1/3/13 - Someone's Taking Over, and It Looks Like They're Aiming at Right At You

You're probably !@#$ing wondering why I'm drinking a little more of my daily ration than usual son. And by "a little more," I mean !@#$ing all of it, down in about three !@#$ gulps?

Well, while you weren't !@#$ing paying attention, I just got a big !@#$ wonderful surprise at the door.  That's "wonderful" spelled !-@-#-$ T-H-I-S !-@-#-$ I D-O-N-T !-@-#-$-I-N-G N-E-E-D.

The big !@#$ surprise? My new big !@#$ babysitter. One of the Three, and not one I'm particularly happy to !@#$ing deal with, either.

Oh yeah, son. Nailed it in one. The !@#$ in red who crashed my New Years party, and spent far too !@#$ long !@#$ing dragging me through my recent poor-seeming choices.

Ciel Rouge. Red Sky. Ally of Tempete Bleu and Foudre Blanc. One of the three big guns of the Terre Unifee, and a leader of Le Compagnie.

And, as of now? The person assigned to make !@#$ing sure I don't do anything naughty before my trial comes up. Naughty as in "use the Nthernaut to be somewhere else, again." Like I did at the !@#$ party.

She came in, had a few words, direct from the !@#$ President, or so she says. Not that I don't believe her, given how !@#$ angry he is with me, right now. But I don't need the Chandra Eye to know she's not exactly telling the whole !@#$ truth, either.

No, Red's !@#$ing getting something out of this, son. And normally I'd say "time will tell," but I don't have a whole !@#$ of a lot of it.

So I stood there and !@#$ing smiled while she searched the whole !@#$ apartment in a few heartbeats, and took a few things that maybe I wasn't supposed to have. Like the RPG I had in the closet for emergencies. Maybe a few of the bigger handguns... the limpet mine I forgot I !@#$ing had, mostly because it was !@#$ing diguised as a Russian tea-tray.

You know, son. Things like that.

(To her credit, she left Bee-Bee's gun alone. I think the kitty !@#$ing scared her. Good call, !@#$.)

Oh, and no more !@#$ dial-up katooeys, either. Some of those tender young call-girl-boys might be smuggling in !@#$ing weapons or something. Plus the door guards are getting really !@#$ uncomfortable searching them, before and after.

Anything else? Oh sure, son. She made some rather snarky remarks about what she !@#$ing thinks about me, and the COMPANY, and how I went about saving the !@#$ world while she was !@#$ing screwing up famine relief in southern Africa and making a hash of trying to "liberate" women from Islam in the North.

Got a long and big !@#$ list of complaints, that one.

What to do? I listened. I smiled. I asked if she wanted a beer.

And then, when she was !@#$ing done, I asked her if she knew who Foudre Blanc was oppressing, right now.

And when she just !@#$ing looked at me like I was nuts, I looked over in that direction of the world, and I !@#$ing told her. 

So that was the end of that visit, but I !@#$ing know she'll be back soon. Especially when some more aspects of the plan kick into place.

But yeah, son. After New Years I figured there was a chance the big !@#$ gauntlet was going to be !@#$ing thrown down. Turns out I was right to be !@#$ing worried. The TU isn't messing around, anymore. 

And I bet I know why, too...

But anyway, you're probably !@#$ing wondering why you haven't heard much about the Big Three from me? Well, son, up until recently there hasn't been a !@#$ of a lot to say.

Nothing good, anyway.

But yeah, let's talk about Direction Noir's Les Trois Grands.  Especially that Red !@#$, as she seems to be the glue that holds their !@#$es together.

What's her story? She grew up on the island of Mayotte, which you probably !@#$ing never heard of. It's one of those tiny, French colonial holdings they gobbled up because it was either !@#$ing strategic, or might !@#$ing be strategic, or was just on the way to somewhere a lot more !@#$ing important and they said "what the !@#$, we need a buffer, anyway."

Difference being, they're so !@#$ poor, that when France was doing it's !@#$ing best to shrug off its Imperial past, the island actually !@#$ing fought to stay a part of them. Still is, in some ways.

Anyway, Red was born there, the child of seriously-underpaid French civil workers. Grew up part of a real small minority, went kind of !@#$ing native. Guess her !@#$ parents didn't approve, but it's not like they could pack her up to a girl's school back on the mainland, now could they?

Then, at some point, she has something you might !@#$ing call a "spiritual experience."

Turns out that, while the island's mostly Muslim, they hold to some old !@#$ beliefs. The kind that have you !@#$ing standing staring at the sky, talking for something else. Possession, you might say.

Well, one of these spirits takes a taste of her white !@#$ and decides it !@#$ing likes it, and decides to stay. And the next time Red's parents see her, well, she isn't quite their little !@#$ girl, anymore. She's got muscles you wouldn't believe, the ability to catch bullets in her !@#$ hands, and moves so !@#$ fast it's like she can !@#$ing teleport, or something.

(And maybe she can, too. My Direction Noir moles weren't too !@#$ sure about that.)

But she's also got this other ability, which is probably why the TU's got her !@#$ing looking after Straffer and me. And that's that, when she looks you right in the !@#$ eyes, you really find it !@#$ hard to !@#$ing lie to her. She looks at you long enough, you just feel you want to tell her !@#$ing everything,  no matter how secret, incriminating, or flat out !@#$ing embarrassing.

Which is kind of why she walked out of here with the !@#$ RPG, and the limpet mine, and a few other things besides. Not because she it works on me or my lovely boyfriend, courtesy of the special nature of our eyes.

But because we didn't want her to know it didn't work.

Yeah. Pretty !@#$ clever, huh? Though I have to !@#$ing admit, it's a bit of a !@#$ struggle at times, even with this crazy !@#$ rock in my noggin. But now at least we've lulled those French !@#$s into something approaching a false sense of security.

The trick now is keeping it that way, which might be even more !@#$ difficult.

Anyway, so this girl takes off from Mayotte, goes to Africa, and starts trying to "help." Her idea of helping is messing with things she doesn't !@#$ing understand, or trying to replace something she doesn't like with "freedom," which doesn't always !@#$ing work so well.

But France was !@#$ happy to have her !@#$ing around with the continent, for one reason or another, and eventually came to get her !@#$ on board. Gave her a proper name, other than the one she was !@#$ing going by, which only made sense if you came from Mayotte or !@#$ing spoke "possessed."

And that was the birth of Red Sky.

The other two? Well, you've !@#$ing met Tempete Bleu. And you know how well the smug !@#$ handles himself, both on and off camera.

You remember when I !@#$ing told you about how the forerunner to Direction Noir was stumbling all over the !@#$ French landscape during the war, looking for strategic talents in small !@#$ villages and farmhouses? Well, they never !@#$ing stopped, and Tempete Bleu was one such find.

The way the story goes, some family calls up the French Government a few years back, telling them that they've got this !@#$ing kid that can pull school buses out of !@#$ing rivers and !@#$ like that. Can't fly just yet, but he can hop really !@#$ far. Sometimes sleeps above the !@#$ bed.

That and he's got this tendency to bring down the !@#$ing house when he claps his hands, which is about when they figured they'd better talk to the !@#$ing government.

Well, Direction Noir shows the !@#$ up, and is just pleased as punch to have this country bumpkin under their wing. They take him to the big !@#$ city, show him around, test him and train him, and turn his smiling, foie-gras-fed !@#$ into a French national symbol. Here to fly into your dens of contrary action and thunderclap them to pieces in the name of Liberty, Equality, Brotherhood. All that !@#$.

Except when we really needed him, starting on about, oh, 3/15?

But hey, forget the !@#$ alllllllllll about that, son. Now he's the !@#$ing national symbol for the whole !@#$ country, especially now that they're in charge of most of the !@#$ world. And you better not !@#$ing forget it, either.

Of course, that's the official story. 

What's the real story? Well, son, that's a !@#$ good question. It goes without saying that I don't !@#$ing trust Direction Noir's sweet-as-bee-!@#$ story any further than I could !@#$ing spit it in a big !@#$ hailstorm.

But I have to admit that, up until now, I really didn't make a !@#$ing priority out of it because, up until now, he wasn't a !@#$ing priority. I figured he'd eventually out himself as a joke, and that would be the end of that !@#$.

Except, now, well... let's just say he's given me a few reasons to actively !@#$ing dislike him. And we'll just leave it at that, son.

One thing, though. Someone I had inside at Direction Noir once told me that, when it came to Tempete Bleu, the official story wasn't just a cover story for the truth, but was a cover story for a cover story. Something weird involving a small town in some !@#$ing armpit of the country that got scribbled off the !@#$ maps in a hurry.

Something about a !@#$ing UFO, and what may have been in it...

Yeah. 

So we'll just have to look into that, son. And while we're at it, we'll have to !@#$ing look into  this Foudre Blanc guy. White Thunder, in case you didn't learn that !@#$ useless language in High School.

Who is he? Well, that's just it, son. We don't !@#$ing know, because I don't !@#$ing know.

And believe me, that is !@#$ing saying something.

What we do know is that he out of !@#$ing nowhere a couple years ago, and started doing that big !@#$ urban vigilante thing. Lots of big !@#$ expensive toys. Skilled in hand-to-hand fighting.

Won't kill, but loves leaving people !@#$ing crippled for life.

Now, I'm no shrieking violet, son. You know that, if someone's coming at me, they better be ready to throw the !@#$ down, because I will !@#$ing !@#$ them up one wall and down the other. Kill or be killed, son. No mercy, no quarter.

But this guy? He tends to spend his times in the suburbs outside of Paris, mostly. The areas where generation of immigrants have set up shop, decade after decade. And there's crime, yes, and sometimes violence. But also a close-knit group of people who feel, and rightly so, that the country that invited them in to make their postwar economy take off really didn't want them there after it got back on its feet, again.

And isn't too !@#$ing shy about making it known, either.

So the question is, is he !@#$ing smashing crime in the immigrant areas because it's just his thing? Or is he smashing crime in those areas because it's being done by immigrants, or their children?

Because I gotta say, son -- all those years I was running the !@#$ COMPANY, I ran across a lot of would-be Owls who talked big about justice and protection, but really just wanted a chance to beat the !@#$ out of people who didn't look like them, and were still struggling with !@#$ ing English however many years off the !@#$$ boat.

And as someone whose parents came to America from Italy, and got the same kind of raw !@#$ing deal...? Let's just say I wasn't too !@#$ appreciative of their initiative.

(Let's also say there's a reason my interview room in the late, much-lamented Flier had a trapdoor under the interviewee's seat. On bad days I forgot to put the automatic parachute in.)

Anyway, at some point this Owl rip-off gets brought in, fists covered in blood and teeth. And they ask him why he isn't working for the government.

What does he say? "The government should be working for me."

Not the sort of thing you want to hear someone !@#$ing drop on you, son. But they arrange a meet with him, Red, and Blue. And they turn out to have enough in common that they can !@#$ing create a team-up, kind of.

Hence Les Trois Grands, and hence my current !@#$ing headache. But I've given them enough to chew on for a while.

See, while I can't quite get a bead on who this White Thunder !@#$er is, I can tell where he is, sometimes, thanks to the magic of Paris' ever-present CCTV cameras. He used to avoid them, back in the day, but now that he's with the Big !@#$ Three he seems to !@#$ing enjoy smacking the !@#$ out of people on film.

So I wasn't kidding about what he was doing, at that moment in time. And when I told her, well, she thinks I'm telling the truth, aren't I?

And I told her the unvarnished !@#$ing truth, too. Every nasty, bloody bit.

Now, while I may not appreciate Red's tendency to liberate people from things they don't necessarily need liberating from, I can appreciate it means her !@#$ heart is in the right place. She genuinely wants to make things better for the Beurs, and people like them.

So it doesn't pay to have her partner out beating on them just because, now does it?

No son, it does not.

And while she's !@#$ing dealing with that, I can work on what I need to. Namely, connecting some big !@#$ dots and making this plan of mine work.

What plan is that? Well, figure it the !@#$ out, son. But don't take too long.

You never know when I might not be here to talk to, anymore...

(SPYGOD is listening to Red Skies (The FIXX) and having a really old can of Red, White, and Blue beer)

12/28/12 - The Master and Mother!@#$er - pt 7

"We are all of us doomed to spend our lives 

watching a movie of our lives,

we are always acting on what

has just finished happening.”

Tom Wolfe -- "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" (1968)

* * *

Nowhere
Anytime

It's after school in the cramped, overcrowded apartment he grew up in, and (REDACTED) is helping his terrifying grandmother make dinner. 

"If you want to make people like you, you cook for them," the bent-over woman says, chopping the freshly-plucked chicken with her huge, wickedly-sharp cleaver for Cacciatore: "No one ever gives you a problem when they're eating your food. No one ever argues, either. You can tell them the sun is the moon and the land is the sea, and they'll just say 'yes it is, please pass the bread.'"

"But Grandmother," (REDACTED) asks as he stirs the vegetables in the oiled pan, standing on a stool so he can reach the top of the stove: "Grandpa and mom and dad argue with you all the time?"

"That's different, boy," she insists: "Family gets to argue, but it means nothing. Family might argue, but family loves. Family forgives. Family looks out for each other. Like you look our for your brothers, right?"

"Yes, grandmother," he says, remembering the last scrap they got into with those !@#$ Irish kids.

"Now, you argue with someone else? That matters. So you feed them, and then they don't argue."

"But Grandmother"

"Don't argue with your grandmother," she commands, giving the chicken a really severe whack. He does as he's told, knowing she's likely to use the cleaver on him if he doesn't

* * *

obey me in all things? the sweetly hideous thing in front of Doctor Power asks, drinking deeply of the writhing, barely-alive supervillain he's brought her.

"I will," he swears, his heart beating a million times a minute from utter fear: "I would pledge myself to your service, as we have agreed. But I have some conditions I would plead with you to consider."

Do you... do you mean to try and truly deal with me? Niginaza of the Basalt Bed, queen of all sorcerers, asks.

"I do, yes," he responds.

In reply, she laughs, and it is not a pleasant thing to listen to. It sounds like the broken cackling of an insane, old man who's just done the most horrible thing imaginable to someone who didn't deserve it. 

(Not that the Crimson Shadow didn't, but that's not a concern for him right now...)

Oh you poor fool, she says, paddling her hands in the ragged, bloody ruin of the man's heaving chest: So eager to exchange your smaller debts with other for a much larger debt with me. Do you really think I will be kinder? Do you really think my demands will be fewer, or less complicated?

"I think we can work together better as a team that I could with the others," he insists: "And I think you'll be interested in something I've learned, provided we have a deal."

Interested? she asks, supping on a still-warm kidney: Do you think there is something you know that I do not?

"I know about your previous servant," he says, silently relieved to see how surprised she is to hear that: "Kytor of the Silver Blade?"

What... what do you know of him?

"I know that he made a deal with you. I know that he turned his back upon you. I know that he's found a way to use your power without your knowledge, and has been stealing your energy for several years, and not giving anything back."

She halts in her gruesome, meaty feast and looks up at him, her golden eyes burning with suspicion: And what does telling me this have to do with anything, other than making me wonder if I should not end this discussion and leave you to your other creditors? 

"Because I also know where he is, right now," Doctor Power says, smiling: "And if you're still hungry, I can offer him to you. Provided you're willing to deal...?"

There are a few moments where she just looks at him. He imagines a mouse trapped by a cat feels the same way. 

I am listening, she finally says: Tell me your conditions, mortal man. But do not attempt to cheat me. It will

* * *

cost you more than you could ever know, young man," the old vampire hunter says, sharpening his stake by the light of his stone fireplace: "This is not a life to be envied."

"Envy?" the young man almost shouts: "Do you think I am some idiot in search of thrills?"

"Are you?" the old man asks, looking him square in the eyes for the first time since they've known each other: "What do you want, little boy?"

"I don't want this," the young man says, pounding his fist on the old man's cluttered kitchen table, making the bales of garlic hop up and down: "I want my old life back. I want my mother alive again. I want my sister... my sister..."
 

He grits his teeth and closes his eyes, trying not to cry. He spent too long seeking this man out, and longer still to get him to agree to talk to him. He must not look weak -- not now.

"They got her, did they?" the old man says, spitting a gob of bloody phlegm into his roaring fire: "Why are you alive, then?"

"I... I hid."

He doesn't even see the man's arm snake out to hit him. He's just that fast. A split second later he's on the floor, and when he looks up it's only to stare down the old man's crossbow. 

(A silver bolt, of course)

"That's the first and last time you lie to me, you little pizda," he says: "You didn't hide. They'd have sniffed you out. What did you do?"

"I ran!" the young man screams, the tears coming now: "I ran! I wanted to stop them but I was scared! I... I ran. I ran. I wanted to... I ran. I ran..."

"And you think that if you join me that'll make it alright?" the old man spits: "Your family's dead. You're alive. You should be grateful you did the smart thing and go on with your life."

"No," the young man insists, his stare intense through the tears: "I want to make it alright by killing the thing that did it to them."

"And what of your sister?" he asks, still aiming the crossbow at the young man's face: "What do we do with her?"

"I don't have a sister anymore," the young man insists: "She stopped being my sister the moment she died. Now she's just a thing. 

"And that thing needs to die."

The old man regards him for a second, and then reaches out a hand.

"Rule number one is you do what you're told, no questions asked," he says, pulling him up with a strength the young man wouldn't have guessed he had: "Rule two is you don't run until I tell you to. I'll shoot you myself if you try. And rule three..."

"Yes?" the young man says.

"No real names," the old man says: "Names are power. They find out who you are, they'll find where you came from and use it against you."

"I have no one-"

"You had friends?" the old man insists, putting a hand up to silence the young man: "You had neighbors? Anyone you cared about?"

"Well... yes."

"There you go. They'll find out who your friends are and hunt them down. They'll send out their servants to find them and then they'll make them vampires, too. They'll send your friends and neighbors against you, just to get you."

The young man nods: "No names. I understand."

"Your old life is over. Your new one starts now. Pick a title and stick with it."

With that, he extends a hand: "You can call me Dr. Ogien. And what shall I call you, apprentice?"

And the young man smiles, and says

* * *

blood everywhere," Jim Morrison says, taking a long hit off the cigarette he's been offered, and then putting it out on the plastic, fold-up desk in front of him: "Not really a good thing to see, at that age. Not a good thing to see at any age, I guess. But once I saw through it, and saw beyond... I saw myself."

"In the wreck?" Agent Ray Manzarek asks, tapping his pencil on his pad, and wondering how much longer he has to sit in this small, windowless room and listen to this looney talk.

"Beyond the wreck, man," Morrison says, smiling: "I saw my previous self. The one that'd been fighting demon redcoats in a different America. Out there in the deserts, amongst the people. He'd finally gone down, there. And when he died, he looked at me, and I looked at him... and, well..."

The long-haired man smiles, lifts his arms, and spins around in the swivel-chair: "Here I am!"

"Yeah, one James Douglas Morrison," the Agent sighs: "Look, I'm going to be frank with you, Mr. Morrison-"

"Jim," the long-haired guy says, leaning in.

"Jim," Manzarek sighs: "We've got people like you coming out of the woodwork, right now. They're all saying they got powers from their parents, or something like that. And so far most of them are just delusional."

"Oh, I am delusional," Morrison admits: "Totally !@#$ing gone, man. I mean, Jesus Christ, what a crazy story. Who would come in here and tell some fresh-faced little Economics major posing as a film student that he's some crazy eternal warrior?"

"How did you-" the Agent asks, dropping the pencil.

"The same way I know that, a couple years from now, we'll be partners," he says, his eyes deep, dark, and on fire: "You and me,  Ray-Ray. Kicking !@#$. Taking names. Loving and laughing and lighting the world up. Can't you feel it?"

"Feel... what?" 

"How about this?" Morrison asks, reaching across the table and putting his hand on the man's heart: "What's that in there, huh? Is that fear? Fear of failure? Fear of someone telling you no?"

"Look, man-"

"No, you look," the man says, leaning in even closer: "All those years being told 'no.' You wind up here and now you're telling other people 'no.' The system ate you up and !@#$ you out, and now you're just poop in a suit, doing a !@#$ty job. But you were meant for more."

"More..." Manzarek says, something in him stirring: "Like what?"

"Like anything other than this !@#$!" Morrison insists, jumping up out of his chair and tossing the desk at the wall: "Come on, man! No more of this !@#$! None of this interviewing weird people !@#$! You were made for better than this, man! Let's go make it happen!"

"But..." Manzarek says, looking up and around: "I mean... I'm..."

"Afraid?" Morrison laughs: "!@#$, man. Fear's nothing to fear. It might look big and bad, but you know what? You expose yourself to what scares you -- what you think is your greatest fear -- and then it has no power. And when it has no power, your real fear, which is freedom? It shrinks. It goes away. 

"And then you're free," he concludes, gesturing at the door: "So do you want to be stuck in this room until you're old and grey? Or do you want to gamble it all, man?"

Agent Manzarek looks at him, and then looks at the door, and then back at him. 

"If you're blowing smoke," he warns, getting up from his chair: "If you're just some crazy !@#$hole..."

"Oh, I am a crazy !@#$hole," Jim Morrison laughs, putting his hand on the doorknob: "But once you start following crazy !@#$holes, you tend to get a little crazy yourself."

"I'll be sure to put that in my report."

"And you can start with this," the musician says, opening the door to what should be a staid, grey hallway, but is, instead

* * *

 the jungle, endless and eternal. 

"Any jungle," he says, his voice warbling in the heat and humidity. His fatigues are dripping with sweat and full of bugs. His grip on the rifle is uncertain, even though he's sure there's a jungle cat stalking him.

And with each step he wonders if he shouldn't kneel down and use it on himself.

They said he needed to lose himself, first. He should go onto a jungle -- "any jungle," they said -- and walk through it until he found "it." But, of course, they didn't say what "it" was. 

Just what it promised, and all it entailed. 

In the heat and the haze, all the vegetation looks the same. All the cries of animals blend together. All the smells are one. Just a big, hazy mess in his head, making him dry and nauseous and demoralized, and wondering if he's gone too far to turn back...

Back? Back to what? Beat poetry and bad junk? Bad sex with lousy friends? Art without reason, night after night, in the city that's tried to kill him since he entered it?

A city that would have killed him, sure as !@#$, if someone hadn't Operated on him? 

The Grey Men said he had a talent. They said his cut-up poetry showed promise. They said he seemed like a man who knew how it could all come together, if he really tried. 

But to find how it comes together, you have to see how it comes apart. And that required sacrifice. 

So they told him to leave the city. Leave everything behind while he was at it. Leave his money, his clothes, his poems, his typewriter. Leave his so-called friends and certain enemies. Leave his love and his hate and his junk and his sex.

Leave his name. 

And now he's walking through the jungles of South America with a stolen browning and someone else's clothes. He's not sure exactly where, or how he got here. He just put one foot in front of the other as the withdrawal !@#$ed up his head and made him an invisible man, and then he was here. 

Here, wandering in what seems like circles. Eating what he can find and hoping it doesn't make him !@#$ himself standing up and drinking water that's too thick for his liking. Forgetting who he was and remembering things he shouldn't call his own.

(Avoiding being eaten by things he only ever saw in the !@#$ Zoo.)

He keeps going, though. Somewhere up ahead, he knows he'll find the answer. Or maybe it'll find him, somehow. 

That's what they said, anyway. They said some things are more !@#$ certain than others, no matter how much they Operate. Some things are just set in stone, like it or not. 

And some things come true today because we made them true tomorrow, and so they will come true yesterday.

(Is that why they insisted on calling him John? He kept telling them his real name, but they kept saying "John" over and over like they were chanting at Mass...)

"John," he says, truly realizing that all sounds are one sound, all things are one thing, all places one place, and all moments nestled within this moment: "Just John."

And then -- as he finally feels the Grey surround him -- he becomes aware that there's a big !@#$ jaguar right in front of him. But he doesn't really need the gun to feel

* * *

safe?" George laughs, smacking the nude woman across the face with one hand while grabbing her by the neck with the other: "You must be !@#$ing joking, Estelle!"

"You let me go," she hisses, trying to get away from the long-haired fellow in the blood-stained, black robe: "I'm not your girl, anymore, George-"

"That's Lord Puddock to you," he sneers, not letting her go: "Or Master, at least for tonight."

"Tonight," she says, stopping her resistance: "And then, tomorrow, we're all our own masters."

"Yes," he insists, letting her go at last but not breaking eye contact: "Tonight, we contact the Queen of the Dead. Tomorrow, we are un-dead. And after that, we can do whatever we like, whenever we like."

"Provided you got the spell right," she says, walking across the stone floor of the cellar to get her robe on: "Provided this Queen is who we think she is-"

"She is," he insists: "One of the Supreme Six, spoken of in the Deos Mortuos Revelationem. The Red Queen. She will give us what we desire, so long as we are strong in our conviction, and certain of ourselves."

"And so long as she's fed," she says, pulling on her robe, and then turning to regard him: "Do we have enough? Really?"

"One for each of us," he says: "Thirteen for thirteen. Unspoiled."

"You're certain of that?"

"Oh yes, I've had Nicky keeping an eye on them."

"Are you sure he can be trusted?"

"If they were little boys, no, but I decided to be traditional. He'll no more spoil them than he'd spoil you... in spite of your many attempts."

Estelle scowls at him, and then makes ready to walk past: "Thirteen for Thirteen at the thirteenth hour, on Walpurgisnacht. And then, we summon her to do our bidding. It seems straightforward enough...?"

"But you have doubts," he says, stepping in front of her: "Always doubts."

"What are you, really?" she asks, looking him in the eyes: "When I met you, you were just some rich clown who liked fast things and young women. You got other clowns to follow you, making mischief on your bikes, certain that your last name would keep the law at bay."

"And you loved it, for a time," he says, putting a hand on her arm: "Didn't you? You loved being my queen."

"Yes, I did," she admits: "And then you became a sorcerer, out of nowhere. Your clowns became your coven. Your women its first victims."

"Not you, though," he says. The way he says it seems like a threat, and she registers it, stepping back.

"It's almost as if the clown was an act you dropped," she accuses: "So who are you really, Lord George, Master of Puddock Manor?"

"Maybe the sorcerer was there all along, just waiting," he admits, looking aside: "Maybe I needed to see what this world had to offer before I assumed mastery over it. Does it matter?"

"If we're going to be partners in eternal half-life, then it does," she says: "I won't want to have to kill you in a few centuries when you turn back into a clown."

There's any number of things he could say about that, but before he can say them, she's gone, off to the ritual space they've prepared. When the door opens he can hear his coven laughing, and the sacrifices whimpering and crying.

But what would they say if they knew the truth? 

What would Estelle say if she knew that George had tricked them all? What would she think if she knew that the only un-death that would be taking place tonight was George, himself? What would any of them do if they knew that the "sacrifices" were just for show, and that he would actually be offering up his coven, instead?

And what will they say when they feel the jaws of Hell clamp shut about their hearts and souls, and see him ascend into living death as they fall into eternal damnation? 

"Never trust a clown," he muses, and -- grateful that none of the other members of his coven can understand medieval Latin -- heads for the door to the ritual space, ready to

* * *

Moscow -- The Beehive
April 30th, 1968

fall straight down, out of the black and into the white again.

All six of them thump down onto a stone floor in a large, long room that trails off into darkness. The floor is sticky and smells of iron, and it takes some of them longer than others to realize it's drying blood. It also takes them a little longer to realize that the blood is seeping into and out of things that have been stuffed into the room's corners and edges.

Meaty, pulsing things that were once human beings.

"Oh !@#$," SPYGOD says, getting to his feet and pointing a rather large gun every which way he can: "!@#$ !@#$ !@#$!"

"That's putting it mildly," Dr. Krwi says, wishing his knees were better: "I can smell it, too."

"A trap," Doctor Power hisses, gesturing about him: "SPYGOD, I told you-"

"This wasn't Bulgakov," John insists, letting Morrison and the Hell Blazer help him up: "This is !@#$ Fallen magic. You can tell by the way the blood's not congealed all the way. The things need a fresh supply."

"Quite true," the Hell Blazer says, looking around: "But the result is what we should be concerned about. We cannot leave, now."

"Well, we'll see about that..." Morrison says, reaching his hand out. But the moment he does, he recoils back, as if he'd been burned.

Doctor Power looks at the Musician and smiles gently: "I don't think you'll be opening any doors, tonight, Jim."

"That's... wow," Morrison says, smiling: "It's never not worked. That's kind of exciting, man."

"Not the !@#$ word I'd use," John scowls. 

"Okay, so how !@#$ed are we?" SPYGOD asks, pulling out another gun so as to cover more angles.

"Not any worse than we knew ourselves to be," the vampire hunter says, unslinging his pistols: "We win or we die, friends. We cannot escape even if we wanted to, but I do not believe that was the intent?"

"No," Doctor Power says, getting a spell ready to go.

"Never," John admits, as ready as he'll ever be.

"No way, man," Morrison says, a flaming sword appearing in his hand.

"Not on your life," The Hell Blazer says, his fists erupting in unearthly flames.

"You need to !@#$ing ask?" SPYGOD snorts: "Bring 'em the !@#$ on. Tonight the Beehive, tomorrow the !@#$ing Kremlin. Vodka's on me, after."

"Then we fight," Krwi says: "Do you hear us, creatures of Hell? Show yourselves! We have come for you!"

"And it would be ever so rude of us not to return the favor" a voice announces from across the room, coming from the darkness there. 

Things move within it, just then -- six distinct shapes, all moving towards them with undue speed.

"Take your !@#$ partners for the dance macabre," John intones as they become identifiable. 

And then...

(SPYGOD is listening to Tchaikovsky (Symphony 6) and having a Jaguar Lager)