"Every syllable." He said, his heart so far up his throat he could taste it.

"Oh, God..." She said, turning away from him. William scooted around to face her, making his desperate, impassioned plea.

"I know... this is sudden, and... and please, if they're no good, they're only words. But the feeling behind them... I love you Cecily."

"Please stop."

"I know I'm a bad poet, but I'm a good man. All that I ask is that you try to see me..."

He looked in her eyes, begging for a chance he felt he'd earned. She looked back, sincerely.

"I do see you."

He held his breath. Hope! She continued.

"That's the problem. You're nothing to me, William. You're beneath me."

William took this in as she exited. He sat silent for a moment, trying to contain his pain

Without his hat and coat, and blinking back tears, William tore down the streets of London. Hot tears streaked down his face. He ripped up his poem as he stalked out the building and down the street, blinded by rage and humiliation. On his way, he bumped into a group of three people. A man and two women.

"Bloody... watch where you're going!"

He continued down the street, ripping up the paper into smaller and smaller bits. Shortly he Stopped in a dark section of street beneath a gas lamp.

William was overcome with fatigue and humiliation. He ripped the paper into smaller and smaller bits until he could rip no more. And slowly, all the rage began to drain out of him. A soothing, understanding voice lilted out as if from nowhere.

"And here I wonder..."

Embarrassed, William whirlwd to see who it was. A strikingly beautiful young woman slowly walked toward him, Dressed for the times. Looking at him with total love and understanding.

"What possible catastrophe came crashing down from heaven and brought this dashing stranger..." She reached out and gingerly wiped the last remaining tear from his face. "...To tears?"

"Nothing. I wish to be alone."

"You've been alone too long."

"What could you possibly know of me?"

"I've seen you. A man surrounded by fools who cannot see his strength. His vision. His glory. That, and burning baby fish swimming all 'round your head."

"What?" William eyed this crazy Victorian lady suspiciously as she stepped closer, curiously examining him like a cat eyeing a new breed of mouse. Her lips parted...

"Th-that's quite close enough. I've heard tales of London pickpockets. You'll not get my purse, I tell you."

"Don't need a purse. Your wealth lies here." (touching his heart) "And here."(Touches his head)" In the spirit and imagination. You walk in worlds the others can't begin to imagine."

He was flabbergasted. Hypnotized. How could she know? She stepped closer. Her face near his. He was not used to this. He squirmed, but could not, would not move.

"Yes... I mean, no. I mean -Mother's expecting me."

She leaned closer, whispering in his ear. "I see what you want. Something glowing, and glistening. Something… effulgent. Do you want it?"

"Oh, yes. God, yes!"

She smiles. Then, inexplicably her face changed, taking on a demonic aspect.

William goggled at her. Staring at that powerful visage; terrifying, yet tantalizing. Demonic, yet inviting. He considered her offer...

And let out a bitter, terrified, high pitched screech that pierced the quiet empty streets. He pushed the woman-thing away, and ran off past the shop windows of pastries and curios.

William turned a corner into an alley behind a French Bistro that had once thrown him out because he couldn't pay his bill. His pounding heart seemed to him as a crashing din that could be heard throughout the British Empire. He chanced a glance out into the street but could only see a pair of dockworkers delivering seafood to the bistro before he withdrew back to the alley. His mind was racing over the horror he had just seen. His early study of the bible and the forces of hell described had not remotely prepared him for the experience of facing a demon in the flesh. It was He felt his gorge begin to rise at the thought of what he had escaped, and began to panic at the thought that it was still out there, free to torment, and to terrorize at will. He sobbed faintly over some imagined schoolgirl who would doubtlessly fall victim to the infernal succubus. Cecily's parting words running through his head, he realized she was right. Any fop or ne'er-do-well who would flee from evil and leave it free to kill another was not only beneath Cecily's bounteous love and affection, but beneath being called a man.

Summoning up as much fortitude as he could muster, and brandishing his pen and journal as if a rapier and buckler to defend himself, he stepped with purpose into the street and was immediately struck by the body of one of the dockworkers as it flew down the street and collapsed into a pile of crates along the street.

William was dazed from the impact and scrabbled about in the dirt. Finding his spectacles, and putting them back on his face, he could see the dockworkers lifeless body lying across his chest. The air was rich with the smell of fresh gore, and the sound of a chilling song coming from down the street.

"Fair ladies in white 'mun not run astray.
Fair ladies in pink disappeared on this day.
Fair ladies in red were mourned. Daughters and wives.
Fair ladies in black came back. Flee for your lives"

William fought against the pain and craned his head up to peer over the open chest of the dock worker pinning him to the ground. In the middle of the street, he could see the horrible visage of the demon lady dancing and singing, her coat spattered with blood. She held the body of the second dock worker, waltzing with it, as she kicked the mans head about with her dancing shoes. The street was bathed in Crimson, and William could see the shops nearby as the gaslamps over each of them flickered and went out. Then the demon quickly looked back behind her at William, and his heart dropped into the sink of fear. She flung the headless body across the street like a ragdoll where it crashed through the window of the finest Cheese shop in all of London. Scrambling to escape from under the corpse of the dockworker, he found his pant leg caught on a tool hook on the mans belt. William thrashed his leg about trying to free himself, furiously ripping his trousers, but the hook held in place. William glanced again, and could see the beast advancing toward him, her mouth awash in blood, her face that same mask of tooth and claw he had fled from moments before.

"Poor Willie is a naughty little puppy, he is." She said, barely stiffeling a laugh. "We puts down papers for him, but still he thinks he can just go wherever he wants. Naughty, naughty little puppy whines and cries and we wants to break his fuzzy little neck to make the quiet come back." She advanced further toward William as he struggled in vain to get free. William couldn't tell if it was the fear affecting his perception, but she almost seemed to be advancing on all fours like a predator of the jungle... Or perhaps how a cat may toy with a mouse as she stalks him.

Unable to free himself, he thought at last to check the body of the worker for a blade with which he might cut his fancy pant leg to get himself free. Sadly, the thought came to him too late as his end was nearly upon him when the once beautiful fiend lept over the corpse pinning him down, and sat upon it pinning William to the ground with her feet astride his head. He closed his eyes and waited for the end as he could feel her bloody breath in his face.

"Puppy give us a widdle kissy-poo? A Kiss before dy-IIIEEEEEEE!"

Her high pitched scream was coupled with a smell like sulfur, and a brief sensation of burning nearby as he could feel the demons weight taken from his legs. He opened his eyes and could see the air thick with smoke as if so e conflagration was upon him. He looked toward where he heard the continued wailing and could see the smoke coming from the devil woman, half of her head looking as it had recently been engulfed in flame, but was mostly extinguished. Looking back behind the body of the dockworker, he could see a man clutching a bucket. Even through the smoke, he could tell from the dark robes, and the priests collar that it was Father Worthington, chaplain of the Lutherin church near his home. He had known The Father since he was a boy, and occasionally would stop by there for sweetcakes if he could not find his friends to play with in the afternoon. Father Worthington tossed the empty bucket aside, and pulled a sturdy oaken cross from his belt. "Back to the fires of hell where ye came from!" He said, advancing slowly toward her " In His holy name, I banish you back to Lucifer, never to set foot on this earth again! Begone, fiend!"

The creature, who moments ago seemed nothing but whimsical, now entered the darkest territory of the mind possible. Letting out a noise like a wild beast, somewhere between a scream and a growl, she pounced at the priest. With a backhand that could have leveled a house, she smacked the cross out of his hand, knocking it toward William. With her other hand, she snatched Father Worthington by the throat, and lifted hi. In the air. William, seeing the beloved priest facing certain death, gave a final wrenching of his leg, and could feel it pull free from the dockworkers trap. As the woman pulled Worthington in, and wordlessly went for his throat, William dove his hands into the dead mans pockets, searching for any devices to Arm himself with. Finding little, save a pointed iron crampon, he also grabbed a sharp piece of the cross which had landed near him. He looked back to see the woman bury her foul animal teeth into Worthingtons neck. There was no other answer, and no other savior but him. He attempted a bellow, but simply had no great for it as he rushed at the attacking succubus killing the priest. With arms flailing with the iron rod, and the broken cross, he stabbed at her again, and again, and again and again, and a...

And suddenly, with an inexplicable poof of dust... It was all over, she was simply gone. Disappered. A literal quintessence of dust, she had become. Father Worthington collapsed into the street with the greasy residue that had once been the devil in a black dress over his robes. In the dim light, and with his heart still thrumming like a thousand drummers off to war, he was unable to determine if the man was alive or dead. William noticed somehow, the cross fragment had dissolved in his fingers as well. Bewildered to the point of panic, but no linger having anything to panic about, he glanced at his remaining weapon. He made as to toss it into the street... and stopped. Turning it over in his hands. Improbable as it may have been, he assumed initially that his life had been saved thanks to a dead dockworker... Carrying a railroad spike.

"I simply cannot abide half-breeds"

William whirled around, and was transfixed. Standing down the street, looking literally as... Effulgent as he had once described her, was Cecily. Her traveling cloak around her, and a hood over head, her face shown through the smoke and through the darkness like a great lighthouse upon the shore.

"I can't begin to express my surprise seeing you still standing. There's not many a man who can withstand an attack of the weakest vampyres. And Druscilla was far from weak."

William looked at her uncomprehending, as if she were speaking a language from a million miles away. He looked back to the carnage around him. He wanted to weep over it all, felt he should break down and wail, but truly he had nothing left in him.

"I know, you're probably expecting me to say that I misjudged you, or that you're a Good man after all, or that you impressed me... But the best I can give you is that... I honestly don't care much for the best of men... And you, William are far from the best of men."

William turned slowly back to face Cecily. His completion starting to come back to him.

Cecily put her gloved hand against his cheek, and said "But you're not the worst either"

She turned to walk away. In spite of himself, after all he had seen and done, William started to laugh. He didn't know where it was coming from, but neither could he stop it. Cecily turned back to him, and regarded him as she might a turnip in an apple cart. "William?" She queried.

William considered for a moment. "She... Was like me." He considered his thoughts carefully. "She saw as I saw. The world. Other... Worlds. Incredible, great, glowing, beautiful, smashing... Worlds. She could have consumed me without a thought, but she offered me all of that. But I couldn't accept the cost. It scared me half to death.

He paused at length, Cecily sighed impatiently, waiting for the other shoe to drop. William regarded the railroad spike in his hand. He tossed it from hand to hand.

"If only it were possible" He continued, "without damning my soul, my everlasting soul... I wish I could see what she saw."

Suddenly the night sky exploded as a thousand thousand fireworks went off in his eyes. He felt a great energy enter him as if from a locomotive. The holy, and the unholy, the great and powerful, and the helpless and hopeless mixed as one within him, and a single word reverberated through his head for the next several weeks.

"Done."