 
Twisted Evil

For the ones who still believe

There's more than this.

© Wendy Lorraine Maddocks 2003

Twisted Evil

Smashwords Edition

**Smashwords Edition, License Notes**

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

### Other works by Wendy Maddocks

### Stand alone novels

Twisted evil

Into the darkness

### Short story collections

The thrill of the Chase

A Shade too young

### The Shades of Northwood series

Running shoes

Circle of arms

Unfinished business

Kiss at midnight

### Circle of the Fallen series

Angels of America

### Poetry collections

When I was young

Before the dawn

###  Screenplays

RISK

###  Non-fiction

Student: dazed and confused

### Part One:

### Blood And Guns

ONE

Robyn let out a mouse-like squeal as she flew into the concrete wall and grinned in sick pleasure. She pushed herself off the wall and crashed down to the wooden floor with a sharp scream. Her long red hair was tied in a loose knot between her shoulder blades and was streaked with dried blood from wounds inflicted days before. She had a long, wide bruise along the length of her cheekbone, but it didn't seem to bother her. the dark-haired man straddled her and violently backhanded her across the face, the sharp edge of his golden signet ring creating an inch-long cut at the corner of her mouth. She giggled. "I love it when you do that."

"I know you do, baby. That's why I do it."

Robyn tensed her muscles, threw him off of her and climbed on him. Putting her face close to his, she ran her fingers over the curves of his face, drawing blood from the side of his nose with one razor-sharp fingernail. "Do you love it when I do it?" She ran her finger over the cut, collecting most of the blood, and licked it off. "Mmm."

"Absolutely." He smiled and clasped his hands behind his head. "You're the only one can make me scream."

Robyn sat up and rested her hands on his chest. "Mm. I like the screaming."

The dark-haired man – his name was Mika – lifted her off him, as if she weighed no more than a feather, and sprang to his feet. He wiped the rest of the fresh blood from his face and sucked it from his hand. Robyn was more than happy to let the thin trickle of blood make its tracks down her neck, enjoying the sensation. Mika opened his eyes wider and watched with growing interest as the red liquid dripped down her skin. It was so red. And her skin was so pale. Even now, it was just an enchanting contrast.

Robyn took the elastic band from her hair, snapped it around her wrist and brushed frantically at her flame coloured locks. It was amazing how shiny that hair could become within a few minutes, and how the bloodstains seemed to mostly flake out. She reached up and ran a hand through Mika's brown hair – a rare show of friendly affection. "What's wrong Mika?"

"Nothing. I'm just looking." He caught a handful of hair at the side of her head and moved it away. Mika nuzzled his face in her neck. "Listening. I can hear it in you, you know. Rushing around you."

"Can I go play with my toy?" Robyn whined in a tinny voice.

"Now?"

"Can I? It's been a whole day," she reasoned. The tangy smell of blood was too much and her tongue flicked out at the corner of her mouth. The taste of her own blood disgusted her, but she couldn't let anyone see her looking battered and injured. She followed Mika up a flight of stairs to the attic and banged the door open. He left her to play but left the door open.

"Hello, puppy." Robyn produced a key from the pocket of her long, full dress and unlocked the chains of the young man she kept in the room. His name was Leo Kent. The cuffs were taken off his wrists and he dropped to the floor. "Wanna play with me, Leo?"

A tiny moan escaped from his lips as his head bounced off the floor. Leo had had his shirt torn off a long while before and deep claw marks ran the length of his torso. The wounds were congealed at the edges and had scabbed over in places. The dusty wooden floor beneath his body was spotted with brown, but no more liquid ran from his re-opened injuries. His face looked hollow and bruised, and tears had begun to appear in his paper-thin skin. Leo was a young man – in his mid-20s – but now looked aged beyond his years. His blue eyes were glazed over and semi-focused on something in the middle distance.

Robyn let out a deep, throaty growl when he didn't move and placed one hand on his cold chest, which she used to drive him back and pin him against a wall. Leo's head lolled to one side. The woman bent down until she could look into his eyes and slapped him hard. When again there was no response, she let him crumple to the floor and straddled him. Her sharp fingernails dug into the soft flesh behind his shoulders as she shook him until his head struck the floor. "Why won't you scream for me? I thought you loved me." That much, at least, was true – Leo had once been infatuated with Robyn's fleeting spirit. "You used to love me, you'd do anything for me. Give me anything I wanted – jewellery, clothes. Except what I really wanted. Then, you saw me for what I truly am... and, boy, did you scream. So loud and so long. Such a sweet sound." She giggled manically for a few seconds. Frustrated by his pronounced lack of activity, she fastened one hand around his neck and carried him through to the study, where Mika was playing Solitaire on his computer.

"Sodding game!" he grumbled as he ran out of cards and had to start over.

Sulkily, she tossed Leo's limp form into an empty swivel chair at the other end of the computer desk. The chair creaked under the sudden weight, but Mika didn't take his eyes away from the screen, always clicking on the mouse. "The puppy doesn't want to play," she complained.

"That's 'cos he's dead, love," he explained.

"Dead. But, I wanted to play with it." She twisted a lank lock of hair between he fingers. "He's been my favourite all week."

"They always die, baby." He grinned as Robyn bit into his neck and slid one delicate hand in his t-shirt. "Never stopped us though." Angry at the computer for ruining his game, and desperately wanting to please his girl, he stretched out one arm and swiped his entire computer onto the floor, where it instantly burst into flames.

"Oooh," she cooed. "Fire... pretty."

"Does that make my little bird happy?"

Robyn sank to the floor, giggling insanely, raised her hands above her head and hitched the skirt of her dress up to the top of her thigh. "What do you think? Now, come and get your reward."

Mika planted tiny kisses right up her leg, and pulled her to her feet by her crossed hands. "Not here in the fire. Wouldn't want Leo to get jealous now, would we?" He reached over the flame, grabbed the dead mans wrist and pulled him into the fire. "Let's watch him burn."

They watched for a few minutes, then Robyn turned to him and put her arms around his neck. "Mika. I'm hungry," she whined. "Can we go eat now?"

"Tomorrow."

"But I'm hungry now," she moaned. Robyn had never been known for having a long fuse, and had the same fiery temper as typically befitted a redhead.

Mika hated to see her sad, and would do anything to satisfy her every desire. He did anything to make her happy, deriving almost as much pleasure at watching Robyn enjoy herself as he did for himself. Unease swept over him as the fire crept ever closer and he dragged the woman into the dark bedroom – he would put the fire out in a minute or two. Robyn, having a short attention span, seemed to have forgotten all about the blaze. Mika's keen sense of smell picked up the acrid scent of sizzling flesh and he realised that he was also hungry. "Tonight, we shall feed. And we'll find you something new to play with."

"I'll go and make myself pretty. Can we go to that French place in the city? They always have the best quality."

"We can go where-ever you want, baby."

An hour later, mere moments before sunset, Robyn flounced down the stairs dressed in a short, leather skirt and thin, lace-trimmed top. "Do you like?"

Mika looked up at her from his position on the floor, and grinned, showing perfect white teeth. "You look good enough to eat." His own classic outfit of black jeans and a white t-shirt was enough to blend the couple in as any other two youngsters who were out for a night together.

Mika called a taxi and ordered the driver to take them where-ever the lady wanted him to. The minicab pulled up at the end of the street and they got out. Mika leaned in the drivers' window and reached into his pocket as if searching for the correct change. "How much is that?"

The driver glanced down at the meter. "That's a tenner, mate. Plus tip."

Faster than lightning, he whipped his hand out of his pocket, gripped the back of the man's neck and bashed his face into the steering wheel. "How much is that?" he repeated.

"N-n-nothing, mate. It's on the house." He revved the engine and the car sped down the road.

"Oh, you bad boy, Mika," Robyn purred, slipping one arm through his. "I'm gonna have to punish you when we get home. It was my turn."

Mika smirked, knowing full well that she would be completely satisfied, her every twisted fantasy fulfilled, before they even thought about heading home. They sat down at an outside table and pushed the menus to one side.

"Would you like anything to drink while you decide?" asked a waitress.

Robyn raised an eyebrow and licked her lips in barely concealed anticipation of the coming meal. Mika put his hand on hers and smiled at her to calm her down. "We'll have two glasses of champagne, please." As the waitress jotted this down, Robyn opened her menu out in front of her. After a minute or two, Mika spoke again. "Seen anything you like?"

"Uh-huh." She pointed to a slim, blonde woman who was eating an unidentified dish. "That looks good. Juicy." Robyn got that far away look in her eyes again and started to hum a made-up tune to the stars. "She's important. To the plan." She turned back to him, a glimmer in her eyes. "I want her. Let's take her now."

"No, love. It's too risky. There are people around here who know what we are. That's why we have to lay low – operate undercover. Try to act like everyone else... until the very end. Or, at least until we're out of sight," he said, gently. There was logic to that. If they revealed their true natures in public...

So they ordered a small meal each, and kept sight of the girl until she disappeared around the corner with her boyfriend.

After a few minutes of tracking them by the scent the couple left behind, Mika realised that they were headed out to a nightclub in another part of the city. That wasn't ideal but, with a little help from Robyn, he could work with it. Knowing exactly what to do, Robyn darted off down a dark, side alley whilst Mika kept following them at a safe distance. Robyn and Mika had done this several times whilst tracking people and Mika thrived on thrill of the chase. He knew he had to stay well out of sight until Robyn called out to him – and with her speed, it wouldn't be long. She worked fast.

Mika flattened himself against the shadow of a wall as the couple stopped to make out in the middle of the street. Metal garbage cans rattled around a corner and the young man went to see what had caused the noise. Mika watched as the blonde girl stood in the middle of the road, tapping her foot impatiently while she waited. It was so tempting to go up to her right now, but Robyn had told him that she was important to some plan or other. Robyn was usually right about these things, and Mika had learnt that it was never a wise move to go against her. When the man didn't come back after five minutes, the girl went after him; Mika followed her. Robyn was perched on top of one of the bins with the boy kissing her, one hand firmly planted on her cold stomach beneath her top.

"Hey, Ricky. Did you forget about me?" asked the young woman. "I've been waiting for, like, ever."

"Oh, shit," he said as his girlfriend caught him with the redhead. "You better get out of here before things get ugly."

"I'm not going anywhere." She slid off the lid and draped one arm over his chest. "I wanna watch."

"What the hell d'you think you're doing with that slut?"

"I'm serious. Get out of here." Robyn made no attempt to move and stroked his chest with her fingers. "Carly, I can explain everything."

"Go on then. Explain why you've got your tongue stuck halfway down that slag's throat."

Mika stepped out of the shadows, a frown creasing his pale face. "What are you seeing about my girl?"

"You might wanna stay out of this, mate," Ricky told him. "Could get dangerous."

"And you might wanna get the hell away from her," Mika bargained. "Or I could get dangerous."

Robyn stared at him and nibbled Ricky's ear. "Look at them, Ricky." She wasn't talking to Ricky, though she used his name. "So jealous and possessive. It's all part of the plan."

Carly looked between the three of them, equally disgusted by them all. "Ricky, she's a whore. She could've been anywhere – and you're swapping spit with her."

"Okay, I've had enough with this bitching." Mika whirled around on his heel and punched Carly in the side of her face. She fell to the floor, unconscious. "Never gets old."

"You hit my girlfriend!" Ricky wasn't as bothered about it as he made out, circling one arm around Robyn's tiny waist. "That's unforgivable." He clapped one hand over hers and kissed it. "I told you this would get ugly."

"Mmm," she murmured. "I love it."

"I know you do, baby." Mika sniffed the air hungrily as blood started to trickle from a small cut on Carly's cheekbone where he had struck her. "So do I."

"Smell that?" whispered Robyn, seductively. "It's life... power." Her eyes fixed on the blood, as did Mika's, almost entranced by it.

"It's blood!" Ricky spat. "You made my girlfriend bleed."

Mika bent down to the unconscious woman and licked the blood from her cheek. "I've been wanting to do that all night."

"Mika. Save me some," whined Robyn. It was so tempting...

"You're a freak." Ricky turned to her and threw his arm off his chest. "Get away from me."

"I thought you really liked me." Robyn stroked his neck with her fingers, able to feel the oxidised blood pulsing through him. His skin was so delicate, practically unblemished, and practically begging to be torn. "We just want a taste. It will be quick, I promise."

Ricky gasped as she stepped closer, and slapped her as hard as he could. He had always been taught never to hit girls, but this chick was crazy. As his hand hit her face with a resounding slap, she didn't turn her head away and barely even flinched. Instead, she just laughed. "So young, so weak." She grabbed one of his arms and twisted it up behind his back. He struggled to free himself from her grip but Robyn held firm, seemingly with no effort at all. In a fit of temper, Robyn head-butted him and pushed him across to Mika, who instantly folded him into an identical grip and sniffed his neck.

"Right, I'm reporting you two to the police."

"I don't think so." Mika reached into his pocket, retrieved the mobile phone and tossed it to Robyn who snatched it out of the air and crushed it underfoot. He threw Ricky to the ground and he rolled to a stop next to his girlfriend's side. "Now, I'll show you how to treat my baby properly." In a flash he was at her side and had swung by one arm so she was flying through the air. She crash landed on the hood of a parked car, and her head went through the front window. Robyn broke into a smile and flipped back onto her feet. She stretched one hand behind her head, and brought it back into view covered in blood. Staring at it, the redhead giggled; Mika licked his lips and instantly found himself pinned to a large metal wheelie bin. Their combined strength made dents in the top and the reinforced edge crumpled like paper in his hands. Mika lifted her bloodied hands and sucked the cherry-coloured liquid from her knuckles.

"I'm hungry now, Mika. Let's eat."

Mika could sense Carly coming round, and could see Ricky watching them in horror. Grinning at his terror, Mika let him watch as he licked her hand clean. "Food," he growled. "Now, which one first?"

"Not her. She knows about the plan. We need her alive."

Seeing the pleasure the other couple took in hurting each other, Ricky scrambled to his feet and made a dash for the main street. If they could do that to each other, what might they do to him? Mika appeared in front of him, and Ricky skidded to a halt. With him in front, and Robyn right behind him, there was no way out. "What do you want?"

"I smell fear. It makes my nose tickle, Mika." Robyn dragged the young man into the shadows where she grabbed him in a stronghold. Mika followed.

"What's the plan then?" Mika demanded.

"I don't know. She'll tell us though," Robyn said. "Stop squirming." She got bored of him and sank two sharp, pointed fangs into his throat. He was on drugs; something had infected his bloodstream and he tasted... wrong. Robyn resisted the urge to pull away from the contaminated life-force – if she wasn't so hungry, Robyn would have thrown him away as being sub-standard, but not having fed properly for more than a week, she couldn't leave the bitter-sweet liquid. After a moment or two, her hungry partner joined her, hating the sour taste of the drugged blood but finding it impossible to withdraw. When they were finished, Mika wiped the warm, sticky substance from his mouth with his arm and let the man's corpse fall to the ground, out of the shadows. "I thought he was going to be your new toy."

"I got hungry," Robyn shrugged.

Carly screamed as she knelt down by the body, tears already falling from her eyes. "Ricky! What have you done to him? You've killed him!"

"That was the idea," said Mika, formulating a plan with Robyn.

Carly stroked Ricky's head gently – a pointless act in itself, but she thought he might still be able to feel it. She stared up at the couple through eyes blurred with tears, and screamed.

The graveyard shift.

When all the nutters come out to play.

Good job it wasn't a full moon.

One lone security guard in a huge, partially abandoned warehouse...

God, that sounded like the beginning to some cheesy horror flick. They all started like that – some white bloke on his own, easy prey. Actually, David Lander wasn't on his own. Physically he was, there was no-one else in the building, but most of the ground floor corridors were monitored by 24 hours surveillance cameras. No-one got in or out without it being picked up by the cameras, and there was usually another guard in a little hut to work the barrier in the car park. He often wondered why the company didn't employ more security staff, but the cameras picked up most of the slack. Just to make extra sure that the cameras hadn't missed anything, David did a quick patrol of the halls every half hour. After these half hourly sweeps, he usually settled down at his desk to read his sci-fi novel, or to watch one of the old black and white movies on his portable TV. Tonight, however he was engrossed in his game of Tetris on his Gameboy, which he was playing with the sound turned up as high as it would go to keep himself awake.. He usually plied himself with hot coffee to do that, but he hadn't got the correct change for the machine. "Stupid thing! Let me a get a high score or I'll put you in the crusher."

"First sign of insanity that, Dave." He had been concentrating so hard on his game that he'd not even noticed the tall, lean shadow pass before him. "Talking to yourself."

"Oh... uh... uh, hi Mr Jordan-Smyth." David turned the console off and put it on the shelf next to his empty pizza box. "I didn't see you there."

"Evidently." Mr Jordan-Smyth reached a long arm over the desk and felt for the big, brown signing in book. He caught sight of the discarded Pizza Express box and open cola can. "Tut tut. Not sup-"

"I know I'm not supposed to eat on duty but I missed dinner and I was absolutely starving. You won't report me will you?" He couldn't afford to lose his job or to take a pay cut.

"Course I won't. Don't suppose there's anything left, is there? So did I."

"'Fraid not. It was only a small one." He looked down to make sure the assistant manager was writing on the correct page. "I think they've got chips and sausages cooking in the cafeteria, though."

"Have you tasted some of the crap they serve up there? I'd rather starve to death." He started to sign his name in the book, desperately trying to hide the gun he carried for protection. Gareth Jordan-Smyth wasn't proud of having to fetch a gun to work every morning, and he blamed this necessity on the violence of the nation. It didn't make him feel any better to know that it only held one bullet at the moment – it would still be one more notch on the gun crime tally; one more life lost. But, he couldn't risk going to work without some kind of protection. Not now he worked here... "Bet the kids are missing you."

"Yeah. It's my last night though, so I should see more of 'em soon." Working two jobs every day meant that he didn't get to see his family as much as he'd like. With a wife and two kids to support, he'd had to take on a daytime job to boost his income, but this meant he never got to read his children bedtime stories, or do the school run. But, David was moving back to evenings next week which meant he would be home by midnight – too late to get them to bed, but early enough to take them to school. "I'm supposed to be meeting a new security guard in the morning."

Gareth took the electronic swipe card that was held out to him and wiped the dust from the black magnetic strip. Before David could buzz him through into the maze of corridors, he had to check that he had signed in correctly. With the sensitive information contained within these walls, it could never be allowed to let someone through without the proper checks. Gareth was headed to the Crash Room where he would have to pass many other identification tests before he could gain entry. Everything in this building was guarded tightly and impassably. The Crash Room was home to information that almost no-one got to see. Only three people had authorised access to that room and the information.

David would never work again if he let someone through without ID. No-one could ever know what was in that room.

He was about to pick up his Gameboy again and restart his game when he saw a second shadow pass before him. A long, black coat was all he saw at first, before the stranger took off the baseball cap that was hiding his face. "Shit, you scared me."

"Sorry. I didn't mean to." He split his face in a wide grin which showed a mouth of slightly tobacco-stained teeth, and two spaces where teeth had been punched out in a fight. He had a large scar around his eye, and a face framed by very closely shaved black hair. "I'm Johnny Cox. Your new recruit."

David raised his eyebrows in surprise – he hadn't expected to meet him until the morning. "Sign in and come round the desk." While Johnny was filling the book in, David quietly reached behind him and locked the door to the office. He put the keys back in his pocket, trying not to let them rattle too much, and leant back in his chair. It wasn't that he didn't trust the rookie guard but... actually, it was that he didn't trust him. But, David didn't want to take any chances until he had been here a while and knew the rules. Johnny hopped over the desk and sat down in one of the chairs. Maybe he was just really keen to get on the job, but David found his energy slightly unsettling. He didn't trust this guy. "Ever heard of the Crash Room?"

"Nope!"

"Keep it that way." David balled up his fists and rubbed his eyes with them. "They keep loads of top secret info in that place. People are always trying to get in there but under no circumstances must you let them know what's in there. That's why we're always carrying."

"Guns." He liked guns; guns gave him power; power gave him respect.

"Two handguns." David slapped his belt where he kept his pistols holstered. "One on either side for quick draw. Always fully loaded. Four live, two blanks in each."

"Four and two, got it. Anything else.?"

"If you see anyone that looks even a little bit suspicious, don't hesitate to pull a gun." That really only worked in theory, David had only used his gun twice, always preferring to give someone a good talking to rather than get involved in a shoot-out. "They're there to be used."

After explaining the rules of entry and how to keep an eye on all the cameras, David sent Johnny off to get his uniform from stock and did a final check of the corridors before he went home. It was nearly six in the morning and it would take him an hour or more to get home. More employees would start work soon and another security guard would show Johnny what to do. There was just something about that guy that David didn't like. Johnny seemed a little too comfortable working with guns – trigger happy, some might say.

It hadn't taken Carly long to realise that the murdering couple were taking her and her dead boyfriend to the docks. The smell of dead fish was raw and assaulted her nostrils. The fishermen were out on their boats trying to get their fish for the market and were sailing around, pulling up nets of trapped fish every so often. The fish had to be gutted when they were brought in, and Carly was glad she wouldn't be around to witness that event.

"What should we do with the body?" asked Robyn, who was dragging it along behind her like a toy dog on a leash. "We can't just leave it here."

"You're right," agreed Mika. This kind of straight forward speech wasn't exactly normal for Robyn; she was usually told what to do. "It'd be bad for us if it was found."

"Strip it, weight it, dump it. No-one will ever know." Robyn was bored of him now, and wanted to get rid of the body as soon as she could. It seemed much easier just to leave the body where it was but, come the morning, it would be found. They couldn't risk that. Besides, Robyn was enjoying listening to Carly's pathetic cries and pleas for release.

"Please," the blonde woman sobbed. "You can do what you want to me but leave Ricky alone now."

"He's dead," snarled Mika, annoyed by her pitiful moaning. Roughly, he grabbed her by the hair and tossed her to the ground by the side of a large trawler. "I don't think he'll feel anything." To prove his point, he drove a booted foot into the stomach of the body that Robyn held out in front of her. "Got it?"

"Haven't you people ever heard of rest in peace?"

"Oh, we've heard of it." Mika strode over to her and kicked her hard in the stomach. The woman screamed in pain and Robyn giggled in child-like delight. "But, we prefer rest in pieces." Mika took a silver penknife from his pocket, flicked it open, and proceeded to gouge chunks of flesh from the body and scattered them around the docks. Carly looked away until Robyn held her head still so she had no other choice but to look on. Hopefully, with so much of the flesh torn away from the body, no-one would notice the telltale signs of how Ricky had really been killed. Mika shoved a few large heavy stones under Ricky's clothing and buttoned his shirt over them. Robyn got up and looked at Mika for permission to complete the disposal. She kissed the cold, clammy forehead as she gripped him by the shirt, and threw him into the sea, again, with almost no effort at all.

Robyn was stronger than most of her kind and used this advantage to it's full potential. She jumped up and landed halfway up a ship's walkway, where she sat down and innocently twirled her hair between her fingers. Watching Mika just standing and looking at the girl was fun. There wasn't the blood and the crying that she loved so, but she knew that Carly was in just as much torment. Robyn could hear the young woman crying beneath her, but was distracted by the sound of Mika's hand striking skin. She looked down and saw Carly clutching one hand to the side of her face. Carly shrunk back into the wooden board under the walkway as Mika advanced on her, clenching and unclenching his fists. "Ohhhhh!" Robyn moaned and put one hand up to cover her eyes. In her daze, she forgot where she was sitting, and fell to the ground on her back. She didn't feel the impact or notice that she had fell. "Oh, it burns. It burns."

Mika left his victim where she was now cowering in the corner and flashed over to her side. "What is it, love? What burns? Tell me, and I'll kill it."

"The light. It's coming... and it burns us all to death."

It was no use trying to get her to explain herself when she was like this. Mika looked up to the sky, which was just beginning to lighten at the promise of the dawn. "Okay, baby. Let's get you home." He swept her up in strong arms and glanced down at her limp form. He reached under the walkway and grabbed Carly by the shoulder, destroying her plan to do a runner when they had gone. "Don't worry, blondie. I haven't forgotten about you. You're important."

A few minutes later, Carly was locked in a room downstairs while Robyn rested in the bedroom. Robyn had changed into one of the long, black dresses she was more used to and was watching Mika pacing the room. He was impatient. "What's wrong, Mika?" she drawled. "Have I done something?"

"No, my sweet. You haven't done a thing." Mika sat on the bed next to her and stroked her bare arms with his fingertips. "I just want to find out about this plan."

"It will come. In time." She looked up at him with a spark in her eyes. "Soon."

"Let's go torture it out of her then."

"Wait. Just for a little while." Not until she gave up hope – that wouldn't be much fun. "Give and take."

God, Mika hated it when she talked in riddles. But, he knew better than not to trust her, she always knew what she was doing even... if it didn't seem like it. "Can you try to make even a little sense?" he growled, leaping off the bed and starting to pace the room again.

Robyn mewed like a cat and curled herself into the tightest ball possible. She didn't like it when Mika was nasty to her.

"I'm sorry, baby. I know you can't help it." He felt Robyn coming up behind him and pulled her close, watching the skirt of her dress swishing through the air behind her. "We'll dance under the stars again, my little bird." Robyn laughed her infectious giggle as Mika lifted her off the ground and twirled her around the room. Mika would do anything to keep her happy. Robyn reached into his pocket and got his penknife. She opened it and hungrily smelt the fleshy residue along the blade. It was no longer fresh enough to hold her interest for long, and she let it drop to the floor as she headed to the door. Mika followed her downstairs and opened the door to the room at the back where Carly was chained up.

Robyn and Mika stood in front of her and looked on as she strained against her restraints and grimaced as the skin on her wrists became red raw. A fire burnt in a fireplace in the corner, which held only a few trinkets that Robyn had acquired and a baseball cap and shades that Mika owned. Mika took a key from the shelf and held it just out of her reach. "Looking for this?" It was the key to her chains.

"As it happens, yes." Carly shifted her position and stretched out, even though she knew it was pointless.

"Uh uh uh." Mika stepped back and closed his hand around the key. "Not yet." Robyn took the key from him and dangled it right in front of her face. When Carly brought her arm up to make a grab for it, Robyn moved it back and snapped her teeth in her face. "We haven't had our fun with you yet."

"What are you gonna do to me? And why have you gotta keep me all chained up? I mean, I'm not exactly going anywhere, am I?"

Robyn walked up behind her and Carly turned her head to the side, so she didn't have to meet her gaze. "Just a taste?" she purred to Mika. Robyn made a long cut across the top of her shoulder and licked off the blood that squeezed out. "Mmm. This one has power. Knowledge. I can taste it."

Carly gritted her teeth against the sting of the cut, but involuntarily tensed her muscles against any more assault. Hot, salty tears lay, undried, on her cheeks, but she held her head up, defiantly. "What do you want?"

Robyn and Mika looked at each other in slight disbelief that she hadn't figured it out yet. "Information. On the plan," Mika told her.

"What plan?" Robyn cupped Carly's cheek with one hand and wiped away the tears with her thumb. "I don't know anything about a plan." Carly found that she couldn't look away from Robyn and realized that her cool touch was comforting and gentle. She sobbed out loud as Robyn took her hand away. "What're you gonna do when they find the body?"

"They won't." Robyn sounded quite confident about that, and Carly stared at her curiously. "They'll just find parts of it." Mika chuckled and wrapped an arm around Robyn's shoulders. They shared this obsession with torture and torment. Robyn walked over to the fire and grabbed two red hot pokers and tossed one over to Mika.

"You can do so much with these things," Mika muttered. "I just don't know what to do first." Before he moved, Robyn closed her hand around the end of the poker and screamed in pure ecstasy as it burnt into her hand. Smoke rose up from her fingers and the room, once again, filled with the tangy smell of burning flesh.

"This is your idea of a good time? I'm thinking a few decades of therapy."

"Shut up!" growled Robyn, and lashed out with the poker, creating a large red wound on her side. "Victims don't speak."

"V-v-victim?" Carly had stopped pulling against her chains, now realising that she wouldn't get free from them. "Are you gonna kill me?"

Robyn left the room to get something Mika had thought of and slid through the open doorway with a sly smile on her face. Mika smiled at Carly, idly tapping the end of the poker on the floor just under her feet. "Eventually." Robyn crept up behind her and stretched a length of black material between her eyes. "You should have screamed for me. But, you will." Quickly, she tied the rag around her mouth to make a gag, and returned to Mika's side. "Why won't she scream?"

Mika grabbed her by the arm and turned her around to face him. "We've got to make her." He dropped to his knees and pulled Robyn down to him, placing both hands on her shoulders. "Do you remember anything about this plan, love?"

Robyn got that far away look in her eyes and stared into the fire. "The flame... it dies."

"Yeah, I know the fire will go out. But the plan, Robyn. What's the plan?" He shook her as her eyes began to roll back in their sockets.

Her face split in a thin smile. "I don't know. She does." She leapt to her feet and tightened her grasp on the fire poker. With the poker mere centimetres away from Carly's chest, Robyn stopped and looked at her. Carly's eyes were wide with fright, and her cheeks were red with crying. "Maybe we shouldn't have killed him, Mika. Maybe we should have made him watch."

The heat already being given off by the metal instrument was unbearable to Carly, and she vainly tried to pull her body out of range. Robyn dragged the tip of it over her ribs and pushed it right through her left shoulder. She screamed in sudden pain, which soon dulled into a burning ache, while her two captors just laughed and held each other.

"See how happy you made my baby?" grinned the dark-haired man.

"She screams so pretty. Shall I make you scream some more?"

"No!" Carly yelled over the top of the gag. Blood was pouring from the wound in her shoulder, and she could see the couple staring at it as it stained her top.

"Tell us about the plan," Robyn demanded. "It's important, I can tell."

"Never! This is our only chance now."

Carly braved the abuse they poured on her and endured their sick pleasures until the next dawn.

TWO

The uniform was itchy and much too small for his large frame. They had ordered one to fit him properly from their suppliers, but it would take a couple of days for delivery, which meant he had to wear this one for now. He'd found that he could get away with wearing his normal clothes some nights – or so one of the morning security guards had told him – as long as he kept to blacks and other dark colours. Tonight wasn't one of those nights, though.

Johnny had had to put on the too-small uniform and stretch it until it covered most of his arms. FDR Industries were having some sort of inspection, and it would look bad for the firm if someone was seen to be breaking the rules. Not that Johnny felt particularly protective of the whole company, but he really wanted to keep his job. He'd been out of work for a few years and hadn't been able to find permanent work. Johnny had left his last job, also as a security guard, after hurting his back. It wasn't serious and was nothing more than a distant accident. After reading that he'd had back trouble in the past, no-one seemed to want to employ him in case it flared up again and it had taken a lot of convincing to get these people to take him on. If it was that hard to find a job, he was going to make damned sure he didn't do anything to lose this one.

"Could you tell me where I might find Mr Jordan-Smyth?" asked a middle-aged woman with glasses. "I have an appointment with him." She pushed her glasses further up her nose and smoothed down her coat.

Johnny reached under the desk and felt around for the book. "I'll just check for you. If you could sign in while you wait..." The woman took hold of the biro on the desk and began to write in the book as Johnny tapped something into his computer. The woman was probably something to do with the inspection. It must be important because the assistant manager had had a dozen visitors today and none of them had left the building yet, which left him with two options; a, it was going very well, or b, it was going very badly. Either way, he had to do his best to be polite. "He's in his office. Someone will be down shortly to take you up."

"Why can't I just go up on my own? I'm sure I'll be able to find it."

"I'm sorry ma'am. It's just a security thing. All visitors have to be escorted." He cleared his throat then gestured to a row of cushioned chairs at the far end of the lobby. "You can wait over there until someone comes." It was weird that anyone would have an appointment in the early hours of the morning, but Johnny had quickly learnt that FDR Industries did it's most important work by night. Sure, the normal work was done in the day; typing, filing, paperwork. But the real work started at night. Okay, so the building was often empty at night, but the co-ordination never started until darkness. Not many civilians were willing to sneak a peek after dark so they did it then, when no0one would bother them.

"I've got someone to take up?" asked another middle-aged woman – Mr Jordan-Smyth's assistant. "Another inspector probably. You know, I've been making tea and coffee all day."

"Tell him to make his own bloody coffee for once," he said with a smile that showed the gaps in his teeth. "She's over there. What's all this about anyway?"

"It's a progress report. Mrs Rose, follow me." She rolled her eyes as she started toward the door, as if to say "Here we go again."

Johnny wished the cameras picked up sound so he could hear what was going on but he wasn't in a position to know. He was only a security guard; not meant to know what he was guarding, just to do it. Despite this knowledge, he couldn't deny that he was growing more curious by the hour – what was so important anyway? He could see people still milling around the corridors, and one of his cameras picked up a long line in front of the coffee machine. He was suddenly very glad that he'd thought to bring his vacuum flask of coffee with him. Idly, he began to doodle on the front page of the book, wishing he had enough battery power to play games on his mobile phone. "Shoulda charged it," he grumbled to himself.

Professor Wright was a top scientist, who now worked at the Rashda Observatory, tutoring a small group of physics students who had shown great promise. Most of them were interested in learning from him, but he had given one or two the boot after misbehaving and being persistently absent. The students were all about 20 and each of them had the potential to become a good scientist.

Although a brilliant physicist, the professor was very knowledgable about space, the sun, the moon and the stars. Which is why he had come to lecture at the Rashda Observatory. It was a very good school of science which had state of the art technology, allowing him to pursue his own investigations in his own time. He hated being labelled as an astronomer or 'space-guy' – he wasn't an astronomer, he was a scientist.

"Great scientists are born, not made," he told his lecture group. "You can't just wake up one morning and think 'I'm going to be a scientist.' That love of science and the world is there," he pointed to his head, "from the beginning."

A student put up her hand. "But how do we know if it was always there? I can't exactly go home and ask my parents, can I?"

"You can't use the phone?" A titter circled the room and Professor Wright silenced them with a glare. "I'm not teaching you how to be a physicist - I'm guiding you. You all have the know-how to be a physicist. The love of physics; the natural curiosity. Otherwise you wouldn't be here."

"I'm not saying you're wrong, Professor, but aren't you teaching us science?"

"Yes, I suppose I am." The bell rang for everyone to leave their lectures, and Professor Wright sat down behind his desk. He had to mark their test papers from last week, and was planning to work on his secret project all evening.

Carly stood, limply hanging from her chains, too weak and tired to fight back. Her blood-stained top stuck, uncomfortably, to her skin, but she no longer had the energy to wriggle beneath it. The black gag now loosely circled her neck, slightly torn where she had bitten into it. "Please! Stop hurting me!"

"Are you gonna talk?" asked Mika. Robyn had grown weary and had gone to bed with the excuse, 'It makes my eyes hurt.' Mika himself was getting bored by this, but found it mildly amusing when she pleaded for mercy. "Because, if you're not –"

"Okay, okay. I'll talk. Just give me something to drink first," she rasped, severely doubting that these two would let her out of this house alive. Mika yelled out for Robyn. She'd keep an eye on their captive and she would know if Carly was lying about anything. Robyn glided into the room and sat down. "I'll talk," Carly repeated.

"Good," said Robyn as Mika left the room. "It's for your own good. Because it's coming. I can feel it." She held her hands out and grabbed Carly's hands. "Can you feel it too? It burns me - it will burn us all."

Carly jerked her hands away, but, there not being much movement within the constraints of the chains, Robyn kept a hold of them. "I can't feel anything. Let go of me." Tears were still gushing down her cheeks and Carly sniffed in a feeble attempt to stop crying. It didn't work. "Oh, don't cry, honey," soothed Robyn. "It'll all be over soon – I promise. The pain will stop."

"It will be over if we have our way," she moaned.

Robyn shot out an arm and reached for her throat – reaching and stretching – and ripped the gag from Carly's throat and dropped it on the floor. "That's better, isn't it?"

Mika re-entered the room holding a glass of water in one hand, and a plastic drinking straw in the other. He put the straw up to her lips and let her drink for a few seconds before he began questioning her again. "Tell us... hmm, tell us who you work for?"

"Does it matter who I work for?"

"Maybe not, maybe so."

"FDR Industries. I'm the Information Officer... which means I know everything about the plan."

"And the big question: What the hell is the plan?"

"To put an end to the pain. You can find everything you want at the warehouse. I'm not telling you anything else," she said with conviction. She wouldn't tell them anything else. Not when this was their only chance to save humanity, to wipe the monsters from the earth. And, smart as they might be, by the time they figured it out, it would be too late for them to do anything about it.

"You might not tell us, but you will tell someone. Robyn?"

"Give me some space," Robyn ordered. Mika stepped back and sat down on a chair by the wall, absently twirling his ring round and round his finger. Robyn reached up and took hold of her hands again, looking deep into her eyes. "I see it. The desire to tell us everything... just to make the hurting go away." Their eyes still locked, Robyn moved her hands down until they were resting above her heart. "The longing to be free from this. Nothing can hurt you now. I can make all this stop. You just have to tell me."

"It's supposed to be kept secret," Carly protested, weakly. "I'm not allowed to say."

"Since when did that stop you? Don't you want me to make this stop? Just tell me, and it'll never hurt again."

Carly raised her head and nodded. "The Crash Room," she whispered. "That's where we keep all the information, calculations and stuff."

"What are all the calculations for, sweetie?"

"To turn the sun. To give us paradise. Freedom from the monsters. Heaven on Earth. And it's nearly done."

"Nearly done?" probed Robyn, never for a moment breaking eye contact. "How long have we got?"

"Until the new moon. One week yesterday." Carly swallowed at a lump of guilt that had formed in her throat. "It's already started, and it can't be stopped."

Robyn glanced down to the floor and slid down the wall behind, mentally exhausted and not remembering a single word that had been said. "It's close. It pulls at my skin," she mumbled and started scratching at her arms.

"Oh, God. What have I done?" croaked Carly, fresh tears springing from the corners of her eyes. "I never meant to, I swear, I didn't," she said to no-one in particular, and herself.

"But you did," Mika reminded her. "Where do I find this Crash Room?" Carly remained silent and stared down at the still-scratching Robyn. "Come on, you might as well tell me. You've told me everything else, and we'll find it eventually anyway."

"The old abandoned warehouse just outside town? It's not so abandoned."

Mika held the glass up to let Carly drink the remainder of the water. Human rights and all that. "You know what I hate?" He ran his finger around the rim of the empty glass and threw it against the concrete wall, shattering it into a thousand tiny pieces of glass, which rained down on Robyn who laughed manically. "Vague people!" he roared.

"I want to sleep," Carly told him. "Unchain me."

"You can sleep in the chains. Everyone else did."

"E-everyone else?" she asked, not sure if she wanted him to elaborate.

"Think on it while you sleep. Sweet dreams." Mika put an arm around Robyn's waist and left the room, leaving Carly to her uncomfortable sleep and disturbing dreams.

Even if her captors did manage to get the information on the plan, in the highly unlikely event that they managed to gain access to the Crash Room, Carly seriously doubted they had the intelligence to decipher the calculations. And, in the even more impossible event that they did, there was nothing they could do about it. It would soon be too late even to halt the progress of the project. Besides that, what interest did the couple have in the plan. Of course, in the back of her mind, she knew why they were so interested in the plan and why they wanted to stop it so badly, but the part of her mind that dealt with logic was in fierce denial. Logic tried to rationalise what it could and ignore what it couldn't explain of what it saw.

In her half-asleep state, Carly could hear voices in the room above, but couldn't quite hear what they said. She had enough presence of mind to remind herself that her ordeal was far from over. So, it was probably best to snatch a few hours sleep while she had the chance.

"The Crash Room." Mika tested the name out, rolling each word around his mouth to see how it sounded, as Robyn lay beneath the thin covers, playing with her hair. "I like that – the Crash Room."

"It sounds as if everything will go wrong. Crash!" murmured Robyn, distractedly. "Mika, I don't want everything to go wrong."

"Nothing will go wrong, baby. You've got my word of honour," he vowed. "I'm not letting anything come between my baby and what makes her happy."

Robyn smiled that smile that no-one could resist and shrank back against the headboard. "I'm tired. The girl made me tired." Robyn couldn't recall anything that had passed between her and Carly during their conversation, but Mika was positive she would remember it all after she had rested for a while. Robyn pulled the elastic band from her wrist and used it to tie her hair back. "Is my hair nice?"

"It's never looked better," he replied. He held his finger up to silence Robyn and listened. "She's crying. I can hear her."

"She longs for her mate," said Robyn. "Her heart breaks for him." She giggled as she listened. "Beautiful sound. The crying. Painful and lonely and hopeless." Seeing that Robyn was about to drift off into her own little world again, Mika left her to rest and went up to the attic to inspect the fire damage. He would go out to scavenge himself a new computer tonight.

Professor Andrew Wright hesitated a moment before picking up the phone and putting it to his ear. He hesitated a further moment before punching the number into the number pad. Even now he had made the decision to go through with it, he wasn't sure he was doing the right thing. But he couldn't exactly back out now. It had sounded like a good idea when it had first been thought of, and now things were starting to happen, he wasn't sure if it was such a good thing after all. At midday tomorrow, it would be too late to turn back.

After a few rings, the phone on the other end clicked into action. There was no voice at the other end, but the professor knew he was simply being listened to. "It's Professor Wright," he said, with no indication of the uncertainty he felt. "Things are starting to change now. Soon, it'll be too late to stop this from going ahead. We need to meet today at two o'clock. Normal place." He put the phone back on the hook and let out a deep breath he hadn't even realised he was holding. Professor Wright was using one of the payphones on campus in case anyone was trying to track him. He and the people he was working on this project with were getting into some pretty deep stuff now and the consequences would be... substantial, to say the least, if something went even remotely wrong.

"Professor?" began one of his students. "Does last weeks' test count towards our final grade?"

"No," he replied, his facial expressions ranging from mildly not-bothered to utterly pre-occupied. "It's just a routine assessment."

"Oh, that's good then." The girl sounded relieved and fiddled with the strap on her backpack. "'Cos I think I bricked it. I was having a bit of a bad day and I couldn't think straight. I can do a make-up test if I need to."

"No, I don't think that'll be necessary. And I'm sure you haven't done as badly as you think you have." Her mind put at ease by his words, the student walked away to join her group of friends under the old oak tree. He fondly remembered what it was like to be that young and carefree, then he grimly reminded himself that it had been his own choice to take on this huge responsibility.

To some extents, the shaman led a more or less human existence. He lived in the middle of a small city, held down a job working from home, okay, he had no real family, but there were people, of sorts, who cared about him. The robes his tribe required he wear at all times meant that he was usually prevented from going out during the day. Mostly, he was able to blend in with the humans, as long as it was in the dark or dim lighting where his unusual clothing was less noticeable. He took a large bite of his maggot-infested apple, savouring the crunchyness of the tiny worms. Where most people would have retched and ran for the bathroom, the shaman ate the apple mainly for the nutrients found in the bugs.

The open book on the table at his side contained writings in a long-dead language that he wasn't sure he remembered. It wasn't Latin, or even one of the more common demon dialects, as many spells and scriptures were. It had been so long since he had been required to do anything like this, the shaman had at first been worried that he might get things wrong. But when he had obtained the materials needed for the beginning of the sequence, it had all come flooding back to him. "Like riding a bike," he said to himself, no hint of an accent. "You never forget it."

He dipped his fountain pen into the green demon excretions it used for ink. It smelled a hell of a lot worse than it looked, though purely on sight, he wouldn't have thought it possible. Between eating bugs and writing in demon... bodily fluids, the shaman did very simple data inputting tasks for various companies. Indoors, where he wouldn't be seen, the tribe allowed him to wear his own clothes provided he wore his dark hood, meaning that today he was padding around his tiny ground floor flat in his blue jogging suit and trainers, his entire head covered by a dark hood he didn't wear outside. There was an entirely different set of tribal clothing the clan were to wear when they were outside, whether they were mixing with others of their kind or not.

"What the hell does that mean?" he grumbled, peering more closely at the book, then looking at a second volume which contained the same word but in a different context in the hope that it might suddenly mean something. "Cow eats sky in sun. That's not right. Actually, it's not even in the same time zone." He shut both books with a bang and took a final bite of his maggoty apple before taking a shot at getting the core in the waste bin. "Bullseye!"

With a low growl, created only from frustration, he rose from his seat and walked across the room. There was something in the air that was making him slightly edgy today. He had no doubt that it was something to do with the dark, rare magicks that he was about to call upon, but it wouldn't do for him to even get even the pronunciation of these words wrong.

In the small bedroom, he collected his books into a grey duffel bag and rummaged around in his cupboard for the protective amulet he wore in public – it stopped people from noticing his... less than normal outdoor attire. "Come on, where is it?" Sometimes, the shaman wished he had another person living with him; someone to listen to and prevent his incessant rambling. Talking to himself helped him to get things straight in his own head and he used himself as his own sounding board. "Aha, gotcha!" he reached into the shadows of the cupboard and closed his hand around a lumpy, furry rock pendant. It wasn't the most comfortable thing to drape around his neck, but he knew things would be a lot less comfortable if he didn't wear it.

The shaman – who had never seen the need to take on a human name – stared across his bedroom at the old, yellowing book, which just stared back at him, accusingly. "Why can't you be written in a language I know?" The shaman was usually quite good at translating rare demon languages but this... this looked rather like a mixture of two or three dead languages. It was probably written in such undecipherable scribe so people wouldn't be able to translate it into English and act on it. Which begged the two big questions; a, what had the spells done that was so awful? and b, if it was so bad, why write the spells down in the first place? He had but a few hours to get the next spell right.

It was early afternoon, and Robyn and Carly were both sleeping off the effects of the previous day. Robyn dreamt of the new life that was beginning outside, the life she could never be a part of. That was okay though – she didn't exactly tan well anyway. Even though she was dreaming, Robyn could now remember everything said between her and Carly with unrivalled clarity. Robyn had strange dreams though. Of beautiful chaos and confusion on the moonlit streets and familiar red rain, which wasn't rain at all but blood. She grabbed Mika's outstretched hands and together they danced beneath the stars in blood rain, just as he had promised. Robyn laughed, but instead of staying inside her head, the hollow sound bounced through the house she and Mika had taken as their home.

"They don't know do they?" she said to her dream Mika. "But I do." Robyn turned her face to the sky, rejoiced in the free-flowing blood and the screams all around her. She squeezed her eyes shut tight against the sudden glare of light. "They haven't got a clue..." When she opened her eyes, Mika was not in front of her. She looked down to the tarmac road and saw a pile of ashes that were still smoking. Robyn held her hands up in front of her eyes, letting the sticky red rain drizzle through her fingers and started crying as she saw smoke beginning to rise from her own fingers.

She woke with a start and sat bolt upright in her bed, taking several deep breaths that she didn't even need. Mika, who had been watching Carly in her fitful half-sleep, rose from his seat and raced up the stairs, into the bedroom. The door crashed open as he kicked it with his boot. He hated himself for leaving Robyn alone and felt guilty for allowing her to have her bad dream alone. A human emotion he seldom felt any more – except when it came to Robyn. "What is it?" What they shared was deeper than the infatuation or lust felt by most, theirs was a genuine love. "What happened to make my baby cry?" He looked towards the curtained window and could feel the bright sun burning outside the window, wishing the curtain was thicker so as to keep the light further away from Robyn's sore eyes.

"Are you really here?" She pawed at his shirt with one curled up hand, as if she thought he might just disappear. "It's happening. I saw lovely things – people screaming and shouting in perfect agony. And it was raining the blood of little angels. Then it all changed – the sun came out to play."

Mika sat on the bed and played with her long hair, running his fingers through the sleep-rumpled locks. "Nothing's gonna happen, Robyn," he told her again.

"Do you promise?" Robyn stood up and hummed along to music only she could hear, swaying as she heard the stars calling out to her. "The stars are dying. Soon, we'll never see them again. No more feeding or hunting. It will kill us all." She snapped her head round and looked straight at him with hard eyes. "Everyone will be stained."

"It's okay, baby. We'll stop it."

"It's already happening, Mika. Things are already changing."

"Things always change!" he snapped. "We can't always stop them but we always try!"

This time, Robyn didn't pull away from him but just glared at him, unflinching. "They don't have to change," she affirmed. Ignoring the hand that Mika offered her, she took a step to the edge of her bed and stepped, soundlessly, onto the wooden floor. Robyn reached out one strong arm and pushed Mika to the floor as she stalked towards the door, not sure what she was going to do.

Mika wouldn't hold that little pushing incident against her – Robyn was in her own little world again. Over the generations they had spent together, Mika had learnt how to recognise and deal with her moods. It somehow seemed to hurt more when she hurt him without meaning to – even when it was less painful.

Carly was half-dreaming, but was sure she had seen the man watching her and had then left. Of course, it could just be her hazy mind playing tricks on her and she almost wished it was. If she couldn't see anyone moving, sure it could be because there was no-one around to see, but the reason that kept cropping up was that she was so close to dying that she simply wasn't aware of it. She knew that wasn't the reason – it took more than a day and a half of torture to crack her – but she couldn't shake the thought that it might soon be true. She could just about hear fuzzy voices in one of the upstairs rooms and could no longer hear the roar of the fire in the corner. Her left side wasn't warmed by the heat given off by it, and came to the logical conclusion that it had simply died out.

"Ricky." In one of her feverish dreams, she and Ricky were together. "Ricky.."

"What?" It was a cool evening and they were sitting together on top of a large grassy hill in the nearby park. They were sitting on Ricky's denim jacket – he was always too macho to admit that he was cold.

"Look, the stars are starting to come out." Carly pointed up at the lone star that twinkled in the twilight. "Make a wish."

"Nah."

"Why not? It's lucky to wish on the first star you see." That was an old myth her mother had taught her as a child. It didn't actually work but it was a nice thought.

"Don't need to. I've got everything I could wish for right here." To some people that line sounded so corny, and Ricky wouldn't normally have said it, but here and now it was true. Something in the air had put his emotions into overdrive. "All my wishes have come true."

"That's nice."

"Yeah, well." Ricky picked at some imaginary fluff on his checked shirt; Carly looked up at the two or three stars joining the first and wished the moon would show. "I guess I'm just a hopeless romantic."

"Promise me you'll never leave me."

"They'll have to kill me first," he told his girlfriend.

Carly fell silent as she felt an unidentifiable, yet familiar, pang of guilt in the pit of her stomach. Why did she feel that sudden pain? And why did it feel like it should be there?

"Why didn't you protect me?" growled a voice from behind.

Carly turned around and couldn't believe what she saw. "Ricky?" His face was twisted in agony and two trickles of blood ran down either side of his neck as he stood over her. Carly was staring straight up at a small handgun. "What're you doing?"

"You could have saved me. You decided to save your own skin, you selfish cow!" He flexed his hand around the rubber grip but made no move to pull the trigger.

"I thought we were supposed to be in Heaven. Why are you doing this?"

"Now I'll never be free!" He held the gun steady and he stared blankly at her with hard blue eyes with none of the love and compassion of just a few minutes before. "You had what they wanted and you didn't even put up a fight. Not for me, and not for the world. For the greater good." Ricky stared down at the gun in his hand, confused as to how he had got it and why he was threatening his girlfriend with it. But his judgement was so clouded by anger and hate and... a sudden urge to get justice, he didn't think twice about pulling the trigger.

Carly opened her mouth wide and screamed herself awake. The need to take in more air was there, but her brain was still too fogged by sleep to process that impulse. She opened her eyes, and saw Mika watching her with that unwavering and intense gaze he had perfected. She could almost feel his eyes boring into her skull, and somehow she knew that he could see what she was dreaming. Carly stopped screaming when she saw him and started breathing deeply, vainly trying to get some much-needed oxygen into her empty lungs. "Why are you watching me sleep, you freak?" Part of her thought that she shouldn't be calling him names, but the rest of her knew that it wouldn't really matter.

"There now. Doesn't it feel better?"

"He – he had a gun."

"Guns," he mused. "Now there's a thought."

"He pulled the trigger. It was so loud," she said to Mika. He might as well listen to what she had to say if he was going to watch her. He actually seemed quite interested in what she was saying. "Like a little explosion, or something. And suddenly, there was all this blood, soaking into the ground. It was everywhere, getting my clothes all sticky and red – I can't remember if it was my blood or Ricky's, I didn't see but there was so much of it. Then I heard more gunshots but they sounded really faraway, and they weren't normal pistol shots. They sounded like machine gun fire." She looked up at Mika who was watching her with great interest as she spoke. "We were looking at the stars and he told me how much he loved me then I looked at him and he just went postal. That's it," she finished. "It's only going to get worse before it gets better... for us, anyway." She didn't doubt for a second that this murderer and his strange girlfriend would be in their element when it got to the worse part.

"This was all your dream?" He didn't care to share his theory that her dream might be something to do with the one that Robyn had had. He also didn't bother, either, to tell her that he was hoping to stop this before it got much worse. The humans were doing a pretty good job of destroying their race without the promise of Paradise making them do it even faster.

The professor strode into the room and set his briefcase down on the large, oak-panelled desk in the middle of the room. He opened the hard, leather case and withdrew a handful of papers full of his neat handwriting, and laid them out on the table before him. "Afternoon gentlemen," he greeted, though he used the term gentlemen very loosely. There was one human in the light, spacious room – a young man with spiky brown hair who was dressed in a black Armani suit with a fancy Calvin Klein pen between his fingers. Somehow, he made this expensive outfit look casual, a task made even harder by the gold Rolex strapped to his wrist. "Bet that lot must've cost you a pretty penny." The professor knew that the cost of the outfit was nothing but small change to him, but didn't feel in the slightest bit embarrassed by his own high street suit. If any thing he felt over-dressed compared to the third and final figure in the room – a figure completely covered by dark red robes which almost touched the floor. He wasn't quite sure if this one was human or – he wasn't sure if he actually wanted to know. It was much easier to deal with each other if they didn't get overly-familiar.

The oak table shook a little as the robed figure put his human-looking feet up on the smooth surface, half slipping off his black flip-flops. "Aaah," he sighed as he leaned back in his leather chair. "You people really like your leather, don't you? I'm not complaining, though."

"Leather's comfortable," said the wealthy human. "People work faster and better when they're comfortable."

"Is that right? How interesting."

The man in Armani looked out of the large window which made up almost one whole wall of the room, and squinted against the bright sun. They were on the twenty third floor of a large office building behind the warehouse and the people walking around on the ground were barely visible even as tiny dots. "Are you comfortable? Don't you think you'd work harder if you were sitting in a chair like this?"

"Yes, I probably would," agreed the shaman – who may or may not be human. He looked human to the professor, but appearances could be deceptive. This warehouse and office block looked, to the casual observer, like any other place of business – no-one would have imagined that this place held the secrets to a, hopefully, new and improved life. "But I sorely doubt that everyone you employs works from one of these seats."

"No, they don't," he conceded. Most of the workers – secreraries, typists, and the like – sat in cushioned computer chairs. "But they're still comfortable. I haven't had any complaints."

"I hate to interrupt this conversation," began Professor Wright, "but could we discuss the issue at hand." He shuffled the papers he had taken from his briefcase.

"Well, you called this meeting. What are your problems with how things are going?"

Professor Wright looked between the other two figures and stared at the door, expectantly. "Shouldn't we wait for the Information Officer? I mean, she should be here."

"I've left her a dozen messages but there's no word of her."

"She's probably sick. There're a lot of flu bugs going round," said the shaman. "I wouldn't worry too much."

"Anyway," sighed Professor Wright. "I've got no problems as such but, as of lunchtime tomorrow, we're not in a position to turn back on this. I just want to make sure we're all on the same page."

"You sound like you've got some concerns."

"It's just," he paused, searching for the right words. The shaman took his feet off the table and leaned in to listen. "I'm not so sure this is the right way to save the entire human race. I've –"

The shaman took over. "There's been an increase in street crime in the last few months. It seems to be getting worse. But we knew that things would get worse before they get better."

The third man tapped his pen against his cheek as he thought. "But it's only been a slight increase, hasn't it?"

"Well, yeah. But it's a big difference overall. And after the move becomes permanent, it'll get really bad and everyone will be fighting each other."

"Look," said the professor. "You just said that things will get worse. I'm just not sure I want to be partly responsible for destroying half the human race."

"How are you getting on with that text?"

The shaman opened the ancient book and hunched over it, pulling the dark hood of his robes further over his head. "Not too well," he admitted. "I think I know what it's written in. I think it's two different dialects of Alvareshnik, but they're at such different ends of the spectrum that they look like completely different languages."

"Alvareshnik demons?" asked the professor curiously. "Never heard of them."

"You wouldn't," said the other suited man. "Not if you don't research demons, and also because they've been extinct for almost two centuries." He was one of the few people who actually believed in real demons, which was partly why the plan to rid the world of monsters had appealed to him.

"Not your run-of-the-mill hell-bent-on-total-destruction kind of demons either. It actually makes a weird kind of sense. I'll need to do some research on the race – maybe if I understand them, I'll understand the spell they used."

"It's worth a shot. How are the calculations going, prof?"

"As you know, it depends heavily on his spells going right. I've worked out that by tomorrow, the sun will've moved too much for it to be stopped. We can stop saying the spells but that won't stop it from turning. And I personally think that things will be harder if we let the sun go at it's own pace."

The shaman closed the book and peered across the table at the sheets of writng. "Which is why we need to decide now if we want to stop it. Because it's our last chance?"

"Well, I don't want to stop it. This is our only chance to cleanse our world of anyone who wishes to cause harm."

"What you need to understand is that violence is going to escalate beyond belief before the final stage is completed."

"But the end result will be no violence?"

"Yes, but there might not be anyone left to demonstrate that. No-one human at any rate."

"So, is everyone agreed?" asked the shaman, holding down the urge to look out of the window. He wasn't the biggest fan of heights, though he was braver than many in his tribe – some of them didn't even have the proverbial guts to cross over into the human dimension. "No turning back?"

"Agreed," said the two men in suits. "Well, we've started it. It's not really right to go back on it when we've decided to give them Heaven."

The shaman stood up and leaned across the table. "It's too late to back out now," he said, picking up on the professor's doubts.

"I'm not saying we should stop, I'm just concerned that maybe the world is better off without this – it's their choice to hurt each other."

"And we can take that choice away," the robed shaman said. "To ensure that they don't make the wrong one."

The silver pen fell onto the carpeted floor and a designer jacketed arm reached down for it. "Are we prepared for everything that's about to happen, though? The police are working hard enough as it is. There's no way we can expect them to be able to cope with this influx of violence and crime."

"There's not much we can do," Professor Wright pointed out, patting his inside pocket where he kept his gun, "except protect ourselves."

"I have no need of weapons. The gods of my tribe keep me safe." Leaving the two suited men to finish the discussion, the shaman pressed the 'open' button on the panel in the wall and stepped inside the lift.

THREE

"I want the whole package," smiled Robyn as she stood in the middle of a room, covered by black dungarees and a red jumper. "All the extras too. And I want it now!" Patience was not a virtue with Robyn. She was standing in the middle of a computer shop, instructing one of the workers to get her a computer package. "Only the best for my Mika. His old computer caught fire and he wants a new one." She turned around and stared at one of the teenagers who was walking around with his parents and younger sister.

"Hi," he said, immediately caught up in her hypnotic gaze.

"We both get cranky when there's nothing to play with."

"The games section's over in the corner." Helpfully, the youngster pointed over to the far corner. "You're really pretty."

"I know. It's part of my charm." Robyn clapped her hands twice and the boy walked off with his family, frowning and shaking his head, unclear on what had just happened. "Aah, puberty," she sighed. "I love that stage."

"You want everything? It won't be cheap, madam."

"I'm not paying for it, silly," Robyn giggled. "I don't bother myself with such trivial matters as money."

"So, who is paying for it? We at least need a deposit of some kind."

Ignoring his last statement, she decided to change subjects, and gnawed at the scab on her lip. Robyn had left her hair loose to hang about her face so as to hide some of the fresh and ugly injuries Mika had delivered, but in her change of mind, she flicked her hair back and showed the bloody scratch on her head and the purple bruise on her jaw. Knowing that the clerk had seen and was about to comment on her injuries, she pretended to just realise and flicked her hair back over her face, looking around at everyone else in the shop.

"What happened?"

"Oh... er... nothing. It's okay."

"Something's hurt you. Or someone."

"I just, um... fell downstairs. It's nothing, really." The clerk truly believed that she was a victim of domestic violence, she played the role so well. Well, she'd seen enough of it to pull it off convincingly. "Nothing happened. It was just one of those little accidents."

To the cashier, a stout, balding man in his fifties, any violence was a very serious thing, especially when people felt they had to hide it. He just didn't understand why anyone would try to hide it. "You should go to the hospital and get it checked out. You might've hurt your head."

"It'll be okay." Robyn looped a finger inside the plastic strip they used to tie it together and leaned over the counter. "Wanna know a secret?"

"Do you need someone to carry that out to the car? It's quite heavy."

"Do you wanna know a secret?" she repeated, heaving her boxes off the desktop to demonstrate her strength. The computer was heavier than she had imagined, but was light enough to carry without too much strain. "I begged him to do it." Robyn smiled a thin, little smile as she saw the man recoil in horror. "And now, because you've been so helpful, you can have your reward. You get to come and watch."

Her eyes momentarily glowed the fierce amber of a predator on the hunt, and in a tried and tested move she reached across, grabbed his wrist and yanked him towards her. "Hey! That hurts!" He grabbed onto the edge of the counter as Robyn tried to yank him over the top. "What are you doing? Let go of me, I have to work." Robyn tightened her grip and put on a burst of pressure until she heard the satisfying snap of bone beneath her hand. "Bitch!" The man – his name badge named him as Adam – took his hand from the edge and slapped it over his broken wrist.

"Thank you." Oblivious to the half a dozen or so people now watching the scuffle, Robyn hauled him over to her side and marched him out to the covered stock room where she had entered via one of the manholes. "Let's go."

Adam, cradling his injured wrist in his other hand, looked down the hole at the flowing sludge in the sewers. "We're not going down there, are we? You've gotta be kidding me."

Robyn stared down and squinted as she saw a rat scuttle over the metal rungs. "Do I look like I'm joking?"

Trailing the boxes behind her, Robyn licked her lips involuntarily as she caught sight of Adam's bare neck. She tore her eyes away from the pulsing veins and carried on through the dirty tunnels. Her only priority now was to get home and make Mika happy with his gift. "Heaven on Earth. Have you ever heard such a ridiculous idea? And they're going ahead with it."

Adam stopped walking and bent down to scratch his leg. "No, never heard anything like it. But why are you so bothered about it?"

Robyn sighed in exasperation and poked him with him with one finger to keep him walking. "Keep going. I don't know exactly what they're doing, but it's going to hurt. I know that much. It will hurt, and sting, and... "

As her speech trailed off, Adam turned around. "Are you okay?"

"Not in the mood for talking. Let's go home." Hearing his heartbeat quicken, however slightly, and seeing his muscles tense, invisible to human eyes, Robyn flicked an arm out and clamped her hand over his shoulder. "No running, or I'll break your legs and you'll never run again."

"What's the time?" rasped Carly. "I can't see my watch."

Mika opened the curtains a tiny way and peeked out. "About five o'clock." He walked across the room, trailing his fingers across the back of her exposed neck. Carly tried to pull away from his touch, and Mika let his hands drop to his side as he sat back down. "Why don't you like it when I touch you? I'm trying to be friendly."

"I've already told you everything that I can, Mika. Why are you doing this to me?" She didn't understand it. Mika already knew everything she was going to tell him, so why was he still torturing her. Because he enjoyed it. That was the reason, but it was so sick that she didn't want to admit it. "Why are you being nice to me?"

"Just because I'm a soulless killing machine, I'm not allowed to like people?"

"That argument would be a lot more convincing if it were possible." Although Carly wouldn't admit it to him, she was glad that she was being kept here. At least she no longer had to worry about keeping the secrets that FDR Industries had trusted her with. Mika and Robyn would find out sooner or later. Right now, she realised, her best shot to stay alive was to offer her help. "If you and the redhead can somehow get into the Crash Room, I can help you work it all out." Mika looked up from the floor, where he was using his fingernail to doodle on the wooden floorboards, and motioned for her to go on. "I need another drink first."

Without a word he left the room and returned quickly with another glass of water. "What do you mean, you can help/"

"Where's the other one? I think it'd be easier to tell you both together." Carly found herself transfixed by the droplets off her own blood that were staining the floor. She had shut herself off from all the burns and bloody wounds that Mika and Robyn had taken turns giving her, but knew that she would still be crying and screaming if she let the pain enter her thoughts. She tried to keep herself on such a low level of consciousness that pain was out of range. Of course, it didn't work completely but Carly made herself ignore the worst of it.

"The small cuts are always the worst, aren't they?" Mika taunted her with a small piece of glass he found on the floor from the glass he smashed earlier and whipped it through the air in one fluid movement, drawing blood from a long cut on her upper arm. "It always hurts at first but can't you just feel it getting better? Giving release to all that pent up tension?"

Carly flinched at she felt the skin tear but didn't really feel it until she saw the blood trickling down her arm. "I'm chained up but I'm free," she whispered. Normal ears wouldn't have picked it up, but Mika's enhanced hearing detected her every word.

"Feels good, doesn't it?"

"It's just red. I'm watching it drip away, and I know it's wrong but, it doesn't feel bad." Carly sniffed at a few new tears that had welled up and hung her head in shame – she shouldn't be feeling this way. "It hurts and stuff but I don't care. It doesn't matter anymore. It's just blood."

"Have I missed anything?" a familiar, dreamy voice echoed through the house. "Mika, I've got a present for you!" Robyn entered the room, dragging a large cardboard box behind her in one hand, and pulled an older man by the wrist. "His name's Adam and I found him in a nice little computer place." There were over a dozen people in that shop, customers alone, and Robyn herself wasn't sure why she had chosen this older man over the other younger, tastier morsels available. "I don't like him. He keeps talking at me."

"I needed something to take my mind off all those rats in the sewers."

"Well, there's a simple cure for that." Mika looked the man up and down, then turned him around on the spot as he inspected him. "Too old. Kill him," he pushed the man over to Robyn, who grabbed his head in both hands, then paused as Adam spoke.

"H-hey. Don't you want to show him his new computer?" he stalled, trying to grasp at a few extra seconds. "It's a top-of-the-range model. It's got a top graphics card and brilliant speakers."

"You're family are all in heaven," Robyn said, just knowing.

"How do you know that? I never mentioned it."

"My baby can see things in your eyes. In your heart." Mika leaned over the man and reached for one of her trembling, white hands. "In your soul."

"I see loss. And longing to see them again. And... mmmmm," Hungrily, Robyn lifted her nose and sniffed at the air. "Sweet fear."

Carly was watching this exchange from her chains, but didn't even feel sorry for the man who was quaking with fear between them. "There's no point," she muttered to herself. "No point at all." She didn't feel anything for the man in the green PC Planet t-shirt – her emotions were no longer unstoppable chemical impulses in her body. They were now no more than a memory.

"... dead," Robyn was telling him when Carly refocused her eyes. "It's time for you to join them." He closed his eyes as her hands gripped his head on either side and Carly heard his neck break before the dead man fell to the floor. She squealed in child-like delight and smiled at Mika; Mika returned a quick grin. "Do you like watching me do that?"

"Almost as much as doing it my self, love. Why did you take him in public?"

"The risk of it. Things are happening. People are too distracted to bother." Robyn looked down at the front of her dungarees and brushed vigorously at a track of dirt that only she could see. How could she explain that it was so much more fun when you did things right under people's noses? "It's just a game."

Mika took her hand away from her and held it to his smooth unblemished cheeks. He smiled as Robyn began to trace over the familiar lines of his face with her thumb. Carly turned her head away; there was only so much she could take of them hurting each other and being so tender with each other. Mika took his hand away and placed it on her cheek, above the large bruise. Her skin was cool to the touch, as was his, but it was creamy-white and lightly tinged with pink – a flush from the excitement of the last few minutes. "Let's unchain Carly," he suggested, wincing as Robyn dug her nails into his cheek, making deep marks in his flesh.

Robyn's eyes filled with tears and she sank to her knees by the side of the dead man. "Why am I crying? I'm not supposed to feel like this."

Mika squatted down and held her gaze. "You're sad." A second later, he realised that that wasn't true – she was far from sad. He felt Robyn run her fingers through his hair and hit the floor on his side as she pushed him away from her. He squinted up at her but, as fast as he was, he didn't even have time to sit up before Robyn was on him punching him repeatedly in the face.

"I am not sad!" she cried, punctuating every few words with another assault. "I don't get sad! I don't feel that any more!" But, of course, that wasn't entirely true. Robyn felt sad whenever she thought Mika might be hurt. No, she wasn't sad – she was angry and scared. And she was dealing with these strange human emotions the same way that she dealt with all problems – by lashing out at them. "Don't pretend you know how I feel when you don't feel anything yourself." She looked down at her bloodied knuckles and then at Mika's lumpy and bruised face. In disbelief at how she had hurt him, Robyn moved back to the floor and cradled Mika in her arms. "I don't understand all these things inside. Everything's switching and making me feel like this."

Mika wasn't sure he understood. Robyn had adapted to all kinds of change in the past, but this one was too big for her too handle. And Mika would do anything to stop her from feeling like this... to stop her from feeling.

"Back to the Crash Room, Carly," said Mika around a rapidly swelling top lip.

She looked up, no longer affected by the painful-looking injuries they bestowed on each other. She couldn't bring herself to watch the couple hurt each other, but all she felt was relief that it wasn't her they were torturing. "What about it?"

Robyn shuddered as Mika rose on unsteady legs, and moaned softly. "Don't go. There will be danger and shooting."

Mika raised one quizzical eyebrow in Carly's direction, and she nodded.

Gareth Jordan-Smyth was sat in his large, airy office on the first floor of the tall building, looking out of the window at the warehouse opposite. Hr also had an office on the first floor of the warehouse where he usually worked but it was nice to come over here every once in a while. "Don't you just love life?" he asked his assistant.

"You haven't got kids at home, have you?"

"Blissfully no." He threw the window open and took a lungful of fetid, smoke-filled air. "Haven't you ever wanted to know what it'd be like?"

"What what would be like?"

"Not to have to worry about getting attacked in the dark." Gareth turned around to face her. "Not to have to read about murders in the newspapers, or hear about war in the news. Not to have to go to court because someone did something wrong."

Lizzie held out the papers that needed to be signed, and sat down as she waited. "I never even thought about it, to be honest. Life is just life. We can't change it."

"What if we could change it, though? Wouldn't you prefer to live in a world where nothing bad ever happens rather the violent one we live in now?"

No, I don't think I would."

"Why not?" he asked, taking out his silver pen and signing the papers on his desk.

"Because we wouldn't really be living if we didn't have conflict," Lizzie said after a moment of thought. "We need bad people in the world to keep the balance with the good. Without that, we're not living. Just existing."

"Haven't you ever wished it, or thought about it... just for a second or two?"

Thoughtfully, Lizzie chewed on the inside of her cheek and picked at the corner of her plastic covered black clipboard. "I've thought about it, I suppose. When you've got three fighting teenagers at home, it's your only refuge. But I wouldn't swap the kids for the world. I think life's pretty good as it is."

"Yeah, I guess it is." He took the gun out of his pocket and laid the silver and black weapon on the table between him and Lizzie. "Look at that, Liz."

She put her clipboard on the table and bent over the gun. "It's a gun, sir."

"I know what it is, Lizzie. I have to carry it around with me all the time. The point of it is that I shouldn't have to need to keep that for protection."

Listening to her boss speak, Lizzie picked it up and turned it over in her hands, strangely fascinated by it. She didn't like guns – or any weapons of any kind, for that matter – but she liked the feel of the cool, heavy metal in her hands. "Such a small thing can cause so much damage."

"... what I'm saying?" he finished.

"You're right. You shouldn't have to protect yourself with this," she agreed, still holding the gun in one hand. "But there's not much we can do about it. Life's dangerous, you just learn to get on with things." Suddenly, Lizzie raised the gun and aimed it straight at his chest.

"Lizzie. What are you doing?"

"Getting on with things."

Gareth held up his hands and smiled, nervously. "Put the gun down, Liz. It's not a toy."

"Oh, I know." She flexed her fingers around the rubber grip and stared at him, hard. She watched him as he slowly closed his laptop, and pushed the papers over the desk. She put them on the top of the clipboard and picked them up in her free hand. "It's very real."

The pistol still trained on his chest, Gareth was almost too afraid to breathe – but only almost. He wasn't too scared to beg for his life. "You don't wanna do this, Lizzie. Are you angry with me about something; I thought we were mature enough to talk about things."

"I'm not taking it anymore; 'Lizzie do this. Lizzie, do that. Liz, get me some coffee.' Well, I'm not your slave. I'm not just some dog who does things to command. I'm a person, too." Her hand shook slightly as she held the gun steady and pulled the trigger. There was bang as the bullet coursed through the air and then the handgun dropped to the floor from a slack hand. "No..." she sobbed.

Mika brushed Robyn's hair over one shoulder and fastened the necklace claso at the back of her neck. It was a delicate silver chain with a crystal-flecked heart; an expensive piece of jewellery that hadn't been very easy to get. It had taken them weeks to get the pendant from a young woman called Annie – weeks of tracking, torture and following the girl around half of the globe. "Do you remember how we got this necklace?" he asked.

"Annie," Robyn remembered. "She was fun."

Mika reached out to the shelf and put his dark shades on. "Annie nearly got us killed. She wasn't very smart, though, as I remember."

Robyn walked her fingers up Carly's spine and watched her as she began to wake from her deep, dreamless slumber. Carly had been unchained and allowed to lie on a fold-away bed for now. "What are you doing?" she yawned. "I'm trying to sleep here."

Robyn placed her hand on Carly's shoulder and gently shook her until she was fully awake. "Wake up."

She opened her eyes and found herself staring up into Robyn's pretty face. "What?" She gripped the edge of the thin mattress and pulled herself into a sitting position. "I was having my first proper nap in three days. Why did you wake me up?"

"Partly because it's fun for us," Mika began. "And partly because we're going out. We don't want you escaping or calling for help now, do we? Robyn?"

She happily snapped a metal cuff around Carly's wrist and pulled on the chain attached firmly to the ceiling to make sure it was fixed tight. Mika left the room to fins the car keys and left Robyn with Carly. She felt for the black strip of material on the floor and pulled it tight in front of her eyes.

"Don't put that thing on me again. I can't breathe properly with it... and I can't help you if I'm dead."

"You've got a lot to learn about evil." The black rag now tightly knotted, Robyn brushed the side of Carly's neck. The girl let out a tiny scream of fright at her ominous touch and felt her eyes fill with tears she didn't think she had left. She didn't care that Robyn might cut her and lick her blood again – she just wanted to be left alone. As if she had read Carly's thoughts, Robyn took her hand away and swept through the door, closing it tight and locking it behind her.

Robyn opened the car door and slid into the plush, leather driving seat of the sleek, black convertible that they had stolen from a showroom a few evenings previously. Turning the key in the ignition, she listened to the engine turn over before pressing down on the accelerator.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Mika asked her gently, watching the streets o

pass by.

"I don't understand. Why do they want to keep it a secret?"

"I'm not sure, but we'll find out soon enough."

Robyn slowed the car at a busy t-junction in the road, and leaned out to see what the hold-up was. It was nothing more than a car crash in which one car had reversed into another, but Robyn drove the car over the grass to watch the two drivers argue it out. "I can feel it from here."

"Feel what, baby?" asked Mika, disinterested in the argument on the street. He looked out of the other window at the row of shops with their lights twinkling in the darkening evening sky.

"So much rage and heat. It rushes around... getting hotter and hotter... until it explodes. Boom!" She chuckled to herself and untangled her long, straight hair from Mika's hands. "They don't know how to control it like we do. It spirals."

Mika frowned at her and put his arm around her shoulders. "We'll make it right soon. When we get to the Crash Room and find what we need, we'll turn everything back to normal."

Robyn started the engine again and put her foot down. "Heaven on Earth. What's wrong with the world the way it is?"

"Nothing... from our point of view. But they want to get rid of us and anyone remotely like us. Every living thing that has or plans to harm someone else."

"The monsters," Robyn muttered, remembering how Carly had referred to them in their conversation. "To rid the world the world of monsters."

"Exactly," he agreed. "They're too wrapped up in their own world that they can't see that we're actually doing them a favour by keeping the population down." Mika pushed himself off the seat with his feet and sat on top of the headrest so he could pick up the dozens of scents of a busy city on the breeze. "Fear, anger, love, passion... and diesel," he said, wrinkling his nose at the rancid stench of diesel fumes from the car in front. As breathing was optional for him, it wasn't much of a problem for Mika to close his nose off to the smell and slide back down into his seat.

"Take your feet down," Robyn reprimanded him. "The seats are getting dirty." She really wasn't bothered about the upholstery getting ruined, but, like many people, she found that focusing on insignificant things helped her deal with big issues – like the plan. She fixed her eyes on the road ahead and kept driving, trying not to let her thoughts dwell on the enormous task ahead. It was easier to fixate on little problems that could be solved in a minute than one huge problem she didn't fully understand. Robyn tightened her burnt and blistered hands around the steering wheel, relishing the self-inflicted pain.

Mika stroked the hand nearest to him and Robyn pulled her hand away involuntarily. He let his hand linger on the wheel for a moment, then withdrew it and resorted to drumming his fingers on the dashboard. He didn't understand why Robyn didn't want to be touched but made no comment on it. "I think you're right," he said as they sped towards a crash scene. Some people were injures, the rest were either standing around watching, or fighting. "Things are getting more violent."

"I like it," she grinned. "The pain is beautiful. All different colours – always changing." She braked suddenly, and for no apparent reason. She closed her eyes and just listened to the sounds of the accident: shouting, screaming, crying, crunching metal, horns blasting and other cars roaring past – a welcome sound... to a point. "It's wrong. It shouldn't be like this." With one hand, Robyn took the heart pendant, put it in her mouth and sucked on it.

"No, it shouldn't." He had enough compassion to feel like he should do something about it. People weren't generally like this; whatever Robyn always said was changing had definitely changed and affected them. Mika felt it too – a part of him telling him to get out of the car and have fun. Mika climbed over the door and began to walk towards the scene of the accident.

"Mika? Where are you going?" whined Robyn, not wanting to be left alone. "Don't leave me." She remembered what had happened last time they had been in a situation like this – even though it had only been a dream.

Carly grunted as she pulled on her chains again – they weren't coming any looser, but that didn't stop her from trying. She tensed her wrist and pulled herself up to hand level so she could pull the gag out. The black piece of material was pulled much tighter than before and it took her a while to pull it down to her throat. Her muscles hadn't been used in days, and the lactic acid build up made her arms tired. She pulled on the chains again but to no avail. If she turned her head, she could see the metal key lying on the shelf, purposely left just out of her reach. "You're doing a really good job of making frustrated as hell," she said to the ceiling. Talking to herself kept her sane.

"Great. You leave me here in chains, with no daylight, and –" her eyes fell on the broken body of the computer salesman. "And a dead body for company." She didn't feel sorry for the man or his family, nor was she glad that it wasn't her. She now hated the fact that she was more or less incapable of feeling emotion. Carly strained her chains to the limit and reached for the key – stretching, stretching. But it was just a hairs breadth out reach. "If I was evil, would I keep a spare?" she asked herself. "No, of course I wouldn't because evil people never do. Which brings us back to the question of how I reach the damn thing." Carly knew that it was a little... strange to be having a conversation with herself, but found the found the possibility of having a conversation with dead Adam too disturbing to even contemplate. "No offence, but you're not the best conversationalist."

Her blood-stained top felt stiff against her flesh but it didn't bother her, nor did she care that blood was trickling along her arm from where the metal cuff had cut into the back of her left wrist. To be honest, she barely noticed. Her mind was filled with images of Ricky. "Ricky?"

"Carly," said a voice behind her. "I'm here."

She turned around and looked for him, but there was no-one there. "Ricky. Where are you?"

"Where I always am. In your heart." A ghostly image of Ricky drifted out of her body and slowly took on a more solid form.

"I thought you were dead and in Heaven, or somewhere."

"I am and I should be."

"So why aren't you?"

"Because you won't let me go," he answered. "You keep holding on."

"Ricky, I'm so sorry! I didn't mean for any of this to happen."

"I know," he assured her, looking at bloodied top she hadn't realised she was still wearing. "I'm glad you let me die."

"Glad? Why?"

Ricky gestured to her bloody clothes and looked around. "Because, now, I don't have to live with what's coming."

Carly frowned at him, not understanding his cryptic words. "What's coming? I don't know what you mean." She reached out for his outstretched hand – and her hand passed straight through his. "That makes sense. You're some kind of hallucination."

"Follow me." He walked over to a row of bushes, Carly followed closely behind him and moved the branches to one side. "Do you remember this night?"

Cars were speeding along the four-lane road they were looking out on. The bright lights of the shops on the other side of the road were twinkling against the dark night sky. Fallen gold and red autumn leaves were dancing across the pavement, blown in all directions by the wind. People were hurrying to and fro with bags of late night shopping, or empty-handed on a night out. "Of course I do. It was our first anniversary last year. We walked home because we didn't have any money for a taxi," she remembered. "We spent it all in the video arcade. Just walking together was so romantic. It was –"

"Perfect," he finished. "Yeah, it was." Ricky stretched his arm out and sweot ir over the road in al slow arc. "Now look at it."

They were still looking out on the same stretch of road but, instead of cars flying past, they were backed up as far as the eye could see. There was a huge car smash in front of them, and many drivers, passengers and pedestrians were lying on the ground, injured and screaming for pain relief. Dozens of bystanders had started fighting with each other. "Isn't anyone trying to help?"

"They're trying. No-one was prepared for this – no-one was ready, Carly."

Carly looked out at the riot on the street, horrified at how bad things had gotten already. "This isn't my fault. It can't be." She turned back to look at Ricky. "It can't be my fault."

"You can't change what is, only what will be."

Gunshots sounded in the air – they sounded like they were coming from all directions – and Ricky began to fade away. "Wait!" Ricky stopped fading and hovered in the air, his feet a few inches off the grass.

"What? I can't stay here forever."

"I just want to say goodbye." She didn't get the chance before. "I love you so much – more than you'll ever know. I'd give anything for them not to have killed you but..."

"You can't change what is, only what will be," he repeated, in a softer voice.

"Ricky?" She looked around but Ricky was gone. Carly gasped as she felt ghostly fingers circle her heart and put her hand to her chest – Ricky lived in her heart because she couldn't let him go. She needed to hold on to something. Something to make her feel human through her numbing ordeal.

And suddenly she was back in her bare, lightless room, hanging from her chains. "Oh –"

"Fuck," muttered Mika as he hauled a young girl out of a burning car. "Burnt my hand." Ignoring the heat given off by the growing flame, he reached back into the car and grabbed her baby brother with his other hand. Both were alive but, while the girl had several broken bones and deep cuts, the baby had miraculously remained relatively unhurt. He carried the children over to a patch of road he had cleared, and laid them down next to some of the other injured people, most of whom were bleeding heavily. The rich, deep red liquid was pooling together to form one large puddle of blood. Something told him to crouch down next to the crying baby and succumb to the temptation. Its pull was so strong – irresistible – almost calling out to him, begging him to drink. Mika got down onto his knees and lowered his head to the young child. "It's okay." He heard the sound of a fresh fight breaking out behind him and lifted his head. Rolling his eyes, Mika rose from the ground and listened to them for a second.

"This is all your fault!"

There was more shouted dialogue between the people behind him, but Mika was too busy looking at his hands to listen. When he had put his lands on the ground earlier, he had put his hands in the expanse of blood in the road. Only his knuckles had blood on. He stared at them as if they were alien to him, then sucked at them until the blood came off. "Ahhh!" He said, blowing the word out like he had just lit up a cigarette. He could even tell which person the blood had come from – he craved more like an alcoholic craves whisky. He turned around to pull the fighters apart, a hungry, animalistic look in his eyes, when a woman stopped him mid-spin.

A few hundred yards away, well out of the danger area, Robyn sat back in her leather drivers seat watching the commotion on the street. "This is just the beginning." A wide smile spread across her face as she thought of the fun Mika must be having in all the confusion. Absently, she toyed with the thin silver chain of her necklace.

"You're shot," said the dreadlocked American. "Let me bandage that for you before you lose too much blood."

He looked down at his t-shirt where there was a round, blood-edged bullet hole, and clamped his hand over it. "Don't worry about me."

"Look, you've done some nice work here: getting people out of their cars, stopping fights. But you're no good to anyone injured." She looked at him and Mika stared back at her.

The bullet wound wouldn't do him any lasting damage, but the woman wasn't to know that. He didn't even know that he had been shot until she remarked on it – in fact he could hardly feel it now. "I don't think it's gone in deep."

"So it shouldn't take long to get patched up." She turned around to get some bandages but, when she turned back, he was gone. "Hey!"

Mika made his way out of the melee, pushing people away if they dared to cross his path. The call to feed was too strong to stand against and only decades of practice had allowed him to fight it for this long. Yet, this was no ordinary want to drink. It was as if there was some little voice inside his head encouraging him to do wrong, only temporarily counter-acted by the knowledge that the voice was not his own.

"Mika, you're hurt." Robyn reached over to him and held her hand a few inches above his bullet wound. "Who hurt you?"

"Haven't got a clue." Mika lifted up his t-shirt, reached into his stomach and pulled out the silver ball-bearing. "Not even a proper bullet."

"Shall I kiss it all better?"

Mika stared at her as he threw the ball-bearing to the ground and heaved himself into the passenger seat. "Robyn, baby. Just drive," he pleaded, only now feeling the effects of the harmless-looking projectile that had apparently torn a gash in some internal organ or other. "I think I've punctured something important." He grimaced as Robyn revved the engine, certain that the wound would have partially, if not completely, have healed by the time they reached their destination.

After being given a quick run down of who was still in the building, Johnny sat down and switched on his small, portable TV. He could only get a decent reception on two channels, and both were showing old films he had seen before, but he left one of them on anyway to ward off the quiet. Idly he glanced at the monitor and flipped through the cameras, satisfied that no unauthorised people were inside.

He hadn't yet received his uniform and had dressed in black again. He took his two standard issue pistols from his belt and checked the barrel. Against David's advice, he had filled the barrel with six live bullets and not left any spaces empty. He blew away some dist that had come from his pocket and affectionately ran his finger around the round edge. "Magic," he muttered. Chuckling to himself, Johnny shot his arm out to the side and trained the gun on an imaginary target in the distance. "Got a gun, and I'm not afraid to use it," he bit off to himself. He turned the gun inwards and brought it back to eye-line. "It's a thing of beauty."

His attention was drawn to a spider who was scuttling across the floor and using his shoe as a bridge. "Come here, you little bastard." He shook the arachnid off of his shoe and moved his chair slightly further away so he could get a good aim. The gun was still in his hand and Johnny considered shooting. "Nah. That'd just be a waste of a good bullet." Putting the gun back on the desk, he raised his foot and brought it back down, audibly crushing every bone in its' round little body. Johnny had never liked spiders much – not since he'd seen a friend bitten by one on a school trip to Australia – but he wasn't scared of them. To Johnny, they were just nasty, pointy-toothed animals that deserved to die. He kicked the flattened spider under the desk and tried to forget it was there. "Dave!" he shouted to the evening security guard who had been changing into his regular clothes.

David came out of the back office, shrugging his jacket on. "What?"

"Killed an eight-legged thing."

"So? We get spiders here all the time." Sighing, David crouched down and picked the squashed spider up with a tissue from his pocket and looked inside. "Ugh! You really don't like spiders, do you? That's a tiddler compared to some," he said, serious expression not faltering for a moment. "I'll bin it on my way out."

"I thought about shooting it," Johnny told him. "Have you ever shot anyone?"

"No," David replied as he headed out of the door. "Against my principles."

"Not against mine." Johnny felt powerful when he had a weapon.

Johnny glanced down at his watched in the middle of the film and yawned, more from being bored than tired. He wondered if there was that much point in staying wide awake through the whole shift – it didn't seem very likely that anyone would try to get in. As he took another quick look at the monitor, Johnny reached down to scratch his ankle where his new shoes had been rubbing him. The film was still playing quietly in the background, and the light given off by it cast eerie shadows in the air. Bored, Johnny took his notebook from the shelf and opened it.

The book was half-filled with drawings and random thoughts. Many of the drawings were of comic book heroes he had made up. Taking his thin, black pen from his shirt pocket, Johnny turned to a new page, set the book on the desk and put pen to paper. He came up with his best creations when he didn't think about what he was drawing too much, and let his pen take control.

FOUR

Robyn turned the steering wheel to the side and the car rounded a corner. "Are you okay, now?"

"Better." He reached behind him and felt around for the cap-sleeved, button-down shirt he kept on the back seat. It was more torn and bloody that the t-shirt he was wearing, so Mika screwed it up and threw it back. "Are you sure you know the way." He didn't expect an answer, so he wasn't surprised when he didn't get one.

Robyn sighed and kept driving. It shouldn't take them long now, and she shifted up a gear. They were now a little over the speed limit but she doubted the police would even care enough to pull her over. "This is just the beginning," she repeated.

"What?" asked Mika. "The beginning of what?"

"The beginning of the end."

"Robyn, baby." Mika put a hand over the one on the gear stick and gave it a quick squeeze. "I won't –" He didn't have time to finish the sentence as Robyn revved the car and smashed through the wooden barrier in front of them. The car screeched to a halt in the middle of the car-park and Mika realised seatbelts weren't just ugly car accessories. He still wasn't going to wear it, though. Car safety wasn't really a priority for him and Robyn, anyway. "Nothing's going to end."

"Everything's ending." Robyn's eyes began to roll in their sockets and Mika shook her out of her trance. "I've seen it."

Mika shook his head and, not for the first time, wished that he had left the doom-laden Robyn at home. But she was useful, and Mika knew exactly how to snap her out of it. "We won't let it end. If we work this together, we'll stop it."

"Promise?" she asked him, looking up at Mika through big, wide eyes.

"Promise. I won't let anything hurt my little bird."

Carly was hanging limply from her chains, resigned to the fact that there was no way she could loosen them. Her entire body was dotted with bruises, cuts and burns from the hot pokers, and her muscles ached beyond belief....She turned her head to one side and then to the other as she tried to keep her muscles working. She'd learnt that it wasn't always a good idea to let your body rest if it is tired – sometimes you have to make it work because it is tired. Her eyes fell away to a flash of movement on the floor near the ashy fireplace.

"Hello, mouse."

The small white rodent looked up at her through pink eyes and stopped in its' hurry from one corner of the room to the other.

"Were you somebody's pet?"

The mouse squeaked up at her in answer.

"I used to have someone who loved me and looked after me. A bit like you."

The mouse stared up at her with its curious, beady eyes. Carly liked to think that the mouse was cleverer that he was letting on, and was sure he understood everything she said.

"It's scary, isn't it? Being in the big wide world all on your own. You never know when the next bad thing's gonna happen. Trust me, things are about to get a lot tougher."

The mouse squeaked and ran away, disappearing into the shadows at the corner of the room. Carly sighed and closed her eyes in mild frustration at not being able to move around. The white mouse crept back out and twitched his nose at her.

"I wish I had some cheese or something to give you, but... I'm locked up. Don't look at me like that – I'm in the same boat as you. I'm tired, cold, hungry and I've got no-one to protect me. But, this has got to be better than whatever's going on out there."

The mouse started scratching at the wooden floorboards with his tiny claws as if he were searching for a way out of the house. Carly snorted at the rodent and the mouse ran back to the relative safety of his corner.

"Nice try, but there's no way out of this hell-hole. Neither us are getting out of here alive," she told the retreating figure. Her eyes were, once again, drawn to the dead body lying on the floor near the locked door. A few hours earlier, when she had watched the man be killed, she had felt nothing – now she felt only disgust. Not at Mika and Robyn for killing him in front of her and in cold blood, nor at herself, guilty of not even warning him of what was to happen. No, her disgust was directed at the corpse for making her look at it all night – Carly didn't enjoy the thought of even being under the same roof as the body, let alone in such close quarters as it. She remembered every detail of the murder, could see it in her minds' eye, vivid as a lightning strike. She could see the look of fear in his eyes as he tried to distract Robyn, could recall the look of resigned acceptance when Robyn had known he had no family. She still heard the sound of his neck breaking, almost a crunch of bone on bone rather than the snap she had expected. Vaguely, Carly knew that it was wrong to be angry at the dead man but she couldn't help how she was feeling. It was as if she was been taken over and was controlling her barely-there emotions.

She let out a high-pitched, animalistic scream and kicked out at the body; not a person, or even a person that was, just a corpse, an empty shell. Like her, like the monsters, like everyone – no-one was their own person anymore, just puppets playing somebody else's game.

"I hate you!" she shrieked to the world in general. "For making me look at a dead man, for keeping me here like a caged animal." She took a deep, shuddering breath between her tears and lowered her voice. "And I hate you for leaving me." The tears kept coming, more freely than ever, even though she thought she had no more tears left each time she cried.

It was silent in the Crash Room but for the humming of running computers. The room was white and chrome, showing just how sterile and protected this environment really was. Only three people were authorised to use this room, but no-one had been in for a couple of days. The main computer in the middle of the room was linked to the other computers that lined the walls. The high screens on the island were black with tiny green writing appearing every few seconds as it was continuously updated with new information. The far wall was given over to a large hexagonal automatic doorway and metal detectors in case anyone tried to sneak out with the disks or in with a machine to copy them.

The wall at the other end of the room had a built in cabinet above the computer and a set of sliding drawers underneath. They weren't locked; no-one had seen the point of installing locks because no-one should even be in the Crash Room. Each computer had a swivel chair in front of it. There were twice as many computers as there ever were people in the room, but they often used more than one computer at a time and pushed themselves around the room.

At the beginning of this project, Gareth Jordan-Smyth had been wary about putting everything onto computer and leaving hooked up to the internet all the time. It would be far too easy for a computer virus to find its' way into the system, or for a civilian to hack into their files. For over a week that had been a source of great worry for him – until the Information Officer had started encrypting everything and putting all kinds of firewalls up. Each time any new information came to them and was put onto the network, it was immediately encased in the totally illogical and virtually uncrackable code. Every precautionary measure had to be taken to ensure that none of the protected material was seen or tampered with. If it somehow fell into the wrong hands...

Mika wrapped his arm, tight, around Robyn's shoulders and grinned. Robyn smiled back, pleased at what they had just accomplished, and shifted her weight from one foot to the other, much too excited about their impending adventure to stand still.

"Playtime?"

The glass doors at the end of the spacious corridor crashed open, prevented from shattering only by a metal fire bar. Johnny didn't even look up from his sketch pad, where he was adding the final touches to a mutant called Radia, and called out, "Hey Dave. Love this place that much, eh?"

At his lack of response, Johnny glanced up, his pen dangling from his mouth, unnoticed, at what he saw. David Lander had indeed re-entered the building, but not of his own free will – nor was he alone. Barely conscious due to the vice-like grip around his neck cutting off his air supply, David gasped audibly for oxygen and looked right at Johnny, communicating nothing but fear. Some deep, unknown part of his brain knew what the pair wanted, but try as he might, that knowledge wouldn't come to the front of his mind. "What do you want?" he rasped, kicking his feet, the toes of which barely dragged along the floor

"You know what we want," said a female voice which sounded very close to him and very far away at the same time. "And we always get what we want."

"Always," agreed a tall, dark-haired man. Mika had lost his shades in the confusion of the crash but didn't care about them. It didn't seem very important any more to blend in and pretend to be like everyone else.

Johnny let the rollerball pen fall from his lips and set his open sketch book on the smooth desk in front of him. He bent down to pick his pen up from the floor and looked up just in time to see David fly the last few feet through the air, smash into a metal pillar and fall to the ground, deeply unconscious. "That was uncalled for." Carefully, Johnny set his uncapped pen next to the book and leant back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest. "Is he dead?"

"Not quite."

The woman who had spoken a minute earlier was now nowhere in sight, but the man walked up to the desk and rested his elbows on the desk. "What're you drawing?"

"Just doodling," replied Johnny, drumming his pen on the top of the desk, nonchalantly. "Stops the quiet getting to me."

"Really?" Mika picked up the sketch book and flipped through the pages. He chuckled to himself as he recalled the real versions of the demons and heroes Johnny had created. Real demons sometimes had the capability of invading human dreams, making them think that they had just dreamed up the most wondrous being, when in fact it was taken, in part, from reality – a part of reality beyond their grasp. "They hit hard. Have special powers. Try to hide away 'cos they're different," Mika said, remembering. He closed the pad and dropped it back onto the desk, glancing briefly at the front cover which was covered with yet more doodles and writing. "It's not their fault they're different... bad. It's everybody else's problem for not being able to accept that."

"Was there something you came in for? A meeting, or something?"

"Actually, I need to see the person in charge. Mr Jordan-Smyth."

Johnny turned back to his computer screen and scanned all the cameras. He wondered why the motion sensor above the car park barrier hadn't sounded to inform him of the mans' entrance. Aha! That was why. The car the man must have arrived in had crashed straight through the barrier, leaving it splintered at the edges. He raised his eyebrows at the monitor but said nothing. "He's in his office in the next building. If you take a seat, I'll see if I can get some-one to take you over to him." But, when Johnny looked up half a second later, the man was nowhere to be seen. Nor was his sketch pad. Putting it to the back of his mind, Johnny looked over to the comatose David and shrugged. It was no use trying to wake him, it was best to leave him to come to on his own.

"Where'd he go?" he demanded of himself, flicking through the camera shots again, trying to get a sighting of him in one of the corridors.

"I could tell you," came a female voice. Johnny whipped his head up and saw a stunningly beautiful woman looking striking in figure hugging hipsters and a floor length purple coat. "I could tell you," she repeated. "But then it wouldn't be much fun trying to find him."

Johnny found himself smiling at her as she spoke but stopped himself as soon as he realised what he was doing. "I have to find him. No-one's allowed to be in the building without an escort."

"Why might that be then?"

"Because we keep some really important, top-secret information here. You can't get to it, but we're not taking any chances."

She tapped her long, silver-painted nails on the plastic surface and leaned in close. "It's all a game. And there can only be one winner."

Johnny frowned at the woman. "A game? I don't know anything about any game."

Her eyes quickly flicked upwards to a tall shadow, tensed and ready for action, and then back down to Johnny. The movement was so quick that he didn't even notice it, but she'd had plenty of practice at moving so fast that no-one could tell. "It's all kept in the Crash Room, isn't it?" she asked, looking at the front on which he had absently written 'Crash Room' repeatedly in loopy lettering.

"Even if I knew, why the hell would I tell you?" he uttered, understand that the woman wanted to get hold of the information there.

"It doesn't matter – I already know that it is." Bending down, she picked up the dropped sketch book and paged through it. "These are really good. You've got talent."

Johnny snatched the book back from her and out it on the shelf, just aware of the tiny TV flickering away at the side of the desk. He reached over to switch it off and returned to his face-to-face with the pretty redhead. "What do you want?"

She smiled knowingly at Johnny. The woman licked her lips, running her tongue right over the stubborn scab on her lip. Johnny had been so caught up in her beauty and spirit that he hadn't even noticed the quick fading bruises and healing cuts. "There are a lot of things I want. Like this necklace." She showed him the silver and crystal heart pendant. "I'll do anything to get what I want." The shadow overhead shook a little, almost imperceptibly, and she realised that it was mean to leave him up there while she teased the other man.

When Johnny had turned away to check his computer, Mika had jumped straight up and clamped his hands on one of the metal bars that ran the inside length of the first floor. Using his impressive strength reserves, he had adopted a gymnasts pose of standing upside down, using his hands as feet. As well as making no noise this way, he had discovered it minimised the shadow which might give him away. From this vantage point he watched Robyn work her charms on the security guard, an exercise that was more fun than necessary. He had been there a good minute or so when Robyn looked up and decided to join him, covering the distance between them as easily and as gracefully as a bird.

"Finally." They swung round and planted their feet on the metal grating that was used as a floor on this makeshift corridor. Mika straightened up and circled his stiff shoulders; the fact that the hole in his abdomen could re-open at any moment didn't help matters, although it didn't hurt anymore. "Did he tell you anything?"

Robyn sucked in the end of one of the long, thin braids she had hanging at either side of her head and shook her head, sheepishly. "I'm sorry, Mika. I tried. I think he knows what we're after." She watched her fingers pick at the edge of her coat pocket and stared down at her feet.

Mika saw that she was upset because she thought she had failed in her task, and wrapped his arms around her and planted a kiss on her forehead. "Look at me, Robyn. You did your best and, anyway, if this is a game..."

"We can still win?" She raised her head and then, for a reason unbeknown to Mika, pushed him through the nearest door and into an empty office. The door had been locked, but now the lock was useless, having been broken when Mika had slammed into it. Robyn giggled as she landed on top of him in the office and leapt to his feet, one foot either side of his body. She looked down at him, false contempt in her eyes as she mocked a stand one of their previous – and now very dead – foes had taken, "You are nothing more than an animal. Death would be a release." Her eyes softened to their usual look and she held out her hands to him.

He took hold of her hands and pulled himself, pulling her close to him by her waist when he had fully regained his balance. His skin was slightly warm due to the adrenaline already surging through his body and he kissed Robyn hungrily – every sense and nerve in his body somehow felt electrified and heightened. "Something about this place just turns me on," he murmured in her ear.

"Is it the game?"

"It's the danger." Hearing footsteps, rapidly closing in, on the metal flooring outside, Mika picked Robyn up and ran out of another door at the side of the room and found himself in a white corridor, also with metal grating on the floor. With Robyn lying in his arms, laughing, he winced as the closed hole in his stomach pulled on the skin. Ignoring the mild irritation, Mika ran along the corridor, painfully aware of the footsteps that were coming faster than he could run carrying Robyn, and turned the handle of a door to an office. It wasn't locked. He set Robyn down on the desk and locked the door. "I'm not sure how long it'll hold."

Robyn was only half-listening, busy looking around the sparsely furnished office. There was the desk she was sitting on, two chairs (one behind the desk and one near the wall), a large filing cabinet in the corner and a coat stand by the door. "Everything will die. Plants, animals-" she stared up at him, suddenly scared, "-people."

"Not if I can help it. Where would we be without people?"

She looked towards the window, but Mika quickly realised that she was listening to another of the things only she could hear. "The stars are crying for someone to help them. They don't want to die. They scream and they tell me things. They say that this is the end."

He heard the sound of someone trying the door. "And the stars tell you all this? What else do they say, baby?"

Robyn's eyes went wide and she curled herself up as she heard a bullet be shot into the lock. Pieces of metal fell to the ground and Johnny pushed the door open with one finger. He grinned at having so easily caught and cornered his prey, and Mika squinted in disgust at the holes where his teeth once were. "The stars say to stay away from the bad man."

"Nowhere to run," he said.

"No. Nowhere to run," agreed Mika, smiling back at him amiably. He placed his hands on the desk and vaulted over it so he was now between the desk and the window. He wrapped one strong arm around Robyn's tiny waist, pulled her up to him and fell backwards through the window with her. There was a loud bang as the couple hit the metal lid of a wheelie bin. Johnny went around the edge of the desk and peered out of the shattered window to where the man and woman lay, still, eyes closed, possibly injured, on the bent metal lid.

Johnny wasn't really bothered about them so long as they were out of the building, but supposed he should check that they were okay and call them an ambulance if they were hurt. That was part of the reason he had been dismissed from his last security guard job – lack of compassion. So he turned around and began to make his way out of the building. On his way he out, he patted his trouser pocket to make sure he still had his mobile phone, just in case he needed it to call nine-nine-nine.

Mika groaned as he realised where he had landed, but was just glad that the bin hadn't been open when he'd fell onto it. He opened his eyes after a moment and pushed himself into a sitting position. In mid-fall, Robyn had rolled away from him and now lay beside him on her front. She heard Mika and moved onto her knees. She looked up to the window they had crashed through felt for Mika. "Is he gone?"

"For now, but he'll be back."

"So, let's get gone before he gets here." Robyn swung her legs around and slid off of the bent lid. She waited until Mika had cleared it then looked again at the damage they had caused. "Did we do that?"

Mika rolled his eyes and tapped Robyn on the shoulder to remind here of why they were here. Johnny had said that Mr Jordan-Smyth was in the next building over so, Robyn at his side, he walked briskly over to the building, looking nothing like an intruder. "This is the place. Come on," he said, not looking at her. The building was skyscraper tall and was covered in windows – they were both glad it wasn't daylight.

"Mika?" Robyn easily matched his pace and they breezed through the open automatic doors. He ignored her call and she quickly stepped around, so she was right in front of him. "Why did you help those people earlier?"

"I don't know." That was true. He didn't know why he had done that. All he knew was that something was hurting them that shouldn't be. He opened his mouth to say something else but Robyn silenced him by holding up a finger – she still had questions.

"I don't understand," she complained. "We hurt people – they don't do it themselves. I don't like this game. The rules are all wonky," she added sulkily. She tilted her head to the side and listened for any sounds outside. She could hear the sounds of Johnny searching for them in the big bin, he threw a wooden crate to one side and it cracked on the ground, and she imagined him muttering under his breath – her hearing wasn't good enough to pick that up, so she only imagined it.

Mika crossed the lobby and looked at the large board nailed to the wall which told people where they could find the most important employees of FDR Industries. He ran his finger over all of the names on the board and stopped when he found the name he was after - Gareth Jordan-Smyth. He was on office number 13 on the first floor. "Next floor up. We'll take the stairs." Being distracted, Robyn hadn't heard the footsteps getting closer to the building, but Mika had picked up on it and hoped that Johnny was still too far away to see that they were in the building. He spun around looking for the stairwell when his eyes fell upon the metallic door to a lift. No. Lifts took too long, and they didn't have time to waste. He caught sight of a white swing door, which he could see led to the stairs, whistled to Robyn who was fascinated by the approaching man outside, and raced for the door. Robyn tore her eyes away from Johnny, who had not yet realised that she and Mika were the figures inside, and twisted round, her long red hair swinging out behind her. She caught sight of Mika's disappearing black t-shirt and sped across the lobby, catching him up on the first flight of stairs. Her rubber heeled boots didn't even make a sound on the stairs, though Mika's trainers didn't squeak as she thought they would. Again, this fixation with footwear had nothing to do with what they were here for, but she wanted to be distracted to keep her from thinking too much. Mika, on the other hand, loved thinking. His brain never switched off. He was always aware of every single thing, however tiny, that was happening. They covered the last few steps to the first floor and ran through a maze of corridors until they found the correct office on the opposite end of the floor. Robyn was half a pace behind Mika all the way.

Mika couldn't stop in time and rammed his shoulder into the door with a gold plated thirteen on it. Inside, he saw a sight that screamed 'wrong!' and threw out his arm to halt Robyn in her tracks as she ran in behind him. She nearly fell over his arm but got her balance back as she saw what he did. It was enough to stop anyone in their tracks. "Looks like someone got here first," she muttered, ducking under his arm and wondering over to the man, slumped over his desk. "There's a lot of blood."

Mika sniffed the air and turned to one of the two-seater sofas opposite the man. There he saw another figure, this time a woman, with a bullet hole in her chest. Much of the blood in the pool on and around the desk belonged to the woman, rather than the man, and the heady mix of the two scents had indicated that. Quite intoxicating really – and he could tell from the scents that the woman was O positive and the man was AB negative. The thick, off-white carpet bore reddish-brown bloodstains from the table to her body. "Blood everywhere." Robyn looked up at him, Mika stared back at her. The sight of the blood disturbed him quite a bit, not just because there was so much of it but more because it was too cold and stale for it to be of any nourishment. "No-one did this to them. They did it to themselves." Mika caught sight of the gun they had both used and walked over to it.

Robyn felt the man's neck for a pulse – the woman had died many hours ago – and found only a very weak and faltering one. She could tell that it was much too late for him to be of any use. He didn't even have enough blood for a nibble. "He's as good as dead." She grabbed hold of a photograph in a silver frame from the table and looked at it. "Hey, he had a family... and he looks happy."

"The woman had a family too," Mika added. He grabbed hold of the gun, twirled it around in his hand and shoved it into the waist band of his bark blue jeans.

"What would make them kill themselves?"

"Same thing that's making everyone outside go crazy. Same thing that we're going to stop," Mika told her, glad that she hadn't gone off into her own world again yet.

"Well, we can't threaten him into telling us." Robyn moved around the room and wrapped herself into his arms. "What do we do?"

Mika crossed his wrists over her chest and looked over to the now dead man. He smirked at the body, oddly pleased by the sight of a dead body that he hadn't caused. It was a strange feeling, different, but not quite as thrilling as executing the kill personally, or even watching Robyn do it. "We use our brains. If we were keeping top-secret information around, strictly underground stuff, where would we leave it?"

Robyn wriggled around in his arms to face him. "Underground?" she suggested.

"Brilliant."

"Yeah, brilliant idea," came the throaty voice of the security guard who had been chasing them. "About six feet underground. No, that's not the Crash Room – it'll be you." He took one of the guns from a holster by his hip and levelled it at Mika's head. He squeezed the trigger without a moments hesitation, but Mika ducked, pulling Robyn down with him, and was out of range before the bullet had even left the barrel. The bullet went wild and the two snuck around and out of the room even as he realised that they were no longer in his line of fire.

"See ya," Mika left hanging in the air as he fled down the corridor, matching his speed exactly to that of Robyn. She began running down the double flight of stairs, one at a time, and Mika simply leapt over the banister onto the bottom few stairs. He jumped them, grabbed her hand and strolled out into the lobby. It would take Johnny a good few minutes to even register their absence. Mika knew that the guard would be too busy investigating the two dead bodies in the room before he even realised they were gone.

David lay in a heap by the wall, sinking further and further into unconsciousness. A tiny voice deep in the back of his mind told him to get up and find the people who had done this to him. But he found the comforting, velvety blackness to have an irresistible pull. He somehow knew that he was nearing death with every second he stayed under but the pictures he saw demanded that he stay ever longer.

His wife and twin sons were sitting in the car as it pulled into the driveway to their home. David could see everything, hear everything, but he was not with them. It was as if he was hovering above them He felt a surge of emotion for them; for the family he had made for himself; and hated himself for not being there now.

"Mummy," said 5-year-old Alex. "Why does Granny live on her own?" He didn't really understand that her husband had died and she now had no-one.

"Duh!" scorned his brother Matty. "She likes having her space, silly. She can eat ice cream for brekky and no-one can tell her off."

"Matt's right." His wife smiled and walked around to the backdoor of the car to let the boys out and wandered into the house. "She eats ice cream in the morning."

David allowed himself to float to the ground and walked in behind him. He reached out to touch his wife but his hand went straight through her. That didn't surprise him in the least and he just shrugged.

Rebecca shuddered and closed the door. This had never happened – might never happen – but it could happen, all too easily. It was daytime, late afternoon he guessed. The woman kicked off her shoes and slumped on the sofa in front of the TV, exhausted from her long waitressing shift. The boys were sitting at the coffee table already arguing over their colouring books and crayons. She flicked over to one of the sports channels and watched the highlights of last nights football match. "David?" she called. "David?" He was standing behind her and turned at the sound she'd thought was him. Hearing nothing more, she turned back to her sports show and watched for a few more moments until another noise came and Alex started crying.

"Mommy," he sobbed. "Where're all the bangs coming from?"

"I don't know, honey," she replied, folding him into her arms. Matty also started crying and she held him in her other arm. "Sssh! It's okay, it's okay. Sssh!"

Two men burst through the door into the living room, one holding a rifle, the other a small but deadly-looking dagger. David pushed himself up against a wall and watched, both unwilling and unable to intervene. Rebecca and the two men, both unidentifiable in black balaclavas, were shouting at each other but David couldn't make out the words. The children were still crying and holding on to each other, knowing that something bad was about to happen but not understanding what. David didn't even feel the residue of the intense emotion he had felt a minute before – there was nothing. He was passive, empty. Rebecca stood up and looked the gunman straight in the eye.

David could hear the three adults talking, the words rushing straight past his ears, not sinking in. He was aware of the actions in the room, the gunman keeping a steady grip on his weapon, the man with the dagger twitching slightly as he flexed his hand around the knife, the children holding each other in unknown terror. Then suddenly, everything was happening in slow motion and was all too real.

Alex ran over to one of the men – the one with the knife – who had crouched down and was holding his arms out to him. Matty yelled out to him but clung to Rebecca's legs. "You can do what you like to me but don't you dare hurt my children," she said, not letting one single tear drop. It just wouldn't do to let the boys see her cry. "Alex. Come here. Don't hurt the kids."

Alex turned to his mother but was unable to move as the man grabbed him around the waist and turned him back. Alex bent into the man as if to hug him and David heard the knife slide into the child's gut. Alex cried out in pain and the woman dropped to her knees in shock. The older man twisted the knife, ruining his liver instantly, and pulled it out. The lethal curved blade was covered in blood and glinted in the sunlight. "You mean like that?"

"You bastard!" she screeched. "You killed my baby!"

The boy fell to the floor, let go by the knifeman, and blood began to pool around him. "Who's next?" sneered the man with the rifle. He pointed the gun at each of them. "You, or the boy?"

Rebecca pushed Matty away from her and stepped forward. "Please, he hasn't done anything. Let him go and take me instead."

"Oh ho ho," chuckled the knifeman. "I don't think you understand. There's no instead of."

"Only second," he pointed at Rebecca, "and third," then at Matty. The rifle looked more scary than she thought possible and she was suddenly glad she couldn't see his face. "You've seen your first child die, and I know that hurt. I wonder how painful it'll be for him to watch his mother die."

"Mummy!" sobbed Matty as she straightened up. "Mummy!"

David looked away as he bent to tie up his shoelace. He heard a gunshot, followed by the sound of a knife slicing through clothing and a second gunshot. He looked up to see his second son lying dead and his wife rapidly dying on the carpet. He stood, rooted to the spot, unable to move. No, that was wrong – he tested every limb until he was sure that he could move should he want to. But he didn't want to, even though he felt he should. His innocent family needed his help and yet, he felt... nothing. For his young family, for the people he loved most in the world, for the three he was supposed to lay down his life for. He watched them as they lay dying on the floor, unfeeling. Deep red blood met from three bodies to form a large red stain on the carpet. So red. So much of it. David stood, transfixed by the hypnotic sight, and didn't even notice the tiny movement. Rebecca snapped her eyes open and took a shallow breath. David looked over to her and drifted across the room. He still felt emotionless even as he passed over the limp, lifeless bodies of his children. They were dead but he didn't feel anything for them.

"David, I know you're there," she whispered. "I just can't see –" Rebecca coughed and let her head fall back to the ground. "I can feel you here. I know you think you're not important, but you are. You can't change what's already happened, but you can stop what will. It's up to you now." Rebecca closed her eyes for the final time and let her head fall to the side. Dead.

David closed his eyes and felt himself fall to the ground beside her. A second or two later, he reopened his eyes back in his sore and painful body, crumpled on the floor. "I could help," he realised. It wasn't that he didn't really want to help – he just felt like that because he didn't think he would make a difference. He struggled to his feet and staggered over to the unattended front desk, reaching over and feeling for the phone. Picking up the handset, David punched the familiar home number in and waited as it rang. And rang. And rang.

Suddenly the image of his wife and children lying dead in the living room flashed into his mind. The incessant chatter of the football commentator did nothing to deaden the dread. The sight of thick, dark blood and the sound of pained screams filled his mind in full technicolour and surround sound. He dropped the phone on the floor and thought about rushing home to try and save them but found that urge repressed by a memory. Something that Rebecca had told him while she was dying in his dream. He couldn't change what had already happened, but he could change what was about to happen.

He blinked a few times, trying to shut out the image, prating to a God he didn't believe in that his family were okay. "Oh, God." He leant on the desk and dropped his head into his arms. "Oh god, oh god, oh god. Please let them be okay." Suddenly, everything went fuzzy again and things started swimming before his eyes and he felt the ground come up to meet him.

Johnny stared in disgust at the dead bodies on either side of him. It was an easy assumption to make that the two intruders had killed them, but the two looked as if they had been in that state for hours. He stepped over the blood in the carpet and walked over to Gareth's slumped body. Feeling in his pockets for the gun he always carried, Johnny realised that the man had shot himself with his own gun.

Or maybe the woman had shot him before killing herself.

The two were so pale and delicate-looking that he was almost too afraid to touch either of them. The room was completely silent – deathly silent – and Johnny found the sound of his own breathing too loud and disrespectful. The bodies were cold, too cold to have stood any chance of survival, but the guard didn't feel any better knowing that there was nothing he could have done. He didn't feel any worse either. Strangely, he felt only admiration for anyone who could cause this degree of destruction and not be worried about the consequences.

He bent down to Gareth's body and brushed his fingers in the pool of blood on the desk. Curiously, he stared at it and then tasted it, totally detached from the weirdness of his actions. "It's the same." Johnny had always wondered if everybody had the same blood, or whether it was different. But, it tasted the same as his own. He felt compelled to take more than that, but the impulse was not fully his own. The desire to do it was one he had not allowed to rise within him since he was a child, now brought out and fuelled by something he couldn't control. That same thing was making him extremely angry and he gripped the gun he had put in his pocket. He was glad that he had ignored David's advice and put a live bullet in each space. Holding onto the edge of the desk, Johnny looked towards the door, gun tightly wedged in his free hand, and angrily wondered if David had woken up and was giving chase yet. He doubted it.

"Still supposed to keep the area safe," he growled. Okay, so technically David was off duty but he was still the security – still supposed to keep the Crash Room protected. Which is where, he deduced, the couple wanted to go. Anger rose within him and threatened to bubble over. "I have to do everything myself!" Johnny raced out of the room and rushed down the corridor, absently trailing his fingers through a second pool of blood as he left.

At the end of the corridor, he turned right, not really remembering which way he had arrived. The door he came to was locked and said ' _Entrance to fire escape. Keep locked.'_ Wordlessly, he turned around and idly thumped the white cement wall with the side of his curled up fist.

The Crash Room.

Their final destination was now within reach. Mika took Robyn's hand and got her to help him prise open the lift doors. Their combined strength not only opened the doors but crumpled them at the edges. Aware that either of the security guards could come upon them at any moment, they leaped down into the lift shaft and fell through the darkness. As they plunged into the shaft, Mika caught sight of the top of the lift rushing up to greet them and realised he was not in the mood to be slammed onto something hard and metal again tonight. He threw out his free arm and grasped thee thick cable, allowing Robyn to dangle loosely beneath him. In turn, she reached for the cable and wrapped her legs around it, leading the way down it as if she were a child climbing a rope in P.E.

At the bottom, Mika felt around for the catch to the escape door he knew they would have installed in case of emergency. Carly had been most co-operative on that score... after a fashion. His fingers finally located the lock in the darkness, too stiff and rusted from lack of use to come apart easily. Still mindful that he might not have enough time to work on it, he took the gun from his waistband and shot at the catch. The bullet pinged off as it made contact with metal. Robyn, who had been standing on it, fell straight through the hatch and landed on her knees. Mika sat on the top and let his legs dangle through before he slid down. On landing, he found himself staring straight into a mirrored wall. Mika shook his head and bent down to Robyn, swaying back and forth on her knees.

"I hurt my hands, Mika." She looked at her hands, still blistered from the burns and now with angry, red friction burns down the centre, as if they were new to her and she had never hurt them before. "I don't like it." She made a grab for his hands and compared the burns with her own. "You're hurt too. It makes you angry."

What could he say? Robyn knew him so well. He watched as she scrambled to her feet, then hit the button to open the doors. "I do my best work when I'm angry," he muttered, distracted.

"I know." Robyn giggled insanely, the way she often did. "I remember every blessed second of it. Such fun." She pushed herself against a wall – the mirrored one opposite the door – and writhed about, ecstatically. "Such a sweet girl."

Frustrated at the lack of movement by the doors, he hit the button again before turning and smashing his fists into the mirrored wall on either side of Robyn's head. The mirror taunted him, seeming only to serve to remind him that he was no longer a man worthy of a reflection.

Robyn gasped and turned her head to the side. The doors began to slide open, and she grabbed Mika's arm and twisted it up behind his back, painfully. Mika grunted in unexpected pain as she frog-marched him out into yet another long corridor. "Don't!" she warned.

"Don't what?"

"Don't let it win." She felt it too; what Mika was feeling. Human emotions being taken to extremes. She and Mika being something other than human, they weren't so easily affected, though their passions were heightened. "I can see it in you Mika." She pushed him away from her and he turned around to face her, slightly disappointed that Robyn hadn't really hurt him. "You're remembering and feeling guilty. We don't do that. We feed, we kill, we forget."

The door at the end of the corridor was unmarked and they headed towards it. "Whatever we're here for - it's trying to make us crazy. And it's winning."

"No, it's not," Mika said, defensively. "I'm the same as I've always been."

Robyn started to drift into another world but, for the first time, shook her head and brought herself straight back out of it. "No... you're different." She came to the door and looked at the extensive security measures. "Must be pretty important."

"Up for a little breaking and entering?"

Robyn smiled at him and put her hands on the wall and lifted up her leg to smash the retina scanner with her boot. Mika balled his left fist and launched it into the keypad which demanded he type in his personal ident and then swipe his keycard. "Screw that." As Mika worked on ripping the plasma pad from the wall, Robyn turned her back to the door and jerked her elbow into the voice recognition machine. The couple stepped back and admired their handiwork; machines fizzing as electric charges ran through them, pieces of glass and metals dangling from wires in the wall, bits of machinery lying broken and useless on the floor. The doors began to open, just as Carly had said they would if they managed to over-ride all the security systems. The electronic voice from one of the wrecked machines – she couldn't tell which, they all looked the same now – wound down, sounding much like a cassette player when the batteries were flat. "Security's a bit lax."

"It is now. Come on!" Mika skidded to a halt in the middle of the room and Robyn trailed slowly behind him. "Robyn?"

"It's too bright. It's too bright." She perched on top of the tables and covered her eyes with her hands. Mika found the fuse box in the corner of the room and opened it, desperate to kill the offending lights. Unsure of which wire to pull, he simply grabbed them all and gave them all a good yank. The fluorescent strip lights faded away and the computers fell silent. The room quickly descended into pitch blackness, but Mika wasn't at all fazed by it. He could see perfectly well, but his eyes quickly adjusted to the light from the corridor and the bright white paint of the room. He was aware that Robyn was still curled up beside one of the computers and decided it was best to just leave her their while he looked for the disks. Following instructions he headed for the computer at the end of the room. Ignoring the sliding drawers beneath the desk, which he knew were empty but for a few old data cables, he opened the two doors on the wall cabinets and scanned the inside.

There they were! The disks that contained the information he needed. He reached inside with both hands and grabbed a stack of floppy disks and CDs. In the near-darkness, he sorted through them; he let some drop to the floor and kept the ones he thought might be useful. Robyn took them from him as he strode towards the door and pocketed them, pushing the button through the hole in the top of her pocket. "Let's go now," she suggested, heading down the corridor to the lift. Now they had downed the electrics, they had no choice but to climb up the shaft the way they had come down. The faltering light in the corridor was coming from a back-up generator, but one look up at it told Robyn that it wouldn't last much longer. Not that it actually mattered – darkness was their friend –

"Hurry up!" called Mika, already leaping towards the open hatch. "He's coming after us!"

"Hmm? I'm coming." She cocked her head to the side, listening to a sound Mika had probably already heard – the generator was giving out. Shrugging, Robyn ran into the lift at a sprint and jumped through the trapdoor.

FIVE

"You okay, Robyn?" asked Mika as he pulled her to her feet in the warehouse.

"Let me guess," came the familiar voice of Johnny. "You put Dave in a coma, give Johnny the run around, then think you can escape with the contents of the Crash Room?"

"Well... yeah," said Mika. "That's usually how it works."

"Not this time, pal." Johnny pointed his gun at him and squeezed. There was a flash of blinding light as the bullet left the barrel and Mika left the ground, somersaulted in the air and landed behind the gun-wielding guard. "Where –"

"You'll have to do better than that. Pal." Mika turned round to grin at the guard – that awful knowing grin that said he wasn't leaving empty-handed. Johnny faced him and lined the gun up with Mika's heart. Mika looked down at it. "Bollocks."

"That good enough?"

"No." He ducked as yet another bullet sailed through the air, this time over his head, and stayed down, poised and ready for action.

"I think he's serious," chimed in Robyn. "He'll shoot you. He's angry... needs to find an outlet for it. All that heat and passion and frustration."

"Robyn, love. I don't think –"

"Sssh!" She held up her hand to silence him and held Johnny's gaze. David stirred by the desk and lifted his throbbing head off the floor. Focused, she and Mika both heard his heartbeat quicken as he regained consciousness and began to half-listen to them. "Thinking no-one understands you, no-one notices you." She grabbed his wrist and pulled it towards her, looking over at Mika and wondering why he hadn't taken this opportunity to run. "So, you use guns... any weapon. To make them notice you. To make your mark on the world." She released the whimpering man and looked at Mika, mentally asking him why he hadn't taken the chance to escape.

"Baby. We're the predators, we don't run. They're the prey, they do." He raised his eyebrows as David tried to hide behind the desk and Johnny lowered the gun, and felt for the closed ball bearing wound in his abdomen. It had already healed too far for it to reopen again unless he did it on purpose.

Johnny stared down at the weapon hanging by his side, unsure of why he had lowered it. Strange. He was in no doubt that it was something to do with the two he was trying to reach, but he found that he could hardly move. His legs felt heavy, as if they were made of lead, but there was nothing to keep him from moving. "What've you done to me? Why can't I move?"

Robyn strolled over to Mika and they just stood, watching as Johnny moaned and grunted as he tried to get his legs to work. Mika allowed Robyn to take his hand and they twisted their fingers together. Johnny looked on in disgust as Robyn squeezed his hand and ground the bones together. He thought he heard bones crack and saw blood seeping from between Mika's fingers. He imagined the pain must be excruciating, involuntarily flexing his own stained fingers. He was astonished to discover that not only did he not seem to mind, but he seemed to be delighting in it. "That's revolting," he uttered, unable to tear his eyes away from the sight of the redhead licking the blood from his hand.

"And you've never done it, I suppose." Mika looked pointedly at Johnny's blood-covered hands. "Does this horrify you? Are you sickened by it?"

Johnny looked away without a word and suddenly found he could move again. Maybe it was just an effect of something that had worn off; he really didn't know – or care – now that he could think of more reasons to give chase. He looked down at his gun and raised it once again. It gave him the power he craved to know that he held a threat over them, that he could choose whether they lived or died.

Mika ran across the room and vaulted over the desk. David pushed himself further into the corner and refused to return his concerned glare. "Get away from me."

"I'm not here to hurt you." Mika reached up from the half-crouch he had dropped into and held onto the edge of the desk. "David, right? I'm not trying to hurt you – you're just in my way," he snarled. Mika gripped David around the neck and lifted him up, mildly amused by the fruitless kicking of his legs. "That's not gonna do you much good." He tightened his grip and let him drop, conscious and breathing.

"Stay away from me!" he begged.

Mika shrugged and left him hiding under the desk. He looked out to where Johnny was standing, gun unwavering, and smiled amicably. "Not getting me that easily." Making such light-hearted chatter in a basic kill or be killed situation didn't feel right, and it certainly wasn't the way Mika would have chosen. However, needs must. And Mika was nothing if not accommodating. Robyn was nowhere to be seen but he could pick up her scent quite well in the still air; she was close by, maybe on one of the gantries.

"I've got you now." A smirk spread across Johnny's face and he took a step closer.

Mika sighed and ran over to the metal stairs, thundering up them and dodging at least three more bullets as he went. He hit the gantry and looked over the rail, tapping his fingers in mock impatience as he waited for him. Johnny hit the stairs and started up them, not noticing as Mika moved to the top of the steps. Johnny neared the top; Mika reeled his foot back and slammed it into his chest, sending the man flying back down the stairs. Neither the landing or the blow had broken any bones, but Mika was positive he could have broken a couple of Johnny's ribs had he been wearing his boots rather than trainers. Satisfied that the guard would be out of action for a short while, he walked down the stairs to retrieve the gun. That done, he slid the gun across the floor and stood up. "Robyn?" he called.

"Yes?" she replied. He heard Robyn moan quietly and looked around the room for her. "It's not over. He's coming back."

"What do you mean? I'm coming to find you." But before he could take one step Johnny was on his feet and standing behind him. Unaware than Johnny was even awake, Mika was stunned to find himself knocked out by a powerful roundhouse to the back of the head. "Ugh!" was the tiny sound he made as he slumped to the floor.

Johnny used the toe of his shoe to turn him over onto his back and fixed a heavy foot on top of his ribcage. Expressionlessly, he reached behind him and displayed a second, fully-loaded gun, which he again trained on Mika's heart. "Now, who's got the upper hand?" he smirked.

Mika let his head drop back to the ground, dejected, then lifted it back up, his face changed from mildly confused to deadly intent. "Still me." Quickly, he gripped the thick ankle with both hands and wrenched it to one side, bringing the man crashing down beside him.

"You'll pay for this," he grunted, black dots of pain dancing before his eyes.

"I'll look forward to it."

Robyn giggled from one of the corridors, and Mika saw her shadow dart across the gantry into another corridor. Knowing that Robyn could take care of herself, he ignored the impulse to find her and crashed back down to the floor as Johnny used his foot to sweep his legs from beneath him. Johnny flipped himself back onto his feet, a mere instant before Mika did the same, and caught the man on his cheekbone with the back of his hand. Mika went with the blow and looked up at him, his eyes holding no emotion or rage. "Now you're getting it." He took a step back, threw himself into a forward flip which brought him to his feet inches from Johnny. But Mika made no move to attack, and just laughed in his face. Glancing down to the floor, almost imperceptibly, Johhny fixed his eyes back on Mika and quickly reached down for the gun he had dropped a few seconds before. So fast that the movement seemed to happen in a flash, Mika grabbed the other man by the shoulders, turned him one-hundred-and-eighty degrees and helld him tightly in place so he could not move. "You have to reach –" He pried the gun from his hand, "for your weapon. Which is why we're better than you." Unable to move, Johnny almost didn't see his eyes turn to a menacing amber glimmer. "We've already got ours." Mika shook his head, feeling his eyes turn back to icy blue.

Johnny set one foot slightly in front of the other and tried to twist out of his hold. Mika held firm, tightening his grip every second, and Johnny found himself wondering if his opponent had any weaknesses. Everyone could be defeated somehow – it was just a case of finding their weak points. Suddenly, Mika let go of Johnny and pushed him away. The guard stopped himself on a metal pole and looked over at him, curiously, not understanding why Mika hadn't crushed his sternum right there and then.

He shrugged. "Fair fight, and all that." Mika looked down at the gun he had ripped away from his hand and idly tossed it over to Johnny. He snatched it out of the air, and used his other hand to ready it to be fired. Mika had been counting on that, knowing from experience that people never passed on a chance to gain control. He just hadn't figured out what his next move should be, trusting his instincts to carry him through a fight he didn't envision ending easily or any time soon rather than a well-thought out plan. He usually planned everything in great detail but, with Robyn and Carly both saying that there wasn't much time to take action, there had been a definite lack of time to do any kind of thinking ahead. Mika wheeled around and ran the length of the lobby, slowing his pace until Johnny stood a chance of catching him up. He reached a set of identical metal stairs leading to a slightly higher gantry and took five of them in one giant jump. Stopped for a moment by the squeal of metal on his friction-burnt hands Mika gave Johnny a few vital seconds to gain ground on him. Mika ignored the sting and reached the top a mere instant before Johnny, tripping on the last step but regaining his balance without breaking stride. Johnny was right behind him.

Johnny took shallow breaths as he ran, his lungs and muscles craving fresh oxygen in order to keep working. Maybe he would have been faster, stronger, if he had taken more exercise but he was doing alright as he was. His criminal was on the run from him and he held the real power in this; the status, the uniform, the weapon – the knowledge that he would win. Johnny chased Mika along the makeshift corridor, noticing the angry, red burns on his hands and the way he kept putting a hand to his stomach, realising he had been injured in some way. That could be the weakness he was frantically searching for, but having been on the receiving end of Mika's temper, he began to think that it might simply have made him angry and stronger.

Hopping onto a lower gantry, he ran the length of it, ran a third and turned into a proper corridor. It bore a few locked doors, each with a golden name plate nailed to it; Mika rushed past them and stopped when he had turned the next corner. He leant against the wall, taking breaths he didn't really need – it hadn't taken that much out of him – and resting his aching muscles, which were, like him, so tensed that he thought they might snap. Not hearing any sign of Johnny, or even his shadow, Mika walked back on himself slowly and tried not to think that he was probably waiting on the gantry for him. The half used gun in his jeans forgotten, Mika peered around the corner and saw Johnny leaning on the rail expecting him to come out of an opposite corridor.

Robyn hadn't seen Mika for a while but could hear the sounds of a prolonged struggle out in the lobby. A long fight without an immediate kill was so much sweeter than a short fight with one – the suffering was so much richer when it had just a hint of hope, the blood all the more irresistible when it was tinged with faith. She was more than happy just wandering up and down the dimly lit corridors, in and out of the open offices. In and out of the closed ones too. There was nobody left in the building so Robyn didn't have to worry about answering all of those pesky questions – not that stopped her from making up her own conversations. It seemed strange to her that no-one else in either of the buildings had been killed.

As she puzzled over this, Robyn sat down in an old and tattered computer chair and curled her legs beneath her, ready to move at a moments notice. Before her was a bank of monitors and switches that she reasoned were used by daytime security. They each showed a shot of an empty corridor but Robyn's sharp eyes caught the movement of a very faint shadow. She also thought she could hear the sounds of a fight just out of shot, but couldn't be sure if it was the surveillance or just very loud noise from the lobby. Sighing and frowning, she reached up and flicked the switch for the camera trained on the entrance hall. Flipping her hair over her shoulder Robyn sat back down, it not even occurring to her that the screens were running while the electrics were down.

"My boys. My foolish boys." She spoke quietly even though there was no reason for her to do so. Mika ran ahead of Johnny and used his momentum to propel himself up the wall to land behind Johnny and Robyn clapped her hands in delight at how the tables had turned. "You don't need to fight. We're all on the same side." Playing with her pendant in one hand and one of her thin plaits in the other, Robyn settled back to watch the show.

Mika twisted Johnny's arm up behind his back and pushed him up against the wall roughly. "I'm getting tired of this." He pushed the arm further up when Jihnny didn't answer and he let out a scream, half muffled by the concrete wall his face was partly buried in. "I really am."

"Getting tired of what?" Johnny panted.

"This game." Mika whirled him round and gave chase as the guard ran down the grating. Mika hopped over the rail and landed soundlessly on the ground as Johnny sped down the loud metal stairs. "Of cat and mouse." He punctuated each word with a solid kick or punch, finishing the sentence with a high fly-kick to the face, connecting with bone but not flooring him as Mika had hoped.

Robyn watched the grainy monitor in twisted joy as Johnny staggered back a few paces and felt his jaw, which he was pretty sure Mika had broken. She noticed, for the first time, that the action was relayed to the monitor in unclear black and white. It didn't matter though – Robyn could well imagine the colours in the lobby; reds, blacks, purples. Leaning closer to the screen, she saw the two men fall into a stand-off, neither willing to make the first move but making some small talk. It was too quiet for Robyn to hear exactly what words were passing between them, so she got up from her seat and walked out of the door.

She sat on the metal grating and swung her legs to and fro as she looked down at the scene in the foyer. Mika had dropped into a fighting stance, just in case Johnny tried to rush him, and stared at him. Johnny was standing a few metres away, his gun raised. Watching as Johnny seemed to go for the trigger in slow motion, Mika turned on his heel and ran for the stairs where, instead of running to the top, he stopped just before he reached halfway, gripped the nearest vertical pole and swung his legs out and bashed them into Johnny's already swollen and bruised body. The impact of the blow threw him across half the room and he managed to land on his knees.

Robyn clapped, still sitting on the grating, and giggled. "Look out!" she warned.

Mika looked over his shoulder and saw Johnny shakily getting to his feet. "Robyn, get out of here."

"I want to watch the play."

"I'm serious! This is going to be dangerous."

"Mmm, I know."

"Robyn! Get out of here!"

Johnny watched them under a bowed head as he struggled to his feet, and put one hand on a cool, concrete pillar as he tried to steady himself. He saw the girl in the purple coat stand up and disappear from his line of vision. "You shouldn't have done that."

"Yeah? Maybe not, but it was fun." Before Mika had made sure that Robyn was well out of the way, he heard two shots being fired and began to turn to look. He hadn't thought that Johnny would have the guts or chance to use the gun, but obviously he had been wrong. Maybe Johnny was only shooting because he was being controlled by the thing that was driving everyone else to extremes; maybe he was being very protective of the Crash Room disks because he knew what was on them; maybe Johnny was just a psycho.

Mika didn't even have enough time to look for the bullets in the air before they buried themselves in his back – one just under his left shoulder, and the second in the centre of his back, an inch left of his spine. At first, it burnt as the bullets ripped through his skin and flesh to find their final resting place. The burning quickly dull to an ache as the bullets nestled into his back and sent shockwaves through his body. The dull burning spread through the whole of his back and he was in an unbelievable amount of pain. Mika shot a look of pure confusion and disbelief over his shoulder, then collapsed onto the steps in front of him, eyes closed tightly.

On unsteady legs, Johnny hurried over to him and looked down at Mika. Hooking the toe of one boot under him, he jerked his foot and sent Mika rolling to the floor. Just to make sure that Mika was dead, Johnny fired his weapon once more at his chest. Johnny was a little surprised that there wasn't more blood but could see more on his t-shirt and beginning to come from his back wounds. Johnny looked down at the gun and stroked it, wondering how something so small could cause such devastation. The metal was cold to the touch – somehow, he had expected it to still be warm after being fired. The third shot had made its' home deep in Mika's chest.

After hearing the first two shots, Robyn backtracked a few steps and pressed herself tightly into a tiny alcove. She craned her neck until she could just about see the two men in the large, open lobby. She could smell gunpowder in the air and knew, even without looking closely, that Mika had been shot. She glanced behind her in the direction of the room with the banks of monitors and half-wished she could go back and watch in safety. But, no – she wouldn't leave him while he needed her.

Mika rolled down the metal stairs and landed flat out on his back. Robyn hated to see Mika hurt so badly because she thought of him as invincible – he was her champion. She bit back tears as she watched the conclusion of the fight. Crying was an unusual action to her; an alien concept. "Please be okay, Mika," she whispered, looking down at his lifeless body. She saw Johnny raise the gun once more and flinched, knowing exactly where the bullet would end up and hating the fact that she wouldn't get there in time to stop it. So, instead, she stayed pressed into the corner and watched, praying that she wouldn't be seen. She stared at the gun, transfixed, and squinted at Johnny's hand as his finger squeezed the trigger, so slowly. A tiny bullet pushed its' way out of the barrel and waded through air, thick with emotion. It seemed, to Robyn, to be happening very slowly as her enhanced senses picked up every tiny movement. The bullet hit Mika's chest and Robyn wrinkled her nose at the stench of his sizzling flesh. She had to turn her her head away from this sight that she'd normally watch as if it were nothing out of the ordinary, but what made it unbearable was that it was somebody she loved so much; someone she would spend eternity with. The small, metal pellet sank into his chest and red blood immediately started pouring from the wound. Blood loss wasn't a huge problem as the wound would start to close up and heal quite soon, but she couldn't understand how something so miniscule and otherwise harmless as that bullet could cause so much damage. "Don't do this to me," she shuddered, wanting badly to cry over him.

Silently, she moved over to the rail and stood on top of it. Sinking into a half-crouch, Robyn took off and descended on top of Johnny as gracefully and fluidly as the bird of the same name. "What have you done to my Mika?!" she shrieked, hate and anger clouding the soft brown eyes, giving them a menacing and threatening look. She twisted around in the air and fell on her knees, inches in front of Johnny. "You shot him," she muttered, flipping to her feet and looking him in the eye.

"So I have. Would you look at that?"

"Bad move."

"Why? What are you going to do about it?" Johnny rose to his full height but Robyn simply stood on her tiptoes to match him at stared him straight in the eye. Johnny swallowed a knot of nerves that had formed in his throat and stared straight back at her, acknowledging the tension that had grown in the room. He felt the gun in his sweaty palm and stuck the end against her stomach, pressing it against her.

Robyn stretched her hand and closed it around the barrel of the gun. "Bad move," she repeated, holding his gaze. If she looked away, even for a milli-second, Johnny would also look away and might not meet her gaze again if he realised that she had him locked in a stare-out on purpose, but luckily Robyn had had a lot of practice at... multi-tasking. Her hand firmly around the barrel, she shoved and Johnny went sprawling to his backside. She turned her back on a momentarily incapacitated Johnny and turned to Mika, tears now spilling over and onto the floor. "Mika, don't leave me," she pleaded, noticing that he was bleeding much more than was normal. Maybe that was part of the plan – to take everyone to the extreme of their physical and mental capabilities. "There's so much more we need to do. So many people to hurt. We can do it together. Mika, why did you have to get shot?" She didn't understand it. Mika had never let himself get hurt before tonight, so why was he being so..? It was hard to put into words but Robyn, in her glorious borderline insanity, knew what she meant. Was this also part of the plan – to make people feel things they were never meant to? Robyn smoothed Mika's hair down, then immediately rustled it back up. It looked better like that.

"I killed your boyfriend, now I'm gonna kill you," a voice said behind her. "No mercy."

The gun was pointed right at the back of her skull and, if fired, would most certainly blow her brains out. "Mika, don't let him hurt me." But he lay, unmoving, spread-eagled on the floor. Why did she love him so damn much? "Try it," she uttered, so low that Johnny didn't really hear it. At that same moment, Robyn leapt into a flying spin-kick, knocking the gun clean out of his hand and skidding across the floor. Johnny retaliated by grabbing her by the arm and twisting until she was caught in a very painful strong-hold with both arms pushed up against her back. "Ooh, that hurts!" she gasped and giggled silently.

"What's so funny?" Johnny demanded, holding her arms tightly. He turned her around to face him and received a vicious headbutt for his trouble. For a split second, Johnny loosed his grip and Robyn wriggled away.

"'Cos you've lost your weapon. Whereas me... I am a weapon."

She ran around the room and eventually took a flying leap from where she was standing and flung her arms out to catch the section of metal railing there. Her feet dangled down and she pushed against the air in her attempt to climb up, and Johnny jumped up, hoping to catch hold of one ankle and pull her down. But that was never going to work and they both knew it, so as Robyn found her feet and ran around to the other side of the grating to get some distance Johnny realised the futility of what he was doing and made a dash towards the stairs. Robyn looked down at a still bleeding Mika and then up at Johnny who had just started his run to her.

Johnny reached into the inside pocket of his leather jacket as he reached the same gantry as Robyn and stared at her delicate red head. How could he even contemplate hurting this innocent, young girl? Like this. Johnny aimed his own, bigger, handgun at her and planted his feet. "Turn around."

The pain was excruciating, yet bearable. A weird mix of feelings but bleeding and near-fatally wounded Mika had no time to worry about what he was feeling. The bullet embedded in his chest felt as if he had just drunk acid or holy water; like he was being burnt from the inside out. Sleeping the sleep of the undead brought on by a wound – or three – that would have killed any ordinary man, he began to dream things that made no sense. Dreams that broke every rule he had ever known and understood.

He dreamed that he could walk in the sun. Something he hadn't been able to do since he was 26 years old, several lifetimes ago. Only being able to go outside in the darkness, where he would be hidden from view, had never really bothered him before as he would not be persecuted if no-one knew what he was. But now he wanted to know what it felt like to walk out in the day. Just to let everyone know who he was and not have to hide all the time.

He dreamed that he could enter a church and not feel like he was about to explode. Religion had never been part of his upbringing, even as a child, but now he longed to be able to just explore it. Mika's mere existence rejected all laws of God and nature. In the eyes of any religion, he was a lost cause; too soulless and hungry for the kill to ever be returned to humanity. If he could just touch a cross without it searing into his flesh and hold a Bible without burning his hands.

He dreamed he could step inside someone's home without having to be explicitly invited. He dreamed that he could wear his true face in public and not have people running away, screaming in fear. Mika dreamed many things whilst unconscious but still maintained enough presence of mind to realise one thing – not once did he wish that he was still human.

Now drifting in and out of consciousness brought on by some unidentified mental trigger, Mika grunted softly and threw a heavy arm over his painful chest. The shots in his back seemed to shift as he moved and he gritted his teeth against the pain. Something in the air still agitated him and he completely forgot about the pain All the while he was on the floor, he was unable to shake one feeling. "Something isn't right here..."

Robyn, wide-eyed and, for the first time, a little scared, turned to face the gun-crazed security guard, horrified at what she saw. Not the fact that she was staring down the barrel of a powerful automatic handgun but the lack of anything other than the thrill of the fight in his eyes. Under more normal circumstances, she would have put him down as an adrenaline junkie. Not tonight. Because tonight she could hear the stars crying. Calling out desperately for her help.

"Look at me." Robyn looked at him, calmly, and refused to show him any of the fear he was hoping for. This was more like it – how Johnny had hoped this gun would work for him. It was giving him the power he so craved tonight. Making people do exactly what he told them to do because they knew that their life could be decided in that instant in which he pulled that trigger.

"I can hear them all," moaned Robyn, the pull of the stars too strong for her to resist this time. "They're shouting and screaming because they're dying. And you're helping them to die."

"Shut up!" Johnny ordered, not knowing that it was nigh on impossible for anybody but Mika to stop Robyn in mid-flow.

"They don't know what's going on, or why you're hurting them. Soon, there'll be nothing left. They need our help. Why won't you help them?" Robyn looked at him coolly, all anger gone from her eyes and replaced with confusion and a longing to know why. "You're killing them."

"Shut up!" he yelled again, the strain beginning to show in his voice. "Just shut up! Or I'll shoot you."

"No, you won't," came a low, pained voice. "No-one hurts my baby. Isn't that right, Robyn?"

Out of the corner of his eye Johnny saw Mika lying on the floor, and slowly curling his legs beneath him as he prepared to get to his feet. But, how..? And, what..? It didn't make any sense. People didn't get up and start conversations when you shot them three times. They were usually too dead. "But, I shot you," he babbled. "Three times."

"Stings a bit," he admitted, fixing his hands on his sides and bending backwards in an attempt to ease the pain in his back. Now, there wasn't a single part of his body that didn't hurt as the burn of the bullets spread though his body. How could something so tiny hurt so much?

"Y-you're dead. I killed you."

"No, you didn't." Mika looked over to Robyn, standing facing Johnny on the gantry, and knew that she was thinking about something just by the way she stood. "She did."

Johnny screwed up his face as he struggled to get to grips with this statement but then gave it up as useless. He wasn't sure he even wanted to understand it. "Whatever," he grunted, trying to keep a smirk from his face as he saw Mika's knees buckle just the tiniest bit. "Not so tough as you thought."

"You hurt one hair on her head, and I will kill you." He was planning to kill Johnny anyway, but if he could use it as a threat to save Robyn... well, he wouldn't know it was a trick.

"Scares the hell out of you, doesn't it?"

Johnny was right, as much as Mika hated to admit it, he was scared that Robyn might get hurt. Robyn; the one who'd shown him what it meant to be who he was; who'd loved him forever. He wasn't meant to ever get scared but he was. And Robyn was relying on him to save her.

Robyn stood where she was listening to the cries of the night get louder and louder in the hour before dawn. She didn't have the time to stand around listening to the boys fighting talk and looked quickly over the balcony, hoping that Mika would catch onto her silent warning

As if on cue, Johnny grinned gleefully, knowing that he had complete control of the situation. He'd known Robyn was his weakness and now that he haad put her in mortal danger, it was time to see what Mika would give up to save her life. "Hand over the disks or I shoot Red." It had sounded more threatening in his head, but Johnny thought it got his point across.

Mika stuffed both hands in his jeans pockets and sucked on his teeth as he considered this ultimatum. It was the old highwayman routine, a rehash of 'your money or your life'. "Hmmm. No," he decided after a short time.

"No? What do you mean – no?" Johnny had thought her life would be worth a few measly computer disks, no matter how important the information contained within them was.

"I mean no, I won't give you the disks. And no, you won't shoot my Robyn." He wasn't going to tell the trigger-happy lunatic that he didn't even have the disks – Robyn had them. For the first time, his attention was drawn away from the weapon, which could guarantee death on impact, and towards Robyn who had started crying. Mika had seen Robyn cry many times before but, this time, it hurt him too. And again, he wanted to do everything he could to stop her crying and feeling. Mika found himself wishing that he could give Johnny the disks just so that Robyn could stop hurting.

"Give me one good reason why I won't shoot her." Johnny stared at Robyn, finger poised above the trigger but with something stopping him from shooting her. Compassion, maybe?

Mika looked pointedly at the automatic that Johnny was gripping and squinted, trying to ignore the insufferably loud sound of her silent sobbing. He and Robyn had a way of moving around at speed or, even, talking to each other without making a sound. Right now, removing the danger of the deadly gun was the priority. "Because, I can break your arm before you even think of pulling the trigger."

"Let's test that theory," suggested Johnny.

"Let's not." Robyn stared down the barrel of the automatic and, rather than praying that it was not loaded, distracted herself from this worrying thought by wondering if Johnny cared that he was killing people. "Mika, just give him the disks. He's a psycho." Even before she knew what she was saying, Robyn knew that surrendering the disks was not an option. Nor would it be necessary, Robyn realized, sensing that Mika was making plans for her dramatic rescue.

Robyn was not a damsel in distress and never would be, she could easily get herself of any seemingly impossible situation, including this one. This was a test of some sort – it had to be. Mika refused to believe that she could be as helpless as she was making out. "I agree... you need help." Struggling to put up a mental block against the almost tolerable pain in his chest and back and strode, purposefully, towards the stairs, his trainers making no sound on them as he ascended. "But, we're not in the business of helping people. We help ourselves."

"Huh? What..." That was as far as Johnny got before Mika cut him off with a swift sucker punch to the chin. Pain exploded in his jaw and he could taste blood on his tongue from a split lip. Battered and bruised, Johnny was taking some punishment tonight and was exhausted, though it beggared belief that neither of the other two had seemed to tire. Johnny, now too drained to keep going, went with the punch, not caring that he had lost hold of his gun. He didn't reach for it but realised how defenceless and vulnerable to attack he now was.

Robyn broke into a beautiful smile and looked, adoringly, at Mika thanking him for rescuing her. "He hurt me and made me cry."

"He'll never do it again, baby. I promise you." Together, they advanced on Johnny, who inched away from them and backed himself into a corner.

Suddenly, Robyn stopped in her tracks and laid a cool hand on Mika's arm, stopping him too. "Ssh. Can you hear them?" She cocked her head to one side as if she were a dog listening for a whistle, and swayed gently to that song no-one else could hear. "They're fading fast and they need our help. It's so loud."

"Robyn, baby, we haven't got time for this." Mika glanced towards the dark window and knew that, although it was not yet light, there was no time to waste.

Robyn moaned and gripped his arm to steady herself as her knees buckled under the loudness of the dying stars. "They're shouting, always shouting. It's inside my head. We have to help them."

Mika shrugged her hand off and began to approach Johnny. "We will."

Johnny tried to back further up but found that there was no grated floor left for him to inch up, so he bunched himself into a ball in the corner. Mika reached for him, not detecting the addictive aroma of fear he usually did but easily picking the man from the floor and pinned him against the wall. Johnny didn't even look scared. "Kill me – that the plan?" he asked, as calmly as possible. "You'll never get away with it."

"The plan..." Robyn whispered to herself.

Mika ignored her and stayed focused on the guard. "Oh, I think we will." He leaned in as if going in for the kill, but found himself stopped in mid-lunge as Robyn put her hand on his chest and softly nudged him away.

"No, Mika. He's a dark one," she explained simply, trusting that he would know what she meant.

"A dark one?" asked Johnny, his tired brain unable to comprehend what that might mean.

"Sssh," soothed Robyn, walking up to him. "I'm not going to hurt you. We can show you everything... if you want us to."

"Do I get a choice?"

"Not really. You're one of us. You can't fight that." Robyn glanced back at Mika, and took hold of his hand. Things always worked better when they were together. Mika entwined his fingers with hers and lifted her wrist to her mouth and tore at a patch of skin with unnaturally sharp teeth. He held it up to Johnny and asked, "Are you ready to be better?"

David heard a body fall to the floor as a dead weight and poked his head over the top of the desk to see if Johnny had bested his opponents, at last, or if it was the other way around. It was the latter, he soon realised. But, he couldn't find it within himself to grieve over his colleague and friend. David just stared at his limp form, expressionlessly, and allowed his eyes travel up the wall to where Mika and Robyn were passionately kissing, Robyn firmly forced up against a stone pillar. David was too far away to hear their words, even in this large, open lobby, but was positive he didn't really want to hear them. Besides which, he was only casually wondering whether they would come for him next.

"I can feel it," murmured Robyn, breaking away from Mika. "All that energy. His potential."

Mika twirled one of her plaits between his fingers and stepped away. "The new life we have given him." He took hold of her chin and tilted it towards him, staring longingly at her perfectly formed mouth. They didn't have that luxury of giving in to their passions whenever the mood took them. "The freedom."

The two hurried over to the stairs and descended them, anxious to spend as little time in the building than was necessary. Robyn looked down at the dead body on the floor, then squinted over at a hiding David who ducked straight back down, feeling her brown eyes burn into him. "Can we go home now?"

"Of course we can, love," said Mika and wrapped his arm around her as they crashed through the door. Robyn headed straight for the car but Mika paused and carefully closed the doors behind him. His jaw dropped open and his mouth became a wide O of silent pain as he reached to the side and grabbed a long, steel support to thread through the handles. That done, he followed Robyn to the car and slid, uncomfortably into the passenger seat. "No fun if he can escape."

SIX

Mika's face twisted and contorted in discomfort as he struggled with himself not to move around. Robyn seemed to be delighting in her new-found ability to make him squirm in his seat. She liked squirming. She looked towards the shaded window and searched for the bandages. Mika wouldn't need any bandages in a couple of days but blood was hard to wash out of clothing. "Ow! That hurts," Mika informed her as she tried to dig the bullet out of his chest.

"I know. I'm sorry," she apologised, tenderly, not wanting to hurt him any more than she had to. "I'm nearly done." After fiddling around with her tweezers for a few minutes more, she managed to remove the bullet and grabbed the bandages so she could start patching him up. "All done."

"I let my guard down," he mumbled. "It's my fault if we're too late."

"But we still have time." Robyn took the tiny elastic bands out of her braids and ran her fingers through them to get rid of any knots. Despite the fact that she had not slept for days, Robyn seemed wide awake and full of energy.

Mika hoped so. He put his arms in his shirt but left it open, the bandages too tight to allow much movement. "I know, baby. Everything will be okay."

"No, it won't and you know it."

Mika and Robyn both turned to face Carly, whom they had unchained and was now sitting on the tattered folding bed. "Stop pretending that you can make everything alright and take a look around. This is reality." She took a deep breath and carried on. "This is the real world –"

"It's all... changing."

"Reality? You don't even know what reality is."

"I live in it," she reminded him. "I just don't kid myself that I can change it. It's absolute chaos out there." Carly nodded towards the window, from which she could hear car horns beeping, alarms sounding and people yelling. She hadn't seen the light of day for days and wasn't sure she even wanted to see what was outside now. "You went into FDR and got shot three times. Your girlfriend is stir crazy. You might not even have the right disks. How do you think you're gonna stop it?"

Robyn rummaged around in the pockets of her discarded long coat and held out a selection of CDs and floppy disks. "Are these the right ones?"

Carly looked at them in surprise and numbly nodded her head. Robyn had picked out the exact ones they needed – even though they were not labelled. "How did you know which were the right ones?"

"They told me," she said, as though that should explain everything. "And we can stop the world changing."

"The world's always changing. You can't deny it, so you have to change with it."

Mika glanced at Carly and saw that she was no longer scared or upset or, even, hopeful. "See, most girls," he began, walking over to sit on the edge of the bed. "When most girls see us – the real us –"

"Our true natures," smiled Robyn.

"They get scared. Some even scream themselves stupid – literally. But, not you."

"Not our brave little soldier."

Mika saw Robyn move to the wall and sink to her haunches but took no notice as he carried on. "You just saw us for what we are and accepted that. At first, you hated us just for being who we are but, not any more. We respect that."

"Why are you doing this to me?" Carly looked at him through blurry eyes and curled herself up. "Talking to me like you care? Just hurt me – it's easier."

"You know that there are other beings in this world. You're not so naïve as to deny it, are you?" Mika took on of her clammy hands in his and held it tightly, watching nonchalantly as her exhausted tear ducts began working again.

"Don't hurt me," she begged, wishing that he would stop acting like he was bothered about her.

"But, you're going to help us."

"She's lost," piped up Robyn, drawing his attention enough for Carly to shake him off and lean against the wall. "Lost in the woods. She doesn't know where she is going." She rose to her feet and cupped Carly's face between her hands. "You need some-one to show you the right way home. I can show you the way."

David crawled out from under the desk and squeezed his eyes shut for a second against the bright morning light. Nobody was in the building and, although it was still rather early, he suspected that news of last night's intrusion was already circulating and no-one would venture in until mid-afternoon. He cautiously climbed over the desk and dropped to his feet on the other side. The dead body of the ex-security guard was lying in a patch of shade thrown by one of the grated floor panels but David didn't even think of going to find out if it was too late to help. His mind immediately went to his wife, Rebecca, and the boys. If they were hurt, he could never forgive himself.

Walking over to the corner of the lobby, David bent down and picked up the forgotten revolver, not knowing if it had any ammo left in it or not. He could see the shadow of another object on the gantry and looked up to see an automatic handgun up there. There was no way he was going up there for it – he didn't want to spend any more time in here with a dead man that he had to. For the first time in his entire life David was enjoying the feel of a lethal weapon at his side. He had never liked guns before, didn't even like the fact that he had to carry his sometimes unloaded gun at work, but now he relished the feeling of invulnerability it gave him. Chuckling to himself, David turned the gun over and over in his hand and headed into the light, being carefully to stay a few steps away from the body, unwilling to touch it and check for a pulse.

Johnny was dead but there was no sign or feel of a fatal injury. Perhaps he had just fallen from the balcony and hit his head. But that didn't stop him from hearing the death cries of demons and angels.

"Come into the darkness," a voice whispered to him. "This is the way. Follow the path to your destiny. Follow me into the darkness."

He had thought the voice would say, "Come into the light," like it did in all the movies. Johnny couldn't think for himself and listened to the voice beckoning him into darkness.

David grabbed hold of the door handles and grumbled in exasperation when they wouldn't open. Some-one had wedged them shut from the outside. He turned his back on them and leaned against one door as he tried to remember where the nearest exit might be.

Johnny snapped both of his dead eyes open and growled in hunger...

He was so hungry...

And something smelt so good...

### Part Two:

### Chaos And Calm

SEVEN

The afternoon was a cacophony of car horns and agonised screams – a symphony of chaos. Fights were breaking out all over the place and people were really starting to hurt each other. No-one knew exactly why they were doing the things they were, though. It was just something in the air that was driving people over the edge. Of course, the blistering heat did nothing to help matters; it just seemed to fuel the fits of temper further.

Benjy Campbell was just one of the many drivers on the road with the air conditioning turned up as far as it would go. But even that, combined with the stereo cranked up to almost full volume, did nothing to quell the rage inside of him. Unlike a lot of the others, though, Benjy was refusing to give into his anger. Until he had a proper reason to let fly he wouldn't let his temper get the better of him. It would be put down as a race charge, and he had had enough of that crap to last him a lifetime. Not that there was actually anything to stop him from unleashing the growing fury – the police were either joining in with the violence or had buggered off elsewhere. He just had to remember what his anger management therapist had said: dig down deep inside himself, take hold of his anger and search for what it was directed at. So, he did exactly that but stopped short when he could find nothing that his rage may have stemmed from. He was angry at nothing and everything; could find nothing that had made him angry, but knew that something had. If only he knew what...

"Calm down, Benjy," he told himself, gripping the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles began to turn white. "Stay calm. You're stronger than this." However hard he tried to push the feeling down into the pit of his stomach, the higher it rose, coming ever closer to bubbling over. In frustration, he pushed his horn and listened, satisfied, as it blared over the cars in front and behind him. He turned the stereo down a notch as he slotted a cassette into the player and dropped his head back onto the firm headrest. Maybe he just needed to rest and take his mind off it.

That didn't work and knew after a few seconds that it was pointless to pursue that method further. This anger that was growing inside him, filling him up, was unlike anything that he had ever felt before. No, this wasn't just something that would go away after he had lashed out – he could feel it. It wouldn't die – it would carry on growing until it took over. "Come on, Campbell. You just need to find your centre." It sometimes helped if he pictured something natural and calming like a rainbow or blue sea lapping at the shores of a white beach. Not today. Calming images had no place in the bedlam, where no-one even knew why they were so angry. His eyes ticked over to a group of men and women who were causing a commotion in the middle of the street.

The two women were usually best friends and had no idea why they had suddenly turned on each other. All they knew was that they were angry and had to let it out. The questions of what they were angry at, and why, had no answers.

Both women knew that it was wrong to be so angry at each other, but no longer cared that neither of them had been wronged by the other. No, they were angry and that was the end of it. First, they tried to express their ire verbally by starting a slanging match where they called each other by every insulting name under the sun. "That didn't help," said the elder of the two women, glancing over at her boyfriend for non-forthcoming support. "Bitch!"

"Hooker!" the younger one spat back instantly. "Always got to run back to your pimp every time things get rough."

"Hooker? Pimp? At least I look good enough for men to wanna pay for it."

That very nearly hurt her feelings, but she had the perfect comeback for that – one that would really sting Carole. "I guess all that plastic surgery really works. Better thank your sugar daddy. Brunette Barbie."

That did it. Carole jumped at her friend and they both went down in a tangle of arms and legs, using every trick in the book from scratching with fingernails to pulling hair. "I'll teach you..."

"Chick fight!" bellowed the boyfriend and watched calmly while a small crowd assembled to watch. He wasn't bothered about the safety of either woman and turned to his brother, who was also enjoying watching them scrabble around on the floor. "Cool!"

"Better than watching 'em lez up together," grinned his brother.

"Got some videos..."

Carole lifted her head to take a breath and saw that people had gathered to see her and her friend. She ducked her head back down and slapped her friend across her cheek. They scrabbled around for a few more minutes, pulling at each others clothes and shouting insults. Surely not everyone in this town could be so mad with rage...

Carly was slumped across the computer keyboard, asleep, finally asleep, while the game flashed _GAME OVER_ where she had been playing an old shoot-'em-up game for the past couple of hours. It helped just to have something to take her mind off of everything inside the house and the sounds she could hear outside.

Carly wasn't even dreaming in her sleep, but relishing the mere feeling of being asleep and left alone. She was completely wiped out from her ordeal of the past few days and, not for the first time, found herself seriously doubting that she would get out of this alive. If her two captors didn't kill her, whatever was driving everyone over the edge surely would. There had been dozens of reports of people dying or being seriously injured and Carly knew that it had well and truly got under way. "No going back now," she murmured in her sleep. "Too far..."

She didn't really know about the plan other than the desired effects of it and the bits and pieces she had overheard from her bosses. Her job was simply to transfer the information to disk, keep it in order, and take whatever measures were necessary to keep it safe. It wasn't her place to read or understand the material she was given, but she knew how to unlock it for Mika and Robyn, who believed they would make sense of it and prevent it from coming to pass. They had good reason to do so, she supposed, wanting to protect themselves.

The computer monitor flickered away by her head as she turned over and sleepily brushed a stray lock of her hair from her face. Robyn had given her some clean clothes to wear in place of her own, which were torn and bloody. How could two such normal looking people be so nice to her one minute, then inflict so much pain the next? It made no sense to her whatsoever, but then nothing seemed to make much sense at the moment. People had been hurting each other for centuries, and the plan was supposed to stop that, not bring it out and multiply the violence a hundred times. Something must have gone terribly wrong for things to be like this. If she could just get a look at those disks...

Slowly beginning to wake up, Carly ran her fingers through messy, blonde hair and reached over to turn the computer screen off. Her eyes just could not take the fierce glare of the TFT display so soon after waking, and she squinted out even as she lifted the window blind to peer out at the ongoing anarchy. "What's going on?"

"I hope there's a method to this madness," commented the shaman to Professor Wright.

"I think so." He straightened his tie and cleared his throat, uncomfortably. "I admit, it seems pointless now, but in time you'll see that this was pivotal to the cause." God, how he hoped he was right and this would all come right in the end. If it didn't, all their hard work would have been in vain and everything happening now would have been useless. "This was vital. Nothing would have worked without this." He looked down at the dead body on the stone slab in the mortuary they were identifying and sighed. "It had to happen – it's how it was meant –"

"Bull!" the shaman spat back. "He was weak, and you know it! He thought he knew what he was letting himself in for but he had no idea. When things started to heat up and the pressure got to him, he couldn't handle it and..."

"That man knew everything there was to know about what we're doing, and you're telling me he wasn't prepared for this?"

"You can be as prepared as you like, but you'll never be ready," he said, darkly and clicked his fingers to summon the attendant. The shaman straightened the hood of his heavy cloak and looked at Professor, who was picking up his briefcase and jacket. "It gets you when you least expect it."

"Are you done, gentlemen?" the youngster asked. The professor vaguely recognised her as a student at the school near his home. "Were you good friends of the deceased?"

"He worked with us," Professor Wright told the girl and looked once more at the body. "Just a colleague."

"And you, sir? Shall I finish up, or would you like a few more minutes?"

The girl turned to the shaman and spoke evenly, apparently not noticing his rather... unusual attire. Good – that meant his protective amulet was working well. He had been afraid that it was broken after being exposed to so much magick, but he remembered that the amulet was generations old and had seen more of the supernatural than he ever would. "No, I'm done. Just hard to believe he's dead. I only saw him the other day."

"I'm very sorry for your loss, sir. Both of you."

"Thank you," mumbled the professor, shrugging his jacket on. "Thank you very much." He picked up his case and walked into the harsh daylight, doing his best to block out the presence of chaos.

The young girl heard the door swing shut and played with her papers until the other man left the room by the stairs. Paperwork was not a big part of her job, only requiring her to fill in one standard form for each body, but she was very dedicated to her work and didn't let herself get behind. She put the papers back down on the filing cabinet and walked over to the body on the slab. She felt an overwhelming sense of loss when she noted the age of the victim. Not because she knew him, but because he was so young and had so much left to live for. Such a waste of a beautiful young life...

Why did people have to hurt each other this way? She felt it too – the anger flying around. Not contained in one person but touching them all. People were angry for unknown reasons, and they were weak-willed enough to give in to it. But, while everyone else was giving in to this undirected rage, she was calm and did her best to maintain some order. She did so by helping everyone she could and by not letting the tiny bubbling of anger grow. Her amateurish dabblings in magick had given her the strength to overcome it and understand that this wasn't right. "It's not natural," she muttered to herself as she searched for a pen on the desk. "People killing each other. Every deep-seated emotion brought out and amplified."

Finding the form for her next visitor – an elderly woman seeing the body of her husband, who had died from heart failure – she found her biro and began to fill the form in. Tales of her long-dead aunt had encouraged her interest in the supernatural, and it was an easy conclusion to jump to that this was such a case. She also knew enough to know that one of the two men who had just been in was heavily into the dark arts. Not that she could somehow see through his spell, but because she had honed her senses enough to be able to feel a change in the atmosphere. "I don't know about you," she said to the uncovered dead body, "but this doesn't seem right." The girl closed her satchel and picked up the tiny plastic bags of herbs that had spilled out, figuring that she had just enough time to go out and grab a coffee before the old woman was expected. She popped out a name card, jotted something down on it and slotted it into the empth space on the metal panel as she covered the body with a sheet. "Not right at all," she carried on as she pushed her way out.

Carly looked out at dozens of drivers honking their horns and dogs running around in a heated frenzy. Further away, people were screaming at each other and sounds of a fight reached her ears. Things around here were often pretty manic, but never before had it ballooned to such dramatic proportions. And, still, Carly said nothing. No longer could she bring herself to feel horrified at the scenes she had had a million chances to stop; or even to question why people were so crazed.

She heard a sound upstairs – one of the floorboards creaking, perhaps – and tilted her head upwards as she tried to catch a few words of what was being said

Mika sat up in bed and leaned back against the headboard. The pitiful sound of people screaming and crying seemed extra loud to him, amongst the other sounds from outside. The door opened and Robyn wandered into the shaded bedroom, sinking down onto the bed at his side. He turned his head a short way to look at her, reluctant to move further than he needed to.

"Mika?"

"You look happy, baby," he murmured. "What have you been up to?"

"Mmm," she grinned, sucking her fingers hungrily. "I've just eaten. Now I feel all warm inside." She giggled as she ran her fingers over his lips, giving him only the merest taste of what he had missed. "It's nice, isn't it?"

"So sweet and..." Mika grabbed Robyn's wrist and sucked her fingertip so gently it felt like he was kissing them. He didn't bother to finish the sentence, grabbing Robyn and throwing her down onto the bed. Robyn lay there as Mika climbed on top of her and kissed her hungrily, desiring the taste of sweet blood as much as Robyn herself.

"Stop that! Dirty boy!" she scolded and pushed him off of her. "We've got work to do. We don't have much time," she added, noticing the spots of blood that had soaked through his bandages. When even Mika was suffering the unwanted after-effects of an assault a day later, it was time to worry. But, Robyn didn't worry, she knew that it would akk come right in the end – she didn't know how she knew, she just did.

"Did the stars tell you that?"

"No. Carly did."

Uncomfortably, Mike shifted position, grunting quietly as his three open bullet wounds caused him twinges of pain. He noted with great relief that his wall-bearing hole had now fully healed, though his abdomen still bore a fleshy pink scar that should have faded away by tomorrow. "You know I don't like you going out alone."

"They're too busy hurting each other to hurt me." Robyn snuggled up to Mika and put his arm around her, erotically dancing her fingers over his bare chest, careful not to draw blood. "Taste?" She used her fingernail to create a long gash over the pulse point on her neck and thrust it in front of his face.

The temptation was too much and he lowered his mouth to the red... inviting... hypnotic blood. Robyn gasped in pleasure and pain as sharp teeth bit into her neck and drank from her. She felt the energy flow through them both and felt bonded to him yet more strongly. This was real love – sharing your life with that special person. Sharing life, sharing death, sharing everything that came in between...

He sucked fiercely at her neck feeling his body fill with an energy that both gave him fire and burnt him out. After a while, he ripped his mouth away from her throat and sat back, breathing heavily. Robyn looked at him, then closed her eyes and collapsed back into the pillows. They always ended up like this after one of them had fed off the other. The feeling lasted only a few seconds, though, after which it faded from pure bliss to contentment. Robyn opened her eyes and stared up at the ceiling, totally unaware of the blood dripping from her neck and staining the white pillow. Mika rolled over onto his side, propping himself up on one elbow, and used his fingers to lift a long lock of flame-coloured hair. "What are you looking at?"

"I can see the sky from here," she told him, matter of factly. "It's very pretty."

"Baby? We're indoors."

"Everyone is coming out to play." She stared at the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest and, tenderly, put her hand to his heart. Robyn stared up at him, curiously. "What happened?" she asked. "You're hiding something from me. I can feel it."

Mika knew that it would be hopeless to try to keep anything from Robyn now she knew something had happened. "I can't take it much longer, Robyn," he said, sliding down the covers until his head was level with hers. "Not the nightmares."

"No, not the nightmares," Robyn agreed. "Seeing her..."

"Seeing them all. Remembering it." Mika twisted her hair in his hands and stared up at the ceiling idly. He couldn't see the sky the way Robyn could but was always prepared to listen to her. "It doesn't stop... ever."

"Until there's nothing left." They lay together in satisfied silence, just staring at the ceiling until Mika piped up again.

"The sky?"

The professor walked across the road on his way back to the university, not bothering to wait for the light to flash to say it was safe to cross. He stood as much chance of being run down when the light flashed as he did when it didn't – no-one paid any attention to road safety any more. The whole street was just a crush of motor vehicles and scrapping animals. The scenes of heated emotion, which would normally have drawn his attention, held no interest for him being nothing out of the ordinary any more. Even the students at the university were in uproar for no apparent reason. That didn't really surprise him as many of them were teetering on the edge over their final exams anyway. It was interesting to see that some people remained relatively unaffected by the madness, but he didn't have the time or the will to investigate this phenomenon.

A bus swerved off the road and braked sharply, inches before it hit a lamp-post. Andrew watched casually as the double-decker skidded to a halt and walked on, not fazed by the accident in the least. Down a side alley, he saw a young man beating on a woman he assumed was his girlfriend but didn't stop to help. He heard a faint gunshot a few blocks away and walked on, completely ignoring the presence of chaos. If people wanted to shoot each other, why not just let them? He knew that there was a good answer to that - because innocent people were getting hurt – but realised that logic did not come into this. There was darkness in the air...

He made his way through the riotous streets and entered the calmer grounds of the Rashda Observatory. Most students were in lectures and the campus was calm and quiet. "Peace at last," he sighed, setting his case down on a wooden bench. All of the worries of the last few days had been pushed away to make way for one firm belief: that all of this was paving the road for something better. He couldn't expect to be part of a bright, new world without being plunged into the worst one possible. How else would anyone know how much they had gained without seeing how low it was possible for them to sink? "What's that saying... it's always darkest before the dawn." In this case, it was true. Society was going to sink into the deepest darkness possible before they would see the light.

"Sorry, Professor, did you say something?" asked one of the mature students from the Economics class.

"Oh, no." He sat down on the bench and looked at the student, clutching his folder to his chest. "I was just thinking out loud."

"You don't look very well. Are you okay?" The student – a man destined to graduate just 10 years before retirement – put his folder on the bench and bent down to tie his shoelace.

"I've just got a lot on my mind." He looked down at his dirty fingernails and used his other hand to pick at the ingrained dirt. "I'll be fine."

"Do you know why everyone is going mental? Is it just the pressure of finals, or something? But, I'm not taking my exams and I can feel it."

"No. I've got no idea why people are going crazy."

"Way I see it is they don't know how good they had it. Well, I should go." He picked up his folder, nodded at the professor and wandered off in the direction of the library building.

What a way to look at the situation. But, why should he have to settle for what he had when he knew what he could have? A bell rang in the tallest building, sounding much quieter than it had before, and students began spilling out onto the campus from various lecture theatres. It seemed somehow wrong for people to be driven to the very edge of their own darkness before they were shown the light. Shaking his head, Professor Wright gathered his things and rose from his seat.

"Such fun!" Robyn lifted her head from the floor and grinned at Mika, towering above her. "Do it again. Hurt me," she demanded.

"Do you mind? I can't concentrate with all this noise," protested Carly. "If you want me to crack these codes, I need a bit of peace." She was glaring at a screen of moving binary digits, coded so well that she was having trouble breaking through. And she had been the one to create the encryption. To bump up the security even further – the demands of her boss – she had had to make different levels of protection.

"You're not bothering us," chuckled Mika.

"Hurt me, Mika. Make me scream. Make me bleed." She lifted her hand and felt the broken finger that he had just snapped, testing it as she bent it this way and that. "Make me cry."

He viciously backhanded her across the face, making a deep cut over her left eye with his ring. Blood began to pour from it and Robyn laughed in joy as she felt the tickling sensation of flowing blood. Nothing hurt after a good meal. Mika bent down to her, coiled like a spring but Robyn prevented him from reaching her by folding her legs to her chest and pushing out with all her strength. Mika stared down at her feet on his shirt but had no time to move, immediately lifted from his feet and thrown across the room, where he hit the concrete wall, hard, and crumpled to the ground.

Carly glanced at Robyn in disgust out of the corner of her eye and turned back to the computer screen. Not the most interesting task, but at least it meant that she did not see most of the things Mika and Robyn were doing to each other. It was hard to understand how two people who clearly loved each other passionately could willingly hurt each other so badly when the public outside were hurting each other for no reason and had no control over their actions.

"Mika!" yelled Robyn, hearing bones crack and fearing that she may have seriously hurt him. She sprang to her feet and rushed over to him, pressing one hand to her eye. "Did I hurt you?"

Mika was unsure of how to respond to that question – if he said no, Robyn might get upset and do something silly, however, if he said yes, Robyn might still get upset and do something silly. He couldn't bear it if something happened to Robyn... She was the only one who had ever really understood him; the one who had made him the man he was today. "It's the nightmares," he said. "I'm remembering things... things we did. How are you getting on with that disk, Carly?" He took the hand Robyn offered, climbed to his feet and peered over her shoulder, not even pretending to know what all the computer jargon on the monitor meant.

"I'm having a hard time cracking all the encryption. It's pretty much air-tight." She didn't pause in her work as she spoke, her fingers tirelessly flicking across the keyboard.

"But you created the damn thing!"

"I know. I'm good." She swivelled around in her chair as she faced him. He could hurt her all he liked, she didn't care anymore – but there was no way he was going to figure these passes out in time if she was dead. "I'm sorry, but it'll take me the best part of a day to unlock them all if I've done them all like this."

"You developed the damned system and now you don't know how to get past it?" Mika could hardly believe what he was hearing.

"I can get through it," she pointed out. At no point had Carly said that she would not be able to get round it. "It'll just take some time, that's all. I didn't exactly plan on being held to a deadline."

"We haven't got time," said Robyn. "They haven't got time."

"Who haven't got time, Robyn?"

"People, animals, plants. They're all going to die."

"I'm working on it, okay." Carly turned back to the grey machine and began typing again. "I'll keep trying."

"You hear that, baby. It will be over before you know it." He stood up straight and arched his back. "I think I've cracked some ribs," he smiled, wallowing in the pain he caused himself when he altered position. Oh, it felt good.

"Don't worry," soothed Robyn. "Everything's going to be okay." She laid a hand on Mika's tense shoulder and tried to rub his cares away. After a few seconds of watching Carly working tirelessly on unlocking her disk, Robyn moved her hands to Carly's shoulders and bent down to her. "You'll get it. We won't let you go until you do."

But Carly knew exactly what she had meant by that. They wouldn't kill her until she had done this – they weren't even planning on letting her go. It would be too dangerous for them now that she knew what they were...

"Robyn," Carly said, pressing her fingers into the corners of her eyes. She had been staring at the fluorescent display far too long and was now beginning to see multi-coloured dots swimming before her eyes. "I'm working as fast as I can but threats aren't the best incentive. I did this a long time ago and I can't remember all the shortcuts."

Robyn stroked Carly's blonde head and ran her fingers through it, teasing some of the knots apart. "This isn't a threat, sweetie. We will let you go when this is over. All you'll have to do is keep us a secret."

"That's it?"

"Just get the computer sorted, then we'll talk freedom."

"Mika," gasped Robyn in mock-horror. "Don't be so cruel. She's just frightened."

"How can you be so nice to me, and then suddenly be so nasty?" asked Carly.

"Look Carly." Mika crouched down at her side and peered up at her, hoping that those tears threatening to fall would not. He couldn't take her crying again – not with the memories. "It's nothing personal – actually it is but that's beside the point. You're the only one that can help us stop this. And, unless we give you some hope..."

Robyn moved over to the corner of the room where she mewed like a crying kitten and curled herself into a tight ball, the same way she had done for as long as Mika could remember. He looked over at her as she swept one outstretched arm in to her chest and carried on making the thin, tinny mewing, full of confusion. "Robyn?"

"It's the game," she told him. "The rules are all changing again. So many people are lost. They don't know what to do – they're not strong enough to do the right thing."

"So, we'll just do it for them." Mika held his hand out to Robyn to help her up but she ignored it. "We'll just have to show them what to do."

I don't think we can, Mika." She stared up at him and stood up. "I don't think we can."

He looked at Robyn, now less sure of himself, and folded his arms. Robyn was always right, in some form or another, when she slipped into one of these semi-trances and Mika was always careful not to push her with more questions in this state. She could only tell him what she was hearing. "Don't..." he began in a whisper, as she seemed to stare right through him at something. "Don't do this." Robyn got to her feet and Mika turned to see what she was staring at, certain he would see nothing. And nothing he saw.

But, he felt something. Strong and irresistible. Surrounding his body until he almost began to vibrate to the vibrant pulsing energy. "I can feel it," he told Robyn. Carly glanced over at them as she triumphantly typed in the first correct code and waited for it to unlock and let her begin on the next level. She already knew they were weird people (especially after seeing the strange ways they complimented each other) but this was scary on a scale she barely knew existed. Shaking her head, the blonde girl faced the computer again and calmly watched the screen refill with digits. Mika saw her in his peripheral vision but had no chance to watch her as he was yanked back by the overpowering pull of the growing energy field. "The promise of a new life we can mould and shape. We can teach. Like the others – we can control." The pulsing shock-waves around him grew to proportions even he was not yet able to handle, and Mika dropped to his knees, hardly aware of what was going on. "What happened?"

Robyn didn't lose the wide grin from her face but rushed to his side, wanting to protect him from harm just as he did for him. "So close..."

EIGHT

"Door!" yelled Carly as she heard a frantic pounding on the door. "Robyn? Mika? Door!" It sounded quite urgent.

Robyn pulled the covers over Mika's body – a completely unnecessary measure but it seemed like the right thing to do – kissed his forehead and stalked down the stairs into the hallway. "Well, why don't you answer it then?" she asked, sarcastically, as she looked into what had now become known as Carly's room.

"Uh, I'm chained to the computer," she shot back, holding up her shackled wrist.

"Are you nearly done with that?"

"I told you –" The remainder of her sentence was cut off as the frenetic pounding on the front door started up again. "Are you gonna get that?"

Robyn shot Carly a deadly look and pushed off the doorframe to go open the door. She laid a hand on her side of the door and her face began to brighten, as she realised that the person on the other side of the door meant them no harm. She had enough to worry about with Mika without vigilantes trying to kill them. Cautiously, Robyn opened the door a little way and peeped out to see who it was. Hurriedly, she opened the door wider and their visitor burst through it and stopped himself on a wall. Nothing could hurt him now, in the darkness, but how was he to know?

A wide smile reappeared on her face and she leaned back against the closed door. She reached over and slammed Carly's door closed then walked over to their new house guest and gently stroked his cheek. "Johnny. You're all shiny and new."

"Who am I? What am I?"

"You know who you are, silly. And you even know what you are." She lazily hooked one arm around a few wooden poles on the stairs and gazed at him, coolly. "You came back to us. You're feeling it aren't you? The power?"

Johnny swallowed a knot of hunger in his throat and didn't answer. He hadn't even known where the couple lived, even if they were from the city, but something had brought him here – a connection. "It feels wrong," he told her, neglecting to mention that it felt good, also.

Robyn could read him like a book and knew everything he wasn't tell her. "Oh, honey. I know what it's like at first – it hurts. But you have to give in to it. It's no good trying to resist it. You'll never win. It will eat you alive."

"I'm so hungry. Got anything to eat?" His developing sense of smell keyed into a scent he had been yearning for and he looked pointedly at the closed door.

Johnny had no control yet, that would develop in years to come, and needed to drink of anything in his path. Luckily, Robyn could tell that he was hungry enough not to have fed _en route._ In his weakened state, Robyn could sate his desire with the packets of blood she kept in storage for such an occasion. He was too weak, his tastes too unrefined, to notice the difference. "What's happening out there?" she asked as she took his hand and led him through to the kitchen.

"Chaos rules."

"Why? Did you sense anything?" His senses may not have developed fully but were as sensitive to changes in the atmosphere as those of a newborn baby.

"There's something in the air. Like an anger. No-one knows where it's coming from, but it's too strong for them to fight."

"I knew it. They're being torn between good and bad." Robyn turned away from Johnny's puzzled face and fetched out a bag of chilled animal blood, using a sharp fingernail to punch a small hole in the plastic. "Reality is so cruel and harsh, how are they meant to stand up to that?"

"Courage," said a voice behind them both – Mika. "What's going on down here?"

Robyn looked over at him, one hand supporting most of his weight as he leaned on the doorframe. "It's Johnny, baby. He's come back to us." She dropped the packet into his waiting hands, and Johnny began to suck at it eagerly. Robyn wandered over to Mika and folded her wrists over each other behind his neck. "He needs us to teach him. We can show him, Mika. We can show him everything."

Mika looked around her and smiled, all memories of the things he had once done forgotten, covered by the prospect Robyn had presented him with. "Don't worry about Robyn," he told Johnny, who barely looked up. "She tends to talk in riddles."

Johnny nodded. "Who's in there?" He jerked his thumb to the other room and growled in barely controlled hunger. God, he was ravenous. Blood was like a drug for him now and he needed more. Johnny didn't understand how Mika and Robyn could not feel it. But, they were feeling it more viciously than ever, but they were feeling something else as well. Something they could only stave off to a point...

"Never you mind," barked Robyn.

"It's a girl – I can smell her. They all smell different."

"You're learning. What else can you smell?"

Robyn leaned over and took his hands in hers, watching as he began to tremble. "Remember, you're stronger than them. You're better."

"There's something better than us. Something stronger. Can't you feel it?"

Mika moved to break their hands apart, fearing that Robyn would be as overwhelmed by the power as he was, but Robyn gave him a decisive look which made him stop stock still on the spot. He could see that she was lost in the moment and watched her as her happiness grew. He had no reason to be jealous of her and Johnny's current bond – after all, it was his arms she would be resting in come the morning.

"I feel it," she breathed, seeming to glow with energy. "I'm connected to everything... to everyone. And there's so much hurt."

"It's okay baby. We'll find a way to stop it." Mika hoped he sounded more confident than he felt. Robyn's last cryptic speech had brought some niggling doubts to the front of his mind but he didn't want to worry her.

"And if you do?" started Johnny, pulling his hands away and smoothing them through his short, black hair. "What good will that do? The fire and the pain won't just go away, you know. It'll still be there – under the surface."

"Oh, my precious, naïve boy." Robyn looked at Mika, eagerly awaiting their adventure. "You have so much to learn about what you are. We've got so much to teach you. You can be one of the best."

"I don't want to be one of the best. I just want to be normal again."

"Don't fight your calling – you don't want to be like the others out there. It's easier to give in to it, because it will just come and get you anyway." Mika draped one arm around her shoulders and buttoned his half-open shirt with his other hand. "Come on, New Boy. We're going out."

"Hunting?"

"No, Johnny. We don't hunt. We're going to show you what it really means." Robyn watched him get out from his chair then looked at Mika again, a silent conversation passing between them. "How to use your power. How to create your own personal chaos. We're going to give you a lesson in art."

Lucie had just finished her shift at the local homeless shelter and was now on her way to the child minders house to pick up her young daughter. Lucie hated working late nights anyway, but especially not now it had gotten so crazy out here. Things had seemed to calm down a little after darkness had fallen and she was grateful that she would be able to walk home for once without having to run across the road to examine some poor, injured old soul. Her daughter, a two year old called Michelle, was the love of her life and was the person she spent every spare minute with now that her husband had been called away on business in Switzerland. Switzerland, of all places. The winters were far too cold for Michelle, having only recently recovered from pneumonia, for them to go out with him. Lucie was more than happy to stay and wait for him to come home.

Whatever was tipping everyone over the edge had not touched her, for some reason. Sure, she felt the bubblings of something deep in the pit of her stomach, but the only feeling she felt consume her was one of total calm, peace and a wush to help. She couldn't prevent it, she didn't know what the cause was, though she could helo clear up the mess. The woman turned into the garden off the babysitter's house and knocked the door. Michelle would probably be asleep by now, and Lucie longed for the days when she would be the one Michelle saw before going to sleep every night.

The door opened and Lucie sidled into the hallway, trying to find a piece of carpet to stand on beneath the jumble of toys cluttering the floor. "Hey, Andy," she greeted him. "How's Michelle been?"

"She cried a bit when you left today, but she's been okay since. I think she's asleep now – I'll go get her." He went into the front room and Lucie idly kicked a pile of toys towards the stairs. There was a sound outside – what was that? Chiding herself for being so jumpy, she figured that it was just some people using the alley at the side of the house. The front door was still open and she peeped out, unable to even see a shadow. They had probably gone past already. Andy returned holding a dozing child in his arms and gave her over to her mother. "I thought I'd lost her again – she was curled up under a giant teddy."

"She likes teddy bears. Her room's full of them."

"It's just a phase. It'll pass." Andy carefully let go of Michelle when she was safely in her mum's arms and worked his finger free from her hot little fist. "Got her? She's a fidgeter, that one."

"Thanks, Andy. You're a real gem." Lucie held the toddler to her, not ever wanting to let her go.

"Oh, before I forget. She did something for you while we did art." Andy disappeared again and returned with a crudely painted picture of a flower. "Finger painting," he explained. "Look, she even tried to draw a face in the middle."

She took the sheet of paper from him and turned it around and around in her hand, frowning. "Shame it turned out like a – what exactly is that? It can go on the fridge with the rest. We best be off, anyway. Same time tomorrow, okay?" Without waiting for an answer, she staggered out of the door and to the end of the garden path. God, why did Michelle grow so fast? She had already nearly outgrown what she was wearing. Lucie heaved Michelle over to her other arm and started to walk along the path. It was tempting to use the shortcut but you never knew who was hanging around.

A noise came from a side alley, she ignored it and stroked Michelle's short, blonde hair to keep her asleep. Two shadows came out of the alley and silently followed Lucie until she stopped at the next turning. With the eerie feeling that she was being followed, she stopped and listened for footsteps, not letting herself turn around in case she was being watched. No-one there.

"Expecting some-one?" called a voice behind her.

Lucie didn't turn round – why give them the satisfaction? – heading hurriedly into an alleyway. The face hovering inches in front of her was gruesome and nearly made her scream, if it wasn't for the sleeping girl in her arms. Such hunger in his eyes, a maniacal expression twisting his features. Jumping, Lucie turned on her heel again and found herself sandwiched between the two who had followed her, and the lunatic she had met in the alley. Where-ever she turned, they were already there – they were everywhere. How many of them were there? All she wanted to do was take her daughter home; put her safely to bed. She thought she knew what these creatures wanted and it was not the same thing that she wanted. She hoped that she was wrong but, what good did hope do when you had knowledge?

"Look at us," said a soft, female voice.

Lucie fixed her eyes on a broken, paving slab at her feet, planting a kiss on Michelle's little head, praying she would remain asleep until this was over. Maybe she would waken tomorrow and this would all be a bad dream. Maybe...

"I said look at me, bitch." The girl was getting angry now.

Lucie held the sleeping child tightly to her chest and stared defiantly at the girl. Neither of them looked as scary as the one on his own but, somehow, that terrified her more. She remembered the drawing in her other hand and clutched it absently, crumpling it at one corner. It was scarier that she knew exactly what was going to happen next because it made it even more useless to hope.

"Innocent," grinned the one with fire in his eyes.

Robyn glanced at Johnny, knowing that his bloodlust had wiped out any reason in his brain. Johnny stepped towards the woman and child, gently stroking Lucie's neck and staring at the exposed and delicate neck of the toddler. Just begging to be torn. He bent down hungrily, but was violently pushed away by Robyn. The boy was so impatient. He had to learn to play with his food – it would come in time. She gave him a warning look but didn't drift from Mika's side. "Who's first?" Robyn clapped in delight, running her fingers up and down Mika's tense, unresponsive back.

Gently, Lucie shook her daughter awake and set hr down on the ground, by the wall, where she promptly curled up and went back to sleep, oblivious to the danger lurking just a few feet away. "Kill me if you have to, but please don't hurt the baby."

Robyn shrugged dismissively, reached out and twirled her into her arms. Why couldn't they all be so... accepting? But, then again, where was the fun if no-one put up a fight? "Ah no. This won't do at all. How are we supposed to show him what to d if you won't play nice?"

Lucie swallowed, just craning her head enough to see Mika staring indifferently down at her. There was something in his cold, steely gaze... unidentifiable, just out of reach, but there. What was it? Resignedly, she went limp in Robyn's arms and bowed her head. Johnny stared at her bare flesh, licking his lips in barely controlled hunger, feeling nothing for a girl that he would have protected yesterday but would not think twice about killing tonight. He almost thought he could hear the blood rushing around her... it sounded fast and loud, as if it was trying to get away. So hungry. Lucie looked at him through scared, quivering eyelashes, silently pleading with him. "I'm not playing."

Johnny smiled the evil, twisted smile of a crazed killer and broke into a laugh that sent a chill up the spines of the other three. He was learning fast. He was a natural at this. Robyn looked at Mika conveying messages of anger and delight without words.

"It's not a game," Johnny told Lucie. Robyn frowned but thought no more of it.

She swept Lucie's curly brown hair to one side and roughly held the neck up to Mika. "Drink," she ordered. "She's young... untouched. Pure."

God, how he wanted to be able to take her and think no more of it. But he was being torn in two, between what he was and what he used to be. Human. With a conscience that was rearing it's less than favourable head. But, he had no time to think about this problem whilst Robyn was waiting for him to tear the girls throat out. There had been a time, no more than a few days ago, when he would have done it without even thinking about it; but now... He looked away from the neck before him and over at the tiny sleeping girl by the wall. How could he deny the girl her mother? How would he have become the man he was today without his own mother? "She has a kid," he said.

"That's your reason for not ripping her throat to shreds? Because she has a kid?" scoffed Johnny, totally uncomprehending of the importance of family.

Robyn silenced him with a look. He was young, didn't understand their ways, but that didn't stop her from getting angry with him. "Shut up! Mika, sweetie. Don't do this – you're scaring me."

"I – I –"

"This isn't her death, Mika. It's your survival." She would never ask Mika do something if she didn't think it was right. What could possibly be wrong about this? So what if they were destroying one person when it meant he could do so much and save so many others. Not people –the night. The stars.

He looked around uncomfortably, first at the sleeping child, at Johnny who was shifting his weight impatiently, to Robyn who was wordlessly begging him to feed and be strong again, at the child again, and finally back down at the stretch of unmarked flesh in front of him. There was so much blood in there. So much life. That's all it was – blood, skin, a body. He couldn't let himself think about her as a person or he would never drink. No, just another victim, one more body to dispose of. He bent his face to her neck and smelt the addictive substance inside. Reminded suddenly of a drug he had been forced to give up, he bared his fangs and tore into her neck.

Such a brutal murder. Such a beautiful moment. Robyn and Johnny were both riveted to the spot; Robyn by sheer enjoyment, and Johnny by mounting hunger. As they watched him kill the girl in such a violent manner, only one word echoed in each of their minds. Lucie's last. _Please._ The word may have been just a final plea, but to Robyn and Mika it meant something deeper. _Please_ stop what's happening?

Robyn laughed and turned her head up towards the dark night sky. Mika had never killed so violently; it had never been over so quickly. Something was hurting him, making him do things out of character, but Robyn wasn't that bothered about it yet. Lucie's body lay slumped in Mika's arm and the piece of paper with Michelle's drawing fluttered to the floor.

This wasn't looking very good. Carly had managed to decode all the disks, though there were a few problems getting them to run properly on this computer. Nothing that couldn't be sorted in a hour.

To give herself a break from the unforgiving computer screen, which was beginning to give her a headache, she walked around the room and, once again, found herself looking out of the window. The blind was up and she had managed to push the window open a few inches. It was stiff, as if it hadn't been opened for years, and the catch was as rusted as an old car in the desert. Fresh, cool air wafted into the room and instantly began to feel much less stuffy – it should be a lot easier to work now. She was quite surprised to hear nothing in the street apart from the odd car screaming along the road. It was quiet, like everything had wound down as night fell. It baffled her how things could be so crazy during the day and so peaceful as soon as it got dark.

She had decided to wait for the others before she opened the files on the disks. She didn't want to run the risk of them getting angry with her; she didn't think she could take any more of that. Especially not now they had added this new one to the mix; he was young, eager – she could see the desire in him, the hunger – even though she had only seen him for a moment. He was dangerous; she just knew it. Maybe he wasn't such an expert in the art of suffering as the other two, but maybe that made him all the more dangerous.

An agonised, high pitched scream cut through the silent night like a knife; Carly wasn't startled by the noise, wasn't even surprised. She couldn't seem to remember the outside wprld being so quiet, though she knew it was only a few days. Sometimes, though, sitting here, it was loudest when it was completely silent. She could hear everything; the steady hum of the computer as it processed the influx of new data, even the drumming of her own heart as it pounded inside her ribcage. The screamed sounded all the louder and more pained for the utter silence that enveloped it. Carly had once screamed like that – shock, pain, terror. It was all the same now, and she wondered if she would ever be so traumatised again, after everything she had been through.

Carly took a step back from the window. The glass was growing warm and moist beneath her hand. Her hand left a sweaty print of itself on the window, and she watched, fascinated, as it evaporated and disappeared as if it had never been there at all. This time last year she had thought that her life was going to be like that; she would die without doing anything significant or making any impact, then she would die and be forgotten in a couple of years. Just another blip on the map of existence. And now she was helping to save the world – well humankind. Definitely not another handprint on life's great window.

The computer buzzed furiously at her, impatiently waiting to be used. The screen flickered again, and she resigned herself to another session of getting all the files to open properly on this new operating system. But not before she took one more long look out of the window, drew in one final lungful of fresh air that she might not get again for days. The night seemed so tranquil, almost magical, tonight – so quiet and dark and rich. Yes – almost magical. She had tried so hard not to think about him, she didn't want to stop him from crossing over for her own selfish reasons, but she wished Ricky were there with her. Everyone should have a chance to see this.

Johnny squatted down behind the bushes with Mika and Robyn, watching teenagers and young adults drift in and out of the Platinum nightclub. For a club with such a pretentious name, it was pretty hardcore. Strictly for people who wanted to rock-out after a hard day. Kids as young as 14 were being allowed in because there was a disco on the floor above, but they weren't interested in the children. Johnny was itching to get up and just attack, but, sensing this, Robyn held his arm firmly.

"What do we do now?" seethed Johnny, full of pent-up energy.

"We wait," Mika replied, not understanding why he couldn't get to grips with their rules. "Just wait."

"Wait?" repeated Johnny, not quite believing what he was hearing. They weren't supposed to wait, right? They were above that – they took what they wanted, when they wanted it. "Wait for what?"

"No-one is better than waiting. You must learn to be patient," Robyn told him.

"You wait. You choose the one you want – that's why it's nice to go to a club... the choice – and you set your trap. They will come to you in time. You feed and kill." Mika stared at Robyn knowingly, with all the fire of someone on Ecstasy. "You taste and relish their essence."

Robyn looked back at him and, without noticing, tightened her grip on Johnny's arm. She could hear it from a mile off – the sound of blood flowing through him at such high pressure. The relative stillness of the environment made it so much louder – made her want him so badly that it hurt her just to stay still. "But until then, we wait."

"Feed, kill. Wait, feed, kill. Just doesn't sound right."

Mika laughed, muffled just enough by the bushes so as not too attract attention. "Oh, child, you have so much to learn."

"Teach me, then."

"We are, Johnny. You are learning as fast as we can teach."

He shook her hand off of his arm and growled.

"He's getting hungry. He needs to control it, Mika."

"He's too young for that, baby. Much too young. He follows his instincts, uses his impulses rather than his brain." It had taken Mika many months, years even, to perfect the art of lying in wait. Keeping a low profile. Leaving it so long between feeds that the suspicious people had forgotten about it.

Right now, much like a newborn baby – which in many senses, he was – it was a mere reflex, an involuntary reaction, to hunt for a source of sustenance when hunger struck. Johnny rose to his feet and watched the revellers entering and exiting the club. He had caught a scent that he found appealing. Innocence. He had not realised that innocence was something that people radiated. He stepped forward and casually joined the short crowd of youngsters at the door, inwardly bubbling over with anger at this silly need to play along with human rules.

A group of friends went into the club and disappeared into a brightly-lit room – flashing all different covers. The light hurt Johnny's eyes and he blinked against them. He was at the front, being asked for ID, and the mix of smells - blood, innocence, energy – was almost unbearable. Johnny grabbed the bouncer around the neck and dragged him around the corner where he pushed him against the wall. Robyn and Mika instantly grabbed an arm each, roughly pinning him to the wall.

"What the hell's going on?" yelled the large, muscular bouncer.

"Exactly. Hell," Robyn replied, mildly amused at his vain attempts to yank himself free. She could feel his muscles tensing beneath her hand and increased the pressure, just enough to keep him terrified of breaking his arm, but not quite enough to break it.

The two holding him still hardly looked as strong as him, so how could they be holding him so strongly with so little effort? It made no sense, but he wasn't about to contest that.

"What do I do now?" Johnny asked, uncertainly.

"It's your call," Robyn allowed. "The second kill is always the hardest because you know exactly what you're doing."

"Kill?"

"Shut up!" Johnny bellowed. The doorman shut up. Curious, how a person could reek of innocence, be so untouched by horrors, and yet be a doorman in such a nasty part of town. "What do you mean?"

Robyn didn't answer, letting Johnny work it out for himself.

"I'm hungry now. I haven't got time to play these games you love so much, Robyn." Johnny raised a clenched fist and brought it down on the doormans' face, knocking him clean out. "There. Now he won't feel a thing."

"You bruised his pretty little face." Robyn tried to prop his head back up against the wall only to have it repeatedly, frustratingly, flop back down.

"No, I guess he won't," shrugged Mika. "Good for him but bad for you. Not being able to see the fear in his eyes when you make that first cut in his neck."

"How could that be bad for me?"

"The imagination is no substitute. How else are you supposed to learn... if not from our experience?"

"Wake up, you bad, naughty man," commanded the fiery redhead. "He can't kill you if you're dead."

"What if I don't want to see his face when I kill him?"

"Don't get all shy. I want to watch you bleed. Please? Be alive for me. Then you can be dead. It should be quick, and you won't feel... much. See, he doesn't know how to play with his food, doesn't understand the rules. Now, he'll do it fast, wants a quick pick-me-up. I'd make it slow, make you feel everything. But you won't get to feel anything if you do wake up. Don't be dead. You're no good dead. Play nice with us, obey the rules, and we shall have a fine time."

Whilst Robyn was still carrying her one-way conversation with the floppy-headed bouncer, Mika and Johnny were still arguing. "Don't you want to see the look on his face when he realises what you are, what you're going to do?"

"Not necessarily. I know what it'll be – terror, horror. How – hey, what's wrong with her?" He jerked his thumb towards Robyn and Mika followed his gaze.

"Oh, nothing. She's just off with the fairies again. Nothing to worry about." But he did worry. How on earth could he not be concerned? This was getting worse every time it happened – had been for the past month or so – and he was worried that unless they stopped whatever was causing it, he might lose her. Together, they could do anything.

"I'd imagine that his look would be much like that one. You're scared, aren't you? Scared she might get lost."

"Oh, hurry up and kill the bastard so we can get rid of the body and get home." Mika used his free hand to turn Robyn to him, and tilted her chin up to him. "Robyn?"

"He's no fun, Mika. He won't play the game."

A couple of hours later, when they had disposed of the body, the three began to make their way home. It had been one of their least imaginative body drops ever, a simple strip and dump in the canal, and Robyn and Mika were frustrated that they were having to revert to such basic activities. Over the years their tastes had grown more refined, their plan more elaborate and stretched out. Bottling up their dissatisfaction at the lack of well-thought-out action the night had provided, neither of them cared about, and barely seemed to notice, the people they pushed past, or shouldered out of the way, on their way home.

Johnny trailed a couple of steps behind them, staring wildly around at the stretch of town they were passing through, as if through new eyes. He had never noticed how much life there was out here. He had also never known how dead it could be at the same time. It was quieter than it had been for days.

Robyn snuggled in to Mika's strong, comfortable arms and settled her head into the side of his chest as they walked along. If it wasn't for the grown man trailing after them like a little lost puppy, they could have passed for any other couple. Appearances were so important when trying to hide a big secret like theirs. If anyone even suspected... well, it would not be pleasant. Not the type of thing that one could ignore as easily as they ignored their very presence. Johnny used his thumb to wipe a little sticky, fresh blood from his mouth and wiped it down the leather jacket he was wearing.

Robyn entered the house that she and Mika had made their home five years previously, and slammed the door when the two men had walked in. She wondered what had happened to the real owners – were they still chained up together in the cellar where she had left them, had they just rotted away into a couple of skeletons, maybe they had done the impossible and escaped – then shook her head. She didn't really care, though she was curious as to how effective her methods had been.

Mika sat down on the stairs, looking up at her. "I haven't done it like that since... I can't remember when."

"But it felt right, didn't it? Natural. Because that's how you started." Robyn had returned to her blissful, ruthless, old self again. She could see the worry in Mika's eyes now, and was determined to show him that he had no reason to worry. "Mika, I won't let them get me. I won't stay in their world – it hurts and I don't like it. I like it here. I like what I am."

That was more than Johnny could say with any kind of conviction. He wasn't sure if he liked what he was at all. Okay, it felt good, it came easily – and he could almost let himself believe that it was right. But his fading, dying, human nature kept kicking up his logic. How could it be right to hurt someone so badly? And then be supposed to forget it? When he had used guns, at least there was the chance of them surviving, the chance of him being slightly off-target. He had enjoyed what he'd done tonight, though. Had not erased it from his memory, in fact was enjoying the thought – remembering how delicious it was feeling the mans energy flow into him, how it –

"Feels good, doesn't it?" asked Robyn.

Johnny jerked his head up wondering if there had been some tell-tale sign on his face of what he was thinking. "What?"

"Making that kill. Knowing excatly how much pain you're inflicting, knowing just what they're feeling. Because you've felt it." Still talking to Johnny, she straddled Mika nibbling, seductively, at his neck. "It's like an adrenaline rush. Can't you just feel it, surging through every part of you?"

"Yeah, I can feel it. And it's good. But it has to be wrong?"

"Why?" Robyn gasped softly. "Why does this have to be wrong?"

"Just give in to it." Mika seemed to remember saying that a few times over the past 24 hours, it was important though. "How can this not be right? It's who you are now, it's useless trying to resist it. It will get you in the end."

Mika lifted Robyn off of him and stood up. His eyes were burning, Johnny could almost feel them searing into him. "What is it?"

"You. We give you the greatest gift in the world, and you throw it back at us as if it were some sort of toy."

"No, I'm not," blurted Johnny. Mika didn't sound angry – it was his pronounced cool that was slightly more eerie. "I just don't under-"

"Robyn?" Mika sounded composed but she detected a hint of fear in his tone. "What's doing this to me?"

Robyn didn't answer and got up, felt for the doorknob and turned it. She pushed it open and saw Carly staring, bleary-eyed at a blank computer screen. It took Carly a few seconds to even register their arrival, but, even then, she was less than bothered, just staring at the blacked out monitor without blinking. "I turned it off," she told them dreamily. "It made my head go all fuzzy so I turned it off. It's a bad, bad..." what was the word? She couldn't remember it – sod it. "...thing." She was so tired that she didn't see the menacing smile on Johnny's face, nor the impatient yet understanding expressions on Mika's and Robyn's faces.

"Sleep now," Robyn told her, helping her over to the thin, folding bed. "You can show us what you've done in the morning."

"but, I did what you told me to. Decoded them all – don't you want to see?" she protested, weakly. She was much too tired to put up more of a fight, and gratefully crawled onto the hard, mattress, not caring that springs were beginning to poke through. "I worked so... hard." Carly yawned and curled up. "Tomorrow, I'll show you... might be... too late."

Mika and Robyn glared at each other, completely forgetting about Johnny in the corner. "Too late?" repeated Mika. "How can we be too late?"

"We won't be too late. The stars tell me so – if they're still twinkling and shining, we have time. We'll save them. We'll save them all," she said, confidently. "It was meant to be this way, Mika. Things get bad, the bad gets worse and everyone is in mortal danger, then we stop it and everything goes right again."

"It's not that simple, baby. I wish it was."

"Why can't it be that simple?" Tears shone in her eyes and threatened to fall. "I don't like feeling like this Mika." She knew she didn't need to explain to Mika how she felt – she could tell that he was going through the same things as she.

"It takes time, Robyn. We'll work on it again when Carly wakes up."

Robyn fiddled with her painted nails – red tonight, blood red – and nodded. She understood why she had to be patient, why she had to let things happen at their own speed, but she just wanted this to be over. It wasn't right – what they were being made to feel.

In the corner, Johnny lifted his head and asked, "Work on what?"

NINE

Satisfied that his spell had worked, the shaman packed his things away – papers, herbs, point stones from his pentagram – in a navy holdall and stood up. He was exhausted and felt like he could easily fall asleep where he was standing, but had the presence of mind to look around him to ensure that he had not been seen. If anyone even suspected what he was doing... No, he wasn't going to think about that.

The magicks he had been using were extremely strong and left him feeling unusually light-headed. He would not know until the morning if his spell had worked properly, but knew at once that it had not gone wrong. There was a shift in the atmosphere when things went awry – the lack of change suggested that it had either worked well, or done nothing at all. Calling on such powers was why he had been sent here. But to use them for such purposes?

The woods in which he was standing filled with an invigorating combination of scents from his spell ingredients. It reminded him of the oldest of his tribe who had once taught him as a youngster. Oh, how much he had learned since that day; how much he was yet to learn.

Slowly, he picked up his holdall and began to make his way out of the woods. Everything was quiet and still. What if his presence in the woods had disturbed that balance? No, he shouldn't let himself think that way. Soon he would never have to worry about anything again. The vegetation that was slowly dying would flourish once more. There would be no more darkness for people to lurk in. No-one would get hurt again. That was the idea of this whole thing – to give everyone a perfect world, without anyone, or anything that might cause them harm. He could already see which people were going to make it through the next week, and which ones wouldn't.

"Heaven on Earth?" repeated Johnny, trying to ignore the rumblings of his stomach in the morning. According to Mika, it was normal to feel hungry in the morning, when you felt that tingle of morning sun outside. The trick was not letting that hunger fuel every action. But he couldn't understand why he shouldn't just give in to it – they both said submission was a good thing. They were adamant, though, that he needed to resist this. "How can that possibly be a bad thing?"

Robyn was still sleepy and curled up against Mika. She lifted her head and looked at Johnny, not having the energy to form words. Why had she insisted on having him? Now, anyway? Things were complicated enough at the moment, what with the mysterious plan that they knew next to nothing about, without having to show Johnny the ropes. It wasn't even as if she could teach him properly in such... unusual circumstances. She only knew what the stars had told her. Robyn could feel the metal chain of the necklace she had worn for days cold against her neck. She suddenly became aware that Mika had said something – why did she keep missing parts of conversations.

"I mean lots of yummy little people running around like headless chickens. What could be bad about that?"

"What could be bad about it?" Mika chuckled, astounded at his naivety. The wonder of youth, he supposed. "It's wrong. That's bad about it."

"But, it's a free for all." He couldn't see the problem. "That's not wrong. It just makes life – death," he corrected, "- a hell of a lot easier for us."

"Don't you see?" piped up Robyn, tiredly. "Whatever is making these people hurt each other is wrong. Hurting people is our job." Her face took on a familiar shadowed, knowing look as she peeped out through thick, fallen locks of red hair. "They're messing with the rules again."

"What is it? Are you getting more messages?"

In contrast to Mika's seemingly never0ending patience with the girl, Johnny folded his arms and sucked his cheeks in, refusing to watch them. He was already fed up with her funny turns, her trips to la-la land. Maybe she had always been like this, in which case he felt sorrier for Mika than for Robyn.

"What are they telling you, baby?" Mika asked, using one hand to push her hair away from her face.

"Don't let them get me." She whimpered and cuddled tighter to her protector.

"Don't worry. I won't let anyone hurt my little bird. Now, what are they saying?"

"Go and see Carly. They whispering – sssh." She held one finger to her lips and listened to some inaudible sound or other. "Quiet. They're scared of something so they have to be quiet. They tell us to go and see Carly. She has all the secrets."

"But, what if she decides not to help us."

Robyn was quite sure that the girl would help them to finish this now that they had got this far. Why would she settle for living in the midst of what was happening, and whatever it was leading up to? "She will," she said, confidently. "And f not, we'll use him." Her eyes settled on Johnny's cold, hard face. "It's why he's here."

"What if I don't want to help?"

Robyn loosed Johnny's arm a little and let him walk towards her. "Look at him."

"So unpredictable," Mika said, voice quiet and menacing. "Just don't know what he's going to do next."

Carly was not scared. She could hear the threats on his voice, the blind urge to feed from Johnny, but she was not intimidated. "What if I want to let them go through with this? What if I really don't want people to get hurt in the future?"

"And letting all these people getting hurt beyond human endurance makes it okay now? You want people to hurt each other now so they won't do it again." Robyn was almost scared by what was happening; it would kill her. It would kill her family – Mika. She was starting to want reasons for things. That had never happened before – she had never needed things to make sense before. The world changed; they didn't understand it. That was just the way things were; the way they had always been.

Mika held Johnny's shoulder, it took most of his strength to make him stay still, and looked at him with something like disgust. Or, maybe it was just dislike. "You stay away from the girls," he warned.

Robyn reached out to her side and felt for the cold, cement wall as if she couldn't see it properly. It was cold to the touch, she noticed, and the red paint began to flake of in her hand. She wondered how long it had been up there. "Red." She lifted her fingers from the wall and stared at them, skin dotted with red paint. Then, she looked at the blood red varnish on her nails and cried out in horror. "I'm stained!"

Mika looked at her but didn't let go of the impulsive Johnny. How could he do both, look out for both of the girls in the room? Carly rubbed her eyes tiredly, catching on to the look. So what if Robyn wanted to hurt her, she could hardly leave her to cry. Carly was a caring person and went over to her. This was another thing that defied all logic – she was perfectly willing to help the monsters who killed her boyfriend, but was unable to go to the aid of someone who was about to die. It didn't need to make sense, she didn't think she needed to understand these things – they just were.

"Robyn?" She offered her hand. "Come on. I'm not going to hurt you. You're not stained."

Hesitantly, Robyn took the proffered hand and allowed Carly to help her to the bed, where she curled up and started rocking back and forth, shying away from her touch. "Don't touch me. I'm dirty."

"No, Robyn. You're not dirty," Carly lied.

Mika strained against Johnny's pulling shoulder and realised that he couldn't hold him back any longer. He let go of him as he kept tugging and watched as he ran towards both women. Johnny was going to kill them both. And there was nothing that Mika could do to stop him.

Carly saw him loom over them both out of the corner of her eye, slavering in unbridled blood lust. She screamed, high and long.

"They brought this on themselves."

The shaman stared at an empty photo frame on Gareth Jordan-Smyths' desk and glanced up at his companion. There were patches of dried blood still on the carpet, faded in spots where the cleaners had scrubbed at it. He stepped in them as he went over to the window. Everything that indicated that Mr Jordan-Smyth had ever occupied that office had been cleared away, so it was almost comforting to think there was still some part of him there. The professor thought it was just disturbing.

"Sorry?"

"This - all of it. They wanted it, and now they don't know how to handle it."

"You've lost me."

They both gazed out of the window and saw a familiar scene. It was a pile-up in the FDR car park. Until a few days ago this would have been a rare, freak occurrence. Now, it was expected – not wanted, but expected.

"People fighting, hurting each other. This happened before we started any of this."

Professor Wright furrowed his brow and cleared his throat. "But not on this scale."

"No, not in these proportions," the shaman agreed, then paused for a moment, deep in thought. "They still did it though."

"You're not making any sense to me."

"Put it like this. Everyone was crying out for peace, right? But they were always having wars and hurting each other. So now we're giving them total peace but letting them get all their violence out first. Because there's always a big battle before peace can be called."

"I think I understand. The storm before the calm?"

The shaman nodded, doubting that he really understood that at all. But, neither of them were here to think or understand – they were here to change the world.

"It's too late to stop this now," he said. "People demanded this and they're getting it. Whether they're prepared to see it through, or not."

"How do you do that? Why do you do that?"

The shaman shot him a questioning look, and mindlessly closed his fingers around the silver photo frame, stroking the glass with his thumb. Beneath the robes, the professor couldn't see and stepped back.

"I mean just change your mind like that. One minute you're thinking that maybe this isn't such a good idea, the next you're filled with doubt, the next you're gunning for it."

"You just have to be able to see it from different points of view," he answered at length. "It's for the best."

A scream cut through the air, above the other sounds of chaos, sweet chaos. Intruder alarms rang out through the streets, sending simultaneous, wailing alerts to uncaring emergency services. Fire hydrants and metal signposts had been wrenched from their positions on walls and street corners, causing water to flow freely down the road and shards of steel to be strewn across the carriageway. But, somehow, neither the shaman nor the professor seemed overly worried by this frenzied scene that would have shocked a million world leaders, past, present and future. They remained calm, telling themselves over and over that this was necessary to reach their goal.

Andrew nodded his head in agreement, slow with uncertainty at first, then more definitely as he pushed any niggling doubts away. "Of course it is. Survival of the fittest."

The shaman looked at him, wordlessly, but inwardly wanting to correct him – survival of the purest.

"He's got a hard head."

Johnny lay sprawled out on the floor, unconscious. Mika stood in the corner of the room, his eyes flitting between the girls and his unconscious comrade. Robyn blew on her sore and burning knuckles as she fell back on the mattress, not fully aware of what she had just achieved. Carly put a hesitant arm around her, fearful of what she was capable of.

"My hand hurts."

"I thought you liked pain?"

"Only the fun kind." Robyn stared at Johnny, then at Mika, finally coming to rest on Carly. "Why are you being nice to me? You should hate me."

Carly thought she saw a tradce of regret in the face of her female captor – regret for what, though? "I don't know," she replied truthfully. She couldn't find any rational explanation to why she was helping this monster who had killed so many people, but not the people killed. "Maybe I just don't wanna die."

"But you will die. We're all going to die."

"Robyn!" Carly shook her out of her dream-like state.

"It will get us all. We will all die by it."

"No, we won't Robyn. We'll stop it before it even touches us." Carly sounded more confident than she felt. It was just a matter of deciphering what wasw on those disks, and how hard could that be?

Mika stood over the catatonic Johnny and watched the amiable bond unfold between the two girls. Well, maybe not quite friendly, but not threatening at least. He felt a twinge of some unknown emotion – human emotion again – at watching them talking together, glad that they were getting on, hurt that Robyn should want anyone else but him.

"If we figure out what IT actually is," Carly added as an afterthought.

"The big plan," whispered Robyn.

Mika looked hard at Carly. "You already told us hat they're doing."

"If I had already told you, do you really think I would've sent you to get those disks/" Carly snorted with sarcastic laughter and return, wearily, to her computer chair. "I could've done but why waste the effort on a couple of –"

On the floor, Johnny groaned in pain; his almost unbearable hunger doing nothing to help. Mika kicked him hard in the gut, and Johnny was reclaimed once more by the blessed darkness.

"Baby needs a nap," Mika muttered, before looking back at the flickering screen expectantly, waiting for something to happen. "You were saying?"

"We need to find out how their doing this; who's making things happen; and what they hope to achieve."

"A pure existence. The perfect world. Untainted by unhealthy occurrences like battle and negativity."

"But... that's impossible. People are always gonna hurt each other." Carly absently pushed the first CD into the drive and began to open it. "That's what they do. They've been doing –" she noticed her mistake and corrected herself quickly, "we've been doing it for thousands of years and –"

"And they expect it to stop by performing some ancient rite, or something." Mika thought about how that reflected on him – no, it didn't reflect on him at all; he wasn't people.

"Hitler all over again," Robyn muttered, standing up. "Nazi Germany but worldwide. Do you remember Germany in the war, Mika? Getting rid of all the people who didn't fit their ideal, everyone who presented the wrong image. Look what happened after he got his perfect society – wasn't so great after all. I didn't like the war much."

Carly was a little lost – history had never been her strong point – and almost dismissed her monologue as mindless babble. Yet Mika knew exactly what she was talking about, he had been right there with her, after all, and easily made the association between the two events. "I don't think anyone did, love." He thought of all the people that had died in the war.

Carly fixed her eyes on the screen, frowning slightly as lines of code drifted along the monitor. Luckily, she had only put this guard up a few weeks ago to prevent corruption rather than access and was certain she could bypass it in a few minutes. "Guess I forgot about that one."

"What's going on? I thought you unlocked everything,"

"I did, but this was a hidden one. It doesn't show itself until you get in. I just forgot I put it on. Chill, okay."

Mika helped Robyn over Johnny's prone form, and tenderly stroked her grazed knuckles. "I thought he was going to hurt you, baby. I would never have forgiven myself."

"Mika," she looked into his steely blue eyes, now soft and deep with love, "You know he could never hurt me. Besides which, he is just a child; he knows nothing of the power he could have."

Carly looked sidelong at them, wondering how they could shift so seamlessly between sadistic freaks, completely insane and devoted lovers. She squinted at them suspiciously and triumphantly hit the enter key. "Hope this works."

TEN

Drifting in and out of consciousness, Johnny came to to find himself spread-eagled on a cool, stone floor. It was the disused basement of the house.

"Oh God!" He yawned, not out of tiredness but out of boredom, and heaved himself to his feet. Johnny through his arms out for balance and stumbled into a wall, unsteadily, his legs would not hold his weight. The room was cold,, deathly cold and empty. He wondered if the basement wasn't just wishful thinking and he had been shut up in the morgue. That wouldn't surprise him - Mika made no secret of the fact he was only not killing him for Robyn – but it made him angry.

Putting his hand up to his bruised forehead, he felt a lightening bolt of pain shoot through his nervous system and a throbbing inside his skull. "Robyn," he remembered. He couldn't believe that he had been so easily out-manoeuvred by a girl... again. But Robyn was no ordinary girl, far from it, and yet she looked like such a tiny little thing.

Feeling the darkness begin to creep up on him, seeing little black spots dance in the corners of his eyes, he slid down the wall, fighting to keep the dark at bay. Spiders webs stretched across each corner of the room and creepy crawlies scuttled across the walls to their homes in the warm, dark corners. Johnny watched one race across the wall with the speed of an Olympic runner and shuddered. He didn't care what horrors he saw and had seen, there was still nothing more chilling for him than spiders and things with too many legs. Unsettling, disturbing, downright creepy – there were so many descriptions for it. Johnny supposed that he was like a venomous spider in a way, except for the number of eyes legs and the being alive. A speedy predator, weaving webs to catch prey, biting when people got too close, attacking when people least expected it.. Dangerous. Yeah, that was the word – dangerous... a hunter. But he could so easily become the hunted.

Johnny covered his cheeks with his hands and stred around the stone room; the walls were stone, the floor was stone, the ceiling was stone, everything was stone. It could have been a bomb shelter or something in the war, maybe. Before it became the basement – Johnny had decided that this could not be the morgue for how could he have got there? The granite surroundings acted as a kind of sound-proofing, blocking out any sounds that might have told him that life was still going on, but panic set in when he realized that he could not even hear the sound of his own breathing. On the bright side, there were no windows in the basement to let in the fatal sun in – how could something so... ordinary as the sun be deadly? – but no doors either. Well, none that he could see.

He braced his hands against the wall and pushed himself to his feet, heavy and clumsy. There had to be a way out – there was a way in because he was here – he had to find a way out. Johnny shivered slightly with the cold and wrapped his arms around himself. The cold didn't bother him unless he consciously thought about it, and even then, not half so much as the loneliness and... the hunger, the uncontrollable bloodlust. "Let me out!" he roared, imagining Robyn's light, hollow-sounding laugh tinkling down to tease him. Almost as if an unseen force were saying, "You're never getting out of there."

Johnny was determined to prove the invented voice wrong and felt along the edges for some small groove of a hidden door he could prise open or punch the lock on.

The girl, who worked in the mortuary, sat at a window table inside the café with a steaming cup of coffee. Evening had just began to darken the sky, the sun was beginning to sink towards the horizon, but still the directionless conflict raged on. Where had it come from? Why was it here? What purpose did this serve? Were people always capable of this kind of devastation, or were they acting on something? Why were only some able to resist this emotional pull, while most people gave into it completely, threw themselves at its' mercy? Heavy thoughts for a 17-year-old, but questions that needed their respective answers.

She stared out at the chaotic scenes in the streets, scenes that didn't seem to have changed in days. Everyday, things were more or less the same; death, doom, danger; in fact, a whole lot of other D words besides. And always that little bit more violent. She had noticed a significant increase in bodies turning up at the mortuary, not always with the hospital files and papers.

Magick, and her exposure to the Craft, had enhanced her natural defences to this kind of thing and she had no doubt in her mind that this was all supernatural. But, she accepted that she would not be able to stop this, though she wished she could do something – it was big-time dangerous.

The rabble on the street could no longer be separated into individuals – they didn't deserve to be thought of as individuals. No matter how hard they had fought against it they had given in and were all doing the same thing. Sure it made them slightly less like spineless crowd-following sheep if they had tried to fight it but they were all, in essence, the same. She stared out again at the hot and hazy, manic evening, stood up slowly, leaving her coffee virtually untouched, and gazed wistfully at the air-conditioned relative inactivity of the coffee shop. Thank God for these small havens of calm in such chaos.

Carly rubbed at her eyes with the balls of her palms. A stinging sensation started deep in her sockets and her eyes began to water, too long had she been staring at the fluorescent display. None of the words made sense to her – her brain was just too exhausted to take in anything, much less retain anything. Her eyelids began to droop as she gave into her slumber cravings. Her eyes snapped open and she vaguely remembered that she should be filtering the computer data, but her head began to nod as sleep reclaimed her; besides, how much use would she be if she didn't rest and recharge her batteries so to speak? The blonde girl felt loose strands of hair fall across her face but ignored them, imagining some explosive rock anthem blasting out of a speaker in the background. She was sure that she would have slept right through it if the music had been anything other than make-believe, so tired, but suddenly the music faded into a softer orchestral take on the rock song – theatrical, even.

The music she heard in her head was, she supposed, much like the voices and music that Robyn listened to. Inaudible, unheard, invisible? Asleep though she was, Carly was aware of all of the events unfolding before her – perhaps a recently developed sixth sense - and changed the mind music to suit. Her brain had effectively shut down, though her eyes were open the tiniest of cracks, meaning that she could see most of what was happening but didn't have the added burden of analysing it. She had learnt that a person didn't have to have their eyes closed to be asleep.

Mika was sitting on the edge of the fold-away bed, tenderly running his hands through the flowing red locks of a dazy, sleepy Robyn. There was nothing he wouldn't do to stop these... episodes, these periods of time when she lost touch with reality, taken by the fading forces of night. He whispered sweet nothings to her. He didn't know what he should do for her. Would these fits still take her mind when all this was over? He supposed so – she had always been affected by them, why would it suddenly stop now? Mika just couldn't bear the thought that something was hurting his little bird, his queen, his family, and it might not be something he could knock out. But, he knew, it was hurting him too though he would never tell Robyn that because she would worry. He just wanted to protect her for fucks sake. He hated to think that there were things that he couldn't shield her from.

"I promise you, Robyn," he whispered in his special soothing voice he kept specially for times like these. "Everything will be okay. Nothing will tear us apart."

The door swung open and Johnny stood, wobbling, shadowed in the doorway. His clothes were scorched and blackened in places where he had had to dodge the sunlight from windows deliberately left unshaded. The skin had been ripped away from his hands and were leaking blood from where he had tried valiantly to punch,, kick and claw his way out of the basement.

A few seconds later, Robyn lazily half opened her eyes and looked at him. "Johnny," she began, "Are you dripping blood on my nice clean carpet?" Where had that come from? Why was she even bothered about such trivial matters as flooring?

He looked over at her, holding hands with Mika as if she had no idea he wanted him dead. Of course she knew; she had to know. His suspicions were instantly aroused, he had no specific suspicions about the pairing, but now his hackles were up and he was on the look-out for anything in the least bit off.

"Is that a problem?" he asked innocently.

Robyn squinted at him, hate and love rising up. He was a cocky old sod. But, he could never be the man Mika was – not even if Johnny lived forever. Robyn sat up and laid her head on Mika's shoulder, both of them staring at Johnny. She could feel the tension in Mika; his muscles tight as if he were struggling against something. Which he was, really – the same thing that so often demanded her attention. The thing that Carly was supposed to be working on... instead of napping. Now, though, they could both see why humans had lived for so long – the survival instinct.

Mika wanted to hit the obnoxious little bastard, to show him what real pain felt like, but restrained himself for Robyn's sake. "How did you get out?"

Johnny looked between the couple, who fit so perfectly together, and bit his lip. He wanted some pretty girl of his own to keep forever. Oh hell, scratch that, he just wanted some pretty little thing he could keep for the night until he made her very dead. Now that he thought about it again, his bloodlust seemed stronger, almost like a physical being growing and ready to burst out of his body at any moment, barely quenched by his half-hearted attempts to derive some sort of sustenance from his own blood. That wouldn't work, he knew, but was so starved that he would try anything to still his roaring body. "How do you think I got out?" Johnny held his injured hands up. "You know what I can do. You know how I work. You know what I need."

Through the brush gaps in her eyelashes, Carly was sure she sw Johnny look at her for a moment, before passing over her to the hand-holding twosome. The Disturbing Duo? Johnny seemed somehow like a spare part. Not essential to the mixture for they were just as terrifying without him, but still something you just got used to having around, always expected it to be there. Like a wart. But warts usually weren't hazardous to your health. Generally speaking, warts weren't so unpredictable that they could kill in half a second.

Robyn smiled a wide, friendly smile that turned her pretty, pale and attention-demanding face into a beautiful, glowing orb. "We know," she said.

Mika stared down at her and kissed the top of her head, the way any other pair of lovers would. "We know everything." He grinned. "And yet, we know nothing." Demons, bodies, death, they knew. But they didn't understand any of it. Did they have to understand everything? Things just were. He had learnt that there were so many things in this world that were never meant to be understood or tampered with. "We can find explanations and reasons but we'll always ask why."

"What the hell does that mean?"

Robyn lifted her head and looked at Mika, taking in every weird and mysterious shadow the dim daylight threw on his face, touching his cheeks and forehead lovingly, as if this would be the last time she would be able to do so. "We know."

As if something had jolted her out of her dreamless power-nap, Carly started awake and turned immediately back to the desktop unit, a look of resolve on her face. "Right..."

"What's she doing on that thing anyway?" Johnny demanded. He held his torn hands up defensively at the scornful looks he received. He turned to Carly and asked the same question, feeling rather inadequate when she too ignored him. Tattered clothes, charred and torn skin and a multitude of bruises didn't make him a very intimidating prospect, he realised.

Mika felt along Robyn's china-fine neck and closed his fingers around the clasp. Without even looking at him, she clapped one hand over his and squeezed, crushing his bones hard enough to make him gasp.

"Leave it!" she barked.

"Why do you wear it all the time?"

"I like it. It makes me feel strong."

Ah, now things were starting to make sense. A sense that only they could see. "Like her? Like it made Annie strong?"

Robyn looked at him, memories clouding her vision. "I can do anything if I wear it. We can do anything." He had been the one to do most of the work to get the necklace, he always knew how to make her happy.

"Carly?"

"Mm hm."

Johnny was peering at the display as Carly's fingers drummed the keyboard, trying to catch a few words before it disappeared. "That doesn't make sense."

"Of course it doesn't," she snapped. "This isn't even the file."

"That's just the menu for you to find the right thing." Mika leaned over the back of the chair and pointed to a name on the screen. "Try that one."

Robyn bent over her other shoulder and extended a silver tipped finger to another name. "No, that's the one we need." She felt pairs of eyes quizzically looking at her. "I feel it."

Johnny turned away as Carly tried to centre the cursor, not wanting to get too close. Being close meant that he could smell her, and if he could smell her the urge to feed was... over-whelming to say the least. "Is it dark yet? I'm hungry."

"We can't go out to feed every night." Robyn talked to him as if he were a child who needed to be taught the rules of their game. "People will get suspicious if people started turning up..."

"Dead?" Johnny finished.

"Besides," reasoned Mika. He sounded impatient. "Don't you think there's enough death and destruction out there without us adding to it?" It was almost as if he were talking to a child whose sense of logic hadn't quite developed.

"Fine. I'll go by myself."

"If anyone's interested, I think we're in," piped up Carly. Robyn hopped up onto the table at the side of the computer, feeling the warmth generated by the processor. Mika turned to the monitor, effortlessly ignoring Johnny, but discovered that he couldn't quite focus on the letters.

"Is it me, or are those letters moving?"

"It's just hard to make out. I'll put it in an easier font," Carly offered. She scanned the text, highlighted the sections she thought were key and started to print the pages off. "Ah!"

"Ah? What, ah?" asked Robyn. That had better not be a problematic ah. Not now – not now that time was almost up.

"Just a slight problem."

"I'm going out."

"Where are you going, Johnny?"

"To make my mark on the world."

It won't matter, Robyn wanted to say. Soon, no-one will notice. It will be erased. But she just looked at him, one eye brow raised.

Self-consciously, he looked down at his ripped and frayed clothing. He grabbed the door handle and wrenched it open, stomping off up the wooden stairs like a stroppy teenager to put some intact clothes on.

"How slight?"

Carly stared at Mika through the reflection of her eyes in the monitor. She could actually have quite fancied him if he hadn't turned out to be such a sadist. "This thing is coming to pass at sunset in two days tomorrow."

The significance of that deadline meant nothing to Mika and Robyn, though they both accepted that if Carly had said it was a problem then it was. She knew what they were and what they could do to her if she misled them – she had seen it enough times. Carly was much too scared to lie to them. But, neither of them could smell her fear – only resignation. Bitter-sweet. They looked back at her blankly.

"It means that it's too late to stop this from happening. But – bright side – you can stop this afterwards."

"Doesn't sound like a very good deal to me." He snatched up the wad of paper from the printer tray and flicked through it. "Let's see what we have here."

"I'll look through the rest of the stuff but I don't think it's gonna be much more than what's there." Carly clicked on the close button and scrolled through the menu, flinching as the front door slammed.

Mika grinned – what would Johnny do without their guidance and protection? He glanced up at Robyn, looking as sweet and innocent as a little girl, smiling to herself and humming tunelessly. The seriousness of the situation was impacted deeply upon both of them, they just dealt with it differently. Mika was all about action and getting things done, while Robyn... Robyn wasn't all that different, just seemed like it from the outside.

Johnny stuck to the shadows at first, not wanting to be caught in any lingering rays of sun in the fresh sunset. You could never be too sure if the sun had actually gone down or was still lingering around somewhere. His blackened and blistered skin made him want to avoid even the tiniest risk – a thought he had never imagined. Fingers caked with dried blood itched and he absently cracked his knuckles.

But, sticking to the shadows was not just an effective way of dodging the light but he didn't want to be seen. Johnny would not come out into the open – not until it was properly dark. No-one should see him, not least because of the state he was in but also because of what he was liable to do. No, nobody could see him – what if they recognised him... got suspicious..?

Pressed close against buildings – the ex-security guard was good at secreting himself, a more useful skill now – he barely noticed the dying din out in the open air. It didn't matter. He felt detached from the living world; as if he was not a part of it any more. Superior. Yeah, Johnny felt superior, and better than ordinary people. Because he would never again feel the sting of the pain and sadness they fell victim to. Because he would never again have his judgement misted by the all-consuming love humans threw themselves into. Emotions were weaknesses... and Johnny didn't have any weaknesses.

Except blood.

His deadly, roaring hunger riled up in his stomach, forcing out a quiet, feral snarl. The coppery tang of it filled his nostrils, floating on the cool evening breeze. He glared down at the kerb, spotting a dark red, invisible to the naked eye, rivulet of blood making its way down the edge of the road. He didn't need to see it to know it was there. Johnny followed the scent, blindly, until it led him to what would become his hunting ground. Hungry. A young girl, probably only 15 or so, lay sobbing on the ground covered in tiny lacerations from shattered glass and bleeding profusely from a head wound. It took Johnny a couple of seconds to realise that she was looking straight at him. So much for staying hidden. Right at him but, also, right through him. Her eyes were glazed over as though she had been there a long time, Johnny found it rather unsettling.

"Help... me," the girl me whispered through deep, unsteady breaths. "I know... you're... there... Please."

Johnny came out of his hiding place, reluctantly, so the girl could see him, his face eerily half-cast in shadow. He crouched down by her side, fighting to hold down his demonic urges, not wanting to scare her further. He smiled slyly, not sure why.

"I was... helping." The girl coughed and scrunched her face up in pain. "You can't... help them. They don't want..." Slowly, painfully, she lifted up one arm and laid a hand on his denim jacket. "I know... what you are"

He looked at her sharply. How did this kid know? She was just an innocent child. No-one that young should be exposed to any of this. And, still, he sub-consciously fought the rising of his true nature.

"Help me..." she pleaded again. "Stop this... hurting." The girls' eyes, glassy as marbles, drifted from his face and fixed some imaginary spot in the distance. How long had she been here? It seemed like forever, it felt like an instant – time. Did anyone care enough about her to end her suffering? She was so young, she had her whole future ahead of her, she had so much to live for. Whatever. She'd heard it all before. It didn't mean anything any more.

This had to be fate. Johnny badly needed some-one to feed off of and, bang, a dying girl turned up offering it up on a plate. This was one gift that he didn't want to return. It was too good to refuse, and yet... The girl had already lost a lot of blood, what would a little more matter? Otherwise, she would die anyway and it would just go to waste.

"The people running this thing are..." Mika referred back down to his folded over papers. "Your boss, a shaman and Professor Wright."

Robyn grinned at the name. "Professor Wright? Ironic... some-one called Wright in a world of wrong."

"Where do I find them? I want to hurt them," said Mika, matter-of-factly.

Carly thought that he was more frightening when he was acting cool and collected than when he was actually being scary. "You can't. You can't hurt them. Well, you can hurt them but you can't kill them."

"Are you trying to tell us who we can and can't kill?"

"No, Robyn, honestly. I'm not. I'm just saying that if you kill them then they won't be able to tell you how to stop it. That's all I meant."

"Oh."

"They're doing this to rid the world of any being, human or not, who has or will cause harm to any other being." Mika turned to the next page and read on with interest. "Only the pure of heart and spirit will survive the conflict between citizens in the days leading up to the Great Event. The members of the public who shall go on to take a place in our New World will be relatively untouched by the anger, or at least, strong enough to resist the pull of changing nature. Those who will not survive this end will ultimately give into their innate ire and fall or be sucked into a fiery world created for them during the Great Event." Mika sighed and fanned himself, idly, with the papers.

"That's all great and that," began Carly, tensing involuntarily. "But, what exactly is this Great Event thing?" Mika hated being asked questions that began with but nearly as much as he loathed questions he couldn't answer straight away,; Carly was curious though.

"Hang on." Mika held his hand up, vaguely remembering something. "If you're the Information Officer then you should already know this stuff."

Carly rolled her eyes. Why couldn't they just get it through their thick skulls that it wasn't her privilege to know everything. "I've already told you all this. I'm supposed to keep it safe. That's it. It's not my job to know what's in it."

That made sense. "I want to hear about this fiery new world." Robyn peered over at the papers, but the words seemed to blur as they moved.

"Later," sighed Mika, wondering if he might have put Robyn in a sulk. That was a distinct possibility, so he tried to appease her. "There are more... immediate things to worry about now. We'll look at the world of fire when the time comes." There, that should have done it.

No such luck. "But, what it if it's too late when the time comes? It might be too late to save anybody."

"No!" They both turned to regard Carly, sitting stiff and upright in her chair. "You can't be too late. You've already killed God-knows how many people, including my boyfriend and I'll hold you two personally responsible for whatever happens now." So maybe she didn't quite sound as vicious as the others – she didn't have the I-can-kill-you-in-an-instant advantage – but by God she meant every syllable. Weird how she never used to believe in God before she had ended up here, everything used to have an explanation, but now she was praying to him, realising that there was no explanation for this. "You can't be too late."

Robyn wondered, despite herself, if they were not already too late. If they would not be able to reverse it until after that moment, how would they save everyone? And they had less than two days to do this. "46 hours."

"Excuse me?"

"46 hours until sunset." Robyn twisted Mika's wrist so she could see his watch. 11 o'clock. The sun had set only an hour ago, late for the middle of summer, unnatural for this time of year. Something strange was happening with the sun – it should never be setting that late.

Robyn could have sworn that they had more time than 46 hours. It was not wise to argue with Carly who had told her, or the stars who were screaming inside her head. "We have to save the night, Mika." Every minute counted now.

"We will, baby. We'll do it." He felt two pairs of eyes searing into him and dutifully looked back down at his paper. "I promise."

ELEVEN

Darkness enveloped the city like a dark blue blanket. A medium-sized MPV stood empty and abandoned across the middle of the road. Forgotten. Houses and tower blocks stood tall and impersonal along the streets. Just a few short hours ago, this area had been a hive of activity, now it would be easy to think that that this was an unpopulated area if it weren't for the occasional light in a window here and there. It was still and practically silent; tranquil was not the word to use though, you couldn't feel relaxed or at ease here. Tension filled the air, making movement feel thick and difficult – how could anyone stand it?

"Aha!" Robyn said triumphantly. "There. Read that."

Mika looked for the sentence she was jabbing at and let his eyes skim over the passage. He didn't see how it would help them, of no real importance in the big picture, but it shed a lot of light on why they were both feeling the way they had been. Why they had both been having nightmares and weird dreams about the end.

Carly stared at him with wide eyes. He looked a little... haunted. And Robyn, well, she seemed concerned. What was in the file that would affect them like this? She looked back at her screen and tried to find the part that seemed to have scared them, finding nothing. "What's wrong?"

Robyn's brow furrowed and she looked like any other woman who was puzzling over some problem or other. "Nothing for you to worry about."

"Does this explain us? Is this why..?"

"Yes." She took the paper from him and squeezed his hand. "It plays on our inborn instincts. We were always capable of everything we've done lately. We always had a tiny fraction of our humanity left." She said humanity as if it were a dirty word, hating even the possibility.

"You were human once," Carly reminded them. "Now you're remembering what it means to be human, feeling a human conscience about what you've done. And you hated that so you fought it and regressed to your purest animal impulses."

"Are you finished with all this psychological shit?" snapped Mika. They weren't humans or animals, such low creatures; they were higher beings. Had always prided themselves on being above everyone else. They were warriors. How did she dare tell them different?

This was a typical response. Carly was no psychologist, had only taken it for a year at college, but it didn't take a genius to figure out that he was in denial. Some-one had stood up to him – probably for the first time and had told him something about himself that he didn't like. Robyn had said nothing to her. She did not need to; the look on her face said everything.

"There are more serious matters at hand here." Like... everything. It was all more important than how they were feeling but, at the same time, nothing was as important. Emotions had proved to be the downfall, the weak spot, of most humans, but to Robyn and Mika it was their strength.

"It does affect me – it did affect me," piped up Carly, drawing their attention. "Humanity? I don't think I've got any left. I can't feel anything any more, not anger or sympathy, not even for those people you've killed. That's why I said those things to you just, because they were true and because I don't even care what you do to me. I'm just cold inside."

"We can hurt her and she will bleed," said Robyn, more to herself than Mika. "But she won't cry. She won't scream." Eyes really were the window to the soul – both girls' were hard and searching... determined to end this. "Will we survive it?"

The wad of stapled paper lay open on the floor but no-one picked it up.

"Survive what?" asked Carly and Mika in an unprecedented unison.

"The apocalypse."

The teenaged girl coughed again, not quite sure how she had managed to stay alive for this long in this amount of pain. Why would he not just end this for her? She could see it in his eyes – he wanted her. He needed her. So, why was he refusing to help both of them.

Johnny stood up. Who were Mika and Robyn to tell him that he would need them? He was doing perfectly well without them. He walked to each street corner to check for anyone who might be watching, not quite sure how he had managed to keep his raging hunger under control. If the girl knew what he was then why did he feel like he had to hide his nature? It didn't make sense, there appeared to be no rhyme nor reason for it, but...

There was no explanation.

He crouched down to her again and trailed his hand through the pool of blood by her head. Those two seemed to be providing the only action in the ghostly stillness in the dark city. Johnny shook his bloodied hand, tiny red droplets flying from his fingers, making it look like it was raining blood in the inches from his arm to the road.

The girl sobbed quietly, shaking a little. Every part of her hurt now. Her glassy eyes disturbingly found his face again. She could see the inner struggle between the man and beast. The beast was winning, obvious by the animalistic hiss he emitted. But she could sense him hesitating. "Don't... fight... it. You... can't..." The words stopped coming.

Johnny stared at her, seeing the shuddering rise and fall of her chest, still breathing. Blood kept seeping into the road and he didn't know how she was hanging on. He hated seeing her suffer this way – she was just a kid, hadn't done anything to deserve it. He should –

Before his brain had even finished processing that thought, before he knew what he was doing, he had curled his lips back to reveal fangs and his eyes shone with a golden hue of a killer. Ah, fangs were so much better than guns! His innate instincts took over and he unwittingly surrendered to his creature of the night persona. He lowered his face to hers and looked at her, showing no mercy. "Twinkle twinkle little smell. How I'm going straight to-"

Something slammed through his chest and he saw the point of a wooden arrow poke through the place where his heart would have been.

" –Hell." And he disintegrated into dust in front of her.

She turned her head to the side, whimpering in pain, and stared up at the rooftop where the arrow must have been shot from. It was empty but for the tiniest shadow of some-one walking away.

"No!" she yelled, gritting her teeth against the fireballs of pain that exploded in her head. "He was... my... only... hope." Who-ever had taken this chance away, she hoped they were happy now - she would never get the opportunity.

"Apocalypse?"

"Armageddon, end of the world." She wondered what an apocalypse was like – not one that could be prevented, one that actually happened. "The end of nights."

"No-one said anything about an apocalypse." Carly detested this. Just plain being here was bad enough, but now she was learning every doom-laden detail about the current end. "It was gonna come eventually anyway – people are just on a self-destruct mission. I just didn't think I'd be around to see it." It was a simplistic view, fair enough, but more problems turned up when you let things get complicated.

"How can you be like that?" asked Mika. "Doesn't it scare you?"

"No. It really doesn't." Strands of blonde hair lay on the thin shirt she was wearing and she picked some of it off, grumbling about it. Why did such petty annoyances seem so glaringly dire when there was an impending apocalypse?

Robyn doubled her fist and opened it again, working it like a pump. She looked like the deadly immortal she was, her hypnotic, innocent beauty easily hiding the homicidal maniac within. "The little things are more important." She didn't know why they were, even doubted it.

"How can the little things be more important than the end of the world? The little things won't matter when the apocalypse comes."

"You have to have an end before you can have a beginning." Carly had to wonder if that meant anything to them.

The professor put the telephone back on the hook in his office at the Rashda Institute. He had just received a very pleasing call and sat down at his desk to think it over. In fact, the call had also presented him with some news that shocked him slightly. FDR Industries had been broken into on the night of Gareth Jordan-Smyths' demise and the contents of the Crash Room had been stolen

A knock on the door jolted him from his thoughts and he glanced up. Come in."

A familiar dark head poked his head around the door. "Can I talk to you, Sir?" Great, another whinging student was all he needed right now. "It's about finals."

The professor smiled sensitively and motioned to a chair. The student broke the uncomfortable silence and burst into a monotonous monologue. Prof. Wright nodded and made kind noises at what he assumed were the appropriate intervals, not even bothering to listen. Well, no-one really did, did they? People just wanted to be told they were brilliant and had nothing to worry about, after all.

He busied himself with the thoughts that would have crept upon him anyway. It didn't really bother him that some-one might know what they were doing, it was much to late for them to do anything about it anyway. But he rather suspected that the people who had stolen the classified information had only done it to prove some kind of point. Perhaps that security was lax, or maybe because of the hype surrounding it. Was it really an issue so late in the proceedings?

Another spell had been cast, maybe it had been more of a prayer. The lines were blurred in this case – at least, they were blurred to him. He didn't know how this worked on the supernatural side, not really, he just made sure that it had worked and made reports of how far the sun had turned on its; axis. Maybe it was the prolonged and increased heat that was making everyone more irritable and prone to lose their tempers easily. He knew that it had nothing to do with heat but it was easier to accept a simple explanation like that than the real one. Too complicated for words.

"Are you even listening to me?" the student demanded.

"Mm hm." The student stared at him and the professor stood up and walked to the door. He had to get to the observatory.

"Hey! Don't just walk away from me!"

It was quiet in the large empty room at the top of the building. There was no sound or movement to distract him and he strolled around the room, just enjoying the hush in the air. The room was cool in the night, bright metal casings shinig out from the darkness. A dim light from one tiny table lamp gave just enough light for him to move around without bumping into things. He breathed in deeply, feeling as if this was the closest he would get to fresh air for a good long while. He used to conduct seminars from here for the students who were interested in learning about the stars and planets but had given that up on beginning this project, discovering that he would need uninterrupted access to the observatory at a moments notice. How could he work that in when he had a group of curious students leaning over his shoulder, poking their noses in where they were not wanted? He couldn't, so he had dropped that, to both the relief and disappointment of his students, and now he virtually had the observatory to himself, the students often choosing partying over star-gazing.

Andrew sighed in contentment and walked over to the large telescope to uncap the lens. His gaze fell onto the sleeping city below – how could something be so beautiful and calm one minute and vivid and violent the next? – and automatically searched for patches of activity. There were none. Until he heard a sudden screech of brakes below him, he tried to see what it was.

A motorbike screamed to an excruciating halt inches before crunching into a thick lamp post. It was clearly lit by the street lamp and the rider looked at his near miss, shrugged and rode of again. Straight into the front of an approaching night bus.

Andrew sighed and turned to the telescope. It was starting again.

Tears welled up in Robyn's eyes and she looked up to the ceiling, as if she could see the sky. "He's gone."

"Who's gone?"

"Johnny. He had so much promise and now it's gone. He became the hunter and forgot that he might be the hunted."

"I fail to see how that could be a bad thing. For me, anyhow," Carly added. One less person wanting to murder her had to be good, right?

Robyn looked down at her nails, suddenly finding them extremely interesting. "Something's coming. I can feel it."

"Yeah, the end of the world. You said." Nervously, Carly twisted a lock of hair around her fingers, a habit she had not been able to break since childhood. "You guys ever been through one of those?"

"If we had," Mika said, "we wouldn't be here now."

That was a comforting thought – not. "So, that's a no. Then, why are you bothering with all this saving the human race – sorry, the world – crap if you wont be around to see it?"

Neither of them had an answer to that and ignored her. they didn't know why they were doing this to save people, they didn't do good things, just they they had to fo it. And they were the only ones that could.

Noise had started up outside again, already, though nothing like what they had heard in the daylight hours. When you could only find a few hours peace each night, then things were getting really bad. It was almost constant now. Continuous noise and lurid violence. This is what the human race was capable of? Carly didn't think they deserved to be saved.

"So this shaman bloke," started Mika, reading from the paper again. "He's doing some kind of spell or something, a prayer to the spirit of the sun. So, he must be the key. And we won't get anything out of your boss, Carly."

"Why not?"

"Because he's dead," Robyn cut in before Mika could answer. She hunched her shoulders in delight as she saw the look of confusion pass across the girls face.

How could he be dead with that magickal protection she had watched the shaman do? "You killed him?"

"We only wish –"

"That would have been fun."

"No, he shot himself."

"Oh." She didn't know what could drive some-one to take their own life, but wasn't going to waste brain power thinking about, settling for the first explanation that first popped into her head - that he felt smothered by guilt from what he was doing and took the easy road out. It was probably the wrong explanation – Carly didn't really care. If he wanted to kill himself, then just let him. Same went for outside- if they wanted to kill each other, then why not just let them get on with it?

"So, that leaves the shaman and the professor."

"Come and take a look at this." She tilted the monitor up a little and stared at it, puzzled. "We got pictures." They were diagrams drawn on paper then scanned onto computer, but all three of them remained bewildered by them.

"Don't like them," Robyn sulked. "Where are all the colours?"

"You heard the lady – skip it."

Carly clicked onto the main menu, finding no more files to open, and rummaged around under the desk for the nest disk.

Lovingly, Mika brushed his fingers through Robyn's hair, remembering how she had worn it in wavy sections when they had first met. She tilted her head to one side, looked back at him and smiled. "I love you."

"I know. I love you too. That's why we never lose."

"We won't lose this time," he vowed.

"I know."

"The apocalypse..?"

"Doesn't mean a thing."

Carly cleared her throat loudly, reminding them that she could hear them, and made a point of not looking at them. She found the disk she wanted and set about cleaning the dust from it before loading it. If only she knew what on Earth they were going on about then maybe it wouldn't be so annoying.

"We'll beat it, Mika. Some won't, but we will."

He narrowed his eyes at her. Was this his Robyn speaking? The Robyn who had told him time and again how time had nearly run out, who had said that nothing would survive the violence of the world in these final hours? Yes, because this _was_ Robyn talking. Just Robyn – not Robyn speaking for the stars. And suddenly, everything fell into place. "We can't start something new until we end something old."

"I said that an hour ago," interrupted Carly, fingers tapping away at the keyboard.

"Well, now I'm saying it."

"Don't get angry, baby. That's how it gets you. Makes you lose you lose your temper over the slightest thing." Her gaze came to rest on the blonde head and, for the tiniest moment, Robyn felt sorry for the girl. Kept here against her will...

But Carlys will had changed. She almost liked it here, felt safe with two murderers – a contradiction in terms, but she knew they wouldn't hurt her any more. And she was doing something she wouldn't even have dreamed about if she had not been kidnapped. She was helping to save the world!

"Stop it." Mika gripped her chin and turned her face to his. "We can't change what's already happened or what's happening now, but we can change the next few days."

That sounded spookily familiar to Carly – you can't change what is, only what will be – and she decisively hit the open file button. The text bean to load and she swivelled around to see two heads peering curiously out of the window.

"They're just playing," Robyn said. "Puppets in a Punch and Judy show." She giggled at the likeness, remembering how many children wandered around and attached themselves to her last time there had been one at the seaside. Early evening, after sunset, wearing thick clothes despite the heat. That had been... enjoyable. "But no-one is pulling the strings."

"But they don't know what the game is," he finished for her, knowing that she would say that next. "First prize is a place in the bright new world, and the losers get –"

"A long stay in Hell," said Carly.

"More or less."

"Hell? Bad, bad place, Hell." Robyn twisted around and listened to the sounds outside. "Worse than this. Hotter, brighter." She shrugged and sighed

"Have you been there?"

"No, you don't come back from somewhere like that. If you deserve to go to Hell, you deserve to stay there forever. I've heard stories though."

How had she heard stories if no-one came back to tell the tale? Carly didn't ask. "Are you gonna stop us from being sucked into Hell? Because a lot of people don't deserve to go to Hell."

"We'll stop it." Mika turned around on the bed and curled his legs underneath his body. "We'll stop it in time," he hoped, knowing that it was already much too late to save dozens of people, already killed by this thing.

"You remember that bad thing you said was coming, Robyn?" She fixed her eyes on a tiny green light high in the sky which blinked out a few seconds later, as if knowing it had been spotted.

"The apocalypse?"

"Possibly that but the other thing?"

Robyn nodded once at her.

"I think it's here."

TWELVE

Much to Mika's annoyance, Carly refused to say anything further about it, choosing instead to stare out of the window. Robyn was not bothered about it – whatever it was, she and Mika would fight and they would win... the same as always.

"This isn't right," grumbled Carly. "After all the blocks I put on it as well." Mika looked at her sharply, accusing, and she hastened to explain herself, frantically punching keys in sequence. "The file won't load. It's got corrupted somehow, I think it must've got scratched or something."

"Can you fix it?"

"I don't know. I don't think I can because it's all... out of whack. I'm not sure what happened."

"Try!" Mika ordered.

"I am trying." If only she had thought to make a back-up of it. "If I can make a copy of it onto hard disk, I think it'll turn out the same but it's worth a shot, right?"

"Won't it work if you just put it on hard drive and reformat it? Because sometimes things just change on different programmes and systems."

"But the ones at FDR were the latest computers and software. Supposed to be compatible with everything." Carly brandished an exasperated clawed hand at the desktop and grunted. "Sorry, Mika, but this just isn't working. And I haven't even got a back-up."

Mika was only mildly annoyed, though. He understood how easy it was for computers to go wrong – it was not her fault. He looked away; squinted at the flaking paint on the door. "Was it vitally important?"

Carly shrugged.

"No," chirped Robyn, reaching up for the cord on the blind. "Not important."

Forgetting about the others in the room, Mika dropped to his knees in the middle of the floor and stared into the distance, seeing nothing but transfixed by it. "Wow. It's just empty."

"Erm... that's why it's called empty space," Carly told him, giving her frazzled brain a break from the PC. She flexed her wrists, stiff from the keyboard, still slightly red and scuffed from the shackles. "Oow."

"Does it hurt?" asked Robyn.

"No. It's just sore from typing."

"I hurt. I hurt for Johnny. He was my favourite... for a whole day. He could have been feared and respected the world over."

"The way you are? I mean, the fear and respect."

"No, never like us." No-one could ever be as famously infamous as she and Mika were. It took centuries of brutal indiscriminate homicides and terrorizing whole nations to achieve their legendary status. "That's impossible." Robyn grinned to herself, remembering something that she would not explain. "All legends have some truth in them."

"Huh?" Carly got the feeling that she wasn't talking about Johnny any more but some-one she had once known. Some-one she had never really believed existed until then.

"He could never have been as awed as Mika and I, but he could have been great. We could have taught him everything he needed to know. But, he was weak." A mild, nonchalant shrug. "He did the unforgivable – he lost."

"He had to fight for his life?" Was life the right word to use for the existence of a dead person? Maybe it was a non-existence, or an after-existence.

"No, there was no physical struggle. He just lost himself."

This was nonsense, right? How could Robyn possibly know that there hadn't been a fight? But, Carly just somehow knew that she was right. Everyone was losing themselves to what they could be, the very core of their beings, why should Johnny be any different?

"So why aren't you two..? Why are you so... normal?" Normal was very much the wrong word to describe them but they were more normal than everyone else?

Robyn drifted away from the conversation, scratching absently at her leg. She had lived so long, through so much, that she had just grown used to being pulled in several different directions and knew how to push against it. She had resisted the pull to become pure animal, the urge to become a force for evil. Stay in control. The blessed demon may have taken over her body but her will was still her own. "Just because."

Carly thought about this for a minute and wiped her sweaty palms down the legs of the bleached jeans she was wearing. "Because why?" Had something like this happened to them before?

"We're not animals with no sense of reason, like people think we are. Nor are we humans who think they are the highest living things on the planet – cock-sure creatures – but still mortal. We are forever; have changed and evolved beyond life... beyond death even. Top of the food chain. Immortal."

The word sent shivers up Carly's spine. Immortal. Lived forever. She had been scared of dying just a few months ago, but now found the idea of eternal life more daunting.

Silently, and with wild, staring eyes, Mika began to get to his feet. "We've seen it all. Everything the world has to offer – the good and the bad. It stays with you forever. You can run... and run... until there's nowhere left to go, but you can't get away from it." He tapped the side of his skull. "It's all in there. All of it. What we've seen, what we've done. I remember every single thing so clearly, as if it were only yesterday."

"Some of it was only yesterday."

"There's no let-up, no mercy, no escape. That used to be our motto, Robyn, do you remember? Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. We'll get you in the end. We'll get inside."

"Wow," breathed Carly, marvelling at how very not evil they could be. Schizophrenic, mental maybe, not evil. "How long ago was that?"

"Seems like forever, several lifetimes ago." Robyn shrugged and held her hand out to Mika. "Maybe it was forever – it was such a long time ago. Hard to remember."

"Hard to remember? I can't forget." Mika sat down and curled into a tight ball, so reminiscent of Robyn that Carly thought for a moment that he was about to sink into one of her trances.

"Mika?" He looked up at her, not trance-like but, Carly thought, scared. "Are you okay?"

Suddenly, he was Mika again, not the lost young man of only a moment before. "Of course I am. Why shouldn't I be?"

Carly shrugged and swung back to the demanding computer. "Ugh, this is killing me." She shivered involuntarily for reasons she could not put words to and rubbed the corners of her aching eyes. "I think I'm starting to hate technology."

"Robyn?" He reached out a blind hand and felt for her. "I can't find you."

She put a hand on his face and stroked him reassuringly. "It's okay, Mika. I'm here – I'll never leave you. It doesn't matter how lost you get, I'll always be right here with you." She recalled the countless times that she had thought she'd lost Mika and wondered if this was what it had been like. Robyn was more scared than she had ever been in her entire, over-long life. What if she and Mika really did get torn away ffrom each other? It didn't bear thinking about. "We can't leave each other. Not now."

"Why can't you leave each other? You're both strong enough to go on your own."

"We need each other," Robyn explained. "We've done things together that words just can't explain." Carly wasn't sure that she wanted to hear any more of this, but waited for Robyn to go on. "We understand one another – we fit."

"Jesus. You really do love each other, don't you?"

"We do." She folded an old blanket on the bed, needing to do something.

Mika quietly rose from the bed and stared, unseeing, into the computer screen. "There's nothing there. It's all gone."

"I just haven't put a CD in yet. That's why it's blank." Carly hurriedly scrabbled around for the offending disk and opened the CD drive.

He shook his head; he hadn't been talking about the computer, though it was a handy metaphor. All of that information it could spill out and you still couldn't do a thing about it. When you deleted a file, was it ever really gone, fully erased, or did it just hang around in the memory banks? No, there was nothing there, not really. Just memories – very vivid, accurate, detailed memories.

"It's opening now. It'll take a few minutes because it's not in English." The file opened on the screen but the hard drive whirred frenetically as it worked to make the jumble of letters and archaic symbols into sharp focus. "Weird. Not a language I recognise."

Robyn couldn't see the writing on the screen and made no move to take a closer look. She was too concerned about Mika. Nothing there – what did he mean? He was remembering what they had done to her. Humans remembered their wicked deeds; humans were haunted by memories. They weren't humans, though. They weren't supposed to remember their evils, or feel guilty about them. They did things, enjoyed them, wallowed in the thrill, then forgot it. Mika was scaring her. Suddenly the one in charge, the one who had to be strong for him, and she was scared.

"Robyn?" began Mika, no sign of the scared little boy of a moment and a millennia ago. "Baby? You'll be okay – we'll be okay. We'll do this together." He was in command again, now. Robyn felt safe. Together – they did everything together. She smiled at him, comforted by his certainty in them.

"Do either of you two know what this is? It looks like a load of rubbish to me."

Mika nudged Carly from the chair and sat down, puzzling over the mix of writings on the monitor. "I know this. I remember it." Where had he seen it before? What was it? So familiar. His mind floated away from the task at hand andbright flashes of colour filled his head. The screams of a dying girl, struggling to cling to a final shred of self-dignity. No! He must not let himself remember it. Must not let this so-called Great Event claim him. He was above this – stronger than this. Mika shook his head clear and looked at the writing again. The symbols began to blur, and he blinked a couple of times. "I recognise it."

"Sometimes it's good to remember," tried Carly. "It's like therapy."

Robyn narrowed her eyes at her. "Not the way he remembers."

"I guess you guys really aren't the therapy type."

"What gave it away? The killing people?"

"I think that's why you need therapy."

Robyn jumped to her feet and Carly tensed every muscle in her body, instinctively expected to be hit. But Robyn shook her hair out of her face and laced her fingers together. "He remembers what we've done and hates himself for it. Maybe he hates me for it, too."

"No, he doesn't hate either of you – not really," she explained, not knowing why she was trying to make her kidnapper feel better. Some sub-conscious survival instinct? "He thinks he does, but he doesn't. It's this thing with the sun that's doing this to him, to the both of you." Carly spoke a lot of sense.

"Unholy shit!"

"What is it, Mika?" Robyn moved over to him and frowned at the computer. Bad machine, it was. Not natural.

Carly turned around, trying to find somewhere where she wouldn't get splinters on her knees from the floorboards. A protruding nail tore a hole in the thin denim and she picked at it absently as she watched him scroll through the pages of gibberish.

"Robyn, do you know what this is?" He didn't recognise all of it but could recall some of the symbols from an ancient charm found in a cave, hundreds of years ago. She shook her head and he tried to think what it was called. "Demon language. Alvareshnik," he blurted out before the name could escape him again. "There was some sort of a charm in a cave a couple of hundred years ago. Some of it was written using these symbols."

"Hang on. I remember hearing that name. I thought they were extinct?"

"No. People just thought they were but they weren't. They were in hiding in a different dimension. Takes a hell of a lot to bring them back here."

Robyn thought hard. "Big species. Lots of dialects for different sub-species."

"I think she's right," agreed Mika. "It's probably written in four or five different dialects to make it even harder to figure out. I can't read this. Not even if it was just in one form of the language."

"In other words –"

"We're screwed." Robyn bit her lip. All that hard work, all those empty promises, and for what? A dead end.

Carly remembered something and waved her hand excitedly. "Not necessarily. I mean if, I'm guessing the shaman found this incantation thingy, if he figured this out, then he probably put the English translation on here as well. If not that, then something close to it."

"He's already used this – already called on them."

"What are these Alvin demons anyway?"

"Alvareshnik," Mika corrected mechanically. "Peace-keeping demons. They get called on in times of extreme supernatural chaos to provide a calming influence."

"And if they've only just been called down," Robyn joined in. "Then things are going to get a whole lot worse before they get better."

"You ever come across any of these angel demons?"

"No. And they're not angels. They're still demons, whatever good thingds they might do on the surface. They're still demons underneath."

"Like you two are?"

Mika was stung by that – demon. He couldn't help what he was, couldn't erase what he had done. No-one can change the past. Yes, he had enjoyed doing those things, but why did that one keep coming back to shadow him? Robyn remained oblivious and looked serenely ahead. She was not uptight about being called a demon – its what she was, she was proud of it.

"I mean, you're being evil and good all at the same time. You keep me here and drive me like a slave, but you don't kill me or make me go out there. You kill people without a second thought and delight in it, then you try to stop people from dying by trying to save the world. I have to ask if you're just doing this so you know where your next meal's coming from?"

"We don't want this to kill anyone," said Robyn, seeing Carlys tear-filled eyes in the reflection. "Contrary to what you might believe about us... we quite like people. Blood bags with legs." She started laughing to herself and Mika carried on.

"We can be good and all that shite. It's more fun being evil... well, it used to be," he added. "We always go where the trouble is. Instinct."

Carly gasped as everything fell into place again – more pieces to the jigsaw. Why the demons had been in hiding, why they only went to places in chaos. "You have to kill them."

The green fleck of light winked unsteadily in the night, looking, to the casual observer, like a flashing aeroplane light. It clearly was not an aeroplane light, though, as it grew slightly and seemed to pulse with energy, bright then dim, bright then dim. But, as the light got brighter and bigger as it sank further through the sky, it was obviously not just the light it appeared to be. More like an orb, always growing, radiating a throbbing green glow which seemed to get stronger the closer it descended towards the Earth. A quiet hum came from the green sphere, low but foretelling of danger.

A long metal fence around the playground of a school began to pop and melt beneath the awesome heat of the orb as it landed. A middle aged man was walking across the yard to his car and stared at the large orb. He stood there, open-mouthed, as the glow burned as bright as comic nuclear energy, dulled to the intensity of a dying glow-stick, then flickered out. The orb solidified from pure energy into rock and began to crack like a walnut. It did not spring open to see a nine-tentacled martian glide out.

"Is anyone in there?" asked the man, presumably a teacher at the school. Though, what he was doing at the school at three in the morning was nobody's business but his. "Do you need me to get some help?" He felt so foolish talking to a rock – maybe it was some kind of meteor – but he was sure there was something in there. He reached out to it, feeling his skin begin to tingle from the heat it gave off and drew back.

Shaking his hand in the air, as if it might bring relief, he reached into his pocket for his mobile phone and looked down at the green glowing keypad. Green. Natural, safe, trees and grass. Mobile phones that gave you cancer, mysterious green meteors with monsters inside them, hazardous to your health. He blindly felt around for the nine button, unsure of what to say if the emergency services could be bothered to answer, but stopped when he saw the top half of the orb move slightly, as if something was trying to get out. There was a grinding sound of rock on rock and a pained grunt came from inside. Pocketing the phone, he touched the rock, it was cool now, and fastened his fingers in the break. It was heavy but he managed to move it a few inches before his muscles gave out on him.

Suddenly, the man bellowed out as the thing inside, grabbed his fingers and yanked his arm inside the pod. Something slimy and strong. It pulled his hand in, up to the shoulder, and he tried to feel for the thing. But his hand no longer seemed to be attached to any nerves. He slid his arm out and was relieved to find that his hand was still on the end of his arm, but that feeling did not last long when he noticed that his arm now ended just above the elbow. The creature appeared to have bitten or torn his arm off and then just stuck his hand at the end. Muffled chomping noises came from inside the orb, and the teacher looked away disgusted but unable to feel any pain in his arm – poison?

The rock opened further and a creature slimed its way out, still covered in the thin film that protected it from the harsh atmosphere. It lay in a foetal position in the middle of the playground for a few moments, shivering despite the unnatural warmth. Then it rose to its feet and looked around at its new surroundings, strange and unfamiliar. The man stared, his mouth working but no sound coming out. It was a pale blue-ish colour, smooth and not covered in the scales and ridges of a comic book alien. For this is what this had to be – an alien.

The alien spoke something in a levelled, guttural language.

"What? I don't understand your language; do you speak English?"

The alien rumbled again and stared ahead. It did not have to look at him.

The man looked back at his half arm and realised that he was beginning to get some feeling back in it. He wondered if he could get back into the medical office for some anaesthetic to numb his arm. "Where do you come from?" He could be all over the news if this was a real alien. Just a pity it did not understand or speak English.

It ignored him and walked towards the school. What was this strange place? Why was this annoying little mortal trying to speak to him? The school felt safe and secure. Everything he used to know, but this cruel place seemed hard and unstable. And yet, this felt more right than everything he had ever experienced. He should be here.

"We kill them, and the rest is a piece of piss."

The three of them were sitting around the long, bare table in the cold kitchen. Stone held no warmth and Carly shivered uncontrollably in the chill in spite of the thick jumper she had wrapped herself in, but Robyn and Mika did not even pay any mind to the bite. It was hard to believe that it was so hot outside but all of that heat could be taken away with... how many inches of stone. Looking at the rooms built in stone it was easy to imagine how old this house might be.

"Tell me again," said Robyn. "Why do we have to kill them?"

Mika looked down at the glass of pigs blood he was swirling thoughtfully. Disturbing, really. "I'm not too sure about that myself."

"It's instinct, yeah? Demons go where-ever they can cause the most uproar." Carly looked up for acknowledgement but receiving none she went on. "It's why they were in hiding , or you thought they were. They're here because they saw that the end of the world was almost here. Chaos. They thrive on the stuff."

"I get that but why do we have to kill them? Why can't we just send them back to where-ever it is they came from?"

"Mika. You said it yourself – if a demon can even cause a little suffering, they'll do it. You really think they'll go back to their own dimension in the middle of all this?" Carly took a drink of water and glanced around the room. Apart from the table and benches, there was only a sink and a tiny refrigerator. The previous owner must have had appliances which they had thrown out after they had claimed it as their own home.

"Apocalypse demons." Robyn fidgeted on the hard bench, unable to keep still when there was so much to do. There were no windows in the kitchen except high up out of range, so she knew they were in no danger of exposure demons. "Create conflict. They only came because of the end of the world, didn't they?"

"I don't understand this at all." Carly stared at the couple d=sitting opposite her. "I understand this... sort of. But, I don't know why these demons were called down to keep the peace when all they really do is cause trouble. Do they get their kicks out of watching an entire planet implode, or something? Do they get on a high from watching a world collapse in on itself? 'Cos that's what's happening. They're on a self-destruct mission."

"The foolish shaman didn't know what the Alvareshniks did," said Robyn. "He believed the stories about them being a peaceful tribe, the kind to be accustomed to calmness and want to create it where-ever they go. And for good reason, I suppose. Because that's how it starts. They live in a dimension where violence and hatred are forbidden elements. Alvareshnik demons are incapable of hurting anything with demon blood in it. Demon on demon attacks are frowned upon."

"Like black on black assaults? Like hurting like?"

"That's about the size of it."

Carly looked straight at Mika, clasping the glass between her hands like the cup was her life. "But, you don't mind hurting demons?"

"No. I told you," he replied. "We're not human, and we're not demon. We don't have any rules except for the ones we make up."

Robyn clapped her hands for attention. "They hate leaving their own dimension because of how it's safe, but then they see this madness and love it, just like we do. They soon learn how to create chaos and conflict anyplace they go. They don't just come to watch the apocalypse and keep a little order until then... they bring it about."

"But, they're good at first? When they first get to Earth?"

"Yes." Again, he swirled the chilled blood in his glass, looking at it in tempted distaste. "But it can only buy us a few hours." The need to drink got stronger, his throat ached with the proximity of unforthcoming food, but he repressed. "They realise that violence and loathing have been missing from their lives and crave it so much that they cause it."

"This is making an extremely warped and unnatural kind of sense now. How long will it take you to track them and kill them?" Carly peeped at them over the top of her glass – she was hungry.

"That's where the problem arises. The sun will be up soon."

She hadn't realised that it was almost sunrise already, it still felt like the middle of the night. "Oh, yeah."

There was quiet in the room for a moment and Carly was positive that her heart was beating loud enough for them to hear.

The shaman pulled the thick orange curtain a little to one side and peered out. It was still the small hours of the morning but he could see tiny patches of half light in the sky, lit by the first rays of morning sunshine. You wouldn't notice it unless you were looking specifically for this, and, of course, he was. The shaman was waiting for a phone call from his associate to tell him how well his last spell had worked. Reasonably well, he hoped, for he could tell on sight that it had worked to some degree. All was relatively calm in the dark, at least not the constant buzz of activity it was in full daylight. A while ago he had heard the screech of braking tyres and the catcalls of prowling animals. Those noises seemed louder against the comparative hush of the tail-end of night.

Beside him, the telephone trilled into life and he started. The old brown dial phone seemed out of place now, everything should be modern and up to date, not stuck in the past. Definitely not in 1982. The shaman watched it ring a few times, seeming to shout "Answer me!" His dark robe dragged along the floor as he moved position and hesitantly picked up the phone, not really sure if he truly wanted to hear from the professor. But no, last week was the time for doubts, the time to back out of this. He wanted a perfect world – he had to live with the troubles leading up to that Great Event.

"H... hello?"

"It worked."

"I know. Are you ready for this?"

"Ready for what?"

"A perfect world." The shaman wanted to bang the phone down on to the table and scream at him. How could he ask such a stupid bloody question? What did he think he was getting ready for – bed? "They're here," he said instead. "To stop things from getting worse."

"Do you think it was right to call demons down here? They don't belong here."

"No-one belongs here," snapped the shaman. "No-one should be here." He heard the sound of something fall on the other end of the phone and instinctively peeped out of the window again. "What was that?"

"I think it was some-one shutting a car door outside. How do figure that?"

"It isn't right that they react to each other like this." A person could have all the degrees in the world but common sense was not one of them. No-one should be on this planet. "They don't belong," he repeated. Couldn't quite put his finger on why nobody was supposed to be here, but there was something – an annoyingly vague and unreachable spark in the back of his mind. "Each spell is that bit stronger than the last. Sunset tomorrow."

"It'll be done then?"

"Yes. Order shall be kept by the demons until then." He put down the phone, effectively ending their short conversation. He hated using all of this new technology, even a telephone. People could so easily tap into your discussions, hack into your life. Not good if you were... less than human. The shaman preferred the old methods traditional of his tribe – herbs and plants and natural sorcery.

Order shall be kept by the demons. They were words he never thought he would say but then, these were special circumstances. The normal rules did not apply. Maybe that was why he felt as if no-one fit in this world. The phone rang again, probably the professor again, but he ignored it. It stopped after – he thought it was important to count – six rings. It was not important to count, he was just distracting himself. That was good, he thought, because things sometimes become glaringly obvious when you thought about something entirely. So obvious that you kicked yourself for not having picked up on it before. But nothing came forward apart from supposes, maybes and theories. Perhaps there wasn't a reason; perhaps nobody belonged here just because they didn't.

He stood up and trailed through the house, aimlessly, ending up at his front door. He stepped outside and hid himself in the shadow thrown by the door. It was warm and the light was creeping across the sky.

Carly gazed up at the tiny window pane, embedded high in the kitchen wall. Sunrise. No-one seemed to be fussed by the sunlight that might soon be pouring through the window.

Mika saw her worried look fixed on the window and grinned. "Don't worry. It's too far up to be any problem." His glass of now warm blood lay untouched on the cold table; he stared at it thoughtfully, as if expecting images to appear in its' surface. A bare light bulb fixed to the ceiling gave out a dim light and kept their faces in half-shadow.

To Carly, even that was comforting – the worst things always happened in darkness. Perpetual light would only keep the bad things away for so long, though. Like maggots in a bad apple, they always found a way in to destroy something pure and sweet. "What's going to happen after the apocalypse? What's going to happen to the ones who survive it?" She hadn't had the patience to read the whole lot of print outs like him.

Robyn opened the tiny fridge and tossed an out of date chocolate bar over to Carly. "We used to keep children."

"K-keep them?" she stammered in the bitter cold of the unheated room. Even the rising sun peeping through the window did nothing to raise the temperature. Not even a few degrees.

"Oh, it was all very clean and humane. Humane – who am I kidding? We kept them, tortured them, traumatised them for life."

"And you're... p-proud of that?" They had violated those poor kids, ripped away their innocence. How could she think this was just a fun adventure? Oh, right, because... evil.

Robyn smiled to show even, white teeth. "Oh, yes. It was a game to them... at first. Then they learnt what we are – the monsters under the bed that no-one thinks exist. Children can take a surprising amount of pain – stubborn little items. But, they scream even prettier than the petrified. And they just let rip. And that's real music."

Carly wrinkled her nose as she picked at the wrapping of the chocolate bar and broke a section off. It was as cold as ice and was so far past its best before date that it tasted like cardboard. She stared at a silent Mika for a few seconds, wondering if he was remembering this too, and then returned her attention to Robyn's story. She could turn anything into an intriguing tale of wonder and awe and, even though they more or less always ended in death, Carly was morbidly fascinated. "So, what happened?"

"They came to me because I was nice and kind. Children have no sense of danger or risk assessment – how many times have they been told not to go off with strangers? Brought them back home and chained them up. Told them horrible things. Did unforgivably nasty –" a smile stole across her pretty face and it was clear that she didn't think they were cruel in the least "- things to them. Children are so ripe and juicy. They just bleed and bleed and scream and cry and bleed some more. Until they die – and then the fun's over."

"You're a very sick individual, you know that?"

Robyn knew exactly that. And what, exactly, was wrong with having a little fun while keeping yourself alive? "I just know how to have a good time." At least she was not wasting hundreds of lives for no real reason at all. For this would never work.

Mika did not look up but spoke in a voice heavy with, what probably passed for, regret. "Dozens of them. Dozens of young lives destroyed."

"Did you kill them all?"

"No. Not all of them – but as good as. Some we tortured horribly, emotionally scared them for life. We showed no mercy whatsoever. Then we set them free and they ran scared – afraid to tell people what was wrong because they would get labelled as mentally deficient. We ruined them."

Carly thought she detected the merest hint of pleasure in his voice, maybe remembering how good he had felt. But his eyes remained dark and downcast, seeming shadier than before, as if he were only making a show of enjoyment for Robyn. "You do it all for her, don't you?"

"She's everything to me. She showed me the real light, guided me on my path. I love her." He laid a hand on Robyn's shoulder but she did not respond to his touch, did not even look at him, busy waging an internal war on the night world that threatened to claim her for good.

"No, I have to stay here. For the mission." She went on with her monologue but they paid no attention to her.

"She showed me what it meant to be... other than human. A survivor. She taught me everything I'll ever know."

Carly honestly believed that the couple loved each other deeply, and knew that they would do anything for one another. "It's kind of beautiful. In a way." It was very weird and all kinds of twisted but Carly was not one to argue when it came to matters of the heart.

"She killed me," Mika said. "And that's why I loved her at first. Just an obsession, then love because she had given me the greatest gift in all the world. Now, I don't think I could go on without her."

"What if one of you died alone? Would you carry on – surviving?"

"After the apocalypse, there will be no survivors." He raised his eyes from the table top and slid his hand down Robyn's arm to clasp his hand over hers. "And we'll be together."

THIRTEEN

"What?"

Robyn snapped her head back around to him and bit her lip out of habit.

"It's just a theory," Mika muttered in defence. "I think that's how it happens. You try to bring about a new beginning but you have to let the world end first. Then we have to start from scratch. I'm not sure what will happen but that sounds logical."

Robyn stared at him – unnerving him with her wide, clueless gaze again. "Does logic have any place in the plan?"

Carly shook her head, doubtfully – she didn't think so. "There'll be nothing left. Nothing to build up from."

"What's to say that there won't be the same kind of people in the New World? The kind of people that are never satisfied with what they have, who don't realise how good they have things? Compared to the good old bad days. We have no way of knowing for certain that they won't make the same mistakes."

"But you'll be together." Carly sighed heavily, dejected every hope of salvation quickly fading away. "And that's all you care about, isn't it? As long as you're together, nothing else matters. The rest of the world can go and screw up big time as long as it doesn't affect you two."

"That's not true."

"Isn't it?" She screwed up her stale chocolate wrapper and threw it towards the metal sink. It went in and Carly smiled at this small success.

"No. We don't want anyone else to die or anything to happen."

Mika stared at the woman he loved, glad that he wasn't on his own here. Now, at last, she seemed to be grasping the importance of stopping this thing or, more accurately, reversing the whole thing. "Because it's not right."

"I can feel it in me – this is all wrong. None of this should be happening. Not how things were meant to be. It's up to us to stop it, change it."

"We told you before, Carly. We like this place and all the people in it. It's home."

"Home? What do you guys know about home? You don't live anywhere or belong anywhere. You're like parasites – you inhabit places, you infest them."

Mika had taken hundreds of homes with Robyn – he knew exactly what a home felt like... what a home should feel like. Home was where you could be true to yourself and not have to hide behind some façade. Home was where you were surrounded by love and tolerance, and not be persecuted for being deemed what others deemed to be a monster. But instead of saying any of this, Mika sat in quiet contemplation, for the first time really seeing that he could no longer call this place home. Maybe he was a parasite – hated and feared the world over. But Robyn was right, as usual, it was their responsibility to end this. Then they might be able to call this place home again. Might be...

"You upset him," Robyn accused. "This was our home. We belonged here."

Carly found it hard to believe that the couple could belong here- psychopathic killers on the loose?

"We could go to the most wonderful places – we went on cruises, trips, lavish holiday – and no-one thought twice about us. Two young lovers on an illicit adventure. Anywhere we chose and the place could be ours – anywhere and everywhere was our home."

"So, what happened? What went wrong?"

"She happened. She went wrong," Robyn spat.

"She had nothing to do with it." Mika spoke up, sounding very far away. "She just knew we weren't going to be on top forever. There are things bigger than us, things we cannot control."

"We're talking about something else now. I wanna hear why this isn't home for you any more."

"Yes – home. Home was anywhere we wanted. We belonged here, before anyone else did. This has always been home – and it always will be."

"What do you mean... before anyone else did?" Carly's fingers and toes were numb with cold and she willed her blood to start circulating. She ignored it and listened for the answer to her question.

"We're the Old Ones," Mika told her. "For a time, we were The Forgotten but people hadn't forgotten – just ignored the unsavoury elements of society. This does have something to do with home," he blurted, knowing what her next question was going to be. "They say that there isn't room for us in the New World. The New World will implode without us to..."

"Mix things up a bit?" Carly suggested. "Nowhere can be home without a bit of controversy?"

Robyn was inwardly seething at her constant questioning, and her anger was amplified by the relative calmness of Mika, who did not appear to be bothered by her. Why did this girl ask so many questions? Couldn't she just accept that some things did not have reasoning behind them – they just were. Some things could not be explained.

"Where's that print-out?"

"On the mattress. Why?"

"I was thinking. I'm not sure but I get the feeling that we're missing something. Something blatantly obvious but we didn't notice it."

"Like what?"

"I said I don't know, I might be totally off the mark but..." Carly descended into thoughtful silence. There had to be something, there just had to be. They always missed one vital detail in the movies. And this situation was so far removed from the norms of reality that it could well be a movie – except that it wasn't. Every nightmarish second of this was terrifyingly real, and would leave a stain that would never fade.

"What are we supposed to do now?"

"Wait there." Mika disappeared from the room and came back a moment later with the paper Carly wanted. He slid it onto the table but thumped his fist down on top of it before she could open it. "They should have known that this would happen before they started any of this. They should have researched previous attempts at creating bliss."

"I think they did. Not researched other attempts or anything – how far back does this date?"

"Thousands of years." Robyn picked up Mika's abandoned glass and took a sip. It was warm, well room temperature anyway, and sweet to her palette. "People have been trying to annihilate each other since the dawn of time. Some have been trying to stop it for almost as long. But war is a concept much older than us – one that must never end. War, disagreement, jihad – the world would be nothing without it."

"So, this brave new world will collapse in on itself faster than this one because there'll be no-one to make trouble." Carly liked to make things simple; clarify each point along the way, so she didn't get anything wrong. Mistakes could be fatal – she knew that now. Trusting people could be just as deadly. Good or bad.

"Collapse." Robyn liked the sound of that – it reminded her of her deck of cards folding in on itself as she pick one from the bottom, or how people just fell to the ground after she had fed from them. Destruction and devastation was fun, but not like this. Not done for these reasons. But, there was something there... "Fall. Cave in. Nice words."

"What?" Mika looked up as though he had just come out of a daydream. He had not, of course, but the last few words had barely registered with him. "Did you say something?"

"Nothing you haven't already heard." Carly plastered a thin smile on her face. "Has anyone ever tried this before? Surely that would've been recorded alongside these these spells? Which seem more like hidden curses than charms."

"Maybe they were recorded but they didn't care." Light was pouring through the high window and his skin started to tingle. It reminded him how close he was to the second thing he feared; how easy it had been for him to accept this gift, how much easier it could be taken away from him. It was a good feeling. "They thought things would be different this time around; that the human race had evolved far enough for them to be able to cope with it."

"But, they can't – because we haven't really evolved."

"Oh, you've changed... just not as much as they think you have. You still hate just as much, love just as much, fear anything that's different. You can just hide it better."

"Is that one of their reasons for doing this? Because they're scared of these monsters being diverse? To put it nicely."

"Oh, yes." Robyn's hair glowed and shone in the light. "They are scare of us. Being different. Shoots fear into the hearts of soldiers."

"When I was at school," began Carly, thrilled that she could tell a fitting story instead of listening. "I was dyslexic. Which is why I started in computers, but that's a whole other story. Anyway, it became playground gossip when I was about thirteen and I got bullied horribly for being different. For ages I thought that there was something wrong with me, but then it hit me. They weren't picking on me because I was different, but 'cos I wasn't the same as them. I took more tolerance and brainpower than they probably had to spare."

Mika cleared his throat, for no reason other than to get her attention. "A very heart-warming story but, does this fit into our puzzle?"

"Yeah. If them kids had taken the time to understand me they wouldn't have alienated me and made me feel bad. They were scared of me because I was new and different."

"Dates back to the 60s," said Robyn. "Keeping the purebloods away from the tainted." That did not make sense. Was she a pureblood or not? She felt pretty pure, but deep in the pit of her stomach, she knew that she was doomed to be sent to Hell with the tainted.

"Segregation. Extremist ethnic cleansing."

"Uh, ethnic cleansing is pretty extreme anyway," Carly pointed out, thinking of the cases splashed of the internet news sites. Mika must have seen it in his time. Well, he was sort of part of it – depending on which way you looked at it.

"Indiscriminately separating the good from the bad. The clean from the dirtied." That was discrimination, he knew, but said nothing. They didn't seem to realise that there were differing degrees of good and bad; that sometimes the lines blurred; that there were, on occasion, overlaps. "Those in the good category live the high life and get all the rewards, while the bad, the dregs of society, get nothing but punishment."

"But," objected Carly, "I thought you said that no-one'll be alive long enough for any of this to happen."

"It's already happening as we speak," said Robyn, suddenly, snapping back into reality. "Right now. The ones who gave into this primeval, Neanderthal fury are marked for Hell. And the people who have shown the restraint and strength to fight it are marked for the New World."

"Where will the demons go? If you don't kill them." She cleverly brought them back to task. "Will it go on what they are or what they're supposed to be?"

Mika had no answer to that. He didn't know the answer, and inwardly thought that it was a little hypocritical hiring demons to help clear the world of such beasts. "We'll kill them. Don't worry about that."

But Carly did worry. Would the end of the world still happen if they killed these demons? Seeing as how the Alvareshniks were supposed to be dormant apocalypse demons set to fuel Armageddon, as this was sure to be. At the moment, that terrible, final event appeared to be the only certain thing. She felt strangely tired and covered her mouth with a floppy hand as she yawned, too exhausted to use her muscles. Thoughts began to jumble in her head and she excused herself to her foldaway bed.

Robyn had never heard anything so preposterous in all her over-long life. It was deadly serious and had to be stopped before anyone else got hurt, but at the same time it was so ridiculous that she just wanted to laugh. It was easy to understand why anybody would want to do something like this, yet hard to sympathise with the person who was capable of unleash this on an unsuspecting world and not feel any remorse for it. Biting back a laugh that threatened to spill from her lips, she asked, "Can we do this? Can we win?"

Mika wanted to give her the answer she wanted to hear, he really did, but he couldn't lie to her. Instead, he just looked at her, shrouded in uncertainty that she did not notice. "Baby," he began confidently. "When you love each other the way we do –" worms of doubt began to creep into his voice and he spoke louder to hide it " –we can do anything."

"You didn't say yes," she noticed.

Half a dozen more green lights winked in the sky. In the harsh blue and white of the sky, they were barely visible and no-one looked to the sky. After all, nobody knew that there was anything to see. Everyone had seen sky, sun and clouds before. You would not have noticed anything even slightly out of place unless you had specifically looking for it. And why should they be? Because everything was perfectly normal, wasn't it?

Of course, they would think that. They were in the thick of it; any sense of rational or objective thought was lost to them, buried deep in their psyche. The only ones who could see anything wrong were those standing on the outside of this confusing blip in reality, those who had remained largely unaffected by this primal pull. These primitive and original urges and tendencies to violent displays of emotion had suddenly been brought to the surface and burst forth, smashing the dam of human control which had held it back for so long. Cavemen had found nothing wrong with it, so why should they?

But the numbers of the untouched were few and far between; a range of races, ages, sexes. Between them, they could barely muster the initial will to find out what was doing this. Oh, they were curious and some believed that it might set their minds at rest just to know the cause, and possibly why they remained impervious to this unseen attack. And yet, they were willing to let things just go on in this fashion, untroubled by any wont to physically find out. That took energy, the act of learning and understanding... and knowing. They had no resolve; not enough strength of character; to change things. Things would surely sort themselves out in its own time. Why should they tamper with the way of the world? These wrinkles in society would shake themselves loose on their own.

Karma.

That was the word. Karma. Everyone would eventually get what was coming to them. Everything they had inflicted upon the world, everything they had ever put out into the atmosphere, would, one day, come back to them. Good girls would go to Heaven, but the bad girls would go Everywhere, which invariably meant Hell. No, Everywhere was more accurate at this point in time. This whole world was imploding and, whether people were aware enough, or wanted, to admit it, was slowly turning into Hell.

It seemed ridiculous how even the youngest of children, supposedly the most pure and innocent of all, were among those showing the most ferocity. Their youth was a gift, a blank page on which a whole story would be written, but was now ruined and blotted with the indelible stains of... there was no word for this. But, one could reason, that maybe their youth was their downfall; that they had not developed a resistance, had not matured enough to know that there was something amiss here. At nursery school, children were given toy guns to play with and were often separated for fighting – maybe this had nurtured their violent instincts. A teenaged boy stood on the kerb with his grandfather, watching, in disbelief, at the tableau before him. The old and the young, impressionable minds, but with hard-set ideas about right and wrong... this was wrong.

Everyone stopped moving as a cold, unblowing wind blew through them and settled around them like cloaks of weighted calm. It felt as though this great shroud of enforced tranquillity was preventing people from moving, suppressing any mental inclination to an aggressive display.

Everyone under this enchantment looked around slowly, as if their movements had been dulled by drugs or booze. There was no obvious or visible source of the calming cloaks. No-one had the predilection to find out what had caused it, what was sending out these restful vibes. No-one wanted to. It felt good... right. It gave everyone a sense of inner peace, the chi they had lost long ago. There was no point in fighting it – just go with it. People did not want to fight any more, not the personal struggle between what they knew they should do and what they wanted to do. It was just easier to follow the pack. Did not take courage, or strength, or bravery. Give in to those feral, primitive instincts – hunt and kill; search and destroy. It was uncomplicated, easy, it felt natural.

Suddenly, everyone realised something. This wasn't right. This serenity and tranquillity they were feeling was not coming from them, was not natural. It was fake, synthetic, and they tried to shake the feeling away. They wanted to be themselves again.

A low buzz sounded in the sky and rippled through the air. Too quiet to be a low aircraft, too constant and unaggressive to be a swarm of bees or wasps. As one, those veiled in artificial peace, as well as those not coated in it, tilted their heads to the sky – and saw. Bright green, slowly enlarging lights, barely visible against the cruel, unforgiving daylight. Gasps of shock, awe and unashamed wonder escaped their open mouths.

Garlox, the landed Alvareshnik demon, was satisfied, but not satisfied.

Hmm. That was an interesting feeling. Feeling two extremes of the same emotion both at the same time – it was intriguing, and yet he did not care for it at all. Humans! How did they cope like this? He felt as if his head might explode with the infusion of information, feelings, senses, everything he had experienced and learned in the few short hours since his bumpy Earth landing. You could feel everything in that pod he had arrived in. That was why the pod had been encased in an orb of pure light. At the right intensity, light became physical energy, and could be attached to pods to protect their cargos during transit whilst carrying no weight. But still, he had been jolted and knocked around by every rock and crater he had collided with. He could feel swellings starting to appear on his face but reasoned that no-one would be able to tell.

He had been hiding in the shadows between a book shop and a bakery, not ready to let anyone see him, when he had noticed everyone grow still and quiet. He had done that, calmed everyone down. Garlox emerged from the shadows and tentatively walked down the street, taking his time to smell the air-borne scents – something bitter and more-ish – and to look at this strange place with its' equally strange inhabitants. He looked down at his own body and compared it with that of a human male. The human was clothed, the demon was naked. The human was a strange pinky-brown colour, the demon was light blue and white – ice cream colours. The four fingers and thumb of the human were only half an inch long and tipped with four inch floppy feelers on Garlox. The humans feet were neatly housed in bright white trainers, the Alvareshnik was barefoot with two-toed, flat webbed feet to balance on. He had short salt and pepper hair circled around a rather large patch of skin on top of his head, Garlox had several thin spines which extended down his back as far as the hair of the woman by the car door. He was not sure who looked the strangest.

No-one, Garlox was relieved to note, had even noticed him and giggled at his out-of-place appearance. He had been apprehensive of the laughs and points of humans, had worried over it for a time before deciding that there were more important things than image. Of course, he saw, people had seen him walking and had idly watched him go by, unable to object to his intrusion.

He muttered something in his native tongue, grateful for something to break the silence – which was beginning to unnerve even him. It was too quiet, everyone was too placid. It just seemed wrong, too straightforward, that he could give them back their peace of mind just by standing there. They could not live like this, like unanimated zombies. It had to be more complicated than this, nothing was ever this simple.

People were looking, open-mouthed at the sky, but Garlox did not have to do the same to know what they were seeing. That confirmed it – this was not a job, or a mission – it could be an act of mercy. Or, to put it bluntly, a massacre. All his life, spent in his own safe, little pocket of reality, he had known utter peace. No-one ever argued or fought, there were no disagreements, and war was an alien notion used only by lesser races with superiority complexes. But, something had been missing. Harmony was all he had ever known, or was likely to know, and he was nervy about any change to that. He had thought that he would want to create safety and complete union around him because that had been his life, but not any more.

Now, he had the chance to explore that missing something.

FOURTEEN

They were going to lose.

Robyn lay half-asleep in the king size bed she shared with Mika, painfully aware of how empty and cold it felt, even when he was with her. Not that she missed the warmth of a live body inches from her own. But lately, it had seemed like... like she didn't even know who Mika was any more. It was silly to think that of the person she loved profoundly, knew intimately. She knew things about him that he probably did not even know himself. He was lying just an arms length from her, within touching distance. But she did not want to touch his cool, clammy flesh – she wanted to reach into him and feel the connection that had been holding them together for so many short, dynamic lifetimes. Just to make sure that it was still there; that he was still hers; that he was sure.

It was a strange thought that she might be sleeping with a stranger. No – she had to stop thinking these thoughts. There was no room for doubt now, no time for uncertainty. He was still the same old Mika he had always been, just... He was unsure of something. Memories had a tendency to do that – particularly when those memories were so graphic – to bring threads of doubt wriggling into a body. His memories were going to take him, make him hate himself – Robyn wasn't going to let that happen. She would do whatever it took to stop that.

Mika turned over in his sleep and one arm flopped over her rigid form. He did not dream in his sleep, but he didn't want to dream. A fight was going on inside his head and it felt as if neither side was going to win. There were the vivid recollections that had recently sprung from the recesses of his mind and could not ignore, the cruel, unforgiving reality of... well, reality, the carnal, deeply imbedded desires of the beast within. All of them threatened to win and take him over, but he forced himself awake before either of them had the chance.

"Robyn?" he muttered sleepily. "Are you awake?"

"Mm hm," she replied, eyes closed still. "Can't sleep."

Light shone through a shaded window and Robyn turned over to look at him, blinking against the sunlight. The blind provided enough shade to remove the danger.

"I realised something just." He sat up in bed but trailed his fingers down her bare arm. It was so smooth. Her whole body maintained a creamy, unblemished complexion, untelling of her numerous and horrific injuries. Relaxed on the bed, Mika was positive he had never seen a more beautiful sight. If he had breath, she would have taken it away – just as she had done on that first night.

She sat up beside him, seeing something shadow his face. Something she had seen before on the faces of humans, but never on his. It scared her. "Tell me."

"We aren't going to win this." He slid out of the bed and stood by the door, leaning on the dresser Robyn liked so much. "There's a struggle going on up here." He pointed to his head again. "Everything happens up here now, when it should be happening in here. In my heart – dead, doesn't beat, but it's me, everything that is me. Winning does not come into this. Coming out on top is irrelevant."

"Mika, what are you saying? Winning is everything." To Robyn, winning was the beginning, middle, and, perhaps most importantly to her, the end. But, her casual words held a deeper, darker meaning. "We cannot afford to lose."

It was times like this, when he was so frustratingly close to her, just inches away from her, that he seemed furthest away from her – untouchable, almost. Just to make sure, she reached across the empty space and took his hand. She was surprised at the warmth of his palm in hers but not at all shocked. It didn't feel all sweaty and clammy like terrified human flesh, it was smooth and natural. Robyn lifted her gaze to peer into the ice blues of Mika. And she saw. She saw everything that was going on in his head right now; the private war, the confusion. The realisation that he was no longer hers – he had long since equalled, maybe even surpassed, her – but she had become his. They had always been a team, now it seemed like an endless, colourful game of follow the leader. She did not like where he was leading. She made her mind up in that instant.

"You're so lost."

"I don't know who I am anymore," he whispered. Mika felt his eyes mist over and looked away. "I'm Mika, the – God, I can't even say it now."

"Baby, you're a demon."

Mika noticed a great deal of pride in her voice as she reminded him of that fact. Maybe he was a demon, but he should not be feeling this. Guilt and anguish and being torn up inside were feelings for people with consciences, with souls; he had thought he'd lost his long ago. It amazed him how he had never given his sins a second thought until recently, hardly remembered some of the things he had done, now he could not forget. "What we did? Was it right?" He swallowed and waited for the answer.

Robyn did not want to give him an answer that would upset him further or anything like that. The stars were literally screaming in agony inside her head, and she was trying hard to hold them off from her emotional centre. She simply could not cope with a reclusive lover now. "It was right at the time."

That reply seemed to work and he sat down beside her. He saw that neither of them had taken their hand away, Mika was glad. It was a bond, a connection to what he was. It reminded him of it but it no longer hurt; if he could just always be touching her, never let go, everything would be okay, they would freely roam and feed on the world. "It was. And it always will be."

Robyn felt a change in the atmosphere. Everything was suddenly taut and stiff with static electricity. She shuddered and loosed his hand. Mika did not move an inch, his expression did not change. He forced his inner beast into submission and let his mind go as blank as possible. Robyn was in charge now - she would tell him what to do. But the sensitive brute within could sense that Robyn was on edge, was waging her own personal war. But hers, he knew, was not inside. It was cemented in reality, on one side was the present with the professor and the shaman and the apocalyptic Alvareshnik demon; on the other, the possible post-Judgement Day future defended by the pair of them. Defended by Robyn actually – Mika was happy to relinquish command and responsibility to her.

He didn't even try to understand why she had not been affected by this in the same way. It would take a lifetime more than his own, whenever that should happen to end. For her there were no memories that beat you up on the inside, no feelings of guilt and remorse so intense that he began to believe the label of monster. Robyn did not believe she was a monster, it made her think of puppets in cheesy horror movies, but she was very proud of her status as an immortal demon. He hated her for it – for how could anyone be so pleased at that? – but at the same time he loved her for it with every fibre of his being.

Robyn looked up at the ceiling, as though she could see the sky from inside. And maybe she could.

"Perhaps not."

Thunder rumbled quietly overhead, lighting forks split the bright sky, but no dark clouds hung in the sky. No-one noticed this phenomena. Garlox was pleased that nobody had paid it any mind.

As he wandered further away from people, they began to shrug off their invisible cloaks of passiveness and he heard sounds behind him of people seemingly waking from a deep sleep. Garlox rounded another corner and sat on the roof of a sports car, looking at the sky. If he concentrated half enough, he could see lines of silver lightening cutting through a blue sky. The thunder and lightening were, as yet, unaccompanied by rain but he knew a storm would be along sooner or later. It was some kind of rule that the end of the world had to take place in a dark storm – it just didn't seem right to have the apocalypse when it was bright and sunny out. Took all the scariness away, but at the same tome made it more scary – because who would have thought that their immediate fates would be decided on a day like this?

He lifted his head to the sky and ground a few words out in his own language. He did not understand a word that any of the humans had said, but got the impression that they were all very angry over something. The demon looked around him – there were only a few unresponsive humans here, moving slowly and not reacting to even he when he stood in front of them. He grinned and mumbled an Alvareshnik greeting at them, for no purpose other than amusement. The demon pressed on and stood a little further down the street. The thunder was rolling loudly now and a fine rain had begun to fall, making tiny wet patches on the concrete pavement. Still no dark clouds had gathered and the lightning was not visible. It didn't matter.

Garlox sat down on the floor and crossed his legs beneath him, well, as best he could. Again, he muttered something in his own language. A man jogged around the corner and stopped still when he saw this other-worldly creature sitting on the floor.

"Uh..." The man did not know what to say and toyed with the idea of trying to escape before he was spotted. But the sound had tripped of his lips before his brain had even processed the sight.

Garlox turned to look at him with three red eyes. He circled a hand in the dirction of his face, immediately putting him in the same sleep-walking trance as the others he had past. He said something, an order, and the man walked towards him as though the daze had taken away any free will he may have had. Garlox held his hand out and blew on his palm watching as a transparent sphere of golden light grew there, tiny droplets of rain passing straight through it as if it were not there. The man watched in disbelief, shaking his head slowly in denial but unable to say anything. This just was not possible – magic and martians. The demon cupped his glowing ball in both hands like an antique and stared at the man, a sinister gleam playing in all three of his eyes. The man looked at him and found his voice, quiet and raspy.

"What are you doing?"

Garlox frowned, not understanding his words but knowing what he was asking by the waves of fear and denial coming from him. Garlox did not reply. The man was standing less than a foot away, not moving. Garlox palmed the energy sphere and plunged it into the man's chest, his hand following. Connected to everything now. The man's essence flowing into his own; mixing. He just wanted to know more.

The man gasped for breath as he felt the life, the energy, seeping from his body. He was scared of the creature that was killing him, sure, scared because this was new and wrong, but he was not scared to die. Death would be a sweet release from the pain and the hate and the loss.

Garlox turned away and sauntered down the street. The rain was still falling, the thunder still rolled, but the sky remained bright and sunny. A summer storm, he thought. Rain was calming for some reason, everybody seemed to act with less urgency now. He smiled to himself.

He yelled something at the skies. Rather than sounding commanding and authoritative, he sounded desperate and pleading. He understood. He knew how they worked, what drove humans to do the things they were doing. The others needed to know what he knew, though he would not be able to tell them- they might land anywhere.

Now, he was not being a demon, was not here because this was what he did. Now, he had a reason. A reason to do what he was supposed to do – bring on the day of reckoning. The grief, the hurting, the disorder. He was going to end it all.

Carly snuffled and scratched her face in her sleep. Curled up on the mattress, she looked like any other young woman sleeping off the dragging effects of burn-out. But even in sleep when her body relaxed and rested, her brain just could not switch off. It was only when she lowered her hands from her face and moved position that you could tell that this was not just some exhausted girl. Her face still held the burn marks and scabs of the wounds Mika and Robyn had given her. Her blonde hair was sweaty and stuck together in clumps. The clothes she was wearing were ill-fitting in places and grubby from days of wear.

She was asleep though, resting. And for the first time in days, she was really sleeping. Not dozing or napping, not having disturbing dreams, just sleeping. Carly brushed a lock of hair from her face without waking up and shoved her hands under her thin pillow. The ground shook slightly beneath her and she half-woke.

"Who's there?" she muttered, to sleepy to register the noise.

The ground shook again and she bolted to the other side of the room, wide awake now. Earthquake. It had to be. Some kind of seismic shift brought on by the Great Event. "Really not sounding all that great any more." She had heard somewhere that quakes out of earthquake zones occasionally signalled impending apocalypses. Suddenly, it occurred to her that she didn't know what the plural of apocalypse was. Apocalypses? Apocalii? She didn't suppose it mattered – chances were there would not be another. Unless...

The thunder rumbled deafeningly outside the window and rain tapped against the glass – she had not noticed a storm before – but, she noticed, the sky was not dark with grey clouds. Not yet, anyway. An especially loud crack of lightning pierced the air and Carly jumped and let out a sharp, startled scream. She wasn't scared. It took more than a vicious summer storm to frighten her, she told herself.

As if on cue, the door behind her opened and she dashed back to the folding bed. It was only Mika and Robyn, she saw. She had never thought that she would be glad to see them, but she was. At least now she was safe – probably.

"Did you feel that? Like a rippling under the ground. An earthquake, maybe."

Mika's hand found Robyn's again and he closed the door behind them. "I felt it," he confirmed. "Not an earthquake."

"What was it, then?" What else could it have been? Of course, there was one other thing that could have caused it, but she shied away from the probability. An earthquake was the safest explanation, nothing supernatural or unfathomable about that. "It must have been a quake."

"It was everything coming together." Robyn traced the cold veins along his arm with a finger. Their blood ran through them for no real reason other than to give the illusion of life. So many lives. "All the pieces of the plan all clicking into place. Click, click!" She smiled, mildly amused, and looked at Mika. He looked just like the man of a week before, no-one could have guessed what was going through his head now, but when they were touching everything was back the way it had always been.

"Is it all ready then, love? Ready for tomorrow?"

There was no reason that any of them could see for them not to go in now now that they knew what was happening. "Almost. We have to wait, though?"

"Wait for what?" Carly did not mind waiting, particularly when it could kill her. But, she argued, there was one hell of a good chance of her dying soon anyway. No, that was selfish. "I don't think I want to wait."

"Do what she says," Mika snapped, then looked down at his shoes. "Sorry. She knows what she's doing, Carly."

"How do you know that she knows?" She frowned, hoping that made sense. "How can you be sure she's not just making it all up?"

His eyes flashed with anger at this insolent girl who had just called his little bird a liar. No-one said that about his baby and got away with it. That was the beast talking. He had to stay in control. "Of course she's not. Tell her how you know, Robyn."

Robyn loosed his hand and twirled around, her long skirt swishing through the air behind her. "I just do. I'm all joined up. I'm connected... to everything." She lifted her arms at her sides as if she was trying to touch something in the air. There was something out there – something new. "Do you feel it? It's warm."

"I feel it." Carly swallowed and hunched her shoulders. "They're here, aren't they?"

Robyn nodded. "Yes. Here for Judgement Day."

"Did you ever see that film? Really cool." She got no answer. "I suppose you're not really the cinema types."

On the contrary, they had both loved going to the picture house a few nights a week. The last thing anyone expected when they were watching a B-list creature feature was to come face to face with the thing of their nightmares. Oh, the element of surprise had never lost its edge over the years and centuries in theatres. Fear, shock, interest, curiosity; just a few of the emotions they had tasted together. They were all so different in texture and flavour – some were sweet and went down easily, others were sour and bitty. All had one thing in common though – there was never enough of it.

"We saw that one," Mika told her, remembering how he had been more interested in the violence on-screen than the panic he was about to inject into the room. "New characters and twists, but an age old story that no-one would have listened to otherwise."

"Oh God," gasped Carly, only now realising the direness of the situation. "They'll stop at nothing." The Alvareshnik demons had been the base for the evil one; the whole race had been the basis for the idea of machines destroying, taking over, the world. But something was not right – if people refused to believe that demons could do it, then why on Earth would they believe it of robots? She did not waste time on that thought.

"No-one wants to believe in us. They think that if they ignore us, maybe we won't be there. Weird, really, how people can sink that far into denial and wilful ignorance and not realise that things are going to pieces."

"You can't make people believe in things that they don't want to acknowledge." Carly glanced across the room at Mika, not sure if he had lost himself to his thoughts or was listening to their every word. "You can put yourself right in front of a person, show them who you really are, and most will think you're in make-up or it was a trick of the light. They've got some mental block because they don't want to admit that the world is never as pure as it seems."

That was why the shaman and the professor had embarked upon this scheme of splitting the good from the bad with no room for in-betweeners. Because they did not want to face the fact that humans were not the only things on, even in, their sorry little planet. "But you believe in us, don't you?"

"How can I not believe in you? I've seen what you can do. I'll never be able to forget that or tell myself that it didn't happen. You exist, demons come in hundreds of species – yeah, I believe." If she had a choice to not believe in them, to let herself think that she was safe to walk the streets without some sort of defence, she did not think she would have taken it. How could she lie to herself like that? No. It was hard to accept that nowhere was safe now – nowhere, nothing, nobody – but it was better to live with that fact than in the metaphorical dark.

"We are everywhere. We could be anyone. Your best friend could be a werewolf waiting for the moon so she can rip your throat out."

"You killed my best friend." But Carly was surprised to learn that she could tell her that and not start to hate them all over again. In a weird, roundabout way, that was the best thing that had happened to her. If they had not killed Ricky, they would not have taken her prisoner, forced her to work on the stolen disks, hardened her to their... accomplishments; she would not be in this situation of helping to – possibly – avert the apocalypse. If none of that had happened, they might all be unwittingly sliding into Hell with the others, but as it happened, she found herself oddly protected by serial killers and playing a key role in the salvation of the human race.

"We can't stop it." Robyn looked sharply over at the other girl. It was a race against time – they had to stop the ritual within an hour of tomorrows' sunset, when the sun, rather noticeably, would not set, or their hard work would be wasted. "We cannot prevent Armageddon. It will happen, no matter what we do, for it has been decided. But, the world will not self-destruct until an hour later. Until there is nobody left here alive."

Carly wanted to ask if Robyn and Mika would be left to sizzle on the Earth, not being alive in the strictest sense, but did not.

"The unguarded sun will be too much for the world. The whole planet will burn up to nothing in the heat." Robyn found her thoughts drifting and locked on Mika. She thought about Johnny, two degrees of dead, but that brought her some degree of comfort. He, at least, would not have to suffer this – he had been freed.. Mika had turned his mind into a blank canvas, shielding his thoughts from her.

He did not wish to take the risk that the sun might kill him. He did not want to remember the time when looking into the sun had been a matter of routine. He did not like having to hide away from so many things. Mika wanted to be free from his shackles to dance beneath the stars in a night sky with blood on tap, hand in hand with Robyn like he had promised. "Nothing will survive."

"Nothing? Like, when the world gets zapped by a huge laser and shrivels into sand in cartoons?" She was scared, her voice wavered slightly, and she had every right to be so. She was too young to die.

The ground shook violently beneath them and Carly began to fall. Mika zipped across the room and scooped her up inches before she got splinters in her face. Robyn put a hand on the wall to steady herself, her balance barely disrupted by the earthly shift. Carly opened her scared eyes and tugged his sleeve to put her down. "What was that?"

Mika knew what he had to do, but could not quite bring himself to speak the words. "You have to do it," he told the girls. "I'll help but this is down to you two now."

He wanted to be the hero, wanted to take charge. But that would mean embracing the demon he had come to both loathe and love, welcoming it into him with open arms, but he was not even sure he could go on letting the monster control his body. Without the demon, his body would have died many centuries ago, along with his soul. And yet, it seemed to have no regard for any like other than its' own. Mika was not the demon, though. He was just Mika.

"That wasn't an earthquake, was it?"

Robyn shook her head. She could feel him beside her, his mind was a hive of action that she could not tune into. She knew what he was thinking, though. He wanted to do this with her, but could not. He didn't want to put her in danger alone, too late, but he could not help that. She wanted the same things as he did, but there would be plenty of time later for that. "I promise you, Mika. Everything is going to be okay."

He wished he could believe her. But he had to let his own, private war run its' course to an end before he could do anything. "I can only help. Anything else and I would be a liability."

They understood.

The shaman sat on one side of a table on the university campus, munching happily on a packet of gummy worms, of which only half were actual worms. There had once been a time when he would never have had the courage to sit outside in full view of everyone. His protective rock, which cast the illusion of normalcy in appearance, had helped to combat that fear, though he had at first been afraid to rely on it for more than a few minutes. The others in his tribe had never been brave enough to emerge from their safe, enclosed pocket of the universe – they were hiding. He refused to hide, but did not want to be seen without cover. Maybe this was just another form, but out in the open. There were a lot of maybes and possiblys; he tried not to think about any of them. For in a day or two, he would not have to hide. And that outweighed all of the doubts about this mission. Simply knowing that he would at last be able to show himself and be accepted was surely more than enough.

Professor Wright sat opposite the shaman, his hand suspended in the air halfway to his mouth with a sandwich, looking carefully at his companion for a chink in his mystical armour. No-one was going to notice, or if they did they would not care, if the shaman had been sat there in full tribal dress. He could have been chanting to Satan or calling up evil spirits and no-one would have noticed. They were too wrapped up in their own business to worry about the important stuff.

"The rain's stopped," he observed.

The shaman looked up and chewed a still-wriggling worm – he had not noticed. "So it has. Good. We need weather like this for tomorrow night. Everything went okay?"

"Yes, it went fine. Ready for the final stage. To make it stick."

If the last spell was not performed at exactly the right time, and completely flawlessly, the sun would keep moving on its own. The shaman made a mental note to brush up on the Alvareshnik dialect skills he had never learned. "The final stage," he repeated thoughtfully. "Yes, of course."

Sometimes, it seemed as though the shaman was privy to some information Andrew did not know about, but he chuckled at his own paranoia and reminded himself that neither of them knew exactly how the ritual should be performed. A further thought sprang into his head. One with much darker and more sinister connotations.

Neither of them knew exactly what would happen after the ritual.

Already he could see and hear the influence the demons had had on people. They seemed to move with less urgency, were not as abusive; but it didn't feel quite right. That was probably just the knowledge that demons were creating this blanket of calm over an otherwise chaotic scene.

"So, we're –" the professor racked his brain for that glaringly obvious but elusive phrase his students liked using, " –all systems go?"

"So to speak. Provided," he lowered his gaze to his emptying bag of mixed worms. "Provided that nothing goes wrong between now and then."

The professor eyed the ham and cheese sandwich he had been about to eat and put it down, carefully. He had just lost his appetite. "I don't see any reason why it should." Everything was planned – there was no room for error. "I can't think of anything."

The shaman was not so sure. The whole thing seemed too good to be true...

### Part Three:

### Angels and Demons

FIFTEEN

"They know."

Garlox had wandered the streets of the city, feeling everything the people were feeling, looking for another one of his kind, finding none. He had felt a slight tingle in some places where he came across the few who had remained unaffected by the hate. There was something about them... this strength, an innocence. But they did not bother him, held no interest or mystery for him. He wanted more of the violent outbursts and shows of madness that surrounded him. It was no longer enough to let it happen, casually observe the occurrence – he needed more.

No more did anybody seem to be blanket by the calm he radiated – his very appearance, though somewhat unsettling, was peaceful and unaggressive – and they all turned to look at this strange creature as he passed. Thankfully, they were too pre-occupied with their own problems to pay him undue attention. Just as he had hoped. But there was a slight problem in his plans for this world. One which he had not seen, but felt, and was now grumbling about to the elders of his species... where-ever they may be.

"They know we're her. And they know why we're here."

He was on his knees in a wooden shack. Even though he had no real idea which direction he should be facing, and there were no other demons here for him to be speaking to, he felt at home here. Here, in this dilapidated club house, he felt he could commune with the elders.

"Who?" a voice boomed, filling the room with reverberating sound. A transparent face shape pushed out from one wall and red mist came from its' mouth as it spoke. "Who know?"

"The demons. The lowest of the low." Garlox looked down at his knees and saw that he was kneeling inside a blue chalk circle which must have been drawn by the occupants of the shack. He felt he should be staring up in awe at his master, but he did not want to risk even a glance. "The Old Ones."

"Have you seen them?"

"No. But I felt them. I know they're here. They know we're here."

"Forget them. The mission is more important," the voice rumbled. "The mission makes everything insignificant."

Ah yes... the mission. Bringing about the total destruction of the human race would not be too difficult while everyone were so easily led astray. He smiled inwardly but did not show what he was thinking. Master would not like that. "But what if they mean us harm?"

"Take a look around," the voice commanded. "This is virtually perpetual sunlight." Master was right – they wouldn't come out now. The sun was everywhere.

"You're right."

"I know I am."

Garlox rose from his knees and stepped out of the wavy chalk circle. As the circle was broken, the transparent face melted back into the wall but his voice seemed to hang in the air. He supposed that some typr of psychic energy had been inadvertently transferred to the circle just by being inside it. He did not exit the building just yet.

He had doubts that the Old Ones could be kept inside, sheltering from the day, for long. No matter how pesky and parasitic bloodsuckers were, they were still demons and would always find a way around problems. It was the survival instinct.

Mika lifted the window blind, put his hand into the pool of bright light spilling through and watched his hand beginning to burn and smoke. He watched with great interest as his skin began to peel and the once-enticing smell started to rise from his hand and filled his nostrils. So, this is what it felt like to burn. It hurt – he didn't feel it. He was a homicidal crime-against-nature, maybe he deserved to burn to death. Or maybe that would be too good for him. Perhaps he had to pay for the things he had done, make up for his sins, do a good deed for each crime. But what if forever was not long enough?

He left his hand burning in the pool of sunlight and let his gaze wander around the room, resting on each of the girls for a short time. Robyn, for so long his mentor and true love, was curled in a corner, sleeping with her head resting on one shoulder. She looked so peaceful and young, no-one would have been able to guess how old she really was. Finely brushed red hair fell around the edges of her face, looking as if it had been styled; pale, flawless skin seemed to glow with energy and the resting glory that proper sleep could provide; the picture of serenity, of innocence. That was a weird, ever-changing concept because how could anyone actually define what innocence looked like. Whatever decisions people came to on that subject, Mika was pretty sure that Robyn would always be it. Certainly, she would always be that picture for him, only in her sleeping hours though. And, he was in no doubt, quite soon that image would be completely shattered...

A quiet snoring sound came from the middle of the room and Mika found his eyes drawn there, effectively putting a block on any more thoughts about Robyn. Carly had slipped into a fitful doze, uncomfortably leaning back in the swinging computer chair. Her hair had fallen away from her face and her face still held fading assault marks froms days before. She was only a human, did not heal as fast or as well as they did. She would scar and would consequently be left with a lifelong reminder of her time at their mercy, but many of the scars would not be visible and might never heal because they were on the inside. Her skin was a little shiny and grimy from not being allowed to wash. Although she gave the occasional twitch as disturbing memories floated in and out of her agitated mind, she seemed relaxed and no longer as tense and frustrated as in the past few days. He had come to think of the girl as one of his family already and really didn't know what he would do if she got hurt.

He did not think he could go on if either of the girls got hurt. His charred hand threatened to catch light and he let it drop away from the window. It sent pain impulses shooting along his nerves to his brain and, belatedly, he acknowledged them. "Ow." Neither female woke but he was content just to watch them sleep. He wanted neither to stir and deny themselves much-needed time to sleep and re-group their energies; he did not want to sleep himself either, he both was not tired enough for his brain to stop buzzing... and knew that the nightmares would come.

The nightmares.

He did not let his thoughts dwell on that subject. Instead of remembering things he had done and could not change – though the threat of them lurked in the back of his mind like an indelible ink mark that got more noticeable each time he tried to erase it – Mika thought about what was happening outside, the possible futures for all of them, and, most importantly to him, the Alvareshnik demons. Had they figured out that they were not destined to bring peace to the world yet, but its' destruction? Why had no-one realised that it was an impossibility for demons not to cause chaos? He knew the answer to that one. It was some form of denial – the brain just put a block on the thoughts that might shatter their idyll. Did they know that a peace-keeping demon was just something out of a storybook?

"Mika. What have you done?" yawned Carly, stretching her muscles but not feeling very awake. Certainly not rested and rejuvenated. But she felt like she could sleep forever, even if that should end in little over a day. No, forever was going to last, well, forever.

She took his blackened and burnt hand in hers and inspected it. He stiffened as she touched him, not quite sure why. Carly held a different kind of innocence to Robyn in her eyes, he noticed. After everything she had seen and learnt over the last week, he did not know how she managed to retain it – but it was there, as clear as the day. Plain to see, and unmistakeable. No more did she question if any of this was real, for it most definitely was, but she accepted it with an admirable grace and desire to learn more.

Then Carly noticed the unshaded window and her mouth formed a tiny O of realisation. She closed it. "Why?" was her only question. It was the only question.

"Is this what it feels like to die? Is this what it felt like for all those people I killed?"

"Not unless you set fire to them," she chuckled. Then she saw the look on his face, but was not appalled at the mental image. "Oh." She glanced over at a still-sleeping Robyn, slightly unsettled at the periodic rise and fall of her chest, providing the suggestion of life within – but Carly knew different. Flakes of burnt of skin came away on her skin and fluttered to the ground. "Does it hurt?"

Robyn slept on, soundly. Blissfully unaware of what was happening.

"A bit," he told her, half-truthfully. Then he caught her no-nonsense look and realised that he could not lie to her. He could never lie to her. "All the time."

Carly sat back down and regarded him, sceptically. Mika looked like an abandoned child before her and she wondered what she had been so scared of. She was served a reminder soon enough. Mika's eyes hardened and he clenched his good fist at his side. He looked dangerous... crazed... unstable, at the very least. He looked as though he might pounce at any moment, his eyes took on a look of a psychopath gone over the edge, totally devoid of rhyme or reason. Carly tensed on her seat and inched back, eyes wide, more with shock at his sudden change in demeanour than fright. Mika stared at her then stalked towards her. Carly was backed up against the computer and could go no further. Her legs were not attached to her body, she could not get out of the chair, and she threw her arm up to protect her face. Just in time. Mika roared and brought his fist, repeatedly on her arm. The fourth time, Carly used her other arm to bat him away and he went spinning over to the bed. She was surprised at how easy it was.

Mika swallowed and scratched the back of his neck, deliberately not looking at her, then fingered his burnt hand, ignoring the shards of pains that jolted his brain. Why had he just tried to attack Carly? He wanted to protect her, not hurt her. He was not even angry at her. "Carly, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you."

"You haven't. Hurt me, I mean." Carly stared at him and reached behind her for the power button on the computer. Her arm felt bruised but she did not lift her shirt sleeve to look. "I'm okay," she assured him.

Robyn stirred in the corner, but only to change position and snuggle into the wall, then she was asleep again.

"Shouldn't we wake her up?" asked Carly, not knowing how Robyn could be sleeping better and longer than she had. There was so much to do before tomorrow, how could anyone sleep through it? But there she was, sleeping like a baby.

"She'll wake when she's ready." Mika held his injured hand in his good one and shook his head. He did not know why. "I need someone to hold me." Carly looked up sharply, but he kept his eyes trained on his hands. "When she's not holding my hand, I get lost to my memories. They take me away. I need her to touch me, so... I don't want to be on my own."

Carly turned to the computer and pretended to concentrate on the psychedelic screen saver filling the monitor. "You're not on your own."

"I need her. She's the only one can save me."

"You need that connection, that's for sure." But maybe he did not need Robyn as much as he thought, just somebody of his own kind. "You get lost, she takes you away. Everyone needs that kind of help sometimes. We all need a mother."

"A mother," he repeated – the word meant nothing. He shook his head clear of the fog that misted all the thoughts in his head, as if a spark had been snuffed out. "What are you doing?"

"Just messing," she lied. She had not touched it since turning it on. "I'm waiting for Robyn to wake up so she can decide what to do."

"Well, what do you think we need to be doing?"

Carly bit her lip, sure that her idea would be the worst next move possible. Still, he had asked...

"Come on, Carly. You're a smart girl. Don't give out on me now. You've got the brains and you know how to use them. I know you've thought about this and I know you have an idea."

"Well, I was thinking..."

"Go on."

"Maybe it would be a good idea to find out where we can find these shaman and professor guys. Tell them what's really going on."

"Have we got that information?" He couldn't remember seeing it on any of the print outs.

"Have you got an internet connection here?" She checked the back of the computer, found the cable and sat back down. "Cool. I'll go online, then it'll only take me a few minutes to hack into their personal files."

Robyn woke up and stood, holding the wall to get her balance. "I was sleepy. Now, I'm hungry."

Carly refused to look her way and leaned in to the computer. Mika sat there, not looking at anyone. The thought of blood suddenly repulsed him.

"Uuunnh!" she moaned and rubbed her stomach, hungrily. Robyn told herself that she wasn't as hungry as she thought. Human endurance was amazing, but they were not human. They were better. "Not hungry," she whispered.

"Did you have the nightmares?" Mika demanded.

"I don't think so."

That seemed both wrong and right to him. She should have nightmares, she had surely killed as many, if not more, people than him. "Really?" He had always known Robyn was something different.

"No nightmares," she confirmed. She didn't convey any of the thoughts rushing through her mind but embraced them all the same. Robyn was not like Mika. The demon did not occupy her body, something to be beaten back, as Mika had come to believe. She had allowed the demon to grow and consume her, to take her over. In short, she had become the demon. "I remember them, every single one. I feel nothing."

She reached out and grabbed his hand, not asking why he held his other so stiffly – she could well imagine why. And suddenly, Mika was grounded; he knew who he was, what he had done, everything. But, when Robyn was with him, none of it mattered any more.

Until she let go. Let him go.

"I thought we were going to dance under the stars, my sweet?"

Robyn pouted. "The stars cannot come out. They will be scolded for being disobedient."

"Disobedient? Why?"

"The sun shouts to stay in power. It commands the night and does not allow it to come forth." Robyn shook her head as if to shake herself free of something. She felt her hand be gripped by Mika but she did not pull away right away. It was a nice feeling – just being there with each other was comforting, and seemed to strengthen the resolve in her head. They had come this far together, had survived this far; why should they give in now to something they might beat? So maybe she was claimed sometimes by the stars, and maybe he was whisked away on a guilt-ridden journey down memory lane, but it was not forever. They would get through this.

They had to.

Robyn did not think she could bear lying with Mika in their bed, unable to feel him and touch him. Not for one more night could she be so close to him and know that he was so far away and untouchable. She loved him too much.

"Power," Mika muttered thoughtfully. "We have power. So much of it."

"We do." Robyn caught onto his train of thought but refused to let it come to the front of her mind. Instead, she allowed the thought to stew in the back of her brain. "Power," she said again, liking how the word sounded in her mouth.

"This is not a normal conversation," chimed in Carly. "Or, is it?" Maybe this blatant abnormality was what constituted a regular day for them. She did not know, and was not surprised to find that she didn't care – just eager for a distraction.

"What is normal?" asked Robyn.

Carly supposed she was right – nothing was how it should be any more. Besides which, her definition of normal might be totally different from theirs. Probably was, actually, she did not dwell on it.

Things were just heating up.

It was mid-afternoon when everyone would otherwise have been getting ready to leave school or work. Nearly every building in the main streets of the city had been trashed and/or looted – only a few stood proud and intact.

Children chased each other along roads, screaming and whooping. It would not be such a heart-wrenching sight if they had not been shouting real death threats and running with intent to harm or kill. No self-restraint. Adult, presumably the parents, were efficiently ignoring their cries as they pursued their own brutal displays. No longer were they forced into reluctant quiet by an unknown entity, or able to control themselves enough to stop themselves killing people. Innocent members of the public were losing their lives in unnatural ways at an alarming rate. And, where before it had helped people to regain a shred of dignity to have an outburst, it now only drove them further and further towards the edge – over the edge – and they wanted more. They wanted to draw blood, to hurt others in horrible ways, to feel that moment of rushing power in death and victory.

People were turning into monsters. Demons. Spawn of the devil.

The woman looked through the large glass panel into the deserted bottom floor of FDR Industries, one hand protectively covering her bag buckle.. This place had always been so busy, so buzzing with life. It was weird to see it standing empty. But it wasn't empty. She could hear voices inside, echoing through the shell. She did not stop to listen, though her brain told her it might be important, her feet would not listen and she walked on.

Of course, she had seen TV programmes about demons and witches and stuff, but they weren't real. Just guys with make-up on and lots of computer graphics. But, even if they had been real, humans right now were much worse. There was no airbrush or face-paint to cover this terror. These were the faces of hungry, slavering beasts. Beasts set loose to wreak their havoc, cause their own damage. "Guess there's a little bit of demon in everyone," she muttered.

She enjoyed watching everyone in such pain and torment. It was their own fault for being so damn arrogant when they had the chance to live that they were now seeing the end of each other. Something sparked in the back of her mind then fizzled out before she could grasp it. A sliver of something old. But no, it was just gone again. The woman also saw a handful of people standing on the sidelines, watching with, not sadness or pity exactly... more like disbelief.

"Well, I'm not clearing up this mess," she said. "It's not my job."

She didn't know.

Carly laughed lightly as she skipped down the bare staircase, her hair dripping and her skin still slightly damp from the shower she had just darted under. She tried to tell herself that Robyn and Mika were just being kind and letting up on her civil rights, but could not shake the probable notion that she was going to be used in someway to go out. It might raise suspicion to go out in dirty clothes and hair, and still covered in old bloodstains. She thought about what conditions were like outside and decided that maybe she wouldn't have looked all that out of place.

"Thanks guys. I needed that.. I feel human again... well, close as."

Robyn looked at her critically, debating whether or not she would draw attention outside. She decided not, and smiled. "Does that feel better?"

"Actually, it does."

"Let's see what we can do about that then."

Mika stepped forward, head bowed slightly. He did not immediately say anything, but raised his face to meet her gaze and held her chin between his thumb and forefinger. "You look... alive." He turned to regard Robyn in the same breath but did not release Carly from his firm grip. "Full of life. Life is the greatest gift of all," he whispered, deep in thought. That was not a complete falsehood. The greatest gift had once been death, still was as far as he was concerned, but life now seemed just as precious – if not more so. It was weird how he could think two things at the same time, which so blatantly contradicted each other. It confused him greatly but he just added it to the list of things that fogged his mind.

No-one else noticed the haunted look on his face, or if they did, they did not comment. Mika was glad about that in some forgotten part of his brain because it gave him the peace to think things over. But it also made him incredibly angry for reasons unknown – other than he didn't want to think at all. However hard he tried to block those thoughts out, they always came back up to get him.

"Don't waste it."

Robyn did not know what he meant by that but wasted no time on theories. There were too many theories floating around. Theories and possibilities. But speculation wasn't good enough any more; likelies would not cut it; guesses were too indecisive to do. She could not know it but Carly was having exactly the same thoughts.

"We don't have any time to waste," she said suddenly. "We need to get moving on this thing."

"I know." Robyn couldn't have not known – she was being reminded of it every second, waking or not. "Everything is dying. I want things to live. Funny really."

Robyn did not elaborate on that, and Carly was not sure if she wanted her to do so. She looked away and picked up yet another printed sheet in the print tray. "The Rashda Observatory."

"Huh?" Mika grunted.

Carly found it quite unsettling the way that these two could speak perfect, unabbreviated English one minute; then blurt out swear words and harsh guttural noises the next. It grated at her, but only strengthened her belief that she did not want to understand them much more than she already did. "That's where the professor is. I think he's probably the one to talk to first." Since the boss wasn't exactly available, the professor was the best bet.

"Why him and not the shaman?"

"Because the shaman uses dark, powerful magicks and would probably turn you into cockroaches or whatever the minute you open your mouths."

"Good point."

Robyn came to his rescue and opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again. "He will know what we are from a hundred yards." Bodies in tune with the natural system knew a disturbed spirit when one presented itself. She didn't feel disturbed.

"Where is this Observatory?"

Carly did not need the sheet for that, she had gotten her degree there, though she had only ever met the professor once as a student. They had met a few times at FDR, but she failed to see the relevance and did not mention it. "There's a big university campus up by the hill called the Rashda Institute. It's a school of the sciences."

"So, it appears that we are off on a merry jaunt."

"No joy." Mika looked at her and longed to reach for her hand and listen to her tell him that everything would be all right. No-one could tell him that; no-one could bring themselves to lie and say those words.

Because they all knew. They knew too much to believe in anything.

And yet, they did not know nearly enough.

"Pain, and tears, and terrible disagreement. But, no joy."

"Hold up." Carly held up her hand; her half-baked notion of an ulterior motive coming scarily, but unsurprisingly, true. "We? As in all three of us we?"

"As in us two we."

Carly straightened up and flicked her hair back, rising to the task. She had questions that disrupted her sleep, and she wanted answers to them. She wasn't about to back out now, although facing up to this was far from number one on her list of past times. "Shouldn't I stay here with Mika?"

"Look at him! He's unpredictable."

Carly was unsure of whether to be grateful that she cared, or scared that she was being forced to take the only other alternative. Instead, she decided to just be utterly freaked out by the whole situation. "He needs some-one with him while you're gone." Carly knew she was putting up a weak fight but it was not actually a fight at all. Sje did not want to do anything else apart from face the jerks that were heading this thing up.

"He could try to attack you again at any time if you stay here."

Carly bit the inside of her cheek, thoughtfully, but no thoughts whirred in her head. There was nothing left to think about. "How did you know about that? I thought you were asleep."

"Oh, sweetie." Robyn smiled and brushed a lock of Carly's damp hair behind her ear. She cared for this girl, did not want her to get hurt, but had to put her in danger for... reasons. She had never thought it was possible to love a human this much, but it was really nothing compared to the enveloping devotion she felt for Mika. Robyn wrapped her arms around the neck of the younger girl and hugged her. "Oh, honey. I can be unconscious and I'll always know."

Carly did not respond. She heard the words, understood exactly what she was saying, but her expression did not change.

"She knows everything," Mika added. "Everything that matters anyway."

"No, I don't. There are too many things we don't know. But, we will find out." Robyn glanced fearfully towards the shaded window, bathing the room in golden afternoon sun through it. It was not ideal but it was not a problem either.

"I'm in," Carly announced suddenly. "I want answers before it's too late."

"Good."

"I don't want you to go alone," Mika blurted out. "I don't want you to get hurt. Either of you."

"We'll be careful," Carly assured him. "I won't let anything happen to her."

"We'd better go."

"Shouldn't we wait for sun-down, or whatever? I don't know the way underground because – believe it or not – I never had the overwhelming urge to go below ground. Somehow, I just never found myself longing for that experience."

Mika looked quizzically at her, trying to work out whether Carly was just being humorous or putting on a brave face. Both were equally possible and probable, though he did not pass comment.

Robyn did though. Ignoring her dry speech, she answered the question that Carly was clearly asking. "I know the way. I can smell my way."

For the umpteenth time, Carly was disturbed greatly by the fact that that did not creep her out more. But she was getting used to the feeling and did not think about it.

"Yeah, right. But, is it a good idea to leave him alone?"

Robyn thought about her question for a moment. It probably wasn't a good idea to leave him on his own but it was potentially more dangerous to leave Carly, or take him. Besides, she needed Carly fit and geared up for this.

She had the feeling that the little human was going to prove very useful.

"You have met him, right?"

Carly nodded.

"Then you will be useful."

"Just say what you mean for once, Robyn!" exploded Mika. He did not mean to shout but he could not help it. "I didn't mean to shout. I'm just... I don't know what I am."

"I do." Carly took his hand. "You're afraid that we'll be too late, or that we'll get hurt."

Mika felt something, but fear was not it. He felt something bubble inside him before swelling up into every pore. No emotion; no demon; no human. Just Mika. He tore his hand away from her roughly and flexed it, wondering whether the touch of a human was ever that... electric before. Her touch was unlike the human contact he had had in times past – but he had felt that touch once before. Just once. It was the feel of power. "Please! I'm just worried that unless you two get to work, I'm going to have no more little people to eat."

Carly was disgusted – but that almost made her glad because it at least meant she was capable of feeling – and addressed Robyn. "You're not bothered with saving the world, are you? You just want to keep your food fresh." She had not even processed that last sentence before the words tripped from her tongue, and she made a face.

"What can I say? I like my food to move." Robyn paused for a second, contemplating the idea, then shook her head. "No, scratch that. I like my food to scream." Screaming was good, full of the shock and horrpr that made blood all the sweeter. But she only liked it when she was the cause of the wordless vocalisation.

Not the screams they brought on themselves.

"That's the only reason you're doing this," Carly realised.

Mika sat on the computer chairs and began to turn himself in slow, lazy arcs. "Not the only reason but it's good enough for now." How could he tell her that his main reason for wanting this was entirely different? Like this. "I want all the nightmares to stop. I can't stand it any more. Seeing her face every time I close my eyes. Remembering the feel of her skin. What we did to her – it haunts me." He was so confused.

"Well, you remember then." Robyn threw her arms up in the air and gave an infuriated growl in the back of her mouth. What was his problem? For hundreds of years he had been at her side and together they had embraced and nurture the innate evil that stirred within them. For long centuries he had grown into one of the champions of his kind. Mika had been one of the best, feared and respected the world over. Now she wasn't sure who or what he was any more. Robyn did not care. This nervous wreck before her was not the same Mika she had brought up. But, she did not care. "Be haunted if you like. Let this beat you without a fight. But I, for one, am not going to sit back and watch this world come to an end."

Mika did not want the world to end either – not while he was still on it. But he had his own ghosts to lay to rest. "I'm not giving up, Robyn. You won't let the world end if you can stop it, and I'm sorry I can't come with you, but- "

"But what, Mika? They are getting rid of the monsters. We are the monsters. We're demons." There was no pride in her voice now; just steely determination.

"Guys," Carly broke in and waved a hand between the pair. "This isn't going to get anything done."

Two pairs of cold, dead eyes bore into her. Carly coughed and tried to look authoritative. "We've all got stuff to do, so let's just get on with it." No-one moved; Mika and Robyn were stuck in a stand-off, the first argument she had seen the two have.

"I'm sorry I can't help more. But, you can do this Robyn... I know you can."

Robyn's hand automatically fluttered across the tiny space to his. There were no words to be said. That single, fleeting touch said everything. That single, fleeting touch said nothing – nothing that he wanted to know. She turned away and held the door ajar as she spoke her final words. "We can defeat anything. That's the real power of love."

Carly stared hard at him for a few seconds. This man, this murderer; the very thing she should hate was turning out to be her saviour. You know things are getting bad when demons start looking like angels. She followed 'Robyn out of the door.

"You have to go," he murmured to the door as it swung closed.

Mika was alone now.

For the first time in his entire existence, he was totally alone. There was no-one could rely on to save him now. No-one who would rescue him when he was taken to the feared place inside. No-one was there to hold his hand like a fallen child and make him believe that everything would be okay. No, now he had to save himself. And he had to convince himself that things would work out. He knew what he had to do.

Mika stopped fighting himself and dropped to the floor. Pressing himself into a corner, he threw up a white flag and surrendered his mind to his memories. The cold concrete walls around him melted away, dissolving into a completely different scene. One he had no trouble in piecing together.

SIXTEEN

Robyn put her hands on her hips and tapped her foot impatiently as Carly negotiated the rusted, broken ladder leading into the sewer system. The movement made a swishing noise in the few centimetres of water. That sound was the only noise that broke the silent. Carly knew it would scare most people because it told of the monsters hiding around each corner, but she found it comforting to just know that she was not alone down here.

"Hurry up."

The sound of her voice startled Carly and she lost her grip on the rung of the ladder. Luckily, she was not far from the bottom and did not hurt herself when she fell. "I guess that's one way to get to the bottom." Carly's knees buckled under her weight and she grabbed the ladder to steady herself.

For a few moments the pair traipsed through the tunnels in silence, the only sound being the quiet swish of their feet through puddles of murky water, amplified a hundred times over in the huge, empty tunnels.

"How do you know where we're going?" Carly wanted to know. She babbled on until Robyn silenced her with a pointed glare. "I mean, we could be going round in circles and we wouldn't know 'cos there are no signs down here. I'm not saying that you'll get us lost or anything but if you do..."

"If I do – and I won't – I'll be fine because I'll just eat you." Robyn stopped and saw a grate a few paces ahead which was letting in a lot of light through the slats. Carly walked straight through it, forgetting that it would take Robyn a bit of careful negotiation to get through unharmed. Robyn felt wistful for the long-ago days when she could have done the same. She stepped back, took a short run up and dove through the patch, finishing with a perfectly executed roll that brought her to her feet and would have impressed even the most pernickety of judges.

"Cool," said Carly without thinking. Then the realisation hit her that she had just praised an activity of an evil being. "Oh, God. Please help me."

"What?" Robyn hoped that she had just misheard the girl praying to a God that could not possibly exist, but knew that with her supernaturally enhanced hearing there was no way she could have heard incorrectly. "Did you hear that?"

Carly glanced behind her at Robyn who had stopped moving and now held her hands up as if pleading for quiet. She too stood still and pricked her ears. Robyn bit back a smile, thinking how amusingly like the movements of an animal human reactions were. Humans were animals – and above ground was the proof of that statement if ever she needed it. Carly was an animal too, but like all who were, or had ever been, human, she was domesticated.

Her animal had been caged.

"I can't hear anything." Except for the rhythmic and irritating drip of water from the ceiling, all else was eerily quiet in the tunnel. The quiet scared her, Robyn did not move and had no breath, Carly held her own for fear that the noise she made would blanket any tell-tale sign of lurking evil. Unless, of course, you counted the unadulterated evil standing behind her, who might be ready to strike on the back of the head with some discarded pipe or other. She shook the thought away. Her senses were on full-alert down here in the almost-dark that she was sure she would have sensed any movement so close to her, just as Robyn sensed it many metres away.

Garlox explored the empty side chamber off of a tunnel and felt his way around the damp, brick walls. There were no secret passages or hidden tunnels – but that was not what he was hoping for. No, he was looking for something entirely different... and he had already found it. Garlox did not want to stumble upon closed tunnels and get himself lost deeper in this illogical underground system of twists and turns, he wanted... hmm. That was the question? He wanted pain, he wanted confusion, he wanted blood.

He wanted death.

And death was here. It was all around him, inside him, touching him. It was here. In these walls – not the slimy brickwork, but deeply connected to them. Connected to the earth. He could feel it seeping through his creamy coloured skin. To look at the demon, no-one would have imagined that he was death. To most, he looked like an angel. Demonic, and instilling instant fear, but having lived and sought out peace for all time, he was an angel. It did not make sense to him but he thought nothing of that factor. All he knew, and all he wanted to know, was that the end was coming, and he was going to be there to watch it.

"What am I doing here?" he growled in his own language. "This world is strange and unusual. I understand nothing of this place." Truthfully, he did not want to understand it at all. "I will watch it burn!"

As he continued to feel the wall, the object of that particular concern snuck in. Carly trailed behind her. Garlox did not hear them enter but turned around on their arrival, sensing their presence behind him. He made no noise of greeting, but neither girl would have understood if he had. He stood his ground, the girls stood theirs, neither of the three making any move to meet their opponent.

Carly was the first to break the silence. "Is this what you were talking about."

Robyn nodded, not taking her eyes from the demon. She could kill it, she was more than strong enough, or she could let it live and force it to live a little longer in a world it clearly had no comprehension of. Killing it would be pointless, she realised, because there were more. The demon was somehow telling her this in its' eyes. It did not want to suffer this place any longer. It wanted to wreak havoc and cause mass hysteria where-ever it went. Robyn could relate to that. All she wanted was to hunt and kill... and for Mika to be strong again. "This is it," she confirmed at length. "He will bring about the apocalypse... and he will see us be flamed."

"Robyn? I don't want to be flamed. Being burnt alive sounds painful."

"It will be. He will rejoice in your death screams of agony and will bask in the glow of your blazing corpses."

The room dissolved into an outdoor scene of beautiful rolling hills and a lush green forest off at the side. Behind was a large mansion with waiting horse and carts. The perfect scene was blanketed by a perfect blue sky with few clouds and a bright sun tinting the sky with yellow. It was the beginning of summer and the weather was just warm enough to stand outside and watch the world go by.

"Time for lights out, girls!" bellowed Miss Whitethorne as she marched along the corridor, opening doors to check that her girls were in bed. "Don't forget to say your prayers!"

Annie Crossley said her prayers every moment she could, thanking the Lord that he had seen fit to spare her thus far. She had only been working as a maid here for a couple of weeks, due to... circumstances, bad circumstances – but already she had learnt and broken the rule about no girl being allowed out of bed during the night. But that wasn't entirely her fault. A willingness to break the rules was more or less a pre-requisite for her other job.

Warrior of Night.

As soon as the candle turned to black and the room was dipped into darkness, populated by the steady breathing of the other girls, Annie bolted over to the window and threw it open, noiselessly jumping down to the grass below. It was a fall that could have killed, or at least injured, any-one else but Annie picked herself up and went on running as though the drop had never happened. Halfway around the grounds, she gave herself a few seconds rest to put her shoes on. Halfway round the globe she had been, trying to stop her pursuers away from the necklace she was wearing. All over Europe she had travelled by hitching rides on wagons and stowing away on ships, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, only to find that the safest place had been home along.

Annie Crossley. Maid at Holyfield Manor. Warrior of Night.

She had accepted the gift of duty. Had sworn to protect the innocent. Had been imprinted with the importance of keeping this trinket from the hands of those who would taint it with evil. So she wore it around her neck with the cross on a chain. Stories circulated about the significance of the necklace, none confirmed, some with hints of the truth behind them, but all wilder than the last. But Annie knew the origins of the necklace, behind the simple beauty of a silver heart pendant on a silver chain. Knew why it was it was so important that the piece of jewellery be kept from the hands of those who sought it. The necklace gave the wearer enhanced strength and power. She – the true Warrior – had been given it to protect it with her very life.

"This amulet has power beyond your wildest imaginings," the last Warrior had told her, when passing on the gifts and responsibilities of the line. "You must understand that. Since our line began and night needed to be defended, there has been this amulet. It can give you strength of character and has been blessed with the essence that fills us." Annie had been confused at that point but was beginning to figure it out now that she thought about it. Strength... decision.

"But the power it holds is the target of many an enemy."

"Demons."

"Yes. We have spent many lifetimes protecting this gem from the enemy. They want the power to use the power for evil. Protection of this pendant has forever been important." The last Warrior of Night, who was now willingly giving her powers over to Annie, held the pendant out to her young successor. "It is yours now."

Gratefully, Annie had taken the necklace and thanked the woman. Annie did not know whether she would end her reign like that woman, giving her power to the boy or girl that destiny had chosen to be worthy of it. Hooking the clasp at the back of her neck, Annie felt a sudden surge of strength filling her muscles, and realised that the duty she had just taken on was the right one. It felt right. She was a Warrior of Night now, and her responsibilities were nothing short of colossal.

But, it was right.

And that was how she came to be hurrying through the grounds of the manor just before midnight. On her way out to hunt the demons and keep the innocent safe. To keep the world at large safe for another night, at least.

She let out a yell of surprise as she tripped and fell head first onto the wet grass under-foot. Barely missing a beat, Annie turned around on her hands and knees to see what had made her fall. Shocked, stunned, but not in the least bit scared, she picked herself up and crouched to inspect the dead body at her feet. The dead, accusing eyes of a friend, Nathan Carter, stared up at her. Trying to hold back a wave of emotion for her friend, Annie moved the head and checked his neck. Two deep puncture wounds to his neck on each side.

They knew she was here.

"Oh no." It made sense really – they could always tell where the power was. "They're both here. For me. For the necklace." Because that was all they ever wanted... though, Annie had sworn to protect it with her very life.

Feeling full of sorrow and guilt that she could not save her friend from the monsters, she let the tears come and reached down to close the milky eyes of a corpse.

Some-one she had failed. "I'm so sorry."

Well hidden in trees and shadow, so well that even Annie did not know of their proximity, two sets of eyes looked on laughingly. For it was a game of cat and mouse. "You will be."

"We shall watch as your wasted lives are taken. Joyful war will ensue. Chaos will be eternal, and your pain shall be forever."

Carly was scared. It was not the ideal emotion to be re-introduced first after endless unfeeling days and nights, but Carly was beyond complaining. It was an emotion. One that she did not have to summon because she thought she should be feeling it, but one that came freely, not without a drop of anger mixed in. She slapped Robyn, shouting, "Snap out of it, you stupid bitch!"

Reactively, Robyn grabbed her by the neck, lifted her off the ground and tossed her across the stone chamber. Ragdoll-like, Carly flew backwards across the space and crumpled to the ground, pain flashing in her eyes. On hearing the crunch of bone making contact with brick, Robyn snapped her head to look at the girl she had just thrown across the room, as if not understanding what had happened. "What did you call me?"

"It wasn't you, Robyn," Carly told her by way of apology. "The demon found something it recognises in you and tapped into it. The lust for carnage maybe, I don't know. It sort of hacked into you and spoke through you. It was creepy," she confessed.

"So you slapped me and called me a bitch?"

"Worked, didn't it?"

Reluctantly, Robyn shrugged. Secretly she was pleased that Carly had done it. "I don't think we're going to get much out of him." Robyn moved behind the demon and wrapped an arm around his neck. But Garlox was strong, and managed to twist away from her. He was not strong enough though, or quick enough. Robyn worked him into her grip again in a movement so fast that it was a blur. This time she held her prey tighter, not letting up at all in case he broke free again.

"So you're going to kill him?" Carly took the silence as affirmative and made a movement that looked like a shrug in the gloom. "It's your call. He's a demon, I really don't care." But she did care. Robyn and Mika were demons but if they died before the world was saved... They were the last hope for the Earth.

"You feel me." The demon had sensed a weakness in Robyn – something he could exploit. The fact that she was inherently a brutal, inhuman monster like himself helped to a point, but he had invaded her mind and found the chink in her warrior-like armour; her affinity to drift into other worlds, lives, times. Searching every inch of her brain for weak points, the demon channelled through her once again. "You know what we are doing is correct. It is right to end this suffering. You have done things only I could understand. The glorious fires will be forever though pain will last mere minutes. You enjoy this as much as I do. Are you going to deny yourself that final pleasure?"

Robyn tightened her threatening death-grip on him.

Garlox screamed. The universal language of fear.

Robyn gave the thick demon neck a sharp tug that took quite a bit of effort, strong as she was, but let the broken demon body fall to the ground.

Carly stared at the body, expectantly, waiting for it to make some spectacular disappearance like in all the TV shows; melt into the ground, or something. It did not. The deceased demon just lay there, unmoving, lifeless, like any normal dead body would. Disgusted and disturbed, she turned away and looked to Robyn. "Are you back now?"

"Oh, I hope so. What did it say? I don't remember what I said."

"No, you didn't say it. He did." Carly pointed to the body on the floor and walked back out into the tunnels so she did not have to see it. "There was all this stuff about screaming and pain and fire and blazing corpses. And about how it was right to bring on the apocalypse."

Robyn and her sharp eyesight picked up on the instantaneous frown of thought that flitted over her features. An almost imperceptible hesitation passed, as if Carly was debating whether or not to tell her something else. "What else?"

Carly still was not convinced that Robyn had no memory of that speech. It would stay with her until the end of time, and beyond. "Are you positive that you can't remember any of this? I'll never forget it."

"No. I never remember."

"There was some stuff about how you and he were alike because of being demons, and how only he could truly understand the things you have done."

"He was lying." No-one would ever understand why she had done what she had done. "It was all lies." It really had been. How could that thing have known the things she had done in her life? How could he have even pretended to understand? So what if she was like him in base nature? It was still in her to do good things, even if there was usually an evil scheme behind it. But, she had not killed the demon because of that fact – if that was the case, she and Mika would have been killed centuries since – but because it had brought to the surface things she had buried long ago. It had violated her; worked its' way into a history she tried to forget.

Mika remembered.

He tried hard not to but his past was the only thing he could not escape, could not run away from. And the very moment that he thought he had got away from his memories, there they were, images burning into the back of his retina. He wished Robyn was here to take the pain away. Just one touch from her reminded him of what he was... and made him forget that he was feared and hated the world over.

But, he knew, that fear and loathing had been hard earned, and was the very least he and Robyn deserved after what they had done. Most of his body had been consumed by self-punishment and regret was eating away at him. Regret that he had done what he had done, regret at the superficial reasons for it, and now regret that he would never be able to make that right. It had been right at the time, because everything was right at the time, as Robyn said, and it only became wrong when you let it be wrong.

And Robyn knew best.

Robyn had always known best. She had shown him his own true nature – the one of the beast. She had taken him out of the light and shown him the real night, where his true path lay. And now she had left him... Mika was not sure of anything now. Not without her to believe in him.

"Is that necklace so important?"

"I believe it is. You can get it for me." Robyn was dressed in a stunning red ball gown with a lace panel at the front of the skirt. She had taken rather a shine to fancy clothes and jewellery; quite enjoyed living the life of the wealthy.

Tonight, she and her escort had been invited to a gathering at a large house at the edge of the city. Robyn had been very excited at the prospect of this event, and had spent much of the last few nights scouring the city for exactly the right outfit. Her long red hair had been curled and swept up into a bun for the occasion; her make-up was somehow immaculate; and she blended perfectly with the other guests.

"I know we can get it from the girl."

"But she has already given us the run around in Europe. Don't you think we've tried hard enough?"

Laughing softly, she laid a casual hand on the arm of her companion as the host of the evening approached; he passed, and she stared meaningfully at the glass in her hand. "We will never do enough. Make me this promise, Mika, and you shall get your reward."

"I promise." If he was going to do one thing before the new moon, it would be to get that necklace. "You shall have your trinket, my sweet."

Together, they made their way through the small clusters of people and out onto the balcony. Not for the fresh air, or the privacy, but for the quiet of blessed darkness and the familiar scents of humanity carried on the breeze. They wanted to watch. Inner torment and anguish were the most entertaining things around.

"Robyn, do you see that?" Mika pointed to a man guarding horses at the side of the house. "Innocent, yes. But all the more deserving for it."

"I see everything. The suffering that is to come. Things he will not see. He has no knowledge of what's coming, but he will suffer the same fate. He will die in a flash of pain, though his body will burn before it has time to rot into the ground." Robyn shook her head clear as if something was irritating her and perched on the stone lip of the balcony, swinging her legs like a little girl.

Mika also shook his head, not understanding the meaning behind any of her words, and easily pushed it away. A trip to the land of the stars always meant she talked a load of nonsense, though this was an enchanting quirk. "Why do we do it?"

"Do what?"

"Kill when we have no need to. We feed when we need to and do it in such a way that no-one suspects. So, why do we hunt even when we have no desire to take nutrition from our prey?"

Robyn looked at him oddly. She could see it in his eyes – he knew the answer, just wanted Robyn to say it. He wanted to hear her say three tiny words. "Because it's fun." She giggled and looked at him. "To watch them scream and hope that some small mercy will be shown them – hope that help will come. To see them writhe in blissful agony –"

"Fun," Mika echoed, thoughtfully. "The danger. Fun." But what would happen when people started to figure out what they were? When they got chased out of town. That would not be so much fun.

He took her hand as she hopped to the ground, though the gentlemanly gesture was purely for show, and smiled. "I love you."

"I know you do." She loved him too. Unconditionally.

A guest of the party wandered by and found himself rooted to the spot, mesmerised by Robyn's beauty. This girl, no more than twenty five, with lush red hair, hazel eyes and a worldly air about her. A natural beauty indeed. She looked back at him, as if knowing she was being watched, and smiled at him.

"Hello, sir. A most beautiful night, is it not?"

"It certainly is." He tapped Mika's shoulder. "Excuse me, I hope you don't mind me saying so but, your good lady here is nothing short of an angel."

"I know exactly what she is. Every day, I thank the stars for putting her in my life." The two men shook hands and the newcomers headed back inside.

Robyn turned to the open evening and Mika followed. She sniffed the air, smiled, and let her eyes fall to the ground. Planting her hands firmly on the stone ledge, Robyn vaulted over it and fell two storeys to land gracefully on the ground. A scent wafted to her nose over the breeze.

A faint scent, wispy even, but no less familiar. The aroma of... what? Strength, knowledge, power, wisdom. It was all of those things and none of those things. It was...

Prey.

Mika recognised it too. He began to gear up for a fight but he stopped when he caught a whiff of the attached scent. Anger. That only meant one thing. Mika grabbed Robyn by the arm and dragged her off to hide in the shadows of the trees. Instead of moaning indignantly that he was hurting her, Robyn delighted in his strength and masterfulness. He had been a quick study, but she still had so much to teach him. "Mika, remember your manners, child," Robyn scolded him, playfully.

"Sorry, baby." Mika grabbed her arm again and twirled her into him, kissing her viciously, passionately, before pushing her away and easily throwing her through the air only to crash into the trunk of a large tree. She fell to the ground with a grunt and probably a couple of cracked ribs. Robyn licked her lips, relishing the tiny amount of pain it gave her. She lifted her head, a gleam of golden danger playing in her eyes. Mika returned the look.

"Your mother taught you well, obviously."

"You should know." Almost before he had gotten the sentence, Robyn had sprang to her feet, flashed over to him, and swept his legs out from beneath him.

Mika tried to laugh, could not, and brought Robyn crashing to the floor beside him by shooting on leg up in a right angle to catch her under the chin. "Nice moves." Robyn did laugh, partly from the thrill of the fight, and partly from the joy of being hurt. Being hurt by Mika.

The scent was stronger now, still quite a distance away but getting closer.

Robyn rolled over and shot a fist into his head. Mika felt pain explode in his head but grinned in spite of this. No, not in spite of it – because of it. Mika stood up and threw his arms out while he regained his balance. Robyn hauled herself up and grabbed him by the arms, shooting a sharp knee into the stomach and twirling him round. She let go and Mika flew into a jagged tree trunk sideways, then rolled away to come to rest by a tree stump. His head cracked and bones ground together in his body. Mika lay unconscious for a minute or two, rocked by the violent assault – not that violence or unconsciousness were unusual – and Robyn clapped the performance, a wide, happy smile on her face. The dress was dirty and shredded at the back and frayed at the hem, but she did not notice. The familiar burn of her muscles felt good, like a friend that she could rely on to return. Mika snapped his eyes open, wounds and other injuries already beginning to heal, and shuffled to his knees. Picking up on the mental SOS signals he was sending her, Robyn hurried to his side and crouched down next to him, ignoring the rip of a seam opening under her arm.

From their position in the woods, they could clearly see the thing no human eyes could have seen from there. A figure, cast in shadow by the moon and stars, stalked across the grounds. Stiff, determined, purposeful. The very scent of the moving body was simply intoxicating. A moving shadow. A shadow they recognised. What the figure was out for was obvious... because they had planned it that way. The figure was out for revenge.

If the figure was looking for a fight, Mika and Robyn were about to give it one.

In his office, Professor Wright glared at the red and black pens on his desk, then at the stack of papers and essays his first year group had just handed in. He really wasn't looking forward to marking them and wondered why his students had not been considerate enough to abandon their studies when they had abandoned their sanity. There were bound to be a couple of outstanding assignments in the pile, countered by the promise of two or three that were worth less than the paper they were written, or printed, on. Sighing, he rested his chin on his fist as he took up his pen and drummed it on his desk as he stared at the first in his pile. It was as he had suspected – depressingly average. It had none of the controversial theories that had come about during discussion and was almost heart-breaking in its' dullness. No doubt the student had thought it best to play it safe and guarantee himself a pass by discussing established theories, not daring to include the theories and hypotheses he had thought up alone. However, there was no reason why he should not give the student a failing grade for having the brass to submit this below-bog-standard essay, rather than taking a risk on his grade and handing in the assignment that showed his full potential. He sighed again,, cleared his throat and started to read the drivel before him.

A knock came at the door and he glanced up. Before he could say 'come in', the door flew off its' hinges, splinters of wood and tiny pieces of the broken lock flew around and clanged to the floor. "Hey, Brainiac," said the redheaded girl, who had just kicked the door open.

"Hi, Professor," came the softer voice of her companion – a voice that sounded so familiar, and came from a face he recognised. She seemed different, though. "Guess who?"

"Carly? I thought you were sick."

"I'm over that." She glanced down and the tattered and muddy ends of her borrowed clothing, and made a face. "I can see how you might think that." Scarred and marked from Mika and Robyn, pale and clammy skinned with impending illness, and sore from her mishaps in the sewers, Carly knew she was not looking her best. She did not feel top bad though.

"Do you know why we're here?" asked Robyn. The professor shook his head and shrank back into his seat. "Do you want to know?"

"I don't think I do. But I'm sure you'll tell me anyway."

Robyn looked at him, rarely suppressing the urge to feed, knowing it was only because of the waves of fear rolling from him. "There's no need to be scared."

Carly raised her eyebrows and glanced at him, then back at Robyn. The professor looked pretty calm to her, like he thought he was in control. "How do you know that he's scared?" She asked the question not for her own benefit, but for that of Andrew.

"Because people smell so much more appetising when they're scared. Fear is so appealing." Robyn smiled and glanced from her razor sharp fingernails to the frightened man. A plan was forming in her mind and Carly had a horrible feeling that she knew what was coming. If the professor had not been scared before, he definitely was now. Robyn leaned over the desk and rested her middle finger over his cheekbone. "Relax. I just want to know you. I want to know you from the inside."

"It's best not to resist her," Carly advised him. "It hurts less if you just let it go."

Robyn dragged her finger across his cheek, slicing skin and drawing blood, noticing that his skin had seemed harder to break than Mika's had. Perhaps because she was unused to tearing human skin with fingernails, perhaps because she was thinking about causing deliberate pain more than she had in a long time. Carly had not been about causing pain but getting information. The professor was about fun. Bloood sprang from the slash and Robyn collected it up with a quick flick of her hand by his fist. She looked at him, showing him his own blood then licked it from her finger. "You taste funny," she grumbled.

Andrew saw a little more of his blood squeeze from the cut and roll down his face to drip onto the pages on the desk. "What are you doing?"

Carly moved forward. He saw no malice in the way she carried herself but was scared none the less. "You always bossed me around. When I was studying for my degree, and when I was your info girl, I did what you told me to. But now I'm in charge. We're in charge. We ask the questions, you give us the answers we want or..." Carly looked meaningfully at Robyn. "She'll hurt you. Bad. And I won't stop her."

"I have blood on my hands," Robyn shrieked. "Blood of the damned." Robyn refused to listen to the voices, but knew that she could not stop them channelling through her. There was no point in pretending the pleas of the dying stars were not part of her. "We're dying and we have your selfish actions to thank for it."

"Robyn." Carly shook her gently. "We have work to do here." They were helping the stars that Robyn claimed to be attuned to. If they could not see that, Carly had to wonder if she wasn't making it all up or exaggerating it. "I know they're dying and they need us to help. But we can't do that if they don't give us the time."

"We don't have time. The final hours of time are upon us."

Andrew sat up, wiping the cut on his cheek, wincing at the sting, and frowned. He had a spooky feeling he now knew what the two women were here for. And they had it all wrong. This was not the end of time. Well, it was but only for a moment until it started again in the new pure world.

"You're not the angels."

Robyn grinned and perched herself on the very corner of the oak desk, swinging her legs and balancing perfectly. "Mm. About that..."

SEVENTEEN

"I know you're there. I know who you are. I know what you want."

"Do you, indeed?"

Mika and Robyn stepped out of the shadows of the trees, only torn clothing and fresh blood stains to reveal their inhuman natures, and stared down the girl who had come looking for them. Hunting them. As much as they hated to admit it, this girl – not fearsome to look at – was the only thing either of them knew of that could hold power of them.

The girl turned cold grey eyes on them and faced them fearlessly. "You want me for a fight. You want to hurt me. Well, congratulations, you did a great job of it. You monsters killed the closest thing I had to a friend since I came home, and you'll pay for that."

Mika looked his opponent over, finding it hard to believe that this slip of a woman could strike fear into the heart of every demon that still walked the Earth. But, he knew, appearances could be deceptive. For nobody could have guessed that Robyn held even a fraction of the strength and ability that she did just by looking. "We had to let you know of our arrival... and what better way to do it than with a dead body."

"Especially of some-one you had forged an attachment to. That just makes it so much sweeter." Robyn cracked her knuckles like she was preparing for a fight but Mika put a restraining hand on her chest. "And now you're angry. Your thirst for vengeance screams out. But I want something from you. And soon enough, you won't be avenging his death."

"You'll be fighting for your life."

Annie narrowed her eyes and bit her bottom lip – instincts telling her just to pile in for the fight, her brain telling her to hold back and wait for them to make a move. "Do you just make threats, or do you fight as well? Because if you want this necklace-"

Robyn's eyes lit up and she murmured in anticipation.

"It's what she wants, and I'll get it for her."

"If you want it," Annie said again. "Don't expect me to give it up when you kill every friend I make."

"That was not part of the plan but it might be a fun way to pass the time. Maybe we'll make you watch as we kill them all... one by one."

"You won't get this chain from me while there's still breath in my body." Mika decided that they would take that breath away, and was about to say as much when Robyn smiled at him, latching on to his train of thought, and Annie spoke again. "And I'm not ready to die yet. So we can fight, we can make this hurt, but you will not take this away from me."

Robyn had heard the stories about the necklace holding certain powers, and she had to wonder if these stories were not true. There had to be something special about it if Annie was willing to protect it with her very life. Robyn mainly wanted the necklace because it was pretty and unusual – forged in times before even her birth, an ancient amulet of supposed strength which would be around forever.

"Is it special?" she asked, hoping that she would be caught off guard by the straight-forward question. Her hopes only half came true.

"Robyn, baby," said Mika. "Of course it's special. Otherwise, why would our little Warrior be willing to die for it? You are willing to die for it?"

"Of course I am. I risk my life every night hunting and obliterating your kind. I am given over to the protection of innocents. People or blessed amulets. It matters not for I shall protect them from your sort of darkness."

Robyn giggled with mirth. There was only one sort of darkness. And not even the Warrior of Night could protect them from what was already inside them. The fact the she still deluded herself that she could prevent them from getting what they wanted amused Robyn. "Do you think you can stop us?"

"Maybe I can't, but I have to try."

"You will die trying," Mika told her, a degree of certainty in his voice. If the necklace would make his Robyn happy, she would have it. If keeping the girl alive in chains so Robyn could find pleasure in the screams she would hear, then he would not deny her that.

"So, they weren't angels at all but the worst kind of demons?"

"Apocalypse demons," Robyn repeated, a gleam of mischief playing in her eyes. She liked to scare people. "That's what you thought to unleash on this poor, poor world."

Everything clicked now and she backed away. It all fell into place with a unexpected bang. Why he seemed so scared at her arrival. Why he looked so confused. Because he did not know himself the reality of what was really going on. He was still under the illusion that he had summoned good demons to keep peace until this New World came into being. Where there would be no pain or misery, and everyone would live happily ever after.

"We have some things to tell you. So you need to listen. Then, we have some questions that you will answer, or..."

Carly winced and sucked air in through her teeth as she slid the badly fitting top from her shoulder to reveal the angry red mark where a hot poker had been pushed through her shoulder. The pain came flooding back as she touched it but she tried to let it wash over her. "Or, we'll match," she finished. Carly dared not show the numerous other burns and healing injuries she had sustained for fear of scaring him into silence. He already looked petrified at just the possible fate in store for him, and Carly was shocked to find that she felt nothing at her own cruelty. She told herself it was not nasty, just stating the facts, and felt a little better at frightening the man. "See, we know what's happening out there. What's really happening." She covered her shoulder up again and folded her arms as she talked, keeping one eye on Robyn, who she thought might express her love of violence again at any moment and half a mind on Mika who she wished she could keep an eye on in case he hurt himself again.

"He'll be alright," Robyn said as if knowing what was going through Carly's mind. Carly did not question it, now just about getting to grips with this unique ability of Robyn's to read people with unsettling accuracy. "He can't hurt himself. He told me that you can't hurt yourself in a dream."

Carly wondered if Robyn had been a fool to let herself believe that dreams never hurt worse because they were not real, or whether it was just her reliance on Mika to be her provider that had let her believe in him. She pushed the thought to the back of her mind, turning her attention back to the frightened professor.

"It's actually a shame and I feel sorry for this whole world." Robyn locked her elbows as she gripped the desk. "Because they don't know, you don't know. You'll get your New World. But you shan't be here to see it."

"I'm pure; incapable of hurting another human being." Andrew Wright lied; he was not incapable, just unwilling. "If I don't give in to the anger and don't hurt anyone, I'll be okay. I'll get through it if I stay strong. Those people out there – hurting one another for no reason at all. They're weak. They have no place in our Paradise."

"They have no place," repeated Robyn, rolling the phrase around her mouth. It felt strangely good to know that human beings were not the top of the evolutionary chain though, of course, she had known that for a long time. But it left a bitter after taste of guilt and helplessness... and the weirdest hint of familiarity. Familiarity that she would be condemned to an eternity of pain in the fires of Hell? That image suddenly held even less appeal that ever before. "Because you don't have the courage or the knowledge to tell them what they're supposed to be fighting." She hopped down off the desk, still only millimetres from the shafts of evening sunlight spilling through the blinds.

Andrew looked distinctly unimpressed by the speeches and cloaked threats and, though he was trying to hide his fear Robyn and Carly could both see it in the way he sat with his shoulders, he picked his pen up and retook the pretence of marking papers. "I'm a bad man. Is that what you wanted to hear?"

Now Carly, not Robyn, was pissed off. She strode over to him and wrenched his pen away, throwing it angrily across the room. Robyn watched in amusement but did not try to stop her. Carly knew she didn't have the ability to make people feel utter despair in a few words the way Robyn could, but she would make the professor regret his arrogance if it took her an hour to do it. "You brainless, stupid little man!

"Those people out there are scared. They don't know what they're scared of but they are. And you... you couldn't even tell them what was going on – that everything was gonna be okay. You didn't even know enough about this to tell them that, that one beautiful lie. You're just foolish and ignorant and... and..."

"I think the word you're searching for is obnoxious. Or possibly arrogant."

How gare he correct her like she was still a student? "I was about to say up your own arse. But if it makes you feel better to use pretentious words then I really mean up your own arse. You went headlong into this spiralling apocalypse situation without knowing that everyone would die and go to Hell, regardless of whether they had hurt people or not. You called down these demons that you foolishly thought could be good."

"No demon in this dimension or any other could be good," added Robyn. "They all have the same inborn desire to create total destruction where-ever they go. It's part of our nature." She smiled a little as she said our. Carly thought that it was now more of a mask to cover her new-found sense of disloyalty to her kind, that simple pride – though she could not discount that likelihood.

"You didn't even consider the possibility of there being such dire consequences to what you were doing. You didn't even wonder why you had never heard of these supposed angel-demons. You were – are – stupid and full of it. And now you're gonna pay the price for your mistakes."

Robyn clapped, an insane smile plastered over her face, feeling a surge of pride for the girl. Mika would have been proud of her, how intimidating even a hman could be. But Robyn, even a Robyn who was just as lethal as Mika, her champion, was looking at this girl who had just been incredibly scary and could see how much potential she showed. If only she chose to nurture it, make it grow... "You scared him," she noted. "You are scared?"

Andrew kept an indifferent, impassive expression but he could not hide hiss fear hidden from Robyn. His pen drummed furiously on his desk. He said nothing but thoughts were whirring around his head. So what if he was doing something that might be considered evil? Was it not better to give the human race a chance to start all over again in a world that was clean and pure? Though, each thought he had, each question he raised his head, was paired with what if. What if these two strange women were right to accuse him of being foolish.

"See, maybe this pure, untouched world might come into being. But no-one's going to be around to see it. Not you, not me, not any-one." Robyn was in the flow now and had to put it bluntly. If she tried to make it fluffy and less real, how would he really understand what he had done. "Even if you know enough to fight it, it will still kill you in the end. It will still send you to Hell with the rest. Because you don't know that by setting this up, you condemned us. And now, the only thing standing between the world as it was and its' obliteration is us."

"And Mika," Carly added.

"So you're going to tell us where we can find this shaman and find out how to stop this."

Andrew still could not understand exactly what was going on, and how it could possibly be considered a bad thing to separate the good from the bad. He still could not get to grips with the idea that there was no real definitive line between untouched and tainted. "Maybe I do rush in and commit myself to a project before I know the whole story. But how did I initiate the apocalypse?"

"That doesn't matter now. It only matters that you did, and that you tell us how to stop it?"

"Bloody hell, Carly. I don't know how I started it; how am I supposed to know how to stop it?" Andrew looked over to the window and, for the first time in ages, prayed for some stressed out student to barge in for help on a paper, just so he could break the intensity in the office.

All three could feel the air in the room was tight with tension. Robyn delighted in it, almost gleeful that she, at such an age, could instil such fear and awe in a mortal. Because most of them thought that they could never be scared, or be this frightened, due to the increasing horrors that they had been exposed to, and had become hardened to. Even Robyn had been a little shocked at how much they could take at first. Now she knew there had to be no holding back. But Carly had surprised. Her fear was so real and deep-seated, so tempting, that Robyn could almost taste it. And that was why Carly had come with he. Robyn still had the self-control that Mika had lost – he could easily forget himself and feed off her. And Carly was glad she had come, even though she somehow felt less safe than she had back at the house – exposed, vulnerable, as if she could be really hurt by this now she was in it. She was glad because it was oddly fun to scare people and put the fear of God into them – even more fun when that person was her ex-boss. Maybe that was Robyn and Mika's influence, maybe she was being affected by the floating anger and it was not really her.

Maybe it was really her. Maybe she was changing.

"I know who you are," Annie said again. "I know you're Robyn, and you're Mika, and that you're the most infamous and respected of your kind in the whole of the underworld."

Mika pretended to lower his head in embarrassed pride. He moved his feet and relaxed into the position of one foot in front of the other. Ready to bounce into action at any given moment. "You know quite a lot don't you? How about you tell us a few more things about us."

"I know that you prefer to use your fists in a fight rather than weapons."

Robyn bared her teeth and willed them to elongate, just for a moment, into fangs. "These are our weapons. Death-dealers." She had not adopted the battle-ready stance that Mika had; old and experienced enough to be able to swing into battle from any position.

"I know something else," Annie whispered, her voice steadily growing louder and harder with each syllable. "I know that I'm not scared of you." The three of them had fought before, all over Europe in fact, and she was sure that she knew every move in their repertoire. However, she could not be complacent. She was always wary of either of them trying something new and getting one over on her. Yes, she had to be cautious.

Mika raised an eyebrow, took off the tie he had worn and tossed it to the floor with his jacket, and looked at her. "You're really not scared, are you." It was not a question, but a fact. It was never good news when opponents, victims, who-ever, were no longer scared of them. "However, since you will know you're fate before sunrise, that isn't a problem."

"Murder, death, blood. Such pretty, pretty words."

"Nobody said those words," Annie pointed out.

Mika smirked, knowingly. Annie didn't know as much as she thought she did. But Mika knew. He had thought those words, and Robyn, as finely attuned to him as he was, had picked up on them. "They did," he murmured. "Just you couldn't hear them."

Robyn took the grips from her hair and trod them into the ground, carefully marking her territory. Slowly, hypnotically, she rubbed her hand through her hair and felt the tumbling sensation of it falling down around her head in locks of red curls and waves. "Better now. But you –" she pointed at Annie. "You are a bad girl. Thinking you are a good girl, pretending to be an angel and ridding the world of some of the bad things. Only, you're a bad thing too. Like us even. Thriving on violence and death and borne of darkness. Except we're honest about it. Mika, baby, kill the naughty girl. Kill her for your little birdie."

Mika glanced at her making little flapping movements with her hands as if she were ready to fly away. He smiled, then turned his attention to Annie, who subconsciously curled one hand around the heart pendant but keeping her fighting stance. He knew that Robyn wanted the necklace and Mika would die to get it for her if it would make her happy. He also knew that this Warrior would protect it with her life it cane to it and wondered whose death it would end with. "She wants what you have."

Mika stepped closer, but Annie did not back away, one eye always drawn to the commanding gaze of Robyn. "The necklace." She tore her eyes away from Robyn and stared at Mika.

"The power."

Annie blinked and flashed a hard fist into his face. Mika staggered back a few steps, thinking that she seemed to have learnt to hit harder since their last... meeting. He worked his jaw with his fingers and lashed out with a return punch.

Even in Mika's reality of – well, reality, he could still feel the strength of the hit, though he had not even touched anything. He wondered if it would bruise. But, he worried mostly about why he could still feel the force of a fight from centuries past. Real or not – he had not decided yet – he moved his chin around and prodded it with an exploratory finger, then turned his gaze in the general direction from which he thought the hit had come from.

"I'm touched."

Then he felt his side being punched or kicked, thankfully on the other side from his healed BB wound, because although it no longer hurt he was wary about re-opening it. He grunted, a reflexive sound forced up from the pit of his stomach. Out shot his left arm, locked straight, and whirled around, hopefully straight-arming his invisible opponent. "Not nice."

An invisible foot, probably a foot, kicked into the pressure point behind one denim-clad knee, then the other, and he fell forward letting his momentum roll him over to his back. He stared up towards the ceiling, but seeing something before his eyes got there.

He was laughing because none of this could be real.

He was laughing because none of this could not be real.

Annie stared at the flattened man beneath her. It seemed a little unreal that he would go down so easily, but she knew that this was only the build up to the finale. She had a horrible feeling she knew what Mika and Robyn wanted to happen; she also knew that she would not let them have their own way. She would be there to see their ends.

"Get up!" she spat. Nothing she was doing tonight – most nights, in fact – wouldn't be considered very ladylike by any stretch of the imagination, though Annie was never much for ladylike. "I believe we have a fight to be settled."

Mika did a backwards roll and jumped to his feet. He stepped back and delivered a perfectly executed roundhouse spin kick to her middle and she doubled over to protect her muscles from tearing. She looked up at him, hate flashing in her eyes. Of course, she had anticipated this and was not surprised at the injury, but she had found that if she let her anger rise up in her and fill her up, she could feed off the strength of emotion. It fuelled her, and gave her strength. She decided that Robyn would watch Mika die. Mika gave her a second kick in the stomach, not quite so hard but, hard enough that she felt it. He could see that look in her eyes and knew that she would kill him if he did not act quickly. So, Mika acted.

But, it was not quick enough.

Mika stepped backwards and flung himself into a back flip so that he could allow Robyn to step up and take a shot at the girl. Annie lunged forward and grabbed one of his legs as he went over. His momentum took her over with him and she landed with a yelp inches from his feet. Her eyes took a moment to readjusted but she wasted no time in twisting her arms around one leg and throwing him, aided by a painful foot in the groin, into the tree a few metres away. Annie flicked herself up and immediately reached behind her and lifted Robyn up by her armpits and flipping her onto the leafy mulch underfoot. The sun had not reached the wet patches deeper in the woods and they still squelched at times, when some-one stood there. "You know I can hear you squeaking behind me."

Mika stood up and looked from one girl to the other. "You hurt her," he accused, of course knowing the Robyn was no more injured than he. Just playing again. "Now, I feel the need for..."

"Payback." Robyn sat up and picked a dry leaf from her hair.

Mika grinned and held a hand out to his lady to help her up. Annie eyed him with suspicion, still wary of one who put the safety of another before his own survival. Chivalry was dead.

"Payback," he echoed. And jumped straight up to grab onto a high tree branch.

He hung there, barely moving or feeling the strain on his muscles. Effortlessly, Robyn leapt up to join him. She let herself swing from her position before slowing to a halt, knowing that the actions were pointless other than to provide her own amusement as Annie tried frantically to grasp one of her legs and pull her down. Annie lacked the supernatural defiance of gravity and could not reach. Realizing this, she just stood beneath the branch and looked up into the darkness of the foliage. She didn't see them swing upwards to stand on their hands, nor did she hear the rustle of leaves and whistle of air when they swooped down towards her... but she did feel the impact of a foot on the back of her head; a blow which sent her flying into a fall which she neatly turned into a roll, and one which could have caved in the skull of anyone else. Annie knew that a possible fractured skull was the least of her worries right now. Not even waiting to hear some-one behind her, Annie dropped to her hands and knees andshot her left leg out in a wide arc, sweeping out the legs of her attacker.

She wondered if this was it. Was this what it felt like to be totally in tune with yourself, and with your heritage – being able to just know where the next assault was coming from? Her instincts were taking over. Maybe being connected to so much strength was the only thing giving her the courage to face these... these monsters. But, she had no time to ponder this notion, nor the inclination to care.

Yes, she was strong. She could really feel the power in her.

Yes, this had to be it. There could not be any more.

"Warrior. I am a Warrior." She turned to stare at Robyn, again lying prone on the ground, wearing the tattered blue dress and black velvet boots. "Warriors don't give up when things get tough." She kicked Robyn in the stomach before she or Mika had the chance to anticipate her next move. And again she kicked her.

At which point, Mika, fearing for his lover, hopped down and cracked her head against the tree. He knew it might not keep her down for long but, rather than worrying he might not have enough time to run away, he was banking on it. The softly-moaning Robyn had begun to think up a delicious plan for her death. Mika helped her to her feet and grinned. This would be a long, hard fight, one to remember, it would take everything and use it all up. Then nothing would be left but glorious death. The final reward.

And there would not even be the strength to fight it.

Annie was running for her life, running away. Her life could very well depend on getting out of these dangerous woods before Mika and Robyn could get hold of her again. If she could just get into the open where they would have no place to hide and spring on her; where the open space would give her the advantage. In a clearing, they could not jump on her by surprise. Also, it gave her the room she needed to fight effectively. She had done well surrounded by trees, finding many branches and stumps around which she could improvise assaults, but found they were very unforgiving when bested and tossed into one. Foliage like that, thick and usually beautiful as it was, made too much noise and seemed to always give away her position.

The warrior girl did not feel like much of a warrior at the moment. How brave and courageous was it to run away? Running from it was not heroic. Though Annie was tired beyond belief, and injured beyond pain, she knew that she was being cowardly. True Warriors adapted to any situation, but Annie just couldn't. She wasn't worthy of her title.

Footsteps sounded behind her, seeming to drag slightly on the ground. Mika was not running to catch the girl, he was just walking up behind her. A bringer of fate that could never be outrun. His head was bleeding a little and his muscles had started to ache. This was unusual – he hardly ever grew weary during battle. He reasoned that this was no ordinary fight, and had lasted much longer already than any previous struggle. Mika thought that he might have dislocated his shoulder, and purposely worked his arm back and forth to let the resulting pain carry him onwards.

Annie ran on, heading for the gap in the trees, glancing back every few steps, hoping against hope that she might have shook him off, but he was always there a few yards away. Breathing hard, Annie blindly pushed her way through the last of the trees, to find her way blocked by Robyn right before her. How had she managed to forget about her? Robyn slapped her across one cheek, and she clamped one hand over the stinging area of flesh.

"You slapped me." Annie took her hand away and looked at Robyn, just knowing that Mika was standing right behind her. "You never slap a lady."

"You run around showing copious amounts of flesh, and getting into such rough brawls, and you talk about being ladylike?"

"Robyn," said Mika. "She wants to be a lady, let her be a lady."

Robyn broke into another smile that Annie only knew that more pain was on its' way. The expression told of an untold conversation. "Ladies," she began scornfully. "Ladies do nothing other than live and die. They are not educated, are not meant to understand things, are not meant to put a foot out of line or they get beaten."

"Is that the kind of person you want to be?"

Of course it wasn't. Real ladies could not fight for what was right, they never stooped so low as to face these creatures. But Annie was doing the work of a thousand others by making sure real ladies would never have to know about the monsters that inhabited their world.

"You can't win this," she breathed. Her soft Welsh accent showed itself now. "I can't let you."

Robyn held her gaze for a moment or two. Annie found that she could not look away and could hear her whispering to her, even though no-one was speaking. There were words in a language she knew was English, she couldn't hear a syllable, though she understood only that Robyn couldn't let her live, wouldn't let her live. While she could not define the words being said in her mind, the meaning was clear as day.

"You don't know anything," Robyn spat and slapped the professor. "Nothing."

"Robyn!" warned Carly. "Stop hitting him."

Robyn like slapping him though. "But, it's fun." She was stronger than him, and that feeling of having power over some-one, being superior, better, never faded. It was just as exciting and warming now as it had been hundreds of years ago. But that reasoning quickly gave way to the cold reality that she simply enjoyed pain. Giving it, receiving it, it was all the same to her. Almost ecstasy, really. To Robyn, pain was an aphrodisiac... one that gave her an incredible high. "Try it," she offered.

Carly declined the offer and felt bad that she had done so, because it was probably a huge sacrifice for Robyn to allow some-one else to play with her new 'toy'. "No thanks. See, Prof, I don't get it. Why can't you just be happy with the world the way it is... was? We all live here and we don't try to end it."

"It's because you're too scared to change things."

"No." That really wasn't the case. Carly was happy with the world the way it was. Well, not happy exactly, who would be when people get killed and scarred and have to fill their arms full of poison just to get through the day? What was her point? Carly couldn't remember for a second or two. "We're not scared – just living." For what would life be without weapons and drugs and hate? It would be nothing – a life not worth living. "See, there's a really big difference between fearless and clueless. There's clueless, that would be you for being to afraid to live in a possibly dangerous real world, and trying to change it into a nice safe New World." She folded her arms and shot a quick look at Robyn, looking like a young child in the way she held herself, but with a wicked, ageless gleam in her eye. "And then there's fearless, which would be her for being brave enough to risk everything to keep it how it should be."

Everything? Robyn wasn't sure about that, no-one had said anything about everything. She couldn't lose Mika. She loved him and he loved her – they had lived and loved forever. But forever obviously didn't mean anything any more, it was just another word. "Do you want to see where angels live?"

"Not really," said Andrew. "I'm not ready." He knew that was not a strong argument. Who cared about ready? Things just happened and you dealt with them.

"Robyn, I said no killing. Actually, I said no hitting but I meant killing too."

"So, you're not going to kill me?"

"No, she's not sending you to heaven just yet." Robyn made her sad, whining noise. "You're going to hell!" A smile now. "Least, that's where you would be going if your horrible and bloody murder were on the cards."

"No killing, remember." Robyn ran her fingers through her hair and began to twist one lock around her fingers. "No. The sun is coming. No more darkness. I'll get lost in the light."

"As you can see, we don't have much time to stop it. In fact, we're already too late, I read that."

"It was you two," he accused, pointing the finger. "You broke into the Crash Room and stole the disks."

"Big deal. I think we have slightly more important things to worry about, don't you? Like – I don't know – the impending apocalypse!"

"Apocalypse," Robyn echoed. "There will be fire everywhere, and so, so much screaming. No blood, but we will swim through oceans of tears, or drown in a sea of corpses."

"How do we stop it?"

"I don't think you can. I mean, it's so late. It's all set to happen, whether you want it to or not."

"Whether _we_ want it to?" Carly was shocked. She had not thought that there was anything left which could shock her, but he had left her stunned. That meant that Andrew actually did want it to go ahead. "You know you'll be going down with the rest of us, right?" Maybe he had not known or believed it before, but it was time for him to. "One of the damned... the condemned... paying for a life of sin... punished for breaking the laws of nature."

"You know, there's a circle of Hell reserved for people like you." Of course, Robyn didn't know that for certain, she had never been to Hell, but she had an idea that there was. "A special place for arrogant, pricky scientists who think they have the right to play God. And you'll be stuck there in eternal pain and torment. And every-one will forget you."

No, Andrew didn't want to be forgotten. To him, that was worse than being remembered for doing something truly awful. "It's too late to stop it. But there may be a chance we can slow it down for a while."

"How?"

"Carly, you may be trying to threaten me with your little friend here but never forget that I am still your superior."

Carly and Robyn looked at each other through lowered eyelashes, and shared a secret smile that meant that they both knew that he was scared and ready to bow to their every command. Carly was sure she should be horrified that she could smile about this but, in truth, she wanted to smile, rather liking the buzz of having such power over some-one, who had once had control over her. "Superior? Okay." What was the point of arguing it out now? Carly knew what the situation really was, she was in no doubt that Andrew did too, but decided to leave it on the grounds that it would be a waste of time and breath.

Robyn sidled around the desk to his side and fingered through the mass of papers on his desk. Some of them fell on the floor, but if either of them noticed, they did not move to pick them up. She picked up one paper and read through it quickly, not understanding any of it. "Lots of words. They make no sense to me."

Robyn planted one foot on his seat and kicked out with just enough to set him sailing across the room and not into the filing cabinet. "Didn't hit him." She located the drawer underneath the top. It was locked. It was no effort for her to twist the handle hard enough to break the lock, little metal pieces could be heard shattering and clinking together inside the lock cavity, and yank the drawer open. More papers and other stationery were inside. Robyn took out a handful and dropped it on the floor, then simply brushed the rest to one side until she could see the thing she was looking for. "Bad machine. Easy to break – almost as easy as bone."

"Computer." Carly went round and looked at the dusty screen of the laptop. "Is there anything useful on there?"

Andrew stumbled over his words. "P-probably nothing you haven't s-seen before." But yes, it was useful to him. He knew how to use the stuff stored in his files, and he was damned if he was going to tell these two little girls what it all meant.

"Oh, you silly little man. You're already damned... so it really won't make a difference." Robyn could practically see the thoughts swirling in Andrew's head. Absently, she grabbed her hair and swung it over one shoulder, giving him the merest glimpse of a vicious burn. Was that going to happen to him?

He wouldn't be able to stand a burn like that, and wondered how this Robyn woman could bear it. But he saw that she did not bear it or struggle through it, she seemed to hardly notice it and, when she did, she looked a little proud. Andrew wondered if she was proud of having gone through such torture, probably being scarred for life, and still being here to tell the tale. Or rather show the tale. "Who hurts you? Does some-one hit you?"

"Only when I want him to. He keeps me in check when I'm a naughty girl. I'm a bad, bad little bird. I fly where I'm not supposed to go."

Carly cleared her throat and looked up. "No argument here." Her knees started to buckle beneath her, now weak from the pressure of pain she had been resolutely ignoring, and she gripped the desk to stop from falling completely. Robyn clamped one hand over her wrist and held her tight. "Ow! You're starting to hurt me now." Robyn released her arm and shrugged.

"Don't want two bodies to take back. Though we could have a mighty feast." And she was gone again, into her dream world, lost to fantasy. Carly decided not to pull her out of that world for a few minutes; she seemed happy there at the moment, and Carly could talk to her old tutor for a minute.

"Information. You have it, we want it."

Andrew rolled his chair back to the desk and stared at the girl he used to be able to tell what to do. God, she had grown up so much since last time he had seen her. Her face was full of fading bruises and healing wounds which, admittedly, gave her the look of a vulnerable child, but something had given her an edge. Where before, she would have been content just to sit back and let things happen, she was different now... wanted to change things. It was humbling to see that quality, that drive in a girl he had taught; even more so to see it in a girl of her tender years – she was only 22. "Carly," he began, hoping that a softer voice would appeal to the side of her that wouldn't let Robyn hurt him. "I could tell you everything on those files but there is absolutely nothing there could stop this. There's also nothing on this earth that could make me tell you that." If he was going to create a pure world, one where nobody ever hurt each other, why the hell would he want to stop that happening? He told himself that he was not just thinking of himself here, but for future generations to have a nicer world to live in.

"She could. You're scared shitless of her, I can see it. She'd kill you to get that information, and you know what? I'd watch." She probably wouldn't watch, but she didn't think she would stop it either. "The Earth is about to get burned up and we're going with it. I wanna stop that from happening because no-one deserves that, no matter how horrible and twisted they are." No, not even Mika and Robyn deserved tat. Anyway, they had to have some spark of goodness in them if it had been their idea to sae humanity in the first place. Or maybe they just wanted to keep their food supply alive and kicking. It didn't really matter about the whys; just the fact that they were doing something good had to be enough. "Now, do I have to wake Robyn up, or will you come quietly?" He shut the laptop and clasped his hands together over the top, and spoke two quiet, meaningful words of confirmation. "You've changed."

EIGHTEEN

Mika scrambled to his feet and looked around the room to see who was assaulting him. Of course, there was no-one there. He didn't understand – it had felt so real, every punch, kick and bruise. It felt real, like it was happening at that moment, but it was all in his head. No-one was in the room with him, and there was no way anyone could have gotten in and out. Except there did not need to be a physical presence in the room to be causing him pain as the scene playing itself out in his head was enough.

It really should not happen, but it had. He had been attacked by the spell to create eternal light, and suffered some adverse reaction. He was remembering the worst thing he had done – only it didn't really feel wrong, it was nothing special – and he was reliving the moments. Robyn had been taken, at will, to a world populated by the pain of the stars. Whereas Mika had forced himself to travel back to a world populated by the pain of the righteous, of the angels. It was a world that he no longer considered himself to be part of, but a spark of humanity in him had been somehow ignited and he was part of that time, whether he thought he belonged there or not.

It occurred to him that he did not know why he was reliving this right now. Why was he being forced to feel human emotion about a time when he had none? He wasted no extra thought on this, finding himself being propelled to the door by a driving hunger. He didn't feel very hungry, the need to feed should not have arisen for a couple of nights, but the promise of the purest blood in his mind was taking control. Anything would do – he just needed to feel that warm, silky sensation of fresh blood trickling down his throat. All he would be taking was another meaningless life that no-one would ever notice. So, it didn't matter who he picked on.

Of course, who he killed had never really mattered to him. It was all about ensuring the survival of yourself, and those you loved.

They were closing in on her.

Annie was lying, dazed, on the floor. She had taken some major punishment over the last hour, and had a certain feeling that they weren't going to let this end quickly. Why couldn't they show a little mercy and just let this whole thing be over? But that wasn't what they did, showing mercy or compassion was not a concept they recognised. Or if they did, they had long since forgotten it.

She saw Robyn and Mika standing over her, so close but looking a little blurred, and felt tears begin to roll down the side of her face. They looked so human at the moment, so ordinary, but they were anything but. Neither had sustained much damage other than cuts and bruises; Annie was sure that she had heard some of their bones break, but also knew that they had a supremely high pain threshold – abnormally so, even for their kind – and looked as though they were ready to go another round. Annie wearily struggled to her feet, sure that her arm was broken. Blood poured from a gash over her right eye and she was bleeding from dozens of other cuts.

"I don't think I've ever hated anyone so much as I hate you two."

"We aim to please."

Robyn was ready for more fighting and was a little disappointed when she saw that the so-called Warrior was in no shape to carry on. After a moment, a smile spread across her face as she realised that they could kill her now... and she could get her necklace.

Annie turned and limped away, trying to get up a little speed. She could not turn her severe limp into any kind of run, but at least got a tiny bit of distance between them. She reached into her torn boot and brandished a wooden cross with a pointed bottom. This was the last line of defence between her and them, now that she was injured too badly to fight on, and she held little hope. For a second, the other two hung back and seemed a touch hesitant to move from their safe spot.. Robyn let out a low, feral snarl on sight, the cross not being a thing she feared – fear was of no meaning to her – but something she had an automatic reaction to.

Mika chuckled at her and moved forward. "That all you've got left? Not enough little girl, not enough by half." And he leaped up and kicked it from her grip with a spin-kick. The force and precision of the blow not only took the cross away from her but, sent it spinning into the tree trunk that Robyn was leaning on and buried it there, point first. Robyn moved her head to the side as it whistled past her head.

"You think you are a warrior. Believe me, child, you don't even know what a true warrior is." Robyn threw her head back and began to laugh. "Don't know, don't know, don't know. You'll find out." It was practically their job to murder this child – this child who thought she was tough enough to defeat them. Her hair was messy, her dress torn, her skin scratched and bloody, but Robyn was having the best time of her life. Her appearance suggested burnt out muscles and severe damage to her body. Neither she nor Mika were showing any signs of slowing down.

So, this is what it was like to go against the world famous Warrior of the Night. Mika could just feel the drive coming from the girl, and he knew that she was something special. "This is the final fight, little girl. Are you ready to die?"

"Let's finish this."

"Do we get to kill her now, Mika? She's all... wrong. And you know how I dislike wrong people." All this play and no kill. Annie was just giving them the run around, wasn't she?

Mika nodded and advanced on the seemingly helpless girl. She had become immobilized by fear and the knowledge that she had nothing else to throw at them. Mika and Robyn were famed throughout their circles as two of the strongest and most ruthless of their kind. They both seemed, quite rightly, proud of that fact and were dead set upon maintaining that reputation. Annie knew full well that, had they wanted to, they could have killed her the very first time they had come to blows. But, that wouldn't have been much fun, would it? This is what it was all about – the hunt, the thrill of the chase. Knowing that lives literally hung on what happened next – it was such an adrenaline rush. And this is what it all came down to – a fight, and a kill. The words seemed somewhat anti-climactic after the tension that had been building between the three for so long. A kill was how every fight ended, but Annie had never before been on the wrong end of the result. Robyn stood over the girl and hauled her up by limp, lifeless arms. Annie had so much strength, so much potential, that she had never even touched.

"There is no good or evil in this world," she whispered, her voice hoarse as she looked up at Robyn through half-closed eyes. "There's just power. It's up to you what you do with it."

"It is, isn't it?" She felt Mika rest his head on her shoulder, and Robyn loosed one hand as she cupped his face.

"You want her, I can tell. Desire for her life... it's coursing through your veins and making you glow." He did not know if Robyn would like being told she glowed but, to him, she shone with energy and hope. Nothing before had seemed to infuse her with so much life, and Mika didn't think it would happen again.

Annie was only half conscious but she could still hear and see them standing over her, deep in discussion. With her free, though heavy, hand, she raised it to her chest and closed her fingers around the pendant. She had not removed it since she had been charged with it and had felt a constant stream of supernatural energy ever since. Now, she thought it might have given her all the energy it contained because, for the first time in years, she felt vulnerable. Mortal. "Kill me quickly. Please."

She didn't want to fight any more. She didn't want to suffer any more.

"Giving up already?" Mika wrapped Robyn's delicate, china-like Fingers in his and looked at her, darkly. "But, we want to play."

Mika blinked.

Had he really been that evil and uncaring?

It seemed wrong that he remembered all this and could still feel so good about it while it was going on in his head, and then feel so bad and remorseful when he snapped back into reality. Maybe he had changed – the closeness of this New World had ignited the tiny shred of mortal compassion he had left – maybe he was different from the Mika from those days. It was so easy to think up the possibilities of why this was happening but nothing could detract from the fact that it was happening, and he had to work through this before he could return to, what passed as, his normal self. And, suddenly it clicked – he was being reminded of how truly evil he could be. It made no sense at the same time because it wasn't difficult to get back to that level. Maybe it was not supposed to make sense.

"Robyn." He had to be with her now. She was the only one who could make this right. She was also the only one who would love a mass-murderer... how many people could lay claim to that? Mika stumbled to the front door and walked to the edge of the road. He closed his eyes and focused. It had never been hard to pick up her scent and it took only a moment before he decided that she had gone left towards the university.

University – a place of learning. Where children went for a few years and came out as adult. Part of him thought that only children would be foolish enough to want to join the rat race, but another part of him commended the fact that only the young wanted to become something that they weren't. It was evolution. The one human desire and tradition that did not die when a person ceased to be human. Mika had evolved beyond all human capabilities. There had been no educational institute involved in that process but that kind of transformation took more that most had to give.

It took life.

Although it was dark, the street was dimly lit by streetlights and, he could see the gleam of metal under the moon, he could hear the shouts of emotional civilians, the squeal of brakes and the revving of engines. Not long ago this would have been a heavenly vision for him – chaos and carnage everywhere... a good thing, surely – but now it seemed like hell. It was loud and painful and –

Heading straight for him!

A set of steel bull bars, attached to a speeding off-roader, ploughed into him and he went down beneath it. At the moment of impact, Mika could have sworn he'd seen a look of murderous intent in the driver's eyes. It was a look he recognised all too quickly... because it was raw and pure and unjustified hate. The large vehicle braked after he had disappeared underneath, one heavy tyre pressing almost five tonnes of car on his chest, pinning him to the road. Mika could feel intense pressure on his chest and knew that, while it would take him maybe a day to fully recover, any human would have been killed instantly on impact. But he was more than happy to play dead for a bit – it was more fun that way – and forced his screaming muscles to relax into the hard surface. The car did not reverse off him as it would any other time, and he could hear the clunk of a door and the crunch of boots on gravel as the driver got out and looked down at him. It took a huge effort to keep a wicked grin from sliding onto his face.

"Oh sorry mate," the driver said, his voice dripping with insincerity. "Didn't see you there."

How cliché. Robyn was close by and was calling out to him. He had to do what he had been born to do. He had to kill. The temptation of the kill was yanking at him – one man, ready for the taking. Something to sate his hunger, perhaps. Murder, blood, life. The pull of nature was so strong. He snapped his eyes open and stared up. "You can't kill me, mate," he mocked. "Already dead."

"What the hell..?"

"You may well ask. But I shan't tell." Mika braced himself for the effort and pushed the heavy vehicle off him, using a tremendous amount of strength and letting it crash onto its' side.

"What the hell..?" the driver said again, probably too dumb-founded to even think of any words.

As a demon, he had a duty and an innate desire to change and to feed. But the memories of what he had done held him back. Mika flicked himself to his feet in one fluid move...

And ran.

The nameless driver was left staring after him, open-mouthed, wondering about the strange person who seemed to be immortal and had effectively destroyed his mayhem machine.

"Do you think we should have left her?"

Mika was brushing the long hair of his dead lover and smelling her intoxicating fragrance – a mix of vanilla and energy. It had always been the perfume of choice, and never failed to excite him.

"Where could she go?" he asked.

Robyn felt his gentle hand moving across her flat abdomen. "Mmm. You say the nicest things to me." Robyn loved to hear his sweet talk; he knew exactly what to say or do to please her the most. She smiled as he circled both arms around her waist and rested his chin in the space between her shoulder blades. "Mika, what can we do now? That necklace is what we hunted her for. We risked it all for that, and now we have it, what do we do?"

"We torture her to your hearts content. We kill her, over as many days as is necessary." And Mika thought it was going to take a very long time for her to die. Annie had stamina and would not die easily. The fighters were always the most fun. "Then, we can do whatever you want, where-ever you like, and to who-ever you choose."

"Do you think we should feed her?"

"She'll keep until morning."

His fingers found the scratches along her stomach and she delighted in the jagged impulse it sent shooting to her brain. Mika traced each line with his forefinger, and wondered why Robyn had not allowed them to heal yet. Similarly, Robyn turned around and stroked the cut he had right down the side of his face, asking herself why he had left it. But both knew the answer – the pain turned them both on.

"I know exactly where to go after I get the necklace?"

"Where's that?"

She twisted a lock of hair in her fingers, distracting herself from the present. The future had caught her attention for the moment. "But we'll have to come back. We will be sorely needed. Everything will change, everyone will change too. Swapping sides. Everyone is swapping sides, even us."

"Robyn! Baby! Fly back to me, little bird." He shook her back into the real world and carried her over to the big bed. It had once belonged to a Mr and Mrs Rivers, who had had a rather unfortunate accident with one of their namesakes.

"I want to go to Paris. It's a beautiful city, with beautiful people. And such pretty corpses they will make." She looked at the man she loved and fingered the lace-edged bedspread she was lying on. "They all look pretty when they die. Peaceful, even."

"You look better," Mika decided. "None of that pesky mortality for us, my love."

"No. That went away with the pixies. Pixies with their dancing and their foolish optimism. Mika, I want to kill me some pixies. And trolls, and elves, and goblins."

"What about faeries?"

"Faeries have no voices. I won't be able to hear them scream," she sulked. Faeries just did not have the ability to vocalise their fear. Once, the tiny creatures had fascinated her, they were so fast and had such a wicked sense of fun. It had taken her a while to see their flitting movements, and it was much longer still to realise that they could speak but on such a high frequency that even her supernaturally enhanced hearing could not pick it up. "I want my pets to cry and scream. So full of hope and hopelessness, it makes my head ring."

"How does that work, baby? How does a head ring?" Ears rang and heads spun. That was how the sayings went. Mika knew that Robyn had her own logic behind everything she said and he only barely understood part of her. "I thought ears were the only things which ring."

"Not when I tear those ears off and let them ring in my mouth. Ooh, they jingle and make such a tune, Mika." One day she would teach him these things. One day.

Shirt in tatters over his scratched and bruised torso, Mika peel the strips of cloth from his body and rolled over onto his back. He stared down at the trickle of blood that had squeezed from one scratch and collected the liquid on one finger. Robyn laughed as he teasingly trailed the finger over her lips. Why did he tease her so? She stared up at the healing cut on his face, seeing the blood congealing and the skin beginning to knit together. Maybe he wanted Annie to see him unblemished – to make her see that she could never cause damage to him or his people.

Robyn wanted something very different.

"Baby?" asked Mika, now lying on his back, intent on counting the cracks in the ceiling.

"Mmm?"

"Why do you want to kill in Paris? It's full of French people." They had gone on a killing spree there many years ago, a farming village a few miles out of the city. It had not ended well, though the flames and screams would have been a joy if they had not been emanating from them. "French people who want to kill us."

"I do not need reminding, Mika." Perhaps the French had forgotten all about the savage murders of dozens of innocent men and women by young creatures of evil. Well, not forgotten about the murders but, there was a chance that they would not be recognised. "Anyway, they will only be a threat to us if we fail to kill them first."

A tired groan came from the other room.

"I think she's awake," Mika noted. "Let's leave her." Annie thought she was important here, wanted to be known to make a difference; surely, the ultimate mental torture for her was to be completely ignored.

"I have a better idea." Robyn sat up on the bed, and pulled him up to sit directly in front of her. "Let's make her suffer." She leaned in close to him and took him in, touching his core of his nature, absorbing the pure evil that only a demon could know.

From two rooms, there cane three voices, moaning and groaning in the most literal interpretation of the pleasure/pain principle.

Her naked body covered only by a single cotton sheet, Robyn propped herself up with an elbow and stared down at Mika. He looked so young and sweet when he was asleep. Peaceful, even. No – peace was for the dead. But no-one could have guessed the secrets he hid when he looked this innocent. She ran her forefinger along the almost vanished cuts on his face, knowing that the tiny lightning bolts her touch sent through him would always wake him. "Mika?"

"Hey, baby."

"I want to go play. She's not making any noise and I really want her to make some noise." The shrieks and sobs of a fallen Warrior were the sweetest sounds. No hope, nothing. The only nicer sound than that was the cry of a witch – their magic was strong but was never enough to keep them away. When there was so much strength and power around, Robyn liked to know that she was better than any mortal extremes.

"What are you so happy about?" He liked to see her happy and smiling, joy had been hard to come by in recent years. They always seemed to be fighting, more often than not with Annie, and it had been a while since they had been able to kill freely and bask in the afterglow... just because they could. "Why are you smiling?"

"We're in love. That means we hunt together." Okay, that was enough of a reason for Robyn to be grinning insanely, but she wasn't finished yet. "We do bad, bad things together. Shall we go and do them to the girl?"

"We'll cut her and feed from her. We can make her death so slow and painful, sje won't know what's hit her."

Robyn's eyes brightened. "But you will hit her, won't you?"

"If you want me to, love." A moan came from the other room and he heard Annie heartbeat quicken slightly as she woke up and found herself tied to a solid wooden post. "Shut up, girl," he snarled, angrily. Mika did not quite understand why a mere girl had made him angry, but he pushed the emotion away, becoming rather annoyed at her interruptions. "We're plotting you're endless torture here." Tired and frightened whimpers replaced the fatigued moans.

"Endless is forever, only there's not much point in it when she's dead," she objected. "Except the joy of getting rid of the body. All the fun of the fair." Their was a gypsy carnival coming to town next week. Where better to dump a corpse? Who better to take the blame than travellers?

"Why are you doing this to me?" whined Annie from the other room. "You could have killed me right away last night. Why must you draw it out like this?"

They made a point of not answering her question, but had she been able to see their reactions, the answer was written right over their faces.. it was almost sickening to see. Torturing people to death was their idea of a good time. Even worse than this, most horrific, truth was the fact that neither of them could see anything wrong with it. Mika had only just got to grips with the concept of making a murder slow and unbearable or the victim rather than simply snapping a neck or draining a body, but Robyn had been right. It was just as satisfying, if not more so in some circumstances. Why did most people think that this was more horrific than a sudden death? Also, why did all humans insist on struggling against them when they always knew they were going to lose?

"You're an evil, insane bitch!"

Robyn bridled slightly with an anger she knew shouldn't be there. She looked at Andrew with flashing eyes, dancing sparks of fire therein. "You call me that one more time and I'll gouge your eyes out. Then I shall use them as marbles," she threatened.

Andrew Wright was scared by her announcement, and the certainty that she really meant it. He made no further comment that might get him in her bad books – from the looks of the bedraggled, and now visibly flagging, Carly. Robyn's bad books were evidently a very bad place to be.

Robyn lifted her head and snuffled the air like a puppy picking up a familiar scent. A smell she recognised; one she had longed for, and had now come unhidden. "I can smell your fear," she informed him. "I knew you couldn't keep it veiled by false bravado for long."

"Remind me – why is it good to scare him?"

"Because, he won't dare to wrong us. The things I could do to a man who betrays me... it doesn't bear thinking about." Robyn spent the next few moments doing nothing but that – thinking of it. "No man gets away with doing me over."

"Have you ever heard about there being nothing so bad as a woman scorned?" Carly said to Andrew, trailing behind him in the sludgy sewer that Robyn seemed to prefer to the ground. "The wrath of a wronged Robyn is so much worse."

"The scary thing is I actually believe you. When you two came to my office today, I thought you were just two little girls who'd come up with some cock and bull story about how this was the end of everything. You looked like kids with big fantasies, and were just frightened about this. Now, I'm beginning to get you. You're two young-" Robyn snorted but offered no explanation for it, and broke into a smile for no apparent reason. "Young, powerful women with a strong grip on reality. I know this is wrong and stupid but I know you can make it right." He hoped that sounded as if he had complete faith in them.

"Flattery will get you everywhere," said Robyn, trying her hand at playing the tough chick who still liked girly clichés.

"Flattery can also get you a bit dead," shot back Carly, looking down a side tunnel as she passed. Death was pretty much a non-starter for Robyn, but she was there to protect them as well as turn the frighteners on. "Uh – Robyn? Demon."

Andrew looked down the tunnel on instinct but instantly knew exactly what he was seeing, and wished he had not. Because there, at the corner, stood a monster. The white and blue ice-cream colours of its body glowed eerily in the dim night light coming through the grating. Eyes that seemed to glow red stared backed at him. This monster was one of the supposed angels he had called down. The girls had called them apocalypse demons and he just knew that they were right. "Oh great, the sun hasn't killed me yet, so that thing'll do it instead." Trading one horrible, unnatural fate for another – wasn't he lucky?

The eyes of the Alvareshnik opened a little wider as footsteps thundered up behind it, and the universal language of screams was once again as it fell to its' knees. Robyn grinned, Andrew looked shocked, and Carly was just relieved as the creature fell silent and crashed to the tunnel floor following a sudden crack of bone, leaving no doubt as to what had happened. But, while it waited the few seconds it took for death to claim the demon, it groaned and writhed in agony. Sharp claws sprang out from webbed fingers as the demon lost control and its' muscles tensed; a broken spine arched reflexively. Death transcended the physical constraints of pain and injury.

It screamed as it went stiff and limp. The words were alien to the four, but the sound – it was always the same.

Robyn was leading the way to the house of the shaman by following the magickal signatures each of his spells had left in the air. She had linked arms with Mika after he had joined them and even he could see the traces. Often, these signatures were too slight to be picked up, but as these spells had required so much energy, they were plainly visible to them. It was strange to think how long Robyn and Mika had been rooted in the supernatural and how much they still did not know. There was no need for them to understand witches, goblins, and the like; all they needed to know, indeed all they wanted to know, was there trade. And their trade was evil. Just that somewhere along the way, the line had blurred and shifted.

After snapping the neck of the Alvareshnik, Mika had dropped to the floor and asked himself why he had done that, even before it had presented any real danger to his girls? He liked that – girls – as in more than one. He had cried out for Robyn to help him, but he was positive that both of them had helped him up. It was nice that Carly was willing to help the bloke who had killed her boyfriend and held her captive for days. He sensed doubt in Carly, a hint of uncertainty. But, he needed the kind of help that only Robyn could give him.

Carly fought back the urge to sing her own version of _We're off to see the wizard_ with a smile and a muffled giggle. It really was quite absurd to find anything truly funny in this situation, though Carly thought that this was the only thing keeping her sane at the moment.

"How do they know where to go?" Andrew whispered to her. "We could be going round in circles for all they know. All this looks the same."

Carly shook her head and wondered why he was whispering, as Mika and Robyn could still hear him as well as if he had been talking normally. "No, we're not going in circles. All the incantations or charms or whatever he uses leave a tiny trace of supernatural energy behind it. They've trained themselves to follow that trail. It helps them track people," she added.

"Track people? Why on earth would they need to track people?"

"When they hunt," explained Carly, mildly surprised that her alleged personality change meant that this fact no longer registered as unnatural. They were hunters, they couldn't help being what they were. "They might see some-one that takes their eye and they follow their scent, or some kind of trace. It's just part of their whole demon thing."

"But they're using it to do something good? In a way." Andrew still could not get his head around this concept of him being responsible for the end of the world. How was it possible for a scientist and a shaman to bring about the apocalypse? Okay, they'd been aided by monsters he admitted he hadn't even wanted to consider might be bad, but... it took a lot of believing.

"I don't quite get it myself, but I think they just want to be around forever."

Mika grew concerned by the amount of talk behind him, and turned to them. "do you mind? This isn't easy to do." It took a lot of concentration to follow a trail of this kind. The intensity of the clouds made it much easier to follow than usual, but it still took a lot more focus than it did to chase a simple scent.

Robyn gripped his hand more tightly, alerting him to a result, leaving tiny moon-shaped marks in his hand.

"What is it, Robyn?"

"Before us. We're close, I know it. The end is in sight." She saw faint glimmers of pink light curling up, near the end of the sewer, leading up a rusty metal ladder, and headed for it. Only Mika matched the quickness and quietness of her steps, though at the foot of the ladder he paused to help Andrew and the girls up. Well, it was the gentlemanly thing to –

"That creature you killed earlier. It was one of the ones that we called down from another dimension, wasn't it?" Part of him wanted to ask this strange, often silent man why he had killed it, but that same part knew that he wouldn't get an answer he felt comfortable hearing. Besides which, Andrew was just glad that he had done so, and didn't particularly want to know why. "When I saw it, I just knew that it shouldn't be here. It belonged somewhere else."

"It belonged in a body bag," he replied, low and dangerous. "Which is where you'll belong if you don't get a move on."

"Mika! There will be no bloodshed," Robyn scolded. "Yet."

"I can kill people without bloodshed," he reminded. Certainly, they could both kill in so many ways with spilling a drop blood... but open wounds could provide so much more entertainment. The kind you couldn't pay for with a credit card. Mika wanted to see blood – it would make all this real again. Blood was all he had; it was what he and Robyn shared; it was what tied him to his very nature. So, why had he run away from a perfectly good kill and meal earlier?

"I know you can, baby. And you do it so well," she praised him. Robyn grabbed Carly as she pulled herself over the last rung, and watched her crouch down with her back to the wall. She was clearly exhausted, and suffering the effects of her injuries. "Mika?"

"I'm sending him up now." He hadn't bothered to learn the name of the professor, and couldn't remember what had been written on the prints. "What is it, love?"

"Carly's shattered. Can we give her a few minutes?"

"Don't see why not. I think this one's gonna need a rest too." Mika wasn't tired in the least but he knew that the time would give him a chance to sort his head. He silently scoffed at his superior healing abilities and stamina. He and Robyn could probably cover twice the distance of a normal person before they started to get tired.

Carly felt the fingernail cut Robyn had given her on her neck, and fetched her hand back splattered with blood. Most of her aches and pains came from bruises, and the energy it took to withstand the pain made her muscles cry out for rest. "And a full body transplant... sounds good." She refused to give in to the numbness that threatened to take over her, and let the violent waves of physical exhaustion wahs over her for a while.

NINETEEN

Annie was screaming long and loud.

To Robyn, it was just music to her ears. She wondered, for only the briefest of moments, if she should give the child a rest, but quickly decided that she was simply having too much fun to stop right now. The days of torture, some of which Annie had already endured and some that may be to come, seemed endless to all three of them. Mika was a little bored of hurting the girl over and over again – it had been very enjoyable for a time but he craved the kill now – but he never ceased to be pleased by Robyn's squeals of delight, and her just-this-side-of-crazy smile. He knew he would do whatever it took to keep her safe and happy.

Absolutely anything.

"You will never have this amulet as long as I am alive," Annie spat. Blood began to fill her mouth and she could taste the bitterness of it.

"We'll just have to make sure you're not alive when we take it then," said Robyn lightly, acting as though it was not a threat but friendly chat. Her fingernails had red underneath from where she had dug them into her flesh and drawn blood. "It would be more fun if you were alive but I guess it wouldn't work."

"This is a protective amulet. It contains power you could never imagine."

But Robyn had imagined. She would not want it this badly if she hadn't.

"It will protect me until after I die. Until my souls crosses over, in fact. And even when you kill me, my spirit will not leave your side until the amulet is safe and your existences have been terminated."

"Tough talk – I like that. But it's funny how you're the one tied up here," laughed Mika. "Hmm? Is that determination I smell?"

"I don't have to be determined any more," whispered Annie. "I know you'll kill me. But what I don't understand is... you were human once, were you this evil then."

Quite honestly, neither of them could actually remember what it was like to be human, though they knew that an immortal existence must be far better. "Humanity, compassion. There's too much to lose there, like love. As demons, love changes but it never goes away."

"When who-ever killed you killed you, you chose to be demons and kill people. It would have been just as easy to become angels and save people."

Mika went over her words a few times, picking out her choice of words. Yes, demons was what they were, but they didn't do anything wrong. He couldn't see what was morally wrong about killing a few people here and there. _For the fun of it,_ he could hear Robyn thinking. "An angel. Is that what you think you are? Running all over the place, fighting the forces of evil, saving people, and then they don't know or want to know. Is that what you were?"

Annie gave him the cold, hard look that she had perfected over the years. No-one outside of her predecessors knew about her calling. No-one cared, even. Mika was right, it was a thankless job, but it was still her job to do. She glanced over at Robyn who had put her arms out at her sides and was happily twirling around in her long, white nightdress, looking like a young child trying to amuse herself. Annie thought it was rather sweet how the two seemed to need each other so much. Why had they chosen this path of chaos and carnage, for she knew that they definitely weren't the shy, retiring types. For instance, when alone, Annie had noticed that Mika always preferred to go for the straight kill or feed, whereas Robyn liked to toy with her victims first. They liked to make their presence known, leaving dead bodies in places people would never otherwise look.

"You know what I think we need to do, Mika?" Robyn stopped dancing just long enough to stop the room spinning and skipped over to her. "Annie's getting cranky. Cranky girl with evil eyes. I think we need to bleed her... let some of that bitterness out."

Blood dripped down the side of her chin, but despite the energy this sapped from her, Annie still struggled against the bonds that tied her wrists together behind the sturdy wooden beam that supported the house. The ties were much too tight for her to break or work loose and, even at full strength, she doubted that she would be able to pull herself free. She felt her muscles tense up as she waited for Robyn to do her damage.

Mika was too young to draw blood and be able to resist, even Robyn admitted that it was hard for her to hold back at times. It was all about willpower, and it took a hell of a lot more strength to refuse the source of survival than it did for a person to stay off the drink. Robyn felt her face harden. She looked down at the satin skirt of her nightdress and smoothed it down. The light of the moon cast weird shadows onto it and it looked creased. Did she look pretty and kind? She liked to look pretty for Mika. Of course, she knew he would love her no matter what she looked like, but she liked to look nice for him. She left one hand on her skirt, furiously brushing at the non-existent wrinkle and lifted her other hand.

"Yes. Let some of it out."

Annie screamed again, this time barely realising she was doing it.

Mika screamed along with her for a few seconds before letting the scream morph into one of his more evil and dangerous laughs. "Scream all you want, girl. I'll even scream with you but listen. Ssh." He silenced her by putting one finger over her lips, like any lovers would do, and held it there as they listened to the complete lack of sound around. "Do you hear anything?" Annie shook her head, more scared by the silence than she had been by any noise. "Now do you see? There's no-one coming to save you. No-one else is willing to risk their life for you. That's how much you ever meant here. No friends, no rescue, and – my personal favourite – no hope."

"I'll save myself," she bit out hopelessly.

Red hair flew behind Robyn as her body disappeared in a blur.

Desperation filled Andrews head as he dragged himself through the last part of sewer before the underground entrance to the shamans' house. He wouldn't normally have been this tired at walking this distance but it really made a difference when you were being terrified and verbally abused all the way. He saw that Mika was walking at the side, his arm linked with Robyn, acting as though this were nothing out of the ordinary – which, to them, it probably wasn't. From the way they put their heads together and talked quietly, but intensely, he thought that there might be something wrong. He turned his head away from them and his eyes found Carly. It was almost hard to believe how young she still was as she struggled through the slime, thrusting one arm out to the sewer wall as she stumbled through. Andrew liked to think that he had played some part in her life, but knew that she had done this all herself. The courage and drive and determination that Carly was showing now – that was all her, he'd had nothing to do with that.

"We're here," said Robyn abruptly.

"Thank God for that." Mika returned her questioning look with raised eyebrows, and proceeded to answer that glare. "I don't think I can stand much more of that bloody moaning."

Carly began her defence for her old professor. "Hey. He's a regular mortal just like – well, me. He's not used to this and it's human nature to complain and why the hell am I sticking up for him?" She didn't even like the guy any more. She watched Robyn kick down the grate to a basement with one sharp snap-kick to its centre, then hauled herself through using her feet and one hand. The other arm was pretty much out of action as the burn had taken its' toll and rendered it much too painful to move far, and Carly held it across her chest.

Once inside, she leant against the cool stone wall and closed her eyes as she breathed in deeply. The air in the dank, damp cellar was only a little less stomach-churning than the rotting stench in the sewers but she breathed it in regardless, hoping to rid her nostrils of the stink of decaying God-knows-what. Mika and Robyn did not have that problem, and could choose whether to smell something or not. Andrew, however, had not realised that they didn't breathe. Carly wanted to keep him in the dark as much aas possible for now – he was scared to death anyway, what would be the point of loading that on him too?

"Where are we?" he said between gasps for air.

"We thought you might recognise the place. The stars said you know this house. They say you're all afraid of me." Robyn ran one finger down the side of his face, her eyes gleaming dangerously. "Are you scared of me? I do like making people scared... they scream and cry... the noises make my ears buzz like a happy bee." She pinched her fingers together and made a buzzing sound at him. "Mika, can we take the bees if he has any? I want to string them up by their little wings and hang them in a row in the window."

"He? Who's he?" Carly thought back to the other person that she had seen on disk. Curiously, she couldn't remember ever talking to him – even though she had talked to practically every FDR employee at some point. "The shaman. I don't know him, but I've seen him work. If that's anything togo on, he'll have some pretty powerful barriers up."

"There are spells at work. I can feel them pulling at me already," Mika informed them. Enchanted barriers were generally created to prevent demons from crossing its' path. With the correct incantations, almost any object could be injected with this protective energy. There were very few records of evil beings ever being able to break through these walls, which usually felt like pushing through a solid wall of electricity. "This energy hits you, and you don't wanna go any further in case it really hurts."

"But you're strong enough to push through it, right?" Carly wasn't quite sure why she had posed that as a question because she knew that they were. Well, definitely Robyn was, but she was starting to have doubts about Mika – he looked ready to drop. "I know you have the strength. It won't touch us 'cos we're human but you are strong. Anyway, you said you'd broken Haven spells before." They must have run across a powerful witch or two in their time, they must have done this before. It should be nothing.

Andrew pushed himself off the wall and rubbed his hands over his face, feeling his eyelids begin to droop. "It's quiet outside," he noted. "Either, everyone's calmed down or-" No! he refused to let himself contemplate the alternative. It was too horrible...

Though that did not stop Carly from voicing the words. "Or, they've all killed each other in a frenzy of terror!"

"Is it my fault that they're too weak to resist? It's so easy for them to give in to their animal instincts."

"Yeah, and who was it that put the temptation out there?"

Animal instincts and temptation – the concepts struck familiar chords in both Mika and Robyn. While Robyn took the ensuing conversation as the ultimate compliment, Mika felt himself falling away to the scene that haunted him.

"The forbidden fruit is always the sweetest."

Oh God! He was trying to justify this with religion... of all things. There wasn't a religion in all the world that made mindless killings okay. Carly knew that religion had been used to justify murder, but it was just an excuse. Saying that your beliefs somehow made you think that it was right to kill people was just something to hide behind. "Your telling me that these people wanted to hurt each other?"

"They wanted to do it, and we just gave them the freedom to do so. If they wanted to, they would have done it now, and those that eat the apple... well, I think you know that story."

"Yeah, yeah. Listen to the snake, eat the fruit, get chucked out of Eden. How do you do that, prof? how do you use a Bible story to try and cover this up? Just 'cos you can dress it up as a re-enactment as whatever book of the Bible it was, you think no-one'll see how ruthless you're being." She couldn't explain it as well as she had wanted, but thought he got the message.

"Carly," said Andrew, putting a hand on her shoulder. Carly stared down at his hand with narrowed eyes until he moved it. "There are monsters in this world... evil beings that can do horrendous things to you and me. And everyone else in this forsaken place."

This was news? Carly turned her gaze to Mika, who had tensed his shoulders and looked only slightly more than a shadow of his usual self. "Look. There's your monster, your evil being. Both of them. I know exactly what they can do – they torturepeople young and old alike, they keep people alive for days so they can feed alone. They hurt people for no reason other than to hear them cry. They killed my boyfriend and mutilated his body for fun, and they've killed nearly every part of me. I know the evil that they possess." She stared at her old teacher and suddenly realised that she was now giving the lesson. It felt good to be in power, to have control over another person – she wasn't a student any more. "But I also know that these two are actually doing a good thing here. I might not agree with their reasons for it, but I sure as Hell ain't gonna argue it. I'm part of this so I can save humanity from a slow, burning death it doesn't deserve."

"Don't you want to rid these low creatures from the Earth?" Andrew felt the wall behind him but could only feel slime covering the brickwork. If there was something he could use to shut her up with, he and the shaman could finish this. "Wouldn't the world be better if we never had to worry about what's lurking in the dark? If it was as bright as day all the time, they could never rise and attack."

"Everyone's going to Hell – us included. So are the demons. But, before we go – we're gonna stop this thing." Too late for a miracle or not, they would stop this.

Blood bubbled from her mouth, and Annie had to stop herself from wondering if any organs had ruptured. She would know if something had torn because the pain would be unbearable, but because death was what she lived and breathed, she had a natural instinct to think about it. It was quite morbid to think about those sorts of things before anything else. It was morbid to have to have to wake up every morning and know that it's your last... unless you fight. Being a Warrior of Night was her choice and she had accepted it – even though she would always have the shadow of death hanging over her.

Her stomach was bruised and felt knotted as volleys of punches had been landed on it. Two open puncture wounds showed on her neck; the place where Mika and Robyn had taken turns to feed from her. Between them, they had taken so much blood that Annie didn't know how she had enough to keep her alive and bleeding. She coughed and spat a red lump onto the floorboards.

"We were just going to take the necklace and leave you with all that pesky guilt," said Robyn. She had entered the room a few minutes before and was sitting in the corner watching the blood and tears. Annie realized that she hadn't even heard her come in – she knew she was dying. "Except... it's just so much fun letting you struggle. We've had such a lovely time. We should do this again."

"Where is he?" Annie whispered hoarsely. "I want to see him."

"Mika! I wish I had that pretty little accent of yours."

Annie pointedly ignored her, but found that it was not nearly as satisfying when coughing blood and dripping it everywhere. She felt weak and her soaked clothing stuck to her body. She coughed again and peered out of eyes that were beginning to turn pink with her own blood. She made out two shapes crouched together on the other side of the room, which suddenly seemed very far away. "I'm dying," she told them.

"Well, this is news. I expected you to hold on for at least another day or so."

"How long have I been here, Mika?"

"A little over a week." But, I must say you have fought admirably throughout."

"We have been feeding from her, Mika. She can't have that much life left inside that poor carcass." Longs nails scratched at the wooden boards, and traced a swirly pattern in a nearby pool of blood. She hummed a made-up tune as she played and Mika watched. If Robyn was happy, he was happy. She lifted her fingers to her mouth and licked at them, letting each finger stay on her lips, savouring the taste of the bittersweet liquid. Annie still had the energy to be disgusted by it. She wondered why the amulet had seemed to stop working, but didn't waste her last minutes thinking about it. "Are you fading, sweetie? Have we killed you?" asked Robyn, voice dripping with insincerity. "Do you think we murdered you?"

Annie summoned the energy to nod but it hurt to move her head. "I hope you burn for this."

The words seemed to strike a chord as she thought Robyn looked spooked, but that could have been her blurred eyesight. Robyn shook out of it in a split-second and put her handed on Mika's shoulder.

"Murder? Not us." He knew it was murder, and a crime that they knew they would never be caught for – because they would either move away at sundown, or just kill the police. "No, this is suicide. You knew how you were going to die from the start, but you still took this on. You had a death wish, Annie, and wishes really do come true."

"I never wanted this."

"You all want this. Every single one of you want this to be over; the fighting and the suffering. So you, the only person who has the guts to do it, came hunting. Looking for that last fight, deliberately seeking out the means to an end. And now..." He moved to her side in a movement so quick it was invisible to Annie's sluggish human eyes, and buried pointed teeth in her neck. She felt them lengthen into fangs as they found an unbroken blood vessel and drew deep on the blood her overworked heart was still managing to pump. Her eyes began to close and her head felt as if it was spinning. He ripped his mouth away and he licked his lips, not knowing that his mouth was still splattered with her blood. "Mmm, blood of the damned! Can't beat a drop of the good stuff! And now, Annie." He motioned for Robyn to come over and they both held an arm out for her to bite into. "It's all over."

"You're right, it's over," she managed, her words slurred and barely audible. "And I'm done." Annie stared at the proffered arms and thought how many more lives could be saved if she took their offer of immortality. It could mean so much...

Then she felt the cool metal of the pendant fall cold against her chest and the energy that had thrummed inside her since the day she had received it returned with renewed force. It gave her amounts of power she'd never imagined. It gave her strength beyond the reaches of dreams.

It gave her the strength to die.

Robyn skipped and danced her way along the slimy, wet sewer tunnels as if the water and waste were nothing. They pulled on her, tried to suck her in, but she ignored it and ran through. Mika dawdled a few steps behind, hearing screams and rushing blood that only he could. He thought that this was probably how Robyn had felt at first when she started getting her visions. He wouldn't go so far as to say that it scared him, but it had unnerved him quite a bit. If only it would all stop...

Mika had never experienced anything like this before; it had made him uncertain of what he was doing. Could he – a demon – ever stop killing, even if it would haunt him forever? Part of him had been so shaken that it wanted to curl up and do nothing like that ever again. A larger part of him, the part of him that had all the control, decided that he would go on killing and that this was merely a small price he must pay. Listening to the futile screams of others it was too late to help? Robyn, however, simply revelled in paying her dues. Making humans scream and cry – it was an orchestra of misery and dread. And then being rewarded for such crimes by being given a sneaky look into a different world... beautiful. It was a little strange how Robyn was given glimpses of future pain, and Mika was privy to hurtful memories.

After some discussion, Carly, Andrew and the Shaman had opted to go above ground to make their way to FDR Industries. Carly was far too tired to wade through sewage any further and led the others to the complex, safe in the knowledge that they would come to no harm if dawn broke before they arrived. And Robyn, as finely attuned as she was, would know if they went off their set course. The punishment that would be sure to follow would be delightful in its brutality. It made her knees quiver just to think about it.

"What music you dancing to, love?" asked Mika. It would be some made up melody, he knew, but he had at times envied her flighty nature. It was almost as if nothing really affected her. "A pretty tune, I hope."

"Oh, yes, Mika," she breathed – or as close as. "A church organ is playing a beautiful lilting death march. Dance with me, Mika."

"Far be it for me to deny a lady." He took her hand and spun her around happily. He had never been able to say no to her, especially not when she looked so alluring as she did right now. "Robyn? Are we too late?"

She did not directly answer his question but replied in another of her riddle speeches. "The stars are dropping from the sky and the bad sun has scolded them for twinkling. They used to twinkle in my head, Mika, but now they only weep as they fade away. We must catch them before they break on the ground."

"You used to love the pain and suffering of mortals."

Yes, Robyn had loved the blissful agony of humans, and even now it held a certain – though waning – appeal. The novelty of it tended tp wear off more quickly when they were not the cause. Her fingers fluttered at her sides, though she did not appear to be aware of it, as she seemed to recall a muscle memory. She moaned and frolicked among the dank surroundings, remembering how few hours it had been since her beloved Mika had left her side, and how he had known to return to her for erasure of the pain. "Yes, we're too late," she announced with surprising clarity. Maybe she had known, as she always did, what he was thinking. "Too late to save the ones who've gone. But we can stop it for the rest. Don't worry, Mika, I won't let you get hurt."

"I got hurt a long time ago." There was an almost undetectable hint of bitterness in his voice, and he wasn't quite sure who it was directed at. "Anything dangerous crosses our paths, I'll just break its' neck," he stated casually. Broken necks had become very much the order of things recently; but clean killings always proved best when a feed was neither needed or wanted. Mika told himself, over and over, that it was in his nature to look out for himself first, and to combat anything that may endanger his own survival. It confused him – he was not that bothered if it killed him. He wanted to save Robyn more than anything.

"I think we're going to crash and burn, Mika. Like the burning sun, we shall crash into it. Not as much fun as it sounds," she whined. It wasn't her fault that she saw such beautiful death scenes. This one would not be beautiful...

Three pairs of feet stomped their way down another street. Two of them dragged a little as they went, but the other seemed unaffected by the long journey. Carly led them down the agreed route to the building, too scared to go off track to find a short cut. Robyn would know if she moved away, and she would be punished for it – but not with death for that would be too easy and merciful. Her injuries were really taking their toll, and lactic acid was building in her tired muscles until they simply ached. She had been pushing the limits of her endurance by forcing herself on when she needed rest. Now, stopping was not an option but, she wanted to carry on. Even to herself it sounded a weird concept but it would feel as if she were failing if she gave up.

Andrew walked behind and to the side of her, trying to think of something to break the tense silence that hung between them all. The shaman – Carly wished he had a human name – walked behind them in the calm of his own thoughts. By the time they had arrived at, and got access to, the Crash Room, the whole thing would be nearly complete. All that was to be done then would be the lighting of candles and special incense to welcome the New World, and to offer thanks. The immense strength of the demons he had just faced had shaken him a touch, and he knew of them by the prophecies and old tomes he read. Mika and Robyn were the most revered of their kind, viciously killing in every town or village they passed. Almost animalistic in their savagery of the human body, both were to be feared as only the purest of all evil dwelled in them. They had told him that this plan had brought about the end of the world but the shaman would not believe them. Even the human girl had said it was true, but he could not trust her either. Ritual, especially one so sacred and powerful, was far more important than the end of one dimension. There were thousands more to explore...

"My legs feel heavy. I don't know if I can keep going much longer," the professor complained. He knew better than to show weakness, even in this situation, but it broke the silence.

"Don't be such a whiner." Carly marched on, never slowing for him, and tried not to grimace as tight skin pulled at her. "This is Judgement Day. Really not a time to be moaning like a baby."

"What's going to happen to us?"

"Way I figure it is, we get to where we're going and then the sun kills us." She turned her head away from the blare of a car horn as it rushed down the road. "The man I love is dead by Mika and Robyn. I let go of everything, my feelings, because I felt so empty. Without him, it's just nothing. And the sun'll burn up the Earth until it's nothing too. Tell the truth, I don't really give a shit what happens any more – this was always going to happens but magick started this off so it's wrong and unnatural. Demons are wrong and unnatural too but we fight against them, don't give in to them." Carly took a deep breath. She didn't feel any better for it, and her head was buzzing with warped excitement.

"I summoned demons. They... didn't belong here."

At least he was finally admitting to doing something wrong. He was still as stubborn as he ever had been but at least it was something. "Of course they didn't belong here. When you summon anything, you tear it from its home"

The sky began to lighten ever so slightly and they saw a streetlamp flick out as some kind of sensor was triggered. Carly picked up the pace and started to jog through the streets. There was no time to lose.

The Crash Room hummed as computers stayed running, and thrummed with anticipation of the very special visit it was about to receive. The entire building was utterly empty around it and the hum seemed a deafening volume in contrast to the complete silence around it. It had lain dormant for days, recovering itself from the damage inflicted by those low creatures. The electrics to most of the room had been torn out and the wiring was broken and frayed in a hundred different places.

The allegedly fool-proof security problem had proved no challenge for them as they ripped through each part. Mr Jordan-Smyth had not considered extreme violence as a factor when ordering it. It still lay smashed and hanging off the wall, exactly as it had been found when the missing disks had been discovered. One or two of the more gutsy – or more foolish – security reps had ventured in to take a look, but had quickly backed off as they realised it would be a waste of time. One plucky electrician had been called in to replace the fuses in the main fuse box. Now, the lights flickered on and off, providing only a din illumination. Nothing more would be needed.

The Crash Room had always been controlled by people. Until last week, everything in there had been controlled and regulated by employees. There were no more workers to bow to, no more people to abide by. People – who could never accept the idea that they were in the wrong. People – who couldn't believe that there were bigger entities than themselves. People – who thought they had the right to play God. The Crash Room was a living, breathing machine. Well, not quite but close enough.

Soon, the walls of the room would be lit by dancing candle flames. The space within them would be filled with the aroma of cleansing incense. And the Crash Room would be seen as a sacred place... the birth room of the New World.

Soon...

Robyn effortlessly pushed aside the manhole cover by the door and scrambled out. She and Mika were both a little grubby after their trek through the sewers though neither of them seemed to mind much as it did not slow their quick movement inside the building.

The other three were leaning against a wall trying to get their breath back, and jumped at the unexpected sight of them. It was not their presence that shocked each of them – Carly briefly wondered how they had managed to make the trip without getting burnt to cinders – but the hard look each of them had. Carly knew the look and had come to associate it with fear and agony. Andrew glanced away, hands on knees. He was panting away after his exhausting journeys through sewers and streets, and used this as an excuse not to look at them. The shaman also looked away, but not to avoid the unsettling expressions, merely to hide the fact that he was wearing that same look.

"Robyn?"

She ignored her lover as she strode deeper into the building to avoid the brightening sky. The place was the same as it had been when they had played their last game here. Metal poles she had swung on, metal gratings she had jumped from, cameras she had watched on monitors, even a person-shaped mark where Mika had collapsed as Johnny shot him. She kind of missed Johnny; the child she could mould and shape. Maybe her teaching days were over... maybe she should just be happy being at the top of her game. She had once taught Mika all the tricks of the trade and she didn't know how much there was for him to learn any more. Her cold gaze flitted again to the mark Mika had left, the drying specks of blood, and the holes where bullets had gone astray – if this was how severely Mika could be hurt by mortal means then, yes, there was still much she could teach him. There were things she could show him, new things. When you had lived as long as they had anything new was to be treasured, but even the old things held a certain charm.

"Robyn?" This time she turned to look at him. "The sun... it's nearly up. We should get going."

"The sun always comes up, Mika." She pointed at the three mortals waiting behind them. "Ask them. It's all part of the plan. Making you remember, giving you nightmares – it was all meant to happen, wasn't it? It was supposed to distract us." She had expected Mika to figure it out – work out how they fit into it, so Robyn was a little surprised, pleasantly so, that it had come together for her. She turned amber eyes on the shaman but did not move to him. "You made this happen to try and keep us out of the way. You knew that we'd try to stop it, so you forced those images into his head."

"I made him see what he had done. I'd hoped it would take longer, and that you'd both be out of the picture long enough." The shaman had not counted on her fleeting communications with the stars, or her willingness to do anything without him. Everything he had read had told him that they rarely, if ever, left each others sides. "But, you're in this now and I can't do much about it," he grumbled. "I only made him know the pain and torture he had inflicted on that girl."

"Mmm. I like... inflicting," she murmured, enjoying how the word tasted. "And, no, there is nothing you can do about us being here. Except help us to stop this while we still can."

Wordlessly, the shaman followed Mika, Robyn, Carly and Andrew, feeling for the supplies in his deep pockets.

TWENTY

Without the security boxes and mechanisms to smash their way through, the Crash Room was much easier to get into. When they had discovered the disks were missing, keeping the room secure had obviously been deemed pointless, though keeping the room running had evidently not. The lights were not nearly as bright as they had been the first time, though Mika feared he might have to pull the electrics again.

"We're here," stated Carly flatly. "What do we do now?"

There was silence as the room hummed away. No-one knew what the next move should be... or, if they did, they were not planning to share that information. Andrew leant against one of the desks that lined the walls, looking quite scared and fearing that his future might not progress outside of the room. The things Robyn and Carly had told him about the apocalypse looked like a very real possibility. Maybe they were surviving an apocalypse right now, or maybe they were just living through the run-up to it – he did not know, he had never knowingly experienced one before. As he looked around, he could see that everyone was a bit angry – frustration, perhaps? – and Mika was pacing the room, glaring at the computers as if was their fault no-one knew what to do.

Stomping around the room provided not only an outlet for his frustration, but Mika discovered it to be an adequate distraction from his current predicament. For some inexplicable reason, the reason for being here had grown from simply wanting to keep this sweet little world with all its sweet little meals – blood bags with legs, he used to call them – into a need to prove that he was still one of the baddest, fiercest Old Ones in history, even if he was only proving it to himself. He also knew that Robyn could sense this about him, and it frightened her to feel his insecurities.

Robyn, for her part, was on the receiving end of some bad vibes. She could hear whisperings all around her, in a language she did not recognise, even though no-one was moving their lips.

Carly had settled herself cross-legged on the smooth white floor, and was wincing as she rubbed her injured shoulder. Her collarbone wasn't broken, she knew, but she though she may have done some damage to some muscle or other. In fact, she thought her entire body might explode in pain and sheer exhaustion. If there had been any research on disk about how to stop it all, she would have pulled it, but it seemed as though none of them had had the fore-sight to research that circumstance, evidently thinking it would all be peachy and go off without a hitch. If not for the murder, torment and demons-at-large, maybe it had gone off reasonably well. Since being held captive, Carly had come to redefine many words and emotions, but she could not see how her old professor and the shaman had failed to realise that everything that had happened was telling that this thing was not going to plan.

It depended, really, on what plan they were supposed to be working on. The shaman did not have the ability to pick up on other peoples' thoughts, but he had his own plan. He stood by the corner, half-watching the rest of the activity. Scared, in pain, insecure, confused people. If he felt any inclination to do so, maybe the shaman would pity them. But he had a job to do now and he would do it. He knew the consequences, always had done though he had pretended not to, but all worthwhile things came with a price.

"Shut up!" yelled Robyn, her voice sounding hollow and directionless. "Leave me alone." She turned away from Andrew and Carly to gaze intently at Mika. He would make everything all right for her – in fact she felt a little better just looking at him. In times past and, hopefully, times future, being together had made them near indestructible. They were a team... and they were not ones to run from a challenge.

"Robyn, baby. Who do you want to shut up? No-one's speaking." Mika held a hand out to her, still vaguely patchy in burnt spots but not enough for anyone to notice. Why had he burnt himself on purpose then, and why did he find it so easy to forget it now. Everything he did faded in time.

Robyn refused his hand, not deliberately ignoring him, but more not seeing him. She stood a few inches away from one of the walls, a large section of whitewashed plywood with no computers or other equipment cluttering the white space, and held her fingers hover above it, shaking slightly as though with nerves.

"What are you doing?" asked Carly.

"Don't you hear it? Doesn't it whisper to you?"

Carly was confused but that was nothing new. None of her senses and reflexes could even compare to hers, but even Mika, a fellow demon, looked almost bewildered. This, in turn, was no new experience to him as his lady was much more sensitive than him. But both remained curious at her actions and simply looked at her in puzzlement, with one questioning eyebrow slightly raised.

"Don't you hear it?" she whispered. "You can feel it... humming in anticipation. The room. It's alive."

"The room is alive?" The shaman sounded doubtful. "This computer centre is a living, breathing thing? Yeah, and the prize for most wacko statement goes to..."

"Don't you dare call my Robyn a wacko," snarled Mika, just stopping himself short of lunging at him. "She may not be the most stable one around, but that's just the way I like her." He smiled at Robyn, but she didn't see, and he grinned at Carly.

"Word of warning," Carly told the shaman. "Those memories you planted in his head made him very emotional. Now is really not the time to make him angry... unless you want me to witness your gruesome death." She'd really seen way too many untimely demises over the past week, demon and human. "And what about you, Andy? You look kinda scared." It nearly made her giggle to use such a familiar yet teasing voice on him. Before Ricky had died, there was no way she would have had the nerve to lead this type of conversation with people who had once been her superiors, but now there was no-one else who would protect her and do things for her.

"Observation. That was part of what I taught you."

"No, this isn't really observation. It's more the big petrified waves coming off you. In fact, I'm surprised Mika hasn't commented on how the smell of fear makes blood so much more tempting." If it was simply a scare tactic used to drive him into the next stage of panic, it worked.

"I swear I don't know what you need to do to stop it. We didn't think about there being a need to stop it, so we didn't research it."

"He's babbling. I tend to hurt people who babble," Mika threatened.

Carly shook her head at him. "I can't remember disking anything about how to stop it. Sorry. If I knew, I'd say but... unless they looked into it after you caught me."

"This does not bode well for our hostages." He glared in turn at the three mortals, dismissing the girl out of hand. Carly seemed like a long-lost part of his tiny family and he could not imagine losing her. Demons were not supposed to feel that way about humans, were they? However, Andrew and the shaman were nothing to him.

"Hostages?" whispered Andrew.

"Hostage. Person held captive and/or against their will," the shaman supplied. He would have thought a university professor knew the definition, and took comfort in the fact that he was able to retain his composure. The protective rock still hung heavy around his neck, hiding his unusual dress from the others. Why he still felt it necessary to wear it was a mystery to all, but something told him that it could hide more than what he wore. If ever there was a time to take a theory on pure faith, it was now – after all this was their last chance.

Suddenly there was a loud bang that made them all jump, followed by the sound of crumbling plaster. They looked immediately to Robyn who was completing a roughly executed roundhouse kick. After the falling plaster had settled on the floor, they all peered through the large hole in the wall, waving their hands in front of their faces to clear the air of dust that stick filled the air. The room she had opened them to was dark but for a globe of light that stood atop a real earth globe, hovering aabout a foot above it by some unseen means. This was where the big stuff took place, the ritual bits. Mika balled a fist and began to punch his way through the wall, making a hole large enough for a person to step through.

"The Crash Room's just the cover," he realised. "We spent all that time in there, worrying about what to do. When we should have been in here all along." Mika squinted his eyes and turned on the shaman with an animalistic growl. "I hate it when people hide things from me."

The shaman shrugged and stepped through the gaggle of mortals and immortals.

"Hey!" Carly reached for him but he slipped through her grip on his arm. It was times such as this that she longed for the superhumanly fast healing Mika and Robyn went through – just without the worrying demonic status. Her hurt shoulder hadn't been painful enough for her to notice whilst she had not been excessively moving it but now that she stretched it so quickly and further than usual, a fresh bout of pain washed over her. New tears welled up in the corners of her eyes and shone brightly against her sewer-grimed face.

The shaman turned round to them and opened his arms out to them, inviting them through. "It's perfectly safe."

Cautiously, the other four entered the tiny room and left the white Crash Room behind them. For some reason they couldn't figure out, Robyn seemed as reluctant to go through as Andrew. Carly would have thought the typically feisty redhead would have been one of the first through but she seemed to be sensing danger in the room. Inside, the shaman set down one of the candles he had been keeping in his pocket and lit a flame with a suitably human match. "Want to see what you're doing, I take it."

"We can see alright." Demons apparently nearly always had the ability to soo in the dark. Maybe they were better than humans in the sense that all their reflexes and abilities were 100% - probably more – improved, but the part about living off human blood brought them right back down to their level.

"He was thinking about us mere mortals," shot back the professor, an edge of bitterness creeping into his voice. Sure, he was scared of them – he'd read in books what damage the Old Ones were capable of. It didn't mean he couldn't be angry though.

No-one noticed as the shaman sat cross-legged behind the single candle and began a low chant. They could see what he was doing but it didn't seem important enough to ask about it. Carly tentatively worked her shoulder joint round and round, grimacing when pain lightning bolted along her arm. Her old professor stared at her in wonder, pondering the question of exactly when it was that she had grown up so much, for it had certainly not been while she was in his charge. She wasn't any older than she had been back then, not really, but her face told a different story. A story of far too much tragedy in a young girls' life.

"My life? Try the last week," she mumbled through gritted teeth. She frowned at him. "That was weird."

"Weird. Is that what you call it? We call it magick," sang Robyn. She didn't seem tired at all, even though she had crouched down on the floor, her back to the wall. Willed away, her old wounds were fast fading. "What's the point of living without the magick? Something you can't explain but somehow makes everything alright."

"Robyn!" snapped Mika. He held up his hand to signal for them to be quiet. "Do you hear something? Low, like a humming noise."

She giggled and drifted over to the globe in the middle of the room. It was not plugged into anything but the orb seemed to glow brightly. Carly hitched up her jeans and stared at it. Where was the light coming from? This had tp be the big thing that controlled it, the statue that represented the Plan. "I've never seen this room before. I only knew about the Crash Room." Carly looked sideways at her ex-tutor with her eyebrows raised. She'd bet money that he knew about this. "You know, though."

"Yes, I did know about this room. This was where the important stuff happened. The globe is the world and the orb of light is the sun. it means the ritual is nearing completion, the brighter it gets. But I don't know how to shut it down," he half-lied. "And even if I did, I wouldn't tell you."

"I used to respect you... Andy. I looked up to you. I thought everything you did was right. You taught me lessons, but I was the only one who learned anything. You're just a misguided, self-righteous git." How she had managed to stay so calm, and keep her voice so even, she would never know. Maybe the fear and doubt on his face had contributed something to her effort, but maybe her time with Mika and Robyn had taught her something. "See, these two might be evil. And they're demons, which probably doesn't fill anyone with confidence, but whatever they are, at least they have morals... however twisted."

As the old professor and student carried on their blunt conversation at one side of the room, Mika was about to initiate his own. For a while, he had been staring at the shaman. The stone he wore had draped some kind of veil over his activities. He could see the blanket fogging the vision in his head. Unbeknownst to the shaman the memories Mika had been experiencing had left his mind just out of place enough to see through the veil. The shaman carried on chanting, utterly oblivious to the approach. Mika called out to Robyn using his mind, not wanting to draw attention to himself, and she followed his line of sight to the shaman. She smiled and wandered over, knowing what he was thinking.

The shaman looked up and saw the two demons crouching before him, with something akin to murderous intent glinting in their eyes. He stammered and stopped chanting. His cloaking stone hadn't worked. Why hadn't it worked?

"When we kill regular people, they usually stay dead – unless we really, really like them," Mika began in a conspiratorial whisper. "But you're supernatural."

"And we really don't like you."

"So, now I'm wondering what would happen if we killed you. And we'd really love to find out, wouldn't we baby?"

"Mmmmm. Maybe he'll grow another head like a wormie worm." Robyn leaned over and ran her hand roughly through Mika's short dark hair, making this affectionate gesture seem like a form of torture by the twisted grin she wore while pulling his hea back. She stared at her lover with eyes that flashed gold when he growled at her.

"You growl?" the shaman blurted out in shock. He was not surprised or taken aback by this but he just hadn't expected to hear it. "I heard you growl."

"Your point being?" Mika shoved Robyn off him and sat back up. Robyn huffed in disappointment – she'd hoped to play a lovely game with him, but maybe they could play it together with the shaman. She got to her knees and shuffled back over and slid her arm through his.

"Crap. You can see can't you?"

"We see everything. Specially my Robyn here. She sees what people are hiding, what's inside people. And if she sees things, she knows things. She was always good with those kind of things." Mika plucked the lit candle from where it stood in its' pool of melted and hardened wax, and sat playing thoughtfully with it. He did not blow the flame out, or burn himself with it. "But, I saw this time. My head isn't right yet from those memories I should never have felt. And that means that I can see behind things now."

"What are you gonna do with that candle?"

"Carly..."

"Don't Carly me. You shouldn't even have the right to say my name. not so long ago, I thought you could do no wrong, how stupid was I?" How could he have changed so much in such a short space of time? "I know about pain, I've seen enough of it lately, but this hurts too. I've known you since I was 17, but you're a stranger now. My tutor with the strong morals and... all that bull." She couldn't stop herself from letting out a small chuckle. "There's nothing left of him now, is there?"

"I know what's right and wrong." Andrew was not quite sold on that himself. "This is wrong, I see that. But it's always been wrong. We're trying to make the world right again."

"You're - you know what, never mind." Carly held one hand on her stomach to stop herself from moving it and tucked her grimy hair behind her ears with the other. It fell back over her face almost immediately as she ran the few steps to Robyn and grabbed hold of her arm. Instinctively, she reached up and gripped the hand ready to crush bone, but checked herself just in time.

"Robyn," she gasped, trying hard to wrench her eyes away from the scene before her where Mika was taking great pleasure at using the candle to burn and peel the skin off the shaman. "We're seriously running out of time here. We need to shut this thing down."

"But we haven't found out how to do it yet. Mika's beginning his interrogation."

This was an interrogation? Why didn't they just use thumb screws and the rack and have done with it? The shaman hadn't made a sound yet and Carly had to give him credit for that. "We haven't got the time for him to decide he wants to talk. He's not giving us anything. I think we've gotta figure this out for ourselves."

Of course it hurt. It was nothing the shaman couldn't handle though. He'd been through much worse in his time. Burning him and stripping the broken skin wasn't particularly inventive of Mika but the pleasure he took in doing it was certainly new, if not refreshing. And the practice had not been used before in such a setting, nor ever by such creatures. He was coming to the conclusions that the speciality of these two demons was not the simple hunt, feed, kill motive of many others, but mortal torture. They were unlike many other demons he had read about in the fact that they genuinely had the ability to love, and because they didn't let themselves get taken away by their animal instincts. No, they thought about things, and schemed. And they were more dangerous for it.

He wondered if anyone in the room knew why he had only created barriers against Mika and Robyn stopping it, but he could see a depth in Mika's eyes that said he knew. Even though it would kill them to do it personally, they were reported to be the only two Earth-bound demons tough enough, and smart enough, to stop the ritual from coming to completion. So, he had created the terrorvision images for Mika, Banked on Robyn getting carried away with her fantasies, put Haven spells up to protect his home. And that should have been enough to keep them well away from the site. He hadn't banked on humans coming too.

Robyn and the other girl were standing to the side of them talking heatedly about how to shut this thing down. If it didn't hurt so much to move and crack his blistering skin, he would have laughed at them.

"I know you know what to do!" Mika snarled, getting to his feet and dropping the candle to the floor. The flame burnt for a few more seconds before fizzling out on the cold cement. The shaman refused to reply and just lay there, watching the girls talk. The professor looked from the shaman to the trio to the statue and back again. He was too scared to move and to be honest, no-one would have noticed if he wasn't there.

"What's wrong with him?" Carly nodded at the shaman lying stiff on the ground, but soon realised she didn't actually care. He wasn't going to say anything useful so it didn't really matter. It didn't really matter what happened to Andrew for that matter, but he might have his uses.

"I think he got sleepy."

"I think you put him in a coma."

"Not intentionally," he defended himself. "Okay, intentionally but he's still conscious. Probably." Ah, he was getting back to his old self now. The most vicious of his kind – after Robyn, of course – was back in business, or would be when this was over. "Oh, who cares?" Robyn remained mesmerised by the orb of light that came from no visible source, and Carly gave some semblance of a shrug. Andrew couldn't help but stare at the stiff form on the ground in horror, and wondered how anyone could torture some-one so and leave them so close to death without feeling anything. But, of course, the shaman was not as badly hurt as he was making out, though he was too injured to speak out.

Seeing his look, Mika put his arm casually round his shoulders in faux friendship. "That's nothing, mate. You should see me in full swing."

"I'm not your mate. And I'd rather you didn't touch me." He shrugged Mika's hand away and stepped back. "You people disgust me!"

"Uh, point." Without looking back. Carly raised a finger and spoke. "They're not exactly people. I guess you didn't need to be reminded of that." So, naturally he had an aversion to demons, the way most humans did, but he'd thought it was fine and dandy to bring them down to destroy the world? That was some kind of screwed. She shook her head and made a noise with her mouth that said 'why the hell am I talking to you?' Just a few short months ago when she was working here, Carly would never have dared to be so dismissive of her old professor. Maybe her week with Mika, Robyn, and for a short time, Johnny, had hardened her to the outside. It might have been as simple as she didn't need to care any more.

Robyn reached out a hand and held it in the pool of light that the ball threw out. "It's warm," she informed them.

Already the cogs were turning in Carly's brain. The process of thought was written into her dirty, too old face. "This is a solar representation, right? I mean, the light gets stronger like the sun and the globe is the Earth as it gets covered by the sun." Carly wondered over and planted one foot on the shamans' chest. "Am I right?"

"Yes," he breathed. Her foot was putting enough pressure onto his chest that it was getting difficult to breathe. But the girl was mortal, human, so why did she not appear to show any remorse. Carly was wondering that herself. "You're right."

"So, I bet..." she started but did not finish. Watched by all, she turned and stretched out for the ball of light. "If we break the sun..."

Mika dashed from his position by Andrew and pushed Carly away from the globes. "Carly, no! It'll burn you."

"And it'll kill you! That light up there isn't a representation of the sun. It's pure sunlight in there." If they so much as touched the orb, it might kill them. "You kept me alive for a reason, even if you didn't know it."

"I'm not letting that thing burn you to death."

"Likewise!" she shot back. "What other option have we got?"

"Oh, Andrew?" sang Robyn, in the soft sing-song voice that no man had ever been able to say no to. "Come here, sweetie. You know you really shouldn't have asked that. I think we may have found a use for you."

Carly read the look of fear on his ace and stopped Robyn just as she was about to thrust him forward. "Wait," she commanded and held up a hand. "I know he's done some really, really bad things but- "

"He's still your friend and he doesn't deserve this to happen," Mika finished for her. Beside them, Robyn grabbed Andrew by the throat and tossed him across the room to either cower in terror or hit his head and fall unconscious.

"No. I think he should rot in Hell for what he's done. That was unforgivable. But I don't want to see another person die today. I can't deal with that."

"So what are you saying?" He absently scratched the back of his hand, where it had been burnt. "Maybe our friendly neighbourhood shaman can survive it." Except the shaman was not feeling very co-operative at the moment.

Suddenly the room filled with a bright light and, if they squinted, they could just about make out Robyn holding the mini sun in front of her. "We were here when the human race began. We'll be here when it finishes." Of course! Why hadn't they thought of it before. It was so obvious! Robyn was wearing Annie's necklace, the pendant with untold power within. She began to squeal and her hands began to shake, her body to convulse. She refused to let go of the orb because the room would explode with the blast if she dropped it. Did saving the world mean that she wouldn't be left here to see it?

At the edges of the room, the other four looked on. Andrew sat curled up in a corner, using the least space possible, scrunching his eyes up in the blinding light. The shaman looked on calmly, as if everything was going to plan, then clasped his hands over his tight stomach and began to laugh. Mika just stood watching his one and only love go through the pain of sacrifice, and wondered why the sunlight wasn't burning him up. He actually had tears in his eyes as he looked on. Carly dropped to her knees, then all fours and closed her eyes against the brightness that was stinging her eyes.

Robyn could feel it. Though the necklace was never meant for her, she could feel the power it held coursing through her veins and electrifying all the nerve endings in her body. She felt strong.

TWENTY ONE

Alone, at dusk, Mika sat at a table outside Robyn's favourite French restaurant fingering her silver and crystal necklace. Nothing was going to be the same again. People in red jackets buzzed around the town on Vespas, trying to get things back to normal – or as normal as things could ever be. They called themselves the Red Angels and he noticed that one of them was the dreadlocked young woman who tried to help him when he got shot. On sight, he touched the old BB hole that hadn't even left a scar, just remembering that it had happened. He'd been shot with real bullets too. He'd sired some-one, had a hand in saving the world, been haunted by memories of what he'd once done and dealt death to more demons and humans than he cared to think about. He still relished the kill, that was in his genes, but it would never be quite the same again.

He saw Carly walk up the street and skid the necklace onto the table. She was clean, wearing clothes that fit her properly, and had her arm in a sling. The doctors had said that she had very nearly dislocated it as well as having it burnt through. She still had a few cuts and bruises on her face, but the worst of it had washed away in the shower. "Hey."

"Did they sort you out at the hospital?"

She gestured with her arm that she was wearing a sling. "They gave me painkillers. Robyn was amazing. The whole thing blew me away."

"How did you manage to keep going?"

Carly shrugged with one shoulder and picked up the pendant, letting it dangle from her index finger. "I had to. I was so tired but I just felt this thing. Inside. Like I just had to keep going."

"That's what the end of the world looks like, I suppose. Never looked like that before."

"They said we couldn't stop it, that the Earth was beyond rescue." Why was the Earth still here then? Why was it so populated? It was easy to jump to the conclusion that time had simply rewound but there were Red Angels here who weren't helping before. They might never know what had really happened out here while they were at the

heart of the action, but Carly thought time had made the appropriate adjustments and had been reset. "But, we did it – Robyn did it."

Mika looked at her and touched the cut above her eyes. It wasn't painful to the touch, but she could feel it. It suddenly reminded him how easy it was to hurt a mortal being, how easy to scar them forever. He should want to kill Carly, draw her blood, but he just didn't. He wanted to protect her still. She was a member of his little family, and family came above all else. "You did it in the sewers. I should've been there."

"It's nothing. It's healing already. Everything heals eventually." She wasn't sure if she were telling him or herself that. "She's coming."

"Yeah. How did you know?"

Carly closed her fingers around the chain and stared up at the stars in the ink-blue sky. "I belong to the night."

END
About the author

Wendy Maddocks lives in Birmingham, England, with her slightly crazy family. She blames them for her twisted imagination. Sanity is not her friend. She enjoys reading and studying, working out and eating cake, which makes her fat and in need of yet another gym session. (Yes, I'm a masochist!) After graduating from university, Wendy began publishing her own work online and is always working on new writing projects. What will happen when she runs out of ideas?

Connect with her on Facebook, Tumblr or on Twitter @writerwenz84

