Imperfect Hosts

XxxxxxX

"All things are divided into the twin forces of Order and Chaos, forever contending for dominance. Life is something that occurs in the interface; not in the writhing discord of utter chaos, nor in the flatline perfection of pure order, but somewhere in between. The imposition of order on formless chaos, the release of joyous chaos into the grey monotony of order, this is the true magic. All else is shadow. – Neil Gaiman, "The Books of Magic"

XxxxxxX

May 8, 1973
Tenebrous Studios
Monte Saint-Michel, France

Throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s, analysts working for various law enforcement agencies in the US, Canada, and Great Britain began to take notice of something going on with the so-called "Novus Ordo Magorum et Aeternorum Ducum," one of the many ridiculous cults of mystics and magicians who claimed to have the secrets of eternal power. For the most part, the Novus Ordo had been dismissed as a club for wealthy dilettantes who wanted to indulge in the seedier side of life occasionally.

The cult was never seen as that great a threat, and in recent years its threat level had been down-checked several times. But it was clear that something was going on among the cult's leaders. The secret infighting going on beneath the notice of law enforcement had finally become public. The FBI and its counterparts among the other governments still had no idea what was going on, but they knew something was.

Despite Luther Black's best efforts, the Red Nights had gone public twice.

The first time was at the studios of Tenebrous Films, when cameras managed to capture the murder of notorious film producer – some critics would call him a jumped-up pornographer – Marcel St. Luke, who served as Baal-Chanan, one of the Novus Ordo's hidden Inner Circle.

The butchery suffered by Asteroth had alerted the various members of the Inner Circle that Luther Black was determined to kill them all, though none of them knew why. Led by the occultist Lyle Pike, some banded together and went to war against Black. Their actions prolonged the Red Nights, forcing Luther Black to wage a decade-long series of running battles against his own students and former students.

Others went into hiding, hoping to weather the storm until it was safe to emerge again. They were all eventually found, and all died crying, begging for their lives.

And a small few, long-deranged by the evil doings of the cult and by Black's foul influence on their soul, simply accepted the situation and awaited their death at his hands. Among these was Marcel St. Luke. The film producer foresaw his impending death as he had seen everything else in his life, as fodder for one of his horror movies.

St. Luke immediately called off work on all other film projects being worked on by his studio and assigned his camera crews – working in eight hour shifts – to record every second of his day-to-day life. After almost a month of filming, the end finally came, and when Arlecchino shambled out of the darkness the cameras were there to record the moment. Though Black's assassin also murdered the camera crew, he left the film behind. Marcel St. Luke's acolytes took it upon themselves to edit the hundreds of hours of black-and-white footage into a three-hour film entitled "St. Luke Entrer dans le Tenebres" (in English, "St. Luke Enters the Darkness").

The movie clearly depicts St. Luke's rapid descent into paranoia and despair, depicting the filmmaker as a manic genius and visionary, but only gives barest hints at the man's involvement in the darkest of occult practices and his pact with powers beyond his control. The film ends with Arlecchino, dressed in his shabby Scaramouche, holding his bloody knife, turning to the camera and stalking closer and closer. Black's assassin seems to almost emerge from the screen to pursue the watcher, his blank, dead eyes visible under his mask, before the movie fades to black.

Critics have called the movie everything from the ultimate culmination of the Cinema Verite movement, to a pedantic sensationalist fraud, to a perverted snuff film. Among fans of horror movies, it is legendary – although the original prints disappeared years ago, the film is still in circulation in the form of grainy, badly recorded and often incomplete copies. Whatever the artistic merits of "St. Luke Entrer dans le Tenebres", it remains one of the few concrete pieces of evidence that there was trouble among the leadership of the Norvus Ordo.

XxxxxxX

October 9, 1996
Saint Louis, Missouri

Demoiselle Nocturne raged.

The master had assigned them a simple task: find the interloper who stank so much of the Shining Darkness and kill it. Take the dark power it was soaked in from the interloper's cooling corpse and return it to Luther Black. No mortal creature should have been able to evade their attack. But somehow this woman did.

She – and for most purposes, 'she' works as a gendered pronounce describing Demoiselle Nocturne as any other – had dropped the appearance of a beautiful, if photo-negative human woman. She was in her natural form, lashing out at the surroundings in the abandoned building Peter and Arlecchino had invaded to hide and recuperate.

"She was protected, mother. Protected. The dogs she controlled, they got in the way. They protected her. They would not let us near her." When his mother was like this, Peter couldn't see her. Not directly. He could tell wisps and movement out of the corner of his eye, and see bare glimpses of something, but his eyes would slide off his mother's naked form and refuse to view it directly. His brain could not – would not – comprehend what it was seeing, and thus refused to even try.

Next to the boy, Arlecchino simply stared. He had no such problem viewing Nocturne when she – again, she works as well as any other pronoun – was like this.

"And how many of them did you kill to get to her?"

The boy glanced at Arlecchino for a moment, knowing that the dread harlequin was oblivious to anything but their master's voice. No amount of punishment from his mother would chance the shabby clown's expression, much less change his behavior. He was going to have to face the punishment himself.

"Two, mother." He swallowed. "Out of the four, who protected her, there are two who will die, I'm sure of it. We'll try again! This time, we will end her!"

"I'm sure." Demoiselle Nocturne didn't say anything more. She didn't have to. Luther Black wouldn't kill her child for failure, he would just make young Peter wish that death had been an option, and Peter knew this. He also knew that his mother would do nothing to stop it. She loved him, but there were consequences of that love. The vague, un-seeable shape collapsed and was once more the figure of his true mother, the carbon-black figure of horrible, obsessive beauty, and Peter smiled. He couldn't help himself.

"All right, Peter dear. Go to your dinner; your meat slave has worked hard to make something you like, I am sure." The – calling her a woman at this point would also be a convenience, so – the woman caressed Peter's face. "Mother is starting something on your behalf; recruiting an ally who doesn't even know she will help us, yet. But she will, when the time is right." Nocturne's gaze fell on Arlecchino. "Find the woman. Watch her. Do not strike until I tell you."

The shambling corpse merely nodded. With that acknowledgement the bright shadow surrounding Demoiselle Nocturne like a corona faded, and the hotel room returned to normal. Peter turned to look, and the woman who mistakenly thought she was Peter's mother stood there.

The meat-woman's eyes were wide and glazed over. In one hand, she held a kitchen towel, while in the other she held a plate of what looked like sliced chicken with gravy and potatoes. The woman had a growing stain where her legs joined her torso, and there was a splattering of liquid at her feet.

Peter only sighed. He took the plate from the woman and waved toward the puddle of piss. "Go and clean this mess up. Now." He turned and sat at the room's small table, not really noticing if the woman complied or not. He loved chicken with gravy and potatoes.

XxxxxxX

Anita Blake stood on the crest of the hill. It was perfectly silent. No sound of wind. No animal sounds. Not even the shifting of sand. The thumping of her heart – and her heart was beating as hard and as fast as it would be, were she running a marathon – was the only thing Anita could hear, and even then, it only sounded in the inner spaces of her ears. The sky was dark and churning, the color of old cigarette ash, and covered with a solid wall of clouds that seemed blacker than black. There was nothing around her for miles. Just more rock and ash. No trees, no buildings, no life of any kind. Everything was burned and desolate and harsh. Even the mountains in the distance looked like a set of blackened, rotting fangs biting into the horizon.

And throughout this landscape, liquid shadows moved in ways that defied the presence of the light. They clung to the rocks wrongly, and flittered from one to the other. Occasionally, two shadows would merge, clashing in violent release until only one, made larger by its absorption of the other shadow, moved on to its next hiding spot.

She looked down at herself, surprised to find herself completely naked. Not nude, naked. Nude was artistic. Nude was sensual. Anita would not call herself nude. Not now. No, she was naked.

Naked was defenseless.

Anita's skin stung as if wind-bitten. Her lungs burned as if the very air knew she was alien to this landscape and was trying to expunge her from the world. Her eyes ached and demanded to look at anything but what it was seeing.

"Isn't it glorious, Anita?" The voice, coming as it did in the complete silence, shocked her. Anita screamed, a loud, long, horrific scream, but like everything else she only heard it from the inside of her head. No sound emerged into the horrific wasteland she found herself in. Anita fell to the ash and scrambled backward, trying to put as much room between her and the speaker as she could. The effort grated the skin from her backside and feet and hands and she bled freely; the ash and stone was as sharp and cutting as ground glass.

Before her floated a woman, nude like herself. The woman was as gloriously beautiful as any super-model, the kind of beautiful that every young girl who was ever told she wasn't pretty enough by her peers in school wanted to be. Her skin was charcoal black, as were the "whites" of her eyes; the only color on the woman's entire body were the white of the woman's hair, her nipples, and her pupils. She was surrounded by a bright corona of absolute darkness.

"Welcome, Anita." The woman smiled, and Anita felt her bladder let go. Her eyes grew wide and her mouth sagged open. "I brought you here to show you a secret. You'll forget everything else, Anita, everything else you see here. It will be naught but a bad dream seldom remembered, but this secret, Anita. This secret you will remember." The woman pointed out onto the blasted plain. "Look, Anita. And remember."

She didn't want to. She tried not to. She tried to force her eyes closed. She tried to keep the muscles of her neck from turning her head. But nothing could stop it.

Out on the plain below the ridge, a massive shadow, easily the size of a skyscraper, or an aircraft carrier, undulated towards her. Almost at random, it would pick up the skulking shadows that she'd seen moving back and forth, absorbing them without effort. As it got closer to her, the mountainous thing seemed to notice her. Anita stood, frozen in terror, as the loathsome specter came closer, staring down as if sizing her up for a meal. As the distance between them closed, Anita's mind began assigning a shape to it. The various carnivorous dinosaurs of Jurassic Park came and went, as did nearly all fur-bearing carnivores she'd ever been aware of. They all were inadequate to encompass the thing's very concept, much less its true shape.

Finally, the Anita's mind settled on the vague appearance of the monster from Alien, somehow crossed with a scorpion and a black widow spider and a squid. The idea nearly broke her, because at first it was still a titanic sight. But as it closed on her, it seemed to draw into itself, becoming smaller, more contained. Until finally, the shadowy mass was barely larger than she was.

The unnatural beast loomed over her for a moment, before the black shadow of its body dispersed as if it were fog. Anita goggled; with the darkness gone, all that was left was a small woman with golden hair, yellow-catlike eyes, gold stripes all over her nude form, and a mouthful of fangs. The thing disguised as a girl opened her mouth in a rictus smile and took Anita by the shoulders. It – it wasn't a girl, Anita kept telling herself. It was a thing. It sniffed at Anita and again, gave the horrible parody of a smile, all fangs and tearing teeth.

"ANITA." The thing's voice was low and deep and growling, extending each syllable of her name as if for hours. Anita again felt her bladder go. She felt her eyes involuntarily roll back in her head as her mind acknowledged her impending death. She was the rabbit, trapped by the fox, and knowing that it was about to die couldn't even move.

"ANITA" The thing's voice again sounded. "COME ON, ANITA. WAKE UP. YOU'RE BEING RELEASED. YOUR LAWYER ARRANGED FOR YOUR BAIL AND THERE'S SOME VAMPIRE HERE WAITING FOR YOU. SAYS HE'S YOUR RIDE."

Blake blinked. The nightmare landscape and the thing in the shape of the girl were gone, replaced by the ceiling of a jail cell. She clenched her eyes shut, trying to remember the details, but they were rapidly fading. Everything was growing blank. In a moment, she couldn't remember what she'd been dreaming about, only that it had been a nightmare. Something about a monster, she thought.

Anita rolled off the bunk and looked to where Larry Zebrowski stood in the open doorway of the cell. "All right. I'm coming. Give me a sec."

XxxxxxX

"You know, it's crazy that you're more bothered by the chance you might be late to this thing than you were to being attacked by those lunatics." Jamil's voice held a tinge of wry humor that was beginning to get under Buffy's skin. "You're the boss. The entire point of this get-together is for you to see and be seen by your pack. Nothing's going to happen until you get there."

Buffy, staring out of the window from the seat behind Jamil, who was driving, merely 'hmmm'd' in response.

DISAPPOINTMENT

The other people in the car didn't flinch this time. Buffy almost smiled at it. Maybe they're getting used to it. I mean, I'm used to it being there in my head. Maybe they're getting used to it talking to me.

CONFIRMATION

I don't even know what to call you. I don't even know what you are. But here are, about to pretend to be Queen of Werewolves. How am I even going to pull this off?

EASILY

At first Buffy rolled her eyes. But then she realized that, for the first time, the thing had made a direct response to one of her questions instead of one of its usual one-word semi-answers. Have you been able to talk to me like that this entire time? You've been giving me these vague bullshit answers for almost a century now. Have you been able to talk normal to me all this time?

NEGATION

COINCIDENCE

CONTEXT

UNDERSTANDING

LIMITATIONS

CONCEPTUALIZATION

ECHOES

Wait, what? You mean I'm getting these one-word answers because they're all I'm understanding of what you're try to tell me?

CONFIRMATION

VASTNESS

LIMITLESS

IMPRISONED

EXASPERATION

LIMITATIONS

"You're gonna do fine." Jamil said for about the tenth time in as many minutes as she continued her brood. He glanced over at his partner, Shang-Da, who just shrugged. It looked to the two bodyguards like their new boss was having a conversation with herself. Something they'd noticed she did a lot. It wasn't weird, just different. Richard was the 'never miss a chance to talk someone's ear off' type. Buffy was quiet. They could deal with quiet.

Buffy just nodded. Jesus... why am I doing this again?

MINIONS

USEFUL

ARMY

ENEMIES

Great. So you are encouraging me to pretend to be a werewolf just so we have an army to fight whoever is out there?

CONFIRMATION

Wonderful. Buffy sighed, just loud enough for her two bodyguards to hear.

"Opening night jitters." Shang-Da broke the silence again. "Richard was the same way, you remember?" Shang-Da's comment was pitched low, but with the enhanced hearing enjoyed by werewolves, they expected Buffy could understand anything the two of them said to each other. And they were right.

"No, it's not that," she said, finally turning her attention back to the other two people in the vehicle. "Well, yeah, its partially that. But mostly I'm worried about Sylvie and Richard. Well, less Richard and more Sylvie." The pack's alpha wolves were still in the hospital. While Jamil and Shang-Da healed their wounds through shifting their form, Sylvie, who'd had some sort of poison spit into her eyes, and Richard, who'd been stabbed nearly three dozen times, were still in a bad way.

Okay, whatever your name is...

SINEYA

Sineya, but that was the name of the -

CONFIRMATION

Sineya, explain to me why I am masquerading as a werewolf, again? I mean, aren't they going to notice, come the next full moon, that I'm not getting all furry?

NEGATION

CAPABLE

POWERFUL

Wait... you mean I can turn into a wolf now? You mean I'm actually a werewolf now?

NEGATION

SINEYA!

Jamil nodded at Buffy's words, agreeing with her. Buffy not being able to see him do it, but got his response anyway somehow. She was barely able to keep the two conversations separate in her head, but she managed.

"Not the best way to begin my reign as the Wolf Queen." Buffy grimaced. "Having two of my alphas taken out by a homeless guy in a clown suit and a fourth-grader."

"Yeah, that's true." Jamil gave her a quick grin, then nodded forward, toward the make-do parking lot they were entering. "All due respect and shit, Buffy, but you might want to put on the big girl panties. We're here."

XxxxxxX

"So, what went wrong?"

Jean-Claude's direct question, put to her as soon as she entered the vampire's office-slash-throne room under the Circus of the Damned, and made without any of his usual French-language endearments, caught Anita Blake so off her guard that for a moment, she stumbled.

She'd arrived at the Circus directly from the Saint Louis County Jail. Over the past two days, the only shower she'd been able to take was the required jailhouse shower each new internee was required to take upon induction into the jail, the one that ended by being sprayed down with a delouser. It had been humiliating. She was also in the same clothes she'd been arrested in, and thus felt grimy all over. But the driver – sent by Jean-Claude – was under orders to bring her directly to the Master of the City and wouldn't listen to her request to let her go home to change.

Anita had always assumed that her status as the Master's human servant garnered a bit of respect amongst the vampires who worked for Jean-Claude. His behavior tonight was showing her clearly that the most important word in the phrase "human servant" was "servant," no matter how cherished a pet she might be by the master vampire, the truth was she was just a pet and nothing more.

"What do you mean?" She wasn't sure how Jean-Claude meant the question. It puzzled her. She took a seat on the comfortable chaise set before the Master's desk.

"I sent you out to retrieve this new Ulfrana so that I might bring this rebellious wolf to heel as is her natural place. I sent you, my unbeatable dark warrior, and Asher, my trusty right hand. And now, this evening, not only has the Wolf-bitch not been brought to heel, but Asher has been staked and beheaded by the police, and you spent the day in jail and are now considered a drug addict." Jean-Claude came around the desk as he talked. By the time he ended his rant, he was leaning over her, raging directly into Anita's face. "So again, ma petite, I ask you: what went wrong?"

Anita flinched leaned back as far as she could, trying to make space between herself and the angry vampire, but there wasn't very much room to retreat to. She knew better to snap back at him when Jean-Claude was like this, to demand he back off. Jean-Claude was not generally known for his shows of force or cruelty. Because of this, many other vampires, including most of the Council, saw him as too soft and compassionate for the position he now occupied. Too weak to wield true power.

But those who lived closely with the Master of Saint Louis, those who worked and lived and loved with him every single day, knew the truth. They knew just how cruel he could be. Just how violent he could be. Belle Mort had taught her children well.

"Everything went wrong!" Anita almost screamed in his face. "She's not like Richard, or even Marcus. She's not afraid to use her power. And Jean-Claude, she's incredibly powerful. Asher couldn't stand up to her, and she was too fast for me to shoot. Neither one of us had a chance. Next time, I'll be ready for her."

"The next time?" The Master of the City snorted. "Are you so sure there will be a next time?"

"Of course, there will be. We can't let a threat like her go unanswered." While she said, 'we', Jean-Claude understood that Anita meant 'I.' One of the woman's many failings was an inability to allow anyone else to be the toughest, meanest person in the room, and Summers had pretty much proven to anyone who paid attention that when it came to being a mean, vicious bitch, Anita Blake was simply amateur hour by comparison. Anita's ego wouldn't let that go for a second.

"And you I am sure will treat her in the same manner you have treated all other possible threats to your status as the most unpleasant bitch in Saint Louis." Jean-Claude's smile wasn't very cheerful.

"What? Fuck you, you French – "

"You gave her my message, yes?" Jean-Claude interrupted, cutting off what was sure to be a world-class rant had it proceeded. The vampire stood upright and backed off, eventually returning to the far side of his desk.

"Of course, I gave her your message! What do you think started the fucking fight, Jean-Claude? I told her you "required her presence" and that we were there to take her to you. She laughed at me, Jean-Claude. She laughed at Asher." Anita shook her head. "And then she told me that if you wanted to talk to her, you could make an appointment and come by yourself. Asher tried to grab to her make her go along. Turned out that was a big mistake. She punched Asher so hard he landed thirty yards away, easy. She managed to dodge my shots, crushed my guns, and ended up calling the cops on me for kidnapping, no less."

"And that's how you ended up in a jail cell, and Asher ended up on an executioner's table. Kidnapping?" Jean-Claude didn't need to breathe unless they were doing it for effect, or unless they needed to speak. Anita knew this. So, when she watched Jean-Claude take a deep breath and let it out slowly, though his nose, without saying anything else, she knew it was for show. He was obviously pissed off.

"This pute aux puces who has cost the life of my friend and lover treats with me as if I am a jumped-up merchant and not the Master of the City!" The vampire's voice was cold and unemotional, but the man himself was shaking with rage. "Me! How dare she! Is this not my city? Are the wolves not my animal to call? And you! She has ruined your career, torn you away from your places of influence, and reduced to you a common criminal!"

Anita wasn't sure if Jean-Claude was angrier over what Summers had done to Anita personally, or for what Summers had done to Jean-Claude's plans. For a moment, the thought that it might not be her caused her to despair.

Jean-Claude walked to his desk and picked up the receiver for his phone. Jean-Claude waited a moment after tapping a quick number, then said, "C'est Jean-Claude. Mettez-les tous dans les cellules." A pause. "Tous." Another pause. "Oui, meme ma pomme du sang."

As Jean-Claude replaced the phone on its cradle, Anita cleared her through, gaining the Master's attention. For a moment, she thought to interfere. She had heard about the wolves abandoning the Circus at the order of their new leader. She had also heard that Jean-Claude had effectively held the ones that hadn't left as prisoners. Some of those werewolves were her friends, and it bothered her. But did it bother me enough to interfere? No.

She waited until he was done to speak. "She, uh, Summers, I mean, she had something to say about you being Master of the City, too. She, uh, well, she laughed at you for that also."

"What?" The vampire was dumbstruck.

"Yeah, she said that, uh, you know… no one voted for you and you weren't elected to any office, so you have no actual legal authority in Saint Louis. She called you a mafia boss. Said something about how, since you're a legal citizen and so is she, you don't actually get to order people around against their will."

"Oh, did she, now?" Jean-Claude's eyes darkened. "I look forward to showing her precisely where she went wrong with that idea."

"What are you going to do?" Anita watched him with hope in her eyes. Her life had recently fallen apart because of what this bitch Summers did to her, and Anita was nothing if always interested in giving people who crossed her payback.

"I will deal with her. It is a simple fact that, even had she not caused Asher's death, I'd still have to deal with her harshly. I must to admit that, were I honest with myself, her overthrow of Richard and the tangle it made of my schemes truly isn't enough to remove her fully from the chessboard. I would still have to bring her to heel, but not remove her." Jean-Claude's eyes got steely. "But in her defiance, she cost the life of Asher. And I shall have my revenge.

Anita's breath caught as Jean-Claude smiled. It was a different smile from normal, not one she'd seen too often. There was no trace of the raw sex he usually exuded. Instead, it seemed he was filled with pure ice.

"She will be brought before me, I will dominate her completely, I will punish her for her arrogance, and then, when she has been punished enough, I will give her to you so that you may personally eliminate her." Jean-Claude said it as if it was an inevitability. "I will then make sure that Richard is back in place at the head of the wolf-pack, where he belongs. And then we will work to get your life back from where this interloper has left it in pieces."

Anita smiled at the thought.

XxxxxxX

"You still here?"

Detective Tammy Reynolds, the witch-in-residence for the Saint Louis RPIT unit, jumped at the sudden sound of the voice. The high-pitched squeal that came from her was precisely the kind of embarrassing sound that cops just weren't supposed to give forth, apparently cops intended to be the baddest of the SLPD's bad-asses.

Reynolds put a folded post-it note in place and closed the book she had been reading. "Jesus, Zebrowski! Don't do that! It's bad enough Dolph has me going through all these creep-making books, you gotta go scare me like that?"

Detective Sergeant Zebrowski – technically Reynolds superior, but the man hardly ever pressed his superior rank on anyone – merely chuckled. "Sorry, Tammy. I would have thought you were out of here hours ago. I'm finally on my way out, and the only people here are night shift downstairs."

Reynolds craned her head around to look at the clock on the wall. "When the hell did it get to be 7:30?"

"You tell me. Get into something good?" Zebrowski waved a hand lazily toward the book she'd been reading.

Reynolds shuddered. "I don't think you ever want to use the word 'good' about anything about this book. The entire thing is like someone's worst nightmare. It's called the Liber Terribilis, and its filled with some of the scariest, sickest shit I've seen in a long time." She gave the book a shove. "It's about seven hundred years old and if my guess is right, this is an original copy."

Zebrowski whistled. "I don't think I've seen a seven-hundred-year-old book."

"Yeah, me neither. To an antique book collector, it's probably worth a couple of million dollars." She sighed and rubbed her eyes. "The scary part is - I think I'm understanding part of it, and that's terrifying."

"How so?" The senior detective whirled a chair around and straddled it backward.

"What?" Reynolds looked at him, confused.

"Why is understanding it terrifying?"

"Because…" she began. "This stuff, its stuff that no decent person should have rolling around in their head. There's a spell in here for skinning a victim alive. The spell makes sure the victim doesn't die for a couple of days after the skinning is done. There's another that turns a baby – that's a baby still in its mother's womb – into a flesh-eating zombie. Want to know how to curse someone into vampirism without first having them bitten? It's in there too. I don't need to know these things, but now I do." Reynolds wiped at her eyes. "Just knowing that this is possible… Larry, I'm taking a long weekend this weekend. I'll be spending it at my church, praying for my soul."

Zebrowski didn't know if she was serious or not. "Sure, I'll square it with Dolph."

Reynolds smiled, but it was a weak smile at best. "Good news is, I think I found out what the original owner, Whitebridge – I think I found what he was doing. Here. Look at this." She opened the book up again at where she had tucked the post-it.

"I'm not sure I want to look at that." Zebrowski chuckle was dry and only half-felt.

"No, this'll be okay. This is… you're fine. Just, look at this okay" Reynolds opened to a two-page hand-drawn picture of – of something. Zebrowski wasn't sure. It sort of looked like a mix between a naked woman, a tiger, a scorpion, that Wolverine guy from the comic books, and that acid-blooded alien from the movies, the one that laid eggs in your stomach and had two sets of jaws.

"What in the ever-loving fuck is that?" His eyes kept sliding off the picture, almost as if his brain was refusing to acknowledge its existence.

"That is Sineya, one of the so-called Kings of Edom."

"Kings of Edom, huh?"

"Yeah. Sineya here is called the Queen of Beasts. She's also called the Mistress of the Lurking Death, the Empress in Blood Red, the Hunter Who Cannot Be Denied, and the Slayer of the World. She's one of about thirty of these things, these Kings of Edom."

"Okay, so what makes the Kings of Edom so special?" Zebrowski pulled a pair of reading glasses from his pocket and put them on.

"This is where it gets really scary." She closed the book again and held it in her lap. "According to the myths, the Kings of Edom were what ruled the universe before God began his creation. See, when the Bible says 'darkness was over the surface of the waters' its talking about these things. The Kings of Edom were what was already there when God started making the universe. The light of God's Creation drove the Kings away, to what is called the Shining Darkness, a place where the light of God never penetrates. And now, they look for ways in so they can undo all of Creation. Not because they hate God. Not because they're evil, necessarily. Just because they find the universe to be an aggravation and don't want to put up with it anymore."

"Undo all of Creation?" Zebrowski pulled his glasses off and stared at them. "You're talking about destroying the entire world?"

"The entire universe. Not just the planet Earth, but all of it. The sun, the stars, the galaxies. Everything."

"Uh-huh." Zebrowski grimaced at Reynolds. And you think that, what, back in the horse-and-buggy days, Whitebridge cast his spell and called this thing up and put it in the girl who was in the glass bubble?"

"Yeah, Sarge, I think that's what happened. And if that's true, then we are in an entire river delta of shit, because this thing isn't playing around. It's about as far from playing around as you can get. Its entire purpose, from what it says in the book, is to hunt and kill things. To destroy things. That's all it does. This thing should have started a rampage that would bring down human civilization. But where is it? Where's the apocalypse?"

Zebrowski sighed. "And here I thought I'd be getting some sleep ever again in my entire life. Okay, so these things want to kill the entire universe and it's going to start by killing everybody." He was quiet for a long while. "You're right. Why haven't we seen anything? I mean, if this boogeyman is so bad, why aren't we seeing rains of toads and rivers of blood already?"

Reynolds shook her head. "I don't know. Maybe… maybe the problem is that we keep expecting this thing to act like a demon. It's not a demon. It is really, really not a demon. Maybe the book is wrong. Maybe… maybe its abilities are limited. Maybe we're thinking black and white, and this thing thinks blue and orange. I have no idea and too many questions."

"Okay, put aside the questions for a moment. So, what is it, then? And if you say it's a god, I'm denying you coffee privileges."

But Reynolds was already shaking her head. "No, it's something completely new and unheard of. We've never dealt with anything like this before. We're not going to know how to handle it when the time comes."

XxxxxxX

The crowd had parted as Buffy approached the chair-shaped stone that sat at the center of the pack's lupanar. She couldn't take her eyes from it; staring at the throne was easier than meeting the eyes of any of the strangers who were now going to look toward her for leadership. Not to mention the ones who were about to look at her and thing that they could take her. And Buffy had been repeatedly warned by Jamil that there were some who had already started talking about the plans they had for when they were Ulfric.

I still can't believe they named the tribe after the stupid chair.

AMUSEMENT

The crowd seemed to take a deep collective breath as the presence sounded in the back of her head.

Buffy mounted the rough steps leading to the seat of the chair, then turned to face the crowd. She'd been nervous about doing this, but – as the Doors had always said – the time to hesitate was through. Here was the time for her to announce, formally, her defeat of both Richard and Sylvie, for her to claim leadership of the pack, and for challenges against her rule to play out, and when all that was done, for the acknowledgement of the pack from the Ulfrana and their place in the hierarchy of the wolf. Not all the pack's wolves lived in the Saint Louis area, after all; some were from as far away as Steelville and Hermann.

The gathering wasn't a Hunt. There was no full moon. But the sense of urgency and the undercurrent of excitement was just as tangible as if there had been. Jamil and Shang-Da took their places at the foot of the throne, while the pack's other Alphas arranged themselves according to their position of dominance. The two holes in the rough formation left by Richard and Sylvie absences were glaring.

Here goes nothing. Wish me luck.

CONFIDENCE

ASSURANCE

RULE!

Thanks. I appreciate the pep talk.

Buffy took a deep breath, then addressed the crowd. "Wolves of Thronos Rokke! Hi there! I'm Buffy!" She gave the crowd a quick wave and a smile. She could hear Jamil groaning. Oh right… take it seriously.

She took a deep breath and stood up straight. "Having defeated the previous Ulfric, Richard Zeeman, in single combat, I, Buffy Summers, claim leadership of the pack and the position of Ulfrana!" Without turning her back on the crowd, she sat on the throne. Despite the gathering darkness, the stone still carried the warmth from being out in the sun all day, and Buffy found it a remarkably comfortable seat.

Her announcement caused a great deal of muttering and whispering. She allowed a bit of the presence to leak out as a pulse; it immediately quieted the crowd. "So… is this going to be a problem for anyone? I mean, does anyone wish to challenge their new Ulfrana for leadership of the pack? If so, I'm right here!" Buffy glanced around, almost daring someone to be the first to step forward. A pause between each question had the assembled wolf pack looking to one another. It was unheard of for a new pack leader to go unchallenged by anyone, and the fact that Buffy was as small and frail-looking as she did…

"Where is Richard? And where's Sylvie?" The question came from somewhere in the depths of the crowd. Buffy had been expecting it.

"The two were injured during an attack earlier today at the Lunatic Café. They're still recovering, but the doctor said they will be fine. It's just taking longer than normal." Buffy had finally located the speaker. She was a tall, chesty blonde standing among a crowd of other female Alphas. Most of the others around her seemed either resigned or confused. This woman just seemed pissed off.

"Paris," Jamil muttered. Given the susurrus of the crowd, the assembled wolves would have missed his naming her even with their enhanced hearing. But Buffy heard her just fine.

"And you think you can just march in and take over? Some outsider? I WAS GOING TO BE LUPA! LUPA! AND YOU FUCKED THAT UP FOR ME!" The woman – Paris, if Buffy was understanding Jamil's comment correctly – approached the throne, first slowly, and then at a full tilt run. At the foot of the flattened stone upon which the chair sat, Paris leapt. The woman began to transform in mid-air. Paris's hands became claws and her snout extended. In a single blur of motion, Buffy stood from the chair quickly, ducked under the woman, and grabbed her challenger by one ankle with both hands.

As if standing at home plate and swinging for the bleachers, Buffy brought Paris around in an arc that ended with the larger woman's head cracking open like a melon against the body of the throne rock itself. Jamil had gone on at length at how most challenges for rulership were to the death, and how Buffy had violated tradition by leaving both Richard and Sylvie alive. But – and he was quite clear about this – she had also established a precedent that it didn't have to happen.

So tonight, whether the challengers died or not was up to her.

If Buffy hadn't been attacked in her own home, if Richard was not still in the emergency room, if Sylvie wasn't still trying to recover from being poisoned, she'd likely have left this Paris woman alive. Battered, sure. A few broken bones, absolutely. But alive.

Not this time.

Paris's skull struck the throne with enough force to shatter it like a watermelon dropped from the top of a skyscraper. Buffy stared down at the red mess dripping from her throne; she wasn't even breathing hard; the fight had been over so quickly.

EFFICIENT

APPROVAL.

Without a word, Buffy turned to the crowd. "Anyone else?" No one stood forward. "No?" Still, only silence met her cry. After a moment, Buffy turned to Jamil and shrugged toward Paris's rapidly cooling corpse. "Get this cleaned up. Do we have a graveyard on our land? Some place we can bury her out here? She was lukoi, pack. She should be honored like it."

"Sure, Buffy." Jamil looked to Shang-Da, who shrugged in response. "We'll take care of it. I don't think we have any sort of burial ground out here…"

"Then start one." Buffy turned back to the crowd. "Now that the challenges are finished, does anyone want to talk to me? About anything? Any issues, any questions, anything?"

As her Skoll and Hati moved to clear the throne of Paris's remains, a bearded man in flannel and blue-jeans called at her. "I heard you didn't kill Richard or Sylvie, and they both challenged you. You gave them a chance to surrender. But you down-right slaughtered Paris with no chance of reprieve. So, uh…" The unasked question hung in the air.

Buffy looked the man up and down. "What's your name, lukoi?"

"Uh…" The man glanced around him, obviously looking for support among his fellow wolves. He wasn't finding any. "I'm, uh, Bob. Bob Kroebener. Uh, nice to, um, meet you."

Buffy didn't smile. "Nice to be met, Bob." She stepped down from the throne and into crowd. She kept her voice loud, though, so everyone could hear her. "I don't like unnecessary violence. I don't. If I don't have to kill someone, I'm not going to because there's just no need for it. That's why Richard and Sylvie are both alive; they fought me, they surrendered, so it's over. I don't like people who hurt other people just because they can. I hate bullies, I hate mean people, and I hate pushy people, and I won't put up with any of them. But I don't have to kill them when a beating gets the job done."

"That said, tonight, before I came to the lupanar, I was attacked. I have no idea who they were, but they put two of this pack's strongest Alphas in the emergency room. Sylvie's been poisoned, and Richard was gutted like a fish. The attackers were a creepy kid and an even creepier homeless clown guy. Even being lycanthropes, these two could disable Sylvie and Richard, and nearly did the same to Shang-Da and Jamil. Night before that, I was attacked by a guy I've since learned was the Number Two vampire in the city, as well as the local vampire executioner. So, if you think I might be a little tense, you're right." She stopped in front of Bob Kroebener and crossed her arms just under her breasts. "I think we might be at war with someone, and I don't know who, but I know this is no time for anyone to be doubting I'm in charge. I killed Paris because I want everyone one of you to know I am in charge and that now is no time to fuck around. Okay, Bob?"

"Yeah, sure! Okay!" Kroebener stepped back from her, as did all the wolves around him. Buffy sighed and pulled in the forcefulness of her personality.

"So, any more questions?" Buffy smiled at the crowd, but it was the smile she used right before she'd launch into a half-dozen soon-to-be-staked vampires. The predator's smile.

A voice came out of the crowd. "What are going to do about the Master of the City? He wouldn't let Janine come home!"

"Yeah, and how about Blake? Are you going to kill her? She's supposed to be your Bolverk, but if she attacked you…" Another voice called.

"Bolverk." Buffy turned to Jamil. "Bolverk's are like court-executioners, right? Personal enforcer to the king or queen?" The black man just nodded to her.

"Right." Buffy turned back to the crowd. "I'm not going to need any Bolverk. If I need to take someone down as punishment, I'm going to do it myself. If I have the balls to order someone executed, I damned well should have the balls to handle it myself." There was a lot more muttering and more than a few nodding heads at this announcement.

Buffy stepped back up to the throne and sat down. It was beginning to cool as it got darker. "As far as Anita Blake, she's uh… she's kicked out of the pack."

"Rogue." Jamil muttered quietly, and Buffy smiled and repeated him, loudly enough for the crowd to hear.

"Thing is, she's human, or near enough to it to count as one. I don't want anyone hunting her down!" She had to raise her voice again. "She's not a wolf, so punishing her is not up to us. It's up to the cops."

"That's not how the tradition— "Someone began to respond.

"And I don't care! We are one big happy law-abiding family, remember? Just because we are wolves doesn't mean we're not going to be nice, tax-paying citizens. She's not a wolf, so she's – "The crowd began objecting. "No! Let her hide behind her vampire. She's no longer welcome out here with the wolves. Don't -"

There were a series of shouts from the crowd, calling for various things to be done to Anita Blake. "LISTEN TO ME, DAMN IT! Don't go after her! DON'T! If she's just trying to talk to you, then talk, or not, up to you. If she's attacking you, defend yourself. If she messes with you, like, I don't know, interferes with you at work or follows you home or tries to bully you into doing something she doesn't want to do, call the cops and then call me. But do not attack her! Don't do it! Just leave her be."

"But…" One of the Alphas, a tall, lanky red-headed man who looked like he'd be more at home in a granola commercial than in a wolf pack, stepped forward. "I mean, it's your call, but you want us to involve the cops?"

"Sure." Buffy gave the man her brightest smile. "Like I said, we're all law-abiding citizens, right? We want to show them that we're not monsters, right? We're just folks." There were nods across the crowd of werewolves, though she could see that some of them were still having a problem with it. Oh well, Buffy thought to herself. I'll bust some heads until they listen to me.

"Now… what was this about the Master of the City not letting someone go home?"

XxxxxxX

October 10, 1981
CIA Field Office, US Embassy
Lagos, Nigeria

The second time the Red Nights went public was, in fact, the last of them

By late 1981, Aganju Lambo, the man known called Asmodeus by the members of the Novus Ordo's inner circle, was the last member of the order's Inner Circle left alive. He had run to ground in Lagos, and had taken sanctuary with his fellow Yoruba tribesmen. His own magic, coupled with that of the Yoruba shamans, protected him from mystic attack. The spirits of his ancestors protected him from all divinations. Despite this, all omens and portents predicted that he would still die, painfully and horribly, at the hands of Luther Black. Desperate to avoid this fate and defy the omens, Lambo made the CIA an offer.

Working through intermediaries, Lambo offered to turn himself in and give the Americans as much information about the Novus Ordo and its true goals and means. In return, he asked for immunity from prosecution and protection – both physical and mystical – from reprisals. Immunity was the sticking point. Over its history, the Novus Ordo had caused many deaths, and not just the victims' families but in some cases the governments of other countries were seeking vengeance.

The two parties went back and forth for over a week before Lambo gave in and agreed to all the CIA's terms. He had only one demand of his own from which he refused to deviate: four agents of the CIA, named by Lambo specifically, would act as his bodyguards. Only those individuals, he claimed, had the necessary skill and ability to protect him from his enemies. The CIA performed new and extensive background checks on these agents, but found nothing out of the ordinary. They agreed to Lambo's terms, and assembled the agents in Lagos. Americans Lyle Fowler, Elmer Butler, and John Stanley were joined by the Israeli-born Avagail Shafir at the US embassy building.

Later reviews of the incident identified four areas in which the agent-in-charge and the men working for him committed fatal errors. First, he should have required Lambo to enter the field office on his own instead of in the company of an entourage. Second, the on-duty staff should have noticed the increased presence of Nigerian National Militiamen in the streets outside of the embassy. Third, he should have suspected the presence of an unauthorized repair crew a week earlier as being part of a long-term attack plan. And fourth, he should have had a member of Project Hermes, the CIA's task force dealing with mystic and arcane, present in the embassy given the known nature of the Novus Ordo.

But by then it was too late.

Luther Black had already gotten to Aganju Lambo, had spiritually gutted the man, and was manipulating his now-soulless body as if it was a marionette.

Learning of the negotiations, he decided to make use of the CIA and their resources. The week before, several members of the cult, posting as electricians, had sabotaged the embassy's air-conditioning system so it would spew a hallucinogenic powder into the air. More cult members infiltrated the street outside the embassy disguised as members of the Nigerian National Militia. Black himself arrived in the company of Aganju Lambo, disguised as the man's lawyer, and since Black was blind, another cult member acted as his "legal assistant".

And finally, lurking in the shadows, was Arlecchino.

The cultists managed to take over the building with minimal violence, and with no word of what was happening escaping to the outside world. On a makeshift altar set up in the ambassador's office, Luther Black sacrificed agents Fowler, Butler, Stanley, and Shafir to the Imhullu, the demons known to the Babylonians as "the whirlwind, the hurricane, the wind of four, and the wind of seven."

The demons swirled around the agency, killed everything in their path, be it cultists or captured embassy personnel. Luther Black overcame the power of the demons, and ripped it from them, opening a portal to the Shining Dark and calling forth a spirit from that dark plane. The entity was unceremoniously forced into the body of Avagail Shafir, where it boiled and raged until Black conquered it.

Luther Black named this being Demoiselle Nocturne, and bound it to his will.

With Nocturne in tow, Luther Black departed the area. He left behind a gruesome scene out of the worst of nightmares: a high heap of mutilated people, their bodies cut to ribbons and drained of all blood, not to mention the desiccated corpse of Aganju Lambo.

XxxxxxX

Author's Note: Buffy the Vampire Slayer is the property of Warner Brothers in conjunction with Mutant Enemy Productions. Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter is the property of Laurel K. Hamilton and her publisher. The Sandman is the creation of Neil Gaiman, and is owned by DC Comics, which is itself a subsidiary of Warner Brothers. The character Luther Black was created by Alan Thomas and appears in that writer's series of pulp homage crime nor stories dealing with square-jawed detectives hunting down dangerous cultists. He appears here with permission of the author.

Author's Note the Second: Normally, I'd be trying to concentrate on getting Origin Story finished, but I hit a wall with the next chapter. For whatever reason, I can't get a decent word flow. But I was sitting there trying to get some juice going and a scene popped into my head. Problem is, it was a scene for this story – specifically it was the bit where Demoiselle Nocturne shows Anita Blake the Shining Darkness. So instead of Origin Story, I decided to write for this story, and an entire chapter popped out. Funny how that works.

Author's Note the Third: I want to again apologize to my constant readers who have been very, very patient with me about the slow rate of new chapters. Unfortunately, my health has only become worse. On top of recovering from the accident, I suffered a stroke recently, with all the problems attendant with having a blood vessel in your brain explode. And yes, it turned out the stroke was connected to injuries I suffered in the accident. If it's not one thing, it's another. Anyway, enjoy the new chapter.