These lands are near the Great Rift Valley. They're very rocky. Here, a pair of continents are always separating from one another. In billions of years, they'll be antipodes. Or rather, that's what Alfred Wegener will say, once his career in geophysics begins.

These are the badlands of East Africa. They're the backstreets of the wild, here. Local legend has it that many portals to many hells open in this rift valley. Hell, the Ancient Egyptians probably thought that the front doors to Set's and Anubis's realms were here.

On the stony floor of this rift valley, a puddle of blood lies. It might be a buffalo's. It might be a wildebeest's. Whatever it is, a flock of oxpeckers laps it up.

In the old days, oxpeckers just ate ticks off of beasts' hides. But of course, a tick is little more than a huge sack of blood...that gets bigger, the longer it gets to cling to a beast's hide. Because of that, some oxpeckers have evolved into vampires. Hence, the local coven drinks from this pool of blood. Unlike most vampires, oxpeckers are NOT allergic to sunlight.

Downwind, the badlands dead-end. Not much goes down there. A jird sure wouldn't.

Near the wall of the dead-end, a tiny portal of Bloodforce magic opens. From it, Thomas Grant falls. He's now under a thousandth his normal size, courtesy of the Bloodforce Dimension. After a hard landing, Thomas struggles to recover, as the portal closes just above him.

It takes him a while to absorb where he is. He also establishes that he's got no clue where this is.

He gets a clue, though, when he sees a few oryxes pass, downhill. From some angles, they look like unicorns. Even so, Tom can tell they're not. Unicorns only have one horn; these bastards have two.

To Tom, they...seem to be a bit bigger than he'd expect...

Near him, an oxpecker lands, and surveys him. She's huge. Tom gapes, and cowers below. To him, the oxpecker is bigger than a T-Rex. Now Tom KNOWS he's not in Samoa anymore...let alone the California Islands.

Behind the oxpecker, some of her buddies show up. They all seem into Tom. Tom sure hopes they're not mistaking him for a tick. But then, Tom's probably making the mistake of assuming that ticks and blood are the ONLY things oxpeckers eat...

From uphill, the birds hear a noise. They all freeze. Moments later, they fly away. Tom would feel relieved...if he wasn't worried that something scarier is nearby...

It's a sengi (i.e. an elephant shrew). The sengi is a glutton of the micro-world. This sengi, however, is not of Africa. He's of another world. They call it the Sengi Dimension...or the Macroscelidea Dimension.

The Sengi Dimension is a world where the sengi is the dominant species. There, food is plentiful. And for the sengi, of course, "food" usually means "bugs." Hence, the Hunt is always on in the Sengi Dimension. Alas, there are also many insectoid demons in that world. Some, in fact, have become so strong, that they're devils now. And these often require armies of sengis to slaughter. As easy as that sounds, there's just one problem: sengis are solitary, and most would rather kill themselves than assemble armies. Even so, the Sengi Dimension hasn't been destroyed yet.

That world has vamps, too. Hence, a lot of sengis from that world are vamp hunters. This particular sengi is a merc. He's come to the real world, to serve the vampire hunter's cause.

This one's found Tom. Tom's terrified, of course. At his size, sengis are so much bigger than him. Plus, they eat bugs; and at Tom's new size, he's like a bug to everything else. In the present day, he'd now know how Liv Pope felt.

This sengi's name is Ulysses. He's a fighter, as well as a glutton. He makes Martin the Warrior look lame. But then, that's expected. Martin was a mouse; he didn't eat meat.

Ulysses towers over little Tom, like a behemoth. With his elephant-like nose, he sniffs Tom out. Shit; Tom sure hopes he doesn't smell anything sensitive...

He turns around, shows Tom his side, and lies on his belly. He turns his head, and motions for Tom to climb aboard.

It takes Tom a while...but he gets there. Once he's there, he pats the top of the beast's back, to let him know he's settled.

The beast takes off. He's very fast. Soon, little Tom is hanging from the beast's tail, bobbing up and down from the ground, while clinging to the tail to stay mounted.

Ahead, multiple portals open. They take Ulysses and Tom to the Sengi Dimension, and then back to reality. It seems Tom's mount is using these portals for teleportation. Funny; Tom would expect a fierce warrior to have mastered long-distance teleportation by now...

Up ahead, a cliff towers over much of the Great Rift. Eagles and falcons live atop the highest height of it. Horus often came here on holiday. Or rather, that's what the Ancient Egyptians loved believing.

Meet Samael. On the surface, she looks like your average sea eagle. Americans would mistake her for their own national symbol. And the mistaking would be fair; both species are in the genus Haliaeetus (i.e. sea eagles).

Samael is a goddess among vamp-hunters...both borne of the Sengi Dimension, and of the real world. Telepathically, she sounds like Angela Bassett, or an actress of equal stature.

She blinks, and follows with her gaze, as the sengi Ulysses ascends to her level. He stops at her breast, leaves little Tommy, and takes his leave.

Now, Tom's even more terrified than before. He's in the presence of a bald eagle; one that's MUCH bigger than the one his family's taught him to revere...as far from Lincoln City as Tom knows the Grant homestead is. He thinks it is a bald eagle, of course. Most American conservatives, after all, are too naïve to suspect that the bald eagle is the only sea eagle in the world...or even that the bald eagle IS a sea eagle...

"Welcome to the war," Samael says to him telepathically, "Thomas Grant of the California Islands. "Allow me to transfigure, for you, some more iron pants...for you will be up against some VERY iron foes, during your stay here."

Tom speaks not.

"Fear not, young Master Grant. I do not eat what does not shut up my stomach." She studies him. "No intent of offending you, by the way."

Tom speaks not.

"As you might know, we are at war with vampires, too. Congrats, for slaughtering the Five over in Samoa. Alas, they are merely a garrison. The field marshal of that army, I dread, is near."

Tom speaks not.

"You are in East Africa. If I'm not mistaken, you love many females of your species who hail from this magnificent continent. As of now, alas, they are in danger. I hereby conscript you into our brotherhood of vampire-hunting militias."

Tom speaks not.

"It's nothing personal. But of course, we're both aware that one of Bom-Bom Fez-Jura Grond's henchmen tried to attack you, back in California."

"You," Tom breaks his silence, "know that?!"

"Of course I do. I'm a goddess among vamp-hunters. I've limited omniscience. I'm committed to protecting the victims of vampires...and the much-blooded in general. Ticks don't count, of course. Most of their blood, after all, is not their own."

"No. It's not."

"Soon, you will be outfitted, and deployed. But first, I must call you up. Before that," she stands, and levitates him into her nest, "you are weary, following that fight with the Five. And the Bloodforce Dimension, from what I've heard, is not known for its anxiety-relieving powers."

She sets him down in her nest.

"My sternum, on the other hand," she says telepatically, "is warm and fluffy. It shall accommodate you well, as I intend to put you in stasis."

Before Tom can get up and run away, she sets her chest down, right atop him. An eagle's sternum isn't quite the same thing as a human woman's DDD chest...but it's similar. The down feathers, at least, are something Tom would consider an improvement. He kind of misses that boob-crack, though...

Now, Tom rests...once the awkwardness of the situation settles with him. In many ways, though, this will never settle with him. He didn't ask to become a vamp swarm's quarry, after all... But then, he's starting to think that Samael didn't, either.

Carolyn sure didn't...or won't, if she's never been. And naturally, Tom would die fighting for her.