When Kittul awoke, Allie had returned to cat form. She lay curled up between Kittul's breasts, sheltered by her arms. Kittul listened but didn't hear anyone outside the container. For a while she sat there, focused on the soft purr against her sternum. Light leaked in faintly from outside, slowly growing dim. Kittul's stomach growled. She gently set Allie down in the warm blanket nest and looked around for the remaining fries. After a fruitless search she realized that all the food was gone. Even the tattered remains of the cardboard were mostly eaten. Allie must have eaten it all while she slept.

She fumbled through the rest of the bin, hoping for another meal callously discarded in the donation box, but the closest she found were the leather laces on a particularly hideous peasant blouse. She shifted to Neko and chewed on them anyway.

With the shift to Neko, the strange calm wrapped around her once more. She wasn't sure what caused it, but at this point it was too fortuitous to fight. She burrowed back into their nest, only to find Allie lying there naked. Kittul handed her the clothes she'd found earlier.

"Put these on."

Allie looked forlorn but struggled into the shorts and shirt. Meanwhile Kittul pulled on her own shirt and struggled to wrap the skirt around her hips. She got it on but couldn't zip the zipper. When she finally gave up, she growled her frustration to the uncaring pile of clothes around them.

Allie's responding whimper made her regret it instantly. She reached out, claws sheathed, and gently ran a furred fingertip over Allie's cheek. When Kittul tickled at her earlobe, the girl's eyes sprang open, fear and hesitant desire mingled in equal measure.

"What am I going to do with you?"

The girl's response came without a moment's thought, "Whatever you want to do. I won't fight, I promise."

Kittul bit back a sigh. "Look, little kitten. I'm sure you're nice enough, but I don't swing that way."

Fear and confusion chased each other across the little girl's face too fast for Kittul to keep clear track. She heard the rush of the little girl's heart, heard the harsh echo of her breathing, smelled the sweat of her fear, and knew something had to be done.

"Look, I'm not going to hurt you, either. I'm trying to help you."

"Why?"

Kittul stopped, wondering about the answer to that very question. She gently laid furry fingers across the little girl's lips to keep her from speaking as she pondered. By the time she figured it out, daylight no longer leaked in from outside the box. The answer surprised her, and her sudden tension drew a whimper from Allie.

"I'm helping you because someone helped me."

"Who?"

"My…"

Kittul's throat closed up. She couldn't force the words past her lips, no matter how hard she tried. A low snarl built in her chest, growing as her frustration at the inability to say a simple word ignited her anger at the word itself. Only when she heard a simple animal sound of fear forced through a human throat did she stop. She looked into Allie's fear-widened eyes and saw reflected there her own emotions from hours before. Where she couldn't hold herself together for herself, she found the strength to pull herself together to care for another.

"My owner."

Allie nodded, as if that were the most natural thing in the world. "Does he… Does he hurt you when… Does it hurt when he does things to you?"

The quiet, hesitant question shocked Kittul more than any simple slap to the face could have done. Her traitorous memory fed her pictures of Zed's paternal smile, the taste of tuna straight from the can, and worst of all the feel of fingers gently yet inexorably seeking out the eternally itchy spots every cat had. A tear slid down her face, and she recognized the strange sensation inside her as homesickness. She wanted to see Zed's cruddy little apartment, hear his voice, feel his hands kneading away her stress as he left his own behind.

"It doesn't?"

Kittul blinked in surprise at Allie's wondering statement. Sheepishly, she tried to stop purring. A sudden thought, prompted by Allie's line of questioning, intruded into her remembered bliss, killing her purr instantly. Zed didn't have a girlfriend that she knew of. What if he was just waiting for her to be comfortable with him? What if he wanted exactly what Allie was implying?

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Her whole body went tense, but she forced herself not to show any other sign of her sudden rush of anger. It was irrational anyhow; Zed had never seemed anything but gentle. He might want her, but try as she might Kittul couldn't picture him ever forcing her. She tried to imagine what it would be like with him, but two lifetimes of memories, one preternaturally clear, one fuzzy as mist, stole any anticipation away from her.

After considering a while, she made her decision. She could tolerate it if he did, but too much had happened to her. She was too broken to ever enjoy something like that. Shaking her head, she gently pulled Allie into a chaste embrace.

"No, little one. He's never done anything like that to me. I don't know if he would if I… If I offered that to him, but I've never offered, and he's never pushed."

"Why does he help you, then?"

Kittul shrugged. "The same reason I'm helping you, Allie. It's the right thing to do."

At the mention of her name, the other girl stiffened, and then seemed to melt into Kittul's arms. Sobs quiet as death shook her tiny frame. After a while, they receded, blending slowly into snores.

It was full dark outside. The traffic sounds had long since died down. Kittul whispered in the little one's ear. "Allie, I need you to be a cat now. Can you Shift for me?"

Allie didn't respond with words, but after a moment of squirming Kittul held a warm kitten bundled in a toasty armful of clothes. She stood, found the hinges of the box's retrieval door, and popped it open with a well-placed body check. Wincing at the sound of her skirt ripping, she peeked out the door.

The street outside was just as deserted as it had been the night before. Padding silently through the shadows, kitten-Allie sleeping in the crook of her elbow, she made her way back to the alley where they'd met the night before. Casting about, she found her own scent trail. It would take her a bit. She wasn't a bloodhound, and the misting rain of the night before made the trail a hard one to follow. But she knew her destination now.

She was going home.

***

Explosions echoed across the hellish landscape, and M267...

Magnus. My name is Magnus.

De'Shak's Imperial Guard M267 forced himself to stillness and silence as he struggled to remember his name, his family, his life. Demon-made thunder rolled across the hellscape that surrounded him. His implants urged him to power his defenses, to return fire, to become part of the thundering maelstrom of combat that rocked the very ground he lay on.

Magnus checked his inputs once more. The sources of the incoming fire stood out clearly; the enemy advancing across the shattered terrain, trading fire with the remains of de'Shak's Guard as they did so. Faintly, he sensed the wrecked forms of twice as many of De'Shak's Guard around him. Each lay where they'd fallen, shot while fighting against Ny'rk's forces.

A flash of actinic light seared Magnus' eyes, blinding him. Against the sparkling white of his sightless vision, a scene from his past played itself out. A woman stood before him; the steel of her soul masked by the soft beauty of her face.

"Be ready, Magnus."

Magnus tried to keep the bitterness from his voice, but it was no use. "For what, love? There will be no surprises this time. No cavalry is coming to charge over the hill. This is the last stand, and all we can do is to go not gently into the night."

"I know. I know it in the depths of my soul, like I knew you were mine the day we met, my badger."

"Then what should I be ready for, love?"

"There won't be another battle after this. There is no point in carrying men to an infirmary, only to be slaughtered when we fall. I've issued the troops suicide packs."

Magnus wondered at the lack of bitterness in his wife's voice. She sounded serene, almost as if she were drugged. If she were, he couldn't blame her. He was a berserk of the old school, and death had been his intimate companion since he was a child, but his woman, his wife, the mother of his children, was a healer. To her, death was something to be avoided, to fight against at all costs. Knowing it was coming, knowing there was no way to avoid it, meant her purpose in life had been invalidated.

"That's good, love. With what we heard from the fall of New York; I wouldn't want any of our men to be captured by these things."

"What about the children?"

Distantly, through the sound of thunder in his ears, Magnus felt an icicle ram through his guts. He couldn't bring himself to harm his own children. His wife was even less likely to do so. The men he would have trusted with such a task had long since fallen to the demons.

"I'll give them packs, love."

"I... Will they use them?"

"We can only hope so, love."

His wife's sigh sent a soft puff of warm air against his neck. He wished there was time for just one more night alone. He wished there was a way to hide his children, his wife, his family from what was about to happen. While he was wishing, he wished death and damnation on whatever fool had first summoned the demons that even now destroyed his world.

"Be ready, Magnus."

He didn't bother asking why again. He could not give his wife safety or mercy, but he would give her readiness. "I will, Andrea."

The thought of his wife's name sent a peal of thunder through Magnus' aching head. His vision cleared. His readouts showed him that Ny'rk's guard had all arrived. They were fully engaged with the remainder of de'Shak's forces. Despite the heavy bunkers he'd had them dig, his men were being destroyed one at a time by the concentrated fire of the enemy. They were killing two or three enemies for each one of them that fell, but it still wouldn't be enough.

De'Shak's guard began to fall faster as the last of Ny'rk's troops joined their fellows on the line. Magnus sighed at the thought that for his children, he fought the devil's war for her. It was time. He let the rage fill him, lift him above the pain de'Shak inflicted on him. It merged with the pain, turning it to his purpose, pushing him to inflict that same pain on the bodies of his foes, whether they be the hideous mockeries of humanity that were Guards, or the terrifyingly beautiful demon Imperiatrices themselves.

Magnus rose, and at that signal, de'Shak's fallen rose with him.

Directly behind Ny'rk's guard.