When the Angelus looks for a new vessel She is weak. The Darkness seeks to gain the upper hand.

I wish to thank Top Cow for such great characters and give them kudos for showing the development of a lesbian relationship in mainstream comics. I wish to thank Lilith for wonderful advice.

The alarm clock went off. Bloody Hell thought Daniel, one of these days I won't get out of bed because those stupid roosters gave me a heart attack. I had finished high school last year and had decided to travel the country and do seasonal work on different farms.

I'd always felt connected to the land and enjoyed helping things grow. After growing up in the city where there was hardly any visible greenery the opportunity to do seasonal farming was a godsend to me. Especially after the activation of my meta-gene.

When Jade first announced the meta-gene and then superheroes started showing up I thought it was cool. I would dream of flying often even imagine going on adventures and saving people. But the biggest surprise was shortly before my final exams when I discovered I actually had a meta-gene. And boy, was that a let down.

The first time I saw the dead I actually wet myself, it was made even worse due to the fact that I was talking to mum at the time. My mother, descended from deposed French royalty- her words- couldn't see what I saw and expressed her disgust at what she perceived as behaviour less than a dog (as even a dog could be trained). She expressed most vocally. I was sure that the entire apartment building heard her screaming at me.

I ran to my room and stayed there. My mother thought I was just embarrassed and that was why I wouldn't leave my room. But when I started screaming and didn't stop she called the ambulance.

The ghosts wouldn't go away. They even told me that they were here to help. I spent a day in hospital to be told that the only thing that was different about me was the meta-gene activation. The ghosts and spirits however didn't go away and I spent three afternoons a week for the remainder of the year in a shrinks office.

Shortly after I'd finished my exams I arrived at the psychologist for my final session of the year. I went into the counselling room to find that the shrink wasn't the only one there. “Ah, Daniel let me introduce you to Ms. Angel. I would not normally do this but I think that this lady maybe of some assistance... ah... as to your predicament.”
“You mean my seeing ghosts” I stated bluntly trying to see how the woman reacted. “Precisely” Dr. Chandrahar said

Christina 'Finch' Angel was a good looking woman who appeared to be in her late twenties was apparently a well known psychic and medium in the US and was on holiday in Australia. It seemed that the good doctor's wife was involved in all this 'spiritual' mumbo jumbo crap dealing with angels and spirits that had “crossed over” and were “earthbound”. I rolled my eyes, who came up with all this crap?

The hocus pocus woman (she told me to call her Finch) explained to me that seeing the dead wasn't unnatural, in fact she said that in the past priests and priestesses trained to do precisely that. She suggested ways for me to attune myself to this energetic vibration, but I was not impressed. “Well, I'm not a priest so the dead can leave and find someone else to bother,” I said miserably.

“Unfortunately, if your meta-gene is keyed to spiritual energy I'm afraid you won't be able to get that to happen.” She gave me her card and said, “I'm staying in the country for the next six months if you need me call. We can talk free of charge.” She gave me a brilliant smile and walked out of the office.

The doctor and I talked some more and I admitted to him that some of what she told me had helped and that even though I didn't put much faith in her techniques I supposed that I would try them. He suggested that if they worked, we should have one more session and break for the year. I agreed and left.

As I walked home I noticed a stretch limo parked outside the police station. This lifted my spirits as I imagined the rich woman it belonged to complaining to the police about her stolen emeralds. My humour improved so much that I didn't even realise that I answered one of the ghosts questions.

I arrived back home just before dinner, only to find that my mother had left me a note telling me that she had to go to work for some reason or other. Oh yeah, remember my mother told me that we were descended from French royalty. I don't know if that's true, but I do know that my mom's some super diplomat at the French embassy. Her name is Marie-Elise Baptiste and I believe she has some official title like 'Your Honour' or some such thing.

Mum had left me some money so I could get take out, but I thought that I'd rather go to the club and have dinner there. So after left her a message to say where I was I caught a bus to the club. The Taxi Club had been open for over 40 years and I think it used to be more of a club for the gay and lesbian community, but now it was the (I thought) premier tranny club in Sydney City.

It wasn't the weekend so there weren't any shows but it was trivia night so I decided to join one of the groups while I ate my meal. I was half way through my burger when there was a commotion at the door. I looked out the window and saw the same limousine that I saw earlier in front of the police station.

The driver opened the passenger door and one of the most beautiful men I had ever seen got out of the car. He had long black hair past his shoulders, his skin was smooth without any sign that it had been touched by stubble. He was a big man, around six foot- add a few inches. He was wearing dark glasses so I was unable to see his eyes above his well chiselled nose. As he walked up to the front door, the ghosts became agitated but before I could wonder why, my vision blurred, I rubbed my eyes and opened them again. And I almost threw up.

I had ghost vision. I saw the aura surrounding this man. It was one of death and violence. Pain and suffering. Like he got his jollies off of other peoples misfortune. His aura wasn't black. It was oily and muddy. It was so dark that you could almost see the demonic presences that the ghosts could sense surrounding this man.

I had been enjoying my meal. No more. I felt ill. I left without paying and as I walked out I heard everyone making a big fuss about Mr. Estacado. When I got home I phoned the club and told them to put my meal on my charge account but was told that a V.I.P. had paid for all food and drinks that evening. I didn't know how to feel about that.

I tried to practice some of the techniques that Ms. Angel had shown me. They seemed to calm me down but I was still overwrought by what I had seen. My final appointment with Dr. Chandrahar was on Friday and I decided to call Ms Angel and make an appointment to tell her what I'd seen. I got her message bank. I doubted my evening could get any worse but, of course, I was wrong. I had the most horrible nightmare that night.

On Friday I went back to the shrink. I decided not to tell him about the Estacado man but I did tell him that I had been practising Ms. Angel's techniques and that they were helping. I found it surprising that they did but hey, you learn something new every day (sometimes). The doctor found this extremely exciting, I actually think that he was more excited than I'd ever seen him before. I mean by the way he acted you'd think she helped him more than me. Maybe in some shrink way she had. I don't know; shrinks: go figure.

We decided that I should take a year off instead of looking for a job or deciding what to study. He said that after the stressful events of the past few months I should be doing something relaxing where I didn't need to think too much about stressful issues. Something I would really enjoy.

I got home just in time to answer the landline; it was Ms. Angel...Finch apologising that she never got back to me sooner because she had been camping in the Blue Mountains. I wondered why she was apologising when she was doing me the favour... mediums...go figure. She told me that she could see me at eleven o' clock tomorrow morning.

It was Saturday and I woke up in a really good mood. I don't know why, but I was really excited about seeing Finch. I mean she was pretty and all but that wasn't the reason, I was just really comfortable around her even if I was still unsure about mediums.

She had told me the she would come to my place, which was kind of surprising as it was like she was going out of her way to help me. The door bell rang and when I opened for her she greeted me with a big hug...and no...I wasn't bummed about her invading my personal space. The ghosts really seemed to like her and I could see her aura, I'm not really sure why but I trusted her implicitly.

We went into the lounge room (I even offered her tea or coffee, which is unlike me- mum would be worried about me). Once I got what she wanted I sat opposite her and started telling her everything. God it was so unnerving, I knew that if she asked I would probably tell her about my bowel habits...well maybe not that...but almost anything. She had a worried look on her face by the time I'd finished and I could see her gathering her thoughts before speaking to me.

“Jackie Estacado is a known criminal figure is the United States but the police have never been able to pin anything on him. Also in esoteric circles everybody knows that he is the holder of the Darkness, be careful Daniel this is a very dangerous man.” She then proceeded to explain what the Darkness was, she ended by saying something I would have done even if she didn't tell me to; “If you see him again run away as fast and far as possible.”

She seemed happy that I was going to travel and after I told her where I would probably be going she got a big smile on her face and told me that she was driving to Queensland and that if the farm I was going to was on the way she'd be happy to give me a lift there.

My mother didn't seem to trust this amazing woman when I told her about Finch. “She's a complete stranger who you met and told all about your meta-abilities and she just suddenly out of the blue offers to take you to where you're going on holiday, you must be out of your mind if you think I'm going to let you do that!”

I suppose she had a valid reason and I wasn't able to make believe me even when I told her about my ghost vision and what Finch's aura told me. In the end we compromised by asking Finch if she'd let my mum do a check on her with the Embassy. To my amazement Finch agreed.

By mid- January, Finch and I were driving North toward Port Macquarie, this would be my first stop. The farming in Port Macquarie was mostly Oyster farming and I had been unsure about doing this but Finch said it might be a good idea to learn more about farming than just the land part.

On the drive up to Port, I asked her why she called herself Finch. She seemed to smile at something, perhaps a memory. “My father was and avid bird watcher and when I was about nine he began calling me his 'little finch' because he said I had an over-abundance of energy. When he was killed in a car accident, I missed him so much. I went to live with my aunt because my mother died in childbirth. I wouldn't answer to anything but 'Finch' and after a while it stuck.”

“I'm sorry about your father...”
She turned suddenly, “Don't!...don't be sorry for a person because they're dead. Don't be sorry for those left behind. Life and death is a natural progression and death should be respected just as much as life!” She smiled sheepishly and looked at the road again, “Excuse me, it's just something I am passionate about. I know lots of people are scared of death but as a medium and psychic I speak to those who have crossed over. Its nothing we should fear. In time I'm sure you begin to see it the way I do.”

I just accepted what she said. I had a feeling that there was no way my life would be as simple as it was a few months ago ever again. I began to feel depressed but that didn't last. I wasn't sure why I let Finch talk me into the oyster farming but I did. I trusted her; over the past month we'd preparing for this trip and everything we had grown close despite the almost ten year age difference.

Oh and don't think I was just pushed around by her, oh no, she caved to a lot of my demands too. Like the time the car broke down five kilometres from the nearest garage and I refused to walk into town to get a mechanic so she walked there to buy stuff while I tinkered with the car (even though I don't know much about cars ). I think I was just being difficult about something 'cos we'd had an argument, but the make up kisses were great. What they lead to was even better.

But the really big concession was when she agreed to go to Tamworth before Port so I could go to the Tamworth Music Festival. I asked her to stay with me for the festival, but she said she would rather spend winter in the South Pole than go to a country and music festival.
* * *

Finch drove past Bundaberg towards the Sunshine Coast. She couldn't believe the feelings this young man evoked in her. It was like Daniel was a part of her that she didn't even realise had been missing. A few days later strange things began to happen around her.
* * *

I spent 3 months on a farm in Tamworth working with horses and pigs, and like Dr. Chandrahar said, I didn't think too much about anything but pig slop and horse shit...well, cleaning out the stables was probably one of the smelliest and most physically liberating things I've done in my short life.

I hitch-hiked to back to Port Macquarie to do my time as an oyster farmer. I spent two weeks on a ship dredging oysters, I didn't expect to enjoy it and I don't really think I'll do it again but that's the great thing about having an older girlfriend, they give good advice. I'm glad for the experience I had. After my oyster adventure Finch came by as a surprise, to take me home again.

Oh, one little thing I forgot to mention, the entire time I was away I been practising the techniques I'd been shown. The most amazing thing had been happening but I'd been so focused on pig slop and oysters that I hadn't even realised that it had been happening. Somehow I'd become comfortable with the ghosts and spirits. We were communing on a level where it felt as if they'd become an extension of myself.

I got into the car and it was like we'd never parted. I hadn't really thought of Finch being gone at all during my time away from her. I didn't miss her or anything, and no, it wasn't because I'm a bad boyfriend.

Finch told me that she had had a very strange experience while she travelled around Queensland. It's seemed that shortly after she'd left me in Tamworth she began to hear country music. She was adamant that she didn't have the radio on. She told me it was almost like the music came from the air around her. She also said that about a week after the music stopped the air began smelling strange.

We worked it out by the time and day of which song she heard and when she smelled things. She heard Keith Urban when I went to listen to him and Casey Chambers when I saw her. It was astounding! What made it really freaky was that she couldn't possibly even be playing a practical joke on me because there was a mix up with the concert timetable and Keith and Casey had to change the times of their performances at the last minute.

To really prove that something strange was happening, she went on to tell me what she smelled on the exact day I was working at the farm, on the days that I worked with the pigs she smelled pig slop. On other days she would smell horse manure. When I had been on the oyster boat she told me that the air around her had smelled different; briny.

We drove back to Sydney in a comfortable silence. I don't know how she felt but to me it was like we were connected at a more than physical level. I could tell she had something on her mind but never said anything, I knew she'd tell me when she wanted to. We arrived back at my apartment building but before I could open the door she asked if we could talk there for a while.

“Dan,” she said in a hesitating manner “I want you to come back to the States with me, I want us to work together, she paused, “...professionally and personally. I want to ask your mother but I want your permission to do so first.” To say I was shocked was an understatement, she hurried on as if she was scared that she wouldn't be able to get what she wanted to say out if she didn't do it now. “I'm in love with you, I Love you. I know we haven't known each other long but I know you can feel it too.” I just stared at her with my eyes welling up with tears and fell in to her arms with tears streaming from my eyes.
“Yes I Love you and I'm in love with you, ” I softly said from where I rested my head on her shoulder. “Finch, there are things you don't know about me...”

“Don't worry about it she replied, we're connected and nothing you say or do can change it.” And then and there I knew she'd be fine with the knowledge that I'd always felt more female than male. And we went in to talk to my mum.

As we walked toward the unit I lived in, a woman of flame so bright appeared in front of us. She smiled at me and made a gesture as if she were blessing us and disappeared into thin air. I looked at Finch, but it seemed like she hadn't seen anything. I decided to tell her only after we'd spoken to mum.

Marie-Elise Baptiste couldn't believe what she was hearing. The Angel woman was in love with her son. She wanted to take him away with her. Her baby. For God's sake, the woman had to be ten years older then Daniel. But he seemed just as smitten as she and Marie-Elise had to admit that even she could see from the way that they looked at each other they they were indeed in love. And so, like all mother's, she found that the time to let her son go had come.
* * *
Jackie Estacado was pleased. He'd done reasonably well. It seemed the Sydney had a history of organised crime and so the police were tougher to crack than he'd expected but he'd managed to get a lot of the cops to come over to his way of thinking because the Darkness could corrupt the weak willed. But he decided to take it slowly here.

What thrilled him more was that in the Taxi club's early days it had hosted darker energies and the Darkness was able to bring those back to the club. He loved going there and would leave every weekend with a flock of women.

His contacts had told him there had just been big busts of the families in Melbourne and he decided he would swoop in there while they were weak and take over but as he was preparing to leave on a chartered flight he sensed the Angelus in Sydney. This pissed him off no end because he sensed he would lose a lot of business by not leaving Sydney now. He told his driver to turn around and return to the Sydney Hilton. Maybe if he got rid of the person She- the Angelus- decided to choose for her new vessel, the Darkness would leave him to do things in order of importance.

It was 3:30 pm and Jackie was sitting alone in an inconspicuous second-hand rental parked across the street from an impressive apartment building that seemed to cater to foreign diplomats. He just hoped the next Angelus vessel wasn't the wife of some high ranking European diplomat or politician. He didn't need that kind of headache- unless he could wait until the sun set and let the little guys (as he called his darking demons) deal with her.

The Angelus had actually done him a favour by marking the vessel and he could see the Light of said 'mark' pulsing through the walls of the building. He clenched his jaw as the demons started nattering at him and egging him on. Shit they could be annoying! “Hey boss, hurry up let's just ice the bitch by blowing up the building.”
“I give you guys too much lee-way in your stupid war, I'm honouring the agreement to kill the Angelus -Bitch and her vessel. You just let me do it my way” he replied with exasperation.

He actually realised that their suggestion to him might be valid, but there was no way that he would pass business opportunities up by blowing up a building used to house foreign diplomats.
It was now 5 pm and even though the sun still had not begun to set but the surrounding high-rises and narrow alleyways ensured that there was enough shadow to let the little guys out. He let the Demon aspect of the Darkness cover his features . This added to the power that the Darkness gave him and gave his demons greater freedom to cover the area.

As he did this he realised his mistake, the Angelus knew he was there for her vessel, he got ready to be attacked, he felt Her nearby but She didn't attack. This set him on edge. He'd lost the element of surprise and he had just about decided to leave the car and slip away into the shadows of the city when fortune seemed to shine on him- what an odd phrase for the work I'm doing he thought with a chuckle.

There was a loud explosion and alarms started ringing. It turned out that someone had broken into the vault of the Pitt Street branch of the ANZ Bank. Well, only he knew that it was a robbery as he'd set it up earlier that week in his bid to take over Sydney but his plans had changed when he decided to work in Melbourne instead. Obviously somebody decided not to cancel the job. As the police car sped past where he was standing in the shadows he sent a a darking demon to to chow down on one of it's tyres.

The car flipped right over when it's tyre gave out and it flew right through one of the shop windows causing a huge commotion. He knew that people being people with their morbid curiosity would come out to see what had happened. And when the vessel came out he would have her. She would die and he would be able to carve his niche in the Melbourne underworld. People did indeed come out to see what happened. But not the vessel of the Angelus.

* * *
The ghosts were on edge. He could feel Estacado but was afraid to tell his mother or Finch in case they went outside. The decision of what to do was taken out of his hands when there was what sounded like a car accident outside. His mother was about to go to the door to see what was happening when he shouted “DON'T”. His mother turned to look at him strangely.

“Don't go out” he repeated in a quieter tone of voice, “there's something bad out there.”
His mother just laughed at him but a second later she stopped, “Okay, I made a mistake once before so I'll listen to what you have to say.”

With a look at Finch I began to tell her about Estacado. This led to me telling her about our deeper connection and what we experienced while we were away. What I didn't tell her was something my lover and I had just found out. Finch had left the room to take a call on her mobile, but although she walked out she was still visible to me.

It was actually like the were two of the same woman, one walked out of the room and one stayed holding my hand. I knew what Finch had talked about on her call and who she talked to. It was actually kind of embarrassing, it seemed Christina Finch Angel had a best friend that she told everything to. It seemed she had been telling all her friends that she had found the one — MOI — and that she was off the market.

Apparently she realised what happened just as she finished her conversation. She came back into the room red as a beet, smiling at me she mouthed 'sorry,' I just smiled at her. She's just so cute.

My mother completely missed that little byplay, at least I thought so but I was told otherwise later that evening by a very sheepish looking lover. It seemed that my mother knew exactly what passed between us, even if she didn't know the reason for Finches embarrassment.

After explaining the Darkness and Jackie Estacado to my mother, she was quite adamant that Finch stay here for the night. She looked at me and said, “I was so happy when it seemed that you didn't have a meta power that was dangerous, but now I think you may have one that is the most dangerous of all.” Her next words left a chill running down my spine, “Be careful my son, if what you say is real I fear for your soul.” It was totally unexpected as she walked out the room, closed the door and called, “Don't make too much noise.” I went red as a beet as there was a round of female giggles.

I had very strange dreams that night. I saw the Angelus wreathed in flame, shining like a glorious beacon of light. I saw her bending over a dead woman's body and speak to her spirit about revenge. I saw her working in partnership with a human spirit to fight the Darkness and keep it from stealing the Light of Spirit from all mankind. From there the dream turned into a nightmare as I saw the strong Spirit that had worked with Her getting weaker as it became her slave.

I tried to pull away from that dream. The Angelus was supposed to be good, it seemed wrong to do this to someone trying to help you, even if it is in service to a noble ideal. I saw that She Loved the Darkness, but seemed cursed to be at odds with It because of the first Man's fears. Then it seemed that She asked a question, I tried to escape what had become a nightmare. NONOno I would not give her my soul!

I was aware of Finch sharing my dream/nightmare, and when the Angelus asked her a question I couldn't see her answer. I screamed in defiance I was scared for Finch,“Finch don't let her take your soul!” I woke at the same time as my lover, we were covered in a sheen of sweat from our shared nightmare.

Finch looked at me with tears in her eyes and said, “ Her goal is noble.” I had to agree.
“She can't be allowed to destroy souls no matter the nobility of her goal.” I replied. “If she does she is worse than Him, the Darkness.”
He kills, yes that's terrible but the soul carries on once the body dies. I have seen it.” I then explained, “There are spirits who wander, these are the ghosts who are lost or won't leave because of unfinished business, some cross over but come back to help from the other side in spirit form.”

By the time we were eating breakfast, the dream had been forgotten and a sense of contentment filled both of us. My mother came down and kissed me good morning surprisingly she kissed Finch as well, apparently she now considered Finch her daughter. I told Finch that I'd go back to the States with her but asked if we could spend time in New Zealand first as a holiday together. Happily, she agreed.

* * *
Jackie Estacado was fuming. He had spent the entire night sitting in his car on the off chance that he get the opportunity to do what the Darkness wanted. He knew staying there all night was a waste of time but the Darkness was irrational and when that happened it took control of his body. It took a supreme effort of will to not walk in to the building and 'off' everyone.

It was 10:00am when he saw the One who had been marked by the Angelus. She was with a young man, a boy just out of his teens. The boy was looking around but apparently couldn't see what he was looking for.

What puzzled Jackie was the fact that the Glow of the Angelus covered both of them , he didn't really question why this was, he just reached across the seat to get the silencer for his gun from the cubby-hole

I couldn't figure it out, I could sense Estacado but couldn't see him. I had told Finch he was still there and had begged her not to go but she told me that now that we knew the Darkness was after us we knew that it would come no matter what we did. I so I walked her back to her car. We reached the driver's door and as I opened it for her, Estacado appeared our of nowhere with a gun.

Time stopped as I saw him point it at Finch, my vision narrowed onto the gun and I saw very clearly his finger pull the trigger. Before I even heard the gun go off I was flinging myself in front of Finch. I think one of the spirits helped me move really quickly because I think I got in front of her at least I felt the bullets hit me, but I also saw them hit Finch.

I knew I was only wounded but before I fell to the ground I knew Finch was dead. Then everything went black.

When the Angelus looks for a new vessel She is weak. The Darkness seeks to gain the upper hand.

I wish to thank Top Cow for such great characters and give them kudos for showing the development of a lesbian relationship in mainstream comics.

I originally intended chapter 2 to be longer, but to give a greater description of things and better pacing I've made a long chapter two short chapters. For those who gave advice, thank you. Please enjoy.

“...Mademoiselle, mademoiselle arise... ...is coming around” a voice was saying. The beeping of the monitors told me where I was, even if I had been unaware of the anti-septic smell, nobody can mistake a the feel of a hospital bed. I opened my eyes and my memories came flooding back. I opened my eyes.

My mother was in tears, and I felt my eyes well up, “Finch.”
“I so sorry Danny.” My mother placed her hand on mine as I nodded.
“Mum, I said “ I felt her die.” Tears began pouring down my face.
I felt an intense anger rise inside me. I didn't even realise I'd said it until someone I'd never met said”Excuse met what did you say?”I looked up an saw a young man, who look about twenty-five years old. He was introduced to me as Agent Patrick Gleason of Interpol. I did a quick re-valuation of his age, a man that high in the international police force was more likely to be in his probably in his thirties.

...“Huh?” I looked at him blankly.
“I was just wondering if you realised what you said,” he repeated.
My mother answered for me, “He said that he hates Jackie Estacado, Mr Gleason. As would you if he murdered the woman you loved in front of your eyes.”
And how just how do you know Estacado?” Gleason asked in a tone that seemed to imply that if I didn't give him a suitable answer he wouldn't be happy.

I decided not to go into the entire explanation because I was tired. So I gave him the bare bones telling him how the mobster showed up at the Taxi Club, that my meta-gene gave me an ability to see his aura. I told him what I saw and that Finch had told me about him. Oh, and that he shot us.
He was about to ask me more but I cut him off. “Mum I'm tired, I need to sleep. Will you speak to him.” I indicated Gleason.

And with that said, she ushered him out the room before he could ask me more questions. After they left I lay back, closed my eyes and did my best to relax. I automatically began practising the meditation and calming techniques that Finch had showed me when we first met.

Thoughts of Finch brought a painful lump in my chest, but I persisted with my exercise. The feeling when I connect with the spirit realms came to the fore of my attention. I prepared myself for the ghosts that would clamour for my attention but there was just a silence. They were there, I knew they were there. I mean I could feel them, but they were silent...as if they were in awe of something.

It turned out to be someone. As I lay there my mind relaxed and I just seemed to float, suspended over my bed in my astral form. Gradually, a presence revealed itself and a Spirit that I'd never met before began to materialise in my room. I'd never met her but there was no way that I didn't know her. She is still famous and being of French background I'm still humbled every time I meet her. Her presence commanded instant attention. Jeanne D' Arc. Joan of Arc. Maid of Orleans.

Joan had been the holder of the Balance, also known as the Witchblade during her lifetime. The Witchblade was the child of the Darkness and Angelus. It's bearer helper to maintain the neutrality between the two. I wondered if Joan had come to offer the Witchblade to me. Unlikely I thought, as there had only been female bearers of the Witchblade. I believe it has to do with a man's emotional inability to fully connect to his feelings. What I knew of the Witchblade was that it was an object that didn't only bond with it's bearer physically but also emotionally. It chose a woman, not just any woman but someone who met very precise criteria.

However, legend stated and my visions also confirmed this, that the first holder of the Witchblade was a man. Although, he was believed to be a great sorcerer by some, my visions actually told me he was the final Atlantean king before that continent sank.

All stories about the Witchblade tell that it existed since the dawn of this world.
My visions said this was true but only because the Atlantean King took the Witchblade back in time.
I suppose it's possible that he was the not only the first bearer, but he was also the first wielder.

However it struck me that the trauma of watching his entire land be destroyed would have left him emotionally and mentally unstable, that would mean that he could not wield it. So no one but the Witchblade and it's bearer probably knew the whole truth.
Although if I followed simple logic I would have to say he either gave it to one of the first women on our world or more likely, went mad and lost it. It was probably found by some unsuspecting woman.

This brings me back to my current position. Maybe I was considered suited to be wielder because I was transgendered. I did know that if I was given the Witchblade, I would go after Estacado and kill him most painfully. Joan was studying me, I supposed the emotions were played out across my face pretty clearly. She obviously knew what I was thinking because the the conversation took the following direction.

“The Blade that Balances has recently chosen a new bearer, and while the man was a woman in spirit that is not enough. There were extenuating circumstances and now the spirit that was in a male body is now in a female body. She continued, Your position is somewhat different and as I am available, I have been asked to be a mediator on behalf of another. Shortly before your er, amant...how do you say...your lover's death you shared a dream. You were given a choice which you rejected. Your lover, however laid down conditions. The First Mother found these acceptable.”

I closed my eyes, feeling, not only a little worried. “Finch,” I whispered to myself, “what have you done?”
“Do not be afraid, your friend is a very … er you say... shrewd bargainer. I actually believe the Angelus is quite impressed.
Now then, these conditions also involve you.”
“I will not let her destroy our souls” I said firmly.
“Wee...yes...that is understood.”

She continued, “The earthbound that surround you,” she said talking about the ghosts, “in their lives they were in a position to help somebody but for various reasons, they didn't. They have wandered this realm until they found someway that they can finally be at peace. This was your Love's condition; that the Angelus serve and strengthen the soul of her next holder so that they are her host and not vessel; the earthbound have agreed to take on the essence of living flame to buffer your soul. Her second condition was, that She let the host decide how to combat the Darkness. All those souls that have been turned into darkings be saved. Avoid destruction as much as possible.”

It seemed that Finch had thought of everything. But the most surprising demand was her final one. She demanded that we be together. Always.
Tears welled in my eyes as I realised there was no possibility for that now. I decided that if she was giving to me right up to the moment of her death, I would give to her even now that she was dead. I would be the Angelus in memory of Finch.

“So Joan... uh...Jeanne...”
She smiled at me, and told me to call her whatever made me comfortable. In a lot of ways she reminded me of Finch. Beautiful Finch.
“Uh... again... how will this work if the Angelus is a woman?”
“Danielle...for that is who you shall become...you have consented to be let Her share your body. To ensure the safety of your soul the earthbound have chosen to help it change to support Her. The change shall be gradual, but you will physically become a woman. In effect, because of the rearranged contract, you will become the First Woman, but with masculine aspects. I was too tired to consider those implications.

Joan faded from sight and I fell into a deep sleep. I don't know if it was seconds, minutes or hours later that I awoke in the hospital room. But it wasn't the hospital room. It was like I was in a different realm. It was a place of light, Golden- white to white -gold it was incredible! It seemed like I shouldn't be able to tell the differences of one shade of light, but I could. It was beautiful. The furniture was amazing it was like a palace and the furniture would become whatever the mind wished. It was Light and Light was an idea that followed thought.

She walked, no she floated up to me. She was Grace personified and I was about to drop to my knees and give myself to her, to worship her, give her my soul. Wait something was wrong, my soul was my own. No one could have it.

As that though crossed my mind my thoughts cleared, She seemed happy that I had had that thought at the last; it seemed that I had passed some test. She glided up to where I stood, and did the most amazing thing right then and there. She stood in front of me and she bowed, She not only bowed but she knelt before me and offered obeisance. There was a gasp from her gathered hierarchies as she stood, took off her crown of flame and placed it on my head.

I was burning but I wasn't in pain and it was the most wonderful feeling I'd ever felt. Then she faced away from me and turned her back toward me. She began walking backwards one step, two, she stepped completely into my body and we were one.

It took me a moment to reorient myself and when I did I found myself search my feelings (No Jedi jokes please, but I think I did something similar to that esteemed body which according to Her, did indeed exist in a different dimension).

I was still myself but somehow I felt I was more. I was whole. Is this what the Darkness wanted? It didn't seem to much to ask. He was just going about it the wrong way. At the same moment the Angelus answered me, She spoke in a language of images, it was a wonderful way to communicate. It seemed that She had never considered problems between the two of them could be narrowed down so simply. But, She wondered, how do we put the solution into practice.

The Angelus was now part of me, it was actually more than that. She was me and I was the Angelus. I could even now feel myself begin to change. Be it ever so gradual but it was happening. I was sitting on the Throne of the First Woman. I knew that I was in the hospital but I was here as well. I had a hall full of warriors of Light and now I was looked up to as Queen.

From behind the throne I felt a presence. A soft gentle voice that I would recognise anywhere flowed over me like liquid fire, “Hello Lover”.

* * *

The Darkness was extremely satisfied even though other problems were in It's path. It's host for this generation was a let down, he had suborned It's darkings and they were now talking like gangsters working for a thug. It didn't seem to occur to The Darkness that it's host was a better organiser than it was. And that it was the real thug.

However the Darkness had to admit that it's host had achieved in a few short years what it couldn't in millennia. It didn't matter any more what It's host did because he had defeated the Light for the first time in millenia. Unfortunately it hadn't been able to take the Light of the Woman and light of the vessel for itself but it's host was unable to deal with an unfettered Angelus in direct sunlight and he had to kill using mundane means. Even if the Darkness found it disgraceful, the human method of the destruction of the vessel for the Angelus was used.

The Darkness was confused as to the mark over two people instead of one but lost interest in that puzzle when it felt the Angelus grow fainter and weaker as time passed. When it faded completely the Darkness was so excited that it had almost destroyed it's Host when it mangled and desecrated everything within physical range of it's host — including it's host.
* * *
Jackie Estacado was in a foul mood, he'd lost his Melbourne contacts, most of the cops he'd corrupted had been found out, the cops investigating the death of the Angelus' marked vessel were able to track his dealings with the Taxi Club. And to top it off the Darkness tried too kill him.

After everything that he had do for it! He couldn't believe it. It never occurred to him that he was acting as if he had been scorned by a lover. At least It had healed him.

He was sitting in the room that he had set up as an office in his hotel suite. When he got a call from the front desk telling him that an Interpol agent was here to speak to him. He couldn't believe it. Interpol! How did they even know he was here. He thought and then cursed himself for not using the Darkness to disguise him when he travelled abroad publicly. This whole situation was getting out of hand. He needed to be in control, he had to get back what he thought was a proper state of mind.
* * *
After talking to the boy's mother Agent Gleason of Interpol realised that he had a witness to Estacado murdering someone. He had told Interpol everything he had gleaned. All the information he had. He had a live witness under the age of 21, who's mother had assured him that she would give permission to swear what happened in a court of law.

He never showed his emotions, but he was ecstatic that the investigation turned out to be a meta situation. The reason for this was that the international extradition treaty was tricky but with the formation of the DEO, if it involved a suspected meta or meta there were certain loopholes that could be exploited.

To finally link to the crime boss to a crime, a murder no less, was too good to be true. He was still young and this would be a very good thing to have on his record. Capturing Jackie Estacado. He had organised the warrant to be processed through the correct channels. The judge in Australia had signed it and they were just waiting for it to be faxed back from the federal extradition office in the USA.

Patrick Gleason wanted to make the bust, he wanted the credit. It was too much for him to wait for the warrant to come through completely and he knew it would be there within the half hour He needed to do this now and although the boy witness's mother told them Estacado was a meta he wasn't that worried.

It was a well kept secret, and only those with the highest clearance in the agency knew that he was also a meta but his abilities were kept from all except the head of Interpol — and he hadn't told the boss how powerful he was.

They knew he was bulletproof, but Gleason his found out that he was impervious to attack from any out side force, similar to American Dream. So he felt no fear at the thought of confronting another meta-human.

Agent Gleason was lead into Estacado's hotel suite by a young woman who he was sure was actually a man. He couldn't be sure because she seemed to be a bimbo and the only thing that indicated any masculinity was the voice. And lots of women had deep voices anyway. But if Estacado's dealings at the Taxi Club were any indication, his original assumption was correct.

Gleason was a good cop and a decent human being but even though he was a lapsed catholic. His childhood background ensured less tolerance for those that he assumed were just dissatisfied with their lives, those people who chose to change what God didn't intend to be changed. The following events would have been easier for him if he didn't have these blinkers on.

He was taken to Estacado's office where the assistant knocked on the door and left after telling the detective to stay there and wait. Gleason would have told the man-woman that he was an agent and not a detective but he supposed Estacado had the woman act like she not know much, or maybe the person was really stupid. So he let it drop.

The door was opened by Estacado obviously using telekinesis. Estcado used a very good intimidation technique by keep the curtains drawn. Only a lamp was on. And The man looked too relaxed and he knew something was going on. On top of that the room smelt strange.

“I've heard rumours about you agent Gleason. People say that you were only made an agent because you have meta- abilities of your own. Shall we test to see if my sources are correct?' He reached into a draw, pulled out a gun and shot Gleason in the leg. The bullet seemed to ricochet away from him and embed itself into the wall.

Estacado smiled. “Ah, it seems that I have excellent informants. It would appear that you can't be harmed from the outside, but I wonder about the inside.

Suddenly Gleason found that he was unable to move his arms or legs. Estacado smiled benignly at him, “Ahh,” he said. For the first time since becoming invulnerable Gleason was was afraid, the smile that seemed so kindly only showed the maliciousness of Estacado's nature.

Estacado sat and relaxed back into his chair. “You see agent Gleason, I am no ordinary man. I may have a meta-gene but I sincerely doubt it. No my dear man, what I am is an avatar. You see I hold the essence of the first Man. He was scorned by his lover, she stole power from Him and he wants it back. But you don't really need to know that. You just need to know that I hold the essence of the first Demon.

Suddenly and shadow began to form at the paralysed man's feet and it became a creature. “This is the soul of one of the unsatisfied dead. A ghost, an earthbound spirit. I take that spirit and change it. I damage it so much that it will do anything for me because it can't face the pain or even the thought of pain. It eventually begins to enjoy working with me. I call those 'darkings.'

While you've been in this room I've had my little guys release a gas that negates your powers. Gleason was terrified, he could see no way out of his predicament. He had never thought of suicide that was one of the things the church had impressed upon him. Suicide was a sin but as the ghost began to scream and writhe in agony. He wished he could kill himself before Estacado got to him.

Eventually, after what seemed like forever the darking slid through the shadow and bowed before the man who embodied the Darkness and then it joined him, becoming one of his many shadows. Estacado walked slowly up to Gleason. He continued to talk in a mild tone but that made him all the more terrifying, “I've only ever been able to make ghosts become darkings. I think you'll be my first live human test. He turn and walked out of the room. Finally Gleason did scream but no one heard him as the Darkness ate the agony from his cries.

When the Angelus looks for a new vessel She is weak. The Darkness seeks to gain the upper hand.

I wish to thank Top Cow for such great characters and give them kudos for showing the development of a lesbian relationship in mainstream comics.
I originally intended chapter 2 to be longer, but to give a greater description of things and better pacing I've made a long chapter 2, two short chapters. Please enjoy chapter 3.

It was Finch! She was alive!

I forgot where I was,and the next thing I knew, I was in her arms. She laughed, “Whoa there and whoa again”, she had pulled pack and was just staring at me. “What's wrong is my lipstick smeared?” I asked thinking that it was the changes of the increased femininity she was staring at. “She knelt before me, “ My queen, you shine.”

I stared at her as she knelt in a position of obeisance, I looked up and saw all my soldiers in the same position. It seems that when I'm happy I shine.
At the moment finding that I hadn't lost Finch meant that Light around me would have been blinding to a mortal human. Here it seemed the corona flared around me indicating my right to be the Angelus.

I was surrounded in flame and it felt as if my body were being remade. I focused on dampening down the flame. Suddenly it occurred to me that she had just called me her queen. I understood she was my soldier and everything but I felt that after all she had given up for the light that she didn't need to honour me in such a way. I thought of us as more like partners.

“You called me your queen.”
“Huh?” she replied. “Of course I did”
“So you don't mind being with me if I'm turning into a woman/”
She stared at me, “ You've command the entire Hall of Light and your biggest concern is whether I mind that you're a woman?” she asked incredulously. “Of course I'll Love you no matter what, I already told you this when I was still human.”
“Good,” I said “because I feel the same way.”

I asked Finch not to pay me such respect because I felt that she should have equal recognition in helping the Angelus find a host. She told me that it was just a natural thing that all Angelus warriors had a need to obey the Angelus, She was their creator after all.

“Bit you're different, you were human with a human soul that is balanced with polar energy. You have light and dark knowledge, whereas my warriors only understand the light.”
“I don't know what to tell you” she replied, “they will only listen to you. You are Light and hope. They were created to battle Darkness. You are what matters most to them. You matter to me because you're a part of me.”

I thought about this and smiled as an idea came to me. It was a good one and for more reasons than one. I stood before my throne, I had their attention as soon as I moved. I took Finch's hand and gently pulled her toward me.

This didn't seem as big a deal as when the Angelus put her crown on my head but I think it was still a big deal (If one judged by all the whispering). “This is Finch,” I called out, “She is my consort and my second-in-command. If I am unavailable to answer, you talk to her.” I only needed to think it and a chair for Finch was next to mine.

Apparently the Angelus had had consorts before. She, however had never shared power or delegated before. It seemed that I was making a few waves. I could see that they wanted to know the reasons behind my choices but the Angelus had never deigned to explain things before so they just didn't ask. It would be up to me to explain.

“A new contract has been agreed upon, as you see the Light has a new body,” I indicated toward myself and their answer was like a gentle breeze flowing across my skin. I needed to learn to communicate this way; also:My god no wonder She never complained about sexual frustration in any of my memories!

I continued trying to find words to explain why I would choose a commander who was so obviously a newborn warrior, “As humans are born with the potential for light and dark they are in a greater position to understand the reasoning of the host of The Darkness. Finch understands the positive and negative. She has also have been touched by the Darkness and then cleansed and raised by the Light.”

“Laying it on pretty think aren't you there soldier,” Finch said teasingly under her breath. But I knew what she meant, it did sound like I was tooting Finches own horn. But I needed to get the point across that even though I was a new body I was still the Angelus. She agreed with me but I was aware that this little stunt could come back and bite me in the butt.

“Return to your prior business” I told my 'court' and they left. I looked at Finch and asked, “ are you strong enough to return to earth with me?”

“As your consort I am but I have no body. I am a being of The First Fire.

I asked if it was possible for her to get a new body and she told me that in about a hundred years I should be able to make her one but we both knew that there was probably no way to achieve what I wanted. She kissed me and said, I can be with you on Earth anywhere but you probably don't want me indoors.” I thought of her visiting the hospital and setting it alight.
“By don't worry my Love, you can feel me inside of you - always.”

She was right. Here's how it works. I created the entire realm of Light when I was at my strongest, and while each of my warriors are individuals with their own lives they are also part of me and I can feel them where ever they are. Finch was my creation, as she was reborn in the fire and Light of the Angelus. But she was also my soulmate when we were human and came to what she was still havi human free will.. That human part stayed after we changed and now she was inside me, but she had chosen to with me all the time. As such she had joined us together in spirit.
* * *
His name was Sonnetine but it was so long since he had used any other name that he barely remembered that it was an Alias. He had quested for power when he was younger, that was his goal then. Money and power. In the 10th century the quickest way to make that come about was to be born into it. He was not.

What he was was a thug, running around stealing and intimidating those around him. He enjoyed hurting others, it made him feel strong. Not useless like his father called him. His father was not calling him useless anymore, now that his son shoved a dagger into his belly. Now the only useless thing was the stench of his father's rotting corpse.

So Sonnetine stole, bullied and murdered to make his way in the world. Filling no particular purpose exept being self serving. Until he had a stroke of luck.

It seemed a man had seen him around and wanted to hire him for a job. This job turned out not to be that great as Sonnetine was to be the sacrifice to a demon. He was told that he should be honoured as this was not any demon. It was THE first demon. The Darkness.

After he had been dressed in sacrificial robes and his hands were tied so he couldn't escape. He was place in a ritual circle and given a potion to drink He pretended do this and dropped to the floor in a faux collapse and the bottle containing the potion shattered under the bulk of Sonnetine's body.

The dark wizard had to do the ritual with his eyes closed and he didn't see his prisoner cut through his bonds with a shard of pottery from the vessel that had contained the potion. As the ritual was coming to a close the demon appeared and Sonnetine managed to break free of the circle and the tables were turned in a most spectacular manner. The wizard turned out to be the sacrifice to the demon and Sonnetine received the boon that the wizard wanted; money, power and immortality.

Sonnetine studied all the magic books the wizard had, learnt darkest magic, and sinister rituals. He specialised in Necromancy. But most of all, he was obsessed with the Darkness. Sonnetine became obsessed with the Darkness, formed a cult worshipping the Darkness and when he learned that the Darkness took an Avatar on this earth-realm. He decided to seek this Avatar out.

For five hundred years he searched. He found the Darkness hiding in plain sight. In the public eye, using the cover of the criminal underworld. A brilliant thing to do, but he had long ago leant that the Darkness was not that subtle. This meant that It had made a faux pas in choosing a host or, It had begun to learn subtlety He thought the latter very unlikely.

The church dedicated to the Darkness was only a front now. All the high priests knew that Sonnetine's real aim was to control It. The church of The Darkness was now the Crime syndicate known as The Darko family and it was their attack on his holdings that finally convinced Jackie Estacado to cut his losses and leave Australia.
* * *

Estacado was boarding his private jet with a bevy of beautiful women and a male bodyguard.. As the plane taxied down the runway Estacado looked at the women, “all right ladies once were in the air we can have that orgy I've been promising you.

They levelled out and Estacado looked at his latest acquisition and smiled. “You,” he pointed at the bodyguard “will give the ladies what they want.”
“Oh I don't want anything from him” said a woman with size C breasts and a deep voice. “I want to give to him. I wanna fuck him so hard in his arse.”
The Avatar of the darkness smiled, “That's fine.” He turned to his bodyguard and said, “When we land in the States we'll get you on a more permanent roster for hormones. No more small doses of pills every day, we'll start you on monthly injections. We'll make a woman out of you yet.”

“Now” he said to the man, “get undressed for the ladies. But before you do anything for them come here and suck me off.”
The man answered “Yes master”.
As sucking sounds started Jackie closed his eyes and sighed, “Ah, Gleason, you're going to
make a wonderful woman.”
* * *
I returned from that Other Place to the hospital room to find a tremendous commotion going on. There were nurses every where and the doctors were shaking their heads. The odd thing about the commotion was that no one was paying attention to me.

It seemed that...in the words of the doctor, “...and he began to emit some sort of fiery force field and seems to have burned through all equipment connected to him and everything around him. We can't get close to him as the heat is to much and the light blinding.”

I felt inside me and found my connection to the Light. And focused. The room went back to normal — except for the melted equipment that was pooling of the floor. I opened my eyes

It was my mother who first noticed I was awake. “Oh Danny I was so worried.” her words caught the attention of the staff in my room. It seemed that being in The Realm of Light had...certain effects on my physical body. No, there was no sign on me turning into a woman...well except for the loss of my hair — all over.

There was a stunned silence from the doctors. And then all of them converged upon me like children at the first sight of a new toy. I sat up and tried to figure out which questions from the barrage to focus on. None of them were valid to the Angelus aspect of me except for the fact that they wanted to do tests.

That couldn't be permitted. The Angelus was changing my physical structure and even though their first conclusion would be that the changes were meta-gene related, the fact was that I was no longer completely human.

“Doctors.” I used the necessary force to get their attention. Human's weren't used to the Angelus force talking, but somewhere in the the their brain was the spiritual — genetic knowledge that the First Mother spoke and they stopped their chatter immediately. “I am fine. Thank you for your help. Your have my medicare number and for any other aspect of payment the hospital can send a bill to our home address.

The human mind does not cope well with things that are to large for it to comprehend and so it blocks what it is not ready to accept. And so it was with these men of science. The human part of me understands that.

That is why I didn't permit myself to get short tempered we they began to argue that I needed to stay. They needed tests to see if I posed a danger; they wanted me there for observation.
The Angelus was losing patience. I imagined clothes covering me and they did, this seemed to be stun the hospital staff for enough time for me enough to take my mother by the hand and walk out of the hospital.

In the car my mum looked at me and said, “That was very impressive.” She said nothing else until we got home.

As I closed the apartment door behind me I gestured for her to sit. “I have something to tell you.” Everything came out. I must say I was surprised at how calmly she took it all. Out of all I told her, she expressed sincere joy at two things, I think that she was most excited about Finch.
But I think the second thing that made her happy was that I would be getting a life long wish. “And you will be a woman, finally. I'm glad, it's finally happening for you.

When I was young child about 4 years old it became clear to my entire family that I was transgendered. I didn't enjoy playing with boys as much as girls, I loved dolls and pretty clothes and no one could convince me to act differently. After speaking to doctors my parents began to understand why I acted the way I did and they supported me. I even completed my primary school years as a girl

My father died when I was 10 and it was a crushing blow for me to lose one of my strongest supporters in my goal to achieving complete femininity even though everyone continued supporting me but without my father's help I began to sink into a depression.

We tried HRT when I was 12 but my body had rejected it. We tried every type of drug but none worked. When I turned 15 my voice began to break and I finally came to the conclusion that a higher power just refused my wish and I decided that I had to get on with my life.

I even stopped dressing in feminine clothing. When I met Finch, the need to be in the body I felt I should be in, didn't disappear, but it was not as demanding.
* * *
The Angelus, it seemed was giving more than She took. My mother said that she would formally do the paperwork declaring me a legal woman of 21. My name would be Danielle Baptiste. She told me that it would be too much money to keep getting me a new closet every time my size changed as I developed but the Angelus explained that I needed to only get my first set of clothing and She would ensure that the clothes change as my body did.

The next few months were peaceful after the previous ones. I had taken mum to a clearing and showed myself to her as the Angelus, I also re-introduced her to Finch. They were so happy to see one another that they almost hugged and I had to intervene so my mother wasn't reduced to a cinder from Finches fire.

I now worked at the French Embassy as Danielle. I had been accepted as a young woman who was going through my transitioning period before I went in for SRS. Making friends, was surprisingly easy. I don't know if it was a French acceptance of sexuality or something else. Being transexual didn't seem to phase anyone at work.
* * *

Sonnetine had been getting reports of Estacado's vices. From everything that he knew about the Darkness, he knew that It wouldn't be happy with it's Hosts inability (actually lack of motivation) to move chaos onto a Global level.

He realised that he would never get a better chance to succeed at his goal. With the correct ritual at the right time and place, Estacado would die and the Darkness would be his.

When the Angelus looks for a new vessel She is weak. The Darkness seeks to gain the upper hand.

I wish to thank Top Cow for such great characters and give them kudos for showing the development of a lesbian relationship in mainstream comics.

This chapter gets a little darker shortly after the beginning, It does not stay dark but this part is necessary for part of the future plot. For those who don't want to read it, I have marked it with a line of like this ++++++++++ . A short while after you'll see anothet line of +++++++. Then you can start reading again.

The warehouse seemed abondoned but in truth it had just been bought by Sonny Darko, Sonnetine's newest alias. The second Monday in June was the day that Darko Enterprises officially opened the dock warehouses to store overseas merchandise.

Documents would state that the first shipment were books. This was true and anyone touching or opnening the book would see and feel the paper that made them up. However, if they were to open them they would see only two sentences on every page.

What the governent officials didn't know was that shortly after the warehouse was bought a magic ritual was held to triple the space of the warehouse nobody who didn't need to know this would find out because the only people who could find that space were the one's who created it.

Whereas the books that were shipped in would be stored in the main warehouse, the weapons that would be created from the two spells on every page of those books would be stored in the hiddem storage areas.

Each book had 300 pages, each page had a spell to materialise the actual physical weapon in working order and the second spell was for the ammunition needed for that particular item. Each crate could hold 30 books (they were poster size and each page page was 10 cm thick).

Most of the weapons were guns, rifles and other modern weaponry such as genades; there were even a few bazookers. However, three of the books were different in that they contained magically enhanced swords and shields which were meant for the inner circle Darko family. The ones once known as the high priests of the church of the Darkness.
* * *

"What can you tell me about this Darko family?" Jackie asked Butch 'The Butcher' Babliano (named for his favorite method of interrogation).
"The boss is is some guy named Sonny Darko who brought their organisation out from Eastern Europe. Reports say they were the biggest, baddest dudes in Communist Europe, people say that every country they've acted in leaves them alone 'cos they've got their hands so far up some of the arses of the Eastern European polititions that they're pretty much running their own countries and the politicians are just figureheads. Puppets.

Butch looked at Jackie with concern, "Be careful boss the shadow mumbo's" he said, referring to the Black Mage Order who would now and then act as Jackie's own personal magicians, say Darko's a match for you. Butch was Estacado's highest lieutenant and he knew all about the Darkness.
* * *
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Gleason's agony wasn't physical, it was mental and emotional. In fact, the physical sensations that he was feeling were so amazing, that they described the reason for the word 'mind altering'. He did everything for Estacado, because he unwilling to stop the sensations that he felt, if he didn't do what he was told the wonderful sensations would stop. They'd stopped before and he thought the lack would kill him.

Intellectually Gleason knew that he was be used. A part of him knew he should find a way to end his life. However, another part of him knew that if he did that he'd be lost forever and the Darkness would have him for what could very well be eternity.

He'd heard Estacado talk about some woman called the Angelus and he realised that this may be the only person alive that could help him. He would just have to wait and thank whatever god there was that the pain wasn't physical.

Estacado's most recent experiment was using Darkness and getting darkness gas to create oestrogen in his Gleason's body by stimulating the pineal gland which in turn stimulated everything else. He had begun to change, to become more feminine looking but he had begun to change in other ways.

The Darkness running into his brain had begun to warp his morality and he craved something that his food did not give him. And one day his food no longer tasted appealing.

His skin darkened as well as his irises, everything about hin began to darken. Whenever Gleason looked in a mirror he felt sick. Maybe that why vampires didn't look in mirrors, not because they couldn't see themselves but because they felt ill at the sight of themselves.

"Well, Well, Patricia," said the big boned, woman who gave her her first anal sex experience "it seems that our beloved Jackie has decided that it's time that we played together again."
Gleason stared at her with what were becomine his... no he had given up on remaining a man... her black eyes and felt a wave of lust running through her body, but didn't realise that it was not entirely sexual.

That other woman had hurt Gleason that first time on the plane and although she had been having and enjoying all types of sexual experiences as Patricia, the woman tried to hurt her whenever she took her. She ripped of Patricia's clothes where she stood but as she moved closer Gleason smelled her blood. Her teeth ripped into the woman's carotid artery and Gleason felt the warm, liquid life that tasted so sweet flow down her throat quenching some of her desire. The woman was dead before Gleason let her go.

Suddenly The good feelings that had made Gleason want to do things for Jackie ceased. They were super-ceeded by another need, a new type of hunger awoke in Patricia Gleason.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
* * *
She no longer felt the need to listen to the Darknesses meat. She felt no desire for anything but the taste of mettalic blood running down her throat, soothing it, quenching the neverending need to relieve the thirst that she felt.

She came back to herself in an alley only to find her hands and mouth slick with blood, kneeling over what looked like a homeless man's corpse. Her mind was in a fog and she just sat there not knowing what was going on.

Slowly, she came back to herself. She looked about herself in a daze ... and realised what had happened. She raised her head and screamed. What had he done to her Jackie Estacado had turned her into an abomination. A thing that's only use was in a horror story.

She tore the dead mans shirt off his body and used it to wipe the blood off her face and hands.
She sat back down and tried to figure out what to do. Two hours later she was still there when a red dress was thrown on the floor in front of her. A gruff voice spoke to her, "Get dressed my litte Vampirella there are things to teach you and the others don't forgive daywalkers, trespassing on their land after dark."
* * *

Danielle was over the moon. Her breasts had finally begun to bud. She has been happy to wait as her bone structure had been becoming more and more that of a young woman's. She thought that she had never be more excited than when two weeks after joining with then Angelus, her voice had risen in pitch and evened out at a nice contralto.

She had been filling out nicely and even though the Angelus had told her that she need never buy more clothing than one size and set for a season because (for a reason that was never explained) somehow the clothing would adjust with her body. With her new developments she just had to go shopping for new clothes, espescially lingere and so every fortnight she would go on a shopping spree with new work colleages.

Dani had made friends surprisingly quickly for someone starting a new job but she thought it might have been because of who her mother was and possibly, in the beginning it was. But after working there for a month one of the girls ran into the women's bathroom while Dani was touching up her make-up.

Stephanie had just broken up with her boyfriend and she was in an awful state. Tears were streaming down her face and she had the shakes from nervous energy. Dani had stayed to comfort her. When she had calmed down enough Dani took the overwrought girl into the staff room. Half an hour before the end of the work day, no one was there and they had the whole area to themselves to talk.

She listened to the girl, who thought she had done something wrong and had caused her boyfriend to break-up with her. Dani looked her straight in the eye and told her that that was not the case. "But how, how can you be sure?" stephanie asked.

"Steph, you forget who you're talking to here, I may have been a girl my whole life but I was born in a boy's body. I'd love to tell you I'm innocent and pure of bad things but that would be a lie. When I was at primary school all the boys knew I had a boy body even though I wore a girls uniform (yeah I was outed, but that's a story for another time).
"Anyway" I continued, "to keep from being beaten up I would tell the boys which girls liked them. While I did this one of them was telling his best friend what his brother did to his girlfriend to make her break up with him and let her think it was her fault. What he did still makes my skin crawl. And from what you have told me it seems like the same thing's been done to you."

I went on to tell her about Finch and how beautiful and accepting she was, that when she died I thought I'd lost her. Although I didn't tell her anything else about my strange new life I was able to point out that Finch was still with me even if we wern't together physically. I told her "Life goes on and if you get lonely there's alway's someone out there.

"I don't subscribe to the belief that every person only has one soulmate". I hoped by telling her this that she would understand my implication that there was someone for everyone. Even after death.

Finch and I had talked about soul mates in length and had come to the conclusion that because a soul also has a vibration. The many souls vibrating at similar levels will be attracted to each other. We agreed that was why people could love more than one person at a time.

It was just over two months since I had begun working at the embassy. Steph and I were out one Thursday evening because we had decided to go out for coffee instead of clothes shopping. I glanced at a newspaper that someone had left on the table next to ours. There was an article in the world events section about a spate of murders that had happened in New York and Manhattan that the press latched onto as the vampire-butcher serial killer murders.

What was so odd about these murders was that they were all completely drained of blood. There were no blood spots anywhere, even though the victims appeared to have been butchered to death. Another thing was the fact that all the victims appeared to be in homeless.

"...Hey daydreamer what's so interesting about that menu?"
"I was just looking at..." I realised what she had said. The newspaper was a menu and the article I had read wasn't there. I blinked feeling slightly flustered.

I was about to tell her about the imaginary newspaper when therewas a crash coming from the kitchen. Some poor waitress must have dropped some plates. It was just about then when Finch called. I didn't know how to respond I was out in public. How could I just disappear? I was with a friend.

I'm still unsure how they did it but it seems that one of my warriors managed to set off a fire alarm and everyone was asked to leave in an orderly fashion. Steph and I were jostled by the crowd but she'd latched tightly onto my arm. I pretended to trip and fall, forcing her to let go of me. As she got swept along with the crowd.

It seemed like Steph and I got separated in the crowd of the mall and when I was sure no one was watching including the CCTV cameras could see me, I vanished. And arrived in a familiar place with the weight of responsibility on my head and Finch in my arms.

* * *

Through the course of May and June while Dani had been settling into her new human life, Finch had taken on the task of showing the Angelus warriors how people lived in the third dimension. They were shown the battles people faced daily, choices they made, why choices were hard because all humans had aspects of Light and of Dark within themselves.

They were shown that even though the original Woman carried Light and the original Man carried Dark. In humans Light could hold sway in men and Dark, women and vice-versa. Most humans balanced both to a lesser or greater extent. The warriors saw that Light and Dark weren't always clear cut.They had difficulty grasping it but began to understand the concept: 'Shades of Grey'.

This couldn't be given as a greater example than when they were observing the way people live. As the watchers observed unseen by others, they saw something Finch had only heard stories of during her human life. Vampires.

She saw the meeting between the newly made Vampirella (who was the man and then woman named Patrick/Patricia Gleason and was now something new as well). They saw that the woman vampire had been tainted by a by-product of the Darkness. And had only escaped with her soul in tact because her vampiric nature was stonger than Estacado's hold on her.

It was all Finch could do to hold herself back from attacking what felt like the Darkness and she was relieved that she hadn't let the other warriors move fully out of the Light Realm and onto the Earth-plane for that exercise. She doubted that she would have been strong enough to hold them back from attacking.

Finch and the warriors began their research into vampires (well...for some, they actually remembered but even though, they resarched vampires because there were always parts that one tended to overlook). It was like reading from a novel. A story.

There were vampires that could walk in the sun and ones that could only come out at night. The first vampires in history were energy vampires. These drained the energy of other people and were people — granted they were wizards — they were trained in this power so they could act as human weapons during war.

At some point in history energy vampires warred against each other and to ensure that their side won, the one side experimented on captive soldiers and came up with a way for their own soldiers to ignore the energetic manipulation and energy stealing of others but, it came at a cost. They had to eliminate all emotion from the wizards, the wizards — in essence died- they were only able to sustain themselves with blood of the living, and while the war was won by the blood-drinking vampire creators. They also lost. It was lost the at the instant the first blood-drinker was made.

After the stunning victory over the opposition but after a short period, the vampire creators realised that by creating creatures who in effect shut off their emotions they had given the blood-drinkers abililty to destroy humanity. Due to the fact that vampires were notoriously difficult to kill, mankind had created, for not the first time, something with the ability to bring about the destrution of life. The scientists died by their own creations.

This point was the first time the Darkness and Angelus's goals were similar but for different reasons. The Angelus tried to destroy the vampires but the Darkness only tried to cull the numbers. It wanted to train them as soldiers loyal only to Him.

The Darkness was never able to control them fully. Their bloodthirst overrode all genetic manipulations. However due to It's meddling there were now two kinds of blood drinker vampire. The daywalker and the nightwalker.

Unlike the tales night walkers don't burn in the sun, they are just weakened by it. Almost incapacitated and could be likened to the state of complete inebriation that affects a person who is drunk for the first time.

Daywalkers are weakened to a lesser degree at night, they lose their sight. They have no night vision and even in a room with lights on they are blind between moonrise and sunrise.

* * *
Finch and Dani only had to glance at each other and all the information gathered on vampires was shared. Information, in it's purest essence is called the light of knowledge. The Angelus is Light and therefore received the information from Finch through the light in her eyes. "My, my. You have been busy haven't you?" Dani smiled at her warriors.
An assembled, "Yes mistress" floated through the air..

"Well let us be off and confront this new situation." She said. They appeared over the New York skyline and anyone looking up, would have sworn that they saw and army of angels surrounded in flame.

When the Angelus looks for a new vessel She is weak. The Darkness seeks to gain the upper hand.

I wish to thank Top Cow for such great characters and give them kudos for showing the development of a lesbian relationship in mainstream comics.

New York is a city that has had it share of heartbreak. And for many, events of the past decade have had a huge impact on New Yorkers. The twin towers collapsing on 9/11 might have been, for many the single most traumatic event for that city. And yet as the saying goes, "life goes on."

So it brought fresh change for those jaded people who see miracles everyday but ignore them to see angels flying toward the Manhattan Skyline at five am on a Thursday morning in June.

* * *
The Darkness was frantic. She was supposed to be dead, but now She was in It's hosts city of residence and She seemed to be more powerful than the last time It confronted Her. It's host was a fool thinking that he had destoyed Her. She was so close that the Darkness could see and feel the Light and that was something that It's useless host was unable to take on his own.
* * *
Estacado was woken by one of the worst nightmares he'd had in his life . He was now awake but was unable to move. The Angelus was here. How could this be? He'd disposed of the one who She'd chosen as Her vessel.
The other one was a boy, he was sure of it. So how had it happened?
Did it bring her back from the dead? If that had happened surely she would have burned up the body. Could she have found a new vessel so quickly?
Then he remembered the boy. Could She have chosen a boy? Boys could be more easily swayed toward the Dark. The Darkness quickly latched on to this thought, if She was using a boy, perhaps he could be influenced by Darkness.

Estacado realised the Darkness was grasping at straws. The Angelus was subtle, She leaned from Her mistakes unlike his sentient symbiote. But then he relised something else She had felt The Darkness and had ignored it. He felt her attention drift over him, acknowledge that He was there and then focus elsewhere. The Darkness reminded him that this had happened before but It also told him that he wasn't prepared to deal with Her at this moment in time.

Estacado wondered if the Darkness was telling him this or just reminding Itself.

* * *

Sonny Darko felt something happening to the lines of probability. He drew a circle of blood and did a seeing. His eyes snapped open. Shit, he thought as he realised he'd have to put his plans on hold again. There was no way in hell that he would practice any magic while theAngelus was in the city.
Thanks to the nine circles of hell that the blood he'd used for his circle wasn't fresh enough to draw Her attention.
***

The warriors noticed the blood circle of Darko's ritual and were going to deal with that until Dani told them that that was not why they were here. They dropped back at her command but looked at Finch with questions in their eyes.
"We are here to deal with the vampire," she said. "Try not to kill it before the mistress speaks to it."

* * *
Vampirella had spent the three previous days learning about her vampire heritage she leant about the shadow wars and how the blood drinking vampires came to be. She had explained to Terak, for that was the name of her gruff teacher what had happened to her and in doing so almost condemned herself to exile as there seemed to be bad blood (no pun intended) between the nightwalkers and daywalkers.
Her only saving grace was her ability to walk in the sun and retain her full strength. It seemed that she never had any night weakness either, as she could see at night.

Apparently the gas that the darking had created, in addition to changing Gleason from him to her to vampire had created a new type of vampire. This left her feeling like an outsider and the others seemed to not shun her, but they seemed to not want to be around her.

Terak was the only one who would even talk to her but he too, seemed to be uncomfortable around her. She was unsure, but it seemed that the others were using him as a go between or middleman in their dealings with her. She didn't mind being alone, in fact she needed the solitude to try to come to terms with the mess her life had become. Terak had taught her how to control the thirst for blood and although she still needed it to sustain herself she wasn't killing every warm-blooded human she came accross.

The second day after her birth as a vampire, Terak brought her news it seemed that there was a rogue on the loose. This meant that a vampire somewhere had lost control of his or her nature. Either he wanted to get caught or he'd gone insane. Terak said one of the basic laws of being a vampire in the city was: DO NOT DRAW ATTENTION.

That is why vampires learnt to feed from many different people and then compelled them to forget that they had been a giant mosquito meal. Terak was had brought the news about the rogue and told her that when a rogue was around vampiric activity generally stopped and daywalkers and nightwalkers would put a hold on their constant feud in order to root out the one endangering them all.

One of the other lessons was to try to bleng in with humanity. Daywalkers got jobs and lived lives among hamans as much as could be tolerated. However, it was difficult to be around humans for an extended period without wanting to nibble on them and this is why they generally stayed amongst our own kind.

Vampirella didn't stay with the others and she didn't look human enough to hold down a job. She thought the others felt guilty about their very visible uncomfort of being around her because they had Terak take her to an old safehouse on a farm where vampires used to hide from vampire hunters in the 1860's.

It was underneath a club that was owned by vampires catering to the needs of vampire thrillseekers. They told her she could stay as long as she wanted. They even bought her clothes in her size.
This was her position and situation in life when Dani and her warriors arrived in New York.
* * *
Dani looked at her warriors and her eyes flashed, and her meaning was conveyed in that flash of light that said: Be silent. Do not show yourself until I say.
Aloud she said, "Finchfire stay with them." A warriors name with the word fire added to it meant that aspect of the Angelus (the warrior) had been left in charge.
The host of the Angelus reverted to her human form and walked into the alley where Finch first saw the female vampire that had escaped from Estacado.
"I am the Angelus." she called out. "the last time we met was at the end of the shadow wars. Unlike then, today I just come to talk. I wish to speak to Terak Daywalker.

There was silence, as if the world were waiting on this one action to see which way future events would take place. After standing in the same spot for five minutes a voice sounded from behind her, "Speak and then leave we want no trouble."
Dani turned and looked at the man. "I seek the one you found feeding here three days ago."
"She has done nobody harm since we found her, she is newborn and has our protection" he said.
"Ah," Dani said "a very admirable stance you take, protecting your young." She paused looking at Terak, "The last time we met Terak, I thought you were beyond redemption you escaped me then only because the Darkness took you. I doubt vampires have found their lost emotions, what makes you different now? Why is this one important?"

He looked at me, with the most expression I had ever seen on a vampire's face. "I saw my brothers experimented on by the Darkness. I may have lost human emotion when I become a vampire, but I foung a type of emotion after being experimented on. My brothers lost the sunlight because of the Darkness, the only reason I still have it is because I managed to ecape. The vampirella escaped It also. If I owe her nothing I still feel a kinship with her because we both know what experiments by the Darkness are like.

The Angelus stood in front of the vampire considering his words. Maybe She wasn't the only one who had changed, it seemed that many things that She had come accross since accepting this new version of herself were very different to the how they had always been.

"I gather that you will refuse to tell me where the new one is." Dani said, more as a statement than a question. She suddenly felt weary and needed support, she needed her partner to hold her.

"Terak, I would like you to meet my consort." Dani said, hoping that what she was doing wasn't stupid. "Finch" she softly called, and her lover appeared in her glory, clothed in flame. Terak's eyes widened as he stepped back.

Vampires are difficult to kill but fire is deadly to them as well as decapitation; a stake in the heart would heal just like any other wound a vampire receives. But to finish off a vampire fire is your best bet.

Terak was indignant, "Now I see how much the Angelus's word is worth, you come to talk but when you don't get what you want you threaten. If we don't give you what you want will you kill us?" Terak's vehemence was somewhat astounding for one who had been alive for as long as he.

Dani knew that the vessel of the Angelus lived for milennia, but only as a vessel. She didn't know how it would work now that the new contract had been sealed. Although she gathered that her life would now be a long one.

She was definitely more than she had been before perhaps she was now immortal, the Angelus was not totally sure but It assumed they shared a soul and that the soul couldn't be destroyed but was unsure about the body.

Dani wondered if when she had lived as long as Terak would she still be able to be so passionate . She supposed she would be, as passion was an aspect of fire and the Angelus was the First fire.

Dani raised her hands to deny his accusations. "Terak, Terak," she affected a bored tone of voice -she didn't want to play politics, she did that enough during her daily human life. She continued, "Once I might have done that but not today. Today I want Finch to support me while I tell you a story."

That is how the daywalkers found out about the Angelus's consort and leiutenant. How she used to be human until being murdered by the Darkness. I told Terak that I only wanted to keep the new vampire away from the Darkness. After our talk he believed me. I don't know what convinced him but he told me where this vampirella was.
* * *

Estacado was having a bad day. He'd been woken up by the presence of the Angelus in Manhattan. To calm himself down he'd sent for Nesta as she liked pain and he needed to let loose, only to be told that Nesta had vanished at the same time as Gleason.

This infuriated him, furthermore the Darkness had been strangely silent about the disaspperance of Gleason, as if It knew something that It wasn't telling him. He was further incensed later that morning when Butch called him to tell him that Nesta's corpse had been found and hidden in a toolshed near the place where they had housed Gleason.

It was only when Bablliano showed Jackie how Nesta died that he realised that his only concern should not only be the Angelus. The Darkness had been becoming less reliable since he arrived back in the United States, there were things that It wasn't telling him.

He could have slapped himself for being so blind. The nature of Darkness is demonic and It wasn't pleased with his ways or refusals to do whatever It wanted. Of course he suddely realised, It was preparing to betray him. Jackie was suitably impressed as he had always assumed that the Darkness wasn't very big on planning.

But the plan that he could see forming must have been in the works for some time now. So he wondered if some other host had done something that the Darkness didn't like. Maybe the next host put a plan into effect in case the Darkness didn't like a future host.

This Darko from Europe, he had prompted Estacado's return to America. Jackie was unable to find much information on the man who was supposedly strong in magic, Jackie was positive it was black magic and that meant Darko probably had black magicians in his organisation. Perhaps this Darko was the Darknesses intended new host.

Jackie began planning what to do in case of such an event.

* * *
The Darkness is to large to be contained by one man. The host is just a method of keeping it's foot in the door of this dimension (so to speak).
The Angelus has the Realm of Light and her warriors to represent what she is. The Darkness has the absence of light. It is called the Void of Fear, where demons thrive.

The Original Darkness listened to it's hosts thoughts and It considered his thought pattern. No, It didn't plan ahead. It thrived on chaos. That was one thing these little creatures on this plane of reality neglected to think about when they tried to command It. If they didn't have the strength of will to hold the demon they would drown in insanity.

It's current host, no matter his other flaws, was the strongest It had had since It's very first human holder. It recalled this Darko. It had given him power because he had amused It and It wondered if he could do this again.

* * *

Sonny Darko had decided to lay low until the Angelus had left the area. This meant he would not use blood magic for his rituals. In fact the only magic he would do was to unpack his weapons shipments. He would build up his criminal empire to the point that he could stand against Estacado in the mundane world without the use of magic.

Besides, the ritual to call the Darkness could only be done on the equinox, he still had a few months left to prepare. He left the warehouse in a chipper mood with the intent of corrupting some polititions. He smiled to himself, from all reports that he'd received he saw that in some respects people in America would be easier to corrupt.

He idly wondered if Estacado used magic or the Darkness to corrupt others. Probably the Darkness, he concluded. If everything worked out like he planned he would see how Estacado did it.

* * *

The club was owned by a prosperous daywalker clan and it catered to both races of vampire who still remembered the days when vampire hunters would hunt them. Although those days (at least for most living in the city) were over, there were thrill seekers who would come here to test their skill and speed. The rules were simple: Pay the entry fee, if you die none of your friends may seek revenge.

The club was on a farm a few kilometres outside the city, and she lived under it in the basement. Vampirella was asked to do some janitorial work to pay her way. She was told that if the nightwalkers felt comfortable around her she could tend the bar at night.

She had just started her first janitorial shift when there was a commotion outside. What few vampires were in the club looked terrified as the doors opened to let a young woman in, accompanied by none other than Terak.

She began to understand the reason for the terror in the eyes of the other's. This woman could destroy all of them, she radiated power, a power that could create or destroy. Vampirella knew who she was straight away. She decided that she wasn't going to be intimidated by this woman who she had once thought would be able to free her from the Darkness.

Well now it was to late, she had once been human but now she was a monster. With that thought in her mind she snapped. She marched straight up to the woman and started screaming at her.

"Where were you? I needed you and you didn't stop him. You're supposed to stop him ." The tears were now flowing down her face. "Look at me, I'm a monster. I was human, an agent for the law and,"here she screamed the words enunciating them very clearly "NOW. I. DRINK. BLOOD."

"I was a man and he turned me into some warped version of a woman. I'm still not fully female, just a freak with boobs and a dick! A monster and a freak." Dani just stared at the woman and her mouth dropped open because she recognised her from when she met him- Agent Patrick Gleason.

She didn't know how to begin the conversation. She had thought that it might be necessary to limit the new vampire but this new creation had told her all she needed to know.

Dani looked at this creature. No she realised, this poor confused person, not creature. She looked at her with compassion and decided to talk in a factual, businesslike manner.
"Agent Gleason" she saw the shock in the face of the person who used to be Patrick Gleason. "I
wondered if they took you off the Estacado case. It's good to know what really happened"
Vampirella just looked at her, "How do you know me?"

A smile crossed Dani's features, "You aren't the only one who's changed, you interviewed me in hospital as Daniel Baptiste."

Vampirella was astounded, "You too? How did Estacado turn you into a girl?"and then as an afterthought she said, "can we change back?"

'No agent, Estacado did nothing to me... except shoot me with a gun. I chose this when I decided to embody the Angelus and I'm happy as a woman...you know, I was born transgendered."

The woman who had once been Gleason didn't understand why people were transgendered but his views on it being a sin had changed. Although he had hated every single one of those transwomen working for Estacado, he had seen their total desire to be real women.

Some of them couldn't stand the sight of their own male parts, all of them did their best to not think about anything masculine. It was only Nesta, the cruel whorish slut that enjoyed being a man with breasts.

Vampirella said, "Well it not my wish. I liked being a man and I want to be one again."
Dani looked concerned, "I know what it's like to be in a body that does not fit your image of yourself but this was done through demonic magic and I don't know if I can help you without killing you.

* * *
Finch didn't understand what was going on, her anger toward the new Vampire was building. She tried to call to Dani, to the warriors beside her for assistance but it seemed as if some force was blocking her attempts at communication. She was losing all control of her body, all she could feel was the anger.

This man-woman was producing darkness. She screamed and moved from the Realm of Light into the earth realm with hardly a thought and dove at Vampirella. Dani screamed, "No Finch, what are you doing?!"
It was too late. Finch had latched onto Vampirella and the vampire was going to burn.

I wish to thank Top Cow for such great characters and give them kudos for showing the development of a lesbian relationship in mainstream comics.
From earlier comments I realise that some things in a story like this may disturb some. I do not feel that it's particularly unreadable but for those who don't like too much blood. Skip the parts between the 2 lines of ++++++++++++++++++++.
You won't miss any of the story it just introduces a bad guy who is known as the rogue. He's also described as a soldier.

The Priest had always told Patrick Gleason that the soul was in the heart. But his sister went to a different church with her husband and she told him that the chaplain there had stated that the soul was in the brain because the universe had been formed by God and He was all-knowing and knowledge came from the mind.

They were both wrong. Gleason understood now the soul is connected to all existence. And the holy fire was cleansing his, it was burning all of him. He knew now that there was no life left for him. Redemption of his soul came at a price; the death of his body.

The last thing he felt was the flare of heat, a scorching flare that ripped through his skull burning his brain. Then he felt nothing and there was only peace.

He stood before a throne,. At first there was no body occupying it, but slowly a shadowy figure semi-solidified there and in it was a woman. She was gorgeous but she was not human, she smiled at him an his knees felt weak at the sight.

She looked like the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Except her skin was red and she had a very small pair of black horns. “Greetings my daughter,” and he recalled that he had been made a she. But he had been redeemed, why was he still a woman?

The red woman spoke again, “My name is Satanna and I have been called the first vampire. Unfortunately my father is the big bad that all of Patrick Gleason's priests warned him about. Fortunately, my mother was human. So I don't only have a legacy that I'm ashamed of but one that I am proud of. Although my father would preferred me to follow him into the family business he is satisfied with what I do as long as I don't get in his way.

So I have told you that I was the first vampire. You should also know that I was the first vampire hunter. My children stand at a crossroads, they have a chance to be free of the taint of the Darkness. They also stand on a precipice of a cliff., one incorrect step and they will fall.

Now you must understand that anything to do with the idea of a soul falling is abhorrent to me. While my father seems perfectly happy with that status of being a fallen angel, I am not. I care for my children and unlike the Hollywood portrayals of vampires, they have their souls intact.

However if what is coming, comes to pass I fear that Hollywood portrayals of the damage will only be the tip of the ice- berg. They will be lost beyond redemption and it would take something incredibly powerful to help them rise as a civilisation again.

I need a representative on Earth, actually on all realms to do as I wish. Come to me and I shall make you my daughter in truth. As she held her, her new daughter felt her mother's power seeping into her body changing her.

“ You took the name Vampirella for yourself in your last incarnation. Vampirella is a title given to newborn vampire women. It means 'Torch of the vampire', Ella means 'torch' or 'light'. As my daughter your title is Vampirella. However, I name you Ella.”

Satanna never gave birth to me but she felt like my mother, god knows how that works but the bond between us must have been genetic she felt like my mother and I already Loved her but I was really not looking forward to meeting my grandfather.

Pulling me forward she kissed me on the cheeks and bid me farewell. She held my face looking into my eyes as if willing me to be safe and not to forget her.

* * *
“Finch, what have you done!?” The words slowly penetrated her sluggish brain as she held onto the smouldering woman. Her mind cleared and and she saw what had happened she let the woman go and stumbled back.

Terak was insensate with anger. “You are the new Angelus that now who commands decisions. It doesn't seem that way to me. Either you planned this or you are no longer in command and control.”
I had no reply. No excuse for Finch's behaviour. Finch herself seemed distressed and couldn't explain what happened except that she lost control of her body and emotions.

I knew that she was telling the truth and I couldn't explain what had happened. No one had ever suborned one of my soldiers before, I was too powerful for that to happen. I tried telling This to Terak, but I don't think he believed me. When Vampirella's skin began to turn red, I began to suspect more was going on then an attack on the Light.

I looked at Finch and told her to return to the Realm and to tell the warriors to arm themselves, as I suspected what was about to happen could be very good, or not good at all.
* * *

Finch returned as Vampirella began to show signs of regaining consciousness. She was shaken up and burst into tears at her return in the Hall. The other warriors had never had a sister with a human soul and so were unsure what to do.

However over the past few weeks Finch had made an impact on all of them and they could sense her hurt and shame. Unsen, the most masculine of the guard was the most interested in the lives of humans. He had seen what humans did to comfort each other and as this information passed among those of the Hall of Light, and for the first time in their existence the Angelus warriors expressed their caring for their newest sister in a group hug.

Preparing for a possible battle in the Realm of Light also involves gathering weapons, but unlike most armies the weapons weren't stored in an armoury. What happened was that a banner of Light was unfurled and when activated by the Angelus, the armies of Light would take the sunshine from the banner and forge their own weapons.

* * *
Jackie Estacado had finally discovered what the Darkness had been hiding from him. A vampire, he had created a vampire. Now why couldn't he hold on to her? He had, had her subdued so something must have gone wrong. He just decided he would have to create more. Only then did the Darkness decide to speak to him.

It showed him all about vampires, how it had been unable to control them. The Darkness told him it was a waste of time trying to hold them, unless Jackie was able to find a method to have better control over them then their hunger.

Estacado knew something the Darkness had overlooked. It seemed vampires held down jobs to do more than eat. They would be well paid to work for him and now he just had to find them.

* * *
Ella slowly but surely regained consciousness. She opened her eyes and looked at everyone staring at her. Taking stock of her body, she discovered she liked what she saw. It seemed that remainder of the male parts that were Patrick Gleason had disappeared. She had red skin like her mother but was missing the horns. Her fangs were out but she slowly retracted them. Doing this brought her extreme satisfaction that bordered on the sensual.
She would look in a mirror later. She no longer felt any shame there.

She wasn't sorry about the change. She was happy to be a woman with a loving mother who accepted her and needed her help. She had even inherited what many would call a queenship. She wondered how anyone would believe that she was now leader of the vampire nation.

She stood and saw the Angelus and a message from her mother flashed through her mind. She looked at Dani and said, “My mother apologises for what she did to your consort, it was neccesary to burn away the leftover toxins that were in my body as a result of the meddling. And this is one of the first times you've been vulnerable enough for her to reach the Realm of Light.

The Angelus knew Satanna and considered her a sometime ally, if a troublesome one. But Dani was fuming, how dare she, how dare she take away a person's free will. Finches laugh came back to her from that Other Place. “As the Angelus you've done it to her once or twice. Don't worry, she did it for a decent reason. Anyway she'll feel good about herself and that will add to her goodwill.

As Dani approached her so she could ask Vampirella about her meeting, the vampire burst into flame but she did not burn. All the other vampires in the room began muttering about a prophecy and bowed before her.

Terak was the one who spoke first, “All hail the new Vampirella, what do you will?”
Ella replied, “We are at a point in our history when we have a chance to shed the imbalances caused by the Darkness to our race. The first task we have is to work with the Angelus and her warriors. She continued, “I wish to call a meeting of all night and daywalkers at this club, at this we will formalise the running of our government and begin to have both races work together.”

Dani decided she needed to speak before things became too political, “We came here not only for you Vampirella. There have been reports of a rogue”.
Ella just looked at her and wondered how she found out about that so quickly. “That's true” she said. “We'll talk about it at the meeting.”

Terak could see a whole lot of flaws in what the new queen had suggested. Vampire society would not submit to the structure of government. She was still to focused on doing thing the ways humans did them.

He felt sorry for her. Her new life wasn't intended to be easy. But then again, he'd never heard of a vampire who could easily accept their changed nature. He sighed, “Oh well, it seems I've got the job as advisor whether I wanted it or not.”

* * *
He stalked the streets at night the thirst drove him. He craved it the warm tang of blood running down his throat. He'd lived so long that he didn't even remember his name. He knew that once he had been a soldier. He had been a good soldier that followed orders well.

He had never been given a command of his own but this didn't bother him. It gave him time to do what he loved doing … killing the enemy. If he couldn't kill in a legal way he wouldn't be able to keep himself from killing and he realised he'd end up in prison or on the execution block. If that happened he'd be kept from his hobby, that would upset him. So he chose to join the emperors own.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

He loved torture, craved listening to the screams of his victims. He enjoyed his work so much that he often overdid it and killed the prisoner by mistake. He was taken away from that position that he liked so much and was sent to the border to protect his country, he so wanted to protect it that he snuck into the neighbouring country and killed their entire garrison. It didn't matter that they weren't at war.

During the dark times when the emperor battled to put down the slave rebellion, he had bee the first human volunteer for the blood experiment. If it worked he would be a saviour of the nation. And would probably get any post that he wanted. The wizards had been experimenting on enemy soldiers in the hope of creating the ultimate human weapon.

He was really pissed off that he wasn't the first, even if the other were experiments. The wizards told him that it was okay because after he had been turned into the weapon he would never be pissed off again.

He went into a glass chamber and had all these tubes attached to him and needles were inserted in to his body. He was then sealed into the chamber. The wizards started talking as if he weren't there.

“So this imbecile was actually looking forward to the procedure?”
“Reports indicate that he's a psychopath and was used in the killing squads. He was becoming too much of a problem and they thought that they were going to have to eliminate him but when they were told this procedure eliminates emotion they knew that they had the ideal candidate.

“Before his superiors could finish telling this soldier what it entailed, he jumped for it.”
“So,” the other wizard said “If he didn't go through with this the emperor would have had him executed?' The other agreed, “Precisely.”

The soldier wasn't stupid, he knew what he was but the knowledge that the emperor wanted to kill him after he'd done so much for his country really, really bothered him. He decided to kill all of his past officer as revenge for what they might have done.

All that he cared about now was his thirst. A slave was throw into his chamber as the needles, clips and tubes disconnected from his body. The slave tasted good. His blood was even better. The soldier wanted more but was refused. He contented himself with slashing the bloodless corpse.

Now the experiment was over and he didn't really care about what he felt when he found out that his superiors had wanted to kill him, but he'd heard that the emperor was a descendent of God and he wanted to taste God's blood as it would definitely taste far superior to an ordinary person's.

The emperor's windows were open at night to let in the breeze. There were no bars on his window. As he was safe. No one was able to climb up a 50 foot sheer wall, why bother with bars?

The soldier just jumped and he got into the man's chamber. The emperor's blood tasted no different to any other person's blood. But the man's fear was intoxicating.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
* * *

Estacado arrived at the the run down tenement that was the home of the high- mage of the Black Mage Order. Both men were given sharp sterilised knives with which they cut themselves and squeezed several drops of blood in to empty glass bowls. That was the payment, the blood of the Darkness host and his closest lieutenant.

A dark magician came toward Jackie and bowed “Follow me my Lord and I will take you to His Eminence.” Jackie found it funny how these people treated him like The Avatar of their God inside the building but but when he called the to his residence they treated him as if he were scum.

The blood that Butch had give was not keep in the same vessel they kept the blood of the Darknesses host. Butch's offering was used as a key to transport them to the castle in the dimension that the black mage really lived in. Butch and Jackie walked into what might have been called an audience hall in this castle.

The wizard was there to meet them, he seemed to be an excitable man who looked like someone's favourite uncle, he did not look like the sort of person you would expect to practise dark magic.
“I do not think I need to tell how pleased I am to have you here M'lord” he gushed. Jackie hated dealing with these 'shadow mumbo's' as he thought of them.

This time he could see the fat magician wanted something and bargaining was something no one could beat him at. He looked the man in the eye and said, “What do you want from me?”
The man paled, “Why nothing my Lord”. The Darkness gave him the ability to see lies and the man knew it. Obviously the man didn't lie but he wasn't telling him everything.

“Then what aren't you telling me?”
The mage replied, I will tell you in exchange for a darking to charge my evening ritual.”
This surprised Jackie, “that's some heavy duty power you need for your ritual.
“My terms,” he stated, “you tell me everything that has been hidden from me since the Angelus arrived in New York as well as answering my original question.” The man nodded vigorously and a blood exchange sealed the bargain.

This is how Estacado leant about Sonnetine, who now went by the name of Sonny Darko. He learned about all the plans that Sonnetine had for him. He learned about a rise in vampiric activity and that the Angelus was having dealings with the vampires.

Normally he would have been ecstatic about getting so much information for so little, the man was even telling him things that Jackie was sure that he would have charged more for if he knew they were what Jackie was after.

“Now for my question, Where would I find and how do I recruit a vampire to work for me?”

“You can't. Vampires abhor the Darkness, the only one who might possibly serve you would be insane or mad. My advice is find the rogue vampire that has surfaced.” He dipped a stick in a vial of blood an wrote an address down.
Jackie took the address and was about to walk away when he paused. “why did you give me so much. The deal never said tell me about Sonnetine's past.

The man looked at the avatar, “The Darkness is chaos. You, I trust to hold it. Sonnetine may be powerful but he doesn't have your will and if the darkness doesn't kill him, it will surely drive him mad. I may love chaos, that doesn't mean I want it to destroy all life on Earth. You are good for business Jackie, if you die Sonnetine will make sure that all mages not loyal to him perish.

Estacado and Butch found themselves back in the run down tenement again. “That was interesting.” he said to Butch.
* * *

Stephanie Roux liked Dani but she knew that there were things Dani wasn't saying, that was alright by her as everyone has a right to their own secrets. God knows I've got enough of my own she thought. Although she had noticed some strange things about the girl who was supposedly transitioning.

Like the fact that a woman who was transitioning would never be able to speak in the voice Dani used without years of practice. But it didn't seem as if the girl was even trying to make her tone and pitch change. Her voice sounded natural and she seemed comfortable talking with it.

She even noticed that Dani's figure had slightly altered since she started working there and she knew that Dani didn't wear padding. After all they went shopping together and modelled clothes for each other.

She just felt extra curious now. She had waited outside the mall for an hour after it had been evacuated but Dani hadn't shown up. The next morning she hadn't shown up for work either, her mother acted as if nothing was wrong but when she thought she was alone Steph saw that the woman looked worried.

There was something going on and she didn't know what, but hoped that she didn't get too inquisitive, she didn't want a repeat of what happened the last time she couldn't contain her Inquisitive Nature.

Primal forces, fallen angels, vampires and metahumans -how will one girl find out what she wants to know?
This is the final scene of act one as all of the main characters are now in play.
As always thanks to Top Cow for their characters. I introduce an aspect of a DC Comics character in to this now. Maybe you can figure out what it is.

Stephanie Roux's parent's had worked for the French government as spies. They had worked for the
Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure, or DGSE and had been killed when attempting to prevent the assassination attempt of a high level diplomat. Their death meant that she inherited a fortune which was put in trust for her until she turned 21.

Stephanie had always been an unusually curious girl and if it wasn't for the knowledge that working for the DGSE got her parents killed she would have been working for them instead of the French consulate in Australia.

What she didn't know and neither did her parent's previous employers, was that when she did finally turn 21 the dormant chemical compound that one of her school teachers had injected her with when she was 7 years of age would no longer be dormant. She was a sickly child from the age of 7 and nobody could understand why, but when she was 13 she got over her illness.

Everyone just attributed her returning health to the onset of puberty but what really had happened was that the compound had finally done what it was meant to do six years previously: melded with her DNA. Even though the compound didn't leave as weak as she was before she was never very physically active -until she turned 21 in January 2010

Coming of age is a big event in any girl's life. Stephanie just expected it to be another meaningless birthday with added grief of her parents death being brought up with the re-reading of the will at the lawyer, the big formal reception and acknowledgement of her parents heroic sacrifices at the embassy. As it was, she barely made it trough the meeting in the solicitor's office.

Her emotions were already highly charged and all the rehashing of the past was too much stress for her. She had a panic attack; the last time that had happened was when she had found out that her parents had died.

After she recovered from her collapse she had gone to rinse her face and freshen up in the bathroom. While standing in front of the mirror her face started burning. It started out as a flush but the deeper shade of red had travelled down her body until it reached her feet and then it had disappeared, however as it left so did her features.

Her mouth, her nose and then her eyes all gone. Even though all her sensory organs had disappeared from sight, her actual senses were heightened. She heard voices. The voices were that of the solicitor's secretary and the ambassador from the embassy. What was he doing here, she thought, he wasn't meant to be here and should have been preparing for the reception.

“What do you mean I failed?! I injected her, it's not my fault it didn't work!” This from a woman's voice.
The ambassador started talking about starting the experiments again. And the woman began screaming that she wouldn't be an accomplice to murder.
“Not everyone died, you know.” came the reply.
“Yes, and the only survivor was sick for the rest of her childhood. God Jean- Paul why don't we just ask the Americans, I heard that one of the companies over there has taken up where we left off”. The woman's voice recalled a memory Steph's mind, and she saw her second-grade teacher in her mind, it was the solicitor's secretary.

Steph knew something was going on and it didn't sound like what ever it was was good. Questions. She had so many questions. Before she knew what she was doing she had run past the secretary and ambassador, she was sure she was going to get caught but they seemed not to notice her. She began rummaging through the secretaries bag she didn't know what she was looking for but it seemed her body did.

She found an old computer floppy disk in the woman's bag. Funnily it smelled like the faint chemical smell she smelled when her face began to disappear. She took the disk, walked back to the bathroom and put the disk into her handbag.

When she walked back to the solicitor's office the ambassador was nowhere to be seen but neither was the solicitor. The secretary made a big fuss of making sure she was alright and Steph assured her she was. After the money owed her was transferred to her name. She asked to be taken home, she begged off the embassy reception due to her stress.

When she got home questions were plaguing her and as soon as she closed the door she called information up on the net to see if she could find a place to that had computers that could read the type of disks that must have 25 years old. She eventually had a paper sheet with a name and address of a place that dealt with old computer software printed out.

She would look into it tomorrow but now, she just wanted to sleep. And that is when the dormant chemical in her DNA activated fully. She was dreaming. She dreamed she felt a seething burn flood her body it was like she were being burned alive from the inside The pain eventually became bearable and soon she began to feel pretty good.

When she woke the next morning she wasn't in her bed, she wasn't even in her nightie. She was fully dressed and in a sitting position on the couch. She remembered dreaming about going to a shop and getting the information that was on the disk. She dreamed she had copies made. She remembered going to news stations and giving them the information.

But she was dressed in the same clothes that she wore in her dream and in her bag beside her, she had 10 disks. She had to accept the obvious this was done in her sleep and she remembered doing it with out a face.

A week later it was all over the news the French ambassador had resigned and Marie -Elise Baptiste had been asked to replace him but she had refused. Everyone knew that Marie-Elise was the best person for the job and it was no surprise when the new ambassador asked her to be his deputy.

Stephanie got better control over the no- face thing over time and it was really cool because nobody knew she had given in the incriminating evidence. They were even calling the person (her) the new faceless vigilante. It was stupid, she didn't want to fight crime. She enjoyed working as an assistant to the pre-eminent woman at the embassy.

The only problem she really had was when she had a really big question, she had to struggle to keep her real face.

* * *
Dani and Finch lay naked in a field under the stars in one another's arms after a night of passion. She was lying on Finch's chest, letting the flame of their love run across her skin.

I'm surprised that you didn't go to the talk that the vampirella was having tonight,” Finch said.
“This is her evening she needs to unite both groups before I can do anything to support her.” Dani sighed snuggling deeper into Finch's arms. “The Angelus being there will just make it harder for her. Remember, they hate the Darkness but were not on the list of their favourite people either.
“Dani, how long are we staying in New York?”
“Um...I'm not sure, why?”
“'Cos I think you need to call you mum and tell her you won't be back for a while.”
She gasped,“You're right, she must be frantic. Um...hmm, New York is 14 hours behind Australia, right?”
“Mmmm,” Finch moaned in response to Dani's hands exploring her skin. “Give or take an hour if you're counting daylight savings.”
“So it's about dinner on Saturday.” She then chuckled and said “Give or take an hour.”

They kissed and walked toward the highway, leaving a field bathed in the glow of the Angelus's happiness. As they walked clothes began appearing on their bodies.
* * *
Marie-Elise Baptiste had been worried, Dani had explained that she might be called away at times in her duties as the Angelus, she knew Dani was safe but she hadn't called. So like any mother she was worrying. She was certain that nobody at the embassy had noticed her concern but she wondered, how long would Dani be away.

Their cover would be that Dani had gone to further her transition surgically but Marie-Elise didn't know how long Dani would be away. That was the first hole in their story. The second was something they would have to discuss at a later date.

The phone rang. Marie-Elise rush to it and was relieved to hear, “OhmumIforgotbecauseallthisstuff cameupandcanyouforgiveme?”
Marie-Elise laughed in relief. “My dear girl of course there's nothing to forgive. I'm just thankful you called me. Are you safe?'

Dani was about to tell her everything but she suddenly she felt an itch in her conscience warning her that the less people knew about her activities the better. “I'm fine, but that's all I can say...it's safer that way.”

Marie-Elise felt a sadness at being excluded from something so important in her daughters life. “I understand Dani.” She said.

“I plan to tell anyone who asks that you've gone to America to get surgery to make you appear more feminine” her mother told her.

“Okay,” came the reply, “but Steph won't buy it. She's seen me without clothes even though I haven't completed the transition, she'll know something's up I'm sure you're going to spin something a little extra for her. Maybe you can imply I'm doing something for the government or something.”

Her mother was silent, “I don't like lying about government issues. One falsehood leads to another, that's where most politicians fall on their faces.”

“I was expecting you'd say something like that, but you know that if you said that you wouldn't be lying. I am the leader of a government, I'd say that my government is set up to all humanity. Just because you can't see us doesn't mean we not here.

“If you told anyone that it would be the total truth, you could even pass a polygraph if you said it.” Marie-Elise laughed, I keep forgetting that you're one of the new world-leaders.”

“Well I wouldn't say that, I can't run countries but I guess I do some pretty important stuff.”

Dani hung up the phone, turned and found herself facing a man with a gun pointed at her head.

* * *
Sonny Darko had finally completed unloading the majority of the mundane weapons. He had realised that he didn't have enough thugs and contacts on the street and as he began setting up his operation, he'd began to shake down all the local drug dealers to find out where they got their orders from. It was a pity he thought, it would be so much easier using magic to convert these drug lords, then he could have an already built army to take down Estacado's empire.

He found himself wondering how he could get the Angelus out of New York. He began working on a plan. To enact this plan he would have to get of of his underlings to take over the criminal aspect of the Darko family and he would need to go to Sedona. He would capture a sorcerer of light and corrupt him; not a very difficult job if you knew how.

Demons demanded payment for their services and one of the greatest payments was the offering of a soul that was converted from innocence. Once that had been achieved sacrificing that now corrupt sorcerer was that much sweeter for the demons summoned up and, they were more likely to do his bidding. A pure soul corrupted would be most welcome in helping him in his quest to rid New York of the Angelus and letting him do the blood ritual to enable him to capture and transfer the Darkness to himself.

* * *
Sedona, Arizona is an area filled with energy vortexes. It is there that a lot of new age things go on and while a lot of New Age stuff would be considered suspect by everyday people, it is in fact a deep level of source magic. For those who actually find a method of using their knowledge in the physical world, are acknowledged as powerful shamans and practitioners of white magic.

The Sedona Creative Life Center is a place where those shamans are invited to give talks to anybody seeking knowledge. James White Eagle would be giving the talk on how magic is only energy which shifts into many different forms and he, was Sonny Darko's intended victim.

* * *
Sonny walked through the lobby of the hotel and approached the front desk. “I was wondering if you would be able to put me through to James White Eagle's room?” he asked. He had already prepared the 'come to me' spell that would be activated once James answered the phone.

“Whom may I say is calling?” asked the man behind the desk. Sonny smiled (it wasn't a very nice one because he saw that the man felt ill at ease), “Tell him it's an old aquaintance from Europe.” The concierge dialled and was speaking a few seconds later. He handed Darko the phone.

“Well, well, well,” came the the the voice over the phone, “what business does the CoD have in Sedona Sonnetine?”
Darko glowered, even though the man couldn't see it. “I don't use that name anymore and you know that. The church doesn't exist any more, I'm now a businessman.”
“Ah Mr. Darko, pull the other one I know you better than that.” Before the man could talk any more Darko activated the spell. There was a gasp at the other end of the line and then, “I'm on my way down.”
Sonny Darko nodded to himself, things were finally going his way.
* * *

The soldier had found a dark corner at Grand Central Station. People were rushing about getting on and getting off trains, coming into and going out of the station like happy meals on legs. His throat began to burn at this thought but no, these people were off limits. He was spending his days here. And although he didn't have the weakness of others vampires. He didn't want to draw attention to the area where he was spending his free time (not hunting) under scrutiny of mortal police and vampiric investigators.

He was sitting in his hidden alley when a man approached him. The man looked dangerous but this didn't bother him as he could take care of himself. Before they developed the genetic weakness that blinded vampires at night, he was around. In fact, he was the reason for the genetic weakness. His murder of the Emperor had made scientists take precautions. But that didn't matter to him. He was the most powerful vampire around. He always had been.

“You're the rogue vampire I presume” the man said making it a statement instead of a question. “I've been looking for you.”
The soldier took a closer look at him, “I must say fellow you've got quite a pair, coming into my nest and all. What's to stop me from eating you?”
The man didn't appear very appetising but he didn't need to know that. “You may have heard of me, unfortunately we didn't meet last time. I assume you had better things to do than fight a war.”
Ahh, now he knew this creature. He was not a man but a demon; A host for the Darkness. “Yes,” said Jackie Estacado, “I see you recognise me now, I have a proposition for you.”
The soldier looked at him, “...and why should I trust you.”
Jackie shrugged. “You shouldn't. But I'll pay you as if you were working for me....and you can have all the people you want as food. I'll bring them to you.”
The soldier smiled, “What do you want?
“Oh,” said Jackie, “just a little problem with a magician. I'd like him removed.”
* * *

Stephanie Decided she was over-thinking the Dani situation and she'd just call and ask to speak to her. Dani had given her her home number quite a while back but she'd never felt comfortable calling the home of her boss, even though Dani said that it would be fine to do so. That's why she only had Dani's mobile number in her phone's memory so she had to find the scrap paper she'd scribbled the number on before she could phone.

Marie-Elise answered the phone. After speaking to Dani the day before she was expecting this call. She had actually prepared for it.
“Hello Madam Baptiste it's Stephanie Roux, I was wondering if Dani is there?”
“I'm sorry Stephanie, Dani went to the United States to further her transition into a more feminine bone structure. She won't be back for a while.”
There was a strange sound over the phone line as Stephanie was unable to prevent the faceless mask covering her face. There was a sweet smell and Marie-Elise felt wonderful as chemicals and pheromones were sent psychically and physically; she knew that could tell Stephanie anything.

Stephanie could sense the lie and now understood that the mask also emitted a chemical that acted like a truth serum. At first she had been disturbed by being able to get people to tell her anything but she guessed that if she wasn't using it to harm anyone it was okay.

“Stephanie decided to prompt Dani's mother into a greater state of mind for communication. “Oh my,” she said “Dani already looks so feminine I don't see that she'd need that.”
The chemical's really did work but because of the way Dani explained things to her mum. Stephanie actually believed the next bit of misinformation, because the chemicals induced the person to tell only the truth.
“Dani thought you wouldn't believe that story. Any other time I would only tell you what you want to know face to face and not on the phone, but as this is a secure line.... This is just between us, yes.” Marie-Elise cautioned. “Dani, is still furthering her change but she is also doing government work. Please do not ask me more Stephanie, when she gets back she will call you.
“Thank you Madam Baptise.” She said hanging up the phone after saying farewell.

Steph was concerned, the work she suspected Dani did had gotten her parents killed, this was Dani's business but if she worked for the DGSE it affected Stephanie as well as she was Dani's friend.

ACT 1 Characters

Daniel/Dannielle Baptiste : The Angelus
Finch : Danielle's Lover, consort and second-in-command
Jackie Estacado : Host to the Darkness on Earth
The Darkness : the first demon
Unsen : Angelus warrior
Butch Babliano : Jackie Estacado's most trusted leiutenant
Marie-Elise Baptiste : Danielle's mother, also deputy French ambassador to Australia
Patrick Gleason becomes Patricia Gleason become darkness vampirella
Terak : vampire
The Vapirella/Ella : cleansed of darkness by first fire reborn as full female to Satanna
Satanna : half human daughter of Satan, Ella's mother
The Rogue/ Soldier : insane, psychopathic vampire
Stephanie Roux : Dani's friend who undergoes a chemical transformation
Sonnetine/Sonny Darko : 1000 year old dark magician
Head of the Black Mage Order : sometime magical assistant to the host of the Darkness
James White Eagle : white sorcerer

How insidious is evil? Can it become genetic? Can good be genetic? Where does that leave freedom of choice?

I've added a picture of Vampirella.
I'm starting a new job tomorrow, so I don't know how regularly I'll be posting. I'll try to at least do one a week.

She saw the man pulling the trigger of the 9mm semi-automatic pistol, saw the hammer of the gun rise and heard the gunshot that went off at point blank range. She braced for the impact, fully expecting to die on the spot, so it was an anti- climax when nothing happened. The shooter's mouth fell open and he unloaded the entire clip into her.

By this time he'd finished shooting she realised she was floating in the air, with wings of flame. Oh, she suddenly realised as she glanced at the ground. The bullets melted before they could hit me she thought, looking at the melted metal on the ground.

Dani was pissed off, this man had given her a serious fright, she was going to put the fear of God...more appropriately Goddess into him.“Little man what are you trying to kill a goddess for?” Dani didn't see herself as divine, but the Angelus certainly was more than human...or even metahuman. And as one of her favourite comic character's had said, 'Criminals are a cowardly and superstitious lot', she was going to make this idiot's nightmare a reality.

She floated down toward him as he turned to start running. He suddenly found himself facing … he didn't know what to call her. An angel? No, she had horns. Maybe she was a devil. He mentally chastised himself, this is what you got for doing a magicians dirty work. He had actually expected to die today but not this way. At least his sister was safe.

Mika had gotten involved in a drug smuggling operation because she needed money. The people she had been working for had been murdered so that meant there was a new person in charge of what she was doing and suddenly she was no longer a drug mule but a a prostitute.

It seemed that the new owner of the operation was convinced she was too pretty to be a mule but when she told him that she wouldn't work for him as a whore he locked her up and got her addicted to cocaine. The conditions were: do what we want or else suffer.

His sister had been missing for six months and Howard was worried about her. One night he was out with friends when he saw her walking with an older man. He followed her into the restaurant that they went into. When Mika had finished her meal and her 'date' went to the men's bathroom, Howard walked up to her table and asked her very curtly why she just left without telling their family.

She broke down in tears telling him everything. She said that on top of addicting them to the drug, they mixed magic into it so that even if they ran away and tried to break their addiction they'd come back for the magic aspect of the drug. She told Howard the name of the people who took her and where they made her work. Apparently a high end Escort Agency just outside of New York.

Howard would have done anything to help his sister and he began looking into where he could find a magician to break the spell. There was an organisation called the Darko Group who would charge people for aid if requiring magic. And that's how he found himself working for Sonny Darko, who told him that his name was Estacado, so whenever Estacado's name came up he actually saw Sonny Darko in his mind's eye.

The man he thought of as Estacado was actually very helpful in freeing Mika. Mika was now free, but Howard was trapped paying off Darko who didn't want money. He wanted a period of service. In the short time that he had worked there Howard had felt his morality die bit by bit.

His final task for Estacado (who was really Darko) was to kill this woman. He was told she was very dangerous and that if he didn't kill her she would kill him. So he acted and tried not to think of all the suffering that had occurred by his hand.

Now that it appeared that he was about to die he could only feel relief, relief at no longer having to face the guilt he had of all the souls he'd wronged. The Angelus is light and so, to a certain extent is imagination. If a person is thinking things and the Angelus can see the light in their eyes, she knows their thoughts.

Dani saw that Darko pretended to be Estacado. Why is this? she thought to herself.
Finches thought drifted to her from her realm, 'it seems that the Darkness has competition...hmm... or maybe Estacado has competition,' she said after a pause.

The Angelus offered Howard a choice of a living a life full of guilt and remorse for what he'd done to people or a chance of redemption. The catch was that he would need to leave his life on Earth to do this. He chose the latter. This is how Howard Stern became an Angelus warrior.

* * *

Ella was The Vampirella, queen of the vampires and sometime avatar of her mother, Satanna. During that first gathering of vampires of both day and nightwalkers she explained what was coming. A possible end to the curse that Darkness experimentation had placed on their race.

Vampires didn't reproduce. Unlike in the stories, the vampiric gene was inborn to some humans because of genetic experiments done in the distant past. When blood drinking vampires were first created, there were some who volunteered to be changed but the process never worked on them but there descendants were born with an almost invisible genetic anomaly. A dormant vampire gene.

A vampire drinking blood and exchanging blood seemed to not do much to a person except make them really ill, and perhaps it gave them (but this was unsubstantiated) a dormant vampire gene. There was a theory among the scientific vampire community that new vampires were created only if a vampire fed on a person with the dormant gene from those descendants of the test subjects who didn't successfully become vampires

The closest that vampires had come to the one's depicted by Hollywood was when the Darkness had created nightwalkers. They were aggressive and were prone to attack at the slightest provocation however they were very charming as well; a charm that was increased at night due to the Darkness's further experimentation.

The was a prophecy concerning the reunification of the vampire race and expulsion of the D- (darkness) gene keeping them from the sun. Everybody who was at the gathering that Ella called believed that she was the prophecy come to life. For it was spoken 2000 years ago. It went like this:

Man of Law,
Toy of Darkness,
Neither male or female but both.
Found by the one who broke free.

Bringer of Light,
Death by flame,
Not destroyed
Reborn to Fallen
Dark driven to red queen.

She shall stumble
And find support
In her finder.
With trust, she leads
With trust, she saves.

However, not many of the vampires believed that Ella was suitable to lead. Terak had been adamant that he could help her learn their ways. “I found her, trust the prophecy. I was the first of us, trust me to teach her well.

Terak told Ella that they only had a limited time for her to learn several millennia of Vampire history and tradition. He explained that vampire society operated differently to human society. She would have to understand that they weren't bound to the laws of the world the same way that humans were.

Ella thought over all that had happened at the meeting while in her room in the basement of the club. She liked living here. Even though it was noisy at times, she felt that she had more privacy than most and even when Terak offered her a place to stay she refused.

Satanna, Ella's new mother, seemed to have left a door open in the back of her mind so that they could communicate with each other. She agreed that Ella should learn from Terak but told her that as she would be bringing in a new era. She would upset others no matter what.

Ella didn't need to tell the others this, but she learned from her mother that vampires existed long before the history of the blood and energy drinkers began. When the first angels fell from grace, they had sexual relations with humans.

“I was the first of the Fallen's offspring,” Satanna's voice drifted through her mind. “I was born and the mix of fallen divine and human genetics didn't meet very well. Food tasted like ash in my mouth and the only thing that would sustain me was my mother's milk. I wouldn't be weaned off the my mother's milk, and by the time I was in my 20th year we saw that those half- breeds that were weaned off the breast had begun to take sustenance from other humans. They drank their blood, usually draining the human lives.”

“My parents realised this was because a mother's milk is created from her blood and human blood is has a similar nutrition structure to a vampire mother's milk. What my father did was, create a synthetic way of producing a vampire mother's milk. Mother's milk made us stronger and more able to live productively amongst humans. But human blood was, and still is addictive to our kind.”

“After the food issue was explained many braved the withdrawal of the blood thirst to live productively amongst humans. Most succeeded but many didn't. Those of us drinking the synthetic milk noticed that the vampires were increasing but the human population was decreasing.”

“It was then that I begged my father to stop his followers reproducing with humans. I've always been able to wrap him around my finger,” an image of her smiling crossed Ella's mind and her heart leapt with the thought that her mother was happy.

Satanna continued, “For the most part they did, but now and then they disobey. But their offspring has the substitute milk when they grow.” She continued, “The newly made vampire children have their own planet where they have cultivated a plant that grows to produce the milk that we drink as babies.”

“If you rid our race of the Darkness within themselves you can distribute this formula. But if vampire tastes true vampire food with a Darkness aspect part of themselves, even though it is from an experiment, it will be catastrophic.”

“Do I also need to drink blood? Until the Darkness has been cleansed, I mean.” The Vampirella asked her mother. “No my dearest, you have been cleansed by the Angelus and you are now my genetic daughter. With the communication link I have give you at the back of your mind, you can open a portal to come to me”.

“But,” warned Satanna, “It will only open when you are alone.” Ella assumed this was so the others couldn't come until the Darkness was eradicated from their genes.
“Mother, I haven't eaten since you named me.”
“Yes my love, I realise that, come to me.”

Ella opened the portal to her mother's home and saw Satanna sitting on a huge bed. “Come to me my daughter,” Satanna let the top of her robe fall,”Come to me and sup.”
Ella walk up to and sat next to her on the bed staring at Satanna's large breast. It came naturally to her, she grabbed her mother, her mouth latching onto the nipple and she fed.

* * *

The soldier raised his head, his mouth covered in blood from his meal. The man he had eaten had suffered. That was the way he liked his food it filled the blood with adrenalin, the struggle was fun to watch and the hunt had been exhilarating. Coming to work for the Darkness's host had been one of the best things that had happened to him in the past 100 years.

The host had done as he promised and followed the soldier's specific wishes. He had left the man in the stretch of forest that the vampire could hunt him. The man had been told he had an hour head start to get away. He had run. They all ran, the soldier though with a wolfish grin as he licked the blood off his lips; he always caught them. Maybe he would give the person a greater head start next time. If the hunt was more difficult it would be more fun for him.

The magician that Estacado wanted dead had left for a few days -at least that's what his underling had told him before he had drained him. This Sonny Darko had been alive for over a century and that meant he would be tasty. He wanted to go after him as soon as he found this out but Estacado had told him that if he waited and planned how to take him it would be better because he would have time to savour his prize. So he waited until the magician's return.

* * *
Sonny Darko drove to an abandoned warehouse 20 miles outside of Flagstaff, Arizona. Here he tied James White Eagle to a chair that had been cemented into the floor. He removed a charm from his pocket and hung it around White Eagle's neck. He had prepared this charm a few days ago specifically for blocking a white sorcerer's power. James was still under his 'come hither' spell so it was unlikely he would run away but it was always wise to be careful.
“Stay here” he commanded and left to enact the next part of his plan. He drove toward Flagstaff.

Geoff and Sarah Robinson were brother and sister and were extremely popular, unfortunately this didn't mean that they were very nice. So when the man came to them offering them $50000 for information on where all the children hung out and to help him kidnap them, they didn't feel very guilty about accepting. After all it was $50000.

After dealing a couple of times with this Darko character Sarah realised that that she was involved in more than a kidnapping scheme. After a fair bit of prompting the guy told them the truth but only after making them stand in a circle of blood taken from a dead stray dog and promising not to reveal the true reason he was there.

After telling them he was a dark magician and was going to use kids as blood sacrifices Jeff got scared and said that he was going to call the cops. The guy just stood there smiling and told Jeff to try. Geoff walked out of the old run down building they were in. As he walked he started to feel the pain.

“So Geoff are you going to continue walking and let yourself die as the blood of your body boils or are you going to do what you promised in the first place,” Darko said smugly. Geoff saw no way out, death had never concerned him and it still didn't. Painful death however, did.

Darko paused thoughtfully and said, “I can see that you have an ethical dilemma, maybe if I raised your take to a $100000 each, you might feel less guilty. Sarah never said anything but Geoff just said, “I'll never stop feeling guilty no matter what.” Sarah just looked at him with a puzzled frown.

She said to Darko, “I'll do it all for you for the original price if you teach me magic when we're finished.” Darko's eyes widened in surprise. He wasn't looking for a new acolyte but this girl's callousness intrigued him.
“You do realise what you asking don't you” he said to the girl. She nodded.

“We'll see how you handle yourself over the next few days and I'll decide then.”
Geoff look at his sister in horror, “Sarah!”
“Geoff you've never been tough enough to lead and that's why you always ask about things first. You hold me back like a ball and chain. I'm cutting you loose, if this shakes your view of how things really are then that's tough. Don't bother me with your morals. This guy's gonna show me real power and I'm not going to learn that in a shit town like this.”

Geoff was miserable but he didn't want to die a painful death and so he did what he was told. Sarah on the other hand took to her task like a duck in water...or maybe a better metaphor would be like a bitch in heat. Oh yes, thought Darko, she will do well. I think I will have to look very hard to find compassion in this one.

A very depressed Geoffrey drove toward the the arcade where where the primary school kids hung out on the weekend. They had given Darko an accurate description of the middle-school football coach and he now looked identical to the man. Darko walked up to the area of arcade where the team was. He told them that even though it was the weekend he was taking those boys in the arcade a few miles out of town to show them a new way to train and they would definitely win their next game. All but one boy went with him because that boy was meeting his girlfriend for lunch.

Soon after the fake coach left the real coach walked in. “Come Jim,” Jim's girlfriend's dad said to him, “Sal's at home and I want to show you a few moves before we meet the girls.”
Jim just stared at him, “But...but you were just here.”
That is how the entire school district came to know that the most of the Flagstaff middle-school football team had gone missing, taken by a man who looked just like the coach!

In the ware house 20 miles outside of Flagstaff James White Eagle only shook his head sadly as he continued to have all the evil in the world flow through him.

* * *

Stephanie was now in a faceless mode whenever she wasn't at work. She had to figure out a way to help Dani. She didn't really get why it had suddenly become so important to her to do what she could for Dani but it had. She wondered if she was getting addicted to this portion of her life. Did this faceless mask make her question something obsessively? Yes. Was that always bad? No. But this obsessive- compulsive need to help someone that she'd only met a few months ago made her wonder if she was losing her touch with reality.

She tried not to focus on negative thoughts at the moment. She had gone through all the files in the database in the embassy computer and paper files in the archives and found that there was no record of Dani involved in any other part of the French government.

Stephanie didn't doubt anything that she found, somehow her new ability gave her an instant...knowing. A definite knowledge of the truth that she sought and while her computer skills prior to her possible meta activation had only been enough to help Marie — Elise Baptise in the embassy. They were now like super hacker skills when she needed to find an answer and sometimes, answers to simple questions even came to her telepathically.

However once her face was visible again those awesome skills that she had had, disappeared and she became plain old Stephanie Roux. She loved the freedom this ability gave her body as well because she had been left with so many limitations after her illness and when her face disappeared, so did her limitations.

That was probably why she got on so well with Dani she thought. They both had difficulties to overcome and they both derived from the fact that their bodies weren't doing what or working how that wanted them to.

Finally Stephanie had to come to the conclusion tat Dani didn't work for the French government in any other capacity beyond working in the embassy. She'd checked and double- checked all names and aliases and Dani didn't appear.

It was possible that Dani could be so deep undercover that she had no records, but Dani was 21 and that meant that she didn't have enough experience for deep undercover work. Although Steph discovered that Daniel had been 20, she assumed that Madam Baptiste changed Dani's name and age at the same time so that Dani could work at the embassy and have a better legal standing.

Marie-Elise was telling the truth, of that she was sure. Dani was definitely doing government work. But for whom?
She didn't think Dani spied on France for Australia, at least she really hoped. Maybe Dani worked for the U.N? She decided to look into both of these possibilities.

* * *

He was a great scientist. Everyone knew that he was so gifted that the government got scared of him and locked him up. The fools in the higher political echelons didn't seem to grasp that he was a master of manipulation as well and five years after being locked up in 'The Chateaux' he had found a way to get his jailers to be his loyal servants. It took six extra years to implement that plan and turn it into reallity..

Actually scratch that he thought, let's call a spade a spade. They're not my servants - they're my slaves. If he had laughed it would have sounded like a mad criminal mastermind laughing in a kid's cartoon, but Charles didn't laugh he just smiled.

“Dr.,” said one of his assistants “We've had some activity on a possible.” 'A Possible' was a possible latent activation of an experiment. “Where is the activity coming from?” he queried.
“I'm sorry doctor, but it seems as if this one doesn't want to be found. It's coming from overseas but were unsure where from because it's signal is bouncing through too many satellites for us to get to it's point of origin.” Came the reply.
“Don't tell me what I don't want to know,” he screamed. “Just find it and send a team to retrieve it.”

Over the years he had developed many experiments, he was a pioneer in his truth serum work for the government in the 1980's. But then they closed him in '97 down after his experiments started dying. When he was still a prisoner here at the Chateaux, they told him that one experimental subject still lived but it was an unsuccessful test as nothing had happened.

He knew that this was probably true but he also realised that the subject could just be adjusting to the treatment, although he never told anyone this. He knew that one day he would free himself and find the subject he'd been told about. He'd find it and see what was different about it.

It was true, the French Government was scared of him because he didn't see humans as people. The doctor was a brilliant but amoral man. To Charles Victor Szasz humanity was one big Petri -dish and his one truly successful experiment might be the one that got away.

How insidious is evil? Can it become genetic? Can good be genetic? Where does that leave freedom of choice? The last few scenes had a lot of jumping around in order to get characters into play. Now I will take a longer period of time on each character. Please do not get upset if you miss an installment with a certain character. I'm getting a lot of people reading this but very few comments . I get most of my idea from the things that happen around me. Maybe if you comment I'll get a new one.

He wasn't an introspective man, but today Jackie Estacado was sitting in a darkened room contemplating the twists and turns his life had taken since his 21st birthday when the Darkness had offered him the chance to become it's host on Earth. At the time the offer had seemed too good to refuse.

He hadn't even known that there were such things as demons or black magic at the time. But he had to face reality, some of the things that he had done in the past five years would have made him sick just thinking about them before he had received the Darkness. Now... well now most of the stuff he did didn't seem that bad to him.

Now that he thought about it, he realised that the Darkness had eroded his morality. Oh no, he had no illusions that he was a saint, even before holding the taint of the demon he knew full well what he was. He loved being a mobster because it gave him a feeling of power that he doubted he'd find anywhere else.

It was odd for Jackie to think so deeply but today there was a reason. The Darkness wanted a firmer foothold on Earth and it wanted to imbue itself into his family line by becoming a genetic part of him. It told him that his counterpart in another dimensional reality had done this and he had all the power that he wished for.

Jackie knew that anything granted by the Darkness had more downsides than upsides and so not to anger It by refusing straight away he said he'd think about it. He realised that once the Darkness had insinuated itself into his genetic make up he would become it's slave, even if the head of the BMO was correct and his will kept the full strength of the creature at bay. Jackie was not fool enough to discount the possibility that re-incarnation of souls did occur.

If such a thing was possible then who was to say that he wouldn't be born again as a weak willed Darkness bearer with no control of his own life. His meandering thoughts were interrupted by Butch. “Boss you've got a visitor.”
“I told you not to disturb me.” He snapped.
“I think this one will be worth it boss, her brother's gone missing and she says he was working for you at the time.”
“So?” came the reply. “My boys know that if they are doing work for me they may have a short life. I pay them well. We are the Mob you know!”
“Ah, but that the thing.” Babliano said. He wasn't on the books, at least not ours.”
Jackie just looked at him as he was now curious. Butch 'the butcher' grinned an anticipatory grin. He worked for the Darko Group, apparently he reported to a Jackie Estacado.”

Jackie just growled. Butch relished the fact that Estacado realised that Darko was using his name for some reason. This could mean a turf war between the Darkness and Dark magicians. The torture skills that had given him his nickname were getting rusty. Using them on magicians was fun as they were harder to hurt. This meant that he had a greater range of tools for experimentation when he questioned one of them.

* * *
Mika Stern had received a letter from her brother five days ago telling her that if she hadn't heard from him by today he was dead. She couldn't understand what had happened. Howard had told her that he'd gotten some sort of magical assistance to free her from her forced service and he told her that he'd made good on the debt he owed the magician which meant that she didn't need to worry about him not being able to pay.

Mika knew that it was her own stupidity that had landed her in the situation in the first place. 'No matter how desperate for cash I was, I should have known dealing with criminals was going to backfire.' She knew that her brother said that he had paid his debt in full to this Estacado character, if this was so she wanted to know why her brother was dead. So she found herself back in the position she started in but, for very different reasons. She was going to speak to Jackie Estacado, mob boss of the upper eastern seaboard of the United States.

Mika looked up as the man walked into the room in which she was waiting. He was an imposing man of 6”1 with shoulder length black hair. A perfectly symmetrical face and chiselled bone structure with eyes so dark that they almost seemed black. He walked straight up to her and stopped three feet away from where she stood.

Jackie had decided to act like he didn't know why she was there, perhaps he could get more detailed information. “I believe you've a business proposition for me Ms...” he began.
“Ms. Stern” she replied. 'My god, didn't his employees tell him this' she thought to herself 'for such a high powered mob boss he doesn't have very good staff.'
“No Mr. Estacado, I'm not here to get involved with your business my brother paid you to get me out of certain problems and I'm not about to get involved in the criminal side of society again.

This was a surprise for Jackie, she didn't seem to be the type of woman who lusted for power, he wondered what the story there was. “Well Ms. Stern why don't you tell me why you're here?”
“Sir, please do not take me for a fool, a man like you doesn't rise to the position you're in without find things out from his underlings first.”
Jackie was beginning to like this woman, 'she's got spunk' he thought.
“Hmm...you're correct in that observation, however I would like you to repeat your tale to me in case something was left out.”

She looked at him with haunted eyes and told him about her experience as a drug mule and how she was forced into prostitution. He seemed to take it in stride until she got to the part where she got to the part where they got her addicted to cocaine and magic.
“My god!” he exclaimed,”That's a brilliant idea.”
You're all alike she thought, grimacing at what he said.

He looked offended. “I wouldn't do that, that's stupid. If you can get a prostitute who enjoys her work what's the use in going to one. If I owned an escort agency, my girls would be very well paid, instead of the way it was done to you. Men going to really good establishments enjoy being with women who enjoy being with them. Drugs just complicate things and a discerning person doesn't like paying for an addict.”
“Addicts act differently. They work for the drug instead of the job, and some men can tell the difference” he said.

Mika shrugged, it sounded like poppycock to her, but if it was the truth all well and good. She continued, “So Howard went to this Darko Group who said that they could help stop the magic part of the addiction. I want to know where he is as he said you were his contact. He told me that he'd finished paying the debt but now he's disappeared. Where did he go?”

Mika felt like her life was in danger because Estacado's face had become as dark as a thundercloud. Before she had come here she realised that she might die but she owed it to her brother, and so she took the chance.

Jackie Estacado had been a violent man in his younger years but as he grew into his position as crime boss, he had mellowed out. However, his earlier years were what brought him to the attention of the Darkness. As he listened to the woman tell this story of how Darko was using his name all that violence that had been simmering beneath the surface came boiling up with the anger, he realised that he was losing control of rational thought.

He didn't want to kill the woman in a violent outburst as he hadn't finished talking to her. He told the woman to wait where she was.

He went into a room where the humans who were locked up to be given to the vampire were. And told them to run. They ran. He destroyed the room they had been in. And then he gave chase and would have killed them as well if not for the vampire.

He saw it running after prey. But before it could trap them Estacado pulled it into the shadows and let the Darkness take it. He didn't kill it just hurt it really badly. When he felt better he tossed it aside like garbage and returned to the room where Mika Stern was waiting.

“Excuse me for leaving so abruptly,” he said “just some unfinished business that needed attending to. Mika didn't say anything, this guy was a real weirdo. “Unfortunately Ms. Stern, the Darko Group is a rival of mine, I think your brother has unknowingly been a pawn. However I must thank you for bringing this to my attention as I do not appreciate Sonny Darko using my name.

If your brother is dead I shall get you revenge, and because Sonny Darko has slandered my name I'll do it for free. I will contact you when I've done this. Now please leave.” Mika didn't know how to respond to this so she just walked out the way she came.

'Well at least I found the truth and I'm still alive, maybe that's a victory' she thought and left feeling that she had paid a portion of the debt she owed her brother.

* * *
She had no idea what she was still doing in New York. Her main goal had been to find and stop the rogue vampire. Now it seemed that the main reason for the Angelus being in New York was to create a new kind of vampire queen and form an alliance with her and, at the same time renewing the alliance with Satanna.

She'd been in New York for almost three weeks now and decided that she wasn't needed here. She decided to speak to Ella, say goodbye and wish her well. It was time for Dani to return to Sydney. They had arranged to meet at Snug Harbour Cultural Center because Ella felt that her deep red skin wouldn't cause so much of a stir there.

With all the news of meta -humans coming out, people were less likely to gawk at a person who looked different, but it still happened. Although when Dani suggested meeting Ella had decided on this place because hers was a new culture.

The Vampirella met her at the entry to the botanical gardens. The two young women exchanged a friendly hug and walked over to the nearest park bench. They sat down and Dani looked at the outfit that Ella wore and smirked, “So much for not wanting to stand out El.”
Ella just shrugged, “Terak says that I need to get used to being out in public, even if the world doesn't learn about vampires, I'm still the Vampirella and have to get around. We think the best way to hide, is to pull a superman -in plain sight.”

“I need to get back to Australia,” Dani said. “Originally I came here to deal with the rogue but I think I'll leave that in your hands.”
“Thanks for your vote of confidence.” Ella said. “I don't know how I'm going to keep track of everything and stay sane.”
“Don't worry, you'll do fine. Just follow your instincts and let Terak help you.” Dani smiled and added mischievously, “Your majesty.”
Ella snorted. “Oh God no, don't you start that as well!” They got up and walked to a area where they weren't seen by other's.

Dani hugged Ella one more time and said, “Oh yes, before I go,” she handed her a gold statuette of a flame. “Finch says goodbye. She made this for you.”
The metal was warm and it reminded Ella of the Celestial flames that had cleansed her of the Darkness. After Satanna's explanation of why Finch had attacked her, Ella had become friends with the warrior princess. “Thank you” she said almost lost for words at the gesture. Dani smiled and erupted into flame and disappeared.

* * *
To the outside observer it would have seemed as though Dani had burst into flame but actually that is the portal into the realm of light. It is a very mystical and metaphysical doorway that is actually inside the Angelus but to get to the Realm of Light she must activate the flame within herself, making the internal flame an external one. Then She draws the external flame back into her body and as it's drawn in, the portal to Her realm is opened and she can enter.

Finch was sitting on her consort's chair with a glazed look in her eyes.
Dani glided over to her, “Whatcha looking at?” she said playfully as she held her lover from behind. Finch leaned into her. “It seems our friend Stephanie has got herself into a bit of a pickle, the funny thing is that she doesn't even know that she's just started a chain of events.”

“There is a scientist in France named Charles Victor Szasz. He created an interrogation formula called the 'Question Formula'. This was to be the ultimate truth serum, what makes it different is that it bonds with a person's DNA, this enables the person to be able to create pheromones that make any person pliable and very willing to tell them the truth. It also increases of the mental and physical ability of the wielder exponentially.”

“So why is this a problem and what's it got to do with Steph?” Dani asked.
“When she was younger she was injected with the experimental formula by a school teacher” was the reply, “it activated completely after we left for New York.”
“She's quite good at getting the pheromones to work for her but she has to be shown how to do it without destroying cells every time she does, otherwise she could be dead by the end of the year.”
Dani raised her eyebrow, “And I'm supposed to help her do this, how exactly?”
Finch got a mischievous look on her face, “You know how I cleansed Ella?”
“Oh, that little incident where you set her on fire?” Dani replied with a huge grin.
“Yep, Steph's body needs the same.”
“Won't that kill her?” Dani queried in a concerned tone.
“There's a very small chance of that” came the reply. “Except you don't need to hold her like I did Ella. Just stroking her hand with your flame should do the trick.”

“You see, all the other people that were experimented on died. The only reason Steph survived is because she had a metagene for the formula to latch onto. However when the chemical bonded to her DNA, her inborn metagene was destroyed.”
“My God!” exclaimed Dani utterly stunned. “Are you saying he experimented on people?”
“Uh- huh,” replied Finch “but as I said we can help Stephanie.”
“She doesn't know about me, how can I tell her?”
“Just tell her the truth. She's already trying to find out which government you work for because she thinks you're a spy and she wants you to stop that work. It seems she considers you her best friend and she's afraid you'll get yourself killed. It's quite sweet actually.
Dani laughed at the fact that Finch sounded like she were talking about a child. She then frowned as she thought, 'I suppose that's how we think of humanity now, as children.'
“Anyway the nature of the stuff that is now a part of her system is it will make her become more powerful and eventually she's going to find out all about us. It seems her DNA is getting stronger with age, if we can prevent her from dying there's no telling what she'll be able to figure out someday.”

“During Stephanie's investigation of your supposed spy activities, she drew the attention of some powerful people and while she made herself very difficult to trace, Szasz figured out she was somewhere in Australia. He's sent a search and recovery team to find her and take her back.

“Wow!” Dani said enthusiastically, “I feel like I'm living in a novel. Spies,villains, mad scientists. Then we've got the vampires, demons and magicians. They can write my tale. It would make a great comic book!”
Finch laughed at that. “Ah yes the Great Angelus, great mistress of Light.”
“You know that the funny thing is that in another dimension they really do write about me.” Dani said with a serious look on her face.
They just looked at each other and burst into giggles.

* * *

Ever since Dani became the Angelus, Marie- Elise had being studying the many different religions of the world. She had found references to what sounded like the Angelus in almost all religions. Funnily enough, she found that if she combined them all in to a single viewpoint and threw out the disagreements you actually got a decent idea of what the Angelus was.

The four elements: earth, water, air and fire are all governed by elementals which are creatures that are acknowledged by most of western society as myths and fairy tales. It seemed that the Angelus was the first fire elemental ever created. She was, in essence a goddess of an extremely important part of nature.

This was as far as she had got in her study of the creature that her daughter had become, she stood to put the religious text away, when there was suddenly a blinding light coming from Dani's room and her daughter came rushing out of her room to give Marie- Elise a hug. “Oh my child, I'm so happy you're safe, I worried for you these past weeks,” she said as she wept in Dani's arms.

“I missed you too maman,” Dani said using the name she had called her mother when she was a child. She wouldn't tell her mother everything that happened to her while she was in the States but told her what she she could. They had been sitting and talking for just under two hours when the doorbell rang.

Marie- Elise got up to open it but Dani stopped her, “I need to do this,” she told her mother. She opened the door to see Stephanie standing there. “Hi Steph,” she said.
“Hey” Stephanie replied, Dani would have been surprised at how Stephanie knew she was home, but after talking to Finch she felt she had been brought up to date with all that was important going on for her friends in Australia. She continued her greeting “I'm glad you're here we need to talk.”
“Yes, yes we do,” said Dani, “and it's a matter of life and death.”

How insidious is evil? Can it become genetic? Can good be genetic? Where does that leave freedom of choice?
I AM NOT USING 'THE QUESTION AS A CHARACTER.The treatment that was used on Stephanie was called the question treatment. Any resemblance to The Question is just that- a resemblance. This is what Steph looks like when her power kicks in.

Steph actually looked really, really angry. "Jeez Dani, I didn't realise you were such a drama queen. You go off to New York without telling anyone to get this imaginary feminisation surgery, you stay there for three weeks without even a phonecall and you've been lying to me." As she had been saying these things her voice had been rising. Finally she screamed, "Some kind of friend you are!" and she just burst into tears.

Dani pulled Stephanie toward her, leading her inside and into her arms at the same time giving her a comfoting hug. "Tell me Steph, have you ever wondered why your emotions are so intense. I mean, I know that if a friend did this to you last year you would have shrugged it off instead of letting it get to you so much." She led her to the couch where they sat.

"You're right," she said in surprise.
Dani nodded. "I thought so."
"And it got even worse after you left." Stephanie continued.
"Do you want to tell me what else happened after I left?
Steph frowned pausing before answering the question, like she was considering how to reply. "I've got as much right to my secrets as you do Danielle," she said in a firmer tone.
"Yes you do Steph but would you tell someone those secrets if you were dying?"
'What kind of question is that?" Stephanie 's voice rose.
Ah, so you knew something was wrong, Dani thought but she didn't say anything. Instead she said, "It's time for some of those secrets to end."

"Let's have a cup of tea," she suggested. She was unsure why she said that but it felt right. She poured cups tea and carried them over, gave one to her guest and sat down. They sat in silence while finishing their tea. If you were to ask them why they didn't talk at that time, maybe they would say they didn't have anything to say in that moment. They might have said that they needed to relax before they started talking again. They might have told an observer that they had just been lost in their own world gathering thoughts.

"Steph, what I'm about to tell you is very important, please don't get overexcited if I seem to know things that you might have told only one other, none of your friends have gone behind your back. This new ability of yours to seek out the truth and know when someone is lying to you, it's exciting, yes?"
Stephanie nodded wondering how Dani knew what was going on.
"And how have you been feeling when you aren't using your ability?" She prompted.
Stephanie got a thoughtful look on her face. "I've been run down, I'm tired when I don't use it and by the time I get home I feel like I'm going to drop from exhaustion. The only thing that keeps me awake is becoming what it allows me to be, it's only then that I feel awake again."
Dani nodded and continued, "I suppose when you go to sleep you wake up tired, but not tired enough to stay home from work?"
Stephanie'smouth had dropped open, "How do you know this Dani?"

"Steph, I'm going to tell you a story." Stephanie couldn't believe what she was hearing, she had thought Dani was a spy, that she was doing work for some government. It turned out she practically governed a part of nature.

"Now I want you to understand that because of who I am and the nature of my work I won't tell you everything. I must ask you to respect this and not try ti investigate what I don't tell you. If you do, I may need to oppose you not because I'm not your friend but because I have to protect an aspect of humanity. I hope you understand that." Dani said sincerely. She continued, "I tell you this because the nature of the chemical that bonded to you makes you more curious than an ordinary person would be. Being human you were given free will, Steph strengthen that will to overcome the negative traits that you will find that you have picked up because of this man- made bonding."

"I don't know why you're telling me this if the bonding of this chemical is killing me. I mean I'm grateful to you for sharing your secret with me. Although I doubt strength of will can keep me from dying."
Dani smiled, "Would you be surprised to know death is only one possibility. I told you about Finch, would you like to meet her?"
"Here? Steph gasped in surprise.
Dani's laughter pealed out, "I don't want the unit to burn down, I'll take you and mum to a place where we can meet the others."
Once they were in the car, they headed toward the one of the beaches situated in the northern beaches district of Sydney. Finch had told Dani that one of the small beaches near Avalon was desserted and the lines of probability showed that it would remain so for the remaining hours of daylight.

They walked onto the sand right at the edge of the ocean where the waves could lap over their feet as they fell. Dani asked her mother to move about 15 metres away from them and then told Stephanie, "Steph the more you use your power the sooner you're likely to die. Even if you don't use it, we predict you only have about 6 months left."
"Jeez Dani," Stephanie cried "I'm just holding myself together, are you trying to depress me further?"

'She's taking it better than I would,' thought Marie- Elise. Looking into her daughters eyes as she had the thought and Dani nodded grimly.
"I just need you to know that before I tell you this. There is a chance that I can burn the impurity that's affecting you out of your system. There is a 50% chance that you will become healthy again but also a 50% chance that you will die straight away."

Stephanie looked pensive as she said,"You told me you would introduce me to Finch. Can I see her before I decide?"
Dani smiled, "Of course." She could just ask Finch to appear but if Stephanie did pass on, Dani wanted to see an awesome sight before she did. She took a breath and let herself be the Angelus in all It's glory. Calling for her Host to appear. Finch appeared, with all the warriors lined in an honour guard. Both her mother and her friend had dropped to their knees. 'Oh shit I do so not need this crap' she thought.

"Please don't do that," she almost snapped but she kept her voice calm. Finch stepped forward and said to Stephanie, "I'm Finch and I'm glad to finally meet you in person. I think there's a question you want to ask."
Dani blinked and then she finally saw the body language that Finch saw. Dani smiled internally, Her lover had always been better at reading people than she had.
"Dani told me how you died if I die can you do the same for me?"
Finch looked concerned as she said I don't know if we could do that once you have passed over. It only worked for me because I had already arranged for that contingency in the new contract. With the Angelus before it gave itself to Dani."
Steph didn't really understand the whole contract thing but, it seemed she had her answer. Surprisingly Finch called out, "Flame."

Howard Stern had chosen the name Flame for his new life as an Angelus Warrior. Angelus warriors seemed to lose the capacity of sexual lust and so they could go anywhere without being trapped by a baser emotion. So what Flame felt when he saw Stephanie was definitely not lust. He saw right through her, saw her heart, what she was and all her potential. He saw his first true love, his love at first sight. However he also saw that she didn't see what he saw.

"Flame was once human and was in service to a very bad man who had ordered him to kill Dani. He wasn't a bad man but had found himself in a bad situation. Dani offered him a way out and he chose to become one of us."
Dani picked up from there, "So in both cases the people only became Warriors when they chose to before they died. If I try to burn the impurity in your body you might not continue to live in a human body although your spirit will go on. But it's also a different process to making an Angelus Warrior so you might not live as one either. Steph you have to decide this for yourself."

"Do I have to decide now?' she asked.
'Poor child' Finch thought imagine having to make that sort of decision at this age. At Dani's mental snort she came out of her reverie feeling rather abashed.
"Take all the time you want Steph." Dani encouraged. "Would you like to go home now?' she asked.
"Let's stay here Dani, I just want to sit somewhere alone and think," Stephanie said and she wandered off down the beach alone.

As Stephanie wandered off Dani turned to her mother, "What all this nonsense about kneeling before me?" she said.
"My dear child," her mother said "You have no idea what you are do you?"
"I am the original Light, from which all other light comes. I doubt that makes me Divine"
Her mother sighed, "Oh Dani, from everything I've read everything points to you being the First Fire Elemental. You may not want to acknowledge it, but you are a goddess. "
Dani looked troubled, too many people were looking at her as if she were Divinity. "I may be a goddess of a small part of nature," she said "but I certainly do not deserve to be worshiped as Creator. I was born as a human, how can you or anyone think of worshippng me. I mean if I were True Divinity wouldn't I be omnipresent, onniscient, omnipotent?"
"You are part of that and the Creator sent the Angelus to help in creating. Have you spoken to Finch about this, she may help you find perspective in this."
"If you think it will help me mother, I will do that." She replied formally without even realising she did.

* * *
Dr. Szasz was insane but that didn't stop him from achieving his goals. The search to find the one holding or containing his lost experiment had finally been achieved. His teams had finally tracked the experiment down to Australia. Went Charles Victor found out that the person who held his experiment now worked for the French Government he actually threw a temper tantrum.

A mad scientists temper is truly something amazing to behold, it is like a child's but it involved total and utter destruction. By the time he had calmed down his lab had been destroyed and half of his assistants were dead, the other half cowering under a table at the far end of the lab. That is odd, he thought. 'They shouldn't have run away, they should have just stood and let me kill them. Perhaps this is a good thing thatI see this now because I've put off their slave treatments for too long.' With that in mind he began making up a new batch of slave gas and forgot all about the other experiment and the search for it.

* * *

Stephanie walked to where the rocks on the beach turned into cliffs and she could walk no longer. After listening to everything that she had been told she was unsure of her purpose in life anymore. It seemed as if she had grow up to overcome obstacles, and now that she had she was going to die.

Although she wasn't really afraid of death, she just wondered at the purpose of her life. Stephanie had always had an interest in the metaphysycal aspects and explanations of life and so her thoughts to turned to the possible metaphysical reasons for her life.

Was it just to overcome a sickness that would eventually kill her no matter what? What a waste. Why would the Universe do that? It could have been that her purpose in life was to show others how strive, to overcome their problems. That was all very well and good, helping other to see that they could achieve what they thought was not possible was to her mind a noble thing to do.

It's good to help other people, but what about doing for myself? If my whole life has been spent by helping other's metaphysically, shouldn't something be given to me so that I can enjoy life? But then, maybe I'm not looking at this properly, maybe I am being given another chance. I just need to choose which life I want. I could be an Angelus warrior but, do I want to spend my life in service to to something, someone else or do I want to live having made the choice to be surprised no matter what I do?

That final choice might mean risking her life on earth. If she didn't survive cleansing the toxins out of her system it would mean her death. 'Well death is just a part of life,' she thought. She then got a smile on her face as she thought of Peter Pan saying, "Death would be a wonderful adventure!"

She was sitting on a rock looking out at the sea when a hand covered her mouth and stuck a cloth that really smelled disgusting under her nose. She struggled, she tried to break free but she was unable to. She was unable to breathe air and she felt herself growing faint from the chemical on the cloth under her nose. She had to do some thing but had no control over her body's coordination, the handkercheif under her nose was both preventing her from breathing properly and thinking clearly. She was out of her depth and wondered how she could escape? What could she do?

As the question of what she should do passed through her mind, a chemical process began to take place in her body. Normally she was able to retain enough control to prevent the change that the question formula invoked from occuring but, now she was half unconscious from a minutes struggling and lack of fresh air. The change occured without her conscious command. As her legs collapsed her pituitary gland began to produce a pheremone that could counter the substance that was being used to confuse her mind and hamper her body.

The person holding her cursed and let her go, actually she was dropped. As she fell to the ground her body seemed to know what to do and her arms shot out assisting her to reclaim her balance. Even as her mind was becoming clear again her body took control and began acting. The chemical bonding of the compound may have destroyed Stephanie's metagene but her dealings with the Angelus had awoken something within her.

The bonding of the chemical to her DNA was complete but there was one frayed strand in each cell and this is what was causing her body to overextend itself. Everyday more of her cells would die and her body was having trouble replacing them. Her dealings with the Angelus had slowed the weakening of her body by smoothing these frayed edges slightly with a miniscule of the First Light. However this wasn't enough to prevent her eventual death.

What it had also done was give her body the agility of flame and this is what she used to physically overcome her captor. In fact, the pheremones that were being released by her also had a very large impact on the way she managed to free herself. The man fell unconscious allowing Steph to untangle herself and run free, but she got ten steps away from him and collapsed.

* * *

Flame had been watching Stephanie as she had struggled with her would be kidnapper, he'd wanted to help but the Angelus wouldn't let him. He didn't understand why and he was frustrated with his perceived impotence to help her. He just had to trust that She knew what She was doing. She probably had a reason and he wasn't going to going to argue with her.

When Stephanie collapsed after she had escaped the Angelus called him forward. "Now we'll go to her and see how she is."
They walked toward her and Dani leaned over her prone form to check her vital signs, Flame was about to touch her face when Dani just glared at him. "If you care for her" she snapped, "You won't touch her."

When he was Howard, he was very stubborn and had to have a reason why he was told to do something, as Flame that part of him had not died with his physical body. Dani saw the look that crossed his face. She sighed, "I will explain this to you but in future you need to obey me implicitly, you may question my decision but I have good reasons for all I do."

"You are a being of flame just as you name implies. If you touch her now you may kill her" She said. "If she chooses to join us I shall give her the opportunity to decide whether she wants you to transform her."

Flame hadn't be a very passionate man when he was human but ever since his transformation his passion toward everything had become extreme. The Angelus had put her consort in charge of his training as she had been human once as well. Howard had never been the most open to new things, and had been homophobic. Although with his transformation an understanding that the only thing that matters is Love didn't change years of conditioning.

This homophobia had carried over to who he was now and although he knew that the Angelus was human and Divine at the same time, he didn't know she had once been a he. Funnily enough, if he knew about the transgender issue it wouldn't have mattered to him as much. 'Oh well,' he thought, "If I want redemption for all I've done I'm going to have to change my views on things. This thought didn't stop his disgust and anger at The Angelus and her second-in-command.

* * *

Stephanie dreamed. At least if she were asleep it would have seemed a dream but it was actually a vision of something that had happened in the not so distant past in and a short distance from a small town in Arizona, in the United States.

A man who seemed to be in the clothes of a sports team was driving a ute with a group of boys out of a town to a warehouse nearby. However as they drove, the man's face began to change from a tanned Native American to a seemingly cultured European. The boy next to the man was older than those sitting on the outer- back of the ute. He appeared a teenager around 16 or 17, did not seem surprised at this change — just depressed.

Then the scene changed and she saw all the children appeared to sleeping in a cirle painted in red. She saw the man handing a girl, who looked like she could be the older boys sister a dagger and pointing toward her probable brother. She seemed to go slightly pale but nodded and walked toward him and raised her dagger.

The scene changed again to show that same boy surrounded by shadows, sitting miserably with a different Native American man in front of a camp fire.

* * *

Stephanie became aware of the sound of the ocean and opened her eyes to see Dani kneeling beside her. She felt as if she had been hit in the head by something really heavy and seemed to have trouble focusing on Dani's face. She tried to sit up but as soon as she even thought of moving it seemed to her like her head would explode. Her ears were ringing and she thought back to her talk with Dani. 'Oh My God, it's true I'm dying' She thought.
She became aware of Dani stroking her face. "Hey," Dani smiled down at her "You gave us quite a scare there."
Stephanie looked at her and spoke not realising she had been feeling this way more and more frequently since her birthday, "I'm scared Dani."
"Don't worry Steph I'll be with you no matter what." She continued, "Let's get you home."
"It hurts when I move, I think you'd better call an ambulance."

Finches light communication flashed through Dani's mind and Stephanie saw her frown, "What," she said, "what's is happening to me?"
Dani sighed miserably, "It seems that you've exerted yourself too much and moving you may begin to destroy cells in your body at a faster rate. Finch thinks that you may have to make that decision that we were talking about now."

"I'd already come to a decision before I was attacked" she said as her vision dissapeared completely. "Oh no," she said in a whisper.
"Whats wrong Steph?" Dani sounded concerned.
"I'm blind Dani."
"Then let's stop putting this off" she said. Stephanie didn't answer, she had lost consciousness again.

The next time she awoke she heard one of the Angelus Warriors talking to Dani. "You said if she chose I could do it." To her ears he sounded aggressive and she absently thought that she wouldn't want him to serve her if she were the Angelus.
"She hasn't spoken to me yet, wait!" There was a loud pop and suddenly Dani was holding her hand again.

"Who were you talking to?" she asked.
Dani sounded puzzled, "You heard me talking to someone?"
"To one of your warriors."
Now Dani sounded really surprised, "You heard that?"
Stephanie just smiled, it seemed she had made the correct decision. She asked Dani to lean forward so she could tell her what she had decided.

How insidious is evil? Can it become genetic? Can good be genetic? Where does that leave freedom of choice?

It had been a hot day and Darko, in his guise as the coach, had given the kids who were on the football team a lift in the back of a Ute and had handed each of them a bottle of water. However in the water was a drug that would render them unconscious five minutes after drinking from the containers. Darko had taken the children out of the vehicle and tossed them carelessly onto the ground.

The first thing he said to Sarah then was, "When doing dark magic one must learn that the more pain the sacrifice is in the more power you obtain from it. In a ritual with children pain is good but not too much pain because we don't want to destroy their innocence too quickly." Sarah was listening to every word that Darko was telling her like an eager student. There was a puppy tied up in the corner of the warehouse and he told her to bring it to them.

Darko then said to Sarah, "Your first lesson will be to prepare a circle. Blood sacrifices to draw a circle is more powerful than a circle drawn with something else. We are going to use the dog." he handed her a knife a told her to cut it's throat and let the blood drain onto the ground. He then said, "When drawing a circle with blood, the person doing the spell needs to do it and they have to put their essence into the sacrifice. This means drawing the circle by using hands that have been dipped in the blood of said sacrifice.

As he did this Geoff ran outside to throw up. Darko finished drawing the circle of blood around the sleeping kids and told Sarah to wait there. He walked further into the warehouse and disappeared. Geoff came back inside looking pale. Geoff and Sarah Robinson argued. "How can you be like that?" shouted Geoff. "I get wanting to be popular but how can you be willing to become a murderer?"

Sarah closed her eyes and covered her eyes as if she had a headache from hearing his complaints. "Stop being so short sighted Geoff," said Sarah, "The only reason I wanted to be popular is because it gives me power over the sheep. Now I've got a chance to learn magic, that's real power. Nobody will be able to hurt me ever again."

Geoff had hated his step- father because he had destroyed his sister's life taking away her innocence until their mother realised what was happening and called the police. He had raped his step- daughter only once but the emotional and other types of physical abuse lasted for years.

At the court case when the lawyer called him to the stand Sarah had shot him dead. To this day Geoff still didn't know how she got the gun. Strange occurrences always happened around Sarah but none more so than that day. For try as they might, the police never found the weapon she had used.

"Sarah," he said as calmly as he could, "If you do this, you will be worse than him."
"Shut up Geoff, just shut up" she screamed.
Darko heard this commotion and smiled, this would work out nicely. He walked back in and said to Sarah, "If you want to learn sacrifice rituals you need to be able to kill without regret." He waved a finger at Geoff and suddenly Geoff felt his body go rigid, it ceased to obey his commands.

* * *
James White- Eagle lifted his head slowly form where he'd been sitting. 'I hope the girl knows what she's getting into ' he thought to himself. He heard Darko tell her that her first test in dark magical rituals would be to use the blood of a loved one in a sacrifice. James knew that he had to act now, a lot of people had put their faith in his ability to do this.

James had been letting evil flow through his body. Darko had though that it would corrupt him and let him become an eventual sacrifice. James silently chuckled, 'Even after a thousand years, the fool hasn't gained a shred of wisdom' he thought to himself.

In the other room Darko had told Sarah to sacrifice Geoff, she got a shock when he told her this but she knew that this might happen. She nodded and walked over to her brother.
"Please Sarah, you don't need to do this." His voice was pitched high in a panicked tone.
"Yes I do" she said, raising the dagger and closing her eyes.

He though her mutter something about the loss of innocence, saw the dagger come down and--
- he was no longer in the warehouse but on a rocky ridge, next to him stood a distinguished looking shaman and lying on the ground a few feet away were the children that were on one of Flagstaff's middle school football teams.

They had started a camp-fire and he was just sitting there morosely. "She tried to kill me," he said miserably. "No" James White Eagle said, "she saved you." He continued, "I knew that Darko was going to be in Arizona. I just needed assistance in stopping him from whatever he was doing. I didn't know exactly where he was going to be so I contacted all of my students and told them to be on the look out."

"Students?" Geoffrey asked.
"Sarah is involved in one of my Shamanic circles. She is becoming very powerful in her own right."
"All that spiritual new age crap is true?" he asked. Then he shook his head and continued, "That doesn't detract from the fact that she was going to stab me with a knife."
"Hmm...yes, the only reason she would have done that would be to break a curse." He continued, "Did he curse you?"
Geoff's mouth fell open, He made my blood boil. He said if I told anyone he was going to kill the children, I would die."

Suddenly Geoff felt like a enormous weight had been lifted from his shoulders. His sister hadn't been corrupted. She'd stayed just to save him, then it hit him. Sarah was still there. "My sister," he shouted in a panic, what about Sarah?"
"Oh, I forgot to tell you" James said. "You have to go and get her back."

* * *
The knife had slashed through the air where Geoffrey had been standing. 'Thank you James' she thought to herself. She knew nobody heard her thought but she liked to imagine that James heard hers. Darko looked at Sarah as the knife passed through the air and he saw the brief flash of light that showed she had been assisted in thwarting him. Her brother was gone but he didn't really need her brother because the children were always his goal. But he would make her suffer for her betrayal.

He turned to carry on with the ritual and what he saw made him scream out in frustration. The children were gone. He turned to the girl with the knife still in her hand and growled unintelligibly. "You think you won? That was nothing girl. I just lost one battle and I've still got an ace up my sleeve. He wave his hand in an odd pattern and then moved each joint in it separately. One at a time.

Sarah felt her bone break and her joints pop. "You wanted to help your brother!" he screamed, " well now you can take his place. She felt herself go rigid, crushing her bones more than they already were. The knife the was going to sacrifice Geoffrey had fallen to the ground but Darko just reached out to it and it flew to his hand.

"You see little girl, I always prepare for the worst, I have a corr-
As he said this she started laughing weakly, "Fool. Do you think someone like James would be so easy to corrupt?"
Darko was going red with anger and the blood vessel near his eye started bulging and twitching. "I've still got you," he said. "Oh I know you'll say that you're not afraid of dying and all that nonsense. I don't intend for you to die little girl, no you will suffer. I will make you my slave, you'll do everything I want you to but I won't let you forget who you are. Your mind will despair at the things I make you do."

Sarah had gone into this prepared to die and although she didn't show it, she got ice- chills just thinking about what he said he could do to her. She began to wonder if saving the children would mean less deaths. She was sure that if he controlled her she would be made to kill on a very large scale.

At least Geoffrey's free," she thought.

* * *

The gas that Charles Victor had designed to enslave the minds of his ex jailers was a simple formula which, when dispersed through the air ducts of the building, would ensure that anyone who breathed it in would believe anything that Szasz said and they would work to ensure that he got what he wanted.

The interesting thing about the gas what that he didn’t wear a gas mask to prevent him from breathing it in. He had thought that it was unnecessary because he was the one benefiting from it as it had been keyed to his genetic make up.

What he hadn’t realised yet, nor would he, was that every time he breathed in the gas he lost more and more of his body mass and became less aware of his surroundings. In essence, while he retained his intelligence he increasingly lost a greater amount of his sanity. When he released the latest dose of the gas, his awareness of what was going on around him became that of a toddler’s. His world became the Chateau and his slaves sole job became to care for him as he played at being brilliant.

The man that had been sent to Australia to kidnap Stephanie for the now childlike scientist began to regain consciousness. When he had attacked Stephanie she had used the power that had been thrust upon her to defend herself against him. In doing so she had used a certain pheromone that had freed him from the effects of Dr. Szasz's slavery gas. He awoke with a splitting headache and a very, very painful memory of all that he had been forced to do.

As he lay there he thought of all that he'd done at the command of Szasz. He curled in on himself trying to make himself smaller, like he was trying to hide from the memories that he had. Szasz had made the staff at 'The Chateau', the mental asylum /jail become his servants. They had become his toys. Catering to any thing he wanted; Lust, sex, slavery, assassination. You name it he got it, he had committed more war crimes in peace time than the Nazi Josef Mengele during the 2nd world war, and his slaves were the people who were originally supposed to be ensuring the world was safe from him.

Then he remembered his attack on the woman, Szasz's experiment, he was actually quite surprised at the power she had. He had to admit to himself that no matter what you said about Charles Victor Szasz, when he created something that worked; It worked really well. He decided to get up and see where he was because he didn't think it very likely that he would be taken in and cared for by someone who he'd attacked. However he could see that he definitely was in someone's home and not a hospital. He walked out of the room he had been in and went toward a room that seemed to have a lot of light coming from it.

He was walking toward the door with the light when a woman who looked to be in her forties said from behind him in a surprised tone, “Oh you're awake.“ She continued, “Come with me and I'll get you something to drink, a nice tea perhaps.“ He looked toward the room with the light, shrugged and followed the woman into the sitting room and then into the kitchen.

“Now,” she said calmly “Would you tell me why you were trying to kill my assistant.”
“Uh...” He could tell straight away from her bearing and total confidence that this was not a woman to be trifled with. “It's a matter of French National Security, forgive me but I don't know who you are.”
“French?” Marie- Elise said. It was more of a statement than a question. “Maybe I should get the French government to tell me why it wants to kill it's Australian Ambassador's assistant.”
The man smiled, “Madam, if you could give me proof of who you are I will tell you all I know.” He said in a relieved tone.

After he had decided that it was safe to talk, he told her everything. It seemed his name was Jacques Vervoux, he was an orderly at the Chateaux. Marie -Elise was surprised at this, everybody with any knowledge of France knew that the Chateaux housed the most severely violent mental cases in France. Similar to Arkham Asylum in America. Only worse.

All of the staff there had to have military service and the doctors and nurses had to have worked in their specific field for at least five years before being allowed to work there. The orderlies however, had to have had training in the French Special Forces (Commandement des Opérations Spéciales or the COS.)

“A number of years ago we got a new patient, a Charles Victor Szasz,” he told her. “He used to work for the government but now he is completely insane. However that didn't stop him developing a substance that enslaved the staff and other patients. With all our abilities he created an international corporation intent on reaping havoc. It seems that your assistant is one of 'the experiments' he was working on before he was incarcerated. For some reason he wanted her back and, after seeing what she did to me, I can see why.”

Marie- Elise was shocked, a mad man had seized control of one of the places where they housed some of the most dangerous maniacs in the world, and he was using it to run his own criminal empire. She told Jacques to wait in the sitting room and walked off quickly, presumably to call some politician in charge and tell them what was happening.

Jacques tried to stay where he was but something was pulling him in the direction of the room where he saw the light coming from. Without realising it he found himself walking in that direction. The light seemed to pulse to the beat of his heart, he didn't understand the reason that drew him but he knew that he had to go there. The light from the room seemed to get brighter the closer to the room he got.

As he was about to open the door, there was an extreme burst of bright white light. The pulsing stopped but if he expected his vision to return after that sudden flash of brightness he was sorely mistaken. The door swung open and he felt himself falling to his knees. He couldn't see the Angelus but instinctively knew what It was. “My, my,” said Dani, “you must have a death- wish. You're lucky she's sleeping because I wouldn't have stopped her from killing you if she tried.”
* * *

After Stephanie had collapsed on the beach she hadn't been in any state to transport to the hospital, not that a hospital would have been able to help her. Dani was only able to help her by transforming her. Even if she had tried to take Stephanie home any touch of Celestial flame would start a transformation, so it was lucky Steph was aware enough to give her her decision on the beach.

She had whispered in Dani's ear that she did not want to be an Angelus warrior, she said that she knew the risk of burning the impurity from her body was death. She told Dani that she'd take that chance because she'd like to experience life with powers of her own under free will. She had correctly assumed that a warriors first priority was to the Light and even though they maintained a measure of free will they were, ultimately in service to Dani.

Dani had stroked her arm like a very dear friend instead of holding on to her as she had when transforming Howard Stern into Flame. Steph's body seemed to catch fire but it was not a type fire many people have seen before. It was violet. A violet fire of transformation, that seemed not to burn her but instead looked like it washed over her like rain.

What was actually happening was exactly what it looked like, the fire was running over her like water from a shower. It washed and cleansed her blood, cells and genes. She lay for two hours like that. Finally Dani told her mum that it was safe to take her home. Stephanie was gently put into the back seat of the car, while the other two women got in the front for the hour drive back to the city.

Dani didn't want to leave the guy who had attacked her friend on the beach only to have him come after her again. So she worked out a way for Finch to help bring him back to their apartment. Once they arrived back Dani noticed that Stephanie seemed to be sweating black liquid. She took Steph out of the back seat and once she had her friend in her arms the back seat of the car began to dissolve as if it had been eaten by acid.

“Eww. Is that what the stuff was doing to her body?” asked Marie- Elise.
“Probably.” said Dani. “Let's get her inside and then I'll see what I can do to make her comfortable.” They carried the unconscious girl indoors and she was taken to a spare bedroom. Dani turned to her mother and said, “Don't come in once I close the door, I'll be trying to help her body complete the process that it started and I don't know how that will affect the surrounding area.”

She really had no idea how to proceed and just followed her intuition. Holding her hands out over Stephanie she thought about their friendship and what it meant to her, how the unconsciousness girl had helped her through a particularly difficult situation in her life, how understanding, caring and forgiving she could be.

She didn't realise it yet but the light that had filled the room as she helped Steph recover would alter the colour of the paint on the wall but more noticeably over time, crime in that area of the city would decrease.

She walked out the room refreshed, as though she had slept a whole night and was ready to begin her day anew. She wasn't really surprised to find the man who had attack Steph outside, she knew that his fate twined with the sleeping girl's. However, she knew any normal person would be angry with him. She made some remarks about letting Stephanie kill him as he knelt before her, hopefully humiliating and scaring him at the same time. It barely caught her attention that the man had been blinded by the Light that had emanated from the room a short while ago as she carried on walking to the living room.

* * *
Stephanie awoke to see the man that had attacked her standing over her with a worried expression on his face. She saw him, recognised him and decided to let whatever was going to happen, happen. She realised that at this moment she was as helpless as a baby. Then she realised that she wasn't at the beach any more. She guessed that she was in Dani's home and that for some reason they had decided to bring this man with them. But, she wondered to herself why had they allowed him to come into her room?

“Are you going to kill me?” She said weakly. Of course she knew he wasn't, she just wanted to see his reaction. He flinched. “Mademoiselle,” he said “I did not mean to cause you any pain and I would like to make up for any trouble I have caused you.” She saw the earnestness in his eyes and didn't need any other power to know that he was telling her the truth. Half an hour later Stephanie felt strong enough to walk out of the room into the sitting room where Dani and Marie- Elise were quietly talking to each other.

She came in supported by Jacques. Dani raised her eyebrow, “ You don't take very long to set things in motion, do you Steph?” she said teasingly.
“I don't know what you're talking about,” Stephanie replied.
“Oh I'm sure you do, just focus and you'll see that you two have a link.”
Stephanie frowned, “I couldn't do that before.”
Dani smiled, “It's because of our interaction, you now have my ability, be it not as strong, to see probabilities.”
As he helped Stephanie to sit down Jacques said, “I'm sorry but I'm not following your conversation.”
Dani said, “I assume you've told Stephanie what you told my mother.” He nodded.
“It seems that your Dr. Szasz's treatment was destroying her body” She nodded in the direction of her friend and colleague. “When I helped her to rid her body of the poison we each shared a little of each other's power. We know that Stephanie received the ability to see possibilities in greater detail.” Dani smiled at Stephanie, “I on the other hand learned the truth about who and what I am and where I fit into everything. I think that that means that I will get a clearer understanding of all my probable actions.”
Stephanie's eyes widened, “He's going to act as bodyguard for me!” She cried out in surprise, forgetting that Jacques was even in the same room.
“I would think,” said Marie- Elise “that he owes you that much.”

Jacques couldn't believe it. In one 5 minute conversation, these women had decided what he should do with his life. 'But' he thought to himself, 'it is not something I mind doing. I'll feel like I am paying off a debt as well as working for a beautiful woman. There's no reason for me not to do this.'
“Anyway,” Marie- Elise continued, “A young heiress needs a manservant, especially when she goes to check her family properties in France.”
Stephanie stared at Marie-Elise, her mouth dropping open.
“Oh close your mouth Stephanie, you are one of the richest women in France not only because of your inheritance, but because a madman left all his worldly goods to his only living experiment.”

Steph was puzzled by this statement. However Jacques just stared at her and started nodding. “Is he dead then?” he enquired referring to Szasz.
“No,” replied Marie- Elise. “That gas enslaved everyone to Szasz, but in the end it reduced him to nothing...it turned his brain into mush. At the moment all he does is stare off into space he needs to be assisted in everything that he does.”
Marie -Elise told them that another reason they had to go was because Jacques was required to testify in a closed hearing in the case concerning Szasz.

Steph smiled, 'and so begins my new life' she thought excitedly.

* * *

Estacado was pissed off. The vampire had gone. He really didn't think it would have waited for Darko to return, but now he would have to put his search for drug lords who dealt in magic on hold. He knew that Darko was in the state of Arizona but his informants hadn't been able to tell him exactly where in Arizona.

* * *

In Flagstaff, Arizona it was night and the soldier had just finished a delectable meal. Humans with alcohol in their blood were always so much tastier.

How insidious is evil? Can it become genetic? Can good be genetic? Where does that leave freedom of choice?

Estacado had asked the soldier to investigate Darko's organisation before he went after Darko. He knew that this was meant to keep him from hunting down the wizard straight away, he also knew that Estacado was disgusted by him and thought he was uncouth just because of the way he acted. The soldier sneered as this crossed his mind. At least he was bluntly honest about what he liked and how he enjoyed killing. Estacado didn't seem to enjoy it as much exept as a means to an end.

During his investigation into Darko's activities he happened to come accross an intoxicating scent on some laundry he had be tasked to do. This, he had discovered later was Darko's personal scent, the aroma of 1000 year old blood, a blood so refined that it would be the best thing he had ever tasted. Once he had discovered the the man's stench he saw no further reason to wait for Darko to return from where ever he had gone to. The soldier would begin the hunt now.

He began with the cook. Charming her out of her clothes and then getting her to tell him when and where the acolytes meals were taken. At the height of her passion just before she could find release he pulled out of her but before she could complain, he moved his face down to her femoral artery and drank from there.

Her orgasm occured but she didn't find a release in the normal way. The pressure on her femoral artery caused her juices to flow through her blood instead of being released from her vaginal opening.
Her death was the greatest orgasm of her life.
After the soldier had drained her body he lifted his head in ecstasy. "That," he said to the empty room, "meal was orgasmic." He laft the room chuckling at his joke.

At six thirty in the evening he took the meal to the dining hall where the senior staff of the Darko Group ate their meals. After compelling several men to only drink instead of eat he had a veritable font of information and once he found what he needed to know he drained all of his informants but one.

When the final acolyte woke he had a splitting headache but it disappeared when he saw his murdered colleagues. At the sight of his brothers in the dark arts lying in gruesome parodies of prayer, his fear levels spiked and he ran as the vampire had intended. The vampire pounced savouring the smell and taste of the fear in the man's blood.

He'd discovered that Darko was in Arizona but because the acolyte was newly raised, he was unsure of where in Arizona the magician was. This didn't matter to the soldier, in fact it pleased him; with an added level of difficulty he would enjoy the hunt more. If he'd known that his hunt would lead to his eventual death he probably would have done it anyway.

* * *

Estacado wasn't really surprised that the vampire didn't obey his instructions. He had realised shortly after recruiting it that his control over it was tenuous, only working because of certain bribes and benefits he had given the creature.

It still pissed him off as he had to cut short his search for the ones the Stern woman had told him about. He had thought of taking control of their organisation more than once. He had meant what he said to the woman, getting a prostitute addicted was bad for business if one was running an escort agency. Still he would have liked to have the formula to control his enemies. 'Magic and cocaine' he thought 'brilliant idea'

It wasn't difficult to find the vampire, he just needed to follow the tracks of Arizona's newest serial killer. He soon found himself in Flagstaff, where the town was in a panic. It seemed that one of the junior football teams from the area had gone missing.

The Darkness in Jackie seemed to enjoy the irony that the news about the Arizona serial killer didn't even concern these people because the killings only started after the children were kidnapped. He wondered what these parents would do if they knew that the 'serial killer' was actually after their children's kidnapper.

After the sun went down Estacado sent out a few darkings to find the vampire's trail. It seemed that the vampire had already found the warehouse site and had destroyed it when it saw Darko had already left. However, a second look at the area surrounding the warehouse proved that Darko destroyed it or else Darko had been in a fight that caused it to come crashing down. The vampire probably had only destroyed the remainder of the structure looking for the wizard.

The darkings had difficulty in finding the soldier because he was the single vampire who had not been involved in the Wars of Shadowand therefore had no aspect of the Darknesses demonic taint.

Even though the vampires that the Darkness had experimented on were only the portion of the vampire nation that became nightwalkers. The Darkness, unbeknown to others had been involved in the entire war. The holder of the Darkness at that time was one of those who started the wars and he devised a gas not disimilar to the on Estacado used on Gleason before he became Ella. Except unlike Estacado's version of only working on one person, that era's Darkness Host developed it to infect any and all vampires involved in the wars.

However the vampires of that era weren't cleansed by Celestial fire and reborn as the current vampire queen had been and that was why the daywalkers also had an aspect of the Darkness in them. The gas that the Darkness had released during that era had bonded to the race on a genetic level but the soldier had escaped receiving the impurity because he had not taken part in those wars. After killing the emperor he had decided to explore the world and so did not even know these events had taken place, until he returned three centuries later.

The Darking found the vampire just before dawn. The soldier had found a campsite that had recently been abondoned. He hadn't found Darko, but he had found something that had peaked his curiosity. It was a scent not as sweet as Darko's but almost as aged and that person had been surrouded by children. The vampire's throat began to burn in anticipation of possible delicacies.

The soldier continued to track Darko, thinking that there might be some extra delicasies at the end of this hunt. The darking continued to follow the vampire who had suddenly realised he was being followed. He walked to the side of the road and stared out into the dark, pretending to look for something. The darking observing him from 20 feet away didn't take into account the vampire supernatural senses. It was ripped to pieces by an enraged vampire.

The darking's death was the only thing that alerted Estacado to the fact that they were on the right trail. When a darking dies, the soul that it used to be goes free. The Darkness usually feels this as a chill and cold shivers as well as a loss of weight, sort of like clothing had been removed. Estacado had no idea where there darking had found the vampire, but he knew the general direction that he needed to go to find it.

* * *

Geoff and Sarah were descended from a long line of witches and unknown to them, they were distantly related to Jennifer Kale. In their family line women had always been the holders of the power, however there was a prophecy about twins. These twins would come into their power in the same decade as the world discovered it own innate power.

The prophecy was definite on the fact however, that the female would be first and that while she would carry on the family ability, the male would follow the majority. Nobody had ever understood the phrasing of the prophecy, but it happenened now. Sarah carried her genetic lines magical power and Geoff carried the metagene that the majority of the world's metas had.

Geoff had flown to Sarah's aid. He could hardly believe it, he could fly. As soon as he touched Sarah she recovered from the magical state of incapacitation thrust upon her by Darko. Although she was free from her magical constraints her bones were now badly broken and some were even crushed from Darko's torturous punishment.

* * *

Darko had been about to slice the throat of Sarah Robinson when one of the windows had shattered and a an indistinct shape had followed through with the breaking of the glass. Before Darko knew what was happening the vampire had it's mouth at his throat. Ironically the thing that saved Darko's life was the thing that would have destoyed it if he'd been alone. Geoffrey's rescue of his sister.

The vampire had distracted the black magician from Sarah long enogh for Geoff to get her out of the warehouse. On the way out he paused, looked at the warehouse and blewthe gust of wind that was released from his body was so powerful that the warehouse was totally destroyed. He flew back to the mountain ridge that James White- Eagle had set their camp up at and prayed that the white sorcerer could help Sarah.

The distraction that the boy had caused saved Darko's life and now he stood facing the vampire.Vampire's have one great fear: the fear of fire. This caused Darko to throw flame at the creature. The soldier just dodged out of the way. Any other vampire would be terrified but the soldier wasn't, Darko didn't understand why and he had to move very quickly to avoid the psychopathic creature's counter-attack.

Unlike a normal vampire that had been infected with the Darkness, he felt no fear of certain types of light. Fire carried the type of light- vibration that Darkness-cursed vampires feared did not affect the soldier.

The soldier was born without the ability to express of feel human emotion which lead him to do extreme things to discover what feelings were. Over time he discovered self-harm could, to a certain extent bring about knowledge of the feeling of pain. Although he wasn't searching for the understanding of physical feeling, he wanted to understand emotion. Over time he found that making others suffer brought out a feeling in him.

People had described joy to him and he could only equate other people's suffering as causing him joy. This led him to look for increasingly gruesome ways to kill people. Over time he had learned about feelings; happiness, sadness, anger, fear etc. By the time he had met Estacado he felt and understood emotion. Now he only caused others pain because he enjoyed it.

Darko and the soldier went at it again. The vampire moved first managing to sink his fangs into Darko's neck but missing the jugular. The vampire's eyes shone with excitement as Darko ripped himself free from the creatures fangs. Blood was streaming down his neck and the vampires mouth was cover in the blood of the man he wanted to eat.

"You just do not realise how long I've been waiting to taste your blood wizard," the soldier said. "You know" he continued conversationally, "I'm actually grateful that Estacado told me to wait, had I come sooner I wouldn't have taken the time to savor you but now I will."
Darko was shocked, "You work for the Darkness? I thought your kind hated the darkness ."
The insane vampire gave an evil grin, "I make my own way in the world and I don't follow the rest. The Darkness and I have a mutually beneficial working arrangement. "
He continued, "Now be a good boy and let me eat you before Estacado gets here."

That was a surprise. If Estacado was in Arizona it meant that the Angelus had left New York. Darko was only here because of his original intention to work the spell that he had prepared to get the Angelus to leave New York. He didn't want to admit that he was scared of the vampire but even though he feared it, he would have fought it one to one. But learning that Estacado was after him when his acolytes weren't there to protect him terrified Sonny Darko. Estacado might appear to be a lush, by demon standards, but he was far from it.

He emptied his pockets, collecting any items that would give him extra magical abilities. As he dropped them on the floor he muttered a spell and all of the trinkets flared, using up any spare magic that would aid him in his travel spell to New York. "Huh?" the vampire muttered as his eyes adjusted to the after- effect of the magical flare only to find Darko gone. It didn't take much guesswork to figure out where Darko had gone. The soldier chuckled as he said to himself, "Won't he be surprised when he gets home."

Estacado finally found the vampire sniffing around a recently used campsite. "Did you find him?" he asked the vampire abruptly. "Oh yesss," said the vampire, "and he tastes delicious."
Estacado cocked his head to the side, "So you killed him then?"
The soldier grimmaced, "Almost. He got away."
"Away? Explain this to me."
"I attacked but he escaped. Escaped back to New York" the vampire told him.
Estacado was about to ask him more but the creature had gone back to smelling the area. He shrugged and left it to it's own devices. There was no talking to the thing when it got involved in a hunt. At least Jackie thought that was what was happening.

Before he walked back to the town he said to the vampire, "I don't care who you eat but if you bring your mess to New York I'll kill you."
The soldier shrugged, "I found something interesting I won't be back for a while. Our business dealings have come to an end." He walked away, leaving the Darknesses host alone with his darkings.

Darko had tasted exquisite but the soldier could always go back for him. It was the new scent that now had his attention. A scent belonging to a 700- year old white sorcerer, his young apprentice, her metahuman brother and 7 children.

* * *

Charles Victor Szasz was in a government run mental facility in an undisclosed location in Paris, France. Gone were the days when he was surrounded by a gaggle of assistants due to his formidable intellect. Szasz was a physical vegetable but his intellect survived. He was however, unaware of anything exept for the mathematic equations going around in his head.

Jacques and Stephanie walked through the corridoors of what appeared to be an empty hospital and they stopped where the corridoor came to a dead end. They stopped in front of the wall and a voice coming over a speaker asked them to wait where they were as a red beam and then a blue one scanned their bodies. After it had finished there was a short buzz and a click and the wall began to rise, in a similar fashion to a garage door.

The matron of the facility had confirmed what Szasz had said, when he could still talk, that his only living experiment was his heir. Everybody else assumed he was mad when he said that...because he was. That statement was one of the final lucid things he had said.

She was only able to come to this facility because Marie- Elise had convinced the Ambassador that it was important to some work that Stephanie was doing for her. So this visit, although a personal one for Steph, was in government records as a trip taken for the French embassy in Australia. The cover story that Szasz had threatened her. Which after going over the records of the previous ambassador's court transcripts would actually prove to be true.

Stephanie was wearing a a sweatshirt with a hoodie and she concealed her face as soon as the door to Szasz's cell opened. Steph walked in and immediately began to release a chemical that would make people alert to all except her face. On Charles it had a further effect of bringing him back, for a short period, to his surroundings. Although she would have preferred to see the madman alone, that was not going to happen because the matron and Jacques wouldn't let her see Szasz on her own. Perhaps they thought she'd try to kill him.

If she been around Szasz in any other situation she would have killed him, but she was here to get answers. The pheromone worked very well as Szasz looked at her and knew straight away who she was and what she carried within her.

"It worked! It worked!" He cackled from where he was seated. The matron looked stunned, here was a man who for all intents and purposes appeared to be a vegetable only mere seconds before. He spoke clearly now, "You are my crowning achievement." He then turned to the matron, "I never stopped being a patriot here is my final gift to France." He opened his mouth and stuck his finger down his throat. His final act looked like it was designed by the madman to kill himself because as he removed his finger from his mouth, he dropped dead.

His death was confirmed as a suicide when they found that when he put his finger in his mouth he had touched a synthetic growth that he had developed and grown into his own body. They discovered that this was designed to release a fluid into his brain. The overall conclusion was that in his madness he decided he still worked for the government and that he designed something that would kill him if he were captured by the enemy.

But Stephanie knew the truth. Szasz decided that he would take over the body of his experiment because then he would have the new bodies power and his own intelligence as well. The synthetic growth was to tranfer his consciousness into the body of his experiment, effectively taking control of it. What he didn't account for was that his brain had begun to fail due to the gas he had developed to get the staff at The Chateaux to serve him.

In the end he transferred his intelligence to Stephanie but his mind was unable to deal with the transfer and he died. Stephanie however, received all of his knowledge while remaining herself. With all of his knowledge came all his memories, most were not very nice but even a man like Szasz had to have some redeeming qualities. Those were the parts of the man she chose to think of.

Szasz was a genius, but insanity had driven him and without restraints he had become a criminal genius. Stephanie was shocked by what these memories told her. She was the heiress to a criminal empire worth over 100- millon dollars, earning $50 -70-million a year for black market work; and that was only the monies coming in from illegal activity. She was getting $10-million a year from legal activities as well.

Steph would have to consider how she moved from here. The French Government considered Szasz penniless as they didn't know about his hidden dealings. Other criminals would consider him dead but she knew that once she touched that money things would get very complicated. She needed advice but who could she trust with this information? Jacques, certainly. Dani, she didn't know. Dani was a force of Light, she might not approve of what had happened. Steph was afraid of losing their friendship.
* * *

Jackie Estacado had been back in New York for a day and was very pleased with the things Butch had found out for him. The developers of the addictive magic and cocaine were none other then a very minor splinter sect of the Black Mage Order, they thought the order was too focused on the arcane and did not have wnough dealings in the mundane world. He threatened to discuss their extramural activities with their order's leader if they didn't give him the formula for the magic addiction. ' This,' he thought, 'should disturb them.' Even though this splinter group had differing views on how things should be done, they were still working under the auspices of the BMO as it gave them protection and validity.

"The wizard in charge grinned and said, "I don't really care what you do. However, if you give me the essence of a darking, I'll give you the formula."
Normally Jackie would never have done this. This time however, he made an exception.
"I don't need the cocaine only the formula." he told them.
"Maybe not coke," said the dealer, "but the magical addiction must be tied to a physical substance."
Jackie smiled, "I've got just the thing."

Estacado left the small apartment where they had done their transaction and as he walked away he took out what looked like a mobile phone and dialled a number. However it wasn't a phone, it was a remote detonator. He pressed the button and the building imploded on itself, when the daking was crushed, it triggered a mini explosion desteoying everything in a 15 metre radius of the darking. He then took out his real mobile telephone, "Yeah...Butch tell Mika Stern she has her revenge."

He laughed out loud, "That was worth the loss of a darking."

* * *

The new Vampirella of the vampire nation had done something amazing, something that none of the others had thought was possible. She had formed a council af night and daywalkers. But this didn't happen overnight.It had started out when she sent out word that she was forming a taskforce to hunt down the rogue vampire.

Every state would be divided into sections called sects. There would be up to 4 sects in every state depending on the size of that state. That sect was loosely based on the design of human law agencies but, unlike human beurecracy answering to an ever increasing hierarchy, the person they answered to directly was their Vampirella. One of the abilities she had as the vampire queen was to communicate with any of her subjects telepathically, no matter the distance.

Each agent hunting for the rogue would be partnered with another. Each daywalker would be teamed up with a nightwalker. This had the effect of ensuring daywalker and night waker families were introduced to one another, as daywalker family groupings are closely bonded and nightwalkers are protective of their own.

There was an initial distrust but vampire society turned out to be much more adaptable to change than humans. Their initial distrust of each other caused them to form a council to ensure partners didn't take advantage of each other. As the night and day walkers began to trust each other again they began to see no reason for the council.

Vampirella had nothing to do with the council that had formed out of mistrust but when they were going to disband it because they saw no reason for it Terak came to her with an idea. "My Lady," he said formally, Ella shook her head ruefully, he could be terribly pompous at times. It was probably because in his human life he'd been a noble in the service of an emporer. "It might be useful if this council of day and nightwalkers working together was seen as working for thegood of all vampires." he finished.

This was a good idea she realised and was a way of reforming her splintered nation. She found that as the race drew back together she was getting stronger. Not only physically, but her mental power over the others increased.

* * *

It was a dark night with clouds blocking the moon. She'd just come back from a vist to her mother when she found him in her room. "Who are you and how did you get in here?" She demanded.
"I'm impressed," he said, "I'd heard the Vampirella had better senses than other vampires."
"Again," she said, "What are you doing in my room?"
"Why, my dear I'm surprised you even needed to ask," said Darko. "I'm here to kill you."

* * *

I look forward to finishing a chapter every week. When people leave comments for after the chapter it is really appreciated as I can then see that my work is appreciated.

How insidious is evil? Can it become genetic? Can good be genetic? Where does that leave freedom of choice?

I wish to thank Maggie Finson for her advice and support.

Darko returned from Arizona only to find that the majority of his junior acolytes had been killed. His best cook had gone missing and his senior acolytes ready to grab power from him. These were all major blows to Darko, but the thing that upset him the most was the loss of his cook.

* * *

The spell to get him home wasn't nearly as powerful as he had hoped and he landed up in Illinois. In Chicago to be precise. He didn't understand why the spell hadn't been strong enough, he must have used more magic against the vampire than he thought. He stayed in a motel for the night. As soon as he had a room he collapsed on the bed and slept for 18 hours.

When he checked out, he went straight to the airport to get a flight back to New York. He didn't have the correct I.D. for the flight on him but he could always use magic to make the airport officials believe he was showing them what they wanted. However when he the official at the check -in counter asked him for his I.D. the spell didn't work. Security was called and he was charged with suspicious behaviour. He spent the night behind bars after being told that he fit the description of a suspected terrorist.

His magic was still not working properly, but it was enough to get him out of his cell, although getting out of the station was another thing altogether. His magic wasn't working for him properly and so he had to resort to tricks he had learned during his childhood — beating people up. The police officer never even saw him coming. By the time he left the station three detectives and two uniformed police officers were dead.

Nobody caught the killer of these law enforcers but from the gruesome way their throats had been ripped out it would be five years until the investigation became a forgotten cold case. Darko then decided to call the New York chapter of his guild and tell them to send a car to him. Of course the person answering the phone was his senior apprentice, the man who had served him for 600 years.

Daemon Swill was nothing if not ambitious and after getting off the phone with Darko he knew his time had come. He was losing his power, not that Darko came out and told Swill but still, it was obvious that his fight with the vampire had left him weak and a dark magician only leads as long as he is the strongest. Loyalty to a leader plays no part in dark magic and so 600 years of companionship lead to only betrayal for Darko.

After Swill told Darko that Estacado had attacked and all the cars were destroyed Darko realised that he had some how given himself away; that he was now being challenged. He slammed the phoned down angrily on Swill. He was hungry and that likely had to do with the anger he felt. It was almost midday and he hadn't eaten since yesterday afternoon, he decided to go and have a deliciously rare steak for lunch.

The day was unusually bright and he had to shade his eyes from the glare. He must be coming down with something he thought, he felt very light-headed. The break in his magic must have let in a virus somewhere and because his body had been protected by magic for so long it probably felt worse than it was.

He eventually arrived at the restaurant after losing his way twice. It was cool and dark indoors out of the glare of the sun. He ordered his steak extra rare but when it came he found that the thought of eating it make him uneasy. He just put that down to his illness and forced himself to eat as he needed his strength if he was to defeat Swill.

The way back to the motel was even worse than the drive to the restaurant. The cab driver dropped him back at the motel and drove off after Darko paid. But Darko made the mistake of walking into the house across the road from the motel instead. By the time he realised his mistake he was sweating and beginning to shake.

He was 66 yrs old and had lead a fulfilling life. What he saw the man stumbling down his path he felt more than a slight twinge of unease. Adam Lambert would have liked to say that he had helped the man out of the good of his own heart but that would be lying, no, Adam Lambert just wanted him off of his property as soon as possible and he helped the man to leave.

Darko got back to the room and closed all the blinds. It was 5pm; he couldn't believe it when he looked at his watch and wondered what had he been doing for five hours? All of a sudden he felt nauseous, he got to the toilet just in time. However he threw up much more then just the steak he had eaten for lunch. Much, much more.

His next meal was at the same restaurant only it wasn't indoors but in the alley behind. His next meal wasn't steak or lamb or anything else that used to have four or more legs. No, his next meal was the bum who lived off of the scraps of food that the restaurant threw out. Darko's magic might have disappeared but his vampire gene had been activated.

He was now a nightwalker. If he hadn't been given immortality by the Darkness all those years ago and had been bitten by the soldier, he would have had no limitations. The only reason he would have a weakness against sunlight now was because the aspect of the Darkness used to give him his immortality was the same thing the Darkness had used in It's experiment to make the nightwalkers.

Darko decided to attack Swill who obviously thought he was still a mage although becoming a vampire had caused him to lose his powers, Swill wouldn't know that and all the traps he laid for he previous master would be ones to stop a magician. Not a vampire.

Darko cursed the vampire gene that he had been born with, it had taken away his magic and left him vulnerable to the daylight. He now would have to hire a car to get back to New York but suddenly he realised that he could run faster than a car and he would not tire until dawn. He snuck into the blood bank at the Children's Memorial Hospital of Chicago and stole 50 blood bags for the road- and he made a meal of the orderly who tried to stop him from getting in.

After stealing one of the overnight bags from a sleeping patients room he took out the clothes, replaced them with the blood bags and hit the road, running non-stop until dawn By the time he reached Pennsylvania and booked into a motel for the day the sun was just beginning to rise. He holed up in his room and drank thirty of the fifty blood bags behind the curtains blocking out the sun. As he sat in the dim light of his room contemplating the different ways he would torture Swill, he felt an energy that he hadn't since he lost his magic: the demonic energy of the Darkness.

Suddenly the television that had not been on flared to life and the most hideous being appeared on the screen. Darko however, never saw It's ugliness, only the beauty of it's power. The Darkness, first demon of the void spoke, “Sonny Darko you named yourself Sonnetine when I granted you immortality. What inspired you to change the name you took after receiving my gift?' Before Darko could answer the dark entity continued by answering it's rhetorical question, “Perhaps you decided that you were a better choice as my host.”

Sonnetine didn't say anything, the fear that the Darkness in it demon form inspired in him had wiped his mind of the cognitive ability to use words for the first minute of their one sided conversation. Finally Sonnetine got command of his mind and body enough to utter some words. “Uh- uh,” It continued indicating that It hadn't finished talking. “As much as I dislike dealing with my host, I have to admit that he is the strongest host I have ever had. He has defied me, he has stalled me and once he even wrested control from me.”

'No, you would have stood no chance against Estacado. As a human magician you were always hiding what you really wanted behind a veneer of False gentlemanliness. Now that, that has been stripped away from you, you can be the barbarian you have always wanted to be.”

“You see Darko, you and I are more alike than you would think, we both love chaos and we like to be the ones causing it, doing it. We don't like to be on the sidelines.”
Estacado has done more for me on his own than he would have under my direction. He spreads little bits of my Darkness on anybody who has dealings with him. He sows chaos wherever he goes because he loves being a 'gentleman' criminal. He is organised, I am more inclined to thuggery.”

“The veil between realities in the universe has begun to get thinner, the balance has tipped in favour for me and the crack in the doorway for me to enter this plane of existence has widened. I am now able to take a second host. We can do great things, starting with the vampire nation. Be my vampire host and I will make you stronger than Estacado.”

Darko was ecstatic. He'd waited a millennium for this, now it was his time. He'd take back what was his and then he'd begin his destruction. The demonic entity downloaded all the knowledge about the vampire queen into his brain. “She is the future of the vampire nation, kill her.” he was told. “She is more than she appears to be but then, so are you.”

Darko found that he could now go outdoors in the daylight but he was only as strong as a human in daylight hours. He became stronger in shaded areas but his full strength came at night and in the dark. He drank 10 more blood bags and kept the rest for his run back to New York. He spent the rest of the day deciding the numerous and painful ways he would kill Swill.

He left the motel at 6pm, although it wasn't fully dark yet it was dark enough for his vampire strength to reassert itself and when he arrived back in New York City at 10 pm. that night. It was 10.30 pm when he tore through the gates of his private estate. Nobody was prepared for such a thing to happen and by the time anyone thought to sound the alarm Darko had completed his task.

Daemon Swill was had just completed the ceremony to assist him in the increase of his magical strength, when the doors burst open and directly in front of him was Darko. Swill had prepared a spell to protect him from the wizard's magical attacks and so he was totally unprepared when Darko's lifted him by the throat.

He knew Darko was not that strong and so he deduced that the man was using magic and so he released his magical trap. To say he was surprised when it didn't work is an understatement, in fact if he wasn't being strangled he'd be hyperventilating. But whet Darko's fangs extended Swill realised what had happened. He crapped in his pants.

Actually he was wearing a robe that he had used for the ceremony and he didn't wear underwear when he did a ceremony. Losing control of his bowels probably saved his life. But it is doubtful that he saw that as a fortunate thing. When Darko first got hold of Swill he was so angry that he would have strangled him to death without thinking about it. Swill's loss of control brought the newest vampire back to himself.

“Daemon, Daemon, you've been a naughty boy and you need to be punished. The first thing you will do is tidy your mess up. Don't try to run away now because my new friend will tell me. Swill almost fainted when a darking appeared. The vampire left the room while Swill made all evidence of his fearfulness disappear.

Darko arrived back in the room with a dog leash, collar and a burlap sack. “Strip and put those on,” he said pointing to the sack and collar. “The sack has holes for your head and arms, once you've put them on get down on all fours. Once Swill had done as he was told Darko put the leash on the collar. “You are now a dog and a dog serves his master. You will never again walk on two legs in front of me. You will now sleep outside with the dogs and when it rains you will have a kennel. You may do a ritual to make yourself grow extra hair on your body to protect you from the cold and,” he grinned evilly “you will be my daily snack.”

Daemon Swill lived for just under a year, everyday half a pint of blood was taken directly from him by Darko or was taken from him via needles to be stored for Darko's travels. After 11 months Swill's body had had enough and he fell into a coma. He died 351 days after he had received his punishment from Darko.

* * *

“Why did you say the others can't drink the synthetic vampire food while they're still touched with Darkness aspects?” Ella asked Satanna.
“It's a very scientific explanation,” her mother told her, “I will try to simplify it for you. Every living creature, no matter how good or evil, has a soul.
At least it was that way when the world was first created. When the creator decided to create the universe the souls used to assist in the formation of physical matter from light were angels. It was decided that they would be the first to embody as humans.”

“The First Man was an angel embodying a human body. But without the Light the Angelus provides he could not see as he did when he was in spirit- form. “Now when I say he couldn't see, I don't only mean physically. The angel that had embodied as human was also spiritually and mentally blind. All he could think about at first were his wants and needs. He forgot his divine origins and only took what he wanted, he didn't plan or imagine, without Light he was less intelligent than a dog. The Creator saw this and sorrowed that the angel had forgotten.”

“Before the Angel had embodied, It had left part of it higher spiritual self as a conduit to communicate with the Creator. Although he had forgotten this because of his blindness, but a part of him deep inside remembered and sent a call for help and the Light was sent in the form of a woman and she brought him Sight.”

“Man and Woman played and created together for millennia but while their children had sight from the light handed down to them from their mother, the Man could only see when he was with the Woman.”

“It was about this time that the creator decided to give mankind freedom of choice. It was at this time that the Man- Angel was able to fully reconnect with his higher- self and they decided that there needed to be a tighter connection between higher and lower dimensions. So the angel left some of himself in the man but most of his essence returned to the higher realms.”

“What this separation and connection did also unknowingly, was open the door for dark energies. For all intents and purposes this is where the Adam and Eve story began. But the apples and snakes were really metaphors for choices and Darkness. But there are differences in the story. Because in patriarchal society men have altered it to keep women under their control.”

“Part of the angel stayed behind in the Man, but whereas most of the man's spirit was human, most of the Woman remained of the Light. Dark energies had been released into this dimension and grabbed the attention of the Man. They twisted his thoughts and he began to hold contempt for the Woman, as he believed that she kept the Light for Herself.”

“He tried to take It from Her by force and she rejected him. She left the physical dimension the second time he tried to force her to give him the Light. And from then on she remained with out a physical body and continued to fight the demon that had taken over his physical body.
And so came about the story of Lillith and Adam.”

“Adam was taken over by the Darkness completely and this saddened my father, your grandfather greatly as Adam had been part of Lucifer. So he came down to try to bring that part of his essence that was Adam back to himself. So while fallen angels are a big thing theologically, your grandfather's reason for coming was noble even if it was self- serving, and yes to get the Adam part of himself back he had to understand the Darkness. In doing so he did terrible things.”

“However I think that in the long run, if he hadn't been here to restrain the Darkness things in this reality and on this world would have been much worse. For it was Lucifer who banished the Darkness to the void. But not before the demon made a pact with a man to hold a piece of his essence. That deal was made with the man known as Abel.”

“Cane had a lover the was not a descendant of Eve, but of Lillith and therefore understood what was happening to Abel. The Darkness had not completed its transition of giving part of itself to Abel when Cane killed him. In revenge, the Darkness marked him as it's own and even though Cain never did anything evil to anyone in service of Darkness, he was shunned where ever he went. My father assisted Cane and ensured that no one could harm him, but that was all he could do for him.”

“The sad thing is that his lover was the first to shun him. And only on her death-bed did she learn the truth about what had happened. But Cane had died 200 years before her in his 700th year.” At Ella's appalled expression she laughed and said, “Yes once upon a time people did live that long.”

Ella shook her head, “No, no, it's not that. It's just that someone should write this down so people can really know what happened.”
“Oh. It is.” Satanna said. It's in another dimension at a place called BCTS.”

“So why is it that I'm the only vampire able to have 'vampire milk'.”
“As I was going to say, before I went on some tangent” She smiled, “Once the Darkness had entered this realm the higher aspects of the ascended beings and angels created beings specifically to fix things that it had caused to go wrong. This was done by combining aspects of their spiritual selves and then use these in bodies with greater strength than humans as their tools on earth to fix things. They were just bodies, and had no soul because the angels needed to remember what they were doing. These people were like puppets for the Divine.

The Darkness tried to take control of them but It couldn't, however it could hurt them. “'Vampire milk' can heal human illness. So when these bodies were hurt they were given vampire milk. Sadly we found out that if a person with similar DNA to vampires is touched by darkness, and they drink 'vampire milk' there bodies begin to die. These un- souled bodies designed by the angels had the same DNA that vampires do. Some of these beings were injured and were given Vampire milk to heal but instead of healing they began to rot.”

“All vampires but you and” Satanna's tone softened and her eyes saddened “another have been touched. I don't know what will happen if you feed the others the milk, but I would prefer to err on the side of caution.”

* * *

After Ella had taken her fill and was no longer hungry as she farewelled her mother. She had a lot to think about and she had not noticed that she still had a splash of milk on her cheek, if Darko had not been waiting for her in her rooms she would have noticed it and cleaned her face before she saw anyone. However the newest vampire surprised her, she certainly didn't expect him to attack.

Darko smelled something wonderful on the vampire queen. Actually all of her smelled delicious but there was a spot of liquid on her cheek that smelled even better. He had knocked her on the ground and was on top of her holding her down when he noticed it. So instead of going in for the kill he licked it off her face.

The Vampirella saw the man leap at her, normally she would have moved out of the way in time but he had surprised her. His mouth came down toward her, but surprising ly he didn''t go for her jugular.
“Mm-mm-mma,” Darko said as he licked the liquid off her cheek. “Tasty.” The dark overtones of his voice reminding her of the child molesters she'd put away as Gleason.
“Oh shit.” She muttered to herself as she gathered her strength and threw Darko off of her body,.

In that instant a dizziness came over him and this gave her a chance to throw him off but she realised what had happened and a sudden knowing that if he was left alive he would cause havoc.
Her encounter with celestial flame gave her abilities far beyond other vampires and so even as she moved in for the kill, she knew he would get away.

Darko escaped with his life — barely.

'What do I do now?' she thought when she realised that Darko had tasted the splashed milk on her face. She didn't know how the milk would affect him but she did know that he had to be kept away from the other people in her fledgeling nation. Her first call was telepathic, giving every member of her race a description of the man and a warning for them to stay away from him as he was suspected of being infected with a contagious and incurable disease.

After that, she phoned Dani and told her what had happened she asked the Angelus for her aid. “You see the problem is that I don't know how this will affect him or those around him.” She continued,”He seemed different Dani, like a nightwalker only stronger. The nightwalkers have more demonic essence than daywalkers but this vampire felt like he had a hundred times that essence. Something's happening, I'm not sure what but I've a feeling I'm going to need all the help I can get in dealing with this.”

* * *

The entity that was the Darkness was satisfied. Now that a new gateway had opened, It had a chance of dealing with the Angelus on equal footing. With two hosts now available to It, worldwide chaos was almost in it's grasp.
* * *

As always, you comments are appreciated.

How insidious is evil? Can it become genetic? Can good be genetic? Where does that leave freedom of choice?

The government limousine that had picked Stephanie up from the airport sped along the highway at a speed that was above the limit. It passed police cars which didn't give chase because it was a diplomatic vehicle. Unfortunately for the passenger in the back seat of the vehicle this felt more like a kidnapping.

* * *

Stephanie had been stressed out for the entire flight back to Australia. Jacques had tried- unsuccessfully to calm her down. She had told him what had happened to her in France and how Charles Szasz had unsuccessfully tried to transfer his consciousness into her and had only partially succeeded.

“That's good isn't it?” he'd asked her when she told him that she now knew everything Szasz had known.
“I suppose it is in the way that I'm super smart now...” she trailed off
“But...?” He prompted.
“I'm heir to his criminal empire! I don't know what to do. He's opened bank accounts all over the world and I'm the only one with the knowledge of how to access them, but if I do I become a target for the people he had his darker dealings with. I wouldn't even worry about it except that he set up some organisations that actually did some good.”

Jacques didn't have a decent answer for her because he found this turn of events hilarious and the only sound that came out of his mouth every time she looked at him was the laughter he so gallantly tried to hold in when they were together.

Since Jacques wasn't any help in deciding how to handle her dilemma she could only think about asking one other for advice. However this concerned her, she considered Dani her best friend and she wanted to talk to her but Dani fought darkness. She had to wonder, if Dani got involved in this would she lose her friendship with the human aspect of the Angelus? For these reasons and others, she got no sleep on the flight and when she disembarked from the plane she was in a bad mood.

As she had been in France on business tor the embassy, the car that came to pick them up was an embassy car. Jacques held the door open for her to get in but before he could climb into the back seat after her the driver accelerated, driving off and leaving him on the pavement.
At first Stephanie was surprised but but her agitation passed quickly. “What do you want from me?” She asked the man driving the car, yet she was greeted with only silence.

Stephanie thought of using her abilities to compel the man to stop the car but then she realised that she was never in any danger and that if she wanted to discover what was going on she would have to just let what was happening happen. Oddly, as they reached the outskirts of Sydney an hour later she realised that they seemed to be retuning the way they had come.

The car turned onto an unpaved road leading to a farm but it stopped ten metres from the gates leading into it. The driver got out, opened her door and said, “Follow me.”
“And if I don't?” she queried.
“Then I carry you kicking and screaming,” he replied without expression.

She followed him in the opposite direction from the diplomatic vehicle into a field that seemed to be an extension of a horse ranch. They walked to the stables where a different person was waiting. It was actually a woman, one Stephanie knew very well although she was sure the woman didn't think that she would remember her as the principal of her childhood primary school. Once they were alone the woman told her to get onto one of the ponies and follow her. Stephanie considered pretending that she couldn't ride but realised that this woman knew her as a child and she would know that before she became ill as a child she had been taught to ride.

Stephanie climbed on but wouldn't go faster than a quick walk saying that she had hurt her back and didn't want to jar it. The woman appeared dissatisfied but didn't force the issue. They walked through a small area of woodland, bush and trees only to arrive at another gate with a Mercedes sports car waiting. She got into the car without being told to and the woman who used to be a teacher drove them back toward Sydney, back to the airport to be precise.

“So where are we off to?” Stephanie asked.
“We shall be going America” Came the reply. “I have a gun so no funny business. Do what I say and no-one will be hurt.”
“Ooh,” said Stephanie sarcastically, “I suppose you won't hurt me but you will kill me. Tell me, what would your mother say if she knew you'd grow up to be a kidnapper?”
“Don't bring my mother into this,” the woman said. “She's got nothing to do with this.”
Stephanie smiled, the woman was getting flustered. “Teaching is such a noble profession, unless you're one of those people who become a teacher to bully children to make you feel better about yourself. 'Now,' she thought to herself, 'time to drop the bombshell.'But you never seemed to be that way. Isn't that true Madame Perier?” From where she was sitting she saw the woman go pale.

“You remember? How do you remember? They said no-one remembers”
“Well,” sneered Stephanie “It seems they were wrong.”
“So tell me madame, what makes you want to kidnap someone working for France? What caused you to become this corrupt person.”
The ex-headmistress seemed to be getting angry, this is exactly what Stephanie wanted but her questioning seemed to backfire because the older woman's mouth shut and she didn't speak until they had boarded a private plane that had been scheduled to fly to New York.

After they had reached a certain height and had levelled out Miss Perier finally couldn't stand having to be quiet. “I'M NOT THE ONE WHO BETRAYED MY GOVERNMENT! Oh yes, I know all about you Stephanie Roux. I work for the DGSE, do you think the French Government don't know who their traitors are?”
“Who told you that I was a traitor?” Stephanie asked, genuinely curious.
When the woman wouldn't open up any further Stephanie had no choice but to use pheromones to find out what she was hiding.

The pheromones didn't work and instead of willingly telling Stephanie what she wanted to know, the woman collapsed in a faint. However, something that Stephanie had never experienced before happened. The part of her power that hid her face stopped working as her face once more felt the air on her skin. It was fortunate that she had was tied to a seat because she would have fallen onto the floor as she felt her mind separate from her body.

She was back in the offices of the DGSE in Paris. The entire building had been placed on alert to look out for anybody that looked different. It was almost noon and nothing untoward had happened all morning but at noon a man with no face walked into the building. Nobody had been able to stop him from getting where he wanted to go. When he appeared again from wherever he'd been he'd told her to detain a woman at the Australian Airport, this woman, he told her was a spy- a double -agent selling France's secrets to the highest bidder. She must subdue and capture this woman and prevent her from leaving the airport.

The woman in the description was Stephanie, but what was odd was the destination the orders told them to take her to: New York City, USA.

Twenty hours later the plane touched down at JFK international airport. Steph had allowed the woman (who had regained consciousness none the wiser from the experience) to take her to a waiting car which drove them to an estate near the ferry station to Staten Island. This was one of Jackie Estacado's more secure estates.

* * *

To an observer Jackie Estacado may have seemed to be focusing on one situation most of the time. It also seemed like he was a playboy. This is what gave him an edge over his enemies. Much of his business he took care of without anybody knowing. He would do all the planning, signing and get reports from his underlings but once everything was set up he would let Butch take care of the implementation of his business activities.

However the one thing that he did keep aware of no matter how many other things he had going on was Alomeg Resources. It had taken him two years to find out anything about it, once he had discovered it was run by a madman in France, he set out to find out how to get control of Szasz's business. When he realised that he would not be able to do this, even with the Darkness working for him, he was furious.

He didn't know how the man had done it but he seemed to have enslaved the minds of all those who had worked for him and Estacado was unable to influence anyone in his organisation. When he heard that the man had been caught he tried to find out if there was any way to find out more about his business. When the man began going on about an heir, Estacado was one of the few people who didn't discount it as the ramblings of a nutcase.

His contacts in France and those who had infiltrated the mental asylum in Paris where Szasz had been held before he had died had explained that Szasz had developed some sort of experiment and had ensured it compatible with a human. He had found out that the person who was the holder of whatever the experiment was, would be the heir.

It wasn't very hard to discover Stephanie was the supposed heir, but if Estacado had known more about her he would probably have left her alone. Unfortunately for him or maybe fortunately, he didn't.

Estacado had first heard about Alomeg Resources when he required some top assassins to assist him in getting rid of one of his rivals a year before he received the Darkness. They gave top- notch service - a hitman so good that he would never be seen, but someone who would not talk if he got caught.

Estacado was so impressed with the professionalism of the organisation, he kept using them even after he had the Darkness to work for him. When he got word that Szasz had been transferred while blabbering on about an heir he realised that an opportunity had opened for him. All he needed to do was find this heir.

He first found one of the people who had voluntarily undergone one a Szasz's human experiments in the '70's. He'd then used the Darkness to give him the powers that the experiment was supposed to give him but didn't. This was the man that Stephanie had seen in her vision. The Darkness had given him pheromone based powers similar to those that Stephanie had.

Ms. Perier was the only agent at the DGSE that the pheromone was still affecting however the more time she spent with Stephanie who had been touched with celestial fire, which was the opposite of what had altered her perception, the more unhinged the poor woman became. And so it happened that as they were driving through the front gates of Estacado's mansion the woman had a brain aneurysm and the car went out of control and smashed through the wall leading to the sitting room of Estacado's Mansion. Because of this Butch Babliano was unable to warn his friend and boss that Stephanie would call to the Angelus.

As Stephanie got out of the car on shaky legs her eyes met Estacado's the part of her that had been touched by the Angelus recognised the Darkness immediately and sent out an alert to all aspects of itself that it was in the vicinity of it's enemy.

Danielle Baptise, human form of the Angelus, had just received a phone call from Vampirella and had been about to go to her, now found herself changing direction and ending up in the same room as Jackie Estacado. He stood in the shadow of the room and the aspect of the Darkneess appeared on his features facing the Angelus in all her glory.

Steph couldn't help but think about a gunfight in an old western movie.

* * *

In Flagstaff, Arizona Geoffrey had been given a hero's welcome as the lost school- children were returned by the newest superhero. The fact that everyone knew him didn't stop them from asking him what his superhero name was. Although he had told everyone that his superheroing days were over- at least until he had finished school.

Geoff and Sarah had talked and had decided that it was necessary for her to remain more or less unknown while she was still studying magic. They went back to there everyday life of school and being involved in the teenage politics of popularity.

While Geoff had to deal with the government types over his metagene activation, Sarah was able to pursue her interests. Every weekend she would spend time with James White- Eagle learning the ins and outs of shamanism and white sorcery.

The soldier had been observing this odd trio for the past couple of weeks when Geoff accidentally stumbled onto him feeding. Being the hero that he was, even though he didn't want to have the responsibility of being a hero, he went after the vampire but was unprepared for the speed of the creature. He recognised the vampire from the warehouse and he wasn't ready to deal with what he classed as a creature that might be magical and so he didn't give chase. He made sure that the creature's intended victim was okay. When he had done all he could, he went back home to tell Sarah.

Sarah and James White Eagle were doing what Sarah later explained as a moving meditation and couldn't talk to her until she was finished. An hour later James and Sarah walked into the room where Geoff was sitting and he told them all about the vampire. Geoff asked how they should deal with it because he didn't know how to fight what might be a magical supernatural being.

“Vampires, while villainised by by many books are not actually all bad,” said James. “From what I've seen over the years they seem to have hidden from society by joining it. Most people don't realise they exist because they generally work to earn a living and to fit in, but they don't socialise with humans. They certainly wouldn't want to draw attention to themselves by a string of murders.
The largest vampire city that I know of is New York, I'll make some enquiries.
And that's how the soldier was able to get Sarah on her own. Geoff had given James a lift to the airport so he catch his flight to New York and Sarah was at home working on a particularly tricky aspect of magical imaging which was similar to taking a magical photograph.

It was 7pm and she was seated in a circle of candles interspersed with crystals when the windows of her room crashed. She had been deep within a meditative trance and was just beginning to come out of it when the door to the meditation chamber was kicked in.

The soldier had been excited, the young sorceress smelled fresh and would taste good. Her blood would give him the power to defeat the sorcerer. However as soon as he saw her in the circle he stopped.
“Ah,” she smiled, “I see you've dealt with magic before. You see I suspected you would be coming soon, I just didn't know when.”
The soldier snarled, “Come out of your circle and fight me witch, or are you afraid?”
Sarah just stared at him hoping would her next words would save her. “Vampire I know I'm no match for you but as long as I'm in this circle all I have to do is wait for the others to come back.”
“Oh please don't wait on my account little girl” he said taking a book of matches out of his pocket. He then sliced his hand with a sharp piece of glass that he had taken from the broken window.

“You know,” he said conversationally, “vampire blood is extremely flammable.” He began to dribble blood from his hand over the curtains and in various locations around the room. “Either way you die- by flame or by me. Flame will be longer and more painful, make it easy on yourself and come to me.”

Sarah knew what she had to do next but she was petrified, her mouth was dry and her legs were shaking. The vampire shrugged, “Okay, but don't say I didn't give you a chance” he lit a match and tossed it onto a blood soaked curtain. Sarah's legs unfroze at the sight of the flames and she stumbled to her knees, reaching out to break the circle by snatching up one of the crystals.

“I'm coming, just put out the fire.” She called with a trembling voice.
The vampire smiled, “I'm sorry, I never brought any water to do that but don't worry you'll be a part of me soon and won't need to live in this house anyway.”
Suddenly her whole demeanour changed and the vampire realised something was shifting in the room's energies.

“You know, psychopaths tend to get overconfident once they think everything has worked out for them,” she said holding the piece of crystal tightly in her hand. She had finally managed to work out the imaging technique and would use it to save her life. She drew from energies stored in the crystal and envisioned the vampire. There was a click and the soldier felt his body seize up. He was paralysed, he couldn't move.

“Normally this spell isn't used on living creatures without permission but, since you're trying to kill me I decided that I wasn't going to ask. You have actually been caught in a magical version of a camera, you might say that your molecules are on pause.” She continued, “this paralysis you are feeling is temporary and I don't know how much time I have,” she said walking over to one of the blood spattered curtains. “I tell you quite honestly that normally I wouldn't stand a chance against you, so without further ado I'll say 'goodbye'.” She threw the burning curtain over the soldier causing him to burst into flame.

Satanna was in the middle of a conference call with the other heads of state when she became aware of his death. Her son, her darling boy had finally found peace. She excused herself from the meeting,went to her chambers and broke down in tears. Even though she mourned, she was grateful to whoever it was that had ended his suffering.

* * *

The being once known as Lucifer observed the lines of battle being drawn up between the Angelus and the Darkness and smiled perhaps his long exile was coming to an end. Hopefully he would soon be able to go home.

I appreciate any and all comments.

IMPORTANT PLAYERS IN ACT 2

DANIELLE (DANI) BAPTISTE/ THE EMBODIED ANGELUS

MARIE- ELISE BAPTISTE / DIANIELLE'S MOTHER

STEPANIE ROUX / DANI'S FRIEND WITH ALTERED DNA

JAQUES VERVOUX / STEPHANIE'S BODYGUARD AND FORMER KIDNAPPER

FLAME THE ANGELUS WARRIOR /THE ONCE HUMAN HOWARD STERN

VERA STERN / HOWARD'S SISTER

FINCH /DANI'S LOVER AND SECOND-IN-COMMAND

CHARLES VICTOR SZASZ / MAD SCIENTIST

THE SOLDIER / PSYCHOPATHIC VAMPIRE

VAMPIRELLA / VAMPIRE QUEEN

TERAK / HER ASSISTANT

SATANNA / VAMPIRELLA'S MOTHER AND THE DEVILS DAUGHTER

SONNY DARKO / 1000-YEAR OLD BLACK MAGICIAN

JAMES WHITE-EAGLE / WHITE SORCERER

SARAH ROBINSON / HIS APPRENTICE

GEOFF ROBINSON / SARAH'S METAHUMAN BROTHER

JACKIE ESTACADO / HUMAN HOST OF THE DARKNESS

BUTTCH 'THE BUTCHER' BABLIONE / JACKIE'S SECOND — IN — COMMAND

LILLITH / THE UNEMBODIED ANGELUS

ADAM / WAS ONCE THE FIRST MAN AND HAS BEEN CORRUPTED BY THE DARKNESS

LUCIFER — THE DEVIL

MAJOR PLAYERS FOR ACT 3

DANI BAPTISTE

FINCH

JACKIE ESTACAO

BUTCH BABLIONI

STEPHANIE ROUX

SONNY DARKO

VAMPIRELLA

SATANNA

LUCIFER

MARIE — ELISE BAPTISTE

JAQUES VERVOUX

JAMES WHITE - EAGLE

SPECIAL GUESTS PLAYERS

GINGER CALVERT, THE BEARER OF THE WITCHBLADE

BRENT, HER FRIEND

I wish to thank Maggie Finson for letting me use her character. The Darkness, The Angelus and The Witchblade are all the property of Top Cow which is a subsidiary of Image Comics. Dynamite Entertainment has the rights to Vampirella. I do not intend to profit from this story.

My friends always called me Ginger but the truth is far more complex.

Ginger is actually the name of the woman I fell in love with and while we were on an archeological dig searching for an artifact known as the Witchblade, we were murdered. One might ask who's 'we' when there's only me.

I was a professor of archeology at one of our nation's fine educational establishments. Which one no longer matters as does the name of said professor that used to be me. Ginger was my TA and we had just found the Witchblade when intruders demanded that we give them the artefact. In the end we were shot Ginger died with me.

However the Witchblade is some sort of supernatural object and I didn't die, but I did end up with Ginger's body as my own while my own male body did die. The jury is still out to whether Ginge is totally gone, I guess only time will tell.

It's been over a year since my gender bender and I have one companion who knows the truth about me. His name is Brent and he's super cute, he's also ex-military and handy to have around in a fight. He's great in bed as well, at least I'd like to think so. Ta- da, that answers whether I've adjusted to my new life- yes- I love being a woman.

At the moment, Brent and I are on the way to Dallas. It seems that the screwball- Rourke is his name- that killed me (well, sort of) found out the assumed name that I was using and is after me again. So this is the second time that I've had to up and change my whole life around due to that fucking asshole Rourke. So the plan is to get new identities in Dallas through some contacts that I have there.

These were the thoughts going through Ginger's head as she drove down the dusty highway toward Texas. It was the beginning of October and the weather wasn't too cold but she had been getting hotter and she didn't understand why. The Witchblade had also begun to act strangely, she felt a sudden twitching in the the actual bracelet and an urge to change destinations to New York.

She turned to Brent, "The Witchblade is sentient and sometimes it wants me to do certain things that make no sense until they happen and sometimes they make no sense at all. But always it has benefitted me to listen to what it wants."
"I don't know about that," he replied, "I don't like following something for no reason."
Ginger thought this funny, "Didn't you do that in the marines?" she said with a smile to let him know that she wasn't serious."
"In the marines there is always someone higher up who knows the reason for doing what we do. I have faith that the commanders generally know how best to deploy the troops acording to the information they receive." In response the Witchblade hummed as if it was telling her that it was the general of it's own army.

They were just about to leave Oklahoma and enter Texas when her foot 'slipped' and the car stalled. She knew straight away that it was the Witchblade's doing. She realised that it would not leave them in peace until it got what it wanted.
"Brent, it seems like we're going to New York."
"Okay," he replied, "If you really think it's the best idea. But we're going to have to get the car to a garage."
"No, now that we've decided to go to New York the car will work again." She was right. The vehicle started on the first try as they began heading toward New York City.

"It's going to take us about fifteen to get to our destination," said Brent, "maybe we shoud stop for some fuel and food."
The Witchblade gave a disgruntled hum but Ginger supposed the artefact knew about the human need for food because it had bonded to so many humans before. They pulled up tothe next station to fill up and buy some stuff to eat.

They were drinking coffee when Brent saw a cloud of dust in the distance and pointed it out to Ginger. With the enhanced senses given to her by the Witchblade she could tell that the dust was stirred up from the four vehicles coming toward them. "We have to go. Now!" She said tensely. They got back into the 2-seat Mersedes with it v12 engine. Five minutes later there was no sign of anything behind them. Three hours later they were entering New York City with the Witchblade directing them to Jackie Estacado's mansion.

* * *

Flame had had enough of serving the Angelus, he had tried to put aside his prejudice about her being a lesbian but was unable to do so. He had begun to isolate himself from the other Angelus warriors and had decided that he would go out fighting instead of having to continue to serve a divine being who had so obviously strayed from the path of righteousnous.

Finch was aware of Flame's prejudice and had taken steps to ensure he didn't cause problems. She didn't like doing this but one of her abilities as second in command was to acertain thoughts of her warriors if they could be compromised in battle. So before leaving Australia she had asked for volunteers to stand in the first line of attack in case of a battle and Flame was a volunteer.

Dani had given Flame a second chance, a chance at redemption. He liked the woman who embodied the Angelus but he was unable to in good conscience serve a being that was doing something that, in his eyes was an abomination before God. He wondered if he died in service of the Light if he now would be admitted into heaven.

* * *

As soon as Estacado put on the aspect of the Demon, Darko felt the call of darkness calling to Darkness and he went to Estacado's aid. It was still daylight however, and he had to travel the way every human did as his vampire speed would only come into effect at night. He left what he had come to call his"base" on the fastest motorcycle that he owned without even noticing the traffic accidents he caused.

It was testament to how much he had let the Darkness overtake him for whereas before he felt only disgust and scorn for Estacado, he now regarded him as a brother. Estacado shared something with him that made them family and family were meant to look out for each other- even if it meant killing them. But for now the Darkness wanted Estacado protected.

* * *

The Angelus stood facing Estacado her fury pouring off Her in flames of Light, She was going to destroy the Darkness bearer now. As she raised her hand to begin her attack a sharp jab of anger cut through Her mind like a knife. 'Don't renege on our contract Lillith,' Dani warned.

The Angelus didn't think of heself as Lillith, that was a name that humanity had labelled her with but Dani had explained that humanity uses names and labels to connect with others and, she accepted that name. The afore mentioned contract stated that She would become one with Dani and that Dani would be in command of the Angelus force. The Angelus had accepted Dani and Finch's terms as she thought that she needed a new method to break Her stalemate with the Darkness.

Estacado saw The Angelus raise Her arm to attack and he called forth Darkness to protect himself. The Darkness came to his protection flaring up to defend him and plunging half the room into shadow.

Butch Bablioni had come in too see what had happened when Stephanie blindsided him. Butch was not a small man and his years of working alongside the Darkness had made him stronger than an ordinary person but Stephanie was not an ordinry person, in fact, she was his opposite just as Estacado was Dani's. However due to the manipulations of a madman, Stephanie had other aspects to her that Butch didn't have.

While Butch's superior strength, speed and agility were greater than Stephanie's, she had mutated DNA and she could make her own pheremones. Butch stood and faced her while rubbing his jaw, he lowed his hand and narrowed his eyes and before she could even register it his hand lashed out knocking her accross the room.

Stephanie was dazed and Bablioni grabbed her hair before she could clear her mind.He swung her around by her hair like an olympian throwing a shotput. He released her and she went flying across the room and right through the hole in the wall where the car had crashed and landed in the flower bed. Butch stormed out to put an end to to the little bint- that was his slip up.

As she fell into the flower bed the odour of the flowers brought her back to herself and she was prepared for the man when he reached her. She let out a muscle relaxant and she had to dodge about for the 30 seconds for it to take effect. Although Butch was faster,stronger and more agile than the ordinary human, so was she. The only problem was he was still faster and stronger than her but she managed to evade him for ten seconds.

By the time he managed to hit her the muscle relaxing pheromone had begun it's work and the what would have been a punch powerful enough to break her bones, was now just a very painful blow. She shook it off and carried on dancing out of his way and at twenty seconds when the punch landed it was like she was being hit by a child.

At twenty- five seconds Butch could no longer lift his arms, at twenty- eight his legs collapsed under him and at thirty he was asleep. Stephanie looked around and said to no one in particular, "Has anyone got a blanket?"

* * *

If anyone could see over the walls of the manor that Estacado was residing at, they would have seen something that had not occured since the eruption of Pompei- a battle between the Darkness and the Angelus. Of course Flame was about to be the first angelus warrior to attack the Darkness without the Angelus being absolutely certain of every move he would make. He lead half of the warriors to attack the lesser darkings while Finch attacked the greater ones.

Battles between these two entities always caused natural catastrophes, the temperature of the Earth's core beneath New York was already rising. And no one would realise anything was wrong until it was too late. Dani could feel what was happening and realised that she had to end this before things got out of control.

"Jackie," she called to him across the room, "You're going to lose a lot of business if you destroy New York." This made him pause but in It's fervour to rid itself of It's ancient enemy the Darkness had already taken over his physical body.

When he didn't answer the ancient part of the Angelus that humanity knew as Lillith showed this to Dani. Suddenly Dani recalled something she had learned when she first became the Angelus. She call out to the First man, "ADAM, I WOULD TALK WITH YOU!"
Estacado froze, and darkness began to gather in the room more deeply.

"WOMAN, I AM NO MORE ADAM THAN YOU ARE LILLITH" came the voice out of thin air.
"AND YET YOU WEAR HIS FORM. BUT," she continued "THERE IS SOMETHING ADAM ALWAYS WANTED," The command was instantaneous and Flame realised this is what he was meant to do, he called all the senior warriors to him and they launched themselves at the deformed monstrosity that had once been the Man Adam. "I GIVE YOUR SHARE OF THE LIGHT.

The Darkness screamed, the Angelus screamed and the devil apppeared.

"How can this be?" Brent repeated for the third time. "We shouldn't be entering New York for at least another eight hours, did the Witchblade get us here this quickly?" he inquired of Ginger.
"I've never experienced or heard of the Witchblade involving itself in any aspect af time travel, the only time it did was just after it's birth and it was assisted by a great sorcerer."

"I think this came from a different source and judging by the way I've been feeling of late, I think I know where our speed came from." As the car approached Jackie Estacado's house there was a tremendous flash of Light and Brent had to shield his eyes, "Jesus Christ what was that!?" he exclaimed.
Ginger sighed but her hands tightened on the steering wheel, her voice showed her stress. "That," she said, "Is a fight between the parents of the Witchblade."
At Brent's blank look she explained, "The Witchblade is the offspring of the two primal forces in the universe — The Angelus (The Light) and The Darkness. In some circles, it is known as the Balance as it balances these two forces."

Brent looked thoughtful, "So the Witchblade senses 'a disturbance in the force' and leads you to the ones who are causing said problem."
Ginger smiled, "Pretty much."
"That still doesn't explain how we got here so quickly," he said.
"I have a theory Ginger replied, theAngelus has an ability for interdimensional travel it's possible that she might have called but," she carried on with a frown " highly unlikely.
"Wait I'm a bit lost here, why unlikely?"
"Well for one thing, the Angelus doesn't have a full grasp of comradeship, she has her warriors of Light and doesn't think she needs anyone else. She doesn't really care about people unless they can be used to help her in her mission, to rid the world of the Darkness. When she needs to use a physical body she will eventually take over that body completely and it will lose whatever personality that the being inside it had before The Angelus arrived."

Brent looked horrified, "That's like destroying a soul!"
"To the Angelus souls are what She's saving from The Darkness. To Her if one soul must be sacrificed for the greater good, that's acceptable."
"Then why do you think there's a possibility that we got here so quickly because of her?"
Ginger got a strange look in her eyes. "Soon after we left for Texas, before we changed direction to NewYork, I began to feel this heat, it didn't seem to come from anywhere I could see and no one around me had taken to wearing different clothes because it was too hot. I gathered that it must be only me feeling this way. That heat could have been the energetic leak of an inter-dimensional rift caused by the Angelus."

"Then if the Angelus is doing that, which you say is unlikely, something must have changed." he concluded.
"Mmhmm," she replied her mind obviously elsewhere.
As the Mercedes came to a stop there was a loud roar of an engine and a thud on the roof. Then the roof began to rise. At first Brent was puzzled until he realized something was pulling the roof off the car. Five seconds later the he saw the ambomination.

IT WAS A VAMPIRE! An honest to god vampire right out of the movies, or rather Buffy, only uglier. He looked over at Ginger only to find that she was no longer there, instead he saw her flying out of the car and knocking the creature backwards. He was stunned as this wasn't the sweet Ginger who had been his neighbour, this was a ferocious warrior with combat skills honed in the heat of battle. At that moment he didn't know her, at that moment she frightened him. But Brent was a seasoned marine he shook off his hesitation and moved to assist her if he could..

"Well, well, if it isn't our wayward offspring," said the vampire. Ginger looked puzzled as she said, "How can there be two of you?"
"It's a sign of the times," it laughed, "...and I'm evolving. The world grows more chaotic and so does my influence."
"So it seems that I'm not assisting you this time, that a relief!"
"Oh you and your ideas of balance are outdated just like the Light. Soon I will take everything back and then all will be as it should have been aeons ago. Darkness will reign!"

Brent had been quietly sneaking behind the vampires back and was preparing an attack when the creature turned to face him. "You idiot," it sneered, "you can't sneak up on me! Maybe you could on an ordinary vampire but I, I am the Darkness!
Brent had never understood why so many superpowered madmen liked to monologue but he was grateful for this because it had distracted the vampire from Ginger who now attacked it from behind.

She appeared to be covered in an armor which seemed to be as flexible as she was. It seemed to to grow and shoot toward the creature like arrows and then it penetrated the body of the vampire in two separate areas. The strands of the witchblade began to pull in separate directions and the vampire's body was ripped apart. Brent threw up in the bushes.

"Come on," she urged, "he won't stay dead for long, follow me."
They ran toward the house where sounds of fighting had been coming from but suddenly ceased and in it's place screams rent the air.

* * *

Vampirella knew what was happening, it had taken her a while to figure it out but now that she had she could only hope that they could battle the Darkness without her. She had learned of the rogue vampire death from her mother. For some reason her mother was saddened by his death but, for some reason wouldn't explain her sadness. Ella accepted that Satanna would talk about it in her own time, so she didn't push her.

She did however, piece together that this new vampire that had attacked her was the dark magician that she had heard rumours about. She figured that the rogue had probably awoken the dormant vampire gene which would have changed him. She had assumed that the new vampire had killed the rogue, but that was before the visit from James White-Eagle.

She wasn't quite sure how he found them, she asked but he didn't give a very straightforward answer. All she knew was that he knew a family of daywalkers in New York City and they told him about the new vampirella. But nobody, exept for the council knew exactly where she stayed each night and she would know if somebody had told the sorcerer. So she could only presume that he had used magic to find her.

White- Eagle had been born in 1310 A.D and had been the shaman of a small part of the Navajo nation. In his 33th year of life on earth he was given the choice of serving the world instead of just his own small community and after faking his own death he left the shores of what would one day become known as the United States of America, to study sorcery, healing, alchemy, religion and spirituality in the many different countries around the world.

He'd arrived on her doorstep without alerting anyone and surprised her by telling them everything that had happened in Arizona. At first she was put out that a human was able to find her but the longer they spoke the more impressed she became with the man.

White -Eagle it seemed, knew precisely what happened to the rogue, he also explained to her that theDarkness had over-extended Itself and there was a chance that It could lose much of It's hold on the world. However this had to be done before It got used to having two hosts.

He explained to her that because Darko was now also a host for the Darkness, Estacado would be the weak link because the Demon of the void would be concentrating on gaining control of the new host. She would need to deal with the new host of the Darkness, but only after he got overconfident.
Their whole strategy hinged on the Witchblade.

* * *

Stephanie stared at the Angelus and the Darkness, she glanced at the sleeping Bablioni and looked back at the two entities that seemed to be writhing in agony. Her friend was in pain and she didn't know what to do. Suddenly their cries of pain stopped and Estacado and Dani collapsed.and into the room stepped a new player, an extremly handsome man, with red skin that seemed to glow with fiery heat. She couldn't be sure, but it looked like his hair was concealing something.

She was about to run forward to see if Dani was okay but strong arms grabbed her from behind, "Don't be a fool!" Ginger snapped as she held Stephanie back. She struggled against Ginger's grip but couldn't run forward. She released pheremones but nothing happened. Eventually she just resorted to begging, "Please, she's my best friend." Ginger's arms loosened but didn't let go. She turned Steph around and looked in her eyes.
"Don't worry about her, she's been through worse than this."
Steph wasn't convinced, "How do you know?"
Ginger smiled a smile that had no humour in it, "Because she's my mother."

It took a while for what the woman said to register in Stephanie's mind. "That's not possible she's younger than you." Steph retorted.
"I am talking about the little trinket that is now a part of me- the Witchblade. The Angelus is the Witchblade's mother."
Ginger didn't want to tell the girl that the Angelus had probably consumed her friend, but that was her modus operandi: Obtaining a new body and then taking control.
"Okay, she's your mother, but she's different now, she shares my friends body."
Ginger sighed, "You see that guy over there who just appeared out of no where?"
Steph nodded.
"You don't want anything to do with him."
"Why?" she asked
The reply came, "Lucifer is very unpredictable."

* * *

It burned. He felt it burning, a part of him that had not felt pain for eons. He had once been Adam, but jealousy drove him to the ultimate folly. He had surrendered his soul in order to extract revenge.
'The person who coined the saying 'revenge is sweet' probably regrets it.' This flashed through his mind. Did he just think that he wondered. He was amazed to realise that he did. After so long not having access to his own mind Adam was suddenly aware of himself again.

* * *

Jackie Estacado burned. It was painful but it felt good.
In the haze of pain he saw exactly what the Darkness was and his mind trembled in fear. It had destroyed each and every one of it's former hosts corrupting them until their spirit was so stained that the only way to cleanse themselves was with celestial fire, which the Darkness thought would never happen while the Angelus and Itself were at odds. And so while the male and female aspects of these forces were drawn together, the demon of the void kept them apart. And to do this it began a gender war.

The plan was actually one of the cleverer things that the Darkness acheived, but It never took into account that the plan was going to fail when men wanted to be women and women wanted to be men. It never took into account female brains in male bodies and vice- versa and it definitely didn't take into account the meta- gene gender switch.

And so it was that the soul that had been Adam rejoined it's higher-self, Lucifer. The body that had been Adam and was twisted to house the Darkness was incinerated in celestial flame. Jackie Estacado suddenly found himself free of the cloying senseof being beholden to the Darkess and he breathed a sigh of relief.

* * *

Danielle Baptise had tears streaming down her face but she wasn't in pain...at least not physically. She had seen everything that Estacado had seen. And mourned the loss of somethingthat she didn't even realise had been stolen. The Devil walked up to her and softly cupped her face. I made a mistake and hopefully have now rectified it. The Darkness is still here but it is greatly weakened you now have help in a fight that is almost over."

Suddenly he disappeared into thin air.

Lillith then spoke to her from the depths of her being, "It is now done, I am needed no longer. Finally I shall go home with Lucifer for he is no longer the devil but the angel that has climbed back from his fall. You, my darling soul, " she said to Dani, "now need to bear all the responsibilities of the Angelus on the mortal plane." With those final words she was gone and Dani felt an emptiness in the part of her where she had unknowingly shared space with another soul.

* * *

Ella waited for White -Eagle to tell her when the time came for her to enter the fray. She was standing by the gates leading into Estacado's mansion when a being that could only be Satanna's father appeared. Ella felt a sudden surge of attraction to this man,which she quickly pushed down. 'Good god Ella, he's your grandfather' she thought.
"Greetings daughter, Satanna has been trying to hide you from me but I wished to see you one time before I leave this realm."
Ella, tried to get over what he had just said, "Don't you mean grand-daughter?"
The man who was the devil no longer laughed, "Good heavens child no, is that what she told you?
No, no, no - Anna is my daughter-wife."
"I'm a product of incest?" Ella was appalled.
"I suppose if you could put it like that if you wanted to, but that's a very human way of looking at it."
"...But, but, but..." she was flabbergasted.
It's not as bad as humans think, the only reason it's frowned on in human society is because of how genetics work. We are different to humans, immortals on the mortal plane. Genetics play no part in immortals. Just know that I have always loved your mother as she has me. It was only recently that she decided to play in human affairs and left shortly after you were conceived."

Ella still didn't understand how that had occured , turning her from a grown half-human hermaphrodite into a grown vampire woman. "But how..."
"Hush" said Lucifer, "listen to me for this is important."
"I am returning to what many humans call heaven, however that is just another word for home. The devil has played an important part in the maintaining a certain balance in the order of things on earth. Now that I am leaving there will be a power vacuum, I leave it up to you and Satanna to ensure that it does not get out of hand."
"But that's unreasonable," she screamed in a panic, "I have no experience in that. I don't want to be in charge of a hell!"
"My dear girl, you are a divine child of angels, look within yourself and you will find the answers." He cupped her face and kissed her, when they parted she was utterly confused, but before she could think about it further, he vanished.
"...lla, Vampirella where are you?" It was James.
"I'm here," she replied. "I got a bit sidetracked"
"Well, I've been trying to contact you for the last ten minutes, I only hope it's not to late. Go . You're on."

Dying had been really painful and Darko was angry, "Stupid bint thinks that's enough to stop me! I'll show her." With all of the commotion going on Darko was able to sneak up to the Witchblade bearer unnoticed.

Ginger and was next to Stephanie facing away from Darko so she never saw him coming. Only Brent who was too far away to truly discern what was going on clearly saw the figure glide up to Ginger and plunge the blade of darkness into her back.

The vampire crowed in triumph as Vampirella looked on in horror. She realised she had arrived to late.

When you get down to it, ultimately there is no good or evil, only a matter of perception.

Vampirella had heard the word before, but of all the times she had heard it used this was the first time she had thought it was a totally suitable word for a situation. 'CLUSTERFUCK'. That's what this was, a clusterfuck. In a clusterfuck, nobody knows whats going on and a lot of the time the line between things get confused and people get killed. Unless you're immortal. If you're immortal then things are worse.

And things were definitely worse now. The Devil appeared. The Devil disappeared. The Devil was her father. There were two Darkness vessels. One of the should have been her subject and it appeared that he had just killed the wielder of the Balance. The Angelus and the original Darkness host were somehow incapacitated There were even what she presumed were mortals involved in the battle. This wasn't a clusterfuck, it was a clusterfuck with shit on top.

She saw the blade of Darkness pierce the Witchblade bearer's back and time seemed to stop. She was aware of everything but couldn't move. She didn't feel the need to move anyway, only to observe. Her observation, would be recorded in the history books of the vampire nation so that no one would forget that the Angelus erased the curse that the Darkness placed on their race.

* * *
Dani was in a few places at the same time and it was a very strange feeling. Her mind was still mostly dealing with the images that had been showing themselves to her, images that had been shared with Jackie Estacado showing what the Darkness was, what It intended and what It had done.
Her body was still aware of what it was doing and it was standing up again but her mind and body were only connected by the thinnest threads of awareness.

Another part of her was aware of sacrificing itself to bring Light to the Dark. It felt Itself burning the demonic energies of the void from Estacado's body. This part felt a deep satisfaction at having completed what It felt was a debt. This was the warrior aspect of the Angelus that had been Flame.
Instictively Dani knew that Flame was never meant to be a part of the Angelus, the warrior had always been the soul of Howard Stern and now that it felt that it had completed the task that it deemed necessary for redemption. It went to where all souls go when then time on Earth is done.

There was a consciousness in her body. It wasn't anything that she consciously governed with her mind but was more like a body consciousness. Her body rose and glided to where the Witchblade lay, she touched it there-by touching the bearer as well and in doing so, burned through all the demonic Darkness toxins in Ginger's body.

She glided to Vampirella and place her hand over Ella's heart and when she removed it there was a burning sensation in Ella's chest. She then moved to where the new holder of the Darkness was and she seemed to connect the invisible flame that was burning in theVampirella's chest to the other vampire. Light exploded out of Darko's head and the burning string connecting the two vampires joined the Light. Vampirella felt that cleasing Light disolve the aeons old curse that had afflicted all vampires, but even as she felt that she she felt something else, something old and rotten. She closed her eye and sighed, Satanna had lied to her again.

* * *

Darko had been ecstatic when he thought that he'd delivered a fatal blow to the Balance but somehow the bearer didn't die, the Angelus had thwarted him again, anger consumed him and he screamed in frustration. This was what Vampirella had been waiting for; she attacked.

The Darkness had been severely weakened as It had already lost one host and It couldn't think clearly, for this reason Darko only had the abilities of a vampire, however the Darkness had corrupted the soul of the once lucid magician and without the Darkness to assist him in thinking, he was just another mad vampire.

Without the Darkness to enhance him Darko was no match for queen of the vampires and she literally tore him to shreds. Her hands morphed into claws and she ripped his body over and over again. Her powerful jaws locked onto his jugular, ripping it out of his body, spitting it into the flowerbed. She then poised her arm directly above his heart and rammed her claw into it.

The Darkness had been trying but hadn't been succeeding to reconnect to Estacado but the Celestial fire had made that all but impossible. When It realised that It's only viable host was in danger It left Estacado and tried to flow back into Darko.

The Darkness, Demon of the void no longer had a body as Adam had been freed and It's only hope of remaining on the earth plane resided with the body of Darko. However It was confused and tried to put it's entire essence into the vampire's body.

If the Angelus hadn't been there there is no saying what would have happened, but she was and she was not happy with what the demon was doing. The pent up energies that been stirred up by the battle were now channeled out of the destructive pattern and instead of causing a natural disaster not seen since Pompeii, these energies erupted out of theAngelus in the form of Light enveloping the Darkness, engulfing it completly. Almost.

What little bit of the demon was left flowed into Darko healing his wounds and in the process thourougly stripping away what remained of his soul. It was no longer the vast powerful demon that it had once been. The darkness was no more. It was not dead however, but it would be many millenia before it became powerful again. Until then better to run away and fight another day, and that's what the body that had once been Darko's did — it ran.

* * *
The Light had been like a battering ram and Jackie Estacado felt like an overtenderised piece of meat at the butcher shop. The demon that he had such problems with had been exsorcised from his body but, he wondered what did this mean in the greater scheme of things. He was a mob boss, he liked the power and freedom. He liked that he wasn't burdened with the moral issues that the 'white hats' were. He was glad to be rid of the demon, but without the personal power it had given him how was he to ensure that he wouldn't be assasinated by one of his own people and killed by the competition. He decided that he would only deal with it when it became an issue.

He arose from where he was slowly, feeling as if a steamtrain had just hit him and walked over to where Butch lay with Stephanie lifting his eyelids and looking at his pupils. Estacado reached her and dropped to his knees in front of his friend.
"What's wrong with him?" he asked.
"He's alive, but unresponsive," came the reply.
Butch was strong and there was no way he could be comatose, it had to be something supernatural. "Did you do this to him?"
Steph looked at him with disgust in her eyes.
"Unfortunately not. I put him to sleep but I feel that his comatose state is probably due to later events."

Her feelings guided her correctly. Bablioni had been deeply influenced by the Darkness, in fact, if Estacado hadn't been chosen by the entity all those years ago, Butch would have been. As Estacado's second in command, Butch had received extra abilities from the demon to ensure a suitable bodyguard for it's host. But at the moment the Angelus gave Adam his freedom causing the demon to lose it's body, Butch who was already in a chemical induced slumber had no way of holding onto his waking consciousness as the demon's influence left his body and he fell into a coma.

Estacado screamed in frustration, he wanted to lash out at something, anything. He knew, however that out of the entire gathering of beings here he was the weakest and lashing out would only cause him more pain but he didn't care.

Stephanie was able to sense the adrenalin that drove Estacado's emotions and she was ready for the blow when it came, she understood the reason that he lashed out. She understood it was nothing personal but this was the man that had kidnapped her, who had planned to do who knew what to get what he wanted from her. So instead of moving out of the way she caught his fist in a vice-like grip and crushed it.

Vampirella saw this and a sort of prescience came over her, in the back of her mind she heard Satanna say, "One door closes and another opens."
"We need to have words Satanna," she thought to the other woman. "I don't appreciate being lied to."
There was a pause and then Satanna replied, "Technically I didn't lie to you, but yes we will speak at a later time."
She continued, "Now did you note the sign?"
Vampirella sighed. "Yes mother."

* * *

Ginger was talking to the new Angelus for the first time and what the woman told her was astounding. It seemed that she wasn't the only one to undergo a gender change, but what was more astounding to her was the Angelus's willingness to let a human take charge of the energies of the First Light. It seemed that the Angelus had made a good choice in choosing Dani to hold the power. The Darkness had been confused as to the Light's strategy and had therefore overextended It's resources.

It now appeared that the Angelus had human knowledge and emotions, oh yes, she was still immortal and more focused on the soul but she seemed to have found the ability to see reality not only in black and white. She had now found a balance and although human life wasn't the thing she would focus on, she now had a better understanding of emotion and would be less likely to kill when pursuing justice.

Talking to Ginger, Dani suddenly realised that her part in this whole mess was over with. She understood that there were others who still were going to deal with their own issues; Vampirella had the vampires to sort out, and Steph had her own issues which, hopefully Dani could help with. But the Angelus's worries had always been the Darkness and for the moment the demon of the void was so diminished that it would be centuries before it would concern her again.

"It was really good to meet you Ginger, I'm glad that I got to meet the bearer of the Witchblade and I'm sure we could be friends, in the past the only time that the artifact bearers got together were in times of crisis. In the past I would have said 'I hope you realise I'm not being rude when I say that I hope we don't meet for a long time, if ever. '
Now that we've ended the Darknesses foothold hopefully that will change, so if you're ever in Australia, drop by and we'll go out."

Ginger smiled and gave her a hug, "I'm glad we were able to help out. Keep well."
She walked over to Brent, who was looking somewhat overwhelmed. "Is this what my life is going to be like now that I'm your...uh...travelling companion?" he asked.
"It depends on whether you want to stay, if you leave now you won't have to deal with all the crazy things that the Witchblade gets involved in."
He smiled at her, "Oh I think I'll chance it, besides," he winked at her, "I still haven't given up trying to talk you into spending the night with me"
"Why sir," she said as if she were a southern belle, "Ah must protest. Trying to seduce a young innocent girl like myself."

The car that they arrived in was somewhat damaged... well...a lot damaged actually and she was already planning to get a new one because Rourke was sttill after them. New ID's and a new car would do them the world of good if they were to begin a new life.

* * *
Dani wasn't sure how to deal with Estacado but she decided she better do something. She supposed wiping his memory might be something she could do, but as she was crossing the room Vampirella intercepted her.
"Let me deal with him...there have been...certain portents involving that one. Dani could sense the new power that Vampirella wielded and she looked in her eye, "Be careful. Absolute power corrupts absolutely- don't become a stereotype." It didn't make much sense but Vampirella understood what she meant.

* * *
Steph had been touched by celestial fire before so it would be safe to travel 'Angelus air'. She turned as Dani touched her shoulder, "Ready to go?"
Stephanie nodded and they went through the portal. It was mid- afternoon when they arrived back in Australia, surprising a group of schoolchildren and their teacher who was a catholic nun. 'Oh dear', thought Dani I so don't want to deal with this.'
She looked at the nun and the children smiled and disappeared with Stephanie appearing in her living room.

She looked at Stephanie and said, "I need a holiday."

Here ends "What Light Through Yonder Shadow...". The epilogue will be act 4.

Life is about choices. There will always be what if but ultimitely the final decision belongs to each individual person.

It was as if nobody wanted to admit something had happened in that area but you could see that the public knew something had happened there, the place gave off an aura of...not fear, but discomfort. People, despite their apparent ignorance of their own feelings and emotions can be extremely observant at times and the person who had ensured that the energies that evoked those feelings in others was satisfied.

* * *

Three Months Earlier

It was uncannily quiet in the aftermath of the violent battle. Ginger Calvert, the bearer of the Witchblade and her partner Brent had gone, they had driven off to who knew where, the Angelus and her pretty handmaid had returned to Australia. The only ones left were Jackie Estacado and the vampire queen.

He looked wearily at her, "I won't fight you, kill me, I'm too weak too retaliate."
Ella just looked at him curiously. "Eew," she said, "why would I want to do that?"
He looked at her strangely, "That's what the darkness would do."
"The demon has been defeated," she replied.
"Yes and the devil is your father, you have taken the demon's place."
"Hmmm...yes, I am in two minds of that one." She turned and and let out a subsonic hum and a portal opened and Satanna walked through it.

"Jackie Estacado, this is my mother-sister and co-regent," She said.
Satanna looked at Estacado with interest and said to the Vampirella, "Yes," as she walked in a cirle around Estacado, "...yes, I see what you mean."
Mr. Estacado," she continued in the place of Ella, "Our father has left us in the very unenviable position of doing something that is not suited to either of us. With the banishment of the demon of the void for the forseeable future and the departure of Lucifer, an opportunity for for something other than, or even worse than the Darkness has opened. We are entrusted with seeing that the balance on Earth and this reality is not further upset. I," she gestured toward herself, have a planet to attend to and Ella," she indicated the vampire queen, "has a nation to run."

"It would seem that you out of both of us are the most qualified to deal with demons."
This was definitely not what Jackie was expecting.
The Vampirella continued, "What we are suggesting is, for you to take this power and use it to ensure that dark entities don't get too strong a hold on our reality. The fact that you are not too concerned with morality now ensures that you are suitable for this position."

You will still be able to tend to your worldy concerns while doing this. We don't ask that you join the "White Hats", in fact, that would be counter-productive to what is needed. What do you think? Will you do this?"
Estacado did not even think about what was asked of him, he just knew that he was being offered power and he would grab it with both hands.
"Yes, yes I'll do it." He replied.
"Are you sure?" Satanna asked .
"Yes," he answered.
"Are you completely certain this is what you want?" Vampirella asked again.
"Of course it is woman, are you deaf?" he snapped.
Vampirella ignored his insult and continued what she was saying with her sister-mother. "As you have confirmed your intent to do this through the divine Law of Three it shall be done. SO BE IT."

Jackie Etacado exalted in the power flowing through his body but he noticed something else, a feeling he'd never felt before. It was a binding and in time he'd come to understand that he'd submitted himself to Universal Law. In time he'd realise that even though it might appear otherwise, he was on the side of the angels.

* * *

It had been a week since their return to Australia and Dani was enjoying being just Dani. Finch had lost her body after the battle and only her conciosness remained. It was now melding with Dani's as they had been soul mates. Eventually, Finch would become Dani, but Dani didn't really understand all that this entailed. She was just happy that Finch would always be with her.

* * *

Stephanie however had been very busy with Jaques they were using their contacts to make it appear that the French Government had seized all illegal assets that remained of Victor Szasz's Organisation. Any person who now noticed that she had used specific codes that were supposedly only known to Victor Szasz would figure that she was just another french bereaucrat who knew said codes.

The real French government didn't really know what was happening, but as long as the people who were monitoring the monies and assets thought they did, Steph was safe until she made the monies dissapear again.

To this effect, she deposited all the many millions of dollars in different accounts all around the world. She had discussed with Jacques what she would do with this money and they had decided that they would set aside a certian portion of the money for altruistic purposes but that wasn't all the money would be used for.

Stephanie had begun to look into the different types of degrees and diplomas she could do concerning international detective work, specifically work bent toward metahumans and the paranormal, as she thought that she would be able to do a world of good in that area. She had already decided that she didn't want to be on any police force or government agency.

She would work for individuals and would become an international private investigator. She laughed at the thought which under different circumstances might seem ridiculous but hey, she thought if Green Lantern has other planets to police there is no reason I can't work in other countries.

* * *

Lillith and Lucifer looked out at the reality that had been their playground for so long.
"One door closes and another opens." Lucifer said.
"Yes," replied Lillith "But thanks to all that's holy that my time of involvement there is over, it's very stressful."
They walked away with their laughter echoing long after they had dissapeared.

FIN