[Author's Note: The following story contains, in addition to scenes of fairly
extreme violence, certain terms for racial and ethnic groups which are wholly
inappropriate. I do not include this language because I agree with its usage; I
do so because its usage is in character for the one who uses it.]

[Dedicated to Mary Gentle, the only writer of my knowledge who has ever made
the gang rape of a prepubescent into a palliatable subject.]




April 30, 1992

     The Duchy of Burgundy is reknowned around the world as an ideal vacation
spot. Stretching for miles between the French Republic and the Reich, it is
politically stable, religiously and culturally tolerant, and famously clean.
The upper classes are proud but generous, and always mindful of the obligations
of nobility. The lower classes are hard working but loyal, and always willing
to celebrate the end of a productive workday. The small middle class blends
these attributes with humility befitting their station, creating a social array
that embodies all the virtues and very few of the vices of Burgundy's medieval
golden age. Visiting La Belle Duchie is like stepping into a time machine,
while at the same time being constantly assured of one's safety.
     This is the reputation that Burgundy enjoys. But reputation is like
stereotype. Sometimes it is true, but only a fool would believe that it is
always true.
     Consider the Mediterranean vacation city of Cannes, famous for its yearly
theatrical festival. Even when the festival isn't being held, the streets are
kept meticulously clean, and the transportation system runs on time. But even
when it is, there are places where the guard will not go after dark, and to
which cabbies will only reluctantly convey their passengers.
     One such place -- its precise location doesn't matter, since we don't live
in this Cannes, nor are we likely to visit -- is, this early morning, the site
of a meeting between two men and a thing that looks like a man. The two men are
representatives (actually, leaders) of two gangs of apaches that aren't quite
at war with each other, but aren't exactly allied either. Creating such an
alliance has been the task of the thing.
     As we join them, the last of the customers at the tavern where the meeting
will take place have been ushered out -- some easily, some slightly violently
-- by the barkeep, who then locks the front door and goes upstairs to see and
hear nothing of what follows. He knows how his bread is buttered, does this
barkeep.
     "Why so nervous?" abruptly asks one of the two men of the other. "You
think I'd go to all this trouble to kill you? I came up with this deal,
remember?" That last is a lie. The thing suggested the deal, but the man has
since convinced himself otherwise. His pride demands it.
     "I don't fear *you*," sneers his counterpart. "But there are people
talking ... they say the Flame, she has been seen in these parts."
     The first man spits on the floor. "The Flame? She's a lie, an urban
legend. You read too many Fantomas stories."
     "I *read*. Can you?"
     "Gentlemen," says the thing, trying to stave off the fight. "This is a
pointless argument. While the Flame does surely exist --" 
     The first man silently grins, thinking he recognizes an attempt to coddle
the second man. 
     "-- my associates have taken precautions to ensure that she will not only
be unaware of this meeting, but that even if she should somehow gain awareness,
she will be unable to reach this place before we conclude our business."
     "All right, but then let's be quick about it."
     The thing nods, and lifts two heavy metal suitcases onto the table where
the two men sit. Ambidextrously, it opens the locks on the cases
simultaneously, to reveal a large sum of money in each and a vessel containing
a purple oil.
     "As we agreed, fifteen hundred marks for each of your gangs, preferential
treatment in the sale of our ... unique merchandise, and our assistance in
mediating any disputes concerning the territories where your borders meet. All
we request is that you each place one of these objects in a public area where
it is likely to be discovered ... and opened."
     It pauses, perhaps to evaluate whether either man is having second
thoughts it can detect. Satisfied, it asks, "Well, my good men? Have we a
deal?"
     Before there is any answer, the door bursts into flames.
     "It's her!" screams the second man.
     Obligingly, a high-heeled foot slams through the burning door, speeding
its disintegration. The woman attached to the foot steps through the
flame-shrouded doorway a moment later, but the licks of flame seem to ignore
her absurdly short red skirt and white leotard. Perhaps it's the hot air and
rising smoke that causes her red and yellow dyed hair to move and shift in ways
that seem to echo the fire surrounding her.
     "You're all going to die," says the Flame. She sounds cheerful.
     "No!" cries the second man, drawing and firing the crappy African revolver
he brought with him against the chance of treachery.
     It's not the worst move he could have made, since there aren't any good
ones. The Flame's right hand, holding what looks like a pen, moves faster than
it's possible to describe. Every bullet sent in her direction ricochets away
with a pinging noise, until there are none left and the second man is left to
click away with an empty gun in the vain hope of a miracle.
     The Flame ignores him, whirling to see that the first man has taken
advantage of her total focus on the second to move so as to blindside her.
Fortunately, he takes a bit more time aiming than the other man did, allowing
her to still deflect his shot.
     "Glgghk," says the second man as the deflected shot goes right through his
throat.
     "Oops," says the Flame. She doesn't sound very sincere.
     The first man makes his final mistake that evening; he turns to glance at
his former colleague's final moments. When his eyes turn back in the direction
of his immediate threat, she is already sailing through the air, one leg
extended forward, and then her heel slams through his eye and into what lies
behind it, and everything goes white.
     The Flame twists away from the collapsing corpse, glaring in the direction
of the thing, who has stood impertubably through all of this.
     "I suppose it would do no good to plead for mercy?" it asks.
     The Flame snorts.
     "Ah well then," the creature says, and turns into a silvery gray mist that
quickly disperses.
     "Christ!" snaps the Flame.
     She angrily marches over to the suitcases, picks up the two vessels and
tosses them to the floor. "My heart is as a raging inferno. Know this fire,
that which brought it forth!" she chants, and sends a gout of fire towards
them.
     The Flame imagines that she can see vague shapes screaming in the
exploding vessels, and her anger at losing her primary target abates slightly.
But she's also burning valuable time. So with a small sigh of regret, she turns
away, quickly closes the two briefcases and picks them up, before walking out
through the still smouldering door.
     A few moments later, the barkeep runs down the stairs and through the
burning tavern, out into the street. He doesn't know where he's running to, he
can't very well tell the fire brigade to come save his tavern and find the two
corpses in it, but --
     "Going somewhere?" asks the Flame, standing just a few metres outside the
door.
     The barkeep stops dead, his eyes like saucers and his mouth hanging open.
"I -- I just work here --" he says at last.
     "You worked for *them*. You betrayed humanity."
     He shakes his head stiffly, a gesture of disbelief instead of denial.
     "So run," the Flame suggests.
     He stares at her, and then believing himself to have been miraculously
reprieved, he turns and dashes away up the street.
     She waits until he's out of earshot, then brings her hand up to her chest
and begins to chant. "My heart is as a raging --"
     But before it can go any further, what is happening on the far side of the
world, as Samantha Hazzard embraces her true self, becomes suddenly known to
the Flame, and she reels with the knowledge of the new power come into the
world.
     A few moments later, her head finally clears, and she looks blearily in
the direction where her target has disappeared. His is the first life Sam
Hazzard will save, that day.
     The Flame considers this knowledge, breathing heavily. "No," she says at
last. "No, no, no. This will *not* do at all.
     "I'm going to have to kill that little bitch."

June 13, 1992

     Sam waves farewell to Mary as her friend heads off on her daily pilgrimage
to her mother's bedside. For herself, she intends to head down to the shopping
district and see if the new graphics have --
     She abruptly remembers that the store in question is closed, as none of
the owner's heirs showed any interest in continuing to operate it. For a
moment, Sam wonders where she's supposed to buy her graphics now.
     Then her self-pity turns to self-disgust. Stifling the urge to start
swearing, she marches down the street that leads to the district, dropping onto
a bench halfway there.
     It's not my fault that he died, Sam begins her usual litany. I did
everything I knew how to do in order to save him. And now that I know that this
new kind of Possessor can kill its victims, I can work harder to make sure that
doesn't happen anymore.
     That part, at least, is very true. With Lara's help, she's been able to
"interrupt the infestation's progress" (Lara's words, not her own) three times
since then without a fatality. All of the victims have seemed more dead than
alive, true, and they will likely take as long to heal as Mary's mother is
taking, but they did not die.
     She holds that fact as armor around her heart.
     Lara has been a capable ally. Despite knowing about her test scores, Sam
was startled to learn how quick-witted the other girl could actually be.
Unfortunately, she doesn't have Sam's ability to sense the presence of
corporeal evil, so the responsibility for that still rests on Sam's shoulders.
But Lara *is* able to sense when Sam transforms, and gains a sense of Sam's
location when she herself transforms. Knowing that Sam doesn't like to stay in
her alternate form for more than a few moments without a good reason, Lara has
been able to deduce that something is up from Sam's activity, and then swiftly
move to join her.
     But it's been nerve wracking, for Sam at least. And there are still too
many unanswered questions, *and* she hasn't heard from her only source of enemy
intelligence since she started to cooperate with Lara.
     Sam shifts uncomfortably. It's an unusually warm day. She still feels cold
when she's around Lara, but she's grown accustomed to it. They'd planned to
meet and discuss some strategies, but Lara was detained by one of the teachers.
(It was a detention. Sam refuses to consider the possibility that Lara is being
debauched by her geometry teacher, Miss Northcott.)
     "Excuse me," says a voice from behind her.
     Sam turns, and then stares at the girl standing there. Her hair is yellow.
Not just one of the lighter shades of blonde, but dyed as yellow as a pencil
crayon of that hue. Her ankle-length skirt is a brilliant red, while her
billowy blouse is stainless white. She's smiling, and Sam feels particularly
uncomfortably warm when she considers that smile, for some reason.
     "Are you Samantha Hazzard?" the girl asks.
     "Yes," Sam answers before she can consider asking who wants to know.
     The girl lets out a pleased sigh. "I've been looking all over for you.
You're not really easy to find."
     "Um ... really?"
     The smile grows broader. Sam grows more uncomfortable.
     "You don't have any idea who I am, do you?"
     Sam shakes her head, then pauses. "You're not ... one of my relatives, are
you?" Her birth father has certainly been active enough to produce several --
     "No." She shakes her left arm, and a familiar-looking pen drops from her
sleeve into her hand. "Mars ... Power ..." She pauses, and stares at Sam with
eyebrow cocked. "Do I really have to say the third word?"
     Sam gaped a bit when she saw the pen, but now she nods, fascinated.
"You're the one who uses fire."
     "Interesting way of putting it," the girl replies slowly. "I take it that
you've found others of our ... sorority?"
     Sam opens her mouth to tell her about Lara, but alarm bells ring in her
head, and she smoothly comments, "You have me at something of a disadvantage.
Won't you take a seat, Miss --?"
     With a vague shrug, the girl walks around to sit on the bench beside Sam.
"Gloria Mundy. Pleased to meet you, and no, my parents knew no Latin," she
answers the aghast expression.
     "Can't choose your family, I guess. So, how long have you been ... well,
doing it?"
     "Four years."
     It's possible that Gloria could have said something that would surprise
Sam more. She could have claimed to have been an immortal warrior from
Atlantis. She could have answered that Rune gave her the pen an hour ago, and
that she hasn't yet used it.
     "Four years?"
     Gloria nods, affecting not to notice Sam's shock. "I started just after my
thirteenth birthday, so yeah. A little over four years."
     "I thought this had only started a few months ago." There wasn't anything
that Rune had *said* to indicate that, but surely her patron wouldn't have left
the creation of a resistance, if that's what Sam is supposed to be, for so
long.
     But now Gloria is the one to seem stunned. "You're kidding! All the
evidence suggests that it's been going on for fifty, maybe sixty years!" She
smiles, and this time Sam doesn't feel warm at all. "We're just the latest
enlistees on our side."
     Conscripts, thinks Sam. "Well, then, are you planning on settling in this
... theatre of operations, I guess you'd call it?"
     Gloria shrugs expansively. "I guess that I can, after I finish up one last
thing from the last one. Actually, that's why I wanted to talk with you." She
draws a deep breath. "I need your help."
     "All right," Sam replies automatically.
     Gloria stops pre-word, staring at Sam with a bewildered expression. "...
would you like to know *why* I need help?"
     "Sure. But, well, unless you're trying to beat up some kid who damaged
your bicycle or something like that --"
     "No, nothing like that." Any humor present in Gloria's voice vanishes.
"I've been tracking a guy across the States, most of Europe, and now into Asia.
I'm pretty sure that he ranks high in the Dark Kingdom; at least a Knight,
maybe even a Rook. the point is, he's responsible for distributing a lot of
Possessors, all over the world. And he's here, in Tokyo." She mispronounces the
name as "toe-ki-oh".
     "And you need my help to find him," Sam guesses.
     "Right. I don't know this town. You do." She quirks a half-smile.
"Basically, I need a native guide."
     Sam nods decisively. "All right, I'll be glad to help. I just need to call
my parents and let them know that I'll be home a little later than usual.
There's a phone back at the Academy ... can you wait here?"
     "Sure," Gloria says with a full smile, this time. "But keep it short.
We're burning daylight."

     What a sap, thinks the Flame as she watches the Jap girl hurry back to
school.
     Show the pen, say a few words any two-bit Ogre could have overheard, and
she's instantly ready to believe you're on her side.
     What a sap. Killing her will improve the breed even more than the usual
ethnic cleansing does.
     The Flame leans back and stares up at the sky. It has been a long time
since she last used the name "Gloria Mundy". Longer since she thought of
herself by that name. She perceives the direction that her thoughts are going,
and turns them in a different path; she has no wish to consider the parents of
the person she once was, and their pathetic problems. That's another thing to
hold against Hazzard.
     Instead, she considers the problems presented by the existence of
Hazzard's other allies. She'll have to weasel information about them out of her
before the killing, and decide what to do about them at that point.
     The Flame hopes that she won't have to kill all of them. It would be good
to have subordinates. Ideally, she'll be able to convince most of them that
Hazzard's demise was an accident ... or better yet, that she nobly sacrificed
her life to save her new-found ally, commending her other friends to the
Flame's side with her dying breath.
     She smiles at that, and spends the time until Hazzard returns mentally
elaborating on the scenario.
     "Alright, that's settled. Now, where do you think this ... Rook, I think
you called him -- where might he be hiding out?"
     The Flame rises up. "According to the information I found in their base in
the Reich, they operate out of some place in Shinjuku."
     "New Gate," Hazzard translates, evincing an oh-so-annoying "as American as
thou" attitude. "That's the old capitol area. It was hit pretty hard in the
bombings, and after ... well, it was never really rebuilt. Very rough area,
these days."
     "Is that going to be a problem?" the Flame asks, putting just a lick of
taunt in the question.
     "Well, no. I was just thinking that it makes sense for them to be there,
to be operating out of --"
     "-- a mostly ruined area," interrupts the Flame, upset that she won't get
to tell Hazzard not to think, that she's not suited to it. Clearly, she does
have some sense.
     Just as clearly, she has to die. This kind of a threat to the Flame's
preeminence can't be allowed to thrive.
     "So which way --" she begins to ask.
     "The train station's over this way," Hazzard answers the unfinished
question.
     "You're not tough enough to make the trip on your own power?" the Flame
sneers.
     Miracle! The girl finally notices the sarcasm. "Well ... no, I can handle
it, but it'd be faster and safer to take the train right to New Gate Station."
     With a long sigh, the Flame concedes the point, and follows Hazzard to the
train station. Foul place, that. Not a patch on the elegance of the stations
back home in Atlanta.
     It's not until they're actually on the train that the Flame considers that
it might be a strategic mistake to be seen by so many people in the company of
someone she's planning to kill later. But to back out now would be a very
suspicious move.
     Or is it already too late to avoid arousing the girl's suspicions. Could
she have decided to take this route to Shinjuku specifically so that she'd be
seen by all these people, who could give the Flame's description to the guards?
And for that matter, what if that phone call wasn't to her parents, but to her
allies? Could she have set up an ambuscade?
     "Are you all right?" Hazzard asks softly, sounding concerned. "You seem
really tense."
     "I don't like crowds much," the Flame hisses.
     "It's not all that crowded." She makes a little moue of disgust. "Well, I
suppose that it probably seems crowded to you. I guess I'm just used to it. You
know what they say about fishes not noticing water."
     Was that an oblique warning? Everyone knows how treacherous Nips are; is
she saying that she's so used to this kind of thing that the Flame's feeble
efforts are obvious in their crudity? How dare she call the Flame's planning
feeble!
     Soon enough, they arrive at the station, and head out. The Flame continues
to let Hazzard lead her, preferring to keep a clear line of fire against her
back to the possibility that she could be led into a trap.
     As they exit, her eye is drawn to a fenced-off, barren area that nearly
abuts the station. "So what's this?"
     Hazzard turns to look. "Oh!" she says in apparent surprise. "That's right,
I'd forgotten that New Gate Station was built right by one of the Giant's
Footprints."
     The Flame reels back. "Christ!" she says.
     Hazzard frowns for the first time. "Hey! Keep a civil tongue in your
head."
     "A little warning would have been nice!" she snaps in reply. "And why
isn't there any sign on the fence, if it's supposed to keep people away from
--"
     "Why put up a sign, when anyone who lives here knows what a huge,
fenced-off area means? And anyone who comes into Japan gets a quick briefing at
customs, or from their tour agent, or ... did you just not pay any attention
when you were being told?"
     "I guess I had other things on my mind." She can't very well admit that
she came in illegally, as a stowaway on a tramp steamer from Macao. The Flame
looks at the `footprint' with loathing and fear, as though expecting the
radiation to jump out and bite her.
     Hazzard follows her gaze, but seems more wistful, of course. "It's said
that it gets less hot every year. By the time I'm an old lady, it might even be
safe to live on one of them."
     The Flame finds that to be a highly ironic statement, under the
circumstances.
     "Well," she says at last, "let's find an alley so that we can transform
under cover and start looking. We should hit the bars, first, and then --"
     "Wait a minute," Hazzard interrupts. "You think we should ... go around to
places like that, looking like ... like we do when we're transformed?" She
seems mortified at the idea.
     The Flame smiles, enjoying her rival's discomfort. "I know it's a little
immodest. Maybe even ... slutty." Hazzard flinches. Oh, this is good. "But it's
also very different from what anyone would expect, and people always fear the
unexpected. If you combine that with the right attitude, our look can be very
intimidating."
     "And you're good at that attitude?" Hazzard guesses.
     "Right, so follow my lead." Abruptly, she reconsiders. "Actually, no,
don't. Are you familiar with `good guard, bad guard'?"
     "Yes, it's an interrogation technique where --"
     "You be the kind guard. Act sympathetic, and uncomfortable with the whole
deal."
     "That should be easy."
     Hazzard sounded suspiciously dry, that time. 

     Sam doesn't trust Gloria.
     This is rare. Sam thinks of herself as a fairly trusting person. She
doesn't approach strangers in the street to start telling them her life story,
but she does believe that most people mean well. Even though some of the things
she's met definitely didn't mean well, despite being people in a technical
sense, she holds true to the generality.
     But Gloria, in Sam's view, definitely doesn't mean well.
     She's not sure when she reached that conclusion. It was probably early on,
maybe when her eyes lit up at the idea that Sam had found others of their kind.
It wasn't, she suspected at once, a pleasant enthusiasm and desire for
companionship.
     It was probably a very good idea for Sam to call Lara right after she
spoke to Mother about being home late, telling Lara to ignore her
transformation this evening, that she'd explain later. Of course, that decision
means she's entirely on her own at the moment.
     She watches Gloria's transformation uneasily. It is almost exactly like
Lara's in appearance, except with flames replacing cascades of ice. The results
leave in her in the familiar costume, with the addition of absurdly high heeled
shoes that surely make it impossible for her to run or fight. She also gains
streaks of red and orange in her hair that make her head look like it's on
fire.
     "Nice outfit," Gloria says, alerting Sam to the fact that she's studying
her, just as assiduously. "What's with the hair, though?"
     It's hard to defend one's hair style when one didn't choose it and has
never actually seen it. "I think it has something to do with invoking the power
of the moon."
     Gloria just stares.
     "You see, in Asian tradition, the man in the moon is really a rabbit. And
my ponytails do look like -- well, sort of look like -- a part of rabbit ears
when they're lying flat against the rabbit's skull, so --"
     "Do you feel urges to eat green cheese and carrots, too?"
     Gloria's sarcasm is really starting to get on Sam's nerves. "So what do we
do now? Kick in the door of the nearest tavern, shouting `Magical Warriors of
Justice, everybody freeze'?"
     "No," says Gloria as she leads the way out of the alley. "We just walk
in."
     "Just walk in," Sam repeats. "I don't see why that's intimidating."
     "It's an art, not a science. Just play the good guard."
     The tavern is named Horndogs, which creates a bizarre image in Sam's mind
as Gloria throws open the front door and marches inwards. The miasma released
by the door's opening makes Sam's nose wrinkle and almost sends her running
into the night, but she follows Gloria's lead all the same.
     She barely has time to adjust to the low light level and the faint sound
of jazz issuing from the nickelodeon before Gloria's voice captures her
attention.
     "Well, well. Out of all the gin joints in all the world, I come stumbling
into the one where you're holed up. Marty, Marty, Marty ... I'm pretty sure
that coming to Japan is a parole violation."
     She's speaking to a vaguely dwarfish man perched on a stool by the bar.
The barman is keeping his distance from the spectacle, and none of the other
customers seem inclined to interrupt.
     "Look, lemme alone," replies Marty, in the nasal tones of an Australian
accent. "I dunno nothing, so just go bug someone else."
     "Oh, Marty, you don't know how much I'd love to get away from you and your
bad breath, but duty calls. Where's the Salesman, Marty? I know he's here in
Japan, and I know that you'll have a connection to whatever game he's running
this week. So, dish, and you might not lose more teeth."
     "I got nothin' to say. I got nothin' to do with the racket anymore. Gimme
a rest."
     "Give *me* a rest, Marty. Your lot have been dealing with the Kingdom
since before you got transported. Why in the world would you just up and quit?"
     He mumbles something that gives Gloria momentary pause.
     "I didn't catch that," Sam comments.
     Marty's head jerks up and he stares at her with eyes brimming in tears. "I
said me mum *died* last night, all right?"
     Sam controls her instinctive sympathy. If she says the right thing, she
can probably draw more information out of him, but she mustn't forget that
despite his claims, this man is probably affiliated with the Dark Kingdom. She
opens her mouth to offer condolences that will --
     Gloria grabs him by the chin, jerks his head around to face her directly,
and snaps, "Good!"
     Marty stares at her, speechless.
     "Actually, you know what, Marty? It's not good that the disease-ridden
whore that pupped you has finally kicked off, it comes under the category of
`too little, too late', since she lived long enough to give birth to scum like
you!
     "Now I know that you know where the Salesman is doing business, so start
talking or I'm going to find out how well a lump of convict suet burns!"
     "You really should tell her what she wants to know, guy, she's kind of
crazy," Sam says faintly.
     "I don't know *anything*, you evil fucking bitches!" Marty shrieks, crying
openly. "I'm trying to get out, I didn't even bother listening to rumors when I
heard them! I --"
     "What rumors? Where'd you hear rumors?" Gloria demands.
     "Over at the Fountainhead, just leave me alone for Christ's sake!"
     "Fine, we'll go there. But if we don't find the Salesman, we're coming
back for you. And I won't take whining about your mother for an answer, then."
She turns, hair swirling around her as she goes.
     Sam looks around, sees the vaguely hostile looks she's getting from every
one of the tavern's customers, and swallows. "Drink responsibly," she says
quickly, and flees.
     She catches up to Gloria a block away from the tavern entrance. "Where is
this Fountainhead place?" she asks before Sam can say anything.
     "I can't believe you did that."
     "Did what?" Gloria doesn't break stride.
     "You came in, said those things about his mother, his *mother*, for pity's
sake, I can't believe --"
     Gloria stops, turns to look square into Sam's face. "For all I know, he
made up that stuff about his mother dying."
     "Why would he --"
     She presses on over Sam's objections. "For all I know, he was dropped on
an orphanage when he was born. For all I know, he never had a mother. You want
to know what I *do* know about good ol' Martin Brown? He tortures little girls.
They never proved it, but I know he's killed at least two of them. Still
feeling sympathetic, girly?"
     "You didn't say anything about that," Sam says after a long moment.
     "When was I supposed to --"
     "You could have mentioned it when you saw him, so that I could overhear.
You could have said something like, `still torturing little girls, Marty?'
instead of making dumb jokes about his breath and quoting the play `Everyone
Comes to Rick's'."
     Sam feels very strange. She feels as though her stomach, her chest and her
brain are all being compressed, and that her insides are hot while her skin is
icy cold. She knows when she's felt like this before; it was the first second
after she saw Mary being strangled by her Possessor-dominated mother.
     She'd thought it was part of the magic; was it, in fact, her own fury?
     So it would seem.
     "Excuse me, who the hell are *you* to tell *me* how to run *my* stings,
*I've* been doing things like this for four God damned years, and --"
     "Then it's a wonder you're still alive," Sam briskly interrupts the stream
of Gloria's words. This must be fury. Her anger at the second incident of
blasphemy doesn't even really register.
     Before Gloria can say anything else, Sam turns and looks back the way that
they came. "The Fountainhead is this way, a few blocks down. It was profiled in
the Gazzette a couple weeks ago. I'm going there now."
     She starts to walk away, knowing exactly what a terrible mistake she made
in warning Lara away, knowing that she's compounding it by turning her back on
Gloria now. She has no offensive power to match that of the warrior of fire. If
it comes down to a fight, she is doomed.
     She hears Gloria begin walking to catch up to her, and is not much
comforted by the momentary reprieve.

     The Flame doesn't understand Sam.
     Normally, this wouldn't be a problem. She doesn't have to understand her
enemies to destroy them, she just has to genuinely believe that the world will
be better off without them. 
     She's been hurling insults at her for over an hour, and the gilr hasn't
even noticed -- or at least hasn't deigned to give notice. That ...
superiority, that attitude of being above any petty remarks that the Flame
might make, has been sticking in her craw for a while now. And this new, stony
anger -- provoked by, as far as she can see, *nothing* -- is even more
aggravating. What gives this little blonde Nip bitch the right to judge *her*?
     She could, without a doubt, unleash her fire at Sam. But that would ruin
her plans to have the Jap and the Salesman destroy each other, and permit the
Salesman to go on peddling his vile wares. The thought of that turns her
stomach as much as pretending to like the little bitch did. The part of what
she told Sam about tracking him across three continents is true.
     They arrive at the Fountainhead -- or at least, what the Flame deduces to
be the Fountainhead, from the rather large fountain in front of the hotel.
     Sam starts up the staircase that leads up to the front door, then pauses
halfway up.
     "What? What is it this time?" the Flame snaps.
     "I can't believe I didn't think to try this before," Sam murmurs, but the
Flame has a sense that she isn't answering the question posed of her.
     Her eyes close, and a moment later the Flame hears a strange faint noise,
like the babble of many voices, issuing from all around her and lasting for
just a second.
     Sam's eyes open, and her mouth twists in a grimace of ill-concealed
horror. "Whether he's here or not, this place is a positive sinkhole. I'm
sensing about a dozen active Possessor entities."
     A hollow point opens up inside the Flame's stomach. "You can sense them?"
     Sam nods. "One of my major ablities is a talent for sensng evil." The
Flame notes that Sam is steadfastly refusing to look at her. Without even
pausing to check if she's being followed, she marches up the rest of the stairs
and through the door.
     What the Flame ought to do is let her march right to her doom while
running briskly in the opposite direction. But if she does, how can she be sure
that both her opponents are annihilated? She might have to be there to pick off
the survivor.
     So she follows Sam, and wonders when exactly she started thinking of `the
Hazzard girl' or `Hazzard' as `Sam'?
     Inside the lobby, they notice a trio of men bustling around behind the
front desk; odd, as there aren't any customers awaiting their attention. A few
more are sitting at couches or tables, smoking, reading newspapers, playing
cards. No one seems to notice the new arrivals.
     "Well what?" Sam retorts. "I can't tell just by looking at them which are
Possessed, unless they start acting ..." She trails off, and, with a shrug,
steps forward. "Excuse me," she says loudly, drawing the attention of everyone
present. "Would anyone who isn't currently possessed by a soul-sucking
monstrosity please leave the building immediately."
     Everyone -- including the Flame -- stares wordlessly at her.
     And then, every man in the lobby rises up and starts slowly walking
towards her, blank-faced and silently.
     "Well, now we know."
     "Great," the Flame says, and raises her hands to prepare to throw fire.
     Before the men can come more than a few feet towards them, they abruptly
stop at the sound of hands clapping.
     Sam looks up the lobby's staircase, from which the sound issued. "Would
that be the Salesman?"
     The Flame turns to look up where Sam is looking, and nods. "Yes, that's
him all right." She's struck, as always, by how gaunt he looks, like a pale,
barely fleshed skeleton, like an unrepentant Scrooge.
     "Ah, my dear Flame. So good of you to finally bring her to us."
     The Flame had a scorching comment prepared; it dies on her lips.
     "Oh, don't," Sam says with disgust plain in her voice. "Whatever else she
might be, she's not any part of her organization."
     What does *that* mean, whatever else she might be?
     "You're quite mistaken about that, young Dame ... what do you call
yourself, anyway? What alias do you use to strike fear into our hearts?"
     "I don't have one," Sam Hazzard says. "I've been too busy killing your
kind to come up with one."
     Total confidence, total absence of fear in her tone.
     God, I hate her, thinks the Flame.

     "I've been too busy killing your kind to come up with one," Sam says,
wishing she felt half as confident as she hopes that she sounds.
     The thing on the staircase, flanked by a pair of obviously possessed men,
looks down on her with an unreadable expression. "Yes," he says at last,
"that's more or less what I was expecting. And, sadly for you, that attitude is
precisely why we had the Flame bring you here before us. You are responsible
for too many of our recent losses for us to allow you to live."
     "Are you planning on talking me to death?"
     "I was hoping to persuade you to offer no resistance. We *can* arrange for
it to be painless, after all."
     "Not interested," Sam replies. Nine men on the same floor as her, two more
up on the stairs, plus this guy. That's the dozen that she sensed. Have to hope
that's all of them.
     "Very well, then." He looks down at the men below. "Kill them both, and a
promotion to the killer if either of them dies screaming."
     "Cover me," Sam snaps at Gloria, and whips her hands up. "How dare you
abuse the bodies of these men by compelling them to perform tasks of banality
and tedium?" All of them, please, all of them. "Were it within me, I would
punish you with firey torment --" As Gloria is doing, with a certain odd amount
of clumsiness and uncertainty. "-- I would immure you in frigid ice, I would
rain down thunder upon you, I would make your name a half-forgotten memory. Yet
these are not mine. All that I may do is all that I shall do: I cast you out of
this place, by the light of the Sun and the warmth of the Earth, and by the
Moon who is their daughter -- but more, by th one behind them, whose name we do
not know." Please, Lord? "I cast you out. BEGONE!" With the last word, she
spreads her arms wide, as though trying to embrace all the possessed men at
once.
     Something passes out of her, leaving her almost staggering in its wake.
When the dots before her eyes fade, she sees four of the men bent over
backwards, spewing gas up into the air. Three of the gases are purple, but one
is green --
     Green!
     When that cloud disperses, the man beneath it collapses just as the other
three do. But though they will never move again, he immediately pushes himself
up to a half-way seated position, looking around blearily. "What ...?" he asks.
     "Sir, please, get up, get up and get --" Sam begins to exhort.
     One of the two possessed men flanking the Salesman leaps over the
staircase's railing, drops to the floor beside the woozy looking man, and,
without pausing or blinking an eye, wrenches his head around one hundred and
eighty degrees. The sound of the neck breaking echoes in the air.
     Sam stares.



     Everything is very quiet, and all the things that there are to see are
very far away right at the moment. She can hear herself saying something, but
she doesn't understand the words. Maybe they'll make sense later. Who knows?
Who really knows anything?



     And then she blinks.
     Where did all these bodies come from, Sam wonders.
     There are eleven of them, all lying on the floor. Most of them look like
they're only sleeping, but from the absence of any chest movement and the open,
glassy eyes of a few, she knows that they aren't. One of them has an obviously
broken neck, and two of them ... are missing parts of their throats and upper
chest.
     Sam feels as though she ought to gag at that final sight, but she can't,
quite.
     She turns to look curiously at Gloria, who is standing back against one of
the walls and looking at her almost fearfully. When did she get so
blood-spattered, and how?
     "Uh ... I think you should probably finish off the Salesman," Gloria says,
a moment after she realizes that Sam is looking at her.
     "Right," Sam replies, and looks around for a moment until she recalls
where the staircase is. The Salesman is lying o his back where -- as she
recalls -- he was standing, earlier.
     She mounts the stairs unsteadily, walking up until her eyes can look
plainly into the eyes of the plainly terrified Salesman.
     "You're not a Dame," he says, gulping down air. "You couldn't be, and do
things like that. What are you?" He sounds almost like he's begging, there at
the end.
     "I'm me," Sam says. Then she repeats her chant and watches him
disintegrate.
     "Hah!" says Gloria from the floor. "Great shot! I ... I'm really glad to
be working with you! We make a great team, don't we?"
     Sam turns and looks down at the bodies, remembering now how the one with
the broken neck got that way. The rest of it ...
     "No," she says at last. "We don't."
     "Huh."
     "Get out of here. Go back to Europe. Go back to the mainland. I don't care
where you go. But I don't want to work with you, and if you're in Japan, I
think I won't have a choice."
     "Wait a minute, wait a minute, this wasn't my --"
     "You are loud, brash and crude. You blaspheme and you insult. You were
less than useless fighting these men; I suspect that most of what you've done
involved fighting and killing other human pawns." Deep breath, don't cry. "You
are the very last person I would ever want at my side, or watching my back. I
don't like you, I don't trust you, and I definitely don't need you."
     Gloria is staring at her, mouth wide open. She doesn't look seventeen. She
looks about the same age as she would have been when she started; the same age
that Diane is now.
     "Go home," Sam repeats, trying to sound gentle this time.
     It's a mistake. She can see the decision being made on Gloria's face, even
as the other girl's mouth begins to twist and she draws in the breath to scream
the chant and her arms come up --
     And then the front doors of the hotel explode inward as a form that
manages to look dwarfish even as it tops seven feet slams into the lobby, six
pseudopods flailing wildly from where they emerge from its back.
     "FLAME," it snarls, and whips the pseudopods so that they ensnare Gloria
before she can even speak.
     "Not so tough, are you?" shouts the man-thing. "Not when it's you on the
rack, you fucking Yank bitch?"
     Two of the pseudopods seem to be tightening their grip around Gloria's
head. She already can't speak. A shift of motion brings her eyes around so that
they meet Sam's, and she can see the pleading expression in them.
     She ought to ignore it. She already suspects that she'll need to make sure
that she's lying down when she turns the switch off in her head, because she
expects to be dead to the world after she does. And the thing that used to be
Martin Brown, alleged torturer of children and stoolie, has shown no sign of
even noticing her presence.
     Father, why me? 
     "Excuse me," she says.
     It turns look at her, its last two pseudopods twitching.
     "I'd just like to say that I'm very sorry about your mother." Deep breath.
"But how dare you try to kill this girl, who has done nothing more harmful to
you than to say cruel words?"
     The rest of the chant is delivered in a monotone, yet it remains effective
for all that. When it is done, the man-thing shrinks in on itself to reveal
Martin's form at its heart, whatever sorcerous power he'd drawn upon vanishing
like patterns in the sand at high tide. Gloria drops to the ground as the
pseudopods vanish, breathing heavily, but unharmed.
     "And furthermore," Sam comments as she walks down the stairs, feeling like
she's walking barefoot on broken glass, "your attitude gets you involved in
fights you could have avoided -- like that one. And they leave you, and your
allies, less able to fight the ones that actually matter."
     "I didn't know he could do that," Gloria says defensively. Perhaps she
honestly thinks that excuses everything.
     Sam checks the pulse of the last crumpled body to join the others on the
floor.
     Of course.
     "Well, you don't have to worry about what he can do anymore," she says,
and standing up she reaches back and slaps Gloria across the face as hard has
her own mother did the one and only time blasphemy escaped her lips. It may
bruise. She hopes so.
     "Go home," she says, and turns to walk away.
     She hasn't gotten more than a few feet when she hears the strangled words,
"My heart." She turns around, knowing that she can do nothing to stop it, but
unwilling to give her the satisfaction of not seeing her final look of contempt
before --

     "-- drew it forth!" the Flame shrieks, and feels the fire, more intense
than ever before, stream out towards the evil one.
     For a moment, the evil one looks like what she imagines stupid, weak
Gloria looked like in the moment when she became the Flame; wrapped in fire,
hidden from sight, and --

     And then, my friends, something very strange happens.
     The fire seems to flow, like water or maybe lava, away from Sam's
extremities, leaving them unmarked, towards her torso, and then into the
moonstone at the heart of her pendant. Her body and clothes are not even
singed, but the moonstone glows like a star.
     "Ow," says Sam, sounding very distant.
     It's just not fair, thinks the small part of Gloria's / The Flame's mind
still able to think.
     Sam holds her hands up, looking at them as though looking at two tools
she's never used before. "Too much," she says. "Have to use it up."
     And incredibly, or maybe not if you think about it a little, she turns her
back on Gloria *again* and walks out through the shattered doors. After a
moment, the other girl follows.
     There are a few people on the street in this evening, and Sam's appearance
draws a few saucy comments and even a wolf whistle. She ignores it as she seems
to scan the horizon, until she looks directly at the Giant's Footprint.
     "That should be about right," she says, and steps up into the air. lifts
up her hands, and begins to speak. Or at least, begins to seem to speak, for no
sound issues from her mouth.

     On the eighty-ninth floor of the tallest building in Nieuw Amsterdam, a
man who resembles a bronze statue is seated in the lotus position a foot above
the floor. His head suddenly lifts, and he turns to look towards the west.
     A fascinated trillig fills the air around him.

     Somewhere else, a gray-haired woman stares at the exploded remnants of a
crystal ball, and begins to suspect that she has made a terrible mistake.

     Sam feels herself return to the ground, and hears the whispers of all
those around her who saw her levitating trick. She would flush, but she feels
too tired.
     "What did you do?"
     She doesn't even turn to look at Gloria as she replies. "I reduced the
radiation on that particular spot to about normal levels. I don't know how."
Deep breath. "Go home."
     "I can't."
     "Then go away."
     "I *can't*. I want to, but I have to be here. I'm part of your chant, the
Flame That Punishes. If I leave you now, I'll lose my powers."
     "How sad."
     "You don't understand ... I was so afraid, you were so much stronger than
I imagined or expected and I was so jealous, and you ... you don't know what
it's like, this is the only thing in my life that's ever been worth anything,
please, please, don't make me lose this ..."
     Sam finally turns to look at Gloria. The tears are real, but she has the
sense that they're covering something. Even now, she's employing guile.
     But what if she's fooling herself, too, thinks Sam. Suppose that she's
telling the truth, but thinks that she's lying? Then I'd have another mess on
my hands.
     Keep your friends close. Keep your enemies closer.
     "All right. You can stay."

     "Thank you, oh thank you!" You sap. "You won't regret this." It's that
medallion, take it away and she'll be helpless. "Thank you ..."
     As Gloria begins to plan her vengeance, two questions almost occur to her.
Where did the idea for her lie about losing her powers without Sam's presence
come from? And when did she start thinking of herself as Gloria?
     But she doesn't think of that. She's good at that.



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