I awoke to gunfire and screams. And a headache.

Not that it was gunfire like anything I'd ever heard. Instead of the crack-crack-crack of assault rifles, I heard a muted thudthudthudthud mixed alongside a staccato boom-boom-boom. It felt like three different sound stages were testing their bass at the same time, and my ears rang from the noise.

The screams were different, too. You hear plenty of screaming in my line of work, and you quickly learn to tell the difference between a scream of pain and one of fear. These screams were inhuman, but completely unlike your bog-standard faerie howls or animal roars. To quote Waldo Butters, "Human-like, but definitely nonhuman."

My subconscious idly continued commenting on the sounds while instinct said "Screw this" and took control. Self-preservation elbowed my conscious mind into a corner, as my aching brain gave up on trying to handle the shocks I'd been put through.

Like I said. Long day.

Years spent avoiding drooling horrors from beyond the Outer Darkness saved me yet again, as a thunderous explosion boomed from the floor where my body had just been. As my spine made a lifelong partnership with a nearby crate, I cautiously craned my head around and took stock of my surroundings.

My spine's new best friend had plenty of company: I was holed up in a futuristic-looking warehouse, with crates scattered haphazardly across the floor. Black-armored shapes fired rifles at tan-armored ones, a few bodies sprawled out under the harsh white light while something similar to gunfire whizzed overhead. I caught a glimpse of the nearest body, and as I expected it was "human, but definitely nonhuman."

The corpse next to mine, however, was entirely human. John Shepard's black-armored body lay next to me, dead when Someone had decided to cheat. With his shattered helmet at his side and his neck turned into ground beef by an impact, he should've still been bleeding from the wound, but his corpse was obviously ice-cold.

I shelved my thoughts, scrabbling for my shield bracelet with my left hand while my right snagged my blasting rod. I glanced around the corner of the box, but couldn't see a thing, and stood up to see what was happening.

God kicked me in the gut. And He was wearing steel-toed boots.

My back hit the metal deck with a thud, gasping as I desperately sucked in air like I'd been stomach-punched. I glanced down to see a tiny cloud of smoke rising from a small scorch mark on my leather duster.

"Hell's bells," I wheezed. My duster was my combat armor, and was more spell than leather at this point. It could (and had) saved me from more nasty gribblies than I could count. Seeing it damaged, even partially, from a single bullet frightened the bejeezus out of me.

Gathering my focus and extending my left hand, I rose up again. This time, when an enemy popped up to fire a futuristic weapon at me, the…bullets?...sparked off my shield bubble.

I winced as the impacts shook my footing and my concentration, but extended my blasting rod at the target and hissed, "Fuego!" Runes flared to orange life along the carved wooden stick, a jet of flame snaking out as I ignited the air between points A and B.

The effect was instantaneous: the un-helmeted alien took the small blast of fire straight to the face, blue lights flaring around him as he roared and stumbled into the open. A stream of…bullets?...slammed into the enemy soldier, dropping him instantly. With the immediate threat gone, I ducked back under cover, just in time to meet another soldier coming around the side of my spine's favorite crate.

He was, again, "human but definitely not." Four eyes blinked at me from a face that looked like it'd been flattened a few too many times against a door. Multiple nostrils hissed as the tan-armored alien tried to draw in air, the weapon in his hands turning to shoot-

-and he roared that inhuman howl, stumbling back as I poked my blasting rod into one of his eyes. Hey, there were plenty to choose from. I could see that damn gun swinging towards me again, and I knew I was out of options. "Ventas servitas!" I yelled, and wind shot from my outstretched hand to strike the soldier and send him flying backwards. His head struck another crate and the alien lay very, very still.

I kept moving, ducking back under cover even as some corner of my mind gibbered in fear. I'd tried to save the soldier, punting the alien with wind instead of roasting him, but he'd died anyway. I'd killed a living creature. With magic. The White Council would have my head for this – literally.

I slowed my breathing and tried to think rationally. The White Council might kill me later, but these aliens were perfectly happy to kill me right now. At the moment, nothing else mattered more than simply surviving the next few minutes.

Thankfully, these enemies seemed to be using advanced weapons, and any technology made later than World War Two usually suffered a bad case of the deads around me, from my ambient magic alone. When I tried to blow something up, well… Gathering energy, I turned towards the sound of shooting and muttered, "Hexus."

An invisible wave of force swept out from my hands, making me wince at the headache. Without my staff or any foci other than my blasting rod and shield bracelet to channel magic, I was inaccurate and sloppy, the magical equivalent of a thug. Still, if it worked then I'd happily embrace my thuggish ruggish side. I listened carefully, waiting for the yells of fear as weapons broke and electronics failed.

Thudthudthudthud- Weapons continued firing, uninterrupted. The lights above kept shining merrily, unaware that they were supposed to be exploding by now. "Fuck," I cursed harshly, trying to improvise. For whatever reason, I couldn't disable their weapons with my tried-and-true methods for 'fixing' mortal technology. I'd often hated my "Murphyonic effect" – and there I went, quoting Butters again – but against human enemies, it leveled the playing field quite nicely. Without it, I felt exposed.

I stood up again, this time with the green-tinted bubble of my improved shield ready to ward off an attack. None came. There was only one tan-armored alien in the corner, suppressed by heavy fire, and as I kept watching, a Frisbee-shaped disc improbably flew across the room and latched onto the remaining alien.

Shaking my head to clear my ringing eardrums, I glanced around at my 'saviors.' They moved forward in pairs, clearing the room with the ease of practiced professionals. The gears in my head ground slowly as I tried to think of what to say: 'Hi, God said I should help out here?' 'Your buddy got recalled and I'm the replacement?' 'I went to heaven and all I got was this stinking headache?' 'Anyone order a piz-'

"Turn around. Slowly." With a gun barrel prodding me in the back, I casually let my arms drop to my side, my right hand already tucking my blasting rod out of view. Shepard obviously hadn't believed in magic, so hopefully they wouldn't either – then again, professionals didn't underestimate weapons, even something like a pointy stick.

"Hi. What's happening here?" I kept my tone light and my shoulders relaxed. Humans notice small changes in each other's posture, and tensing up in front of a keyed-up soldier could end very, very badly for me.

"LT, Shepard's down, sniper got him. There's some funny-looking human over here. Orders?" I remained silent, hoping they'd simply leave me to figure out where I was, who wanted to kill me, and how to keep my head attached to my neck.

"Simmons, we're on the clock! Leave Shepard, cuff the crazy and go!" came the irritated reply. I tried to not let my exhilaration show, keeping my features neutral as another soldier stomped over behind me. Heavy cuffs clunked onto my wrists, holding them securely behind me. I tested the binding, making sure that my blasting rod stayed hidden.

The soldier who'd cuffed me faced me squarely. Hefting his rifle, the helmeted man glared at me through his visor: "Look, numbnuts, I don't know who you are or why you're here. We're coming back here once we've killed these batarians, and if you killed Shepard then I suggest you tell us now."

As intimidation efforts go, it actually wasn't that bad. He gave a decent death-glare, and the black armor didn't hurt. Compared to millennia-old vampires that could render me helpless by staring, though, he was a complete pansy. I gave him my sincerest grin, getting a growl in return, and waited for the soldiers to exit the warehouse.

As the last one strode out, his rifle fixed on me, I carefully slid my blasting rod into my hand. The heavy metal cuffs were thick and strong, but they didn't do diddly to stop me from using magic. I carefully channeled power through my blasting rod, stifling the reflexive twitch that the troll-made thorn manacles had left in me. As my blasting rod heated up, the runes on the side flaring to fiery life, I reversed the grip in my hand and stabbed the rod's white-hot tip into the center of the cuffs.

"Aaaah!" In my rush to get free, I'd forgotten a basic principle of magic: physics is a mean bitch when she wants to be. Call up a fireball, and it'll still consume air and create heat. Here, I'd forgotten that the metal in the cuffs conducted heat too damn well. I could feel the cuffs warping under my blasting rod, but my wrists were literally burning from the heat.

Hell with it, I decided. I'd already gotten this far, and I needed to get free before any more of those "batarians" showed up. I gritted my teeth and continued to cut, ignoring the pain shooting up my arms and the faint sizzle of burning skin.

The red-hot metal finally gave way under the heat of my blasting rod, folding like dough down the center and leaving my hands free. Something electronic in the cuffs decided that it'd had enough, and the severed cuffs split to leave my wrists free. I carefully peeled the cuffs from my skin, wincing as they tore burned flesh with them, before tossing the metal aside and picking up my dropped gear.

My leather duster. A blasting rod. My .44, with two speed reloaders. My hat. We now shed a tear for my missing staff, which would have let me channel magic effectively and also let me hit enemies on the head. Poking them in the eye might work, but it didn't have the same gravitas to it.

I straightened up, trying to make sense of the universe after my whirlwind tour through it in the past twelve hours. As much as 'hours' applied to being dead, anyway. I'd been on a world tour of Earth courtesy of the Nevernever, visited Valhalla for a cuppa coffee with Odin One-Eye, walked into the Chichen Itza and trash talked an Elder Abomination, died, been resurrected in someplace out of a bad sci-fi novel, and was now trying to save a world from total annihilation. Dying had been the least crazy thing to happen to me in the past day.

I was exhausted, mentally and physically. My resurrection had brought all of my old aches and pains, from a scar I'd gotten at age five to claw marks from a little hoedown with the Red Court. I was tired out, strung out, and apparently responsible for an entire world. It had broken my poor mortal brain so badly that only one thing could fix it.

A good one-liner.

"I don't believe in aliens!" I bellowed, running towards the sounds of gunfire.


"Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow." As it turns out, not believing in the bug-eyed aliens doesn't stop them from believing in you. It also doesn't stop them from believing that they can put holes in you, and their guns are fairly powerful articles of their faith.

I kept my left arm outstretched, my shield flickering under the stress and my eyes aching from the light show. I was merrily bumping along the ceiling, and nearly every alien below had decided that my ass needed a few chunks taken out of it.

I had originally stormed through the door, sending a quick blast of fire towards the aliens to grab their attention. My shield had held up against the storm of fire, and I'd provided a wonderful distraction for the human commandos who were busy not dying under the many, many aliens in the room. Then I'd made the fatal mistake of thinking to myself, "Hey, this might work!"

Predictably, me taunting Murphy made him taunt me right back. An alien far in the back of the control room had stood up, done something that made him glow purple, and sent me to my current predicament. To make it worse, gravity decided that now was the time to behave normally. Still hovering near the ceiling, I dropped like a rock. I found myself heading far too fast towards the ground, spread-eagled and yelling in fear. I stretched my hand out, yelling an inarticulate spell even as gravity decided to make me its plaything again.

Spells are delicate things. I use foci to channel my magic because I would otherwise have to invoke each component of the spell at the same time, without any extraneous thoughts, in the proper order. Think of it like whistling the "Star-Spangled Banner" while riding a unicycle across a rope wire suspended over Hell. And vultures are trying to eat you. Screw it up, and Bad Things start happening.

My screwed-up spell took effect even as the sudden meeting between me and the floor decided to reschedule for next week. I found myself drifting slowly through the air, even as a massive pulse of energy shot forward. One of the black-armored commandos, haloed in purple light and face creased in concentration, waved with his hands and I found myself finally back on the ground.

I groaned in exhaustion and despair, seeing my mistaken spell get to work. Earth magic. Thinking about hitting the ground had made me summon earth magic. Like its namesake, it was slow to move and an energy hog but almost unstoppable once it started going. The pulse of force ripped through cover, aliens, and the wall like they were all made of paper, bursting the side of the control room.

The wall buckled, the atmosphere roaring out into…space. Right. I shook my head, trying to equalize my ears even as a blue shield sprung up over the broken wall. The three commandos left sprinted forward with guns roaring, using the distraction to mop up the remaining aliens in a hail of fire.

Gasping for the air that suddenly didn't seem to be there, I slowly stumbled to my feet and looked drunkenly around the room. Leaving aside the dead bodies heaped everywhere, the room could've been lifted from the set of Star Trek after yet another run-in with the Borg. Glowing consoles, some on fire, flickered unsteadily as text scrolled across them. The lights overhead swung crazily as my accidental earth magic tore on into the asteroid.

"Turn around. Slowly." I slowly turned around yet again, seeing yet another black-armored human commando pointing a rifle at me. Schooling my features into neutrality and summoning my vast bullshit reserves, I prepared for the lie of a lifetime.

"I just arrived. Sitrep." The unfamiliar jargon flew off my lips with the ease borne of working with cops. Police-lingo and military-lingo might be different, but in the end grunting at someone and glaring them down worked pretty well.

Nonplussed, the commando kept glaring at me. "Why're you wearing that crazy getup? And didn't we cuff you earlier?" Searching for a response, I cast my mind back to bad action flicks from my '80s childhood. God help me.

"I was stowing away, before you schmucks tore apart my plan. And next time, get a better pair of cuffs." I silently thanked whoever was watching that Bob the Skull would never see this, or he would laugh his nonexistent ass off.

The soldier's eyes narrowed. "Really? Prove it." Desperately trying to bullshit him, inspiration struck as I remembered Shepard's last words. Reaching into my duster's pocket, I pulled out the strange coin that Shepard had given me, passing it "N3"-side up to the soldier.

He glanced at the coin, passing the hologram side of the coin over his left hand. Something beeped, and his forearm lit up in an orange lightshow. I wisely kept my trap shut, trying to get an escape plan ready before he realized that I was a fraud.

"Sarge! We've got an N3 agent here. A biotic, too."

"No shit?" croaked a voice from one of the corpses nearby. The soldier and I both flinched and looked over at the wounded man trying to sit up. Unlike the other humans, his black armor had a single "N6" emblazoned on it, and his left hand was busy holding his guts in. The soldier and I, in unspoken mutual agreement, quickly flanked N6 and rested his back against a nearby crate.

"You," wheezed the dying man, pointing a finger at me. I froze like a deer in the headlights. "Wear a goddamned helmet." N6 slowly reached up and removed his own, handing it to me. I gingerly reached for the non-bloodstained parts of the helmet, wondering what the hell was going on. N6 saw my look and grimaced: "Shepard got shot in the head. Get his armor, but use my helmet."

"Sir?" asked the other soldier, frantically spraying some aerosol over N6's wound. "Sir, you can't-"

"I'm dead anyway, Havers. When you turn the power off to kill the fusion torch, you'll open the place to vacuum." He grinned at me unsteadily. "Next time, can you not destroy the building?"

I grimaced. "Buildings and I don't get along too well."

We all laughed weakly, until N6 started coughing. I recognized a death rattle when I heard it, and apparently he did too. "Go," he ordered, in a voice that brooked no disagreement.

The other soldier straightened up. "So…I'll…access the power?" he announced unsteadily. "Yeah," I responded. I felt sick: I'd screwed up, and badly. I didn't even know N6's name, but he would die because of my mistake

Hell's bells, it'd been a long day.

I numbly went back to the start, finding Shepard's cold corpse right where it'd fallen. I avoided the eyes as I quickly pulled off pieces of armor, fumbling for the hidden catches across the gear. Havers, the other soldier, helped me suit up in Shepard's gear as I tried to cope. No matter that N6 had ordered it, I still felt like a grave robber, or a ghoul. Just with less face-eating.

The gruesome job done, I straightened up slowly in the unfamiliar gear. I'd left the shoulder pads off, but the rest of the armor had stretched to – barely – fit my too-tall frame. "That do it?"

Havers frowned. "You know, it helps if you actually turn it on." He reached to my neck, flicking a switch, and the armor went from feeling like lead to feather-light. My astonishment should've shown on my face, because Havers laughed slightly. "Don't worry, Luddite, the barriers are working fine too."

Shaking my head and carefully fixing the helmet on my head, I reached for my discarded gear. Havers watched silently as I struggled into my leather duster and grabbed my blasting rod, but laughed when I reached for my hat. "Really?"

I glared at him. "The hat stays."

Havers shook his helmeted head. "Fine, fine. You'll need one thing first. Turn around." I cautiously turned away from him, but froze as I heard a click behind me, and a sudden pressure at the back of my head. He was going to sh-

"There. A sealed enviro-suit works better when you've hooked the air hose up, you know."

Oh.

We strode back into the control room, my leather duster sweeping dramatically behind me. The two surviving humans glanced up at our entrance, and a quiet chuckle over the radio let me know that I probably looked like a complete idiot.

Screw it, I decided. It might be the future, and technology might have suddenly decided to work around me, but I was keeping the hat. "What's the plan?" I asked, trying to remember Shepard's five-second description.

"There is no plan," answered one of the soldiers sourly. "Controls are locked out and we can't reach the damn fusion torch right above us."

A idea formed deep inside my brain, bubbling out before self-preservation could point out how crazy it was. "Point me at the fusion torch."

"Sure," responded Havers. "You're not going to…" his voice trailed off as he looked at me. "Oh, shit. You are going to-"

"Just point me at it," I interrupted curtly. I needed to do this quickly, before I realized how badly this could turn out.

Havers did something with the glowing thing on his arm, and a target appeared on my vision. I turned towards the three soldiers: "I'm going to be busy for two minutes or so. Don't interrupt me."

"Or what?" asked one of them.

"Or we all die." They seemed to believe it, which was good because it was probably true. My focus was fairly good – vampires don't leave you much time to get your act together – but I was trying something with a lot of power behind it. Any major distractions, and it would blow up in all our faces.

Reaching down, I dipped my fingers in some of N6's blood and used it to form a circle around my feet before willing it closed with a moment of effort. The Powers that Be might have sent me to another universe, but they hadn't given me any chalk to work with here. Ignoring my comrades, who had already started muttering doubtfully about the crazy man with the hat, I concentrated on my spell.

I emptied my mind, or tried to. Some part of me had gotten fed up, and I had to blink away tears. I just wanted to go home. I wanted to bake in the Midwest summer, get yelled at by Murphy, navigate Chicago's streets in the Blue Beetle, fight a few demons and burn down a few buildings…

I ruthlessly suppressed my emotions, using an exercise Lash had taught me. The imprint of a fallen angel might be gone from my head, but I almost felt that her "as you wish, my host" would ring in my ears. I shook her memory away, beginning a long, low chant and focusing power into my focus point.

My blasting rod is built for fire and wind – earth magic doesn't 'channel' well, so to speak. Still, with enough time and luck I could (hopefully) make this work. I carefully assembled the spell in my head, thankful for the circle around me that blocked magical interference. My old Warden enemy Morgan loved to use earth magic in combat, and I'd picked up a few tricks after nearly being killed by him several times. Instead of sending power out in a wave, I focused my will into a spear aimed at my target.

The soldiers wisely shut up until my chant had finished, leaving me free to extend me blasting rod and use the spell's trigger. I reached the end of my chant and stomped my foot once, feeling the power leave me in a rush.

Havers glanced at me askance. "Did that-"

A massive rumble interrupted him. We all froze, listening for any further noise. Seconds later, the complex shook and threw us around like bowling pins. I picked myself up off the floor slowly: "Yeah, I think-"

BOOM.

"Ummm…"

"Yeah…"

"Run?"

BOOM.

"Run."

"RUN!"

We ran. Retreated. Fell back to a defensible position. The soldiers did that, at least. I ran like a coward and unashamedly screamed like a little girl. We sprinted for the gap that I'd blown open in the control room previously, the armor giving me extra speed. We nearly flew across the asteroid's surface, gravity vanishing suddenly outside of the complex. I felt a sudden heat spike on my back, and turned to see the buildings behind me exploding in a series of soundless explosions, with a rocket-like structure on top brewing up in a Challenger-esque kaboom.

Did I mention my problem with buildings?