The Anointed

by Darkness7

Hard to describe this saga in a few lines but I'll have a go anyway. Brooklyn goes behind the clan's back to get revenge against Demona, which may eventually lead to the world's destruction when other forces intervene. Completed up to Chapter 20.

15. Frustration

Frustration

Author: Darkness

E-mail: darknessdescending2000@yahoo.co.uk

Author's note: The farther I go into writing this saga the more and more I begin to realise that I have not given Dan Abnett enough credit by far. I shall deal with that mistake now and hope I can be forgiven without the necessity for lawyers, as I don't have nearly enough cash to make me worth being taken to court.

Those of you who have actually been reading this silly little saga of mine from the beginning have been reading a crossover really, although I haven't fully appreciated it until this current moment. It started with the Malus Codicium and the daemonhosts that are, as far as I am aware, are part of the imagination of the author Dan Abnett, while the rules concerning daemons, their ranks and their binding come from the Warhammer universe. Their influence may become more apparent as time and chapters goes by, I thought it only fair to you the reader and to the above mentioned to mention this.

I do not own their work; neither do I do this to make profit of any sort.

An extra disclaimer is added at the bottom of this fic, as I do not want it up here as it may ruin part of the fic for any 40K enthusiasts out there who read my rubbish.

And now please enjoy. (

Avalon

"But why wasn't I informed of this?" yelled Queen Titania. She was standing in her private anti-chamber, a magnificently decorated circular room containing her mirror, beside a bed that she never used while a tapestry of the finest Chinese silk from the Warring States Period adorned part of the wall, some ornately carved wooden furniture that had once belonged to the Celtic Queen Mauve sat in the centre of the room, a square table and four chairs while the King of the Third Race stood by the panelled mahogany door he had entered only moments before.

"Hush My darling," replied Oberon softly. "You were not informed because we did not think it worth your attention." He smiled, taking a seat without asking. "And besides...you never asked."

She frowned at him. "You interfered in mortal affairs yet again."

"We are aware of that."

"You broke your own law."

"As it is our law, my Lady, it does not apply to us," replied Oberon, the slightest hint of ice creeping into his voice. "We are Lord of Avalon and Master of the Fey. We decide when a law has been broken or not."

"A good leader should always place themselves under their own laws."

Oberon smiled at his wife in a very superior manner. "Ah yes. Your referring to mortal leaders aren't you?"

"Some of them," replied Titania, folding her arms in front of her and giving her Lord a dirty look. "What you are doing is wrong. If Demona was supposed to die at that time then even you had no right to drag her back."

"Perhaps, but the Wyrd Sisters insist that her part in the world is not yet at its end."

"Of course. Whatever your little attack dogs want, they get."

It was Oberon's turn to frown now. "Do not speak of them in such a manner My Lady. They are some of our most faithful children."

"They're also the most out of control."

"What are you suggesting?"

"You let them have their way all the time. They are the only ones of your children that you allow to pass between Avalon and the mortal world at will, which only causes resentment among your other children."

"As long as they do what they are told to, we do not care what it is they think."

"Another thing, which is undoubtedly a cause of dislike for you."

Oberon stood suddenly, knocking his chair back as he glared dangerously at his wife. "We do not have to stay here and listen to this!"

"I am only trying to suggest that what you did with Demona and the way you have begun to behave as of late is worrisome."

"We are the King! We have the power!"

"And are fast casting aside the responsibility, which comes with it."

The temperature in the room seemed to drop drastically as Oberon and his wife stared at each other, neither prepared to back down.

"The Sisters are my servants and my children," whispered Oberon, his voice laced with venom and ice now in equal measure. "What I do concerning them is no business of the Court of Avalon, of the Mortal Guards and of you, Titania."

Without another word, he turned and left, leaving his Queen staring after his departure, her lip and clenched fists trembling.

"Then it is as I suspected," she muttered.

She walked over to a small writing desk sitting below the tapestry and took out a pen, three sheets of paper, envelopes and wrote a few lines on each before sealing them with wax from a candle and imprinting her personal seal from her ring on them. She then looked at her mirror and whispered one word.

"Hector."

The glass shimmered as if it were liquid before her reflection then altered to the image a fairly unremarkable male gargoyle that was standing looking out over the Western bulwark. He was very thin and weakly built unlike most of his rookery siblings. His skin was the same grey as the stones of the fortress while he sported a small straight beak, a neatly cut crop of greasy chestnut brown hair, a set of webbed ears and short pair of curved horns jutting outwards from his forehead. His wings sat on his back with hooked endings like most gargoyles, while he looked out on the world through an unintelligent pair of copper coloured eyes. He was dressed in a shabby brown loincloth with a very thick black belt, on which hung an archer's dagger.

"Hector," repeated the Lady Titania.

The gargoyle seemed to jump out of whatever trance he was in, as he looked around suspiciously before whispering back immediately to the air.

"Yes? What is it that my lady wants?"

"I require your presence in my chamber immediately. Be discreet in your coming."

The image faded as the gargoyle seemed to smile to himself in excitement before heading downstairs.

In a matter of moments, he had arrived at the door and let himself in quietly.

"What is it that my lady wishes of her humble servant?" He asked immediately, forgoing the courtesy of even bowing to her.

But Titania needed him at this moment, so she ignored it. She held out the three letters to the gargoyle who took them warily and looked at the names written on each envelope.

"You remember these three Hector?"

"Of course my lady. They are all well etched in my memory. But all three at once?"

"This is urgent. Go about it as you would usually, but take extra care tonight. I suspect that even the walls may now have ears and eyes."

Titania went to the door and opened it quickly so that Hector could leave at once, but the gargoyle didn't move. Instead, he turned to face Titania.

"Forgive me my lady," he whispered, he appeared anxious. "But I have never had to carry out so many errands of yours at once and I have noticed of late that, well, some of the court...some are taking an interest in my activities...if any other, than those that these are intended for, should find these on me... "

He stopped, as Titania shut the door silently while maintaining a slightly frustrated gaze at him. She moved silently towards him and grabbed his beak suddenly in her right hand. Before Hector could even raise a hand in protest, his entire body went rigid; the letters fell out of his hand and to the floor while he began to sweat profusely as his entire body began to tremble.

He let out a barely audible moan of indescribable ecstasy as Titania activated all his pleasure centres.

"I am aware of the potential danger to you my servant," whispered Titania as Hector let out another moan. "And I shall reward you for this task in greater quantity than usual."

She let go of him and took a step back, to avoid touching him again, as he collapsed to his knees and fell forward, his entire body shaking and glistening with sweat as he tried to regain control of his breathing and composure.

Titania went to the door and waited a few minutes for her servant to calm himself before letting him out. She shut the door quickly and went to the writing desk where a small bowl of water, a bar of soap and a towel had appeared as if out of thin air.

She washed her right hand vigorously, her face revealing the utter contempt for the nothing that had just left her presence.

Hector was a loner when she had first spotted him and had always been one, not by his own choice, but by that of the rest of his siblings. He was weak and was held with contempt by all those around him who preferred to ignore his presence when he was near, which made him perfect as an errand boy for her.

Few noticed him, and even fewer cared.

After several minutes of waiting, there was a knock at her door and presently the first of her three guests entered.

"Tom," said Titania, in a manner to suggest friendliness. "Please, sit down."

The old human warrior regarded her suspiciously with his unusual eyes, one sky blue and the other, chocolate brown. He bowed to her courteously and sat down without a word, dressed in a dark purple tunic and grey tights while his iron longsword hung in its scabbard by a brown leather belt around his waist by his side.

A few moments of uncomfortable silence passed by before Titania's other two guests arrived separately, followed barely a minute later by Hector who had taken another route after delivering the letters.

The four sat around the table while Hector brought them some wine that had materialised on the writing desk and then kept watch at the door for eavesdroppers. Titania made a point of sitting opposite the old human, his iron sword and the dagger he thought that she didn't know he had up his sleeve.

She looked at her two other guests, Anubis and Yuri Mao.

Anubis sat to the Queen's left while Yuri sat to her right. She glanced at the Eastern Fey.

Yuri Mao was quite tall and had the appearance of a woman of the Orient, most likely Japan or China. She was remarkably beautiful, with a pair of stunning Arctic blue eyes and velvet black hair that seemed to shimmer in the light of the room, which she had tied into a tight bun, kept in place by several long Japanese hairpins. Her face was heavily adorned with paper white make up and lipstick the colour of a winter rose, resting upon deceitfully kind lips. Her eyelashes were unusually long; nearly taking attention away from the cherry blossom pink eye shadow she had applied, while her stunningly well-kept body sat rigidly in her chair. She looked at Anubis and nodded to the Fey courteously before regarding the human Tom with deep disdain that the human returned in kind. She was dressed in an all-concealing red silk kimono that had white trimmings with a pair of Chinese Dragons, one black and one white, fighting each other all along the robe. She wore a pair of black Japanese wooden sandals. Her hands were strong yet delicate, the same applied shade of white that her face was, with blood red nail polish covering her long, blade like nails, both hands sat on her lap, holding a pink and black foldable fan. A girdle of silk, the colour of jade was wrapped around her waist. Within it lay Yuri's magnificently decorated Wakizashi shortsword.

Titania smiled as she looked on Yuri, briefly wondering what sort of poison the Fey had applied to her lipstick, hairpins and nail varnish before addressing her guests.

"Before we begin, allow me to apologise for dragging you all away from your duties, as well as calling you all here at once. But as of late my husband's actions are becoming a cause for concern." She turned to look at Anubis. "My Lord here recently brought to my attention one such act of several that I am aware of." Anubis nodded and then Titania asked him to describe what he was ordered to do to Demona and another gargoyle named Brooklyn. Yuri feigned interest while Tom looked quite concerned at what had happened.

"That's abominable," he muttered. "That Demona attacked and wounded many of my clan."

"I thought she was under a spell," asked Yuri.

"It doesn't matter," retorted Tom. "From what Goliath told me, she was a relentless killer before. People like her deserve no mercy."

"She had repented though," replied Titania. "Although this is not the reason the Sisters wanted her returned to life."

"The Sisters have been having their way around here too often," growled Tom.

"Oh not this again!" Groaned Yuri.

Tom glared dangerously at her. "You may not care, but it matters to me!" He nearly screamed. "They murdered Aaron! For the same reason I dare say that they did this! They're sadists!"

Titania sighed. Aaron was one of the gargoyles that had been raised by Tom, the Magus and Princess Katherine. Some time ago, his body had been found in the woods stripped and nailed down spread eagled to an altar. He had been beaten and raped repeatedly before his head had been pulped.

Everyone who cared knew it had been the Wyrd Sisters, but Oberon made a decree that the Sisters had not done it and it was never to be spoken of again and that was the end of it.

"My Lady," spoke Anubis. "You are closest to our Lord. Why does he allow the Sisters such amnesty?"

"Aye," said Tom, slightly calmer now. He folding his arms and glared at Titania. "Do they have some sort of spell over him?"

Titania sighed. "They do. But it is not a spell of magic." She looked down into her wine. "I have held suspicions for some time, but only very recently I felt that I am now certain that the Sisters have been providing my Lord with...services."

Tom raised an eyebrow while Yuri turned and stared at Titania in total shock.

"What kind of services?" Asked Anubis.

"Services of the loins," replied Titania.

Tom and Anubis stared at her, too shocked to say anything, while Yuri snapped her fan under the table with trembling hands.

Titania heard it, though she said nothing, but felt a little sympathy for her.

Yuri was Oberon's concubine.

"They are becoming dangerous," said Titania eventually. "And I dare say it was they who prohibited any sort of sortie to the mortal world since the gathering."

"Why do you have these gatherings anyway?" Asked Tom. "I've been wondering for a while now, but I never really thought to ask."

"Why human?" Said Yuri, her voice low and venomous. "I'll tell you why."

"Yuri," said Titania, hoping to silence her but failing when Yuri stood upright suddenly, knocking her chair back and yelling, regardless of the need for quiet.

"He's a bastard! A base, self-obsessed, lying, hypocritical, ego-maniacal bastard!" She screamed, her entire being quivering in rage.

"Yuri! I will not have my husband spoken of in such a manner!" Yelled Titania, as she stood and glared daggers at Yuri.

But Yuri refused to be silenced.

"He doesn't care about us! His only use for us is to give his ego a boost! That's why we're here! He demanded we come! So that we can bow and quiver in his presence and give him whatever the Hell it is he wants! And when he grows weary of us praising him like some god, he kicks us out and bars us from returning to the island until his head needs to be pumped with air again!"

Yuri would have continued, but Titania reached over the table and slapped her quite hard across her face.

"Silence!" Screamed the Queen of the Third Race. Yuri Mao took a step back from the blow and gave Titania a look that could kill. She calmed down quickly though, her face becoming the very image of shame. She bowed low.

"Forgive me my Queen," she said as she straightened up. "I...this just came as a shock to me...that is all." She looked Titania in the eye. "I love my Lord. I love him so much that...well...to hear of someone else usurping me for their own gain and not for love...it pains me."

Titania nodded. There was a lie in there somewhere, but that really didn't matter to her right now. She needed Yuri.

"All is forgiven." Titania looked to the others who had remained seated during the exchange. "I have tasks for all of you."

She spoke to Tom first.

"Tom. I want you and your guards to be ready to leave at a moments notice for the mountains on the East of the island."

Tom eyed her suspiciously. "Why?"

"Oberon's most recent decree, that concerning the gargoyles Demona and Brooklyn Wyvern. It has undoubtedly caused much resentment in at least one of them. They may come looking for revenge."

"Then we'll fight them."

"No. They live in a world where technology can cause just as much catastrophic damage as magic can...even more in some cases. I want your clan ready to get away if one does come, and they wield such a weapon."

Tom nodded grudgingly as he stood up. "As you wish my Lady."

Titania dismissed him and the human left, taking a moment to look at Hector. His hands were shaking ever so slightly, while Hector had lost at least ten pounds since he had become Titania's lackey. Hector glared at him, but said nothing. Tom shook his head sadly and went away.

Titania then turned to look on the two Fey.

"I want the two of you to go to the mortal world," she said. "I haven't heard from Puck. He reports to me every hour of my grandson's progress with his magic. I have yet to hear from him and he is never late."

Yuri and Anubis cast a glance at each other as the Queen continued.

"I have tried to contact him, but all my attempts have resulted in failure." She frowned. "Even my mirror cannot locate him. I fear some peril has beset him." She looked at the pair. "Find him. Find out what he's up to. I shall make sure no one knows of your absence. However, I advise you to only use your powers sparingly, I am not the only one at the court that has eyes and ears in the world these days."

The pair nodded and left silently.

As they did so, Hector came in, rubbing his hands giddily and shaking in excitement.

"Has my lady finished her business for tonight?" He asked eagerly.

Titania nodded and gestured for him to lie on the bed, taking a moment when his back was turned to look him over in disgust. But as disgusting as the thought of this nothing was, he knew too much of her business now. The only way to ensure his loyalty was to keep him addicted to the pleasures only she and her magic could grant him. She checked outside for any potential eavesdroppers before locking the door.

"I love you my lady."

But he was getting a little too cocky these days.

Titania did not reply, but instead set about rewarding her dislikeable, pleasure addicted servant. As he lay on her bed, sleeping after he had passed out from exhaustion, her eyes narrowed as she came to a conclusion.

Hector knew too much now and Tom had noticed the way he was acting. If word leaked to the Sisters then they too might start offering Hector similar rewards to learn her plans. There was only one definite solution to this problem.

She'd have to kill Hector soon.

Demona's Estate in Southern Germany

Faith knocked gently on the door before she opened it a crack and stuck her head in.

"Mal?"

The pale green gargoyle looked up from the book he was reading and gave Faith a friendly smile. He was stripped to the waist, revealing the bandages over his chest, shoulder and belly while the bandage had covered the cuts he had gotten on his right cheek had been removed, revealing three deep scars that actually creased the skin. He was propped into a sitting position with some extra pillows behind his back while he was holding a very thick book in his clawed hands. "Hey Faith. Come in, please."

Faith smiled and came in, dressed in a camouflage green blouse, her black boots and a pair of black combat slacks, but stopped when she saw Fang. The cougar mutate was lying on a couch that was opposite the bed and right beside the door. He had an old pair of navy jeans on and a faded grey T- shirt that might have been black once and had propped a few cushions to one side of the couch to use as a pillow for his head. There were a few light blankets pulled over him.

She turned her head to say something, but Mal put a finger to his mouth to silence her. "Ssssh, he was like that when I came out of stone sleep. I didn't even wake him, he's that out of it," he whispered. "Jezebel came in to clean up the bits of rock and put the blankets over him. Please don't wake him. He looks like he needs the sleep."

"One of the reasons I came in was to see if you knew where he was," replied Faith, whispering also. "I went to the room where we put him in after we bound the daemon. I got a few hours rest and when I came to check on him he was gone."

"He was in here the whole time then."

Faith nodded and crossed over to sit by the wooden chair beside the bed. "How are you feeling?"

"Not bad. A lot better than I felt yesterday. The flesh wounds are pretty much healed now, cept the burns on my leg and stomach. Oh and the broken bones too." He stopped. "Where's the daemon anyway?"

"It's in another of Demona's rooms underground. She's interrogating it with Jezebel and I think Lexington and Broadway went down there with them too, to watch."

"Don't you think you should be down there with them? I mean, you being an Inquisitor and all."

"No. I don't think I could look at a thing like that again for a little while yet. Besides, I'm sure Jezebel and Demona can handle it in the unlikely event of it getting loose."

Mal nodded. He looked worried about something and seemed to whisper under his breath. To Faith it sounded like: "I wonder if she knows yet." But it could easily have been something else. It had been barely audible.

There were a few moments of uncomfortable silence then. Faith looked down at the book in the gargoyle's hands. "What are you reading?"

"The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer."

"I never read that. Is it any good?"

Mal grinned, he seemed quite happy to be distracted from whatever it was that had him worried. "It's garbage." He said instantly. Faith had to suppress a chuckle, but Mal continued. "It's...just utter, complete crap. I read this and all I really see is this arrogant prat showing off. I can't understand how so many people say this is classic sort of stuff." Faith smiled and Mal smiled back at her, glad that he could talk to someone. "So...Jezebel said you were helping them bind that daemon?"

"Yes. I did help."

"She told me a bit of what happened. She said you were, uh...well..."

"What?"

"Well the words, 'bloody insane' were used more than once."

"Well..."

"And apparently you went like that after it looked like Fang was gonna get hurt."

Faith shifted uncomfortably in her chair before speaking. "Well, I didn't want to see him get killed or anything, that's all."

"Thanks for looking out for him Faith. I don't know what I would have done if he hadn't been around to listen." He tilted his head slightly, looking her over. "You know. You're not exactly what I would have expected for some sort of holy assassin."

Faith raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

"You don't seem like some real cold blooded killer, that's all."

"Oh I can be cold blooded, don't you worry. I can be very cold if I need to be to get the job done."

Mal seemed to think this over. "Do you ever...have any regrets?"

"Of course I have regrets, about a lot of things actually, including having to kill some of the people I've had too. But, the people I have to kill... well, they're always dangerous, even if some of them don't realise it at the time."

"Dangerous to who, exactly?"

Faith's smile vanished and she rose from her chair. "Are you trying to interrogate me or something?" She snapped, suddenly on the defensive.

"No!" Said Mal quickly, raising his hands. "I was just a little curious, that's all."

Faith's anger seemed to subside quickly; she put a hand over her face and sighed, suddenly looking very tired. "I'm sorry. I'm still a little tired."

"Maybe you should get a little more rest then."

Faith nodded and looked over to where Fang lay, still sleeping soundly. "Look at him, peaceful as a child." She smiled mischievously suddenly and turned to look at Malibu again. "Did you know he was a Goth?"

Mal stared at her, his eyes wide with shock. He looked over at Fang and then back to her. "Really?"

"Yeah. Both of us were."

"He left that little detail out."

"Well he would wouldn't he? He left me out."

"Well I didn't really expect him to tell me every detail of his life..." Mal paused suddenly. "Is that how you two met? At some Goth club?"

"Not exactly," replied Faith. "There was this...thing, happening in this graveyard and...well that's where we...bumped, into each other really." She seemed very embarrassed all of a sudden, so Mal decided to change the subject.

"Got any good stories about him and you?"

Faith smiled gratefully at him. "Yes. I've got a few."

"Any of them embarrassing?"

"The best ones are."

Malibu grinned evilly. "Do tell."

*****

Lexington hung back with Broadway as Demona and Jezebel interrogated the daemonhost that called itself Sin.

The quartet was in a dark circular room, much smaller than the one that had been wrecked during Demona's summoning of the entity. The daemonhost hovered several feet from the ground, held from rising up any further by a chain with heavy manacles on the end attached to the host's ankles while the other was securely fastened to the floor. The host's arms were also secured by chains coming from the walls while its body had even more chains criss-crossing its abdomen and legs, upon which hung numerous padlocks, talismans and other various items, all engraved with runes that actually hurt the two young gargoyles' eyes to look at.

Demona hadn't said a word to either of them. In fact, Broadway was actually having doubts that she even knew they were present. She had come in with a very far off look on her face, as if she was in a dream while awake. Jezebel had clearly noticed, but seemed to be deliberately not paying attention to her. They'd been in there ten minutes and she hadn't even looked her in the face yet.

There was an odd smell in the air, like the one that had been present in the van the night Malibu was attacked, like some sort of spice, strong and very sharp. The air was thick with it.

They'd asked Jezebel if they could come and watch the interrogation of the daemonhost, the old lady had smiled kindly and said that they could, providing they stayed quiet and reported immediately if the daemon said anything to either of them that no one else might hear.

Broadway liked Jezebel a great deal. There was just something about the old lady that made her hard not to like. Even if she had pointed a shotgun at his father in law, he doubted now that she would have actually shot him.

She was still holding that staff Brooklyn had ordered made, and then left after he'd obviously found something better. He'd seen her carry it out of the blazing room after she; Demona, Faith and Fang had summoned and trapped the daemon to the corpse that was hovering off the floor before them.

Broadway frowned as he looked at the witch from behind.

There hadn't been a moment since then that he hadn't seen her without that staff. The runes on it were daemonic apparently, somewhat like the ones holding Sin in its host body. While he couldn't look at them without feeling a stinging sensation at the back of his eyes, he'd actually caught Jezebel staring at them once while she was in the kitchen, tracing the outlines of the runes with her fingers and looking at them in an almost dazed state.

He'd knocked the door after a few seconds of watching her and she snapped out of it instantly and starting talking as if nothing had happened. He decided that he had better keep an eye on her from then on.

That was one reason why he was here.

There was another...but he couldn't for the life of him guess what it was.

He had just felt that when Demona and Jezebel had started their interview, he just had to be here. What stunned him was that Lexington was feeling the exact same way. Neither of them could explain it, but both felt drawn somehow to the daemon, which in truth was a little worrying.

The second he and Lex had come in here, they could feel the malevolence of the entity. Broadway had wanted to turn and leave right then, though he didn't say so.

But then he got that feeling that he had to stay. Something was going to be said or something was going to happen that he had to be present for.

He didn't have to ask Lex to know his rookery brother felt the same way.

"Where will he go?" Asked Jezebel.

The daemonhost looked at her coldly while Broadway suddenly felt a cold feeling at the back of head for the briefest instant.

Lexington obviously felt it too.

"What the Hell was that?" He whispered to his larger brother. Lex had seemed to be following Demona's example and had started wearing clothing of a sort, a black bodyglove specially tailored so that his webbed wings hung out and could still be used. Broadway still preferred his loincloth.

"I think that's the daemon inside talking."

"Telepathy?"

"I guess so."

Jezebel seemed to consider whatever it was the daemonhost said for a moment before looking back at Sin. Demona hadn't moved yet, she seemed to be staring ahead of herself to some undefined point.

"What's there that he wants?"

Another cold feeling at the back of Broadway's head.

"What can it do?"

That feeling again.

"My God."

The interview continued for a little while longer, without Broadway and Lexington once hearing the daemon's voice, being only aware of when it spoke, and sometimes even of the tone it took.

And then suddenly Demona seemed to come out of her trance.

Very slowly, she turned her head to look at Jezebel and said, with her voice remarkably controlled:

"Why didn't you tell me?"

Jezebel stopped her questioning of Sin and looked over at the azure gargess. "What?"

"I asked you why you didn't tell me."

"Tell you what?"

Demona's eyes flared hellish red as she glared at the witch and took several threatening steps towards her.

"Don't toy with me human!" she nearly screamed. "While we were binding that abomination, I bit my tongue! I also got quite a few bruises, burns and cuts! When I went to take care of them they were gone! Just the slightest traces left on my skin! Where did they go witch? Why didn't you tell me?!"

"Demona...I...I thought that maybe it might have been better-"

"Better? Exactly who would it have been better for witch?" Hissed Demona, as she stalked towards Jezebel. Broadway was suddenly all too aware of the various weapons hanging from Demona's black armoured bodyglove.

"Is that the second reason Jezebel? You wanted me along so that I could kill him? Is that why I'm here?"

"A last resort Demona. We were going to tell you-"

"WHEN? When I was dying? Were you going to explain all the basics while I was gasping for breath as I lay in a pool of my own blood? Or was I going to have to figure it out for myself if we got to Brooklyn without the need for violence as I watched my clan grow old and die around me? You had no intention of telling me the truth did you? I'm surprised you could think of anything so underhanded, at least Macbeth was a man of honour!"

"How dare you even speak his name!" Screamed Macbeth's old servant. Her eyes began to blaze in amber flame as the staff in her hands started to shudder menacingly. "You're the cause of it all you hellish bitch!"

Demona growled wickedly, reaching over her back to pull her combat shotgun from its sheath.

Broadway started forward. If he didn't intervene now then blood was going to be spilt. As Demona pulled her weapon from its sheath, racking it as she did so and Jezebel began chanting something under her breath, Broadway stepped in between them.

"Are you both frigging nuts?" He yelled. He looked Demona in the eye. "What the Hell are you talking about? And why's it worth killing each other?"

Demona looked at him, as if noticing him for the first time. Her eyes flared down and her mouth opened and closed for a brief second before she recovered from the surprise. She slowly lowered the shotgun till the barrel was pointed at the floor. Her face softened as she looked at her son-in- law.

"I'm sorry Broadway...but..."

She stared at him, that far off look entering her features again. Broadway put his hand on her shoulder gently, hoping to try and bring back into this world. The contact seemed to snap Demona out of her trance, she looked down at his hand for a few moments and then slowly up to look him in the face. Broadway could see something very serious was wrong instantly.

"Demona? Demona what's the matter?" He asked, genuinely concerned. Ever since she'd been allowed back into the clan, his dislike of her had died down rapidly and she'd even saved his life once. He found himself liking and respecting her as much as he once had back before the massacre at Wyvern.

Demona looked up into his turquoise eyes, her own eyes, a shade of deep sea green, were in anguish. She looked him over, and then her expression changed completely. Her lip quivered ever so slightly while her eyes held fear, as if she had just come to some horrifying realisation. She looked from him to where he guessed Lexington was standing behind him, and then past that to Jezebel.

She took a step back out from his hand, towards the door.

"Demona?"

Demona shook her head and took several more steps back.

"I...I...can't..."she whispered, fighting tears. "Not again..."

She turned quickly and strode rapidly to the door, pulling it open and slamming it behind her.

"Demona!" Yelled Jezebel, quickly brushing past Broadway and rushing to the door. "Demona I'm sorry!"

He stared after the departing woman, more than a little worried.

"What the heck was that all about?" Asked Lex. He had moved up beside him, as he had been staring after Demona's retreat.

"I... I don't know," replied Broadway, still looking at the closed door. "But I think we'd better make sure she's okay."

"She looked really upset."

"I know. And whatever Jezebel didn't tell her, it's obviously big."

They both headed towards the door quickly, not paying any heed to the chained daemonhost, which was regarding them with something as close to recognition as you could find on the face of a corpse.

~Broadway Wyvern.~

Broadway stopped dead in his tracks, a few meters from the door. He had heard that hadn't he?

~Don't be so fast to leave my young friend.~

The voice was almost warm, friendly even. That seemed to make this even more unnerving somehow. Broadway knew it was the daemonhost Sin talking to him in his head.

~I think you and I should have a little chat.~

The aquamarine gargoyle turned his head slightly so that he could see the daemonhost out of the corner of his eye. He regarded it suspiciously. He opened his mouth to say something, but then, worrying that Lex might not hear the daemonhost and start thinking he was talking to himself, he simply thought a response, correctly guessing that the daemon would hear him.

-What do you want?-

~Just to tell you of a few things.~ Replied the captive daemonhost.

Broadway frowned. –Such as?-

He could feel the daemon smile at the back of his head. ~Your future...if you're interested that is.~

Broadway's frown deepened, as he turned his head to look at the host's dead face, which was giving him a very superior smile at that moment.

-You know my future? - He thought, regarding the bound entity with great scepticism.

~Only bits and pieces.~

-And just how exactly did you come by these bits and pieces?-

~I was stuck in a piece of metal for a few centuries, so I was a little out of the loop regarding the fates of some of the more important and tragic figures that had yet to come. When I was returned to the Darkness I learned a few things.~

-Including my future?-

~A little of it.~

-And?-

The daemonhost frowned at him. ~And what?~

-What's supposed to happen to me?-

~You will fall.~

Broadway grinned. –That's it? I'm gonna trip or something?-

~Actually...I meant into the Darkness.~

Broadway glared dangerously at the daemonhost. –What the Hell's that supposed to mean?-

Sin smiled darkly at the gargoyle. ~Exactly what it sounds like gargoyle. One day...you will be hated, not just by humanity...but by your own clan as well. You will be hunted, hated, and all those who are around you will fall at the wayside, through your own hand or through the efforts of others. Your only company will be the damned, and you will die, many years before a lonely, savage end.~

Broadway crossed his arms over his chest, frowning. –So what's that supposed to be? A curse?-

~No,~ replied Sin. ~It is...well...let' s just call it...an event with more than good possibility of coming to pass shall we?~

-You mean something like my fate?-

The daemonhost frowned. ~No. Not fate. Fate is an excuse. It is used by the weak of will and mind that do not try hard enough to control their own destinies. There is always a choice. It's just most are not aware of the options. And even then, many proceed regardless of them, choosing not to believe. If you could not avoid this then I would not waste my time telling you.~

-And why are you telling me this?-

~So you can avoid it. I imagine that would be pretty obvious don't you?~

Broadway looked the daemonhost over suspiciously. –If it's so bad then why would you want me to avoid it? And why should I even listen to you? Or trust you for that matter? You're a daemon after all. We're on different sides. –

Broadway could hear the daemon's laughter echo through his head as it looked at him, amused.

~I'm not doing this for your benefit!~ laughed Sin. ~I'm doing this to piss off my superiors! They so badly want this deal to go off you see! And its so simple for you to avoid this!~ Sin leaned its head as far forward as its bonds would permit it and told Broadway:

~Never, ever, trust Gabriel.~

Broadway frowned at this. If he remembered what Angela had told him, Gabriel was the leader of the gargoyles on Avalon. What did he have to do with anything?

Broadway's eyes widened as a thought occurred to him.

He looked directly into the dead eyes of Sin's host.

-If you know a little of the future, then what will happen? Will we stop Brooklyn? Will we save him from whatever he's become?-

~I have said too much already,~ said Sin. ~So I shall say only this to you, the future for your kind is dark, and full of hate and pain. You protect a race that will eventually destroy yours, along with countless others if they are not stopped, by Brooklyn, or by others. ~ Sin smiled at him. ~Keep that in mind, when you stand alone at the gate.~

And with that, Sin would say no more.

Broadway looked at the daemonhost for a few moments, unsure whether to believe it or not, before he turned and started slowly walking to the door.

"You heard all that didn't you?"

Broadway turned about and looked at Lexington who was just a little behind him. His rookery brother had a weird look in his eyes, he seemed a little frightened.

"You did hear all that didn't you?" He repeated.

"Yeah," said Broadway simply. He looked over at Sin. "And it's all a bunch of crap too." He looked down at his brother and smiled encouragingly at him. "No one can tell the future, not even daemons."

Lex seemed to cheer up a little, the look of fear changed to certainty. He chuckled. "Yeah, you're right."

They both walked quickly to the exit, both smiling at each other now, and even chuckling at what was obviously a bunch of crap, while Sin watched them leave. Lexington started openly laughing at all he'd heard.

Broadway smiled, opened the door and went outside. As the door started swing back into place, Lexington took a hold of the doorknob, but didn't open it.

"Hey Lex! Aren't ya coming?"

"Just a second," replied the small web wing. He silently shut the door behind his brother and looked back at Sin. The daemonhost hung in the air, staring at him but saying nothing.

"You were just pulling my leg, right?"

Sin remained silent.

Lexington glared at the daemonhost. "Yeah, you were just pulling my leg. Just spewing a lot of crap to scare me. I would never do that and you know it."

The daemonhost continued to stare at Lexington, not saying anything, psychically or verbally to the young gargoyle. A small smile spread across Lexington's lips.

"Crap, that's all it is. Broadway's right. You don't know the future. You can't know it. It's impossible." He turned and opened the door. "I would never hurt him, let alone kill him and you know it. No matter what the reason." He walked out of the room, letting the door slowly swung back into its frame of its own accord while Sin watched him go. "He is, after all..." whispered Lexington Wyvern to himself as he strode down the darkened, arc shaped hallway leading to the curved stairs, with only the crackling flame torches that lined one side of the walls to guide him.

"...my leader."

The daemonhost Sin looked at the closed door for a long time as the lights died around it.

~I tried. Let no one dare say otherwise.~

*****

Jezebel walked out of the servant's entrance of the mansion, onto the path of gravel that led out to the gardens. The security light above the door had been on when she had come out from sensing movement, which meant Demona had come this way. She scanned the endless darkness at the edge of the light provided by the mansion before walking out into it without a second thought.

She was a witch, so the darkness held nothing that could frighten her.

She went along the pathway, every other footstep accompanied by the metallic clink of the metal staff as it descended onto the stone ground. She held it in her right hand, absentmindedly tracing the outlines of one of the daemonic runes engraved upon the staff with her thumb as she walked further from the house and its light.

She looked into the sky where there was a fair amount of cloud cover and the only sign that the moon was out was the illuminated outline of part of one of the clouds further off. There were cracks though in the clouds and in them she could see a brilliant display of stars.

"Demona!"

She looked around into the night as she neared a maze made of hedges, well attended, and at least two feet thick and eight feet tall. She called out again for the azure gargess to come out.

They had to talk. She had to explain why she hadn't told her. She wanted her to know that they were going to tell her after they were sure she was ready for it.

"Demona please! Demona I'm..."

An image of Macbeth suddenly came into her thoughts and she stopped mid sentence.

She stood in the darkness, quiet all of a sudden.

There must have been a stream nearby; she could hear water rushing now. There was the scent of lavender in the quiet night air. The moon came out from the clouds and she looked up into it.

How many had he seen in his lifetime? How many moons under how many skies?

Jezebel looked down at the gravel, trying not to think of Macbeth, not now of all times.

But...

There had been a boy once, ages ago know. And she had been a girl then, with her mother and her grandmother as her only guides. They had taught her everything about the world that witches needed to know.

"We can't be going to send you to school now can we?" Muttered her grandmother so many times as she and Jezebel sat beside the fireplace, drawing pictures in the ashes without lifting a finger. "If we send you to school...you'll be educated my girl! And then where will you be, eh?"

The boy, that summer, he had proposed to her, but that summer she had seen a man whom sadness seemed to follow everywhere he went. He had been passing through her little town, out in the middle of no-where. He had only stayed in the inn a week or so.

He had known her grandmother, from a time that she had never spoken of to the young and then, naïve Jezebel. They used to sit in the corner of the inn that he stayed in and talked for hours. The man and her grandmother, swapping stories of what had happened since they had last met, and telling her, as she sat there listening to them, of the adventures they had together when her grandmother was barely older than she was then.

And oh what stories!

Tales of ships and magic! Treasure and sword fights upon the battlements of castles in far off lands! Watching polar bears in the Artic and lions in the jungles of darkest Africa! The danger! The excitement of it all!

Jezebel became totally in awe of this man who had apparently never aged a day since he had first met her family. She had fallen in love with him in the same way, she suspected, that her grandmother had, perhaps even when she was her age.

She could tell from the way that they talked to each other, the sad and regretful way that they looked at each other across the table, when everything around them just seemed to vanish, until it was only they.

The day he left, that last day on midsummer's eve. He had come to their cottage, miles away from anywhere, there had been the smell of lavender in the air, there had been entire fields of it where they had lived, it had been her mother and grandmother's favourite flower. Hers too.

Her grandmother and the very sad man had walked along a dirt road, from their home, side by side, to where a stream flowed, under the shade of, it had been a willow tree hadn't it?

Her grandmother had raised her arms, and the water stopped flowing. It froze, and parted, revealing the rounded stones underneath. She had whispered words that were lost to the young Jezebel as a strong breeze came up, drowning out the words with the swaying of the reeds the girl that she had been then had hidden in.

The stones had parted for her grandmother, as an unseen force dug into the stone and mud underneath, until finally something that was not part of the river or the ground beneath became visible.

Something wrapped in an old cloth, darkened with dirt and age.

She had walked over to it and picked it up while the man watched her from the bank. She had come over to him slowly and held out the package before her. She began to speak, and Jezebel had strained to listen to what was being said between the pair.

"Why move it now my love?" Her grandmother had asked.

"I can keep it safe now," replied the man. "I have acquired a castle with very deep dungeons that I can keep it safe in. I can hide it, and she will never find it again."

"My grandmother died to help you get this from her," her grandmother had said. "It can never fall into her hands again, or those of any other with ill intent. It should be destroyed."

"And yet it remains. We are too weak my shining star. You and I. We have the will to, but our souls are weak and corruptible. We have touched it, and felt its power after all."

Her grandmother had smiled at him then and handed him the package. He took it from her, but did not look inside. They had stared into each other's eyes for a moment, she could see her grandmother's cobalt blue eyes from where she had hidden and they were full of longing and sadness.

They said nothing to each other. Instead, they gripped each other's hand, smiled and then broke apart, and headed in opposite directions from each other, her grandmother going back to their cottage and Macbeth going down the road to the inn.

Neither looked back once.

The boy, he had proposed to her a few days later and as much as she had loved him, she could not say yes. There was another then, and she found herself in love with him in a way she couldn't even describe.

She had resolved to find him. When she was old enough and her mother and grandmother had nothing left to teach her. She had left their little cottage by the fields of lavender and set out across the continent, going through all sorts of interesting jobs and towns until she had seen that castle in the distance. That one that on the hill, that had a view of the rapidly growing New York skyline.

He had opened the door to her himself and smiled, even though it had been nearly five years since they had last met, he recognised her at once and let her in.

And it was as simple as that.

She, upon realising the pain she could put him through if they became anything more than friends, instead became his most trusted servant. She followed him on many adventures, as her grandmother and her grandmother's grandmother had apparently done so.

She sacrificed everything to be with him, to only be with him. In truth there hadn't been a day that she hadn't thought about what her life may have been like if she had said yes to that boy.

But she had been happy living with Macbeth, but there was always that sadness around him, the sadness that she caused.

Jezebel's eyes snapped open, wet with tears that ran, scolding hot down her cheeks.

Demona had caused all his pain. He had destroyed her and himself along with her to stop what he had believed to be yet another plot for genocide, and yet Demona had been brought back and linked to Brooklyn now in immortality, to punish something that, now that Jezebel thought about it more really did make sense.

People don't change, they can't ever change.

She looked out into the darkness around her before turning around and walking back towards the mansion.

Demona was evil, she was the cause of all this and she deserved no pity from anyone.

"She doesn't deserve any pity. Someone as evil and hateful as that," whispered Jezebel to herself.

As she walked inside, she didn't notice the rune that she had been thumbing, glow faintly in the darkness.

"No pity at all."

The sewers under St. Petersburg

The vast expanse of tunnels, sewers drains and pipes, echoed the piercing screams for kilometres in every direction of the source.

A boy was dying one of the cruellest deaths imaginable.

Gregor Zaitsev watched his latest victim writhe and thrash on the altar he had been strapped to, a look on his face that suggested this was not the first time he had witnessed the horror. After all, he was the cause of it.

But truth be told he had grown rather weary of watching children die in this fashion.

He rubbed his crotch and smiled to himself.

At least the boy had serviced him in a fairly decent manner in that department.

His blood had the taste of too much junk food and sugar after more scrutinised tasting was done.

The boy, the one he'd grabbed at the cinema, was strapped spread-eagled on the top of an altar made of crushed bone, compressed and filed into the image of three circles connected to each other by a three pronged bolt of lightning that sat in the centre.

The symbol of Grandfather Nurgle, Lord of Plagues, Pestilence, and other general unpleasantness.

His gift to Lucifer was hungry.

The boy was naked on the altar, except for the gauntlets on his hands. Each was the colour of worn metal, a blend of rusted red and deathly green that was amplified by the single naked light bulb hanging right above the altar. It brought a harsh glare to the areas that its light touched, while amplifying the shadows of the circular chamber; walls lined with row upon row of polished deaths heads. A legion of socket-less eyeholes stared out at him as his dry throat emitted yet another hoarse scream.

Zaitsev yawned.

The gauntlets, each a masterpiece, ornately carved with intricate scenes of deaths, swarms of flies, ancient graves defiled and plague victims, their bodies bloated as boils the size fists and greater, exploded all over their bodies in spews of puss and blood. Small, scythe like claws, were at the end of each fingertip. The other joints of the fingers of the gauntlets were simply spiked with cruel, serrated claws that ended in tiny hooks whose sole purpose was to take large chunks of flesh from whomever they were used to punch.

Upon the backhand of each, was a triangle. Inside it were three symbols. To the bottom left was Nurgle's. To the right of it was the eight pronged star, a malevolent eye in its centre. The symbol of Chaos. Atop both of these was the Pentecostal star, symbol of Lucifer, the Morning Star and undisputed Lord of the Darkness.

The stench of death and disease in the room was overpowering.

The boy's once plump belly was bloated now, on the verge of splitting open as all the liquids in his body thickened and made their way to his midriff. His left eye was dislodged from its socket as a boil arose just behind the lid, and filling with thick, stinking puss as the eye dangled along the side of his temple before bursting, filling the socket with its thick, sickening yellow mess. He screamed all the louder. Shaking his head madly. The eye, still connected to his head by its cord, began to twirl around and hit its owner as if it were a ball and chain.

Zaitsev, finding this rather funny, laughed, while pulling something out from his brown greatcoat.

"Come out where I can see you," he said calmly, aiming the chrome plated, stub-nosed revolver into the darkness.

A smile crossed his lips as the black-clad figure did so. "You never returned my calls," he said, ignoring another ear splitting scream from the boy on the altar.

"Sorry about that," said Furcifer, his voice quite genuine as he came into the light, his hands raised above his head as if the pistol in Zaitsev's hand could actually hurt him. "I've been quite busy."

"So I've heard."

Furcifer smiled and lowered his hands as he came around the altar that the boy was dying on and embraced Zaitsev in a camaraderie manner. Zaitsev returned the favour as they both laughed heartily.

They broke the embrace and Furcifer smiled at him. "You're rather hard to find."

Zaitsev smiled back, "I find it quite hard to believe that you of all people had difficulty finding me."

"This place has changed since the last time I was here," explained Furcifer. "There were no sewers then."

"And people threw their crap on the street," finished Zaitsev.

"Exactly."

Furcifer looked at the boy on the altar with mild interest as he emitted a death rattle as he thrashed too hard and broke his back. The young teenager slumped on the table, his eyes glazing over as he let out his last breath.

"What's the matter with youth these days?" Asked Zaitsev. "They're so damned weak."

"What do you mean? You like it when they're weak."

"I mean for this! It only took this one two hours," complained the huge Russian bitterly. "I remember when the young of this land took almost a solid five hours to expire as the gauntlets fed on them."

"Five hours?" Said Furcifer in wonder. He thought this over for a moment. "Communists?"

Zaitsev sighed as he nodded his head. "Now they were fun."

They both sighed simultaneously and shook their heads.

"Oh well," said Furcifer, poking the corpse with a hand gloved in black leather as it began to decompose at unnatural speed. He turned to look at Zaitsev. "So...apart from the whole weak prey stuff...how are things?"

"Can't complain. Yourself? I was wondering when you'd show up." Zaitsev looked around the chamber curiously. "So where is he?"

"Who?"

"You know who."

Furcifer smiled at him mischievously, "why? Are you that desperate to get out of here?"

Zaitsev emitted a low chuckle. "Seriously. Where is he?"

His smile vanished when Furcifer shrugged.

"I've no idea." He said calmly. "Last I saw of him, he was closer to St. Petersburg than I was. I wish I knew what'd happened that's keeping him so long."

Zaitsev stared at him. "Aren't you supposed to be protecting him?"

"I don't believe he needs it."

"How can you be so confident?"

"He is the Anointed. I am sure of it." Replied Furcifer, with an air of certainty that permitted no argument.

Zaitsev frowned. It was dangerous for Furcifer to make assumptions such as this, but he knew better than to question him. "Wanna go for a drink? I know a place."

Furcifer looked at him suspiciously, "depends...do you drink from glasses or people in this place?"

"Glasses."

"Ah, I see...have the contents of these glasses been in people before they got into the glasses?"

"Not usually."

Furcifer smiled. "Excellent." He looked at the fast rotting corpse with distaste and covered his nose with a handkerchief. "Shall we vacate the premises? It's just this place is starting to smell as bad as you now."

Zaitsev threw his head back and laughed, until he realised Furcifer wasn't joking.

"Fuck you."

Furcifer shook his head and smiled as he led Zaitsev out of the chamber, while the young boy's flesh was ripped from his bones before dissolving in the air while the corpse's bloated belly finally split, spewing liquefied organs all over the altar, causing the stench in the room to reach unbearable limits.

Paris

The French capital was peacefully quiet in the early morning. The sun had been concealed by grey clouds, but still managed to shine down through the occasional gap. The city had yet to fully awake and only a few establishments, mainly grocers, supermarkets, newsagents and the odd coffee house to service the early risers were really open. The early morning mist that covered the river Seine, as it flowed lazily through the vast city had yet to fully dissipate and due to this mainly, no one really noticed the small skiff that had emerged from an unusually thick patch on the river. On this skiff stood two figures.

You would have had to try very hard to find an odder pair.

One was a woman, oriental and stunningly beautiful. Her shimmering black hair reached past her shoulders and shifted in the early morning breeze. She looked out on the world with eyes, a cold shade of arctic blue, which were currently concealed behind a designer pair of black sunglasses that cost as much as some peoples' entire wardrobes. She was dressed in a business suit by one of the premiere designers of the world that cost more than some cars. A white pair of lady's trousers with a white business jacket, which hung open loosely, contradicted sharply by her black shoes and large collared black blouse, on which was a Chinese white dragon motif on the left breast pocket. She stood rigidly straight on the skiff, with an air of unquestionable authority. A medium sized travel bag, yet again done by a world-renowned designer, lay by her feet. She was, for lack of a better word, stunning.

Her companion was male and dressed quite differently. He was quite tall, and while his female companion's age looked to be around mid or early twenties, he appeared to be in his early forties. He was strangely handsome though, with high cheekbones and a prominent forehead. He looked out on the world with a pair of kind, chocolate brown eyes that seemed to project a feeling of sympathy to whoever he talked too. His hair was very black with a small beard and moustache that was connected to the rest of his hair through his sideburns. He was thin, but strongly built. He was dressed in dusty, old, white travel robes. He wore worn sandals on his feet. He seemed like a priest of some description. A simple sheepskin travel bag was slung over his shoulder.

Their wooden skiff, designed simply for a simple purpose, drifted along the Seine until it came up to a stone walkway that descended to river level that was just under a bridge, allowing those with boats to dock there and come up into the streets of the just waking city. The skiff drifted into place silently and the woman leapt off immediately and began to walk briskly to the stone stairs.

She was interrupted by a rather irritated cough and turned around to look at the man, who was frowning at her disapprovingly and pointing to her bag.

She put her hands on her hips impatiently. "Well? What are you waiting for?"

The man gave her a look that could probably kill lesser people, grabbed the woman's bag roughly and tossed at her. The woman caught the bag between her lithe hands, and glared dangerously back at the man as he got out of the skiff himself. They stood and faced each other; he stood slightly taller, but that did little to intimidate the woman.

"I am not your servant Yuri," hissed the man dangerously, as he started walking forward and past the woman.

"Still," said Yuri. "Acting like a gentleman surely wouldn't hurt you would it?"

Anubis turned about and glared at her. "We have pressing little time woman. I just want to find out where Puck is and go home as quickly as possible. So get a move on. If you slow pace I won't wait for you." He turned about and walked up the stairs. Yuri glared at him before picking up her own bag and following him up.

They came up onto the street and looked around. Both looking irritated for different reasons.

"Paris," hissed Yuri, looking at a few people across the road, looking over the other end of the bridge. "I hate French people."

"You hate everyone," snapped Anubis. He looked around as the sun managed to force its way through the clouds, shining down on the pair. "Why would Puck be here? I thought the Queen's grandson lived in Manhattan?"

"He does. Perhaps Puck is neglecting his duty and wasting our time."

Anubis sighed sadly as he looked around. "There's so much life here."

"And we're pretty much barred from using our magic to find him," said Yuri. She glared at Anubis. "Stay on the matter at hand. I don't care about them; so don't start blabbing crap about how short and sad their lives are. Fuck them. They don't matter, they never did and they never will."

Anubis growled something under his breath and didn't reply. Yuri counted that as an adequate response and picked a direction at random and started walking down the road quickly, Anubis following behind a few paces, not making any effort to catch up and walk beside her, as that may lead to further conversation.

After about an hour, the morning traffic started to congest as people began to rise and make off to their places of work, filling the roads with cars, buses and the occasional motorcycle. Yuri and Anubis continued walking along the streets, occasionally asking around if anybody had seen either a tall, rather stiff looking man in a business suit with blonde hair and blue eyes or a silver haired youngster with colourful clothing on. So far they had been unsuccessful.

"I'm fed up," stated Yuri, very irritated. "We're going for a coffee."

"But we haven't found–"

"I said we are going for a coffee."

Anubis growled angrily and then growled some more when he was informed that he had decided to pay for coffee as well. It wasn't particularly hard to find a coffee shop in Paris, in fact it would have been more difficult for them to try and find a street in the shopping areas that didn't have at least two. However, Yuri didn't like the look of any on the street she had declared she wanted to stop. Neither did she like the look of the ones on the next several streets. Anubis kept looking at his watch impatiently before Yuri finally found one that suited her taste.

It had modernist style architecture with two-dozen or so glass and steel tables out the front of the establishment that for reasons Anubis couldn't quite explain reminded him of dead swans while the steel chairs were twisted in a way that reminded him of giant pumpkins.

"This isn't one of those artsy type places is it?" He asked after looking through the all glass walls that showed that the dead swan and pumpkins seemed to be some sort of theme for the interior decoration.

"Why? Do you hate artsy places?"

"Extremely."

"Good. Sit down."

They sat for several minutes, waiting to be served, Yuri taking out some lipstick and applying extra layer to what Anubis thought was an already heavily done mouth. Someone came up to them out of the crowd, but Yuri was too busy to notice that it wasn't actually a waiter.

Anubis did however.

"Puck?"

"Would you care for any starters? Perhaps some cyanide for your lady friend here?" The Fey trickster smiled impishly at Anubis. "How's my favourite half-jackal-half-man today? Nice outfit by the way Yuri."

Anubis glared at him. "You were following us?"

"Yes. I figured that if I stayed magically silent then the Sisters and Daddy Oberon wouldn't bother me. I sort of also figured that Titania would send somebody she could trust to find out what's happening with me."

"How did you know where we would arrive?" Asked Yuri, casually slipping her lipstick back in her pocket. Anubis looked at her carefully. If Puck's sudden arrival had surprised the Eastern Fey, she was doing an exceptional job of not showing it.

"That's where the skiff to Paris always arrives."

"How do you know about what's happening on Avalon?" Asked Yuri, now only turning her head to actually look at Puck. The trickster was dressed in a very colourful shirt, with a pair of blue jeans, brown boots and a black leather jacket that had small badges of all shapes and sizes covering the front and shoulders. His elfish ears where hidden under his long silvery hair.

"When I'm reporting to the Queen, we do actually talk, when we think we aren't being listened to anyway."

"Why are you here?" Asked Yuri. "What's so important that you defy Oberon and Titania?"

"Believe it or not I am in fact doing what they told me to do," replied Puck, smiling wryly, pulling up a chair and sitting down beside Anubis. "They told me to protect Alexander. That's what I'm here to do. I had sort of been hoping for a little more than the pair of you as the cavalry but I suppose five is better than three any day."

Anubis raised an eyebrow. "Five?"

Puck looked at him for a moment before bursting into a grin. "Oh dear how rude of me! Genieve! Robert! Come over here and introduce yourselves!"

Two people, a man and a woman, departed from the crowd and came up to the Fey table. Anubis looked them over.

"These are," said Puck grandly, first pointing to the woman. "Genieve de Morangias." He then pointed to the man. "And Robert Faulkner."

The woman, Genieve, was black and in her early twenties. Her skin was a beautiful shade of ebony. She had stunning sapphire eyes, while she sported a pretty, but not wholly beautiful face. Her hair, black as the night sky, was made to stand up in a way that reminded Anubis of the prow of a ship. She was very well built though. Anubis could see formidable looking muscles under her clothes. She was wearing a sleeveless black top made of satin, revealing powerful shoulders, the rest of her arms were concealed by a pair of black evening gloves that reached up well past her elbows. She had a pair of black pants of the same material as her top, with a white leather belt across her waist, with black lady's boots covering her feet.

The man, Faulkner, was white, his skin well tanned. He stood slightly taller than Genieve. He looked to be roughly the same age, perhaps a year or two older. He had unruly brick brown hair, with a pair of silver grey eyes though with a fairly plain face. He was clean-shaven except for a mound of hair that sat on his small chin that Anubis assumed to be some sort of beard. He was dressed quite casually, in khaki pants, a pair of brown hiker's boots, a faded Foo Fighters T-shirt under an open navy coloured denim jacket.

"How do you do," said Faulkner cheerily, a hint of an English accent on his lips. He extended a hand to Yuri. The Fey woman looked at it and back up at him in complete distaste, so he withdrew it awkwardly.

"Who are you?" Asked Yuri after she felt sure that the humans were uncomfortable enough.

"Old friends of Puck here," replied Genieve, giving Yuri a cold stare of her own. Her voice held no clear accent. "He sort of dropped in on us."

"Mind if they sit?" Asked Puck. Anubis nodded quickly before Yuri could say anything and so the humans drew up two chairs, sitting as far away from Yuri as possible. Anubis looked Puck over as they did so.

"You look tired," said Anubis.

"I'm bloody exhausted," replied Puck.

"How'd you get here?"

Puck smiled and looked at him. "Oh that's a story and a bit."

Flashback: Manhattan, Two days previous

"Go on!" Yelled Puck; looking upwards. "I'll handle this."

He looked up into the thickest part of the flock of daemonic crows as Claw carried Elisa off towards Talon and the open manhole as quickly as he could.

Puck began to chant as he started searching out the sky, concentrating so much of his magical power that he sent a mild tremor through the ground.

The crows began to circle him, ignoring the others. Puck looked into the centre, concentrating, yelling in the daemon's tongue, and challenging Crow to reveal its true form to him.

He could hear the daemon chuckle, its mocking laughter echoing throughout the confines of his mind. –Laugh at me will you?-

~Yes,~ replied the dark cloud of birds. ~You are but a weakling Fey. I, am a Greater Daemon. You shall die this day for standing against me.~

-If you're not afraid of me then show yourself!- Puck's eyes narrowed as he thought this, he brought his hands together and began to chant under his breath. If what the daemon said was true, then he had only one sure chance of defeating it.

The daemon laughed. The crows cawed and began to fly en masse upwards. The temperature dropped while small shafts of blue lightning began to emanate from them as their images became blurred as they all circled around each other ever closer until they had all become one immense black blur in the sky. More shafts of lightning came out from the mass now, straying off in random directions, lighting up the entire street.

A shape began to form out of the blur. First, long, lithe arms, clawed feet, a pair of immense wings, an extended neck on which sat a bird daemon's head, its curved black beak was lined with a row of tiny, sharp fangs. Its entire body was covered with black feathers, while a pair of pitiless blood red orbs served as its eyes. A long robe with wide sleeves, an imperial shade of dark purple, was wrapped around Crow's thin body. The Greater Daemon stood at roughly twelve foot six, towering over the Fey. Long arcs of blue lightning ran up and down the daemon as it looked down at Puck, showing its teeth to its opponent in way of a smile. They were mere feet apart.

Puck smiled triumphantly back at it. "Thanks. I needed a big target." With that he threw everything he had at the Greater Daemon all at once in a single, concentrated blast of magic.

Crow seemed to have anticipated this. It raised one of its hands, withered long fingers bedecked in gold rings, out before it, and a streak of daemonic lightning came out of its fingers as the smell of spices in the air intensified.

Both shots collided with each other and the ground shook as they did so. The entire street was lit up as Puck and the Greater Daemon let loose with as much destructive energy as they possibly could. Both of their shots had hit each other and were pushing against each other violently as both assailants fought to outdo the other.

Puck took a step forward, both hands now outstretched. Not to be outdone, Crow took two steps forward. This continued for several seconds until the pair were barely two feet apart.

~If one of us does not let up soon,~ whispered Crow, its voice sounding a little strained. ~We will loose control.~

"That's the plan," replied Puck, barely. His body was now rigid while shafts of magical and psychic energy ran up and down his strained limbs.

~But that will destroy the both of us.~

"It'll destroy you won't it?"

~Of course...but you shall die too.~

Puck remained silent, gritting his teeth as he fought to keep control and not let Crow outdo him. He had to keep pushing as hard as he could. The timing had to be perfect.

The daemon smiled. ~Self-sacrifice? Oh please! You should know what happens.~ Puck said nothing so the daemon continued. ~You will die, and shall never walk the earth again. My grip on the physical world will be broken...but I will return in time.~

"Centuries...even...millennia...from now..."

~Perhaps, but we have learned patience.~ Said Crow. ~Any idea of sacrifice against the likes of me is pointless, as I can never be truly destroyed in the first place.~

Puck growled through clenched teeth. He could feel the strain of the energy build-up in front of him; he could feel his clothes begin to burn. Any second now...

~You shall die here against me. Alone.~

Despite all the strain on him, Puck somehow managed a mischievous half- grin.

"Who said I'm...taking you...on alone?"

He could actually see the Greater Daemon frown over the area where their attacks were colliding. He drew off a little of his strength, just barely enough to do what he needed to do. Crow seemed to grasp what was going on and tried impotently to stop him, but they were so close now that if it slacked off any of its own power in the attack then Puck's may have broken through the daemon's and destroyed it while Puck would remain, while Puck didn't need a great deal to reach out for a mind he knew so well.

-Alexander.-

The infant half-Fey was still at the Eerie, which was excellent; it meant he didn't have to reach too far from here.

-Yes teacher,- came the reply, instantly.

Puck couldn't help but smile. The boy was so strong already. –My boy, I need to ask a favour of you.-

-I think I know what it is.-

-That spell I taught you, the one that involves transporting objects over very long distances...-

-Like I did with the clones? - Asked Alex quickly.

-Yes, this is what I want you to do.- Puck explained quickly. -And remember, either the timing is perfect or I'm dead.-

-I understand Puck.-

The Fey trickster thanked Alexander and poured every ounce of reserve he had left at the daemon, which now had no choice, but to do the same or die.

Barely seconds later, the pressing together of such awesome power on both sides created a deadly reaction, and the destructive power exploded outwards in all directions.

At the precise time that this happened, Alexander grabbed hold of Puck with his magic, and teleported him out of the blast zone.

Crow barely had a chance to howl in rage before the blast hit and destroyed the daemon, along with most of the surrounding area. The last thing it heard before the explosion that destroyed its grip on the world was Puck's near maniacal laughter.

Back to present: Paris

Anubis smiled as Puck finished his story of how he defeated the Greater Daemon. Puck seemed more than willing to take in any praise.

"Clever," said Yuri grudgingly. This seemed to give Puck an even bigger ego boost as he grinned back at the eastern Fey. "I take it that it was Alexander who also sent you here?"

"That's right. With the exact same spell."

"He landed in my bedroom," said Genieve. "Out cold too. He didn't wake up till yesterday."

"So you haven't technically actually defied Oberon at all," said Anubis, catching on. "Because you fought the daemon to protect Alexander's protectors, and it was Alexander himself who sent you here."

"That's right," smiled Puck. "That which cannot be broken can often be bent instead."

"So what are you going to do now?" Asked Yuri.

"Simple," replied Puck. "I have a feeling that Demona and the others may not have the strength to stop Brooklyn and whatever is helping him get what he needs for revenge so I propose we deal with him instead so as to make sure the clan's not hurt."

"We should contact the court then," said Anubis.

"No," said Yuri firmly. "This could create a scandal in the court and our Lord may be directly implicated. He did after all create this mess in the first place. It may lead to those dissatisfied at his current rule and his leniency to the Wyrd Sisters to claim that he is playing favourites and is unfit to rule if he would allow such maniacs to run loose to threaten our security. This matter must be dealt with quietly and with the minimum number knowing it. Our first duty is, after all, to protect our King."

"That's odd Yuri," said Anubis. "One minute you seem to want him dead and the next you're his most faithful servant. Is there a reason for this?"

The Fey woman glared at him dangerously. "I have my reasons dog man. They are none of your business."

Anubis folded his arms and glared back at Yuri, growling but saying nothing.

"Our first step is to go to that town in the Czech Republic," said Faulkner suddenly, taking out a small map of Europe and unfolding it on the glass covered table. "Some of my colleagues died there recently in that slaughter in that town near the Polish border. We might be able to get some clue as to where that gargoyle is heading now."

Anubis nodded, leaning forward as Puck and the two humans took turns to describe the scant few bits of information and clues they could scrap together and what they believed the best way of fighting Brooklyn and whoever it was that was helping him.

Yuri listened with great interest. This would offer the perfect opportunity to retake the position that the Wyrd Sisters had stolen from her. Her Lord would be indebted to her for this service and would see that the Sisters were playing him false. Then, she could have him again, in her power, and no one else's.

"Once we find him," said Puck. "We must be careful. His power may be growing by the day. There's no telling the kind of damage he could do to us if we're not careful."

Eighteen miles South of Luga, Russia, three days later: roughly one in the morning

The night sky was a mixture of midnight blue and black velvet, without a cloud to be seen anywhere in the horizon. The brilliantly yellow crescent moon lighted up the ground, aided, by the legions of stars, and by the burning wreck of Rincewald's Albanian camper in the ditch.

There were wheat fields on either side of the road, the fire had spread to one, and was devouring it like a starved animal. The wheat swayed in the gentle breeze, as the air was filled with the crackling of flames, the smell of cordite, daemonic spice, and by the final echoes of gunfire.

Brooklyn was not having a very good night.

He, Riana and Rincewald, were all lying on their bellies, two fields south of the one that had caught fire. Brooklyn was carefully sliding a new clip into his one remaining Desert Eagle, trying desperately to make as little noise as possible. He'd lost the other in the confusion when the fields in front of Rincewald's camper suddenly opened fire on them. His Katana was in its scabbard, attached to his belt, along three low yield grenades, six clips for his pistol, and a single edged knife. All he was able to grab hold of as the trio leapt out of the camper. The Black Sun lay in front of him.

Riana crawled, silently up beside him, trying to disturb as little of the wheat as possible as she did so. She was wearing a very muddied pair of black leather biker pants, combat boots, and an obnoxiously bright pink silk blouse that was now mud brown at the front. Her ash blonde hair was very messed up, and dirty, from the initial dive into the ditch. She clutched her Kukri knife and whip tightly to her chest, they were all she had been able to save apart from a Walther P228 pistol that she had on an ankle holster, with its single clip of low calibre shells.

Tracer fire decapitated the wheat just above their heads, showering them in the soft ears of a nearly ready harvest. Brooklyn heard Rincewald whisper a violent swear as the tracer fire moved further south to the next field.

"Who the fuck are they?" Whispered Brooklyn when Riana was right beside him.

The woman shrugged, "Inquisitors?"

Brooklyn cocked his pistol very slowly with both hands, wishing the gun not to click too loudly. In the silence of the night, the pistol's click was almost ear shattering to the crimson gargoyle.

He was sure someone would hear it.

He heard voices whisper in the direction of the road. Two, perhaps three different voices.

This was followed by thump like sound, before he heard something sail through the air and land quite heavily roughly forty meters from them. He saw Riana cover her ears quickly and followed suit.

A second later, the grenade went off with a deafening boom as the ground near the blast shook violently for a second as dirt and burning wheat flew into the air before crashing to the ground in a twenty meter radius, flattening all the wheat hit by it.

Riana swore under her breath.

"RIANA MIRELIP!"

The trio paused as the voice called Riana's name out again. The voice was deep and powerful, with a slight American accent.

Brooklyn looked quickly at Riana, who was shaking her head ruefully. "Not him. Not now."

"Who?" Whispered Rincewald desperately. "Who the fuck is that?"

Whereas Brooklyn and Riana had managed to grab at least some of their firearms, Rincewald had only been able to grab hold of his staff, his raven head cane, and Fuzzy. The guinea-pig familiar was currently poking its head out of the breast pocket of the necromancer's ruined grey suit. He'd lost his hat and dark green tie to the flames. He was looking quite flustered. "Who is that Riana?"

"MIRELIP! YOU SATANIC WHORE! COME OUT HERE AT ONCE AND FACE ME!"

Riana sighed again.

"Harrison," she said, venom creeping into her voice. "Benjamin fucking Harrison."

"Who?"

Riana shook her head. "I killed his wife about a decade ago."

"What the Hell is he? An Inquisitor?"

"Yeah, but I haven't seen him in years."

Another grenade landed thirty or so meters away in a part of the huge plain that they'd previously crawled through, destroying much of the crops and spreading the fire perilously close to them.

They began to crawl awkwardly again through the wheat.

"MIRELIP! MIRELIP! MY MARSHA SHALL BE AVENGED!" Roared Harrison. "SHE SHALL HAVE HER VENGANCE ON YOU!"

"So, why'd you kill her?" Whispered Brooklyn, shedding his black leather greatcoat, revealing a corded black shirt and black cargo pants, and carefully taking the Malus Codicium out of his coat pocket. He liked the coat an awful lot, but it just made too much noise and disturbed the wheat as it dragged along. He wrapped his wings under his arms and around his chest, tucking the book in the gap his wings provided.

Riana looked at him. "I felt like it."

"Oh. Okay."

They moved on a bit more as the grenade launcher, Harrison's group was using, decimated another large section of the crops in the opposite direction that they were crawling to.

Brooklyn risked a glance up just over the heads of the wheat to see their attackers.

He could make out the silhouettes five figures in the moonlight, one was on one knee and scanning the direction opposite them with a very large rifle of some sort, he could see an immensely powerful looking sniper's lens sitting atop the barrel. All the figures were heavily cloaked and he wondered briefly which one was Harrison. One of them was a bulking monstrosity, from the look of him, even bulkier than Goliath, he could see a single bestial horn rise up from his forehead and a huge mound of shaggy hair pour over his back while they held a polearm weapon of some description in a single hand. He saw no wings though.

He darted his head back down again when he thought one of them was turning their head his way.

"This Harrison," whispered Brooklyn quickly. "What exactly did he do?"

"Last time I saw him was a few years ago," replied Riana. "He had just started out as a field agent for the Inquisition." She smiled sadistically. "He wanted to hunt me down, so I came to his house one night when he was away and nailed his wife's rotting head to the inside of the door."

"You dug her up?"

"Hell no. I had the head the whole time, I even sent her eyeballs to him separate after her funeral." She couldn't help but chuckle to herself. "Boy did that fuck him up."

"Why did you do this to him again?"

Riana stared at him. "I told you. I just felt like it...why?"

"Nothing."

They crawled on a little more.

"So, is that the last you ever heard of him?"

"That was just the last time I saw him," replied Riana, inching her way on as carefully as possible. "Last I heard of him, now, that was about two years ago."

"Well?"

She grinned. "Old Benny boy got himself excommunicated."

"Seriously?"

Riana's grin deepened. "He was also declared by the Inquisition to be Extremus Diabolus after he stole a number of volumes of a text written by some weirdo cultist they were studying in some dump in Nigeria and killed the whole staff of clerks and Inquisitors that were studying it."

"Congratulations Riana," muttered Rincewald dryly behind them. "You have once again proven that forces of Darkness sometimes have to rely on the stupidest of people." He turned his attention to Brooklyn. "I say we give that nut job back there what he wants and be on our merry way."

"Fuck you stiff shagger."

Brooklyn actually considered this for a few brief seconds, but decided against it.

Riana could still be of some use to him.

Rincewald shot his head up for a quick second. "They seem to be moving the other way," he said, as there was another muffled explosion. "There's a small clump of trees about half a mile away from the road," he explained quickly. "We could use them for cover and to think about our next move."

"Crawl? For half a mile?"

"You got any better ideas?"

Brooklyn grumbled something incomprehensible as the trio crawled in the direction Rincewald insisted the trees were.

*****

Harrison watched the wheat sway from the breeze and burn from the devastation caused by Byron's grenade launcher. The large Texan had swung the spent weapon to his back with its strap and had pulled the automatic riot gun that lay in its scabbard across his back, racking it as he did so. He was wearing a long, light grey greatcoat with an attached hood that covered up his deformed head...

His eyes had been wicked, evil. They constantly roved up and down all the women he had claimed before he had come into his service. His mouth had spat such vile blasphemies.

But now he had fixed him.

As he had the others...

James Farrell had been his sniper before he had seen the true way to fight the Darkness, and avenge his beloved Marsha.

The Irishman had been in the I.R.A before Harrison had recruited him. He now stood; he was a typical Celt, tall, pale white skin, short cut raven black hair...

He turned his head to face Harrison; his eyeless sockets that had held such deceitful jade eyes had stopped bleeding so very long ago...

"They are heading towards the woods sir," he said, his voice devoid of any emotion or his once thick, Donegal accent. He pointed a stitched finger towards the woods to emphasise his point. "They go."

Harrison clapped his hands happily.

How well James was doing! And Byron!

They had been so very un-Christian before...but now!

He had stopped Byron's swearing by removing his tongue and sowing his lips together. His eyes were gone now, like James'. But now they could see everything! The site of James's rifle, a huge, custom-made monstrosity, was just for show. James didn't need it anymore...

He heard a growl behind him and looked with pride towards his two precious, precious creations.

Fustis and Chimera.

Fustis had once been called Alan. He had been a child of the street in Nigeria, which meant no one would miss him. He had been fourteen when Harrison had liberated the Doctrine from those fools at the Inquisition. Those who had read it had foolishly gone off to monasteries and convents to try and erase what they had read...

Fools! Fools all them!

Could none of them understand? Could none of them appreciate the importance of this text?

They could destroy the Darkness forever with it! He was sure! Biomancy and Daemonology were the way forward! And to think those Puritan fools were still using prayer and blessed weapons!

How archaic.

He frowned.

But it was not just those foolish Puritans...even self-confessed Radicals wanted nothing to do with him.

They had all...all the factions had called him a madman! Insane! Renegade!

Heretic...

He shuddered with anger.

Heretic...

Tears of fury welled in his eyes.

Heretic...

They had thrown him out. They'd dispatched entire Kill-Teams out to deal with him. He'd lost all his resources, all his allies...all his friends.

Heretic...

But he would make them all see...he'd make all of them see he was right...this was the only way to fight the enemies of God.

He looked towards Fustis again. He had been quite tall for his age, nearly as tall as James as a matter of fact. He wore only his cloak and a pair of faded blue denim shorts. His tendrils, multi coloured, some ending in bone, club-like protrusions will others ended in cat-o-nine-tail style, spiked bio-whips, and dragged along the gravel, past his feet, almost a dozen on each stump where his arms used to be. His mouth had been sown shut in the curve of a smile, while his eyeless sockets were like two deep craters within a landscape that had suffered a cataclysmic earthquake. There was huge vertical spilt on his chestnut brown face that was sown together. His belly, chest and left leg were just like it, huge splits all along them, stitched up again afterwards. Fustis had been his test subject, albeit an unwilling one...

But then Byron and James had volunteered when they had tried to stop him. But they were more useful the way they were now anyway.

He then turned his full attention on his masterpiece...Chimera.

You could do so very much with a needle and steel cord...

Chimera stood at eleven foot, four inches. He had conceived its creation in a moment of fervour and passion, as he had looked around the remnants of Kill-Teams Epsilon and Kappa. Thirteen gargoyles in all.

They had fought so hard against him, such wild desperation...

Chimera's face was the combination of three gargoyles, its mouth was a large, hooked beak the colour of ochre, as many sharp canines as Harrison could pry from the mouths of the dead Kill-Teamers lined the torn and stitched gums within. The right topside of the head was gazelle like, with oak coloured fur, its eye an animal brown while a ribbed, black horn jutted up from atop its head. The top left side of Chimera's head was ultramarine blue, with a shredded webbed ear, a glazed over hazel eye, and a shorter horn that curved up from its eye ridge while a thick main of golden blonde hair that reached down to the waist from the small portion of the back of the head it took up. These three segments were all triple stitched and stapled together. Chimera's thick neck was ochre (it was part of the same gargoyle that had provided the mouth, an unfortunate male named Paul), while its abdomen was patchwork of fuchsia, jet black, lavender purple, ultramarine, muddy brown, grass green and murky grey, all held together by thick, white stitching and steel operating staples. Chimera had a huge chest and immensely broad shoulders, the combination of the three toughest of the gargoyles sent to kill him. Its arms were thick with the muscles he had pumped full of steroids and bio-welded in. Chimera's immense belly flowed heavily over the black carapace armoured pants that had belonged to one of the Kill-Team, stitches and staples covering the rotten flesh while a large inch thick plate of rusted steel hung over to protect all the extra organs Harrison had grafted into Chimera's unnatural body, the rest of Chimera's chest and shoulders were armoured with dulled, mismatched steel plate armour. Its lavender purple and jet-black legs had received the same muscle enhancement and steroid treatment that its arms had while its spike ended, muddy brown tail swished this way and that. It held an immense halberd in its bone-white, right hand as if it weighed nothing at all. Chimera had no wings, it was a physical impossibility that it could get air born, it was simply too large and heavy. Its flesh glistened in the moonlight from the bodily fluids that leaked from the cracks in parts of Chimera's rotting flesh.

Chimera had taken weeks to make.

It stared at him now through blank, dead eyes. It hissed.

"Relax my friend," he purred. "You shall taste the flesh of Riana's companions." He smiled darkly. "But Riana must first taste my most righteous fury, and that of my beloved."

He walked lazily towards the clump of woods that the true heretics were crawling towards, his brown, double-breasted leather stormcoat brushing against the crops as his four companions fell in behind him. He had waited a decade for this moment, a few more minutes would matter little.

Riana would finally face both his and God's wrath in what awaited her there, in those woods.

He slowed his pace even further, to allow his group walk abreast of him and smiled as he looked at the stars above. They reminded him so much of her...

"Marsha," he whispered, a tear trailing down his withered face. "You shall have your vengance. Guide my hand tonight beloved."

He picked up pace and drew an automatic combat shotgun from the scabbard on his back, the others speeding up too as they headed for the trees in the opposite direction of the heretics.

*****

Brooklyn pressed himself against a tree, carefully surveying a clearing. It was perhaps ten or so meters square, trees on every side with small shafts of moonlight peaking through the leaves and branches. It was in the centre of the clump of trees, giving a decent vantage point of the road they had fled, he could still make out the flames of Rincewald's crappy camper. It was the sort of place you would expect to find lovers in the summer and spring nights.

He couldn't hear his pursuers anymore.

He held the black and white handle of his Katana in both hands tightly, he had rubbed damp earth along the blade to make sure no moonlight reflected off it as Riana had done with her Kukri. The Black Sun lay attached to his back after he slid it through the harness for the shoulder holsters of his pistols and the belt around his waist.

Rincewald inched his way along the woods until he was just beside the gargoyle, his own staff in one hand and Brooklyn's Desert Eagle in the other. His clips had been quickly jammed into his pockets while his cane was jammed onto his tight fitting belt.

The trio advanced cautiously into the clearing, Riana off to Brooklyn's far left while Rincewald hung close to his right. None of them spoke. When they had almost reached the centre of the clearing, they stopped dead in their tracks while Brooklyn actually forgot himself and swore out loud.

A figure, the same height as Rincewald, had suddenly emerged from the brushwood barely three feet away in front of them.

It stood upright as it faced them, the moonlight coming through the trees highlight the dark navy of their heavy, floor length cloak, while a large hood covered the face of the newcomer completely in shadow.

They all stood stupefied for a second, before the smell gave the figure away.

Like some exotic spices of some far off land, strong, sharp and enticing.

The daemonhost tossed its cloak off without saying a word to them as it lit up the clearing like a beacon, showering them all in its golden aura.

Brooklyn swore as he saw Rincewald shove the useless pistol into his pocket and took his staff in both hands out of the corner of his eye. His face was set in grim determination.

He looked again at the daemonhost, and knew at once that Harrison was mad.

This host had been dead for some time; it had obviously been over treated with preservatives and the sort you'd expect to find in a mortician's. But time had still some effect on it. It was female, most of the skin rotted and decayed through; from the little left it seemed to be a white Caucasian. It had but a few wiry strands of auburn hair on its otherwise bald scalp, across its naked, decayed body were chains of iron and gold, holding talismans in place to keep the daemon more securely in the host body, restrain its devastating power and make it unlikely to turn on its captor, that is, as long as the host body survived.

But talismans were not the only things covering the body; there were also reams of jewellery around its neck, arms and fingers. Gold and silver rings, necklaces, pendants...

And the stitching, which went up along its mid-riff and all over its body, keeping fingers, arms, the left leg at the thigh, even the head in place. There was a rotted pair of chestnut coloured eyes in the sockets.

It took a step forward, and Brooklyn took one back in revulsion.

He cast a quick glance over to Riana, and was quite disconcerted.

She was standing stark still, whip and Kukri dangling uselessly at her sides as she stared at the daemonhost with a mixture of shock and total horror.

He didn't have to ask why she was so alarmed as the answer hit him suddenly, and he too stared at the daemonhost, finally aware of just how deep the feeling of insanity was around it, as Rincewald also seemed to understand what was going on and swore rather imaginatively.

They were staring at Harrison's wife.

It raised its hand to fire at them, but Rincewald beat the daemon to it, roaring an incantation and sending a streak of pale green lightning at the daemonhost, lifting it off its feet and sending it crashing through a tree behind it. The host got up a little shakily and returned fire as the necromancer brought up a shield around the trio, deflecting the blast and send it hurtling into a nearby clump of trees, causing many to burst into flame while others were utterly destroyed.

Brooklyn sheathed his sword and yanked the daemonic staff from his back, pointing the skull end at the daemonhost as he heard an earth-shattering roar behind them. An instant later, an enormous bulk crashed into him and he was sent flying into the air and actually over the daemonhost, only stopping when he crashed into a tree on the other side of the clearing, breaking at least one rib and getting the air knocked out of him. He had dropped the daemonic staff when he had been hit; it now lay on the other side of the clearing.

He sat up, his head swimming and took a deep breath and almost hurled.

The putrid smell of rotting flesh that stormed the clearing was overwhelming.

Through dizzy eyes he saw Rincewald and Riana back off as the abomination strode awkwardly into the clearing, backhanding a tree with its free hand, knocking the ancient oak right out of the ground and sending it crashing over, throwing dirt and roots in the air. It held a huge, wickedly bladed halberd in its armoured right hand. He looked at the enormous, rippling muscles he could make out at the joints of the heavy, mismatched plate armour that appeared slick with its own leaking bodily fluids.

It stood as tall as some of the trees it was uprooting. Compared to this thing's size, even Goliath was a child.

And the smell...

He found it increasingly difficult not to throw up from that stench of death, as it grew increasingly stronger as it moved further into the clearing. The earth seemed to shudder as it took large, heavy, awkward steps, as if it were not totally used to its weight and size.

It stood and looked at the three of them in turn, Rincewald first, and then him. Brooklyn noticed the pair of mismatched eyes and some of the stitching all over its multi-coloured and textured face, and noticed it was the same with the rest of its body, even seeing more stitching under the plates.

This monstrosity was made of other gargoyles.

Brooklyn rose to his feet shaking, with rage mostly, and drew his sword. The daemonic runes along the blade burst into pale blue flame as he channelled his hate into it. He gripped the handle tightly in both hands and took a standard fighting stance, the blue flames flowing across the blade and burning now in his eyes making himself looking rather daemonic.

He'd feed Harrison to rapid dogs for this insult.

The abomination struck out at Rincewald, catching him by surprise, sending the necromancer into the air and flying into a thick clump of bushes. It turned its gaze to Riana, who had backed off a little and had sheathed her Kukri and pulled out her P228 and was pointing it at the creature.

The daemonhost had not budged; instead it was staring at the staff that Brooklyn had dropped.

"What the Hell is that thing?" Yelled Brooklyn.

"My creation, heretic," said a man whom Brooklyn correctly guessed as the rogue Inquisitor Harrison. "One of my instruments of vengance." He had come out into the clearing in a leisurely way, covered by two badly deformed men and someone else in a cloak and hood.

He was a very tall man with a thin, yet powerful frame. His hair was cut short, quite neat and greyed. He had a deep-set pair of maroon eyes with a burning in them that suggested he was capable of only the extremes in emotion. He was clean-shaven with a pointed chin and very pale white skin and a prominent, hawk like nose. He was dressed in what looked like black carapace body armour under a closed, floor length, six buttoned double breasted storm coat of aged brown leather. Crisscrossing his coat were several belts, including one that held a very intimidating sheathed greatsword at his waist that seemed to vibrate with unnatural power, as well as the holster for what looked like a long barrelled revolver, while the other belts held pouches for ammunition. He held an automatic combat shotgun in his hands, which were gloved in black leather. He looked like he could have been anything between his late forties or very early sixties.

The combined smell of death, decay and the daemonic off him was intense.

Brooklyn took a step back and faced the Inquisitor, raising his sword before him.

Human and Gargoyle glared at each other as the rest of Harrison's men fanned out to form a semicircle around Brooklyn.

"So who's this Riana?" Asked Harrison coldly, not looking at Riana, but keeping his gaze firmly on Brooklyn. "A minion of yours?"

"No," replied Brooklyn, his voice venomous.

"Well it doesn't really matter who you are," continued Harrison, his tone remaining icy. "You are an ally of this hateful daemonette and must suffer as she will now."

"Oh give over Benny," snapped Riana.

He glared over at her. "My wife shall have her vengance you satanic bitch!"

The daemonhost sprung into action and came at Riana from her left as the Harrison's creation came at her from the front. The entire length of Riana's whip burst into unearthly white flame before she snapped it out towards the approaching daemonhost. The end of the blazing whip hit it in the chest, causing it to hiss in pain and fly backwards off into the air. Just then Chimera barrelled towards her, roaring wildly and swinging its halberd in one hand, as if it weighed nothing. Riana dived over a horizontal slash, rolled and came up firing at it. Chimera growled as she blew out the eye on the ultramarine side of its head, the light calibre round crushing the hazel eye and lodging itself into the cracked bone behind.

Chimera didn't even flinch, preferring instead to roar and swing the halberd in a downward arc. Riana was barely able to sidestep the serrated axe blade before the daemonhost came at her from her above, hurling a blast of golden flame at her, she back-flipped out of the way, the force of the blast sending her high into the air. She emptied the clip at Chimera's head as she came down, landing hard on her feet and tossing the useless pistol aside before she rolled to her right to avoid another swing by Chimera as she tore her Kukri from its sheath.

She stood and faced her two attackers, glaring at the pair.

"Well? What are you waiting for? BRING IT!"

Brooklyn actually laughed while Harrison and his three companions continued to stare at the fight intently. None of them noticed the slight rustling of the bushes near them.

As Chimera and the daemonhost prepared to rush Riana, there was tremendous roar from behind the group. They all twirled around just in time to see a raven black mass of fur and muscle with a maw nearly a meter wide with a pair of massive blade like teeth burst from the brush and close in on one of Harrison's men; a gentleman with a sniper rifle. The enormous maw enveloped him before he could react, and the teeth chomped into his mid- section, cutting him clean in half. The upper part of his body disappeared as the jaws closed around it as his legs and lower body slumped forward, blood flowing freely all over the black mass that stood taller than a polar bear.

Brooklyn stared at the monstrosity, his jaw hanging from his mouth.

"Fuzzy?"

The black bulk roared and stared at the three remaining figures that were backing away with a pair of flaming green eyes, blood and saliva oozing out of the sides of its enormous mouth.

The man in a long, light grey greatcoat raised his shotgun to fire, but Fuzzy was upon him in an instant, biting the man's arms off at the elbow and swallowing the gun completely. Fuzzy's face was showered in the blood that rushed out of the stumps. The man staggered backwards, the stumps where his arms once were spewing out an awful lot of blood. But he never made a sound.

Harrison's last companion suddenly tossed his cloak away, revealing a mass of flesh whips, some with bladed and hooked bits of bone at the end connected to the shoulders where its arms should be. It shuddered in excitement before leaping at Fuzzy. The black monstrosity roared at the bio- flagellant, the sound reminding Brooklyn somewhat of the T-Rex in Jurassic Park.

As the bio-flagellant was in the air, a bolt of pale green lightning hit it full force in the chest and sent it flying back into a tree, hitting it and bending backwards like a doll with a disturbing crack. Rincewald stormed out of the brush an instant later, staff in his left hand with Brooklyn's pistol blazing at Chimera in his right. The high calibre rounds hit the thick armour covering Chimera's immense belly, several imbedding themselves in the thick metal while others ricocheted off randomly into the brush. The daemonhost moved to fire at him but Riana's flaming whip snapped out again, forcing it back. Rincewald suddenly turned his attention towards the daemonhost, his staff became totally enveloped in bright green flame as he whispered something Brooklyn couldn't make out; lighting up the entire clearing before the necromancer roared in the daemon's tongue and an arc of lightning shot out from the blazing staff head and struck the daemonhost; tearing its right arm and part of the shoulder off and hurling it into the brush. The daemonhost was thrown high into the air as it screamed wickedly at Rincewald, a bright trail of golden light seemed to flow like blood from the horrendous wound he had inflicted on it.

Harrison swore as he raised his shotgun to his shoulder and took aim at the necromancer's back, but Brooklyn came at him suddenly, whipping the gun out of the rogue's hands with his tail before making an upward slash at him. Harrison sidestepped the attack, before coming in on Brooklyn, snapping out a left uppercut to the gargoyle's face before following it up with a right hook, snapping Brooklyn's head to the right, before bringing his left knee hard into his stomach. Brooklyn gasped and staggered back, his right hand pointing the sword towards Harrison, its flames now vanished while he wrapped his left arm around his waist as he tried to get his breathing under control again. The entire exchange had barely lasted more than a second.

The shotgun had landed several feet away, near where the Black Sun lay. As Chimera roared and swung its halberd at Riana again, the woman dodged the clumsy attack with usual cat-like grace, leaping aside and rolling with the fall, bringing herself up quickly as she slid her kukri back in its leather scabbard and made a dive for the shotgun. She wrapped a lithe hand around it as she came rolling up again and turned to face Harrison's creation. Chimera bayed loudly at her while she saw Rincewald slam another clip into Brooklyn's pistol and cock it out of the corner of her eye to her left. She took several careful steps backwards, rolling her whip up one handed and sliding it into her belt while Chimera growled menacingly at her, stepping towards her slowly, its one remaining eye looking out at her in a dead fashion, while she stared back at it savagely.

Chimera moved forward suddenly swinging its halberd around in a one handed downward arc. Riana rolled to her left, barely avoiding the blade. On her feet an instant later, she pressed the stalk of the Harrison's gun to her shoulder and fired off a round at Chimera, hitting an un-armoured section of its thigh; causing a small explosion of stinking blood and ichor around it leg. The beast roared in rage at her and swung again, but Riana had already dived aside, rolling along the ground and coming up beside Rincewald.

Chimera roared again at the pair before coming at them head on. Riana and Rincewald took aim quickly and began to fire at the oncoming mound of defiled flesh; demonstrating near suicidal bravery as Chimera closed the distance in scant seconds, the shells ricocheting off its armour or tearing chunks of decaying flesh in between the joints, staining its armour in blood and ichor. Chimera stopped barely a meter before the pair, still standing defiantly before it. It roared and raised its halberd above its head in both hands. As it did so, Rincewald tossed his spent pistol to Riana and raised his staff above his head in both hands, screaming at the top of his voice in the daemon's tongue as Chimera brought the halberd down on them.

There was a sudden explosion of green light around the necromancer and Riana and they were suddenly enveloped in a shield of energy. Chimera's halberd crashed down on the energy shield, and Rincewald was hard pressed to hold it as Chimera exerted immense pressure on its weapon to try and break his defence.

As this was going on, Riana had dropped the empty shotgun and stuck her hand quickly in Rincewald's jacket pocket, pulling out another clip for the Desert Eagle. There was a clink as the spent clip hit the ground as she slid the fresh clip in and cocked the powerful handgun. She took the pistol in a two handed grip and aimed at Chimera's head, smiling sadistically.

"Whenever you're ready Jerry."

Rincewald roared at the top of his voice as he forced his arms up as high as he could. The energy field expanded suddenly with great force, throwing Chimera back before it dissipated. In that instant Riana fired.

The 0.5 calibre round tore through the air before detonating Chimera's remaining eye, drilling through the skull, pulverising some of its brain, before exploding out the other end of its head in a spray of grey matter, blood, gristle and bone.

Chimera head jerked upwards from the shot as it dropped its halberd and staggered backwards, emitting weak hisses and covering its face with its hands, but to the surprise of both Rincewald and Riana, Chimera did not die. It seemed to recover its balance before it screamed in rage at the world in general before Fuzzy came at it from its right, hitting Chimera with the force of a run away freight train. Chimera was lifted off the ground and crashed on its back. The black mass that was Fuzzy, shorter by two or so feet but a great deal wider, landed on top of it and began to try and tear Chimera's thick plate armour off with horrendously long claws, while snapping with its mouth at Chimera's throat.

Chimera roared back at Fuzzy and struck him with a right cross, snapping the black monstrosity's head to the right, before trying vainly to wrap its talons around Fuzzy's throat and strangle him. They began to roll along the ground, splintering trees as they crashed into them while exchanging blows, slashes, bites and roars.

Brooklyn took several more steps back; until he was several meters away from Harrison, who had yet to move, or for that matter, even draw a weapon. Brooklyn recovered his breathing and raised his sword in a two handed grip before him. Harrison made as if to draw his pistol but stopped suddenly and smiled as Brooklyn's blade was again enveloped in daemonic flame.

"So gargoyle, you think you can handle a sword eh?" said Harrison, his smile becoming darker by the second. He slowly reached for the handle of his greatsword. "Let see how well you fare against this then."

In one slow, fluid motion, Harrison drew his sword, and at once Brooklyn realised he may be out of his league with this man. The sword seemed bigger in the Inquisitor's hands, the handle was a foot and a half in length, and made of the finest ivory, with a finely cut emerald held in place by steel, cut to look like the claws of some predatory bird at the hilt. The hand guard was titanium, cut in great detail to the shape of a pair of daemonic heads. The blade itself was a good three-foot in length and serrated wickedly all along its edges. The blade was a sickly colour of green, with unusual, shimmering lines of bone white travelling up and down the blade, as it seemed to pulsate and shudder in its master's hands. Brooklyn stared at it in awe.

Harrison had bound a daemon to it, an immensely powerful one, perhaps even a Prince.

The rogue Inquisitor took a fighting stance similar to the one Brooklyn had taken, and advanced slowly, first one-step, and then another. Brooklyn stayed stationary, waiting to see what his opponent might try.

Harrison made a sudden faint to the left, before swinging the immense sword as if it weighed nothing to Brooklyn's right. Brooklyn parried the attack, barely. Harrison made several more feints and slashes at considerable speed, the force of the attacks sending Brooklyn back. He made a sudden thrust, which Brooklyn knocked aside before going on the offensive, making a wild slash at Harrison's midriff, which the human skilfully evaded. They broke and circled before coming in again at each other, exchanging over twenty blows in a handful of seconds before their swords locked and they glared at each other over their flaming blades. The smell of the daemon around Harrison becoming ever stronger while Brooklyn felt the Inquisitor's blade shudder against his Katana. He could feel the daemon inside Harrison's blade as the sword glowed malevolently. He could feel the daemon roar at him within the blade, craving his soul.

They broke and continued.

Rincewald raised up a shield quickly as the daemonhost came at him again, throwing a energy blast at the necromancer while Riana stood ready with her whip out again; white fire running over its full length as the blast was deflected off Rincewald's defence and detonating a nearby tree; filling the air with flaming branches and splinters.

The shield faded and Riana came at the daemonhost as it descended on them, her whip cracking out in her right hand at her enemy. The daemonhost avoided the whip this time and slashed at Riana's leg as it dived past her, with long, twisted claws that were on the end of its fingertips. Riana gasped in surprise as several large tears were carved both in her pants and deep into her flesh. She fell tumbling from the air and landed hard on her stomach as she dropped her weapons and grabbed her bleeding thigh, moaning in pleasure.

The daemonhost hovered above her, ready to deliver the final blow, but Rincewald came at it again, hurling a ball of green flame at it. The host was enveloped completely, the talismans attached to its body actually began melting in the heat and searing the withered host as they dripped to the ground, burning the grass and soil where it landed. The daemonhost started flying around the clearing, screaming wildly as the magical flames ate away at it.

Rincewald came at it again, his staff bathing the clearing in pale green flame as he fired, striking it in the left leg at the hip, blowing it off and sending it rolling along the ground as the unholy flames consumed it entirely. The daemonhost roared, a faint trail of energy hanging from where its leg once was. It began to circle the necromancer as both built up attacks.

Harrison twirled nimbly on his feet, spinning the immense sword he held above his head, one-handed, before making a powerful swipe at Brooklyn, who parried and countered. Harrison dodged the attack and kicked Brooklyn in the gut. The gargoyle doubled over, nearly dropping his sword before he had to make a diving roll to the right as his opponent tried to decapitate him with a sudden downward slash.

Brooklyn was up an instant later, trying to ignore the sudden discomfort his lack of breath was causing him as he darted in at Harrison, performing several complicated two-handed thrusts, slashes and parries against any counter Harrison tried to mount as the pair danced along the clearing, sparks flying in every direction as their swords clashed again and again while they filled the air with the clangs of tainted metal colliding. Their swords locked for a brief second yet again before they broke and stared at each other.

Brooklyn stood, his entire body quivering from exhaustion while his dirt- encrusted shirt was damp from his sweat as he made vain attempts to control his breathing. Harrison stood several feet away, not showing any sign of tiring whatsoever.

He spun his daemonsword in his hand idly, as he stared at the gargoyle mockingly.

"Pathetic."

He took a complicated fighting stance, holding his sword blade downwards in his right hand, sickening green flames running up and down along the serrated blade while he held his left hand out, open palmed.

"Enough toying. You shall die now heretic."

He came at Brooklyn, his fighting style completely changed. His attacks came at the crimson gargoyle from every possible angle, stronger than before, pressing him even harder. His arms aching as he tried to block and parry every attack while he was forced back several desperate steps at a time.

And his speed...

Harrison came at him; twirling around three times as he did so, each spin accompanied with an immensely powerful upward slash while his stormcoat flapped wildly around him. Brooklyn only had the strength to block the first, he had to stagger backwards as quickly as he could to avoid the other two, which he did, barely.

Harrison laughed madly as he came in again, spinning his sword into ferocious downward arc. Brooklyn blocked and attempted a counter, knocking daemonsword away from him wildly before attempting a desperate two handed thrust. Harrison sidestepped the attack, spun on the heels of his boots as Brooklyn went on past him, unable to stop as he put too much momentum into his attack, and planted his right foot in the small of the gargoyle's back, just above the tail. Brooklyn roared in pain and surprise before he landed face first on the ground.

He tried to get up, but Harrison kicked him hard in the ribs, knocking him over onto his back, sending his sword flying across the clearing where Rincewald and Riana were engaging Harrison's daemonhost.

Brooklyn tried to sit up, his arm wrapped around his ribs protectively as he tried to control his breathing. His ribs were aching badly. Harrison kicked him roughly in the beak, breaking his nose and shooting his head back as his hands came up now to protect his bleeding face. He fell on his back again on the ground, moaning in agony.

The Inquisitor brought his right foot down as hard as he could into his opponent's flat belly. Brooklyn doubled over, emitting a pained cough as he did so, but Harrison pressed his foot harder into his heavily scarred stomach, making it extremely difficult for the gargoyle to breathe.

Harrison spun his sword around in his hand until the blade now faced upwards. He held its flaming, hooked point barely an inch from Brooklyn's throat. The sword visibly shuddered madly under Harrison's single-handed grip as Brooklyn could hear the daemon slaved within the blade actually roar within his head; thrilled at the kill to come.

"My good friend Lux here hasn't fed in quite some time," said Harrison in a calm, matter-of-fact way. He drew his sword back for the kill thrust, aiming for the chest as Brooklyn struggled to get out from under the Inquisitor's foot. "Let's see if you can satisfy his hunger, shall we?"

"RIANA!" Screamed Rincewald, as he hurled the daemonhost from him in a ball of flames; destroying more of its host body, yet being careful enough not to damage it so badly that the daemon might escape and become even more powerful.

Riana turned her head in time to see Harrison raise his sword to plunge it in Brooklyn's heart. In an instant she had dropped her whip and was tearing the Desert Eagle that she had jammed in her belt out. She raised it in her hand as Harrison spoke to Brooklyn and pointed it at his head.

He smiled triumphantly at Brooklyn and she fired.

The bullet hit him in the temple; it tore through his skull and exploded out of the other side in what seemed like barely a billionth of a second later, spraying the nearby foliage and Brooklyn with his blood.

The daemon within the sword became silent, and Inquisitor Benjamin Harrison collapsed to the ground on his side.

Brooklyn, panting, his entire body shaking in terror and exhaustion, rolled from under where Harrison had been standing, and darted over to Riana, grabbing his sword from the ground as quickly as he could before spinning about and standing beside Riana. The woman was still pointing the pistol at their adversary's corpse. She seemed to be handling the situation with typical excitement.

"Thank you," he managed to whisper after a few moments.

"Oh it was my pleasure, believe me."

There was a muffled explosion from behind them as more debris took to the air and Rincewald swore violently as Harrison's daemonhost went flying above the pairs' heads, encased in sickening green flames. Brooklyn turned his head towards Rincewald and past the necromancer, and saw the monstrosity that had been Fuzzy, and Chimera, wrestle along the ground together.

Chimera managed to scramble on top and pinned Fuzzy on his back. It brought its right first back to punch the black monstrosity but Fuzzy was ready for it.

When Chimera brought its fist down towards Fuzzy's face, the familiar opened its tremendous maw, Chimera's fist going down its gullet before it snapped its jaws shut. Its teeth pierced the bones in Chimera's arm, snapping them clean in two, maiming Harrison's creation. Chimera, with sections of its face and head messily removed both by Riana's gunshots and Fuzzy's talons, only roared and slashed at Fuzzy's face, spewing forth a small gush of blood as it slashed out one of the familiar's fiercely glowing green eyes.

The familiar roared weakly and kicked Chimera off of it, sending the living mound of patchwork flesh into a few elm trees, splintering them as it did so. Fuzzy brought himself to his feet weakly, and staggered over to its master, whining almost like a dog. The daemonhost had moved beside Harrison's corpse and seemed to have lost interest in the trio.

Fuzzy bowed its head down to Rincewald's height, and the necromancer patted it on the head, whispering kindly as he examined the eyeless socket and the blood flowing out of it.

"There, there boy. You'll be okay."

Brooklyn and Riana backed away from the daemonhost, which was now lingering near where Harrison lay. Behind them Rincewald glared at Chimera as the renegade Inquisitor's creation righted itself, and lumbered over to where its halberd lay now, picking the horrendous weapon up in it meaty left hand. What little remained of its head turned towards the group and made a threatening hiss. Brooklyn started edging towards the Black Sun, keeping his sword, now flaming again, pointed at the currently immobile daemonhost; which was staring again at the daemonic staff from where it hovered just above the ground; the energy trail emanating from where its leg had been scorching the earth and setting alight a few stray leaves that lay on the ground.

There was a noticeable hissing sound in the air all of a sudden. Brooklyn paused and started looking around to see where it was coming from. He turned and saw Harrison's bio-flagellant stir on the ground from where it had been smashed against a tree. It awoke and looked over at them, its stitched face in a permanent smile while empty eye-sockets stared out at them, it began to thrash along on the ground, its back bent the wrong way, its legs perfectly limp. It started trying to crawl over to them, using its spiked bio-whips to dig into the ground before it before pulling itself along.

He and Riana stared at it for a moment.

"Fustis is a...rather...determined...character," gurgled a voice. Brooklyn, Riana and Rincewald turned their attention back to where Harrison had fallen. Fuzzy growled dangerously.

Benjamin Harrison, who had been dead mere seconds before, was sitting up and smiling triumphantly at them. There was a neat circular hole where Riana's shot had entered his temple. Not so neat was where the bullet had exited, on the other side of his head. Needless to say, his left side was now not at its best.

He tilted his head slightly, as the trio stared at him in, too stunned to actually do anything. His daemonhost hung near him as he reached out for his sword, his hand shaking almost uncontrollably.

Riana was first to get over her shock. She didn't bother raising the gun though, guessing that it was fairly useless against Harrison, so instead she slid it back into her belt and reached down for her whip.

"Neat trick Benny," she whispered as she rose again, she drew her kukri. The Inquisitor stood now, and his adversaries backed off several paces.

"Brooklyn," whispered Rincewald firmly. "Get the Sun. We're leaving."

The gargoyle didn't appear to be listening though. Instead he was raising his flaming blade before him and giving Harrison a predatory smile.

"Brooklyn! I said we're leaving!"

"Yeah, I heard ya," said Brooklyn, not bothering to look in the necromancer's direction. He looked Harrison in the eye. "What are you? Immortal?"

"No," gurgled Harrison coldly. He took and unsteady step forward, swaying slightly. His head wound was healing far faster than either Demona or Brooklyn could ever hope to achieve. He started forward slowly towards Brooklyn. "I am...a...student...of biomancy."

Brooklyn raised an eye ridge. "And that is?"

"A new art," snapped Rincewald impatiently, his staff glowing again as his familiar came up directly beside him. "A mix of necromancy, daemonology and genetics. Now get over here!"

Harrison came at Brooklyn suddenly, his apparent unsteadiness forgotten completely. Brooklyn had been expecting this though. As Harrison leapt forward, bringing his sword around for a hard right slash, Brooklyn drew his own sword back and attacked as well.

Both blades, enveloped in flames the colour of sickly green and pale blue respectively came directly for each other, lighting up what little remained of the clearing from this encounter.

There was an almost blinding flash of white light as both fighters summed up as much power as they could and channelled it into their swords. There was a small clap, as if like thunder far off in the distance while the sound of metal hitting metal at considerable force echoed in the air.

Brooklyn's Katana; with its twelve inch handle and twenty seven inch long curved blade, with seven now flaming daemonic runes of power and endurance etched at even intervals along each side of the iron blade that had been folded upon itself one and a quarter million times...

...was cut in two by Harrison's daemonsword like you would expect a hot knife to go through butter.

There was a muffled clink as the vast majority of the blade, whose cost of construction was somewhere within the five figure range, hit the leaf and burning splinter covered centre of the clearing.

Brooklyn staggered backwards, his jaw hanging as far down as physically possible while his hazel eyes refused to give their attention to anything other than the six and a half inches or so of blade that actually remained above the handle, which was currently melting slightly at the new top, further reducing the amount of actual blade capable of cutting even further.

If Riana had not reacted when she did, chances are that Brooklyn would have been decapitated an instant later.

Harrison, deciding to take advantage of Brooklyn's dropped guard, came in again, laughing and swinging his sword in an upward arc to finish the job. Riana had seen this and had moved forward quickly, grabbing Brooklyn roughly from behind by his belt and jerking him backwards. The gargoyle yelped in surprise as he was yanked backwards so hard he fell and landed on his rump as Harrison's blade missed him by mere millimetres.

He landed a few inches from the Black Sun as a sickly green ball of flame enveloped the group when Rincewald had finished a chant. An instant later there was nothing left of the quartet or the daemonic staff but a scorched and flaming mark in the ground.

Harrison walked up slowly to the flaming circle and stared at the centre for some time. He then threw his head back and bayed at the night like an enraged predator, as what was left of his retinue gathered around him.

*****

"That sounds like a wild animal," remarked Yuri casually as the rage filled roar echoed out across the burning fields. The others were standing around nearby, all looking out to where the fire was in the distance.

She was leaning against a silver people carrier that had acted as their mobile base of operations for the past few days as they tracked Brooklyn's movements from Sudeny; which now had police crawling everywhere, trying to figure out just who had cause d such wholesale carnage. Anubis had told them that this place was supposed to have held some sort of ancient daemonic weapon of some description near here, one of three. He had a vague idea where the other two were. Somewhere in Russia, but he couldn't be sure of any exact locations.

Yuri had wanted to take a plane to Russia immediately to start their search but Puck had thought it a better idea to travel by car, that way they at least had a small chance of running into Brooklyn early before he got near any other weapons; giving them a better chance of taking him on. Using as little magic as possible so as not to be detected they had gotten a rough idea of Brooklyn's trail and had followed it up to where they had suddenly seen flames in the distance from spreading fires on the wheat crops.

"Did you feel that?" asked Anubis, stepping forward and uncrossing his arms.

"Yeah," replied Puck. "Someone just used quite a bit of power to shift somewhere else."

"Do you have any idea where?" asked Faulkner.

"Fraid not Robby," replied Puck. "But whatever it was that drove them off is still there."

"Could it be Brooklyn?" asked Yuri, standing up straight now and drifting to the side door that contained her bag, in which lay her Wakizashi shortsword.

"No. It's...something else." Puck frowned. "But if that was Brooklyn and this person was strong enough to get him to retreat-"

"Then he may be useful as an ally," finished Anubis.

"No," said Yuri firmly. "Whoever it is, they're unstable. We couldn't rely on them."

"But they seem to be after what we are after," said Genieve. Yuri glared at the woman who glared right back at her. The car trip had been rather uncomfortable for the men, as both women had taken an instant dislike of each other, which was turning into hatred far faster than Puck and the others had actually thought possible.

"Genieve's right," stepped in Faulkner. "If they can be of any use to us then we should at least learn a little about them. They could be after the same thing we are."

Puck looked out at the spreading flames along the fields, he could hear sirens off in the distance, getting closer with each passing minute. He stood there like this for a few moments, considering his options carefully.

"Okay," he finally said. "We'll talk to them, see if we're on the same side. If they are then perhaps we can make some sort of deal with them." He paused and frowned. "But not here. We'll follow who ever it is for a little while, get an idea of where they're going and try and contact them in a day or two. We'll watch them first."

The others, Yuri included, nodded in agreement, while Puck looked out into the night, hoping he wasn't making a mistake that could cost them their lives, or that of his care on the other side of the Atlantic.

"Everybody back in the car! We're getting outta here before the cops show up!"

Demona's Estate in Southern Germany

Beyond the mansion where the clan were staying, some miles off to the North West, there was a fairly large forested area that ran up into several hills.

On the far off end, several of the trees had been downed, while some others had actually been destroyed completely, littering the ground with ashes, scores of splinters and embers.

Demona screamed another incantation as she outstretched her hands, throwing any idea of safety out the window as she hurled an energy blast at a nearby elm. The tree erupted in flames, its smaller branches being disintegrated in a matter of seconds.

She had spent the past few days out here, away from them all, trying to dispense her rage at what had happened to her before she went near the clan again, but it seemed futile. This had always been a very effective way of venting her fury before, but it just couldn't work this time.

The more she thought about it, her immortality, and the fact she was alive again as a punishment to someone else and nothing more, just made the rage boil up inside her even more so.

And that witch! How could she hold something like this back? She was surely entitled to know something like this wasn't she?

She was also angry with herself though for not figuring it out sooner. She had been so happy that she was alive again to see her daughter and her coming child that she hadn't really given it much thought as to why she was alive again. She had automatically assumed that as Macbeth hadn't shown up and was still buried that she hadn't been bound to anyone.

The tree that she had unleashed her rage at toppled, spreading the fire and bringing other trees down as it fell, smashing into them and filling the air with burning leaves and splinters.

She was immortal again. The very thought of it drove her near to madness. It would start all over again. She would have to watch all those around her grow old while she remained forever the same.

She would watch Goliath growl old in front of her. She would watch Angela and Broadway grow old, and wither and die. She would watch their children follow suite. That was what was really bothering her, more than Jezebel's silence, more than the fact that she was now bound forever to an obsessive fool. It was the fact that she would watch the children of the clan grow older and older until they were frail and died, leaving the next generation to do the same.

The more she thought about that the worse it sounded. She had survived the last thousand years by making as few connections with people as possible, the very fact that she was not the only one who had to go through this had given her some strength and had allowed her to remain fairly sane, that she was not alone in her suffering, that she never made any connections with anyone so as not to be torn apart when they finally died.

But that was gone now. She was part of the clan again, and everyday she found herself becoming happier and happier at that fact. Fondness of them had eventually given way to filial love. She had finally found a family after all this time.

And now she would outlive all of them by who knew how many millennia.

She stopped herself, as she was about to lay waste to another tree.

The Sisters, they had done this to her undoubtedly. They had wrecked her life yet again.

They would pay dearly for doing this to her again, sentencing her to go through all those centuries of loneliness, just to punish someone else! How could anyone be so blatantly sadistic?

She turned about in the direction of her German mansion, where the clan was probably waiting and worrying about her. They had actually come searching the woods for her the night after she left, trying to make sure she was okay. Jezebel must have told them why she had stormed out. She couldn't talk to them then though, she was just too angry at the time to trust herself to be near anyone else.

She was still angry, but she was focusing it now.

The Sisters had done this to her, and she would make them pay for it. Brooklyn could not be killed now as it was in her better interest to let him live for the moment, until she either could force them to reverse the spell while allowing her to live or unless he became such a threat to her family that she had no choice but to kill him.

The lives of her daughter, her mate and their unborn child were more important than her own life after all.

Demona scowled and destroyed one last tree before stopping her current rampage.

She needed to keep her rage inside as best she could from now on. She could vent later, when all this was over and everything fixed as best as it could be. For the moment she had to make sure everyone was ready to leave as soon as possible. This had to be dealt with quickly, so that she could then turn her attentions to the Wyrd Sisters.

"First Brooklyn, then the Sisters," she growled through gritted teeth. "And then I'm going to deal with Jezebel."

She stalked back towards her mansion through the woods, animals of all sizes and shapes fleeing desperately from her, as the fire behind died down from a twist of her hand.

To be continued...

Additional Disclaimer: I don't own Nurgle; he is property of the Games Workshop, Citadel Miniatures, The Black Library and whatever other companies that are under the Games Worksop's heel. (