“You didn’t have to kill her,” he said, shifting onto his side in preparation for getting up. He felt completely broken inside, shattered, which wouldn’t kill him - and the Partner had to know that - but it would make it difficult to stand and move. Why did Yasha give him the knife? He didn’t think he could use it, even if he did get close enough.

“Says the mass murderer.”

“If I’m a mass murderer, why are you still alive?” He shoved himself up to his knees, and instantly regretted it, as he felt like he might be sick. Although there was a certain irony in a vampire vomiting blood, why did the vampire in question have to be him?

The Partner chuckled, but in a humorless way that made him sound like a villain in a bad spy movie. “You’d kill me if you could, and you know it. But who’s the god here?”

And a smug god at that. He waited for his stomach to settle down before he attempted to move, hoping the sleeve of his shirt didn’t have any obvious rips in it - wouldn’t it have been embarrassing if the knife simply fell out? “What does Ammit have against you?”

He waved his hand dismissively, moving back towards his throne. “I have no idea, I don’t bother with the old gods. I assume Bob put her up to it, the moron. Like sending in a charged proxy could ever work.”

“Bob?” He already knew he was involved, he smelled him on Yasha, but he decided to play dumb and dazed. “You know him?”

He sighed dramatically, like he had just asked about him his cousin in prison. “Sadly. Who doesn’t? He is a pest on any plane.”

“Well, I agree with that.”

“But he has a special interest in you.”

Angel staggered to his feet, and had to lock his legs to make sure he didn’t fall over. In fact, he wasn’t sure he was going to stay upright for a significant length of time. When he finally looked at the anti-Cook, he felt slightly seasick. “Does he? I don’t know why …”

“Because his ex-people chose to use you as their pawn, I suppose. Perhaps he thinks he can use the rescuing of you to get back in their good graces.”

“How? I thought the Powers had washed their hands of me.”

“Most likely, they’re terribly fickle, but Bob isn’t known for his realism or common sense. You should feel special.”

Angel wanted to laugh, but didn’t have the strength. “Oh yeah, I feel real special.”

The Partner was looking at him in a way he didn’t like, one eyebrow raised, examining him like a two headed bug he’d just found in his soup. “That was just the first move.”

“What?”

“Bob is stupid, but he’s not that stupid. He had to know sending a super powered proxy wouldn’t be enough. It had to have been a test.”

Again, playing dumb was the only friend he had right now. “A test of what?”

“My patience, mainly. He knows he can’t directly breach my realm without getting instantly obliterated, so he must be stalling for time. What could he be up to?” He tapped his forehead like it might help his thought processes, but not for long. “He has too many connections among the old gods. Nobody too worrisome. Oh, there’s no trying to figure out how that lunatic thinks; it’ll make your head explode. But I know there’s something he can’t do, no matter who he chooses to send in his place.”

The Partner was smiling now, and it made his skin instinctively crawl. He knew he’d regret asking, but how could he not? “What?”

“Resurrect the dead. That’s the providence of death gods, and my people.”

Angel shrugged, not sure where he was going with this, unless this was his explanation for killing Yasha. “I’m already dead.”

“Yes, in one sense of the word, but you could be deader.”

“Wh-” he barely got the first syllable out before the Partner made an odd gesture, curling his hand to his chest, and Angel felt him slingshot across the room towards him, so fast he almost lost consciousness. He thought he was going to impact him, but he stopped just inches from him, and Angel had just enough time to realize that now was his chance when the Partner punched him in the chest.

No, not in the chest - through.

The pain was so overwhelming and indescribable it was like his body just shut down whatever nerves he had left, so the pain was followed quickly by a terrible hollow numbness. There was nothing but a distant tearing sensation as he ripped his hand out of his chest, and Angel instantly collapsed, his legs unwilling to hold him up.

Only after he hit the floor did the hideous, gnawing burning start.

The Partner was holding something in his hand, and Angel honestly didn’t know what it was, although it looked like a gray chunk of flesh … oh hell no. He couldn’t have been … was he holding his heart in hi s hand? “You things die without that, yes?” He said, tossing it away over his shoulder. “Well now, whatever half-assed, idiot plan Bob has, it’s too late for you. You’re going to die, Angel. The only question is, is it permanent, or do you come back as Angelus? I bet you can’t wait to find out.”

Angel could feel it, the cold hollow inside his chest, the open wound burning as if poisoned, and he swallowed hard, trying to muster whatever strength he had left.

So his fate was sealed. Fine, he could deal with that. He really didn’t care, as long as he could kill this bastard too.

It was probably long past time he died anyways.

14

Mostly out of curiosity, he asked, “Where’s my visor?”

She gave him a sharp look, clearly annoyed with him, and said dismissively, “You haven’t made any improvements to the basic design. Don’t you think you should have by now?”

“And what makes you think I designed the thing? Really, if the best you can do at this point is insults -”

That’s when the lights died.

He heard her chair screech across the floor as she jumped to her feet, and demanded into her radio, “Alvarez, report. What the hell just happened?”

Scott was seized by the sudden urge to laugh. “I told you, Bob -”

“”It isn’t Bob,” she snapped angrily. “He would just walk in, and we’d have no memory of what happened. It’s what a reality warper is good for. This is something else.” She then paused and turned her attention back to her radio. “Damn it, Alvarez, wou-”

The lights came back on, the emergency generator kicking in, and thanks to what Rogue told them on the surface, he knew they were all locked in here until someone entered the correct command code to let them out. Did whoever escape have a command code? Or did they just figure they could get one if they needed one? He would know better if he knew who exactly it was that got loose. He assumed the Sisters, and if so, on the one hand they were screwed, because he was under the impression they didn’t plan ahead much. But then again, assuming people were still alive, they could probably terrify a code out of anyone.

Control stared at him, but was talking to her invisible friend. “Alvarez, is the situation under control? Alvarez?” After a moment, she cursed and flicked the mike away from her mouth. “Damn it.”

“Don’t these things always happen whenever you take Logan captive?” He knew it wasn’t Logan, but he wanted to bug her even more.

From the look she gave him, he succeeded. “It isn’t Wolverine. Not only is he out of it, he is secured. There is no way he could break out of containment, even if he was conscious.” She started to open drawers, look inside them for something. His guess was a weapon.

“Maybe someone got out and freed him.”

She snorted derisively, ignoring him completely now as she searched for something. He turned his head to the side, wedging the goggles between his face and the chair, and started to do his best to work the damn things off. “We aren’t so stupid as to put you within easy reach of each other either. Unlike you people, we’re not a collective gaggle of idiots.”

Perfect, just what he needed to know.

Even though he knew he was straining neck muscles and would feel it later, the goggles started to slip. Their awkward heaviness actually helped him once he shifted them to a certain point. “Actually, you’re worse than idiots,” Scott noted. “You should have let us go.”

He saw her straighten up out of the corner of his eye, holding something (surely a weapon), but he had to quickly close his eyes as the goggles slid free, although he kept his head turned so she couldn’t see directly what he had done . “Cyclops, what -”

“My name is Scott,” he interrupted. “And I’m done here.” With that, he faced her and opened his eyes.

The unmodulated blasts of energy from his eyes hit her hard enough to rip her off her feet and send her crashing through the wall, which crumbled like drywall. He closed his eyes as walls continued to collapse, fragment and fall with shudders and booms, and pieces of the ceiling started to pelt down in response. He hadn’t hit a retaining wall, so he figured he was lucky, but if the structure continued to lose integrity, he could accidentally kill someone. Maybe he’d kept his eyes open too long.

He braced himself, ready to do what he had to do. He already picked an arm to sacrifice; he really didn’t have a choice if he wanted to get out of this damn chair, but he really didn’t like it. Still, he took a deep breath, turned his head towards his left arm, and opened his eyes again.

The pressure was incredible, and he heard as well as felt his arm break instantly, an electric shock of pain that shuddered through his body like a lightning bolt. But, if there was anything to be grateful for, it was a clean break, and the chair dissolved under torrent like it had been made of graham crackers. He quickly stood to keep from falling on his ass, and while the right arm of the chair was still attached to his arm via the restrain, he was able to lay the remaining part of the chair on the desk and blow it to pieces without breaking his other arm.

He then secured the goggles back on his head and started searching the broken desk for his visor, on the off chance it was there. If he found her, and she wasn’t in a body cast for the next year and a half, he had to ask her if she felt like an idiot. Just because he wouldn’t kill didn’t mean he wouldn’t hurt her if given the chance.

He found his visor in the bottom drawer, which he had to wrench open, and every single movement made his left arm throb like a toothache. Shit, this was just going to get worse as the night wore on, so the sooner they could get out of here, the better.

He had just put on his visor when he heard rubble shifting behind him, and turned towards the gaping hole in the wall.

“Lose your temper, Boy Scout?” Helga asked, looking around at the damage.

He scowled at her for the nickname. “Don’t call me that. Were you the one who killed the power?”

“Yeah. The Sisters have secured the camera control room, and they say that Saddiq and Logan are on this floor. Rogue, Srina, and Marcus are on level three. Whoa, hey, they break your arm?”

“Uh, no, I kind of had to do that to get out. Although, if I knew you were coming, I guess I could have waited.” Now he felt like a jackass.

She shrugged. “You may have decked me with a piece of flying wall, so better out than waiting for your princess to rescue you.”

Princess? He was even going to ask. “If the Sisters have the control room, is that why we haven’t been swarmed by soldiers?”

She stared at him, tail flicking up dust behind her. “Heard of the phrase ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’?”

Oh Christ. There was no way they could have killed them all … was there? “Just tell me they’re locked into their specific rooms.”

“Some of ‘em are, sure. So, wanna go rescue some people?”

He didn’t see why not, as that’s what they were here for.

As it turned out, there were some soldiers alive in some of the rooms, and they put up some opposition, but not much, as Scott was quick to take them out with optic blasts, as Helga had a gun and wasn’t afraid to use it (it also looked like she wasn’t shooting to wound). Saddiq was groggy and strapped down to something that looked distressingly like an operating table, but he seemed otherwise okay. The three of them then went to get Logan.

He was actually several rooms away from where Scott had been held, and the far wall had partly collapsed, burying somebody in a lab coat beneath rubble. They were still breathing, so Scott didn’t feel too bad about it. Logan was okay, though, as he was in a tank.

It looked like a human sized aquarium, about seven feet long and four feet high, only filled with a vaguely greenish fluid; Logan was strapped down to the bottom, stripped of everything but his boxers, an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth. It was creepy to look at, frankly, like it was a special experimental prison for him or an embalming fluid bath, although Helga suspected there was some kind of chemical in the water, like a sedative, to keep him out of it for a while. Each one of limbs was chained down, at the wrists and ankles, and there was a separate wide black strap across the center of his chest, not so much holding him down as keeping him totally immobile.

None of them could figure out how to release him or drain the tank, so Scott simply shot it, collapsing one side, and the water gushed all over the floor, pooling beside the fallen people and the rubble. They were then able to manually undo the restraints, but Logan was still out cold, even though Helga shouted his name at him. “Uh, I think he might be deaf,” Scott belatedly pointed out. “Control told me they shattered his eardrums.”

“Oh shit.” She pulled out a compact radio, and said, “Girls, need you here. You done?”

“We’ve -”

“-done-”

“-all we-”

“-can do.”

“Great. Get your bony asses down here.” She put it away, and then looked around, perhaps for a control panel of some sort. There were lots of panels around them, but he had no idea what exactly did what, and flying pieces of wall had damaged or destroyed a third of them - well, a third of the ones they could see. There might have been more buried under the broken wall.

“He’s … he’s going to heal, yes?” Saddiq asked nervously, looking like he wanted to do something but didn’t know what.

“Oh yeah,” Helga proclaimed like the voice of authority. “He’s healed from worse.”

Saddiq accepted that with a nod - whether it was cultural or just a side effect of his training, unlike most teenagers, he always listened to his elders - but he glanced around them with incredible trepidation. “What were they going to do to him?”

There were surgical instruments and what looked like power tools scattered across the floor, scattered by flying debris. Scott was honestly surprised the debris hadn’t shattered the tank, but then again, even he found it difficult to break with his optic blasts. It was shatterproof glass, or high impact glass composite, something he wasn’t terribly familiar with. “I don’t know. But considering what they’ve done in the past …” He didn’t finish the sentence; he didn’t have to.

Helga had been busy pulling a lab coat off someone and tearing it up (he didn’t ask; he knew better), so he was surprised when she came over to him with a crudely fashioned sling. “C’mon man, let’s get that broken wing taken care of.” Seeing the look on his face, she frowned at him. “Hey, I’ve had a broken arm before, and I know it fuckin’ hurts, so don’t be a big baby about it.”

He acquiesced, not dignifying that “big baby” remark with a comment. But he did wince as she helped him fit his left arm into the sling, and even though she was surprisingly gentle about it, he had to blink back tears of pain. His arm felt hot and pulsing, like it was throbbing with every beat of his heart, and he was surprised he couldn’t see it actually happening.

The Sisters came in, looking so exceedingly cheerful it seemed obscene, like a tasteless joke, and asked, “What -”

“-do-”

“-you need us-”

“-for?”

Helga pointed down at the wet and insensate Logan. “Pick him up. We’re hitting the road.”

Made sense really. Logan was heavier than your average person (all that metal), and the Sisters had that vampire strength going for them, so they could probably handle him better than any of them, especially since he now had a broken arm.

“How-”

“-exactly-” the Sisters asked, as they went over to Logan, and on some secret signal grabbed opposite arms and hauled him up to his feet as if he were conscious, wrapping the arms around their shoulders to keep him propped upright between them.

“-since the-”

“-elevators are-”

“-locked down from-”

“-the third level.”

‘They do? Shit.” Helga scratched her head, then pointed at him. “Can you shoot a hole in the ceiling?”

Scott just stared at her. “Why would I want to do that?”

“We-”

“-can-”

“-jump up-”

“-there and-”

“-unlock the elevators-”

“-as well as-”

“-secure the level.”

“Oh, right, the jumping thing.” He didn’t know how vampires did that, nor did he want to know why, as he preferred to sleep at night. “But I don’t want you just slaughtering everyone up there, okay?”

They looked at him with those blank eyes and empty smiles, and he wondered how they ever perfected that look if they couldn’t see their reflection in a mirror. But they did have a reflection of sorts in each other, didn’t they? Wow, the more he thought about it, the creepier they got. “We-”

“-won’t-”

“-we’re full-”

“-anyways.”

Okay, that was both more than he needed to know, and an answer to the question of where everyone had disappeared to. Maybe it explained why Logan wanted demons on the mission, and he knew he should be grateful to them for doing all this work, but he still felt the need to kick Logan’s butt over this later on.

***

To both spare him the burden and keep Logan clear of debris, once the Sisters had picked out an “ideal” spot in the ceiling of the main hallway, Saddiq and Helga took Logan, propping him between them, even though Saddiq looked like he was really struggling with his half of the burden but wasn’t about to admit it. It was actually mildly alarming how out of it Logan was; his whole body was ludicrously limp, his chin sagging down to his chest. Helga was probably right about the drugs in the water, or that pulse really did scramble his head, big time.

Belatedly, he remembered the sonic pulse that knocked them all out in the first place, but Helga told him the soldier she had “corralled” told her that the system was so new it wasn’t connected to the emergency generation system, so until main power was restored, they couldn’t use it. Helga was pretty certain they wouldn’t be repairing main power any time soon, making him wonder what she did to it. And where was that soldier?

Scott braced himself and shot a short, powerful burst at the ceiling, at a slight angle so it all didn’t collapse on top of him, and still he had to back up to avoid some falling debris. This didn’t stop the Sisters, who immediately jumped up the new, gaping hole and clamored onto the third floor with a speed and agility that was honestly supernatural.

Shortly afterward, the screaming started.

Men who screamed and shouted, followed by staccato bursts of gunfire, sending some bullets smashing through the floor (no one was hit, but it was a near thing). He shouted up to the Sisters “What did I say?”, but he couldn’t even hear himself over the explosive gunfire and a truly odd noise that kind of sounded like the roar of a lion or some other big cat. Was that a vampire noise? Freaky.

Someone thudded down near the hole so hard that pieces of the ceiling came loose and fell, but the guy didn’t fall through, which was lucky for him. Or maybe not, as that meant he was stuck up there with the Sisters. It sounded like they were fighting their way through the level with a speed and brutality that Attila the Hun would envy, and if the bullets were slowing them down, he couldn’t tell.

Then everything went deathly quiet, and for some reason that struck him as worse than all the screaming. He shared some speculative, nervous glances with Saddiq, but Helga seem unconcerned to the point of boredom, suggesting she was accustomed to working with vampires in general or the Sisters in particular.

The elevator at the end of the hall hummed to life, making him jump, and he aimed in that direction and braced himself, in case this was the rallying party they were waiting for. But the doors slid open to reveal an empty lift with a broken roof, and he knew then that Sisters had gained control of something up there.

“They are very ... effective," Saddiq noted with a great deal of wariness. He might have admired their ability to get things done, but it seemed obvious he never wanted to be alone in a room with them, impenetrable skin or not.

“I still don't like them," Scott muttered to Helga.

She just shrugged with one shoulder, as best she could without sending Logan collapsing to the floor. "No one really does, but that's cool with them. They'd rather be feared than admired any day of the week."

Like a dictator? He didn't ask, as it was one of those things he felt better off not knowing for certain.

As they piled in and waited to get taken up to the third floor, he wondered if they had a command code. But did it matter? If worse came to worst, he could probably blast a hole in a wall not covered by a blast shield.

Now he had figured out why Logan wanted him along.

*****

He was poisoned.

Either that, or the raw energy of the Senior Partners was toxic in some way, because Angel could feel something burning through his blood like acid, making it boil in his veins. It was making his muscles painfully contract, causing him to curl up in a fetal ball on the floor and fight the urge to retch. It was like he was on fire on the inside, and it was spreading to what organs he had left.

The worst part was the Partner was enjoying it, and yet still he yawned, as if his agony was boring him to tears. He didn't care how much it hurt, he was going to kill this bastard.

"You poor thing," the Partner said, his voice dripping with condescension. “I bet you thought you'd die in a blaze of glory, didn't you? Funny how life never works out the way we ..."

Angel glanced up at him through a red glaze of pain, and saw the Partner scowling violently at the doors of the banquet hall. "Oh, you brazen little fucker," he snarled, going down a step before the doors burst open wide.

Bob had arrived.

He stood there looking like his usual self - leather pants, biker boots, obnoxious t-shirt (what did 'Think testicles’ mean? Did he really want to know?)- but his eyes had turned a complete and glowing bright blue. "Buzz baby," he said, all mock casualness and Australian bluster. "Whatever did you do to my date?"

Angel didn't know if he was referring to him or Yasha, and frankly he didn't want to know. The partner made a growling noise, and snapped, "You're an idiot. I told you I would obliterate you if you set foot in my realm. I hope you're happy."

He barely twitched a hand and Bob went flying out the doors, as limp and weightless as a rag doll. The Partner then huffed a disgusted sigh through his nose, and turned back up the steps, muttering to himself. "Imbecile god. No wonder the Powers kicked him out. He's too stu -"

The Partner froze as if shocked, and Angel knew why. Even through this hideous, burning fire in his veins, he could feel the sudden swirl of power, something so immense that it raised the hair on his arms, on the back of his neck. A charge so great it was like the power of the sun had been condensed and distilled right in this room.

Bob came back. Different this time.

He was not walking, not in a conventional sense, as he was about five inches off the ground. The blue fire wasn't just in his eyes this time but bleeding out from them, little tendrils in the air, and his veins glowed blue beneath the skin of his face and exposed arms like a macabre set of tattoos. His torso was also gone, or at least obscured by bright blue energy that approximated the shape of his chest. “Right,” he said, his voice an odd amalgam of false camaraderie and otherworldly intensity. “Let’s try this again. How stupid do you think I am, Buzz?”

The Partner he called Buzz had turned all his attention to him, and Angel could only see his back, but he bet he was trying to throw some mojo against Bob - mojo that didn’t appear to be working in the least. When “Buzz” lowered his left hand to his side, Angel could see black fire dripping from his hand like he had cut a vein. “What kind of fucking trick is this?”

Angel realized this was his chance. Buzz was completely ignoring him, and exposing his back to him even though he was only a few feet away. But here was the million dollar question: could he even stand up? What part of his body was in burning agony was in fact in fact numb as death, but he struggled to shove himself up to his knees, gritting his teeth against the black waves of pain.

“No trick, Buzz. You know, the bad guy too arrogant to notice the patently obvious is a cliché, but is a cliché because it’s so bleedin’ common. You were so convinced by your own superiority that you couldn’t see you were totally buggered. You honestly thought I was asking for Angel back just for myself?” He scoffed and shook his head. “And you call me an idiot?”

“You’re full of shit, Bob. You’re the god of liars.”

Angel managed to shove himself to all fours, but had to pause and shudder, swallowing back bile that burned like acid. He wasn’t sure he could stand up straight without losing consciousness, so he was going to only have one shot at this. He had to make it good - and fast.

“Hard as it is for you to believe, my people do occasionally ask me to do things for them, Buzz, and they told me to bring Angel back. I gave you the chance to do it the easy way, but you didn’t take it. You can stop tryin’ to smite me, by the way; it ain’t gonna happen.”

“You are not stronger than me.”

“You’re right, I’m not. But I have the power of my people behind me. One Ahrim - I mean Partner - against all of the Powers That Be? Do you really think you have a chance?”

Angel struggled to his feet, his knees threatening to buckle, legs trembling. He was doubled over, and relatively certain he couldn’t straighten up. Damn it!

“You kill me, and you will have declared war on my people. They will tear your realms to shreds.”

“Right. See, that’s why the Powers came to me. They always drop their shit jobs on me, and they wanted me to find a way to do you in that they can’t be held responsible for, and I’m the one with the connections to the old gods. They generally like me ‘cause the Powers hate me. And that’s where Ammit comes in.”

“She can’t kill me.” The slightest change in octave suggested he wasn’t so sure about that.

“Oh? What does her name mean, Buzz? “Devouress of the dead”. Besides her role as slayer of the gods, she judged; she determined the worthiness of each soul, of each power, and weighed whether they went on in the cycle, or to a heaven of their own design, or a hell of their own making, or to nothing at all. She had tools that helped her do this before she hung it all up. Do you think you could stand up to being judged?”

So that’s what he had up his sleeve. Not a blessed knife, but an actual weapon of the gods; no wonder it burned so much. He slowly straightened up, and had to swallow back a scream.

“You wouldn’t dare,” Buzz spat.

“You’re right, I wouldn’t. Judging should be left up to your victims. Or, in this case, victim.”

Bob had showed his hand, and Buzz seemed to stiffen in understanding, but far too late. Not trusting himself to take a step, Angel lunged at Buzz’s back with the knife firmly held in both hands. He didn’t even need to aim; he’d been fighting vampires so long that he could find the heart of any humanoid blindfolded.

The knife plunged through his back like he was made of nothing but marrow, sliding through his ribs like butter, the heat flaring up the hilt so quickly Angel was sure he lost several layers of skin off the palms of his hands. But he hardly had time to notice before he was hit with something like an explosive shockwave, sending him flying backwards into a cold stone wall, hard enough that he was sure he heard something crack, but even all this new pain wasn’t enough to knock the consciousness out of him.

Buzz was motionless where he stood, back arched painfully as if he was frozen in the act of reaching for the knife in his back. Black energy swirled around him like a dust devil, bleeding out from the knife itself, becoming larger and denser as it orbited him, starting to bury him in a flood of his own energy. “I wonder where you’ll go,” Bob said, shouting over the roar of the energy, which sounded uncannily like a scream slowed down and drawn out. “Oh, wait, no I don’t. Enjoy Phlegethon, or whatever she calls it, you evil old fuck.”

Buzz disappeared with a rising scream and a final flare of black fire, leaving behind an eerie silence that seemed to echo through the bejeweled room. Angel tried to move, but found the ability far beyond him now; he’d spent his last just getting to his feet. He felt simultaneously hot and cold, freezing where the poison raging in his blood had yet to travel, and he felt strangely fragile and evanescent, a ghost in the process of fading away to oblivion. He could almost feel the demon in him clawing at his ribcage, screaming in abject rage, because it knew what was happening, and it didn’t want to go like this. At least a demon that died fighting was doing what it was meant to do; to just let your life bleed away was not only undignified, but insulting. If he could have smiled, he would have. Choke on it, you bastard, he thought, almost gleeful at the idea that Angelus would die like this. Not even in the mercifully brief explosion of ash, but like a small fire dyi! ng, ultimately snuffing itself out.

But he was dying too. Maybe it wasn’t such a high price to pay as long as he took his lesser half with him.

Bob was there, he felt the energy he was giving off before he even dropped down beside him - in a whole body again, seemingly walking on the floor - and his hands were warm on his face as he turned his head up to look at him. “No pain, Angel,” he said, and just like that it was gone; the burning just stopped. But he still felt like he was only half here, his life falling away like sand down the drain. Even Bob’s face was out of focus and strangely distant, only the dots of blue truly distinguishable.

He wanted to ask him why he - they - had bothered to come back for him, but he couldn’t talk; it took energy he no longer had. Even the blood in his mouth tasted old. “My people aren’t great at keeping their word,” Bob said, his voice strangely clear. Maybe he wasn’t talking at all. “But I was gonna make ‘em. You have paid in full. I want you to remember that you did it, that you won. Can you?”

Did that make sense? He wasn’t sure it did. They were words, strung together in a sequence, but he wasn’t sure what they meant all together like that. “Look into my eyes, Angel,” Bob commanded, and even though he didn’t think he could focus, there was no way to disobey his orders.

He did as he asked, and saw nothing but blue, a bright, rich cobalt that looked like it should have burned, but didn’t. It seemed to envelop him, wash over him like a tide, and he was more than happy to sink into it and drown.