Blood Feud

Part Four: Bad to Worse

"m I supposed to be impressed?" Ashley snorted. "You pop into my head and claim to be my father... and I'm supposed to care? Am I even supposed to BELIEVE that?"

"Believe what you want; I'm not here to convince you," said the man.

His name was Soloman.

He was Ashley's father.

"What I AM here to do, is put a stop to this... this... this cycle of destruction you've gotten yourself involved in."

"Destruction?" Ashley said, raising an eyebrow. "You mean self defense. You mean HELPING people-"

"Helping? HELPING!? Violating private thoughts? Shattering a man's sanity? Burning out the pleasure center of a boy's mind!? Giving people visions of their CHILDREN on fire!? That's not helping ANYONE!"

"How long have you been watching me?"

"Not long," Soloman said, giving Ashley a very fatherly frown. "Not long at ALL... which makes me wonder what ELSE I would have seen if-"

"If you hadn't run out on the woman who loved you more than anything else in the world!? Hadn't walked out on the woman who was pregnant with your CHILD? With ME!?!"

"I did that..." Soloman said in slow, measured tones. "... to spare you exactly the kind of life you're making for yourself now! I see my sacrifice was WASTED!"

"Well maybe you should have stuck around and neither one of us would be so PISSED OFF right now!"

Ashley and Soloman stared at each other. Ashley was trying to infiltrate the stranger's thoughts. Soloman was doing an adequate job of not only resisting her, but making it look easy. It wasn't.

"You really are my father," Ashley said.

Soloman nodded.

"I still don't care. And I'm still not impressed."

"Then why were you looking for me?"

"Now who's invading WHO'S privacy?"

"I came because of Kline. I knew he was going to be trouble when he left he monastery, but I didn't expect him to find you."

"Oh, nice little protege you had there. You're so busy watching people... how'd you let THAT one get away, eh?"

"I don't watch people, Ashley. That's not what I do."

"Oh, so you have OTHER people do it?"

"Yes -no! That's-"

"Right. You're not a very good liar, you know that?"

"...so I've been told. Mostly by Donovan, who is quite adept at it. Kline was a mistake. When he left, I thought he was responsible enough to find his own way. I trusted him. Trusted his intentions. But he was naive, and darkness claimed him. Just as it is threatening to claim you."

"Yeah," said Ashley. "Sure. So what about the other night? Some guy has me drugged on his couch with my panties around my ankles and where were YOU? You watch that, TOO!?"

"I was..." Soloman began. "I wasn't there."

"That's EXACTLY my f-ing POINT!" Ashley snapped.

"Point? You didn't even know you had a point until just now! This isn't about me and your mother, Ashley. It isn't about me not being there. If I HAD been, you never would have reached adulthood. OR if you did, you'd be something other than what you are now. You'd be more like Sebastian... or Kline... than my daughter. I left to spare you a life of violence, and pain, and of using your powers to destroy. But now I find that that's exactly what you're doing!"

"Screw you," said Ashley. "I've got gifts, and I use them to save lives, just like Jason and-"

Soloman flinched. He looked down and shook his head, sighing heavily.

"You just don't understand," he said.

"You got some kind of problem with my friends?"

"They aren't your friends."

"Bull! You don't even KNOW Jason-"

"I know he's a Knight. I know that you've allowed yourself to pulled in to what he does. ...into he thinks he HAS to do, and the way he thinks he HAS to do it! You're an integral part of it now, just like I was for Donovan. And that's why I'm here, because I know... I KNOW what kind of horrors are in store for you if you continue."

"What are you saying?"

"Stay with them and the BEST you can hope for.... is a young and most likely painful death. At worst... at worst you'll end up like Kline. And trust me, that is much worse than death. He knows that now."

"He's still alive?"

"No. There's so much you have to learn, Ashley. So much I need to teach you about your abilities... but I can't to it if you're constantly besieged by one demon after another."

"I'm not going with you."

"You have to."

"Or what?"

"There are dangers-"

"I'm a big girl, 'dad'! I can take care of myself!"

"That's what I thought about Kline-"

"Will you STOP throwing Kline up in my face!"

"He was my greatest failure, and I'm NOT going to let it happen again. Especially not with my daughter!"

"Ahh, so noooow we get down to it! This is all about YOU, isn't it!"

"No! It's about you!"

"It's about YOU feeling useless and depressed after we turn your pet boy into dog food!"

"There's no need to be crude-"

"I'll be whatever I want... and I'll be WHEREVER I want, too! And right now that does NOT include some 'monastery' full of psychic monks-"

"There are no psychic monks at the monast-"

"WhatEVER! I don't even understand why we're still having this conversation. You asked me to come with you to. I said no. And if you really HAVE been watching me, then you know there's no way you can take me by force. So... end of discussion."

"Just give me a chance, Ashley. Set your emotions aside for a moment and listen to what I have to say. I can convince you to come with me."

"Well you're doing a fine job so far, pops! I just met you and I already don't like you!"

"You're not listening!"

Ashley sighed, and shook her head.

"No," she said. "I'm not. There's a metal-robot-demon-thing out there killing people, and you're expecting me to stand here and have a nice father/daughter chat?"

"This is the realm of the mind, Ashley. Barely an instant has passed in the real world-"

"An 'instant' is plenty long enough for somebody to get their head twisted off."

"Or shot."

"Yeah. Whatever."

Ashley's eyes narrowed as she focused her thoughts. The scene around her faded, becoming colorless and blurred... but not vanishing entirely. Ashley tried harder. The world tilted and swam around her-

-then snapped right back into focus.

"You're holding me here," she said, frowning.

Soloman shook his head.

Ashley tried again to eject herself from the astral plane and return to her body, but when she opened her eyes she was still standing in the deserted park, looking at her father's disapproving face.

"What are-"

"We have all the time in the world to talk, Ashley," said Soloman. He extended the palm of his hand toward Ashley. The skin of his hand faded, becoming a pale, cloudy screen upon which the events from the real world played like a movie. Ashley saw herself on the ground... with blood leaking from a wound in her head.

"Oh my God!"

"You won't be returning to your body any time soon."

"ou have to get out of here."

Dr. Goode looked up as Donovan appeared, giving the ghost just enough attention to determine that the chill shift in the air was what Goode THOUGHT it was... and not something else.

Satisfied that he wasn't being approached by anything nastier than a phantom, Goode returned his attention to the mess in front of him.

The helicopter's pilot had been lucky. The crash had killed the sniper instantly, and would have condemned the pilot to a quick but painful death if Goode hadn't happened to be within sprinting distance of the crash. Now thankfully unconscious, the pilot had at least a 35% chance of survival. Goode was a doctor, but he hadn't come out to the woods to be a battlefield physician. Without his tools and supplies, the best Goode could do was stop the bleeding and bandage the hideously ugly gut wound with his own hideously unsanitary shirt. However, left to work in peace for another five minutes, Goode would have the pilot stable enough to travel. Conveyed to a proper hospital by helicopter, ambulance or, if necessary, werebeast, the pilot's chances of survival would break the fifty percent mark.

The fact that this was the best he could manage struck Goode with a sad sense of dark irony. This used to be his job. He'd been a surgeon, for God's sake, and a damn good one, too. He'd pulled worse cases than this out of the death's jaws, and they hadn't all been in the sterile confines of a hospital operating room. But now...? Now, fifty-fifty was the best he could give this poor guy.

"I'm not exactly licensed to practice medicine," Goode said to the unconscious man. "So you may wanna tell yer lawyers to skip the malpractice and go straight for the criminal charges. Heh-"

"Did you hear me?" Donovan said, annoyed.

"Yeah, but I'm not exactly in a position to pick up and haul ass just now. Not that I would anyway."

"Now isn't the time for bravado, Goode. Brite's coming-"

"Brite? The VAMPIRE Brite? I thought you said this was some big metal demon."

"It is. The last time we destroyed him, we.... never mind that now. You have to get out of here; he's hungry and he's got the scent of that man's blood." The ghost pointed at Goode's patient. "I'm sure he won't mind getting a taste of yours too."

"No vampire can handle what I got in my veins," Goode said calmly. "And he'll be in pieces before he gets to the flyboy here."

"He's already IN pieces!" Donovan snapped. "Every one of them is hungry, mobile, and coming this way!"

Goode hadn't seen the mess on the chaos on the highway and had no idea what Donovan was trying to describe. But even without enhanced hearing, the doctor could indeed hear something in the woods... something moving with the sound of snapping branches and shredding trees, but WITHOUT the large, booming footsteps that usually accompanied such things. There was, however, the odd whispering sound of many small objects whistling through the air. Whatever it was had started out by the road and was heading toward the crash site with increasing speed.

"This isn't something you can fight," Donovan added.

"Sure. You know many times you've said THAT over the years?"

"And do you recall how many times I was right?"

"Ummm... twice. Exactly twice."

"Well this is number three. You... ESPECIALLY you... can't fight what's coming. So if that man isn't ready to travel, then get rid of him and move out."

"What exactly do you mean by 'get rid of'?" Goode said, frowning. The sound in the woods was noticeably louder now. Louder and closer.... and, more importantly, faster. It was speeding up as it approached the clearing.

"You know good and well what I mean. No matter what form he's in, Brite still adheres to his basic nature. He feeds on fresh human blood, and the only way to stop him is to make sure he DOESN'T feed. If that man can't be moved, then we have to make sure he doesn't become fuel for a fire that's already out of control!"

"By that you mean kill him?" Goode said. Until now, the doctor's eyes had remained on his patient. Now Goode's huge neck turned and he looked over his shoulder at the dead man who'd just instructed him to murder a patient. The scowl on the doctor's face was indeed homicidal... but it wasn't directed at the man bleeding on the ground.

Donovan returned the looked with a deep frown and glowing eyes.

"Yes," said the ghost. "Kill him. Kill him before Brite can feed on him and make a bad situation worse."

Instead of snarling and slashing out at the ghost with inhuman rage, Goode simply turned back to the pilot and continued tightening his makeshift bandages.

"I see you haven't changed a bit," said Goode.

"But you, apparently, have."

Goode was about to reply when the sound in the woods changed. It had been growing louder and closer with a seemingly exponential speed, but now it stopped. Stopped moving, that is. The crack and pop of tortured trees fell away as the sound of metal in air... the sound of Donovan and his whirling swords back in what Goode would call the 'old days'... roared to maddening crescendo. It was as if some huge engine had slipped into neutral and was revving up just a few yards outside the clearing created by the helicopter crash.

"What the hell is THAT? Sounds like a train wreck!"

"KILL HIM"

"....k!"

The helicopter pilot had been unconscious since Goode dragged him out of the wreckage... but now the man's eyes popped open and he stared wide-eyed past the doctor at the ghost that had just ordered his slaughter. The injured man inhaled a sick, gurgling breath.

"Easy..." Goode took the man's pulse. The pilot's arm twitched, then lifted. He pointed at Donovan.

"I see God," he muttered weakly.

"No he just thinks he's God," Goode corrected. "And now wasn't exactly a good time for you to wake up. But now that you are... Care to repeat what you just said a second ago, Donovan?"

"This isn't funny," said Donovan. Then the ghost began to fade. "Since you've taken this situation into your own hands, then you're responsible for whatever happens."

"Have been since I was born," said Goode. "Same as everybody else on the planet."

But Donovan was gone.

"...sound... what's the sound..." the pilot mumbled.

"Never mind that, son," Goode felt the man's pulse and frowned. "Look here... I'm gonna be honest with ya. You're hurt bad, and if you live... which ain't guaranteed by any means... you're gonna be in a hell of a lot of pain for quite a while. The only reason you're not feeling it now is because you're going into shock. But I swear to you that if you wanna live... if you hang on... I'll do my best to make sure you're alive to FEEL that pain. Deal?"

"...deal..."

"Now I'm gonna have to get you out of here," said Goode. "...which ain't a good idea for a man in your condition. I'm gonna pick you up and carry you, and while I'm doing that you might see some things that... well... just close your eyes. Close your eyes, STAY AWAKE, and hold on."

The pilot's eyes closed... not in death, but in determined obedience.

"You're a doctor, right?" the pilot moaned.

"The best."

"...good..."

In Goode's professional opinion, moving the pilot would probably kill him. But 'probably' was a lot better than 'definitely', even without considering what Donovan said about the nature of the thing in the woods. Goode leaned down to pick up the injured man.

The sound in the woods suddenly stared moving again... an explosion of sound and a thousand motions. Two large oak trees at the edge of the crash site vanished as-

It looked like someone had loaded a line of cannons with needles, razor blades and kitchen cutlery, and fired them into the clearing all at once. Goode had just enough time to throw himself on top of the patient, shielding him...

...and it turned out that he didn't even have time to do THAT.

f the thousand questions circulating in Marilyn's mind... questions ranging from "what the hell just happened" to "where did Brooks go" to "am I going insane" and then back to "what the hell just happened"... the one that finally detached itself from the mob and made itself heard was:

"Are you all right?"

It certainly wasn't the question she wanted answered the MOST... but she had to start somewhere.

Sebastian was sitting next to her. The girl was across his lap, and he had his hand pressed tightly to the side of her head, his strong fingers tangled in a bloody mat of her blonde hair. The blood was drying. The bleeding had stopped for now. The girl may still have some kind of fatal brain injury but she wasn't going to BLEED to death. But the boy...

-man, Marilyn corrected herself-

...didn't look so good.

Sebastian's head was moving in a tight circle, first looking down at Ashley... then up at the road through the cracked windshield... then higher and to the left, checking the rear view mirror... then lower and further to the left, checking the speedometer... then back down at Ashley. Marilyn had watched him do this five or six DOZEN times in the past five minutes, like a machine stuck in some kind of programming loop from which it couldn't escape. He did each circle silently, but a little faster each time.

There... he just did it again.

"Sebastian?" Dobbs said.

"I don't know what to do," Sebastian replied. He looked up from Ashley and met Marilyn's eyes for the first time. "I don't know what to do."

"There's nothing you can do. The hospital's not far and they're expecting us. We're going as fast as we can in this-"

"Not her," Sebastian's hand twitched in Ashley's hair. "Me. I should be... back there. With Jason."

Brooks had hitched a ride on top of the truck for all of twenty seconds before leaping off and going back to find yet ANOTHER conspirator that had been hiding in the woods.

"Back there, that thing-"

"Vampire," Sebastian added.

Marilyn's mind... trapped in it's OWN programming loop... reversed the last fragment of a second, erased the word 'vampire' and replaced it with 'unknown but perfectly natural and explainable entity. 'Vampire' was an illegal variable type in the language of her mind.

"-Whatever it was, will kill us. I don't know what you think you can do, but somehow I don't think those swords you carry around..."

Marilyn's mind suddenly offered up the image of Sebastian chopping off a man's arm in an apartment building and then pushing him out of a window. Dobbs pushed the image aside. For now.

"There's nothing you can do back there but get killed," she finished.

"That's what I do," Sebastian replied, indicating that maybe he hadn't heard exactly what Dobbs had said. "What I do... is back there. But I'm here."

He looked down at Ashley. Marilyn thought the conversation was over, but then he added, softly... almost ashamed:

"I want to be here."

"You're a strange kid, you know that?"

Sebastian said nothing.

"You're worried about her. And you're even more worried about the fact that you're worried about her. But then... from what I know about men, maybe that's not all that strange. What... is there some kind of law against giving a damn about somebody?"

Sebastian said nothing. Again.

"Look, I'm just a confused cop that will probably be arresting you before the day is out. But I know a couple of things that are probably still true in your world, regardless of the whole 'demon hunting' fantasy you and Brooks have got going. One... people need each other."

"I-"

"I'm not SAYING anything... I'm just saying. Regardless of what you THINK, it's okay for people to... uh... forget it. This whole conversation is just too weird. Just forget I started it."

Sebastian said nothing for a third time.

inding Brite wouldn't have been hard even if Jason hadn't already known exactly where he was. The vampire had left a trail of shredded, chopped and otherwise wrecked trees along a perfectly straight line beginning at the highway. The other end of that line would be the helicopter crash site, where Jason hoped to NOT find a shredded, chopped or otherwise wrecked werebeast. Having never seen Dr. Goode in action, Jason had no idea what that particular monster was capable of. But he'd seen Brite, and that was enough to stoke that uneasy twinge of worry into full-blown fear.

If Goode died, then his cure... if there was one... died with him.

Upon realizing Brite's intended meal, Jason had paused just long enough to tell Sebastian to stay with Ashley. Then he slid off the top of the speeding truck and landed in the street behind it. He wasn't alone.

"Donovan, go warn Goode," Jason said as he dropped the last three bullets into one of the .454 revolvers. He had no idea what he was going to DO with those bullets, but it was better to have them and not need them than the other way around. "No matter how fast I am, you're faster. Tell 'im to get the hell outta there."

"I will," Donovan replied. "But he won't."

Holding the gun in his mouth, Jason shrugged off his clothes and shifted into werebeast form with all the ease of someone who'd been doing it all his life. With the gun clutched between two rows of impossibly sharp teeth, the beast darted down the narrow strip of land between the trees and the asphalt, his legs moving with a stunning fluidity that was both graceful and frightening. Anyone who spotted the beast speeding along the side of the road would have been unable to describe it as more than a 'running, four-legged thing' or 'some kind of optical illusion'. All other identifiable detail was lost in a blur of motion that was one part cheetah and three parts magic.

In what seemed like an instant, Jason was back at the battlefield marked by cracked asphalt and the wreckage of a ruined flatbed trailer. The beast made a slow deceleration to a near-halt, then pivoted 90 degrees and darted into the woods, following a path of freshly shredded trees that had not been there before. His heightened senses caught a sound that he didn't like: silence.

Something wasn't right. Other than his own footsteps and the occasional SNAP of a newly damaged branch yielding to gravity, there was no sound at all in the woods. There should have been SOMETHING. A roar. A scream. The scrape of metal against metal or the whir and whistle of Brite's shrapnel-teeth preparing to bite into a fresh meal.

But there was none of this.

Jason didn't stop, but he slowed-

Thud!

...ahhhh, there it was. The ground shuddered at the first monstrous footstep emanating from deeper in the forest. The single step was tentative and unsure, but the second-

THUD!

-came with thundering confidence. From that point on, the footsteps came in pairs-

THUD-THUD! THUD-THUD!

With a barely noticeable and rapidly shortening pause between them, until finally it was a continuous march:

THUD-THUD-THUD-THUD-

The giant's feet shook the ground... and the trees... and Jason as the beast thundered toward him.

Jason shifted halfway out of beast form... enough to stand almost upright, and almost enough to smile.

"Goode," Jason said. That's all it could have been. Brite was a swirl of metal now, and had no feet with which to make such sounds. And even when the vampire HAD been a single solid creature, its footsteps weren't nearly as balanced... as natural... as the ones approaching Jason now. Natural, but not human. Definitely not human.

THUD-THUD-THUD-THUD-

So if it wasn't Brite, then the sound must be some OTHER monster. Either it was Goode or Rock Springs had some OTHER problem besides werebeasts and unkillable metal vampires.

THUD-THUD-

A large tree fell further into the woods, near the source of the approaching sounds.

No, actually it was more like a large tree behind snapped in half and THROWN to the ground.

THUD-THUD-THUD-THUD-

Once again, uneasiness pulled at the fringes of Jason's mind. This may (had to) be Goode in werebeast form, but that didn't necessarily follow that Goode was in full control of himself. Jason was new to his own power, and even if he hadn't been, Goode was something different than he was. The Gift of Reistance had turned the werebeast's curse into something almost controllable in Jason, but maybe Goode didn't have any self control at ALL in beast form. Maybe the doctor had been forced to transform when Brite arrived... but now, with Brite defeated or at least temporarily inert, now there was a NEW threat to worry about.

THUD-THUD-THUD-

In fact, as another tree hit the ground under a force quite a bit stronger than mere gravity, that nagging uneasiness in Jason's mind once again transformed into:

"Awww, hell..." Jason inhaled deeply and shouted: "GOODE!"

What actually came out of his mouth was a cross between a lion's roar and the howl of an angry baboon. He shifted further into human form... an act that took much more effort than going from human to animal... and tried again.

THUD-THUD-THUD-

"GOODE, ANSWER ME!"

THUD-THUD-THUD-

There was no response, and no discernable reaction in the approaching footsteps. They didn't get louder, softer, faster, or slower. They didn't change direction, either. They were headed straight for Jason along the path that Brite had chopped through the woods.

But the path was narrow, and damaged trees had fallen across it almost as soon as the vampire had passed through. Those trees, and others still standing on either side of the path, were being violently uprooted, snapped and thrown aside by this new thing as it came thundering out of the depths of the woods.

THUD-THUD-THUD-

Jason wondered what it would do to HIM. He only had a few seconds to wait before he found out.

"DONOVAN what is that?" Jason shouted.

THUD-THUD-THUD-
CRASH
THUD-THUD-THUD-
SNAP!
THUD-THUD-THUD-

Donovan appeared beside him at the same instant that something HUGE came flying down the path.

"WHOA!" Jason ducked as the sixty-foot pine tree... an ENTIRE tree... passed through Donovan and slammed into some smaller trees further down the path, striking them with enough force to churn up an explosion of wood, pulp, and sap. "DAMN, That almost-"

Donovan was starting to speak, but Jason didn't hear him. Jason had turned back to the direction of the footsteps just in time to see their source come thundering into view, shouldering aside two towering oak trees that utterly failed to impede its progress.

It was Goode.

And Brite.

In the depths of his chest, Jason's heart clenched as tight and hard as a rock, then buried itself somewhere in the lower regions of his gut.

" got SHOT!?!?" Ashley screamed in disbelief. "What do you MEAN I got shot!? I can't get shot! I... I got SHOT!?!"

"That tends to happen when you associate yourself with Donovan Wilde and his ilk," Soloman replied coldly. He lowered his hand, and the miniature movie that had been playing across his palm winked out. "Be thankful it was only a bullet, there are a lot worse ways that he can get you killed. Be also thankful that the bullet merely grazed you."

"That didn't look like GRAZED to me! I was bleeding! A LOT! My SKULL could be cracked-"

"Possible."

"My BRAINS could be oozing out!"

"Not likely."

"That's just GREAT!" Ashley's voice was a growl, but a very young and feminine growl. "F$@$%ING GREAT!"

"Language-"

"SHUT UP! Just SHUT THE F$@K UP!"

Soloman's brow wrinkled into a frown.

"Young lady, you ARE still my daughter-"

"And you you're letting me BLEED to death on the street? Shouldn't you be out there... ohh, I dunno... HELPING me!?"

"I am helping you," said Soloman. "I've been trying to help you since I brought you here, but all you've done is curse, shout, and extend tremendous amounts of time and energy trying NOT to be helped!"

Soloman obviously expected some kind of response. But perhaps he didn't expect Ashley to simply put her hands on her hips and STARE at him as if he were a large and particularly ugly insect that had just jumped up onto its hind legs and declared itself God. This was, in fact, exactly what Ashley was thinking. But she didn't SAY anything.

"Are you ready to listen?" Soloman said after a pause.

"Depends on what you've got to say. But if you want my attention, you might START with who the hell shot me and why you're not out there helping me."

Soloman sighed-

"I'm listening," Ashley said.

"The detective shot you."

"DOBBS?!?"

"The other one."

"The demon guy!?"

"He's not a real demon." Soloman's face relaxed into a little smile... like an old man who'd just been asked to relate one of his favorite true stories. "You see, there are true demons of various types... demon-spawn, which are the offspring of demons and other creatures, and demon-shaped, which are lesser beings created BY demons for-"

"What am I... stupid? I know all this. Tell me why you're here talking to me instead of whisking me off to a hospital somewhere."

"Because you need this talk MORE than you need a hospital."

"But I-"

"-am NOT dying. I have it on rather high authority that your wound here will be non-fatal."

"And what authority is that? You have lunch with Jesus this afternoon?"

"There are those..." Soloman paused, and Ashley could see him searching for the right way to talk AROUND what he didn't want to say. "...who are almost as talented with clairvoyance as you seem to be with telepathy. I use those terms very loosely, of course, since in truth you are not-"

"So somebody tells you that I'm about to get shot in the head, and just hang around waiting for it to happen so you can trap me here? For a little chat?"

"In a way... Yes."

Ashley hadn't expected the answer to be so short or truthful.

"That's creepy."

"You've already tried to leave once," said Soloman. "We wouldn't be having this conversation now if you had the option not to. But you don't. So now you'll listen to me-"

"So this psychic is never wrong?"

"-You need guidance. You need to learn about the... the NATURE of your abilities and why it is imperative that you not abuse them. Not CONTINUE to abuse them. But that abuse will continue as long as you are associated with Wilde and Brooks. You must disassociate yourself from-"

"See, this is where I stop listening. When you or ANYBODY else starts telling me what to do, what not to do, and who I can hang out with... nuh-uh. Maybe if you hadn't missed so many birthdays you'd have noticed that I'm a grown woman and I can make my own damned decision."

"And that's exactly what you'll make: Damned Decisions. Without guidance you'll damn yourself and everyone around you. Mark my words carefully, Ashley, I'm not talking about death or anything as simple as a bullet to the head. I'm talking Damnation."

"Riiiight. Your psychic tell you that, too?"

"She didn't have to. I know the road you're on because I've traveled it myself. I got off that road before it was too late, but I've seen others follow it allll the way to the end. So have you; you've seen a glimpse of what that end looks like."

"So what you're saying is, the ONLY way I can keep from ending up like Kline-"

"Or worse. Much worse."

"-is to let you take me away from my friends and lock me up in a monastery somewhere."

"Exactly."

"HA!!"

"Excuse me?"

"I said: HA! What utter bullshi-"

"Ashley I would appreciate it if you-"

"And I would appreciate it if YOU would just step back and LISTEN to what you're saying! You DO realize I'm grown, right? Were you listening to that part a few seconds ago?"

"Yes I was. It's YOU who has the problem listening."

"First of all..." Ashley held up one finger. "I don't know you. Father or not, I have NO idea who you are. As far as I know, you're gonna lock me in a basement and rape me six times a day... eight times on Sunday."

"Don't be absurd-"

"Ah, but it's not absurd if I don't frigging KNOW YOU, is it! I mean really? This is the first time I've seen you in my life-"

"Not exactly-"

"-so I don't trust you to take me to a BUS STATION, let alone a monastery that I've never heard of! Hell, I just found out that it's not safe to have DRINKS with a stranger in a public place! I just found that out the HARD WAY, and now you want to GO HOME with you!?"

"Okay. Okay fine, I see your point, and it's a valid one. Trust is an issue-"

"SECOND of all..." Ashley held up a second finger. "I'm an adult human being. Live or die, damned or... or whatever the opposite of damned is, my life is MY life. You don't make decisions for me-"

"I'm not trying to make decisions for you, I'm trying to get you to make the RIGHT decision for yourself!"

"But I decide what the right decision is. Not you. You don't just sit around making up YOUR mind about what I'm going to do and-"

"That is where we disagree. I know more than you. I've SEEN more than you. There is right and there is wrong, and I have a better view of the line between them than you do. It's foolish madness to ignore my-"

"I can choose to be a mad fool if I want. It's my life."

"Again, you are not listening... this is about MORE than life. Your potential dwarfs that of... you could... if you... Ashley..."

Here, Soloman stopped. The words just wouldn't come, and as Ashley watched him try and coax them from his suddenly uncooperative vocabulary, she saw another unexpected truth... this one unintentional.

Soloman was frightened.

Perhaps even terrified, but definitely frightened. It was fear that was choking off his words. Had Soloman been having this conversation with Donovan, Sebastian, or maybe Jason... especially the full-moon version of Jason... then either one of them would have perceived it as weakness and gone in for whatever rhetorical kill would have ended the conversation most to their liking. But he hadn't been talking to them, and as upset as Ashley was at this stranger/father, she was not beyond a modicum of empathy, and quite a large portion more of curiosity.

"You're afraid of me," she said in a flat, matter-of-fact tone.

"Of you," said Soloman. "And FOR you. Mostly the latter."

"Why?"

"Will you even bother to listen?"

"That's for me to decide. But I want to know why you're afraid of...for... me, and I'll at least listen to that much. But the second you start telling me what to do-"

"All right," Soloman held up his hand as if in half-hearted surrender. "There's much I can't tell you. You're not ready-"

"Ahhhh, here we go," Ashley sighed, turning way. "Already deciding what I'm not ready for. You know what? Forget the whole-"

"You want to know what you are," Soloman blurted.

Ashley stopped, not freezing, but waiting impatiently.

"I'm listening."

"Right now I can only tell you what you AREN'T."

"Mmmhmm..."

"Telepathy," said Soloman. "Telekinesis. Clairvoyance. Astral projection. Auric vision. Communication with spirits. All these are very unique gifts. So unique that the probability of you possessing all of them at once is... quite impossible."

"Sooo, I just imagine reading people's minds, is that it? My whole life after puberty is a delusion?"

Soloman thought for a moment.

"Yes," he said, finally.

Ashley turned to face him again.

"-but that isn't to say that you don't have power. You do. Quite a bit more than I do. Quite a bit more than you yourself realize. But it isn't telekinesis. It isn't telepathy-"

"Do you realize how much sense you're NOT making? I've had my gifts all my life-"

"Gifts? See, even now you separate and compartmentalize something that is actually only one power... one gift.... one whole. Telepathy and all the other 'gifts' you think you have are only aspects of something entirely different. But its too big for you to understand, so you pick out the bits and pieces of it that you DO understand and focus on them. You ignore everything else to the point that you think there IS nothing else. But there is."

"I'm still waiting to hear something that doesn't sound like complete crap."

"It's as if a person who's never seen a car before finds one on the street. He turns on the headlights and blows the horn, but has no idea how to make it do anything else. So he tells his friends he has a flashlight and a trumpet."

"Oh, that's witty. Take you long to think that one up?"

"You're no more telepathic than I am a sorcerer with a magic book of incantations. Did Donovan tell you about that-"

"Yeah, you made the whole thing up."

"Because 'magic incantations' is the only way my mind could comprehend its own abilities. So that's what I became. With you, it's..."

"So I'm not psychic," Ashley said. Her disbelief and impatience was clear in her voice. "I'm something else that I'm mistaking for psychic."

"Exactly. I can do almost everything that you can, to a lesser extent. But even now that I know the truth I still require the crutch... the ILLUSION... of magic words or symbols. That's how I access my abilities. That's how I understand them... but I'm not a magician. I'm something else. "

"So what is this 'something else'? And what about what Kline said about us being the first Knights."

"We came before the Knights. Our power was abused and so... things changed."

"But you didn't answer-"

"You aren't ready for more than that. You already don't belief half of what I'm saying-"

"Oh, I'm calling bullshit on a lot more than just HALF. But I'm still listening. That's what you want, right?"

"Yes."

"So if I already don't believe you, you may as well just tell me the rest."

Soloman shook his head, then quickly held up one finger as if to stop Ashley's next comment before she said it.

"But PLEASE listen to what I WILL tell you..." he said. When Ashley didn't speak, he continued. "Our power is dangerous. To us. It kills us as we use it. The MORE we use it, the faster our minds and bodies break down. Death usually comes as cancer or some sort of sudden aneurism- Do you know what that is?"

"Duh, not stupid."

"Sorry. But I've also seen worse things than either of those. Much, much worse."

"So I'm going to die if I keep using my... whatever it is."

"Yes. But everyone dies eventually, and that wasn't the point I was making. There are certain WAYS that we can use our abilities that are not harmful. Certain methods and, most importantly, certain CIRCUMSTANCES under which we can exert some portion of our power with little or no harm."

"And you're the only one who can teach me, right?"

"One of a very small number who can, yes."

"See, told you I wasn't stupid. I saw that coming a mile away."

"But there is NO safe way... no safe method... that our power can be used for destruction. Or acts of vengeance. The power itself will resist this kind of use, which is why your so-called telekinesis is erratic at best. If we force our abilities to act in this way, then we endanger our bodies as well as our souls."

"So a guy tries to rape me and I can't-"

"No, Ashley. You can't."

"But I did, and I feel fine."

"And that one wantonly malicious act may have taken a month off of your life. Or a year."

"You're lying-"

"I assure you that I am not. And it gets worse."

"Oh?"

"Yes, very much so. Our power is..." Soloman thought for a moment. Ashley saw him searching for the right way to NOT say something. "...we fought demons, Ashley. Not in ones or twos like Donovan, but entire hordes. Armies in overwhelming numbers. We had the power to push them back... hold them in check... and destroy them if need be. That level of power no longer exists among us, but even a fragment of it is of enormous value to... to those who do not have mankind's best interests at heart."

"You mean demons-"

"If you think demons are the only enemies we have, then you are sorely mistaken. Mankind has many enemies... including himself. Our power is valuable. WE are valuable. And what you have done, Ashley, is demonstrated not only a stunning amount of power, but a willingness to USE that power in ways that..." Soloman sighed. "You have made yourself a target, Ashley. The combination of your power and your recklessness in its use has made you more of a target than I ever was. More than KLINE ever was, and the forces of evil went to GREAT lengths to obtain HIS services, let me assure you. Without training and education, you will surely become a servant of those who would see this world destroyed or conquered."

At this, Soloman paused, clearly surprised that Ashley let him say so much without interrupting him. He waited and watched, trying to gauge her reaction.

"What you say sounds reasonable," Ashley began. Then it was Soloman who interrupted.

"Good, I'm glad you've finally-"

"But then, how else WOULD it sound? I mean, how do I know you're not one of those people trying to own or control me?"

"Ashley, how can you-"

"Because that's EXACTLY what you're trying to do! You come here and say that people or demons or whatever are going to try and use me... get me to do what they want me to do... and the only way to AVOID that is to do what YOU want me to do. Let YOU use me."

"This is in your best interest, Ashley. If anything else-"

"I've dealt with demons before and if it's one thing that always true, it's this: whenever they want you to do something, they arrange it so that its in YOUR BEST INTEREST to do it. Just like you're doing now."

"So now you think I'm a demon?"

"No, not at all," said Ashley. "You MIGHT even be my father... I'm willing to accept that. Maybe. But I know when I'm being manipulated. You say I'm a target? Well that's nothing new to me. Demons have been after me, before. Not the loud, ugly, flesh-eating kind, but the quiet, whispering, deal-making kind... and believe me, they're much worse. They've come for me, and when I wouldn't play their games they went after my friends, teachers, neighbors... even PETS! I've had to put up with them for years without your 'special help', and without people like Jason and Sebastian to help me out. Now-"

"Ashley-"

"Listen to ME, dammit! I let you talk, now it's MY TURN! Now all of a sudden, the one person who SHOULD have been helping me out all those years comes marching in to save the day!? That's BULLSHIT! Your time to help me and control me and get me to think the way you want me to think is OVER! It's DONE! Sorry you weren't there to take advantage of it... but you MISSED IT! I'm a GROWN WOMAN now. I can take care of myself. Most importantly, I can THINK for myself, too! If you want to help me, then the most you can do is tell me the truth! ALL of it, not just the bits and pieces you've been tossing out like bread crumbs, trying to get me to follow you back to wherever-the-hell you've been HIDING for the past TWENTY YEARS!"

Soloman's face turned red, though whether it was from anger or shame, Ashley couldn't tell. Either one was fine with her. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes for a moment-

-Ashley got the distinct feeling that he was TALKING to someone else, but she couldn't quite grasp what was being said, or who it was being said TOO-

-then opened his eyes and spoke calmly, his face returning to its normal color.

"This was not the best way to approach you. I'm sorry."

"You've got a lot more to be sorry for than THAT-"

Soloman held up his hand and continued speaking.

"This was, however, the quickest way. Time was... is... an important factor in my decision to come to you like this. When I learned of the opportunity-"

"You mean me being shot? THAT opportunity!? Something you could have STOPPED if you weren't so worried about-"

"-I decided to take it. I thought you would be willing to listen. To your credit, you DID listen... but you still insist on doing things your own way."

"Damn right."

"I suppose that... as a father... I am required to allow you some degree of freedom. However, it is clear that, despite your attention to my words, you still fail to grasp the importance and magnitude of the forces aligned against you. Of the decisions you have made. Of your actions. Of the damage you can and WILL do if left on your own."

Ashley felt the world around her change. Everything, from the trees to the ground beneath her feet, seemed to flatten out, becoming so thin that she could almost see through it.

"What's happening?" Ashley said suspiciously.

"There is more here at stake than just you."

She and Soloman had been having their conversation in a small pocket of the astral plane that had been made to look like a park. Now that pocket was folding in on itself... changing shape with the illusion of the park still projected onto its surface. The world distorted around her.

"You are an adult, Ashley, as you have so often reminded me. But you fail to realize exactly what that means."

There was an odd pulling sensation from a direction beyond the three 'normal' ones. It seemed to come from everywhere-

"There are times when you must yield your own best interests for those of the greater good. And never is that more important than when you aren't even sure what your best interests ARE. You, Ashley, have no IDEA what's best for you, or anyone else."

"What's happening here. What are you doing!?"

Ashley was heavy, as if a giant weight had been settled onto her body. Her every movement, no matter how small, met with a slow, creeping resistance. Even her thoughts seemed to be slowing down.

"Preventing a catastrophe. And saving your life in the process. I-"

"Oh no you're NOT!" Ashley had no idea what was happening to her. She'd been attacked on the astral plane by a variety of beings in a multitude of ways, but had never experienced anything quite like this. It didn't seem dangerous or even threatening... but the one overriding rule of the astral plane was that nothing was what it seemed. Including Ashley.

The counter-attack came instantly.

Ashley couldn't risk taking the time to plan or even gather her rapidly fading strength. The 'plan' had already been formed through intuition and years of experience, and the strength came not through brute force, but through vicious swiftness. Her father was not the target. In fact, Ashley was reasonably sure that he wasn't even there any more. The thing now lecturing her about 'responsibility' was an after-image... nothing more than a recording of a mind/soul that had secretly vacated the area before the trap was completely sprung. It was supposed to keep her attention. Ashley ignored it/him, instead sending her thoughts out to the astral plane immediately around her... that which had been molded into the peaceful scene where she had been ambushed. Her thoughts were like daggers ripping into a fine silk curtain. The park illusion fell in tatters around her. She ignored what lay behind it, because it too was an unimportant illusion. But the thoughts of those that were hiding in, around, and behind it were visible for an instant. They were quick to shuffle themselves into the shadows, but not quick enough. Ashley latched on to one of them. Not the closest (distance had no meaning here), or the strongest (the expected target), but the WEAKEST of the minds that had assembled themselves against her. It was trying to APPEAR strong, but was expending far, far too much effort to do so... a sure sign of an amateur. She didn't know who was on the other end of these thoughts that were pushing her down into the astral plane like a nail into a board, but at least ONE of them was about to have a very bad day. With mechanical precision, Ashley launched a package of white-hot coals wrapped in barbed wire into the mind of that single weak link. Hidden in the center of that mental hellstorm was a single thought that exploded like a hand-grenade at the first sign of reaction (vulnerability, loss of control) from the target:

>>>>>DIE<<<<<

Somewhere else... somewhere in the PHYSICAL world... a child's body slumped to the floor with a hard thud.

The reaction shot through the rest of the minds like a sudden scream in a silent room. And that was exactly what it was. Whatever web they had woven themselves into fell apart as the brief wail of agony rose like a siren... and suddenly ended. It was not the scream... the pain... the terror... that ended it. It was the sudden return of that now-horrible silence.

What... what... what had just happened!?!

The sensation of surreal weight vanished from Ashley's astral form. She was free-

And in that same instant, Ashley was gone.

econds ticked by. One... two...

At first, Jason had no idea what he was looking at. His mind revolted at the site... not because it was particularly gruesome or horrifying (even though it was), but because his mind simply could not UNDERSTAND the images that his mind was feeding it. For one precious second... a second that COULD have changed everything that happened afterward... Jason simply stared blankly at the thing in the woods while his mind, heart, and eyes wrestled with one another.

The thing had been a monster before, but this...? THIS!?

At the end of that second, Jason realized that while HE had been motionless, the thing that had stunned him into motionless shock had been bearing down on him like a speeding truck. But even that realization was swept up in the endless tumult of "Can't Be/Shouldn't Be/IS!", causing another precious instant of delay before he acted.

By then, it was not only too late, but FAR too late.

The last time Jason had seen the vampire, Brite's new 'walking metal horror' form had become a whirlwind of flying metal shrapnel. But sometime between then and now, the deadly storm of animated steel had re-formed itself into a single solid mass. But the multitude of dagger-like shards couldn't simply melt into one another like a movie character... it had taken an explosion to separate them, and would likely take a similar force to reforge them. Instead, they used an intermediate substance to hold them together and give them the humanoid form that Sebastian's explosion had ruined. That intermediate substance... the GLUE that was holding the thing together... was the flesh of Dr. Goode.

At first glance it looked like a giant gorilla wearing a suit of armor. But the 'gorilla' had a healthy dose of Tyrannosaurs Rex in its genetic makeup, and the 'armor' wasn't armor at all... for it's thousand-and-one sharp edges sliced into the underlying flesh with every move the creature(s) made. Beneath the haphazard layer of metal plates, Goode's body was in ruins. Most of the wounds were shallow, but several of the shards had stabbed deep into his flesh. His neck... his chest... his thighs.... all the major arteries had been sliced open with daggers that not only remained in place, but were actively sucking up the blood that poured from the wounds. Shafts of metal were thrust into the large muscle groups, anchoring the metal mass in place while... and this took another instant for Jason to consider... somehow CONTROLLING the movements of the creature they were bonded to. It was as if Goode were wearing a metal exoskeleton from some science-fiction movie, only this skeleton was not under his control and was powered by his own blood. Jason knew that the vampire-infused metal was poison to the werebeast and would eventually kill it. But Brite didn't seem to care. The vampire had not only found a self-regenerating blood supply, but a powerful set of muscles to carry it around as well. Even if it only lasted an hour, what could be better!? And if Brite's metal fangs didn't bite TOO deep or drink TOO much, then who knew how long this good fortune could last?!

Jason tried to dodge the blood-and-metal machine as it rushed toward him. He would have succeeded if Goode/Brite were content to simply pass by, but the instant the creature got within arm's reach, one of the flesh-and-steel appendages closed around Jason's shoulder and snatched him deftly from the ground. Jason's shoulder protested with a

SNAP!
CRUNCH!

...and then a sickening
POP!

Daggers of bone stabbed out of Jason's flesh while, simultaneously, knives of enchanted steel stabbed (and burned) inward. The entire world turned red... then faded to a painful shade of near white. Jason screamed his way back to full awareness and found himself looking into Dr. Goode's bloodshot eyes. The eyes were framed by a helmut-like structure made of jagged metal fragments, and Jason knew that it was those FRAGMENTS that were looking back at him... not the half-dead orbs slowly filling with blood in Goode's skull.

"...Goode..." Jason groaned. "You in there?"

The monster's lips fluttered. The eyes focused for an instant. Jason saw nothing but pain in them. Not fear or rage... just pain.

The eyes suddenly widened, and then squeezed shut as the metal assembled on Goode's body shifted. Steel grated against steel, and somewhere in the resulting discord a voice spoke-

"-DID-THIS-TO-MEEEEE!" Brite howled. "YOUUUUU!"

"Let him go!" Jason replied. His words sounded suspiciously like a demand. Even as he spoke them, something else popped loose in his shoulder. There was no solid bone remaining in it now. Shredded skin and severely stretched muscle was the only thing holding his arm in place. If Brite squeezed-

Brite squeezed.

Jason screamed.

The pressure stopped just short of snapping his left arm off at the shoulder. But it was more than enough to send Jason's thoughts swimming toward the outer reaches of the solar system for a few seconds.

"PAINNNN!!!" Brite screeched. "WILL-GIVE-YOU-PAIN!!! WILL-KILL-YOU-SLOW!"

"How about you let the doctor go and you can play with me all you want!" Jason managed to grunt. "Just let him go. I'm the one you-"

"NEED-BLOOD! SHE-WILL-HEAL-ME! YOU-WILL-DIE....LATER!"

Having spoken his final words on the subject, Brite swung his arm in a powerful arc, sending Jason flying back into the woods. There was a single loud CRACK as Jason's body went through a small tree, shattering both tree and spine... and a series of softer SNAPS as it struck a large pine. Fortunately, the first impact had rendered Jason unconscious, sparing him the agony of the second.

"DIE-SLOWLY-LATER!" Brite's metal plates screamed as the beast thundered off toward the highway... and the city beyond.

"hat the hell just happened!?"

Technology was not Soloman's strong point. He owned a cellular phone- a quite expensive one, in fact- but when it came to urgent and important communication, he still preferred the old-fashioned methods.

Like magic.

The fist-sized crystal he held in his hand glowed with a harsh blue glare, giving all the nearby objects in the hotel room a hard electric tint. The hotel room was not his. It had been rented to Mary Evelyn (a.k.a. Madam Eve, a.k.a. Ashley Ricks) with money that could undoubtedly be traced to the deceased-but-still-meddling Donovan Wilde. Soloman hadn't gone so far as to rummage through all of his daughter's belongings, but he'd needed a few personal items to complete the spell that was now fading around him. Locating her consciousness and dragging into onto the astral plane had been remarkably easy... a simple matter of timing rather than skill or outright power. KEEPING her there, however...

"What happened!?!"

He spoke into the cone of blue light emanating from the topmost facet of the spherical crystal. The other facets 'reflected' a multitude of images... none of which were present in the room, and most depicting actions/events that were not physically possible... but he ignored them for now. In that broad cone of blue light, a single face spoke back to him.

"It's N-Nidra," said the face. It belonged to a thin, elderly woman who was neither as weak nor as old as she appeared. She was, quite worried and more than a little afraid. "She..." The face looked away for a moment, listening to someone else talk. The woman nodded and then turned back to Soloman. "She's all right. Or she WILL be. That little..."

The old woman was CLEARLY biting her tongue, forcing it to skip over a word or two before continuing-

"...could have KILLED her! My GOD, Soloman! Did you see what she did!"

"I saw," The magician replied. "And I felt it, too, despite my defenses. I imagine you did, as well."

"My GOD! Soloman, this was a mistake! If we hadn't already weakened her, SEVERAL of us could be DEAD right now! Maybe even you! You never said she... she-"

"Was that powerful? I didn't know. This was a tactical error. Having seen the consequences just reinforces the need to act. Ashley... needs guidance."

"She needs a hell of a lot more than GUIDANCE!" The old woman spat. Fire crept into her voice. Her eyes flashed briefly with a light that was neither metaphor nor illusion. "If she's fallen this far.... to do this to a CHILD... she needs to be STOPPED, Soloman! STOPPED! Not 'guided' or 'helped'... STOPPED!"

"The way our minds were cloaked, Ashley had no way of knowing that there were children among-"

"STOPPED, Soloman! Before she becomes too powerful to BE stopped!"

"You're over-reacting," said Soloman. "You're frightened."

"What... aren't YOU!?"

"Terrified," he replied. "Which makes it MORE imperative that we act with care and not jump to conclusions. Ashley may not be... what we think she is. In fact, I'm less convinced of that now-"

"But she IS dangerous! We know that for a FACT! She can't be allowed to continue-"

"I agree. I agree wholeheartedly. This level of power... whatever it's presence in my daughter implies... cannot be allowed to run unchecked-"

The old woman looked away again. She listened... then recoiled from something in shock.

"-God... Nidra's bleeding!"

"Oh, no-" Soloman began. "Get her to-"

"Physical wounds, Soloman! She's manifested PHYSICAL WOUNDS from the girl's attack! She's BLEEDING!"

"The infirmary! All of you go with her... lend your strength to the healing. Go now!"

"But-"

"I'll deal with Ashley myself. Alone."

The old woman's already wide eyes nearly detached themselves from her face.

"No! You can't! She'll KILL-"

"Nonsense. I'll check back in a few hours."

Soloman closed his fingers around the jewel; the magical light snuffed out like candle.

"Hysterical old woman," Soloman sighed. He stuffed the jewel into his pocket... where it vanished. It would be there when he reached for it again, but until then it had returned to the nothingness from which he had originally summoned it. It was, after all, just an illusion... an incredibly useful one, but an illusion nonetheless, just like a certain book he used to carry.

Soloman looked at the items stretched across the hotel table: a wrinkled T-Shirt that seemed more like HALF a shirt than a whole one, and a pair of thong panties. Both of which had been slept in, but not worn outside the hotel room. Regarding the panties, Soloman wondered why a young woman would SLEEP in such ridiculous underwear... unless she'd been expecting company. It may have been a simple matter of not having anything else to wear, but he doubted it.

"...and that is a discussion for another day," Soloman said. He reached out his right hand and ran his fingers across the half-shirt.

The tips of his fingers glowed.

Concentrating, Soloman raised his left hand, extended his index finger, and began lazily tracing a symbol in the air above the table. The moving digit left a trail of glowing blue light in its wake. In a few seconds he had sketched a complex design that resembled an Egyptian hieroglyphic... but was actually something else. The symbol hung in the air even as the finger that had created it lowered to the table. Soloman peered into the glowing heart of the glyph. He looked THROUGH it at what lay beyond, which was NOT the hotel room wall directly across from him. Something else. SomePLACE else.

A hill. A house. HER house.

Soloman muttered a single word of power and pushed forward with his mind...

he stench of men was strong... and getting stronger. It scent was not the delicious, tangy sharpness of living flesh and warm, rushing blood, but the dusty, choking stink of smoke and machines that hung about humanity like a collective aura. It was the stink of civilization. Even though the were-beast's sense of smell was vastly different from his own, Brite still recognized the stench when it reached the beast's nose. Civilization.

And it was very close.

Except for a brief encounter with the Knight (who WOULD die in agony when this business was done) Brite hadn't stopped moving since he'd taken his first steps in this new form. He didn't know how much longer the beast could survive, but he DID know that the man-animal would die soon regardless of whether Brite had gone six steps or six miles toward his objective. So he pushed the beast to its limits, charging through the woods at an ever-increasing pace.

He wanted the river.

Not the small, paltry one he had found before. There was another. It was some distance away, but it took a more direct route to the sea... to HER. She would fix him. She would undo this... this... this AGONY that the foolish brown Knight had inflicted upon him.

Could she do it?

Of course she could. Why else would she call to him so? Why else would she draw him to the water... to HER. Or was the sensation in his 'head' merely the product of a desperate mind lost in it's own agony. What did the humans (meat! FOOD!) call that? Hope? He remembered hope, but had had no use for it since he had been re-made in Her image. Hope was for the weak. Hope was for those with no power or strength... not for him! Not for LORD BRIGHTON that was, BRITE that IS!

But there it was.

The pain...

It was too much. Every MOVEMENT was agony, and even with a mobile supply of semi-human blood, simply remaining upright took an INHUMAN amount of willpower (or was it desperation?). He could not continue like this! He could NOT!

And so perhaps his mind... the weak portion that still remembered its humanity... had created this 'hope' that She could restore his true form. Was this hope REAL... or false? She had the power, yes, yes why wouldn't she!? But was She really calling him? When he got to the place where his mind was telling him to go, would she be there? Or was this just some cruel illusion... some last joke played upon him by the God that Lord Brighton had abandoned centuries ago?

<<Please>> Brighton prayed as he marched. <<Please Be There! Please HELP me!>>

And that as when the scent reached him. Or perhaps when he finally recognized the scent that had been reaching him through the man-beast's blood for quite some time.

Civilization.

Not an answer to his prayers, but surely a SIGN nonetheless! FOOD! There would be fresh blood! Fully HUMAN blood for him to gorge himself upon! It would give him strength enough to make it at least as far as the river! Perhaps all the way to the ocean! And if there was enough of blood, he could abandon this pitiful man-beast... after completely draining it, of course... and travel in a much faster form!

Yes! YES, he would feed!

And he wouldn't even have to veer from his course. The stench of man lay directly ahead of him; he could feast without adding a single mile to his journey!

Brite/Goode's legs moved faster, propelling the man/animal/monster in an unwavering line toward Milstead, a town that had been absorbed into metropolitan Rock Springs a decade ago. Downtown Milstead had three banks, two shopping centers, a private school/daycare center, a skating rink (currently closed for repairs), an adult bookstore (currently closed for legal proceedings), and a brand new library. Arranged in two arcs on either side of this cluster of buildings were no fewer than six residential housing developments and two apartment complexes (both owned by the same company that owned the adult bookstore).

All of the houses and apartments were thankfully out of Brite's direct path.

The daycare center, however, was not.

It was not only DIRECTLY in the monster's line of travel;, but was adjacent to the heavily wooded area that separated Milstead from the main highway. So when the last obstructing trees were uprooted and tossed aside, the very FIRST sight that Brite/Goode's eyes found was the back of the Kidz 'B' Kidz Education and Childcare Facility.

[To Be Continued]

copyright 2005 by Dark Icon Entertainment