Blood stained the sands of Acre and ran down into the Levantine Sea. The single day's casualties numbered dozens if not a hundred in total. Of the over seventy knights of Britain to step off the ship from Genoa, only one remained standing. The damned sand dogs who were so eager to taste the bite of his blade numbered less than a third of his force, nearly all of them laid dead in the dirt. Only one of the worms remained, but he was the one who almost singlehandedly leveled the crusaders. In the setting sun, his opponent's cloak seemed to glow as if made of green fire. The lone knight, Geoffrey de Cantonna, struggled to hold his footing but would never surrender. His opponent raised a scimitar toward him and stared with those pure, white, prophet's eyes that seemed to pierce the soul.

The one dressed in the cloak opened his mouth. What came out was not English, but somehow the knight understood everything he said anyway. "You will live. Go back to your masters, tell them what you have seen. Tell them to leave my people and our land be, your lives needn't be forfeit."

The knight clutched his chest and squeezed the handful of the cross-marked surcoat over his chainmail. It was difficult for him to speak, but he pressed on. "My master is greater than yours, dog of Termagant! I shall fear no evil, to die to see the Holy Land again purified is to accept sanctification!"

"The prophet, Yeshua, peace be upon him, would never wish your blade raised against mine," the flame-cloaked man said. "Cruel men corrupted his words, as they have corrupted your heart."

"You do not dare speak to me of the works of Christ, you heathen dog!" The crusader pulled a second sword from the hand of a dead comrade and raised the blades toward his opponent. "Make your peace with Mohammed now, I'll send you into the pits to join him! Deus vult!"

With the power that ran through the Spectre's body, he could have reduced the bullheaded fool to ash in the blink of an eye. The wrath of Allah was with him, if he so chose to use it. But Allah abhorred needless bloodshed, and perhaps if just this one fool could be convinced to tell the European kings what power laid ready to guard Jerusalem, they would end their cursed invasions.

With his scimitar clutched close to his chest, the Spectre prayed, "Alsalam ealaykum," and ran to meet his foe in battle again.

Geoffrey swung the swords with all the finesse of a brawling drunk. Indeed, for most of his life, that was all he'd ever been. Commander Bors liked the look of him because he was so tall, and he figured even a glory hound like him could be molded into a fine bludgeon against those heathens in the Holy Land. But across every infantry he trained with, any man even a little quicker or a little quicker witted than him always won their practice bouts. As hard and fast as he swung the swords, his opponent in green neither allowed him a strike nor avoided the chance to deflect his slashes. A knight with less of a jackass's stubborn will may have read the meaning in those parries: that the Spectre saw every single attack he threw and soundly overpowered each one. But such a revelation was lost on the big man. It didn't matter how many superior soldiers this phantom brought down, he remained convinced her was always just one strike away from claiming victory.

The Spectre did all in his power to impress upon this fool that he could not win their battle. He kept one hand tucked behind his back as he used the other and his thin scimitar to throw off all of Geoffrey's strikes. The angel half of the being whispered about how easily they could rend the flesh from his bones, or at least inflict anguish on him for all his gluttony. But the human refused to engage in that way. The war with the Europeans already took enough out of him, he just wanted the conflict to end. Wasn't that why the angel said he'd been chosen, after all? For his sense of justice? For the idea he didn't want to be a thoughtless destroyer?

With a leap, Geoffrey raised both swords high and screamed another, defiant, "Deus vult!" and swung. The Specter lowered his scimitar hand, opened his palm, and thrust it into the crusader's sternum. Geoffrey roared as he flew back, the point of impact folded his breastplate inward, and he fell to the ground with a thunderous smash. A pained, confused groan slipped from his lips as he tried to shake off a concussion. When he rolled to his right, he had to swallow a shriek, as he'd fallen right next to the corpse of his company's bannerman. The two swords slipped from his grip during the strike, as the spirit approached him he had nothing to defend himself with.

"I'm not going to kill you," the Spectre said. "But it's time to be done with this."

Geoffrey fumbled around for anything that he could use to protect himself. After some struggle, his hands found the sigil the bannerman carried. Their flag was secured to an ancient, rusted spear. It looked worthless for combat, surely that's why it was just being used to hold the sigil. But in that desperate moment, it seemed better than nothing.

The Spectre extended out his free hand. Geoffrey's heart raced, certain this phantom intended to rip his soul from his body.

With a shove off the dirt, Geoffrey thrust the spear into the Spectre's chest. For the first time since the miserable battle began, the enemy let out a twisted cry of his own. Something—glowing blood, perhaps—spurted out from the wound and covered the crusader's face. As the phantom struggled to stay upright, Geoffrey grabbed his lost swords from the ground, raised them, and drove each into his keeled over enemy. The shining blood burst from his body and covered both of the swords and the warrior who held them. As the ichor flowed onto his body, the already crazed crusader felt something more overtake him. That power that bled onto him fueled his being like a drunken rage. With a furious scream he cleaved into the Spectre, the gore soaked his flesh and steel as he cut his opponent over and over again. With every slash and drop of lost blood, the ethereal green faded from the Spectre's body.

With a last maddened swing, Geoffrey cut the heretic's head from his shoulders. Like an animal that claimed its kill, he let out a roar over the corpse of his enemy.

Under other circumstances, perhaps even one like Geoffrey, the hardened fool of Cantonna, might have questioned just what had transpired. How a decorative spear seemed to strip his seemingly unstoppable enemy of so much power, or at least how he may make a retreat. But the mess that covered him continued to poison his mind like an intoxicant. All of a sudden, he felt hyper-aware of the corpses of his allies that laid all around him. Good, righteous Christians died on this vile, nameless beach. And there was another whole village of these worthless dogs just uphill. The death of their leader wasn't good enough—absolutely not. They'd pay—he'd make them all pay. With his two shining swords gripped in his hands, he lumbered like a power-demented drunk toward the city proper.

To the watchers who protected Acre's outer walls, it just appeared one dizzy infidel broke from his ranks and made a break for the city. The Jerusalem cross armor and his light hair were enough to mark him as an enemy, but the archers who observed him hesitated to fire on him as he approached. With unconscious fingerings of their bows, they shouted down to keep away, that they didn't want to fire. In his stupor he paid them little mind, but something strange did give him pause. Could he understand what was being shouted? The archers were, indeed, speaking Arabic, but he sensed something else as well. They were asking him to turn back. They called him a pitiful fool and offered him the chance to keep his life. Upon perceiving the insult, he directed his smoldering rage up at one of the archers, bent, and leapt.

Saturated in the blood of the slain angel, Geoffrey's body suddenly flowed with otherworldly power. One guardsman shouted as he landed right in front of him and ran him through with his sword. Another knocked an arrow fast, fired, and slashed right through Geoffrey's cheek. In a second jump, the crusader closed the distance and cut him down in one slash as well. Horns were blown, an alarm was sounded all through the city: an invasion had begun. An invasion that consisted only of one intruder drunk on utterly horrific power. Geoffrey leapt from the wall into Acre and shouted, "Dogs—heathens—I'll kill you all! Deus vult! Deus vult! Deus vult!"

The alerts throughout the city coupled with Geoffrey's shrill screams brought on the attention of the inner guard. Spearmen and swordsmen ran out from their homes to meet the madman in battle. In his drunken state, it didn't take long for spear thrusts to destroy his surcoat and puncture the armor underneath, and swordsmen broke through the chainmail of his arms and dug at his flesh. But no matter how many strikes struck home, no matter how it seemed the giant would topple at any moment, the furious beast of a man seemingly refused to die.

"I'll kill you—I'll kill you all!" Most of his assailants were quick enough to dodge him out, but those crowded too close together screamed as his swords tore through them.

Frantic, contradictory orders started to circulate among the observing guard commanders. Some said they should run, some said they needed to just keep increasing their numbers, they could surely, eventually, overcome this seemingly implacable madman.

As Geoffrey laid waste to those who dared rush him in the square, one of the captains shouted commands to form a tight circle. The city's protectors set upon him in a flurry of scimitar slashes. Their leader gripped a spear tight and watched for an opening. When Geoffrey swung down with both swords and knocked one of the guards to the ground, the captain rushed in and thrust his spear through the crusader's neck.

For a few moments, Geoffrey's own movements were limited to shudders. He couldn't even scream through the blade in his throat. And for that brief window, it seemed the fight may have been won.

The energy rushed back into Geoffrey all at once. He took ahold of the spear in his windpipe, gouged it out, and turned it back on the commander. The stab cut right through his stomach and he collapsed a moment later.

A scream rended the air. From the doorway of one of the nearby stone buildings stood a horrified woman and a cry of, "Ismail!"

Geoffrey jerked his still recovering neck around, glared at her, and his bloodlust flared. He hated every one of these heathens, but this wailing woman awoke a different fury in him. The crusader whipped about, knocking the guards aside, and fixed his glare on her. After a moment of joined eye contact, she slammed the door to the building shut. Geoffrey shoved and kicked his way through the interference and smashed through the door in a single punch.

Bloody and lumbering, Geoffrey entered the house. For a moment there came a sound like a child's scream that was rapidly cut off, as if a hand was slapped over the mouth releasing it. Geoffrey turned to the first opening on his left. In one corner sat a divan with a blanket draped behind. In spite of anyone's best efforts, tiny mumbles still slipped free and drew Geoffrey's attention. He crept forward and threw the covering aside. The screeching woman sat huddled on the floor, two daughters gripped her, and she clung to an infant, her hand pressed firmly over the little one's crying mouth.

-000-

"All right, stop— stop!" Sadie shut her eyes tight and put out her hands. She'd looked away for a few of the most gruesome parts already, but the implication she was about to witness rape made her stomach churn. "I can guess what's next, please, I don't need to see any of that!"

A few moments passed before the Spectre said, "It is gone."

Sadie slowly opened her eyes and looked back toward the angel. It appeared they sat in her mental painting of the jet again.

"So, that was Geoffrey… and I'm guessing she was Nalia, right?"

The unknowable figure in the cloak bobbed the hood up and down as if to nod. "I take it you understand the implication?"

"Yes."

"I can just move forward to the next relevant bit, if it would be of any help."

"Yeah, okay." Sadie rubbed her forehead, wondered for just a moment if she was actually doing so physically, and said, "Is there any more sexual violence in this story?"

The Spectre didn't miss a beat. "Yes."

"I don't know, can you just tell me when that's going to happen? I don't need to see it, do I?"

"No, I can spare you of that."

"Please do." As the landscape from her head started to fade again, the sight of that same city, ruined and besieged, came into focus. When Sadie looked back up, she asked, "So that's where the swords came from? You? That's why they can cut you out of me? It's like, 'Superman's spaceship has to be tough enough to contain Superman, therefore you could hurt him with it' or something?"

"Correct."

"And the spear… the spear was just there already?"

"The spear was obtained shortly before in a siege on Antioch. The holy authorities were unsure of its authenticity, but believed battle would be guaranteed if it was the genuine article. It was sent with that contingent of troops without their knowledge and, indeed, brought victory of a sort." The Spectre looked back into the haze it conjured and continued, "With every sin he committed bits of my holy power faded away. But only after leaving dozens of dead in his wake was Geoffrey slain. A few months thereafter, Jerusalem was claimed by the invaders from Europe, and within a few years of that, the new so-called kingdom laid siege to Acre to claim it as a port. With that claim, they discovered something else…"

-000-

Nalia stood with the rest of her caravan and awaited their exodus. Less than a month had passed since the pale-faced brutalists claimed the only home she'd ever known in the name of King Baldwin. The generals insisted anyone who wished to stay need only swear their allegiance to Baldwin, they would not be forced to surrender their faith or even their mosques. But Nalia did not trust this promise. She'd known the ruthlessness of these savages from the west, she dared not incur their rage again. Her eldest daughter, Sadaf, walked a few paces ahead of her. She'd given her husband, Ghaazi, the task of keeping her younger two daughters, Uzma and Hiba, moving, no matter how they objected. Now and again, Nalia turned to confirm all of them were still moving, Uzma and Hiba each held one of Ghaazi's hands. And with her grip tight around his wrist, Nalia led little Kedar through the procession.

The little family proceeded at a slow pace that was finally coming to an end. Now and again, Nalia squinted and tried to look to the end of the line. Hundreds of other families walked alongside carts of their possessions and chattel like goats and camels, her things were with Ismail's family who'd left earlier. She had no idea what the damned invaders were looking for as they permitted the townsfolk leave to eventually resettle in Ascalon.

At the southern gate stood a small table. An olive-skinned knight from Genoa sat with a legion of his companions waiting behind, and a man garbed in a red cloak and hood waited at his side. He wrote a few notes on a scroll before he sent each family off. Nalia remained on her guard, but at least this man didn't seem as if he wanted any trouble.

When the family of six arrived, the barbarian spoke in a tongue she didn't know. The man in the cloak translated in a strange, haggard voice. "Good day. Declare yourselves, any possessions you may be carrying, and your intent to depart."

Ghaazi stepped up to her side and released Uzma's hand so he could place it on Nalia's shoulder, Sadaf approached and took Uzma in his place. "We're six," he said. "My name is Ghaazi, this is my wife, Nalia. Our daughters are Sadaf, Hiba, and Uzma, and this is our son, Kedar. Our things are with my wife's family. And we intend to relocate."

The man in the cloak translated, the knight from Genoa didn't even look up from his notes. But as he spoke, the cloaked man slowly looked back toward the family. Nalia's heart froze for a moment when she saw his face—not simply pale, like the other Europeans, but a strange, chalky, eggshell white. No wonder he wore the cloak, the blazing sun would scorch him in an instant. His eyes fixated for a moment on her, then down at her son.

"This one," the man in the cloak said. "Where did he come from?" Something was utterly bizarre about the way the man spoke—his Arabic was acceptable, but his lips moved as if they were saying different words. "I sense something in him—why?"

"I don't know what you're talking about." Ghaazi spoke as Nalia pulled Kedar closer. "He's our son, that's all there is to it."

The knight frowned at his companion, the pale man said something to him that no one could understand, then looked back toward the family. He reached out with a hand. "Let me see him."

Kedar's eyes went wide as he looked up toward Nalia. "Mama, what's—"

Nalia yanked him away and stood between him and the pale creature. "Keep your hands away," she said. "Stay away from him."

"Nalia, it's all right," Ghaazi said. "There's no need to—"

The pale man's fingers suddenly extended and whipped around Nalia's body. She screamed as the appendages—suddenly more like tentacles—pressed against her son's forehead. Kedar's eyes went wide with confused terror, and, when he realized what he was seeing, Ghaazi shouted to demand what was going on.

"I knew it," the one in the hood said to himself. Again, he said a few words to the crusader at his side. This time, the man from Genoa rose and drew his sword. To the frightened family, he said, "An Englishman's blood flows in his veins. The boy does not belong to this man."

Ghaazi demanded, "What are you talking about?"

With a hard swallow, Nalia said, "He was my first husband's son—all of them are his children. But they are all his children—"

The crusader from Genoa said something, his hooded companion translated, "Don't slip into hysterics, ma'am. Surely it is better to leave this city with three children than none at all."

With clenched fists, Ghaazi demanded, "Are you threatening us?"

Nalia hadn't even paused in her explanation. "—In the Koran, Kedar was the son of Ismail, ancestor of the Prophet, peace be upon him—"

Ghaazi started to argue directly with the crusader from Genoa as he slipped a hand onto his sword. Sadaf came forward and, with a quaver in her voice, asked what was going on.

Everything went wrong in a flash. The pale man's already-extended arm morphed into a tentacle and he took a tight hold on little Kedar. The boy screamed as he was yanked from his mother's side. Nalia let out a screech of her own as she threw a punch toward the pale man, but the crusader stepped between them and thrust his sword forward.

-000-

"I'll spare you this scene," the Spectre said. "There was more needless bloodshed. In fact, the attack on Nalia triggered a desperate riot from the citizenry. She came away with a nasty wound and one lost daughter that day. That the sepsis didn't claim her is practically a minor miracle unto itself."

Sadie shook then held her head. "... Thanks for taking me out of there... which of her daughters was it?"

"Does it matter?"

She scowled at the spirit. "The dead have names. The dead always have names. If you're telling me everything you're showing me is important, well..."

The Spectre nodded slowly before responding, "Uzma, the middle daughter."

With a bite of her lip and a nod, Sadie asked, "All right... that guy in the hood, what was the deal with him?"

"Even nine hundred years ago, the Order of Nephilim was still an active force," the Spectre said. "It was believed he hosted the power of an angel within him."

"Well, you'd know, right? Did he?"

With a shake of the head, the Spectre said, "White Martian DNA."

Sadie flinched. "What?"

"The scientists of the White Martian faction have visited this planet for thousands of years, periodically inflicting strange experiments on the populace. This one believed it was one of my kind's doing, he's hardly the first." When a few seconds passed and Sadie still appeared too shocked to respond, the Spectre added, "His name was even Pius, if you can believe it."

She uttered a disgusted grunt. "Of course it was."

"I mention him because he will come up again later," the Spectre said. "Those unstable Martian cells gave him those abilities you saw— to manipulate his body, project universally understood words telepathically, and even to sense the presence of my power within Kedar. A slaughter broke out to ensure they could take the boy away, and in their minds, it was worth it."

Sadie nodded as she braced herself for more. "So, he was kidnapped by a literal pious monster, they broke his will, and that's why he is this way? That's the damage that led him to be what he is now?"

"To some extent, but still a gross oversimplification." As the Spectre spoke, the world around them began to shift again. "I will show you what came next."

-000-

A bloodied child rolled in the dirt and came to a shuddering stop when he crashed into a set of wooden posts. The boy, still a year shy of puberty, struggled back to his feet in the middle of a fenced-in circle for combat practice. Opposite him stood a great, snarling beast with rocky skin and a leonine mane. The child struggled to stand up straight and wield the broken short sword in his hands, the other half of the blade stuck out from his enemy's stone shoulder.

From outside the circle, Pius called words of encouragement. "Come on, Geoff! Fight harder! He can't keep you down, so don't even give him the chance."

Geoff; he still disdained that name. Pius told him he'd need a proper Christian name to stay with the order, and as his father wasn't using his anymore, he could have it. Once upon a time he objected, but soon it felt easier to accept than to fight. Not unlike when he used to loudly say, 'Allah' instead of God in his prayers or threaten to starve himself when pork was served for dinner. The part that infuriated him most was the way Pius just shrugged his shoulders and let him do it while he insisted, "You'll see it our way, soon enough."

The ogre opposite Kedar let out a terrible roar and ran at the boy. With Pius's words buzzing in his head, he tried to puzzle out some sort of clue. He couldn't be kept down? Should he just remain where he was standing then?"

Kedar planted his feet firmly in place and raised the sword as the beast ran at him. Fearful shakes reverberated down his arm, this felt like it couldn't work, but the boy didn't know what else to do.

The ogre rushed right into the blade, paid it no mind, and pinned Kedar to the ground. A furious flurry of punches knocked his face this way and that. The boy's nose broke and his skull shook before Pius called first, "Enough!" As the ogre grunted, his body shrunk, his skin turned to something human-colored, and he exited the ring. Pius turned toward another boy on the outside, "Hannes, get over here before he falls unconscious."

Another boy, a light but sun-tanned Franc Kedar had never seen before, moved his hands toward and then from a nearby well. A long tendril of water rose from within, slipped itself under Kedar's body like a stretcher and, with another motion, Hannes pulled him out of the combat circle. All around them marched stoneworkers and masons doing construction. Pius swore their out of the way collection of hovels would be a mighty citadel someday.

With a chuckle, Hannes muttered, "Idiot. Wake up." He tapped Kedar's head with one of his booted feet.

Kedar uttered a groan, squinted up at the sun, then looked to Hannes. He felt a little surprised he didn't appear more than a year or two older than himself. "I don't need help, you know. I've been beaten and bloodied many times before."

"Yes, I've seen it happen often enough." Hannes moved his hands and a slow flow of the water cleaned and treated Kedar's wounds. "But no use suffering in silence if there is a healer available, hm?"

No answer came from Kedar, but by the way the pained look on his face seemed to slide away, Hannes figured it was a fair assessment. "They say you can't die. Is that really so?"

"Well, nothing has killed me yet." Kedar looked down, glum, afterwards. "And I'm too weak to kill anything myself."

"You'll get the hang of it, sooner or later," Hannes said. "What're you, by the way?"

"Hm?"

"Your parentage. What'd you get saddled with that made you immortal?" As he spoke, Hannes's simple flow switched to massaging motions.

"Oh." Kedar hesitated. "I—er—I don't actually know. They haven't told me. It's on my father's side, I think. Never knew my real father, only my step-father." When it seemed too long passed without a reply, he asked, "You?"

"Mum's a melusina, that's a kind of water fae," Hannes said. "That's why I can move it around like this."

Kedar gave that a nod but said nothing more, he just eased back and relaxed on the ground as his wounds were healed. At least until he opened his eyes and saw Pius standing over him.

"I don't need to tell you how disappointing your progress has been, do I, squire?"

Thoughts of snappy resistance bubbled to the surface of Kedar's brain, but he held them back. He didn't want another round in the ring that day. "No, sir."

"With that incredible pedigree and your incredible powers, you should be capable of so much more," Pius said. "You're only most useful not as a training dummy that moves about for target practice."

Kedar wanted to defy him, even in some small way, but he just said again, "Yes sir, I will do better."

Pius let out a little sneer and said, "In ten minutes, you're getting back up and training with Marcus." Marcus had some foul thing out of the old Roman myths in him, Kedar couldn't remember what, he just knew there would be pain again soon enough. "In all of your suffering, there is something to be learned, my child. God has a plan for all of our pain, you would do well to recognize it."

When Pius was out of earshot, Hannes leaned down and asked, "You just let him insult you like that?"

"Between you and me, I don't plan to take it forever," Kedar said. "I don't plan to be here forever."

-000-

The scene in the training yard came unwoven as the Spectre and Sadie observed. After a moment absorbing it all, Sadie said, "Well, that obviously didn't work out, right?"

"Obviously not," the Spectre said. "But it bore some important context for later. I will spare you much of what is to follow. You need only understand that, as a matter of reducing his suffering, his skills did, eventually, improve."

A series of tiny vignettes flashed before Sadie's eyes. A moment of Kedar about to be gored by a minotaur. Another of him clashing with some silver-skinned creature. And a third in a dead of night against a fang-mouthed vampire with the pale monster pinned to the ground.

"And, after that first bit, Hannes became his most frequent companion."

Another few moments presented themselves to Sadie in rapid succession: Kedar and Hannes in the midst of a playful practice duel. Then the two sat, conversing and sharing a meal together. And finally, a moment of Hannes at a beaten Kedar's side cleaning off his wounds.

Sadie asked, "I'm guessing this is going to be important later too?"

"Astute." The Spectre said. "But now we press forward. As his skills improved, Kedar and his fellows with the Order of Nephilim began to receive assignments. I shall show you a little of the one the night that changed the course of his life yet again." The sights before Sadie shifted until they beheld Kedar knelt on a stone bridge with his hands clasped behind his head. "At the Battle of Al-Sannabra, most all of his contingent were killed in a surprise attack." Lines of lifeless bodies in chainmail and Jerusalem Cross surcoats came into focus. Soon after, soldiers wielding curved swords and garbed in lamellar armor closed in on the kneeling boy. "When he was the sole survivor, Kedar surrendered. He told them he was of Muslim ancestry, that the Christians held him against his will, and that he'd never lost his true beliefs. His enemies let up on their execution efforts long enough to lead him back to their camp." As the Spectre spoke, ropes were bound tight around his wrists and he was led away.

The sight reformed and Kedar knelt in much the same position in a room of cold, white stone. A collection of the same opposing soldiers stood around him, all with their hands on their swords, as a solemn-faced judge with a beard and turban glared down at him from a seat of honor.

"Toghtekin, leader of the forces from Damascus, heard his pleas, but they fell on deaf ears." The man in the turban threw out his hand and shouted something Sadie couldn't understand, Kedar rose from his kneeling position and shouted back, only for guards on each side to raise blades to his throat. "Toghetekin ruled an immortal should fear no one, and thus the boy must be lying about needing to hide his faith. If he'd been a true Muslim, he'd have endured. But instead, he'd lied for an advantageous position, that was his judgement. It was declared the boy be imprisoned until they could find a suitable master to enslave him."

"Go… geeze," Sadie corrected herself quickly. "Awful, I'd have hated to see it. Uh, y'know, thanks for just explaining this part, I guess."

"It is context required for what is to follow. Behold."

-000-

With his hands still bound together, Kedar sat in a cell on a cold desert night. His wounds were all healed, but his captors fed and watered him only a little, so his strength was far from returned. And, immortal though he was, his powers were limited besides that. The opposing commander called for his bondage, and he feared no one from the Order would risk their lives for someone who literally couldn't lose his. Disdained by one side of the war, rejected by the other, he couldn't decide which name of God to pray to, for it seemed both left him abandoned. For a time, he tried to force himself into sleep, just to make the time sitting and starving pass more quickly.

Then, from down the hallway, he heard a woman's voice rise in opposition to something. He knew nothing of any women in the prison, who had come to cause an argument so late at night? His Arabic was rusty, but he recognized, "By order of—" followed by something else. Whoever it was, it seemed she had authority.

After another few moments, he heard the sound of a door opening. Shortly thereafter, a tall woman in an immaculately white jilbab entered, her face covered save for her eyes. Such finery in the middle of the desert was a sign of great wealth, what was she doing there?

To his further shock, she stopped at the bars of his cell. In a hissing whisper she called, "Kedar!"

The boy froze and just stared, wide-eyed.

"You must go quickly," she said. "I am setting you free, but my husband will doubtless send his hunters to pursue you."

"You what?" Kedar's mouth went dry after he asked as the woman slid a key into the cell, closed the distance between them, and cut the rope that held his wrist.

After she did so, she forced the weapon into his hands. "Protect yourself if you must, but give it no more time than you need. You must run, far away and fast as you can if you are to be free."

"Wha—who are you?" Kedar said. "How do I know this isn't trickery?"

"We haven't the time—"

"How should I be expected to trust you with my everything if you can trust me with nothing?"

His mysterious benefactor looked back and forth between him and the hallway she'd come from. After a brief, hesitant swallow, she reached one emerald-ringed finger up toward her nose and pulled down her covering. In another hiss, she said, "My name is Sadaf, daughter of Ismail and Nalia."

Kedar's body froze up as he struggled to repeat, "Sadaf?" He was frightened. He was elated. He was confused. He wanted to demand an explanation, either from her or the almighty.

But there was no time for any of that. "Go, run, before the guards learn my words were a forgery," she said. "God has blessed me with the chance to see you one final time, habibi, but for both of our sakes, I hope it is, indeed, the last."

The boy needed a few moments more to compose himself. As she was practically pushing him out of his cell, he said, "If I live a thousand years, you will still be my sister. I will never forget this. Someday I will repay you—"

"Today, repay me with your escape. Now go!"

The scene shifted again, Kedar was running hard as his short legs would carry him across the same bridge from the battle. A battalion of soldiers with curved blades pursued him, someone tipped them off to his escape and, he feared, to his sister's betrayal. He didn't even know where he could hide from so many, especially when he'd only come so far from the citadel on horseback. Roars calling him an abomination sounded from behind, though all hope seemed lost, he just kept moving his legs.

"There he is—Geoff! Geoff!"

Kedar squinted his eyes as he looked to the opposite end of the bridge. Rene the ogre was coming at him in fast pursuit, with Marcus the cacus releasing a triumphant breath of flame at his side. The boy's heart skipped at the sight of aid from the citadel, but quickened to its fastest when, in a flash of the water below, Hannes emerged, ready to combat the hunting party.

"Wha—you came to save me?"

Hannes raised his hands and twin torrents of water rushed up to meet him. "We wouldn't dare leave one of our own to be tormented by these brutes. Keep running, Geoff, we'll handle these beasts."

Kedar couldn't, again he found himself frozen. Rene cursed as he needed to leap over him to reach the opposition, and Marcus called him a, "Damned fool," as he passed. But he still didn't dare run. These men, who thankfully knew nothing of his attempted desertion, really had come to fight at his side and see him freed. They did not question his ideals, and they did not call him abomination, for they were as cursed as he was.

For the first time, he felt it an honor to fight alongside them. So, even unarmed and bloodied, fight he did.

-000-

Again, the scenes before Sadie shifted to just momentary glimpses. Most of the moments she saw were Kedar and his companions deep in bloody combat, but like before, sometimes they ate, sometimes they drank, sometimes, it seemed, they sang.

"Like those that came after them like the Knights Templar, the Order of Nephilim's is a history chiefly written in blood," the Spectre said. "But in spite of the hybrid nature within their genes, it has always been composed of human beings. In every iteration, humans who craved companionship and brotherhood. Their purpose was to fight and kill, but in spite of any direction or instruction, they were not automatons. They sought and found kinship among one another."

Sadie blew a breath up at her face. "I'm all for that, you know. Just, come on, why did it have to be war and attempting hostile moral takeover? Couldn't they just have opened soup kitchens to prove their monster sides weren't scary? Deliver clothes to the needy with those powers or something? Literally anything else?"

"Unfortunately, you mistake the order's goals for charity," the Spectre said. "Kedar doesn't want charity, he wants to live in a world where charity is unnecessary."

"Hey, so do I, and you don't see me trying to brainwash everybody," Sadie said.

Her spirit companion made an abstract, nod-like motion. "Indeed, you and he are not the same. But you can come to some understanding, can you not?"

"What do you want me to say? That I get it?" Sadie asked. "I can try empathize with anybody; this has all been pretty rough to watch. But if the only takeaway here is, 'He had a hard life,' I don't know what I'm supposed to do with all that."

"These next set of visions may help," the Spectre said. "Be warned, however, this will prove powerful."

"But is it maybe going to make everything click together?"

"For you, perhaps."

After a hard swallow, Sadie said, "Bring it on."

-000-

The scenes of war played out for a little longer. Clearly, Kedar improved as a combatant and learned how best to utilize his power. He took spears to the stomach to close the distance with his opponents before he cleaved skulls with his sword. With fast feints and retreats he returned to Hannes's side and received healing when some of the damage grew too extreme. He clashed and overwhelmed opponents twice his size, even as the armies of the enemy started recruiting monsters of their own. Though they remained secretive to the common soldier, the Order of Nephilim continued to prove an invaluable resource whenever battle sprang up again.

In the years since Kedar's training as a child, the Order's citadel steadily grew into an ever-stronger fortress. Pius continued to train new children of elusive and strange ancestries, and it was the home that Kedar and his companions always returned to. One day, after an especially hard-fought campaign, Kedar, Hannes, Rene, and Marcus made their way to the citadel's chapel. A heavenly host set within a golden tabernacle sat in one corner, ever-awaiting adoration. The four often came after a campaign, but as usual, Marcus and Rene were quick to depart when their homage was said. Normally, Hannes did not stay long either, but that day he remained at Kedar's side while his friend prayed and prayed.

After forty minutes knelt in supplication, Hannes leaned down and whispered, "Have you so much to say?"

"We won another victory," Kedar said. "I have much to be thankful for."

Hannes uttered a little chuckle. "Yes, of course." He laid a hand and rubbed Kedar's back. "We did well, and I am thankful. For my friends, above all else."

Kedar hesitated. "Hannes… not now."

"Oh, why not, Geoff? We're alone, and we're heroes, yet again."

With his hands clasped in prayer and his eyes shut, Kedar said, "Not here, not in front of the Son… we cast off all that makes us strange here."

"And yet it hasn't cured me," Hannes said. "Perhaps that isn't something strange."

"It is unnatural."

"We are unnatural, even when a stopper is placed on our abilities." Hannes slid around and dropped to his knees in front of Kedar. "I will watch the door. We will do nothing that cannot immediately be discarded as something else." He raised a hand to Kedar's cheek. "I've had enough of war for today. My soul hungers for love."

Kedar still hesitated as he looked back and forth between the host and his friend. Even still bruised from battle, stinking from sweat, and with his fae side suppressed, Hannes was a beautiful creature. With a last swallow of his hesitation, Kedar leaned in and the two locked lips. By the comfortable grace they slipped into, it was apparent they'd shared moments like this many times.

-000-

"Are—you—freaking—kidding—me—" The latest vision had Sadie ready to throw, break, or upend something. "This whole time—"

"Hush," the Spectre said. "This is not the most significant element."

"Buh—wha—no! Don't give me that! You're telling me this whole time—"

The start of her rant was cut off by the slam of a door thrown open. Still too shocked to form her demands properly, she continued to sputter as she looked back to the scene. Pius stood in one of the carved-out rooms used as a confessional. All the blood drained from both boy's faces and Kedar pushed Hannes away, but the scene had been witnessed. Once more, the vision blurred and distorted first into darkness, then into a moment captured only by faint candlelight.

-000-

Again, Kedar knelt on the ground, his wrists bound behind his back. The room he stooped within was a cold, hard, dimly lit dungeon. Pius, his pure-white face contrasted with the black, stood at his side.

Pius asked, "You know you sinned, don't you, Geoffrey?"

"Of course I do," Kedar's voice was weak with fear and supplication. "I have committed an unnatural act, one forbidden by Leviticus."

"Leviticus? Not exactly everyday reading, is it? So, you were already aware."

"Yes, sir."

"And was this the first time you did so?"

Kedar hesitated a moment before he nodded. "Yes, the first and the final, sir."

"Mmm." Pius started to circle the boy and slipped in and out of the shadows as he did. "Because that's not what Hannes told me."

Kedar's face paled. "What?"

"He told me you two have shared a tent many times after battle," Pius said. "That you have, indeed, laid with man as one lays with a woman."

"N—No!" Kedar said. "That's a lie!"

"That is a serious accusation, Geoffrey," Pius said. "Hannes has borne false witness against me, you say?"

Kedar began to stutter. "He—I—he and I— I have kissed him before, sir, it is true. Many times. Before and after the heat of battle. But no more. Anything more I have saved to give to my wife someday, I swear it!"

Again, Pius mumbled, "Hm," and let the silence stretch.

"Sir, it is only—we are surrounded only with our brothers, sir," Kedar said. "I do not love him as I would love any wife, I just sought someone to hold close. Please, sir, I know it is a sin, I wish to overcome it, and I'll take any punishment I must as my penance. I want to be free of my fault, my fault, my most grievous fault." He turned so his bare back faced his instructor. "I will bear the scourging, sir. It would be an honor to suffer as the lord suffered."

"But Pilate would not have ordered Christ select his own suffering method, now would he, Geoff?"

Kedar lowered his head with his back still proffered. "No, sir, I suppose not."

"To be honest, Geoff, I was a little surprised to hear you talking about taking a wife just now," Pius said. "You've grown into a worthy soldier, my child. Don't you think you'd better serve God by taking the cloth?"

"I—I don't know, sir," Kedar said. "To be honest, it's hard to think past the next battle some days. But it's at least worth thinking about, isn't it?"

"You don't have to stick your back out like that. I'm not going to whip you." Pius stopped to linger next to one of the torches that lit the chamber.

Unsure of just what to expect, Kedar relaxed only a little. "So, what will you do?"

"I'm going to send Hannes away. The two of you needn't be tempted by one another."

Kedar turned his eyes to the ground and nodded slowly. "I understand, sir. Thank you, sir."

"I need you to understand something else as well. Not just for what's happened, but what has the potential to happen." Pius raised a hand to the flames before him. "Something incredible lays within you, my child, something you gained from your father. But could you imagine if those heathens gained a power such as that? If you were seduced or, God forbid, if a creature of Hell such as a succubus were to approach you in the dark of the night?"

With a squint of his eyes, Kedar saw something held in Pius's hand, something that reflected the fire before him. One interpretation of the older man's words made his heart sink into his stomach. "Pius—sir—you can't mean—"

"Christ told his disciples if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. If your eyes cause you to sin, pluck them out." Pius turned and revealed the red-hot knife in his hand. "There will be pain, my child, and I'm sorry for that."

Kedar scrambled to his feet, with his lower half in the firelight, it was suddenly apparent he was naked. "No! Please—no—"

Pius pressed on with his words as if he wasn't being interrupted. "But to suffer is human. The Lord considered suffering so human he subjected himself to torture and death on a tree."

At a sprint, Kedar tried to take off toward the door that Pius stood in front of. Pius expanded one pale hand and threw it hard against him. With the alien force in the blow, he pinned the boy to the ground. Furious and terrified, Kedar started to babble and plead.

"Suffering is our greatest teacher, and in our lessons we come closer to God." Pius closed the distance and raised the knife. "Learn from this well, my child."

A moment later, Kedar's last plea was cut off by a scream of pain.

-000-

With a hand on her stomach, Sadie jerked forward and retched. In that state of being, nothing flowed from her mouth but words. "God damn it! What the hell? What the actual—God—damn—hell?! He was castrated?"

The Spectre spoke up to say, "I manipulated the shadows to hide—"

"Shut up! Shut up, screw you, not even the problem." Sadie retched again and wished desperately she could vomit, just to feel like something was being released. She heaved for a few seconds more, unsure where to even start responding. "He—he was—he's what? A self-hating gay man? A teenager who was just experimenting? It doesn't matter which one, does it? He was their good little soldier and they—they—they mutilated him." Another disgusted edge came over her as she said that word. "But… but he's immortal. He didn't just, I don't know, grow them back?"

"The wound was cauterized. In time, perhaps it could have returned to its original state, but by then, Kedar himself had grown accepting of the injury. The argument was sound, he had sinned, and wished not to be tempted to sin any further."

"And he ended up believing all that bull then? All that brainwashing worked?"

"I think you are already well aware of the answer." The Spectre said. "Look again for just a moment and—"

"No!" Sadie turned her head away and shut her eyes tight. "I refuse! No more, I'm not looking at any more of that scene!"

A few seconds of silence passed between them. As the quiet stretched, the Spectre eventually said, "While he was still bound, Pius ran through him with one of Geoffrey's swords, the one with orange fire. He was left to linger in that sinful agony. By the time his torment was finished, he'd become so at one with its power over guilt together with my force inside his body that he could reproduce it. Like flames passed between torches, any sword could be a Sword of Sin if he so willed it."

"God… but what about the other sword? Didn't he say it was defective?"

"He cannot bear the truths it reveals, so yes, in his mind, it is defective." The Spectre turned back toward the scene as it faded into pure darkness. "Those were most of his formative years, and he has changed only little since then. I think you understand well enough, but I shall show you some of what followed. Make of it as you will."

-000-

Kedar, suddenly with his growth stunted and voice raised by a lack of testosterone, continued to train. When marauders came for the Kingdom of Jerusalem, he battled and turned them away.

As the centuries wore on, his taste in those wars began to diminish. In spite of all he'd been taught, holy land was still only land. Eventually, he made his way to the home of his father, England.

Occasionally, he encountered others of supernatural ancestry, and tried his best to help them when he could. He'd helped abused changelings away from their unknowingly adopted parents. He led the children of witches away to houses of God. Once, he encountered a great, hairy beast in a cave by the shores who claimed kinship with Grendel. All the other men who approached that creature tried to kill him, it was only Kedar who gave him enough empathy to convince him to relocate away from the ports. It just seemed he attracted their kind, or, possibly, that he had a precognition for finding them.

In the seventeenth century, a messenger arrived from the Holy See and requested his presence. He knelt and offered all the required respect to His Holiness, though he'd met his share of popes over the centuries and this one was not his favorite. Alongside the pope stood a man by the name of Eamon Arlington, who greeted Kedar with a shake of his hand that jolted the old crusader for just a moment.

"We've begun a new sort of training and research," His Holiness said. "A chance, perhaps, to create a Nephilim of a sort all our own."

Eamon grinned and raised a hand. Embedded in the center was a deep, green diamond. Though it claimed nothing, it came in contact with the angelic powers within Kedar for just a moment.

When Sadie witness this, she asked, "This thing has been in people's skin before?"

"Fused between fathers and sons or, when need be, uncles and nephews," the Spectre said. "A human being with black diamond inside of them, what an utterly foolish prospect. But once the material merged with human DNA, it became reproducible, though worthless for more than a few moments outside of the flesh."

Time started to move rapidly, decades passed within the blink of an eye. Here Kedar fought with a bayonet. There he stood over a beaten white man while shouting at a plantation of African slaves they had a chance to run. Moments thereafter, he sat alone in a dark room, an empty tankard on his bedside table, a copy of Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra next to it, and he wept into his hands.

Then, all of a sudden, the blurring scenes felt familiar. There he was with the spear in hand fighting that Nazi werewolf. Then he held an unconscious boy in the middle of a gold mine, dead bodies all around them. Here he stood next to a teenager in a tired Chilean village as gangly, rotting monsters ripped a hag apart in front of them. He said a prayer over a winged, legless baby as holy water seared the infant's flesh. And, in a bit she hadn't seen before, he stood over the remnants of a destroyed car with a tiny, soot-covered girl held tight to his chest.

The rapid pace of the images only started to slow when she saw as he stood beside Father Gallagher and Nijah, an unconscious Abraham Arlington asleep between them as the priest sang a quiet song and Nijah appeared to meditate.

When the jinn woman opened her eyes, she reported, "His name is Crispus Allen. He was a detective in Gotham City."

As Kedar nodded, Sadie whispered, "Who?"

"My previous host," the Spectre said. "This brought Kedar to your city, even to Crispus's home. Sympathetic powers, you understand. It made him easy to pull into a trap."

The image before them faded to black one final time. When it came back into focus, Kedar stood in the living room of a high-rise apartment, his five loyal sycophants behind him, the Spear of Destiny in one hand, and the other curled around the throat of an alabaster, bearded figure in a green cloak, the spear's head piercing his side.

"Forgive me, Mister Allen," Kedar said. "Take solace in the fact that, since you have held the angel of revenge, your soul is surely deserving of paradise."

Crispus in his grip writhed as Kedar twisted the spear. With what looked to be an extraordinary effort, he launched a mouthful of shimmering spit at the immortal's face. "I've heard about you. The Spectre despises that you've lived so long and knotted God's message so badly."

"Is that so?" Kedar said. "I look forward to hearing that from the vengeful one himself." He yanked the spear out of the wound, Crispus Allen shouted in pain as something sinewy and ethereal flowed out.

Glass shattered. Kedar's forces all turned around as an athletically-built man with blond hair rushed in, drew sets of enflamed throwing knives from his belt, and threw them at the Order of Nephilim. The sudden, guilt inducing strikes forced shrieks out of those struck. Joaquin, unaccustomed to the pain, lost all control of the anchimayen he had watching for trouble throughout the building. The llüfke in at their cores broke free and some overloaded nearby power outlets, starting electrical fires on multiple floors. Kedar shouted for help stopping the intruder, but Abraham Arlington rushed to the bloodied Spectre, extended his diamond-bound palm outward, and caught the spirit within. He had no will to use it for himself, this was just a temporary measure until he could return to the Vatican—all he had to do was escape.

As fires started to consume the building, Kedar called, "Nijah, you're fireproof, go see if your aid is needed. The rest of you, come with me, don't let that bastard get away!"

"I, uh, I think this is just about where we came in," Sadie said.

"No need to belabor the point then." When smoke finished filling the apartment, the black void took its place until, at last, it reshaped itself back into Bruce's private jet, Sadie found herself back in her seat, the Spectre still at her side.

With a hand on her temple and a shake of her head, she muttered, "Damn. Just… damn."

"Kedar has done both good and evil in his time upon this world," the Spectre said. "But the ages have made him utterly megalomaniacal. He now dares to try usurping my power—the very wrath of God, to inflict untold despair upon this world."

"But I can only hate him so much because he's a victim of corrupt circumstance too." Sadie shook her head. "Aren't angels supposed to help people believe in the church and God's goodness? You've gotta be the worst angel there's ever been. Even Satan at least left people running scared, right?"

The Spectre made no reply.

"Well, what do you think I'm supposed to do with all this?" Sadie asked. "Am I supposed to try appealing to his humanity? Try using all this information to try and convince him this worldview is wrong? He's held it for almost a thousand years, I'm not sure I'm going to be very convincing."

"What you do with all of this is your decision," the Spectre said. "I trust in how you will utilize it."

"Trust me? Yeah right." Sadie still hated Kedar and all of his entourage, no amount of the old man's suffering could convince her out of that. And yet she remembered what Cassandra said back at the Vatican—that she'd been in similar places. That she too was born of dark designs, that she too once tried to drown her pain by running headlong into her faith. Her dear one would surely take all of this as more of a sign than ever that she needed to reach this monster's humanity.

So, as much as Sadie hated to admit it, she felt she may well be doomed to try likewise.