Through the entrance of The Golden Palace a figure appeared. It stopped on the threshold to take in its surroundings. When the figure had first arrived, the sun was almost set, pink fingers clawing at the tops of the city buildings. Now the suggestion of the moon was there amidst the purple quilt of sky.

This figure ran down to street level, eyes searching for something. By now a second shape had emerged from the doors, slinking behind the first. The first figure ran across the road and the other followed.

A dull grey car was parked on this street. It was of an odd make, halfway between a sports car and an all-terrain vehicle. The car's body was slanted and aerodynamic, but its wheels were large with deep grooves. The figure put her face against the driver's window, then made her way to the bonnet decisively.

The second shape approached a little more slowly, watching the woman plunge her hands into the car's engine parts.

"Do you know what you're doing?"

A mechanical grumble served as a reply. Now the car pulsated with energy. Valina's head reappeared as she closed the bonnet. "Get in."

The monkey tried the passenger door, but it remained shut. Valina gave the front bumper a kick and opened her door with ease.

Mandarin sat awkwardly on the grey leather seat. A shocked kind of awe came into his voice as he asked, "How did you learn to do that?"

The witch put her hands on the wheel and said flatly, "Call it a troubled youth," and murdered the bitumen.


Mercury stared at the body at his feet. Ignoring the people clustering around it, he bent and lifted the girl's head onto his knee. As he did so he thought he heard a faint, "Arghh."

Okay, so she's alive.

The girl's eyes opened blearily, focused on Mercury. One corner of her mouth twitched in a smirk. She seemed about to say something. Mercury brought his head down to hers and heard, "Go after them, will you..."

It was weak and thin, barely a breath. Blood dripped from the entry wound and soaked her entire shoulder. Her pale skin was growing paler, her grey-lidded eyes adding to the macabre visage.

"No way." Mercury did his best to gently drag her across his knee. "Your dad," he put his arms under her shoulder blades and knees, struggled to rise again, "would absolutely, positively kill me."

Some members of the crowd uttered protests, along the lines of, "We should wait for the ambulance!" but others countered with, "Get someone with a mop here and let's carry on." The absence of the band's lead singer was not brought up, and things were overall quite peaceful for the rest of the night.

As she was carried through the foyer, Atalanta managed to murmur, "Lost...gun." Her strength was draining away; this normally would have enraged her.

Mercury's steps slowed as he absorbed this piece of information, but he said, "That's okay." Atalanta made a tiny noise of acknowledgement and closed her eyes to rest.

The young man shook a lock of fair hair out of his eyes and kicked open the main door. He made his way across the street, and when he stopped his eyebrows knitted together.

"Where's my car?"


Tires squealed as they turned on the asphalt, with the sound of the engine roaring underneath the noise. Mandarin sat rigidly in his seat, claws piercing the leather material, as he tried not to be thrown about by the vehicle's constant rotating.

"Witch, I thought you said you could drive this thing!"

Valina, who was at the moment trying to maneuver the car through the streets with some difficulty, chanced a glare in the monkey's direction.

"And so I can!" at that moment, however, a car chose to turn in front of them, causing Valina to swerve abruptly, and nearly careen head-long into a lamppost. The witch stomped on one of the pedals, accelerated, stomped another pedal, jerked to a halt, then started up once again, just barely missing the post and returning to the traffic.

"Then what was that?"

With a grunt, Mandarin threw his purloined firearm into the glove box. He preferred to have something between him and the barrel if the car's jolting made it go off. Mandarin shut his eyes. Much more of this and he was going to be sick…

Valina grumbled and glanced at the colorful smorgasbord of buttons and levers in front of her with a mix of frustration and worry. "They changed the damn model on me…"

The monkey opened his eyes and just stared at the witch for a while, letting the idea that the woman had essentially no clue what she was doing sink in, before slowly reaching up and clicking his seatbelt.

The action did not go unnoticed. Valina scowled. "I'm not going to crash, Monkey!" she barked, answering his silent accusation. "And even if I did, a seatbelt wouldn't help you anyway! You're so short the airbag would snap your neck when it came out!"

Mandarin had once again closed his eyes. "I'd rather not smash into the windshield, either, Witch!"

The sorceress would have retorted, but it had come to her attention that they were coming up to some turns, and she felt it would be in her best interest to pay attention.


"Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't that cell supposed to be inescapable?"

The person this question was directed to screwed up his face for a long moment. "Can't really remember. Inescapable, virtually inescapable... A lotta people don't pay attention to the difference."

The two men stared into the now empty cell. It was small, dark, damp, guarded by cannons and Perspex, and unequivocally empty. The second man, gnawing on a toothpick, nodded thoughtfully. "I'd put my money on 'virtually' right now."

The first of the two was a bit younger than his partner (in his early-thirties, as opposed to his colleague's late-forties), with dirty blonde hair. He scowled at the empty chamber. "Yeah, well, apparently the top brass told the Hyper Force it was inescapable. That's why they put the little son-of-a-bitch here in the first place..."

The older of the pair's brow creased. "That's what they told Joey, too. And look what happened to him…

"Do you really think that little asshole is the one that did him in?"

The first, who went by the name of Markus, glowered at his associate. "Who else coulda done it? Who else would want to? What'd Joey ever do to anybody?"

The older one, Samuel, nodded, and said nothing more.

After a few moments the silence was broken by the frantic shuffling of footsteps coming down the hallway. A youth, only about twenty-three if he was a day, was scrambling down the hall, wide-eyed.

"Guys, guys!" he started, out of breath. "Guess- Guess what!"

Markus stared at the young man stonily, not even bothering to roll his eyes. "What do you want, Charlie?"

"We got a mission!" Charlie exclaimed excitedly. "We get to go after the escaped con!"

Samuel took out the toothpick from his mouth, throwing it to the floor in anger. "Sounds good to me. I wanna give the little bastard somethin' for what he did to Joey…"

Markus nodded in silent agreement, but Charlie didn't notice either reaction.

"Can you believe it? We finally get a chance to see some of the action this time! Man, when I see that twerp, I swear I'll bust him up so bad I won't have to hang around no back-water prison no more…" The young man continued to go on about how he was planning to 'take the escapee down' while his companions gathered supplies...


"Where to now?"

Valina had her arms ramrod straight, staring ahead. She was getting the hang of this. The witch could feel the four amulets on her belt swing and clatter together as the car turned. Valina patted them –trying to suppress a shiver as her hand passed over the pendant she knew to be Li-Anne's- until she found her chain. She twisted the jewel and glanced down at its surface.

"Downtown," she said, hauling on the steering wheel to make a U-turn. "Kill four birds with one stone."

The vehicle jarred as Valina hit the curb. She muttered vehement curses, reversed, and went on her way.

The change was gradual, but there was a point where Mandarin and Valina looked at their surroundings with a measure of confusion. The buildings were in poor condition and crowded together. In the evening light they all looked muted and grey; even the litter on the paths was colorless. The same view stretched onwards for who knew how long. It was Shuggazoom's miserable collection of ghettos.

Instinctively, Valina eased off on the pedal, traversing the street slowly.

Not a soul stirred in the entire neighborhood.


One day, a man heard marching in the street. It came from the end of the road, heading towards his house. He crept to his window and parted the heavy curtain.

Black armor. Masked men. The Exterminators.

With a start the man shouted to his wife. Take the children downstairs. Hide. He ran to the cupboard in the living room, took the amulets out. The safe was in the wall behind the bookcase. Unfortunate proof, all unfortunate proof...

There was a great thundering at the door. The wood was buckling.

He didn't get to the safe.

In the cellar, his wife gathered her children in her arms. She closed her eyes and wished.

The little boy and girl screamed as the door fell...


One more kick and the door fell. Valina and Mandarin stepped over the broken door, looking into dank shadows. It was a sparsely furnished room. A lounge, a small television, a cupboard and a bookcase against one wall. Dust covered everything, and Valina wrinkled her nose.

"There's something strange here," she muttered. There was a cluster of glowing points in the haze above her map. "They're in the corner of the room. Close together," she told the monkey. Valina didn't move. "And be quick about it," she added sharply.

Mandarin growled in his throat and slunk forward. But Valina was right: There was something odd in the very material of the building. A kind of frozen tension hung in the air.

He loped around the lounge and saw them lying on the carpet, their chains tangled up. Four amulets.

Mandarin snatched them up and he and his mistress were quick to depart.


The hum of the engine was even and low. A little too constant for Valina's liking, perhaps. So many things had happened. The witch had been resurrected, taken to a death-realm, been chasing people for things she wasn't entirely sure what to do with... It was night-time, and Valina was sleepy for the first time in as long as she could remember.

She had to crease her forehead and peer into the darkness ahead. Streetlights and the reflective white stripes on the road sped past.

I need a rest, she thought. How long has it been since I wanted one of those?

Almost unconsciously, she brought the car to a stop by the side of the road and fell back onto the plush seat.

Mandarin was already asleep.


Eight of thirteen. Things were going quite well. In his lonely little house, Grimm leaned back in the rickety chair and put his hand to his chin.

"I do believe it is time for a change of scenery," the wizard announced.

He rose confidently, almost majestically, walking straight out the door. The tableau that met him had after so many years become so, so dull... The trees seemed to writhe and convulse as he approached, grey branches flailing into the hissing wind. The leaves cut into each other as they touched, emitting miniscule sounds of whistling and tearing.

Multiply this sound an inestimable number of times, and you shall hear the agonized roar of Limbo.

Grimm paid this sound no mind and raised his arms. His fingers were arched into claws. And slowly, from the monotone soil came a rising flood of red, red blood. Droplets seeped upwards between the grains of dirt, joining with other droplets nearby, until a spider web of red ooze covered the entirety of his domain.

The sea reached the base of the trees and they began to smoke. Unending hissing besieged the air as not only the trunks, but the branches smoked as well. There were no fleeing animals in his land; the only thing screaming was the land itself.

Grimm was deliciously satisfied as he watched the final, uppermost leaf disappear in a wisp of steam…

Mandarin jolted awake with a start, shaking all over. He swiftly looked around himself. Valina sat curled up into the car seat adjacent to him, sound asleep and undisturbed.

The monkey slowly eased back into his own seat, breathing hard. He lifted his hands up to hold his head, though they were trembling so badly he was a touch concerned about his claws scratching his eyes -his artificial one in particular seemed to be jerking uncontrollably.

Was he condemned to have to relive his worst fears in his sleep forever? If they weren't about falling apart like the corpse he feared he truly was or having his limbs ripped from him, then they were about being devoured by the horrible little creatures that had inhabited the Dark One Worm.

The nightmare he had just experienced, however, was absolutely vile. The mental image of blood flowing up from the ground returned to haunt him and he shuddered, squeezing his eyes even more tightly closed, as if trying to symbolically squeeze the memory out from his mind. It wasn't necessarily the image that bothered him…

…but just whose blood was it?

He hated that man, he decided. That loathsome, smug man who had stolen the witch's powers and started this whole stupid incident. The simian hated him more than anyone else at the moment; more than the Monkey Team, more than the boy, even more than Valina...

Mandarin felt a headache inflate within his head as his stomach churned. A tiny section of his mind tried to convince him that it was just exhaustion causing the dreams. His eyes were aching and there was always the discrete shaky-weak feeling that stayed with him during waking hours no matter what he did. It could be that the tired body of Mandarin had been used for too long. But being undead, living on drive and the life-giving spark of an old master, was no great cause of distress. What worried Mandarin was what faced him should he die for real...

He could handle these damned nightmares if they were merely occasional episodes, but…every night

The monkey sighed, feeling fatigued and a bit defeated, and rolled onto his side before curling into a ball similar to his mistress's and slipping back into half-reluctant slumber; wondering in vague frustration as he drifted off why he even needed the sleep when he was technically "dead."


The young man pressed forward down the street, trying to move fast without drawing attention to himself. Somewhat stubby fingers wiped sweat out of his eyes.

The Exterminators were on the move. He'd seen them marching towards his building from the window of his apartment. They knew. There were no other Skeletal Circle members living in his building, why else would they come? They were coming to get him…

He had to hide his amulet; had to dispose of the evidence without actually getting rid of it…

The man, who went by the name of Peter, stopped at an intersection, tapping his foot anxiously as he alternated between staring impatiently at the crossing light and glancing about himself nervously. He was trying to look inconspicuous; trying to blend in and act nonchalant, but anyone who looked at him could tell he was attempting to avoid something.

The man was sweating bullets, though one of the reasons for this was the frantic scramble down the fire escape outside his window to evade the Exterminators. Peter was not at all in any shape except for the spherical sort. (Irony of all ironies, as his beloved secret society's name was the "Skeletal Circle," and he was anything but.) Add this to his shorter-than-average stature, and it makes climbing down a fire escape bloody well difficult.

Still…the threat of getting arrested (or worse) rang in his head, forcing him to push on and nurse the apprehension that thundered in his chest.

The light finally changed, and Peter continued down the street towards his destination. Several minutes of slow, heavy-footed jogging finally led the man to his objective:

The ancient amusement park rested silently behind its gate.

The young man smiled, the dark, stringy little mustache above his lip stretching as he revealed a set of yellowing teeth.

Perfect…

Peter spared a quick glance over his shoulder before entering the park. He rubbed at his eyes again, the sweat starting to sting them. The man walked briskly through the abandoned carnival field searching for what he believed would be the perfect hiding spot-

He finally caught sight of the Ferris wheel, and quickly lumbered over to it.

The man slowed as he neared it, and reached under his shirt, extracting a medallion with a dark gem in the center. After looking over his shoulder once again, Peter stepped towards the ride, and summoned a tiny fraction of his magic. He pushed his amulet onto the back of the car closest to the ground, and held it firmly in place for a moment. When he removed his hand, the amulet remained where it was, cemented to the spot by the man's enchantment.

Peter turned around abruptly and headed towards the box that controlled the ride. He placed both of his meaty hands on the control panel and focused. The screeching sound of the aged gears in the machine turning broke the eerie calmness that had surrounded the park. The massive wheel turned, carrying the car that possessed the man's trinket all the way to the top. Peter grinned as sighed in relief. No one would ever find it there… And as soon as he needed it he would come back and get it.

The man left the park much more calmly than he had arrived, and, with the success of his endeavors in mind, began to forget the terror and anxiety that he had felt just moments before. Peter realised he was now feeling slightly peckish. Not even peckish. Positively starving. Peter was thinking of a solution for this when he bumped into something hard. Coming out of his reverie, he saw with widening eyes that it was a tall man in black armor and a mask…


She woke with the sun. There were cramps in Valina's back, but she awoke with no grave complaint. Orange light skimmed across the car's bonnet, highlighting an unidentifiable scrap of paper which was lodged under the windshield wiper. Valina blinked slowly, shuffled in her seat to look more closely. The piece of litter was fluorescent orange, its corners flapping in the breeze.

It was a parking ticket.

At first the sorceress just sat motionless, unsure of how to react.

And then, gradually, she began to laugh. It was a very unpleasant laugh, containing no evidence of what you or I would call mirth. A shrieking cackle that swept incorporeal nails down the glass and metal of the car. She was nowhere near happy or amused, and here was this meaningless, insulting affront before her very eyes. But inside, Valina laughed mockingly at the sheer absurdity.

As she pressed down on the accelerator, Valina was lost in a blissful recklessness. These mortals, with their silly little parking fines, they really had no idea...

I am part of something so much greater.

Valina's sharp-toothed leer was the first thing Mandarin saw upon awakening. It worried him ever so slightly. But by the time the witch had pulled the car to a stop, her face had become hard and grim again.

Mistress and minion stepped out. There was grass underfoot. It could be mistaken for the bitumen that paved all of Shuggazoom, however, as the spiky blades were a dusty grey colour. A behemoth of a Ferris wheel stood stark against the background of the rising sun. It was ancient; it was undoubtedly a piece of history. And no one cared.

Valina pushed open the rusty gates. The hinges filled the still amusement park with a high squeal. On her left, the red and white ticket office sat half-collapsed on one corner. She took one deep breath and set off with a steady tread. It soon became obvious that the map was leading them to the Ferris wheel.

The witch looked down with frustration at her amulet. "I'm standing right next to the mark," she said. "But I don't see it..."

Mandarin scanned the ground around him, bare except for an assortment of glass bottles and paper. "Don't tell me it's underground again." The monkey's eyes chanced upon the closest car of the Ferris wheel. "Witch, on which side are we next to the supposed amulet?"

"I should be facing it right now," Valina replied impatiently.

"I think you are, Witch."

The cars were round metal shells, once painted red and yellow with all manner of clown faces on the sides. But when the pair had looked inside and around them all, they found nothing.

Valina squinted and looked up at the metal wheel. The sun was rising steadily higher, brightening the sky to a hue of white-blue. "You're going to have to climb up to the others," she sighed.

"Do I look like a circus monkey to you?"

Too late the words were out, and in a flash Mandarin was being suspended off the ground by the hand around his throat.

"For a coward you are quite brazen, simian." Mandarin met her narrowed, seething eyes stonily. "And to think, you were on such good behavior yesterday... I don't want to have to punish you again, Mandarin. A lesson learned once should be enough." She gradually pressed her nails into his neck.

I could reach up and kill you now, he thought to himself. Mandarin felt his hand shudder back into a ridged claw. The transformation was painless now, but to change it back- Well, he could eliminate the reason for changing it back...

But suddenly there was a jolt all along the monkey's body, almost like a prolonged electrical spark. It rendered him immobile for several seconds, and while he was frozen Mandarin heard the words ringing in his head,

Be good.

"...now, will you be good for your master?" Valina's grip tightened to emphasis her words.

His widened eyes relaxed and the line of the simian's body went slack. Valina lowered him to the ground, too frustrated to feel satisfied. Mandarin got up unsteadily, his limbs flaccid, and slunk towards a grounded car.

I should have just broken her neck, was his mournful reflection as he gritted his teeth and converted his hand again. Utilizing each criss-crossing bar of rusted metal, Mandarin climbed the Ferris wheel like a circular ladder –slowly, shakily. Under Valina's shouted orders he peered through the greenish dust-encrusted windows of each car.

By the time Mandarin had climbed a quarter of the circle, he was exhausted. Rust tumbled down in flakes at every movement of his hands and knees. The morning breeze was much stronger higher up. The entire Ferris wheel groaned and croaked underneath him while the wind weaved in between the metal bars.

"Stupid little amulets should stay on the ground..."

Mandarin reached the uppermost car. It was directly below him, and as far as he could ascertain the amulet he was searching for was not on its roof. A gust of wind buffeted the ride. It was swaying. The damnable thing was swaying and he was sitting on top.

With a gulp and a long groan, Mandarin brought his knees to his chin and dropped down.

Now he was swinging at the top of the Ferris wheel, like a child on an oversized set of monkey bars. Mandarin was level with the windows of the spherical car now. A seat running along the wall, a bare floor. Nothing else. Grunting with the exertion, Mandarin reached one hand forward, gripped the next bar.

At least now he was past the halfway point. But at two thirds of the Ferris wheel completed, Mandarin happened to glance over his shoulder.

"Witch!" Mandarin called down. The call was faint from such a height.

If Valina had replied, he couldn't hear it. All Mandarin heard, up there, swinging by his arms on a gigantic carnival ride, was a very loud, very violent, "Hey you!"

The witch had at first thought that the simian was calling to her because he had found the amulet and was either yelling to alert her of the situation or to try and receive some assistance -as if she could offer any. Then, of course, she heard the shout behind her, and realized the monkey was setting off a call of warning.

Valina turned around quickly. Three men were approaching with meaning. The one who looked a bit older than his comrades stomped towards her. "Yes, Miss, we mean you!"

The sorceress swallowed discretely, then hid her nervousness in her well-used veil of annoyance. "Can I help you?" she asked, placing her hands on her hips for show. I'm just an average citizen; I have every right to be here if I want to be… she tried to tell herself. Nonetheless, her stomach was stirring with trepidation as the men finally reached her.

The apparent youngest of the group stepped forward, unconsciously pushing his colleague out of the way. He puffed out his chest and tried to look important, though it was all the witch could do to not to roll her eyes and laugh out cruelly at the young man's pathetic efforts. "We have reason to believe an escaped con has been through the area, Miss," he said, holding up the small device he had in his hands. It was a small metallic box with a red handle on each side, and a screen in the center of it. Currently, the screen showed a grid, and a small dot blinking in the grid. "Have you seen anything?"

Valina barely had to feign innocence here; she truly didn't understand what the young man was talking about. "No. I haven't seen any escapees; 'cons' or otherwise," she said flippantly.

The third member of the group, the "middle-man," as far as age went, by the looks of it, fumbled in his pocket for a moment before extracting a piece of paper folded into quarters. He unfolded the paper and showed it to her.

"You sure? Looks like this... Positive you haven't seen 'im?"

The paper was a bit yellowed, and creased deeply where it had been folded; evidently having been folded like that for a horrendously long time. The furrows scarred the image imprinted on the paper.

The witch stared for a moment, her voice lost somewhere, as the inked eyes of her minion glared back at her.

"Well?"

Valina opened her mouth, saying as nonchalantly as possible, "No; I haven't seen him."

The oldest of the trio furrowed his brow. "What are you doing here so early? And all by yourself?" The suspicion in his voice was thick.

The witch now crossed her arms. "Suddenly it's illegal to take morning walks around your neighborhood?" Valina wondered if the excuse sounded as weak as she thought it did…

The sorceress fought the urge to look back at the Ferris wheel. Let them leave before they look in that direction; let that stupid simian have the sense to hide in one of the cabs until they do… she begged mentally, still trying to meet the men's pressing stares without interest.

Mandarin, though he had no greater desire than to do what his mistress was wishing for him to do, could not. Dangling from the structure of the Ferris wheel, he tugged fiercely at the handle on the cab's door, but it obstinately refused to give. There were probably a hundred possible reasons for this, and all of them were very effective.

Just crawl to the other side of the cab so they can't see you, you dunce! a voice shouted at him.

The monkey glanced over his shoulder at the men who had effectively surrounded Valina. His eyes narrowed. He recognized them, alright… His old "wardens".

There was nothing for it now. Mandarin had to let go of the Ferris wheel frame. He'd have to jump across to the cab and hide behind it. It would involve a bit of crawling and lots of upper body strength, but right now he just needed to jump.

Left arm reaching out and almost grazing the wall of the car, right hand having just let go of the frame, Mandarin dropped down sharply.

It was a very good lesson to teach you not to misjudge distance.

His stomach jolted as he caught himself on the car of the ride, his claws digging into the rusty metal walls in an untrustworthy, trembling grip as the cab gently swayed back and forth. The monkey breathed quickly, deeply, sucking in as much as he could. Eventually the ghastly, floppy sensation of temporary weightlessness faded from his chest.

It was safe to say that Mandarin was starting to panic at this point. He couldn't climb up, for he was positive that even the slightest movement would dislodge him from where he hung, and he would then fall all the way down. For whatever reason, the simian felt the uncontrollable urge to look down at that very moment, and couldn't hold back a small, shaky shriek when he did. The image of his legs and tail dangling over nothing burned itself into his retinas. Mandarin snapped his eyes shut, and he clung to the wall and tight as possible, pressing his body against it as closely as he could.

As he did this, though, he felt a rather large bump at about where his chest was. After gathering his courage together (and hesitating a moment), the monkey slowly pulled back and looked down at where his chest had been pressed to.

An amulet glinted back.

Mandarin could practically feel the Gods of Irony laughing at him.

And then, as if the divine finger of the holiest of Ironic gods stabbed down, the very worst that could possibly happen, did.

Inexplicably, the metal under Mandarin's clawed fingers disappeared. The air was suddenly filled with a mighty rushing. All sense of inner balance was snatched away; however, Mandarin was certain now that gravity was alive and kicking, because there was the ground getting bigger and bigger and-

Really, people often forget that a second can be a very long time.

Standing on the grey-green grass, Valina was puzzled by how the men in front of her abruptly stopped talking. Creases appeared on her forehead when their mouths dropped open, slack. When the witch noticed their upward gaze, she almost groaned aloud.

He's going to get killed! Valina looked over her shoulder, her eye finding the tumbling figure silhouetted against the sky. That did it. She had no choice.

The seconds dragged out, but the fact remained that there were not enough of them. Valina put her head down and ran, away from the guards, around to the other side of the Ferris wheel. She lifted her head to judge her position but could barely see from the sun's glare.

Above her, Mandarin was positively furious with himself for dying in such a pathetic manner.

"Aaaggghh!" Valina screamed as the monkey crashed down into her outstretched arms. With no time to think and Mandarin's body bouncing in her arms, she continued to run.

Completely winded and in wild excess of pain, the simian looked up at the shaky image of Valina. He wasn't dead. Hmm. Was he meant to be relieved? None of this passed very far through Mandarin's mind. Instead, he wheezed emphatically, "This...is all...your fault!"

"Your prison wardens want you back, simian. Thanks to your clumsiness, they've seen you and now I've got keep you away from them. And you've hurt my arms again," she added sourly. The hem of Valina's black dress caught on all manner of debris on the ground. Wrenching her feet free of the resulting tangles with every step, the witch pressed blindly forward.

Mandarin's lungs were trying to force his ribs up so he could breathe, and they weren't doing it too well. All of his limbs felt numb. "Run?" he asked weakly. "Hide? Kill them?"

"How's this: Run, hide, then kill them?"

Mandarin groaned with feeling, closing his eyes. Valina decided to interpret this as consent. She slowed, taking in her surroundings. There were stalls of all sizes scattered in a random fashion all over the fairground. Valina could hear the shouts of the men behind her, but not their footfalls. They were understandably angry and bewildered, from what she could hear.

Aware of the men's mounting nearness, Valina surveyed her options. Shadowy little shacks, hulking buildings, a collapsed tent or two. All of them exuded an untouched, nightmarish ambience. Valina bit her lower lip and tried to think seriously. Whatever she chose had to hide both of them well, because once the guards arrived things would get difficult. There would be no second chances, no running from hiding place to hiding place like children in a game. These men may have looked inept, but they had weapons. And Valina had nothing...

That aside, Valina had to make a choice soon...


"Damn!" Markus panted. He placed his hands on his knees and got his breath back. Straightening, he turned his head from side to side. Nothing moved among the decaying rides and attractions.

Charlie furrowed his brow, bringing up a hand to sweep through his sandy hair in frustration. "I knew that woman was lying to our faces," he said with a touch of anger, as if he couldn't believe that she had done it.

"Don't know what the hell's goin' on," Markus said tersely, between puffs of air. "Just wanna finish the mission."

Samuel was looking around carefully. The three of them were standing in a large clear area. It looked like the center of the amusement park. As the sun rose, lumps of grey revealed themselves to be garish portals to either finding out what your palms held for your future, or possibly winning an oversized fluffy prize of your choice. How could it be that these things could be so monotone and yet horrifically multi-colored at the same time? They stretched on into the distance.

And grim old Samuel, eyes set hard, said those six dangerous words.

"I think we should split up."


When Mandarin opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was the grinning face of the Devil.

He blinked hard in shock, and still the crimson face leered back. Mandarin looked up higher and started breathing again. He was at the door of the House of Horrors, apparently. Although to look at the sign you wouldn't know it: The only letters left on the dark blue background spelled out "Hos f ors". The building itself was largely uninteresting. If you asked a child to draw a house, this was the result. Flat walls, flat triangular roof, covered in receding patches of paint. It was hard to tell if it was the original decoration or graffiti.

The rubber Devil served as a clue, however. Despite the worn, rat-eaten holes in his legs and the metal pole up his backside to keep him standing, he was still smiling to this day.

"How delightfully apt," Mandarin said wearily. "I'm sure we'll feel right at home inside."

Valina bent over and set him down on the ground. "We haven't got much time. Are you feeling well enough to walk?"

Mandarin tottered on his legs. He could feel is heart beating far too fast in his chest. "I feel like I've just fallen off a humongous Ferris wheel at terrifying velocity," he replied bitterly, barely able to stand upright.

"And I've just had a simian with pointy bits slam into my forearms at terrifying velocity. We're even." With that, the witch shoved at the doors.

The air inside reeked. A dozen indistinguishable smells pushed at them like a solid wave. The smell of rotting wood, old rubber, rusted metal, animal faces and bodies... Well, it was all in there somewhere. Valina doubled over and coughed, long and loud. She turned her head to the side and blinked her watering eyes but it was no better.

Mandarin shut his eyes resolutely, trying to maintain his strength. He put his hand on the wall to steady his quivering legs as the doors closed behind them with a whoomph.

Old, stinking, and virtually pitch black.

"I move that we just stay here and hope they don't come in," Mandarin said in a low voice, taking his hand off the wall. It was vaguely slimy to the touch.

Valina sighed. "I'm afraid we have to move in deeper, simian." There was a pause before she added, "We don't have to go too far. I trust the odor to discourage those men if they so much as open the door."

There was a narrow set of tracks in the floor. A line of cars would move along them, bringing their riders through the House of Horrors. Rather than use the suspiciously soft and slimy walls to guide them, Valina and Mandarin used this track. Slowly scraping their feet across the uneven ground through the darkness, making sure they were always next to the winding metal track.

Valina found that here and there a hole in the roof provided a bright source of light. She and the monkey had just entered a small tunnel-like section. There were one or two gaping holes in the ceiling above them, and from the light it gave in Valina could see a long succession of specters lining the walls on either side of her.

Mandarin tilted his head to look at a witch. Her only visible facial feature was her nose, thanks to the characteristic pointed black hat. Her nose was ridiculously long, green and covered in lumpy warts. She would have been reaching out her rubber hands, only they had fallen off. Empty black sleeves stared Mandarin in the face.

"Friend of yours?"

Valina was too distracted to feel insulted. A vampire only had half a face; beneath the yellowed plastic was a mess of metal and wires. Zombies were probably more zombie-like than ever before, the rats having obviously found their ears and toes tasty. The whole setting was ridiculous, simple in some parts but so overdone in others. Everything was so blatantly unrealistic that it tried to compensate through excess.

The amusement park must have been really old.

When the color scheme changed from black and blue to red, and devilish little imps lining the walls grew abundant, Mandarin asked, "Haven't we gone far enough yet?" Yet he knew they'd barely gone fifteen meters from the entrance door.

Valina and Mandarin had stopped walking for a moment. In front of them, a set of rubber double doors proclaimed in dripping red text 'Wlccm t Hel'.

Thank you, I'll try and enjoy my stay, the witch thought sardonically. "Fine. We'll hide behind these doors." She prodded them opened.

They each took two steps forward, and then the ground opened up at their feet.

Witch and simian fell back in shock. Dust cascaded over the edge in a waterfall of grey. There was, most definitely, an edge.

Valina, breathing slowly, inched as close as she dared to peer over the edge. It belonged to a rectangular pit, about two meters across, in the floor. This dusty grey pit was filled with mean-looking metal spikes. When the witch looked more carefully, she realised that those spikes had joints at which they were bent, and scraps of white latex hung off their tips. One spike seemed almost fully intact; it had five smaller and thinner spikes at the top, spread out. Spread out like fingers...

Valina realised that Mandarin hadn't moved. This new shock was probably one too many. "It's a pit," she told him. "What is it with me and pits?" she added darkly.

The metal spikes shone in the dim light, even after all this time. If not razor sharp along the edges, they were definitely extremely pointed. One clumsy step, a single reckless move...

Looking down at it, even the former Skull Sorceress shuddered.

Valina stood up straighter and surveyed the assemblage of peculiar appendages. Her gaze followed the car track which extended across the hole. The pit looked deep and sheer on all sides; the ancient hands of the damned would have been reaching upward and beating against the walls. It could be assumed that those joints were powered by small motors to cause flailing. Perhaps moaning would play over the speakers as the car moved to the other side-

The other side of the pit was illuminated by another hole in the roof. It was clear and bare for the most part. Valina scrutinized the gap carefully. I could probably jump that, she decided. It was likely that she'd have to throw Mandarin across.

But it would save a lot of bother for them just to stay put for the present.

This was a perfectly feasible option until they both heard the sound of a heavy door opening, scraping and grinding across the floor. Perhaps it was Valina's imagination, but she saw torchlight pierce the gloom under the base of the rubber doors.

Without a second thought, she picked up Mandarin by the scruff of his neck and tossed him over.


Markus patted his pockets. He desperately needed some light. The stench in here was putrid, worthy of lengthy cursing. The prison guard brought his hand up by his head, cradling a lighter in his palm. It was his lucky lighter, shiny silver casing with flames engraved down one side. It had been worth a pretty penny, made an impressive noise every time he flipped the top open, and was probably the sole reason why Markus had never quit smoking.

He was about to flick the wheel to light the flame, but it suddenly occurred to him that igniting the noxious gases in the 'Hos f ors' was not a good idea. There couldn't be much oxygen in here anyway. The stuff in this place was probably more reactive than oxygen. With a barely audible sigh, Markus put his lucky lighter back in his pocket and unclipped a tiny torch from his belt.

The explosion would have been so awesome... he thought, flicking the flashlight on. It was no bigger than his index finger; as he recalled, Markus had bought this flashlight from a gift shop. The little device gave off a mere pencil beam of white light.

"Sam and the kid'd better be back from the truck soon," he grumbled, stepping over an indefinable grey lump. After a few steps he sensed that he was standing in an arch of some sort. Bringing his torch up, the minute ray of light illuminated the letters 'Parad f' and an illegible mess.

"Okay, what the hell," Markus said to the general area and walked on.

The adrenaline started to pick up speed when a hole in the roof brought footprints to his attention. There were large scuffles in the thick layer of dust on the floor. Small grey curls wafted upwards gracefully as Markus squatted to examine the marks. If the footprints had been a day or more old, a layer of dust would have covered the exposed sections of the floor. Markus swept a finger along the concrete, and shone his torch onto his fingertip.

The footprints were fresh.

Markus got to his feet, shining his miniature torch straight ahead. "Welcome to Hell, eh?" And then he heard a noise. It was slightly muted wail, followed by a soft grunt of exertion.

There was a small tazer on Markus's belt, and now he reached for it. He ran, elbowing the rubber doors apart. On the other side of the doors he saw the escaped convict sprawled on the ground in a patch of light. His eyes were open wide in fright, staring at the approaching guard. It looked as if the monkey was in a dead end.

Markus felt triumph slowly diffuse through his chest as he loped forward through the shadows. This had been too easy! The horrible stench was worth it for this-

...one clumsy step, a single reckless move...

And then, Markus tripped and fell.