PREDATORS

She watched the Queen corrupt and seduce the flesh-being with visions of power. She watched as slowly he began to obey and serve the Queen. She waited as the Nest began to grow, slowly at first, then with increasing speed and activity. She waited for the Nest to be large enough to sustain Her; then She began to weave.

Zuul walked confidently through the foyer into the lobby of the corporate building. He knew that a wide variety of scanning devices immediately began to scrutinize his person looking for objects with signatures that conformed to "potential altercation instigators."

He had nothing to fear from them, as he had expected such measures and had decided not to bring any physical weaponry with him to the meeting. One does not accept an interview for a potential job and then arrive like a pissed-off troll. Tact and diplomacy were the watchwords for the day; and besides, he had his magic with him, and, although there was undoubtedly some form of magical surveillance, it could be a powerful weapon that he could not be stripped of.

The two ork guards at the lobby entrance scowled at him and looked suspiciously at his tailored armored jacket but said nothing to him as he passed. If the chem-sniffers said this breeder was clean, who were they to dispute the machines?

Paying the guards little heed, Zuul strolled over to the gum-chewing receptionist behind the desk across the lobby. He noticed the art and decor of the lobby and determined that this Chandra Corporation was of decent stature. Maybe not one of the big boys like Mitsuhama or Aztechnology, but it certainly had potential. If he got in good, who knows where the opportunities could lead?

The pretty blonde behind the desk stopped smacking her gum long enough to tell him that Mr. Todasha was ready to see him and that he could go on up. After giving her a smile he hoped was both polite and flirtatious, he took the elevator to the fifth floor and walked into room 515 as he had been instructed.

The first thing he saw was a large mahogany desk behind which was seated an elf of Japanese descent. Immediately after noticing the corp, Zuul saw the two humans standing behind him. Human bodyguards must mean rather extensive cyber-modification. Perhaps this corporation has more to it than first greets the eye.

Mr. Todasha stood and bowed politely and waited patiently for Zuul to do the same. Seeing the expectation of a rude shadowrunner on the faces of the guards, Zuul took the hint and also bowed.

"Mr. Todasha, I presume? It is of course a pleasure to finally meet you," he said as he stepped forward and extended his hand.

As he moved closer, both the Japanese bodyguards drew pistols and assumed firing stances before Zuul had taken two steps, much too fast for flesh alone, their cyberware acting before even they were fully aware of the action. They were held off from shooting by a hand signal from Todasha. "You must please excuse my retainers," he said to Zuul in well-spoken English, "for they have spent many years isolated in our home country and are as yet unused to Western methods of greeting. I am as you say Todasha. I am glad you decided to come and hear my outline of the proposed job I gave you."

"'Proposed' is correct, Mr. Todasha," replied Zuul. "I usually wouldn't even listen to such a mundane task as ghoul-hunting, but I need the cred and our mutual friend said that these ghoulies were a special threat. I have a reputation for dealing well with special threats, as you may have heard," bragged the mage.

"I have heard that your last few runs were successful, yet I have not discounted luck," responded the Jap sarariman. "However, if you do perform as well as you say you can, there are great rewards to be reaped," he continued.

"Awright, let's get down to it," said Zuul.

"You are right in calling this job a 'ghoul-hunt', and you are also correct in stating that it is not the norm. Let me outline what I can before you decide whether or not to accept, and I will answer questions such that I may without giving away too much of what we know. If you do decide to help us, we will discuss particulars and set up a rendezvous. How does that sound?"

"Shoot."

"These ‘ghouls’, as you call them," Todasha started, "are currently dwelling in one of our neglected office buildings in the southern stretch of the Redmond Barrens..."

The office building stood alone. The adjacent blocks had residential buildings and apartments in various states of disrepair, all empty. But the block on which this building dwelt had been cleared of all but the nine-story structure. Seattle's acidic rains had badly pitted the exterior of the offices, but the damage was by no means irreparable. Even though it appeared merely derelict, an aura of dread and something less definable emanated from the structure. It was almost as if it was waiting, poised to spring.

The sun was just rising and washing the ground with light filtered by the heavy air pollution of the area. Zuul and Raven had decided to begin in the morning, knowing that this particular type of metahuman was nocturnal. The less active the prey, the easier the job.

The two figures run across the street and stopped just outside the broken glass doors. Zuul had his assault rifle ready and Raven carried an HK-227 submachinegun. Neither gun was by any means silent, but silence was one thing that they were not worried about. What was of concern was the fact that there seemed to be no activity anywhere, in the building or out. The ghouls must really have cleared the area of the assorted squatters and chip-heads that would normally swarm an area like this. This unnerved both the magicians, as neither had ever heard of a colony of ghouls being so organized. Both believed that something was afoot here.

Upon reaching the doorway, the two humans ducked quickly into the building after a brief nod from Zuul. They effectively set up a cross-pattern of fire for their guns, and wisely so. It appeared that the ghoulies did indeed leave some sort of defense. Two German shepherds began to growl and approach the intruders. There was something strange about the dogs, but there was no time to stop and examine them for they quickly lunged to attack.

Both automatic weapons fired simultaneously and the dogs were swiftly reduced to nothing more than twitching bags of fur.

The magicians waited as the echoes of their fuselade died away. If there were more in the way of defense, it would become readily apparent. There was no sound and no sign of more dogs, or ghouls for that matter. True, they were nocturnal, but the sound of the guns should have brought them running, straight into the path of more rounds. That was how a normal ghoul bounty worked. You walked around shooting stuff, and killed the ghouls when they came to see what was going on. But Zuul felt this was even more exceptional than Todasha had let on. Something was very wrong here.

As Zuul gestured for Raven to come closer to have a brief conference, he heard a shuffling noise, very quiet and not too far away. He motioned for Raven to stop and listen. This time they both heard something but it stopped as quickly as it had begun.

"I don't like this," whispered Raven.

"Neither do I," agreed Zuul, "Let's just geek these bastards and get the frag out of here. This place is starting to spook me!"

"Done and done," replied the shaman.

With that they crossed the lobby and went through the doors into the building's interior.

Immediately inside the building proper there were passages to the left and right, and a set of double doors straight ahead. There was also an old elevator shaft on the wall facing them, about three or four meters to the left.

Before proceeding any further, Raven signaled to Zuul that he would summon a spirit. Zuul's spirits, several elementals waiting for his call, would only be used if required. Their powers were helpful, but the magicians wanted to attract as little attention as possible and that meant keeping the number of beings as few as they could. Who knows how sensitive these corpse-consuming critters were to astral energies. Elementals were also quite expensive to summon.

The shamanic mask appeared as a slight dark shimmer around Raven’s face and his whispered incantation took on a raucous note. A second later the Hearth Spirit arrived, visible as a slight shimmer on the physical plane. Raven muttered for it to search for the source of the noise and told the mage to wait a minute.

The shaman reported a few minutes later to Zuul that the spirit had found humanoids in the room behind the double doors in front of them. They decided to both enter the room at the same time and have the spirit guard the door behind them. Raven turned on his flashlight, gave the nod to Zuul, and opened the leftmost door.

They rushed into the room and into a nightmare scene. They had apparently found the pantry. Piles of bodies, bones and other miscellaneous detritus littered the floor of the large room. Zuul stifled a retch and managed to hold it down as the smell washed over them. Some of this "food" had been here for a while. On the other side of the room, about 20 meters away, there were crunching noises that abruptly stopped. There was a sound of rustling, then silence. Raven panned his light across the far wall and the corpse-piles there. A few seconds later, a few of the bodies moved as if being pushed out of the way from beneath. There was time to see a head and torso appear above a pile before five figures burst into action and charged the intruders.

The ghouls got halfway across the room before the magicians opened fire. The staccato thunder of automatic weapons fire filled the room. Zuul fired a burst and walked it across two of the figures, both of which shrieked and flew backwards with the impacts. He noticed two important facts as the wildly waving light illuminated the ghouls: one was that both ghouls likely suffered fatal wounds from his gun, and secondly, these weren't like any ghouls he'd seen before. One seemed to have milky large multifaceted eyes and the other seemed to have one pair of arms too many. However, the middle of combat is no time to devote to metahuman aesthetics.

Raven's first burst caught one of the figures in the throat, and his second went too high. It wasn't off by much, but it was enough to allow one of the ghouls to duck under it and close the distance between itself and the shaman. Zuul saw flailing arms and gnashing teeth, and heard a strangled croak, but the fifth ghoul was upon him. He had time to get his shots off, but the momentum of the ghoul's body carried it into him. He saw antennae on the dead beast's head before being knocked down and losing his rifle.

The flashlight was spinning on the floor and therefore failed to illuminate anything well, but Zuul saw enough in the dancing shadows to see that his running buddy wasn't going to be getting up. Blood was spraying everywhere and the ghoul that had attacked him was chewing out his throat. Raven's limp body and the almost inaudible pop of the Hearth spirit disappearing told Zuul that the shaman was no more.

It was just then that the flashlight stopped spinning and ended up with its illumined end wedged underneath one of the rotting bodies. The resulting muffled light was probably enough to see using low-light vision, but Zuul possessed no such ability. All he could see was a very faint trace of illumination creeping out from under the corpse and it wasn't enough to see what the ghoul was doing, but he could hear it stop its attack on his friend and then silence. An indeterminate amount of time passed while Zuul slowly fanned his hand across the floor, searching for his dropped rifle. He was about to move a little bit to widen his search when he sensed movement from a few meters away. The tiny amount of sunlight coming from the street through the still-open door cast a dim shadow as the creature crept closer, visible only because of the light sensitivity induced by the darkness of the room.

Fearing a sudden onslaught of violence if he moved too quickly, Zuul very slowly reached under his armour and laid his hand on his Remington Roomsweeper. The smell of rotten meat enveloped him as the ghoul reached him and halted. It started to sniff the air and began to softly paw at him. Soft clicking sounds came from it as it explored him. It must think me crippled or dead, the mage thought as he slowly, ever so slowly raised the business end of the shotgun pistol away from his body. There was a grunt/growl of surprise from the ghoul and, hoping that the gun was aimed in roughly the direction of the beast, Zuul pulled the trigger. There was a sharp kick as the recoil jammed the butt of the pistol into his ribs. The ghoul was flung back, off of the human, its left arm missing below the elbow. Shrieking in pain and defiance, it lunged. Before it could reach him, a large humanoid figure made of dirt and rocks appeared behind it as if out of nothing. The Earth elemental grabbed the ghoul in both hands and raised it into the air. The escalating screams ended in a snap as the elemental broke its spine and dropped the body to the floor.

Zuul mentally commanded the spirit to close and hold the door, hoping it would be enough to keep the ghouls outside at bay long enough to gather his gun and his wits. The spirit faithfully obeyed, and just in time. The doors started to shake and there were scratches and pounding on the door, followed by plaintive howling. Zuul ran over to the flashlight and picked it up. A cloud of flies was stirred up by his intrusion, but quickly settled back onto the corpses as he stepped back in revulsion.

He walked over to make sure that there was no hope for Raven. A quick play of light across his features assured Zuul that Raven was in the right company in this room. Zuul made a mental note to retrieve the shaman's body before he left. It wouldn't be right to leave him here among the food bodies. But now was time to get his hoop out of this mess.

The furor at the door was growing increasingly more intense. There wouldn't be time to look for his assault rifle so he drew the Roomsweeper and held the light in his left hand. As the mage ran to the far side of the room he called all the elementals at his disposal. These included an Air, another Earth, and two Fire elementals, none of which had more than two services remaining. He had let the upkeep of his spiritual forces fall behind, and now he hoped that it wouldn't lead to his demise. He commanded all the spirits but one Fire elemental to aid the first Earth in holding off as many as they could as the ghouls started to break down the door. He would use the last Fire to aid in combat spells against the ones that got past his spirits.

The noise from the doorway was horrific as the elementals and the ghouls encountered each other and a large melee ensued. The Earths and the Fire were swatting aside ghouls and breaking limbs like branches. The Air was zipping around and using its psychokinesis to throw the critters back into the path of the other elementals when they tried to slip by. Zuul was firing into the melee pretty much at random, knowing that his shots would tear into flesh but that the quality of the astral beings was such that his mere lead wouldn't harm them much. He saw that he was scoring several hits and that many of the Gray Ones were falling due to him and his attack force. The spirits weren't escaping unscathed, however. At first, they hardly seemed to be getting damaged, but then the Air disappeared in a puff of cloudy vapour. The demise of the Fire and one of the Earths quickly followed it. Only the original Earth remained and even it was leaking astral energy from several "wounds" inflicted by the ghouls’ talons.

The onslaught was ebbing, however, and the Earth managed to stop all but three of the last five attackers. Zuul’s gun was out of ammo and there was no time to reload, so he cast Manabolts at the three ghouls simultaneously. There was a feeling like a tightening of is brain occurring within his skull and the targets reeled in agony. Two of the critters fell, bleeding from their noses and eyes. The third remained standing and, although it staggered, it looked up at the mage with its blind face and revealed to Zuul its awful countenance.

The metahuman looked as though it was a cross between a ghoul and some sort of insect. The mouth and nose areas of the face were replaced with mandibles and chewing mouthparts. The pale, rough skin of the ghoul was replaced with a shiny chitinous shell. Dark green/black fluid began to seep from between the plates as another Manabolt from Zuul rocked the critter’s astral energies.

Only Zuul’s laboured breathing broke the post-violence silence. His head ached from the sorcery he had performed, and a warm wetness seemed to be creeping along the back of his neck. But all the beasties seem to have been destroyed, or at least the survivors had retreated to regroup. Normally ghouls would not be so tactical, but who knew what the frag was going on. This hunt was not going according to SOP, and that had been expected, but he had been told that these ghouls were allied with a powerful conjurer and had therefore not been expecting these insect-creatures.

Zuul was trying to figure out how long he might have before a renewed assault to come up with another plan when the PA system crackled to life and a male voice boomed throughout the building.

She woke to a disturbance in Her Web of astral energies. There were intruders in the midst of the Flies. She sent her Far Sight into the melee and witnessed that the intruders were from familiar Planes, but were seemingly bound to another entity in the room. This other entity was trapped in a mortal coil of flesh, yet still seemed to be powerful enough to command the spirits to fight for him. Interesting. She stored the information in the back of her mind for later digestion and concentrated on the matters more immediately at hand.

The Flies were throwing themselves at the spirits and consequently were being torn apart. She could hear the screams of the Queen from above the fight. After a failed assault on the meat-entity, the retreat command from the Queen was obeyed.

She observed as the Queen called for Her personal meat-entity to come to her. The astral impression of the latter was then seen to be scuttling toward his master. After a quick exchange between them that was of no concern to Spider, the shaman left the audience of the Queen and scampered off to another room on another floor.

Not quite understanding what was going on, She retreated to Her Nest to ponder Her next move.

"Hoi, intruder. My Queen demands that you leave our home. Now." The voice was soft and slippery, and spoke in Cityspeak. "Your escape will not be hampered by Colony members. You will cause no more harm and will proceed immediately out of our Home. If this is not followed, you will become one of us and the process is not pleasant. You have been given a chance. Take it." The hissing of the PA system cut out abruptly.

Now this is interesting, thought Zuul. Time to call for assistance. He pulled up the sleeve on his armor jacket and hit the speed dial number for the Johnson. This was definitely not SOP, but desperate times call for desperate measures. To his great surprise, he actually got ahold of Todasha after being transferred only three times. The sarariman scowled up at Zuul from the wristphone’s vidscreen.

"What is the major malfunction, runner," this last said with just a touch of condescension.

After Zuul had described his circumstances, Todasha agreed that the situation needed to be reevaluated. He told the mage to leave and a second assault would be assembled, with him as the leader if he agreed. Zuul agreed to discuss terms once he was out of here.

The mage commanded his last elemental to precede him out of the building in materialized form and stand ready for an attack. Picking Raven’s body up in a fireman’s carry, he charged for the exit as fast as he was able. He was expecting to be hindered, and was quite surprised and pleased when he emerged into the sunlight without so much as spotting one of the ghoulies. He ran to his Americar a block away, laid the body in the backseat, and jumped in the front.

The sound of squealing tires caused the few birds remaining in the area to cry in protest. Zuul let his Earth return to standby as he breathed a sigh of relief and drove off into the sunrise.

"They have left, my Queen," fawned the Fly shaman. He was actually a little scared of Her now, and Her power just seemed to grow as his apparently waned. Even in the twisted recesses of an insect shaman’s mind there was a certain amount of instinct for self-preservation, and his was telling him to get out of this relationship while the gettin’ was good. What the shaman didn’t yet realize was that it was too late for leaving. The Queen was aware of his inadequacies and it was only a matter of time before She found a more competent replacement. When that time came, the pitiful figure that now stood before Her would become a vessel for yet another of Her workers. If he was fortunate, that is.

The Queen’s astral form was that of a giant maggot surrounded by beautifully coloured lines of light. The great body was suspended in the middle of what was once a third floor bathroom by cords of astral energy. Attendants to the Queen filled the room, writhing and scuttling as they performed their various tasks.

Will they return? The Queen’s "voice" slipped into his mind like beetles slithering under a rock. One of your few remaining uses to me is that of anthropologist. So tell me, are these "hunters" likely to return? Or have We shown them enough trouble for them to realize that We are not to be disturbed?

"I am sure that they will be running scared for a week, Great Mother. They came on a ghoul-hunt probably chasing a bounty, and now they know that these are not just ghouls and that it is too dangerous. They won’t be back." Harv the Fly shaman hoped that his fear wasn’t too obvious. She would capitalize on that.

You have been wrong before, man, and with these words came a dull throbbing from the base of the human’s skull. I have tolerated far more from you than I should have. The Hive grows stronger and larger, and We need room to expand and feed. You said that we would be undisturbed in these "Barrens" and you were wrong. You said that there would be more food here than We could ever need. You were wrong. You said that there were few threats to the Hive members, yet a few go missing every time they go beyond the fifth floor. You said that your investigation would provide results on what might be up there and you were WRONG! With this last, the pain in his head reached its nadir.

"The…back…background…count…too…too…high," the shaman stammered. "Astral…search…no…good…" He screamed as the agony exceeded his level of tolerance and he lost consciousness.

When Harv awoke he was alone in the lobby. He felt weak and he knew that some of his power had been removed. He also knew that there was only one way to win back the Queen’s favour. Sighing, he got up and beckoned three flesh-form soldiers to him. Once the abominations had arrived, the group trundled up the stairs to the top floors.

This time they were ready. Zuul’s new team consisted of five members other than himself. There was a norm aspected magician - an Eagle shamanic conjurer named Talon - and an Amerindian elven adept called Fite. Razz and Tazz were ork cyber-warriors, heavily chromed and heavily armed. They were twin brothers and had served together in the military. That was all they said about the matter and that was all that Zuul wanted to know. The last member of the shadow team was a dwarf drone rigger called Tigger. Tigger had a rep for working alone, so the fact that he was here working with a team was a testament to the pay they were getting for this bug-hunt.

The image of Mr. Todasha on the holovid finished giving the last minute instructions and post-run contact numbers. As his image snapped out of existence, the team completed suiting up. Tigger went to the rigger tank in the front of the armoured van. Soon afterwards the van started moving. Hidden speakers in the van came to life with the sound of the rigger’s voice. "ETA four-point-five minutes. When we get there, I’ll open the rear doors for you guys and the drones. Remember to let the combat drones go in first. You go in after them and bat clean up. Also, shoot any of the bastards that try getting into the drones’ servos. Once gunk gets in there you never get it out."

Zuul was pleased with the way things had gone, all in all. He got his butt kicked the first time, and he had lost a friend, but he wouldn’t make the same mistakes twice. It was 24 hours later, probably too soon for the ghoul-bugs to expect another assault but long enough for Zuul to summon a couple more elementals and for Todasha to get this crack team assembled. It would be different this time.

The team’s objective was similar to Zuul’s previous one, i.e. get the frag in, take out the fraggin’ critters/spirits, and get the frag back out. They were also to make sure they killed/drove off the Queen Fly Spirit. Little was known of Her because astral surveillance had revealed little about anything in the building. Permanent wards had been set up around some of the building, particularly the middle floors, and the middle to upper floors were in an exceptionally deep pool of astral gloom. This background count was thought to be due to a combination of the poisoned humanity of the Barrens, the presence of the corpse-eating ghouls, and the twisted acts of the Insect Spirits and their shaman.

About all that was learned was that the Invae were Fly Spirits that had been using ghouls as hosts. The lifestyle of the ghouls seemed to fit right in with what the Flies sought after: lots of carrion lying around, inadequate plumbing, total lack of hygiene of any sort, etc. The Queen was never observed, but several Workers and Soldiers of both flesh- and true-forms were seen. They were obviously Flies and it could be therefore assumed that a Hive that size must have a Queen. A Fly shaman would not be able to have built such a large Colony by himself.

Encounters with Insect Spirits were fairly rare, and there were a lot of unknowns involved, but the shadowrunner team had been briefed of as much as was known by their employer and the equipment that they had been loaned was top-notch. The samurai brothers were both outfitted with heavy security armour and gyro-mounted belt-fed miniguns. They each carried a belt of 1000 flechette rounds for the Vindicators. Their only other armaments were Ingram Smartguns strapped at their waists.

Fite, the adept, was armed only with his monofilament whip and a Ruger Super Warhawk. He refused the offered armour, mumbling something about his ancestors needing to see his Native Battle Jerkin (Ô ) in order to give him his combat abilities.

Talon took the proffered combat suit. Though not as heavy as the orks’ sec-armour, it would be enough for his purposes. He also borrowed an Ingram Smartgun. The followers of Eagle revered nature, and Talon was no different. He had devoted his life to the destruction of Invae and their associates. He had enchanted a unique focus to help rid the world of these loathsome spirits that took the form of a ceremonial drum. He stroked the calfskin of the drum as the van drove him to his duty. Talon had agreed to work for only the cost of his expenses. He had turned down the huge fee in order to use this experience as a stepping stone to continue his initiation into the higher orders of his art.

Tigger needed no armour or weapons because he would not be leaving the van. Although he would only be telepresent in the area, he was by no means going to be "safe." Biofeedback from drone destruction could kill him as surely as a bullet to the head. Armouring his meatbody would do him little good.

Zuul also took nothing from the pile of corp surplus. He didn’t feel good about borrowing stuff from a corp. What if something happened to it? He did not need to owe any corp anything.

The van came to a stop in front of the building. The back door dropped open and formed a ramp to the broken pavement. The two Steel Lynx drones rolled down the ramp and stood waiting on the street. The runners exited the van and performed last minute preparations. The still morning silence was broken by the dual hum of the miniguns as the orks activated the spinning barrels. Talon beat on the drum twice to activate its power. There were clicks and whirs from within the drones as their weapon systems came online. Everyone else drew their weapons and got into formation. A thick fog of anticipation and something darker filled the air. The rigger signaled that they were a go with a honk of the van’s horn, and the group entered the Hive without a word.

The Queen knew of the assault. Sentries that She had posted around the Hive had alerted Her telepathically. She watched the meat-entities arrive, exit the mobile metal box, and enter Her domain. Her commands to all Hive members were immediate and simple. The meat-entities would perish for their curiosity. That fool shaman still had not returned and he was the only magician among Her servants, so She would have to rely on a purely physical show of force. He would pay for his incompetence upon his return. But She must now focus Her concentration on the orchestration of the defense so that there was a Hive to return to.

Things had gone well until now. The mutated ghouls had swarmed out of every doorway only to be met by the grenades launched by the drones and the twin hoses of lead from the orks. The room quickly began to reek of cordite and blood. The ghouls were literally torn apart by the Vindicators and the anti-personnel grenades. Screams of pain and anguish filled the room, overlaid by the yells of jubilation from the orks and the constant whining of their miniguns. The rare critter that got past the drones and razorguys was cut in two by Fite as he moved back and forth between the sams and the Lynxes with his monowhip. The two magicians were trying to stay within the protective confines of their comrades and out of harm’s way. They were saving their strength in case true-form spirits attacked the group. The banishing that they could perform would be much more effective than bullets.

It was during a lull in the assault that the drones quit. The ghouls had fallen back to regroup and the party used the brief respite to catch their breaths and take stock of their situation. They were in the middle of their roll call when one of the Steel Lynxes that was slowly rolling forward came to a stop. The blinking indicator lights on both drones went out and the noises of the internal grenade magazines reloading ceased. Deciding to risk a quick look, Zuul popped into the astral and zipped out to the van. What he saw when he arrived let him know that they all might be in trouble. The rigger was in pieces on the floor of his control van amidst debris from his rigger-tank. The astral energies in the vicinity told of great but brief violence in the recent past. There was also a taste of malevolence that hung in the air. Zuul said a brief prayer, asking whatever gods that were listening to deliver the rigger to his final destination peacefully, before returning to his meat-body.

When he opened his eyes, he realized that his fears were confirmed. His teammates were embroiled in a resurgence of the fight, but this time was different. Along with the ghoul-insect crosses there were four true-form insect spirits involved. Very different from the flesh-form workers and soldiers, the true-forms were man-sized versions of flies, horrible to behold and extremely deadly if powerful enough. They were not failed attempts at melding two forms together as the flesh-forms were, but were actually spirits with the ability to materialize physically.

Talon was in the midst of attempting to banish one of the true-form soldiers and it looked like he was winning. Zuul "awoke" just in time to see Fite’s head get swallowed by the proboscis of one of the soldiers. A muffled scream could be heard among the cacophony of the battle as his face and head down to his neck was quickly dissolved. The screams cut off abruptly and the adept’s feet, which were drumming on the floor, halted their movements shortly thereafter. The Fly let the body fall to the floor and turned to face Zuul. The mage overrode his shock and revulsion quickly. He uttered the summons and called his three elementals to him. They appeared between him and the two spirits that were advancing on him. A furious combat ensued, the speed of the astral elementals forcing the Invae to abandon their physical forms for a while. The Force 4 Air was almost immediately destroyed, its energies dissipating into the void. The other two were tougher and were managing to hold their ground against the soldiers.

With the fall of the adept, the ork razorguys were unable to deal with the ghouls that managed to get into melee range with them. The gyroscopic stabilizers thwarted attempts at close range combat, and the flesh-forms were starting to tear at the orks’ armour. Razz, possibly not the smarter of the two, decided to hose the ghoulies off of his brother with the minigun. It worked with moderate success, but armoured plates began to fly off of the ork along with the writhing and screeching beasts.

"Quit pointin’ that fraggin’ thing at me, for chrissakes!" Tazz yelled. No sooner had Razz started firing back at the doorway, however, that the wall behind Tazz fell under the weight of the dozens of ghoul-bugs that were pushing on it from the other side. They fell upon the closest sam and immediately Tazz was lost from sight under the debris and critters. The sounds from his minigun ceased and a screaming could be heard above the din as the workers got under the razor’s armour and began to eat.

Howling with rage, Razz again attempted to clear the attackers off of his brother with his Vindicator. Many of the ghouls were blown to pieces, uncovering Tazz enough to see that it was too late for him. Razz paused momentarily and a look of thoughtfulness came across his features, a rare sight indeed. He shouted above the noise to the two magicians to get the frag out of the room and as far away as they could, NOW.

Talon had just finished banishing the spirit that he was engaged with and ran, not knowing why he was told to go but not doubting the crazed look on the ork’s blood-spattered face. He stopped beating his drum and turned to run out the way that they had entered the room, quickly followed by Zuul. His elementals were done for, but one of the soldiers was destroyed and the other was "wounded".

The magicians ran back the way they had come, ducking through rooms and corridors, trying to outrun the undamaged fourth Insect Spirit. It was materialized in order to deal with the non-astrally active humans and therefore had to deal with the same walls and obstacles that they did. As the soldier rounded a corner of a corridor it encountered the two humans. It let out a slow hiss to threaten the invaders. Talon began to beat on his focus in a slow rhythm that made the spirit’s very essence sting. It began to advance just as a deafening roar shook the building. Talon and Zuul were knocked to the ground and the Invae soldier chittered and shook its antennae. Both magicians quickly regained their composure and realized that this was their best chance, so they began the process of sending this spirit to the void. They chanted in unison to the beat set by the conjurer’s drum. The Invae soldier screeched as its energies began to unravel. Its counterattack was powerful, and might have overwhelmed either magician in a one-on-one, but because it attempted to strike at both in its resistance it failed. After ten seconds of the conjuration contest, the silence broken only by the occasional grunt of effort or inhuman jabbering, the Fly’s presence on this plane was ended in a quiet slap of air as it rushed into the space previously occupied by the materialized spirit.

After Zuul and Talon had looked at each other briefly to see how the other was doing they ran back to the large chamber that they had fled from. On the way they noticed that there was smoke and debris in the corridors, as well as cracks in the walls and ceiling that got progressively worse as they got closer to the room.

The room itself had suffered terribly from the explosion. All the walls but one had been completely demolished. The smell in the now-expanded room was a mixture of blood, feces and smoke. There was no sign bigger than a small apple that any living being had occupied the chamber. The wreckage was complete. Plaster dust covered everything and was still falling slowly from the room above. The ceiling had been completely removed and was now part of the rubble on the floor.

"He must have had himself wired," whispered Talon. He picked up a piece of debris and dropped it once he realized that it was part of one of the sam’s heavy armour and it was wet.

"Yeah, or both of ‘em were and Razz managed to set off both sets of explosives," replied the mage. "I don’t see how one ork could carry that amount of plastique and have no one notice anything."

There was a slight shifting in the rubbish on the north side of the room. Zuul, having dropped his FN HAR somewhere along the way, drew his Roomsweeper. Talon chambered a round in his borrowed Ingram and changed the autofire setting to burst. Zuul approached the movement cautiously, trying not to fall in the meter deep pile of strewn garbage and body parts, while Talon covered the rest of the large open area that now included the adjoining rooms.

Bile rose to the back of Zuul’s throat when he saw what was causing the disturbance. One of the flesh-form soldiers was struggling to clear itself of the rubble. It had been torn in half at the waist and one of the three arms it possessed was crushed, shards of bone and chitin poking through the flesh. The torso was slowly pulling debris off of itself methodically, like a bug that had been stepped on and partially crushed but still tried to crawl. When the thing’s multifaceted eyes saw the approaching mage it did not cease its diggings, but muttered something that was almost comprehensible.

"Ki…k…pleee…ki…not…pleeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE," the last sound rose in pitch and intensity until Zuul fired the shotgun pointblank in its face. A few more twitches, then it was still. Even ghouls don’t deserve this, Zuul thought. Although he wasn’t sure if he bought the current hype that ghouls were just another form of metahuman like dwarves or trolls, they did eat human flesh after all, he didn’t think that being cannibalistic warranted being possessed by the Invae to become an insane parody of life like this.

A few minutes of searching uncovered one of the razorguy’s Ingram Smartguns and a white phosphorous grenade that one of the sam’s had sneaked in under his armour along with whatever compound it was that tore the place apart. The two drones were beyond repair, burst apart and buried in wreckage. Zuul scooped up the grenade and took the SMG to replace his missing assault rifle. It was in amazing shape considering what it had been through. He checked the load and, seeing that it was ready to go, nodded to Talon to let him know that he was all set to proceed. The conjurer swatted at a few flies that were buzzing around his head and also nodded. They got their firearms ready and advanced deeper into the Hive.

The Queen was displeased. Her reports indicated that there were heavy casualties during the battle. Even when the tables were starting to turn in the Hive’s favour, one of the meat-entities activated some sort of device that caused widespread destruction not far from Her "throne room." The explosion caused fairly extensive damage, and now that many of Her workers had been destroyed it would require much time before the damage could be repaired. Normally, the mess that was caused would not be a concern (Fly Spirits don’t mind detritus), but the Hive’s structural stability had been compromised and that would have to be taken care of. The remaining meat-entities were coming closer and the Queen prepared Herself and Her personal bodyguards to hold off their advance. She called the one soldier that had survived the fracas down below to Her in order to bolster Her defenses even further. The invaders could not be allowed to harm Her. The future of the Hive depended on Her safety.

The Weaver had been observing the events in the Hive with interest and amusement. She had mostly stayed out of the action even though much of Her food supply was being destroyed because She had cached quite a bit the previous day. The only action She took was to investigate the keening noise that She had sensed from the metal box outside. While analyzing the source of the disturbance, She noted that a flesh-being seemed to be causing the painful high-pitched noise. In an uncharacteristic response, She had suddenly materialized to deal with the entity. Her display went unnoticed, so She had attacked the creature - quickly reducing it to its composite parts of flesh, bone and blood. The few seconds of agony emanated by the meat-entity were exquisite, and the painful noises from the metal machine abruptly ended. She had then returned to Her Web to witness the resolution of the attack on the Flies.

The magicians, having decided to press on, kept an eye out for the last of the true-form soldiers. They had not seen it since running from the room before the detonation, but it was probably around somewhere. They took turns astrally perceiving, each trying to see through the ethereal murk to see the spirit if it attempted to sneak up on them.

"I got nothing, your turn," said Zuul. Talon nodded and switched his perception. The two were now on the third floor of the old office building. Zuul had astrally projected to search the second floor, but they had decided that this was too risky for the limited amount of information that could be gained by him leaving his body. Simply perceiving allowed them to still be aware of the astral without having to take worse damage from Drain if spells needed to be cast. It also allowed the use of the submachineguns, which were quite effective against the flesh-form Invae.

They had gone down several hallways and had looked into several rooms before they heard a noise coming from around the upcoming bend in the corridor. The magicians froze, Zuul signaling that he would go astral to check it out. Talon caught the mages body as it fell and lowered it to the ground.

Zuul flew down the hall slowly. He hated astral combat and was therefore proceeding cautiously. The background count that was affecting the perceptions of both magicians would also conceal the mage as he peered around the corner. Seeing through the murk was difficult, but he could make out several astrally active humanoid shapes. The tint and "smell" of the auras gave away the fact that they had been corrupted by Invae. At least two of the flesh-forms were very large, troll-sized, and were probably soldiers. These two seemed to be in charge of the ambush. The ghouls were hiding around the corner, using holes in the walls and floor to conceal themselves. Three of the more severely altered humanoids were clinging to the ceiling in shadows, waiting to drop on unwary people passing underneath. They were extremely disfigured from their normal ghoul form – extra limbs, vestigial wings and antennae, and compound eyes. Their ability to cling to the roof like that must be due to the degree of metamorphosis that they have undergone, thought Zuul, I will have to look further into this when we are done here.

He had apparently gone unnoticed so far. He couldn’t see very far past the first few ghouls from this vantage point, but he decided not to push his luck and went back to his body. After quickly briefing the conjurer on what he had seen, they retreated to an empty room adjoining the corridor to discuss a plan of action.

"It’s the only way to go on, I think," whispered Zuul. "We have to get past that ambush to get further in. I don’t like the fact that they are now laying in wait for us instead of rushing to the attack. It shows cunning, and one of the few advantages we have over these bastards is our intelligence. I would hate to see us lose that edge."

"Yeah, no drek," replied Talon. "Do you still have that willy-peter? Let’s use that on the fraggers."

"What about fire?" asked Zuul, "If the place catches, we’ll be in serious trouble, and we won’t get our hefty fee from Todasha."

"We’ll burn that bridge when we get to it," the aspected magician chuckled. "Do it. Lob it around the corner and then we’ll blow the bastards away as they come around the bend."

With that, the two entered the corridor once more. Zuul pulled out the grenade and primed it. With a "Here goes nothing," he threw the small discus so that it (hopefully) would rebound off of the facing wall and land in the middle of the ambush party. There was a soft grunt of surprise, and a second later the end of the hallway was awash in bright light as the phosphorous hit the air and burst into flames.

Screams and howls like those from the Pit came from around the corner. Quickly following these were the creatures themselves, led by one of the large ghouls. Its back was on fire, but it was coming on strong and was followed by six or seven of the smaller flesh-forms. Shrieking and burning bright, they attacked en masse.

They were met by short, controlled bursts from Talon’s barking SMG. The troll-ghoul-bug managed to dodge the bullets heading for it, but one of the smaller ones behind it was hit in the chest and collapsed.

Zuul made a judgement call and decided that they had better take care of all the rushing beasts before they managed to close into melee range. He took a deep breath, called upon the formula that he had studied all those long hours in preparation for just such a moment, and cast the Hellblast. A dense wall of flames flew from his outstretched hands and traveled down the corridor almost faster than the eye could follow, the WHUMP! sound of expanding air trailing after it. When the inferno reached the ghouls, their cries of pain and rage were abruptly cut off as they were thrown backwards, their flesh tearing off their bones. All of the fiends crashed into the wall directly behind them and burst apart into blazing pieces. The stench of burning flesh quickly became almost unbearable as over half a dozen humanoids burnt to cinders within seconds. The smoldering pile of black rubble never could have been identified as living if not for the smell.

The Drain of the powerful spell left Zuul dizzy and stumbling. When Talon quietly pointed to the trickle of blood leaking out of the mage’s nose, Zuul wiped it away and sighed, "I know that was an unexpected move, but I figured that we couldn’t let them get too close."

"Calling on spirits for help is nice, but sometimes I wish that I could do drek like that!" exclaimed the semi-mundo. Catching movement out of the corner of his eye, Talon looked up and saw one of the bugs stumbling around the bend in the hallway, its torso smoking and burning. Its gait suggested that this critter was close to expiry and not a threat, but Talon didn’t believe in taking chances. Besides, it was a bug and therefore deserved no better than immediate death. A burst to the flesh-form’s face dropped it to the ground to finish its burning.

A quick peek around the corner by Talon as Zuul caught his breath revealed that all the bugs that didn’t charge the humans had been killed and were now nothing more than burning corpses.

Coughing and struggling not to breathe too deeply, the humans continued their progress.

Several minutes later both magicians felt a disturbance in the astral environment. Talon recognized the subtleties of the impression and said, "The Queen is close."

Zuul was about to reply when he noticed a fly (the normal kind) alight on his arm. He brushed it off and turned to the conjurer to say something, but his words caught in his throat as he noticed that there were flies all over Talon’s back. Looking down at himself he saw that he too had a number of flies on his body, with more landing on him even as he watched. "What the hell is going on…?"

When Talon saw Zuul’s look of disgust he noticed all the flies on himself and the mage. "Oh, drek. The bitch has got control over regular flies. I’ve seen this before in Invae. We must be really close. She’s trying to drive us away."

"It just might work," said Zuul. "How many can She call?"

"Lots," responded Talon. Even as the word left his mouth they heard a very loud buzzing noise as hundreds of thousands of houseflies poured through every available crack and crevice. Talon had time to cover his mouth with his shirt. Zuul was not so lucky. The swarm descending on him went into his nose, mouth and ears before he fully registered what was going on. He knew that he didn’t have long before the stream of flies reached his lungs and he suffocated. Already he couldn’t breathe through the carpet of flies. As the panic started to set in, the mage was struck with an idea. Summoning all his resolve, he started chewing.

The cracking, crunchy noises of the flies being chewed combined with the thought of what he was doing and the gooey texture and taste almost made him vomit. He knew, however, that if he vomited he was a goner. He used the concentration tricks that he had had to learn to properly perform his magic to maintain control. When he had swallowed the lump of warm muck, he yanked on his shirt to cover his nose and mouth. He had no idea what was happening with the conjurer, but he knew that he had to get rid of this threat.

He let loose a very toned-done version of his Hellblast. Even though the Force was low, the Drain strained his already taxed system. And, though it burned the humans to a small degree, the spell’s effects were enough to kill the flies that were plaguing them. The vermin dropped in flaming puffs to the floor. Talon touched his singed hair and whispered "Thanks."

Before the Queen could launch another offensive, the magicians decided to end this mission right now. Talon summoned the Hearth Spirit of the building. A small brownie-like humanoid appeared before them. At a command from the conjurer to search the place for the Queen and Her entourage, the spirit set off down a series of corridors.

The humans followed the little manifestation to a bathroom near the elevator shafts. It was located at the end of a T-intersection which should be able to provide good lines of sight to the magicians and still allow them to take cover from the bathroom at a safe distance. A quick peek into the astral revealed that there was a strong presence in the room. Its aura leaked through the cracks in the walls and under the door.

"Oh yeah, that’s Her," murmured Talon. "We can’t just go in there. She’ll be waiting for us."

"Get your spirit to open the door and attack, then retreat. When She comes out, we’ll have at Her," said Zuul.

"I know that you’re used to having strong elementals at your beck and call," answered Talon, "but my little Hearth will get its ethereal butt kicked."

"We just need to get that door open. The spirit can do that admirably, it doesn’t have to last very long in the actual fight."

At this last sentence the Hearth Spirit glared spitefully at Zuul. It was of limited intelligence, but no entity wanted to be used as fodder. When Talon responded with a shrug and an "okay," the little spirit switched its baleful gaze to him.

However, once given its command it was forced to obey. With a heavy sigh and a muttered "hmmph, mortals," the spirit slowly walked down the hall towards the Queen’s chamber. Both magicians switched to perceive astrally as well as physically.

When the brownie had reached the door, it looked back as if to ask for a reprieve. Talon motioned for it to get on with the business at hand. Sighing once more, the Hearth Spirit opened the bathroom door.

There was a brief moment after the door opened where nothing happened. Then the true-form soldiers initiated the defense of their Queen.

The Weaver could not let the invaders kill the Queen. That would destroy the Nest on which She depended for food. Especially now with the hatching of Her children so close. Her multitude of progeny would need a large steady supply of resources. When vibrations in Her Web indicated that the intruding meat-entities were in the area of the Queen, the Mother of Patterns took it upon Herself to intervene.

Two true-form soldiers flew out of the room, closely followed by two more. Because they were not in physical form, the SMGs would have no effect. The Hearth Spirit did its best to stem the tide of Invae, but it was soon overwhelmed. Its fragile form was batted aside by a Fly and disappeared.

Zuul immediately let two stacked Manabolts fly at the leading bugs. One succumbed to the magical attack and the second didn’t appear to even slow down. Talon attempted to banish one of the spirits when it stepped up to take the place of its fallen comrade. The leading Fly engaged Zuul in astral combat. Ducking the swinging mouthparts, the mage cast another Manabolt, this time with all the Force that he could. The familiar throb of magical over-exertion began behind his eyes, but the spirit howled and departed in a flash of greenish light.

Flesh-form soldiers were now pouring out of the room. There were more than a dozen in the initial attack, causing the humans to wonder just how many damned bugs there were in this god-forsaken Nest. Talon, having just finished casting out the Invae that he had engaged, began to fire a lead hose into the advancing horde. Many were cut down and trampled by their peers, but more kept streaming from the Queen’s throne room. Zuul was in the process of banishing the fourth true-form and Talon’s gun had just run out of ammo when the Weaver appeared.

She materialized on the physical plane immediately. She looked like a garden-variety spider, only She was the size of a draft horse. Her body was blackish-grey and Her compound eyes were a dull crimson. Her six simple eyes were a shiny black and seemed to regard the scene around Her with malevolence. As She turned away from the humans, Talon saw cords of web as thick as twine being emitted from Her spinnerets. Her first actions were to start casting strands of webbing between the humans and the charging Invae, Her hindmost legs pulling strands of web from Her distended abdomen and creating a complex network between ceiling and floor within seconds. Most of the flesh-forms were caught up in the web; the ones that weren’t entangled began to attack this new threat that had appeared before them. She defended Herself from the ghouls, Her pedipalps and forelimbs moving in a blur of motion as She impaled the critters in rapid succession.

Seeing that there was a new player in the battle, Talon called a warning to Zuul. The mage was embroiled in a pitched battle with the Fly Spirit. He had been doing well in his banishing attempt at first, but the bug was strong and the tables quickly turned. Fixated as he was on staying alive he was not aware of the new danger or his teammate’s warning shouts. At the last minute, just before Zuul succumbed to the spirit, the Fly was distracted by something. The magician took this opportunity for his final strike, throwing all his will into the attack. The Invae gave a horrific cry as its very being was torn asunder by the force of the magic directed against it.

Immediately following the disappearance of his opponent, Zuul collapsed to the ground, weakened by the almost-lost battle with the Fly. He still retained his consciousness, but the stresses of the last ten minutes had caught up with him. He saw the webbing covering the passage from floor to ceiling and heard Talon yelling to him, but the significance of both was lost on him. He stared dazedly at the web and the struggling figures within as Talon grabbed him and started to drag him away.

"Come on, we gotta get outta here!" Talon cried, "We didn’t sign on for no Spider, let alone a powerful Spider! She’s too fraggin’ tough. We don’t stand a chance!"

"Huh? What…?" was all that Zuul could manage. He did accomplish getting to his feet, however.

They left the commotion behind them as they fled back to the stairway. By the time they arrived Zuul had regained his senses, though he was still exhausted.

"I hate to leave the Queen alive, but we have to go," Talon said as he opened the door to the stairwell. "We’ll talk to Todasha about a renewed assault on the Flies and the Spider. The two of us will be killed rather unpleasantly if we stay here."

"Yeah, let’s go. We’ll come back… and get ‘em…" panted Zuul.

As they were going down the stairs between the second and first floors, there was a slight noise that resembled wind-chimes from the first floor landing. Looking up they saw the Spider, again manifested physically, on the landing just a few meters away. Her fat black abdomen throbbed slightly with Her exertions. She slowly raised Her forelimbs and waved Her pedipalps in a threat display.

"Oh, drek…," Talon said as he slowly removed his arm from around Zuul. "When I say now, I want you to run. Run past the thing and out of Her domain as fast as you can. She might let you go if you are sufficiently far away to no longer be considered a threat to Her."

"I can’t let you sacrifice yourself," the mage responded. "We can take Her together."

"No, we can’t," and with that Talon began beating on his drum and walking towards the spirit. Her response was to increase the tempo of Her display and utter an unholy shriek at the approaching human.

"Go!" he yelled and threw himself towards the Spider in a classic feinting combat maneuver. The Weaver was caught unawares and the conjurer managed to land a hit on Her exposed underbelly. She stopped doing Her menacing dance and began to assail the meat-being.

Talon was holding his own in the first few seconds of the combat. He managed to parry or avoid the blows that came from Her multiple limbs and even succeeded in landing a few more hits on Her, though Her chitinous armour protected Her from any real damage.

Zuul ran past Her, barely dodging the two legs that shot out to engage him as he went by. Once behind Her he turned to face the monstrous form. Sensing something behind Her, the Weaver whirled to face the mage thus opening Her up to rear attacks from the Eagle conjurer. But before Talon could seize the opportunity, a thick viscous squirt of half-formed webbing shot from the Spider’s spinnerets and struck him in the face and upper torso. Blind and suffocating, Talon reeled backwards and tore at the stuff covering his mouth.

The Spider was too fast for Zuul, easily countering his blows. One of Her forelimbs struck out lightning-fast and penetrated the mage’s thigh straight through to the floor, effectively pinning him for the final blow. Zuul screamed in pain and rage as the fangs neared him, dripping clear poison.

Before She could inject Her venom, however, the sound of the conjurer’s drum rose in volume enough to vibrate the walls and floor. Zuul could feel each beat as a throbbing in his wounded leg, still stuck through by the Invae’s limb. Zuul caught a glimpse of Talon past the Spider and saw the form of a giant eagle where the human was moments before, its wings spread wide and its beak open in a predatory screech. The brown-feathered wings were beating in time with the resounding boom of the drum. Zuul realized that this wasn’t an eagle, nor was it the shamanic mask; it was Eagle, come to help one of Its chosen cleanse this scourge. He understood that he was in the presence of an Avatar.

Very rarely, the symbolic representation of a shaman’s totem will actually appear unto the magician, becoming not just a symbol but a spiritual manifestation of the totem. These "spirits" are capable of power beyond humankind’s understanding. It is this Avatar that guides the magician onto the paths of initiation and the metaplanes. Zuul knew that he was in the proximity of a life-altering force.

For a moment the world seemed to pause. The Weaver stood transfixed, its horrible visage centimeters away from Zuul. The air seemed to be full of light, of serenity, of awareness, of life. There was no motion of anything, from dust in the air to the combatants engaged in their battle, for what seemed like an eternity. There were no sounds, no smells, no sensations of any kind except for a feeling of peace and well being that seemed to permeate the mage to his core. He felt more real, more there, than he had ever felt before.

There are times, usually during combat, where time slows and one feels that they are closer to what life is truly like at its most basic, its most primal, level. It is at these times that one sheds preconceptions about the way the world works; when one realizes for a second that humankind doesn’t usually perceive the real world – a world of invisible forces, blood, bile, death, life – but sees only what it chooses to see. Self-awareness has led to a false concept of order and reason overlaying everything. Zuul had had those moments before, when he thought that he had seen through that veneer, but never had he been as profoundly affected as he was in that instant.

The world began again as quickly as it had halted. The Eagle leapt upon the Spider’s back and dug in Its talons. The Invae gave an almost inaudible cry as a thick white fluid flowed from the wounds. It shuddered and shook, each movement causing a new wave of agony to roll through Zuul’s battered body. He looked up at the Avatar and saw it regarding him with raptorial eyes.

Human, you must go now, the voice that came unbidden to Zuul said. My disciple has given up his life to destroy this abomination. Never forget him, or the things that you have seen this day. Spread the word that these Invae must be brought under control, for they herald the coming of a worse evil. The Ones That Eat All will use the Invae as servants and tools if they are here in sufficient numbers to do so. Leave now and remember.

The light that seemed to come from the very air grew in intensity until Zuul felt his eyes burning. He wanted to close them but he could not. He was in the presence of a miracle. His heart beat along with the rhythm of the drumbeats that he could still hear and feel. The last thing that he saw was a view of the office building as if from above. The light issuing from every crack and hole in the structure was so bright, so intense that the stone itself burst into flames.

A sudden POP! as air rushed in to fill the void where the Spider and Avatar had been signaled to Zuul that it was over. He stood in the middle of the inferno, arms outstretched, with his blind eyes streaming tears and a beatific smile on his face. After a minute or two, he lowered his arms and walked out of the building, using his astral perception to find his way through the conflagration.

When Garry Gundersun, elected chief of the volunteer fire control team, finally made it to the scene of the blaze he called for a situation report from the second-in-command, Josie.

"Well, what’s happening?" demanded Garry.

"I dunno," replied Josie. "It’s the damnedest thing. The structure that we believe was the first to catch has been totally burnt. Nothing but scraps of rock and ash left. Musta been pretty-fraggin’ hot. Never seen anything like it."

"Arson? Musta used an accelerant to burn that hot," Garry said. "Maybe…"

"That’s not the weirdest part," interrupted the second-in-command. "When we got here there was this blind guy standing on the street, smiling and laughing like a madman. Buck naked, too. Musta been in shock. Best we can tell, he was in the building. The fire destroyed all of his clothes and stuff, but didn’t harm his flesh. He’s in good shape, other than a cauterized wound on his left thigh.

"When we questioned him, he mumbled about ‘preparations for the coming’ and ‘birds of light.’ We left him alone for a minute and when we came back he was gone. Just like that."

Garry pondered what Josie had just told him. After a moment he shook his head and turned to her and said, "Well, forget about him. Let’s just get this blaze under control and get the frag outta here. I’ve heard that some pretty weird drek has been happening around here the past few weeks."

Watching from astral space, Zuul was relieved to hear that they were not interested in finding and questioning him. He didn’t need the hassle. He had a lot to accomplish in the next little while.

Even though he had lost his eyes, he had never seen so clearly. He was completely certain about what needed to be done. But there was so much to do, and Chicago was half a continent away.