'If you give in to that darkness,' Szabo sneered, pointing a clawed finger at me. Aaron had released him from his grip. 'And slaughter the world, I'll never forgive you for stealing my spotlight!'

I tried to scowl furiously, but incredulity stopped me. Though, perhaps, I shouldn't have been surprised. This guy had killed himself using one of the most ridiculous methods I had ever heard of, simply because his human life had been unremarkable. And, considering his theatrics in the field...of course he was obsessed with leaving his mark on history.

But I wasn't.

'Thanks for the warning,' I said coldly. 'But, unlike some people, I'm not ruled by my strigoi impulses. I've been holding them at bay for years, and I won't lose now.'

Szabo slowly, hesitantly lowered his arm, like I'd just argued how the sky was obviously green. He moved his incredulous eyes from me to Aaron, brow furrowed. 'Is he the only one here who can't see...?'

'It's faint to me,' Lucas grumbled, stubbing out his purple-glowing blunt against a scaled palm. 'But...it's there. And it's new. Your spiritual self has never been this dark, Silva. Aari?'

The older zmeu shrugged. 'I suppose his true sight isn't at its best yet,' Then, apparently having gotten bored of talking about me like I wasn't there, he studied me with nine pairs of crimson eyes. 'Have you been anywhere spiritually-toxic lately, Silva? Or met anything or anyone...twisted?'

Was Nacht's nature really so pervasive and...contagious? Was my soul tainted merely from interacting with it? If yes, I couldn't imagine what Hex's looked like, if he even still had one. I hadn't looked.

Come to think of that, I hadn't looked at mine lately, either. At least, not since meeting it in Alpha Centauri.

My arcane sense slid over my sight, and I turned it inward, but my soul looked the same as always: ragged and grey, and wrapped around and through my body and mind infinitely tighter than any human's. Dark flecks drifted in and out of it, but they always did-my strigoi instincts, coming and going. There was no surrounding darkness, whatever these three were seeing.

Although...they all had more experience and sharper senses than me. Or was I merely blinded to whatever was wrong with my soul? Nacht was the darkness inside men, and would never miss a chance to twist or break unless stopped by Hex...who had been unconscious during our meeting.

But even so, Nacht shouldn't have been able to affect or corrupt me by esoteric means. It was not a deity. It didn't have holy powers.

'Return to Giza, Loric,' Aaron was now looking down at the strigoi, thoughtful frowns on his faces. 'Or wherever you came from. Silva, I'd advise you to call your Head. Romania's Crypt agents are gathering in Constanța, as are a few people I'm sure you've read about-'

'Why not one of our bases?'

'Joint op.' Aaron's frowns deepened at my interruption. He was slipping back into the officer's mindset, thought it was highly debatable if he had ever left it. 'You think Greuceanu or Iovan Iorgovan would trust an organisation with allegiance to no nation over the descendants of their fellow countrymen?'

I tried to suppress the dumb smile that threatened to split my face at the mention of my childhood heroes. Judging by Aaron's soft-barely louder than most gunshots-snort, I was only partly successful, if at all.

But before that...

'Szabo,' I tried to ignore the strigoi's nakedness as he spun around to look at me, and prayed he'd stop to buy some clothes before flying to Egypt. 'Why take care not to wreck Bucharest while you beat me? You even dragged me out of the city. And...Mia?' I grit my teeth as I glanced at the zmeu who was shakily getting to her feet in the crater, still glaring at Szabo. 'Why not just kill her, rather than slap her away?'

Szabo's incredulous look briefly returned, then left as quickly as it had come, replaced by a broad, fanged grin. 'You know nothing, David Silva~' he quoted, scratching inside the hole in his chest with one hand. 'Any murderer can drown a city in blood-who'll remember that?! And killing a woman out of callousness? Cliched,' he spat the word like it was the vilest insult he could imagine. 'Loric Szabo kills killers and torments monsters until they break! That is how the world will think of me as it wails my name, eons from now!'

And with that little dramatic proclamation, he was gone, faster than I could see.

Aaron snorted again, this time much louder, eyes fixed on something I couldn't see. 'Still obsessed with his legacy...you'd think a family would be enough for that,' he shook his heads, leaving the air rippling with heat. 'Come on, Silva.'

***

[REDACTED] ARC Facility, Greenland, 2030

Aya Reem felt bone-weary as she sat down in her chair, and the meeting hadn't even started.

It had been a pain to even get there effectively: Geb and Nut, contemptuous of her neutrality in the pantheons' struggle, had refused to help her travel by land or sky. She also had the vague feeling they were having a lovers' spat.

It had been Thoth, who claimed to have forgotten more than Mimir who ever learned, who had helped her tread Duat to arrive safely.

'Of course, child,' he had laughed, beak somehow twisted into a smile. 'I'm happy you're such a simple girl. Lets the sages show why they are sages.'

And she had smiled back, and bowed, because eating shit from the gods was what being their champion meant.

'Smile more, babe,' a voice alternating between a growl and a lilt spoke. Aya looked up to see Samuel Shiftskin drop from the ceiling with a grin, somehow landing in a slouch in his chair at the round table.

The wendigo's body, nearly three metres tall, was barely visible under the skins he wore to shapeshift into humans. His power took care of everything else.

'You will deepen those bags around your pretty eyes~' The former skin-walker crooned, face rippling in the shadows of his leather hood, from human to deer to hawk, but always fanged. 'And...I think I've reached my daily quota of misoginy.'

'Harassment, too,' she said primly. Then, to keep the tradition alive...'Who are you wearing?'

Sam grinned like the world's most bloodthirsty child, grabbing and lifting his patchwork cloak. "Charlie M.", "Son of Sam"-"for the irony, natch"- and dozens more names were formed by yellowed teeth stitched into the leather. His face was covered by a stretched, scarred mask that had been hideous long before Sam had torn it off its former owner, on that fateful night in Springwood. 'Why are you sad? Really. Tell me, and I'll go shopping again.'

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

The Head of the Salem division doing that for her was not exactly on Aya's bucket list. But...'Loric.'

'You can't have an attack bitch and whine when he bites, mummy.'

'Not my bitch,' Aya sighed, wishing their colleagues would arrive faster. 'Cut the mummy jokes out. I just wish he wasn't so impulsive...'

'Did he turn that city into collateral?'

That brought a dry smile to her lips. 'You know he doesn't do that. Every monster can, and he wants to be special, remembered.'

'I think his grandkid remembers him, out of self-defense if nothing else. And his kids...do they know him? I forget.'

'That's because you're always thinking who to mangle next, Shifty!' a bass voice harrumphed as Leon Gilles entered. The Luna division's Head was in his hybrid form, his golden gryphon eyes taking in the room in an instant, looking at the corners for bugs and wards. He tried to smile amicably at Aya, who, at one metre seventy, was less than half his height, but the blood on his beak ruined the image. 'Coyote made a fake moon over Toronto, and everyone in headquarters busted out the fur, feathers and scales! Some chitin, too. Felt like Benedict from Captain at Fifteen handlin' 'em,' T=the weregryph shook his head, folding his wings as he took his seat. 'Sorry I'm late. Just flew in from Canada-'

'And boy, are your arms tired!' Sam grinned-his petty revenge for the "shifty" comment. Then, his face turned more serious, and was replaced by an ox's dully-glaring visage. 'What's your treasure at the moment?'

'Myself. That way, I'm untouchable long as I'm safe.' And due to his nature, no one could harm Leo while he was defending himself. 'In case ya were thinkin' what to break.'

'And why'd I be thinkin' aboot that, ya hoser?'

'Are they courting each other again?' Ying Lung snickered, slipping through a wall like light through a window. The celestial dragon's intestines hung from his slim, split ivory belly like lank scarves, and he spent a few moments wrapping them around himself, to prevent distraction. 'Ne Zha's way of asking why a child of Heaven would put earthly matters over his home's interests. You should've seen my answer...' another snicker, whiskers twitching. 'And don't get me started on the headaches in Drake. They brought up family loyalty, too.'

Ying shot Aya a meaningful look, pulling his ivory pipe from an aetheric pocket and his gourd from another. He rolled his white, black-slit eyes at her disapproving glance, coiling up like the world's most satisfied snake. 'It's  tea, my lotus flower. The only things I drink on the job are my enemies' tears.'

'Careful with the flattery. Sam will feel you're muscling in on his turf.'

'No! How could he compliment you in front of Gilles?!'

The banter and bad jokes continued, the Heads trying to ignore their anxiousness as the rest arrived. Tamar Thousandhands, burned, hairless flesh barely visible under Kabbalistic patterns and pentagrams. Israel to Greenland was just a step, from his and his legion of demons' perspective.

Elsbeth Crane, today a glowing, antlered silhouette. The Scion Head had asked her power how to best battle the Black God, and it had turned her into Belobog, or at least something with his power.

Amara al-Hazred, as grim as her ancestor and twice as mad-or Mad, depending whom you asked. Her colourless robes concealed a belly bearing the stretch marks of spawn she had never asked for-a gift from the human side of her family, trying to push the limits of mankind's tolerance to being loved. The serene cast of her olive features showed little of a madness so sharp, it had reforged itself into focus in Miskatonic's halls, remaking the Head of the division also bearing that name.

Gerald Reyes, of Camelot, was the last to arrive, though not the last of their number. The English mage muttered "this room shall be imperceivable", then sat down, the law active. Running a hand through his close-cropped grey hair, he adjusted his gold-rimmed spectacles with the other, before clasping his hands in his lap. Smiling slightly at the absence of his usual pain in the neck, he nevertheless gave Aya, the first to arrive, a curious look. 'Where's Johnny?'

Leo and Sam both opened their mouths, causing Ying to rap his pipe on the table. 'Don't,' he told Gerald with a distressed grimace. 'Give them material.'

'Gaol John is treading the paths of the dead,' Amara whispered, lips unmoving. 'All his selves are looking for traitors and moles within ARC. Internal Affairs are running themselves ragged looking for religious zealots and pantheon-supporters. As are External Affairs, regarding our alleged allies and informers,' she preempted his next question.

Gerald nodded, preparing his announcement. 'My esteemed colleagues-'

'Skip,' Sam yawned, crocodile jaws cracking. 'Gerry Mander.'

If Gerald could kill with a glance-at the moment- the wendigo would have had a hole burned through his head after this breach in protocol. But the mage had always been able to put rules aside, when necessary. Regaining his poise, he sat up straighter. 'After long, if not patient, deliberation, the pantheons have agreed descending to Earth as they want, ignoring their rivals' wishes, is counterproductive to the maintenance and future positive development of the Syncretic Treaty.'

Silence. 'The  Dagda said that?' it was Leon who broke the ice.

'I'm paraphrasing!'

'Ya know, paraphrasin' is supposed to make things shorter...just sayin'!' he added at Gerald's look.

'As I was saying,' Gerald bit out. 'They have agreed to work together, if only because they still want worship, even if they'd rather break and remake Earth than be careful. So, they've agreed to send champions in their names. They are gathering at the following spots...' after he rattled off the list, Gerald glanced around the table, looking each fellow Head in the eyes. 'Liaison proposals?'