at avoiding them, that job being made even easier with his ignorance of where he is as he has walked with his head down for nearly three days.

The town where care is first delivered fails to have the tools on hand to deal with such injuries; the two of them are sent over to the next town. Reizuki is informed that the burns on the girl are deep and it is unclear if she will recover at all. She is listed as a Jain Do. Reizuki is asked to take over as her medical confidant.

Reizuki is quick to look for all possibilities in treating the young one. But second opinions seem to be in short supply. Reizuki shares with the medical team the formula he had seen for IM. He is told it is a myth. So he shows them the bottle. "This is in untested drug," the first doctor points out as they're seated in an office.

"You are aware of that?"

"Yes." Reizuki is to the point.

A second looks over the formula Reizuki had drawn up. "I don't see how this could be managed. Just look at the stats." She waves her hand across the chalkboard. "No one has a drug like this, and without FDA approval, we aren't allowed to use it even if it were real."

"It's real. I have it and I want you to use it." Reizuki starts to get flustered.

The first doctor tips his head back. "I just don't know."

Reizuki slaps his hand down. "Can you or can't you help her?"

The second looks at him. "We can only try."

Reizuki is led out of the room. He walks down the halls and falls to his knees, his head in his hands. Reizuki is nearly weeping from overexertion. "I don't understand. I just don't understand," he mumbles as he squeezes the sides of his head.

Marks seems to fade into reality, standing over him. "Didn't I just tell you there is a war coming? Who is going to fight in this war if you're not here? The little girl?"

Reizuki stands up. "And who am I to you? Just another body? Why not leave the fighting to more capable hands? Gods and devils, robots and who knows what . . ."

"It needs to be you, Reizuki." Marks grips him by the arm.

Reizuki thrusts his hand off to the side, pushing Marks away. "Who are you? Who was he?" Reizuki alludes to Walker. "Why do you need me?"

"You and yours are the first line of defense against invaders from another realm, and he is the next. A guardian who will lead the last resistance against our foe."

"Enough!" Reizuki yells. "I don't believe you!" Reizuki points off to the side.

"Go! Just go!"

"I'm sorry, Reizuki. I wish I didn't need to be this way."

Reizuki points again. "Go."

* * *

Marks' medicine works. The girl recovers in full, maybe even better than before. "N" calls "L" to bring her to the academy. She is due be trained just as Reizuki was; Reizuki calls her Mirror. The academy calls her No. 25251, some day to be the next "N" as by his wishes.

As for Reizuki, his next stop is to see "K" even if for the last time. "K" has been kept in an island stronghold with heavily armed guards watching him day and night under the orders of the Letters. As Reizuki approaches, he pulls off from around his neck a monogrammed chain with a crystal ball the size of a marble with his letter in it. The guards know him and his symbol well.

Reizuki is allowed only as far as the common room, where he is asked to wait for Ichi Kogotana, the Letter "K." Ichi is a tall man for a China boy; his hair is two-toned, black fading into tan. He dresses in a white jump suit and his hands are bound inside an anvil he totes in front of him. Two guards stand over his shoulders, watching him even now. Reizuki sets up a chess game as he awaits his one-time friend and partner.

"K."

"N." The two of them step into each other, Reizuki placing his hands over Ichi's shoulder to hold his friend. "It's been some time." "It has." The two of them step away.

As the game begins, Ichi whispers his move to one of his guards to play for him. "To what do I owe the honor?" Ichi smiles, looking at "N."

"K, do you believe in evil?" Ichi chuckles, shaking his head at the irony. "I mean it."

Ichi stops his giggling. "You mean like capital 'E' evil?"

"Yes. Ichi, I have seen things, things I don't want to confess to, things . . ."

"You don't think I understand?" Ichi asks. "I remember back at the academy, 'B' once talked about a case she had worked. She was chasing an assassin. His name was Osu, I think. 'B' told me he had the power to make people do things, things she didn't believe they were capable of. I think Osu was real. I have felt that way. 'N,' I have felt like someone was inside my skin, making me do things."

"Is that so?" Reizuki bites one finger. "What was it like? What did you see?" Reizuki nearly lies on the table, getting ever closer to Ichi.

Ichi closes his eyes. "The first time I killed I thought I saw a winged skeleton standing over me heckling, egging me on, and from the time I bagged my second Letter, the skeleton was always standing in the shadows, watching, giggling. Even as I lie down at night to rest there he, she, is standing in the corner of my room, waiting to see me do it again. It gets to be more fun with each kill."

"Do you know if other can see this skeleton of yours?" Reizuki tips his head in ponder.

"No one has ever confirmed it but . . ." He stops.

"What?"

"I think, if you buy into the heaven-hell thing. Anyone that has been claimed can see something of the sort." Ichi nods.

"Do you see anything on me?"

Ichi looks past Reizuki into the distance. "Over there, on the wall, twenty-five feet up and a dozen yards that way. A girl in a shrine outfit with yellow snake eyes, she is looking at you." Reizuki spins in his seat, looking for the girl Ichi pointed out, but there is no one in sight. "Maybe you haven't sinned enough." Ichi shrugs.

"I'm going to try to keep it that way."

"But why are you asking about that?" Ichi looks concerned for his partner.

"You ever been to Claw Co. Tower?"

"Never heard of it."

"Really?" Reizuki looks puzzled.

"Go on anyway."

"I don't know if it is important, I guess."

"It's a three-day bus ride from the academy to here. You had something to say."

Reizuki spends a long time in silence, looking at his partner. "Maybe I didn't. Maybe I just came here to say . . . I forgive you." After finishing a game of chess in frightful silence, Reizuki makes his leave, making the long walk back to land.

* * *

Reizuki goes back to his room at the school at long last, still unclear if the last days of his life were really there. His room is a montage of what his life might have been if he were a different person. A pinup of a wolf painted by one of his favorite artists is the centerpiece of one wall: It's a white wolf chasing the moon in a snowbound valley. A poster of the singer Mayaa Sakamoto makes up another wall core.

Reizuki turns on his record player in his room and jumps up on his bed. Lining the ceiling are dozens of mask of all sorts: demons, angels, and beasts of all the like. Reizuki tips back his head, leaning on the wall. For the first time he can remember, he feels real sleep setting in. Lightly his eyes close and he falls over. Thoughts of a better world invade his mind, a world where there is no need for men like him, a world he wishes he could be a part of . . .

Chapter 32

Evergreen

El makes his way to the truck, his partners by his side, the others being cared overhead. The two girls are tucked into the backseat as the men go round front. The engine revs and they're back on the road. At last, El looks at his partner, and the two of them share words for the first time today it seems. "Karin?" El asks in a single word statement.

"Wounded in combat, a biological pathogen," Lacerti tells him, then looks back with his own inquiry. "Is that . . . ?"

"Lizzet Jacobs." El rolls his eyes over to his partner with a meaningful glance. "This is the last mile together, hmm?" Lacerti nods to him. "So then what happens next?"

"I'll take Karin, Jude, and Lizzet with me. I'll find Lance and bring the others to a guy I know that might be able to help Karin."

"A friend?"

"No, but someone. There is someone that we share a common distaste for. Maybe that will buy me a favor."

"A fellow god?"

"Something like that."

El looks forward. "I've been thinking about this whole god thing. For you, I understand magic is magic and technology isn't, but what if these things you call gods are really just men like you or me? Well, me at least."

"I don't follow."

"If I were to somehow find my way back to 1492 with my knowledge of chemistry, don't you think I would look, well . . . divine?"

Lacerti thinks about it. "That is a powerful argument. But I don't know of any way to move through time but forward at normal speed."

"What if this Crow character we have been at odds with was just an alien?"

"That doesn't make him any less threatening." Lacerti sighs. "I want you to take Nile and go to your father's summer home."

"Jamaica?"

"Yes. Leave Giggly over there with Double to learn the ropes of the town, then just go. Wait for me to come and get you."

"OK. If that's what's going to happen, then so be it."

* * *

The two war dogs have nothing left to say. Once back at Vern, Lacerti takes the truck, grabs his human cargo, and is off. El takes a week to give his friends and followers their last orders. He then takes Nile, a bag full of clothing and one filled with silver and gold, and makes his way to the shipyards. El smuggles Nile on board, and they're off, the life of a "professional" behind them.

The life of a civilian doesn't rest well with El at first: He sleeps with a gun in hand; he wakes up after only three or four hours of sleep and needs to lift weights or runs to get back to sleep. Nile sleeps with him. She is the epiphany of Dr. Karingson's creations; she is just what he and Dr. Vixon had in mind: A computer that can feel, can love, is just as human as you or me.

Nile is the key to El's new life. She cooks for him three days a week. He cooks the other days. She cleans, takes care of him, and asks so little in return. Nile teaches El about technology, new phones, the marvels of the Internet and an assortment of other things. Nile is a perfect mother figure for El.

Life goes on that way for some time. El works out in the morning and goes on with his training. But when he is done, Nile has a warm house waiting for him to come home to. El can't seem to help but feels like he is living in the dream world of his youth.

Early one windy morning, El makes the long walk into town to visit the book emporium with a list of books Nile has requested; largely his search is a bust. El looks at the man in the rainbow cap at the desk with a list in hand. "So you don't have Rusty __Bed-springs by Nightly, IP?" The clerk shakes his head. "Or Meteorology_ Studies_ with Professor Overknight, Cloudy?" He shakes his head again. "Can you send for them?" The confused shopkeeper tries looking the books up on his database

RED TWILIGHT

but doesn't look hopeful. "How about WhiteSnake by Rection, Hue G?" One more shake from the now giggling clerk. "'A Gentlemen's Guide to the Golden Age,' By Neil Evens and Robert Call . . ."

El takes the books he can find and makes his way home. As he walks in the door, Nile is hard at work, making food. The smell of banana wraps steaming and onion stir-frying is strong in the air; roasted garlic tops it off and the sweet smell of honey-dipped chicken is hidden softly under it all with only a touch of peppermint for spice.

As El approaches her, he sets down the book bag; she sways her hips, dancing to a tune only she can hear. Nile runs up to El and jumps into his waiting arms, hooking her legs behind his back for balance as she licks his face.

El rubs her muzzle. "Good morning, Nile."

"Did you find those books?" She gives him one last kiss.

"NASA Mooned America, yes, Painful Questions: a Critical Look at __9 1_ 1,_ yes, When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops,_yes, _The Ninja's Handbook, yes, Jim Davis

Nine __lives, yes, Are You Hungry: the Definitive Look at_ the_ Eating Habits of Kings,_yes, _White Snake, no, Rusty bed Springs,_no, _Meteorology Studies, no. Sorry. The gentlemen's guide, no." El reads down the list for her.

"So you weren't able to find the book by Hue G. Rection?" She giggles. "Or IP Nightly? And no Kneel and Bob." "No."

"But you did ask?" She laughs softly to herself.

"Sounded like they're out of stock." El holds up one hand to stop Nile from talking as one of his ears twitches, disturbed by what he doesn't hear. The birds outside have stopped chirping. "Nile, go downstairs." El steps up to the pantry door and reaches round it, retrieving an M.P. 12 Gauge Tactical Shotgun.

Nile's eyes go wide as he starts to load the firearm. "What are you doing?"

"We are under attack."

"By who?"

"It doesn't matter. Eight men, lightly armed, my first thought a UN death squad. Can't be sure." El pulls out his K-bar (combat knife) and tucks it under his arm. Nile rounds the corner and slips down the steps to hide.

El walks crouched out to his parlor. A man dressed like a secret service agent is strolling with a gun of an unknown make held at a high ready stance. El is faster, smarter, and better trained; El walks up alongside the SS looking man and smashes him under the chin with his shotgun, then punches him in the back of the head with the butt of his knife to make him kneel, then a swift kick to the arm to make him throw his gun away and a falling drive to the chest to crush his ribs and end the fight. El picks up one of the hands of his prey and notices a marking on his palm--the capital letter "W" with two rings around it.

A second man steps into the room and calls out, "El Driver! Freeze!" From his crouched position, El quick-draws his shotgun and fires it into the invader's chest; he never stands a chance. El takes the guns from the two of them and hides them in his coat, which he picks up as he steps into his bedroom. El considers picking up his body armor but feels tightening it into place would cost time he doesn't have.

A quick glance around his room and he is off to the library. Stepping in through the window is a young woman in a Washington black overcoat. El rushes over before she has time to gain her footing and thrusts his forearm against her neck, slamming her into the wall. He pulls his Jackal from his pocket and sticks it into her ribs. "Who are you?" El whispers.

A second voice comes from behind, that of a husky British woman. "By god, you're spry for an old man." El feels himself get shot in the back. He starts to turn to face the voice and gets shot a second time; El collapses, seeing only the legs of a women in red standing over him.

* * *

El awakens in what looks like a footlocker. Small air vents cut into the ceiling; he is lying on his back. His head is spinning. That wasn't live aim he was shot with but a tranquilizer. Pressed to his chest is an attaché, but there is no room to move about. He seems to be dressed in his combat armor--Tetsiga on his hip, knife strapped to arm, Jackal tied to his thigh.

A phone is pressed to the side of his head open and on. The voice of the British woman from his house comes over the speaker. "Good morning, Mr. Driver. The way I hear it you are the greatest warrior in history to wear a flag on his arm, next to Steven Rodgers may haps."

"I don't know who you are, but if you want my advice you had best put some bullets in me right now and enough to make sure I don't get up. You know who I am, so surely you know what I do. I have training suited well to taking down and killing warlords like you."

"You have no idea who I am . . ."

"I'll find out."

RED TWILIGHT

"And what do you think will happen to your children when you do?"

El becomes agitated. "What are you talking about?"

"You mean you don't know? Well, that makes this interesting, doesn't it?"

As fate would have it, El Driver has at least one last mission. Find the British woman then find Nile . . .

* **

Lacerti is unaware of the danger that has befallen El; he instead goes about his plan. He takes Jude and Karin to Walker,( a powerful warlock of Lunoreon ancestry and fellow immortal) for protection and healing. Then he goes out to find Lances Jacob, a task that takes him nearly two years by itself. Lizzet is returned to her father's waiting arms in the dead of winter in the city of Vatican. Lances has changed. He has grown old and grizzled; he has become a Paladin of the Jesuit. And times have come to call for men like him. The evils once hidden by the vial of night now flourish in the light of day.

Lacerti recalls Meyu Darklair prophesying a time like this. He and the other guardians would see the line between light and dark turn to mist, and at that time, they would know that the kings of Tamriel will return and the war of the brothers will draw to a close. But what if, he thinks to himself as Lizzet runs to her father, what if wecould change the outcome? Could the world live without gods? Could we stand against the kings and banish them _altogether?_Lacerti must sleep in the holy land of his birth, then track down the other defenders of this realm for their guidance.

* * *

At long last Lacerti returns home, Athens; time and time again he is shocked to see how the world changes around him. When he was born, this plot of land was boar slop. Only a lifetime ago it was a church; now he comes home to a pile of rocks in a state park. Lacerti begins to bury himself under the stones to rest. His mind is in a state of unrest from the thought that he may awaken to find everything has changed. Maybe he will never again be in the service to the Lay family; maybe he will awaken to a world wherein Crow rains. "How close is the horizon?" he asks himself. "All the power I have, is it enough to change the world?"

Before the turn of the last age, Lacerti and his kinsmen were different people. They were proud warriors that walked in the light of day, praised and worshipped. Once people called him Hercules, once they called him Gilgamesh, once he was a defender of this realm, but now the world itself is growing weary, and he needs to sleep longer and longer every decade to heal from his wounds. Gaia is not being kind to him; maybe earth itself has grown ill.

As his bed is made, a voice from long ago calls to him. He knows the voice well, even though the two of them have not seen each other in over a thousand years. "Gilgamesh, I heard your thoughts. I came as quickly as I could." It's the steel angel Vigeta, at least in body. Lacerti can see past the skin to what lies beneath.

"Dane, the blade of Cronos, I see you found a new body."

"The children of the god of time were kind to me. Dr. Karingson is a worthy successor for his ancestors," Vigeta explains.

"Dane, you, me, Meyu, and Sal-la-day-name-O, we bested Cravixs once. Can we do it again?"

"The word is dying because of what we did then. This realm was not meant for our kind. We might beat Cravixs. But I don't know if we can save the world." Marks folds his hands into a diamond shape over his midsection as he thinks. "I will use Marks. I will do what I can to ready us for the last battle. But my vision and Meyu's are as one. You and I are not likely to prevail. Do you want to fight nevertheless?"

After a long groan, Lacerti nods. "Yes. I want to fight."

Vigeta smiles. "As do I."

Chapter 33

Fall

There is no music in the car as Snake leaves the bright lights of the East Coast and drives to the central Mid-West, with nothing but the sounds of the highway to keep him company. His phone rings; he tosses it out the window. There is no one left on this earth that he wishes to speak with. Whispering in the back of his head as he drives is Larry, not the nightmare he saw before or the idealistic phantom with his voice, but instead a memory. For all his life up to this point, everything has been about him and Larry and what they want. Now there is just Snake, and the silence left in his heart is deafeningly loud.

The miles seem short, his mind a fevered rage of uncertainty. But only one thing seems right. Go through with Larry's final wish. Snake finds his way to the town where he and Larry had planned to cross the border. He remembers the path; he might have done this blindfolded. He goes into a pawn shop and sells everything he has, right down to his overcoat; he even sells his car to them for just over $5,000. Then he heads to a sporting goods shop to pick up camping gear: a lamp, bed roll, insulated clothing, rope, an ax, a life vest, and some O2 tanks. After paying his bill, Snake walks out to the parking lot, pulls the cash out of his billfold, slides it in to the travel bag he picked up, and burns the rest.

Snake spends the day looking over the falls. He stands there till the dead of night. He doesn't say a word to anyone. As the moon centers itself in the sky, Snake is left with only the glow of a light overhead to keep him warm. Snake places his feet up on the handrail he had been leaning on; he holds his arms out and dives into the falls.

The life vest gives him the strength to pull along his hefty bag as he swims upstream. He comes out of the water on the Canadian coast and runs off into the great white, Snake never wishing to be seen again.

Snake loses his name and identity. He becomes a mountain man. Snake builds himself a house off the fat of the land and earns a living cutting wood. Snake could have been happy without the temptations of the outside world for a very long time . . .

Snake's isolation was not meant to last. As if on the wind one day as he cut logs for a fire, the ghostly image of Marks Karingson appears before him. "Hello, Snake," he commences with pleasantries.

Snake sets down another log. "Leave me alone."

"Snake, I need you."

Snake swings his ax. "Go to hell."

"Maybe I'm not being clear . . ."

Snake throws his ax to the ground. "Maybe I'm not being clear! Go away!"

Marks closes his eyes with a light smile. "Snake--"

Snake cuts him off again, "I know what it is you want. You want someone to play superhero with you. OK, I get it. In the last month, I played IRL punch-out with the Xeno from Redly Scot's 'Alien.' I played the part of Shaun Cannery in 'From Russia with Love' and broke into a paramilitary facility and pulled a major John Wayne by dodging artillery fire the whole time. But if you're looking for the Gekks that likes FPS games and comic books, you want the Gekks I pushed off the sixty-fourth story of an uptown high-rise."

"Why do you have to make this so difficult? Snake, I can bring your brother back," Marks explains.

"I find that unlikely."

"I need your help, Snake."

"Go bother Reizuki." Snake picks his ax up again to cut more wood.

"Do you understand why I came here?"

"Not really."

"That evil, it is not contained. It will come after you again."

"I can handle that. I've beat them off twice."

"This is only the beginning. You haven't seen but 10 percent of the beast. This thing eats worlds."

RED TWILIGHT

Snake holds up one finger. "Stop right there. I'm not very good at chemistry or whatever, but I do seem to recall something that sounds vaguely important, mass equals energy, right?"

"Mass squared. It's part of . . ."

"Don't care. Now if you're talking about a monster big enough to eat a universe like a bag of M&Ms, then that means you and me, and all this out here is nothing."

Marks reaches out, placing his hand on Snake's head. "This was so much easier in the middle ages." In a flash of light, Snake vanishes into the unknown. Snake is now Dante and Marks is his guide Virgil as the two of them begin on yet another quest together. With Marks as his protector, Snake descends into his own inferno not to emerge till the time of the final battle against the darkness. One can only hope that Snake will grow strong on this journey.

Chapter 34

The Man Called Devil

The world is a rapidly changing place. The Gekks virus has gotten loose and the streets are ever a mist with monsters and demons. This phenomenon has led to the birth of a new type of man. "Hunters" are what they call themselves. Hardly a new job but one that has only now for the first time found its way onto the streets.

A time of fear has come to pass and those with strength and courage have risen to meet the challenges of the day. Sometimes those men are monsters themselves as is the case with David Jazzmen, a world walker from the realm of Dis, the place of suffering it is claimed, who has hidden here from his masters. Now he brandishes his steel for coin and slays in the name of man.

Jazzmen has lived on this world for the last twenty or so years. In that time, he has taken a shine to antiques, art, and taxidermy. His shop is equal parts of all three. The walls of Jazzmen's Antique Bizarre are lined with all sorts of oddities, ranging from artwork depicting graphic sadomasochism to dead monsters he has hunted and stuffed to goddess sculptors. His clothing is as impressive as his shop; Jazzmen wears an overcoat covered by the skin of a giant toad with an inner fur lining from a flesh-eating bat with bone clasp. The coat is dyed red; he has chaps to match. His belt is chain-link with the skull of a vampiric cat as the buckle, and he has a green uncut gemstone around his neck the size of a small human hand. He likes that because it glows the same color as his eyes.

The man himself is a spectacle as well; his skin is an ash white. His hair is shoulder length and brilliant white like fire; his hair hides what looks like snake scales crawling up his back and collar. This is as human as he can make himself look; when he is in his natural state, he has horns, fangs, and a throned tail to match

DUSTIN FEYDER

his demonic heritage. As a hunter, you need tools. Jazzmen's are as out of this world as he--three guns; two are that act like the semiautomatic pistols used by special forces units and one like a tactical shotgun, his last a sword with segmented blade that can shape-shift into a handful of multitude of other weapons, a scythe and ax amongst them, all powered by a thermal battery that feeds off the environment. The further from zero, the faster the bullets and the heavier the blade.

Jazzmen stands in the upstairs bathroom of his shop, which is also his apartment, touching up his makeup before opening his shop for the day. Powder covers the scales on his neck, and he tightens up his coat, covering them best as he can. Then he adds some gloves to his outfit to hide the idea that his fingernails are made of silver (so it would seem). Narcissistically he kisses his mirror before walking down and opening shop.

As he unlocks the door, a man in a gas mask pushes his way in. Jazzmen jumps out of his way, letting him in. "Here for the early bird special?" Jazzmen jokes with him. "You know, if it's GV you're worried about, that mask isn't going to help you."

The graying man looks at Jazzmen as he takes off the mask. "My god, you're only a child yourself."

Jazzmen places his hands on his head as he walks over to his desk. He places one foot on the chair and kicks it from side to side like a soccer ball for a moment before spinning it around and taking a seat. "I'm almost two hundred years old.

How about you, geezer?"

"Are you a hunter?" the man asks almost panic-stricken.

Jazzmen points out the dead monsters around his shop. "I don't know?" He pushes his chair over to a half-snake half-bear-like demon. "What do you think, Paul? Am I a hunter?"

The older man walks to the desk and pounds his fist on it, placing a pile of cash down. "Well, if you are, I need you, and I can pay $200 per tooth you rip out of the mouth of a little someone for me."

Jazzmen stands up and walks back over to the man at his desk. "$200 per tooth? Why?"

"I have a girl, and this beast is trying to turn her into one of them."

"In times like this, turning someone to a monster is easier than stealing their virginity. What seems to be the problem?"

The old man smiles evilly. "What are you scared? Not strong enough to take the job?"

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Jazzmen jumping to his feet wrap one hand around the caller of his client then hoist him into the air with the utmost of ease. "Don't even worry about that. I'm strong enough for you. But I get bored of slaying Tarrens (the word hunters now use to describe humans suffering from GV). I'm not interested in little fish, you see. I'll take your job, but you better be ready to double down if this isn't something fun to hunt." Jazzmen reaches into his client's pockets and takes his billfold. He finds a photo. "Is this the girl?" Jazzmen drops the old man.

A soft nod and then they're out the door. The two walk out side by side, out of the door of "Devil's Antiques" and onto the streets. In the last year, things have changed irrefutably. Men in what looks like a fusion of plate-mail and radiation gear walk the streets with flags tied to their arms, touting military-class firearms, the emblem of a three-headed dog on their backs.

Jazzmen's client has placed his gas mask on again. Jazzmen feels no need for such things. "Is your daughter impotent?" David asks the older man.

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"Is she burin?"

"Why ask . . ."

"Women with lower hormone differences or that are prepubescent are resistant to demonic influence, and virgins are 50 percent more likely to recover from possession. So if she is without child, there is a chance I can bring her back alive," David explains.

"And if not?"

David never answers. "Take me back to your place," he orders instead. "This Cerberus teams are a godforsaken curse on this place."

It's a long walk to the client's home. His house is typical for a Mid-West, middle-income man. The child's room is something odd to Jazzmen; the room is painted up and decorated like that of a six-year-old's, not a teenager's. David digs around in the cabinets a short time and finds a stack of papers out of place. What looks like were once brightly lit paintings have been slapped over darker images with a lone recurring theme--a snake within the chest of all human images.

Jazzmen mumbles to himself, "Toe-kira. Old man, what is the girl's name?"

"What is Toe-kira? Cheyenne."

"A Phagion parasite. Crawls in through any hole it can find in the body, sleeps in the belly, eats the brains. Have no fear, Mr. Clint. I'll do what I can." Jazzmen has read his name off his credit card when he has searched his pockets.

"Do you know where she is, Devil?"

DUSTIN FEYDER

He thinks for a moment. "If she is alive? Up to her waist in salt water being force fed tobacco leaves and having her bloodstream pumped full of yeast. If not, she is out looking to steal the DNA of some other bleeding heart, then lying eggs in them and eating their brains." "Why?" Clint asks.

"To tenderize their food." Briskly, Jazzmen walks away.

* * *

Jazzmen goes back to his shop to pick up his bike and a handful of books. It doesn't take but an hour or so to find what he needs, then a quick flip through the local Atlas and he knows everything he needs. Jazzmen's father was familiar with the behaviors of most of the monsters of the land called Phage. This one likes water, staying near it even when hidden in a human body; it will go to the beachfront to breed. It likes shadows and will likely store its prey under the docks. Males will live in a male body and will proffer to hunt female bounty. Females will try to mate before killing since it can change the genetic makeup of its host to make itself compatible with any other animal. if threatened. They will abandon their human skin and try to hide in water or sand. All and all, an easy kill.

* * *

Early evening, the sky is red. In the waters of South Beach, surfers are getting in their last curls before the moon rises. The waters look a rusted glossed-over pink under the early evening skies. Three groups of two couples gather under the fishing pier to watch the moon brighten the sky. All are young with perfect skin and well-covered faces. All but one in the lot that looks homely, normal so to say. Vials of what looks like some magic potion pass around the lovely men and women before finding its way into the hands of the innocent "normal girl."

She takes a sip after much encouragement. The others all cheer for her. She takes another and starts to look dizzied, and the others clap and cheer again. A red-haired boy she calls Nate leans into her, offering a little kiss in congratulations; she falls over. Most of the onlookers start to become excited at this point and start feeling each other sensually. Nate moves over the drunken girl and helps her out of her shirt. She giggles weakly.

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David Jazzmen jumps down from the dock, landing nearby. "Of all the monsters in all the worlds you could have been, you had to be an egg-sucking spineless worm of a snake." Jazzmen looks around them, sniffing the air slightly. "Not a very good percentage of girl to worm here, is there? Eleven snakes to one girl? That's fine for a breeding ball, but supper?"

Nate looks up as his snake is just starting to peek out of his mouth; he sucks it back in, swallowing hard. "Who are you? The night watchman?"

One of the others, a sandy-haired girl, walks backward, shaking her head as she looks him up and down. "I know who that is. That's king Dis' fourth son. Devil."

Jazzmen grips his hefty two-handed sword with one hand, draping it off to the side, and pulls one gun with the other, then cocks it with his teeth. "I see at least one of you is enlightened. But I go by Jazzmen these days."

The girl that recognized David leans forth and starts vomiting, spitting up a flesh-toned snake-like beast five feet in length with a quad-jointed mouth and long fangs. Jazzmen points his gold-plated gun, which has the word Alabaster signed on it in his native tongue. He pulls the trigger, and the gun clicks, firing off a bolt of burning air seemingly. The Toe-kira turns to ash wind struck and breaks apart, leaving only bone.

Six others turn to run; Jazzmen thrusts his sword into the ground and pulls his second gun, this one with Ivory written on it. He throws both guns in the air, juggling them a moment, then shoots down those fleeing with the same result. The three remaining turn their bodies inside out, and their bones crack and turn, jagged like spiked armor, the parasite clearly tied around the spine and flattened like a heartworm.

Two dash at Jazzmen and try to tackle him; Jazzmen drops Alabaster and grips his sword in his hand, twisting in a 180 and swinging it backhanded. One beast explodes mid-stride. Jazzmen drops Ivory and reaches into his coat for his shotgun, named Dike, and places it into the ribs of the other charger. David pushes in and down, dropping the monster to its knees, and takes his shot, the gun in its ribs tearing it apart.

All this taking but the blink of an eye, Nate, the last of the monsters, stands quivering. Jazzmen strides to him, his sword tucked under his arm, his shotgun at his side. "What are you?!" Nate falls over, crawling away, crying.

"I am David Jazzmen, the man called Devil . . ."

Chapter 35

Circles

It's mid-day. You sit down to a meal at a bar you have been too many times; you take a corner seat with your back to a window. The sun pours in warmly; a crowd gathers for their noon meal. Most of the faces about you have seen before. One seems to stand out, a man you haven't seen. He is old and mysterious-looking; he has a duster-style overcoat like something out of a Western movie. It is made of black leather. It has stars on the collar like that of a military trench jacket cut for an officer. It has a patch on the left arm with a silhouette of a cat like you might see in a biker's club. He has well-shining shoes and pressed slacks under that and a classy double-looped belt.

You watch him a short time, and he watches back. You lose sight of the old man for only a moment as a couple with a young child walk by and the old man is gone. You see he seems to have left a book on the table and an envelope used as a bookmark. You turn from side to side to try and spot him, but he is nowhere in sight. You take one last sip of your drink and walk over to the table. You look at the book in your hand, rolling it about, and take a glance at the first pages reading the first paragraph. This book is something unusual--a compendium describing one man's greatest fears and an incredible journey he has embarked on. As your pages turn, you can feel you too are now a part of this quest.

Everyone has choices to make. Will we follow our destiny? Or will we cut our own path? When it is your turn to fight, will you stand or will you run? I won't judge you.

DUSTIN FEYDER

The envelope falls out from between the pages. Do you choose to look if you do turn the page? If not, close the book now and contemplate. What do you think these words meant to you, to me, and to whoever else may read them?

To they that seek knowledge:

As your eyes glance at this page, I can only hypothesize at what might be on your mind. Are you asking who am I? Or who was I? A true discretion that may be. For all you know, I might be nothing but a voice whispering in your ear from another world. For all I know, you and I are nothing but a flash of light in a dream, and these words which I have spent so much time tilling over will never be seen by living eyes.

But of all the hyperbole hidden within these morbid thoughts, if but the tiniest bit of truth were to float to the top, let it be these next words I write. I am a man that has asked more questions than could ever have been answered to satisfactory and they all started with this one: "What is fire?" You think about that. What do you think it is? It has no weight, no mass. It is in fact ethereal if such a thing ever was. It seemingly has no presence in the physical world, but its effects can be devastating when not controlled and life-giving when tame. I spent weeks in the basement of my parents' North Minnesota metropolitan house thinking about just this, gazing into the flames of their gas heater.

This was only the begging. Next I ask: "What is this thing we call life? What defines it? What is its function?" Let me tell you philosophy is abound in these nose cones. One man told me that life is a means to understanding the building blocks the architect used to forge us, and in turn the function is to worship and seek out understanding of all things. I must as I find this idea fascinating.

But the logical inverse is then to ask: "What is death?" Do we truly understand when life begins or when it ends? Extremists will say life begins with the first heartbeat or maybe with insemination. I feel that is a touch vague, don't you? Insemination is nothing more than a chemical reaction, and I would hardly call rocket fuel alive in spite of how many fascists it shares with a newly formed multicellular life form. And death is when the heart or brain discontinues activity. Well, we can mechanically synthesize both of these reactions, so then would that mean we can artificially create and sustain life? If this is the case, then can you ever truly declare life over? Is life anything other than electrical impulse? Besides, it wouldn't be unfair to say that EMP is all that keeps the heart "alive." As for the

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brain even with all the knowledge we have of neurology, we truly know so little of what the brain is or how it functions.

All of this leads up to one enviable question: "What is God?" I have not a satisfactory reply. But I do have an idea. To those that seek a creator, maybe the answer can be found in the circles we all walk in and the forbidden knowledge we hunger for. Listen to the words you speak and watch the ground at your feet. Come to understand the connection between yourself and your fellow man. Do you ever repeat yourself? Have you ever heard someone or another repeat you? Do you think this might have concealed meanings? If there was a great mother hidden in the shadows of the world, wouldn't you think that like in some adolescent game, she would call you to here, maybe a scavenger hunt? Where are the building blocks of our world? Maybe you will help find them.

Might we find the answers to all our queries at the end of space? Or will it be in the microorganisms in our labs? Or will God turn out to be a construct of our own creation? Is divinity holy man in its truest form? Or a worn-out woman with lathered hands and a warm heart?

I spent a lifetime looking for these things. But there is one question I forgot to ask, and maybe it is the only question truly worth asking. Maybe you can help me with it. The only question that really matters is "why?" Nothing more, nothing less.

Thank you, my friend. We never knew each other. But we both know so well.

Dr. Marks Vigeta Karingson

N's Key

A=Z B=T C=S D=R E=Y F=Q G=p

H=N

I=X

J=M K=L

L=K M=J

N=H

O=W

P=G

Q=F R=D S=C T=B

U=V

V=A

W=E

X=I

Y=U

Z=O

Also look for Red Twilight: __a Dawning_ of_ Power

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