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It should have been baking hot, here in the desert, but it wasn't. Rain pelted down, forcing gamblers and tourists indoors. Not that most of them came to enjoy the weather. You don't come to Vegas for the sunshine.

One man cared even less than the rest though.

Darkness stood in an alleyway. The rain that drove down in a relentless sheet of cold fire soaked him to the skin, plastering his dark hair to his scalp. His face paint ran in dark rivulets down his face, but he didn't move an inch.

The half dozen creatures in front of him snarled as they crept forward from the shadows. Lightning forked in the sky above their heads and thunder rumbled almost simultaneously. The clouds swirled, chased by the same unseasonable breeze that brought them here. It was the same everywhere, if the weather reports were to be believed.

The vampires were close now, all crouched low, moving more like beasts than men. Darkness drew his sword and, beside him, Revenant's blades flicked out and enclosed her small fists.

"Are you going to give them a warning? Tell them they should run away?" she asked.

"No."

"Good."

"You're outnumbered, Nightwalker," the lead vampire snarled, baring his long fangs and wrapping his fingers around the hilt of his own sword.

"It never bothered me before," Darkness told him.

"Maybe not, but the word is that you aren't what you used to be..."

Darkness's eyes narrowed. "Maybe not," he agreed, "but I have a surprise or twelve up my sleeve..."

The vampire frowned, but he didn't get as far as asking the obvious question. A howl echoed above their heads and the vampires all threw their heads upwards trying to discern the source of the sound. Twelve shapes were silhouetted against the sky as lightning crackled again.

Darkness and Revenant charged into the vampires, weapons swinging as, from the rooftops, the werewolves descended, all leaping down without apparent injury, some sliding into their wolf forms as they landed and then leaping into the fray with jaws slavering.

Darkness swung his sword in a wide arc, decapitating the lead vampire and causing his body to collapse into a pile of smouldering ash that was quickly extinguished by the pounding rain.

The werewolves attacked with teeth and claws and those that hadn't transformed - either out of choice or because of their young age - used the weapons of their people. Swords rang against each other and axes swung through the air while spears impaled undead monsters and punched through the black lacquered armour their enemies wore.

Darkness twisted on his heel, trying to ignore the strange dark shapes that seemed to flit across his vision with alarming regularity and block out his senses, leaving him open to attacks. A sword swung at him and he raised his left hand just in time, letting the blade bury itself in his prosthetic. He flung the weapon away with a yell and then drove his own sword into the heart of the vampire, causing it to disintegrate into a mound of burning embers.

Within a few heartbeats the battle was over and Darkness breathed slowly, surveying the carnage. Little evidence was left of the fight, only ash that was being rapidly dispersed by the wind and rain. He stooped down and picked up a piece of armour that had survived the destruction of the wearer. It was hot to the touch and there were still small a few flickering cinders on the battered edges of the plate.

"Where did they get this armour?" he asked no one in particular.

"Skaar wore the same stuff..."

Darkness turned to Revenant who was investigating her blades for any damage.

"You think they got it from him?"

She shrugged. "I guess."

Darkness dropped the armour and gave his false hand an appraising glance. There was a deep groove in the back of it where he had stopped the sword and he sighed ruefully. "I'll have to see about a replacement for this..."

"Nightwalker!"

Darkness lifted his head and saw one of the werewolves looking at him with concern in her eyes. She was fair skinned and would have been attractive if not for her strange features that made her look too animal for human eyes to appreciate. Her hair was so blonde it was almost white and masses of it fell down her back. Her name was Gwen and her twin brother, with similar features, including the hair, stood to her side, leaning on his spear. His name was Gawain. They were the two eldest of his new charges and had quickly taken on the role of leaders.

"What is it?" he asked as he approached.

Gwen's yellow eyes looked pained. "Bedwyr..."

Darkness tried to ignore the lurch in his stomach as the werewolves parted and revealed one of their number lying on the floor of the alley, his head cradled by his companions. They all looked imploringly at him, as if he could somehow undo this.

He crouched down. There were two ragged holes in the young werewolf's neck and blood trickled from the wounds in a steady stream. There were also rivulets of blood coming from his pointed ears and Darkness sighed heavily. The boy was dead.

"He was bitten," Darkness explained, "a vampire's bite destroys the brain instantly, caving it in and, if the subject has the will to survive, replacing it with crystalline structures that make them a vampire too."

"Bedwyr will become a...a vampire...?" Llenlleawg, the youngest of the werewolves, asked.

"No. He was too young perhaps...maybe weakened already..."

"So...he's dead?" Gawain didn't seem to believe it.

"He died instantly," Darkness said softly. "I will make arrangements to have his body sent back to your homelands."

He stood up and walked from the group, leaving them to regard Bedwyr's broken form with stunned silence. Bedwyr was the first werewolf to join him, the one who had spoken out after he'd given his speech.

"Aren't you going to do anything?" Revenant asked him as he walked from the werewolves.

"Like what?"

"I don't know. Say a few words...promise to avenge him...at least comfort them or something."

"Comfort them?"

"I dunno. You're the human. You tell me how it works."

Darkness looked back at the forlorn gaggle of werewolves. "They must become hard," he said quietly, "if we are to weather this storm. When they joined me they put their lives on the line and more of them will die before this is done."

"And that doesn't bother you?"

"It bothers me," Darkness said, "but I heave learnt to be hard, as they must. We must steel ourselves for this war. If we stop to grieve, our enemies will come upon us in our mourning."

"But...isn't it the fact that we value life that gives us our strength...?"

"Yes. But the time for tears will be later."

Saying nothing more, Darkness turned from the sorrowful scene and sheathed his sword. Without a backward glance, he walked through the driving rain, watching for the next attack and ignoring the strange shadows that plagued his vision.

* * *

"Meteorologists continue to warn of severe weather conditions across the entire globe. Storms are battering every city in America, and experts warn of hurricanes forming in the tropics, of magnitudes that dwarf even Katrina."

The news anchor maintained her professionalism as she delivered the strange news. The weather was the top story and satellite images showed dense clouds and swirling storm systems shrouding the entire planet.

"We have with us an expert, Professor Callum Wakefield, who believes the freak weather conditions may be connected to the shift in orbit of the near-Earth asteroid, 99942 Apophis that alarmed astronomers last week."

She turned to the small man bespectacled man who sat beside her. "Professor Wakefield, welcome to CNN Newsroom..."

"Thank you, Heidi," the professor smiled warmly.

"So, you believe that the unusual weather the planet is experiencing and this asteroid are somehow connected?"

"Well yes," he began, "though there's nothing sinister about it. Usually, in scientific circles, if one strange thing happens and another immediately follows it, it's logical to think the two are connected, assuming there's some sort of plausible system of cause and effect. What I believe we're seeing here is, thanks to a change in the orbit of Apophis, the Earth moving through a cloud of debris and dust. That's entering the atmosphere and it's just causing a change in the meteorological conditions. Pockets of warm air are being created in a kind of ‘hot house effect' and they're meeting cold fronts from the southern hemisphere and just interacting in unusual and unpredictable ways."

"So do we have anything to worry about?" the news anchor asked.

"Well...we are looking at some pretty intense storms. Certainly the tropical hurricanes that are forming are something to worry about, but hurricanes happen every year. These ones have just formed a little quicker than we're used to. I'm confident that, once we move out of the wake of Apophis, conditions will soon return to normal."

"Thank you, professor."

Wakefield nodded his thanks and the anchor turned back to her desk. "In other, related, news, religious groups have come forward and condemned the internet cults that have sprung up in the wake of 99942 Apophis's orbital shift nicknaming the asteroid ‘Wormwood' and claiming that it is on a collision course for Earth, heralding the coming apocalypse. Pope Benedict has issued an official statement from the Vatican, calling such claims "the insane ravings of the paranoid." We remind viewers that, despite the inexplicable change in the asteroid's orbit, it is not on a collision course for our planet and never has been..."

Dante lifted the remote and turned off the television set in his hotel room. He languished in a comfortable chair behind a large desk in the palatial suite, wearing a plain grey suit and a white shirt, open at the collar to reveal some of the alabaster skin on his chest. He sighed heavily as he rapped his fingers against the desk and glanced at the balcony doors. Rain lashed against the glass and, in the distance, he could see boiling clouds forming, flashes of lightning lending stark relief to their rolling edges.

Irritably, he looked around for something to do. His eyes alighted on the World Title belts that sat on the wide leather couch, but he found himself unwilling to think too hard about his upcoming defence.

"My son..."

The voice was barely a whisper in his ears, but he turned around sharply, expecting to see someone addressing him. The room was empty.

With a grunt, Dante stood and crossed the room to the drinks cabinet. He quickly poured himself a small measure of Glenfidich 1937, which he sipped lightly, enjoying the gentle alcohol burn in his throat.

"Mine...my son..."

"Not yours," Dante said aloud.

"Mine..."

"No." Dante said the word firmly. "You were never a father to me, and I never a son to you. You can't just claim me whenever you wish."

"I claimed you..."

"No, you rejected me, and you raised another in my place."

Where had that thought come from? It was something he realised he had been harbouring for over a year now - the thought that had turned him against Lucifer, but which he had ignored as regards to Darkness.

Of course, Darkness never asked to be the Antichrist...

"My Champion..."

"I'm not your Champion," Dante said, still staring down into the glass of whiskey in his hand, "he is. He wears that belt."

"Your belt..."

With a roar, Dante turned on his heel, hurling the glass across the room. It smashed into a full-length mirror, causing glass to cascade to the floor. Dante stared at the place where the mirror had been...behind it was...just wood.

He laughed at himself, at his own paranoia that was causing him to expect the insane and the unlikely as real possibilities.

The World Champion walked slowly over to the broken glass. He looked down at the shattered mirror. "Seven years bad luck," he murmured.

He caught sight, for just a moment, of his own reflection in one piece of glass and, just for a heartbeat, he thought he saw Darkness instead, and then Lucifer, eyes blazing with fire which then turned to absolute blackness.

The mirror went dull and Dante stepped away, open mouthed.

It was only then that he glanced up and realised that the sky had clouded over, turning the room almost totally dark. Lightning forked from the sky, suddenly throwing the room into stark black and white relief.

Dante narrowed his eyes. "I've had enough of this place," he said to himself before turning abruptly, stopping only to grab his wallet and the key card for his room and leaving, slamming the door behind him.

* * *

Flickering candlelight illuminated the huge round table in the catacombs below Istanbul. Most of the chairs were empty and, of the original council, only one remained.

Seth curled his lip at the figure that sat across from him, lounging in the chair that had once belonged to General Zheng. Dragon still wore his black and gold armour, now accented by red straps and decorative elements. Half his face was covered by a bronze mask, which hid the charred handprint given to him by Jason Dante a little over a year ago.

The only other person present was not a person at all, but an embodiment of something fundamentally, dangerously, human. She was Isis, Hel, Naamah, Izanami and Pandora. She was Lilith, the Queen of Whores.

"He'll be here soon," she told the other two, running one long black fingernail across the surface of the table. She now almost always adopted the form of Razor, the shape in which she had interacted with their most hated enemies in the past.

"He had better be," Seth said, his hollow voice not echoing in the vaulted chamber as the others' had. The air seemed to somehow reject Seth, shying away even from his voice.

"I hope I'm not late."

The shadow emerged from the other side of the table, opposite Seth. He was in his flawless black suit, set off perfectly by the blood-red tie. His goatee was perfectly trimmed and darker than his suit, as was his slick hair, tied back into a neat ponytail that hung just below the nape of his neck. His skin was tanned and olive, a hallmark of his origins in the Mediterranean.

"Well this is an honour," Dragon laughed dryly, "a celebrity amongst us."

Lucifer gave him a sharp glance. His eyes, once burning pits of passion, now looked dead, swirling flames replaced by absolute blackness.

"You know," the vampire lord observed, sitting forward in his chair, "you look just like your brother."

"Which one?"

"The one that's still alive," Dragon smiled.

Lucifer snorted. "I think there's two still alive actually," he said, "but I assume you mean Azrael."

"Who else?"

"Don't you think I look like my son?"

Dragon's face clouded over. "He's a little paler than you..."

"Shall we get to business?" Lucifer asked, turning from Dragon to look at the other two around the vast table. His eyes lingered on Lilith for a moment, but they dutifully ignored one another in this place of conference.

"Business, yes," Seth agreed, "what troops can you give me?"

"Troops?" Lucifer looked incredulous. "All the troops in the world will do you no good while Darkness and Dante still stand against you."

Lilith laughed, the sound beautiful on the surface, but hiding a strange discord beneath that jarred against the ears of anyone who listened carefully. "In other words, you still don't have the power to bring Hell into this world..."

Lucifer looked at her through narrowed eyes. "I have the power..."

"No you don't," she said mockingly, "if you did, Earth would be swarming with demons and those vile Husks by now. No, I think you're still beholden to the Ring..."

Lucifer frowned. "I don't know what you mean."

"Oh, you can't lie to me, Luci'," Lilith sneered, "I'm part of you, remember? You thought the power of the Abyss would break the Ring's hold on you, but you're still as limited as ever."

Lucifer's lips twisted, but then he made an annoyed sound and slumped back in his chair. "Yes, alright," he admitted, "I can still only manifest for short periods and the Gates of Hell are still closed to my armies. But the power of the Abyss can destroy the Ring. If it is thrown into the Void, Michael's final legacy will be annihilated."

"Then we still search for the Ring?" Seth asked.

"My Ring," Lucifer growled, "I should never have let Asmodeus use it..."

"Azrael searches for it too," Lilith said.

"Who told him it even existed?"

"Odin."

"Fucking typical."

Dragon tapped his knuckles against the table to obtain the attention of the other three. "Don't worry about Darkness," he said, "he fights my warriors."

"Vampires?" Lucifer asked.

"Obviously."

"So," Lucifer leaned closer, "I spent the last year turning him into my creature so that, when I made the Armageddon Oath, he too would be claimed by the Abyss, and now you're fighting him with vampires? How is that supposed to turn him to our cause?"

"He has troops of his own," Seth explained.

"Yes, I know. Werewolves."

"Another of your bright ideas," Lilith said, rolling her eyes.

"Wolves were a much better prospect than those apes," Lucifer shrugged, "it seemed an obvious step at the time after humans ended up so disappointing."

"The point is," Dragon interrupted, "we're killing his wolves."

"And what good will that do, besides make him hate you even more?"

"That's the beauty of it," Dragon smiled, his blue-black tongue flicking over his desiccated lips, "with each death, he grows harder. Gradually, we erode all that is left of his humanity, turning him into one of us without ever having to bite."

Lucifer looked at Dragon for a moment before nodding his head. "Good plan."

"Thank you." Dragon avoided shooting a triumphant look at Seth.

"What will break him in the end?"

"The girl..."

Lucifer narrowed his eyes. "You mean your..." he waved his hand, "..dhampyr, or whatever."

"Exactly. You know how Darkness is about little girls."

"Of course," Lucifer exchanged a glance with Seth, "I never thanked you for that..."

"Not at all," the Herald of Apophis murmured.

"So," Lucifer went on, " we kill his wolves, then we kill his pet vampire, then he's ours."

"Exactly."

"Excellent," Lucifer nodded, sitting back contentedly.

"What about Dante?" Lilith asked.

"What about him?"

She regarded Lucifer through suspicious eyes. "Are you so quick to dismiss your son? Don't you remember what happened a year ago?"

"I have no interest in my son," Lucifer lied, "he rejected me, and I reject him too."

"And if he goes to the aid of Darkness?" Seth asked.

"He won't. Their alliance is sundered. Dante took his hand, and Azrael will take those precious wrestling belts from him."

"Which of you arranged the hand thing anyway?" Dragon asked, looking at the other three in turn.

None of them answered.

"Huh...weird..." Dragon slouched back into his chair. "Are we sorted then? Everyone know who they're supposed to be killing, maiming or annoying?"

Lucifer, Lilith and Seth, the new Council of the Abysmal Ones since Dragon and his Ordo Draco killed the rest, exchanged uneasy nods.

He took a deep breath as he stepped out into the rain, he had been almost oblivious to the start of this storm, in fact he felt as if the last few days had been a blur to him. He put his hands into his pockets and trudged on down the strip. Normally the world famous Vegas strip would be packed with people all waiting to get rid of money they couldn't actually afford to lose, but tonight in this pelting rain and the thunder had driven them into the casinos without lingering outside to watch the fake and glossy exteriors. As Dante walked down the strip a man in a coat that looked like he had crossed the US in it without washing it walked up to him.

"Spare some change, kid?"

Dante looked at the old bum and reached into his pocket for some money and handed him.

"Thanks, kid."

That word..."kid"...it reminded him of the old man in the cemetery. Dante had gone to him when he was preparing to face Kermit at Havoc, he still remembered the way the old timer greeted him.


"Back again, kid?"

"I don't have much choice do I?"

"Depends."

"Depends on what?"

"If yer want to stay alive of end up another darned husk."

"Not much of a choice, is it?"

"Not really, kid, not really."

He remembered how the training had begun.


"Every human consists mentally of a number of elements, fire, ice, water and earth...and then some like yer have a fifth element in your mind, an element that brings yer power, brings one of yer elements up to a dominant position, in yer case..."

"In my case it's the fire..."

The old man nodded.

"Correct, kid. Yer and anyone driven by emotion and by passion have a furnace inside that not even all the water in the oceans could put out. Yer live and die by yer love, yer hate, yer loyalty and yer passion. This is what I was talkin' 'bout when I said that an old preacher had told yer ancestor Isaac that "No son of Mann would serve the devil.". Yer a spitting image of Isaac kid, driven by love and passion...but not the love of yer self and not the passion of the ego...yer driven by the passion for friends and the love of a woman...Against that not even Satan himself can compete kid.

But, back ta' the point...Your passion fuels a fire inside a' yer, and that passion feeds a fire that can be made real and that yet control."

Dante nodded, he remembered that he had been the source of the fire that torched Darkness hand.

"But I can control it, I didn't want to maim Darkness..." Dante protested.

"Yes, yer can...Sometimes things happen that aren't in yer plan...but yer can control it...every Pyromancer can."

Dante had never heard the word Pyromacer before but he had a a fairly good grasp on what it meant, if this crazy old man was right fire would bend at his command, the element that had lead man from the caves was his tool, a weapon for him to wield.

He protested that he was drained and felt like a baby after he had used his power last time. The old man nodded and smiled as if he had truths to tell Dante once he was ready to hear them. But before he could ask, the old man told the albino that rest would be needed as the following day would be hard.

The rain seemed to pick up as winds tore into his clothes, for reasons all his own he had chosen one of the smaller and less crowded roads to approach Sin City. He had people to visit, people he didn't want to warn until it was time.

Time...He reflected back and remembered the first days in Montreal.


His fingers lit up as flames licked his skin without hurting it, they rolled smoothly over his skin with an intensity that he himself ordered. Dante grinned as he saw his abilities under control for the fist time. He played with the small jet of flame and let it move around his hand and arm, he even placed it on a paper and found that he could let it hover just above the surface so it didn't scorch the fragile paper at all. As he stood there he began to feel light headed at first he tried to shake it off but then he fell to his knees and the flame flickered and then extinguished. As he sat on his knees panting the old man shook his head. He bent down and helped the shaking and near unconscious Dante to his feet and helped the staggering albino to his bed. Twp days past and food and relaxation helped the still shaky Dante slowly back to his health

"Yer have so much power and " So damn little control of it..."

Despite two days having passed, Dante was still unable to to ask what he meant, not that he had to as the man elaborated himself.

"Kid, don't yer understand, the fire you use comes from with in, it's the fire of yer mind and yer "soul", every time you use it yer drain yerself. In the end you can extinguish yer soul if yer not careful."

Dante had regained some of his strength by this point so he asked.

"What point is there in this damn power then? If I end up a shell every fucking time I use it, why are you teaching me to use it?"

The old man sighed.

"Yer think the fire in yer is the only fire in this world?"

"No, I...wait, you mean I can..." Dante replied with a tired stutter.

"Yes, sure as hell yer can kid. Rest a few days more and the we can try it out, ok?."

A few days later Dante and the old man walked out onto the cemetery again.

The object the old man had tossed Dante was a zippo lighter. Dante examined the silvery object and flicked it open. The flame that rose from the lighter illuminated his face and radiated warmth. Slowly Dante raised his hand and commanded the flame and as he did a ball of fire was sucked from the lighter and lay itself to rest in his hand. He let the flames dance in his hand, turned it into a fiery flower.

"It's still draining as hell." Dante said with beads of sweat standing out on his brow.

"It sure as hell is, using an outside flame makes it a bit easier on yer, kid...I don't recommend yer usin' it for more then a few minutes

Dante held the fiery rose in his hand for a few seconds more and then in a quick shake of his hand he used it as conduit to summon Storm-caller. He stood there looking at his blade and took in every detail, the blade looked different now, it still looked like a European blade, but the "design" if that was the right word for it looked different, the sword was still jet black but it had a metal shine to it and seemed a much simpler design then last time.

"Nice blade, kid...can yer use it?"

Dante looked far away and seemed to have forgotten his fatigue, he stared at the blade and took in every piece of it's surface. He gave a faint and almost disinterested "Yeah" and an answer.

The old man smiled.

"Then by all means, Kid...use it!"

Dante looked at the old man who had taken up a steel rod and swung it in the air in a gesture that was nothing less then a challenge. Dante swung the sword around and pointed the point of the blade at the old man. Then he charged.

He let his hands follow the trace of a bruise on the right side of his chest, his physique had one anomaly, as a demon his heart was located on the right side...just beneath the bruise in fact.


Dante charged the old man, using tombstones as cover as he dashed forward, he used the last one as a spring board and reared back with the blade while in the air for a powerful thrust downwards. As he performed the thrust down the sound of metal on metal reverberated across the cemetery. The old man had blocked the swing perfect and followed up with a swing towards Dante's head with the steel rod.

Drawing on what Darkness had taught him, Dante blocked the blow and struck out himself...only to feel the horrid power of the steel rod hitting him square in the ribs just above his heart. Instantly, Dante dropped to his knees letting the blade slip both out of his hand and out of this reality. As he lay there panting from the realisation that the blow had caused his heart to skip a beat he felt cold steel against his throat.

"New, kid...Why are we here? Why did I take yer down so easy?"

Dante panted but replied.

"I...I...underestimated you...I thought your reflexes would be as old as you look...and I let the pyro trick drainb me too much."

"And why did yer make that mistake?"

"I don't know."

"Then I'll tell yer, kid...Arrogance, plain and simple. Yer want to be a good man, a fair man and yer wants ta' be humble...but yer humility ain't true...yer simply not the man yer want to be yet."

Dante nodded.

"I know...I understand."

"And yer know humility can't be taught like the use of pyromancy or the skill ta swing a sword...yer already have those skills...But yer need to be humbled."

Dante felt desperation raise in his throat.

"Please, show me how to become humble then...I need to learn or..."

"Or what, kid? Yer'll die when yer face Darkness? Yer'll be turned into a vampire when yer face one of those? Yer have to tell me what yer want, kid...I can teach yer everythin'."

"I...I want to survive, I want to be the opposite of the man I was a year ago...I want to be HUMAN!"

"Yer think it's that easy, kid? Some sucker snaps his fingers and yer human again? Learn ta live with it, kid yer were never truly human, yer know.. It was just an act following from yer not knowin' the truth."

"Then...please...show me how to learn to live my life as a monster!"

The old man's face looked stony and cold as he replied.

"First of all kid, yer not a monster. Yer father may be the devil, but yer forgetting that as much as Lucifer is a demon, he is an angel."

The old man paused.

"There is one thing yer can do though...yer have to leave this place and look up a man in Las Vegas, he will teach you humility...or yer will die tryin'."

Dante stood there and let the rain pelt his face, he let the water run down his collar and meditated on what had happened, what was happening and what would happen in the near future. He had a goal with his time here in Vegas, one part of it was to live until he could face Darkness at End Game, the traitor's name made Dante's blood boil, the girl...there was something about her that made Dante queasy, her image just looked off...and the savages Misfit had told him about. Things had gone awry in a hurry. After Dante's bout of paralysis, things had gone south faster then he could have imagined, an alliance that was just less then a year old had decayed and fallen apart...now he was fairly sure that a man he had seen as a friend and a brother in arms had become his enemy.

He sighed again and cursed that he did this thing so often. Then he headed for the parking garage of his hotel, he had a social call to make and a few things he had stashed away in his car would help gibe the evening a real bang. Besides, rumour had it that visiting Vlad Dragunovich unarmed was as bad an idea as a thinking man could come up with.

Wait, did I say ‘Mediterranean'?

Turns out that's a lie too, like everything else he said.

If you want to know the real story of Lucifer, he began as far back as you can go and still find what might be called a human being. Back then, out in the wilderness of the dry African continent was a tribe. ‘Troupe' might be a better word, since they weren't much more than apes at that stage: just another group of animals scrounging for survival in the savannah. They would have amounted to nothing, just like a thousand other species who died there in the dust, never to be found because nothing fossilises in the desert.

But something was different. For whatever reason, one of their number was unique. Up till then, they communicated with smells and grunts, but this one gave them names. Before they were a tribe, but now they were individuals with identities. Once you have individuality, you have selfishness, and that leads to desire and hope...and that leads to dreams...

Conceptually, it was the greatest shift in human history. The movement from first order intentionality - from being aware only of what you think and feel in that instant - to being able to conceive of the thoughts and feelings of others, and their thoughts and feelings in the future too. Once you have second order, it's a short step to third, fourth, fifth and up into infinity, believing that others believe that you believe that they believe that...well, you get the idea. Pretty soon you have culture, and society. Pretty soon you have ideas.

Like the leader's idea to leave the savannah and find something they didn't even know existed: the sea. Or his idea, when the storms came and fire lanced from the sky, to keep the burning branch that landed near their home alight. It kept away the predators in the night, and their children grew up safe and strong, because of the fire.

He was the first leader humanity ever had. He created fire, and he created stories, and he created dreams and, through him, mankind invented their gods. And their demons.

After his death, they remembered him, and called him a hero. But, as their culture spread and they divided into other tribes, becoming more and more numerous, those offshoot peoples reviled him as a monster instead. You can be a god and a demon; he was the prototype.

His name doesn't translate into any modern language, but he took as his epitaph the same word used for the brightest star in the sky. He was the Morning Star, and he was humankind's first god - the lord of fire and dreams; the saviour and the trickster.

* * *

The day he left had been strange. After all his training, after everything he'd learned, he felt that he'd come to know his elderly mentor pretty well. He was gruff, but also irreverent, with a twinkle in his eye.

It was different that morning.

"Are you alright?"

"It's time for yer to go, kid..."

Dante frowned. "Is there any rush?"

"No, no rush."

The twinkle was gone, and the caretaker looked older somehow, like he'd aged ten years overnight. There were dark lines under his eyes and he seemed to constantly stare through his pupil in stark contrast to the hawk-like gaze with which he usually affixed Dante.

"Is something wrong? You look...you look awful..." Dante felt odd being so frank, but the old man had never been anything but honest with him.

The caretaker sighed and pointed at the sky. "There's a storm coming," he said slowly.

Dante peered up at the dark clouds. "Yeah, it looks like it. A little strange for the summer."

"There's not going to be a summer, kid."

Dante narrowed his eyes. "Are you trying to teach me something?"

The old man rose to his feet, moving faster than Dante thought he was capable of. "It ain't all about you, snow cone!" he snapped, "There's a whole world out there, and things are mighty wrong with it!"

"Hey, I know that. Isn't that what this is all about?"

"Sure," the old man said, deflating visibly, but not returning to his seat on an overgrown tomb, "but I've been tryin' to teach you about fire, an' it turns out there might not be no fire left anymore."

"What?" Dante was confused. Instinctively he curled his fist, intending to summon the flames.

"No!"

"What?" Dante repeated, putting his fist back to his side, but not unclenching it.

"It ain't safe no more, kid. The fire is tainted."

"Tainted? How?"

"Tainted by shadow. Like yer buddy, Darkness. I didn't understand what yer were tellin' me before, but now it makes sense. His belt, the way he's been actin', all of it."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Dante said shaking his head.

"I don't even think I know what I'm talking about," the old man said, sitting back down forlornly.

"So...what should I do...?"

"Go to Vegas, kid, like I told you. Find the one I told you about but...fer the love of God...be careful with that fire. It's not what it was."

"Right..."

* * *

Darkness pressed his hand to his head and clenched his teeth.

"Will you just go and see a doctor?"

He eyeballed Revenant and shook his head. "I can stand it..." he snarled.

"Yeah, it looks like it."

They were in Darkness's hotel room, grey morning light pouring through the balcony doors. Droplets beaded the glass surface of the window and the rain still poured down as it had steadily for the last week. There seemed to be no end in sight for the appalling weather.

That morning, he had awoken with a pounding headache and black spots swirling across his vision. The pain had grown steadily, seemingly in rhythm to the endless thunderstorm. Every time lightning crackled from the skies, it seemed to do the same in his head.

"I feel like there's a fire inside my skull," Darkness said, "that blazes up into an inferno every five minutes."

"So see a doctor. Get some medicine."

"I don't like to take drugs..."

"But tequila is fine?"

Darkness threw Rev a withering glance. "You need to stop hanging around with Freya," he said.

"I'm not. But you know she and Gwen are very similar," she smiled sweetly, "I guess thinking you're full of shit is just a werewolf trait."

Darkness laughed, but then immediately winced and held his hand to his skull.

"You can't fight like this," Revenant told him, sitting down on the bed next to him and folding her legs beneath her.

"No, I can't..."

"Which means you won't win the titles, and you can't kill vampires."

Darkness nodded. "My Slayer Sense is going crazy," he complained, "I feel like there are vampires everywhere..."

Revenant looked at him. "You think that's the headache...?"

"That...or..."

The balcony doors exploded inwards and Revenant rolled off the bed, landing on her feet deftly. Her blades were up in a heartbeat. Darkness was slower to react as the dark spots swam in front of his eyes and his headache blazed up again. He reached for his sword that lay against one wall and drew it smoothly from the baldric, spinning it up into his fist.

Glass crunched beneath the feet of the vampire that now stood in the room. He smiled at Darkness. Unlike the others they had fought against, this one was wore no armour and carried no weapons. Darkness gaped at him.

"Long time no see, Darkness."

"Gregor..."

Baltic grinned, showing off his long fangs. "You've changed," he observed.

Darkness straightened. "Not as much as you..."

"No. Not as much as me."

The two men stood motionless. Darkness was attempting to ignore the agony beating in his skull, and Baltic simply smiled at him.

"Darkness!"

He turned, nearly stumbling over as the sudden movement caused his head to go haywire, to see another vampire loom up behind Revenant and wrap a huge fleshy arm around her. The creature was like no vampire Darkness had ever seen - bloated and corpulent, with blank eyes and an open, drooling mouth. He had no time to register the incongruity of a vampire with saliva.

"Rev!" he dashed towards her, but Baltic cut him off, spearing him to the ground from behind. Revenant struggled in the monster's grip, but Baltic held Darkness down with his supernaturally strong grip.

"Let her go!"

"Why?" Baltic asked, and Darkness had no answer.

The fat vampire bore the squealing Revenant from the room, and Darkness tried to rise once more, finally escaping from Baltic's embrace and stumbling to his feet. Immediately, he was felled by a punch to back of his skull that made his ears ring and Baltic stepped over him again.

"This is the end of the road," the vampire grinned. His clawed hand shot out, securing itself around Darknesss' throat. He knelt down, pressing his knee into Darkness's chest and then bringing his dead face closer, opening his mouth wide.

Darkness tried to twist away, but Baltic continued to move towards him. His neck was exposed and the fangs hovered inches from his flesh. He tried to straighten his neck, buy himself a few extra seconds.

He could hear the dry, triumphant laugh in Baltic's throat.

Suddenly he realised that his left arm was free. Both he and his assailant had disregarded it. His prosthetic hand lifted and latched around Baltic's throat. He pushed the vampire away, holding him back with all his might. His arm began to shake as Baltic snarled and tried to push closer. The vampire's grip tightened on his throat and Darkness realised he was being choked.

From nowhere, a boot connected with Baltic's head, sending him spinning across the room. Desperately, Darkness sucked in air as a white and brown shape stepped over him and levelled a sword at Baltic, who crouched down near the shattered glass door.

A large hand helped Darkness to his feet and he found himself looking into the wide, friendly face of Gawain.

"Thanks."

"Don't thank me, thank Gwen. She's the one who smelt your panic."

"Panic...great..."

More werewolves filed into the room and Baltic realised he was outnumbered. With a high-pitched hissing noise, he turned and bounded out onto the balcony, swinging himself over the railing and disappearing into the grey morning.

"I thought vampires were destroyed by sunlight..." Gwen said.

"They are," Darkness said, massaging his throat and trying to ignore his headache again, "I have no idea why he isn't dead."

"He someone you know?" Gawain asked.

"He used to be," Darkness said ruefully.

"Where's Rev?" Llenlleawg asked. The young werewolf was about her age, Darkness supposed, still too young to transform and with very dark hair that barely brushed his shoulders.

"The other one took her..."

"Other one?" Gwen looked confused.

"There was another vampire here," Darkness explained, "a fat one. He took Revenant."

"I didn't smell any other vampires," Gawain said with a frown.

"Well there was one here," Darkness snapped, "and he took Rev."

The werewolves glanced at each other but the nodded. "Let's find her then..."

"Can you track her?"

Gawain smiled. "Of course."

The door had seen better days, as had the entire neighbourhood. There was a word attached to the entire section of Vegas and from the looks of things, derelict was the word. Dante had dressed in a way different from his normal style, he had decided that dressing in white at this point was with both the dark and what he was about to do in mind was he decided stupid.

He knocked on the door, he was sure there was some elaborate ritual associated with this but given the rain and his fatigue he didn't give two shits and a fuck.

"Da?!"

Dante knew that he had found the right place, the man he was looking for was a Russian, a reclusive nut case called Vladimir Dragunovich...the name Dante had decided was the worst joke since the latest incarnation of the Slaughterhouse 5.

"I'm looking for Vlad..."

"Man, shit loads of people look for Vlad!"

BANG.

The man shut the small opening in the door.

Dante knocked again.

"Still here?" The Russian asked.

"Yeah, either you let me in to speak to Vlad or you'll have one long fucking night ahead of you."

"Vlad's busy."

Dante grinned a wolf's grin.

"So am I."

"Look, buddy I..." The man got no further as Dante reached in and grabbed hold of his tie, apparently the ruffian had something that could be called self-preservation as he opened the door rather then be strangled by the irate albino.

"As I said..." Dante began "...I'd like to speak with Vlad."

"Lots of people do Mister...you have to be special to speak to Vlad though."

Dante held up his hand and summoned Storm Caller.

"Special enough?"

"Da."

"Glad to hear that." Dante replied and let a sigh of relief pass his lips. He was happy that he didn't have to set anything on fire, he didn't feel it was worth risking the taint.

*****
Darkness world was in turmoil at the moment, he felt surrounded by enemies he could neither see or even make out, werewolves and vampires in one jumbled mess. Once he had been told that vampires and werewolves were all evil, all beings that preyed on humanity. Revenant had opened his eyes to the possibility that vampires...no dhampyr at least could be victims of their full blooded suck-head cousins as much as humans could be.

The Community of werewolves had changed the way he saw the half-human savages there was a noble trait to them that he had either ignored or simply missed.

These depressing thoughts followed him as he trudged on behind Gawain. The group was in pursuit of the vampire that had taken Revenant, silently Darkness wondered what kind of being would accompany a fallen slayer like Baltic. Somewhere in the bowels he felt that he didn't really want to know the answer to that question.

The morning looked as bleak as the night had been dark, as the shadows retreated into the kind of daylight somepeople associated with his home country of England, the tracker found a scent to follow.

"Vampire..." Gawain snapped.

"How many?" Darkness replied.

"Two...maybe three."

"Three?"

"Hard to tell, it could be the young one's scent."

Darkness shook his head.

"That scent isn't the same."

Gawain shrugged in a whatever kind of way.

"I don..." Darkness got no further as an attack of a sudden and horrible headaches made him almost drop to his knees. He let out a guttural sound and closed his eyes to try to fight the pain back. He felt the pain subside and opened his eyes only to face the next horror, the pain had gone but now there was a sword pointed at his throat, the jet black blade was pointed straight at his throat. Darkness let his eyes follow the blade and saw the man who held the blade. His mind looked for a way to explain the face he saw and as it couldn't he just said.

"Jason?" in a perplexed voice.

*****

Dante had decided that he hated sloppy door men, especially the kind that tried to steal from the customers. Alright so Dante wasn't a customer at Dragunovich house but he was he decided a guest and there fore the guard had been out of his depth. Dante sighed and walked up the staircase.

"I'm looking for Vlad." he said to the large man standing at the door leading to a large room. The large man who was of obvious Russian decent grinned and replied "Vlad is also looking for you." in a voice almost devoid of an accent.
"I'm glad to hear that."

"You won't be for long stranger." came from the large room.

"I guess you can call that a "Step in please."." Dante said with a grin to the guard who only nodded in reply.

Dante entered the large room that had one probably been an entire flat, in places there were supportive pillar were walls had stood, Dante walked into the room and stopped half way through it. At one end a man sat in a large arm chair that almost looked like a throne. Dante suppressed a comment about the power behind the throne and instead asked.

"Is this Vladimir Dragunovich I have the honour to speak with...or is it just one more of his "witty" goons."

"Jason...would I detain with more fools then I already have?"

Dante's sense tensed up.

"I doubt we're THAT friendly yet Draguovich."

"Sorry, a custom from home, I feel like I know you Jason Dante...The intrepid entrepreneur of Dante Meditech, the brain behind Dantecorp and Time magazine cover boy. Besides...we have mutual acquaintances."

"I somehow doubt that."

Then Dante seemed to remember something.

"Sorry about the mess...Vlad, your door man was a bit over zealous."

Dante dropped something on the floor. With an anxious look on his face one of Dragunovich goons walked up to the object and as he saw what it was he let out a string of curses in Russian.

"Old Ivan got too close for comfort..." Dante paused and looked at the stain on the carpet. "I guess i Should apologise about that too."

"Not at all, as long as you left my door man in possession of one of his hands, I see no reason to quarrel."

Dante smiled as one of the goons picked the severed hand up and left with it.

"So..." Vlad began. "What can a humble Vegas business man like myself do for a man of the world like you?"

"You tell me, an old guy living in a Cemetery in Montreal sent me to see you."

Vlad paused again.

"Did he? I'm surprised that the old fool is still alive."

"I doubt he would ever die." Dante shot back.
"True, not to the hands of time at least."

The Russian nodded.

"Da, true. Now what did he tell you i could do for you?"

"Oh, just a lesson in humility..." Dante said feeling like a fool.

"No..." Vlad began. "I can't..."

Dante was about to protest when Vlad cut him off.

"But...she can." The man hidden in darkness said and pointed to another shadowy figure who stood a few meters away from him.

"Hello again, Jason."

Dante stared at the woman who left the sanctity of the shadows.

*****

Darkness stared at the angry and vindictive Dante.

"Jason I..." he began but got cut off by the man in front of him.

Dante didn't actually say anything but he mouthed a word

"Traitor." Passed through Dante's lips with out a sound being heard.

"What? NO!"

Darkness fell into a defensive position only to find that Dante was gone. He looked at the now empty spot where the albino had stood now a minute ago and shook his head.

"Hey, you ok?" Llenlleawg asked.

Darkness nodded.

"I'm fine..." he lied.

*****

"Karen?"

Dante stared at Callisto, a woman he hadn't ever expected to meet again after their brief but hostile encounter.

"Jason...I told you, Karen is dead...you gave her the kiss of death."

Vlad left his "throne" and walked up and stood side by side with Callisto.

"And then." he began. "I gave her the kiss of new life...the blood kiss!"

Dante felt like spitting as he said his next piece.

"I should have known..."

"Yes, you should have Jason." Callisto purred in a voice devoid of real emotion.

"Dragunovich...son of the dragon...not as good as Tepes or Dracul...but it hide me fro the prying eyes of your friend and his fellow slayers for decades."

Vlad Dracul stood side by side with his vampiric bride Callisto

"Now...what did the old fool tell you I could teach you?"

Callisto walked up to the albino and in a purring voice she said.

"My master will teach you pain, agony, death and servitude...don't you worry Jason...you'll have forever to learn how to be a slave."

Storm water ran off his armour as he turned around slowly. Lightning flashed overhead, but he ignored it. The fire couldn't harm one such as him - he was a creature of the shadow.

Caliban cowered at his feet as he laid the unconscious Revenant down on the rooftop. Her squealing had disturbed the bloated vampire so much on the journey that he'd bashed her head against a wall to shut her up.

"You weren't supposed to harm her," Skaar said as he noticed her bruised temple and the bloody smear across her cheek.

Caliban mewled something unintelligible and backed away, hiding his face with his big, unlovely hands.

The ancient vampire stooped down beside the dhampyr and brushed the hair from her face. "Such a pretty thing," he reflected, "it's a shame that she must die after all this. She is strong, despite her human blood."

The sound of scrabbling made him turn and he watched Baltic clamber onto the roof of the tall building on which the vampires gathered.

"She's an abomination," the former Slayer said with a feral snarl.

"We are all abominations," Skaar said, straightening, "and this is the age of abominations. The Void is in ascendance. It is our time now."

Skaar walked slowly to the edge of the building. The lights of Las Vegas were dark now, and the gaudiness of the city was muted by the iron-grey skies. "Look at them," the vampire said, his predatory eyes roving across the streets where a few people rushed through the driving rain, trying to get inside as quickly as possible. "Worms...with their games and their whores. They cannot fight the Abyss. The power of death is too strong for them."

"They will all die then?" Baltic asked, stepping up beside Skaar.

"Of course."

"Wouldn't we be served better if they were vampires...?"

"Why would we assimilate the weak? What purpose would more weakling, mewling things like Caliban serve?"

Baltic had no answer, he simply watched with Skaar. "I nearly bit Darkness," he said after a few moments.

"You can't Sire Nightwalker," Skaar said automatically.

"Why not?"

"He is the Will Unbreakable; the Faith Unshakeable. His blood is poison to us."

"Are you certain of that?" Baltic asked, frowning.

"Very. I have fought him many times."

"You've fought Darkness?"

Skaar turned slowly. "No, I've fought Nightwalker."

"You mean...the story about Azrael is true...?"

"Of course."

Baltic pondered the meaning of this revelation. "So, who won?"

"Last time; me. And the time before that. Every other time, he beat me."

"What changed?"

Skaar hefted the katana in his hand. "He has to start fresh every time: I get better."

* * *

"Are you alright?" It was a red-haired werewolf who helped him to his feet, named Cai.

"I'm fine," Darkness said again, "just...just an odd thought..." he was about to say dream or hallucination, but he couldn't afford to let the werewolves know about his weakness.

Too late he realised that they could smell his lies.

"I just have a headache," he told them. That was true enough, but they still looked concerned. Quickly, he changed the subject, "We should get into the shadows," he said, "otherwise people will see you."

"So let them see us," Galadd, the largest of the wolves rumbled, "I have nothing to hide."

"Well I do," Darkness said, "Dante already thinks I'm a traitor..."

They looked at him askance, and he realised that it was the strange vision that had said that, not the real Dante.

"Never mind," he mumbled, "let's just find Rev..."

Everything was moving so fast. His time amongst the werewolf community seemed like an age ago, and now he was as far away from that sleepy forest as it was possible to be, immersed in the single most enduring symbol of America: Las Vegas. A bright, synthetic metropolis dedicated to consumption and excess, plastered wholesale over the surface of a desert, in a place where a city could never naturally form over time. It was an embodiment of pioneer spirit; manifest destiny warped into a lust for liberty that even extended to giving people the freedom to gamble their lives away without a trace of guilt.

"Are you alright?" Gwen was looking at him, concern etched on her brow. She was as tall as Darkness and easily as broad, but slight compared to the rest of the werewolves. Of all of them, she had proved the most sensitive to the emotional states of others and, in the absence of the matronly females of their village, had slid easily into the role of surrogate mother for them. There were one or two other females in the group, but Gwen was the eldest and most confident.

"I told you, it's just a headache."

"No, I smelt something else. It was like disgust."

Had he been disgusted? He'd spent his whole life protecting humanity, standing aloof but always with their best interests at heart, like an absent parent. He realised that he had changed now, that he saw weakness and vulnerability when he looked at mankind now. He saw their excesses as invitations to destruction, and their obsession with temporal power and wealth as the eventual means of their exploitation by the forces he opposed.

"Darkness?" the werewolves had stopped and now gathered around him. He realised he'd been lost in his thoughts. He looked around him, seeing that they were immersed in a network of alleys and back streets. The rain still fell in a steady rhythm.

"Do you still have her trail?" he asked.

"Yes," Gawain nodded, "but we won't have for long if this rain keeps up. Also...this city..." he lifted his head and expressed with a glance what all the werewolves were feeling.

"I'm sorry," Darkness said, not for the first time, "I know it's a big change for you. This place must be terrifying..."

"Not terrifying," Gwen said, flashing him a fanged smile, "just new. Different. We will adapt."

"These aren't good hunting grounds," Galadd said, his deep voice booming in his massive chest, "but we lead where you follow, Nightwalker."

"No, I follow you," Darkness told them, "you're the ones with the noses." He placed his good hand on his forehead and winced at the regular pounding in his skull. "Besides, I'm in no shape to lead anyone."

"Maybe you should go back to your room," Gwen suggested, "we can find Revenant."

"I can't let you rescue her alone..."

"We can handle whatever the vampires can do," Gawain assured him.

Darkness tried to think, but his headache was much worse than before. There was something incredibly important he had to remember, but he had no idea what it was. Some vital piece of information that Revenant had mentioned what seemed like forever ago.

No, it was gone. "Fine," Darkness murmured, "I need to sleep..."

"Llenlleawg, go with him," Gwen ordered, "he's too ill to go on his own."

The dark young werewolf opened his mouth and shut it again. "But...I want to help you find Rev..."

"You are helping us," Gwen told him, "looking after Darkness is a vital job too."

"But..."

"Nightwalker let us into his army," she said, her tone going severe, "now it's time to repay him. Do as I say, or I'll send you back home."

Llenlleawg slunk away from the white-haired female, standing beside Darkness. The former Slayer straightened and tried to ignore the pain in his head. "How will you let me know if you need help?"

"What makes you think we'd need help?" Gawain asked with his trademark easy smile.

"You'll know," Gwen assured Darkness with a comforting hand on his shoulder, "I'm confident of that."

Darkness nodded and gave her a tight smile as the werewolves padded away from him. Some of them slid into their wolf forms, and the ones who were too young to transform gathered up their discarded clothes. Within moments, they had disappeared, Gwen, now in the form of a snowy-white wolf was the last to round the corner and she stopped, turning to look at him with her golden eyes before following her companions into the maze of back streets that would lead them to wherever Revenant was.

"So...back to the hotel?" Llenlleawg asked.

Darkness slid down the wall, landing heavily on the floor of the alley. "Let's just sit her for a bit," he said softly, holding his head.

"Alright." The young werewolf sat down next to him.

"I'm sorry I brought you all here," Darkness said, truthfully, "this isn't a good place for your people."

"What choice do we have?"

"Everyone has a choice," Darkness told him, "that's why Freya made me ask you to follow me instead of just telling you to do it or die."

"What's the deal with you and Freya anyway?" Llenlleawg asked.

"The deal? There's no deal..."

"No, I just mean...sometimes she smells like she hates you, and sometimes she smells like...something else..."

"You know how women are," Darkness said carefully.

"Well I know how she is...."

Darkness frowned. "You do?"

Llenlleawg laughed. "Of course. She's practically a celebrity back home."

"How so?"

Llenlleawg looked embarrassed, but he was also grinning. "Well you've seen her. There aren't many girls like her where we come from - mostly a werewolf man looks for a woman who'll give him lots of kids and knows her way around the kitchen. We're not used to...human looking females..."

"Ah," Darkness nodded, understanding Llenlleawg's point. "Then coming to a human city must be...odd...for you..."

"A little."

"And this explains why you want to look for Revenant with the others."

Llenlleawg opened his mouth as Darkness stood up. The former Slayer smiled at him and tapped his nose. "You're not the only one with a good sense of smell, wolf."

"Hey!" Llenlleawg looked annoyed, but then snapped his mouth shut. "How's your headache?" he asked instead of defending himself from Darkness's accusation.

"Better," Darkness said, and realised it was true.

"Still want to go back to your room?"

"Well...I think they can..."

Suddenly he stopped, and remembered the detail that had evaded him before. For a split second, he saw a baroque shape moving through red desert dust, a cold moon reflecting off lacquered armour. He remembered who Revenant said was with Baltic.

"Fuck."

"What?"

Darkness didn't stop to explain, but turned and ran to where the werewolves had disappeared. Llenlleawg hurried after him.

"Can you tell which way they went?" Darkness asked, desperation in his voice.

"Uh...just about. My nose isn't so good as Gwen's..."

"We have to find them before they get to Revenant."

"Why?"

"Because if we don't, they're all going to die."

He paused and let his hand touch the mark on his chest, the bruise reminded him of his mistake, it reminded him of steel rod on human flesh.

The vampires grin grew wider as they stalked him, step by step they followed every breath he took. Vlad Dracul 's sick grin was a bottomless pit of blood-lust and a wish to bathe in the gore of his opponent. Callisto's masked face shone with a lust for vitae equal to her new master's. Then a sudden movement in the corner of his eyes caught his attention.

The albino spun around and in one motion he pulled a shotgun from his coat, one blast from the weapon Kermit had left with him and the ruff looking henchman's face vanished in a spray of crimson. The albino swung the stock of the shotgun and felt the impact when he caved another underlings nose in, the sickening crunch and the pitiful yelp stopped when Dante swung again and introduced the vampire's slave to unconsciousness.

He reloaded the shotgun and blasted yet another incoming opponent right in the chest turning a white shirt into a gory mess. Dante was still no master at this kind of fighting, but his tutelage under the old man had had an effect. He swung with the shot gun and then he let it speak and deliver a load of buckshot to another incoming goon, swing by swing and blast by blast his world turned into a chaos of fire, screams and blood. Step by step he made his way towards Dracul, step by step he approached the vampire and his masked thrall.

The last goon to attack him was the man whom he had cut the hand off when he entered the building. The big steroid pumped fool grinned as he swung with a fist and a stump heavy as logs, Dante ducked under the swings and as he brought his gun to bear he remembered the words of his mentor.

"A warrior can separate himself from his actions, he does what he has to to survive, his violence is without malice and because of that without guilt of pain, his ideal to to uphold and defend...no matter the cost."

The blast sent the goon off his feet and into what ever realm his kind went to after death. Dante cocked the gun again and looked at the vampire and his slave.

"No more playmates to toy with?" Dante asked with a stony tone that lent a horrifying aspect to an otherwise playful sentence.

Dracul grinned and shook his head.

"No more distractions...just you me and the woman...an soon, just me and her as she feasts on the corrupted flesh of the failed son of Satan!"

Callisto laughed a mad laugh that sent chills up Dante's spine.

"Failed son!" She screamed in a voice tainted by madness.

"Failed?" Dante asked. "How about the only one of the sons of Satan to ever do things the right fucking way?"

"No, Dante...your way isn't the right way...doesn't father speak to you? Doesn't father tell you what you should do, has the slayer made you so deaf that you won't hear father tell you to walk the road the right way?"

Dante looked surprised "Father?" was all he could say.

"You didn't know, Earthborn? Didn't you feel the earth itself tremble as you entered this place? It has been a long time since ones like you and I met."

"I've met your kind before...I was the one who scarred Dragon." Dante said still oblivious to what Vlad meant.

"Jason..." Callisto purred. "Don't tell me you don't recognise him...Don't tell me you don't recognise your own brother."

Dante stared at her and then at Vlad.

"Brother?"

"Didn't the old fool tell you you had brothers and sisters."

"Yes...he did." Dante replied meekly.

Vlad's grin grew wider.

"And you didn't believe him, did you? You had to be the only one or your world would rupture. You are weak Jason Dante weak because you have rejected father, weak because you have strayed from the path. Jason Dante, I am here to bring you back into the fold. Join me brother and we can seize this world, take it by it's throat and bleed it dry...father and his two favourite sons sovereign lords of earth and all humanity on it. Free to feast on what we wish, free to rule, free to indulge...imagine brother, imagine that ecstasy of absolute rule of this world!"

Dante looked at the man who was still partially hidden by shadows a grin flashed by on his face. He hid his surprise at finding a demonic brother in the form of the now vampiric Vlad and put up an exterior he had honed through years of board room battles.

"Then brother, why don't you walk into the light so you straying "little brother" can see you...why do you rob me of seeing the glory of one who has chosen the true path of a scion of hell?"

The change of tone in Dante's voice unsettled Vlad at first, but gradually, the appearance of a expression of wonder and repressed lust for power on Dante's face swayed the vampire that his brother was ripe for the picking. Vlad threw his arms out and walked into the circle of light afforded by the old and yellowed lights.

The vampire looked like the ones...the one Dante had already seen. His skin looked thin and had no colour to the limit to being grey, in addition to these unsettling features the skin looked as if it had been stretched across what had once been noble eastern European features, the nose still held the hint of noble ancestry but time and vampirism had turned into a hooked parody of a once noble snout.

Dante looked at the man who called himself his brother and repressed his disgust. The eyes who in a man of this kind should have been vibrant and fiery were dull and dead, the hair had a strange quality to it that made it look almost like dreadlocks, as the man approached Dante realised that either age or an un-life spent drinking blood for sustenance had turned the once noble and majestic mane into strange scaly deadlocks. The man's hands seemed unnaturally thin while they still retained their power, over all the man who dressed in the finest of silks and suits by the best tailors kin the world still looked like a homeless guy dressing up top parody a rich man. To all extents, death had done Vlad Dracul no services.

He walked up to Dante and put his arm around his shoulder.

"You have no idea how glad I am you made that decision Jason...after seeing you take out my men, I was getting worried that we would have to fight each other."

Dante said nothing but laughed to lull Vlad into a false sense of safety. Out of the corner of his eye he saw that Callisto had recognised the laugh, but for some reason, Dante only could assume that it was a lingering fancy for the man she once had loved, she said nothing.

"Now my brother..." Vlad said.

"...you have to join us, share our bond, share our blood and share our small joys...the process is quick and filled with extacy."

There, Dante had his proof now he knew Vlad was lying, it was impossible for a man like him or any of his brethren to be turned into Vampires, their will was too strong for the "virus" for the lack of a better term to overcome, the weak died and got nothing more, the strong turned into blood craving monsters, the demons couldn't be turned, their blood killed the taint.

The albino stopped and pause as if he was surprised.

"But brother...don't you know?"

"Know what, brother?"

"Our kind can't be made into vampires...our blood destroys the taint."

Dante enjoyed watching the vampires face as the façade fell, this plan had been good, Dante would be fatigued and confused and unable to tell a vampire from a brother demon. Vlad's world had come tumbling down. Apparently this offer to turn him into a vampire had not been part of the real plan, but the only real drive left in the vampire's cold, dead heart had betrayed him. Dante felt the grip on his shoulder grow hard and unfriendly, the vampire spat.

"Too smart for your own good, Earthborn..."

In a motion too fast for even the well trained and demoniacally boosted Dante to react to, the Vampire grabbed hi by the throat and lifted the albino off his feet. He feral snarl on the vampires face was made all the more horrifying by the lips that had shrunken back and the fangs that now lined the mouth of the beast.

The vampire grinned.

"Callisto...I will give this one to you my dear."

Callisto didn't move, Dante could only see her out of the corner of his eye, but the masked woman only stood there and stared in horror at the scene before her.

"CALLISTO!" Vlad screamed.

The woman still didn't budge, she seemed confused by her surroundings and looked lost in the strange new world she had been thrust into.

As Dante began to do something he hadn't done in over a year he felt his senses open and grow wider, he felt auras, felt them he saw the fading auras of the men had had killed, he felt the twisted sickly aura of the man who threatened to strangle him and he felt the aura of Callisto as she stood there poised between salvation and utter damnation.

Slowly she began to move and as she did she drew a knife from her pocket, the blade of the weapon was long and thin, the kind of blade that seeks heart and ends lives. Vlad grinned as he saw his slave walk towards here undoing.

Seconds later a scream filled the chamber, the vampire dropped Dante as the tip of the blade ripped ligaments in his dead body asunder. Unable to hold the albino he dropped him and in the same motion that dropped him to the floor he lashed out against Callisto with a back handed punch that sent her flying through the air.

Free from the vampires grip Dante realised something...

"Only one?" he asked himself out loud before going back to his original plan.

With a voice driven by rage and frustration he screamed.

"Gamargh, Tzeentch marak!"

And like Seth had done a year ago, Vlad caught fire. Or rather his clothes did. Screaming as the fire consumed his fine clothes, the vampire crawled towards his makeshift throne, as he stood up next to it the fire had died down and he paused to regain his senses. His thin grey hand looked for something that he hid by his seat of power, he found it and drew it forth.

As he turned he held a rapier in his hand. The weapon had been an heirloom in his family for ages, it was the kind of weapon that was as much a sceptre as a weapon. He pointed it at Dante who stood there panting on his knees from the expenditure of energy that had gone into setting Vlad's clothes alight. The vampire grinned as he took the first steps towards Dante. The dead aristocrat 's body was s till smoking from the fire and his clothes were a right charred mess, but his grin was a blood thirsty.

"So I am not your brother or a son of Satan...no matter, I'll send you to rot in hell Hell spawn!"

With those words he lunged forward, the blade found soft, living flesh and bored itself into it. Dante stared at a blade that stuck out of a chest and it took him a few seconds to understand that it wasn't his chest. As the realisation sunk in he screamed.

"Karen!"

Callisto stood there,s he had positioned herself between Vlad and Dante and had caused her enslaver to stab her instead of the man she loved. She coughed and a steam of crimson blood welled out of the mouth of her white porcelain mask.

Vlad stared at her and with a curse he fled out a back door.

Dante didn't follow him, he staggered to his feet and walked to the now prone Callisto. He took off her mask and wiped his hand across her face and saw his white skin stain with make up.

She coughed.

"I...it's fake Jason."

Tears streamed down his face as he replied.

"I know Callisto...I know..."

As he felt the auras in the chamber he had realised that there was only one vampire in the room, Callisto had been fooled, brainwashed into thinking she was a vampire herself.

"But, why Callisto...why this?"

She coughed spilling a small glob of blood on her chest.

"I love you Jason, I knew I could never have you but I love you of all my heart."

Dante picked up her knife and started cutting himself, maybe his blood could heal her like it healed him. Callisto just put her hand on his.

"No...don't. I've been held prisoner by the voices in my head all my life, they have taunted me and plagued me since I was a child. I never was at peace of alone...until now."

Dante cried as she spoke.

"Jason...you freed me, freed me from him and from the voices...and for that I will love you until the stars fade. Thank you Jason..."

She kissed him.

"Callisto...I can..."

"No Jason, Callisto is dead. You set me free, you set Karen Matthews free again..."

There was a short shudder and then the light went out in her eyes.

"Karen?" Dante screamed.

"Karen?!"

Then he launched into a long a painful scream at the top of his lungs.

Two hours later.

He had buried her, left her in a place he knew she would have liked and sent what wishes he had with her. Now he only had one thing in mind...Vengeance, Vlad Dracul would suffer for this, if he could he would dedicate the rest of his life to tormenting the vampiric murderer. He remembered the words of the old man.

"The sword takes the shape it's wielder wants it to have, the blade called Storm caller is a manifestation of it's owners mind and soul. In time it will find it's shape for you."

As the grey dawn broke, Dante held out his hand and summoned the blade. This time it was a katana, the sword of a Samurai, the surface was still jet black with a metallic sheen to it. He examined the tool of his vengeance, he read the inscription on the blade.

Jason Invictus.

Vengeance is a terrible thing. It claws at the heart and changes a man as much as the bite of a vampire. The darkness grows in your soul, consuming you, turning you into a thing of shadow and pain.

Vengeance is a force of destruction. It creates only death. It is a thing of the Abyss.

Vlad Dracul landed heavily on the concrete of the rooftop, squealing and hissing as his undead limbs shattered like brittle wood. He tried to stagger to his feet, but the blade against his throat prevented him from rising.

Thunder pealed overhead, the unholy cacophony of the Void.

"You are weak," Skaar rasped from the other end of the katana.

"No! The darkness grows in him! He will fall to us!"

"I care nothing for the Earthborn!" Skaar roared, "You should have slaughtered him like the dog he is!"

"His lover is dead...he is broken..."

"She is not his lover. I gave you orders, but you disobeyed them. You took it upon yourself to follow your own aims."

"Please, Lord," Vlad pleaded from the floor, lifting his arms towards Skaar, "I only tried to interpret the wishes of Master Dragon as I saw fit. Nightwalker is not the only one who can be claimed by the shadow..."

"You are not required to think, or to improvise," Skaar said, "you should have killed him when you had the chance."

Skaar reached down with his long arm, his taloned hand closing around Vlad's throat and heaving him up to his feet with no apparent effort. Vlad tried to kick out, but Skaar simply held him dangling at arm's length.

"Please!" Vlad screeched.

"Self preservation is not a trait of our kind," Skaar intoned, "the Blood is weak in you."

"No!"

"The House of Tepis is sorely served by your presence amongst their ranks. You sully the name of a once mighty Bloodline. You are weak."

Vlad screeched again, and attempted to claw his throat free from Skaar's grip, but his struggles had no noticeable effect on the mighty vampire.

Skaar began to speak, repeating words he had said a thousand times.

"But what use to us are the weak? The Ordo Draco is the first vampire army to arise in over three millennia, and we have learnt from the mistakes of the past. No longer will we Sire recklessly, for to do so is to invite our destruction. The power of the vampire is not destined to be diluted any longer, but strengthened by the wars we will fight."

Vlad still screamed, kicking out desperately, trying with all his considerable might to free himself from the fate he knew awaited him. His eyes rolled down and he saw the street far below him over the edge of the building.

"Life is a struggle, and only the strong survive. That is the motto of our Order, young one, and it is one that has proved to be your undoing."

Skaar flung out his arm, releasing Vlad at the apex of the throw, sending him hurtling through the air. Skaar's vampiric strength was such that the vampire was flung some thirty feet from the ledge, his screech echoing through the air. He arced slowly and then plummeted to earth, his howl continuing throughout the immense drop until it faded.

Skaar turned his back, hearing only the screech of brakes from the cars in the street below as Vlad landed, no doubt causing plentiful chaos and confusion.

"Are you sure about what you said to him?" Baltic asked from his crouched position in the shadows. Although the waxing power of the Abyss made sunlight no longer deadly to their kind, most of them still preferred to hide in the darkness, perhaps simply through force of habit.

"Sure of what?" Skaar growled, "He served us well. Vengeance will corrupt the heart of the Earthborn too."

"But...you said that Vlad failed..." Baltic said, confusion etching his rotting features.

"He failed enough," Skaar shrugged, "but he serves our ends better when he is destroyed. Now the Earthborn will never have his revenge, and it will fuel him forever. The hate will never die in him. I have robbed him of his redemption."

"I don't understand..."

"Vengeance is the death of Darkness," the ancient vampire explained, "both his own desire for it, and Jason Dante's. Dante will be corrupted, and he will also be used to corrupt Darkness. Understand?"

Baltic nodded, taking in this information. "So what now?"

"Now? Now we wait for the Nightwalker to arrive. Then we break him."

They both looked across the rooftop, to where Revenant still lay unconscious, Caliban hovering over her, his massive head lolling back and forth.

* * *

Dante walked through the rain, letting it soak him through. He had already shorn his long hair back to its original length as part of his mourning ritual for Karen.

She could never be the equal of Selenia in his heart, but Dante was a man of fiery passion. He couldn't help but feel strongly about those that cared for him - he was a creature without emotional restraint, and he reflected what others felt for him like a white-hot mirror.

He smouldered in the rain, ignoring the damp being soaked up by his trousers, the squelching in his socks and shoes. His sword was hidden again, secure in the pocket dimension of his Hellfire, as he thought of it. He knew he could recall it in an instant.

Dante didn't know where he was going or what he was looking for. The night was drawing in, and the storm that seemed to have lasted forever had not abated. He found it hard to remember a time without swirling clouds and the constant rumble of thunder in the distance. Had there ever been skies that were not torn apart by forks of lightning?

The desire for vengeance consumed him. He felt it glowing within him like a furnace, burning him up and melting into his Hellfire, forming a gestalt entity of shadow and flame. It seemed right.

If he could just call up the fire again, he knew it would be dark like the blade of Stormcaller. It was in him, coursing through his veins, ready to be called to his hand in an instant.

Vampires.

He had long thought of them as Darkness's enemies. Dragon, after all, was one of Darkness's foes, though there was no love lost between he and Dante. Now, however, the foul creatures had brought him into their world, and Dante's only desire was to destroy them.

"I will have my vengeance," Dante vowed under his breath, "all of the unclean, the corrupt, the foul and the undead that cross my path will feel the bite of Stormcaller, or the kiss of Hellfire. I will scour them from the face of the Earth and annihilate their taint for all time. No vampire will escape my wrath; this is not a war, it is an extermination."

As he spoke, his eyes glowed their fiery red but then something else passed across his vision that he didn't even notice: as he completed his vow, for just a split second, his eyes turned entirely black.

* * *

Darkness raced through the maze of alleyways, following Llenlleawg's nose. The more he ran, the more the agony in his head increased, and the more the dark spots swam before his eyes. He gritted his teeth and ignored it though, pushing himself harder and harder, moving at greater and greater speed, matching Llenlleawg's loping run.

"Are we close?" the werewolf asked him.

"How should I know?"

"Can't you...sense...us?"

"Usually, but my Slayer Sense is going haywire. I feel like there are vampires around every corner. It's this headache," he rationalised as Llenlleawg looked at him with a concerned expression, "it must be interfering with it somehow. That or there are thousands of vampires in this city..."

Llenlleawg stopped as they reached a corner. He glanced at Darkness. His eyes were a piercing blue. "What if there are?"

"Are what?"

"Thousands of vampires. Here. In Las Vegas." He pronounced the name of the city slightly strangely, like it was an unfamiliar term.

Darkness shook his head, and then held his hand to his temple to try and calm the pain. "Vampires aren't like that. They're not really infiltrators - you've seen them; they can't pass for humans. They don't infest society like in stories: they survive on the fringes, corrupting small communities. Technology and cities are anathema to them."

"Ana...what?"

"They don't like them," Darkness explained. "Now which way?"

Llenlleawg turned this way and that, his oddly shaped nose twitching slightly as he moved. He frowned. "Uh...that way..." he pointed.

"Okay."

They followed the scent-trail that was being rapidly eroded by the inclement weather down another alley and came to an open fire exit. The door looked badly mauled, hanging off one of its hinges and covered with deep scratch marks. Darkness considered it for a few moments.

"These things only go one way," he said to Llenlleawg, "but I guess that wouldn't stop Galadd, would it?"

They entered the building, and Llenlleawg pointed up the staircase. Sheltered from the rain, the trail was fresh.

They quickly ran up the stairwell, which was evidently used solely for emergency purposes. They passed a closed fire exit door on each floor and thankfully saw no one else. Eventually they reached the top storey and the open fire door at the top told them they were in the right place.

"They're up there," Llenlleawg said.

"I know," Darkness nodded, "I can feel them too."

His headache was like a miniature thunderstorm now, and it felt like it was about to break out his skull and merge with its big brother in the outside world. He steeled himself, ignoring the pain with all his might and drawing his sword. Llenlleawg pulled out his own weapon, a short-hafted spear that was usually strapped to his back.

Pausing only to exchange a brief nod, Darkness and the young werewolf walked up the last flight of steps and into a scene of carnage.

The werewolves were badly outnumbered on the rooftop, facing a veritable army of armoured vampires. The sounds of violence resounded through the air and Darkness immediately charged into the fray as his headache began to pound rhythmically to the sound of clashing steel.

At least two werewolves were already dead, but the scattered smears of sodden ash across the rooftop told him that they had already taken a heavy toll.

"It was a trap!" a familiar voice called over to him.

He caught sight of Gwen, who held off two vampires with her spear, using it like a quarterstaff. Gawain was at her side, holding an ugly wound on his leg closed and gritting his teeth to control the pain. He held his sword in his hand limply, and was obviously now dependent on Gwen to protect him.

Darkness fought his way towards the two white werewolves, running his blade through a vampire's heart and turning it into burning ash in an instant. Their armour was little protection against his ancient sword.

The huge form of Galadd barrelled past him, bowling a vampire into the ground. Darkness jumped past him and skidded up to Gwen, dispatching one of the vampires via decapitation and allowing the werewolf woman to impale the other.

"I know," he panted, "I shouldn't have listened to you..."

"I hate it when you're right," Gwen said, smiling tightly.

"Have you seen Revenant?"

She pointed across the roof. "She's there, with that fat one..."

"That was the vampire I told you about," Darkness said, feeling an instant of vindication as he observed the bloated creature again.

"That's not a vampire," Gwen snorted.

"What?"

Darkness had no time to quiz her as he suddenly saw an immense shape step calmly into his field of vision. It was a vampire, but one that was far larger than any he had seen before. The baroque form of its gold and black armour made it look wider and more heavily built, but there was no denying that the monster was well over seven feet tall. Deftly, it spun a katana that Darkness recognised all too well in its hand and lashed out at Galadd, carving a deep wound across the werewolf's chest.

"Skaar!" Darkness bellowed across the rooftop.

Skaar kicked the wounded Galadd away and turned to Darkness. "Nightwalker!" he called back, "it has been too long!"

Darkness frowned, but he had no time to ponder cryptic remarks. He charged towards Skaar, swinging his sword in the one-handed grip that his prosthetic hand necessitated. Skaar surged forward to meet him, striking out with his own weapon. Steel met steel and the two warriors came face to face over their blades.

"Nice sword," Darkness growled.

"He did not want to give it up," Skaar smirked, "but he saw the error of his ways in the end."

"I was told it was a Firstborn who killed him," Darkness replied, "not a diluted little maggot like you..."

Skaar roared with fury and pushed his katana forward, sending Darkness tumbling back onto the concrete. He lifted the sword and brought it down, but Darkness parried and held him at bay. He kicked out, his boot connecting with Skaar's stomach and sending him back a few paces. Instantly, Darkness kipped up, but nearly lost his footing on the slippery ground.

The vampire took advantage, his blade arcing through the air at neck-level, preparing to end Darkness's life, but the former Slayer ducked in time and rolled up inside Skaar's defences. He swung his own sword at Skaar's hand, causing him to lose his grip on the katana and drop it to the floor with a clatter.

Darkness planted his foot against Skaar's stomach and pushed him back against an air vent, denting the metal slightly, before holding the blade of his sword against the monster's throat.

"I thought you'd be tougher than this," Darkness smirked, "call your vampires off."

Skaar bared his teeth but then tilted his head slightly and the undead creatures began to slink off, back into the shadows.

"Get Rev!" Darkness shouted to Gwen and the werewolf obliged, darting over to the place where the dhampyr lay, pulling her from the Calban's slavering grip. The surviving werewolves gathered around her, carrying their dead and waited for more orders.

"The second you remove that sword," Skaar smiled, "my vampires will fall on you and your wolves..."

"Then they go free. Now."

The werewolves filed through the broken fire exit, leaving the roof one by one. Gwen, Revenant still in her arms, was last to go, and glanced at Darkness.

"I'll be fine," he told her. "Get out of here."

She nodded and left, leaving Darkness on the rooftop with Skaar and the other vampires.

"So what now, Nightwalker? Once again; as soon as you move your sword, we fall on you."

"I could just kill you."

"To what end? I die, and you simply get pulled apart by those that survive me."

"Then let's hope I'm still as quick as I used to be."

Darkness yanked his sword from Skaar's throat and charged across the rooftop. He almost slipped again, the slick surface beneath his feet and his still-pounding headache causing him to lose his concentration, but eventually he reached the edge of the roof and flung himself off it before any of the vampires could stop him.

He sailed through the air, sheathing his sword across his back in mid-air before reaching out and grabbing a stone gargoyle that protruded from a ledge around the steeple of a church adjacent to the building upon which the fight had taken place with his prosthetic hand. He swung himself up onto the hideous statue and crouched against the wall of the church, catching his breath. Thunder rolled overhead and he looked back at the roof he had just left, seeing the surviving vampires, led by Skaar, gathering there and watching him.

"Better luck next time, guys..." he said, before straightening and turning towards the church, inching his way along the ledge until he reached an easy place to climb down and into a window.

* * *

"He beat you..." Baltic murmured.

"He didn't beat me," Skaar scoffed, "I let him escape."

Baltic frowned and watched the ancient vampire walk towards the place where his sword had landed. "Why?" he asked.

"Do you really think that us killing the dhampyr would turn him to our side? No, better that he thinks our plot has failed."

"But...you said that if she dies, he will be broken..."

"And so he will be."

"But we let her escape. He saved her..."

Skaar smiled as he examined his sword and then replaced it in the sheath across his back. "Baltic, you think in such simple terms. Revenant will die, and Darkness will be turned to our side because of it, but it won't be us that kills her."

"It won't?"

"Of course not. Vlad provided us with a far better man for that task."

* * *

Dante continued through the rain. The sun must have set behind the clouds, but there was no red sky to herald the beginning of dusk. It was just darker now.

"They'll all die..." he murmured to himself, "all the vampires..."

He stopped in the middle of the street. Someone was walking towards him and, as the figure came closer, he recognised Darkness. His Endgame opponent wasn't alone either.

The thunder rumbled outside the thick stone walls of the church and, as lightning flashed outside, the stained-glass tableaux above the altar was illuminated. The image of Christ, impaled through his ankles and the palms of his hands, head bowed in humiliation, agony and shame, blood running down his pale forehead from the Crown of Thorns, the wound in his side weeping with the same vivid pain that was etched on the face of Emanuel, was reflected on the grey flagstones of the floor as Dante was deposited on them.

Blood pooled beneath the albino as the storm continued to rage. His face was relaxed, but he didn't look at peace. The shadow of a snarl was present in his features and a tightness around his eyes told Selenia and her strange companion that, deep in the recesses of his mind, some dark conflict continued to play out.

"Will he be alright?" she asked.

The old man looked down at Dante, tilting his Stetson up. For the first time, Selenia got a good look at his face and almost did a double take. "Do I know you...?" she asked.

"No, I don't think so, ma'am," he said with the ghost of a smile, "though I think you're well acquainted with my family..."

"Because you look just like..." She looked down at Dante and frowned. "You look just like Jason," she finished, "but also..."

"Like Darkness?" he guessed.

"Yes..."

"And probably someone else yer know too, miss," he sighed, "but I'd rather not talk about him, if it's all the same to yer."

Selenia tried to dismiss such distractions from her mind as she ran a hand across Dante's cheek. "What's wrong with him?"

"He just took one hell of a beatin', is all," the stranger explained, "I'm surprised one like yerself didn't hear it. I thought the pillers of Heaven we're about ter come tumblin' down."

"I only heard the storm."

He smiled. "Yeah...same difference..."

"What can we do?" Selenia asked again as she looked down at Dante.

"Wait."

"Wait? We have to get him to a hospital! He's bleeding!"

"He'll heal, ma'am."

"He'll heal faster with medical care!" she insisted, her voice beginning to crack.

"No," the old man said, shaking his head slowly, "we take Jason to a hospital, the only think they'll do is put him in the morgue."

"What?"

"He's passed beyond the veil, miss, only the demon is keepin' him with us now. The fire, tainted as it is, will heal him eventually. We just have ter keep him safe till then."

Selenia placed a hand over her mouth. Her eyes brimmed over with tears. As she reached for Dante, clasping at his soaking wet shirt that now seemed to steam with the intense heat of his body, the old man placed a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"We have ter watch over him," he told her, "this place should be safe - them gargoyles ain't jus' fer decoration, yer know - but the power a' the Abyss is growin' stronger. Vampires walk by day now...the old sanctuaries may not be safe."

"I'll call the company...get some guards..."

"No, miss, I wouldn't do that."

"Why not?" Her hand was already reaching for her cell phone.

"He needs ter see you. I said that it was just the demon keepin' him alive now, an' I don't know what'll wake up when he's finished healin' up. Hellfire is tainted now, an' it's Hellfire as heals him. He might not be the man yer remember..."

"Oh God." Selenia clasped a hand to her mouth again.

"Which is why yer have to be here," the old man continued, "cos no one else has any chance a' makin' him come back to his old self."

"What if...what if..." she couldn't bring herself to ask the question that wrenched at her.

"Don't think about that, miss," he said, "cos that's a dark road, an' one we don't want ter look down until we have ter..."

She nodded silently and finally toppled from her crouched position at Dante's side, landing on her side. She moved her body closer to his and reached across his chest, grabbing his hand and holding on fiercely.

The old man turned his back respectfully and walked over to the altar. He looked up at the image of Christ's suffering and removed his hat, bowing his head over the golden crucifix on the table before him.

Neither he nor Selenia had noticed the smashed doors of the confessional box on the other side of the chamber, nor the strange smears of ash on the flagstones nearby.

* * *

Darkness clambered back from the edge of the building and sat down heavily against a small corrugated iron shed on the rooftop.

"I need to stop hanging around in places like this..." he murmured as he held his head.

"Are you alright?"

He turned ‘round to see Llenlleawg emerging from the doorway, leading a few of the other werewolves after him.

"I've been better," Darkness said.

"Was that Dante?"

Darkness nodded. "It was. And I have no idea what the hell has gotten into him."

"Did you...did you kill him?" The blue-eyed werewolf looked shocked and concerned.

Darkness had no answer. "I slipped," was all he managed, "this fucking weather..."

Gwen pushed past Llenlleawg and hauled Darkness to his feet. "We have to get out of here," she growled, "I don't know much about your laws, but this city is full of people. Someone will have seen this fight, and they'll tell your policemen when Jason Dante is found. You will be in trouble."

"Alright...alright..."

Making sure she had a secure grip on his arm, she tugged him towards the door and the group made their way back to the street. At the bottom, Revenant was in the arms of another werewolf now, a female named Eoin.

"Back to the hotel," Gwen ordered, "and keep to the shadows."

The odd collective began to move through the back streets, padding through the puddles and the mist that was now rising from the asphalt. Despite the weather, the air was still warm and muggy, and the werewolves, used to the generally mild but damp climate of southern England, were clearly uncomfortable.

Darkness simply followed them in a kind of daze, led on by Gwen. Gawain limped at their side and the massive Galadd had to be supported by two of his brethren. Darkness said nothing to either of them, nor did he enquire about the three dead werewolves that were being borne by their fellows. He hadn't so much as glanced at Revenant since she fell from his arms.

The storm had not abated since the fight, though the rain had begun to slacken off slightly. The thunder never really ceased, although the lightning was less frequent and came as sheets instead of forks. There was a feeling of ominous oppression in the air, as if the skies were pregnant with some awful catastrophe about to be unleashed into the world.

Finally they reached the hotel. Darkness's money and influence had allowed him to obtain for the werewolves an entire floor of the establishment, but thus far they had entered only by balconies and fire escapes so as to avoid being seen. This time, unable to carry their wounded and dead by such routes, they had no choice but to enter the lobby. Gwen led the way, adopting a hunched posture and sniffing the air for any sign of hotel staff.

The lobby was large enough that the woman at the reception desk wasn't able to examine them too closely as the group made their way to the elevators. Gwen paused at the metal doors and frowned. "What do I do?" she hissed.

Darkness was still insensible, so the werewolves crowded ‘round, all looking at the elevator doors with perplexed expressions.

"Uh...is there a problem...?" the receptionist called across the foyer.

"No, we're fine, thank you!" Gwen shouted back with an attempt at a relaxed smile.

"Alright..." the girl was frowning now, having noticed the blood dripping from some of the strange party as well as the weapons on their backs.

Gawain pushed in beside Gwen, wincing as he put weight on his injured leg. "These buttons look promising," he said, pointing at the up and down keys on the wall.

"We want to go up," Gwen said, pressing the arrow pointing skyward with one of her long fingers.

The number above the buttons changed from ‘6' to ‘7'.

"Maybe that's how many seconds it will take," Llenlleawg guessed.

The werewolves waited for a moment, but nothing happened to the elevator. The sound of heels on marble floor behind them made Gwen turn and she began to panic as the receptionist approached, a worried expression on her face.

Suddenly, the other elevator opened and a young couple stepped out before immediately opening their mouths in horror as the werewolves all turned to look at them. Twelve pairs of luminescent eyes set in broad, lupine faces shrouded by shaggy, braided hair stared into them.

"Oh my God..." the woman gasped.

"Excuse us," Gwen mumbled, pushing past the couple and walking into the lift, still leading Darkness by the arm. The other werewolves filed in after her. Fortunately, the hotel was a large one with lifts to match and the entire group managed to press into the small space. The couple continued to stare at them as Gwen reached over and pressed the button for their floor. Before the receptionist could accost them, the doors slid closed.

* * *

Darkness's suite was large. Not as large as Dante's, but big enough to accommodate this kind of gathering. The twelve remaining werewolves were arrayed around the room in various states of exhaustion. Tilpin, a young werewolf who had evidently been apprenticed to some kind of healer in her former life, was applying a foul-smelling poultice to Galadd's chest. Gawain already bore a bandage wrapped around one thigh.

Revenant lay on the bed, still unconscious, as Llenlleawg approached Gwen, who was tending to the half-vampire girl.

"Is she alright?"

Gwen shrugged. "I have no idea. I only know how to look after werewolves and we regenerate." She glanced at Gawain, who was limping around the room. Though injured, he was in noticeably better shape than a human would be.

Llenlleawg looked at Revenant sadly. She had an ugly purple bruise down one side of her face, and blood was crusted around a deep cut near her hairline. Her face was pale, but it was hard to tell if it was any whiter than usual.

"Freya was right," he said mournfully.

"About what?" Gwen asked.

"When she called us ‘children'. It's like we've been sheltered our whole lives and now we're going out into the world totally unprotected and unprepared. Four of us are dead already, and we couldn't even keep Rev safe. Darkness is a murderer because we didn't act...we're just children...stupid naïve little children..."

"Hey," Gwen said, anger rising in her voice, "maybe we are naïve, and maybe we were sheltered, but there's no shame in being children. Darkness chose us for a reason, and I think he did it because we remind him of what's important - he has to protect us as much as we have to protect him. Remember when he told Magnus that he'd treat us as his own children? Well we are children, yes, but we're his children."

She looked around at the other surviving werewolves. "You hear me, all of you? Llenlleawg says we're children, and he's right. We're Darkness's children, and sometimes parents get it wrong - sometimes they need help too. He looks after us, and we keep him alive, understand?"

The other werewolves looked unconvinced and a few voiced low growls of anger. She could smell their doubt, their fear and their rage.

She stood up, leaning on her tall spear. "You can all go home anytime you want," she told them, "no one is keeping you here. You're volunteers, not conscripts. But Darkness needs us - just like we need him. We've been complacent and so has he; I don't think any of us were prepared for what we met when we came to this strange city. These are dark times, and we were warned this would be hard and painful."

Gwen could smell them being swayed by her words, so she pressed her point home, circling the room slowly.

"We are Darkness's children now, and he must shed tears for us like any parent. Remember what he said back home before we left? About our community teaching him humanity? That talisman in his hair isn't the only piece of our home he took with him. Remember what Freya told us about the ‘shadow' that he left at the waystones? Well we're his waystones now - we're the ones who have to keep his shadow at bay. We've failed so far, and it's cost us dearly, but now we're going to do what we should have done already."

The scent of Darkness entering the room caused everyone to turn. The former Shadow Slayer leant against the doorway into the suite's office, staring at his odd bodyguard. "What should you have done?" he asked in a low voice.

"Mourn, Nightwalker," Gwen answered, "we should have honoured our dead."

"I already told Revenant about this," he snarled, "if we hold a wake for everyone that dies in this war, we're going to be out of liquor and sandwiches pretty fucking soon."

"Nevertheless, those that have died deserve your grief. They died for you. You dishonour them by hardening yourself."

"Am I supposed to mourn for Dante too?" Darkness asked, straightening. "Should I pay my respects to the son of a bitch who took my hand and who called the girl you all just fought for a whore?"

"I don't know the story with you and Dante," Gwen said carefully, "I don't know if he deserves your tears, but I think that he's touched by this shadow too, now. His words were spoken with a fury the like of which I have never encountered in a man."

"Well he isn't a man," Darkness shrugged.

"But he is human," Gawain said, "I smelt that much."

"‘Human' seems to be very loosely defined these days," Darkness snorted.

"I prefer to think of ‘human' as meaning ‘someone who has humanity'," a small voice said. It was Tilpin, the little healer who still tended to Galadd. The group looked at her and she blushed, but Gwen encouraged her to continue.

"Being human is just about empathy," she said, "it's about feeling respect and love for those others who are the same; and even the ones who are not. When you don't grieve, or when you give in to vengeance, you're no better than a vampire."

The room fell silent and, embarrassed, Tilpin returned to her work, applying the thick salve to Galadd's wound and plastering it over with bandages.

"She's right," Darkness said after a few moments, "I've been an almighty fuck up..."

"So what do we do now?" Gwen asked him.

"We honour our dead," he said, "which means I need thirteen glasses and the number for room service. I'll show you how we do this where I come from."

Llenlleawg grabbed his arm as he walked past. "Darkness...what about Rev?"

The former Slayer seemed to notice his small charge for the first time. He knelt down by the bed and looked at the gash on her pale face.

"Who did this?" he asked.

"It was the vampires," Gawain said, "who else?"

"I don't know," Darkness shrugged, "but now I think about it, I seem to have been thinking Dante was somehow responsible. It was like all my anger had been channelled towards him instead of Skaar."

He turned to Tilpin. "Revenant needs healing, daughter," he said, "Galadd is werekind - he's had enough of your attention now."

Tilpin left the big werewolf and turned her attention to Revenant. Gwen placed a hand on Darkness's shoulder. "I feel like a shroud has been lifted from you," she said.

"So do I," he agreed, "but I don't think we're out of the woods yet."

"Maybe not, but we've at least found the path that'll lead us to the outside. How is your headache?"

"Better," he smiled.

"We need to get him out of here," the old man ordered as he checked the empty chamber in his pistol. He spun the five-shot cylinder around and snapped it back into place with a whistle from between his teeth.

"We can hold them off," Selenia insisted, grimacing as the claws seemed to slide back into her fingertips.

"No, we can't," he insisted, "not forever. They'll come again, yer can be sure a' that."

"But I have the power to stop them. That's what you just told me..."

The old man pulled off his hat and scratched his head with one thick-fingered hand. Selenia noticed the dirt under his fingernails for the first time. "Well miss," he said slowly, "I gotta admit that I had that spiel prepared ahead a' time. As soon as Jason first came ter me, I knew what I was gonna say to the two of yer."

"So what's the problem?" Selenia frowned.

"The problem is that, like I said before, the Hellfire is tainted now. That power a' yours don't come as free as it used ter."

"So why tell me to use it?" she asked angrily, unconsciously balling her fists as she gripped Dante's sodden shirt.

"Well, it's that or die, miss."

"Well then I'll stand my ground!" She was shouting now and her voice echoed around the empty church.

"We'll die if we stay here, miss," the old man growled, "an' so will Jason."

"So we die if we stay...but we also die if we don't fight. What are you suggesting we do?"

"Run, miss."

"Run?" Selenia stood up. Her white fists were now clenched at her side and she adopted a defiant posture squaring her shoulders. "I don't believe in running. I believe in standing and fighting."

"You think I don't?" The old man challenged. There was something dangerous in his eyes, the hint of some untold story.

"Well you're telling me to run away now..."

"Sometimes," he said softly, walking towards Selenia, "courage ain't enough. Standin' yer ground ain't enough. Yer can fight fer justice, an' fer honour, an' fer the sake of those who need yer help - like Jason - but that ain't enough. Sometimes, the odds are just against yer, understand?"

"Right makes might," Selenia said, setting her jaw, "Jason went through Hell to learn that from the man who did this to him."

"Aye, an' that's a good way a' thinkin' too. You think like that an' yer can stand up ter anythin' the universe might throw at yer. But sometimes, yer got to cut yer losses. Yer got to run away so yer can come back later..."

"Right makes might," she repeated, stubbornly.

"An' he who runs away lives ter fight another day, miss. My brother forgot that, an' that's why his bones are decoratin' the halls a' Pandemonium."

She blinked at him. "Who are you?" she asked.

"I'm Ol' Jed," the man smiled. His eyes were bluer than summer skies, but there was a shadow in his gaze. Selenia felt instinctively the truth in his words. There was something about the way he spoke that made her trust him.

"Where should we go?" she asked, deflating.

"Anywhere we can," he answered, "we just have ter keep Dante safe until he finishes healin'. By the looks a' things, he'll be alright, but he won't be if the vampires get a' hold a' him."

"Right," she agreed. "Give me a hand then..." She reached under Dante's prone form, trying to get a grip on his shoulders, but Jed pushed past her and easily hefted the large man, swinging him over one shoulder as if he was a rag doll.

"Why did you need my help lifting him last time?" she asked, annoyance tinging her words.

"Cos I had ter figure out if yer were on the right side too, miss. No offence..." Jed gave her a smile and then walked towards the doors of the church, the two hundred and forty pound man across his shoulders apparently not allowing him down in the slightest.

* * *

"What happened to you, Gregor?" Darkness asked the vampire as he crouched down near the wall of the alleyway, moving his fists slowly in front of him from one shadow to another.

"Life happened to me, Darkness..."

"You call this life?"

"Life is progress, Darkness," Baltic grinned, "life is evolution."

"Vampires don't evolve," Darkness spat, "they consume and they destroy."

"Check your facts, traitor. Life isn't the delicate, harmonious balance your dogs would have you believe - all animals fight and kill for survival. Nature, as they say, is red in tooth and claw."

"Except you aren't animals. You're abominations."

"Don't you think homo erectus said the same thing about you? We're the next logical step, Slayer, the next chain in the evolutionary ladder; man taken to its ultimate extreme."

"There's nothing human about you," Darkness said, shaking his head, "and if you're the destiny of mankind, maybe we're all better off dead after all..."

"I couldn't agree more."

Baltic lunged for him, darting at him with a hooked talon that slammed into Darkness's bicep, pinning him to the wall. The former Shadow Slayer kicked out, driving his boot into Baltic's midsection, but not freeing himself. Baltic's other claw wrapped around Darkness's throat and pushed him up against the wall.

"No wolves this time, Darkness?"

"I left them at home," he grunted in reply.

"Ah, big mistake..."

"You think so? I handled you sick fucks pretty well last time."

Baltic laughed his dry, papery cackle. "I think maybe you have an inflated idea of your own abilities, Slayer."

"I beg to differ..." Darkness kicked out again, this time bringing far more force to bear, and sending Baltic staggering back, stunned. He drew his sword in one swift motion, right on cue as lightning forked down overhead at the same time as the deep rumble of thunder that accompanied it. "And I'm not a Slayer," he added, "though I can see why you'd be confused."

Darkness swung his sword, hacking the head from a vampire that stood to one side of him, causing it to crumple into a heap and then spinning to drive it up to the hilt into the chest of another. This one shook for a few seconds as if about to launch into a fit, before collapsing into a pile of burning ash.

"You think that impresses me?" Baltic snarled.

"Why would I want to impress you?" Darkness asked, levelling his sword at Baltic as he took a step forward, "All I want to do is destroy you."

"You always were trigger happy," Baltic said, backing up and tilting his head upwards to keep his throat from the razor-sharp tip of Darkness's sword, but not taking his eyes off the gleaming blade, "so quick to deal out death - just like you did to Dragon..."

"You're already dead," Darkness replied, "plus I thought you were the next step in the evolutionary ladder. Wasn't I doing him a favour?"

With a hiss, Baltic leapt away from the blade, jumping up onto the wall and adhering to it. He bared his fangs as he looked down at Darkness.

"How do you things do that anyway?" he asked, cocking an eyebrow.

"The power of the Abyss suffuses everything, Darkness. Haven't you figured that out yet? The only constant in this world is death - you can't defeat the power of entropy, you can't resist chaos. Didn't you used to be a physicist? I don't need to tell you about the second law of thermodynamics."

"Actually I failed physics..."

"That explains a lot."

Darkness sighed. "Did you just come here to taunt me?"

"No, I came here to challenge you."

"Challenge me?"

"On behalf of someone else, of course," Baltic smirked, "I have nothing to prove by fighting you."

"You always were all mouth and no trousers, Gregor..."

"Are you going to listen to what I have to say or not?"

Darkness shrugged. "I have nothing to prove either. I beat your master."

"You didn't beat him," Baltic scoffed, "and he isn't my master..."

"I beat Dragon too. I've beaten everyone. Now go piss someone else off, or I'll have to put what I'm doing on hold to turn you into a grease-spot like the rest of your goons."

Baltic laughed. "You're wittier than you used to be, but I'm bored of you now. Skaar wants to fight you."

"I told you: I beat him."

"No you didn't. He let you escape."

"Why would he do that?"

Baltic rolled his eyes. "You're still as dense as ever though."

"Get to the point, bloodsucker..."

"Whatever the truth is, whether you beat Skaar for real or not, he wants to fight you. If what you went up against last time is anything to judge by, you should have nothing to worry about."

"Except I'm right in the middle of something, actually."

"It can't wait?"

Darkness considered his unofficial appointment with Dante. "No," he replied firmly.

"Are you going to kill him?" Baltic asked, tilting his head.

Darkness narrowed his eyes. "That's none of your business..."

"Well don't let me stop you fucking everything up then," Baltic shrugged, beginning to turn and crawl up the wall away from Darkness.

"Where is Skaar?"

Baltic turned back, smiling. "Ah...you want to play do you?"

"I like to have all the information before I make a decision."

"Alright then. There's an amusement park a few miles north of here. Closed thanks to this awful weather we're having."

"Amusement parks are big places..."

"Oh, you'll know where to find him."

Darkness narrowed his eyes at Baltic, and the vampire opened his mouth wide, showing off his fangs again. They held each other's gaze for a moment before Baltic spun away and scrambled up the wall, disappearing into the night.

Darkness looked down at his sword. He knew Dante was alive now, and apparently under the protection of someone else. If they met, he knew they'd probably end up fighting again, and that wouldn't help anything. He didn't even know if he could control his own temper. He'd never get over what Dante had done to him, and he still felt very little guilt about vindicating himself against the albino.

He looked up, squinting into the distance. "Dante and I will meet in the ring," Darkness said, "but this must end tonight."

Swinging his sword up across his back and back into its baldric, Darkness started to walk in the direction Baltic had indicated.

* * *

Revenant tapped her fingers against the table at which she sat. The cabin was sparsely furnished, but there were some functional fittings apparently made of the same wood as the walls. Outside, the snow made everything a monochrome white. There was no landscape visible beyond the windows.

Dante was on his knees. He was breathing heavily now.

"Feel better?" Revenant asked.

"Wh...what happened?"

"You went fuzzy for a bit, then you shouted something, and then you were kneeling there, looking like shit."

Dante looked at her and narrowed his eyes. "You've obviously spent a lot of time around Darkness to get an attitude like that," he observed.

"No, I was like this before. It's cute that you articulate everything in terms of him though."

"Pardon?"

Revenant moved her fingers in an odd way, pressing her hands together as if indicating some degree of closeness in the subjects she was talking about. "You know how you guys are. One dresses in black and the other in white. One of you is loud and feisty, the other one keeps to himself. One of you has a girlfriend, the other one is perpetually single. I've seen the tapes."

"What are you getting at?" Dante asked her with one raised eyebrow.

"Oh come on, you're made for each other..."

Dante held up his hands. "Whoa...hold on..."

"Not like that," she waved a hand at him, "though I wouldn't be the first one to suggest it. No, I just mean...well, you know better than I do," she shrugged.

"I do know," he said, "but I really do not give a flying fuck about that man right now." He placed one hand experimentally against the wall of the cabin again and looked hard at the wood.

"No?"

"No, I only care about getting out of wherever this place is and helping Selenia and...the old man..." he realised he had no idea what his mentor's name was.

"But isn't Darkness the one who put you here?"

He turned to her. "If you're trying to make me friends with Darkness again, that isn't a good way to do it."

"Well I'm glad to hear you're enjoying your time here," Revenant said, placing her pointed chin on one hand and rolling her eyes, "because I'm having an absolute blast with you."

"It's nothing personal," Dante said, "I just feel like I'm in a prison..."

Revenant gave him a hard look. "Have you ever been in a prison?"

"Not really...but I know the feeling."

"No you don't. You know you'll be free, because you know this isn't real. If this was real life, you wouldn't even be talking to me - you'd be lying on the floor, curled up in a ball and sobbing for your mother. You have no idea what it's like to be in real trouble, because Darkness always saves you."

"What?" Dante's eyes flashed in fury as he took a step towards Revenant and levelled a finger at the small girl. "Darkness is a selfish prick - he's the one who put me here. He's the one who fucked everything up by going on his goddamn ego trip. He's the one who fixed that belt up and danced around with it, mocking me. He's keeping me from the woman I love and, for all I know, she's getting eaten alive as we speak! Don't you know what it means to care for someone? Really care for someone!"

There were angry tears in his eyes as he shouted at her.

"My heart beats for that woman! Darkness might have put things in motion, but if not for her I wouldn't be half the man I am now! I'd be a slave, and I'd be a fucking monster! She saved me, and the least I can fucking do is repay the favour just once! Maybe I fucked things up with Darkness, but I will not fuck things up with Selenia, goddamnit!"

As he screamed the last word, his body began to fade again, and, in the blink of an eye, he was gone.

"I guess I don't need Darkness around to do everything after all," Revevant smiled, leaning back in her chair and disappearing too. The cabin winked out of existence the second they were both gone.

* * *

The rain still lashed down, more heavily than ever. Darkness approached the amusement park gingerly, frowning at the sign. A placard with a clown's grinning face hung above the gate, but the wind and rain had evidently dealt damage to it, leaving its eyes missing and lending it a ghastly aspect.

As Baltic had promised, the amusement park was deserted, closed thanks to the weather, but someone had broken the padlock that kept the gates shut, allowing Darkness to slide between the chain link fence and enter the park. Behind him he thought he heard a voice, and he turned to see a shadow disappearing behind a building. Ignoring it, he pressed on.

The ground was mud beneath his feet. Strange, shadowy shapes loomed around him; stalls and rides all covered by tarpaulin sheets to keep them safe from the seemingly eternal storm. The whole place had an air of decay and isolation about it. If he died, no one would ever find him, he realised.

Darkness walked around for a while, wondering where he should go, but then he saw it.

Stepping between a covered carousel and a huge shapeless mass that was possibly a dodgems ride, he came face-to-face with a vast attraction too big to have been covered.

It was incomplete, and wasn't getting built anytime soon. The track looped high into the air, promising to deliver terrifying thrills to anyone who rode it, but it cut off abruptly in its state of construction, giving way to a huge crane that hung over the entire site.

It was a half-finished roller coaster, and Darkness knew he'd found what he was looking for. A face leered at him from a coloured siding twenty feet tall, pale and insane, with red, demonic eyes, a black widow's peak and a collar as high as his pointed ears. Dracula, the Prince of Darkness of a thousand terrible movies, here in a form obviously inspired by Béla Lugosi, smirked with bloodstained fangs over the pure white neck of a dark haired beauty.

‘Transylvania Coaster' the ride boasted above its unfinished pay kiosk.

"That is a shitty name," Darkness noted.

"I am inclined to agree."

Darkness turned his head and saw the massive shape of Skaar standing near the base of the crane. He drew his sword and held it out, approaching the vampire lord slowly. "So...how are we doing this?"

"One on one. The only way that matters."

"You don't have any of your vampires hidden behind any corners?"

Skaar stepped forward. He held out his own blade, the katana he had taken from Tiger Kahn, First of the Shadow Slayers. "Why not check for yourself, Nightwalker? How is your Slayer Sense?"

Darkness closed his eyes, just for a moment. He felt the storm above him, boiling clouds high up in the atmosphere, he felt the violent clash of static electricity in the heavens that caused the lightning. He felt the shape of Skaar in front of him, huge and menacing. He felt the insects, even the microbes, in the earth below him, making the best of the moist conditions. As he concentrated, he felt even the vast weight of the planet itself, turning slowly beneath him at its stately, unchanging pace. Somewhere he felt something else, another object, brooding and terrible, beyond the atmosphere, regarding the earth and everything on it with a cold, malevolent gaze.

But he did not feel any other vampires.

"Very well," Darkness said.

Skaar took a step towards him. The vampire was, like all his kind, desiccated and rotting, but his dark eyes were bright and cunning. There was a ridge of bone running up his head, a vestigial feature of his long-forgotten race, which he had evidently pierced with fat silver rings. His armour was reflective black, trimmed with dark gold and adorned with cruel barbs and spikes.

"Are you sure you know what you are getting into, Nightwalker?"

"I beat you once..."

"You beat me many times," Skaar agreed, "but not recently, even though you think you did. Now, as your people say...on guard!"

Skaar pounced, moving faster than Darkness could have imagined, instantly driving the former Slayer to his knees with a sweep of his sword. Darkness tried to strike back, but Skaar's blade was everywhere, moving with blinding quickness. He opened up a gash above Darkness's eye and then stepped back, holding up his bloody weapon.

"Last chance to run, Slayer..."

"I'm not a Slayer," Darkness growled, throwing himself at Skaar and tumbling to the ground with him.

* * *

"We're live from Riley's Amusement Park just north of Henderson..."

"Uh...Gloria..."

The news reported didn't relinquish her grip on the edge of the open door of the helicopter, but she tried to turn to her cameraman. "What?"

"Storm's messing with the live feed, hun. We're gonna have to record this one..."

"Well as long as those Channel 8 pricks don't pick up on this story," Gloria said with conviction.

The news helicopter swooped low over the temporarily abandoned park. The pilot had been extremely reluctant to take the chopper out in this weather, but the promise of a scoop was not going to get in Gloria's way and this was too weird a story to miss out on. A hundred and a promise of doing everything she could with head office to ensure he'd get a promotion at the end of the next financial year had moved things along nicely. Clearing it with Dennis the station manager would not have been so easy, so she didn't ask him.

The tip-off had come from some kid on a bicycle, and Gloria was old school to the bone - her father had pretty much built the news industry in Las Vegas single-handedly. She believed in following up leads, and she knew the kind of stories people would want to see. If this stuff was true...

"There!" she pointed out of the door, nearing falling out of the helicopter thanks to the raging wind. They circled closer, getting a birds-eye view of the strangest thing Gloria, in all her years of reporting, had ever seen.

The crane swung wildly in the gale-force winds. Someone had evidently cut the thick ropes that had held it in place. A section of track hanging from the chain whirled madly, just missing the half-built roller coaster, but what grabbed the attention of everyone in the news ‘copter were the two figures standing on the crane's arm. Ignoring the unsteady footing caused by the spinning crane, they were fighting back and forth, each of them with a sword, slashing madly at one another, parry by parry, thrust by thrust.

One was dressed in black and looked to be about six feet tall. The other was much larger and looked like nothing Gloria, the pilot, or the cameraman had ever seen.

"Holy shit," Gloria said, "get a close up..."

The crane swung around again, barely missing the helicopter's blades as they panned around, trying to get a shot off the fighters.

High up on the crane, a fifty foot drop below them, Darkness and Skaar didn't even hear the chopper. They simply fought, edging back and forth along the wet, slippery metal, their eyes locked on one another, each looking for an opening in the other's defence.

Tilpin watched as the young girl lay there barely clinging on to consciousness. She had bee laying there for hours now, Tilpin had sat by her side as the former Slayer had asked her to do. She had calmed her feverish breath and eased her pain.

"How is the girl?" Gwen asked her pack mate.

"Same as before, she moves, her chest heaves but she isn't in our world."

Gwen nodded. She wasn't sure she understood what this young one meant to Darkness, she assumed that it was a kind of parental concern. But how someone she had learned was dedicated to killing vampires could care and show so much naked concern and...she wasn't sure it was parental love but she did know what she had seen and she knew what Darkness had said.

Suddenly, Rev coughed her chest heaving in a convulsion. Gwen took a step towards the now barely awake Dhampyr, Tilpin shook her head, assuring Gwen that things were al right.

Rev shot weak and concerned looks at the werewolves before she remembered them.

"How are you?" Gwen asked with more care in her voice then she had intended.

"Not good..." Rev answered in a voice that still held her strength of character but at the same time was weak from the blow to her head.

"I...need some sleep..."

"Don't worry, just rest." Tilpin said to the young half-vampire.

Rev said a weak thanks and fell asleep.

The werewolves breathed out a sigh of relief.

She turned to Gwen to tell her that the girl would be all right, but before she could the sound of shattering glass ruined the calm scene, around the werewolves creatures rose to their feet, each one had the carnal stench of a vampire around them. One of the bestial humanoids lashed out against Gwen but only got a cracked skull and a one way trip into a pile of ash for his troubles. As more Vampires joined the attack, Gwen heard sounds of trouble from the living room too, apparently her compatriots were under attack as well. Tilpin made her best efforts at keeping the vampires from the still sleeping Rev, but slowly even the older and more seasoned Werewolves were pushed back, the whole attack was strange, the beasts didn't seem to care about hurting or killing a werewolf as much as keeping the occupied, large numbers of the blood sucking fiends were cut down by the strong arms of the werewolves. It didn't take Gwen long to understand what they were after. She took out the nearest assailant and made her way to Tilpin who was overwhelmed by neck biters. She threw a number off them of the young werewolf and screamed at her.

"Take the girl! Take her and run!"

Tilpin nodded and picked up the still sleeping Rev. In a heroic effort the young healer never thought herself capable of she hurled herself at one of the still whole windows. For a few seconds the sound of breaking glass and the feeling of shards bouncing off her filled her world, The all the sounds went away as the whoosh of wind passing by her head filled her ears. Less then a second later her feet hit the top of a nearby roof. She began to run across the flat roof, hearing that other vampires had taken up the chase. She leapt over the edge of the building and fell down onto a fire escape. She darted down towards the ground and out of the view of her fellow werewolves.

In the hotel room window, Gwen looked at her disappearing friend, there were still vampires in the hotel room, although most of them had sped off Tilpin and the girl. Gwen continued to look at the point where Tilpin had let her view. She sighed and wished that somewhere out there someone would help the young wolf, she preyed that someone with the courage to defend a lone and young werewolf and a injured Half-vampire would step up.

Tilpin reached the ground and started to dash down the dirty and wet alley, her hair clung to her face as the rain poured over her from a weeping sky, She neared the light up road and felt a small amount of relief, relief that died seconds later when three figures blocked her way.

"Goin' somewhere puppy?" A voice asked her in cockney.

"My, my wha' 'ave we 'ere?" another one asked, in the same dialect.

Tilpin growled at the creatures she knew to be vampires, but her small frame and young face only made them laugh.

"Wha' d' ye lads say?" The first one asked.

"I reckon we take 'er down and bring the li'll bitch ta' the master."

By now Tilpin saw two more figures move out of the shadows. She was alone...alone against five vampires. She pulled Rev towards her and prepared to do something she had never really been trained to do.

Fight.

*****

He awoke with a cough, his body wanted to expel the blood from his lungs so he spent his first real minutes in the real world on his knees vomiting up dried blood. To be perfectly honest, the son of Satan looked like a sorry sight as he sat the regurgitating. It took him a few minutes to grow aware that he wasn't alone. The old man was there and someone...he searched for the name, after a few seconds he found it and his heart sang.

"Selenia" He said before resuming the ritual of emptying his lungs.

"Jason!" Selenia screamed. "Are you OK?"

A series of loud coughs and parts of his last meal passed between his lips before he could answer "No". Selenia of course saw what the problem was and waited until he was done.

He crawled up on a nearby stool and sat down wincing at the pain that shot through his body as his broken ribs moved.

"Where are we?" Dante asked.

"A safe place." Selenia told him.

"Safe place?"
An ol' safe house a' mine. Some of these wards still hold power" The man Selenia now knew as Jed said before adding "Yer look like hammer'd shit, kid." with a grin.

"Yeah..." Dante began..."And I think I feel like shit too."

He started getting up but a horrible pain in his right leg made him sit down again.
"Don't get up yet, kid...yer body's not done with healing yer yet."

Dante nodded.

"Yeah, I can tell." He said with a grimace. He exhaled and leant back.

As the still bruised Dante rested, Jed walked up to Selenia.

"He seems normal?" He asked in a whispered voice.

Selenia closed her eyes and let her mind travel outwards and inwards at the same time. She found the part of her mind that belonged to Dante and "watched" him carefully. She saw his innermost thoughts and his concerns, she felt his pain and his sorrow, but most of all she felt his love for her and his concern.

She looked at Jed and nodded.

"Same as always."

Jed exhaled in relief.

"Kid..." He said at Dante. "Can yer walk?"

"I can try..." Dante replied and stumbled up from his seat.

Before he hit the ground, Selenia was there to support him.

"Not quite done yet" Dante mused.

"Nope, not quite."

Dante grimaced as he sat back down.

"Yer seem ta 'ave thing on yer mind tonight, kid."

"Yeah, I do. I have been told I'm a big idiot and I have every reason to trust the one who broke the news."

"Really?"

"Yes."

Dante staggered up from his seat and supported by Selenia he began to talk.

"For a year now Darkness has helped me to get by, from the time Drakus crippled me to the attack on me by Highone and Desean. For one year he has been forced to babysit a spoiled brat who thought he was a big shot warrior when he only was a petty little school yard bully. For one year my life has gone from crap to shit, from the glory of winning a title to the shame of realising that I have been a adolescent idiot."

Jed nodded.

"For one year I have been supported by Darkness, I have clung to his greatness and to his power as if some would rub off on my own pansy ass frame...one year of greedy glory theft, one year of parasitic shame...one year wasted."

Jed looked at the albino and with a voice that held more authority then Dante had ever heard.

"So what will yer do about that then?"

Dante looked up at the old man with his pitch black eyes.

"Start repaying my debt to him and to Selenia and to Misfit and to Aco and to everyone I hold dear."

As the world left his lips the black fog in his eyes lifted and a fire began to shine through again.

Jed Smiled as the Albino straightened out without thinking.

"Would yer say yer ready to take yer place in the grand scheme?"

"Yes."

"Do yer even know what yer role is?"

"Defender of the earth and of it's people."

Jed nodded.

"Good one kid."

"Where do yer start?"

"By repaying a debt."

"Ta' whom?"

"To a girl I owe more then I can ever repay."

"Who's the leg?" Jed asked.

Dante paused.

"Better" He said with astonishment in his voice.

"See...miracles happen" Jed said with a grin.

"Yeah." Dante replied as he opened the door to the safe house.

"Hey kid...take this." Jed said and tossed him his coat.

Dante grabbed it and put it on.

"Thanks...I'll see you at the amusement park."

"What amusement park?" Jed asked.

"The one where..." Dante's voice trailed off...then he understood how he knew where to look fro Darkness, the link to the former Slayer's mind was open again.

*****

As Darkness and Skaar fought on top of the crane, creatures congregated towards the amusement park. They had felt an inner need or an inner order to abandon the city and walk towards the site of this epic battle, from the alleys and the stinking sewers they had come, pale, dead things who normally only could be spurred into ecstasy by the smell of blood. They marched side by side as their kind never did, vampire dressed in armour beside vampire dressed in rags or fine suits. They all congregated on the site where their lord Skaar would cast down the Nightwalker, the site at which their grand feast would begin.

The storm winds tore at their clothes and revealed glimpses of wasted and badly damaged necrotic skin. Blood vessels that had long ago stopped pumping blood could be seen as the occasional lightning bolt lit up the tormented sky. Fanged grins spread as they watched their lord and master beat the former slayer pillar to post. Skaar fought with a ferocity born from ages as a warrior, Darkness was spurred on by the twisted inhuman being it self, him holding a sword that belonged to a man darkness had thought highly of and who had been one of the chief defenders of humanity. Filled with the need to take back this near mythical weapon Darkness lashed out but every time, Darkness struck a blow, Skaar either parried it or ducked under it. A gasp went through the breathless throats of the assembled vampire crowd as Darkness fell off the crane and dangled above the blood thirsty crowd. Grinning Skaar watched his enemy dangle above his horde of hideous minions.

"When the hell can we go live?"

"Go live?" Her cameraman screamed. "At this point were lucky to be a-fucking-live!"

Gloria cursed. Something about this brought her reporter instincts to a boil. She had covered news in Vegas, Suicides, murder and scandals for a long time, but this...two...men fighting on top of a crane in the middle of a storm.

"Gloria! If this bullshit is just another fucking PR trick I'll skin you alive!"

Gloria looked down at the scene almost transfixed by the scene. She knew this was no PR stunt, it was far too dangerous for that, this was real. As she shifted her gaze to the groudn she suddenly saw a group of people standing there watching the fight as if it was some Vegas Boxing gala. She ordered the cameraman to zoom in on the audience.

******

He didn't knock but the hand that pinned him to the wall seconds later made him wish he had. The hand of a large man, not very old but still huge for someone his age held him by his throat.

"Llenlleawg!" A female voice called out. "Let him go."

the werewolf named Llenlleawg hesitated, they had fought off the vampires and two of of their number had been hurt by the vile creatures, in his limited experience in this world the young wolf had learned that the only truly safe enemy was a dead one.

"He isn't a vampire..." Gwen assured her slightly paranoid pack mate.

"That doesn't mean he is on our side..."

Gwen frowned and sniffed the air.

"Oh I think this one is..." She said.

Dante wasn't all too happy to be called a "one" but given the circumstances and the numbers game he didn't protest.

"You are Dante." Gwen said.

Dante who didn't feel like disagreeing nodded.

"You are the one who attacked us before...you called me."

"Snoopy, a pup and a doggie..." Dante said deciding to cut to the chase.

"I'm sorry about that...Things were complex...I..." He tried to come up with something that didn't sound like a lame excuse.

Gwen grinned.

"I don't understand what happened to you, but Darkness has told us of the man called Dante and who he once was...and from where I stand I see the man Darkness spoke of. Not the man he thought you had become."

Dante looked at Gwen with a surprised expression, Then it dawned on him.

"Freya told me you...werewolves I mean see the world in a different way."

Gwen nodded.

"We see it in both images and smells in a way.

"So you can tell when a man is lying?"

"Yes."

"So am I..."

"No." Gwen said. "You are nervous but truthful."

"Right..." Dante tried to remember why he had come here. Then it dawned on him.

"Rev...Revenant...the young girl...where is she."

Llenlleawg, who by now had decided that Dante wasn't an enemy spoke.

"Our healer, Tilpin took her away as the vampires attacked." he pointed to scattered piles of ashes on the floor.

"Where did she go?" Dante asked.

Llenlleawg shook his head.

"I don't know."

"She leapt out a window in the bedroom" Gwen said. "You can probably find her in that direction."

Dante nodded and pulled up the hood on his coat again.

"I'll find them. I promise."

Gwen seemed to struggle with something but just as the albino was about to leave the room she called out.

"Wait, I have something for you."

The werewolf took out a parcel, it was wrapped in simple fabric, green camo from some army surplus store. Dante took the parcel and unwrapped it and stared at the contents.

"He left without these?"

"Yes, I have the feeling he thinks he can't use them."

"That's idiotic...I've seen him use these, the guy is a master..." Dante bit off the sentence when he remembered the burnt off hand.

"I won't take them with me. Hell I don't think I should even touch them" he said and tried handing them back to gwen..

"I think you should take them..." Gwen said.

"No..." Dante replied.

"Why not?" Llenlleawg asked.

Dante looked at the werewolves and sighed.

"If Darkness wants to give me anything...it would be a bullet from one of those guns in the head."

"Somehow I doubt that." Gwen said.

The albino sighed.

"All right, if it makes you feel better."

"What would make me feel better is if you stopped feeling sorry for yourself." Gwen snapped.

Dante looked up at her and reluctantly nodded and put the guns into his pockets before he left the hotel.

*****

Tilpin was preparing to sell herself dearly to the vampires. They all approached her, all five of them with grins on their dead faces that would have been perfectly at home in "A clockwork orange", One of them swung a rusty old machete in his hand.

"Right, luv...d' ya want 'is quick an' easy or slow an' painful?"

Not that they would give her the choice. She saw the grins and felt despair rise up inside her. The one with the machete raised his weapon and she braced for the hit and the pain. She made a pact with herself to at least take this one's guts out. What happened before she had the chance to eviscerate him surprised her.

The sound of a weapon being loaded and cocked filled the alley and not even a second behind that sound came the bang of a bullet being fired. Tilpin watched as the leader vampire disintegrated into smouldering ash before her. The four vampires that was left turned and stared at the direction the shot had come from.

A slow drawn out Ca-click filled the alley.

"Five on one..." a calm voice said.

"Five to one...a cowards odds." The voice continued.

The vampires growled at the man who stepped out into the alley. He was dressed in a coat and had a hood that was pulled up over his head to cover him from the rain. The shadows from the hood also obscured his face with only hints of eyes showing at times.

"Five big, strong dead bad asses against one girl and another one who is out cold...shame on you."

"Oi man piss off! t'is our business." One of the vampires screamed out trying to shield his true nature from the interloper.

"Right...and your business becomes my business when you bark and piss up the wrong fucking tree."

"Oi fuck you man!" the vampire yelled and charged the man.

Tilpin stared as the man calmly stood there in the face of the charge, only when the vampire was within reach he fired. A shower of ashes covered the vampires "mates". Seconds later they followed their friends example, both in charging and being turned to ashes. The hooded man stood there with a silvery gun in his right hand, He had made every shot count and each bullet had turned a vampire into ashes.

The man who had saved her walked up to Tilpin and with a calm and kind voice said.

"Go find some place safe, somewhere light and with lots of people...protect the girl."

"Who are you?" Tilpin found herself unable to resist asking.

"I'm Jason...I was a friend of Darkness'..."

Tilpin nodded and walked towards the lights of the strip.

In the alley behind her, the man took a deep breath, reloaded the gun and walked on through the wet and rainy night, a night that had only begun.

*****

Darkness hung on, dangling above the hungry horde of vampires by his remaining real hand. He swung dangerously in the strong wind and felt his grip growing weaker. As he began to fall, Skaar grabbed his hand and slung him up on the crane with a howling laughter.

"No, no...I won't let you go that easily this time Nightwalker!"

Darkness rose to his feet only to be kicked in the gut by the huge vampire.

"Feeling weak and battered, Nightwalker?"

Darkness groaned and rolled around.

As his gaze passed the makeshift plaza in front of the crane he saw something he couldn't understand. The vampires below weren't looking up at the fight any more, they were fighting...and losing badly. A man wearing an old duster coat with a hood covering his head and face was making his way step by step , wasted vampire by wasted vampire towards the crane, in his right hand he held a gun, a gun whose silvery shimmer attracted Darkness gaze. In his left hand he held a sword, a blade he also knew from somewhere. The blade looked like an old European straight sword. Once it had been tarnished and black, turned into a weapon of pain. Now it reflected the owners regained sanity and has returned to it's real form.

Soon two more figures entered the fray. A woman who tore her enemies apart with hands that blended with the black night. He knew her, knew her name her face and he also knew the man she loved.

By her side a large man Darkness didn't know fought, He fire shot after shot from an old revolver.

As the hooded man reached the fence around the crane, he paused and looked up at Skaar and Darkness. Then with a swift move he threw back his hood and let the wind, rain and the eyes of the vampiric horde see his face.

The face had a scar the ran across his right eye, features that looked as if they had been sculpted from alabaster and a mane of platinum hair on his head. The last thing Darkness saw before Skaar grabbed him by his hair was the man's eyes. The pools of blackness that had infested them had been replaced, replaced by a fire that burned like a sun. As he strode forth the silvery shimmer of a second gun that hung at his hip glimmered in the night.

On this day of the tempest, Jason Dante had come to the fight, not for redemption, forgiveness or lust for glory....

...He had come to help a friend.

Skaar didn't notice the commotion far below their feet, but was evidently quite happy to take advantage of Darkness's distraction. With a roar, the vampire launched himself forward on the arm of the crane, barrelling into Darkness. The former Slayer raised his own sword just in time and the ring of steel resounded through the air.

Darkness's feet slid on the wet steel frame of the crane and he almost lost his footing, but managed to crouch and remain standing long enough to parry another swipe of Skaar's sword.

"You can't fight forever, Nightwalker!"

"Neither can you..." Darkness gasped, breathing heavily as he edged back, moving gradually closer to the end of the crane. The entire machine was still swinging around in the storm, wobbling back and forth madly, at times rotating above the swirling mêlée that had erupted below.

"I can, Nightwalker," Skaar said in a low, threatening voice as he advanced, "and I have. I have slaughtered my way through your species for over four thousand years. When they speak of terrors in the night, it is my name they whisper. When they tell their children that the bogeyman will get them, it is me that they mean. I have preyed on you and your kind for millennia, and you do not have the power to stop me."

Darkness had now reached the end of the crane and he ducked low as Skaar's sword swept towards him at neck height. Skaar's armoured leg shot out as Darkness rose however, driving the wind from him and sending him staggering back. The wet surface below Darkness's feet betrayed him and he fell backwards, landing with a thud, his head hanging over the end of the crane, a hundred-foot drop below him.

The edge of Skaar's stolen katana pressed against Darkness's throat, and he knew he was beaten. Desperately he tried to lift his own weapon, but the wind flattened his arm against the crane as the storm lashed at him, soaking his face with burning rain.

"This is where it ends, Nightwalker...this is where you die."

Darkness tried to bite out a defiant reply, but the strength of the wind robbed him of his voice as he opened his mouth.

Skaar, seemingly unaffected by the weather, continued to speak. "When will you understand that this defeat is inevitable? Surrender yourself to the Void as you should have done long ago; are you not the Angel of Death, Darkness?"

He didn't understand Skaar's words, and his pounding headache that had now returned, pulsing in rhythm to the sound of the thunder above him, didn't help his attempts at comprehension.

"You cannot resist the power of entropy and death. It is in all of us: every day, a billion cells die in your body; every day, a million children starve to death. Life and death are inextricably intertwined, Nightwalker, and while the universe expands, while men grow old and while life decays, death will always be a part of the world. The Abyss cannot be defeated. We are eternal, and we are inevitable. Give in to death; it is the only constant in this world."

Tears blinded Darkness, whether from the wind and rain or from grief. Skaar was right - even he could not undo death. Anna was dead, so were four of the werewolves he had taken from their homelands to fight for him. John Dane had been dead almost two years now, and how many others had met their ends because of his actions? Tiger Kahn, Josh Mitchell, Nathaniel Bolas, Dragon, Gregor Baltic...some of them had been resurrected in the form of vampires, yes, but undeath was not life, no matter what Baltic said. He was the Angel of Death: the Destroyer. The blood of a thousand men and women was on his hands.

Even Krissy's. After all, when he died, would Seth still allow her to live? It was unlikely, he knew.

One last time he tried to rise and fight back, but he had no energy left to resist. The storm had taken all of the fight out of him, the headache setting his skull aflame as he battled Skaar. He had no will left to stand and fight anymore - he had discarded the few allies he had left, and, instead of finding Dante in an effort to deal with their problems, he had selfishly decided to engage in this fight in the mistaken belief that he had a chance against a warrior like Skaar.

"Finish it!" he managed to shout between gritted teeth.

"With pleasure..."

Skaar, still keeping his sword against Darkness's throat, knelt down and opened his mouth, displaying his serrated fangs.

"You have been worthy," Skaar whispered, "and now I give you the gift of the Void..."

"Hey!"

Skaar whirled ‘round, a shocked expression on his desiccated features.

Standing a few yards away, balancing precariously on the slippery arm of the crane was a familiar figure. As Skaar straightened, he hurled off the dark cloak he wore, revealing his trademark white outfit.

"Two Shadow Slayers?" Skaar asked, incredulously.

"I'm not a Shadow Slayer," Jason Dante replied, his brows knitting in confusion.

"And for the last fucking time," Darkness said, pulling himself to his feet with a grunt, "neither am I!"

Skaar looked from one man to the other and a smile crossed his rotten face. "So, the two Scions of Armageddon join forces against a common foe again? How endearing..."

Dante didn't reply, he simply brought his hands together, causing Stormcaller to appear from a column of flame. Darkness cracked his neck and drew himself up, lifting his own sword in the single-handed grip necessitated by his disability.

Skaar hefted his blade, but then swung it over his shoulder and sheathed it across his back. He reached out and, from a slit of absolute blackness that seemed to open up in thin air, he plucked a new weapon: an eight-foot-long, double-ended glaive.

"Let us dance the dance of death," Skaar bellowed, "and we shall see if your newfound unity is enough to overcome the power of chaos itself!"

Skaar lunged at Dante, bringing one end of his glaive down against Stormcaller. At the same time, the opposite end parried a thrust of Darkness's. He spun the huge weapon deftly in his hands, meeting each attack from both sides every time. Darkness's movements were sluggish, but as he fought the blood began to pump faster around his body and adrenaline flowed through his veins.

Dante, with less training than Darkness with his sword - now returned to its usual form of a straight-bladed, European-style broadsword - was making clumsy mistakes against the legendary skills of a master like Skaar. Gradually, Dante was driven back against the cab of the crane at the point of intersection between the arm and the main body and Skaar's glaive drove forward, pinning him by his neck to the metal wall with the curve of the blade. A bead of blood welled above the darkly gleaming surface of the weapon and slowly trickled down it, causing Skaar's blue-black tongue to play across his jagged teeth.

Darkness attempted to take advantage of the distraction, bounding forward, but Skaar moved the glaive almost imperceptibly, tripping Darkness as he advanced and dropping down onto his stomach. The impact jarred him, causing him to loose his grip on his sword.

The weapon plummeted to earth, falling downwards like a bolt of lightning and falling right into the open mouth of a vampire that advanced on Selenia far below. The beast was instantly turned into a pile of burning ash as the point of the sword penetrated its heart and the weapon was driven into the wet mud of the ground below its feet.

Up on the crane, Skaar grinned and started to push the glaive forward. The blood flowed faster down the blade as its edge began to push through Dante's flesh.

"Darkness!" Dante called in a gurgling voice.

Darkness's head rose and he watched Dante flick open his jacket, revealing the two guns at his hips.

"I can't use them!" Darkness shouted back. Skaar glanced ‘round, trying to see what the commotion was about. As he saw Darkness try to stand he pulled the glaive from Dante's throat and swung it around in a wide arc, barely missing Darkness as he slammed back down into the crane.
Dante clutched a hand to his neck where a narrow, bloody cut had been left by the razor-sharp glaive and reached for one of the guns. He grabbed the handle and hurled it at Darkness, sending it spinning through the air between Skaar's arm and the shaft of the glaive.

Darkness caught it in his good hand as he stood up but then looked at Dante imploringly. "I can't use them," he repeated, "they're a matched pair!"

"So are we!"

Dante drew the other pistol from his belt and levelled it at Skaar. Darkness did likewise and, as the vampire turned to Dante, stunned, they blew half his abdomen away with a shot each.

Skaar unleashed a high-pitched scream of anguish and then lost his footing. Slowly, like a giant redwood falling, he began to tumble from the crane and finally fell, dropping away into the grey air below, spinning end-over-end and hitting the edge of the roller coaster on the way down, bouncing out of sight.

Shaking his head, Dante leant against the cab and slowly slid down to a sitting position. Darkness straightened and tucked one of the Eyes of God into his belt.

"This doesn't change anything," he said.

"It doesn't? I just saved your life..."

"Yeah, which means you owe me two more life-savings I think."

Dante raised his eyebrows as Darkness approached him and held out his hand. "Tell you what," he said, "I'll take those titles from you and we'll call it even, okay?"

The albino laughed as he was pulled to his feet. The two of them swayed slightly on the unstable crane and Dante peered over the side. "Selenia is down there," he cursed, "we need to get off this crane and help them." He eyed the ladder to the cab that he had climbed to get up the crane.

"There must be a less suicidal method," Darkness hazarded.

"Maybe..." Dante looked around them and then spied a dark shape in the air. The news ‘copter approached their position and the World Champion smiled. "Taxi!" he called out, raising his arm.

* * *

The chopper touched down on the wet earth far below the crane and Dante and Darkness jumped out. The latter looked at Gloria and gave her a severe look. "You have to get out of here," he ordered.

"What?" Gloria held her microphone to her chest protectively.

"He's right," Dante agreed, "it isn't safe here."

"They can't go alone though, and we can't leave this park swarming with vampires. Someone has to protect them..."

As if on cue, a vampire that approached them was felled by a portion of its chest exploding outwards. Jed, revolver in hand, dashed up behind the creature and kicked it to the ground, unloading another round into its skull. With a grin at Dante and Darkness, he opened the chamber and began reloading. Selenia appeared beside him, breathing heavily. The rain had plastered her clothing to her body, but her blazing eyes and the claws on her hands made her look more terrifying than sexy.

"We need you to look after these people," Dante said.

"No problem, kid," Jed shrugged, "we'll get ‘em ter safety..."

Darkness frowned at the old man, who tipped his hat to the former Slayer. "Don't I know you?" he asked.

"Oh, yer might say that, mister."

Turning from the strange figure, Darkness helped Gloria, her cameraman and the helicopter's pilot from their vehicle. He lifted the camera from the cameraman's shoulder as he passed placed it back in the helicopter.

"Whoa, what are you doing, buddy?" he asked, reaching for the piece of equipment with an angry look.

"You're going to have to run," Darkness explained, "I'm afraid you're going to have to leave your camera behind."

"No way," Gloria said, shaking her head, "all the footage is on the tape..."

"There's no time to argue," Darkness said, pushing the bewildered group towards Jed and Selenia, "get out of here!"

Jed herded the news crew away and Selenia grabbed the hands of Gloria and the pilot before they all dashed away. "Good luck!" the Succubus called over her shoulder to Dante, "I love you!"

"I love you too!" Dante called back.

"Right, let's deal with this mess..."

Dante turned to his companion. "The vampires?"

"No, this." Darkness lifted up a tape that he had evidently taken from the camera and hurled it to the ground. It bounced off a rock and shattered. The number one contender ground his heel into the mud for good measure, crunching the tape into even smaller pieces.

"Seems a bit harsh..."

"Do you want pictures of us fighting a vampire all over the news?"

"Ah, good point."

"Now we deal with the vampires," Darkness said, turning around. The monsters, all clad in the same black armour, crept towards them. They carried long, slender swords, often one in each hand, and snarled and growled at their two enemies. Darkness drew his pistol and Dante did likewise.

"How many do you think there are?" the albino asked.

"Uh..." Darkness tilted his head, trying to focus his Slayer Sense on the vampires in the amusement park, "...lots."

"Fantastic."

* * *

Freya frowned as she opened the door to Dante's suite. She was soaked to the skin and grumpily removed her sodden coat as she stepped onto the plush carpet. With an expression of surprise on her freckled face she looked at the other occupants of the room.

"Hello," she said, "what are you all doing here?"

Acolyte, Misfit, Jay Ecks, Selenia and an old man she didn't recognise were all loitering around the room. The last two were as wet as she was.

"We need your help," Selenia said.

"Well obviously," Freya sighed, sitting down on a comfy leather chair, "I gathered that much from your text message."

"It's Darkness and Dante, miss," the strange old man said stepping forward, "we caller yer all here cos they need yer help."

"Bleugh, no surprise there," Freya said, wrinkling her nose, "who are you anyway?"

"He's Jed," Acolyte said in an authoritative tone.

"Okay. Who's Jed?"

"Oh...I dunno..." the big man admitted.

"I'm a friend of Jason's," Jed explained, "that's all yer need to know."

"Lovely." Freya stood up, "So what's happened now? I've been having a very shitty week. Did you know this city is swarming with vampires?"

"Yes, we did," Selenia snapped, "that's exactly why we need your help!"

"Fine."

Jed stepped forward and looked at each member of the New Hellfire Club in turn. "Darkness and Dante brought yer all together cos they knew yer were the kind o' folks they could depend on in a fight. Now they need yer more than ever - there's an army a' vampires between them an' us, so I hope yer all have some weapons..."

"Darkness threw mine in a river," Misfit shrugged, "but I'm sure there's something useful lying around here somewhere."

"I have knives," Freya said, "will they do?"

Jed nodded and then rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Yer all seem ter be takin' this in yer strides..."

"Yes, well," Freya explained, "I think we all want to save Dante and Darkness."

"Very noble o' yer, miss..."

"No, we want to save them so we can give them a serious bollocking for putting us out like this. I didn't come to Vegas to fight vampires. Come on, you lot."

She flung open the door and led the NHFC out into the hall, grumbling as she did so.

* * *

Lightning blasted form the sky and hit a power line, sending sparks across the entire area. Evidently the tarpaulin coverings were doing their job, as something was dry enough to catch fire.

As Darkness and Dante fought, they became aware of something very hot nearby. Darkness paused in kicking a vampire's fangs out and blasting its head into small, dry pieces to turn around and see the blaze that had sprung up in the amusement park.

"If anyone asks, that was your fault," he told Dante.

"We can't fight these fucks forever," the albino gasped in response as he drove the palm of his hand into a vampire's face and blew a hole through its heart as it staggered back, turning it instantly into ash.

"Nope, not in the open anyway..."

The two men dashed across the park, avoiding any particularly large fires that were springing up. Eventually they spied a low building that was isolated from the inferno by a wide expanse of wet earth and then made for it. Vampires followed them, but Darkness turned and killed a few more with a series of blasts from his gun before Dante barrelled into the door and they both tumbled into an office.

Darkness kicked the door shut behind them and flipped the lock shut. He sank down against a filing cabinet opposite the door and Dante joined him. Both men were breathing heavily.

"What now?" Dante asked.

"Fuck knows." Darkness looked down at his gun. "How many bullets do you have left?"

Dante examined his own weapon. "Uh..."

"Here." Darkness reached over and tripped an almost invisible catch, causing the handle to flip open.

Dante peered inside. "One."

Darkness quickly checked the gun in his hand. "Same here."

"Well that's two vampires we know we can kill then," Dante shrugged.

"Taking them out bare-handed isn't too easy," the former Slayer said.

"I can summon Stormcaller - and your sword is out there somewhere."

"Even so, there's hundreds of those things out there. We can't last forever."

Something banged against the door and both men looked up in shock. Outside, they could see orange light flickering against the window as the fire outside spread to encompass the whole amusement park.

"Look's like our number's up," Darkness said grimly.

"Yeah," Dante sighed, "it's probably appropriate that we'll die together..."

"It is," Darkness agreed, "no hard feelings about this title challenge thing, right?"

There was another pound on the door.

"Nah. And...uh...no hard feelings about the hand?"

"Doesn't matter much now."

"I guess not."

The door banged once more, but then everything went silent outside.

"You think they got bored?" Dante asked.

"Unlikely..."

Suddenly, an explosion ripped through the door, blasting a hole where the lock had once been. The shot ripped through the room, hitting the filing cabinet at a spot equidistant between Dante and Darkness's heads. Papers fluttered down around them.

A boot slammed into the door and kicked it open, then someone stepped through the gap, frowning at the two of them. Darkness opened his mouth and the big man who gave him a lopsided grin, especially taking in the two intertwined, concentric circles that were wrapped around his right bicep.

"Finally," he said straightening, "someone who actually is a Slayer..."

John Doe grinned. "Sorry it took us so long. This storm is messing with my cell phone, otherwise I'd have called ahead." He looked down at the stunned Dante, "What's up, Jason?"

Darkness walked out of the office, squinting in the heat haze that was now all prevalent as the amusement park burned. Marta Hayes and Jack Dane flanked the door and he gave them a nod before stepping forward and clasping hands with Benedict. Dante stepped out next, followed by Doe.

"You really were just in time," Darkness told the Shadow Slayers.

"I know," Marta said, "and we brought some friends too."

Darkness frowned, and then saw the black-clad shapes moving towards them. Instead of vampires, however, these were men and women, all with hard faces and a lot of weaponry. They all looked glad to see him.

"Who are these guys?"

"Slayers, boy!" Jack said, slapping Darkness across the back, "we been travellin' the world pickin' up these fellas! Turns out there were a lot more in hidin' than we thought!"

Dante stepped up besides Darkness. "Got any more buddies hiding in the woodwork?" he asked his friend.

"I don't know. Let's find out."

The group walked through the amusement park, fighting their way through the swarms of vampires they encountered in the flames. Finally, they reached the crane, and Darkness saw where his sword had fallen. The mud was now baked hard thanks to the fire.

"You know those werewolves?" Marta suddenly asked, pointing over Darkness's shoulder.

Darkness grinned as he saw his bodyguard pad into view, led by Revenant who already had her blades out. Darkness held up a hand to silence Jack's shock.

"I know them," he said, "they're my children."

"You've obviously been busy," Doe said.

Llenlleawg paused at the sword and wrapped one of his hands around the hilt, with a grunt he attempted to lift it from its place in the hard-baked earth.

"Allow me," Darkness told him. He stepped forward and secured his prosthetic hand around the hilt and then wrenched the blade from the ground, holding it up above his head as lightning cracked overhead.

"Are you done showing off?"

Freya folded her hands across her chest as the NHFC along with Jed rushed to meet Dante, the werewolves, Revenant and the Slayers.

The curious band crowded together and Dante and Darkness stepped together in the centre of the group.

"Right," the albino said, "this is officially a truce then?"

"Agreed."

They stepped apart and their mismatched army fanned out around them. Freya sighed heavily as she drew her knives from her belt and whirled them experimentally around her.

"What's up?" Darkness asked.

"I dunno...I just feel like Stephen should be here, with us at the end..."

Darkness smiled, watching the shadowy shapes of the vampires move towards them through the flames.

"Oh, this isn't the end," he said, "this is only the beginning..."

"Which of you has the balls to fight me?" Dragon snarled, his papery lips drawing back, revealing his jagged, pointed teeth embedded in blackened gums.

Darkness and Dante both hefted their weapons and took a step forward, their actions almost a mirror of one another.

For a second, the air in front of Dragon seemed to waver as he reached out and, in a manner eerily reminiscent of the method by which Dante summoned Stormcaller, he plucked his greatsword from the air.

The vampire lord advanced, the flames leaping up behind him and framing his black shape, ornate in gold-trimmed armour and robes. His dark tongue lolled from his mouth as his jaw gaped wide and his eyes flashed black.

"Now is the time!" Darkness thundered, "tonight, you and I end this, Dragon!"

Flames licked across Dante's hands as he lunged forward, "Your face is going to be the least of your problems when I'm done with you, bloodsucker!"

C'mon, kid, you can do better than this...

Dante stumbled and looked around. Jed was still busy dealing with another vampire, but the old man turned and Dante caught his eye. He knew the voice had been in his head somehow and it looked like Darkness had heard it too.

The two of them locked eyes and then everything slowed down...

The fire blazed all around them, reflecting off the lacquered armour of the vampires and bathing them all in its orange, flickering light.

Darkness watched as Revenant's blades flashed back and forth.

He saw Freya kicking a vampire away and then surging forward, driving one of her knives through its skull.

Misfit unloaded the clip of the pistol someone had provided him with into a vampire's screaming mouth.

Acolyte hurled a thrall into the air and then punched a hole through the desiccated chest of another.

Jay Ecks slammed his elbow into a vampire's head and then discharged his pistol into its gut.

The Shadow Slayers made short work of any of the monsters that came close enough, John Doe acquitting himself better than he would have imagined, and even Benedict fighting with a terrifying ferocity. Jack and Marta were as professional and precise as ever, the surviving Dane brother weaving his usual web of steel with his rapier, and Marta driving an endless flurry of crossbow bolts into the mass of enemies.

Selenia rent the vampires apart madly, her eyes blazing furiously as she ignored Dante's warning to flee. Her claws were deadly weapons. The mysterious old man who called himself Jed stood by her side, shooting from his revolver and pausing every five shots to reload from the strings of ammunition that were now slung across his chest.

The werewolves fought hardest of all. The mighty Galadd ignored his injuries and ploughed through vampires. Gwen and Gawain fought back to back and Llenlleawg darted through the hordes of foes, stabbing left and right with his short spear. The other werewolves battled with the same determination and valour, even Tilpin, the smallest of them all, savaged any vampire that came close to her with a long, narrow-bladed knife.

They were all so different, these warriors they had brought together, but they fought against a common foe tonight, united by their will to survive and their hatred of what the Abyss represented, even if some of them barely understood the nature of their foes.

Darkness and Dante stood at the head of the fray, Dragon bearing down on them and, as time slowed right down and became syrupy, they both knew what they had to do. Darkness slung his sword over his back, and Stormcaller winked out of existence. They both turned and faced Dragon as the remaining vampires attacking their small army were dispatched.

Dragon snarled again and time started moving once more. "What's this? Don't either of you have the courage to face me?"

"We don't need courage," Darkness told him, "we have friends."

Dragon's pace slowed as he saw the warriors gather around Darkness and Dante and present a sea of mismatched weapons at him. Werewolves growled over spears and swords, the Shadow Slayers gave him grim looks of determination and the NHFC stood with their leaders. Revenant and Selenia both stepped beside their respective companions and Jed stood between them.

The old man placed a hand on Darkness's shoulder. "It's time for yer to stop bein' the hero, and start bein' the leader, lad."

He turned to Dante. "And yer can put that fire down, pyromancer. It's time I was a bit more honest with the both of yer."

Dragon lifted his sword and flicked his head this way and that, looking for a chink in the armour of the unified force that now stood against him before hissing and turning his back on them. Lightning forked down above him and, in a flash, he was gone. The remaining vampires slid away into the shadows and the fire seemed to go down as they left. Rain started pouring down and there was a sound of distant sirens.

"I think we did it," Revenant said.

"We didn't do anything," Darkness said, "but I think that was the point."

"Aye, so it was," Jed agreed, running a hand over his unshaven jaw, "come wi' me, both of yer. It's high time we all had a good talk."

Darkness moved to follow the old man and Dante, but he felt a tug at his arm. He turned and was face-to-face with Selenia.

She smiled at him. "Your shadow's gone," she said.

"My shadow?"

"From your eyes. I don't think anyone else noticed, but for the last few months there's been a shadow instead of fire."

"So the fire is back?"

She frowned. "No...now your eyes just look normal..."

"Good." He began to pull away, but she stopped him. "Was there something else?"

"Yes. When Dante sent me away I kept doing my research."

"Research?"

"About the Promethean Ring. Remember?"

He nodded. He'd almost forgotten about it, he realised, but he was glad she hadn't. "What did you find?"

"The last man who held it. In the eighth century."

"Okay. Who was it?"

"Charlemange."

Darkness frowned. "You mean the German king?"

"Frankish actually. His domains stretched far beyond modern-day Germany. He founded the Holy Roman Empire and united medieval Europe against the shadow."

"The shadow? I thought it was pagans he crusaded against?"

Selenia nodded at the werewolves who were off to one side, waiting for Darkness. "Do they look like Christians to you? Did the vampires? You're the Shadow Slayer - you know how your Order changed history into mythology."

Darkness nodded. "So Charlemange was some kind of...proto-Slayer...?"

"You'll have to ask your friends about that one," Selenia shrugged, "all I know is that if Prometheus was the creator, Solomon was the blasphemer and Sigurd was the destroyer, then Charlemange was the uniter. He brought together all the warring peoples of central Europe and forged them into a nation, and he used it to usher in a period of civilisation free from shadowspan that we're still living in."

"Makes sense," Darkness agreed, "and, for once, I think I can see how this applies to me."

She smiled. "I hoped you would."

"But what happened to the Ring?"

"The story goes that Charlemange found it before his wedding feast and he placed it on his Queen's finger as a representation of their union."

"He used it as a wedding ring?"

"Yes. But the Ring had a dark power that made him fixate on it. When the Queen died, he refused to give up her body and laid with the corpse because it wore the Ring. Eventually his advisor, Bishop Turpin, had to steal the ring and he cast it into a forest lake. But Charlemange found the lake and, unable to explain why, he built Aachen Cathedral in the clearing, where he was buried upon his death."

"So the Ring is still in Aachen?"

"There's no other evidence of any ring like it in later history. I've checked..."

Darkness considered her information. "Thank you," he said, "I'll think about what to do next."

He left Selenia, still pondering her words, and went after Dante and Jed who were now waiting for him a short way from the group.

Jed removed his hat and scratched his head as he approached. He worked his lips as if struggling with a dilemma before sighing heavily. "Okay, kid, I should probably come clean with yer..."

Dante narrowed his eyes at his mentor. "You've been hiding something from me?"

"A few things actually, but the main one is about yer dad."

"Wait...Lucifer is my father, isn't he? This hasn't all been some trick to enable me to unlock my powers or something?"

"Oh no, Lucifer's yer dad alright. Jus'...turns out we may a' misjudged his motives a little..."

Darkness's brow creased as he walked up. "Misjudged his motives? But I thought I was supposed to be Lucifer's Champion?"

"And I remember you telling me that my father was the source of the Hellfire. If he's done something wrong then wouldn't it..."

He fell silent and stared at Darkness.

"Ohhhhhh..." they both said together.

* * *

The group split up, going their separate ways for now. Darkness took the werewolves, the Shadow Slayers, Freya and Misfit with him to the north, out into the desert. There was something he needed to do.

Dante, Jed, Selenia, Jay Ecks and Selenia remained in Las Vegas, but soon caught a flight to Atlanta.

"I need time to recuperate," Dante explained to Jay once they were on his private jet.

"You're still going ahead with this match then?" his large friend asked.

Dante stared out of the window. The clouds were still grey outside, though the storm seemed to have abated. "What choice do I have?"

"Well you picked Darkness as number one contender. Now you guys are friends again, can't you just ‘un-pick' him?"

"We're not friends," Dante said softly before taking a sip from the glass of whiskey in his hand. He still stared out of the window. "Too much has happened now. To tell you the truth, I'm still angry about this whole mess. I'm angry we got duped, I'm angry Darkness didn't spot the truth when he's usually so good at that sort of thing. I feel like I've wasted a year."

"So you'll still fight him?"

"I have to," Dante said, turning back to his friend, "if nothing else, we need to resolve our issues."

"And what if, while you're fighting, something decides to take advantage?"

"Ah, well that's why we have all you guys now," the albino smiled, "you and Selenia and Jed and the NHFC and the werewolves and the Shadow Slayers...you're all there to watch our backs."

"That's nice of us," Jay laughed, leaning back in his seat.

"Yes, yes it is."

* * *

The rain still pelted down in Atlanta as Dante entered DanteCorp headquarters. Followed by Selenia and Jay, he took the elevator up to the top floor and approached the reception desk.

"I need to call a meeting of the Board of Directors," he told the young woman, "can you..."

"Oh my God...Mr. Dante...there's already a meeting in progress..."

He frowned. "There is?"

"Yes. But...I thought..." she seemed to compose herself, "the Board weren't expecting to see you, Mr. Dante."

"No, I bet they weren't," he growled. Turning from the desk and ignoring the worried looks that Jay and Selenia shot him, he quickly walked down the marble-floored corridor until he reached the boardroom. Angrily, he flung open the doors and stepped into the room.

The Board were sitting around the long table and they all looked up at him in shock as he entered. Dante quickly surveyed them before looking at the end of the table where three men in suits he didn't recognise were standing, evidently in the middle of giving some sort of presentation.

"What the hell is going on here?"

"Jason," one of the men began, a stunned look on his face, "what are you..."

"It's Mr. Dante, actually," the World Champion told him, "would you might telling me what you're doing with my Board of Directors?"

"Ah..." the man who had spoken looked awkwardly at one of his companions. "Well...we heard...that is to say...uh...we weren't expecting you to be here today..."

"I've been extremely busy over the last few days," Dante snapped, "and why does everyone keep acting surprised to see me in my own damn building?"

"Your building?" the suited man asked with a nervous smile.

"Yes...my building. This is DanteCorp HQ, and I'm Jason Dante. This is my company, unless something even weirder than I thought has happened, which would be a real fucking challenge, let me tell you."

"Okay, well this is going to be very awkward then..." the stranger began.

Dante had a sinking feeling in his stomach as he cast his eyes over the Directors and saw them all roll their eyes to the ground, unwilling to meet his gaze.

"I wasn't expecting to see this place again," Revenant said as she swung herself off the back of Darkness's motorcycle and removed the helmet he insisted she wear.

Darkness eyed the mesa that rose from the dark sand of the desert. In the overcast weather it looked more grey than its usual red, but it was no less arresting for that. The group, who had made their way here by convoy in various vehicles obtained through their myriad contacts, all piled out onto the sand. Though the clouds were the same iron grey as they had been over Las Vegas, there had been less rainfall here and what had fallen had been greedily consumed by the thirsty ground.

"How come I've never heard of this place?" Freya asked as she stepped up beside Darkness, "it looks like the sort of thing that would have a car park and a visitors' centre."

"The border between our world and the next is thin here," Darkness explained, "there was a military base her once, but it's been abandoned for no reason anyone can remember. It's a pocket of reality that no one ever thinks to investigate - just like your home."

The mismatched group of Shadow Slayers, werewolves and anyone in the New Hellfire Club with a black tattoo all made their way to the mesa, laboriously scaling it by the steep paths that led to the plateau at the top, into which the abandoned military complex had been built.

The remnants of the battle last year were still scattered around. Warg bones and broken pieces of obsidian were half-buried in the sand after twelve months of wind and precipitation.

There were other things too; weapons and armour of a design they recognised. Darkness lifted a black lacquered breastplate. "This is the armour the vampires wore," he said.

"This is where they were based," Marta surmised as she kicked a rack of swords over.

"It would have been helpful to know that before we came to Vegas," Freya sighed, folding her arms across her chest, "but never mind, I guess."

"Well they're beaten for now," Darkness said, "but they'll be back. That's why we're here, after all."

"Right," Doe agreed, leaning against a wall, "let's get it done then."

Darkness nodded. "The sooner the better. It's getting hard to keep track of all of you."

* * *

It was growing dark by the time everything was prepared. The Slayers, the werewolves and the members of the NHFC that had come with them had taken up stations in the base, overlooking the area where the ceremony would take place. Freya's legs hung down over the edge of a gantry as she rested her head and arms on a barrier. Misfit sidled up to her.

"Pretty freaky, huh?"

"Kind of. You know how he is though. This is important to him."

"Did you think about what he said before?"

Freya barked a laugh. "I did. I'm not sure it's for me though. I wish Revenant and Llenlleawg all the luck in the world, but one tattoo like Darkness's is enough for me, thanks."

Down on the mesa there was a ring of candles. The highest-ranking Slayers stood in the shadows just beyond the light, Marta and Jack Dane foremost among them. Benedict stood in the centre of the circle of light, an open book in his hands. Darkness stepped out of the shadow and walked before his old partner.

"Ready?" the short man asked.

"As I'll ever be." Darkness drew his sword from the baldric on his back and dropped to one knee before Benedict, placing his sword point-first in the ground and bowing his head over the hilt.

"Declare your name, brother," Benedict intoned.

"Darkness."

"And your rank?"

"I have no rank, but before my excommunication I was a Shadow Slayer of the Second Circle."

"What are your titles?"

"I am the Antichrist. The Destroyer. The Thunder and the Storm. The Weapon of Destiny and the Hand of Fate. The Darkness and the Light. The Nightwalker."

"What is your Slayer Weapon?"

Darkness glanced up and moved his sword slightly towards his old friend. "This bastard sword. It was held by Aterius Angelus."

"And with that weapon, have you delivered the gift of destruction?"

"Yes. I slew the Arch-demon Abbadon with it."

"And have you delivered the gift of protection?"

"Yes. I saved the life of Regin of Clan Gar'leth, a werewolf father and husband by killing his attacker using it."

"And have you delivered the gift of redemption?"

"Yes. I redeemed the demon Shogun and returned him to his human form while fighting with it."

"Your Slayer Weapon has served you well, and you have fought many foes in the name of your Order. Who among those gathered here will vouch for the faith and valour of this knight?"

John Doe stepped forward first. "I, John Doe, Shadow Slayer of the Ninth Circle, vouch for the faith and valour of this knight."

Next was Jack Dane. "I, Jack Dane, Shadow Slayer of the Third Circle, vouch for the faith and valour of this knight."

Finally Marta stepped into the circle of candlelight. "I, Marta Hayes, Shadow Slayer of the Second Circle, vouch for the faith and valour of this knight."

"Very well. Your courage is confirmed by the words of three Shadow Slayers, and your achievements are known to all present here. By the power vested in me by the Council of Demonology of Vatican City, I hereby declare you, Darkness, First of the Order of Shadow Slayers. Arise, Champion of Light."

Darkness rose to his feet and Benedict bowed his head, stepping back. He lifted his sword and nodded to the assembled throng. "Okay. Now I'm a Shadow Slayer."

* * *

It was much later. Darkness crouched on a platform high above his various groups of companions. He felt someone approach and turned ‘round. "Hey..."

Revenant smiled and sat down next to him. "How's your arm?"

He glanced down at his right bicep where his Slayer tattoo had been expanded to include a tenth ring. "Feels okay. How about yours?"

Rev glanced down at the single ring encircling her own small arm. "It's fine. Kind of sore."

"How's Llenlleawg getting on with his?"

"He says it doesn't hurt," she said with a small smile, "but Gwen says he's lying."

"Your first is always the worst," Darkness shrugged.

"So what happens now? Are you sending the wolves away?"

He shook his head. "No, they stay with me. They're my children, after all. The Shadow Slayers will go their own way, and root out the forces of the Abyss. Dragon's army of vampires it still out there somewhere. And I don't think Freya or Misfit would pay any attention to me if I told them to go somewhere."

Revenant nodded to herself, then fell silent. They both looked out at the desert sky. It was night now, but the sky seemed to be clearing somewhat.

"Hey, look," she said, pointing, "is that a shooting star?"

Darkness frowned, looking at the streak of light in the sky. "No...it's too low..."

There was a flash of light in the distance as the star disappeared over the horizon and then a loud crash a few seconds later. Darkness was already on his feet.

"What was that?" Revenant asked, open-mouthed.

"We'll find out," the Shadow Slayer said in a low voice.

* * *

He only brought the werewolves with him, confident they could deal with whatever they might find. The crater was only a few miles from the mesa, and a low pulse of light emanated from it, lending the whole desert tableaux an eerie atmosphere.

"Stay here," Darkness ordered as he dismounted from his bike. The werewolves had had no need of vehicles, being able to run tirelessly across the flat desert ground.

He walked slowly towards the site of the strange impact alone, but Revenant was beside him a few seconds later. "I told you to stay there," he told her.

"I don't take orders from you..."

"Yes you do. You're a Neophyte and I'm the First."

"New Order, new rules," she replied, sticking her tongue out.

They approached the crater and Darkness climbed up the bank of furrowed earth, drawing his sword as he moved. The light still shone from the centre of the hole and, as he crested the rise, he opened his mouth in astonishment.

A figure lay in the dirt, glowing brightly as if illuminated by some internal light. He had a sword in one hand and a long pole with something on the end in the other. As Darkness and Revenant gingerly approached, the glow seemed to fade, and the being turned its face to them.

His skin was a dark, walnut brown, and his hair was jet black, but in a state of disarray. He wore silver armour and filthy white robes, but his skin and clothing were both encrusted with dried blood and gore.

It was his eyes though, that were his most arresting feature. They were dark, but points of brilliant light glowed in place of pupils. He opened cracked lips as Darkness knelt down beside him.

"I found you..." he rasped.

"Who are you?"

"My name is Jael. I have something for you."

He lifted his arm, handing the pole to Darkness. "What is this?" the Slayer asked.

"The Banner of Light..."

Darkness stared at the object and pulled it free from the pole. It was, like Jael, covered in blood, but the image of the sword and wings on a brilliant azure field was still visible.

"You're an angel," Darkness surmised.

"A seraph," Jael smiled weakly, "I am the only one who survived, save you and Gabriel..."

Darkness narrowed his eyes. "I don't know what you mean by that. But come with me."

"Help me...brother..." Jael said, lifting his arms. Darkness reached beneath the angel and picked him up, gesturing Revenant to help him too.

* * *

The sun rose, and the sky was clear. Darkness stood at the front of the mesa, his sword before him. Freya stepped up beside him.

"So...are we done here?"

"We are."

"And now you have Shadow Slayers, werewolves, an angel..."

"And the Legio Incubi, if I can find them."

"Right," Freya nodded, "so now, when Dragon and his vampires come back, and when Lucifer leads the forces of the Abyss out of Hell, you'll be ready for them?"

"That's right," Darkness nodded, "now, when the Abyss comes, they're not going to find a few rag-tag groups of warriors fighting to defend their homelands or looking after their personal interests..."

He turned around, looking over the Shadow Slayers, who moved swiftly, packing up their camp, the werewolves who, with Revenant and Misfit, were lazing around the military complex. Jael was nowhere to be seen, but they could all feel his presence nearby.

"...they're going to find an army."