"The kings of the earth who committed
fornication with her and wallowed in her
luxury will weep and wail over her, as
they see the smoke of her burning. In
terror at her torment they will keep their
distance and say, 'Alas, alas for you great
city, mighty city of Babylon! In a moment
your doom has come upon you!'"
-Revelation to John, 18: 9-10
From the Revised English Bible with the Apocrypha

Things were going badly for Bryn Shima, and looked as if they were only about to get worse. The high-pitched wail of alert klaxons outside penetrated even the nearly soundproof walls of the interrigation room, and through the smoked, bulletproof glass door, he could see dark shapes moving, advancing. Light burst from one of the dark figures sporadically, accompanied by the muffled sound of a gunshot, but the shots were slowing rapidly, and there looked to be a great deal of the dark figures. What had happened in the last hour, that the Khazan Police Department itself was under attack?

More than he had been expecting, obviously.

The blurred figure with the gun, whom he suspected, with a sinking feeling, was Officer Gallan, his would-be interviewer, faltered, taking a step back towards the door. His arm was raised, gun probably in hand, but nothing happened. It was almost comical. Even the dull click coming from the ammunition-less weapon as Gallan repeatedly pulled the trigger was obliterated by the thick, soundproof padding. Gallan took another step back, and the other figures moved forwards, like a tidal wave of semi-human shapes, deadly earnest. They surrounded Gallan's figure.

Screams, at first low, then louder and louder, pierced through the door. The katana was in Bryn's hand before he could think, the blade shimmering dully, like mist when first hit by the sun. Rapid breaths caught in his throat, fighting each other in their haste to escape his all-too-fragile flesh.

Something large and vaguely human-sized hit the door, then collapsed bonelessly to the floor. It left trails of red on the glass.

Bryn pushed down the impulse rising in his throat, to cry out, to run. Now, he would need to fight.

More dark shapes hit the glass, this time driven by malice and insanity-born strength. A single, almost miniscule crack appeared halfway up the pane. Another rush, and the crack widened, spiderwebbing into a delicate framework of lines and curlicues that, had his attention been less focused on the figures, he might have thought oddly beautiful. The silhouettes advanced again, and the tiny fractures gave way in a shower of glass shards, all of them falling to the ground well clear of Bryn's own feet.

People stood in the doorway. They did not look particularly strong, or fast, especially not by the standards of a superhuman. Had he seen them on any streetcorner in Khazan, or, hell, on Earth, he would not have even noticed them, rendering them as part of his life's background image, something necessary, but not something to be interacted with, or to be considered. This only made the hungry, half-mad looks in their eyes worse. They hardly looked human any more, shredded clothes hanging from thin, almost emaciated limbs crisscrossed with scrapes, burns, and tears. A few looked had taken glancing hits from Gallan's weapon, leaving ragged, red tracks across their skin. For all that, they did not look as if slowing down had even entered their minds.

The other thing he noticed about them was their hands. Every one of them, male and female, human and non, had arms that, from the elbow down, were covered in dripping, red gore. Had all other things been equal, he would have been sick on the spot. Now, however, he could not allow himself the luxury.

As they filed through the door, spreading out as if to fill the entire interrigation room, Bryn maneuvered himself towards a corner. He could see no end to their numbers out in the cooridoor. If he could restrict the number that came at him at once, he had a chance of staying alive until help came.

What help? a little voice gibbered inside his head. Who's going to help you? They can't even help themselves.

Bryn fought to relax his death-grip on the katana's hilt, to give himself more freedom, allow a greater range of movement for the shimmering blade. His stomach fluttered nervously, but his grin was a match for any of the fanatics' as he backed towards the wall.

Time was on his side.

It was about time he found out just how good an ally it could be.

By the time they reached the Gate, Pestilence was all-but exhausted, Diadem or no Diadem. His wings ached from riding the treacherous winds of Hell, and he was painfully aware of the vastness of the Armies of the Pit, of the endless ranks of imps, demons, Lords, and other Things that followed behind. Most of all, though, he felt the presence of the Maskim.

Pestilence was the First Horseman of the Apocalypse, the Herald. He was as powerful as God, Demon, or Angel in the any sphere ever born. He feared nothing that moved in any world, least of all in Hell.

The Maskim, though...

The Maskim gave him pause. The Nine of Hell, so powerful that they assumed no titles, needed no outlandish shapes and forms to display their strength. Only Beelzebub, walking beside him in a form of chiseled flame, gave even the slightest tip of the hat to the Old Ways, to the flamboyance and ceremony that dominated the realms of Aether. It had been billions, perhaps trillions of years since Pestilence saw a single angel lay down their assumed forms, set aside their halos, beauteous seemings, and shimmering curtains of light to reveal the true soul, the limitless power beneath. That the Maskim had, bespoke colossal arrogance and power of an equal measure. They wore shapes, of course, or else the flaming glory of their presence would annihilate many of the lesser demons and spirits that they dealt with. They were simply so powerful that, aeons ago, they had left behind their little insecurities and desires. They were so powerful that they could appear as humans, as mere mortals. They were so powerful that they never needed to demonstrate their power.

The time was coming, though.

Yes.

The time was coming.

The Gates of Hell rose before him, so large and black as to defy superlatives, surface covered with runes and symbols even older, signs and sigils that glimmered with hate, fear, and barely-clothed malice. And pain, of course. There was quite a bit of that, crouching in the dark not-quite-ebony that formed the twin doors, waiting for unwary eyes to leap out and strike.

Pestilence knew what the signs said, roughly translated. They did not, as a half mad, love-blind author of small sonnets on an insignificant planet had suggested, say "Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here". They said something much different, much worse, in its own way, depending on who was reading them.

"Hope springs eternal," they said, and every soul that looked upon them found him, or her, or itself completely incapable, in its deepest heart, of losing hope. For millennia, for eons, for all of eternity, they hoped, and dreamed of blue skies above, and green grass below their feet. Long after they ceased to remember what they hoped for, they continued to hope. And that made their suffering all the worse, and that was exactly what the Architect, great Morammon the carver, had intended. Every scream throughout hell was another prayer gone unanswered, another barb twisted in the souls of the prisoners as the door admitted yet another victim.

It was a brutally, beautifully effective system. It had stood since the beginnings of time. Although most did not know, or chose to ignore, the fact, it had existed since before the First Rebellion, waiting quietly for its tenants, its masters, and its prisoners. For, no matter how much power they amassed, it was impossible for the demons to completely emerge. Once in a rare while, one would rise who could slip through the cracks of reality and end up in the physical realms, but even then, the greater part of that demon's power would remain behind. It had stood thus since ever a being lifted up arms or spell against Heaven. As far as the Powers were concerned, that was the way things were supposed to be.

And, today, it was going to end.

He turned to Beelzebub and smiled at the demon's raging flames. The twin, great wings, denying reality by their very existence, beat twice, carrying him within arm's reach of the door. Skin peeled off his fingers in little corkscrewing strips as he tightened his hand into a fist, and raised it, hovering poised above the door...

Stell had to run to catch up with the others, moving quickly towards the stairs. They had a bit of a lead, as it would take the rioters a while to work their way up. However, they needed to work their way down as well, which meant that, no matter how fast they moved, they would still have to fight.

She swore silently to herself, one hand tightening futilely into a fist as she rushed along. It took a distinct effort of will to relax the hand, to release her mind. This was wearing on her. Fighting, war, death, and all over a few words said on a bloody television screen. It would have been laughable, if it were not so deadly serious.

She reached them at the top of the stairs, running up just as Seryph opened the door. "Do we have a plan?"

He shook his head, grinning. "I was figuring we'd just make it up as we go along." She smiled in response, more from amazement at his levity than anything else.

"Bryn's on the seventh floor. The rioters got there a few minutes ago. With any luck, he's still all right... Maybe even well enough to walk out on his own." Phil shouldered his way past Seryph onto the stairwell. "So, what are we waiting for? I'll take the van, Seryph, Stell, you flank." His gaze fell at last upon Lester. "You... just try not to get yourself killed."

"Finally showing some humanity, Limey?"

Phil's smile was wide, open, and utterly without humor. "No. I just hate getting blue blood on my suit." Without another word, he turned and rushed down the steps, all but leaping entire flights in his haste to get down.

Stell turned to Seryph, who answered her wordless question with an eloquent shrug. "He's always like this."

She nodded, and they started down the dingy, concrete steps together. Lester followed behind them.

The woman stood on empty air before the gates of Paradise. She was shrouded in shadows, despite the gentle glow that permeated the surrounding space, that suffused matter, energy, and life itself in its warm embrace. The gates glistened and shimmered, not a distinct color at all, as if they had been forged out of pure light, coruscating and shimmering up and down all colors of the rainbow. Behind them, beyond them, the light expanded and blossomed like a single, colossal flower, ever changing, yet perpetually static. At times, if one looked closely enough, it was possible to glimpse the vague outline of buildings, but whether they were palaces, pleasure gardens, torture chambers or troop barracks, it was impossible to tell. Most mortals would have gone mad simply looking at it. Heaven was not so much a city as a collection of light, and thought, and purpose. Its locale was everywhere, and somewhere, and nowhere at all.

Even as Heaven itself was not precisely a city, the air upon which the woman stood, the dark book in her hand, was not precisely empty. It reverberated with a keen-edged, fanatic purpose, twisting and bending, as if space itself had awaited this moment for all of time, as if the fields of paradise were nothing but a single, grand waiting being. They did not bend and jump so much for joy as for a dreadful eagerness, an insane hunger.

Nor was the woman precisely alone. Upon her left stood her brother, her last brother in this sphere of the world, skeletal and emaciated, wearing black leathers that looked brittle enough to crack any minute. If she had spared the time to look into his face, she would have seen a skull only thinly covered by flesh, skin wrinkled and parched, eyes withered and staring. She did not need to see his face to picture it perfectly, in the most loving detail. After all, one does not live with someone for several trillion years and not get to know them quite well indeed.

Their new brother stood to her right, quiet and composed, wearing a black suit woven of gravity and electromagnetism, of strong and weak nuclear forces, of the very stuff of the universe itself. It was pinstriped, with a maker's mark for whomever had the skill to read it, pricked out in small stars near the lapel: Georgio Armani. His hair was blonde, and all but slicked back, even though he never used gel or styling cream. His eyes were blue, like berries and Sunday mornings, but most of all like eyes which are terribly, undeniably, and piercingly blue. When he smiled, he looked uncannily like a ministering angel, which, of course, he was. The only difference was in the manner of the ministry.

Heaven proper was hidden behind the Gate, behind the Light, but nonetheless she could sense power building up past those walls of perception, enough power to destroy a world, enough power to destroy all of them. The scene existed in her mind, picture perfect. Gabriel and Raphael would just be finishing up their speeches, flaming swords gripped firmly in their fists, eyes burning like stars. It was time to wipe out the cancer of evil once and for all, they would be saying. It was time to retake the world, to reclaim it for innocence, but most of all, to reclaim it, by any means necessary. Humankind, she imagined them saying, has fallen into sin and death, the ways of evil, the ways of the adversary. It is time we took back the world, time we destroyed the forces of Hell once and for all, and made ourselves once again the dominant force in this multiverse. Young Antiphares, the general, would be forming the troops up for march.

She did not know that any of this was happening, of course. There was no way to tell for sure, without going inside the City herself. However, knowing a person for several trillion years allowed her to extrapolate much more than what their face looked like. She could predict things about the angels that none of them could match. It was like a game, at times. They were so predictable.

She knew that Uriel wanted to be inside, to listen to those speeches he had yearned to hear for so long. Unfortunately, other duties, greater duties, held him to his post.

The power swelled, Light surging outwards. It was almost time.

War raised the dark Book, and prepared to Open.

The closer they came to the seventh floor, the more anxious Seryph looked. Stell couldn't spare the time or the breath to reassure him, not while running down the already-treacherous Khazan Police Department service stairs at high speed. The walls and floor were covered with a thin, omnipresent layer of filth that already sprayed her pants from the knee down. Behind, she could hear Lester struggling to keep up, and against her judgement, felt a momentary surge of pity for the man. He had never expected to be thrown into the middle of a riot, functionally bereft of all his resources in the middle of what was shaping up to be one of the largest mass uprisings in the history of the multiverse. She did not think he was having what he would call a very good day.

Of course, it could be much worse.

Before too long, they were going to find out exactly how much worse it could get. She shied away from the prospect, all forcing her mind to the task at hand. Fear would only make her slow, make her weak, and nobody needed that, especially not now. It would be enough of a strain on the small group's resources to get Lester out of this alive, not to mention the boy if he was injured or otherwise incapacitated. Of course, that was assuming they were able to get out at all. That crowd had looked awfully big, and she knew that they were just the tip of the iceberg. It didn't take a genius, or a technological wizard, to realize that the riots would spread far more swiftly than any attempts to contain them. And where could they run to then?

She shoved the thought aside, an ephemeral grimace shooting across her face. She seemed to be doing a lot of forgetting in the last few minutes, and it worried her. Thoughts were made to be faced, not run from.

Nearly loosing her footing at the next landing, slipping in a shallow puddle of muck and water, she barely managed to catch hold of the banister, right herself, and run on without more than a momentary break in stride. Floor signs rushed past them, Phil's black shape in the lead, barreling on like a particularly large and irate freight train. The black, military-stencil numbers decreased rapidly. 12. 11. 10. 9.

A strand of hair worked its way free of her loose pony tail, falling down in front of her face to tickle her cheeks. Angrily, she shook her head back, throwing it out of her field of vision for the moment. There was no time to stop and re-tie her hair. It would just have to wait.

8.

7.

Her Converse sneakers bit into the pitted concrete, bringing her to a full, jerking stop in front of the green, narrow steel door with its glaringly obvious red EXIT sign. Automatically, her gaze swung to Seryph, who looked for all the world as if he was sitting in an air-conditioned apartment, like sweat and fatigue would never touch his lithe form. "So? What now?"

He shrugged. "He's in room 709. I'm not sure exactly where that is, though."

Phil grinned, wide and toothy with just the barest hint of humor. "We'll just have to start at the top."

A rapid, unearthly gasping filled the narrow stairwell, as if something had just crawled up from Hell itself, and was getting its first taste of clean, surface smog. Stell turned to look over her shoulder, and saw Lester half-jogging, half-walking down the steps. His tie hung askew from a white shirt-collar now just barely tarnished with sweat.

Phil groaned, just loud enough to be heard by the three heroes on the landing. "Are you sure you don't want to leave him up there?"

There was a soft, audible rustling of fabric as two heads turned towards the Limey, two pairs of green eyes fixed his own. The grin widened, half-nervously. "Okay, okay, I was just kidding."

To his credit, Lester recovered almost immediately, straightening his tie, flicking away the sweat from his forehead. The sweat stain shrank rapidly, its off-yellow patina dwindling to nothing. In seconds, it appeared as though the preceeding few seconds' exercise had never happened. "So, what's the plan? Since we had to go on this damn fool trip, we might as well get it over with."

Phil's eyes flashed, but he regained control almost immediately. His smile was wide, resplendent with gallows humor. "Our plan?" One large, powerful hand closed on the stainless steel door handle and twisted, opening into the seventh floor. "Best one ever. Even worked against Quietus." Halfway through the door, he turned back to face them all. "We make it up as we go along."

"Make it up as we go along? What do you mean-" Lester cut off as Phil walked through the door into the dark hallway, footsteps echoing loudly against the white tile floor. Stell followed him, and Seryph, spreading out immediately, searching for some sign of a disturbance. In the distance, she could barely make out a low, angry murmur, punctuated by occasional, high-pitched screams. A woman. The empty hall seemed tight around her, shadows laughing, even the fake plastic plants taunting in their gently oblivious trembling. She didn't notice that she had taken a step forward, and was starting to take another, before she felt a light pressure on her shoulder, a low voice hissing into her ear. "Don't."

She whirled around to face Seryph, anger flaring in her eyes. "We can't just leave her there."

"We'd never reach her in time. You said it yourself. We'll be lucky to get out of this alive ourselves."

Again, the scream, shrill and piercing, reverberating in her head like a child's wail to its mother. "So we save ourselves, save the boy, and don't worry about anyone else? I thought-" She stopped, sensing the pain that broiled beneath Seryph's skin. He was right, and she knew it. She was acting like a fool, but by the Powers, it hurt to realize it. She licked her lips, and by simple force of will kept from flinching when the scream came again, echoing off the cream-colored walls and the gray floor tile. She bit her lower lip, looking back towards the door, away from the sound, away from the woman, the girl... She almost choked when it came again the next time, when it cut off abruptly, sharply, and the dimly heard noise of the crowd rose in exultation. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Lester staring in amazement.

"What was that about? We're wasting time here." The business magnate's voice was insistant, urgent, as if he was denying the fact that anything had just happened.

"Lester. If you ever want to say anything ever again, shut up." Seryph's voice was stern, cold, with just a hint of the edge in it, daring Lester to test him, daring somebody, anybody, to try their might against his. A second later, he stood next to her, his mein somehow stern and comforting at the same time. He touched her arm tentatively through the leather jacket, fingers a firm, warm line back to reality. "Are you okay?"

She nodded once, quickly, blinking away tears which she had not noticed she had cried. It rolled down her cheek, and she wiped it away with a quick swipe of the back of her hand. "Yeah."

"Then let's go."

The mob advanced slowly, the individual members moving more by mutual accord than by personal will, crossing the black and white tiles with no sound but an eerie rumble of voices, like stones falling down a mountain, just on the brink of starting an avalanche. They were as frightening in their diversity as anything else. Many were street people, bums, hoboes, and all the associated detritus of a thousand million civilizations, but others looked as if they could have just stepped out of their cubicle. The man closest to him wore a white suit coat and tails, as if dressed up for his own wedding. He could have come out of any office complex in Khazan and be called an overdressed snob. Now, in truth, he looked no different, save for the fact that the white suit coat was drenched in blood, bile, and darker fluids. His eyes raged, burning with fires even Hell seldom stoked. He shambled forward with the rest of them, hands contorted into bloody claws. He had already killed this day.

Bryn didn't feel ready to be the next victim. Making sure he had enough room to swing his glimmering sword, he took a single deep, calming breath, trying to bring his raging adrenaline back under his own control, trying to stop the images of evident death from racing through his mind. Control. Calm. Peace. His nostrils flared nervously, a drop of sweat poised at the top of his brow, just readying itself to fall into his eye. It took a distinct effort of will to keep that grip soft, loose, ready to flow into any position, any attack or defense he would need.

They took a step forward, and another. The lead man, the one in the suit coat, was almost within reach. One more step...

The fluorescent lights on the interview room's low ceiling glared fiercely upon the blade of Bryn Shima's katana as it arced around, slicing through air, cloth, skin, flesh, and bone with equal ease. The suit coat man's body slumped at the knees, then tumbled to the ground, blood gouting from his severed neck. The head rolled a few feet away, face up and staring.

Like a shark scenting prey, the remaining rioters glanced down at their fallen comrade, then up at Bryn, empty eyes piercing through to his soul. Then, with a single, wordless cry, they rushed forward, a sea of thrashing limbs and crushing bodies.

"So, where do we go from here?"

Seryph shrugged, then turned to Phil. "Your call."

The large man shrugged, consulting the large, red floorplan inscribed into one of the reception room walls. Glass doors opened out from the room's plush, red-carpeted interior on all sides, giving them plenty of warning should someone try and storm their momentary rest stop. They had been lucky so far, though. It didn't seem as though the rioters could travel very easily above ground floor. Managing the stairs and elevators to most of the higher levels took a degree of planning and organization far greater than sheer rage.

Stell sighed, then shook her head sharply, hoping no one else had seen her. They were wasting time. After what had happened to that woman, whomever she was, whatever her crime in the eyes of these maniacs, they almost had to save Bryn. Even though she didn't know the kid very well, no one deserved that kind of end. No one.

Lester broke in, voice carrying that same slight nervous twinge it had since they left the comparative safety of the stairwell. "Do you think you could let me be of some assistance? I did own the company that designed this building, after all."

Phil waved his hand in a vaguely dismissive fashion, still intent on the diagram. "Shhhhh." Then, seconds later, he turned, doing his best to look nonchalant while leaning against a wall in the middle of a riot. His nod was terse, leaving nothing to the imagination. "That's got it, then. It's like I thought. Down the hall and to the left, then another right. Room 713. Looks like you owe me a few bucks, Seryph."

"Only after we get out of this mess alive."

He nodded. "Gotcha. Let's go."

One of Seryph's thin hands shot out and grasped the bronze-shot leg of a nearby coffee table. A single, sharp kick caused it to snap off neatly, creating a break nearly as clean as any saw. The only sign that the newly improvised bokken had ever bee npart of a table was bras shodding. He turned back to face the group, eyes glistening. Something wordless and ancient passed between himself and Phil. The other man nodded.

Stell had to keep herself from sighing. Between the three of them, whether Seryph had a weapon or not, they had more than enough power to get to Bryn, even if the entire population of Khazan stood in the way. On the other hand, they would have to worry about casualties. Even if these people were rioters, even if they had already killed over a hundred people in this one building alone, they could not afford to open up into a crowd. The rioters had enough idealistic ammunition already. They did not need another incident added on top of that. Seryph and Phil approached her, Lester scuttling close behind, and she nodded. The glass door swung outwards on its hinges, clammy to the touch as she held it open for them to pass. Perhaps it was her own nervousness, and perhaps the glass was actually colder than usual. Really, it hardly mattered, just her own mind spinning in circles either way.

Once they were out in the corridor, they hardly needed Phil's direction to find the interrogation room. All they had to do was follow the indignant chanting of the crowd, down the hall and to the left. A cry cut through the low, wordless rumble, then another. Seryph picked up the pace, feet flashing as he pulled ahead. Even Phil struggled to keep up with him. Stell followed close behind, swiping that annoying strand of hair out of her face again. Sweat was breaking out across her head, and the day had barely started. She was out of practice. Lester was even worse off, though, breathing hard, clutching his side as if in pain. Stell shook her head. He was not ready for this, for any of this. Not only was his body untrained, but his mind unprepared. She had no idea what they were going to do with him at all.

She did not have much more time to wonder. She rounded a bend in the hallway, feet skidding on the slick tile, and almost running into Seryph and Phil, who had come to a dead stop. It took her a second to realize that it was human blood making the tile slick. The hallway before them was almost carpeted in it, sticky and dripping, fallen bodies standing out as dark lumps against the pools of red. She struggled to resist the overpowering urge to be sick.

When she recovered enough to bear looking at the floor, she saw footprints tracked through the gore, thirty at least, probably even more, barefoot, shod, clawed, and some prints that even she did not recognize. "They went this way."

"Yes." There was an odd tone in Seryph's voice, almost too calm, as if his mind was a blade, quivering just on the edge of being drawn. He still clutched the makeshift club firmly in his right hand, fingers gripping it white-knuckled, like his only hold on reality.

His body shuddered for a brief moment, then straightened. He ran forwards, taking care to keep from slipping. It took Phil fractionally longer to make up his mind.

Stell had not realized that she was nervous at all, until she tried to straighten out her hands, and felt the dull, half-numb pain from where her nails had bit into the palms, leaving red half-moons where skin was scraped away. Taking a deep, shuddering breath, she followed them.

The crowd gathered before Mrs. Withers' boarding house. They were large, holding stones, bits of wood, any weapon that could come readily to their hands. They had no leader. They were a gestalt, power from the people, strength arising from unity. A stone arced overhead, smashing one of the two-story, yellow brick house's windowpanes.

Mrs. Withers herself stood on the doorstep, an angry-looking matron, squat, white-haired, and wielding a rolling pin as if it would be more than sufficient to drive them all back into the ocean. From the determined glare on her face, it just might be. "What do you all want? Maybe you should try telling that, Jason Sanders, before you start talking about torching my house!" One long, gnarled finger indicated a man, who winced under her fierce stare.

"Mrs. Withers, you need to give him up!" Her eyes narrowed, and he swallowed. The gestalt was all well and good, but it thrived on community, on lack of identity. She was addressing him as an individual. That was not supposed to happen. "If you give him up, it'll be best. Best for you," he finished lamely.

"So what are you, then, to say who I will and who I won't take in? What do you say, Wilfred Sutherland? Or you, Lawrence Stubbs?" The crowd drew back, slowly, their eyes staring not quite at her, but past her, behind her. "Well?"

A voice spoke from behind her and above her head, little louder than a whisper, yet powerful enough to carry over the assembled crowd. "Mrs. Withers. Is there a problem?"

Someone deep in the crowd's core, untouched by her words, responded. "You bet there's a problem, freak! We know your face! You were a fighter!" A general, nervous grumble of assent rose from the sea of not-so-secure faces.

Mrs. Withers turned to face Sam Justice, an apparently total lack of concern on his face. His long, dark greatcoat flared out behind him in an unfelt breeze, a dark hat pulled down to all-but shield his eyes. The coat would have been enough to swallow any man, but she could quite clearly make out the curve of well-honed muscles beneath its thick fiber. "Just more of these Taylor fellows, Mister Justice. Wanting to disturb your television hour."

He smiled, quietly. "A brick through the window would disturb just about anyone's television hour, Mrs. Withers." His dark gaze slid off of her, piercing out into the crowd. "Now, what is this all about?"

It took a second for someone to work up the nerve to answer, knowing that it meant those eyes would be trained upon them. "You! We want you gone. Your kind isn't welcome here."

The Hand of Justice blinked, once. "My kind?"

"Yeah! You superfreaks."

He shook his head, looking almost amused at the notion. "I don't think you've done your homework very well, neighbors. I'm just as human as any you. No powers to speak of."

"That doesn't change the fact that you were one of them!"

He turned his head to face the new speaker, a young woman in her early twenties. "Ma'am, the only reason that you, that any of you, are alive at the moment is becausethey exist. If it wasn't for the JLA overseeing things, or for the Sentinels keeping villains in order, do you have any idea what your life would be like now?" His head shook slowly, from side to side. "The recession would come again, the land would be conquered. You'd all be working as slaves for Lord Order, or Quietus would come back and you'd all just be dead. Freaks?" He barked a laugh. "You should be kneeling down every minute of every day, thanking whatever God you believe in that us 'freaks' exist, that you didn't have to face the darkness on your own all these years. Ungrateful doesn't even do you justice." He uncrossed his arms, one hand falling naturally towards his belt. Effortlessly, he hitched the greatcoat back to reveal the leather-wrapped handle of an industrial strength cattle prod. "Now, if you want to press the issue, I can show you exactly what kinds of limits my patience has. I won't tolerate people so caught up in their own prejudice that they will hurt their friends."

Silence stretched out to cover eternity, resounding over the narrow street, through the rows upon rows of small brownstones that dominated the outer edges of Khazan, just on the borders of reality. They could have been standing on any lower middle-class suburb across the humanoid sections multiverse.

The Hand of Justice's dark eyes bored in to the amassed crowd, and for one brief minute, they all felt very cold, and very responsible, and above all, very alone. For the briefest instant, they felt the terrible weight of responsibility, and its limitless joys. If any of them lived to be a hundred, a thousand, they would remember those eyes, and what lay behind them.

One by one, they turned, filtering back to their homes, their shops, and their schools. It seemed that the early winter wind swept them away. Perhaps it did.

Sam Justice turned back to Mrs. Withers, and grinned, showing teeth. "Now, maybe I'll be able to watch my Dragonball Z in peace."

When Stell rounded the corner, skidding in the thin film of blood, she saw the mob. They pressed around the entrance to Room 713, crushing one another in their eagerness to get inside, to taste blood yet again, a sea of flailing limbs and crazed eyes. Inside, she could barely hear the sounds of a fight, punctuated regularly by sharp cries, both of pain and exultation. She did not know Bryn's voice well enough to tell which ones came from his lips, but Seryph looked relieved, and that was enough for her.

Then, just as Lester lurched around the bend to stand beside them, a young man, clothes torn and ragged, arms coated with blood from the shoulders down, turned, pointed, and screamed. Eyes followed his accusing finger, crazed eyes, hungry eyes, and other screams joined his. The voices were loud, any words they contained lost in the frenzy. On either side, she was dimly aware of Phil getting into a fighting stance, and Seryph gripping his chair leg, hands loose but firm on the dark, hard wood. She glanced from one of them to the other.

Lester's whisper was fast, insistent. "Look, they've got him already. There's nothing we can do here."

Seryph shook his head, grin lean and wild, like a hungry cat. Stell nodded before he turned to her for consultation, as did Phil a bare instant later. The mob was beginning to edge forwards, licking their lips in a combination of nervousness and longing.

"On three?"

"Yes." Phil and Stell both spoke at the same time, then laughed. The rioters started to pick up speed, crossing the vital fifty yards between them.

Seryph didn't waste any time in counting, nodding his head as he spoke the words. "One. Two. THREE!"

As one, they rushed forward, Lester's frantic protest dogging at their heels. "You're crazy! All of you! Crazy!"

If there had been anything the crowd had least been expecting their quarry to do, it was to turn and attack them straight off. Their momentary confusion gave the trio just enough time to cross the distance, coming closer, closer, just separated by a few square feet...

Stell tightened her leg muscles and launched herself forward into the crowd, one of her fists finding an attacker's face. The man crumpled to the ground in a heartbeat, blood spraying from the shattered remnants of his nose. She was dimly aware of Seryph tearing into the left flank of this small group of rioters, a blur of black fabric, black hair, and dark brown wood. Phil moved like a boxer one instant, and a dancer the next, striking with fists that looked to have the size and force of sledgehammers. Focusing on her own situation, Stell spun around in a tight arc, hand held straight as a sword-blade, slamming into the throat of another man. A woman came before her next, all teeth and nails, and Stell had to duck in order to avoid the crazed girl's eager clawing at her eyes. She barely managed to throw out a foot as she went down, striking the girl in the stomach even as Seryph's makeshift staff swooped in out of nowhere and met with the back of the attacker's skull.

Her body struck the oddly cool tile, blood soaking into her shirt and blue jeans. Legs were all around, kicking and stepping, and she scrambled to her feet, ready to ward off another attack, but none was forthcoming. The rioters had fled down the wide hallway, splashing in little puddles of blood as they went. More streamed out from Room 713, running, limping, dragging themselves along the floor to follow their comrades. None looked back, and she made no move to chase after them.

Phil leaned against the far wall, looking haggard and worn, even though he had suffered no visible injury. There were one or two long rents in his uniform, but the skin beneath was, for all intents and purposes, unharmed, slick with blood though it might be. His dark eyes were quiet, thoughtful, as he stroked the bloodied knuckles of his left hand with the careful fingertips of his right. He looked worried about something, although she could not for the life of her say what.

Seryph, on the other hand, had run inside the room as soon as the fighting stopped. She craned her neck around the corner just in time to see him embracing a teenage boy, the same one from two nights ago, clutching an oddly glowing katana, itself drenched with blood that decayed into dust and less than dust as she watched, until the blade was clean once again. She stepped forward, passing under the threshold, and listened.

"You're safe!"

The boy nodded grimly, looking more than a little embarrassed. Several corpses were scattered around him, looking as if they were weeks dead, or more. "Thanks to you."

Seryph stood back, dark eyes darting around the room, at the bodies on the floor beside the black conference table, their blood glistening in the overhead light. "I don't know. Looks like you did all right for yourself without our help."

The boy shrugged, nervousness only showing through his eyes. The sword flashed in a tight arc, and he slammed it home into a sheath strapped across his back, a sheath Stell had not noticed being there at all a second ago. "They were blocking the only exit, and there were too many of them to take out the hard way. I'm not sure how much to trust the time stream after..." He shrugged, eyes darting away from Seryph as if to escape something else, as well. When he saw Stell, his hand half-darted to the sword hilt again, eyes wide. "Who's that?"

Before Seryph could say anything, Stell walked into the room, extending her hand. "Stella Aurorae."

The boy raised one eyebrow questioningly, his eyes darting over the length of her form, but he took her hand in his and shook firmly. His palm was warm, sweaty, although that was more from the battle than anything else. She remembered when sweaty hands were taken as a sign of desire, and had to fight down a laugh. The boy's voice was firm, and level, even though she knew his name before he spoke it. "Bryn Shima." She had not offered any titles, rank, or position, so he did not either. Courtesy.

Their eyes met for a brief instant, her green to his blue-gray. She got a brief impression of something beneath that childish exterior, something great, and old, a power that was not her power, and then he looked away, swallowing hard. Bryn turned to face Seryph. "What happened to your sword?"

The ex-Avatar shook his head distastefully, his features cast in enfolding shadow. Blood and sweat slicked through his short hair, making it sharp and spikey, while his eyes spoke volumes of distaste. "I had to leave it at the desk. They don't let anyone carry weapons in here, except for officers. Doesn't really make much sense, but..." He shrugged.

Bryn nodded. "We'll need to get that before we leave, then." There was not even a thought of abandoning the weapon. Stell understood that, as one warrior to another. Abandoning one's sword was not done. Ever.

She felt a pang of guilt for things past, and then it was gone.

A large form blocked out the light from the hallway, and Phil's voice filled the room. "As long as we're talking about weapons, Stell, why didn't you use your Voice? Couldn't you have just told them to run, or something?" His lips twisted downwards in a disturbed frown. "I don't like having to fight Khazanian citizens."

She shook her head, taking a deep breath to clear her thoughts. "It's not something like that. Not at all." Her tongue darted out nervously, wetting her red lips before vanishing again.

"Why not?"

"You don't understand. Using the Word..." Again, Stell shook her head, crossing her hands nervously beneath her breasts. "It's... disturbing. A reminder of things I'd like to forget. Of old wounds." Even as she said the words, she felt something ache, deep within her soul, her stomach sinking. She turned away from him, facing into the darkness. "Do you understand?"

"No." She could see Phil's shadow on the far wall shake its head. "I think that you'll need to get over it soon, though, if we're going to get out of this alive." She felt him moving across the floor, until he stood at her shoulder, dark form more a shadowed impression than anything else. "We need all the help we can get."

She raised her fingertips to her temples, massaging gently. "It's not something too pick and choose, Phil. That's not the way it works." Stell laughed, sudden and harsh, and her hands fell to her sides. "I don't want to sound uppity, but its not even something you could understand."

Surprisingly enough, it was Bryn who broke the stretching silence that followed. "I think I understand. There are some things that don't feel right. Not quite rules, but... impressions."

She blinked once, turning on the balls of her feet, and nodded. "Yes. Like that. I didn't do... the things that I can do... because we could handle the rioters perfectly well on our own. When the time comes to use power, I'll know it well enough without a script. Don't worry about that."

Phil nodded, grudgingly. "I suppose it'll have to do. For now."

She laughed, some humor creeping into her voice this time as she laid one hand reassuringly on the JLA leader's arm. "Don't worry so much."

A screeching shout, followed by a loud *clunk* and a stream of virulent curses, split the momentary calm as Lester slipped in the blood outside and hit his head. Phil's stony expression transmuted into a barely-controlled snicker, and Stell choked back a laugh, turning to Seryph and Bryn. "We'd best get moving before Lester does himself more harm than those rioters would."

They laughed. Nervously, but still, they laughed.

Pestilence raised his hand over the great, dark door, skin peeling from his knuckles, revealing bone that blackened and tarnished even as, paradoxically, the hand was whole again. Grubs and larvae, worms and all manner of foul creatures of the grave wormed out from his exposed flesh, a mass of wriggling, dark horror. Behind him, around him, inside him, Hell was absolutely silent, all the screams and cries of demoniac pleasure held up in a single moment, as if the multiverse itself was holding its breath. He felt their vastness, thrusting at his soul like a solid wall of strength, of power, of hunger. It was glorious.

His knuckles descended, striking the door once, twice, thrice. Then, his mighty wings beat three times as if in answer, pushing him away from that dark surface with its half-heard, half-felt screams.

For an instant, nothing happened.

But it was only for an instant.

Something twisted deep within the darkness of the great Gates. In that deep darkness, something began to die, cracks of night appearing within the shifting ebon will that separated Hell from the rest of the multiverse. The colors, the dark malevolence, failed as that deeper darkness spread outwards from the place where Pestilence's knuckles had touched.

The opposite of darkness is not light. The opposite of darkness is darkness that has gone so far from light as to become light, radiant in its lack of radiance, devouring, hungry, cold and warm all at the same time. That deepness, the chaos that is at once nothing and everything bound into one, even as it as at the beginning of the world, radiated out from the point where Pestilence had touched, infecting the seal on the Gates of Hell, twisting it, contorting it, and, finally, destroying it.

A great scream, greater than any heard all down the vasty halls of time and space, even in the deepest Pit, shivered through the air. It was a cry of death, and the assembled hosts of demons screamed in pain. It was a cry of birth, and the assembled hosts of demons shouted in transcendant joy.

The walls fell.

As one, they flowed out, into the world.

War hesitated for a moment, something that may have been a smile showing from beneath the silver mirrors of her helmet. The only sound across the immense fields bordering upon Paradise was the soft, human creaking of leather as she raised the slender, leather-bound book before her. The City ahead twitched as if in anticipation, the power within cresting to a climax. She knew what they were thinking, of course. After an eternity, they thought, they would finally be free of the restrictions against intereference, finally permitted to go forth into the world again. So strange that humans always thought Evil to be restricted, and Good free to move about the world. Angels could no more descend in their true forms into reality than demons could ascend.

At least, until now.

War raised the dark Book, and opened the leather-bound cover with the most exquisite care. She did not read the Words on the page, did not even rest her eye upon them. That was not necessary. It was enough that the world should see, that the Multiverse should know and comprehend. She felt the vast Perception of all the infinite realities focused for one blinding minute upon this single spot, upon those Words that Could Not Be.

It was amusing, really. If she had been the type to speak, she would have laughed. She was not, so she did not.

The Words Were.

And the Multiverse knew that she was Coming.

Across the vasty fields that bordered on Paradise, the Light and the Gate of Heaven twitched, and bulged, a deeper light growing within them, a brilliant light, a consuming flame to strike down all potential adversaries. The Gates wavered and lost cohesion, the Light trembling as it fought valiantly to withstand the outrush of power, bits and pieces of Glory even now streaming through the cracks in Heaven.

A great cry of rapture filled the air, as profound and harmonious as any sung by any angel in the vast span of time and space. It was a cry of death, and the assembled hosts of angels in the distance cried in commiseration. It was a cry of birth, and the assembled hosts of angels in the distance shouted with joy.

But, most of all, it was a cry of War, and the assembled hosts in the distance shouted their bloodlust for all the omniverse to see.

The walls fell, and they streamed out into the world.