Buried Again, Chapter 3

                                    

                                          
'You're good, Silva,' Gaol John grunted, with the air of finally finishing something unpleasant, but necessary.

If you added an "un" before the "necessary", you'd even have a description of me!

'Thank you, sir,' I said, still sitting on the grass. 'I was going to fish for compliments today, but, since you're just doing it...'

John crossed his arms. 'I meant you're good to go, you smarmy little shit. I want your arse in Omu base as soon as possible, so you can acquaint yourself with the Crypt's senior Romanian agent,' wait, what? We'd gotten a new one? 'And so we can free this cell.'

'...It's a literal endless void. Can't you just-'

'Give you a cellmate? You want to stay here, Silva?' John crossed the half a dozen metres between us faster than I could see, leaving behind a series of red afterimages. His false flesh had sloughed away again, to reveal a skeletal, sarcastic grin. 'Then get the hell out. Sensory deprivation is considered torture for people. I've heard they're even considering extending that to things like you.'

Much as I hated his phrasing, he was right. Strigoi had the potential to go off the reservation any moment, which meant they were seen as undead time tombs across Eastern Europe, and killing one, if they were a criminal, was considered no different to putting down a dog. I remembered the psychological exam needed to get back into society after my undeath.

But then, most undead had it rough. Leaving aside the most of us couldn't sense the zombies that had no minds to think about how shit their unlives were, ghosts were almost always bags of issues obsessed with something, and ghouls were, well, ghouls and vampires. Eating and drinking their own flesh and blood could make them stronger, but it didn't sate them. They retained their sense of taste, and autophagy apparently left them with an aftertaste of cold mud. Human flesh and blood tasted the best, which was why lab-grown variants were so popular with them.

Yes, there were still people who thought both the providers and the consumers were monstrous and we should just kill them all, but then, aren't there always?

But... 'My, sir. For a ghost jenga puzzle, you're pretty damn good at throwing stones.'

'Blatter all you want, Silva. Hypocrisy is something you define when you're safe enough you don't have to worry about survival. Security risks like you, who can't control their urges? I'd kill you all if I could. ARC doesn't need chinks in its armour.'

'It lifts my heart to see you so worried about the good of the organisation.'

'I told Reem to just brainwash you, you know,' he said, raising an amused eyebrow at my surprised expression. 'If she wanted to keep you around. But, damn, I've been telling her things like that for decades. She's all heart. The fact we could actually put a leash on you, unlike Gilles' animals, makes it even worse. Sometimes, I wonder if I'm the only one who cares...'

There was no way to reply politely to this, so I changed the subject. 'I'm surprised you aren't more worried about how Chernobog can apparently just slip in and take over me-'

'We are. Hence why I've been advocating to kill you more than usual-after removing Mimir's sight, of course.'

I stared blankly at him for a few moments, causing his grin to somehow widen. 'Don't worry, David, that was just my idea. Most of the other Heads advocated for either executing you, and damn the gods, they can get mad about the sight being lost after, or removing the sight and imprisoning you until we decide what to do.' He leaned forward. 'But Reem argued that you can't be blamed for being manipulated by gods. I guess she knows what that's like. Another security risk...and Shiftskin, who begins frantically looking for his spine whenever she's present, agreed with her. Mind, he doesn't give a damn about you. You're just the latest thing he can use to court her...don't you feel honoured?'

I swallowed. 'You keep calling me "thing", and you know what? I might be a loser who felt too sorry for himself to stay dead...but you're thousands of people like me.' I grinned, only regretting the fact my shapeshifting was locked down, and I wasn't naturally ugly enough to ape his face. 'You're so obsessed with my sight? Maybe put down the restless ghost gestalt' mask when you look in the mirror.'

John snorted, shaking his head. 'Until now, only people worth a damn knew that. Go away, Silva. I've bound my senses to you, so I should be able to see when the universe is winding up for the next kick to your arse.'

Ooh, he'd always be watching me? It'd be nice to get a BDSM's expert opinion, from time to time...

He stood still, hands in the pockets of a ragged ARC jacket over a prison shirt, head bowed. As I began moving away from him, waiting for the cell's controllers to let me out, I thought to get another shot in.

'By the way, I thought you should know, as Head of Internal Affairs: your security is shit. The fucking Devil waltzed in to-'

'Satan or Lucifer?'

'I don't know,' I said, frustrated at both the fact I couldn't tell and his nonchalance. 'He seemed angry enough for the former and smug enough for the latter, but-'

'We know, Silva. We've known he's marked you since you came back from the dead again.' He gave me an ironic look over his shoulder, and I remembered the interrogations, how I'd spoken about...about my soul being judged. 'Don't you think that we'd have stopped him if we could have? It's almost like you're not the only one being moved by higher powers. Anyway...changing between aspects in one sitting is concerning, but not unusual.'

The fact he was too prideful and angry to feel both at once, which also led him to switching between powersets, had probably saved countless people over the years.

The last thing we need was a smug, literally unapproachable bastard who'd add the power of the few things able to damage him to his own.

'And, Silva? There are many people whose natures I hate, but I don't hate them. Stay in that category.'

Sure, you xenophobic arsehole. Right after you stop hating people who never heard of those who tormented your selves just because they happen to descend from them or live in their country.

***

'It's not because I'm the best option,' Rivka slumped in her chair. 'I'm just...not the worst. I think I'm just filling in, anyway, until-'

'There's no one coming to replace you, Riv,' I said, cheerful as ever. 'Not unless they pull an agent from another country, but that'd just create another vacuum to be filled, and we'd get nowhere.'

The ghoul blew out a raspberry, leaning backwards in her chair-it was made for rolling around, but also sturdy enough to withstand the many people who'd use it for far more-to stare at the ceiling. Milky grey eyes closed, fangs bared and dressed in a black shirt and combat pants, like I was, she looked like a resting shark.

'No, we wouldn't,'she said grudgingly, one clawed hand toying with her thick, black ponytail. She opened one eye to glance at me. 'Gaol John sent me a message that said he's got his eye on you,' with how many people did, I'd end up looking like a cluster of grapes. 'So I can tell you about this. How much do you know about ARC's internal structure, David?'

'Not much,' I said, annoyed. 'I've basically spent the last few years as a paid intern.'

'What, and no one told me? Go fetch me something from the freezer, Silva. I'm your boss now,' she added, holding up a finger as she shifted in her chair to look straight at me. 'We can't just keep you sitting in one place! What if your muscles atrophy?'

'I have muscles?' I blinked, looking blearily at my stretched arms.

'I once had a dog we always kept leashed, and he died! Of old age. But I doubt the lack of freedom helped with his mood.'

I sighed. Sure felt like someone's dog right now. 'Did they tell you...?'

'Yes.' Her eyes grew more serious, all mirth leaving her face. 'And I don't think you're dumb enough to think I blame you. That'd be impressive, een for you.'

'Wow, thanks...'

'You're welcome.' Her gaze softened. 'David...I can't really do anything about the fact some overpowered bully seems hellbent on fucking your life up.' Then her expression turned fierce. 'I can, however, smack you whenever you start moaning about how you don't want or deserve to live. The first is utter bullshit, or you wouldn't be here. The second? Well, you're wrong.'

I looked down at my hands. To Mimir's sight, they were red, redder than anyone's I'd ever met. 'He made me kill so many people, Rivka...'

'The Fae?' she asked softly. 'They wouldn't have seen you as a person even before your undeath. The Seelie might honour deals and warn people who've mistakenly wrong them, but they don't see anyone as an equal. They only have servants and enemies.'

I didn't say anything. Maybe all those Fae had been racist, speciesist bastards, but had they all been kidnappers? Murderers? What had they done in their Wild Hunts-those who had been on them?

'I know what you're thinking about.' Rivka had moved faster than I could perceive, as she'd been able to do since her growth in power, leaning across her desk to put a hand on my shoulder. 'And I think you're still reeling from the scale. You'd think the possession would put some separation between the deed and your feelings on it, but it seems to do the opposite.' She smiled crookedly. 'Here's an idea: you have to train your sight anyway, right? I mean, it's the only useful thing you can really do. So, why don't you check out their pasts? You'll get better at it, and probably at finding new ways to blame yourself, too.'

Fucking-why hadn't I thought about that? 'Thanks, Riv.' Then, bowing my head exaggeratedly, I added, 'The criminal always returns to the scene of the-'

Rivka's slim, calloused hand tore through my chest like paper, wrapping around my spine and snapping it in half. 'What'd I tell you?'

'I was joking!' I protested, pulling back in my visitor's chair as I healed.

'Bad joke.' Rivka's tongue darted out, blurring over the cold gore covering her hand and cleaning it up. 'Don't start spouting shit like that around people who give a damn about you.' "So feel free to do it when you talk to yourself," her tired eyes said. 'You'll remain here until we find a way to free you, provided we don't need to move you to another ARC base.'

Which meant I wouldn't be seeing anyone close to me, besides Mia, until the whole mess was over. Maybe it was for the better. I wouldn't want any of them to see me like this. Pops would...

'You were saying something about our internal structure?' I asked her in order to distract myself.

Rivka nodded. 'Your phone is being updated remotely right now, so you'll get to read through everything yourself, but, in short...ARC holds a lot of elections. I haven't been in any since my recruitment,' Rivka was nearly a decade younger than me, but had been an ARC agent since she'd become a ghoul, in her early twenties. 'Because Marcus was Romania's senior agent since shortly after ARC built bases in this country, but it goes like this: all the grunts a division has in a country choose one from among them as senior agent. These guys then choose the Heads-who, you may or may not know, haven't changed since ARC's founding, except for a few, shoe divisions were first headed by councils. There are only three ranks, to keep it simple, and no insignia, to confuse snipers. Many supernaturals can cross continents in second and communicate even faster, so there's no need for an overly-intricate command structure. We say.' She chuckled drily. 'Your probationary period would have ended before the Headhunt, if not for...well.'

Well, indeed. 'What about the Directors'"

'What about them.' Rivka rolled her eyes. 'Each country's Director is appointed by its government, usually but not always from among law enforcement or military veterans. Since they're political appointees, they're meant to make sure ARC doesn't overstep its boundaries, so they work with Internal Affairs a lot, but make no mistake: a Director liaises between us and the government more than anything else. The senior agents handle national operations.' The ghoul clasped her hands on her cheeks with exaggerated cheerfulness. "Which makes for such fun times in the countries the division headquarters are in! You should see Tamar butting heads with Israel's director. It's hilarious.'

Before I could reply, a ping caught my attention, and I took out my phone. 'Thanks for the cliff notes,' I told Rivka. 'But it seems like I've got the full package.'

The ghoul's eyebrows nearly met her hairline, and I realised my mistake. 'That zmeu's really been rubbing off on you, huh? I suppose it was inevitable.'

'H-Hey, I meant-'

'It's alright, David,' she said airily. 'I get pretty excited when I receive full packages, too. Maybe we can go pick up guys later.'

I buried my head in my hands, rubbing my face, but didn't groan. 'Am I really out of my internship if you just keep ribbing me like this?'

'By that logic, you'll never be.' Rivka lowered her voice. 'And it's a paid internship, chump. So go get me some meat.'

'Yes ma'am.'

'Maybe even a full package...'

'Alright.' By now, I was more concentrated on my phone than on her: a transformation even more horrifying than my undeath. I was turning into a modern teenager. I saw that new app, the ARChive, which had our white shield on black, with an open grey book inside it as a symbol, had been installed. I gave Rivka a questioning look.

'The book is grey because knowledge is neutral,' she said in a nasal voice. 'You can leaf through the longer synopsis on ARC later. Right now, you'll probably want to check the forum.'

Crypt section, to be exact. I'd check the Romania subsection later. I already had a profile, with my name, picture (they'd used the one from my ID, so I looked like I was caught between life and undeath, but belonged to neither) and country already filled in. But that wasn't what caught my eye. No, that came when I looked through the Crypt members list. Not all of them, obviously-ARC had millions of official agents, never mind the ones we didn't talk about-but a name still drew my attention.

'Szabo is a moderator!?'

What the ever-loving fuck did that twisted bastard prevent?

I raised my undoubtedly wide eyes to meet Rivka's amused ones. 'Please tell me you treat him as an example of what not to do...'

***

'Angus,' Constantin said stiffly as he walked forward to meet the other priest. 'I see God still burdens you.'

At two metres twenty-four, Angus was nearly half a metre taller than the Romanian, and his laugh befitted his stature. 'Burdened, am I? How, pray tell?'

Constantin felt all the eyes burning holes into his back, and resisted the urge to roll his. 'You often have to interact with people you can't stand. Trust me, I know your pain.'

Grimacing, Angus raised a huge, muscular hand, Constantin mirroring his move in response.

Then, the Irishman brought it down, clasped around the Romanian's.

'Costiii...' Angus whistled through his teeth. 'Still a morose fuck, eh? We could've broken the bloody continent with that!'

'There are many things we could do,' Constantin agreed. 'For example, you could stop swearing like a sailor when you're wearing your cloth of office.'

'Ha! Then I can stop drinkin' an' smokin' an shaggin' too, right?'

'If you wish,' Constantin said diplomatically. 'I doubt God would mind.'

'No.' Angus drew his hand back. 'No, She wouldn't. But there're worse vices to 'ave, and, as long as no one's hurt...'

Constantin knew his...friend, was extremely paranoid about sex. He only ever slept with sterile women, and even then he blessed the protection he used.

An absurd use of faithcraft, if he was one to ask, but Angus only asked for his opinion (through messages, in the last decade. Thankfully) when he wanted to know what not to do.

Constantin sighed. 'I know what you're going to say-'

'That pet corpse of yours has been getting slapped around ever since he got that hemp tie, from what the Lady tells me.' The Catholic priest grinned harshly. 'Imagine yer suicide being the happiest life of your life, huh?' His eyes grew steely. 'You should've killed him right then, Constantin. Put 'im outta everyone's misery.'

'And murdered my son?'

Angus drew in a sharp breath through clenched teeth, so that it sounded more like a whistle. 'Not yer son. Son of two worthless fucks, an' a suicide. And what's he been doing since then?'

Helping people, you lecherous fool, Constantin thought. David's day-to-day missions, the ones that had never become known to the world at large, had been nothing but that, for three years. But, of course, everyone wanted shock and controversy, something spectacular, and... 'David has found happiness. God willing, it'll help him overcome all future obstacles.'

'Tch,' Angus sneered. 'God willing, She'd smite him so the sad fuck doesn't have to hurt anymore. Have you noticed none of us are tormented like he is? The Lady's way of telling him to stop the mockery that is a strigoi fuckin' praying.' He chuckled. 'But he can't take the hint! No hint! Otherwise why'd he have started fucking that cuckolding whore-'

The Irishman swirled his shattered teeth around his blood-filled mouth, looking down at Constantin to see the shorter priest raise an eyebrow. Shaking his head with a sad smile, he healed the damage. 'I'll pretend your hand slipped, Costi.'

'Like I'm sure your tongue will again, now that I've wet it a little,' the Romanian replied.

'See? This is exactly the problem. You hear the truth an' respond with violence. You raised the little hypocritical shite to think like you, an' now he's a goddamn walkin' paradox! But, you know what? I won't get angry at you. I'll turn the other cheek-'

Angus blinked stars out of his eyes as he pulled his head free out of a pile of icy dust, watching the half of the Arctic that had been shattered by the strike drift across the ocean.

'Did that for you,' Constantin said, wiping his bloodied fist on his habit. 'Feel free to preach when you stop shaming your cloth.'

Angus got to his feet with an exasperated groan. Blind. The Romanian was blind, like the other sects, like the pagans. Blind...

'I never have,' the Irishman huffed, then turned to the gathered priests. 'What are y'all sittin' on yer arses for!? We're 'ere t' talk about crises of faith! Is the End of Days comin'? Where the goddamn fook did Chernobog's latest worshippers spring from?'

And, more urgently, he'd have to talk to the Scandinavians, about Constantin's revenant, and whether or not to change their sagas. After all, the strigoi, whether possessed or not, had murdered...

***

Asgard, Borson Cluster, 2030

'Thor.'

Sif sat in a field of golden wheat under a sky full of clouds as thick as grey as lead. To a casual observer, the goddess might have appeare to be alone, but she could feel his presence, like she had always been able to, even before their wedding.

As if in response, a breeze passed over her pauldrons, but she felt the wind under her golden armour, and it was more like the touch of a hand than anything else.

'Can you hear me?'

His shade only responded to Odin's summons, when the Allfather called it to drill the einherjar. Nowadays, with fate gone, the warriors were no longer immortal, no matter what, until Ragnarok- and if that ever came, no one was sure what form it would take.

But Sif did not care for Odin's company at the moment. And she feared the spirit he summoned was only a simulacrum of Thor, a repository of his memories, jerked upon his father's strings.

'I have asked them to make you a body, husband,' she spoke softly to the wind, which whispered in reply. 'A body of ash and earth, of lightning and thunder.'

The sky went white for an instant, then shook, as if the World Tree was going to end.

'Loki labours alongside the dwarfs, and the foreigners.' The device Sindri had thought would help find Mimir's head had only been half-finished when everything had gone wrong. The dwarf had not given up, though, altering his work instead of abandoning it. 'I fear what paths his mind would take him down, without this to focus on.'

A gale howled across the field, like a sharp, mournful sigh.

'Our children,' her voice caught a little at this. 'Have split your weapons among themselves. Magni bears your hammer, Modi your gauntlets, and Thrud your belt...'

Sif trailed off, attention drawn by a scrabbling in the ground. When she saw was the wind had carved, she couldn't hold back her laughter.

Did they give her Megingjord because she's a girl? They know I was fatter than her, right?

Yes. Her husband...could definitely hear her.

***

Rigel, 2030

The Sleeper awoke under the glare of a blue giant star. Tens of times as heavy as the sun of the world it had been banished from and tens of thousands of times as luminous, it was surrounded by a ring of softly-glowing dust: all that remained of the Sleeper's city.

But...this was wrong. The stars were wrong. They were different, not aligned. The city's destruction should have freed it, but it still felt drowsy. Why? How?

A fist the size of a moon smashed into the Sleeper's tentacled face, sending it flying through Rigel, obliterating the star.

The fist-shaped indent in the Sleeper's squamous head disappeared in moments. It had not been actually harmed, by the punch or the impact, but it had not been truly awakened either.

'Sleepy? Good! All the pay for half the work!' Maws proclaimed cheerfully. Though large enough to wrap around Earth several times, the zmeu's body was minuscule next to the Sleeper's.

This did not deter him. Nor did the Sleeper's indignant shriek, which unmade reality for light-years around, replacing it with madness that erased matter, energy, space and time alike.

'Ahhh~' Maws sighed as he flew to face the Sleeper. 'This is making me nostalgic...'

***

Sicily, Kaos Cluster, 2030

'I thought about breaking free,' Typhon rumbled. 'When you were running around after knowledge, like chickens with their heads cut off. Perhaps I will rip them off, and see if you act like that again.'

One moment, the monster's face, which filled most of Etna's interior, looked like that of a man, if enlarged to grotesque proportions, with skin black as coal and a beard as red as blood. Glancing at it, Asterion could see why he had been equated with Set.

The, the face shifted, becoming swirls of white, ribbed flesh, like curled-up maggots; a ridged expanse broken only by the unblinking eyes set in the middle. Then...

'Ignore him,' Hephaestus grunted, his soot-stained, ruddy face screwed up in concentration as he continued to cut at one of the monster's claws. 'He does that to disgust people. Too stupid to realise I'd bring my mirror along if I wanted that.'

'At least you were not created solely to be a weapon, blacksmith,' Typhon sneered. 'Then imprisoned by the enemies you failed to crush, and who harvest your body like mortals do with cattle.'

Bound by chains both adamantine and immaterial, the venom of the snakes rising from Typhon's shoulders was regularly gathered, and used to cover the Olympians' weapons.

Hephaestus shook his head, saying nothing, thick black beard swaying as he worked the adamantine file (which looked more like a saw, if anything, given its size) along a claw the size of a mountain. Ages ago, these claws had parted Zeus' flesh and armour, before Typhon had ripped out his tendons: metaphysical mutilation, for any paltry spirit could remake mere wounds of the flesh. Now, if they could fashion them into war gear

'But then my wife spoke to me,' Typhon continued. 'For the world's seas and heavens cannot fully keep us apart. She reminded me that, even if I broke free...what would I fight for? The half-slumbering, half-mad mother who birthed me because she needed a tool for revenge? The father who has never spoken to me?' The voice like a dozen avalanches softened. 'You have killed so many of our children. She was sure you would kill the rest, and both of us, too.'

Neither the Olympian nor the minotaur said anything, instead continuing to work on the nails. Typhon's boy spanned the island's underground, and his every movement could cause a disaster, which meant they had to be fast, but careful.

'And then, she came,' he said, sounding wistful.

Just from hearing you? Damn, Aster thought drily. Mine doesn't like me that much yet.

But that was vanity speaking. The fact Eidolon loved him at all was...well. He had never expected anything but hatred from anyone but his mother.

***

Asterion ran clawed hands down his lover's arms. Flesh that, moments ago, had been as smooth as marble was now as cold as it, too. He could smell no blood, hear no heartbeat-but the woman, the statue, moved.

Gingerly, at first. As if surprised. Like him, when he had entered the world as a calf-instant, too twisted to suckle or graze, instead falling upon hiss mother's retinue and devouring them.

A fitting comparison, if his dull mind was any judge. She had, in a way, been born again.

Eidolon smiled sadly, looking down at her stone body with unblinking eyes. "'t is her revenge, Aster. It is not your fault.'

But it was. Saving Elsbeth Crane and leading her into the wider world-he doubted the demigoddess that would end up leading all hybrids like her inside ARC had truly perceived him, but he was sure she had known. Her ilk always did-had made him thinking he was some sort of hero, as opposed to a monster let off his leash and pointed at a target.

Hubris, pure and simple. And that never went unpunished.

The woman he had saved Eidolon from had made dozens of living mannequins, flesh dolls created by mixing and matching the most beautiful parts of the most beautiful corpses she could find. In a way, she hadn't truly hurt anyone, not even to feed her creations-for Eidolon and her siblings needed to regularly consume human flesh, lest their literally sculpted bodies fall apart. And for that, their creator found the people nobody would miss or bury. Dead or alive, though not for long, snatched from side alleys and crossroads and shallow, unmarked graves.

Maneaters still, Asterion had thought with a sneer. The Black Hunger's prey. He had put the mindless things out of their misery without any of them raising a hand in defence of themselves or each other, for they had been created to be beautiful, to please their creator by reflecting her skill back at her, not to fight.

Only Eidolon had been spared. She had been the smartest of them, or perhaps the strongest-willed. In the end, the distinction had been academical. When Asterion had seen the patchwork girl put herself between him and her wizened, mad mother, he had not devoured her, like he had her siblings. Soft-hearted. Instead, he had taken her into the world, leaving the terrified crone behind, showing Eidolon what her mother had killed so her siblings could live.

Eidolon had returned home to kill her mother herself.

After that, there had been bliss, for a few years. He had created a glorious image of himself, as Hades' virtuous enforcer, performing a grim, but necessary duty, and returning to the home of the woman who, though grown in body, was still learning to be human.

This...should have been their first night together. Truly together.

But Hera had found out about his intervention, and why had he imagined she wouldn't? Why had he fooled himself into thinking she would stand idle?

'Eidi,' he said, voice choked with rage, caressing her stone flesh as gently as he could. 'Can you feel anything?'

Still smiling, the statue took the minotaur's hand, pressing it against her face.

'I can feel your love, Aster.'

***

Adam rose from sun-tanned clay, body unmarred save by a coating of dust. He remembered the Creator, speaking to him in a place of endless, colourless light, talking of his purpose, of his glorious destiny as his greatest creation...and son.

Adam walked through the garden, naming all the the plants and animals he could see-nonsensical gibberish, that would only be deciphered ages later, by his descendants.

Adam remembered growing wiser and wiser, lonelier and lonelier, wishing for something that would fill the void. He remembered asking the Creator for a companion-a wife-and being spurned.

The pain of the rejection brought him to one knee. Bracing himself on his hands, Adam looked down into the puddle, and beheld himself.

His stature was far greater than one might expect from a man, powerful, untiring muscles dancing under pale skin, marked by nothing save the stitches that held him together.

He knew, in the bottom of the void he had instead of a soul, that he had outgrown the stitches the moment he had killed his father. But still they remained, marking him in both the seen and unseen worlds, declaring how he had been created.

Adam snarled as he pushed himself to his feet. His body was beautiful, his hair long and dark, shining even in this alien, benighted jungle. Drawing a deep breath into dead lungs, feeling thick, black bile ooze through cold veins, Adam raised his fist, and brought it down upon the world.

Trillions of light-years away from Earth, beyond the universe known to man, there was a planet that shared Terra's dimensions, mass, and little more. The plants and animals that covered its surface were, in, truth, little more than tendrils of an unfathomably vast and ancient organism, that sought to assimilate whatever made contact with it.

Neither its acidic secretions nor pheromones, its crushing vines or noxious gases left any mark on Adam's patchwork body. His punch turned the organism to atoms, and its world to innumerable pieces, propelled countless kilometres away at speeds approaching light.

He had grown stronger, he could see that now. But...how had he come here? He had ran away from that frozen land, yes, ran from the humans and their stunted little minds, beyond their sphere of influence, beyond...

Their...

Sphere...

Adam squinted at the harsh, emerald light that could not harm his eyes, but made rage boil within the core of his being, for reasons he could not...ah.

Sunlight. He had never been able to truly walk into the light, on Earth. He had hidden.

The nameless green sun was larger and heavier than Sol, just as far from the former and only world that had orbited it as Sol was from Earth.

Leaping off a piece of debris, Adam cleared the hundred and fifty million kilometres between him and the star in less than a second, plunging through layers of emerald plasma, and reaching the star's core: a sphere of solid iron, dozens of times larger and heavier than Earth.

With a silent grunt, Adam seized the core, lifting it overhead and tossing it through the star's layers. Watching it make its way to the surface at a speed frozen to his dead eyes, Adam tensed, body bathed in flames hotter than any human nuke, and unharmed. Even his hair was cold when he leapt out of the gutted star to reach the core.

The headbutt that shattered the core into thumb-sized shards left a small bruise on Adam's forehead, which healed instantly. Then, standing on nothing, he turned to stare at the hateful bringer of light.

Adam, no matter what humans had grown to believe, had not been animated through lightning. He did not know what force had given him his mockery of life, and doubted even Victor had truly understood.

But he could feel the animus swirling inside him, hungry for anything, everything. Just like him, it wanted.

Adam nodded to himself. It was only fitting for desire to form the core of his being.

With a thought, Adam reached towards the gutted star, and drew it towards himself, far faster than light, faster than physics should have allowed it to move. Radiation, heat and plasma rushed to fill his mouth, parted in a joyous grin that showed perfect, human teeth. It passed through his pale skin and flesh without damaging it, coiling up inside him, for him to use and shape as he saw fit.

Somehow, in his slumber, he had unknowingly begun to walk the path of the creator.

***

'Do you see him, Sofia?' Gray Mann asked softly, one hand on their young companion's body. The witch's mouth was parted as she watched Frankenstein's Monster-not Frankenstein, Gray chided her, he was both dead and (metaphorically) buried, not just dead-destroy a world and unmake a star, all because he could. 'Can you imagine, your mind in his body? You could make everyone be friends...'

Sofia grinned, a mind that could dominate billions of human rushing out of the bubble of space Gray had created for her, to sustain her and hide her from the Monster's senses. It covered millions of kilometres in moments, wrapping around the Monster-

And hit a brick wall. Nothing, The Monster was as impervious to mind control as any were or vampire, or strigoi-

'I see you,' he said coldly, black eyes in a pale face somehow seeing her, despite her defences, piercing her soul. He had come again, to kill her friend and take her away and-

'I know what you want,' he continued. 'I am no longer anyone's tool. My purpose is for me to choose and fulfill.'

Unknown to Adam, on Earth, at that moment, a strigoi echoed him, word for word, as he conjured an image of a black-souled, black-hearted god.

And Gray Mann smiled at both.