Rain Falling on the Black City.

The Rain is falling again, drizzling down from clouds infused with the smoke of a million Corpse-oil lamps, staining everything with the sticky foul smelling residue of burning corpses. The top of the Great Lantern Spire cannot even be seen from here, the spire truncated about three quarters of the way up by the smog, and the lantern itself does nothing for the gloom, just makes the ominous dark clouds around it glow with the greenish white of the corpse-light it gives off.

It is the middle of the day or the nearest the city ever gets to daylight, the Great Lantern burning brightly and the Corpse-oil Lanterns turned up to their highest flame the feeble light the only defence against the blackness that would otherwise descend. Above the clouds I know the sky is black, not just dark but a solid black like the inside of a cave. In the old times we are told by the creatures that were alive then the sky was alive with light. During the day a burning golden eye, like an enormous sun-globe, hung in the sky above this place. In the night there were a billion tiny points of light. I have memories that are not mine that show me these things. I still do not believe them, the endless blackness of the sky has always been and it makes them a lie.

I look down from my vantage point, the city below looks like the legendary night now. A thousand tiny points of light pick out the roads and lanes that make up the arteries of the city, others show houses or tenements. Here and there the golden glow of a sun orb makes an oasis of light, usually outside a rich man's house, or hung over an outside market. Sun orbs hurt my eyes as I spend so much of my time in the darkness, but they are expensive, and most have to be mounted in armoured iron enclosures with a guard and shutters to prevent their theft. It is supposed to be a good job and is very well paid, but I have seen the burned red skin of Sun Orb guards, seen how their eyes fail them after a few years of the job, and it seems too high a price.

I have allowed the view from my vantage point to steal my focus, so I shake my head to clear it. I am looking for a killer, and standing in the belfry of the Cathedral of the Dead God I have the perfect vantage point to see him. My target hates light almost as much as I and what started as vandalism, the smashing of Corpse-oil lamps, has graduated to the murdering of Sun Orb guards and Lamp Guild members as well as the slaughter of several Watchmen sent to capture him. The Ascendancies investigators are scurrying about trying to search the perpetrator out, but me and mine already know. We are not truly part of the Cities Watch, not really part of it's army, we're special and the Ascendancy knows that of all the creatures it has dominion over we are the only ones it stands no chance of ever truly controlling.

I have decided to make this killer my issue, which is why I now stand on the rain slick cornice of the dead gods spire, the second highest spot in the city after the Great Lantern, and watch the gloom below. The Gongs begin to ring out the midday, the gong beneath me beating out thirteen sonorous rolling chimes, joined by the thousands of smaller gongs and the few bells scattered out in the city.

A sudden remembrance assaults me, like a dagger thrust into my brain, thirteen is the wrong number of chimes. I remember sunlight and twelve chimes only from a life I never lived. There is the smell of cut grass, a warm wind blows into my face. Next to me sits...

I cut the memory off with a sharp shake of my head. Memories of other lives will not help me now and I would prefer not to remember different times. Most of the memories are painful in some way, although I am not always sure why. I continue my vigil instead, the rain soaking me to the skin under the armour the Ascendancy gave me, presumably to convince everyone else that I was under their control. It is worthless, made of plates of leather with mistletoe, hawthorn, amber and iron worked into it, as if any of the Ancients would need any protection from Daemons or Fae. If I go to war the armour will be the first thing destroyed as I call my own armour into being, but I wear it because it makes the Ascendancy feel safer around us.

A flare of light below. Something has just torn a Corpse-oil lamp out of the ground in the Shivers, the freezing cold slum near the outfall of the Great Lantern Spire. The Corpse-oil flares up for a moment burning freely from the pipe, before it is shut off automatically. Then another flares, and another, and I know my target has made itself known, it is almost as if he is challenging me. For all I know he is.

I step off the cornice and plummet towards the Square of the Shrieking Demagogues below. There is a twitch of power causing the phylactery of demon blood I wear around my neck to hiss and bubble. I probably do not need it, there are enough demons in the city that I could go anywhere and they would be close enough to keep my powers active, but I have never been open to taking unnecessary risks. The power strengthens my legs, and also slows my descent, another tendril makes the people below me clear a space without even knowing why.

Despite this I still land with enough force to break the granite paving slab beneath me with a harsh crack. The crowd pull back, but the demagogue behind me begins to rant at me accusing me of being a demon, a despoiler, even one of the fallen angels. He stops as I turn, as he sees my face surrounded by mist from the boiling blood which still bubbles in the wrought iron and crystal phylactery around my neck. He stutters into silence as I regard him, letting him feel the full force of three thousand years of life as he stares into my eyes unable to look away. Normally I keep my eyes covered, normal humans are so fragile, and the eyes are the window of the soul. As he breaks down sobbing I turn, the crowd melting away as I leave the now silent square and head towards my prey.

Before I can get too far however one of the Ascendancies investigators calls out to me asking me to wait and then rushes up panting slightly. I recognise him, Mercer, a poor half dead thing since a run in with one of the less pleasant denizens of the city last year. He wears armour almost a match of mine, although for him the mistletoe, Rowan and iron worked into its leather plates are far more protection than they are for me. I also know that he wears a chip of something around his neck, something he knows I would not wish to see, and so he has hidden it by dropping it on its chain inside his breastplate. I feel strangely grateful for that small consideration, so as he shouts to me to wait I do so.

"The Killer is back. But it's different, he's killing all of them... Everyone he meets. I can feel it even this far away." he says to me breathlessly.

Mercer knows what he is talking about. Hovering on the edge of death as he does, he has an affinity for such things, it is this skill that makes him such an excellent investigator. However if he can feel it even here, then there must have been a lot of deaths, all violent and all individual. Which proves my theory of what, or rather who it is I am hunting.

"I saw him start."

I don't use my true voice on Mercer, again out of respect for him, but it is a strain not to and I can feel all of my other abilities beginning to waken as I stand here with this poor half-dead mortal. This enemy will likely take all my power to defeat, and I wonder idly for a moment if the city will still be standing afterwards. Or for that matter if any of the other Ancients will involve themselves, now I know exactly who it is there is a fair chance it will not be.

I realise Mercer has been talking, babbling even and has been joined two of the massively armoured Ascendancy Watchmen who have appeared from the street. A dog faced iron mask, and some form of hawk, surrounded by leather armour so massive that they almost look like mobile fortifications. Around their necks hang chunks of metal, one of them is white, with the slightest hint of a gold and green Ivy le...

Chunks of Metal fly from my armour as I howl and dive back into the combat. I whirl, spear reaching out to cleave the hordes around me. There is only rage left in me, only rage left in this life. One of the once-men raises his rifle and fires it at me, I let him, hot burning chunks of lead tearing into me. I grab him in one clawed gauntlet and lift him from the floor, shaking him like dog with a bone. He shrieks and the gun fires again spattering bullets across the floor and walls. I reverse my grip on the spear and feed it to him, pushing it in until his screaming stops and then I hurl him at one of the wounded so hard the impact kills the other foe. I roar, and every window within a mile shatters. I smash the wall out of the way, lift the poor bleeding body of-

I stagger, and snarling almost hurl myself at the two watchmen. They realise what they have done, both of them raising their hands to the metal hanging from their necks, pushing it inside their armour hiding it from view. It is an unfortunate coincidence that one of them is wearing a chunk of my armour, from the armour I wore at the battle that killed the world. Not that they remember that war, no one in the city does, they just know that these chunks of metal sometimes incapacitate Ancients. Sometimes however they have the opposite effect, as in this case.

I shake my head, but they continue to stand in front of me as if terrified. The Watchmen are well trained, they hold up a warding left hand while their right hovers over the pistol at their belt, rather than reaching for the swords or spears that would avail them not at all against me. Truth be told, if I truly wanted them dead they would probably be unable to stop me anyway, but guns are more likely to harm me than swords, simply because they are more likely to hit me with them. I stare at them, they stare at me, Mercer looks even paler than usual, but it is the sound of a piece of falling leather that informs me why that is.

My Ascendancy armour is gone. Torn to pieces when I called forth the battle armour that is my birthright in the midst of the remembrance. White enamel chased with green and gold ivy leaves, the claws of the gauntlets still stained a rich brown red from the blood I have soaked them in over the centuries. I'm taller now, more powerfully built, and they are scared of me as pieces of wrecked leather armour settle on the cobbles of the street around me. I reach up a hand and open the faceplate, and they see my true face, not the strange thing I usually see in the mirror but my original face, the face I wore when we were made so very long ago. Only the eyes stay the same, but I avoid making eye contact with any of them.

"Are... Are you alright?" Mercer asks, "We thought you were going to... well the armour."

I point at the Dog masked Watchman.

"That one has a piece of my armour, lost when... " I pause, I have no intention of telling them exactly of what it reminds me of, "Lost during a fight. You should ask the Ascendancy to give you a new talisman Watchman, that one does not work to protect you."

The hugely armoured figure nods its head. It will return to the archives and hand it's talisman over later I know, and some robed Ascendancy clerk will take the Watchman's statement on which Ancient it affected and how. Another piece of information about me in their huge collection of snippets from my past. They still do not know the important things however, only the Black Cathedral knows those things, and that murderous cult would never reveal any of its secrets.

"What are you going to do about the killer?" Mercer asks, twitching his head as if in pain, "He's killing a lot of people...So many people... It's overwhelming..."

The poor half dead thing clutches at his head as only a mile away hundreds of innocent lives are ended. If my prey continues his killing spree Mercer might well not survive today, too many deaths coming one after another, and all of them violent, might well push him over the edge into the Death he had only recently avoided.

"You two look after him, I am going to end this killing spree." I say to them.

The Hawk masked watchman starts as if to argue, but Dog mask places a restraining hand on its arm.

"We Will." it booms through the metal mask as I turn and leave them standing in the street.

My Phylactery hangs from the neck of my armour, undamaged by the calling that destroyed the Ascendancies leather, but steaming with the power needed to keep the Battle Plate in existence. I carefully lift it and check the level seeing it is two thirds full of bubbling demon blood, which should be more than enough. I let it hang from the chain and cause it to hiss and spit still more as I call the Spear to me. 8 foot long, shaft made of metal, and a head of a light gold coloured alloy. The head is shaped almost like an Ivy leaf, with the central part of the leaf greatly elongated. My other weapons also appear from whatever place it is they go to. The strangely curved short sword hangs from my waist, the knives at the small of my back. I do not call the shield, it would get in my way and I need to move swiftly.

I head through the streets; the merest use of power keeps me from feeling the fatigue of carrying the armour. The blood barely smoulders however, as many of the frightened people who press themselves against the ramshackle walls, or duck into the shops as I pound across the cobbles, are in fact demons themselves. They instinctively know what I am, as I know them, and they shrink away. Their presence makes my power work and means I am not using my precious reserve stored in my phylactery. A few of the weaker demons suffer crisped skin or marks like sunburn as I pass, if I used my full power they might even boil from within by my mere presence, but I do not. The war is long over, and there is no point in re-fighting the failure

Ahead of me the streets are packed, people of all types fleeing in panic from what is behind them. Beyond there I can see another flare of Corpse-oil flames as my prey uproots a street lantern. They are so panicked that even the sight of me in Battle Plate does not cause them to recoil and soon I am forced to slow to a crawl, pushing my way through the onrushing crowd. Beyond the crowd is one of the main streets of the city, swiftly emptying of people, and it is there I will no doubt find my prey. The Phylactery is still mostly full, so I take a deep breath and using my true voice order the crowd to make way.

Every person in the crowd hears me speaking behind and above them. The humans shudder, the position and timbre of the voice reaching into the primal centres of their minds and filling them with dread. The demons for the most part obey before they even think about it, although some of the more powerful of them resist for a moment or shake it off. The other creatures that make up the population of this cursed place shake their heads and moan. Affecting so many causes the blood in the phylactery to boil despite the number of demons in the crowd, and I am vaguely concerned that it might boil dry before I can finish my target. A path however opens ahead of me, although I am aware that on the edges of the crowd some people are almost certainly being crushed to death by the press against the buildings. Hundreds more will die if I do not complete my work however, so I ignore them.

I clear the crowd and before me is the empty road, street stalls scattered here and there and abandoned as their owners fled. The drizzle of rain has painted the ground in slick greasy liquid, the stink of wet stone and dirt everywhere. Where I stand the corpse-oil lanterns still give their feeble light, helped by the glow of the clouds above me where the great lantern is still shrouded by their foetid moisture. To the right of me however the entire street is dark save for one flare of Corpse-oil which is already beginning to shut itself off.

In the white-green glare of the flames I see the man I have come to kill. He stands holding a demon woman above him by the throat. Scattered on the ground around her were what I assumed were her Lemures, all slain and crushed as if someone had emptied them out. He hears me coming of course, and he turns to look at me. The slightest upward jerk of his chin shows he recognises me and then he turns back to the woman.

He is almost naked, trousers almost reduced to rags and boots that used to belong to a Watchman. At his belt hangs a leather pouch filled with angular and sharp items, a pouch that fills me with dread, and I hope that the idea I have about its contents is wrong. His chest, arms and head are bare, but streaked with gore. He has bathed in the blood of his victims, which given who he is was only prudent. The rain patters down on us both, turning the puddle beneath him into a maze of brown and red, as he holds his next victim aloft with the blood caked all over him sizzling in the rain.

"You aren't going to stop me killing this one then?" he asks as the Demon woman claws at his hands and I watch. She twitches and shivers as he uses his true voice, but with no command behind it the sound merely causes her pain.

"No." I reply without using my voice, "she was dead the moment you laid your hands on her and there is nothing I can do to save her."

"That's not like you." he is honestly surprised by my response, but we haven't spoken in several lifetimes so it doesn't surprise me that he has misremembered how I think. I never was one for fighting lost causes, at least not when I do not care about the outcome.

"A woman in trouble? Her children slain and you are going to stand and watch me kill her? What happened to you my old friend, did the Black Cathedral stop you from escaping one too many times and finally burned the humanity right out of you?" He shakes the demon woman by her throat, but it just causes her arms and legs to jerk limply. She has passed out or died from his grip but I just keep my eyes on him, eyes that have not changed in millennia.

"Demon not woman. Lemures not children. I have not forgotten the difference." The answer seems to anger him, he throws the demon away from him, her head cracking open on the cobbles and spewing steaming blood out of it.

"You think I have! I have not forgotten either, I have lived as many lives as you have. The Cathedral have dogged my steps as long as they have dogged yours. How many times have they murdered me when I was about to escape this... this Prison once and for all!" He roars his anger at me, and I can feel him gathering his power, can see it as well as the blood splashed on the floor from the demons begins to boil, and their bodies begin to crinkle and split as if from heat only they can feel.

"So you made yourself into a thing that crawls out of sewers to destroy Corpse-oil lamps and Sun-globes, to murder the Ascendancies Watchmen? I think you might have finally gone mad Vortigern."

The use of his chosen name causes him to pause. Using it, especially in the open is considered a direct insult amongst us. It allows anyone who is watching to know a great deal about us, particularly the Black Cathedral and the Ascendancy who keep such good records on us. It tells them which of us they are dealing with, our motivations, and in the case of the Cathedral what binds us to the wheel, that mystical chain that stops us escaping when we die, forcing us to be reborn over and over.

"I am not mad! Or no madder than any of us at any rate. No madder than any animal kept caged for three thousand years enduring unimaginable torture." He doesn't use my name I notice, but it would be superfluous at any rate, the description of my armour and weapons are well known to any concerned and this is in no way related to an action that would unweave the binding on me.

"How many lives have you lived?" he asks quietly, "How many times have you nearly broke the binding and escaped to whatever lies beyond this life? How many times have you been reborn? Before the war it was bad enough, memories leaking through from all of our past lives, tormenting us, but now? There are so many demons in this stinking city we remember everything, all of the time. How are we supposed to stand it? The Cathedral has had to murder four of us just this past century before they could take their own lives and dive head first into oblivion. What does that tell you? It's too much. We did what they demanded of us, what they made us for, we fought their damned war for them and look were it brought us to." he waves an absent gore covered hand at the city, "Do we get to rest now? No, because the Cathedral refuses to believe that they lost."

I let him speak, he is not saying anything I have not heard, although I am interested to note that he does not know which of the four ancients have attempted suicide and been prevented by being murdered by the Cathedral. I fight down the memories of that before they can overwhelm me.

"So what is your plan Vortigern? Causing so much death and destruction that the Cathedral kills you, or the Ascendancy, or one of us? What about your next life and the one after that, this achieves nothing."

I adjust my stance slightly, the spear droops towards the floor as if I do not intend to use it, as my other arm comes forward ready to call the shield. I can sense Vortigern is getting angry again, frustrated that I cannot see his great plan. Keeping him talking however serves my purpose more than his. Above there is a rumble of thunder from the clouds, and the rain begins to pour down harder.

"Oh but it will!" he snaps at me, "The Cathedral cannot control where we are reborn. If I kill this city we will escape them. There will be no one for us to be born to, no one for us to be."

His mind has cracked, I can see that for certain now. Vortigern was never the most stable of us, but then again with the unending torturous procession of our cursed lives, combined with the impersonal pruning of the Black Cathedral would unhinge anyone.

"You will have to explain Vortigern, even you can't kill everyone in the city."

He looks at me as if I have missed something blatantly obvious, and then raises a gore streaked arm to point behind me. I risk a glance, taking my eyes off him for just a second to look at what he is pointing at. Behind me rises the soot stained form of the Great Lantern Spire, all slime slicked dark stone and crumbling mortar. The largest building in the entire city, built using only half remembered technology, the cities source of light and also it's morgue. High above us I can imagine the spluttering crackle of the corpse light flame as the bodies of the unfortunates who have died today are rendered down for their energy to keep the city lit for another day.

I have to admit it is a very ambitious plan. The ascendancy is more than aware of the fact that the Great Lantern is one of the most important artefacts of the past age still existing, an entire regiment of their elite are stationed in its base with the most powerful weapons, both mundane and magical at their disposal. Not that it would really avail them against one of us. They are not the Cathedral, and so lack their defences.

"If I kill the light they will never remember how to rekindle it. The humans will starve, or freeze, or the dead will pile up and a plague will claim them all, and when they are all dead we will finally be free of this place, free of this damnable unending life."

He smiles to himself, and shudders, and I know exactly what he is feeling. His face may be a mask of blood and rain, he may be standing before me with the blood of his victims pooling round his feet as the rain beats down on us, but at that moment I can relate to him perfectly. The thought of escape is one of the very few that bring us Ancients pleasure, or at least pleasure that the Cathedral cannot take away if it chooses.

I consider for a moment his plan. It would most likely work, certainly this city would die without the light and warmth from the Great Lantern. All of its denizens would perish, the Humans that rely on it to grow their food, the Demons that rely on the humans for their sustenance, even the more esoteric of the populace would eventually succumb. We would most likely go with them, we are not immortal by normal standards, we die but do not stay dead as long as there is someone to be reborn as.

However it shows the difference between he and I. His servitude has driven him into a murderous rage, like a bear too often taunted into dancing. In his state I have no doubt he would tear the world in two if he could. I meanwhile have suffered my slavery to the Cathedral’s whim for the most part without rage, but instead a crushing melancholy has settled upon me. Our makers were clever when they made us however, and with me they made my hope almost, but not quite inexhaustible. Despite all that has been done to us, despite the lows I have come to in my previous life, I still have not given up on the hope of escaping them and earning whatever reward comes after death.

I shake my head, tempting though it is I cannot allow Vortigern to succeed in his mad quest. When I look back up he has realised that I have not been convinced, that I will not stand at his side. I can see the betrayal in his eyes.

“I am sorry Vortigern, I cannot allow this. Not all of us are as willing to commit genocide to escape." I shift my stance slightly, he will attack me in a few seconds I know for certain.

"Yet you are the only one of us standing here between me and my target. None of the others have come."

His arm has fallen to his side, but I can see the curling of his fingers where he is ready to call his weapon. I also cannot deny his statement, none of the others have come, perhaps I truly am the only one of us who cares any longer.

"They might not be here" I tell him, "I still will not get out of your path."

The rain has almost cleaned him. He stands before me, his pale white skin showing only the last few dregs of the blood he bathed himself in on his rampage. His face flashes into anger as I deny him and his plan, by keeping him angry I have hopefully distracted him from the slow lessening of his power.

He snarls and launches himself forwards, pulling a huge and chipped blade from the air into his hand. Vortigern was always strong, but my reflexes were always faster. There is a clang like the ringing of a great bell as my shield appears in my left hand. The impact staggers me sideways, scrabbling across the slick cobbles. Vortigern roars his anger at me, but I regain my feet swiftly and lash out with the spear, slapping the blade against his skin without breaking it. It is little more than an annoyance, but it wipes another long smear of demonic blood from his arm, leaving it spitting and boiling on the blade. There is a crash as his sword, wielded two handed now once again impacts against the shield, and forces me momentarily to my right knee. My armour crashes against the ground so hard that if it were not raining it would almost certainly have raised sparks. I push myself up again, and with a flicker of the spear remove more of his covering of blood.

Vortigern is raging, and his anger is a palpable thing. His shouts cause the cobbles to shatter beneath us and the blood in my phylactery to boil. Every sound he makes he is using his true voice. The power he is using in his blows is far more than any normal person could achieve, or for that matter any demon short of one of the greatest. His screaming face is a mask of rage and pain, the brown eyes I have seem so many times alight with it. The blood that remains on him is curling at the edges, falling away in thick scabs to reveal the pale skin beneath At this rate he will boil it all away in seconds, then I should be able to control him.

He hits me again, I parry with the haft of the spear I have carried since we were made so long ago. The power of the blow is phenomenal and this time I skid across the ground on my side to smash into the wall next to the body of the demon woman. I start to push myself up and away from her smouldering corpse, when I see something that stops me.

The Lemures have been crushed. The tiny childlike bodies of the demons have been squeezed and emptied, but around their corpses the ground is almost clean. I glance at him as he strides towards me, the blood that remains, the blood that has washed off, it is no where near enough.

There is gore in his stubble. As he roars I can see the pink on his teeth.

I am granted a moment to reflect that Vortigern has made his own body his Phylactery before he strikes blindingly fast. I manage, just, to interpose the shield but the impact tears it from my grip and numbs my arm to the shoulder. His backhand strike caves the faceplate of my armour in. Eyesight blurring and dark spots threatening to march in from the corners of my eyes I manage to raise my arm to ward off the follow up blow. He is still screaming, but it is not the roar of the berserk, it is the scream of an animal in torturous pain. He has dropped is weapon, and I cannot bring mine to bear, as he screams every century of agony at me. Over and over his fist pounds into my upraised arm until the vambrace is buckled and twisted and I can barely hold it it high enough to protect my head. The blood steam from my phylactery erupts in cloud from the power both he and I am expending, and then stops as it boils dry.

My arm falls. The corpse of the demon woman has caught fire, the bodies of her Lemures burning like tallow candles. Without the blood in my phylactery I can sustain myself only on the blood left in the puddles nearby, the blood in Vorticity’s stomach is his to use alone. My armour and weapon will remain, but the power is gone.

I look up at Vortigern who stands panting, he has stopped attacking now that he knows I am done. The rage is still there in his eyes but as he looks down on the blood pouring from my armour and the ruin he has caused there is also something else. He kneels in front of me, bringing himself down to the level of the undamaged half of my helm.

"You always were too much a good man for your own good, old friend. I'm going to free you now, I'm going to free us all. I know you won't thank me, but you should."

He stands and looks towards the Great Lantern. The white green of the light on his face makes him look like a statue. The sort of statue an opium eater would carve in the depths of his worst nightmare but a statue none-the-less. He starts to move away, and I strike.

The spear is still trapped beneath me but the daggers at my belt are in easy reach, and I bury one up to the hilt in the flesh of his stomach. The gout of blood is far more than the wound should have caused, and he staggers as his own supply of demon blood begins to leak out around the blade. Before I can stab him again he slaps my hand away, and steps back out of my reach. With a snarl he pulls the leather pouch from his belt, and before I can stop him he pours the contents out onto the floor in front of him.

Tiny chunks of white and green enamelled metal, some in the shape of ivy leaves spin through the air..

I stand unable to move as the arrow flies towards me, there is a blur of red, and someone else falls in front of me. I scream and...

I throw the demon so hard it's body ruptures against the wall, another chops into my side cutting away part of my armour. I turn and fix it with my glare. It catches fire, screaming and clawing at itself as I will my hate to incinerate it...

The doctor says he is sorry, that she passed away with the child. I shake my head and move away, leaving by a fire exit. I look over the railing and realise what I must do. The man comes from nowhere, the knife cuts deep, a piece breaking off inside me, he whispers something about a cathedral that I do not understand...

I watch as the man's flesh tears and he changes, people are screaming, I am perfectly calm as I tear a street sign out of the concrete and beat him with it until he ceases to move. There are others lying on the ground changing and I walk towards them...

She is suddenly there before me. I cannot see her face, but her red hair falls past my eyes and face. It is soft on my cheek where she leans forward to whisper to me...

The Roman thrusts his sword at me and I parry with the haft of the spear, turning the blade to bury it in his eye. It sticks in the bone, and the two others with him finish me...

I am in the City. The Red Palace burns as the corpse of its master falls from the end of my spear. Every demon in the room is a torch, burning from within. I stoop to pick up what I came for, the flesh is cold...

She looks back at me, and smiles. It is a smile that warms me to the core, like it is something I have looked for forever but I do not know why. She dives into the pond, and I follow...

She stands, I have found her again. She stands before me, with people running this way and that as demons chase after them. I am wearing my armour, but she can see my eyes, and she smiles the smile I crave like nothing else. The rubble falling from above crushes her into nothing. I look and see Vortigern, he is struggling with a huge creature, and a careless sweep of an arm topped the wall that has wiped her from the world...

I scream as....

I scream as...

I scream...

I scream as the spear flies through the air and impales Vortigern before he takes five steps. I am on him a second after that bearing him to the floor and smashing his skull against the cobbles. The strength of my rage is more even than his, and I smash his face over and over into the stones. I drag the spear out of him, letting his stolen demon blood flow freely over my hands, and I roar my pain. Vortigern thought he knew pain, but mine shatters the buildings around us, stone crumbling in on itself and roof tiles clattering down to shatter around us. I lift him above my head easily, and hurl him at the ground hard enough to break his back and leave his legs useless. He could repair with the blood them but I do not give him the chance, I stride forward and lift him again. He doesn't know what has happened, doesn't know why the tokens he wrested from the Watchmen are not protecting him as they would protect them. Does not realise I have just seen him destroy the one thing that has mattered to me since we were made.

His eyes are terrified as he looks into mine. He can see the hate, feel it even, as the blood pouring from his wounds boils on his skin.

"You didn't even see her. You didn't even care." my voice is hoarse, but the look in his eyes shows me he knows what I mean.

He tries to talk, to apologise, or make excuses but I stop him. I hold my hand over his mouth and nose and although he struggles against it my rage keeps me strong until he ceases to move and I let his corpse fall to the ground.

I stand there with the rain of the black city pouring down on my, the Great lanterns light raising painting the edges of my armour with its sepulchral glow. Eventually some of the Ascendancies watch appear, but they stand away and watch me, in case I might decide to throw myself at them next. As if they cannot decide which of us, I or Vortigern was the monster. A crowd forms slowly, the danger passed the denizens of this cursed place come to gawk at the results of a fight between two Ancients. One man in the crowd catches my eye, he watches me too carefully, wary as if he expects me not to attack the crowd but possibly myself. Even at such a time as this I cannot escape the Black Cathedral. I consider killing him, but instead dismiss my weapons and armour.

In the rain, half naked, I walk back to my home, where I can sleep and perhaps dream of better times.