TITLE    : Beyond The Veil Ch. 05
STORYID  : beyond-the-veil-ch-05
SUMMARY  : Trolls prowl the city, and the team gets a new member
AUTHOR   : slyc_willie@lit
DATE     : 2009-07-11
CATEGORY : science-fiction-fantasy
FLAGS    : h
TAGS     : |fantasy erotica|fantasy adventure|victor cortes|xyllah|trolls|monster|magic|


<i>(Author's note: in Chapter Three, I introduced the character of Detective Ritter. I have since decided to give that character a larger role in the series, but decided to change his last name from Ritter to Jonas for aesthetic reasons.)</i>



* * * *



Faster reached the mouth of the alley, breath coming in short, regulated bursts. Air thick and cloying with scents of spring mingled with the stench of the city, she nonetheless detected a different odor, one more feral and basic. And recent. <i>Damn, these things stink,</i> she thought, looking around quickly. Skeletal fire escapes scaled the walls of the buildings to her left and right. Dented steel dumpsters occupied the pock-marked alley like giant hermit crabs. The detritus of urban life sat thickly on the ground like a sludge of desperation, anxiety, and failed hope.



A clattering above brought her attention to the nearest fire escape. Just as she looked, a large, hairy figure disappeared through the gaping third-floor window of the decrepit building. Quickly, she tucked the pistol in her left hand beneath her armpit and took up her cell. The press of a single button was all it took.



"Xyllah, it's coming your way."



There was only a brief pause before the Daelvini answered. "I hear it above me."



Another voice broke in, that of the team's leader, Kyle. "Use whatever means necessary, Xyllah. It's already killed several times."



"How far away are you?"



"Ground floor, coming in."



"Me, too," came the gruff voice of Victor Cortes. "I'm through the back door."



"Guess I'm taking the fire escape," grumbled Faster, snapping her cell closed and tucking the chromed pistols away beneath her leather blazer. She leapt fluidly atop the warped plastic lid of a dumpster, then reached for the hanging ladder of the fire escape. Years of athletics and Parkour paid off as she quickly scaled upward, reaching the second-floor landing in just a few handfuls of seconds. The metal framework around her rattled as she darted to the third floor, where she had seen the creature enter the building. Her pistols were already in hand when she faced the dark, open window through which their quarry had passed.



"Come out, come out, wherever you are," she whispered in a sing-song voice under her breath, stepping from the crisp light of day into smoggy, stifling shadow. All about lay the tell-tale evidence of homeless squatters; empty cans of food and fast food containers fished from the dumpsters, rag heaps and soiled old mattresses serving as beds, and more than a few discarded beer and liquor bottles. The air was palpable with the stench of spoiled alcohol and unwashed bodies, yet the homeless themselves were not to be found. Faster was glad for that.



Furtive eyes searched the shadowy walls. She was well aware that, given the dimness of the lighting, and the dankness of the building, a crafty foe could use that to their advantage, if they were smart enough.



Almost too late, she caught the movement from the corner of her eye: the stirring of shadow, before it erupted into aggressive, deadly action.



She pivoted swiftly, fingers squeezing the triggers toward the massive, hairy silhouette of her foe. Only when the muzzles of the twin pistols flashed was she able to see the details of wild, crimson-hued eyes, bared fangs, thick black fur and blade-like talons. Whether any of her bullets found a place in the body of the creature, Faster was unsure as it slashed with a powerful, raking blow that dug deep into the body armor covering her torso. But while the expensive weave of polymer, Kevlar and metal kept the claw from biting into flesh, the impact was enough to send the slender brunette off her feet.



Yet, even as she was hurled backward, she continued to fire, pulling the triggers of her pistols as swiftly as she could. The briefest sense of satisfaction blossomed in her mind before she collided hard with the wall behind her. She slumped to the floor, concrete dust raining around her. Dazed, disoriented, she struggled to get her bearings even as the thick-bodied monster approached, looming menacingly.



"Eat you," the creature growled, stooping low and opening a broad mouth filled with fangs.



"No, you will not," insisted an accented voice, emanating from the hallway which lead to the room.



The monster switched its attention immediately from Faster to the slim, elfin woman clad minimally in black leather boots and matching one-piece bodysuit which kept her limbs and neck uncovered. Flowing silvery hair hung behind an oval face dominated by large, dark eyes and elongated, pointed ears.



"Daelvini?" the monster asked, black features and wide mouth distorted in confusion. "<i>Akeen</i>?"



"Yes, here," Xyllah answered, stepping calmly into the room. Her opalescent eyes remained locked with the creature's, taking advantage of it's baffled state, but her words were for the woman on the floor. "Faster?"



The brunette shook her head to clear it of both debris and mental cobwebs. She glanced up from the floor, barely seeing the slender form of the pale-skinned Daelvini beyond the squat, shaggy brute they had cornered. "I'm here," she answered, taking up her weapons from the floor.



The monster snarled, casting quick, furtive eyes behind it to the woman on the floor, then back to the Daelvini. "<i>Mertu sen</i>," it menaced in its throaty rumble.



"I think not," answered Xyllah as she gestured.



The shaggy beast was quick to attack once more, leaping through the air with the grace and deadly puissance of a leopard. But as it descended upon Xyllah, her image shuddered and disappeared, leaving only dark, empty space. Enraged and confused, the monster landed, stumbling, and crashed into a wall head-first.



With a defiant roar, the creature jerked its bloodied head back. "<i>Mertu sen!</i>" it declared again its inhuman voice, then spun about in search of tis enemy.



Instead of finding the Daelvini, however, the hoary, ragged beast found itself staring at the faintly-glimmering chromed barrels of a pair of intimidating weapons, and beyond that, a deadly sneer. "Mertu sen yourself," Faster quipped, and pulled the triggers.



A last roar from the monster was cut short as the bullets tore through beady red eyes and into gory brain matter behind. For a long moment, the beast remained rooted to the spot, blood trickling from flared nostrils, wide maw hanging slack. Then without another noise, it fell to the ground, unmoving, the bloodied face smacking wetly onto wooden floorboards.



"Nice trick," commented the brunette, nudging the corpse with her foot. She gave Xyllah only a brief look as the Daelvini emerged from a different doorway.



"The majority of my magic is not aggressive," she said with a smirk. "But the Art can be woven to create that which is not truly there."



"Yeah. It's called illusion," Faster remarked, replacing her weapons and taking up her cell. "You were too slow, boys," she said. "The chicks took out the trash today." She held up her hand in a high-five gesture for the elfin woman.



Xyllah grinned as she clasped hands with her human compatriot.



* * * *



". . . dramatic showdown with police and private law enforcement downtown today. The killer dubbed 'the Troll' due to his excessive body hair and animal-like attacks was killed, following a chase through downtown city streets ending at the Koger Building. The mayor was quick to publicly praise the unnamed law enforcement agents credited with bringing to end the Troll's reign of terror, which began more than two weeks ago--"



Kyle clicked off the television in his apartment, shaking his head ruefully at the story being spun to hide both the reality of the Troll -- its name was more apt than anyone would ever know -- and the status of he and his team. <i>'Law enforcement agents,'</i> he thought dryly. <i>But then, how could we ever tell the truth?</i>



<i> "Hi, I'm Dr. Kyle Perrin, anthropologist, theorist, oh, and I lead a strike team employed by the Veil Society that hunts down and kills monsters who happen to find their way into our world. Any questions"</i>



<i>Yeah, that would go over really well . . . .</i>



With a tired sigh, he flipped through the pages of the book before him. It sat upon dozens of others piled atop his coffee table, all of which dealt with various aspects of the paranormal. Kyle was tired of reading through the same old theories, occasionally advanced through scientific means, but most often through conjecture and stipulation, over and over. As well, nothing of what he read, through hundreds of documented case files, mirrored the experience he'd had in France.



The knock at the door startled him at first, but the unique cadence -- <i>thump-thump-pause-thump-thump</i> -- told him it was Malcolm Benedict, his Veil Society benefactor. Still, he was cautious as he approached the door, taking from the secretary beside the portal his compact revolver. He peered through the spyhole, seeing the wizened, salt-and-pepper bearded face of the man on the other side. Satisfied, he disengaged the locks.



"Not like you to make house calls, Malcolm," Kyle commented as soon as he had opened the door.



The older man smiled thinly. "You haven't stopped by Shades in a while," he said, referring to the hotel bar in which the Veil Society team often met. "Not since returning from France. That's been, what? Three weeks? I thought I would see how my captain is doing."



Kyle arched an eyebrow. "So I'm a captain, now. Is that a promotion or demotion?"



"Neither," answered Malcolm as he followed Kyle into the apartment. He noted the array of books and tomes before the couch as Kyle headed to one of the bookshelves, retrieving a bottle of Glenfiddich and a pair of glasses.



"Find out anything on that book?" the anthropologist asked, referring to the enigmatic mention of such by the assassin in France.



"Still looking into it," Malcolm muttered.



"Hmm."



"Reading up on ghosts, now?" Malcolm asked after a cursory glance over the publications on the table. "The Library has a wealth of information on the subject."



"Been through it," Kyle revealed, pouring a couple of healthy belts of the golden liquid. He offered one to Malcolm, who took it after a moment's hesitation.



"What?" asked Kyle, then noticed where Malcolm's eyes fell. He smiled in mild admonishment, tapping the arcane limb that had taken the place of his right arm. "Yeah, it still amazes me sometimes, too."



Malcolm chuckled, sniffing, then sipping the scotch. "I'll be honest. When Victor first told me Xyllah had fixed you up with a new arm made from hickory, I didn't expect . . . but then, I should have known."



Kyle narrowed his eyes, if only for a moment. "How could you? I had no idea Xyllah's abilities extended to being able to create a fully functional artificial limb. How could you have known better?"



The older man's chuckle returned, this time with a note of embarrassment. "I'm supposed to know more than you, remember?"



Kyle winked with a smile. "Oh. Right."



"So, what is this sudden fascination with apparitions and poltergeists?"



The young anthropologist eased back in the couch, languidly swirling the potent liquor in his glass. "In Brazil, there's a tribe that believes there is no such thing as death. All souls were created when the universe began, and just keep going through various stages of growth. Sometimes they regress, sometimes they move on. Eventually, they reach the Ultimate End, where they exist in harmony until the end of time."



Malcolm pursed his lips. "Sounds something like the Buddhist belief in Nirvana."



"Eh, in a way, which is an interesting comparison considering that, until just a handful of centuries ago, the Americas and Asia never met. That is, if you believe the established history of things according to mainstream science."



"Which I know you do not," Malcolm stated. "Is there a point to this?"



Kyle continued as if he had not been interrupted. "See, this tribe believes that sometimes, spirits that are close to the Ultimate End deliberately choose to stay back, so that they can guide others. Something like, well, a Holy Ghost for the Christians."



The two men were quiet a moment, watching one another. They both sipped their scotch before Malcolm asked the baited question. "Are you telling me you've seen a ghost?"



Kyle grinned, but it vanished quickly as he sat up. He fixed Malcolm a deadpan look. "Maybe."



The older man shrugged. "Given our line of work, anything is possible, I suppose."



"That's the problem," Kyle returned. "<i>Anything</i> is possible. See, before, I would have considered what I encountered to be explained <i>only</i> as a ghost. But now . . . now, there are a lot of possibilities. Too many."



Malcolm dragged one of the straight-backed chairs spaced around the room closer and sat. "Tell me what happened."



Kyle sipped his scotch, contemplating. Then he began.



* * * *



Frank Howard used to look forward to Saturday nights. He remembered a time when the penultimate end to a week of hard work meant imminent reward in the form of good beer and even better feminine company. But such rewards were the stuff of bygone days, before he had listened to his stock broker, before he had lost two and a half million dollars -- more than his personal and professional worth -- when the stock market began to plummet. Before he discovered how "close" his friends and family truly were.



Now, Saturday nights were when all the other homeless bums on Tragedy Row (which they called Tragedon Avenue) swarmed St. Helena's for a free meal, then flooded his usually quiet corner of the alley between Riverside and Peak. There wasn't anything more pathetic, Frank figured, than a bum asking another bum for a smoke or a nip from a bottle of cheap rum.



Being a large-shouldered man helped, however, reducing most of the other vagrants to annoyances as opposed to actual threats. He still didn't like the way they eyed his collection of salvage, stuffed into a rickety old shopping cart half hidden by the ramshackle home he had constructed of layers of cardboard, newspaper and discarded wooden pallets from the Goodwill a few blocks over. But only an idiot would steal from Big Frank, he knew.



Not that the world was suffering from a shortage of fools . . . .



"You keep lookin' at my cart like that, and everythin' you got'll be part of it," he growled toward a nameless newcomer who had been lingering a little too long. He was a recent "drop," Frank figured, judging from his clothes. <i>Probably ain't been homeless for more'n a few weeks. Military head case or Chapter Eleven. Don't care which. He's gonna have'ta learn the rules somehow.</i>



The man glared -- he still had that defiance Frank himself had once possessed, years before, when he still thought homelessness was a temporary thing -- but his eyes flickered after a moment under Frank's unwavering, threatening stare. With a shuffle of his feet and a bow of his head, the man moved away, joining the others toward the end of the alley. Most of them, Frank knew, would pass out drunk on cheap booze and stay the night. Come morning when the city crews woke everyone up -- well, everyone but those firmly entrenched and harmless, like Frank -- they would be gone, and Frank's quiet little alley would be quiet once more.



He shook a bag of jerky from his coat, slipped a couple of good-sized chunks out. <i>The homeless man's diet, </i>he bemused.<i> Bad rum and beef jerky. Least I still got the teeth to chew it . . . .</i>



The sound of empty tin cans clattering to the ground further back in the alley garnered his attention. Frank turned with a scowl, looking toward Harvey Boone's shack. Harve was the oldest man in the alley, a short-statured Vietnam vet who, at just over five feet in height, had always been first pick for 'tunnel rat' duty during his tours of service. Rumor had it that he had once been married, but had killed his wife one night, thinking her Viet Cong. Harve had the best shack in the alley, consisting of an old iron dumpster turned on its side, packed with insulation and boarded with wood so that only one of the two heavy tin covers could be opened.



"That you, Harve?" Frank called, taking a few steps from his ramshackle abode. "Better stay in tonight; it's Saturday."



No response. Frank frowned; he had known Harve since first coming to Tragedy Row. He could even consider the old black man a friend, regardless of his origins. Both concerned and nervous, Frank dared a few steps closer.



He noticed the discarded cans, painted all around with images of screaming faces and various acts of violence, laying just outside the shack's "door." Harve was always painting empty tin cans, using mainly ash, mud and other such mediums. But he never let them out of his shack. "Harve? You awake?"



Again, no response. Frank hesitated, torn between the alarmist reaction within him that screamed 'something isn't right!' and the always-inadvisable option of leaving his belongings untended on a Saturday night. Staring at the cans which had rolled from the slightly opened shack, Frank begrudgingly inched closer, while scanning backward to ensure his home was not about to be set upon by opportunists.



"Come on, Harve, ya lost some of your cans. Get your drunk ass up."



The absence of a reply even to that inflammatory call really made Frank nervous. Gritting his teeth, the former millionaire nudged the heavy tin flap of the shack with his foot. It sagged and creaked for a moment before opening, allowing the contents within to tumble out.



For a moment, Frank just stared, un sure of what he was seeing. Layers of rags, smeared all over with blood and gore and grime, obscured the amoebic shape before him. After the span of a few heartbeats, however, Frank's mind finally told him that what he saw was the limbless, headless torso of Harvey Boone.



"Sweet Mary, mother of Jesus," the man muttered, crossing himself for the first time in nearly a decade.



* * * *



The enigmatic note on the cabin door left Kyle both puzzled and aroused.



<i>"I am by the pool, vialor. There is something both delicious and erotic about a full moon. I wish for you to come and join me."</i>



Although well into spring, the night still held a chill, making Kyle wonder if his lover's plans were worth the potential of pneumonia. While Xyllah seemed to enjoy a supernatural resistance to the cold -- she had explained it as a function of her heritage and close connection to the magic she termed 'the Art' -- the Veil team leader was still very much human. Despite that understanding, however, Kyle felt compelled to seek his otherworldly lover where she waited . . . and to see what delights she had to offer this time.



He was neither disappointed by the chill which crept through the forest surrounding the cabin, nor the sight which greeted him when he approached the pool. The property's former owners, sponsoring members of the Ouroborous Museum, had installed a nicely-hidden pool within a grove of thick-limbed elms. Underlit with soft radiance and reflecting the glow of the Moon overhead, the pond-like body of water epitomized a sense of fairy-tale serenity . . . and, in this case, eroticism.



She sat along the far side of the marble-ringed pool, one slender, pale leg slipped into the water as she sat caressing the other. The alabaster tone of Xyllah's nude body was a perfect complement to the glow of the lunar orb high above, and a contrast to the silky aquamarine below. Her hair was down, framing a childlike, oval face with wispy strands which seemed spun from the very moon itself.



Opaque, dark eyes lifted slowly at Kyle's approach. The small catlike mouth curled slightly at the corners. "I've been waiting for you," she said, her voice a whisper which drifted along the breeze between them.



Kyle took a moment to collect his thoughts, stemming the rush of arousal which washed through him. "I hope the wait wasn't too long."

<hr pg="2" />She straightened her back, thrusting the stiff, preternaturally pink nipples of smallish breasts outward. "For a Daelvini, a few hours are as minutes."



Kyle managed a smile, stepping around the edge of the pool. The lighting beneath the water cast an aquamarine glow across him and the trees closest to the edge. "What would it be like, to live for centuries," he muttered, as if to himself.



"I sometimes wonder what it is like to have your life measured in decades," she responded, watching his approach. "Do you wonder if there is enough time to accomplish all that you desire?"



He chuckled under his breath. "Depends on your expectations," he said. "Some of us obsess too much, trying to cram all we can into the first three or four decades, forsaking basic pleasures in exchange for the chance to fulfill them at our leisure when we age. Others feel they have no choice but to simply survive. I imagine there are examples of both among the Daelvini."



She shrugged, eyes averted. "That depends upon one's caste, I suppose. The lower orders do not live as long, nor as well, as those in the upper tier. Still, even the basest among us live to see at least two centuries, barring anything . . . unfortunate."



Kyle circumvented the pool and stopped a few paces from the slender elfin woman, unabashedly admiring the bright pink tone of her exposed sex and nipples, which contrasted with her porcelain skin and silver hair. "I'm guessing you enjoy a life in the upper tiers."



Her eyes dipped, but still she smiled. "The Sirriharda are among the most revered," she admitted.
 "I assumed as much."



For a long moment, the lovers simply stared into one another's eyes, reading into them what they both hoped and feared. Xyllah parted her lean thighs slowly, leaning back upon one hand as she casually displayed the split petals of her nearly iridescent pussy. Her free hand languidly caressed the firm mounds of her breasts, teasing the stiff nipples even further.



"Will you disrobe?" she asked at last.



Kyle smiled wanly, but his arousal was evident, especially once he had removed his clothes, tossing them aside. Though of slender build, he was rather impressively endowed, and his thick, swollen cock angled toward his lover like a divining rod. Xyllah stared upon it, unabashed in her appraisal of that singular part of Kyle's anatomy. Her cheeks blushed noticeably, and she pulled at a thick scarlet nipple.



"There is something I wish to share with you."



He arched an eyebrow, wondering how much more of Xyllah's sexuality he had yet to experience. "Oh?"



Her eyes lifted -- with some effort -- to capture his. "We call it the <i>Lor'ahua</i>," she informed. "The 'Love in Water.' Among the Sirriharda, it is among the most sacred of rituals."



Kyle stepped closer. "Why is that?"



Xyllah smiled sexily and uncurled herself, pushing to her feet. "In my world, water is a rare commodity. We live in high mountain holts, away from the dangers that plague the land. Bringing water from beneath the surface is tenuous, even difficult; we therefore cherish it. Bathing, for even a Sirriharda priestess such as myself, is a luxury enjoyed perhaps only two or three times in a fortnight."



Kyle cocked his head. "I see. So what is this . . . <i>Lor'ahua</i>?"



In answer, Xyllah stepped close, all but pressing herself against Kyle's body. The weight of his semi-swollen penis brushed against the soft downy growth of silvery hair above her otherwise smooth, slick mound. Enticingly, she offered up what looked like a flower bulb. "Swallow this," she instructed. "Do not chew it, just swallow it whole."



Kyle leaned back, regarding the bulb for a moment. It was, in fact, a lily leaf wrapped tightly around whatever ingredients were encased inside. "What is it?"



"A focus," Xyllah explained. "It will not hurt you. The herbs are from this world, I assure you, and quite harmless, but mixed in specific amounts and altered by the Art."



"What does it do?" he asked, even as the elfin woman rubbed the tiny bundle lightly against his lips.



"It allows you to breathe the water," she said with an inviting glimmer in her dark eyes. "So that we may enjoy ourselves for as long as we wish, as those born of the life-giving sea do."



He hesitated. "Breathe . . . water?" he asked skeptically.



She smiled more broadly. "If you cannot trust your <i>vialor</i>," she whispered. "Then, who?"



Again, hesitation entered his mind. But Kyle fought against it, and allowed Xyllah to push the tightly-bound bundle into his mouth. Heeding her instructions, he swallowed it with difficulty, feeling the dry drag of plant fiber against the back of his throat. He grimaced slightly, feeling it being pushed down his esophagus.



Xyllah grinned. "Now," she said with the air of a teacher. "When you first inhale the water, it will hurt. It will be disconcerting. You have to focus beyond that, and know -- <i>believe</i> -- that you can breathe in the water. Trust in me, if nothing else."



Slowly, he nodded, as Xyllah guided him to the edge of the pool. Her hands fluttered down his narrow, toned torso, finding the length of his cock and the heavy, hanging sacs beneath. She grinned up at him. "Together?" she asked.



He nodded wordlessly, then pitched with his lover to the side and fell into the cold, crisp water.



The temperature was a shock at first, awakening his senses in the rudest way, but very soon, he felt a warmth traveling through his limbs, as if every muscle had been comforted by a heating pad. Floating beneath the surface, fanning his legs and arms about, he looked past the cloud of bubbles between he and Xyllah, holding his breath as he gave her a questioning look.



In response, she only smiled, opening her mouth wide. Air burbled up quickly from deep inside her throat, swarming to the surface. Then she made the exaggerated motion of inhaling deeply, her features contorting as she struggled against the unnatural invasion of water into her lungs. But the convulsions were brief, and with effort, she opened her eyes and smiled again. Kyle could just make out the ripples of water as they flowed from her mouth, then as she breathed in once more.



<i>Okay, if she can do it, I can</i>-- his thoughts exploded chaotically within a field of disorientation and panic as he filled his lungs with water. Muscles tightened in reflex; pain shot through the core of his body as it reacted to the sensation of drowning. The thickness of the fluid was unexpected, despite what he knew; he had hoped that Xyllah's magic would make the water more like air. But, no, he truly was inhaling water, feeling the pressure of it within his chest, then pushing it back out. Amazingly to Kyle, however, was the realization that he was not drowning.



Almost euphorically, he looked to Xyllah, who floated before him, silver hair surrounding her oval face like the brilliant halo of an angel. She grinned back, and nodded, as if affirming to him that what he experienced was not a dream, nor an illusion, but rather the oddest of realities.



She swam close, grasping his arms and swinging her body toward his. The heat of her sex all but burned against his lower abdomen as she locked her legs around his waist. Giving him an intent look, she eased off slightly, slipping a hand between their bodies. Slender fingers wrapped around the engorged shaft of his cock, rubbing the head against a very slick and very ready opening.



<i>Take me</i>, her lips read, though her words were lost in the volume of water between them.



Kyle stared into her opaque black orbs as he pushed inside her, feeling the tightness, the heat, the welcoming and familiar tugging. His cock pulsed and stiffened even more, as if seeking to burrow itself deeper inside the body of his otherworldly lover. Xyllah responded with a gaping sigh which was lost to the water, and let her body relax. Arms and legs fanned out broadly; she was as a sacrifice impaled upon the skewer of her lover's penis.



For his part, Kyle reveled in the new sensations, all but giddily enjoying the unique sensation of breathing the heavy fluid surrounding him, almost as much as he enjoyed the nearly weightless sensation of his burning coupling with Xyllah. Together, they twisted and turned, floating back and forth beneath the surface of the pool, making waves now and then which occasionally sloshed against the pool's edges above. Xyllah seemed lost to the pleasures she felt, eagerly rolling her body against Kyle's, wanting to maximize her pleasure.



And for his part, Kyle felt his release building much faster than normal, coaxed up from a body held weightless in space and time until it could no longer be held in check--



<i>Oh! God!</i> He bucked and convulsed, gripping the Daelvini's hips tightly, to the point where his hands would leaver impressions which would take days to heal, as his cock burned and pulsed and spat deep inside Xyllah's womb. He threw his head back, succumbing to a cloudy state of disembodied timelessness, in which nothing existed but pure pleasure.



The intensity of his orgasm was incomparable to anything he had previously enjoyed. He felt his entire body tensing even long after the sensations had passed, as if subconsciously vying insistently for more.



He looked down upon Xyllah in the clear, gently-glowing water that surrounded them. She looked unconscious for a moment, floating against him with her arms fanned out, hair shifting back and forth like a school of fish. The dreamy smile upon her moonlight-colored face was like the rapturous gleam of one of the faithful after a willing sacrifice. Panic gripped him briefly, and he reached for her.



But his fears were abated when she opened her eyes and curled up to meet him, bringing her arms about his shoulders and pressing warm lips to his. The sensation of water passing back and forth between them was surreal, reminding him of where they were.



Desire flared in her eyes as she leaned back and stared unto him. With a knowing smile, she slipped back, releasing his cock from with her body. Fluidly, she floated down and slipped her mouth around his penis, sucking the residue of their first lovemaking and bringing him back to rigidity. She stretched out, as if lying face-down upon a bed, barely fanning her limbs to keep herself in position. Kyle grinned, realizing their lovemaking was not yet over, and gently gripped her head, pushing deeply into Xyllah's mouth.



* * * *



The chill of the night air had returned, marking the end of Xyllah's enchantment and the return of the real world to his senses. Kyle sat upon one of the chairs on the cabin's small rear deck and lit a cigarette. The taste of the pool water still lingered in the back of his mouth, and his throat constricted slightly with each intake of caustic smoke. He sucked on the filter carefully, inhaling only what his body would accept, and breathed out clouds of wispy vapor which dissipated in the night.



"Kyle?"



He looked back, holding the cigarette poised between fingers, and smiled. "Yeah."



He heard her breathe in with a lover's satisfaction as her body pressed against his. The billowing cloak of a quilted blanket surrounded them both. "<i>Tu mi vialor,</i>" she whispered. "<i>Sta mi impregante</i>."



Kyle frowned. Xyllah's language, he had discovered, was similar to many ancient romance dialects with which he was, if only vaguely, familiar. "'Impregante?'" he asked carefully.



She moaned softly, sliding her chin over his left shoulder while breathing into his ear. "Our ritual is complete," she said. "We are joined. Completely, totally . . . and within me, a life has begun."



Kyle stiffened, alarmed. "You mean, you're pregnant?" he asked. "How can you be sure? I mean, it takes weeks to really be certain--"



"I am sure, <i>vialor</i>," she whispered huskily, gripping him more tightly about his shoulder whilst playfully licking his ear. "As sure as I am that we are now one, bound by the rite of the <i>Lor'ahua</i>."



He turned just enough to face her. "You mean . . . this ritual . . . we're--"



She touched his lips and smiled. "We are bound, from this day forward," she whispered. "We are married."



Kyle was speechless, with only a single thought shooting through his mind:



<i>Married?</i>



* * * *



The detritus-strewn alley was emptied of people, but not the accumulation of their misery-filled lives. They stood outside the barricades erected by police, anxiously awaiting the go-ahead to reclaim their belongings. Kyle noted the worry and distress on their faces as he ducked under the yellow crime scene tape, and sympathized. <i>How would I feel if someone told me I couldn't return to my own home?</i>



He was both amused and strangely gladdened to see a familiar form among the uniformed patrol officers in the alley. Approaching behind the man, Kylle rapped him on the shoulder.



"So, what've we got, Jonas?" he asked as casually, as if he and the detective were drinking buddies.



The younger, dark-haired man turned about, gape-mouthed for a moment as he took in the anthropologist. Then he laughed ruefully, shaking his head. "Should'a known you'd be here. This fits right in with your unit, don't it?"



Kyle regarded the small, covered form on the ground before them. "Maybe," he agreed. "From the initial report, this sounds like a troll killing."



The detective frowned. "Thought you guys capped him already."



Kyle shrugged. "Doesn't mean there can't be a copycat," he said. <i>Or another troll . . . .</i>



"Well, if it is a copycat, he's just as gruesome as the perp you got yesterday," Jonas said, kneeling and reaching for the heavy tarp that covered the body. The sickening stench of decaying flesh and blood roiled out toward them. Flies buzzed excitedly in the air, anticipating an engorging meal and hope for their next generation.



Kyle observed the remains detachedly, taking everything in with a clinical eye. "Looks like it. So who was the victim?"



Jonas stood, slapping the cover back over the limbless, decapitated corpse. He looked pallid as he loosened his tie. "No confirmed ID just yet," he shared, then took out his PDA. "According to locals, his name was Harvey Boone. Vietnam vet. We're checking the name." He gave Kyle a look. "Maybe you and your magical connections can help with that?"



Kyle smirked. "What, are you giving me another free case?"



Jonas soured, then faced the Veil team leader directly. "I don't like how things went down with that last case," he said. "But from the sound of things, you tied it up. Same thing with this Troll guy. Whether or not I like it, you have a pretty good track record. That is, what few tracks I could find."



"Been checking up on me?"



The younger detective shrugged. "Maybe. Hey, can't fault me for being curious, right?"



"So, what did you find?"



Jonas snorted. "I found out you were captain of your debate team and chess club in college," he responded dryly. "And you've written some funky books. Now, all of a sudden, no matter what you do, you've got the Governor and who knows who else backing you up and looking the other way."



Kyle winked. "Guess I was born under a charmed sign."



"Bullshit. I've never run into so many roadblocks in my life when checking somebody out. Federal witnesses get fewer blank pages in their file than you."



Kyle did not waver. "Well, if you think you can question me directly, you aren't going to get any more answers."



Jonas stared for a long moment, then abruptly held out his hand. "Detective Derek Jonas," he said in mock introduction. "I want to know what you do."



Kyle grasped the man's hand with a placating smile. "Dr. Kyle Perrin," he responded. "I'm an anthropologist."



The detective looked down, finally noting that he gripped a hand which had been, at their first meeting, non-existent. Uncomfortably, he took his own back.



Kyle maintained his smile. "Amazing, the things they can do with prosthetics these days."



"Y-yeah . . . ."



* * * *



The hotel bar called Shades was yet to open for another hour, which gave Kyle and the members of his team a safe and eavesdrop-free place in which to hold their meetings. As Victor and Faster nursed coffee and Xyllah glowed gently with her new -- and as yet unrevealed -- condition, Kyle focused on the pertinent facts of their investigation.



"Looks like our troll wasn't alone," Kyle informed as he stood at the end of one of the booths. "At least another one made it through and is still at large."



"I was afraid of that," Victor mused over his steaming mug. "Soon as I saw the news report this morning."



Kyle nodded. "I managed to make a few calls and keep the leakage of any information to a minimum," he said. "But after talking to the coroner, there isn't much doubt. Claw marks, teeth marks . . . they're pretty much the same."



"How far away was this body from the others?" Faster asked.



"Only a few blocks. One more thing to reinforce the idea that they're related attacks."



"Trolls usually hunt in packs," Xyllah informed. Her eyes drifted amongst the others as she continued. "That we only found one at first did not surprise me, considering the unlikelihood that more than one could have traversed the Veil. Apparently, I was wrong. They must have crossed together."



"Care to share what you know about trolls?" Kyle prompted the elfin woman.



She smiled at him for a moment, an expression unrelated to the matter at hand, and which made Kyle somewhat uncomfortable. "Trolls are among the basest of beings in my world," she began. "Little more than animals, although they can use tools and possess a rudimentary language. They kill indiscriminately and usually devour their prey. From time to time, however, a cunning member gains rank in their numbers and often becomes a leader. They are even more deadly then, because they plan their attacks, and use traps and other devices. Given that a single troll is usually the equal of two or three Daelvini warriors . . . even half a dozen of them can be devastating."



"But we ain't talking that many, right?" asked Victor, switching his questioning gaze from Xyllah to his team leader.



"Hopefully not," Kyle responded. "But I'm not ruling anything out."



"Shit," the former soldier grumbled. "I was afraid you'd say that."



"There's something else," the team leader announced, gaining everyone's attention. "Detective Derek Jonas."



"Who?" asked Faster.



Victor snapped his fingers as he enjoyed a moment of revelation. "Wait. That flashy dick at the house the Shakkar attacked, right?"



Kyle nodded. "He's investigating this latest murder," he said. "And from the looks of things, he's pretty suspicious of not only the killing, but of me. I've done a little background on him. He's nothing if not tenacious, and creative. Degrees in both in criminal justice and philosophy, which he parlayed into a fast-track assignment with the local PD. He made detective in five years -- almost unheard of -- going first to Grand Theft Auto, then Narcotics, and, as of six months ago, Robbery-Homicide. He's a wonderboy, from all accounts. High conviction rate, and he's the current darling of the department. I wrote him off at first when we initially met, but . . . he might cause some trouble."



"So what are we gonna do with him?" Faster asked, giving Kyle a challenging look.



The team leader rolled his shoulders. "I see two basic choices. One, we steer clear and try to avoid him as best we can while conducting our investigation. That might compromise us, however, and make him even more suspicious."



"And the second option?" prompted Xyllah.



Kyle worked his lips in thought. "We bring him on board," he suggested. "Join forces."



The others exchanged dubious looks before Victor raised a hand.



"Uh, problem with that, leader-man. 'Less I missed something, he can't see through the Veil like we can."

<hr pg="3" />"True," Kyle agreed, then leveled his gaze upon Xyllah. "But I'm thinking there may be a way around that."



The Zantra Adept thought quickly, then nodded. "I believe I can alter his perceptions in order to see things as we do."



"Whoa, wait a sec. That could be stirring up a whole mess of shit we don't want," Victor warned. "I mean, what if this guy doesn't cooperate? I ain't exactly had the best experiences with cops. Some are all right, but a lot of 'em are just looking for a good collar. All that quota shit and everything."



"I really don't see a problem. Suppose he decides to make some noise," Kyle suggested. "Given the amount of influence Malcolm has, how far do you think Jonas's tantrum will take him? Do you really think the powers that be will listen to his stories of trolls living in the city? He'll either have to bite the bullet and be quiet, or risk ruining a promising career."



"Maybe," Faster said. "But it's still risky."



"Everything we do is risky."



"Yeah, so why make it worse?"



"Because more people stand to get killed if we don't use every resource we have," Kyle insisted.



Victor chewed his lip. "Guess you're right, doc," he acknowledged. "But what does Malcolm say about it?"



The team leader winked. "Let me worry about that."



* * * *



Detective Jonas picked at the small box of fried rice he held with the chopsticks gripped awkwardly in his right hand. Leaning against the door of his unmarked sedan outside the tiny Chinese diner, he scanned along the downtown street. A look of perturbed impatience decorated his face; he could not help but think there were more productive things he could be doing. It was only the man behind the message he had received which bade him wait as long as he did.



"Hope I haven't kept you long, detective."



Jonas soured, but he was not startled by the voice behind him. He turned to see the slender form of Kyle Perrin approaching around the front of his car. "Only long enough to know I'll never be able to eat with chopsticks."



Kyle looked amused. "Patience, grasshopper," he quipped.



The detective rolled his eyes and tossed both the container and chopsticks into a convenient trash can. "So what's this about? Come to pump me for information? Warn me off 'your' case?"



"Not at all. In fact, I wanted to ask if you wanted to tag along tonight."



Jonas cocked his head with a suspicious look. "What's going on?"



The anthropologist shrugged. "We just happen to have an idea of where more of these trolls are operating. If we're lucky, we could end this before more people get killed."



The detective's eyes widened. "Hold on a sec--"



"One thing at a time?"



"Yes," Jonas responded, more than a little perturbed. "Please."



Kyle chuckled. "Okay. First, you're wondering why I'm offering you to join up with us."



"That's a good start," the detective affirmed with a nod. "Why not just show me the door like you did last time?"



"What, and lose a potential ally? I've checked up on you, too."



"So that's it," Jonas said sourly, crossing his arms. "Throw me a bone so I'll feel obliged to return the favor. Or worse, get me all mixed up in whatever it is you do, so you've got some leverage against me if you ever need it."



"Are you always this suspicious?"



Jonas casually pulled aside the blue blazer he wore, flashing the badge clipped to his belt. "Did you forget I'm a cop?"



"Okay, I'll give you that," Kyle said. "But, if only just this once, consider that you might benefit in ways you never imagined."



The younger man's eyes narrowed. "Now I'm really suspicious."



Kyle pursed his lips, thinking. "Then, I guess you need to decide which is more important: professional curiosity, or professional paranoia."



Jonas chewed his lip, eyes flickering but not focusing on the asphalt beneath him. "So you think there's more of these Troll killers?" he asked at last. "What, like some kind of cult or something?"



Kyle smiled slowly. "How about you wait and see?"



The detective finally returned his gaze to Kyle. "Okay."



* * * *



Victor checked his watch as he stood in the shadows of the alley. For the most part, the homeless ignored him save for the occasional suspicious or distrusting glance. He paid them no attention beyond acknowledging their presence and keeping a continuous headcount going.



The brief glow of his digital watch allowed him to discern the approach of the final hour in the day. Taking up his cell, he connected with the other members of them team with a few brief pushes of buttons. "Eleven o'clock and all's well," he announced.



"Copy. Nothing here," came Faster's quickly reply. She was only a block away, caty-corner to Victor's position.



"Nor here," responded Xyllah, from atop a nearby five-story building.



Further along the street, within a quiet and shadowed vintage Monte Carlo, Kyle raised his cell close to his mouth. "Same on our end. But keep alive, everybody. This is a pretty ripe hunting ground."



"Don't worry, doc," came back Victor.



"I never do," the team leader said, then returned the cell to its place on the seat beside him. His eyes diligently scanned the street, searching the shadows between buildings.



From the passenger side, Jonas emitted a low, restrained laugh.



"Find something funny about this, detective?" Kyle asked, alert eyes still watching through the windshield of Victor's car.



"I was just thinking," Jonas said, even as he, too, watched the street. "I always found stakeouts to be so mundane. Whole lot of waiting, with not much in the way of a payoff most times."



"I see it as an opportunity for people watching," Kyle said. "Take that little black girl."



Jonas frowned, but followed where Kyle indicated. He watched as a skinny young dark-skinned girl -- half black, half-Hispanic, he figured -- approached a maroon sedan with darkly tinted windows. She wasted no time in opening the door and sliding inside. The car rolled away from the curb, vanishing into a side street. "What about her?"



"Not much, really," Kyle said. "But it makes me wonder how someone comes into the life they lead. That girl, for example. Most likely a repeat victim of rape and emotional abuse. She lives in one of the cheap motels up the street, when she's not in jail. Probably barely makes enough money to pay her weekly rent as well as keep herself supplied with drugs. She goes day in, day out, like a robot, neither thinking about anything outside her world nor caring anything about it when it's shown to her."



"Spent a lot of time interviewing prostitutes?"



The anthropologist smiled slyly. "Actually, yes. But not in the way you're inferring."



"So now you know what I'm thinking," Jonas said defensively.



Kyle chuckled. "My career depends upon educated guesses," he said. "And, at the risk of sounding arrogant, I'm pretty good at it."



Jonas grunted. "So I noticed that freaky goth chick you were so interested in is now on your team," he remarked. "I guess your 'educated guesses' had something to do with that."



"In fact, they did," Kyle confirmed, looking amused at the detective's sour expression. "You don't approve."



"She was a prime suspect in a murder case."



"She didn't kill anyone."



"And I'm supposed to just take your word on that?"



Kyle leveled his gaze. "Do you have any other option?"



Jonas shook his head ruefully. "You're a real fucking piece of work, you know that?"



"Yes. I know." The cell shrilled beside him, cutting off anything further Jonas might have wanted to say. He snatched it up and listened for a few seconds before answering. "Do it."



His movements hinting at a sense of urgency, Kyle slipped the cell into the pocket of his jacket and withdrew the small, silvery revolver from the holster at his hip. He checked the cylinder, snapped it back in place, then looked to Jonas. "We're on. Make sure you're loaded."



The detective frowned. "Hey, look . . . in case you've forgotten, I'm still a cop, not a hit man."



Kyle's lip curled in a knowing smile. "Just stay alert," he said. "Trust me; this is nothing like anything you've ever experienced before."



Jonas rolled his eyes, but he was nonetheless suddenly conscious of the weight of the sidearm hanging beneath his left arm under the blazer. "Sure. Whatever you say."



* * * *



After slipping his cell phone back inside the leather blazer, Victor extracted the heavy pistol from its holster, holding it against his right leg as he started across the street. Traffic was nearly non-existent at the hour, consisting mainly of the occasional lonely man in search of cheap sexual relief and the police such men hoped to avoid. At the moment, the avenue was like a scene from some doomsday movie in which no man or woman had been left alive. There was only the glistening sheen left upon the asphalt by a light mist coming off the lake and the blinking, phantom-like lights of traffic signs.



The figure Victor had seen shambled along the opposite sidewalk from him, having emerged from a dark alley and moving away from where Faster held her vigil. Stocky and slope-shouldered, it wore a cheap old hat to obscure its features and a tattered coat reminiscent of the homeless in the area. To any casual observer, the figure was just another downtrodden man, scraping his feet as he scraped out an existence.



But the former Army Ranger saw something else, which left him both anxious and agitated. The figure shambled toward a darkened corner, pausing a moment to inspect the contents of a city trash can. Victor stepped to the curb, around thirty feet from the figure as the latter stopped.



And looked up.



For a brief moment, Victor saw only a shaggy, feral face, dark and roughened, broader than any human face could be, with thick dark lips through which protruded jagged, yellowish fangs. Above the wife, flat nose lay a pair of sinister crimson eyes, which were presently trained upon Victor.



The lips parted in a threatening sneer. The eyes darted to Victor's sidearm, recognizing it as a weapon.



Swiftly, Victor raised his weapon, training it upon the troll. "Don't be stupid," he warned.



In response, the hulking figure snarled loudly and darted away, rushing around the corner before Victor could get off a decent shot.



<i>Fuck!</i> Victor snapped up his cell as he jogged to the edge of the building. "He's going west on Cinder Avenue," he reported. "Xyllah, you didn't say these things were that fast!"



"I assumed that was implied in my description," she responded, her voice revealing exertion. "Try not to engage it. It is stronger and faster than any Daelvini warrior."



"Well, I ain't Daelvini," grumbled Victor, snapping his phone closed. Returning it to his jacket, he braced the pistol with both hands and started along the street, alert eyes watching the shadows. Several steps ahead, the troll's dirty hat lay upon the ground, near an old iron gate which lead into the courtyard of what had once been a fashionable hotel decades before. He nudged the hat with his foot, lowering his gaze for a brief moment.



That moment was all the monster needed. With a horrific growl that startled Victor, the beast leapt from the shadows above the gate, bearing down upon his human prey. Warrior's instincts kicked in instantly, however, making Victor fall backward, angling the pistol up at the shaggy shape falling toward him. He managed to snap off a pair of powerful rounds which would have spelled the end for any human, but they seemed not to affect the troll at all.



"Hoo-man die!" roared the monster, bringing Victor to the ground with him. It pinned the soldier's right arm to the pavement and slashed with ebon claws across the man's chest. Victor grunted, briefly thankful for the body armor beneath his now-shredded shirt. The monster was momentarily confused that his victim was not disemboweled, and that moment was all Victor needed to loop his left leg around the troll's head and send it crashing onto the pavement.



The troll was not as easily stunned as a human would have been, however, for it recovered quickly and charged Victor after the stocky man had rolled to his feet. A deft slash knocked the pistol from Victor's grip, and another missed his face by inches. Ducking low, Victor hurled his weight into the creature, grappling the troll's hairy legs. With a forceful grunt, he lifted his foe off the ground for a moment before throwing him to the ground.



Steel flashed in the dim light as Victor's knife appeared in his hand. He peripherally acknowledged the roar of the Monte Carlo's engine and the flash of its headlights up the street as he rushed forward, aiming for the troll's heart. But as Xyllah had warned, the monster was fast, faster than its bulk belied, and it dodged Victor's deadly thrust before crashing its arm across the man's back. With a grunt of pain, Victor stumbled to the ground, exposed to the troll's next attack.



But it did not come. The screeching of tires signaled the stop of the Monte Carlo, and even before the vehicle finished rocking on the slick street, Kyle was charging toward the sidewalk, leading with the pistol in his left hand. A trio of powerful, booming shots exploded between he and the troll, making the unnatural monster shudder with each one. Still, the beast was not dead, and perhaps only winded. The welts caused by the bullet wounds looked to be little more than insect stings upon its dense, hairy body.



Defiantly, it roared, fangs and claws bared as it hunched before the Veil team's leader.



"What the fuck!" cried Jonas from behind.



Kyle ignored the man, concentrating instead upon the threat before him. The troll's barely-human countenance was twisted in an arrogant sneer as it took a single threatening step forward, flexing its talon-like claws. "No hurt," it hissed, then lunged.



<i>We'll see about that,</i> Kyle thought quickly, dropping into a practiced pose. As the monster hurtled toward him, the anthropologist planted his feet and threw all his weight forward, channeling all the power he possessed through his right arm.



Several feet away, Victor could literally feel the impact of Kyle's arcane arm against the troll's torso. The powerful grunt as air was expelled from the beast's lungs echoed through the air, even as the heavy body of the troll was lifted off it's feel and hurled backward, through the rusted iron rods of the gate behind. Metal twisted and snapped, ringing loudly in the night, before the monster disappeared amongst a shroud of overgrown vegetation in the courtyard beyond.



Faster had arrived around the corner just in time to see the result of that singular punch. Eyes wide in wonder, she slowed her jog as she approached Victor and helped the man to his feet. Behind the team leader, Detective Jonas stared gape-mouthed and weapon lowered, yet still gripped with both hands.



"What the hell did you do?" the detective asked, voice bespeaking his sense of incredulity. He looked to Kyle's right hand, the knuckles smeared with blood.



"I'll tell you later," Kyle informed, focusing on the ruined gate and the darkened courtyard beyond. He glanced around briefly, noting the presence of everyone in his team, save one. He took up his cell, but just as he was about to press the buttons, there came a flash of bluish light in the courtyard beyond, followed by a bellowing howl of pain.



"Xyllah."



"Yeah, looks like her work," Faster commented, both pistols brandished.



Kyle nodded and headed past. "Follow me," he ordered, then stepped through the remains of the gate. There was enough moonlight to allow him to see through the overgrowth of plants and weeds nearly as tall as he. Numerous discarded cans, bottles, and other debris lay amongst the vegetation, evidence of the trash dump the once-auspicious hotel courtyard had become.



Beyond the initial growth, the courtyard was more easily navigable. Old cobblestone surrounded a dank pool half-filled with stagnant, blackened water that looked more like a bayou marsh than anything else. The stench of rotting plants filled the air. The metal frames of what had once been wicker chaise lounges surrounded the pool, entwined with weeds and other greenery. The windows of the building surrounding the courtyard were covered by rotting wooden panels.



Laying upon the broken walkway around the pool was the heaving body of the stocky troll, one clawed hand upon its chest. The stench of scorched hair filled the air; a burn mark upon its upper chest marked where Xyllah's arcane bolt had found its mark. The minimally-dressed Daelvini stood several paces back, eyes upon the beast as it struggled to take in breath. Her slender hands glowed faintly, ready to discharge another deadly blast of arcane energy if needed.



"You all right, Xyllah?" Kyle asked, eyes trained upon their foe.



"I am unharmed," she responded.



"Looks like you did him in, doc," Victor said, nevertheless stepping widely around the downed monster, his pistol trained upon their foe.



"Do not be so sure," Xyllah warned. "Trolls recover quickly from their wounds. Given time, it will return to full health."



"Not this one," Kyle said grimly, moving toward the belabored beast. He stepped around the creature's head, looking down into nearly-closed eyes. He could see the massive bruising in the center of the troll's chest, the obvious caving he had caused with but a single punch.



<i>This damn thing's got to weigh a good three hundred pounds,</i> Kyle thought, observing the dense musculature of the troll. <i>But I hit it hard enough to send it flying. How powerful is this arm, anyway?</i>



"Okay, the guy's down," Jonas said, holstering his pistol and coming up with his cell. "I'm gonna call for an am--"



A single report exploded in the narrow confines of the courtyard, making the detective jump. He stared, at once horrified and intimidated as Kyle stepped past the body, smoke trailing from the barrel of his revolver. The splattered remains of the suspect's brain lay spread across the dirty cobble beneath it, while a dark pool of blood grew slowly to encompass it.



abandoning the phone and snapping up his weapon, Jonas trained his pistol on Kyle. "Drop your weapon!" he ordered.



Kyle turned back, his face stoic, eyes hard. "Why?"



Jonas gritted his teeth, swallowing thickly. He stepped away, keeping Victor, Faster, and Xyllah within view as well, noting the perturbed and annoyed expressions on their faces. Yet they said nothing, allowing their leader to speak for them all.



"You just murdered a suspect!" Jonas cried. "I don't give a fuck how you do things, but I'm not gonna be a part of murder! So get your hands up! All of you!"
 Calmly, Kyle slipped his revolver back into the holster on his belt and addressed the detective directly. The others backed off, weapons lowered.



"'Murder,'" Kyle repeated calmly.



"Yes, murder," Jonas repeated. "Now get your damn hands up."



Kyle remained as he was. "<i>Murder</i> implies I killed a human being when there were less lethal alternatives," he said.



"I don't care how you put it," Jonas snarled. He cocked the hammer of his weapon, aiming the barrel at a point between the Veil team leader's eyes. "Now, you either get your hands up--"



"Or what?" retorted Kyle. "You'll kill me? Wouldn't that be murder?"



"I won't stoop to your level."



"What level is that? Do you really think I just murdered someone?" Kyle asked pointedly.



"Damn right. And no matter what you and your vigilante team do or say--"



"Why don't you take a look at the body behind me."



Jonas frowned. "I don't need to. I know what I saw."



"Oh, really? You sure you know what you saw? Because I'm wondering if it's the same thing I saw."



"I saw you put a bullet in the head of a defenseless suspect."



"A troll."



"I don't give a fuck what you call him--"



"It's a <i>troll</i>," Kyle insisted, taking a step to the side so that the detective could see the corpse in its entirety. "It's not a classification, or a label, it's the name of a <i>species</i>. Take a closer look, Derek. Take a good, long look."

<hr pg="4" />"Kyle, I can--" Xyllah began, but her lover shushed her with a gesture.



"No," he said, then addressed Jonas once more. "Go on. Look at it. <i>Look</i>."



Against his better judgment, the detective allowed his eyes to fall upon the body laying beside the stagnant pool. At first, he saw only a thick-bodied, hairy and muscular man, naked upon his back with arms and legs akimbo. But the skin seemed unnaturally dark, even if the man had been born of deepest African stock. The face was thick and broad, greasy black hair lying across thick lips, wide nose, and bushy, thick brow. It was not normal, Jonas decided.



With that decision came realization. The long, curved talons at the end of every finger were revealed for what they were, as well as the canine fangs thrusting out over swollen, dark lips. In an instant, the ambitious young detective saw the body upon the ground for what it truly was. Still, he was defiant in believing it.



"What the fuck is this? Some kind of goddamn trick?"



"Not a trick," Kyle informed with a calm, easy tone. "Keep watching."



Indeed, but a few seconds later, the corpse of the troll darkened and seemed to become as ash before the force of a powerful wind. Within moments, nothing remained of the dead troll, not even the blood and ichor which had been spilled upon the ground.



The detective's frown deepened even further. His weapon lowered slowly as his arms relaxed. "What did you do?" he asked.



"We eliminated a threat," Kyle responded.



"No, I mean with the goddamn body!"



"It's not us," Kyle said sagely, stepping closer to the younger man. "It's something called the Veil. Any creature from beyond the veil, when it's killed, disappears. That's how it is."



Jonas frowned, confused but trying to make sense of everything he had seen. He looked from Kyle's stoic face to that of Victor, then Faster, and finally Xyllah. His lips parted in muted surprise as he beheld the otherworldly woman in her true form.



"Yo, doc, I think he's getting it," remarked Victor, sheathing his knife.



"This has gotta be a trick," Jonas insisted, although the insistence behind his words was lacking.



Kyle shrugged. "Which is easier to believe," he asked. "That we staged this entire scene, or that what you witnessed was exactly what you observed? That we hunted down a vicious, predatory troll from a different world, and upon its death, it disappeared as if it never existed."



The detective looked sidelong at the Veil team leader. "Now that's a trick question if I ever heard one."



Kyle smiled thinly. "So now you have a decision to make," he said. "You can call in the boys in blue and have us arrested -- not that you would get a conviction, since there's no victim to autopsy -- and go back to your simple, sane existence . . . ."



"Or?"



The smile on Kyle's face became more genuine. "Or you can accept that you're now part of a very exclusive fraternity. Even if you don't work with us, you'll be seeing some things a lot differently from now on. And working with just the police department won't give you the same resources the Veil Society can offer."



"Veil Society? What the hell is that?"



"It's us," Kyle said simply. "And others, here and there. We're the only ones that keep things like trolls from running loose in our world."



The detective suddenly laughed, shaking his head. "Are you guys fucking with me?" he blurted. "I mean, I thought you were way out there already when I figured this was just Men In Black-type shit, but, seriously . . . you want me to believe all this?"



"Believe what you want," Kyle said dismissively, then added, in an ominous tone: "You've got eyes."



With that, Kyle stepped past the bewildered detective, heading toward the ruins of the gate. In order, Victor, then Faster, and finally Xyllah followed, all giving the detective varying looks. When the pale-skinned elfin woman brushed by Jonas, the detective stopped her with a tentative hand on her narrow shoulder.



She stopped, starring up at him with dark, opalescent eyes. Jonas started to ask the question burning in his mind, but found he had no voice. Reluctantly, he took his hand away and turned to watch the woman as she departed, all at once bewildered by her alien appearance and strangely aroused by her seductive attire and demeanor.



He listened as the car doors of the Monte Carlo opened and closed, then as the engine was brought to life. The vehicle rumbled away, leaving Detective Jonas in silence, surrounded by the ugliness of the world around him and consumed by a chaotic, hungry jumble of demanding thoughts.



* * * *



"You think it's safe just leaving him alone there, doc?" Victor asked as he drove the Monte Carlo away from the scene.



"As safe as that part of town can be," Kyle responded, before calling to the back seat without looking over his shoulder. "Xyllah, any other trolls around?"



"Not as far as my mastery of the Art can reach," she informed.



"What do you think he's gonna do, Bandit?" Faster asked from the back seat of the vintage sedan.



"He'll come around," Kyle answered with surety.



"I ain't so sure," Victor growled. "Look, Mal's got influence, but if wonder boy back there decides to make some waves, this whole thing could blow up in your face."



"I do not think he will, as you say, 'make waves,'" Xyllah offered. "Jonas has a powerful sense of curiosity. He is a truth seeker. I could see it in his eyes."



Faster rolled her eyes. "Mystic mumbo-jumbo aside," she said with a wink to her fellow female. "This is still a big gamble."



Kyle rolled his shoulders and cracked his neck. "That's life," he muttered.



* * * *



Xyllah was always a ready and eager lover, as Kyle had discovered during their many weeks together. There was never a time when she was too tired, nor too distracted, and it seemed she did not endure the monthly discomfort human women had to go through. Especially now, given her proclaimed pregnancy.



Kyle tried not to think of his lover's condition as she was poised upon his bed, stark and gladly naked, face-down upon the mattress with her knees drawn up and splayed wide. With her arms stretched beyond her head and back arched, pelvis just a few inches above the rumpled sheets, she looked like an eager concubine willingly and graphically offering up the most intimate parts of her body. The Daelvini woman's position caused her labia to bulge, parting widely and flaring out. The contrast of uncommonly pink flesh surrounded by the pale moonglow of her skin was extremely erotic. Even more so was the thickness of her swollen clitoris and the faint, wispy growth of platinum pubic hair just beyond the dusky hood.



Kyle smoothed both hands along the backs of his lover's taut legs, admiring the tantalizing sight before him. Xyllah was literally dripping wet; small beads of fluid, as clear and thick as purest olive oil, hung from the tip of her clit and made the labia slick and shiny. A small, growing stain had formed upon the bed sheet beneath her.



"Mmm," she mewled faintly, rolling her hips in an insistent, needy motion. "Do not torture me, <i>vialor</i>."



Kyle grinned, settling his thumbs to either side of the fleshy vulva framing her sleek lips and pulling. The dark cavern of her sex spread wide for him. He pursed his lips, blowing a stream of cool air upon her exposed sex.



"Ah!" Xyllah tensed, throwing her head back, clenching fine teeth. Strands of platinum hair streaked across her face. "Kyle . . . Kyle, please . . . ."



He brushed his lips against the slick, fleshy folds of her sex, making his lover hiss, but denied her the massaging, licking, sucking sensation she craved. "Please, what?" he teased.



She whimpered for a moment, body trembling. "Please . . . take me. Suck me . . . ."



He grinned, then abruptly pressed his mouth to Xyllah's pussy, engulfing her fleshy lips and pulling them into his mouth. His nose brushed the equally-pink aperture of her anus as his bristled chin rubbed against her needy clitoris. The elfin woman expelled a hot breath of pleasure, grinding back against his mouth.



But, too soon, Kyle pulled back, stretching her labia between his lips before releasing them. He savored the taste of her essence -- so tangy, so spicy and rich -- as he gripped her firm, taut cheeks and kept her from pushing back further.



Xyllah moaned in disappointment, looking back over her shoulder through a curtain of platinum strands. Her expression was close to that of desperation.



"Please?" Kyle asked, enjoying the control he possessed over Xyllah's pleasure.



She seethed through her teeth, soft lips curled out, strands of hair stirred by her panting. The expression she wore indicated her animal need for satisfaction. "Please," she huffed.



With a grin, Kyle pressed his face once more between her lean thighs, sucking, pulling, licking and digging with his tongue. Xyllah moaned loudly, rocking against him, slapping a hand to the back of his head and rolling her hips with need. She gasped or sighed when his tongue swiped across her clit. It did not take long before she was bucking and gasping in orgasm.



But Kyle did not stop at his lover's first release. Pushing her down onto the mattress, he climbed atop her and drove his stiffened cock between the saturated lips of Xyllah's sex, penetrating her in the midst of orgasm. The Daelvini convulsed beneath him, clawing the sheets, kicking her legs, throwing her head back as one orgasm blended into another, then another, and another. She was very nearly in pain from her eruptions when Kyle finally stabbed deep, arching his back as his own release flooded the pale-skinned woman's womb.



Time slowed its march at that moment, it seemed, as Kyle felt every pulse, every contraction of the muscles beneath his cock. The burning heat was as much pleasurable as it was nearly painful.



The moment eventually passed, of course, and Kyle collapsed upon his lover, using the last of his strength to keep from smothering her in the bed. He panted in her ear, kissing through sweat-soaked hair across her left cheek.



"Mmm . . . vialor," she whispered, smiling drunkenly.



Kyle did not respond. He could not.



* * * *



A brief shower was the first step to feeling refreshed. The second was a glass of sun-brewed tea, courtesy of the large jug in Kyle's refrigerator. With Xyllah slumbering in his bed, Kyle took his glass to the living room and clicked on the television. He lit a cigarette while flipping through late-night programming on numerous channels. He was aware that he should have been pleasantly drained enough after sex with Xyllah to fall asleep with her lithe body curled against his. Yet his mind would not let him enter the realm of slumber. Something yet vexed him.



<i>She's pregnant,</i> he thought worriedly. <i>Or, at least, she claims to be. Not that we have any way of knowing for sure. Even if she was a normal human, pregnancy wouldn't show in any test for at least a good five or six weeks, right?</i>



He shook his head ruefully, tapping his cigarette over the ashtray. <i>Talk about irony. After losing my arm, I never figured I'd have a real shot at a family. Now, all of a sudden, I have both a new arm and a new, on-the-way family.</i>



He exhaled smoke while staring without seeing at the TV. <i>If Fate was a woman, she would be a very fickle bitch with a twisted sense of humor.</i>



The light rap at the door was almost too soft for him to hear. Yet he did.



Immediately alert, he stood from the couch and found his revolver in its holster on the breakfast bar. Checking quickly to insure all five rounds were fresh in the cylinder, Kyle held the pistol behind his leg as he approached the door. A quick glance through the spyhole . . .



He jerked back, wondering if what he saw was real or a mirage, then looked again.



<i>Jesus Christ. Of all the fucking luck . . . .</i>



Hesitantly, with a backward glance to the closed bedroom, he turned the knob and opened the apartment door, looking upon the face of the comely young blonde before him.



"Hi. I, uh, heard the TV . . . figured you were up."



Kyle blinked, looking over the blonde woman before him. She was dressed as was typical for her profession: black mini-dress, matching stockings and heels, a glossy handbag and just enough fine jewelry to mark her as being above the level of the common prostitute. Her face glowed softly, pale green eyes catching what little light there was around her. The catlike mouth was narrowed and pursed, as if she was afraid she was interrupting.



"Gina," Kyle breathed.



Her cheeks colored. Eyes dipped. "Sorry. Guess I should've called or something. You, um, got someone over?"



Briefly, Kyle thought of Xyllah, lying alone in his bed. "Um . . . ."



Gina looked chastened, stepping back. "You do," she said knowingly, reading his expression. "I-I'm sorry. I shouldn't have--"



Kyle reached out, taking both her arms in his hands. "It's okay," he said quickly. "Look, let me just get my coat--"



He stopped, noting the way Gina was fixated on his right arm. An arm he had never possessed in all the time Gina had known him.



"Wow," she muttered, looking up with a quizzical smile. "Where'd you get this?"



He blushed. "Um, it's uh, state of the art," he managed to say. "Experimental prosthetic."



The young blonde trailed her fingers across the grain of the wooden arcane limb, seeing only the illusion of flesh. Her eyes glittered. "It feels real."



Slowly, hesitantly, Kyle withdrew his hands. He gave Gina a sheepish look. "You want to get an early breakfast?"



Her eyes darted to his, smiling. "How about just some coffee?"



He nodded. "Sure."



* * * *



Little Tony's saw scarce traffic at half-past three in the morning, which was fine with Kyle. Still feeling a bit bewildered at the abrupt return of Gina into his life, he wanted a neutral, uncomplicated environment in which to discover why his former lover had picked this particular moment to return. The all-night diner was therefore the perfect place.



A portly, middle-aged waitress arrived to take their order for coffee and a single blueberry danish, professionally tactless and direct as she scribbled on her notepad. After delivering the requested items, she disappeared, leaving Kyle and Gina alone.



"Bet you're wondering why I showed up in the middle of the night like that," she said, eyes dipped as they studied the wrinkled pattern of the checkered tablecloth.



"I admit I'm a little curious," Kyle acknowledged.



She laughed softly through sealed lips, cradling her mug with elbows on the table. "After that night," she said, referring to the evening in which Kyle had saved her life by killing a man who held her hostage. "I was afraid of you. I'd had enough goddamn violence in my life; I didn't want anymore."



"I know," Kyle said, watching her face. "I'm sorry it had to happen like that."



Her eyes remained downcast, staring through the table as if it was not there. "I keep thinking about that night, about the way you acted . . . I'd never seen that side of you, but . . . you know, I wasn't really surprised. I guess I just realized you were always like that . . . I mean--" she broke off, sighing heavily in mild frustration.



Kyle gritted his teeth a moment, hesitant to reach for her hands. "A lot of things changed that night," he said. He let out a short, hard laugh. "And even more, since. It's like . . . like a whole lifetime has already passed."



She finally lifted her eyes to his. She looked plaintive. "Do you ever think about me?" she asked, then recanted immediately. "I-I mean, about us. Like, what could have been."



Kyle felt a lump rising in his throat before forcing it down. He nodded, dropping his gaze. "Sometimes," he admitted.



"You think it would've worked out?"



For the longest heartbeat Kyle would ever experience, he studied her face, reading the wonder, the possibility, contained within those sweet yet jaded features. In that single thunderous pounding of his heart, he saw a future that might have been, if only colored by the magical nature of wishful thinking.



"Maybe," he said at last.



Gina forced a thin smile and looked away. "Yeah."



He took a breath. "Like I said, a lot of things have changed."



She nodded, defensively, not meeting his gaze. "You found someone, huh?"



He sighed. "I . . . guess you could say that."



"Not happy with her?" she asked with a sharp, rueful laugh, face showing both hope and pain.



He frowned, thinking. "Honestly, I'm not sure. She's, uh . . . not like anyone I've ever known."



It was Gina's turn to be analytically quiet now, studying him. "You don't love her," she said at last.



Kyle regarded his cup of coffee for want of anything else to look at. "It's not that easy to say, one way or the other."



"Bullshit," she said firmly. "You either do, or you don't. And if you're not sure, then she's got something over you."



He darkened, lifting his eyes beneath a frowning brow.



Gina leaned back, cocking her head in oblique amusement. "So, what is it? She an 'uptown girl?' Got you wrapped around her finger? Or maybe she's just another little white trash whore, and pulled the old 'I'm pregnant' shit."



He reared back at those last words, still frowning, albeit defensively.



Gina expelled a harsh sound, shaking her head. "That's it, right? Jesus Christ, Kyle, when you gonna learn you can't trust any of us?"



He finally found his voice. "You mean women, or prostitutes?"



She locked his eyes with hers. "Is there any fucking difference?"



He stared back. "I used to think so."



She softened somewhat, taking a moment to mull over her words. "So, you gonna marry her?"



Kyle hesitated, thinking back to the rather casual ceremony in which Xyllah had declared they were now husband and wife. He shook those thoughts from his mind before answering. "I always told myself I'd only get married for one reason."



Gina scoffed. "What, love?"



"Yes," he responded quickly, staring into her eyes.



Now it was Gina who felt the thick lump in her throat. Her eyes watered slightly, just barely brimming with tears. "All of a sudden, I'm wishing I didn't push you away."



"And I'm wishing I could turn back the clock."



Gina lowered her head, lips pouting, eyes reddening as they swelled. Her fingers became as spider's legs, creeping across the table toward Kyle's hands. When they met, she gripped and squeezed them tightly.



"I'm not supposed to fall in love, you know," she whispered at last.



He caressed her slender fingers with his thumbs. "Yeah. I know."



Abruptly, Gina rose from the booth and stepped out, recklessly snatching up her tiny purse. Wobbling a bit on her heels, she darted for the door. Kyle watched after her, perturbed and startled. He barely managed to catch the last glimpse of a slender calf before it vanished through the swinging glass door.



The aged waitress appeared beside the table. "Wanna refill, honey?"



He glared. "I think I've had my fill," he grumbled.



* * * *



Along the avenue upon which Little Tony's lay, the windows of the diner gleamed like a row of beacons, while all others remained black and cold. From across the street, hidden within the deep shadows of an alley, a pair of inhumanly red eyes watched the seductively-garbed blonde as she strutted quickly down the street. Her movements bespoke a sense of pain and desperation which enticed the owner of the eyes like the scent of fresh pollen attracted a bee.



"&lt;It is her,&gt;" rasped a voice in an inhuman tongue.



Behind the speaker in the alley, other pairs of eyes shone dimly. "&lt;It is?&gt;"



"&lt;Yes.&gt;"



"&lt;We feed now?&gt;"



A thick, dark tongue passed across prominent canines. "&lt;Yessss . . .&gt;"



* * * *



At the head of the stairs from which he could see his apartment door, Kyle felt a heaviness in his chest. He paused, frowning at the mix of emotions that washed through him. Regret, pain, a longing for a different and simpler time in his life, all that contrasted with the sense of obligation which bore down upon him like the burden of Atlas as he stepped toward the door of his home. He was careful with his key, quietly inserting it into the lock and turning the handle slowly. He stepped in, closing the door quickly behind, and sighed as he headed to the couch. He took up his cigarette case from the coffee table and quickly lit up. The rush of nicotine, at least, was soothing.

<hr pg="5" />He heard the bedroom door pop open, followed by Xyllah's accented voice. "Kyle? Where were you?"



He did not look to her. "A friend stopped by," he said, blowing smoke. "I, uh, didn't want to wake you, so we went to Little Tony's."



"I see." Her answer was curt, carrying a hint of disapproval. She left the bedroom, casual in her partial nudity. She wore only a slim-fitting baby doll tee which stopped just above her navel, leaving the soft silver fur of her sex and the pale vulva beneath exposed.



"Jealousy does not wear well on you," he remarked, leaning forward to tap ash off his cigarette.



"Why should I be jealous? Were you with another woman?"



Kyle gritted his teeth. He still did not look at her as she spoke. "She was a friend," he said.



"A lover?" Xyllah stopped at the edge of the couch, sliding her slender frame onto the well-worn upholstered arm. She allowed her legs to part, a move which gained Kyle's attention.



After a quick glance over her almost total nudity -- yet still avoiding the blank, stoic expression on her face -- he nodded. "She was."



There was a long pause in which Xyllah did not speak, and Kyle hoped she would not say another word. Had he had his wish, she would have uncaringly returned to the bedroom, leaving him alone with his thoughts and not expected to explain himself.



"Are you in the habit of entertaining previous lovers in the middle of the night?" she asked at last, with more than a bite to her words.



He sighed, pulling on the cigarette. "No," he said through a hazy grey cloud. "In fact, I never thought I would see her again."



"Apparently, she thought differently."



At last, he turned his head to read her face. Her features were stone, as if chiseled from marble, dark eyes looking distant beneath heavy lids. "You really are jealous, aren't you?" he asked.



She expelled a heavy breath, closing her eyes a moment. "It is common in my culture for husbands to take other lovers," she revealed. "In fact, among my caste, it is expected. 'Variety breeds virility,' they say."



"But you don't buy that."



Her eyes penetrated deeply into his, suddenly hard and sharp. "No, I suppose I do not 'buy' that," she answered, then sighed, looking down. "But I am bound by the covenant of our bond not to argue with your choice to take other lovers."



A pang shot through his chest. Kyle put out his cigarette and shifted to face Xyllah, taking her slender hands in his. "I have not taken any other lovers," he said softly, yet firmly, watching her face. "We had coffee. That was all."



The muscles beneath the alabaster skin of her face twitched as she slowly looked back at him. "Will you see her again?"



Solemnly, he shook his head. "I doubt it. And if I do, it will probably only be in passing."



Xyllah seemed chastened. "You mean what you say," she muttered, voice small and distant.



"Yes." He released her hands and sat back. "I don't know what the customs are regarding previous lovers in your culture, but in mine, it's considered rude to ignore someone I once had feelings for simply because you and I are together."



"I would not expect you to--"



A hard look from Kyle cut her off. "Really."



She stared back. "Do not human women feel possessive over their lovers or mates?"



A wry smile pulled at his lips. "Some more than others," he admitted. "And not only women, but men as well. But a good relationship also depends on trust, and faith. You cannot know what I am doing, every moment of every day, nor can I know what you're up to. But I have faith in the trust I place in you."



Again, that chastened look crossed her face. "I see," she whispered, avoiding his eyes.



His own narrowed. "Xyllah, is there something you want to tell me?"



She blinked, then forced a thin smile as she returned her eyes to his face. "No. You have simply given me much to think about. Your world is so much different from mine."



He smiled crookedly and reached for his cigarette case. "I think that wins the Understatement of the Year award."



Xyllah frowned in confusion. Kyle just shook his head.



"Never mind," he said dismissively.



His elfin lover watched as he lit another cigarette. "Will you be retiring soon?"



He blew out a long stream of acrid smoke. "In a while," he said. "Like you, I have much to think about."



Xyllah lingered for a moment, watching Kyle's face in profile as he stared at the blank TV screen and smoked his cigarette. Finally, and without another word, she rose and returned to the bedroom, closing the door behind her and leaving Kyle alone with his thoughts.



* * * *



The insistent bray of his cell phone roused him from fitful sleep. Kyle pushed up from the couch, momentarily disoriented until he realized he had fallen asleep in the living room. Dragging a hand down his face and tasting the pasty film on his teeth, he annoyingly snatched up the phone from the coffee table.



"Yeah."



"Dr. Perrin." The voice was grim and flat. The anthropologist almost did not recognize it.



"Jonas?"



"Sorry to wake you up so early, doc, but we got another body. I'm pretty sure it's another troll killing. Guess there were more than two, huh?"



Kyle sighed tiredly. "Where?"



"Actually, we're just down the street from your place," the detective returned.



Grogginess slipped from his mind as he sat up. "Literally?"



"About four blocks. It's a closed-down mechanics' shop--"



"Manuel's Auto Detail," Kyle interrupted. "I pass it all the time."



"Well, they might want to change the name to Manuel's Butcher Shop now," the detective said gravely. "How soon--?"



"Give me ten minutes."



He snapped the phone closed and sat forward, drawing his hands down his face. <i>It just never ends, does it?</i> he asked himself. Then he noticed the open bedroom door, and Xyllah standing against the darkness of the room beyond. She was dressed as per her minimalist preferences -- skimpy denim cutoffs, her knee-length leather boots, and a swath of a stretchy Spandex blend of pale ivory, which gave the illusion she was topless. Her silver hair was secured in a topknot, accentuating the sharp features of her oval face, and the interwoven black tattoos along her left arm, from the base of her neck to the back of her hand, looked as if freshly inked.



The expression in his lover's face was blank and distant, as if she was unsure of how close to approach. She seemed to be awaiting a cue.



No, it never ends, Kyle thought ruefully. He made the effort to smile. "I guess you've been up for a while."



She nodded. "I had trouble sleeping. I am not used to sharing a bed with only the night."



He felt a sense of admonishment pass over his face. He looked down, cracking the knuckles of his left hand. "I'm sorry I did not come to bed," he said.



"You do not need to explain yourself, vialor," she said in an uncharacteristically stoic tone. "Especially since, considering the tenor of the conversation I overheard, we are, as you say, 'on.'"



Kyle nodded grimly. "Yeah. We're on."




* * * *



Being only four blocks from the crime scene, Kyle chose to walk. Even from the front steps of his building, he could see the gathering of police cruisers and attendant CSI vehicles in the street further down. Bands of yellow crime scene tape were stretched across sawhorses set up on the road, keeping vehicles from passing through, while uniformed officers kept the curious at bay.



He shoved the cell phone back into his pocket after finally getting through to Faster. She had sounded exhausted -- <i>yet another marathon bout of sex with her Mr. Perfect boyfriend</i>, Kyle thought darkly, then immediately chastised himself for having thoughts that bordered on jealousy -- but had agreed to arrive on the scene as soon as possible. Victor was already en route. Kyle wondered if the resident heavy hitter of the team ever slept.



Personal thoughts for his other team mates dissipated the closer he and Xyllah trudged toward the run-down former mechanic's shop. Once a fairly modest home with a two-car garage, it had been gutted and transformed into a one-man operation which, as far as Kyle knew, had enjoyed honest business for a good two and a half decades before the advent of computerized vehicles. For several years, it had remained a quiet blight on the avenue upon which Kyle lived.



Now it was a crime scene.



A middle-aged uniformed officer caught Kyle's determined advance and moved to intercept the anthropologist at the edge of the cordoned area. "This is a restricted area, sir--"



"I know," Kyle snapped. "I'm Dr. Perrin. I've been requested to the scene."



The career patrolman's face soured, yet he lifted the tape. "Yeah, I was told," he grumbled. "But just you. The cover model of Gothic Monthly stays here. That's from the senior investigator on the scene."



Kyle frowned, ready to protest, but he thought better of it. With a curt nod, he glanced back to Xyllah. "Wait here," he said, then ducked his head as he went under the tape.



The Daelvini -- her true nature masked from those around -- looked quietly perturbed. "Of course," she said smartly, and crossed her arms as she remained put. Cold, emotionless eyes followed Kyle as the Veil Society team leader headed toward the door of the old construction.



* * * *



It took only a glance to find Detective Jonas amid the field of blue-jacketed CSI professionals and various uniformed officers. The smartly-dressed detective remained away from the focus of activity, face hard and eyes narrowed to slits as he sipped from a styrofoam cup. He noticed Kyle's entrance and beckoned him closer with a look.



Kyle stepped around the clutter of mechanic's tools and equipment which had remained unused for several years, trying unobtrusively to look past the hovering cloud of CSI personnel to the body upon the floor. What he saw between the shifting bodies of evidence collectors, however, consisted of blood smears and denuded limbs, a bloody husk which was once a slender torso. Kyle gritted his teeth and focused his attention on Jonas.



"Got an ID on the body?"



The detective shook his head. "All we can tell is that it was a woman, slender, blonde hair. That's about it. Not much left of her clothing, and there's no purse. But I'm guessing she was a call girl. The heels are a giveaway."



A gut-wrenching intuition twisted Kyle's stomach. "Heels?"



"Yeah. Classic stilettos. Higher class than your average streetwalker, and the absence of a purse or any ID is pretty fucking telling to me. If she worked around here, I'm guessing some of the bars and hotels know her."



Kyle swallowed thickly, turning his head away from Jonas' just as the CSIs seemed to be packing things up. He was treated to the unadulterated, gruesome sight of a thoroughly savaged body. Not much remained of her torso, arms or legs other than blood-streaked bone and masses of congealing ichor. But the face was almost entirely intact, sightless, lifeless blue eyes staring upward, the muscles of the face relaxed in almost sublime repose.



Numbness spread through Kyle's body. On one hand, he knew, cognitively, what he was seeing. On the other, his mind did not yet allow him to acknowledge to flood of emotion that would -- or should -- have bubbled forth like the seepage of a volcano. He was stuck fast between the extremes of rationality and hysteria.



"Her name's Gina," he said, stepping slowly toward the remains. His eyes were locked upon the waxy face of his former lover, looking past, with great effort, the evidence of incredible violence inflicted upon her while remaining more than conscious of the memories of pain remaining within the corpse. "Twenty-five years old. College dropout. Used to be a stripper. Sometimes worked with Blue Star Escorts. I'd bet they have all her vitals on file, if you asked nicely."



Jonas approached behind the older man. "You knew her, I take it?"



Kyle cocked his head back with a glare. "Yeah. I knew her."



* * * *



<i>Click. Spin. Snap!</i>



<i> Click. Spin. Snap!</i>



Kyle stared at the sleek revolver between his hands as he repeatedly, almost obsessively, pushed the release, spun the cylinder, then snapped it back in place, over and over. His features were firm, lithic, eyes glassy and distant.



<i>Click. Spin. Snap!</i>



With a heavy sigh, Faster pushed away from the doorway of her team leader's bedroom, looking back to the others. Victor sat grimly upon the couch, while Xyllah stood in a corner, arms wrapped around her narrow body. Detective Jonas fidgeted in the middle of the apartment, swirling his styrofoam cup of coffee. He caught Faster's eye and addressed the woman as she slowly closed the door.



"Don't you think maybe someone should talk to him?" he suggested.



Victor grunted with a slight heave of his thick chest. "You don't know the doc. He'll talk when he wants to."



"Yep," agreed Faster, stepping into the room. Her narrowed gaze fell upon the Daelvini. "You have any idea what's going on?"



The elfin woman frowned. "Is there reason I should?" she asked back. "I am as much in the dark as any of you."



"You said these trolls are pack hunters," Faster continued. "But not all that bright. Seems like a hell of a convenience that they'd off Kyle's ex-girlfriend right after we'd killed one of them."



"I also said that sometimes, a singular troll can be very crafty, even intelligent."



Jonas frowned in confusion. "Wait a sec. Are you saying they killed this woman specifically?"



"Yes."



All eyes turned to the bedroom as Kyle emerged. He no longer held the revolver; instead, it rest comfortably in its holster just behind his left hip, the edge of the frame just visible beyond his slender waist. His face was frighteningly calm as he spoke. "Gina was targeted," he said flatly. "It was either revenge or a warning, but I really don't care about that. I don't react well to threats, and if these trolls think they've scared us off, they're wrong. We're going to find them."



"And then what?" asked Jonas.



Kyle's reply was direct and simple. "We kill them. Every last one."



"It's just that simple? Kill them? Where the hell are these things from?"



"Beyond the Veil," Kyle answered.



"Yeah, you said that before. But what the hell does that mean?"



Kyle began to speak, but Xyllah shushed him with a gesture and a look. "Allow me," she said to her lover, then addressed Jonas. "There is another world beyond this one. A very dark and dangerous place. It is where I come from. There are beasts and creatures that exist in your world only as legends and stories, but in mine, they are very much real. And from time to time, they find a way to come here. And when they do, they kill. They are the basest and most cruel of monsters from my world. You must believe me; they deserve no mercy."



Jonas smiled mirthlessly. "I'm just supposed to take your word on that," he said flatly.



"And mine," Kyle answered. "You're either in, or you're not, detective. Your normal jurisdiction doesn't apply here. These aren't humans. The normal rules of due process and fairness don't apply."



"How convenient."



Kyle stepped closer, staring the man down. But to his credit, Jonas barely flinched. "Suppose, instead of killing them, we captured them. Arrested them as you would any man. The nature of the Veil would disguise them from the vast majority of people in the world. They might end up in prison, and what do you think would happen then?"



"A fucking massacre," Victor grumbled.



"Exactly," Kyle continued, still keeping his eyes on Jonas. "In case you haven't noticed, trolls don't just kill, they eat. In fact, prison might turn out to be their preferred destination. So much food in such a confined space. You've already seen how tough they are; how hard would it be for inexperienced prison guards to kill them once they began turning their cell mates into the special of the day?"



Jonas stood his ground. "Says you."



"Oh, gimme a goddamn break!" snapped Faster. "I know you're not that fucking stupid!"



He shot the skinny brunette a look. "Hey, I'm not completely convinced about what I saw last night," he declared. "Hell, you guys could've staged the whole thing."



Faster huffed loudly and rolled her eyes. Victor shook his head ruefully. Kyle smiled crookedly.



"Let me ask you something," he said to the detective. "You remember when you had Xyllah in the interrogation room, under video surveillance?"



Jonas' brow furrowed. "Yeah."



"Remember I asked what you saw when you looked at the video feed?"



The younger man's temples bulged as he ground his teeth. "Yeah. I saw a skinny little goth chick."



"And that's how you saw her until last night," Kyle pressed on. "Then something changed. You started to see things differently. You know, now, that the world is not quite the way you've always believed. It's not an easy thing to accept."



The detective mused silently for a few moments, panning his gaze back and forth amongst the others. "How do I know it's not a trick?"



"Like anything else that can't be qualified, you don't. Neither does anyone else in this room. It's a matter of belief. Faith, in other words."



Jonas cocked his head. "Now you're starting to sound like an evangelist."



Kyle's smile seemed at least a little genuine now. "Maybe I am. But it's still up to you to believe."



The detective fell silent in thought. But even as he churned Kyle's words over in his mind, it was obvious by his demeanor that his convictions had shifted. The Veil team leader turned away from the detective, giving him a little time to come to a decision. He addressed the others, speaking decisively.



"Faster," he said. "We need a detailed map of the city. I also want to know about any homeless who have gone missing in the last several days."



She nodded with an anxious smile. "On it."



"Xyllah. Do whatever you can to find more of these trolls."



The milk-skinned woman nodded. "I shall try."



Giving his lover a curt nod, Kyle addressed Victor. The stocky former soldier perked up expectantly.



"We need to do some shopping."



Victor grinned. "I know just the place."



* * * *



The "place" happened to be a nondescript pawn shop in one of the seedier areas of town. Unremarkable in that the front windows of the place -- complete with thick iron bars to reduce the chance of a break-in -- were adorned with gaudy spray-painted claims of "Top Dollar For Gold N Guns" and other typical advertisements, Kyle was dubious about whether the shop's proprietor would have what they desired. But he trusted his weapons-savvy team member.



The space beyond darkly-tinted windows and glass door was crammed near to bursting with the usual pawn shop offerings: cheap jewelry, leather jackets, musical instruments, video game consoles and dated electronics, and all manner of paraphernalia to accompany it all. Most items were kept locked in wood-framed display cases with heavy glass tops and fronts. Toward the rear, where a surprisingly modern register sat at the end of a long display counter, a large array of various standard weapons sat behind chain-linked barriers.



A skinny, gaunt man who could just as easily have been thirty as fifty years old stood behind the register, looking suitably bored. There were only a few patrons in the place, consisting of a young couple browsing the adult section of DVDs and a lone biker type contemplating a rather impressive display of leathers. The skinny man perked upon seeing Victor, and grinned as the soldier approached the counter.



"Victor! My man! How's it hanging, buddy?"



"Low and to the left," the stocky man replied before bumping fists with the nearly skeletal pawn shop owner. Victor stabbed his thumb in Kyle's direction. "This is the maestro."



Sunken dark eyes scanned over Kyle. " I'm Sparks. Nice to meet you."



Kyle nodded. "Likewise."



Victor spoke with swift authoritarianism. "We wanna see the special stock."

<hr pg="6" />Sparks chuckled, showing nicotine-stained teeth. "No shit."



* * * *



Through a narrow door and down a grimy hallway, Sparks lead Kyle and Victor to a simple portal secured by a keypad lock. The skinny man's fingers danced quickly over the pad, and he pushed the door open and flicked on a light, revealing walls covered with various weaponry and military-grade equipment. Kyle paused just inside the room as Victor and Sparks continued on, chattering away like old drinking buddies. The array of gear before him made the anthropologist pause.



"So, what you looking for?" asked Sparks casually, taking a small ring of keys from his pocket and unlocking the heavy steel gate which opened into the room proper. "A little slice and dice? Firepower? Maybe some big booms?"



Victor smirked, looking like a child presented with a case of dynamite and a box of matches. He clapped his hands and rubbed them together. "Serious stopping power," he informed. "We got some real bad asses we need to be able to put down fast."



Sparks smiled broadly. "I got just the thing," he said, stepping toward a wall literally covered in weapons mounted upon pegboard. He reached for what appeared to be a pair of short-barreled rifles rendered in black matte finish, taking one up. "I had a customer, eh, request these, but he ended up behind bars before he could pay."



Victor caught the stubbed rifle as Sparks tossed it to him. "What the hell is this?"



Sparks crossed his arms smugly. "Oh, just your basic M-16 receiver with a few modifications," he informed. "Take a look at that big-ass barrel. That ain't no five-five-six."



Victor turned the weapon over, inspecting the thick, heavy black barrel of the weapon. He gave Sparks a curious look. ".50 cal?"



"Give the man a fucking cigar!" cried the pawn shop owner. ".50 Smith &amp; Wesson, if you wanna be OCD about it. You got an eighteen-inch bull barrel with a one in six twist and fifteen-round mags. The receiver's steel and polymer, with a telescoping stock. Lightweight, but it takes the recoil like Jenna Jameson takes dick. Still packs a mean-ass bitch of a punch, though. That shit'll put down a fucking rhino."



Victor passed the first weapon to Kyle while inspecting the second. "What kind of ammo?"



"Not too much variety in .50 cal," Sparks said apologetically. "I got high-grain wadcutters for stopping power and lighter accelerators for distance shooting."



"Wadcutters," Kyle said, getting used to the mechanics of the short arm. "These things don't give us much warning before they jump out of the shadows."



Sparks arched an eyebrow. "'Things?'"



Victor shot the shop owner a warning look. "Just the guns, man. How much?"



Sparks shrugged, apparently ready to forget having his curiosity satisfied. "Fifteen each," he said. "I'll throw in the ammo and two extra mags."



Victor glanced back questioningly, receiving a nod from Kyle. Reaching into his jacket, the ex-soldier produced an envelope of cash and quickly counted out thirty one hundred dollar bills.



Sparks grinned. "Pleasure doing business with you."



* * * *



By late afternoon, the team had reassembled back at Kyle's apartment. Xyllah remained secluded in the bedroom, where she meditated as she reached out with the Art. After the men returned, Faster unrolled a large satellite photograph of the city on the hardwood floor. Furniture had to be moved out of the way to accommodate the broad, glossy rendition, which included the names of major streets and highways as well as landmarks and points of interest. Kyle looked as awed as his stoicism would allow.



"I know a kid at the college," she explained simply, and winked. "I swear, he'd lick my boots if I flashed him."



"So what'd this cost?" Victor quipped. "A blowjob?"



She rolled her eyes. "Please. He was trying to impress me."



"Sure as hell impresses me," Kyle muttered, stepping around the edges of the city. "This is more than I expected. Good job, Faster."



The woman beamed proudly, giving Victor a smug look.



"What about the info?"



Faster's smile dropped. "Eh, well, I didn't get too far on that," she said. "I--"



"Seventeen," came a voice from the doorway of the apartment. All eyes looked as Detective Jonas entered the flat, holding aloft a thick manila folder. He pushed the door closed behind him. "Might want to think about security, doc. You don't want just anyone walking in on you."



Kyle raised a brow. "It's not the human element I'm concerned with," he returned. "Seventeen what?"



"Seventeen unsolved cases of missing homeless," the detective announced. "And three other cases that sound like troll killings. They were attributed to 'attacks by rabid dogs.' And all within the last three weeks."



Victor emitted a low whistle.



"I assume you have information on where all the bodies were found?" Kyle asked.



"Right here in the file."



"I take it you've made a decision, then."



Jonas inhaled slowly, deeply, then let it out. "Let's just say I'll play along," he admitted grudgingly. "For now."



Victor soured. "Why can't you just give a straight answer?"



The detective met his look. "Ask me a straight question."



"It's enough for me," Kyle said quickly, heading off any argument between the two men. He held out his hand expectantly toward Jonas.



After only a brief moment's hesitation, the detective handed over the file.



"Let's get to work."



* * * *



An hour later, Kyle stood at one corner of the giant photograph, looking down upon a two-dimensional view of his city as if he were lord and master of all he surveyed. Variously colored Post-It notes were stuck to the laminated surface, indicating where a body had been found. The arrangement looked chaotic to the untrained eye. Victims had been found in alleys and within buildings, in parking garages and city parks. One had even been discovered in the playground of an elementary school, another in a dark corner outside the Aerospace Museum.



The only common thread to the attacks were savage bite and claw marks and the complete absence of witnesses. Cause of death in every case was due to massive blood loss via numerous lacerations and puncture wounds. And in every case, the majority of dense muscular tissue had been removed.



"Nineteen people in almost as many days," Kyle commented, as if to himself. "Spread across an area nearly five miles across. The amount of food these trolls consume is staggering."



"Unless they're hoarding it," suggested Jonas, standing on the opposite side of the picture. He and Kyle were the only ones who remained focused on the task; Victor was busy cleaning their array of weapons -- the new .50-caliber sidearms had enjoyed a thorough test at an outdoor shooting range -- while Faster was on Kyle's balcony, going through the motions of an extended yoga routine.



"I see no reason why they would feel a need to stock up supplies," Kyle responded. "They've no shortage of food."



"Well, you said these things you hunt come from a different world, right? Maybe they're planning on taking home the bacon, so to speak."



Kyle frowned, giving Jonas a curious look. For a long moment, neither man spoke. "That could be a possibility," the anthropologist said at last. "But that would mean advanced knowledge of a way to return home."



Jonas shrugged. "It was just a thought."



"And not a bad one at that." Kyle stepped away from the large photo, toward his bedroom door. He knocked twice, quietly, then turned the knob and stepped in. The room beyond was cool and dark, curtains pulled and shades drawn. Kyle could just make out the vision of Xyllah's nude body as she sat straight-backed upon the bed, turned in profile.



"I have a question," he said softly, yet with a firm tone.



Xyllah neither moved nor opened her eyes. "Yes?"



"How possible would it be for a troll to be able to use the Art?"



The Daelvini scoffed softly. "They are rude, simple creatures," she said, voice soft and airy. "Victor would be more able to use the Art than any troll."



"Thought so," said Kyle, then paused as he retreated. "Have you had any success?"



"Little," Xyllah informed with more than a note of frustration in her voice. "There is much ugliness in this world, perhaps too much for my skill to penetrate."



"Keep trying."



"I shall . . . given no further interruptions."



Kyle resisted the urge to snap back, and simply closed the door as he left the room. He returned to the giant photograph splayed across his living room floor, attention once more focused upon it as he resumed his perusal.



Jonas watched the enigmatic man carefully, waiting for the scientist to speak. When the man said nothing after nearly a minute, Jonas spoke up.



"So . . .?"



"So, what?" Kyle answered.



The detective laughed under his breath, rolling his eyes. "You don't share information easily, do you?"



Kyle's lip twitched as he cast a quick glance to Jonas. "She hasn't found anything yet."



Jonas accepted the answer with a sour look. "Well, I think I have," he announced. He squatted beside the photograph. "How well do you know the city?"



Kyle shrugged. "Lived here for about eight years," he said. "I've seen most of it."



"My uncle was a civil engineer," Jonas said. "He spent a lot of time in the sewers in the eighties, back when they were overhauling the water system. Some of those tunnels have been around for almost a century, and damn nearby nobody knows about them."



Kyle caught on quickly. "You think the trolls are using the tunnels?" he asked.



Jonas stabbed his index finger toward one of the crime scenes flagged on the picture. "Maria Gonzales. Found behind a grocery store, fifteen feet from a sewer manhole." He pointed again. "Dexter Kent. They found him in a park near a sewer maintenance depot. And if you look closely at the map, you can see more manholes close to most of the victims. I bet I can dig up some old sewer plans, and with a little luck, find a set of tunnels that comes close to all these locations."



Kyle huffed. "If you're right, that means miles of tunnels to cover."



For the first time in an hour, Victor spoke up. Both Kyle and Jonas had all but forgotten the man was still in the room.



"We better put on our best hiking boots, then."



* * * *



Finishing the lacing of the second boot, Kyle jerked his jeans down over the venerable footwear. He had not worn them since that fateful day in which he'd lost both his mentor and his arm. Of all his clothing the boots had been the only article to have survived. Now, a decade later, with the knowledge that his mentor still lived, he was donning them once more with two fully functional hands.



<i>Life is a strange thing indeed</i>, he thought.



"Vialor?"



He looked to the bathroom doorway as Xyllah emerged, pale skin glistening from her shower. She had neither bothered to dry off nor don clothing, and the needy gleam in her eye was obvious. The soft pink lips of her sex nearly shone as if lit from an unearthly source; her nipples were stiff, aggressively pointing outward toward him.



A mix of emotions swirled through his mind. "Xyllah, the others are waiting for us."



"My power is nearly depleted," she whispered sultrily, lips curled in a devilish smile. "I need . . . <i>replenishment</i> . . . if I am to be of any use."



He gritted his teeth, averting his eyes from her stark nudity. "I honestly don't think I can at the moment."



She straddled him as he sat on the edge of the bed, settling her hands to his shoulders and slowly, seductively, rolling her hips back and forth. Her splayed thighs allowed the lips of her pussy to just barely graze his denim-covered crotch. Drops of moisture fell onto his clothes. "I know a simple spell that will change that," she whispered, nibbling his ear. "And I know how to, as you say, 'get you off' quickly."



The faint, whispering urgency of his libido simmered somewhere in the background of Kyle's mind. But the rest was occupied with thoughts of Gina, the images of her savaged corpse, the memories of a life that could have been.



He could not have become aroused if he tried.



Roughly, he grabbed Xyllah about her slender waist and lifted her up, effortlessly setting her aside as he stood. He did not meet her eyes. "Get dressed. We're leaving in five minutes."



The Daelvini watched after her lover -- her husband and the father of her unborn child -- with angry and resentful eyes. She fumed quietly for several moments after he had left the room, then solemnly looked for her clothes.



* * * *



Air rife with the stench of decades of decaying garbage and untold numbers of vermin, the venerable brick walls of century-old sewer tunnels, lined with muck and lime, might very well have remained the providence of rats and insects for eternity, never again to be explored by the booted feet of humans . . . if not for the entrance of the Veil Society team and the inhuman prey they hunted . . . or which hunted them.



"Move! Move! Move!" barked Kyle as he sighted past Xyllah. Her ethereal hair danced like a silvery cloud about her shadowed face, obscuring the brutish, shaggy forms mere paces behind her. The snarling of the trolls filled the tunnel in between deafening bursts of fire from Victor's weapon, which sent one of the two monsters pitching onto its back. But the other was blocked by the running elfin woman, until it was nearly upon her and she was darting past the team leader.



He pulled the trigger instantly, with the beast close enough for Kyle to make out the baleful gleam of blood-red eyes and smell the horrendous odor pouring from its gaping maw. At such a range, he could not miss.



The troll's predatory bellow was cut short by the explosive bark from the .50-caliber weapon. Gore exploded from its right eye as the head pitched back and the body faltered. An explosion of blood and brain matter scattered in a pinkish cloud behind its head before the troll floundered to the muddy, grimy tunnel floor mere inches from Kyle's feet.



"Fuck, that was close!" gasped Faster, a few paces behind Kyle, automatically standing guard beside the unarmed Xyllah while reloading her gleaming twin pistols. "How many did we cap? I know I got one."



"Me, too," claimed Jonas, snapping the slide home on a fresh clip of bullets in his pistol.



"Same here," growled Victor, panning the flashlight attached to his weapon down the tunnel. "And the doc's kill makes four."



"So how the fuck many are there?" snapped Faster, giving Xyllah an expectant look.



The Daelvini sighed, closing her eyes as she concentrated. "My power is weak," she said heavily. "But I believe there are four yet remaining. Perhaps more."



"Four <i>more</i>?" asked Jonas before a rueful laugh. "Oh, this gets better every second."



"Welcome to our world, dick," Victor drawled. "If you last long enough, you'll get used to it."



The detective cocked his head with a dark look to the former soldier. "That is so damn encouraging," he snipped. "You should be a goddamn doctor with that bedside manner."



"Quiet, both of you," snapped Kyle, stepping past the dead troll as it began to fade away into the muck. He peered down the tunnel from which they had come. The darkness was thicker than fog and more consuming than the night of a new moon, but the team leader could almost see the features of the slimy walls and grime-filled tunnel floor. He listened for a moment, focusing past the belabored breathing of his companions, picking up the faint drippings of water, the scuttling of rats and other vermin . . . .



"They're down there," he announced, voice low, tone ominous. "Waiting."



"How the hell do you know that?" asked Jonas.



"He's right," Xyllah said quickly. "Trolls are pack creatures. In times of stress, they band together. Considering the damage we have dealt them, they are preparing for a final stand."



The detective gave her a suspicious look. "And you just happen to know that?"



She glared back. "They <i>are</i> of my world," she hissed.



"Yeah, and gazelles come from my world and I don't know shit about them other than they're fast."



"Perhaps you should learn more about gazelles, then."



"Cut it out," ordered Kyle, shooting both of them chastising looks. "You two can bicker later. Right now, we need to be on the same page."



Begrudgingly, Jonas turned away from the Daelvini and raised his pistol, bracing it with both hands as he pointed it down the dark tunnel. "You got a plan?"



"Of course," answered Kyle. "Hunt and kill."



Victor grinned, seating the stock of the rifle against his shoulder. "Sounds good to me."



"Me, too," chimed Faster, brandishing her chromed pistols.



Jonas took a deep breath and let it out. "You guys are crazy, know that?"



"We fucking have to be," joked Victor in a dark tone as he advanced forward, once more taking point.



* * * *



Further along the fetid tunnels, beyond the point where they had encountered the first pack of trolls, the group slowed as Victor raised a fist to signal those behind them. The harsh light of his and Kyle's flashlights passed back and forth across a muck-lined intersection of grimy tunnels. Dozens of rats scurried away from the invasion of light, chittering angrily as they sought the comfort of darkness.



"Left, straight or right," Victor muttered. "We pick the wrong way, and they could jump us from behind."



Kyle glanced back questioningly to Xyllah, who had finally drawn the small automatic Faster had given her. That action and the solemn look on her pale face told him her power was gone. Briefly, he glanced to the stoic faces of Faster and Jonas. Even though the detective was all but virgin to what they had witnessed, he seemed strangely calm and accepting of the unexpected future. He gave Kyle was a single short, determined nod.



"When we get back, you're buying me a bottle of bourbon," the detective said. "And I want the good shit."



Kyle managed a smile, even as the others chuckled softly.



"All right," Kyle said, returning his attention to the intersection before them. "Eenie, meanie, or minie?"



Victor inhaled deeply, letting the air out slowly through flared nostrils. "When in doubt, Charlie out," he responded, pointing the barrel of his weapon to the right.



"Wait a sec," Jonas piped up. He stepped forward, sniffing the air.



"What is it?" Kyle asked.



The detective frowned in concentration, sniffing again. "Few years back, I dated this girl whose father ran a meat-packing plant. Fat-ass old bastard, hated me 'cause I was a cop, but his daughter was a pretty tight little--"



"Anyway," Faster interrupted, ever alert with her weapons raised and aimed into the darkness of the center tunnel.



"Anyway," continued Jonas with a hint of embarrassment. "I hated going anywhere near that plant, especially in the summer, because the rotting meat in the discard bins stank like you wouldn't believe. I'll never forget that smell," he added pointedly, giving Kyle a look and nudging his chin toward the left-hand tunnel.



Kyle took the hint and flashed the light attached to his weapon down the indicated tunnel. The rats were thickest upon the muddy floor, moving further into the shadows as if retreating from the light . . . or heading toward something enticing.



He inhaled, eyes closed briefly so as to block out the distractions of sight. And there, at the edge of his senses, was the foul, malodorous stench of rotting meat.



His eyes flashed open. "This way," he directed, stepping to the left. Amid shrugs and under-the-breath mutterings, the others followed.



Victor glared as he passed the detective. "You better be right, dick," he said threateningly.



Jonas met the man's gaze and gently nudged the barrel of the ex-soldier's sidearm away from his chest. "Tell you what. You stop calling me 'dick,' and I'll stop thinking of you as a muscle-headed moron. Deal?"



The stocky man's only reply was a curling smirk as he headed past, following Kyle into the tunnel.

<hr pg="7" />Jonas watched after the man with a rueful shake of his head. He felt the gentle hand of Faster on his Shoulder and looked to her smirking face.



"You know, I think the big guy's warming up to you," she said.



"How can you tell?"



* * * *



The stench grew exponentially as they advanced through the tunnel, to the point where they were all nearly gagging. At Kyle's silent order, everyone stopped. He switched off the light on his weapon, directing Victor to do the same. A faint glow from ahead indicated some sort of light source.



As his eyes slowly adjusted, making out the vague forms of his companions in the dark, Kyle whispered. "Take deep breaths. Get accustomed to the smell. It'll only take about ninety seconds to get used to it."



"I don't know, doc, I feel like I'm gonna throw up," Faster whispered, fighting down her gag reflex.



"Then go back," he intoned ominously.



Faster glared for a moment, but her rational mind explained Kyle's response: <i>I wouldn't be much good if I'm nauseous</i>, she thought. With that understanding, and watching as Victor and the others gulped lungfuls of putrid air, she opened her mouth and inhaled deeply. The need to retch was instantaneous, but she fought it down, setting her jaw and clenching her abdominals. Again she breathed, literally tasting the aroma of rotting flesh on her tongue, and again she nearly vomited. But as each breath came and went, the nausea faded away, bit by bit.



"Everybody all right?" Kyle asked at last, distastefully wiping his mouth. The others gave him green-faced looks and nods. Only Xyllah seemed unaffected.



"Let's get this shit over with," Victor growled, hefting his weapon.



"Ditto," Faster spat.



* * * *



The light filtered down from a sewer grate high above the large, round chamber which appeared to have at one time been a central water control station. <i>A street lamp</i>, Kyle thought, looking up through the milky, blue-white radiance which left the rest of the long shaft deeply entombed in shadow, <i>whose light was never meant to illuminate this</i>.



"Jesus H. fucking Christ," swore Victor as he stepped fully into the room.



Faster's response was a simple, disgusted gasp. Xyllah yet remained silent.



"Okay," growled Jonas. "These things die."



Suspended from a twisted frame composed of scavenged metal and plastic, chunks of flesh and muscle and numerous human limbs -- and a few skulls -- formed a nightmarish sculpture which even von Hagens would find disgusting. Many of the limbs were bent and distorted as if in permanent rigor mortis, with whatever flesh remaining having become dry and stretched and dark while the muscle beneath was left to ferment and rot. Maggots burrowed and crawled across the whole of the display, with the sickening sounds of their feasting upon the flesh just audible.



Kyle made an effort to tear himself away from the morbid fascination of the scene before him to observe the room. Thick, elbow-shaped pipes lead from the walls to the floor, mostly rusted through, and the concrete floor had recently -- within the last several weeks -- been scraped free of muck and rotted vegetation. Spaced evenly along the walls of the chamber were several berths composed of moldy newspaper, scavenged fabric and clothing, and layers of cardboard. Kyle counted eight such beds in all, each decorated with numerous trinkets such as rat's skulls and the various possessions of the trolls' former victims.



"What the fuck is this, doc?" Victor asked, obviously bothered by the display of cannibalized human body parts, but not shaken.



"A pantry," Kyle answered distastefully. "They eat what they can, and save the rest."



"It's . . . covered in maggots," Faster remarked, choking back the bile in her throat.



"Trolls possess very strong constitutions," Xyllah informed. "In fact, partially rotted meat, infested with maggots, is considered something of a delicacy."



"Obviously, these guys don't watch Rachel Ray," muttered Jonas, looking about furtively.



Kyle allowed himself a chuckle at the detective's comment. Levity at such a time was a good sign. "Stay alert," he ordered. "There're still four trolls . . . ."



He trailed off as an ominous hissing sound reverberated between the dank walls, raining down through the glimmering light like acid dripping from a serpent's maw. Five pairs of eyes were trained upward at once, as parts of the grimy, shadowed walls seemed to come alive and move, only vaguely taking squat, shaggy, humanoid shape just before they descended through the shaft.



Only Faster and Jonas were quick enough to let off a few rounds before the trolls fell to the ground, but those rounds had little effect. Amid snarls and swipes, roars and snaps, the trolls lashed out at their hunters, knocking Victor into a wall and sending Jonas stumbling back with a vicious swipe across his arm. Beyond that, Kyle could not discern much else of what was going on because of the rabid-faced beast before him.



He managed a single thunderous shot from his weapon, making the troll falter back, before a second, leaner brute swiped the rifle from his hand and leapt atop him, driving the Veil team leader to the floor. Breath forced from his lungs by the weight upon his chest, Kyle glared up at the maniacally-grinning face above him.



"You die, human," the creature gloated, its unexpectedly cogent words barely audible beyond angry and startled cries, growls and roars, and cacophonous reports of weaponfire. It leaned toward Kyle's face, breathing acridly. "You not defy <i>vaestri</i>."



Kyle coughed, struggling to draw breath as he pummeled uselessly with his left fist. "What's . . . <i>vaestri</i>?"



The troll laughed. "Not what. Who. You will not know, for you die now." The troll raised a taloned hand, ignoring Kyle's impotent beating.



"I don't think so," Kyle sneered back, then swung his right arm with all the power and focus he could muster.



The sound of the impact, and the accompanying cracking of shattered bone, was heard throughout the small room. Just as Faster's and Jonas' combined firepower sent a troll into the wall with numerous shots to the chest and head, they looked toward the sound to see a troll sailing like a hurled child's toy through the macabre "pantry" of human flesh, bringing it crashing to the ground along with the troll.



Stunned eyes beheld the crushed, distorted remains of the troll's face as it lay lifeless upon the ground, but only for a moment before Faster trained her attention upon the team leader. "Kyle! Jesus!" she exclaimed, darting toward him as he pushed himself to his feet.



"I'm fine," he said, looking around. Jonas and Faster had slain two, he noted, counting the bodies. Xyllah lingered toward the far end of the chamber, wide-eyed and fearful, holding the pistol at her side with the slide locked back. Only Jonas seemed wounded, clutching his arm through a blood-soaked sleeve. <i>Which only leaves . . . .</i>



An angry bellow clashed with an animal-like growl as two figures hurled into the chamber, locked in close combat. Victor bore the blood and bruising of a prizefighter during his toughest match, but he was obviously nowhere near his breaking point. Weapons had been forsaken; the battle had become a duel between two worlds, waged on the most basic level.



"Come on, you hairy mother fucker!" challenged Victor, dodging a pair of powerful swipes of razor-bladed claws. "Show me what you got!"



The troll snarled angrily, leaping with bestial ferocity for its opponent. But Victor parried, dodged, and slammed his elbow into the creature's back as it blundered past. The troll grunted and stumbled into a wall, giving Victor enough time to hammer two powerful blows into the small of the monster's back, making it howl in pain.



"Victor!" yelled Xyllah. "It will kill you!"



"Not while I'm around," vowed Faster, reloading her pistols. But Kyle placed a restraining hand on her shoulder.



"See to Derek," he instructed, nodding his head toward the wounded detective.



Faster began to rebuke, but nodded instead with a small smile. "Yeah, he needs this, doesn't he?" she asked, referring to Victor.



Kyle nodded with a smirk, returning his attention to Victor's combat . . . even as he bent to retrieve his .50-caliber weapon from the ground.



The troll had whirled around, flashing claws and baring fangs. Its attention was entirely focused upon Victor, ignoring any other potential threats or the deaths of its fellows. All that mattered, as with Victor, was the fight.



The two combatants squared off, the troll feral and menacing, arms held open and fanged jaw dripping spittle to the ground. Victor stood on balanced feet, one arm extended low, the other held at chest level. Seasoned eyes watched the movement of the shaggy beast, the way the muscles rippled beneath hairy, leathery skin.



"Kyle, are you just going to let him die?" Xyllah asked, stepping up beside her lover.



"I'll step in if I need to," he grumbled in response, shouldering the rifle. But he kept the barrel pointed to the ground.



"I do not understand--"



"You don't need to," he snapped.



Before she could retort, Xyllah was startled by another horrific bay from the troll as it once again rushed Victor. The skilled former soldier was ready for the attack, however, dropping to a squat and spinning about, lashing out his right leg to catch the troll across the shins. Tripped, the monster tumbled and crashed into a wall, but it shoved back and spun around, bellowing angrily.



But Victor was already pressing his advantage, charging, leaping, driving down with the force of a sledge hammer across the monster's jaw, sending blood flying from a ruptured lip. Stunned, the beast staggered back, unable to guard against the powerful expertise of Victor's strikes. The troll grunted and winced as a rib cracked, a collarbone snapped.



But not all the fight had been taken from the monster, and in a last effort, it roared and charged forth, just as Victor slipped the large knife from its sheath. At the last moment, Victor spun out of the way, whipping the knife around so that the point of the blade was in line with the troll's forehead.



The feral roar faded rapidly, degenerating into a rasping death rattle. Victor's body shuddered with the impact he withstood, but he did not falter. With a rough jerk, he freed the blade from the monster's forehead and let the corpse fall face-first to the ground without a backward glance.



Calmly, Victor stared down at Xyllah. "Now that's how <i>we</i> handle shit," he declared, then stepped past. "I need a fucking beer."



* * * *



Detective Jonas' wound was mainly superficial; the raking slash of the troll had gone through flesh and muscle, but had avoided major arteries and tendons. Faster did a good job of cleaning the wound and wrapping it up once they had all returned to Kyle's apartment and gave the detective some antibiotics to combat any infection that might result. But Jonas did not even ask for a painkiller, although he certainly felt the presence of his wound. Kyle wondered if the man was simply acting tough.



"Guess we did good, doc," Victor proclaimed as he stood out on the balcony with Kyle.



Kyle smiled as he blew smoke from his cigarette. "We did real good," he agreed. "Especially you. Going one-on-one with a troll barehanded . . . not something to scoff at."



The ex-soldier smirked. "Can't put this southside <i>vato</i> down," he declared.



Kyle chuckled, then his features fell abruptly, becoming scolding and dark. "Don't ever fucking do that again."



Victor began to chuckle, then stopped, understanding the weight of his leader's statement. He nodded soberly. "Understood, doc."



Kyle smiled and patted his point man's shoulder. "Go get that beer."



Victor brightened. "Is that an order?"



"Bet your ass. Just check in tomorrow morning."



Victor winked and opened the door. "Will do, doc," he said, then stepped in. "Yo! Faster! Let's go, babe!"



Kyle shook his head wryly and turned to the railing, inhaling smoke and expelling it slowly, watching it drift away and dissipate in the cool night air. He could still smell the stench of the sewers, the trolls, the disgusting menagerie of rotting flesh . . . .



<i>I guess you're avenged, Gina,</i> he thought heavily. <i>So why don't I feel like I did enough?</i>



"Kyle?"



He stiffened slightly at the sound of Xyllah's voice. He did not turn to face her as she stepped out on the balcony, merely waited until she came up beside him.



"I thought we were all doomed, facing so many trolls at once," she said with a note of disbelief. "But here we are, and they are slain. It is a feat very few among my own people's warriors could claim."



"I don't think you give us humans enough credit sometimes."



"Perhaps not," she admitted. "You and the others are very . . . surprising at times."



Kyle said nothing as he pulled on his cigarette.



"You do not wish for me to stay, do you?"



He sighed heavily, finally looking upon her. "Xyllah," he said solemnly. "Gina was very close to me at one point in my life. I can accept that she's dead, but I can't just move on. I don't know how grief works among the Daelvini, but--"



"You need time," she finished, staring into his eyes.



He nodded. "Yes."



She fell silent, features inscrutable as she looked out from the balcony to the street below. Finally, Xyllah breathed in and gave a short nod, as if agreeing with a silent decision. "Perhaps I should return to my cabin in the woods."



Kyle said nothing; he simply gave her a look which was both apologetic and hopeful.



She nodded again. "I will obey your wishes, as you are my husband."



Kyle gritted his teeth. "I wanted to talk about that."



Her eyes became hard, her demeanor defensive. "You do not accept the bounds of the sacred ritual, do you?"



He sighed in frustration. "I accept your culture and traditions," he said. "But in this world -- my world -- marriage is handled differently. It requires agreement by both the man and the woman. It's not something that just . . . happens."



"You do not wish to be with me?" she asked acidly.



"It's not that." He huffed in his continued frustration. "It would have been nice if you'd told me what the <i>Lor'ahua</i> was before we did it. But you didn't. Now, suddenly, we're married."



"And with a child awaiting birth."



Kyle winced inwardly. "Yeah. That."



"Do you disbelieve me?"



"No," he said with a shake of his head. "And I'm not going to abandon you. I just . . . as you said, I need some time."



Xyllah worked her jaw in a way that revealed her obvious annoyance. "Among the Daelvini," she said after several moments. "The bonds of marriage are sacred. Untenable. But the husband has the right to release his wife, or to grant her <i>Lor'shava</i>, a freedom from love. She would be as an unwed woman, subject only to her husband's rescinding of the <i>Lor'shava</i>."



Kyle mulled over her words carefully. "I think I should grant you this . . . <i>Lor'shava</i>."



A quick smile bulged her cheeks before it vanished, and she pushed away from the railing. "If you wish it."



Kyle swallowed thickly. "I do."



She met his gaze one last time. "As you request, <i>vialor</i>."



He watched her step to the door, feeling both relief and the weight of a heavy heart. "Can I ask you something?"



Xyllah turned back, face stoic as she stood straight. "I will answer if I can."



"What does <i>'vaestri'</i> mean?"



Her brow furrowed. "Eh . . . <i>vaestri</i> means 'master.' Why?"



Kyle shrugged. "Just something one of the trolls said." He pushed a smile to his lips. "Why don't you get Derek to give you a ride home?"



She backpaced to the door behind her. "As you wish," she said, then turned and stepped into the apartment.



* * * *



Derek Jonas winced whenever he had to use his right arm as he drove. For the first time ever, he wished his Toyota was an automatic rather than a standard. Every jerk of his hand upon the gear shift made him grimmace as a stab of pain shot through his arm, although he made valiant attempts to hide it. That was a particularly difficult feat, even considering the comely, exotic beauty who sat in the passenger seat beside him. With her silver hair in tails, skin-hugging top and frill-edged cutoffs, Xyllah was like an otherworldly tease. She smelled sweet and enticing due to her recent shower at Dr. Perrin's apartment.



<i>Those ears gotta be fake</i>, he wondered as he glanced to the silent elfin woman while driving. <i>Bet they make for great handlebars, though</i>.



"So, uh, what's your story?" he asked in casual conversation.



Her lips curled in a sly smile as she regarded the detective. "I am Daelvini," she said. "One of many tribes of the Aelvar."



He nodded, not fully understanding. He kept his eyes on the road. "Cool."



"There are nine tribes of the Aelvar," she explained. "One for each of the mountain holts in my world. We do not often get along, because some of us have somewhat . . . differing views of things, especially when it comes to the Art."



"Yeah, I heard Dr. Perrin say something about that. About the Art, I mean. It's, uh, it's magic, right?"



She chuckled patronizingly. "The Art is the ability to wield the arcane essence in all living things. I belong to an order known as the Zantra. Zantra is our religion, our way of communing with the spirit of the universe."



Jonas frowned. "You sound like my uncle. He's a hippie. Believes in all that weird shit, like crystals and healing herbs and all that."



"We do not use crystals," Xyllah said. "Although we do use herbal components in many of our spells. But those are just foci. The real power comes from the sharing of one's body. We cultivate the pleasures of physical coupling and transform them into the energy needed to use the Art."



Jonas arched an eyebrow in interest. "Um, coupling?" he asked.



Xyllah's smile became more seductive as she slid closer to the detective. A slender-fingered hand settled upon Jonas' upper thigh and began moving back and forth, as if lightly massaging. She leaned closer still, brushing her lips against his ear. "Coupling," she repeated in a seductive whisper. "The sacred exchange of power from one body to the next. As a Zantra adept, I require daily coupling as a means to retain my ability to use the Art."



Both libido and pain made the detective grunt as he drove down the country road toward Xyllah's cabin. "Really."



"Yes," she hissed sensually, drawing out the last consonant of the word. "And right now, I am . . . depleted."



Derek's face contorted slightly as he stopped the car before the small dwelling. "Trust me, I wish I could help, but, uh--"



She interrupted him as she leaned across his body, pushing the collar of the jacket aside to place a soft, deft kiss at the edge of his collarbone. At the same time, her hand settled atop his slacks, very close to the swiftly-growing bulge beneath.



"We can help each other," she suggested softly, pulling back just enough to meet his eyes.



Jonas swallowed thickly. "Um, are you . . . I mean, I thought you were kind'a with Dr. Perrin--"



She touched his lips, shushing him. "I am my own woman," she said firmly, then smiled cattily. Without another word, she slid back into her seat and pushed open the door, turning away as she prepared to step out. Before doing so, she loosened her top and slipped it over her head, letting it fall to the passenger seat.



Jonas watched, pain forgotten as his libido commanded his senses. Xyllah stepped from the car and slowly, teasingly, shimmied the denim shorts down her lean thighs. Now nude save for her boots, she stepped away from the car, striding through the bright glare of the headlights toward the front door. The illumination played across her milk-skinned body, catching every ripple of muscle, every glimmer of silver-toned hair upon her head and above her pussy when she turned, just once, in a pirouette upon the door step.

<hr pg="8" />The detective and newest member to the Veil team struggled for only a moment with the decision presented him.



He reached for the key.



And turned off the engine.



The lights vanished as he stepped from the car and headed to the now-shadowed doorway of the small cabin . . . and the delights that awaited within.



* * * *



For the millions of souls in the city, it was an ordinary day, just one out of many in which nothing inordinate or remarkable would happen. Just a day like any other, filled with work and the concerns of the modern and mundane life. What to wear, what to eat, what to watch on TV in the evening. But for a few handfuls of people, seated in the stately old church devoted to Our Lady of the Lake, it was a day to mark the passing of a loved one . . . or, at the least, one who had been known in their lives.



Kyle sat in one of the rearmost pews, barely listening to the robotic, methodical droning of the priest as he gave the usual Christian farewell to a lost soul. His senses were focused on those who sat toward the front, facing the simple oaken casket in which lay the remains of Gina Michelle Addison. He chastised himself for having never learned her full name.



In particular, he watched the white-haired woman, who seemed to be in her late fifties, when she approached the casket and placed a single red rose atop it. A few others followed, but they seemed reserved, hesitant. The hugs and kisses on the cheek they offered the older woman looked to Kyle to be the result of expectation and nothing more. And the woman accepted them with a plastic smile and obligatory "thank yous."



He lingered for a while after everyone else had left, approaching the casket once it seemed it was "safe" to do so. He spoke nothing profound as his fingers graced the cool, polished, wooden surface. Words would have been wasted, he knew, with no ears to hear them.



"Did you know her?"



The woman's voice startled him, but only briefly, and he did not show it outwardly. Instead, he turned toward the source, seeing the same white-haired woman who had been the first to pay her respects. He saw in her face shadows of the woman he had known so intimately.



"Yes," he said simply.



She gave a slight smile as she approached down the rows, and it seemed more genuine than that which she had given Gina's relatives. "I wondered if any of her friends would come," she said. "She didn't have many."



Kyle fought down the lump in his throat. "Then I suppose I'm truly honored to have been your daughter's friend."



Her eyes flickered briefly as she ascended the few steps toward him. Her gaze fell sadly upon the casket, though they remained dry. "I've always had this fear that I would outlive her. She had such a . . . troubled life. It would be too easy to blame that on her father, but I have to start somewhere, right?"



His eyes fell. "I suppose."



Mrs. Addison laughed under her breath, a rueful, dry sound. "I never wanted to believe it," she said. "I mean, how could the man I love, with whom I had three children, do something so despicable as . . . ." She sighed heavily. "It took me years to finally see it, and by then, the damage was already done. And Gina . . . I don't suppose she ever forgave me for not believing her at first."



Kyle lifted his gaze. "You might be surprised."



A moment's hope blossomed on the woman's face. "Did she ever say anything? I mean, did she--"



"Not to me," he said. "But . . . I'm pretty sure she never completely gave up on people. Or love."



Mrs. Addison's shoulders slumped, and she regarded Kyle with a clinical eye. "You're the professor, aren't you? The . . . archaeologist or something."



"Anthropologist," he corrected.



She nodded. "We didn't talk much over these last few years, but, she mentioned you a few times. I got the impression there was something different about you, something she didn't find with all those other men."



Her grimaced at her words, at the way they conveyed an understanding of her daughter's life and profession.



Mrs. Addison seemed to read his mind. "Oh, I knew what Gina was," she said darkly. "She tried to hide it from me at first, just like she tried to hide that she was a stripper. Told me she was a secretary, then worked for a modeling agency. But I don't know any secretary or small-time model that could send home random checks of five hundred or a thousand dollars every other week. I didn't fall of the turnip truck last week, you know."



Kyle pursed his lips. "Of course not."



She stared at him for a long moment, to the point of making the anthropologist uncomfortable. "Did you love her?" she asked at last. "I mean, aside from whatever tricks she did for you in bed, did you at least find something about her, something sweet and pure and real and--"



"Yes."



The older woman faltered, eyes blinking. "What?"



He looked to her. "Yes," he repeated, feeling the emotions welling within. "I loved her. There was even a moment, not too long ago, that I thought I could take her away from everything and give her a different life. And damn me if I don't regret not doing that for her."



For a long moment, Mrs. Addison's features were stoic, untenable. Finally, however, they softened, and fresh tears rolled from one of her swelling eyes. "At least she was loved," she whispered, forcing the words out past trembling lips. Turning abruptly, she hastened down the aisle of the church, fighting valiantly to hold back her choking sobs but failing.



Kyle listened to the heart-wrenching sounds as they echoed for several moments in his mind, long after Mrs. Addison had departed. He forced back his own grief, stepping away from the coffin and taking a seat upon the steps leading to the altar. Uncaring and reckless, he took out his cigarette case and lit up, blowing smoke into the warm, still air of the church. The eyes of saints effigied in glass stared down upon him, but he paid them no heed, nor offered any apologies for his behavior.



"You can come out now."



The shadow at the edge of his vision stirred, then gave way to a tall, bearded man with salt-and-pepper hair clad in a fog coat over an expensive, tailored Italian suit. Dr, Malcolm Benedict chuckled dryly as he approached the younger theorist, stopping a few paces away.



"When did you know I was here?"



Kyle blew a plume of smoke. "About five seconds after I walked through the door."



Malcolm shook his head with a smile. "Your senses are too sharp for me."



"Not senses," Kyle said, still staring out at nothing in particular. "Intuition. I figured you'd want to talk to me sooner or later."



"You should have placed your bet on 'sooner,' then."



"I'm not a betting man."



"Aren't you? Don't you feel the greasy cards of fate in such situations as you experienced last night?"



Kyle flicked ash of his cigarette. Despite a near full night of sleep, he appeared tired. "I don't tempt anyone's fate other than my own." He sucked again on the filter, listening to the crackle of burning paper and tobacco. "I assume you want to talk about Derek Jonas."



Malcolm's voice returned, grim and patronizing. "It is not your prerogative to bring in someone from the outside, especially if they were still clouded by the Veil. You disappoint me, Kyle."



He laughed rudely. "Sorry, Dad," he snipped sarcastically.. "But I thought you had given me autonomy over the team."



"Detective Jonas was not part of the team."



"He was involved in the investigation," Kyle said simply. "We would have encountered him again, and given his record of tenacity, he would not have backed down as easily as he did the first time we met. Chances are, he would have seen something."



"Something that you would have been able to explain! Why are we going around in circles on this?"



Kyle shrugged. "Because you didn't make yourself clear?"



Malcolm folded his arms with a scolding frown. "If your current insubordination is going to continue, I can have you removed from the Veil Society."



The anthropologist glanced. "That's awfully severe. What, no slap on the wrist?"



"I want to be reassured that my team is still my team," Malcolm said tiredly.



"I didn't think that was in question. You just got yourself a new member, is all."



Malcolm bristled. "<i>I </i>determine that, not you."



Kyle lifted his foot and ground the cigarette against the sole before standing. "Fine. If it's a threat to your ego, you go have a talk with him. See if he meets your standards. But let me tell you something: one or more of us would have died in that sewer if Derek Jonas had not been there."



Malcolm's features softened somewhat, if only for the moment. "I'm aware of that," he said, then the hard look returned. "I am also aware that your team was placed in needless jeopardy because you held out on Xyllah."



Kyle gritted his teeth. "My sex life is not a tool," he growled.



The corner of Malcolm's mouth twitched in a sneer. "Well, if it's a threat to your ego, perhaps she should spend her time with someone else."



Kyle glared, then soured and turned away. "I think she already has."



Malcolm sounded surprised. "Oh? Who?"



Now it was Kyle's turn to sneer as he turned back. "Guess."



Understanding was quick to enter the older man's mind. "Ah. I see. How clever of you, Kyle."



"Me? I had nothing to do with it. You aren't actually suggesting I understand <i>women</i>, are you?"



Malcolm shook his head in rueful wonder. "I take back what I said about you, Dr. Perrin," he said. "You don't disappoint me. You amaze me continuously."



Kyle gave a flippant, sarcastic smile. "So happy to entertain you."



Malcolm took an almost menacing step toward his captain as features darkened and his eyes bored like daggers into Kyle. "Let this be the last time we are at odds, Dr. Perrin. From now on, I am to be informed of everything on a daily basis. I do not enjoy having to discover unwelcome news second-hand."



Kyle breathed in but swallowed his egoist's impulse to snap back. Instead, he merely nodded. "Fine."



Malcolm stepped back, giving a quick glance to the coffin. "My condolences on your loss, Kyle."



Kyle said nothing as the man departed, dark trench coat following him like the cape of the Montebanc through the church. Only once the man had left through the doors did Kyle begin his own long, trudging walk down an aisle that, under differing circumstances, he may have strode to meet Gina for entirely different reasons.



<i>. . . to be continued</i>



<i>(My apologies for the time between the posting of this chapter and the previous. Real life, unfortunately, sometimes takes precedence over writing. There are still several more chapters to come, and I hope you will be patient. Please don't forget to vote, and leave a comment if you like. And you can always add me as a favorite author, to make it easier to find subsequent chapters as they are posted.)</i>

