After leaving the sorceress to her demise, Garrett saw the green-eyed Pagan again. Just the green eyes, actually, glowing in the darkness. And it hadn't come alone. Garrett's senses informed him that he was surrounded on all sides by unseen creatures. He guessed they were angry with him for not killing the sorceress.

"You did not do as I asked, manfool," Green-eyes accused.

Was Garrett, the mighty King of the Night, going to let a mere Pagan push him around? He might have been a friend of Viktoria, but he didn't owe these people—these things—anything. The satisfactory ending to this adventure had given him a boost of confidence almost to the point of cockiness. "I don't remember taking orders from you."

"You will do so now. It would be in your interest to cooperate, likewise for the manchild you carry." Heavy rustling in the bushes gave emphasis to its statement.

Garrett became painfully aware of his utterly defenseless position. And he wasn't going to let something happen to the kid now, not after all the trouble he had gone through to rescue him. He would cooperate. For now. "What do you want?"

"Destroy the book."

"You mean the New Scripture of the Master Builder."

"Yes."

"Why can't one of you do it?"

"The metal woman's home is not friendly for us."

"Wait a minute. You're telling me the book is in her castle."

"Yes."

"That's impossible. I would have found it."

"You overestimate your abilities, manfool," the Pagan said, inadvertently echoing its dead nemesis. "Now that she is dead, she no longer has any power over the domain of the living."

It was talking nonsense, but Garrett had wanted to destroy the book anyway. If the Pagan was right…maybe he had overlooked something.

"It is in both our interests, sneaksie manfool," the Pagan hissed vehemently. "Or have you forgotten who your real enemy is?"

A palpable silence followed.

"If I find the book, I'll destroy it."

The green eyes danced. "Then leave. We would not want to detain you."

The eyes vanished. The rustling in the bushes faded away. Garrett and the kid were alone.

The trip back to the apartment was quiet. The fire had died and so Garrett was forced to feel his way around, banging his toes several times until he could place the unconscious youth on his bed. He had no way of waking him, and he had other things to do besides baby-sit the little guy.

There was just one more loose end to tie up: the New Scripture. Once he had destroyed it, this would finally be over. And who knew, maybe the Mechanists would even leave him alone.

* * *

Garrett's third visit to the castle began with a cursory look around the perimeter for any secret underground chambers. As he had expected, he found none and so went inside. He wandered into the kitchen where a few short days ago a young servant met an ugly end.

Just when he thought he could no longer be shocked, another surprise was lying in wait for him. There was, across from the fireplace, a shiny steel door. It definitely had not been there the other two times. He would have seen it.

His doubt caught hold of him. He didn't know what other powers the sorceress had possessed. It was quite possible that she could have created an illusion to mask the door. Now that she was dead and her command over the domain of the living had ended, the illusion was gone.

The door was unlocked. The sorceress had apparently felt that the illusion had been a sufficient deterrent.

A long, dark stairway led to a vault. There had been one all along. It too was unlocked. Garrett held his breath in anticipation of the riches awaiting him. Using all his strength he opened the heavy metal door.

The interior was dimly lit save for one ray of light extending from a hidden fixture in the ceiling. This single beacon of hope in the otherwise gloomy cell illuminated a solitary object resting on a pedestal: the New Scripture.

* * *

The thief's hard leather booths slapped sharply against the stone roof. His arms cradled a heavy manuscript, pressing it firmly against his chest. He knew exactly where he was going. He wanted the book destroyed. In order to do that, he needed to melt pure steel. The means to do this were in the factory district. The forges there burned at all hours of the day and night.

The thieves' highway gave him easy access to the factories. It was not unfamiliar territory to him but he wanted to finish quickly and the roof was the best way to do this. He let himself in through a ventilation shaft and found himself on a catwalk overlooking giant vats of molten metal. He leaned over the railing. Gusts of hot air hit his face. He lifted the ponderous volume and set it precariously on the railing.

For one quick moment his intense lust for money took control of him. He tightened his grip on the book as he imagined what the Mechanists would pay to get it back.

His better sense persevered, and he dumped the book without ceremony into the vat. With a thick splash it oozed into the bright orange liquid and was no more. His face basked in the warmth of the molten metal, Garrett watched with satisfaction as thick tendrils of silver infused the bubbling, lava-like substance. When the last glimmer of silver had disappeared he went back to his apartment.

Still, dark, and cool, his home gave him the closest thing to happiness that he could achieve. It was where he could escape the City's problems and not have to worry about burricks or apparitions or zombies. It was where he could be alone.

Except he wasn't alone. Chiding himself about the kid, Garrett stumbled around and bumped into various things before finding a lantern. With its pale orange light firmly in tow, he went into his bedroom.

The kid had not moved since Garrett's departure. His spindly legs and arms were strewn in awkward angles across the bed. His head had lolled to the side away from the door. The tattered rags that passed for clothes lay limp on the still chest.

Garrett went closer. He placed his hand on the boy's chest and could feel a chill but no heartbeat. He took the kid's chin in his hand and turned the face toward him. The eyes, rolled back in the head, were blank and glassy. The slightly parted lips had a bluish tinge. The clammy skin had faded to pure white.

And the face…the face was different. The harsh lantern light revealed the changes that had occurred. The bone structure, eye width, nose shape, nothing was the same. The resemblance he had seen to himself was gone. He felt dull, hollow. The kid had been another illusion.

* * *

He stood still and silent. His cloak flapped slowly in the wind. His hood and the darkness of night combined to mask his face. He stood at the edge of the slope leading down to the river. The current was slow, hindered by industrial waste and people's daily garbage. The river collected trash of all kinds—including bodies. And so it had become the kid's final resting-place. Garrett had wrapped the bony frame in a blanket. The misshapen bundle had tumbled down the bank and into the murky water, where it currently bobbed up and down as it meandered away.

He knew now that the kid had been just another of Markham's pawns, used for her own ends and then discarded without so much as an afterthought. The physical resemblance had faded but the impoverished state had remained. The kid had had no family and no way to support himself. Even Garrett with his blazing skills had barely been able to survive. The kid had had no chance. And if Garrett hadn't been born with his unmatched talents, he would have ended up the same way. It could have been him. Bile rose in his throat but he forced it back down.

The kid's mummy-like form finally disappeared from his sight. The body would have provided nourishment for fish if any had survived the years of heavy pollution.

A chill ran down his spine. His sixth sense had detected a Keeper. "What do you want," he said quietly.

"I would like you to come with me," the Keeper said in the same mild tone.

Garrett kept his eyes trained on the river. "When will you leave me alone." His voice lacked inflection.

The Keeper's words came slowly, as if the mere task of speaking was a heavy burden. "All is not as it was written. The balance is in greater danger than ever." He hesitated. "We…need your help."

Garrett felt a twinge in his heart. He hadn't even been able to save the kid. How could he help his old mentors?

The Keeper's next word was so soft that only someone with a Keeper's senses could have heard it. "Please."

It broke Garrett out of his daze. A Keeper, practically groveling for help, for his help. It was unheard of. And he couldn't help but like it. Their holier-than-thou attitude had annoyed him to no end. The mighty had indeed fallen. He wondered what on Earth could have shaken them so. "All right," he said. How could have he refused?

The End