Though Waylon had escaped, it wasn't unscathed. The blow I landed had wounded Sakhr and as a result, he was leaking Aether like a sieve. Wherever he went waylon left a trail of chaotic pink mist, shooting through the air in half-hazard zigzags. Finally, I could track him.

Not that I needed it now. I knew where he was going, the psycho had said it in the train yard. He was taking the girl to the Black Order... To the Mayor's home.

I followed in hot pursuit, across rooftops and open roads, trailing him east, out of the city and into the run-down ghetto neighborhood called Arcadia.

Every seasoned beat cop knew, nestled amidst these poverty ridden streets lay acres of heavily fortified property protecting a small population of wealthy elite. Their mansions were well hidden from prying eyes, encircled by towery, dense, thorny shrubs and formidable iron fencing. All of which were reinforced by state-of-the-art alarm systems and cameras, monitored by more guards than Fort Knox.

To the common burglar, it probably seemed impenetrable, a sure thing for a lengthy prison stay. But I didn't give a shit.

My pursuit ended outside the ornate arched gate baring the main road into the exclusive community. Twilight had fallen, and the promised rain fell heavy now, drenching my wool coat and slicking the streets. Standing outside the gate, I reached out with my senses and tracked Sakhr the rest of the way to his master's dwelling.

Third mansion to the right, about three miles in...

My shoulder ached, and my head throbbed painfully as I continued to fight back the heart-wrenching fear I felt for my uncle's welfare. I buried it, struggling to keep my focus.

I started toward the fence but stopped short as a piercing pain ran through my temples, bringing me to my knees.

I was consumed by a vision.

I was inside a scary dungeon sitting inside a cage. My back hurt from when the mean man threw me down. I cried and cried but no one cared. There were lots of men standing around, laughing at me. Mommy, I want my mommy!

It ended as quickly as it started, and I came too under the rain again. The veil was lifting, I was starting to sense the girl.

“Vile creatures,” Leo said crouched next to me on the darkening road.

I clenched my fists, trying to get my hands to stop shaking from Annabell’s terror. I slowed my breathing again, in deep, out slow, and even. Relaxing my tired muscles I brought all my pain into a single focused thought.

“Only one way to do this,” I said standing to my feet, a steady stream of water cascading down the brim of my hat. “Got to take them hard and fast.”

“Indeed, “Leo nodded, “Rain justice down on their heads, Vessel...”

Willing the talisman's influence into my battered limbs, I unsheathed the baton and hurled it into the night sky. As it soared out of sight, I ran at the fence, jumping it and sprinting down the road toward the enemy’s stronghold at full speed.

Gambals guards had clearly been warned trouble was coming and stationed themselves outside the home despite the downpour. They weren't Acolytes, I could feel that. No, these were merely hired guns.

I didn’t care.

The five of them staggered across the property, scanning the inbound roads for danger. They were armed of course, weapons drawn and at the ready, as if that were going to help.

As they walked the grounds, the nightstick dropped suddenly from the sky like a bolt of lightning. It careened between two of the guards, incapacitating them on impact while grabbing the attention of the remaining three.

The distraction served me well as I tore up the lawn behind the first startled man. I swept his legs out from under him, and bounced his falling skull off the ground with a hammer fist. The last two spun around at the sound of their falling comrade and reflexively opened fire.

It was too late though, I had already closed the distance. I dove to the grass and rolled to my feet before they knew what was happening. In a flash, my hands were on one of the guards, spinning him around to take the next volley of bullets before his partner could stop shooting. When I heard the slide lock back on the man’s gun, I leaped over my human shield, spinning like a tornado and landing a series of kicks to the last guard's head.

It was over in seconds. The baton returned to my hand without so much as a passing thought. I turned from the carnage and strolled up the sweeping lawn to the wide front steps of the three-story mansion.

As I came upon the entrance, I felt what was waiting for me inside; Ten men, four on the floor facing the door, six spread out along the imperial staircase framing the entryway.

I stepped up to the heavy double doors and fired off a mule kick, blowing them apart in a shower of splinters. With inhuman speed I cleared the door's fatal funnel, throwing the nightstick to one side, while I sprinted to the other.

Men shouted and more bullets tore through the air, each missing their mark while I barreled through the three on the left staircase, my nightstick whirling up the right, clearing the guards there with ease.

We met at the top, and I caught the baton mid-flight. Having claimed the high ground, I jumped over the banister onto the terrified bodyguards below. They panicked, frantically pulling triggers in a feeble attempt to stop me.

More screams. More gunfire. Then, echoing silence.

When the action ended, I took a moment to catch my breath. Stepping over unconscious bodies onto spent brass casings, I reached out into the Aether to read the room once more. For such a heavily fortified location, it felt oddly empty once the guards had been handled.

It took me a beat to pick up Sakhr’s trail again. I found it, deep within the house, and headed toward the hallway he had gone down.

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As I traversed the mansion, his Aether scent intensified. It was like a sickly sweet perfume, something meant to attract you while masking another fouler stench. It washed over me, filling my head with fuzzy clouds as the pleasing aromas became more and more pronounced.

Strangely, I began to think of more desirable things I wished I could be doing. More pleasurable and immensely satisfying things...

Visions of a couple of beautiful women swam into my view, promising to fulfill my every whim. It was incredible how quickly I started to lose myself. The girls seemed almost real and my desire for them grew overwhelmingly.

I stumbled slightly as I walked down the hall, my vision blurring and my mind wandering. My purposeful stride slowed to a dull shuffle as the pink Aether mist coalesced into tangible avatars of my promising playmates. They looked so familiar.

I reached out to touch one of their pink-tinged faces when a jolt of recognition tore through me. Her beautiful face transformed into a dirt-smeared terrified grimace. I looked at the other, who was now equally woe-begotten.

I had seen these girls before. They were among those from the train. Sakhr was bribing me with the flesh of the victims.

The realization cleared my senses faster than a cold shower as their pain churned in my chest. I took a step back from the apparitions, my lust transforming into shame and rage.

The talisman’s power built within me, taking tangible shape as Aetherfire ignited along my arms. In a howl of fury, I screamed and sent a wave of blue flame coursing from my body down the hall, purging the pink mist and ending the sickening visions.

As the last wisps of energy dissipated, A slow clapping sounded from the end of the hall. Waylon stepped around a corner, his irksome smile on full display.

“Well that was impressive,” he said, leaning against the wall and folding his arms. “Never seen a man fight off Sakhr’s influence like that. Doesn't matter though. You're on your own now. No friends to help you this time.”

His ugly smile widened unnaturally, like a Cheshire nightmare. The feline slits returned to his eyes, and his shoulders bulged.

Though I was still shaking off the spirit-roofie, I sensed what was coming. Even so, I barely registered his movement as Walyon pounced to the wall on my left. His Watcher’s claws dug into them, wrecking the ornately framed photos hung there as he tore after me along the wall, defying gravity.

Weeks ago, such a sight might have stopped me in my tracks. But not tonight. There was no trace of apprehension left in me, this monster was mine to slay. The baton ignited in my hand and I charged him head on.

We met in the center in a clash, my flaming nightstick crashing into his side, as his claws tore at my arms. Searing pain shot through my gouged my bicep, and I heard Sakhr howl as my Aetherfire signed his hide.

I dropped to the floor and rolled to dodge another of his ferocious swipes, then felt the whip of a breeze overhead as Waylon leaped to the other side of the hall.

We both turned about-face and re-engaged, trading blow after furious blow. Waylon’s possessed form was terrifyingly fast, far faster than Chase had been. Still, I gave as good as I got, landing bone-breaking strikes for each flesh-rending slice. Locked in each other's deadly embraces, we bounded off the walls, wreaking havoc on the once immaculate interior.

After minutes that stretched on for an eternity, I finally found an opening.

Throwing the stick behind Waylon, I summoned it back, swiping his legs out from the rear as I jumped high, close-lining him across the neck. He fell back, head-over-heels and crashed to the hardwood floor. Before he could recover I pounced, straddling his chest and pinning his arms as I rained my fists down on his head. Blue-tinged Aetheric steam rose off my hands as I worked him over.

Both Sakhr and Walyon’s faces started to panic as they flailed, unable to free themselves. Each blow I landed brought images flashing before my eyes. I saw the pained faces of the children in the train yard. I saw Maria, dead in my arms. Saw Chuck laying in a pool of his own blood.

I screamed, striking him over and over like a jackhammer, pounding my fury into his very being, when Suddenly, Sakhr’s image evaporated. All that was left was Waylon’s pulped and bruised human face.

He coughed, “p-please” he spluttered, “n-no more...”

I stopped, mid-strike looking down on his broken body. I wanted to kill the man for all the pain he caused, all the people he had hurt. He was a monster. And yet...

It was one thing to kill in a fight to survive. It was another to kill when your enemy was already defeated. Is that who I was now?

No, I wasn’t. And Sakhr knew it.

My hesitation was all he needed. The Watcher’s Aether returned in full force, he wrenched his arm free from under me, grabbed my left wrist, and pulled my injured arm hard, throwing me off him down the hall.

Waylon jumped up and made to escape, running in the opposite direction away from me.

I crashed to the ground and rolled with it, calling the burning nightstick from where it lay to my outstretched hand. Spinning on my knees, I caught the pommel and hurled the stick with all my strength at Waylon’s retreating back.

The baton struck true, piercing through his shoulder like a flaming spear. He stopped short of the corner at the end of the hall and dropped to the floor.

He writhed and screamed as the Aetherfire began to spread from the nightstick, crawling across his flesh. Try though he might, Waylon couldn’t pull the baton loose from his shoulder. Sakhr let out an unearthly shriek from Waylon’s lips, its ghostly claws separating themselves from his mortal form, clawing at his body as though trying to pull itself free from him.

While they fought each other, the earth began to rumble, knocking down broken portraits and causing lights to flicker. Both Watcher and man panicked as the floorboards cracked and fell away revealing a swirling vortex below.

Pink Aether poured from Waylon as Sakhr’s ghastly feline torso emerged wholly from him. It lashed out, clawing at the walls, struggling against the deep dark void as it pulled them down. From the Watcher’s lower body, Waylon flapped like a grotesque flag over the chasm, screaming as the Watcher tried desperately to shake him loose.

“No! No! God help me please!” Waylon screamed in agony as his body broke and twisted under Sahkr’s panicked thrashing.

I stood, bloody and tattered, never blinking as the man who mutilated my uncle and ordered my partner’s death was shredded under the frenzied death throes of a desperate beast.

“God’s not here fucker,” I murmured. “Just me.”

I made myself take in every horrid detail, watched each painful moment as Waylon was dismembered within his own skin until Sakhr finally succumbed. At last, they were pulled down into the abyss, their screams falling away to nothing as the hole sealed itself above them, leaving only my baton on the floor where they once lay.

The hall fell quiet and an odd, hollow sort of calm settled over me as I stood in the wreckage. I did it, I beat him. So why didn’t I feel better?

Reflecting on my internal unrest would have to wait. I wasn’t done yet.

I felt the Talisman work to staunch the flow of blood from my wounds on my arms and back. With a gesture, I recalled the nightstick. It leaped up and returned to its holster as I crossed the rest of the hall to inspect where Waylon had been trying to escape to.

I rounded the corner and came upon a simple, dark oak door. Beyond it I felt.... Nothing... No emotion or people, not even remnants of memory. I didnt even detect the subtle whiff of a Watcher’s presence.

I grabbed the door handle and turned it when the sharp pain coursed through my head again, bringing with it visions of Annabell inside a small cage on the floor. The image passed, leaving a single emotion in its wake. Ecstatic, taunting joy. Whatever was down there with her, had shown me the girl on purpose. It wanted me to come after her.

I opened the door, revealing a downward spiraling staircase and could still sense nothing else. I turned back, and saw Leo in the hall. He looked worried.

“What’s down there?” I asked.

He rolled his shoulders back and tried to hide his concern. “...The girl is,” he answered simply.

I swallowed my nerves, “Right,” I said.

I passed through the entrance and took the first few steps down. But as I did, the door swung closed behind me with a snap, making me jump. I spun to face the door, when an odd weight slowly fell on my shoulders and something drew my attention down. I looked at the talisman on my chest and watched in disbelief as the light emanating from the sapphire slowly dimmed, then went out.