TITLE    : Beyond The Veil Ch. 03
STORYID  : beyond-the-veil-ch-03
SUMMARY  : Not only monsters exist across the Veil.
AUTHOR   : slyc_willie@lit
DATE     : 2009-02-11
CATEGORY : science-fiction-fantasy
FLAGS    : h
TAGS     : |veil|faster|elf|oral sex|shower|magic|mystery|


Speechless.



Of all words to describe what Dr. Kyle Perrin felt as he looked down upon the seemingly endless rows of shelving beneath the walkway, <i>speechless</i> was the most accurate. Just minutes before, he and Dr. Malcolm Benedict had been rather peripherally observing the works on display in the Ouroborous Museum of Art. Now, they stood upon a platform overlooking that selfsame museum's basement floor. The musty aroma of aged paper and dusty leather permeated the younger doctor's senses, along with a hint of ominousness and more than a touch of intellectual puissance.



"Impressive, isn't it?" Dr. Benedict asked rhetorically as he stood beside Kyle. Gnarled fingers gripped the railing against which he leaned. "Every book ever printed in every discipline we consider pursuant to our work . . . you'll find a copy of it here. Parapsychology, history, archaeology, anthropology and dozens of other divisions. Not to mention everything is backed up on our servers along with every field note any of our agents have filed. The true history of the world is here before you, Dr. Perrin."



The younger man's features darkened in annoyance. "And you didn't think to show me this before?"



Malcolm chuckled, a dry, patronizing sound. "You were on probation," he explained enigmatically.



Kyle turned to face his employer. "'Probation,'" he repeated in irritation. "I'm sorry &#x2013; I must have missed the part where I was assumed to be an undergrad again."



Malcolm shook his head with a wry smile. "We have rules, just like any society, Dr. Perrin," he said. "Until you had proven yourself, we could not assume you would have the right priorities."



Kyle's frown deepened. "So, the Shelby case was some kind of proving ground? To see if I had the right stuff?"



Malcolm cocked his head in contemplation. "That's as good a way to put it as any."



The younger man shook his head ruefully, pacing a few steps away before turning back. "You put me in charge of a group of people I know almost nothing about, throw me feet-first into the mix, and then step back and see how I do." He lifted his eyes to glare into Malcolm's. "What if they had died? What if we all had died?"



Malcolm shrugged. "Then we wouldn't be having this conversation," he said simply. "That did not happen, however. Not only did no one die, but you preserved the integrity of our organization and neutralized a threat."



"You mean, I kept the rest of the world in the dark and killed a couple of supposedly evil creatures."



The senior man smiled mirthlessly. "Say it however you wish. But you did prove yourself."



Kyle grumbled. "Can't say I'm too impressed with the way you run things, Benedict."



The elder man was not phased by Kyle's words. "It is how the Veil Society has always 'run things,' as you put it. We exist as a necessarily loose organization, with admittedly simple &#x2013; and direct &#x2013; practices. Those practices keep us safe. There is a reason why we have existed for as long as we have."



"By keeping both your enemies and operatives in the dark?"



"Yes."



Kyle snarled quietly. "I get it," he muttered. "The less we know, the less we can divulge if we're ever captured."



Malcolm nodded. "Less than a hundredth of our society have seen what lies beneath your feet right now, Dr. Perrin. We are very choosy with whom we share our secrets."



"Why me, then?"



Malcolm smiled, this time genuinely. "Do you really need to ask that?" He regarded Kyle with a penetrating look. "You were already on your way to discovering the truth. You had the propensity to see through the Veil. Add to that your gift for insight, instinct, and intuitive deduction, we would have been foolish to ignore your potential contribution. You weren't chosen randomly, Kyle."



The younger man fell silent, considering all Dr. Benedict had told him. He looked out over the stacks below, contemplating the wealth of knowledge to which he was being given access. Whatever the wounds to his ego and pride, he could not deny the incredible benefits of the chance offered him.



"How does the Veil Society communicate, then?" he asked at last. "I mean, it can't be a matter of one isolated incident after another. We can't just be a collection of strike teams ready to handle the occasional threat here and there. There have to be those who cross over who possess intelligence, even influence, and we have to be able to deal with them."



"There are. Rare, to be sure, but when we learn of them, we have ways of mobilizing greater numbers of agents. I will admit quite a few slip through unnoticed, until they have attained positions of influence."



Kyle glanced with interest to the older academician. "Like, government employees? Politicians?"



"Some, but not many," Malcolm admitted. "No, those intelligent enough to garner some influence usually do so through unconventional means. Think Jim Jones, David Koresh . . . Tom Cruise."



The younger man started in alarm. "Tom Cruise?"



Malcolm chuckled with an enigmatic wink.



"You're kidding."



"Maybe." Malcolm turned and headed down the metal steps which led from the balcony to the concrete floor below. Wordlessly, Kyle followed, descending to the padded floor.



"Feel free to patronize the Library whenever you wish. Do not, however, be obvious when you arrive. Use different entrances; I will show you where they are." He stopped and turned to face the bewildered younger doctor. "Considering that it will take some time for Victor's wounds to heal, you may take advantage of these facilities until your team is fit for duty. But remember this: nothing leaves the Library. <i>Nothing</i>."



Kyle was quiet for a moment, studying Malcolm's face. "No, seriously. Tom Cruise?"



* * * *



The trio of vehicles pulled up in the lot of the city park, disgorging their drunken passengers. Laughing and stumbling, carrying bottles of cheap wine and half-empty six packs of beer, the group of college-aged men and women made their way toward the snow-weighted trees.



"Dude, you sure this really gonna work, Mike?" queried one of the oldest, an athletic blonde man upon whose arm hung a voluptuous brunette.



Mike, a skinny, bespectacled younger man and the only one not inebriated, clutched a leather-bound old tome to his bony chest. Even clad in a bulky parka, he shivered. "Of course I'm not sure, Brian," he snapped, mist trailing from his lips. He sneered lasciviously upon the busty brunette. "But if it does work . . . ."



The comely girl rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah, if it works I gotta fuck you," she drolled. "This how you get your chicks, Mikey? You gotta cast a spell to impress them?"



"Explains why he's still a virgin," joked another in the group, eliciting laughter from the others.



"Ha, ha. Just wait," Mike retorted, leading his drunken followers beneath snow-laden boughs and beyond the scattered picnic tables. He glanced about nervously, hoping his deduction that Park Rangers would not bother them on such a cold night was correct. This particular park, after all, was not known for illicit activity, so there was no reason to expect rangers or police on the lookout for drug dealers and gay prostitutes.



Feet crunching through the snow, Mike finally approached the clearing he had scouted out earlier in the day. It was far enough from the road to keep them hidden from passing cars, but close enough to their own vehicles in case something went wrong and a hasty exit was needed. Mike had not explained what, exactly, he was going to do beyond "summoning a demon." He certainly had not explained the dangers as illustrated in the ancient book. The frat brothers behind him would not have understood, anyway.



In the middle of the small clearing, bordered by a trio of park benches, Mike set the tome atop a cold iron grill set upon a post. The snow had stopped falling hours before; Mike had been worried that the flakes could damage the aged paper. Gingerly, he opened the book, leafing slowly through the yellowed pages with reverence. The writing was similar to ancient Greek, and had taken him months to decipher. Interspersed with the text were abstract and fanciful depictions of all manner of strange creatures. Many resembled more conventional animals, but there were some that looked like nightmares.



"How long's this gonna take, Mike?" called Brian as he popped open another beer. His girlfriend shivered in the cold beside him, much like the others.



"I need everyone to be quiet," Mike responded.



"It's fucking cold!" wailed a cute young blonde girl, underdressed for the weather in a skirt.



Mike glared at her. "Quiet," he repeated.



Brian rolled his eyes. "Shit. Baby, why don't you just suck him off or something? We're gonna freeze to death."



His girlfriend said nothing, watching Mike intently. The way the skinny young man was so sure of himself made her think that she might actually have to sleep with him. <i>God, I hope he comes quick . . . .</i>



With a confident sneer, Mike turned the page to find the spell he wanted. It was the only one he had managed to completely translate. If he spoke the incantation correctly, he was assured, then his virginity would be lost with the help of something called a <i>Daelvini</i>. He assumed that was merely the ancient root of the modern word 'devil.'



Taking a deep breath, Mike closed his eyes and began the incantation: "<i>Annal nathrakt, uthvas bethud, doth yeld ienvay . . . </i>."



As the words were repeated, they seemed to gather in the air, magnifying in sound. All joking and snickering stopped as the half-dozen fraternity and sorority members exchanged confused, awed, and even frightened looks. Beside Brian, the brunette began to shiver even more, now that the reality of having to give herself to skinny, mousy, crass Mike Fedder loomed near.



"I don't fucking believe this," she muttered under her breath.



"Don't worry, babe," Brian whispered. "No matter what, he ain't gonna fuck you."



A raucous laugh erupted from Mike's mouth. "Oh, yes I am!" he roared, grinning. "Look!"



All eyes did, indeed, focus upon a tiny pinpoint of brilliant, cyan-colored light as it appeared several feet above the ground. Gasps of awe, wonder, even fear spilled from drunken lips. The pinpoint grew, becoming a dark tear in the chilly atmosphere. Under the watch of a dozen amazed eyes, the tear became a swirling, dark oval, like a black, clouded mirror. And through the mirror--



"Holy shit!"



"What the fuck is that?"



The hand which appeared was slender, with long fingers and exceedingly pale skin. Adorned with rings of cold silver, the hand waved back and forth slowly, as if the owner on the other side of the portal was not sure of what it felt.



"Yo Mike, dude," called Brian in a shaky voice. "Okay, you proved your point. Turn that thing off."



Mike chuckled darkly. "It's not a light switch, Brian," he responded snidely.



"Turn it the fuck off!" yelled the older boy.



"I can't!"



A trio of feminine gasps returned both Mike's and Brian's attention to the rift in the air. The hand was followed by an obviously feminine arm, as ghostly white as the snow on the ground but adorned with an intricate design like black vines traveling the length of the arm. Then came a foot, clad in black leather all the way to the knee, where it revealed naked skin. After a pause, the figure finally stepped through.



The exotic vision which appeared before the startled gathering was at once intimidating and arousing. Aside from the boots, all the woman wore amounted to the tiniest of black leather bikinis, barely covering her sex and the nipples of small, pointed breasts. Her face was oval with a narrow chin and pale, blue-tinted lips. Her eyes seemed just a little too large for her face and were slightly slanted, the irises wide, round and black. Her hair was long and straight, of almost pure white to match her skin, and bound by a top knot with the tail hanging behind her back. The most striking feature of the unearthly woman, however, were the long, pointed, very prominent ears.



"Dude . . . ." muttered Brian, staring at the exotic beauty. "She's fucking hot."



His girlfriend gave him an insulted look, punching Brian in the arm. He barely noticed.



All thoughts of Brian's buxom girlfriend fled Mike's mind as he took in the sight of the woman he had conjured. He fumbled with the book before him, fingers shaking as they hovered over the pages. The exotic woman stared at him expectantly after cursorily glancing at the others.



"<i>Sen viete sie, sza?</i>"



Mike frowned. "Um . . . I don't understand."



She looked annoyed, taking two steps closer, stopping only when Mike jumped back. "<i>Sen viete,</i>" she repeated, pointing to the book.



Brian chuckled. "Yo, Mike, don't freak out. Just make nice with the chick." Leaving his girlfriend, he approached the snow-hued beauty. "Hey, baby, welcome to America."



Her annoyance obviously increased, if her features were to be trusted. She watched Brian as the overconfidant man slipped his arm around her shoulders.



"Hey, we don't want you freezing, right?" he said, looking her over. The intricate tattoos covering her left arm extended over her shoulder to the base of her neck, with ebony tendrils extending down over her left breast as well as her shoulder blade. The ink was uncommonly glossy, as if the work had been done recently. Yet the skin did not look spotted or aggravated. Brian raised a hand and brushed the tip of his finger along the body work. "Damn, that's some nice ink, baby--"



Brian cried out as the woman responded to his touch with unexpected speed and consequences. She stepped away swiftly while bringing up her own hand. A brief flash of light exploded from her palm, blinding the young man and sending him staggering backward.



"<i>Dho na cremash!</i>" she barked, taking a defensive stance. The collegians responded variously; some recoiled, others gaped, others rushed to tend to Brian. The tall blonde man was sputtering, rubbing his eyes, but he seemed undamaged.



"Wait! Wait!" cried Mike, flipping the tome closed and coming around the grill toward the woman He held his hands open in a gesture of non-confrontation. "It's okay! Calm down!"



She regarded the inelegant man before her with a cock of her head. "<i>Sen dho vaka</i>," she said, as if coming to a conclusion. A wry smile stretched her icy blue lips, and she reached to the top of one of her knee-high boots. From a tiny concealed pouch she extracted some kind of moss or fungus and slipped it into her mouth.



"I-I'm sorry, but I don't know what you're saying." Mike spoke carefully, approaching as he would a skittish &#x2013; or dangerous &#x2013; animal.



The woman smiled and made some quick gestures with her fingers. "I believe you will now," she responded, her voice accented in a way that made Mike think of the sultry Slavic girls he had seen on many amateur porn sites. He blinked, stunned. But before he could speak, one of Brian's fellow fraternity brothers stomped forward angrily.



"Yo! Hey, albino bitch! What the fuck'd you do to Brian? He's fucking blind!"



She stopped his advance with a cold look. "The spell will wear off shortly," she said. "Now, I warn you to keep to yourself unless you wish the same. Or worse."



The man's bravado shrunk back in the face of the woman's defiance. He said nothing, but glared before returning to his friends.



"Please, um, forget about them," Mike insisted, taking another step closer to the strange woman. "They don't know anything."



Her dark eyes narrowed. "I am not convinced you are any different," she said bluntly. "Why would you call a summons without knowing my language? Did you have any idea what you were conjuring?"



Mike balked. "Um . . . sure. A, uh, Daelvini."



She smiled, but piteously. "Do you know what that is?"



"Uh . . . no."



"I am not surprised. Nor am I impressed."



Mike ground his teeth, looking away. "Um . . . what were you saying earlier?"



The woman laughed, tilting her head back and gazing about in wonder. She seemed fascinated with the trees and snow. "Could you be more exact?"



Mike shuffled his feet, feeling the cold once more and wondering why this woman before him, nearly naked, appeared not to care about the sub-freezing temperature. "Um, what did you say to Brian?"



She looked back to him, then glanced briefly to the tall blonde man who was now calm, his upper face wet from the snow he had mashed into his eyes. He regarded the pale elfin woman with both anger and regret.



"I told him not to touch me," she explained.



"Oh. And, um, when you, uh, came through?" Mike asked awkwardly, unsure of how else to describe the woman's dramatic arrival. "What did you say--"



"I asked if you were the one who summoned me," she interrupted, sounding impatient. She crossed her arms and stared at Mike. "Which, however abysmal the reality is, appears to be the case. So my next logical question is why? Why did you summon a Daelvini?"



Helplessly, Mike gestured to the leather tome. "I, uh . . . my ancestors were witches and--"



She sighed loudly, rolling her eyes. "You are not an adept," she commented in irritation. Her brow furrowed suddenly, and when she next spoke, her words were tinged with anxiety. "Did you close the portal?"



"Close it?" asked Mike. "What do you mean? You came through, right? I thought--"



"Imbecile!" she cried, darting around the grill to stand before the book. She snapped it open, staring down at the pages. "Upon which page is it?"



Mike frowned, confused. "What's wrong?"



"<i>'What's wrong?'</i>" shrieked the Daelvini, flipping madly through the pages. "The portal is still open! You didn't finish the spell!" Her fevered gaze shot to the ground around them. "And you did not inscribe a protective circle!"



Mike shrugged cluelessly. "I guess that's bad, huh?"



The porcelain-skinned woman glared at him. "You have no idea what you've done," she said darkly. Her eyes flickered past the bewildered maladroit as something caught her eye. "But I fear you are about to find out."



Mike whirled around as another pinpoint of light sparked in the air, stretching once more into a floating panel of deepest black. But this one was much larger than that which through the Daelvini had stepped.



At the first sight of a red-tinted claw twice the size of his own hand, Mike gasped.



At the sight of a taloned foot, he trembled in fear.



And when the broad, spade-shaped head appeared, sporting protruding fangs and menacing amber eyes, he screamed, drowning out the sound of arcane incantations behind him.



* * * *



<b><i>Thirty days later . . . .</i></b>



The Monte Carlo's engine rumbled for a second or two before Victor cut the engine with a twist of the key. He emitted a faint wincing sound, automatically massaging his left leg as he reached for the door.



From the passenger seat, Kyle slapped his hand to the stocky man's leather-clad arm. "You sure you're good?"



Victor smiled lopsidedly. "Ain't the first time I've been wounded, doc," he said. "Sure, that overgrown house cat bit all the way to the bone, but I'm good. Just don't expect me to run any marathons."



Kyle sighed, looking out through the windshield of the car. On the sidewalk before them, uniformed officers stood idly, chatting and drinking late morning coffee. An unseasonably warm day had resulted in more melted snow than frozen, producing slick concrete and asphalt. Beyond the uniforms, a set of narrow steps lead up to the open door of a row house through which could be seen the milling bodies of more law enforcement agents.



"I hope this is an easy one," the anthropologist remarked.



Victor laughed under his breath. "Ain't no such thing when the Veil is involved."



Kyle soured. "Yeah. I know." He pushed open the door and stepped from the car, approaching the house and ignoring the cops on the sidewalk. Peripherally, he noticed them casting him curious looks, but no one stopped or called to him.

<hr pg="2" />Victor shambled behind, only just favoring his left leg. He gave short, cordial nods to the uniforms, who responded in kind. Whether they believed he and Dr. Perrin were fellow law enforcement or not, the policemen obviously knew the two men had been invited to the scene.



Just inside the front door of the house, Kyle found a hefty-looking man in a long brown overcoat, appearing as if he had slept in his clothes and had not shaved that day. A cigarette hung from his lip, spilling ash onto a tie that had to have been handed down from his grandfather. He looked speculatively to the anthropologist as he was finishing a conversation with one of the blue-suited crime scene investigators.



"Who the hell are you?"



"Dr. Kyle Perrin."



The gruff detective looked to Kyle's offered left hand with a frown, then glanced to the dangling right sleeve on the slender man's side. With a sour look, he briefly shook Kyle's hand. "Heard'a you," he muttered. "But this is an official scene. I'll get you a press release when it's done."



"I would appreciate that, detective," Kyle said with a fake smile. "But I think I'll just gather my own evidence, just the same."



The detective looked irritated. "You step another foot in this goddamn house and I'll arrest you."



Kyle arched an eyebrow. But before he could respond, a voice called out from further in the house. "Dr. Perrin! I'm glad you're here! Come on back."



The owner of the voice was a smartly-dressed, lean young man with glossy dark hair and Roman features. The badge clipped to his blazer pocket glittered as if it had been professionally polished.



"Ritter!" barked the rude detective still barring Kyle's way. "You called this guy?"



"Sure did," responded Ritter as he approached. He looked the other lawman over with consternation. "Hey, you don't like it, Barry, you can call the chief. But as of now, Dr. Perrin is involved in this investigation, and we're going to help him as much as we can."



"Like hell," grumbled Barry. "I don't care what kind of connections he's got--"



Ritter insinuated himself before the man, standing a few inches taller and glaring down. "I do."



Barry huffed. "Fine. You wanna play power games? Be my fuckin' guest." He jabbed a thumb and an unwelcome look toward Victor. "But the rotweiler stays outside."



Victor stiffened visibly. Before he could retort, however, Kyle spoke up. "I'm willing to go along with that," he said hastily, glancing to Victor. "I know how bored you get at crime scenes, anyway."



The stocky man breathed in with a grumble, then nodded. "Yeah. Sure."



Effecting an exaggerated smile, Kyle looked back to Ritter and Barry. "Simple compromise," he said. "Now everybody's happy."



Barry said nothing as he grudgingly stepped aside. Ritter led the way into the house with Kyle close behind, leaving Victor on the step. The former ranger folded his bulky arms and leaned against the jamb, regarding the hefty detective crossly.



"What?" snapped the man.



"Ruff, ruff," responded Victor.



* * * *



"Sorry about the hard case," Ritter apologized as he led Kyle toward a narrow set of stairs heading up. "Barry's been on the job for almost thirty years. He's your original lifer."



"Can't meet too many of those," Kyle quipped dryly. "So, what's going on?"



"Better if I show you," Ritter said enigmatically. "Come on."



The stairs creaked as the two men ascended. The air, which had begun to become warmer once Kyle entered the house, grew chilly again as they reached the second floor. At the far end of a short hallway, a door hung upon, revealing the room beyond and the sizable hole in place of the far wall. The room was a chaotic mess of shattered wood, plastic and furniture, with splashes of blood here and there as if applied for effect.



Tatters of wall paper and the remains of curtains fluttered around the gaping opening, which looked as if an elephant had rampaged through the wall. The room, judging by the remains of a four-poster bed and its previously down-filled mattress, had been a bedroom. From the looks of the decorations, Kyle surmised the occupant had been a girl in her late teens. He felt a slight twist in his throat at the realization.



"The victims are believed to be Morris and Wendy Eisenstein and their daughter Carrie. A second daughter is down the hall with a CPS worker at the moment," Ritter informed.



"What do you mean, 'believed to be?'" Kyle asked.



Ritter fixed the doctor a look. "Not much of the bodies were recovered," he said pointedly. "I'm having blood samples sent for DNA testing against hair samples I took from the brushes and combs."



"Are we assuming they're dead, then?"



Ritter nodded, indicating a blood-saturated section of mattress. "Based on the amount of blood discovered, yes. Still, we've got K-9 units and a couple search parties going through the lots and the city park."



Kyle cast his gaze about, looking with clinical eyes upon the carnage. If not for the near-frigid temperature, he was sure he would have detected more of the odor of gore than he did. For that, he was glad.



He caught little details as he inspected the walls and floor. Deep gouges through the wood around the ragged edges of the hole left splinters which jutted outward into the outside air. Leaning just enough through the hole, he noticed debris and the remains of the wall laying in the backyard below, but not all of it directly beneath. Most of the splintered wood and stucco, in fact, lay to the sides. Looking outward, he saw the tree line of one of the city's largest public parks. He remembered reading at one point that the park covered an area over a thousand square acres.



<i>Large enough for someone &#x2013; or something &#x2013; to hide in for a while</i>, he thought grimly, returning his attention to the interior of the room. Ritter remained near the doorway, observing the eccentric anthropologist, making mental notes about the way the man moved. Ritter had never met Dr. Perrin before, but had heard quite a bit about him . . . especially his apparent recent windfall of earning the backing of silent but influential people in business and government. As much as he was curious as to the man's affiliations, he had been strongly cautioned not to question them.



"What have you got?" he asked at last, watching as Kyle squatted on the floor. Amid shards of blood-spattered glass and pieces of pulverized wood, the doctor had picked up a metal latch. The fact that it seemed to be of such interest to the anthropologist piqued Ritter's own.



"I'm guessing, judging by the glass and all these slender little pieces of wood," Kyle said, turning the latch over in his hand. "The window that used to be here was one of those big bay types."



Ritter shrugged his shoulders. "If the other rooms are any indication, then I'd say so."



Kyle stood, tossing the latch in the air and catching it over and over. His eyes narrowed as he noticed a jagged dagger of glass impaled upon the wall beside the door, across from the gaping hole. He approached, gingerly touching the tip of the shard with a finger. It was firmly embedded. He muttered something under his breath.



"You, uh, wanna share what you're thinking?" Ritter queried.



"The neighbors see anything?" Kyle asked in return.



Ritter's lip twitched. "No, but they heard a lot of crashing, screaming . . . then nothing. One neighbor ran out to his back yard and saw the hole with debris falling out of it and sparks from the wiring all over the place. But that was it."



"When?"



"About three this morning," Ritter reported, then checked his watch. "Five hours ago."



"Good time for an attack," Kyle remarked. "Everyone's sound asleep, anyone who saw something would still be groggy from sleep. There's a good amount of planning and cunning in this one."



"Are you thinking a serial killer?"



Kyle smirked. "Nothing that mundane."



The detective frowned. "Then, what?"



Kyle took in a breath. "I'm not sure," he admitted. "But whatever it is, it's big, brutal, and apparently, it was very hungry. And it had probably been here before. May even have known the girl."



"How the hell you figure that?"



Kyle offered the latch for inspection. "A lot of these old buildings have locks like this. Durable as hell and not likely to come undone. Even when the window it was once attached to is shattered."



Ritter's brow furrowed as he tried to follow along. "So, since this is only half a latch . . . ."



"Then that means the window was most likely unlocked."



"It was below freezing last night," Ritter pointed out.



"Right," agreed Kyle. "So why would a girl leave her window unlocked on such a night?"



"You think she was waiting for someone?"



Kyle smiled knowingly and turned about, searching with his eyes through the clutter. The remains of a desktop computer lay strewn amongst what had once been a desk. "I'd suggest your lab techs get to work on the hard drive. If there's one thing a sixteen-year-old girl needs, it's someone, or something, to share her thoughts with."



Ritter suddenly snapped his fingers as he understood. "Like a diary."



Kyle nodded. "Or a blog, MySpace page, anything."



Ritter scribbled in his notebook. "You're good."



"Eh. You would have thought of it."



"Maybe. So, what else?"



"Well," continued the anthropologist. "The attack was very swift, very powerful. The window was shattered inward, but the walls were ripped outward. Basically, someone dove in through the window, then made room by tearing out the wall."



"'Made room?'" Ritter asked dubiously. "That hole's ten feet wide."



Kyle's lip curled. "We're looking for a pretty big guy."



Ritter fell silent, thinking. "Jesus Christ," he muttered after a moment.



Observing the movement of muscles on the detective's face, Kyle figured the man's words were in response to internal monologue. "Let me guess: the little girl?"



Ritter sighed heavily. "Yeah."



* * * *



She was as sweet a cherub as Kyle could imagine, with puffy cheeks and wide blue eyes, clad in thick pink pajamas and clutching a glowing blue bear to her chest. The saline tracks of tears had dried upon her ruddy cheeks, giving her the look of aggravated age despite the mere handful of years she had been alive.



Kyle gave the young girl an amiable smile as he entered the room. A Child Protection Services worker who sat in a corner started at first upon Dr. Perrin's entrance, but a gesture from Ritter indicated that all was well.



The little girl sat upon the edge of a rocker in what appeared to be a study of some sort. The walls were lined with shelves that displayed a few books but mainly trinkets and decorations. The only other pieces of furniture in the small room consisted of a round bistro table beside the rocker and the padded chair upon which sat the CPS employee. Casually, Kyle folded his legs beneath him as he lowered himself to the Persian rug on the floor. He looked up at the girl who clutched her bear with reflexive defensiveness.



"Hi."



The girl said nothing, only stared in the fearless way children possess.



"My name," the anthropologist said as he shifted for comfort. "Is Kyle. Do you want to tell me yours?"



The girl slowly shook her head, still staring, and mouthed the word "no."



"That's okay," Kyle said, smiling with his eyes. "We can still be friends. How about the bear? What's his name?"



The girl's eyes flickered. "Her," she corrected.



"Oh," murmured Kyle. "It's a girl bear. Got it. Hard to tell. So, what's her name?"



"Bluebell."



"I like that name," Kyle said. "Is she comfy? Maybe she wants some juice or something."



"I already offered her--" began the CPS worker, but she stopped as Kyle snapped his head around with a glare.



"Juice," he said firmly.



The woman frowned in irritation, but a look to Ritter made up her mind. With a huff, she rose and stepped from the room.



Kyle looked back to the girl, seeing the beginnings of a smile stretching her mouth. "Glad we got rid of her," he commented. "She wasn't much fun, was she?"



The little girl giggled softly. "No. She's boring."



"And she looks funny in that outfit, doesn't she?"



The giggle was repeated, this time more loudly. "Yeah."



Kyle scratched his chin. "So . . . what's your favorite game?"



She shrugged her tiny shoulders. "I don't know."



"You don't know? Of course you do. You're just being silly."



She smiled again, bashfully.



"Let me guess: Chutes and Ladders?"



The girl shook her head.



"Um, Hungry Hippo?"



Another shake, accompanied by a wider smile.



"I got it. Candy Land."



The girl's eyes flashed briefly, but she shook her head.



"Oh, yes it is," Kyle insisted. "You like Candy Land. Come on, you can tell me."



The girl chewed her lip. "Princess Frostine."



Kyle grinned. "Wow, you know what? I love Princess Frostine!"



The girl giggled again and playfully swiped at the anthropologist. "No you don't!"



"Sure do," Kyle insisted. He looked over his shoulder at a bewildered Detective Ritter. "Candy Land. Probably in her room. Now."



Ritter looked confused, but after a moment, he opened the door and left.



"Just one thing," Kyle said to the girl as he turned back. "I get to be red."



* * * *



Three games of Candy Land and two sip-cups of blue-tinted nursery water later, Kyle emerged from the small study after garnering a hug from the little girl. Dalia Eisenstein had reverted to shy silence upon Kyle's announcement that he had to leave, gently letting the girl down to one more game. As the CPS worker carried the four-year-old out of the house, Kyle gave the toddler a wave which was sadly returned.



"Okay, so what the hell did you get out of her?"



Kyle winked at the man. "A description," he said smugly. "But I doubt it's one you'd be willing to tell a sketch artist." Her started toward the door.



"Why not?" asked Ritter, following the doctor out into the daylight.



"Because you'd either think I'm crazy, or you're crazy."



Ritter scoffed, chasing the anthropologist's heels down to the sidewalk. The majority of uniformed officers had already departed, safe for a pair of bored-looking young men who had been ordered to stay behind. As well, Barry still lingered, leaning against an unmarked police car sipping from a steaming foam cup and watching with suspicion.



"So that's it? Take over my case, cut me out?"



Kyle stopped and turned back so abruptly that Ritter stumbled to avoid running into the man. "No, actually, it's still your case," Kyle said. "Your investigation, your call to do whatever you want. I'm just going to conduct my own."



Ritter looked flustered. "Why can't we pool our resources? What did that little girl tell you?"



"Nothing you could use to get a warrant," Kyle said firmly. "Look. I respect you, I really do. Your job, your institution . . . I respect all that. But you can't do things the way I can. You don't have the leeway. So, I'm going to do my job, and you're going to do yours. The only difference is that you're going to hit dead ends."



"What makes you so sure? Maybe I've got a few tricks up my sleeve," Ritter said defensively.



Kyle met the other man's eyes. "If you do, then the dead end you find might be your own."



The detective balked. "Is that a threat?"



"No. It's a friendly warning. Don't get in my way, and I won't get in yours. And when all is said and done, this city might be just a little bit safer."



"Who the fuck are you?" Ritter asked in frustration. "Is this some kind of <i>Men In Black/X-Files</i> bullshit? 'Cause if it is, I ain't buying--"



Kyle cut the other men off as he stepped very close, leaning in. "Yes," he said simply, then retreated, turning away and heading for the Monte Carlo. Beside the vintage automobile, Victor effected a smug look and popped open the driver's-side door while Kyle slipped in across from him. Detective Ritter watched, shaking his head ruefully, as the car rumbled to life and backed out of the space. The expression he read upon Dr. Perrin's face through the windshield only reaffirmed the ominous tone of the man's words.



"Wow, I'm impressed, Ritter," Barry remarked snidely as the younger detective approached. "You gave away a case and got <i>abso-fucking-lutely</i> nothing in return."



Ritter glared. "Shut the fuck up and get in the car."



* * * *



Like a tigress on the prowl, she crawled slowly upon the mattress, settling herself between his skinny, parted legs. The tumescent object of her desire lay spent upon the flat, almost hairless lower abdomen, redolent of the aromas of sex from the evening before. With an almost feral grin, she pulled herself up the mattress, stiff nipples raking the rough sheets. Slender, pale hands pushed his legs even more widely apart, exposing the hair-covered sacs under the flaccid cock.



Emitting a gentle purr, she pressed her cool, soft lips to those bulbous, fleshy bags, letting the warmth of her mouth revive them. A long tongue snaked out, tickling at first, then lapping in slow, swirling, languid strokes. The young man stirred, moaning softly as began to swim up from the depths of carnal-induced slumber. Encouraged, she pulled one of the swelling testicles into her mouth, suckling gently, savoring the musky taste of him.



Mike groaned, arching his back, reflexively pushing his hips down. Tired hands lifted, then fell to the mattress, fingers curling.



With a passionate murmur, she licked her way up to the stiffening, slender shaft, dragging her tongue in a wet path which culminated at the head of his penis. She tasted a single drop of seepage, licking all around the pale pink tip before tilting it with slender fingers toward her eager mouth. As she sucked him in to the root on the first plunge, Mike finally awoke with a heavy sigh.



Heavy eyes blinked open, and he looked down upon the exotic vision. The sight of her outlandishly pale blue lips wrapped around the root of his cock, dark wiry hair brushing her nose and chin, made him gasp. "A-again?" he stammered.



She only smiled around his penis, suckling and massaging it with her lips, tongue, and throat. After several seconds, she slid up, swallowing the mixture of saliva and pre-seminal fluid she had generated. "Mmm . . . ."



"Oh, shit," he muttered, head lolling back and forth.



With a soft, sexy chuckle, she released his cock and crawled up to straddle him. Her breath was warm and moist in his ear as she slid a hand between them to align him with her slick opening. They both moaned at the union. He barely moved as she ground against his pelvis, allowing himself to be used. The truth is that he barely lacked the strength to respond as he thought she might have desired.



She moved slowly atop him, just little gyrations of her hips, squeezing the distended staff of flesh within her pussy and savoring the feel of every twitch, every throb, every pulse of the young man's cock. Her slender body glistened slightly from the exertions after nearly half an hour of coupling; ghost-white hair was darker, almost blonde about her forehead and along the nape of her neck where it clung to alabaster skin. Nipples larger and brighter than ripe strawberries glowed upon the slight mounds of her chest. Wispy hair about her slick, saturated sex made wet scraping sounds as she ground back and forth.



"I want you to release again," she whispered in her unearthly voice, staring down with heady eyes upon the tortured face of her lover. "I want it inside me."



Cheeks sweaty and red, eyes bulged and filled with both captivation and exhaustion, Mike lifted shaking hands to awkwardly paw the exotic woman's undulating body. "I-I don't think I can . . . ."



She grinned, planting slender-fingered hands upon Mike's chest and shifting, curling her legs beneath her until she was in a squat. Lean thighs splayed wide, the glowing wet lips of swollen labia wrapped like layers of silk around the head of the young man's penis, the Daelvini woman slowly impaled herself, sucking every inch of Mike's cock inside her. "Oh, I assure you," she said, licking the tip of a dark-nailed finger before touching it to the base of the young man's penis. A brief spark of pink-hued energy flashed around the skinny student's groin. "You can."

<hr pg="3" />Mike gasped, automatically arching his back and thrusting upward. He slapped his hands to the soiled sheets of the bed, clawing at the cloth while thrashing his head back and forth. "Oh, God . . . Oh . . . God!"



She tossed her head back, ethereal white hair slashing through the air as she rode the young man toward a mutual, satisfying, and &#x2013; in at least Mike's case &#x2013; thoroughly draining orgasm.



* * * *



Her eyes blinked open slowly, languidly, allowing a few stabs of ambient light to filter through at a time. The lingering aromas and flavors of sex clung to her skin, her mouth. She passed a slightly dry tongue around her lips and grimaced slightly at the flavor of dried, spent semen several hours old.



With a groan, Dawn Faster sat up in bed, dragging her strong, lean legs from beneath the sheets and blanket. The air in the apartment was cold, making her nipples pucker and goosebumps to appear on her flesh. But Faster barely noticed as she settled her face in her hands, drudging up memories of the previous night.



He had been nearly as suave in person as he had been online during their numerous chat sessions. The first pictures he had sent made Faster dubious as to whether Dwight was real or yet another Internet charlatan. When she requested he pose in a yellow shirt and holding a rose along with a sign upon which was written "Hello, Dawn," she was convinced her online beau would be deterred. But then the picture came, just as she had requested. Dwight was genuine, after all.



He had been somewhat nervous at first, less prone to the poetic prose he had given her through their chat sessions. But Faster knew that was to be accepted. Not everyone can talk the way they typed, she knew; she certainly couldn't. Over a bottle of wine and several rounds of Oysters Rockefeller, they had shared a few details of themselves, becoming more relaxed. As the night waxed, Faster allowed herself to entertain the idea that the night would end with naked skin on skin and cries of passion.



Which it had.



Until she called his name.



But it was not Dwight's name that had escaped her lips. Thankfully, he did not seem to notice, as gone as he was to the throes of passion elicited by Faster's skillful hands and mouth.



<i>Stupid!</i> she berated herself. <i>How could you do that? And, Jesus Christ, of all men to think about when you're fucking an Adonis like Dwight, you think about Kyle?</i>



She dragged her hands down her face, looking back cautiously to the sleeping man wrapped up in ecru-colored silk sheets and a dark comforter of earthen tones. The man's bedroom was like a Persian prince's, replete with tapestries and throw rugs, leather furniture and matching ottomans. Even the scent of expensive incense remained noticeable in the air. Faster should have considered herself lucky for having met the apparent "real deal" online. But her enjoyment had been tempered.



She dressed quietly in the late morning light as it streamed through the condominium's windows. A few times, as leather and cloth whispered across her skin, Dwight stirred in his sleep. But he did not awaken. Faster was thankful for that. With a light, regretful kiss to the slumbering man's forehead, she slipped quietly from the room, leaving nothing behind.



* * * *



By the time she stepped behind the bar at Shades, Faster's melancholy had faded. The thankful diversion of occupying her mind with work helped to push her conflicted feelings over both Dwight and Kyle from her mind. The distractions of slinging drinks and engaging the business class patrons of the bar in flirtatious banter helped even more to occupy her mind.



The scarlet walls and soft lighting made the bar moody but comforting. A solo guitarist sat perched upon a stool on the tiny stage, interspersing original folk songs with numbers written by the likes of Bob Dylan and Tracy Chapman. It took only a few hours before Faster was getting into the music, dancing subtly behind the bar while serving her patrons. Some witty conversation, casual flirtations, and Faster anticipated a swift passage for the night. Hopefully, she would be home late enough to avoid any late-night calls from Dwight . . . if call he would.



It therefore stood to reason, following the logic of Murphy's Law, that her good night would become interrupted.



She happened to glance up from a conversation with a doughty &#x2013; but funny middle aged man &#x2013; just as the tinted glass doors of the bar swung open. Her eyes fell upon the skinny yet commanding man as he entered, and her smile vanished. But it was not annoyance or anger that she felt, but rather a smoldering sense of uncomfortable arousal.



With some effort, she tore her eyes away from Kyle Perrin and busied herself. <i>Why the hell does he affect me like that? </i>she wondered.<i> He's so not my type . . . .</i>



<i> No, he's just one of the smartest people you've ever met, he's confidant and self-assured, and . . . oh, yeah, he saved your life.</i>



She looked up again after mixing a Long Beach Tea, and saw Victor standing at the bar. Strange that she had not seen him enter with Kyle. Still, his presence made her smile the way a girl smiles upon her favorite older brother. "Hey, gimp, they let you out?"



The stocky bald man chuckled. As always, he wore the waist-length leather jacket which Faster swore was somehow surgically attached to him. "Ain't gonna be doing any high jumps for a while, but I'm good to go," he said. His features became more serious. "We're on the clock. The doc's here. Come on over soon as you can."



"Oh," Faster responded with false ignorance. "Bandit's here? Jeez, haven't seen much of that guy lately."



Victor smirked. "He's been doing some research with Mal or something. Anyway, we got a new case."



Faster nodded, allowing her eyes to wander, catching Kyle as he eased into the far booth away from the stage. For a brief moment, he looked up, catching her gaze. And just as briefly, Faster's heart fluttered. "Sure," she managed with a weak smile to Victor. "Give me a sec."



Victor winked. "Guinness for me and MacAllan on the rocks for the doc. Oh, and fresh peanuts. The shit on the bar is old."



She rolled her eyes. "Anything else?" she quipped sarcastically.



He just chuckled and stepped away. Faster huffed, grinding her teeth.



<i>Men!</i>



* * * *



"I've been doing a lot of research since we got back from Shelby," Kyle said once they were all gathered in the booth. Victor and Faster sat on one side, facing their team leader. He looked down to the glossy tabletop as he spoke, as if guarding secrets. "I wish I could have spent more time with you both, but--"



"Hey, it's no big deal," Faster interjected. "You stopped in for a drink once in a while."



"And you came to see me in the hospital," added Victor. He smiled. "Never did thank you for that Sarah Brightman collector's edition DVD."



Kyle lifted his head, smiling awkwardly upon his team members. "Okay, so maybe I haven't been as distant as I thought."



"We all got lives, doc."



The anthropologist pursed his lips, breathing in through his nose. "And now we've got a job."



Victor grinned. "Nasty one, too, looks like."



Kyle nodded once. "Most likely."



"So what's the skinny, Bandit?" Faster asked, trying to conceal the bristling she felt as she realized Victor had already become involved in the investigation before her. At the same time, she was trying to distance her emotions toward Kyle by trying to focus on the task at hand.



Kyle's eyes glittered at that moment as he looked upon her. That single, simple expression ignited the fires of Faster's libido, if only for a second or so. "Three people most likely dead," he said. "Mother, father, teenaged girl. Based upon what I saw at the crime scene, I'm convinced a shadow creature is involved. But it's confusing as hell."



Victor chuckled after taking a sip from his beer. "Hey, don't beat yourself up, doc. I mean, ain't that why we're doing an investigation?"



Kyle shook his head ruefully. "Yes, you're right," he agreed. "But. I, uh, I've got access to new information now, and nothing I've looked through gives me any clue as to what we might be dealing with."



Victor and Faster exchanged knowing looks. Faster spoke first. "Mal showed you the Library, didn't he?" she asked excitedly.



Kyle's face darkened. "How do you know about that?"



The other two laughed. "Dude, the Library's not exactly a secret," Victor chided. "Just not too many peeps know where it is."



"But you do," Faster added meaningfully. "Jeez! What'd you do, suck Mal's dick or something?"



Kyle gave her a deadpan look.



"Okay, okay, bad joke," she muttered, lifting her hands from the table and easing back in the booth.



Kyle laughed under his breath with more than a touch of self-admonishment. "All right. Yes, I know where the Library is. Been spending a lot of my time there lately, to be honest."



"Some weird shit there, I bet," Victor commented.



His team leader fixed him a look. "You have no idea."



The stocky man grinned. "I ain't gonna argue with that," he said, then nudged Faster. "Check it out, babe. We got us a made man!"



Faster smiled wryly. "Lucky us."



"At any rate, back to the case. The only description I have is from a four-year-old girl," Kyle continued. "Not the most reliable source on the planet, but as a rule, children exposed to trauma rarely lie about what they've seen. Their perceptions, however, are typically skewed."



"Great," Faster lamented.



"So, what'd she say?" asked Victor.



Kyle paused a moment, as if embarrassed to relate a story as told from a child's point of view. "She said 'Big Randall messed up Carrie's room.'"



The others stared at him, faces blank.



"Yeah, that's pretty much how I responded at first, too," Kyle said with a sigh. "Considering how a child thinks, she's making an association between something she already knows and whatever it was that attacked her sister."



"Why didn't 'Big Randall' kill her, too? I mean, he took out the parents too, right?"



Kyle scratched his chin. "I figure the oldest daughter was attacked first, mom and dad went running in to see what all the noise was about . . . little Dalia was the only one smart &#x2013; or terrified &#x2013; enough to stay back. And either Big Randall didn't think beyond his stomach, or maybe it has a compunction against killing toddlers, whatever, he didn't go any further into the house."



"Took his kills and ran off," commented Faster.



"How?" asked Victor. "I mean, something that big had to be noticed."



"I was wondering that, too," Kyle said. "In fact, there was a witness, a next-door neighbor, but he claims he didn't see anything. Saw the hole in the house from the outside, but nothing else."



"Maybe he's blocking the memory or something?" Faster ventured.



Kyle shook his head. "Doesn't work that way. He would have blocked out seeing the hole at all, if he had seen anything traumatic. No, he described falling debris and sparking wires, meaning he probably got there seconds after the attack."



"And he still didn't see anything," bemoaned Victor.



"Maybe the neighbor was mistaken about what he saw?" Faster offered. "Making it up to get his fifteen seconds of fame?"



"Doubtful," Kyle said. "I interviewed the man myself. I'm pretty sure he was telling the truth. So, we basically have something that's big enough and savage enough to tear a hole in a house, kill or kidnap three people, then vanish, all in the space of a few seconds."



Faster and Victor exchanged looks that bespoke both intimidation and a sense of challenge. They turned back to Kyle. Faster spoke first.



"So what's the plan?"



"I want to check out the house some more," he said. "I figure there may be some clues there the local PD hasn't &#x2013; hopefully &#x2013; stomped all over yet."



"You want company?" Faster asked sarcastically.



Kyle stared at her a moment while Victor looked away, scooting toward the edge of the booth.



"Uh, I'm gonna get the car," the bald man said, then slipped free and headed to the door before either Kyle or Faster could say anything. Not that they were of mind to do so.



"Is there a problem?" Kyle asked pointedly. "The last time I stopped in, just to say hello and have a drink, you barely said five words to me. I know I'm not the friendliest man in the world, but--"



She raised a hand, giving an apologetic look. "It's not you," she said.



He frowned. "What kind of explanation is that?"



Faster huffed, sitting up. "You don't know women too well, do you?"



Kyle looked insulted. He laughed ruefully. "I know <i>people</i>."



"Yeah," Faster agreed with a nod. "But you don't know women, at least not when they're close to you. But then I'm betting not too many women have ever gotten close."



The anthropologist swallowed uncomfortably. "I didn't realize you were a fan of psychoanalysis."



She chuckled under her breath, shaking her head. "Never mind," she said tiredly and pushed back. "Give me five minutes and I'll meet you guys downstairs."



Kyle began to speak as Faster eased from the booth, and for a moment, she paused, as if expecting a reply. But then Kyle simply shook his head. "Five minutes."



* * * *



Outside the hotel door in which was housed Shades, Kyle flipped up the collar of his pea coat before taking out a cigarette and lighting up. The night was a cold one, with temperatures well below freezing. The wind did not help, especially in the wind tunnel created by the broad alleys of the downtown skyscrapers. The empty sleeve hanging from his right shoulder flapped annoyingly at his side.



"You think Faster's got a problem with me?" Kyle asked Victor as they waited.



Victor raised his hands helplessly. "Dude, I ain't going near that conversation."



"I'm serious."



"Yeah, so am I!" retorted Victor. "Look, I know I ain't that bright, but I'm smart enough to know when I should shut the fuck up. I don't get women, doc. I figure that's why I never had a girlfriend longer than six months."



Kyle sighed heavily. "I just don't want our feelings to get in the way of business," he muttered before taking a drag from his cigarette.



Victor's brow peaked. "'Our?'"



"What?"



"You said 'our feelings,'" Victor said with a bemused smile.



Kyle frowned. "I said 'her feelings.'"



The stocky man chuckled. "No, you didn't. You said 'our feelings.' That's like, one of them Freudian things, right? Where you say one thing and--"



"Freudian slip," interrupted Kyle in irritation. "And that's not what it was, because I know what I said. Besides, Freud was crackpot."



"Who's a crackpot?"



The two men turned as Faster stepped through the doors, black leather jacket wrapped around her athlete's frame. Tight jeans and knee-length leather go-go's did wonders to accentuate the sleek musculature of her legs.



For a long moment, Kyle's eyes met hers. Neither of them spoke a word until Kyle turned away and marched down the steps.



"Never mind. Let's go."



* * * *



The house had been boarded up, front door marked by a glowing 'X' of yellow crime scene tape. The neighborhood was a fairly low-crime area, so only a single patrol car sat parked along the curb across the street. After Victor parked the Monte Carlo and the three of them stepped out into frigid air, Kyle approached the patrolman and spoke with him briefly. Their right to investigate the scene established by a simple showing of Kyle's identity, the trio headed into the house.



The heating units hummed through the walls, keeping the bottom floor of the house thankfully warm. Chilly air still filtered down the stairwell from the second floor, however, resulting in a ghostly cold spot just before the first step.



"Let's start with the ground floor," Kyle directed, producing a small flashlight. "Fan out, be careful where you step."



"What are we looking for?" asked Victor.



Kyle shrugged with a roll of his slender shoulders. "I'm hoping we'll know it when we see it."



With grumbles and sour looks, the three of them went separate ways, working first through the living room, family room, study, dining room and kitchen on the bottom floor. The Eisenstein home was typical for an upper-middle class family; decent furniture, an admirable wealth of creature comforts, accolades from the family patriarch's business on the walls of the main hallway. Nothing particularly notable, in other words.



Faster's voice filtered mechanically through the small communicator Kyle had clipped to the lapel of his coat. "Bandit."



He reached up and depressed the 'talk' button. "Yeah."



"Might be nothing," she said. "But could you come to the family room?"



A few seconds later, Kyle stepped through the open doorway of the room in question, finding a 60-inch TV screen dominating his view of the chamber. Faster stood to one side of the digital monstrosity, near a DVD tower, holding a glossy plastic case.



"What have you got?" he asked the younger woman.



Faster offered the DVD case, upon which had been slapped a hand-written label which read, "Dalia." Kyle took it from his agent, looking the case over.



"Monsters Inc.?" he queried.



"Ever see it?" she asked back.



He shook his head. "Not much into cartoons."



She chuckled. "It's not exactly a cartoon," she said in a chastising way. "Pretty advanced computer animation, especially for 2001. I saw this twice in the theaters."



Kyle frowned with impatience. "Okay."



Faster laughed a moment more. "It's not a bad family movie. Adults, kids, everyone can enjoy it. Got some pretty feel-good messages."



"All right, so it was one of Dalia's favorite movies, apparently," Kyle said, referring to the label with the little girl's name upon it.



"Yeah, she's probably seen it over and over. Knows all the characters. Sully, Mike, Celia--"



Kyle huffed, fixing her a look. "The point?"



"--Randall," she finished.



He frowned again. "Randall?"



She nodded meaningfully. "Randall. He's like this . . . chameleon thing or something. Imagine a big purple snake with six arms."



Kyle regarded the DVD case with more interest. "Really."



Faster looked self-impressed. "Yup."



"Doc, Faster, come in."



Faster was quicker to respond to the sound of Victor's voice through their communicators. "Copy."



"Think we got a visitor."



* * * *



Body language and a quick gesture of his hand told Victor's companions they should remain quiet as he stood in an almost crouching position upon the bottom steps of the stairs. He had already drawn his sidearm and held it down and low, ready to snap up if necessary. Following his lead, Faster slipped one of her gleaming pistols from under her jacket, while Kyle reached for the compact revolver at his hip. Flashlights doused and moving in unison, the three of them slowly ascended the stairs. Victor indicated with a few quick signs that the focus of their attention lay at the end of the hall on the second floor . . . in the same ruined bedroom in which the attack had occurred less than twenty-four hours before.



Being in the lead, Victor saw the figure first, as she sat facing away with legs folded beneath her in the middle of the debris-strewn room. For a moment, he was fascinated by the milky skin, long, snow-white hair, and the minimalist clothing she wore. As momentarily distracted as he was, he did not notice as his weight upon the third to last step made the old wood groan and creak beneath his weight.



<i>Ah, shit--</i>



The woman reacted quickly, leaping up and spinning about. In a heartbeat, Daelvini and humans regarded one another with wonder and curiosity, tempered by the heightened anxiety of the moment. Then she reacted, shouting a few brief, unintelligible words while thrusting out her hands.



The air in the upper hallway just outside the doorway of the ruined bedroom seemed to explode with a chaotic display of brilliant, multi-colored light. The impressive explosion of kaleidoscopic radiance made the Veil agents pause and shield their eyes, wondering what other effects the lights might have, giving the ghostly woman the opportunity to escape. She darted to the large hole in the wall, squatting beside it before jumping down.

<hr pg="4" />Despite the sulfuric smell wafting toward them, the lights dissipated quickly, resulting in no further effects. "Faster!" yelled Kyle.



"On it!" responded the world's fastest woman, already darting past the two men on the stairs and bolting with fluid grace down the hall. Without hesitation, she leapt head-first through the gaping maw in the bedroom's wall, and out into cold air.



"Come on!" ordered Kyle, tugging on Victor's jacket as he turned on the stairs. "We'll take the car!"



"Good," groaned the stocky man as he hobbled down the steps. "A damn snail would get away from me right now."



* * * *



In the tenth of a second Faster had as she dove out through the hole in the bedroom wall, her Parkour-trained instincts assessed both the obstacles before her and the path of her quarry. The rear deck of the Eisenstein home sported a pair of tower heat lamps, between which were three short steps to the small, snow-covered back yard beyond. Faster flipped in mid-air and landed deftly between the lamps, using the momentum of her fall to vault forward and come up rolling upon the ground, snow flying all around, polished chrome handgun snapping up in her hand.



The pale-skinned woman &#x2013; nearly as white as the fluff upon the ground &#x2013; scaled the wooden fence at the edge of the property with some effort, but she was obviously graceful and fit. Faster snapped off a single round, the bullet shattering the wood of a single plank just inches beneath the elfin woman's feet. Amid faint grunts and gasps, she disappeared over the side. Faster ran after, kicking up snow in her wake. Several feet from the edge of the fence, she leapt, catching the top edge with her hand, planting her feet against the boards. Pushing off and up, she sailed over the top, rather than dropping to the ground below.



That tactic might very well have saved her life, for as she dove through the air, a bolt of blue-white energy lanced through the cold air, exploding through the fence just below. Shards of wood flew in all directions; Faster could feel a few stinging barbs against her legs. Landing and rolling forward once again, she took off without a break, chasing her lithe target toward the tree line of the city park which lay just a dozen yards or so beyond.



Controlling her breathing, Faster poured on the speed, but the sleek form of her target seemed just as quick as she, sprinting with supernatural speed, reaching the trees before Faster could think to stop and fire again. Cursing under her labored breath, the athlete made the tree line just a few seconds later . . . and stopped.



<i>Where is she?</i> Alert eyes darted about, noting the movement of snow-laden branches in the stiff breeze, searching for tracks in the snow concealed by shadows. Frost escaping her lips, Faster forced herself to move cautiously, focusing her senses to pick up any sound, any movement.



<i>Snap!</i>



Another explosion of brilliant, moon-colored energy impacted a tree just past her as she ducked reflexively. Faster whirled, aiming her weapon toward the sound and pulling the trigger at practically the same time. The report of the shot shattered the air but was swallowed up quickly by the muting force of the foliage around her. The bark of a tree several yards away flew off in pieces, landing upon virgin snow.



"Faster. Ease off. We don't want to kill her."



Stepping against a tree, she reached up to the communicator attached to the shoulder strap of her jacket. "Then tell her to stop trying to kill me!" she hissed under her breath, eyes searching the darkness in the trees. She thought she detected movement, but she could not be sure.



"Lead her to your Mexican left," Kyle ordered through the device, the words carrying through the still air.



Faster frowned. <i>Mexican left?</i> Then she smiled knowingly. <i>Ah. Gotcha.</i>



She crouched down behind the tree, eyes peeled and searching. The shadows shifted here and there, mostly swaying branches and shrubbery affected by the wind. But between a pair of slender poplars about thirty feet ahead, a figure darted toward Faster's right.



Without hesitation, Faster jumped up, snapping off bullets as quickly as her deft finger could pull the trigger. With her other hand, she drew her other weapon, following through with more bursts once the first pistol ran out. Tree bark exploded from several trees, seemingly chasing the shadowed figure as it bolted between the snowy trees . . . and directly toward a small clearing at the edge of the city park.



Stumbling out into open air, the pale light of a half-full moon shining upon her, the elfin woman paused amid confusion and uncertainty. Desperation was telling even in her inhuman features, wide black eyes blinking profusely as she looked about for an exit. But she took too long.



With a guttural roar, an impressively-built man clad in layers of leather and cotton charged from the woods, leaping toward the woman. He was cumbersome and awkward, yet his dramatic appearance was enough to startle her. She grunted when he tackled her, bearing her to the ground amid a burst of powdery snow. She was quick to react, however, slapping the man's face with an explosive cloud of brilliant, blinding light.



As Victor cursed and recoiled, the Daelvini scooted from beneath him, getting to her feet once more. As she did so, however, she found herself face-to-face with the same woman who had chased her.



"End of the line, sister," Faster said cockily.



The Daelvini snarled and cried out, thrusting out her hands and unleashing yet another bolt of energy. But Faster ducked and spun, sweeping the elfin woman's legs out from beneath her. With a startled cry, the porcelain-skinned woman toppled onto her side and was lost.



The stocky man's arms quickly gripped hers, clenching them tightly behind her back. The human woman stood before her, reloading the polished pistols. And from the edge of her vision stepped a third figure, a man, snugly clad in a dark coat, holding another of the strange weapons in his left hand. Briefly, the Daelvini noted how loose and empty the opposite sleeve of the jacket was.



With calm deliberation, Kyle approached the exotic woman whom Victor held fast. She struggled against the stocky man's strength, to no avail. Her angular features and wide, dark eyes contorted and blazed in anger and frustration, which faded somewhat as Kyle raised his revolver and pointed it at her face.



"I don't know if you know what this is, or what it can do to you," he said ominously, meeting her eyes. "I don't know if you can understand me. But I hope you're smart enough to understand that I will kill you without a second thought if you continue to resist."



She glared back, grinding teeth and breathing out through flaring nostrils. But her struggles ceased, though she remained tensed against Victor's body.



"It appears," she breathed heatedly. "That I have no choice."



Kyle allowed himself a small smile. "No," he confirmed. "You don't."



* * * *



He compared the view of the suspect through the one-way mirror in the interrogation observation room with that on the closed-circuit TV monitor before him, finding no difference between the two. Through a window or an electronic screen, the woman looked the same to him: tattooed, snow-white skin, narrow build, minimal clothing, and long, pointed ears jutting through silver-toned hair. She looked agitated and bored in the empty room beyond the window.



"Don't tell me that's your suspect," Detective Ritter remarked snidely as he stood beside the anthropologist.



Kyle smirked. "No. Just an unusual witness," he clarified. "Let me ask you something."



"What?"



"Tell me what you see."



Ritter frowned, feeling chastised. "I see a bitchy little Goth chick wearing a bikini two sizes too small," he said. "Don't get me wrong, she's got a nice bod and I don't mind her personality hanging out when she bends over, but--"



"I bet," Kyle said, interrupting the detective's blabbering.



Ritter soured. "Well, what the hell do you see?"



Kyle looked to the man with a drab expression. "Same thing. Goth chick." He winked and stepped through the door, making his way around to the interrogation room. At the sound of the door being opened, the slender woman in the chair stiffened, becoming visibly more alert. She focused her attention upon Kyle as soon as he entered, large black eyes unblinking. She did not seem at all concerned with the uniformed officer who followed.



"Coffee?" Kyle asked amiably, as the officer set two styrofoam cups on the table.



The woman wrinkled her nose at the aroma. "I would prefer <i>chuka</i>," she said in her sultry accent.



Kyle smiled slightly, taking the chair across from her and giving the officer a dismissive nod. "I assume that is a beverage from your home?"



Her eyes flickered, as if she had forgotten she was no longer in her own world. "Yes," she responded, then sighed.



"We have bottled water."



"I am comfortable, thank you."



Kyle nodded noncommittally. "Can you tell me your name?"



She hesitated, glancing suspiciously to the large mirror behind Kyle. "Xyllah."



"Xyllah," Kyle repeated. "That's an unusual name. Sounds like you're from Florida."



She thought quickly. "Yes," she said. "That is where I am from. Florida."



The anthropologist pursed his lips, thinking. "What part?"



Xyllah sighed. "Does it truly matter?"



"Not really, I suppose. Just trying to be friendly."



She fixed him with a challenging look. "After threatening my life, you now wish to be friends?"



Kyle smiled disarmingly. "Well, that's how we do things here. It's an ancient custom."



She regarded him suspiciously. "I do not think I like some of your customs."



"You'll get used to them. I can imagine you're feeling some culture shock, coming all the way from Florida. Things are a lot different here."



"So I have come to understand," she said, once again looking over Kyle's shoulder toward the mirror.



Kyle glanced behind him, seeing his own reflection and that of the elfin woman. He turned back. "Mirrors make you uncomfortable?" he asked.



Xyllah met his gaze. "No. The man behind your looking glass bothers me. I do not like the way he sees me."



The anthropologist could not help but smirk, imagining Detective Ritter's reaction to overhearing what Xyllah had said. "Excuse me for a moment," he said, then stood. He approached the door, preparing to knock, but as he did so, it opened. Detective Ritter wore an embarrassed and angry expression.



"What the fuck is going on?" he asked in a harsh whisper. "How did she see me?"



Kyle shrugged. "Maybe she can see auras," he answered flippantly, while simultaneously thinking, <i>more like, she can see in different wavelengths of light</i>. "Or maybe she's a lot smarter than your typical Goth chick. Either way, you're distracting her. Why don't you give us a few minutes alone?"



Ritter was silent a moment, considering his options. He obviously did not like being left out of the loop, but he remembered what he had been told about cooperating with Dr. Perrin. Begrudgingly, he nodded. "The coffee here sucks anyway," he declared at last. "I'm gonna make a Starbucks run."



"There you go," Kyle said agreeably, then closed the door. He returned to Xyllah with a smile, resuming his seat.



"You are a man of influence here," she observed.



"In a roundabout way, yes," admitted Kyle. "So, tell me something."



She stared, waiting.



"Is there anyone else behind the mirror?"



Xyllah frowned, then glanced past the anthropologist. "No."



"Good," he said, then leaned forward, piercing her dark orbs with his eyes. "Okay, the charade's over. You're not from Florida. You're not from this world at all. How did you come through the Veil?"



She fell silent for the space of a few heartbeats, smoldering her eyes suspiciously. A hundred thoughts, questions, assumptions and decisions swept through her mind in that brief span of time. "Unintentionally," she answered at last.



His gaze was unwavering. "How?" he repeated, pushing the point.



Xyllah sighed. "A stupid boy of your race and a book of power he knows woefully little about."



Kyle looked interested. "Really."



"Yes."



"So where is this stupid boy and his book?"



"Why do you wish to know?" she asked back, crossing her arms. "I have not learned much of your world since arriving here, but from what I have observed, you are a very manipulative and selfish people. If I share the location of the book with you, you might very well use it just as foolishly as has he."



Kyle smirked. "Magic isn't my strong suit," he remarked. "In fact, I really don't care about the book, beyond its academic value. My main concern is finding out what happened to the family that was slaughtered last night."



"I was not involved in that," she insisted.



"But you do know what happened," Kyle said meaningfully. "Or, at least, you know what killed them."



"Perhaps."



Kyle fell quiet, reading in Xyllah's actions an unwillingness to compromise without reward. "I'll make you a deal," he offered at last. "You help us stop that creature, and I'll give you the book. I'm willing to bet that if the book brought you here, you can use it to get back to your world."



She nodded slowly, but was still guarded. "Yes, I can."



"So, will you tell me where the book is?"



"I would rather show you."



Kyle smiled mirthlessly. "Doesn't work that way. You tell me where the boy and the book are, I find it and bring it here . . . <i>then</i> we talk about what you'll do for us."



Xyllah bristled. "In the meantime, I am your prisoner."



"Would you rather be my prisoner for a little while, or Ritter's prisoner for even longer?"



She fumed quietly. "I do not make allegiances lightly," she said ominously. "And I am not one to easily cross. You have the upper hand because this is your world and you are a man of influence within it. Whether I trust you or not makes no difference, but you offer choices. So I will ally with you, with reservations. But."



She eased forward in her chair, unfolding her arms and boring into Kyle's eyes with her own. "My wrath is not to be taken lightly."



Kyle smiled slowly. "I'm counting on that," he said.



* * * *



Faster leaned against the wall in the police lobby, painfully scanning through the list of missed calls and messages on her cell phone. Two from Dwight, with one message. It had been about twenty-four hours since she had left her lover. Guilt over her abrupt vanishing act weighed upon her. For a minute that seemed an hour, she stared at her cell's screen, debating the pros and cons of calling him back, or even listening to the message he had left in the first place.



"Faster?"



She snapped her head up at the sound of Kyle's voice, finding the man standing a few paces away. "Yeah. All set?"



He chuckled under his breath. "I called your name three times," he said. "Look, I know we only got a few hours sleep--"



"I'm good," she said quickly, stuffing the phone back in the holster on her belt. "What's the plan?"



Kyle looked to Victor, who had claimed a pair of seats in the lobby as a makeshift bed. The bald man slept soundly, despite the din of a busy police substation. Kyle wondered how the man could tune out so many distractions. He returned his attention to Faster.



"I think we need to talk, first."



Faster chewed her lip contemplatively. "Okay."



Kyle took two steps closer. "Are we going to be able to work together?"



Faster scoffed. "Why wouldn't we?"



"I don't know," answered Kyle. "It just seems that you're uncomfortable around me. I'd like to know why."



She met his eyes, feeling, briefly, that familiar melting sensation between her thighs. But she managed to arrest it, and pushed out a smile. "I've just got some personal shit to figure out," she explained. "Nothing too serious. It's not gonna affect the job. I can promise you that."



He searched her face a moment, looking for tells. "Anything you want to talk about?" he asked. "Look, I might be a hardass sometimes, but I am still human."



She laughed softly. "You sure about that?"



He echoed the mirth. "Last I checked."



Faster breathed in, then let it out with a heavy sigh. "It's . . . ." She sighed again. "I met a guy."



Kyle blinked. "Oh."



She continued unabated. "It's nothing serious," she said. "I mean, I guess it could be. I don't know."



He shifted a little on his feet. "Where, uh, where'd you meet him?"



Faster hesitated, feeling the embarrassment of having to admit she had resorted to online dating. "Um, in a restaurant," she said after a moment. She forced a small laugh. "Yeah. Funny thing. I just went in for soup and salad, and he was at the next table . . . we just started talking, you know?"



"Nice guy?"



She nodded, a more genuine smile tugging her lips. "Yeah. Smart, good looking, says the right thing, good in bed . . . ." She trailed off as a blush of color rose to her cheeks. "Too much information?"



Kyle faked a smile. "No, of course not," he insisted, then cleared his throat. "You going to see him again?"



Faster's smile faded. "Maybe." Her face became more stoic. "But, hey, we're on the clock, right? So let's get back to business."



Kyle nodded, feeling both relieved and perturbed. "Sure. Let's wake up Victor, and I'll fill you two in on the way."



* * * *



The apartment of Michael Jesserton lay not far from the college campus, within a complex that obviously catered to poor young students. The buildings were composed mainly of tiny, one-bedroom units, with only the basic necessities. The unit Kyle sought lay in building thirteen. Victor parked the Monte Carlo in one of several empty spaces; obviously, the majority of the residents did not own a vehicle.



Kyle rapped three times upon the brown-painted door, then again about a minute later. He had instructed Victor and Faster to stay with the car, so as not to intimidate the young man when he answered the door. Now he wished he had asked them to come up to the third floor of the building with him; at least he would have had company to talk to.



He checked his watch in annoyance. <i>Ten-twenty on a Sunday morning? This kid doesn't strike me as the church-going type, especially if he's going to dabble in summoning spells and taking in a woman from another world--</i>



Finally, he heard the locks being turned, and the door opened to reveal a skinny young man in sweat pants and a baggy jersey. He was ruddy-skinned and sported prominent acne, with round-framed glasses magnifying the size of his heavy-lidded eyes. "Yeah?"



Kyle smiled broadly. "Michael Jesserton? We need to have a talk."



He seemed to awaken a bit more. "'Bout what?"



"Xyllah."



His eyes flashed open even wider, and his mouth did likewise. "Oh . . . ."



* * * *



As frail a young man as he apparently was, Mike Jesserton seemed even moreso as he sat huddled upon one of two tiny, second-hand chairs in his apartment. Wrapping his arms around his skinny body, he sat forward in the chair, staring at the dirty floor as if in a trance.



"How did you bring her here?" Kyle asked, after listening to a chaotic menage of ramblings from the young man.



"My grandmother died last year," he said, rocking slowly as he spoke. "She didn't really have a will. They just told us we could go into her house and grab what we wanted. Like it was a fuckin' free-for-all or something."



"That's where you found the book," prompted Kyle.



Mike nodded. "She had a bunch of old shit in the attic. There was this one chest full of books. Fuckin' heavy as hell. Most of it was just . . . just books, right, but there was this one . . . weird shit. Written in a weird foreign language. Took me a long time to translate some of it."



Kyle sat patiently, content for the moment to let the bewildered young man provide the information he desired in his own convoluted way. "Obviously, you did."

<hr pg="5" />"Yeah," Mike said with a sharp laugh. "Figured out one of the spells. Supposed to summon a devil. I thought that would be impressive enough."



Kyle frowned. "Impressive enough for what?"



"To get laid."



The anthropologist arched an eyebrow. "So, you cast a spell because you thought you would get laid?"



Mike nodded. "Brian's girlfriend," he explained, as if it was a foregone conclusion that Kyle knew whom the young man was talking about. "I made a bet."



Kyle rolled his eyes. "She's a real hot piece of ass, is that it?"



The young maladroit lifted his eyes. "I used to think so," he said.



"So what happened? You cast the spell?"



Mike nodded slowly, returning the focus of his gaze to nothingness. "Yeah. But I sure didn't expect the devil to be so fucking hot."



"She's not really a devil, you know," Kyle remarked with a smirk.



"Yeah, I know. She's a Daelvini," Mike said, speaking as if from repeated memory. "Third daughter of the House of Alveya, Zantrist Adept and Royal Consular."



Kyle's brow furrowed. "No kidding."



Mike shrugged. "That's what she told me," he said. "But she really doesn't tell me much. It's really ironic."



"What is?"



Mike laughed, tilting his head back to stare at the ceiling. "I just wanted to get laid, you know? Thought I'd impress the chicks, maybe scare 'em a little and get Carrie to give it up to me for just one fuckin' night! But what do I get? Some goddamn hot-ass nympho from another fuckin' world who wants to fuck me to death every goddamn day!"



The anthropologist cocked his head. "She lives with you?"



Mike huffed morosely. "Sort of," he admitted. "She's not here most of the day. When I ask where she's been, she, uh . . . you know. Distracts me."



Kyle tried heroically not to laugh. "Got more than you bargained for, huh, kid?"



The young man stared dejectedly at the floor. "Yeah."



"So, tell me what happened that night."



* * * *



An hour later, Kyle stepped through the door with a thick, aged book bound in leather beneath his arm. The young tenant of the apartment watched with tired, forlorn eyes as the strangely intimidating man made his way toward two others beside a glossy black sedan that looked like a cross between a sports car and a tank before retreating within and slowly closing the door.



Kyle handed the heavy tome off to Faster as he reached the stocky man. "Part one accomplished," he announced with a self-impressed smile. "As long as Xyllah holds to her end of the bargain, we just might be able to wrap this up."



"Hope you're not getting ahead of yourself there, Bandit," Faster warned.



"So do I."



* * * *



It was just before lunchtime when the trio returned to the police substation. With the rousing of the day, the main lobby was filled with various vagrants, suspects, and return customers. The air was rife with the shouts and curses of the eternally persecuted, the aroma of the downtrodden. Kyle wrinkled his nose as he made his way past the crowded check-in desk, heading to the security door at the far end of the room. He dodged drug-addled prostitutes coming down from their overnight highs and less than cogent homeless who propositioned him for sympathy.



At the door, he showed the visitor's badge he had been issued which gave him nearly as much access as a lieutenant. The buff young man saddled with the dreariness of guard duty made a face but allowed him in.



"Dr. Perrin!"



Ritter's voice met him no sooner than ten paces past the doors, and Kyle followed the source down a side hallway to see the well-groomed detective jogging toward him, clutching a manila folder. He wore an expression that was equal parts agitation and apology.



"Let me guess--" began Kyle.



"She escaped."



The anthropologist rolled his eyes in frustration. "Of course she did."



Ritter gave the doctor a wan look. "Hey, I did as you suggested and put her in a cell, alone, in the basement. Told the guards not to talk to her. They went to give her lunch and found the guard on duty curled up in the cell bunk, looking like some freaking zombie. What the hell did she do to him?"



"Is he all right?"



The detective shrugged. "Sent him to the hospital. Guess he's not dead; they would've told me."



Kyle nodded, thinking. "Probably nothing permanent."



"'Probably?'" echoed the irritated detective. "You know, I'm getting tired of being left in the dark."



"Okay. Truth is, she's a sorceress from another world who got summoned here by mistake. Want me to go on?"



Ritter fumed. "Don't blow smoke up my ass."



"Then don't ask questions."



The detective groaned loudly, balling his fists. "I wanna know what's going on!"



Kyle faced the man squarely. "What's going on is the unsolved murder of three people, and our main witness is missing," he said pointedly. "Due to, I might add, the negligence of this department!"



Ritter glared back. "I've got a dozen uniforms beating the streets right now, looking for your Goth chick," he said. "We're doing what we can."



Kyle nodded, his features softening. "I know. I appreciate that."



The detective sighed heavily, placated for the moment by Kyle's tone. "Well, you'll be happy about one thing," he said, opening the folder he carried. "DNA results came back on the blood at the scene."



"That was quick," commented the Veil investigator.



"No shit," agreed Ritter. "But then, they were addressed to you. Guess you have a knack for getting shit done."



"He's funny like that," Faster chimed in with a vicariously proud smile.



"Let me see that," said Kyle, taking the folder. He flipped it open to reveal the computer printouts within. His face darkened the more he read. "Four different DNA profiles?" he asked at last.



"Yup," confirmed Ritter. "Mom, dad, and the teenaged girl. The fourth one belongs to a male, no relation to the family. But--" He turned a few pages in the file, jabbing his finger upon the first of several pages of email printouts. "Like you suspected, Carrie Eisenstein had a few things saved on her computer. Seems she was sweet on a kid she went to high school with. Brian Burcic."



Kyle glanced up. "Boyfriend?"



Ritter nodded. "Looks that way. I checked with the kid's mother. He didn't come home last night."



The anthropologist grumbled under his breath and handed the file back. "Thanks, detective," he said. "Let me know if your men find anything."



"Well, there was one more thing," the detective said cagily. "Looks like Carrie and some of her friends &#x2013; including Brian Burcic &#x2013; had a little party a month ago in that same city park behind the house. Something about a 'Satanic ritual' or something, and a deal that Carrie was gonna sleep with some nerdy kid named Mike if the ritual went the way he planned."



Kyle looked interested. "Oh, really."



Ritter shrugged. "Evidently, she and the other kids were drunk. She mentioned something about an 'elf' and some kind of demon or dragon . . . it didn't make a whole lot of sense. You ask me, sounds like those kids were dropping acid or something."



Kyle thought a moment. "Could be," he agreed, if only to humor the man. "Were there any disturbances in the area the night Carrie Eisenstein said this happened?"



Ritter shook his head. "I checked the blotter. The only thing that happened in the area was some bums got spooked."



The anthropologist chewed his lip in thought for a moment, then patted the detective on the shoulder. "Let me know if there's anything else."



* * * *



As the late afternoon sun brushed the horizon beyond the tips of the city park's trees, Kyle rolled down the window of the Monte Carlo and lit a cigarette. Sarah Brightman's voice filtered softly through the speakers of the venerable vehicle, helping to assuage the tension he felt. Behind the wheel, languidly tapping his fingers upon his knee in time with the music, Victor watched through the windshield of the car, skilled eyes sweeping back and forth across the tree line.



"I don't get it," he said at last. "Why take off? I mean, you think she was trying to hide something? Maybe she's been involved with this mess from the beginning."



"Oh, she's involved, all right," Kyle said darkly, combining what Xyllah and Mike Jesserton had both told him. "But not like you think. She gets summoned to our world through the Veil by some hormone-inspired kid who doesn't know what he's doing. Pops through, takes a look around, then realizes the kid didn't close the portal. Something else sneaks through, something really nasty."



"Our 'Big Randall,'" Victor growled.



"Indeed. That's when it gets fuzzy. That kid claims he doesn't remember everything that happened next, but I can tell there were some impressions."



"Or maybe he lied to you. Trying to protect his pussy buffet."



Kyle chuckled at the metaphor. "Doubtful. He shows classic signs of post-traumatic stress. He's suppressed the memories of what he saw. From what I've learned lately about the way the Veil works, that's not too uncommon. Michael Jesserton's mind couldn't come up with a way to logically explain a giant monster, so it blocked it out."



"Which leaves us in the dark about what it is."



Kyle nodded grimly. "And now, only Xyllah knows."



"So, why do you think she's gonna come back here?"



"Because this is where 'Randall' is," he explained. "Something must have happened that kept it in this park. Maybe Xyllah tried to close the portal, but it didn't work. Or maybe Randall found a way to come back. There have been some instances in Veil Society history about 'hot spots' lingering for days, weeks, even months after a rift was created, making it easier to travel between ours and the shadow world."



Victor cast a sidelong look to his team leader. "You really been burning the midnight oil at the Library, huh?"



Kyle sighed with an admonishing smile. "There's just so much there," he said. "It's hard to stop sometimes. One book refers to another, one theory to another . . . there have been a few times in which I only stopped because I started seeing the letters glow and float up off the pages."



Victor blinked once. "I ain't gonna have to worry about you, uh, going to the dark side, am I?"



Kyle chuckled. "Not yet," he answered. "But if I whip out the red lightsaber, by all means do what you need to do."



The stocky man managed a thin smile. "Hope it don't come to that."



"Me, too," agreed Kyle. "You'd kick my ass in about two seconds."



"Nah. Bet you'd last three."



The two men shared a dry look and laugh before the communicator laying on the seat between them burbled. "Bandit, come in."



Quickly, Kyle tucked the half-smoked cigarette between his lips and snatched up the communicator. "Read you, Faster."



"Think I found something," her voice returned through the static. "It's a sewer vent, about three feet high, with an iron grate. Pretty sure it's been moved recently; there's ice shards all over the place, and the bolts are all broken."



"Any tracks?"



"Yeah. Single pair. I'd guess size six, female. That's weird."



"Why?"



"Vents like this usually attract bums. They huddle around them to keep warm. But no one's camping around here. Some thing's obviously keeping them away."



The anthropologist sucked a tooth in contemplation. "Where are you?"



Faster paused on the other end for a moment. "GPS puts me about half a mile from you. Right in the middle of the park, looks like."



"Okay. Stay there. We'll be there in a few minutes."



"Make it quick. This place is creeping me out big time."



"Copy that. See you soon." Kyle clicked off the communicator and gave Victor a meaningful look.



"Time to unpack Molly?" the former ranger asked.



Kyle nodded. "And all of her sisters."



* * * *



With a hook and length of rope, Victor was able to raise the large iron grate until it fell crashing in the snow to the side of the concrete pedestal. Briefly, Kyle wondered how a lone woman of slight build such as Xyllah could have moved the grate to provide entrance, then returned it, all on her own. Weapons drawn, Faster peered over the twin barrels and into darkness. She grimaced at the stench riding visible fumes of acrid vapor. "Seriously, we're going down there?"



Kyle chuckled as he climbed atop the escarpment, straddling the wall with one foot in the cold and one in nauseating warmth. "It only takes two minutes to get used to any smell," he informed. Experimentally, he inhaled deeply, immediately catching bile in the back of his throat. He forced it back down, steeling himself against further reactions from his body. "See?" he asked, voice strained. "No problem."



"Yeah, well, pardon me while I throw up," muttered Faster.



* * * *



Despite their skepticism, Kyle's team mates did indeed find themselves forgetting the stench that surrounded them, save for the occasional strong gust of warm air blasting up from the tunnels below. Descending via a warped and rusted ladder, they had followed a tunnel lined with decades-old markers and painted signs which would make sense only to a city engineer. A stream of fetid water ran down the center of the rounded tunnel; rats scurried away from their advance. Only the flashlights of the three provided any sort of light.



"How are we gonna know if we're going in the right direction?" Faster asked, her voice, though subdued, echoing in the overly humid air. She paused as they approached a four-way intersection. "They all look the same."



Kyle paused, panning the beam from his flashlight around. "Our Randall is cunning, but he seems to behave like an animal for the most part." He stooped and inspected the ground. "He's made a nest, a den somewhere."



"In a fucking sewer?" Victor asked, aiming his flashlight-equipped shotgun back down the tunnel they had come.



"Why not?" quipped Kyle, straightening. "It's warm, secluded, the stench keeps people away . . . obviously, Randall isn't too squeamish."



"So, which way?" Faster asked.



Kyle did not answer at first, watching the beam of his flashlight glide across one of the tunnels. He noted the rubble, the rotting remains of rodents and other small animals, as well as the relative lack of activity along the rancid corridor. An odor different from the oder that hung rife in the air wafted toward him. He narrowed his eyes, glaring into the darkness beyond the radiance of his flashlight.



"That way," he said at last.



Faster frowned, following with her eyes the way Kyle indicated. "Why?"



"Smell that?" he asked in return.



Victor sniffed the air. "Smells like something burning."



Kyle made a confirming sound and straightened. "No rats, either," he commented. "Some thing's scared them away."



Faster gritted her teeth. "I'll take point," she declared, stepping first. "I see anything bigger than my foot moving around, it's getting a bullet."



"Don't forget Xyllah's probably down here, too."



Faster paused just long enough for her momentary silence to be meaningful. "Right," she said, then advanced along the tunnel, avoiding the narrow trickle of stagnant water.



Kyle followed close after, watching ahead with less of a predatory frame of mind than his agent. As they ventured deeper within the tunnel, the smell of scorched stone and even more organic matter reached their senses; Kyle noted scorch marks on the walls and the half-charred remains of a rat laying in the water.



The tunnel bent, leading them along a gentle incline which eventually opened to a large chamber. Above the entrance of the tunnel, an aged, broken water line dribbled a steady stream onto the floor, creating the slender tributary along which they had come. Droplets of water created a constant, staccato drip-drip-drip, falling like an unobtrusive yet insistent rainfall. Beyond, the remains of the room beneath beckoned.



The source of the burning smell was obviously the chamber into which Kyle and his team now peered. Slowly-dissipating smoke hung thick in the air, some drifting up from charred concrete and scorched pipes in what had once been a pumping station for the sewer. Now, it was little more than a collection of useless rubble. Most of the walls had recently fallen inward, beginning to soak up the brackish bile of decades of accumulated sludge upon the chamber floor. The scene was like a battlefield, which, Kyle instantly surmised was exactly what it was.



"What the fuck happened here?" Faster asked warily, waving her flashlight back and forth.



"Goddamn bomb or something," Victor muttered.



"I don't think so," added their team leader. Kyle focused his attention upon the far wall below, where a broad archway seemed to have been forcibly collapsed through some form of pyrotechnic device. And upon a relatively dry mound of debris near the sealing mound of rubble, lay the unconscious, nearly naked form of the Daelvini woman. Her porcelain skin was bruised, scratched, lacerated in places. Though apparently unconscious, she wore an expression of pain.



"The fuck happened to her?" Faster asked.



"Maybe it's just a guess, but it looks like she's been in a fight," Kyle remarked. He glanced to Victor. "Get her out of there. Do it fast."



The stocky man smirked. "Faster than a virgin on Prom night," he said with a wink.



* * * *



Safe houses were a thing rarely used by the Veil Society; Kyle had only recently learned of them during his studies. However, if any situation called for the use of a hidden neutral base of operations, the one in which the three Veil agents found themselves certainly qualified.



The house was small, located in a less than reputable neighborhood at the edge of the city's industrial area. Old paint upon older wood was telling of the construction's age, while the substandard wiring provided only the minimal amount of electricity. The heating did not work, compelling Faster to head out for firewood amongst other basic necessities. Only the most basic of furniture lay within the rooms, much of it old, well-worn, and reeking of various stale odors.



Xyllah showed all the classic signs of shock and exhaustion, conditions which were further exacerbated by the wounds she had suffered. Victor revealed his field medic qualifications as he cleaned and bandaged the worst of her wounds and applied salves to the others. Throughout it all, the Daelvini barely stirred, save to grimace now and then.



"Guess all we can do now is wait until she wakes up," Victor commented as he peeled off the plastic gloves.



Kyle said nothing as he looked upon the nude woman laying in the narrow twin bed. They had removed what little clothing she had worn for the sake of sanitation, and now, as he gazed upon the ghostly beauty, Kyle felt a mixture of amazement, wonderment . . . and the insistent stirrings of arousal. In her unique, exotic way, Xyllah was incredibly beautiful. Such pure white skin went beyond even the extremism of human albinos, to the point where there was a phantom trace of blue along the lines of her slender musculature. Lithe limbs, taut, narrow abdominal muscles, pert breasts capped with thick nipples of the most incredible shade of pink &#x2013; a shade echoed along the pursed lips of the alien woman's almost hairless sex &#x2013; all served to espouse the unearthliness of the woman.



Finally, the anthropologist spoke as he drew the musty covers over Xyllah. "We'll take watch in shifts," he ordered.



* * * *



Kyle roused himself from sleep with a wince of discomfort, straightening in the old chair and cracking his neck. He massaged the stump of his right arm through the fabric of the sleeve that covered it, assuaging the phantom pains and sensations. It was a cruel, ironic twist that he could feel the pins and needles within fingers he had not possessed in over ten years.



"What is it like?"



The question startled him, confusing his already fog-addled mind. It took a moment to remember where he was, and to whom the strangely accented voice belonged. Opening his eyes languidly, he focused upon a blurry image which coalesced into the unabashedly nude figure of the alien woman seated atop the bed.

<hr pg="6" />She spoke again, gesturing with her hand toward his missing arm. "Losing part of your body. What is it like?"



Kyle grumbled, taking his hand away from the stump to set it upon the arm of the chair. He pushed up, stretching his back, both feeling and hearing it crack. "Times like this, it's annoying."



Xyllah looked him over, making no move to cover her small, perfect breasts. "One of my brothers was grievously wounded in battle with the Shakkars once," she said. "His leg was mangled beyond repair, so it had to be removed. He was not the same man afterward."



Kyle regarded her clinically as lucidity returned. "It's a difficult thing to accept."



Xyllah met his eyes, saying nothing for several long seconds. "I had to escape," she finally said, changing the subject.



"I know," Kyle responded, then smiled thinly. "I was rather counting on it."



She frowned. "Were you?"



He nodded. "You didn't have too many options once you had given me access to the book," he said. "You struck me as being far too independent to remain in captivity for long. My only question is, how did you convince the guard to open the cell?"



Xyllah smirked crookedly. "I made him an offer," she said. "In your vernacular, I believe it is called a 'blowjob.'"



Kyle chuckled. "Your race is very open sexually, I assume," he commented. "Given your manner of dress and your, uh, relationship with that 'stupid boy.'"



The Daelvini's features softened with a friendly smile. "I am a Zantra Adept," she explained. "My ability to weave the Art depends upon the amount of sexual energy I can gather and focus. Coupling with others is therefore both pleasure and necessity."



The anthropologist cocked his head in interest. "Sexual energy fuels magical energy?"



Xyllah shrugged. "All energy is linked," she said simply. "Sexual, arcane, divine, aggressive, passive . . . there are paths that connect them all. Those of us who learn the methods of Zantra combine sexual and arcane energy into one. Of course, that brings with it an inherent weakness."



Kyle made an educated guess. "You have to have sex in order to use magic."



"It is more along the lines of building up stores of energy to expend in an alternate way," she said. "The power of sexual release, whether mine or my partner's, is an incredible source of raw energy."



He chuckled. "I've always thought so," he remarked, then furrowed his brow. "You're awfully chatty all of a sudden."



She stared back meaningfully. "You could have left me," she said. "In that fetid place, my wounds would have become infected. And the Shakkar would eventually have come through. My energy was spent; I would have been helpless before it. In effect, you saved my life. For that, if nothing else, you deserve my respect . . . and compliance."



Kyle listened, processing all the Daelvini said. "That's enough to make you trust me?"



"It is enough to earn my deference."



He nodded in contemplation. "Tell me about the Shakkar."



She inhaled deeply, eyes flickering away for a moment. "There are three kinds," she revealed. "The drone, the lesser noble, and the noble. Drone Shakkar are little more than animals, but they have a strong sense of organization, hierarchy, and obedience to their betters. They serve the simplest functions in Shakkar society. Workers, guards, foragers."



"Go on."



"The lesser nobles are cunning, but not particularly bright. They serve primarily as hunters and wardens, directing the drones and overseeing their prisons. The nobles are the upper echelons. They are few in number, but are very powerful and intelligent."
 "So what are we hunting?"



"A lesser noble Shakkar," she said without hesitation. "She is a hunter, and a voracious one at that. She is close to becoming a full noble."



"'She,'" Kyle remarked.



Xyllah nodded. "The female of the species is more dangerous than the male."



The corner of his mouth curled for a moment. "I've heard that somewhere," he muttered, then raised his voice slightly. "How do we stop it?"



"We must seal the rift in the Veil," Xyllah informed. "This Shakkar is bound to the area around which it was summoned, but the periphery of it's range grows every day. As I said, it was an idiot boy &#x2013; Michael &#x2013; who cast the spell in the first place. But he did not understand the precautionary measures that must be undertaken before making use of such a summons. He did not inscribe a protective circle. Because of that, I was able to roam free, since I was the initial target of the spell. But because he did not close the portal--"



"The Shakkar slipped through," interrupted Kyle as he understood. "And I'm guessing that the spell that brought her here has been getting weaker over the past thirty days or so. She's able to move further and further away from the point of entry."



"And eventually," confirmed Xyllah. "She will be able to hunt at will."



"Why did she kill Carrie Eisenstein?"



Xyllah thought a moment, bowing her head. "The Shakkar are instinctual hunters," she said. "When Michael brought us both through the Veil, the lesser noble marked him and his friends as potential prey. Locked within this world, with no obvious way back, the Shakkar's only recourse is to flush out the only means of returning it has."



"So, killing Carrie and her boyfriend was supposed to send a message to Michael?"



Xyllah nodded. "'Give me the book and I will spare your friends.'"



"Except, now I have the book," Kyle said.



"But the Shakkar does not know that. She may very well direct her hunt toward Michael, as he has not supplied the tome."



Kyle gritted his teeth. "Then we'll have to protect him."



"Indeed," Xyllah said, leaning back, lifting and spreading her toned, athletic thighs. The soft pink of her sex winked from between pale vulva. Xyllah licked her lips seductively and smiled. "I will need to replenish my energy, if I am to be of any assistance."



Kyle stiffened visibly in the chair, gazing upon the Daelvini woman's brazenly-exposed genitals. As he watched, practically enraptured, Xyllah settled a hand between her splayed thighs and stroked the soft, fleshy folds of her pussy. The moisture seeping from within made the pliable tissue glisten.



With effort, Kyle tore his gaze away. He felt the flush in his cheeks. "I think you need to get dressed," he said, pushing to his feet and turning to the door.



Xyllah stared after him, at once offended, stupefied, and impressed. The words which rolled off her lips were faint.



"As you will."



* * * *



Faster watched from the corner of her eye the alabaster-skinned woman who sat beside her in the back seat of the Monte Carlo. The elfin woman's large dark eyes stared at the back of Kyle Perrin's head as he sat in the front passenger seat, diagonally from her. The expression upon her face was one that combined longing with confusion.



With a practiced, automatic move, Faster checked the one pistol she held, pushing the slide back just enough to check the round in the chamber. Her actions were not lost upon the Daelvini.



"You do not need to threaten me," Xyllah said.



Faster gave the woman a mirthless smile. "It's a habit."



Her eyes fluttered back and forth between Kyle and Faster. "You and he are--?"



Faster scoffed loudly. "Fuck, no!"



Xyllah nodded slowly, then allowed herself a small smile. "Ah. I see."



In the front seat, Kyle listened to the banter between the two ladies, noting the underlying layers of implication in their words. What he interpreted bothered him on numerous levels.



* * * *



Victor rolled the classic sedan to a stop just along the fence line of the enclosed community in which lay Michael Jesserton's apartment. Before the vary same building in which Kyle had interviewed the young man were parked several police and fire vehicles; the building itself was largely within ruins.



Sourly, Kyle snapped open his phone and scrolled through the list of numbers in the cell's memory. He pushed a button, held the phone to his ear.



"Police department non-emergency line," a somewhat friendly voice rattled of in his ear. "How may I direct your call?"



"4800 Stoneywood Lane," Kyle said. "Looks like a fire. I'd like more information, especially concerning casualties."



"Who is calling?"



"Dr. Kyle Perrin."



There was a long pause, during which the four of them observed a black plastic bag being carried by a pair of firemen toward a waiting van. Kyle's heart sank.



"Dr. Perrin?"



"Yes," he growled.



"Details are still sketchy, but there is one apparent fatality at the address. Michael Jesserton, aged nineteen."



Kyle grumbled darkly and hung up without responding to the dispatcher. "Xyllah."



The porcelain-hued woman perked up in her seat. "Yes?"



"Michael's dead."



She sighed heavily. "The Shakkar will retreat, then, returning to her nest. Her first instinct will be to remain there until she feels the barrier holding her in place collapsing. Then she will be free . . . in the most terrible way."



"Is there any way we can lure her out?"



Xyllah nodded. "The book. She will be able to sense it when it is close enough."



"How close is 'enough?'" Faster asked.



The Daelvini shrugged. "Half a dozen rods, I imagine."



"'Rods?'"



"It's an old unit of measurement," Kyle said. "Equal to about five and a half yards, or five meters."



Faster frowned, figuring the math in her head. "So, half a dozen rods--"



"About a hundred feet, give or take," Kyle said, stroking his chin in thought. "Not the safest distance, but it'll have to do."



"What'ya thinking, doc?" Victor asked.



The team leader shifted in his seat, half-turning so he could see both Xyllah and Faster. He met the brunette's eyes meaningfully. "Bait."



* * * *



Fresh snowflakes danced in the air outside the window, landing like down upon the blanket that already covered the lawn of the safe house. Were he in any other mood, Kyle might have considered the scene peaceful, even serene. But the weight of his decisions &#x2013; both made and those still contemplated &#x2013; ruined his enjoyment. Tension spread like the hand of an oppressor across his back, twisting the muscles into knots. He cracked his neck with a stiff jerk of his head, but it did little to help.



"All set, doc," Victor said somberly. "Faster's picking up some supplies. She'll be back later. You sure you wanna wait 'til tonight? The temp's gonna drop big time."



Kyle mused darkly. "We need the seclusion," he said. "As cold as it's going to get, we'll have less chance of any incidental casualties. The Shakkar's not going anywhere."



"That's if you believe the ice princess--"



"I do."



Victor fell mute, glancing back toward the closed bedroom door. The rushing of water through the pipes in the master bath could just be heard. "You really think she's on the level?"



Kyle snorted derisively. "Do we have a choice?" he asked rhetorically. "Besides, from what I've learned, the crossing of a sentient being across the Veil is almost unheard of. Think of what we could learn, or already have. Xyllah's an incredible wealth of knowledge and experience to us, even if she's only here for a short while. It's always been the assumption that the world on the other side is chaotic, dangerous, lacking any kind of social development. Her existence changes all that."



Victor shrugged. "Yeah, well, that kind of shit's out of my league. But I trust you, doc."



Kyle smiled. "I hope you know how much I appreciate that."



The stocky man smiled back and clasped the anthropologist's shoulder. "Well, you ain't the easiest guy to read, but I think I'm starting to figure you out."



Kyle nodded, watching peripherally as Victor stepped away, gathering his coat from the back of a decrepit old chair.



"Ten o'clock, right?"



"Ten o'clock," Kyle confirmed.



"You gonna get some rest?"



Kyle smiled thinly. "Maybe."



The former solder grunted neutrally. "Call if you need anything," he said, then headed to the door. Kyle watched as the man left, listening to his retreating footsteps. The house grew silent, save for the faint staccato of the plumbing through the walls. A slight aroma of soap and shampoo wafted toward him.



Kyle breathed in deeply, then turned toward the bedroom door. The decision he had made regarding his next course of action was more stressful than he would have anticipated.



* * * *



Warm water cascaded over pale flesh; hands slid up along taut skin and attenuated muscle beneath, over firm, round breasts toward the slender slope of a sublime neck. Xyllah sighed in pleasure, smiling beneath the relaxing spray. The aromas of citrus-tinted body wash and shampoo whirled about her like the attentive eyes of an enraptured audience.



She ran her hands through slick, heavy tresses, feeling it slap wetly against her back. Trickles of water followed the narrow line of her back to the cleft between firm cheeks. The caresses of liquid between her thighs, running over swollen vulva and labia, affected her easily-inspired libido. Naturally, she began massaging one of her small, sensitive breasts while her other hand delved between her thighs, stimulating the hidden pale bulb of her clitoris within its hood.



Wet tongue slipped out to grace pouting lips. Xyllah smiled, calling images and fantasies to mind. Her clit swelled, responding to the insistent touch of her fingers. She caught her breath as she eased a finger within the snug tunnel of her sex, as the lips of her pussy sucking upon that single digit. She tilted her head back, feeling the spray of the shower and imagining the droplets as that of the fluid erupting from her lover's spurting penis.



When the curtain was pulled aside with a scrape of plastic rings along the metal rod, she barely noticed, thinking it only part of her fantasy. When the calloused hand settled upon her narrow hip, when the body behind her pressed against her backside, however, she succumbed quickly, instantly molding reality and fantasy together. The stiffness of the erection sliding between her thighs, rubbing along the length of her nether lips, made her sigh loudly in passion.



"So you do want me," she muttered, her words almost drowned out by the shower.



His voice was strong and commanding in he ear as he leaned into her, single arm encircling her torso. He nipped the edge of one of her elongated ears. "I need you," he whispered.



She murmured appreciatively in response, arching her back, reaching down between her legs. The engorged head of his cock rubbed perfectly against her clit, making Xyllah gasp and moan. She moved forward, just a bit, pushing against the hard shaft with her fingers, guiding it toward the succulent entrance of her pussy. They both moaned as he entered her, snug walls sucking along the invading shaft.



"Don't move," she whispered heatedly, savoring the feel of his cock inside her. She braced one hand against the slick shower wall, settled the other to his hip, keeping him deeply embedded. Her vaginal muscles caressed and pulled along his shaft. "I want to enjoy this."



"So do I," he murmured, kissing the nape of her neck, licking slowly up toward her ear. The flavor of her skin was both sweet and spicy; never had he tasted anything like it. Cupping a breast in his hand, feeling the bulging nipple against his fingers, he pushed his hips just a little further, making his cock twitch in the tight, massaging tunnel of Xyllah's sex.



She grinned appreciatively, rocking back and forth. She savored the feel of him within her as much as he was enraptured by the sight of his cock swallowed and released by the unearthly pink lips wrapped around it. He pushed, thrust, bracing his feet upon the tub's floor, fucking her as much as she fucked him. In short order, the sound of wet bodies slapping and smacking together overrode all others.



Xyllah purred and growled, shoving back against him, taking him as deep as she could on each plunge. Water flowed down over her face, dripping from panting lips; she tossed her head, giving in to the purely primal act of making love. Strands of wet silvery hair streaked across a face heady with passion. Vaginal muscles clenched and squeezed with the onset of her first orgasm.



But just as the thunderbolt struck, she pulled forward, vacating her yearning sex. The muscles of her inner thighs spasming from imminent release, she spun around, looking upon her lover. Xyllah's features were slack with passion. She stared into Kyle's eyes before allowing her gaze to drift downward toward his tense cock.



"Beautiful," she muttered, before sinking to a squat within the tub and wrapping her pale lips around his straining erection. She murmured as she suckled him, tasting her own fluid upon the shaft, drawing it off him. She moaned once more when his hand settled to the back of her head, urging her.



"I could say the same thing," he muttered, pushing forward, watching her cheeks suck in as she pulled wantonly upon his penis. The sensations of her mouth, her tongue, the tight opening of her throat when he thrust deep enough, were incredible. Kyle was both amazed and gratified as the rush of his own orgasm began.



"Xyllah." Her name escaped almost painfully from his lips.



"Hmm," she responded, bringing up her hands to caress his swollen sacs and stiff shaft. She could taste the beginnings of his release as bittersweet fluid seeped along her thrashing tongue.



"I'm gonna come," he managed to say.



"Mm-hmm," she replied favorably, sucking even harder, pulling with her mouth.



Kyle trembled, slapping his one hand to the wall behind her, pumping into the exotic woman's mouth. His release had him making choking, gasping sounds as his cock spasmed and swelled, erupting between Xyllah's yearning lips. At the first taste of his gushing seed, she moaned in appreciation, and continued sucking, stroking, massaging. Jet after jet of warm semen flooded her mouth, almost to the point of bursting through the seal of her lips before she swallowed. The warmth of the fluid seeping down her throat elicited yet another moan from her.



Kyle shook, lost to bliss that bordered on pain. But, just when it proved too much, Xyllah released him, panting hot breath upon his spent penis before licking a final drop form the oozing slit. With a triumphant grin, she pushed herself up and wrapped her arms around Kyle's neck. She smiled affectionately, pressing sticky lips to his. "How much time do we have?" she asked breathily.



His head spun with euphoric delirium, yet Kyle managed to compose at least those thoughts relative to the moment. "A few hours."



Xyllah grinned again. "Time enough for another round?"



He smiled back. "Or two," he said.



* * * *



<i>Humans</i>, she thought as she watched Kyle sitting upon the end of the bed. He set a cigarette between his lips, flicked his lighter. The acrid aroma of smoke spread through the air, yet Xyllah did not find it offensive. It reminded her, in some ways, of the incense she often burned in her chambers at the Zantrist Temple. <i>Such strange yet powerful creatures.</i>



She sat up in the bed, more than aware of the scent of sex in the air, wafting from between her thighs, from the sticky residue upon her breasts and neck. She licked her lips, touched her chin. Her lover had been more impressive than she originally surmised; not all humans, she decided, were as rudimentary as her first lover on this side of the Veil.



His head tilted slightly in recognition of her movement on the bed. "Didn't mean to wake you," Kyle said in a low voice.



"I am a . . . how do you say? A light sleeper?"



He smiled slightly, still not looking directly toward the Daelvini. "Me too," he said. "Not often I get more than a few hours at a time."



She slid closer upon the old sheets, but stopped short of intimate touching. "Do you regret our coupling?"



He blew a plume of smoke, absently scratched at the stump of his right arm. "No," he said flatly.

<hr pg="7" />"I am not certain I believe you."



He tilted his head slightly, just catching an alabaster knee at the edge of his vision. "At the very least, you should be, eh, sufficiently energized now."



"With reserves to spare," she quipped with a coquettish smile. She rolled forward, coming up on her hands and knees beside him. "Is that the only reason you chose to bed me?"



He studied her face for a moment. "Would you be insulted if it was?" he asked.



Xyllah slid up until her legs hung over the end of the bed. "You are under the assumption that we will never meet again."



"It seems reasonable to think that."



She breathed in, holding her lungful of air for a long moment before expelling it. "In my culture, the tradition of Zantra is more than the focusing of sexual energy toward arcane uses. It is a philosophy, a recognition of events, causes, and outcomes. We believe that nothing ever happens without reason."



Kyle looked amused. "Some of us feel the same way."



"Do you?"



He considered her pointed question. "Are you trying to tell me something?"



Xyllah studied his face in profile for a moment. "Perhaps," she admitted. "But I wonder if it is worth mentioning now, since it seems I will be returning across the Veil. Perhaps the reasons I considered are not yet as meaningful as I suspected."



He looked to her again. "You're suddenly being very vague."



The Daelvini nodded slowly. "I suppose there is reason for that."



* * * *



Faster stared through the windshield of the Monte Carlo at the rickety safe house. As soon as the engine had been cut, the permeating cold surrounding the vehicle began to invade through glass and steel. She shivered slightly, eyes hard. "Been a few hours," she commented. "Just him and her. Alone."



Victor chuckled under his breath. "Hey, well, I ain't saying nothing about that."



She shot him a look. "What the fuck does that mean?"



He responded with a stoic expression. "It means, we don't have any business speculating what might or might not have happened between them," he said. "And it don't really matter anyway."



"It doesn't?" she snapped. "What if he's all of a sudden sweet on her, and that makes him make a stupid decision?"



Victor scoffed. "Yeah, right," he growled, popping open the door. "You said it yourself, baby, the doc's as ruthless as they come. He ain't gonna let his heart get in the way of anything."



Faster fumed a moment, grinding her teeth. "Right," she said, then stepped from the car.



* * * *



Eschewing winter parka and layers of civilian clothing, Faster was clad in a thermal suit which covered her from neck to toe, over which was layered PVC at her shoulders, breasts, groin, elbows and knees, and combat webbing to contain all her necessary gear. Like a cross between a futuristic astronaut and a Gothic hunter, she strode through the the placid fluff of the recent evening's snowfall toward the same grate through which they had entered before. The pack upon her back was just large enough to contain the aged book, which weighed nearly as much as the pistols snugly secured to her hips.



She stopped about a dozen paces from the steaming sewer vent, pinching her nose at the offensive scent. The continued absence of any warmth-seeking homeless around such havens made her bervous. Reaching to the communicator clipped above her right shoulder, she depressed the 'talk' button. "Bandit, come in."



"Read you, Faster," Kyle's voice returned. "How's it look?"



"It's a fucking winter wonderland," she snapped.



There was a pause before Kyle answered; she could just imagine the look of smug irritation on his face. "Any sign of Randall?"



"I probably would have said so if there was."



The communicator fell silent; Faster waited for a second or so in case Kyle might respond, but he did not. Consternation fell across her face as she realized her sarcasm may have gone too far. She berated herself for allowing personal feelings &#x2013; however jumbled and confused they may be &#x2013; to interfere with the job at hand. With that realization, she steeled herself against all thoughts other than those pertaining to the sewer conduit before her . . . and whatever it was that lay within.



"Grate's still loose," she reported. "Going in."



"Stay alert," Kyle warned, with at least a slight touch of concern. "The first indication you have that the Shakkar is after you, get your ass out of there."



She managed a smile. <i>So, he at least cares a little . . .</i> "Roger that."



With careful steps, she approached closer to the jarred grating, wrinkling her nose once more at the acrid stench. <i>Should have brought the gas mask,</i> she thought wryly, leaning over the edge of the opening. Peering down into Stygian darkness, she paused as she heard a faint scuffling, like the movement of a body.



A large body.



Swallowing nervously, she reached to the communicator, fixing the 'talk' button in place. "Bandit," she whispered.



"I read you."



"I, uh, think Randall might be closer than we thought--" She caught her breath as a pair of iridescent red slits flared in the shadows beneath the grate, punctuated by serpentine, slit-like pupils. "Oh, shit--"



"Faster?"



But Kyle's query was ignored as Faster leapt back, kicking off from the escarpment of the sewer tunnel entrance, flipping in the air. Before she even landed upon the ground, the grate erupted beneath the surging form of a monstrous, inhuman creature. With a terrific roar, the monster shot up through the opening, splaying the last of its three sets of limbs to catch the edges of the opening. Its two upper limbs were held wide, ending in menacing talons, while the broad, spade-shaped head bellowed toward the woman who now crouched in the snow.



For a moment, Faster could only stare at the creature before her. It did, indeed, resemble a large, serpentine reptile, with the undulating body of a snake and powerful limbs that resembled all to closely those of a man. Scales which ranged from brightest red on the underbelly to deep purple on the back and limbs glistened as if oiled. Bony fringes decorated the shovel-shaped head, which sported a gaping maw large enough to engulf Faster's head and teeth long enough to sever an arm.



"PORTAS VI LI CODA!" it demanded, making the human woman flinch.



<i>Christ, it talks!</i> she thought briefly, leading a leg behind her in preparation for flight.



"Faster!" barked Kyle once more, obviously having heard the commotion.



"On my way, Bandit, and I'm bringing serious fucking company!" With that declaration, she turned, even as she pushed off with her other foot, propelling her back along the rehearsed route. Behind her, the monster leapt, crashing to the ground amid an explosion of white powder. Powerful legs launched the beast forward, racing between trees to catch its darting quarry.



"GIVE ME THE BOOK!"



Faster ignored everything but that which was necessary for her survival; certain death, she knew, lay in store for her if she so much as slipped or stumbled. Every instinct tempered through the rigorous training of Parkour was put to use, with every muscle, tendon, and ligament responding as required. Instead of running around the trees before her, she used her forward momentum to advantage, leaping toward one sturdy trunk, rebounding with a twist and a flip to land feet-first upon frozen ground.



Behind her, wood shattered and snapped, trees crashing and falling to the forest floor as her pursuer took a less graceful path. Faster could only smirk, thinking how tearing through obstacles would have to slow the Shakkar down. Maintaining strict control over her breathing, pumping arms and legs in tandem, she piled on the speed, chancing a single look back. The smirk grew as she witnessed the giant chameleon-like reptile swatting aside trees and stumbling against sundered roots. Its bellow, while still fearsome, was less menacing as Faster realized she was distancing herself.



"Hope you got everything ready, Bandit!" she cried into the communicator, just before vaulting over the large stump of a fallen tree, scarcely kicking up snow in her wake. "ETA's about ten seconds!"



"We're ready!"



Only a few hundred feet ahead, Kyle stood with pistol at his side, watching the shaking trees that signaled the onrush of their target. He could only make out Faster's acrobatic form as she jumped here and there, sailing over obstacles with fluid grace.



"Never have I seen anyone move like that," remarked Xyllah beside him, her awe evident.



"Get in position," he barked, shooting the elfin woman a look. Wordlessly, the Daelvini complied, stepping to the ice-covered grill in the middle of the clearing.



"Victor?" he called, raising his weapon.



"All set!"



Kyle gritted his teeth, watching Faster's bounding form as she hurtled closer. She banked off a tree just outside the clearing, somersaulting before landing on the ground, rolling forward and onto her back, both pistols flashing upward in her hands.



A heartbeat later, amid a titanic burst of snow and the debris of shattered trees, the massive serpentine form of the Lesser Noble Shakkar burst into the clearing with a roar, sailing over Faster's prone form. Kyle barely heard the rapid staccato of his agent's twin pistols sending bullets into the beast's underbelly, over the cacophonous declaration of the monster. The impacts seemed to bother the monster as much as a wasp's sting.



"I WILL DEVOUR YOU ALL!" proclaimed the Shakkar as it landed upon the snowy ground, taloned arms splayed wide and threatening. The broad, spade-shaped head glowered down upon the man before it, eyes blazing with inhuman rage.



Yet Kyle remained admirably unimpressed. "Not today," he grumbled, snapping off a single round from his revolver.



His target was not the hellish serpentine form of his enemy, but rather the artfully placed bundle of explosives lashed to a tree beside and just ahead of the beast. As that single bullet found its mark, the bundle exploded brilliantly, shattering the tree to which it had been bound within the heart of a devastating fireball which spread outward in a blossom of destruction. Captured in the infernal heat of that explosion, the Shakkar roared in pain and anger, spittle from its angered maw nearly turning to steam as it flew out.



As the beast stumbled and crashed into the clearing, Kyle called out Victor's name as he backpedaled quickly. In response, the former soldier, standing beside another tree, swung his powerful axe, severing a cord which released the net that had been laid across the ground. Attached to the strongest of the trees bordering the clearing, the net snapped up, catching the draconian reptile within the snare amid an explosion of alabaster powder.



"Faster! The book!"



But she was already on her feet, ducking beneath the swaying net within which hung their snarling, roaring captive. Pulling on the quick-release tabs of her pack, she slipped the bundle free and hurled it through the air toward Xyllah. The Daelvini woman caught it with a grunt, hastily ripping open the flab and slapping the book down upon the top of the grill.



The Shakkar thrashed and roared, talons cutting through strands of the net. The trees to which the net was attached swayed and cracked audibly; they would not last more than a few moments more.



"Xyllah!" yelled Kyle anxiously, aiming his pistol toward the swaying creature. "This better not take long!"



"I told you, only a few lines!" she screamed back, feathering through the pages. She slapped her hands upon the book at last, grinning up at the apparently held monster. "I have it!"



"Don't waste time talking to me!" Kyle roared.



The Daelvini lifted her hands, looking down along her angular nose to the open page before her. As she spoke, the words seemed to grow in power and volume, until they echoed in the air and swirled like a physical force around them all.



"<i>Shunar noth kratackt! Val nu reponar sind'nah! Shofah kal nu apierte sunah!</i>"



The entangle monster thrashed anew as the force and tenor of the words escalated. "BANISH ME? YOU DARE?"



"<i>Apierte sunah!</i>" cried Xyllah again, as the wind swirled like a vortex around her. A sound that could only be the tearing of the fabric between worlds filled the air; the pinpoint of darkness formed, sparking with arcane energy, in the air just a dozen feet before the Daelvini.



"<i>APIERTE SEN!</i>" With that valient roar, the enormous wormlike creature slashed with all of it's might through the remaining cords of the net entrapping it, shredding its way through to freedom. It crashed to the ground amid another flurry of snow.



"Fire!" yelled Kyle, aiming into the heart of the powdery explosion, barely able to make out the vague figure of his target. As his revolver barked, so did Faster's pistols and a booming roar which could only be Victor's powerful shotgun. The Shakkar bellowed and thrashed, limbs and powerful tail lashing out in all directions. Yet, even with all that devastating racket, Kyle could hear Xyllah repeating her arcane words over and over. From the corner of his eye, he watched the rip in space and time grow, looming in the air like a thing alive as it hovered in the arctic air.



He only peripherally saw Faster hurled back by a lashing tail, breath forcefully knocked from her lungs, and as Victor was swatted away by a powerful arm. Sprays of thick dark blood accompanied each of the Shakkar's movememnts. Then, suddenly, the beast was there, looming over him, scales gleaming and murderous eyes glowering as a predator's before a kill. The Shakkar bore down upon him, claws pinning arm and legs against the frozen ground. The inhuman face above him hissed sulfuric breath as the monster gloated.



"It shall be a privilege to consume you, human," it growled in a frighteningly subdued tone of voice. A wicked tongue snaked out toward Kyle's face, passing along the side of his head.



Kyle winced, struggling even though he knew it was futile. "I hope you choke," he spat.



"Venoth!"



The monster snapped up its head, crimson eyes flashing from menacing to anxious in the briefest flick of an eye. "NO!"



Kyle grunted in pain as the Shakkar leapt from him, launching itself toward the Daelvini. With effort fueled by adrenaline, Kyle rolled onto his belly, pushing up into a kneeling position. The moon-skinned Daelvini gestured dramatically, finishing with a flourish which sent a brilliant arc of blinding light toward the onrushing monster. The serpentine nightmare bellowed in both pain and anger, wincing at the gash which opened across its glistening scaled underbelly.



"YOU DIE NOW!" roared the Shakkar, deadly talons flashing in preparation for the kill. Xyllah crouched defensively, already gesturing in preparation for launching another arcane attack, but her features told of anxiety and fear. The message Kyle read was clear: she did not expect to win, much less survive.



But a blood-curdling bellow ripped through the air, startling all and making the Shakkar falter, tilting its draconian head back. Though hobbling and bruised, Victor charged through gouts of snow, the golden axe named Molly slicing the air before him. The expression upon his face begged comparisons to some bygone raging barbarian, especially concerning his red face and blazing eyes. And beyond him, Faster was skirting the edge of the battlefield, aiming her pistols and waiting for the opportunity to fire.



"YOU WILL NOT TAKE ME!" insisted the Shakkar, scaly body shifting and writhing, trying to keep all of its adversaries in view. But it could not.



With a wordless cry, Victor answered the monster's roar as he used the power of his own charge, slowing just enough to plant his foot firmly upon the ground while swinging the axe-wielding arm back. With a forceful grunt that bespoke the effort he gave his actions, he hurled his deadly weapon with a powerful overhanded throw. The axe screamed a deadly song as it shot through the air, impacting solidly in the dense muscle of the Shakkar's upper torso.



As the monster reeled, toppling backward, rapid staccato bursts of gunfire announced the unleashing of Faster's weapons. Spurt after spurt of crimson ichor erupted from the beast's body, forcing it further back.



"Then we will send you!" yelled Xyllah triumphantly, diving out of the way of the creature's pitching body, altering her gestures to force the rend in space to open further. "<i>Apierte sunah!</i>" she commanded once more, and the rift in the air seemed to encapsulate her enemy, tendrils of inky blackness slipping out to wrap around the beast. The Shakkar fought valiantly, thrashing and roaring in defiance, claws and tail smashing the ground all around it, but within a heartbeat, it was gone, sucked into nothingness. The portal sucked itself closed with a sound like a terrific tearing in reverse.



The resulting silence was deafening. The smell of gunpowder hung in the air, mingled with the scents of sweat and blood. Kyle pushed himself to his feet, working his jaw to try and pop his ears. A quick glance around told him Victor and Faster, while harried and wounded, were intact and still viable.



"Fucking hell," grumbled Victor as he stepped up beside his team leader. "Took Molly with it."



"All things considered, it's a small loss," Kyle commented, watching Xyllah as she sunk to her knees on the ground, looking forlorn and exhausted. The elfin woman's wide dark eyes stared blankly at the remains of the book upon the ground before her. Pages had been shredded; what remained was soaked in dark blood. The heavy leather binding lay in jagged strips. The Shakkar's last act of defiance had resulted in the destruction of the only means the Daelvini had of returning home.



"Xyllah?" Kyle queried, warily approaching the slender woman.



"Cannot be," she muttered, pale lips hanging slack, breath drifting upward in the frigid air. "It cannot be. How can I return?"



Kyle set his jaw, meeting Xyllah's eyes. "We'll find a way."



* * * *



The large, cool chamber was a field of hazy grey before Malcolm Benedict's eyes as he stepped through the double doors. No furniture occupied the space between he and the long table set before the row of windows at the far end. There were simply the empty waxed and polished boards of the hardwood floor.



The figures seated at the table, seven in all, were nothing but silhouettes against the pale windows as they faced him. Benedict strode with purpose toward the center of the room, where a gilded circle lay embedded in the floor. There he stopped, and waited.



"Dr. Benedict," came a woman's voice. She sounded aged, but not at all feeble. The voice of a woman of means, experience, and power. "This latest development is remarkable, to say the least."



"But not unexpected," he responded meaningfully.



"You refer to your supposed precognition," came a tired, grumbling man's voice.



"'Supposed?'" asked Malcolm with a smug laugh. "Did I not foresee, three years ago, that this would happen?"



"You 'foresaw' a member of one of the Veil races stepping through," the man responded. "Given the law of averages, I hardly accept the appearance of the Daelvini woman as fulfillment of any sort of <i>prophecy</i>."



Malcolm glowered at the faceless shapes, wondering which was the one to whom he spoke. "I may be arrogant, but I never mentioned a prophecy."



"Regardless," the aged woman's voice cut in, like a jagged razor. "It has always been the policy of the Veil Society to treat any transgressions across the shadow barrier with direct and final action. How do you propose to deal with this woman's appearance?"



"With all due respect, madam," Malcolm said carefully. "The policy of hunt and destroy was adopted in response to attacks by aggressive shadow creatures. Xyllah was indelibly helpful. If not for her assistance, one of my teams might very well have been obliterated by a Lesser Noble Shakkar."

<hr pg="8" />"So, you propose . . .?" she prompted.



"Without easy access to means to return her across the Veil, I suggest she join the very same team she assisted. Dr. Perrin could certainly use the help, capable as he and his team are."



An uneasy grumble rolled forth from the seven shadowed figures.



"This is unprecedented," the woman said at last.



"What other options do we have?" asked Malcolm. "Kill her? Or relegate her to obscurity, and wait for her to grow bored and escape on her own? If she is associated with a team, at the least we can keep an eye on her. Aside from that, her skills and knowledge will prove invaluable. There is no other team in the Veil Society with a true arcane practitioner. Not of her level, at any rate."



"All the more reason to dispose of her," said the same cantankerous male voice from before.



A different man spoke up. "The eradication of valuable biological species is deplorable enough," he said. "Murder I will not abide. I agree with Dr. Benedict's suggestion."



"As do I," voiced another.



"And I."



"Well, I do not," snarled the gruff man.



"Nor me."



"I would have to say nay."



Malcolm bristled, but as he counted the votes he had heard, he realized there was one voice he had not heard: that of the woman. "It comes down to the power of one voice," he said. "Shall we learn from Xyllah, or toss her to the curb as rubbish?"



The silence which followed was heavy, pregnant with possibilities which Malcolm found unpleasant. When the lone woman's voice finally sounded, he stiffened at her words.



"Can you tell us, with all assurance, that the Daelvini's motives collaborate with ours?"



"No, I can't," he answered.



"Then how do you know she can be controlled?"



Malcolm allowed himself a small, sly smile. "Because, if left to her devices, she would not last long in this world. I believe she understands this. More than that, however, I believe there is a far more powerful motive, one which will insure her compliance."



"And that is?"



"Dr. Perrin," Malcolm answered. "I strongly suspect a connection between them. A sense of dependency, even, on her part."



"And if Dr. Perrin becomes compromised?"



Malcolm chuckled. "I strongly doubt that could happen."



* * * *



Snowflakes danced like fairies in the streetlight outside the safe house. The neighborhood was quiet, but it was relatively early, yet. By midnight, the boom-boom rattle of expensive sound systems would sound from various tricked-out cars rolling through the streets. The cold might keep all but the most desperate of drug dealers and prostitutes inside, but the cruisers would still be out, keeping an eye on their territory.



For the moment, Kyle was thankful for the relative silence. He smoked his cigarette calmly, exhaling thick smoke and watching it drift away and dissipate. Despite the calm facade he wore, however, the mind within the body was in conflict.



Two days had passed since the Shakkar had been banished back across the Veil. In that time, Malcolm had departed for places unknown, mentioning something vague about meeting with "the Council." Victor and Faster had been relieved for the time being, to tend to wounds and see to the details of their mundane lives. But Dr. Kyle Perrin had no such mundane life, and his wounds were minimal. For the most part.



He heard the door open and close behind him, felt her presence. There was a warmth that radiated from her, gentle yet powerful, as much soothing as it was foreboding. 



"Will you come to bed tonight?" Her voice was soft, almost plaintive.



Kyle sighed, keeping his lips closed and expelling harsh smoke from his nose. He tapped the butt of his cigarette, watching white flakes of ash dance in the air on their languid way to the ground. "Is that what you're really asking?"



Xyllah was quiet as she moved closer, coming up beside him. The aromas of soap and shampoo wafted about her; a thick white robe was wrapped about her narrow shoulders, hiding the lithe body beneath. "You are suspicious of me," she remarked, her face in profile as she stared out toward the quiet street.



"Of course I am. If I had come to your world, our roles would probably be reversed."



"Perhaps," she admitted. She sighed heavily, long elfin ears betraying a slight twitch. "But our worlds are so different."



He glanced to her briefly, studying the mask of her face. "How?"



"I have never seen the sun," she said, her voice small and faint. "We know it is there, but . . ." She drifted off, catching Kyle's skeptical look from the corner of her eye. She blushed and smiled admonishingly before continuing. "For you, the Veil is an invisible barrier between our two worlds. But for us, it is real. It cloaks the world, hiding the sun. It is like a smothering blanket. Our lands are stark and barren; almost nothing grows except the hardiest of vegetation, and only the strongest and most durable beasts and predators survive. The surface is a dangerous and inhospitable place."



Kyle wrinkled his brow, momentarily forgetting the stump of the cigarette smoldering between his fingers. "You live underground?"



Xyllah nodded. "In a way. Most of the clans of my people live inside mountains. Protected from the violent world outside by gates and powerful spells. Now and then, on certain holy days, we venture through tunnels to the top of the mountain, to catch the faintest glimpse of the sun through the darkness that covers us. I have only been so privileged twice."



Understanding filtered through Kyle's mind. "That's why you stayed," he said.



"I stayed to ensure I contained an evil," she rebuked quickly, then sighed again. "But I cannot deny it. To see a world such as this, with green trees and life upon the ground, with light and snow and fresh, rich air . . . I admit, I could have left at any time by taking Michael's book. But I wanted to stay. It was . . . was--"



"A holiday," Kyle offered with a smile.



She nodded curtly. "Yes. One I selfishly felt I deserved."



He flicked his cigarette onto the frozen ground and turned to face her. "What, exactly, is life like for a Zantrist Adept?"



She managed a wan smile. "I would say it is equal parts consort and wizard," she said. "The art of Zantra has its demands . . . and social roles. While equal in power, Daelvini women of even my status are not quite equal in standing."



Kyle nodded slowly with a knowing smile. "In that regard, there's not much difference between your world and mine."



"But the woman named Faster," she said. "You depend upon her. You recognize her skill and don't hold her hand. Such respect is unheard of in my world."



"Respect is earned," Kyle muttered, tossing the cigarette into the snow beyond the porch. "I don't care if you're male or female, if you prove you're capable, you have my respect."



Xyllah's next words were halting, tentative. "Have I--"



"Yes," he answered quickly, watching the beginnings of a fresh snowfall.



"You did not hesitate."



"I knew what you were going to ask."



"Was that appeasement, then? Or honesty?"



He met her eyes. "That's for you to decide."



She held his gaze a moment, then looked away, adjusting the robe. A brief flash of pale, smooth skin upon her upper chest caught Kyle's eye before it was covered.



"There is something I need to tell you," she said after a moment.



Kyle frowned. "Oh?"



She smiled nervously. "I am not sure how this will affect our, eh, relationship, but I feel I need to tell you."



Kyle was both intrigued and suspicious. "I assume this is about what you didn't want to tell me before."



She nodded slowly. "Yes."



The anthropologist took a steeling breath. "So?"



"Perhaps you should sit," she suggested.



He gave her an irritated look. "Just tell me what this is about."



"Not what," she said pointedly. "<i>Who</i>."



He frowned. "Who?"



Again she nodded. "It is about someone we both know. To me, he is known as the <i>Andrutha</i>. But I believe you know him as . . . Keller."



Kyle blinked once, fighting against the sense of incredulousness that threatened to overwhelm him. He worked his lips as he struggled to find his voice. "M-Max Keller?"



"As I said, perhaps you should come in and sit down."



* * * *



Faster stared at the phone in her hands as she sat upon the edge of the bed in her small uptown apartment. The aromas from her shower wafted in the air. Until the decision had been made, she had felt relaxed, comfortable, ready for sleep.



Her fingers felt heavy at first when she touched the buttons, but as she scrolled through the menu on the face of her cell, seeing the messages left for her, every touch became lighter, easier. Finally, she depressed a button and held the phone to her ear.



It rang four times before it was picked up. ". . . Hello?"



"Dwight?"



There was a moment of silence. "Dawn?"



She found herself smiling. "Yeah, it's me. Um, sorry I didn't call you back. It's been really crazy with work and--"



"It's okay."



She swallowed thickly. "No, it's not. I should've said goodbye or something."



She heard him stirring on the other end, eliciting an image in her mind of her lover stretching across satin sheets. "Well, it would have been nice."



"You're mad at me."



"No."



"Disappointed."



"Maybe a little. I wasn't looking for a one night stand."



"I wasn't either."



"You sure?"



She chewed her lip. "I am now."



He sighed through the phone. "It might surprise you, but I really thought we were off to a good start," Dwight said. "And I don't mean the sex."



Faster squeezed her eyes shut, making an effort to control her emotions. "I'd like a second chance to make it up to you," she said, then laughed. "I don't do that too often."



He laughed back, sounding genuine. "You're not gonna disappear on me again?"



"No," she vowed quickly. "Promise."



He sighed again. "Okay. But one condition."



"What's that?"



"No sex."



She frowned. "What?"



The mirth was obvious in his voice. "I want to take you out, have some fun, just enjoy being with you," he said. "But, at the end of the night, I go my way, you go yours. We'll take it from there."



Faster thought a moment. "Okay."



"You free tomorrow?"



"Yeah."



"Good. Seven o'clock. Dress to dance."



She grinned. "I will."



"'Night, Dawn."



"'Night . . . Dwight."

