*A new post*

There is a new post for this story, but its adult subject matter has required that I move it to my "explicit" archive.

If you aren't a member of that blog yet and wish to read the latest Matthew chapter, just let me know and I'll add you.

Just be warned; it can get scary in there. :)

-A

Vengeance is Mine

Red. Red was everywhere, liquid and warm.

Everything was red and black.

The only sound, aside from the soft drip of fading life, was the wind. No, not the wind. Just a rasping breath. In and out, getting slower each time.

It was his own. Likely his last. There wasn't much time.

Forty three years and they all ended tonight.

His shaking hand lifted the receiver and set it on the desk. It returned to the number pad, dialing a sequence he'd prayed he would never have to use. Then it lifted the handset back up off the crimson-stained blotter and held it to his ear.

A complicated way to make a call, but necessary since only one of his arms worked.

As he'd always imagined, the other line only rang once.

"Yes?"

The voice was calm, a tone that meant there was no way the person answering had any idea why he was calling.

"We..." He did not mean to trail off but the pain of speaking was more than he'd expected. Marshaling his will, he forced himself to continue. "We... have... been... attacked." Between words, he was panting, wasting breaths. There were precious few left.

"Has the assault been dealt with, Precept?" Again, the speaker was utterly, eerily calm.

He almost laughed, but what remained in his lungs had to last through the next few moments. "No... The assault... has been successful. We... are slain... to a man. Only... only I remain." Inwardly, he cursed himself for repeating a word.

"Your diocese is lost, then."

It wasn't a question, nor was it phrased like one, but he felt obligated to answer anyway. "Yes."

"Understood. Is there anything else to report?" He had expected cold, given who... no, what he was talking to, but the loss of an entire chapterhouse should have elicited some kind of response. Didn't 'they' care?

The next sound, the last sound, in the old man's life was a metallic click and a clap of unnatural thunder.

More red. More wet. More silence.

Then another hand picked up his phone. "Indeed there is more to report."

The calm voice hesitated. "Uriel," it finally said.

"Ambriel."

Another moment of quiet passed between the speakers. "Why are you doing this?" There was no accusation in the voice; it was merely a question. Anyone listening would have been hard pressed to determine if the speaker even cared about the answer.

"This house was corrupt, infected. It needed to be purified."

"He will not be pleased."

There was the rhythmic, metal noise of empty steel shells falling onto tile, followed by bullets being reloaded. "He is welcome to discuss the matter with me."

Another pause. "You would do well to beg forgiveness now. His judgment may be more lenient if you show the proper respect before it is passed." Then, after several empty moments. "Do you intend to do so?"

"No." The answer came quickly. "I will not apologize for doing what he should have."

"Understood." There was no pause this time, as if the calm voice had known the answer before asking the question. "What do you intend?"

There was the heavy clack of a barrel locking back into a large revolver. "I intend to see how far this infection has spread." The next sound was the sibilant slide of a handgun into a holster of hard leather.

"He will not forgive further interference."

The answer was just as quick as before. "Nor will I."

"Is there anything further? Or shall I assume this conversation at an end?" The voice was still betraying no emotion, though the words were closer together and the pauses between sentences longer.

"Tell me, Ambriel. Do you know what the humans say about assumptions?"

"Goodbye, Uriel."

"Goodbye."

Click.

The sound of footsteps in puddles echoed away from the desk. There was much to do and such a large world to have to do it in, especially for an angel without wings. Most especially for one who would have to shoulder this task alone. There would be no help from above; in fact, he expected to have to cross weapons with old comrades before this was done.

The Powers behind the Order had assumed humanity would serve them according to the Will of Heaven. His chance encounter with a helltouched in a hospital had shown him the error of that belief.

Now comes wrath. Ruin.

And the red dawn...

Recovery

A medical suite it wasn't, but room 103 at the Motel Six was the best Matthew could do for the girl.

He had the shower running to put some warm water vapor in the air, an air purifier was churning away on the nightstand and a hot plate was boiling everything that touched her. He'd already fed her sips of chicken broth, though she'd not really woken up so much as just swallowed autonomically. There was no evidence of her regaining consciousness.

That worried Matt. The best thing for her would have been to stay in the hospital. Unfortunately, there'd been three things wrong with that plan. One, he'd had to leave the hospital because of all the bodies. Two, most of those bodies were the nursing staff that would have taken care of the girl in the first place. And three, the sirens he'd heard on his way out of the hospital parking lot would have taken offense at his being there.

With the bodies.

Of the nurses.

So here they were in room 103 of the Southern Chattanooga Motel Six. It was an acceptable substitute for a recovery ward once Matt had taped plastic over the windows and washed all the linens at the laundromat nearby. Bleach and baby-safe detergent made for a clinic-level clean on just about any surface. Between that and his insistence on a non-smoking room that had always been a non-smoking room, the girl was in as good a shape as she could be.

He, on the other hand, was a wreck. He'd been going hard for fifty hours without sleep. Sitting in the corner, watching the Rite-Aid pulse meter he'd placed on her right arm, Matt caught himself micro-napping. Watch, watch, watch, snore. Shudder, wake up, watch, snore.

Snore some more.

An hour later, wake up cussing.

He needed sleep. He knew he needed sleep. He was just worried about the girl and just as worried about himself. He'd taken the only thing keeping that terrifying St. Michael agent from coming back and finishing him off out of her hospital bed and strapped her to a motorcycle for nearly an hour. Even though she'd not apparently been harmed by the experience, he was certain it wasn't a healthy thing to have done.

So he'd denied himself sleep while he made her as comfortable and secure as possible. At least money hadn't been a problem; he still had a wad of what he'd assumed to be drug money from the car he had been forced to abandon at the hospital. It meant no more stealing for a while, which was nice.

Oddly, people in retail environments always seemed to assume he was there to rob them. Perhaps it was the long black coat, the dark glasses, or maybe -just maybe- the massive handguns he took everywhere. Of course, the more perceptive of these retail monkeys might also be reacting to the fact that Matthew carried himself like a criminal. He was certainly not adverse to robbery if the need arose, though he was just as glad to have cash right now.

Rite-Aid was especially glad for his cash right now; he'd just dropped about a thousand dollars on medication, first aid supplies, food and basic supplies. He'd been running low, really low, and hunger was starting to take its toll. Cash and transportation made such a difference sometimes.

Of course, then he'd thought to check the saddlebags of his bike and when he did, his palm hit his head in an Homer-like expression. "D'oh." Zephyr's containers were stuffed with all manner of clothes, edibles, spare cash, and useful items (including a toothbrush, something he'd neglected using in some time). He muttered, "Ravenhurst has too much free time..." under his breath but he'd been secretly touched by the gesture.

The gesture, and the note. "Dear Matt, here's hoping this stuff and your wonderful bike find you well. We understand why you can't come here yet but with any luck maybe you can soon. This place is huge and we are bored bored bored! Aliya promises you'll be safe as long as you behave, but I can't promise you will, so good luck! Love, Ariel."

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

When she finally opened her eyes, the girl could only see a pebbled white ceiling through the fine mesh of bug netting. She was in an isolation tent cobbled together out of camping supplies and duct tape. Wearily, weakly, she unplugged herself from the cuff monitor and made her way out of bed. Tired legs barely supported her weight but, step after step, some meager strength returned.

Across the hotel room, a young man was sprawled across a chair, sleeping sitting up. Well, vaguely sitting up. Mostly, he was leaning against the wall, eyes closed, mouth wide open, snoring. He looked like she felt.

He also looked slightly familiar. Had she seen him before? She couldn't remember much of anything, just a haze of pain and darkness. An accident. There had been an accident. People, not that she could remember who, were dead. And this man... had he saved her? He was the one who picked her up out of the smoke and fire. Yes, that was him. She couldn't remember much else, but she remembered him.

As steadily as she could, the girl moved across the floor to where Matt was sleeping. She sat him upright, pulled a fallen blanket up over him, tucked it in around his shoulders, and pulled an drool-smudged note off his face. Kissing him on the cheek, she whispered "Thank you," before returning to bed.

She felt better now, but she was still sleepy. She'd be okay.

They both would.

A Noble Steed

It no longer had wings. Only chrome and steel.

It no longer had talons and claws. Only wheels of black rubber and gleaming spokes.

It no longer had beak, burning eyes, or a piercing shriek that could tear apart the sky.

Only a cowling of metal, a single blazing headlight, and the roar of its powerful engine owning the road.

It had been one of the most noble creatures to grace the Mystic Earth. It had ruled the air, undisputed by any but other majestic beasts for the title of Lord of the Clouds. Its life was one of soaring, hunting, and greeting the rising sun each day with an avian aria.

Once, it had been a griffon.

Then came the years of Denial, when Mankind slowly forgot his magic and relinquished his grace to the cold forces of reason and mundane law. There had been hunts to be sure and many had fallen to the weapons of the Purge, but that wasn't what had killed the Enchanted Age. Something far more insidious had brought about its doom. Like poison, neglect and dolor took their tolls. The mountains became cold, forbidding peaks; the seas lost their deep mysteries. Man no longer dreamed and without flights of fancy, flight itself became impossible.

On its stereo, a new song began to play. The Turning Away by Pink Floyd. Its voice had been reduced from the cry of an eagle to stolen moments from the history of music. It could no longer speak save in the voices of artists from the dawn of melody to the bloodiest edge of new industrial grind. Right now, it felt like playing a lament.

Its name was Zephyr and before being reborn into this two-wheeled metal body, it was a trapped Ethereal in a soulcage crystal. Used as a battery for the spells of a Dark Order wizard, its fate was to be racked with agony each time its "owner" tore out parts of its existence to fuel his bestial magic. It was worse than death; many times Zephyr had tried to end itself but the same power that trapped it kept it from fading. An eternity of slavery was all it was ever going to know.

Or at least, so it had believed. Then a new mage came into possession of its gem, taking it from the pocket of its tormentor after beheading him with a entropically charged hubcap. It had believed it was just changing possessors again as it had so many times, but the new wizard was not like the rest.

Unable to free it directly, this owner had done something none of the rest could or would attempt. He performed a Rite of Imbuement, a high magic used to create Incarnates - possessed objects. The spell was a difficult one, a power usually too complex for even experienced magus to perform. A thousand things could have gone wrong, most of them disastrously. But they didn't.

And when the glow of enchantment faded, Zephyr was no longer a trapped soul in a jewel. It was once again alive, in a sense. Zephyr could move, could be free, and could act through its potent new form. If it had desired, it could have bolted for its freedom and none could have stopped it. No longer a slave. No Master any longer...

...but it hadn't. This new mage had given it freedom without asking a price. In the Old Times, such a gift would have demanded a return. Those days were gone but Zephyr still remembered them. It... HE.... still honored the old code.

And so it began. Zephyr became Matthew's familiar, a motorcycle with self-motivation and so much more beyond. They had been inseparable, acting as two halves of a greater whole. His respect for his magus had only grown with each new example of the young caster's power. Though Matthew had made some mistakes in judgment and seemed incapable of expressing his emotions properly, that was to be expected of fledglings. If he survived this time out of the nest, the human would become so much more than he was now. Zephyr was determined to stay at his side until that day came.

That, at least, had been the plan. Then came the Great Deathling and her interference once again. There had been a terrible explosion and in the midst of the flame and chaos, his Master was captured. Thrown in the back of a warded car and banded with some kind of Higher Magic talisman, Matthew could no longer be sensed or felt. The fires took their toll and Zephyr learned a new kind of suffering.

Time had passed and he had healed but his Master was still gone. The Deathling actually helped put him back together, though her every touch was painful, and his opinion of the female was better than it had been before. She was still not good enough for his Master but she was at least bright enough to realize she needed to serve Matthew properly. She had loaded Zephyr's saddlebags with food and supplies, then released him to try and return where he belonged.

The road had been a long one. There had been bad weather, broken pavement, near-wrecks, not-so-near wrecks, an encounter with a truck full of hunters determined to reap his spirit for their own purposes, and areas of dead power where magic was so scarce he had actually needed normal fuel just to move.

All of this was just another source of suffering. For eeks, now more than a month, he had roamed the highways, desperately seeking a sign of the Master. Anything, any psychic echo of where his magus might be.

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

He silently idled up to the front of a white building tucked away in a grassy meadow and surrounded by tall hills. Chattanooga, Tennessee. A hospital. Somehow, it did not surprise Zephyr that he would feel his magus in a place of healing and death. Both were very fitting for the Master. Very much what his life was about right now.

In the distance, he finally saw Matthew approach, a young female human in his arms. The Master looked tired and in need of rest. Easing his back wheel down to make mounting easier, Zephyr rumbled his engine in greeting and played "We're in This Together" by Nine Inch Nails. It was one of his Master's favorite bands and even at this distance, he thought he could see a relieved look on the male's face.

Then Matthew was at his side, belting the small unconscious human to the back of his tall seat. The Master slung one leg over the leather bench, adjusted his coat, and pressed the throttle switch on his handlebars. After a moment's silence, his magus said in a low, grumbly voice, "Damn well took you long enough. Stop for a car wash before getting here?

Inwardly, Zephyr sighed. One really couldn't expect better manners from fledglings. Of course, if fledglings did not eventually learn better manners, fledglings could always be taught them by driving swiftly towards a wall and then stopping suddenly.

This thought made the motorcycle purr warmly as he drove away into the night, finally whole.

White Light

There was a roar and a flash of light.

Matthew's defensive spells buckled as the bullet hit. It took him in the gut, a little off to the left and under the bottom rib. His vest was useless, rated for something a lot smaller than the .50 caliber round slicing through it. There was pain, but not as much as he'd expected.

Oh, he thought as his legs gave way. This is shock.

Matt collapsed forward onto his hands even as the man looked back over his shoulder at him. "It has been a good hunt, Mr. Engel. You should be proud of that."

He was bleeding. He was bleeding hard. A gut shot took roughly twenty minutes to be fatal, even if a major organ was ruptured. The pain could be crippling and the damage was usually inoperable, but death was far from quick. Even so, he planted his left hand on the tile and forced himself forward a half-foot.

"Head... or heart...", Matthew groaned through gritted teeth.

The gunman pushed down his dark glasses to regard Matt with surprise in his pale eyes. "What did you say, Mr. Engel?"

Matt stared up at him, eyes burning. "Head or... heart. You'd better put me down, because if you... Uhhhnnn.... if you try to hurt that girl, I'll.... ahhhh..... I'll bite your fucking foot off." It was bold talk for someone who was leaving a blood trail every six, slow inches of movement across the depressingly wide room, but he meant what he said. If it was the last thing he did, he'd stop this bastard from hurting her.

That provoked the oddest response from the Knight. He had been raising his gun, presumably to finish Matthew off, but now it slowly fell to his side. "You must understand, Mr. Engle. You are a threat, like a plague, and those you come into contact with have to be dealt with for the good of all. It, like this, is nothing personal."

Matt kept moving. It was agony; the shock was wearing off. In a way, he was grateful. Pain was helping him focus. "I have a hole in my side the size of a bratwurst. Trust... me. It's gotten really personal." Hand over hand he came... slowly.

The man raised his gun again, tugging on his shooter's gloves to tighten them and perfect his aim. "Of course. My apologies. I assure you your suffering will end quickly, as will hers."

Matt shook his head. "She didn't do anything to do, but I still can. I've still got enough magic to.... ehhhh.... owww... bring this whole place down on your head." He stopped crawling, looking up at the Knight while he tried to clear his mind of the pain in his body. "But I won't if you promise to spare the girl. Your people have already killed enough of these folks, even a poor nurse who never even saw me. Haven't you... uhhnnn.... done enough damage?"

The bald, almost elegant looking killer raised his gun again, the surprise in his eyes changing to slight disbelief. "Excuse me? Are you saying one of my agents killed someone who never encountered you directly?"

It was all Matt could do to nod without spitting blood. "Her body's in a cleaning closet downstairs. I thought she'd spoken with me, but I was wrong. She only knew... ahhh.... about me from the Duty Nurse." Matt's vision was going all blurry. That meant he had about ten minutes left. Dad and his "life lessons" again.

The gunman lowered the hammer of his postol and holstered it, stepping out of Matthew's reach as he walked around him to the door of the room. "I find this highly doubtful, Mr. Engle, but I will investigate your claim. Do try not to die while I am gone." The door went click.

And Matt went thud. He pressed his face to the cold tile and tried to control his breathing. His magic was so useless right now. While he was suffering the effects of one physical spell's downside, he couldn't work another. He had no gift or ability with healing magic, and while he might be able to affect time itself with his entropic gifts, he didn't dare risk it with the little girl in surgery just a few yards away.

This was checkmate, pure and simple, and he hated to lose.

Matt focused on that. The hate. The stubborn refusal to give up. He was never the fastest kid at school, or the strongest or the brightest, but he always finished a challenge. He rarely won, but he never quit. That didn't mean much in the Educational system, but it meant everything to him now.

It was literally the difference between life and death.

Seemingly as soon as he left, the tall man came back. Matt realized he'd passed out for a little while, but at least he'd woken up again. The Knight looked perturbed, not an expression Matt figured the man wore often. He had his gun out, but it wasn't pointed at him yet.

"You seem to have a bit of life left in you. Strong will, but of course that goes without saying." The man was talking more to himself about Matt than to Matt directly. Not knowing whether he should, or even could, answer, Matthew settled for the far easier option of lie still and bleed. It just seemed like the thing to do right now.

"Allow me to restate your proposal, just to see if I understand its terms." As he spoke, the Knight raised his gun again and pulled back its hammer. The weapon's huge barrel loomed like the tunnel of death into Matt's pained field of vision. A head shot. Well, at least it would be quick. "If I agree not to harm the girl, you'll accept execution without attempting to defend yourself in any way. You'll forgo your magic and agree to your end?"

It felt bitter in his mouth, like he was at some level surrendering to this zealous prick, but he couldn't take the thought of having come all this way with the poor child just to have her die because he wasn't strong enough to save her. Though it hurt to say on so many levels, Matt closed his eyes and accepted the coming storm. "Yes."

The next sound he heard was not thunder. It was silence. Silence punctuated with the CHACK of a hammer being released again. Then a burning light flared through his body, starting at his side and racing its way down his limbs and over his tortured skin. It hurt worse than being shot ever had, even though he understood at some level he was being healed. Brutally, forcibly healed. Somehow, it seemed appropriate for "holy"healing to hurt this much.

"Well then, Mr. Engel. I accept your bargain but I'm granting you a little time while I turn my attention to other matters." The man retrieved a hat from a nearby coat rack and placed it over his bald pate, pushing back up his glasses as he did so.

Matt doubled over in pain, though his body was perfectly functional and restored now. As he writhed, recovering, the Knight stepped over him and walked back towards the door. "I suggest you take very good care of your little stay of execution. If any harm comes to her, I'll consider our agreement broken on your end."

And with that, he was gone, leaving a very confused fallen Engel on the floor...

The Thin Line

Matt was fully aware that if he paced across the waiting room one more time, he would probably erode a hole in the floor.

Sadly, that wasn't a joke with him. He was really hard on material objects. A side effect of his magical gifts, there wasn't much mundane he could keep for more than a few weeks before it started to break down. Clothes, computers, cars...

He groaned, leaning his head against the white hospital wall. The car. Moments after his entropic space-folding trip, the radiator had blown, the gaskets failed, and the exhaust system rusted through, venting smoke from every direction underneath the car. Such a nice vehicle, utterly ruined by the backlash of his spell.

And now, with the little girl in critical care, undergoing emergency surgery, it might all have been for nothing anyway. He didn't mind having played hero, even though it wasn't his style, but for him to go to so much effort and the child die anyway? No way.

Fuck that.

There had to be a way to bump the odds in her favor. He couldn't affect living things in any positive way, but what about probability? Isn't that what entropy really was, after all? Just Lady Luck finally bitch-slapping something? With his level of power, he should be able to tip the balance for the little girl's survival chances. Right?

He tried to feel confident about it, but his doubts weren't fooled by the bravado. Matt knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that if he tried this and failed, it would have dire consequences. He'd probably kill the poor girl and maybe even several people nearby. he was in a hospital, after all, and he was hard on folks even when they were healthy. The sick and the invalid? He was like a pizza delivery by the Grim Reaper himself.

"I should get out of here."

Unfortunately, that wasn't an option either. Bringing in the girl in the condition she was in had flagged some Nurse Do-Right in ER and she'd called Security on him. He wasn't in any actual trouble, but he was being "held for questioning" regarding the patient and how she'd been injured so badly. Matt tried to tell them the truth, but no one was listening. This was a late night hospital shift in the South; it was easier to make him sweat in a locked waiting room than take five minutes and get his statement.

The lock on the door wasn't a challenge. A quick spell he'd made up on his own would pop that, but he didn't dare touch his magic. It always had a side effect. He would have gladly paid that price himself rather than risk the people here, but that wasn't his call to make. The effects of his magic were completely outside his ability to control.

Sometimes it was a nose bleed. Other times it was someone nearby slamming into a parked car. In a building full of people on life support, he didn't dare take that chance.

Of course, he knew a dozen non-magical ways to get out of a locked room. Score one for Dad's lifelong training again; he could pick a lock with a thumb tack or jimmy a window with a rolled up coy of the Watchtower. But none of those were the point right now.

There was a girl fighting for her life upstairs and if he left, he'd never know if she made it through. He wasn't sure why he cared about that enough to stay; he just did. He'd saved her, damn it. He had to be sure she survived. Maybe that was foolish.

Maybe he didn't give a damn if it was.

That's when he heard it. A low, muffled thud, like someone hitting a feather pillow with a baseball bat. Score two for Dad's teachings; he instantly knew what that sound was.

A silencer.

"The hell?!?" Matt hissed under his breath and pulled out one of his pistols. His didn't have silencers. They were loud. Loud, magical, and ludicrously violent. He grinned at that thought, knowing that if his hunters had tracked him here already, his guns would rip through them like tissue paper. Red, zealous tissue paper. Splat.

Looking at his gun, Matt then cussed quietly. His pistols would go through the walls of this hospital just as easily. The people hunting him might deserve to feel what ballistic decompression of their organs felt like, but no one else here did. Reluctantly, he holstered it. Okay. So no guns. Lovely.

He also didn't dare call forth his sword; it was an ethereal construct and more importantly, charged with angelic celestial energy. The moment he brought it out, his hunters would be able to sense it. Surprise might be the only weapon he had right now.

It really pissed him off to have to holds back like this. The Order never held back. They never cared who got hurt or who saw them using their gifts. They were soldiers of God, after all; that made everything all right. Property damage? All in the name of the Lord. Terror and coercion? All in the name of the Lord. Killing innocent witnesses to cover their tracks? All in the name of the...

"Oh."
"Fuck."
"Me."

Matt knew what the sound of the silencer meant. There were only four people in the hospital who'd seen or talked to him. The head nurse, the second one who'd called security, the rent-a-cop who'd walked him down here to this room, and the little girl.

"No way in Hell." His eyes went dark as he put both hands on the door and pushed. He had a little bit of magic that wasn't entropy-based - physical enhancements that took their own sort of toll but always on him. That was acceptable. No one else needed to get hurt. No one else.

The door gave way at its hinges and lock plate. He felt his strength spell flow down both arms, forcing the metal security door to rip apart, shattering outwards and and falling with a thunderous crash to the tile floor beyond. It made a loud noise but it wasn't nearly enough. He had to get their attention before they killed everyone else in the hospital.

Fury rising, he closed his right hand and let his sword happen. It blazed to life, a wave of heat scalding his palm fiercely. Painfully. This weapon really hated him, and he couldn't blame it. But it also didn't have any choice but serve him right now. And right now, its best service would be to broadcast his location to the Knights in this building.

Matt ran to the main hall of the security level, looking to its far end at the only door leading into this level. With massive strength still coursing through his arms, he drove the sword into the floor, leaving it buried halfway to its hilt in the now-sundered tiles. Then he let go of it and dashed over to stand right beside the entrance.

His trick worked perfectly. The door flew open only a few seconds after he reached position, two Knights in their usual charcoal gray suits and shiny silver guns pouring out to see only an empty hall and his burning blade all alone in the middle of it. Then Matt struck!

The rear Knight was still in the doorway, a very unfortunate place for him to be. Matthew shoved the entry door back shut as hard as he could, catching the agent between it and the door frame. The sound of half scream/half shattering bone alerted the Knight in front as his partner died instantly. Messily.

The remaining Knight pivoted quickly and tried to bring his gun to bear but it was too late. Matt's hands were already moving. One for the pistol, the other for the wrist holding it. Matt felt something wet under the fingers of his left hand; the man's cuff was stained red. It was the telltale mark of a gunman standing too close to someone when he executes them. That only fired Matt's rage higher.

"You son of a bitch." His voice was cold, but his temper was white hot. One squeeze broke the Knight's wrist, grinding all the delicate bones within it together into a consistency like lumpy oatmeal.

The Knight howled in agony, remaining just aware enough to draw a combat knife out of his jacket with his other hand. The pommel was engraved with a crucifix; the blade was burnished gray, inlaid with silver, and flecked in red. "Abomination of God!"

Matt let a moment's dark amusement take him as he pulled the gun free and pointed it at the Knight. This pistol had a silencer, a piece of equipment that both muffled sound and limited the penetration abilities of a handgun. He aimed it right at the knife as the agent drew it out of his suit jacket, a thin line of fire that would send his bullets straight through the blade and into the fanatic's chest.

"Damn right I am." Matt didn't stop firing until the clip was dry. In his mind, he could see the bodies of the people upstairs. The nurse on duty, slumped like a scarlet rag doll over her console. The head nurse, crumpled in the back of a maintenance closet where the Knights had questioned her about his location. The security guard, his throat slit by this twitching meat sack, bleeding out thirty years of failed ambitions and simple Southern dreams on the stairwell half a floor up.

He didn't know how he knew these things. He just did. The images were as clear as if he were watching them on a screen. In violence, he was finding lucidity. Terrible, fatal lucidity.

But there was no sight of the little girl, just a premonition of danger. Immediate danger!

Matt leaped over the sprawled, shredded corpse and skated on a crimson pool all the way to his discarded sword. It filled him with its immortal hatred at him killing two more members of the Order. He filled it right back with his limitless not giving a shit.

All that mattered now was getting to the girl. The entrance door was stuck shut by the gelatinous remains of the first Knight torso, but magical strength handled that just fine. His potent enhancement spell wouldn't last much longer and when it failed, he'd be as brawny as Snuggle the dryer sheet teddy bear for the rest of the night.

No matter. The Knights were dead; he just had to get to the girl. He just had to stop whatever threat she was facing. Then he could crawl off and whimper as his muscles tried to eat themselves until dawn. It was ugly, but it was a price he was willing to pay. Just don't let her be hurt.

Please, don't let her be hurt.

By the time he got to the hospital's emergency OR, Matt could already feel the spell fading. His shoulders were in agony and soon that would spread to the rest of his body. He'd put the sword away; it wasn't worth feeding the blade's existence while he wasn't fighting. He threw open the door to the OR's observation room and ran inside...

...to see a tall man in a long coat standing at the room's plate glass windows. Past them, there were two doctors stitching closed a young girl. Her EKG looked stable, her color was better than it had been when Matt arrived. She appeared to have made it through the surgery all right.

And the man was pointing an ornately engraved Order of Saint Michael, Archangel handgun directly at Matt's chest from under his right arm. The figure wasn't even looking at him, but the aim was flawless. Matthew was flatfooted, utterly caught off-guard. He could see the man's face slightly reflected in the window - older, distinguished, and seemingly emotionless.

Matt had nowhere to go. Nowhere to dodge. One shot, and it would be all over.

"Damn it..."

Coins for Charon

Dropping the gear into 3rd for more pulling power, Matt began to cuss out the hills of Tennessee.

The Smoky Mountains were a trial for any vehicle, but his was ill suited for the sudden slopes and sheer drops of its cliffside roads. He wasn't really in any danger; the roads were icy but he could handle those. The real trouble was his lack of sleep and the weary lethargy that lingered in every muscle. he had his magic back, but having it all rush into his body at once had taken its toll.

Now he was nodding off on the pass between Knoxville and Chattenooga. Not a good call. He could sustain himself on pure stubborn for a while, but eventually he would have to pull over or succumb. Here, there was no shoulder to stop on, no rest areas to catch a quick nap. It had been more than a hundred miles since the last gas station and more than that since the last hotel. He hated the thought of giving his hunters any time to catch up, but there was quickly becoming no other option.

Not that stopping was an option either. No place to do it meant not doing it at all. Matt's car slid under him again, coming frighteningly close to the edge. Past it, a sharp drop of more than a hundred feet awaited him, waiting to swallow him up. Eyes wide and a little more awake now, Matt pulled his vehicle back to the center line and pressed on.

For nearly an hour, this was the way of things. Awake for a while, a moment's slip, a longer moment of panic, and then awake again. Nodding off, waking up, all the while bordering on the edge of a heart attack. This could not go on. He would have to stop soon; there wasn't any choice. Even if he had to ditch the car and find a place to hole up on foot, he would have to stop. It was either that or plunge into the mist-filled ravine and end the chase permanently.

And that was not an option.

Almost as if in answer to an unspoken prayer, a small shoulder appeared on the snow covered road ahead. Just a stone embankment with a metal railing around its far edge, it was big enough for one car only. It was enough! He slowed down, easing into the turn that took him onto the shoulder. Mist rose up from the gap beyond, but he didn't care. The metal railing wasn't even intact, but that didn't matter. He could stop now; he could get some sleep. That was all that mattered...

Wait.

The railing was broken?

And that wasn't mist. It was smoke.

Matt groaned. "Damn it."

He was out of the car, one hand on his left gun and the other holding the door for support. The break in the railing was new, its edges still shiny and uncovered by the snow still falling all around him. Another car had recently done the same as his, only it hadn't stopped on the shoulder.

It had gone over.

Running as fast as he dared to the side, Matt used a simple spell to sharpen his sight. It was one of the many tricks Mary had taught him. Bright-eyed girl, smarter than he would ever be, and now very dead. He'd grieve for her, he'd grieve for all who'd died to keep him alive. Someday. But not now. Right now, he had to make those sacrifices mean something. Maybe there was still someone to help down there.

The smoke made it impossible to see, so he reached out with his free hand and clawed at the air. Rakes of entropy shattered the obscuring wind, sending streamers of smoke in all directions, opening up a path between him and the ground. It didn't last long, but the tunnel of sight was enough for him to see what lay at the bottom of the mountain.

A van, its side doors wedged forever shut by its impact with the ground, was wedged between a pair of massive rocks. The smoke was billowing up out of its underside, now turned to the sky. Oil and gas were burning freely, one of the stones imprisoning it blackened by the blaze. The car hadn't been there long. That meant that despite how terrible the damage appeared, someone could actually be alive down there.

Even Matt had a hard time believing that. A wreck like that had to be fatal. Who could have survived something like that? He turned back to his own car. He had his own life to worry about, not the one-in-a-million chance of someone living through such a plunge.

He stopped, hearing Mary's words in his memories. He'd asked her why the coven had taken him in, and her answer had shocked him. "Because, silly, that's what magic does! Magic is life, and life is hope. If we didn't help you, who'll help us when we need it most?" Of course, that had been before the Order found him and killed them all. Magic hadn't helped them. No one helped them. Even he'd done nothing, hiding while the Knights butchered them all.

Growling, hating himself for being such an over-emotional twit, he turned around and walked back to the edge. This was pointless.

He holstered his pistol.

No one survived that crash.

Matt opened his coat.

They are all dead down there.

He reached into the air, hand closing around empty air as he summoned forth his sword of radiance. The angel's blade, held now by someone unworthy.

There's no one left to save.

With a deep breath, Matt let himself feel a moment of faith. He didn't know how this would work, or even if it would work, but he had to try.

You're only wasting time you don't have.

And with that, he leaped off the cliff, plummeting into the smoldering crevasse below...

...and halfway down, his trenchcoat flared wide, becoming arcs of glorious shadow. Light and dark, the glow of his sword and the shade of his beating wings, trailed through the air as he descended to the burning earth below.

Amazed, Matthew settled to his feet beside the broken van. His wings folded, almost of their own volition, and vanished, fading into his back and becoming a coat once more. One swipe of his sword took the side of the vehicle off, its edge cleaving effortlessly through steel and glass. A hundred pounds of refuse fell away, allowing him a look inside.

Two bodies were pinned upside down, their blood raining onto the roof of their crumpled coffin. Dead, utterly dead, they were beyond his help. His tainted magic could feel their demise; he knew without seeking such knowledge that they had been dead before he got here. Nothing he could do for them now.

But his magic also revealed something else, something it couldn't touch. Entropy magic easily pierced objects and the flesh of the fallen, but it had a hard time affecting the living. That was the province of White Magic, the power of life. Somewhere in that twisted hulk, a heart still beat. Faintly. Slowing... Slowing...

Matt jumped from the ground to the rocks to the top of the van and struck as swiftly as he could. Layers of the van carved away; he had to be careful but he also had to be quick. He could have easily ripped the van apart with a few strokes, but he couldn't be sure where inside the life was; one false stroke and he'd silence the heartbeat ringing in his ears.

Finally, the undercarriage was peeled away and he could see the van's lone survivor. A young girl, a bloody mat of hair covering her face, suspended by her seat belt in the middle of the backseat bench. Her back turned at an awkward angle, the girl's peril was obvious. She was suffocating, her chest too constricted to allow for much breathing. He knew moving her could hurt her further, but at this point she was damned if he didn't anyway.

His sword lashed out one last time, cutting her straps as he grabbed her by the shirt. She was small, maybe ten years old, so he could easily pick her up with one hand. That was good, since he had only one arm free. Cradling the little one to his chest, he aimed his sword at the sky and begged it to bring back his wings.

Pinions of darkness erupted from his back, his coat expanding to banish the smoke around him. With one beat of them, Matt took to the air and flew upwards at a dizzying speed. The sheer cliff soared past him, disappearing as he passed the edge of the road and arched into the snow-shrouded sky. Much as he wanted to stay in the air, enjoying the feel of flight, the girl in his grasp needed help now.

Matt landed, his wings vanishing again, and ran to his car. Throwing the back door open, he had her on the back seat and was checking her over. Her ribs were spongy, probably broken, and her hair was stuck to her face because shards of broken glass were in her cheek and forehead. Her bleeding had stopped, but the damage was done. She was pale and cold, probably only a few minutes from death.

"Damn it!" Matt hadn't done so much just to lose this girl now. "Don't you dare die on me!" He had no healing magic. None. His powers had been corrupted long ago; the rite that awakened his powers had also twisted them away from the Light. He could kill easily, but he couldn't so much as close a paper cut.

"Fuck it." Entropy was all he had, so entropy would be how he saved her. The wings thing had worked; he was feeling lucky. "Fuck it all."

He closed the door and climbed into the driver's seat. His coat was over the girl now, keeping her as warm as it could. He was more than an hour from Chattenooga, just as far from Knoxville behind him, and the nearest town was probably too far for what little life existed in his back seat. Only one thing left to try.

But first, something he'd promised Mary he'd always do if he came across the dead. The last time he'd done this was for the old man on that train back near Nashville. He'd hoped he'd never have to do it again.

So much for hope. Matt rolled down his window and threw a handful of change from his pocket over the edge of the cliff. Four quarters tumbled into the smoke, falling into the darkness below. "Farewell. May your journey be a peaceful one." He didn't really believe in such things, but Mary had. Honoring her wishes was the least he could do for her.

But now, another young girl was depending on him. One he could save.

Matt gritted his teeth. "Here goes nothing."

And with that, he focused his power in a way he'd never wanted to try. It was dangerous. It could easily go out of control. One slip, one moment of failed control, and it could be the last thing he ever tried. And it was the child's only hope.

That thought bolstered him and, against his better judgment, Matt used raw Entropy to tear open the sky, rend open the world, and collapse space between his car and the nearest hospital.

It was the most frightening piece of spellwork he'd ever done...

...and it worked.