The desert blossomed after the rain, again, although now mutated. Weird indigo hues were on all the primordial looking plants. Massive saber toothed eggplants grew like the foreshadowing of Death itself. I feared those vile swollen purple horrors on the moonlit horizon, all around.

"What are those?" Agent Summer asked. QUIETUS had so few agents left that I had learned the names of the ones that were left. Summer, Cross and Dunker and Caprice. Cory and I felt like Agent Meroë was still alive out there, somewhere. We had no proof. Cory flew out to see if maybe he could spot him from the air, to no use.

The evil plants had no name, according to Cory. They withered and died and rotted and their pumpkin-like seeds were left there in the sunlight, drying up in clumps. Whatever they were they littered the landscape horribly. Among them were many foul looking things that writhed, revived by the rains somehow, evil hopping and slithering things that were awake to feed. Their eyes hunted like gemstones, shining light and their teeth flashed even brighter as they took prey in the darkness under the rotting vines and hills of the dead evil plants.

When there was no moon at all for one brief moment, the Fen and the Fell came and took many of the seeds and ran back to their portal, two old gate stones of the La Cucharacha. I considered shooting at them with the machinegun, but they weren't bothering us so it seemed cruel and I didn't shoot.

U.S. Marshal Uncles got all of his reinforcements and supplies and retrofitted La Cucharacha to suit his field needs. There was also a new generator and lights and a vehicle pool and a fuel truck. And a helicopter. As a civilian I did not get to go with them on the rescue mission of two of their missing marshals, and the sheriff. Also there were two fugitives: Oswald and Christo that had escaped Dellfriar and reunited with the cultists.

QUIETUS was consulted but they didn't get to attend Marshal Uncles's rescue mission. Agent Saint told them to keep their eyes out for Agent Meroë, who she believed was still alive somewhere. Then they left and La Cucharacha looked like an abandoned carnival with tents and booths and all sorts of food and stuff everywhere. Some of their smaller vehicles and the fuel truck were also just sitting there.

"See?" Agent Saint pointed at everything.

"See what?" Sheriff Braid sounded gruff. His deputy was missing again.

"Nothing." Cory chirped. I laughed. Detective Winters chuckled, realizing Cory was hilarious.

Sheriff Braid sauntered over to the machinegun and sat and brooded. He was depressed about being left behind when the Marshals had gone out. They had driven out in big vehicles by a half dozen and with a helicopter.

"What do you think?" I asked Cory.

"I think they will find nothing at the ranch." Cory replied.

"Amen." Detective Winters said.

They never did come back, although that is not to say nobody came back. U. S. Marshal Uncles did come back to us, limping and shocked. He babbled madly and lost continence and drooled a lot, staring blankly most of the time and barely able to do more than follow our Agent Meroë who saved him from Serephiel.

"Jerod!" Agent Saint ran out to him and helped him shoulder the limping Marshal Uncles.

"Did you get your man?" Cory asked him. He looked at the talking bird and smiled almost coherently and shook his head 'no'.

"No" Marshal Uncles shook his head.

"I can help you. I am glad you brought me my friend." Cory thanked Marshal Uncles.

"Any time, talking bird!" Marshal Uncles spoke with an insane voice.

"He did tell me to bring him to La Cucharacha. I was surviving in the ruins of the ghost town. I killed some vampires there and arrested some cultists." Agent Meroë told us all.

"You actually killed actual vampires?" Agent Saint asked.

"I did. With my bow and arrows." Agent Meroë told us. "I am effective at killing vampires with this weapon."

"What about this axe with silver?" Agent Cross asked.

"Too slow, but it would hurt them." Agent Meroë agreed.

"And what about a spear with silver?" Agent Summer wondered.

"That might work." Agent Meroë stated, eyeing the weapon. "Both of those weapons might work."

"I use magic." Agent Dunker said. "I have this infusement that is made of several ingredients that are known to hurt vampires."

"That, will be useful, and a good thing too." Agent Meroë said. "But it is this bow that has killed many vampires. You can trust me and hold your attacks for defense and let me pick them off with this bow, as I have already done."

"That sounds good." Detective Winters told Agent Meroë.

"For vampires, yes. Whenever I actually see one. I don't think they even exist." Agent Saint shrugged.

"I don't believe that." Cory chuckled nervously.

"What vampires? Who was that person in the light?" Marshal Uncles asked, in a moment of lucidity. "Where is everyone?"

We looked and saw smoke and a vast murder of crows in the distance. It could be presumed that everyone else was dead, if Agent Meroë said so. And he did.

"All my men are dead?" Marshal Uncles was crying.

"Every last one of them. Serephiel killed them all." Agent Meroë told him.

"What, what is she?" Marshal Uncles asked, sobbing in horror.

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

"Some old creature, a witch. She was one of the Triad Killers, now she is the Triad Killer." Agent Meroë told him. "This is a case the FBI is working on here already."

"That is right." Agent Saint told Marshal Uncles. She had that madness in her voice.

"The Triad Killers case? Let me see it. I couldn't access it because of some kind of classification, QUIETUS or something or other." Marshal Uncles said.

"Go see it. We have our case work set up in the old lobby of La Cucharacha, or what is left of it." Agent Saint told him. Marshal Uncles went in there and started to learn what we all knew about Serephiel. I predicted he would eventually know more, as he remembered the deaths of all of his rescue mission operatives. He was driven to find out the reality of something his mind was unprepared to accept as real.

Sometimes he would scream out the facts in caption and then tremble and wait to read or stare at the boards and papers. I would feed him and make sure he took breaks. Marshal Uncles knew a terrible new world and agreed to help us, as we were the only ones who could help him if he wanted to complete his mission. No amount of reinforcements or supplies could help us, he decided. He just needed to be there when we got to Serephiel. That was his plan.

"Marshal Uncles wants revenge." Cory told me, after he watched the man for some time.

"I think you are right." I told Cory. Detective Winters nodded. He had seen no cultists and cared a lot about their capture. He had searched for the ones the Agent Meroë had caught but they had escaped and also evaded the tracking of anyone among us, having vanished. The ruins of the ghost town had Araek's Temple in the center from which the witch had called every living thing for miles to receive some vile covenant or be devoured. There were monsters now, shadowy giant things that lurched in star clotting height on spindly legs. They would stride the desert at night in the name of Serephiel, feeding on the older Lilim horde, the only things left in the deserts near Araek's Temple.

"Revenge is not for the heavy. It must be done with precision." We heard in Felidaen. We beheld the cat and were surprised to see Mister Melt. "You forget how many lives I have."

"I didn't forget the number. It is funny now!" Cory laughed at a private joke he found hilarious.

"Good to see you." I told the cat-sorcerer.

"I come with a message." Mister Melt told us in his cat language, Felidaen. "Some of the Lilim of the horde variety are gathered against Araek's Temple. We cats mean to have stolen something on behalf of a certain ally, to make a new Majara. Ket will grant you another wish, is also part of this message."

"You are now a messenger." Cory told the cat. Mister Melt did not hiss or menace Cory for sneering at him. Instead he said:

"You realize I have my own ideas, right friend crow? Be respectful of my delivery. I am an independent feline as all cat-sorcerers are." Mister Melt spoke in high Felidaen. Cory blinked, almost not understanding the idioms of the cat language.

"Your shadow is untied." Cory noticed.

"I already learned to live without it. Remember I never attacked anyone in front of you? I was as a farm cat is, except the best of all farm cats." Mister Melt went on, as cats do when they are speaking.

"What has happened to your shadow?" I asked Mister Melt.

"Not just mine, All the shadows the cats had were cast by the dark side of the moon. That magic now belongs to the rats. The Insurrection in its numbers of attempts, eventually won. Time works much differently so far from Earth. See in your feelings, those rats. You know they have won." Mister Melt explained the horror of his world mournfully.

"Sounds terrible." I said.

"Death will always happen. I am used to it." Cory told the cat.

"That makes no sense." Mister Melt complained. In Felidaen, which Cory had spoken, the translation had no idiomatic sense to it. It was non sequitur.

I tried it and got to: "Everything does die."

This the cat agreed to. "I am willing to try to help you, in this life."

"Thank you." I told the cat. Mister Melt accepted our gratitude. I realized we should always show gratitude to the cat so he would remain a useful ally.

As the Lilim hordes attacked the creatures of Serephiel's shadows and then Araek's Temple, our own ally of atrocious nature appeared. Horror made me grin madly. I said:

"What is that doing here?" And I pointed at the awful thing. It was a being of the living water from what I had seen before.

"This creature says that it knows where the dead body of one of your missing U.S. Marshals is." Mister Melt carefully translated and we listened and learned what it had said.

I told the FBI and the whole QUIETUS came and witnessed the marvelous water. It sat harmless. I shuddered in cold stomach horror at the sight of it. I had seen it kill before.

"This thing is a Servant of Liminiel." Mister Melt told us. "And you must have deduced by now that she is sponsoring this attack on Serephiel."

"I hadn't." I admitted. "But it seems obvious now."

"Liminiel made an alliance with the cats and we are willing to accept the crown jewels, stolen by you, for our Majara." Mister Melt told me.

"So I am told." I replied.

"We don't like you, go away." Cory told the strange liquid that was living water where it stood.

It remained there, bubbling softly and nearly motionless. I guessed it was asleep.

Suddenly there were horrible flames like a massive fiery mushroom cloud all over the ghost town and Araek's Temple. When the tumbling firestorm of airborne buildings as fireballs rumbled to a smoldering crater there was no more of the monsters or the witch.

"Let's go." Cory suggested. I went into the place, finding the only way down. Fires and destruction raged. It was good that ahead of us the water creature went. I recalled it had shielded us and La Cucharacha from the blast that swelled all around us while we watched in the safety of its magic.

As we went it indicated the fires and put them out so we could go. Detective Winters and QUIETUS agents followed us. The Water kept us safe as we went. Cory told it jokes and it formed the answers, pantomiming the punchlines. Cory was amazed by its wit.

"It hates Man." Cory told me. "It loves animals, ironically."

"Unironically." I objected. "It is its love of animals that fuels its hate of Man."

"That makes sense." Cory agreed. "The Water must obey Liminiel's command. That the first axiom of Water is obedience to the magical element and Liminiel's Crown."

"I also don't find that surprising." I told Cory.

"Here is the one that is dead. The other isn't so dead." Cory translated the Water's gestures.

We found in the wrecked pagoda the bathtub with the dead body in it. The water was like when all the water colors combine in a kind of grey purple, some color outside the eye of human sight. The the bones had stewed until the meat slid and peeled from the bone, rotting.

The second bathtub was empty and we smelled the swampy horror of it. A nightmare of sewage and foulness. I gagged on the contents of it. Then I saw in black ash and in white ash the runes to make a person live again in an evil way. Agent Dunker was suddenly getting choked to death by the clay monstrosity from the second tub of rotting horrors. It bit into him and tore out his throat. He fumbled his flaming potion and then lit himself and the creature on fire. They writhed until he was dead then they tumbled across the ash runes, ruining the spell on the creature.

"What awfulness." Agent Cross said and used his ax to behead the monster where it lay inanimate.

"Good show, my Cross." Cory told Agent Cross.

"Where has the Water gone?" Cory asked.

"It just agreed to show us the crime scene." I told Cory.

"This disgusting place?" Cory looked around.

"That's right. I'd say we are done here." I told Cory. Agent Saint and QUIETUS set to work on identifying and collecting the two dead Marshals. Sheriff Braid and U.S. Marshal Uncles were relieved.

As I fell asleep that night I dreamed of Liminiel. She was as the sea, trying to go back to her oldest and most elemental form. Her version of the Majara. Serephiel was indeed dead and all of the power now rested with Liminiel. The magic of water and of all of the magical elements. I watched her memory of placing the crowns of her sisters upon their bones in Lilith's Tomb. She emerged and the nightmare creatures of Limbo were overtaken by many bodies of Water that matched them and engulfed them and destroyed them, drying them to dust.

I asked Cory, in the morning, while we ate breakfast:

"Did you dream of one pillar remaining?"

"I did, but at least there is one, and often one is enough." Cory said. I agreed and said:

"You are right; one is enough."