A figure lurched out of the shadows.

"Aaah!" Dipper yelped.

"Aaah!" it shouted back. A tuna fish sandwich fell out of its mouth.

Dipper jumped and reached for the pistol strapped to his back. Then he got a better look at the thin, purple-haired woman standing before him, a box of pistons wedged under one arm and a six-pack under the other. A brown eyes and Harley-Davidson T-shirt gave him little to fear as he remembered Tambry from that afternoon at Texas Stadium. He had met the mechanic right before Wendy's big jump.

Wonder how much she knows about her friend's deal with the Devil.

"Sorry about that," he apologized.

"You and me both," Tambry said.

She regarded Dipper with confusion as he went straight for the stacks of books piled up on the floor where Grace had once been. She sifted through the esoteric volumes, scanning their spines. De Vermis Mysteriis, The Montesi Codex, Cultes de Goules . . . the bizarre titles meant little to her. Where were those books Wendy had tried to hide from him before?

"Uhh . . . have you seen Wendy?" Tambry asked.

He looked up from a book on spirit possession. "She's in trouble, Tambry."

"No shit, Dr Funtimes. Though it isn't much fun now is it?," she said. She dropped the pistons and six-pack onto an already cluttered counter. "The cops have been on me on me like white on rice. Did you know she got arrested?"

"Yes," he admitted. He tossed aside the ghost book and starting leafing through a modern translation of Faust. Maybe there was something in there he could use?

"Ever since her arrest hit the news," Tambry grumbled, "our sponsors have been freaking out." She looked like she was ready to tear her highlights out. Presumably she had been coping with the public relations crisis all day. "We could lose all our endorsement deals!"

Dipper put Faust aside for later and picked up something on the Dead Sea Scrolls. Under the circum stances, he had trouble taking the mechanic's histrionics seriously. "Sponsors are the least of Wendy's worries."

"Easy for you to say," Tambry groused, "but I've gotten pretty used to eating." She cast a wistful look at her fallen sandwich, then scowled at Dipper. "You know, all this started when you showed up. Why don't you just get the hell out of Dodge and go back to Gravity Falls? You've done more than enough."

Dipper tuned out the indignant mechanic. He kept searching through the stacks of occult tomes. The Dead Sea Scrolls didn't seem to contain much in the way of helpful hints for dealing with supernatural bounty hunters, so he chucked it aside and moved onto something new. A paperback biography of a supposedly famous sorcerer caught his eye and she skimmed quickly through the table of contents. Maybe this "Princess Celestia" woman knew something about beating the Devil?

Unhappy at being ignored, Tambry stomped over to join her by the books. She glared at the mystical texts with open distaste. Dipper guessed that she didn't approve of Wendy's interest in the occult. "What the hell are you looking for?"

"Answers," he stated. Looking up at Tambry, he decided to take advantage of her long acquaintance with Wendy. "Did she keep a journal, a notebook, anything like that?"

Now it was Tambry's turn to ignore him. She started to storm away in a huff.

"Look, Tambry," he called out to her. "We both care about her. I don't have time to explain. You're just going to have to trust me." His moist brown eyes beseeched her. "Journal?"

Tambry looked back at him, thinking it over. From his research, he knew that the stressed-out gearhead was the closest thing Wendy had to a friend these days. They had been on the road together for years, touring the country with Wendy's cycle show. He counted on that bond to overcome Tambry's reservations about helping him.

She sighed and gave in. "Doesn't sound like Wendy."

That wasn't good enough, so he eyed her sternly.

"Okay, I'll go check the bedroom."

Tambry left the room, leaving Dipper alone with Wendy's spooky library. Sorting through another stack, he recognized the large leather bound volume Wendy had taken from him yesterday. Now we're getting somewhere, she thought. He grabbed onto the massive tome and peered at the title: The Rise of the Midnight Son.

He flipped it open to the page Wendy had flagged before. The chapter heading, "Blood Covenants," made him wince even before he reached the engraved illustration he had briefly glimpsed yesterday. Once again he was confronted by the disturbing image of an evil-looking young man surrounded by a cloud of fiendish spirits. The leering wraiths seemed to be flowing into the youth's body as he grinned in satanic triumph. Gothic type foretold of "The End of Days."

"Jesus .. ." he whispered.

"Not even close," a voice corrected him.

He looked up to see Tambry standing a few feet away, a shocked look upon her face. A midnight blue taint seeped across her skin. Swollen blue veins and capillaries bulged upon her face, while her flesh assumed an unhealthy hypoxic tint. Even her purple took on a bluish hue. Sulfur poisoning. He stared in shock as Tambry decomposed right before his eyes.

Her uncomprehending eyes sank into their sockets before dissolving altogether. Indigo skin contracted, stretching tight against her skull. The stench of putre faction, mixed with the acrid odor of brimstone, issued from the gaping black cavity that was her mouth. her small fitting T-shirt fell loosely over her withered frame and shriveled breasts. A death rattle emanated from somewhere deep within her constricted throat. There was no time for any last words before her mummified remains dropped onto the floor of the loft, revealing the intruder standing directly behind her.

The pale-faced young man bore an uncanny resem blance to "the Beast" in the old woodcut, right down to the ominous black shadows under his eyes. The book slipped from Dipper's fingers and crashed down upon the floor. He gazed in horror at Tambry's murderer.

" 'Abashed the devil stood," the youth recited, "and felt how awful goodness is, and saw virtue in her shape how lovely. . . .' " Dipper recognized the excerpt from Milton's Paradise Lost. He smiled at Dipper, obviously approving of the sentiment. "How awful goodness is."

Dipper backed away from the smirking killer. Suddenly, there was no longer any mystery behind who had killed the stationmaster and all those outlaw bikers. The murderer was right in front of him. Blackheart, I presume.

"You're the one who has her heart." He stepped over Tambry's lifeless body, forcing Dipper into a corner. He kicked The Rise of the Midnight Son out of his way. Dipper stumbled clumsily over the books scattered over the floor, but managed to stay on his feet. His back collided with an unyielding brick wall. He held up the tiny golden cross around his neck, but Blackheart kept on coming. "And now I'm going to break it."

Suddenly, Dipper lashed out with his right fist, sending what hoped to be a powerful haymaker to demon. He screamed as his fist connected with Blackhearts cheek, but instead of flesh, it felt like Dipper had hit a solid brick wall. Blackheart stared at Dipper, his head never moving. "Are you done?" he asked.

Dipper looked around frantically as he held his broken hand, searching in vain for some way out. Wendy! he thought desperately. His frightened eyes looked to the elevator doors. Help me, please! Oh, I wish I had the journals!

The unmistakable roar of a Harley Davidson an swered his silent plea.

Wendy left Grace in the lift as she charged into the loft. "Dipper!" she shouted frantically, terrified that she was already too late to save him. What if Blackheart had gotten to him first?

The sight of a withered blue corpse stopped her in her tracks. The shriveled face was so distorted that she almost didn't recognize it at first. Then the awful truth sunk in.

Tambry?

Wendy looked away as tears filled her eyes, unable to bear the sight of her best friend-hell, her only and longest friend-lying dead upon the floor. This is all my fault, she realized. Tambry's murder may have been the work of Blackheart, but Wendy knew that she was to blame as well. The big-hearted mechanic was only the latest victim of Wendy's dealings with the Devil. Her throat tightened and she had to hold back from sobbing aloud as she dropped to her knees. Gently, she lifted the body of her friend and recalled all the times Tambry had fretted over her safety. She remembered all the times from their childhood, when they played together. When they fought and always made up. There was some thing grossly unfair about the fact that, in the end, it was Tambry who had ended up dead. This isn't how it was supposed to be. . . .

An agonized moan, coming from a few yards away, sent a shock through her system. Wendy looked past a stand of silent motorcycles to see Dipper lying on the floor nearby, gasping for breath. An hypoxic blue tint suffused his pain-wracked face. Indigo veins writhed beneath his skin.

"Dipper!"

She rushed to hks side and knelt down beside him. Cradling his head in her lap, she gently stroked his hair as she gazed down at him in horror. Guilt seared her soul more fiercely than even the hottest hellfire. Please, no, she thought desperately as more tears poured down her face. Not him, too. "I'm so sorry. ..."

His parched lips moved, like he was trying to tell her something, but all that escaped his lips was a pitiful gasp. He was having trouble breathing. Thin blue streaks infiltrated the whites of his eyes. Necroplasm. There was no question who had done this to him . . . even as Dipper slowly lifted his finger and pointed across the room.

"Looking for me?"

Wendy jumped to her feet just in time to see Blackheart surge from the shadows. His pale features taking on a bestial cast, the demon-spawn slammed Wendy into the wall of the loft. Brickwork cracked beneath the impact. Plaster rained down from the ceiling. A poster crashed loudly to the floor.

"Because here I am!" Blackheart taunted.

Rage flared inside Wendy, igniting the Rider within her. Her flesh and hair spontaneously com busted. Burnt skin flaked away from her face. Red-hot flames rippled around her skull. Spikes protruded from her jacket.

"Look into my eyes!" Ghost Rider demanded, lunging at her foe. her blazing sockets looked into the demon's own black orbs. Let the Devil's heir face her judgment at last!

But Blackheart merely laughed. "Your Penance Stare doesn't work on me, Rider. I have no soul to burn!"

With the speed of a striking cobra, he grabbed onto Ghost Rider's fleshless neck-bone. Necroplasm flowed from his neatly manicured fingertips, contaminating Ghost Rider with its supernatural poison. The Rider's bright orange flames turned blue and noxious, as though fueled by the gas from a rotting corpse. She dropped to her knees, felled by the venomous taint. Blackheart's fist remained tightly gripped around her throat.

"I guess forgot your old pal Stanley forgot to mention that, huh?" Blackheart mocked her. "Surprise!" Ghost Rider convulsed beneath the demon's foul touch. Her bones rattled noisily beneath her leathers. "Well, you know what they say: 'Better the devil you know-' "

Blackheart smacked Ghost Rider's bony face into the floor hard enough to crack the concrete. The concussion left the Rider's skull ringing. Hairline fractures weakened solid bone as she struggled not to lose con sciousness. Blackheart's sardonic voice seemed to come from miles away.

"-than the devil you don't.' "

Blackheart crouched over the fallen bounty hunter. Ghost Rider's corrupted flames flickered and died out. Bruised flesh spread across the splintered skull as Wendy Corduroy reverted to mortal form.

"Listen up," Blackheart instructed. "And try to get this through that thick skull of yours. You don't work for my father anymore. You work for me." He got up and walked over to where Dipper remained sprawled upon the floor. "Get the Contract. Bring it to me in San Venganza. And in exchange, I might spare your boy's life."

He grabbed Dipper by the collar and roughly yanked her to his feet. He whimpered in pain, too depleted by the poison to even think about fighting back. Grinning cruelly, he stroked his check. His caress infected his flesh, causing more blue veins to spread across his face. He flinched from his touch, but Blackheart refused to let Dipper go.

"Don't make me wait," he warned Wendy, "or I'll be forced to find ways to amuse myself." He licked his lips salaciously. "And I have a very twisted sense of fun."

Dipper couldn't bear to see Dipper tortured like this, not after all the times she had hurt him before. She tried to rise to her feet, come to his rescue, but the necroplasm and the beating had taken too much out of her. Blackheart's toxin had chilled her to the marrow, leaving her cold and shaking. Her head throbbed with every heartbeat. Her face felt swollen. She tasted blood in her mouth. Even in the presence of so loathsome an evil, the Rider was unable to emerge from Wendy's battered form. Blackheart's leering face filled her vision until a wave of darkness washed over her, carrying away the last of her strength. The world went black and she collapsed onto the floor.. ..

"Dipper..."

She awoke abruptly to find herself lying alone in the loft, not far from Tambry's dessicated corpse. Gasping for breath, she looked around frantically, searching in vain for the man she loved. But there was no one there. Blackheart had gone-and he taken Dipper with him.

How long was I out? Wendy wondered anxiously. Minutes? Hours?

All she knew for sure was that time was running out.