A two story, derelict house. That was what they stood before now, Farfarello holding himself slightly off-kilter like a puppet with his strings cut, Sabbath with one hip cocked and her arms folded across the swells of her chest. She gave Farfarello a sidelong glance, humming something under her breath that he vaguely recognized as belonging in Schuldich's music library, but he merely stood, head tilted at an odd angle and single eye narrowed in thought as he took in the house.

Abandoned, windows boarded up, façade crumbling, and yet there was life inside hidden from the outside world. Farfarello had spent a good deal of his life, short as it had been, in insane asylums. This house… it brought those years back to him in force. He could still see the vacant-eyed stares of the judged, of those condemned by God to lose that thing most precious, their sanity. It was a gruesome punishment, to be insane and to know that somewhere, once, you were an ordinary man. Once you were able to think, and you knew you should still be able to think, but the gears and clockwork of the mind were fractured and there was no connection between who you were and who you had been.

This, like the asylum, was a madhouse. Brothel of the walking dead.

When Farfarello finished his examination and fixed his gaze on Sabbath, the witch smirked knowingly at him, dark eyes narrowing in cat-like appraisal. Without a word – she seemed to have discovered his preference for silence – she turned moved to the side of the house, pushing open a broken gate and stepping onto the pitted, sparse grass of the yard. Farfarello followed her and soon they were overshadowed by the wild bushes, grown out of control since the owners of this place departed. Bleeding heart bushes clung to the remains of a chain link fence and there, near the base of the fence, he saw a pinwheel, made of plastic that had once been brightly colored in reflecting blue and green. It didn't spin now. It simply stood, stuck in the ground, left perhaps by a child who had tired of the toy or forgotten it in the hurry to leave this place. Forlorn and alone, mud-stained and wind-battered and tilted at a crazy angle in the dirt.

My God, my god, his thoughts whispered to him. How many have you forsaken?

"This is hardly the most secure of places," Sabbath said quietly as she bent to unlock a padlocked cellar, the heavy wooden doors grayed by time, the hinges rusted. "But as I said, we have no resources to speak of. When The One came after us, those of us with families were forced to leave them or risk their lives." The padlock snapped open and she slipped the key back into a zippered pocket. Then she drew back a small fist and pounded on the door.

An answering pounding came a moment later, and Sabbath bent to whisper at the crack, a password of sorts, apparently. There were rumbling, creaking sounds, and she stepped back so that the doors could swing open outward.

Hands were the first thing Farfarello saw, gripping the edges of the splintered wood. They were dark and stained with grease, knotted and calloused. Strong, male hands. Sabbath grabbed one of the doors and hauled it outward, and the owner of those hands ascended the cellar steps.

He was built like a slab of granite, gracefully boned, but powerfully muscled. Only an inch or two taller than Sabbath herself, his skin was a delicious coffee tone, his hair silken, black, and cropped short so that it stood up in unruly spikes and fell over his coal-black eyes in front. Those eyes smoldered dangerously and Farfarello wondered if this was the pyrokinetic she'd spoken of. He wore only a pair of battered, grease-stained jeans, his chest bare and rippling, and in his right nipple was an iron ring piercing. There were two matching ones in his left ear and one in the same eyebrow, and a short bracelet of thick chain links around his wrist.

His voice was low, growling, and gruff. "Sab. Who the fuck is that?"

"This is Farfarello," Sabbath told him briskly, her tone firm. "Farfarello, this is Griss. He's our technokinetic."

Farfarello tilted his head and smirked at this…. Griss. Griss appraised him right back, obviously sizing him up, his frame tense. Then those black eyes flickered to Sabbath and he made a face something like a snarl. "He's one of us? Looks the part, that's for-fucking-sure…."

Sabbath smirked. "Well, he's a paranormal, if that's what you mean, but he's not Inconnu." She waved Farfarello inside and he followed obediently, smirking as Sabbath waited until they were inside and Griss was closing the doors behind them before she clarified. "He's Eszet."

"THE FUCK?"

Sabbath waved a hand at his disbelieving growl. "Close the doors. I'll tell you all about it when we have everyone in the same room. And make sure that door's secure, Griss. I ran into The One last night."

Griss's eyes narrowed, then narrowed further. "Where's Ray?" he demanded as he slid a number of bolts into place and shoved his hands into his pockets, sauntering down the stairs toward them. His easy stride fooled no one; he was a cougar, desperate to maul something.

"He's safe," she reassured him, pausing and catching Farfarello by the bicep so that she could regard Griss quietly. "The One drained him partially and… we aren't sure if he's still there. But until we know, Eszet is watching over him, and I have their word that they'll keep him safe."

"Their word." Griss let out a chuckle and shook his head. "Their word. This is fucking ESZET we're fuckin' talkin' about here, Sab! Have you lost your fucking MIND?"

"He'll be safe," Farfarello said quietly, and Griss's flaming black eyes snapped to him as the smaller Hispanic man snarled. "What use is an unconscious telepath to us? And we are not Eszet. We are Schwarz."

"So you've said," Sabbath said soothingly, dragging him toward the stairs at the other side of the cellar. Surprisingly, they went down instead of up, though Farfarello could see a door set in the wall above them. They had apparently torn out the staircase and built another. What might be hidden under this house? Was it any cleaner, any neater, than its façade?

They descended the stairs and Farfarello craned his neck to look around, though there was nothing to look at aside from damp wood and flaking plaster. Behind him, Griss's step was a quiet, warning scuffle, and Sabbath's, beside him, were cat-quiet. At the bottom of the stairs was a well-lighted room and Sabbath went first into it, prompting a murmur of human voices that drew Farfarello down as well.

The carpet was ratty and a hideous shade of orange, the couches were brown corduroy, and the only other furniture was a battered card table. There was a stove in the corner of what had once been a basement apartment, though why it had been attached to a cellar was beyond him, a sink, and some cabinets, and a small TV sitting on a cardboard box in front of the couch. And there were people, sprawled around on the three couches, engaged in various activities. Four of them, five when Griss found a seat next to a tom-boyishly built Hispanic girl with thick ringlets of black hair and baby-doll features.

One, an exquisitely beautiful young woman with long, straight black hair, flawless pale skin, and eyes such a piercing ice blue they seemed to lower the room's temperature when they fixed on Farfarello, stood quietly and nodded.

"Sabbath. We were beginning to worry."

"Fuck 'beginning to'," the Hispanic girl shot back, glaring daggers at Sabbath. "Where ya been, chica? The Auspex Cell sent their rep." She jerked a thumb toward a somewhat pretty, if highly unkempt, young woman perched on the arm of the couch. This one wore a battered trench coat and sunglasses, and was calmly smoking a cigarette. She was the oldest in the room, and Farfarello put her at about twenty-five. She turned and he saw that, like everyone in the room except for the blue-eyed girl, this one had black eyes. And they were full of shadowed insanity.

"Sabbath." The word was accompanied by a grin. "You get the stuff, cherie'?"

"Of course," Sabbath told her, pulling the confiscated Meth from her pockets and handing most of it over to the woman. "Distribute it fast. I'm sorry I'm behind, but I was attacked by The One."

"Mais non, ain't that always the way?" The woman stood and flicked cigarette ash at Sabbath. "Merci, ma 'tite chatte. You take care now, ya hear?"

"I'll do that," Sabbath said coolly. "Griss, show her out?"

Griss muttered under his breath, but obeyed, and Farfarello was left standing next to Sabbath under the scrutinizing gazes of what he could tell were assembled Gifted. "Well," Sabbath said finally, smirking at him. "Farfarello, allow me to introduce the Ebon Cell. This isn't as many as we had before The One started picking us off, and Katerina here is actually the only surviving member of Antithesis Cell." She motioned to the blue-eyed girl, who nodded gravely, sitting formally with her hands folded in her lap. "Ladies and gentleman, this is Farfarello. He's a representative of Schwarz, which is an affiliate of Eszet."

"What the FUCK?" the Hispanic girl snarled, though the rest of the room remained fairly calm.

"Eszet, hm?" The voice was as smooth as black velvet and came from a lithe, black-clad form stretched out another couch. Another set of black eyes…. Farfarello hadn't known there were this many ebony gazes in the world, all different, all uniquely expressive. "Don't tell me high and mighty Eszet's taken an interest in the plight of mere Inconnu…" This gaze was amazingly like Schuldich's, arrogant and sly, with sexuality strung throughout every twitch and gesture, hidden behind strands of long hair so black it shone with rainbow highlights.

"That's Fell," Sabbath told him. "Our resident Fallen Angel and our other telepath."

Farfarello could believe it. He could sense the evil in this one; it was almost as strong as his beauty.

"And that's Jordan," Sabbath continued, pointing to the Hispanic girl, "and that's Katerina." She indicated the solemn, blue-eyed girl. "Jordan's our pyrokinetic and Katerina is a healer and kinteticist."

Farfarello couldn't do much of anything aside from nod at the moment, so he did that.

"Ray?" Katerina asked quietly, her voice emotionless and arctic cold.

"The One drained him," Sabbath told her, "but only partially. Schwarz is looking after him at the moment, making sure The One doesn't reach him. I had to get back here with the delivery, and I had something to tell you." She took a deep breath. "Farfarello and his teammate saved Ray and me when The One cornered us. I told them what's going on, and they agree that if left unchecked, The One could become an actual threat to Eszet. They don't know yet, but they think… they might be given clearance to help us. And if they can, we should cooperate. They have a powerful telepath AND a precognitive, and they're trained agents. If we work with them, just for the time being, we might be able to find the Core and close The One down for good."

Well. She certainly got right to the point. Was she the leader of this small, motley group? The others seemed to defer to her, but then again, she had a powerful personality that commanded attention. Still, attention didn't necessarily mean respect. Farfarello let his hands hang at his sides as he waited for the group to move, to speak, to decide whether they would accept this offer or protest.

Fell was the only one who moved. He rolled off of the couch in a liquid ripple of black-covered muscle and prowled over to Farfarello, circling him slightly with a very familiar smirk on his face. He wore battered jeans and a black t-shirt that said on the front, "I do what the voices in my head tell me to do". It appeared that he also had Schuldich's sense of humor.

"You're sure he's Eszet?" Fell purred, passing behind Sabbath and flicking at her hair. "He's bursting with life. Most of their people are little better than trained puppets, hardened and used up."

"I was never trained by Eszet," Farfarello told him. "Schwarz found me, under Crawford's direction. They offered me a chance to hurt God if I would kill for them, and I agreed. But I am not Eszet, only Schwarz."

"Hurt God?" Fell let out a melodic laugh. "What's the point in that? God is dead, gorgeous…. God's been dead since man first killed in his name. Now we're all that's left to pray to, the Gifted, the new race!"

"Fuckin' A," Jordan grumbled, folding her arms and falling back onto the couch with what was probably meant to be a glare, but with her features and full lips, looked more like a pout. "Here we fuckin' go again."

"Inspiring speeches aside…." That was Katerina's voice, cutting through Fell's like a spear of ice. "We have a dilemma. You've risked our safety, bringing him here." She nodded toward Farfarello. Her tone contained no dislike, no judgment, just a simple statement of fact. She was like Crawford, but without his power-lust. No, Crawford could afford to take lessons from this young woman. She epitomized the idea of control, whereas Crawford's mask often slipped, especially when Schuldich provoked him.

"I know, but I believe it was necessary. We're dying too fast," Sabbath said passionately, pausing only to nod to Griss as he returned to them and fell onto the couch next to Jordan again. "The One has everything we don't have, including secrecy. They know who we are, they have weapons and numbers, they've found most of our safe houses. We are in trouble, boys and girls. We need help. It's that simple."

"Yeah, okay, but Eszet?" Griss sneered. "Fuckers have been after us since for-fucking-ever. Like they're just gonna leave us alone after this shit storm is all over?"

Sabbath shrugged. "One day at a time," she counseled. "We'll deal with that when… and if… we come to it." She shot Farfarello a look, but he simply shrugged. He had no idea what Crawford was planning, and he doubted that Crawford had any idea what Eszet was planning. "What we have to deal with now is the Collective. We might have a chance here, to hunt them down and kill them, if we take advantage of the resources and protection offered by Eszet and go for broke."

"Goin' for broke is all good and everything," Jordan said scathingly, "but how do we know Eszet ain't gonna turn on us in the field? They could wipe out The One all by themselves. What's to stop 'em from gettin' us all in one place and takin' out two birds with one stone?"

"We will," Sabbath said firmly. "Because we'll be ready for something like that." She turned to Farfarello. "Would you be willing to go sit upstairs for a while?" she asked politely, but with an undertone of command. "So we can talk in private?"

He nodded once, turned, and ascended the stairs. Finding himself back in the cellar, he wandered over to one of the corners and huddled in it, wrapping his arms around his knees.

They argued for the better part of an hour, but Farfarello was very patient when he wanted to be. Not once did he eavesdrop… spying was not his function. Instead, he did what he had done in the long hours of being locked in a small, padded cell, wrapped in a straightjacket, locked away. He thought.

Katerina. Jordan. Fell. Griss. Ray. Sabbath. This was… Ebon Cell? He found that ironic. Ebon and Schwarz, black on black. What was this hidden world of fear and hiding in rat holes, waiting in paranoia for the day you were taken by one of the many forces arrayed against you, surviving any way you had to? He had never known a world like this existed, a world even more secret than Eszet. How did they survive, how did they find each other?

God doesn't exist. It's only us now!

Was that what they believed then? That there was no maker, no one to blame for their troubles? Was that what strengthened them, their lack of belief in anything higher than themselves? Farfarello sometimes wondered what it would have been like if, in his childhood, he had lacked faith. Or maybe if he lost it now. How comforting must it be to put faith only in ones' self, to be accountable to no one, to be… free. It would have been tempting if he hadn't known the truth, that God was real and that his lies and his capriciousness had twisted the world, had deprived Farfarello of his family through his own cooperation. That was the worst part, being manipulated like a puppet. Being used. That was the Inconnu's grief with Eszet, was it not, that they did not want to be used? That they wanted their freedom, their choice?

Free will and the ability to choose was a gift of God's, another lie, because it was also the source of every pain. The One, in a way, took away that "gift" and made everything as it had been. Innocence, no knowledge of good or evil, just of what was at your fingertips.

What price, redemption?

No. This was not redemption. This was a lie as well, maybe a tempting one for some, but for Farfarello, it was laid bare for what it was. He had refused to submit to God's will any longer. He would not let the will of The Liar control him. Farfarello controlled himself, and in that, he saw a sort of kinship with these ragamuffin Psions. They fought against The One who sought to play God. They fought to be free of the strings.

A soft step at the top of the stairs announced Sabbath's presence, and she jerked her head at him. "We're decided," she said quietly. "Shall we?"

He unfolded from the wall and stood, following her toward the cellar doors. Griss had followed her up, apparently the keeper of the doors, and he let them out, his smoldering black glare following Farfarello out and into the sunshine.

X-X-X

Elsewhere in New York City, in a small, but expensive apartment in Greenwich, a phone began to ring. It stood on a small table next to a king-sized bed, under a lamp that had been switched off. The bed had a carved wooden frame and was draped in off-white silk sheets and a forest green comforter, strewn every which-way and barely covering the two figures sprawled across the mattress. The phone rang again and one figure groaned and stirred, calloused hand coming down on the back of the phone and lifting it from its cradle. It was a cordless, and his thumb searched for the "TALK" button and pressed it.

"Hello?" he murmured sleepily, black eyes flicking to the large windows that led to the balcony. Though they were draped with thick curtains and the blinds were shut, he could tell it was early afternoon outside.

His query was answered with a long, buzzing tone, followed by two quick beeps. His eyes widened and he sat up, checking on his bed mate quickly. Yuka was still asleep, long, silken black hair spread across his pillow, beautiful features serene in unconsciousness. He threw himself out of the bed and padded across the room, snatching a pair of boxers and jeans from the dresser before slipping out into the living room and shutting the door. Mercifully, he made it before the mechanical sounds on the phone were replaced by a distorted human voice.

"Aladriss. I'm glad I caught you at home."

"Max. Tell me you have a job for me. I'm bored off my ass." He spoke with cheerful enthusiasm he didn't feel as he struggled into his clothes, phone pinned between shoulder and ear. When his feet were safely on the floor and his jeans were buttoned, he sauntered to the fridge and extracted the orange juice.

"Then I'm glad to make your day," Max said dryly. "You sound a little thick, Cross. Did I wake you?"

"Doesn't matter," Cross told him graciously, pouring a large glass of cold juice and setting the carton back in the refrigerating unit. "I should have been up anyway. What can I do for you?" He leaned against the kitchen counter and took a sip, his throat opening immediately as thick, cold goodness caressed the inside of it.

"Actually, this is more of a favor to you," Max told him, and there was the muted sound of paper being shuffled. "You've got Eszet in town."

"Seeing as Eszet's been a fixture around New York for about two hundred years, I'm going to assume that there's something special about THIS Eszet," Cross told him dryly.

"Yes. And there is more than one; a team of assassins, posing as 'bodyguards' to Takatori Reiji. They are four in number and they are called Schwarz, and their presence in our country is of grave concern to the American branch."

"Four paranormals, hm?" Cross drained his glass and rinsed it under the faucet. "Who is this Takatori Reiji? Japanese name…."

"Schwarz usually terrorizes Tokyo, where they have had a number of confrontations with one of our other teams, Weiß. Weiß has tried admirably to deal with them, but Schwarz is highly deadly. As much as I hate to downplay the skill of that team, and they are one of our best in the eastern hemisphere, they only live because they've been lucky."

"Schwarz sounds like a group of bad-asses then." Cross's tone was unconcerned and he paced to the bank of windows, pulling the blinds up and letting warm, milky sunlight stream into the apartment and illuminate the cheerful openness and gentle earth tones of the arrangement. "But Japan and America do things a bit differently. What is it, exactly, that you want from me, and why is Schwarz here in the first place?"

"Takatori is a successful business tycoon," Max told him. "He has several American franchises. He's here to inspect them and clean house, and Schwarz is here to do his dirtiest work for him and protect him, should someone attempt an assassination when Takatori is not on his home turf. We don't expect you to be able to destroy Schwarz, though if you have an opportunity to take one or two of them out, feel free to try it. Keep an eye out, follow them, track their movements. We can't afford trouble with them on American turf, not with the terrorist scare still in effect, and believe me, where Schwarz goes, death and property damage follow."

"And here I thought assassins were supposed to be stealthy and silent," Cross shot back, rolling his eyes. "You want me to watch them? That's all? You have spies you could pay to do that, Max. I'm a killer, and I know you; if you're calling me at all, you expect me to off someone."

Max chuckled at the other end of the line and Cross couldn't hold back a smirk. "All right. Weiß has tried without success to neutralize Schwarz for several years. They won't be expecting an attack in America, where they are supposedly unknown. We're sending you some help. Do what you can to give Weiß a helping hand."

"What kind of help?" Cross frowned. He worked alone when possible, mostly because other Kritiker assassins often weren't equal to his skill and he would have to watch their asses in the field, which he hated. If they were going to try to put a team under him, he would protest, but Max's words laid his concerns to rest.

"We're sending Calan. I believe the two of you have worked together well in the past. Two against four is a set of odds we would like to improve upon…."

"NO," Cross said firmly. "No one else. Calan I'll work with. I don't have to keep an eye on him. But nobody else. We'll do our best, but we'll do it alone, and you don't have to pay us for what we don't manage."

"As you wish. He'll be arriving tomorrow afternoon, as will the dossier with all the information we currently have on Schwarz. Shall I assume you'll be home to sign for it?"

"Of course," Cross muttered. "Nothing else in the works."

"Excellent. Do us proud. And Cross….?"

"Yeah," Cross sighed, "I know. 'Try not to get killed'."

"Precisely. Good day."

Max hung up and Cross gave the phone a look of weary resignation before moving back into the bedroom and setting it down on its cradle. He shook his head and turned his gaze toward the window for a long moment, then breathed a sigh and headed back toward the bedroom and his sleeping lover.

Yuka was still asleep when Cross pulled the covers back and slipped back into bed beside him, rearranging the sheets into some semblance of organization. The smaller, slimmer boy turned over and made a little murmuring sound as one hand reached out and curled around Cross's waist. Cross smiled fondly and slipped down into the embrace of the sheets, wiggling closer to Yuka and dropping a kiss on his silken hair before resting his hand over Yuka's and letting himself drop off to sleep.

X-X-X