Chapter1:

'I live in the light, but carry my own darkness within me.

A day as dark as a moonless night. Filled by icy winds and indifferent clouds casting unfeeling tears down to soak the life out of an already ailing human race. A frigid grip squeezing any warmth and hope and feeling from the bodies of those brave enough to challenge it. A day in which lightning streaks colored pitch cloud like an electric surge of raging emotions.

That would've been the morning's mood if the weather had made any considerate attempt to mimic the feelings resting limp his chest.

'But no...' Eduardo thought. The sun continued to shine, sizzling and scorching the mere mortals depending on its life-giving rays. The comforting light breeze continued to blow through the open space that was the sidewalk. In its indifference, it continued to mix in with the noxious fumes and smells of just another of the famous New York City streets.

And he continued to place his feet, one in front of the other.

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Kylie's head lifted as she heard the firehouse door creak open. She watched as Eduardo shuffled through the green doorframe. She stood up from behind Janine's desk and walked to meet him at the stairs. He didn't acknowledge her and just kept walking.

Eduardo put his foot on the first step his wandering mind jerked back to reality as he felt a hand on his shoulder. He knew without having to look that it was Kylie. The increasingly burning pain he felt in his left shoulder commanded his immediate attention and he quickly turned around to face her, in doing so, ripping his recent injury out of her reach. It felt like one of the muscles in his shoulder had torn the night before when he landed on it. It should heal in an hour or so, but until then was a constant irritation.

"Eduardo, you were supposed to be here half an hour ago." Kylie was already irritated. With having to wake up so early for her shift, Slimer deciding that her favorite cereal was his new favorite too, life in general and being force to wait thirty minutes before her verbal punching bag arrived.

"'Morning Chica. Sorry, my alarm clock's out of order." 'Permanently' he added silently.

Kylie was about to comment on his tardiness when her hand brushed the mail and she stopped her already boiling temper to give him the letter before she made herself forget out of spite after the argument.

"This came for you."

She handed him a plain white envelope, with his name and the firehouse's address on the back in messy blue pen ink. He flipped it over and opened the envelope and pulled out a small white card. Blank, except for a short message in an angular handwriting on the back in the same blue ink as the envelope.

Kylie stretched to read over his shoulder but due to his height had to settle for peering around his arm to see what message the note conveyed. Looking over his shoulder, so to speak – Eddie was over a head taller than her- Kylie quickly read the words:

'Friends never say goodbye.

Friday 21, 5pm. Long Island bus depot.

Watch your back.'

"Watch you back?"

"Personal joke."

"Really. Who's it from?"

"No one you know. Listen, you know where Egon is, I got to ask him about getting Friday afternoon off."

"He's doing some research in-"

"Thanks."

Eduardo turned and walked towards the stairs without, to Kylie's extreme ire, giving her a second thought. In truth Eduardo was merely trying to escape and talk to Egon as quickly as he could. A blind man could see the mood Kylie was in and his only hope was to escape before he managed to inadvertently setting her off. Even worse he had the feeling that she her curiosity was being provoked by the letter. He should have known better, he wasn't thinking and made his answer to brief. He should have drawn out the lie and bored her into disinterest.

Kylie watched as Eduardo continued to stare down at the card in thought as he walked and her ire faded as she it was replaced by minimal concern for her teammate recent attitude adjustment. He was always quiet these days and it didn't suit him. If she didn't know better she'd say he was thinking.

Her eyes glanced down to see the envelope that he'd thrown on the table and wondered about it. Why would anyone send a message that brief, especially family. And what was the joke about.

The ire quickly returned however when she realized her sparring partner was retreating with out her daily stress relief exercise of screaming at each other as those around them were willing to tolerate. She spoke but hinged her words with a patronizing sarcasm that she hoped would be enough to set him off and hopefully she could get some answers about what was going on with him.

"You ok?"

Her ears barley picked up the near inaudible sigh escaping past the white bars that were his teeth and with curiosity over the note in mind she began the interrogation.

Eduardo was annoyed. His day just kept getting better and better. Next Carlos would call and say his grandfather was dropping by for a visit.

He turned and caught a glimpse of Kylie's expression. He was never going to get away from this conversation without a fight. Deciding whether to just jump right into the argument or slowly wade his way into the mess his mouth beat him to the punch.

"Fine." Guard rails up.

"You sure? You've been weird lately." Target locked. Arming missiles.

"You're weird always. We never ask why." BOMBS AWAY!

"What's that supposed to mean!" Target acquired.

With the sudden heightened pitch in Kylie's tone Eduardo had to accept the fact that for all her intellect, Kylie was incredibly easy to manipulate when the need arose.

"Hey, take it how you want to Chica."

And thus, once again the battle between these two often combatants occurred again in their already long-standing war.

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Janine froze as her key was within hopping distance of an ant from the firehouse door's keyhole. She shook her head as Kylie and Eduardo's voices added to the normal taintings of noise pollution filtered through the silence to her ears. They were at it again.

By their volume she guessed they'd been fighting for a while, probably with no one attempting to silence their childish spat. That could only mean that Egon was still asleep or in his lab. She checked her watch. She shook her head ruefully. In his lab.

Straightening her shoulders Janine turned her key and walked quickly to her desk unnoticed by it's neighboring combatants until she spoke up in her usual slightly nasal tone.

"Isn't it a little early for one of your fights children."

Embarrassed both combatants back down and silently came to the understanding that the fight was over, for now at least.

Kylie turned and went over to see if she could help Janine with anything. She turned her head slightly to glimpse Eduardo reach the stairs and brooded over their argument. Something had been missing. It hadn't had that touch of irate humor that normally accompanied his speech.

She glanced again to see why he hadn't started up the stairs to see he was already at the top of the staircase; she just hadn't heard his footsteps.

Kylie frowned at the now empty stairs. She realized that she'd completely forgotten about the message and her questions concerning it. She hadn't just said it for the sake of it being said. Eduardo was definitely acting strange lately. He was jumpy on jobs, always late, always distracted. He wasn't catching his usual naps on his shifts. Not that that was unusual in the last two weeks. Not since-

Well he'd been jumpy enough lately. She only hopped his visitor wouldn't make his condition any worse then it already was.

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Eduardo approached the lab door, heitated and softly rapped his knuckles against the wooden surface. Hoesty would soon be gone. The lies would have to begin. And knowning how bad things could get, they'd probebly never end.

Obeying the slight muffled command he entered the room to meet the sight of one Doctor Egon Spengler crouched over a microscope twisting dials to bring the chosen object into focus.

Egon looked up to see his Hispanic student shuffling his feet at the door.

"Yes Eduardo?"

Eduardo took a breath and looking up began to voice his request.

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Have you ever really looked at leather seats? I mean really leaning-down-nose-touching kind of looked? And not those so smooth your go sliding across the surface kind of leather, I mean that rough soft leather that fools paid unnecessary fortunes for to impress people they don't even know.

A long, black, red-tipped, barley rounded nail softly dragged along the pitch leather interior. It was nothing when compared to the comfort allowed when those of the Darkness held power over the weak, fearful, close-minded mortals.

She could remember a time when she was cushioned by the fresh, smooth, soft hides of newborn Nubian girls as she was carted around to her whim. While the limousine was a great improvement in the speed and quality of travel the seat covers still left her reminiscent and wistful for her glorious past.

Sparse trees and truck stops dodged past them at equal speeds as the other cars near by fought for dominance in speed and aggression as multitude of other vehicles. Out side the tinted windows she could see the scenery race by. Regardless of the comfort of her vehicle she was still forced to share a traveled route with the worthless, weak, mortal vermin. Her upper lip raised with a snarl and she quickly turned away from the window.

No matter, this time tomorrow she and her convoy would have arrived in New York and once she'd seen to her assigned task there she'd rectify the solution through the dozens of hospitals and orphanages the city was sure to posses.

She reopened the text before her. It had taken the an entire council of mages hours to rebuild what they could after the guardian's interruption. The stupid bitch had ripped away most of the information she had gained though the subconscious link. The boy's mental walls had been surprisingly strong but she had been close to breaking through. Close to unleashing the mayhem that Time and Space had seen fit to lock away.

The only remnants that could be retrieved were few and close too useless with out some great blessing of fortune or a great mistake from the other sides. She looked at the page. A girl he lusted after, similar to her own appearance if not her height, named Kylie, soft brown eyes and brown hair, a small, golden hoop earring and a name. Edward.

She glanced at the slim watch on her wrist. She bought it for the presence of the exquisite, tiny blue diamonds decorating its face but she'd had long ago forgotten their existence. Things were moving together and soon she would be glorified. Gloried for being the one to cause the end to the war. A champion amongst the bloodthirsty.

Almost there

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Faith had decided. The Powers had obviously created the bus in order to occupy the weird and annoying masses while punishing those who still had a less than mundane purpose in their existence.

'I'm going to slaughter that Hispanic menace.'

She sighed, looking out the window. It wasn't as of she didn't enjoy watching the twin terrors try to alleviate their own boredom by aiming little peanut missiles into the old man's ear two rows up. And it was so much fun making sure that every few minutes her perverted neighbor across the aisle's bag hit him upside the head on its umpteenth fall from the overhead luggage space.

Don't get her wrong, she enjoyed these small amusements. It was just that she'd give her left nut, if she'd had a left nut, to engage in a more preferred form of travel without alerting unwanted presences.

The glare of the midday sun hit her with full force and she dug around in the small brown backpack beside her for her sunglasses. The non-comfortable comfort of the scratchy chairs was ignored as she gathered her energy to give a psychic head bashing to the bastard across the aisle that kept checking out her cleavage.

Later, in retrospect, when Faith thought back to her almost fatal carelessness, she'd realize that she owed her thanks and her still-in-one-piece-hide to the afore-mentioned sex-crazed neighbor...not that he'd ever get it.

If however, she hadn't been expanding her energy at that precise moment in order to knock the approximately twenty kilogram bag on his head- accidentally of course- she would never have sensed the fast approach of an illusionary shield. Without that warning she would not have had time to retract her own energy field into that of an ordinary human's.

Annoyance and boredom were quickly forgotten as she watched through a slightly oily glass as a stretch black limousine sped past in an attempt to overtake the greyhound bus. Its tinted windows kept her from viewing its occupants.

She ducked further in her seat as she noticed that watcher imp posing as a hood ornament and although she could sense the accompanying harpies soaring along overhead, she couldn't examine them without adjusting her eyes to their specific plane. An act that had to be avoided to maintain her current anomity.

She couldn't make out the passenger of the limo and the license plate would probably be useless in finding out. The circling harpies however told her which side she was dealing with. The other would have used salaries or angels.

The limo pulled further ahead and as she continued to watch it chase down the horizon. A few moments after the magical field was out of her perception range she'd already put into motion the security precautions in case the limo had a tailing guard.

There was no way in all the hells the bus was going to beat the limo to New York. She came to the conclusion that it was time to organize another faster, if slightly more noticeable, mode of transportation.

The rest stop was coming up.

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Creature Feature:

The powers: Just a shorter way of saying "The Powers that Be". It will be coming into dialogue fairly often.

Illusionary shield: Just a shield that doesn't make things invisible so much as convince humans that they don't see the things contained within the shield. It's there to hide the imps and harpies not really the limos.

The energy field is basically like an aura. And the aura can be manipulated into some different size or type of energy.

An imp is just a lesser demon. They're very agile and fast, make good spies, are good at sensing energies and are by nature mischievous and slightly malicious. Usually they are slaves or servants to a higher demon.

Harpies: Greek Mythology. Winged monsters with women's faces and menacing brass claws that menaced those who displeased the gods.

Salaries: Norse mythologies. Beautiful 'worrier' women on winged horses that lead the brave who died in battle to Valhalla (the Norse equivalent of heaven)

Angels: Mostly Judaic, Islamic and Christian theology. They are the servants of 'God/ Yahweh (I'm not sure if that's the correct spelling)/Allah and are usually set to specific tasks such as messengers or guardians.

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PS Jackleman, any more one-line comments from you and I want an e-mail address to reply. (grin)

Thanks to every one who reviewed though. I feel special.

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"Thelemites are just traditional Wiccans with better lawyers."