Machiavelli raised his hands defensively. If Hekate was coming for them, he was not going to be caught off guard. Or was that what she wanted? He shook his head. Understanding the goddess' motives was probably impossible. A list of spells and enchantments ran through his head, registering themselves into his consciousness. He needed the most powerful spell that he knew…even though it would to little to nothing to the all-powerful Elder.

Dee reached inside his jacket and withdrew a large, flat, stone blade. The serpents carved into the hilt hissed to life, the sword flashing an ugly blue.

Excalibur.

They both knew Hekate would hesitate at seeing her murder weapon. And a hesitation was all they needed.

"You know we can't win," Machiavelli said flatly, more of a statement than a question.

"Just distract her, all I need is one good strike ands the goddess will feel the bitter taste of death once more," Dee responded bitterly, ice forming on his words in the cold room. Dee turned his head to the side, listening, and swore as he took up a battle pose.

"What is it?" The Italian magician whispered, unsure if he really wanted to know. Hekate was coming to punish them; what else could go wrong?

"She has brought Uriel. I should've known she'd release him."

Machiavelli began muttering to himself the problems of using gaeses. Dee pointed behind him to his desk without moving his eyes of the door. "Call in backup. I don't care who, just anyone!"

"Are there any Elders in the building?" Niccolo asked, already knowing the answer.

"No."

"How about the surrounding area?"

"Only Areop-Enap, but she is imprisoned in Alcatraz and she would never move against Hekate to side with us."

"Then we are doomed," Machiavelli said hoarsely. "No others can stand against the Goddess with Three Faces."

Dee turned around and lifted the phone to his ear and spoke rapid fire Latin. When he had finished he took a stand next to the Italian. "I have called every last force, human and not, we have around us in."

Machiavelli swallowed loudly. Then, in a last minute question, he asked, "Who do we pray to to save us?"

"Only those who have not the strength to help themselves pray."

Hekate stopped in front of the tall wooden door, green mist flowing from her hands coiled underneath it, signaling her approach. She touched her jet black hand to the door and…

…the world exploded.

The moment her flesh touched the door, it shattered into millions of tiny splinters. Uriel has jumped past her, scimitar raised. Machiavelli stood by the wide window murmuring an incantation…

But all she could see was Dee.

Dee standing beside the Italian magician with Excalibur. She hesitated at the sight of the incredibly ancient blade.

And Machiavelli took advantage of that hesitation.

He shot a volley of gray spheres at her. They did not reach her but instead exploded close to her. The magic effected how she saw through it. Everything had become distorted, but it was a clear distortion. Her eyes were unharmed but simply the air was twisted around her, bent and shifted to create a swirl of patterns.

Dee lunged with Excalibur, his eyes filled with insanity. Uriel quickly shed his black shirt and revealed what lay hidden beneath it: A pair of huge, feathery wings. The wingspan had to of reached sixteen feet and Hekate wondered how they had remained hidden so well. The Nephilim had always surprised the Elder Race.

Some things never change.

Uriel crashed into Dee as he half flew, half jumped into the air. The both tumbled down to the earth in a cloud of sulfurous fumes.

Hekate raised her hand and a blinding light flashed from it, ripping the air distortion apart, revealing a clear image of a shocked Machiavelli. She walked swiftly to the Italian magician and laid her dark hand on his white haired scalp and closed her eyes. Immediately she fell to the ground, eyes rolling behind his head.

She turned her attention back to the Doctor and the Nephilim.

Uriel had raised himself to his feet and clung savagely to a bookshelf, his feet placed delicately on the fourth shelf, his wings splayed out behind him.

Dee was on his feet had Excalibur raised desperately in front of him. When he saw Hekate, he shifted his body to face hers.

And that's what Uriel had been waiting for.

With a barbaric howl he flew from the shelf and tackled the Doctor, but this time he had had a firmer grasp on what he had attacked for. As Dee slid to the corner of the room, Uriel stood to his feet, Excalibur gripping expertly in his left hand, his broken scimitar in his right hand which he quickly discarded. It skidded across the floor with a loud clattering as he shifted the Sword of Ice to his right hand.

Hekate walked to where the Doctor lay hunched in the corner, barely conscious. She bent low to him, lifting his head to make sure he looked her in the eye.

"Hello, Doctor," She said with sadistic happiness.

Dee, obviously losing his sanity, began to laugh loudly, his scratchy chuckles turning to gagging coughs as the dust from the destroyed room settled in his throat.

"Go ahead," He said tauntingly, "Punish me. Do your worse."

Hekate's face remained impassive as she responded, "Why do you not fear me, Dee?" She did not sound shocked or irritated, more curious. She knew he was afraid; the terror practically iced him to the bone.

"My Elder master will save me," He said smugly.

The goddess lifted him by the throat, raising his feet from the littered floor. A soft chuckle escaped Uriel's lips behind them. "Oh Doctor, I am not going to imprison you in a Shadowrealm, nor set you among your servants and let them devour you," She paused, seeing the horror of what she was really going to do finally set in on Dee's face. "I am going to do something to you that not even your Elder master will be able to heal you from."

The English Magician stuttered on the words as his dry lips formed them, "Wha-…What are you going to do to me?" In the first time in his entire life he, Dr. John Dee, Magician, Necromancer, and Alchemist, was afraid. No, he was terrified.

"I am going to take away your feeling. I am going to make you into an unfeeling, unemotional, undying corpse. You will be little more than a rock," tears began to stream down his face, "You, Dr. John Dee, are going to become nothing."

She laid him back down and rested her palm atop his forehead, concentrating. Her eyes became flat silver coins and Dee saw in them his own reflection; his own transformation into nothing.

She lifted her hand when she saw the light leave his eyes and his aura fade away into nothingness. He was shaking slowly, his mouth hanging open, eyes bloodshot and strained. He felt hollow, like an empty shell. He just wanted to throw himself over a cliff, to end the emptiness, but when he tried to move, his muscles wouldn't respond.

"You are nothing, Doctor," the Goddess with Three Faces said, what sounded like sadness in her voice, "the darkness has engulfed you, and you are its unwilling slave."

She turned her head out of the now open window, seeing Uriel's silhouette on the horizon. She walked to a mirror in the corner of the room and laid her hand atop it. It flashed green before revealing the Great Hall of the Yggdrasill in it.

She stepped through the leygate, leaving the soulless body behind her without a second glance…

The sun had already sunk low in the sky by the time anyone had found Dr. John Dee. A young woman with sparkling blue eyes and raven hair leaned next to the living corpse and shook her head disapprovingly.

She stood back up and walked out of the room, holding the door while she urged the raiding squad through it. She turned back to the Magician before she walked through it herself and said:

"And so the great age of Dr. John Dee has come to an end."