"Thousands of years ago," Five Days' Darkness began, "a few of the Green Sun Princes reached sufficient power that they began to copy the abilities that made the Yozis themselves."

"The Yozis didn't notice or care," D'Hoffryn said. "By that time they were at war with each other. And, in any case, in copying their patrons' power, the Infernals took on their nature also."

"With the result," Mara added, "that they immediately joined their predecessors in the squabble. Their Exaltations no longer recognized them as human and left, fortunately."

"And the Yozis slaughtered one another and became new Neverborn. You told me that," Lilah grumbled. "I don't see what benefit I'm supposed to be giving you if I just repeat that."

"Before the Yozi War began," Mara explained further, "there was research going on into heretical powers created from synthesizing the abilities of two or more Yozis. Ultimately, we think it might have become possible to metamorphose into a new Primordial entirely, not just a copy of the Yozis, but when the war broke out, all that was lost in favor of grabbing power and jockeying for position."

"Even new Primordials won't be able to destroy the Neverborn," Five said, "but they might create a balance of power. Unfortunately, we need more than one to make much difference, and various circumstances prevented us from uncovering the Six-Metal Prison until our best candidate was gone."

Buffy Summers? Darla all but spluttered, and Lilah echoed her. "Buffy Summers was your best candidate to...restructure the universe around? By all the Lower Beings-"

"I had my own favored candidate," D'Hoffryn muttered, "but she went after Buffy."

"Sadly," Mara said, "the nature of the Infernal Exaltations we need to make new Primordials is to seek out moral failure. While the vices have their uses, they tend to create poor candidates for titanic super-deities."

"Buffy is flawed, like all humans," Five added, "but she'd grown into genuine heroism. I'd rather we'd had a Defiler or a Fiend to start with-more intellectual-but beggars can't be choosers."

"A girl just out of her teens-" Lilah began.

"We are beggars here," D'Hoffryn reminded her. "At this rate the world has no more than five years to live, possibly much less. Autochthon is dying once more, and potential apocalypses are increasing in frequency. Elevating a twenty-year-old ex-cheerleader to a keystone of existence is the good option, Lilah."

"And the bad option?" Lilah rose from the bed and began to pace.

"No offense, Lilah: you," Five said. "It's not primarily a question of your suitability. We are faced with the need to ramp up your control of essential force with extreme speed. Otherwise you won't be ready before the world snuffs it. In fact, we're not entirely certain we can get you there in time."

Lilah thought that over. Then she thought it over again. Finally Darla supplied a suitable response for her to repeat. "Fuck me sideways and complain about the fit."

Chapter 53-Time Is But a Window

"Pithy," D'Hoffryn said. "I like it."

"Why the hell have you let me run around doing my own thing? It's been fun, but I happen to prefer my worlds decadent, corrupt, and fun to be around, as opposed to deceased!" She began to stride rapidly around the room. "Coffee. I need some damn coffee."

Lilah reached out and tapped a random vase, and a surge of black energy enveloped it. The vase seethed and melted, transforming into a mug, and Lilah picked it up and tasted the contents. "Ahh. Good coffee. Do I get to be the Principle of Coffee?"

The Senior Partners glanced at each other, and Mara began to snicker. "I knew there was a reason I liked you besides being good in bed."

"More to the point," Five Days' Darkness said, "unless you like the idea of simply becoming another copy of Cecelyne or the Ebon Dragon, and almost certainly losing yourself in their memories, it was important and will remain important to let you focus your own will and make your own decisions. We don't know the exact procedure to bring about your metamorphosis, but it will involve declaring your own self as a new cosmic principle. You won't succeed at that with us pulling your strings."

"So, yes," D'Hoffryn said. "Depending on how important it is to you, you might in some small measure become the Principle of Coffee." He waggled his eyebrows at Lilah, who sputtered and began to choke on her drink. "Malfeas encompasses dance, and Oramus music. Though to be sure, all the Primordials enjoyed those things. But no art is beneath them, or you."

"Any dance? Any music?" That had interesting possibilities.

"Yes," Mara said tiredly. "Malfeas can lap dance with the best of them, and I've seen a city conquered with a cheerleading routine. As for Oramus, he used to prefer this atonal piping sort of thing, but if you want a snappy pop number it'll work just fine. Sorry. It's just that you're not the first to ask."

"And your idea of my future is that I spend it eternally locked in combat with the Neverborn?" That was probably the least appealing aspect of the idea.

"Someone has to, or there will be no future at all," Five said. He took the empty cup from her. "For what it's worth, you'll become a composite being like the Primordials, so you'll be able to do other things at the same time."

"And there's no way to put an end to the Neverborn?"

"We haven't found one in upwards of ten thousand years," Mara said reluctantly. "Think of the difference between a human and a zombie. The latter has no weak spots, no vital organs except, in some cases, the brain. Some types lack even that and have to be hacked to pieces...which doesn't kill them, only leaves them helpless. Now apply that concept to the Primordials. No fetich or soul hierarchy, no imperfections, just a gigantic form of nigh-invulnerable quasi-flesh."

"Once, I hear, some rash Solars decided to use a weapon comparable to nuclear warheads in an attempt to get rid of the Neverborn once and for all." D'Hoffryn shook his head. "Left a radioactive crater a mile wide and woke a Neverborn who, until that point, had slumbered peacefully. Looked as if it had popped an infected pimple. Fortunately they didn't try again."

"In principle," Five said, "the Neverborn could pass on like any other ghosts if the things that tie them to existence were destroyed. Unfortunately, said fetters consist of Existence itself, which is why they want to finish its destruction."

"So the whole of our existence," Lilah said slowly, "is a cosmic zombie apocalypse. And Gaia and Autochthon are the last survivors."

Mara nodded. "I'd say that sums it up nicely."

"I'm amazed that Warren could design something like you," Amy said as she peered inside Buffybot's chest assembly. "It's a shame he was such a piece of shit. There's stuff in here that looks at least fifty years ahead of its time." She levitated a flashlight to look deeper. "What the heck is that?"

"Am I damaged?" Buffybot asked. If Warren was really so smart, and she were badly damaged, who would fix her now that he was dead?

"No," Amy said absently. "There's this crystalline thing deep in your core processor. It looks...like a fractal diamond or something." She reached her hand in.

Buffybot's world exploded. Shimmering mist drifted through fields where lightning bolts sprouted and grew. Heptahedra rotated around axes that were out to lunch eating bananas. The Lidless Eye-not 'a', 'the'-stared curiously at her and she knew his name.

She fell back into herself. "-if I were to pull it out-"

"Don't! Don't touch it! I think it's me!"

Amy pulled back. "Okay," she said, frowning. "But I'm not sure any non-Exalt could have built that. If it's your CPU it's maybe a thousand years ahead of its time."

Buffybot frowned. That didn't make a lot of sense. On the one hand it could explain how she had been made. But then, how had it been made? "Well, Buffy didn't make it...and Faith didn't make it...and Kendra didn't make it. So who made it?"

"Maybe another Slayer made it," Amy said doubtfully. "But my guess would be that it's an ancient artifact from the First or Second Ages."

"And Warren just found it?" It was possible, she thought.

"Lots of ancient mystic artifacts find their way to the hellmouth," Amy pointed out. But that raised another question.

"Am I magic?"

Amy blinked. She didn't seem to have thought of that. "Hell if I know."

"Are you sure I'm the best one to do this, Harm?" Faith glanced between Harmony's face and the spiral video on her laptop. "I mean, I'm not trying to backtrack already, I'm just saying this isn't really my area."

"You decide what your area is," Harmony said, smiling encouragingly. "If we knew when Five Days' Darkness was coming back, I'd totally say wait for him. But we don't, and I want to get in touch with my past lives. I mean...like, am I a necromancer just cause I was a vampire? What was I good at back then, if it wasn't necromancy? Who was I?"

"Harmony," Faith asked, "you really sure it's a good idea to be thinking of them as 'you'? You don't know anything about them, and they weren't even part of you till you Exalted."

Harmony shrugged. "How else am I gonna find out about them?"

"Well...Harmony, you're missing the point!" Faith didn't think Shadow's Grace was a bad person, really, but she wanted to keep the other person separate from herself. And that didn't say a thing about Harmony's past lives.

Harmony gave her a flat look. "I understand what you're saying. I do. But...like, I know we were separate before, but they're part of me now. Like on that show Deep Space Nine?"

"Haven't seen it," Faith muttered. "Just go on. I'll keep an eye on you."

Harmony stared into the spiral. "Thank you. I just...I really wanna know."

A few moments later her eyes closed.

Light Shining in the Nether Regions consulted the band on his wrist. The entropic energies continued to build toward a theoretical maximum, but their shielding held. "Reading a chaotic zone less than a mile ahead," he said. "The Labyrinth breaks down here."

Glimmer of Incandescence nodded, confirming. "I feel it more dir-" The tunnel ended without warning.

"Look," Ferelven the Honest said with a gasp. Shining Light tried not to grumble at him. He had managed to buy his way into this venture, but so far he'd contributed nothing but funding. "The Crowd of Gods," he said, pointing ahead. "Just as I predicted."

Sure enough, beyond the mouth of the tunnel space itself broke down. No matter where he looked, he seemed to be staring down into a shattered reach of silently colliding floating masses. Rock, metal, wood, flesh, goo...all sculpted into vast manses, a final tribute to the dead Primordials sealed in each of them.

"The Abyss," Glimmer said. "The Maw of Oblivion. So it is real." She released the faintest of nervous whimpers, and Shining Light eyed her with disdain.

Sorcerers! Of course the Abyss was real. Abruptly Shining Light sensed a presence watching him. A fledgling Solar, barely more than human. How had she come here? Wait. Shining Light knew what happened after this. They beguiled the Neverborn into betraying their secrets and went home with the knowledge of necromancy. This was a memory. This was someone else's memory.

He was dead.

Harmony sat bolt upright. Faith jumped up at once, carefully setting down The Art of War. Heavy going, but interesting. "You all right? You've been under a while."

Harmony stared at her a moment. "Well. You're a sight for sore eyes. A fellow Solar, girl? The Exaltation found you young, I'd say."

What the hell? "I like to think I'm smoking hot myself, but you've never noticed before, Harm."

Harmony narrowed her eyes and looked down at herself, then did a doubletake. "Bah. Inevitable, I suppose. Could have its perks."

"Harmony, what...?" Faith narrowed her eyes. "I don't know who you are, but you're not Harmony Kendall."

A thin, cruel smile spread across Harmony's face-more cruel than Faith had ever seen on any vampire, even. "I am Light Shining in the Nether Regions, of the Black Nadir Concordat. As for you...I think you will prove a useful-oof!"

The...thing in Harmony's body saw Faith coming, but it wasn't fast enough to stop her. It still seemed limited by her powers, not that Faith trusted that. Suddenly it snarled some harsh words, and the shadow-vomit erupted from Harmony's mouth, seizing Faith by the throat.

"She's hardly even begun developing her essence," Light Shining grumbled as if to himself. "Easier to hold, but it means I have to relearn it all in this body. No matter." Faith wrestled futilely with the shadow creature on the floor. "I have another five thousand years or more. They're all like you, aren't you, little Harmony? I will rule this world in a handful of years and it will become my personal canvas. Goodbye, Shadow's Grace. Yes, I see her in you. A pity. You were something to speak of once."

Faith tried to yell a retort as he walked out the door, but the shadow spilled into her mouth and down her throat. Gagging, she sank to the floor. No air. Even she...needed...

"This is gonna get us all court-martialed," Aiko complained. "Attacking a Secret Service convoy? We'll be lucky to see daylight again."

"Does it matter?" Connie responded. "We swore to serve the country and protect it from supernatural threats, and that woman is the biggest supernatural threat I've ever seen. If she ends up in the White House-"

"We aren't letting that happen," Sam Finn said from the cockpit. "Better a civil war than her, and better if they execute us all. Hey, where-never mind." She knew April and Werner must be crammed into the head together, as per...arrangements, she just hadn't thought about Werner being in there. Everyone'd been sure Werner was a hundred percent straight. Must've only been ninety-nine percent after all. "Anyway, you know how this goes down. We're going to say we're putting in to refuel, then drop off the radar and come down hard on the highway in front of her limo. She'll be in Cleveland or thereabouts. If you can make her show her powers, do it. Let people see. But it's ninety-nine of us to one of her. The strongest Dawn who ever lived would have trouble with those odds, Five says."

Helen Werner and April Peterson emerged from the head, straightening their uniforms, and Zoey and Klein got up and hurried inside. Sam didn't say a word or make any move to stop them. Some things you just couldn't fight, and it was better to let them let off steam than have them explode. At least there hadn't been any more orgies.

"What if she's got a decoy?" Beth asked.

"Then we'll break off and hit again and again till we find the real her," Sam said harshly. "We can't lose this one."

Ninety-eight determined faces in a cargo hold was a lot, and while they were all familiar, they were strange, too. Coal-black faces with hair like curling smoke, sunburnt faces with red hair that shifted as if flickering, dark red smoldering faces, even a few that had gone to stranger colors like the cool blue of a bunsen burner. Sam knew she looked just as different, but she'd gotten used to her own face in the mirror. Now she was surrounded by her own kind, and they might as well have been aliens-or demons- to her eyes.

Demons. Hmm.

If only Riley were here. But he was busy pretending to be Secret Service, and anyway he just didn't have the...stamina for her. He was only human, after all.

She couldn't start thinking that way. She was human too. If she started thinking of Exalts as nonhuman she'd likely start thinking of them as "not people", too. It was the training.

Demons, though. What was she missing? Something kept nagging at the back of her mind.

"ETA two hours," the pilot called. Damn it. She needed her turn in the head. Where were men when you needed 'em?

Lighter. In her pocket. Five had said fire-

Faith was ablaze inside the burning, screaming shadow. It was screaming with her, it wasn't just her voice. What the hell was it? She rolled, trying desperately to put herself out.

The flames died and left her covered in black grit. Was it dead? Had she-?

Amy came racing into the room, B-bot trailing after her. "Faith! What the hell? Where's Harm?"

"Speed-dial Five Days' Darkness," Faith wheezed through her charred throat. "Harm's in trouble again."

"Must be Tuesday," B-bot said vaguely.

Faith pushed herself to her feet. She wasn't hurt any worse than when she'd fallen out of the sky. "Faith, what happened?" Amy asked.

"Think a past life took her over," Faith said. Why hadn't she thought of this about anyone but herself? "Called himself Light Shining in Nether Regions. I'll burn his nether regions if he hurts her."

"How will you do that?" B-bot asked. "He's in her body." Fair question. Faith hadn't figured that out yet.

"Him?" Amy wondered.

Faith nodded. "You bet. No woman moves and talks like that. I doubt he's too happy."

The phone rang. "Five? That you?" Amy put him on speaker. "Tried to get you a second ago. Harm's acting weird. We think she's having problems with a past life?"

Five groaned. "I was afraid this might happen. Maybe it's a young one. Has she used a name?"

"Light Shining in Nether Regions," Faith said. "And he belonged-"

"To the Black Nadir Concordat," Five said flatly. "Shit. Shit, shit, shit! This is bad."

"We'll get her back before she makes any trouble," B-bot said. " We can fix it together."

"No," Five's response came. "You don't get it. The Concordat were ancient Solars, none less than two thousand years old when they breached the Neverborn's tombs. Light Shining didn't die till sometime around the Usurpation. An average Solar would struggle with his memories. Harm...I'm sorry. You're going to have to accept that she's gone."

"What the hell?" Faith growled. "He's just a memory-"

"He's millennia worth of memories from one of the most malicious, devious, and clever minds of the First Age. Harmony doesn't stand a chance. I'm calling in a favor, Faith. Kill her while you can. It'll be a mercy."

"We're closing," the pilot said. "Go get ready."

"All right," she told him. He had no powers to take part in this with them, but he would face court-martial at their side. "Thank you."

"Just doing my job," he said with a nod.

"All the same," she said, and exited the cockpit. "All right soldiers! Open the hatch and watch that first step, it's a doozy!"

The hatch slid open. "Anyone whose chute isn't ready better make it ready!" Below them and a bit behind, black limousines were rolling by. "There goes our target. We can fall behind and if you've been doing your exercises it won't matter. First wave...now!"

Soldiers spilled from the plane. No way was Lilah getting out of this one.

"That's my body!"

Light Shining rolled his eyes. "Child, you are not so much an Exalt as an accident. Your body is better off with me in control of it, honestly."

The child pretender couldn't even shunt his perceptions into a memoryscape. It seemed to be all she could do to make an image of herself to distract him with.

"Excuse you. It's my body and I don't care what-"

Light Shining closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. By the Incarna, she was annoying! Then he focused his thoughts into a single blow to her sternum.

The pretended Solar gave a little gasp, and the core of her self-image unraveled, scattering on the winds of thought. He caught a few fragments-her domineering father, an attempt to embarrass classmates, a demon's teeth in her throat-and then she was gone. More dead than dead. Rather a shame. If only he could have melted her ghost into soulsteel and made her useful.

Shining Light walked away into the new, strange city. He was alive again and the world was his alone.

The convoy erupted in fire. Al Gore never knew what hit him.