"The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides
by the inequities of the selfish, and the tyrrany
of evil men. Blessed is he who shepherds the weak
through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his
brother's keeper, and the finder of lost children.
And I shall SMITE DOWN UPON HIM WITH GREAT VENGEANCE
AND TERRRIBLE ANGER, THOSE WHO ATTEMPT TO
POISON AND DESTROY MY BROTHAS, AND YOU
SHALL KNOW MY NAME IS THE

LORD

WHEN I LAY MY VENGEANCE UPON THEE!
*BAM* *BAM* *scream* *BAM* *BAM* *BAM!*"
-Ezekiel 25:17

Chaos reigned outside Khazan Police Department headquarters. The great, cobblestone square with its marble fountain was thronged with rioters, fighting against the Police, fighting against each other, slamming into doors and windows. The air was thick with smoke and the sound of screams, men's screams, women's screams, alien screams. Fire gouted up through the confusion. Cars lay on their back, surrounded by pools of gasoline and broken glass. One surged upwards as a spark caught the gas tank, transforming it into a pillar of flame and twisted metal. Bodies littered the ground, blood streaked sweaty, moving bodies, eyes crazed as they turned on one another, and then outwards. Buildings loomed over them, silent, helpless sentinels staring out of glassy eyes upon the chaos and carnage below, unable to fight back as their vital internal mechanisms were consumed by lack of power, by thrown bricks and stones, by the crackling of a hungry flame.

Khazan city was going insane, and the people loved it. They screamed in joy and pain, and their cries echoed across the multiverse, to ice-locked feudal worlds where peasants rose up to topple their potent mage-lords, to worlds of light and sound, where for the first time in an age and more, colors clashed and noises rose out of harmony, striking against one another, shattering the peace. In the Citadel of the Far Wastes, Count Aerik Belson sheathed his sword before the raging mob of serfs and townsfolk, in that place where reality peters out into the mists of chaos. People, servants, aliens and humans rose up against their masters, or their masters struck out against them, or both at once. The cries of Khazan shook the rest of the omniverse.

Gene Edgars brought his hand down on the top of a policeman's head, once, twice, three times, the rocks clutched between his fingers tearing at the vulnerable skin of his palms. The man screamed and fell, his head caved in like an overripe watermelon. Edgars laughed to the skies, then turned to his friends, looking for a new target.

He felt it then, as if his blood had turned to lava and poison. He groaned in pain and panic, his stomach overturning as he vomited over the cobbles, eyes squeezing shut as acid bit into the tender flesh of his mouth. Around him, he heard other groans, half noticed as he nearly doubled over as all his muscles seized up at once.

Edgars' mind raced frantically even as his eyes darted left and right, seeking some cause, some reason for his pain. Hands that barely seemed to belong to him clutched frantically at the front of his ragged shirt, but found no wound, no sign that anything was wrong with his body, but the pain was there still. He had been sick, of course, everyone was sick these days, what with the Summer Flu, but that was nothing, a little bug to give you a runny nose, nothing else. Nothing else! Another convulsion wracked his body, and he stumbled, falling to the cobbles. There was nothing left in his stomach to vomit up. Pain washed over his numb body, bruises blossoming like purple flowers to block out his consciousness.

All around him, others had fallen to the cobbles, while the few that remained standing stared about them in obvious shock. Across the vast square, from what Gene could see, people were dropping like flies, screaming in pain and fear. The screams did not help at all in blocking out the violent, retching sound of hundreds of thousands of people being sick at once. The few who were not affected ran about in panic, trampling those who were too slow, too caught up in their own pain to move. Behind him, he heard someone slip in his vomit, heard the awful crunch as the person's head struck the stone at an odd angle, and then, below the retching, below the screaming... silence.

He felt a wrenching, tearing sensation in the pit of his stomach, as if someone had seized his brain and was trying to use it to drag out all the miles of nerve endings seeded through his body. Someone in the center of the square started screaming, and then more joined them. It went beyond the fear of sudden sickness, though, beyond the wrenching pain as his body betrayed him. Someone was, suddenly, very certain that they were going to die.

Gene Edgars rolled over onto his stomach, fighting to keep himself conscious. Every movement was like a thousand daggers sticking into his side, poison daggers, with barbed tips and jagged edges. Sweat beading on his forehead, every nerve afire, he struggled to see what was terrifying them so, why the screams had risen to the point of deafening even his own numbed ears. His eyes cleared the ground, and then he saw why. His voice joined the others in that cry of utter terror and abandonment.

The square had, moments before, been a bastion of chaos in the world. Now, however, it seemed a normal afternoon at the Arena compared to the padded cells of an insane asylum. The center of the square, around the massive marble fountain, was a mass of swirling fur, gleaming scales, and red, vicious, sickle-like claws. Great shapes moved there, so massive and strange that his eyes, shied away from them like a hare from a roaring lion. He got an impression of gleaming eyes, slashing claws, glistening fangs drenched in blood and dark ichor. One great talon swooped out of that confused, terrifying mass, grabbed up a fleeing rioter, and ripped him in two with less trouble than Gene would have taken to kill a fly. Flies were comparatively difficult.

Other things, smaller things, moved amidst the crowd itself, darting and swerving, moving so quickly that they seemed to simply disappear from one place, and reappear in another. Where they went, death followed. They were eight feet tall, perhaps, rippling with muscles and thorny spurs of bone, rending the helpless crowd limb from limb, ripping off heads like a child tearing the wings off of butterflies. A man was with them, gleaming with a strange, unearthly light, his handsome features gleaming with all the brilliance of a knifeblade in a dark alley. That one moved as if he were dancing, flowing, rather than killing people. Once in a while, one of the eight-foot-tall creatures would fall, only to rise again, bearing a full-grown man in each massive paw. Sometimes, they would be struck, and bellow in outrage. No one came anywhere near close to laying a finger on the glowing... man? Gene wasn't so sure. Tentacles writhed out of a shadowed alley, striking so hard that they impaled fleeing humans even as they ran.

The sky darkened, and Gene spared a glance up, realizing too late that he should not have dared. As far as the eye could see, figures hovered in the air, great black bat-wings beating ferociously against the sky, tearing rents in reality as they moved. Even as he watched, another group of the flying humanoids, all scales, thorns, and great, slashing wings, leapt out of some invisible hole in the earth, taking to the sky, their laugher traveling across the screams as normal sound would across air. Far above, eight forms were wreathed in stormclouds, little more than dust motes against the gathering darkness. For some reason, even though he could not tell what they looked like, or even if the were men or women, if such terms applied to these abhorrent creatures, it was those motes of half-seen form that terrified him the most, making him have to fight to keep control of his bladder. Tears of fright leaked from his eyes as he edged away from the square, towards the edge, towards an alley, towards anywhere he could possibly escape. His head shook from side to side, desperately attempting to deny everything that he saw, to deny the reality of the situation. This could not be happening. Nothing like this could be happening.

But it is, gibbered some part of his mind, broken and half-insane. It is.

There was an alley behind him. He had seen it during his fall. If he could reach that, then perhaps... perhaps... Perhaps what? But even so, he began to scramble backwards, his eyes never leaving the scene of deadly chaos before him. His hands scrabbled against the cobbles, finding some purchase between the stones. He had to get away, he needed to get away.

His head struck something hard, unyielding, and warm, like marble that had lain for a long time in the sun, until it glowed of its own accord. He twisted in shock, thinking that he had backed into a building that was on fire, but this heat was different, somehow, colder, less hungry, but no less insistent. Struggling against the weight of his own body, Gene turned, to see what stood in his path.

It was beautiful. That was the first thing he noticed, and he noticed it so powerfully that it almost obscured all else he could see of the creature. He had backed into its legs, glistening almost to the point of translucence, a brilliant light... heavenly, there was no other word for it... clearly visible through the skin. His eyes tracked upwards, slowly, savoring the thing's beauty as a welcome relief from the sudden torture of his existence.

Somewhere above the knee, the skin flowed into a fabric woven of colors and light, cut, molded, or possibly just created into a loose kilt, belted firmly at the waist. Its chest was broad, well-muscled, though not to the point of obscenity. Every curve, every line, radiated simple, unassuming power. Atop those wide shoulders sat a head, long hair gleaming with a golden luster. The eyes were deep as eternity, wise, and strong, hinting at some great secret that would never quite be revealed. Two great, gleaming wings of alabaster beat the empty air behind it.

"Oh. God." Gene's jaw dropped, and he skittered away in spite of himself, frantically fighting to control his errant, screaming muscles. The chaos behind him was, for a brief moment, forgotten.

An angel. He had seen pictures, of course, and video clips of the few Fallen Ones who fought in the Arena, but they had been nothing like this. This creature radiated light, and power, and brilliance, a living beacon against the almost palpable darkness now rapidly growing behind him. He didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "Oh god, oh god, oh God."

The angel moved, regarding him with those brilliant, burning eyes. If an angel's eyes were like a man's, if they gave some window to the soul, Gene thought frantically, it was only to their own kind. He saw nothing but endless, brilliant light, sucking him in until he thought he would drown in the warmth of it. When it spoke, the words were soft and melodious. They blanketed him and enfolded him, the screams fading to something barely heard, off in the distance.

"We have come."

Gene nodded ferverently. His tongue shot out, whetting cracked lips. "Can...." His voice cracked, but he tried again, speaking more softly this time. "Help us? Please?"

The angel smiled, slowly. "Perhaps, Jeremy Armand Edgars. The time has come. All men shall be judged." The smile widened, and, perhaps, if Gene had been more in possession of himself, he would have seen something deep, and old, and hungry, in the knifelike grin. "You have been judged, Jeremy Armand Edgars."

And it moved.

Gene never saw the flaming sword gripped firmly in the angel's hand. Nor did he feel a thing as it sliced cleanly through skin, flesh, muscle, bone, and sinew, and his head fell, severed and smoking, to the cobblestones.

In the instant before darkness closed in, though, he heard laughter.

Pestilence smiled, his arms extended as if to swallow the world that hovered so far below him. The Diadem flashed as he played upon the delicate strands of sickness, woven so expertly through the multiverse in the last several days. John Doe had done well, planting the seeds, but it took a true master to bring them all to fruition within a matter of milliseconds, throughout an infinite multiverse. He extended his mind through pathways beyond reality, and drank in retching screams like a fine wine, his power swelling by the second.

Below, angels poured out of their holes in the sky, even as the demons clamored up out of their dark, multidimensional pits, tearing ravening, bloody paths through the former rioters. The Imps were enjoying themselves for once. It had been aeons since they had had real, living flesh to work with. Here and there, blossoms of brilliant flame and cringing reality signaled the preliminary battles being joined. His sense in this regard was not so keen as that of his sister, or, for that matter, of his former, hated brother, but across reality, across all realities, the Hordes of Hell and the Hosts of Heaven streamed into the world. Where they met, there were battles.

Nothing like what was to come, of course. But, one started small, and worked one's way up.

After all, all of ten seconds had passed since the Gates were opened.

Pestilence grinned, skin peeling and flaking from his face to fall like burned ash upon the glorious carnage below.

On the fourth floor of the KPD Headquarters, Stella Aurorae screamed once and collapsed, clutching at her stomach as she felt the world shift beneath her, around her, through her. She heard Bryn groan, though whether in pain or excitement she could not say. The beige walls of the hallway swam around her, constricting, contracting, and then... freedom. It felt as if a great weight had been lifted, a weight she had not previously known she was carrying. Then the walls returned to normal, even the tacky print of the Mona Lisa and the large potted plant, of the strange variety that look as if they are fake but are, in fact, real.

Seryph stood over her, a concerned expression on his slender features. "Are you all right?"

She swallowed furtively and nodded, taking his extended hand and using it as an aid to pull herself up into a sitting position. A bead of sweat ran down the fine contours of her face. "Yes." Despite all her best efforts, her voice still shook, sounding hollow and false even in her own ears.

"What was that all about?"

Phil glared at Lester, but Stell shook her head, pushing herself all the way upright on shaky legs. "Something... somethings... lots of them, just shifted planes, out of the aethyr and onto Earth."

Bryn nodded, licking his lips. He brushed a strand of light brown hair away from his forhead. "I've never felt anything like that before." The boy shook his head, obviously confused. "But there's something else, too. It doesn't make any sense, but..." He trailed off, then tried again. "Time. It doesn't exist any more." He looked almost embarrassed by that admission.

"Seems to be working fine to me." Lester stared at him in frank astonishment, and Stell couldn't blame him. The kid did seem very sensitive, but Time? Unless... but that was impossibe. Or was it? Her eyes darted to Seryph, then back to Bryn.

The boy shook his head again. "No, not like that. It's just that destiny... stops. It doesn't go any further. I can't feel it." He stared at Seryph, then at Stell. She met his gaze evenly, wondering what lay behind those blue eyes.

"And you would know why, exactly?" Lester straightened his tie, obviously amused by the whole affaire.

"Because Bryn is the Avatar of Time." Seryph shrugged, but he looked strangely nervous. "He is its representative, its agent in the world. He should be able to feel its course anywhere. Nothing should be able to stop that, or interrupt it. Why he can't feel it now, though..." Abruptly, his attention swiveled back to Stell. "Do you know anything about this?"

She blinked, more from astonishment that he'd figured it out so soon than for anything else. It would have been nice if she had been able to string them along for a little while longer, at least until they got Seryph's sword. They could have gone to someplace safe, out of the way, and worried about it then. Nothing for it now but to tell the truth. A resigned sigh echoed from her lungs. "It's the Apocalypse." Even though she had known it was coming for weeks now, saying the actual words was still difficult. "It has started. The reason Bryn can't feel destiny past this moment, is because there is no destiny past this moment. Heaven and Hell have been let loose, and it's only a matter of time before someone wins. And then it's all over. One way or another."

The words hung suspended in silence for a long moment, turning over and over, flipping in upon themselves and back out again. It was painful to say, and it was painful to hear. Shock, astonishment, and an odd kind of acceptance passed over the others' faces in a heartbeat.

Lester, on the other hand, was not so used to dealing with an obviously insane situation. "You're all crazy! Avatars of Time, Apocalypses! Am I the only sane person in this room?"

She turned to face him, meeting his eyes frankly with hers. Whatever he saw in their dark green depths, it was enough to make his mouth clamp shut, and his face pale. "Accept it or not, LaCroix. That's what is happening."

Phil cleared his throat, voice low and contemplative. "You're the expert here. Is there any way we can stop this from happening?"

That brought her pause. She took a deep breath before turning to face him. "I- I'm not sure." The JLA leader nodded his head once, his features carefully schooled so as not to betray the slightest hint of emotion. Taking another second to steady herself, she pressed on. "The best thing for us to do right now is to get Seryph's sword, and then get out of here. If we stay for too long, one side or the other will notice us. After that, it will only be a matter of time. They're already in Khazan in force, and by the time we get to the sword, they'll be spread throughout the multiverse. If either side notices us, we will die."

"Even the angels?"

Her answering laugh was bitter and humorless, carrying with it a thousand ages of pain. "Yes."

Seryph nodded once, grimly. "Then let's move."

Cacus Itoryx laughed, his voice twisting through the air as he glided through a mist of blood and flesh. Whatever these beings were, they were soft, their skin malleable, bones shattering under the slightest pressure of a well-trained hand. He doubted any one of them had seen what would amount to a single day of training at the hands of an Artist in their entire, albeit short, lives. Some tried to dance away, one or two even adopting stances that looked halfway familiar, but they did not live up to even that slender promise. Even the fastest ones moved like a three month old child at a ballroom dance. One of his hands floated out, slow by his own standards, one of the weakest attacks in his repetoir, yet his fingers passed through the skull of the man in front of him as if the other were no more than a summer breeze. He pulled back, almost disgusted by the ease of the kill.

He had been trying for something more subtle, more calm. As matters stood, he was coming off little better than the ravening Claws of imps that flooded the square, tearing their way through the "puny mortals" like children upon finding a room full of cotton candy. There was no art in the slaughter, no grace. Of course, the battle was wonderful, but it was so... easy.

Cacus knew his own strength. It had not grown in the years of his confinement, nor shrunk. His body was refined far past the point where lack of exercise would give muscles an excuse to go lax and degenerate. If his style lacked such art, it was only because his technique was unpracticed. This worried him.

In the time it took him to think these thoughts, he realized with something bordering on amusement, he had killed eighty-seven individuals, containing specimens of four genders from at least six different species. Eighty-seven fools. They should have run faster, they should have been prepared. The world existed to screen out weakness. Only fools forgot that.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw one of the almost-human creatures, a tall female, what passed for strong in these realms, cornered by a pair of Imps, their hungry eyes gleaming. There was no art there, in mass terror, in death by the thresher instead of the scythe. He shook his head ruefully, crossing the space between his current position and theirs so swiftly that, to one whose eyes were not trained, he appeared simply to disappear from the one place, and reappear in the other. It was a trick of the mind and the breath as much as speed, but none remained in this world to understand that.

One of the Imps spun around, positioning its massive, thorned bulk between Itoryx and its intended prey. There was, perhaps, a touch of fear in its eyes as it recognized him. Then, before it had so much as a moment to react, he closed with it. Without breaking stride, he spun one leg around in a back kick, his heel slamming into the joint where the thing's burly neck met broad shoulders, just... so. Not enough power to shatter the spine and perhaps kill it, but enough of a touch to numb the left arm, slow it down, stupefy its tiny brain. Good. His hips twisted again, following through with the spin, as the back arm spun out from the spinning cyclone of his body, fingers curled into a single, wicked talon. The Imp's throat came away in his hand.

The other leapt for him, deadly swift for one of these weak near-humans, but far to slow for Cacus. At the last possible instant before its claws could find his flesh, he swiveled, slamming his elbow into the back of the thing's neck as it passed him. He had pulled the blow so much that the actual force of impact was a bit less than a kilogram, but if his aim was just right... Throughout the Imp's body, those thick muscles out of a bodybuilder's nightmares spasmed violently, every one of them tightening at once. The thirteen thousand distinct popping noises as every single bone in the creature's body snapped in at least five different places was almost lost in the confusion of the KPD square, but Cacus Itoryx heard it, and it pleased him. He still had the touch.

The Imp collapsed bonelessly to the bloodied cobblestones atop its companion, and stayed dead.

For all her earlier show of strength, the woman was crumpled against the wall, face blanched, staring at him like she would at... well... a demon. He stepped forward, hands raised reassuringly. No fists, this time. "There, there. It's all right now." She trembled slightly, and he caught her in the miniscule twitch of an eyebrow. "There's no need to be upset. You might give yourself the death." He twisted the last word, an upward mew with just a hint of a triple trill on the 'th', simultaneously keeping the drone low and powerful, authoritarian.

The effect was instantaneous. Her eyes rolled back in her head, she swayed on her feet, and fell. Cacus listened carefully, and heard her heart stop beating before she hit the ground.

He shook his head despairingly. It was all too easy.

Cacus Itoryx, Prince of the First Men, moved on in search of a challenge.

Every day, under normal conditions, the Khazan Police Department headquarters was visited by thousands of beings from all manners of universes and all possible walks of life. Most of them were armed, in one fashion or another. It would take a complete idiot to permit any of them to carry so much as a spoon through the hallways of the most powerful organization of law and order in the mutliverse, let alone a weapon which they were familiar with. A constant bodyguard was, of course, out of the question. So, then, how were the designers to deal with the problem?

The answer was, they didn't. All beings that passed through the doors of HQ were searched. Any weapons found were removed and placed in safe keeping, although whether it was the weapons or the people who were guarding them that were being kept safe was anyone's guess.

Stell did not know, or particularly care, about any of this as she stood before the adimantium steel door to the weapons locker. It was large and square, with all the imposing solidity of a very large, very dense bank vault door. The silver-white metal glistened, fluorescent lights highlighting the red "DANGER" stencil at eye level. She hooked her thumbs in the belt loops of her jeans, realized that she was fidgeting, and forced herself to stop.

They were getting closer. The screams were audible through the walls, and it was not as if their little group were exactly invisible. One ex-Avatar, one Avatar of Time, and herself. Maybe if they were lucky, someone had targeted Phil for termination as well. And Lester's perfume was a demonic aphrodesiac.

Her red lips twitched upwards in something that very nearly resembled a smile, for which she felt almost guilty. This was no time for sarcasm, or fatalism. Of course, some small part of her protested, if the Apocalypse wasn't time for sarcasm and fatalism, what was?

She raised one hand and placed it on the door, its metal surface hard and cold against her skin. For a brief instant, she frowned, licked her lips, and spoke. "Open, please." A series of rapid clicks followed as the locks deactivated, deadbolts slid back, and the security field disarmed. Grudgingly, it creeked open just enough for one person to slide through at a time.

"Open, please?" Lester, who had been leaning against the nearby wall, straightened, brushing an invisible piece of lint off of his dark jacket. He had long since given up on his blood-spattered shoes as a lost cause..

Stell shrugged. "It works." Twisting around where she stood, she faced Seryph and the others. "Let's hurry."

They didn't need any more encouragement, filing through the slender opening with remarkable professionalism. Even Lester skittered through without any further encouragement. She was last, of course. It took a definite effort to repress a shudder as she wriggled through the tight opening between the thick door and the frame.

Inside, the room was all transparisteel, adimantium, and even more of the tacky plastic plants that seemed omnipresent in any public institution. They sat in their cheap earthenware pots, little monuments that, at this point, had a much higher life expectancy than the race that created them.

Seryph's sword lay on top of a small pile of other polearms, monoblades, beam sabers, and every other manner of fanciful melee weapon imaginable. It looked almost pitiful lying there, unadorned save for the elaborate braiding pattern in the leather wrappings of the hilt, lacking any of the technological graces and embellishments that regular bravos added to their own weapons. Yet, somehow, it seemed more noble than any of them, a naked, simple blade for a naked, simple truth. Seryph stood over the case, regarding it as one would an old, absent friend, Bryn standing at his side. Phil was searching the far wall for some kind of control to open the vacuum-sealed case, while Lester looked on in a rather vicious kind of amusement. The scene was almost laughable in its utter normality, and she stepped forward to join them.

No one had any inkling that something was horribly wrong until the meter-thick vault door slammed twice, once against its own stops, the force with which it had been cast open sufficient to cause it to rebound hard enough to crash shut once more, with a sound depressingly similar to that of a tomb door being closed. Heavy, rapacious breathing echoed off of the suddenly lifeless walls, and the small room was suddenly filled with a Presence, as if an immense shadow had cast itself over the souls of the small company.

Before Stell could more than half-complete her spin, something slammed into her with the force of an interstellar freight transport, lifting her up and sending her flying across the room, the entire left side of her body afire. She hit the far wall at full speed, a blur of flesh and torn clothing. Her limbs gave out, and she crumpled to the floor, gasping for breath.

Phil advanced, but the thing was so swift as to appear little more than a blur. Large black spots gavotted across Stell's vision, but she still caught a glimpse of something long, spiny, and green blurring around to strike the JLA leader's temple, and he fell. Bryn went down a heartbeat later, lifted off the ground by what appeared to be a green, spined tentacle and rammed against the wall at high speed.

Seryph was already moving, little more than a blur himself as he danced forwards, avoiding one strike, another, and another, the improvised bokken an apparently solid streak of wood. It cracked against something hard and spiny once, twice, three times, before the broken chair leg hit the wrong way, or was hit, and shattered in a rapidly expanding cloud of sawdust and splinters. Another streak, and Seryph fell.

She fought to say something, to get a Word out, but the impact had knocked all the wind out of her lungs. With an impact like that, she was lucky to still be conscious. The most she could manage was a faint croak. Rage built inside her, frustration mixed with impotent fury.

Their attacker suddenly became still, and she saw it for the first time. For a demon, it was small, only a few feet taller than a man, but powerfully built and long, with a serpentine tail that ended in a wickedly sharp, thornlike barb. Its skin was greenish gray, large spurs and thorns of bone and twisted metal rising out of the hairless carapace. Blackish-red ichor oozed out of its joints. Its face was an elongated, terrible mockery of a human, with finely sculpted features and long, stilleto teeth. It seemed to move more by flowing to the proper position than by any exercise of will and muscle in consort.

That indescribable face, with its screaming eyes, twisted so that its eyes fell upon Lester, shrunken in the far corner of the room, scrabbling at the vault's wall as if he could make it open up to let him through. The thing's voice was a low, slithering hiss, struggling around the words as if its vocal chords were not made to speak any tongue of men. "Theyzhhhhhh Wanzhhhhh Hyusssssh, humanzzzzzzzzz..." It extended one long, sickle-like claw, reaching for him...

For the second time that day, the vault door did something that, for all intents and purposes, was physically impossible.

It exploded. The small room filled with a cloud of smoke that smelled suspiciously of burnt metal, little grains of charred adimantium alloy bouncing off the walls and floor. The largest intact chunk, about the size of a football, struck the transparisteel case and shattered, stressed beyond all endurance. A thick, gray cloud of dust and vaporized alloy clogged the air, making it hard to breathe, and impossible to see. The creature cried out in frustration, halfway between a hiss and a child's scream, deafening in its sheer volume. The noise of it made Stell's ears shiver.

After what seemed like hours, but was probably more like seconds, she became aware of a light, beaming through the thick cloud. The dust settled some more, and she made out the squat, powerful shadow of a motorcycle, the headlamp glaring balefully. There was a sound, too, a low pitched whirring, and the subtle impression of motion through the shadows.

Some more time passed, and now she saw the outline of the demon in the darkness, staring in evident confusion at this newcomer, jagged-toothed mouth gaping as it hissed in astonishment. Beyond it, next to the motorcycle, there stood a dark-robed figure, tall, form and face alike shrouded in the robe's shadowy cowl. One of its hands was extended, and about its finger, there whirled a long macramˇ keychain, emblazoned with a skull on one side, and a yin-yang on the other. The tip of its single key caught the light, gleaming as it completed each circle about the dark form's index finger.

Still gasping for breath, Stell squinted, staring at that finger, at the hand it connected to. Strangely, a child's jingle danced through her brain, chanted over and over again. The finger bone's connected to the hand bone... Her eyes widened in delight and astonishment, for that was exactly the point. There was no flesh on the hand at all, just hard, pale, glistening bone.

As she watched, the keychain's arc tightened, speeded up, and the rest of the bony fingers closed around the key with a sharp slapping noise.

AM I INTERRUPTING SOMETHING?

Two lights twinkled like distant stars beneath the robe's hood.

The demon's angry, roaring laugh was piercing and cold as it launched itself at the new arrival, fangs slavering, claws seeking eagerly to rend, to tear, to destroy and defibrillate. It was little more than a displacement of the dust cloud, spurring little eddies of detritus in its wake. The claws slashed in...

Stell blinked, and the dark figure was gripping the demon's two arms, his skeletal hands locked so tightly around the thing's wrists that they drove all color from its thorned carapace. The creature screamed in anger, powerful muscles surging forward, legs and back straining to no effect against the newcomer's terrible hands.

Then, easily as if he were popping the cap off of a can of beer, the dark figure twisted his wrists forward. There were two sharp cracks that made Stell wince in sympathetic pain as the demon's arm bones snapped, the lower half of both forearms twisted upwards so that the claws pointed towards its face. She thought she could see the twisted bones poking through its ruined flesh.

The demon screamed then, a mixture of pain and fear, its horrible visage overcome by sheer and total panic. It tried to tear its ruined arms away, but the dark figure was already moving, spinning, robe flaring out behind him. The figure held a gleaming scythe now, as if it had somehow always been there, just waiting to be noticed. It spun, the blade flashed a hungry, ghostlike blue, tearing through the very substance of space...

Again the demon screamed, and the figure continued to spin, blood and black ichor running off the cold blade, never sticking for an instant as it bit deeper and deeper, biting through nerve channels, chakras, ligaments, all the points that connected soul to mind, and mind to body. At last, when the demon's voice had all but given out, the Scythe flashed again, and its head fell lifeless to the floor. The body followed it a second later, collapsing in a bloody, ruined heap.

The dead form surged once, briefly, the vanquished soul struggling to free itself, to run back to its home plane, but the Rider and the Scythe were already there, waiting for it. There was a brief, shuddering crack as reality aligned itself to fill the vacuum left in the wake of the demon-soul's annihilation.

The Rider glanced down at the body, and the robe's cowl bobbed once as he nodded, the very picture of grim satisfaction.

DID NOT KNOW WHAT IT WAS FUCKING WITH.

He turned then, and for the first time, Stell saw through the shadows, to the face beneath. It was grinning. Of course, it did not possess any skin or facial muscles to alter the expression. She grinned in return. She knew it before, of course, but the more confirmation the better, especially now. She barely managed to form one word, her voice still breathy and wavering. "Sam."

The ex-Horseman of the Apocalypse nodded. YES.

With a wince, she pushed herself up to a kneeling position on the ground. She ran one hand through her now-tangled mane of red-blonde hair, pushing it away from her face. Bruised ribs, probably, and she was lucky that there had been no worse damage. If that was the worst she came away from the day with, she'd count herself lucky. "Where'd you learn to talk like that?"

Sam shrugged, a rather impressive move when one considered that, technically, he did not have any muscles or tendons to work with. DID YOU EVER SEE PITCH BLACK?

"No."

He shrugged again, and Stell thought she could detect a hint of detatched humor in the blue-white sparks that passed for his eyes. He's amused, she thought in a tone quite near astonishment. A time like this, and he's amused. Of course, he was a Horseman of the Apocalyspe...

GOOD MOVIE. SEE IT IF YOU GET A CHANCE.

"... Right." She started to rise to her feet, but her muscles were still unsteady, and she pitched forward onto her hands and knees. When she looked up, Sam was looming over her in the way only a seven-foot tall skeleton wielding a Scythe can loom. One of his skeletal hands was extended. LET ME HELP YOU UP.

"Thanks." She accepted his hand. The ex-Horseman's grip was strong, and he lifted her almost entirely on her own. It felt as if he had gripped her entire body with one huge fist, drawing her to her feet in a single instant. The feeling was exhilarating, and, at the same time, terrifying. Nodding in thanks, she brushed dust and adimantium splinters off her jacket and shirt. There was a long rip in the shirt itself, where one of the larger chunks had caught her, but fortunately it hadn't touched the skin. From the waist down, though, she was coated with loose, gray dust that would not come out no matter how insistently she slapped at it. Oddly enough, considering that he had stood at the very nexus of the explosion, the debris did not seem to have touched Sam's ebon cloak in the slightest. Nowhere was the dark not-quite-fabric marred by an off-color smudge, or even the tiniest tear or fray. Best not to think on it.

Turning around, she regarded the situation. Lester was still huddled against the corner, pressing against the wall so hard that he might as well have been trying to bore his way through it backside first. As for the others, they were coming round slowly, stirring amidst groans of pain. There was one bit of good news, at least. None of them appeared to be injured any more than she was, a few bruises here or there, but nothing major. Phil had sustained a serious-looking skull injury, but even as she watched, he pushed himself up, turning his head sharply one way, and then another. A pair of loud cracks echoed through the nearly silent room as bones realigned themselves, and by the time he returned his head to its normal altitude, the sucking cut was gone, not even leaving a scar. Hair sprouted on the repaired flesh, and a second later there was nothing to say that he had ever been wounded, save the long trail of blood that turned half his face red.

Their reaction to Sam was almost comical. Their eyes collectively flicked from the demon's desiccated body to Sam, to the Scythe, and then back again. Stell finally broke the silence, trying to keep as much irony out of her voice as possible. "Gentlemen, allow me to introduce Sam, ex-Horseman of the Apocalypse, and probably also the only reason we're still alive."

Phil and Seryph both nodded, and Bryn kept staring at the blue-white, glimmering blade of the Scythe with an almost beatific expression. The former Avatar of the Universe stepped forward and knelt down next to the demon's corpse. He lifted one of its long, powerful arms, let it fall, and stared at it. One of the thorns had, in the simple act of falling, pierced through the adamantine floor. "What was it?"

"A Tartarean." Stell answere at exactly the same time as Sam.

A TARTAREAN. The Horseman grinned.

Seryph shrugged, clearly confused. "Which means...?"

Sam gestured magnanimously for her to explain, and she nodded, licking her lips before beginning. Even she herself was not quite sure whether she did it out of nervousness or simple reluctance to speak of the things, of their fate. She hated to think what Sam interpreted it as. "There are places where even Demons don't like to go. People, things, are sent there when they are too dangerous to let loose in Hell, or when they are convicted of crimes of the most capital nature. Xenocide, for example. The destruction of one's own race, most of all." She shrugged. "Or it could be just that the High Council is feeling particularly pissy one morning and decides to sentence an entire race to the Pit. They weren't even supposed to be let out during the Apocalypse, just left alone there with their tortures." She swiveled her head around to face Sam. "Looks like someone decided to change the rules."

Sam nodded, but did not speak. Well, it looked like there were some things that neither of them wanted to talk about. That could be a problem, but for now, there was nothing but to roll with it. "What I'm most concerned about, though, is what it wanted with Lester. It wasn't after any of us, just him. Two Avatars, ex or not, the leader of Khazan's prime governing body, and myself, and he goes after... him." She pointed towards the corner.

Phil blinked in evident astonishment, then turned to the still-quivering man, evidently trying very hard to discern what use there could be in such a pathetic specimin of humanity. "Him?"

She nodded, then turned to Lester, who was gradually bringing his tremblings under control. "What do you think? It can't be your money, from their perspective. That'll be worthless soon enough. Why, then?"

The interdimensional transportation magnate shrugged eloquently, some semblance of pride seeping back into his voice and stance. "Perhaps they're looking for some civilized company."

Phil laughed derisively, and even Bryn chuckled a little, but Stell couldn't resist a sudden, grudging respect for the man. He was recovering quite admirably, considering that he had just stared one of the universe's most ancient terrors in the face. Well, she amended with a silent glance at the demon's carcass, one of the universe's ex-ancient terrors. "Any other ideas?"

He shrugged eloquently, straightening his tie with one hand, trying to brush a few stray particles of dust off his otherwise immaculate jacket with the other. "Perhaps..."

Seryph sighed in exhaustion, and Phil made as if to advance menacingly, but neither particularly captured Lester's attention. What did, though, was the rather impressive timbre of a quite unmistakable voice, a voice that spoke volumes, most of them due to be published posthumously, in a single word.

LESTER.

LaCroix swallowed hard, and nodded. It took him a second, slicking back his hair and licking his lips, to regain enough composure to continue. "I have... inside me... all of LaCroix Enterprises." Stell raised one eyebrow inquisitively, and he hurried on. "Nanotech keys, hyperdimensional transponders, translators, machine code dumps. Mind-link affinity for processor technology was gene-sequenced into our line seven generations back. I can control LaCroix Enterprises like my own body." He shrugged, nervously, his eyes darting towards Sam, then away once more. "There's nothing else."

Bryn straightened, one hand upon his chin, the other steadying him with considerable aid from the alloy wall. "That doesn't make any sense. They don't need money, and they sure as hell don't need transportation. What could they possibly want with your company?"

Lester laughed bitterly. "You really have no idea, child." Bryn bristled at being called 'child', but held his tongue as Lester walked forward to loom over the soulless Tartarean corpse, a silhouette of black suit and gleaming blue eyes. "You hear so much about the guns, about the people who manufacture them, and never about how they get to where they're going. Never about how the guns know what they are doing in the first place." He shook his head, knelt down by the body, and lightly placed his hand near one of the gaping wounds in the scaly flesh. "Processor technology, and transportation. But we couldn't have the most vital shipping lines across dimensions, across universes, and leave them vulnerable to pirate raids, could we?" Bryn shrugged, and Lester's head swiveled up to stare pointedly at him. "Pay attention. You know more than myself about a lot of things, but you don't have the slightest idea what it means to run a multidimensional."

Ire flickered across Bryn's face so quickly that Stell wasn't sure that he had ever displayed it in the first place. Then it was gone, and the old-young man shrugged, crossing his arms over his chest. "So enlighten me."

Lester's long, delicate fingers traced a complex pattern in the dark blood that leaked from the thing's wounds. His voice had a low, almost dreamlike quality as he spoke, making little loops in the blood with each passing word. "LaCroix industries needs protection for its shipping lanes, but there is no company, no fleet, big enough to protect us. So we protect ourselves. Our outposts and manufacturing facilities need security, but there is no army in any dimension anywhere near big enough to provide it for us. So we provide for ourselves. In order to transport, one needs fleets, vessels, aetherjammers, dimensional portals constructed for ground transport, and no manufacturing company is anywhere near large enough to build ones to match our requirements. So we build them ourselves, and our ships have been used as models throughout the cosmos. We need processors fast enough to handle quintillions upon quintillions of transfers per second, and none exist. So we built them ourselves, and passed the processor architecture on to hardware companies throughout the universes." At the last, he raised his head from intent study of the creature's blood, staring deep into Bryn's ageless eyes. "Do you begin to understand now, Avatar?"

Bryn blinked, looking quite nonplussed. "Yeah. I think so."

Stell nodded, idle hands straying nervously around the hem of her leather jacket. "If they get you, they can use your resources to tear apart the human world even further. As long as you remain control over your body, you can maintain order on all the dimensions LaCroix industries controls. If they get you, though..." She shrugged. "Chaos. Which is what they want, after all."

"Looks like you're good for something after all, LaCroix." Seryph shot Phil a glare that was far too fraught with amusement to be a warning, and the JLA leader shrugged. "What?"

WE NEED TO BE MOVING. Sam straightened abruptly, tilting his head to the side as if listening for something with ears he did not, technically, possess. A second later, he nodded grimly. THEY'VE SENT ANOTHER AGENT. Lester's entire body tensed up in the instant before Sam continued. AN ANGEL, THIS TIME.

The corporate Prince sighed in relief. "That's something, at least."

The sparks in Sam's eyesockets glowed questioningly, and Lester squirmed under them like a bug beneath the magnifying glass of an entimologist who is entirely too handy with his needles.

"Well..." Lester tugged at his collar with one finger. "If an angel's coming, he'll have to help us, won't he?"

Stell had to fight to keep down... something. She wasn't sure whether it was laughter or tears, but this was hardly the time to get emotional.

WHAT EVER GAVE YOU THAT IDEA?

"Well... They're angels. Right? They're supposed... to be..." He trailed off, eyes darting from Sam, to Stell, to Bryn, Seryph, and Phil, then back to Sam again. "...Good?" The word sounded plaintive and hollow in the vault.

The ensuing silence only ensued very briefly, before being broken by a low, rumbling staccato sound, every syllable like a comet, screaming (in a very literal sense) through endless darkness. Sam was laughing.

HA. HA. HA. HA.

In fact, he was laughing so hard that he was nearly doubled over on the floor.

HEHEHEHEHOHOHOHOHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAAAA*gasp*HOHOHOHOHO...... Stell shoved down a chuckle as the ex-Fourth Horseman paused, straightened himself up, and turned towards Lester, astonishment plain on his face. YOU'RE NOT SERIOUS.

"Well..."

PERHAPS YOU WOULD LIKE TO TELL THEM, M'L- A sudden, warning glare was just enough to get him to cover his slip of the tongue with an abrupt cough. STELL?

She nodded gravely. "I will. But later. How close did you say they are?"

He paused. The lights in the depths of those eternal eyesockets blinked out once, then returned to full blazon. THE AGENT IS THREE MILES AWAY, AND HOMING FAST. LESSER CHOIR, THOUGH. CHERUBIM.

Bryn smiled wistfully. "You mean like those little babies on postcards? The ones with wings?"

NOT EXACTLY. Sam grinned. NOW, IF WE CAN BE GOING?

Seryph cleared his throat softly. "My sword...?"

Sam nodded. OF COURSE. The Scythe slashed through the air in a glittering arc, separating electrons from their atoms...

There was a sudden moment of incongruity, an almost inaudible zip as atoms of air rushed in to fill the suddenly created vacuum, and the transparasteel case was gone, leaving the pile of deadly-looking weapons naked beneath the gleaming emergency lights. Stell stepped back as the former Avatar moved forwards like a jet-black panther, stepping lithely over the body of the dead creature as if it were not even there. He bowed his head reverently as his right hand closed around the blade's sharkskin hilt, looking for all the world like a man holding his lover after years in prison.

The moment passed, and he turned, sliding the scabbard onto his belt with the ease of long practice. Taking a deep, calm breath, he nodded. "Let's go."

Angie Blackfeather ran down one of the innumerable dingy alleys and side-streets of Khazan, swearing violently with each step she took. Her legs were aching with fatigue, despite all her conditioning and training. She had been running for quite some time, and it didn't sound like her pursuers were ready to give up yet. Their baying voices echoed from the red brick walls of ancient, downtrodden buildings, like giant hounds on the hunt. Which, she supposed, they were.

She ran straight through a puddle, water drenching her already-sodden Converse sneakers. Her Desert Eagle hung in its holster by her side, banging against her leg with every step. The clip was full, but there were too many of them to take out without having to reload, and she didn't think she'd live far past the moment when the hand-cannon went empty, in any event. Bugger the gun, then.

Of course, she was assuming that bullets could kill these damn creatures in the first place, which was probably a dangerous assumption to make.

For a second, she lost control, and stumbled, pitching forward face-first onto the ground. She bit back a scream, barely managing to break her fall with her forearms. There was no way those furry things could have heard her, but their howls suddenly seemed more eager, more intense. Breathing hard, she pushed herself back onto her feet and took off again, swaying for a few steps before regaining her balance. Long scrapes marred the pale skin covering the back of her hand. The howls grew closer, and she picked up the pace, the alley walls blurring into red streaks as she focused on getting away.

Fucking angels and their fucking wings. If it wasn't for them, she could just have taken off, and bugger all these tough-skinned beasties. As it was, though, she was stuck to the ground. Given who she was, the angels wouldn't be too kindly disposed to see her, and from what she hadn't seen, they weren't being any more considerate then their brethren from south of the border. She had seen as many unwary pedestrians ripped apart by the magnesium-flare swords of those unearthly beautiful angels, their bodies like living marble, as had fallen to the ravening claws of the demons... like these bastards who were chasing her now.

Angie was so caught up in her reverie that she almost ran straight into the concrete wall, where the alley dead-ended into the loading dock of a Chinese restaurant. The sign over the back door read "Man's Chinese Food", accompanied by a picture of a smiling, welcoming Buddha, but the door itself was molded Titanium, with a key-card lock, nonetheless. If she had more time, maybe, but with these things coming up fast...

"Fuck."

There was a small, steel dumpster to her left. It didn't look large or sturdy enough to keep the demons out, but as cover went, pretty ideal. Just a little taller than she was, wide enough that she could lie down on the pavement next to it and still be fully covered, it would at least keep them from seeing her until it was too late. Maybe she could even get a shot or two in, by way of compensation. Not sparing a moment, she fell into place behind it, sidling up with her back to the brown-painted metal until her right shoulder was even with the dumpster's corner.

The baying grew louder rapidly, so scathingly unnatural that it made the hairs on the back of her neck jump to attention. She shook her head and drew the Desert Eagle, its brilliantly polished silver enamel bright enough to reflect a crude outline of her careful, almost deceptively delicate features, her dark, almost blue-black hair cut short, around ear-length. She nodded, and smiled grimly. At least she wouldn't die without her face on. With a smooth, practiced motion, she lifted the heavy, ugly pistol. The hammer cocked with a sharp, no-nonsense click, and she was ready.

The first one came around the corner in a blur of gleaming claws, tan fur, and teeth. Unfortunately, from its point of view, bullet-proof armor figured nowhere in the above description. The .55 caliber round caught him-her-it-whatever (Angie had been in a bit too much of a hurry to check the sex) full in the chest. The massive, muscled body paused for a second, levitating in mid-leap, then crumpled to the cold pavement, something that Angie ferverently hoped was blood leaking out of the pancake-sized hole in its chest. She breathed a quick sigh of relief. They went down pretty easily after all. Maybe she could get out of this alive.

Then the others came around the corner. A pack. A group. A murder. Whatever the collective noun, there were a hell of a lot of them, and they were all heading straight for her. She hardly had to aim. The roar of the Desert Eagle nearly deafened her as it sounded again, again, again, again, her finger pulling the trigger so rapidly that the shots all blended into a single rain of continuous fire.

This would have been perfectly all right, except for the fact that there were, as previously stated, a hell of a lot of them. Nearly twice as many as she had bullets in her clip, as a matter of fact, and they were closing fast. The leaders, those she hadn't killed yet, were barely twenty meters away from the edge of the dumpster. She could see red foam frothing from their mouths, muzzles contorted in a sneer of vicious rage, promising a death spectacularly messy and painful even by their standards. Whatever those standards were.

Angie most certainly didn't want to find out. So she kept pulling the trigger.

Even once or twice after bullets stopped coming out.

*click*

*click*

*click*

The sound, barely audible above the tortured screams of rage and pain emanating from the creatures' ghastly throats, resounded through her soul with all the force of a high-caliber mortar shell. One of her hands dropped away from its grip on the Desert Eagle, reached the disguised ammo belt, and popped a clip out of one of its compartments. She touched a stud, and the old clip popped out, falling useless to the asphalt. Her hand was a blur as she brought the clip up, but she knew it was too late. They were too close, closing too quickly. Five meters now, less, one was just clearing the far edge of the dumpster. It saw her, it leapt, claws outstretched, bits of bloody foam flying from its gaping maw. She flinched away involuntarily, and the clip went in with its own, distinctly more hopeful click. Too late, though, some small part of her brain cackled. Too late...

A sound that could only be described as a musical note resounded through the alleyway. It was a deep note in a sense that transcended pitch, a primal note, an old note, a note that rose out of the depths of a composer's mind to spawn symphonies that would shake worlds, and, more often than not, drive their creators completely insane. It sounded like a stringed instrument, played exceedingly well, though one Angie had never heard before. In a very strange way, it sounded as though Death himself was playing the violin.

Two small thunks, small and completely incongruous with the brilliant, infectious twang, followed, as two rather large bolts pierced through the leaping creature with such force that they not only drove it to the ground, but drove themselves through the pavement. Three more demons fell, pierced through with shafts of something that wasn't quite light, and wasn't quite noise... For some reason, it felt like the essence of music itself.

That, of course, was when she recognized the sound. It had not come from any musical instrument, or, at least, anything customarially thought of as a musical instrument.

It had come from a crossbow string.

She had no time to look for her unknown archer, but, ultimately, she didn't care that much who he-or she- was. The person had given her the spare milliseconds she needed to raise the Desert Eagle and open fire on the rapidly-thinning crowd of tan-furred creatures. More crossbow bolts whizzed by overhead, piercing those few of the demons who were intelligent enough to try and flee.

Five minutes later, it was over. She straightened, breathing hard, but didn't let the Desert Eagle drop. The gun was nearly hot enough to burn her hands, but she held it out, its barrel only wavering slightly as she called out over the sudden silence. "Hello? Who's there?"

Silence closed upon her words, and she shook her head. A bead of sweat rolled down her face, over the curve of temple and cheek, to drip from her chin onto her white tee-shirt. Angie licked her lips nervously, then tried again. "Come out where I can see you, please." Carefully, she edged her head out past the corner of the dumpster again, but the alleyway was empty, save for the bedraggled corpses of the demons. None of them was still moving. There were no cries of the wounded, no squeals of pain, only the never-ending quiet of the tomb.

There was the barest impression of fluttering cloth, and she dropped to the ground, whirling around so that the Desert Eagle pointed tremblingly at the figure who now stood on the loading dock of Man's Chinese Restaurant.

For the briefest instant, she felt her mouth go dry. He was beautiful, with iron-gray hair framing a thin, delicate face, his form clothed in white beneath the billowing alabaster cloak. His skin was the color of pink marble, and powerful, quiet gray eyes stared out at her from that beautiful face, watching, judging. One of his hands held the grip of a crossbow. The other was outstretched towards her, empty, welcoming.

Angie shook her head, concentrating on the Desert Eagle's sight. She couldn't afford distraction, not even for a minute. "Who are you?"

Her savior smiled carefully, lips curving in a way that hinted at much more than it revealed. When he spoke, the words echoed a thousand melodies, not so much singing as containing symphonies within the subtle fluctuations of their timbre. "I am Whisper, All-Father of the Muses. And you are?"

She straightened and pushed herself off the pavement, rubbing the sore spot where her shoulder had slammed into the ground. Walking forward, she gripped his extended hand and shook it, hard. "Angie Blackfeather. Thanks for the save."

Whisper lowered himself carefully off of the loading dock and onto the alley floor. "It was nothing."

She blinked, and smiled mischeviously. "Not to me."

He turned to her, his smile looking almost sheepish. "I'm sorry. I meant-"

"I know what you meant, Whisper." Angie laughed, and extended her hand. "Call me Angie."

"Damn."

Stella nodded in agreement, staring out through the plate-glass windows of the KPD Headquarters' first floor, upon the chaos that had overtaken Khazan. Immense, furry shapes, and larger ones, scaled and taloned, blurred over the broken cobblestones, leaving trails of fresh blood in their wake. Athrakim, great catlike beasts with long, wicked talons and beautiful, soft fur, prowled around the outskirts of the chaos, turning occasionally to strike at a fleeing human, or at one another. Here and there, bedraggled fragments of humanity scurried through the shadows, hunted even as they searched for some kind of escape.

There was none. She could feel it, far below her bones, in the pit of her heart. No escape from the demons below, and no escape from the angels above. The entire world was a single, gigantic trap, meant for a fly no greater than the multiverse itself. She felt sick.

"How long will they be like this?" Bryn stared out the window, his face inches from the glass, not quite comprehending what he was seeing.

Out in the streets, an Athrakim crouched and leapt, catching a fleeing human in midstride. Its great, needle-sharp teeth tore through skin, muscle, and bone as if it were so much paper. Blood matted golden fur as it began to feast.

UNTIL THE ANGELS CATCH UP WITH THEM.

Phil nodded. "That's a good thing, then?"

FOR THE ANGELS. NOT FOR THE DEMONS. OR THE HUMANS.

"That bad, are they?"

Stell shook her head, angry at herself for her inaction, for the cold numbness that clouded her mind and stole away her senses. She had not felt the fleeing man's death as anything more than a spectacle, and admitting that to herself hurt. Bad. It took significant effort to keep the tremble of emotion out of her voice as she spoke. "Phil."

"Yes?"

"Are you pure? Are you willing to stake your life on that fact? Your soul? Against someone who is sure, down in the bottoms of their heart, that they are pure, and that they are in the right?" Her voice was low, level, but his face slackened for a brief instant as her words took effect.

"So, how do we get out?" Seryph nodded, waving indistinctly at the chaos. "We can't cut our way out through that. Do we try the back way?"

She shook her head. "It would be the same, except in the alleys we'd have to worry about fleeing humans as well. I don't think the people will be too happy with super-powered types at the moment." A trickle of blood streamed through the grooves between the cobblestones, pooling against the bottom of the transparasteel door.

"So, what? We just sit here till we all rot?" Lester shook his head angrily, eyes fixed on Stell as he completely and patently ignored the massacre beyond the portal.

"No."

"Well, if you've got some kind of plan, now's the time to let us in on it."

Instead of replying directly, she turned to Sam, looming darkly against the receptionist's desk as he leafed through a copy of TV Guide with his long, bony fingers. Somewhere beneath the enfolding, ebony robe, something tapped rhythmically against the cool, marbled floor. "How soon will the angels get here? What kind of force?"

LESSER CHOIRS, MOSTLY. A CHERUBIM OR TWO, MAYBE A LOWER ARCHAE. He cocked his head to one side, listening with ears that, in a literal sense, did not technically exist. ABOUT FIVE, TEN MINUTES.

Stell nodded curtly. She didn't need to consult the ex-Horseman, of course. She could feel them all, the demons like thousands of individual pricks of foulness, while the angels, fallen or not, burned across her consciousness with the ferocity of live coals, leaving behind vermillion tracks of emotion as they arced through the stratosphere of her skull. Still, though, there were things she wasn't ready to tell them, things that she couldn't say, at least for the moment. Or perhaps it was herself that she wasn't ready to tell... "So, we wait for the angels to get here, then slip out in the confusion. They'll be so busy killing each other that they won't even notice us." Hopefully. She left that part unsaid, of course, but everyone thought it all the same.

Seryph nodded. "And where to then?"

She shrugged. "I'm new in town. I was hoping one of you would have an idea."

The former Avatar of the Universe gazed out the window, fingertips drumming thoughtfully against the sharkskin hilt of his katana. He shook his head grimly, the slowly setting sun casting his face in a bass relief of shadow and pure light. "If it's like this everywhere, there's only a few places we can hide. The Hilton has a pretty good defense system, but we don't have a room there, and anyway, its nearly across town. Most of the team enclaves around these parts would have gone up in smoke by now, and if the headquarters aren't under siege by now, I'll eat my tatami." He pointed at the burning skeleton of what had once been a three-story brownstone, all the way across the chaos of the square. "That used to be the SLJ consulate. The JLA's defenses are probably the best in the business, but it also has to be one of their primary targets. We'd have to fight our way through these guys, and then fight to get past whatever was blocking the door." He shrugged. The rythym of fingers against sharkskin was dull, punctuating the hardly-muffled groans and screams from outside.

I MAY KNOW A PLACE.

Stell blinked. Sam, of all the people assembled in the eastern reception hall of the KPD building at this moment, knew more about what they were facing than anything. What was happening now was-had been- might still be for all she knew - his life's work. "You're sure?"

DEFINITELY.

Phil coughed politely. "Hate to butt in..."

"What is it?" She glanced nervously at the sky. There were still angels there, of course, their wings of fire burning tracks of smoke across the blue, but none of them were descending, yet.

"If it's this bad everywhere-"

IT IS.

"Well, can't we head for the Headquarters, then? There are some things I need to do there, if only to make sure it doesn't fall into the wrong hands."

OR TENTACLES.

"Whatever."

Stell shook her head. "The JLA is all the way across town. We'd never make it before they caught up with us. Especially with them hunting after Lester, we'll show up on their radars like nobody's business."

"But one person might get through."

She nodded slowly, sensing where this was going. "Yes. One person might get through."

With a curt nod, Phil stood and walked towards the double doors. He broke stride for a moment to step over the broken, battered body of a former rioter. "I'll need to go, then."

Seryph turned away from the milieu, his face cold and serious. "Then I'm going with you."

Phil shook his head, tugging sharply with both hands around the waist of his jumpsuit. "Sorry, old friend. Can't allow it. They'll probably be looking for you, too, along with the rest of them. I'll be able to get through, because I'm not connected to anything like the rest of you chaps." He grinned impishly, patting the discreet circuitry box at the back of his tree-trunk neck. "Plain, old-fashioned technology for me. As far as the mystical stuff is concerned, I'm just another crazy human trying to stay alive. Only," he shrugged, "I can stay alive better than most."

"You're resolved, then."

It wasn't really a question, but Phil answered anyway. "Yes. I suppose I am." His voice was soft, if an avalanche can ever be called soft. He raised one hand tentatively, and placed it on Seryph's shoulder, looking straight into the other man's eyes. "I'll get in touch. Give HQ a call when you get to wherever you're going, and I'll get there quick as I can."

There was a long silence, broken only by the soft padding sound of Bryn pacing up and down the long hallway, his sneakers occasionally squeaking through a puddle of half-dried blood. Finally, Sam looked up from his TV Guide.

THEY'RE COMING.

And they were. Stell saw them, still far off, but growing closer by the minute, little streaks of flame like miniature comets tearing through the sky. Two spots between her shoulder blades itched painfully, and her eyes began to water with tears, although she was not sure whether she was sad, or just angry. She carefully schooled her features, keeping her emotion inside, trying to fight down the ancient, indelible longing, but it was no use. Still, the angels came.

They descended into the demons' midst like bolts of vengeful lightning from on high, their forms of purest marble as they danced through the carnage, wings glowing like the sun. Flaming swords and lances of brilliant fire ripped through the flesh of the ravening Imps, before spinning on to face the next challenge. The angels moved independently from their muscles, flowing in a brilliant epiphany of pure light. In a matter of seconds, several lesser demons lay on the cobbles, ichor spreading out about them like a black tide. Then, the Imps managed to recover, and things started to get... interesting. Light and... something else... bled from gleaming skin as angels began to fall.

The Cherubim, if there was one, hadn't arrived yet. Good. That meant they had a few seconds to spare. She turned back to the others. "Let's go! Now!"

Sam flowed in front of her, a streak of black robes. FOLLOW ME. The Scythe flashed through space, and the doors, which had survived the riots, and stood up against the hosts of Heaven and Hell, disappeared into the subquantum mist. White flashed beneath the hem of the robe as he ran, its long, black fabric flapping as the wind struck it. Stell followed almost immediately, running down the steps after him, a bit slower slower, but no less insistent, the others hard on her heels. She could feel a Cherubim approaching, an eye that could see the fall of every electron scouring the battleground mercilessly. For a brief instant, she felt like a bug squirming beneath an entymologist's magnifying glass, but she kept running. In the center of the square, immense, meter-thick tentacles grabbed up two of the lesser angels, crushing their spines and squeezing the marbled flesh to pulp with all energy a human would expend to pop the lid off of a can of soda. Screams and unearthly roars echoed through her ears and her mind, all cut through with the crackling of flame and bursts of electricity and screaming, hungry darkness as the beings cut loose against one another with every weapon in their arsenal. It was almost too much to bear, her senses struck from all sides by waves of pleasure and pain and pure sensation...

And then they were in the alleyway, and it was quiet. She collapsed against the wall, breathing hard, her skin glistening with sweat. Sam stood next to her, leaning heavily against the dark haft of his Scythe. The others arrived panting for breath, their eyes wide. Lester, trailing Bryn's arrival by several seconds, promptly doubled over and vomited. He straightened slowly, wiped his mouth with his hand, and swiped his hand on the brick wall to get it clean. He shook a little, but managed to keep himself upright.

Stell frowned, feeling the Cherubim's gaze pass over her once more. A vague suggestion of wings and a single, burning eye ruffled through the darkness between her thoughts, and was gone. "It's getting closer." She turned to Sam...

But he was gone. Shadows enclosed the dark alley.

She shot a questioning glance over to Seryph, who shrugged. Bryn and Phil shook their heads. Damn. He hadn't even told her where they were supposed to be-

The shadows burned away as two streaks of lightning descended from the sky, striking the pavement and leaving little pieces of themselves behind. The two angels glowed with the brilliant, scarring light of an atomic explosion, their white hair highlighted with glimmering gold. Their eyes blazed flame, brilliant sparks trickled like water over their perfectly sculpted bodies, one male, one female. They were clothed in robes made of light, and their wings filled the alley, like a thousand sunrises contained in one. Two burning swords were clenched firmly in two white-marble fists.

Stell was suddenly, firmly aware of a ballpoint pen in the hip pocket of her jeans, of the press of clothing against her flesh. Their radiance called to her and rebuked her at the same time, inviting and threatening as they stepped forward...

When they spoke, it was with the voice of a legion, singing in vague, uncertain harmony. "You have been judged, mortals. You have been found unworthy, and sinful. Your darkness must be purged from the li-"

There was a vague suggestion of movement in the persistent shadows behind them, and their consuming light glinted off of white bone...

Some weapons, when used against a target, make a chopping sound. Others make a rather large explosion. Still others make a slicing noise, and many make no sound at all. The sound made as something swung in a gleaming, blue-white arc through air, light, skin, and aetherial flesh, was most distinctly a *SCYTHE*.

The male angel gasped, and toppled forward, his head rolling from his shoulders to lie face up, staring in disbelief as light and life drained from it together. Sam loomed in the darkness, the Scythe gleaming darkly in his hands, twin blue-white sparks shining from his eyesockets. He grinned.

The female angel was already turning, raising her sword to attack, to defend, to do something. Sam readied the Scythe once more...

Before either of them could make another move, Stell struck, leaping forward like an uncoiled spring, her ballpoint pen gripped tightly in one balled-up fist. She took the angel in her midriff, toppling her to the ground. The sword clattered to to the pavement, singing the asphalt a deep, black color. The female struggled to regain her footing, but Stell was faster, her knees coming down on either side of the angel's body, pinning the other's wings as she pressed her to the ground with her own weight. She raised the hand with the ballpoint pen...

Their eyes met for a brief, eternal instant, and the pen came down, slamming through the jugular vein, blunting itself against the concrete below. Blood spurted onto her hand as she pulled back, leaving the pen buried in the angel's flesh. It rolled down her fingers, dripping upon the ground, where it sizzled. Stella rose slowly, turning back to face the others, who stared at her in a mixture of shock and amazement, open-mouthed. Sam was grinning. "What?"

NOTHING. The rest shook their heads slowly.

"Good. Where are we going, then?"

THE TURNOFF IS ABOUT TEN METERS AHEAD. He turned to Phil. THERE'S A SIDE ALLEY THAT WILL TAKE YOU IN THE DIRECTION OF THE JLA HEADQUARTERS.

The Lead Admin Guy nodded slowly. "Well, I guess this is it, then."

Seryph nodded. "Yes."

"I'll catch up with you in a day or so, probably. Take that long to get everything in order over at Headquarters. I'll bring the mech." The words, for all their apparent optimism, echoed hollowly in the dark alleyway.

Sam nodded, leading the way down to the turnoff around piles of bodies and small pools of blood and still-flickering fire. Phil glanced down it, looking almost nervous, and nodded. "Looks all right."

GOOD LUCK.

Seryph grinned halfheartedly, and clapped Phil on the shoulder. "Good luck, friend."

"I hope I'm not going to need all of it." Phil laughed, fired off a mock salute, and turned down the side alley. The shadows swallowed him, and he was gone.

Seryph kept looking at the spot where he had vanished for a long minute afterwards. "Do you think he'll be all right?"

Stell shrugged. "Hopefully. They can't find him too easily as long as he's alone, and he'll be a hard target for the rioters." She turned to Seryph, not quite sure how to approach the dark, careful man. "We'll see him again. Don't worry."

"I can't help worrying." He shook his head, then turned to Sam. "Where too now?"

Sam grinned. YOU'LL SEE. He paused for a second. BUT FIRST... He lifted two fingers to his jaw, clamped them between his teeth, and blew hard. In the distance, there was a barely audible roar, then a much louder, inhuman scream, accompanied by some faint crunching noises. The roar grew steadily louder, and then, suddenly, a pale blur resolved itself into a gleaming, squat motorcycle, its engine purring contentedly. Bryn stared at it openmouthed. Dark ichor dripped from its front wheel, and Stell thought she could see a clump of twisted, dark hair stuck to the rubber.

Sam reached down with his free hand and scratched it affectionately between the handlebars. Motorcycles, of course, couldn't be happy, but this one managed to give a good impression. It inched closer to Sam, like a cat rubbing itself against its owner's leg.

I'VE ALWAYS THOUGHT EXTRA INSURANCE WAS A GOOD IDEA.

With that, he turned and walked off into the shadows. They followed him.

Demons don't have friends. There's this thing about normally cannibalistic, always carnivorous, nearly omnipotent creatures that exist solely to inflict pain and injury upon others that sort of stops relationships of that sort before they get too serious. Generally, said relationships are stopped quite suddenly, and there is always quite a lot of blood involved.

While demons didn't have friends, several of them did hunt in packs. This particular one's packmates called it Seventeen Bloody Fang Nine Feet Tall. Actually, it had considerably more than seventeen fangs, but this particular breed of demon only had seventeen fingers, and was not that intelligent to start off with, so its packmates stopped counting at seventeen.

Seventeen Bloody Fang Nine Feet Tall was thoroughly enjoying this trip into a world of color and light. In Seventeen Bloody Fang Nine Feet Tall's home, it was quite difficult to see the actual color of an individual human's blood, since there was so much of it everywhere. Out here, though, in the world above, it could savor every last drop in all its scintillating glory.

Right now, Seventeen Bloody Fang Nine Feet Tall wandered down Haight-Khazan Street, popping open the little, fast steel things with wheels and sucking the humans out one by one. Sometimes there was only one human, sometimes there were two, and sometimes there were even more than that. Sometimes there were other creatures, too, with fangs, and scales, or tentacles, and things even more strange. They didn't bother Seventeen Bloody Fang Nine Feet Tall that much, except for the fact that most of them left a particularly bad aftertaste in its mouth. Its particular taste was for human blood.

In the distance, through the haze of beautiful screams, the blaring of car alarms, and the crackling of flames, Seventeen Bloody Fang Nine Feet Tall heard a sound, a loud wail, like a hundred humans screaming in anguish, but deeper, resonating through concrete and steel, in time to the dark rhythms of its own hearts. The sound died, then repeated itself, died, repeated itself again, all the time growing closer, ever so slowly. In a world of beautiful screams, it was the most beautiful thing Seventeen Bloody Fang Nine Feet Tall had yet heard.

Suddenly, the noise grew close enough that he could see where it was coming from. A great, black metallic lozenge rounded a corner two blocks away, tires squealing, the acrid smell of burnt rubber strong enough to singe the demon's nose. The sound was coming from somewhere beneath the metal thing's skin, and it sounded again even as the demon watched. Twin, baleful headlights burned into the demon's sensitive eyes, glaring like a hunting predator espying game. The thing roared as it accelerated, hurtling towards Seventeen Bloody Fang Nine Feet Tall.

The demon shook its long, snakelike head in astonishment. Most of the other little metal things had turned to flee, or stopped to let out their humans. This one, on the other hand, looked like it wanted to fight. Seventeen Fang Bloody Jaguar shrugged its massive shoulders, as wide as a house and strong as eternity. It hadn't gotten its own (admittedly low) position in the hierarchy of Hell by backing down from a fight.

It roared, running forward to close the distance with the metal thing...

A loud crunching noise bounced off the featureless brick walls lining the street, punctuated by several painful-sounding, if brief, squelches.

Seventeen Bloody Fang Nine Feet Tall blinked, and glanced down at itself. There was something different... It certainly didn't remember its body being a bluish-white color, and transparent. Nor did it remember being able to see another body of its own kind, lying on the ground with rather large tread marks tracked across black scales.

The van moved on. Then, as if reconsidering, it paused, and reversed its course, squealing to a stop again almost on top of the corpse of Seventeen Bloody Fang Nine Feet Tall. One of its ebony windows rolled down, slowly, and a head emerged from the womblike inner darkness.

"'Scuse me."

The soul that had once belonged to the demon shook its head slowly, not understanding. Everything was so hazy... It was so hard to concentrate...

Two lips, ancient and withered on a face so hard it could have cut diamond, moved again. "I reckon the Horsemen've passed through here. You seen em'?" If the face was hard, the voice was rock solid, unshakable, more a force of nature than anything remotely human.

The soul shook its notational head, bits of it drifting off as it gradually lost distinction, lost coherence, lost itself.

The Saint of Pizza Delivery shook his head slowly as he rolled the window back up. "Reckon I'll be moving on, then."

The van drove on.

Phil ran down the narrow alleys that separated the close-packed buildings near downtown Khazan. With ever step, he hoped ferverently that he had been right, that he would stand a better chance at surviving because he had no connection to anything mystical. Technology was more than enough to keep him out of trouble, but it didn't seem to have helped the burned, dessicated corpses he had to dodge or jump over every few steps. There was no time to stop, no time to speak with them. He needed to get to JLA Headquarters, needed to start a real resistance movement, push these freaks back to wherever they came from. There would be time for dealing with casualties later. Hard, but everyone had to make hard choices. His were just a little more difficult to deal with than everyone else's.

As he ran on, though, he felt a quiet, deadly exhaustion seep through his limbs. It was not the speed with which he was traveling, or the fact that every few minutes he needed to dive for cover as an angel swooped by overhead, or even the fact that he had several miles left to cover before he would be safe. It was an exhaustion of the soul, made worse every time he passed on by one of the bloody corpses, every time he ran through a puddle and looked down to see that it had splashed sticky red blood all over his clothes. Sightless eyes, sightless skulls, stared out at him.

That wasn't even the worst, though. From all sides, he could hear them dying, the people of Khazan, all the detritus and pride of a thousand million worlds, people who had come to the Nexus because they lost all hope, people who had hope in abundance, and wanted to make that painfully clear to everyone around them, they were dying. He could hear the crackling of Angelic swords, demonic roars of triumph, the beating of mighty wings, the plague victims retching in the alleyways, coughing up their last miserable lungfulls of blood onto the pavement stones.

Blood. The streets of Khazan ran with it, like the blood vessels of a giant corpse recently cut open for an anatomical exercise. Blood matted his hair, his shoes, his clothes. Blood smeared over the crystal surface of his wristwatch. Blood, and screams, and then silence, just long enough to throw his ears off guard as the demons, the angels (was there any difference) hunted down new victims.

He ran on, and every moment was weariness. His mind burned, and even though his muscles plodded on, he felt constantly in danger of collapse. Pain pressed in on him, and it was not his own. It was something larger, something far greater, far stronger, something he had been experiencing every single moment of his life without realizing a thing. It had always been here, but now he was starting to hear it. It was a voice, and it was speaking to him.

Help me... Help me...

His feet skidded over a thin film of blood as he pulled himself to a sudden stop. There were people in front of him. He had not seen them before this, probably because they blended in so well with the bodies. These were still alive, though, still standing, still moving, but with a vacant light in their eyes, like wary animals. Their clothes were torn and shredded, and several had long gashes torn in their flesh, still bleeding. One man lay on the ground a few feet away from Phil, a long flap of skin hanging from his scalp, exposing a pulsating mass of red, with just a hint of white bone beneath. The man was passed out, his ruined face twisted into a nightmare of blood, ichor, and vitreous humor leaking from pulped eyeballs.

Limbs hung askew from joints, ligaments torn, muscles exposed. A child crouched over a fallen man, crying, tears mixing with its own salty blood, running down from two long gashes on either side of her face.

Blood was caked on their hands. Human blood.

Rioters.

Phil raised his hands, forcing down the sudden rush of adrenaline, and walked slowly forwards. He did not want to alarm these people, he did not want to hurt them. They had been hurt enough already. "Excuse me."

He felt their eyes on him, sliding over his body like raw motor oil. The red and gray JLA insignia at his collar burned painfully, like a beacon against the activated-charcoal black uniform. Recognition, slow and terrible, dawned on the sea of waiting faces. Wordlessly, they moved forwards.

Phil took a quick step back, hands rising into combat-ready position. He felt the circuitry box at the nape of his neck kick into high gear, preparing his body to handle the rush of adrenaline and endorphins that accompanied hand-to-hand combat. His muscles flexed dangerously beneath the loose black coverall.

And again, he heard it, the voice, from everywhere. It was not the voice of the pain. It was the voice of something in pain, something huge, something strangely... beautiful...

Help me...

Phil looked upon their faces, upon the child, upon the man with the ruined face, upon the lights of pain and fear that glowed within each person's eye. He saw the blood, and he saw the fear, and he saw the need.

And, oddly enough, for just one minute, he understood.

He lowered his hands to his side, and the crowd closed in, a tide of flesh and bone.

His world dissolved in a red mist of fists and pain.

Sam paused in midstride, cocked his head to the side for a second as if listening to something, and nodded grimly. His grip tightened imperceptibly on the hungry, ebon haft of the Scythe as he shook his head with all the inevitability of a glacier carving out a mountain range. In a blur, he turned back to face Stell and the others.

THERE IS SOMETHING I MUST DO. THE BIKE WILL GUIDE YOU. I WILL CATCH UP SHORTLY.

Before they could respond, he was walking. An updraft of hot air from a nearby vent caught his robe, flaring it about him like a great pair of infinitely black wings, and he was gone.

The Harley led them on through the darkness.

Azaquiel smiled. This was something he did quite often. It tended to throw people off guard, except when he did it excessively. In his experience, and he had quite a bit of that, mortals tended to be suspicious of individuals who smiled constantly, especially when said individuals smiled widely enough to reveal their small, excessively pointed canines. Situations like that often led to a few moments of excitement, and, especially in the age of policemen and homicide squads, an excessive amount of cleanup. Most unfortunate.

He fished a pack of Lucky Strikes out of the pocket of his white greatcoat, and flicked out a single, slender cigarette with practiced ease. Sticking the pack back in his pocket, he tore off the filter and threw it carelessly aside, then commenced to search for matches. Considering that he had six pockets, this took quite some time. Finding none, he swore softly to himself, and snapped the fingers of his free hand. A match appeared, clenched between thumb and forefinger. Careful to avoid getting ichor on his coat, Azaquiel bent down over the rapidly-decaying corpse of what had once been a demon, its scaled hide marred with great, cauterized wounds from an angelic sword. The angel itself lay a few feet away, blood and holy light still gouting from its slit throat.

Azaquiel smiled. It was amazing what one could do with your regular Swiss Army Knife. Not even one of the big ones, either, just the little job that they gave you at conventions, the one that was supposed to go on your keychain.

He reached down, struck the match on one of the few dry patches of scale remaining on the Demon's slime-slick back, and brought it quickly to the naked end of the cigarette. The tobacco flared as he inhaled, searing his lungs, burning his heart, sweet tasting smoke rolling in his mouth.

Still smiling, Azaquiel straightened, removed the cigarette from his mouth, and blew a smoke ring up into the rafters. He turned, gave a mock bow, and stepped over a small pile of dead humans as he climbed the subway stairs to the streets of Khazan. The corpses watched him go.

Sam ran full tilt down the alleyway, cloak flaring behind him like a shroud. He had no skin to glisten with perspiration, but if he had, it probably would have. As it was, he ran on, without any muscles to get tired, without any limbs or organs to be overtaxed. A skeleton with his mind set on something is a terrible opponent indeed.

He had felt Phil fall, a little increase in entropy, but there was something else behind it, something much larger, something which Sam himself had never before encountered. Truth to tell, though, Sam could not quite say what drove him to run off after someone he hardly knew. It was as if his actions were being guided by something much larger than himself, and he did not like that feeling one bit.

Nonetheless, he ran on.

It took him fifteen minutes, even moving as fast as he could, to reach the site. It would have been quicker to use the bike - he was getting much better at driving it, even if it still possessed some of the failings of a mortal motorcycle - but that would have left Stell and the others undefended. Not that Stella really needed that much protection, but she wanted to maintain a low profile, and if she had to fight, it would be hard to keep up such foolishness for long.

He could understand that, though. There was the human world, with its little losses and little gains, threepenny brilliance and tiny specks of gold, and then there was the world outside, cast in black and white, highlight and shadow, and nothing in between. She had been hurt, and hurt badly, and the true extent of her injuries had gone far beyond the simply physical. If he were in her place, he would do the same thing. Human life was so beautiful, like a miniature painting in all the colors of the rainbow, but it was impossible to run from the other world, impossible to hide. It would search you out, wherever you ran too, no matter how well you protected yourself and those around you.

Jenny's face swam through his mind in a swirl of color and light, and faded away.

When he reached the street, Sam slowed to a walk. They were still here, the rioters, smears of garish color and emotion against a backdrop of pain. Thirty or forty of them were hunched over something, their hands and feet moving rhythmically, beating whatever it was into the ground. They were spattered with blood and chunks of flesh. A sudden brand of sympathy burned through his mind, narrowly ahead of the wave of rage.

He stepped forward and brought the Scythe down hard, once, on the pavement. The screams of triumph and buzz of conversation stopped immediately, the dull thump slicing through them like the Scythe's blade itself. Sam felt a hunger rise deep inside the dark extension of his soul, felt the blade leap almost imperceptibly, yearning for blood, for flesh, for the hot spurt of life fading from a dessicated carcass. The hunger had been growing every day since this all began, and it was no trouble to contain, but he felt his rage sliding out from underneath his own iron control, almost giving the blade free rein.

Suddenly, thirty pairs of eyes focused upon him, and, in turn, felt his burning, blue-white gaze upon them, as if each and every one of them was personally staring him eye to eye. They edged backwards slowly, eyes darting down the empty alley behind them.

Sam stepped forward, and the Scythe-blade glinted, its tip running with blue white fire as it sliced open a thousand tiny rents in the delicate fabric of space, time, and belief that forged the human world. The rioters moved backwards. He caught a glimpse of a hand, red with its own blood, between their feet. He took another step forwards.

YOU... There was a sudden pause as Sam's grip on the Scythe-haft tightened.

YOU SICKEN ME. ALL OF YOU. The voice traveled in a way that had absolutely nothing to do with the ears, and everything to do with the soul. It spoke directly to the brainstem, to the core of the mind, to the heart, without giving the brain any chance to dull down or rationalize the message. YOU CALL YOURSELVES HUMAN, YOU SAY THAT YOU ACT IN THE NAME OF HUMANITY, WHEN YOUR OWN ACTIONS PROVE YOU TO BE NOTHING BETTER THAN ANIMALS. He shook his head, and a tone of disgust crept into the voice. YOU ARE NOT WORTH THE INSTANT IT WOULD TAKE TO KILL YOU. LEAVE THIS MAN, AND LEAVE MY SIGHT.

There was a pause, during which nobody moved, during which nothing was audible except for the beating of forty frightened hearts, and the buzzing of forty overtaxed nervous systems.

NOW.

Seconds later, the alleyway was empty, except for Sam and the hulk of blood and flesh that, he hoped, was still Phil, Lead Admin Guy. He crossed the intervening space in a moment, knelt down by the body, and held out his free hand over it. His eyesparks flickered for a moment, then died, as he searched inwards and outwards, mind diving through his outstretched hand, and into the body...

Moments later, his eyesockets flared brilliantly back to life, and he nodded, grimly. Bending down even further, he wrapped one arm around Phil, and stood, lifting the large man's motionless form easily over his shoulder. Drops of blood from Phil's ruined form fell like rain upon Sam's robe, but, somehow, they failed to stain either it, or the white, flawless bone beneath.

He would need a hospital soon, but, fortunately, there was a room where they were going that would serve.

Sam turned and walked off into the darkness, carrying the unconscious Phil over his shoulder like a child in its father's arms.

On the outskirts of town, it was dark. Ned wandered there, alone. He needed to do some thinking.

He had wandered for a long time. He knew pain, he knew suffering. What was happening to Khazan was not new for him. It had happened before, on a world he remembered, in a land that he had loved. The casualties had been simple. All his people: dead. All his friends: dead. The woman he loved, the woman he had pledged himself to, heart and soul... dead, dead and condemned to the deepest flames for all time. And himself... a walking corpse, a body without a soul, doomed never to die.

He had felt them enter, of course. A legion of legions, a host of hosts, and among them, the ones who had come to his world, the ones who had destroyed his life. They burned like bonfires compared to the fireflies of the lesser angels, the lesser demons. They were so close, and yet, so eternally far... He could never take them all on, not and stand a chance of winning. No matter how hard he fought, no matter how much he struggled, they would defeat him again. He had no chance... At least, no chance alone.

But, perhaps, as they arrived, they had sewn the seeds of their own destruction.

One man, alone, could not hope to defeat them.

But two... two might.

And they had brought Cacus Itoryx of the First Men to the material realms.

Ned did something that he rarely managed: he smiled. It was slow, and painful, but it was most certainly a smile.