The door jingled and opened, and Kate looked up. She wasn't getting a lot of customers these days. A tall, sandy-haired man in a three-piece suit stood there staring around in curiosity at her various wares. Most such people showed far more distaste.

"Can I help you, sir?"

The man sighed and strode through the isles over to the counter, where he sat his briefcase down hard. "My name's Garrison Kendall. I want to speak to my daughter."

"Dad." She made her best effort to hold her voice completely flat and was surprised when it succeeded.

"Harmony," her father said warmly. "I don't understand why you haven't come home."

"I know you don't, Dad. You never have." Her parents had been insisting that she come home since she'd accidentally been caught on camera shortly after rising. "I was a vampire-"

"Harmony, I know you're a vampire. I never cared about that. You know who I work for. Wolfram & Hart has long been a supporter of equal rights for the undead." He stepped a little closer to her. "I believed in you. You could've chosen to kill us at any time, but you never did."

"Then you know I'm not a vampire any more." Surely Lilah had filled him in.

Her father scoffed. "Yes, of course. The prophesied shanshu." What? "Harmony, you are not some storied hero. Don't be ridiculous. You don't have to pretend for me like a member of the general public. I know your powers come from-"

"Dad, I'm a Solar! I'm about as far from being a vampire as it gets now!" Desperately she flared the half-disc on her forehead.

"A solar what?" He shook his head at the mark. "Tell it to Dracula. The old fool with his gypsy illusions."

"Dad! That's, like, totally rude!" He wouldn't use slurs in court, and he'd rarely used them in front of her.

"Vlad can take care of himself. You, on the other hand..." He shook his head sadly. "I admit that Buffy Summers fouled everything up. I went to such lengths with Richard. I tried to persuade him that he could never succeed in today's world as a giant snake, even with the firm and I representing him. He stood pat, so finally I resorted to telling him he'd need a secretary all the more without his hands, and he agreed to take you on."

"Well, it didn't work, Dad! I got turned by one of his minions!" The mayor's secretary?

"Oh, that. You were never going to succeed as a human, especially not in his administration." Harmony stared. "I did what it took to give my daughter a future. I mean, what else were you going to do? Hope to marry someone old and rich?"

"Dad!"

"Harmony, we did the best we could by you, but you're not exactly the brightest bulb in the box. Kiddo, you graduated by the skin of your teeth." Garrison made a sad face. "We tried private tutors. Remember them? They walked out on you. I think the word they used was 'hopeless'. I really wanted you to follow in my footsteps, y'know? Go into law."

"And I just want you to take me seriously, Dad." Why couldn't he-?

"You run around in a leotard pretending to be a 'super hero' and you want me to take you seriously?" He began to laugh. "There was a time when I wouldn't have cared, you know. If you had just come home, if only to visit. Here you are. Living above a store with your little team. I'm tired of it, Harmony. Come home or I don't want to hear any more about you."

"Get out."

"And how will you take care of yourself? At least as a secretary you'd have had a job. What are you now?"

The anger was boiling over at last. "I'm a princess. I'm the Twilight. I'm fine, dad. I'm fine without you. I'm sorry I didn't see you all that time, but if this is how it's going to be between us, I don't need you any more. Tell mom I'm sorry."

"A prin-? Your mother is dead, Harmony. She died two months ago. Of cancer. We couldn't find you. It's your own fault. Don't get all righteous on me."

"You made me a vampire, dad. Don't tell me not to get righteous. I'm sorry I didn't see mom. If she didn't know, I'm sorry I didn't get to say goodbye. If she did...I'm sorry I didn't get to scream at her and spit in her face."

"How dare you-?"

Harmony shook her fist at him. Eyes bulging, face red, her father raised his in return.

And at that precise moment, a voice said, "Hey Harm, I was-" and Shoat walked into the room.

Chapter 52-Death Is But a Door

"Hi folks, this is Jean Burroughs with CNN and I'm here with the woman who's been dubbed the Emerald Angel. While she has a variety of telekinetic powers, her biggest draw on the general public has been her ability to literally grant wishes. The Angel-who has broken with comic book tradition by freely giving her name as Amy Madison-has been handing out ability boosts like candy, apparently with no side effects of any kind. Amy, can you grant any wish?"

The crowd pressed around Amy, cheering, and for now she basked in the attention. Eventually she'd have to go be alone and recharge. Just not yet. "I honestly don't know the limits of my powers yet but so far I can't make things, only alter people. What do you want, Jean?"

The reporter blinked and stammered jusf for a second-that must've broken her planned script. "I-I just want to get my story."

I'm famous. Mom never got to be famous. "I can make you a better public speaker. Or a better investigative reporter. I can make you more telegenic. Go on. Make a wish, Jean." Jean wasn't supposed to get involved in her stories, but Amy didn't give a rat's ass about that.

Jean must've decided it'd make good news spectacle. "Okay, I'll bite. Make me a better investigative reporter." Well, that wouldn't do much right here. Maybe she was just devoted to her job.

Amy snapped her fingers and used some of the less-contained energy to make a faint display of green and white sparks. "Done. Go make good use of it." I'm more powerful than Mom ever was. Feels real good.

The reporter opened her mouth, but just then a man shoved his way through the barrier carrying a scrawny, pallid child. "It's my daughter. Her heart-she was on the transplant list-they took her off, said her condition's too bad. How's she ever going to get better? I know they can't waste hearts. I just...can't you do something for her?"

I...can we try to help? Hallie sounded as if she might actually be crying. Of course; kids had been her thing. I'd have helped her even if it wasn't her dad's fault. It...might not have gone well, I suppose.

Amy took the little girl from her father's arms. "I can try. I've never healed anyone before."

"Thank you, oh thank you." The man wept, his eyes dry but red as if all his tears were exhausted.

Feeling foolish, Amy put a hand on the girl's forehead like a televangelist, though she said only, "Done." The child gasped and raised her head, her color improving at once. "Take her to a doctor and have her looked at," Amy said urgently, her voice a little husky. "I'm not God. I think I fixed her heart, but she's not well yet."

The man fell to his knees and clung to Amy, sobbing. Amy carefully passed the girl off to him.

"You just saw it here live on CNN! Amy Madison just apparently healed a dying little girl on live television! We'll go for now and let them be-" The crowd surged towards them, people shouting, begging, praying. "-but we'll keep you updated!"

People spilled over the barriers, and suddenly Amy was pressed on all sides by a mass of bodies. The screams and the prayers and even a few early denunciations were all around her now.

"Are you really an angel?" "Can you heal my cancer?" "Please, my son-" "-my wife-" "-my boyfriend-" "Only God can-" "-please-" "-please-"

What was she supposed to do? She only had so much energy. Fine. They wanted healing, she'd heal. She raised her hand and pointed at random. In the shouting crowd it was all she could do. "You! You! You! You! And you! Done!" She had no idea what she was even granting them, but all the same she felt a constant stream of power flood from her. A white flame burst from her forehead, spreading, turning faintly greenish as it encompassed her whole body. Sand glimmered around her, spinning around her legs, sand and a growing assortment of tiny crystal beads that orbited her body. The screams of the crowd became fearful. Here and there she heard retching. But she also saw a man's withered arm grow whole and straight, and there was some satisfaction in that. With the crowd reeling, she grabbed the microphone from Ms. Burroughs, shouted "Vote Republican!", and dashed away as fast as she could. The idea of all these people voting for that idiot from Texas was vile, but surely he had to be a better president than Lilah Morgan.

Right?

Kate Lockley hadn't realized until Fred was gone what a useful lesson the skinny little genius had taught her. Borrowing the senses of security cameras was one thing-they were more common on Earth than anywhere in Creation, even Luthe apparently-but in her own bedroom Kate still had her old police-band radio.

Right now Kate was listening to police reporting in all over town even while she stood behind the counter. The sound quality was horrible, and most of it was about random traffic violations. But from time to time something important went down, and right now there was a riot going on across town where Amy was.

Kate took a couple of steps toward the door and heard shouting coming from upstairs. Oh, right. She'd let Harmony's father in, the lawyer from Wolfram &...shit. Surely he wouldn't try to hurt her, couldn't succeed if he did.

Kate turned, cursing to herself, and ran upstairs. She'd been distracted and now there was going to be trouble. She felt queasily sure of that.

"Hey, Harm, I was just-" Shoat had just stepped into the room in front of her. "Harmony, are you about to hurt him? Is he one of the bad guys?"

"Yes," Harmony said bitterly. "He's pretty bad. But I'm not going to waste my time on him. I figured I'd scare him a little." She gestured idly at her computer screen, which showed some sort of ancient text in curly script. "But I can't do necromancy since I'm not initiated. I might as well say 'Libram incendiere' and expect books to catch fire." She waved her hands around at the books stacked all over her room. "See, no fire!"

"Harmony," Kate began, "initiation doesn't necessarily require-"

"This piece of shit calling himself my father thought I was so useless and incompetent he had me turned into a vampire so I could be secretary to a giant snake demon," Harmony spat, "and I'd say he deserved the humiliation of being so scared he pees his pants more than dying, if it wasn't his fault about everyone who died at Graduation that year! And God knows who else!" Harmony waved her hand at him and snarled a few consonant-laden words. "See, n-" she began, just before starting to hack and gag. And a torrent of inky black gushed from her mouth.

Faith floated high above the city, wishing she could be more leisurely about it, wishing she could float higher still. But she had to keep moving, like a shark, or she would fall, and she was bounded by a limit about eighty feet above the buildings. Still, it was peaceful up here, and it was easy to go unseen.

Up here she could practice focusing her senses without any risk of being overwhelmed. She listened, and heard the faint rumble of the city differentiate into thousands of conversations, air condiitioners, cars running, dogs barking, televisions and radios blaring. And any one of them, with a little effort, she could single out and focus on.

It really was a lot like being Superman. She really wished she'd learned to fly earlier. Feeling like Superman made her feel less like the villain.

On the other hand it made her wonder whether she had any limits at all. Only the ones you set for yourself, came a whisper from the bsck of her mind, so choose wisely. That was not a comforting thought, either its contents or its source. She'd woken up this morning from dreams of being someone else entirely, and for the first hour she was awake, if you'd asked her name she could only have said "Ebon Shadow's Graceful Daughter". Shadow's Grace wasn't the only incarnation who might flicker through her head at times, but the two of them resonated. The other woman had hated being a Night for a long time, had felt guilty about stalking the guilty and disposing of them. She'd moved on from where Faith had ended up, but was that progress or just a circle between different points? And if Faith let herself slide at the wrong time, was it possible she could disappear into that other self? Shadow's Grace had lived for thousands of years, from just after the war with the Old Ones almost to the Solars' defeat. If Faith let her, she could probably teach Faith almost anything; Five Days' Darkness claimed that was the real source of his current teachings, so she owed him nothing new. Just one service each for herself and Kendra. But Shadow's Grace felt like a well as deep as the ocean, and if Faith fell in she was pretty sure there wouldn't be so much as an echo, so she did her best to keep the memories closed off. She'd probably been doing it for years without realizing.

You don't have to be afraid of me, Shadow's Grace whispered. I'm you.

Sounds to me like the best reason to be afraid of you I could have. She knew the truth, whatever Amy said. She was cursed. Somehow. She was doomed to fail.

Amy. Amy was shouting at someone.

Faith dropped her hands and fell from the sky. Where? She'd been scheduled for a news interview today, somewhere downtown. Faith dropped lower, zooming through thick clusters of tall buildings. There. Amy was burning with a green-white flame, with a huge crowd trying to advance on her. Some kept falling to their knees, but whether to vomit or worship it was impossible to tell. Maybe both. Amy's full aura had unfortunate effects on people, though not as bad as Shoat's.

Faith swooshed by, seizing Amy by the waist. "Lois, you've gotta stop getting into trouble."

"Clark?" Amy winked and snickered. "But it's so much fun having you rescue me." With a sigh of frustration, she added, "I burned myself out trying to convince people I could only do so much. I haven't got much left. How am I supposed to help people when they mob me if I try?"

"Don't look at me," Faith said, "though I think Kate told me a story about that. Jesus, maybe." She paused. "I can hear them back there. They're prayin' to you. As far as they're concerned, you're the next thing to God."

"Faith, I'm not God." Amy sounded a little breathless. "I don't think God runs out of energy this fast."

"You'll get stronger," Faith said, unsure how she felt about that. The stronger they were, the more good they could do...or the more harm.

"Magic is not a toy!" Shoat yelled, and slapped Harmony in the face. Not that it helped much. The dark mass had already escaped from her.

"I didn't mean to-I didn't think I could-"

"Harmony," Kate grumbled, "didn't the book explain about initiation? People don't have to consciously try to be initiated." She reached out to try and pry the mass of shadow from Harmony's dad, but her hands simply passed through it. "Sometimes it just happens, and are you really surprised that you might have an affinity for necromancy after being undead?"

"Er...when you put it that way...no. And it didn't." Her punch at the shadow was equally ineffective. Shoat thought about shooting it, but that wasn't likely to end well.

"Good job," Shoat said sarcastically. "I'm sure your dad is very scared now that he's about to die!"

"I'm not actually sure how much I care," Harmony snarled. "It's his fault I was ever a vampire, and now he's working for Lilah Morgan!"

"He's your dad!" Shoat yelled back. "Do you really want to have killed your dad?"

To her horror, Harmony hesitated to think it over. "Not really, I guess," she said with disturbing slowness. "Help me stop the damn thing." Unable to affect the shadow directly, she tried dragging her father away from it.

"Here," Kate said irritably, and pulled back to punch the shadow thing. Her fist actually struck it this time and slammed it backwards into the wall. The ooze slapped wetly against it and puddled there. "I think we got it. Must have to use magic to hurt it."

Harmony crouched over her father, trying to see if he still breathed, and Shoat sighed and retreated into the shadows. Good luck, Harm.

"She did what?!" Lilah stalked back and forth through the penthouse apartment. She was making the rounds through the country, in Houston at the moment, but that couldn't insulate her from national news.

"No worries," Five Days' Darkness said. "The odds are that at this point, most people's opinions are set. We have bigger things to worry about, Lilah. Why have you stopped releasing Exaltations?"

"I thought that was obvious," Lilah said irritably. "We've had no luck at all getting people reliably on our side. Even Warren Mears has vanished, and, let's face it, he was far from ideal as an employee."

"All that is true," Mara acknowledged, but you've forgotten a critical piece of the puzzle. We didn't arrange the release of the Exaltations to make you President. They're far too powerful as tools for such-may I say it?-a trivial purpose. Drusilla? I don't suppose you can fill her in?"

"Hephaestus is dying," the mad vampire chanted. "Dying like Lucy and Mina, and soon he'll be like the others. Like me. And then Gaia will die too, and all things will be at peace in Oblivion."

"I told you about that," Mara said, "but you don't seem to have internalized the lesson or4emembered Darla's offer."

"To take over from the Senior Partners? I have to admit I thought that was you." Lilah paused. "You want me to supplant you?"

"Not supplant," said the last of them. D'Hoffryn always seemed angry these days, though she couldn't seem to pry out why. "Subsume. Rule. Become."

"Lilah," Five asked, "have I told you how long Infernals live? Only a hundred-fifty years or so. A while longer with a profound grasp of essence, but far from the five thousand years-or more-you might live as a Solar. But you could live forever. Go on. Ask me how."

Lilah raised her eyebrows doubtfully. "Tell me."

"We need new Primordials."

Garrison choked and coughed and opened his eyes. "One chance," Harmony said. "Leave now while I'm in the mood to let you. You won't get another."

The man looked at his daughter, and all Kate could see in his eyes was hate and fear. He turned and bolted from the room, and she resisted the urge to hunt him down.

Instead she turned back to Harmony. "Well, no doubt Five Days' Darkness will be proud to have a budding necromancer among us."

"I didn't mean to," Harmony murmured. "I was just curious."

"Curiosity killed Creation," Shoat said just as quietly.

Kate frowned at her. "Even if that's true, it's a little excessive to say."

"I didn't think I was initiated," Harmony insisted. "And if I wasn't then I couldn't have done the spell."

"I guess that's so," Shoat said. "But if I were you I'd treat necromancy like a gun from now on. Assume it's loaded and don't point it anything you're not ready to destroy."

Harmony booted up her computer. "I should probably delete the rest of this," she muttered. "It'll just get me into trouble."

"Probably," Kate agreed. "But you know what? I think we're in the sort of situation where we have to trust each other's judgement. You've seen what necromancy can do, Harmony, and you know now that you're initiated. It's your choice whether learning more is worth the risk."

"You're going to trust my judgement?" Harmony almost sounded offended.

"Well...alternatively, I can spend all my time and energy holding your hand," Kate suggested. "You've seen that necromancy is a dangerous tool. On the other hand, that could kill demons. Or Lilah, or any other number of valid threats. You might not even have been wrong to kill your father. I'm glad you didn't, but there would be reason. You're going to have to trust yourself, just like Faith, and we're going to have to trust you."

Harmony looked at the floor. "I...sure. How bad can it be?"

"Done," Warren said, and climbed down from the framework. The Master's sense of humor was genuinely twisted, but he could appreciate this joke too. The new robot was a perfect replica of young Arnold Schwarzenegger. "We're ready to power him up."

"Here," Raiton said, and handed him a tiny, spiked ball of obsidian. "Place it in the power socket. Its shape will adjust."

Warren narrowed his eyes. Were they putting him on? He placed the little ball into the socket. Sure enough, somehow it fit smoothly inside.

Black lightning erupted from the frame, forcing him to leap backwards. It cascaded around the Arniebot in a vast crackling display, and suddenly the robot's eyes turned painfully purple, like a black light. He hadn't designed them like that.

"Transfer successful," the Arniebot intoned.

"Transfer? From what? There wasn't supposed to be any transfer," Warren sputtered. He was going to download Skynet in a few minutes, but that wasn't done yet.

"Who is this?" the Arniebot asked.

"Nothing," Weeping Raiton said. "A once-useful tool, exhausted now with your arrival. I am Weeping Raiton Cast Aside. This is the Master of Yesterday and Tomorrow. You may dispose of that one now, if you choose."

Warren flinched away from the robot's grasping hand. It laughed harshly at him and seized him by the throat. "What are you?" he managed to wheeze before it cut off his air entirely.

"I am that which you have summoned into this world, fool. I am king of the Gremlin City. I am the Viator of Nullspace." It snapped his neck like a twig. "And, incidentally, your death."