Keaton, believe it or not, had struck it rich. In the course of one extraordinary week, he had gone from your average lower/middle-class bachelor to a substantially wealthy man. It was all thanks to the death of one Lord Goroth, a sizeable bounty posted by Miss Tara, and the generosity of one of those who had collected on the bounty. Bounty hunting wasn't even his thing - Goroth had threatened Arya, an escaped slavegirl who he had befriended, and his "brother" Hanzo, and Keaton could not sit back and let that happen. Two violent fights later, he was two hundred thousand gold richer.

The question you have to ask yourself is, what would a man like Keaton, to whom wealth is massively unimportant, do with two hundred thousand gold?

Build a recording studio, and spare no expense. And so, he did.

He had already spent time working at a couple other small recording studios, each one a little too close to the West End for his liking, the power supply a little spotty, and the equipment outdated, albeit enough with which to record a proper album. He'd cut one collaborative EP and a decent punk album there... but he'd always felt a lot more could be offered to the independent music community in Rhy'Din. This was his chance... and also his chance to provide a steady income for himself so he could concentrate more on his music. Who knows? Maybe he'd finally be able to start up a band, or do a solo EP.

The kitsune-turned-indie rocker stood on a street corner five blocks from his apartment and the cafe, in that section of the city that borders some nicer places, but lacks the wealth to be classy, having only the character to be hip - the place where a lot of the young, "modern"-era, single people displaced into Rhy'Din by whatever circumstances settle into apartments, where all the cafes, clubs, restaurants, music stores, hip clothing stores and in general nifty retail lie in this city. Smoke rose in swiftly fading clouds from his lips as he tugged on a cigarette - his first and only for that day, he swore he'd limit himself to one a day - and he dug his other hand into the pocket of his aviator jacket, trying desperately to keep warm. His hair was neater than normal - which meant only several tendrils, not great chunks of hair, hung down around the sides of his face - because he was meeting with important people, and he had some vague notion that he ought to impress them.

Before him lay a squat black building with only a few small windows. It was fairly large - supposedly a former office building, though Keaton was unsure of this - and just the right size for his new studio. Not to mention the location was good. The building looked drab, but Keaton wasn't planning to live here, only to record music, and for that, it was perfect.

He didn't notice the approach of the realtor until he heard the faint crunch of his black dress shoes on the thin layer of snow that coated the sidewalk and frosted the windows. The cigarette went under Keaton's heel with a quick grind of his boot, introductions were made, they shook hands, a mildly funny joke was exchanged, and at last he said: "Let's have a look inside, shall we?"

The interior had been deserted for years, it seemed, and there was still evidence that there had recently been a thick layer of dust, a few gray smears on the chilly concrete floor and cobwebs dangling from a few tricky-to-reach parts of the ceiling. It appeared no one had bothered breaking in over the past few years - likely because there was nothing to be stolen. The front of the building was occupied by one large room, possibly a lobby, with a bathroom off to the right.

The hallway cut right down the middle of the rest of the building, with four rooms off to either side. As Keaton walked along with the realtor, listening to whatever felt important and tuning out all the rest, he could envision how the rooms would be redone to make a good studio. It would not be cheap - but he possessed the means to get this place up and running.

"I'll buy it," he said abruptly with a smile at the realtor, who started, and then smiled right back.

The basement lights would not come on, which reinforced Mr. Lukostevic's belief in ordinary cellar noises as well as the utility of his black flashlight. He clicked it on, casting a beam of light several feet down the stairs, the yellow-white column flecked with illuminated dust kicked up in its path. Something had stirred here recently - something heavy had fallen hard, which would explain how he heard the thud all the way from upstairs.

The stairs consisted of a simple series of wooden boards, still sturdy, but definitely aged ? stained gray by the layering of dust and pretty badly warped. They creaked noisily under his every step, and he took his time crouching low and inspecting each and every one. Satisfied that they were in no danger of collapsing ? it mattered nothing to him how noisy they were or not ? he continued on, and at the foot of the stairs, his beam fell upon something extraordinary.

Running from one corner of the wall was a horizontal crack that had been chipped out more than actually cracking, starting out barely an inch in width and widening in a very irregular manner. Upon closer inspection, Mr. Lukostevic was certain it was not the work of erosion. Grime had barely had any time to accumulate to the point of blackening the concrete, damp though this area of the wall was. Much of the stone was roughly broken, still barely eroded, and coated in tiny little lines that suggested scratching?

This gap in the wall flared to several inches before thinning and ending altogether, its length about a meter by the inspector?s reckoning. Curious, he poked his flashlight into the hole and squint his sharp eyes. There appeared to be a larger area beyond it ? not very deep, in fact uncomfortably thin ? but he could not tell how far off to the left and right it went. The floor of this area behind the wall was a crevice, as if this ?tunnel,? if it could be called that, were formed by an earthquake. Indeed, it looked like rocks had fallen into a crevice overhead, only to become stuck as the tunnel thinned, leaving smaller debris near the crevice on the bottom.

Then, with the sickening ?sss, sss? of oddly textured skin moving against the walls, something dark moved into view. He saw a flash of yellow that he feverishly attempted to reason was his merely seeing stars in front of his eyes, but he was too terrified for reason now as he backpedaled away. Deep down, he knew he had just seen something that had never been spoken of before, not by anyone he knew or could dream of. With whatever earthquake or digging that had opened up the crack in the wall, so too had a crack opened between his world and another, unfamiliar and horrific, and something had slipped through that crack.

It was then that he noticed his flashlight had gone out. He opened his parched mouth to try to scream, and never saw the creature coming from the side.

"He did what?"

Keaton had pushed his way past a pair of detectives on his way to the studio, stopping short of the front door when the supervisor told him in a breath what had happened. The afternoon air was chilly, and his breath rose in clouds to join countless others - a small crowd of construction workers, local shopkeepers and shoppers passing through, and police officers had gathered around the squat building. His hands were wringing themselves inside of his hoodie pocket, face colored red by the cold, wide, serious eyes on the supervisor, who began to speak, and then looked over his shoulder as Phil Edelman was marched out the door.

The mild-mannered construction worker was in a straitjacket, shoved out the door by men in white jumpsuits, their hands on his shoulders. His eyes were as wide as dinner plates, and he wouldn't stop looking over his shoulder, jumping every time he was pushed. He was all too happy to leave, but none too pleased any moment that he had to turn his back on that hole in the corner. Most disturbing of all, though, was the red that seeped through his white straitjacket like dull spaghetti stains on a bib... with a few flecks on the side of his face. The buzz of conversation dropped into silence as they watched Mr. Edelman get roughly deposited into a large white van, the chatter rising again only once it had pulled away.

The supervisor said something else, and Keaton only nodded mutely, following the man inside as his arm was grabbed, and others began to explain, too, and to speculate - but really, no one could explain this. Why had Phil Edelman gone insane? Why had he killed Bob Frankel? What had spooked him so much - just the murder? Was he so deeply horrified with his own act? Keaton scarcely believed it until he saw it, lying on the basement floor.

Bob Frankel was still lying prone, and a white sheet had been thrown over him - it did little to hide the pool of blood that had gathered around him, staining the shirtsleeve of one arm that poked free, stretched out across the floor, still reaching in death for rescue from the horror that had slain him...

Keaton's breath caught in his throat in a strangled gasp, seeing stars as he pressed a hand to his mouth and fought down a retch, leaning uneasily on the railing. Why on earth had this happened...?

* * *

After a couple of days of cleaning up, dealing with workers who had quit and hiring new ones, construction went forward again, behind schedule but moving right along. Soon, it would come time to finish the basement, knock out the wall weakened by that seismic crack and so many rodents, and fill it back in. It was all a matter of time.

Keaton and Trixie McAllister, part-time assassin(-ish?), full-time lovecat and punk rocker, stood not far from the studio where the pickup truck was still parked out front. It wasn't terribly long before sunrise, and yet the team that was supposed to work had left their vehicle there. It was worth investigating... and it was a good thing the pair equipped for some sleuthwork and a potential beatdown. Each had a heavy-duty police-issue flashlight, and Keaton had his butterfly knife, and Trixie had... well, herself. The fox knew enough about the vampire-werewolf hybrid not to question that she was a weapon all of her own. Flashlights on, steeliness bolstered and braced in front of the rest of them that was scared of confronting the owner of the yellow eyes, they entered the building and descended the basement stairs.

The first thing that greeted the PJ-wearing indie musician was a couple of lungfuls of dust kicked up from blasted, ground-up rocks. He choked down a cough, though the creaking wooden stairs were enough giveaway to anyone who might be in the room, and cut his flashlight through the swirling clouds of dust, revealing very little. Trixie followed him down, and then their flashlights went out.

The high-pitched screech was almost too high to hear, but it succeeded in reaching Keaton's sensitive ears and driving needles of pain straight through his eardrums. He groaned dully, squinting hard to focus as they were washed in darkness... barely making out the pair of yellow eyes staring at them, and the gurgling hiss rumbling from the creature's throat. The eyes were... different, they seemed to be without any pupils at all... but Keaton had barely a moment to ponder this with an uneasy turning in his stomach, before the creature attacked.

He could hear his blood pounding in his ears as he grappled with something apparently slimy-skinned, stabbing at it, rarely connecting, his orientation spinning as he struggled in the darkness... and all his senses focusing suddenly on the clubbing blow to his stomach for his efforts, stars flashing and fading in front of his eyes. He stumbled backwards, dropping his flashlight and clutching at his bruised rib... only dimly aware through the blinding pain of bones popping and cracking as Trixie transformed, and a brief, violent engagement. The moment there was a fleshy thump on the floor, the flashlights lying abandoned on the concrete flickered back to life, intersecting on the form of the creature... Even dead, it was a terrible sight to behold, and for all Keaton's travels and the things he had seen, this was alien enough to make his skin crawl.