"She's not answering," Cyborg said.
Robin responded with a groan. "Of all the days for her to discover petulance," he muttered. "What are the Nephilim saying?"
"Same stuff," Cyborg replied from his place near the negotiator's station. "They'll release the children if given a chance to kill us. Each hour they kill another five. They say that they have enough kids to keep going for more than a week."
"How long until the next hour is up?"
"About ten minutes."
"Damn." Robin muttered the uncharacteristic curse with grit teeth. "Any word back from Beast Boy?"
"Yeah," said Cyborg, "but you ain't gonna like it. Says the place is locked up tighter than a submarine."
"Blueprints?"
"Negative. Nothing so much as a pipe big enough to crawl through." The mechanical man shook his head as he said, "From where I'm standing, we have to do this the hard way."
"Agreed." Robin flipped out his communicator. "Titans, assemble on my position." His eyes narrowed.
"We're going to give them what they want."
=-=-=-=-=-
Raven soared across the city, a white comet in a black nimbus. Zarach winged after her, confident in his eventual success.
"Bastard's not even trying hard," she thought to herself as she risked a glance back.
"All right up there, Raven?" asked Zarach, a mockery of Jon's caring tones which carried surprisingly well through the rushing wind of their passage. "You may want to pace yourself. You don't want to be caught, do you?"
"Go to Hell," she snarled back.
"Now why would I do that when I have so much entertainment right in front of me?" He affected a wounded tone. "You're acting like you didn't choose for this to happen. It's almost as if you don't like me."
They zipped through the city, winged man after glowing woman. They spun around antennas, touched down lightly on rooftops, and dipped through alleyways. Yet, no matter how convoluted the path Raven chose or how hard she concentrated on attaining a greater speed, Zarach easily kept pace.
She briefly considered trying to teleport again before a shiver racked her frame. When she had done so the first time Zarach had somehow managed to beat her to the Kithados and nearly arrested her passage there. He had reached out and grabbed hold of her breast, and only a reflexive thrust kick shoved him away before he could work a planar binding spell.
It wasn't so much the contact that had her so bothered (although it did bother her) but rather her reaction to it. A strong surge of phantom feeling shot through her at the memory, like being impaled on hot ice. She recalled how certain parts had hardened into little pebbles of sensation while others moistened and became hot, how a traitorous part of her psyche purred with pleasure at being handled by such a strong-
Her cloak shuddered between black and white as her sense of balance wavered, and she began to dip in the air as the powers that kept her aloft surged chaotically.
"That's right, Raven," called Zarach as he closed the distance, "Accept your destiny!" A sudden whoosh of displaced air and a hint of sulfur heralded his arrival beside her. "You feel it, don't you?" he purred as he flew alongside her. "The joy that hedonism brings. I could give you much pleasure before I kill you. In fact, I could pleasure you until you die. Wouldn't you like that, dearest blackbird?"
Red eyes glared from a perspiring face. "Fuck. Off!"
Zarach gave a grin that would have been suave and disarming from anyone else as he said, "Gladly," while reaching for the form beside him. Raven gave a tight grin of her own as her aura winked out, causing her body to decelerate and drop quickly as the laws of physics finally got their way. Zarach's hand caught nothing but air. He blinked in surprise as he uttered, "She's not bad." He banked sharply and headed for the junkyard into which Raven was falling.
Raven's cloak settled as a dove gray when she landed lightly. She turned her eyes briefly skyward to check on the progress of her pursuer as she attempted to stamp out those thrice-damned instincts which reveled in being chased by a potential mate.
"Why do you fight it?" he asked as he glided in for a landing. "Your body knows what it wants. Your instincts scream at you to surrender." His wings flared open to brake his momentum and he landed about ten feet away from her.
"I'll never become a Nephilim," she hissed through grit teeth, one hand grasping its opposite shoulder as a spasm of pain racked through it.
"What you are doing is self-defeating. It's akin to refusing to breathe."
"There are plenty of circumstances that give good reasons not to breathe," Raven replied as the pain radiated sharply.
"But you can't hold it forever. Even if it were not beneficial for you to breathe, eventually you must give in to instinct and programmed response. A man will hold his breath for minutes on end with an iron will were he trapped underwater, and yet eventually the body will take over and draw that fatal bit of moisture. Instinct is all that is left in the end."
"Death first!" she cried out as the pain left her momentarily.
"Damn it, blackbird! Why do you fight it so?" Zarach exploded. "Have you any idea what you have? Freedom from every guilt that plagues humanity is yours! Greed, lust, PRIDE, all of these things are your birthright! The number of humans who would and do kill in order to achieve what you could simply by choosing to relax for once in your life! Why would you give up a life full of such delights?"
"Because I value my humanity, Zarach," Raven replied, strength in her voice. "I have fought for, bled for, and cried for my humanity, and I'll be damned if I allow some two-bit demon from another dimension to talk me into giving it all up for temporal pleasure."
"So, you can't be reasoned with..." Zarach growled malevolently. "It's time to take the game up a notch." He placed clawed fingers against his own unprotected throat. "Give in to yourself or Jon's esophagus becomes intimately acquainted with his colon."
=-=-=-=-=-
Robin sat in front of the telephone at the negotiations table. Officers sat around the table from him wearing headphones hooked to the phone. His team stood behind him. Except for Raven. Robin suppressed the surge of frustration that he felt. It wouldn't help right now.
"Nephilim... this is Robin of the Teen Titans."
"Robin! Good it is for you to be calling us. Nearly we have need to be killing the little childs. Why the minutes... you are having only two remaining. Speaking fast is the good idea for you, I think."
"We accept your terms. Release the children. Then we can fight."
"It is such a good thing that you are agreeable to the terms, Robin. We will be releasing of childs in a moment. Be preparing yourselves."
The line went dead.
"Uh, dudes?" uttered Beast Boy. "Is it just me or was that really too easy?"
"It's not just you," Robin replied as he slowly hung up the phone. "There's something they know that we don't."
"Yes," Starfire said seriously. "I am smelling a fish."
Beast Boy and Cyborg replied simultaneously.
"You mean you 'smell a rat', Star."
"You mean, 'something's fishy', Star."
A giggle escaped the Tameranean princess. Beast Boy and Cyborg shared an incredulous look before Cyborg said tentatively, "Starfire, did you just-"
"We can discuss Starfire's sense of humor later," cut in Robin as he studied the school. He spared a glance in her direction before adding, "and her sense of timing." He returned his attention to the front doors of the school. "They're coming."
A wave of pre-adolescent bodies rushed from the school towards tearfully cheering parents and the police forces that struggled to hold them back.
"Something's wrong," Robin said as he split his attention between examining the exodus and remaining wary of a sneak attack.
"They're not crying! They're too quiet!" blurted Beast Boy.
"Yes," Starfire exclaimed. "Where are the tears of joy? The songs of emotional release?"
"Aw man," Cyborg said. "I've got a bad feeling about this."
Robin drew his staff and extended it to its full length as he leaped forward.
"Titans! GO!"
=-=-=-=-=-
"You can't threaten me that easily." Raven said stoically. "Jon would rather die than allow you to use him like this."
Zarach threw back his head and howled with laughter. "Are you so sure of this?"
Shaken, but not willing to admit it, Raven replied with, "Absolutely. He wouldn't want me to become some mindless creature, driven by impulses and instincts with no rational control over them."
"No," said Zarach with a thoughtful (yet frustrated) look on his face. "I don't suppose he would, at that. Still," he continued, "if threats to the one you desire do not work... perhaps threats to those you are sworn to protect?" He pointed a hand at a pile of junk and said, "Fuegorga."
A massive pillar of flame sprung into being in an instant, humidity fleeing the air to be replaced with stinging ash. Oppressive heat scorched the very air, tendrils of flame flickering spontaneously into existence in open space. Wood charred, plastic vaporized, and metal boiled in the hellish tempest.
"It would be a simple matter to perform such a spell on a residence... a market... a daycare center..."
Raven was still stunned by the amount of sheer destructive fury that had been created with no visible effort. "What are you?" she murmured.
"I am the demon known as Zarach Bal-Togh, Lord of the Endless Night. You are no match for me as you are, Thing. No power you have, no cunning you possess, no weapon you have secreted could possibly be more than a passing irritant to my plans for this rock. Only with the power of a demon behind you do you stand a chance."
"You lie." Raven's bravado was as transparently false as a glass dollar.
He merely grinned that twisted grin, right corner of the mouth far above the left as he contemplated aloud, "Perhaps a hospital..."
He disappeared.
The thumping of helicopter rotors heralded the arrival of a new chopper. Convinced that the situation could be dealt with by mundane methods and knowing that Zarach would not hesitate to go through with his threats, Raven teleported away.
=-=-=-=-=-
The children, ranging from five to eleven years of age, fell upon the crowd of onlookers and law enforcement with a ravenous, unnatural hunger. Limbs given strength by madness or malign powers beat upon unsuspecting flesh. Baby teeth gnawed to bone and delicate lips suckled blood in a bizarre parody, a demoniacal return to infancy. The screams of joy became cries of terror.
Despite the carnage, the masses did not retaliate. Instincts originating from the dark recesses of genetic memory prevented the victims from visiting harm upon their attackers. Fatally, parents looked upon the maddened children with blood dripping from their chins and saw only spaghetti sauce. Their bone-breaking strikes equated to routine rough housing. Mortal minds, accustomed only to the ennui of daily existence, were ill-equipped to handle such a complete perversion of innocence.
After much effort and time, the Titans managed to corral the maddened children into a corner formed by the L-shaped construction of the school. Police, those that had not been routed or injured in the initial assault , scrambled to assist the heroes in building a make-shift barrier. Overturned tables, police cruisers, and appropriated playground equipment were arranged into a cordon that gave the defenders of the city some much needed breathing room.
Shocked, everyone stood and looked at everyone else. "What in the ever-lovin' name of Elvis," began Cyborg, "is going on here?"