Disclaimer: all characters borrowed from Charles Band and Full Moon Entertainment.

"You're going to have to learn some magic," Mordrid said. His thoughtful expression cracked in a smile as Sam's eyebrows headed for her hairline. "Oh," he continued, "not very much. A few... tricks. Enough to get by. You'll need it in some of the places we'll be going."

"Okay, now you're really making me nervous. And I'm pretty nervous tonight already."

"You can still change your mind. You didn't throw your apartment key away yet, did you?" There was a teasing note in his voice again, the same one that half-pissed Sam off just because it made her want to blush. He often sounded as if he were teasing her, but because he wanted her to respond, delighted in seeing her match or better him. She countered it with a grin of her own.

"No way. You said you were going to need some help, didn't you? And who knows - maybe your rates are better than the tenth precinct's."

Mordrid's smile widened, appreciative and amused. "I think we might be able to come to some arrangement there," he said, tracing a finger around the rim of his coffee cup. Across the room, a decisive auk sounded, and Edgar Allan hopped up and down on the end of his leash in the half-light. Sam laughed.

"See? Edgar agrees with you."

"I think Edgar knows me too well." Mordrid rose from his chair. Sam had the vague feeling that there was something offbeat about his answer, something cryptic, but even as she opened her mouth, the question died unformed and dissolved into the ether. She considered him as he crossed the intricately tiled floor: a compact man, but with an odd sort of grace about his movements, none of the dumpiness that shorter people sometimes have; a grace, too, in his fingers as he stroked the raven under the beak. With the bank of TV screens finally quiet, the scritch of the bird's claws on the wood of his perch was the only sound in the apartment. For the first time, Sam had both the sudden awareness of exactly how much she still had to learn about and the knowledge that she was absolutely fine with waiting a while for it.

The walls of the apartment, with their panelling and arches that she guessed as being art nouveau style but that made her think of the lofty space of some gothic cathedral, were broken up here and there by paintings. Paintings and line drawings, engravings, etchings. Sam had asked him, the second time she was in here, if any of them were his, if he moonlighted as an artist as well as her landlord; no, Mordrid had said, only as a collector. He liked old things. It was only this evening, tracing the outlines of them with her eyes in the candle-shadows, that she realized what she was looking at. Chinese dragons rubbing shoulders with Grecian urns, silver tea ware with prehistoric fossils, furniture from Queen Anne to gothic on Indian rugs lit by art deco lamps, Horus and Anubis in bust form staring each other down in front of uncut hunks of semi-precious gems: a potted history of the planet in metal and marble and stone. He'd wanted memories of her world because he'd fallen in love with it. Nobody, no matter what their orders, would have chosen to live the way he had, or taken such a risk, unless they loved what they were risking themselves for or they were crazy.

Maybe, right here, tonight, she was crazy. Or maybe she was something else.

"Anton?" she said.

"Mm?"

"Are you serious? I mean - about teaching me the spells?"

Mordrid turned. "Completely. I want you to be able to take care of yourself, when I can't be there. And..." he finished, "it'll make things easier."

"Hey, I think I've been doing a good job of taking care of myself up 'til now! The way I see things, if I can face Captain Peterson, I'm pretty sure I can take care of a demon on occasions."

"I don't doubt that for a minute." The corner of his mouth began to creep upwards. "I'd back you against most demons."

Edgar Allan ruffled his black feathers, as if seconding the opinion, gripping his perch. Mordrid hesitated, and then came to squat beside Sam's chair. He looked into her eyes, and a shiver ran down her spine at what she saw in his for a moment. Power, layered on something that felt as old as time and as primal. Sam had the distinct feeling that he hadn't even begun to show her all of himself. It was one thing to dream about.

"Look," she said, "I know the theory of this stuff. I did parapsychology, theurgy, occultism. But you don't exactly fit into any of my books, you know? Some of the things I've seen you do -"

"Do you know what magic is?"

"No, but I figure you're going to tell me."

"Magic - " he said, and then stopped again. For a moment it wasn't obvious whether he'd changed his mind, or was searching for the right words. A way to explain it that she'd understand. "Magic is the control of energy," he said, finally.

"That's all?"

"That's all."

"That's kind of the understatement of the century."

"No understatement. Energy is what every dimension of the universe consists of - every particle, every molecule, every thoughtform. Learn to feel and control the energy any type of matter consists of, and you can control the and alter the matter. Including yourself," he finished, as an afterthought.

"Maybe you can all feel energy in your world. Let's say that it's a little beyond anything I ever read about in college."

"No. You can feel it. Because it's there. I'm... a little more aware, maybe." Mordrid paused. "When I was a boy I felt it but I couldn't control it. When I was trained, I saw the elements as packets of light and energy, all vibrating at their own particular frequency. After I could sense them, I could focus my abilities."

"You make it sound incredible," Sam said, honestly.

"It can be dangerous, too. That's why they send me - to stop it, when it's in the wrong hands. And why I need all the help I can get."

"I want to help. I just don't know if I'm up to this."

He regarded her quietly for a few moments. Then he stood, and held out his hand to her. "Come on," he said.

"What?"

"We have an hour before we have to leave. I want to show you something." He continued to hold out the hand, waiting patiently for her to take it, and when she did, he drew her to her feet, leaving her bag beside the chair, and led her across the apartment in the direction of the balcony doors.

There was no wind outside, only the very lightest of rain showers falling, not nearly as cold as New Yorkers were used to at that time of year, stars glimmering quietly. Sam inhaled, smelling the night air: wet asphalt, salt rolling in and her own adrenaline. It was like being part of one big, smart-assed block party, she thought. People said New York was a bughouse, and New York said screw you. Where else threw enough different faces at you every day that you always got the chance to make yourself over again? Where else could you live in a city of eight million people and still have the right one manage to find you?

"We're going to miss New Year," she said, out loud.

The glass in the doors, when Sam looked back, showed her two pictures: the crypt-like spaces of the apartment behind them, and the panorama of the skyline, with Mordrid and herself against it, laid over the top.

"There'll be others. We won't stay away too long." In the reflection, she could only see him in silhouette, but there was warmth in his voice. "And you're right. It still isn't such a bad place to live."

She turned to him. "Ever see anything from the history books?"

"Once I stayed along the hall from Bugsy Siegel at the Waldorf."

"You're kidding."

"I went to the World's Fair in 1939. It was... interesting. And I saw Tchaikovsky at the opening of Carnegie Hall."

Sam inclined her head. "Guess it must seem kind of dull these days, huh?"

"Oh," Mordrid said, softly, "it has its attractions." Straightening, he moved to stand opposite her, taking both of her hands in his. He was so warm that she had a mental image of liquid fire that she wasn't sure whether was overactive imagination or some kind of psychic aura that she was being allowed into.

"What do you feel?" he asked.

"Is this a trick question?"

Mordrid shook his head. "No. No right answer or wrong answer." He stroked the backs of Sam's knuckles. He was definitely doing something. It felt the same as when he'd shared the vision of his past and she'd thought he'd hypnotized her, but this time, instead of on dream images, it was completely centered on his touch. His undiluted presence rolled over her like a thick red tide that slowly blanketed everything else around them, leaving just him, and more of him. His fingers barely released hers, enough to press her palms open, and then interlaced again as he flattened his own against them. Sam was starting to have trouble forming coherent trains of thought, or rather, telling for definite which thoughts were her own and which came from him. It was as if he were imprinted on her, under her skin and inside her bones.

"You," she managed to say, with some effort.

She felt Mordrid's grip relax infinitesimally, and then there was a feeling of something popping, or snapping, somewhere inside her that she couldn't place accurately, and rushes of both huge gain and equally huge loss that came so close together that they left her lightheaded. He moved swiftly, cupping her elbow for a moment, steadying her.

"Are you alright?"

Sam blinked. She could smell the night again, see the droplets of water spotting her glasses and clinging to her hair in the corners of her vision like dew on a spider's web; everything that had been blanked out dropping back into focus, like tuning in a TV channel. "I have no clue exactly what happened there, but I think so."

"That was energy that you felt. My energy." He spoke carefully, as if he wasn't sure of her reaction. "When you learn to project it, you can travel in that form. And you can merge it with other fields around you and influence them."

"You mean use it for mind control?"

"Potentially. In the wrong hands. Like Kabal." Mordrid looked lost somewhere inside himself. Then he looked up. "I'm sorry I pushed, Sam. I wasn't sure how much you'd be able to sense."

She managed to crack a grin. "So do I get an A for my first lesson?"

"At least. And for handling the weirdness."

"Well, it's weird. But it's kind of hot, too."

"Monitor said that I'd never be able to reveal to humans that we protected them, because they wouldn't understand."

"And what did you say?"

"I said I thought there were some who would." Mordrid kissed her, very lightly, his breath ghosting across her cheek. The air was cool, but he felt hot enough to melt metal, and Sam moved into it, chasing the sensation, closing the space remaining between them. She pressed her fingers to his abdomen and let them fall slowly to where they met his belt, and his muscles jumped under her touch.

"You seem pretty human."

"We're compatible in many ways." There was a sparkle of laughter in his eyes as he once more took her hand in his, turning it palm upwards and taking a small step back. He held it, suspended in the air, and the rain drifted over her skin, as if it was no more than the lightest mist.

"And now," he said. "what do you feel?"

"Water, but I should say 'energy', shouldn't I?" Sam was starting to find herself enjoying this, or maybe it was that she enjoyed him. Sorcerer or not, she had him pegged for a sensualist; had gotten his number right on that first time. As for the rest of it, he wasn't categorized that easily, and something told her that that would have still been true if he'd turned out to be from Queens.

"Both would be right." The sparkle was still there. "When energy slows down, it starts to form matter. Vapors -" Mordrid held out his other hand. His fingertips curved slightly upwards, as if feeling for something, weighing out an unseen commodity in his palm. A few inches above his grasp, the air moved in something like a ripple, as if space was folding in on itself. As Sam watched, it began to condense, forming itself into an irregular ball of smoke or fog that hovered over Mordrid's hand like a stormcloud in miniature. It rolled about a little, forming and unforming, seeming to buffet against walls that she guessed were a barrier that he was generating himself. "Liquids -" he continued, and the cloud immediately curled in on itself, shrinking to a pinprick of light before expanding once again into a gravity-defying spiral of water that writhed slowly in the air. After a few moments, it too began to remodel, growing gradually squatter and developing points and contours, until its movement slowed and stopped, and Sam found herself looking into the heart of a multi-faceted crystal. It flashed so brightly that she had to blink, as if it was absorbing every light for a mile around and throwing them back. "Solids."

The image came back to her now. "That's how you got the gun."

"All things are energy. And energy can become anything. When you slow it down, you start to create solid matter. And when you speed it up -" The tendons in his wrist twitched, a barely perceptible expression of something just this side of effortless, and the crystal began to glow white-hot. Sam jumped slightly when it exploded into nothingness, a shower of lightning sparks raining down inside the invisible field. Mordrid flicked his hand again, in a motion of brushing them off, and the fire instantly melted away into the night air as if it had never existed.

She took a short breath. "So, you're going to say that that was kindergarten stuff too?"

"Not so far off it."

"Except that I'm not a sorcerer."

Mordrid tilted his head ever so slightly. His expression was, as always, enigmatic. "You can't be sure of that, can you?" he said, slowly. "Not before you've tried."

"No, but I'd rather not be trying when I'm standing in front of a malevolent entity, if that's okay."

"Then there's no time like the present."

His hand released Sam's and splayed over the small of her back, steering her with gentle resolve towards the railings. As she looked out over the street and its thin layer of metropolitan smog, resting her hands on the top bar, she felt Mordrid settle in behind her. The similarity in their heights allowed him to bathe the back of her neck with warmth when he exhaled, and when he placed his fingertips very lightly on her shoulders, she felt her skin respond, tiny goosebumps popping even under the heavy knit of her sweater. Either he was still projecting, or he turned her on. She could make a pretty good guess which.

"You need to start by imagining reality not as your brain perceives it, but as it is." His mouth faintly brushed her hair as he spoke. "A network of energy patterns, all interconnected and affecting each other. You can't move into another pattern without being influenced by it. But that pattern at the same time becomes equally susceptible to your influence - and more so."

"Your energy's stronger, you mean."

She felt Mordrid nod. "When I learned to use my power, I found out that when I focused, I could be stronger than anything else around me."

"So where does your amulet come into it, unless it's too long a story?" Sam was curious now. He'd given it to her once and told her she didn't have to be a magician to use it, and she had used it, to freeze people in time like a photograph. There was way more to it than what he had shown her, though; she knew for a fact there was.

"No. It was made for me when I began my training - tuned into my own unique pattern. Kabal's, too. It resonates with the individual. It will work for another, but not so well. I can cast spells without it, but it amplifies them... makes it easier to focus, you could say. There are others who are powerful enough without one."

"More powerful than you?" The disbelief must have been audible in her voice.

"I'm not as special as you think, Sam."

"Right. Gaudio would have choked on his coffee if you'd shown him half of what you can pull."

"I think it may have been a little beyond his understanding of the universe."

The gentle pressure of his fingers directed Sam's attention in front of her again. She let her eyes wander out into the darkness beyond the balcony, and then screwed them up as a brief but intense wave of vertigo washed over her, as if her perception had swung off kilter. It was so abrupt that she almost lurched sideways. She'd never been scared of heights, so what the hell? Mordrid's grasp didn't tighten; rather, he simply moved with her, keeping his chest flush with her back.

"Look. Look around you."

"I think I'm going to pass out if I look too hard at anything right now."

"You're not going to pass out. I promise." His voice in her ear was the smoky molasses you only read about in dime store novels. Where his breath touched her chilled skin, she half-expected steam to hiss. "Look," he said, again. "Don't see the buildings as you expect to see them. See them like you're seeing for the first time and don't know what to expect. Look through them. See them as they truly are."

Manhattan swam in her vision, flickering in and out of focus like a huge TV trying to tune itself in. Gradually, Sam started to become aware of a low hum vibrating somewhere between her temples and her jawbones, one that sounded as if it was made up of a cacophony of different frequencies all buffeting and sliding around each other. There was something. She could sense it, but she couldn't see it. She tried to lean towards it in her head, but she might as well have been pressing her ear to a locked door.

"I'm trying," she said. "It's not working."

"You're trying too hard. Receive, don't project. Accept what's there and let your mind open to it."

Sam tried staring past the buildings, in the way her college buddy Joel had told her to do with people's heads when he was on one of his kicks about seeing auras. Nothing. She tried to recall the sensations she'd felt when Mordrid had opened himself to her; the total awareness that had temporarily crowded everything else out, but the more she tried to capture it again, the more it slipped through her fingers. It was like having a word on the tip of her tongue.

"Anton, I can't do this."

Without faltering, Mordrid's touch slid down to her upper arms, and she felt herself being turned to face him. She swayed a little on her feet, and his fingers curled tighter, anchoring her.

"Look at me," he said. "Don't think about anything."

The air around them felt so thick and heavy that it made Sam picture trying to walk through treacle. She forced herself to meet his eyes, the sense of time and vastness she saw bulldozing her as it had done inside the apartment. And she saw something else.

Light. She could see tendrils of light, spreading out around them in intricate spiderwebs. Translucent clouds of vapor that formed and dissolved again as fast as she became aware of them, fireflies of luminescent color darting in and out of her peripheral vision, pulsing globe-shapes floating in space like the skeletons of Chinese lanterns. What struck her the most was how everything - absolutely everything - was moving, in its own preset design, like standing at the heart of a living kaleidoscope.

She could see the city around her just like it always was, and yet she could see it on another level as well, and she knew she was looking at both at exactly the same time.

"Oh my God."

"Focus on the water. Try to isolate its energy from everything else. Move closer to it."

Sam nodded, as close to dumbstruck as she could remember ever being. With some effort, she managed to concentrate on an image of clouds somewhere above her that dropped rain in one part of her vision and shimmered like something alive in the other. The more she thought about it, the more she started to get the weird idea that it would be easier to bring it to her instead of trying to get any nearer herself. She could guess what she needed to do, but couldn't figure out for the life of her how to do it.

Then a picture appeared in her mind's eye of taking hold of an invisible thread and pulling - and the world shot towards her until it magnified into a million sets of shimmering concentric spheres expanding endlessly outwards.

"I think I did it," she said. Her voice seemed to echo in her ears, as if it were coming from a long way off, or from inside a dream. What did anyone want to bet she was going to wake up any minute now and find out that that was all this was?

"Trust in your own power. Be sure."

Sam attempted to steel herself. "Okay," she said. "Okay, I'm sure."

"You need to alter the kinetic energy. Change the movement to change its form. Try to slow it down."

"I'm not even going to pretend I know where to start."

Mordrid was still holding her, a buoy in the ocean she was suspended in. "Start where you did just now. Understand what needs to happen. Reach out with that in mind, and the energy adjusts to be compatible. The universe doesn't want to fight you, Sam. It wants to be in harmony with you."

"Philosopher," Sam managed to say. She could feel him hanging around on the outskirts of her head, seeing what she saw, and then she was sure, because he was. She'd known the guy less than two weeks in total, and he might be some kind of alien, but somehow she trusted him and his judgement completely. This time, she reached out in both her mind and his, and the energy stalled, clenching in on itself before starting to grow again, prisms and hexagons lining up and linking together like building blocks.

"No." She heard the amusement in his voice. "Sorcerer."

And then, in what could have just as easily been seconds or been hours, it was gone; all of it, and she was standing in the shadows on the balcony again with Mordrid in front of her, his dark eyes watching her carefully. Slowly, he relinquished his grip on her arms. As she stared at him, something lightly touched her nose, and she automatically lifted her hand to brush it away. She looked at her fingers, then up to where she could make out the overhanging clouds beyond the neon aurora of midtown Manhattan.

It had stopped raining, and it was snowing.

"It's winter," she heard Mordrid say, "It does snow, after all."

His tone was noncommittal, but when she shot a glance at him, she could see him starting to smile. "Yeah," she said, a little breathless, "like NBC weather isn't still going to get it from New York state for calling this one wrong."

"Probably. I think they'll forgive them eventually, though. And you."

"Come on. You were helping me the whole time. D'you think I didn't know?"

"Maybe a little." His smile had grown wider. "But I couldn't do it if it wasn't already there."

Sam's forehead managed to furrow, but a spaciness lingered, the kind you got when your body was long overdue sleep but your brain didn't want it yet. When Mordrid's arms slipped around her, drawing her close, cocooning them within a lacy, translucent curtain, she found herself leaning against his shoulder. The snow tingled on the exposed skin of her hands and face. She couldn't remember seeing snowflakes that size before. Dreamlike, they swirled endlessly down, blanketing the city, sailing on updrafts through the canyons of the streets and turning concrete and aluminum into mountains. Like the school nerd in a ballgown on prom night, the whiteness seemed to model the city and bring out the beauty that made appearances when you were least expecting it and left you amazed.

"What do you mean?"

"Sam - your power doesn't come from me. I only channelled it. You have to find the way to use it yourself - nobody can do that for you. Or better than you."

She was aware of her mouth quirking. "This could take me a while, you know that?"

"I have plenty of time." Mordrid tilted her chin and leaned into her again. When they parted, she said, "I didn't say stop." She could feel the vibrations of his laughter as his nose lightly bumped her glasses.

"That's what I liked about you - the first time we talked. How you were pushy. And curious." His face grew a little more sober as he regarded her. "Don't stop being curious. Don't ever give up too easily."

The snow continued to fall around them, slow and silent, floating drifts of white. She felt Mordrid shift, pressing into her hip. For the first time, Sam realized that she still didn't feel cold, only buzzed; what should have been a shiver out here translating itself into something crazily sweet down her spine.

"So can I ask two more questions?" she said.

"Practical, or personal?"

"A little of both."

"Well, now it's my turn to be curious."

Sam took a shot at it. "What you did, before. It was like both of us being inside my head at the same time. I didn't know what was you and what was me."

He was quiet, not interrupting her or offering an explanation, only waiting for her to go on. She tried again. "Can you read my mind? When you do that?"

"What would you like my answer to be, yes or no?"

She nudged him. "Come on. It's probably just a mortal thing, but I want to know, okay?"

"It's not all that bad an idea to keep some cards hidden. No," he said, after a minute, "not really. I can pick up on things in a general sense, perhaps. Strong sensations, emotions. But - at my level of ability - no, I can't read your thoughts. It's a little easier where I come from. We use our energy to interact more often. People on Earth are more closed... more complex."

"Is that a compliment?"

"Definitely. It means you're an enjoyable challenge." There was an odd note in Mordrid's voice, and it had dropped a couple of octaves. "And if you could enter my mind now, I think I'd embarrass myself."

She was waiting for his kiss this time, like when he'd first come back: his hands sliding up hers, over her sleeves and up to her shoulders, and her fingers wandering into his hair. His tongue lingered for a moment to trace her lips before his mouth covered hers with an intensity that made her ache, and she moved to meet him more than halfway. When he drew back, he pressed it to the curve of her throat.

"What was your second question?" she heard him ask, softly.

"You already answered it," she said. She liked that he didn't ask her to elaborate. Where he had kissed her, she could feel tiny snowflakes melting.

"It's almost time to go," he said.

Sam let out a breath, taking a final look around. Below them, the traffic nose-to-tailed it in the direction of Fifth Avenue, cabs peeling away into the flowing current, buses hissing, a river that stopped and started, stopped and started. A couple of floors down, somebody turned their radio up too loudly, and the familiar bass of Chuck Leonard, reverberating through the window, mingled with the sound of the street. It was hard to imagine ever getting further away from the boroughs than she was tonight. Another dimension on the other side of the universe.

"Okay," she said.

And she was. Okay with following him back into the apartment and letting him close off the whitened world behind them; waiting as he moved noiselessly about the room, gathering a few small items. His shadow loomed large on the walls where the lamp threw it, and then she blinked, and blinked again, as its outline began to shift, grow and reform, a fraction before Mordrid's own. When her eyes readjusted to the light, he was still standing where he'd been before, beside a low bureau, his head lowered in momentary thought, but now there was a cloak wrapped around his shoulders, one that Sam felt pretty sure she wouldn't have somehow missed earlier. She didn't even want to try to guess what it was made of, as it moulded itself to his form and moved in the small cross-currents of air like something alive, but Mordrid seemed to accept its presence as a matter of course. As she looked on, he reached into his pocket and drew out a watch on a thick gold fob chain, and held it in his palm for a few moments. Then, with the utmost care, almost gentleness, he opened one of the bureau's small drawers, placed the watch inside, and slid it closed.

"Sam," he said.

"Yes?"

"If I ever hurt you - if I ever let any harm come to you - I want you to kill me. I can tell you how to do it."

"Anton, would you mind telling me what you're talking about?"

"Oh... nothing." Mordrid's absent look vanished, as abruptly as it had appeared, leaving Sam frowning a little. The feeling dogged her that just for a second, it was as if she'd seen a snapshot of a different person, one who would be depending on her strength as much as she did on his. She could be strong, when he needed her to be, she thought resolutely. If she went down, it wouldn't be without the best fight she could put up.

She watched as he approached the perch where Edgar Allan sat silently. He made no move to touch the bird this time, but spoke a few quiet words to him that Sam couldn't catch. To her surprise, Edgar bent and quickly and deftly picked open the knot of his own leash with the tip of his beak. With a short flurry of sleek wings, he settled onto Mordrid's shoulder, and, reaching for the cord of the amulet, tugged gently at it and croaked.

"No," Mordrid said. "I didn't lose it. Thanks to Miss Hunt here." He carried the raven over to her, and Edgar Allan fixed her with a pair of glittering eyes, tipped his head questioningly to one side, and croaked again.

"Wait a minute - Edgar can understand us?"

Mordrid smiled. "Edgar and I understand each other perfectly. We've had a hundred years of practise."

She shook her head, slowly. "You know you have a hell of a backstory to go through?" she said.

"I'll tell it all to you one day."

She lifted an eyebrow. "Promise?"

"Promise."

Sam retrieved her bag and hitched it on her shoulder. His hand, smoother than she could ever remember those of a man feeling before, guided her before him to where the huge map that dominated the room stood framed on its plinth. When he reached out to it, the ring of light burned into the surface, carving out a perfect, circular aperture as a cookie cutter into dough, the doors that formed parting onto a void of brilliant nothingness. Wind spiralled out from it, immediately taking hold of her hair and her clothes, momentarily slapping the breath out of her.

She turned to Mordrid. The wind filled his cloak like the sail of a ship, but he was watching her intently, as if seeing the question in her face.

"I wouldn't take you if I couldn't bring you back," he said.

"Handling this is one thing. Getting used to it - that might be a whole other ballgame."

"I have confidence in you."

Sam looked into the portal's blue glare again. You said you wanted to date more interesting types. Way to go, Hunt.

"Then I guess I'm ready," she said.

From his place on his companion's shoulder, Edgar Allan called, throatily, the sound echoing above the wind in the high vaulted ceiling. Mordrid squeezed her hand. Then the three of them stepped forward, and the portal swallowed them up.