The air was thick with heat and incense and candles and the spices mixed in a bubbling pot on the small gas stove. The light was gloomy and dim and cast dark shadows in the small kitchen where one man sat on an old wooden chair at a little round table, shaking hands clutching a mug between them. He was thin and his eyes watery and wide with fear. Sweat dripped down from his brow and he looked as though he was about to vomit or pass out from the anxiety that painfully painted his worried features. Before him stood a second man who was tall with broad shoulders and he wore a finely tailored suit in all black and when he smiled his teeth shone sharply and he had a shark like menace to his gaze as he looked down at the poor, terrified soul who was shivering in a pool of his own sweat.

?It?s good to see you again, Fernando,? he said as he turned to stir the bubbling pot on the stove. Laid out on the counter beside it was a velvet cloth bundled up by a string of leather that when pulled spilled open to reveal a few strands of hair wrapped around pale finger bones. He plucked them up and dropped the ingredients into the small pot and opened a cabinet overhead to steal a small coffee mug. He turned and with the pot in hand, began to pour the odd smelling solution into the cup until he heard the clink of the bones sinking to the ceramic bottom. He let it sit on the counter as he turned back to Fernando.

?I?m sorry to see that you aren?t doing well, Fernando. You seem to have come down with an awful fever, perhaps you should rest,? he approached, pulling out a second chair to have a seat at that small table.

?What do you want, Claude??

?Information, Fernando. That?s all I ask for. A few minutes of your time and I?ll be out of your hair.?

Fernando lifted his mug and took a sip of the drink inside before shakily setting it down. The dark liquid spilled over the lip and trickled down to pool on the table in a wet ring around the mug?s base. He leaned away, as far away from Claude as he possibly could as though his guest held some contagious disease.

?What sort of information??

?Where is she, Fernando??

?Where is who??

The sharp smile that Claude wore faded and he stared at his host with cool indifference and when he spoke, his voice was a low, whispering threat that contained a certainty that couldn?t be denied. ?You know exactly who I?m talking about, Fernando,? he replied. ?Tell me where she is.?

Fernando gulped down a breath of air and shook his head. ?I don?t know where she is, Claude. I can?t help you, I?m-.? the table suddenly up-ended and flew back into Fernando and slammed him against the wall at his back. One of the chair?s legs fell loose and a thick crack went down the center of the table while the ceramic mug shattered on the floor and the hot drink splashed outward over the floor. Claude stood and took the table by its edge and tugged it away, then reached down to hoist Fernando up by the collar of his shirt and slammed him against the wall. Strong fingers curled around the thin man?s throat and slowly started to cut his breath short.

?Don?t play games with me, Fernando. I?ve come a long way to find you and you know how much I hate being disappointed,? he squeezed harder and the man gasped before Claude tossed him down like a ragdoll and stepped over him. The smaller man clutched at his throat and let loose a hoarse cough as he sucked in great lungfuls of air. When Claude reached the counter he picked that mug back up and lifted his other hand. Between his fingers were a few strands of Fernando?s dark hair and he dropped them into the liquid and reached into his jacket?s inner pocket where he had a lighter stashed away.

?This is your last chance, Fernando,? he said as he flicked the metal cap off of the lighter and struck it with his thumb. A bright flame flickered to life. ?Where is she?? he lowered the lighter toward the drink and the open flame seemed to double in size as it neared the bubbling liquid.

Fernando struggled to sit up and scrambled back against the wall, staring wide-eyed. At the last moment he threw a hand out.

?Rhy?Din!? he cried. ?She?s in Rhy?Din! That?s where I sent her!?

The cap flicked shut and the flame died.

?Where is that??

?I can take you there.?

Claude stashed the lighter away and smoothed the wrinkles out of his suit. ?Show me.?

Fernando used the wall to brace himself as he stood again and rubbed at his throat. He stared for a long moment at Claude, then at the mug on the counter before turning and leading him from the kitchen into a small den. In the center was a little wooden table on an old rug and it was surrounded by a couch with books piled onto one side and an old rocking chair that looked ready to fall apart at the next strong wind. Fernando struggled to push the couch away and then moved the chair into a corner of the room before dragging the table off of the rug. He flipped the rug back and on the floor was a circle drawn in white and filled with runes and sigils of arcane origin that seemed to flicker in the dim light.

In a small cabinet next to an old television Fernando had a bowl made of obsidian and after fetching that and setting it down in the center of the circle he opened the same cabinet again and retrieved a small pouch of black salts that he poured into the bowl. The last two items were a box of matches from above an old fireplace and a small silver coin. He struck a match and put the flame to the black salts and they took to fire immediately. He flicked the coin into the flames and they shifted from red and orange to silver and blue and the circle around the bowl lit up with the same light and the fire reached up for the ceiling and in its dancing flames Claude could see a city unlike any he?d seen before.

?That?s Rhy?Din,? Fernando explained. ?Just on the other side.?

?After you,? Claude replied. He took a step toward the fire but stood outside the lines of the circle and settled an unblinking stare on Fernando. ?Go.?

The mage fidgeted nervously but in the end he took a calming breath and nodded and stepped forward to walk into the bright, dancing flames. They shot out and wrapped around his arms and legs and pulled him through and in an instant he vanished from sight. Claude counted to thirty and then turned back to the kitchen where that mug still waited. He picked it up and returned to the den, crouching low to set the mug down on the floor. He grabbed the discarded box of matches and struck one, then dropped it into the mug and the liquid suddenly took to life with a bright red flame. Claude stepped into the silver fire and felt himself being drawn from one world to the next.

Heat spread throughout his body and at first the sensation was pleasant but it soon burned furiously and he felt as though his skin would melt from his bones and he tried to howl out in fury and pain but his jaw was sealed shut and he could only endure it as he was hurtled across time and space and landed heavily on his hands and knees in grass wet from the morning dew. He coughed and gasped as the heat faded and took his strength away, but he managed to stand in the end.

He could smell something burning and hear a crackling behind him and when he turned there was a thin man lying in the grass covered in violent flames. He had already been charred black but Claude recognized Fernando anyways and he smiled in that sharp way of his and tipped an invisible hat to the dead man.

?Thank you, Fernando.?

It had been raining on and off for a couple of days, and the streets and alleys of Dockside were liberally populated with stagnant pools of foul-smelling water. After morning classes at Zen, Riley had pleaded her case to David and asked him to go with her while she walked off some of the nervous, distracted energy she'd been dealing with for nearly two months now. They'd walked all the streets of the Five Kingdoms, had moved through the rest of WestEnd and had just entered the seedy streets of Dockside when the skies opened up and dumped down more rain. "Well, sh*t," Riley said and ducked under an awning that stuck out from a building like a Neanderthal's jutting brow. "This sucks."

"I thought you liked the rain," David replied as he pressed up next to her under that awning. "This is a bit much, though, huh?" There was rain, and then there was rain. This was definitely the latter kind. The kind where you wouldn't be surprised to see frogs, or even very surprised cats and dogs mixed in with the rain drops.

She shrugged a little and leaned against him. "I do. Normally. I just don't like this rain." She peeked out from under the awning and looked up at the sky, as if she could gauge the amount of water left in the clouds, as though there was a level marked with the number of gallons contained in the storm.

"Not much of a fan of it, either," he admitted, slipping his arm around her shoulders. "How's it look out there?"

The air Dockside always contained a certain level of moisture with the sea so close by. With rain pounding heavily on roofs, awnings and heads and sending everyone scattering to find shelter indoors, few paid any mind to the slowly rising heat. It was very gradual increase that went from a pleasant coolness to temperature that was just slightly overbearing when in contact with all the moisture in the air. It made limbs slow to move, minds often drifted off to more comfortable places and lethargy was the overall state of things. One by one, the people Dockside disappeared indoors to rest and make use of this sudden lazy spell that came over them.

"Reminds me of what comes before a hurricane," she said absently. The wind blew towards them suddenly from off the water, carrying with it a gust of fetid, fecund air, hot with the breath of the bayous, and Riley shivered violently. The hairs along her arms stood straight up and Jaguar went on the alert. Then She yawned, circled in her mental cage and laid down. Nothing to be worried about out there, She said before slipping off to sleep.

He glanced down at her, one brow rising a bit as she shivered suddenly. "You okay?" he asked, fighting off the urge to lean up against the wall and just wait unil the rain had stopped.

"Yeah," she said, unsure at first but then she turned a smile on him. Her voice was steadier now. "Yeah, I just thought... Well, it smelled like Louisiana there for a moment." She laughed and shook her head. "Crazy, huh?"

"You were probably thinking about it, talking about hurricanes." He smiled back at her. "Doesn't look like it's planning on easing up anytime soon. You want to find someplace drier to wait it out, or just pretend we're a couple of hardasses who aren't afraid of getting wet?"

She reached down and grabbed a handful of the body part in question and squeezed. "Hardass, indeed. C'mon. Finn's probably doing the potty dance around the back door by now." She stepped out into the rain and for a brief moment, it felt like blood?hot, cloying, and sticky. "Jesus," she muttered, writing it off to exhaustion. After all, She was sleeping, right? Nothing to worry about...

"Twenty years of 'Buns of Steel' tapes," he quipped, chuckling. They were soaked within seconds of leaving the dubious protection of the awning, but a little water wasn't going to kill them. "Should've brought a f*cking snorkel," he grumbled.

"Buns Of Steel? Seriously?" She shook her head sadly. "Next thing you'll be telling me is that you wore leg warmers in the 80s and worked out with Olivia Newton John."

"Hey, ONJ was freaking hot in her day. I'd have loved to get physical with her." He shot her a devilish grin. "No leg warmers, though, those things wouldn't have...," he trailed off, looking around. "Does it seem a little weird out here, suddenly?" The back of his neck was prickling, trained instincts kicking in and bringing a new level of awareness of their surroundings with them.

By then the streets were empty and everyone was indoors, their windows and doors closed to shut out the noisy rainfall. It was the complete absence of life Dockside that made movement all the more unsettling, even if it was just at the corner of perception. There were shadows and blurs, indistinct shapes that moved to and fro at the edges of vision and refused to let themselves be centered in a gaze. They were many, whatever they were. Whispers were barely audible over the roar of the rain.

Riley glanced aside at David and then froze in place, sense straining. Ears, eyes, nose?all dialed up to eleven. Jaguar was still sleeping, which lulled Riley into a sense of security. She'd grown quite accustomed to using the Cat's mind as an early warning system. The rain, though, was wreaking havoc with her own senses.

It was really quite a downpour now; the slithering, sliding, falling drops cascading down windows and shiny surfaces caused her to see movement where there wasn't. The susurrus of the water hitting the pavement and buildings and even their own bodies caused her to hear whispers where there couldn't be. And the water itself deadened scents so that everything smelled now of ozone. "I can't... I don't know." She looked up at David, hovering on the edge of panic.

"Okay, take it easy." He put his hand on her shoulder, rain and forgotten for the moment. She'd been on edge so much lately, no matter what he tried to do to relax her, and the strain was really starting to show. He projected calm at her, like one of the meditation exercises he practiced so often. It helped him too, of course. He'd gotten used to her supernaturally acute senses sniffing out threats long before his merely human ones. Right now, though, it looked like she wasn't much better off than him.

"No," she said, gently shrugging off his hand, trying to make him understand. "I don't know. When was the last time I said that? When was the last time I said that about something I can touch, hear, smell? David...I can't...it's like She's not there anymore." Now, perhaps, he'd understand.

He frowned. "What do you mean, not there? How's that possible?"

Empty windows suddenly contained vague outlines of people, silhouettes that stood and gazed on as they passed by. Up ahead four streets crossed one another and in their center, where the road dipped, was a puddle of murky water, rippling as fat drops of rain fell into it. The reflections on the surface wavered and danced. The whispering grew louder and a low, taunting laugh accompanied it. The smell of cigar smoke filled the air, mixed with gunpowder and rum. The overcast world was tinted with a faint shade of red at the crossroads, where a face leered from the rippling pool.

With a squeak of surprise, she pulled her head back, the tips of those filthy nails passing by close enough to her nose that she could smell their stench. She rocketed a spinning backfist at him, sending it sailing into his temple, dropping him to the ground. Two more sprang up in front of her and she lashed out with a side kick at the outside of the knee of the one on her left.

While Riley hurled herself straight forwards, David took the indirect route, turning and snapping a fast jab into the face of the nearest zombie. He was surprised by the resistance there?these things weren't weak?but followed through, knocking it backwards and spinning into a low sweep that took two more out at the ankles.

A lamplight flickered to life as Claude came to stand beneath it. He held his hand out and Kalfu twisted around and hurled the cane at him. He caught it and stabbed it into the ground to begin tracing lines through the mud. He muttered under his breath as he stabbed the cane into the ground beside his feet and withdrew a small doll from his pocket. A few strands of Riley's hair were stuck to its head. He dropped the doll in the mud and pulled the stopper out of the glass vial with his teeth.

As the crowd began to thin, the men and women falling over into the mud under Riley's vicious fury and strength, Kalfu stepped forward. He held his hand out and the cane he had tossed to Claude came spinning through the air and slapped against his palm. He swung it once and then ran forward. Behind him, Claude withdrew the first of several small, silver needles from the vial and stabbed it into the doll's hand and muttered an incantation under his breath.

A shooting pain stabbed through her hand, rendering it useless. Blind panic set up shop inside her and all of David's careful tutelage went down the drain. Jaguar took over and She was not a fighter with finesse. Instinct had her biting, growling, raking claws through flesh like an animal in her mad struggle to get away and to take on the bokur.

The next needle went through the doll's left knee. Kalfu rushed up and swung the cane at David's head, wielding it like a sword but without any show of finesse or skill. It was raw power and strength behind his arm, the loa didn't need anything else. Even as Kalfu advanced, Claude stabbed another needle into the doll's shoulder and cast a glance over at Riley to see her reaction to the sudden pains he was inflicting upon her.

He caught the motion in his peripheral vision and jerked his head down, out of the way. He could hear the whistle of the cane as it cut through the air with murderous force. Don't let it hit, he told himself, leaping back several feet and trying to keep an eye on the zombies at the same time.

Riley surrendered control completely to the Cat, who took over and sent their shared body into the movie-monster form?a hulking, seven-foot tall she-beast covered with black fur. A jungle cat scream rent the air as first her knee blew out, sending her into a stumbling, shuffling gait, and then her shoulder seemed to catch fire. She screamed again but didn't stop trying to drag herself towards Claude, using her good hand to swipe at groins and abdomens as she stumbled to the ground.

The cane collided with one of the men who was rushing at David and the poor fellow's head caved in under the blow and he toppled back to the ground with a hard thud. Kalfu sneered and spun around, almost dancing away. Meanwhile, Claude laughed quietly and turned back to the doll and stabbed a needle into its other hand, then its foot and when he had one left, he poised it over where the doll's heart would be.

His attention was jerked away from both cane and zombies when he heard Jaguar's scream. He saw her go down and yelled out her name, sprinting towards her, knocking aside the ragged figures standing between him and his wife. He couldn't see what was hurting her, but he could tell it was bad. Was there a sniper out there somewhere, maybe with silver bullets?

She was down in the mud now, still struggling feebly on her stomach to continue on, even though she could feel the poison of silver seeping through her veins. She had a momentary flashback to the Unseelie Sithen and her torture there, and a pathetic mewl escaped her throat. "David," she managed to scream, though she was practically buried at the bottom of a pile of zombies.

"Say goodbye, Riley," Claude called out before he pressed the last of the silver needles into the doll's heart. It sank down and pinned the small, cloth doll to the ground beneath it and Claude rose and turned to watch his handiwork unfold. Kalfu had stopped moving and instead clutched his cane before him, laughing in that rasping voice of his.

A searing pain shot through her chest and her eyes went wide, like a panicked horse, showing the whites all around. She suddenly couldn't breathe, couldn't draw a single breath and in her fright, she could feel her heart slamming against the walls of her chest, like a bird straining to get out of its cage.

Slamslamslamslam slam slam slam slam slam s l a m s l a m

"David," she said, though she couldn't see, couldn't hear, couldn't feel anything.

He grabbed the first of the zombies that had piled on her, hurling it away with desperate force, not even watching to see where or how far it flew before reaching for the next one. Her call was ringing in his ears. He screamed a wordless denial when he saw her stop struggling, His arms blurred in wide, sweeping arcs, bodies exploding away from them in every direction like a bomb had gone off, leaving just the two of them in the center. He caught her in those same arms, holding her carefully. "Riley," he called hoarsely. He couldn't even see any injuries on her.

Claude's laugh joined Kalfu's and both stood there in their neat suits, watching David struggle to get to Riley. The bokur stepped forward. Behind David, Kalfu did the same. "You can't save her," he said as Kalfu started spinning his cane in hand again. "But you will be joining her soon enough. Kill him, Kalfu."

She could barely hear his voice. It was as though he was at the end of a very long tunnel and she was floating away from him. She knew she should struggle to stay, but that body down there below was so filled with pain and that light up there was so warm and gentle. "I'm sorry," she whispered to David and turned away, and felt the light on her face and suddenly her nose was filled with the scent of Grey Flannel, her grandfather's cologne. "Poppy?" An old, arthritic hand closed around hers...

S l a m s l a...