Vermilion Ascendant

Chapter Two

"Baran."

The diminutive form paused, then proceeded to continue, poking and prodding at the massive form lounging on the couch three more times before a string of remarkably foul cursing could be heard. "Damnit," the smaller form swore again, realizing that his efforts were still proving vain."Baran! This is important, get up!"

"Shorty, may wanna make sure you check the easy things," a voice quipped from behind Mikron, startling him terribly.

Hand over his heart, the youngest of the Hive fell backwards and slammed his head against the table. Muttering more curses, he saw Paperdoll stroll over, and pluck the earplugs out of Mammoth's ears. Leaning down, she grinned ingratiatingly and murmured a very soft "Baran," and was rewarded with the man immediately opening his eyes.

"Hrrmm... Morning Paper. Giz, what are you doing on the floor?" Still waking, the large man wasn't sure, but he thought he heard Gizmo muttering something about a can of gasoline and a zippo, but dismissed it to his usual ranting. "What's up with him?"

Shrugging, the waspishly thin woman settled on a chair and idly fidgeted with her sleeves. The costume was simple, typically spandex with a panel motif. The effect made her look like a badly folded bit of origami, until she activated her powers. "He said something was important, but the little brat didn't say anything more." Grunting, Mammoth rose and stretched briefly, moving rather quickly for his bulk. His size was unusual, as was his strength, but despite it all he still moved with a rather fluid grace. Paperdoll openly stared, before she noticed him starting off. "Hey, where are you going?"

"He said it was important," was the short answer, as the man strode down the hallway, still cracking various joints and rousing himself from the nap.

Staring at the open door a moment more, Paperdoll swore and slammed a suddenly razor-thin hand into the arm of her chair. Startled, she picked at the fluff that erupted around her hand as the limb easily cut down into the frame, the annoyance still clear on her face. "Bad enough I'm two dimensional, but he makes me feel transparent," her words punctuated her actions, as she tried to mend the chair as best she could.

Gizmo had settled on one of the chairs of his room's lab side, and was discontentedly prodding a small bowl of gel with an electrode. The stuff quivered and jumped at each contact, a behavior he found soothing considering his annoyance. Easily tiring of the action after a few minutes, the young genius turned to work on another project when he spied Baran standing in the doorway. "'Bout time you got up, lazy oaf."

"Morning to you too, small fry," voice still coarse from sleep, Mammoth none the less picked a delicate path to the room's other chair, and sat. "What's up?"

The diminutive genius ignored him for a few moments before sighing and tossing a nearby newspaper his way. Mammoth's brow rose, as he watched the odd blankness on Gizmo's face, before looking over the article that was obviously the source.

It wasn't front page news, but the article had that sensationalist cast to it. He glossed over the inflammatory wording and the obvious conjectures and looked one more time at the picture, making sure. "Old photo... but yeah. Madsen. Damn."

"Someone did it last night. I started doing some digging, these fucking rags tell you nothing," to prove his words, the whiz kid swiveled his chair and stabbed a stubby finger into a row of buttons on a keypad. Baran settled back as one of the monitors, springing from the walls like some kind of weird fungus, blinked to life. "Got the police records, and the call in. Take a look."

Mammoth was already reading the articles and scans, that showed up. The information wasn't pretty, by any means. "Calls started at eight thirty, but police were... unable? Huh?"

"Means they couldn't find the goddamn place. Here, listen," another button was pressed, and Gizmo unplugged his headphones, letting the speakers carry the sound.

"...patch, having trouble locating the address on the call, please confirm.

"Car 04, call is at Anderson, Alpha, November... block five. Address it fifty third and Anderson. Come back.

"Got it, Anderson and fifty third." A pause here, as the timer ran a few moments. Baran's brow rose as the first communication repeated... with exactly the same tone. He looked to Gizmo but his eyes widened in surprise when the police dispatch also repeated their own directions, with no hint of exasperation, annoyance or surprise at the patrol car's query. Gizmo ran the tape in fast forward a few minutes, and he could easily make out the patter of the same call, over and over, with it's matching response. After a solid five minutes of this accelerated playback, Gizmo halted the tape and set it to play normally. The tape continued. "...Car 04, disturbance has ceased, be advised.

"Confirmed, returning to patrol. Car 04 out."

"What was going on there, Giz?"

Shrugging, the youngest of the Hive shook his head. "Scary thing? I'm not sure." Closing the playback, he started scanning through some reports as well. "Here we have a noise report. Another. Another... two blocks, Baran. Almost a dozen reports from about a block around this place, and no one could find it."

Heaving a sigh, the large man ran a hand through his hair, "You think it's a hit?" The possibility was always there. Some other group, trying to assert their own power base, or undermine theirs. Sometimes, people just got pissed. The worst was when Slade was active, back years ago. He'd made a habit of the "My way or the highway" mentality, on his personal vendetta. This, he had to admit though, didn't feel like anything he'd dealt with yet.

"Hits don't... do the shit that happened. Paper was a bit slack, here. Hope you haven't had breakfast..."

He hadn't, but it did little good. "Holy Jesus..." He flipped through the photos, prints of what Gizmo had found. Mammoth imagined that he'd made them so he didn't have to look at the gruesome display each time he told someone... which brought to mind, "Who else knows?"

"Just you, and me and whoever's read the paper. This," waving a hand, the young genius scrubbed it over his head slowly, "Just us."

"Keep it that way, for now," Mammoth replied, going back to looking over the photos, for something, some hint at what could have done Billy like this. "This looks like one of those serial deals. Anything that matches?"

Shaking his head slowly, Gizmo could only point out the obvious. "He'd... they really did a number on the bastard. Not one of the bo... copies," Baran could hear the little man stifling his nausea. "None were done the same. The only thing... the fingers. Whoever did this took his fingers. All of them."

"Jesus," Mammoth growled, throwing the photos down on the table.

"Don't think he's got anything to do with this," was Gizmo's quiet reply.

OoO

"Any news?"

Robin looked up and met Cassie's gaze, the superpowered woman looking remarkably better today, after the ordeal yesterday. Pinching the bridge of his nose, the young man shook the headache this problem was forming from the forefront of his mind and favored her with a slight smile. "Nothing much. Still running some material tests."

"Material tests?"

Nodding, the young man stood and beckoned her over, pointing to a table to the side of the room, adorned with a computer terminal and some other equipment. "There's never been a perfect crime." Raising his eyes from the table, Robin regarded her evenly, "Never."

Shrinking from the glare slightly, Wondergirl simply turned her attention to the readout, blinking lazily on the terminal arranged there. Winking at her slowly in the rooms antiseptic light, a number of formula rotated, each connected to different small picture, which in turn were labeled. She didn't miss the many question marks, that also arrayed on the screen opposite more labeled pictures.

Neither did she miss the fact almost all the pictures were of the gruesome, bloody ends of the digits that they'd found in that box, only yesterday morning. "I see. What makes you say that? What did or um, didn't you find?"

Sitting down by the keyboard, Robin cleared the screen's rotation display and had the files stack neatly to the side. "Found? Very little, which in itself says much." Pointing to the largest graph, the detective tapped a finger along it's length. "Ninety eight percent of the amputations occurred, without a discernible source."

Cassie's brow furrowed, and she blinked at him confusedly, pulling up the second chair. "How... what does that mean? Is it like... they used gloves, or machines?"

"More... indistinct than that. Gloves, for instance," pointing at the trunk of a finger, he ran the tip along the pictures curve. "There would be a specific point of stress. Think of a hand like a softer kind of wrench. Now, like a machine, if you used one to do this, you'd see trauma from the pressure, correct?"

"Oh. Oh, I understand now."

Nodding, Robin set the pen down and leaned back with a sigh. "Now, what I meant when I said nothing... is exactly that. There is no sign of irregular trauma. No pinch points, no sign of force even. Under tensile conditions, each digit seemed to be removed in exactly the same way, but due to the human body's differences, the reactions wouldn't be the same.

"More disturbing, are the chemical analyses. Adrenaline levels, other blood chemical levels, time-to-death and cell necrosis. To make this short," tapping the other graph, Robin paused. She looked over and saw that what she'd taken for one very thick bar, was in fact over one hundred small ones.

"You're shitting me..."

"The same time. All of them."

Cassie's eyes went wide, as she looked more closely at the other data displayed. Robin nodded solemnly and just settled back again, eyes unseeing but on the screen as well. "It's... hard. It's the least and most at the same time, that I've had to work with. So much information, but there's just... none of what I need!"

Staring up at the ceiling lights, he missed the shadow that crossed his teammates face when he was talking, the paleness that crept over her. "So what are you saying? Some... mysterious force just ripped this William Madsen's fingers off, and mailed them to us?"

Robin started, something she was so unused to that she jumped in turn. He looked at her, the screen, then back at her again and he started laughing, slow and mirthless. "Some, mysterious force. Cass?"

"Wuh?"

"You're brilliant. Get the Titans, meeting in five," when she paused, still blinking at him in surprise and confusion, he leaned close and she snapped attentive, before he raised his voice and yelled, "Go!" in a voice that rang around the room.

Cassie Sandsmark went.

OoO

"It's a magician."

The other Titans stared at him as the words poured out in a rush, practically as they all entered the room. "Robin, calm down. Step one," Cyborg prompted, as the group stalled a moment and then proceeded to their seats. Motioning to the screen, he grinned and then reclined in his chair slightly. "Lets see the numbers. Impress us."

Chuckling darkly, the detective nodded to Cassie, and began. "Wondergirl actually clued me in. I'm so used to normal crimes, normal forensics, these days, with the roster lacking..." blinking a moment, Robin's mouth worked a moment, but he went on. "We'll get a JLA team on site soon. But for now, we need to focus on what we have, what we know."

Robin queued up the screen, and the data scrolled by, things he'd seen and researched, data he pulled from the broken parts of William Madsen correlated with the police as they found, later, the broken body they'd been taken from. Bodies. "No prints. No traces. No tools, no witnesses. Clean room.

"Impossible," shaking his head, Robin stood and went to the graphs, recanting his points to Cassie earlier, about a lack of force and discernible tools. "I wasn't thinking outside the box. Thinking this was a normal killer, if not a normal killing."

"We established last night," Garfield added, looking over a printout that he'd ordered from the computer, "that this wasn't normal."

Cassie stood, taking the floor a moment. "I looked over the data Robin had gathered, before the meeting. The things up on the screen," she pointed, to make her reference and keyed the screen to the graphs. "There's way too much going on here, as far as data, to ignore. I didn't get it initially, but it's pretty easy once you see the pattern.

"Robin was pointing out the lack of any kind of tool used, but that's not really correct. There are tools we don't have forensic data on." To emphasize her point, she pulled a her lasso free, and stretched a length between her hands, a moment later it crackled with electric force. "I could, for instance, electrocute someone, in the middle of a blackout. The desert. A rubber room, even."

Cyborg nodded and let loose a small laugh, "Bingo. You got it, that's why everyone was stumped. It's not like the PD's got a magical investigation team. The best they have, is us."

Starfire just sat quietly, staring forward a moment. "And we are lacking. You mean, that someone who uses magic did this, and that is why we received the clueless box, and how Billy..."

"That's my guess. Of course, the only evidence... is the lack of it," Robin replied. "I placed the call to the Watchtower. I'm-" the main monitor flashed with a small note, in the corner that resembled the JLA logo. "Waiting on this reply, actually."

The collected Titans sat, as Robin keyed up the screen, and was met with the face of the Martian Manhunter. "Greetings, Robin."

"Morning, John. I hope this is in regard to the request I sent in, earlier," the detective began, striking to the heart of the matter quickly. The scent was still fresh, he noted. He wanted to get to the scene with a team that could track the killer down, before someone else died.

"Indeed, this is no social call. But there is another reason, for my contacting you," the Manhunter seemed to pause, his expression going very still. "I have some grave news." Robin's face went ashen, but he didn't pause, nodding for the man to continue without looking away. "First though, you will be receiving backup, an appropriate team equipped to deal with assisting the investigation.

"Second, I regret to inform you that Rachel Roth is unaccounted for."

OoO

"What are we doing here?" Shivering despite the long coat she wore, the young woman peered about the hotel room, curious but stunned by the squalor and filth that seemed to be a part of the décor, bleeding along the walls like sweat on a glass of water. The windows were brown and hazed, the air still and dank and smelled like a thousand unwashed bodies.

On top of it all, she could literally hear the insects, shifting in the walls like some kind of unholy pulse. "I don't understand why we came here," she reiterated again, sitting gingerly on a ratty, half-broken couch. The thing sagged and made a sighing noise, spewing dust and gods knew what into the air. Jinx had covered her mouth by instinct, but shrugged and dropped her it to her side. She flexed her fingers, the metal creaking quietly as it had done for what seemed, to her memory, a lifetime.

"Well, we couldn't very well stay on that rooftop forever, could we?" A smirk painted on her lips, Raven lounged indolently on the bed, central to the room. She tossed an arm out and tendrils of black smoke wrapped around the lamp, extending from her fingertips and snapping the bulb with a muted pop. "Besides, I mentioned terms. As much as my... father's kind seem to cherish souls for whatever reason, I have no desire to steal yours away."

Her vision, though halved, hadn't lessened in the time since she'd last seen her demonic companion. The loss of the admittedly yellowing and ancient bulb meant little to her cat's eye. "Then why did you agree?"

"We both want something." Jinx started, as four slits of white blinked back at her, easily seen over the bed. She could pick out Raven's lounging form, by playing a twisted game of connect-the-dots, after all. Her Anja gem, the four eyes, the exposed facets of the summoning's focus – the points painted her as laying in an artist's pose, recumbent and with the lilt to her words, apparently smiling.

Shaking off the small seed of terror that had sprouted in her breast, Jinx stared back into those empty pits, and shrugged, unimpressed despite her fear, "Yeah. I want people dead. But I guess that's the easy part, huh? What about you, Raven? Lets stop playing games here."

"Games..." the half-demon let the word trail off, into a hiss as if tasting it. "Indeed. My apologies. I've had so little conversation I was wont to draw things out, but I can understand the nature of your recent work, the... impetus. Terms, then," pausing Raven stood, and Jinx saw her cross, to kneel before her, a very strange sight as all she could fix upon were those six lights, shifting about.

Her unease must be palpable, Jinx thought to herself. Raven less stood and walked, as flowed around in the darkness. She could imagine that those points of light were the only tangible parts of the demoness, with the room cast in such gloom. That the darkness only seemed to deepen around them just affirmed her ideal. "What do you want, Raven?"

"I want..." the eyes narrowed, and something seemed to dim them, before Jinx reared back, as they blazed red a moment, and she felt a wash of heat pour over her face. Raven's features, faint and pale in her own light, sat rigid and set around those windows. "I want them. I don't know after, but I want to talk, listen... more. I don't know what else yet. I can't agree."

"The Titans?"

"Yesss..." those eyes, white and shifting Jinx saw in the darkness, narrowed as the demoness hissed the word slowly. "I want to know why. From them. Then... then I'll know what I want."

Laughing quietly, Jinx hazarded a hand out and found it resting against what felt like cloth. Her cloak. "You still don't... listen.

"I could tell you what you want, because it's the same thing I want, but what good would that do?" The broken woman rose unsteadily, pacing about the broken plaster and discarded debris in the room. She wanted something to do, to move, it helped her think. "You got locked away and forgotten. It hurt – they were your friends. Associates. Who cares. Point is, they fucked you. Now you're out. What you want, is to balance the scales."

Caught up in her own rambling, the former thief didn't see that Raven had 'stood', her eyes going level with Jinx's as she paced about like a rat in a cage. "What part of you is demon, huh?" Laughing, she leaned on a peeling wall and looked Raven, who had slid up right beside her, in the eye, unflinching. "What did you find out, after fucking your dad like a bitch?"

Raven was quiet a moment, but then the eyes, which Jinx hadn't seen blink yet did so. "I liked it."

"Liked it? That's it? You liked it?" Laughing in the shadow's face, Jinx pushed off the wall and shouldered past where Raven was roughly. "All that power, that knowing that you were free, done and all on your own, finally, and you liked it?" Turning, she threw her hands up, stepping back as the motion offbalanced her. "Fuck!

"I can't even summon a goddamn demon that'll do the work," she murmured, raking a hand through her hair savagely.

Raven stood, the voices screaming everything from wanting the thief's blood for the insult to heartily agreeing with her. "I get it. You want to know if I can kill your enemies, when I can't even fathom doing so to mine."

"Ya think?"

"It's a valid concern," the half-demon admitted, a chuckle escaping her lips. "You always did have the gift with points. Always right to the heart of things. Very well... you want assurance. Tonight then. I'll do the first tonight..." reaching up, she placed a hand on the gem embedded in her chest and let a face come to mind, all the hate and anger and loss having charged the gem with all she needed. A face, framed with a smirk and blonde hair entered her mind and she grinned slightly. "And let me reassure you.

"There isn't anything human, left here," claws of the stuff of nightmare and chill settled on Jinx's shoulder, spinning her about to face the demoness. The former thief stumbled, but those same talons supported her as she stood unsteadily. "I was unmade, when I killed him. Killed? Who knows. But what I was stopped, and what I am began. Maybe that's why they abandoned me. Fear. Hate. I'm a demon after all, half or not." Her words were quiet, but Jinx didn't care. It was like each image, each thought behind them was laced with iron and then pressed to her skull. It felt full of spikes as she listened, all insisting on showing her things, but there wasn't enough brain to impale after a point and she groaned, falling.

Raven let her go.

"You were right though, to worry. Maybe I need to find out myself, if I can do this. Terms, then.

"I will kill for you. Take them as agreed, those you named. In return, I'll take my own stake, a part and parcel of each, to do with as I will. Is this agreeable?"

"What about the ceremony?" the thief mumbled, still trying to gather herself from the floor where her weakness had left her, a puppet with it's strings cut.

Shrugging slightly, Raven slid down and rested before the other woman. "My freedom... perhaps it is enough. But if you insist so on death when this is done, then so be it. I leave that choice, to you. Call me sentimental, but you at least I know, and for all you summoned me out of an impossible prison somehow, you could have been another. But if you choose death, then so be it. I don't care."

Pausing, something ticked at Raven's memory, and she smiled, the glimmer of her eyes picking out rows of teeth between Cupid's bow lips. "Perhaps you'll change your mind, in time." Turning, she looked out the dingy window, the cities lights painting her in the tones of dried blood and ash. "As for me... I'll send them a message. See if they can listen. And if not..."

Jinx slid back against the wall and rubbed at her temple, deciding it was a bad idea to goad the demoness. Her concerns and anxiety aside, it was obvious Raven had changed, if only evidenced by her appearance, the way she acted now. She dismissed her concerns, and focused on what Raven was saying, instead. "If not, what?"

"I'll simply speak louder."

OoO

"Listen."

Jinx turned and rubbed the sleep and grime from her eyes, her lips turning up as she felt the skin on her hand, rather than metal. "Hmm? To what?" The cloaked form raised arms, and gestured about her. The hotel room had gained some more color, after their return, the trailing blood from Raven's cloak never seeming to dry. It was curious, but Jinx discarded the question of why. It simply wasn't important.

"Everything. There is no living thing, that does not make a sound. This place, a city, is a living thing," she murmured, and Jinx was reminded again that this was a person, a demon, that was even back when she was whole and working with those she had loosed this horror to kill, that had been unstable. Things had only gotten stranger, since Billy's death.

She'd watched as Raven used her cloak, blackness pulled from her own body as it wore such like a shroud and clothing now, to vivisect the multiplying man. And she'd also watched the fascination, the intent focus Raven had paid to each cut and tear, each drop of blood that had fallen from those wicked talons.

Then Raven had took Billy's fingers – all of them. All at once. She'd spread her cloak out and it had unmade itself into a thousand strands, all of which wrapped around some part of the dozen forms, pinned and hooked and suspended in that dark place that had become his tomb.

A moment had passed, when it seemed that she had reconsidered. Then the sound... so much flesh being rent apart, bones separated, tendons snapped and torn.

Billy had screamed. Raven had smiled.

Raven had went to work in earnest then. Hours later, Jinx had awoken, somehow sleeping and sleeping well during his many deaths. Her hand, had been waiting for her. Despite that gift, that miracle the young woman had been wary, careful around the demon. How many stories that told of those summoning the infernal, ended happily? Ended with the summoner alive, at all?

Not that it should matter, though. Her intended bargain was essentially an eternity of being some hellish thing's chew toy.

She noticed Raven's eyes on her, and started back to the here and now, "I don't understand. What am I listening for?"

"You're the thief. Stop thinking, and listen. Tell me what you hear."

"City sounds, I mean what..." quieting with a sigh, Jinx did as she was asked. She let her awareness spread out and the first thing, a police siren passing by, caught her ear. Downstairs a baby had been crying, she had heard it earlier – maybe even as long ago as yesterday. An old man was snoring, wetly, somewhere to her left. Upstairs somewhere was the noise of something rutting noisily, on an unsteady bed. The insects as always, were moving, breeding inside of and eating the very walls that contained them. Televisions blared, in all directions. She could hear more sirens, far off. Someone was beating their wife or husband – she could only hear the meaty impacts of hands on flesh, and indiscernible grunting and cries. There was a sound like a child's toy, chiming. It sounded as sick as her stomach, then.

Her eye snapped open. All that. And more.

"You see... What does it mean, what can it do... all this misery." Something syrupy was in Raven's words, and it curdled in Jinx's ears. "All this pain, in one place. I never thought about it. Let it wash off me before. I was above it all," laughing darkly, the former hero laid a hand on the wall, pressing hard so that it sank into the weak plaster, the wound there erupting with crawling things that she seemed uncaring of.

Jinx flinched. "You knew? I mean... I guess you should right?"

"Indeed. I should, should have thought about it more, in fact, but no. I've been... blind. A long time blind. Focusing on the good, on the right. That ideal, that greater good. But now..." she looked back at Jinx then, as something pulsed from the demoness, and all the crawling things, all the horde of unseeable things went still, to Jinx's ears.

"Is that why? Why you were a hero, despite being half demon?" She hazarded, and listened to the world around her again. The noises from all around were growing faint, distant almost. She also... reaching up a hand strayed to her temple, as something pressed in on her. Pressure built, and with it came a noise, like the whine of an old television. A hundred, million of them, all screaming down a tunnel that was funneling into her mind-

And she was sitting, in a chair as Raven was across from her, doing a sudoku puzzle in the newspaper. Jinx looked about her quickly, scanning the room with a wide eye as she stumbled and nearly fell from the chair. "What?"

Raven regarded her for a long moment, then went back to her puzzle. She did speak to the thief as she cast about, mind racing. "You passed out. I was... working on something. The backlash must have affected you

"What the hell?" the edge of panic in her voice deepened, as she rested her eyes on the hole in the wall that Raven had made earlier. Things moved in it. Things much larger than insects, cockroaches and the centipede's she'd known were there. Things that knew she was looking at them, and looked back with unblinking, empty white eyes.

Laying down her pen, the demon looked up and smiled quietly, and Jinx noted that she could see the other's skin more clearly than since they'd spoken on the roof, last night. She nearly resembled her old self, but for the ever-present eyes, and the shrouding gloom that wafted off her form like smoke. Despite this small island of normalcy in what felt like an ocean of madness, Jinx was not comforted in the least, "I needed a place to work. So, I made some changes." Raven's words just spiked her anxiety, and she spent a long minute trying to stall her mind, keep the thoughts from running past in such torrents.

"Work? Raven things are getting very strange. I like, I mean thank you for my hand and all, but can you... what's going on? I didn't think this would take like..."

"Soul or not, did you really think this would be easy, for you?" leaning across the table, Raven's steady, empty eyes drilled into her easily. "Did you think that all this would pass by without touching you?"

The former Hive operative's mouth worked silently, before she took a breath and loosed it, stirring the darkness that flowed down the sides of Raven's face. "No. It's just more... intense than I thought. I don't know. It's just freaking me out a bit, how different you are, I suppose."

The demoness regarded her quietly, then nodded her head once. "I suppose so. This is just the beginning, Jinx. Are you prepared for the rest? Should I stop now?" Raven leveled a piercing, pointed gaze at her hand, the new one that Jinx still reflexively tensed and relaxed, as if convincing herself it wasn't a dream.

"No. I started this. I'm in for the ride."

"Good," Raven practically whispered, masking her relief easily. "We have company, by the way."

Starting, Jinx looked about her and saw that the room was different, but not so much that she'd miss someone else inside it. "What? Where?"

Rising, the demon strode off in her odd even pace to the door that was the closet for the small hotel room, something Jinx had easily avoided the last time. She had held no desire to stick her nose in a small, dark room in this place. Raven on the other hand seemed to gain a touch of excitement as she approached it. "I made some renovations, while you were napping."

Throwing the door open, Jinx blinked as the room on the other side of the door came to view. It looked to be inside a church, with the rows of pews and the long shelf up before the isle for benedictions. And wholly too large to fit in the space she knew the closet to contain."How..."

"It goes where I want it to. This place is drenched in sin, so when I let the forces that rule my powers spread out, they found it. I just made an anchor here, for convenience. This church, if you you'd believe it, is more vile than where we are now." Raven stepped through the odd doorway, and Jinx gingerly followed, curiosity getting the better of her. Her view of the room had been obscured by the small door frame, but opened up as they were inside.

Noise from the head of the room got her attention, and her eye widened with what she saw there. "Company..."

Raven's face split in a smile that had nothing to do with mirth. "Yes. I thought I should help them get... better acquainted."

OoO

"Man, I still don't know what to think about that."

Starfire turned her attention back to the driver, Cyborg, as the car sped down through the Bay city's streets at a breakneck pace. The rest of the mission team was there, in the spacious vehicle as it rumbled under them."About what, Cyborg?"

Garfield pratically withered her with a glare, before answering for the metal Titan, "About what? Raven, Star. About Raven."

"Nnggh!"

Conversation forgotten, Robin turned, as did all the Titans in the car, as the liason from the JLA doubled over in pain and reached out to the east, her hand wavering. Cyborg didn't need another hint, and changed directon quickly, trusting more information would come in time.

"Faith?" Cassandra Cain, accompanying her current partner to the west coast in hopes of tracking down hints of what happened to the prison in Arkham, laid a hand on the woman's shoulder and recoiled at the psychic backlash that hit her. "Stop the car!"

Sighing, Cyborg did as he was asked and the team disembarked, shuffling about as the current Batgirl tried to get something sensible out of the psychic that the Manhunter had sent them. "She going to be alright?"

"Yeah," Cassandra was ever the sparkling conversationalist, and the other Titans had become accustomd to the young heroine's terse replies and conversation after working with her in the past numerous times. Reading people was simply easier, and right now, Faith was telling her volumes.

Little help it was, as most of the words in them were "Ouch".

She knew the others were waiting on something, some explanation for her outburst. Honestly, Faith had not expected to assaulted with such a potent blast of... pain, until they were much closer to the crime scene. The problem was, she almost felt like the entire city was dying, and she poised over it like some kind of satellite. "Moment. Just need a moment to get myself in order."

Batgirl nodded, and looked about them, her eyes missing little. "Take your time," she said simply, and stayed by the other woman's side, as her posture went less rigid, her muscles stopping their pointless striving against one another. Faith was a sensitive, a tracker that had lost her other powers some time ago and was readjusting to the new range of her abilities. Having been called "The Fat Lady" for her tendency to end sorties with spectacular results, the moniker fit her not at all. Under her heavy coat, one could argue she barely existed.

Robin felt rather than heard his comm go off, and excused himself from the woman's side, to answer. "Robin here."

"Hey, Robin, it's Speedy. How's it going with your mystery killer?" The other young man's face practically mirrored his own, color of hair and the depth of frown lines the only differences, at a glance.

Robin sighed but shook his head in answer. "Not good. We were just on the way to the scene, when the JLA team had us stop. Something's up."

Nodding, the man on the other side, seemed to consider something a moment and pursed his lips, looking torn. "Man, I hate to bother you, but I just wanted to touch base on something. I'm sorry, really, but I need to get in touch with Eddie, if you see him. Something's up with Rose, and we wanted to let him know."

"Eddie? Bloomberg?" When Speedy nodded, Robin placed the face to the name and favored his east coast counterpart with a glare. "Seriously, I don't have time to play messenger boy to Red Devil. I'll let him know if I see him, but right now we don't have time to look for him. Just tell Rose to be patient."

A short laugh was his answer, "We talking about the same Rose right?"

"Robin out," the detective snapped, and stuffed the thing back in his pocket. "What's wrong?" Returning his attention to Batgirl, she motioned him over where the rest of his team was waiting.

Looking about nervously, obviously as unnerved by the woman's reaction, Batgirl was none the less not one to let her guard down. Particularly in a city that had seen all this one had. The woman favored Robin with a small shake of her head. "She's sensed something. Very bad, and to the east. She's going to take us there."

Robin looked to his team, and saw them all waiting. He'd left Wondergirl and Superboy at the Tower, to keep an eye on things, and Megan was on the citybeat, patrolling. The old veteran team was with him tonight, and he could see their eagerness to get this over with. Their city it may be, but this was dirty business, and no one wanted to spend all night picking apart a murder scene.

Particularly one with someone they knew, as it's recent inhabitant.

"Alright then, lets go."

The odd, stretching pull behind his navel signaled their teleportation to the new location, and Robin stared about himself, preparing for what may come.

The tolling of bells, high above but far too loud for comfort in such tense silence, tore a yelp from Starfire and Faith as they were gaining their bearings. The others cast about, ready for trouble but there wasn't anything to be seen, on the steps to a cathedral as they were. The impressive structure rose up, it's towers and buttresses a dance of strange curves and ornate masonry.

Cyborg was standing, rooted as he looked at the stained glass window that dominated the front of the grand structure. "Guys..."

The others looked to him, saw his expression and turned as well, searching out what was causing him to seem so disturbed.

Day Two: Eddie and the Angel

The team broke through the locks on the cathedrals great doors and ran down the aisle, but slowed as they did so, the spectacle there causing more than one to pause, if not stop completely.

Suspended there was a... tangle, of flaming skin, flapping wings and blood.

The normally innocent ironwork and chains, supporting the great chandeliers had been usurped, and in a great trellis-work of hooks, barbs and spreading struts of cold iron was transfixed the remains of Angel, from the Hive.

She wasn't alone there, though. Red skin and flayed flesh burned and smoked, as the other occupant of the wicked construct came into focus, the dual nature of the thing apparent now. Bits and ornaments of the church, ordained and holy icons were molded and formed into a matching crucible, onto which the body of the Titans East's Red Devil rested, flayed to the bone, skin peeled back to form a counterpoint to Angel.

Faith fell to her knees and wept, as the great thing turned, like a perverse windmill.

Robin stood, his mouth working silently as he saw the thing rotate again. The hooks and chains had been used to literally spread Angel like a canvas, her skin peeled back and held taut between them. He could see the small iron hooks that sewed her flayed skin into a shape, with her wings spread out behind her, the feathers still waving gently in the air as the motion of the machine continued. Literally stitched through Angel, Eddie's demonic skin burned and hissed, reacting to the presence of sanctified ground and objects, all the while the same kept his flesh secured, unable to slip free. He was opposing her, skin peeled back into a kite-like shape as well, the two forming a mockery of a star of David.

If anything could make the tableau more grotesque, their fleshless bodies were left to the center, turned and angled by the one who'd placed them there, and done so in such a way as to imply the two mid coitus.

Robin blinked once, imagining the call he'd soon have to make. Imagining the gravity of the effect this would have on Speedy and Rose... and then his voice banished the silence. "Cut them down."

"B-But, Robin, the crime scene-" Garfield's mouth snapped shut when Robin's voice, loud enough to rattle the windows, repeated his order again.

In the end, only he and Cassandra had moved forward to tear down the macabre thing.

OoO

"I just don't understand... why Eddie?" Starfire's voice was soft, but the hurt in them was loud enough to hurt the ears. Her eyes traveled listlessly about the room, the meeting room currently serving duty as a hub for their data gathering and management. Corkboards had been erected, and notes posted there, while a whiteboard was over by the windows, details, correlation and photos along it's diameter like some kind of twisted halo.

Garfield sighed, and shook his head slowly as he worked to sort the many reports that needed filing for the scene, the Tower's systems bogged down with the sheer number of them. "Why Angel? She wasn't really even a real criminal... just a kid in the wrong place, wrong time. Her rap sheet's shorter than mine."

Starfire stared at the reports, unseeing as her teammate typed in the appropriate entries, over and over. "This makes no sense."

Something, though, ticked at the changeling's mind, and he had to disagree. "I don't know, Star. Something tells me this isn't as random as we think." He hoped he was wrong. Hoped that a ghost that he'd started dreaming about again had nothing to do with all the horror that was going on around them.

He hoped, but a quiet, sinister voice kept telling him that soon he'd know, and all his hope would mean little.

OoO

Jinx twisted her foot, bouncing on the ball of it slowly, untrusting of the new bone and muscle. She then stretched, reaching up as her calf protested, her leg extended so far that her entire body quivered, like a bowstring pulled too tight. Collapsing down, she breathed deep as the last of the tension drained out of her muscles.

"I take it you approve."

Looking up, she noted the disembodied face of Raven, drifting toward her in the gloom from the hallway. Below the apparition's chin, a red light glinted, stronger now. Jinx favored her with a nod and stood quickly, twisting her legs beneath her and letting the spin propel her in a ballerina's rise.

Raven looked her over, the corner of her lip rising fractionally. "Did it disturb you, my... work?"

sighing, Jinx slipped a hand through her hair and eyed the former Titan steadily for a moment. "Why did you do it, like that? Was it really needed?"

"Because I wanted to," the demoness replied evenly, her voice lacking inflection. "It was my desire to do so."

Staring slightly, Jinx looked back down at her leg, now whole and matching it's counter, and couldn't help but feel a seed of guilt rise up in her chest. It dulled her exuberance over regaining a large portion of her grace, and kept painting scenes of the desecration from earlier in her memory. "I just..."

"You wanted death. I pick the means..." Raven answered, not waiting for the young woman to finish. "That you regain what you lost as I work should still any hesitations, unless you'd prefer to keep those... improvements."

"No! No, I... I'm grateful. I am," she assured the shadow, as it wavered and shifted around those preternatural lights. "I'm grateful."

Nodding slowly, Raven reached out and ran a finger along the pale woman's chin, tilting her face up to the the level of her eyes. "Good. I'd hate if even my side work went unappreciated. Now, I've missed something, that you've reminded me of, in your stretching."

Jinx made a curious noise, as a table, with a record player slipped into the room through a shadow, settling nearby. Looking back at Raven she blinked, as the demoness seemed to solidify out of the air, a rather delicately laced and simple gown in place of her usual obscuring cloak of shadow. Liberal views of flesh were available, and dominating her neckline were the red glowing facets that signified their pact.

Raven held out a hand, and the smile that greeted Jinx as she hesitantly took it chilled her. The odd sense of distortion, dissonance that had washed over her earlier came again as the music began, just as it had when she slept, while Billy bled his many lives away. Something wasn't-

The music bubbled up along her spine, and she moved with it, humming along as her partner matched her movements moment to moment, the steps in quick time. She'd stretch and weave, lunge and feint and at each point, those four slashes in the fabric of her vision kept her, held her and served to show her the way forward. They dominated her. Embraced her. Coaxed and cajoled her to higher leaps and faster spins.

With a shadow trailing, curled about her like a ribbon, Jinx danced, and forgot the seeds of doubt that had settled in her heart. Forgot that each step she took, left a trailing of blood along the filthy tile of the room.

First round of edits complete.