A/N: Thank you for reading and for the reviews! I really am sorry that I dropped the ball on updating for a bit. Trying to make up for it now .

…-…

I've never really cared for that light at the end of the tunnel analogy, but I have to say, today was at least a lantern in the darkness. It might get broken easily, but…I'm glad I was here for it.

Before that little bubble of hope moment, though, things were pretty bleak. Nicolas and I went out to look for Clara, Fizz, and Eric. It's been about three days—it's hard to keep track of time when the sky is always overcast and the light doesn't seem to change much between night and day. It's like those clouds that block the sun also trap whatever light is still down here. I'm kind of worried that this cloud cover was made by something like a nuke—people were always saying that those would kick up a layer of dust or whatever, right?—but I haven't mentioned that to Nicolas or Neesera. I need to. They should know what my world's capable of, especially since so many of my fellow humans seem to be enemies.

Anyway, Neesera's mechanical squirrels—there's like twenty of them total, it turns out, all in different parts of the city, learning the lay of the land—found a building that seems to be a sort of command center for the surviving humans, so they're figuring that that's where our friends were taken.

Nicolas doesn't think they're still alive. And he's really, really angry because of it.

I mean, duh it makes sense he'd be upset about losing his friends, but I think he and Clara might be…a bit more than I realized. So, like, you can't even mention her name in front of him right now without him looking ready to flip out.

Neesera was pretty grim too. But…I think there's still hope.

Yes, the demons are ruthless and all, but there's one thing they're not considering. And Nicolas should be, at least.

Human curiosity.

People from my world have stumbled across real magic users. A healer and two mages. I'm not saying they won't…torture them. But they're gonna want to know how to use magic.

And apparently Greg has at least a little bit of authority among whatever's here.

If he's secretly a good guy—he has to be—then he'll find a way to save them. I think. I mean, he'd have to realize they're from another world and that they'd be a link to getting more help, you know?

And if he's not…Greg's always been really curious. Remember his tinkering with the toaster? There are like a million other examples I could give you of him taking things apart and trying to improve them and stuff. And he played a warlock.

On another of our forced bonding moments, I'd tried to ask him about his character, since it was obvious he was so invested in it. At first he just kind of mumbled some stuff, statistics which I couldn't follow to save my life—I did get that some intellect one makes your spells better, but the rest just kind of flew over my head—but when I asked why a witch—he never corrected me—he got this…look.

I can't describe it. Wistful, longing, gentle? Maybe a little bit of all of those plus something else? And then he looked at me and held his hand out palm up and said, "Wouldn't it be amazing to be able to chase away the cold just by whispering a word and having fire literally at your fingertips?"

I'd stared at my own hand and then shrugged, commenting that I bet I'd just end up burning myself. Greg was not amused.

Anyway, my point is that he would love to use magic. While maybe the demons are already offering to teach him, maybe they're not. Maybe this is his first chance of seeing that that avenue could possibly be open to him and if so, he will totally use it.

I'd bet most anything on that.

I guess I am betting three lives on it, huh?

Nicolas grabbed my shoulder and jerked me closer to the ground. As I looked toward him, drawn out of my thoughts, his glare was almost enough to kill. "Do you want to get caught by a damned demon?"

I glanced around the street. It was empty of other living creatures—there was also somewhat of a lack of corpses, which made me happy. When I looked back at Nicolas I arched my eyebrows. He was so still he almost looked like he wasn't breathing.

"Um, there aren't any here."

He turned his head slowly toward me. "And how would you know?"

"Because…" I drew the word out for a moment and then frowned. "Wait, you can't see them either?"

Nicolas looked ready to smack me. "I'm sorry, I thought we established they were invisible."

My frown deepened and I felt the dirt caked to my cheeks cracking. No matter how hard you tried to stay clean in my world, the dust covering all the broken bits of metal plastered itself to you. In a way, it was great for blending in. But it was also incredibly grimy feeling.

"When I came through the portal, I saw them." I stared at Nicolas. "So…I just figured you guys could see them or something."

"Well we can't," Nicolas muttered. Before he could brush off what I'd said, he eyed me. "How did you see them?"

I shrugged and related my brief encounters with the creatures, suddenly wishing I still had my infrared goggles. Which gave me an idea. Which I quickly snuffed out.

If we could find an old shop that used to sell army supplies, maybe we could find some broken goggles and have Neesera fix them up. However, Greg and the others probably already cleared out any buildings like that. And how would we know where to look in a city we'd never been to before?

I know, I'm so uncultured…

Nicolas started to say something in regards to my seeing the demons, but an explosion in the distance caught both of us offguard. I had no clue where it came from and was immediately freaking out that Neesera was in trouble. However, Nicolas shut me up with a quick, "She's fine," and then told me to move and darted across the street to the building we'd been going for.

I was still super confused about our mission because this wasn't the building with all the people from my world, but at this point, I trust that Nicolas knows what he's doing.

As he hurried into the doors, I checked the street once more to make sure I couldn't see any demons coming out to see what the ruckus was and then I bolted after him. Neesera sent one of her squirrels with us—should something go wrong, she wanted to know where we were so that she could try to save us—and that thing scampered into the building as I made it there.

Its little feet were clacking against the marble floor of the building—some hotel—and so I grabbed it up and carried it. At first, the squirrel tried to get out of my hands, but it stilled after a moment, only its head moving back and forth as it surveyed out surroundings.

Nicolas was already on the stairs. He paused to look at me and point upward before he disappeared around a corner and I sighed. I must have been slowing him down horribly.

As I reached the stairs, I paused and glanced over my shoulder. If Nicolas hadn't been able to see the demons, then why had I been able to? And how long had that lasted? Was it gone already?

I closed my eyes for a moment and tried to feel for any wrongness. While, maybe if I spend the next twenty years of my life—assuming I live that long—honing this skill, I'll someday be able to tell where demons are for miles, for now, all I knew was that there weren't any nearby, ready to consume my soul or whatever it is that they do.

Convinced that we hadn't been followed, I headed up after Nicolas.

This building was surprisingly intact and I could totally imagine businessmen and women in evening gowns sauntering through the halls at some point not that long ago. Before the world ended.

It took me a while to get to the top floor. Even though the stairs were still all there, some of them groaned and I could see cracks in them. While Nicolas must not have worried about them caving beneath him, that was probably because he has the reflexes to get off any broken stairs before they can send him plummeting to his death.

I am not so skilled, so I took my time.

As I thought through all the different things that we could do to save Fizz and the others, I found my ideas echoing the uselessness of the ones I'd been planning to distract the police with all those months ago—it felt like years or maybe even a dream when I'd been back in Charlotte.

As I turned another corner, I came back to my senses as Neesera's squirrel squirmed out of my grasp, thudding with a clang and a whirring noise to the ground and then scampering back the way I'd just come.

Pausing, I glanced up the stairs I was on and say they led to a door to the roof. I really had stopped paying attention. Turning back, I went back to the hallway branching off of the stairway and followed the squirrel to the nearest room, where I found Nicolas already at the window, with one of Neesera's contraptions that reminded me of binoculars.

I edged over to the window as well and peered out. Across the street from the back of the building was the human headquarters. They looked…militant. They had guns, too. Like, I'm not a guns person—

I just realized I'm like literally the worst person to save the world. I don't know about anything that would be useful in combating this stuff.

At least I can behead imps, right? Like that'll help me against any type of gun.

Nicolas smacked my arm and I realized that he was waiting for my input on the situation. I guess I should have been offering that up on my own, right? So I explained what little of guns I knew, like how most could shoot multiple rounds at a time without needing to reload. That sort of vague stuff.

Turns out Azerothian guns aren't nearly as advanced as ours, so Nicolas started cursing and swearing under his breath.

Even as he cursed his way through the alphabet and back, I heard something and stilled. It wasn't the trudging of feet against the floor or the creaking of a door or anything.

It sounded like a roar. A distant, angry roar.

The humans across the street and heard it, too, and I could see them glancing at one another, like they weren't sure if that had been an ally or not. And then it occurred to me.

Half of the guys down there had probably joined the demons thinking there was no other way to survive. And half of them probably didn't know who or what they were supposed to be trusting.

I elbowed Nicolas as I ducked away from the window and gave him a half grin. "I think we can totally get in there without getting shot."

Even as he stared at me with a look of genuine surprise, I continued. "Do you have your maps on you?" He hesitated and then pulled one out of his pack and unfurled it. While the main maps were being sketched by squirrels, Nicolas had been copying his own version, so that he could travel with it, without leaving Neesera blind.

I looked over the different buildings for a moment. They'd marked them off as ones that looked like people had once lived in them—granted a few of those were more hotels than apartment complexes—or if they looked like some sort of shop. I doubted all of their markings were right, but there had to be somewhere nearby…

"Have you come across any clothing shops?" When I looked up to see him staring at me with a look of incredulity, I frowned. "For my plan to work, we need to get rid of these Azerothian clothes."