Inner Depths

Part Two: SuperBeast

he pavement ended just a few yards from the highway, and the tires of the late-model Oldsmobile crunched noisily over a few feet of gravel before reaching the relative silence of the dirt road beyond.

"Hey, take it easy!" one of the four occupants exclaimed. Arnold 'Big Boy' Roland pawed at the bandage holding the fragments of his wrist together. Every jostle of the vehicle sent sharp bolts of pain stabbing into his forearm. The large man gave a very unmanly squeal when the driver hit a hole that bounced them in their seats. "HEY! HEY!"

"What, you wanna walk now, bitch?" said the driver. Sherman was the smallest person in the car. The largest, 'CC' Johnson, sat in the passenger seat, leaning heavily against the door.

"I need to get to a hospital man!" Big Boy whined. He held up his arm. "I need to get to a hospital!"

"Cole said no hospitals until this nigga is in the ground. And we almost there."

"Well what do you expect me to do when we get there?" said Big Boy. "DIG?!"

Sherman shrugged. The car hit another hole... larger than the last... and CC's head struck the window. Something in the trunk made a loud and heavy thump, and Big Boy hurled a string of profanities from the back seat. Sherman slowed down.

"Did you see that?" said CC. "Back there at the club? Did you see what that nigga did-"

"I thought we wasn't talkin about that no more," said Sherman.

"That's easy for YOU to say!" said Big Boy.

And it was. Both CC and Big Boy had come out of their last encounter unconscious. Arnold had had his wrist crushed and then been slapped around like a cheap, ugly whore. CC had been picked up and thrown into a car... by a man half his size. Sherman, however, had managed to escape with nothing more than a hand-shaped bruise around his throat.

The man who had done all of this... who's hand-print still adorned Sherman's throat... was now dead. The fact that their employer had had to do the deed himself did not bode well for the trio of hired 'muscle'. Chances are they would ALL be in the hospital before the night was over.

"Man, what kinda drugs was he on!?" said Arnold. "I mean... did you see-"

"I saw him slap you around like a bitch... hell yeah, I saw that!" Sherman snapped. "Now shut up!"

They rode the next few minutes in silence. The dirt path became rougher and narrower as it wound deeper into the woods. The trees closed in around them, and soon branches and leaves were scratching at the windows like something trying to claw its way into the car. Sherman slowed down a bit more, squinting into the dim circle of light cast from the headlights.

"Here we go," he said.

A second later, the tight road expanded into a large clearing of several acres. A few years ago there had been plans to build a large church here, but the money had run out, and the ambitious project halted just after the land was cleared. Now all that remained of their efforts was a monstrous patch of empty dirt visible only from the air, and accessible only by a dwindling road that would be over-grown and impassible in another year or two.

It was a perfect place to loose things that you didn't want found for a while, and this was not the first time that these three men had made this particular trip.

It would be the last.

Sherman pulled the car a short distance into the clearing and stopped.

"Right over there," he said, pointing out through the windshield. The patch of ground he was pointing at was indistinguishable from any other part of the clearing, but somehow Sherman had decided that THAT was the perfect spot. "We'll did a hole... dump his ass in with some gasoline and burn him good. Then cover it up."

"That sounds like a whole lot of work," said Big Boy.

"That's what we always do!"

"Yeah but not with a broke arm!"

"Then you can just hold the lights, nigga! Think you can handle that? Damn..."

Sherman threw open the driver's side door and stepped out. CC joined him outside.

"Hand me them flashlights from the back," said Sherman. Big Boy tossed out two flashlights. There was an electric lamp on the seat beside him, so he brought that with him when he got out.

"Where's the shovels?" said Sherman.

"In the trunk where you put 'em," said Big Boy. He lit the lamp and set it on top of the Oldsmobile, then joined the others around the rear of the car. "Hey, you sure he's dead?"

The other two looked at him like he was crazy.

"...what? I'm just askin..."

"Well stop askin," said Sherman as he jammed the key into the lock and turned it. The mechanism unlatched with a soft 'clunk.'

The entire rear-half of the vehicle gave a violent lurch as the trunk lid exploded... snapping its hinges and flying back into the surprised faces of the two men standing directly behind it. The flying metal wing caught Sherman and CC across the upper torsos, flinging them both past the surprised Big Boy and sending them tumbling into the dirt several yards behind the Oldsmobile.

"WHAT THE-!?"

Big Boy drew his gun and aimed it into the open trunk, pointing it at... at...

Jason Brooks smiled up at him with a face that was still fully human... but an expression that was most certainly not. Teeth longer and sharper than could even FIT in a man's jaw gleamed in the darkness as he climbed out of the trunk, placing one hand on the edge of the car and using the other to catch Arnold Roland's wrist an instant before he could pull the trigger.

"HE'S GOT ME!" Arnold squealed.

Jason had already broken one of the man's wrists already that night... but that was before. Before they'd shot him and put holes in his new clothes. Before they'd dumped him in a trunk and driven him out to the middle of nowhere.

Before they'd pissed him off.

But now...

...NOW he was mad.

Jason folded Arnold's arm back-

-CRACK!-

-creating a brand new joint halfway between the elbow and the wrist. The two bones of Arnold's forearm snapped like toothpicks, their jagged ends tearing through his skin with a jet of blood and agony. Jason twisted the now-useless arm, folded it further back until the gun that Arnold still held was now pointed Arnold's own staring eyes.

"NOOOOO, DON'T-"

Growling, Jason shoved until the barrel of the gun was resting against the side of Arnold's skull, pointing past his left ear. Then he pulled the trigger.

The flash of heat roasted Arnold's skin down to the bone, while the shockwave ruptured his eardrum and rendered him instantly unconscious. Disappointed, Jason let Arnold's body fall.

CC and Sherman both started firing. Neither man had gotten to his feet yet. Stunned, they'd watched Jason twist Big Boy's arm almost completely off and... from where THEY were laying... shoot him with his own gun. But they had guns, too.

Two semiautomatic handguns filled the clearing with harsh flashes of sound and light... light and sound that buzzed angrily at Jason's senses, annoying him much more than the actual bullets themselves. He stood motionless before the open trunk and let the thugs empty their guns at him. Even at close range, their aim was terrible. Half of their shots missed... hitting the car behind him and sometimes not even that. But the ones that didn't burned their way through Jason's torso like hot, angry bees...

...and that's the same amount of pain and damage they caused: Bee-stings. Jason's flesh closed up instantly behind the lead slugs. Each annoying sting only made him angrier.

When both weapons fell empty with two unmistakable 'clicks,' he smiled... and spat out two hot bullets that had worked their way up to the back of his throat. Three more were tumbling around in his stomach like dice at a craps table.

The two thugs stared as the bullets struck the bumper of the car and bounced into the dirt.

'CC' Johnson got up and sprinted for the dirt road behind him. Sherman tried to do the same, but his feet were clumsy with fear. He kicked up a cloud of dirt before he could even manage to stand.

By this time, Jason had reached into the open trunk of the car intending to grab one of the shovels they had tossed in on top of him. But something else caught his eye.

Tire iron.

Nice... strong... tire-iron. With a sharp, flat tip for prying off hub-caps. Or knee-caps.

Jason grabbed the length of metal and turned. CC was just disappearing through the trees. Sherman was running-

Jason intended to chase them, but now it was HIS legs that weren't working correctly. Running didn't seem... right... so instead he crouched down and jumped across the ten yards or so separating him from Sherman. One leap carried him the entire distance. Jason struck Sherman from behind, thrusting the flat edge of the tire-iron into the center of Sherman's back, ramming it between two vertebrae and letting his own momentum drive it in. Sherman screamed a terrified wail of agony as he fell. Jason straddled him and grasped the hunk of metal protruding from the man's back. He twisted it...

-pop-

-prying the vertebrae apart and filling the clearing with a hideous scream that defied description. The scream ended in a long, sigh as half of Sherman's body went numb... and the other half was too weak to make a sound despite the agony. Jason glanced at the road, then leaned down to whisper in the man's ear:

"....don't move..."

And then he was gone. One leap took him past Sherman's shuddering body and into the woods, where the yellow scent of fear beckoned like a beacon.

e was going to die.

He had a gun. He had a flashlight. He was the biggest, strongest guy that he knew.

But he was going to die.

The beam from the flashlight slashed wildly across the trees surrounding him as CC Johnson ran... tripped... stumbled... caught his balance and ran again down the dirt road. The highway was a long way away... just a few minutes by a slow-moving car, but on foot with that THING behind him...

He was going to die!

And if he did make it to the street, who said that it would stop chasing him once he reached the highway? What... monsters are allergic to asphalt? Who had made up THAT rule!?

The high, intense glare of solid fear rotated through CC's thoughts like a lighthouse beam, casting shadows of outright terror on every rational thought that dared raise its head.

He was going to die! Just like-

Sherman?

Was Sherman dead? CC slowed down. Sherman? He'd known Sherman since middle school. They were partners back when Cole was still getting beaten up by girls. Sherman too, for that matter. Was he really dead? CC hadn't SEEN it, but he'd heard that awful scream-

-nothing could scream like that unless they were dead. Nothing living could make that sound and go on living much longer afterward. But is that what he was going to tell Sherman's mama? Is that what he was going to tell Cole?

Is that what he was going to tell HIMSELF on the slim chance that he made it to the street and found out that that thing actually WAS allergic to paved roads? What if he DIDN'T die... and Sherman wasn't dead yet either... but he found out later that if he'd just gone back and helped-

"Naw..." said CC, simultaneously rejecting the idea of going back AND the idea of abandoning Sherman. He couldn't do either one of those. He just couldn't.

CC's run turned into a slow walk, and finally he found a tree big enough to hide behind-

-as if the beam from his flashlight wouldn't immediately give away his position.

He had to think a minute. He knew that Big Boy was dead... maybe. Sherman might still be back there. But that thing... the thing with teeth like a damned dinosaur... was definitely back there.

"Naw," CC mumbled again. "I ain't goin' back. I'm gonna go get the crew... and we gonna come back here and we gonna kill that thing. That's what I'm gonna do."

But 'the crew' was a long way away. And the car was.... back there.

If he could get to it, then he could not only help Sherman, but the both of them could get away a lot faster than he was right now.

IF he could get to it.

"Just hang on, Sherm..." CC said as he started moving again. He'd taken no more than five trembling steps when he heard a sound in the woods. The sound of something big moving through the trees... something that didn't bother to go around whatever was in its path, but instead was just pushing the trees over and stepping on them as it charged.

And it was coming straight for him.

CC Johnson spun around and darted down the dirt road toward the highway... Sherman and the Oldsmobile both forgotten. The sound of violently snapping trees sped up-

-and then stopped.

Still running, Sherman heard a new sound: The not-so-gentle whisper of leaves rustling overhead. He stopped again and looked straight up.

There was nothing there but overhanging branches and a thin sliver of sky.

But something WAS up there. Somewhere. The thing that was chasing him on the ground had taken to the trees now. He heard another whisper of leaves to his right... and then nothing.

It was watching him.

CC checked his gun, making absolutely sure that it was empty. It was.

Then he backed away from the direction in which he'd heard the sound. When his back hit a tree, he slipped around behind it and turned off his flashlight. He waited in silence, not realizing that he was holding his breath until he started getting dizzy. Nothing came for him. There were no further sounds from the trees or anywhere else.

Maybe it couldn't see in the dark?

No... no, CC didn't have that kind of luck. It was out there doing something... planning something. What if it had found a way to move without making a sound? What if it was sneaking up behind him right now? What if it had ALREADY snuck up behind him-

CC spun and clicked on his flashlight. There was nothing behind him but trees. But if there HAD been something there... then the only thing he had to defend himself with was an empty gun. He was still holding the weapon as if bullets would just magically appear in the magazine when he needed them. CC stuffed the gun into his pocket and aimed the flashlight at the ground around him. He needed something. A rock or a-

He spotted a thick, solid tree branch that he had just barely managed to avoid tripping over a second before. Yes. Yes, that would do. He reached down and grabbed it. It felt heavy and comforting in his fist as he picked it up.

He turned off his flashlight again and crept out to the center of the dirt path. He headed back toward the car... taking one or two steps, then pausing to listen to the trees around him, then taking another few steps. He heard nothing... no monsters, no sounds of pursuit. The silence actually made him feel more afraid. Where was it? What was it doing?

CC got the maddening feeling that the thing... man... man-thing... had crept up behind him. That feeling had been wrong the first time, and it was wrong now. Of course it wasn't behind him, he would have heard it. But the feeling was there, and it was making his legs tremble. He wasn't going to get much further until he turned around and LOOKED-

"Boo." said Jason. From exactly two feet behind CC.

With a surge of panic, CC swung the thick branch so hard and so fast that it surprised both of them. The length of half rotten wood cracked across Jason's head. The half that CC still held disintegrated in his hand, but he didn't notice. He had already turned away, throwing the fist-full of splinters to one side as he sprinted down the dirt road.

He heard something moving behind him. It wasn't running... it more of a deep grunt followed by a spray of dirt-

-and then a brief silence broken only by the sound of his own speeding shoes. The silence lasted almost a second before something large and angry collided with CC's back, pitching him forward and driving him face-first to the ground. There was a liquid crunch as his nose exploded, but CC was too terrified to feel the pain. He tried to get up, but something grasped the back of his head and forced his face into the dirt once more.

"You hit me... with a stick!?" Came a growl from behind his left ear. "A f!@king STICK!?!"

"I-"

CC wasn't on the ground any more. But he hadn't stood up, either. He'd barely felt the thing above him grab his ankles before the sudden swinging motion carried him up and around and-

CRACK!

-the world turned bright, bright red for an instant. CC blinked... and found himself sitting at the base of a large tree, with blood pouring out of his mouth and a deep, tearing pain spreading across his chest. CC knew what a broken rib felt like... but this was no broken rib. His chest was full of glass... it was full of glass...

"...uhhhhgh..." he moaned.

"Where does Taint come from?"

CC looked up toward the source of the sound... and immediately regretted it. The thing that had spoken to him was still mostly human... it had a man's shape and a man's clothes... but the face was full of twitching movements that seemed on the verge of transforming it into something else. The teeth and the eyes had already made the leap. The long, curving fangs did not have any blood on them yet, but the hungry look in those cold, reptilian eyes hinted that this absence was only temporary. Very temporary.

"TAINT!" the thing barked, causing CC to jerk... and then whimper from the resulting jolt of pain.

"...I... I dunno man..." CC whispered. It was the truth. Only Cole knew where the Taint came from. "I swear-"

"WRONG!"

The thing grabbed CC's ankles and snatched him up like a toy, swinging him back and then slamming him against the tree a second time.

CRACK!

CC felt his right shoulder strike the trunk... the joint shattered, but not before transmitting the force of the impact along his spine. Something in his back twisted and then cracked. The world turned red again. CC waited for the pain to subside, but it never did. It just got worse.

He was on the ground again, his shattered chest pressed into the dirt at the bottom of the tree. He was trying drag himself forward with his left arm, but he wasn't moving. The thing was still holding him. Both of CC's ankles were in the air, each one held by a hard, inhuman hand with a grip harder than stone.

"TAINT!" The thing roared.

"...Cole..." CC moaned.

"WHERE IS COLE!?"

"...please don't hurt me..."

"COLE!!!" The hands twisted on CC's ankles. The fingers tightened and loosened, like a batter getting a grip on his favorite bat.

"...oh god..." Cole choked. He stammered and muttered until the pain let him form words... and then he used those words to tell the thing what it wanted. CC knew where Cole was going tonight. There was an appointment that even Cole couldn't break. He gave the thing a number and a street. He told it what section of town... what neighborhood... how many miles off the highway and in what direction... he would have given it the zip code, latitude and longitude if he knew it. "...that's all I know, man... I swear... please..."

"Are you begging?" The thing hissed. It didn't seem so angry now... it almost seemed calm now that it had what it wanted. Maybe it wasn't going to hurt him any more....

"...please... please don't..."

"Please? Please?! Now... if I remember right... back at the club Cole told you to break my bones until I didn't have any bones left to break. Well I don't have that kinda time, but here's a down payment-"

"No, I-"

The thing's calm, steady hands suddenly squeezed and twisted in opposite directions, rotating both of CC's legs 180 degrees. CC's ankles disintegrated in the monster's grip. His knees ruptured, and both of his hips snatched out of their sockets with two disgusting pops. CC's mouth opened and, despite a chest full of shattered ribs, he unleashed such a howl of pain that he thought surely God himself would hear it and grant him the mercy of unconsciousness.

...He didn't.

"There," The thing dropped CC's limp and useless legs... both now facing the wrong direction... and tapped CC on the head as if petting a dog. "You have a nice walk back to town."

ason strolled quietly back to the clearing... fully aware of what he had just done, but feeling none of the disgust, guilt, or shock that should have accompanied it. He didn't know what those words were any more, and if someone had tried to explain it just then, he would have twisted the top of his or her skull back like a bottle cap.

...the thought made him smile.

In fact... he hadn't stopped smiling since he'd gotten out of the trunk of the car. It had all just been so much fun that he wanted to do it again.

And that's exactly what he was going to do.

The second thug... who's name was Sherman... was still stretched out on the ground just inside the clearing. The rusty tire-iron was still protruding from the man's back, and now the dirt beneath him had turned into a shallow puddle of bloody mud.

Sherman was still alive. He had managed to reach into his pocket, and was punching numbers into a cell phone when Jason emerged from the woods.

"Bad news," Jason said as he walked past. He stopped and turned back, looking down at the curiously food-like motions of the terrified thug. "Your friend told me what I wanted to know. Guess that means I don't need you any more."

Sherman mumbled something. Jason didn't know, or care, what it was.

"Or maybe there IS something you can do. Who're you trying to call?"

Sherman wheezed.

"Call Cole," said Jason. "Tell him I'm coming. That ought to make things fun. Oh, one more thing..."

Sherman started to mumble, or wheeze, or make some sound... but it turned into a high pitched shriek when Jason grabbed the tire iron and snatched it out of the thug's back.

"You're welcome."

Leaving the annoying screams behind him, Jason took the car keys out of the trunk latch, got in the car, and started the engine. He turned the Oldsmobile around and headed back down the dirt road.

It occurred to him that he'd left the big one... CC... lying beside the road with two broken legs and a chest that would eventually deflate like a balloon. Unfortunately, the road was narrow, and there wasn't enough room to get the car past him if he was still there. Jason wondered if... when the time came... he would stop and move the poor soul out of the way instead of just running him over like a racoon-

-probably not.

he was heavier than she looked... but then, most girls were. Especially when they were unconscious. As he unlocked the door to his apartment, Paul wondered briefly just what it was about dead weight that made it so much heavier than a living, conscious person. But then, he hadn't had to carry very many conscious girls up to his room-

-except for that one who woke up on the stairs, but she hadn't exactly been light to begin with.

When the door opened, those few seconds of morbid philosophy drifted away, replaced by a tide of dark intentions. Paul smiled, even with the effort of picking his latest prize up and carrying her across the threshold of his apartment. He paused to kick the door shut, then stumbled the few steps between the door and the sofa.

The sofa was big. Long and deep with lots of padding... Very well suited for its purpose. When he dropped Ashley onto it, she seemed to sink softly into the cushions. Had she been merely asleep instead of drugged, the landing probably wouldn't have even awakened her.

Paul went back to the door and set the lock. The dead-bolt slid tight with a click. He returned to the sofa, where Ashley sat at an uncomfortable angle, leaning against the armrest with her head resting on the cushion behind her.

"Let's see what we have here," Paul said in a low voice, as if trying to seduce the unconscious girl in front of him. Ashley's white halter top had already crept up onto her abdomen... the strip of skin that it was supposed to leave exposed was now much wider than it was supposed to be. Her left hand lay daintily in her lap; Paul swept it aside and ran his fingers across her stomach...

...then snagged the bottom of her shirt and tugged it upward, bunching the garment up just below her breasts. There was nothing particularly sexy about Ashley's stomach, but Paul stopped to consider it anyway.

"My, aren't we skinny..." he said, placing his hand flat on her lower chest. He let her skin warm his hand, then moved it up slightly so that his fingers slipped under the bottom of her tight shirt.

He waited for a reaction, but there wasn't one. There never was.

His hand rose higher, following the curve of her body until he was cupping a small, warm breast through the silken material of a brand new bra.

"Nice..." The right corner of Paul's mouth twitched... the beginnings of a sneer. With both hands, he flipped Ashley's halter top up over her breasts, exposing her bra and the petite curves that it cradled. "Nice again," Paul said, the lusty sneer spreading across his face like a long, thin stain.

Ashley's bra had a clasp in the front. Paul's fingers zeroed in on it. Not having had much experience undoing women's clothing, it took him a few fumbling seconds to unfasten the hook. The bra fell away, and Paul stared hungrily at the pale orbs that rose and fell with each of Ashley's shallow breaths. His immediate urge was to reach out and touch them, but first he had to make sure...

He placed a hand on either side of Ashley's face, and used his thumbs to open her eyelids. The eyes underneath didn't so much as twitch. Her pupils were fully dilated, and after a few seconds of no response, Paul let her eyes closed. He tapped her cheek in a tentative slap... then a harder one.... then a harder one that left a red mark on her skin.

Nothing.

"Good girl," said Paul. His hands returned to her chest, where he ran his fingers across her breasts for a moment, and then cupped them in his palms. He pawed at them clumsily... squeezing and stroking until the nipples responded to his touch. Or perhaps they were responding to the slight chill in the room. "You may be out cold, but you still know what you like," Paul hummed. "So do I."

Paul's left hand abandoned its new plaything and slid down Ashley's torso to her skirt. Possessing neither the dexterity nor the patience to fumble with the skirt's fasteners, Paul bypassed them entirely. He found the bare skin of Ashley's thigh and then eased his right hand up under the short skirt. His hand following her thigh upward to her hip...

"Mmhmmm," Paul said, frowning slightly. "Sorry, babe, those have got to go..."

Paul shifted Ashley on the couch, dragging her forward until her butt was perched on the very edge of the cushion. Then he knelt on the floor before her and reached both hands up her skirt. He grabbed her panties and slowly slid them down her legs... finally letting them drop to the floor around her new shoes.

"Theerrrre we go," Paul said in a voice that was supposed to sound seductive, but fell pitifully short of the mark. He returned one hand to her bare breast while the other remained tucked underneath her skirt, exploring the skin of her inner thigh. The hand crept upward like a large, fleshy spider,

Paul closed his eyes and... for a moment... imagined that this molestation was something other than rape, and that his victim was both awake and willing. Ashley was, in truth, neither... but Paul indulged this fantasy for a few minutes as he explored her.

Then reality intruded... and Paul remembered that his roommate was probably on his way home and would soon be demanding HIS turn with the girl. It was time to move on.

"Hope you're ready," Paul said as he shoved Ashley's skirt up, turning it into little more than a wide cloth belt around her hips. "...cause I sure am!" Paul stood and, not taking his eyes off of Ashley's effectively naked body, fumbled with his own belt and zipper. When he had both undone, he reached one hand behind him, searching for the roll of condoms he kept on the table. Eyes still fixed on Ashley's naked breasts, he stepped back-

-and bumped into something. Something that was not a table.

Startled, Paul spun.

"Dude, I didn't hear you come-"

The tall, solid, and utterly intimidating figure behind him was NOT his roommate.

"-in."

The man looked about Paul's age... or perhaps a few years younger. His hair was a blonde mess that still managed to look cool despite the complete absence of an unidentifiable style. He wasn't huge, but his muscles were clearly defined, even through his loose-fitting clothes... all of which were black. He looked like some kind of soldier or commando, and he even wore a thick military-style belt laden with gadgets and... knives and... more knives and... more... knives... and...

"Uhhh..." Paul wasn't sure what he was about to say, he just let his mouth run on automatic as he raised his hands defensively before him and stepped away from the intruder. "I... hey dude... uhhh..."

WHAP!

The intruder moved. It took Paul a second to realize that the stranger had reached out and grabbed his right forearm. The grab was so swift and strong that it felt like a punch. Paul's wrist hurt as the blonde man slooowwwllly pulled him forward again, yanking Paul's arm out in front of him and arresting his backward retreat.

Paul's surprised eyes fixed on the intruder's face.

He didn't like that face. It wasn't deformed or scarred.... but the expression on it was the ugliest thing that Paul had ever seen. Where Paul expected to find anger or outrage, there was instead a look of sheer intensity... a expression of seriousness that was beyond Paul's ability to describe until his subconscious mind offered the unwelcome suggestion:

Deadly.

Yes, that was it... Deadly Serious. The kind of expression that an executioner would have as he carried out his duties.

Only more intense.

"...uhhh... dude... uhhh... hey, is this your girl? I'm mean... uhhh... It's not... it's not like it looks, ya know... I mean... uhhh..."

As Paul babbled, the stranger glanced down at Paul's fingers, which were held helpless in the stranger's grasp. The man studied them for a few long seconds... never taking his eyes off of them... not even to blink. Paul realized with rising dismay that THOSE were the fingers he had been using to...

Uh-oh.

"... uhhh.... d- uhhh... d-dude... uhhh.... h-h-how long you been st-standing there?"

"How long have you been bleeding?" said the stranger.

"I'm not-"

The stranger released Paul's arm and took a step back. He also made another motion that Paul didn't notice until he caught the gleam of light on the polished steel blade. The sword slid soundlessly from the black scabbard and in the very next instant it became a blur of light slashing through the air between them-

The tips of Paul's fingers slid off of his right hand as if they had never really been attached in the first place... leaving behind a row of red stumps that pumped blood into the air like four tiny fountains.

Paul's mind was still processing what he was seeing when the sword flashed again-

-and now the stumps were gone. His four fingers had been sliced off cleanly at the hand.

Shock and horror collided in Paul's mind like two trains on the same track. He grabbed his spurting hand and... inhaling in preparation for a scream... tightened the fingers of his left hand around the wrist in order to stop the bleeding. His eyes looked past his ruined hand to the face of the man before him. That same expression of deadly seriousness glared back at him... the stranger's face never flinched as his body twisted and brought the blade around again-

Paul sucked the nascent scream back into his throat as now... oh GOD... now the top portion of his right hand slid away and fell to the carpet amid the eight bloody stumplets of his fingers.

Blood sprayed halfway across the room. Trampling over his own severed fingers, Paul turned and yanked his hand away-

-but even with reflexes quickened by terror, he was not fast enough to keep himself from the blade. His eyes caught only a glimpse of it... The sword took the remainder of Paul's hand off at the wrist... and his efforts to avoid it had cost him the index finger of his left hand as well.

"OH GOD!" Paul screamed... his lungs finally drawing air through the rag of sheer panic that clogged his throat. Paul's right arm now ended in a bloody stump. He tucked the appendage tight against his side as he sprang for the door. Beside and behind him, he heard the whoosh-WHOOSH of steel slicing through air-

Paul still clutched the stump of his right hand as he ran, but suddenly the hand came away holding only a cylindrical chunk of flesh that was exactly half of his forearm.

The sheer horror of it stopped him in his tracks and spun him around... screaming more with his wide, quivering eyes than he ever could with just his throat.

The intruder, with the look of a soldier and the face of an executioner, spun the polished sword in tight, rapid arcs... crisscrossing it back and forth in every conceivable direction... moving so fast that Paul could neither see nor hear it.

Not even the realization that he was about to be cut to ribbons was enough to unglue Paul's feet. Fear had locked his limbs in place, and as the sword spun faster, all he could do was look past the speeding blur...

...that face. Surely that face did not belong on any sane man...

Paul heard a scream. Somewhere, a little girl was screaming... and by the time Paul realized that the little girl was HIM, slivers and chunks of flesh were peeling away from his arm like slices of meat in a butcher's saw. Paul watched the blade eat away the remainder of his forearm, his elbow, and his upper arm to within a few inches of his shoulder. Then the blade swung back, twirled ominously and came at him again...

...the razor's edge kissed the skin of Paul's throat-

-then stopped. The stranger simply stood before him with his sword hovering above Paul's shoulder... one twitch away from slicing Paul's throat or removing his head entirely.

Paul's girlish scream was now a whimper...

"...p-please don't kill me..." Paul's lips barely managed to form the words.

The immutable expression on the intruder's face slowly... slowly... melted into a frown. The man lowered the sword and reached out with his other hand, catching Paul by the neck and yanking him across the floor, decorating the carpet with gushes and splatters of Paul's blood.

"...oh, God... please don't kill me..." Paul repeated; each syllable coming in weak coughs and barks. Tears and blood stained Paul's face as the stranger literally dragged him by the throat toward the window.

"Don't kill you?" said the stranger. He stopped, and looked down at the squirming, crying, bleeding thing that he held in his grasp. He leaned his face in close to Paul's. "You should beg me to finish you now," he said. "Because if you still draw breath at sunrise..." The stranger glanced at the girl that still lay unconscious on the couch... then back at Paul. "She'll come for you."

The stranger's grip tightened, and with all the grace of a man tossing out an unruly dog, the stranger sent Paul hurtling toward the half-open window. Sharp daggers of glass tore at Paul's face as his head preceded the rest of his body through the window and out into the night air...

...where gravity embraced him, and pulled down... where he belonged.

ebastian watched Paul's less than graceful landing... right on top of his own car. The impact demolished the roof, shattered the windshield, and splattered blood on the adjacent vehicles.

It also set off the car's alarm system.

Sebastian scowled. The alarm was bound to draw attention. More attention... all of the screaming had probably already generated a few 911 calls.

He had to get moving.

Sebastian surveyed the scene below just long enough to see that Paul as still alive, then turned and... stepping over a few pieces of Paul that were staining the carpet red... went to the sofa.

Ashley had missed the bloody spectacle entirely. The screaming... the shattering of glass... none of it had elicited so much as a shudder from her. She was out cold. Sebastian opened one of her eyes and peered into the dilated pupils. No response. He checked her pulse. It was steady but slow.

Stepping over more fragments of Ashley's attacker, Sebastian went into the kitchen and began throwing open the cabinets. He thrust his hand into each, sweeping the dishes and cans aside and peering into each before moving on to the next. Finally he found what he needed.

It was a plastic bowl... wide and deep. He sat it on the counter and opened the refrigerator. There were no ice trays, but the rectangular bucket under the ice-maker was full. He pulled it out and emptied its contents into the bowl, then filled the bowl with water from the sink.

He returned to the sofa, and held the bowl of ice water just under Ashley's chin...

He paused... then sat the bowl on the table behind him.

Ashley wasn't ready to wake up just yet.

Sebastian found her panties still bunched up around her feet. He grabbed them and slid them up her legs, tugging them into place with no consideration to how a thong was actually supposed to fit. He then felt around her hips and found the bottom edge of her skirt. He pulled the garment down over her crotch, hips, and upper thighs... and spent a few seconds trying to pull it lower before he realized that this was as low as it went.

Next he took Ashley's bra and slid the cups over her breasts. The clasp that fastened the cups into place was apparently some kind of... puzzle. He fumbled with it for a few moments before stumbling across the proper combination of finger-movements that kept the bra from falling open when he let it go.

Finally he pulled Ashley's tank-top down over her improperly-fastened bra, and... again... spent a few moments tugging on it before realizing that it wasn't intended to cover her entire torso.

There. Now she was ready.

Sebastian took the bowl of ice water and held it just under Ashley's face. With his other hand, he grabbed a hand-full of her hair and pulled her forward, thrusting her face into the bowl.

For almost two seconds, there was nothing.

Then, as Ashley tried to inhale her first breath of ice-water, her body jolted and stiffened. Sebastian let her yank her face out of the water and take one breath... then thrust her face into the cold water once more.

The second attempt at breathing water snapped Ashley into a state of semi-consciousness. Sebastian could tell this because she was screaming when he let her head come up.

Her mouth open and her face dripping, Ashley threw herself back onto the sofa and took two gasping breaths. Her eyes flew open.

Sebastian threw the bowl of ice water directly into her face... soaking her hair and clothes.

"AAAA!!!!" She screamed. Sebastian reached for her, but she fought him away, slapping at his hands until he retreated. Even then, she continued to strike at some invisible foe until... suddenly... she stopped. She blinked her eyes a few times and squinted at Sebastian.

"S-sebastian?" she said. Her voice was slurred and her eyes were having trouble focusing. "what... what..."

Her face went through several unattractive contortions as she fought back the dizziness.

"The last thing you remember," Sebastian said to her. "Before you came here. What was it?"

"Where am..." Ashley began. Then her eyes widened. Her hand went to her chest, and she looked down at her clothes. "Oh God!" She gasped. Sebastian knew that she was trying to fill in the gap in her memory. But since she had been unconscious, there was nothing to fill it in with. Instead, she could only make assumptions based on the last things she remembered before she blacked out, and what she was experiencing right now: she had awakened in a strange place... with a gap in her memory and clothes that weren't fitting right.

"Oh, GOD, Sebastian!" Ashley curled up on the sofa... tucking her legs in and wrapping her arms around them. She glanced at Sebastian with tears welling up in the corners of her eyes, and then looked away... unable to speak. When she tried, the only sounds she could make were sobs, broken by single word nearly chocked off by the tears. "...he... he.... he..."

Sebastian placed one hand on her shoulder. She tried to jerk away, but his hand stayed where it was. He leaned close to her... listening to the police sirens still in the distance... and whispered.

"He didn't," he said. "He touched you. But he won't be touching anyone else."

Ashley looked at him again, and then looked past him... noticing for the room for the first time. The light-colored carpet looked like the floor of a butcher's shop.

"Wh-what did you do...?" she whispered. "Sebastian, did you-"

"Where's Brooks," Sebastian interrupted. The sirens were closer now.

"I... I don't know. We-"

The sirens were coming down the street toward the apartment building. They would be in the parking lot in a few seconds.

"We have to go now," said Sebastian.

"I don't know if I can stand up."

"You don't need to."

Sebastian scooped her up from the sofa and carried her in his arms to the window.

"How are we going to get down?"

"We're not," said Sebastian. "We're going up." Sebastian shifted Ashley's position from resting comfortably in his arms to slung over his left shoulder like a sack of meal.

"UNGH!" Ashley grunted.

"Hold on." Sebastian leaned out and grabbed the thin black rope that he'd used to climb down from the roof. With a sudden heave, he and Ashley were dangling outside... and then Ashley felt herself rocking back and forth as Sebastian's strong arms hauled them both up the rope with a quick, practiced rhythm.

"...my hero..." Ashley mumbled. Then she groaned and emptied her stomach down Sebastian's back.

"raveling kind of light, aren't ya?"

David Spinetto... known as 'Spin' to his associates... stood amid a small crowd of bodyguards, most of which wore dark sunglasses despite the fact that they were indoors and it was after midnight. With so many mean and silent men around him, Spin would have looked like a politician or a movie star if it weren't for the fact that he was the ugliest person in the room.

Three yards away, directly across from him as if facing him over an invisible conference table, stood Cole and his entourage... or at least half of it. The normal room-full of guards and muscle that Cole carried with him had shrank considerably... eliciting the comment from Spin.

"There was some business across town," said Cole. He had just finished talking to someone on the phone. Spin's guards watched him carefully as he slipped his cell phone into his pocket.

"Nothing serious, I hope," Spin asked. The question was neither friendly nor cordial.

"Nothing that concerns you," Cole replied. The answer was a bit bolder than Spin expected, and a slight frown fell across the Italian's face.

"Oh, everything concerns me, Cole. Especially you. You're my biggest customer, you know."

"No, I doubt that very seriously. All this ain't here because of me." Cole spread his arms... a gesture frowned upon by Spin's guards... indicating the massive warehouse around him. The building was neither empty nor abandoned. The the stacks of boxes on the shelves and lining the shelves were mostly filled with imported trinkets, but some were packed with raw, unprocessed cocaine. And at least one contained a human corpse... bound for a destination known only to Spinetto.

"You're still enough of my business to be a concern," said Spin. "What concerns you... concerns me."

"Not for much longer," Cole replied.

"What's that supposed to mean."

"It means I'm out."

"Out? Out of what?"

"Cocaine. This whole thing you got goin here. I'm out. No more. Our last deal was our last deal."

"Whats is this, some kinda-"

"Joke? No."

"Somebody cut you a deal, is that it? Or maybe you're trying to bluff-"

"No deal. No bluff. I'm out. No more blow... not from you or anybody. I'm into something else now."

"Else?" One of Spin's bushy eyebrows crept up onto his forehead and sat there like a thick black caterpillar.

"Yeah. This-"

Cole raised his hand and paused to let Spin's guards see his intentions... then slowly reached into his pocket. Then, even more slowly, he pulled out a small vial. Inside it was a thick, brownish liquid.

"What the hell is that?" said Cole.

"Something new. Something so new that it ain't even illegal yet. Better high than coke. More addictive than crack. Takes you straight to heaven, with nothing left over to show up on a drug test. It's perfect."

"Uh-huh," Cole said doubtfully.

"I'm telling you, Spin, when this stuff hits the streets... and it already has... then the coke dealers are gonna be out of business in two weeks. I'm already gonna have a hell of a time getting rid of my coke supplies.... gonna have to push it in somebody else's territory just to get it out of the way. "

"And what exactly is this... stuff?"

"Taint-"

"Yeah but what IS it?"

"That's a secret," Cole said after a pause. "But you can give it a try if you want."

Cole held out the vial. Spin and his guards looked at it, but no one moved to take it.

"I don't use, you know that," said Spin.

"Yeah but I'm betting you know somebody that does. Probably some folks right here in this warehouse. You give 'em a hit of that and then see how much cocaine they buy from you afterwards. "

Spin snapped his fingers, and the guard closest to him stepped forward and took the vial. The tall, thick-necked man stepped back with the others, holding the vial in his hand.

"I'll think about it," said Spin. "But YOU need to think about what you're saying to me here."

"I think I've said a lot... an I've said it clear enough for you to understand. I'm not buying from you any more. Now... if YOU want to buy from ME, then-"

Spinetto laughed. Rather than the dark, ominous laugh of a criminal, Spin made a high chittering sound like an annoyed squirrel.

"Yeah," Spin said, still chittering. "Yeah, THAT'LL happen!"

Cole had four men with him, and none of them liked the sound of Spin's laugh. That laugh always preceded something bad... and there weren't enough of them there to deal with anything bad. But Cole himself, however, didn't seem worried at all. He'd told them that he had something planned before they'd come in, but neglected to tell them exactly what it was.

"I'm serious," said Cole. It was clear from his voice that he was. Serious, and not worried at all about the dangerous ground he was treading.

"You try that vial out on somebody."

"Or maybe I'll just toss it down the toilet, eh?"

"Go ahead. Won't cost me anything... but you'll be losing an opportunity to make ten times what you've got going now."

"Yeah, but you won't be makin' it long, see," said Spin. "First of all... nobody just backs out on me. You gotta buy your way out-"

"I'm all paid up, Spin. I don't owe you a dime."

"Oh, yeah you do. You gotta buy out your contract-"

"There IS no contract."

"Oh yes there is. The unwritten contract that says once you start pushing my blow, you gotta either KEEP pushing it or make it worth my while let you stop. Sorta like an Exit Fee... and its very important for you to pay it, see, because that fee will keep me from killing you just long enough for you to get the hell out of town."

"So its like that?" said Cole. "I buy from you, or I end up in one of these boxes?"

"Yeah," Spin replied. "It's like that. See, Cole... you may not be my BIGGEST customer, but you still push a hell of a lot of product. A hell of a lot. If you walk, I gotta replace that income from somewhere, and that's gonna take time. I gotta be paid for that time."

"How much?"

"Million."

"You're crazy."

"Ohhh, if this 'Taint' is all you say it is, then you oughta be good for it, right?"

"Oh, I've got the money," said Cole. "You're just not getting a dime of it."

There was a long silence as Cole and Spin stared at each other.... and Cole's guards tried their best to look intimidating to Spin's men, who outnumbered them three to one. No one said a word for almost fifteen seconds.

"Well?" said Spin. "That your final word?"

The double-meaning of Spin's question was clear to everyone in the room.

In reply, Cole looked down at his watch.

"You expecting somebody?" said Spin.

"No. ....but you should be."

The brief expression that flashed across Spin's face wasn't fear... but it was close. Spin didn't like surprises, and he flashed a nervous glance at two of his men. Both of them... all of them, actually... had earpieces dangling from their ears, and they both began whispering into them, talking to the guards outside.

"I don't like jokes, Cole."

"Like I said before, this ain't no joke. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got business-"

"No, I don't think so," Spin snapped. "You're not-"

"Boss?" one of the guards said suddenly. He leaned forward and whispered in Spin's ear. Spin frowned.

Cole glanced at his own guards. They looked nervously back at him, but their nervousness faded slightly when they saw the look on Cole's face. Relief. As if Cole himself wasn't quite sure of his own plan... but now, for some reason, he was.

"What the hell is this, Cole?" said Spin. "Who the hell is that?" Behind him... far, far behind him, on the other side of the closed warehouse door... a car engine roared. It was getting closer. FAST.

"I have no idea," said Cole. Gunfire barked from either side of the wide street leading to the warehouse, and then from the rooftop. "...and that's the truth. But if you happen to find out, let me know. I might want to hire 'im."

The car's tires squealed, but the engine revved higher. The sound drew closer... and soon it was apparent that the vehicle was coming straight for the warehouse door-

-and that it was NOT going to stop.

"KILL THESE-"

The rest of Spin's order was swallowed by the sound of revving horsepower and twisting metal as a brown Oldsmobile plowed through the warehouse's retractable door and skidded across the concrete floor.

All of Spin's guards turned-

And the instant their eyes left Cole, Cole and his men drew their weapons. They weren't supposed to be armed, but a pistol hidden just under the waistband... behind the zipper... tended not to be found by a casual search. Cole moved first, and all five men had guns in their hands before anyone else in the room knew they had moved.

They started firing as the rampaging Oldsmobile slammed into one of the massive shelves, sending a hail of boxes and shipping crates hurtling down around it. Four of Spin's personal bodyguards grunted and dropped. Spin threw himself to the floor, drawing his own pistol as he rolled to face the retreating Cole. He fired. He had been aiming at Cole, but the man beside Cole inadvertantly ran into the bullet's path... then screamed and fell, clutching his side. Cole and the others left him to die... retreating rapidly toward the back entrance, but then veering to one side to take cover behind a pile of crates halfway to the door.

Gunfire filled the warehouse... most of it was aimed at the Oldsmobile which had revved once more and slammed into another shelf, this time striking with enough force to topple the shelf itself. The tower of metal and wood teetered ominously to one side... then leaned a little more... and finally collapsed on top of the car, crushing it.

Spin's over-zealous guards continued firing into the crushed shell, filling it and its driver with holes.

"STOP SHOOTING, YOU IDIOTS!" Spin screamed as he got to his feet. "WE'RE INSIDE-"

Again, his order came too late.

The car exploded. The gas tank ruptured and belched a ball of fire that completely swallowed the automobile and sent flames reaching upward to lap at the high ceiling, where the automated sprinklers remained dry and motionless. Fancy fire-protection systems had a bad habit of automatically calling the police when they went off, so Spin had had his disconnected. Spin was close enough to the explosion to be thrown back to the concrete floor... and also close enough to see the human figure leap from the car an instant before it went up.

"HE'S OUT!" Spin shouted. His gun tracked the figure as it darted across the warehouse. He pulled the trigger... missed... pulled the trigger again... missed again... and then fired a third time. This time Spin sword that his aim was dead on. The figure jerked, but just kept right on running as he'd been hit with a small rock instead of a .45 calibre slug.

The explosion had brought the gunfire to a brief halt, but now it started again... this time with a vengeance. His exterior guards had finally arrived, and they were armed with fully automatic weapons which they unleashed at the fleeing shadow that had barely escaped from the Oldsmobile. Behind the figure, the fire continued to blossom. The entire building would be aflame in just a few minutes.

Remembering Cole, Spin turned in just enough time to see the punk and his three remaining thugs darting for the back door.

Spin fired at them. They fired back.

Spin turned and ran for cover... Cole as good a shot as he was, and he did not want to die because of that fool. But the guards hadn't forgot about them, and as more gunfire swung their way, Cole and the others had no choice but to retreat back to their hiding place. Unfortunately, they all made it in one piece.

Taking refuge behind a wooden crate, Spin waited for this fiasco to come to an end. He saw three of is guards jogging his direction. Two of them had uzi's and one had a shotgun. They were obviously coming to 'rescue' him.

"Boss, You Okay!?" said one as they joined him behind the crate.

"Yeah, we need to-"

And for the third time, Spin's words were cut off by some new element to this rapidly developing disaster. This time, it was a scream.

But it was no ordinary scream.

The sound came from the front eastern corner of the warehouse... the direction the man in the car had been running. Obviously someone had gotten him...

...but that scream. It wasn't the sound a man made when he'd been shot. It was the sound that came out of a man's throat when he was being fed feet-first into a wood chipper... a sound that Spin had heard only once and would never forget as long as he lived.

"What the hell was THAT!?" one of the men gasped.

Something in Spin's stomach clenched when he realized that he hadn't just imagined the scream... that everyone else had heard it to. That meant it was real. That meant someone had just died very, very badly. Spin knew that he didn't employ anyone capable of making a man scream like that...

"I dunno," said Spin. "But we need ta find out!"

e'd been halfway out of the seat when the huge shelf collapse onto the car, crushing the roof and trapping him like a mouse in the jaws of some metal predator.

Jason didn't like being trapped. And he didn't like the smell of gasoline, either.

The gunfire started again. Bullets pierced the shell of the car and several of them even found their way into Jason's torso. The stinging and burning angered him, and with a shrug, Jason lifted the top of the car off of him and slid free. His feet touched the concrete floor for less than an instant before he sprang-

The explosion swatted him out of the air... he was already running when he landed, chosing his direction by some unknown instinct. Jason had no idea how fast he was running.... or that he was achieving his speed with the help of tendons and muscles in his legs that were simply not there a few minutes ago. All he knew was that each stride carried him farther and faster, and that each step felt exponentially better... and more natural... than the last.

The shooting started again. Jason felt and heard the bullets whizz past him. Occasionally some of them went through him, but they were of no consequence. Burnt and pierced flesh healed almost instantly. Fragments of shattered bone pulled themselves together like pieces of metal drawn a magnet. The pain of it all only increased his anger. Though the original cause of his fury was now just a distant jumble of fuzzy memories, every burning slug that reached him only made that anger worse... made him stronger.... faster.... less human.

He ran along the shelves toward the front corner of the warehouse. The scents of meat and gunpowder was strong there... although Jason couldn't tell which of the two scents was drawing him. Ignoring the bullets chasing him from every other direction, he focused instead on the single man who stepped out from the corner and fired three shots into Jason's chest.

When Jason didn't immediately fall, the yellow stench of fear blossomed like a rose amid the other two scents. The fear triggered a burst of strength and instinct. Jason leapt onto the row of shelves beside him, then sprang sideways across the stream of bullets, landing in front of the surprised guard. Jason grabbed the gun and snatched it away... the guard's finger caught on the trigger and the gun fired its final bullet into the ceiling. The finger came away with the gun, but before that realization reached the guard's mind, his other hand thrust a small knife toward Jason's abdomen. Jason intercepted the attack and twisted the offending hand off at the wrist.

The guard screamed directly into Jason's face. The sound excited him. It was a good sound. Jason wanted to hear it again. Only louder. He drew his hand back and stiffened his fingers. He didn't notice the long, curved claws that slid from his fingertips, or the scales that dotted the surface of his hand... or the dark brown fur that was sprouting from his wrist. Instead of pausing to wonder at these things, Jason brought his hand around in an upward slash that buried the claws in the guard's crotch.

The guard gave a surprised bark, then made a most delightful squealing sound as Jason ripped the man open from crotch to throat. Slowly.

The bullets bursting from Jason's chest told him that someone was shooting at him from behind. Dropping the shredded guard, he turned...

The man running up behind him stopped... then turned and ran screaming in the other direction.

The gun that Jason had taken from the first man was empty... so he threw it.

The handgun struck the fleeing man in the back of the head... shattering his skull and lodging itself halfway into his brain, which ceased to function shortly thereafter. The man collapsed just as a hail of fully automatic gunfire turned Jason's torso into something resembling tomato paste.

Jason dropped to his knees and fell forward, catching himself on one hand as his chest pulled itself together... although not exactly into the same configuration that it had been before.

"HE'S DOWN!" Spin shouted. "What the hell did you stop SHOOTING for!!? KILL HIM!"

The two guards with the uzis opened fire again. The man with the shotgun stepped to one side and began firing from a different angle. Even Spin drew his pistol and slid in a fresh magazine. But before Spin could fire his first shot, Jason was up.

The man with the shotgun was close. Jason sprang... not like a man, but like an animal, roaring and snarling from a mouth that was too large and too full of teeth to belong on a man's face. His left hand closed around the man's throat while the right grabbed the gun and snatched it away.

Jason lifted the man up off of the floor, then turned and pulled the shotgun's trigger twice.

Both men with the uzis flew backward... their chests red and bloody from the buckshot. Then Jason turned back to the man he'd taken the shotgun from. He gave the weapon a twirl, and then rammed it into the guard's stomach. He lowered the end of the gun and then shoved it upward into the guard's torso until the tip of the barrel met the back of the man's throat. He dropped the not-quite-dead guard... who could neither scream nor move due to the shaft of hot metal fixing his body in its current position.

Spin, who had seen his three armed 'rescuers' slaughtered in less than five seconds... decided that it was time to go. He raised his pistol and fired at the thing as he backpeddealed toward the open space behind him. Once he'd reached the open warehouse floor, more men with machineguns could keep this thing down while he got the hell out of here-

Jason followed him with slow, easy steps... letting Spin think he was getting away before he rushed forward. His arms... longer than they had been before... lashed out at two targets. First was the gun. He grabbed it with his left hand while his right plunged into Spin's chest just below the rib cage. In the space of a second, Jason reached up into the drug dealer's chest, grabbed his beating heart, and snatched it out.

Then, before death, shock, or even pain could weaken Spin's terrified stare, Jason tossed the organ into the air behind him-

-and shot a hole clean through the center of it with Spinetto's pistol.

"...GaK!..." Spinetto choked. Blood drooled from his lips and he fell at Jason's feet... hitting the ground at about the same time as his ruptured heart.

Smiling, Jason retrieved the two uzis from the floor and stepped out into the open... drawing a renewed round of gunfire from the guards. He let them shoot. His eyes tracked each bullet as it came toward him... his mind reversing the path of each, leading him back to the gun that fired it. In seconds, he knew where everyone was. With a slow, almost lazy motion, he raised his guns and pulled the triggers.

Each fully automatic weapon fired a continuous stream of bullets. Jason swept the guns in front of him, appearing not to aim them at all...

...but to him, time had slowed to a crawl, and the 'continuous stream' was a series of discrete shots. When each bullet cleared the barrel, he had more than enough time to consider the next shot and aim it perfectly as the mechanism kicked the next round into place. And his aim was indeed perfect. His bullets crawled toward their targets with supernatural accuracy... some taking a direct path, others rounding corners via metal posts or the concrete floor to strike their targets from completely unexpected directions....

Each of Jason's guns gave a brief but loud 'click' as the magazines emptied themselves. When last bullet was fired, Jason dropped the weapons and stood perfectly still... listening to the sound of bodies hitting the floor all over the warehouse.

Everyone was dead.

And yet, something wasn't quite right. There was something he had forgotten. Why...

Why had he come here?

He couldn't remember. He knew that there WAS a reason... and that he had known what it was when he'd first driven through the warehouse door. But sometime between then and now, it had escaped him.

...escaped...

Had something escaped? Had someONE escaped?

As Jason accessed the human portion of his brain, his body began to change. His claws were already gone, but the musculature that had supported them began to shift under his skin... muscles and tendons returning to a more human configuration. With a series of 'pops' and 'clicks' that Jason hardly noticed, his joints started twisting... changing size and shape the liquid ease.

What could not change, however, was the carnage that Jason's rampage had left behind. Bodies lay strewn across the warehouse like bleeding, man-sized dolls. Most had been shot, but a few had been butchered.

Jason saw the bodies around him and knew with near certainty that he was the one that had done it, but he couldn't remember why... or even how.

And it didn't bother him.

And THAT... the fact that there was no shock, no guilt, no horror or revulsion... worried him.

In fact, looking at the mutilated bodies was starting to make him hungry.

"...what the hell is going on here..." he said. He looked down at his clothes. What remained of his shirt was plastered to his chest by fresh blood. He pulled it off, and ran his hand over his untouched skin. He'd been shot. He remembered being shot, but there were no wounds. No scars. Nothing but blood... a good portion of which was not even his.

He was still holding his shirt in his hand when Donovan appeared, materializing behind him. Jason didn't bother to turn around.

"Jason, something's happened to Ashl-" Donovan paused. "Good Lord... what happened to you?"

"I don't know." Jason stared down at the bloody shirt, then let it fall to the floor.

"These people-"

"I don't know who they are," Jason said. "I've never seen any of 'em before."

"What did this to them?"

Jason finally turned to face his mentor.

"I think I did."

There was no immediate reaction from Donovan. The ghost's slightly glowing eyes fixed on Jason, then glanced around the room. His expression never changed.

"I see," Donovan said. "That much is obvious, but I meant-"

"I know what you meant," said Jason. "But you don't know what I meant. THAT-" Jason pointed to one of the mutilated corpses. The man had a shotgun running through his torso like a second spine. "-I did THAT. And THAT-"

There was another man who'd been slashed open from top to bottom. And another who was missing his heart.

"I... I did that..." said Jason.

"That's not possible," Donovan replied. "Not by you. The gun, perhaps,... but the rest is clearly the work of some demon."

"Yeah," said Jason. "Some demon." Suddenly, he frowned. "Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

Jason tilted his head toward the rear of the warehouse.

"...a car door... someone.... someone's getting AWAY!"

"What-"

And then he remembered why he had come here. Cole. Taint. The long ride in the trunk of the car.

"GETTING AWAY!"

Jason turned and sprinted for warehouse's rear door. He felt his legs tighten, and then bulge with energy as they propelled him forward with increasing force. The metal door in front of him was closed, but he didn't bother opening it. With one tremendous leap, he pounced... he struck the door hard, knocking it off of its hinges and sending both it and him flying out onto the sidewalk beyond.

Jason rolled to a low crouching position that would have been incredibly uncomfortable... if not impossible... for a man, no matter how limber his joints.

Two cars on the opposite side of the street immediately sped away with the loud squeal of rubber on asphalt.

Jason's eyes narrowed. His nostrils flared.

Cole was in one of those cars. The first one.

"...rrrrrrrRRR!"

Jason sprang after them. His leap carried him to the middle of the street, where he sprang again and came down running. The cars were accelerating. Jason saw them pulling away from him...

...and then get closer as his own speed increased. They accelerated again... engines filling the air with a noise and stench that Jason could have followed anywhere in the city, but there would be no need for that because they were here NOW and he wasn't going to let them get away. Jason lowered his head and leaned forward as the curve of his spine changed, giving him more thrust and balance-

"JASON!"

Donovan again. The ghost was hovering beside him as he ran. Jason could see the fronts of the buildings whizzing by through Donovan's transparent body.

"JASON, WHAT IS-"

Jason's head turned and he snarled at the ghost... flashing long, pointed teeth that were growing longer with every step.

"GO AWAY!" Jason growled.

Donovan drew back in shock

"Good GOD!"

Jason snarled again. Donovan veered away from him and vanished, leaving Jason to his prey.

The cars were about to turn right onto a major street up ahead. They would have to slow down to do it, and Jason knew he had them.

Cole's car screeched and nearly overturned itself as it rounded the corner. The second car took the turn a bit more sensibly, but it was still gone by the time Jason approached the intersection.

Not gone enough.

Jason leapt.

He tilted in the air and landed on his outstretched hands in the middle of the intersection. He let his momentum carry his lower body around... feeling both of his wrists snap as his legs came behind him. He snatched them forward.... bringing his legs so far forward that he was nearly folded in half... and then sprang after the second car. The leap was so powerful that it was almost like flying. The rear window of the car rushed toward him, and Jason reached out

Ka-KLUNK!

And sank his claws into the trunk. The trunk's metal was thin and cheap, but his claws held. Jason pulled himself forward, placing one foot on the bumper and bringing the other so far up that his knee was almost in his armpit. He reached for the window-

There were three people in the car. Two in front, and one in the back.

The man in the back had an AK47.

Jason saw the man's head turn, and then the weapon popped into view.

BRA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TAT!

The short spray shattered the window and sent bullets burning through Jason's torso. The bullets themselves were harmless, but the surprise and the force of the impacts weakened his grip. Jason slipped... but before he fell free, he placed his feet on the car and flipped backward-

-landing in the street and immediately charging after the car.

They were on a main road now, and the cars were taking advantage of it. The engines roared as they accelerated.

Jason's shoes... brand new but already in shredded tatters... flew from his feet. He was no longer capable of wearing them. From his neck to his toes, Jason's body was undergoing a drastic change. Muscle size and density grew almost exponentially. Joints loosened and rotated into new positions... sometimes traveling a foot or more before settling into place. His skin sprouted slick scales, with tufts of lupine fur beginning to grow from the major joints. Jason's pants split down the sides as his legs and pelvis changed shape. Soon Jason was running on four legs instead of two... his arms having transformed into something capable of functioning as both arms AND legs. Jason's face elongated as part of a transformation that made his entire upper body more aerodynamic. The fangs had nothing to do with speed, but they were growing longer, and the jaws that held them became stronger. His eyes narrowed and swam across his shifting face until they more closely matched those of the predator he was becoming.

BRA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TAT!

Another spray of bullets from the second car. Jason darted from one side to another, dodging most of the poorly aimed barrage while his body continued to change.

A long, scaly tail burst from Jason's lower back and began slashing back and forth behind him, counterbalancing the movements of his torso... allowing him to run faster...

The rear of the car in front of him grew closer.

Cole's car flew through an intersection without even slowing down for the red light. The second car tried to do the same, but there was a pickup truck on the cross street. The driver was already blowing his horn angrily at Cole, and was not expecting another car shoot in front of him. Both the second car and the truck veered away from one another. The truck skidded of control and plowed through the window of a jewelry store. The driver of the car barely managed to keep his vehicle in the road. He tapped his brakes, losing what little control he had, and then hit the gas again and yanked the car back into the center of the street.

Jason was already moving in for the kill. Had his new face still been capable of smiling, he would have been doing so with wild glee.

He sprang over the pickup truck an instant before it hit the store window. The leap took him across the intersection, where he landed not on the street, but on a lamp-post. His clawed feet grasped the decorative metal pole and held him at a brief 90-degree angle to the sidewalk below. The predator's eyes watched the car veer back onto the road, and then he sprang again.

Jason struck the side of the car and clung to it with three sets of claws. The forth set went through the window, grabbing at the gun-wielding thug in the back seat. Claws met flesh, and flesh yielded. The man in the back screamed as Jason shredded his chest. The shock of having several major muscles removed in one slash caused his entire body to spasm-

The man was still holding the AK-47.

BRA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TAT!

Bullets sprayed the two men in the front. The passenger died instantly, but the driver lived just long enough to scream and yank the steering wheel to one side, sending the speeding car into a death-roll.

The car flipped. Jason leapt clear as the car tumbled, hit the curb, and became an airborne missile still traveling forward at over 80 miles per hour. The vehicle struck a parked car with enough force to send both cars slamming into the nearest building.

The impact occurred just as Jason landed, already crouching in preparation of the next leap. His eyes, ears, and instincts locked onto the rapidly receding car. Not only had Cole not slowed down when his bodyguards deposited themselves against the exterior wall of the First National Bank of Rock Springs, but he had actually sped up... his already dangerous speed now edging toward the insane.

Jason's muscles tensed. He could catch him, but he had to move now Now NOW...

No.

Part of his mind screamed at the hesitation, but Jason's head... no longer recognizable as Jason Brooks or any other human being... rotated toward the nearest side street. East Street.

The road that Cole was on was not straight. Just past downtown, it would curve... to the east...

White fangs flashed in the moonlight. And in the next instant, he was gone.

he red needle of the speedometer touched 100mph... hovered for a moment... and then rotated onward, passing 110 before pausing again at 120.

Faster. He had to go faster.

The BMW M3 Coupe could certainly handle the speed, but Cole was still downtown and even with that thing behind him, he didn't want to risk painting himself on a building.

But he didn't want to end up like Spin and the others, either.

It had been a gamble. He'd thought he was going to have to kiss Spinetto's ass one last time, but when Sherm called and told him that his meeting was about to be interrupted by one very pissed-off dead man, Cole saw an opportunity to let one problem take care of another... all while he made a convenient getaway.

What he didn't expect was Spinetto and his boys to be taken out like a bunch of amateurs. And he CERTAINLY wasn't expecting somebody's pet... THING... start chasing him through downtown Rock Springs.

Pet.

Yeah, that's it.

Cole checked his rear view mirror and saw nothing behind him but buildings and empty streets.

Yeah... he could SAY that thing was a some kind of escaped zoo animal now that it wasn't leaping through intersections and bearing down on him like a cruise missile with teeth.

But when it was back there chasing them down at 80 miles per hour, dodging AK-47 rounds and getting uglier by the step... THEN it was something else. Something that had not come from any zoo on earth. Hell, maybe... but not earth.

It was the Taint.

It was after the Taint.

Cole couldn't tell where the thought had come from, but he knew it was true. That creature was after him because of the new drug. It was his punishment for dealing with Black... a man he knew was either the devil or somebody in the devil's immediate family.

It was all because of the Taint.

Well it couldn't have any.

Cole checked his mirror again, and then the speedometer. He was at 115 now... and using up every bit of luck he had left to keep the streets around him empty. At this speed, the first time he had to change lanes or go around somebody, he was toast. But he wasn't going to slow down. Not with that thing still out there. It might still be following him now, but he was just five miles from the highway... and once he was clear of the city he was going to open it up, and there wasn't a beast on earth OR hell that could catch him then.

"Hell yeah," said Cole, relaxing an little. "Yeah, yeah, yeah-"

Cole roared toward the East Street intersection, oblivious to the fact that this was the SECOND time he would cross paths with this particular road. Had he not been concentrating on keeping the M3 under control, he would have remembered that East Street was the best shortcut to get from where he had just been-

-to where he was about to be.

The BMW coupe blasted through the intersection at 110 miles per hour. The eyes of its driver were focused intensely on the street ahead, but Cole caught the movement on East Street in his peripheral vision. His heart, which had begun to slow down, suddenly leapt into his throat as he realized that he was about to be hit from the passenger's side-

-and then nearly stopped entirely when he realized what he was about to be hit BY.

Cruise Missile. With Teeth.

"Ohhh shiiiIIIII-"

The thing... the Thing... the Damned THING was coming toward him like a bullet fired straight out of hell.

Cole tapped the brakes. All control he had over the vehicle vanished... then returned as he hit the gas again and steered into the resulting skid. The rear of the car whipped around-

WHUMP!

And struck the Damned Thing in mid leap. The sounds of cracking bone and twisting flesh reached Cole's ears even above the roar of the engine. Cole couldn't see where the thing went, but he was damned sure that it wasn't where it has INTENDED to go... which was right through the driver's compartment of his BMW. The car continued to spin. Cole judged the rotations as best he could and put his foot to the floor when he thought he MIGHT be pointed in the right direction.

The acceleration threw Cole back into his seat. He grunted... blinked...

...and saw something rising from the street in front of him.

There it was. Right there.... standing RIGHT THERE!

Cole pointed the BMW at the Damned Thing and wished that he could rip out the floorboard and push the accelerator down even more.

"I'M GONNA GET YOU MUTHERF-"

Still at maximum acceleration, Cole veered to the left and shot past the monster. The Damned Thing had been standing there like it WANTED Cole to try and run it over!

But Cole recognized a trap when he saw one. He went past it instead. The monster slashed at the car, and its claws ripped four long furrows down the length of the passenger's door.

Then it turned, crouched, and sprang after the speeding BMW.

Cole saw the thing's teeth in his rear view.... damned things looked like they were pointed straight at him!

The leap came inches short of the BMW's bumper. The thing hit the asphalt and then came tearing after him. Cole couldn't believe what he was seeing in his mirror. He was at maximum acceleration and the Damned Thing was keeping up!

"GO! GO! GO! GO!" He screamed at the automobile. "GO! GO! G-"

Cole veered to the right as the creature leapt... a leap so strong that the Damned Thing almost came ALONG SIDE him for a second!

"F*#K YOU!" Cole screamed as he yanked the steering wheel back to the left.

The car slammed into the creature again, but this time it grabbed a hold of the vehicle. Claws flashed across Cole's window, but he was trying his best not to SEE them. He leaned way as he kept the wheel turned, aiming for the van parked along the street.

Glass shattered, and-

KA-THOONG-THOOONG-THOOOnnng-

Cole had missed the van, but had found something almost as good: A row of parking meters. He was dragging the Damned Thing across them like something out of a Saturday morning cartoon. Instead of claws reaching in to rip out his throat, blood and bits of flesh sprayed through the shattered window as the thing kept holding on through impact after impact-

THOONG-THOOONG-THOOOOONG-

-and then the intersection, with its standard regulation lamp post. Not the cheap fiberglass kind either...

Big...METAL...Pole.

"Helllll...."

CRUNCH!!

"-YEAHHH!!"

Cole yanked the car back toward the centerline as the Damned Thing fell free, literally scraped off onto the metal lamppost like something unpleasant found on the bottom of a shoe. He made the mistake of checking his mirror, where he saw the thing swinging around and around the pole like an acrobat. Suddenly it stopped and-

"...waitwaitwaitWAIT!" Cole screamed. He was screaming at himself. He had to time this juuuussst right.

The monster sprang from the pole.

Cole sent the BMW veering across the empty street. He had taken his foot off of the accelerator, slowing down just a nudge. The creature was going to land on top of him, but instead it hit the road just a bit beside him.

"INSTANT REPLAY, MUTHERF#$KER!"

WHAM!

The BMW's passenger side struck the running creature and drove it over... over...over...

The delivery truck parked ahead on the left came up quick-

-but not quick enough. Instead of smashing itself to pieces against the van, the creature had time to see it and leap clear-

Cole instantly veered to the left, intending to take himself out of the Damned Thing's jumping range, but knowing that he could not. The accelerator hit the floor again, and the BMW coupe shot forward. Cole glanced to the side, expecting to see the thing flying toward him again-

-what he did see was worse.

The thing was running after him, but it was running... running.... running ON walls of the buildings lining the street, leaping across the intervening alleys like a man leaping hurdles on the ground. And it was KEEPING UP WITH HIM!

With a stream of profanities, Cole steered as far away from that side of the street as he could.... but he knew that he couldn't stay there. Very soon, the street was going to turn into the two-lane entrance ramp for the highway. If he wanted to keep going he needed to be on the other side of the road... closer to that THING. And the Damned Thing knew it. When he veered over to avoid the dead end, the thing would spring on top of the moving car and it would have him. And it was all going to happen... right... now-

"YEAAAAHHHHH!" Cole shouted, smiling at his incredible luck.

There was a truck just hitting the ramp. A big one.... Cole thanked God for late deliveries, but then reconsidered the direction of his thanks as he yanked the steering wheel to the right.

Cole hit the ramp at maximum speed, with the massive 18-wheeler between him and the last building. The truck was gone in a flash... and so was downtown. There would be more traffic on the highway, but that was just more opportunities to crush this thing like a bug if it dared to try and follow him.

It dared.

Cole saw it sprint along the top of the truck and then spring down onto the railing on the far side of the highway. It ran along the metal rail like a miniature train. For a few surreal seconds it seemed like the chase was going to continue like this indefinitely. Cole had the BMW going as fast as it could... which was apparently very close to the Damned Thing's maximum speed. It didn't seem to be getting tired, either. But Cole had a full tank of gas. They could keep this up all night, but Cole knew that eventually he would have to slow down-

-probably in a few seconds when, when he caught up with the cars ahead of him. Five vehicles had spread themselves across the highway like an obstacle course. He could try to weave around them at full speed, but if any of the other drivers did anything stupid then he was done. And even if he made it past THIS group, there would be another further along. And another. And another. Luck and skill would run out eventually. He had to slow down.

And that was what the creature was waiting for.

"Not THIS time, motherf@*#er!"

Cole said as he bore down on the cars ahead of him, already steering to avoid them. The BMW responded to his demands like magic. Left... right... left... he zoomed in and out of the traffic, leaving a cluster of honking horns and shouted expletives behind him. There were more cars immediately ahead.

"Where the hell is everybody going at THIS time of night!" Cole spat as he veered across the lanes, passing a truck and two cars... one of which had nearly sent itself off the road to get out of his way. One more car directly ahead of him-

Cole glanced in his mirror, scanning the highway where the thing ought to have been. It wasn't there. He was about to pass the red Corvette in the center lane when he saw something dart between the cars behind him. With a leap, the Damned Thing was crouching on the roof of a black Honda. It sprang diagonally onto a silver Lexus. There were only two cars in front of it now-

Cole's, and the Corvette he was passing.

Cursing, Cole sent the BMW onto the shoulder and then steered hard into the side of the Corvette. The red car lost control and went veered out of the center lane, narrowly avoiding the dividing wall. The creature was in mid leap when its target vanished and Cole's BMW replaced it. But when Cole tapped his brakes, his BMW shot back beneath the leaping creature, which now had nowhere to land except the middle of the highway-

-directly in front of Cole's tires.

CRUNCH!

Cole could have sworn he saw pieces of the thing flying off in several directions, but even it that was wishful thinking the satisfying thud-thump-crunch of flesh and bone under his wheels almost made him squeal like a child on Christmas morning. At least until-

POP!

-one of his tires exploded, and the speeding BMW began to wobble back and forth in the lane... loosing speed despite the constant pressure of his foot on the accelerator. The shredded rubber disintegrated and meeting of bare steel and asphalt sent a continuous shower of sparks cascading down the street.

Cole's laugh of triumph turned into a shout of horror as both his speed and handling ability began to degrade... and a familiar fanged face appeared in his rear-view mirror. The Damned Thing sank its claws into his trunk hood and began pulling itself up. The thing's body was a bloody, twisted mess, but it was sewing itself together even as it clawed its way toward Cole.

"HELL!" Cole snatched the loaded .38 semiautomatic from the glove compartment.

He had absolutely no idea what he was going to do with it.

The thought of putting a bullet in his own skull came to mind, but he dismissed it on principle.

"COME ON!" Cole shouted over his shoulder. One hand struggled with the steering wheel while the other held the gun ready. The car had dropped to 110mph and still decelerating. Cole yanked the wheel to one side, hoping to throw the beast off balance. He didn't expect it to work, and he wasn't surprised when the creature not only held on, but started coming at him even faster. "WELL COME ON, THEN!"

Cole fired a single shot out the rear window. The bullet put a neat hole in the glass and clipped the creature's shoulder. The beast leapt onto the top of the car-

-KLUMP!

Eight long, white, curved claws tore into the metal and began peeling it back like a paper wrapping. Cole pointed his gun straight up, then realized that he was about to run into the back of a truck. He yanked the wheel to the right just as a section of the BMW's roof flew off into the night, leaving a gaping whole that was immediately filled with long, smiling teeth.

"TAINT!" The creature spat. The word was mangled by the inhuman fangs and the equally inhuman mouth that held them... but it was still recognizable.

"How 'bout a BULLET instead!" Cole spat back. He fired a shot into the creature's grinning skull as he struggled to maintain control of the car... but the combination of the gun's recoil, the shifting of the monster's weight on the roof, and the pot-hole that the BMW's left front tire struck at that very moment brought the struggle came to its inevitable end.

Still traveling at over 100mph, the car crashed through the thin metal guardrail and across the narrow strip of grass on the other side. There was a steep drop-off beyond that, and had the car been going 40 or even 50 miles per hour it would have followed the descending incline all the way to the bottom. But at twice that speed, the car's wheels left the ground entirely and the vehicle sailed straight out into the open air... coasting several yards before gravity could nudge it into a delicate but rapid arc toward the ground below.

Cole knew he was about to die.

But he was not dead YET.... and as long as that was true, then he still had power. Perhaps not the power to keep himself alive, but power enough to make sure he died in the CRASH and not in that Damned Thing's claws. And, if he was lucky, power enough to make sure that the creature accompanied him back to whatever hell he was bound for.

They were falling fast and hard, with the creature still clinging to the torn roof of Cole's car. But instead of snarling into the driver's compartment, the creature's elongated head was swiveling back and forth... wind whipping through the thin fur shrouding its neck and shoulders... apparently searching for a landing that was significantly less painful than the one Cole was about to have.

"Nuh-uh BITCH!" Cole growled as he reached up and grabbed the creature's wrist and tried to pull it into the car with him. "We goin' down TOGETHER!"

Its attention now draw back to Cole, the creature reached back with its free hand and prepared to shred most of the drug-dealer's torso with one swipe.

Cole shoved his .38 semiautomatic up against the bottom of the monster's furry chin and pulled the trigger. The gun barked and flashed. A chunk of the Damned Thing's skull flew away in the stiff wind, and the intended fatal slash went limp. For an instant. Cole pulled the trigger again... and again... continuing to pump slugs into the creature's skull as the car tilted... and tumbled... and fell.

t the point where the BMW left the highway, there was nothing below but a shallow ravine and an wide, empty lot. But the car was not going straight when it hit the guard rail, and it had more than enough forward momentum to carry it diagonally across the empty lot and over to the adjacent one, where the new Ingles Sports and Hunting Supply was currently under construction. Had the building been finished, gravity would have sent the BMW crashing in through the roof and out through the east wall. But the building wasn't finished. There was no roof. There was no east wall. There was only a concrete slab flanked by two cranes, an old truck, and several small mountains of construction supplies.

Cole's car sailed between the two cranes like a perfectly kicked field goal. The engine was still roaring when it passed, and there was a sound from the interior of the car that sounded suspiciously like gunfire. The car hit the ground at the base of the largest crane... bounced... flipped... hit again...and slid upside across the length of the lot before slamming into the pile of decorative bricks intended for the exterior of the store.

The mountain did not collapse. But the time the car hit, it had lost so much of its momentum that the impact merely crushed the front of the car like a soda can, destroying the engine, but not sending it slamming through the driver's compartment.

For that, Cole was grateful.

He'd remained conscious for the entire trip down. The air bag... which should have deployed when he hit the guard-rail... had apparently been holding its load for the final landing. The bag had inflated like a giant white fist, slamming Cole back against his seat and preventing him from being crushed by the dashboard, which had decided to relocate itself two feet forward.

The bag deflated with a loud hiss that filled the entirety of Cole's universe for several seconds. Though he had not lost consciousness, there was a curious span of seconds in which he had absolutely no idea where he was or what had happened. His memories seemed to be lagging behind him... and when they finally caught up, Cole blinked so hard that he could almost hear his eyes click.

Warehouse. Monster. Highway. Guard Rail. Crash.

Alive.

Yes...

He was alive!

But how alive WAS he?

The good news was that he could still feel his extremities.

The bad news... was that he could still feel his extremities.

Every part of his body was screaming from some bruise or cut or break. The worse was his right leg. It wasn't just broken... He felt a sharp grinding sensation when he tried to move it. There was blood, too. Cole wasn't a doctor, but he knew that a broken leg wasn't bloody unless it was VERY broken.

"Okay," he huffed... recovering from his effort to move his leg. "...okay... okay, I'm alive..."

But then, if HE was alive...

Cole couldn't see much from his position. He was hanging upside down in his seat belt, with his head resting against the shredded roof of the car. His neck wasn't broken, but there wasn't much to see no matter what direction he turned. Just the air bag and the wreckage immediately around him.

Where was the thing? If he was alive, then IT had to be alive too. Cole had lost his grip on the thing's arm just after the first impact, and it could have gone anywhere after that. It could be crushed underneath the car. It could be crushed against the bricks in front of the car. It could be smeared halfway across the construction site, or it could be standing outside, waiting for him to drag himself out.

If it was waiting for him, then it wasn't going to wait long before it came in and got him. If it was dead, then there was no sense hanging here... and if it was just hurt, then maybe Cole had time to get way before it... literally... pulled itself together.

Either way, he had to get out of the car.

Cole's first effort at movement resulted only in a grunt and a deep, powerful nausea that nearly made him black out. He remained still for a long time after that... then tried again, this time with the less ambitious goal of simply moving his right arm. His arm hurt, but it wasn't broken. Parts of it were curiously numb as he folded it back toward hit waist and probed in the darkness for the seat belt release button. When he found it, every inch of his body screamed at him NOT to push it...

He pushed it.

The seat belt released with a terrible suddenness. Since his head was already touching the car's roof, the drop wasn't exactly a fall... but the sudden change in position was enough awaken every it of stunned, slumbering pain in his body and send all of it shooting up his spine and into his brain.

The world got very, very bright for an instant... like daylight, only brighter. Cole hissed, and would have screamed if he had the strength. The brightness faded quickly, and the world closed in around Cole like a large, tight fist...

Cole opened his eyes.

How long had he been laying there? Probably not long since he hadn't bled to death. Few seconds? A minute? Certainly not more than that.

The thing hadn't come in and gotten him yet... so far, so good.

The driver's side window was gone, and Cole was able to grab the edge of the door and slowly drag himself out. The effort alone nearly put him out again. He was weak. He was losing blood, and his strength was draining out of him right along with it. He was going to die if he didn't get out of this car... and maybe even if he did.

"Unnngh-" Cole placed his unbroken leg against something in the car and pushed himself out. His other leg jammed up against something-

The pain was spectacular! Ohhh, the things he saw!

The sharp drop back to reality left Cole on his back halfway out of the car, with his legs still inside and no strength left to pull them out.

"...right here..." he said. "...die right here... fine with me..."

Cole didn't realize what he was saying until he heard the words himself. Then he frowned and shook his head.

"Nah... maybe over there somewhere... but not right here..."

Remembering his leg, Cole undid his belt. Cole could see the bone jutting out of his lower leg, as well as the blood spurting out around it. He looped the belt around his thigh, pulled the strap tight, and tied it in place. That was as much first aid as he knew, but it seemed to stop the bleeding. There wasn't much he could do about the bone, however.

"...they're gonna cut my leg off..." Cole said. Then he chuckled.... realizing that he was now delirious and talking to himself. "...yup... gonna cut it clean offff... heeheehee!"

The car moved.

Cole's heart... which he had barely noticed until now... thumped painfully in his chest. Was that just the wreckage settling, or was that...?

The car moved again. The entire mass of bent metal shifted backward away from the pile of bricks. The sudden jerk only moved it an inch or so, but it definitely wasn't the wreckage settling.

Cursing, Cole found a new reserve of strength. Using both hands and his one good leg, he pushed and dragged himself away from the car as fast as he could. It wasn't fast enough.

The car moved again... another jerk, this time by a low thump. It was a horrible sound...

...like something that had been smashed against the bricks finally peeling itself off and falling to the ground.

Then came a hiss that was also definitely not the car.

Cole stopped moving. He looked around, trying to find somewhere to hide. The construction site was FULL of places... but none of them were close. The site was surrounded by a large wooden fence, and he was closer to the gate than to anything else. But even if he could unlock it and drag himself outside... THEN what?!

There was also a truck. An ancient pick-up truck good for hauling heavy crap from one side of the site to the other... but not for much else. There might even be keys in it.

It was on the other side of the site, but nothing had dragged itself out of the BMW's wreckage yet... except for him... so maybe he had time to reach it.

Cole twisted himself around and started dragging toward the truck.

"...ssssSSSSSS..." came the sound from the wrecked car. The sound made Cole's head hurt. It also made him move faster. "SSSSSSS!"

Cole was on his back, using his elbows and his good leg to maneuver as fast as he could. His eyes fixed on the car that he'd just escaped, staring into the dark places around the wreckage.

One of the dark places moved. As Cole watched, something that he'd sworn had been only shadow a second before threw itself forward into the light of the full moon.

It was the Thing.

It was torn to pieces... crushed, splattered, but still coming after him. It's lower body trailed off in a bloody, shapeless mess, but its head and arms were mostly intact. It thrust one of those long, spindly arms forward and sank its claws into the dirt... then pulled itself toward Cole.

"SSSSSSSS!!!!"

Cole couldn't move any faster than he already was. He tried, but even in the face of the Damned Thing, the strength just wasn't there. He reached into his pocket, searching for his gun. It wasn't there, of course. It wasn't even supposed to be there, but miracles do occasionally happen-

Just not tonight. The pocket was empty. His cell phone, which WAS supposed to be there, must have fallen out in the car. He checked his other pocket. All he found was a tiny glass vial.

Taint.

Cole pulled it out and looked at it.

"...Heaven," Cole coughed. He considered it for a moment, then, frowning, he threw the vial at the creature. "TAKE IT!"

The vial bounced off of the bony ridge descending like a line across the creature's scaly face. The thing glanced at the vial, and then continued crawling after Cole.

Yes, it was crawling now. It's legs had grown back, but they weren't quite ready for standing yet... but in a few seconds...

"wwWWHERE..." The creature growled.

"n-n-not tellin' you nothin..." Cole spat back. "Go ahead and kill me..."

"WHERRRE!"

Cole shoved himself backward, moving another few inches toward the old truck that he was never going to reach. His fingers fell across something in the dirt. He glanced down and saw a long, thin iron pole... one of the reinforcement bars that was used to strengthen the concrete when it was poured. There were dozens of them strewn around the site. This one was about 10 feet long and less than an inch thick, but Cole snatched it up and held it in front of him like a shield.

"COME ON!" he shouted. "DO IT-"

The creature did it.

It folded its new legs beneath it and sprang onto Cole like a panther... a panther crossed with a healthy dose of wolf and dinosaur DNA. Cole held onto the bar, and it remained between him and the creature for perhaps a second. Maybe less. Then the monster grabbed it and yanked it away like an adult taking away a naughty child's toy. With its other hand it grabbed Cole's throat.

Then, for the first time since emerging from the wreckage, the creature stood.

Cole's legs dangled below him as the Damned Thing carried him back toward the car. Unable to breath or scream, Cole could only choke and grab at the creature's wrist. The skin there was blanketed with thick brown fur. The hand and fingers that emerged from it were covered in scales.

"UNKG!" Cole grunted. The creature slammed him against the inverted BMW and let him go. Cole wanted to run, or fight, but all he could do was collapse-

-and he didn't even get very far with THAT.

The creature raised the 10' length of rebar and shoved it into Cole's abdomen. The blunt end popped out of Cole's back with a strange, curious sound, and then went on to bury itself in the BMW's engine compartment.

"Oh, GOD!" Cole barked. His mouth was suddenly full of blood. "...ohh... God... "

He was now impaled and stuck to his own car. Collapsing was no longer an option.

The thing grabbed Cole's throat again, but this time it didn't squeeze him... it just held Cole's head still while the creature stared into his eyes.

The monster seemed to be waiting for something. For Cole to die? Probably not... but whatever it wanted, it wasn't coming. The creature frowned, and the lips peeled back from its dagger-like teeth.

"You Tell Me About Taint Now!"

Words. That such a mouth could even MAKE words set Cole's mind askew.

"WHERE!" The thing's grip tightened on Cole's throat. "TELL ME WHERE... NOW!!!"

"...or what..." Cole groaned. "You'lll kill me?"

Cole's vision was beginning to go blurry, but he could have sworn that the creature's face was changing. It's features were becoming more human as it considered Cole's question.

But not much more.

"You can still live." This time, the monster's voice was the same as the first time Cole had heard it... in the parking lot outside the club, when the monster was still human. "I can take you to a hospital."

"Yeah..." said Cole. "...right. I'll see you in hell." It took all of Cole's remaining strength to spit into the creature's face. Immediately afterward, he heard a buzzing noise that he thought was the beginnings of a growl. But no, it was too far away-

"Fine," Jason Brooks snarled at him. "Have it YOUR way!

Jason's mouth opened... and opened... and opened. Fangs burst from the thickening gums as Jason's head warped and elongated. Scales and bony ridges pushed at his skin until there was no skin remaining... only the hardened, scaly visage of some prehistoric thing.

Cole screamed. His scream sent the pain receding back into the far reaches of his nervous system, taking with it the nausea and even the horrible buzzing in his ears... but it wouldn't take away the thing that was about to eat face, or the turbine of pure terror that was running at full speed in his mind.

He waited for the teeth to sink into his skull and bite the front half of it completely off... but instead of that, he got:

"JASON!"

Cole's eyes snapped open.

There was someone else here now. An old white man standing just a few feet away.

"...help mee!" Cole tried to reach out to the man, but his arms wouldn't work. And then he noticed that he could see construction fence in the distance... and he was seeing it through the old man's body.

"JASON, You Have To Stop This! You have to Control Yourself!"

The Damned Thing hissed violently at the nearly transparent man.

"Exert your will! Tap into the Resistance... TRY, Jason!"

The thing hissed again, and then slashed at the ghost. The claws passed through the old man without touching him, but the old man moved back anyway.

"...help me!" Cole coughed. He tried to step away from the car while the monster was distracted, but then he remembered he was impaled. Still alive, though... but probably not for long. That buzzing had returned to his ears, and it was louder than ever.

"Jason you DO have some control!" said the ghost. "But you have to TRY-"

Suddenly, the gate in the construction fence flew open.

Death had arrived. It had come personally for Cole... dressed in all black and riding a big noisy Harley Davidson like something out of a comic book that Cole used to read when he was a child. But instead of a fiery skull, Death had a head of short blonde hair and eyes that looked like the should be on fire, even though they weren't.

Death also had a Ruger .45 calibre semiautomatic handgun, which it pointed at the Damned Thing. Death shot it three times. Cole saw the monster jerk, and saw three spurts of blood erupt from its torso. Cole wanted to shout Death a warning that bullets could not hurt the Damned Thing...

...but then the monster squealed like a pig an staggered, clawing at the wounds as blood and... smoke?... poured from the torn flesh.

Of course.

Death had magic bullets!

"heeheehee!" Cole giggled in his mad delirium.

The ghostly old man was gone now, and Death was riding its motorcycle around the far side of the construction site.

The creature growled at Death and prepared to pounce. The thing could leap like nothing Cole had ever seen, and if Death wasn't careful it would find itself caught by surprise. Could Death die? Death didn't seem to think so. The bike and its rider charged. The creature crouched-

-but Death's gun fired four shots: One in each shoulder. One in each hip.

The creature toppled backward like an unbalanced statue.

The big, angry-sounding Harley kept coming, but suddenly Death wasn't riding it any more. The rider had leapt clear, flipping in the air and landing on his feet just a few yards away. An instant later, Death had a long sword clutched in one hand. Cole hadn't seen Death draw the sword... but there it was.

"Heh..." Cole drooled. "...this is gonna be good..."

It was about this time that Cole realized he was delirious again. What he was seeing was real... but the guy on the Harley certainly wasn't Death incarnate, even if he did have magic bullets and a fancy sword. Cole had no idea what this blonde fool was capable of, but he knew what the THING could do, and he didn't want to be around when it finished chewing on blondy's entrails.

He was going to die... that was still a certainty. But he was going to die somewhere other than HERE.

Summoning another hidden cache of strength, Cole grabbed the iron bar protruding from his abdomen and began to slide himself forward on it.

"....god..." he moaned. "...help me..."

"ilver hollowpoints." Sebastian circled around the thing that Brooks has become, watching the creature carefully. Donovan had been right... this wasn't the same creature as Goode. It was smaller, and perhaps not as strong. It's long, lithe body looked built more for speed and reflexes that strength. But no matter how different it seemed, it had the same weakness. "Three in the torso are slowing your metabolism. One each in the major joints. The bullets fragment on impact, and every move you try to make will dig the shrapnel deeper. Save yourself the pain and stay down, Brooks."

Brooks hissed at him. Sebastian didn't react... he just watched. The creature was going to attack. Brooks telegraphed his intentions in a dozen different ways, and Sebastian was ready when it came.

The creature made what would have been a spring for Sebastian's throat, but the silver-poisoning and the pain of the metal in its joints turned it into an unsteady hop. Sebastian stepped back, and Brooks collapsed at his feet. Sebastian added a few more steps, putting some distance between him and the creature.

"I warned you," Sebastian said coldly. "Do not move again."

The Jason-beast hissed, and then rose to a crouching position. There, it paused. It's face pulled back slightly from its fully-animal form, and a glimpse of humanity peered out from around the animal's hungry eyes. The human inside was not happy, and the animal outside was even less so. Another attack was imminent. The creature shifted in its stance... learning which muscles were weak with silver-poisoning and which were still at full strength.

"This blade is silver," Sebastian warned. The sword rose to a ready position. "And you know what I can do with it."

The creature sprang again, this time managing a proper attack. Sebastian spun out of the beast's path and slashed with his sword, carving a deep red line along Jason's left side. The creature howled as it landed. It tried to turn and attack again, but the burning pain in its side forced it to retreat instead... but only for a few steps.

"Don't push this, Brooks." Sebastian circled around the beast, forcing the creature to move to keep its eyes on him. "I know how to kill you. You're just another demon to me, and I've been killing demons for a lot longer than you have."

"And what had it gotten you?" Jason hissed.

Sebastian stopped. Words? This was unexpected.

"All these years trotting behind Donovan like a puppy," the beast continued. "Taking his orders like a good little boy... and FOR WHAT!?!"

Jason attacked again, charging Sebastian like a bull, and then suddenly veering to one side and slashing. Sebastian dodged the claws as he was intended to do, but he also ducked under the creature's long, whip-like tail as it came for his head. Sebastian's blade chased the deadly appendage but couldn't catch it.

"What has it gotten you!?" Brooks growled. They were circling each other now. "The Gifts? Nooo... no, guess who got THOSE? Heh, heh, heh..."

"Shut up, Brooks," Sebastian spat.

"ME! Your own daddy passed you up and gave the goodies to ME! HA!"

"STOP IT!"

"But then, how could you even think you'd be the next Knight? You're just a boy with half a soul... who ever gave you the idea you could be like daddy? Like a REAL man!"

It came at him again, leaping first to one side, and then changing directions and coming straight at Sebastian. Sebastian let the beast chase him for a few seconds, and then charged to meet it. The silver sword caught the moonlight as it dug a diagonal crater across the beast's narrow chest. At the same time, the creature slashed at Sebastian's throat. Sebastian twisted away before any of his blood could be spilled-

-and then twisted back, slashing horizontally across Jason's abdomen.

"ARRRGROOOOOOO-" The beast howled as it tumbled away, its belly full of fire and acid and pain.

"STOP TALKING!" Sebastian roared as he followed the beast.

"Why?" Jason smiled at him. The smile was mostly fangs and scales... but there was some of Jason in there, too. "You don't like what I'm saying? Poooor Sebastian. All this time, you thought you were next-"

Jason had been retreating, but suddenly he sprang, almost catching Sebastian by surprise. Sebastian blocked the creature's claws with his blade, removing a few of the beast's fingers in the process. Fangs shot toward Sebastian's face, but he spun away slashing at the tail that he knew was coming up behind him.

The last three feet of the whip-like appendage fell to the dirt.

The Brooks-beast screamed.

From the corner of his eye, Sebastian saw Ashley enter the construction site through the gate that he'd left open. She was supposed to stay outside, but the almost-human scream had brought her running in to see what was happening.

Perhaps it smelled her. Perhaps it merely followed the quick shift in Sebastian's gaze. Whatever the cause, the beast turned and sprinted toward the gate, where Ashley stood transfixed by the bloody, monstrous thing coming at her...

Without pause or thought, Sebastian drew his arm back and hurled the sword as hard as he could. The blade flew toward the running creature's back-

-but as soon as the sword left Sebastian's fingers, the creature threw itself to one side... turned... and sprang back toward Sebastian!

Sebastian had just enough time to grab the seven-inch hunting knife from his belt before the creature was on him.

"SILVER DAGGER!" Sebastian shouted as he lunged into the creature's path and thrust the blade up into the thing's skull from below the chin.

The dagger was not silver. But if the creature had enough intelligence to talk, then it had just enough intelligence to fall for a bluff.

Jason's body stiffened in preparation for the bolt of burning pain that never came, giving Sebastian the split-second he needed to slip around the monster and sprint for his sword... hoping that the silver shrapnel in Jason's joints would slow him down enough-

"You're NOTHING!" Jason roared as he chased Sebastian toward the weapon. The creature was faster, but Sebastian's gamble with the silver bullets paid off. Jason was hurt... the silver was still poisoning him... and Sebastian reached the sword first.

He snatched the weapon from the ground and turned just as Jason sprang.

The beast realized its mistake too late. Sebastian held the sword at an angle and braced himself. An instant later, Jason Brooks impaled himself on the silver blade. The impact knocked Sebastian back... both man and beast tumbled backward, Sebastian landing on his back with the beast's grinning fangs inches from his face.

Ashley was screaming.

But then, Ashley was ALWAYS screaming...

Sebastian tried to push the creature's dead weight off of him, but the thing suddenly grabbed him. Claws sank into Sebastian's left side as the monster's mouth opened.

"NOTHING!" Jason barked into Sebastian's face. "You're nothing but... a shadow... not even a real MAN! Never was!"

"UNNNGR!" Sebastian tried again to shove the creature back, but it was holding him too tight.

"You think you'rre next!? You'll never be next... never be a Knight... never be anything!" Jason's growl began to fade to a whisper as the huge shaft of silver sent his supernatural metabolism into shock.

But he wasn't letting go.

"...Donovan knew it... I know it... the bitch will find out soon enough how much of a man you aren't!"

"SHUT UP!" Sebastian growled.

"I've got enough strength left to rip you open right here... but its better to let you live and suffer... suffer at being a half-man... an almost hero... a never-was and never-will be Knight."

"STOP... rrrrNGH.... TALKING!"

"Tearing your heart out would be a mercy killing, wouldn't it... because you're just a pitiful half-man with no soul and no chance of being anything... anything but second-string to a REAL Knight..."

"STOP IT, I SAID!" Sebastian's hissed through clenched teeth.

"-and you aren't even good at THAT, eh? heh... look what happened to ME! Look what happened to Donovan... you couldn't save EITHER of us! And you thought you were worthy!?"

"I-"

"Awwww... poor Sebastian... didn't even know how pitiful he was, until now! But daddy knew! Daddy knew all along! That's why I got the goodies instead of you! HA! I shot my own brother, but I'm still more worthy that you!"

"hhhhnnng..."

"Think about THAT one, boy! I killed my brother, but MY daddy still loved me! And so does YOURS! But guess who daddy DOESN'T love, eh! One guess... one guesss..."

"hhnnnrggh!"

"What's that you're trying to say there, nothing-boy?"

"I... HATE YOU!!"

Sebastian tossed the Jason-beast back away from him. The creature's claws ripped open his shirt and his skin, but Sebastian felt nothing... nothing but the rage that coursed though his body like burning fuel. On his feet, Sebastian's grabbed the first thing he saw:. The five-foot section of reinforcement bar felt like solid wrath in his hand. He swung it, and the Jason-beast's grinning teeth disappeared in a shattering spray of blood.

"I HATE YOU!" Sebastian screamed as he swung the iron bar again. It made a wet crackling sound against side of Jason's skull. Sebastian struck again in the same spot, and the half of the skull collapsed.

"I HATE YOU!"

CRACK!

He struck at the misshapen face. Chunks of it came away with the bar when he pulled it free. A second later it came down again. And again. And again.

Each time the bar struck, Sebastian's words echoed across the construction site like gunshots.

"I HATE YOU!"

"I HATE YOU!"

"I HATE YOU!"

Jason Brooks had lied about being able to kill Sebastian. With a shaft of steel through his upper abdomen, the beast could do little more than hold on and mumble venom into Sebastian's ears... and it certainly didn't have the strength to keep up with Sebastian's assault. The rain of angry blows quickly battered the monster's skull into a shapeless lump...

...but they still kept coming.

"I!"

crunch-

"HATE!"

-crack-

"YOU!"

"Sebastian!" Ashley shouted.

Sebastian didn't hear her. He couldn't even hear himself.

"I HATE YOU!"

The bloody iron bar descended again, detaching the already shattered jaw from the skull. The bar rose and-

"I HATE YOU!"

-down and-

"I HATE YOU!"

-down again and

"I HATE YOU!"

-the steady impact of the bar had reduced Sebastian's hands to purple bruises with fingers. He gripped the bar tighter.

"I HATE YOU!"

CRACK!

The large joint in Jason's shoulder... already home to several hunks of silver shrapnel... exploded. The iron bar came down on the other shoulder, and then began to systematically shatter each and every rib in the monster's torso.

"I HATE YOU!"

"Sebastian, you have to STOP now!" Ashley said in her annoying squeal. Sebastian heard her, but paid her no attention. Stop? Stop!? NEVER!

"I HATE YOU!"

CRACK!

There would be no stopping! Not ever! Not for THIS! He brought the iron bar down again on the center of the Jason's back...

...but Sebastian's eyes were not seeing Jason Brooks. They were not even seeing the monster that Jason had become. In his rage, Sebastian seeing something else entirely.

"YOU SHOULD HAVE LET ME DIE!" He screamed as he shattered more ribs. "WHY DID YOU SAVE ME!?"

crack!

"WHY DID YOU LIE!?!"

crack!

"ALL I EVER WANTED WAS TO BE WAS LIKE YOU!!"

crunch!

"Sebastian, you're KILLING him!!"

"BUT YOU TOOK IT AWAY! YOU LIED!!"

crack!

"WHY DID YOU LIE!?!"

The edge of the bar struck the center of Jason's back, destroying the vertebrae and sending a single spasm down the length of the creature's body.

"I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU!"

"Sebastian, PLEASE!"

Ashley had no idea how she was going to stop Sebastian's rampage, but she knew that it had to stop. She ran up to him and grabbed him, throwing both arms around his waist.

"STOP!"

She was surprised at how solid he was... every muscle in his body was clenched as tight at the iron bar he was holding. But when she pulled him back, he came easily... right up until the time he lost his balance and they both came crashing to the ground. Sebastian landed on his back. The piece of metal tumbled out of his hand, but his fists still curled and uncurled as if searching for the familiar grip of the bar.

Ashley leaned over him. Sebastian's eyes were wide open, but he wasn't seeing her.

"I hate you..." Sebastian whispered. The voice made Ashley want to cry. It was so full of pain, but there wasn't a single tear on Sebastian's face. "I hate you," he whispered at the sky above them.

"Sebastian, it's me... " She took one of his hands, straightened out his fingers, and placed them against her face. "It's Ashley."

"I hate you..."

"Shhh... no you don't. Come back here now. Wherever you are, you need to come back. Come back to me, okay?"

"I... hate..."

Sebastian's lips trembled.

"I'm... I'm nothing..." he said. "I'm nothing."

"No, you're not! I don't care what that thing said, it wasn't Jason and he didn't mean it and it was all a lie! Even if you can't remember all the people you helped and all the demons you've killed your whole life... you remember what you did tonight. You saved me, Sebastian, and that means you're NOT nothing! Not to me! Not ever!"

"I...I..."

Ashley didn't want to go into his mind. She was still dizzy from the drugs, and who knows what she would have to protect herself from if she did... but when Sebastian's eyes suddenly shifted from that far away place and looked into hers...

Ashley gasped. She stood up and backed away a few steps, clapping her hands to her face. She turned away and screamed:

"DONOVAAANNNNN!!! Get your ass down here RIGHT NOW!!"

A second later, the ghost re-appeared.

"What?" He said. "The police are- good grief, what happened NOW!?"

"YOU happened!" Ashley pointed at him.

Donovan looked past her at Sebastian, who had rolled over onto his side but showed no intentions of getting up.

"Sebastian?"

"Don't you TALK to him!" Ashley stepped between them. "Don't you DARE talk to him!"

"What? What's going on-"

"Do you even know what you did!?"

"I'm afraid I don't-"

"All he wanted to be his whole life was like YOU! And then one day you just walk up and say that it's not gonna HAPPEN!? That it never WAS gonna happen!? What kinda crap is THAT, Donovan!?"

Donovan looked confused for a moment.

"Wh... he certainly understands that-"

"He understands that his whole life has been a LIE because of you!"

"Ashley, this is a personal matter-"

"You're damned right!" Ashley pointed at Jason. "THAT is personal! Sebastian did that! He did that because YOU lied to him! YOU told him that if he worked hard and did what you said, then one day he was going to be a Knight like YOU... but then years later you turn around and tell him that it can't happen!?"

"Had I known the truth I never would have-"

"Ohhhh, NO you don't! You knew that your friend Goode couldn't be a Knight because he was cursed! That's why you wanted my father to take it! You knew that YEARS ago... years before Sebastian was even born! Unless that story was a lie, too!"

"It wasn't a lie, and sometimes... sometimes..."

"You PRETENDED not to know! You LIED to him!"

"Sebastian needed to... to have a focus. He needed a direction; I was... I was going to explain it all when he got older. And he IS older now, and I HAVE explained it. He can understand-"

"It's YOU that doesn't understand!" said Ashley. She walked up to the ghost. "Look at my face!"

"You're crying-"

"These are HIS tears! I'm crying them because HE CAN'T! He's HURTING, Donovan! He only wanted one thing in his whole life and you took it away! A normal person might be able to handle that, but not him! Not Sebastian! He's a man, but he's still got a little boy's heart and you BROKE IT! YOU BROKE IT, YOU BASTARD! YOU BROKE IT!"

"Sebastian..." Donovan tried to go around Ashley, but suddenly found that he couldn't.

He couldn't move.

"Go away," Ashley said. "You leave him alone. Leave US alone!"

"Ashley-"

"I mean it!" Ashley's eyes didn't seem to glow in the moonlight. They WERE glowing. "You leave now or I'll make you leave..."

"Ashley, be sensible-"

"I'll hurt you, Donovan. I'll hurt you so bad... I swear to God I'll hurt you!"

"But Jason-"

"We'll deal with it! In fact, we'll deal with everything from now on... WITHOUT you!"

"But... but he's my son!"

"Then you should have treated him like one. Now get out."

Donovan tried to stare the girl down, but the fire in her eyes made him weak and uneasy. He backed off, and Ashley watched him slowly fade away to nothing. Then she went back to Sebastian, who had watched the whole thing.

"You shouldn't have done that," said Sebastian. Ashley knelt beside him and swept the hair out of his face.

"I know. But I'm a girl, we do things like that. Are you... okay?"

As a reply, Sebastian looked past Ashley as broken body of the creature that had been Jason Brooks. Parts of it were twitching and blood still pumped out of the wounds, but beyond that there was no sign of life... human or otherwise.

"We have to move him before the police come," said Sebastian. He sat up, and then rose to his feet. "We'll use the truck over there. The silver in the sword should keep him inert for a while. We'll have to watch him until sunrise."

"Hey," Ashley took his hand. "You wanna talk?"

"No," he said. Then, after a pause "...m-maybe."

en minutes later, the battered truck pulled out of the construction site, leaving the gate open behind it.

Cole watched it leave.

The fools hadn't even bothered to look for him. Like they'd forgotten about him. Or just didn't care.

That was fine with Cole. For a few minutes he entertained the notion of being taken to a hospital and stitched back together. But the more the pain faded and the weak, dark nausea spread, the more he realized that the option of living through the night was no longer available. By the time the others had left, he had resigned himself to dying right where he was.

He'd managed to pull himself off of the reinforcement bar and drag himself the short distance to a pile of pre-formed steel sections that were going to be the frame of the building.

Well... maybe not THESE sections.

Cole chuckled.

The workmen were going to have quite a mess to clean up in the morning. And the police would drag half of their worksite off as evidence. He'd bled all over his wrecked BMW. Bled all over the ground. And now he was leaking blood all over the steel that would...

Cole looked down at the mess...

"Huh?" he said, squinting.

There was no blood on the steel.

He gripped the wound in his abdomen and then held his hand out, letting the drops of blood fall onto the metal. The steel soaked them in like dry sponge.

"Oh, shi-"

The pile of cold steel suddenly folded in on itself, snapping shut around Cole and crushing him like a bug in a vice. Cole's blood splashed outward in a corona of red, splattering the steel with a red warmth that quickly vanished into the metal. Then the metal began to move... shifting and twisting out of their pre-formed shapes. The individual pieces merged; the outer edges of the pile drew inward, thickening into a misshapen column. From this column, other shapes emerged... each drawing additional bulk from the blood-splattered steel around them. The jarring squeal of twisting, tearing metal filled the construction site as the new shape rose slowly from the steel.

...and if someone had been there to hear it, they would have sworn that it sounded like laughter.

Next Issue: Oh, you didn't think he was really DEAD, did you?

copyright 2005 by Dark Icon Entertainment