June 7th, 2002

"Standing in the ring, weighing in at 283 pounds...he is the man, the myth, the monster...the Dragon Mask!"

The crowd erupted in passionate booing...all one-hundred and thirty of them. A small, but powerful section cheering the latest heel. The venue, a school gym with a cheap, dirty ring, made it clear that this wasn't the big time, but the die-hard fans didn't care, as long as the promotion delivered. Tonight, they were about to be thrown a rather strange curve-ball.

"As Dragon Mask's opponent could not be here tonight, we've found a...replacement. And they should be coming out right about...now!"

He glanced over at the curtain as it revealed a tall man with long, blonde hair, and a goatee, dressed in a gray suit. Clearly, he was not the competitor, unless he intended to wrestle in that suit of his. However, he'd brought a young, dark haired Oriental girl out with him. The crowd gasped as they realized what was going to go down...

"Now it's just like you see on TV...you'll be fine."

"B-but I don't know...what if I mess up? There's a lot of people..."

"It's all a game for fun. You know what you're supposed to do, but they don't. Even if you messed up, they'll just think it's part of the show. Just calm down, and trust me, this won't take long. Dragon Mask's a nice man, I promise he won't hurt you. This is what you wanted, right?"

"O-of course!"

"You're going to entertain a lot of fans. Just, remember, when I tell you to, do the big finishing move we discussed, okay?"

"Yeah!"

The man lifted her up onto his shoulders, and let her climb into the ring. She crawled under the ropes, causing the audience to chuckle nervously. Even Dragon Mask laughed and shrugged his shoulders, and appeared to say something to the blonde, well dressed man. He whispered something in his ear, and the masked wrestler nodded before getting into position.

"And in the ring, we have..." The announcer urged her over and leaned down so she could whisper her name. He nodded. "Izumi Matsushita!"

The referee signaled for the bell and Dragon Mask slowly approached the girl, cracking his knuckles so loud the sound echoed throughout the gym...

"We both know how this is going to go down," he growled, before lunging at her. She squealed and dodged by a second, backing away from him rapidly. Dragon Mask stood up and approached with an evil glint in his eye, resulting in a chase around the ring. A game of cat and mouse ensued, the crowd gasping audibly each time his fingers almost ensnared the young girl. Soon enough, Izumi found herself penned into a corner...

"NOW!" shouted the blonde man. Izumi clenched her teeth tightly, and pointed two fingers, before lunging them into Dragon Mask's chest...

Immediately, the larger wrestler went down as if he were shot. Izumi stood there looking at the downed Dragon Mask, as the crowd cheered...

"Izumi! Don't forget the pin!" Izumi nodded and threw herself on top of him...

One...


Two...


Three!

The crowd erupted. To them, a one in a million miracle had been created, by a young girl...

----------------

"That was fun!" Izumi said, jumping and clapping backstage, an ear to ear grin on her face.

"More fun than your parents, eh?" the man said, ruffling her hair.

"Yeah! Mother and father would never let me do that."

"You want to have even more fun, kid?" he said.

"Of course!"

"Wrestling is fun, but this is just the tip of the iceberg. It gets better. I can take you to deeper things than this. I can show you things that only exist on the fringes of your mind..."

Izumi's eyes lit up...

"I can take you farther than your parents could ever in a million years. They know nothing of the ways of the world. I can show you the truth of the universe itself...and you'll never have to see your parents again."

"Wonderful!" she exclaimed.

"Now, things might get a little scary, but don't worry. I'll be here to protect you. Do you trust me?"

"I do, Mr. Cain!"

----------------

"I only ask for one thing: Return to our cause, and you will remain unharmed."

*click*

The voicemail message ended. Izumi slowly put the phone down, remaining silent for a moment...

"He doesn't have the answers I want," Izumi said, flopping on the bed and giving Adam a concerned look. "I want to...but I can't go back...not yet."

"Good," Adam said, raising an eyebrow. "You'd be an idiot to do otherwise, really. Regardless of your previous alliance with him, you can't trust him or the Balance."

"Like I don't know that," she said. "So, it's come to this, huh? I have to trust the person I've been brought up to believe as the greatest threat to humankind?"

"Never said it was going to be easy. Real life is stranger than fiction, eh?"

"Every part of me just wants to say 'forget it' and go back after all, but my gut feeling tells me that I have to do this. I'm going to do it. I'm going to confront Darkness, and demand the truth. I'm tired of walking around blind while everyone else knows the answers. And he has them if, if you're to be believed. I want in on this. Right now."

Izumi stood up and slung her bag over her shoulder, walking briskly towards the door, Adam giving her a surprised look.

"Wait, wait...so you're just going to straight up barge in his room and demand answers on the spot?"

"No shit, Sherlock," she said, giving a wink.

"That's just stupid."

"But it's the best and most direct approach. You think he'd give me the time of day otherwise? This is our future on the line and I'm not gonna pussyfoot around. I'm tired of being 'patient'."

"Couldn't you just-"

SLAM.

Izumi wasted no time in charging down the hallway, eyes reading the room numbers at light speed...There it was...

Three swift knocks on the door yielded no answer. She grasped the doorknob with both hands and tried to pull it open.

No such luck.

"Dammit, Darkness," she grumbled, "where the hell are you?"

---------------

"You are outnumbered."

The men, four of them in total, stood tall in Darkness' path. Beijing's alleys, like many cities, had it's share of thugs, criminals, gangs...but these were clearly not Beijing's. No, these men were large, muscular, and tattoed, and wore unusual metal masks.

"...Vindicators."

"We are taking you in. You can surrender or fight, the choice is yours."

"That's it?" Darkness said. "What makes you different from all the others who have tried to bring me down and have failed?"

"Your choice is clear. Make it, or we will choose for you. We don't care if you come dead."

"I do not know why you've chosen to stand in my way, but you're the same as anyone else: a mere obstacle to be overcome."

In a flash, he drew his sword, standing in a fighting position.

"I suggest you stand aside..."

The four Vindicators didn't reply, but drew their own blades as a response. Darkness swung his sword in a wide arc, keeping them at bay for the moment...

Two charged, as if made of lightning. Their long blades swung heavily down through the air with intentions of splitting Darkness' skull. Darkness gracefully dodged them both, before countering with a swing of his own.

They parried the sword and engaged him. The sound of steel on steel clashed and reverberated throughout the alleyway. When blades weren't clashing together, they were inches from cutting into flesh. Darkness managed to skillfully block one before delivering a fast and powerful kick to his face, the large Vindicator's head snapping back painfully and causing him to collapse. But just as the one fell, the other two moved in...

Darkness gritted his teeth and now began to fend off the three of them skillfully, never allowing them to hit him, but they seemed just as adept. It became clear this would be a battle of endurance...someone was going to tire, and three on one made it more likely that Darkness would be the first to fall.

Suddenly, a large, muscular arm grasped him from behind, putting his neck and head in an anaconda-like grip. Darkness instinctively drove a sharp elbow back into the attacker's ribs, over and over, but the grip remained firm...

"Surrender yourself here and you may yet live," the Vindicator's cold, metallic voice rasped.

"Like hell," Darkness growled.

"Then you will die here, Antichrist."

Darkness replied with a final elbow that finally loosened the Vindicator's grasp. He slipped out and took a swing at the Vindicator, cutting a dark red streak across his chest. It was enough to cause the larger man to stumble back and let out a metallic growl of pain. But the numbers remained on their side, the three from again the charging him...

A flash of claws and teeth smashed into one of the Vindicators. The momentary distraction allowed Darkness to attack, along with another such form...in the dim lighting Darkness could barely make out the forms of Hruod and Huon going blow to blow with the Vindicators...

Huon got the better of his opponent, and smashed his masked face right into the wall. "Is that it?" he taunted.

Hruod knocked the sword out of his Vindicator's hand, before grappling him and throwing him to the ground, the sound of flesh and bone smacking painfully into the ground.

"Enough," one of them said, raising a hand. "Antichrist...you've only escalated the situation."

They left it at that, disappearing into the shadows as if wisps...

Huon and Hruod stopped, and then grinned at each other.

"Alright!" they said, high fiving each other. "We kicked ass!"

"Don't let it get to your heads," Darkness told them, "they merely retreated."

"Give us some credit, now..."

"I'm simply saying that this isn't over. Not by a long shot. What I'd like to know right now, is why the hell Vindicators were attacking me..."

Midnight was standing at the gorilla position, peeking through the curtain at the crowd.

"Big gate…"

Sammy gave him a half smile. "Not like we see a dime. Good news for the main event though. Who'd have though Coren defending against RDV and Ultima would draw, eh?"

"Just be glad we're in a boom period, Sammy. You ready?"

The announcer shrugged. "Whatever. Who we got on first?"

"Dark match."

"Who gives a fuck about that?"

"Still needs to be announced."

"All right. Who we got?"

Midnight pulled a slip of paper out of his pocket. "Uh…Shogun…"

"Why's Shogun working a dark match?"

"Don't ask me. Stupid fucker's refereeing a match later though, so I guess he wanted to keep his hand in against some rookie."

"Rookie, eh?" Sammy turned around just as a figure detached itself from the shadows and stepped into view.

"What's up, kid? Nervous?"

The newcomer arched an eyebrow. "Nervous?"

Sammy and Midnight exchanged an amused look. "What's your name, buddy?"

"Darkness."

"That's kinda cheesy, but it should work. Weight?"

"Two-hundred and eighteen pounds."

Sammy said the number under his breath, committing it to memory. "Hometown?"

"None."

"C'mon, I gotta say something – don't give me any of that 'parts unknown' shit. Where'd you come from?"

"Chicago."

"You don't sound like you're from Chicago," Midnight said.

"That's where I came from. To get to here."

"Right, whatever. Darkness, two-eighteen, Chicago. Got it. Good luck, kid." Sammy's peppy music started to play, informing the crowd that the live show was starting. He slapped Midnight on the shoulder and jogged out through the curtain.

Midnight turned to Darkness. "So whose coffee did you spill to get booked in a match against the IC-Champ your first time out?"

"He's not a problem."

"No?"

"No. Just an obstacle."

Midnight chuckled. "You got balls, I'll give you that."

Darkness's music was starting to play. He gave Midnight a significant look as he stepped past. "I've got more than that. Watch this."

"Watch what?"

"This match. It's the start of something bigger than you realise."

"Sure it is, rookie. Sure it is…"

* * *

Darkness walked through the corridors of the apartment complex with the two werewolves just behind him. He had made it his habit to rotate which of The Children he took out with him when some kind of disturbance reared its ugly head, partly out of the guilt he felt about the way his allies seem to be deserting him. First Jael and now maybe Dante…

The tension in the block was palpable. Usually, some of the TCW staff would be hanging around, music would be playing, a barbecue might be going in the grassy central courtyard – far from home, the ring hands and production crew made it their business to enjoy small comforts – but tonight everything was quiet. After what happened at the end of Extreme Measures, no one much felt like celebrating. Ominously, Strikmore's room had been emptied the previous day. No one had heard anything from Dante either. Dark rumours were floating around.

In this environment, Darkness was only mildly surprised by the damage visible on the outside of the door to his apartment. He cocked his head at the scuff marks and dents.

"What's that?" Huon asked.

"Someone's been kicking my door."

Hruod frowned and leant closer. "Why would someone do that?"

"To gain access I suppose, although the lock seems to be unharmed. Can you smell anything?"

Hruod sniffed at the door experimentally. "Uh…difficult to tell. A lot of people walk past here."

"Anything dangerous?"

"Define dangerous."

"Vampires. Vindicators. You know."

"Not that I can tell."

Darkness scratched his beard with one finger. He needed a shave. "That doesn't rule out Faithless though. If you can't smell anything…"

"Oh I definitely smell something. The scuffing reeks of rubber – someone was wearing sneakers when they did this, and they were human."

"You can tell that from foot odour?"

"You have very distinctive feet," Huon said.

"Thanks."

"Asian."

"What?"

Hruod pointed at the scuff marks. "An Asian person did this."

"That doesn't narrow it down much in Beijing, but how the hell can you tell that anyway?"

"Westerners smell distinctive. It's the milk."

"Milk? You've lost me…"

"They don't drink so much milk in the East," Huon explained, "there's a kind of urban myth that Westerners smell like sour milk to the Japanese. There's a grain of truth though," he tapped his nose, "it just takes a werewolf to know it."

"So an Asian person wearing sneakers kicked my door?"

"An Asian woman," Hruod added.

"You can tell it's a woman?"

"Uh…yeah."

"Do I want to know why?"

"Probably not," Huon laughed.

"Okay, so an Asian woman in sneakers attacked my door. Good to know." Darkness pulled out his key as Hruod stepped aside and unlocked the door. The small apartment was unoccupied, which was exactly what he had expected and exactly what his Slayer Sense told him. The rest of The Children were with Freya, or just doing their own thing in the city. He didn't need to baby-sit them any more – the fact that they were demonstrably Westerners was more interesting than their unusual facial features or the strange way they carried themselves. Few of Beijing's inhabitants looked further than the white skin and the uncommon variety of hair colours they sported.

"You guys want a beer?" Darkness asked as he threw his sword and his coat over one chair.

"Yeah, sure." One of the twins answered. He had his back turned, so didn't see which.

"You did well tonight," he told them as he walked to the fridge and pulled out three bottles, "Vindicators are no pushovers."

"They didn't seem so tough."

"We always have to be wary of them. Shadow Slayers, I mean. Werewolves, it goes without saying." Darkness passed them their beer. "Usually they were on our side, but they have their own agenda. There have been times, in the past, when our two organisations have come into…conflict."

"So you've had to fight them before you mean?" Hruod asked as he slumped down onto a sofa.

"Yes. They must be getting desperate if they're showing up in numbers like that though. Usually one is enough."

Huon was looking out of the window. He turned around as Darkness took a seat in the kitchenette. "Enough for what?"

"For whatever it is they need to do. By which I mean, whoever it is they need to kill."

"Is that what they do then?" Huon asked, his bottle poised near his lips.

"Yes, they're assassins. Their masters send them to dispose of…problems…"

"Who are their masters?"

Darkness shrugged. "No one knows. The Slayers always assumed they had some kind of internal hierarchy, but we could never interpret the symbols they cover their bodies with, and none of them we spoke to ever admitted to any identity outside of 'Vindicator'."

"Freaky," Hruod said in a comically ominous voice.

"And dangerous. Evidently they've decided I'm a target now. This is not good news. I just wonder why they're sending Asian girls to sneak around in my apartment."

"Maybe that was someone else?" Huon suggested. "It doesn't have to be connected."

"I was out when this happened, and I don't go out much. Those Vindicators running so quickly reeks of their attack just being a distraction."

Huon nodded. "So how can we find out more?"

"Freya's had dealings with them before. She's my first port of call."

"I bet she is," Huon said, winking at his brother across the room.

"I really wish you guys would stop saying things like that."

* * *

"Does he have a cell phone?"

Izumi gave Adam a flat look. "Probably, but how would I get his number?"

"You're his colleague, aren't you?"

"Yeah, but it's not like we carpool."

They were in a bar, of all places. They had found, by a difficult process of trial and error, that the best places for Adam to be were ones with a lot of smoke, a lot of odours and lots of people not paying attention. Even so, he kept the hood of his jacket up.

"I don't understand why you feel the need to present yourself to him anyway. Don't you know how dangerous he is?"

"I've seen how dangerous he is firsthand. That's why he needs to know I'm on his side."

"And what if he decides he doesn't like you? You could get seriously hurt."

"I don't think he'd hurt me."

"Why not? He's the Antichrist."

"Look, I know you don't trust him…"

"He abandoned Hell to its fate, Izumi," Adam growled, "sentenced all of us to an eternity of torment."

"No, I think you did that to yourselves."

"You know it's not as simple as that."

"What did you do to get condemned to Hell anyway?"

Adam gave her a long stare. His eyes still caused the hairs on the back of her neck to stand up. She never had to remind herself that she was talking to some who was, in every sense that mattered, a corpse. "Do you really want to have this conversation here, now?"

"I guess not. But we all do things that other people think are bad ideas, Adam. You don't trust Darkness, but I have to."

"Why?"

"Because there's no one else I can rely on, is there? I'm going to try his apartment again." She stood up, but felt a cold hand on her wrist.

"You can rely on me, Izumi…" Adam said.

She gently but firmly removed his hand and put it back on the table. "No I can't. Not if you won't explain yourself to me."

"I wonder what you'll do when Darkness treats you the same way. People like us, we don't like letting new people into our circles of trust. We don't like strangers."

"I'm not a stranger. I'm a colleague, remember?"

January 22nd, 2003

Footsteps echoed eternally throughout the dark, metallic hallway, corridor stretching seemingly endlessly to the pair as they walked down it, dim, florescent lights lighting their path.

“Where are you taking me, Mr. Cain?”

“To see something. I think you're ready...relatively, at least.”

“What does that mean?”

“It's been said that humans are mercifully unable to understand the true nature of the world around them, so as to protect them. I believe this is a fabrication. The way humans have been protected from the truth is more likely to damn them when the time comes...”

“What are you talking about?” Izumi asked.

“You'll understand, in time,” Cain said, turning down a corridor just as dim as the one they were in...except the walls each had doors, with various labels on them. He took Izumi all the way to one that said 'Caution' in black and yellow letters. Opening the door revealed nothing but a completely black room.

“It's dark in there...”

“I want you to go in there, Izumi.”

“A-alone?”

“I won't be far, and you'll be perfectly safe. I won't lie to you...this will be a terrifying experience. But nothing can hurt you. You might even hate me for a short time...but in the end, you'll understand.”

“Are...are you sure?”

“Have I ever given you reason not to trust me?” he said, giving her a warm smile, and patting her on the head. “You're a good, brave girl. Good luck.”

He gently eased her inside, and shut the door. The last whisps of light were snuffed out as the door closed with a final slam, echoing inside the room.

Izumi walked forward slowly in the void, her teeth chattering. She reached forward blindly, her hands eventually coming into contact with something hard, yet smooth...

There was a faint sound of crackling and buzzing, like a speaker or something...

LIGHT.

A bright light penetrated her eyes as the curtain of darkness was pulled away.

A thick barrier of glass stopped any further movement forward. Izumi's pupils shrank as her eyes adjusted, and then focused on...on...

IT.

A large, amorphous shape was beyond the glass. The shape moved and stirred, as if disturbed by the light, and Izumi could see every detail of it. It's form was behemothic, shaped in ways the human tongue couldn't possibly describe. An endless array of shapes lined it's body, enormous maws, eyes, appendages seeming to have no rhyme or reason and constantly shifting themselves in and out of the pale, fleshy main body.

But of most note, were the faces, mired all over it's body...barely recognizable as human. At once, the eyelids of each twisted, distorted face slid open...

They saw Izumi.

The mouths stretched open with a wet sound...

...and a piercing, inhuman shriek reverberated, terror inducing, the sound a horrible mix of both primal rage and sheer, utter agony, the sound more potent than any on earth, assaulting the brain in ways science could only guess at...

It stuck out a long, fleshy appendage, smacking against the glass as it vibrated dangerously...as if it wanted to devour her.

Or embrace her.

Or both...

Her mouth opened wide in a scream...
------------

“You...you showed her THAT?!”

“I did. Standard procedure, of course,” Cain said, straightening his tie.

The young man narrowed his eyes. “You're absolutely insane. Do you think she was even CLOSE to being ready to-”

“Nobody is.”

“Save your cliches. You've ruined her mind forever...”

“Everybody recovers. You recovered, Adam. It's always just a matter of how long. I'll rebuild her.”

“What is it that you could possibly see in her to make you want to recruit her?”

“Honestly? It's a gut feeling. I went with it.”

“You are a bastard...”

“In these times, I have to be.”

He opened a door, letting it shut behind him.

“How are you feeling, Izumi?”

Izumi sat up in bed slowly. Her skin was so pale you could mistake her for a corpse. She turned two dead, violet eyes towards him, and replied, flatly,

“I can still see it when I close my eyes...I can feel the heat of it's body, about to touch me...”

“It gets inside you, doesn't it? You can probably feel it crawling on your mind now, like maggots on a-”

“Stop.”

“As you wish. But my leaving won't make things better for you. It's too late for that.”

---------------

“And?”

“Couldn't fetch her, the apartment was locked. She's gone off somewhere.”

“Great,” Darkness muttered. “I hope she didn't run into them, too.”

“You think they'd go after her?” Huon said.

“As I've said, she's dealt with them before, but I wouldn't put it past them to stoop to taking hostages to get what they want. They have a sense of iron devotion to their missions.”

“So you're saying she's being held hostage?”

“I'm saying it's possible. We won't know until we hear otherwise,” Darkness said grimly.

A knock on the door.

“Got it!” Hruod and Huon said at the same time, opening the door.

“You two...”

“Hey, it's Izumi!”

They grinned in a rather canine fashion.

Izumi sighed. “I'm flattered, but...”

They started talking all at once, but Huon paused as he sniffed the air. He snuffed around carefully, eventually leading down to the ground...and all the way to Izumi's shoe.

Izumi's face turned red. She lightly kicked her foot. “Okay, this is getting weird. If you wanted a sneaker, I could have autographed one for you...”

Darkness raised an eyebrow. “Enough,” he said. “Let her in.”

The two stepped to each side, Izumi stepping in briskly.

“Darkness,” she began. “I have something to discuss.”

“I would certainly hope it's important, seeing as how you tried to kick my door down while I was away...”

“How did you know that?”

“There are ways. You leave tracks.”

“Fine,” Izumi said, stepping closer with a determined look. “You caught me. Let's get straight to the point. I want in.”

“What?”

“You heard me. I want in on the war. You know what I'm talking about.”

“Perhaps,” he said dismissively.

“Don't play dumb. I'm not stupid...I went to Hell with you. I've known something's been going on for years.”

Darkness eyed her intriguingly, but didn't say a word.

“I want to know who the Abyss is. I want to know the truth of this 'war' that's going on. And I want in on it. I want to fight for the safety of the world.”

Darkness sighed. “You realize I barely even know who you are?”

“Sure you do. I'm Izumi. I'm your colleague.”

“How much have we spoken the whole time you've been here?”

“Not a lot. You don't make yourself readily available. I was sick of waiting.”

“My point is you expect me to open up to you at your command...what makes you think I'm going to do that, child?”

Izumi narrowed her eyes. “I'm not a child. Cut the mysterious shit. This is the fate of the world we're talking about.”

“Exactly.”

“I'm not leaving until you spill it,” she said, folding her arms. “This is different...I'm not some clueless sheep. I've been looking for you for the better part of a year and now I find out you're supposed to be the key to our survival. I've spent my life working towards the safety of the planet and you're the last person I can turn towards. In short, you owe me this.”

“I owe you nothing,” Darkness said, a hint of irritation in his voice.

“Bullshit!” Izumi said, stepping directly in Darkness' face, “You owe everyone. How much longer are you going to patronize us? Only ever giving the faintest hints that something might be wrong, and yet never telling us what?!”

“Because this isn't your burden. This is mine. If I let you..everyone know what was going on, do you think you'd do a damn bit of good? The lot of you would be running around like decapitated chickens...afraid of every single bump that goes in the night.”

“You don't get it. I'm already involved in this. I talk to the dead every day, demons pop in and out of my life – this isn't just me needing answers, it's me asking...no, begging you for help. Isn't that what you're here for?”

Darkness paused, and gave a long sigh, shaking his head. “I don't know you well enough to trust you...and if you are sincere, I'd rather not be responsible for putting you in even further. I want you to get out while you can. Leave here.”

Izumi's eyes narrowed as she stepped even closer, a quiet fury visible in them. Her fists were clenched tightly and shaking as she began to realize...

“No, I am not leaving.”

“I won't ask again,” he said. “Leave.”

“I am...not...leaving...” she said, through gritted teeth.

“Fine,” he said. “Hruod...”

The next instant was a blur.

Izumi's fist flew through the air...

...stopped only by the flesh of Darkness' hand. His eyes awakened with a burning inferno, staring deep into Izumi's unfaltering violet eyes.

“I am not afraid of you!” she growled.

She pulled her fist from his grasp, and stepped back.

“You can't help me...” she said. “You were the wrong person all along...”

A second later, she was out the door.

There was nobody left...

Who could help her?

Could anybody?

---------------

“We've struck the first blow, and now it's your turn.”

“Me?” said a young, thin dark-haired Chinese teen. “What can I do?”

“You've been chosen to fight the Antichrist directly.”

“I'm honored, sir,” he said, the concern obvious in his voice. His friend chuckled.

“Not alone. We're sending thousands. Everything you've sacrificed for the Balance will be worth it.”

“You're sure he won't come after my family?”

“Have you severed all ties?”

“Of course.”

“Your girlfriend?”

“It was the hardest. I couldn't break up with her...she threw me out, once she got past the crying.”

“I'm sorry,” Cain said, looking sympathetic. “But very soon, she'll be safe. Now that the Vindicators have alerted him, he won't hide...he'll take shelter in the public eye. The entire city has a perimeter around it, he won't be leaving any time soon. This is where you all come in...

You know what to do.”

"So she was annoying," Huon observed.

"I know. I don't know why these people keep bothering me. I seem to attract morons."

"She seemed kind of pissed off." Hruod was looking in the fridge for more beer.

"She was. You could smell it, couldn't you?"

"Sure. I just wanted to make sure you knew as well."

"I knew," Darkness assured him.

He walked across to the window. Outside, the grass courtyard was dark and empty. "I don't like this. It's all too quiet."

"Blame your friend." Huon lifted his hands as Hruod emerged with more beers and tossed them over. He brought one over to Darkness too.

"I don't know if he's my friend any more. I don't know a damn thing."

"I thought you guys were like..." Hruod waggled his long fingers near his head.

"Connected?"

"Yeah. Or whatever."

"We are. Were. I don't know. I got so used to knowing him better than a brother that I didn't even notice when he became a stranger."

Huon made a sympathetic noise. "Tough break."

"You two understand. You're twins."

"So what?"

"So you understand the connection Dante and I share. Shared."

Huon and Hruod exchanged a look. "Is that a human thing?" Hruod asked.

"What?"

"Magic twins."

"No...I just meant..."

"We're not psychic or anything," Huon said with a note of irritation in his voice, "in fact we're not even that similar. Everyone always treats us like we're interchangeable."

Darkness turned to look at the two werewolves that he genuinely couldn't tell apart. "Yeah. Sorry."

They both smiled. No point trying sarcasm with werewolves, he remembered.

"Anyway, we're no closer to finding out why I was attacked by the Vindicators."

"Do you still think it was a distraction?" Huon said.

"So Izumi could try to get into my apartment? No. Obviously not. I guess it was just a coincidence."

"She did seem to know something, to be fair."

"Like she said, she's been to Hell with me. She's seen things. Not nearly as much as she thinks she has though. She's no one."

Hruod joined Darkness by the window. "What if she's someone though?"

"What could she possibly be? This isn't a war for normal people. They're just bystanders. Walking obstacles in my path."

"Moo cows."

Darkness nodded. "Moo cows."

* * *

The police officer narrowed his eyes at the Eastern European man standing in front of him. He was fidgeting, sweat trickling down the side of his face. He hadn't shaved in a while. The officer's eyes flicked back to the papers in his hand. Even though all of his instincts were screaming to him that this Westerner wasn't someone to be trusted, his documents seemed to check out.

"Name?" he asked in Mandarin.

It took a few seconds for the stranger to formulate a reply. "Sergei. Sergei Petkov."

"Okay, Sergei Petkov. What is your reason for being in Beijing?"

Again, it took him a moment. "Work. I come here for work."

"What is it you do?"

"Builder. I builder."

"Your Mandarin needs some work. Where are you planning to look for work?"

"I go to...uh...to...shop? House?"

The police officer folded his arms and pushed his weight back on one foot as the immigrant searched for the right word. This man wouldn't get far if he couldn't even speak Standard Mandarin, and he would have a lot of workers from rural areas to compete with. Why would a Bulgarian come all the way to Beijing to find work as a builder anyway? Why not Germany or Britain? It made no sense.

The thought had no time to formulate more fully, as a sharp jab in his neck caused him to turn around with a yell. He saw someone else hovering just out of view – were they in the shadows? He couldn't make out any details. In fact, he couldn't make out any details of anything...

The police officer tumbled forward and was caught by a second Westerner.

"Thanks," Sergei said, letting out a deep sigh of relief, "that crash course the boss gave us in Chinese wasn't quite enough to prepare me."

"You speak fifteen languages, Sergei," the other man said, grunting under the weight of the cop as he carried him over to the wall of the side street and let him sink down to the ground, "and you can't pick up one more?"

"Mandarin is tough. Tougher than English."

The other man wiped his hands. "Tougher than Welsh?"

"I never tried Welsh. Is it hard?"

"I can't even pronounce what it says on the road signs around Cardiff." The second man was larger than Sergei, with strawberry-blonde hair and a wide, open face.

"We have to get going," Sergei said, looking back over his shoulder, "someone's going to find him."

"So what? The boss can get us out of any trouble."

Sergei gave his partner a sceptical look as he leant down and retrieved his papers from the unconscious police officer's limp hand and also plucked out the dart that protruded conspicuously from his neck. He waved the papers at the other man. "If we can't get in trouble, why did he give us these, David?"

"Just relax. We're in a foreign city. It's exciting."

Sergei did not know David well. They'd had some dealings – they both operated in the UK – but in many ways they were very different people. Sergei, for example, ranked much higher in The Balance's secret hierarchy. Not that it meant anything for their relationship: the hierarchy was secret even to other members of the organisation. They were all common people. That was the idea. All equal.

There was one key difference though. For David, this was all just a game. He wanted to belong to something larger than himself. Sergei had once been like him. He'd thought of this as a grand adventure.

Then Mr. Cain had shown him what was in their deepest vaults. Nothing Sergei ever saw after that could take away the memory of that grey, writhing...thing...

That's why he was taking this seriously. Because, since that awful day, he took everything seriously.

* * *

Izumi stormed out into the streets. She was as angry as she'd ever been. She looked around for something to kick, but nothing presented itself. That made her even more angry. No – not possible. It just meant more of this same red fury saved up for later.

"The nerve of that guy..."

"Cigarette?"

"No thanks, I don't smoke."

It took Izumi a few seconds to register the short conversation. She spun around, open-mouthed, and then staggered back from the tall shape in front of her.

"I don't actually have any cigarettes," Mr. Cain admitted.

"What are you doing here?" Izumi asked.

"I came here to find someone."

"M...me?"

"Don't flatter yourself. That message was your way out."

"Of what?"

"Of what's about to happen. I said that if you came back to our cause you'd be unharmed."

She tried to draw herself up, but Mr. Cain still dwarfed her. "Are you threatening me?"

"Not at all. Consider this a friendly warning. Something's about to go down, and since I expect you to be close to where it happens – as indeed you are, in fact – there's a risk you may become...collateral damage..."

"That's not very friendly."

"As I'm sure you remember, I'm not a very friendly man."

"Leave her alone, Marcus."

Mr. Cain turned around very slowly. To his credit, his face didn't register even a flicker of surprise. He gave the figure lurking in the shadows on the opposite side of the street a warm smile and opened his arms. "Adam. How wonderful. It's been too long."

"Longer than you could possibly imagine."

"Do I detect a note of anger in your voice? Perhaps accusation? I know we didn't part on the best of terms, but you and I were so close once. I shed real tears at your memorial service. I didn't even do that when my brother died."

"Your brother betrayed you."

Mr. Cain's face grew hard. "So did you."

"Let's not rehash all that again now. We said all we needed to say four years ago."

"All right then. So are you going to tell me how you did it?"

"Did what?"

"Faked your death. It was very convincing. I investigated, of course, suspected you had the resources to avoid such a...messy...fate, but I could find no evidence you survived."

Adam stepped out of the shadows and into the street light. His hood was pulled back now. "I didn't."

Mr. Cain's face turned pale. He took a step backwards. "God in Heaven..."

"Never met him. I went the other way, I'm afraid."

"How did...I mean..."

"So many questions. Sadly, you lost the right to receive answers to them a long time ago. You'll die ignorant, Marcus. How could you be so foolish to come here in person?"

"Foolish would be staying back in the Warren when all this was going down. You have no idea the kind of trap we're about to spring."

"Good luck. I've seen him do incredible things."

"I'm sure he'll do a few more tonight." Mr. Cain reached into his jacket and pulled out a small metallic device. He pressed a button on it.

"What are you doing?" Izumi asked.

"Nothing someone like you could detect," Mr. Cain told her, giving her only a dismissive glance.

Adam shook his head. "Do you really think The Balance has the ability to take down a target of this magnitude? More powerful organisations than yours have tried and failed."

"There is one key difference between us and them though."

"Oh?"

"Yes. As you know, Adam, we're everywhere."

As he spoke, people began to emerge from side streets. They were of all creeds and colours, all shapes and sizes. A straight-laced British business woman standing next to a Japanese punk. A black kid from inner-city Detroit beside a Finnish sushi chef. More of them were poised above their heads, looming on roof tops. They were closing in on the apartment complex that TCW called home.

"You must have put in a lot of calls to drum up this kind of force," Adam observed.

"People come when they know they have a higher calling. Especially in times like this. I'm glad you're here, Adam – you of all people deserve a front row seat. You too, Izumi," he added, as an afterthought.

* * *

Darkness's head shot up.

"What is it?" Huon asked him with a frown.

"Can you feel that?"

Hruod looked around. "Feel what?"

"My Slayer Sense is..."

"Tingling?"

"Shut up. I haven't felt anything like this since we were in Las Vegas. It feels like this city is swarming with vampires..."

"Shit." Huon was already heading for the door. "Hruod, you call Lir, Ogier, Peredur, Tilpin, Eoin and Cai."

"Cai'll be with Pere' anyway."

"I know, but call him just in case. I'll get hold of Gwen and Gawain, and try to find the rest. They'll be around somewhere."

"Where's Revenant?" Darkness asked, grabbing his jacket.

Huon sniffed the air in the corridor. "On the roof, I think."

"Llenlleawg with her?"

"You're the one with the Spidey Sense."

"It's going fucking haywire right now..."

Hruod nodded. "Don't worry – we'll mobilise everyone. You want Freya?"

"I want everyone. I'm going to call John."

"There's that many?" Huon asked from the doorway.

"It feels like it. This is going to be bad."

Hruod was running for the door now too, already dialling on his cell. "Lir? Where are you, you bloody gayboy?"

Darkness strapped on his sword. "I'm going to be outside. We don't have time to waste. Can you track me?"

Hruod grinned as he reached the door. Huon had already disappeared down the corridor "In that coat? No problem." He slapped the phone to his ear. "Lir? Where have you been? Pick up your pissing phone once in a while, will you."

Darkness couldn't suppress a smile, but the buzzing in his head made it disappear just as quickly. There must be thousands of them out there. What he couldn't work out, he thought as he flew out of the door, barely giving himself time to lock it, was how they'd appeared so suddenly...

Darkness bolted out into the night air, his eyes darting left and right madly. Bad day was a gross understatement. Vindicators and now this. Several questions plagued his mind. Where had they all come from? Why were they choosing to attack so openly, now?

They were as a swarn of hornets in his mind, thousands of them invading it, invading the streets. Endless legions coming for him.

As he stepped out and looked up and down the streets, he saw...

Nothing.

No swarming legions of vampires. No screams of terror, no battlecries...

Just people. Walking up and down the street, driving in cars, couples sharing a date, angry businessmen, street bums...

And yet, the Sense continued to pound in his head.

"Where are they hiding?" Darkness said alloud.

"Where's the fire?"

Darkness spun around.

"Gwen," he began, spotting her with Gawain in tow. "Everywhere. A mass army of vampires. Thousands of them, right here, in this city."

"How?" she replied, eyes darting around, searching frantically. "How could they get a force that size in this city undetected until now?"

"I don't know, but they're there. And yet...I see not a single one."

"Perhaps...they've found a way to turn invisible? Even to your Slayer Sense?"

"Then why allow me to detect them now?"

"Tactics. They're hoping you'll panic and make a mistake."

"I won't," Darkness said. "I can't."

"Darkness!"

Someone yelled from afar. Heads turned as the stranger nearly charged headlong into him, but skidded back at the last moment...and fell on his ass.

"Ow!"

Gwen snickered.

Darkness gave him odd look. "Who are you, and what do you want? I've had enough of strangers for one day..." His eyes searched the air. This was too...normal.

"Sorry!" he said, in accented-yet-fluid English. "It's...it's just that I'm excited..."

A young woman stepped up next to him, and gently pulled him up. "Jing...you're so clumsy as always. Excuse my boyfriend, Mr. Darkness. It's an honor to finally meet you..."

"You see...it's my girlfriend's birthday," Jing said, nodding happily. "There's something I've always wanted to give her."

"No," Darkness said coldly, moving to walk past him, but they moved in his way.

"Please!" he said. "It's more than an autograph. It's something that will last forever."

"Make it quick."

"She wants to be safe," Jing said, nodding solemnly. "There's one thing you can give her. Have a heart, Darkness..."

"Please, come with us..."

Darkness' eye caught the first knife being drawn...

In an instant, he delivered a kick to Jing, knocking him onto the sidewalk. The second knife was pointed right at his head, quivering ever so slightly.

"Surrender," she said, the blade inches from driving itself into his head."I'll...kill you if I have to."

"You don't have what it takes to kill me," he said dismissively.

"Not alone," she said. "But together..."

It had gotten eeriely quiet.

"Darkness...!" Gwen said.

A large amount had of people had simply stopped, and were facing him. Slowly, they began to approach...

More people from the shadows...men, women, Chinese, Japanese, American...the very people who had been blissfully going about their day had formed a collective, and were moving on him all at once...

"My God..." Gwen said. "Are they..."

"No. They're not vampires..." he said. "There never were any..."

Each of them had brought weapons...Hammers, kitchen knives, axes, switchblades, crowbars, saws, even just bare hands...whatever was handy at the the time of the call.

"It's over, Antichrist. We've beaten you," the woman said. "Turn yourself in..."

"You haven't beaten me until the last breath has left my body."

His hand struck the knife out of her grasp, his other hand pressing into her abdomin and knocking her back. At the same time, Jing, on his feet, charged him...

"You leave her alone, you goddamned son of a bitch!"

And then, they descended like a swarm upon him, converging, a mob of people, with dangerous intentions.

He didn't think, just entered a combat stance...

The first man struck at Darkness with a crowbar. He blocked it with his prosthetic hand, before delivering a stiff thrust with his other to the man's jaw...but it scarcely prevented the others from attacking him. He ducked his head out of the way of an axe, that grazed the top of his head...

It was pandemonium. Darkness, Gwen, and Gawain found themselves in the middle of a swarm. They were unskilled, untrained fighters, yes...the problem was...

There was just, too many of them...

And they all believed to be fighting for their futures.

For each determined man and woman they downed, three came out of the swarm to replace them....

A splash of blood.

A switchknife plunged into his shoulder. One mistake, a momentary lapse in judgment...

It was enough for hands to seize him, and pull him desperately into the crowd, the men and women attempting to down him...

Another splash of blood...

But this wasn't Darkness' blood. The hands released him, as people fell...

"Revenant!" Darkness shouted.

"You've attracted quite the angry mob, eh?"

"Don't use lethal force!" he yelled.

"What?!" she said, as she blocked a butcher's knife. "Are you blind? These people are trying to kill you!"

"I know," he growled, struggling to avoid their grasp. "But I refuse to abandon my principles, even in the face of that! If a single person falls by my hand..."

Gwen avoided a crowbar before blocking it's owner square in the jaw. "But if you fall..."

And so the flood continued.

Darkness' fist pumped, jamming it into the ribs of the first person coming at him.

Three more. Five more.

His sword was a single motion from being at his command...

But these were not like the vampires of Las Vegas. These were not like the Grigori of Hell.

The very people he swore to protect were now his greatest enemy. The mob seemed more and more inhuman as the fight went on.

A saw went straight for his good hand...

It came inches away from removing it, a sharp, stinging pain a harsh reminder of the danger he was in. Sweat poured down Darkness' face as he fought for his life. It quickly took a toll on him to fend them off.

Gwen grunted as one of their knives graze her face, millimeters away from taking a chunk out. It's like the crowd was a giant, gnashing machine of death, trying to tear them apart...

Darkness's body was being tested to it's limits by the swarm, their sheer numbers overwhelming him...

A plan formulated itself in his mind. He saw a path to freedom, through the swarm...

"This way!" he bellowed to Gwen, Gawain, and Revenant. He crouched, before charging like a bull, straight into the sea of people. Their hands reached out to seize him, grasping him with desperation. It was a battle of wills at this point... Every bone and muscle in his body strained itself as he charged.

But there was no end in sight...

Then, faintly, he could hear sirens. A plethora of sirens in the direction he was running.

At once, a miracle occurred. The crowd froze at once, allowing him to come all the way through. His comrades followed in tow, the police a sight for sore eyes.

"Goddamnit, finally," Revenant said. "The police sure take their sweet time..."

The police squad exited their cars, and moved in towards them all...

Darkness wasn't expecting his muscles to suddenly give out, a crackling noise echoing as the barbs of the taser hit him. He gritted his teeth, and let out a primal roar as he reached up to remove them...

A second and third volley stuck him, and he sunk to one knee...

Then finally fell over, as a fourth taser struck him.

"Get on him! Cuff him!" an officer said in Mandarin.

"No!" Gwen said, stepping towards the police.

"Gwen, stop!" Darkness bellowed. "They'll kill you."

"Darkness..."

He gave them a grim look, as the police descended on him. He allowed them to turn him over and cuff his hands, offering no further resistance. A hushed silence filled the air, contrasting the hell on earth that had been here moments earlier, as he was slowly dragged to a blonde, suited man. Next to him, stood Izumi and Adam.

"Who the fuck is this..." he growled.

Mr. Cain ignored him.

He was staring at him, wide eyed, almost as if in shock.

"Is this real?" he whispered. "Have we actually won?"

He bowed his head for a moment, before stepping past him, ignoring Darkness' infernal gaze, addressing the crowd:

"We've done it...we've finally done it...!"

They erupted all at once. The mob that had been monsters before transformed into human beings in the blink of an eye. People cheered, hugged their loved ones, hugged people they didn't even know, it was over, they'd finally done it...

Mr. Cain stepped back in front of Darkness, and glared into the firey orbs that were his eyes.

"We've beaten you, damn it. Of all the things, it was humans who overcame you in the end."

He reached into his coat. In an instant, pulling out a small gun...

BANG.

A scream filled the air, barely even audible above the roar of the crowd.

"Gawain!" Darkness yelled.

He couldn't see it, but he was howling in pain on the ground, clutching at his face...

"No!" Mr Cain growled. "Your demons can't protect you anymore. This day is ours..."

"Every single man, woman and child lost today, Marcus," Adam said. "This is foolish. Release him."

"Your insane ideals will get you killed, Adam. In fact, they have already..." Cain stared him down. "What about you, Izumi? Do you share his views?"

Izumi was looking away from him, saying nothing.

"I thought not. I must thank you. This day came because of you. You found his identity. You tracked him down. Now leave the rest to us."

The police were already leading Darkness to a squad car. He looked on solemnly, out the window, at the crowd, cheering their own demise...

"What are you going to do with him?" Adam inquired.

"You should know better than anyone else, Adam," Cain said, casually climbing into the car.

Moments later, they drove into the distance...

"Goddamnit!" a voice yelled. "What happened?"

Galadd and Tilpin ran over to Gawain, who slowly tried to stand up, but stumbled.

"They got Darkness..." Gwen said.

"Save the chat. These guys will be more than happy to celebrate with your heads on sticks if you stick around here much longer," Adam said.

"Who the hell are you?" Galadd bellowed.

"Shut up and help me!" He lifted up Gawain by an arm, hoisting it over his shoulder...

------------------------
"Oh, thank God..." Tilpin said.

"What?" Galadd demanded. "Spit it out already!"

"This reaction only comes from contact with a silver bullet...but it only grazed his face. He should be able to recover. He's lucky."

"Nnngh...I'll be fine..." Gawain said, as Tilpin attended to the wound. "This smarts..."

Gwen stood up calmly, before pushing Izumi into the wall.

"You have a lot to answer for. This is on you..." It was clear she was holding everything back from tearing Izumi to shreds...

"Enough," Adam said. "Nothing you can do to her will find Darkness or heal Gawain."

"You still haven't told us who you are," Galadd said.

"Adam. Good enough? If we can cut the chit-chat, we can start forming a plan."

"What plan?"

Izumi said quietly.

"To retrieve Darkness, of course."

"If he's the Antichrist, he can get his own self out. I don't care what happens to him."

"Bitch!" Gwen yelled, her hand digging into Izumi's shoulder....

"She's my responsibility. I'll handle her." Adam said, stepping up and calmly removing Gwen's hand. "Have you lost your mind?!"

"He treated me like a child. I poured my heart and soul out in front of him and he turned me away..."

"You foolish girl, do you have any fucking clue what's at stake here?!"

"He can die for all I care!" Izumi yelled. "Since when have you been on his side?"

"I don't like Darkness," Adam began, "but I know one thing: he's on our side. And if we lose him, humanity goes down the drain. Do you even realise what they're going to do to him?"

"Execute him?"

Adam shook his head, slowly. "No. Worse than that. The Hell I'm from is a fucking picnic compared to what they have in mind..."

"You don't have to do this, Adam."

"I do, Reid. You know I do."

"At least take these off." Reid lifted his cuffed hands.

Adam smiled, but it didn't touch his eyes. "I trained you, Reid. I know what you can do."

"It's nothing you can't do better. What could I do against my own teacher?"

Adam placed a firm hand on Reid's shoulder. "We have no time for this."

"Oh, it has to be done quickly, does it?"

"There'll be nothing quick about it," Adam said as he turned away, his voice sounding hollow.

The two men walked down the long corridor lined with doors. It was utterly silent this deep underground, save for the sound their own footfalls made on the poured concrete floor.

"You know this isn't right."

"It has nothing to do with right or wrong."

Reid shook his head. "You can never justify doing this."

"I'm not justifying it. It's just something that has to be done."

"See? You're justifying it."

"It's already done, Reid. The decision has been made."

"Nothing's over until it's over, Adam."

"Don't make this any harder than it already is." They reached the final door. It said 'CAUTION' in black and yellow letters. Adam stopped in front of it and produced a swipe card from a cord than hung 'round his neck.

"Why are you doing this?" Reid asked. His voice was close to cracking now.

"You know why. You betrayed us."

"I turned my back on you, that's all."

"You aided our enemies."

"The Balance has it all wrong, Adam. I was trying to save your idiot asses."

"Which is exactly what you'll be doing." Adam swiped the card in the slot.

"You really believe that, don't you?"

"I wouldn't say it if I didn't. It needs to be fed. It's been a while."

"How can you live with yourself knowing what you're about to condemn me to? Knowing what you've condemned others before me to?"

"You knew the penalty for betrayal when you signed up," Adam said, shooting Reid a hard look.

"No crime is worth this punishment."

"That's where you're wrong." With a hiss, the door opened.

"Please, Adam...I'm...I'm begging you. Just let me go, or hand me over to the Japanese or something. I'll go to prison. I won't apply for parole. I'll never bother The Balance again."

"There's no point in a deterrent that we don't have the guts to use." Adam's voice was quiet now too.

"Please..."

Adam whirled around and looked Reid right in the eyes. "You think I want to do this? You think I want to punish you or anyone else this way? You think I sleep easy knowing that that...that thing...is in here? Knowing what I do to people like you? I've seen it more times than anyone else. I've looked into it's depths, and I've seen the faces of everyone I've thrown to it. You think that's easy?"

"Easier than being the one being thrown," Reid spat. There were tears in his eyes.

"What do you want from me?"

"Mercy. Forgiveness. A chance to redeem myself. Anything but a fate worse than death. Put a bullet through my brain if you have to. Just don't do this, Adam."

"I have no choice."

"Yes you do. Cain doesn't rule the world, and he's wrong about a lot of things. Open your eyes and see the truth. He's leading us all to damnation."

"I don't believe in damnation."

Reid looked into the pitch-black room. From within, there was the sound of something moving. Something awful. Something that had no right to exist.

"If only all of us had that luxury."

"I'm sorry, Reid."

"Fuck you." He spat in his face.

Adam wiped his cheek clean dispassionately. "I really am sorry. But I have my orders."

"Fuck your orders. And fuck you."

"You already said that."

"They're my last words. I want to make them count."

"Goodbye, Reid." Adam grabbed his arm and shoved him through the door. Reid turned and sprinted back towards him, but Adam had already activated the control. It slid shut with a metallic thud. A moment later, there was another thud as Reid threw his body against the door. He tried again, and again.

Adam sighed. He pressed another button on the control panel on the wall, and even through the heavy door he could hear the scream. One more button, and he knew it would be over soon. For him, anyway. For Reid, the torment was just beginning.

He knew the price. It was his own fault really.

Adam turned away, tears now gleaming in his own eyes. He walked slowly down the corridor, trying not to listen to the sounds that carried through three inches of solid steel. Trying not to hear the screams – human and...otherwise...

* * *

Darkness looked down at his arm with mild interest as the syringe drew out blood. The scientist doing it looked up at him uncomfortably and then squirted the sample into a test-tube. He shook it a few times.

"That's not how you do a blood test. You guys might want to invest in a centrifuge."

The scientist didn't say anything. He just put the sample in a slot on a machine Darkness didn't recognise. At that moment, the door of the laboratory opened, and Mr. Cain walked in.

"I hope you're being treated well."

Darkness gestured to the leather straps that kept him tied to the couch. "I'm afraid the quality of your hospitality leaves something to be desired. Could I also have my hand back?"

"Sorry, we're studying it."

"For what?"

"Various things. As far as we can work out, the technology to build it doesn't exist yet."

"It's a DanteCorp prototype."

"Right, right. Anything, Jerry?"

The scientist nodded. "Yeah, preliminary tests are coming up positive for Hellfire. Really positive."

"Excellent. He's certainly an Infernal at least. How did he perform in the exercises?"

Jerry puffed out his cheeks. "He was...uh..."

"The word you're looking for is superhuman," Darkness said calmly.

"Yeah. Yeah, pretty much."

"Interesting," Mr. Cain said, not betraying any emotion whatsoever.

"If you're trying to torture me, you should know that the last person who captured me did a much better job."

"We're not interested in torturing you, Antichrist. We just want to study you. Find out what you are."

"You already called me by what I am."

"Yes, but we don't know exactly what an Antichrist is." Mr. Cain sat down on the end of the bench to which Darkness was bound. "As you know," he said with a small chuckle, "you're kind of singular."

"Is that what this is all about? Scientific curiosity? Are you working for the US Government?"

"No, of course not. We're an...independent organisation. In fact, we're not even in America right now."

"I didn't think the flight was long enough."

"How could you know how long it was? You were unconscious."

Darkness smiled. "It takes more tranquilliser than that to knock me out, Marcus."

Mr. Cain shook his head. "If you're trying to rattle me, it won't work. We're in complete control."

"Really?"

Jerry was looking at a computer printout. He rubbed his temple idly.

"Really."

"Ow! Shit!" Jerry grabbed his nose. Blood was dripping from one nostril, spattering the document he was reading. He reached for a tissue.

"Clever, but not that impressive."

"Consider it a free sample. I'm afraid..." Darkness turned around as best he could, "...Jerry, was it? Doesn't have much going on in his head to exploit. You on the other hand, Mr. Cain..."

Mr. Cain smiled indulgently. "Good luck trying to get past my mental blocks."

"Every fortress has a weakness."

"Except this one," Mr. Cain waved a hand above his head.

"No cage can hold me."

"I welcome your escape attempts, Antichrist. The Warren has never been tested by anything so formidable as you – it will be the ultimate measure of our defences."

"Be careful what you wish for."

"I never wish for things," Mr. Cain said, standing up, "I just make them happen."

* * *

"They're based in an underground complex below Toyko known as the Warren."

The Children and Revenant were all present, sitting in Darkness's apartment while Adam and Izumi briefed them. The Japanese girl looked sullen. She was sitting behind Adam, arms crossed.

"Below Tokyo?" Gwen asked. "Is that sensible?"

"Not really, but the fact that it's had to be rebuilt several times means they can remodel a lot. It's likely the layout is different than I remember."

Gawain shook his head. "So even you won't be able to get in?"

"Oh I can get in, but I will need your help." He turned to Izumi. "And yours."

"Are you going to tell them everything?"

"Only what they need to know to help us save Darkness. What do you care anyway? You turned your back on The Balance."

"Yeah but...this feels wrong."

"Everything about this situation is wrong," Adam said, turning back to his audience.

"Aren't we missing something here?" Llenlleawg interrupted. "Why are we bothering to sneak around? Let's just call the Shadow Slayers and bring down the black fury on these morons."

"Your Shadow Slayers wouldn't hurt any member of The Balance. They share Darkness's...code of honour. Besides, it would give our enemies the perfect opportunity to blow your little conspiracy right out of the water. They have cameras, and people in every city on Earth. If the Shadow Slayers attacked in force, they'd be exposed to the whole world."

"So what's the use in a small group like us going in instead?" Gwen asked.

"It will make them overconfident. They won't feel the need to make examples out of you. What they won't know is that I'm leading you."

"They will know that," Izumi said, "because Mr. Cain saw you. He knows you're alive...uh...well, you know."

"If he thought I was a threat, he'd have killed me back there. No, I think he still trusts me."

"Why?"

"Because I did a lot of bad things in his name. Even when I turned my back on him, he never completely forgot that. Part of him will always believe I'm loyal."

Cai leant forward. "So you have like..." he waved his hands in front of him, "...access codes or whatever? To get us into this place?"

"No, my codes won't work any more."

Revenant rolled her eyes. "So how exactly are we supposed to gain entry?"

"The truth is that I don't know yet."

"You're not a lot of use to us," Gwen observed.

"The information I've given you is already more than you could have ever found out alone. Just knowing the Warren exists makes you part of an exclusive group."

"Yeah, an exclusive group that contains 'people in every city on Earth'," Revenant said with a smirk, "you know people don't get smarter en masse, right? Conspiracies never work."

"Believe me, I'm the last person to be defending The Balance. I don't have all the answers yet, but I know you're all resourceful enough to do almost anything. I was with you in Hell, remember?"

"We remember," Gwen nodded, "and we're grateful for your help. We need to save Darkness, that's what's important here."

"It is."

"What exactly are they going to do to him?" Llenlleawg asked.

"I'm deadly serious when I tell you that you don't want to know."

* * *

"Where are you taking me?" He wasn't sure how long he'd been held captive, but it felt like a little over two days.

"We've found out all we can from you, I'm afraid." Mr. Cain's face was as impassive as ever. There were two armed guards with them, even though Darkness was handcuffed.

"Anything good?"

"Plenty. You really are what you claim to be. Which is unfortunate."

"For whom?"

"You. Not so much for us. Not now."

They turned and walked down a dimly lit corridor lined with doors. At the end was a larger door next to an electronic panel. It was clear they were heading for it. Across the door was written 'CAUTION' in yellow and black.

"Is this where you're going to keep me? You'll need more than a sign."

"It is to be your new home, yes. Just probably not in the way you imagine."

They all stopped before the door. Mr. Cain pulled a swipe card out of his pocket. "I want you to know," he said, his hand poised near the control panel, "that in many ways, I regret having to do this."

"Do what?"

"Introduce you to our best kept secret. There are some things no man should have to face...even if you aren't really a man at all."

"There's nothing you have that can scare me, Cain."

"We'll see. We've conducted so many tests since you've been with us and, in all the ways we can measure, you're the most powerful entity we've ever encountered. That's why what's about to happen to you is not so much a punishment as it is one final test. Very final."

"What could you possibly be testing now?"

"Your will, Antichrist. We want to see how strong you are. Inside."

"Stronger than you know."

"Not strong enough for this, I'm guessing." Mr. Cain finally swiped the door and it opened slowly with a faint hiss. It was black inside. All Darkness could hear was the faint sound of something large moving.

"What's in there?"

Mr. Cain ran a hand over his jaw. "You know what? I'm going to do something I've never done before. I'm going to tell you what it is. Most people we expose to it unprepared, but I'm actually curious to see your reaction to the information first."

"Go on..."

"Tell me, do you know what an Abyssal Spawn is?"

Darkness recoiled instinctively. He drew in a deep breath through his nose. His heart was thudding hard in his chest suddenly.

"Ah, I can see that you do."

"How did you get something like that?"

"We captured it."

"When? They die in minutes. They can't exist."

"Not if they're fed."

Darkness curled his lip in disgust. "You're a monster."

"We have our reasons."

"Nothing justifies this."

"You might. Your death, I mean. Not that it's really 'death' per se. This is killing two birds with one stone, actually. We haven't thrown anyone to it in a while, and we need to dispose of you. Plus, as I say, there's an element of scientific curiosity - as you put it back in the lab - here. We want to see what happens when you and our little pet meet."

"I'll kill you," Darkness said between gritted teeth.

"Excuse me?"

"I'll kill you. When I get out of this, I'm going to come back, I'm going to hunt you down, and I'm going to kill you."

"You won't get out of this. This is the end, I'm afraid."

"Don't count on it."

"Good luck, Darkness." Mr. Cain nodded to the guards and they grabbed him by an arm each and shoved him through the door.

"This isn't over," Darkness said through the shadows.

"Yes it is. Goodbye. In a way, it was an honour to meet you."

"You deserve to be put down."

"Funny, I was thinking the same thing." Mr. Cain pressed something on the panel, and the door slid shut, leaving Darkness alone in the pitch-black room.

No, not alone.

Not alone at all.

"We need an entrance..." Adam said, looking around.

"Alright, I'm leading the way from here," Izumi said.

"Wait, where are you going?"

They had landed in Tokyo a half hour ago, and were now reaching what appeared to be Tokyo Star Bank.

The Children and Revenant gave them odd looks.

"What the hell are you going to a bank for?" Galadd asked.

"This is the least secure entrance I know...that's not saying much though, the Warren is very secure." Izumi said.

"I didn't know about this one..." Adam said.

"They built it fairly recently. The access is right here," Izumi said, pointing to an ATM.

"Maybe I could try to hack it?" Gawain suggested, shrugging.

"The furthest you'd get is the banking system. No, this is different...you need a unique card to activate the authentication system..."

Izumi whipped out a card, and winked. "And I still have mine. I'm willing to bet on a hunch that it still works..."

She swiped it, and punched in her pin number, triggering a menu.

"It functions exactly like a normal bank card, and even has it's own account. We're given a certain alotted amount a month, but that's not why I'm here..."

A final press yielded a small receipt of sorts being printed out. She tore it off, read it, and nodded. "Follow me."

The group quickly rounded a corner, where Izumi felt along the walls, before pressing in a small section, causing a door to open. They slipped inside, after which it was promptly closed. A second keypad was before Izumi, and she began to punch numbers on that too...

"A second keycode is needed. It's a unique code generated that lasts for 10 minutes and is printed out on the balance readout where the account balance normally is. A second layer of security, so somebody trying to break in with a stolen card and PIN won't be able to get in, not unless they know the secret. It's not perfect, but even if some random fool off the street manages to figure it all out, the base will eat them alive," Izumi said.

Two white metallic doors slid open to reveal an elevator.

"By the way, once we go in this way, we won't be coming out. There's a seperate exit."

They all stepped inside, as the elevator descended down, down further, taking an eternity as it descended into the depths of Tokyo...

"So who's leading who now?" Izumi said, nudging Adam on the shoulder.

"I thought you didn't care what happens to him."

"On the contrary, I've had quite a change of heart. You're not going to be able to get anywhere without my help." Izumi winked, "and I have something to prove."

Suddenly, she slammed her hand on the stop button as it neared the bottom and the elevator grinded to a halt.

"What are you-"

"Guards below. You wanna get caught this soon? I don't think so."

She looked up at the ceiling. "Revenant?"

"Yes?"

"Would you mind cutting through there for us? We're going to do this secret agent style."

---------------

The only sounds in this endless, swallowing void where the sounds of Darkness' pounding heartbeat, his slow, forward footsteps, and the slightest noises of movement...and he thought he could hear...

Whispers.

On the very edge of his mind.

His foot pressed into something hard, and stiff. Feeling it out in the darkness with a few kicks, he determined it to be a corpse. He could imagine what had happened to it.

There was no time to be wasted. He could hear the Thing begin to stir in the void, it's very movements disgusting to the ear. He gritted his teeth and began to pull and twist at the cuffs, the metal straining but resisting his efforts-

FLASH

Light split the void open and illuminated every corner of the room. A small concession.

But Darkness knew the truth of this. the light was not a blessing, it was intended to hurt him. He would not play their game.

He shut his eyes in defiance immediately, his eyelids shielding him from the undescribable crime against nature, whose very Eldritch geometry defied all laws of logic and reason. He could already detect the very smallest bit of his psyche that the Thing had claimed from him in that brief moment of light.

There were four senses left.

And the Thing let out a horrible, inhuman sound as it detected Darkness, it's shriek magnified in the room, piercing Darkness' ears.

His hearing rang, but this was one of his most valuable assets...he needed to use it to detect every motion it made-

SMACK...

SMACK...

SMACK...

SMACK...

The sound of some form of wet appendage...

SMACK...

SMACK...

SMACK...

To the left.

Right.

Top.

Right next to him!

He jumped to the side instinctively, as he continued to work against the handcuffs, slowly but surely. But would it be in time? He could tell by the sounds the creature's reach was incredible, far too wide to escape to any corner of the room.

He felt something brush his skin, along with another wet slap nearby. He recoiled, the texture he felt was violating, in every sense of the word.

The cuffs couldn't come off any sooner, Darkness' heart pounding tensely. He suspected deep down, this is what the creature wanted. It would not kill it's victim so quickly, no, it would tenderize and salt it's meal with fear before slaughtering it.

He breathed deeply and kept to working on the cuffs, wincing as another inhuman shriek assaulted his ears. The metal was strong, but every chain was only as strong as it's weakest link...it had to have a weak point!

He twisted and pulled and tore with both powerful arms, the metal crying out as it slowly...

Slowly...

...ripped open.

Until finally, at long last the links separated, freeing his arms. But as it was, he was left with but a single hand. It would have to be enough.

He entered his fighting stance, listening to the motions of the Thing, the wet SMACKs all around him. He braced himself to dodge, preparing to tackle what he couldn't even see.

Then it happened, it wrapped itself around him. He had barely a moment to react. The violating texture returned, but it was joined by a burning, aciding feeling on his abdomin...

And then he felt the wall driven into his back, sliding down it painfully as his spine screamed with pain...

SLAM.

Another appendage drove itself into his stomach, hard, pressing him painfully into it. He gritted his teeth, and let out a grunt of pain as the thing slowly tore itself away.

Leaving skin stripped down to the raw flesh. It was mercy that he couldn't open his eyes to look at it.

He took a deep breath, and focused. It would come at him again soon. He just had to listen close, and detect it's subtle movement in the air...

...

...

His ear twitched.

He ducked.

SLAM.

It drove itself into the wall above him. His chance!

He grasped the appendage with his one, single good hand, and grunted as he could feel it's violating, burning texture...and still he squeezed, feeling the wriggling, otherworldly muscles underneath.

Without a second thought, he pulled for his life, letting out a primal roar.

He could tell something was happening by the Spawn's increasing sounds.

It shrieked, again assaulting his ears as he felt it go limp and come loose. He could hear the sound of fluid dripping.

Then he heard a horrible sucking and squleching noise come from it, a very distinct sound that seemed to indicate something.

He guessed it was regenerating.

Could he strike now? He pulled himself off the wall and moved towards it intently.

But something was wrong.

The sounds of it's appendages and movements had stopped.

Then, a thunderous BOOM, as his back was pressed again the wall briefly by a powerful, unknown force. It was so powerful he felt as if it could crush him with a twitch.

Then his head was assaulted by another sound. This one was even more painful than the earlier shriek, causing his head to explode in pain, but it did not come from the creature itself...no, this formed itself in his mind. It was a sound composed of a thousand languages not of this world, and yet an image--an emotion, wrapped together into a unique sensation that seemed tailored only to him.

His name.

------------------

"You're going to have to tell me where they put him or I can't find it," Izumi said.

"Just look for the holding cells," Adam said. "Then again, they might have already taken him for 'execution', not that it's the term I would use..."

"Got it," she said, scrolling to it on a computer screen. "Gwen, is it still clear?"

"All clear," she said, checking outside.

Izumi muttered to herself as she scribbled something down on a notepad, occasionally looking up at the screen.

"Looks like the lower you go the tighter the security gets...they don't fuck around."

"Where's the cells?"

"Bottom floor."

"Of course," Galadd muttered.

"We can't cheat with vents, I can tell you that."

"Why is that?" Gawain asked.

"Because they're alarmed. Trust me, they already know all of the old tricks. We're going to have to skirt around the guards carefully."

"And if we get caught?"

"We likely will. In which case we fight and hope for the best."

She nodded. "Okay, I've got all the data I need. Let's go now."

"Wait," Gwen said, "I hear footsteps...many footsteps..."

"How many?"

"At least a dozen."

"Probably a patrol squad. We may have already tripped a silent alarm."

"How in the hell-"

"Don't ask, I don't know. That's probably why we tripped it...whatever security measure it was, was hidden well. I think instead of sitting around here hoping we didn't, we should get moving to the next floor."

She pointed to the map. "Right there, it's just across the hallway. It's securely locked...but first, we need a distraction."

She tapped Adam on the shoulder gently, and he sighed. "This is becoming something of a running gag between us."

"Well, you can take bullets better than anyone else."

"I don't care. I'll do it. Then what? Do you have clearance?"

"Yes. It's called: Rush the door and bash it the hell in."

"This is shaping up to be a suicide mission," Gawain said.

"Maybe...for one person, but for a team of fucking werewolves? If anyone can break into the Warren, we can."

------------------

Darkness stood there, frozen by the Thing's authorative announcement of his name. He did not fear it, but it was so powerful it was impossible for him to ignore.

He stepped forward, as it began to seemingly whisper once again, unintelligibly, the noises of it's moving appendages dying down.

Then he felt one on him again.

But this time, it's touch was not intruding. It was somehow warm, and welcoming, and familiar, and he began to feel a sensation that was least expected from the abomination before him...

Empathy. Love.

It confused him, but intrigued him.

Another, powerful sensation, a 'word' that was not a word, but an image and sound simotaniously.

His wife.

It gave him pause, but he gritted his teeth. A trick, of course. An attempt to distract him from what was most important. He advanced further.

Again it was there, stronger this time. He relived a portion of his life within an instant, a portion of just, being with her.

It showed him Krissy, in an instant, his beautiful young daughter, every bit of his life with her up to the end. It was that easy.

"No," he muttered, pushing past the illusion, heading towards the Abyssal form in front of him.

He felt a hand on his shoulder, and turned around.

There they were in the darkness, his wife and child.

The image was so potent, and so real.

Everything about them was just how he remembered them, right down to a T. They looked the same, felt the same, sounded the same...

"Come with us," they said. "Don't you want to be a family again?"

It was a trick, just like the rest.

But they were so real at the same time...he could still feel their love, and feel the love he felt towards them...

How could he hope to fight like this?

He couldn't.

There was only one thing left to do.

He flicked his hood up as he walked calmly down the corridor. Metallic floor. Old school. He could appreciate that: heck, he did appreciate it, years ago, the first time he walked these halls. A lifetime gone, now. In Hell, time ebbs and flows like the tide. He had lived an eternity of torment, and it had left him changed. In life, he had had conviction. In death...beyond death...

"Stop!"

The guard raised his gun. His colleagues behind him crowded into the corridor, fingering their own weapons.

Adam raised his hands. Fingerless gloves. He had learned to keep as much of his skin – flesh – covered. He was hiding, for now.

"Get down on the floor!"

"I don't think so."

"Get down on the floor, or I'll shoot!"

"Aren't you going to ask me for clearance?"

"I know everyone who should be here – and you're not on the list, buddy."

"I used to be. Things have changed around here."

The lead guard shook his head. His tongue ran across his lips. "I'm serious, pal. If you don't get down on the floor, I'm gonna shoot you."

Adam took a step forward. He dropped his hands to his hood.

"You will learn, in the coming moments, that there are things in this world older and stronger than death."

"I'm warning you..."

He yanked back his hood. The guards recoiled, as one. "Good God!" one of them exclaimed.

"Not in my experience." Adam ran a hand down his face. "What god would do this to a man? Let him suffer the indignity of...this..."

The lead guard let out a yell and raised his pistol. He aimed straight at Adam's chest and pulled the trigger.

"Sorry, but that isn't going to work."

He was still walking forward, and the guards were retreating in turn, as if they were matching magnetic poles.

"Anyone else want to try their luck? Not that luck has anything to do with it... I'm beyond such petty things as fortune now. Do you recognise me at all?"

"What are you?"

"I'm the seed you all sowed. I'm the bad decision come back to haunt you. I'm the whisper of guilt made flesh. I'm fucking karma."

"I can have a dozen more men here in less than a minute."

"BRING IT! I hope you empty the Warren to stop me. I want you to pour out your blood to try and stop me. I want as many of you here as I can pack between these walls."

They started shooting again, but he kept coming. He let them empty their clips and then, as the leader reached for more ammunition he calmly, quietly, ripped out his throat.

"I want to punish you. My friend asked me for a distraction, because it never occurred to her that I was anything but some guardian angel for her. She didn't realise that I came here as much for my benefit as hers. I have a lot of scores to settle."

He grabbed a guard by the wrist and wrenched his arm around in its socket. He collapsed to his knees and Adam twisted his arm backwards, wrapping it around his neck. His head shot up as he choked the life out of the man.

"I'm paying each and every member of The Balance back for the lies you told me. You let me believe, all of you, that what we were doing was right. That it was worth it. And you let me give up my soul for your bullshit cause. I died a thousand deaths because none of you realised that there are some things man was not meant to involve himself with."

He let the dead guard fall.

"So call your friends. Please. I have all the time in the world, and nothing you have can hurt me. You're all just meat to me – flesh to be ground up into the same empty pulp that you made me. I hope Izumi finds her Antichrist, I really do, because I have all of you exactly where I want you."

* * *

"They're dead. And nothing can bring them back."

The lights came on, and he finally saw it.

It was a heaving, pulsing mass. Grey flesh, pallid and slick with something fouler than sweat. It shuddered and lurched, a vile, gelatinous thing. Mouths yawned from its bulk, serrated teeth arranged in uneven rows; orifices intended only to wound. Eyes crowded its unnatural flesh like blisters, all staring at him with a black, unblinking gaze. Limbs clawed from its surface, hands and fingers and feet that were disturbingly human, trying to tear themselves free from its monstrous, wet embrace. There were things inside it – people – he could see their faces, contorted into screams of agony and terror. They were conscious. They were alive. They could see through its eyes too, and they were looking out in horror. It was not a thing in itself, but something gestalt, the sum of all the fear that fed its unnatural existence.

It thrust itself towards him like filth pouring from an open sewer, but infinitely more stinking and foul. To look upon it was a torment in itself. It shuddered and moaned, yawning and shrieking, tearing itself into pieces as new mouths opened on its surface and old ones closed. New eyes burst from previously smooth flesh and spines pushed their way through, reaching out to him with slime-coated barbs. Lumps in disturbing, textured shapes rose up within it: fungal, cauliflower things, with mouths of their own, flailing with tentacles studded with more sucking mouths and lidless eyes. Each tentacle reached for him, each tiny mouth opening and closing in rhythm, each black eye swivelling to stare at him. For just one moment, it adopted a fearful symmetry, seeming to split itself into two like an amoeba, but it remained one viscous, trembling blob and collapsed back into anarchy. Dull patches of luminescence flickered across its surface, moving in chaotic patterns, rippling and murmuring. It spoke to him with a thousand anguished voices, mingling and twisting into one monstrous siren call.

It was an affront to creation. An offense against nature. It was blasphemy given form, a venomous insult directed at God. It was something that should never have been allowed to exist. It was something that defied logic, reason and the shape of reality itself. It could not exist within the narrow set of dimensions that defined the universe: it was necessary for it to warp the cosmos around itself in order to maintain its maddening form. Darkness could feel the tension in the surface of space-time as it pushed against it.

It was hate and fear and pain and cruelty given form. It was impossibly, indescribably disgusting. No human could stand against this: man was not meant to face it. To do so was to lose all semblance of humanity. That was how it fed. It absorbed you into itself, taking all your terror and pain and assimilating it. Taking all of what made you real, and it not.

"There's nothing for you here."

It paused, questioning, its form ceasing its repellent motion for an instant.

"I am beyond your power to harm. You cannot feed upon me. There is no humanity left for you to leech out."

As he said it, it became true. He let the last ghost of what he had been slip away from him. The love for them, the hope of a return to what he once was, he finally released into the æther. He was as stone. Unliving. Inhuman.

With an alien roar, the Spawn hurled itself towards him, throwing its cloying bulk against him, pinning him to the wall. His skin should have crawled, trying to push itself away from the wetness of its many mouths and eyes, from the slime that coated its oily flesh, but he felt nothing now. No revulsion, no fear, just a steel resolve. He reached out, taking a hold of one mandible and tore it open. The thing stretched and screamed, pulling itself apart.

More visions crowded into his mind, jumbled and incoherent. Krissy's face, superimposed upon a twisted mannequin, as if the thing was trying to use its non-existent initiative.

"I love you, daddy!" it bleated in a hundred voices, none of which were hers.

He kept rending, one-handed, pulling and tearing, ripping at eyes and tentacles.

Now Anna's face sprung up. A nightmarish image appeared in his mind of an alien's idea of sex, bodies melding and reforming, becoming one and falling apart, orifices clenching as screaming Krissy-mannequins emerged from them.

Darkness felt bile rise inside him, a chink in his armour, a weakness he could not afford. He suppressed everything in him that still longed for Anna's warmth, swallowed every heartbeat that still pounded out her name in a mournful rhythm. He balled up everything that made him human, everything that made him a man, and crushed it with a snarl.

The thing didn't know how to respond. It tried to fight back with teeth and claws, but found no purchase: Darkness was proof against its attacks. It began another psychic assault, trying to find some leverage as Darkness held back its fleshy appendages. Freya's scent filled Darkness's mind and, for a second, he nearly unravelled there and then. The man inside him threatened to rise again as a thousand warped scenarios rushed through his head in an instant. Every sexual peccadillo, every dark secret of every man, each depraved fantasy he keeps hidden in his most secret places was played out before him, involving himself, Freya and every man and woman he'd ever met. The Spawn searched for a combination that would break him, but there was nothing.

"That's...not going to work..." Darkness tore a tentacle free of the Spawn's bulk and hurled it to one side where it thrashed for a second before going still.

Images of glory next. Belts. Cheers. People chanting his name. Vanity. The longest reigning 411fed and ECF World's Heavyweight Champion of all time, did you know? How many days was it now? Who had he beaten? Dante, Bruce, the legendary Titanium Insomniac. Remember when you broke Infinity? Remember when DeSean tapped out? Remember beating Indigo in front of tens of thousands of fans? Remember how you're the best there's ever been?

"No, it's just a means to an end. A way to beat things like you."

The attacks grew more desperate, physically and mentally. More barbed appendages burst out and thrust at him, but he dodged and whirled, ignoring where they cut him. Every moment of his life was playing over in his head now, each failure relived a thousand times, each small humiliation and disappointment multiplied a hundredfold. He saw everything again, from every angle, engaging with his past in infinite new ways. He saw his very existence laid bare before him, spread out like cheap commodities on a market trader's rug. The Spawn pored over them, seeing everything that made him what he was, touching every memory with its dripping tentacles, tasting and savouring them with its many mouths. It was inside him, suffusing him wholly. This was what it was like to be consumed by the thing – a eternity of this was a fate worse than any he could have imagined.

And that's when he saw them all inside it: all the people that Mr. Cain had handed to it to keep it alive for so many centuries. There were hundreds of them. Men, women, even children. Sacrificed to the most hateful thing that inflicted itself upon the world. He saw how each of them were part of it, their experiences used as succour for the Spawn, their constant fear sustaining it. They belonged to it now. They were part of it.

"This ends here."

He grew more frenzied, attacking like a wild beast, but never allowing his fury to pass through his cold façade. It kept fighting, even to the end, trying to fight past his murderous, icy calm, but Darkness pushed everything down, swallowing love, lust, pride, hope, fear, mercy, joy and hate. He was a machine: an iron harbinger of death. A righteous automaton, but with no conception of the meaning of his righteousness. He fought because he must. He fought because he had no choice. It was how he was made, nothing more.

Finally, he bore it down into a flailing mass of half-formed mush and dashed it against the concrete. It collapsed, falling apart into sludge.

He lay amongst the filth for a long while, breathing hard. After minutes, hours or maybe days, he sat up. He was coated in its slime, offal clinging to his hair and skin. He could taste its foulness, and he gagged and retched at the realisation, falling into a shuddering heap.

For a moment, a vision assailed him: his own body, rent apart by the same mouths, eyes, growths and appendages as the Spawn, attacking him not from without, but from within.

Sometimes, when you gaze into the Abyss, the Abyss gazes back. What would he become now?

"This is not the first time I have walked this road," he told the Spawn's remains, "and a thing so vile and without meaning as you will not be the cause of my undoing. That, I will not suffer."

He pushed himself shakily to his feet and staggered towards the door. He could hardly breathe, the air was so thick with the acrid stink of his dubious victory. He pawed at the door with his one hand. He didn't know how to open it, but he would find out. He knew that he was going to leave this room and then calmly, easily, he would track down Mr. Cain, and he would kill him. Once, a part of him would have recoiled at the very thought.

Not now.

"This is the last barrier to the Warren's final floor..."

Izumi stood before a large, solid, vault-like door, sealing her and the Children off from the final floor. She began to pace back and forth in front of it, shaking her head...

"This is where the Balance keeps everything they definitely don't want getting out, even to their own members...and I have no idea how to get in. I don't think you guys could break through this...and I don't want to know what would happen if you tried." She looked at them, with worry.

"Don't look at us," Revenant said. "You're the only one who even knows anything about this."

"I don't have all the answers...remember, I didn't exactly have the highest clearance. Only Mr. Cain ever took me into areas I couldn't get into on my own..."

She carefully examined the door. Upon examination she discovered two distinct keypads, each on either side of the door. She stood there for a long time, thinking.

"Hmm...I should be able to..." With a grunt, she pulled open one of the keypads, revealing a circuit board and wires. "Maybe if I-"

A warning light flashed above the door!

"Now I've done it...!" she yelped.

"What did you just do...?!" Gwen said.

An instant later they found themselves surrounded.

Six Vindicators, as if they had been there all along.

"Oh god..."

"I didn't expect them to use Vindicators as guards here..." Izumi said.

"Surrender now, or we will use lethal force. This is your only warning."

"Darkness said these guys were deadly assassins..." Hruod said.

"I know. We might have bitten off more than we can chew." she said. "I..."

The Vindicators were already moving in for attack...

Then the Children pounced, engaging them! A flurry of teeth and claws as a fierce melee erupted in the room.

"I can do this...! I just need time! Gawain!" Izumi shouted.

"Yes?"

"I may need your intuition. We have to find the mainframe room."

She stood up, and the both of them slipped from the battle scene.

"I hope they can hold them off..." Izumi said.

"What are we going to the mainframe room for?"

"It's a bit of a desperation move, but it's the only way I can think of. The way I see it, there is no way I can tamper with those keypads. I set off an alarm just by opening it, and who knows what else I could set off. The only way to open that door is two codes entered together on each keypad. I don't know who knows the codes, but I know what may hold the codes..."

"The mainframe?"

"It's not going to be easy. With a security system like this I'm sure the hard drives are using encyption. But I know one thing I can try. Have you ever heard of a cold boot attack?"

"Vaguely. I'm not much of a hacker...I'm just interested in electronics, not how to break into systems."

"Well, you know how computers store data in RAM, right? The encryption key should be in the memory. What I'm going to do is kill the power and turn it right back on, and load a special program on the main terminal from thumbdrive on boot that'll let me read the memory. Hence, a cold boot attack. Once I decrypt the hard drives I should be able to pull the access codes off of them."

"Sounds like it might work..."

"Yeah, the problem is I've never done it before. I made it sound a lot easier than it is. This is the type of thing only crazy-good hackers do. But no access codes, no access..."

They reached the mainframe door, quickly scrambling inside.

"I realise you're all relying on me...I want to let you know I'm going to do my very best."

"I know, and we're grateful. At this point nobody would blame you if you couldn't do it. I'll help you in any way I can," Gawain said.

Izumi's hand found the power cord.

"Let's get cracking, then..."

-----------------------

Slowly, Darkness stalked his way through the dimly lit, metallic corridors. Wearing an expression of cold anger, his eyes searched through the hallways. He had one goal that he was drawn to, and he would find it.

His intuition told him that Cain would want to watch the sick game he had created. He couldn't be far...possibly in an observation room of some sort.

He turned the corner, walking up a short flight of stairs. He would casually, machine-like, pull open a door, examine the room's contents, and shut it, upon not discovering his quarry.

This would continue for a few minutes, the hunter seeking it's prey. He could almost smell him, as he opened one last door.

"Kill him!"

The next thing he knew, a Vindicator came from above, kicking him square in the chest. He recoiled, his back against the wall. A powerful, strong fist headed straight for his head, with force that could potentially crush bone.

He stepped aside, the fist instead driving itself into the thick wall, cracking it audibly. Darkness took his chance and grappled the arm, throwing him to the ground. The Vindicator was quick however, and flipped right back to a standing position, before tackling into Darkness and trying to force him to the ground. The larger, masked man had an advantage on Darkness, his metallic breathing quickening as he threatened to pin him all the way to the ground.

But Darkness had come too far, fought too much to be beaten this easily.

He slowly struggled against the strength, stopping it, and then beginning to reverse it.

He growled as he threw the Vindicator back, and pounded his fist straight into his chest. An odd, metallic gasp came from his mask as he stumbled back-

There it was, a series of blows so quick they could barely be detected. The Vindicator fell to one knee, but tried to trip Darkness to the ground.

It didn't work. Darkness' knee collided with the Vindicator's mask, dropping him on his back. He mounted him, before delivering more swift, powerful blows that smashed into his mask, over and over. Fists and elbows rained down, over and over, until he heard an audible crack, and a spiderweb of fracture began appearing on the mask.

Satisfied, Darkness turned towards the one lone man in the room.

Mr. Cain stood in front of a wide array of monitors, a cold glare on his face.

"You are truly a monster," he said.

"No..." Darkness replied. "I'm here to put down the monsters. I've destroyed one. One remains."

"To think that you could rip apart an Abyssal Spawn...no, Darkness, you are a monster. You are the greatest threat to our existance-"

"Still delusional. How many lives has that mindset condemned to torment rivaling Hell itself? How many lives is that mindset of yours threatening right now? I won't let you escape, Marcus. I won't let you do it to anybody else. There are things man should not meddle in...and you are a prime example of that."

"NO!" Mr. Cain bellowed. "I've come too far for this...I've done too much to let it all come to vain. I won't let you escape us now. I won't let your mindless, deceitful drivel sway me. This place will become your grave, even if I have to do it myself."

"So many have tried and failed to do what you desire," Darkness said, stepping forward, and Mr. Cain could now see his eyes. He froze, startled by their appearance. They were cold, filled with fury...inhuman. There was not even the slightest hint of mercy or compassion.

"I suppose it is only fitting that I am the one, then. I've spent so long toiling for the salvation of the human race. This won't be the execution you're hoping for, Antichrist..."

He began to reach into his suit...

"She's delirious again."

Adam looked back over his shoulder at the young girl, fitfully tossing back and forth on the bed.

Mr. Cain folded his arms, then unfolded them again and shoved them in his jacket pockets. "It's going to take her mind a while to process what she saw."

"Right." Adam turned back to Mr. Cain and fixed him with a cold stare. "Was this wise?"

"Wise? I don't know about that. I know what I'm doing though."

"Do you? Do you really? Why expose someone that young to the Spawn. How old is she, fourteen?"

"Something like that," Mr. Cain said, running a hand over his mouth, "but I have my reasons."

"I'd sure like to hear them. What possible reason could you have for showing a child that thing?"

"The same reason as always," Mr. Cain snapped, "the same reason you and I had to see it."

"Are you grooming her to be your replacement, Marcus, is that it?"

"Don't be facetious. I'm trying something new here, that's all."

"Go on..."

"I don't see why I should tell you my plans."

Adam took a step closer. "I think I've earned the right to be told the truth after all we've been through, Marcus."

Mr. Cain looked from side to side. Although there was no one else present, he took Adam by the shoulder and led him slightly away from the door.

"I've been doing a lot of reading recently..."

"The usual?"

"Yes, and you don't have to take that tone with me. I've been reading, and what I read was very disturbing."

"More disturbing than usual?"

"Yes. Much more. I have good reasons for believing that our enemies may be planning their endgame."

"What are you saying?"

"The Antichrist, Adam. Him. I think..." he looked over his shoulder again, and then pulled Adam closer, "I think he may be about to reveal himself, if he hasn't already."

"Right. And what does that have to do with...what was her name...?"

"Matsushita. Izumi Matsushita."

"Yeah. What does it have to do with her?"

"Not her specifically, although she has links to certain...industries...that I believe may prove useful in the long run. No, I just needed someone young. You know that when we recruit, we bring people into our organisation who already have opinions and prejudices. This isn't always a bad thing, but there may be a time when we need people who are more...amenable...to our methods."

"We have the Vindicators for that, Marcus."

"No, I need real agents. Real agents who we mould from a young age to follow us. Who share our strength of will."

Adam shook his head. "This is madness. She's too young."

"She knows what's at stake."

"At fourteen? She knows nothing. She's not ready for anything like this, least of all the Spawn."

"She'll assimilate it. It will become part of her consciousness, and it will make her strong."

"No." Adam stepped away. "It'll warp her. I've seen it more times than anyone. I know what it does."

"We all know what it does, Adam."

"Then you should know better. The Spawn feeds on human emotion. It steals a part of you every time you look at it. To encounter that thing is to court madness. I know that more than anyone else."

Mr. Cain threw up his hands. "This is no time to be squeamish, Adam!"

"She's just a child! Who knows what this could do to her? A grown man loses a part of his humanity when he spends less than a minute with the Spawn. What could it do to someone who's still growing, who still has so much to learn? This is...this is...child abuse, Marcus!"

"I told you I'm moulding her mind! She's the first of a new generation of The Balance!"

"And who knows what she's lost already because of that? Our strength is our humanity, Marcus – you could be robbing her of that."

"What are you suggesting? That she's going to grow up wrong? She'll turn autistic?"

"I don't know, Marcus! I have no fucking idea! And neither do you!"

"I'm not going to argue with you about this..."

"You're right, you aren't."

Adam turned his back and stalked off down the corridor. Mr. Cain watched him go then with a heavy sigh, turned back to the door.

* * *

Mr. Cain reached inside his jacket and pulled out a small control device. "What, did you think I was going to fight you?" he chuckled. "No, I'd be no match for you."

Darkness nodded. "You're right."

"The dozen Vindicators that will come the instant I press this button though...they might be another story."

Darkness tensed up. He took a step forward and Mr. Cain smiled. With a deft flick of his wrist his pressed a button on the device.

Everything went black.

"Uh..."

"Was that supposed to happen?"

* * *

The doors to the corridor slid open. Izumi poked her head through. "All clear."

She stepped in, followed quickly by The Children and Revenant.

"That blackout will have sent the security teams into a frenzy."

"It certainly worked to our advantage against those Vindicators," Gwen said, "you'd think those masks would help them see in the dark."

They all walked slowly down the corridor nonetheless, looking this way and that.

"I don't like all these doors," Gawain growled, "they could come at us from anywhere."

"It's just rooms on the other side. They don't go anywhere."

"What do they need all the rooms for?" Revenant asked.

"To keep things in." Izumi's tone was evasive.

"What kind of things?"

"Just things. You don't want to know."

Revenant waggled her fingers. "Oooh okay."

They reached the end of the corridor. There was another sliding door with 'CAUTION' written on it in yellow and black. Izumi took a deep breath and fumbled a piece of paper from her pocket as she stepped up to the keypad. "All right, you guys have to stay out here."

Gwen gave her a sceptical look. "No, I don't think so."

"I'm serious."

"Just open the door, little girl," Revenant snapped.

"I'm older than you!"

"Only physically."

Izumi growled under her breath and typed in the code she'd retrieved from the mainframe. The doors slid open. She stepped sideways, but Revenant pushed past her and entered the room first. Izumi was quick to follow, and the two girls burst though the doors together.

"What is this shit?" Revenant said, drawing up.

"It's...uh..."

Revenant kicked at a dismembered tentacle on the floor. "Is this one of the things we don't want to know about?"

"It...was...um."

"Grey goop. It's just grey goop."

The Children came into the room now, and they all made the same disgusted face as they sniffed at the air.

"What died in here?" Cai said, sticking out his tongue.

"Whatever it was, it wasn't Darkness," Gwen answered, looking around, "I don't smell any human blood."

"That might not mean anything," Izumi told her. She crouched down next to the tentacle. "This makes no sense."

"Yes it does," Revenant was already headed to the door, "Darkness killed whatever was in here."

"He can't have. It's not just something you can, like, kill."

"Anyone have a trail?" Gwen asked, turning around.

"I smelt him in the corridor," Hruod called from near the back of the group, "but I thought it was just from when he came here."

"There's two trails," Huon confirmed, "so he came out."

"This makes no sense," Izumi said again.

The Children were already filing out. Revenant waited at the door. "You coming, kid?"

Izumi turned and then straightened. "Yes, sorry." She brushed her bangs out of her eyes and hooked a strand of hair over one ear. "And I really am older than you. People think I'm just some annoying little girl – they don't understand what I've seen."

"Yeah, tell me about it. So where should we start looking for Darkness now?"

Izumi thought for a second. "I don't know. But we've tried the bottom – let's go to the top. We're going to pay a visit to my old boss."

* * *

The lights came back on.

"I don't see any Vindicators."

Mr. Cain curled his lip and threw the remote to one side. He turned back to his screens. "Someone disabled the security systems."

"Unlucky."

Mr. Cain whirled around and levelled a finger at Darkness. "Luck has nothing to do with this. They came looking for you!"

"Of course they did."

"I don't get it. How can you inspire that kind of loyalty, a monster like you?"

"Maybe I'm not the monster you think I am."

"I know exactly what you are."

"Good. That will make this easier."

Mr. Cain was about to say something, but Darkness moved too fast. He closed the distance between them in a fraction of a second and slammed the larger man into the wall of monitors. He howled in fury as sparks rained down and then pushed Darkness away with a mighty heave.

"I may not be a match for you," Mr. Cain said, breathing hard, "but I'm no pushover – and you just fought an Abyssal Spawn and a Vindicator." He dusted off his jacket and balled his fists.

Darkness held up his bare stump. "Are you at least going to give me back my hand?"

"Probably not." Mr. Cain threw himself towards Darkness and the two men rolled to the ground. He flailed at him with both fists, but Darkness reached out and grabbed his throat. With a grunt of exertion, he pushed him over and rolled on top of him. He drove the point of his elbow into his temple, then grabbed a handful of hair and stood up.

Mr. Cain made a grab at Darkness's arm as he was pulled roughly up to his feet, but Darkness ignored him and wrapped his forearm around his throat then grabbed his head with the other hand.

"If you go limp, this will be quicker."

Mr. Cain thrashed back and forth as his face started to go red. Darkness started to twist, but Mr. Cain fought him all the way. He dug his fingernails into Darkness's flesh, but it was like trying to score granite.

"You're going to have to choke me to death!"

"So be it."

Mr. Cain kept thrashing as his face turned crimson. Darkness pushed him down onto his knees.

"You...think...this...will...end...anything?"

"I think it will end you."

"No...I...come...from...an...older...line...than...you...can...imagine. My...dynasty...has...the...weight...of...aeons...behind...it."

Darkness narrowed his eyes. "Stop talking."

"We...have...have...fought...this...war....for...millennia..."

"Shut up."

"Atoning...for...our...sin..."

"Just die already."

"Killing...me...changes...nothing..."

Darkness gritted his teeth and tightened his grip, twisting again.

"My...work...will...be...continued...by...my...son..."

His neck snapped, and Darkness felt him go limp. He stared down at him and then let him slump lifelessly to the floor.

"Your son? Who's your son?"

Ding.

Adam's gaze flicked up to the number above the elevator door, checking he was on the right floor. The blackout had given him a moment's panic, but the elevator had resumed a few seconds later. The doors opened soundlessly and he stepped out. He looked up and down the corridor and, seeing no one, quickly flicked up his hood.

"Don't think I'm going to enjoy this," he whispered to himself. He lifted a pistol he'd liberated from a guard and slammed a clip home, "But I will make it quick. You've earned that, Marcus."

He walked slowly towards the door of his former mentor's office, moving as if in a dream.

"Adam!"

His head jerked up as Izumi dashed towards him down the hall.

"Izumi...hi..."

"Thanks for the distraction! I don't know what you did, but we hardly met a single guard!"

"No problem."

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine."

"How did you know we were coming here?"

Adam looked past Izumi. "Where are the werewolves?"

"They were right behind me..." she looked back with a frown.

"Izumi, listen to me..."

"Now where the heck did they go?"

"Izumi!"

"What?!" She turned around and Adam grabbed her by the shoulders.

"Listen. I want you to stay out here."

"What? Why?"

"Because."

"But I have to help Darkness. Mr. Cain will know where he is."

"Darkness is dead."

"No..."

"Izumi, they fed him to the Spawn."

She shook her head. "No, see, we just went down there and..."

"Izumi, forget him. This has nothing to do with him. You should know that I wasn't completely honest with you about a few things...well...about a lot of things. I didn't come with you to save Darkness."

"Huh?"

"There's something I have to do. Something involving Mr. Cain."

Izumi suddenly realised he had a gun in his hand and stepped away, horrified. "No..."

"I'm sorry. One day, I'll explain all this to you. Please, just stay out here. I have to do this alone."

"Nuh uh. No way, mister. I'm tired of being treated like a kid."

"You should be grateful – if Marcus had done that in the first place, you wouldn't be in this mess. Maybe we're all making up for that."

"What are you talking about?"

"Never mind. Just...stay out here."

He reached for the keypad and entered the code, then frowned at the low tone. "That's weird...it's already unlocked..."

The doors started to open and, before he could stop her, Izumi ran past him and into the room.

"Izumi, wait!"

A gasp.

Izumi's eyes traveled the room, first meeting with the eyes of her fallen boss and mentor, wide open, his neck twisted. They traveled all the way up to Darkness' cold, inhuman, infernal eyes, and drew the logical conclusion.

"Izumi..."

Adam came into the room.

"You...why did..."

"Had no choice, I'm afraid." Darkness shook his head. "He was feeding people to an Abyssal Spawn, and attempted to do the same to me. He was a foolish man who was meddling with things he should not have."

Izumi shook her head. "No..."

"Yes. His ideals were dangerous and put the lives of many in jeapordy. He was barely human, a monster that needed to be put down."

"So you killed him," Adam said, a mixture of emotions in his voice.

"Mr. Cain was my mentor," Izumi said, her voice shaky, "He...he brought me up when my parents couldn't. He showed me the truth of what was lurking in this world."

"He was using you," Adam said. "He risked damaging your mind when you were young, just so he could shape you into his own tool. You learned way more than you ever should have at your age."

"Again, treating me like a kid?! I followed him on my own choice! I could have walked away at any time... which I did!"

"Not before he used you as a tool to track me down, which led to today's events," Darkness replied.

"I am not a tool...I made my own choices." Her hands were shaking, her face was pale and broken out in a cold sweat.

"He fed you lies."

"If he fed me lies, then tell me the truth." She said, stepping forward. "If you know better than he, prove it."

"No."

"Prove it!"

"I need prove nothing to you nor tell you anything," Darkness growled, pointing at her fallen former boss. "He is a prime example of why people like yourself cannot be trusted. You can put yourself, or others in danger, and I can't let that happen. You think you know so much, but you've only scraped the tip of the iceberg."

"I know more than you think-"

"I'll say it again, Izumi...get out of this while you can. You are meddling in things you-"

"Fuck you!" she spat. "I don't care if you are the Antichrist...I don't have to listen to you! I should have just let you rot down here!"

She stepped closer, her violet eyes seeming to flare. "You murdered the closest person to a father I ever had, and still you treat me like a child, despite everything I've been through...I don't want your help anymore. You're not a person...you're an uncaring monster. You...none of you have any right to tell me how to live my life."

She turned on her heel and walked out, brushing past Adam forcefully.

"Izumi..."

"Arrogant child," Darkness said, shaking his head. "She keeps on the path she is, and she's going to take a fatal fall."

"She was right about one thing though," Adam said, stepping forward, eying Cain's body. "It wasn't your decision to make. It was mine. You've robbed me of my atonement..."

"Two paths, same conclusion. What matters is that he is dead, and he can no longer harm another soul."

He walked past Adam, leaving him alone with the body.

------------------------------

Later...

"You're nuts."

"You won't help me, Darkness won't help me...I don't have a choice. I want answers and someone is going to give them to me."

"You saw what he did-"

"Yes, I know this is desperate. But sometimes the craziest solution is the best one. Unfortunately, he's gone missing." Izumi said, reclining in a seat. "I need to find him. All I need from him is a few answers."

"Don't expect me to help you. This is your initiative alone," Adam said.

"Fine, whatever," Izumi said. "Now if we're done discussing this, I've gotta go get to training."

"For what?"

"Wrestling match with Darkness."

"Seriously?" Adam said. "You and your wrestling..."

"Well, it means something to me!" Izumi exclaimed. "Especially considering he's probably the guy with the best record in the history of this federation. The last time we met, he toyed with me, and I nearly upset him. This time I know he's taking it up a notch...as will I. Even if I can't win, he's not walking away unscathed."

"This is stupid," Adam said, looking annoyed.

"No, Adam. Last time we fought for pride. This time it's become beyond a wrestling match to me. I know how dangerous he can be. I know how many opponents he's destroyed. But I'm going to keep coming at him, no matter what he does to my body. By the end of the match, he'll regret having treated me like a child. He'll regret having killed Marcus Cain."

"You're putting this all into a wrestling match?"

"It's my way of declaring my independence. I no longer have a mentor...I'm alone now. I'm grown up. I'm not a child. I don't need the Antichrist to rely on. This is where I make my own path."

Rain sleeted down from a heavy, leaden sky that covered Beijing in a gloomy pall. The water, poisoned with the effluence of China's industry, pooled in large greasy puddles on the uneven surface of the apartment complex's roof and in the dull light of the grey early evening they reflected nothing back. It was a cheerless vision, drab and lifeless. Only one man stood out in the rain, ignoring both it and the cloying summer wind that caught in his battered old jacket and sent it billowing around his sparse frame. He remained motionless, silent and alone.

Revenant watched him from the sheltered stairwell entrance, her jacket pulled closely around her. She shivered, despite her supernatural constitution and the fairly humid air. There were footsteps behind her, barely audible over the sound of the rain pattering off the small porch above her head, but she had good hearing.

"Are you all right?"

It was Gwen, and Revenant turned slightly to look at her as she ducked through the doorway. "Yeah."

"You don't smell all right."

"Yeah, well I'm worried."

"About Darkness?"

"Yeah." Revenant nodded towards him, standing alone at the far end of the rooftop. "He's barely spoken to anyone since he came back."

"Well he was never that chatty."

"No, but he was getting better. When I met him, he was better than this. Now...now I dunno."

"Something happened to him back there that changed him. He left a part of himself in the Warren."

"You can tell too?"

Gwen tapped her nose. "I can smell. I could never get much off him – his coat smells stronger than he does – but now...now it's like smelling a stone. I can't sense any emotions."

"What do you think they did to him in there?"

"I think he did it to himself. I think he had to."

Revenant folded her arms and leant against the wall of the porch. "Those remains we found, do you think that's what it was about?"

"I do. We have legends about some things too terrible for names. Things that can rob you of your soul."

"Do you think that's what happened to Darkness?"

"I don't know if I believe in souls, but killing it took something from him. When he was captured, he told us not to kill any civilians, and we found him standing over a man's corpse in that office."

"He's killed before..."

"Has he? I don't think so. Even at his worst, he always adhered to that one rule – thou shalt not kill."

"Yeah, thou shalt not kill humans anyway. Vampires...werewolves...not such a big deal."

Gwen grimaced. "That's the Shadow Slayer in him I guess."

"Maybe it's good in a way though. He's becoming like us."

"Like us?"

"Monsters. I kill. You kill. We're not squeamish about taking human lives if we have to. Maybe it's a good thing that he's lost that link. Maybe he needed to stop being human."

Gwen peered out through the rain. It had grown heavier, and Darkness's silhouette was only just visible now. "I don't think he's stopped being human."

"You said you couldn't smell any emotions from him. Whatever he met down in that basement, it changed him. It took away everything that made him a man, and turned him into a monster."

"Being human isn't about what you think, or even how you feel," Gwen said after a long moment, "It's about what you do. It's about sacrifice, about love. Darkness gave up everything down there. He willingly turned himself into the monster than The Balance thought he was, because it was the only way for him to survive, and his survival is our survival – it's mankind's survival. What he did, he did for them. He willingly shouldered the burden of losing everything that connects him to them, because he knew it was the only way to save them in the end. They might hate him, they might hunt him down and try to kill him, but he embraced that destiny. He's forgotten how to laugh, how to cry, how to love now – there's nothing in him but his war."

Gwen paused to brush her white-blonde hair back with one pale hand. She kept her eyes fixed on the faint shape of Darkness through the rain.

"And when all this blows over – when he wins for us – we'll all go back to our lives. We'll forget what we went through, and we'll make jokes about it and laugh over the memories of the people we've lost. We'll toast to their remembrance and live our lives because, dammit, we'll have earned that much at least. But he's got nothing left now except the fight. After it's over, he'll be surplus to demands. He'll never find peace, not any more. He gave up his chance to live, to be human, and I think that makes him more human than anyone."

Gwen fell silent, and Revenant didn't say anything. They didn't look at each other, just kept their eyes on Darkness. Eventually, Gwen turned around and went back inside. Revenant stood out there, watching and waiting, but Darkness never came in from the rain. He just remained standing, looking out over the city, ready for the call. Ready to resume his war.

He has nothing else now.