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Damian watched the police cars arrive through the eyes of the agent he's left to watch over Steel Link Security and cursed his brothers. This was them, it had to be. Denton's only other enemy who could mass this kind of attack was the Gray Church, and they weren't ready to go against him yet.

He'd been alerted to something being wrong when he felt power surge close to his blood. He couldn't see what was happening there, but that kind of power meant the wards surrounding his blood had been attacked. He'd had no choice. He sent power through his connection to it and turned the little vial into an explosive.

Damian didn't know if Denton had put the wards to keep him from doing anything to the blood, but he'd forgotten one of the rule of their magic. A direct connection to someone's fluid allowed them to bypass any sort of wards. And Damian could not, not be connected to his blood. Obfuscating the remote watcher they had on him would have been easy.

He cursed his brothers again. Denton had barely had his blood for a week. That was nowhere near enough time for the goodwill behind giving it to him to mean anything. No, when he got back to Denver, he would have to come up with another way of convincing that they were both on the same side.

Why? Boiling blood--no, he didn't like that curse-- why had they don it? Damian had told Denton the truth when he said Donald and Daniel would come after him, those two never let go of a grudge, but they weren't idiots. They would have sent someone in to reconnoiter, so they know about the large number of Society men within the building. Even only playing the odds, there would be too many of them with a useful power for a group of twenty to win.

So what had been the point? Their goal?

It couldn't be his blood. He had been careful those two didn't become aware he was back. He expected that one of their agent had heard about the work around the blood, decided that made it important and took it upon themselves to acquire it.

The car came to a stop. He'd have to work out why they'd attack after he'd dealt with this.

The door to the limousine opened, and he stepped out. "Find a quiet place to wait for us," he told the driver. "This may take some time." The sheep nodded and got back in the car. It drove away, leaving Damian with the man in a cassock. "Are your people ready?"

The wolf checked his phone. "Yes, my men are already inside with the tools they'll need."

Damian smiled and motioned toward the cathedral. "Then please lead the way."

Young men loitered around the large double doors, behaving as if they had nothing better to do with their time than sneering at anyone passing by. The bulge under their arm, or at the back of their jacket, as well as their far too attentive eyes gave them away as more than rebellious youth.

A ceremony was in process, a chorus of parishioner singing praises to a non-existent god who made false promises. The acoustics in the nave were still quite impressive.

His priest spoke with a man guarding a hidden door. This one wasn't camouflage as something else. The only concession to the location was that his armor was cut to look like a suit. The wolf indicated Damian and spoke again in a low voice.

The bear eyes Damian, then turned, hiding the keypad and unlocked the door. Damian followed his priest up the stairs, the melodious voices dropping to a low murmur once the door closed. Great acoustics and sound dampening. Once he was a god, he would make sure to be worshiped here. The music of an orgy here would be divine.

His priest knocked at a nondescript door and it opened, a very young beaver poked his head through the gap. He looked at Damian, then his priest.

"I know we don't have an appointment," the wolf said, "But Mister MacVoy came all the way from Scotland to speak with Cardinal Ben Namer."

"What about?" the beaver asked.

Damian smiled and spoke with a noticeable Scottish accent. "I've heard of the work the Monsignor is doing with the local Scottish community and I wanted to discuss how I could help with that work."

"Help?" the beaver asked.

Damian smiled. "Gifts of money."

The beaver's eyes lit up. "Just give me a moment."

Greed, works every time. It was almost depressing how reliable that vice was. Less than a minute later the door opened, and the beaver motioned them inside. Damian's priest stayed by the beaver as the door closed.

The office was luxurious in an understate way, a variety of important church items tucked away on the shelves, pictures of the cardinal with the pope and other important people. Damian was impressed by the one of him and the president. She wasn't known for being a religious person.

The donkey offered his hand as he stepped to Damian. "Mister MacVoy, it is a pleasure to meet you. It's always good to meet one of the faithful who wishes to help."

Damian took the hand in his and smiled. "There's so few of us left, isn't there."

The cardinal had a moment of confusion then caught himself. "It does feel like this is an age of heathen, but I have no doubt we will be able to bring them back under god's guidance."

"Guidance might be a strong word, but I have no doubt that with your help, Sahataan will rise again."

The donkey tried to recoil, but Damian held his hand, pulled him to him and elbowed him in the throat. Behind him the beaver spoke up, only to have his voice muffled.

Damian dragged the donkey to a chair and zip-tied him to it.

"Who?" the cardinal managed to say

"I am your champion," Damian answered. "Send down by Sahataan to lay the groundwork for him to rise again. For him to take all the good work you and your brethren did and make him supreme. With your sacrifice, we will be the only faithful on this world."

The donkey fought against his bonds.

"Not evocative enough?" Damian asked. He looked to the wolf who was holding the beaver. "Should I avoid mentioning the sacrifice part next time? That's what Sahataan is about, you'd think his priests would know they'll be reconnoiter to make more sacrifice at some point in his name."

He looked at the donkey who now looked terrified.

"Do you have any idea who I am?" he said.

Damian place a hand on the cardinal's shoulder. "You are but a humble servant of Sahataan, god of blood and sacrifice. The reason you climbed so high among this church he insinuated himself in, or have you forgotten the pact you made with him after all these years?" Damian tapped the donkey's left pectoral, feeling the marks of power under the fabric. "Don't move, I need to prepare things before I get to you."

Damian undressed and the donkey gasps.

"Please," Damian said, "this can't be the first time you've seen a naked man." He noticed the donkey was looking at his chest. "Ah, yes, this is what true devotion looks like. Not the few scribbles you put on yourself."

He took the beaver from the wolf. "Move the rug against the wall then call your people in." He looked in the beaver's eyes. "Tell me, are you one of the faithful? Or one of the conned?" the beaver couldn't seem to get words out. "One of the conned it is. Don't worry, this will redeem you in His eyes. Sahataan is kind for his sacrifices as much as he is to his priests. In Him you will live for all eternity."

The beaver's eyes widen and his fighting diminished. Damian smiled kindly. This one worked better. It still needed work, but this wasn't the last of the sacrifice he'd do before all this was over. He'd get the ceremonial phrasing perfect in time. Get it so they would kneel before him and offer their neck willingly for Sahataan's glory.

"The space is ready," the wolf said, taking out his phone and heading for the door.

Damian studied the space, found the middle of it and took his ceremonial knife from his clothes. The beaver fought him again as Damian dragged him to his proper place. Once there, he sliced the beaver's neck open.

"Dear God!" the donkey yelled. "What are you doing?"

"This isn't one of those things you can power with the sacrifice of a little blood. This demands the ultimate sacrifice."

The beaver tried to keep the blood from flowing out of him and onto the floor.

"What kind of monster are you? He's just a boy, an innocent."

Damian glanced at the donkey. "Really? You haven't used him yet? Are you going to tell me he's a virgin too? Are you one of those who believes there's power in that? That abstinence makes the blood more potent? You guys are really big on deluding yourselves, aren't you?" He put a toe in the blood and traced a line with it, then another. He moved around the beaver, almost dancing with him. "Giving yourself over to Sahataan means sacrificing your ability to have sex, you shouldn't wrap that in false devotion." Damian smiled. "But then again. If there's one thing the Gray Church just loves if wrapping itself in falsehood. Right?"

The donkey didn't answer him, his nose, lips and ears were drained of color.

By the time the beaver was done bleeding out, lifeless in Damian's hands, the door opened and the wolf gave quiet instructions to the half-dozen men entering. One sat behind the desk, accessing it, the others stood out of the way, waiting.

Careful not to make other marks with his bloody toe Damian carried the dead beaver out of the ceremonial circle. He handed it to one of the waiting men, who pulled a tarp from a bag and started wrapping it.

Damian cut the ties and pulled the donkey up by the collar. Before the cardinal could do anything, the wolf had his hands tied again.

"I'm sorry about that," Damian said, "but you've made it clear that you don't understand the honor in this. I'd rather not have you ruin this because you consider your life to be more important than the god to whom you pledge yourself all those years ago." Damian ripped the donkey's shirt open, then paused. "I should have taken this off before tying you up again."

"I'll take care of it," the wolf said, taking a bowie knife out. In a few deft moves the donkey's chest and back was exposed.

Damian smiled and pulled the donkey to the center of the design. "Before I go on with this, yes, I know that your pledge was a means to an end. Power for the sake of power. You saw other faction wielding magic and wanted it too. You never believed in Sahataan, but that's okay, he believed in you."

Damian slashed the donkey's chest. Vicious, but precise cuts that would serve multiple purposes, the main one manifested the moment the last one was made, as the donkey froze in place in the middle of his scream.

"Don't worry, you'll feel everything. I wouldn't want to take away any of this from you. This is the culmination of everything you worked for, even if you won't be here to see the results, you can be satisfied that your part is vital in what is coming."

Damian cut his palm open and placed it on the open wounds. He pushed his blood inside the donkey, felt it mingle there, felt his power call to the cardinal's. There aren't much of it, but it wasn't the volume what was important, it was the quality of the work. And the cardinal had been excellent at forging the bonds Damian needed.

When Damian's power soaked the donkey's, he pulled it back and in spite of the paralysis mark on him, the donkey gasped as he felt his power leave him.

"Not to worry, this is almost over." Damian placed the tip of his knife against the donkey's chest. The timing had to be right, but precision was something Damian excelled at. As the last of the power left the cardinal, Damian plunged it in, enough to pierce the heart and no more. No need to leave unintended evidence that contradicted the story he wanted this to tell.

The burst of energy the death caused flowed into him, and against his desire to hoard all of it, he let a fraction flow through to Sahataan. The tithe owed him for the honor of being his follower.

He pulled the knife out and in the seconds before the body finished shutting down he slashed the chest. Masking the initial marks, destroying them, leaving the impression that fury was behind them.

The body fell to the floor, and he carefully stepped out of the circle. The men flowed around him, setting to work posing the body so it will tell the same story as the cuts.

"The evidence on the cardinal's computer is almost entirely in place," the wolf said.

Damian nodded, but didn't respond.

The ceremony hadn't been to pull the power into him. The proper method of sacrificing someone was all that was required for that. This had been to keep all the threads the cardinal had made over his long life from dissolving and releasing his agents. Damian needed them, and hopefully this man had been high enough within the Gray Church to have a specific kind of agent. One who was also a follower of Sahataan, one who had his own agents.

Damian felt along the threads to the men, and women, he was surprised to note, that had been under the cardinal's control. He fought the instinct to let go of the women. He wasn't a follower of that god anymore. Sahataan didn't discriminate. Damian would go back to only caring about men once he was that god, until then he'd make use of all the agents he had access to.

He smiled when he found the thread he was looking for. The one that glowed not only from its own power, but the power of all those the man was connected to by his own threads.

Come to me, Damian sent along the thread. You are needed. Our time is at hand, and I have work for you to do.