It was a moonlit and clear night; precisely the kind of night that literary clichés aren’t made of.

On the grounds of the ConquesTech business campus, Building Seven loomed large and pale in the moonlight. The small forest of tower antennas arrayed on its roof was dwarfed by the big parabolic antenna that served as one of the hubs of ConquesTech’s exabit data relay system that connected all of the company’s facilities, including four located in orbit.

The glow began inside the antenna’s reflector dish. There was no point of origin, just a tint of green illumination that danced around the feed antenna and threw weird shadows along the dish. It was barely brighter than starlight, but as it filled the bowl of the dish and spilled over it, it cast an eerie halo into the night sky.

For scant seconds, the glow clung and danced around the antenna and its base, coalescing in places to resemble patterns of lightning or washes of strangely colored water. Then it stopped, and the dish was gone. There was no grand explosion, not soft fading, no even a crescendo to the flickering of the nether light. One moment, the dish was there. The next it wasn’t.

For those same few seconds, all downstream nodes from the dish suddenly collected a dump of garbled, nonsensical code while upstream codes recorded transmissions simply ‘disappearing into thin air’. There was no way they could guess the truth.

Response time was immediate. Three members of the night maintenance crew were dispatched to check out the suddenly non-responsive antenna. Armed with shoulder mounted lights and diagnostic equipment, they took the service elevator to the roof.

Wesley McQueen cracked his neck as he and his two subordinates waited for the doors to open. “Truth be told,” he was saying, “I’m surprised that we haven’t had to come up here for Bulging Betty sooner. That damn dish is closing in on two decades old and retrofitted to hell since the jump from petabit to exabit transmissions. I warned them that we’d see a catastrophic failure. The thing’s pre-war, for crying out loud.”

“They were saying that since the year the war ended.” Darleen Summers replied while managing to sound respectful to her boss. “Bulging Betty isn’t any more of a liability than any of the smaller rigs we have up here.” Her colleague, Gary Richards nodded in agreement.

McQueen sneered. “There’s a reason you two work under me, you know?” The doors opened, letting the air of the warm summer night inside. “And that’s because, I know all about following… my…” the words died in his mouth. For nineteen years, he’d become accustomed to arriving at the roof and having the sky blotted out by the massive dish of Bulging Betty. And she had been massive; Building Seven had been designed specifically to support the antenna’s colossal mass at its precipice.

Tonight, that mass was gone and McQueen’s eyes saw only stars in the night sky. A collective gasp from his comrades confirmed that it wasn’t a hallucination. It was only then that his attention came to rest on the figures standing on the now vacant concrete block from which Bulging Betty’s haft had once risen.

All that was left of the multimillion dollar piece of equipment was a sparking stalk of ceramic, metal and sheered power conduits that vomited sparks into the air. Two women stood there, both Latina. The older one seemed to be exhausted, leaning on an ornate walking stick that was almost as tall as she was. She also wore a cape across her shoulders, the shifting colors of which made McQueen feel ill. The younger of the two stood regally and attentively at the older’s side. There was a readily apparent family resemblance between the two.

Around them, three colored lights; purple, blue and yellow, bobbed and winked unnaturally, making harmonic noises that sounded like both music and voices all at the same time.

Surprise and wonder only stayed McQueen for a moment. He was middle management through and through and even the most bizarre of phenomena wouldn’t stay him from getting answers when it concerned something he was responsible for.

“You!” he bellowed in a voice Darleen and Gary were far too used to, “Who are you? What the hell have you done?!” He led his crew out onto the roof, brandishing his flashlight as if he hoped the two women were complete mental defectives who would think it was a gun.

When the light hit her, the older woman winced and narrowed her eyes. One hand went to her forehead and the other made a slashing gesture. The flashlight came apart in a shower of plastic.

McQueen looked back to Gary pathetically. “Do something, Richards!” he ordered, distressed. He knew Gary was psionic, but had never bothered to find out what he could do. At the moment, he hopped for some sort of nuclear fireworks or at least some sort of anti-flashlight-exploder power.

Gary looked at his open palm, then to the neatly bisected flashlight, and finally up to the woman who had made it happen. “Hell no!” he said after a moment’s calculation. “I’m not letting her cut my hand off.” He span on his heel to make a run back toward the elevator. His path was blocked.

A tall man with blue skin stood there, smiling maliciously. He was dressed in a fine shirt of purple silk with canvas breeches and a dark purple mantle with an extremely high collar. Red veins moved weirdly beneath his cobalt skin and stubby horns protruded from his forehead.

“Don’t worry.” Colos, lord of the Rae’sha demons of Sai’n’shree said, showing his rows of sharp teeth. “I’ve asked her not to harm you.” Gary froze in terror. Colos inhaled deeply. “Yes… this is the fabled scent of Mankind; of pheromones, of emotional wavelengths Faerie hasn’t seen in thousands of years.”

Darleen screamed and started to run, but a multi-tendriled horror in glowing green swooped down and slammed into her chest, burrowing in without leaving a wound. She let out a choking breath and collapsed, vibrating like a harp string.

Colos all but forgotten, Gary screamed Darleen’s name and rushed to her side. The demon lord sniffed again. “That was terror. Heady, but common. This… mmm…” he groaned with pleasure, “Love. Not strong, not even a close friendship, but even that small taste. Oh, if only we didn’t need you from a higher purpose.” He exclaimed with glee as another green, tentacled thing burrowed into Gary as well.

Something in McQueen snapped. The human fight or flight response is relatively weak in comparison to that of other animals and prone to misfiring when situations became too stressful. This was too stressful for Wesley’s poor mind and instead of flight; he suddenly chose to fight against odds that Vegas would never pay out on. Raising his screwdriver, which was the first thing his hand closed on, he rushed Colos.

Another green glowing horror dropped down on him, sending him sprawling to the ground as it merged with him.

Colos, for his part, laughed and took in the rampant emotions. “I don’t even know what that was, but it was exhilarating!” He declared, “If only we could have bought Rehenimaru, Edenkai and Aberak’s bodies across, we could have feasted before exploring this world.”

Still leaning on the Staff of Hyrilius, Morganna shook her head weakly. “Too much… much too much…” she said. Feebly, she gestured around her to indicate the missing satellite dish, “You… you have to send to Faerie exactly as much… as… as you send here. Their magic… your magic… it adds up to a lot of material. You’re very… very lucky you kept your own body.”

Darleen finally stopped shaking and rolled over, stretching languidly like a cat. She looked up at Colos with delight in her eyes. “We are here master. Mmm… I can feel my human host. She fights to stay awake. She’s feeding me with her rage even now.”

“How long until you can change?” Colos asked, giving her a hand in standing. She was a bit unsteady and unsure on her new legs.

Rehenimaru shrugged a gesture that came unbidden from her body’s memory. “She fights it, unlike a daemon, but her fighting makes me stronger. I would say an hour at most.”

“Good.” Colos reached into his cloak and pulled out a lantern that was much too large to have been concealed there. Green lights, like angry fireflies bobbed and span inside. “The Xolinar Queen,” He glanced at Morganna, “seemed to be drained from our transference. She will not be able to bring her army across any time soon, so we will need to build one here.”

The demon inside Darleen accepted to lantern and watched it with satisfaction. “Devil seeds.” She said. “You wish for me to sew them when I am able? But where?” She gestured out at the city. “These vast dwellings are for Mankind only, are they not?”

“Mankind has always kept beasts.” Colos noted. “there will be something; a farm, a menagerie, a kennel, where he keeps such those creatures. Find them and raise me an army with cunning and ferocity.”

“Aye, m’lord.” Rehenimaru ducked her head. “And what of you?”

“I will secure this place first of all. This ‘technology’ Mankind has developed in lieu of magic is dangerous and until we have seen more, we should limit their access to us until you and the Heir can defend yourselves.”

Colos suddenly spoke into her mind. And then, I will go and investigate this world on my own.

Is that wise, O Lord? Rehenimaru asked mentally. Should we not send others more expendable first?

I know the risks. Colos assured her. This world Mankind has built is treacherous and the weapons he now wields are formidable. But he is not as treacherous or as formidable as the Heir of Hyrilius, the Xolinar Queen herself. When you regain your strength, you will feel it as well, but I can tell you now; the Heir is wrong. There is still magic. Here, in this very city. And I mean to make it the property of the Rae’sha.

The ringing phone interrupted Vincent Liedecker’s nightly reading. Fuming silently, as he recognized the ringing tone, he placed a bookmark between pages of The Tempest and hit the speaker button.

“Charlotte, I am a very, very busy man and I am lucky to find an hour each night that I can call my own without some damn fool interrupting me. What I’m trying to convey is that this is that hour and if you do not have a very good reason for being that damn fool, I will set aside another hour during which I think up a proper and very final punishment.”

“I’m very sorry sir.” Rick Charlotte stammered, “But it is very important—well, they. There are multiple issues of important coming down the pipeline, sir, It’s like a cascade effect or some—“

“If I wanted to listen to your brainless chatter, Charlotte, I’d have started this conversation with ‘how was your day’. I didn’t. Get to the point.”

If fidgeting in a chair made noise, Liedecker would have been deafened in the short pause before Charlotte spoke again. “Yes, sir. Uh… Well, first, there’s Scuff Singer, sir. Gear got a weird reading from the Sky Tyrant armor and went to his apartment. He’s…” Charlotte trailed off, trying to find the words.

“He’s what, Charlotte?” Liedecker demanded with a voice like a hammer blow.

“I don’t know how to say it, sir. He’s having some kind of episode inside the armor. It’s covered him completely, the shield and hologram generators come on and off sporadically, and he’s transmitting junk code on our private channel five, sir. And as far as Gear Callahan can tell, he’s in a coma or something.”

“Pull him in.” Liedecker ordered. “Bring him to the main lab under cover and put everyone not on Avra duty on getting him up and running again.”

“Uh… about the Avra…” Charlotte squeaked. “There’s no one not on them right now sir. About a half hour ago they… Drew says they started harmonizing.”

“What does he mean ‘harmonizing’?!” Liedecker exploded, “I’m paying him to make weapons, not musical instruments!”

“Well, it is magic, sir.” Charlotte handled the word like a dead fish, “it’s pretty unpredictable. Drew and his team don’t know what anything from that book is going to do until they actually do it.”

Liedecker’s hand traveled off the edge of his bed to find cool metal. “They aren’t all harmonizing.” He said.

“No sir.” Charlotte said, I’ve got the list right here; the loader, the personal shield generator, three ranged weapons and one of the stutter-step – those are the ones harmonizing sir – making sounds like a flight of locusts. And get this; they were all made using the same section of the book.”

“That being?”

“Drew says it translates to ‘a treatise on manipulation of the Astral Plane from the nether side’.”

Liedecker recognized that line. It was one of the early ones decoded and the technicians had drawn parallels between early experimentation with it and the strange energy spikes that had been recorded citywide the night he had come into possession of the book.

The same night Tatiana Farnsworth had bound the Sky Tyrant armor to Calvin ‘Scuff’ Singer, used the tormented Singer to goad him into capturing her lair, and then disappeared completely after a fight involving Darkness on the West Truman Bridge.

His eyes narrowed. “Charlotte, I want you to raise Vorpal and Samael right now. No questions. I’ll be there as soon as possible. Put everyone on high alert and lock everything that’s singin’ down. Right goddamn now, you hear me?”

“On it now sir. But you should hear the last issue we’ve got.”

“And what is that, Charlotte?” Liedecker was already up and getting dressed.

“ConquesTech’s data network just crashed. Catastrophic failure, they don’t know when it’ll be back up. I don’t have to remind you sir, that that’s the network contracted with CitiWide Security to carry their camera footage. The same cameras we use to keep an eye on the city. As of this moment, sir, we’re blind.”

Liedecker pound the doorframe of his closet so hard the room shook. “Clever bitch.” He snarled. “Change of plans, Charlotte; send Samael out—have him start wherever this communications failure started. Tell him not to leave a soul alive.”

Just outside the city in Freeland House, the residents were roused from their slumbers (or cramming for finals) by the sound of Kareem screaming.

-- • --

3 minutes earlier, the upstairs commons of Freeland House

“Okay;” Juniper tapped the screen of her American History textbook and bought up the questions for Chapter 31. “This one’s for you, Cyn.” She said, “what were the codenames of both the plane and the bomb involved in the razing of the city of Horizonte Novo during the Brazilian-American War.”

Cyn gave Juniper another odd look. It was a hot night, so hot that she was down to a tank top and light shorts but Juniper was still in a sweater. It made her uncomfortable just looking at her. Forcing her attention away from the overdressed girl, she bent her mind to the question at hand; this history cram session was for her benefit, after all. “Avenger… was the pla—no, the bomb. Avenger was the bomb and the plane was… Jabber… jaws?”

“You got the bomb right.” Juniper beamed. “But the plane was the Jabberwocky, not Jabberjaws.”

“Why did I think Jabberjaws?”

“I think you’re tired.” Warrick said as Isp topped off his coffee cup from the nearly empty pot. “It’s almost two and we were up early for sparring practice. Maybe we should turn in.”

“Just a couple more.” Juniper insisted, scrolling down to another question. “I want to help Cyn pass so we can all be seniors together.”

Cyn winced. “Jun, history’s the only subject I’m tanking in. That’s not going to keep me from going to the next grade.”

“But what if they change things again?” Juniper asked. “During my freshman year at the Academy, the state made it so you couldn’t advance unless you passed Calculus. What if they do that with American History too?”

“Geez, I’m glad I got frozen before that.” Warrick shook his head.

“Come on, this is an easy one, okay?” Juniper pleaded to Cyn. “State four effects the bombing of Horizonte Novo has had on modern society.”

Cyn cackled. “Wow that is easy. You can’t swing a dead cat without hitting five at least. Let’s see, there’s—“

A scream came from down the hall, so loud and raw that it rebounded off the walls like a bee caught un a mason jar. The air itself vibrated and virtually cracked with energy.

Clutching their ears, the three young psionics got to their feet and hurried into the hall where all their sleeping quarters were located, where the scream had originated.

Melissa was already there in her nightgown, hands slapped over her ears to block out the din. “It’s Kareem!” She tried to shout over the noise. “Something’s wrong!”

“No shit!” Cyn shouted back as the trio plus one headed for their ethereal friend’s room. A pink glow poured from under the door and through the keyhole.

The next instant, Alexis arrived, girded in her black heat and flying as fast as she could, given the need to navigate the house. “What’s going on!?” She asked, “What’s happened with Kareem?”

“We don’t know!” Cyn shouted, finally abandoning the notion of having ears altogether. In a situation like the one she found herself in, she could guess what people were saying. Reaching past Melissa, she threw open the door and was immediately floored by the wave of force that poured out like water from a spent dam.

The others were likewise thrown to the ground as the rose colored wave surged down the hallway. An immense pressure held them down without doing them any harm. Then it was over. The light faded, taking the pressure with it and by the time the Descendants had regained their senses, the last echoes of the scream were gone as well.

More resilient than her fellows, Cyn was up first and half crawled; half dragged herself to the door. Kareem’s body lay in his bed as it always had, but Cyn noticed some immediate differences. Several of the monitors arrayed around him, usually showing flat or at least muted lines were now tracing erratic patterns across their screens and scrolling numbers feverishly. What was more concerning, however, were the screens that let Kareem project his image or other images form the astral. They were blank.

“Oh my god.” Laurel rushed in with Ian on her heels. She reached Alexis first and helped her friend stand. “Is everyone okay?”

“That was an attack. No two ways about it.” Ian said, calling up a pulse of wind to gird his hand. “those military reactive defenses aren’t worth shit.”

“No.” Melissa said as she and Juniper used one another as support to get up. “It was Kareem. Something happened to him. He was…” tears came to her eyes, “he was screaming and…”

“Yeah.” Warrick said, letting the tentacles help him up. “We heard him. I mean ‘heard him’ heard him. Not in our heads.”

“Or the speakers.” Juniper said. “But how could that be?”

“I heard him too.” Alexis said, “That’s why I came straight here.”

“Something came after Kareem?” Ian asked.

“I don’t think so.” Laurel said, making her way toward the door where Cyn had disappeared. She looked in to find Cyn looking at the various monitors. Since Thanksgiving, Cyn had helped out with her daily recordkeeping and had become quite good with them. Quietly, the psionic genius put her arm around the stunned girl. “You know what these readings mean, don’t you?”

Cyn looked at her for a second, confused, then reopened her ears. Laurel repeated the question. The white haired girl nodded. “They mean that he’s back in his body.” She said and felt a warm feeling when Laurel nodded that she was correct. “But…” she pondered aloud, “why’s he still unconscious then?”

Wind licked at the close fitting clothes Darleen Summers wore to work everyday, causing a ticklish sensation to assault Rehenimaru. Her feet touched ground again and she paused to look back up the forty stories she’d just leapt from. It was fortunate that she’d managed to keep her concentration on her blood magic leaping spell between the overwhelming urge to fidget and the constant war she was fighting with the mind of her body’s previous mistress.

But the war with Darleen was making her magic stronger than it ever had been on Faerie, so she had no qualms there. Still, the blue jumpsuit covered with pockets was becoming a nuisance. Clothing, as Rehenimaru saw it should flow gracefully or act as a second skin. This would have to be corrected sooner rather than later, preferably even before she was able to resume her natural form.

She frowned, looking at the barren expanse of concrete and asphalt between herself and the gates of the tiny kingdom called ConquesTech. Hopefully, the city would have something to rectify that. Then she could tend to the assignment given her.

Taking a few running steps, she leapt into the air and let her spell take over. Though the rippling clothing still tickled, the horizontal leap was easier to maintain than the vertical fall. She landed some fifty yards from Building Seven. She took a few more steps and leaped again. What had seemed a league of empty space was quickly left behind courtesy of her blood magic infused bounds.

“Disgusting.” Gary Richards’s body pouted, leaning against the open elevator doors, looking down the now open shaft. The actual elevator was now a crumpled wreck a few yards away thanks to Colos’s orders and Aberak’s blood magic boosted strength. Edenkai, master tactician and consort of Colos turned a baleful glare on the mortal coil of Wesley McQueen, currently inhabited by Aberak, Colos’s brother and bodyguard.

Aberak was on his back doing sit-ups with furious tenacity. “Colos knows more about this than you, Fellspawn.” He said in a distracted tone. “So trust that he can see us through without one of your precious strategies.”

“I’ve nothing but faith in Colos.” Edenkai said flatly. She gestured to her body, “It’s this body. Of two females, I should be the one to take the female. I am consort of the Lord of Sai’n’shree! I swear under the Vault and Thorn that she did so just to irk me.”

“What that one can do is pretty though.” Aberak said, turning over to do push-ups.

Edenkai lifted her hand and caused an orb of pale light to expand from her palm. “Completely useless! Especially when you consider that we can see in total darkness.”

“Not yet we can’t.” Aberak pointed out. “And why’s that bother you so? It isn’t as if you won’t soon be able to change that shape and it’s not as if you’ve never bonded with a male daemon before.”

“Daemons don’t have any sex any farther than what they identify as.” The tactician replied, “These humans are different…”

“Those differences won’t matter anyway.” Aberak countered, “We’re here for a reason. So there won’t be any ‘consorting’ in Mankind’s world anyway, even if you took a female host.”

“It’s a matter of pride.” Edenkai snapped. She looked out into the city. “I can go and find one before Colos finishes here. The Heir is still resting after all.” She spoke a harsh syllable and her eyes briefly flashed with a color not visible to the human eye or comprehensible to the human mind.

He was right. She said into Aberak’s mind. The heir is not the only magic user. Oh, what a perfect host!

“No!” Aberak said firmly and out loud. “We have orders!”

And I outrank you. Edenkai noted. So I order you to not call Colos when I leave. I’ll be back very soon and with this Mankind’s magic turned to our cause. She spoke another syllable out loud and vanished.

Aberak muttered a curse at her under his breath and continued his exercises. What could he do? Orders were orders.

“He was right.” Manikin whispered into Morganna’s ear as she concentrated on the psychic wavelength the demons communicated over. “The heir is not the only magic user. Oh, what a perfect host.” She paused as Aberak shouted, “And I outrank you. So I order you to not call Colos when I leave. I’ll be back soon and with this Mankind’s magic turned to out cause.”

Morganna smiled, still pretending to breathe laboriously. “I knew what… I-I felt…” she intoned. “Naife… Renst, Habsi… do you feel it too?”

“We feels it.” Naife confirmed in his harp-voice. “It is being another Mankind?”

“Another Mankind with magics, yes?” Renst chimed in.

“Yes, yes.” Morganna nodded. “I want… to bring them here. Can you do that?”

“Motes are be doing whatever Mankind say.” Naife confirmed. “Motes move faster than demon is teleporting.”

“Then do it…” Morganna ordered. “And let her know… let her know… that the demon is coming.”

The motes bobbed as a way of saluting and, being entities that were essentially made of light, moved off at the speed of such.

“This is how it begins.” Manikin observed. “With motes of all creatures. Shall we begin? Aberak is the only one left and he can’t transform yet.” The golem reached for the satchel that held the Book of Tranquility, but Morganna grabbed the offending appendage.

“No... not yet. I sense something coming… on the wind. It comes for us. It… comes to kill everyone here. It will be a perfect distraction.”

Now her clothes flowed around her in elegant billows. Rehenimaru was amazed at how convenient searching for clothing in the lands of Mankind was. In Faerie, it was more or less necessary to either make clothes or rob the clothes off someone’s back. In this world, Mankind simply left perfectly good clothes arranged on dolls behind easily shattered planes of glass!

Now properly attired in a white shirt with wide, flowing sleeves and snug, black leggings, she had no trouble maintaining leaps of just under one hundred yards in a single bound. The nearly empty city streets flashed beneath her, offering up the bizarre sights to Rehenimaru’s eyes.

Still, she had no idea where to find animals into which to plant the Devil Seeds. There were animals; wretched and solitary beings that skulked in the alleys, but they wouldn’t do. Her keen senses told her larger game dwelt deep beneath the city, but she had no idea what rituals accessed this world’s nether world.

So she was forced to take the more direct approach. After several dozen more city blocks, she found what she was looking for; a Mankind walking alone down the street, unarmed. Kicking off a building, she redirected herself to land before him.

The man wasn’t like the other humans she’d observed as she had traversed the alleyways and back streets. They had been harried, often delirious and clearly malnourished. This one was well fed and carried himself like a man who belonged exactly where he stood.

Before he had time to react in typical, startled fashion, she grabbed him by the arms and slammed him against the wall. His hat came off, revealing grey hair. His dark face looked more unhappy than surprised or frightened and the taste of his emotions bore that out.

“Where do you keep your animals?” Rehenimaru demanded, plucking the man’s language from his mind and instantly recognizing it as the one the Heir of Hyrilius used.

The man exuded confidence, both figuratively and, in the case of the emotions Rehenimaru consumed, literally. “Why that would be the zoo, of course, young lady.” He said in a friendly tone. “I hear the baboons are fascinating creatures. I think you’ll like them.”

-- • --

“The big picture behind this may be even worse than whatever is happening to Kareem.” Laurel admitted, frowning at the screen of her notebook computer. The device was currently plugged into the vital sign monitors connecting to Kareem.

Alexis was, by that time, the only one left in the room. Ian had taken the others to the downstairs commons until they could sort out what was wrong. “So you know what this is?” she asked, watching Kareem’s inert form.

“Remember last year?” Laurel asked, “When Kareem sensed Morganna traveling through the astral plane?” Alexis nodded. “Back then, he described it as someone dropping a piano into a swimming pool. Morganna’s entrance and exit into the Astral plane caused disturbances… ripples in the plane itself.”

“I’m not following how this relates.” Alexis said, “Things like this have happened before without hurting him like this.”

“Nothing on this scale.” Laurel shook her head and turned her screen so Alexis could see. A map of the city was on it, showing the locations of the astral transceivers in green. “These are my transponders about half an hour ago. Without getting too technical, they sense and translate the astral wavelength.” Alexis still looked confused. Laurel tapped a play button at the bottom of the screen and almost all the lights went out in a circle that spread almost too fast for Alexis’s eye to catch.

“That was from the instant Kareem started screaming.” Laurel continued.

“The transponders got knocked offline?” Alexis asked, “Like during the Mauler incident and just before that when you were using the ROV?”

“That’s the thing.” Laurel said, “They aren’t offline. They’re still responding, still active. It’s the wavelength that’s missing. Totally missing.”

Alexis shook her head. “How is that possible?”

“Like water in a pool.” Laurel said quietly. “If you drop in something big enough, all the water goes out.” She gestured to Kareem, “And anything not bolted down goes with it. Kareem was shunted out of the Astral by an astral storm several thousand times more powerful than anything I’ve recorded so far.”

There was silence as Alexis considered what that meant. “So what’s causing it? Some new, more powerful inugami? Occult? Another spellcaster?”

“I couldn’t say.” Laurel said, turning the notebook back to herself and typing. “But I do have some leads. For example…” she finished her adjustments. “With the astral temporarily gone, the transponders are able to sense resonances closely tied to the Astral Plane, like Kareem or the inugami—though not Kareem right now as he’s back on this plane…”

“Anything of interest?” Alexis said, her voice becoming all business.

Laurel’s eyes widened. “Yes, very much. They’re picking up eight contacts and get this; Four of them are within one hundred yards of the epicenter of the storm: ConquesTech, the transponder Mr. Mendel let us install after the Freaque incident.” Anticipating the next question, Laurel continued, “One is uptown near the zoo and the final three…” She trailed off, “This can’t be good.” She said.

“Where are the other three?” Alexis asked.

“In the Blake Holsey apartment complex, building nine. I recognize it. It’s where the kids’ friend Lisa lives.” She gave Alexis a meaningful look.

Knowing that look, Alexis nodded. “I’ll go there now. Split the others up and intercept the other two; Warrick and Ian to ConquesTech—send Melissa with them too, there may be staff hurt there. You, Juniper and Cyn should check out the zoo. If this is a new kind if inugami, we should be fine.”

“And if it’s a new kind of Mauler?”

Alexis looked at Kareem, the only one of them that had managed to stop the Mauler. “Then we’re going to need you to come up with some options.” Steeling herself, she left the room, heading for her room to change into her Darkness uniform.

Laurel sighed wearily and waited for the door to close. Then she made a phone call.

There was a long pause, which was only long considering that the three motes had crossed the entire city of Mayfield in an amount of time that can generally only be measured in the theoretical sense. Still, it was a pause just the same as Renst, Habsi and Naife floated over the sleeping form of Lisa Ortega.

To their Faerie senses, she was practically soaking in magical energy; not nearly as much as Morganna, but in a world they believed to be bereft of magic, she was a veritable wellspring.

“Um…” Naife said, affecting a human expression he’d seen Morganna and Manikin use. “.. how are we for to be waking it?”

Renst and Habsi span in frustration. They hadn’t considered that. None of them would have even considered disturbing Morganna at any time and sleep was a foreign concept entirely to motes so it hadn’t crossed their minds that the Mankind they’d been sent to find would be in such a state.

“Maybe…” Habsi dropped low and ventured up the rise of Lisa’s shoulder, “Maybe if we are making noise, yes? A big noise for waking Mankind?”

“But what noise are we to be making?” Naife queried.

A complicated classical piano riff suddenly cut though the air, causing Lisa to stir in their sleep.

“Is being a good job, Habsi!” Renst congratulated.

“Good? But Habsi did nothing.” Habsi replied, curiously.

Not noticing her unearthly visitors, Lisa blindly lashed out with a hand that grabbed her cell phone from her night stand and pulled it under the sheet with her. She cracked an eyelid to see who was calling. The screen was blank; that wasn’t the phone that was ringing.

That fact pushed her out of the level of consciousness most people reserve for hitting the snooze button and cursing early rising bedmates. If the other phone was ringing, something important was afoot.

Again, the hand was dispatched, this time to the purse idly abandoned on her bed post. From within its pockets, she retrieved Occult’s phone. It was a cheap, disposable job she’d bought out of a vending machine in City Central; a laminated card printed with circuitry and buttons with a long, complicated number for receiving calls. She’d had to pay twenty dollars for a special card that made sure that long, complicated number remained constant on every disposable she bought for the job.

The number was in the hands of four people; Kay, Mary Northbrooke, a reporter from the Scribe she’d asked to call her if anything dangerous came into the newsroom, the police chief (or his secretary, depending on how seriously he took his email), and Codex of the Descendants. Once or twice, at the beginning, Kay had pranked her, but for the most part, she was fairly confident that the call was important.

She bought the phone under the covers with her and hit the receive button. “Hello?” she asked, trying to affect her ‘hero’ voice.

“Occult, this is Codex. There are very bad things happening right now and I need you to keep a look out because I think three of them may be headed your way. I’ve already sent Darkness out to—“

“How do you know which way is my way?” Lisa hissed, trying to keep her voice down and avoid waking her family.

“You can hide you face, but not your astral form.” Codex explained. “But don’t worry; only Ephemeral knows besides me. We won’t tell your secret if you don’t want us to.”

“Good.” Lisa growled, “Because I don’t.” She felt a little hypocritical, considering that she had figured out who the Descendants were and hadn’t told either. But it was rather a matter of pride in her glammers that were now wounded. “But you said Darkness is coming here? Why, unless…”

“She doesn’t know. As far as she knows, she’s checking out three astral signatures. I’ll explain all of that later though, right now, I need you to see if you can locate…” she trialed off.

“Locate what?” Lisa sat on the edge of the bed and reached underneath it, pulling out her component bag.

“There’s four now.” Codex said, confused. “They’re after you, Occult. I have no idea why, but they’re after you. Get out. Now. Head toward the zoo. We’ll meet you there.”

“Hey, no. If something’s coming here for me, they might go after my family instead. I’m not going to let that happen again.”

“They’re tracking you.” Codex said. “They’ll home directly after you most likely and if not, Darkness will be there soon, but you must get out of there. This new reading is significantly more powerful than the other three and I can’t tell you how close any of them are to your exact location.”

“Fine.” Lisa said, “I’ll go, but I’m trusting you on Darkness protecting my parents and brother.”

“No, it can’t be going!” Naife said, zooming around to stop in front of her as if it were actually capable of restraining her.

A tiny ball of light was talking to her after she’d just been informed that strange beings were coming (presumably) to kill her. Lisa did the only sensibly thing to do in that situation: She screamed. Then she tried to swat it, because after all, no matter how evil it might have been, it was still the size of a small beetle.

This had little effect on Naife as her hands just passed through it. Nothing on Mankind’s plane seemed to be able to physically contact it at all. Still it was alarmed and distressed by the action. “Noooo!” it whined, needlessly trying to evade Lisa’s flying hands. “We are not being here for fighting! We is here to taking you!”

Elsewhere in the apartment, Mr. Ortega had obviously been roused by the sound of his only daughter screaming. He called her name once before the sound of running feet could be heard.

“Yes!” Renst added, wisely keeping its distance from the fray, “We is to be getting you before the demon does!”

“Demon?” Lisa asked, halting her assault.

“Hey!” her father’s voice demanded out in the living room. “Who the hell are you, supposed to be, buddy? Back off, or you’re going to be tasting bat! Toni, call the co—“

There was a harsh word from someone else and Alejandro Ortega’s voice stopped abruptly.

“Dad!” Lisa shouted. She stood up and grabbed her component bag, the motes and their warning forgotten entirely.

“Occult?” a tinny voice said from the discarded phone, “who said that part about a demon? Hello? Hello? Oh my god…”

One of the transmission towers that remained atop Building Seven provided a perfect chin-up bar for Aberak as well as a good vantage point from which to keep an eye on Morganna. Physical exertion made his host’s body ache and strain all over and it’s extra padding quiver unhappily, but Aberak didn’t care. If anything the sudden exercise was making the still conscious part of Wesley McQueen surly and bad tempered, which was excellent fuel for Aberak’s demonic metabolism.

It also let him work off his own frustration at having Edenkai once again pull rank on him and use his oaths to his brother against him. It never fully became apparent to him as to why Colos had taken such a hateful and strong willed creature to be his consort. She was Fellspawn after all and that was the defining quality of their ilk. If it had been Aberak that had orchestrated the decade long cycle of betrayal and civil war that had ended in his rise to Lordship of Sai’n’shree, the Lord’s Consort would be a tempting, but unambitious Alure-monger or possibly a blood infused daoine…

The daydream of wanton debauchery was cut short by something glimmering in his preternatural sight. Even when he drifted off, Aberak was still as alert a warrior as ever. Something was coming – flying toward him and from the sensation that began to play to organs of his that were purely metaphysical, it was ripe with magic.

Letting go of the bar, he dropped to the roof and flexed. McQueen’s muscles left much to be desired, but Aberak felt something deep inside blossoming. It wouldn’t be long now. Just in time for a proper ambush.

He dropped low, concealing himself behind the three foot high barrier that kept workers from accidentally taking a tumble. From hiding, he watched as the thing appeared in his sight, silhouetted against the starry backdrop of the night sky.

It was in the shape of a man, but born along on feathered wings that spanned twice his height. As the being drew closer, Aberak could make out the dark features of the man and the metallic glint of his wings. He wore bracers on his arms and a bronze colored plate over his chest. The hilt of a two handed sword poked out from over his back, neatly situated between the pumping wings. On his right hip was a boxy looking sheath from which the oddly bent handle of another, shorter weapon was nestled.

“Aren’t you supposed to be defending us?” Manikin asked, just loudly enough for him to hear. She had managed to move up behind him without his notice. Aberak ignored the meddlesome golem. He was a warrior; he knew what he was doing.

Or at least, he thought so. About fifty yards from the roof, the figure slowed and back winged into a hover. Remington Haut, the assassin known as Samael smirked. Three on the roof, he thought and as many as twenty employees in the building. Liedecker had said not to let a soul live and Samael intended to be very thorough. Servos whirred as eldritch energies supplied more power than a generator that would have weighted fifty pounds and set the mechanical wings grafted to his back in motion.

There were tiny, metallic sounds as minute couplings disengaged at the same moment the wings snapped forward. A steely feather detached from each wing and was hurled forward, guided to their targets be yet more arcane elements.

The first scythed through the struts supporting the antenna nearest Aberak. The metal squealed as the entire structure went down. The second flew unerringly toward Morganna, who was grinning madly.

“Baboons” Rehenimaru read aloud from the placard posted to the four foot chain link fence before her. Beyond the fence was a shorter, concrete barrier. Beyond that as a deep trench filled with water, past which was an artificial island complete with grass, trees and a rocky cave. “Papio hamadryas, considered by ancient Egyptians to be sacred servants of the god, Thoth.”

She considered the empty island before her. There were animals there; her sense told her so, but she saw nothing. Still the Mankind had been supremely confident in his assurance that she was definitely looking for baboons. After a few moments of introspection, she removed the lantern of Devil Seeds from a non-space up her sleeve. In the presence of animals they could bond with, the green seeds crackled and flared with orange energy.

“Servants of Thoth?” Rehenimaru mused, removing the top of the lantern. The Seeds crowded the lip of the glass, awaiting her command. With a savage motion, the demoness dragged her incisor over the palm of her free hand. Ruby blood welled and fell amidst the Seeds in fat drops. The orange bursts became red and the Seeds launched themselves from the lantern and toward the island of the baboons. “Now you will serve Rehenimaru.”

-- • --

“G.M. Logan Zoo, ETA: five minutes.” Cyn said, trying to sound official. Laurel nodded absently, eyes focused on her computer. “Uh, Laurel?” Cyn asked, “are you okay?”

“You do seem very distracted, Ms. Brant.” Juniper added from the seat behind Laurel in Cyn’s giant Humvee.

“I am.” Laurel admitted, “And not just from coordinating all of our groups. Girls, it’s time I tell you the truth; Kareem and I translated the Book of Reason.”

“The magic book Morganna had?” Cyn asked, “Why?”

“I know how paranoid Ian is about magic and it’s probably rubbed off on all of you in your training with him,” Laurel said, “But it’s just a tool, like a computer, like our powers, like everything. We figured that we should know as much about it as possible. If not to use it, at least to learn how to identify and counter it.”

“But why are you saying all of this now, Ms. Brant?” Juniper asked, “Does it have something to do with the Astral storm?”

“I don’t know yet.” Laurel admitted. “But I’ve got a hunch. Remember the Mauler? How he started his spree just after the astral storm that made Kareem go missing and start manifesting on the Material plane?”

“Both Occult and the Sineaters said it was a demon.” Juniper recalled softly.

“I think they were right.” Laurel said. “The Book talks about worlds beyond the Astral Plane; the closest to us being called Faerie – a world where many magical beings live, one species of which is called Rae’sha; demons.”

“You can’t be serious.” Cyn said incredulously. “Demons? Fairies? Isn’t this a little too beyond gone, even for us?”

“Well, we all accept that Morganna really was a witch from about a thousand years ago that possessed Lisa and her aunt.” Juniper pointed out, “And after that nasty Sineater man shot Mauler, that… thing jumped through some kind of portal. Maybe it went back to this Faerie place?”

“That’s what I believe.” Laurel said. “And given that today’s storm was a megascale version of what happened back then, I’m starting to believe that Mauler was a scout and that these signatures we’ve been picking up are the start of an invasion from the other side.”

“Come on Laurel, please.” Cyn said, laughing nervously, “You’re the logical one here. There’s got to be some science you can drop on us that can prove we’re not fighting Hell’s finest.”

“I didn’t say anything about Hell, Cyn.” Laurel said, putting a comforting hand on the agitated girl’s shoulder. “But look at the facts; Mauler was almost impossible for us to fight, but Richter, the Sineater, put him down with one bullet; a bullet police records show to have been inscribed with angelic symbols. Since the only other person we know can harm them is currently in a coma, magic may be our only hope here.”

“But there’s still a chance that these things we’re chasing aren’t demons, right?” Juniper asked.

Cyn slammed on the brakes, stopping just short of a pile of shattered concrete rubble. The headlights revealed that the rubble had come from a hole smashed in the wall surrounding the zoo. They also revealed something else; several somethings else, which glared at them with baleful eyes.

“Not anymore.” Laurel said voice tight.

Only the light of the television illuminated the Ortega living room. Rushing in, Lisa could see her twin brother, Zack on the sofa and her father standing in the short hall that led from her parent’s room. Her mother was silhouetted in the door to their bedroom. All three were motionless, like mannequins.

A fourth figure stood at the door, which had been broken down. Dressed in a jumper bearing a ConquesTech patch on one shoulder, he was a thin, balding man in his thirties, but the terrible grin on his face didn’t even look remotely human.

Lisa’s teeth ground as her anger rose. “What did you do to them?” she demanded.

“Blood magic temporal displacement.” The man said an oddly feminine tone in his voice. “They’ll be fine, at least until I’m done. I’m very curious about how familial bonds taste. They are your family, correct?”

“What are you talking about?”

Naife streaked in from her bedroom, stopped dead at the sight of Edenkai and made a small ‘eep’ sound. “Oh no, the demon is being here!” it moaned. “You must to be going! Motes can lead you there. Away!”

Lisa shook her head and reached into her bag. “I don’t know what’s going on here, but I don’ like it. Whatever you want—“She touched the prepared sphere that initiated her glammer and at the same time grabbed up her shrunken staff. Occult was suddenly standing across the living room from Edenkai. “You’re going to have to fight for it!”

“You are a mage then.” The man grinned, taking a few steps forward, walking with a sultry saunter that didn’t fit his body. “Excellent, you’ll be very useful when we are one.” A nimbus of yellow and white mist expanded around him until he was lost from sight. When it receded, the man was gone.

In his place was an ash grey feminine creature. Red, segmented eyes glowed horribly as they watched her, their owner standing pigeon-toed on feet tipped with three sharp claws. A grey whip of a tail had torn out of the back of the jumper and flailed about behind her. “I am Edenkai, consort of the Lord of Sai’n’shree and you are what I want.” Bunching herself up, the demoness launched herself at Occult.

“Levanto esta pared!” Edenkai slammed into and was repulsed by the red tinted shield that was suddenly erected between them. She rolled into the coffee table, smashing it apart.

“You’re definitely not getting that.” Occult said. She looked over to the three motes that were hiding behind her. “If you’re against this thing, I’ll go with you. Show me the way.”

“Yes!” Renst bobbed happily. “Following us, please!” It and its comrades shot over to the window and passed through it.

“Betrayal!” Edenkai hissed, getting to her feet.

Occult wondered at this, but figured there wasn’t time to question it. After all, the demon was after her, so it was her responsibility to lead it away from her family.

Edenkai leapt again, this time bringing her claws to bear on the shield. Occult angled the shield so that the demoness rolled off it and crashed through her bedroom door. Taking the chance, Occult ran for the window, threw it open and jumped. “Yo Vuelo!” she shouted. It was an incant she had only just learned, but there didn’t seem to be any better option.

Gravity suddenly missed its chance and Occult found herself floating smoothly away from the window, shooting past the motes, which had paused to wait for her. Slowing, she looked back to make sure Edenkai wasn’t following. The demon was nowhere to be found.

“Occult!” a voice asked from above. The mystic prelate looked up to see a living silhouette descending. If she didn’t know who it was, the past ten minutes would have convinced her to rabbit. “What are you doing here?” Darkness asked.

Occult thought quickly she was getting very good at lying on her feet. “I was in the neighborhood when that creature appeared. It was after the girl and myself, I don’t know why. I managed to hide her, but her family’s frozen. Care to lend a hand?”

“It doesn’t matter how much help you get.” Edenkai appeared at the window, crouching as if to jump. “The end result will be the same, spellcaster.” She uttered a harsh syllable in her native language and suddenly flew toward them.

A pillar of black heat slammed into the demoness, driving her back against the building. The force continued, scrapping her down the side, leaving a trail of crushed brick for fifteen stories before she cratered into the ground.

“That enough of a hand?” Darkness asked.

“No, I don’t think so.” Occult said, watching the dust clear. Edenkai rose once more, seeming no the worse for wear. “This isn’t another psionic, or a robot. This is a creature like the Mauler – and you know how tough he was.”

“Damn.” Darkness said wearily. “That means the others are too.” With one hand, she sent another wave of black heat to hold off the monster. With the other, she touched the controls for her com. “Codex,” She said started, “I ran into Occult here. She says…”

“’One of?’ There are more of these things?!” Occult exclaimed.

“You knew?” Darkness said into the com, ignoring her. “But why didn’t… Oh, I see.”

Below, Edenkai soldiered through the latest blast of black heat. Instead of trying to fly again, she dashed to cover behind a car.

“We have to lead her away from the girl’s family.” Occult said.

“We will.” Darkness nodded, “Codex has a plan – we’re going to lead this thing and all the others back to where all this started – ConquesTech.”

The dagger-like feather hit home with a pronounced ‘thunk’. Morganna smirked up at Samael past Manikin, who had interposed herself in the path of the projectile.

“No matter.” Samael said to himself, seeing the feather quivering in the woman’s chest, right where the heart was located, “One hit. One kill. Doesn’t matter who dies.” He noted the pile of collapsed antenna parts where Aberak had been. “Two kills, actually, but there’s something vaguely disappointing about using gravity as a weapon.

Manikin reached up and grasped the length of metal lodged in her chest. It came out with a splintering sound, bringing with it a fine cloud of sawdust. For a moment, she examined the weapon. “Colos is gone.” She reported. “He would have been here long before this reached me if he were close enough to feel the magic in this, or the violence in that man’s heart.

Morganna smiled. “He… still thinks… that I’ll bring him his army. By the time he comes back… if he comes back… it will… will be… too late.” She bought the head of the Staff of Hyrilius close to her face. Whispers in an eldritch tongue flew from her lips, awakening runes deep within the emerald stone. Traced in lighter green, they began to swarm under the surface, assembling a circle to Morganna’s specifications.

The spell had taken her weeks to concoct with the help of both the staff and Manikin; weeks the demons had thought she had spent learning how to open Gates between the worlds, a spell it had taken her only hours to learn from studying the ROV.

“Guess you’re a psionic.” Samael said, landing on the roof and glancing at Manikin. “Can’t be killed that way? I guess the other one can’t either, considering that you haven’t run. But let me let you in on a little secret; I’ve killed your kind before and there’s a trick to it. See, no matter how fast you heal, you can’t heal back from being cut into a thousand pieces!” He raised his wings and prepared a much larger volley.

A long shaft of ruined metal slammed into him from behind, knocking him on his stomach. A hulking, red reptilian form loomed up behind him, brandishing a broken strut from the antenna array. Twin rows of barbed spines ran down its back, between two undersized wings, ending at a forked tail.

“Your love of the kill is commendable, Mankind.” Aberak, now in his true form, snarled. “But I wonder how that will flavor your own death?” He raised the strut high, intending to bring it down many, many times, expertly breaking a single bone with each blow. The strut, it seemed, had other ideas. It writhed like a snake, and then tied itself in a knot around the demon’s arms.

“Looks like Codex was right, it really is a demon.” Alloy was borne onto the roof by Isp and Osp with Hope clinging petulantly to handles he’d formed on his shoulders. His eyes looked past the angry reptile to see something even stranger. “Lisa?” he asked, looking at Manikin.

“Worse.” Chaos intoned grimly. “That’s Morganna beside her. You two take the demon. I’ll take the main course.” He surged forward on a monsoon wind with a fist drawn back to strike. He didn’t make it to within ten yards of the two women before slamming into an invisible wall.

“The Barrier is holding, O Heir.” Manikin stoically informed Morganna.

Morganna ignored her, muttering softly to the rotating magical circle with in. Flickering green lines began to fade into existence around her, creeping over the ground and forming likenesses of the runes in the staff.

Taking advantage of the confusion, Samael snapped his wings out, cutting an ‘X’ across Aberak’s belly and throwing him backward. In a fraction of a second, he was standing, surveying the scene around him.

“Dude.” Alloy said to him. “What are you? A new cyborg prelate?”

Samael laughed softly but turned his attention to Aberak, who was healing quickly from the surprise attack and was chewing through the metal knotted about his arms. In a smooth motion, the assassin drew the gun at his hip. It glowed with clearly unearthly power.

“Wait!” Alloy said, “These demon things are possessing people. There’s an innocent person inside!”

“A demon?” Samael raised and eyebrow at Aberak. “Well, well, well. I’ve killed a holy man before. I imagine this’ll be like getting matching bookends.” He leveled the weapon and pulled the trigger.

Faster than the bullet could leave the barrel, Osp snapped out and slammed into the magical weapon. Across the plaza, an explosion of dust and sparks tore a three foot wide gouge in the side of a building.

“What the hell kind of good guy are you?!” Alloy demanded, watching the explosion with mixed horror and revulsion.

“Well…” Samael said, snapping his wings back. “I’m not.” His wings snapped forward, sending two bladed feathers toward the armored prelate. Isp managed to strike one, sending it skittering across the roof. Alloy tried to slag the other, only to find that his powers had no effect. His armor had no effect either, as the dagger punched straight through it, through he flesh beyond. Hope screamed in pain as the blade continued on further still, slicing her arm.

Alloy made a choking sound and a few dribbles of blood seeped out from under his visor.

In another part of the city, Colos roared his frustration and called on his blood magic once more. A roaring ball of flame slammed into the heavy, metal door before him and burst, having little to no effect on the obstruction.

It was infuriatingly tantalizing. Just beyond the door, Colos sensed strong magic, woven in strange patterns he’d never conceived of. What was more, there were Mankinds there was well, the thick door muting all but their sharpest, most fearful emotions. He would have a mighty weapon and a feast fit for one of his stature if only he could break through the seemingly impervious barrier.

But he’d tried every blood magic spell he thought was useful and even tried to tear through the wall, only to find the same thick metal there.

“It really is impossible.” A voice said. Colos looked up and saw a speaker set in the wall near a camera. “’less of course, you’ve got the code to put in the… well that’s too bad, you’ve gone and melted the security pad.”

“Who are you?” Colos demanded, “I demand you tell me how to open this door!”

“You ain’t in any place to demand nothing, boy?” the voice replied, “But I’m feeling sportin’. You see, up here where I am, there’s a control panel that opens those doors remotely. How about you come up here, Bluebell, and we settle this like men ought to?”

Colos’s eyes narrowed. “Tell me who you are and where you are.”

“I’m the man in charge of this city,” the voice said, “The lord here, I think you’d say. And I’m none too happy with you and your kind coming here; especially not with that little bitch Nightshade. No worries about her though, I trust she’s dead already. Or a certain Louisianan better hope he’s dead instead. Now come on up; top floor, only office here—and let’s settle our differences…”

Vincent Liedecker closed the cover of his translation of one of the books taken from Nightshade’s lair, the Book of Madness, and finished, “Man to demon.”

-- • --

With a sound of a metal grinder gone demented, Isp and Osp lashed themselves around Samael’s arms and legs and hurled him bodily into Aberak, who was still gnawing through the bindings on his arms. The two villains crashed through the barrier at the edge of the building and disappeared over the edge.

Giving one last look at Morganna and ‘Lisa’ conducting some kind of ritual beyond the barrier, Chaos dashed over to his two wounded charges. Alloy was on his side, blood streaming from his wound and dribbling out of his visor. Hope was on her knees, a hand clamped over her flayed arm, face contorted in pain.

“Hope!” Chaos called, kneeling beside them. “Come on, focus!” he said, trying to get the girl’s attention, “You need to for the both of you.”

“I-I can’t.” the healer cried through clenched teeth. “I-it hurts.” She moaned, leaning on him, shivering.

“You have to.” Chaos said, trying to think of something better to say.

“Let me try.” Chaos looked up to see a woman he only knew from descriptions; Vorpal. She was crouched on the rubble from where Aberak and Samael had fallen. Swiftly, she straightened and came over.

Chaos drew Hope closer to him protectively. “Why should I?”

“Because you’re not having any luck.” Vorpal pointed out. She looked over to Morganna and Manikin. “And because you’ve got other things to worry about.” She didn’t give him time to reply. In the moment that he was looking over at the sorceress of his nightmares, Vorpal crossed the rest of the distance between them and grabbed a handful of Hope’s hair.

“Hey!” Chaos protested as Vorpal slapped the shivering girl.

A long, shallow scratch appeared across Hope’s cheek. The girl yelped in pain and struggled against the iron grip Vorpal had on her hair.

“That hurt too, didn’t it?” the older woman asked, acidly. “And I’m going to do it over an over because that’s what I do with murderers.”

“I’m not a murderer.” Hope managed, pressing the damaged cheek into her shoulder as she was currently out of free hands.

“Yes you are.” Vorpal maneuvered Hope’s hair so the girl was forced to stare down at Alloy’s prone form. “Look at him, look at this!” She reached down and pulled back the punctured section of his armor like it was foil. “Do you see that pink froth in the wound? That means one of his lungs is punctured. He may only have minutes to live.”

Tears were forming in Hope’s eyes, not from the pain, but from the situation she found herself in. But the pain and the shock really were too much; she couldn’t concentrate enough to activate her power. “I can’t!” she mewled.

“Stop it, she needs to focus.” Chaos demanded, “She can’t do that with you abusing her.”

“Abuse is exactly what this murderer needs!” Vorpal peered at Hope through her mystically enhanced goggles. “You’ve helped men who were perfectly content on killing you just because you didn’t want anyone to die. Men who deserved to die. I saw it. I also saw you bring a man back to life that was part of a campaign to destroy our kind. But one of our kind lays here dying in front of you and you’re just going to let him drown in his blood because you’ve got a flesh wound?!” Enraged, she hauled hard on her hair.

Tears flowed freely down Hope’s cheeks. Vorpal was right. She wasn’t a hero; she wasn’t even the glorified medic that she’d consigned herself to be among the Descendants. She was panicking and someone who had only wanted to help people and to be her friend would pay the price.

“Stop it!” Chaos roared.

Vorpal ignored him and roughly grabbed Hope’s injured arm and forced her hand into the bloody froth in her teammate’s wound. “That’s his life leaking out, you selfish little bitch! Feel it. Feel it!”

“I can’t stop it!” Hope screamed at her tormentor.

“I said let her go!” Chaos balled a gauntleted fist to swing. Then he saw the wound on Hope’s arm – or rather, the absence of it.

“Yeah!” An armored fist struck Vorpal in the midsection, forcing her back and doubling over. With the help of the tentacles, Alloy got to his feet. “Back off, if she can’t... I’m… holy hell, I’m not dead.”

“You’re welcome. “ Vorpal said, still hunched. “See?” She asked Chaos, “The girl can be taught. You all just have to stop treating her like a china doll.”

Giant baboons. Facsimile thought, watching the brutes keep pace with her humvee through the rearview. Giant baboons with stag horns and beady red eyes and scorpion stingers on their tails. This was not a good night.

Thinking back, she realized that she’d never been outnumbered before, not against anything with equal firepower at least. Not that she was scared; she was immortal after all, but with that kind of numbers advantage, she would still lose, even if she wouldn’t die. So they were on to Plan B, which was actually following a plan for a change and regroup at ConquesTech where they at least would have the full group. For good measure, Codex had already alerted the police and General Pratt.

That part worried Facsimile. Codex above all others had the utmost confidence in their combined powers. If she was calling in the cavalry, it was bad; possibly unwinnably bad. But as much as she wouldn’t admit it, Facsimile had just as much faith in Codex’s tactical skills as Codex had in the Descendants’ powers. So she wasn’t panicking just yet.

She did however panic when something huge and gleaming with metallic surfaces lurched into the road ahead of her. She screamed and hauled hard on the wheel, sending the vehicle into a sideways skid that just missed the thing in the road. Her eyes barely registered what it was as it whirled past, leaving her with the vague impressions of things like ‘horn’, ‘lance’ and several words in German and Japanese she was sure were associated with cars.

A black comet rocketed through the sky above Mayfield, trailed by a dark blur. As strange as those two sights were, the strangest thing about the entire scene were the tiny streaks of blue, violet and yellow that were easily keeping pace with the leader of the bizarre chase.

“What are those things?” Darkness asked, eyeing the glowing points of light as she plowed inexorably toward the ConquesTech campus.

Occult was gripping her tightly about the waist and trying very hard to not think about how far up she was or how fast she was going. “I don’t know, honestly. But they showed up and warned me about the demon, so they can’t be all bad.”

“I don’t trust them.” Darkness said. “There’s three of them and we saw three more astral signatures near that apartment. These could be demons just like that thing behind us.”

“No are demons.” Habsi protested, zipping around in front of Darkness and matching speed in such a way that without reference points, it seemed that both were standing still and the mote had merely revolved into place. “We are motes.”

“Mote and demons both are being from Faerie.” Naife offered, “But no is any other likeness.”

Darkness squeezed her eyes closed for a second. She didn’t have time to be bothered that she was conversing with a talking pixel or that her opponents were, in fact, demons hailing from a literal land of spells and fairies. “Okay.” She said, rationalizing complete. “How did you get here? And more importantly, how did the demons get here?”

“Were bought here.” Naife said, “Both. By our Mankind.”

“And what’s a Mankind?” Occult chimed in.

“You is Mankinds.” Renst said.

“Dumb question.” Occult admitted. “Okay, does your Mankind have a name?”

“Oh, yes!” Naife trilled happily, “It is having many names; Xolinar Queen, Heir of Hyrilius, sometimes, when it gets sick, it calls itself Elise or Nightshade. But for in the most part, it is calling itself Morganna.”

“What?” both women chorused.

“Oh yes, you are hearing of it, yes?” Naife asked innocently.

“Morganna is alive?” Darkness asked, having after almost a year, convinced herself that the source of many a nightmare had, in fact, died on the West Truman Bridge. “And she bought back a cadre of demons?”

“Yes.” Habsi said plainly. “But not to be worrying, our Mankind is not for being working with demons. See, is trick. She is using the demons so she can hurt all the psionic-things here. Steal demon magic to seal psionic magic!”

“Did he just say what I think he said?” Occult asked.

“Yeah.” Darkness said gravely. “Morganna is planning to depower every psionic on the planet.” Both fell silent. Suddenly, the demoness obsessively chasing them seemed a minor nuisance; a mayfly buzzing in the ear of a cow on its way to the slaughterhouse.

The door to Vincent Liedecker’s office exploded in a rain of splinters. Just past the flying debris, the blue, veined face of Colos scowled into the room.

“I am well aware that this isn’t your world.” Liedecker said, ashing a cigar into the marble ashtray on his desk, “But on Earth, a body knocks before he enters a room.”

Colos came in, treading on splinters and grinding them into the thick carpet. “I don’t care a wit, a singular mote, one iota about your custom and etiquette, Mankind. In the foundation of this tower, you’ve sealed away powerful magics, exotic magics I’ve never seen. I want it.”

“So you’ve taken a liking to the new toys my lab boys have cooked up? We’re calling it Avra – I’m pretty damn sure you know that word. Means ‘I create’ in one of those old languages. Don’t blame it on me though, I prefer to keep things simple, none of this song and dance. My customers, they don’t like song and dance, so I just call it magitech, which is what it is; high technology meets high fantasy.” Seeming rather satisfied with himself, he took a drag off the cigar.

“What relevance does that have at this moment?” Colos demanded. “I am Colos, son of Wyrmgiir, son of Heliothakolos, Lord of the Ra’sha nation of Sai’nshree. In your jabbering mindlessness, you would call my kind ‘demon’.”

“A lord, you say, boy?” Liedecker said with false awe. “Why every day, I deal with warlords, dictators, revolutionaries and kings. But you know, I can’t rightly remember if I’ve ever met a plain ol’ lord. ‘Course, just like any one of those, you can have you pick of the goods I have to offer.”

A grin came over Colos’s face. Demons do not, as a general rule, have sarcasm. It leads to a great deal of blood spilt. “Good to see some respect.” The demon lord said, “Now open the doors—“

“Right away...” Liedecker said, almost cheerfully, “the second fair compensation crosses my desk or lands in my bank account.”

“What?” the demon snorted.

“You really are from out of town, aren’t you, Old Scratch? You see, I’m a businessman, tried and true. And my business is exchanging weapons for nice, hard currency. Now, at the moment, you want some of my weapons and frankly I don’t care if you want a pulse cannon, or a stick with a gold star glued to the end; I’m not giving it to you until I’ve received payment.”

Colos’s eyes widened in surprise at the Mankind’s insolence. “I didn’t bring any barter materials with me.” He stated simply, letting the menace in his tone do the talking.

“You have my sympathy.” Liedecker sneered, “But no free lunches, Colos. No hard feelings though, just business, you see?”

“I don’t think you understand my meaning.” Colos declared, stalking forward. “I don’t intend to pay. And if you refuse to open that door, I intend to kill you for them.”

Liedecker held up a hand. There was no magic, no psionic power, but Colos himself was surprised when he stopped. “I am a pretty sportin’ man, Colos.” Liedecker said, “So I’ll give you warning first. I know a lot about you and this Faerie place. See, I got this book; the lab boys call it the Book of Madness. It had a nice, fat chapter on your kin, boy.”

“As if it will make any difference.” Colos spat. “You may have advanced, Mankind, but you still have nothing that rivals our blood magic.”

“I seem to remember a part…” Liedecker ignored the demon, “Something about you feeding off emotion, being able to sense it? Look in my head, ‘Lord’ Colos. Am I afraid?” the demon did so and found only a sea of calm beneath a brooding, unbroken storm of anger. There was no fear to be found at all, nor uncertainty. Liedecker read it in Colos’s face. “That’s the warning.”

“Then you’re either mad or a fool!” Colos roared.

A pistol suddenly found itself in Liedecker’s hand. “You know, it’d be an insult to shoot you with a regular old 9mm, wouldn’t it?” he asked, “It wouldn’t do a goddamn thing, would it?” Colos’s face split into an arrogant grin, which died when he saw orange runes begin to glow around the barrel. “That’s why I’ll use this.” Liedecker said, and pulled the trigger.

“Darkness?” Codex asked, climbing out of the van with her com in her ear. “Wait, wait slow down. Morganna is what? Are you sure? It could be a trick.” She pulled out one of her shrieker devices and readied it to use against the demonic baboons. On the other side of the giant car she had bought for Facsimile, the two other female prelates made ready to face the onslaught plus whatever it was that had made them spin out and get the car stuck on a utility grate.

“It can’t be Morganna.” Codex reasoned. “No, it isn’t wishful thinking; I read it in the Book if you want the truth. If Morganna went into Faerie, she can’t be back. It’s a one way trip, it says so right in the Book.”

“It is true.” A gruff, mournful voice came from the thing on the road. “I have felt her return. I have felt the stirring of unearthly forces and now I see that more creatures have been twisted by the sorceress’s wickedness.”

The baboons charged and the metal covered thing shifted, turning the face them. In doing so, it moved into the light of a street lamp.

Light gleamed in many colors from hammered sheets of metal, some still bearing the insignia and decals that marked them as the former hoods, fenders and other parts of somewhere around a score of cars. They had been given new life as a kind of plate armor that girded both the unusual mount and its equally unusual rider.

“Oh, you’re shitting me.” Facsimile said as she saw the face inside the open helm, or more accurately, the orange fur on the face within the helm.

The first of the transformed baboons leapt at the rider with a hungry snarl. The rider’s lance swung down to aim at it. “Strike!” The attacking creature was flung backward with incredible force, smashing open a fire hydrant with a sickening crack of a shattering spine.

The others came on, eager to join the fray with the Descendants and their ally: Lucian; the Ape Knight.

“Codex?” Darkness asked, taking both Occult and herself into a dive toward Building Seven’s roof. “Codex? Come on, where are you? We have a lot to talk about.”

Occult sighed heavily and looked to Renst. “Is there a way to stop the spell? Hopefully before it begins?”

The figures on the roof were visible now; Chaos, Alloy, Hope and Vorpal clustered at the east end of the building, Morganna and Manikin enclosed in a green glowing, translucent orb that was rapidly being covered in crackling, green runes.

“Why would be stopping it?” Renst asked, confused, “our Mankind says psionic-thing is worst demons. She is being why motes come to get you.”

Occult had stopped listening. She had seen Manikin’s face. “Just what in the hell is going on here.” She breathed.

Seconds later, the view was blocked out by a black fog that seemed to bleed out of the orb itself. At first, it gathered in a tight bowl above the orb, roiling and slowly rotating. The next moment, it exploded like a newborn galaxy, throwing spiral arms outward with incredible violence.

So much violence, in fact, that it ripped up the top two floors of Building Seven, hurling the remaining antenna array, the air conditioning and ventilation units and four very surprised psionics out into open air.

“See? Is no being stopping it.” Naife declared happily. “It is beginning. Mankind said: First phase: come the black clouds.”

End Issue #21