NO REST BETWEEN FIRE AND ICE
Diana R. Flynn AKA The Dark Eyed: vhrd53d@Prodigy.com

	First order of business: the characters from Disney's most excellent 
show, Gargoyles, belong to Disney, yadda, yadda, yadda.  The rest of them, 
such as Saval, Mirael, etc. are mine! mine! mine! mine! 
mine!  When in doubt, watch the show.
	Alright, this story is longer than both my other ones (REALITY 
CHECK, and ECHO SUMMIT, which you absolutely MUST read for this to 
make any sense.) and reading really long stories all at once annoys the living 
crud out of me, so I'm sending it in little pieces of only about a zillion pages 
each.  I HAVE WRITTEN THE NEXT PART.
	This takes place before the Reckoning, and most definitely before 
Hunter's Moon.  In fact, before you read this, I want you to hold a watch in 
front of your face, swing it back and forth, and repeat, "I have never seen 
Hunter's Moon...  I have never seen Hunter's Moon..." forty seven times or 
until you pass out.
	I know there are a lot of ideas in here that other people have comeup 
with, but since I STARTED writing this BEFORE the Gathering aired, I think 
I can safely assure you that I came up with them on my own, before I read your 
stories.  (And let me congradulate you on those stories, while I'm at it.)
	And now, on with the show:

NO REST BETWEEN FIRE AND ICE

	She stared at the newcomer for a moment as the knowledge sunk in.  
It was so simple, so beautifully simple.  She'd had the resources at her disposal 
for years, but it had never occurred to her to use them in exactly this manner.
	"Why do you tell us this?" she asked. "We will reward you, certainly, 
but-"
	"I tell you of my plan because you have the means with which to 
implement it and I do not," spoke the other.
	"Many of your kind would see this plan of yours as an abomination.  
What are you getting out of it?" she had nothing to lose with this question.  
All she'd really needed was the basic idea, and the newcomer had already told 
her that.  She could work out the details herself.
	"I get revenge, Enumide," the look in the other person's eyes was a 
mixture of anger and satisfaction.  She had felt that expression grow to fit her 
own face many times.  It had usually been replaced by one of frustration before 
fifty hours had passed.
	But not this time.  The plan was perfect, and so simple... "Enumide?" 
she asked warily.
	"That is what I shall call you.  It is the closest translation of your 
name into Archaic Nethri.  You may call me the Magician."
	Very well.  She would humor this 'Magician' who presumed to call 
her by some bit of shadow's gibberish. "And what of the Nethri?" she asked, 
"And of the Third Race?"
	"The Children of Oberon are nearly impossible to kill, but there is 
one substance that they are vulnerable to: cold iron," spoke the self-proclaimed 
Magician. "The Nethri have a similar weakness."
	"And you will tell me this?" she asked.
	The Magician nodded. "There are those of the Shadow People who 
are immune to all magic save their own, the Craft of the Evi.  But in this 
reality, the Immunity is flawed.  Instead of reflecting or absorbing magical 
energy, it is changed into heat, often severely scalding anyone close enough."
	She said nothing, absorbing what she was being told with an 
eagerness that surprised her, considering who and what was doing the telling.
	"There are those among the Nethri with talent for medicines," there 
was a hint of pride in the other's voice at the next phrase, "what little they 
cannot accomplish with herbalism and more advanced sciences can usually be 
done with a type of Healing that you would consider magical.  They can 
remove even the scars of almost any wound, save those of burns."
	"But surely the Nethri use fire," she protested.
	"They use fire the way that you would handle a live snake; very 
carefully and without once taking their eyes off it.  Arson is a crime 
punishable by death." The Magician spoke carefully, as if to be certain that she 
would understand, "A Nethri is not immortal.  A Nethri can be killed by a 
knife, a bullet, disease, starvation, you name it, but in all these cases, they are 
quick to recover and even quicker to evade.  Their tricks are useless in 
proximity to fire, and most of them are scared to death of it.  Remember that, 
Enumide."
	They were both silent for a moment, and the Magician rose to go.
	"You may name your reward," she said.
	"I already have.  The plan is yours.  The means are yours," a slight 
smile grew up the Magician's face. "Have fun."

SHORTLY AFTER THE INCIDENT AT ECHO SUMMIT:

	There was no place like home.  That was true enough, but when one 
got right down to it, there was no place that could really be completely like any 
other place.  So it was with Saval, who sat in a small chamber adjoining the 
Hall, suppressing her nervousness into the mask of utter indifference that had 
made her worthy of the name "Ice."
	It was amazing to walk under the mallash trees again.  Every time she 
returned to the homeworld, every time she heard their tantalizing whispers 
again, she wondered how she had ever brought herself to leave.  Countless 
times she had caught herself on the brink of swearing off the Void, to remain 
and spend the rest of her days listening to the distant sound of leaf on leaf, 
hundreds of feet above her head, blocking the worst of the sunlight leaving the 
place where the roots met ground remained forever blessedly cool and dim.
	The feeling usually didn't last more than a few days.  The call of the 
Void came as strongly as the call of home.  There was no feeling like it.  
Saval's world was all worlds, and to be confined to any one -even the one that 
she had been born to- would be torture.
	A torture that the Council of the Order had no serious qualms about 
inflicting on insurgents.  Saval's older sister, Ralea, had been Interdicted for 
defying her orders.  Saval pondered for a moment whether she should go see 
Ralea later, but decided against it.  The two of them had never been close.
	Mirael had wanted to come with her to receive the assignment, since 
she would be accompanying her mentor on whatever mission the Council 
chose to give them, but Saval had rather firmly suggested that she remain 
behind and help Lura prepare for her upcoming trial.  Seven years was a little 
younger than usual for a girl's first trip through the Void, but Eve seemed 
capable enough to handle her, and she was only going for one mission, and 
should make a fine Healer's Apprentice.
	Saval stopped to wonder at that for a moment.  It seemed peculiar that 
the Council would order Venn and Eve to postpone their wedding plans in 
order to take a mission.  They had already given the two of them permission to 
marry, despite the centuries old tradition of Lal'Nethri celibacy.  Saval rolled 
her eyes at the memory.  She had been Venn's unwilling partner for three 
years, and in that time had come to believe with all her heart that there was no 
more annoying person in existence.  All that had stood between her and 
getting him out of her hair had been one stupid custom that hadn't even been 
put in place by the Founders of the Order.  ...and then there was the fact that -
despite everything- they were wonderful people who deserved to live a long, 
happy life together somewhere where Saval would have to interact with Venn 
as little as possible.
	The door opened, and a proper-looking young man stepped through 
and told her that the Council was ready to see her.
	Saval took a breath.  It had been ages since she'd last come in person 
to receive an assignment, and if she had her way, it would be ages before she 
ever did so again.  Lal'Nethri hardly ever went before the council to hear their 
orders, and Saval guessed that her special treatment was in part due to the 
little fiasco at Echo Summit last month.  She hadn't been able to keep herself 
from wondering if they had changed their minds about forbidding her to visit 
the children there.  She'd blocked the thought whenever it came.  The Council 
never changed its mind.
	The Lal'Nethri stood, adjusted her dark gray tunic and stepped into 
the Hall.  The light was dim here, and gray in color from the tinted windows.  
The room was large enough to seat hundreds, and its yawning emptiness made 
it seem larger still.  Saval walked down the aisle that ran the length of the 
center of the Hall, trying not to appear hurried.  Out of the corner of her eye, 
she absently noted her faint shadow playing over the unoccupied chairs as she 
passed.
	There was a large table in the shape of a half circle on a dais at the 
front of the room.  There were six people seated there, three Lal'Nethri and 
three Seers.  Saval suppressed the urge to wince as she looked up at the white-
haired elders of the Circle.  Most Seers wore blindfolds in public, out of 
common courtesy.  Only the most influential chose not to, to display the 
scarred nothingness where their eyes had been cut out, closing the portal to 
worldly light, that they might better see their visions in blindness.
	No wonder Mirael hadn't wanted to be a Seer.
	"Hail the Council of the Order," Saval spoke formally to the three 
gray-robed Lal'Nethri, two women and a man.  She addressed the Seers, 
noting that they had turned their faces in her direction as soon as she had 
started speaking, "Hail the voices of the Circle."
	"Hail," said one of the Lal'Nethri, "Lal'Nethri Saval Kwa'Irrela, of 
our Order."
	So she wasn't going to be discharged.  That was good for a start.
	"Lal'Nethri, you were called here for two reasons," spoke one of the 
Order's elders, "the first is that your sister has been missing for two days."
	Saval was taken aback by this.  Perhaps she should have gone looking 
for Ralea, "I am sorry, Revered Council; I do not know where she is."
	The elder nodded to her, "Thank you, nonetheless.  We are certain 
that this is nothing more than an error in communication.  We will notify you 
when she turns up." He paused, "The second reason is far more complicated."
	"The incident at Ekkasu regarding the Kwa'Nili Eon, Clarity and 
Cascade came to our attention some time ago," spoke one of the Seers, 
"considering your rather deep concern for the people of that reality, it is our 
decision to inform you of the efforts that have been made there."
	~I'm flattered~ thought Saval, ~but why not just have someone send 
me a report?  There's no real need to send for me.~
	"A team was sent to investigate," he continued, "they located the 
remains of Kwa'Nili Eon, dead of Anchor withdrawal, as was specified in your 
report, and Cascade was found alive, under a cave in.  Nothing was found of 
Clarity.  She is assumed to be still abroad in Ekkasu."
	That could be why she'd been called here.  The Eternal Children were 
dangerous, especially when they were scared.  Hunting Clara down would be a 
risky mission to order someone into.  They would probably prefer to have a 
volunteer.
	"Honored Council," Saval spoke with uncharacteristic impulsiveness, 
"I request to be assigned to the task of the recapture of Kwa'Nili Clarity."
	"Request denied," spoke a Seer, turning her blind not-eyes to meet 
Saval's. "The investigation team has already taken up that responsibility.  
Your banishment will not be lifted."
	Saval kept her face and posture from changing, but was almost 
certain that the Council detected her disappointment.  The whole reason she'd 
been banned from Ekkasu in the first place was as punishment for 
endangering the fatelines of another world.  She sighed mentally.  It had been 
worth the effort.
	"It is our choice to inform you that evidence has been found to 
support your theory of a renegade Lal'Nethri," Saval could not disguise her 
interest at this.  Whoever had sent Eon and his sisters to slice up the children 
was going to come to a very messy end in the near future, regardless of her 
orders. "After Kwa'Nili Cascade was found in the caverns, she was brought 
back to the homeworld for questioning," despite herself, Saval leaned forward 
slightly, "it was determined that what little contact she had with this renegade 
was through Eon and Clarity.  She knew this person only as 'the Magician.' 
We were only able to glean one further piece of useful information," the 
Lal'Nethri elder leaned forward to make her point, "and I assure you, Saval, 
we were _quite_ thorough.  You were not the only one with friends among the 
Ekkasu."
	Saval suppressed a tight grin at this.  She had some idea of what her 
brethren would have done to Cassie, and regretted only that she had not been 
able to join them.  Was Cascade still in custody? "May I request permission to 
speak with Kwa'Nili Cascade?"
	The elder went on, ignoring Saval's question, "Cascade informed us 
that the Magician had plans that involved more than one world," she averted 
her eyes for a moment. "I must admit that our inquisitors were a bit 
...overenthusiastic.  Cassie did not survive her interrogation, and by the end, 
she became somewhat incoherent."
	Saval was torn between pleasure at this thought and frustration.  It 
was clear from her superior's manner that whatever information they had 
obtained from Cascade had not been sufficient, because of some rookie 
questioner's carelessness.
	"We were able to narrow the list down to six realities," one of the 
Seers continued. "Teams have been sent to each of them to investigate.  You 
and your apprentice will be one of those teams."
	Hmm, a rather chancy thing to send an eleven year old girl on, even 
one like Mirael.  This wasn't as good as returning to Ekkasu, but if there was a 
chance of finding one of her enemies...
	"You were on this world's initial contact team some years ago, before 
the Edrey Crisis," continued the Seer. "You returned there just over two years 
ago with Lal'Nethri Venn to conduct project tests." Saval searched her 
memory.  That would have been shortly before Venn and Eve had started 
getting serious.  The two of them had done test missions for several realities, 
and she'd been on four or five different first contacts. "We of the Council have 
debated on the wisdom of sending you back there, but you seem to have taken 
an active interest in this world's welfare." Saval's eyes widened against her 
will as she realized where the Seer was talking about. "Try not to remove any 
Primaries this time."
	"Yes Honored Council," Saval regained her composure, "I shall 
endeavor to be more resourceful, and not endanger the fateline of my assigned 
territory."
	"See that you do that, Lal'Nethri," spoke one of the elders, then he 
straightened and spoke formally, "Lal'Nethri Saval Kwa'Irrela is hereby 
charged to the unnamed reality Delta 226183 to investigate any sign of the 
renegade responsible for the incident on Ekkasu, and Saval," the other 
Lal'Nethri's voice was stern, "despite the fact that you have been somewhat 
unreliable lately, you were chosen for this for three reasons: Because of your 
concern for the Ekkasu, because of your apparent concern for this world, and 
because of your ability to control your emotions.  It is unlikely that you will 
find the renegade, a chance of less than one in six, but if you should, you are to 
bring him or her to us _alive._  Call for assistance if need be.  It will be 
provided."
	"I understand, Honored Council," said Saval. "Have I your 
permission to leave?"
	"Permission granted," said one of the Seers.  Saval turned to leave.  
She and Mirael would not need to pack much; they could probably leave by-
	"Lal'Nethri Saval," came a voice from the dais.  The gray one turned 
back to face the six elders, one of them gave her a lopsided grin, "understood 
that this is to be off the record?"
	Saval nodded, intrigued.
	The elder continued, "Should you find the renegade," he said 
carefully, "and should you succeed in locating or capturing him or her, your 
prisoner must be alive enough to withstand interrogation, but aside from 
that..." the elder's grin widened as he trailed off, "Aside from that, have fun."
	Saval felt her face slipping into a wicked smile. "As my elders 
command," she replied before exiting the room.

	"Greetings, Kwa'Aga," came a voice out of the shadows.
	"Where are you?" he asked casting his gaze around the darkened 
labroom. "Show yourself."
	A faint silhouette became visible against a lit computer screen, "How 
goes it, Child of Blood?"
	"I was never a child, Magician," he answered coldly, "and I will not 
report to you like some scurrying flunky to his master."
	"Very well," the hushed tones continued, "then will you condescend 
to inform me of the workings of our plan, O my accomplice?"
	"Nicely put," he answered.  If this one could get amusing, then so 
could he. "She who you wished be identified as 'Enumide' has become 
completely enraptured by phase one of y- of our plan, as you said she would 
be."
	"But you have your doubts that we will be able to stop it in time for 
phase two?"
	A strange thought occurred to him then.  Why had he put his trust in 
this probably-a-human that hid in the shadows like a child under a blanket?  
Why was he believing everything that this Magician told him?  Perhaps the 
plan really wasn't designed to go past phase one.  Perhaps all of humanity 
really would be destroyed, and the foundations for his own scheme...
	The thoughts of distrust faded, as if they had been pushed away from 
the outside.  Why wouldn't it work?  There was no logical reason why it 
couldn't work.  Even if the Magician was planning something, he could 
control Enumide.  The first part of the plan would keep her occupied while the 
two of them prepared the second.
	"No, Magician," he answered, "I came to inform you that your 
precautions were successful.  Our 'volunteer' seems completely contained, but 
she has friends here.  If they discover that she is here, they will seek to help 
her."
	It seemed that a faint smile graced the Magician's face, but it might 
have been a trick of the dimness, "I know," came the hushed voice, "I've been 
counting on it."
	There was silence for several moments.
	"Have you done as I asked with the computers?" came the question. 
"And the ventilation shafts?"
	"Yes," he replied, trying not to grumble; it was ridiculous, really, "but 
I don't see why we couldn't just weld on tighter grates."
	"There  is no door ever built that a properly trained Lal'Nethri cannot 
open, given time," the Magician chided, "and even if there were, my advisary 
could always find some other way in.  This way, I can predict her moves."
	"And if your foresight is flawed?" he asked.
	There was another pause before the answer came, "It won't be."

LATER, JUST AFTER THE GATHERING:

	Gary crouched down in the alleyway, examining the area through the 
viewfinder of his one of his weapons and through the tinted visor that had 
become standard for those of his line of work in the last year and more.  He'd 
been given the usual equipment, along with something extra.  The standard 
assault rifle, the tranquilizer gun that they'd packed so often that it had 
become standard, and a little something else, something new.  A car, a 
peculiarly conspicuous-looking red deal, drove up to the predetermined corner 
and stopped.  A dark haired woman opened the door and stepped out.  Gary 
resisted the urge to let himself tense up as he recognized his target.  The 
descriptions had certainly been accurate, right down to the black high tops and 
red vinyl jacket.  He breathed deeply, calming his muscles.  He had been in 
enough firefights to know that those who remained clear-headed had a better 
chance of surviving.  Enough firefights, but not as many as some.  Gary had 
only been with the company for a few months, and compared to some of the 
others, he was as raw as the hands of a sandpaper dealer.  Gary was no fool; he 
knew that his relative inexperience made him expendable, and that had 
quelled some of the pride that he would have felt at being chosen for the most 
dangerous position on the team.
	The woman looked around for her contact, her blue-black hair 
swishing as she moved her head.  She would leave as soon as she realized that 
the tip call to her preceint had been faked.  This lady wasn't any more of a fool 
than Gary was.  Even without the special instructions, this one would have 
been dangerous enough.
	The others would probably be searching the rooftops for their own 
targets.  No one had seen them come in, but then, no one ever did.  This part 
was a problem because the others did not know which of the black haired 
lady's friends would be here or how many.  Gary's job was more dangerous, 
but a lot less uncertain.
	There was a flickering of something far off to his right.  Gary did not 
turn his head, but watched it out of the corner of his eye.  After a moment he 
gave up his subterfuge and stared directly at it, still unable to make out more 
than a vague silhouette of someone dressed in gray leaning inconspicuously 
against a wall.  The shadow's head moved, just barely, and somehow Gary 
guessed that this person was also watching the woman in the red jacket.  He 
ran over the briefing session in his mind to make certain that he hadn't missed 
anything.  No, this shadow wasn't a member of his team.
	Pity.  Whether this person was a friend of his target or another enemy 
or even if Gary was wrong and it was just someone stupid enough to be out 
alone at ten p.m. in this neighborhood, he and the others had been given strict 
instructions for no witnesses, and with their employers, "strict" could get 
downright medieval.  Gary wondered for a moment whether he should go with 
the assault rifle, an old favorite, or try for extra credit.  What the heck?  He 
was the new kid in class and needed the points.
	There was a faint sound on the roof to his left, but it was so soft that 
Gary was surprised that he has been able to hear it.  Death and naphtha, they 
were right _above_ him?!  Maybe they hadn't seen him.  Gary risked a look 
up, and saw nothing but an outline, blurred by the faint light behind it.
	The lady looked around again, probably wondering why her contact 
had failed to show up.  No fool.  Gary saw her move to open the car door, her 
eyes still searching the shadows, and all the world seemed to slow down.  He 
entered a world where fear had no meaning, there was only calmness, and 
target.  Time was running out, and the others would not fire until after he had 
given the cue, lest he fail to complete his orders in the chaos that would 
follow.  The target's hand was on the latch, miles from where she reportedly 
kept her gun.  Her back was to him.  Gary raised neither the rifle nor the 
tranquilizer, but that other, special little something.
	The first shot.  He had to get her on the first shot.  His gun held six 
hypo darts, but only the first one had been designated.  As for what was in the 
rest...  for all Gary knew, they were empty.  Extra credit.  He'd find out on 
whoever was hiding in the shadows over on the right.
	...But now for the task at hand.  Gary took aim and fired.  Then the 
world exploded.

	Goliath landed carefully on the rooftop across the street from where 
Elisa had parked her car.  Tip calls to a police station were phony often 
enough, and Elisa had more powerful enemies than most detectives.  He 
couldn't let anything happen to her.  Not now, and not ever.
	He was going to tell her.  He had finally be able to tell himself, so 
now he was going to tell Elisa.  It might not be as moving as something 
spontaneous, but as soon as they got back to the clocktower, he was going to 
ask her aside and talk to her about some of the things that had been eating 
away at him for longer than he was certain of.  He was a gargoyle and she was 
a human, but... but maybe that was only a problem if they let it be.  Goliath 
ached at the thought of her having to choose between the human world and, 
...and other things, but maybe they wouldn't be faced with that.  Maybe 
everything would be fine.
	If it wasn't, and if she chose against him, then he would understand.  
He would try to deal with it, even if he would never fully succeed, and hope 
that it hadn't cost him her friendship.  ...and all this was assuming she felt the 
same way about him that he did about her.
	Either way, at least he would know.
	Goliath shook himself away from those thoughts.  He wouldn't be 
able to help Elisa if he let his mind wander.  He ran his eyes over the area.  
The brightness of the streetlights made it harder to see clearly into the alleys.  
Elisa was looking around as well.  No one in sight, but that didn't mean that 
there was no one nearby.  Goliath himself was evidence of that, having gained 
much practice at landing unseen.
	Goliath heard a soft but unmistakable clicking sound in the alley 
below him.  He motioned quickly to Elisa, but she was already getting back 
into the car.  Goliath ignored a flash of anger at himself for letting an enemy 
get so close to Elisa while he let his mind wander and dove over the side of the 
roof onto the single gunman half an instant too late.

	Detective Elisa Maza turned to get back into the car.  The snitch 
who'd called earlier obviously wasn't coming, and she'd had a bad feeling 
about this since-
	Her thought cut off as a gun went off in the alley behind her.  She 
ducked, only a fraction of a second later than would have saved her.  There 
was a stabbing pain in her shoulder as a needle punched through the vinyl of 
her jacket.  She grabbed at it, but it had somehow embedded itself in her flesh.  
There was a burning sensation as it pumped some kind of fluid into the muscle 
tissue.
	Elisa flattened herself against the ground as gunfire erupted around 
her.  She took half a breath and yanked the dart out of her shoulder, taking a 
fair sized patch of skin with it.  She dropped the needle and reached for her 
gun, scanning the alleyways.
	She saw that Goliath had tackled whoever had shot her, slamming 
him up against the wall of the alley.  He fell and lay still.  Five more soldiers 
came out of the alleys across the street.  Six goons against her and Goliath?  
That would hardly be sufficient, unless they were packing a nuclear weapon or 
two.
	One of them raised a tranquilizer gun, aiming it at Goliath while the 
others flanked forward, similarly armed.  So they were trying to take a live 
gargoyle prisoner, probably to turn over to some lab rats.  Not while she could 
stand and breathe.  ...which would explain the dart, but if they'd shot _her_  
with a sedative, wouldn't she have begun feeling the effects?  Thier 
ammunition would be built for a gargoyle, which should have someone her 
size on the floor by now, if not dead.  She wasted a moment glancing down at 
the empty needle and suppressed a shudder, realizing that whatever it had held 
was now floating around in her system.
	Elisa jumped to her feet behind her car and levelled her .358 at the 
nearest goon.  She fired, hitting the tranquilizer gun by sheer luck and 
knocking it out of her attacker's hands.  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw 
Goliath leap from the alleyway to knock one of the soldiers onto his back.  
Elisa heard the sound of more gunfire.
	The disarmed goon recovered quickly from the shock of having a 
weapon ripped from her fingers, and threw herself over the car, the back of 
one armored fist swinging for Elisa's face.  She ducked and grabbed her blond 
opponent in a wristlock, using her own inertia to flip her over onto the 
sidewalk.  The soldier fell and did not move.  Elisa spun to meet the next one 
that was coming at her.  Why hadn't she gotten shot again?  If for some 
reason, they didn't want her dead then why not just get her with the 
tranquilizer?
	Another visor-clad weirdo came at her from the side.  Elisa dodged 
and kicked him from behind, tripping him over his fallen comrade.  He turned 
to come at her again.
	She heard Goliath roaring as the sound of weapons firing came again.  
Elisa turned to see him pulling a pair of hypo darts out of his wing, as he 
kicked another goon into the side of a car.
	Taking advantage of his quarry's momentary distraction, the second 
of two remaining soldiers pounced on Elisa from behind, knocking the wind 
out of her.  For the first time since getting shot, pain flared from her left 
shoulder as he pulled one metal-clad arm around her neck in a headlock.  
Elisa jerked forward, trying to get him off balance.  Purple spots were forming 
in her field of vision.  She struggled to get a clear kick to his stomach.
	There was a ripping sound behind her.  The mercenary did not 
scream, only stiffened and fell. "Thanks, big guy," Elisa gasped as she 
regained her breath.  She looked up and saw that Goliath was still struggling 
with the last of their attackers, more than twenty feet away.  Elisa turned 
around and saw with an odd mix of relief and sheer nausea that the soldier had 
been stabbed between the shoulder blades by what looked like a dagger stroke.
	Something moved further down the street, and Elisa looked up from 
her would-be captor to see a vaguely familiar shadow gliding past the alleys, 
the stark silhouette of a knife in its hand.
	No, not _its_  hand.  _Her_ hand.

	Gary looked up groggily.  This wasn't the first time that he'd had to 
deal with gargoyles, but it was the first time that he'd gotten so close.  In fact, 
he'd gotten closer than he ever wanted to again: close enough to get the pulp 
beaten out if him.  The creature hadn't even killed him cleanly.  Even a lion 
would have bitten the jugular, ensuring that its prey would have a moderately 
quick death as the red life flowed out of it like a river.  The gargoyle had to 
have known that the smash against the wall had nearly fractured his skull.  It 
had to have known that he wasn't going to live, hadn't it?  What if it had just 
wanted him out of the way long enough to grab its girlfriend and get out of 
here?  No...  No, it had to have known.
	There was pain, but the pain was nothing to the fog that was filling 
his mind.  Was it the blow to the head or something else?  Perhaps some effect 
of the strange, smooth curtain that seemed to be inching towards him with 
tantalizing slowness, promising whatever rewards his soul had earned.  Gary 
cracked a weak grin.  Even a mind as incoherent as his was at the moment 
could recognize a two-edged promise.
	He moaned, letting his eyes roam over the alleyway.  The filthy 
dumpsters, the fight out in the street, the shadow... "Hang on, Mom," he 
muttered, "I'm almost done."
	Life was a test, and the timer on the teacher's desk was about to ring.  
Calmness and target.  Only calmness and target.  The new kid in class raised 
his pencil, no, his hypo gun, aimed at the flickering shade by the alley 
entrance, and fired.  The target flinched and ripped a dart out of her thigh, 
"Extra credit," Gary mumbled to himself.  Just before the shroud-like veil 
closed in on him, his fingers found the release on the transmitter built into his 
helmet.  With the last of his strength, he activated it, calling the rest of the 
team.

	Goliath slammed the last of them down on the pavement.  This 
wasn't right.  Six of them would have stood too much risk even if they had 
been armed twice as heavily as these had been.  What purpose could have been 
served here?  A group like this, even with the tranquilizers, might have tired 
him out somewhat but not enough to-
	It was like an alarm going off in his head.  They had to get out of 
here.
	There was a footfall behind him, Goliath spun around, ready for Elisa 
or another goon.  He found neither. "Saval?!" he asked, amazed. "What the-"
	"You're welcome," the shadow's voice dripped with sarcasm as she 
ripped a hypo dart out of her leg. "Empty," she said, "maybe empty from the 
beginning, but I think I felt something, and even air bubbles in the 
bloodstream-"
	"Goliath, are you alright?" came Elisa's exhausted voice.  Goliath 
could have said any of a hundred different things:
	~"I'll be fine, Elisa, they only got me with one or two darts, and it'll 
be a while before they take effect."~
	~"No way!  I feel like I've been through both World Wars and the 
Spanish Inquisition!"~
	~"Never mind me.  He shot you with something.  I should have been 
watching.  It's all my fault, my love..."~
	"That attack was meant to wear us down for the next one," he said 
quickly. "We must leave, before they get that chance." He turned to the 
indignant Lal'Nethri, "_You_ can explain yourself later."
	Elisa nodded and moved towards her car.  As if on cue, there were 
headlights shining from around the corner.  Goliath shaded his eyes and laid a 
hand on Elisa's shoulder, surprised to see her flinch in real pain, "No time," 
he told her, shifting his grip to her arm, "come on!"
	He and Elisa ran for the fire escape on one of the buildings.  Out of 
the corner of his eye, Goliath saw the gray-clad Saval pause to scoop 
something off of the ground before flickering off into the shadows of an alley.  
Just as well.  It wasn't as if he could have carried the both of them.
	Come to think of it, he wasn't sure that he could carry Elisa right 
now.  The sedatives that had been pumped into his left wing were starting to 
take effect.  Goliath shook his head, trying to clear it.  Whatever they'd shot 
him with might or might not be enough to knock him completely out, but it 
could certainly slow him down.
	And he probably wouldn't be able to glide for more than a few 
minutes.  Goliath climbed up the side of the building, using the rails on the 
fire escape when necessary.  He reached the roof, and turned around to help 
Elisa as she swung herself off of the fire escape.  Was it his imagination or did 
she grit her teeth as she put her weight on her arms?
	"Are you hurt?" he asked, managing to keep his voice from showing 
too much.
	"I'll be fine," she answered a little too quickly, "let's just get out of 
here."
	Goliath grunted as he picked her up.  Everything felt heavy.  He 
wouldn't be able to move for much longer.  Elisa winced as he settled his arm 
beneath her shoulders.  Even through her jacket, he could feel that there was 
swelling near where the dart had hit her.  Despite himself, the faintest of 
growls began in his throat.  Whoever had set this trap -and Goliath had a few 
idea about that- was going to pay for this.  ...But they first had to live through 
the night.  Curse the calmness of the air currents!  There was barely any wind 
at all.  Normally, this would not be much of a problem, but with the sedatives 
taking hold and-
	A bullet sliced the air, only inches from his wing.  Goliath risked a 
glance behind them to see what looked like an armored van down in the street.  
There was a goon crouched on the roof, already taking aim for the next shot.  
No tranquilizers this time.  Goliath turned, cutting across the block.  He glided 
lower, risking sight from one of the windows to gain some measure of cover 
from the buildings.  His wings felt as if they were made of lead.
	He managed to stay aloft long enough to cross over four or five 
blocks.  Long enough to keep them from being discovered, he hoped.  He 
landed in front of another alley, coming down hard on his left foot.  Too hard, 
he realized, as a flash of pain and a _very_ unpleasant cracking sound from 
his ankle penetrated the fog that was rapidly numbing his senses.  It was 
nothing, he told himself.  Nothing that a day of sleep couldn't cure.
	Relieved to be free of the weight, he started to let Elisa down on the 
sidewalk.  She stood rigidly for a fraction of a second, then the expression on 
her face changed to one of surprise as knees buckled and she would have fallen 
if he hadn't lifted her off her feet again.
	"Put me down," her voice sounded normal, but he could tell that she 
was straining. "They're not looking for me; they're looking for you.  They'll 
leave me alone.  Put me down and come back for me later."
	It made sense.  Goliath should have left her in a doorway and used 
what little time he had left to find somewhere else to hide.  It made perfect 
sense, but it was totally unthinkable, even if it might have worked.  In a 
minute or two, Goliath would barely be able to move, and anyplace that he 
could find to take cover would probably not be any better than this one, even if 
he could have stomached the idea of cowering like a frightened rabbit.  ...and 
those soldiers back there had looked a little too much like Gen-U-Tech 
mercenaries, and they had shot Elisa with something unusual.  Goliath 
realized with disgust that they would want to reclaim their specimen for 
further testing.  He limped into the alley, half carrying and half dragging Elisa 
after him.
	He tried to ignore the smell as he sank down behind a dumpster, too 
weak even to move some of his weight off his broken ankle.  This was too 
much like the magic-induced premonition he'd had just before the Gathering 
at Avalon, when Puck had tried to trick him into believing that he was in New 
York of 2036.  The whole scenario was too nightmarish to think about just 
now.  The city was not in ruins, but she who had become the core of his life 
slumped beside him, barely able to breathe.

	Lexington walked up the stairs to the door in the face of the 
clocktower.  Elisa and Goliath had left right after sunset to go check out a 
phone tip, Broadway and Angela had gone out on patrol while Lex and 
Brooklyn stayed behind to catch the end of a movie on TV.
	The small gargoyle resisted the urge to jump up the steps like a 
hatchling.  For some strange reason, he felt good, and for the first time in 
quite a while.  ...well, maybe not the first time.  When Goliath and Elisa had 
returned with Angela, he had been happy, but he should have been ecstatic.  
There had always been a tiny shadow at the back of his mind.  A shadow of a 
human girl with white hair.  A shadow that had shouted "Sorry!" and 
vanished without a trace.
	Lex grinned as Brooklyn followed him up the stairs.  He turned the 
knob on the door and opened it.  Why had he gotten so depressed in the first 
place?  It was weird.  He'd only known her for a few hours.  Whatever the 
reason, at least he finally seemed to be getting over this preoccupation he'd 
had with-
	"Mirael?!" his thoughts scattered as the young human who had 
escaped Thailog and Demona with him stepped in from the balcony.  Lex 
could immediately tell that something was wrong.  Her features were 
unchanged, from the incredible sky-colored eyes to the burn marks on her left 
arm, but there was something different about her.  Mirael had always 
reminded him of one of Oberon's Children, but now the aura of time and 
magic around her was so thick that it was almost tangible.
	"Hello Lexington," her voice had changed as well.  It was still that 
same piping soprano, but it came too slowly, as if she were calculating every 
word before she said it, "I came to warn you.  Demona's figured out how to 
destroy humanity."
	Lex suppressed a gasp.  When they'd escaped though ventilation 
shafts, Mirael had told him that the only real way to eliminate a sentient race 
while leaving the rest of the planet undamaged was by engineering lots of 
highly contagious diseases.  She'd said that Demona would never figure this 
out on her own.  ...she had also made him swear on everything he held dear 
never to reveal what she'd told him.  If Mirael was just blurting it out like this, 
then it had to be serious.
	"Demona?" Brooklyn asked.  Lex nearly jumped.  He'd almost 
forgottent that the older gargoyle was there.
	Mirael nodded, "Look, I have to get back to the others.  Meet me on 
the rooftop across the street from the Nightstone medical building that we got 
out of.  Bring help."
	"Others?" he asked.
	The probably-a-human nodded, "I've got to go!" There was a flash of 
light.
	"Wait!" Lex shouted.  None of this made sense, but if something was 
serious enough to make Mirael act so strangely, then there was no way that he 
was going to miss it. "Coming?" he asked Brooklyn.
	"Are you kidding?" answered his rookery brother. "I'd love to see 
what that was all about."

	Elisa was on fire, but the fire was inside her, and made of iron, 
grabbing and twisting as it burned.  She arched her back, trying to keep her 
shoulders off of the alley wall.  What had happened?  How had she gotten 
here?  She was leaning against something warm, and that comforted her, for 
she was cold, despite that she was burning to death.  With effort, she looked 
up, trying to make her mind work.  There was dark creature with wings and 
fangs holding onto her arms with both clawed hands.  Did this mean that she 
was dead?  She could barely raise her head to meet the gaze that came from 
eyes blacker than midnight.
	"Elisa," it spoke, "I'm here."
	The angel had a beautiful voice.
	It all came flooding back to her; her life, her family, her clan, and 
her... and Goliath.  They'd been attacked.  She'd gotten hit, and then- "You 
should have left me."
	"No," Goliath shook his head, "not ever." She could tell from the way 
his pupils were dilated that the tranquilizers had taken effect.  If they were 
found, there would be nothing that either one of them could do about it.
	He opened his mouth again and started to speak, but the words were 
lost in the fire as the moment of lucidity passed, as the serum in her veins 
started to spread into her legs.  There were lights and the sound of shouting 
from around the corner.  She opened her eyes again and realized belatedly that 
there was a radio bug caught on Goliath's shoulder, probably slipped there by 
one of the goons in the fight.
	There was still time.  Elisa tried to make her arms move, to grab the 
transmitter and crush it, or at least toss it out into the street.  Her nerves 
exploded as the muscles twitched in compliance with her will.  Somehow, she 
managed to raise one arm and take the tiny circle of metal.  She fell back 
against the wall of the alley, pain flaring from the swollen places near her 
shoulders, where the virus -or whatever else it might be- had begun mangling 
the flesh of her back.  For an excruciating moment, or perhaps only a century, 
Elisa fought to remember what she was doing.  She closed her hand and felt a 
snap as the transmitter's tiny antenna broke off.
	Elisa fell back, barely able to lift the enormous weight of her lungs 
and breathe.  She's given all she had left, but as the sound of footsteps and 
clicking of weaponry grew nearer, she realized that it wasn't going to be 
enough.
	~If I'd seen it sooner...~ she berated herself.  ~If I'd been worrying 
about something other than myself we might be safe now.~ The burning fog 
was closing in, and her vision grew dark.  Did this mean that she was dying?  
The virus spread to her hands, and she could feel it eating away at the bones in 
her fingers.  This bug worked fast!  The muscles in her fist cramped against 
her will and forced the fingers together, crushing them further.  By the time 
the soldiers found them, Elisa was dead to the world.

	Saval climbed up to the roof over where Elisa and Goliath were 
crouched behind a dumpster.  She'd forgotten how hard it was to do that in a 
shape that didn't have claws.  Normally, she'd have Shifted into an Inyi and 
scaled the wall that way, but she'd needed her hands for this.  Her progress 
had been further inhibited by the pair of hypo darts clasped carefully in her left 
hand.
	She hadn't expected to find them here, but New York was their city, 
after all.  She'd spent the past two days tracing the peculiar visor she'd found 
after Mirael had disappeared, and it had led her to this group of mercenaries.  
Her first impulse had been to slice one of them across the abdomen and step on 
whatever fell out until he told her what had been done with her apprentice, but 
she'd decided to watch them instead.  There had been something familiar 
about the strategy.  It was just too similar to the ambush techniques that she'd 
been taught as an apprentice of the Order.  If any of the others were here and 
had been planning something like this, Saval would have been notified; not 
even Venn was that negligent.  ...and this particular ambush seemed to be set 
specifically for Elisa Maza.  Naturally, all of this made her insanely curious.
	She held up one of the hypo darts to get a better look at it.  There was 
a tiny serial number printed on one side, NR-107D.  Judging by the exquisite 
little motor stuck to its side, it had been designed to empty its contents into a 
target's body before it could be pulled out.  If something tries to pump some 
kind of goo into your leg, then it just might be a good idea to yank it out and 
hold onto it.  It hadn't been one of the numerous Rules that she'd mercilessly 
been forced to memorize in her rookie days, but Saval was planning to 
recommend it on her next trip home.  There seemed to be a faint yellow 
residue clinging to the sides of the syringe.  Maybe she'd be able to figure out 
what it was.
	The second dart had been an afterthought.  Its serial number was 
MGF-002L.  Odd that the two numbers should be so different, seeing as they 
had come from the same gun.  In design, it seemed exactly the same as the 
other one, but there was something strange about it.  Saval frowned and pulled 
Puck's glove off of her left hand, holding the tiny syringe on the bare, scarred 
skin.  Warm.  Warm and tingling.
	Magic.  There was some kind of magic mixed in with this, but it was 
very faint, or it would have caused a burn.  She might want to take a look at 
this as well.  Someone had wanted Elisa badly enough to use magic.  Xanatos 
and Demona jumped to mind, but that didn't mean that it couldn't have been 
someone else.
	So she and Elisa had each gotten something different.  That might 
explain why Saval was up and about, and Detective Maza was decidedly not.
	Saval scanned the concrete floor of the roof in the dim light.  While it 
might be useful to have an intact pair of hypo darts in her possession, she 
really couldn't have them sticking her in the side.  She worked the point of 
one of the needles into a crack in the floor and snapped it off with a crunch.  
The Lal'Nethri glanced at the blunted tip for a moment before slipping it into 
her pocket and attending to the next one.
	An unmarked van pulled up to the alley, and a number of people 
dressed as if they were about to be loaded on interstellar transports to combat 
rebel scum approached.  Neither Elisa nor Goliath was in much shape to resist.  
Saval crept closer.  Normally, she wouldn't have cared much, of course, but 
these were two Primaries that she had rather specifically been ordered to keep 
an eye on, and she owed them both a favor for coming with her to Ekkasu, 
putting themselves at risk.
	And then there was her origional reason for being here.  There was 
little chance that Mirael was still alive, but if she was...  There was not a 
prison made that could keep a properly trained Nethri for more than a day or 
so.  If she was being held, then her captors would have had to have known 
enough about the Shadow People to use fire.  If she followed the mercenaries, 
perhaps she'd find the Magician.

	The Magician did not look up from the computer as the door clicked 
open. "Is it done?" she asked.
	"Of course not," piped the answer.  The soprano voice she had heard 
before, but never in these tones.  The combination was so unsettling Magician 
had to concentrate on just who was standing in front of the desk.  ...not that it 
would ever show on the surface.
	A surface that would remain unruffled by that remark, "You did not 
complete your mission?" the Magician met the unnaturally blue eyes of the 
newcomer.
	"Oh I completed it alright," said the white-haired image in front of 
the desk, "you wouldn't believe how stupid these gargoyles are.  They didn't 
even notice that I flashed out instead of fading."
	"Wouldn't I?" the Magician's mouth curved upward.  She was right, 
of course.  Gargoyles had shown themselves to be naive enough, but they were 
not the only creatures that were easy to fool.  The Magician pushed the grin 
away, "Then why do you say that it is not done?"
	"Because," the gray clad girl answered saucily, "baiting two little 
gargoyles was only the beginning.  It won't be done until the bargain is 
complete, and we _both_ have what we need."
	"Semantics, minion," the Magician reproved. "Don't make your 
presence here a burden or I will see that you share you sister's fate."
	The blue eyes glared back from across the desk.  The Magician 
returned to the computer screen and spoke again, "After all, what's an alliance 
if we cannot tolerate each other?" 

	Why did it have to be _fire?_  No mesh, no reinforced air vents, just 
some torches stuck to the sides of the cage.  For all she knew, the bars weren't 
even electrified.  There was no way that she was going to get near enough to 
touch one.  She'd tried Shifting, but the shadows had refused to come close to 
the flames.  She'd tried to fade out, but the flickering warmth had held the 
Void at bay.
	She blinked, noting the sandy feeling in her eyes.  When was the last 
time that she'd gotten any sleep?  Not since before she'd gotten caught.  The 
weariness hurt her even more than the unbandaged burns on her arms.
	She composed herself, and -with effort- looked away from the torches.  
For some reason, she felt as if they would jump out at her if she ever took her 
eyes off of them.  Rule Number Sixteen: Giving an enemy satisfaction of any 
kind is usually not a good thing.  No fear.  She took a deep breath.  No fear.
	She broken the Rules before.  She'd gotten caught when she'd broken 
the Rules.  Rule Number Six: Don't get caught.  Rule Number Fifty Seven: 
Don't follow a large group of soldiers alone.
	At the time, she had hated having to memorize the Rules.  The last 
time she'd checked, there had been more than a hundred and ten of them, and 
a new one was added every month or so.  She took another breath and went 
over the list in her mind.  Rule Number One: Always know what you're 
getting into.  Rule Number Two: There are always exceptions.  Rule Number 
Three... 

	The chocolate-colored Inyi jumped from the side of the van as it 
slowed down.  It wouldn't do for the soldiers within to see a something 
hanging onto their vehicle.  She didn't look all _that_ much like a cat.  Saval 
landed on the sidewalk and scurried into the shadows of an alley to catch her 
breath.  It had been more than twenty four hours since she'd gotten any rest, 
and the wear on her nerves was starting to show.  She'd have to find some 
kind of way in.  It wasn't as if she could just walk right up to the front door at 
midnight.  There was always the ventilation system, but if there was another, 
then he or she would have known to prepare for that one.  ...Funny, she didn't 
seem to feel sleepy anymore.  Must be the adrenaline.
	
	So this was how it was going to end, Elisa thought groggily.  
Whenever her thoughts were coherent enough, she was surprised to find that 
she was still alive.  Assuming that she _was_ still alive.  Elisa was no saint, 
and this sure wasn't heaven.
	The burning of the serum from the dart had been laced with the same 
tingle that she remembered from Puck's transformations and Una's sleep spell 
in London.  Whatever that stuff was that they'd shot her with, some kind of 
magic had been used to amplify it.  She had been lying here for what could 
have been hours or minutes for all she knew, too weak to scream or even tense 
her muscles with the pain throbbing through her body with every heartbeat, 
and growing weaker with every breath.  This virus had taken over in a matter 
of minutes, and took over everything; her bones felt as if they were being 
warped into shapes that didn't fit the flesh on top of them, but that might have 
been because her muscles were being twisted as well.  Her insides were on fire 
as the organs changed positions.  Elisa was hurting in places she didn't even 
think she had.  In isolated moments when she could almost think clearly, one 
thought echoed over and over.  Someone had _shot_ her with this.  Someone 
had _made_ this and loaded it into a gun.  Someone had used magic to design 
something that could give someone the greatest possible amount of agony 
before they died, and if they'd made one dose, they could make thousands.  
Would even Xanatos do that?  She wouldn't put it beyond him.
	So this was how it was going to end, lying on her stomach in a place 
that she couldn't even open her eyes to look at.  How had she gotten here, 
anyway?  The last thing she could remember clearly was Goliath dragging her 
into an alleyway, and saying that he wouldn't leave her.  Then everything had 
melted into the cold fever.  Elisa thought that there had been shouting, and 
hands pulling her up, hauling her into something metal.  She vaguely recalled 
the someone laughing in a harsh voice, and Goliath growling ineffectually 
before one of the goons kicked him in the face, knocking him out.
	Somehow Elisa found the strength to clench her teeth as her jammed 
eyes watered.  Had they captured Goliath, shut him in like an animal?  Had 
they killed him before she could ever tell him what she had only been able to 
speak aloud in her dreams?  No.  More likely, those rejects from a bad science 
fiction movie had turned him over to their masters as a prisoner or lab 
specimen.
	Elisa grew angry at this, angrier that she thought she'd have had the 
energy to sustain.  She tried to rise, but the pain in her limbs forced her back.  
She didn't know how long she struggled to get to her feet, but her efforts 
showed up as little more than convulsions.  The fury settled down to wait for 
when she would be able to vent it, and disappeared under the feverish blanket 
of the mangling serum.
	So this was how it was going to end.  For all Elisa knew, Xanatos or 
Sevarius was sitting not three feet away, gleefully watching thier specimen 
writhe helplessly as the veins in her arms shifted courses.  But for all she 
knew, Goliath could have escaped and brought her here -wherever here was- 
and was waiting for her to wake, to speak to him, to tell him...  No.  If it had 
been either any of them, they would have said something, to gloat or to 
comfort.
	So this was how it was going to end.  A slow death, the only honor in 
that she had never cried out from the pain, never once uttered a sound.  Funny, 
she'd always thought that it would be some street punk getting in a lucky 
shot...  At least she would be reunited with Goliath, if he had died, and if he'd 
lived, she would be there to watch over him, to protect him in whatever way 
she could.  Even if he never knew she was there, and that she loved him, it 
would be the two of them, forever.  The thought of being Goliath's guardian 
angel stirred something in Elisa, but it was still too unformed for her to 
recognise.
	Elisa felt the fire in her limbs grow dull as the numbing veil 
approached, soft and cold, like snowflakes.  She used what was left of her 
concentration to draw together all her memories of Goliath.  If she couldn't die 
in his arms, if his face wasn't going to be the last thing she saw before her 
eyes closed for the last time, then she would see him in her mind.
	The dark curtain drew closer, and Elisa felt herself reaching for it.  It 
drew closer still, until she could almost touch it-  No.  Elisa recoiled.  Not like 
this.  Not without knowing.  Not without seeing if there was anything she 
could still do to save him.  If she was to join Goliath -or he join her- in 
whatever lay beyond the icy veil, then there was no way that he'd have just 
spread his own shroud and waited.  There was no way that he'd have died 
without a fight.  If she could endure the pain of loving someone that she could 
never have any kind of life with, then she could endure one little dart.  She 
didn't have much left, but she wasn't dead yet.  If she was going down, at least 
she wasn't going to dive in head first.
	The cold barrier flickered, as if not expecting any kind of resistance.  
Elisa thought she detected  a hint of smugness as it drew back.  Her nerves 
exploded, and the serum in her veins resumed its twisted course.  Whoever had 
engineered this virus wanted thier victims to know pain before they died.
	Time passed, and Elisa wavered into and out of something that could 
only by the greatest stretch of the word be called sleep.

	"Uh, Lex?" Brooklyn asked as they glided towards the medical 
building. "That went by a little fast for me.  Care to explain why we're going 
to meet Thailog and Demona without waiting for Goliath to get back?"
	"There's no telling when he and Elisa would be finished checking out 
that tip," Lexington replied. "And we'll explain it to you when we get there."
	Brooklyn said nothing for a moment. "That was the same little witch 
that turned you into a furball, right?"
	FURBALL?!  And why did his brothers insist on referring to Mirael 
as 'little witch?' She'd probably saved both their lives by Shifting them into 
Inyi.  Those 'furballs' were better climbers than anything else, and their 
whisker-twitch language was actually quite eloquent.  ...and being small 
enough to fit through ventilation shafts and escape a pair of deranged 
gargoyles didn't hurt. "Yeah," said Lex, "it's the same girl."
	"Y'know, I only saw her for a minute or so each time, but I think 
there was something different about her."
	Lex had been thinking the same thing himself.  She'd _looked_ 
exactly the same, and she was acting differently because the danger was so 
great.  ...but hadn't they been in danger with Thailog and Demona?  There 
was something wrong with Mirael, and Lexington was going to find out what 
it was.
	"I mean," Brooklyn went on, "shouldn't we be questioning the 
wisdom of going off to what is essentially enemy territory on the word of 
someone who-"
	"There it is!" Lex cut him off as he spotted the building.  Careful not 
to look too conspicuous, he dove towards the rooftop.  He vaguely thought he 
heard Brooklyn mutter something before following.
	A small figure dressed in gray rose and stepped out from the shadow 
of the railing.  Lex landed heavily and she drew closer.  Again he had the 
nagging feeling that something wasn't right.  Brooklyn came down behind 
him.
	"Alright," said the older gargoyle coldly.  Lex resisted the urge to 
elbow him in the ribs. "What's this about."
	Mirael looked away for a moment, "There's only one thing that I can 
say," to Lex's amazement, a smug and somewhat pitying smile spread across 
her face.  The blue eyes flicked back, "Gotcha."
	For a split second, Lexington didn't realize what she was talking 
about; an explosion and a cry from Brooklyn brought him to his senses.  He 
turned to see his brother fall to the cement floor of the rooftop; beyond him 
were five or six soldiers, armed with what looked like stun weapons.
	"A trap!" he realized aloud.
	"What was your first clue?" asked Mirael.  She raised one arm and 
began muttering an incantation in a language he still recognized as Archaic 
Nethri.  Before she could finish it, he ducked and slammed his shoulder into 
her stomach.  She doubled over, the ball of energy dissipating.
	"I can't believe you did this!" Lexington seethed.
	Mirael laughed as she regained her breath, "You know, neither can 
I," she remarked, "I never thought you'd be this gullible."
	He snarled, and lunged for her throat.  Then there was the sound of 
energy weapons being fired.  The world flared for a moment, and then went 
dark.

	Red.  The world was a swirl of silvers and grays, save for two bright 
scraps of red.
	Goliath blinked, trying to clear his vision.  His head was still light 
from the sedatives and the kick in the face, but the screaming pain from his 
broken ankle was quickly overcoming that.  He focused on one of the red blurs.  
When he saw it clearly, he gasped and sat up, nearly choking himself on the 
chain around his neck.
	Elisa's jacket.
	"Welcome back to the land of the living, Goliath," Demona, the 
source of the other red smear tossed the jacket into a corner and Goliath saw in 
dismay that the back was half charred away, as if by a laser blast. "A pity you 
won't be staying long."
	"It was you who sent the soldiers?" he asked incredulously, still trying 
to regain his balance.  That didn't make sense.  He seemed to be in some kind 
of holding cell in a medical laboratory.  He'd bet his left wing that those bars 
were electrified...
	"I must admit that my Angel of the Night was rather skeptical at 
first," said a new voice, frighteningly like to Goliath's own, "but the idea of 
sending a score or so of worthless humans to do our dirty work has its appeal."
	Demona turned and beamed at Thailog as he walked into view. "My 
love was very convincing," she said, still gazing into the clone's red eyes.  Her 
voice was smug, but slightly hesitant, and she looked furtively to her blue 
skinned mate, as if to check that she was doing everything right
	"Why have you brought me here?" Goliath demanded, "Where is 
Elisa?"
	Demona looked back to him with a tight smile, letting her eyes stray 
to the mangled vinyl jacket on the floor.  Goliath felt his breath catch in his 
throat.  She might have been persuaded to leave the capturing to her human 
minions, but the hated Elisa she would save for herself.
	No.  No, she was tampering with his mind.  If she had killed Elisa, 
then she would have something a bit gorier to show him than a laserburned 
jacket. "Elisa knows better than to take her eyes off of you," he said, trying not 
to make it sound as if he needed to convince himself. "You might have shot 
her, but never in the back."
	It might have been his imagination, but Demona's face darkened 
slightly.  Good.  If he had guessed wrong, she would have been amused. "You 
are going to help us destroy humanity, Goliath," she told him smugly.
	Yeah, sure.  And Xanatos was going to take a vow of poverty. "I'll 
die before I'll help you," he said darkly.
	"Oh, you will die," said Thailog, "but not before.  You see, we've 
been rather busy here at Nightstone Unlimited.  Especially in the area of 
biological weapons.  We expect our new 'product' to sweep the consumer 
market like a plague."
	"All these years, I have sought a way to destroy the humans," said 
Demona with fierce satisfaction, "and all I ever had to do was engineer a few 
viruses, turn them loose, and watch the infestation of the earth sicken and 
die."
	Though he was determined not to show any further signs of weakness 
in front of his enemies, Goliath felt a chill run down his spine.  Elisa.  The 
dart.
	"We have tested our prototypes on humans, and found the results 
quite satisfactory," continued the white-haired clone, "but before we release 
them, we need to discover whether they are harmful to gargoyles." Thailog 
gave Goliath a chill smile.
	"Any tests we perform will be quite prolonged and very painful, and 
we doubt that many of our volunteers will survive, but it's all in the name of 
science," again, Demona seemed wickedly self-satisfied, but again, she stole a 
questioning glance at Thailog, "Your dear little Elisa has already given herself 
to the cause."
	Barely two years ago, not counting the millennium that he had spent 
in hibernation, he would have died before raising a hand against this gargoyle, 
this fiery haired Angel whom he had loved more than life, an Angel who he 
had thought loved him.  Why then, did he feel the urge to throw himself 
against the chains and electrified bars and tear out her immortal throat?  Why 
was his mind returning over and over to the image of a wingless human?  Why 
did he want nothing more at this moment than to hear that voice again?  He'd 
been so close, so very close to telling her.  He'd been dreaming of telling her, 
and the mercenary had fired.  It was his fault, all his fault.  All thoughts of 
weakness in front of enemies left him.  Goliath could neither hear nor speak.  
The world stopped.
	Messing with his mind.  She had to be messing with his mind again. 
"I don't believe you," he said.
	Demona shook her head, "Pathetic, isn't he, my love?"
	"Hardly worthy of pity," disagreed the clone. "There's not more than 
a few hours until sunrise, and I want to give the first virus a full night to work 
on him," he changed the subject, "There's no sense wasting a sample."
	"Of course," she agreed quickly.  She turned to Goliath, "Enjoy what 
is left of this night, Goliath.  Tomorrow I begin your suffering."
	 "You began it long ago," he murmured under his breath as she and 
Thailog left the lab.

	She shuddered deliciously.  That had been _fun!_  She pushed back a 
strand of white hair and waved to one of the General Outwardly Overmuscled 
Nothings, or G*O*O*Ns.  It was so nice to have adults around to take care of 
the manual labor.
	Two of the soldiers came forward carrying what looked like 
perforated tarps.  One of her eyebrows twitched up as they covered the two 
gargoyles before calling their fellows and lifting them up.  It was only down 
the fire escape to the van, and then only across the street, but in places so 
highly populated, who knew who might be watching?  Peculiar things, cities 
like this one.  People dwelling in box-shaped things stacked right on top of one 
another.  She didn't really care for it much.  Oh, there would be _so_ much 
work to do here once the plan was complete, but when it was all done...
	She tugged the walkie-talkie from her belt and pressed the clicker.
	"Yes?" came the Magician's voice, clouded by static.
	"This task is complete," she replied. "We're bringing them in now."
	"Excellent.  Tell the goons to bring them to specimen room nine."
	"Room nine?" the white haired girl frowned. "Isn't that where you're 
keeping..." she let the question trail off.
	"Yes, actually, it is," came the answer, somewhat testily, "but it's 
either room nine or put them in with one of the other two.  Any of the other 
holding rooms are too close to where Enumide's hirelings work during the 
day."
	"Wonderful," she said dryly.
	"My thoughts exactly.  ...but think about it.  Their reactions might be 
interesting," there was a click, and the transmitter shut off.
	She thought about it, and felt a wicked grin fit her face.  She'd have 
to find out where they kept the surveilance camera displays.  ...and the 
popcorn.  This was going to be quite a show.
	It took several minutes to maneuver all the visor-clad Star Fleet 
wannabes down to ground level with the two stunned gargoyles; but she had to 
hand it to them, the soldiers might be ugly and stupid, but at least they knew 
how to keep from making _too_ much noise.

	Nightstone Unlimited.  At least it wasn't the same building.  That 
would have been just too stupid.  It had taken her longer than she'd expected 
to get her breath back, but there was now no doubt in Saval's mind that 
whoever had ambushed Goliath and Elisa had taken Mirael as well.  Saval 
caught herself on the verge of mentally scolding the child.  Rule Number Six: 
Never get caught.  Breaking it once was bad enough, but twice in the past six 
months, and by the same people?  Honestly, if that girl was ever going to make 
a proper Lal'Nethri, she was going to have to learn to be more careful.
	And there were other reasons why Mirael was going to have it rough.  
To say nothing of the fact that the Seers were not exactly pleased that she had 
become the first Acolyte to leave their Circle and were definitely not going to 
be inclined to give her an easy time, there was the way she _looked._  How 
could anyone with white hair at eleven years and eyes like blue lamps ever 
expect to blend into their surroundings?  And, of course, she was too soft-
hearted, but she'd probably outgrow that.
	Now that she'd found the place, there was still the rather tricky 
matter of getting inside.  She Shifted back to an Inyi and scrambled up the 
wall.  Air vents.  An old trick, but it almost always worked.
	She found a likely-looking grate near a fire escape and changed back.  
She leaned out over the railng and got out her screwdriver.  A slight grin 
somehow found its way across her lips.  She'd once read a book that said that 
the universe was safer if you packed a towel.  While this might or might not be 
true, she'd yet to see the Nethri who'd venture to a post-industrial world 
without a screwdriver.
	Saval shook her head.  Letting her mind wander like a rookie...  The 
first screw came loose.  She reached out to catch it and missed.  There was a 
clink as the little twist of metal tapped against the wall and hit the pavement 
five floors below.  The shadow frowned and noticed that her hands were 
shaking.  Adrenaline?  Probably.
	One by one the screws came loose, but she had to concentrate to catch 
them.  She carefully pulled the cover off of the two foot square duct and set it 
down on the floor of the fire escape.  A pity she couldn't pull it back over the 
opening once she was through.  As she Shifted and entered the ventilation 
system, something nagged at her.  Hadn't she been thinking something about 
air vents...  No time to bother with it now.

	The first thing that Elisa realized was that she was lying facedown on 
something hard and smooth.  The second was that she was still alive.
	The burning was gone; all her tendons felt as if they'd been stretched 
to the point of snapping and held in that position for hours, but the burning 
was gone.  Elisa twitched an arm experimentally.  The muscles screamed as if 
they'd been racked, but whatever had been twisting them seemed to have worn 
off.
	She took a deep breath, feeling the hardness of the floor pushing back 
at her.  Even that effort made her light-headed.  She felt as weak as a newborn 
kitten and more than that.  She felt off balance, wrong.  As if her body had 
been ripped apart and put back together backwards.  With a slight chill to her 
mangled spine she remembered the fight in the street, and the dart.  She put 
both aching arms under her and pushed herself up, surprised at the effort it 
took.
	"I see you're awake, my dear," came a voice that could've been an 
angel's or a demon's.  That voice had told her that he would never leave her 
behind, not ever, but it too seemed different, wrong.
	"Goliath?" she asked.  She pulled herself into a sitting position and 
was rewarded with a protest from the small of her back.  She blinked her eyes, 
trying to clear them, and squinted against the fluorescent light.  The image 
was blurred, but Elisa seemed to be in some kind of large cage or holding cell 
in what looked like a labroom.
	"I'm afraid not," said that hauntingly Goliath-like voice.  Elisa 
blinked again and turned to the source of the words.
	"Thailog!" she identified the clone, "You sent the-  Where's 
Goliath?"
	"I am afraid that you are not in much of a position to be making 
demands, my dear," he said calmly. "Demona wanted to kill you.  Be grateful I 
convinced her otherwise."
	Elisa had to admit, that would have been quite a feat.  Demona had 
wanted her dead for quite some time.  ...but then, Demona had wanted all 
humans dead for quite some time.  ...Whatever Thailog needed her alive for, 
he must've needed her pretty badly.
	"I'll die before I help you," she told him without thinking.
	The clone rolled his red eyes, "Goliath is a bad influence on you, 
Detective.  And after all I've done for humanity." He didn't wait for her not to 
ask, "Demona and I have been synthesizing plagues.  They are all quite 
contagious and quite deadly.  Left unchecked, I assure you, she _will_ realize 
her dream of human annihilation."
	So they'd hired some comic book rejects to call the preceint, and 
pump her full of one of their lab bugs.  Even to her own thoughts, it didn't 
make sense.  If she'd been shot with a biohazard, she shouldn't have recovered 
from it so quickly, and even if this was some sort of incubation period, why not 
just let her out onto the streets to go spread it?
	"Why are you telling me this?" she demanded, "and where's 
Goliath?"
	He ignored her question, "I was able to convince my _dear_ Demona 
to spare your lives, but only because I had something more fun in mind for the 
both of you."
	~He's trying to intimidate me.~ Elisa thought and suppressed a 
shudder.  Thailog, the creation of Doctor Antoine Sevarius, the same man who 
had changed Elisa's brother into a mutate, was likely to have a very sick idea 
of fun.
	"We need to be sure that our new diseases will not be fatal to 
gargoyles," he said. "Goliath will be our test subject." Elisa's breath caught in 
her throat, and she somehow kept it from showing, "And the same goes for 
you, Detective.  Even if Goliath does survive all seven of our current 
biohazards, and any new ones we might engineer in the meantime, he will beg 
us to kill him," the clone stepped closer to the cage, with a smug grin on his 
face, "Personally, I think she will enjoy seeing that petty excuse for a gargoyle 
suffer first.  I know _I_ will."
	Something inside Elisa snapped.  The rage that she'd felt earlier 
resurfaced and surged forward like floodwaters through a burst dike, washing 
out all other thought.  With an almost inhuman scream, she lunged for that 
self-satisfied face, striking instinctively not with her fist, but with her fingers.  
There was a wet, ripping contact, and Thailog's muffled cry before Elisa hit 
the bars.  She screamed again, in pain this time as the uncounted volts coursed 
through her body.  She fell back, gasping for breath as her exhaustion 
returned, sinking down to the floor of the cage.  A wave of dizziness enveloped 
her, but didn't seem to lessen the satisfaction any as she raised her head to see 
Thailog swearing and clutching at the four slash marks on his face.
	"That, my dear," he said slowly, "is going to cost you."
	She sneered up at him between breaths.  Like he could do something 
that he wasn't going to do anyway.  Elisa admitted that it was scant comfort, 
but-  The realization hit her like a physical blow.
	Four.  Slash marks.  Not a bruise from a punch or slap, or even some 
scratches from her fingernails, but slash marks, where the flesh had been torn 
open by something sharp.
	Elisa held her blood-tinted talons up in front of her face and stared at 
them in dismay.  She'd felt the serum dissolving the bones in her hand and 
reforming the fingers into something else.  She stood up, almost hitting her 
head on the low roof of the cage, and a long, sleek tail slid out behind her.  
Hurting in places she wasn't supposed to have.  She looked over her shoulders 
at a pair of three-clawed wings.  She flexed one of the muscles and the wing 
twitched.  Off balance.  Rewired under a different design.  Too heavy.  
Shoulders on fire... 
	The world started spinning.  Elisa held up both arms and gaped at 
them. ~Oh no,~ she thought, ~not again.~

	Thailog gingerly touched one of the slash marks in his face as he got 
a first aid kit out of the cabinet.  She was going to pay for this _so_ much.  Her 
eyes hadn't been glowing when she'd struck him, but he recognised the anger 
in her face.  She was already learning to harness it.  And then there was the 
way that her wings had been thrown back, out of the way, and she'd had the 
ideal arch to her talons...  Yes, Elisa Maza had been the perfect test subject for 
this experiment.  He had expected that she would make an excellent gargoyle, 
but nothing could have prepared him for what he saw before him now.  Her 
pointed ears protruded up through the blue-black cascade of her hair.  Her face 
was quite lovely, despite its expression of sheer horror, and even if he said so 
himself, she had a _really_ great set of wings.
	She was still kneeling on the floor of her holding cell, one of many in 
the spacious labroom, with her side to him, staring at her smooth arms and 
trying not to hyperventilate. 
	He felt a grin run up his face. "It seems that I've followed in the 
footsteps of my dear creator, Antione Sevarius.  ...With a little help from some 
tissue samples that I stole from Xanatos."
	"Why?" she said quietly. "I know that Demona must not've been too 
keen on this idea.  In fact I think she'd hate it."
	"I told Demona that we needed more gargoyle test subjects for the 
viruses, and mutated humans were the fastest way to get them," he grinned 
again. "She is a fool.  Sooner or later one of the biohazards will hit Macbeth, 
and she will have killed him.  After they are both gone, I will stop the plagues.  
The remnants of humanity will probably be very grateful, and eager for my 
rule."
	"You made cures for all your viruses?" she asked.
	Well of course he had.  There was no way that he was going to let a 
thing like this get out of control.  Thailog hated the puny little short-lived, 
ape-descended nothings that had by some mind-boggling stroke of luck gained 
dominance on the planet, but he also pitied them.  Was it really their fault that 
they were inferior?  Did that label them abominations?  Why wipe out millions 
of beings when you could dominate them so easily, keep or dispose of them as 
you saw fit, and use them as tools to shape your world into whatever you 
chose?  And it would be easy.  Most humans were frighteningly stupid, eager 
to believe anything that they heard either on television or from a guy in a 
labcoat.
	She still did not look at him. "Why me?" she asked.
	There were a number of reasons why her, but first and foremost was... 
"The test subjects kept dying," he told her. "I wondered at it at first.  Even 
once I altered the muto-genic formula so that they wouldn't turn to stone with 
the dawn if the transformation was incomplete, they would either die or go 
feebleminded.  It seems that the Nethri call this 'Turinel Syndrome,' or the 
way the mind adapts or fails to adapt to the body's change of shape." Thailog 
shook his head.  No matter what he'd done to the serum, they'd either have 
failed to develop proper reflexes or simply gone into shock. "I needed someone 
who wouldn't go mad at finding themselves so transformed.  You, my dear, 
were the most logical choice.  Since you still seem to be alive and sane, I 
assume that the experiment has been a success."
	"And you have a reversal for this was well?" Elisa asked, still 
gawking at her talons.
	Thailog resisted the urge to chuckle.  Whatever else he might feel for 
his creator, David Xanatos, he had to admit, the guy really knew how to 
program a clone.  Even in the best of plans, one must provide for the variables.  
...such as one of his new gargoyles turning on him.  Yes, there was a reversal, 
but there was also something far better.  He only shook his head at her. "You 
still don't understand, do you my dear?  You are only the first," the first to 
live, anyway. "The worthy shall be prepared and injected until gargoyles take 
their place as rulers of the earth."
	"With you as world dictator," she pointed out.
	So she was perceptive as well as beautiful.  Elisa would be very 
useful.  ...after she learned the basics. "Well, of course," he felt a grin slide 
over his fangs at the thought.  Ultimate power... "I should get something for 
all my trouble, don't you think?"
	"I think you're insane," she clenched her fist and stared at it.  
Thailog's eyes narrowed for a moment.  Yes, Elisa Maza was definitely going 
to have to learn a sharp lesson or two.  He was rather looking forward to 
teaching it to her, actually.
	...But not just yet.

	~I've got to be nuts,~ thought Elisa.  Talking back to someone twice 
your size was stupid under any circumstances.  Doing so when you're in a cage 
and can barely stand up was downright suicidal.  Thailog and Demona weren't 
the only crazy gargoyles in the area, assuming that Demona was even around.
	Gargoyle.  A gargoyle.  Elisa turned her hands over for the fiftieth 
time staring at the four talons were her fingers had been twenty four hours 
ago.  Sharp, thick, only four.  She settled her wings around her shoulders -
_wings_- and went back to staring at her hands.  She couldn't shake the 
amazement, the sheer, staggering disbelief.
	~Come on, Elisa,~ she told herself, ~it's not like this hasn't happened 
before.~ A small part of her mind had suspected that she'd end up in this form 
again, but never like _this._ The changeling Puck, under Demona's minimal 
control, had once turned her into a gargoyle; she still didn't really know why.  
The only real difference between that transformation and this one was that 
Puck had been faster.  The change had come so quickly that she'd cried out 
more in surprise than pain as her body was molded into a different form.  
...and Goliath had been there.  If Elisa hadn't been in an electrified cage in a 
labroom with an escapee from America's Most Twisted, she would have 
laughed at the memory.  His eyes had nearly started out of his head, and she 
hadn't noticed.  Puck had done something to her memory, and she had 
honestly thought that she had always been a gargoyle, and that Goliath and the 
others had changed.
	"Come now my dear," Thailog spoke, but she barely heard him, "you 
of all people should appreciate what I've given you.  In a few days Turinel 
Syndrome will set in and you won't even want to change back.  In a few 
weeks, you won't remember what it was like to be human at all." Elisa 
couldn't help but think of her brother, Derek, who had been turned into a bat-
winged mutate by Thailog's creator, Dr. Sevarius.  After a while, he'd said 
that he wouldn't have changed back even if there was a cure.  Did he still 
remember?  It was a chilling thought. "You'll learn to glide," he promised, 
leaning forward intently. "You've only glided secondhand; you have know 
idea how glorious it is.  Without noisy metal wings, needing nothing but 
yourself to rule the air," he paused, as if searching for more words and finding 
none, "There is nothing like it."
	Thailog was wrong there.  Elisa had glided once.  Of course, she'd 
been hanging onto Goliath's arm for most of the time.  He'd said that before 
Puck had changed her into a gargoyle, he'd never noticed how beautiful she 
was.  She'd asked if he meant that he'd though she was ugly.  Elisa tried and 
failed to stop the smile from coming, and turned her head so that Thailog 
could not see her face.  She'd meant it as a joke, but Goliath had stammered 
like a little kid.
	If only he were here right now, it might not be so bad.  Elisa bit her 
lip, realizing that he was probably being held by Demona.  She felt the rage 
beginning to boil up again.  If that sadistic misanthrope had done anything to-  
Elisa realized that there was blood in her mouth and unclenched her teeth.  
Fangs were going to take some getting used to.  With effort, she forced the 
anger down.  Exploding here wouldn't help Goliath, and would probably get 
her killed.  Demona would have to wait, but not for very long.
	"Picture yourself using those wings of yours, my dear," Thailog 
continued.  Maybe it was because he sounded so much like Goliath or maybe it 
was because of the transformation, but Elisa's thoughts drifted back to that 
night. "The air filling your wings until you feel as if you weigh no more than a 
little bird, the power of the currents that carry you skyward until you feel as if 
you could reach out an touch the stars," boy this guy was cliche. "The wind 
flows over you like water in a heavy rain.  You look over your shoulder and 
there's someone behind you, silhouetted in the moonlight," Thailog had to be 
psychic. "You turn around, and you see it's ...me!"
	Elisa snapped out of her reverie, "_WHAT?!_"
	Thailog leaned even closer, and the blood from the slashes on his face 
dripped onto the floor, "Forget Goliath," he said intently, "he is a brainsickly 
excuse for a warrior.  I personally don't know what Demona ever saw in him.  
...aside from maybe the incredible good looks.  He doesn't deserve you."
	Elisa couldn't believe her elongated ears.  She turned around to stare 
right into his mangled face.  If that wasn't an expression of misguided 
sincerity, then he was a better liar than any politician.  No wonder he wanted 
to rule the world.
	"To him I was an abomination," he went on with disgust. "To 
Xanatos and Sevarius I was a tool and personal accomplishment.  Even 
Demona," his lip twisted up in a half-grin, "even she only saw me as another 
Goliath.  You were the only one who tried to understand me.
	"Elisa, if I am going to conquer the world, I am going to need help.  
A second in command who could rule with only slightly less power than 
myself.  You will take that role.  I know you want to destroy Xanatos for what 
he did to your brother.  Together, we can accomplish that.  Serve me, and 
anything you desire can be yours," Elisa definitely did _not_ like the way that 
he was looking at her right now; "I swear it."
	"Now I know you're insane."
	Thailog's face hardened.  Before Elisa realized what he was doing, 
he'd reached through the bars and grabbed her wrist, tight enough to make the 
newly reformed bones ache. "I offer you the world.  What has Goliath ever 
brought to you?" he snarled. "Nothing.  Nothing but your own pain."
	Elisa took her other hand, as quick as she could manage, and sunk 
the talons into his arm.  He jerked back, ripping the would open further and 
hitting one of the electrified bars.  Elisa pulled back as he convulsed with the 
voltage.
	Thailog stood up, breathing hard.  He pointed to her with one bloody 
talon, "Tonight, you have returned the favor.  You will pay for this insolence, 
and so will Goliath." Elisa could only flex her sticky fingers against each other 
and try to keep breathing as he stormed out of the room.

	"...Black Velvet in that old southern style.  A New Religion that'll 
bring 'em to their knees.  Black-" she stopped singing as the larger of the two 
forms stirred.  Brooklyn?  Was that his name?  As unpleasant as it had been to 
be threatened with a flamethrower while the door of her holding cage was 
opened, and her new cellmates dragged inside, she had actually been glad to 
see them.  At least she wasn't alone anymore.  She was tired of being alone.  
She was tired of the torches on the cage walls that mocked her with their 
scalding waves.  She was tired of the burns on her arms constantly reminding 
her where she was.  Mostly she was just tired.  She had tried almost 
constantly, but sleep would not come.
	The ruddy-skinned gargoyle moaned as he sat up, "And this makes 
_how_ many times that we've been captured by people of questionable sanity?" 
he mumbled.  She cleared her throat, pushing down her  weariness.
	He turned to her, frown lines creasing his forehead.  He was probably 
still a little out of it from the stun weapon, "Hi.  I don't know if you'd 
remember me, but-"
	She cut off as the gargoyle's eyes came alight and he lunged for her, 
claws outstretched.  She ducked, and he crashed into the bars, nearly hitting 
one of the torches.  She winced as he cried out with the voltage. "What are you 
doing here?" he seethed. "Did your friends turn on you?"
	"So it would seem," she murmured, half to herself.  Why had 
Brooklyn jumped at her?  What was going on.  Dear life, if only her head 
would work right.  She moved over to the smaller gargoyle.  She put out a 
hand and gently shook his arm, "Wake up, Lex," she said quietly.
	"Keep away from him, witch," Brooklyn pushed himself up and came 
at her again.  This time, her dodge was only a fraction of a second too slow; 
his claws raked her shoulder, but only glancingly.  Though little more than a 
scratch, the blow was right over one of the burned places.  If she'd been more 
rested, she might have kept from crying out, and definitely wouldn't have sunk 
down, clutching at the wound like a rookie as the gargoyle turned a split 
second to late to keep from getting shocked again.

	She laughed aloud, nearly choking on her popcorn as the gargoyle 
slashed the girl and ran right into the bars.  It was so rarely that she got to 
watch a Nethri get the pulp kicked out of her.  Of course, if Enumide or 
Kwa'Aga  or the Magician caught her in here eating junk food and watching 
camera displays, her life wasn't worth an all expense paid trip to a leech farm.
	The quasi-human on the viewscreen fell to her knees, holding one 
hand over her shoulder.  This was just _too_ good!  And idea grew in her 
mind, the Magician probably wouldn't approve, but the Magician never liked 
anything fun.  She put the popcorn bowl down on one of the chairs and left the 
control room.

	Lexington felt as if all the veins in his head doubled in size every 
time his heart pounded.
	Something was happening.  There was a sharp cry and the crackle-
hiss of electric discharge.  There was another shout, Brooklyn's this time. 
"What the?" he mumbled as he sat up, rubbing at his head. "Where are we?"
	"Another med building," the sound of the dry soprano voice was 
achingly familiar. "We've _got_ to stop meeting like this.  Now would you 
mind talking to your brother?  He's trying to-" His eyes came into focus on her 
face and the earlier events of this night came flooding back to him.
	"YOU!" he shouted, grabbing her arm hard enough for his talons to 
draw blood. "Mirael, why?  Why did you do this?"
	She winced, "Do what?  I don't know what you're talking about."
	Brooklyn pulled himself upright, "Yeah, and Xanatos is going to take 
a vow of poverty."
	"Hang on a minute!" Lexington protested, holding up a hand to his 
brother.  There was something wrong here.  ...No, there had been something 
wrong before, when Mirael had come to the clocktower.  There she had looked 
exactly the same as she had when he'd seen her last, but the way she'd spoken, 
the way she'd chosen her words...  It didn't match up.
	Lex noticed with a sickening feeling that there were injection marks 
over the old burn scar on her left arm and fresh burns over both arms.  Dark 
circles hung beneath her blue eyes, as if she hadn't slept in a long time.
	"Brooklyn, I don't think this is the same human who came to the 
clocktower tonight," he said.
	The Blue-Eyed frowned, "Tonight?  I've been here for two days."
	"Watch out," warned Brooklyn. "This could be another...  Wait a 
minute," the older gargoyle's eyes narrowed, and he turned to Mirael. "Stand 
up," he told her.
	"What?" she asked.
	"Just do it," he ordered. "There's something weird going on here."
	"You're telling me," Lex agreed, releasing Mirael's arm as she got to 
her feet. "What is it?"
	"Look at her for a minute," said Brooklyn. "She's taller.  Not more 
than an inch or two, but humans don't grow that fast."
	"Are you sure it's not just my shoes?" she asked.
	"And your hair's a little longer," Lex realized aloud. "This explains a 
lot."
	"Wonderful," she stated, "now would you mind explaining it to me?"

	The click of claw on metal echoed uncomfortably in the air vent as 
Saval scampered through the vent.  It was nice to be Inyi again for a while, 
even under these circumstances.  Nice to feel as if all the power of a human 
body were packed into a small container.  ...and there was a certain security in 
claws and fangs.  She skidded to a halt in front of a grate and peered into what 
looked like an empty office.  There was a small couch set against one wall, a 
moderate sized desk, and a computer.
	Saval stretched out her wiry length in the tunnel and Shifted back.  
An Inyi might have been able to get the grate off, but not without either 
making a lot of noise or taking time that Saval didn't want to waste right now.  
It was a tight squeeze, but she managed to get out her screwdriver.
	A pity that the screws were on the other side of the wall.
	She dug at the spiraling end of one of the metal fasteners until it 
loosened in its place and could be turned with the fingers.  Once all the screws 
were out, she cautiously slid the cover down and wriggled out, flipping over to 
land on her feet with a soft thud.
	She moved to the computer and switched it on, watching neutrally as 
the program buzzed to life.
	"Come on," she urged under her breath, "floor plan, floor plan."

SYSTEM BOOT COMPLETE.

ENTER PASSWORD: 

	"Oh great," she muttered.

ENTER PASSWORD:
	Saval looked over the desk.  A piece of paper, a word scratched into 
the wood finish, anything.  Considering the lack of clutter, this unit couldn't 
have been in use for a while.  If this was a personal system, and not directly 
hooked up to a central program, then the password probably had not been 
changed for some time.
	Unless it was a unified system.  Saval was no expert, but it seemed to 
her that Demona and Thailog were more the anti-individual type.  In which 
case one of them would have come up with the password, probably Demona, as 
she was the one who had the most contact with humans.  Considering this 
Fallen Angel's rather ...intense nature, she might have chosen something that 
meant a great deal to her.

ENTER PASSWORD:

	"Hang on a minute, will ya?" A program like this would probably 
have some kind of protection, Saval decided.  If she couldn't make it in five 
attempts, she'd just have to try something else.

ENTER PASSWORD:	DEATHTOHUM

	Hmm...  Only ten characters.  Saval deleted the password without 
entering it.

ENTER PASSWORD:	GOLIATH

PASSWORD INVALID.  ACCESS DENIED, WORTHLESS DOLT!

	So Demona _had_ designed this program.

ENTER PASSWORD:	HUMANITY

PASSWORD INVALID.  ACCESS DENIED, WORTHLESS DOLT!

ENTER PASSWORD:	REVENGE

PASSWORD INVALID.  ACCESS DENIED.  FURTHER PITIFUL 
FAILURE TO ENTER THE CORRECT PASSWORD WILL RESULT IN 
PROSECUTION.

	Saval paused for a moment.  She wasn't thinking right.  Demona 
would have needed to inform at least some of her employees of the password, 
and anything like this might have made them start wondering if there 
employer wasn't just a little bit into the deep end.  She'd have needed 
something that she could use with humans without causing too much ruckus, 
something like-

ENTER PASSWORD:	ANGELA

PASSWORD ACCEPTED.  ACCESSING MAIN PROGRAM NOW.

	She rubbed her eyes as the menu came up.  As she began to search for 
a floor plan, something occurred to her.  Demona didn't know about Angela, 
or at least she wasn't supposed to know.  She had only seen her daughter once, 
in Paris.  She _might_ have been able to put the pieces together from there, 
but-
	Something caught Saval's eye.  Instead of moving the mouse to the 
building's specifications, she clicked NEW MEDICAL.

NEW MEDICAL ACCESSED, ENTER KEYWORD:

	Saval tugged the blunted hypo syringes from her pocket, squinting to 
read the serial numbers in the dim light of the screen.

ENTER KEYWORD:	MGF-002L

NO SUCH KEYWORD EXISTS ON THIS SYSTEM, IDIOT!

ENTER KEYWORD:	MGF-002

KEYWORD RECOGNIZED.  ACCESSING FILE.  PLEASE WAIT...

FILE ACCESSED.

MGF-002:	DESIGNATION:	"MUTO GENIC FORMULA."  
MUTOGEN, EXPERIMENTAL.

STORED:	UNIT 156, SECTION B, REASEARCH FACILITIES 
THETA AND KAPPA ONLY.

		ABSTRACT:		IN FOLLOWING WITH THE 
WORK OF DR. ANTIONNE SEVARIUS, TWELVE DIFFERENT 
VERSIONS OF THIS FORMULA WERE ATTEMPTED, AND ALL 
FAILED, DUE TO THE INCOMPATIBILITY OF THE TEST SUBJECTS.  
IN ORDER TO ENSURE DOCILITY, LATER VERSIONS, SUCH AS MGF-
002K AND MGF-002L WERE EQUIPPED TO CAUSE A DISORDER 
ACTIVATING THE PAIN CENTER OF THE BRAIN UNLESS THE TEST 
SUBJECT IS PROVIDED WITH AAF-241, A CORRECTIVE PRODUCED 
ONLY BY NIGHTSTONE UNLIMITED.  THE PROCESS BEGINS FORTY 
EIGHT HOURS AFTER THE SUBJECT'S INITIAL INJECTION, AND CAN 
THEREAFTER BE ADJUSTED TO UP TO ONE POINT TWO FIVE 
YEARS BY SPARING OR LIBERAL USE OF THE ANTIDOTE.  IF NO 
ANTIDOTE IS SUPPLIED, THE SUBJECT WILL EXPERIENCE FIRST 
MILD, AND THEN INTENSE PAIN FOLLOWED BY PARALYSIS, 
BECOMING FATAL AFTER APPROXIMATELY FIVE DAYS.  
STATISTICAL SPECIFICATIONS FOLLOW:

	Saval cancelled the command.  Incompatibility of the test subjects?  
Muto Genic Formula?  It was probably designed to mutate a human into 
something else, but into what?  This "disorder activating the pain center of the 
brain in order to ensure docility," _definitely_ didn't sound good.  It made 
sense, but not Demona's kind of sense.  Any kind of mutations at all would be 
more something that Thailog would try.  Perhaps Demona didn't even know 
about this file.  With so many different serial numbers to choose from, the 
chances of her stumbling across it were virtually nonexistant.

ENTER KEYWORD:	NR-107

KEYWORD RECOGNIZED.  ACCESSING FILE.  PLEASE WAIT...

FILE ACCESSED.

NR-107:		DESIGNATION:	"NO REST." STIMULANT, 
EXPERIMENTAL.

STORED:	UNIT 164, SECTION D, REASEARCH FACILITIES 
THETA AND KAPPA ONLY.

		ABSTRACT:	FOR THE PURPOSES OF STUDYING 
THE NATURE OF THE HUMAN SLEEP CYCLE, ESPECIALLY IN ITS 
CAPACITY TO PREVENT DISEASE, NR-107 PROMOTES 
NEUROELECTRICAL ACTIVITY IN THE BRAINSTEM, PREVENTING 
THE SUBJECT FROM FALLING ASLEEP.  SIDE EFFECTS INCLUDE 
FOGGY THINKING, IRRITABILITY AND SLIGHT LOSS OF FINE 
MOTOR CONTROL.  THE FIRST VARIATION, NR-107A, WAS 
EFFECTIVE ONLY FOR THE FIRST FEW HOURS, AND VERSION B FOR 
LESS THAN A DAY.  NR-107C HAS SHOWN ITSELF TO PROHIBIT 
SLEEP FOR UP TO 6.4 DAYS, BUT DOES EVENTUALLY WEAR OFF.  
NR-107D IS STILL IN THE EXPERIMENTAL PHASE, YET SEEMS TO 
REQUIRE AN ANTIDOTE IN ORDER FOR THE SUBJECT TO RECOVER 
BEFORE SUFFERING MINOR OR SEVERE MENTAL DISORDER DUE 
TO LACK OF R.E.M. SLEEP.  NR-107E STILL IN DEVELOPMENT.  IN 
ALL CASES, REDUCTION IN THE EFFICIENCY OF THE IMMUNE 
SYSTEM IS DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL TO THE AMOUNT OF TIME 
THE SUBJECT REMAINS AWAKE.  STATISTICAL SPECIFICACIONS 
FOLLOW:

	"Oh great," muttered Saval.  She searched the rest of the database for 
a floorplan of the building, printed it out, and headed back to the air vent.

	All the while that Thailog had stopped to treat the slashes on his face 
and arm, he had fumed with what he was going to do to Goliath.  The sun 
would be rising soon, bringing healing, but that just meant that he could start 
over the next night.  A good thing that he and Demona had already told the 
hired nothings not to come in the next day, or they'd find a rather unusual pair 
of statues in one of their specimen rooms.
	Elisa would pay.  She would pay with all she had and more.  He 
would see her begging for death at his feet before he was through with her.  He 
still wasn't sure whether or not he would give it.  Perhaps he'd even let 
Demona have her for a while, so she would come to know how gentle a master 
he would have been.
	And perhaps, when all of that was over, he would again ask- no, he 
would command her to be his second.  She had talent, too much to be wasted.  
A creature like that was born for authority... once she learned its limits.
	He had never made any inappropriate comment, never even asked out 
loud for her to do any of the things that he'd bet real money she was doing 
with Goliath anyway.  ...and at least now, she wouldn't be going outside the 
species.  He had offered her power beyond anything she could have dreamed 
of.  All she'd needed to do was reach out and take it.  All she'd needed to do 
was accept it...  He might even have spared Goliath's life, if she'd asked it of 
him.
	Ah well, too late.  A part of him was thinking that at least now, he 
had an excuse to kill the source of the DNA that had spawned him.  Another 
part of him pointed out that if he truly wished to destroy Goliath, he didn't 
need an excuse.  The rest of him did not think.
	One way or another, Elisa Maza, ex-human, would serve him.  He 
had conveniently neglected to mention a rather nasty little side effect of her 
transformation.  No plan was infalliable.  In order to ensure the absolute 
loyalty of any of his future breed of gargoyles, this particular mutogen had 
been engineered to cause the pain center of the brain to go into high gear.  
Unless supplied with an antidote every few nights, an antidote that only 
Thailog could provide, the test subject would endure ever-intensifying pain, 
and death if it went untreated.  She only had about a day and a half left before 
the process started.  By choice or by lack of choice, Elisa Maza would serve 
him.
	Thailog stormed down the hallway to specimen room five.  At least 
he hadn't run into Demona.  She would have asked him why he was so upset, 
and he'd have had to think coherently long enough to spin some tale for her.  
He didn't want her to know about Elisa just yet.  If Demona knew, she would 
kill her, and if anyone was going to kill one of Thailog's creations, it was 
going to be Thailog.
	She would be upset when she found that Goliath was dead.  In fact, 
she would probably be furious.  Demona had made him agree that they would 
kill him together, once they were through with him.  Ah well, Thailog could 
always claim that a last minute something or other had caused him to change 
his mind about waiting until tomorrow night, that he hadn't wanted to bother 
her, and something had gone awry.  Yes, that would do for now.

	Saval scrambled up the vertical shaft.  Before anything else happened, 
she had to find Mirael, and then get her hands on an antidote for this sleep 
suppressant.  Tired as she was, at least she didn't have to worry about passing 
out on her feet.  She reached a branch off point, sat down for a moment, trying 
to sort out the map in her head.  It was so hard to think...
	The most logical place to keep a Nethri would be in one of the 
specimen chambers.  According to the floorplan, the closest one was two floors 
higher.
	The chocolate-colored Inyi hopped back into the perpendicular tunnel 
and started up again.  As she climbed, she noticed something peculiar about 
this part of the shaft.  A strange smell that tantalized her sensitive nose.  She'd 
known this smell before, and remembered that it was important.  ...if only the 
fog in her head would clear...

	The sun would rise soon.  Goliath had spent the past hour trying to 
develop a plan of escape, and had come up empty.  Whenever he tried to 
concentrate, his eyes somehow found their way back to the burned jacket on 
the floor, the bright red vinyl warped and blackened where the laser had 
seared some of it away.  Whenever Goliath tried to focus his thoughts, they 
twisted from his grip and fled like frightened children back to Elisa.  Demona 
had said that they'd used her as a test subject for one of their plagues.  He 
realized with a sinking feeling that she and Thailog had probably realized that 
he would try to flee with her, and if she was infected with some kind of 
contagious disease that was harmful to humans...
	There was a click from the door.  He looked up as someone turned the 
knob and entered.  The way that Thailog fumed as he entered the room, 
Goliath was surprised that he hadn't simply kicked the door off its hinges.
	"Where is Elisa?" he demanded of the white-haired lab rat.
	"You are going to die," the clone raged through clenched teeth, his 
eyes glowing red.
	"You told me as much before," Goliath replied impassively, still 
trying to keep from looking at the ruined garment in the corner. "Where is 
Elisa?"
	"I mean you're going to die right now," Thailog snarled back at him.  
Even after the weeks and months of knowing that an almost exact duplicate of 
himself existed, it was unnerving to see such anger reflected in what was, for 
nearly all practical purposes, an afterimage of his own face. "She's too good 
for you, you know.  I have no idea why she would ever choose a _creature_ 
like you."
	"You are welcome to Demona," Goliath replied coldly.  He eyed the 
four slash marks, stitched shut, and running like barbed wire across the 
clone's dark blue face. "Though perhaps, you have already discovered-"
	Thailog didn't seem to have heard him.  He moved to a panel on the 
wall and hit a key.  Goliath cried out in surprise and pain as azure bolts of 
electricity surged up at him through the metal floor of the holding cell, 
sparking around the chains on his limbs and neck.  Thailog held the button 
down a moment longer and then let go, leaving Goliath gasping for breath. "I 
could put the world in her hands," said the clone, "I could give her anything 
she desires." The clone shocked him again, stronger this time.  Goliath 
clamped his teeth shut and kept from making a sound.  It would probably only 
make Thailog angrier, only make him try harder, but there was no way that he 
was going to give this crazed excuse for a gargoyle any reason to gloat.  
Thailog hit another key, and the chains drew back, pinning him to the wall at 
the back of the cell.  Again the duplicate cut off the charge, pulling a small 
laser weapon that looked like it was silence-rigged from one of the wall 
cabinets. "I could, of course, just switch on the cage and let you fry," he 
pointed out, "but that would be far too quick, and not nearly as much fun." He 
grinned malignantly, "I designed this little thing myself, as an interrogation 
device.  I've wanted to try it out for quite some time now." Thailog raised the 
weapon to Goliath and fired.
	The blow struck him high on the arm.  Even from such a modest 
sized firearm, the energy from the blast seemed to dive into his nervous 
system, causing currents of pain.  The heat alone pushed him back against the 
cool bricks of the wall.  Goliath opened his locked eyes and looked down at the 
place where the skin of his upper arm had been scorched nearly away.  He 
looked straight into Thailog's face as he shot again, unable to keep from 
convulsing with the discharge.
	"In a few years, perhaps months, I will rule the world," the red eyed 
apparition of his own face accentuated the point with another shot.
	"Not while I live," Goliath answered, somewhat surprised that he 
could still speak.
	Thailog glared at him in disgust, "How long is it going to take for you 
to realize that you're not going to be alive by then?" He fired, scalding 
Goliath's shoulder, "Power beyond your pathetic dreams will be mine, and so 
will she."
	"Why would you speak like this?" Goliath asked, a minute suspicion 
dawning in his mind, "Demona-"
	"You still think I'm talking about Demona?" Thailog let his gun arm 
fall to his side. "You _are_ dense."
	~Getting a power main run through my head didn't help any,~ he 
thought.  If not Demona then... "Elisa?" he demanded.  The thought of the 
deranged clone even looking at Elisa... "What have you done with her?"
	"Very good," said Thailog, raising his gun again. "Announcer, tell 
him what he's won."
	The next several minutes were a blur of shots and biting heat, lashing 
out at him.  The small firearm seemed to have in inexhaustible power supply, 
and each sear smashed him harder against the wall.  The front of his body 
seemed a network of scalds.  He forgot where he was, and why he was staring 
so intently at a distorted reflection of himself.  He turned his head and focused 
on a scrap of red in the corner of the room.
	There was a clicking noise, and the door slid open. "I heard weapons 
firing," said an implacably calm voice.  Odd...  Goliath did not remember 
hearing this voice before, but it sounded familiar somehow.  The speaker 
entered the room and shut the door behind her.  She was tall for a human 
woman, with straight blond hair to her shoulders, tied back severely.  Again, 
Goliath felt that he had seen her somewhere before, and yet knew that he had 
not.
	"What is going on here?" she asked Thailog coldly. "We need him 
alive."
	Goliath wondered if he wasn't delirious.
	"No, Magician," said Thailog angrily. "Enumide needs him alive.  I 
only want him dead." He raised the laser again.  Goliath braced himself for the 
blast.
	"Really, Kwa'Aga?" there was something strange about this 
Magician's voice.  It did not feel the same as magic, but Goliath knew that if it 
had been directed at him, it could have melted every thought in his head.
	"What are you doing?" he asked.
	"Be silent," she ordered him, and for some reason, Goliath did as she 
said.  What sorcery was this?
	"If you kill him now," the Magician continued, a strange almost-light 
in her green eyes, "Enumide, the Fallen Angel, will suspect that we wish to go 
beyond phase one." She smiled wickedly, and more than ever Goliath felt as if 
he should recognize her. "And killing him here and now, like this, will not get 
you what you want.  You have given him pain.  Tomorrow you will give him 
more, but in a manner that will serve our purposes."
	Could this be happening?  The human -if she was human- did not 
seem afraid that Thailog would rip her head off for this disrespect.  She was 
either very brave or very stupid.
	"Stop that," Thailog brought both hands to his head, dropping the 
gun. "You're- Why didn't I notice before?  Thoughts coming that weren't 
mine..."
	"That doesn't matter," she said, the strangeness in her voice growing 
stronger. "Have you done as I asked with the air vents?"
	Air vents?  What did air vents have to do with anything?
	Thailog nodded, seeming to lose both the anger and the distress of 
only seconds past. "Yes, why?"
	The blond woman moved to the keypad on the wall and tapped in a 
few numbers.  A slight sound began, very far off.  She ginned again.  Goliath 
knew that smile, if not this person. "Here's why."

	Saval's claws still and rang mercilessly on the aluminum of the air 
shaft.  She was fairly sure that she was nearing the specimen room, but the 
strange smell was stronger here.  With effort she cleared her mind and thought 
back to where she might have smelled it before, or even something else that 
smelled like it.
	There was a clicking noise behind her, very faint and very far back, 
then an indistinct roaring sound, as if one of the fans had come on, but not 
quite.  As the noise grew closer, a chill crept through Saval's thick fur and 
settled in her stomach.  What had they _put_ in that hypo syringe?  Of course 
a renegade Lal'Nethri would have know about the air vent trick; it was one of 
the oldest ones in the book.  And to forget that smell.  The smell of diluted 
naphtha.
	As the flames approached, Saval began to run.

	She flicked back a strand of white hair, and put her ear against the 
door.  She would get in trouble for this, big time, but when was she going to 
get another chance for this kind of kick?
	"I'm telling you, Lex, Demona and Thailog are here, and they're 
trying to destroy humanity," said a voice.
	~Bright Land,~ she thought. ~Do I sound like _that?_~
	"What else is new?" came the words of the red gargoyle.
	~Rats!~ When she'd left the monitor room, they'd been at each 
other's throats!  Well, that was the young gargoyle talking, the one that the 
Magician had called 'Lexington.' She gathered that the little Nethri had 
enchanted him, so of course he'd be quick to jump to any conclusion that 
meant that she hadn't betrayed him.  She started to hold back a grin, then 
realized that no one could see her behind the door.  According the Magician, 
most Nethri didn't even know what they were doing.  That was probably why 
the Magician had been made outcast.
	"I still don't get it, though," said the other one, "If it wasn't you who 
showed up at the clocktower, then who was it?  ...You wouldn't happen to 
have a twin sister, would you?" asked the other one.
	"No," said that same annoying soprano, "my sister Lura looks a little 
like me, but it would be very hard to get the two of us confused."
	Suppressing a giggle, she twisted the knob on the door and stepped 
inside.
	"Ta da!" she shouted into the startled faces of the two gargoyles and 
the haggard-looking quasi-human.

	"Remember me?" one white haired girl taunted at another.
	"Jalapena, she's a clone!" Lex heard Brooklyn exclaim.
	"Clone nothing," said Mirael, "she looks like me!"
	The other rolled her blue eyes, "No kidding."
	"No, he means she's a replica grown from a tissue sample," he told 
her; "probably taken the last time we-"
	He cut off as the not-Mirael laughed out loud.  She stepped closer to 
the bars, just out of reach of any careless claws, and still several feet away 
from Mirael in the center of the cage, "You don't recognize me, do you?" she 
asked, "Am I really that good?"
	The weary blue eyes staring back at the clear ones grew even more 
perplexed.
	"Would you even remember me if I looked as I had when last I saw 
you?" she asked, getting angry. "Would you remember my name?  My sister's 
name?   My sister mangled and dead at your Order's hand?"
	"Lura?!" Mirael asked intently.
	"No, not Lura, you twit," the other Mirael sneered back in disgust.
	"Mirael, what's she talking about?" he asked.
	"I have no clue," she answered helplessly.
	"Then here!" shouted not-Mirael, "Let me give you one!" She began 
chanting under her breath in Archaic Nethri, and shafts of light broke away 
from the torches and the fixtures in the ceiling to dance around the girl.

	It made no sense.  None at all.  Why was Thailog just standing there?  
Why wasn't he angry anymore, as if he couldn't remember why he'd been 
angry in the first place.
	And why on this earth was that blond human so thrilled about those 
ventilation shafts?  ...assuming of course, that she was a human.  Anyone that 
could order Thailog around like that had to be fairly exceptional, and he was 
known to make very few exceptions.
	~ The sun will rise soon, ~ he realized, feeling a sickening sensation 
that didn't come from fresh burns or fading drugs. ~ A day will pass with 
Demona and this Magician here with Elisa- ~ he cut off.  If he was going to 
keep living, he had to keep his head clear.
	There seemed to be a recurrent sound in the walls.  No, in the air 
vents that the Magician had been so interested in.  Both he and Thailog 
turned, and Goliath wondered for a moment if their faces still looked alike.  
The Magician only stood and grinned openly, again coming tantalizingly close 
to evoking memory.
	The sound in the walls grew closer, louder, clearer, becoming the 
sound of the footfalls of a four-legged animal.
	"If you want to flush out a Nethri..." she began.
	Saval!  Saval had been in the street where the soldiers had attacked.  
Whatever was going on here, someone had been expecting her.
	There was a crash and the protesting whine of bending metal as the 
grate over the vent was ripped from its place by a body at first chocolate-
brown, but drawing shadows and changing as it fell.  The Magician stepped 
back, and a gray clad form landed at her feet.  Plain brown eyes jerked up to 
meet the green ones.  For an instant it seemed as if they would grow wide, but 
they hardened before the gesture could be completed.  Although Saval's face 
was impassive, Goliath suddenly realized where he had seen that smile before.  
He looked from one of there faces to the next.  It was there.  There in the arch 
of the jaw.  In the set, though not the color, of the eyes.
	"...use someone who knows her tricks," finished the Magician. "Hello 
little sister."
	Saval's voice was cold, lacking any of the humor or even sarcasm that 
it sometimes affected, "Hello Ralea."
	And then the sun rose, bringing other insane dreams. 

	Wrong.  Something was wrong.  Without knowing why, Elisa got to 
her feet.  She felt strange, tired yet alert.  Could this be an aftereffect of the 
mutation?  Something Thailog hadn't foreseen?
	...or maybe she wasn't such a great test subject after all, and all this 
was just her mind snapping.
	~ After a while, you wont even remember what it was like to be 
human. ~ Had Thailog been telling the truth or just his own deranged idea of 
wishful thinking?  The way he'd been looking at her when he'd said that...  
She shuddered.  And she'd actually felt sorry for him once..
	Wrong.  What was wrong?  As if it wasn't enough to be drugged and 
burned and held prisoner with a pair of maniacal people with fangs who were 
doing who knew what to her best freind, now there was this strange feeling in 
the pit of her stomach.  Something in the back of her mind told Elisa that she 
should know what this was, and if anything that frightened her even more.
	She'd been fatigued all night, but this was the first time that-
	Her breath froze in her lungs as first her skin, and then the rest of her 
went absolutely rigid.  Before she could realize what had happened, her 
consciousness fled the rising sun.

	Shards of light broke into ropes that streamed from the torches and 
dim flourescent lights above.  Even in her weariness, Mirael recognized this 
strain of magic from somewhere.  The torches guttered in thier holders as 
currents of air whipped about.  She had to look away from the brightness as 
the sound of chanting rose in pitch, expecting to see Lex and his brother doing 
the same, and almost cracked her head on Brooklyn's stone arm.
	"This form has served its purpose, and I no longer need it," said the 
mage, breaking the chant as the inflections twisted, changing tones until it was 
a new voice alltogether.  The wind and light died back, until the only sound 
was the cracking of the torches on the sides of the cage. "I never really liked 
looking like a Nethri anyway."
	Mirael flinched as everything fell together.  She turned her head, 
knowing full well who and what she would see.
	The shape that matched the voice was slight, a scant few inches 
shorter than Mirael herself.  A pair of bright voilet eyes glared back at her 
from beneath a short-cropped head of light brown hair.
	"Remember now?" the Kwa'Nili asked darkly. "Do you remember 
Clarity?"

	Ralea Kwa'Irrela, former Healer of the Void, who had been denied 
full entry to that Order that she might develop that Gift of Healing, and later 
denied contact with her apprentice, denied honor, denied even the very 
emptiness between the stars that she at once feared and longed for, as did all 
who knew the Void.
	As did her younger sister, Lal'Nethri Saval.  Saval had done the same 
as she, taken matters into her own hands, and what had become of her?  
Banned from Echo Summit, yes, but no more.  The Ekkasu's Voice Magician, 
would fade into a legend and then be gone forever, but the Voice Magician 
rose to her feet before Ralea now, unharmed, and sure in her actions, and the 
responses of her superiors.
	"Ralea," she said again.
	"Yes," she said simply, as impassive as her sister.  Ralea suddenly 
realized that in her voice was an echo of Saval's, or the other way round.  
Similarities that she had noticed before and yet _not_ noticed all flowed past.
	"Eon's Magician," Saval did not ask, she merely spoke.
	Again, the other Nethri answered, "Yes."
	"Ralea, you know what you have done here," said the dark-haired 
Nethri.  It was not a question.
	"I know."
	"Come back with me," she said, "I will speak for you to the Council."
	Ralea said nothing.
	The gray one's voice did not change, "You know that you will not 
escape us.  Come with me now."
	"Won't I?" she asked, showing emotion for the first time. "We are the 
only ones here, and if you try to call others, I will stop you."
	There was silence for a moment. "And now you will put on your most 
self-righteous expression, and ask me why?" Ralea's lip twisted. "Why I chose 
to do what I have always done?"
	"Not always," Saval protested indifferently. "You were someone we 
could trust once."
	"Trust to do the Council's bidding, you mean," she sneered, "and 
follow their notions of correct and incorrect."
	"You said all of this at your trial," Saval remembered. "Now is not 
the time to discuss it.  Come back with me."
	"No," said Ralea, as she silently activated the transmitter that she had 
hidden in the palm of her hand. "I'm going nowhere."
	"No argument there," Saval muttered under her breath.
	"I'm not going anywhere.  ...yet," said the Magician, breaking into 
their shared evil grin, "and neither are you."
	Saval knew when to take a hint.  Ralea'd give her that. She darted 
back towards the ventilation shaft and received a sidekick in the ribs from her 
older sister as five goons -all armed with flamethrowers- stormed into the 
room.
	"Not a move," the Magician coldly ordered the Lal'Nethri. "I trust 
you'll come along quietly."

	Even encased in metal, Saval knew the fire that the soldiers carried.  
Whether it was because she recognized the weapons as flamethrowers or by 
some subconscious aversion to pilot lights, she knew that now was not the time 
to act up.
	But if not now, when?  Ralea by some inconceivable stroke of who 
knew what was using fire to further her own purposes.  She would have used it 
to keep Mirael in line.
	Now there was one comfort.  If Mirael had been captured by Demona 
and Thailog alone, then she would be dead now, but this was Healer Ralea, a 
Nethri so close to the Order as to have been almost one of the brethren, and 
Mirael was a Child of the Order.
	...yet Ralea was also the Magician who had organized the raids on 
Ekkasu, and helped the Kwa'Nili to leave the homeworld, and who knew what 
else.
	They passed through hallways that Saval recognized from her floor 
plan.  If her fatigue-clouded brain was working correctly, then they were 
headed to another of the specimen chambers.  She suppressed the urge to grin.  
Such rooms would be the only places to hold a gargoyle, a Lal'Nethri or a 
pack of stampede-prone rhinos brandishing chainsaws.  It was almost a 
compliment.
	"I'd been planning to have a private chamber available for you," 
Ralea said satirically, "but there was a lack of space in the building."
	"I've got a roomie?" Saval asked, just as sardonically.  Mirael?  
Perhaps.  It all depended on what she was planning, and how many different 
places she could hold a fully trained Lal'Nethri.
	Ralea motioned for one of the goons to open the door. "I'm afraid so."
	~Beloved's Eyes, Life, and Calling, say something that tells me what 
happened to my Apprentice, you crazed excuse for one of us!~
	~Really?  I was so hoping to confer with her on which one of us gets 
to rip your head off first.  ...That, of course, being _after_ I drag you before 
the Council for sentencing with casts on both legs, if I'm in a good mood ~
	"Oh?" Saval inquired.
	"I'm afraid she won't be much use until sunset, though," the shadow 
saw her own wicked grin stretching across her sister's face.
	Sunset?  A gargoyle?  Probably, considering who owned this building.  
But a she...  There was Angela, Goliath's daughter, but-
	The lead goon turned the knob and gestured for the rest of them to 
enter what seemed to be a large labroom, complete with computers, 
blackboards and rows of cages of various sizes.  There was a gray figure 
standing motionless in one of the larger cells.
	~ By the Land, Detective Elisa?  ...I should have seen this one 
coming. ~
	Ralea cleared her throat as one of the soldiers worked at the locking 
mechanism to another cell, and spoke in Archaic Nethri instead of English, 
"As you can see, I haven't actually been on the up and up with the Fallen 
Angel."
	~ So you _are_ working with Demona.  I'd doubted that, even after I 
saw Thailog. ~
	Saval thought for a moment before answering in the same tongue.  
Would it do any real good for the soldiers to hear their conversation? "Demona 
would never stand for this," Saval agreed neutrally, masking her amazement.  
This certainly explained what the mutogenic formula was for, but why?
	"True," admitted the grass eyed Nethri, "I'm taking great pains to see 
that she doesn't find out."
	"Why don't you just dice away at her mind like you were doing with 
Thailog?" she lanced.
	"Find it distasteful, do you?" she asked pointedly.  She made a sharp 
gesture with one hand, and one of the soldiers swung the butt of her 
flamethrower into Saval's stomach, knocking her into the holding cell.  The 
dark haired Nethri recovered in time to hear the door clang shut, and her 
sister's mocking voice. "What do you think _you've_ been doing?" she asked. 
"Nethri control people.  It's part of what we are.  I'm just the most direct at 
it."
	"You've lost it," she managed.
	"Oh?" Ralea was beginning to show signs of anger, "what about those 
tricks they taught you to keep people from noticing your presence?" She 
laughed bitterly, "You taught them to Puck, didn't you?  Enumide told me of 
her encounter with him, and I don't doubt that you were the one.  What would 
the Council say?  I was Interdicted for teaching without leave."
	"You were Interdicted for defying your orders."
	"And what about the last time you met Demona?  What about all the 
things you said to her?  What about all the things she told you without 
knowing why she kept opening her mouth?  Why do you think you kept 
getting people to talk to you?  It's certainly not your warm and open 
personality."
	Saval glared up at Ralea, not letting anything show.  Especially not 
that some of what she was saying actually made sense.  The people at Ekkasu 
had even named Saval 'Aomeji,' or 'Voice Magician.' She realized with a 
surge of adrenaline that if Ralea was right about any abilities she might have, 
then she probably hadn't wanted to tell her about all this.
	"Your name means 'Cold Truth,' and that is what you give people to 
make them angry.  To make them exploitable.  And what about Mirael?" 
Ralea asked.
	Her mind exploded at the mention of her apprentice's name.  Alive or 
dead?  Did Ralea even know?
	"What about her?"
	"Why do you think Lexington came here so easily when he thought 
she was in danger?  Why do you think he worships her like he does when he 
only knew her for a few hours?"
	~ How did you know about him? ~ Saval wondered, ~ For that matter, 
how did you know about Angela?  My conversations with Demona were in my 
report, but not Angela. ~
	"She saved his life."
	"Perhaps," Ralea allowed.  She turned to two of the guards. "Seal 
your helmets," she said in English, "Don't let her talk to you.  It may be a few 
hours before we can get some torches in here, so keep the weapons on her.  
Don't let her so much as breathe out of pace unless you cannot stop Ms. 
Destine from coming in."
	She turned to Saval, "If she does come and they can't stop her, make 
her tell you about her childhood or something.  You might as well make 
yourself useful."

	"Hello Clara."
	Was _that_ all she could say?  All this effort and all she got was 
'Hello Clara.' What gave her the right to call her 'Clara' anyway?  They'd 
only met once, on the terraformed Nethri homeworld.  Clara had decided that 
it was boring, and had gone back to Lennlai, the Kwa'Nili realm.
	The Nethri did not look very good, Clara noted with relish.  In fact 
she looked very not-good.  There were burns up and down her arms from when 
she'd been captured.  For some strange reason, the Nethri did not like fire.  
Clara could understand that; third degree burns were not exactly up there on 
her list of fun things to do, but the Shadow people took pyrophobia to the level 
of large-scale cultural idiosyncrasy.  The Magician had mentioned something 
about the torches keeping her from using the Craft to escape, and Clara was 
going to take her word for it.  It had worked so far.  The work they'd been 
doing on Ekkasu had fallen to pieces, but that had been Eon's fault for 
sparking all those cave ins.
	Eon was dead now.  So was Cassie.  Eon had died when he'd lost his 
Anchor.  He'd been trying to get rid of Saval at that time, so there was little 
doubt of who was responsible for that.  Clara had never really liked Eon 
anyway.  He was obnoxious, and had no idea of how to keep a prisoner.
	Clara had liked Cassie, however, and she had died while under Nethri 
interrogation.  Eon's rather messy fate might not have been Saval's fault.  
Clara was willing to admit that, but Cascade's had been slower, and just as 
messy, and while the Shadow People rarely wished to see their prisoners 
perish before the full brainload could be wrung out and cut into bite sized 
pieces, there was no way that this had been an accident.
	Someone was going to pay for it.  Clarity might have preferred one of 
the actual Lal'Nethri trainees that had racked her sister to death, but this one 
would do.  Unless, of course...
	Clarity smiled at the idea.  This was going to be _fun._
	"I'll be right back," she said cheerfully before turning to run out the 
door.

	The Magician poured over the statistics on the screen.  As a Healer 
working with the Order, most of her work had occasionally involved afflictions 
with engineered viruses, but she had to hand it to Enumide and Kwa'Aga.  
They certainly knew their plagues.  She hadn't needed to enhance their 
destructive desires at all, not like those absurdly docile Mountain folk on 
Ekkasu.
	Which wasn't to say that she hadn't had a hand in anything.  O few 
of the diseases and immunity crippling drugs had been some of her best work.  
NR-107, to name just one of them.  She felt a satisfied grin grace her features.  
That little neuro stimulant had so much potential, especially the short-lived 
earlier versions.  They didn't last long enough to cause any real damage, yet 
kept the subject awake.  The Magician was quite curious to see how a gargoyle 
would react to such a drug.
	But that was for later.  Behind the numbers, her mind flitted back to 
the problem at hand, or rather, the problem that had been at hand for quite 
some time now.  Most Nethri didn't even like to think that the Craft of their 
ancestors was a form of Magic, be it though it was quite different from that of 
the Kwa'Nili.  The Craft taught by the Order was a very mild form of thought 
control, suppress an idea here, hook two dreams together there...  In her 
travels thought the Void, Ralea had noticed that it was often surprisingly easy 
to convince the peoples of other realities of what she wanted or needed them to 
believe, if she only latched onto their thoughts and _pushed._
	Her title 'Magician' could be considered a trifle inaccurate...  Ralea 
had once thought it insulting to be called a 'witch.' Perhaps the term was more 
accurate than she'd realized.  A mind witch.
	And that had been only the beginning.  The Order might have a few 
tricks for clouding thoughts, but few of the Lal'Nethri could actually read or 
truly control minds.  ...few that Ralea had noticed, that is.  Saval a