"They say the deserts drove him mad. That the old gods of Caanan and Babylon whispered in his ear."

Chains rattled on his shoulder, slung over them like a sash, like a pennance for old grievances. He was never without them now; they were a part of him. They were him. Rumors spread wild across the dance floors of Peccavi to the offices of Ambrosio and out to the streets of the Black Market. Kindred were disappearing in the dungeons of Peccavi, and the only thing that came out were broken pieces of creatures that could not even be considered undead. They were without themselves.

The chains hissed and sang a song of bloodlust and sorrow.

"They say that they see the old king in his eyes. The prince becomes his master."

Sinjin and Ambrose always held similar traits: they were more than parasites, less than symbiots, but one was never without the other before Ambrosia burned and Peccavi took its place. The secretive tactics of the sinner began to reek of the elder. The dungeons were no longer open to even the highest ranked of Sinjin's employees and associates; only Sin's long shadow ever darkened the hall. The rest were sacrificed to unknown causes, all kindred, all lost souls. They never died. They just came back undone.

One night, the bar tender swore he heard the chains rattling from below and an old man sigh. The next day, the bar tender was gone.

"They say that he's planning a revolt, a final push, one big enough that even the Fleshcrafters will keep their distance."

Tzimisce poured out of the dungeons like cripples, product of their own work.

"They say that the sinner's taking on the Garou, the changlings, and he will change the face of Rhy'din's underground."

A werewolf woke up in an alleyway, unable to touch the shadow world or any memories of it. A faerie was found hanging from a lamp post, nothing but a shriveled, soulless body.

The chains sang and sang.

No one asked. No one guessed. It was less dangerous to avoid wondering.

In the depths of the evening, Tohias Sanchez wept and Sinjin Fai stalked the halls of the dungeons like a ghost.

The phone call came unusually early in the morning to Salvador's unused cell phone, chirping a bright note during the wee hours of dawn. At the other end of the line was the subdued and apologetic voice of Miss Sabine. "I'm sorry to call you so early, Mister Delahada.. but a letter arrived for you in your office here today."

An office? Letters? Yes, the boy had both.. and both were waiting for him.


--


Salvador Delahada's office was an exact replica of Marcus A.F.'s: a wide, open room with plenty of shelf space and a pair of French doors leading out to the patio with a desk in front of it. The only difference was that Salvador's office was otherwise bare. But true to Sabine's word, an ecru-colored envelope with Salvador's name written on it was waiting for him, quietly gathering dust.

It smelled of books and the fine, spider-like handwriting was undoubtedly Bastian's.


Mister Delahada,


I would have liked to speak with you directly, but this particular situation prevents me from doing so. However, my guidance and words are sincere as they have ever been, and I strongly hope you take them into consideration; the matter of the Chains goes beyond protecting your life as I've been bound. I beg you, Salvador: listen and act wisely.

As you have no doubt learned, Ambrose is a creature of fail-safes. This is why he made the pact with you, and your mother. It was not the only pact he made. I am only beginning to unravel the tangled web he has created for himself and for Sinjin. The Chains are only the beginning.

I do not doubt that Sinjin has told you not to touch the Chains. He is right to tell you. Salvador, I beg you -- do not touch them at all costs. I think it is best if you see the effects of them yourself, but you, more than most creatures, the Chains will effect harshly. They are sentient and they will -- and have been -- trying for you more than the victims Sinjin has been able to provide. Look, but do not touch. Do not even touch Sinjin himself.

Go to the dungeons of Peccavi. There are only two guards and you will be able to overpower them easily. See.

I will send my next word shortly. I am afraid you are not the only one the Chains hunger for, and to take me would do more damage than help.

Move with caution, Salvador. Act wisely. Dead gods are just as dangerous as living ones.


- B.L.

Unlike Salvador Delahada, Bastian adapted well to technology despite his age. He kept his cell phone on him and though he rarely used it, his number was accessible by only two people: Sabine and Marcus. When it began to ring, he immediately knew it was the former and not the latter; Marcus was busy losing his mind somewhere. But he would attend to that little tidbit later. Though Sin didn't know it -- and either did Salvador -- the Chains were going to solve several of Bastian's problems in one movement.

"Good afternoon, Miss Sabine." The sound of his own voice made him pause, as it always did, and he smiled.

"Good evening, Mister Laurec. Did you arrive in France safely?" Sabine had one of the most pleasant voices he had ever heard; it was half the reason why he hired her.

Chuckling softly, Bastian kept his smile, even though she couldn't see it. "Of course, Sabine. Has Mister Delahada received his letter?"

"Yes, Mister Laurec."

"Excellent, my dear, excellent. Now.." Bastian brushed the dust off of the cover of an ancient book as he spoke, the title obscured. "A woman will be arriving tomorrow morning, expecting six thousand in cash and a deed to a small property near West End. You'll find both the money and the paperwork on my desk."

"Y-- yes, Mister Laurec." Normally these were tasks better suited to Marcus, but desperate times did indeed call for desperate measures.

"Thank you, my dear. Expect to hear from me on the morrow."

"I will. Enjoy your vacation, Mister Laurec." The charm returned to her voice and Bastian bid his farewells while reflecting on the nature of his departure. Vacation indeed. If only it were that simple.

Leaving the telephone aside, Bastian glanced down at the book in front of him while he began his next letter.


Mister Delahada,


The Chains of Inanna, as they are called, have often been considered a myth...


--

Thousands of miles away, in the shadow of a land once called Babylon, an old man swore on his family's graves he saw a corpse stand up from the desert sand and begin to cry.

... but with everything mythological, there is truth wound in fiction.


The Dungeons were soaked with misery and forgetfulness. The darkened halls of Peccavi's lower levels thrummed with the beat of the bass above, the endless dance of the dead that never left the minds of whoever was unfortunate enough to find themselves in the cells of Sin's personal prison. Screams, desperate pleas, and pain mingled with the music above to create a different symphony below -- but tonight Peccavi's dungeons were quiet, as they had been for weeks. Nothing but the sound of weeping.


According to the myths of Babylon, there was a goddess named Inanna who represented fertility, love, and life. She was a woman vastly beautiful, yet fickle, and terribly intrigued by power. Her courtship was to the god Dumuzid, a much more gentle soul; he was a shepard, an honest and hard-working man despite his immortality. When he courted Inanna, it was with such fervor and truth that she could not deny him.

But Inanna never stopped lusting power...


Every cage was occupied by another example of spirit torn asunder from the body: a garou no longer able to take his true form with eyes like empty holes, a phoenix plucked of its song, a kindred without memory of its race. They were the most physically whole prisoners Peccavi had ever seen, but the metaphysical rape broke them apart better than any natural tool. All of them were silent; their faces and souls screamed for them, and it was endless and soundless.

Down the halls, where the fluorescent lights began to flicker and hiss, came a different noise, more familiar: the rattling of chains.


... If Inanna represented goodness, her sister was her foil. Ereshkigal was her twin, the goddess who sat upon the throne of the Underworld, where both mortal men and gods alike were brought before her and Judged. Hers was an ultimate power, one as dark as the land she ruled; it called to Inanna like a siren.

Inanna, despite her husband's warnings, walked into the Underworld to seek her sister's crown.


With the chains came the voice of a woman, her words lost in a foreign tongue, but her whispers reeked of a sad desperation. And another sound, more familiar in Peccavi these past nights, was the broken weeping of Tohias. He was not sure who he was crying for any more -- if it was for himself, Salvador, for all the broken things staring back at him like dolls, or if he was still crying for Inanna. Her torture was his torture, and he felt it like a knife twisting in his heart.


She passed through the gates of hell and arrived at her sister's empty throne naked as the day she was created. When she ascended the stairs and brought herself to sit at her sister's place, Ereshkigal turned her eyes toward her and Judged.

Inanna's body became a corpse where she sat, wrapped in chains and imprisoned. Goodness became darkness and Inanna fell to her lust for power; Ereshkigal walked back into the waking world in her place.

Dumuzid could not accept his wife's folly. He loved her too deeply.


Wrapped in chains and utterly alone sat Tohias, head in his hands and the Chains wrapped so heavily around him and the chair that movement was impossible. When he heard the boy, felt him there, he jerked his head up with eyes gone wild. "Sa-- Don't touch them!" His voice was desperate. The chains around him shivered. "Please. God, no--"


Dumuzid was able to barter for his wife's freedom, but at a price. When the Chains released Inanna, she opened her eyes to find her husband in her place. For half the year, Inanna must return to the Underworld and live out the punishment for her greed; for the other half, Dumuzid stands in her place.

There ends the fairy tale of Inanna's descent, as the text books have left it. My own research, however, shows that the story did not end there. Desperate to have her husband back, Inanna tried gathering power in order to build Dumuzid anew. She picked apart the pieces of everything she Loved, every power she Craved, and worked it through the chains that bound her. Unsurprisingly, it failed and the power itself supposedly devoured her.


When Tohias saw the horror written on Salvador's face, the anguish and pain, every molecule that built him cried out. "Go -- go!"

Salvador ran and the chains sang a song of anger that meshed with the Spaniard's voice. "Find Marcus!"


How Ambrose discovered the chains, I do not know. But how they function is both horrific and incredible. The Chains are, in essence, Inanna, and they hunger for power; it pulls out bits and pieces of people and what makes them. The wearer can access those abilities that were stolen, but at a price. I imagine he sought to use it to supplement Sin's powers -- to make sure his state was never challenged. Or, perhaps, it is another one of Ambrose's cruel lessons.


Salvador's shadow disappeared from the halls of the dungeons. "Te amo," Tohias whispered, before Inanna's screams echoed in his ears.


I do not yet know how to bring the Chains to an end. I have a theory, but have been unable to test it without putting both Sinjin and yourself in incredible danger. However, I will say that it hinges upon finding Marcus A.F. He has been missing for some time now; I fear his own ghosts are driving him mad. But I am afraid that I will have to count on that.

Seek him out, if he is still alive. For the time being, he may be our only option.


-B.L.

And so he had showed them. The nightmare he had long forgot.

Salvador ran through the streets at breakneck speed. His destination was Peccavi. His destination was his own undoing. As his boots pounded on the pavement, scores of memory cascaded through his mind.

"So, tell me the things most important, that are distracting you right now."

He had not answered Skid then. The wounds were still fresh. The telling only brought back the pain that he fought so hard to fend off. Must not show weakness. Must not feel. Must not be human for this, for anything.

"Has something happened to Sin?"

There was no fooling him. Skid could always look so deep into the soul of him. His one most trusted confidant. The first person he had told anything about the nightmare he had seen. And he had broken then. Broken entirely into the emotional torrent he kept locked up tight. Broke before the second person he trusted most to see him cry.

If only he had known then, as he knew now, how to show him. But it was too late. Too goddamned late. He cursed himself for being incapable of warning him in time. This was his fault. All his fault. The only knowledge he had was broken apart into pieces of agony and defeat, and he hadn't been able to tell him as he should have told him.

Earlier, only a few short minutes past, he had stumbled upon the Red Dragon. The night before he had shown them, Ali and Fio -- or whoever had been driving as witness at the time. He had used the mirrors as his mother instructed him and showed them the horror that tore his heart to shreds each day that went on by.

He had slept, fitfully. The night went on and he had dreamed. He woke feeling refreshed and calm, and doing so felt completely inappropriate. What he would have given for the chance to wake up screaming, sweating. Just once he would have wished for a nightmare, but it didn't come. The only time he dreamed it now was when he was waking. It wasn't fair. It wasn't right. To feel this fearlessly confident. This foolishly brash without an ounce of trepidation to keep him from running to this place.

Though he hadn't wanted to be alone that night, when he woke in the morning he couldn't bear the company any longer. He left the house at the break of dawn and let his legs carry him where his thoughts would never go. He found himself back at the Red Dragon, and there he had encountered Madison. One of a small handful of belated witnesses who had told him.

"Skid's gone."

Her tone of voice was etched with sorrow, concern, uncertainty. It was all she knew, but she lead him to where he could piece together the rest of the clues. He followed her out onto the porch and she told him what she knew. She pointed to the last place she had seen him, to a scrap of planks not far from the swing.

"All that was left were bits of.. metal. And by the time I came back from my block search, they were gone."

Following her out, rusty eyes cut sharply to the spot she pointed out. He immediately prowled those few steps to that precise scrap section of porch and crouched down. "They who?" His fingers hovered over the planks, hesitant.

"Skid was fine and dandy when I got here," she told him. "He was heading outside with Sin."

"Sin," he hissed. That was all he needed to know before he pressed his palm flat to the floorboards and closed his eyes. The rest of Madison's words crawled away into the distance, mingled with the buzz of far away crowds, and he hardly heard her.

"I came out because something smelled real bad. And I found a small dog whining like mad and a few bits of steel. That was all. But..." She took a shakey breath. "Something isn't right, Salvador."

No, he could have told her. Something wasn't right at all. But he didn't tell her. He hadn't the time to tell her. For a time he was a rock, a gargoyle stuck in this pose. Eyes closed and a deep furrow of concentration etched into his brow. Sifting back, back, through the hours from the dawn. Rewinding the events of life and living until he touched upon that moment--

And when he did, a low intoned and furious whine edged its way between his teeth. "Nnnnoooo."

Salvador pulled his hand away like paper stuck to tainted honey. He stood up so quickly that he swayed, staggered, with a hand to his brow and swearing in a foreign tongue. Too fast he yanked himself out of the visions. A dizzy spell struck him momentarily.

Her voice trickled in from the distance, the barest whisper brushing against his ears. "Sal..."

"Madison," he hissed. Wobbling unsteadily, he stretched an arm out blindly. Unsure precisely where she was standing with his eyes closed as they were. It took a force of effort to blink them open, peer blearily around in search of her. Amazing enough he recalled she was there.

She stepped up beside him, put an arm around his waist and pulled him to her side. "It's okay," she said hushly. "I'm here."

His arm set around her shoulders, silently grateful for the aid to steady himself. But he didn't need her comfort right now. He didn't need her support. He needed her to act where he could not. Time was of the essence, contracting his fae nature. He needed to act himself, fast, now, before it was too late.

So he told her, "I need you... To find Ali. Fio." Once he was able to stand still again, rust eyes narrowed sharply and a scowl claimed his face. "Tell them.... Tell them he took Skid. They'll know what I mean. And tell them... Find Marcus." He pulled away from her and immediately prowled for the stairs.

"Alright," she said to his back. "Anything else I can do?" Madison stepped up to the railing, curling her hands tightly around the pole. Concern sketched her moon bathed face. Her heart a thousand hooves.

Halfway down those stairs, he stopped. Turned back to look at her severely. "If you see Sin, whatever you do, don't go near him. Don't let anyone go near him."

Madison nodded a few times, her eyes soft. "Sal. Where are you going to go?" She glanced back to the fateful patch of mystery on the porch boards.

Rusty eyes tipping down, he turned his head and looked off down the street. "To Peccavi," he murrmured. "To get Skid." God, he hoped it wasn't too late. He took the last few steps down, whispering, "To die." Then he took off in a mad sprint.

From that point on he didn't stop. The pounding of his own heart beat to the adrenaline rush of physical exertion and nothing more. Though there was worry, deep in the pit of his stomach. There was anger, too. This was the first and most unforgivable transgression the sinner had lost his battle to. Taking one person, of the far and few, that Salvador could call friend. The first person he had trusted to see his pain, and to accept a helping hand from.

"I'll help you, if you'd allow it."

"Help how?"

"I could look further into it for you? With you? I don't know. Everything depends on what you want to do."

"What I want to do? I want to rip those f*cking chains off him and toss them out to sea, that's what I f*cking want to do."

"I apologize for the poor phrasing. What you think will be the most effective course of action. That won't likely end with someone dead that shouldn't be."

"I'd die for him, Skid. If it saved him, I'd die for him. I don't care about me. I'm nothing. If it takes me physically tearing the chains off of them, letting them have me, and jumping off the cliff into the ocean to be done with them forever, I'll do it."

"I know. Though I believe that there's a greater chance in that of you dying, and the chains remaining precisely where they are. Nothing is ever as simple as just tearing away."

"If I died anyway, and he was stuck with them, then maybe he'd see what they were doing to him. If that happened... Would you help him for me?"

"With all I possibly could, yes."

That flood of memory was his beacon. It was the tempo of the beating drum that lead him hastily onward, without breaking pace. That last great straw he grasped at to be his motivation. Skid had read the letter. How could he have been so careless? How could he have let this happen?

Salvador refused to let him die. But God, on every dashing step he prayed and hoped. Please, God. Please. In the back of his mind he begged and pleaded, hoped with all the strength he had left in him. Even when he shoved through the doors and raced down into the depths of Peccavi's bowels, again, heedless and without any fear, he prayed.

Ironically enough, he prayed for a daemon.


__________________________________
(Adaptation with thanks to Madison Rye and Necromesh.)

Peccavi's dungeons were hell to some and a workplace to others. In its prime, Sinjin's handful of interrogators would be working on whomever their boss brought down to them for questioning or for killing; however, Sinjin had slowly killed them or driven them out since his return from Iraq. They were the first victims of the Chains, ones who were easily forgotten. But the Chains hungered for more, and Sin's fight was slowly crumbling down after a month of struggle and control.

Now the dungeons were home to nothing but the prisoners of the Chains' despair. The two guards Salvador slaughtered on his last visit hadn't yet been replaced; instead, the doors to the dungeon were waiting silently for him, as if he was expected. Which he was.

Inside, the dungeon sprawling basement was occupied by cells of various sizes, some jam-packed with miserable, broken husks of creatures, others empty. Above them, the sounds of the dance moved endlessly on, masking the true prisoners, truly the only ones left who were not yet undone: Sinjin and Skid.

He had tossed the daemon in one of the prisons, struggling with Inanna to let him remain unharmed. It was a losing battle, already partially lost. It left Skid caged, already Touched by the chains, and Sinjin crumpled on the cold stone basement with the chains wrapped around him, weighing him. A woman was screaming, and it was all he could hear any more.

Skid himself had taken little of the chains' abuse, after they'd wormed their way into his system and found the silent titans blind, deaf, and dumb within him. Still, though, he'd taken such an edge. He'd been placed in a cell with a Phoenix, which was likely a good idea in hindsight, as it was small, and he didn't seem to want to acknowledge it. Instead, his arms dangled through the door's barred window, and his eye, tired and twitching from the dull throbs of pain that echoed within his mind, sat stagnantly on the fallen form of Sinjin all over the floor.

He'd been speaking here and there, though it was mostly, admittedly, to himself. This time, though, he was speaking to the sinner. "You know, Sinjin, on second thought, you can be sorry about this." He mused, in a little revelation from the night prior. "I don't blame you, though, really. If I were in your shoes, you know, if I could wear them, of course, I'd probably have done the same thing. Fighting in your own head isn't easy." He'd been rubbing his forehead against the bars, letting the heat leech into the metal before moving to a new, cooler one, for hours now. His casual smalltalk seemed indicative of his expectance in an inevitable death.

Sinjin's laughter was bitter. The only place he had ever been allowed to think -- to act -- was the dungeons, were Inanna was fat with power and he was able to struggle more clearly. Even so, speaking was terribly difficult with the thick chain wrapped around his throat. He fought with it a moment, both mentally and physically, his voice hoarse and broken. "I've been-- trying for weeks. Not to let Her get Salvador, Ali, Fi--" He faltered when her resistance flared. The chains hissed and Inanna snarled in his ear. "--you. All of you. Too important." The weres, the kindred, whatever else he could supply.. but she wanted more, more powerful things, and she had been Watching for far too long unhindered.

"Well, I do tend to make mistakes; mostly when they're not happening is of the utmost importance." He ignored the pain Sin held in both voice and position. If he wanted to help, he'd likely find himself melting the door open and getting consumed within moments by the chains. "And besides, it's probably best it was me, in the end. I mean, I don't think I'm torn up too badly, aside from this pounding headache." And the lines running back to where it all came from, pounding the agony and misery of those that had been taking the brunt of the chains' interest into his mind. It wasn't something he was unaccustomed to, however. "Judging by everything else in here, anyone else could have ended up worse-off, couldn't they?" Nevermind that he could've, himself. Chance was a bitch.

By the time Salvador reached Peccavi that morning, his lungs were burning. All the blood in his veins was boiling, every single cell. Halfway there he took that step Between, but the walls themselves barred him. So it was through the doors he barged, snarling at the bouncers and shoving the dancing mob aside. His eyes were ablaze with fury, the core of his essence in flames.

Down, deep down into the bowels of Hell he charged, without a word to answer any startled or curious glances that may have passed his way. Salvador had one destination, one goal only, and that was to kick the freaking door of the dungeons open and storm inside to face his doom. "SinJIN!" His voice was tainted with the thick ethereal clash of steel scraping against steel. His fae voice layered atop his human one. Oh, he was pissed.

"S--ss--" The fight renewed itself instantly when the scrape of steel on steel picked up, danced across the room and made Inanna purr with the power of it. The spaniard jolted to his feet, struggling to push himself away from Skid, from Sal, from all of them; meanwhile, the chains nearly hummed with the force of the Hunger and power behind it, secreted away. "Get him out! Get him and go!" Compared to the weeping sinner Sal met the other night, it was easy to tell that in just those few days, Inanna became that much stronger. Sapping away what made Skid certainly didn't help matters any.

Never had his armor been that quick to react. The moment he crossed over the threshold it snaked and slithered and lashed across his skin, ripping cotton and denim in various places as it snagged. Salvador leapt into the room like a cougar pouncing down from a mountain ledge atop the head of the unwary buck below. He skidded and turned, immediately crouched low like some fuming gargoyle with his claws spread and teeth bared.

A strobing flicker of orange light licked at his shoulders. He braced into a challenging predator's pose, growling like the lion that wasn't even his namesake, squared off against sinner and chains from a presently safe enough distance. Edging cautiously toward Skid's cage, he snarled two words, the clash of steel on steel still strong in his voice. "Open it." Though whether he was commanding Sin or Skid to do so was up for grabs.

Skid had been dumbfounded by Salvador's entrance, beyond his own reckoning. "Salvador." Skid made a single deep, thick, hacking noise, and a heave later, the window, and both sides of the door, were coated with a thick, viscous, faintly green substance that ate through the door and into the floor as magma would through a body. Skid inched out of the cell, no longer able to let the window hold him up as the metal crumbled against his body and burned holes in his clothes. He stumbled briefly towards the younger spaniard, before he lost his footing and knocked against the wall. An arm went out for him.

"Go, go, g--" Sin's words cut off with a thick, strangled sound and a woman's voice in a foreign tongue that all of the dungeons could hear. All at once, the chains abruptly wrapped themselves around the sinner, lashing across his chest and shoulder and down the length of his arms; they hummed with power overwhelming and his expression went stoic. It was hard to tell who lead the dance -- Sinjin or the Chains -- but their movements were utterly together. The Spaniard lunged forward and the chains lashed off of one arm and out toward them both, hesitating only briefly from whatever was left of Sinjin to struggle against her.

The sound of his name being spoken by the daemon was akin to the master tugging the leash, pulling the choke collar tight around his throat. Salvador twitched and nineteen spikes rattled along his spine at their joints; clickety click clack. A trusted gift spoken that reminded him of who he was.

For a second, his attention snapped to Skid, and the flicker of orange at his shoulders extinguished itself in that instant. He rushed to the daemon's side and slid up under the extended arm to get it around his shoulders. Sure, the idea was to get Skid out of danger immediately, but hearing the sinner choke jerked his attention back on him. "Sin," he hissed. Sure and stupid, he started a step forward with the full intention of going to his aid instead of remaining at Skid's side. Heedless of all former warnings and commands. Seeing him hurt overrode sanity.

A sound left Skid that tore the air apart and singed the air with ozone, and from his back erupted two twelve-foot lengths of jointed bone spines, wrapped in muscle and leathery hide, struck out with strength the half-Daemon's legs or arms didn't dare dream to have. One joint snapped around the younger spaniard's chest and catapaulted him toward the door, while the other wing flared open in its entirety to form a barrier of any temporary effectiveness. He lurched forwards, moving against his muscles' collective will. Desperation was a great motivator.

It was motivation enough. The chains snapped at the air where Salvador once stood, so close to Skid that the air burned with the power between them and the craving for it, the power desired. Sin frowned with eyes as flat and dark as a shark's; he would not miss again. The chains recoiled back toward him like a whip, wrapping around his arm until the raw end of it was curled in his hand. He moved forward and after both of them while the beat of Peccavi's dance floor raged on above them.

Having seen those wings once before, Salvador had never imagined they contained that much strength. But here was the evidence of it. Here he was sailing through the air. There he went dropping through the door he had just so previously, violently kicked open. And then his body collided with the floor beyond the threshold when he came tumbling down.

If he had been expecting this, he may have had time to collect his feline instincts and land a little better than slamming shoulder first and sliding down the hall. He landed hard and with a grunt, momentarily dazed at this sudden relocation from amidst the raging chaos to somewhere much more safe. That is, until Sin and his Chains decided to come chasing after them.

Skid's body was held aloft like a ragdoll, tearing through the hallway backwards, facing Sin, Inanna, whatever this new height of possession could be called. The wingtips, like sharp, spindly fingers, jammed into the walls at odd angles and formed a sort of wall that surged back towards Salvador. He chanted a low oath, over and over again, in the Damned tongue. Nothing inherently magical, just a sort of focus point. To keep him from going off the deep end. "Salvador! Get through the f*cking door!" Pleasantries were always being observed by the marionette that was Skid.

"Skid, I can't stop this again." Sin's voice was so utterly calm. After all, why should She care if he spoke? Ultimately, he wouldn't be able to save what she knew she already had in her grasp. Prowling forward again, toward the infernal daemon and the half-fae he was defending, the chains snapped out toward Skid once more, seeking out the power it knew was there, that it had tasted before.

"I am through the f*cking door!" the boy snarled. This wasn't exactly how a rescue mission was supposed to pan out, he reflected for a second. Fantastic job you did there, Salvador, he chided himself. Slapping a hand to the stone floor of the hall, he pushed and rolled himself to his feet, acutely aware of the still iminent danger of the situation at hand. "Get your ass through the f*cking door!" The sinner had his chains, and the fae-child had his armor.

He tossed down a hand once he was standing, flicked a wrist and unfurled a snapping, slithery tendril of writhing carapace. One whiplike fling of the substance sent it lashing out to catch and curl like hungry razor wire around the daemon's ankle, slicing an insectoid buzz of noise into the air before he yanked back, pulled hard.

"Kha!" Skid hit the floor, and was dragged back like he'd done a bad thing, while the chains slammed into something thick, grey, wispy. "Go away." The voice was that of a young boy, no older than ten or twelve. Skid's eye widened, and he reached out for the nothingness that had begun to grow, thicken, and turn blacker between the chains and the pair of them.

Forms, tens, growing thicker by the moment, of people began to solidify. They were still transparent enough to be seen through on some level, save the bright, mournful glow of their eyes and mouths. The Shades began to fill the space between them, and Skid was Salvador's for the taking. He didn't know what to make of the situation. The Shades, however, stood their ground, shoving back only as shoved, protecting that which they considered theirs. A little Pigeon stood at the fore.

Time went still. The chains stalled short, as if they hit a brick wall, and Sin's expression shifted to one of victory, however brief. This is what he had been hoping for, fighting for -- and the instant came. The length of the chains shivered and the sound of a woman's wail shook the walls of the dungeon before the metal links fell slack in the air. The daemon's grip was beyond her now, and she retreated. Sin fell to his knees like a discarded doll, hands curled into the floor. "Go," he groaned again in desperation. "Before she wakes again. Marcus-- It's strong enough, I thin--" The Chains shivered and Sin was struck sharp with silence and pain.

As soon as Skid was grounded, hauled through the open door and pulled up against his feet, the tendril unwound itself and crawled back up into Salvador's sleeve. Fae eyes watched the army of little ghosts form a wall between them. He looked through them to watch the sinner fold.

The groaning command had him taking one step back, but the collapse gave him pause. Eyes set on the sinner, those same eyes. He lifted a hand with the urge and foolish notion to step forward again. To instead rush to his side, not up the stairs and far, far away as would be wise. It wasn't fear for his own life that stayed him. It was a realization as his gaze flicked over the shimmering patterns of Skid's personal entourage.

Then his eyes locked back on the sinner as he crouched to grab the daemon's arm and haul him up to his feet. "Keep fighting her, mi alma," he whispered. "Wait for me." Then, and only then, however much it hurt to do so, did he turn away to flee again, ushering Skid along with him in haste.

"Always," Sinjin whispered, as the chains retreated and wrapped around him again, away from the shades that stalled it, and back to their host once more. That single hushed word crawling up his wake bolstered Salvador's resolve. Hearing that one word gave him something he hadn't had before: hope. One word was enough to tell him that he had not lost his sinner yet.


___________________________________
(Written in collaboration with Sinjin Fai and Necromesh.)

Madison slid a note under their door: FIND MARCUS.

?Where?s Marcus? Bastian sent me after a book, and I need to report in,? he?d asked Sinjin casually, much later that night.

?Do you read the paper, Ali?? the sinner had queried in return, acid-tongued and sly.

Sinjin had said so many things that evening, twice and three times the number of words that had actually come out of the man?s mouth. It tore at Ali?s heart; Bast help him, he had to try to understand what was happening to Sinjin, why everything had gone so wrong, why Salvador had shown him with the half-fae?s mirror-image magic a chained Sinjin wept over by an invisible woman. He had to know. And so he trusted Sinjin again, as he had so many times before. Sinjin was trusting him, in turn, to help. The Spaniard wouldn?t have said the things he did, otherwise. Ali bought the evening edition of the paper on his way home.

Grace was kind to his sensitive nose, and kept her sneeze-inducing clove cigarettes outside. (How it was that they drove him into fits, when he could smoke the occasional cigar himself with no trouble, was a puzzle for another day.) When he awoke alone after having slept in quite late, he thought nothing of it. She liked to sit out on the bench by the koi pond, kick a restless, perfectly manicured foot, and smoke in the morning. Something about it soothed her, so much so that he didn?t force yoga sessions on her the way he?d bullied Mireille and Fio into them.

He made coffee, standing in the kitchen in shorts and not much else. On the counter was the paper, turned so that the headline was face-down. Beside it, Grace had laid out a drawing of?Rekah?s, he assumed: there was a chicken in red crayon. He smiled a brief indulgence at it, listened to the coffee burbling. The day promised a storm: the dropping barometric pressure felt like a pair of hands squeezing at his temples, twisting electric pain down the once-broken femur in his bad leg.

The first cup of coffee reached its steaming arms up, embraced him, and dragged him down. Half that cup?five minutes?passed before he realized that Grace still had not come in. His still-sleepy mind was sluggish, but managed to get a little farther down the path of logic?usually she heard him stirring and returned from her meditations to make breakfast. He could hear Dante clicking about in the front room?if she left, she had not taken the hound with her. Siva was still asleep on their bed. Not the slightest hint of smoke had drifted in around the edges of the door to the back deck.

The half-drunk cup of coffee went with him, on a room-by-room search. She was not in his shrine to his goddess. She was in neither of the bathrooms, nor any of the bedrooms. The deck, he discerned with the briefest glance, was empty.

Still, his concern was only that, a mild concern, until he went back into the bedroom. The closet doors were standing open, and a hanger was askew in Missie?s section. Hangers clattered along the rod as he swept them back and forth, looking at her clothes. Missie had a certain green jumper with a puffy sheep embroidered on the breast of which she was very fond, and it was missing.

Stupid, stupid, stupid of him! Mireille had been out for two weeks, Grace for more than a week. He had been lulled into thinking she would stay longer, that he would not have to watch her, check her every morning. He?d let down his guard, and Missie was loose without even that flighty hound to keep watch. And she?d left him one of Rekah?s drawings?

?when had Rekah ever drawn anything for him?

He stalked back into the kitchen, snatched up the drawing, held it to his nose and breathed in deep. It smelled of Fionna and Rekah both. He scowled at it, noticed the indentions of written words on the sheet, and flipped it over.

?I am going on a treasure hunt!? it read. ?I found a new map in my book. It looks like it is far away. So, I will be gone for a few days...

-Rekah!!!!!

P.s. Don't worry. I will be okay. Okay??

He felt his face go numb with shock. ?Oh, no,? he whispered.

Some instinct led him to flip the newspaper as well. Above a bland but recognizable drawing of Marcus? face, the headline screamed luridly up at him:

TELEKINETIC KILLER DISRUPTS WESTEND RAVE?THREE IN HOSPITAL

The mug hit the table at an awkward angle, splattering coffee over the newspaper and the cheery drawing. Ali was already halfway down the long hall to the bedroom to dress, premonitions of disaster rushing his pulse and hammering at his head like the threatening storm above.

He went straight to the docks and combed through every crooked byway and angled warehouse, searched every pier, wrestled his way past unloading ships and dank dive brawls. Thirty agonizing minutes passed, lost in the dockside stink of fish offal, burning oil, and the smell of his own panic, before he caught a glimpse of that lime green jumper.

She was running away from him like a parody of a nightmare. ?Rekah!? he heard her shriek as only Missie could. She darted around the corner of a building. Beyond her was a hint of red hair. Marcus, that premonition informed him coldly.

?Missie!? he roared and ran after her, already knowing he was too late, that he couldn?t catch her before she followed the man into a blind alley.

Ali ran after Missie, too slow, too slow, dodging and weaving between sailors and dockworkers and whores and thieves as she skipped into the alleyway after the redheaded man. The thing riding Marcus was hungry, Missie had told him once, and what if he couldn't get there in time? What if the man had lost control of it? You're fast, Sinjin had told her on Beltane, his voice all laughter and admiration.

He reached the mouth of the alley, planted a boot and slid to a stop on the fishgut-slick cobbles. A wave of overwhelming relief hit him at the sight of a perfectly unharmed Missie standing in front of Sinjin?s employee, looking at a point somewhere past the man?s shoulder.

??suggest you run along.? Marcus was saying to her. He was haggard, looked his age. The suit was not as crisp, his beard untrimmed.

?I can hear you, you know. Why are you so mean?? She was patently not speaking to Marcus, but to the invisible thing following him.

?Can you?? Marcus seemed intrigued for a moment.

?Uh-huh.? Her sharp eyes centered on Marcus? face, and she tilted her head, like a wren eying something that might or might not be a worm. ?Why do you let him do that??

?Because I have no?hn. Mister al-Amat. I suggest you stay back. Truly, I do not want to add your name to my list of crimes.? He sounded remarkably civil for a wanted man, but then he usually did.

?You've made quite a name for yourself in the paper, sir,? Ali said, straightening slowly.

?Thank you. I've been trying so very hard to impress.? Dry, the tone.

?Well, you've succeeded, I assure you. Assuming we can get you out of here without trouble...can I offer you a bargain, of sorts??

?Your mother's a mangy-arsed whore,? Missie shot at the thing, as if it was having a conversation with her. In response, a trashcan went flying. Ali ducked reflexively, though it wasn't anywhere near him. The sudden light in Missie?s eyes was a warning. Oh, no, he thought again.

Marcus gave an exasperated sigh. ?I doubt,? he continued, ?there is any bargain you have that I am interested in hearing, nor do I intend to go anywhere with you. If you haven't noticed, I am a little bit occupied. Surely you can forgive me.?

?I seen one of you that can do better than that.? Missie sniffed at the thing and feigned utter indifference.

?Sinjin needs you and your particular?friend. And in return, I expect I can find a way to help you.? If it could hear Missie, it could hear him, and he couldn't possibly be more specific than that, not if it was flinging trashcans about. TELEKINETIC KILLER, the remembered headline reminded him. If he could get this over and done with before Missie truly provoked it?

?I bet it could eat your big fat butt whole,? Missie added saucily and giggled. Offal rained a path down the middle of the alley as the thing lifted an entire dumpster and threw it out into the street. In a perfect world, all those people out on the docks would somehow fail to notice that a giant metal trashcan just went sailing out into the street. Ali looked over his shoulder to discover that it was not, in fact, a perfect world. No one had been hit, but sailors were gathering around the bin.

Marcus followed his attention out to the street, and the man?s guard rose again. ?I have no interest in Sinjin Fai, and unless you would like to attempt to kill me?which, I assure you, will not be terribly successful?you cannot help me.? He began to walk away, but stopped as abruptly as if he?d hit a wall; something was holding him in place.

?If that's what you want, I'll be happy to try, but there's an easier way.? Hope was dead in this man, Ali could see it. Still, he had to make the attempt. Sinjin needed Marcus. Salvador had some obscure plan in mind to free the Spaniard from the chains, and it hinged upon the redheaded man, so nice was given a last try before nasty was needed.

?It likes me,? Missie declared over the end of their exchange. ?What?s your name?? she asked it. There was a moment?s silence, as the two men watched her. Then she said, ?That?s a mouthful! I?m Missie. But you know that.? The clicking sound of her booted feet resumed as she walked over and took Marcus's hand in hers. ?How come you're so grouchy? Do you always talk so much? I have chickens.? She was not looking at Marcus, of course, but up and over him, still talking to the thing bound to the man. ?I'm just gonna call you Gus 'cause I can't say all that,? she added, as if the thing had spilled its terrible true name to her.

?No, it's not what I want but that is what will happen eventually. I prefer t?dear God.? He pinched the bridge of his nose, winced as if someone were screaming in his ear.

That couldn't be good. Ali started for the man. It was a shame he hadn't had time to open the wedjat?cast the spell that gave him a look past the Veil and into eternity?so that he could see what all the fuss was about for himself, but there wasn?t time.

?Don't be silly. He doesn't want to take him 'way from you. He just wants you to come an' meet the lady-thing. You look like you could do with a lady thing.? Missie said to the empty space over Marcus? head, and batted her eyelashes.

?It's certainly welcome to come along,? Ali added, and breathed out a silent thank you, Missie. Another glance over his shoulder showed a few sailors pointing and discussing the bin, looking rather like they were nerving themselves to come down the alley after the source.

?This is my curse, Ali. It's been my family's curse since the damned dark age?what lady thing?? He scowled.

?Sin has a lady thing on him like you have Gus.? Missie beamed up at him, at that empty space. ?I think she'd like you, Gus. You two have loads in common.?

?I suppose it was only a matter of time before he did something that idiotic,? Marcus said. Ali hadn?t realized the man?s tone could dry out any further, but it did.

He didn?t care. This was beginning to work. He only needed the man and his spirit distracted long enough to pull them through to Peccavi. ?The one that's killing Sinjin,? he agreed, and ripped the Veil open with one hand as the other reached for Marcus.

Whether it was something he?d done he never knew afterward, but both Marcus and Missie reacted as if a train whistle had gone off in the alley with them. Marcus sagged to his knees, white-faced; Missie let go of Marcus to clap both hands over her ears. Bricks, trash and one sad passerby were randomly flung about like toys. It gave Ali incentive to hurry up; he grabbed an arm on each of them and dragged them through what would hopefully look like a side door in the alley to the sailors clustering at the mouth of it.

They sank together through the Veil and into the cold-as-death black tunnel he was forcing through the Tempest beyond it, spilling out into the very edge of the booby-trapped tunnel leading to Sinjin?s offices. On the other side in the safety of reality the air was too warm, the light too bright, the sensation of living again too much. They stood blinking at one another, ears popping, remembering how to breathe.

That was when the booby traps all went off simultaneously.

?We?ve got him. We?re in Sinjin?s office.?

?Perfect. Be right there.?

Elsewhere, Salvador slipped a hand into his pocket and rubbed an odd little coin thoughtfully. Rising from the roof he'd been crouched upon, he stepped off the ledge and slipped Between to take him to Peccavi's back doors. He was in no mood to bother with the bouncers out front today.

There he waited, as if expecting someone.

It took only a short while for Skid to arrive, stepping into one door miles away one moment and out through an empty archway another. From there he followed the little tug in his head at a pace slowed only by his tiring, and before long found himself back outside those doors. Memories~. He approached Salvador and slowed to a halt. "Things coming together, then?"

Salvador plucked a Queen carved from walnut out of his pocket, fiddled with it while he waited. When Skid approached, he grinned like the madman he'd seen a few nights before. "Completely," he purred, giving the Queen a toss and catching her in his hand. Then he lead the way through that back door.

"Excellent." Rather surprised in tone and expression, Skid followed like a lazy dog.

He lead the half-Daemon down winding hallways, up some stairs. Around more hallways and more and more stairs. Places like these were built to be mazes to get lost in after all. Fun to confuse the fools that stumbled inside without an escort guiding the way. Good thing Skid had an escort.

Soon enough, Salvador lead the half-Daemon through a side door that lead into a small bar, across that room and to another door which opened into the office everybody was all gathered in. Just in time to hear Ali speak his name.

"Not until Salvador gets here.

Words were exchanged. A few curt greetings spoken by way of names. And there was Marcus, being petulant and uncooperative. Salvador had no time for this. He spoke his statement about the man coming with him, and Marcus countered, "Is that so?"

"It is," the fae-child confirmed. He was so confident, so certain. "Because if you don't help me--" Less amused and more savage, the edges of his teeth bared. "--I will kill you."

Marcus barked an amused laugh. "Be my guest, Salvador." He spread his arms wide, inviting him to try. The Seer squealed excitedly at the prospect. "Please, try. I invite you. I shall be sure Sabine delivers flowers to your funeral, and I won't even take it from your paycheck."

"And Bastian will be quite displeased with the both of you, I'm certain," Ali remarked.

"It dun matter what Mr. Marcus wants anyway," Missie declared with serene certainty.

Salvador could see it. Fae eyes glittered in the low light of the office as he fixed a sneering glare on the Seer. It was huge, at least the size of several men put together, carved together, with more eyes than anyone should ever have. Tucking the Queen back into his pocket, he removed his coat and offered it to Skid. "Hold this please, will you?"

"Surely," Skid obliged. He took the coat, and slung it over a shoulder, watching everything going on with a mild degree of confusion. Just mild.

While Salvador walked fearlessly across the room, Missie and Ali were commenting.

"Gus wants to eat the lady-thing," said Missie.

"Look, could we deal with Sinjin and save the posturing for later?" asked Ali, perhaps exasperated. "I'd really rather he didn't die, you know. He and I have a fistfight or two to take care of, first." As if he were the only one who wanted the sinner to live. Salvador could have punched him, but instead he aimed his ire at Marcus.

He walked right on up to him until they were nose to nose. Way too up close and personal for anyone's good. "I don't want to kill you, Marcus," he told him, looking him dead in the eyes. "If I die trying ... all the better." What?

Ali pursed his lips and cut a look to Skid, who in turn looked up at Missie, and then considered Salvador. Missie bellowed, "EXCUSE ME!"

Which brought Skid's attention back to her for a moment. He turned his eye upon Ali, and moved forwards. His voice was a little loud. "Missie, what did you say about what Marcus wants not mattering?"

"Gus wants to eat the lady!" Missie informed them all enthusiastically.

"And does Gus pull all the strings?" Skid asked. Because the way she was speaking, it seemed like he just might.

Marcus gave an exasperated sigh. "It wants to see it. Apparently it's familiar with.. whoever this Inanna is." In the end, nothing Salvador said mattered. His words fell on Marcus's deaf ears. In the end what mattered was the Seer's own blood-thirsty curiosity. Missie started sulking, Gus started yelling, and Marcus said, "But the child's right. I don't have a choice."

"When this is over,Marcus," Salvador promised grimly, "you're a dead man." He stepped back, knowing full well who was in control, and flicked his eyes to Marcus' shoulder. Really, fae eyes were looking at ... Gus. "Let's go pay a visit to your lady friend, hm?"

"I am a tool of its whim -- and since you've so swayed it and left me no choice-- " Marcus gestured listlessly. He was, ultimately, a tool. It was his lot in life and he understood this; upon realizing this was, once again, his task, he fell comfortably back into the skin of business again.

Turning away from the man, Salvador made a gesture. "Bring him." Heading back to the door,
he reached for his jacket along the way. Thank you, Skid.

Well that all pulled together nicely, without Skid having to do so much as get the answer he'd asked from where he'd asked it. He looked at Ali, from his perch against the wall, then to Salvador, and then he began to concentrate. Work to do, work to do...

Peccavi's dungeons were built for torture. Sin might have an office at AE or the one that they were just at, but if there was any place that was built for Sin's work, it was the dungeons. It was a sprawling layout that consisted of a history of torture, from antique (and still functional) torture devices, to medical stations with all the fixings, each fit with its own gallery for observers.

However, all of that was empty now. What was occupied -- indeed, overfilled -- were the prisons and cells. Past the instruments of Sin's profession lay enough prison cells for a small county, all of them filled to the brim with a variety of metaphysically broken creatures.. like the one on display now. Some poor were, sprawled across the floor in broken defeat, had one end of the chains wrapped around him like a lover's embrace; above him stood the sinner, the end of the chain in his
shaking hands. They glowed with power. Inanna was hungry and these little toys didn't satisfy her any longer.

When the doors of the dungeons opened, Sin looked up in mute surprise and the chains rattled.

The further in they went, the more the Shade following Skid solidified, wispy corporeal form gifted to her by the closeness of death and misery in the place. She walked closely to him, one arm bent, pulled across her front to grasp the opposite arm. Her voice still carried only in silence, mouth moving and producing nothing, or so it seemed.

Ali was quiet and watchful. Has been ever since the smell of the dungeons sank in. Meanwhile, Missie tried to hold a conversation with Skid's ghostly little friend. She sent the girl talking to her an annoyed little look. "I dunno. How come you don't ever go anywhere else, Aria?"

Salvador spared not a glance to the pathetic wretches that lined the walls, cowering in their cells. He had seen them all before. He didn't even look at the latest sacrifice on display on the floor. Glowing fae eyes and fiercely bared teeth were fixed on Sinjin. The armor coating his skin slithered over and under itself. The spikes lining his spine twitched, clicking at their joints. He walked closer to the center of the room, as if fully prepared to walk right on up there and punch Sin in the face. Like he was just daring those chains to come and get him.

Marcus, for his part, looked immensely suspicious. He frowned at the chains, his walk slowing, and the Seer -- for once in almost its entire existence -- hushed. Gus was drooling; it was like a metaphysical chinese buffet.

"Salvador's a poophead," Missie remarked behind him. She replied to something the girl said, rolling her eyes. That carried in the silence.

Ali slowed to a stop once Sinjin was well in sight, and considered the scene now laid out before him.

Skid began to slow more and more, head dipped and ridges furrowed as another Shade peeled away from him, as if he were a doorway that didn't want to let out whomever was inside. Others did this, slowly, in silence. They weren't as visible as the girl, but they were moving.

The Spaniard's eyes rolled into the back of his head briefly, a showcase of the same misery he was unintentionally delivering; when he opened them again, his expression was the same listless calm he had been wearing for weeks.

"Hello, Sinjin," Ali said, a greeting pitched low from over there.

The sinner was cordial. "Hello, Ali. Missie, Marcus, Sal, Skid." The chains cinched tight around his chest, the raw end of it coming to rest in one hand. He fell silent when Sal stopped directly in front of him, meeting the half-fae's gaze placidly.

Salvador stopped just short of the wrecked were. The toes of his boots were nearly touching the poor wasted creature. He stopped right there. Right in front of him. Staring the sinner and those chains down. Silent. Waiting.

"Don't suppose you brought any cigarettes," Sinjin murmured breathlessly, right before his body snapped into unconscious action. The chains snapped out from his body like a whip to try and wrap around the half-fae overflowing with power so nearby. Too tempting.

And Salvador, well, he only closed his eyes and stood there.

The Seer watched on hungrily, and Marcus was gaining a slow look of horrification.

Those Shades that were out swarmed for the spaniards, as they'd done once before.

Let them come. Chains and Shades. He let them come. Resolute and resigned to this fate, Salvador stood unmoving.

"No--" Sin's voice came through in a bare whimper as the chains moved to whip around -- and he hung on the desperation that the Shades would get there first, that something would, before the cursed thing wrapped itself around Salvador like a lover's embrace and he could only watch.

"They're all mad," said Marcus hushly.

Now, that was something Missie could agree with Marcus on. She stared at him from around Ali's arm. Was Gus gonna eat something? Maybe she was wondering that. Maybe she was wondering what was broken in Sal's head that he didn't listen to his mama the other day, and maybe she was just trying to figure out what was going on.

Salvador couldn't argue the fact. He was, indeed, quite mad. He never denied it. But Missie was wrong, for a change. The fae-child had listened to his mother. She had told him this wasn't something he could do alone. Here he was putting trust in his friends, and whispering as he felt the cold chill of ghosts flood around him. "Faith, mi alma."

The Shades, the chains and a chessboard. Now was Ali's time to speak up, and he did, with a single Word. The Shades slammed into the chains, piled up one after another while Salvador stood and Ali said a single Word. And the spirits pouring off Skid were snatched up and woven into a single wailing wall surrounding the sinner and his chains, twisted into a hellish new configuration by the force of Ali's will and his Rage.

Missie's lips pursed in a silent woah.

Glittering rusty eyes opened slowly to look ... to See.

More and more of them, one after another, poured forth into the wall. Skid couldn't keep the curious from coming, and all he could do now was stare.

And then there was the Seer, the demon who raged and hungered and saw this opportunity like the chains and the sinner were both a rabbit in a snare. Like a puppet, Marcus's body snapped to attention and was dragged toward the Chains and the Spaniard and the cold shells of spirits that surrounded them both. It reached, and hungered--

And Marcus, quite sure this was his end and nearly content with it, closed his eyes.

Ali's hand was shaking in Missie's grasp, and he was beginning to sweat; he hadn't otherwise moved. No grand gestures, no grand Technicolor Pink Floyd laser light shows. She squeezed his hand, pressed closer and almost didn't watch. Her eyes barely peeked around Ali's arm.

The demon loomed up and around, danced and spoke in its never ending tongue before reaching down to engulf the chains and the dead goddess imbued into them. From there, it was very much akin to a metaphysical explosion: two powers that should have never met, both stuck in one place, and both raw with sheer power and energy. For one terrible moment, the world went too still and both the Seer and Inanna went silent before the world errupted in entwining screams and ozone and a wave of magic and Undoing that permeated the air thickly.

Missie hid her eyes in Ali's arm, then, tried stopping one of her ears with her free hand. The pitch of it was excruciating and nearly took her knees from under her, but she didn't let go of his hand. Ali shielded his own eyes with a hand, hissing as the Shades wove in and around the spectacle, bound in place.

Salvador stood resolute. He watched the horrific cinema unfold before his glinting eyes. The piece, the one he'd taken from his pocket, slid out of the grooves in his armor, at his wrist, and slipped into his hand. The black Queen carved of walnut. He clutched her as he watched. Waited.

One by one, each link in the chain began to fall apart like dust. Where they should have wrapped around Salvador and eaten away at everything he was, it began to eat itself from the inside out with Sinjin in the center of it, looking as terrified and relieved as a child.

He Saw. Watched every chaotic second of it. Seared forever into his eyes. Still as the piece he had shown the half-Daemon days ago. That one lone unmoving rook that had never been played on the board he had set up before Ali and Grace.

The Shades screamed in languages spanning the gamut of their racial backgrounds, while Skid gave in to a small, breathless coughing fit.

The chains shattered and for the first time since the age of five when he killed his father, Marcus's world went silent. He collapsed at once, the sheer power of it all overwhelming -- or perhaps finally ending

And just like that, for all the chaos and horror they caused, the chains were gone and Sinjin fell to his knees with a cry.

That's when his hand squeezed. Just like that. Salvador snapped the Queen in half with one firm grip. One word slid hushly over his lips. "Checkmate."

"Time to go."

"Ali."

"Salvador," the Egyptian croaked in response. "I have about thirty seconds before all those spirits come after me. What do you want?" Full-body shudders were rocking him now.

"Every debt you think you owe me--" Opening his hand, the two halves of the Queen dropped and rattled on the floor. "--is paid." Then he stepped forward to shove through the wall of Shades, rushed into a slide through them to come to the sinner's side, on his knees.

Sinjin felt like he was breathing for the first time in weeks. Hell, maybe he was.

All his masks fell away. The stoicism. The determination. The apathy he'd been showing before. Tugging and pulling the sinner up onto his lap, there was concern and relief written all over his face as he leaned over him. Touched him. "Oh, mi alma." Soft and filled with too many emotions. Everything and everyone else, in that moment, was forgotten.

The sinner clutched him, held him with a desperation of a man who had been a prisoner of war in a foreign land far from him. He buried himself against the boy and felt pain and happiness and overwhelming exhaustion. "Home," he begged hoarsely. "Salvador -- let's go home."


The End