Cross' story:(up to date now!) part 12 25th Jan 08

[Witcher Wolf]

“It was right about then when we’d put three-hundred rounds into the thing we realised it wasn’t human!” ~ Sgt Jack Estevez: WCPD Night Shift

Part Six: Above and Beyond

Distance, time, space and all these things that some of us take for granted, some try to define and some have wanted for aeons to travel within or through. All of these are but footsteps in the road of history to the servants of the White Corporation.

One might have expected Nicholas Winter to take the plane to England and seek out this missing sister, but he had other plans. It wouldn’t have been fair to say that for him time was of the essence, this was a job outside of the Corporations payroll, a freelance contract that was a verbal agreement between him and the mortal.

Why he’d made it, only Nick could answer and part of it had to do with Pandora’s name. There was a spark of interest in his psyche and some connection had been formed to that particular moniker. She wasn’t /the/ Pandora but she could be a reincarnation, or a vessel for that essence.

It was enough of a puzzle to keep him entertained for now. He picked up his things at the door of the club and stepped out into Whisper’s night air.

He never made it out of the club of course, for as he passed the doorway edge he stepped to the side. A brief interval of falling stars followed an onrush of air and he found himself once more on the familiar ‘star-path’ that led to all places and all times.

Nick always waited for a short while here before he moved on; there was something about the interplay of the cosmos that drew the eye. The way that the coruscating whispers of light beckoned a seasoned traveller onwards, the way that the Earth silently whirled ever-so-slowly beneath his feet.

There was a line in his head about ‘where Angels fear to tread’ that amused him as he wandered down the flickering road, he took a turning here and there and sort of meandered his way to his destination. Finally he reached an intersection where several pathways split off and soared down through space towards the planet, each of them branched again and vanished into the clouds.

He was concerned with only three of these pathways. In quick succession Nick followed them until he stood on a patch of land just outside London. The London post-Event was a different place entirely.

The British Isles had been the hotbed of psychic and paranormal activity with a rich and diverse history, steeped in blood and mythology with stories that abounded of ancient heroes, magical swords and fierce dragons. Where wizards could sleep in crystal caverns for centuries and come the right time, a king would wake and lead the people to victory over the darkness.

That time had come and gone sadly, and no great British Thane had risen from his eternal slumber – the Universes’ alarm-clock had never been set.

One would have expected the Event to have triggered something, some fantastic scenario that would have given the movie studios a fit. Yet it never happened and the British Isles had been ravaged hardest by the magical energies left in the wake of the cataclysm unleashed by a mortal’s pride.

Life there hung by a thread and the buildings of London, once proud landmarks of the modern world had been ripped down by magic, creature and worse. Even Big Ben, the old timer that marked the turn of hands with a doleful groan each half and hour was a ragged broken husk of barely maintained workings and stone.

The sky was an ashen nightmare full of whirling eddies and violent winds, lightning caressed the ground in sharp knives and forks. It was akin to Global Warming gone mad but none of this was natural, it was the planet’s reaction to the supernatural forces that entertained a tug of war with man and world.

“And she’s come here?” Nick said out loud and shoved his hands into his pockets; he’d forgotten how vile this place had become.

The interplay of magical forces would make tracking down Pandora’s sister a lot harder, he closed his eyes and let his essence fill the ravaged landscape – he felt every strike and every tear from the energy that swarmed around.

It didn’t take him too long to track Marian down. He wasn’t pleased at what he found of course, he headed off to six miles east of London and a landfill ditch where her plastic-wrapped body was slowly feeding Mother Earth.

He felt a tiny pang of regret and perhaps a small mix of remorse until he swept it aside; down into the hole he leapt and landed with a splash of mud and a sharp crack of his leather coat. His boots sprayed up grime which just slicked off back down into the ground.

A crow watched him from up on a broken tree branch, it tilted its head and clicked ominously. Nick ignored the bird for now and examined Marian’s body, with each passing discovery his anger began to grow and this time it would not be denied. He was sick and tired of seeing such promising young lives wasted to the wanton desires of creatures that had no single ounce of compassion in their souls.

This was the work of many, not one, but four and they were of mixed race and sex. A flicker of images assaulted his mind as he reached out to sense through the art of psychometry.

She had been assaulted physically, she had been drugged and she’d been through things that no being should ever have to go through. A dark light flickered behind his sunglasses and Nicholas Winter made a resolution on the spot – they would pay, all of them.

There was a dark cloud overhead that matched Nick’s sudden change in mood, a low rumble of thunder echoed above as if the area reacted to his anger. Several forks of lightning converged near a broken house a few feet away and sundered the stone in two with an explosive blast.

It was imperative that he tracked down this other doomed soul before they wandered into the wrong place. He let himself return to the centre of all things in his mind’s eye and reached out to the White Corporation for a moment, bypassing all the usual rules and protocol – not as though Nick had ever cared for following those.

He connected with the Universal Machine and found the information he was looking for, Marian had not shown up in Purgatory or any of the other places he was bound to look – only one answer remained – she had been chained to the Earth due to the violent nature of her death.

He left the landfill ditch and turned towards the City of London, with its majestic ruined skyline and broken horizon. Somewhere in that city there were people who would perform this very act of wanton destruction again and again, he just had to know where to look.

He didn’t care to look at his watch when he finally slipped past the heavily defended border, the guards were unawares and as they manned their posts it was as if a cold wind blew in from the east all of a sudden. One of them shivered and made a remark about an ill wind, this degenerated into the usual soldier humour.

They called it Fortress London. At the centre of this place there was life and light, power and corruption. The big corporations and the heavy hitters had all taken power away from the House of Commons and the Government – it had been divided up between their businesses when the House was vaporised due to a rift that roared up right where the old building stood.

A parapsychologist explained to a shocked and stunned British Nation that this was nothing to be alarmed about, an incident like this would only ever happen one in a million times – it took three more major landmarks to prove him wrong: Buckingham Palace, Westminster Cathedral and the near destruction of Big Ben.

Apart from this it was business as usual; the people remained ever bound to their fragile realities. Even with demons knocking on their doors or monsters roaming the countryside – they lived, they loved, they lied, they created and they did all those things that human beings know how to do oh so well – even if their world has been turned upside down and inside out.

So it came as no surprise to Nicholas Winter as he passed unseen between the shine and dross of human society, that his eye should be drawn by four seemingly innocuous individuals near an old disused warehouse. Two men and two women, they bore the mark of more enlightened souls – there was something about them that snagged his attention.

He stopped for a while and kept hidden; he couldn’t remain out of the eyes and minds of human beings for much longer. That power had waned when he’d left Whisper City; there was too much chaos and confusion here in Britain to sustain the ‘hiding’ for extended periods of time.

It was enough for him to catch a fifth figure join the four, she was a young girl and they called her over as she walked down a filthy alley. This warehouse was just on the edge of patrolled territory so it seemed people felt slightly safer walking close to it.

She crossed over and stood by a burning brazier, the flames lit her face and Nick saw she was quite pretty. She had dark hair and wore a fitted leather jacket; it was obvious that she had some money.

He was able to get a gist of the conversation as the woman nodded, she turned to leave and that’s when the assailants struck. One of the other women smacked her on the back of the head whilst the first man grabbed her and they dragged her inside.

Out of the shadows Nicholas Winter slipped, he dropped his hands and called to his side the weapons of his trade. They were drawn from another space and time where such things are kept until needed.

It seemed fashionable amongst heroes in novels, and popular media to wield two guns, so he didn’t want to break that mould. He stalked with intent towards the door of the warehouse and sent the massive double metal armoured doorway flying into the room with a single kick from his boot.

Sometimes it felt good to cut loose. Within he discovered a sea of faces, a whole gang and jolly clubhouse of wicked souls. Each one was a convicted felon who had escaped their sentence when the prison they were from had been ravaged by demonic interlopers, one of the largest prisons had disgorged a demonic meddler that thought it amusing to free all the prisoners but eat the guards.

It had long since left them to their own devices and been content with lurking outside of the city, preying on the travellers who were not as well armed or protected.

The woman was now half naked and tied by black chains to the floor, a circle of sorts had been carved into the stone and this wasn’t pretend magic, teenage goth witch magic – this was real old magic drawn from the times of darkness when the world was broken down into a suspicious collection of hamlets and villages, with very few cities.

Magic from the Dark Ages and it seethed with power as the agent of the White Corporation faced the room.

“Shit it’s the Rozzers,” one of the men took a dive for cover and came up with a gun. “I knew we’d been rumbled, I bet that bitch’s a copper!”

“Shut it,” one of the original four from outside waved a hand. “We’ve got numbers and he’s got a pair of piss-poor guns by the look of it.”

“Why don’t you toddle off back to where you stepped out of,” one of the women gave Nick the classic welcome V sign. “Before we do you, like we’re going to do her.”

It was obvious that there would be no discussion, no remonstration, no remorse and no pleading for their lives. These were all the scum of the Earth rolled into one ocean of foulness so thick he could almost smell the evil latent in the room itself.

In a flicker of silver those two guns vanished and Nicholas Winter removed his glasses. He removed his hat and placed it upon a packing crate.

“I am become,” he said emphatically, “the Angel of Death.”

“We got a right joker here,” an inmate raised his shotgun. “If you like Death so much jacko, why don’t you go and fuckin’ meet him?”

There was a thunderous roar as the shotgun discharged towards Nick, it shredded through him with a spatter of lead. It was only a weapon of Earth however and the Angel hardly felt it – he cocked his head to one side and made a judgement there and then on behalf of the White Corporation.

It was flagged up in his psyche as green, the invisible hands of Heaven who administrated the grand order, cared not for this den of sorts and they wished it purged. Normally they would have sent a clean up squad but since Nicholas Winter seemed to be on assignment there, he would do.

“In the eyes of Heaven,” he replied to the wavering shotgun. “You have all been judged and found guilty – and the White Corporation sends a nice fat fuck you.”

“I shot him,” wailed the man. “I fucking shot him, you saw me fucking shoot him!”

“You missed!”

“It’s a fucking shotgun, they don’t miss!”

“Well you missed you shitting retard.”

“Such language,” Nick laughed. It was a hollow laugh and there was no humour in it, the time for jokes and revelry had passed.

A few more shots followed by cries of. “I don’t believe in God!”

“That’s fine, God’s not home right now so you’re going to have to bite it,” snapped Nick and the room began to darken. It was not quite darkness but something else, almost like liquid. It slicked over the walls and down the floor, where the lights shone from the bulbs it smothered them and shattered the glass.

“What the fuck?”

“I can’t see!”

“Is that you Ronnie?”

A salvo of gunshots followed and another. “I can hear him!”

“You fucking shit-head, you shot Harry!”

“Shit.”

“Where’s Trevor?”

“Trevor’s not here right now,” Nick answered behind the man. “But I can take a message?”

He was cut off before he could utter another profanity, a wet thud followed and there was a sound as if something rolled into another gang member’s foot.

A chorus of screams rang out, they were followed by a riposte of gun salvos and more screams. One by one the gang were decimated in the dark, some of them were torn limb from limb and others were impaled upon broken pieces of wood.

Only a pair of silver eyes shone out now and then in the inky blackness, as the Angel let loose his darker side – they were set upon with true Biblical wrath.

“You know what happened to Lot’s wife?” he hissed in Ronnie’s ear.

“Jesus!” the man spun around and unloaded his gun into the pair of silver eyes, they went out and there was a hollow sound as if something heavy fell.

“I got the fucker,” Ronnie’s victory was short lived as he managed to find a torch and turn it on, he shone it into the darkness and it lit up something he wished he’d never seen.

“Jesus?” the Angel mimicked and turned to regard Ronnie, it was a creature with almost silver-white skin and glowing silver eyes. Long dark hair writhed about in tendrils behind him, thick dreadlocks of whispering shadow. His face was painfully beautiful and achingly cruel at the same time. “Jesus wouldn’t have missed.”

Behind Nicholas Winter there were two massive feathery dark wings that spread across, they were slowly testing the air as if playing with it.

Another gang member came up behind the Angel and one of the wings flared, the edges of the sharp black feathers cut the man’s throat and let him bleed out on the floor whilst almost severing his head from his neck.

Ronnie saw all of this and shut off the torch. “You’re going to kill me aren’t you?”

“No Ronnie,” the soft liquid shadow voice replied. “I’m going to educate you in the Old Testament. It’s my favourite book of the Bible.”

The man’s screams were long and loud, and then they cut off along with the noise of something crackling. It sounded like bacon frying or ice cracking.

“They do say that too much salt is bad for you.”

It dawned upon the four original perpetrators of these sacrifices that they could escape, if only they could find the exit. They heard Ronnie’s scream and they somehow managed to find each other in the dark.

Jonas, Davey, Trish and Rachel all shared a common fear right about now, it was something new to them and they had committed crimes that would make a strong stomach turn. Yet now amidst the wrath of Nicholas Winter they felt small, insignificant and very mortal.

It didn’t stop them from making a run for it. So they did, they guessed at the direction of the broken warehouse door and ran blindly towards it. A trick of the blackness perhaps, it parted for a moment to show them the way and they ran for that gleaming sliver of light.

It closed off before they could reach it; their mortal hopes for a quick escape were dashed on the rocks of their fast beating hearts. A slow and flicker and a flap sounded behind them.

“You harmed someone that I was supposed to protect,” Nicholas Winter ran clawed fingers down the side of a crate; he shredded the material and left great rents in the metal. “Do you fucking think this is a game?”

“We didn’t know,” Rachel burbled.

“Yes you did,” he snarled. “You knew what you were doing; the sins of your kind are chained to you with so many hooks and bonds.”

“What are you?”

“I get sick of that question,” Nick growled in the back of his throat. “Just know that I’m fucking pissed off and you four bastards are to blame.”

“Let’s rush him,” Davey was never the bright spark of the group. “He can’t take us all on.”

“Let’s not,” Nick replied and snapped a finger. “There’s only one punishment that I can think for, one that’s unique and will allow your spirits to experience the same dark place that Marian’s in right now.”

“Marian?”

“The girl you murdered,” the Angel sighed. “Or didn’t you ask her name?”

“Would it go against us if we said no?” Trish piped up, and earned a reproachful look from Rachel.

“Not really,” Nicholas smiled, it was a cruel expression. “The White Corporation sends their love for the afterlife…oh and you’ll be glad to know, there’ll be cake.”

“Cake,” Davey said dully. “What’s cake got to do with it?”

Nicholas Winter would have answered if he weren’t in a mood to tear them limb from limb, but it would not be he who did the tearing, they would experience a pain unlike any had ever experienced on this Earth. He let their sins, forged in the chains of their life, dug into their flesh by black iron barbs manifest for real.

He drew the old magic about him and allowed the physical manifestation tear them apart under its own weight. Their bodies were slashed, crushed and cut by the sharp metal that appeared to writhe from their very skin.

Davey’s eyes were scarred instantly as tiny thin chains burst forth from his sockets and clawed their way across every inch of his skin. Each of the four suffered a similar and bloody fate as their mortal shells were brutalised by the Angel’s wrathful magic.

Thoughts of the great literary works flashed through Nicholas’ mind, he wondered how Charles Dickens had known of the soul chains, those forged in life that clung to you in death – a binding force that the servants of Heaven PLC and Hell INC could use to visit harm upon a person for their transgressions, or in Hell INC’s case the sheer pleasure of it.

They were slain by their own sins, the weight of which were too great for any mortal to bear. Nicholas Winter left this scene of carnage behind and stepped out into the night air. He cast one last look behind him at the still lurking shadows and left them there as a warning, the authorities would puzzle over it for a while longer and he could be about his business.

He walked now back in his mortal seeming, the fragile shell in the long coat and the wide brimmed hat. It would do no good to reveal the true form of his shape to the mortal world, it was known to inspire mixed emotions and in some cases the sheer sight of it caused the affected to burst into flame.

That always amused him too.

[Libby]

Oh my giddy aunt! (strange phrase but appropriate)

Absolutely brilliant! Read it 3 times!

Gorgeous description of Nick's travelling through time and space...hey who needs a TARDIS...

London...I don't think it was supposed to be funny but it had me in stitches, the thought of all the politicians being vaporised!

Seemed right that the British Isles took a full body blow...but I'm glad you kept a bit of Big Ben.

Loved the line about the Universe's alarm clock not being set!

Nick's 'transformation'...could just envision it, you described it so vividly. I think you really enjoyed writing this chapter.

And of course... the marvellous homage to the 'dark room'.

The idea of the 'soul chains' (I have to admit Statler and Waldorf as Marley and Marley tend to spring unbidden into my brain) is very scary. Catholics have this 'staining of the soul'...sort of greyish spots for 'little' venial sins and huge black nasties for the 'mortal sins' but the weight of one's transgressions....ugh!

Anyway, beautifully written. I suspect Pandora might live up to her name when she finds out what happened to poor Marian.

[Witcher Wolf]

Thanks. There'll be a fairly quick follow up chapter to this one, because I need to resolve Marian's fate in regards to the whole scheme of things.

Just play the song: I'm with You as background music *grin*

I had a thorough blast writing this chapter. I was going to actually have Nick cut loose with the traditional action-hero two-guns, but then he threw me a curveball - he wanted to cut loose with some real traditional angry Wrath of God type stuff.

My basis for the soul-chains, goes back to the idea of Marley's chains in A Christmas Carol - that concept really struck me and of course I went to a Roman Catholic school (even though I'm not) when I was younger. I tend to pick and pull at the various mythologies and aspects of faith to create a unified whole for my settings.

In the case of Whisper it's true...the weight of yours sins can really drag you down.

[mawa]

Woot!

It was definitely worth catching up with the story. As for the latest chapter... well, pure, uncontrolled destruction. Me likes Especially the clever and... well, perverse way of finishing the four. ;D One would say: don't try that at home! And: never, ever piss off Nicholas Winter

As for the background music...well, for me more fitting is "Bind, Torture, Kill" by Suicide Commando. The lyrics are quite fitting. *very evil grin*

[Witcher Wolf]

Heh. Thanks MaWa, I forgot to add that the background music is for the next chapter. Something like Bind, Torture, Kill by SC is very fitting or Bodies by Disturbed for this chapter.

[mawa]

Bodies by Disturbed? Hm, I tried to google it, but came up with no result. A link would be appreciated.

There is probably more stuff with, well... brutal message, I could come up with, so I'll better shut up.

Back on topic: the premise of Chapter 7 sounds most interesting It's rather unlikely that I'll miss this one

[Witcher Wolf]

Oops, my bad: Drowning Pool did Bodies...it was Disturbed that did: Down with the Sickness. The song that inspired me (along with EQ) to write House of Cards.

In the whole scope of things it'll be Chapter 8, with C1 being part zero. So as of now I refer to them as parts *grin* so I don't confuse myself (and others).

Part 7 will be interesting...because it'll tie a few loose ends and I've been looking forwards to this for a while now.

[Witcher Wolf]

A new chapter is finally coming soon

[Witcher Wolf]

Part Seven: Resolutions and Trials of the Heart

"I have to wait, come and get me. Lost in here, I'm nothing. Tie my hands; let me feel - alive, one more time." ~ Lacuna Coil: Fragments of Faith

It was miles away from where the gang had died when Nick finally meandered upon a shadow against the blasted grass. The heath had been torn asunder by the shockwave of something monumental come the disaster, the force of the Event had turned the earth here into a mess of ripped ground, partial tunnels exposed like ribs protruding from a slowly decomposing corpse.

Marian's ghost was tied here, bound by the iron-clad chains of someone else's rotten sins. Her body was remembered by that which was her soul, so she held the form she'd had in life cruelly marked by the manner of her death. It had not been a pretty demise, one that she would have wanted with garlands of flowers and a milky white hearse to draw the body away like a fairytale princess.

She had been brutally murdered and thrown into a watery ditch by the cackling gang; they had left her there to return to the earth in a manner that was most unfitting for an animal, let alone a human being.

Marian had lost count of the time and the days that passed, it all seemed so liquid, so transient and all she could think of was her sister. Pandora would never know, her friends would never know and now she was stuck here. She had no idea why she couldn't move away from the faintly familiar exposed body, those breasts reminded her of someone she'd seen, and she couldn't quite put her mental finger on it.

Her feet were nailed to the spot with wickedly barbed spikes, she tried to move them but they wouldn't budge. Her arms were free but her wrists had been pinned by sharp looking spikes, they attached to a manacle of sorts and this was fastened securely to the ground.

She amused herself by shaking them and listening to the rattle, it reminded her of the old ghost stories that Pan used to tell. It was a sad irony that Marian couldn't recognise her own body, her own cut-up mauled corpse that grinned back at her with partial bone-white teeth showing through the skull's almost manic grin of death. If she could only recognise she was dead, she'd have been free a while ago.

That was the trick of course; you don't want to accept that you're dead even when you are. The mind argues so much that it's said around five minutes after you lose your head for instance, you can still perceive things quite well. Stubborn creatures humans, at least that's what Nick thought as he trudged over through the muddy ground and left no trace in his wake.

"Hi there," he said openly and fished out a cigarette from his jacket pocket. "I'm Nicholas."

"Nicholas?" Marian asked of him her one pale eye fixed upon him, almost oracle like, "as in Saint Nick or Old Nick?"

"Neither," he replied and blew out a ring of smoke. "So you're Marian right?"

"I am," she said and looked down at her feet. "At least I think I am, but I'm not sure. I don't remember much to be honest, just that I'm cold, lonely and I miss my sister Pandora."

"That's why I'm here," he drew from the cigarette again and it always seemed to help focus his thoughts, this was the hard part. The part he hated, there was a slim chance that the moment he revealed the truth, Marian would snap and simply cease to be. "To help you find a resolution."

"Are you a ghost?"

"No," he said and put his hand on her shoulder, she felt it, the first time she felt contact in a while. "I'm something else."

"What like?"

"An Angel," he adjusted his hat and let his coat trail a little. "I work for the White Corporation."

Her pale eye blinked, the other had been torn out, "Heaven?"

"Yes," he answered that question with a further comment. "It has changed a little since the old days, it's now a PLC."

"I suppose you have to move with the times," she said sullenly.

"Progress is good at that," he nodded and offered her the packet. "Take one; I know you liked to smoke."

She was about to ask how but didn't bother, something about his eyes and how they almost seemed to shine unnerved her and yet she felt an odd sense of peace alongside it. "Thanks."

"So," he prepared himself. "Do you know what happened to you?"

"I was driven out here and left in the wilderness," she said with a frown as the smoke rippled from between her torn lips. "I can't move and they chained me up, it doesn't hurt though."

"It's a little odd don't you think?"

"I don't know," she gave sigh of sorts and the smoke popped out from a punctured lung through the tear in the skin, the tear a knife had made. "I thought they were playing a joke."

"I wish they had been," Nick sounded a little sullen for a moment but reigned it in. "There's no easy way to break this to you, but Marian, you're dead."

"Oh shit," she looked down and it was as if those two words broke the opaque glass over her perceptions. She saw herself in all her morbid glory and the chains as they really were. "What the fucking hell?"

"An interesting reaction," Nick sighed inwardly, with relief. "You're not going mad, driven insane or about to declare your existence null and void right?"

She turned and looked at him with her macabre expression. "I'm pissed off, is what I am."

"Good," he let the cigarette smoke trail again from out of his nose. "Keep that anger; it'll let you hold on to who you are."

"I'm fucking dead," she bitched for a while and then tried to throw her arms up in a resigned way, they wouldn't move very far. "And I'm covered in shitty chains."

"There's something I can do about that," Nick said and touched Marian again, this time the chains fell away and they melted into mist. "You're not meant for those, they weren't your sins to begin with."

She felt a sudden eternity of weight fall from her and with those chains went the gruesome appearance. She looked down at her jeans and boots, her body looked like it did in life - except she had smaller breasts.

"How come my tits are smaller?" she had to ask.

"Typical," the Angel rolled his eyes; he took out his shades and put them on. "I remove your soul chains and you worry about losing your bra size?"

"My rack," she pouted and shrugged. "I made money off those."

"You don't need money now," Nicholas Winter countered with a flick of his cigarette. "You're dead, remember?"

"Oh damn, yeah," she kept on pouting. "So when you die, your boobs shrink? That's a bitch then."

He remained deadpan as an ethereal wind struck up about them, the sound of a coach and horses upon the air rattled into his perceptions. He looked behind him and out of the veil thundered an elaborate old style hearse pulled by four magnificent black horses.

A hooded figure sat atop it and he was garbed in black robes, the coachman had a skull for a head and his bony hands gripped the reins tightly.

"Is that Death?" Marian poked Nick in the ribs with her finger.

"No," he winced. "Do you mind, that's the coachman."

"But I thought Death you know, scythe, skull, robes?"

"Many people get that wrong," he remembered a time when that particular incarnation was true, once again, even the Grim Reaper had to move with the times. "It's more a family business now."

"So, who does the reaping?"

The door to the coach opened and a young boy stepped out, he had short dark hair, glasses and looked around eight years old if that. He wore a school uniform that one might find from somewhere in England, all shorts and grey woollen jumper.

"No fucking way?"

"Indeed," Nick looked askance at the woman. "Let me handle this and whatever you do, don't say a word!"

"Why?"

"Because Death is a little bastard," he whispered. "He'll try and wind you up until you want to smack him, the moment you even do - you're his."

"Huh?"

"If he touches you, which he can't do without your permission, he has your soul."

"Oh nice," she pouted once more. "Why can't my life ever be simple?"

"Death," Nick corrected and met the boy with an open smile.

"Oh," said the child. "It's you, Mr. Winter, how ironic that I find you hanging around the dead like a fly does around...well, you know the kind of thing that flies hang around."

Nick wouldn't be baited, but he decided to have a little fun, "webs, spiders, jeans?"

The boy pondered this and he blew a distinct raspberry with a perfect bob of his tongue, Marian just stared at him with wide eyes and her expression already betrayed the fact she wanted to hit him so hard his teeth rattled.

"You're not wanted here," Death said with a note of indignation.

"I gathered, but you know." Nick beamed brightly and tipped his hat. "I was just passing by, saw this attractive dead girl and remembered a little bit of how you like to show up and steal souls like this."

"I do not steal," Death corrected with a snort. "They're mine, my toys."

"Yeah," the Angel rolled his eyes behind his shades. "I know all about what you like to do with them, poor Saddam's ghost didn't know what'd hit him when you put him in that frilly pink dress and high heels."

Marian stifled a laugh and then looked at Nick her jaw half-agape, "Really?"

"Sadly yes," Nick stepped around Death a couple of times. "Did you lose a few inches in height over the last few years?"

"What?" the boy looked back at Nick with an angry expression for a moment. "Shut up."

"No I'm serious," the Angel cocked his head. "You're looking shorter and somewhat thinner."

"That's enough Summer!"

"Name calling now, are we?"

"Shut up!"

"Oh dear," Nick adjusted his hat and smoothed back his hair, ignoring the petulant child. "You know, one day, just one day you're going to meet someone who doesn't take your bullshit and does something about it."

"How can they?" the child laughed. "I'm Death; I'm bloody immortal you fool."

"Even Death can die," the Angel reminded him and made a motion with his thumb over his throat. "Or had you forgotten that's how you got the job, old age and boredom. A millennium of such things and the old man tired, handed it over to a brat."

"So?"

"The way I see it, there's a time and a place for everything, you're coming to the end of yours."

"Sod you."

Nicholas Winter winked at Marian and stepped to the side of the woman. "So, I believe you were here to claim someone who shouldn't be dead?"

"I can see that you've got your filthy gloves all over her, don't want her now."

Nick laughed and blew out a ring of smoke from his cigarette. "Boy, you give up easier than a Politician faced with a real crisis."

The boy did not dignify that with a response, he turned on his heel and let his middle finger do the talking before he clambered back in coach and slammed the door. The ground around the phantom vehicle shook a little. Marian looked to Nick and he just met her gaze with his unreadable shades.

"That pissed him off," he said after a while and chuckled. "It was my intention though; he couldn't get to you if I got to him first."

"Sounds logical," Marian couldn't help but giggle a little; it was something she hadn't done in a while. "I have to say, being dead is weird."

"It's rather like being alive except you don't need to eat or to sleep, breathe and all those things that the living have to tie them to this world," he flicked a finger in the direction of the ruined centre of London. "Material things are like dust in the winds of time."

"That was beautiful," Marian tucked her hands behind her and then ventured the immortal age-old question, "so what now Mr. Winter?"

"Well," he rocked back on his heels a little. "You've got two choices depending on your kink I suppose."

"My kink," she laughed. "It sounds, kinky."

"Exactly," Nick reassured her with a smile. "You can work for us or you can work for Red."

"Who's Red?" she queried.

"The Devil, you'd probably like her though, very classy lady."

"Isn't she like evil?" Marian blinked a little at the suggestion she should even consider working for Hell.

"Evil, Good," Nick interjected before she could comment or phrase another question. "They're just two different sides of the same Universal Truth."

"Which is?"

"Good, bad," Nick parroted. "I'm the guy with the cookies."

"That makes no sense."

"Bingo."

"What?"

"You got it."

"Got what?"

Nick adjusted his hat for the final time and left a coy smile on his face. "That it makes no sense, perfect example of the Universal Truth."

"My head hurts, I bet God's pleased with that."

"You'd bet wrong then," Nick grinned. "God doesn't even care about that, he's too busy sweeping floors in Purgatory and kicking around."

"Now you're just making things up."

"I wish I was," Nick's voice had a tone of acid regret. "But that's the way things work now, progress and all. Hell's an Incorporated and Heaven's been a PLC for a while."

Marian's jaw dropped open again and she just stared blankly. "I don't know what to say."

Nick gave a sudden shrug, flicked his cigarette out and sent it spinning off into a watery ditch away from Marian's body. "How about you say," he replied. "When do I start?"

"When do I start?"

"Yeah," Nick produced a nice sharp looking white contract from his long coat. "You know, working for us."

"Working for," she peered at him. "Us, you mean us as in Heaven PLC?"

"There are worse jobs, like mucking out the Hellhounds for Hell INC."

"Mucking out," she began and then waved her hand. "I don't want to even think about that."

"Funny enough, nor do the poor saps Hell gets to do it."

She was caught between the Devil (a woman) and the deep blue sea, except the sea was dressed in black and moved in flowing leather waves. "I'll do it," her voice was somewhat resigned. "Look after my sister for me?"

"I'll do my best, but I'm not a Guardian Angel," he warned her.

"Thanks," Marian took the contract and read it, it was written in a beautiful script that seemed to flow easily to the eye. "Are you sure?" she said dumbfounded as the read the job description.

"No," he grinned cat-like. "But that's never ever stopped me before."

"Won't you get into some kind of trouble?"

"No," he lied. "I do this all the time, Heaven's cool with it."

She read the job one more time. Angel, Guardian Angel and the charge that she'd been put forward to look after was her sister, even in death; she could still be close to her family.

"I don't know how to thank you," she said, she'd have been teary eyed but she didn't need to cry. "Do I still get to visit Pan?"

"Of course," Nick drew out another cigarette and lit it. "You can visit the mortal world all you like, just make sure you inform the Powers that Be where you're going and why. I usually tag it, unfinished mortal business, be back soon."

It still seemed like a dream, right up to the point when Nick offered her a silver pen and clicked the end. "All you have to do is sign there, there and at the bottom next to my name."

"Three places?"

"Yeah," he grinned. "Three's a magic number, don't you know."

She looked at the pen; it was marked with a silver tree against an embossed picture of the Earth. It was a lovely design, so perfect and so simple. Before she'd known it, her hand made her fill in the contract and hand it back to Nick along with the pen, he tucked the pen away and clicked his fingers. A silver cursive script burned into the space for his name and settled there in a soft whisper of light.

"Handy," Marian noted. "Will I be able to do that?"

"Eventually," he promised her. "You should be able to do a lot of things pretty soon."

"I will?"

"Oh yeah," he chuckled and shook his head in an amused manner. "You're a sharp one Marian, you'll pick it up and I've made sure you've got a wicked head start."

"Oh?"

"Your handler, your liaison and trainer in Heaven PLC is a friend of mine."

Nick blew out several small smoke rings as he fell silent and listened for an almost in-audible pop of air as the ethereal winds swished behind him. A beautiful woman stepped out of nothing; she had long blonde hair and bright blue eyes. She had a perfect face and was dressed all in white with traceries of silver; she wore a small necklace that resembled some kind of box - a cube or a puzzle.

"Marian," Nick gave a long bow. "Say hello to your new best friend. Hope."

"Pleased to meet you darlin'," Hope's voice had a southern drawl to it and she flashed a bright smile at Nicholas Winter. "Hey handsome, how're you doin'?"

"Good," he waved her charm off and indicated Marian. "She's all yours; I've things to do and living sisters to appraise of events that have transpired."

"Sugah," she replied in a honeyed voice. "Y'all-ways rushin' off when you're seeing me, do I make you nervous?"

He adjusted his collar a little and shook his head. "Of course not, but you know me," he grinned. "I never stick around in one place too long."

"Too bad," she pouted with a slight feral smile. "I wish you would."

"Take good care of her," he looked at Marian. "I will be checking up on you, both."

"Oh sugah," she drawled again and tapped her lips with a finger. "I'm Hope darlin' not some new baby to the job, she'll be fine. You come along with me honey and we'll get you some new clothes, those look awful if you don't mind me saying so."

Before Marian could thank Nicholas Winter or even say goodbye to him, he stepped back and left Hope and the woman to their own devices. He was back on the star-path, he was determined to return to Pandora and tell her about Marian's fate and the second chance she'd been given - it was the best he could do on such short notice. He was only an Angel after all compared to Hope, who'd been the last one out of a certain famous box.

[Libby]

Had a break from ironing shirts and packing bikinis to read this.

I'm pleased that Marian's got a 'second chance' working for the White Corporation as a Guardian Angel...but I suspect she'll have her work cut out with Pandora!

Really got a feel for the 'soul chains' holding her and Iliked the fact she wasn't quite sure about where she was...and being dead didn't ocur to her. I think life is dificult to let go.

Death was fun! A spiteful, nasty little boy...who probably pulls the legs off more than flies. Nick enjoyed that sparring match. And calling Marian an 'attractive dead girl'....*chuckles*

Nice chapter...but I also suspect the next few might get a little darker once Nick's gone back to Pandora, Sam's back in the mix and Johnny Death rumbles back into town!

[Witcher Wolf]

*grins* Darker? Me, do that?

*BWHAHAHA*

There are a few things coming up, as always :>

[Witcher Wolf]

Part Eight: A Trio of Interconnected Events

"The city's a flood and our love turns to rust. We're beaten and blown by the wind - trampled in dust. I'll show you a place high on a desert plain. Where the streets have no name" ~ U2: The Joshua Tree (Where the Streets Have No Name)

Whisper City had always been a catalyst; it was in many ways akin to the great cities of the past: Rome, Alexandria and Athens to name but a few. It was always there in the background since it had been built, a hub of events that were mundane or supernatural. The grandest of all was yet to play out after the Event, but the time of such things was drawing near.

The Jacker was the first sign, there would be others. Celestial intervention was at an all time high and out of the ashes of the old, a new order of things had been put in place. The two great corporations, Heaven PLC and Hell INC were caught in an uneasy but amicable truce; it was good for business that way.

There was a shuffle coming up in the direction of Fate, which was one force regardless of the concept that had always got their finger in the pies of the Universe. It didn't matter what dimension you were in, what time you came from, or if you preferred tea to coffee, Fate was always watching and always willing to play the next card right down on the table.

Rosalita Mendez had been pissed off tonight, she'd had a run in with an old boyfriend and found out he'd been cheating on her whilst they were together. It never did her mood good to find out things like that, so she'd gotten on her custom bike and ripped off through the shadows and lights of Whisper City.

Screw the helmet and screw protective measures, if she died tonight, she didn't care. There were worse ways to go and the two bottles of wine she'd consumed didn't make her head any clearer. She was stupid to drink and ride, but she wasn't exactly thinking straight. People do stupid things when they get riled.

She never saw the guy in the hooded jacket until it was almost too late to miss him; he'd stepped out of nowhere right across the path of the bike. He didn't even look at her with a mix of fear and terror; he just looked right at her as she swerved to avoid him.

She hit the front of a big truck at over two hundred miles an hour, it wasn't pretty and it didn't even dent the truck. The bike was wrecked and Rosalita, well, it would be prudent to say that she made a nice ornament on the front of Johnny Death's pride and joy.

Two seconds passed before Johnny decided to hit the brakes, the truck screeched to a halt in a swirl of black smoke from the tyres and left a quarter of an inch of flames behind the wheels.

"Shit," he said and looked out the window. "Did I just hit a fuckin' bug?"

Frankie whirred into life and his teeth clacked open and closed. "No man," he snickered. "You just offed some biker chick, pretty one too."

"Crap," Johnny climbed out of the cab and dropped down on the ground with a thump of his heavy boots, he stomped a cockroach as he landed and completely ignored it. "How am I gonna get the blood out of the grill Frankie?"

"You could try summoning a water demon for a jet wash?" the skull wasn't joking.

"Sweet," Johnny thought about that and liked the idea. "It might work, have you got any spells for that shit?"

"Nope," the skull actually managed to look somewhat sheepish, which was a curious thing considering Frankie had no way of actually showing expressions.

"You're a real help buddy."

"I try homes."

"Don't start that shit with me again."

The big bounty hunter poked at a sticky patch with his finger, he sniffed the blood and winced. "Human," he grumbled. "Oh the CIA is going to have my ass for this one, but for once, it's not my God damn fault."

"She swerved man, right into you."

"Yeah," Johnny agreed and knelt down; the corpse (or what was left of it) stank really badly of expensive wine. "She'd been drinking too."

"There you go," the skull sounded pleased. "You got nothing to worry about man, you're in the clear. Nice bike though, well, it was."

"Custom job," Johnny thought he'd seen it somewhere before. "Must be a comic book geek or something," he concluded.

Rosalita Mendez blinked a couple of times and looked down at her hands, she was still alive. She marched right up to Johnny and stood before him, right in his face.

"Hey asshole," she yelled. "Where'd you fuckin' learn to drive?"

He looked right through her and worse than that, started poking around at something on the front of his truck. She followed him, "Hey fuckface?" she bitched. "I'm talking to you, yeah, you."

Frankie watched her with a rigid grin of amusement; he pondered making a comment but left things as they were for a while. Johnny couldn't see her, he was too busy. He crossed the road, tore down a street sign that said: STOP and used it to scrape the rest of the woman's mashed corpse off the grill.

Rosalita stopped mid-tirade as she recognised the body, the matted hair and the mashed in face. She looked down at herself and saw that beneath her feet thousands of tiny chains began to coil upwards, latching onto her boots and sneaking up her legs.

"Fucking hell?" she yelled. "What the fuck is this shit?"

Frankie, not one for such harsh language drifted over to a spot about six feet to Johnny's side and hovered before her. "Hey," he said companionably. "You're using too many curse words baby, lighten up."

Rosalita freaked at the sight of the floating, flame-eyed talking disembodied skull and screamed a torrent of abuse; the chains became thicker and much quicker now.

"Hey," the skull shouted. "Stop swearing bitch, all right?"

Rosalita looked at him and clamped down on a further torrent, she bit her thumb instead and gave him the royal V.

"Cute," the skull replied and blazed a little more, for effect. "Ok, the real deal now sister. You keep on swearing and cursing, you're going to drag yourself down to the Pit and you don't wanna go there baby, trust me."

"Hell," she laughed. "I don't believe in Hell."

"Doesn't matter," Frankie was going to explain but left it open with a sneering tone. "It's not Hell, it's the Pit."

"Hey man," Johnny huffed as he threw one of the arms to the side of the road, "just who the fuck are you talking to?"

"The biker girl you managed to batter into ten thousand pieces dumb ass," Frankie turned his attention to the bounty hunter. "She's pissed, don't blame her."

"Oh," Johnny blinked and switched his vision to something else, he looked at her and snorted, "oh man, you, why you?"

"Why," she began, "me what? Hombre, you got a problem with me trucker-head?"

"You're that piece of ass I thought was a call girl," Johnny said smoothly and shrugged. "Sorry I killed you, but you should look where you're going."

"You fucking killed me?" the chains slithered further up her and now were waist high.

"Yeah," Johnny grinned. "You were drinking too, so it's really your fault. You know, we should swap insurance numbers and all, but where you're going - you don't need that kind of shit."

The big enormity of death suddenly hit her, but being Rosalita, she just shook it off. "So I'm dead, I can still kick your ass."

"I like her," said Frankie. "I definitely like her."

Johnny was about to say something else but there was another sound that drew his attention, the sound of a coach and horses. "Oh shit," he looked to Frankie. "We should go, the kid's here."

"No," Frankie chided sullenly. "We can't just leave her like this man, she's not right for down there."

"Hey," she hissed. "This chica is right here, or did you forget when you lost your balls?"

Johnny laughed uproariously at this and Frankie blazed in a mix of fury and indignation, the skull's eye-sockets burned ominously and he smouldered a little.

"Down there," Johnny pointed, "is where they hold the elimination matches, in the Pit of Souls."

"What the hell?"

"No," Johnny watched the coach and horses arrive, he tipped a wink to the driver and then answered Rosalita. "It's like a demonic club, run by the Underworld's mob bosses - you know, the Mafioso of demon-kind?"

"Ok," she didn't find that too hard to accept, after all, she was dead and there were chains crawling up and around who knows where by now. "You got my attention, how do I avoid it?"

"You can't," Johnny said with a note of resignation in his voice. "It just happens, you're stuck with it lady."

The door to the coach opened and Johnny stepped right by Rosalita, she looked at him and at the kid who stepped out.

"Ok," she said. "Who's that, little demon Mob boss, a tiny Tony Montana?"

Johnny laughed again and shook his head. "Nope," he pulled out a cigar; he knew the kid hated them. "That's Death baby, or baby Death."

"Shit ass world," more chains wound there way up her legs, they went for her arms but the child raised a finger and they slithered off into the ground. "Hey thanks kid."

"Don't thank me stupid," the boy replied. "I'm here to take you away with me."

"Don't listen to him babe," Johnny blew smoke in Death's face. "He can't take you anywhere."

"What is it with you people, can't I do my fucking job in peace?" the child stamped a petulant foot upon the floor. "You're as bad as cockroaches, only not as useful as the cock part."

"Touche dingbat," Johnny chewed on his cigar, he looked to the woman. "Just don't touch him or let him touch you."

"He's lying," the child said. "I don't know what he's told you before I got here, but I don't make toys of people's souls."

"Got the idea from Star Trek," Johnny said. "I hate Trekkies."

"Shut the fuck up Johnny," the boy rounded on him. "Or do you want me to shove that cigar up your arse so you blow smoke out of your ears when you go for a shit?"

Rosalita blinked, adults swearing were one thing, kids though. She'd have been slapped across the room when she was younger for that. "You punk kid," she said acidly. "I ain't going nowhere with you, not with a mouth like that."

"It's people like you," Death said to Rosalita, "that murder the English language."

"Shut your face kid," she snarled and took a step forwards, she was being goaded and it was working. "Or I'll slap you so hard."

"Go ahead," Death smiled thinly. "You're only going to make things easier for me, but then again, you already did. I mean, stupid must have been put in the dictionary to define you - next to W for Whore."

Johnny put an arm on Rosalita's shoulder and he felt the seething anger of her soul, she stopped in her tracks. "No," she spat. "A slap is too good for you."

In the blink of an eye what happened next shocked Johnny, delighted Frankie and sent tremors into the very nature of the Universe. Whilst the child looked on smugly sure his little game had worked the angry woman snatched something from Johnny's belt, one of his oversized guns.

She didn't even give the kid or the coachman time to react; the angry Rosalita pulled the trigger a total of six times: one for herself and five for good luck. The gunshots made a booming sound across the ether and slammed the child to the ground, a sort of ichor flowed thick and free from his body as he twitched on the floor.

"You little fuck," she snarled, "how'd you like that, call me a whore, call me stupid. Who's laughing now prick?"

"Holy shit," Johnny said when he could finally speak again. He snatched the gun back off her and added. "You're a damn good shot woman."

"Thanks," she snorted and tossed her hair. "He pissed me off." She looked down at the ground and noticed no more chains.
"You don't say," Frankie chuckled and flickered around her. "Damn girl, you just killed Death."

"Stupid punk," she replied. "If he was Death then I'm glad he's dead, stupid loud-mouth kids think they know everything. Posting shit on forums and in IRC channels about how shit works, they don't know shit."

"That's a lot of shit," Johnny laughed and stepped back from the woman. "You know there's just one thing."

"What?" she turned to look at him.

Johnny pointed as the coach, the driver and the horses melted into nothing - the world almost seemed to stop spinning for a moment and the collective energies of the cosmos held a singular breath for old time's sake.

"Oh damn," she sounded almost sincere. "Stupid ass coach and driver gone, what a shame, what the fuck is it with kids and shit like this?"

For a moment Johnny felt like he'd met his match and then an idea struck him, it was probably the backhanded tip that Fate had been promising for a while now. It was echoed in Nicholas Winter's spoken but only heard by few comment: Even Death can die.

"So you're the new Death then," Johnny laughed. "At least you're a hot chick in leather, now that's my kind of Death."

"Say what?" she said.

"You're the new Death, he or she or it, who kills Death," he quoted sounding like a Saturday Morning Preacher, "becomes Death, or some bullshit cosmic balance thing."

"Cool," he'd expected her to be amazed by the realisation, but for Rosalita, it was like being given a key to a whole brand new bike shop or working for Orange County Choppers.

"You sound pleased," he said and shrugged. "I thought you'd be all, emotional about it, cry and swear you know?"

"Nope," she answered and looked to her mashed up bike, a few seconds later it was back to being shiny and new. She even cleaned Johnny's truck for him. "I like it already."

Johnny looked at the bike and her, looked at the leather and the designs. "You sure you're not a comic book geek?"

"I hate those things man."

"It's just that," he began.

"I hate those things," she said intensely.

"Ok," he seemed mollified. "I'll believe you for now."

"Good."

"Better."

"Much."

"Glad we got that sorted."

Frankie looked back and forth between the two, he was of course capturing all of this for posterity and the odd big buck or two, if sold to the right network: Starr Media for instance.

A whine of sirens sounded a couple of blocks away; she looked at Johnny and Frankie, blew them both a kiss and climbed onto her bike. She put her hands on the handlebars and revved it, the growl sounded more ethereal now, sinister even.

"Boys," she smiled and tipped them a wink. "Rosa's got to go to work, don't be dumb now and get killed - just yet."

"Like a fish to water," Frankie said. "She's a natural."

"Yeah," Johnny sounded glum. "That's what worries me."

They piled into the truck and left the street with a sudden blare of sound as Johnny hit the horn, a few nearby windows shattered and some street lamps blew out as the big monster rolled away down the road picking up speed.

A 'Whisper City PID' van pulled up by the side of the road with a glare of lights and a scream of a siren. Out stepped Donovan White and Samantha Cross, Sam looked fresh in her crisp new uniform and long investigator's coat.

"I feel like some kind of Ghost busting FBI," she said to Donovan as she looked around. "Why are we here again?"

"We had a report of a big truck and a phantom coach, now which says to me, one of two things."

"It's a hoax or there's really a phantom coach?"

"Looking by those wheel marks," Donovan rolled his eyes. "Johnny Death's been through here."

"Sounds charming," Sam said and looked around for anything, she switched three vision modes and caught a trail in the ether. "Who or what is Johnny Death?"

"That's a question we've been trying to answer for years."

"I love a good enigma," she replied and knelt down. "He's not human is he?"

"No," Donovan answered. "That much we do know."

"Hey Donovan," one of the other officers called him over. "We've got an eye witness here; you want to speak to them?"

"Sure," he shrugged his shoulders and waved Sam over, she padded to where he was. "We've got someone who claims they saw it all."

"Should be fun, nut-job you think?"

"Could be, or it could be the genuine article."

"That'd be nice."

Samantha smiled a little. "It would, wouldn't it?"

The young officer led a man forwards in a ragged duffel jacket and a baseball cap, he had the look of a hobo about him, except the eyes weren't full of pain and agony or resignation at the only lifestyle Fate had allowed them - they were a sparkling dark brown and matched his slim cruel features.

"So you're the guy that claims they saw the whole thing?" Samantha asked him and fixed him with one of her vision modes.

He waved a hand, her vision flickered and she tapped an eye experimentally. "I am the person," he said in a soft near whisper. "I see a lot of things."

Donovan caught the gesture and redirected his attention, "Mister?" he asked.

"Tres," he said and his lips gave an almost feminine smile.

"Interesting name, Mr. Tres," Donovan felt somewhat unsettled now.

"Is it?"

Samantha looked at her new partner and back to the odd man. "So, are you going to help us or not?"

Tres seemed to take his time in answering this one, as if he were weighting the options and balancing them like small baubles or trinkets in each hand.

"Yes," he concluded after a full three minutes. "I'll help you."

Donovan had the feeling that this stranger's brand of help would turn out to be more trouble than it was worth, but at least it would provide Sam with an exciting first day to her new career - if she survived.

[Witcher Wolf]

Oops, forgot to update the main title - sorted.

[ginxy]

ahhh - I'm so behind I need to catch up on the reading!!!!

[Libby]

Oooops!

Read this just before I went away and thought I'd replied.

LOL!! Glad that snotty-nosed little kid got his! Rosa's going to be a mean-assed Death! Johnny seemed truly perplexed...despite getting a free wash-n-wax.

(Just realised that you haven't been watching the 'Dresden Files'...there's a skull in that called Bob. He has a classy Brit accent and a penchant for the odd snide aside!)

Poor Sam. What a day on the job with Donovan this might turn out to be.

More please.

*goes off to read the other thing*

[Witcher Wolf]

Part Nine: The first day of the rest of her career…

"Styling, you know you are styling. So turn to the mirror and blow yourself a kiss. It goes just like this. You've done it a thousand times. It's as easy as drinking wine, only now its blood." ~ Faith No More: Faster Disco

The slow steady trip-trap of footsteps echoed down the watery streets of the city, it was raining again. It always seemed to rain at the most opportune moments in Whisper City. A group of long shadows had descended since Sam and Donovan had spoken to the disturbing Mister Tres and left him to his own devices.

He stood by the slow-burning brazier that cast a shallow light upon the space beneath the bridge, played his hands amongst the flames and warmed them against the freezing night air. Of course it was all for show, he didn't really need to experience these mortal feelings.

Everyone under the bridge was there because he had willed it so; he was the cornerstone of the Universe and the axle upon which the wheels of reality spun. Many of the bedraggled souls that shared their living space, their hard-won whiskey or rotgut with him were there because it was their fate to be there.

He should know: it was his fate to be the embodiment of that relentless heart-beat force of creation. The eternal river that flowed between all living things and regardless of their notions of free will, he knew better. Rosalita's death came at his own direction, Samantha's appointment to her new post was his machination - all of it transpired because he'd set the programs running, the algorithms were ticking away quite nicely.

He'd called himself Mister Tres, for in truth he was not just one man, but a trio of beings all sharing the same form. Tres: trio, three. Oh how that amused him to the darkest abyss of his core. The master programmer that wrote the code of everyone's pre-appointed path in life, he allowed people to think that they had some deviation, they could avoid their pre-determined and pre-conceived role in events to come.

The game wouldn't be as fun then if they knew, he chuckled to himself and shared a dram of whiskey with a stubbly companion.

"S'cold tonight isn't it?" said the man, Albert Rosen; he'd been a lawyer at one time until his wife left him. He went slowly down the spiral of drink and drugs until he ended up being thrown out of his lovely house, losing his children and forgetting who he used to be. They called him Al' R down here amongst the rats and the bare-bones pickings.

"Cold enough to kill," Tres replied and shrugged his shoulders. "You know how it is Al' R, one of those things really. You snuggle up by this here fire and don't worry your self overly much about it Ok?"

"Yer a kind man, Mr T," he replied and hoisted a bottle in a brown paper bag. "A kinder man I's have never met before Sir."

If Al' R had of known it was Mr. T's fault he wallowed in self pity, an endless haze of alcohol fuelled miasma, he'd have likely given the man in the baseball cap a few more choice words than those spoken in true camaraderie and kindness.

Then there was Doris Berken, a bag lady down here under the bridge of sighs. She'd been a successful model at one point; her looks had been her biggest asset. A violent accident when she was twenty had robbed her of that means to make her money; she drifted from stardom and plummeted into a quick whirl of self-hating self-mutilation and degradation.

Now she could barely remember her own name let alone what day it was, she liked cats and big shiny metal things. She'd often steal anything with a hint of chrome upon it, because it was pretty. Perhaps somewhere in her head there was a link to her past where she had all of those things in abundance.

Tonight's Grand Theft saw her with a chromed hubcap from a nearby parked car.

Every soul down here could have traced their misfortune to the quietly spoken almost feminine toned Mister Tres, they thought he was gay of course with a voice like that. He didn't have a gender so to speak; not really, he preferred to consider himself a he for the purposes of this trip onto the world of mortals this time. Tomorrow he could be a she, as if it mattered.

The bridge was just off from where Rosalita had met her fate, where she'd taken the power of Death from the arrogant child. Tres was pleased with this, he was slightly less pleased with Samantha Cross' investigations around the event and as he watched the flames, it dawned on him that he really needed to take her mind off the death of Death, she needed to be sidetracked.

He opened a small cell phone and dialled something, a buzz sounded on the end, like that of a rapid quick-fire modem tapping out an intelligible low-high chorus of commands into his ear. He smiled a little and pressed send on the phone, there was an almost cheerful beep from the other end of the line and the Universe re-ordered itself a little, to accommodate him, he was such a very nice man after all.

The program rolled into life on the other end, a bank of monitors lit up and lines of C++ whispered quietly in the background.

Mister Tres left his warm spot to the bedraggled flotsam and jetsam of his career and stepped smartly away. He whistled a rendition of 'singing in the rain' and pulled his jacket around his shoulders as more precipitation splattered the streets and bore down from the sky above.

It was morning when the Whisper City PID van rolled on by and crept to a slow halt near the bridge, its dark windows under the haze of the first light looked like black glass eyes. The side slid back and Samantha Cross curled out of it, she pulled her coat about her and shivered in the chill air.

Donovan followed her and looked out at the scene before them. "Oh dear," he commented and stepped over to the first body.

Eight people, including the addled Doris Berken and the scruffy Albert Rosen lay strewn about the floor, they were lying in pools of their own blood and the grisly tableaux reminded Samantha of an abattoir or butcher's shop.

Albert had been neatly skewered upon the nearest iron safety rail at the edge of the road, the spike driven upwards under his jaw, penetrating the brain and out the top of his head.

"Poor bastards," Samantha sighed and bit her lip slightly; she thrust her hands into her pockets away from the cold air and stepped around the fallen. "I count eight?"

"Indeed," Donovan gathered up his willpower and closed his eyes, when he opened them again he looked beyond the street and into elsewhere. "None of them are Earth Bound," he sounded relived at this.

"Earth Bound," she echoed softly. "You mean like ghosts trapped to wander the mortal plane for eternity?"

"Or until someone releases them from their prison." Donovan answered flatly, "someone like me, or even you."

"Me?"

"Yes," he shook his head and dropped to one knee to examine a corpse. "I don't have time to explain it fully now, but once you figure out why they're trapped, you can usually undo it."

"Oh," she blew a breath of cold air out at the same time she shivered. "I get you."

"For example," even though he said he didn't have the time, he was of course being dramatic. "If the victims here had been Earth Bound, we'd have been able to solve their murder and that should have been enough to free them from their bound state."

"Ah," she smiled in understanding. "A get out of jail card for them, well, figuratively speaking yeah?"

"Pretty much," he replied, "though there are specific cases where it requires a ritual or spell to allow them to move on."

"Always a catch," she grinned a little, then looked around and that grin vanished as the sky tried to brighten.

She followed Donovan's lead now and moved quietly from one body to the next, she checked them for the faintest hope that someone might still be alive. There was nothing, they'd been dead for quite a few hours and some of them didn't need an autopsy to figure out how they'd been killed.

"Claws and teeth," Donovan said as she approached the body of Doris Berken. "This is not paranormal, but it's not normal either. I think I might have a clue what did it though."

Sam knelt down by his side and let her coat trail behind her. "Go on?"

"Nightcrawlers," he said with a snort. "To you though, you'd call them Vampires."

"Vampires," she said acidly. "Oh come on."

"Sam," he snapped. "You've seen some weird shit recently; Vampires exist, plain and simple. No amount of 'oh come on' will make that fact change."

"Bad accents and all," she sneered. "I mean, really, Vampires?"

"No," he stood up. "Not bad accents, no turning to bats, no turning to wolves and no bloody Bram Stoker's Dracula bullshit. Holy water, crosses, nothing."

"Ok I'm sorry I even asked," she put up her hand. "Jesus Donovan."

"Sorry," he smoothed back his hair irritated. "I just have it up to here with people failing to see the wood for the trees."

"I'll try to be a lot more open minded around you then, even if it kills me."

"Not being 'open minded' enough," he growled at the back of his throat, "got my last partner more than he bargained for."

Samantha's jaw opened and then closed with a snap, she turned her back on the man for a moment and collected her angry thoughts. "I said I was sorry Ok, let it drop."

"Fine," he grumbled. "It's just Sam, I like you, and I don't want you to go the way of Peter Drake."

She turned back to face him. "Peter Drake?"

"He was my friend. A talented man, but he was also the wrong person for the job. He thought it would be easy money, easy because he didn't have to believe in it. He didn't believe in God, or the Devil or anything like that. So if he didn't believe in it," he explained dully. "It wasn't real."

Something in Donovan's explanation hit a chord with Sam and she remembered her partner, she bit her lip again. "I didn't know," she smiled weakly.

"I don't often tell the story, people think I'm preaching," Donovan continued on as if it were a huge weight on his shoulders. "Peter Drake met the paranormal one night, he didn't believe in demons, until right before one ripped his head right off his shoulders and planted it on the top of a lamppost."

"I'm sorry," she said again. "What happened to Peter's ghost, spirit?"

"He met Death," Donovan rolled his eyes a little. "The kid took his soul and turned him into a toy."

"Christ," she muttered. "What a brat."

"Yes," Donovan looked askance for a moment and added. "So now you know."

"Vampires are real," she whispered. "I believe you, even though I don't want to."

"That's a start," he broke the uncomfortable atmosphere with a chuckle. "We sound like a couple of newly weds, arguing over where to place the dinner table or what shade of puce to paint the walls."

"Oh God," she coughed. "Don't…"

"Don't what?"

"Don't get me started on puce, I hate that colour."

Donovan pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a relaxed breath; he looked down at the body again and suppressed a gag reflex. "So," he broached the subject again. "Nightcrawlers as we call them, they're the real Vampires."

Sam stopped laughing and her face slipped into a mask of seriousness, as much as she tried to paper over the fact she found it hard to accept they existed. "What do they look like?"

"You or me, until they display their true nature," Donovan explained. "Nightcrawlers can appear human, but really, they're just another kind of demon or being from elsewhere. Their proper shape is hard to define; they're like inky shadows with white-hot eyes and sharp claws and teeth."

"Ok," she nodded. "I can accept that, because if they looked like Christopher Lee or Bela Lugosi…I'm out of here."

"A lot of early Nightcrawlers put money into the movie industry, books and TV, to smokescreen the truth."

"I might have known."

"They're a little more concerned than the Moonies," Donovan cut himself off short; it wouldn't do to introduce Sam to everything all at once. "But we'll come to those later on."

"Moonies?" she couldn't help but inquire.

"Werewolves, anyhow," he pointed down. "We have eight counts of murder to solve and by the marks on her body; we need to look at local Nightcrawler gangs."

Samantha made a mental note to grill Donovan more about the Moonies at a later date, before she had a run in with something like that and ended up like Drake. "How'd we find that out?"

"You're a Detective, Detective, so what do you detect?"

She switched her vision modes through a range and stopped as she saw the faint traces of residual supernatural energy. "Oh," she blinked. "I see footprints, going over to that wall over there."

"Very good," Donovan smiled. "Those eyes of yours are more than just a pretty adornment then eh?"

"I'd hope so," she followed the tracks to the wall. "They cost quite a bit buddy."

"There was a car here as well," Donovan added to her investigation. "It left in quite a hurry."

"How'd you know?"

"Tire tracks, burnt rubber," he tapped his cheek under his left eye. "No fancy cyber-optics for me I'm afraid."

"So," she ignored that comment. "Detective, what do /you/ detect?"

"I'm glad you asked," he swept his white coat with an obvious flare for the dramatic. "The owners of this speeding getaway car, since the tracks lead to it on all sides, did for our victims and then left the scene of the crime sharpish."

"Eloquent," she frowned though. "How can you be sure?"

"In truth I can't," he admitted and shrugged. "But from the tire marks and the psychic resonance of the area, I can make a fairly basic deduction."

"You'd need more than that my dears," they both turned to the sound of Tres' voice. "My, my, my, what a mess, a real mess."

Samantha inclined her head and stepped off to one side, she began to call the crime in whilst Donovan dealt with their guest.

"Mr. Tres isn't it?" Donovan scanned him over with a couple of low level subtle enchantments, nothing flagged up, and he seemed human. "What can I do for you?"

"Tres," he smiled once again disconcerting Donovan in the process. "I saw the van, the bodies and I was compelled to see if I could offer any help."

"Ok Tres," Donovan raised a brow a little. "You like murders?"

"I don't care for them, but I don't dislike them," the odd man admitted. "Is that a crime?"

"I don't think so, but it's pretty creepy if you ask me."

"I could help; I could help you solve it?"

"The only way you could help," Sam shot back as she returned to stand by Donovan. "Mr. Cree, err, Tres," she smiled but it didn't reach her eyes. "Is if you happened to see something last night or this morning?"

"I see lots of things," he re-iterated with a boyish grin. "I'm good like that."

"You're sounding like a suspect," Donovan warned him.

"Am I now?" he shook his head. "I had nothing directly to do with it, I might have caused some animosity between the factions, but that's all."

"What?" Samantha narrowed her eyes and looked to her partner. "Ok buddy, start making sense before I haul you in and lock you up."

"I pointed out to the old woman," he gestured to Doris' body. "Since she likes to collect shiny things, there was a shiny hubcap on a car parked there. One thing led to another and the owners of the car were less than happy when she stole it."

"Well that was dumb," she replied, she really didn't like Tres at all.

"I don't think it's a crime, it was a simple mistake."

"One that cost eight lives you moron," she grabbed him by the lapel and shook him about. "But I guess you're too busy laughing right?"

He laughed a little. "You're feisty when you're angry."

"I should punch you out right here."

"Sam," Donovan said sharply. "Let him go, Mr. Tres is human and he's just a little unhinged," he didn't know how wrong he was on one count. "But he's telling the truth about the car."

She stopped shaking the man and stormed off a distance away, there was something that made her hate him so much, she didn't know why.

"Your partner should be very careful Donovan," Tres said with a hint of malice. "Her fate could be very nasty."

"Is that a threat?"

"No," Tres put up both his hands and smiled again knowingly. "I just know that fate can be a son of a bitch you know, you know that right?"

"No argument from me," Donovan had heard stories about the incarnation of Fate and how much that was true. "So, look, let's stop the bullshitting and talk facts?"

"Ok," Tres liked facts they were solid tools of his trade. "Nightcrawlers did it, I saw them."

"Now we're getting somewhere, any idea if it was a gang or?"

"They owned a car; I took a picture of it on my cell phone."

"Now that is helpful, can I see it?" Donovan waved Sam over with his left hand. "Come on, we've got a lead."

She walked back to Tres and stared at him with barely concealed hatred in her corporate-made eyes.

He flipped his phone and selected the picture, it was a custom black and silver Ford GTO with flames down the one side, Donovan guessed they'd mirrored the design on the right hand side as well.

"Pretty distinctive," Sam said to her partner. "Do you have any idea who might own it?"

"Nightcrawlers," Donovan said and shrugged. "Do you mind sending me that over the Mage-Net Mr. Tres?"

"No," he said and flicked the phone over in his hand. "Do you have an address I can send it to?"

Donovan gave him one of his addresses and eventually his own cell phone bleeped into life, displayed the picture and a smiling face as the Transfer-Spirit winked out on the screen.

"Thanks."

"I hope it makes your lives interesting," Tres said and began to walk off. "I'll be around again when you really need my help."

"Thanks," Sam answered with a snort. "I think."

"So now we have a lead, odd that." Donovan watched the man in the baseball cap vanish off into the area under the bridge.

"I don't like him."

"Nor do I," Donovan steered Sam's eyes back to the phone. "We hit the custom car garages and start asking around don't you think?"

"Yeah," she turned away from Tres, "anything to keep me from wanting to put a bullet between the smug bastard's eyes."

"Me too," he looped his arm around his partners waist and directed her towards the PID van, an overly familiar gesture she thought, but didn't mind.

In a roar of a deep grumbling engine the van screeched away from the scene and wound its way into Whisper City, into those spaghetti-like streets and the throng of people.

Mister Tres watched them both leave and smiled a little smile; he liked helping people, almost as much as he enjoyed watching them die. He was the best and brightest un-touchable serial-killer that had been alive for aeons, his plots and plans could take hundreds of years to enact and when they happened you had Civil Wars, World Wars, famines and other world-shaking events.

Then again he could reach out and touch someone, a day, a minute, an hour or a year later (however long he wanted) they could drop down dead. Be knifed in a street fight, run over by a car or fed to a pack of crocodiles because they discovered a secret they shouldn't really have.

It was in their fate, and Fate was a bastard.

[Libby]

Oooooh! Sam's back!!

Just when she thought she had a handle on what's what...vampires! Mind you, after Buffy, Angel , UltraViolet (the TV series) and Underworld, I doubt if many of us conjure up Bela Lugosi or Christopher Lee when we think vampire.

Sam and Donovan's meeting with your Nightcrawlers is going to be
'interesting'.

Mr Tres gives me the creeps...I imagine him looking and sounding a bit like the Hogfather's Mr TeaTime...I hate the thought of someone messing with my future.

Love the mage-net and the 'Transfer Spirits'

[Witcher Wolf]

I think I'm going to have to cut-loose with the Nightcrawlers scene...it's time Sam got to show off :>

[Witcher Wolf]

Just pondering if I should update Cross' story here or not...?

[Libby]

A resounding YES!

I think it ticks the boxes for people who like different genres. It's fantasy, but a detective story; it's funny, yet can turn violent and gut-wrenching; it seamlessly mixes technology with magic. Works for me!

[Witcher Wolf]

Cool

[Witcher Wolf]

Part Seven: Resolutions and Trials of the Heart

"I have to wait, come and get me. Lost in here, I'm nothing. Tie my hands; let me feel - alive, one more time." ~ Lacuna Coil: Fragments of Faith

It was miles away from where the gang had died when Nick finally meandered upon a shadow against the blasted grass. The heath had been torn asunder by the shockwave of something monumental come the disaster, the force of the Event had turned the earth here into a mess of ripped ground, partial tunnels exposed like ribs protruding from a slowly decomposing corpse.

Marian's ghost was tied here, bound by the iron-clad chains of someone else's rotten sins. Her body was remembered by that which was her soul, so she held the form she'd had in life cruelly marked by the manner of her death. It had not been a pretty demise, one that she would have wanted with garlands of flowers and a milky white hearse to draw the body away like a fairytale princess.

She had been brutally murdered and thrown into a watery ditch by the cackling gang; they had left her there to return to the earth in a manner that was most unfitting for an animal, let alone a human being.

Marian had lost count of the time and the days that passed, it all seemed so liquid, so transient and all she could think of was her sister. Pandora would never know, her friends would never know and now she was stuck here. She had no idea why she couldn't move away from the faintly familiar exposed body, those breasts reminded her of someone she'd seen, and she couldn't quite put her mental finger on it.

Her feet were nailed to the spot with wickedly barbed spikes, she tried to move them but they wouldn't budge. Her arms were free but her wrists had been pinned by sharp looking spikes, they attached to a manacle of sorts and this was fastened securely to the ground.

She amused herself by shaking them and listening to the rattle, it reminded her of the old ghost stories that Pan used to tell. It was a sad irony that Marian couldn't recognise her own body, her own cut-up mauled corpse that grinned back at her with partial bone-white teeth showing through the skull's almost manic grin of death. If she could only recognise she was dead, she'd have been free a while ago.

That was the trick of course; you don't want to accept that you're dead even when you are. The mind argues so much that it's said around five minutes after you lose your head for instance, you can still perceive things quite well. Stubborn creatures humans, at least that's what Nick thought as he trudged over through the muddy ground and left no trace in his wake.

"Hi there," he said openly and fished out a cigarette from his jacket pocket. "I'm Nicholas."

"Nicholas?" Marian asked of him her one pale eye fixed upon him, almost oracle like, "as in Saint Nick or Old Nick?"

"Neither," he replied and blew out a ring of smoke. "So you're Marian right?"

"I am," she said and looked down at her feet. "At least I think I am, but I'm not sure. I don't remember much to be honest, just that I'm cold, lonely and I miss my sister Pandora."

"That's why I'm here," he drew from the cigarette again and it always seemed to help focus his thoughts, this was the hard part. The part he hated, there was a slim chance that the moment he revealed the truth, Marian would snap and simply cease to be. "To help you find a resolution."

"Are you a ghost?"

"No," he said and put his hand on her shoulder, she felt it, the first time she felt contact in a while. "I'm something else."

"What like?"

"An Angel," he adjusted his hat and let his coat trail a little. "I work for the White Corporation."

Her pale eye blinked, the other had been torn out, "Heaven?"

"Yes," he answered that question with a further comment. "It has changed a little since the old days, it's now a PLC."

"I suppose you have to move with the times," she said sullenly.

"Progress is good at that," he nodded and offered her the packet. "Take one; I know you liked to smoke."

She was about to ask how but didn't bother, something about his eyes and how they almost seemed to shine unnerved her and yet she felt an odd sense of peace alongside it. "Thanks."

"So," he prepared himself. "Do you know what happened to you?"

"I was driven out here and left in the wilderness," she said with a frown as the smoke rippled from between her torn lips. "I can't move and they chained me up, it doesn't hurt though."

"It's a little odd don't you think?"

"I don't know," she gave sigh of sorts and the smoke popped out from a punctured lung through the tear in the skin, the tear a knife had made. "I thought they were playing a joke."

"I wish they had been," Nick sounded a little sullen for a moment but reigned it in. "There's no easy way to break this to you, but Marian, you're dead."

"Oh shit," she looked down and it was as if those two words broke the opaque glass over her perceptions. She saw herself in all her morbid glory and the chains as they really were. "What the fucking hell?"

"An interesting reaction," Nick sighed inwardly, with relief. "You're not going mad, driven insane or about to declare your existence null and void right?"

She turned and looked at him with her macabre expression. "I'm pissed off, is what I am."

"Good," he let the cigarette smoke trail again from out of his nose. "Keep that anger; it'll let you hold on to who you are."

"I'm fucking dead," she bitched for a while and then tried to throw her arms up in a resigned way, they wouldn't move very far. "And I'm covered in shitty chains."

"There's something I can do about that," Nick said and touched Marian again, this time the chains fell away and they melted into mist. "You're not meant for those, they weren't your sins to begin with."

She felt a sudden eternity of weight fall from her and with those chains went the gruesome appearance. She looked down at her jeans and boots, her body looked like it did in life - except she had smaller breasts.

"How come by tits are smaller?" she had to ask.
"Typical," the Angel rolled his eyes; he took out his shades and put them on. "I remove your soul chains and you worry about losing your bra size?"

"My rack," she pouted and shrugged. "I made money off those."

"You don't need money now," Nicholas Winter countered with a flick of his cigarette. "You're dead, remember?"

"Oh damn, yeah," she kept on pouting. "So when you die, your boobs shrink? That's a bitch then."

He remained deadpan as an ethereal wind struck up about them, the sound of a coach and horses upon the air rattled into his perceptions. He looked behind him and out of the veil thundered an elaborate old style hearse pulled by four magnificent black horses.

A hooded figure sat atop it and he was garbed in black robes, the coachman had a skull for a head and his bony hands gripped the reins tightly.

"Is that Death?" Marian poked Nick in the ribs with her finger.

"No," he winced. "Do you mind, that's the coachman."

"But I thought Death you know, scythe, skull, robes?"

"Many people get that wrong," he remembered a time when that particular incarnation was true, once again, even the Grim Reaper had to move with the times. "It's more a family business now."

"So, who does the reaping?"

The door to the coach opened and a young boy stepped out, he had short dark hair, glasses and looked around eight years old if that. He wore a school uniform that one might find from somewhere in England, all shorts and grey woollen jumper.

"No fucking way?"

"Indeed," Nick looked askance at the woman. "Let me handle this and whatever you do, don't say a word!"

"Why?"

"Because Death is a little bastard," he whispered. "He'll try and wind you up until you want to smack him, the moment you even do - you're his."

"Huh?"

"If he touches you, which he can't do without your permission, he has your soul."

"Oh nice," she pouted once more. "Why can't my life ever be simple?"

"Death," Nick corrected and met the boy with an open smile.

"Oh," said the child. "It's you, Mr. Winter, how ironic that I find you hanging around the dead like a fly does around...well, you know the kind of thing that flies hang around."

Nick wouldn't be baited, but he decided to have a little fun, "webs, spiders, jeans?"

The boy pondered this and he blew a distinct raspberry with a perfect bob of his tongue, Marian just stared at him with wide eyes and her expression already betrayed the fact she wanted to hit him so hard his teeth rattled.

"You're not wanted here," Death said with a note of indignation.

"I gathered, but you know." Nick beamed brightly and tipped his hat. "I was just passing by, saw this attractive dead girl and remembered a little bit of how you like to show up and steal souls like this."

"I do not steal," Death corrected with a snort. "They're mine, my toys."

"Yeah," the Angel rolled his eyes behind his shades. "I know all about what you like to do with them, poor Saddam's ghost didn't know what'd hit him when you put him in that frilly pink dress and high heels."

Marian stifled a laugh and then looked at Nick her jaw half-agape, "Really?"

"Sadly yes," Nick stepped around Death a couple of times. "Did you lose a few inches in height over the last few years?"

"What?" the boy looked back at Nick with an angry expression for a moment. "Shut up."

"No I'm serious," the Angel cocked his head. "You're looking shorter and somewhat thinner."

"That's enough Summer!"

"Name calling now, are we?"

"Shut up!"

"Oh dear," Nick adjusted his hat and smoothed back his hair, ignoring the petulant child. "You know, one day, just one day you're going to meet someone who doesn't take your bullshit and does something about it."

"How can they?" the child laughed. "I'm Death; I'm bloody immortal you fool."

"Even Death can die," the Angel reminded him and made a motion with his thumb over his throat. "Or had you forgotten that's how you got the job, old age and boredom. A millennium of such things and the old man tired, handed it over to a brat."

"So?"

"The way I see it, there's a time and a place for everything, you're coming to the end of yours."

"Sod you."

Nicholas Winter winked at Marian and stepped to the side of the woman. "So, I believe you were here to claim someone who shouldn't be dead?"

"I can see that you've got your filthy gloves all over her, don't want her now."

Nick laughed and blew out a ring of smoke from his cigarette. "Boy, you give up easier than a Politician faced with a real crisis."

The boy did not dignify that with a response, he turned on his heel and let his middle finger do the talking before he clambered back in coach and slammed the door. The ground around the phantom vehicle shook a little. Marian looked to Nick and he just met her gaze with his unreadable shades.

"That pissed him off," he said after a while and chuckled. "It was my intention though; he couldn't get to you if I got to him first."

"Sounds logical," Marian couldn't help but giggle a little; it was something she hadn't done in a while. "I have to say, being dead is weird."

"It's rather like being alive except you don't need to eat or to sleep, breathe and all those things that the living have to tie them to this world," he flicked a finger in the direction of the ruined centre of London. "Material things are like dust in the winds of time."

"That was beautiful," Marian tucked her hands behind her and then ventured the immortal age-old question, "so what now Mr. Winter?"

"Well," he rocked back on his heels a little. "You've got two choices depending on your kink I suppose."

"My kink," she laughed. "It sounds, kinky."

"Exactly," Nick reassured her with a smile. "You can work for us or you can work for Red."

"Who's Red?" she queried.

"The Devil, you'd probably like her though, very classy lady."

"Isn't she like evil?" Marian blinked a little at the suggestion she should even consider working for Hell.

"Evil, Good," Nick interjected before she could comment or phrase another question. "They're just two different sides of the same Universal Truth."

"Which is?"

"Good, bad," Nick parroted. "I'm the guy with the cookies."

"That makes no sense."

"Bingo."

"What?"

"You got it."

"Got what?"

Nick adjusted his hat for the final time and left a coy smile on his face. "That it makes no sense, perfect example of the Universal Truth."

"My head hurts, I bet God's pleased with that."

"You'd bet wrong then," Nick grinned. "God doesn't even care about that, he's too busy sweeping floors in Purgatory and kicking around."

"Now you're just making things up."

"I wish I was," Nick's voice had a tone of acid regret. "But that's the way things work now, progress and all. Hell's an Incorporated and Heaven's been a PLC for a while."

Marian's jaw dropped open again and she just stared blankly. "I don't know what to say."

Nick gave a sudden shrug, flicked his cigarette out and sent it spinning off into a watery ditch away from Marian's body. "How about you say," he replied. "When do I start?"

"When do I start?"

"Yeah," Nick produced a nice sharp looking white contract from his long coat. "You know, working for us."

"Working for," she peered at him. "Us, you mean us as in Heaven PLC?"

"There are worse jobs, like mucking out the Hellhounds for Hell INC."

"Mucking out," she began and then waved her hand. "I don't want to even think about that."

"Funny enough, nor do the poor saps Hell gets to do it."

She was caught between the Devil (a woman) and the deep blue sea, except the sea was dressed in black and moved in flowing leather waves. "I'll do it," her voice was somewhat resigned. "Look after my sister for me?"

"I'll do my best, but I'm not a Guardian Angel," he warned her.

"Thanks," Marian took the contract and read it, it was written in a beautiful script that seemed to flow easily to the eye. "Are you sure?" she said dumbfounded as the read the job description.

"No," he grinned cat-like. "But that's never ever stopped me before."

"Won't you get into some kind of trouble?"

"No," he lied. "I do this all the time, Heaven's cool with it."

She read the job one more time. Angel, Guardian Angel and the charge that she'd been put forward to look after was her sister, even in death; she could still be close to her family.

"I don't know how to thank you," she said, she'd have been teary eyed but she didn't need to cry. "Do I still get to visit Pan?"

"Of course," Nick drew out another cigarette and lit it. "You can visit the mortal world all you like, just make sure you inform the Powers that Be where you're going and why. I usually tag it, unfinished mortal business, be back soon."

It still seemed like a dream, right up to the point when Nick offered her a silver pen and clicked the end. "All you have to do is sign there, there and at the bottom next to my name."

"Three places?"

"Yeah," he grinned. "Three's a magic number, don't you know."

She looked at the pen; it was marked with a silver tree against an embossed picture of the Earth. It was a lovely design, so perfect and so simple. Before she'd known it, her hand made her fill in the contract and hand it back to Nick along with the pen, he tucked the pen away and clicked his fingers. A silver cursive script burned into the space for his name and settled there in a soft whisper of light.

"Handy," Marian noted. "Will I be able to do that?"

"Eventually," he promised her. "You should be able to do a lot of things pretty soon."

"I will?"

"Oh yeah," he chuckled and shook his head in an amused manner. "You're a sharp one Marian, you'll pick it up and I've made sure you've got a wicked head start."

"Oh?"

"Your handler, your liaison and trainer in Heaven PLC is a friend of mine."

Nick blew out several small smoke rings as he fell silent and listened for an almost in-audible pop of air as the ethereal winds swished behind him. A beautiful woman stepped out of nothing; she had long blonde hair and bright blue eyes. She had a perfect face and was dressed all in white with traceries of silver; she wore a small necklace that resembled some kind of box - a cube or a puzzle.

"Marian," Nick gave a long bow. "Say hello to your new best friend. Hope."

"Pleased to meet you darlin'," Hope's voice had a southern drawl to it and she flashed a bright smile at Nicholas Winter. "Hey handsome, how're you doin'?"

"Good," he waved her charm off and indicated Marian. "She's all yours; I've things to do and living sisters to appraise of events that have transpired."

"Sugah," she replied in a honeyed voice. "Y'all-ways rushin' off when you're seeing me, do I make you nervous?"

He adjusted his collar a little and shook his head. "Of course not, but you know me," he grinned. "I never stick around in one place too long."

"Too bad," she pouted with a slight feral smile. "I wish you would."

"Take good care of her," he looked at Marian. "I will be checking up on you, both."

"Oh sugah," she drawled again and tapped her lips with a finger. "I'm Hope darlin' not some new baby to the job, she'll be fine. You come along with me honey and we'll get you some new clothes, those look awful if you don't mind me saying so."

Before Marian could thank Nicholas Winter or even say goodbye to him, he stepped back and left Hope and the woman to their own devices. He was back on the star-path, he was determined to return to Pandora and tell her about Marian's fate and the second chance she'd been given - it was the best he could do on such short notice. He was only an Angel after all compared to Hope, who'd been the last one out of a certain famous box.

[Witcher Wolf]

Part Eight: A Trio of Interconnected Events

"The city's a flood and our love turns to rust. We're beaten and blown by the wind - trampled in dust. I'll show you a place high on a desert plain. Where the streets have no name" ~ U2: The Joshua Tree (Where the Streets Have No Name)

Whisper City had always been a catalyst; it was in many ways akin to the great cities of the past: Rome, Alexandria and Athens to name but a few. It was always there in the background since it had been built, a hub of events that were mundane or supernatural. The grandest of all was yet to play out after the Event, but the time of such things was drawing near.

The Jacker was the first sign, there would be others. Celestial intervention was at an all time high and out of the ashes of the old, a new order of things had been put in place. The two great corporations, Heaven PLC and Hell INC were caught in an uneasy but amicable truce; it was good for business that way.

There was a shuffle coming up in the direction of Fate, which was one force regardless of the concept that had always got their finger in the pies of the Universe. It didn't matter what dimension you were in, what time you came from, or if you preferred tea to coffee, Fate was always watching and always willing to play the next card right down on the table.

Rosalita Mendez had been pissed off tonight, she'd had a run in with an old boyfriend and found out he'd been cheating on her whilst they were together. It never did her mood good to find out things like that, so she'd gotten on her custom bike and ripped off through the shadows and lights of Whisper City.

Screw the helmet and screw protective measures, if she died tonight, she didn't care. There were worse ways to go and the two bottles of wine she'd consumed didn't make her head any clearer. She was stupid to drink and ride, but she wasn't exactly thinking straight. People do stupid things when they get riled.

She never saw the guy in the hooded jacket until it was almost too late to miss him; he'd stepped out of nowhere right across the path of the bike. He didn't even look at her with a mix of fear and terror; he just looked right at her as she swerved to avoid him.

She hit the front of a big truck at over two hundred miles an hour, it wasn't pretty and it didn't even dent the truck. The bike was wrecked and Rosalita, well, it would be prudent to say that she made a nice ornament on the front of Johnny Death's pride and joy.

Two seconds passed before Johnny decided to hit the brakes, the truck screeched to a halt in a swirl of black smoke from the tyres and left a quarter of an inch of flames behind the wheels.

"Shit," he said and looked out the window. "Did I just hit a fuckin' bug?"

Frankie whirred into life and his teeth clacked open and closed. "No man," he snickered. "You just offed some biker chick, pretty one too."

"Crap," Johnny climbed out of the cab and dropped down on the ground with a thump of his heavy boots, he stomped a cockroach as he landed and completely ignored it. "How am I gonna get the blood out of the grill Frankie?"

"You could try summoning a water demon for a jet wash?" the skull wasn't joking.

"Sweet," Johnny thought about that and liked the idea. "It might work, have you got any spells for that shit?"

"Nope," the skull actually managed to look somewhat sheepish, which was a curious thing considering Frankie had no way of actually showing expressions.

"You're a real help buddy."

"I try homes."

"Don't start that shit with me again."

The big bounty hunter poked at a sticky patch with his finger, he sniffed the blood and winced. "Human," he grumbled. "Oh the CIA is going to have my ass for this one, but for once, it's not my God damn fault."

"She swerved man, right into you."

"Yeah," Johnny agreed and knelt down; the corpse (or what was left of it) stank really badly of expensive wine. "She'd been drinking too."

"There you go," the skull sounded pleased. "You got nothing to worry about man, you're in the clear. Nice bike though, well, it was."

"Custom job," Johnny thought he'd seen it somewhere before. "Must be a comic book geek or something," he concluded.

Rosalita Mendez blinked a couple of times and looked down at her hands, she was still alive. She marched right up to Johnny and stood before him, right in his face.

"Hey asshole," she yelled. "Where'd you fuckin' learn to drive?"

He looked right through her and worse than that, started poking around at something on the front of his truck. She followed him, "Hey fuckface?" she bitched. "I'm talking to you, yeah, you."

Frankie watched her with a rigid grin of amusement; he pondered making a comment but left things as they were for a while. Johnny couldn't see her, he was too busy. He crossed the road, tore down a street sign that said: STOP and used it to scrape the rest of the woman's mashed corpse off the grill.

Rosalita stopped mid-tirade as she recognised the body, the matted hair and the mashed in face. She looked down at herself and saw that beneath her feet thousands of tiny chains began to coil upwards, latching onto her boots and sneaking up her legs.

"Fucking hell?" she yelled. "What the fuck is this shit?"

Frankie, not one for such harsh language drifted over to a spot about six feet to Johnny's side and hovered before her. "Hey," he said companionably. "You're using too many curse words baby, lighten up."

Rosalita freaked at the sight of the floating, flame-eyed talking disembodied skull and screamed a torrent of abuse; the chains became thicker and much quicker now.

"Hey," the skull shouted. "Stop swearing bitch, all right?"

Rosalita looked at him and clamped down on a further torrent, she bit her thumb instead and gave him the royal V.

"Cute," the skull replied and blazed a little more, for effect. "Ok, the real deal now sister. You keep on swearing and cursing, you're going to drag yourself down to the Pit and you don't wanna go there baby, trust me."

"Hell," she laughed. "I don't believe in Hell."

"Doesn't matter," Frankie was going to explain but left it open with a sneering tone. "It's not Hell, it's the Pit."

"Hey man," Johnny huffed as he threw one of the arms to the side of the road, "just who the fuck are you talking to?"

"The biker girl you managed to batter into ten thousand pieces dumb ass," Frankie turned his attention to the bounty hunter. "She's pissed, don't blame her."

"Oh," Johnny blinked and switched his vision to something else, he looked at her and snorted, "oh man, you, why you?"

"Why," she began, "me what? Hombre, you got a problem with me trucker-head?"

"You're that piece of ass I thought was a call girl," Johnny said smoothly and shrugged. "Sorry I killed you, but you should look where you're going."

"You fucking killed me?" the chains slithered further up her and now were waist high.

"Yeah," Johnny grinned. "You were drinking too, so it's really your fault. You know, we should swap insurance numbers and all, but where you're going - you don't need that kind of shit."

The big enormity of death suddenly hit her, but being Rosalita, she just shook it off. "So I'm dead, I can still kick your ass."

"I like her," said Frankie. "I definitely like her."

Johnny was about to say something else but there was another sound that drew his attention, the sound of a coach and horses. "Oh shit," he looked to Frankie. "We should go, the kid's here."

"No," Frankie chided sullenly. "We can't just leave her like this man, she's not right for down there."

"Hey," she hissed. "This chica is right here, or did you forget when you lost your balls?"

Johnny laughed uproariously at this and Frankie blazed in a mix of fury and indignation, the skull's eye-sockets burned ominously and he smouldered a little.

"Down there," Johnny pointed, "is where they hold the elimination matches, in the Pit of Souls."

"What the hell?"

"No," Johnny watched the coach and horses arrive, he tipped a wink to the driver and then answered Rosalita. "It's like a demonic club, run by the Underworld's mob bosses - you know, the Mafioso of demon-kind?"

"Ok," she didn't find that too hard to accept, after all, she was dead and there were chains crawling up and around who knows where by now. "You got my attention, how do I avoid it?"

"You can't," Johnny said with a note of resignation in his voice. "It just happens, you're stuck with it lady."

The door to the coach opened and Johnny stepped right by Rosalita, she looked at him and at the kid who stepped out.

"Ok," she said. "Who's that, little demon Mob boss, a tiny Tony Montana?"

Johnny laughed again and shook his head. "Nope," he pulled out a cigar; he knew the kid hated them. "That's Death baby, or baby Death."

"Shit ass world," more chains wound there way up her legs, they went for her arms but the child raised a finger and they slithered off into the ground. "Hey thanks kid."

"Don't thank me stupid," the boy replied. "I'm here to take you away with me."

"Don't listen to him babe," Johnny blew smoke in Death's face. "He can't take you anywhere."

"What is it with you people, can't I do my fucking job in peace?" the child stamped a petulant foot upon the floor. "You're as bad as cockroaches, only not as useful as the cock part."

"Touche dingbat," Johnny chewed on his cigar, he looked to the woman. "Just don't touch him or let him touch you."

"He's lying," the child said. "I don't know what he's told you before I got here, but I don't make toys of people's souls."

"Got the idea from Star Trek," Johnny said. "I hate Trekkies."

"Shut the fuck up Johnny," the boy rounded on him. "Or do you want me to shove that cigar up your arse so you blow smoke out of your ears when you go for a shit?"

Rosalita blinked, adults swearing were one thing, kids though. She'd have been slapped across the room when she was younger for that. "You punk kid," she said acidly. "I ain't going nowhere with you, not with a mouth like that."

"It's people like you," Death said to Rosalita, "that murder the English language."

"Shut your face kid," she snarled and took a step forwards, she was being goaded and it was working. "Or I'll slap you so hard."

"Go ahead," Death smiled thinly. "You're only going to make things easier for me, but then again, you already did. I mean, stupid must have been put in the dictionary to define you - next to W for Whore."

Johnny put an arm on Rosalita's shoulder and he felt the seething anger of her soul, she stopped in her tracks. "No," she spat. "A slap is too good for you."

In the blink of an eye what happened next shocked Johnny, delighted Frankie and sent tremors into the very nature of the Universe. Whilst the child looked on smugly sure his little game had worked the angry woman snatched something from Johnny's belt, one of his oversized guns.

She didn't even give the kid or the coachman time to react; the angry Rosalita pulled the trigger a total of six times: one for herself and five for good luck. The gunshots made a booming sound across the ether and slammed the child to the ground, a sort of ichor flowed thick and free from his body as he twitched on the floor.

"You little fuck," she snarled, "how'd you like that, call me a whore, call me stupid. Who's laughing now prick?"

"Holy shit," Johnny said when he could finally speak again. He snatched the gun back off her and added. "You're a damn good shot woman."

"Thanks," she snorted and tossed her hair. "He pissed me off." She looked down at the ground and noticed no more chains.
"You don't say," Frankie chuckled and flickered around her. "Damn girl, you just killed Death."

"Stupid punk," she replied. "If he was Death then I'm glad he's dead, stupid loud-mouth kids think they know everything. Posting shit on forums and in IRC channels about how shit works, they don't know shit."

"That's a lot of shit," Johnny laughed and stepped back from the woman. "You know there's just one thing."

"What?" she turned to look at him.

Johnny pointed as the coach, the driver and the horses melted into nothing - the world almost seemed to stop spinning for a moment and the collective energies of the cosmos held a singular breath for old time's sake.

"Oh damn," she sounded almost sincere. "Stupid ass coach and driver gone, what a shame, what the fuck is it with kids and shit like this?"

For a moment Johnny felt like he'd met his match and then an idea struck him, it was probably the backhanded tip that Fate had been promising for a while now. It was echoed in Nicholas Winter's spoken but only heard by few comment: Even Death can die.

"So you're the new Death then," Johnny laughed. "At least you're a hot chick in leather, now that's my kind of Death."

"Say what?" she said.

"You're the new Death, he or she or it, who kills Death," he quoted sounding like a Saturday Morning Preacher, "becomes Death, or some bullshit cosmic balance thing."

"Cool," he'd expected her to be amazed by the realisation, but for Rosalita, it was like being given a key to a whole brand new bike shop or working for Orange County Choppers.

"You sound pleased," he said and shrugged. "I thought you'd be all, emotional about it, cry and swear you know?"

"Nope," she answered and looked to her mashed up bike, a few seconds later it was back to being shiny and new. She even cleaned Johnny's truck for him. "I like it already."

Johnny looked at the bike and her, looked at the leather and the designs. "You sure you're not a comic book geek?"

"I hate those things man."

"It's just that," he began.

"I hate those things," she said intensely.

"Ok," he seemed mollified. "I'll believe you for now."

"Good."

"Better."

"Much."

"Glad we got that sorted."

Frankie looked back and forth between the two, he was of course capturing all of this for posterity and the odd big buck or two, if sold to the right network: Starr Media for instance.

A whine of sirens sounded a couple of blocks away; she looked at Johnny and Frankie, blew them both a kiss and climbed onto her bike. She put her hands on the handlebars and revved it, the growl sounded more ethereal now, sinister even.

"Boys," she smiled and tipped them a wink. "Rosa's got to go to work, don't be dumb now and get killed - just yet."

"Like a fish to water," Frankie said. "She's a natural."

"Yeah," Johnny sounded glum. "That's what worries me."

They piled into the truck and left the street with a sudden blare of sound as Johnny hit the horn, a few nearby windows shattered and some street lamps blew out as the big monster rolled away down the road picking up speed.

A 'Whisper City PID' van pulled up by the side of the road with a glare of lights and a scream of a siren. Out stepped Donovan White and Samantha Cross, Sam looked fresh in her crisp new uniform and long investigator's coat.

"I feel like some kind of Ghost busting FBI," she said to Donovan as she looked around. "Why are we here again?"

"We had a report of a big truck and a phantom coach, now which says to me, one of two things."

"It's a hoax or there's really a phantom coach?"

"Looking by those wheel marks," Donovan rolled his eyes. "Johnny Death's been through here."

"Sounds charming," Sam said and looked around for anything, she switched three vision modes and caught a trail in the ether. "Who or what is Johnny Death?"

"That's a question we've been trying to answer for years."

"I love a good enigma," she replied and knelt down. "He's not human is he?"

"No," Donovan answered. "That much we do know."

"Hey Donovan," one of the other officers called him over. "We've got an eye witness here; you want to speak to them?"

"Sure," he shrugged his shoulders and waved Sam over, she padded to where he was. "We've got someone who claims they saw it all."

"Should be fun, nut-job you think?"

"Could be, or it could be the genuine article."

"That'd be nice."

Samantha smiled a little. "It would, wouldn't it?"

The young officer led a man forwards in a ragged duffel jacket and a baseball cap, he had the look of a hobo about him, except the eyes weren't full of pain and agony or resignation at the only lifestyle Fate had allowed them - they were a sparkling dark brown and matched his slim cruel features.

"So you're the guy that claims they saw the whole thing?" Samantha asked him and fixed him with one of her vision modes.

He waved a hand, her vision flickered and she tapped an eye experimentally. "I am the person," he said in a soft near whisper. "I see a lot of things."

Donovan caught the gesture and redirected his attention, "Mister?" he asked.

"Tres," he said and his lips gave an almost feminine smile.

"Interesting name, Mr. Tres," Donovan felt somewhat unsettled now.

"Is it?"

Samantha looked at her new partner and back to the odd man. "So, are you going to help us or not?"

Tres seemed to take his time in answering this one, as if he were weighting the options and balancing them like small baubles or trinkets in each hand.

"Yes," he concluded after a full three minutes. "I'll help you."

Donovan had the feeling that this stranger's brand of help would turn out to be more trouble than it was worth, but at least it would provide Sam with an exciting first day to her new career - if she survived it.

[Witcher Wolf]

Part Nine: The first day of the rest of her career…

"Styling, you know you are styling. So turn to the mirror and blow yourself a kiss. It goes just like this. You've done it a thousand times. It's as easy as drinking wine, only now its blood." ~ Faith No More: Faster Disco

The slow steady trip-trap of footsteps echoed down the watery streets of the city, it was raining again. It always seemed to rain at the most opportune moments in Whisper City. A group of long shadows had descended since Sam and Donovan had spoken to the disturbing Mister Tres and left him to his own devices.

He stood by the slow-burning brazier that cast a shallow light upon the space beneath the bridge, played his hands amongst the flames and warmed them against the freezing night air. Of course it was all for show, he didn't really need to experience these mortal feelings.

Everyone under the bridge was there because he had willed it so; he was the cornerstone of the Universe and the axle upon which the wheels of reality spun. Many of the bedraggled souls that shared their living space, their hard-won whiskey or rotgut with him were there because it was their fate to be there.

He should know: it was his fate to be the embodiment of that relentless heart-beat force of creation. The eternal river that flowed between all living things and regardless of their notions of free will, he knew better. Rosalita's death came at his own direction, Samantha's appointment to her new post was his machination - all of it transpired because he'd set the programs running, the algorithms were ticking away quite nicely.

He'd called himself Mister Tres, for in truth he was not just one man, but a trio of beings all sharing the same form. Tres: trio, three. Oh how that amused him to the darkest abyss of his core. The master programmer that wrote the code of everyone's pre-appointed path in life, he allowed people to think that they had some deviation, they could avoid their pre-determined and pre-conceived role in events to come.

The game wouldn't be as fun then if they knew, he chuckled to himself and shared a dram of whiskey with a stubbly companion.

"S'cold tonight isn't it?" said the man, Albert Rosen; he'd been a lawyer at one time until his wife left him. He went slowly down the spiral of drink and drugs until he ended up being thrown out of his lovely house, losing his children and forgetting who he used to be. They called him Al' R down here amongst the rats and the bare-bones pickings.

"Cold enough to kill," Tres replied and shrugged his shoulders. "You know how it is Al' R, one of those things really. You snuggle up by this here fire and don't worry your self overly much about it Ok?"

"Yer a kind man, Mr T," he replied and hoisted a bottle in a brown paper bag. "A kinder man I's have never met before Sir."

If Al' R had of known it was Mr. T's fault he wallowed in self pity, an endless haze of alcohol fuelled miasma, he'd have likely given the man in the baseball cap a few more choice words than those spoken in true camaraderie and kindness.

Then there was Doris Berken, a bag lady down here under the bridge of sighs. She'd been a successful model at one point; her looks had been her biggest asset. A violent accident when she was twenty had robbed her of that means to make her money; she drifted from stardom and plummeted into a quick whirl of self-hating self-mutilation and degradation.

Now she could barely remember her own name let alone what day it was, she liked cats and big shiny metal things. She'd often steal anything with a hint of chrome upon it, because it was pretty. Perhaps somewhere in her head there was a link to her past where she had all of those things in abundance.

Tonight's Grand Theft saw her with a chromed hubcap from a nearby parked car.

Every soul down here could have traced their misfortune to the quietly spoken almost feminine toned Mister Tres, they thought he was gay of course with a voice like that. He didn't have a gender so to speak; not really, he preferred to consider himself a he for the purposes of this trip onto the world of mortals this time. Tomorrow he could be a she, as if it mattered.

The bridge was just off from where Rosalita had met her fate, where she'd taken the power of Death from the arrogant child. Tres was pleased with this, he was slightly less pleased with Samantha Cross' investigations around the event and as he watched the flames, it dawned on him that he really needed to take her mind off the death of Death, she needed to be sidetracked.

He opened a small cell phone and dialled something, a buzz sounded on the end, like that of a rapid quick-fire modem tapping out an intelligible low-high chorus of commands into his ear. He smiled a little and pressed send on the phone, there was an almost cheerful beep from the other end of the line and the Universe re-ordered itself a little, to accommodate him, he was such a very nice man after all.

The program rolled into life on the other end, a bank of monitors lit up and lines of C++ whispered quietly in the background.

Mister Tres left his warm spot to the bedraggled flotsam and jetsam of his career and stepped smartly away. He whistled a rendition of 'singing in the rain' and pulled his jacket around his shoulders as more precipitation splattered the streets and bore down from the sky above.

It was morning when the Whisper City PID van rolled on by and crept to a slow halt near the bridge, its dark windows under the haze of the first light looked like black glass eyes. The side slid back and Samantha Cross curled out of it, she pulled her coat about her and shivered in the chill air.

Donovan followed her and looked out at the scene before them. "Oh dear," he commented and stepped over to the first body.

Eight people, including the addled Doris Berken and the scruffy Albert Rosen lay strewn about the floor, they were lying in pools of their own blood and the grisly tableaux reminded Samantha of an abattoir or butcher's shop.

Albert had been neatly skewered upon the nearest iron safety rail at the edge of the road, the spike driven upwards under his jaw, penetrating the brain and out the top of his head.

"Poor bastards," Samantha sighed and bit her lip slightly; she thrust her hands into her pockets away from the cold air and stepped around the fallen. "I count eight?"

"Indeed," Donovan gathered up his willpower and closed his eyes, when he opened them again he looked beyond the street and into elsewhere. "None of them are Earth Bound," he sounded relived at this.

"Earth Bound," she echoed softly. "You mean like ghosts trapped to wander the mortal plane for eternity?"

"Or until someone releases them from their prison." Donovan answered flatly, "someone like me, or even you."

"Me?"

"Yes," he shook his head and dropped to one knee to examine a corpse. "I don't have time to explain it fully now, but once you figure out why they're trapped, you can usually undo it."

"Oh," she blew a breath of cold air out at the same time she shivered. "I get you."

"For example," even though he said he didn't have the time, he was of course being dramatic. "If the victims here had been Earth Bound, we'd have been able to solve their murder and that should have been enough to free them from their bound state."

"Ah," she smiled in understanding. "A get out of jail card for them, well, figuratively speaking yeah?"

"Pretty much," he replied, "though there are specific cases where it requires a ritual or spell to allow them to move on."

"Always a catch," she grinned a little, then looked around and that grin vanished as the sky tried to brighten.

She followed Donovan's lead now and moved quietly from one body to the next, she checked them for the faintest hope that someone might still be alive. There was nothing, they'd been dead for quite a few hours and some of them didn't need an autopsy to figure out how they'd been killed.

"Claws and teeth," Donovan said as she approached the body of Doris Berken. "This is not paranormal, but it's not normal either. I think I might have a clue what did it though."

Sam knelt down by his side and let her coat trail behind her. "Go on?"

"Nightcrawlers," he said with a snort. "To you though, you'd call them Vampires."

"Vampires," she said acidly. "Oh come on."

"Sam," he snapped. "You've seen some weird shit recently; Vampires exist, plain and simple. No amount of 'oh come on' will make that fact change."

"Bad accents and all," she sneered. "I mean, really, Vampires?"

"No," he stood up. "Not bad accents, no turning to bats, no turning to wolves and no bloody Bram Stoker's Dracula bullshit. Holy water, crosses, nothing."

"Ok I'm sorry I even asked," she put up her hand. "Jesus Donovan."

"Sorry," he smoothed back his hair irritated. "I just have it up to here with people failing to see the wood for the trees."

"I'll try to be a lot more open minded around you then, even if it kills me."

"Not being 'open minded' enough," he growled at the back of his throat, "got my last partner more than he bargained for."

Samantha's jaw opened and then closed with a snap, she turned her back on the man for a moment and collected her angry thoughts. "I said I was sorry Ok, let it drop."

"Fine," he grumbled. "It's just Sam, I like you, and I don't want you to go the way of Peter Drake."

She turned back to face him. "Peter Drake?"

"He was my friend. A talented man, but he was also the wrong person for the job. He thought it would be easy money, easy because he didn't have to believe in it. He didn't believe in God, or the Devil or anything like that. So if he didn't believe in it," he explained dully. "It wasn't real."

Something in Donovan's explanation hit a chord with Sam and she remembered her partner, she bit her lip again. "I didn't know," she smiled weakly.

"I don't often tell the story, people think I'm preaching," Donovan continued on as if it were a huge weight on his shoulders. "Peter Drake met the paranormal one night, he didn't believe in demons, until right before one ripped his head right off his shoulders and planted it on the top of a lamppost."

"I'm sorry," she said again. "What happened to Peter's ghost, spirit?"

"He met Death," Donovan rolled his eyes a little. "The kid took his soul and turned him into a toy."

"Christ," she muttered. "What a brat."

"Yes," Donovan looked askance for a moment and added. "So now you know."

"Vampires are real," she whispered. "I believe you, even though I don't want to."

"That's a start," he broke the uncomfortable atmosphere with a chuckle. "We sound like a couple of newly weds, arguing over where to place the dinner table or what shade of puce to paint the walls."

"Oh God," she coughed. "Don't…"

"Don't what?"

"Don't get me started on puce, I hate that colour."

Donovan pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a relaxed breath; he looked down at the body again and suppressed a gag reflex. "So," he broached the subject again. "Nightcrawlers as we call them, they're the real Vampires."

Sam stopped laughing and her face slipped into a mask of seriousness, as much as she tried to paper over the fact she found it hard to accept they existed. "What do they look like?"

"You or me, until they display their true nature," Donovan explained. "Nightcrawlers can appear human, but really, they're just another kind of demon or being from elsewhere. Their proper shape is hard to define; they're like inky shadows with white-hot eyes and sharp claws and teeth."

"Ok," she nodded. "I can accept that, because if they looked like Christopher Lee or Bela Lugosi…I'm out of here."

"A lot of early Nightcrawlers put money into the movie industry, books and TV, to smokescreen the truth."

"I might have known."

"They're a little more concerned than the Moonies," Donovan cut himself off short; it wouldn't do to introduce Sam to everything all at once. "But we'll come to those later on."

"Moonies?" she couldn't help but inquire.

"Werewolves, anyhow," he pointed down. "We have eight counts of murder to solve and by the marks on her body; we need to look at local Nightcrawler gangs."

Samantha made a mental note to grill Donovan more about the Moonies at a later date, before she had a run in with something like that and ended up like Drake. "How'd we find that out?"

"You're a Detective, Detective, so what do you detect?"

She switched her vision modes through a range and stopped as she saw the faint traces of residual supernatural energy. "Oh," she blinked. "I see footprints, going over to that wall over there."

"Very good," Donovan smiled. "Those eyes of yours are more than just a pretty adornment then eh?"

"I'd hope so," she followed the tracks to the wall. "They cost quite a bit buddy."

"There was a car here as well," Donovan added to her investigation. "It left in quite a hurry."

"How'd you know?"

"Tire tracks, burnt rubber," he tapped his cheek under his left eye. "No fancy cyber-optics for me I'm afraid."

"So," she ignored that comment. "Detective, what do /you/ detect?"

"I'm glad you asked," he swept his white coat with an obvious flare for the dramatic. "The owners of this speeding getaway car, since the tracks lead to it on all sides, did for our victims and then left the scene of the crime sharpish."

"Eloquent," she frowned though. "How can you be sure?"

"In truth I can't," he admitted and shrugged. "But from the tire marks and the psychic resonance of the area, I can make a fairly basic deduction."

"You'd need more than that my dears," they both turned to the sound of Tres' voice. "My, my, my, what a mess, a real mess."

Samantha inclined her head and stepped off to one side, she began to call the crime in whilst Donovan dealt with their guest.

"Mr. Tres isn't it?" Donovan scanned him over with a couple of low level subtle enchantments, nothing flagged up, and he seemed human. "What can I do for you?"

"Tres," he smiled once again disconcerting Donovan in the process. "I saw the van, the bodies and I was compelled to see if I could offer any help."

"Ok Tres," Donovan raised a brow a little. "You like murders?"

"I don't care for them, but I don't dislike them," the odd man admitted. "Is that a crime?"

"I don't think so, but it's pretty creepy if you ask me."

"I could help; I could help you solve it?"

"The only way you could help," Sam shot back as she returned to stand by Donovan. "Mr. Cree, err, Tres," she smiled but it didn't reach her eyes. "Is if you happened to see something last night or this morning?"

"I see lots of things," he re-iterated with a boyish grin. "I'm good like that."

"You're sounding like a suspect," Donovan warned him.

"Am I now?" he shook his head. "I had nothing directly to do with it, I might have caused some animosity between the factions, but that's all."

"What?" Samantha narrowed her eyes and looked to her partner. "Ok buddy, start making sense before I haul you in and lock you up."

"I pointed out to the old woman," he gestured to Doris' body. "Since she likes to collect shiny things, there was a shiny hubcap on a car parked there. One thing led to another and the owners of the car were less than happy when she stole it."

"Well that was dumb," she replied, she really didn't like Tres at all.

"I don't think it's a crime, it was a simple mistake."

"One that cost eight lives you moron," she grabbed him by the lapel and shook him about. "But I guess you're too busy laughing right?"

He laughed a little. "You're feisty when you're angry."

"I should punch you out right here."

"Sam," Donovan said sharply. "Let him go, Mr. Tres is human and he's just a little unhinged," he didn't know how wrong he was on one count. "But he's telling the truth about the car."

She stopped shaking the man and stormed off a distance away, there was something that made her hate him so much, she didn't know why.

"Your partner should be very careful Donovan," Tres said with a hint of malice. "Her fate could be very nasty."

"Is that a threat?"

"No," Tres put up both his hands and smiled again knowingly. "I just know that fate can be a son of a bitch you know, you know that right?"

"No argument from me," Donovan had heard stories about the incarnation of Fate and how much that was true. "So, look, let's stop the bullshitting and talk facts?"

"Ok," Tres liked facts they were solid tools of his trade. "Nightcrawlers did it, I saw them."

"Now we're getting somewhere, any idea if it was a gang or?"

"They owned a car; I took a picture of it on my cell phone."

"Now that is helpful, can I see it?" Donovan waved Sam over with his left hand. "Come on, we've got a lead."

She walked back to Tres and stared at him with barely concealed hatred in her corporate-made eyes.

He flipped his phone and selected the picture, it was a custom black and silver Ford GTO with flames down the one side, Donovan guessed they'd mirrored the design on the right hand side as well.

"Pretty distinctive," Sam said to her partner. "Do you have any idea who might own it?"

"Nightcrawlers," Donovan said and shrugged. "Do you mind sending me that over the Mage-Net Mr. Tres?"

"No," he said and flicked the phone over in his hand. "Do you have an address I can send it to?"

Donovan gave him one of his addresses and eventually his own cell phone bleeped into life, displayed the picture and a smiling face as the Transfer-Spirit winked out on the screen.

"Thanks."

"I hope it makes your lives interesting," Tres said and began to walk off. "I'll be around again when you really need my help."

"Thanks," Sam answered with a snort. "I think."

"So now we have a lead, odd that." Donovan watched the man in the baseball cap vanish off into the area under the bridge.

"I don't like him."

"Nor do I," Donovan steered Sam's eyes back to the phone. "We hit the custom car garages and start asking around don't you think?"

"Yeah," she turned away from Tres, "anything to keep me from wanting to put a bullet between the smug bastard's eyes."

"Me too," he looped his arm around his partners waist and directed her towards the PID van, an overly familiar gesture she thought, but didn't mind.

In a roar of a deep grumbling engine the van screeched away from the scene and wound its way into Whisper City, into those spaghetti-like streets and the throng of people.

Mister Tres watched them both leave and smiled a little smile; he liked helping people, almost as much as he enjoyed watching them die. He was the best and brightest un-touchable serial-killer that had been alive for aeons, his plots and plans could take hundreds of years to enact and when they happened you had Civil Wars, World Wars, famines and other world-shaking events.

Then again he could reach out and touch someone, a day, a minute, an hour or a year later (however long he wanted) they could drop down dead. Be knifed in a street fight, run over by a car or fed to a pack of crocodiles because they discovered a secret they shouldn't really have.

It was in their fate, and Fate was a bastard.

[Witcher Wolf]

Part Ten: Crawling in the Dark

"There's something inside me that pulls beneath the surface, consuming/confusing what is real. This lack of self-control I fear is never ending, controlling/confusing what is real." ~Linkin Park (Crawling in my Skin)

Sam and Donovan spent three whole days going from car workshop to chop-shop trying to find a lead on this custom GTO. Everywhere they went they found the same dead ends and brick walls, people either clammed up or didn't know about it. It was nearing the end of the third day when they found a streak of good luck. They were driving down one of the back alleys of Whisper when they spotted a car being pulled into a nearby garage.

Donovan skewed his own vehicle around and slipped it into a nearby parking-zone. He climbed out and leant on the car. "See that?"

"Yeah," Sam flicked her eyes into a binocular zoom mode and picked out three possible heat signatures on IR. "I spot three of them, the car has no plates Donovan and it's got that 'hot' look about it."

"Shall we?"

"Oh I'd love to bust someone's ass," she grumbled and cricked her knuckles. "I'm a good cop but there's times when you're on a wild goose chase, you just want to cut through all this bullshit red tape."

"There are other ways," Donovan chuckled a little softly and closed his car door. "Come on then, we shall go and say hello."

Sam followed him as he made a beeline for the cruddy alley. He walked with a definite purpose in his step and that long coat made him look good, like a white knight or something. She chuckled to herself and wondered what his policy was on dating a partner.

Those were bold thoughts for someone who had described herself as a self-confessed Ice Bitch.

It was another dour afternoon in the city as they closed in on the youths; they wore the typical colours of a local street gang: The Lost. Their clothing was various shades of black and silver and they sported the logo, a simple iconic skull against a Z. The skull was on a black circle picked out in white, the Z picked out in silver and there was a red line all the way around the circle.

They were not expecting company and the sight of the man and woman put them into knee-jerk reaction mode. In a chorus and flurry of opened jackets Sam and Donovan found themselves acquainted with several high-power and high-calibre handguns.

"Get lost meat-sacks," the one said. He was a tough looking kid with a sharp set of features, all white hair and a scar across his right eye. "If you know what's good for you."

"Ok people," Donovan spoke with the voice of authority. "No need for any sudden stupid and rash moves."

"We'd hate to have to happen to you kids," Sam added and patted her own fitted long coat. "I bet we've got more experience than you punks put together."

"Now, now Sam," Donovan gave her a wary smile. "Books and covers, it's not always what it first appears to be."

"You'd best listen to your friend lady," the others remained silent but white-hair spoke again. "If you know what's good for you."

"You already said that last part," she said snidely.

"You're pissing me off," white-hair's finger twitched on the gun's trigger.

Sam felt her reflexes start to quicken; she brought various thought-activated systems online and watched the internal HUD readouts as they started to kick in. She twitched her head from side to side as if limbering up for a main event at the Olympics.

"Your friend Ok meat-sack," the white-haired kid looked her over. "Is she tripping?"

"I suggest you put the guns away boys," Donovan kept one eye on Sam Cross and the other firmly on these three kids. He could sense they weren't just regular punks, they were Nightcrawlers and that could be a whole world of trouble if things went bad. "Or I have a word with Max."

"Screw Max," white-hair snorted and looked to the looming tower of the city. "He doesn't own the Lost, he'd like to, but we're better than him."

"Bold words for a walking corpse," Donovan shot back and narrowed his eyes. "Look kid. You might think you have the balls to take two on three, but trust me you don't want to go there."

"We're more than a match for ten of you meat-sacks."

"If Max knew you were out here playing hooky from the fold, he'd gut you, skin you and use you for a beach towel." Donovan was starting to lose his cool with the cocky punk. "Put the guns away now."

The white-haired kid shoved his fingers into a V shape and shook his head. "Stuff you meaty," he laughed. "You don't have the brass ballies to even stand by my scrote-sacks."

Sam opened her mouth to say something but she shut it again. "Ok," she pulled out her badge. "Whisper City Police, Paranormal Investigation Division, you're all under arrest for violating the peaceful co-existence code 817."

"Impressive," Donovan nodded. "You've been doing your homework."

"Aw fuck man, cops," one of the others said and his gun went back into his jacket. Seeing his friend do the same another of the punks followed suit. "We don't want any trouble," he looked like he might run.

It was all down to the white-haired kid. He looked at the badge and the woman; he looked at the guy in the long coat and sneered. "What's a couple of PID meat-sacks going to do against me eh? I'm a fucking Crawler, you know what that means?"

"Oh," Sam crooned. "Please enlighten us, we'd love to know."

"It means I can move faster than you could ever think about with your shit human body bitch, reach into your rib cage and rip out your heart. Then whilst you're wondering what's going on, I'm going to piss in the hole."

"Nice," Donovan clapped a little.

"Shut the fuck up you, I'm going to get to you next."

"I can't wait."

"After I'm done with her I'll skull-fuck you and use your damn balls for ping-pong."

"I'm amazed," Donovan said acidly. "All of that from a bunch of films and comics, not to mention TV. You have had an education."

The sorcerer heard the slight flex in the kid's trigger finger and he snapped his palm up and outwards.

"What do you think you're going to do with your palm man, Kung Fu me to death?" the white-haired Nightcrawler laughed. "Can your Kung Fu stop a bullet to the brain meat-sack?"

Donovan didn't smile; he kept his right hand firmly towards the gun. "How about you put it away or I make your life a living hell for a change?"

"Donovan?" Sam's enhanced hearing had picked up on the slight change in the Crawler's finger.

"I'm Ok Sam," he said confidently. "I think you might want to keep the other two goons covered."

White-hair growled. He'd had enough of this bullshit and it was time to put these meat-sacks down. He pulled the trigger six times and all of them were aimed at Donovan.

Six puffs of smoke blew out of the barrel and six bullets crawled through the air towards the sorcerer. He stepped out of the line of fire. It wasn't that the scene was in slow motion, he moved normally and so did everyone else, the gun just seemed to have a problem firing at anything but a snail's pace.

"What's the matter?" Donovan said with a wry smile on his lips directed towards white-hair. "Did someone break the laws of physics?"

"What the fuck are you man?"

"I'm a man," he nodded and the bullets came to a halt as the youth fired again and again, it was quite a pretty pattern when his whole clip was arrayed in the air between them. They hung without motion just lazily turning slowly. "A meat-sack," he added. "Not like you amazing better than humans Nightcrawlers. I sit in my bed at night and wonder who's going to save me from the big-bad fang-face fucktards like you."

Sam chuckled at this and watched the obvious display of reality-bending magic. Donovan did things like this without the need for complex incantations and even whispered spell-like verbal commands.

"You can stop the fuckin' bullets, but I'm going to tear your throat out," the white-hair charged at the sorcerer and moved with incredible speed. He wasn't so much a blur; it was just hard to pick out where he was going to appear next. He was like mercury in the way he slithered from place to place.

Donovan tried not to swear too much, but even he had to say. "Fuck this," as he brought his hands together in a thunderous clap that lifted the two goons off their feet in a blast of sudden air and hauled the Nightcrawler out of his killer attack. White-hair was hurled backwards and deposited in the nearest pile of garbage. He spilt trash everywhere when he landed.

"That's got to hurt in a physical and mental sense," Sam noted and shook her head. "Kind of emasculated," she added, "if you ask me."

"Magical emasculation," Donovan winked and moved his hands once more; the trash swirled around and buffeted the three punks. They were ripped off their feet again and the mage asked politely. "I'd like to know who owns a custom Ford GTO with flames down the side. If I don't get the answers I'm looking for, someone's taking a gravity nap."

"Fucker," white-hair wanted to get loose and rip into the smug looking bastard in white. "I'm going to kill you."

"Ok," Donovan flipped his left hand up and the Nightcrawler shot upwards at some speed with a wail. "I warned you."

White-hair was thrown upwards into the air and felt a sudden rush as the buildings went past him. It was quite enjoyable to be honest and he didn't suffer the same frailties that humans did when subjected to more than tolerable speeds. He lost count of how long he'd been adrift through the clouds above him until he reached the edges of the atmosphere and felt the air thin.

That bothered him a little. He might have been a powerful killing machine that took sustenance from blood and psychic force, but even he had his limits. This wasn't funny any longer. His ascent slowed as if the mage down there sensed it.

"Do you two want to join him?" Donovan asked the other thugs and waved his right hand. "I can make it happen, just watch me."

"No, no," they said in unison. "We can get out of here now, we're not like him. He forced us into it."

"Yeah right," Sam said and snarled out a warning. "If I see you little punks around Whisper where you're not supposed to be, the cell I put you in will have worse than that…thing up there Ok?"

"Ok," they ran and left their guns behind on the floor. They wanted nothing more to do with their erstwhile missing companion.

"Nice," Donovan said and chuckled, "very convincing Sam."

"I meant it," she laughed. "I figure you could probably open Pandora's Box or something and let a monster out."

"Been there," he replied in a somewhat rueful manner, "done that."

"Seriously," she blinked a little.

"Seriously," he chuckled and waved his other hand. "I used to be a reckless sorcerer at one point. I almost opened that box, fortunately someone stopped me."

"That's good. I won't ask who."

"Thanks," he returned his concentration to the white-haired Nightcrawler. "He might be a more-than-human creature. He might think that he's immortal and therefore above the rest of the food-chain. He is however," the mage chuckled somewhat. "Not immune to being turned into sticky pavement pizza on the way down from his introduction to a lack of gravity."

"In other words," she said. "He can go splat."

"Splat," Donovan liked that. "Yes he can."

At this he brought his hand down and the Nightcrawler felt gravity pulling him back towards the ground. There was a sudden onrush of panic as he realised that the mage had put him up here for a reason. It wasn't to scare him by pretending to throw him into Outer Space, it was worse. He intended to smash him into the ground from tens of thousands of feet.

"Bastard!" he yelled as he fell. He could feel the sorcerer's invisible fingers yanking him down as well. The magic made him move at such a speed there was an almost sonic-like boom as he moved faster and faster.

"Was that him?" Sam winced as the boom echoed across Whisper City, "the boom?"

"Yes," the sorcerer grinned with a manic gleam in his eye. "I would say he's going to be travelling over Mach One by now. It could be quite exhilarating, if I do say so myself."

"How are you going to stop him?"

"Who says I'm going to stop him?"

"He's our only lead!"

"You might think that," the wily mage waggled his fingers. "But there's a chop-shop close to hand and a couple of out of work spirits that would probably trade information for a job in the Mage-Net."

"That's, mercenary," Sam noted and looked at Donovan again. He had shed some of that white image a little. He seemed a bit more tarnished, that only made him even more appealing. "He did try and shoot you though."

"Payback," Donovan turned his back on the white-haired Nightcrawler as he made sudden contact with the ground at such a high speed he spread out across it in a mix of blood, bone, shattered fragments and slivers of skin. To describe the impact in one word you could have used: splat.

"It'll be another mess for the clean-up crew," he said and sent a message via the Mage-Net to the PID HQ. It simply said: clean-up aisle seven. Then just after it he gave the proper address.

"Remind me never to piss you off partner," Samantha Cross shook her head and turned away from the horrific mess on the small road. "I'd hate to see your bad side."

"It's much darker than my good side," he replied and waggled his fingers a little.

Sam ducked out of reflex. "Don't do that."

"Sorry," Donovan smirked slightly and looked around the alley; he was looking into the ether with his attuned eyes. He spotted a shiver of a form just whispering past off to the right. "I'll be right back," he said to Sam.

"What?"

He gave her a wave and vanished from sight. He made the transition from where he was to the grey lands between life and death in the blink of an eye. The ghost in question was a sallow eyed young woman who seemed to be walking up and down the alleyway looking for something.

Sam blinked as Donovan did his vanishing act. One moment he was there and the next he was gone. She dialled up her different vision modes and finally found him using the ghost-sight that the optics company had promised would make her job in the force a lot easier should she ever apply to PID.

She'd laughed that day and told them not to bother. They'd insisted and she'd never used it, until now.

"Holy shit," she said as the outlines of both this woman and Donovan appeared on the interior of her optical eye replacements. "I don't believe it."

In the ether Donovan White approached the ghost, she was a young woman in her mid twenties and she wore the marks of her demise over her pretty green dress. A pair of tyre treads.

"Hello," he said as the woman's dead eyes focussed on him. "I know I am not supposed to be here."

"You aren't," she said and rubbed her ghostly temples. "You make my head hurt just being here, go away living-man."

"I can help," he said and stepped back out of the ghost's range. "Is that better?"

"Help me," she laughed. "Can you bring me back to life?"

"No," that would be forbidden and not allowed. "I can't do that, it's against the laws."

"Oh," she said and began to walk off.

"I can offer you a better place though. A job in the Mage-Net," he opened his coat and brought out a white parchment, there was silver writing upon the surface and it gleamed with a soft light. "It's a Mage-Net contract, yours for the taking if you can help me with a small enquiry."

The ghost gave it a hungry look and she swirled a little closer. "Is that real?"

"Yes," Donovan waved it. "I can give it to you if you can tell me if you've seen a particular car?"

"Describe it to me?" she seemed suddenly interested in the idea of the vehicle, perhaps it was interconnected with her death.

Donovan picked out the photograph from inside his pocket and proffered it to the spectral woman. "A modded Ford GTO I think."

She hissed at it and the edges of her spirit became ragged with a kind of anger. "That car," her eyes went white-hot. "Why do you want to find it?"

"It's wanted evidence in a murder investigation," he said truthfully.

The anger in her eyes lessened and the spectre seemed to be somewhat appeased. "I know that car," she replied softly. "It killed me."

"That's a stroke of," Donovan didn't finish his first thought. "Very bad luck," he changed it.

The ghost frowned and gave him a sliver of a nod. "You could say that."

"Do you know where that car went or where I can find it?" Donovan said with an air of hope in his voice. "I might be able to do something about the people who killed you."

"Oh you will," she answered him and her eyes began to burn again. "I tell you where to find that car and you bring them to justice. I can go free."

"That offer to the Mage-Net is still open, I meant it."

"I'd like that," she was once more distracted by the silver-white contract in his other hand. "I've been trapped here for too long already. Three years now."

"Well if you can do your thing," Donovan felt his time on this plane coming to an end. "I'll be out of your hair and you can have this."

"Fine," she whispered and her eyes went dim once more. The ghost seemed to turn her soul's vision outwards and after a minute she spoke again. "They go to a nightclub regularly to pick up girls they can use as fodder," she narrowed her gaze. "You'll find the address on the back of your photo."

Donovan flipped it over and nodded. "Thanks," he gave the ghost the scroll and stepped back. "You earned it. I'll do my best to see they get what they deserve."

"I know you will," the ghost took the scroll and there was a shimmer of energy. She left that plane just as Donovan popped back into the land of the living before a confused Samatha Cross.

"Where the hell did you go?"

"Long story, I'll tell you in the car. We've got a lead, the Copa Rabana Nightclub. It's where these jokers hang out."

"How'd you find that out?"

"Oh a ghost of a murdered woman told me, she was pretty annoyed since it happened to be the same car that killed her."

"Lucky," Sam noted and began to make her way back to Donovan's vehicle, "or perhaps something else."

On the 'something else' statement Donovan nodded and he thought or Mr. Tres. "You're thinking that our new friend might have something to do with it?"

"I don't know," Sam still couldn't shake the feeling that he was somehow involved. "I think there's more to him than he's saying."

"Oh wait a second," Donovan turned to the bullets still hanging in the air and waved his hand, they vanished with a whisper of light. "I forgot those for a moment."

In the shadow of another alley, Mr. Tres watched his little game continue and smiled a broad smile. Yes, these two were the best players yet. He'd have to think of a suitable reward as long as they kept him happy. He did so love a good magic show.

[Libby]

Can I just give this a heads-up and encourage peeps to read it...c'est fantastique! ;D

[Witcher Wolf]

Thanks Libby. I'm getting there with the update...trying not to post too much at once, then again of course...I need to get to part 12!

[Witcher Wolf]

Part Eleven: At the Copa Rabana

"Her name was Lola, she was a showgirl. But that was 30 years ago, when they used to have a show!" ~Barry Manilow (At the Copa)

By the time they got the authorisation and waded through seemingly miles of red tape, it was nearly midnight. Both Sam and Donovan were pretty exhausted mentally and they sat in Donovan's car across from the club. The Copa Rabana was a fairly big place and tonight it was lit up like a bonfire with neon lights and glowing windows. A slow steady beat of Industrial music thumped from within.

"So," Sam looked out of the window and at the club. "How are we going to do this?"

"We'll play it casually, at first." Donovan smiled thinly. "Then, if they provide too much trouble for us, we'll play it rough."

"How rough?" she watched her breath mist against the cold glass.

"Be prepared for a fight."

"Do I get to cut loose?"

"You'll probably have to," the sorcerer seemed to be amused at Sam's willingness to test her mettle in there. "They're faster, quicker and tougher than anything you've ever faced before."

"Sounds like my kind of party."

Both doors opened on the car and they got out, Donovan's long coat swished as the ends trailed almost to the floor. Sam had changed into a tight number with a dark jacket thrown over the top; her gun was packed neatly inside in a quick-release holster. It was time to get this show on the road.

They crossed towards the club and were met by two heavy set bouncers, both men looked nearly identical and Sam ran them through her HUD eye optics, they checked out clean, a few citations for unruly behaviour and one minor charge of GBH levied two years ago from an irate customer, not exactly ball-breaking misdemeanours.

"You can go in free of charge babe," said the one on the right, his nose had been bent at an odd angle. "Your friend's going to have to pay double."

Donovan laughed and drew out his cred-card, he made a quick gesture with two of his fingers behind his back. "That's ok pal," he said in a thick accent. "I don't mind paying for such a cute ass to get in."

"Your friend's got a good heart," the other bouncer commented. "It might get him killed in there, we play rough some nights."

"Thanks for the warning," Sam blew the idiot a kiss and wondered oddly why the two men didn't check them for weapons; they didn't even bother to pad them down.

"Have fun sweet cheeks."

She gritted her teeth as she swayed into the area beyond, rolled her eyes. She hated that term, it made her want to punch things.

"Good self control," the sorcerer chuckled softly. "But you do have a fine backside."

"Focus please," she blushed somewhat. "I'd prefer you kept your mind on the job and not my ass."

"Of course," Donovan put his arm around her waist. "We have to keep up appearances."

Yes! She thought and smiled widely. This was the kind of undercover work she was looking for, she had a little smidgeon (read: massive flame) of a torch for Donovan White and it wasn't just the accent either. "Lead on then, sugar." She adopted a southern twang, just like Hope's.

"One thing," she leaned in close to him.

"Yes?"

"Why weren't we padded down?"

"Ah," he grinned wickedly. "That my dear is a trade secret, one I'll explain later."

Sam gave him a little pout and then fixed her eyes on the door, she watched Donovan push it open and they were slammed by a wall of sound, it was so intense that she had to dial back the audio in her custom ear-filters. The peak meter on her HUD went crazy for a while.

"Shit," she felt like throwing up. "They're pumping some serious bass here."

"Tell me about it," Donovan's nose wrinkled a little and he swept his gaze across the room. "They often push out more than is legal as defined by the health guidelines, usually to disorientate their prey and make it easier to do what they do."

"What is it they do, drink blood?"

"No," the sorcerer whispered softly, yet Sam could hear him perfectly over the music. "They drink something else."

She made a face and wondered what the hell they could possibly survive on, other than the Hollywood image of red fanged terror. "I don't think I want to know then."

"Trust me, you'll find out," he guided her to a space on the dance floor and turned her head as he began to dance. "Keep an eye on the guy to the far right, the sleazy looking gimp in the pinstripe suit."

"I hate him already."

"You'll hate him even more in a few seconds."

The mark in the suit moved like a predator through the crowds, he zeroed in on a young guy who was obviously throwing himself into the music a little more than he should have been, he was gyrating wildly and didn't seem to mind when the suit-guy slipped in by the side of him.

"Is that one of them?"

"Oh yes," Donovan edged a little closer, he spun Sam around a little too so she had a better view.

The guy in the suit seemed to get the young male dancer's attention and it wasn't long before Sam knew where it was going, they were a little too close and the other didn't seem to mind at all.

"Watch," said Donovan in a whisper once more. "Don't take your eyes off the guy in the suit, especially on a spectral level."

She blinked, that blinked clicked her custom optics into a different view mode. Now she saw what the sorcerer meant, the suit guy was picked out in a deep vermillion to her enhanced eyesight. The dancer had a vibrant blue aura; he moved in close and put his hands on the suit guy's shoulders.

Just when it seemed they might exchange a kiss, the aura on the dancer dipped down and winked out. It was as though all the vibrancy and energy had been sucked from his soul, he dropped into the suit guy's arms and the man just handed him off to a waiting bouncer.

"Just like that," Donovan said and narrowed his eyes. "He'll turn up in the harbour tomorrow, no sign of foul play."

"He's dead?"

"Yes," the sorcerer answered. "As cold as stone by now, his heart stopped, his body just shut down. Every tiny bit of that poor bastard's life force just got vacuumed up in an instant."

"They feed on souls, on life?"

"You got it in one!"

"That's terrible."

"Normally they can draw enough sustenance from the very fabric of creation, but bastards like this prefer the hit that comes from sucking out a human soul," Donovan moved closer to the guy in the suit, he was doing his own predatory walk, a hand here and there on the shoulders and backs of the crowds parted them like waves before a speedboat.

Sam took this as her cue; she brought her reflex boosters online, redlined every one of her custom enhancement modifications and prepared to let them kick in at a moment's notice. Donovan had been the lead on a lot of her first few steps but by the way he didn't caution her, the training wings had come off.

One of the security guards for the club spotted the sorcerer under the UV lighting, Donovan's trademark white coat didn't make it too hard. He lifted his radio to his lips and said something, Sam couldn't quite make it out, but it didn't seem good.

"Excuse me," the sorcerer reached the middle aged guy in the suit. "You're under arrest for murder." He tapped his coat and the PID badge slinked into being pinned to his lapel. "Give me a reason to air you out mother fucker."

The guy in the suit, Dietrich Steiner didn't seem surprised; he just licked his lips and sucked a breath in through his teeth. "I don't think so," Steiner was a heavy set man, slightly thinner than normal but he had a lot of muscle and pumped as he was from the young dancer's life, he shoved the sorcerer away hard.

Donovan went backwards and shot across the dance floor, he landed in a heap at the feet of a couple of women in mini-skirts, they kept dancing and he kept his eyes firmly fixed to the nightcrawler that just pushed him away.

"Bad move my friend," the sorcerer snarled and stood up, he dusted off his coat and spoke a single word. The floor rippled and everyone was forced back from him as if an invisible wall sprang up and moved outwards. Several dancers were knocked off their feet and it caused a widespread panic, this is exactly what Donovan wanted.

Sam looked down at the mass of tangled limbs and stepped over someone's arm, she hadn't been forced off her feet unlike some of these people. It gave her somewhat of a chance to scope out the area and her eyes fell with a serpent's gaze onto Dietrich, she broke into a run and bore down on him like an eagle in a killer dive.

Other nightcrawlers and security were homing in on the pair now; the dispersed crowd gave them a better view of the situation. Guns were drawn and through the mist and smoke from the various machines, red lines began to dot the floor pinpointed from balconies high above.

Sam's reflexes kicked in as she released the mental safety catch, her world turned into a blur as a series of tactical and target computers whirled in behind her eyes. The human mind might not be able to react quickly enough to allow her to dodge bullets; she didn't have to worry about that. Her body and mind were augmented by the latest that nano-technology could offer in the best clinics of Whisper City.

Statistical probability computers ran simulations based on the room, all in a blink of an eye and as the first of four gunmen opened fire they found their target had already zigged-zagged to the left, turned to the right and slid past a pepper-shot of blasted plastic tiles on the dance-floor.

Sam's gun snapped out of her holster and her boosted reflexes made the four single shots seem like they happened in a nano-second. The four gunmen fell down; each one had a perfect bullet hole in their forehead as they dropped at the same time: the enhanced cop's aim was perfect.

Donovan was impressed; he hid a smile as he faced the nightcrawler Deitrich. He was about to unleash something particularly nasty from his fingertips. Sam didn't give him chance, she was in combat mode and before the sorcerer could utter a single word incantation she punched Steiner right in his nose. He took this moment to slip into the cover of the smoke.

The nightcrawler's enhanced speed and toughness was no match for the woman, she had boosted herself up and over max tolerance, her senses were on fire and her body screamed as the nano-tech controlled every inch of it. There was a mix of pain and pleasure there, a euphoria brought about by the synergy of technology and tissue. The creature's nose broke in two places and he was bowled off his feet by the force of the blow.

He tried to right himself and he got about half way to his feet before Sam was on him again, her right foot caught him just under the jaw and jarred his senses as he reeled backwards. He blinked and saw the woman again, she wouldn't let up. He went on the offensive this time and called on the supernatural to help him, to flood his being with the stolen essence from the young dancer.

He moved and caught Sam by the throat; he was going to steal her soul as well. All it took was a few moments of prolonged contact and it would all be over, how dare the bitch come into his club and start shit. He didn't care if her buddy was a cop, if she was a cop, it was his club.

Blood ran down his lips and he licked it, he hated the taste of his own. It was a mark of failure and he needed to establish the pecking order, with cops at the bottom.

Sam felt some of her strength leave her, so she replaced it with nano-fuelled artificial power. Her neck tightened against his grip as her body began to rebel, pushing more synthetic material to replace the bruised and damaged tissue there. Tiny machines worked to repair the skin on a molecular level and injected fibres into her muscles and bones, fibres that increased the tolerance of her body.

"Hands off!" she hissed and brought both her arms up, one latched onto his arm and broke the wrist in three places, the other punched him clean in the gut and knocked him back six feet.

The rest of the security detail and the nightcrawlers didn't know what to do, they were down four men and this woman just broke out of their boss' death grip. They took a look for Donovan and found he was nowhere to be seen, he'd slipped out of sight. In truth White had done exactly that, he'd brought to mind a quick invisibility spell and popped out of phase so he didn't disturb the smoke.

He was advancing on them all high on the catwalks, walking along the edge of the balcony.

"Shit," one of the security detail said. "Where'd the other one go?"

"Fucked if I know," another replied.

Meanwhile Steiner was trying to right himself again; he was in tremendous pain from the broken nose and wrist. The nightcrawler couldn't stop this damn hellcat and his guards weren't able to even hit her.

"What do you want from me bitch?"

"You're under arrest," she said formally and drew her gun. "For the murder of," her HUD did a check on the young dancer. "Lewis Pointer."

"I didn't kill anyone, you can't prove a thing," Dietrich remained fairly cocky even though he felt as though he'd been put through a grinder.

"I can," she said smugly. "Spectral analysis footage is admissible as evidence in a Court, but you and I know you're not going to come quietly."

"You can't," he was suddenly afraid, something in those fake eyes of hers sent a bolt of fear right through him. "I have rights." He watched her move a switch on her gun.

"You had the right to remain silent," she depressed the trigger and hoped the gun Donovan gave her did its job. It was lethal against humans; he said it would be doubly-so against nightcrawlers.

"No," he tried to use his augmented speed to shift to the side, but Sam's own tactical processors picked that as the most likely place he'd run to based on body movement and position. He jumped right into the gunshot, as it struck him in the upper chest he felt something pop inside. The bullet was hollow?

It was a specially treated round, inside the actual bullet there was a small thermite-like explosive liquid that burned brightly and intensely for several minutes when it made contact with any kind of liquid. That's what Donovan had said to her, the bullet was augmented a little with what he described as enchantment: A fancy word for some kind of spell that made the natural word sit up and dance a bigger and better jig.

In the case of the thermite liquid, it burned hotter and brighter than ever. Dietrich was consumed in a sudden bright conflagration that turned him into a pillar of fire as mundane and magical mixed at the core of his being. His scream was long, painful and loud.

Donovan appeared perched before one of the younger crawlers; he smiled at the boy and winked. "Hello my friend," he was almost conversational as he hopped down off the railing. "I wouldn't do anything stupid; we don't want to kill every single one of you now do we."

The nightcrawler panicked and pointed a gun. "Leave me alone man," he backed off towards the stairs. "I didn't do nothing."

"Anything," Donovan corrected and walked past the four remaining bodyguards, he looked at them as he did so. "No sudden moves, you're under arrest. Unless you feel like cooperating, then we'll work something out."

The four men met his gaze and they put down their guns, they didn't want a fate like the boss.

"We're good," said the first guard. "We don't need this."

"Good idea," Donovan smirked and followed the nightcrawler down; his friends had retreated into the sealed office by now and shut the door. One of the slats on the shutter opened a little so they could see.

"It looks like your friends," the sorcerer gestured towards the office. "Have abandoned you, what kind of pack is that eh?"

"Fuck em," the crawler looked for a way out, he heard a dubious click by the side of his head and turned to stare right down the barrel of Sam's gun. "Oh shit."

"Hi," Sam crooned and winked. "I have an itchy finger so you need to tell Mr. White what he wants to know, or, you'll be doing an impression of a matchstick, like," she waved her free hand at the smouldering ashes.

Dan Luvosi was one of those kids who'd been given a great gift, abused it and turned to medication to stop the nightmares. He'd been a borderline psychic and perfect to turn into a crawler, the pack had picked him because he'd got some latent precognitive ability. Right now, Dan's precognitive skills told him, Sam was serious.

"I'm going to ask you a few questions concerning a custom GTO and the pricks that like to butcher homeless people," Donovan replied conversationally. "If I like the answers you can go, if I don’t."

"I get the picture," Dan said and twitched a little at the cold metal against his temple. "I seriously get the fucking picture."

"Good."

"Question one," the sorcerer smiled. "Were you there?"

"If I lie," Dan turned his head slightly. "I'm dead right?"

"You could try lying," Sam whispered.

"I think one of you'd know," he wasn't sure which one scared him more.

"That would be me," Donovan rested a hand on the crawler's shoulder. "Dan," he used the guy's first name and then added. "Sorcerers like me have ways of making a crawler's death, very interesting."

"Crap," Dan hated magic and he hated sorcerers. "I hate you guys."

"I don't hate crawlers, not all of you, just the arrogant pricks that think they have the right to butcher helpless people and suck the life out of innocents for kicks," he didn't smile this time and he folded his arms. "So Dan, I ask you again: were you there?"

"No man," the crawler didn't lie. "I was here in the club; one of the kids got herself roughed up by a local ganger. So I was kind of looking after em."

"You got this one?" Sam said, suddenly aware of the rest of the club. The music had stopped and the people cowered, they didn't know quite what to do. "I need to restore order."

"I'm fine."

Sam went off and wandered away from the two of them, she began to reassure the club goers that it was ok, they were not in any immediate danger and she explained a little of the bust. On the whole most people were happy with the explanation, she got a couple of idiots who threatened to sue and so on, she directed them to the PID complaints department on the Mage Net and left it at that.

Meanwhile Donovan sat on the steps. "Ok kid," he rubbed his chin. "So tell me who was."

"What did they do?"

"They killed a group of homeless, ripped them apart and staged quite a massacre, not very polite of them."

"No shit," Dan sighed a little. "Its bitches like them that give fuckers like me a bad name."

"They do."

"Got a pen?" Dan reached over and took up a flyer from the floor. "I can give you names and addresses. They'll have flown by now."

"I know," the sorcerer smiled. "I've a better idea; you just relax and think of them."

"Ok," Dan winced and closed his eyes; he felt Donovan put a hand on his shoulder again. He thought hard about the gang and shivered as he felt something at the back of his head. "I hate this shit."

"So do I," Donovan quipped. "I mean who wants to crawl around in an unwashed mind?"

"You're a regular laugh a minute," Dan replied and blanched a little. "Are you done man?"

"Yes," Donovan had everything he needed and he stood up. "It's time we had a little chat with these bastards, thanks Dan, you can go."

"Really?"

"Yeah," the sorcerer gestured to the back door. "Just lay low for a while and hope they don't find you before I nail them."

The crawler was gone the moment the sorcerer said that, he fled out of the back door and let it crash shut behind him. Donovan watched him go, rounding up the rest of those jackasses wasn't going to be easy but he figured that the pack would really want to have a word with Dan since they knew he'd been cornered by the cops.

"The game's afoot," he said softly and grinned, he always did like Arthur Conan Doyle.

[Witcher Wolf]

Part 12 – Soul food…

“In the midnight hour she cried: more…more…more. With a rebel yell, she cried: more…more…more!” ~ Billy Idol (Rebel Yell)

There’s an old rule, perhaps it’s a cosmic law or just sod’s law in action. The bigger they are, the harder they fall. The bigger you are the bigger the things that come after you will be or something like that. Donovan and Sam had upset more than just an applecart by taking on the crawlers in the club. Mr. Tres had observed Donovan’s effectiveness and decided that the sorcerer was somewhat of a dangerous liability that needed to be curbed.

“I say ten is perfectly adequate for the task I have at hand,” Tres stood in the shade of a darkened alley and spoke to a man dressed in a hoodie, “unless you can convince me that your services are worth far more.”

The pale skinned figure in the hoodie studied Tres, he shuffled his hands and passed over a small device. It was like a cam-corder only flat screened with a high resolution display. “You,” he opened his mouth and revealed a row of sharpened teeth like shark’s teeth, both upper and lower. “I think can stretch to fifty for this job.”

Tres pressed play on the device and watched a small mini-movie. It was interesting; the man in the hoodie seemed to be taking on three agents of the White Corporation. He gave a good account of himself in the fight and left the three others lying in pools of their own blood before he administered an elegant coup de grace to each one.

“My,” Tres said impressed. “You’re quite the assassin for a dead man.”

“The best,” the figure answered. “I offed Nick Winter.”

“Now that,” Tres answered with a surfeit of glee in his voice, “is exactly the kind of talk that gets you paid.”

“I thought that might give me the kind of credentials you need,” the assassin leant back against the alley wall. “I don’t usually name, names, right. But you’re Tres, the Fate right?”

“You’re sharp,” Tres made a note to have something particularly good to happen to the man. “How did you know?”

“I just do,” Whitman answered with a smirk. “You can call me Whit, or Whitman, that’s what I used to be called anyways.”

“Charmed,” Tres made a note of that too. “So I can trust you’ll deal with White in a manner that suits him, nothing too lethal.”

“Yeah,” Whitman hid a smirk under the hoodie, “you got it boss.”

“Excellent.”

“Then I can have the payment?”

Tres pondered this and consented. He passed Whitman a small jaw with a smoky blue mist inside, occasionally a face appeared at the edge of the glass and gave a wailing silent scream before it retreated into the whispering haze.

“Fifty souls,” Fate gave a grin. “You best be worth it.”

“I am,” Whitman looked at the jar and tapped the edge with a finger. “They’re like little fish man, tasty looking.”

“What you do with those, is your own business,” Tres made a disgusted face and turned to leave. “Just deal with White soon.”

“Oh I will,” Whitman said and turned his back to Tres as he opened the jar. There was a chorus of disembodied yells as he tilted his head back and let the contents flow into his shark-like maw, “just as soon as I’ve digested this snack.”

<><><>

“Here,” Sam passed Donovan the salt-shaker as they sat at a table outside in the misty-rain. “It’s not much of a lunch, but you don’t mind do you?”

“Mind,” Donovan shook his head and stirred his tea just as he always did. “Of course not Sam, you bought me lunch, that’s something!”

“You don’t get people buying you lunch?”

“No,” he replied and poured a small amount of salt onto the fries. “I mean, who have you met in my circle of friends since you’ve known me?”

“Good point,” she hadn’t thought of that. “I haven’t met any of your friends.”

“That’s because I don’t make them,” he chewed on a fry and laughed a little. “I don’t really have the sort of job where you can make long lasting anything. You’re the first person who I even dared to spend time around in any kind of extended manner.”

“You talk funny,” she smiled somewhat and sipped her coffee. “I like it though.”

“Good,” he answered. “You’re stuck with it.”

He lifted up his cup and the faux-ceramic shattered in a spray of slightly milky tea, the liquid mingled with a spurt of blood and Donovan rocked back on his chair as a bullet ripped through him, it came close to his heart but such was Whitman’s aim it didn’t pass through, just nicked it.

“Oh shit,” Sam moved from where she was and her gun was already drawn, her reflex monitor snapped into near-redline and she scanned the horizon in the probable direction of the shooter. Her protocol ran through her head and she snapped out the words like they were rote.

“Officer down and in need of assistance, possible shooter,” her voice was level as she spoke into the sub-dermal implanted microphone. “12th street Avenue, Franck’s café.”

“Roger,” Ice’s voice was flat as she replied, “we are dispatching med-e-vac teams.”

She checked the sorcerer’s pulse and found it was weak; her basic first aid wasn’t enough to deal with this. “Shit,” she ground her teeth together and looked upwards again covering Donovan with her own body. “I can’t see them!”

“Calm,” he managed to say and smiled with a slicker of blood at the corner of his lips. “Don’t look for a normal shooter, look for something,” he trailed off and his breath became more laborious.

“Stay with me,” she put her hand on his chest, his heart was beating slower and slower as the damaged muscle tried to find a balance. “Don’t you dare die on me officer,” a little drop of blood dripped out of her mouth where she’d bitten down on her lip.

Just as Whitman was observing through his rifle’s scope she looked right at him. Sam switched through her vision modes and found the bastard; she tagged Whitman as non-human right away. “Shooter is not human,” she spoke directly to Ice now. “Advise?”

“Med-e-vac team are en-route, you do not have permission to engage,” Ice replied with a sharp tone.

“Damnit,” Sam swore and then pretended to look elsewhere, she didn’t want to tip the assailant off.

It worked, Whitman figured she had just looked in his direction for a split second and he was unable to see that the woman spoke to her control. He assumed that she was trying to comfort Donovan White as he lay in an ever-expanding pool of his own blood. Whitman’s cue to leave was the roar of turbines as the air-ambulance appeared over the horizon. It was an Osprey like vehicle except it had four jets rather than propellers and it made a hell of a racket.

It slewed up a hiss of water as it came down on the corner of the street close to where Sam was, she felt the heat from the turbines as they ground inside the protective casings. The whole street shook and onlookers began to gather in the normally quiet part of the city to watch this spectacle. Whitman turned to leave and hopped down from his concealed perch.

Sam saw him go and narrowed her eyes, she checked on Donovan and her left hand closed into a fist. The first of the medics jumped out of the back door of the air-ambulance and advanced on the scene, she was black doctor, short cropped air and an air of frosty business about her.

Looks can be deceiving; she smiled at Sam as she got closer. “Ok,” she said in a soft voice. “My name’s Shauna and you are the officer that called this in?”

“Yeah,” Sam replied and looked down again. “Sam Cross, this is agent Donovan White of the PID. He’s taken a bullet from a hidden assailant.”

“Is the area clear?” Shauna knelt down and began to examine White as he lay there, out cold. “

“Yes,” Sam said and gritted her teeth. “The assailant has gone and I’ve been ordered not to pursue.”

“Good thing too honey,” she said and began to administer basic aid so that she could move the injured man. “I wouldn’t have wanted to patch two of you up.”

“How is he?”

“Well,” Shauna gave a smirk and then relented. “I was going to say, he’s been shot, but it’s not fatal. You’re in luck honey; your boyfriend here’s going to be Ok.”

“He’s not my,” she started to say.

“Sure, sure,” the other woman cut her off and waved a finger. “If I had a stack of credits or promissory notes for every time I’ve heard that damn line. Well, I’d be like Maxy and his millions!”

Sam Cross blinked a little and looked at the skyline, her eyes drawn to the dominant tower, “Max and his millions,” she echoed.

“Ok,” Shauna finished her prep and shot Donovan with some painkillers, a mix of drugs to bring him back stable. “Your shooter is either very clumsy,” she said running a prelim scanning device over the mage. “Or very damn accurate, it missed his heart and anything else vital and just left a little nick in the outer muscle.”

A couple more medics arrived and with them they brought a stretcher, it wasn’t the conventional kind that moved on wheels. This thing hovered a few feet above the ground and seemed to be held aloft by magic, not science. Four discs were placed on the underside, each one at a corner of the construction.

Shauna pushed a device into the hole in Donovan’s chest and pressed the trigger, some kind of substance shot forth and bubbled through the skin and into the body. It was a nano-foam, it contained micro machines that began to repair the nick in the mage’s heart and plug the damaged tissue.

“Ok boys,” she said to the other two. “Easy now, Donovan here has been through a bit of a trauma,” she shot a wink to Sam. “You want to ride with us honey?”

“Sure,” she looked at the skyline again and then forgot all about the assailant, he was long gone. “I can’t go chasing ghosts.”

Donovan was hoisted carefully onto the stretcher, secured and then floated towards the air-ambulance. The mage was out cold and he swam in a comforting sea of blackness tinged with soft hints of purple, blue and green. The cocktail of drugs doctor had given him was enough to dull the pain and send him into a happy land for a good few hours.

The nano-foam continued to do its job as the mage was loaded onto the air-ambulance. Sam sat in with Shauna and her two medics as the aircraft roared off into the sky and blazed over the rooftops of Whisper City. It was angled just right to catch a sliver of light from one of the towers as it passed over Mercy Point hospital and headed towards the big one close to the centre of the city.

“There she is,” Shauna looked out of the window towards a massive construction that dominated the southern part of the business plaza, laid out like a giant X against the smaller buildings. “That’s the best that money can buy, and girl, can your boyfriend buy the best – sure he can!”

Sam looked at it. This was the first time she’d been anywhere near the corporate sector of the city, it seemed so shiny, so far away from anything else she’d seen in Whisper. “That’s Varsity General?”

“Sure is.”

“It’s even bigger than I thought,” she pushed closer to see a swarm of medical air-ambulances moving down and up from the hospital docking bays. “They’re like ants.”

“Yeah, that means that someone’s getting medicare pretty much 24/7 honey, we pull long shifts.”

“I’m grateful.”

“Oh I know honey, we’re grateful to you for doing the shitty job you do,” both women shared a moment of camaraderie and smiled at each other. “Don’t worry, he’ll be looked after.”

“Thanks.”

The air-ambulance set down on the roof with a roar of turbines and a spray of misty condensed fuel. Up here so high the rain was almost freezing as it touched the wet metal of the docking pad.

“Always be raining,” Shauna opened the back door to the ambulance and rolled her eyes. “I hear some of the planet gets sun, proper real sunbathing sun.”

“That would be nice,” Sam leapt out and shielded her face from the spray. “Don’t they say this is where Whisper gets its name from?”

“Hmm,” Shauna followed the PID detective and put her hands on her hips. “Easy now with Mr. White boys,” she turned back to Sam. “I heard something like that, the rain makes a whisper.”

“I like to think it is,” she didn’t want to believe the other rumours, the ones about the chilling echoes of the dead being heard around every dark alley, street corner and low-dive late at night. “It’s kind of romantic.”

“Keep that dreamy head of yours honey,” Shauna watched Donovan’s stretcher being moved out of the ambulance and into the hospital main. “You coming in or do you want an air-car to take you back on the job?”

“If it’s Ok by you I’d like to come in for a bit?”

“Oh of course it is, we’re not going to kick you out. You’re the closest we’ve got to kin on this guy, he’s like a shadow, or something,” the woman let that slip as she ushered Sam towards the lift door. “How long have you known him?”

“Not long,” Samantha Cross admitted and watched the lift door close with a hum, pretty soon they were moving, down and down into the bustling Varsity Point hospital interior. “We met on a case.”

“Oh,” Shauna leant on the side of the lift. “Anything you can tell me about?”

“He saved my life,” she said and remembered the time she’d come face to face with the walking dead. “A bust went wrong.”

“Ah,” the door pinged open and the black woman moved out into the corridor taking Sam with her. “You need a cocoa, coffee, slam-drink or just a plain old glass of water?”

Sam followed her again and ducked past someone to catch up. “Slam-drink would probably keep me awake all night, so, got any cocoa?”

“Nectar of the gods,” she replied and slipped into an office. “I’ll catch up with Mr. White in a few, he’s in good hands. Chief Surgeon Blake’s on today and she’s one of the best.”

“That’s good to know,” Sam sunk into a chair and curled up a little. “I’m pissed,” she said after a while.

“What? On account that the bad guy got away,” Shauna waved her finger and prepared the cocoa from proper powder. “Oh honey, don’t be angry that you stayed behind to keep an eye on your man. That was the right thing to do, forget being a cop for a second and think about it.”

Sam worried her bottom lip and sighed. “I know,” she answered and took the mug of cocoa from Shauna gratefully. “It’s just one of those things. I’ve always known duty before anything.”

“Then it’s a good lesson, taught in a shitty way,” the other woman sat down on the chair opposite Samantha and folded her arms. “The job isn’t worth doing unless you know you’re doing the right thing. If he’d have died or someone had come by to finish him off, honey, how would you be feeling right now?”

“Lousy,” Samantha answered sipping the warm drink, “pretty damn useless.”

“Damn right,” Shauna was about to launch into another tirade when the door rapped three times. It was a soft knock made by gloved hands. “Oh for the Lord’s sake,” the woman stood up, opened it and was met by a pale skinned man dressed in a wide brimmed hat.

“Hello,” he said in a soft sepulchral voice. “I’m Nicholas Winter from the CIA,” he flashed a card. “I believe there’s a woman in here, Samantha Cross. Do you think I could have a word?”

Shauna took one look at the dark shades, the man in black and she gulped a little. Something about this one caused her to back right down. “Sure,” she said and checked her watch. “I need to go check on the new patients and do my rounds, she’s right in there.”

Nicholas watched the woman leave and stepped inside. Once he was beyond the door he took off his hat and held it. “Hello again Sam,” he took off his shades and tucked them away.

“Nicholas,” she said and remembered all that Donovan told her about the man in black, “Winter, right?”

“At least that’s what everyone keeps on telling me,” he answered and winked at her in an alarming manner. “How are you Samantha Cross?”

“I’m scared,” she admitted and shook her head. “I’m annoyed and I’m helpless.”

“Ah,” he invited himself to sit. “About Donovan, don’t worry,” he smiled reassuringly. “Blake is a fantastic surgeon, one of the best. I made sure of that myself.”

“You, but how’d you?”

“I monitor a lot of comms,” he replied and waved a hand. “Ice told me.”

“Oh,” she figured it might be something more elaborate, she didn’t push the issue.

“I have something to ask you, about the crime?” he pondered the approach and decided: head on. “So I’m not going to beat around the bush.”

“Good,” she narrowed her eyes. “What do you want to know?”

“Tell me everything, if you can fix any images in your mind as you’re telling the story that would help a lot,” Nicholas set his hands upon his lap and relaxed a little. “I’ll see if I can’t help ID the shooter.”

Sam blinked and shrugged; she began to relate the whole experience to the agent and even ran some playback footage from her scans. It would stay in her memory core for as long as she needed it. The price she paid for being on the cutting-edge of police technology.

“Interesting,” Nicholas seemed to be picking her mind apart as she spoke, he saw the whole scene from Sam’s viewpoint and of course this meant her enhanced optics view of the perpetrator. The agent’s expression darkened and his eyes narrowed to match Sam’s.

“What’s wrong?”

“Whitman,” he said the name with a cold tone, “that son of a bitch...”

[Witcher Wolf]

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