VERSE FIFTEEN: DEMONS

Darkness reigned.

At first, Damon thought he might have been blind. Then he sat up and stared at his paws before breathing a sigh of relief when he could, in fact, see them. His peace of mind was short-lived when he surveyed the dark void all around him.

"Hello?" He ventured, and the oppressive gloom swallowed his words. Damon frowned and strained his pointed ears but heard only silence.

"What's going on here?" He tried again, louder this time. Sucking in a deep breath, he bellowed: "Hello? Someone!? Where the hell am I?! Anyone?!"

This time, at least, his words echoed in the ominous emptiness. As the last reverberation nearly died away, the sound slowly began to build again, returning from the brink of Damon's auditory perception. The subtle noise intensified and welled up, gradually and rhythmically, like the sound of waves lapping at a distant shore.

Gradually the sound took form as a deep, throaty chuckle. It filled the expanse of nothingness until the air vibrated with its increasing fervency. Damon's ears pinned back against his head and he rose unsteadily to his feet, looking about for the source of the noise.

And then it stepped forth from the darkness.

Damon nearly jumped out of his skin when the apparition appeared, like a reflection, as though he'd stumbled upon a mirror in the gloom. But then the reflection spoke.

"Heh, you really don't have any idea, do you?" it wondered.

Startled, Damon took a half-step backward and tripped. Something caught him when he fell, and looking down he saw he'd landed in a metal chair. Somehow, his arms had been bound behind his back.

Damon tugged at his restraints and found them unyielding. Panicked, he struggled and looked up at the stranger.

"Wh-who are you?" he demanded, "what the hell's going on around here?!"

The stranger crept closer, and the fur stood up all over Damon's body when he noticed how uncanny the resemblance was between them. If he didn't know any better he would have sworn this other fox was his long-lost twin.

But then, Damon realized, you_don't _know any better... He shuddered, paralyzed with dread as the doppelganger approached. Were it not for the wild, unhinged look in those eyes and that manic, toothed grin they identical to one another.

The unfamiliar fox circled Damon where he sat, flashing that unhinged smile. Damon flinched while the other vulpine mussed up his hair with a carefree tousle, and then the stranger ran his fingers through the fur on Damon's now-frizzy tail. It was then that Damon noticed the creature's finger, unlike his own, ended in claws more like talons. When the twin came back around in front, Damon was struck by the fact that they were even dressed the same. Hell, they even had the same piercings, from what Damon could tell...

After a few more moments' observation, the clone took a step back and spread his arms, head lilting to one side. That grin never faltered.

"Don't I look familiar?" the creature wondered. "Come on, now. I would have given your more credit than that..." When Damon didn't know what to say, it continued: "I'm you_, you great bloody idiot_. Or rather, you as you ought to be."

"I am your unrealized potential, your unbridled desire. I am your wants given form. I am what you could become if you cast off the shackles of morality. I have transcended your feeble notions of gender, age, race, sexuality...your threadbare concepts of identity."

"Fine," Damon relented, sighing, "but who are you?" The stranger scoffed.

"I have no name, because I have long ago discarded such petty mortal precepts," it replied.

"I don't...I don't understand," Damon said, utterly perplexed. He looked around again uncertainly but still saw only darkness in all directions. Wherever he was, he was alone with this creature; this thing wearing his skin... "I must be dreaming," he concluded aloud, as much for his own benefit as that of the walking reflection. It shrugged.

"You're not supposed to understand. I keep you in the dark about things for a reason. All things considered, though, I suppose I can shed some light on our circumstances for you. For starters: you're dying." The creature spoke plainly, as though this line of conversation were perfectly mundane. When it emphasized its point with a gesture, Damon glanced down and saw that it appeared to speak the truth.

Without his knowledge, Damon's coat and shirt had disappeared. His chest and torso were rent and bleeding and a great swollen contusion one his ribs made it hard to breath. Most distressing of all, a dark stain was spreading across the left leg of Damon's pants while a gaping wound spurted ribbons of brilliant red.

"What- oh, Christ!" Damon swore. Fear gripped his heart with iron fingers and his breath caught in his throat as pain suddenly flooded his senses belatedly. He tried to rise but succeeded only in rattling the chair in which he was confined.

"Hah! No, no, He can't quite help you out of this one," his twin chuckled. It seemed to take some enjoyment from Damon's predicament. "I - or rather you - can, though," it added.

Damon wasn't listening. He thrashed in a fit of frantic agony, flailing against his bonds while blood continued to pump from the wound in his leg.

"Shit! Fuckin' hell! I'm bleeding!" he gasped uselessly. He felt lightheaded. "I'm gonna die," he realized, hardly able to breathe. "Oh god...oh God!" He looked up at the eerie stranger, and the creature merely rolled its eyes.

"Would you shut up and listen to me, already?" It growled. "Better than imploring someone who clearly doesn't give a damn about you."

"I don't wanna die!" Damon protested, "You've got to help me!"

The strange creature sighed and took a step closer. Leaning forward, it gripped Damon fiercely by the scruff of his neck, forcing him to look up into its eyes. Those eyes...he could pass for me if it weren't for those eyes...

"Look, I'm trying, alright?!" It hissed in exasperation. "But if you want to live - if you want me to help - I need you to help me, first!" It spat the request out like the words themselves had a foul taste.

"I...I don't understand," Damon professed. He was unable to keep from glancing down at the blood spurting from his leg, prompting his doppelganger to snarl and grab his muzzle, forcing them to lock eyes with one another.

"Shut up and think for a moment!" it demanded. "Where are you? Why are you here? Your leg didn't start bleedin' out on its own, did it?"

Damon's mind raced. He struggled to breathe; to think clearly through the fog of pain and panic clouding his perception.

"I was...I was with Natasha," he recalled.

"Right, the striped French bimbo - and?"

"A-and..." Damon's sucked another painful breath and whimpered. "I was...oh God..." Images flashed through his mind's eye; recollections in the form of emotional vignettes. "I don't know where I am...they brought me here..." He looked up at his own twisted reflection to find it grinning back at him.

"The wayward lupine Scot, the otter who sounds like a Yank and some tight-arsed German feline with a bone to pick. Good - and?" The creature waited patiently for an answer. Damon huffed and panted brokenly, frantically glancing from side to side. Still, he was alone in the darkness with this stranger. This...thing.

"Who are they?" he whined. "What do they want?" The creature pressed a finger to Damon's lips, shushing him in a manner that was anything but reassuring.

"Shhh...you leave worrying about them to me. But first, I need to ask you something: why d'you suppose they're after you?"

"I...I don't know," Damon confessed, at a loss. He couldn't seem to think straight.

"Right, well, I'll tell you," his twin offered. "It's the same reason anyone's been after you since Manchester. Just like everyone else, they think you killed Miranda. And they've all got some personal or righteous score to settle with you..."

"I would never harm Miranda!" Damon snarled, suddenly fierce, his pain and fear all but forgotten. The doppelganger backed off and placed a paw over its heart.

"You don't need to convince me," it assured him. "You - I - we - loved our Miranda. But here we have these...these people. Haunting you. Hounding you. Hunting you. Leaving you to bleed out and die because they think you killed the one you love, and God knows who else? Let me take care of them for you, Damon," the creature offered.

Damon stared at it for a while, unsure what, exactly, to think.

"...How?" he wondered. The stranger's face split even wider, somehow, in an even more unnatural grin. Damon shivered.

"Simple," it purred. "Let me take control. You can already feel it happening - that rage welling up inside you. I can feel it, too." The creature tilted its head back, eyes closed, and breathed deep as it placed its hands on Damon's shoulders. Its paw-pads were hot to the touch.

"I could use that," it rasped. Its voice rumbled deeper, and Damon noticed smoke curling from the corners of its mouth. "I could take control from you right now - just reach out and snatch it. It would be so easy." The strange creature's claws dug into Damon's shoulders, making him flinch.

"But I won't," it concluded, releasing its hold on him with what seemed a great deal of effort. It looked back down at Damon with those wide, unsettling eyes. "I can't risk frying them...God knows what would happen with three of them gathered here. I can feel the power flowing through them... This turn requires some finesse...a more delicate approach." the doppelganger exhaled deeply, its hot breath redolent with the stench of brimstone.

"Give in to me, Damon," it pleaded, its burning eyes searing holes through his very soul. "Let me out, and I'll deal with them. Those who falsely accuse you...persecute you...hunt you... Let me out, Damon, and they'll reap what they've sown. For your sake own, for the memory of our Miranda...LET ME OUT!"

Kaira stared numbly into Damon's vacant eyes. The spark of life had gone out in them, and she felt that emptiness mirrored in herself. Her claws retracted easily from the fox's flesh, letting his ebon-furred form slosh in the blood that had pooled around them and begun to seep into the drain. The feline took stock of the mess, as though she were noticing it for the first time.

Kaira's legs were cold. The fur on them was matted where blood was beginning to dry and coagulate; it made her skirt stick to her thighs. The air was thick with a sanguine stench and the smell of even less pleasant things, but Kaira couldn't be bothered to gag.

He's dead. Just like that. All those years lusting after vengeance...and to come so close...

Looking down at her bloodstained paws, the cat trembled. All at once her world had dissolved around her, the ground giving way like ice over a frozen lake to swallow her up. As she sank the cold numbed her; deadened her.

Without Damon, what did she have left?

The burning need for vengeance had all but consumed Kaira for four years. Over time, as the case of Konstantin's death grew colder, that flame of Kaira's had also dwindled, and her will to live with it. Her hope had almost guttered out, to the point no matter how many extra hours she threw into her career, into her passion for mechanical engineering and design, nothing had worked to distract her from her growing despair...

But then news had reached her of Damon's arrest. With that had come connections, however tenuous, drawn between his crime and the fate that had befallen her Konstantin...and her hope had been rekindled. She'd obsessed over the meagre media coverage of the charges levelled against Damon and the ongoing investigation. It had been an agonizing blend of excitement and frustration, awaiting the fox's fate; watching from afar while the case plodded along. And then...

Nothing.

Just like that, Damon all but vanished into thin air, escaping house arrest and dashing Kaira's fragile hope that justice might have been served; that a terrible wrong might have been righted. She'd gone all but insane, breaking down further and further in the months following the fox's evasion of the law. She would have jumped at the opportunity to go after him herself, of course, if only she had some idea where to begin...

Then Kaira had received a text; an anonymous tip: the revenge she so desired awaited her in Paris, if she could find the one behind the Notre Dame incident. Needing no further encouragement, she'd dropped everything and made for France that same day. Her focus had been honed to a razor's edge. Nothing could have stood in her path. Nothing should have stood in her path. And now...

Now she was denied her justice. Again.

Denied her vengeance. Denied going out in a blaze of glory, burning with enough intensity to consume the one who had wronged her and her Konstantin. She was denied her very raison d'être.

Kaira's nose wrinkled as the acrid stink of bile was added to the room's morbid atmosphere. She set aside her despair long enough to note that the otter - Kawauso - had expectorated all over the floor.

"Oh god," the mustelid groaned. "I hate blood...there's so much of it...why-" another bout of convulsive retching interrupted him. Kaira snarled.

"Scheisse...that's what happens, otter...when you shoot someone through their femoral artery!" The feline glowered at her would-be allies while her paws balled into fists. She felt her claws dig into her palm-pads.

"B-but...he can't die, he can't..." Kaw was protesting. His arms trembled while hunched over on all fours, bilious strands of saliva trailing to the floor from his mouth.

"Aye, well, so much fer that theory," the wolf - Avinglad - punctuated his last word with a heavy kick to the otter's abdomen that sent him sprawling. "Ye've gone and fucked this up right proper!" The wolf accused.

"Fucker," the otter wheezed, "wuh...why'd you care? You two wanted to k-kill him anyway, right...?"

Avinglad growled with an intensity that almost matched the rage Kaira felt stoking hotter inside her. He stooped to hoist Kawauso up by the collar of the otter's jacket, leaning in so close that their faces almost touched while he brandished that ludicrously large pistol of his under Kaw's chin.

No.

Kaira was not about to have another vengeance denied her. Her left hand reached for the handle of the knife sheathed against her thigh, under her skirt. She cursed silently when the sticky blood made it difficult to retrieve.

"No," Avinglad elutriated, "we had tae kill him, fer justice, lad. Fer the greater good. But without an exorcism...without ministering the lad's last rites...ye've gone and murdered him. Ye've gone and buggered it up - figures."

Kaira stood slowly, keeping the blade she'd drawn hidden.

"Ich...I gave up everything. Meine life, meine career...I wrote a good-bye letter for meine friends. There was no coming back from this for me," she stated flatly, making her way toward the pair of them. Avinglad grunted in agreement but kept his back turned to her.

"Aye. An ah've been waiting mah whole bloody life for a chance tae return the favour ah've owed that black-furred bastard!"

"I...I didn't mean to kill him," Kawauso's eyes glistened, and a tear made its way down his cheek. "I didn't think it would kill him...didn't think it _could_kill him. ...Swore I wouldn't...not again..."

Avinglad didn't appear to be listening. He cocked the hammer on his pistol and straightened his back before shoving the weapon menacingly against the otter's face.

"Well too late fer that, lad," he lamented.

Yes, it is. Kaira gripped her knife tighter. Suddenly the overhead light flickered.

"Oh, don't be so hard on the young 'un, preacher," rasped an unfamiliar voice. Everyone whirled in shock; Kaira was so surprised that her knife clattered to the floor. Behind them, Damon Vulpes was sitting up. Somehow.

The fox grunted and tilted his head in order to crack his neck, as though he were stretching after rising from a nap. "Nnh - dying's always a bitch, but I've never let it keep me down. You'll have plenty of extra chances, wolf."

"Sch-sheisse! What the hell?!" Kaira cried when she finally found her voice. She seemed to remember she could move in that same instant as she recoiled instinctively from Damon. Her paw grasped fruitlessly for the knife she'd dropped before gripping the MP7 slung around her shoulders, instead.

Muscle memory took over and in a flash Kaira had disengaged the safety and emptied most of a clip. She should have known better, of course, but in her state of shock she didn't relinquish her squeeze of the trigger until her weapon had belched almost twenty rounds. Damon thrashed under the torrent of fire and crumpled back into the pool of blood around him with a sticky splash.

Kaira stood wide-eyed, legs akimbo, sucking in a few mouthfuls of acrid gun-smoke. She coughed and looked to Kawauso and Avinglad, who both stared back at her stupidly.

"Nh-heh, fuck," somehow a gravelly voice cut through the ringing in her ears, and Kaira jumped with a start as she looked to its source. "You just don't get it, do you?"

Damon had propped himself up on his elbows and was grinning manically.

How?

"Let me put things in simple terms for you all," Damon began with a throaty chuckle.

"No thank yeh!" Avinglad declared, somehow regaining his composure. The wolf all but leaped to his feet, towering over everyone else in the room as he trained his cocked weapon on the fox sprawled out on the floor. "Let me put this in simple terms for you, cur!" the Scotsman asserted while Kaira watched in stunned silence. "Ah dinnae ken how, exactly, but ah'm damned certain this time ah'll send ye tae Hell!"

In spite of his confident announcement, Avinglad didn't pull the trigger. Damon, for his part, groaned and rose slowly to his feet.

He's standing back up! How can he stand back up?!

As Damon stood, the blood pooled on the floor somehow traveled with him. It...crawled_up his body,_ somehow, and even the blood matting Kaira's fur and clothing seeped back out onto the floor, the stains disappearing as the life-essence returned to its point of origin. The gore nearest Damon twirled lazily through the air in crimson strands that slithered back into the wounds riddling the fox's body. Then those openings knit themselves shut. Slugs ejected themselves from his body to clink impotently on the floor while fox teeth came rattling across the concrete until they spiralled through the air to return home to Damon's muzzle. All the while, the lone light in the room flickered and sputtered frantically, casting the scene in eerie strobe lighting.

When it was over, there was a skulking look to the fox-creature before them; he didn't rise fully but kept his back hunched, fur bristled like a cornered animal. His left wrist dangled, still cuffed to the chair.

"And how will you do that, pray tell?" he chided Avinglad, "again with the silver bullets? The fuck do you take me for - a vampire?"

"Let's find out, yeah?" Avinglad snarled. Then the roar of his Desert Eagle deafened Kaira.

Avinglad's shot clipped Damon in the shoulder.

"Not-" the fox spun, a fresh ribbon of blood trailing in a spiral from the wound.

"Just-" using that momentum, Damon carried himself in a 360 degree spin, swinging the chair around in a wide arc.

"Yet!" On completing the spin, there was a flash, the sound of chain links breaking, and the chair hurtled through the air. Avinglad didn't manage to put his arms up in time, so it crashed into him, the back of the chair striking him in the head. The big wolf tumbling painfully to the floor, rolling into Kawauso and tangling the both of them in a heap of curses and groans.

Now that Kaira could get a better look at Damon she realized he'd severed the handcuffs with his sword - or a sword, at least. Where did he get that from?! Kaira swiftly took stock of the corner where they'd deposited Damon's possessions: the sword they had confiscated was nowhere to be seen. It didn't look anything like the vicious, toothed blade the fox had somehow made materialize, and yet...

"So there's three of you, eh?" Damon assessed while he tested the heft of his weapon. He brandished it before the dumbstruck feline and her injured compatriots. Kaira stood transfixed, unsure whether to fight or flee. She watched in horrified fascination as Damon's latest injury mended itself. "Wonderful," the vulpine nightmare continued, "Hm...now where's the fourth?"

Suddenly there was a clattering racket as the door to the storage unit was thrown open. Kaira turned to see Théo scowling while he secured the shutter overhead; in his free paw he gripped a pistol.

"No, not you," Damon commented dryly.

Théo cocked an eyebrow uncertainly at the scene before him: the tangle of otter and wolf that groaned as it tried to undo itself, Kaira's slack-jawed expression and the manic fox crouched in the centre of the room. The Frenchman made as if to speak, but he was cut off when the light hanging from the centre of the storage unit abruptly shattered. It was then Damon struck.

Kaira barely had time to register how fast the fox was. To Théo's credit, the rat managed to pop off a shot as Damon sped toward him. Hot blood spattered on Kaira's face, but Damon's headlong rush didn't even falter. He spun, his sword flashed, and Théo's outstretched arm was thrice severed before he could squeeze the trigger a second time.

The Parisian staggered back in stunned silence, his mouth forming a scream while blood spurted from the clean stump where his arm had been. The only sound Théo managed to form, however, was a gurgled as Damon struck again. The fox's silvered blade was stained crimson as it flickered through the air. Like a viper's tongue, it moved in a series of strokes almost too fast to see. When it finished, Théo's body toppled to the floor in dozens of pieces that scattered in different directions.

Damon turned slowly from the gory heap of rat-meat he'd carved, his face split even wider by a wicked, rictus grin. Kaira blanched.

"Now then, where were we?" Damon rasped curiously. "You look nervous, my dear - Kaira, isn't it? Kaira Steinherz..."

"H-how do you," Kaira gasped, jarred by the creature's use of her name. "Scheisse...you bastard..." She took a half-step back and stumbled, her limbs remembering how to move only for them to turn to jelly on her. Damon chuckled and took a full step forward.

"How do I know your name? Don't be so surprised, luv - I know all about you...all of you, my little pets..." Those wide, wild eyes of Damon's wandered away from Kaira, and she followed his gaze to see that Kaw had risen to his knees. Avinglad remained on the floor; he seemed to be suffering a concussion.

"Not...so fast, there," the otter panted and winced, clearly still winded and hurting. Nonetheless, in one hand he held a pistol - an elegant USP Match - and trained it on Damon. It was more than Kaira could manage at that moment, to Kaw's credit.

"Take another step towards any of us and I'll...I'll riddle you with holes." Kawauso threatened uncertainly. Damon managed to grin yet wider, somehow, before adopting a look of mock horror.

"Oh no - not that. Hah!" he spat, "come on, otter. Among the things I know about you, I know you're the last one here to shoot me. You're sick at the sight of blood. You won't kill me...but it's not just your weak stomach holding you back. Or that reward. Hell, it's not even that you won't because you can't_._"

"Oh no?" Kaw managed to steady himself, but he couldn't seem to rise to his feet, so he cocked the hammer on his weapon instead. "Why then, smart guy?"

"Jonathan Gauthier," was all the fox replied, his teeth gleaming.

It seemed that name was the only shield Damon needed.

"W...what?" Kawauso reeled suddenly, as though he'd been physically struck. His weapon wavered; the barrel lowered. Damon tossed back his head with a gleeful cackle.

"Haha! It's true, isn't it? Bloody brilliant - I can see straight through you! All of you! So much knowledge at my fingertips...so much power! And with only the three of you here! Seems coming to Paris really did pay off..."

"So ye saw this comin', aye?" A deafening shot rang out, and Kaira and Kaw both flinched from the sound and the brilliant muzzle flash that accompanied it. Avinglad strode past them, steady even though he was bleeding from his fresh head wound. The wolf carried on as he fired another round that sent Damon staggering back, then another, and yet three more, smiting most of Damon's head and chest to bloody ruin and dropping the fox in a heap next to Théo's remains.

Avinglad strode right up to Damon's feet and inspect the fox for a moment before ejecting his weapon's spent magazine. Kaira's ears were ringing so loudly she hardly heard it hit the floor.

"What the Hell's wrong wi' the two of ye?" Avinglad demanded, his voice muffled and distant as he whirled on Kaira and the otter. "What're ye sittin' around for?" He looked to Kawauso, and so did Kaira: the Canadian fellow remained on his knees, cradling his head in his arms, though it seemed he was more distraught over what Damon had said to him than the din of Avinglad's gunfire.

"He can't know that...no one can know that," the mustelid muttered frantically, and Kaira only just heard it over her lingering tinnitus. Avinglad rolled his eyes.

"He picked a fine time to go helpless on us. What about you, lass?" he asked, looking to her.

Kaira blinked once, twice, then shook her head once she remembered she could speak.

"N-Nein...I was just...how did he know meine name...?" She furrowed her brow and stole a glance past Avinglad at Damon's blood-soaked remains. "...Is he dead?" she wondered, still in shock.

"Nngh, don't count on it," the fox groaned, sitting up as his body somehow pulled itself together again. "As for your name, Kaira, luv, that's not all I know. Care to learn how your precious Konstantin died?"

"You...bastard!" Kaira choked. She'd stumbled farther back into the storeroom in alarm when Damon rose again, but her surprise burned away in a sudden flare of anger at the mention of that name.

"Oh he lasted quite a while. Had plenty of fun with 'im before I called it quits. Tight fit, that'n. Die Schwuler stammelte ein gebet-" gunfire erupted again, drowning out the fox's words.

Avinglad looked up in alarm, having only just reloaded his own weapon. For her part, Kaira hadn't even noticed she'd drawn one of her P2000 pistols. A red haze had engulfed her, clouding the feline's senses. All she could see was the fox before her while she advanced, squeezing the trigger over and again.

"Halt die klappe! RAAAH!!!" In her rage, however, Kaira was impotent. Her first shot went wide, only clipping Damon, and the fox used the momentum from the shot's recoil to spin his legs and flip up onto his feet, moving with uncanny speed so as to evade the rounds that followed.

"Haha! Try again when you learn to steady your aim!" he taunted, scampering off into the maze of storage lockers. Kaira did her best to track his path before he disappeared down the hall, but in spite of releasing a hail of gunfire she didn't manage so much as a graze.

When the slide kicked back on her pistol, Kaira snarled and tossed the spent weapon aside carelessly. In its place she gripped her PDW again, ejecting the clip she'd near emptied into Damon and slamming home a fresh replacement. With a roar, Kaira took off at a sprint in pursuit of her prey.

"Steady, lass, we'll need tae coordinate to take the braw beastie - oy, lassie!" Avinglad's words were lost on Kaira as she sped off in pursuit of the demonic creature. He snarled in frustration and turned to glare down at Kawauso. "Otter! Are ye no' helpin' us?!"

"Y-yeah," the lutrine lad groaned shakily. He wobbled, standing slowly, but made a show of brandishing his pistol. "I...I'm sorry, I-"

"Stow it," Avinglad grunted. He touched a couple fingers to his brow and grimaced when they came away bloody. No wonder; feels like it's near split in half... He couldn't let that stop him now, though. Not when Kaira was about to get herself killed. "We'll need to find Damon b'fore he finds the lass."

"And...how will we do that?" Kaw wondered. Avinglad shot him a glare and the otter shrugged: "honest question," he stated.

"We'll follow the lights," Avinglad stepped into the corridor - mindful of the poor lad's corpse there - and inclined his head toward the high ceiling. The banks of fluorescent lights hanging overhead were flickering, each set blinking more rapidly than the last the farther they led away from the two hunters and off in the direction in which Kaira had pursued their mutual quarry.

"...Fair enough," Kawauso conceded, having caught up with Avi. The Scotsman only grunted an acknowledgement, too concerned with pressing forward and checking the corners of the nearest intersection between store-rooms.

"You take the left; ah'm goin' right," Avinglad said with a glance back at the otter and a look in either direction. He waited just long enough to see Kaw give a nod of comprehension before rounding his designated corner, weapon at the ready.

Avinglad didn't expect to be able to kill Damon per se - that, he suspected, would be a much more involved process than merely shooting him. He'd shot him enough now by this point, however, to conclude that doing so would at least buy him valuable time. Avinglad tried to conjure up what might be the best use of that time, but the pounding ache in his head made it impossible to think. Instead, the wolf focussed on the task at hand: making sure that Damon didn't escape and that none of them died in the effort. Not that Kaira's making this any bloody easier, he lamented, wondering what else could go wrong.

It was just then, after rounding another corner and losing sight of the otter entirely, that the lights gave out altogether. They'd been flickering ever more frantically the farther Avinglad crept into the bowels of the storehouse, but then all at once the lot of them seemed to burn out in unison, casting much of his surroundings in darkness.

"Bollocks," Avinglad growled, curling his lip in disapproval. There was still some daylight streaming in from windows along the exterior walls, but it wasn't enough to illuminate the whole facility and it hadn't been a particularly sunny afternoon to begin with. He crept along even more carefully, one paw trailing the nearest wall. Then he heard it:

"Kommen Sie hier, meine fuchs..." Soft, lilting, but more importantly close-by. She's not dead yet, at least, Avi thought. He hurried along in a dogged trot to ensure that remained the case. The next thing Avinglad's keen ears picked up sent an immediate chill down his spine.

"Ich bin hier, mein kätzchen..." There was no mistaking that voice. If that wasn't reason enough to hurry, the sound of a sudden struggle and a burst of gunfire set Avinglad into a sprint. The muzzle flashes had briefly illuminated an upcoming corner almost bright as day; when Avi rounded it he had his weapon at the ready and had no trouble training it on his prey.

Damon had Kaira trapped against the wall. She'd been disarmed, her MP7's strap tangled around Damon's sword, which quivered still where it had been driven into the wall beside them. Damon held Kaira by the neck, pinned like an insect, her boots uselessly scuffing the vertical surface behind her. It reminded Avinglad of those poor bastards at Notre Dame only a few nights before and set his blood boiling.

"Hmm, now this is familiar," the fox crooned. "Can't kill you, of course...but oh what fun we could have..." He was speaking to Kaira, evidently unconcerned that Avinglad had rounded the corner and trained a weapon on him. The Scot saw fit to remedy that.

"Not likely," he interrupted, manually cocking the hammer on his large pistol while he took a few steps forward. He remained at arms' length from Damon, but even that was closer than he liked. Still, it was plenty close enough to keep his firearm trained on the fox's head.

"You really know how to kill the moment, don't you?" Damon lamented with a sigh, finally giving Avinglad a cursory, sidelong glance. It was just enough for the otter to come up behind the vulpine undetected. Sneaky bugger. Avinglad wasn't complaining, though; he smirked when Kaw trained his own weapon on Damon from the fox's other side.

"He's known for that," Kaw affirmed in response to Damon's observation, adding: "let her go."

"Or what?" Damon scoffed. "You'll_kill _me? Hah!"

"I'll try, if he won't," Avinglad responded with a taut grimace.

"You're welcome to!" Damon glanced to and fro at the wolf and otter flanking him from either side, grinning that maniac grin. All the while, Kaira thrashed in his grasp, trying in vain to buck free. Perhaps Kaw and Avi's distraction provided the opportunity she'd needed. In a final bid for freedom the feline managed to bring one of her knees up under Damon's muzzle with a solid crack before planting her boot on his chest and kicking him back with all her might. This freed her from the fox's clutches and sent him stumbling back a few steps -that was all they'd needed.

Avinglad and Kawauso turned almost in unison, flanking Kaira as they opened fire on Damon. The vociferous roar of gunshots and their brilliant muzzle flashes in the darkness overwhelmed Avinglad's senses. After three squeezes of the trigger he relented. Kaw seemed similarly disoriented, and the otter also abated after popping off a few shots. In the oppressive stillness that followed, Avi coughed and waved a paw to clear away the wafting gun smoke. He snarled in frustration when he was able to see through it: Damon was gone.

"Fuck!" he swore, blinking hard to clear the after-image of the muzzle flashes from his vision. He looked irately down the corridor to either side, then to his companions when he failed to locate the fox.

"You alright?" Kaw wondered. He had knelt down beside Kaira, who clutched at her throat, coughing and breathing hoarsely. Red oozed through her fingers, indicating Damon's talons had gouged her, but the injury didn't seem fatal.

"Ich...I will be fine, otter," the cat insisted.

Himself satisfied with that answer, Avinglad trotted back to where he'd rounded the corner and turned again, bringing his weapon to bear as he again checked all possible lanes of fire.

"Where did ye get to, daemon?!" He demanded. Unnervingly, the fox answered his call with a twisted cackle that seemed to well up from every dark corner of the building, echoing through the complex. Just as swiftly, the laughter died away, leaving them in silence. Avinglad wrinkled his nose and spat defiantly on the floor.

"If ye two are quite done there, will ye no lend me a hand findin' the bastard?!" he turned to address his fellow hunters in frustration.

"Vhat," Kaira was holding her throat still, but she climbed unsteadily to her feet on her own, refusing Kawauso's assistance. "What the fuck would you like us to do, exactly?" she wondered with some effort to express the words. "Kill him? I don't think this is so easy as I first assumed, ja?"

"Not outright, at least," Avinglad admitted, his mind racing. "Help me trap the cunt. If ah can sever that son o' a bitch's head, well - we'll go from there, d'ye ken?" It seemed as good an idea to him as any. Kawauso was less credulous.

"...Sever?" The mustelid balked. "You want to cut his fuckin' head off?!"

"'Ave ye got a better idea, lad?" Avinglad challenged. He glowered at Kaw while holstering his sidearm and freeing his battle-axe from the straps holding it across his back. Firearms were hardly proving effective under their current circumstances, and the wolf was confident from past experience that he could use his blade well enough against Damon in these close quarters.

"No, we don't," Kaira answered for both of them. "We'll help you corral him. Ja, otter?" Kaw opened his mouth to respond but was cut short by another swell of laughter from the shadows. The three of them tensed up and looked around anxiously, but no one seemed able to pinpoint its source.

"Vampire, demon, highlander - you lot have no idea what you're up against, do you?" Damon crowed mockingly. Avinglad sneered back at the darkness and called out in reply,

"Why don't ye show yerself, fucker, an' maybe we'll find out?"

"Couldn't agree more, mate!" A chill ran up Avinglad's spine as he realized each of the fox's syllables grew louder behind him.

Avinglad turned just in time to avoid a strike from Damon's sword. The wolf snarled, regained his footing, and then brought his axe crashing down with a swing that sent chunks of concrete flying. Damon had streaked by and rolled nimbly, tumbling like an acrobat. The fox skidded to a halt and returned in a lunge, which Avi managed to sidestep as he tugged his weapon free from the floor. He hadn't room to swing the axe, but Avinglad brought one fist up into his adversary's gut, which winded Damon momentarily and allowed the wolf to knock the fox's sword aside.

Pressing his advantage, Avinglad was about to raise his blade when a shot rang out and Damon crumpled to the floor. Avi turned to see Kaira bearing down on both of them, her pretty face broken up by a snarl while she emptied the rest of her clip into the fox's writhing form on the floor. By the time she reached Avinglad's side had abandoned the submachine gun on its sling and drawn a pistol.

"I'll thank ye for that, lass," Avinglad panted.

"Just hurry up mit your axe, wolf," Kaira grunted, cocking her weapon. "All I have left is one of meine side arms."

"So...what's the plan?" Kaw had sidled up next to them. Avinglad tested the heft of his axe, his arms still aching from the impact of slamming it into the floor. He gazed down at Damon's bleeding body.

"Just...hold 'im in place," the wolf growled. "Ah don't want anythin'...strange to happen while ah'm tryin' tae remove the lad's head, alright?"

"...Alright," Kawauso replied with a groan.

"You'll manage, lad?" Avinglad wondered of the otter.

"Yeah, just...get it over with," Kaw replied glumly. "I'll puke when all's said and done..." For the time being, at least, he appeared capable of steeling himself. Squatting next to Damon, Kawauso set his pistol aside for a moment to grasp one of the fox's forearms with both hands, bracing one leg against Damon's torso and leaning away from the body.

"Right. Lass?"

"I'm ready," the German responded, already crouching on Damon's other side to restrain him in a fashion similar to the Canadian. Avinglad navigated around them to stand by Damon's head, examining their vulpine captive for a moment. The fox was still riddled with holes and the pool of blood seeping around him showed no sign that the bleeding was stopping. Still, Avi didn't trust Damon, and he was ready to get the whole process over with.

At least if I behead him that should put a stop to his ability to regenerate, for a time, Avinglad surmised. He really had nothing concrete on which to base that notion. Plenty of folklore suggested, however, that beheading was just the sort of method for dealing with a variety of supernatural creatures. Confronted with Damon's capabilities, Avinglad figured there had to be a kernel of truth somewhere in all those legends.

"Right," Avinglad said again, hefting his axe. He took a few practice swings, stopping the blade short of a full drop to make sure he was lining up with Damon's neck. "Here...goes..."

"Nothing!" Damon snarled and suddenly gripped Kaw and Kaira by their respective shirt collars, pulling the pair together over top of him to bash their heads against one another. When they reeled from the impact, Damon gave a tug on them both to hoist himself up onto his feet - just in time to dodge Avinglad's rehearsed swing.

The shock of another impact with the concrete floor wracked Avinglad's entire body, and he barked in frustration as all he had to show for his effort was a great tuft of Damon's hair he'd snagged as the fox sprang to his feet.

"Whoops! Heh, you'll have to do better'n that, mate," Damon taunted. Avinglad left his weapon embedded in the floor; his arms protested too much for him to pull it free. Instead he drew his pistol again, leveling it at the grinning fox while Kaira and Kawauso sat flat on their tails and clutched at their heads in pain.

"Maybe ah'll fill ye full of holes again, hm?" Avinglad suggested, as the previous injuries Damon has sustained once again mended themselves. Even the silver hair Avinglad had cut away from his head whisked itself back into place. "Ye seem tae have trouble with that, at least!" For a few seconds, at any rate - but I only have so much ammunition... Damon cocked his head quizzically and looked at Avinglad as though the wolf were a moron.

"Bullets are hard to dodge," he stated, matter-of-fact. "I'm immortal, not omnipotent. Not yet."

"Good to know," Avinglad sneered, willing to take what he could get. "Have fun with these, then!"

For all his complaining, Damon seemed to have little trouble dodging the shots Avinglad managed to pop off. The fox rolled nimbly to one side and rushed Avi, taking a running leap over Kaw's prone form to bat his opponent's pistol aside. He barreled into the large wolf in a flying tackle that should hardly have fazed Avinglad, but the next thing the Scot knew he'd been slammed back into a wall, winded.

"Nnnhehehe, I was ready for you to take those shots, though," Damon revealed. "Better luck next time."

Gasping for breath, Avi was still trying to make sense of what had happened when he felt a sharp, sudden pain that made him groan in alarm. Looking down, he saw that Damon's wicked, talon-like claws had sunken into his chest. Unable to struggle free, Avinglad grabbed onto Damon's throat with one of his broad paws, clamping down with all his might to crush the fox's windpipe, if he could. Determined not to give up, Avi spat in the monster's face while they tried to crush the life from one another.

"Ah'll find...some way tae kill ye, fox! Ye c'n bet...yer fuckin' fur on it," he promised, wincing as he struggled to push off from the wall. In spite of his greater bulk, Damon had him trapped.

"Oh?" Damon grinned in amusement while he should have had the life choked from him. "How...will you...manage that, when I claw...your...guts out?" Those claws sank deeper still, and when Damon gave his hand a vicious twist Avinglad cried out at the pain that shot through his chest. He relinquished his hold on the fox, instead bracing against the wall at his back, bucking desperately to push away from it, to break free from his captor's clutches. A cackle in his ear made Avinglad's eyes snap open and he realized that Damon had pressed right up against him to whisper:

"Course, I'm not gonna kill you, mate. Not yet - you're too important. It's taken too long to get everything in place as it is. Hurting you, though? That's another story-"

He might have said more, but instead Damon yelped in surprised as his head was jerked back forcibly. Kaira had a firm grip on a handful of the fox's pale hair, using that to get a knife to his throat.

"Und even if we can't kill you, meine fuchs, we can try. Over und over again, ja? We have all night..."

"No, you don't," Damon replied with an exasperated eye-roll. He slammed his head back into Kaira's muzzle, breaking her nose with an audible snap. The German feline recoiled from the blow, slicing the side of Damon's neck in the process, but he didn't seem bothered in the slightest by the injury. Instead, he took advantage of the brief respite to drive a solid punch into Avinglad's throat.

Stars exploded across Avinglad's field of vision. He sucked in a greedy breath as he felt the claws withdraw from his chest, but the inhalation caught in his throat. He was barely able to register slumping to the floor after his legs gave out and his body went limp. With weak, trembling fingers the wolf pawed at his neck while sobbing for breath.

He tried to look up at his adversary. When the starbursts faded from his eyes, however, only darkness greeted him, as Avinglad slipped into unconsciousness.

Richard's head was still spinning while Damon scuffled with the others, but gradually the otter managed to rise to his feet. He looked up just in time to see Kaira stagger back against a shutter door, clutching her face as a geyser of blood erupted from her muzzle. Avinglad, for all his brawn and bulk, never managed to break free from where Damon had him trapped against the wall. Instead the fox delivered a sharp blow to the wolf's throat, dropping him in a heap of ragged gasps.

Perfect.

Without anyone else to get in the way, Richard gripped his pistol in both paws and sighted down it at the fox, just in time for him to turn. They locked eyes with one another. Damon grinned.

"This has been fun and all, mate, but I'm leaving. You gonna stop me?"

Yes, Richard wanted to scream in defiance. Instead he hesitated, trembling under Damon's baleful gaze. He sucked in a shaking breath.

"I'm sure as shit gonna try," he said, less confidently than he would have liked. Damon smiled obligingly and stood there in the middle of the hall, arms wide, bare chest exposed.

"Get it out of your system, then," the fox goaded.

Richard didn't hesitate after that.

He'd lost track of how many rounds he had left in his magazine, but it didn't matter. Nor did he care any longer for his reservations about violence, or his uneasy stomach at the sight of blood. Instead he vented, expelling all his rage and frustration at Damon in a series of bright flashes and roaring bangs. He kept pulling the trigger until the pistol's slide locked back and he couldn't any longer.

"Stop fuckin' around with me, you! You fuck! Why...won't...you...DIE?!"

Damon wavered on his feet unsteadily, unbalanced in the aftermath of the salvo. It only took a moment or two before, predictably, his ravaged body once again made itself whole. He tittered.

"Nheh, heheh...t-too much left to do, first," the fox replied, lifting his gaze to meet Richard's once again while his shattered muzzle reformed layer by layer. "Don't w-orry, Rick, mate," Damon reassured, enunciating more clearly once his face was intact, "it'll all make sense, soon."

"Or it won't," the fox admitted, shrugging off that possibility. "Who knows? Well, I do - hah! Either way...the end is very fucking nigh." Richard still had his useless weapon trained on Damon, if only because he didn't know what else to do. Even had it not been for his pistol's demonstrated ineffectiveness, however, there was something in the cold certainty of the vulpine's statement that frightened Richard far more than anything else he'd seen that evening. With a sob of despair, the otter fell to his knees, letting his firearm clatter on the floor. Damon seemed to take that as his queue to exit.

"Now if you'll excuse me," said the fox with a sombre, dramatic bow. He turned and strode off into the shadows, adding one pithy remark, "I'm taking back my stuff, by the way," before disappearing around a corner.

Richard fell forward onto his hands and knees, cursing his own helplessness and the shared failure of Avinglad, Kaira and himself.

"Son of a bitch," Richard growled, bunching his paws into fists.

"You...you led hib go," Kaira observed. He looked up to see her glowering at him while gingerly cradling her bleeding nose.

"Yeah, well, didn't seem like anyone else was ready to step up to the plate," Richard retorted.

Before Kaira could respond, a thunderous boom reverberated throughout the entire building. Otter and cat both nearly jumped out of their skin, and then looked to one another with wide-eyed stares that confirmed the both of them wondered the same thing: what the hell was that?

A blast of hot air came up the hall down which Damon had disappeared, the force of the shockwave that accompanied it nearly bowling Richard over. That air stank of fire and brimstone. It was enough to rouse Avinglad, and in spite of their being at odds with one another Richard was relieved to see that the wolf was alright. Or, at least, still alive. The otter made his way over to Avi and steadied him with a paw on his shoulder while the big fellow came to.

"Are you alright?" Richard wondered.

"Och, ah'm fine, lad...how's the lass?" Avinglad waved him away and slowly climbed to his feet, wincing all the while.

Perfectly content to let Avi be, Richard turned his attentions to Kaira. This time the feline graciously accepted some help in picking herself up. Her bloody nose was still streaming like a waterfall and Richard had to avert his gaze to hang on to whatever remained of his breakfast.

"Meine...my node ith broken," Kaira assessed accurately. "Issh...will be...okay." In spite of her bravado, however, she seemed more than willing to lean on Richard's shoulder after he helped her up.

"Right, so...what happened?" Avinglad wondered, shaking his head, clearly still trying to make sense of his surroundings.

"Well, I'm no expert," Richard said as a disclaimer, "but judging by that explosion and the subsequent increase in temperature, I think that crazy shithead set the building on fire." This was further evinced, in Richard's layman opinion, by the unsettling orange glow at the end of the hall that was growing in intensity. Briefly Richard wondered why the automated sprinkler system hadn't kicked in, but then he thought back on how the power had gone on the fritz to coincide with Damon's latest...incident. Had that happened before, too?

Unfortunately he didn't have time for the luxury of reflecting back on that first encounter. Avinglad seemed to take his assessment at face value, thankfully, and turned to begin shambling in the direction of the entrance after gathering his belongings.

"Hhf...let's...och - let's get back to the van, lad; lass. We'll...find somewhere t'lick our wounds...lay low for the night." Kaira murmured her agreement while motioning toward her own belongings scattered across the floor. Richard paused long enough to gather them before continuing to provide support for their female companion, both of them stumbling along in Avi's wake.

"Just as well we don't head back to the tavern," Richard chimed in, "I ah...I don't think we'll want to show our faces around there any time soon, in light of recent...events." Avinglad grunted.

"Aye, well...tomorrow...tomorrow's another day, eh lad?"

"Yeah," Richard replied almost without thinking, but then he couldn't help but recall what Damon had said just minutes ago: the end is very fucking nigh. He wasn't sure why those words had held such a dread import when the unhinged fox uttered them, but they stuck with Richard all the same, so he added, "I hope so."