It was only a short carriage ride, or a brisk walks distance from the potter's home to the street of locksmiths, the street of booksellers, and streets reserved for rosary makers, glove makers, jewelers, carriage merchants, and barbers who could shave a man's face, open a vein, and pull his rotten tooth with equal aplomb. Each establishment had a sign depicting the services offered within"a pipe for the tobacconist, a bleeding arm for the surgeon'so that even the illiterate of Rhydin could find the shop they needed.

The disparity between rich and poor was as great as it would ever be and it seemed to Piper that the economy was primarily focused on them, those that held the power and wealth, and the services that supported them. Architects, masons carpenters, painters and roofers built strongholds for the wealthy. Cabinetmakers and drapers furnished them. Artists, sculptors, and gardeners adorned them. Tailors, seamstresses, hat makers, cloak makers, and shoemakers dressed those that lived and worked in them. Grocers, butchers, bakers, and fishmongers fed them.

What Piper loved was the market. Where the majority lived outside their homes. Artisans worked in front of their shops. Women set up their spinning wheels in front of their homes and yelled at their neighbors and passerby. The main occupation of poor Rhydin denizens, living on the street as they did, was gossip. They were quick to note who was going in and out of which house, how long they stayed, and what they looked like when they came out.

Street fights would erupt between the armed entourage of two feuding families or two rivals vying for the hand of a lady of questionable honor. Shots would ring out, swords would clash, and all those who had been lounging, working or selling on the streets would vanish in an instant behind bolted doors and shuttered windows. Only once the violence had stopped would the Rhydians come out to gape at the dead bodies littering the cobbled roads.

Casting a penetrating gaze around the city she now called home, Piper realized it was dirtier, nosier, uglier, and far more lethal than Warpara. But it was here in Rhydin where she finally realized her lifelong dream of being her own potter and breaking free of her past had really began.

Pleased with the day, she went back to perusing a particular merchants cart lined with perfumed gloves.

The gloves were of supple leather, heavily embroidered with scarlet and gold thread, with huge tabbed cuffs that would extend halfway up the forearm, and adorned with tassels woven of real gold. Lifting the gloves to her nose, she inhaled, noting the scent of ambergris"fragrant petrified whale vomit"and musk, the aromatic glandular secretion of the musk deer. The familiar scent stirred a memory. One buried for ten long years.

Piper'd rushed through the door hanging askew from one hinge, knowing she should have been there sooner. The scent. The sight of blood. She found her in the bedroom, lying in a puddle of sunshine and blood. She'd always loved the sun, and Piper had despised the sight of blood.

Regardless, Piper fell to her knees, fumbling to check for a pulse, though her best friend hardly had a throat left.

"Piper"I knew you'd mess up."

How was she speaking" "Shhh'don't try to talk."

Her friend's eyes bore into Piper's "When I'm gone, it's up to you."

"Cally, don't talk, darlin! Don't go. Stay with me?"

"You have to do this," Cally managed though her voice was fading, " now.?

Cally grabbed Piper's hand in a surprisingly strong grip, then Piper's body erupted in pain and regret.

The two had agreed to meet the next evening at the same vendors cart, and it was time passed anxiously by Piper. She felt grave misgivings at this appointment, though she could not say why she should be so doubtful about the business. She passed most of the next day making casual inquiries about Holland, yet no one seemed to know anything concerning the man, outside of his professional character.

He was a highly reputable tradesman, having taken a modest tobacco firm left him by his father and turned it into one of the largest interests in the city and yet very few people knew anything about the man other than that he was known for his quiet ways, keeping always to himself, eating his meals in solitude. It was generally believed that he had been married, that he had no children, and that his wife had passed away some time ago. Other than this, no personal details of his life seemed to exist, at least, any that had attracted anyone's interest.

The man showed up meticulously, if not peculiarly, at the stroke of the fifth bell and without a word, Piper fell in line behind him with the simple summon of his hand and followed.

Since the previous days events, it was as if the meeting had marked the end of summer and the weather had turned cooler and more formidable. A sheet of rain was falling over the city in great, thick drops that adhered to everything, masking all under a slick, wet coverlet. Notwithstanding this sudden turn in the weather, the traffic of men and women hurrying home from their days' businesses was little affected by the weather, and the crush of the crowd was so great that it forced the two travelers to thread their way in single file, the larger man creating a path with his more massive bulk while the smaller Piper came up wearily behind.

The streetlamps now resembled bright smudges in the dark, chilled night, offering slight illumination to the pedestrians scurrying past with heads pressed down and collars pulled up. The carpet of rain and mud coating the streets from building to building and block after block made walking even a short distance as strenuous as attempting to run through waves.

Piper, who despite her slender frame was quite athletic, soon found herself puffing great clouds of steam under the exertion. She was about to suggest that they hire a cab when Holland vanished into a dank, narrow lane whose entrance Piper had not even noticed.

This side street was mercifully vacant, for had they come upon anyone traveling in the opposite direction through that close passage, the encounter would have resulted in the most profound intimacy. Not even the rain could find its way between the nearness of those walls without difficulty, but had to slip in forcibly with every gust of wind. Even so, it filled the air thickly enough to afford Piper an eerie sense of isolation as she looked out from the folds of her cloak. The rain and cold not only stung her eyes and blurred her vision, but numbed her fingers, muffled her hearing, and even seemed to deaden her power of scent. With just a moderate amount of imagination, she could suppose herself to be a disembodied phantom detached from the physical realities of the world about her. Yet, as she was not by nature a fanciful woman, the thought did not linger with her.

They soon passed out of this alley and into another broad thoroughfare, not so busy nor so well-to-do as the first, but pleasant enough. Piper did not have the opportunity to observe it closely, however, for no sooner had they marched fifty paces than they turned again into a little byway, and after another short passage emerged into yet another bustling street. So they wove their way through the city, turning first left and then right and then right again and then left, until Piper had no notion of where they were or how far they had gone. Indeed, if before she had felt baited and hooked, now she had the uncomfortable sensation of being reeled in. The only general impression she had of their journey was that, the longer they walked, the more desolate and abandoned the streets appeared.

At last they came to a lane that was completely deserted and of a wholly disreputable character. Piper had just considered to herself that it was unlikely for a man as unassuming as Holland to have any business in such a quarter, and she was convinced that they were, in fact, hopelessly lost, when she watched with astonishment as her host and guide turned boldly in at the door of a dangerous-looking public house. Piper could do nothing but follow in mute amazement and even though she scarcely admitted as much, slight trepidation.

"May I ask you a question, Mister Holland?" Piper quipped suddenly while her host was carving the meat.

"Please," Holland offered.

"How long have you been contemplating this madness" From what I can gather, you've known my father for at least twenty years now and lived here in Rhydin for perhaps a considerable degree of time, and in all that time you have held this...this thing of mine, this birthright. How did it come into your hands" And why do you choose this time to reveal yourself to me?"

Holland passed a bloody slab of roast beef over to Piper's plate and responded without looking up. "My life has been intimately tied to the House of Tippet, or was many years ago. But that tale must wait a little longer." He coughed, a deep, rasping cough. "Now, Miss Tippet, you answer a question for me. This life of the contented little potter you lead. It's a lie, isn't it?"

Piper blinked, but otherwise stayed calm. Such an impertinent suggestion was surely designed to elicit some kind of emotion from her, and she had no intention of providing one.

"I thought so," Holland continued. "I'd venture to guess, no, I'd be willing to bet my considerable fortune that you've never stared death in the face, or smelled its hot breath against your cheek."

"My life is true in its essential points, why must facing death make it any truer" insisted Piper. "And I would go so far as to venture a guess that most of the denizens that have come to Rhydin are living their own cruel lies and showing a brave face when they feel nothing of the sort. Why is mine more offensive then theirs?"

"Minor truths hiding a greater fiction. You are not the woman you present yourself to be."

"And how could you know such a thing?" she demanded.

"I see it in your eyes. For I have faced death, and know what it is to whisper one's last prayer. I know how it affects a man, a woman, if you will. It changes him." Holland fastened her with that studious stare and offered another artful smile as the sharp carving knife sliced through the rare meat; droplets of congealed blood clung to the blade as he lifted it upwards, a spark of flame caught on it's surface and danced across Piper's eyes like a foreboding omen.

Piper struggled to contain her rising outrage. For the accusation was true. Her life was false, embellished and augmented until what there was of the truth about it had been left far behind. "So you drag me along with you to chide me like an old woman?"

Holland hemmed a bit. "No," he answered. "No, not that. I have no strong desire to expose you to your friends, if that's your fear."

The two continued their meal in an awkward truce. But as the minutes passed, Holland appeared to grow disturbed and anxious, a sense of anticipation overspreading his earlier ease. Suddenly, after draining the last dregs from his mug, he grasped the blood stained carving knife from the table and walked across to the writing desk.

He stood silently for a moment, almost in contemplation, before skillfully cutting open the parcel that lay there, and removing a large, intricately carved box. It possessed elegant brass fittings decorated in a vaguely Eastern fashion, and an ornate lock that shone in the glow from the fire. Holland placed the box on the small table by the hearth, and motioned to Piper, "The key?" Motioning for her to join him.

Piper did so, noticing with wonder, if not apprehension, the excited way in which Holland played with the key when she withdrew the ribbon from her pocket and handed it to him.

"I appreciate your patience in putting up with my unusual arrangements," the older man began.

"Mister Holland," Piper interrupted, feeling at last a sense of edginess in these remarkable proceedings, "you have an annoying inclination for prologues. Might we get on with it?"

A cold flame of anger erupted from the man's stare, a spark of violent emotion that Piper was unprepared for, and it shocked her into immediate regret at her gibing comment. The flame passed away in an instant, however, and was replaced by a firm resolve and a renewed confidence. Holland inserted the key into the lock and opened the box.

Rain struck the lead-glass window in staccato bursts as silence descended over the room. It struck with such force that it drowned all living sound, even the clanking of pedestrians walking the alleyways in their rush to get home; the crackling logs in the fire; the revelry of the Inn's patrons. Grayness seeped through the stone framed windows along with the bitter wet damp. Darkness, brought by the rain, chilled her blood with such a thoroughly biting cold; she feared for an instant that she'd never be warm again as she leaned forward with an intensity that left her as taut as a drawn bow.

Holland removed a stack of small bound journals, yellow and crackling with age; a ritual dagger of pure silver, entrenched with mysterious cerulean stones; an intricately carved bud vase containing a thick black liquid, corked and sealed with a ruby red wax. And The Heretics Tongue.

Piper looked at him skeptically, a scowl creasing her brow. "How can there be monsters everywhere and no one knows about it?" Sure, she'd seen some odd creatures walking about, but she didn't know if she'd categorize them as monsters.

"Well the problem, not to put too fine a point on it, is that they look just like you and me unless they decide to change"and then they're hell to kill"and some of them always look like you and me. Without some interference, they'll own the multiverse, and the humans will just be?" He broke off.

"Be what?"

"Food, amusement, slaves. Nothing good, I'm afraid." He paused to reflect a moment then looked back at Piper. "How familiar are you with fallen angels?"

"Satan?" Piper almost laughed aloud at the notion. "You're telling me the fallen angels are still around in the form of demons" Maybe you should go back to "Once Upon a Time."."

"In a way." Ignoring her mocking tone for the moment, "Ever heard of the Grigori and the Nephilim?"

She shook her head and settled back to nurse that drink, preparing for another fantastical tale.

"The Grigori were known as The Watchers. Perhaps a more familiar term will help you to understand. Angels. They were sent to earth to keep an eye on the humans. The key words being 'watch over'. No meddling, no touching, no direct contact - just watching. They lusted after them instead and were banished by God to Tartarus, the fiery pit where all divine enemies are thrown."

"I don't recall reading this in the Bible!" Skeptical, Piper was still not convinced the man had a lick of sense or all of his facilities firmly intact.

"The Book of Enoch."

She shook her head slowly, indicating she still had no idea what he was talking about as her fingers lifted to unconsciously wrap about the silver acorn suspended around her neck. "I've never?"

"Not in the Bible" Holland amended with a wave of his hand, quickly dismissing any questions she might impose so that he might continue before the sun rose. "The offspring of The Watchers and the daughters of men were known as The Nephilim. The brood of temptation and sin, they are spirits fallen from Heaven's grace to emerge anew as servants of Darkness. These cursed beings became every type of mystical being you can imagine; Bael, Vampire, werewolf, Berserker, Fairy, Oroba, Incubus, Succubus, Leyak. The names and variations are almost infinite. Almost."

She took an exasperated breath as the tale weaved deeper. Dark and daunting. Something strange was going on'something much stranger than anything that had ever gone on in her life before and that was saying a lot. "How is it that I have never heard of this before?"

"Please, allow me to explain. Indulge me a little longer, Miss Tippet. The origination of the Nephilim begins with a story of the fallen angels. One in particular, an angel of high rank, led a rebel sect of 200 angels in a descent to earth to instruct humans in righteousness. The tutelage went on for a few centuries, but soon the angels pined for the human females. After lusting, the fallen angels instructed the men and women in heavenly secrets; how to make weapons of war, magic and conjuring, how to make face powders for their eyes, which enabled the women to seduce the angels. Then the angels mated with the females and produced offspring which were an abomination: the Nephilim."

"Seduce the angels" Ridiculous" Indignant and frowning at his words, she stood up in protest, "This is beginning to sound all too familiar. Tell me; is this yet another example of the evils of women" Like Eve and how she brought about the fall of man' Spare me the lecture, Mister Holland, my father has educated me in that unfavorable lesson well."

"No of course not. You are being unreasonable. Listen to me." His voice was overwrought with urgency as precious time slipped away. His need to make her understand was vital, "The Nephilim were gigantic in stature. Their strength was remarkable and their appetites immense. Upon devouring all of humankind's resources, they began to consume humans themselves. The Nephilim attacked and oppressed humans and were the cause of massive destruction."

Holland turned to the table, carefully repacking the box as he recited the verse from memory, "And when men could no longer sustain them, the giants turned against them and devoured mankind. And they began to sin against birds, and beasts, and reptiles, and fish, and to devour one another's flesh, and drink the blood of man.

"The land in which humans walk is always dark now. Almost like a fog rising in the early morning dawn, cascading a shadow among the towns and villages, open hills and valleys. At one time people gathered for prayer and celebration of life. Now, the blood of neighbors and brothers has stained the ground. It has become a time when only the strong survive, where love can become their greatest weakness. Every step is taken with purpose. There is only one priority for the humans who live now. Kill the demons."

Carefully placing the box into Piper's hands, he ushered her to the door, collecting her cloak with his gnarled hand, which he draped around her shoulders before opening the door. "Guard the box. Guard your thoughts. Be wary. Above all, watch. Now go."

With a gentle but firm push between her shoulder blades, he had her out of his cozy little study and into the dark dankness of the hallway.

With the box cradled in her arms against her chest, she stared in utter disbelief at the door as the sounds of life came sweeping back over her gently, then louder, echoing through churning emotions to anchor in the pit of her stomach. It had never sounded so idyllic and at once desperate.