Road Trip To Hell

End of the Road

Cover: Three vertically arranged images: 1) Jason Brooks' bloody body strapped to an alter, with a blade protruding from his chest. 2) Ashley falling off of a high balcony into an ancient pool... with tentacles rising up out of the water toward her. 3) Sebastian barely hanging on to the back of a huge white dragon, clinging only to the hilt of his sword that is protruding from the dragon's hide.

oyce's unmarked car rolled almost silently down the alleyway.   The engine was running, but Royce's foot was resting on the brake, slowing the car to an idle coast.    Beside him, Detective Truett eyed the graffitti-tagged walls, studying them as if there were going to be a test afterward.    Ahead of them, the alley spilled out into the fenced courtyard of an old tenement.

"Where are we going?"   Truett said suddenly, turning toward Royce.

"What, are you blind now?"   Royce pointed at the ancient, rotting building ahead of them.    Clotheslines crisscrossed the fire escapes like the silken threads of some enormous spider.    "That's where we're going."

"Why?"  said the junior detective.

"A hunch."

"What CASE are we even working on?"

"All of 'em,"  Royce said after a pause.

"Look,"  Truett sighed.  "I-"

"No, YOU look,"  said Royce.   He brought the car to a halt at the mouth of the alley.    Again, he pointed.  "What's wrong here?"

"Hm?"   Truett looked around.  The slight curl to his lips was an eager smile.    Royce could almost see the junior detective's brain cranking within the confines of that narrow, fragile skull.   The smile turned into a frown.  The young detective's brow bunched up in an over-done furrow.

"Not what you see... its what you DON'T see,"  said Royce.   "No junkies.   No drug dealers.   No prostitutes.   Not a damn thing. "

Royce was right.   The courtyard was empty.

"Its still early,"  said Truett.  "Not even dark yet-"

"In THIS neighborhood they don't wait until dark.   This place is open 24-hours a day, seven days a week.    The second we pulled up, there shoulda been pushers and gangbangers scattering like cockroaches.    You see anything scattering around here?"

"No,"   said Truett.   "What's happened?"

"That's what we're here to find out."

Royce pulled into the courtyard.   Crack pipes and beer bottles crackled under his tires as he drove from one end of the yard to the other, passing in full view of the tenement's windows.    A few faces peeked out at him.   Some jerked back into the shadows immediately.   Others stared... following their car with their shallow, emotionless eyes.

"Not even any kids playing..."   Truett remarked.

"Kids don't 'play' here,"   Royce corrected him.

"Should we call for backup?"  Truett reached for the radio.  Royce grabbed the detective's hand and shoved it away.

"No,"  he snapped.

Truett rubbed his wrist where Royce had touched him.  There was already a bruise forming.

"...ouch..."  he said.

Royce pulled the car into a barely-marked parking space at the corner of the lot.    He didn't get out immediately... he just sat and watched the building.   His eyes traveled up and down its decaying walls, occasionally pausing in certain places... as if he could see something beyond the stone.

"What?"  said Truett

"Going in,"  Royce replied.   He opened his door and got out.   "Stay here."

"Hey wait a minute!"   Truett protested a he hopped out.  "Where are you going?  What are you looking for!?"

"If it concerned you, you'd already know."

"But we're partners!"

"No.  We aren't.  DOBBS is my partner."

"Look, I know you're still pissed about Dobbs, but I'm your partner now and you gotta clue me in on this... whatever it is."

"Clue you in?"

"Yeah!"

"That's the problem with you monkeys.... always wanna be 'clued in'... always wanna know what you're missing-"

"I resent being called a 'monkey!"

"What... you think God pissed in the dirt, stirred it with his finger and made a man?  HA!  Didn't happen that way; trust me."

"Royce, what the HELL are you talking about!?"

"Nuthin.   You stay here."

Royce walked away.   He heard Truett take a few steps after him... then heard the young detective turn around and go back to the car.

"Good boy,"   Royce whispered.

Royce made his way down the side of the building and around to the back.    He felt several pairs of eyes on him as he passed beneath the windows.  He ignored them...  they were no threat to him.     Something here MIGHT be... but not them.

At this time of day, building's rear entrance should have been a parade of drunks, dealers and gang-members.   But Royce didn't find a soul when he arrived.    The old metal door was closed tight, and the stench of urine around it was several days old.

Royce opened the door.

It was locked... but a gentle tug shattered the rusty mechanism and snapped one of the hinges.     Royce stepped into a short, dark hallway ending at a stairwell.   The steps went up into the heights of the tenement.... and down into the building's dark bowels.    Royce went down.

"Nice place you've found here, doctor,"  said Royce as he descended.   His voice grew louder and deeper with each word, as if transforming to match the filthy surroundings.   Royce reached the bottom of the stairs.   Another short hallway... two doors to the left, one to the right.     Royce frowned at the doors, then went left.

"You probably think I'm being sarcastic... but no.  I enjoy seeing humans in their true, natural state."  Royce stopped at the second door.   It, too, was locked.   It didn't remain so for long.   "Sorta like goin' to the zoo."

It was a storage room.   At least, that was the intent.  Anything stored there had been looted years ago, so now it was an enclosed trash heap.   Stacks of rotting, empty boxes lined the walls,  wedged between the rolled-up carpets and old, stained mattresses.   An old washing machine sat in a corner like the corpse of some mechanical gremlin.... cords and hoses hung like entrails from its rear... the rat-eaten remains of some inept handiman's attempt at restoration.

Royce paused in the doorway.  There was a light switch on the wall beside him.   He ignored it.

"Did you think you could hide from me here, doc?"   he announced to the room.   "Here... of ALL places, you thought we wouldn't notice you HERE?   We own this place, doc.   Hell owns this place...  this whole TOWN, in fact.   And we don't like trespassers."

Royce took one step into the room.   Then another.  He slowly scanned the shadows as he walked.   His eyes flickered with sparks of some indescribable color.

"Now, if I remember correctly, we had a DEAL..."

Royce frowned.    HE stopped, took a few steps back, and stared at a pile of boxes for a moment.   Then he continued walking.

"YOU get a shot at the girl, then you get outta town.  Well, you HAD your shot and you screwed it up..."

Royce stopped again.   His frown turned into a broad smile as he eyed another pile of boxes.   The skin of his face twisted around his smile like water rebounding from a boat's bow.   Small shapes began crawling around his eye sockets... crawling BENEATH the thickening skin.

Royce shrugged several times... as if loosening up for a fight.  His ribs, shoulders, and upper back crackled noisily.

"...problem is,"  said Royce as he started toward the boxes.  "You're still here.  In fact, seems to me like you're up to a whole new game.   A game that you don't need to be playin.'   Not here.  Not in our town."

Royce stood before the boxes.

"Well, doc, its time for me to revoke your license.  Permanently-"

With a slash of his hand, Royce sent the boxes flying across the room, uncovering the small shape hiding beneath them.

It was a boy.

"Wha-?"    Royce jerked back in shock.   "What are YOU doing in-"

ruett crept around the side of the building, his back pressed to the wall and his gun drawn.   He'd left the car as soon as Royce was out of sight.  Whatever was going on, Royce didn't want him to know about it... which meant that he NEEDED to know about it.

He'd heard Royce enter the building, and then he'd heard voices a few seconds later.    Was Royce meeting somebody?    Who?

Truett rounded the corner and approached the rear door.  There were no guards, and no one was watching him from the upper windows.   Still, Truett began to regret not calling for backup.   But what would he call backup FOR!?    He paused to listen.   Sounds echoed out of the open door, which was still a few yards away.   Footsteps.  Voices?   No, not voices... but something close...

Then the sounds stopped.

Truett froze... waiting for indication of what he should do.    Royce had gone in.   Should he follow?  Or wait?    The rookie detective decided to follow.    He pressed is back hard against the brick wall and slid toward the door when there a sudden explosion of sound from below.  Something was coming up the stairs... FAST!

Truett leapt in front of the door and-

-and nearly collided with Royce as his partner came staggering out of the darkness.

At first, Truett didn't recognize him.   Royce didn't look like Royce... he didn't look human at all.

Royce looked like something that had been spat out the back end of a wood chipper.

His face and neck were completely shredded.   Not slashed or lacerated... SHREDDED.   Long flaps of bloody skin hung off of his skull like tiny banners.    His shirt was gone.  So was his abdomen.     Royce's hands clutched the jagged wound that was his stomach, frantically holding in what remained of his organs as he stumbled and fell at Truett's feet.

"...gah..."

"ROYCE!"   Truett knelt down, but he was at a complete loss for what do to next.   "ROYCE!?  What happened!?"

"....goddamn.... monkey boy..."   The words leaked out of Royce's torn mouth.   "...kid... snuck up on me..."    Royce followed with a string of obscenities, punctuated by a sudden convulsion that sent spurts of blood spurting out of the torn arteries in his neck.    Royce was dead.    Truett didn't know how Royce had made it up the stairs, but Royce was most certainly a dead man who'd mind hadn't quite accepted the fact yet.

"You'll be okay,"  Truett lied.  "I'll call for backup!   Stay right here!"

"...watch out for..."   Royce started to say.   But Truett was already gone.   The rookie raced around the side of the building and tore across the lot to the unmarked car.   He yanked the door open and grabbed the radio.

"TRUETT TO DISPATCH!"  He shouted.   "OFFICER DOWN!  We got trouble at..."

Truett had no idea where they were.

"...uhh,"   he turned around to look at the building-

-and that's when he saw the old man standing behind him.

"HEY!"   he shouted, raising his gun by reflex.   Of course, the old man was standing much too close.  He reached out and grabbed Truett's wrist.   Truett felt all the strength drain out of his arm.

"Now, now, there's no need for violence."   The old man spoke with a deep, almost archaic southern accent.    Truett tried to jerk his hand out of the man's grasp, but the weakness had spread to his entire body now.

"What are you-"

Doing.    Truett was going to say 'what are you doing'... but before the last word reached his throat, the old man's other hand clamped down around his mouth.    There was an odd sensation in his muscles... a fluttering...  and when the man took his hand away, Truett didn't HAVE a mouth any more.

The skin and muscles had been reshaped, erasing the mouth from Truett's face like words from a page.

"MMMMM!!!"   Truett tried to scream.   The gun and the radio fell from his hands.   He clawed at the smooth, featureless space between his nose and his chin.   He could feel the skin... but he couldn't fell his mouth, or any indication that there had ever BEEN one!  "MMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!"

"I must apologize for the discomfort,"  said Dr. Braxis.  "But I've worked so hard to make this a quiet neighborhood... I wouldn't want you to disturb it."

"MMMMMM!!"

"Ohhh, you're frightened,"  said the doctor.   He reached out to stroke Truett's face.   Truett tried to pull away, but the doctor...

..his fingers...

Dr. Braxis's hand sank into Truett's skull with all the ease of a man sticking his hand into a pocket.  There was no blood or pain, but suddenly Truett had no control over his body.   There was an odd numbness, followed by terror as he started walking.

"...come along.  We can't work out here..."  said Dr. Braxis.  "It might upset the neighbors."    With his hand still wrist-deep in the detective's skull, Braxis marched Truett toward the front door of the building.   Truett's legs moved on their own, against his will, like the limbs of a puppet.  A silent flesh-puppet who, instead of  strings, had five fingers tugging at the motor-control centers of his brain.

And he couldn't even scream.

ows of boxes became a featureless blur as he ran, legs pumping like pistons.

He was in a building full of demons... in a warehouse... with a fire-breathing dragon behind him.

Not good.

Sebastian felt the flames at his back as he reached the car.    He bounded over it... with only the fingers of one hand touching the hood... and ducked down, and the jet of flames roared over head.   The wave of heat and fire struck so hard that it nearly turned the car over on top of him.   But even though it didn't, Sebastian knew his shelter was only temporary.    The car's heat-resistant shell wouldn't last long, and LAST place he needed to be when it failed was kneeling behind it.

He snatched open the passenger's side door and ducked inside.

By the time the first blast of dragon's first died, the Mitsubishi 3000's engine was roaring.   Performance tires squealed as they sought purchase on the concrete floor.   They gripped, and the sportscar tore across the warehouse like a rocket.

And through the windshield, the white dragon loomed larger.    The car was headed right for it.

"HAHAHAHAAAAA!!"   the reptile roared in a voice like an explosion.   Tiny tendrils of flame leapt from is nostrils at each chuckle.  "And what is THIS?   A JOUST!?!"

The dragon reared up onto its hind legs... its long neck forming an 'S' as is head brushed the top of the warehouse.    There was a gurgling, rushing sound deep in its chest... and then the neck straightened as the dragon belched out another jet of flame.

Sebastian didn't even blink.    He stared the flames in the face as they hit the car head on... completely engulfing the vehicle.   It was like driving into a hurricane.    The front tires exploded.    The insulated gas tank did not.   Yet.

There were several loud POPS as windshield began to crack.    Sebastian could see nothing but flames on the other side of the glass.   If it shattered, he'd be incinerated in his seat.

It didn't matter.   It never mattered.

White had been right all along.   Sebastian didn't have enough of a soul to care whether he lived or died.   And that's what made him so good.

So instead of flinching or screaming or leaning down to the side in case the glass broke, Sebastian gripped the wheel tighter and fought to keep the car on a straight path... right into the oncoming jet of flames.    The car fought back against the torrent of flame that attempted to push it off course.     The loss of two tires slowed the car down, but the powerful engine pushed it forward.

More cracks riddled the windshield, and the broiling interior was beginning to fill with smoke.

The dragon's lungs emptied.     The car burst through the fading flames, is exterior still smouldering from the heat.    Tendrils of smoke and sparks trailed behind it like rocket exhaust as it shot toward the dragon.    Sebastian had the accelerator to the floor.   The overheated engine was red-lining, but Sebastian paid it no attention.  One more blast would finish him AND the car...

...but there wasn't going to be another blast.   He was already too close for fire.

The dragon's clawed fist came down toward the speeding car.   Sebastian veered left at the last instant, and felt the car bounce as the dragon shattered the concrete not three yards away.  The giant reptile's body twitched.   Sebastian couldn't SEE the tail, but he knew it was coming.  He pulled hard on the steering wheel.   The car spun... a rear tire blew out.   The reinforced rims threw out showers of sparks as they scraped the concrete-

BOOOOOMM!!

The entire WAREHOUSE bounced as the beast's tail hit the floor in front of the car.   The car was still spinning.   Sebastian's foot was off of the accelerator, but as soon as the way before his was clear, he floored it.  The car shot down along the dragon's body.   The beast's white, scaly head was down low... neck snaking toward him like a python.   The jaws parted.  Sebastian veered right.

The dragon's hand came from nowhere.

Sebastian never felt the impact.

He didn't feel it because he wasn't IN the car.   He'd snatched his pack of weapons from the floorboard, jabbed a button in the glove compartment, and then launched himself out of the car an instant before the dragon's claws closed around the charred front-end.

"...ngh!"   Sebastian stifled a grunt as he landed.   He rolled-

CRASH!

The dragon snatched up the car ruined car, crushing it in its mighty claws.   It picked the car up and peered through the windows, trying to catch a glimpse of Sebastian.    He saw the empty driver's seat just as the self-destruct timer reached 'ZERO'.

"en-thousand,"  said Myrden.

Jason Brooks lay spread-eagle atop the stone table and watched Mr. Payne strut before the assembly of buyers.   The smoky, discolored images of four men and a woman... IF they could still be called by those human terms... hovered above the candles like an infernal version of a hologram.  They had all watched soundlessly as Payne had reached into Jason's soul and cut out a piece of it.... the piece that was his connection to Donovan Wilde.   Now, Jason's mentor and Guide was being auctioned off to the highest bidder.... a mere precursor of what was to come.   Payne still held the crystal globe in his hand.   The globe glowed with the eerie white light of its contents:   Donovan Wilde's soul.

"Ten thousand?"  Jerska said dryly.   The androgynous buyer frowned at Mr. Payne.  "The previous bid was only twenty-five hundred!  He's joking."

"I do not joke,"  replied the white-haired Russian.  "Nor do I waste time.   Either you have the resources to continue bidding, or this item is mine.   Which is it?"

"Oh COME now,"  Jerska whined.  "Of what good could that soul be to YOU!?"

"That is my concern, and my concern alone."

"He's driving up the price!"  said Jerska. "Payne's probably paying him off to drive up the-"

"This has taken long enough,"  Boyd snapped.  "I have no interest in that soul... I want the Affinity.   I want it now."

"Ahh, but that item is not yet up for bid,"  Payne gleamed.

"Fifteen T'housand,"  said Tebish, the African.  "For de soul of de Knight."

"Now THERE'S a man who knows value,"  said Payne.    Myrden glanced coldly at the African, then turned to Payne.

"Twenty Thousand,"  Myrden announced.

"Twenty FIVE!"  Herrigan cackled, earning herself a deeply hateful glance from both Jerska AND Tebish.

"Ohh, this is wonderful..."   Payne beamed.

For perhaps the hundredth time, Jason Brooks strained at the straps that were holding him.   For the hundredth time, they failed to budge.   Jason didn't know what it was within him that EXPECTED them to snap... that had somehow convinced him that he could break them with the shear power of his muscles... but whatever it was, it was sorely  mistaken.    All he'd managed to break was his own skin.   His bloody wrists sent jolts of pain down his arms with every movement.

He tried again.

"...Donovan..." he grunted, as if the name were some incantation that could give him the strength he needed.   The leather straps twisted, but held firm.   Blood streamed down Jason's forearms...

"That soul has much power... I will have it!"  Herrigan spat at her fellow bidders.

"Oh, it has much more than power,"   Payne addressed his entire 'audience,' not just the witch.  "Donovan Wilde had a very LONG career as a Knight!  Imagine what secrets he's managed to collect over the years!   The locations of certain divine treasures, for example...."  Payne smiled at Myrden.  "Or the secret of unlocking certain imprisoned deities,"   Payne nodded at Tebish.  "And perhaps even-"

"Get on with the DAMNED AUCTION!"   Boyd growled.

"T'irty-Five T'ousand,"

"THIRTY FIVE!?!" Jerska gasped in disbelief.

"Fifty,"  Myrden said calmly.

Jerska groaned in disgust.

"Sixty!"  Herrigan hissed.

"Two hundred t'ousand,"  said Tebish.

"Dear GOD!"  Jerska gasped.

"Now, now, that's enough of that kind of talk,"  said Payne.   "Is anyone going to match Mr. Tebish's bid?  Hmmm?"

Silence was the only reply.

"The soul of Donovan Wilde... SOLD to Tebish for two hundred thousand!"

"Finally,"  Boyd added.

"What's HE doing to do with it!?"  said Jerska.  "EAT it!?"

"You will have your payment by dawn,"  said Tebish.

"Then you won't mind if I hang on to the property until then, hmmm?"   Payne placed the glowing globe back on the table, and covered it with a small cloth.

"I can give you a hundred-thousand IMMEDIATELY!"  said Herrigan.  "You won't have to wait!   You can have payment RIGHT NOW if you'll let me take possession of the soul!"

"But that's not how I do business."

"What is the next item?"   asked Myrden.

"It had BETTER be the Affinity,"  Boyd added.

"Affinity, Affinity!  Who cares about GUNS!"   said Jerska

"Spoken like a true European,"  said Boyd.

"Was that an insult?!"

"Yes.  Now shut your HOLE and lets get on with this!"

"Yes, please do,"  said Myrden.

"Very well,"  Payne agreed.  He retrieved the ceremonial knife from the table and stood over Jason.... smiling.   "Let's reach into Mr. Brooks' soul and see what we can pull out next..."

"You're all crazy,"  said Jason.

"Oh, look!  He's going to tell us that we're not going to get away with this!"   Jerska taunted.

"You aren't,"  said Jason.  "I bet Sebastian is on his way here right now and he's bringing a whole WORLD of ass-kicking with him.   And then, when I get off of this table, I'm gonna-"

"Yes, I'm sure you are,"   Payne dismissed Jason's words with a chuckle.   The silver knife came down and touched Jason's chest.

Jason grunted as the blade bit into him... not his body, but his SOUL... and began to make an incision.   The PAIN!

"NNNNRRRGH!"

...he wasn't going to scream this time...

...he wasn't going to scream this time...

..he wasn't going to-

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

The entire chamber shuddered.   It wasn't enough to bring the walls down or to shatter the table and release Jason... but enough to give Payne pause.  He yanked the blade out of Jason's chest and turned to the bidders.

"What have you done!"  he snapped... eyes flashing between Myrden and Herrigan.

"Why do you look at ME?!"  said the witch.

"I have made no move against you,"  Myrden answered... though he didn't seem surprised or offended that Payne had asked.  In fact, the word 'YET' seemed to be an understood but unspoken addendum to the end of the sentence.

"Then what WAS that!?"

"Perhaps you do not have things as controlled as you say, Payne."

"I assure you, there is NO problem here,"  Payne snapped.  "The auction will go on.   Mr. Pitt..."   Payne addressed the golem that had been a silent witness to the proceedings thus far.  "Find the source of that disturbance and deal with it."

The golem made no acknowledgement of Payne's orders, except to turn away and vanish into the darkness at the edge of the chamber.

Meanwhile, Jason Brooks... still strapped to the sacrificial table... burst out laughing.

half-tank of high-grade gasoline.

Two small crates of ammunition.

A box of black powder.

Four hand grenades.

And a dozen sticks of dynamite.

The explosion was, to say the least, spectacular.   Sebastian's car became a ball of fire and flying shrapnel that completely engulfed the dragon's head.  The shockwave demolished the tops of the nearby shelves,  blasted a hole in the roof, and sent out a billowing cloud of smoke and flame that put the dragon's breath to shame.

The explosion threw the top of the dragon's body backward, knocking it off balance.  Scaly arms flew out to either side, tearing down the metal shelves as the beast fell.    It hit with the sound of shattering concrete and twisting metal... a sound that continued as several of damages shelves pulled free of their floor-anchors and collapsed on top of the dragon.   The contents of the boxes... demon bones and ashes... joined the cloud of smoke, completely obscuring the center of the warehouse, where the mighty dragon had once stood.

Sebastian crouched in a corner, rubbing his shoulder as he tried to see through the smoke.   The dragon was down, but he couldn't see how much damage he'd managed to do.

Suddenly, an inhuman roar of pain and rage rattled the warehouse walls.

Obviously, not ENOUGH damage.

The dragon shrugged off the pile of debris and slowly rose.    Sebastian could see its massive shape moving within the cloud.     One half of the beast's face was charred black.   A large patch of scales had literally been blasted off of its face and neck, and the skin underneath had been broiled and/or shredded in the explosion.  Blood poured down from its jaw, where the Mitsubishi's drive-shaft protruded from its flesh like a medieval dental implement.   One of its eyes was now a scorched empty socket.

The dragon roared again.

"ARROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!"

Its tail slashed violently behind it, tearing down still more of the shelves as it spread its wings and aimed its snout skyward.   The beast spat out a plume of flame that brought half of the roof down into the warehouse.

"Oh, no you don't..."  Sebastian grunted as he sprang from his hiding place.   He threw his pack over one shoulder and tore across the warehouse, dodging pieces of the collapsing building as the dragon's wings began to stir up a whirlwind inside it.    The beast crouched down... leg muscles bulging... and then it leapt up through the hole it had created...

...just as Sebastian leapt across the remaining distance between himself and the dragon's foot.   Sebastian grabbed onto the scales just in time to be snatched upward through the roof.

He began climbing immediately.    The scales were rough.  Rigid.   Sharp.   They cut his clothes... and hands... as he grasped them, but he ignored the pain and kept going.  Above him, the dragon's wings beat in powerful downward strokes, creating gusts of wind that carried him AND the beast higher and higher into...

...the sky?

Sebastian noticed the sky for the first time.

It was orange, with long strands of greenish-blue clouds leading into a horizon that seemed too close.

Below him was a desolate rust-colored landscape... an alien desert, with no sign of the warehouse from which they'd emerged.   There was only a jagged crack in a shelf of rock fading rapidly below them.

he explosion stopped Ashley in her tracks.

She'd been trying to find Brooks.   Her mental scan had located Payne... and a few other odd mental traces...  but actually GETTING to that location took a bit more work than she had planned.    It seemed that there simply WAS no simple way to get where Jason was.   She'd been pacing up and down the same stretch of hallway for several minutes, trying every door that didn't have "TRAP" written on it in letters that her instincts could pick up a mile away.

That didn't leave a whole lot of doors to try.

She had discovered that the 'building' was just a hallway that curved around and met itself, creating a circle with doors leading off of both sides.   SOME of the doors actually went somewhere... several of them actually went to the SAME place.  But NONE of them seemed to go to the central area where she'd detected Payne.

Ashley was not handling the frustration well.    Every second that passed just increased the possibility that Jason was dead.    And there was no way she would know for sure because his mind was closed to hers.

"...Dammit..."  she said.  "Just gimme a CLUE-"

The building shook.    It was an explosion...  close by and VERY large.   The floor shook, and the doors rattled in their frames.

And then it was over.

Ashley waited... expecting some aftershock from or reaction to the blast... but for a long while, there was nothing.

Then she heard a roar... the unmistakable sound of something large, ugly, and very pissed off.   The sound echoed down the empty hallway like a fireball.  For several seconds Ashley was torn between the urges to remain absolutely still and to run screaming down the corridor.

She decided not to move.

As it turns out, that was the wrong decision.

Not somewhere down the hallway... not behind one of the strange doors... not even a short distance away... but IMMEDIATELY next to her, a large door appeared in the formerly solid wall.    Its appearance was silent, and even though it was only two feet away, the first sign she got of its existence was when it opened... and Mr. Pitt stepped out into the hall.

"Wha-"  Ashley turned quickly and saw the golem.   THEN she ran.

The golem didn't follow.   It went the other way instead.

Ashley heard a door slam behind her... and then saw another door open a few yards in front of her.   A figure stepped out...

Mr. Pitt.

"What!?  TWO of 'em!?"

Ashley looked behind her, but there was no sign of the first golem.    So she went back that way.

-SLAM!-

A door closed behind her.

-CLICK-

Another door opened in front.   Mr. Pitt walked out and started toward her.

So she turned around and ran the way she'd gone the first time.

-SLAM!-
-CLICK-

Mr. Pitt stepped out in front of her, both arms reaching out-

"YAAA!"

Ashley ducked under the deadly embrace and dashed around the golem... barely getting away.   She reached for the door that Pitt had just come out of.   She opened it and ran through, expecting to come out further down the same hallway she'd just left.

She was in a hallway, but it wasn't the same one.    There were three doors...one to the right, one to the left, and the one behind her that she'd just come through.    Ashley sprinted down the hall as the door behind her flew open and Mr.  Pitt lumbered in after her.    When she reached the other door, she snatched open the one on the left and darted in... realizing instantly that she should have taken the door on the right...

"ou assured us that the prisoners were contained, Payne,"  said Myrden.  "I did not expend my time and energy to bid on items that are going to escape before I claim them."

"Nor did I,"   Herrigan added with a frown.   Her milky eyes fixed on Payne.

"There is no escape, and nothing to worry about," said Payne.   "All bidded items WILL be delivered as promised."

"Then lets get on with it,"  said Boyd.

Payne nodded.   His smile still hadn't returned to its normal sardonic width, but he still grinned as he took up the knife and, without ceremony, plunged it into Jason's chest.

"ARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGH!!!"

Payne's blade left a burning bright slash along Jason's torso.   There was no blood, but bright light poured out of the wound as Payne reached into Jason's soul.

"NNNNNN!!"  The straps bit into Jason's wrists as he tried to pull free.  But even with the strength of desperation, his muscles were no match for the restraints.

"Let's see what we have here..."  Payne mused to himself as he worked.   "Ahh, yes!  There it is!"

Jason felt the knife move... followed by sensation like a giant, rusty fish-hook being run through his chest and then yanked back out again.

He couldn't even scream as his whole world exploded in pain.    A bright light drilled into his eyes, drowning out everything but the everlasting flash of agony...

...and the sound of a gun going off in his hand as he shot his brother... again...

Jason found his breath, and he screamed:

"NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!"

"Hmmmm,"  said Payne.  "That wasn't what I thought it was.  So sorry... I'll just have to try again..."

"ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGH!"

Jason's body twisted back and forth on the table as the knife went deeper...

onovan's lectures about trans-dimensional structures echoed in Sebastian's mind.   He'd been inside them before, of course... but as a general rule, leaving such a place by any way OTHER than the way you entered was considered suicide.   Every doorway, every window,  and every corridor could lead to some unimaginable and inescapable hell...

...like the one he was flying over right now.

Obviously, Coventry and Payne's building extended into several alternate dimensions.   The warehouse was an underground cave in this one, and now the dragon's escape had taken him into completely unknown territory, with his only way back getting further and further away with each flap of its wings.

Not that it mattered.

Brooks would be concerned about getting back.

Ashley would be worried about finding a way home.

But a man with only half a soul wouldn't care.   There were demons everywhere, and he could kill them HERE just as well as anywhere else.  Starting with the dragon.

But despite the constant effort and strain on his muscles, Sebastian's progress was slow.   The beast's body was like a turbulent sea of sharp scales...  a sea set into powerful motion by the beating of its monstrous wings.  Entire sections of the beast's body rose and fell in rhythmic contractions that nearly threw Sebastian off into mid air with each flap.  And the wind they caused was incredible.   It was like climbing up a greased rope in a tornado... a rope with razor blades embedded in the strands.   Sebastian lost his grip several times, almost falling to his doom before regaining a hand-hold on the beast's sharp scales.   But he kept going.   Each slip nearly ended him, but he always made it a little further before the NEXT slip... and a little further... and a little further...

But his progress was not unnoticed.

The dragon suddenly changed directions, going into a nose-dive toward an outcropping of rock.   The wind tore at Sebastian like a living thing.   One bloody hand lost its grip, and the other began to weaken.

"NRRRRRGH!"   Sebastian grabbed the sword from his belt and jammed it underneath one of the dragon's scales.   The scales were the size of his head, and they overlapped each other, creating an unbroken layer of armored plates.  The scale could not be cut, but the flesh anchoring it COULD.  ... cutting away at the flesh.    Blood spurted out of the wound as Sebastian grabbed the scale's edge with his teeth and ripped it away... then sank his blade hilt-deep into the exposed muscle.

A handhold.   And he had another sword.

Before he could reach for it, the dragon went into a barrel roll, spinning around in the air, attempting to dislodge the unwanted passenger.

"NRRRRRGG!!!"

Sebastian held on as the wind battered him.   His pack punched him repeatedly in the head, neck and back.   He tightened his grip on the hilt... holding on just that much HARDER... grinning inwardly at the knowledge that the beast could feel the blade in its flesh.    Sebastian ignored the roll... he ignored the alien sky and equally alien desert changing places repeatedly around him.  He focused.... keeping his eyes and his mind on dragon's scaly hide... the blade protruding from it... and the trickle of blood running down the beast's flank.

Sebastian began to pull himself up.... higher... closer...

The dragon ceased its roll and pulled up sharply, snapping its tail like a whip in the air behind it.    The sudden change in direction was meant to fling Sebastian off.   Sebastian would have none of it.   The dragon's scales ripped his clothing and bit as his skin as he hugged the beast tight.    Gravity shifted around him... the beast was now headed straight up into the air.

Growling, Sebastian pulled his second sword and jammed it under another scale.   He did just as he had before... cut at the muscle while pulling the armored scale with his teeth.   When the scale came free, he jammed the sword in as far as it would go.

The dragon shuddered in mid-flight.

"RRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAGGGGH!"   It roared.... arms twitching frantically, trying to reach Sebastian.   But Sebastian was safe from the beast's claws.   He was on the dragon's back, almost at its wings.   Try as it might, the beast couldn't reach him.

"YOU'RE GOING TO DIE OUT HERE, BOY!!"  The dragon hissed.

"So are you!"  Sebastian shouted back.  He didn't even know if the dragon could hear him over the beating of its own wings.  It didn't matter.

"LET US SEE HOW LONG YOU CAN HOLD ON WITH NO AIR IN YOUR LUNGS!!"

The dragon resumed its upward flight, but now its wings were thundering around Sebastian at an ever-increasing tempo... forcing more and more speed into the dragon's ascent... straight up.    Sebastian had no idea how the upper atmosphere of this place was different than earth, but he certainly felt the familiar chill as temperature began to drop.  The air was already getting thinner.

Sebastian felt the dragon's body expand as the beast inhaled... and then surged upward still faster.  It was holding its breath.   It was either going to take Sebastian up so high that his lungs exploded... or just high enough until he blacked out and let go.    Then it would catch him and take him back to Payne.

Neither was an acceptable outcome.... as they both involved the dragon remaining alive.

"NRRRRRGHH!"

Ripping out another scale, Sebastian plunged another handhold into the dragon's exposed flesh.  This was taking too long.  He only had a few seconds before-

-his fingers were already growing numb.    Frost was beginning to form on the dragons hide.   It was hard to breathe.

Sebastian climbed.    He could kill the beast... but not here.   He had to get closer... closer to its brain.

"NRRRAAGH!"  Again, he drove his sword into the beast's muscle and used the hilt as a hand-hold to drag himself upward with reach of the beasts powerful wings.

They were too large... too fast... too well armored to attack.    He'd never live long enough to damage one.

But that wasn't his plan.

He kept climbing.

Blood splattered up into his face as he drove his blade into the dragon's back.   The splash of blood revived him... it was only THEN that Sebastian realized he'd been barely hanging on... semi-conscious... for several seconds.

He kept going.

He was almost to the neck, now...

The dragon's flight faltered when he plunged his blade in again.  Sebastian must have hit a nerve.  Good.  He was close...

Sebastian was breathing heavily now...  from his exertions and from the rapidly thinning air.   He glanced down, and reeled from a sudden dizzy spell.  It wasn't the height that caused it... it was the lack of oxygen.

He kept climbing.  His arms felt like blocks of ice.  He had to look to see if his pack was still hanging from his shoulder... he couldn't feel its weight any more.   Nor could he feel the wind against his face.   His whole body was going numb.

He tore out another scale... drove his sword in... and hauled himself up.

The dragon began flailing in the air, blood pouring from the trail of wounds that Sebastian had left up its back.  All were non-fatal.   But that was going to change.   Knowing that this was as close as he was going to get, Sebastian anchored himself once more, tore out another scale, and then drove his blade repeatedly into the dragon's flesh at the base of its neck.   Reptilian blood fountained out into the air... where it would probably freeze and then melt again before hitting the ground.   Sebastian sliced a deep, wide hole into the muscle and then reached for his pack.   It took several seconds to find what he wanted... a small object wrapped in a thick cloth.

The dragon's flailings subsided, and it resumed its upward climb.

Holding the small bundle in his hand, Sebastian thrust his arm into the dragon's flesh... plunging in all the way to the shoulder.   He released the payload and yanked his arm out, bringing the empty cloth with him.   He nearly falling off of the dragon's hide as he did.   His legs slipped, and he flung out into space... hanging on to his sword with one numb hand.   The sword was still hilt-deep in the dragon's muscle... it would hold for a few seconds, but that didn't matter.   Sebastian had done what he needed to do-

Deep inside the wound, the eye of the blightmander flared to life.   It pulsed angrily... and, like some diseased heart, each pulse pumped wave after wave of the rotting, burning pestilence out into the dragon's flesh.    The merest GLANCE from a pestilence demon could flay the flesh from a man's bones.   Only a few demons were themselves immune.  Dragons were one of them...

...but they were only immune from the OUTSIDE.

The dragon shuddered as a searing, flesh-eating leprosy began rapidly eating through is flesh... consuming it from the inside out.   Boils and burns and blisters... sores and pustules...  a radiating PAIN shooting outward from the tiny eye lodged deep within its flesh.

"AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRgggggggghhsssss..."  The dragon hissed in fury.   Its wings flapped chaotically and its legs pinwheeled comically in the air as the pestilence reached Sebastian's intended target:  the dragon's spinal cord.   From there, it spread downward into the beasts torso and, more importantly,  upward toward its head.

The dragon rolled in the air and started back down.  The roll threw Sebastian back onto the dragon's back.  He held on as the beast started down.   FAST.

At first it was a controlled descent, but as the pestilence spread, the dragon began to spiral out of control.   The ground rushed up toward them, while all around Sebastian, the dragon's limbs twitched and clawed at nothing.

"WHAT DID YOU DO!"  the dragon roared.  "YOU INSIGNIFICANT FLEAEEE!   WHAT DID YOU DOOO!"

Sebastian felt something hit next to him and fall away.   A scale.    The pestilence had reached the reptile's skin.   Scales were falling off in sheets... revealing large patches of half-rotten sores underneath.   The flesh around Sebastian's sword was withering and shrinking away from the blade.   The fluid pouring out of the wound was no longer blood... but some foul-smelling yellowish fluid dotted with specks of black.

The dragon pulled out of its dive...barely... and shot out over the landscape, propelled by the frantic beating of its wings.  The disease hadn't reached THEM yet, but it was already working at the nerves that controlled them.   One of the dragon's arms was now trailing limp underneath its body.   There wasn't a scale left on it, and the exposed was rotting and burning right before Sebastian's eyes.   A similar affliction was quickly making its way up the dragon's long neck.  Rows of scales fell off and scattered to the wind.   Sores, wounds and pustules blossomed along its exposed throat...

"PAYYNNEE!"  The dragon screeched.   "PAYNE HELP MEEEEEE!"

The dragon pulled up... just enough to cover a small hill, and then dove down toward a ridge of stone with a large chasm running along its length.

The chasm looked familiar.

The dragon was going back to Payne!    Yes... Payne would be the only one that could save it now!

The dragon dove toward the chasm in an out-of-control spiral from which there could be no escape.   The great reptile's wings seized up in mid-flap.

"EEEEeeeeeearrrrrrrggggh!!!"   The dragon's cry was pitiful and weak as gravity claimed it.   The great beast could do nothing but aim its head toward the opening below and fall... taking Sebastian along with it.

Sebastian looked down.   The 'chasm' was actually the roof of the warehouse.   The reptile was taking him right back where he needed to be...

...but the landing...

Sebastian couldn't tell if the beast were still conscious or not.   It had more sores than scales now, with the sores gaining ground rapidly.  The wounds that Sebastian had made had gaped open into small mouths that spat pus and fluid.   A bloody slime was oozing from its sightly-parted lips, and the beast was making no attempt to slow itself down.

The impact was going to be hard.... and SOON.

Sebastian secured himself as best he could...

... the thought of closing his eyes never crossed his mind.

he first step didn't exist.   The instant she crossed the threshold, Ashley was in mid-air... falling straight down into the darkness below.

The fall didn't last long-

SPLASH!

Water... at least she HOPED it as water... closed around her like a fist and sucked her down.  At first, Ashley thought that there was something IN the water that had grabbed onto her, but no, it was the water ITSELF!   Ashley opened her eyes and saw the bubbles of her own breath rushing up past her face.    She tried to swim, but her limbs became tangled in tiny currents of rushing water that held her like a net.    Something was trying to drown her!

Ashley lashed out with her mind, unsure of what she would encounter in the water around her.    She touched something.... something alien, but still something with a mind.

And if it had a mind, she could screw with it.

Her mind stabbed into its consciousness not like a knife, but like a needle... a needle injecting her own thoughts into its psyche.   She created a powerful image of a vast, unending desert... a place that had not felt water in centuries, a drought that had left nothing but dust and heat and-

The thing let her go.

Ashley swam.  She didn't know how long the thing would stay stunned... if it was stunned at all... but she knew she had to get away.

She hadn't gone far when her hand brushed up against something solid.   A metal pole... and a wall and...

A ladder?

Ashley grabbed onto the cold metal and hauled herself up onto the concrete.   The light was very dim, but it was enough for her to see what she'd just saved herself from.

An indoor swimming pool.   It was a huge, ancient thing.  The discolored water had patches of oily slime floating on it surface, with the barely discernible signs of motion just beneath.    Above the pool was an elevated balcony.   Part of it had collapsed long ago... and that was where Ashley had entered.   She could still make out the outline of the door through which she'd come.

She could also see several doors leading off of the lower level.   She tried the closest one, halfway expecting it to be locked.   It wasn't.  Not only was the door not locked, but the wood was so ancient and rotted that, if it WERE locked, she could have easily shoved it open.

There was another hallway beyond, but this corridor contrasted sharply with the ones in the bowels of Coventry and Payne.   Everything was shadows and darkness.   And silence.   Ancient carpet muffled her footsteps, giving the once-familiar sounds of her own feet a sinister and alien quality.

She entered the corridor at its very end.    The hall extended before her, finally ending at an open foyer at the base of a huge set of stairs.   There were doors on either side.    Ashley opened her mind for traces of anything living.    She caught fleeting glimpses of things cavorting just beyond the edges of her consciousness.   Dark things.   She couldn't read them, but she knew they were there... behind some of the doors.   She also touched an overwhelming sense of... something.   Some... some *thing* that was watching her.    That HAD been watching her... all of them... for quite some time.    She had touched it before... once at the house with the cursed sword.   And again at Dr. Goode's cabin when, while trying to mentally track one of Payne's agents, something nasty had reached out and grabbed her.   That something was here.  Was it the dragon?

No.

No, it was... bigger.    She had no concept of its size or nature, but she knew that it was powerful.

Somewhere in the house, a door closed.

A low, rhythmic thumping began to resonate through the floorboards.  At first she thought it was a heartbeat.   But it wasn't.

Footsteps.

Mr. Pitt had followed her.

...wake.

First came the realization that he was awake... which meant that he was still alive.

Sebastian opened his eyes and sat up.  He was on the warehouse's concrete floor.   There was a hole in the roof.  A large hole.    The sky beyond was orange and blue.

Why?

Dragon.

Memories snapped back into place.   Sebastian looked around... the warehouse was demolished.   The dragon's exit had done half the job, and its re-entry had finished it.    A hole in the roof?   There was more hole than roof, now.   And there wasn't a single shelf standing in the room.   All of the boxes were either scattered, burnt, or crushed.   Only the things toward the edges... the walls...a few boxes... a black Corvette... had remained intact.

And, in the middle of it all, like an egg in a nest, was.... something that may have once been a dragon.

It was just a skeletal hunk of diseased flesh now.     The general shape was discernable only by the wings and the tail.   Sebastian approached the decaying corpse only to find that it was not a corpse at all.   The dragon was still alive.

Its bald, scale-less chest shuddered with shallow, wheezing breaths.  The very tip of its tail occasionally... each twitch weaker and more half-hearted than the previous one.

The dragon's one remaining eye... a milky, swollen orb... rolled lazily in its socket, fixing slowly on Sebastian.

"Jason Brooks,"   said Sebastian.

The dragon's only reply was a gurgle.

"WHERE is BROOKS!?"

The beast's jaws cracked open, and a diseased black tongue rolled out onto the floor.   It exhaled weakly... and did not draw another breath.

"...damn..."

Sebastian watched the corpse continue to rot for a few moments, then went over to the Corvette and opened the trunk.   The small crate inside contained spare weapons.   He retrieved two swords for himself, and two guns and a half-empty carton of bullets for Brooks, then went in search of the others.

shley ran down the hall, hoping to find an exit.    This time, the door she found was locked... AND sturdy enough to resist her feeble fists as she pounded on it.  She went to the window.

Outside was nothing but darkness.

Not the kind of darkness one sees on a moonless night in the middle of nowhere.... no, this was TOTAL and COMPLETE lack of any light whatsoever.  It was as if there simply WAS nothing on the other side of the glass.

So perhaps it was a good thing that the door didn't open.

And she still had to find Jason.

The way she came in was upstairs... through the collapsed balcony... so that's where she needed to go to get back.   She hoped it wasn't already too late.

She ran up the stairs, taking exactly four steps before her foot crashed through the rotting wood.

"Oh, that is SO, cliche..."   Ashley sighed as she pulled her foot out of the hole and kept going.

She got to the top of the stairs and stopped.

Staring down at her from the wall was an ENORMOUS painting of an old, white-haired man sitting in an antique chair.        A small plaque at the bottom of the frame read:

"Sir Hargood Coventry - 1785"

The stern frown glared down the stairs as if silently questioning anyone who dared ascend them.  Naturally, the eyes seemed to follow Ashley as she moved.

"Niiiice," said Ashley.   "I'm in a cheap horror movie.    Great."

She turned right... the only way she could go... and tried the first door she came to.   It was a closet, and it was empty, except for some very large spiders.

The next door opened into a large private library.    Hundreds of ancient books filled the air with the stench of dust and rotting paper.  A huge chair and a gnarled antique end table dominated the center of the room.   Ashley recognized the chair from the painting she'd seen at the top of the stairs.    Fortunately, there wasn't anyone sitting in it.

Ashley could hear the distant thumping of Pitt's footsteps somewhere downstairs.  He... it... was probably searching the house one room at a time.   Hiding wasn't a good idea... but taking a quick look around might be worth a few seconds.  Especially since there were bound to be some secret passages leading back to Payne's little funhouse.   She tugged on a few of the bookshelves... but she had to stop when one of them nearly fell on top of her.    She backed away, catching one of the books as it fell.    The book was so old that it crumbled apart in her hand... sending a cloud of dust and tiny, translucent insects spraying up into her face.

"Gah!"  Ashley quickly backed away, and bumped into the table.   She spun and grabbed it, thinking it was going to fall.   It wasn't.... but her hands touched the book that was sitting on it.    It was a thick, leather-bound tome that reminded Ashley of one of those huge dictionaries she'd see in the public library... the ones that had definitions for every word ever spoken anywhere on the planet.   But this wasn't a dictionary.   The cover was embossed with three words outlined in gold:

"The Great Machine"

Ashley opened the book, not knowing what to expect.   The title was in English, so the words had to-

-there were no words.   The pages were filled with drawings, diagrams and symbols.   None of them... not ONE... looked even remotely familiar.   If they were a language, the it was some script that she had never seen before.   The diagrams were large and incredibly complex.    And detailed.   It seemed the closer she looked, the more detailed they became... almost as if sections of the drawing were magnifying themselves in response to her attention.   The lines squirmed before her eyes, and when she blinked they returned to normal.    Ashley turned to another random page, only to find another drawing.   The book was full of them.   Every page... with some of the drawings so large that they took up two pages.   Ashley had no idea what they were, but they looked important...

...The Great Machine...

Machine.

That was it!

The drawings were schematics.   As soon as she tried to fit the drawings together in her mind, she triggered something.   All she had to do was try, and the drawings did the rest for her.   Page after page unfolded in her mind, unleashing dozens... then hundreds... then thousands of images.    Ashley gasped as the shape and scope of the Great Machine assembled itself in her head.   It was an engine not of metal and physics... but of evil and metaphysics.    Constructed BY evil...OF evil... FOR evil..   Every component was carved from human suffering... molded from the slime at the bottom of the human existence... forged in every flavor of sin, quenched in corruption, and lubricated with hopelessness and insanity...

And fueled... yes FUELED by human souls.   It consumed them... immolating them over an eternity within the hellish flame of its infernal chambers, sucking off the raw agony that they released like delightful smoke from hickory logs...

Ashley reeled.  Her mind drew back from the knowledge even as her body tried to pull away from the table.   But a thing, once known, cannot be unlearned.   And the Great Machine, once glimpsed, would not release her.  It reached into her mind and seized her fingers, forcing them to flip the book's pages faster and faster, pausing only for a glimpse as each image branded itself into her soul... as each component of the Terrible Engine revealed itself in ever-increasing detail.   Just LOOKING at each diagram was like a red-hot spike driven into her mind.   And each explosive spasm of pain brought more unwanted knowledge of the Engine.   She knew! Dear God, she did not WANT to know, but she KNEW!

The Great Machine was an engine of chaos... of anti-creation... that thundered and hummed beneath reality.   And behind the walls of this house.  It was a living thing that had not been born OR created, but assembled by those who were both mortal and immortal.   But the job was not yet done.... the plans were complete, but there was not enough raw material... not enough suffering in Creation to finish it.   Not enough cursed, tortured souls to bring it to its full infernal power.   And so the builders and their descendants became willing slaves to their own half-made creation... toiling in the filth that was humanity... sowing the seeds that would bloom into chaos and sin and destruction and despair... and harvesting this twisted crop to feed the Great Machine.

And they were almost done!

So close... so very close...

Just a little more... a little more suffering... a few more souls... more corruption... more war!... hatred!  Insanity!   ALL OF IT!

THE WORK WAS ALMOST COMPLETE!

And when it was done...

Ashley snatched her mind out of the book's clutches... gathering every bit of strength she had, and using it all just to perform the simple act of shutting her eyes.

Her mind convulsed, shuddering on the brink of stability as if something large and heavy had been violently withdrawn from it.   The images.   The Machine.    She grasped at the shredded tatters of the memories, knowing that she had seen SOMETHING.   She knew what it was... but she couldn't recreate it in her mind.   She couldn't... see it... again.  It was gone, and it's sudden departure had spun her, leaving her dizzy and unsettled.   And open.  Vulnerable.

Violated.

She felt as if someone had ransacked her brain... and they didn't leave all the doors closed as tightly as they had been before.  The Great Machine had been exploring HER just as she had been exploring It.

But what did it find?

How many of her secrets did it make off with... and how would its agents use them against her?

IF she even made it out of this house.

When Ashley opened her eyes, she was laying on the floor in the library.   She had collapsed.   There was paper all around her.  Pages.   Pages of a book.

Pages of THE book.

Fully a hundred of them lay on the carpet around her.  She had torn them out.    She'd been ripping them out so furiously that her fingers were bleeding.   She didn't remember doing it, but-

-how long had she been up here!?

She sat up just as a bookcase swung back into place against the wall... a secret opening pushed closed by the non-living hand of Mr. Pitt.

"Oh, HELL!"   Ashley leapt to her feet... but her mind didn't quite have control over her body yet.   She stumbled, almost falling again as she made for the door.    Behind her, Mr. Pitt grabbed the table where the Book sat.   He lifted the table and snapped off one of the legs... then threw the table at the fleeing figure that was only halfway to the door.

Ashley *felt* something coming behind her, but she didn't even have time to turn when the table slammed into her back.

A stab of pain crackled down her back and forked down both of her legs.... right down to her toes.   She pitched forward and collapsed, barely managing to keep from cracking her skull on the floor.

Ashley put the effort it would have taken to scream and used it to try and get up.   Given a minute or two, she might have succeeded... but by the time she felt Pitt's footsteps shaking the floor, all she'd managed to roll over onto her back.

Pitt still had the broken table-leg in his hand.   The leg ended in a short spike where the wood had splintered.   Pitt was holding it at the opposite end... clenching it in his fist.   His intention was unmistakable.

Ashley got her legs moving.   She tried to push herself across the floor toward the library door.   But with every inch of progress, Pitt was a two feet closer to her.

"Oh, please..."  she begged.  Ashley tried to grab the golem's mind, but she knew it was no use even before she tried.   Pitt didn't have a mind.

"Oh, God, no!  Please don't kill me!"

Pitt did not hear her pleas.   Or, if he did, they were just the unintelligible mewling of some kitten that he was about to crush beneath his foot... or impale on his makeshift spear.

"...please..."

She was going to die.... right here in this house... surrounded by the horrific workings of the Great Machine whose workings still echoed in her mind.

"Nooo!"

Ashley tried again to rise.  She almost made it, but another stab of pain snatched the strength from her legs, returning her to the floor.    The sound of Pitt's next footstep was like a second heart beating in her chest.

"HELLLP!!"  she screamed.  "SOMEBODY HELP MEE!"

Pitt loomed over her.  His featureless face held no expression save the sinister blankness of a creature without a soul.   The sight of it sent a familiar shiver through Ashley's already disquiet mind.

"...oh, God..."  she gasped.  "...please don't..."  Her breath caught in her throat, as if she were trying to hold back a sudden wave of nausea.

"...don't make me... please don't make me... oh, God!"

..but it wasn't nausea she was trying to hold back.   And it was already too late to stop...

Pit raised the table leg, and, without hesitation, brought it straight down toward Ashley's face.

e'd been right all along.

He WAS a failure.

He had killed the dragon... but had failed to obtain Jason's location from it before it died.   The pestilence had worked too fast-

-no, that wasn't it.   HE had worked too fast.  He'd gotten so caught up in killing that he didn't THINK.

He NEVER thought.   It wasn't his job.

It wasn't what he DID.

He killed.   THAT'S what he did.    And maybe he'd done it so well today that he'd sentenced Brooks to death.

So now it was back to wandering the corridor.    He was going to check on the girl; perhaps SHE might be able to find Brooks... a possibility that didn't even occur to him until a few seconds ago.  Hopefully SHE was still alive-

The sound reached him as more of a sensation than a noise.    A vibration in the floor... followed by a not-so-distant thud.    The thud came again... closer... louder... and then it came in a rapid series of ever-louder percussions that shook everything around him-

-thoom-
-thoom!-
-Thoom!-

-THOOM!!-

The wall to Sebastian's right exploded, sending bricks and chunks of shrapnel flying toward him.   Sebastian threw himself back just as something HUGE roared past.   He barely recognized it as the twisted, wrecked chassis of Mr. Pitt when it hit the opposite wall-

-THOOOOOMMMM!-

And tore through IT as well, demolishing the section of wall like a wrecking ball shot out of a cannon.

Sebastian looked at the exit hole, then at its opposite.   Pitt had blasted a hole through the corridor... and it didn't look as if the golem had done so willingly.

"...help me..."  called a tiny voice from the direction Pitt had come.

"Ashley?"

Ashley Ricks staggered out into the corridor and grabbed hold of Sebastian's arm.   She leaned heavily on him, using his strength to keep herself up.     She was bleeding.  Streams of blood trickled out of both nostrils and both ears.

"...oh God that hurt..."  she moaned.

Ashley's grip on Sebastian weakened, and she slid to the floor.   Sebastian hauled her to her feet.   He looked into her eyes.   She was squinting, as if holding back a great deal of pain.

"Are you hurt?"

"...no,"  she replied.   "...yes... But I'll live.   I think.   Maybe."

"What happened to Pitt?"

"I happened."     Ashley got her legs underneath her and stood on her own.   Barely.   "Payne... he's that way..."   Ashley pointed to the hole that Pitt had made when he left.

"I've handle him."

"No!"  Ashley grabbed him.  "No!  He's out of our league... this whole THING is out of our league!"

"That's what the dragon thought,"  said Sebastian.  "He's dead now.   Stay here where its safe."

"No, I'm coming with you."  Ashley limped after him.

Sebastian glanced at her, and then at the holes in the wall.   Then he nodded.

"Come on, then..."

here were no more screams left in his lungs.   There was no air, nor was there any strength left to draw more.

Jason lay still... muscles rigid with pain... as Payne's glowing blade sliced deeper into his soul.

He was torturing him, now.   Payne could have found what he wanted minutes ago, but no, he just kept on cutting deeper and wider... with each slice of the blade dredging up every painful moment that ever existed in Jason's mind.   Every last one of them.   All the grief and the sorrow... every disappointment... every broken bone and broken heart...   All of it came gushing to the surface like blood spurting from a severed artery as Payne operated on Jason's soul.

And the audience watched on in silent, stone-faced glee, like they were all watching a movie they'd see a hundred times before.

"This is taking a long time, Payne,"  said Boyd.

"Hush!"   Payne snapped.  "I'm doing YOU a favor here, Boyd... the Affinity is the hardest to detach.   It'd be much easier if I'd removed the other Gifts first, but for YOU, I'm doing it the hard way."

"Am I supposed to thank you?" said Boyd.

"Just get on with it, Payne,"  Myrden growled.

"It won't be long.   I've got it right here... just need to probe a bit deeper and find the proper point to detach... hmmm, maybe this one..."

Jason concentrated.   Not on pulling his wrists free of the straps, or on holding his mind together under the pain... but on simply keeping his jaws clenched shut so that he wouldn't accidentally bite his tongue off.

That was all.

-thoom!-

"Oh yes, I think this is it."

The blade began to cut.

-Thoom!-

"Payne, what is that sound?"  said Jerska.

"Eh?"

-THOOOOM!-

Something... somewhere... made a sound like a stone wall tumbling down.

"What-"   Payne stepped back... taking the knife with him... and turned toward the source of the sound just as something slammed into the stone table.

KRA-WOOOM!

There was a shower of... sand?... and chips of rock as the table snapped free of the floor and tumbled onto its side, carrying Jason with it.  The solid stone block cracked... but didn't shatter.    Jason yanked at his restraints.

They still held.

But Jason felt something...

YES!

Jason began moving his right hand back and forth, rubbing the leather strap across the sharp edge of newly-cracked stone.

"What the HELL is going on over there, Payne!"  Jerska whined.  "What was THAT!?"

"Ahhh... ahhh..."  Payne looked around the dark room, frantically trying to make sense out of what had just happened.   The pile of leather, sand, and twisted metal bones next to the broken table could only have been Mr. Pitt.    The shredded mess was already beginning to reassemble itself, but even when complete, the golem wouldn't be able to tell him what was going on.   "...ummm.... I-I think we're having some technical difficulties."

"Perhaps you should postpone this auction until you have things well in hand!"  Herrigan barking hiss was more of an accusation than a friendly suggestion.   Without waiting for a reply, her image vanished... and the candle that produced it went out.

"Wait, wait!"  Payne shouted.

"I still expect delivery of my property in de morning,"  Tebish said as his image faded.   "If not, dere will be repercussions."

"Or course!  I ALWAYS deliver, don't I!   No, don't go!   The auction's not over!"

"You will pay for wasting my time, Payne,"  Boyd warned.

"And mine, as well."    Myrden and Boyd disappeared at once, leaving only Jerska.

"Ahh, Jerska, perhaps we can arrange a private deal-"

"Someone just tossed your golem through a wall, Payne,"  said Jerska.  "I think you've got more important problems than trying to work out a deal!"

"But there's no danger, I assure you-"

"We've been SEEN!   ALL of us!   If the Knight and his friends escape, we'll all be HUNTED!   He knows our NAMES, for God's sake!   He knows what we LOOK LIKE!!!"

"Escape!?  Wh-Who said anything about ESCAPE!?  Look, Brooks is still-   BROOKS!   What are you doing!"

Payne lunged for the table as Jerska's image winked out.  Jason was only halfway through the strap, but when he saw Payne coming for him with the knife...

"NNNRRRGH!"

-rrrip!-

The strap broke.

But the table was still laying on its side... so Jason went for the only target within range-

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAKKK!!!"  Payne squealed as Jason's fist crunched his testicles.   The knife flew into the air as Payne staggered back.   Jason heard the knife land somewhere, but his main concern was undoing the other straps.   He quickly freed himself and tumbled off of the table onto the stone floor.

"Uhhh-huh!"  Jason growled as he rose.  "NOW I'm gonna-"

"PITT!"  Payne shouted.

"eh?"  Jason turned and came face-to-chest with the fully re-assembled golem.    "Aww, FU-"

"GET HIM!"

Jason vaulted over the table as the golem swung its powerful fists.   Both fists struck the stone-

BOOOM!

And shattered the table completely.    A piece of flying stone caught Jason in the back of the knee, and he fell.    He rolled over, just in time to see Pitt coming up behind him....

...and something else leaping over his head!?

"YAAAAAHH!"

Sebastian pounced on the golem's chest, pausing just long enough to drive one sword down at an angle into the creature's throat.   The blade exploded out of the golem's back as Sebastian back-flipped out of the monster's reach, then attached again, slicing open Pitt's abdomen and releasing a fountain of sand.   But by the time the first few grains had reached the floor, Sebastian had unleashed an onslaught that was forcing the golem back... the monster loosing more and more of its 'flesh' with every step.

"JASON!"   Ashley appeared at Jason's side and helped him up.

"What the hell happened to YOU?"   Jason said when he saw the blood on Ashley's face and clothes.   The flow from her nose and ears had slowed to just a few drops.

"Don't ask.  Can you walk?"

"Can YOU!?"

"Sebastian we've got Jason!   We have to get out of here!"

Sebastian didn't hear her.   He was too busy cutting Pitt into successively smaller pieces.

"We can't leave!"  said Jason.   He pointed to the cloth-wrapped globe resting on a cart near Payne.   "Payne has Donovan!"

"But Donovan's DEAD!"

"And he's gonna be even MORE dead if we don't get him out of here-"

"NO one is going ANYWHERE!"  Payne roared.  "You are all MY property... and I will dispose of you as I SEE FIT!"

Payne reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a fist full of tiny stones.   He tossed them into the air and shouted a command.

Each of the stones cracked open... and each stone released a trio of tiny creatures that quickly grew to full size while still in the air... hovering in place with the rapid flapping of their greasy wings.   They were half the size of a man, and looked like the grotesque offspring of pig, a chimpanzee, a bat, and a jar of vaseline.

"GET THEM!"    Payne ordered.   "Seize the Knight!  TEAR THE OTHERS APART!!!"

Two dozen of the ugly, screeching things shot toward Sebastian.   The other dozen came for Jason and Ashley.

"IMPS!"  Sebastian spat as Mr. Pitt's metal skeleton hit the ground.   The leather and sand were already swirling around it, but the process halted when Sebastian grabbed the golem's skull and flung it as hard as he could-

-CRUNCH!-

-cracking one imp's skull in mid-flight.

"JASON, YOUR WEAPONS!"  Sebastian shouted.   He shrugged off his pack and slung it across the room.

Jason ran for the pack as one of the imps veered to intercept it.

"JASON!?!"   Ashley squeaked.   Jason had just left her alone to stare down twelve hungry imps, all headed straight for her.

Jason leapt for the pack just as an imp slashed at it, ripping the cloth with its claws and sending half the contents spilling out into the air.

The instant Jason saw the gun, a bolt of power surged through his nervous system.   The world slowed down around him the fingers of one hand curled around the loaded chrome .454 Casul... and the other hand snagged several bullets out of the air.  He twisted in the air, bringing the gun around and firing as he fell-

Smoke, fire and sound erupted from the deadly machine in his hand.   The first round went into... and out of... the skull of the imp closest to Ashley.   It continued through a second imp's chest before finally piercing the eye-socket of a third, coming to rest in the oily mass that was its brain.  Before first imp's nervous system even registered the impact, four more rounds sizzled through the air around it, each one sending two or three imps spinning out of control... trailing brains, blood, or entrails as they fell.

Demons were falling out of the air like rotting fruit.   Ashley only heard Jason fire once, but she knew that the one explosion was actually the sound of him emptying his weapon so quickly that her mind couldn't resolve the individual shots.

The gun was empty by the time Jason hit the ground.   He landed on his back, and his momentum kept him going... sliding across the stone floor as he reloaded.

One lone demon dove toward Ashley.   She looked up, startled to see that there was still one left.    She reached into its mind, but she couldn't get a grip on it.   So she hammered it with a mental spike that shut it down just as quickly... but much more cleanly... than Jason's gun.  But the act of touching the demon's psyche was like sticking her face into a well-used, unflushed toilet.   Ashley gagged, fighting the urge to vomit.

As she looked down, she saw a skull-shaped lump of metal bouncing gleefully past her feet.

"Huh?"

Sebastian lashed out to both sides as he reached the crowd of ugly, winged creatures.    Two imps fell... in four pieces... but a third dove toward Sebastian's exposed chest.   Sebastian brought the swords together in front of him, forming a flying "X" that neatly removed the demon's tiny head.   He spun and slashed.  The demons scattered before his blade, then closed in again...

"YAH!"

One thrust impaled two of the slimy beasts while he slashed at the air above him.   All around, the demons gathered in preparation for a mass attack.   They circled his head, then all dove toward him at once-

Jason's gun spat fire and lead.  Five bullets later, half of the demons were on the floor.  Sebastian roared as he tore into the rest.

"HHAHAAAAA!"   Payne's sudden laugh erupted in the room.    He thrust both hands toward Sebastian, fingers outstretched... an arc of green lightning burst from his fingertips.

FAAAZZZZZzzzz...

Sebastian saw the motion, but couldn't move in time to dodge it completely.   Payne's blast caught him from the side, a glancing blow that nonetheless knocked him off his feet and threw him across the chamber.

Sebastian screamed as if the nerve endings were being ripped out of him one at a time.   He hit the ground hard.  He started to get up, but didn't make it any further than his knees before he collapsed again.

"Oh, no!"  said Jason.  He'd used the last of his bullets.   "Sebastian!"

"What's the matter, boy!"  Payne taunted... energy still crackling angrily between his fingers.   "I thought you'd be EAGER to rejoin the other half of your soul!   IN HELL!"

Payne unleashed another blast.

THAAAZZZZZzzzz...

The bolt meant for Sebastian, but Jason took it in the chest when he leapt between Payne and the boy.   Jason's body clenched as the infernal energy coursed through him-

"AAAAAAAARRRrr!"

The blast ended... and Jason still stood.   Breathing heavily, with his empty gun dangling from his fingers... Jason lifted his head and scowled at Payne.

"That all you got?"  he said.  "Huh, Payne?"

THAAZZZZZZZZZZzzzzz...

The second blast was twice as intense as the first.    It forced Jason back.  He threw his arm across his eyes as the energy clawed at his face.

"AAAAA-IS THAT IT!?!"   Jason screamed as Payne poured more power into him.  "IS THAT ALL YOU GOT?!"

"You think your Gifts will protect you?"  said Payne.  "Lets see just how long it lasts, eh?"

"BRING IT ON,!!!"

Payne turned up the heat.    Jason swallowed his scream, not giving Payne the pleasure of hearing it.   It hurt.   It hurt BAD.

"I SAID BRING IT!!!"

Lightning cracked all around and THROUGH Jason's body... it streamed out of his fingertips and leapt between the fillings in his teeth.  It made his eyes glow from the inside.

"ARRRR- THAT TICKLES, PAYNE!"

His skin was bubbling.  His organs were cooking inside his body.

"I do not want to kill you, Brooks!   But you WILL fall!   You WILL submit!"

"SHUT UP AND G-AARRRRRRRRRRGGGH!"

Jason staggered, but not only did he not fall.. he actually forced himself FORWARD into the onslaught.

"I'M COMING TO GET YOU, PAYNE!"  He screamed.  "IF THAT'S ALL YOU GOT, THEN YOU'RE A &$@*# DEAD MAN!!!"

"I doubt that very much, Brooks.   And there's a LOT more where that came from!"

Payne increased the power of his blast tenfold.   The force of Jason's scream nearly tore his throat open as he finally dropped to one knee...

...and Sebastian rose up behind him, sword already flying from his fingertips.

"Wha-"

-whoosh-whoosh-whoosh-

THWUCK!

The blade sank into Payne's chest and exploded out of his back, impaling him right through the heart.   Payne's eyes widened in shock.  He looked down at the sword protruding from his chest...

-and he laughed.

"HA!  AHA!  HAHAHAHAAA!"

Payne grabbed the bloody weapon by the hilt, yanked it out, and tossed it aside... still laughing at Sebastian.

Jason heard the laughter.  He was in too much pain to raise his head and see what was going on, but he knew it was bad.

He saw his other gun.     It was hanging-half out of Sebastian's pack... several yards away.   If he could get it...

Jason heard a scuffle behind him, and then heard Sebastian's other sword hit the floor.     He managed to turn...

Mr. Pitt had Sebastian by the back of the throat, lifting the kid up off of the floor.  Sebastian's hand grabbed the golem's fingers and tried to peel the away from his neck, but they wouldn't budge.

"BREAK HIM IN HALF!"   Payne ordered.

Jason reached out for his gun... unsure of what he was going to do once he got it, but it was the only weapon he had.  He reached... eyes focused on the weapon... senses lusting for it like a drowning man yearns for air...

"...c'mon.... c'mon..."

Pitt pulled Sebastian in close and embraced him in a deadly bear-hug.

"Uggggh!"

The air exploded out of Sebastian's lungs as the golem squeezed...

"Come ON!"    Jason hissed... fingers nowhere NEAR the gun, but still reaching...  "I did it once... come on!  MOVE, dammit!"

The gun moved.

It shot out of the pack and slid across the floor... right into Jason's grasp.

Jason's reflexes roared to life.   He fired...

The round went right through Payne's forehead.   Payne flew backward as spray of blood and gore burst out through the jagged hole where the rear of his skull used to be.

At that same instant, Ashley raised Donovan's glass globe over her head and brought it down on a sharp rock-

KSSHHHH!

A whirling cloud of white fog surged out of the remains of the globe, rushing past Ashley and assuming vague, smokey shape of a man standing behind her.

"Donovan!"  Jason shouted.   "Weak point on the golem, NOW!"

The fog surged across the room and entered the golem, passing unimpeded through Mr. Pitt's leather hide.   A second later, the fog billowed out of the tip of Pitt's head.

"There's a gem in the center of the skull!"   the ghost pointed at Pitt.  "Shoot it through the eye!"

Jason rotated and fired his third round... right through Pitt's left eye socket.    There was a dull *thunk* followed by a faintly audible crackle...

Pitt shuddered... then toppled over, taking Sebastian along with him.

"UNGH!"  Sebastian grunted.

"See there, Donovan,"  Jason gasped as he got up.   "I moved the gun!  I KNEW I could do it-"

"That was ME, dumbass,"  said Ashley.

"Surely... surely you didn't expect it to end so easily...Mr. Brooks,"  said Payne.   Payne had hole in his face and only half a head... but he was still very much alive.   And still smiling.    He shook his head... what was left of it... and his eyes began to glow.  "SURELY you didn't think you could kill me in my OWN SANCTUM, did you!?"

Jason cocked his weapon and aimed it at Payne.

"I've concluded that your Gifts aren't worth the effort of obtaining them.  And so, like all bad investments... I'm afraid I'm going to have to liquidate my position.   You... the girl... the ghost... and that little half-man there... all of you are going to die now."

Green energy crackled around Payne's fingertips.

"Ashley, get behind me,"  said Jason.   "Donovan... any suggestions?"

"You've already killed the body..."  the ghost began.

"But don't worry... you won't be a total loss.  Your torment will fuel the Great Machine for many millennia to come!"

"...but how do you suppose you'd kill a soul?"

Jason saw what Donovan meant just as the lightning poured from Payne's fingertips.   Jason aimed and fired... three times.

The first round caught the edge of Payne's ceremonial knife, flipping it up off the floor...

...the next two came together in mid-air... right at the knife's blunt end.   The speeding projectiles transferred their momentum to the tiny blade and sent it tumbling across the room-

-right into the bullet hole in Payne's forehead.

"AAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRREEEIIIIIIIIIIII"  Payne howled as the glowing knife sank into his flesh with a wet, sucking sound.   His blast of lightning fizzled harmlessly around Jason, but now huge bolts of green energy poured out of Payne's skull... blasting out of every available hole... and then making NEW holes as his own power roared out of control.   Payne staggered backward, his flailing arms trailing sparks and smoke as his expensive clothes burst into flames.

"Jason!  Here!"

Ashley grabbed Sebastian's shredded backpack and tossed Jason a single bullet...the only one that remained.   Jason didn't bother catching it... he opened the gun's cylinder, dumped out the empty shells, and held the weapon out to let the bullet fall into place.  He snapped the gun closed with a flick of his wrist, then aimed at the end of the knife protruding from Payne's skull.

"I don't think this is working, Donovan,"  Jason sneered.   "Maybe we should probe a little deeper..."

"NOOOOOOOOOO!"  Payne screamed.

BLAM!

The bullet pushed the blade the rest of the way in.   Payne's body froze for an instant... his mouth still wide open in a silent scream...

"GET DOWN!"   Donovan warned.

And then Payne exploded.    What remained of his flesh was flung across the room before a sizzling corona of energy.   Everyone... Donovan included... hit the floor as the explosion rocked the room.   The stone floor shattered... deep cracks radiated outward from where Payne had stood.   The cracks reached the walls, and they cracked too.    The room vibrated with an angry surge of motion... and then stopped.

When the smoke and sparks cleared, there was nothing left of Payne but a sizzling black smear on the broken floor.

Jason limped over to the spot... and spit on it.    He would rather have done something else, but Ashley was still in the room.

"Don't worry,"  said Jason.  "Your friends will be joining you shortly."   He turned to Ashley.  "Is everybody okay?"

"I'm fine,"  said Sebastian... only now managing to squirm his way free of the dead golem.   Sebastian's shirt, which was barely in one piece when he arrived, was now hanging off of him in shreds... some of which were still smoking.   The skin beneath was red, and there were several large burns where Payne's blast had hit him.   Sebastian didn't seem to care about any of it.  In fact, he seemed offended that Jason even asked.

"Of course you are,"  said Jason. "I wasn't asking YOU.  Ashley?  Donovan?"

"The sooner we get out of here, the more 'okay' I'll be,"  said Ashley.  "There's still something in this place... and I don't think we're ready to mess with it yet.   We should go."

"I agree,"  said Donvan.  "It took a lot of magic to put this place together.   Our best course of action is to find a way out as soon as possible.   You and Sebastian's need to have those burns treated."

"We're fine!"    Jason and Sebastian said together.

"Men." Ashley sighed.

"So who threw the golem through the wall?"  said Jason.  "Sebastian?"

"That was me."

"Ashley?   You gonna explain that?"

"What, you've never heard of telekinesis?"  she snapped.

"Yeah, but there's a big difference between bending spoons and throwing monsters through walls, don't ya think?"

"Clearly there's more to her than she's telling,"  said Sebastian.

"Yeah, YOU'RE one to talk, soul-boy.  I'll explain when YOU do, how 'bout that?"

"That's not your concern,"  said Sebastian.

"That's funny... I was thinking the same thing.  Look, its not something I like to talk about, so just drop it, okay?  Please?"

"No-" Sebastian started.  Then he stopped.  "Donovan?"

"Yes?"

"I can... see you."

"You can!?"   Donovan looked down at himself, then at Jason.   The ghost started slowly backing away.

"WHAT!?"  said Jason.  "What NOW!?"

"I shouldn't be able to get this far from you,"  said Donovan.  "What Payne did... I'm not bound to you any more, Jason."

"What's that mean... like you're FREE or something?"

"I don't feel any different..."

"Does this mean you'll be moving on?"  said Ashley.  "You know... if you're done here..."

"But I'm not done,"  said Sebastian.  "Jason still needs a Guide... bound or not.   And maybe this way I'll be a little more helpful-"

"Yeah, I won't hold my breath waiting for THAT,"  said Jason.    "But...uhhh... you know, guys..."

"What?"  said Ashley.

"Just wanted to say thanks.  For rescuing me.   You guys coulda high-tailed it outta here without me, but you didn't.   Thanks."

"Any time,"  said Ashley.  "Just don't make it a habit."    Ashley elbowed Sebastian in the side.

"What do you want?"

"Jason saved your life, ASS!"

"And?"

"Oh, never mind!"

"Well done, Brooks,"  said Donovan.   "And thank you."

"So are we officially a team now?"  said Ashley.

"Team?"    Jason and Sebastian looked at each other.

"Oh, HELL no!"

"Absolutely not!"

copyright 2005 by Dark Icon Entertainment