Police investigations wasted no time in securing the scene of the nightclub shootout. What was left of Han's soldiers had all been arrested. Han himself had been rushed to the nearest hospital. Dante had made a discreet exit before the officers had shown up, leaving Li to talk to them. Right now his priority was finding Erika. Inside the club a young ballistics officer had just arrived on the scene. He was late.

"Yuen! What time do you call this? I expect my team to arrive promptly after being called in" the supervisor shouted.

"I'm sorry sir..."

"I don't want to hear it, get to work on those shells and cases" He ordered. With a sigh Yuen turned to look at his task. By the looks of things there was enough metal to build a small bridge. What a great way to start his first day on the job.

-

Li had to give a statement of his involvement in the nights events. After a thorough berating at the hands of Chang he had been suspended from active duty effective immediately. He had taken to the streets on his pride and joy, a Harley Davidson that he had owned since he was 17. He wasn't really thinking of where he was going but somehow he ended up at the local cemetery. Mai had been buried here barely three days ago. Almost on autopilot he walked over to her headstone. For a moment he was silent, until he felt that he wasn't alone.

"Detective, how nice to see you again". There was no mistaking that gentle tone.

"You again! What do you want?" Li snapped.

"Temper temper, you came here to grieve for your lost wife, I to grieve my fallen partner. What you don't know is that they are one the same"

"What do you mean?"

"Mai never told you what she did before. I came here hoping to persuade her to rejoin me in our quest to destroy the devils, only to find that she was planning on starting a family. I gave her my blessing. But now she is dead, and a devil is on the loose. One of the crime lords is responsible. We have a common foe" The Long Haired Man spoke softly. When Li didn't answer he continued.

"Now there is the matter of the beast to take care of, not to mention the two devils that have shown up. But with whichever of the two mob bosses responsible for summoning the creature..."

"But Han..." Li started.

"Pardon?"

"But Han... isn't dead" Li said slowly.

"Oh dear, that won't do at all now will it?"

-

Dante found Erika back at Li's apartment. She looked like hell.

"Didn't expect to find you here kiddo" He said as he came over.

"For God's sake Dante, why do you call me that" She protested.

"Call you what?"

"Call me kiddo"

"Ok kiddo" He smirked.

"That isn't funny" Erika held one of the two M93R's. Dante had done some custom work on them, not as much as on Ebony and Ivory, but enough to count. He had suggested that she give them names but so far she hadn't.

"What's on your mind?" Dante asked. She didn't answer.

"You know, you're gonna have to talk sooner or later. You can't sulk forever".

"Who said I was sulking? Tonight just brought back some bad stuff for me, that's all"

"Does this have anything to do with Li? You've been sore about him since the get go"

"That jerk. The less said about him, the better"

Dante wondered for a moment whether this had anything to do with what she had said to Li before she had left, but decided not to push it. When Erika was ready to talk she would talk. There was no sense in getting stressed out about it.

"Li is a royal asshole. Forget about him. Come on; let's see if you can remember what I taught you about tracking". A small smile dawned on Erika's face. Obvious relief at not being pressed for answers, even though she was sure that Dante was pretty hacked off at the way she had been acting. Holstering the gun she followed him outside, not noticing her foot catch on the old rug. The corner folded back as she walked over it, revealing a red mark on the floor underneath.

-

In the well-lit ballistics lab Yuen was sat with a microscope comparing striations on the bullets from the nightclub when he noticed something strange. He called the supervisor down. At first he was annoyed at being dragged away from his work but when he saw what Yuen had found he forgot all about being angry. Before long the entire crime lab was talking about it. Word eventually reached the ear of Superintendent Chang. He came down to the lab in person to get to the bottom of it.

"Would one of you genius's mind explaining to me what's got the whole department up in arms?" Chang scowled

"Some of the bullets we recovered from the scene have no rifling or striations" Said Yuen excitedly.

"No what?"

"It's like this; Rifling refers to the way a gun manufacturer drills the barrel. They're all drilled a different way depending on who made it. The rifling makes the bullet spin as it's fired which makes it more accurate. And striations are scratches on the bullet caused by imperfections in the barrel. Striation marks are as unique as fingerprints. Some of these bullets have none of them". Yuen explained.

"So, they weren't fired" Chang reasoned.

"No, they were fired. There are marks from a firing pin and they all show signs of impact. But other than that there are no marks on them at all!"

"Must be a really good gun".

"Sir, you don't understand. It's impossible for a fired bullet to have no marks on it. And that's not the weirdest part. Come see this!". Yuen led him into the lab.

"It's just the 45 cal. and a fair few that I think were from an automatic". Yuen said for no good reason. He picked on of the bullets in question out of a container and put in under the microscope. Chang took a look. Not only were there no marks on the metal, but the whole thing glowed with a faint greenish blue light.

"You can only see the glowing under the magnification. Without it they just look like any other bullet". For the first time in as long as anyone could remember, Chang had nothing to say.

-

At the hospital Han had been placed under heavy guard. He was in a coma, but he was alive. Police officers were stationed all over the hospital. Comatose or not, they were taking no chances. The officer who reminded Li of Barney Rubble had taken over the task force since Li's suspension. His name was Detective Su. Su had spent the past few hours since Han was brought in trying to ask the various doctors when, if ever, Han would wake up. The doctors were less than optimistic. Su had just about given up and was searching the ward for a coffee machine when Li showed up. Clearly some of the younger officers didn't know what had happened.

"Li! You're not supposed to be here. If Chang finds out..."

"Chang won't find out. Where's Han?"

"I'm not authorised to tell you that"

"Barney, quit being so by the book. I've been hunting Han since before you graduated. Now where is he?" Li said threateningly. Su didn't back down.

"Come here with a warrant and I'll personally hand him over, but until then he's my suspect. Who is in a coma, I might add" Li looked disgusted.

-

Outside, the all too familiar form of a huge cat stalked around the building. A young porter who had went outside for a cigarette thought he heard something, but he couldn't see anything. He decided to ignore it.

-

Yuen backed his battered old Honda into the only spare parking space in the whole hospital parking lot. He had just got word that his brother had just been in a road accident. He had rushed straight out of the lab and got here as fast as he could, and now he was frustrated at having spent the past quarter of an hour searching for a parking space. He was so caught up in his train of thought that he didn't notice that he was too close to a rather expensive looking car until he smashed the wing mirror clean off. As it's alarm went of Yuen found himself thinking, 'This day just keeps on getting better'.

-

The Thunderbird pulled up just outside the hospital. Dante turned to face Erika.

"Okay, now tell me why it would come here?"

"You didn't say anything about a test" She complained.

"Answer first, argue later. Shoot".

"Okay, some devils like to finish off they're victims... So if one gets away they go after it" Erika hazarded a guess.

"Good enough for me. This is the only hospital that's close enough to the nightclub so this is where we start" Dante said decisively. The Thunderbird roared to life as they rode up to the entrance.

-

Han lay in a hospital bed, dead to the world. Outside his window the beast leapt up,

stealthily as a shadow and dark as a nightmare. It crashed through Han's window and pounced on his lifeless form. It's fiendish tongue lanced out of it's mouth and plunged deep into the ruined sockets of Han's eyes. It made a monstrous slurping noise, the kind of noise a toothless old man sucking soup off a spoon would make, as it sucked vampire-like on whatever it was sucking out of it's prey. Then it yanked it's tongue back, tearing the shattered eyes out of the mans head and into it's mouth. It started screeching, it's back bulging terribly. Then with a sickening ripping noise two new arms tore they're way out of it's ribcage. That was when a team of police guards poured into the room.

They never stood a chance.

-

Li and Su had been arguing like there was no tomorrow when they heard the shouts. Forgetting they're dispute they drew their guns and ran to the source of the noise. There it was. It had grown bigger since last night, and it now had an extra set of arms. The team had never stood a chance. On seeing more potential victims the brute went into a frenzy. It sprang forward, firing out it's tongue and snaring Su's neck in a death grip. Li fired his revolver at it desperately, making it jerk back. It didn't let Su go, Li heard the officer's neck snap as the beast pulled back it's tongue. Li screamed at it and continued to fire until his weapon clicked empty. The monster lost interest in the dead officer and turned its attention to the live one. Li stared at it blankly when the loud boom of a 45 burned into the creature's hide.

BOOM. Downstairs, barely a few rooms from the carnage, a team of surgeons worked desperately on a heart transplant. The patient had just gone into cardiac arrest. They were charging the internal defibrillators, trying to shock the heart back into action.

"Charging, and clear!" Yelled the chief surgeon. The paddles touched into place...

BOOM. Dante opened fire with Ebony and Ivory, firing straight down the beast's line of sight. It yowled at him then lashed it's tongue at him like a whip, catching the back of his hand and throwing Ivory out of his hand. It rounded to pounce at him. Seizing Ebony with both hands Dante threw himself backwards as it leapt, firing up into it's belly.

BOOM. The whine of the ECG continued in a low constant pitch. The chief wasn't ready to give up just yet, one more time he charged the paddles.

BOOM. The cat beast landed squarely on Dante's chest. It snarled at him, then the whine of the M93Rs cut it's hiss short. Erika fired on it, a surgeon removing a tumour, the automatics were like scalpels. The thing was thrown back, giving Dante enough room to kick it off and draw Alastor. As it reeled back he charged at it, slicing a chunk of it's arm off. It roared in agony then threw itself out of the nearest window.

"Dante, heads up!" Erika called to him. The hospital was crawling with police. It wouldn't take them long to respond to a couple of suspicious characters carrying guns and a sword in a hospital. Deciding to wait until the heat died down before searching for his missing gun he grabbed Erika by the arm and leapt out of the window.

-

Yuen reached the scene first and was almost sick. The guards had been massacred. He staggered over to the nearest plant pot to catch his breath before doing anything else when, quite by chance, he found himself looking a one of the most beautifully made handguns he had ever seen. It looked like a 45 cal. with a chrome finish, the word 'Ivory' engraved on the barrel. Yuen reached into his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief. Taking great care not to touch it, he picked up the gun...