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.

18. Hell's Angels

Hell's Angels

Author: Darkness

E-Mail:

Fang (narrating): Previously, on "Gargoyles"

Brooklyn chuckled and looked her over again. "You know, ever since I started this little quest of mine, I've had nothing but fucking trouble from your gang of bible thumbing nutjobs. So I'm gonna take a great deal of pleasure from this."

His smile vanished. He leaned forward, till his face was barely inches from hers.

"Put the gun to your head." He commanded. "Now."

To Faith's horror, her arms began to move by themselves. Her right hand let go of the gun, while her left held on tightly to it, and began to raise it towards her head.

She screamed and fought Brooklyn's control, fought it with every ounce of her being, fighting desperately for control again.

But Brooklyn's power, his will, was too strong, even for someone like her.

"And now," whispered Brooklyn. "Pull the trigger. And put yourself out of my misery."

Her eyes shut tight, praying silently for forgiveness, Inquisitor Faith, Alice Thompson's left hand gripped the gun tightly, keeping it pressed hard against her head, pulled the trigger.

And then…

(cue dramatic music)

Fang: And now…the conclusion.

…nothing happened.

Faith's pistol, her Glock 17, which had served her for almost five years now without fault or failure, simply didn't fire.

Faith, who had been awaiting the inevitable, opened her eyes, baffled and more than slightly relieved.

What had just happened?

Her Glock could hold seventeen rounds before a new clip was needed. As far as she could remember, the gun had only been fired four times since the fight started, so it couldn't be out of bullets. The safety was definitely off; otherwise the trigger wouldn't have budged when Brooklyn had ordered her to pull it. Could it be a jam? Impossible, when she considered how well she kept the weapon.

Then what?

The Inquisitor part of her automatically insisted that this was some sort of act of God, but there was just something about this that made her doubt that.

She looked over at Brooklyn. If this had surprised the gargoyle, he was certainly taking it in his stride.

Brooklyn didn't even seem to notice she was standing there anymore, but when Faith tried to move, she still found that she was under his daemonic grip.

The gargoyle was looking around him, a cheated look upon his face. His eyes seemed to stop at some point behind Faith, perhaps on the other side of the first floor of the mall. His eyes flared again, but his beak formed a cocky grin.

"And I though you sunk low by switching sides and protecting humans," he said, still grinning. "But come on Demms. An Inquisitor? Can't get much lower than that."

Faith suddenly felt feeling come back into her arms. It came back so unexpectedly that she almost lost her balance. But she recovered quickly and started backing off from Brooklyn to where she guessed Demona was, while now pointing her pistol at him.

"I suggest you point that elsewhere Inquisitor," came Demona's voice from behind her. It sounded a little strained. "I can't keep it frozen forever."

Faith nodded and pointed the pistol upwards. No sooner had she done so than the gun boomed and jerked in her hand, sending the 9mm round into the air and smashing into some concrete and destroying part of one of the tiles above.

Brooklyn started backing away cautiously as Demona came forward from Faith's left. She was still human, with her navy business jacket lying open, and Faith could just see part of a harness under it for holding a firearm. Her arms were outstretched before her, her left hand open palmed, and her right holding a gun of some sort.

She looked over at Brooklyn, who had backed off a good twenty yards now and was near where Riana was holding Mal tightly in her grip, while the fat man in the brown suit she didn't know stood at the ready a couple of feet from them, a raven headed staff held expertly in his hands.

Brooklyn stopped, holding his own staff loosely in his right hand, with that cocky smile on his beak, while the flame in his eyes had gone, allowing his hazel eyes to look at the pair with disgusting superiority.

"So," he said, gesturing towards Demona's gun. "Just what are you gonna do with that?"

The gun in Demona's hand looked like some sort of space-aged version of the old Walther P38s that the Germans had used during the Second World War, with an extended circular barrel and an extended clip that could be seen protruding out from below the handle.

Brooklyn stared at the gun curiously. "Is that one of those laser pistols your company's supposed to make?"

"It's a Nightstone T8," replied Dominique Destine coldly, still pointing the pistol at Brooklyn.

The crimson gargoyle cocked his head as he continued to smile at the most hated person in his world. "And what, pray tell, are you planning to do with it?"

"I thought that should be obvious." Said Dominique flatly, cocking the gun and aiming for Brooklyn's chest. "I'm going to shoot you."

Brooklyn openly scoffed at that. "Oh please! You do know what'll happen to you then if you kill me right?" he took another step backwards, his arms spread out and with that dirty smirk still on his face.

"I'm fully aware of the rules Brooklyn," replied Dominique coldly. "I know the consequences of me shooting you. But that won't stop me from doing it."

The smirk vanished. "But…you'll die too."

Dominique said nothing. Everyone was left where they were for several moments; the only audible sound was of the police sirens that were getting ever closer.

Brooklyn took another step back as his smile returned, though it lacked the confidence of before.

"You're bluffing," he growled. "You've only started tasting life again. Enjoying everything that you stole from me."

"I didn't steal anything you had Brooklyn. You threw it away."

Brooklyn's eyes flared and he growled suddenly, utterly furious. "I threw nothing away!" he screamed. "You did it! You stole it all! It's all your fault! It's always your fault!"

"Inquisitor," said Dominique, while keeping her eyes on Brooklyn. "I want you to point your gun at my head."

Faith had been splitting her gaze between where Fang lay, where Mal was being held by Riana, at Brooklyn and at her own shaking hands. But when Dominique said that, she looked up at her, stunned.

"What Demona?"

"I want you to point your gun at my head," repeated Dominique slowly, and loud enough for Brooklyn to hear every word. "And then I want you to keep your eyes firmly on Brooklyn and his two lackeys. If any of them try anything funny or you think they're going to do something that's suspicious I want you to fire. That'll put Brooklyn out of the picture long enough for you to drop his two accomplices."

"Fire that gun," growled Brooklyn, "and Riana will snap Mal's treacherous little neck in two!"

"Well if you let him go!" retorted Faith aiming the gun at Demona's head and pulling the hammer back with her thumb for effect, now getting the gargess' plan. "Then they'll be no need for anybody to get shot now will there?"

Brooklyn looked between Dominique and Faith and back again, his entire body quivering in rage as his eyes flared like twin blue supernovas.

"I don't have time for this!" he growled through gritted teeth.

The sound of sirens grew closer, before the thwop, thwop, thwoping of a helicopter could be heard coming towards the mall.

Rincewald, who was standing near where Riana was holding Mal, looked up into the air and swore very imaginatively.

Faith smiled dirtily at Brooklyn. "Sounds like you've less time than you thought."

Brooklyn looked around for a moment, snarling. "We're going," he growled after a moment. He then gestured over to Mal, who had been quite still as he watched the little tirade. "But we're taking this little shit with us as collateral."

"No you aren't," said Dominique in a matter-of-fact way. "If you take one step away from me with him then I'll shoot you down."

"Shoot me and he dies. And then so do you."

"Are you forgetting what you, him and that walking rug did to me?" said Dominique. "I couldn't care less if he dies or not. But Goliath and the others will." She paused for a moment, her face and tone unreadable. "But then again they aren't here, and Fang's unconscious. And you and I won't be in a position to explain things because I'll have shot you and therefore myself. You can't answer questions when you're dead."

"But you'll be dead too Demona," said Brooklyn, the confidence in his voice fading. "You'll…you'll abandon your daughter? Just like that?"

Dominique broke her cold expression with a proud smile. "I doubt she ever needed me. She's immensely strong, and has the love of a man much more loyal and with greater heart than you could ever have."

Brooklyn's eyes flared, while his body began to shake madly. "Your daughter," he growled slowly, almost inaudibly. "Is a slut. And that 'man' she's stuck herself with is a bastard. The product of a stupid old fart, an ugly desperate woman, and a lot of cheap ale. There's nothing there to be proud of. If anything their child should be pitied."

Dominique glared balefully at the gargoyle for a moment, before continuing, as if she hadn't heard what Brooklyn had said. "And if you succeed, I'm sure that her and her unborn child will perish. I won't let that happen Brooklyn. I won't."

"So then what the Hell happens now?" roared Rincewald suddenly. "Do you expect us to all stand around like idiots and wait for militia to shoot this place up?"

"No," said Faith. "You let Mal go. Then you can all bugger off and we can settle this another time."

Brooklyn's eyes flared. Outside, he could hear the sound of rubber skidding on tarmac. "Let him go Riana," he growled through gritted teeth, keeping his blazing eyes firmly on Dominique and Faith.

"But-" started Riana.

"I won't say it again dammit!" roared Brooklyn. "Let him go!"

Riana looked hatefully at the back of Brooklyn's head as she loosened her grip on Mal's arms.

"Count yourself lucky," she whispered in his ear as the gargoyle-turned-human stood up shakily, not looking back in her direction as he scrambled over to Fang's side, stopping only to grab both his fallen tonfa, not even looking back at Brooklyn as the gargoyle started backing off towards Rincewald.

"We'll be taking our leave now," said Brooklyn. He looked over at Faith. "It's been interesting Inquisitor. I hope we can finish this little episode next time. Without interruption."

"There won't be a next time," stated Dominique, as she pulled the trigger, once, twice, three times in total, each pull being accompanied by a jolt and a crack from the pistol in her right hand.

Brooklyn stood stark still, his eyes wide with shock, swaying slightly. He looked down at himself, at where he had been shot. He could see the tail ends of three darts. Two were sticking out of his stomach, while the other was protruding from his left shoulder. He swore silently as a feeling of numbness and exhaustion began to overwhelm him suddenly.

Tranquillisers? Why the Hell didn't he think of that?

He mustered enough of his rapidly fading strength to look up at Dominique, at Demona's triumphantly smiling face. That was clever. Tranquillisers would take him down, but not cause him, and thus Demona, any pain.

-Tha…that…dir…dirty little…-

A weak moan came from Brooklyn's lips before his eyes closed and fell silently backwards. Riana was already up and running towards him as he fell, and was able catch him under his arms before he collapsed completely. She looked down at him, growling. He was totally out of it. There was probably enough in those darts to keep him asleep for hours, days if even half of what he said about this Demona was accurate.

She looked up hatefully at the smiling Dominique. The CEO of Nightstone Inc. was looking quite proud of this dirty little trick.

She noticed that the Inquisitor that she'd wounded was now looking at her coldly, as she pulled her weapon away from Dominique's head and began to aim it towards her. As this happened Rincewald came forward suddenly, raising his staff and roaring something in the daemon's tongue.

A streak of green lightning suddenly shot out of his outstretched left hand, and tore through the air towards Dominique and Faith. The Inquisitor swore as Dominique roughly pushed her back while yelling something in a tongue Riana didn't know and threw her free arm up. A bent and twisted table (actually one of the ones Fang had landed on earlier) suddenly rose in the air and flew into the lightning blast's path, the magical attack destroying it utterly and sending a few scorched pieces of metal into the air.

As their opponents ducked, Rincewald came up beside Riana and began to mutter another spell, ignoring the streak of cuss words coming out of Riana's mouth as he tried to focus his mind on where their car had been parked.

As Dominique and Faith were rising, the trio and Brooklyn's staff, which was now hanging very loosely in its master's right hand, vanished in a ball of green flame.

The two women looked at the scorched patch of tiles where their enemies had been only seconds before. They both cursed very loudly.

"Faith! Demona!" yelled Mal desperately. "Help me here!"

The two looked over to where Mal was. The clone was on his knees beside Fang, who he'd managed to roll onto his back. The mutate still had his eyes closed, the fur on his chest and belly was charred black while his shirt, T-shirt and jacket were lying in pieces around his body, some parts were still smoking.

Faith was over in an instant, Dominique coming behind her just a second later. The both knelt down on either side of the cougar mutate while Mal moved over to give them room, biting his lower lip and looking very, very frightened.

"Is he gonna be alright?"

Dominique said nothing, instead running her hands over Fang's stomach and chest, her face forming into a grim frown as she did so.

Five broken ribs, no, six. Several third degree burns on his stomach, slightly worse on his chest. His breathing was worryingly shallow, his chest barely rising at all when he breathed in. He had hit his head against the ground and then the wall very hard, as he seemed to be badly concussed.

She looked over at Faith. The Inquisitor had Fang's head propped up with one of her hands while she used the other to gently slap him on the cheek, trying to wake him up. Dominique could see a trace of fear in her face too.

"I can't treat him here," she said after another moment's examination. "If we can get him into the van then I can treat his wounds there."

"He's not waking up," said Mal, looking down at his best friend's limp body. His hands kept opening and closing constantly as his grey eyes ran up and down the mutate's body, looking a sign, any sign that he might wake up. "Christ he's…he's not waking up." The wail of sirens was now deafening. They all could hear heavy tires screeching to a halt just outside the entrance of the mall. Mal looked over the rail from where he stood, as the sounds of men shouting came to his ears. "Oh fuck it's the cops!"

He looked over at the kneeling Dominique, who had pulled out a mobile phone and was yelling into it, trying to be heard over the sirens. After few moments of this she switched it off and shoved it back into her jacket pocket.

"Jezebel's bringing the transport a few blocks closer to the rear of the building! We won't have as far to glide!" she yelled to Faith and Malibu. "We have to go now!" She stood up hurriedly and grabbed Fang's legs as she rose. "Take one of his arms each of you! Be careful of his wings!"

"Why don't you make him human first?!" yelled Faith, still kneeling. "He'd be easier to carry!"

Dominique shook her head quickly, the bun in her hair becoming a little loose. "If I made him human now then his injuries would probably kill him! We've no choice! Now hurry!"

Malibu and Faith took an arm each, each putting one arm under Fang's shoulders to prop his wings off the floor so they couldn't trip on them, while using the other arm to actually hold on to the cougar mutate's arms. Between the three of them straining as hard as they could they could barely get Fang more than a couple of feet off the ground as they tried to carry him off.

"Shit!" yelled Faith, after they'd gotten about a dozen yards. Her voice was strained; her breathing erratic and causing considerable pain due to the damage Riana had done to her chest. She'd nearly dropped him once already and had accidentally stepped on his dangling tail twice. "What the fuck has he been eating?!"

"Nearly anything that couldn't run away quick enough!" Mal yelled back, being quite serious. He didn't sound as bad as Faith, but his own hands were getting sweaty from effort and making his attempts to hold onto his part of Fang extremely difficult.

There was the sound of glass shattering somewhere below, followed by the thundering of many feet and the barking of orders by a harsh sounding Russian voice.

By this time the trio had managed to half carry Fang to near the rear of the floor they were on, where the tiling ended and was replaced by flat concrete that had probably been painted white once but had now faded to an unhealthy looking cream. As they approached a pair of double doors that had wire glass and a sign in red and white on the front that probably read something like "staff only" Dominique raised a hand, muttering something that couldn't be heard over the echoes of the sirens, and the doors flew wide open.

As they entered they found that the doors led to a small, well-lit corridor with the same faded walls that, in turn, led to a freight elevator that was probably used for transporting goods from the ground floor to the shops on the higher levels. There was also a door to the right that led to a set of stairs that was quite close to the elevator door.

Dominique punched the button in the centre of the wall panel by the doors, which slid open after a moment. They all staggered in and placed Fang on the ground for a moment, relieved at the brief respite, while Dominique hit a button on the inside control panel.

For a second the floor of the lift shook, and then it began to travel upwards.

"We're going up?" asked a surprised Malibu. He was on his knees beside Fang, panting and shaking slightly from the effort it had taken to carry him this far. "Why the Hell are we going up? We need to go down Demona! Fang needs help!"

"We can't go down you fool!" yelled Dominique impatiently. "The militia's probably surrounding the bottom floor already!" She leaned over and pulled her high heels off. "And they never ask questions. They just shoot!" She tossed the shoes unceremoniously away and checked her watch. "Alright. I believe that sunset will be in about five or six minutes from now. All we really have to do is get to the roof without incident. By that time the sun will have set and you and I can carry Faith and Fang away from here. I told Jezebel to park a few streets west of here. Near the harbour."

Mal nodded and looked down at Fang, watching his burnt chest and stomach rise weakly for a moment.

"Demona."

"Yes Malibu?" snapped Dominique, watching the counter on the control panel, as it indicated what floor they were on now.

"I…I know what we did to you was awful. And…well…"

The lift shook for the briefest second, before coming to a complete stop.

"Save it for another time!" yelled Dominique, as she rushed over to Fang and grabbed his legs again while the worn doors screeched open. "First let's just get out of here!"

Mal nodded slowly as he and Faith both grabbed Fang's arms and shoulders again and hauled him up. As they moved out Mal couldn't help but notice the look on the Inquisitor's face. She looked a little shaken.

"Faith. Are you okay?" he yelled, as Dominique shifted a little after they had gotten out and had raised a hand, open palmed to the elevator. The Inquisitor looked up at him and managed a smile, weak and forced.

"I'm…I'm fine Mal," she lied. "Just fine."

Mal opened his mouth to say something else, but he was rudely cut off when the steel cables that held up the elevator, snapped. As it dropped, gaining speed with every yard it fell, the air became filled with a deafening cacophony as metal collided and scored against concrete as the freight elevator fell three storeys, before being smashed against the ground, causing all within hearing distance to jump for a moment. .

Dominique pulled at Fang's legs, forcing Mal and Faith into moving again instead of looking own at the wreck down the shaft. "We have to keep moving!"

She led them to the stairs, roughly kicking open the doors that led upwards and on to the roof.

"Come on!"

Mal growled and swore under Fang's weight as they came to a turning point in the stairs. This was ridiculous.

"Demona, don't you know any sort of teleportation spell?" he managed to grunt.

"Several!" replied Dominique. "But all of them take a very long time!" She grunted as she helped haul Fang up the stairs. "And besides, I think the sun will set in another couple of minutes. We'll glide out then!"

"What about that helicopter?"

Dominique managed to give him a smile. It wasn't one he liked very much.

"Don't worry; I'll deal with the helicopter. Now move!"

After several more minutes they had reached the top of the stairs. There was a barred steel door that Dominique forced aside with a word. They scrambled outside. The sky was a deep red, with the occasional dark cloud floating about, silhouetted in the dwindling sunlight.

"Another minute or two!" yelled Dominique, letting go of Fang's legs and throwing off her jacket in a single, fluid motion. Mal noticed slits in the back of the white blouse, at where Demona's wings would sprout when the sun finally set. He felt a little embarrassed that he hadn't thought of doing that with the clothes he was wearing now.

A sound suddenly came on the wind. A heavy rumble that seemed to shake the air with its approach. He looked up to the East and saw the militia chopper coming towards them, at perhaps fifty feet above the rooftop. It was painted white, though at this moment of twilight, the hull looked like a matte grey. A powerful beam of white suddenly shot out from its chin, like some sort of laser blast, covering the quartet in blinding light that stunned them with its intensity.

A voice, thick to the point of irritation, boomed out from the speaker on the chopper as it settled to hover over the quartet, causing Mal's thin denim coat to flap as it came down closer, barking commands in Russian as a side door slid opened, and the marksman in the compartment hooked his harness onto the outside rail that hung above the door, before pressing his Dragunov SVD sniper rifle to his shoulder, and scanning the ground of the roof for any hostile movements from the three people and that…whatever it was two of them were holding.

"Oh shit!" yelled Mal, using an arm to cover his eyes. "Demona! What now?!"

Dominique looked up at the chopper, seemingly unaffected by the light that was blinding her colleagues. Her hair, that wild, fiery red mass, had gotten loose at some point, and was now billowing around her shoulders, as her business skirt flapped around her. Her gaze still fixed skyward, in a look of triumph.

"Now we leave."

The very last ray of the sun vanished below the black, serrated horizon of the city.

And a new sound joined the chopper's rotors; the tearing of cloth, the shifting of bones, and the inhuman roars of the guardians of the night.

There was a strong wind blowing against him, beating hard against his body, making his wings, caped around him as a cloak, flap wildly.

He shivered, both from the bitter chill and the strange feeling the wind caused inside of him. This wind wasn't natural. There was a power behind it, immense, unrelenting, but strangely good as well.

He stood near the foot of a hill, the power of the wind forcing his head to his chest. He was high up, perhaps near the summit of a mountain.

The echoes of cloth moving rapidly in the wind came to his ears, and he looked up at the summit, his eyes widening in surprise.

Atop the summit was an altar of stone, multi-levelled, circular in shape. Around the altar, rings of men, or figures of men, as they were little more than silhouettes, stood in intricate patterns, holding large, grandly inscribed flags with what looked like Oriental writings, flapping in the powerful winds and all fixated around the altar.

And behind the altar, stood a man.

He frowned. There was something about this man that fascinated. He began to walk forward, up the hill, which he now realised was artificial, crafted from dirt to rest on the mountain top, for a purpose which he couldn't guess at, and then he began to walk up the stone steps of the great altar. He cast a glance every now and then to his left and right, trying to make out the features of any of those holding the flags. But they remained nothing but the black outlines of people. Shrouded in shadows.

He came to the foot of the altar, a sudden, inexplicable desperation seizing him. He had to see this man; he had to know what he looked like. He had to talk to him. His life, his soul, his very memory depended on what this man knew.

But when he reached him, he only found that this man too, was enveloped in darkness, so much so his outline could only really be guessed at.

He sighed, defeated, and looked down upon the altar, hoping that there may be something there that could tell him something.

Upon the altar lay two items.

A book, open near the end, written in some, incomprehensible language of the Orient.

And the other was a white feather fan.

He felt a kind hand rest on top of his, and he looked up.

The spectre of the man had taken his hand, and was looking him over. He could feel the spectre's non-existent eyes going over every inch of him, its gaze going through his flesh and seeing his very soul.

"Who are you?" he asked the spectre. "What's going on?"

"Patience," whispered the spectre. "As History knows me. You will know me." The spectre gestured for him to look behind him. He did so, and his jaw dropped.

There was a river, immensely wide; in the direction the wind was blowing, not too far away from the base of the mountain.

There was a battle being fought there, on such a scale that it left him stunned.

There were ships, hundreds, upon hundreds of ships on the river. Perhaps thousands.

And at least half of them were aflame.

-Oh my God.-

And still the flames were spreading; the winds that had left him chilled were fanning them, spreading it like a plague along the wooden hulls, devouring and destroying all that it touched. The very stars in the sky could not be seen from the light the fire gave off. It seemed to light up everything, despite the dark hour. He could make out individual ships, from the looks of some of them; they were similar in design to Chinese junks, of all sorts of shapes and sizes, from the rowboat to the utterly immense, multi-hulled grand battleships.

Arrows, moving in thick, dark clouds could be seen going through and around the flames, like swarms of locusts, tipped with fire and steel, from each fleet.

"Jesus."

The flames not only lit up the great river, that he guessed was about a mile and a half wide, although he was pretty bad at judging distances, and the sky, but also the land on each shore. In fact without the flames, he probably wouldn't have seen the encampments. The tens of thousands of simply designed tents for soldiers, the stockades, the watch towers and supply depots, the walkways leading out into the water for loading the fleet that was currently giving battle. The one on this side of the river was vast, and seemed to stretch for miles, taking up most of the coastline and a great deal of the inland as well; and the one on the opposite shore was even greater in scale, perhaps three or even four times the greater. On the one on the opposite shore, men numbering in their tens of thousands were running wildly about, fleeing the ships that had yet to disembark, as the fire spread to them as well.

"A turning point in history." Said the spectre, its tone unreadable. "A victory against terrible odds. It is a mark I have made."

He said nothing, but continued to stare at the naval battle, as the force that was at least three times larger than the force whose part of the shore he was on, began to flee, as the victors hit land on the other side of the river and struck out from their ships, capturing the massive camp quickly and slaughtering any of the enemy who tried to organise any sort of resistance.

"I have left many marks on history. Many instances like this. Some well known, some not so well," whispered the spectre into his ear. "You will find many of them." He turned around and looked at the spectre, as it continued talking. "It is all fated you see. We live and die by the will of Heaven." He felt the spectre's gaze bore into him again. "Out of loyalty to my master, I fought on against the very will of the Heavens, after others found their favour. Yet I scored many victories, but in the end, the efforts of myself, unworthy as I am, and many courageous others, were all in vain."

It paused for a moment. In that time the sounds of the battle were carried up to them. The echoes of clashing metal, the crashing and splintering of wood…

… and the screams of the dieing.

And then the spectre continued.

"You will leave a mark on history as well. Your memory will live as long as your race." It paused again, and he felt the eyes he couldn't see bore into him again. "But where I have been remembered with mixed feelings. You will be remembered only with hate."

He took a step back, trembling.

Hated? Why? How?

What could he possibly do to have his own kind hate him forever?

There was a hissing sound in the air, and he turned to where it had come from.

The silhouettes were moving now, dropping their flags and producing weapons from their own shadows. Swords, axes, spears, halberds, and knives. One, at the base of the steps, drew a longbow and arrow. The silhouettes began to change shape as they came closer, their hands gaining claws and their backs, wings, while others grew horns or beaks or long flowing hair.

He staggered backwards as the silhouettes began to stalk towards him from all sides. His back pressed against the altar, and he looked around desperately for the spectre to help him. But it was gone now.

Arms reached over from the other side of the altar and grabbed hold of him by his arms, pulling him back and dragging him onto the altar.

He screamed at their touch, their hands cold and damp. They grabbed his wrists as they dragged him onto the altar and pinned them above his head. He looked up at those who grabbed him from behind, holding his arms down. He saw where they were holding his arms, and saw blood, dark and gleaming in the light that flowed down from their black bodies.

He screamed again, and started struggling wildly, the touch of every silhouette sending shivers down his spine, leaving cold blood all over his body. He managed to free his arms and kicked several off as they tried to get on top of him and pin him down, splattering their blood all over his face and abdomen. He managed to sit up and punched another away as it came at him. Several grabbed him from behind but by then he was standing on the altar now, hitting any that came at him with his fists, feet, tail and anything else he could think of, beating their clawing hands back, and suddenly he felt a glimmer of hope.

He could fight what was coming! He could stop it!

There was a whistling sound in the air, and then it felt as if someone had punched him in the chest, and then suddenly he felt all his strength desert him. He looked down and saw the tail end of the arrow protruding from his chest, at his heart. He swayed where he stood, and looked up at where he thought the arrow had come from, as the silhouettes grabbing at him began to take on forms.

A gargoyle silhouette stood at the very foot of the hill, holding a spent longbow. He knew he'd never seen a silhouette such as this one's, with the fairly short wingspan, the hairless and not quite beaked head, and short, but very well built body.

But a cold feeling in the very pit of his stomach made him feel that one day, he would know it. And many like it.

"The Tiger," whispered the wind.

"The Daemon! The Murderer!" roared the enraged mob of gargoyles, grabbing him again, dragging him back onto his back and holding him down, dozens of hands holding each of his arms and legs, and tail tightly, making struggling impossible.

He looked into the sky, still lit up by the flames; only at the edge could he see any stars.

And then it was only one constellation, the one his father often pointed out.

The Dragon. The one he so often swore by.

Air escaped his aching lungs. He could feel his strength dwindling till it became an effort just to breathe in again.

"The Corruptor!" bayed the mob, now little more than a pack of wild animals.

A gargoyle leapt onto the altar, its caped wings flapping in the wind that shouldn't be blowing but was, wielding a spiked mace. It stood above him and raised the savage weapon above its head with both hands, aiming for his head.

He looked up at his executioner, his eyes widening in horror.

Demona stood above him, her eyes flaming like the fires of Hell. Her face contorted in unspeakable hatred. She threw her head back and bayed into the night, showing her fangs to him.

The entire mob howled as one along with her. Filling the air with cries of hate, before Demona brought the mace down in an arc towards his face.

"THE TRAITOR!"

There was the sound of cracking masonry and growls of effort, and then Broadway Wyvern awoke in a shower of stone chippings, screaming.

Jezebel Tibbs was standing near the four stone statues, all having to stay sitting, so as not to take up too much space in the fairly cramped interior of the Nightstone Inc. vehicle that had served as their mobile headquarters for the past few weeks.

She had received Demona's rather panicked orders about ten minutes ago now. In that time she had quickly moved the location of their transport to where Demona had designated and was now left with the only the task of waiting.

Waiting…

The gargoyles would crack out of their shells any second now, though time seemed to be passing at a snail's pace at the moment. She paced up and down the small interior of the transport for what must easily have been the twentieth time, her soft footsteps always accompanied by the metallic clink of Brooklyn's old staff that had taken up residence in her right hand.

She stopped and swore under her breath.

This was ludicrous! Fang was hurt and God now only knew how Malibu would be now!

Both of her remaining charges were in danger, and here she was babysitting a group of statues!

She paced up and down the interior again, muttering under her breath at how foolish it had been of Goliath to send detective Maza home.

Injured or not, Maza could have stayed back here and watched these four while she could have gone out with Demona's little party and looked after Mal and Fang.

Jezebel had sworn to look after those two, and Brooklyn as well after her beloved master, Macbeth had died. But she had failed to protect Brooklyn, both from Oberon's vengeance and then later from himself.

She would never admit it freely to anyone but she really did believe that his madness was all her fault. If only she'd done something when he'd first taken out the Malus Codicium. If only she'd not been so desperate to hurt Oberon for making Macbeth's death in vain.

If only…if only Demona could have just stayed dead…

She stopped her pacing and opened her eyes, her face becoming dark as her thoughts started to linger on her dead master's ancient enemy.

Demona…

That hellion! She'd destroyed everything her beloved master had strove to create! She'd betrayed him! And her own kind as well!

Her look darkened.

Her kind deserved no mercy…

Along the shaft of the staff she held onto, nearly a dozen runes glowed at once like embers.

She suddenly found her eyes drifting over to those four stone statues. The three gargoyles, Goliath, Lexington and Broadway respectively, were sitting there, wings caped except for the web-winged Lexington, while Bronx was curled up on the floor. They all looked quite apprehensive in their poses today. They also looked terribly vulnerable.

Her right thumb was caressing several of the one hundred and forty four daemonic runes that had been engraved into the two-meter long staff. Her eyes were fixed on the gargoyles, so she didn't notice the faint, ember like glow that emitted from whichever runes she touched, adding to the already glowing runes farther down the shaft.

And those who supported her deserved no mercy either…

She was suddenly; distinctly aware of the shotgun she always kept in her homemade woollen coat.

It was an Ithica Model 37. Riot police, SWAT teams and the like used it. It was quite devastating at very close ranges, even more so than some of the spells that the witch knew.

She had loaded it with solid slugs, preferring them to the indiscriminate buckshot. Like her, they were very discriminate, and very powerful.

She'd seen first hand what one of them could do to stone at very close ranges. It could be quite a spectacular explosion really.

The staff was in her left hand now, because her right was slowly reaching into her coat. She felt her old fingers wrap around the cold, black metal handle of her weapon. It that had served her almost as long as she had served Macbeth.

It would be so easy. So very, very easy to just kill these four. They were stone, they were helpless…

And yet they were dangerous…

Her old, tired eyes drifted over to Broadway. His face had a tired, very troubled look about it that seemed out of place on him. His round nose was barely an inch from the barrel of her now drawn Ithica Model 37.

Him especially…

She didn't know how she knew he was dangerous, she just suddenly knew.

If only one had to die, it had to be him.

As she held her weapon, steady in her aging hand, the pump shot back and forth once, cocking the gun without her even needing to hold it with both hands. It was an especially useful spell in a gunfight. An unnaturally cruel smile spread across her aged lips.

With him out of the way, there'd be safety. With him out of the way, Demona would fail and die and…

She shook her head for a moment and the smile vanished suddenly, and then she looked down at the gun in her hand, now suddenly shaking in fear, never seeing.

What…what had just happened? It had felt almost like someone else had been controlling her actions, like she had been looking at herself from outside as her mind and body began to do things she knew to be wrong.

Her eyes quickly looked up at the stone face of Broadway.

-My…my God…I…I almost…-

But she was snapped out of her thoughts by the cracking of stone, as tiny lines began to form along the bodies of the gargoyles and gargdog.

She staggered back as her quickly sheathed her shotgun. In another moment the statues began to make awkward, stiff movements, before the air became filled with stone fragments as each made a sudden, violent thrash that scattered their hard skin all over the interior of their transport as deep, powerful roars of effort came from their fang laced mouths.

But these were cut off when Broadway let out a terrified scream, and fell off the couch as he awoke, covering his face with his hands and screaming again as he lay on his side on the floor.

Goliath and Lexington stared at him fearfully for a moment before they darted over to him to see if he was all right. Bronx was at their heels a second later, while Jezebel looked at them all for a moment, feeling real terror welling up inside of her.

She hadn't really hurt him? Had she?

She quickly came over to the gargoyles. Broadway was sitting up now, panting and looking afraid and confused. He had worn his loincloth until the previous night when Demona had advised both him and Goliath to get into their armoured body gloves, in case they ran into Brooklyn in the city somewhere. As their loincloths were too bulky to actually pull their gloves over, they'd had to take them off. His body glove was black and armoured, while a small equipment belt hung around his big waistline. There was an in-built scabbard on the back that allowed him to carry a black-bladed sword that his father, Hudson, had apparently been giving him lessons with. The straight, double-edged carbon steel blade was twenty eight inches long, with a black, circular hand guard and a twelve inch long, black ribbed wooden handle. Jezebel had never seen the chubby, good-natured gargoyle actually use it, but she'd seen him hold it with a reasonably professionally air on a few occasions since they'd set out. She'd also seen him try and practice fighting with a war hammer, but he'd found that it was too awkward to use and given it up.

Much to her amazement, he had no other weapons than the sword, and a single, twin edged dagger on his belt that she had never seen him even touch. There were actually places on the legs of the hand made body gloves for carrying pistols and ammunition but for a reason he'd never explained to her (and admittedly, she never really thought to ask about), he never touched firearms.

Broadway was sitting up now; Goliath had taken hold of his shoulders and was asking him something. Jezebel could see the fear etched into the huge lavender gargoyle's strong features.

After what, five years wasn't it? They'd probably all become very close. And then there was the fact Broadway was Goliath's son-in-law.

"What happened?" asked Goliath quickly, panicked. "Are you alright?"

Broadway looked at him for a moment as if he'd never seen his leader before, before he snapped out of whatever state he had been in.

"Huh? What?"

"What happened Broadway? Are you alright?"

"Um. I'm fine Goliath." He looked around for a moment, catching the worried looks on Lexington and Bronx's faces. "I'm okay. I…I uh, just had a pretty freaky dream. That's all."

"I'd hate to interrupt," Jezebel found herself saying suddenly, a little disturbed by the unusually cold tone in her own voice. "But there's a problem."

Goliath looked up at her suspiciously. He still had difficulty trusting her, and didn't seem afraid to let her know about it. "What sort of problem?"

"They found Brooklyn."

"Tell me Gregor," said Furcifer, making a gesture. "Is this how you usually spend your free time?"

"Usually," replied the ancient vampire. "When I'm not actually indulging myself of course."

"Of course."

Furcifer and Gregor were seated at a circular steel table out in the front of a coffee bar on a street several blocks from the city centre. There were about half a dozen similar tables such as this spaced around the pavement, several were filled and several more were not. The two sat there, sipping lattes and casually watching the bustle of humanity shift around them on the streets, while the sun set just behind the row of buildings on the other side of the street.

Off to one side of Gregor, a pair of pale skinned men stood. Both were clean-shaven and dressed in black Armani suits with ankle length, heavy black overcoats and dark sunglasses. The one to Gregor's left had almost hawk like features and matte brown hair. The one to Gregor's right had a very prominent forehead while his hair was short and bleached blonde.

They were part of about a dozen of Gregor's lackeys. The rest of his gang and some of his contacts were going through the city, searching for Brooklyn, Riana and Jeremiah.

Gregor and Furcifer had been searching around for a little while before Gregor had gotten bored and decided to have a little sport.

Furcifer didn't complain, as such menial tasks were below him anyway.

And besides, he was curious to see how one such as Gregor hunted nowadays.

Gregor was sitting in a casual slouch, resting his head on a hand, though his storm cloud grey eyes were watching the people that passed by with great intensity.

"I love cities," he stated suddenly. "They grant the two most important things that my kind enjoy."

"And those are?" asked Furcifer.

"Well, the first is anonymity," replied Gregor. He gestured to the crowds passing them by in a constant stream. "Look at their faces. As long as they live I guarantee you that I will probably never lay my eyes on most of them ever again. And even if I do, I won't remember them. They're faces in a crowd. That's how it works. It's like trying to identify individual drops of water in a rain storm." He leaned back in his designer chair. "And as it works for them it works for me."

"Well that's one reason," agreed Furcifer. "What's the other one?"

Gregor didn't reply for a moment, as his eyes had discovered a plump, little boy of perhaps eleven, still in his school uniform and walking along their side of the street. Backpack slouched over one shoulder, a hand in that of what could only be his mother.

They walked by, taking no notice of Gregor, whose hands were shaking as his eyes stalked their progress until they took a corner and vanished out of sight.

"Diversity," he said eventually. "Yes. Definitely diversity. Such a great pallet to choose from."

Furcifer had noticed his companion's reaction to the mother and son and had also watched them until they had vanished again into the masses.

"So, how long have you been nailing kids Gregor?"

"Centuries," replied Gregor immediately. "You'd be amazed just how much you can get out of it."

"You mean there's more than just a cheap orgasm?" asked Furcifer, a little curious.

"The sex means nothing to me these days," replied the vampire. "I'm a sadist Furcifer. I do what I do to children because to hurt them is to hurt all those who love them. I always target families and I always target the youngest. The one who's loved the most, especially if there's only one parent. I try to do as much damage to families as I can through one single, loved target. That boy you saw the gauntlets devour. He was the only child of a mother who works as a waitress four blocks from where were are sitting right now. I do a lot of watching Furcifer, to find good targets." He adjusted his position in his chair, his face showing the smallest thread of annoyance. "She'll drive herself half mad because she'll believe that her beloved son ran away, for whatever reason she may concoct. And don't take this the wrong way Furcifer, but partly thanks to you, that's as far as it will go."

"I don't understand." Replied Furcifer.

"I wanted to drive her to suicide," stated Gregor. "I was actually planning to tear a bit of his decaying flesh off and send it to his mother along with pictures of him being raped by some of my boys with the features blurred. Unfortunately your little arrival caught me off guard, and I missed that opportunity."

"Well allow me to apologise Gregor. But won't the pictures be enough?"

Gregor shrugged. "They do have an effect, but it just sort of lacks a punch if you don't send a pound of flesh along with them. I've driven almost a dozen parents to suicide this year alone by doing that."

"Well it's good to see that you're keeping yourself busy," said Furcifer. "But aren't you ever worried about the police?"

"The militia?" replied Gregor, a dirty smile crossing his face. "My good friend, you know nothing of this town. They're nothing but a corrupt gang of thugs. All I, like many others around here, have to do to keep them off my back is to give them a thick wad of notes every now and then and I can kill as many kids and deal as many drugs as I want. Fuck me, I've even hired some of them on occasion to do some of my dirty work!"

Furcifer grinned at this. "You mean to tell me that you don't enjoy doing your own dirty work anymore?"

"Well that's not totally true," confessed Gregor. "I do like the interrogations and torture sessions. But the whole gang fighting is very below me. It's for subordinates really. I will only get really involved in the fighting if I deem the prize as being worth the effort."

"Ah. I understand. Not quite my own philosophy, but I can see where you're coming from," said Furcifer slowly.

The wail of sirens suddenly hit the group, as two cars and a large, heavily armoured van, all painted the white of the city militia, came screeching around a corner on the other side of the street. They raced past along the road in the direction of the city centre, the flashing of red and blue lighting up the street as the crowds paused in their motion, and watched them until they rounded another corner, before going back to their lives without another thought.

Furcifer was on his feet in an instant, his dark eyes tracking the militia as they rounded the corner and beyond. "Let's go!"

He looked over at Zaitsev after it became apparent that the vampire wasn't following orders. "Well? Come on!"

"Why?" asked Zaitsev lazily. He shifted in his chair and smiled as Furcifer glared at him, holding up a hand casually. "I know what you're thinking my old friend. It could be this Brooklyn fella, but I highly doubt it. This is St. Petersburg. The militia are always racing all over the place. It's probably just a gang shoot out, or maybe a few Chechens or other separatists causing trouble. It's nothing I assure you."

"Well despite your certainty," said Furcifer, slowly. "I want us to go and check it out."

Zaitsev sighed in a very irritated manner and rose quickly. "Fine! Fine!" He looked over at his two cronies. "Xander! Call Tanya! Tell her to bring the car round!"

The bleached blonde nodded quickly and took out his black cell phone as Zaitsev looked over at Furcifer again. He looked angry, but Furcifer didn't really care.

"I dislike goose chases," he growled, in his low, pit bull voice. "So I hope you're right."

"And if I'm not?" asked Furcifer disinterestedly, his arms crossed over his thin torso.

"Then you're walking back."

The militia helicopter spun wildly in the air, its marksman hanging out of the side, his SVD lost as his arms flailed wildly about while the safety line at his waist tugged his armoured form so much that he felt he was going to throw up.

A thick, dark brown stream of smoke was billowing out of its tail. The rear rotor had been wrecked and now the pilot was fighting desperately to keep the helicopter level. After another few moments he succeeded and pulled the chopper away from the mall's roof, trying to get as far away from that monster that had leapt up from the surface, tore up his rotor like it was paper, and nearly killed his sniper while stealing his weapon.

But bizarrely, that wasn't the thing that scared him the most.

It was that creature's howl. It made his bones shake just to think about it. The high and piercing cry of some daemon of Hell. He caught a glimpse of it as he fled the scene, flying back towards the rooftop with those giant, bat like wings and mass of fire red hair. He also noticed it was clutching the SVD sniper rifle that had fallen out of his marksman's hands, and he felt himself growing confused.

What kind of daemons used guns?

Demona landed again on the roof, clutching the SVD tightly in her right hand as the militia chopper made an attempt to escape. She paused and looked over her shoulder as it bobbed up and down in the air, making its way to the next large rooftop to try a landing.

From the looks of it the pilot was a good one, so she wouldn't have to worry about the crew of the chopper getting hurt.

She quickly rounded an ornamental glass dome and rushed over to the entrance to the stairwell that Malibu and Faith were hiding with Fang.

"Are you crazy!" yelled Mal, rising from where he was kneeling beside the unconscious mutate. His eyes were flaring. "You could have fucking killed them!"

"Well I didn't!" retorted Demona, her own eyes still blazing. This little bastard was starting to get on her nerves. "So shut up!" She looked over at Faith, only to find that she looked angry as well. "Inquisitor Thompson! Malibu will carry you as we glide to where Jezebel has parked. I'll carry Fang!"

"That's okay!" yelled Mal suddenly, still angry. "I'll carry Fang. I'm stronger than I look remember?"

"Alright. But we must move quickly!" yelled Demona. "We need to link up with the rest of the clan and decide on our next course of action. We've no idea where Brooklyn and his lackeys could have disappeared to."

"Stupid fucking bastard!" growled Rincewald.

He and Riana were carrying Brooklyn between them, constantly stepping on his limp tail and tripping on his wings as they ran down the rows of cars, vans and motorcycles in the well lit, drab grey underground parking lot of the mall.

"Where's the car?!" he started yelling, his head looking desperately from side to side. "Where's the fucking the car?!"

"Calm down Jerry!" yelled Riana right back. "Let's find a sign and see if this is even the right level."

"What's that supposed to mean?" growled Rincewald suddenly. "Do you really think I can't even get us to the right car parking level?"

"Can we talk about this later?" replied Riana, turning to bring her full persona to bear down on the necromancer. "I don't want to be shot up today."

"Then we shouldn't take our car," said Rincewald suddenly. He looked around, letting his grip on Brooklyn's arms sag a little. "In fact, I doubt any of these would be much use, not with those militia ruffians running around. They'd shoot us up before we got very far."

"Then couldn't you transport us out of here!" yelled Riana.

"Easy for you to say you damned whore!" growled Rincewald. "Do you have the slightest idea how much something like that takes out of you?"

"I'd have thought you'd have had enough strength to jump us to the moon, seeing how you never seemed to think about giving me a hand in fighting those retards you fucking jackass!"

"You degenerate bitch!" roared Rincewald, suddenly stopping and letting go of Brooklyn. The crimson gargoyle quickly slid out of his hands and crumpled onto the floor, his daemonstaff that had been resting under his crossed arms bounced and clattered along the concrete. Riana had stopped as well, and had slowly put Brooklyn's legs down, remaining silent throughout the whole procedure, before looking up at the enraged necromancer.

And despite the need for haste, the two of them just stood where they were, in venomous silence, glaring at each other for what seemed like an eternity.

"You want to know why I didn't do anything?" asked Rincewald, his voice low, his sky blue eyes fixed on Riana's light green. "Would you care to know old friend?" He stepped over towards his fellow guardian, his staff suddenly in hand. "I didn't do anything because I'm starting to have doubts."

"About what?" said Riana flatly.

Rincewald advanced a little further, until he could smell the slight traces of vodka on Riana's breath.

"I think you know," whispered Rincewald.

Almost simultaneously they both dipped their heads and looked down upon the unconscious gargoyle between them.

"So you don't think he's the one we're looking for?" asked Riana, knowing it to be a pointless question, but also knowing Rincewald well enough to know that he wouldn't go on without the prompting.

"No," replied Rincewald immediately. "You saw what happened when he took on that, that creature with the knives didn't you? Until he started using magic he was getting his ass handed to him."

"So what? All that tells you is that guy was a much better fighter than him."

"Let's also not forget that that Harrison fellow did pretty much the same thing to him." Said Rincewald slowly. He cast his eyes down on Brooklyn again, in deep thought.

"Then please explain to me Jerry," started Riana impatiently. "Just how the Hell was he able to take the staff? And the Conscience?"

"I don't know," replied the necromancer. "I'd say his immortality, but that's not all of it. There…there is something amiss here." He rubbed the heavy stubble on his chin. "I don't exactly know what's going on here Riana, but-"

"But what?" Riana found herself screaming suddenly. This was insane! The militia were probably going to start sweeping the underground car parks any minute. "But what Jerry?!"

Rincewald continued to look the young gargoyle over for another moment, his face grave. There was the sound of footsteps echoing off the ground somewhere nearby, though Riana couldn't see where exactly they were coming from. Riana suddenly felt rage heat up inside of her. She'd lost her beloved Kukri and whip, thanks to that hateful bitch and that annoying little bastard that was apparently Brooklyn's clone.

They'd get what was coming to them, she'd see to that personally.

She smiled darkly as she pictured ways of torturing them for getting in her way, and she briefly hoped that they had families.

She could do so much more damage if they had families…

"Riana?"

She snapped out of her revere immediately. Knowing Rincewald he'd probably ended up just saying "Nothing" after all that.

"What Jerry?"

"I said we should get going. I think we might be able to jump an ambulance crew if we can make it to one of the exits."

"But what about Brooklyn?"

"I suppose I might be able to conceal us from view for a few moments. Should be enough time to get to an ambulance or something unnoticed."

"Perfect," said Riana, her voice cheerful suddenly. She bent over and grabbed Brooklyn's legs. "Lets get moving."

Jezebel Tibbs sat on one of the two long couches built into the interior of the huge transport they'd been using, her Ithica shotgun sat by her side on the couch, and her discarded woollen coat lay on the other side of her. She was staring at the small space of carpet that took up residence between her pair of sensible black shoes.

The staff was lying across her lap. One of her hands was resting on it, gently rubbing some of the runes with her fingers. Her other hand was fingering the beads of her rosary, which was wrapped tightly around her hand. Her breathing was quick, panicked.

She nearly killed them. She would have killed them, but for lack of time.

But why? Why?

She liked Broadway and Lexington. It was hard really not to like them. They were both very good people when you got down to it. Broadway did seem a little suspicious of her though, but considering their past she couldn't really blame him for that.

Why would she want to kill them? Why would she even feel she had to?

Her fingers traced over the beads and the cold metal runes together. She looked up into the darkened glass above the seats, into the sorrowful eyes of an old, tired woman.

Her eyes shut as a single, scorching tear ran down her cheek.

What was happening to her?

"Why did you leave me?" she whispered to the air, her voice hoarse, on the verge of tears. "Why did I let you leave me?"

There was a protracted whine one might associate with a very large dog, and she opened her eyes and smiled down at Bronx. The gargdog was sitting in front of her; with one of those sad puppy dog looks on his face that Lexington had said he had turned into an art form. As Jezebel looked back, Bronx came forward a bit and sat his head on her lap. Jezebel couldn't help but smile as she patted the huge beast on the head and scratched behind his ears, much to Bronx's enjoyment.

"You are a weird dog, you know that?"

Bronx made a friendly growl in response.

The clan were only going to meet up with Demona and the others and guide them back to the transport, where they could decide on their next course of action, so there was no actual need to carry Bronx around.

She had gotten all the medical supplies they had ready upstairs to take care of Fang, Faith's and Mal's injuries, and now there was nothing to do but wait, and hope that the sick feeling of dread that was welling up from within would dissipate.

As she sat there, patting Bronx's head with her hand holding the rosary, and fingering the runes on her staff, her thoughts eventually drifted back to Macbeth, the man she had loved so dearly and had now lost. She couldn't stop herself. Whenever she wasn't busying herself, she almost involuntarily started looking back at their history together. She wished very much that she had gone now with him, joining him in the afterlife, or that instead of actually killing Demona, they had just taken her alive and kept her hidden away somewhere forever.

She stopped patting Bronx, not hearing his concerned whine as she stared out into space again. Why couldn't she have had him?

She would give anything to have him!

Anything…

"Let me in Jezebel."

She stood up at once, brandishing her Ithica and her staff, her old eyes looking around suspiciously as Bronx backed off and stared at the door near the front, his eyes aflame as he growled dangerously.

"Who…who's there? Speak!"

"Don't fear me Jezebel."

Jezebel frowned. The voice, it was soft, kind, inviting…

"I feel your pain Jezebel," it whispered. "I feel your loss. I wish to make things better."

"How can you possibly know me?" she half stammered.

There was something so wonderful, so…enticing…so…

"Do not fear me. Do not hate me. Do not resist me." It whispered from somewhere, everywhere. "Surrender yourself to me, and I shall give you that which you most desire."

"N…n-no!" she said, panicked, looking around wildly. "I…I don't want anything! I'm happy! Now tell me who you are?"

"What do you wish me to be?"

"That is not an answer," she growled, recovering herself. "Tell me at once who you are. What do you want with me?"

"Your service. Your loyalty. Your love."

Bronx was barking now, he had edged up to the door; his eyes now like novas as whatever it was he felt threatened by had now moved up to the side of the transport.

"I shall give you everything that your heart has ever desired. I shall give you the man, which you have desired. I shall give you a second chance to love him."

"And what must I do to earn such a reward?"

"Destroy them Jezebel. Destroy the infidels that dare to oppose us. Their lives in exchange for that of Macbeth."

The door at the front of the transport slid open without a sound. Bronx started backing off to the winding set of steps at the rear that led to the upper level, the menace in his growl now replaced with a whine of terror.

"Sacrifice their lives to me Jezebel. Honour and worship me, and all that you have ever desired will be yours."

A figure of a man came up the steps. Jezebel had found herself involuntarily backing away to where Bronx had stopped as he came up the steps behind the seats at the front and turned to face her.

He was young, in his early twenties, clad in long black clothes and had a small beard on his chin with an inter-connecting moustache, and his eyes were such a dark shade of green that she almost thought that they were black. He was very, very handsome.

No, Jezebel found herself thinking. Not handsome.

Beautiful…

"Surrender yourself to me Jezebel," said the man, spreading his arms out non-threateningly, as he took a step forward. "Destroy those unworthy of life, so that the man whom you loved can be returned to you."

Jezebel was crying but she didn't care. Her weapons hung loosely in her arms, while Bronx, now pretty much cornered, was growling again, making the sound of any animal that knew it was about to face death.

There was a strange smell in the air. Of strong, but not wholly unpleasant spices, whose significance was lost on her at that moment. And there was something else underneath it, something she knew very well, but what it was exactly she could place then and there.

But there was something different about it. Something…important.

"Worship me Jezebel."

"What is your name?" she whispered, her voice hoarse from sobs she would never let out. "Who are you?!"

The man smiled, showing pearly white teeth as he took another step forward.

"It doesn't matter. It will never matter. Just know that I can offer you anything you want." He took another, confident step forward. "Forget your charges. They are unworthy of the attention of the likes of you anyway. They work along with Demona now remember? Do any that sympathise with her deserve mercy? Do any that aid the monster that gave your master such torment deserve anything other than death?"

"You're wrong."

The man stopped, surprised. "What?"

"I said 'you are wrong" stated Jezebel sharply. Her tears were gone, her hands were shaking and pale from how tightly she clutched her staff and shotgun. "They do deserve life. They don't deserve anything you're suggesting. None of them do."

"But…listen…"

"No! You listen to me!" she yelled, as amber flame filled eyes. "I know what you are! And I know that all you offer are empty promises and lies! If you know what's good for you you'll stay the bloody Hell away from me! You understand?"

The man's kind smile was replaced by a mask of indescribably fury. "You stupid, hateful old bat!" he screamed. "You dare reject the offers of mine and my master? If you will not take up my offer then you take death instead!"

The whites of his eyes becoming black as night, and screaming in the daemon's tongue, the thin, beautiful man, leapt at her.

The buildings in the streets that the transport had parked in were made up mostly of flat-topped structures. It was situated near the middle of a street, under the harsh white glare of the street lamps, which reflected off the shimmering silver and blacks of its hull.

The clan landed on the top of an old, two-storey house on the opposite side of the street where the transport waited.

It had taken them all nearly half an hour to get to this point, even though both groups had met up after only several minutes.

It had been necessary to take a longer route around, while constantly diving into the shadows to avoid the now frenzied militia, who were now treating the incident in the mall as the attack of Chechen rebels. They had already cordoned off several square blocks, and were patrolling several other blocks beyond, looking for anything suspicious.

So far they had avoided detection. They had not survived the street of New York for so long being careless.

Goliath had come down first; he was carrying Fang now. It looked like Malibu was having a tough time carrying the huge mutate and so he'd taken him off him, much to the clone's appreciation. Broadway landed next, with Malibu, Lexington and then finally Demona, still carrying Inquisitor Thompson, following.

Goliath signalled for them to duck low with his free hand, as he looked the street over from his vantage point. The street was quiet, with the only audible sound in he air being the wail of sirens coming from somewhere.

He looked down and over at the transport, and for the briefest second, he thought the side door was ajar a bit, but then it looked closed. He suddenly found himself looking up and down the quiet streets quickly, getting an uneasy feeling in his stomach. There was something very wrong here. This whole scene seemed a little unnatural somehow.

"Weird."

He looked over his shoulder and found Broadway was right up next to him now. His son-in-law was looking at the street very suspiciously too.

"What do you think is 'weird?" Goliath asked, smiling a little. Though he would never admit it to anyone, not even Elisa, he was secretly delighted that Angela had picked Broadway as her mate. True, he wasn't the smartest of people, nor was he ever likely to be a great leader. But he was a very good person; trustworthy, honest, and loyal. He doubted there was any scrap of badness in his entire being.

He and Angela would be together as long as they both lived.

Broadway looked up at him as if he was stupid. "There's no people."

The smile vanished instantly.

Of course! That what was so strange abut this scene! Every single street up to this point, they had had to duck along rooftops and stay in the shadows to escape being seen by the citizenry.

But here there was no one. That was why he had that uneasy feeling. And it took Broadway to tell him something he should have spotted immediately!

Goliath growled under his breath before looking back at Broadway, to find that he was leaning over the wall slightly, his black bladed sword unsheathed and in his right hand. The blade had been a gift from Hudson to celebrate Broadway and Angela's first successful mating, and Broadway had been determined to learn how to use it properly, the hours of practice showing on his arms, and on his slightly diminished belly.

"What the Hell's taking so long?" hissed Malibu, impatiently from behind. "We should get down there quickly! Fang needs to get treated!"

Almost as if to prove a point, the cougar mutate in Goliath's arms emitted a very pained groan, as his head rested against his armoured shoulder.

"In a moment," replied Goliath patiently, understanding the clone's concerns for his friend. "There is something not right here and-"

A shot rang out, cutting him off. Another and then a third and then a fourth followed it.

Goliath looked down at the transport. The gunfire was coming from inside.

"Oh God!" he heard Malibu yell, standing and spreading his wings quickly. "Jezebel!"

He tired to run up to the edge, but Broadway was up in a second, dropping his sword and grabbing hold of him. "Hold on a sec Mal! We don't know what's happening in there! We can't go-"

Malibu never found out what Broadway was going to say next.

The transport exploded the next instant. It tore up the surrounding street, smashing every window within several blocks, atomising the nearest street lamp as the shock wave knocked the whole clan, still up on the building's roof, right off their feet. The explosion lit up everything while all lights in the entire street went out and didn't come back on. Shrapnel scattered everywhere and buried itself into the surrounding structures. One wheel actually flew through the sitting room window of a house. The sound was deafening, even more so for the gargoyles' sensitive ears, leaving them all shell shocked into inaction for several long seconds after it was all over.

Malibu was first to rise. He swayed uneasily like a reed in the breeze before he staggered over to the wall and looked down at the flaming wreckage that remained of their transportation. But it was the last thing on his mind.

"Jezebel?"

He looked desperately around the street, now lit up totally by the flames of the Nightstone armoured transport. Jezebel would be all right he thought, desperately. She would have gotten out she was a witch there was no way she'd be dead no way someone like her would be killed so easily that was just ridiculous she's a witch she's alive she'll be fine she's alive alive alive!

He was on the top of the wall, his wings spread out and ready to jump, oblivious of the scorching hot tears running down his cheeks and the yelling behind him.

"JEZEBEL!"

He leapt. Goliath had gotten up next and had been trying to get to Malibu before he had jumped, but his head was still ringing and he couldn't walk properly. In desperation he actually jumped forward to try and grab the young gargoyle before he made a very big mistake but Malibu was just a fraction of a second faster. Goliath's clawed hands touched the tip of his tail but only wrapped around air.

"Damn it!" growled the lavender giant, hitting the ground for the second time. "Malibu! Wait!"

But it was no good. The clone was off the wall and out of sight.

He could see Broadway out of the corner of his eye, rising and yelling desperately at Mal to come back too. He had picked his sword up and was running to the edge of the roof. Demona was coming up behind him, the rifle she had taken from the militia helicopter in her taloned hands. Lexington was helping Inquisitor Thompson stand. The human female was hunched over a little and breathing harshly. Apparently she had some sort of chest wound that would most likely need seeing to as well.

Goliath looked Fang over. The cougar mutate was lying just in front of him, his badly burned belly and chest rising, barely.

He made to stand up again when he heard Broadway scream.

Looking up, he just saw his son-in-law thrown back into from the edge of the roof, dropping his sword and being twisted in the air from whatever had hit him with tremendous force.

Broadway landed on his side, several meters from Goliath, his back facing him. Yelling his name, Goliath rose and scrambled desperately over to his fallen clansmen. Lexington was yelling something. He could hear gunshots now down on the street, accompanied by Demona's terrifying war cry, raised voices and echo of metal hitting metal over the roar of the flames.

He pulled Broadway onto his back, praying desperately to what ever governed the way of things that he would be all right.

Broadway was still alive. There was the tail end of a black crossbow bolt sticking out of his right shoulder. It had gone through the armour of his bodyglove like it hadn't been there at all. He had passed out; his entire body was shivering madly and he was deathly pale.

His chest was barely rising.

Goliath felt an unfamiliar sense of fear well up within him, as he looked his fallen clansman over.

A crossbow bolt, even one shot from a very powerful crossbow couldn't do this alone so quickly. That is, unless it had been…

"Poisoned…" he whispered, his voice trailing off as the gravity of what was now happening to his clan hit him like a kick in the gut.

"Oh God."

Goliath looked over and saw Lexington crouched barely a meter away. The little web-wing looked terrified as he stared at his brother's trembling body.

From down in the street, someone screamed.

Goliath had a sick feeling he knew who it was.

Lexington suddenly scrambled backwards, his eyes wide in amazement.

"What the Hell?"

The lavender gargoyle looked around in time to see a man, a human male, finish his ascent onto the rooftop of the two-storey building they were crouching on. He had leapt over the wall and grinned at the two staring gargoyles. He was clad in a black stormcoat over a black suit while his skin was pale and his face was as hard as a knife. He had black sunglasses on and was holding a twin headed battle-axe in his right hand while his left pulled a horrifyingly large chrome revolver, a Ruger Redhawk hunting pistol, from his coat pocket. He smiled, revealing a set of perfect teeth and a pair of large, deep fangs residing within his elastic like mouth.

"Hello there."

He took a step forward and Faith shot him between the eyes, destroying the sunglasses, making him drop his weapons and fall right back over the wall.

"Grab his weapons!" ordered the female inquisitor frantically, coming forward, her Glock ready.

Lexington ran over to the fallen weapons and tossed Goliath the battle-axe while he kept the revolver. The olive green gargoyle looked down onto the street.

In the light of the flames, he could see Malibu; his two metal tonfa in hand, fighting with a large brute of man in a long coat. He was holding a huge black crossbow in his left hand while attacking the pale green gargoyle with a swept-hilt rapier with his right, the blade little more than a flashing blur in the light of the fire as it lashed out against the titanium shafts protecting the clone's forearms, creating sparks.

Demona was maybe a dozen yards away from him, holding the sniper rifle by the barrel in a two-handed grip like a club. Four figures, all dressed similarly to the man Faith had just shot were standing around her, each armed.

Three more were lying on the damp ground around her.

He heard a hissing sound and looked down the ruined wall of the building and gasped. Three more people like the man Faith had just shot were scaling the walls with their bare hands. Two women and one man. Each was giving that sick grin with the fangs through their elastic mouths while the fire of the dead transport played along their sunglasses.

One of the women, who had fiery red hair in a long ponytail swinging behind her as she climbed, pulled around the BXP sub-machine gun that was hanging from a strap around her overcoat and started firing at him while her two companions climbed on. Lexington swore as he ducked back while half a dozen rounds either whizzed past his head or smashed into the wall he had been leaning on, detonating small parts of the masonry.

"More coming!" he yelled, getting on his feet as he held the huge pistol awkwardly in his right hand. It was unbelievably heavy, and for not the first time in his life he cursed his small stature and his weakness when compared to everyone else in the clan. He thought about throwing the monstrous thing to Goliath but remembered that from the very few times he had seen his leader employ a firearm, he had proved to be a terrible shot.

-But at least he won't get knocked off his feet if he pulls the trigger, - he thought, bitterly. He cast a glance over at his leader. Goliath had dragged Broadway back a little from where the fighting was probably going to be. He had also taken up Broadway's sword, as well as the axe he had taken from the man Faith had shot and was now standing protectively in front of his son-in-law. Fang was still lying off several yards to the other side of them but he was in the shadows of the building that stood several floors taller than the one they were on. If he didn't move or groan then he may not be noticed.

Much to his own surprise, Lexington found himself hoping Fang wasn't too badly hurt. The cougar mutate didn't seem nearly as bad as he remembered him when he had led the coup against Talon or when they had fought him, Brooklyn and Malibu to try and save Demona from Macbeth. All that seemed like years ago now. Maybe Mal's friendship really had changed him for the better.

He heard a roar from somewhere down below on the road and the sound of bones being smashed by something hard and unforgiving.

Demona was still in the fight at least.

The three humans leapt up onto the roof nearly simultaneously, fangs and weapons bared. The woman with long red hair had tossed her BXP back and had produced a nasty looking shortsword with a heavily serrated eighteen-inch blade.

The other woman had especially pale skin and black make up to go along with the black streak in her long, platinum blonde hair. She had no firearms of any sort, but instead she carried a rapier like the one wielded by the man Lexington had seen Mal fight with along with a dagger with a short handle and a thin, ten-inch long thrusting blade.

The man had a very prominent forehead with short, bleached blonde hair and held a black bladed battle-axe similar to the one Goliath was holding in both hands.

"Remember," growled Xander, eyeing the armoured lavender giant that stood in the middle of the trio as he adjusted the grip of his leather gloved hands on the shaft of the axe. "He wants them alive."

That said, the vampires attacked.

Lexington aimed at the woman with red hair, taking the Ruger in both hands and fired. Much to his own surprise, the tremendous force of the recoil as the .44 magnum round erupted out of the barrel didn't knock him off his feet; instead he felt a rather surprising and unpleasant sting in his wrists for an instant.

But even more surprising to the small web-wing, his shot actually hit home.

The heavy magnum round hit the red head in the chest, shattering her sternum and send her crashing back against the wall she had only just leapt over, her short sword and BXP clattering to the ground as she was toppled soundlessly.

The two other vampires rushed on, sweeping past Lexington as he dropped the gun and let out a very long and colourful string of curses from the pain in both of his wrists. He'd seen female humans fire these things and they never seemed to have any problems. Why did he have to be so damn weak?!

Xander went straight for Faith. The female inquisitor fired two shots at him with her pistol but the vampire skilfully evaded both, and closing the short distance between them in a second, he lashed out at her with his foot and roughly kicked the gun out of her hand. Faith staggered back, swearing and pulled one of Peter's huge knives out of her pocket and slashed at Xander, who pulled back before the glittering blade could touch him.

They circled for a moment. Faith pulled Peter's other knife out of now hole filled pockets and held them before her as Xander brandished his axe menacingly. For a moment, her vision blurred a little as she tried to force her aching lungs to work properly again and stop making this difficult for her. She suddenly felt very tired but fought it off, willing herself to focus only on what was happening now. In her state, to do otherwise would be to die.

The woman with the platinum blonde hair and the long black streak thrust her rapier at Goliath, aiming for his chest. The lavender giant parried the attack with Broadway's sword and then, roaring with all his might, he lashed out at her with his axe in a furious downward arc. His opponent blocked it with her thrusting dagger and for a brief second they glared at each other before the woman leapt back and then came at him again with startling speed, and attacking with her rapier again. She quickly knocked Goliath's axe back with her blade and delivered a lightning fast snap-kick to his huge chest, knocking the wind out of him momentarily and forcing him back as she tried to stab him in the knee with her dagger as a follow up.

She smiled wickedly at him, exposing her pearl white fangs as she came at him before he had a chance to recover properly, thrusting out with her rapier again while holding her dagger out just behind her sword hand, ready to parry any counter attacks.

Goliath ducked low, the thin blade missing his face by centimetres before he made a low swipe at his opponent's legs with his axe. The woman tried to leap back, but the axe caught her across the calf of her right leg, the heavy blade cleaving through cloth, muscle and flesh like it was paper. The woman screamed and began staggering back, putting her weight on her left leg and making several figure eights in front of her to keep Goliath at bay, while letting loose the longest, crudest and yet most imaginative line of profanities Goliath had ever, ever heard.

He caught a glimpse of Lexington out of the corner of his eye. The small web-wing had grabbed the other woman's shortsword and submachine gun and was scrambling over to where Inquisitor Thompson was fighting with the other black clad goon. He thought he could see another huge handgun stuffed into the belt of his bodyglove.

The platinum blonde suddenly attacked again, apparently now oblivious to the bleeding gash across her right leg. She came forward, performing a complex series of slashes, spins and thrusts, switching from the dagger to rapier and back again as the instrument of attack while keeping the other ready to parry counters.

Goliath was never especially skilled at fencing, nor was he proficient in the use of any hand-to-hand weapons. It was not that he had never had an interest in them, it was instead that he was aware he didn't have the "knack" as some would call it for using swords or axes or pole-arms. He was aware of this weakness, and though it displeased him, he accepted it and instead concentrated on using his strength and wit to win combat whenever possible. As such, compared to his opponent, his own moves seemed to be exceedingly lacking in grace, but he was still able deflect the majority of them, though it didn't stop his opponent, whose name was Katrina, from making a small cut along his chin and another across the back of his left hand, hoping to get him to drop his sword but underestimating the lavender giant's resilience.

But Goliath was now falling back, sparks rising from his weapons as Katrina came in again and again with her blades. He briefly found himself wondering in a second's reprieve if the armoured bodyglove he was wearing could protect him from such a fine, sharp blade as Katrina's.

Katrina made a stab at Goliath, aiming for his belly with her sword, but Goliath managed to parry with his own blade, before lashing out at her with a furious down ward arc with his axe. Katrina skilfully sidestepped it though, and made a stab at his forearm with her thrusting dagger. The thin blade skewered Goliath's arm, penetrating both armour and flesh and going straight through, several inches below the clan leader's right wrist.

Goliath screamed in agony and staggered back, dropping his axe and swinging the sword wildly in front of him to keep Katrina back. The dagger was still lodged in his forearm and blood was jetting out both holes while nearly all feeling in his right hand seemed to have vanished.

Katrina was laughing, he heard Lexington yell something over the clash of metal while Inquisitor Thompson was swearing harshly.

Down on the road, he heard gunshots.

He leapt back as Katrina swung at him again, keeping his sword pointed out in front of him as he risked a quick glance behind himself. Broadway was lying on his back just a couple of yards behind him. He was still trembling; though his skin was now a deathly pale and his breathing had become so shallow his chest was barely rising at all.

Goliath suddenly found himself shaking as well, not in pain but in rage. He'd promised Angela he would make sure nothing happened to her mate, he'd keep him safe so he could come back and be with her when she laid their first egg, the first of the next generation.

He'd lost so many of his clan, so many of his family.

May The Dragon damn him if he lost Broadway as well!

Katrina hissed as she came in again cutting down again with her rapier, baring her fangs in a triumphant smile. Goliath turned his head around to face her again as she leapt towards him, only an instant away.

But it was time enough.

Goliath dropped his sword in that instant, and brought his right arm up, while pulling his left arm back, while the glittering blade seemed to loom over him.

As this record states before, Goliath had little skill with weapons, but this was more than made up for by his skill at unarmed combat.

As Katrina's blade arced downwards, Goliath shot up his right arm, catching the blade in his currently numb palm, earning himself yet another bleeding cut. But the rapier's blade would only really cut flesh and cloth, not bone.

As the momentum of Katrina's attack died instantly, Goliath launched one of his own. One that he correctly guessed his opponent wasn't quite ready for.

As Katrina was carried forward by her attack, beginning to bend down at the waist, Goliath shot his left hand up to meet her oncoming head. He kept his palm open with his clawed fingers tightly held in place as Xanatos had taught him, putting all the force of his punch into the base of his hand, which connected with Katrina's nose with the force of a small battering ram.

Katrina's nose caved in, the shards of bone then being carried back up through her skull and piercing her brain. She was thrown backwards into the air. She dropped her sword as she threw her arms back before hitting the ground in a silent, dead heap.

Goliath stood over her for a moment, taking quick, deep breaths, suddenly aware of how tired he was feeling. He shook his head to clear it before taking a look at his injured arm. The bleeding on his forearm wasn't quite as bad now, but the pain was getting sharper as his sudden adrenaline rush began to fade. The gash on the palm of his right hand was bone deep; his entire hand was dark now with his own blood.

Bad, but a day or two's stone hibernation would fix it all.

He could still hear a bit of a scuffle going on and heard inquisitor Thompson laugh very nastily as he heard an unfamiliar male voice yell something very long and very loud in what he guessed was Russian.

But he could hear nothing of what was going on down in the street. He was getting that sick feeling again. Were Demona and Malibu alright? Had they gotten away? Had they been taken?

Too many damn questions…

He grabbed the handle of Katrina's dagger. Before he did anything to be of use, he'd have to get this out first.

He suddenly found himself unintentionally remembering a time back before the massacre, when he had still been but a young, impulsive adolescent, full of himself, cocky, loud, often piss drunk from all the ale and mead he snuck out of the storerooms with his rookery brothers. The lot of them, all boasting at how ready they were for action, like they could take on every damn Viking in the world, if any ever dared show up.

And on the very first occasion that they did in his lifetime, he got shot.

And it had been almost exactly where the dagger was now lodged, except it had been in his left arm that time. He didn't remember the pain then either, just an overwhelming feeling of terror as he saw the arrow stuck halfway through his forearm. It had been a good thing the fighting was on the cliffs. He'd fallen in the water in a blind, screaming panic, and so nobody had noticed he'd wet himself.

But Hudson had dragged him out after the fighting, despite the fact he was still shaking in terror, screaming too, that he didn't want to die.

Truth be told he had also been terrified of Hudson, of The Leader. He was sure when he had seen him, that formidable, aloof figure descending on him to pull him off the rocks he had clung to desperately while the sea battered him from behind, that he was about to be killed, maybe even given a punishment worse than death, for showing such cowardice, for dropping the claymore and spear he had taken from the castle armoury, while all the while boasting of how he wouldn't really need them, of how he was going to kill all the Vikings with his bare claws and fangs, of how he would only have to show up, roar a bit, and they'd flee, never even daring to set foot from their longboats until they went all the way back up North.

He'd almost been tempted to just let go of the rocks and drown, rather than face The Leader's wrath.

But The Leader grabbed his good arm, wrenching him out of the water, as a bird of prey would do to a small fish. And when they'd landed, he didn't yell, he didn't strike him, he didn't punish. Instead he chuckled and patted him on the shoulder and said that he'd done a great deal better than he ever did in his first battle. Goliath had supposed at the time it had been a lie, just to make him feel better, but he'd appreciated it, and it had made him stop shaking. It was only several years and a very long, hard night's drinking later on that Goliath had found out that Hudson really wasn't lying.

Hudson had gotten him drunk with mead, snapped the arrow and pulled the rest of the shaft from his arm himself. But even then, drunker than he'd probably ever been, he'd still passed out from his first ever taste of true agony.

Now he was going to have to go through it again, without the bloody mead this time to help.

"Damn," he growled, as he gritted his teeth and pulled on the handle with all his might.

After perhaps a second of pulling on the handle, he twisted it slightly to dislodge it and the ten-inch blade began to slide out from his forearm. He stopped gritting his teeth and screamed. The pain was a lot worse than he'd thought he'd remembered. He pulled the rest of the blade out in one quick, forceful motion and dropped it the second it was out, screaming again and grabbing hold of his arm as it began to squirt blood again.

Damn that bitch that stabbed him! Damn the coward who shot Broadway! And damn Brooklyn! Damn him for starting all this mess! That sneaky, spiteful, dishonourable little…

His eyes blazing like stars in nova, Goliath suddenly stood up to his full height. His wings flared out to their full length, while he opened his mouth and let all the rage that had suddenly rose up in him pour out through his fanged mouth into a roar seemed to shake the very earth.

To any who saw him at that moment, friend or foe, he was terrifying to behold.

Xander, who had been forced back almost into a corner at this point by a stupid, quite ugly little web-wing that had downed Elsa with a single shot from Philip's own friggin Ruger. He'd grabbed Elsa's own shortsword and BXP, though he hadn't fired at him with it yet. Which was probably due to his other opponent. A woman dressed in black with a pair of knives, who was easily one of the craziest bitches he'd ever met in the ninety-three years of his existence.

She kept coming at him! She'd obviously injured her chest earlier but the stupid bitch didn't seem to care all that much. The web-wing couldn't get a clear shot with his stolen sub-machine gun so he kept giving the occasional, clumsy attack with his stolen shortsword that Xander had so far been able to parry with his axe in a very brief reprieve from the panting crazy woman.

This woman, she was dangerous, that much was clear. Even injured, panting and coughing now and then, she was still matching him move for move, her knives deflecting all his attacks. Though her strain was starting to show. It was getting easier to block her own assaults, though it did leave him wondering how long he might have lasted against her if she hadn't actually been injured previously.

And now, to make things all the worse, that huge brute had finished with Katrina in quite spectacular fashion. He grimaced as he blocked another attempt by the black haired woman to knife his groin with the shaft of his axe.

Where the Hell was everybody else?

He had seen only two gargoyles reach the ground. Just how long could it possibly take to down two stupid gargoyles?

The web-wing came in slicing low and he swore as the serrated (and knowing Elsa, probably infected) blade struck his right shin.

"You little damned bastard!" he screamed as he staggered back awkwardly. Great. Fantastic. Gangrene. Just what he fucking needed right now.

He caught a glimpse of that big, lavender coloured brute coming towards him from behind the psycho woman. His right arm was still bleeding a little and the black armour around his arm was slick and gleaming in the light. In his left hand he was holding Philip's axe in a very purposeful manner.

"Oh fuck this," growled Xander. He was genuinely tempted to reach into his coat pocket, pull out his Glock 18, a machine pistol, and just spray them all with hot lead.

But he thought of the Boss, and just what he would do to him if he killed them all and didn't bring him something still alive for him to have a little fun with, especially considering the mess he'd made of this.

If he didn't then he would become Zaitsev's plaything, and that terrified him enough into not drawing his gun.

Maybe…just maybe he could retreat, get some assistance, and then come back and get his them for the boss.

He doubted it might do him much good, but it was a lot better than what these maniacs might do to him before assistance came.

The web-wing came at him again, swearing in what sounded like English with…was that an American accent?

He despised Americans.

He leapt over the blade as it came at him and the gargoyle yelled again in English, probably saying something unpleasant. The crazy woman attacked suddenly to his right but he blocked it with his axe and ran on. The behemoth loomed over him suddenly, the fangs in his bared mouth making Xander's look miniscule in comparison, and swung at him in a slightly clumsy, but powerful, downward arc that Xander was able to side-step, before he landed a left hook to the monster's stomach. The gargoyle bent over at the impact, slightly.

That didn't seem to faze him in the slightest.

"Shit," said Xander.

He tried to run on, but the brute lashed out with, bringing his elbow back up and right into Xander's back.

The vampire swore as he was propelled forward faster than he would have liked to go, bending forward while his arms flailed out to either side and try and balance himself. He'd dropped his axe, and if he wasn't quick they'd start shooting at him now that no one important to them was in the way.

But they didn't. Instead he heard yelling and the pounding of feet as they started after him.

But why? Surely there was no chance of them hitting anyone else with them, he definitely couldn't see anyone…

Wait, in the shadows over there…was that…

Yes!

A gargoyle! Lying on his back in the shadows, half naked, covered in brown fur with large, bat-like wings protruding from the torn clothes out of his back. In their kind's years he looked to be in his thirties maybe. He had some sort of big cat's head. His trim belly and strong chest where almost black, burned, by the looks of it by daemonic flame.

Xander grinned.

The gargoyle seemed in a very bad way, but he could tell instantly that he was still alive.

And a bad way or not, Zaitsev could still have quite a lot of fun with one for hours on end with the right tools at his disposal.

He changed direction slightly and ran right at the fallen gargoyle, not really caring how he had come by his injuries. Only needing to know really that it would please the boss and allow his displeasure to focus on Katrina, Philip and Elsa, which was just fine by him. They were assholes anyway.

The shouting behind him got louder, more desperate, as did the pounding of feet, which meant that the three chasing him had figured out his plan.

But it didn't matter. Xander had always prided himself on his speed.

In an instant he was upon the fallen gargoyle, and in another he had scooped him up in his thin, powerful arms. The shadow of the building right in front of him and his captive now loomed over him, its shadow enveloping both him and Zatisev's prey. There was a gap of maybe ten feet between them, leading down into a dark, dirty alley a couple of storeys down.

Grinning, ignoring the screaming behind him, Xander leapt down into the darkness.

Zaitsev would be very pleased with this catch.

"PETER!"

Faith screamed Fang's name again as she ran on to the edge of the roof. The pains in her chest were becoming almost unbearable but she ignored them as best she could. She was panting for breath and she was feeling more and more light-headed with each passing moment. But it didn't matter.

Saving Peter, saving Malibu, that's all that mattered to her right then. She could rest later she knew they were safe.

Goliath had passed her and reached the edge first. He looked over and down into the alley below.

But there was nothing. No trace of either Fang or the man that had taken off with him in the alley below or anywhere else that he could see.

Faith was beside him an instant later. She was very pale her hands were shaking, and she no longer looked like her legs would be able to support her much longer.

"Where is he?" she said more to herself than him as her eyes frantically ran up and down the alley. "Where the fuck did he go? Take me down there! Take me down there right now!"

Goliath was looking back down on the roof and not down into the alley anymore, and was no longer even paying attention to the inquisitor.

Did that redheaded corpse just twitch?

There was the sound of guns being cocked down on the street, and then it was followed by a long fusillade. Bullets of varying calibres started hitting the edge of roof-top that Goliath and inquisitor Thompson were near. Masonry exploded all around them. Goliath screamed in pain after a 10mm round tore a hole in his left wing. He grabbed the human with his good arm and pulled her onto the floor. She was screaming curses as tears ran down her face.

"We have to get down there!" she yelled to Goliath, over the roar of guns and the detonations of stone. "We have to help them!"

Goliath said nothing, but crawled over to the base of the wall on his belly. He got onto his knees and leant against the brick. The firing had abated slightly now and he decided he'd risk a quick glance over to see what had happened.

His head went up and his onyx grey eyes looked down onto the street. As they did so, they widened in horror.

"Oh God…no…NO!"

Burning hot tears were running down his face even before he'd got back onto his belly.

"Lexington!" he roared over the pounding of guns. "Lexington I need you over here!"

But he heard no reply.

"He's not there," yelled Faith suddenly, looking around the roof frantically.

"What?" bellowed Goliath. He rolled onto his back and looked all over the roof. "Lexington?"

The bodies of the dead humans were still where they lay, as was Broadway, somehow, looking even paler than when Goliath had last looked him over. But the little olive coloured gargoyle had vanished.

Goliath's head was swimming. He couldn't believe this was happening. Lexington was gone. He'd deserted them.

"LEXINGTON!"

"Malibu! Wait!"

Mal ignored Goliath, diving on towards the street and the flaming wreckage at perilous speed.

Wait? Easy for him to say! He probably didn't even care if Jezebel…if…

No dammit she was alright!

The pavement was accelerating towards him and he suddenly remembered he needed to try and land if he didn't want to break something against it. He flapped his wings sharply a couple of times, his legs now suddenly dangling just above the pavement, just as Brooklyn had showed him all those months ago when they'd first become friends.

But even doing this he still hit the ground pretty hard, and he felt a sudden ache shoot up along his right foot and he swore under his breath.

Something else Brooklyn had given him more recently.

He winced. How could it still hurt?

He limped quickly over towards the funeral pyre of their transport, but had to stop after only coming a few feet. The heat was unbearable and Mal had to suddenly shut his stinging eyes from the intensity of the flames. He crossed his arms over his face and managed to take another step.

"Jezebel!" He could barely even hear himself over the roar of the fires. He started looking desperately around the ruined street. Maybe she wasn't inside when it exploded? That could be it.

-Please God let that be it…-

As he turned to look down the road on his left, being careful not to plant his bare feet on any wreckage, he suddenly heard a scream of agony coming up from the roof he had just leapt over.

It sounded like Broadway. Malibu suddenly got a very sick feeling in his already damaged stomach. He really hoped he hadn't just gotten Broadway hurt. He liked the chubby gargoyle an awful lot. He was such a nice guy…

He thought he heard Demona land and yell something before he noticed a dark figure step out of a side street on the opposite side of the building they had landed on. His huge figure was silhouetted in the flames, and as he stepped forward towards the young gargoyle his features became clearer.

He was a brute of a man, with a fat, shaven head, pale skin and a pair of eyes the same shade of grey as a storm cloud. In his left hand he held a very large, expensive looking black crossbow that had been fired recently, as the thick cord on the bow was still vibrating slightly.

Mal found himself take a step back involuntarily as the man took another forward.

There was something sickening in the way those grey eyes looked him over. No, not looked, roved was a much better word. The man gave a perfect smile of pearl white teeth and very dangerous looking fangs, as he pulled his floor length brown overcoat open with his right hand and rapidly drew a long, beautifully crafted rapier. He licked his lips in a disgusting manner as he took another step forward.

Mal drew his tonfa and clutched their black, ribbed handles tightly.

From behind him he heard close range gunfire, half a dozen shots maybe. Then he heard Demona let loose with that terrifying war cry of hers before he heard snarls, colourful language and the unmistakeable sound of bodies being hit, very hard, with something large and heavy.

The brute of a man before him advanced suddenly, the blade of his sword glittering in the flames as he let loose a quick combination of thrusts and slashes. Mal was caught off guard by the suddenness of the attack and was forced back as he tried to deflect each attack with his chrome tonfa, sparks flying from the shafts protecting his forearms as the thin, trembling blade struck them with great speed and force.

Mal swore under his breath. He didn't know a great deal about swordsmanship, but he could tell when someone else did. And this man was unbelievable. He was a great deal faster than his large stature suggested. The blade in his hand was little more than a glittering blur as he lashed out at Mal again and again and again. And all that Mal could do in response was to try and block every oncoming attack and hope he didn't get run through in the process.

The rapier lashed low at his legs and Mal crossed his tonfa to block it with the shorter part of the shafts that came out in front of his fists, but the rapier darted back out before it ever connected with the hollowed out titanium and instead was thrust high, and stabbed Malibu in his left arm, above the elbow, cutting through his flesh with little effort before being jerked back out while the young gargoyle screamed in pain and staggered back, nearly dropping his tonfa to grab his bleeding wound.

He heard gunfire coming from somewhere. It sounded like it was coming from the roof. The definite crack of Faith's Glock followed a few seconds later by the chatter of a small burst of sub-machine gunfire, and then the boom of some kind of really heavy calibre weapon.

He grunted another swear. This was getting worse far quicker than he thought possible. He didn't even know who these people were and they'd cut them in half and from the sound of it they were tearing them apart as well.

The man smiled in that sick, chilling way again as he covered the distance between them in an instant to attack Mal with a dazzling array of thrusts and slashes with his rapier, coming ever forward as his beleaguered opponent was forced ever back, his tonfa barely blocking all the attacks but never having any chance to counterattack.

The man's swordplay was just too damned fast.

He tried to leap back and away from the man, trying to escape to where he thought Demona was fighting behind him. He knew that if he kept fighting this man he'd lose, so maybe Demona would have more luck with him.

But when he was still in the air, the brute of a man leapt too, and, bringing his right leg around whilst still airborne, he planted a sweeping mid-air kick into the pale green gargoyle's left side, catching and nearly breaking his left arm in the process, and sending him flying into a wall several feet away.

Mal bounced off the wall and crumpled to the ground. He could only groan as the wind had been knocked out of him. He could taste blood in his mouth and the spots that had hung in front of his eyes when he had woken up after Brooklyn had bashed his head against a tiled floor had returned. In the moment's respite, it also hit him just how tired he was.

He'd been injured and had lost yet more blood, he'd been fighting, then running while carrying Fang and now he was back to fighting, and he realised he'd been feeding off adrenaline just to get where he was. His arms and legs began feeling unbearably heavy while his wings drooped to nearly touching his denim coat. He managed to get onto his knees while his hands were groping around for one of his tonfa that he'd dropped when he hit the wall.

The sound of heavy footsteps, seeming to come from a very great distance, suddenly came to his ears, and he looked up.

His opponent had somehow become three different people now, and they all seemed to be bouncing about his field of vision, each holding that heavy looking crossbow in their left hands, while their rapiers hung in the lazy grip of their rights. All of them wore disgustingly mocking smiles.

Hey look at me! I can beat you with one hand holding a heavy weight!

Mal got on one knee, grunting with effort. He wanted to call for help, but his throat was bone dry. He shook his head and his vision cleared for a moment and then he stood. His legs shook under his weight and he fell back against the wall, leaning on it for support. He knew he had to keep fighting, but his body seemed to have already given up. God he was so tired…

He hadn't slept for almost twenty hours before this, and even then it had only been a twenty-minute nap. He kept using the spell that made him human whenever the sun was going to come up so he could stay awake and look at the blue sky and the countryside as they drove past it. After months of being able to see the sun as it drifted across the sky, it's beauty still left him stunned, and now he was starting to pay for it all.

"Damn," he whispered.

"Tired?"

His grey eyes focused onto the centre figure of the trio. It was usually the centre that was the real one.

His opponent smiled at him, those fangs in his elastic like mouth seemed a great deal bigger somehow.

"Are you tired?" he asked in a low, pit bull voice, with only the slightest trace of an accent, which at that moment the young gargoyle could not identify.

"Get…get away from me," said Mal, his voice barely audible. The man smiled and took a step forward, but Mal lashed out with the tonfa he still had in his right hand, forcing him to take a step back again to keep a safe distance. "I said get away from me! Dem…Demona…Demona help me!"

The man laughed and suddenly came in again, before Malibu Wyvern even had a chance to react, and hit him across the face with the ornately carved, gold plated titanium hand-guard of his sword.

Mal didn't feel any pain, but the world seemed to spin around and around and around as he felt his tonfa slip out of his hand and hit the ground, millions of miles away, with a great crash that echoed from one end of existence to the other. He leant back against the wall and slid down it. He felt relieved in a way, he was so, so tired…

He stayed awake for another few seconds, before the darkness finally claimed him.

"Malibu! Wait!"

Demona had cursed under her breath when she saw the clone leap over the wall and make the short dive downwards to the flaming street below, apparently oblivious to Goliath's voice or to the shooting they'd heard before the explosion, or even taking a moment to try and figure out why their transport had exploded in the first place.

That stupid, stupid fool…

The old witch was obviously dead, so there was no point in throwing himself into danger as well.

But then again, she didn't really care much for that old hag Jezebel anyway. Bronx's loss pained her far more, even though the beast was still cautious around her, obviously not trusting her fully just yet.

She had been tempted to just let him leap down into whatever had awaited him down there, for all that he, Fang and Brooklyn had put her through.

But then she had seen Broadway chase after him, changing the whole situation.

She'd sworn to Angela to keep him safe after she'd convinced her daughter to return home to protect the couples' egg that was growing within her, though swearing would have been unnecessary.

She'd seen how madly in love they were, and how happy Broadway made her daughter, and she loved him and would protect him with every ounce of strength she had just for that. Though sometimes, she did believe he didn't seem to understand just how far Angela would go for him, just what she would be willing to put herself through, just to be with him and make sure he was safe.

She'd run to catch up with him. He'd been about to leap into the air and she was right beside him by then, and so they'd leapt together. But at that instant she'd heard something whistle through the air and suddenly Broadway had been thrown back with a scream. She'd gathered too much momentum to stop right then, and so she'd found herself on the street, being mobbed.

They'd come out of the shadows of buildings that had been caste by Jezebel and Bronx's funeral pyre, thirteen in total. All dressed in black with various weapons. She'd recognised the pale skin, the elastic like mouths and fangs instantly and suddenly she felt a rage build up within her that she hadn't known for years.

Nosferatu…

In her long existence she had only encountered their kind on a handful of occasions, but it had been enough to earn a place of hatred in her that only the humans stood above. If she had ever succeeded in wiping out mankind, she would have hunted down every last one of that vile daemon-breed next.

Sadism was almost a religion in itself to the ones she had encountered, and she doubted these ones were very much different. The truly evil ones always seemed to find each other somehow, while those trying to retain a thread of what they once were before they were turned often existed on their own, before succumbing to the daemonic nature of their condition and turning into little more than wild beasts without the support of a group.

One had stood at the corner, yelling something out as the others advanced forward, bringing a submachine gun with a large drum magazine to his shoulder to fire at her but she was faster. The first two rounds of the SVD sniper she had commandeered went wide as she had fired them at the hip, but they had forced the group to scatter slightly and the gunner to duck. The next three rounds hit him in the right elbow, detonating it in the process, the crotch and his left shoulder respectively. As he fell back she planted another round through the left lens of his sunglasses, spraying the dark wall behind him with shattered bone and grey matter.

But by that time the rest were upon her. Four ran right past her and started up the wall of the building her clan was on top of with tremendous speed while the other eight attacked her, most likely hoping to take her alive as a plaything.

But she would not be taken so easily.

The first, a fairly large man with brown hair and a halberd, came at her, swinging his polearm in a downward arc, which she blocked with the rifle, and, pushing both locked weapons up as far as she could, she lashed out with her right foot, hitting his left knee with great force and bending it back in a direction that nature had never intended. As he dropped, screaming, Demona had switched her grip on the rifle so that both her hands held the barrel and she now wielded it like a club, and she spun about on her feet as he was half-way to the ground and swung it in a devastating horizontal arc, hitting his right temple with the point of the stock and caving the softer section of his skull, cutting his scream off instantly.

The second was a woman who looked to be past her prime. Her hair was long and black going grey and she wielded a scimitar with both hands. She swung downwards as she leapt at Demona, but the azure gargess side-stepped the attack and darted past her, meeting her third and fourth attackers, a young Oriental man with a pair of Chinese Kung Fu broadswords and a large, pale, bald man with a claymore. The man with the claymore swung at her and she leapt over him, planting a kick in the Oriental's face and caving in his nose as he looked up at her in surprise while she was still in the air over his comrade.

As she landed she rolled and came up, drawing her T8 dart gun and emptying the five remaining rounds of the eight round clip into the head of next vampire, a fat man with a goatee who held a naginta polearm in his gloved hands. As he dropped she heard a pistol being fired a couple of times from the rooftop the rest of the clan was on. A moment later there was the brief rattle of a submachine gun.

She tossed her spent pistol away, knowing she wouldn't get a chance to reload, and instead she tore the sight off of the sniper rifle and ejected the clip to make it lighter and easier to wield for hand-to-hand use, holding the gun by the barrel with both hands like a club again.

The next vampire to come at her was male and wielded a longsword in one hand. He slashed at her in a wide arc, but Demona batted the blade down with the stock and stepped forward quickly, bringing the rifle up again in a short, sharp arc that hit him on the chin and sent him into the air, his jaw shattered.

A black woman with short cut hair and wielding a pair of black bladed Kama sickles came at her, cutting a downward arc with her left blade while holding the right back at the ready block any counter-attacks. Demona parried with the rifle and tripped her up with her tail. As she fell, Demona took the gun by the barrel in both hands, raised it above her head, and giving long, high-pitched war-cry, she brought the pointed end of the stock down as hard as she could on her opponent's head, which promptly caved in after a short, but sickeningly loud crack.

There was a loud boom, from a high calibre pistol on the roof, followed by the sounds raised voices and the clash of metal against metal. Demona's eye's flared.

She needed to get back up there. She needed to help her clan!

The two vampires that she had dodged past were now coming up behind her as the last one in front attacked. This one was a Cossack, one of the huge, pale riders of the Steppes. He had a trim brown beard and had a fur hat on. He held a glittering, curved cavalry sabre in his meaty right hand and a Cossack's traditional curved dagger in his left. He twirled both skilfully in his hands before coming at her, roaring in a deep voice as his sword and dagger criss-crossed in front of his huge torso in a genuinely impressive display.

Demona started to her left, dodging a scimitar thrust from the rear as she changed her grip on the rifle, sliding her hands up the barrel till both held it at roughly the centre point between the stock and muzzle of the gun. As the Cossack came at her from the front, striking out with both dagger and sabre, she spun the rifle much like a quarterstaff and deflected both attacks, knocking the dagger out of the Cossack's left hand, before she planted one of her clawed feet in his crotch.

As he toppled, screaming a very harsh curse, his sabre went out of his hand, which was now retreating to protect his damaged crotch.

The sword never hit the roadside. In mid-air a taloned, azure hand shot out and caught it by the handle.

Demona twirled the SVD in a single-handed infinity loop in front of her as she adjusted her grip on the aged leather handle, taking several quick steps back as her two remaining opponents came at her.

Poorly balanced, the handle was a bit short for her hands and the leather on the handle hadn't been tightened in a while…

She parried the claymore with the rifle, kicking the male who held it across the face with her right foot and deflected a horizontal slash from the scimitar-wielding female as she spun about on the balls of her feet with the sabre.

It would do, at least until she got her hands on the longsword or one of the Kung Fu blades.

Now those were weapons she could do some real damage with.

The Cossack was up again. His right hand held his dagger, its blade pointed downwards, while his left cradled his wounded crotch. He lunged at her. His sunglasses were gone now and a pair of glazed, ice blue eyes staring out madly in the flames to their right as he bayed like a wild beast.

Demona ducked as he swung at her with his dagger, and then thrust up the sabre, the curved blade cutting through bone and muscle and flesh, piercing his heart and stopping him mid-air.

Like lightning the blade was twisted and drawn out, and as the Cossack began to fall forward, it cut a flashing arc around him and struck at his neck, severing his head from his body and sending it into the air with a spray of blood. And as both the head and corpse fell, leaving a trail of dark red vapour in the air as they descended to the ground, Demona's eyes flared their hellish red. Casting the rifle aside she stretched out her hand and spoke several words of power under her breath.

In an instant, both head and body exploded into flame as they hit the ground together.

Demona took a second to pause and catch her breath, holding the sabre tightly in her right hand just in front of her. At least the thing was sharp.

She looked down at the flaming mound that had been it's previous owner.

And at least this one would never hunt again.

Over the roar of the flames, she thought she heard someone call out her name.

She heard a scraping to her left and looked over in that direction.

The two remaining vampires, the female with the scimitar and the bald male with the claymore were standing together, nearly a dozen yards away. They both seemed to have stopped and looked around at the carnage this lone gargoyle had just caused, and now looked very reluctant to continue.

Demona growled and took a step towards them, brandishing the sabre and flaring both her eyes and wings at once. She could have made herself look more terrifying if she wanted to, but it was enough.

Both vampires turned tail and ran down the flaming street, racing past fallen comrades and not looking back once.

A single shot rang out across the street, and suddenly her world was spinning, as a surge of indescribable agony rose up from her left leg. The sabre fell from her hand, as another shot, and another surge hit her in the belly, and she was lifted into the air.

Another shot, and then another surge of agony, and then another and she was suddenly twisting mid-air.

Who was shooting her? Where was it coming from? How had she missed anyone? How had…how…how…

She was on the ground, on her side, all she could see was the burning wreckage of her transport. She couldn't feel anything anymore.

The flames danced and laughed at her as she watched them.

And then, there was more.

More than the flames, more than the twisted, warped metal and shattered stone. More than blinding, mocking light…

There was a shape in the midst of it all, growing larger as she stared, in horrid fascination, at it. The flames ceased dancing when it came near, pulling back like the tide as this thing, this entity of absolute darkness came forth out of the wreckage.

She had lost her sense of smell momentarily, so she couldn't smell the strong, exotic spices, or the strange scent that lingered underneath it.

Nor was she aware of how Malibu had fallen, or of how the fight on the roof top had fared, or of how Goliath stared down at her ruined body in horror after Fang had been carried away from them, watching as several corpses rose up again, drawing firearms at the bidding of a huge man with a black crossbow and rapier, and how they started firing wildly at them. She wouldn't know of how Goliath nearly wept in both rage and frustration, feeling betrayed, and knowing he could not save someone he had only just found again without losing everything else he held dear in the process.

She would not see him pick a near-dead Broadway up in his good arm, as Faith, her face drained and wet with agonised tears, jumped onto his back and wrapped her arms around his neck. She would not see them flee, nor would she see Lexington silently crawl through the darkness, oblivious to all.

All that she was aware of was the black clad figure that came towards her out of the flames. As it approached, she could begin to hear the echo of the roar of the flames again, of the crunch of gravel, as those two heavy black combat boots became all that she could see of it treading along the shattered, burning road towards her.

They stopped several feet from her, and then a ruined, smoking Ithica Model 37 shotgun hit the ground right in front of her, the sound of it hitting the roadside echoed ominously in her head.

Some feeling began to return to her. She was aware of pain and only pain. She twisted her head a little to look upward and into the face of the black clad entity that stood above her.

"Demona Wyvern," said Furcifer, smiling down at her. "It is an honour to finally meet you."

To be continued…

Author's note: Thanks to everybody for their patience! I hope I didn't keep you all waiting too long! Chapter 19 will be posted in a few weeks time! Until then, please let me know if you like this story! You have no idea how long it takes me to write one of these longer chapters!

A very special thanks goes out to Caboose, for without his diligent editing and friendship, I doubt I'd still be writing fics today! You rock dude! :)

Till a few weeks from now!

Darkness