Intermission

Cover: A frontal view of Donovan Wilde... very much alive... deflecting bullets with his swords.

...everal years ago...

The black van slowed at the mouth of an alley across the street from the theater... never quite stopping, but still moving forward as the door quickly opened and closed.  It had rained earlier, and there was a puddle on the sidewalk.  The pair of black boots made almost no sound as they hopped down into it, then darted into the darkness.    The van continued on; it's unusually quiet engine barely covering the sound of someone scurrying up the alley's fire escape.   In another three seconds, the van was gone.

Two minutes later, it was back.

It rolled to a stop, double-parking beside a ridiculously ostentatious BMW sportscar.    The engine shut off.   The driver's door opened.

A man got out.

He wore black.   The color of his clothes wasn't that unusual given the location, but instead of a tuxedo with tails and a black tie, the man wore black cotton pants, boots, and a leather jacket.   His belt and gloves were likewise black, as was the simple shirt he wore beneath his unusually thick jacket.   The only part of his body not hidden beneath the color of midnight was his face.

It was a hard face.    The face of a statesman... of an aging actor of politician... who's features were marred by too many years of too much violence.   It was a kind, gentle face that had simply seen too much to remain true to itself.  So now it was a hard sneer, with just a hint of what COULD have been.   Still, his graying hair was immaculately kept, and his eyes gleamed with the energy of youth.... or perhaps of something else.

He crossed the street defiantly.   There was no traffic... not at this time of night... but he walked as if there were NEVER any traffic; as if there COULD never be any, as if the internal combustion engine that had brought him here had never been invented.

The marquee above the theater flashed with a mixture of incandescent and florescent gaudiness.   The letters arranged on its face spelled out the title of a particularly long and boring ballet.    The title was in French, despite the fact that the man, the theater, and the ballet were all located in Chicago.    The man could read the title perfectly, but then he could have done so even if it were written in Latin, Hebrew, German, Russian, Arabic, Chinese, Sanscrit or ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic.

As his eyes returned from the marquee, the theater's doorman... the uniformed greeter who's job it was to hail taxis and help women with umbrellas... jogged quickly toward him.   The doorman looked nervous.    Probably with good reason.  The man in black had two swords crossed in a stainless steel "X" on his back, and another sword hanging from his left hip.   The rest of his belt was a dangerous-looking array of pockets and pouches carrying everything from a pint of holy water to a pair of handcuffs.

"Uhh-excuse me, can I help you, sir?"

"I'm with the police,"  said the older man.   He didn't stop walking.  He didn't even slow down.   But he saw the doorman relax slightly the instant the word 'police' was mentioned.   People were so very gullible these days.  "Have you been inside?"

He already knew the answer to the question, but he asked it anyway.

"No-"   the doorman began.

"Has anyone come OUT?"   The IMPORTANT question.

"Ummm, no sir-"

"Good."   The old paused and turned... his right hand dropped to the canister of aerosol spray on his belt.  He didn't remove the canister, he just tilted it upward and pressed the button.   A stream of liquid shot up into the doorman's face...

...and the doorman dropped to the pavement.   He was unconscious, and would remain so for at least twenty minutes.    By then, it wouldn't matter.  It would all be over.

The man threw the theater's front doors open and walked in.

He knew what this place was supposed to be... what it CLAIMED to be... but there was no way he could bring himself to call it that.   The only REAL theaters were in Europe... and anyone who'd spent any significant time there would run screaming from this disgusting imitation.   Oh, it had all of the trappings... plush carpet, a crystal chandelier, artwork on the walls, antique furniture...  but it still made the old man shudder.   A cheap American imitation of what they thought REAL culture should look like.   Bah!

And to think, he'd given up that life for... for THIS.

Two guards... each dressed in the same ridiculous uniform as the doorman... rushed into the lobby.  One was running down the stairs from the balcony, the other come from the ticket booth, where he'd obviously watched what happened to the doorman.

Both men had guns drawn.

Silly Americans and their guns.

But then, these two weren't exactly Americans.   They LOOKED the part, but the cloud of whirling darkness around each of them told another story.

"Stop!"  said the first guard.   Then he fired twice.  The other guard fired once.

Donovan's hand moved like lightning... faster even than the bullets coming toward him.   His sword glinted in the chandelier's light as it left the scabbard and swept in three rapid arcs-

*k-ting!*
*TANG!*
*-ting!*

Sending the bullets zipping back where they'd come from... with minor adjustments.

The first guard flew backward as his own bullet pierced the center of his skull, creating a third eye in the center of his forehead   The second guard collapsed on the stairs, with a bullet lodged in his heart and another in his throat.

There was no blood from either of them.  Both guards exploded into brief splashes of shadows the instant they died.  They left nothing behind except their weapons, which Donovan quickly took for his own.   Even their clothes were gone.

The fact that they were wraiths didn't disturb him.   The fact that there were only TWO of them, did.

Donovan paused to examine his sword.  Deflecting bullets was hell on the metal, but the sword was still operable.   And even if it hadn't been, he had two more.    Besides, he'd learned the hard way not to ALWAYS trust the body-armor sewn in his jacket.

He glanced at the balcony stairs... two sets of carpeted steps rising up to the second level.   Not his concern at the moment, but he couldn't help but wonder what was going on up there-

Focus.

Donovan brought his mind back to here and now.   Focus had always been his problem... since the very beginning.   In the middle of a battle, he'd find himself thinking about some glimpse of something he'd just seen, or something his mentor had once said to him, or about some battle he'd fought years ago against a completely different foe.   Or what was going on upstairs.   Sometimes... especially lately... it was an effort to keep his mind where it needed to be.  But he always did... just as he did it right now.

Still holding his sword, he walked down the overly-wide corridor liked with expensive artwork, antique benches, and telephones.

At the end was the huge set of double doors leading to the theater floor.    If his guess was right, then any second now-

BOOM!

The door flew open and six men in tuxedos ran screaming into the hallway.   All were wraiths.   None were armed... apparently they were intending to tear him apart with their bare hands.

Unfortunately, wraiths were very good at that.

Their bodies... which weren't actually bodies anyway... began to change.   Their forms remained human, but to it they'd added sharp claws and horn-like protrusions along their spines.   Nice.

The Affinity took hold, and Donovan's sword became a living thing in his hands.    The blade lashed back and forth across his path, moving not in clumsy hacks and slashes, but dancing in rapid, delicate patterns that were impossible for anyone of mere human ability.   Donovan's body joined the dance, twisting, spinning and lunging with superhuman accuracy.    The six wraiths hadn't a prayer.   In the blink of an eye they were gone... but more had risen to replace them.

A lot more.

There had been hundreds of theater patrons... not counting the dancers and employees... all of whom were now honored with their very own demonic doppleganger.   By now, they must have realized that the emergency and balcony exits were all sealed, and that their only way out was through Donovan.     And so they all came at once.

Donovan sheathed his single sword and drew the pair from his back.     There wasn't a hint of expression on his face... but if there HAD been, then the expression would have been... boredom.

They WERE only wraiths, after all.

The dance continued.

The hallway was too wide.    There was no way that one man could cover the whole thing.   One MAN.   But a KNIGHT with a sword was like an impenetrable brick wall across their paths.    His blade struck from every direction, raining down upon the first line of wraiths like some divine punishment.   With every strike, Donovan felt the slightest hint of resistance as the blade bit into flesh... and then the jerk of freedom as the flesh dissolved into shadow.   But the wraiths kept coming.   It was not bravery or ferocity that drove them... it was desperation and cowardice.   Their survival depended on either killing him or getting past him, and it didn't matter how many of them died in the process.   It didn't matter because wraiths didn't die.... once dissolved, their substance simply rejoined the mother-mass to be reborn a short time later.

THAT meant that, theoretically, the fight could go on forever.    Perhaps that was their plan... to wear him down until he made a mistake.

It was a stupid plan.

It never worked.    If it had ever come CLOSE to working before, it certainly wasn't going to work tonight.  The wraiths just hadn't realized it yet.

Donovan's blades were death, and his body was the untiring machine that delivered them.   Each weapon moved independently of the other, and yet they still counterbalanced their motions perfectly.    Donovan didn't have to think about it... he just DID it.   And he did it well.

-SLASH!-

A woman in a very revealing ballroom dress... and wielding claws the size of butcher knives... faded away to dark nothingness.

-WHOOSH!-

A theater usher split down the middle, and both halves became shadows as the blade that killed him move on to-

-SLICE-

-Another woman's head from her shoulders.

Something small rushed past Donovan.   A child.   Donovan's leg shot out, and he tripped the little boy in the miniature tuxedo.   Then he impaled the child from behind, driving his blade through the tiny torso and into the plush carpet.    The boy became a brief and silent fountain of shadows gushing up from the floor.

That's what Donovan hated about wraiths.    They didn't make any noise when they 'died'.   No screams.   No roars.   No serpentine hisses.   They just vanished.   It was eerie, to say the least.

Donovan spun and took out what could have been the boy's parents.   One swing caught them both.  And at the same time, he thrust his other sword backward, impaling something he couldn't see.     It was already gone by the time he spun and started in on the second wave of wraiths.      Donovan pushed forward, forcing them back into the theater.   He could hear the sound of his swords cutting air as he wielded them.  It was like music; like a symphony blaring in his brain as he bore down on the tide of inhuman things.   Donovan tried not to think of it as beautiful, but it was.  It was the song of the Affinity.  It was the conductor.   He and his sword were the instruments.

And it was the most beautiful song that Donovan had ever heard.

He loved it.   He was IN love with it.   To feel any other way was to not be what he was:  a Knight.

The wraiths kept coming; the song's force and tempo changed to accommodate them effortlessly.   The music went on.

He crossed the threshold and entered the actual theater.    He stopped there.   If he kept going, then the wraiths could get behind him and sprint down the hallway.  He had to hold them HERE for a few moments longer...

He held them.

Donovan Wilde held them back with all the impassible certainty of a Sherman tank parked at the entrance to the hall.   And from there, he could see the rest of the room stretched before him.   The theater seats were empty.  The patrons were gone, and their wraiths... more than a hundred of him... crowded around the doorway trying to gain freedom.    Donovan looked up.   The balcony was clear.

And the stage...

...the stage.

The mother-mass was an undulating, amorphous ball of chaos.   It stretched from one end of the stage to the other, and reached up past the balcony almost to the ceiling.    Its hundreds of tentacles cascaded down from the stage like falling entrails... which was exactly what they were... and slithered hungrily among the rows of seats.   It had already seized and swallowed every human in the theater, greedily sucking them down like dumplings.   Now, like an engorged tick, it was swollen and sluggish from its meal... literally rooted to the spot by its own gluttony.

But its work was not yet done.

While it digested its meal, it would spit out copies of its victims to run around and wreak havoc.   And each one of them was like an egg... with the potential to become another mother-mass should the opportunity arise.    Usually a wraith-mass would only get a hold of five or six victims at a time.   Maybe a dozen.   But this...

...this was a catastrophe.    And it would soon be a catastrophe of GLOBAL proportions if the wraiths got out of this theater.

Donovan saw the black mass spit out a knot of shadows that hit the floor just beyond the stage.   A second later, the knot became a human being... a copy of someone.   The mass was spitting them out as fast as it could now, trying to get enough of its children out to either protect it from the intruder, or to ensure the continuation of the cycle.

Donovan wasn't going to allow either of those to happen.

Wraiths weren't particularly strong or fast... stronger and faster than humans, certainly, but nothing special on the demonic scale.   The sheer force of their numbers is what made them dangerous.    Donovan could handle them now, but if he tried to charge the mother mass, the wraiths would swarm around him and be out into the streets before he knew it.

Fortunately, the wraiths were about to discover that THEY were the ones that were outnumbered.

Donovan saw the movement out of the corner of his eye.   The balcony.

"NOW!"  He shouted.

Donovan's swords...which had never stopped moving since he'd first drawn them... increased in speed and ferocity as a slender figure shot down from above, descending along a rope stretched from balcony rail.   Halfway to the floor, the black-clad figure let go of the rope... performed a double-flip in mid-air... and landed at the rear of the crowd of wraiths.    Instantly, two swords appeared in the figure's hands.

-SLICE-
-SLICE-

Quickly cutting away the probing tentacles that were reaching up from the floor.   Then the figure charged the wraiths from behind, swords moving like the lethal innards of some industrial machine.

Donovan couldn't help but feel a twinge of pride, even as he cut down two wraiths with one slash.    The boy was his son.

And NOW the wraiths were outnumbered.

If Donovan's motions had been like a dance before, NOW they were something that transcended even that.   He and his son moved in perfect synchronicity, matching blow for blow, move for move as they cut their way through the crowd.    The boy didn't have Donovan's gifts, he wasn't a Knight, but he had been TRAINED by one.   And he was a hell of a learner.    Sebastian didn't move like he had the Affinity, he moved as if he had something BETTER.    He had an intensity and focus that Donovan only could only wish for.  Together, they charged into the crowd, slaughtering everything that dared cross their path.  And if something DIDN'T cross their path, they changed the path.

On the stage mother mass was spitting out a steady stream of shadows, but its 'steady stream' wasn't nearly as fast as the whirling blades of Donovan and Sebastian.    The new wraiths charged Sebastian from behind, but Donovan knew the boy could handle them.   But having to deal with enemies in the front AND back... as well as the mother-mass's tentacles... slowed the boy down.   Donovan picked up the slack, and together they started erasing the wraiths from the theater.

For the first few seconds, the shadow-things actually thought they had a chance.    But Donovan quickly showed them otherwise.   They learned that not only had Donovan been holding BACK before, but that the sixteen year old boy in their midst was just as dangerous... and much more savage... than the old man.   Wraiths fell in twos and threes with each swing of each blade...   ... impaled, beheaded, eviscerated, dismembered... and their killers kept on plowing through the crowd from opposite ends, with no sign of stopping.

Finally, Donovan's blade hit something more solid-

-CLANG!-

Donovan and Sebastian found each other's eyes, looking across the swords crossed between them.  Donovan saw his own emotionless sneer staring back at him from his son's face.

"Perimeter secured!"   Sebastian barked.    There was no blood on his sword, but his blonde hair was plastered to his forehead.    Donovan could almost hear the boy's heart thundering from exertion.  But he didn't look tired.    He never looked tired.   Left to his own, the boy would go on fighting until he dropped dead from fatigue.   Donovan had almost seen it happen several times.    It frightened him.

"Halfway there,"  said Donovan.  "The easy part's almost over."

"Yes, sir!"

There were still a few wraiths in the room, and they were frantically trying to get away.  They scattered, running ran for the corners of the theater and trying to get to the other exits... exits that Sebastian had already welded shut.   Donovan sheathed one swords, drew one of the guns he'd taken fromn the guards, and began picking them off at a distance while Sebastian chased them down.     The mother mass ejected another knot of shadows near Sebastian.    Sebastian never gave it a chance to develop, he sliced it in half while it was still in the air.   Donovan kept firing as he approached the stage.  The number of wraiths in the room dropped from 30 to around 10.    Donovan mounted the stairs and walked calmly toward the huge black thing on the stage.   Tentacles slithered toward him, but Donovan slashed them away easily.   Soon, he stood before the chaotic thing.

He tossed the remaing gun out into the rows of seats.

"I'm going in!"   He shouted.  "Keep the wraiths inside!"

Sebastian nodded, snatching the gun from the air and firing it into the backs of a fleeing couple.  Both vanished before they could even hit the ground, but not before Donovan got a look at them.   It was the SAME couple that Donovan had killed earlier... or rather a new, fresh copy of them.     Donovan pointed to their little boy hiding behind one of the seats.   Sebastian calmly shot kid and then made his way the door.

Donovan shivered.    He remembered when Sebastian had been that boy's age.   That had been when-

FOCUS!

Donovan raised his sword, took a step back, and thrust it into the leathery hide of the mother mass.   The blade went in effortlessly, and it took little effort to slice a vertical gash into its flank.    The air that belched out was foul beyond words.  Donovan peeled the thing's flesh back enough for him to slip through...and then he was gone.

The mother mass looked like a mutated, amorphous black egg from the outside.   On the inside, it looked much worse.  Darkness closed in around him like a fist, but it was more of a physical force than the mere absence of light.   The mother mass's flesh pressed in around him, trying at once to both push him back out and draw him deeper inside.  There was no room to use a sword, but nor was there any room to sheath the weapon.   Donovan simply turned his shoulder to the darkness and charged deeper, pushing as hard as he could until it finally gave way.

The folds of black flesh opened before him, nearly dumping him into the digestion chamber beyond.   He stumbled, but quickly caught his balance as the tentacles oozed out of the walls... and floor... and ceiling...

Donovan's sword lashed out instinctively, cutting them away as quickly as they had appeared.   That was possible here along the outer edge, but it wouldn't be once he went deeper.   He was in the mass's digestive track, but that wasn't saying much.   The mother mass was ALL digestive track.   It only had two organs... a 'stomach' and a black heart buried somewhere in its ugly bulk.   No matter where he had entered, Donovan was sure to end up inside the first, and a good distance away from the second.

There was light here, but it was a light that only Donovan would have been able to see.  It came not from lamps or torches or flashlights, but from the souls of the theater patrons.   They were all around him, half-entombed within the folds of the mother mass.   The walls were ALIVE with their moaning, unconscious bodies.   Unconscious, but not motionless.  Twitching limbs and spasming torsos appeared out of nowhere, only to be swallowed up again by the darkness.  They were not reaching for Donovan... nor were they screaming for help.   Donovan doubted that any of them even knew where they were; their minds were lost in delusions of splendor and delight... false visions to keep them subdued as their captor sucked its nourishment from their very essences.  It was a standard trick of the demonic, and it usually worked quite well.    From the looks on their faces, most of the patrons were quite happy being eaten alive.   Their auras were dim and flickering, but some stronger souls still blared out of the darkness like beacons.  It didn't matter; the mother mass would drain their souls dry, and only then begin working on their bodies... dissolving them in a process that would take several weeks and leave nothing but dried, shrunken husks.    That hadn't happened yet.   The patrons had only been here a few hours; there was still time to save them.

But to do that, he had to let them suffer a little while longer.   Cutting them free and dragging them out one at a time would have been futile... the mother mass's tentacles would just drag them back in as soon as Donovan turned his back.  And if not, Sebastian would probably mistake them for wraiths and dismember them on the spot.    The boy lacked the auric vision, and wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

That would be unfortunate.

No, he had to destroy the thing at its source... at its heart.

Wherever THAT was.

Donovan felt something stroke the back of his neck.   He turned and sliced away a probing tentacle before it could grab him.  Then he charged forward, ignoring the orgasmic moans of the human cattle as he fought his way deeper.    The tentacles became thicker the deeper he went.   And the way became increasingly narrow.  He couldn't take a step without brushing up against something dark and grasping.  If he swung his blade and tried to hack his way through, he'd only end up impaling some poor human being trapped within the folds.

Donovan sheathed his sword and drew a smaller blade... a hunting knife.   He used it to sever whatever tendrils came his way, but there was no possibility of getting them all.    The first one got him in the leg... slithering up  past his boots and under his pants, then delving into his flesh just below the knee.   Donovan felt the pinch as it entered... he felt his mind buzzzzzzing as his Resistance fought off the spiritual poison.

Donovan grabbed the tendril at the base.. right where it emerged from the wall... and sliced it cleanly in too.   The severed end dissolved, but then several more dropped from above and wrapped around his upper body.  They yanked him back... and then up.   Donovan twisted in their grasp, cutting what he could and straining to resist...

...The smoke from his father's pipe.   It always made him think of home.   Sometimes would come back from school and just stand in the doorway, inhaling that wonderful scent-

"AAAGH!"

Donovan pulled himself free and dropped to the ground.   Two tendrils had gotten him in the neck, but he pulled them out and kept going... still smelling the faint traces of spiced, flavored tobacco.   He wasn't bleeding, but-

The wall bulged out ahead of him... a hidden seam split open and a knot of tentacles exploded toward him.

Donovan dropped his knife...

...before it had fallen one inch, the sword was in his hand.    One slash... two...

Donovan ignored the pinpricks of pain as some of the smaller tendrils found their marks.    It was the larger ones that were physically dangerous.... that could crush him like-

...the embrace of his first love.  His first time.   How long ago was that?  Yesterday.   Seems longer... years... but no, it was just yesterday.  And he was going to see her again tonight.   Did she love him?   Did it matter?  It mattered before, but NOW he just wanted to feel the softness of her body as-

Donovan backed away, shuddering at the painful chill running down the length of his body.

"...damn..."  he spat.   He hadn't been ready for that one.   No... not quite ready to be 15 again.   He had to focus.  The Resistance would only help him so much... the rest was up to him.   Donovan backed away a few steps-

-and something grabbed him.

An actual person.  One of the patrons... a woman... had reached out and seized his wrist.  Her eyes were closed tight, but she as awake enough to know that someone was there...

"Take me!"  she moaned.  "OOOOHhhh, it feels so good-"

"AWAY from me, woman!"  Donovan snatched himself away.   Backing right into a nest of tendrils.  Pain cascaded down the exposed skin of his face and neck...

..."But I LOVE her!   There's no RULE saying I can't love a woman!"

"No, but you forget who and what you are-"

"I know EXACTLY who I am!"

"Then you know this cannot be!   You are a KNIGHT, Donovan!   Your very presence puts her in danger!   If you DO love her, you'll get as FAR away from her as you possibly can!   Otherwise, the forces of darkness will use her AGAINST you-"

"I can protect her!  I have the Gifts-"

"Don't be a FOOL!"

"Fool... I'll be a fool if I give her up!   Luther, why am I even DOING this if it isn't for love?   I save the world every other bloody MONTH... but WHY!?   What's the POINT!?  What kind of world am I fighting for if two people can't love each other-"

"People, yes... but not you.   This is not for you."

"LOVE is not for me!?"

"No, Donovan."

"How can you SAY that!?   Who gives you the right to declare I CANNOT BE HAPPY!"

"I'm your Guide-"

"You're also DEAD!   You can't stop this!  You have no power to stop it!   NO authority!"

"Donovan, please... don't pursue this.  Don't pursue HER.   It will end badly if you do."

"I don't CARE how it ends!  That's what love IS... its not CARING how it turns out!   You'd know that if you'd ever BEEN in love!"

"You are right.  I can't stop you.   But I know with all the certainty of sunrise that this will destroy her.  And it MAY destroy you as well.   Is that what you want, Donovan?   Is that the kind of ending you want?"

"No.  But I'd rather take that chance than to rip out my own HEART for the sake of YOUR cowardice!"

"There IS no chance!  It is a CERTAINTY!"

"So YOU say.   But you've been wrong before."

"I'm not wrong about this.  It WILL end badly, Donovan!"

"We'll just have to SEE then, won't we!"

....Donovan opened his eyes, surprised at the supreme effort it took to do so... and also at the fact that he still had the strength to do it.    How long had he been here?   Seconds?   Minutes?   The mother mass had snared him with visions of...

Luther Clark.   His Guide.

How long ago had that been?   Donovan didn't have to ask himself... he already knew EXACTLY how long ago it was.  He knew it every time he looked at Sebastian.

Had it ended badly?

Dear God, yes.   Worse than he could have possibly imagined.

But why was the mother mass showing him THAT?!  It was supposed to delude him with heavenly visions... not with... with... that.

Growling with both effort and anger, Donovan tore himself shoulder free of the folds where the tentacles had imprisoned him.   His sword was on the ground not far away, half-buried in the fleshy muck.  He grabbed the weapon and kept moving... cutting down anything in his path.  Patrons didn't matter now, this was too dangerous to let go on much longer.   It was time to take a lesson from his own son.... time to do what needed doing, no matter what.

The walls undulated in and out around him.  They merged together before him, trying to block his path.   Donovan would not be blocked.   His blades made paths where there were none.   The larger tentacles fell in severed chunks behind him.   The smaller ones tasted his flesh once or twice, but Donovan would not be caught again.   With a final slash, he ruptured a fleshy membrane  surrounding the core of the beast.   The inner chamber was huge... and it was packed with bodies.   A single black stalk rose high above him, but at its base... right where he could reach it... was a throbbing bulbous knot the size of a man.   And surrounding it were several men.   And a woman.   And a child.     The mother mass had positioned them around its heart as human shields.   Their arms, legs and bodies were interwoven into the heart's fibrous bulk, making them an actual PART of the black organ.   There may have even been people completely contained within it.   There was no way to destroy the heart without killing them.   If he killed IT, he would have to kill THEM, too.

Without hesitation, Donovan raised his sword and brought it down...

...the blade stopped an inch away from a woman's forehead.

He couldn't do it.    Her eyes were closed, and there was a loose, giddy smile on her face.   Her husband was at her side; their hands clasped together, barely protruding from the knot of tentacles holding them and the others.   Their son... the little boy that Donovan had seen killed twice already... was holding the woman's other hand.   The boy's aura was unusually bright... as children's auras often are.

They looked happy.  Perhaps the mother mass had wired them all together so that they all shared the same delusion.

Together.  Happy.   Happy the way that Donovan wanted to be so long ago.  The way he WAS once... for a while.   For a pitifully short while.

Donovan sheathed his sword and retrieved his knife.    Killing innocent people was an option, but it was a LAST option.  There was another way.   He just had to figure out what it was.    He tried cutting the people free, but the instant he got close enough, hundreds of tendrils spooled off of he mother mass's heart and tried to ensnare his wrist.   He barely jerked his hand back in time.  It wasn't going to let him free them.

Clever.

But not clever ENOUGH.   Donovan had been killing demons for decades, and he knew that violence wasn't the only way it could be done.   Sometimes it was the BEST or FASTEST way, but this wasn't one of those times.

Donovan unsnapped the small bottle of holy water... blessed by the same priest that had prayed over his swords.   He unscrewed the top...

...and drank the entire pint.

"All right,"  he said as he dropped his sword.   "Come and get it."

Donovan didn't wait for it to come, he took a running leap onto the mother mass's throbbing heart.   He didn't fight the tentacles as they wiggled their way under his clothes and into his flesh.   He winced at the pain... at the sudden weakness... the buzzing in his soul as he and the mother mass exchanged poisons.    How long would it take?  He didn't know...

"...what..." he said weakly,  "...are you going to show me...this time..."

Delusions of heaven?   Orgasmic bliss?

No.

Like love, those things were for everyone else.   For HIM, the mother mass had something else.  Fear.  Failure.   Pain.

There was a sudden rush of air, and for a second Donovan thought he was flying.  He wasn't.   He was running.  He was running fast... running for his life.   He had a sword in is right hand, and clutched in his folded left arm was a seven-year old boy.

"HOLD ON!"  Donovan screamed as the old farmhouse behind him shook with the angry bellow of the THING.    It had come just as they'd said.   It had come... and it was hungry.   And now, deprived of sacrifice, Balthaygaur was instead consuming the souls of those who had summoned him.  But that wouldn't be enough.  It would NEVER be enough.... not after it had come so close.  Not after it had TASTED... tasted...

"HOLD ON TO ME!!"

The boy wrapped his arms around Donovan's neck as the roof blew off the farmhouse, and the entire structure erupted into a pillar of hellfire.

And out of that burning pyramid of flame rose a dark and monstrous shape.

Donovan didn't look.  He heard the infernal roar and felt the flames at his back, but he didn't look behind him.   He should have.  If he had, he wouldn't have looked at the boy.  He wouldn't have seen the child's face as young Sebastian beheld the THING that had already swallowed half of his soul...

Swallowed.

Bitten off and consumed like a bit of cheesecake.

Donovan looked into the boy's eyes and saw the hellfire reflected in those jagged, empty pools.   Not enough of a soul left to be afraid...  or to even CARE that they could both be dead in a few seconds

His son.  He could save thousands of others... but not his own son.   He'd been too late.   If only he'd known... if only she hadn't deceived him... if only...

...if only he'd listened to Luther.

But he hadn't, and now he'd delivered an innocent soul into a living hell.    Not just any soul.   His son.    His own son.

"...it's my fault... Oh, God, its all my FAULT!!!"

It was the worst pain he had ever felt in his life.    But it wouldn't STAY the worse.  No... soon it would be surpassed by...

Luther was screaming.     How... HOW could a dead man scream so much!?   It was taking him!   The room was spinning as Donovan fought his way back to consciousness.  But again, he was too late!   His vision cleared just in time to see it happen.... to see that all-too-human monster draw off Luther Clark's soul like a sip of water through a straw.

"LUTHER!"

Luther tried to say something.  Some parting words... some final instruction...   but all that came out was a scream of eternal torment.

"HAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!"  the thing laughed.   It fled... unzipping its flesh and exploding out the window, leaving Donovan bleeding on the floor.  His fault.   HIS fault AGAIN!

Donovan stretched his hand out after it... after HIM...  but it was gone.

The door burst in.   Sebastian... twelve years old, swords dripping with blood that as not his.

Donovan thanked God that the boy hadn't gotten here any earlier, or else it would have taken him, too.

"Father-"

"He's gone...  too late..."

"What happened?"

"It took him!  It took LUTHER!"

"Who?  HOW!?"

Donovan pointed at the window and spat out the fiend's name like a curse...  a curse that had been placed upon HIM.  His hands were still shaking with fear....

"The Phage!"

Phage!Phage!PHAGE!PHAGE!

The word tore through Donovan's mind, echoing back and forth in violent feedback, growing louder and louder and LOUDER until...

...until it woke him up.

Donovan gasped as he sat up.    Sebastian grabbed him by the arm and helped him to his feet.  They were standing on the stage, surrounded by the unconscious bodies of the theater patrons.   The mother mass was almost gone... pieces of it were still barely visible... and even those were rapidly fading away to nothingness.   There would be no trace of it for anyone to find, and its victims would have no memory of the thing that rose up during the intermission and gulped them down.    They'd have to find their on explanation as to why they woke up on the stage.

"You killed it,"  said Sebastian.

"Poison,"  Donovan grunted.   Everything hurt.  Not physically... but his soul.   His soul hurt.   "I used myself as bait."

"Worked,"  said Sebastian.   "We should leave now."

Donovan nodded, and they started toward the door.   Sebastian had to help him walk, because his own legs were weak.

"This was a trap,"  said Donovan after a few steps.  "It should never have gotten this big.   They CAN'T get this big.  Not without help.    Someone set this up for us.   For me."

"Why?   Why use wraiths?  Why not something dangerous..."

"Because this was just a reminder.   Just someone's way of sending a message...."

"From who?"

"You know,"  said Donovan.

Sebastian paused, and they both faced each other in the aisle.

"Are we going to fight him this time?"  said Sebastian.

"The last time I tried, it cost me my best friend's soul.   Now... if I read those visions correctly...  I think he wants whats left of yours.   He wants that because he knows it will hurt me the most.  I can't let that happen."

"I can take care of myself-"

"Not against him."

"So what are we going to do when he comes?"

"We run, Sebastian.   We run."

The End!?!?

copyright 2005 by Dark Icon Entertainment