A/N

Okay, I had to keep re-writing this to make it better. Certain things have been changed/left out in the interest of maintaining flow and interest.

As for the accents, I have no wish to torture either you, my faithful readers, or the English language. I left out most of them, though our English friend keeps a part of his. Imagine them for yourselves with this as your guide:

The British hit-wizard grew up in Whitechapel, London, and has a thick Cockney.

Delilah's accent is English as well, but has become very faded during her time in America.

Flynn has a gentle New England accent unless he's tired or enraged, when he dips into the Irish brogue of his youth.

Kenta learned English from a Portuguese missionary in Japan. His recent time in America has done much to improve his mastery of the language.

And finally, our Kemmlerite is from what we would today call Southern Germany. As such, his English is tinged with a Bavarian/Low-German accent.

Previously on Ivory Tower:

The smiles soon disappeared, though. Each of them felt the enormity of the task they were about to undertake, and it weighed heavily on each of their minds. The three split up and headed to their respective homes, preparing to face death the next day.

Ivory Tower

Chapter 8: To All Things, A Season

Lawrence Mervil Tibbett's father was a part-time deputy in Bakersfield, California. When Lawrence was 7, his father died in a shootout with Jim McKinney, a local desperado. Without his father to support the family, Lawrence took to singing at funerals and church functions to earn money. At the funeral of Jonathan Reuel, a renowned painter, a thin man in very fine clothing approached Lawrence after his memorial song and made him an offer: a chance to sing at the Metropolitan Opera House in exchange for a lifetime of service. At first he refused. Then, the Great War called every able-bodied man to arms. The horrors of the War left a lasting effect on the young man, and when he came home, he tracked down Johnny Greenwood and finally accepted the offer.

Nowadays, he gave beauty to the world with his outstanding voice, incredible charisma, and immaculate musicianship. Among his fans were Joe Masseria, Charles "Lucky" Luciano, Frankie Yale, and "Papa Johnny" Torrio, the biggest names in crime from the Big Apple to the Windy City. So when his manager announced the biggest show Tibbett had ever done, the best seats in the house went not to the Senators present, nor even to the Vice-President and his wife, but to the capos of New York and Chicago.

Tibbett was slated to sing several songs made famous by his idol, Enrico Coruso, which brought all of Caruso's fans to the theatre. Tickets went from fifteen dollars to $150 in the space of one night. Luciano walked around with a broad grin all day long, listening to the sound of money rolling in from his racketeers. A crowd began forming outside of the theater promptly at six o'clock, waiting for the doors to open at seven.

Outside of the Metropolitan Opera House, Flynn brushed an imaginary piece of lint off of his finest suit. In front of him stood Arnold Rothstein, putting his renowned good taste in clothing to work and every nearby man to shame. Next to the Jewish mobster stood Delilah, resplendent in a maroon evening gown. Before they had set out from the Tower, Rothstein had teased her about her dress being both too conservative and too provocative: it covered both knees and shoulders, but dipped low on her chest. Off to the side stood Kenta, still dressed in that ugly brown suit Delilah had first seen him in.

Upon sighting several of his fellow 'business leaders', Rothstein turned to Flynn and Kenta. "I trust you gentlemen know what to do?" They nodded. Rothstein smiled weakly. "Good hunting, then." The two of them moved into the building, presenting their tickets and splitting up in the entryway. Shortly afterward, Rothstein lead the other capos and Delilah into the opera house.

Flynn took a seat on the ground floor, trading with a young woman for a seat closer to the aisle. He smiled as the young woman moved away from her family and took his former seat next to an obviously love-struck young man. He positively beamed at the rest of her family when they glowered at him.

As people continued to file in, the detective began to worry. The five tiers of balconies were filled with people, as was the vast ground floor. People packed in to see the show until all of the theatre's almost 4,000 seats were filled. The aisles and hallways were clogged with people eager to listen to the brilliant young singer. If the building were attacked now, nearly five thousand lives were at risk. And it all hinged on him finding their warlock before he could launch his latest attack.

Soon, the lights dimmed, the curtain lifted, and Lawrence Tibbett walked out onto the stage. Flynn applauded with the rest of the crowd until everyone quieted, then stretched out his magical senses as Tibbett started singing. His frustrated growl earned him a shushing from the still-irate family next to him. Leveling them with a glare, he pushed against the obscuring buzz filling his 'ears', face contorting as he tried to muscle through the interference. At the intermission, he decided to head up and check with Delilah. Maybe she had seen something he had not.

Delilah was Rothstein's escort for the evening, and she spent every moment up until the curtain rose greeting the various mob-bosses and their hangers-on. Her face was fixed in a charming smile, and the sound of her voice lightened, and quickened, the hearts of all around her. When a young man from Johnny Torrio's party remarked on her dress, she shrugged and smiled demurely, remarking, "My family is quite conservative, but I like to dress to impress. We reached a compromise many years ago."

Yale laughed as the young man blushed rosily, highlighting the scars on his left cheek. "You lost him when you shrugged, doll." He elbowed his fellow gangster in the ribs. "Come on Al, have a seat and tell us about your adventures in Chicago." At that moment, the lights began to dim. Everyone hurried to their seats.

Seated comfortably between Luciano and Rothstein, Delilah kept an eye on the crowd as she enjoyed Tibbett's rich baritone. In the lulls between songs she would lean over and hold whispered conversations with Rothstein and Luciano. She was most concerned with getting Rothstein out of the building. Luciano wanted to get all of the capos and underbosses out, and Rothstein himself was most concerned about the audience.

When the intermission began, Rothstein decided to break the news to Yale and Torrio. Leaving out any mention of magic, he informed the two that the man behind the recent attacks was probably going to target them here. They took the news rather well, though Yale looked more than a little suspicious. Rothstein quickly explained the basics of his investigation, and the two agreed to set aside their differences until this new threat had been dealt with.

"So what are we going to do tonight, Brain?" asked Yale, using Rothstein's well-earned nickname.

"The same thing we do every night, Frankie. Sit back and let the boys go to work." Rothstein winked at Delilah.

As soon as he'd entered the building, Kenta had slipped backstage. He avoided security and stage-managers, looking for anything suspicious. So far, he had seen three scandalous celebrity liaisons, several drunken stagehands, and a rather curious assortment of desperate fans eager to meet the star of the show. He explored the ground floor thoroughly before moving into the building's basement.

The old mercenary's mind began to wander as he moved from shadow to shadow. During his fifty-year exile in America, he had come to accept the Western world. The bustling streets of New York appeared very different from those of Kyoto, but they had the same basic purpose. In a similar fashion, these 'theatre shows' were little different from the ones he had so enjoyed in his past. It was both saddening, in that it reminded him of what he had lost, and fulfilling, bringing forth good memories and new experiences.

He instinctively ducked into a dark hallway as a member of the House's security walked toward him. Anticipating both the vast audience and the deluge of admirers, the Opera House had done the unthinkable: hired security off of the street. One could tell this new security force apart from the clientele both by their suits, the best of which merely looked well-worn, and by the large bulges beneath their jackets. What they lacked in gentility they made up for in efficiency: Kenta had already seen several belligerent fans thrown out the backstage door, which did much to improve the politeness of those remaining. The old mercenary watched with something like fondness as the slightly-ragged man stopped and peered around, listening for footsteps or breathing. Hearing nothing, he shrugged and trudged on, pulling a flask from his coat and uncorking it.

Kenta waited until the man had turned a corner before coming out of the darkness. He had just reached that same corner when he heard a muffled grunt. He stepped around the corner and beheld a strange scene.

The man who had just walked past had both hands wrapped firmly around his own neck. The rest of his body was utterly rigid, save for his wide eyes and gasping mouth. For a moment, the only sound was the man's strangled gasping; then, the audience above them burst into rumbling applause as Tibbett finished his latest song. Three sharp barks later and the man slumped back, bleeding profusely, bringing his murderer into view.

Tilting his bowler hat back, the murderer smirked. "Oh well," he said. "Guess I got one more mess to clean up." He gestured with the hand not holding a gun and shouted, "Ádfýr!" A baseball-sized splinter of white fire swept from his hand, shooting through the air into Kenta's surprised face.

Flynn had just reached the balcony seats occupied by New York's most-legitimate businessmen when a small bell on a nearby wall began to ring loudly and incessantly. People stopped, confused as to what this new sound meant. 'That's one hell of a way to signal the end of the intermission,' Flynn thought.

Looking out over the crowd, he saw several of the house's employees begin shepherding guests towards the exit. As he continued to ponder what this might be the signal for, a fuzzy memory emerged. Bob Eire had been reading the newspaper aloud on one of his department's many slow days, stopping on an article about "The Wizards of Menlow Park." Something about an automatic fire detector…

The detective's eyes widened as his thoughts began compounding. A fire anywhere in the theatre meant evacuating the entire building. With this many people, there would be a great deal of confusion: the perfect cover for an attack on the bosses. Glancing around, he caught sight of several individuals in identical trench-coats converging on the stairs.

The balcony had already started emptying, Rothstein and Delilah leading the exodus. Flynn ran toward them waving his arms, but stopped short as every member of the party pulled a gun and pointed it at him. Heart jumping, he still managed to level a questioning glare at Delilah, who smiled at him from behind her silver derringer.

"Flynn?" Rothstein asked hesitantly, lowering his revolver. The detective breathed a little easier as the others followed Rothstein's example. "What do you know about this alarm?"

"There are more of those gho- hit-men moving up the stairs." One of the bodyguards leaned over the edge of the balcony to get a look. A shot rang out, and he fell. The audience, almost half of which remained in the theater, began screaming and pushing toward the exit, crushing together to avoid the now-urgent danger.

Luciano turned to Johnny Torrio. "You paid for this building, right? Where's the back way?" The older mobster paused a moment, then gestured at a section of the wall. Striding up to it, he twisted a section of the paneling. "A secret door, Johnny?" Luciano asked incredulously. "Really?"

The man grinned. "I grew up on those old detective stories, Lucky." He motioned his fellow gangsters down the hidden hallway. "Besides, most of the Business these days uses secret rooms. It's a hard habit to break."

Rothstein nodded sagely as he walked in. "Every building should have a secret room. Makes a man feel important." He pulled the door shut just as the last mobster entered the hallway.

The group moved together through the narrow hallways, down several flights of stairs and up several more. They emerged from the office building opposite the Metropolitan Opera House, brushing off cobwebs and dust, already joking about their narrow escape.

Just as they emerged, a section of the Opera House went up in flames. The gangsters murmured their condolences to Johnny as they watched the fire spread.

Flynn sighed, wondering where Kenta was in all of this, when he felt a sharp tugging inside of his jacket. Looking down, he saw that the tracking focus he had keyed to Elizabeth was now pointing directly at the burning building. He looked up, horror dawning on his face as his feet began pounding pavement toward the conflagration.

Delilah gasped and turned to Rothstein. Seeing the conflict in her expression, Rothstein nodded gravely. "I'll be fine. Go take care of Mr. O'Connell." She went perfectly still for a moment, then reached up with blinding speed to land a kiss on his cheek.

Meanwhile, in the basement of the building, a grumbling figure walked down a burning hallway. "Can't have gotten the wizard, now could I? He could have put up a bit of a fight, at least. 'stead, I got the chap who was older than dirt and half as fast. That's just ruddy unfair, that is." To make matters worse, some new-fangled contraption had set off alarms throughout the building after he'd fried the old man. Mulling it over, he shrugged. "Boss said it didn't matter whether they were in the building or not. Just means I get a little fresh air, if the ghouls haven't already killed 'em."

The sound of clinking metal alerted him to motion on his left, and he glanced down yet another burning hallway. His eyes widened, and his mouth dropped open.

A gleaming silver figure marched purposefully toward him, right hand poised as if to draw a sword. It stopped just shy of ten feet away, and by the flickering light of burning stone he had an unobstructed view of the figure's face.

Kenta's features were set in a deep frown. His arms, legs, and torso were covered in tiny metal scales that clinked and scraped as he shifted stances. Sweeping his right arm down slowly, he drew a blade from the armor on his side. Metal receded from his arms to fill the gap left by his sword's formation, exposing pale white flesh.

The lines on his face were deepened by the flickering shadows of the hallway as he bared his teeth in a grin. "I will share with you some wisdom from my youth: Do not underestimate a man who has lived to old age in a business where few reach thirty." He charged.

Flynn burst through the front doors of the opera house, following the pull of his focus up several flights of stairs and onto the top floor. Barely a second behind him came Delilah, eyes gleaming silver as she flew up the stairs. Just as they arrived at a door with "Production Stage Manager" printed in gold letters, the focus seemed to wilt before suddenly pointing straight down. Flynn felt a burst of magical energy in the room beyond and slammed the door open, cane glowing a deep crimson.

A glowing portal stood in the middle of the room next to a velvet couch. A figure in a simple black suit lounged on the couch, feeding the white-chested bird perched on his left glove. The intricate golden carvings of the couch stood in sharp contrast to the austerity of his clothing. His sparse beard was gray save for a few patches of black, and his face bore the wrinkles of many years with great dignity. Sitting up, he set his avian companion on the couch's frame before gesturing broadly.

"At last, you have found me. I would offer you what refreshments I have, but burning buildings seldom make for the best places to sit and introduce oneself." His words and tone were friendly, and his face held what appeared to be a genuine smile. The air around him was heavy with power, and it was all Flynn could do to remain standing. Delilah, strangely, seemed not to have such a mundane problem. She stepped forward.

"Then perhaps we should remain standing for the introductions, and save the reclining for later." she said coyly before extending offering her right hand. "Delilah James."

Smiling, the man stood and bowed over her hand, laying a delicate kiss on her porcelain skin. "A pleasure, my dear. I am Hugo Faustus, second apprentice to Heinrich Kemmler." His manners were perfect, his form flawless. Delilah felt a genuine smile forming as the elder necromancer straightened up.

Flynn frowned and approached the problem as years of training had taught him to. "Mr. Faustus," he began. "As a representative of the White Council and the United States government, I…" he trailed off as the older man began to laugh.

"Are you really going to tell me to, how would you say, 'come quietly'?" Faustus asked, eyes gleaming. "You are not a Warden, Wizard O'Connell, and I am not one of your petty mortal criminals."

"I see little difference between you and they, necromancer. You merely use different tools." Flynn spat.

"Little difference?" Faustus's pleasant smile fled, replaced by a frightening grimace. Delilah felt the temperature of the room drop substantially as the necromancer's voice took on a hollow, echoing tone.

"I am the Master of the Ways, the Dominus Portārum!" He shouted, raising his hands toward the ceiling.

"I have terrified your Senior Council for longer than you have been alive!

I have slaughtered dozens of you White Council lackeys and thousands of your countrymen!

I have defeated wizards twice your age with less effort than it took to clean their remains from my boots!"

The necromancer's handsome face was twisted in a fit of maniacal laughter. His power filled the room, forcing Flynn to brace himself on his cane, and sending Delilah swooning onto the couch. The sheer force of the necromancer's will knocked the breath from the wizard, and the continuing pressure ensured that he could not regain it.

"I am the supreme power in this city, you fool! And soon, I shall hand your entire country to my Master on a silver platter!" The laughter continued for several moments before being suddenly cut off. His power receded, and Flynn began gasping down great gulps of air.

The tall detective regained his footing and glanced over at Delilah. She was recovering, in part thanks to the smelling salts Faustus was waving beneath her nose. "I am very sorry about that," he said. "Sometimes the drama simply overtakes me." Smoothing his graying hair into a position, he turned back to Flynn with a smug smile.

"As a form of apology, shall I tell you where your missing Warden is?" Flynn growled and moved to rush the necromancer, but found the air itself holding him in place. Faustus' smug smile grew larger. "She is in this building's boiler room, accompanied by several of my 'associates'. If you hurry, you might actually arrive in time to watch her die."

Flynn's mind worked furiously. 'Is he lying? Why would he lie, he's holding all of the cards. If Delilah helped, could I bring him down? Would there be enough time to save Elizabeth?'

Delilah interrupted the wizard's thoughts with a simple observation. "Mr. O'Connell, is this not the man you said could quash us with little more than a thought?" Both Flynn and the necromancer turned toward her seated form. "Go do what you can, then, while I entertain our host."

Flynn hesitated for a brief moment before tearing out of the room and down the many flights of stairs toward the basement. Faustus seated himself in the chair opposite Delilah's couch, reaching for a pair of snifters and a bottle of amber liquid. Filling both, he passed one to Delilah, saying, "Armenian brandy, twenty years old." He sipped at his drink, watching her cautiously do the same.

"And now, my dear, how do you intend to entertain me?"

Flynn raced down the stairs, taking them six or seven at a time. When he reached the first floor, he saw a ghoul ascending from the basement. Unable, or perhaps unwilling, to check his momentum, the wizard instead leapt into the air, delivering a flying kick to the unsuspecting ghoul's chest. The surprised creature managed to grab his foot as it tipped over backwards, and Flynn struggled to remain upright as they slid down the remaining stairs. Freeing his foot, he blasted the stunned creature with fire before turning and beginning his search for the boiler room.

'Where on Earth is Kenta?' he wondered as he raced down smoke-filled hallways.

"Too slow, baka." Kenta dodged another fireball, flowing around it to step ever closer to his attacker. Seeing this, the fat sorcerer began flinging more and more fire down the hallway, left hand clutching an empty revolver.

"Just die already! Ad! Ad! Ádfýr!" Two scarlet ribbons of fire burst from his hand in quick succession, followed just as quickly by another ball of white flame. This time, Kenta did not dodge. All three attacks hit him in the chest, engulfing that section of the hallway in flames.

The sorcerer fell, shaking, against the nearest wall. He could feel his heart pounding, and his vision was beginning to blur from the effort of calling forth so much energy. Dropping his empty pistol, he reached for his golden pocket-watch. He rubbed at eyes too accustomed to the recent flames, cursing when he noticed how much precious time had passed. Dropping the watch back into his breast pocket, he looked up to see eight interconnected yellow lines forming in front of Kenta, who stood unmoved and undamaged by the recent inferno.

Opening his mouth to scream in fury, the sorcerer's vision suddenly swam, and he hit the ground coughing up blood. Looking down, he saw a thin, blood-covered spike of gold protruding from his breast pocket. Drawing strength from his sudden panic, he stood and pulled a second revolver from his coat, aiming it at the advancing mercenary.

The left side of his facing drawing up into a sneer, Kenta raised his left hand and smoothly sketched sixteen blue lines in the air. By the time he finished, his opponent had already fired three times: the first bullet missed, the second deflected off of his armor in a shower of sparks, and the third caught him under his left eye. The gun exploded, and both men fell back, clutching at their faces.

The sorcerer was the first to straighten up, a line of blood oozing from the thin cut along his temple. Glancing down at his revolver, he saw that the bullet had fused with the barrel, causing a reversed explosion that snapped the hammer. Discarding the now-useless weapon, he pulled a long, wicked knife from his belt, assuming the stance of a practiced knife-fighter. He waited as Kenta straightened, left hand still covering his wrinkled face.

"A hundred years ago," the mercenary mumbled, "that would not have even stung." He removed his hand, dropping a flattened piece of lead and exposing a small, rapidly-forming ring of red. Sighing, he gestured to his opponent. "Let us finish this fight, before I get any older."

"You'll never have to worry about that ever again, old man!" The sorcerer charged in, a broad band of flame lashing forth from his right hand while his left stabbed the massive knife toward Kenta's ribs.

"Impatient," Kenta snorted, knocking the knife away with a simple twist of his own blade as he ducked under the ribbon of fire. With another sharp twist, he sent the knife skittering away. When the sorcerer snarled and pulled a third revolver out, the sword ripped through the air and sliced the firearm in two. The mercenary followed up with a knee to the larger man's jaw, sending him stumbling back, before stabbing clean through the portly man's shoulder and into the stone wall beyond. He stepped back, leaving the blade in the wound.

Eyes dimmed by pain and blood-loss, the English sorcerer glared blearily at Kenta. "You won, you bastard. Finish it!" he croaked.

Kenta seemed to consider this for a moment, but then reached into a small pouch in his armor and pulled out a small porcelain bottle. He set it to the man's lips and poured, tilting his head back to force him to drink from it. The sorcerer sputtering turned into a bellow as Kenta pulled the golden spike from his chest and the sword from his shoulder, and he slumped to the ground. After several moments, the pain subsided, and he looked down in wonder to find his wounds already closed.

"Hmph," grunted the mercenary standing over him. "I thought I saw something in your eyes, maho tsukai. The enchantment only works on the pure-hearted. So, why would it work on you, hn?"

The Englishman paused in the examination of his former wounds. "Purity of heart? Can't say I've ever been described like that. The only 'pure' thing I feel is pure hatred for your White Council." He bared his teeth.

Kenta frowned, but motioned for the man to continue. Seeing as Kenta had the upper hand, the sorcerer obliged.

"Was me and my sisters living together as kids. When I hit ten, my older sister found out she could do miracles: she healed the nearby sick, pulled food out of thin air for starving orphans, and made all sorts of pretty pictures in the air to go along with the stories she told us. Then one day this constable, real pig of a man, comes by and tries to get her to clear up some troubles he'd been having in his trousers. Elise refused, and he started to take her in for 'witchcraft.' She turned him into walking bacon right then and there." He chuckled darkly.

"Next day, she disappears and some bloke in grey is telling us about these seven Laws you've got to follow or else they take your head." He reached up a hand to wipe some dust out of his eyes. "They gave her back to us, told us to give her a proper burial. Even gave us some coin, so we could pay somebody else to do it."

The stout magic-user grimaced and closed his eyes. "I remember standing over my sister, looking between her head, her body, and the bint what executed her. Same tart the Boss had me kidnap for this job, actually. Stood there in front of her for maybe a minute before I smiled and said thank you. Told her, I was grateful that they'd told me what rules I couldn't break. That I would never in my life break those rules..." His mouth twisted in a feral grin. "Because one day I would kill them all, their entire sodding Council, and I would do it all while staying within the letter of their twisted little laws." He tilted his face up toward Kenta, tone mocking. "So what are you going to do now, Wizard? Going to take me in so somebody can make up some crime, shove a black bag over my head, and send me off to Hell? Or maybe you're fixing to do it yourself?"

Kenta was silent for a moment, and his face appeared more wrinkled and tired than ever. "I have never been a part of the White Council," he began, "and I certainly do not condone their actions. My only concern with you this day lay in keeping you from killing those I was hired to protect." His brow furrowed, and for the first time since the fight began he seemed unsure of what to do next. "I believe we can reach an agreement, you and I. Leave this place now, and I will make sure no one mentions you to the Council."

Silence. "Have you gone 'round the bend?" came the hysterical reply. "You'd just let me go? No oaths, no 'but if I ever see you again'? Just, 'go'?" he asked incredulously.

Kenta nodded slowly before passing over the porcelain bottle. "Just so, only take this with you. A man of pure heart who drinks this will be healed of great injury. An evil man, though, will grow sick and die." He shrugged. "Use it to make sure you stay on your path." Without another word, he turned and began walking away, pausing to transform his blade back into a section of his armor.

Behind him, the portly sorcerer gawked, looking between the bottle and the departing mercenary. "Who the hell are you?"

The old man stopped and seemed to shrink in on himself for a moment. Half-turning, he answered, "A tool fighting to become human." There was silence for a moment. Then the roof fell in.

"I am impressed, my dear. You and your lackeys seem to know everything about me and my plans. You even caught on to the story of my name." Faustus chuckled as he refilled Delilah's glass. Delilah had just mentioned the theory they had put together about the necromancer seated across from her.

"Oh, I don't know everything. For one, I am utterly confused as to why you kidnapped the Warden rather than simply killing her?" She said, raising her glass to him before beginning to sip from it again.

"I suppose there's no harm in telling you now." He pulled out a watch and checked the time. "I insist that everything be punctual, and we've only three minutes before the ritual is complete." Setting his own glass down, he began his story.

"I was sent to this country by my Master, Kemmler, in the hopes of gaining some control over it. He planned to use military might to force control over the capitol, but left the details up to me. I studied your country for five years before coming here, and it was then that I learned a valuable truth." He leaned back in his chair and gestured vaguely at the nearby window. "Your criminals have more power over this country's future than your politicians do. Governors, Senators, and Presidents are bought on a regular basis by the men with the deepest pockets. So, I set myself up in this city and began pushing your 'mobsters' to fight one another. Once they had exhausted themselves, I was prepared to step in and take up the reins."

Delilah nodded. This was more or less what she and the others had deduced before coming here.

Faustus took it as a signal to continue. "However brilliant my original plans were, you and yours foiled them by your intervention. I knew when my ghouls failed to kill the Council's man at your establishment that I would have to take a different approach, so I set my plans for tonight. I hid my ghouls among the crowd to send after your Mr. Rothstein and his fellows. If that failed, I sent one of my recently-acquired lackeys, an English hit-wizard," he sneered, "to kill them as they fled the theatre. And finally, if all of those failed, as they indeed have, I prepared a ritual in the basement which will incinerate this quarter of the city." He finished in a triumphant shout before glancing down at his watch again. "Ah, I keep getting caught up in the moment. We have less than a minute left. The ritual will consume the lives of every person nearby to facilitate the explosion, so I think it best if we leave."

He stood and waved his hand through the air. A sharply-defined portal appeared, and he stepped up to it. He reached a hand back to held Delilah to her feet. "I should be more than happy to take you with me, my dear." His brown eyes fell on her glinting silver orbs, and the two of them remained absolutely still for a moment. The moment was shattered when Delilah's hand darted forward and grabbed the necromancer's in a crushing grip.

"And I think I should be more than happy to take you with me." Delilah ground out through gritted teeth. Hugo Faustus felt a flurry of confusing feelings well up in his chest, and a gasp escaped his lungs as he slowly slumped to the floor. His last sight as a mortal man was of Delilah James, her skin palest ivory and her eyes pools of quicksilver, smiling down at him.

The husk of the man who was once Hugo Faustus hit the ground, and Delilah shivered for a moment. Pleasure warred with disgust on her expression before she shrugged and began to wait for the world to erupt in flames.

A chuckle escaped her lips. "Mr. Marlowe may have been right after all."

Flynn raced through the smoke, covering his mouth and nose with a kerchief. Several of the building's supports had already begun to collapse, and the ceiling above him drooped dangerously low. Finally, he spotted a room with the label, "Keep Out." In front of it stood a figure in a gray trench-coat, grasping a Thompson tightly with both hands.

The detective skidded to a stop and slammed his cane into the ground. The figure immediately sank up to its neck in a puddle of viscous gray fluid that solidified back into concrete on Flynn's command. Carefully stepping over the sputtering ghoul, Flynn slammed the door open and stepped inside.

In the far corner of the room, twelve men and women in dark robes were standing in a perfect circle, chanting. Peering close, Flynn could see that each was chained in position, that their faces were tear-streaked and filled with pain. In the center of the circle lay Elizabeth, golden hair fanning out behind her head. His breath caught at the sight of her, but a deep, rumbling growl brought him back to the real world.

Between him and the circle stood five gigantic ghouls and almost a dozen obviously-dead bodies, each one carrying another Thompson. The instant he had burst in, they had turned toward him as one, and now they fired.

He flung up a hand and shouted, "Sraon!" A wall of force sprang up in front of the bullets flashing brightly as the fusillade continued. His vision began to tunnel as he concentrated on keeping the barrier up, and bullets began pinging around the room. One of them struck a pipe leading to the boiler, releasing a huge plume of steam onto his attackers. In that moment, Flynn made his decision.

Pointing his cane at the boiler, he dropped the shield and threw himself to the ground. "Brisim!" he cried. Cracks appeared in the boiler's metal shell before it exploded, sending shards of iron and plumes of steam and flame shooting through the room. The ghouls went up in smoke, while the armed corpses simply dropped lifelessly to the ground. Several chunks of shrapnel hit the sorcerers clustered in the room's corner, and the circle disappeared in a bright flash.

The detective glanced up just in time to see a piece of piping ricochet off of a nearby wall and spin into a collision course with his head. He slumped back to the ground, unconscious. The building above him began to creak ominously, and massive cracks formed in the ceiling.

The sound of footsteps soon accompanied the worrying rumble, and an old man covered in metal armor walked past. He paused, staring down at the cursing ghoul still trapped in front of the door. Looking around, he called, "Mr. O'Connell?" Stepping over the ghoul, he quickly scanned the blasted room. Seven groaning forms gathered around the remains of a magical circle, with a blonde woman lying at its center. Flynn lay just beyond the doorway, bleeding heavily from a gash on the back of his head.

Kenta paused for a moment, glancing between the unconscious wizard and the men and women chained up in the corner. His face took on a pained expression, and he swiftly reached up to pull a curved dagger from the metal on his chest. He paused for a moment, and then slammed it into his chest with a muffled yell.

Out in the hallway, the trapped ghoul began screaming incoherently as a shadow began to form above it. Swinging its neck from side to side in a senseless attempt to escape, it finally swung its head around with a sickening snap. Clouded eyes watched as Kenta carried his burdens from the collapsing theatre.

When, after a full minute, the world did not explode, Delilah decided it was best to leave the building. She exited the room and leaped down the stairs into the atrium of the Opera House. The entire building was completely aflame, and she was starting to choke on the thick black smoke roiling up from the basement. Sudden motion in the smoke on the other side of the atrium drew her attention, as did the pillar slowly leaning in that direction. The White Court sped forward and slammed herself into the side of the pillar, knocking it sideways as it fell. She hit the ground, coughing, as a familiar figure stumbled from the smoke. "Mr. O'Connell!" she managed.

The two ran from the creaking building, each supporting the other. They flung themselves through the entrance just as the building began its final collapse behind them. Police and firemen rushed forward and pulled them from danger zone as the Metropolitan Opera House broke down and collapsed in on itself, shooting a tremendous fireball into the night sky.

Delilah came to with Arnold Rothstein leaning over her, shouting at her to stay awake and holding her hand. She smiled weakly up at him, and he answered with a smile of relief.

Police would later report finding eight individuals on the roof of the office building next to the Opera House. None had any explanation for how they had gotten there, though most of them swore that they had been inside of the Opera House at the time of the fire.

A/N 2

Aaaand cut. Alright, this is almost the last chapter of Ivory Tower. We still have the epilogue to go, and there are several more stories with Delilah and Kenta and Flynn and Arnold Rothstein, but this particular adventure is almost over. Credit goes to nightphoenixchan for kicking my ass into gear on this one.

Okay, Epilogue should be out in the near future, and my next project after that is There Will Not Be a Sequel by popular demand. As always, please read and review: remember, I can't get better unless you guys tell me how.

Vale te!