_________________

[currently running]

The chill of evening was was beginning to creep in as Kristoff stepped from the elevator into the hallway that housed his apartment. The buildings thick concrete walls did little to mitigate the cold and Kristoff was thankful for the voluminous black coat that he habitually wore. Before the door of his abode a burlap sack lay slumped its contents bulging to either side. Reaching down the large man grasped the neck of the offering in one gloved hand before lifting the gift from the ground with a slight exhalation of air and deftly opening the door to his quarters.

Placing the sack down on the dimly lit rooms single mahogany table Kristoff untied the twine. Gazing at the contents confirmed his suspicions - meat and a large quantity hacked from a cow and frozen sold to prevent spoiling. This tithe had been going for some time. Something about his presence attracted those who wished to pay homage to the forces with which he had sworn himself to. He had seen a pilgrim only once, a middle aged woman with deep lines etching her face she given him a glance filled with a mixture what seemed to be fear and reverence before hurriedly scuttling off leaving tribute much like this one in her wake.

More often than not these gifts would also contain money some in quite sizable sums. To the best of Kristoff's knowledge no one had ever attempted to abscond with the tribute though there was surely times which it was unguarded. Placing a hefty slab of the meat into an oven dish and then setting the dial to thaw Kristoff began to read one of the books that lay around his apartment. A treatise on the nature of heroic archetypes the book offered little that Jung and Campbell had not reflected upon in detail. Massaging his temple Kristoff's thoughts began to wander. Something deep within him wished to acknowledge a time where man had communed with the divine channeling with powers that could allow an individual to shape the very cosmos around them. A time where paragons remade the world enforcing their views of justice upon the universe and defying the tragic apathy that colored the mundanity of blind chance. As with any idealist dream this was probably little more than a fancy however certain forces drew strongly upon such notions and what had begun simply an idea in the material world could easily take on life of its own.

This was not what Kristoff desired however he wished such an age to be physical truth not the arcane byproduct born of the collective dreams of humanity. But alas when it came to his line of work one must be pragmatic and take whatever aid was given.

The oven beeped indicating that Kristoff's dinner was ready. Having pulled the dish still steaming from the oven Kristoff only realized once he had set the vessel down on the table that he had taken the scalding meal into his bare hands as both the tea towel and his gloves were elsewhere in the room. No sign of burning had appeared on his palms which was both at once heartening and worrying. Such changes were subtle but were an observer to closely scrutinize Kristoff's life he or she would notice several telling signs that the blonde man was something other than an ordinary citizen of old London town.

Diet was perhaps the least of these but Kristoff had a passing understanding of the human bodies nutritional needs and thirty kilograms of meat with the exclusion of all fruit, vegetables and dairy products was certainly not something that should leave anyone looking or feeling even remotely healthy. However as if making a mockery of natural biological laws he was flourishing on such a diet. Muscle mass seemed both easier to develop and maintain and so he had kept his body in prime shape with the sheer load of protein fueling it as would kindling on a fire.

Tearing at a chunk of the rather rare beef with his teeth and fingers Kristoff's gaze was diverted from his meal to the television attached to the side of his wall. Having sparked to life completely of its own accord static slowly gave way to a clear and defined picture. A sharply dressed news reader rattled off her broad cast causing Kristoffs attention to piuqe.

"Continuing coverage of our top story tonight, a train car arrived today at Amersham station with all its passengers missing. The train had been full when it left a station earlier in the morning and only one of the twelve cars was affected by the mysterious disappearance. Authorities have called it an act of domestic terrorism citing an extremist group who are against the proposed demolishing of abandoned South London streets to expand the Underground Rail."

Following this the television returned to its dormant state - and just as well as the cord that would normally power the device was well clear of any of the rooms electric sockets.

"I see and I obey"

Kristoff uttered with a sigh. There was little point in refusing the will of his benefactors and such a message was clearly a sign that his expertise was required. Sleep was an inviting possibility but the fire was beginning to build up deep within his gut. Any sort of respite from the world would be impossible in this condition. Dark deeds were afoot and such things required an answer.

An hour later.

London's frantic activity never truly ceased but the blood in its great beating heart was beginning to slow. Citizens crept into the nooks and crannies of tenement buildings that they called home and muted light flickered behind drapes. The stairs to the underground stretched out before Kristoff like the maw of the abyss. The halogen glow meant to provide illumination barley penetrating evenings gloom.

Placing one steel capped boot upon the first step Kristoff begun his descent.

“Persephone! Persephone Lynn! Get down here already!”
Persephone, or Perri, as she preferred to be called, groaned and let her head drop onto the worn second hand desk she was sitting at.

Gran. What on earth could that belligerent old woman want now?

“Persephone!” The shrieking became louder and more shrill as the old woman became more and more impatient.

“What?!” Perri snapped, rubbing her temples. At nineteen years of age, Perri was a gangly young woman who hadn’t quite grown into her long limbs. Bony and flat as a board, the only truly memorable features she had were her striking aquamarine eyes and messy array of blue, pink, and purple tendrils mixing with her natural blond. It was cropped short and gelled into a distinctly punk look; Perri had chosen it simply because her Gran would not only hate it, but had specifically forbade Perri from dying her hair at all. She’d had similar reasons when she’d had her ears tripple pierced, then again with her eyebrow and nose cartilage, and yet another time for the snakebite piercing on her lower lip. Gran had been furious each time, and had implemented more rules to clip Perri’s wings... Which the ever-rebellious teen wasted no time breaking.

“You’re not to go out past sunset!”
“What?! I already have a curfew of like eleven, what the bloody hell is this sunset business?”

“It’s for your own good! People went missing on the train today... Just vanished,” The elderly woman had finally made it up the stairs, and now fixed her granddaughter with an equally aquamarine stare, though a little less bright and lined with wrinkles. Perri simply raised an eyebrow at her Gran, clearly believing that this was no more than a ploy to keep her cooped up in the absurdly tiny Londonderry home.

“There’s evil afoot in this city, Persephone Lynn. There always has been, just waiting to surface. Back when I was about your age, in fact--”

“Oh, for ****’s sake, Gran,” Perri groaned, “There’s nothing evil about an empty train car... If there was, in fact, an empty train car.”

“You think I’m lying?”
“I think you’ve said equally crazy things to try to get me to do what you want... Though we both know how well those worked out,” she added, sticking out her tongue to reveal her latest acquisition; a tongue piercing.
Gran shuddered visibly, but there was evident anger in her eyes, “Persephone Lynn! I told you, not another piercing! You’ve got so many darned holes in you it’s no small miracle you can even hold water!”

Perri rolled her eyes and prepared a retort, but the old woman’s tongue was faster than her pace up the stairs, “Give me your house key.”
“What?”
“You're sixty years younger than I am; if I’m not hard of hearing, neither are you. Hand it over.”
“Why?”

Gran narrowed her eyes further, “You think I don’t notice you sneaking off to God knows where in the middle of the night? I’ve put up with your blatant disregard for house rules up until now, but no longer. The city is dangerous, Persephone, especially at night.” With surprising speed, the old woman scooped up the messenger bag that currently held Perri’s keys and began rifling through it to find what she was looking for. The younger woman’s indignant “Hey!” was cut short as Gran found the keys and tossed the bag back. With dignity that only Gran seemed to possess, she ambled back down the stairs, ignoring her granddaughter’s snarls of outrage.

Perri sat, frowning, at her desk. You could say she was moping, but in her head she was already planning her escape. Sure, the doors were locked, but there were other ways to enter and exit a home. For the first time in the sixteen years that she’d been living with her grandmother, Persephone Lynn was glad that she lived in the room nearest the sloping roof. Purposefully, she swung her bag over her shoulder and strode over to the window. She lifted it and hauled her skinny frame out and onto the roof. She pulled the window back down, leaving just enough room to slip her bony fingers in once she came back. From there, she crossed easily to the branch of an old oak tree growing close, probably a little too close, to the house, and clambered down to the ground. She stuffed her hands in the pockets of her leather jacket, which she wore everywhere, and walked to the bike rack. A tight-fitting black graphic tee that didn’t quite reach low enough to cover all of her midsection rested above a pair of faded, ripped up jeans, secured low on her hips with an oversized canvas belt. Dirty, ancient red sneakers didn’t quite keep the cold and the damp away from her feet. Perri, who disregarded fashion almost as well as she did house rules, dialed in the combination on her bike lock and pedaled off into the night.

Monsters and ghosts... What utter nonsense. Although, an entire train car devoid of passengers at any time, much less the morning rush, was certainly strange. Then again, the whole thing was probably a concoction of her overly-hovery grandmother’s surely senile mind. If something had happened at the rails, there would be an investigation. Perri smirked, and headed in the direction of the underground.

_________________

Sleep...

Sleep was something which still felt strange to Deus, his anxiety began to spike as he closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep, fearing that in some bizarre twist of fate he had completed his unknown objective, and Belle had returned him to the realm of the dead, never to awaken again... His mind swam on the possibilities of waking another 4000 years in the future as he slowly became an encyclopedia of the worlds history of technology. Nightmares filled his dreams of Imhotep, once again walking the earth after ten thousand years had passed of sporadic learning, and Deus finding that his only purpose was to become a font of knowledge that could be tapped and absorbed, simply out of convenience for a god-like beings greater learning...

Deus awoke, perspiration beading from his alabaster skin as he sat shaft up with a start, panting with foreign lungs and looking around the whitewashed room of his London apartment. The pearl coloured room had some homely touches to it. Egyptian paraphernalia hung from the walls and stood around the room, effigies of Osiris, Bast and Hathor. Idols, masks, symbols, hieroglyphs, art, beads and trinkets strategically placed around his home giving it a distinct classical feeling. Rolling his feet from the confines of the warm duvet blanket he stepped up to the white silk curtains which blew lightly in the breeze overlooking merry ol' London town. Stretching high as his muscles stretched and flexed from side to side, before letting his arms fall, finger-combing his hair as he looked forward to the day. It was at about that moment of the morning he heard the ever haunting meow of bell 'Oy Deus...' The Mau walked into the room like a dominating presence, no collar or identification of any kind over her, but her cry was almost magical, and she held her head royally, even among other cats... to the human ear it, her call was nothing new, but to Deus, it shook him to his very soul, reverberating through his being like the loudest of chimes, like an isolated quake which rocked his mortal form.

"Do you really need to meow like that? I'm right here... "

The morning routine for most days, was Belle would use her meow to overpower all of Deus' senses so that she would be fed on time and accordingly with whatever fine fish was in the area. She had a sixth sense for the freshness and expense which had been spent on her meal, having even let down high quality salmon due to it being exposed to humidity for too long. But today... today was different, as Deus brushed off her cry, the second which followed meow was more serious, hitting Deus as if his soul warped and he was knocked to his knees, winded and sweating wildly, the subtle magical force behind it thickened, enough to ring in the crystal chandelier and glasses in the room around them. Bells' eyes stared daggers at her charge, and Deus knew that something was different today. The ferocious feline looked to the television and Deus did exactly as he was commanded, as a glint of fear, confusion and desperation sparked in his single organic eye, his faux heartbeat feeling like it would explode from his chest as he fumbled for the remote, switching from channel to channel until a third, softer, less magical meow confirmed what he would be tuning into.

'Continuing coverage of our top story tonight, a train car arrived today at Amersham station with all its passengers missing. The train had been full when it left a station earlier in the morning and only one of the twelve cars was affected by the mysterious disappearance. Authorities have called it an act of domestic terrorism citing an extremist group who are against the proposed demolishing of abandoned South London streets to expand the Underground Rail.'

Deus looked to the cat, whose look was transfixed on the television, looking for something within the moving pictures of the modern age. Deus remembered for a moment how he had struggled to learn the English language at first. Only speaking in the oldest dialects of ancient Egyptian, he was a moderately published case in some psychiatric medical journals, but, over a decade later, such signs of a bygone phase had been left behind... The moment of nostalgia came and passed, and it seemed that Belle had found something with this disappearance, there was something odd here, and if Belle had taken such a strong interest in it, then something was not normal... this, this was something special, something unique...

something... diabolical.

Deus had a sinking feeling in his gut that everyone who was on the train was no longer alive. There were dark forces in this world, and those dark forces were sometimes things which had much bigger goals. What Deus was, were he most other beings, he could well have become one of these dark forces, however his will to live, let live, and co-exist in this world of humans was stronger than his pursuit for power or dominance over humanity in the same way he had experienced in the time of Ancient Egypt. Deus had his servants, but in this day and age they did not even require food, but paper and metal given value by the rulers of this time. Old habits died hard, but he was never cruel to his slaves like other masters in his time, a broken slave could do you no work, and it would mean breaking and training another to replace him. Showing immediately that sometimes an open palm was more effective than a closed fist.

Deus got changed, taking his briefcase full of materials and moved out with a purpose, giving a message to the people who ran his own particular company that he would be taking a sudden vacation, and to send any issues with development to him, he would get back to them when he was best able to... Wearing his coat, silk shirt, pressed designer dress pants, polished black boots, Egyptian themed gold and beaded jewelry and rose tinted glasses he left his home and strode for the location of the incident. Upon arrival he had his own presence, he stood out of the crowd of inquisitive people and grieving mourners which had heard about their loved ones being on the train. Behind them, among the crowd, Deus stood, calm, calculating, hanging back and obviously analyzing the scene. To the outsider looking in, he was more than just an bystander, he looked too wealthy, too different, too clean. But his emotional state was more congruent with a detective, than a civilian, but on the wrong side of the metaphorical yellow tape.

To the observant person, he would be easily picked out from the crowd.

_________________

Evening had come quickly into the small apartment that was "Andrea's" home, the already grey world darkening outside and sucking out the color from the old wall-paper adorning the walls. The old-style furniture cast various shadows from the man-made light that shown through the chambers of the young woman's home, creating a creaky, tired atmosphere that only seemed amplified by the constant percussion of raindrops, the many sprawling potted plants seemingly reaching out for sunlight that just wasn't coming for the past few weeks. Still, the young woman whom had been living in this state of placid depression found a certain peace about it; as if it were a bittersweet lullaby to a long, harsh day.

Resting on the chesterfield that centered the living room, Andrea began to unwind the braid that had been woven carefully into her locks, a cup of tea sitting in front of her and gently steaming while the television talked about in the background. Her own eyes were drawn away from the wavering figures and electronic light, staring off into space as the now-freed brown hair was left in a heavily layered wave down her left shoulder.

The ramblings never seemed to amuse her, as it seemed there was always negative things going on in the outside world. Whether it be war, famine, disease or wide-scale political thievery, the constant pessimism and destruction of the land that had given birth to the races of this world acted as a depressive sedative for the woman, long-past shedding tears over the mayhem around her.

"Best let them gloat in their own misery," Andrea thought to herself.

It was then that a certain topic seemed to stick out and ping the pale, nearly grey-skinned female in the side of her head, her brown eyes turning to stare at the television in focus as the words sank into her mind.

"...A train car arrived today at Amersham station with all its passengers missing. The train had been full when it left a station earlier in the morning and only one of the twelve cars was affected by the mysterious disappearance."

Normally, Andrea would have payed no heed to such a development in society. She had no reason to, for there was little she could do anyway without risking her own safety. Something about this particular event, however, left a cold and resonating horror sink into her heart, as if something very wrong had entered her cozy home and proceeded to breed in its nooks and crannies. It was something she could not stand, like a knife prodding into the back of her mind and rustling about to no end. Standing up, she decided that her usual visits to her beloved woods would not be occurring tonight, and the soft-moving female proceeded to prepare herself for a venture off into the city.




Upon exiting her apartment complex, Andrea's eyes scanned the ever-dimming environment around her. The lights of night were beginning to turn on, shining off into the distance as their glow reflected off of the watery puddles on the ground.

The building she lived in was old and traditional, set apart from the others due to the small park that sat directly in front of it, green as ever due to the hanging vines and many small leaves. This was exactly why she had chosen such a location, for the presence of such an ever-lasting concept brought serenity to the young lady's heart. Despite all the cutting and prodding of the people who lived in this area, the vines always grew back just as fast; lively and ready to overtake the land the second their caretakers seized their actions. following them would come the grasses and the trees, and all the other various things that once grew out from the soil before they were covered up with cement and stone. The world would always revert to the way it was before, always unchanging from the perspective a millennium, and even more so if one looked further beyond that.

Her mind drifted off at this thought, continuing down the streets as she considered a time when there was no green or life to cover the world, thinking that perhaps that time too would come again once more, and perhaps that was in fact the infinite norm. She shook her repeated thoughts away once she remembered her purpose for this walk, continuing on-wards and towards the increasing volume that was the heart of London.




Eventually she arrived at the place she had been seeking, the smell of ammonia from long-aged urine seeping into her nose along with bits of various garbage-stuffs, but the scarfed-up and long-jacketed woman payed no heed to any of it. Her own sounds of a light jingle, all due to the bracelets made of beads she crafted and the metallic, abstract necklaces blended into the other noises of the crowd, though there was one thing that made her stand out from the average fledgling adult, apart from her near-grey complexion.

It was the aura she gave off, an old and unusual one at that. Every being in the world had a certain aura about them, one that made them an individual apart from others, but Andrea's stuck out like a weed on an otherwise perfect sidewalk. It was the same presence that one felt in their lonesome, the presence of being alone in a field under a starry night, albeit grossly concentrated into one area. It was too much of a lack of presence for one to point out and feel suspicious of, and yet too strong to forget she was there. The combination of these two points created an awkward feeling around her that prevented people from socializing with her, and though she knew of this fact, she felt no bitterness towards it. Her own posture reflected this, straight and like a statue in a blissful painting, though still managing to breathe and blink. Her eyes stayed straight and slightly lowered, only breaking her peaceful expression to move and notice something before it abruptly returned.

Stepping forward a few times, she stopped in the middle of the station and stared forward at where the train would normally be waiting, not yet having arrived. She closed her eyes now and then, exhaling quietly as she let time do what it did best, and that was decide if something should worry her or not. She was here for a reason at least, and the value of that reason would be revealed soon enough, but she could not help but wish she was in the woods instead, and that she had never turned on that blasted television. She could have been leaned against a tree in the dead of the night by now, letting herself melt away in her own solitude had it not been for that awful feeling of horror she had experienced, but now it was far too late.




And so she waited, like a sentinel at guard, in the dead of the underground night.

_________________

The interruption was welcome, and Wheeler turned from his computer to his open office door where the hand had tentatively knocked. His latest sermon had been something of a flop, he feared, and his efforts to punch up next Sunday's service were stymied by his indecision. His was an older congregation, dwindling in size every year as the elderly passed away with none to replace them. Wheeler wanted to open his sermons up to the children and grandchildren of his parishioners, make his Sunday services and thrice-weekly classes more modern, more relevant to today's youth. Unfortunately he was caught in a catch-22, as younger members wouldn't fill the pews until his sermons actually resonated with them, and yet his updated lessons couldn't reach them in absentia.

"Kyle, how are you?" he asked as he rose from his office chair to greet the man. Kyle Millerick was the son of two of Wheeler's aged congregation, a man in his early forties like Wheeler himself. Although he only came to church on Easter and Christmas Eve, Kyle was active in the community and so their paths crossed often at various functions and events, religious and secular. The Millerick family - husband, wife and three children - were exactly the transfusion of new blood that Wheeler needed to reinvigorate his ailing congregation, and so he'd practically courted the man over the years. An entirely one-sided courtship it must be said.

"Fine thanks, Pastor Wheeler," he said as the two shook hands at the doorway, before Wheeler turned back into the office, beckoning Kyle inside. "Please, come in. How can I help you?"

"I..." he began, rubbing his hands together absently as he looked anywhere in the office but at Wheeler. "You heard the news? The train?" Wheeler nodded. A sad, perplexing affair, that. Wheeler prayed that the victims were unharmed or barring that, at least their passage from this world had been made quickly and without suffering. Although he knew that man was capable of acts of barbarity and extremism all on his own, and that not every madman was led by the Devil's treacherous whispers, something about the event troubled his mind.

"I did, yes. I hope no one you know...?" he asked, guessing at the reason Kyle might come to visit him. The poor man nodded, gulped back a quick breath that threatened to turn into a sob, and Wheeler could see that those eyes that avoided looking directly at him were wet and red-rimmed.

"M-my brother. Marcus. He was on the way to work. Now he's..."

Wheeler didn't know Kyle well enough for a hug but he clutched the man's shoulder as he extended his condolences. "I'm so sorry, Kyle. Please, sit down," he led the mourning man to his computer chair before unfolding a small metal seat propped against a bookcase for himself. Not for the first time Wheeler felt the shame of his meager office that his small congregation afforded him. The bookcases lined two of the walls, his computer desk the third, and the open door and a small bin took up much of the fourth. When seated at his desk he only had to swivel his chair and lean forward to grab nearly any book to hand.

Still, despite his small flock to tend he felt the Holy Spirit's presence every day, working around him and he hoped through him - a feeling which he'd never felt with any of his other churches. Perhaps the paucity and humble lifestyle he was forced to lead were what kept him attuned to the Holy Spirit, free from the distractions that greater wealth and importance would provide. That was some mighty cold comfort if that were the case.

"I'm sorry. My parents asked me to come here. They wanted you to come by their house if you were able. I know they want some comfort after... this..." Another deep breath that threatened to wrack his shoulders with small juddering sobs before he controlled himself. Wheeler liked Kyle Millerick, respected him a whole lot, and just wished that the feelings were mutual enough where Kyle was open to Wheeler's comfort himself, not just for his parents. He tried not to think selfishly, but the dark thought bubbled up unbidden, that perhaps this was just the event to bring the Millericks into his fold for him. Shocked at the horrible thought, he chastised himself as he stood. "Of course I can. I can be there at six."

That left time to administer to the grieving parents and be back home before sundown. The calculation wasn't even conscious any longer - long years since from a childhood experience had subconsciously ingrained in him not to be out after dark. If you asked him why Wheeler couldn't tell you himself, and probably didn't even think on it at all, but he was almost never without his house after dark even into adulthood, unless his responsibilities to his parish required it or if he felt the presence of the Holy Spirit within him.

*****

The Millerick household - for Chuck and Beth, the elder Millericks - was situated in a poorer exurb of London, not far from Wheeler's Pentecostal church, Living Word Christian Centre, as though it was more convenience of location than strength of faith that had motivated them in choosing their house of worship. That was fine by Wheeler, for whatever their original reasoning the elder Millericks now too felt the presence of the Holy Spirit guide and comfort them through Wheeler's sermons. Too bad that they had little interest in any attempt of his to reach a younger crowd with a fresher message, for he was afraid that in courting the latter he'd spurn the former.

He greeted them with somber words, conveyed his sorrow as they told him what little they'd been able to learn from both the news and the police, both of which had had more questions than answers of course. Wheeler gave comfort as he was able, stressing that they mustn't give up hope the Marcus and the other passengers would still be found, alive and well. He also led them in prayers for their son's safe return, but didn't tell them that he felt only a cold emptiness instead of the warm, soothing presence of the Holy Spirit. He didn't always know when a prayer had been heard or answered, no one could, but Wheeler did know that sometimes he felt attuned to the Holy Spirit and other times, like now, he wondered if his beseechments fell on deaf ears.

Kyle, Christina and their three children soon after came by for dinner, Kyle carrying groceries to make supper for his parents. Wheeler was offered a seat at the table as a simple spaghetti and salad was prepared, and accepted along with a glass of claret. He spoke to the three children, the twin lads aged nine and Becca, thirteen. It was quickly sorted that she was to call him Pastor Dan; he was to call her Rebecca. He knew from Kyle that she played football after school; he wondered if he might be able to get her and her teammates involved at the Living Word - maybe offer them to stage their practices at the small rec yard behind the building, surely a safer alternative than the public pitches they used.

Dinner was soon placed before them and Wheeler led the table in another prayer for Marcus, he holding Chuck and Beth's hands as his link in the circle that went around the table. Afterward they began to eat, and Wheeler kept glancing at his watch. He had a duty to perform here with the Millericks, and he also wanted to see if he could bring the conversation back to Rebecca and her football practices, and yet he felt a growing unease that he couldn't identify or explain as the time drew nearer to 7:00, and as the sun's rays grew longer and dimmer through the curtain blinds as night slowly approached.

Wheeler reached for his glass and a sudden tremble through his fingers caused him to knock it over, spilling the claret across their nice tablecloth to seep into the fabric like fresh blood in deep snow. "Oh, sorry!" he exclaimed, standing to his feet and uprighting the glass, using his napkin against the spill. He looked up and gasped in horror at the Millericks seated around him.

Blood ran from their every pore from their faces, their hands and arms, anywhere unprotected by their clothes. Chuck and Beth, the two grandparents, had slumped against the table, their blood racing along fabric as though seeking to join his spilled claret. Kyle, Christina and the two boys were all slumped in their chairs, blood pooling to the floor from the rivulets dripping from their slack, unmoving fingers. Rebecca, head to toe drenched in blackened blood save for her pale blue eyes, moved from her chair and slunk toward Wheeler, who stood transfixed as she placed her hand on his chest. "You won't find him, Servant. You won't find peace." Her voice had the hoarse, crowing laughter of an old crone, not the clear, mild tones with which she spoke at dinner. The dining room was black - night had fallen completely as with the biblical sackcloth across the sun, and he wondered if the moon had turned concordantly red with blood.

"I'm... what...?" he asked, shuddering at the deep-set cold leeching into his very bones, emanating from her small hand.

"I said are you okay, Pastor Dan?" Her voice normal once more, Becca looked up at him with worried eyes as she gripped his arm as though to steady him despite his size. Aside from his claret which had spilled across his place setting the room was as it had been - the Millericks were unharmed and unbloodied, and the sun although fading still cast its rays into the room. Only the powerful cold of the grave in his chest reminded him of the vision he'd seen.

"Forgive me," he said feebly. "I, I need to go." There was maybe a half of an hour left until sundown, and before Wheeler got safely home there was something he suddenly needed to do.

"Authorities have called it an act of domestic terrorism citing an extremist group who are against the proposed demolishing of abandoned South London streets to expand the Underground Rail."

Jamie drummed his hands in some manner of haphazard rhythm on the large stretch of desk in front of him, tuning in and out of the news broadcast and reclining in his chair. The most interesting part of his job was the fact that it was actually not interesting in the slightest. Libraries were becoming less and less frequented these days since books were so easily attainable online, so for the most part his days were dull and mundane. And Jamie didn't mind that at all really since it meant that he could watch the small television at the end of the table, which he normally enjoyed quite a bit. But this particular news story made him uneasy, and between all the news channels it had practically been playing all day.

"Weird, right?" The only other librarian at the desk, and his best friend, Darren. A nice enough man, but he really needed to stop asking that question every time the story replayed.

Jamie merely hummed in response, vaguely listening to the statement from the Metropolitan Police. "I wish you would change the channel. This is nothing we haven't heard a hundred times tonight," he said. He propped an elbow up on the table, cupping his chin in one hand and holding a pen in the other. The button was turned toward the table, and Jamie pushed it down and let it bounce back up only to fall back down to the desk with a small clatter. "I'm pretty sure you know that officer's entire speech by heart by now."

"I'm just saying-," Darren started, and Jamie gave a rather dramatic groan of despair as he let his head fall to the desk, long hair pooling around him. He heard Darren huff in agitation, but unfortunately that didn't exactly deter him from continuing. "I'm just saying that it seems a bit too weird that only one car was affected. One out of- what was it- twelve? Those cars hold a lot of people, Jamie. What would this group even do with them?"

Jamie lifted his head just enough to be heard. "Hold them for ransom? Kill them? Make them sit through another one of your weird theories?" he guessed, tapping a finger on the desk for each reason he listed. Darren disregarded his comment with a resigned tsk and turned back to the television. Jamie rolled his eyes and sat up straight again. "Alright, what does the great Darren Thompson think happened to the passengers, then?"

Darren shot him a look that Jamie was sure was meant to be threatening, but it really wasn't. "He thinks that the not-so-great James McGuire needs to shut the hell up." Jamie laughed at that and spun his chair around to face him, gesturing with a wave of his hand for Darren to go on. After a moment, Darren gave up the silent treatment as Jamie knew he would. The man could never resist talking about his thoughts on something, no matter what it was. "There has to be something that they're not telling us in the news. I mean, they had to have found something."

"Except they didn't."

"They had to. It doesn't make sense. Say this group unloaded all the passengers of that car onto the railway. Fine. But then what? Where did they go?" he asked, waving his arms for a bit of extra emphasis. "They could have kept marching on the tracks, but they could only do that for so long before they reached another station. And if they did reach another station, I'd like to think that someone would notice a terrorist group leading a bunch of people on foot through the tracks."

Jamie nodded slowly, much the way you would if you were listening to the nonsensical ramblings of an extremely annoying five-year-old. "So, what are you getting at, then? That they actually vanished? Like, disappeared into thin air?"

"That's the only possible explanation. You can't abduct an entire mass of people without someone noticing something."

Jamie rolled his eyes and gave a slight shake of his head. "You're eccentric," he dismissed, pulling his hair back into a ponytail. "It's a half-hour til close, and we're wasting time talking about this."

Thankfully Darren relented, throwing his hands up in a defensive gesture and turning off the television. Darren disappeared into the file room and with a bit of reluctance, Jamie pushed his chair away from the table and stood, stretching his arms into the air with a groan. He busied himself in organizing the papers that had been strewn across the desk throughout the day. He and Darren were both very competent at what they did.. they just weren't exactly neat about it. More often than not, by the end of the day they wound up with order requests mixed between collection development reports. It could only be described as a miracle that they managed to get it all cleaned up and sorted out each night.

"...a train car arrived today at Amersham station with all its passengers missing. The train had been full when it left a station earlier in the morning and only one of the twelve cars was affected by the mysterious disappearance. "

Jamie jumped at the sudden sound and clutched a few papers to his chest, feeling his heart race and then slow down. Without dignifying it without so much as turning, Jamie rolled his eyes and laid the papers on the desk, trying to force them to lay flat from where he had wrinkled them. "Very funny, Dare, now turn it off. We don't have time for this." The woman's voice was cut off, and Jamie was greeted with silence. Which meant that Darren had taken to ignoring him now, but at least he'd been courteous enough to turn the television off again. "Thank you."

"You say something, Jay?" Jamie turned around on his heel, and saw Darren poke his head out from the file room. "Earth to Jamie. What did you say?"

Jamie stared at him with confusion and then turned his eyes to the television. He shook his head slowly at first, then quick with dismissal. "Nothing. I think I'm just tired," he said, leaning backward against the desk and tapping his nails on the wood. He stood in contemplation a moment before forcing it to the back of his mind. "Hey, hurry up so we can get out of here."

They had managed to close down the library on time tonight, a rare occurrence between the two of them. They stood in front of locked doors, Darren lighting a cigarette and Jamie drowning in a black coat that about two or three sizes too big for him. Once his cigarette was lit, Darren took a long drag and shoved his lighter back into his pocket. "See you tomorrow, man." He gave Jamie a firm clap on the shoulder and walked to his car, leaving Jamie to his thoughts. He listened to the car door slam and the engine roar to life, and just like that he was alone. He watched the car get smaller and smaller, and for a moment he wished for the world that he had asked for a ride home.

Because not even a minute later, he found himself walking down Chiltern Avenue as he normally did, but he was going in the opposite direction of his home - he was going in the direction of the Amersham station.

_________________

"Continuing coverage of our top story tonight, a train car arrived today at Amersham station with all its passengers missing. The train had been full when it left a station earlier in the morning and only one of the twelve cars was affected by the mysterious disappearance. Authorities have called it an act of domestic terrorism citing an extremist group who are against the proposed demolishing of abandoned South London streets to expand the Underground Rail."




------

Honey golden eyes, still hazy with traces of sleep, slowly eased open to the dimly pale lit room as the carelessly disheveled form awkwardly adjusted it's position amongst the tangle of sheets, before sagging it's weight down on to the aged mattress once more.

Ringing.

Sleep had come easy to the restless female.
No sooner had time allowed her the moment, she had shed the worn stained excess from the day before, slipped almost contentedly in between the paper crisp folds and allowed her anxious mind to drift off to the furling gentle grasp of sleep. Well....at least.... that's what she had hoped.
Peace. Calm. Stillness. Silence. At first, the hours slipped easily by as they had always done. But soon, slowly, the delicate caresses started to change. The feelings started to change. Those cobweb fine fingers that so lovingly caressed the flawless rounded edges of her dreams, her memories, were no longer fingers. They were claws. Sharply curved, biting, barbed with white hot jagged edges. Ravenously wanting. Desperately needing. Grabbing and pulling, pushing and clawing at her throat, pressing against her chest. Squeezing her mind to a deeper solace. Deeper, darker, further...further. But she didn't wake up. How? She couldn't.
Throat tightening around the musty tainted oxygen. Muscle's tensed in to a shiver. Perspiration beading across her skin like dew drop scales. Hands deftly swiping, scraping away at where the ghosts may have been. Fighting, suffocating struggling .........Ringing......
It was over. Just like that it was all.... over. The female rested her head back down against the damp pillow and waited with eyes closed to the lesser darkness until the nausea subsided. And then... only then did she slowly open those honey golden eyes to the room around her.

The sun had barely risen above the third floor window and already she was hating today.


Look around


With a half sigh, the woman swung her legs over to the side of the bed and stretched out towards the cool paint speckled floorboards beneath, before slowly easing the aches in to some semblance of balance.
Casually glancing about the room, it was painfully clear, that the room she had chosen was as basic and as bare as they come. With it's flaking eggshell painted walls and moth devoured light shade, the dust coloured benches and single wooden chair; it looked to be more of a cheap and questionable hotel as opposed to an apartment in the lungs of London.
From the slightly sagging double bed and size too small closet. The tiny curtained off shower and the rickety three legged table. Right down to the flickering TV, barely illuminating the room with it's pale grey light and white noise; Despite the spidery cracks in the windows and the splintered mess that used to be a door. Despite all the weaknesses and flaws, the down town market apartment had decent heating and a clean water supply. There were no questions. No side eyed judgments. No noise. But the one thing that this place had that no where else did. The one that thing that drew the female to this this hole in the sky; was that this shoebox sized apartment, was on the twelfth floor. Second from the top. Perfect


Ringi......


"Yes? What is it?... No, I was already awake.... Don't worry about it"
A moment's pause. Another lost sigh. One final glance to a second chance
Three tiredly clumsy strides across the room and she was there by the table, phone in one hand, a tight fist in the other; and listening to the strained notes and sporadic rise in pitch of the unnervingly familiar voice at the other end of the line. A voice, she had hoped to have never heard from again.
"What do you want?..... No, I didn't hear the first couple of times..... Yes. I remember y......No, I don't work for them anymore. I am on a contract to contract basis. Yes I finished my year... No I...... I owed them a favour..... I'm not....."
Those words. These feelings. The pause at the end of the line. It was like listening to an old recording stuck on repeat, playing over and over again with different voices and unfamiliar notes. It seemed no matter how many times she rewound and pressed 'play' or tried altering the tape, the ending answer would always be the same. But that was the thing with these old cassettes.
"Fine. It will be done as soon as you have made the.... yes. That much hasn't changed. Good. We will speak again once it's over.... Good day to you too.... Goodbye"


They never changed.

--------------

The city was always busy this time of day

Pulling the well worn black leather jacket, tighter around her taught and toned form, the female stepped out of the bustling station and started picking her way through the murmuring, swarming mass of people.
In truth, the brunette woman loved the city when it was like this. The way the people endlessly filed out of the sky scrapers like busy body ants, filling the pathways, the roads, surrounding the buildings like an endless tide of expensive suits and flesh and bone. Even when the ground looked like it could give way under the thousands of stampeding footsteps, even when the buildings seemed to sway against the sky, they kept on coming and going and coming back again with their eyes on their phones and ears on the ground. These poor, pathetic people with their one track minds and ready drawn paths. As long as nothing got in their way... as long as nothing stopped them in their perfectly curated careers; then who had the time to care? No one. No one at all. Which is why the brunette simply adored these people. They didn't care that the person that accidentally nudged past was carrying a sniper rifle in the little-too-average backpack. They didn't wonder why a singular female would ask which building gave the clearest view of the street. Without so much as to look up at the slightly more inquisitive female, the self important corporeal figments moved on with their life. Never knowing that they had just become accessories to the end of their perfection.

This had become too easy.

Within half an hour of receiving distracted directions and roughly scribbled notes, the sniper had located an old office building across the road fro them address given and quickly slipped inside, easily finding her way to the closest stair well. Then, without slowing her momentum she started up the skyward spiraling passage, clearing the steps two at a time, flying floor by floor until finally... finally she came to a well timed halt at level nine. This was it. The perfect place.
With all the finesse of a common house burglar, the contracted female slunk in to the next room and closed the door behind her, softly clicking the lock in place....just in case. But no sooner had she ensured the memories of the walls wouldn't disturb her, something caught her attention. Someone moving down below. Someone whose name had already been engraved on to a tomb stone.
Time was running out. With another small handful of minutes, she laid down her bag and unpacked her weapon of choice, putting it together within mere seconds of revealing it to the room. By the time it took her target to walk to the front door, the sniper was poised, perfectly still... balanced, crouched at the window with barrel aimed for foyer below and narrowly sharp eyes staring unwaveringly at the building opposite. But she needed to wait. No scope, no guiding cylinder red light just.... watching....and waiting.

The door opened.

Watching.

He stepped inside.

Waiting.

Took a step to the window.

B.A.N.G!


The reaction was incredible. It was like god himself had commanded the world to look up.
The minute...the second the tell tale crack had echoed it's cries around the over crowded buildings, the man at the end of her aim suddenly went weak at the knees. She watched as all his strength abandoned him at once and he toppled over like a felled tree. Landing hard on his shoulder with a sound she was happy not to hear. And before the morbidly curious people gathered about their fallen stranger with phones out and gossip hot on their lips, his heart would have stilled. His last breaths slipped peacefully away. And only the small, clean hole between his eyes and the trench coat falling open to reveal the explosives taped to his chest, would provide the explanation they all looked around for.
"It's been done". The London Police Force now owed her one.
As for what happened next? Well... she didn't stick around to find out. Grabbing the casing that had rolled under the desk, the mysterious killer started to disassemble the rifle half as quick as she had put it together, and wipe down the table of it's fingerprints. She packed away the stand, put the room back to the way it was, and just as fast as she had got in, the female was out and looking for the elevator on the other edge of the floor. By the time the local police force had got there and figured out her trajectory... by the time they had worked it out and started storming that same convenient stair well, the woman would be calmly stepping out of the elevator and out through the main entrance... smoothly, flawlesslyblending in with the blissfully ignorant crowd.

Just in time to grab a late lunch


-----------------------------------------------------

'What the hell is going on here'

On any other day, she would have preferred to take the late train home.
Just wait around town, shopping, looking, wandering aimlessly until the day light people had filed busily, back in to their buildings, leaving only the displaced and disowned. All she would have to worry about is immersing herself in the mindless music of the radio in her ears and make sure to find a seat far from everyone else. Just close her eyes and wait for the hands of time to carry her back to the shoe box apartment somewhere up high. Simple. Perfect. Easy... If this was any other day. But it wasn't... of course it wasn't.
Turning the volume up and adjusting her bag more comfortably over her shoulder, the exhausted female started slowly pushing her way through the usual chaos of mothers too young for responsibility and their one of three possible fathers. The homeless and many homed and the suits that tried to avoid them. With as little contact as she could manage with the rebellious teens and over worked civillians, the female slowly... slowly wove her way around to get her ticket and find a quiet corner to stand... and that's when she heard it.

"Continuing coverage of our top story tonight, a train car arrived today at Amersham station with all its passengers missing. The train had been full when it left a station earlier in the morning and only one of the twelve cars was affected by the mysterious disappearance...."

She didn't need to look up to know which station she had walked in to. She didn't need to look down at her ticket to know which car she was in either. The way her stomach clenched... and twisted.... and folded over in on itself was all the reassurance she needed.
So with one last sigh, the female pulled out a cigarette from the box in her pocket and rested it casually between her lips, breathing in the deep relief as the dwindling lighter flame ignited it's edge. There was no way the station master would switch out her ticket now. Backing out was pointless. It was going to be a long night.

"Fan-fucking-tastic"

_________________

The bile coursing through Kristoff's stomach was beginning to rise. Creeping up through his chest the sensation was not unlike liquid flame overpowering in its sheer potency. However Kristoff was surprised to find himself not only accepting but welcoming the inferno. It was not the simple reminder of being alive that others so cherished but rather the seething purpose of one whose path was ordained by forces whose justice reached far beyond the mortal coil.

Heady sentiments but this was certainly not the time to muse on such matters.

Something had made this space it's hunting ground. With any luck this was just a predator going about its business and all that was needed was a swift and merciful extermination. If the fates did not smile however this could be a consecration carried out by a servitor in thrall to an entity at once primordial and malignant. There was no easy means to discern which of these two possibilities was the case without thoroughly investigating the area.

And so it was that by the time Kristoff had reached the foot of the stairs he was already scanning the room for any signs of a disturbance. The number of subway patrons had noticeably dwindled and large sections of grime streaked concrete was visible. The tagging and graffiti that adorned the subway walls was the usual garbage mostly consisting of both artists signatures and various ethnic slurs. Nothing in the way of sigils or glyphs providing an early warning or defense for the rail haunting predator.

Likewise there were no fetishes or grisgris that Kristoff could discern. The only debris around the area was that which had failed to make it's way into one of the several rubbish bins provided by local authorites. All indicators pointed to the train itself being the epicenter of supernatural activity. This was not to say that Kristoff couldn't be wrong about these sort of matters , indeed he was far from infallible. If the target was canny enough it could even lead the exorcist into a potentially fatal situation.

Relatively happy with his assessment of the area Kristoff turned his attention to the matter of making contact with potential allies. The hunter knew enough to follow his instincts in such a matter. It was not as if those caught up in matters of the occult underground had any particular smell or marking to differentiate them but there was something subtle that made them stand out to those in the know.

Slate grey eyes flicked across the tunnel fixing upon several of the subway patrons.

First was the fashionable young man bedecked in Egyptian apparel. It was not only the unique mixture of both cutting edge and ancient fashions that alerted Kristoff to his presence but that the mans aura of power was a palpable thing. The youth had even brought his familiar - a sandy looking feline with him which was prowling the area. Clearly an up and coming young mage Kristoff hoped that the talent was tempered by restraint. Going in guns blazing could end poorly even for one with command of the mystic arts.

Second was the golden eyed girl. Black leather covered what Kristoff took to be highly defined and athletic build. This was someone who was used to life or death situations. Her posture made it clear that she was ready for whatever dirty trick the world was about to throw her way and Kristoff was glad for it. Preparedness was a virtue, nay a necessity in this line of work and this woman had the eyes of someone who had seen her share of **** ups and lived to tell the tale. Also perhaps Kristoff was reading to much into this but the tan the woman had spoke of days spent under the desert sun instead of lying inside some up market tan bed.

The third was perhaps the biggest mystery. Unusually pale to the point of parlor the girls grey hues lent her a corpse like quality in the dim light. No other detail stood out save for this one thing as both her hair and eyes seemed to be the usual brown found in much of the human race. It was also near impossible to tell the level of otherness surrounding her. Try as he might Kristoff could not place her one way or another.

Deciding to make the first move Kristoff stepped forward and begun speaking in a clear crisp tone with just enough force to carry to other subway patrons. These remarks were directed at the station as a whole but anyone with the mind to do so could hear them.

"Terrible news regarding those disappearances isn't it?"

Kristoff cleared his throat for dramatic effect.

"I think its high time some pragmatic individuals decided to band together and do something about these kind of events don't you?"

Amersham Sation was as dingy as any of the other underground stops. Persephone didn’t typically take the underground, as the disproving looks of the people around her caused her great aggravation. Tonight, however, this stop was all but empty. Perri slipped her bicycle into the rack outside the terminal entrance and spun the com on her lock before starting down the stairs. Gran may have warned her to stay inside after sunset, but Perri had always held a blatant disregard for rules. The unruly teen had to admit though, the scarcely populated station was downright creepy. Her aquamarine eyes were sharp as she scanned the area. There was almost literally no one here!

A frown made its way onto her face. If no one was here... Did that mean that something really had happened? Was Gran’s story more than just a ploy to keep Perri cooped up in that house? A chill ran through her at the thought, but she shook it off. Persephone Lynn didn’t do consequences. She just rolled with the punches and quick-witted her way through. Perri may not be considered “book smart” but she had enough street sense to know when something was off. And something was definitely off here. For a moment, she considered the thought that perhaps, just this once, she should have listened to her elder.

“Bugger,” She muttered to herself, wandering deeper into the station, “Lettin' some codgey bogey-man nonsense mess with me. What a sprout.”

Seriously though, something’s up. So... Why am I down here again?

Ordinarily, Perri would have deduced that, against all sensible logic, Gran had been onto something and she should maybe head home... But there was a nagging in the back of her head that she was chickening out because of Gran’s nonsense about evil feet or something.

‘There’s evil afoot,’ is what she said, Perri. Not evil feet, she corrected herself mentally.

There was another thing that kept her from moving on and returning to the safety of her home. A strange instinct that told her she needed to stay, wait, and observe if anything happened. This puzzled her. What happened here was no concern of hers, and she didn’t take the underground anyway, so why on Earth would she give two shits about an empty car? Unable to answer the question and equally unable to leave, Persephone threw her hands up and huffed in frustration before stomping over to a bench and flinging her slight form onto it. She sat there in silence, arms crossed at her chest and her right leg slung over her left as she waited for something-or-other for reasons equally inexplicable.

“Bloody perfect,” she blurted, decidedly grumpy and unsettled at her own intuitions.

_________________

Belle looked over the varying patrons which peppered the greater area of Amersham station, there were a few people of interest visible to the naked eye, as some people seemed a little more angry than grieving in his own direct surrounding. His bright coral reef green eyes observed each new person with a renewed interest, not all these people... were exactly what they seemed to be. Deus turned to move a little closer to a woman who seemed to be one of the more particularly angry people, but it seemed that before he had the chance to act, Belle had managed to leap ahead in a mysterious bout to observe the woman from a closer vantage point... Leading closer, Belle would rub up against the leg of the woman unknown to Deus as Leo. Belle's emerald green eyes staring up at her as she raised up on two legs to stroke herself against the human girl. Meowing sweetly and repeatedly in a light, sweet, seductive tone.

"You there, human woman... acknowledge my existence.~"

At the sudden notice of Belle, Deus looked with his mind, flexing his magical organs somewhat as he discovered the woman who seemed to have recently arrived had the faint traces of magic about her, perhaps the faintest he had sensed in a long time, but not so faint that they could have been latent... The high caliber rifle which was disassembled in her bag was also somewhat of a tip-off to something being a little more off about the woman. Taking this notice, Belle seemed to have her own agenda, so Deus shook his head, fighting off the frustrating thoughts conjured by the enigmatic feline, leaving Belle to her own devices. As his eye scanned the people in the direct area only to spy a bystander which seemed to have a rather unique opinion about the greater area, his words motivated him into action 'I think its high time some pragmatic individuals decided to band together and do something about these kind of events don't you?' The words ricocheted within the confines of his mind, closing his eyes for a moment to truly comprehend the words from the man, surrounded by an obscure and mysterious inhuman magic... Dubious indeed, but he was completely right, it seemed this area was dangerous, and this was the first time Belle had ever been directly interested in the transgressions of mortals while he had been among the world of the living.

Taking his first purposeful step forward, his tranquil glance would attempt to catch the eye of the man who had spoken these words of pro-activity, giving him an affirmative nod as he reached into his pocket, drawing from it two chromatic petanque spheres which had been polished to a mirrors' sheen. Coiling them in circles, each of them were weighty, but as he span them around each other with his fingers absent-mindedly, he moved between the few remaining people on the street and headed for the deserted opening of the terminal, walking in, he felt the eyes of others on him as if the man were breaking some kind of cultural taboo. The man did not mind that he himself would perhaps act as the arbiter of action, hoping that others would take this sign as the will to enact change and follow suit.

With each purposeful step Deus made, he could feel his faux heart pumping the purposeless blood through his body faster and faster, it had been a decade since he had felt his nerves like this, walking into the unknown, into uncertainty, but with Belle not far behind him, watching over him, he knew deep within himself that he would not be in a situation he could not handle... Belle would not throw him into a situation that he would not be able to fix... would she? It was a conundrum Deus only now had begun to think of, his mind attempted to penetrate the veil of time, remembering the tombs of the others which were buried beside him when he was awoken. Looking further back, thousands of years in an attempt to remember the faces of the students which could perhaps rival him in the same duties he was performing now, trying to deduce if he could indeed be replaceable. He could remember only a few people which could in fact fill his shoes, Jacob and Salome, each of them were talented mages, however each of them had their own personal flaws, Salome was a fast learner, though she was physically frail and had the disadvantages of the femanine condition, while Jacob was very gung-ho, often charging into situations without thinking them through, but he was by far stronger and physically superior to Deus, being the son of one of the Pharaohs' royal guard.

As he walked deeper into the area, he spied a girl who seemed to be discontent with the situation as well, managing to catch her talking about bogeymen. Deus smiled and decided to approach her, coming up from behind and leaning against one of the pillars of the station, he folded each of his arms casually and opened his mouth to address the younger girl.

“I would not be talking about such things with such a casual demeanour, walls have ears you know.”

He spoke with a smooth, charismatic voice, not entirely intending to sound completely innocent. He was having a little bit of fun, while watching over her. A girl like this, would not be able to look after herself if something went wrong in this station. Although were his intentions to be revealed, it may have been considered offensive, but he wanted to stay closest to the weakest person in the area, just in case something bad happened, he would be able to protect the innocent. If people were disappearing from the trains, the next train was not far away...

“However, if it's getting to you, feel free to stay with me. My name's Thaddeus, but you can call me Deus”




(Day-us)

_________________

Andrea had long stood still, her eyes locked ahead of her in a dreamy peace.

Patience had always been her greatest virtue; waiting out alongside time had saved her many years of unneeded effort and complications, always trusting in the natural order of things to fix itself as it had countless times before. It only made sense that she would assume the same of the situation ahead of her, and with this thought she began to really question if her emotions had any true demand of her presence here. Surely she was not needed, such a claim to be made about herself would be not only selfish but insulting to the world she was born into. Her presence was never a required one, but rather became a forced creation of fate that over the years managed to mold into a permanent volunteer position.

As she went over her usual contemplation, Andrea's concentration was broken while she brought her arms around herself in a cross, gripping at the long jacket lightly as she felt its course fabric against the tips of her skin. The sudden taste of something in the air had distracted her; a taste that she knew all too well, and her eyes began to slowly slide across the figurines surrounded her until she began to pick a few apart one by one.

A man, lavishly dressed in Egyptian fashion, tasted of ancient crafted magics, perhaps highly organized in a sense that she could not yet pin-point. Along with him came a companion with her own taste about her, though Andrea knew enough respect to not analyze a cat. More closer to the world were they in her eyes, and to try and sniff out the natives around her was considered rude as a neighbor unless proper warrant was called for it.

Her eyes continued to wander about until they stopped upon a second male, also tasting of the hidden arts. Her secondary senses told her to be wary of him, perhaps for her own well-being more than anything else - When it came to the inhabitants of this world, there were those that hid and those that searched, and she was more of the first group than the second.

Two females also joined the group, though for now Andrea had little to feel off of them that she could identify. The younger one brought her an interest because of her youth, an interest that was directly related to worry more than any other emotion she had at the current. The second had a far more fixated if not slightly aggressive air about her; an emotion Andrea had not felt in a very long time and was not too keen on feeling for a good while anyway, and so she turned her plain brown eyes away as her hair followed with her. The pale female was very much content on returning to her wait until a voice rang up from what she assumed was the second male.

"I think its high time some pragmatic individuals decided to band together and do something about these kind of events don't you?"

Her eyes returned, this time far more pointed and focused then before. Slowly her body would follow, turning as if she were a rotating statue with only the movement of her booted feet to reveal any natural motions. She would face him for a moment, her head canting in both observation and then curiosity before she decided to move forward. Andrea was not a lover of conversation, but she felt the need to answer her own questions about this certain individual on this very night. She would approach him until she was directly adjacent to the male, extending a her right hand to him in the search for a simple handshake.

Words were unneeded. His reaction would dictate whether or not words would be useful with him, as first impressions were particularly important to the individual such as she, and so she kept her lips shut for now. All she would give him was her hand.



If he took it, he would find her warmth a lively and nearly hopeful one, something that betrayed her appearance to a suspicious fault. If one had especially good senses, they may even feel her strong heart beating with a vibrancy comparable to strength of newborn life, unwilling to relent itself or seize any function.

_________________

Wheeler fled from the Millerick house. Formative years spent in America meant that even though he'd driven his Nissan Micra for four years in this country now, driving it still felt anathema to him - the left side of the road felt wrong, but for once he climbed in and scooted off without a moment's hesitation. He glanced back in the rearview mirror but of course saw nothing amiss - the horrible vision displayed before him had not been real; the Millericks were not blood-soaked wraiths but a hale and whole family, commiserating the disappearance of a loved one. And yet what of the warning he'd been given, in the form of young Becca Millerick?

"...You won't find him, Servant. You won't find peace..."

The words followed Wheeler as he drove back toward home - somehow both chasing and leading him as he pondered their meaning over and over. Who wasn't he to find? Marcus Millerick? One missing man in a train compartment composed of missing men? Wheeler had had no intention of searching for Marcus at all, even with the elder Millericks being members of his congregation - until the vision had seemed to call him off. Now some human obstinacy within him seemed to require him to search for this Marcus despite the admonition he'd received. And what of this peace he was purported to be denied? What peace did he even seek save for the strength of will that the Holy Spirit gave him, the strength of will to carry the Paracletian message throughout the city? Surely the missing train car occupants were in no way tied to Wheeler's peace of mind? His salvation?

And yet he didn't drive home as he normally did at dusk's approach, subconsciously fleeing the night. No, instead he drove deeper toward old London, following the Thames like a guiding angel. He soon arrived at Smithfields Meat Market, the largest wholesale meat market in the UK and one of the largest in all of Europe. Although the listed building catered only to retailers - businesses, farms, butchers, supermarkets, restaurants and hotels, Wheeler had done enough business over his few years in the city to earn him some leniency. Added to which one of the floor bosses owed him a considerable favor after Wheeler administered the exorcism of the man's ailing daughter.

Not half an hour after parking his car, Wheeler was once more on the move, this time with a live young sheep standing awkwardly in the back seat, head obstructing Wheeler's rear view. Dusk was well and truly arrived, and the night was in full swing by the time Wheeler arrived back at the Living Word Christian Centre. He made his way to the church with the lamb in tow by the short rope lashed loosely around its neck. Checking that he was truly alone, and locking the facility's doors behind him, Wheeler prepared for the ceremony.

"Behold the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world," he intoned as he placed the young sheep, its hooves now bound fast, on the altar. Wheeler had lit all the sanctuary's candles before dimming the lights, even though his deep-seated fear of the dark did not hold sway within the safety of the church. Small shadows flickered about the altar, dipping into the various folds and crevices like searching hands, dappling Wheeler and his sacrifice in both light and shadow.

"Have mercy on us." In one hand he held the Paracletian texts, bound in leather and bound from all eyes save those of the Latter Rain priesthood, that hidden sect within his church of which he was an ordained warrior-priest. In the other hand Wheeler held the sacrificial dagger, six inches of slender, serpentine steel set in an ivory handle.

"On my knees before Thee, I offer myself body and soul to Thee, the Eternal Holy Spirit..." here the lamb's gentle bleats were silenced by his blade.

"I adore the brightness of Thy justice. Thou art the strength and Light of my soul..." blood collected in the bowl set within the altar, but the lamb's feeble kicks splashed Wheeler's robes deep red as well, staining them.

"In Thee I live to move and am. Mercifully grant that I may listen to Thy voice and follow Thy graceful inspirations..."

On and on Wheeler spake, half reading from the heretical texts he revered, half reciting from memory. He'd only performed the sacrificial rite a scant few times in the past, but the experience lingered with him always, and in truth he likely didn't need the texts at all to follow the performance correctly. With each sentence uttered his hand dipped into the pool of lamb's blood and made arcane symbols in the air before him, like a man signing a second language to underscore his speech. As the rite went on Wheeler felt ancient power stirring about him - reckoned he heard a phantom rumbling like a lion rousing from slumber. When he was a child he'd visited the Children's Discovery Museum in San Jose, California, and had been fascinated by the feeling of latent power idling through him as he touched a Van de Graaff generator, causing his hair to stand on end as static electricity crackled within him. He felt that same sensation again, though a thousand upon a thousandfold more euphoric.

The power and protection of the Holy Spirit draped itself about Wheeler like a shroud or mantle, bestowing on the priest the charismata - divine gifts of the Holy Spirit to aid Its warrior-priests in their battle against evil. He saw, he felt, the world around him in a different way now, as though color had been restored to a monochromatic sufferer's vision. He sensed auras, felt flows of power warping and weaving around him. Within the church was naught but positive energy, save for the besmeared altar that was black before him like a heat sink - and outside the walls of the church Wheeler could feel the empty dreadful air hanging about the city like a miasma.

Full to the brim with the divine protection of the Holy Spirit, the Pastor Wheeler hurriedly cleaned his altar of his sacrifice before leaving the Living Word Centre and making his way on foot toward the nearest underground station. Where before he feared to walk in the darkness alone, now he walked like a man on the mission. Let whoever would deny him peace try to stop him from finding the cause of the train passenger disappearance...

The priest, anointed in the white fire of the Holy Spirit, made his way to the scene of the crime. He wore no armor save for the black pants, black short-sleeved button shirt and white clerical collar of his priesthood, yet strode with the set purpose of a medieval man-at-arms.

It had been later in the evening when Jamie arrived at the station, mostly due to the fact that he had tried to talk himself out of it the entire way there. The library and station were fairly close together and he had somehow managed to procrastinate his arrival until the sun faded and the night air chilled him even through his coat. He pulled it tighter around himself and rubbed his arms through the material as he made his descent, mindful of the food, drink and whatever else littering the stairs. He didn't even know what had compelled him to attend the station in the first place. It wasn't as if he had needed to take the train home; he walked to and from work each day and if he should need to go anywhere else, that's what Darren was there for.

And yet here he was, standing in the belly of Amersham.

The station hadn't changed much since the last time he'd ridden the train. Invisible remnants of something still caused his shoes to stick to the platform and the same advertisements and graffiti alike adorned the walls, though perhaps there were more tags since he'd last visited. It was still the same, yet it felt so different. Colder, quieter, stiller. Devoid of patrons too, by the look of it. The station was all but empty with the exception of a few lingering train-goers that were scattered about, some in small mingling groups and others preferring to keep to themselves. Those in groups kept their voices low, preferring to whisper amongst themselves. In all the times that Jamie had visited the underground this was probably the first that he swore that if he'd dropped a pen, the entire station would hear it. He supposed he should have expected as much though given the current circumstances. Most people would be a bit deterred from taking the train after what happened, and Jamie could hardly understand why he was here himself. Sure, there were a few lingering patrons, but those who remained seemed a tad.. off. Not in the sense that there was anything horribly wrong with them, they just held a sense of peculiarity in their own right.

Jamie tucked the bottom of his coat under him and placed himself on one of the benches with one leg crossed over the other, looking over what few people there were. Far down on another bench to his left sat a rather slender, unkempt girl who had muttered something to herself. He couldn't exactly tell what, but he supposed he didn't care too terribly much. Further down from her was another woman, slightly older than the first and carrying a tenser air about her. The two of them looked like they wanted to be here just as much as Jamie, so at least they shared that in common.

Two other men caught his eye. The first was a rather large man in boots and a heavy coat not unlike his own. The second, a man in more luxurious attire with gold jewelry decorating his person. Jamie wouldn't exactly say that either of them were out of place- he'd seen stranger individuals on the train, after all- but there was certainly something about each of them that made him the slightest bit wary, especially when the man in the coat had begun speaking.

"Terrible news regarding those disappearances isn't it?" He didn't look to be speaking to any one person in particular, but more the group of people as an entirety. "I think its high time some pragmatic individuals decided to band together and do something about these kind of events don't you?"

'Do something about these events'? Was the man insane? Now was not the time- if there ever actually was a time- to form up against a bunch of terrorists. As horrible as the incident was, leave the police work to the police. There was no reason to put yourself or anyone else in danger to take down people who obviously had astounding capabilities. If they could abduct an entire car full of people then it's not like whatever handful of people this man could gather together was going to make much of a difference, provided he gathered anyone at all.

As if to prove him wrong, a woman approached him and offered nothing but her hand and a look of what Jamie would place as determination. She was pale, more so than himself, and held a certain grey, almost deathly air about her. And perhaps he was jumping to conclusions, but if she was buying into the idea of banding together against a group that had the abilities to take an entire car's worth of passengers unnoticed, then she was just as insane as the man in the coat.

_________________

Panic.

What a wonderfully incredible concept. Dangerous Powerful. Destructive.
All it would take: was for one person... one poor, foolish entity to creep silently to another mind and gently whisper sweet paranoia in to their insecurities. To twist their logic in to a false sense of reasoning and whittle away at a rusty rationality. To churn the harmless pet shadows in to gnarled spindle armed monsters. All it would take; was for one desperate individual to let slip the mask that covered the sweat beaded skin and trembling bones; to some how make that raw undiluted fear grow and spread and multiply, sweeping through an endless ocean of people like a pandemic in Tokyo. What power did this one idea have that it could turn thoughts in to frightening and drive innocence to regret? What monstrosity was this to scare a conscious away? Whatever it was, it was this panic that caused the station to rapidly empty.
Oh yes. Within mere minutes of the reporter calmly announcing the news, everyone who had bought their ticket or who were unknowingly fortunate enough to be still waiting in line, picked up what mattered most to their self important lives and made for the nearest exit. All of them. The white collared stiffs and college drop out mothers. The rebellious teenagers, dangerously weaving their skate boards around the rickety homeless and tired assistants. Every one of the people she had been wanting to avoid when coming down here just... up and left, leaving only their unsaid concerns and dusty footprints behind.

Perfect.


Now that the buzzing mass of terrified strangers had cleared the breathable air, it was becoming clear that Amersham station was not so different from any other neglected station in London. With it's ostentatious graffiti and torn paper posters layering the dull grey walls like kindergarten wall paper and the old snowy cigarette ash permanently ground in to the littered pavement floor. There was nothing to suggest why people would be disappearing from here of all places. And it seemed that she was not the only one who thought so.
With one fleeting glance about the area, the young woman couldn't help but notice the some-what specific type of company that had stayed. There was the disbelievers. The average suits and jeans who valued getting home more than some ghost story. The curious conspirators with their flashing phones and conspicuously hidden, pocket sized cameras. And then.... there was the others. The small handful of strangers that didn't seem to fit in to the crowd around them. People who stood out, stood apart and didn't seem to have anything in common with the cliques that usually were found in these type of occurrences.


Naturally, the first to catch her attention and direct her cornflower eyes to this mysterious element in the crowd; was the one who stood out the most. The gentleman standing just inside her view, dressed in what appeared to be apparel of the finest quality. There was just something about the way he held himself, the way he looked around at the people around him. The way all that weighty gold jewelery didn't seem to phase him in the slightest. The thing that stood out to her the most however; was why he would be catching a train in the first place. Someone like that could probably afford their own first class private jet, so why crawl down in to this soiled hole for a cheap train? Maybe it was for the same reason as that other male.

That's right. The second to catch her scalpel sharp focus was dressed more appropriately for this setting but his actions were puzzling. If the brunette woman didn't know any better, it appeared that he was looking for something. But what for? His ticket? His pen? No. This individual in particular had a sense of purpose about him. Intelligence. Intellect. He was looking for something the common eyes would not think to search for. The sniper made sure to note that if she did happen to get involved, he would be the first person to question.... but she, on the other hand would be the last.

Sitting on the benches off to her right was a younger female who looked to be no older than eighteen. The older woman had watched her before, as she walked in and plonked herself down rather animatedly on the hard treated wooden benches, mumbling something that she didn't care to listen to. It was clear that this girl wasn't at all happy to hear the news... or to even be in the station at all for that matter. But once again, the twenty five year old couldn't help but wonder, why didn't the girl just leave? If sitting here in this miserable grey station why not be swept away in the tide of panic and get out of this place? It didn't make any sense. Nothing did here. Even the most normal looking of these strange entities didn't seem to quite...add up.

The final two to catch her attention could quite comfortably pass as perfectly ordinary. If this were any other time or any other place. If this was an entirely different situation then she wouldn't so much as offer them a second sweeping glance. But here, now, she seemed too accepting of this situation. Just standing there quite calmly, statuesque almost, despite the chaos that threatened to spread like a raging infection to those still holding tight to their sanity. And him...
Outwardly he appeared just as calm. Just sitting there, taking in the situation. However, even at this distance she could tell he was sitting there with a tension that could mirror her own.
All these people... these unusual inquisitive enigma's they all appeared to have nothing in common with another,....except for one thing. One tiny... niggling factor. In way or another, whether they knew it or not. They were all here looking for trouble. And in the process they had found....


"You there, human woman... acknowledge my existence.~"

Excuse me?....


She wasn't sure how she missed it at first. The brushing weight against her shins. The gently sharp tugging at the material of her jeans. The polite 'mewing' that begged for attention. Somehow the female had been so lost in her observations of the more auspicious looking humans, that it wasn't until the words started to form following every high pitched meow did she even look down... to see the cat impatiently circling her planted feet and trying to get her attention. Just when she thought things couldn't become any more strange. Some one had brought a feline with them to this catastrophe. Wonderful
With a heavy sigh and some light discomfort, the ex-soldier crouched down and reached a hand to scratch behind the kitty's ear, a hint of a smile pulling at her passive expression.

"Hey. Didn't your carer ever teach you manners? What are you doing here? It's not safe for cat's to be around down here. Is he your owner?"

Leonora Maietta had enough general knowledge to know that the Egyptians held their feline companions in high regard. So it wasn't a far stretch to single out the man who had the unusual vibe of a modern day Pharaoh to be the owner of such a creature and have the tenacity to bring it down here with them. No one else was that stupid.
Barely ten minutes ago this place was within it's normal capacity. People walking in and out, running for their train, bumping in to each other when their focus was one track minded on the ticket in their hands. If that wasn't bad enough, as soon as the report came on, those aimless wanderers suddenly had the same mind... and the same direction. Any child could tell you that even strongest cat was in danger during a stampede.
Still, it wasn't her place to reprimand anyone, not even if she felt strongly about it. Instead, she allowed her absently stroking fingers to meander to beneath the cat's chin for a moment before pulling away and returning her predatory sharp gaze to the entrance, looking out for any more who would stumble unknowingly in to this predicament.

"Terrible news regarding those disappearances isn't it?.....I think its high time some pragmatic individuals decided to band together and do something about these kind of events don't you?"

Of course


That second stranger.... it was like his words had cast a spell across the station. A mysteriously complex enchantment that provoked the group in to revealing a little of what they truly were like inside. Why they were here.
The Egyptian man, who until now had stood out against everyone, now approached the youngest female. Who instead of opening up to another like this one had, withdrew further, curling deeper in to her shell. Then there was that female, who also seemed quite content to sit back and wait this atrocity out, but then surprised even Leo when she openly came forth to offer her hand in assisting in this chaos.
As for that final male... well he seemed to be having the same thoughts that she was right now. That everything that was going on, the disappearance, the people who had stayed, the idea that a bunch of unlikely suspicions could do anything about it, was preposterous. It was madness. Why was she even still here when she could easily be finding a hotel door number at the end of a long hall. Why didn't she walk out with all these other people when she had the chance instead of being singled out by a cat no less?


The answer was always the same. She never learned.


Discreetly switching off the ipod in her pocket, Leonora listened through mute head phones to what was being said, making sure to keep her gaze distant and her attention even further. She would wait and then... only if they needed her. Only if there was no other choice, then the female might step up. After all these people might be down here looking for trouble. But trouble was always looking for her.

_________________

Marcus felt like he was lying on a bed of nails. If he had known a little more about the past few hours he may have even realized that this was not far from the truth. His eyes opened to blue velvet skies above him, stretching out as far as the horizon in all directions. He blinked once, twice and then he shook himself awake. Where the hell was he anyway? The last thing he could remember he was taking the train to work. That's right he was on his way and the train was different. Everything seemed a little fuzzy and he was struggling to remember what exactly had happened. It was dark and the train was taking too long. Memories slowly coiled back into his cloudy mind as he concentrated as hard as he could. Like dust motes collecting in scant rays of light cutting abstract wounds into his memory things began to come together. The last thing he could actually remember were the teeth.

The teeth and those dancing lights.

It wasn't until all these many minutes of recollecting himself passed before Marcus realized exactly what surrounded him besides the infinite expanse of starless sky above him. He was lying on his back on some sort of shore. Faintly, as if many miles away, he could hear the gentle lapping of waves breaking on the shoreline but when he sat up, the pitch black sea that produced the noises was no more than a few metres away from where he lay. The beach he lay on, from a distance, would have looked like a great white paint stroke of pristine white sand and at first, Marcus thought the whiteness, which stood as a stark contrast to the rest of his surroundings, was sand himself. It was only the texture that gave away what he lay upon was anything but sand. It felt like pebbles or maybe small polished stones or sanded wooden bits. It felt smooth to the touch but the small shapes left lots of jagged edges between each little pebble.

Marcus stood and surveyed the peculiar space which he alone seemed to inhabit. There was no wind and only the sound of the tide to keep his ears company. He was completely naked, which was really something he felt he should have noticed earlier but right now it didn't really seem to matter. He was completely alone and as such made no attempt to cover himself. In fact, he felt strangely calm about the whole thing now and as time went on he only felt more and more relaxed. All the buzzards in his head squawking shrill questions at his psyche were dying off and leaving him with something not unlike tranquillity. It was peaceful here. Lonely, but peaceful.

Hours passed and Marcus wandered around on the shore. The stones (wood?) that nestled under his feet were uncomfortable at first but he quickly became accustomed to them. He lost perspective on how far he had walked before long and it just became aimless wandering. Always forward though. He had chosen a direction parallel to the tide and stuck to his guns. He wasn't overly concerned with finding anything out here but something inside his belly drove him to seek and discover more of this alien place. Eventually the sound of something slapping against water broke his trance and he snapped his gaze out to sea. On the cusp of the horizon a light was peaking its head over the blackness, eerie and pale the light bobbed hypnotically in the water and drew closer as he watched it. Rhythmic pounding against water added to the systematic sway of the light atop the black ocean and after minutes Marcus could have sworn that there was a faint song playing somewhere beneath the folds of the windless beach. It was something like a violin but far slower than he had ever heard one played before. It just hummed from all around quieter than a whisper.

The shape that emerged into his sight was, at first, silhouetted by the swaying light source. It appeared to be a large lump of black flesh in the water with something like a man standing atop it. The figure took his berth on the shoreline and Marcus wandered closer. The closer that the ex-button pusher got the calmer he felt and the louder the music reverberating in the back of his thoughts became. He could make out details of the thing now. It was a man, or at least something like a man but with arms far too long and thin, wrapped in a long dark cloak, the folds of which seemed to hold many lights almost too dim for Marcus to make out and he was riding on a large fish. A cross between an inky black manta-ray and an angler fish with a tail that arched gracefully out of the ocean and held on its crook a perfect sphere which emitted the pale light. Its head was hidden beneath the surface but there was no doubt in Marcus' mind that this fish was the monster he had seen on the subway. Oddly, that didn't bother him one bit.

"I'm dead aren't I?" Marcus spoke softly, his eyes dropping to his feet.

-----------------

There wasn't much to be seen in Amersham station close to midnight. The place looked much the same as ever lit by the pallid bulbs of the platform. Most of the kiosks were closed and the station performers had gone home hours ago. There were maybe two dozen people there at this time catching the last trains home. Drunks mostly and a peppering of businessmen and women who had been working late. The only truly peculiar sight was the lack of law enforcement or investigative personnel or yellow tape. For a suspected terrorist attack site there was little to be seen in the way of anyone taking any of this terrorism business seriously.

The main light source of the entrance to the station, down that long flight of stairs, was the moon. Many of the lights that lined the corners of the ceiling had gone out months ago. Every few minutes the moon would vanish behind thick dark clouds and the station would take a notably dark turn for a matter of seconds, even up to a minute or two, before reappearing for a similar amount of time. It wasn't until after almost twenty minutes that the moonlight vanished for longer than before and didn't seem to be returning.

The hiss of metal on metal filled the surroundings and a bright light tore the veil of the dark tunnel to the far left of the platform. The gearous whine of the breaks cut into the grim silence roughly and abruptly as a train pulled into Amersham. The eleven fifty five, the cross-town train of the night. The train looked to be no different to its brothers in arms, a dirty chrome colossus tugging tons upon tons of metal cars each lit no better than the station that surrounded it. The sides of the car were covered in grime and paint, the odd tag visible on its armour.

Slowly but surely, the patrons catching the last train home shambled towards its doors. Of the slightly over two dozen waiting for the thing, the only thing that seemed off were random strangers who would wander towards the cars and slowly, subtly walk away from their initial destination and converge on one car in particular. The car third from the front attracted no less than six of the people catching the train. The most obvious of them was a suited man, perhaps in his late fifties who almost reached the door of the front most car before veering off his path and taking twenty long strides to enter the other car. By any normal stretch it wouldn't look like anything odd. Perhaps the other cars had a smell to them or were filled with homeless who would be woken and kicked off once the train reached its last stop.

Whatever the reason, the third car seemed to be attractive to these few.

To those among the station with an astute sense for the supernal might feel the air grow denser with the arrival of the train. Something lingered here. It smelled old and sweet like pomegranate which was just a bit too ripe. There was one criteria which some in the station may recognize instantly. It was the scent of death. Anybody among the bystanders who had spent time close to death, or perhaps even in death, would probably pick up on this particular aroma quicker than others.

Two minutes until the last train left, all but seven had boarded the train.

The cat among them perked up, ears twitching. She cocked her head to the right and slinked away from her position behind Deus, wandering absentmindedly towards the third car.

_________________

[currently running]

Three.

Not exactly a mighty legion but infinitely better than initiating such a venture alone. The magus clearly understood their purpose here and the swift nod was enough to convey the agreement between the two individuals. This was reassuring as it gave some indication of the mans temperament. Some fools had themselves a sip of arcane power and lost their heads completely, prancing around as if they were the bastard child of Aleister Crowley and Lady Gaga. The lack of dramatic proclamations of fealty or oaths under the sight of Horus meant that when the time came the sorcerer would act swiftly dispensing with worthless gestures. Oh there were times where oblations and deific supplication was necessary but only a fool would draw things out longer than needed.

The golden eyed girl was speaking to the familiar. Kristoff wondered if she could actually make out what the feline was saying bizarre as the thought was he had seen much stranger things in his time. Something stirred deep in the back of his memory - recollections of gliding over ancient savanna on wings vast as night. There he had looked down upon the lesser predators feeling contempt for the cowardice of the hyena and jackals that turned their gaze to the ground shivering in terror of something that could end their mortal existences with but a single breath. It had been only the she-lion who had dared to glare up at him, her mouth smeared with the blood of a wildebeest and her golden eyes challenging even his dominance. The sheer defiance had been stunning and even as his mind sank back into the now Kristoff could not drive the leonine silhouette from his mind the eyes meshing with those of the young woman.

Perhaps this was important or it could be little more than supernatural chaff clouding his thoughts. That was the problem with the mystic, concrete ideas were ever fleeting and even truth itself was malleable.

Removing his right glove Kristoff extended a hand covered in scars. Each finger on its own seemed to bear as many wounds as a particularly unfortunate vet or zookeeper would reap across their career of husbandry. Anyone with medical knowledge would be amazed that the digits were functional at all given the amount of damage that they had seemingly received. Taking Andrea's hand in a firm grip but a few seconds of contact were exchanged. The sheer vitality hidden behind the girls outward demeanor was surprising. The intense life of it all this girl seemed out of place in the dead concrete heart of the London subway. Bearing a wreath in a field of Dionysian revelers felt so much more fitting but in this age and time it was not to be. Andrea upon touching Kristoff's maimed flesh would feel a different kind of warmth. An intense heat waning from the inside out as the light of a star diminished across the great gap of space. And with that the contact was broken.

The 11:55 had arrived bringing with it a tainted presence. Kristoff's sense of smell was almost useless as all scents came off as variants of smoke but in his mind he imagined the scent of spoiled meats and the charnel house.

Turning to face the the younger girl mumbling to herself in the seats and the unassuming gentleman who even now looked at Kristoff as if he should be locked up in a mental asylum the exorcist spoke again for a final time before turning around to board the locomotive.

"This will be your last chance to back out of this business. I can't say for sure that you haven't already raised attention. Gods know just being here may be enough for you to have aroused something nasty that will follow you like your own damn shadow. If you had no idea of what I was talking about before and just wanted to take a train home It would probably be better for your health and sanity to take a cab instead. Not that I really think any of you will back out now. Something inside you knows that you have to act sooner or later even if your conscious thoughts are running though how insane my words are."

Kristoffs boots began to pick up speed on the concrete. The hunter had shown no fear displaying its lure even with forces conspiring against it either the beast was supremely confident in its abilities or simply did not care one whit about the doings of humans. Either way the outcome was going to be the same and that outcome involved the shedding of blood human or inhuman.

As a gloved hand reached up to take the side of the occupied train carriage assisting the large man's entrance into the car the fingers of the other limb brushed reassuringly at the birch stock of the sawn off shotgun nestled in his coat. The intense apathy the authorities displayed to supernatural events was in many ways a terrible thing but in these cases it meant one could get away with things security would normally pick up on.

Persephone sighed as the man began speaking. She’d ignored him the first time, as people didn’t often talk to her. Something about parmesan individuals?

Pragmatic. Right. Whatever that meant. Vocabulary had never been Perri’s strong point. She’d picked up curses fairly easily though. She turned her head to see her company better, aquamarine eyes almost glowing in the dim station hall. A pierced brow furrowed, “You bloody kidding me?” Her voice was sharp, cutting through the relative silence of the station. She stood and ran a bony hand through her multicolored hair, quickly running through her options. The smarter thing to do, by all counts, would be to turn around and leave. Go home and just pretend all this didn’t happen.

That would mean apologizing to Gran and possibly admitting she was right.

Perri exhaled through her nose, cursing her predisposition to fight against everything. Her own demeanor meant that she had no choice but to figure out what was going on here. She crossed the platform in a few quick strides to stand before the small group, “I gotta say though, if this is what’s up against the weirdness, I’d put my money on the weirdness,” her eyes scanned the group critically. It hadn’t escaped her attention that all of the passengers had gravitated towards a specific train car. That wasn’t suspicious at all... She quirked an eyebrow, “Does anyone else find this to be a little too trappy?”

I’ve seen this **** in video games, Perri thought absently, and it never ends well.

Persephone carried a small switch blade in the pocket of her jacket, but she doubted it would be much use against whatever could make entire train cars full of people vanish. Her eyes shifted between the man and the train car a few times before her jaw set, “I must be bloody mental... Name’s Perri, by the way,” she stated preparing to climb into the train after the men.

_________________

Another enigmatic woman seemed to have joined the mysterious group, and as the younger girl seemed to be drawn to them, the ranks of the questioners had grown more numerous. There was the silent one, whom had approached the only audible activist among them, the angrier woman, who seemed to have no shortage of discontent for the events which were playing out meticulously before them, twisting into the beginnings of a dark phantasmagoria. The newest entrant was the younger girl which Deus had approached and spoken to, though she seemed to have taken on his words when she walked up and approached the group. Slipping his hands into his own pockets, Deus strode confidently behind her, arching his hand to his forehead in a silent salute of symbolic respect. His singular eye moving between each of them as he listened to the words of the man, and the younger girl. The girl was right to think that something was afoot, she was cautious, and rightfully so, as were the other people here which had begun to gather.

Belle, seemed to be enjoying herself, after being told she had no manners, the splendid feline smiled her coy furry smile, sitting as she licked her paw, running it over one of her already pristinly groomed ears as she purred audibly, before looking up at the woman once again, meowing and mewling in a series of nonchalant pitches one after the other, soft, subtle, crafty and seductive as ever 'Sassy... I like you, and I'm HIS carer, thankyouverymuch. Maybe Soon I will be yours... now, pick me up, that bag of yours seems comfortable.~' Belle was not one to beat around the proverbial bush, within her mesmerizing emerald cats-eyes glittered galaxies of infinite detail. Meowing once more as if in an attempt to hasten the process of her acceptance. Should the woman accept the offer, the feline would happily yelp in pleasure before hopping into the open hole of the main pocket and disappearing from sight. The Mau was surprisingly light, seeming to add little weight overall to the total mass of the bag, as well as seemingly disappearing into the darkest recesses of her chosen method of transportation, only to be summoned on request, or at the smell of delicious sustenance.

Deus, not being one to understand the bizarre language that his keeper spoke in, stared in a small sense of curiosity and wonder at the ends of the small exchange, and regardless of the outcome, would smile contently, knowing that Belle was going to do whatever she felt like, she had a habit of doing so, and who was Deus to question her? At least this way he was not suspect to the meows of command which felt like thunder rolling against his rib-cage... After each of the parties had spoken, Deus nodded to what the girl had said;

"It does seem that there is a game afoot, the truth of the matter is people have been disappearing, and at the very least, I'm or- ... well... I guess you could say... I've been charged with investigating the occurrence and attempting to perhaps undo or prevent any further damages... And I see you already met Belle, she's, well, interesting. But none the less, we should go, if, my hunch is correct, some of you might be here for similar reasons... if so, I would gladly offer any aid."

Deus smiled, realizing that his words might have been holding up the gathering from pursuing their common interest, turning on his heel and kicking off with a spring in his steep, he moved to enter the back-most carriage of the train, not bothering to look over his shoulder at the others which would either follow, or choose not to, Deus would not blame them either way, this mission had the air of destiny about it, an air which turned those who rose up to the challenge into heroes, but the same air which suffocated those which could not meet the requirements of the challenges they would undergo, and so, Deus had chosen the flip the coin of fate, and come whatever may. Taking a seat on the train in the middle, he found himself leaning back against one of the benches usually reserved for wheelchairs. It was a central position, where he could see and observe everything within the carriage without a large sum of effort. Deus reclined, folding his arms and coiling the two steel pitonque balls around his fingers, using the glimmering sheen of the orbs as mirrors to inspect the room through another sight, looking for shadows and images which perhaps could be seen through a reflection, but not to the eye... or perhaps shadows which were not so apparent...

All the while, an overarching sensation of dread began to wash over Deus, he could not help but feel that this was his lance chance to back down from this challenge... and that once the doors to the train closes, and the vehicle began to move, there would be no other chances to return... ... ...

But, holistically... Thaddeus really had no choice, like a patron chained to their seat, no more than a slave as phantasmal masters watched ever vigilant from the deepest recesses of the shadow conjured by a woman's backpack.

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Andrea looked up at the man, her brown eyes giving off a hint of interest when she felt the peculiar hidden warmth through his skin, but her expression did not last as she released her gentle grasp, pulling back her hand with light grace before it quickly receded into the pockets that was her jacket.

Stepping back, she gave a soft glance to the others when the train arrived; her loose waves of hair fluttering back for a moment, though held down from being tucked under the clothing she wore. Now it seemed was the time for their journey, and the statue-like woman kept her empty stare now upon the pattern of flow that the passengers seem to be presenting. As she took a breath in through her lips, she tasted the air and immediately noticed that flavor of substance dancing about, the bittersweet taste sinking through her taste-buds and further drawing her closer to the train.

As she brought herself inside, she would pause after moving herself down and upon a seat for a chance to scan her surroundings. Something foreboding was growing, and she could not help but feel a sort of thrill reserved for a time in her past; A moment she thought would surely never repeat itself for a long time, but was eager to feel again if only for a single moment. She would take a second to gaze off at the large hunter whom she had greeted beforehand, her pale skin lifting up to the harsh lights that was the train and giving off a small, nearly unnoticeable glitter before her face was lowered yet again. The next set of events were largely left to be unknown, though she would do everything in her effort to discover the source of the disappearances and deduce its exact purpose, and whether or not it was in her jurisdiction to be handled with. She kept a part of herself - one that was worried of how the others may interrupt her visit - close to her heart; Should they make any actions that would fall against her purpose here, she would need to find a non-violent solution to solidify her role in their party.

For now, she would place a light trust in at least the large male, hoping he had enough experience in a similar field to decide the correct course of action when the truth came to light, and a hidden eagerness for the woman, listening to her tunes, nearby. It was an eagerness based on the fact that, out of the entirety of those gathered, her exact qualities were left in the unknown - Something that Andrea always became slightly excited about, to say the least.

Collecting her hands together upon her lap, Andrea's eyes closed as she let herself wait for the train to make its embark into the darkness, forever at peace despite the growing sense of uncanny presence that was starting to crawl over her.

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