Authors' Note: As far as we know, the Istari cannot die. If they do, they have a nasty habit of reappearing.

Streets of Shadow

Soundtrack: Redeemer(Queen of the Damned Soundtrack, Marilyn Manson)

The hunger inside given to me
Makes me what I am
Always it is calling me
For the blood of man

They say I cannot be this
I am jaded, hiding from the day
I can't bear, I cannot tame the hunger in me
Oh I say I did it, always searching
You can't fuck with fate
So instead, you'll taste my pain

The hunger inside given to me
Makes me feel alive
Always out stalking prey
In the dark I hide

Feeling, falling, hating, feel like
I am fading, hating life

They say I cannot be this
I am jaded, hiding from the day
I can't bear, I cannot tame the hunger in me
Oh I say I did it, always searching
You can't fuck with fate
So instead, you'll taste my pain

You say your life I'm taking
always bothering me
I can't take this anymore, I'm failing
always smothering me
You look down on me
hate what you see
Take this gift from me
You will soon be amazed

Nothing seems exciting
Always the same hiding, hiding
It's haunting me
It's haunting me
It's haunting me
It's haunting me



"Umm...Gimli? Where the hell are we going?"

The professor grinned, and reached into the pocket of his jacket. Peter's eyes widened as Gabe handed him a small electronic controller. "What's this?" he asked, puzzled.

"It's a homing device," Gabe explained. "I dropped a beacon in Felix's pocket when we were in the kitchen getting food."

"Ooh, that was dastardly!"

Shrugging, Gabe took it back, punching a few buttons. It immediately began to emit a soft beeping sound. He pointed down a side street. "They went that way."

"Does Legolas know you have this stuff?"

The smile dropped off Gabe's face as he grumbled, "Stupid elf. He knows damn well I have no tracking skills. No, he doesn't know I've got this. I figure we'll surprise him if we actually come back with those two in tow."

Peter laughed. "So you didn't think he'd manage to get through to all of us?"

Gabe chuckled gruffly. "Let's just say that I was preparing for the worst. Always a wise precaution, in my opinion. I remember how skeptical *I* was when he showed up in my office, and he was my best friend!"

The beeping got progressively louder as they continued down the street, and they broke into a run. "We're getting close," Gimli observed.

Suddenly, Peter grabbed his arm, pulling him to the side of the street. "Mages," he breathed. "Do you see them?" He gestured farther up the street, and Gabe saw half a dozen figures stalking through the darkness. He flicked a switch on the tracker, and the beeping stopped, shrouding them in silence.

Gabe squinted, studying them. They were dressed ordinarily, but their eyes betrayed their negative magic. The irises were solidly coloured, without pupils, and they glowed softly in the night. The unsettling effect was similar to that of magic on spell-casting witches and wizards, but a mage's eyes were always like this. He knew that the mages often allowed the magic to control their bodies, so they were in a permanent state of magic-readiness. //Not a bad system. They can never be caught by surprise,// he thought, remembering his early battles against them. //Death by magic burnout isn't the way I'd choose to go though.//



Both men melted into the shadows, and Gabe turned to his companion. "Have you got a weapon?" he whispered.

"I've got a knife sheathed in my boot," Peter replied, pulling up the hood of his sweatshirt. "All four of us carry 'em."

"Yeah, all I've got is a Ruger .45, one of those lightweight jobs. I think we're a little overmatched, don't you?"

"That's not a very dwarvish attitude."

"Yeah, well, thirty-thousand odd years give you a bit of sense. Shut up."

"You know you may be right-- I'm thinking that discretion is definitely the better part of valor in this case."

They crouched, motionless, in the shadows, not daring to breathe, as the mages passed by. One man had long, tangled brown dreadlocks that brushed his hips as he walked. Another was a woman with blood-red eyes and an intricate black mask tattooed over her forehead and cheekbones. Her male companion, holding her right arm, had ice-white hair, and skin so pale it was almost translucent. His nails looked sharp enough to cut glass.

The next two were harmless-looking, Joe Somebody and his friend; forgettable faces, brown eyes, and weak mouths. The last mage, however, was a good foot taller than Peter, bare muscles corded under his leather vest. He turned towards the shadows where the professor and the rocker were hiding, and his right eye twitched several times. He apparently detected nothing amiss however, and the huge mage turned to follow his friends.

As they went, the incandescents overhead flickered weirdly. The magical energy the mages radiated was enough to momentarily throw off electrical impulses, useful as an advance warning of a mage presence. It had saved Gabe many times during the war, and had often given Peter time to escape the streets before he was blasted to cinders.

A few minutes later, they both stirred. "I think they're gone." said Peter, shifting carefully into the light. Gabe followed him, keeping one wary hand on his gun.

Fortunately, the streets were once again deserted; a few blocks away, they could hear faint screams. Peter whispered a quick prayer for whatever poor souls had met their ends in the cold streets. He shivered; there was no comfort in the icy light from the incandescents, nor in the clinging fog. "Come on, let's get out of here. Find Felix and Sam, and get our asses off the streets. I hate tempting fate like this."

Gabe nodded, not voicing the agreement he whole-heartedly felt.

**********

The two men had barely gone fifty feet down the street when two tall figures crashed out of the alley, colliding with Gabe and Peter. Amid much cursing and tangling of limbs on the wet sidewalk, four figures struggled to their feet.

Pushing his damp hair off his forehead, Peter swore as he realized the identity of their attackers. "Shit! What were you thinking, you idiots? We might have killed you!"

Felix panted as he pulled Sam to his feet. "Right, right. Deeply sorry, Pippin."

"What were you-hey!" Peter stopped dead. "You called me *Pippin*!"

Felix didn't even stop to look at him; he and Sam were already halfway down the street. He called back over his shoulder. "Yeah, yeah, cousins, Middle-earth, Bag End, Sauron, god-damned almighty ring of power, I get it, I get it, can we just *go* already?"

Stunned into silence, Gabe and Peter ran to catch up with the other two. No small feat, as the two young hobbits-turned-rockers were running as if the entire chimaera population in Necropolis were on their tails.

"Where are we going, anyways?" asked Peter, panting a little in his effort to keep up. Behind him, he could hear the sturdy tread of Gimli's boots pounding the pavement.

Sam latched onto Frodo's wrist and dragged him around the street corner, almost yanking him off his feet. "We're going back to Legolas' apartment. And then, we're going to do whatever he says."

Peter looked over his shoulder and exchanged a glance with Gabe. No help there; something had caused his two friends to do a complete 180 in the belief department, but what?

So intent on their flight, the four friends rounded a corner and ran smack into the mage gang.