It was the darkest hour of the night now, the one men used to call the witching hour. The soldiers had retreated back into the shadows and the streets were becoming filled with a new kind of citizen; those people whose business was always conducted under cover of darkness. They hurried to and fro, dark cloaks drawn up over hair and faces. Erin moved closer to Xena. She'd never been out this late before. Generally, you stayed inside if you wanted to see the morning.
'Don't do that,' Xena whispered.
'Do what?'
'Stand close to me. You need to look like you belong out here. It doesn't do to look scraed.'
'But I am scared.'
'You're an Amazon. You're descended from a long line of fierce warrior women. Walk with pride.'
Erin took a deep breath and tried to stand up a bit straighter. She stepped away from Xena a little and immediately had the urge to look over her shoulder and check there was nothing sinister behind her.
'I won't let anything hurt you,' Xena's voice was low, barely audible, but it made Erin feel a little better,
They moved through the dark city streets in silence so as not to draw attention to themselves. They were wrapped in cloaks like those worn by the night-dwellers and Xena kept them walking at a measured, unhurried pace. With each step they took, Erin felt further form everything she'd known, had to fight harder to stop herself from running.
IN front of them, a large group of men was emerging from an alleyway. Unlike most of the other people around them, this group was bare-headed and their cloaks were open, moonlight glinting off the knives in their belts. They spread out across the road, blocking it comoletely. All Erin's senses were telling her to turn and run, but then Xena's hand was on her shoulder, heavy and reassuring.
'Steady,' Xena whispered and Erin managed to stop her feet from running.
'Can we help you boys?' Xena asked.
The men were grinning now, not at Xena, but at Erin.
'Where'd you find the girl?' One of them drawled, his voice a breathy rasp.
'She's my daughter.'
He laughed and the sound was harsh and unnatural. 'She's no one's daughter. I've seen her before. She lives in the children's home. No one to miss her if she didn't come back.'
Xena's posture had subtly changed. She seemed poised, ready to spring into action.
'Pretty thing like her,' the man was saying. 'Should fetch a good price.'
And then Xena was running, but towards the men, not away, and it was like nothing Erin had ever seen. She ran faster than should have been humanly possible and she ran with an impossible grace and power and beauty. Xena launched herself at the man who had spoken, hitting him, once, twice, three times, and then he was falling backwards, head cracking horribly onto the tarmac pavement. His henchmen, se dispatched with kicks and a well-placed elbow to the stomach. Once they were all on the ground, winded and groaning, she turned back to Erin.
'Come on,' she said, grabbing Erin's hand. 'I've drawn rather more attention to us than I planned to.'
'That was incredible,' Erin stammered.
Xena grinned. 'Have to admit, I've kind of missed doing that.'
They were moving faster now, and furtively, Erin following close behind Xena as they went from doorway to doorway, shadow to shadow. The streets around them were growing narrower, emptier. Until, all of a sudden,' they came upon a crowd of people, all sitting silently around a doorway leading to what looked to be an abandoned warehouse.
They were the saddest group of people Erin had ever seen and they were completely quiet, each one locked in his or her own private misery. Their clothes were in tatters, their cheeks hollow, their eyes all too large in their pale faces.
'Who are they?' Erin asked.
'The broken ones. They're drawn to her because, even now, she holds the promise of love, of a better life, but she hasn't been capable of helping anyone for a very long time.'
'Who?'
'An old friend of mine,' Xena said and there was an impossible sadness in her voice. 'Let's go inside.'
Erin followed Xena inside. The figures crouched in the darkness reached out their hands to them, pleading, begging.
'Can't we do anything to help them?' Erin asked.
Xena shook her head.
'But you're the great warrior princess.'
'I can't save everyone, little queen. But, if we succeed, no one will ever have to live like then again. The world will be made new.'
Erin didn't question her further and they passed through a doorway without a door. Inside, all was dank and dark and dirty.
'You should have seen what her temples used to look like…' Xena muttered, stepping over what appeared to be part of the roof which had caved in. 'They were bright and cheerful, places of joy. People leaft her gifts…'
'left who gifts?'
There was a sound then from in front of them; a shuffling and a stumbling in the darkness.
'there's someone in here,' Erin gasped in fright. A lifetime of surviving in a harsh world was telling her to run as far and as fast as she could.
'No one to worry about,' Xena said and then she turned away from Erin and called very softly, 'Aphrodite.'
There was a scrabbling sound and then the flickering light of a match being struck. It half illuminated a woman's face. Her skin was papery and cracked, her cheeks hollow. Blond hair hung in lank strands around her shoulders.
'Who's there?' she called in a voice which seemed to be breaking from lack of use.
'it's me,' Xena said, stepping forwards into the circle of match light.
'Gabrielle?' For a moment, there was something like hope in the woman's eyes.
'Not this time,' Xena said.
Aphrodite came closer with shuffling steps. 'I see you now,' she said. 'You're the one she died for. All of this is your fault.'
'I know. I'm sorry. But I came to make it right.'
'How can you? No one can make it right except…' She paused then and her eyes found Erin. All at once, there was a different expression entirely on her face.
'Cyane,' she whispered.
