The carpet was white. Snow white. Plush, perfect, not a stain anywhere to be seen. The carpet wasn't alone. Everything in the place was like that -- like a museum, like a funeral parlor. The drapes were drawn in, falling through the still air onto the plush, perfect white carpet. You could see the dust hanging in the air, suspended in time so it seemed, just like everything else in the house.

We, on the other hand, did not fit. You could feel that, see it in the family's faces, read it in between the words they barely mumbled through numb lips. Their eyes were still ragged and wet from the hours of tears they had cried in the hospital yesterday. The father kept saying, over and over again: "My boy. My boy." The mother was silent. She moved about the room with a stiff motion, as if she'd break if she moved too quickly, trying not to touch anything. It's easier that way, everything's a little less real. If you don't touch anything, nothing can touch you.

I watched Nik lean over the coffee table, her movements quiet and gentle. Her voice was soft. Anything above a whisper in that place probably would have shattered something. "Mr. Brugaletta, I know this must be difficult..."

"My boy," the big, broken man whispered. "My boy."

"...but I have to ask you a couple of questions."

The man never looked up. His eyes were focused on the coffee cup he never touched.

Nik put her hands together as her eyes filled with concern. I'd only known her for a little less than a month, and already, I was fascinated with her. She was a stone's throw away from pretty, the kind of woman you take a second look at just to make sure. She wasn't as tall as me, but she would be looking down at most of the guys I knew. If you saw her on the street, she could be anybody: a secretary on her way to work, a principal on her way to school. But when you got close enough to look in those hazel eyes of hers, you'd see your drill sergeant on the first day of boot camp -- the one you'd never forget. That was Nicole. We never called her that.

Mr. Brugaletta didn't look at Nik. He didn't look at me. He didn't look at anything. He was in his own head because it was safe and warm in there. The world was just a little too cold for Mr. Brugaletta just then. I guess I couldn't blame him.

"Mr. Brugaletta," Nik continued. "As I said, we're from a private organization investigating a series of homicides that bear a similarity to..." she paused. "Your son's body was found with puncture wounds on his arms and inner thigh. The coroner has confirmed that these wounds were not from a syringe. We need your permission to take a closer look at William..."

The big man exploded. "How the hell should I know?"

I jumped. The violence of the noise caught me off guard. It rocked the little room, and I half expected the whole place to come crashing down around us.

Nik was unmoved. She never flinched. "I'm sorry, Mr. Brugaletta. I see we're disturbing you. We'll leave you alone now." She rose up slowly and moved to the door, and I followed right on her heels. Brugaletta followed, his voice booming behind us. "He never listened to me. Why the hell didn't he listen to me?" he shouted.

"He wants answers we can't give him, Jake," Nik whispered to me. "Just keep walking."

"It's the drugs! The TV! The music! It's not my fault! I gave him everything he needed! Why wouldn't he stop going to that damn club?" Nik stopped, right at the door, the knob in her hand. She turned around, and I could feel her gaze fall on the big man. "What club, Mr. Brugaletta?"

He was crying again, his tears rolling down his wide face, dripping into his mouth. "With that girl and those freaks. Painting themselves up, dressing all in black like they were dead..." I could hear Mrs. Brugaletta make a sad meeping sound in the corner. Poor choice of words, I guess.

Nik's voice suddenly lost its patience and found a harsh edge. "What club, Mr. Brugaletta?"

"Th-th-that club downtown. Nore, or something like that."

Nik nodded very slowly. "Thank you, Mr. Brugaletta. You've been very helpful." She slipped out the door then. I tried to follow, but the big man suddenly grabbed my shoulders and pulled me back in.

"You'll find who did this to him, won't you? It wasn't my fault. You know that, don't you? It wasn't my fault!"

A thought suddenly came to me, right there with the big man's tear-streaked face in mine. "What was the girl's name?"

He stopped weeping for a moment, his eyes confused. "The girl, Mr. Brugaletta. What was her name?"

"Uh, um." He sniffled for a moment, his eyes rolling up the way they do when you're fanning through your mental Rolodex. "I don't know. Her father's name is Bill. Bill Fowler. He owns the hardware store down on 3rd and Main. I think her name is... Kathy, or something like that."

I put my hands on his shoulder and looked at him with my best confident gaze. "Don't worry, Mr. Brugaletta. We're going to find out who did this to your son, okay?"

He nodded, let me go, whispered a small apology under his breath and I walked out of that house. Nik was outside waiting for me, a cigarette in her teeth.

"You know, you sounded just like a cop on TV when you said that?"

I shrugged. "Yeah, it stopped him from crying like a baby, didn't it?"

"Get in the van," she said.

Nik has two entirely different faces. Both of them are very deliberate. The first one is for the families and the public. She knows what they need to hear. She knew what Mr. and Mrs. Brugaletta expected before we even pulled up to the house. The other face she wears, the one I saw on the outside of the house with the smoke in her mouth was the one we -- the Team -- get to see. I guess I can tell you all about that Nik with a shirt she sometimes wears. She got it when she was in the Marines. It says:

Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, 'cause I'm the baddest mother in the valley.

I think that sums up Nik pretty good.

The drive in the van took about fifty minutes. We got back to the hotel and pulled up in front of our rooms, and sitting out on the curb was Vincent. His long, stringy blond hair was hung in front of his eyes. The rest of his face was lost in a thick mat of beard. I'm sure Vincent had facial features, but I hadn't had the pleasure of meeting them yet.

"What're you working on, Professor It?"

"Just fixing up one of our triggers for fresh fish, there," he said, smiling at me.

"What's that?" I asked Nik.

"Don't worry about it. It's not important right now."

I nodded.

"It's like a fraternity pin," the Professor called after me. "Everybody's got one!"

We walked up the stairs to the second floor and stepped inside the room. I could see why Vincent was working outside. The room was dark and Blythe and Sweet were looking over a table full of papers and maps. They looked up at us as we entered and I waved. They didn't wave back. They were working.

I expected that from Blythe, but Sweet, he was a different matter. Blythe was a tall black man, his head clean. I saw him shave his head once. He was using a straight razor and his fingers never trembled, not once. When he was done, he washed the razor off and slid it into his boot. He always looked good, and everything he owned had lots of pockets -- most of which you couldn't see. I never saw a single wrinkle on the guy. Never.

For all the dignity of Blythe's dress, Sweet balanced things out just right. He was just a little too tasteful to be tacky, but he was awfully damn close. Like a quirky kind of chameleon, caught in a kaleidoscope. Shoes, socks, slacks, belt, shirt, vest, jacket; he wore more clothes in a day than I wore all week.

I walked over to the table, following Nik's lead. The table was covered with papers. There were street maps, blue prints, charts of where the dam sewers ran spread out in front of Sweet. He was jotting meticulous looking notes; street names and times mostly. Blythe was looking at manila folders filled with papers and color photographs.

"We've got the place," Nik told them. They both looked up. "We were right. It's the club."

"Club Noir." Sweet smiled. "I knew it." He flipped through the maps until he found the right sector and spread it out over the table. We all leaned in and took a look. Just then I caught a glimpse of someone out on the balcony. It was David. His head was surrounded with smoke. There were at least three boxes of butts on the balcony floor and the ashtray was filled to the point of overflowing. He was small. There were lines etched into his face and years etched into his eyes. I was told he was twenty three; he looked forty. His skin was white and pasty, and hung on his bones just a little loose. You couldn't tell from the clothes he wore. He covered up his body as much as he could -- there were scars on that pale skin.

Sweet must have noticed me looking at David. He put a hand on my shoulder. "He's okay, man."

"You smell like cigarettes, Sweet," I said.

"Call me Max," he said. "Yeah. David's been helping us out. He was the one who suggested we should pull out the maps on the sewer system. He also told us to check with the Department of Heath and Welfare." Sweet picked up a stack of papers. "Here. We've got a report of pest problems from the customers. Rats, roaches, that kind of stuff. Real bad." He shot a glance out at the porch. "Dave says that's a pretty good indication that we're dealing with a nest."

I shook my head. "Why? Why's that a good sign?"

Sweet smiled. "'Cause they're dirty bastards, that's why. You don't breathe, you don't smell. You don't smell, you don't know you stink. And let me tell you something for free, pal," he put his hand on my shoulder and his smile got wider. "They stink. A lot."

"A lot." Nik agreed.

Blythe continued looking at the blueprints of the club and said nothing.

"Okay, they stink. That still doesn't explain the pest thing."

Nik blew out a cloud of smoke. "They don't clean up after themselves and they don't want some exterminator nosing around the foundations of the building."

"Exactly," said Max. "So it's probably something underground. We're betting on something under the basement." Vincent came into the room then. He tossed something electronic my way and I caught it. "There. It's done." I took a look at it. It looked like a modified wrist watch. The face was dead. There was a wire leading from the side of the face with a plug on the end.

"Put it on," he told me. I did. "No," he said, shoving the cigarette between his teeth. "Like this." He turned the face down so the strap was on the top of my wrist. The thing lit up and I looked at it again. "There you go. Now you're wired."

"What is it?"

Sweet pointed at it. "It's a pulse monitor. That's so Professor It there can keep track of you when you're in the nest."

I nodded. "Fair enough."

They all looked at each other like I had just told a bad joke. It was a joke I wouldn't get until noon the next day.

"Okay," Nik said, looking at her watch. "It's eighteen hundred hours. Everyone take a seat." We were all in the main room, and there was a face in the room I didn't recognize. Just under his chin were a black shirt and a white collar.

"Jake, this is Father O'Bannon, straight from Boston. He's going in with us tomorrow."

"A priest?" I asked. She told me to shut up with her eyes. He took a seat next to Sweet. They shook hands with the familiarity of childhood chums. "Long time, no see, padre," he said. "Where you been?"

"Rome," the priest said, his Boston accent as thick as bean soup. "And I brought you all some presents."

That was the first, last and only time I saw Blythe smile.

We all got quiet and Nik started talking.

"This is the Club Noir. It's a converted warehouse, so it's got only two exits; one in the front -- the main exit -- and a fire door in the back. There are windows in the kitchen, in the bathrooms and the manager's office upstairs. The stairway is located in the southwest corner of the building. There's also a sky window in the manager's office, but Blythe has informed me that it's grated. We may not be able to use it, but they can."

"The stairway leading to the basement is here." She pointed to the southeast corner. "This is our objective, but we'll do a sweep of the building first. We don't want any goons jumping out at us when our backs are turned."

"And we don't want to shoot the cleaning lady," Sweet said. I had to stifle a smile.

Nik kept going. "We'll come in the front. Breaking down the back door will sound the fire alarm. The entry team will be myself, Blythe, Father O'Bannon and Jake bringing up the rear. Vincent and David will be in the van. We'll be using standard equipment and formation: two by two. Blythe, you'll cover O'Bannon. Jake, you're with me."

"Right," I said.

"We'll be hitting the place at precisely twelve hundred hours. I want weapons and equipment checks at oh nine hundred hours. Everyone outside the club at eleven forty five. We'll have three secondary vehicles ready: here, here and here." She turned from the map and faced us. "Anybody have any questions?"

Nobody did.

I spent the next couple of hours with Blythe's manila envelopes. What I saw made me regret the ribs I had for dinner. I've seen violence before. I was a bodyguard for plenty of pretty important folks. I've even had to pull the trigger a few times. Nothing I had seen before could have prepared me for this.

There was a young woman tied to a bed, her body white and thin. There were black wounds all over her arms and legs and neck. Her face was so thin, and her belly so wide. They didn't even bother feeding her. She died of malnutrition and they left her there in the house, rotting for weeks before the Team found her. Her husband was there, too; he had tried to get her back from them. The Team found him in three different boxes.

Jack Temple. The file says he's twenty, but he looks about seventeen. He's in a hospital in upstate New York. For months one of them was drinking from him, then burying the memory deep down in the back of his head. So this kid carries the memory around with him, not even knowing it. He starts bleeding himself, not knowing why. He dreams about this beautiful dark angel draining him, taking from him, and he wakes up chewing on his own arm. Finally, he pays a hooker to tie him down and bleed him. The hooker's an undercover cop who checks him into the hospital.

They don't just take your blood. They take your whole life. It makes me afraid to look David in the eyes. I'm not sure if I could handle what I would see there.

There's too many to count. I go through them all, and each one is worse than the next. Blythe takes the pictures. He takes them for guys like me who think they know what they're getting into. I remember the look on his face when he handed me the file. I remember the words he said. "Make sure this is what you want," he said to me. As I was paging through the words and pictures, I heard those words in my head over and over again.

"Need a drink?"

The voice called me up from the bloody images. It was Sweet, smiling in the doorway, the moon just over his shoulder. I shook my head. "I don't think so Sweet."

"Max. Call me Max." He walked over to me and pushed the papers and photos away. "Come on. I'll buy you a drink. You look like you need it."

He was trying to pull me off the couch. I was stuck to it like a reluctant girlfriend. "Come on, Jake. That's enough blood for tonight. You'll get your fill tomorrow." He got me to my feet and he shook me off. "That's a boy. Come on. We'll drink, talk, do a little karaoke, it'll be great."

I followed him out and we went down the stairs to the hotel lounge. It was empty except for a couple in the far corner and the bartender. Max and I sat in a booth far away from everything. He sipped his whiskey sour and grinned at me. "So, what did you do before you joined the club?"

I looked away. "Private bodyguard."

He took another drink. "Ever do any government work?" I nodded. "Don't want to talk about that, eh?" I shook my head. "Okay. I understand."

He looked at me for a while, quiet. He was giving me the once over, trying to figure me out. Then, he started talking. "You know what I was, Jake?" I didn't answer. He kept talking anyway. "I was a dead man."

"This isn't going to be one of those 'born again' speeches, is it?" I asked him.

"Hell, no. I mean literally dead. You ever notice how slow the machine works, Jake? How slow people are to catch up on current events? Well see, here's how it works. I got one guy on my payroll in city hall on the right computer. I give him a thousand bucks, he gives me a name: the name of a new corpse. I get the same information your basic credit card company gets: income, address, phone number, social security number, all that jazz. Then, with a little finesse, I become that guy on paper. I transfer a few funds, max up his credit cards, make a few investments, you get the picture. A lot of times, it takes the credit card companies months to catch up. All I need are a couple of days."

I couldn't do anything but just stare at him. He did nothing but smile.

"Pretty slick, eh?"

"Yeah," I said. "I guess so. Didn't you ever get caught?"

"Nah! Well, not by the authorities. I got a name from my buddy once, and there was a bundle of cash in this guy's account. I was making withdrawals like nobody's business when I suddenly found myself staring down the barrel of a shotgun. There was Blythe. The guy I was pretending to be wasn't exactly as dead as I thought he was."

"So why'd you join?"

He laughed. "What the hell choice did I have? Just imagine the look on the thing's face the next time he tried to use his ATM! This is the safest place I could think to be, short of Alaska during the sunny season. Besides, the paycheck ain't too bad, either."

We laughed together for a while, and the pictures and words back up in the room faded from my memory. We talked about stupid stuff. We got a little too drunk and didn't care. We talked about nuke food, Coke vs. Pepsi, and TV sitcoms.

"You remind me of Herb Tarlek," I told him.

He laughed. "You remind me of Jack Tripper," he told me.

That's how most of the night went by. Then, after the last round, Max looked at me with a sudden seriousness. "Why'd you join?" he asked me.

The mirth rolled to a stop. I licked my lips and looked down at my drink.

"You don't wanna tell me, that's fine, Jake."

I shook my head. "No. No, it's okay. Just give me a second." I saw him nod out of the corner of my eye and he waited. I took a few deep breaths, barely realizing I was twisting the gold ring on my left hand. Then, I told him.

When I was done, I looked up. His eyes were a little wet. He finished up his drink and ordered us two more. "That's bad, Jake. That's a bad thing to happen to anyone."

"Yeah," I said, taking another drink. "But it happened to us." I swallowed hard and the liquor must have awakened something inside of me, something that I hadn't noticed. I put the glass down a little harder than I should have and looked right into Max. "After all's said and done," I told him, "they never caught the guy. But that's not what gets me mad, Max my man, oh no. You know what really burned me up?"

Max shook his head. He spoke softly, "No, Jake. Not here."

I didn't listen. I don't think I could have listened. "The police. They looked at her empty body and those marks and they knew. Just as sure as I did, they knew. And when I looked into their eyes, I knew. I knew that they would never look for the guy, 'cause if they did, they just might find him."

Max reached across the table and gripped my hand. "Jake, listen..."

I didn't. "I got all the regular calls. They must've been reading them right off the cue cards on their desks. 'I'm sorry, Mr. Tapert, but we just don't have any leads at this time.' 'I'm sorry Mr. Tapert, we thought we had something, but it was a dead end.' All I got was sympathetic noises. I didn't want apologies, I wanted my wife back!"

Max wasn't trying anymore. He just looked at me from across the table, knowing every word I was about to say. He'd heard them all a thousand times before probably.

"What would you do, Max? Huh? What would you do?" He didn't say anything to me. "One day, you're a happily married man. You've got plans and a future and maybe some kids in a couple of years. Then, the next day, you wake up and there's monsters in the world. Not the crap you see on TV, but real goddamn monsters. And you take a real good look around, and you see that other people can see them, too. They're out there, Max. They all know. But they don't want to look, because if they look, they might actually have to do something!"

I was standing, throwing my drink at the floor, knocking the table over and screaming. Max was there, sitting down, quiet.

"The cops knew, and they wouldn't do anything. I've got to do something, Max. They took... they took..." All the strength went out of me then. All the rage fled from my limbs. I felt arms around me, and it was Max, walking me out of the lounge. I felt us step outside into the night air and up the stairs. All the while, he was talking.

"I know, Jake. I know," he said to me. The bed rose up to meet me and sleep came quickly. I don't remember if I dreamed.

I looked at my watch. It was eleven thirty-five. The van rolled to a halt and Max shut her down. Blythe and I were done gearing up. O'Bannon had finished with our clips. I looked at them as he handed them to me. "Silver," he said. "With a dash of the Lord's own blessing. Or mine, at least."

I slapped them into the pistols. I had three clips for each weapon. Earlier I had asked Blythe why we weren't using machine guns. "Too inaccurate. Not enough control. The way these things move, you're going to want to get as much control as you can get."

"Besides," smiled O'Bannon. "There's no way you're going to get me to bless five thousand rounds of ammunition one round at a time."

I looked up at Nik. She was strapping on something that looked like a flamethrower. Max was right behind her. Strapped to his chest were two flare guns. He noticed the look. "You never know ..." he said.

Vincent slid over to me. Each of us had a tiny camera strapped to us and Vincent was checking out his reception. I suddenly felt like James Bond walking into an Alien movie. "Now, it's time to tell you about your pulse monitor," he said. "See this?" He held my wrist up to my eyes, showing me that funky watch. As he did, Blythe strapped something around my neck, something heavy. "This keeps track of your pulse. If one of them gets a hold of you and starts drinking, your pulse will shoot up like a rocket. I'll be keeping track of that here in the van." Blythe then slid something along my jawbone just before my lips. "If your heart drops back down, I'll assume they've got you and pull the trigger."

"Trigger?" I asked. "What trigger?"

"You've got two chemicals in that package around your neck. Both of them are quite harmless. However, when they mix, they make quite a large explosion."

I felt my whole insides try to rush up out my throat. I knew exactly what he was talking about. "You -- you mean...?"

"You also have a manual control. If you bite down on that plastic trigger there next to your mouth, that will release the two chemicals and you'll go up in -- oh, about three seconds."

I tried to swallow. "Three?"

He nodded. "Three."

Nik put her hand on my shoulder. "Trust me, Jake. This is for your own good. You don't want to come back as one of those things, do you?"

I blinked. "No."

"Good. Then let's get ready."

Vincent grabbed me. "One last thing, Jake. Those explosives on your neck will probably take down that whole building, so if you can help it, don't bite down on your trigger while the rest of the Team is in there, okay?"

Max slapped me on the shoulder. "I think he'll remember that, Professor."

The sound I made was anything but a laugh. "Yeah. I'll try."

Vincent smiled. "It's like a fraternity pin, buddy. Everybody gets one." I turned around and Nik was looking at all of us. "Okay, boys," she said. "It's time. You all know the drill. I won't waste your time with that. Just remember why we're here. Nobody drafted us. We're here because we know the truth, and we're not going to hide from it."

She looked at us with hazel eyes as hard as steel. "The only thing they are is hunger. They take your blood, they take your life. They take something from everyone who knows you. They take and take and all they leave behind is pain." She opened the van panel door. "It's time to take a little of that back."

Blythe and O'Bannon leapt from the van. Max followed. I was about to jump when Nik grabbed me.

She looked into my eyes. A heartbeat flashed between us.

"You know who you're fighting for, Jake?"

The pain in my chest swelled up. All the anger from the night before found me again. The rage pounded in my head and in my heart.

"She's down there, Jake. She's down there and they have her. And this time you can save her, Jake. But you have to fight your way through them. Can you do that, Jake?" My voice could only make a whisper. "Yes." Her voice was a roar. "Can you?"

"Yes!"

"Don't let her die again, Jake."

She leapt from the van. Everything was red. I pulled the pistols out from their holsters and ran hard under the noonday sun.

Everything was black. Vincent's flash-smoke bomb went off. We moved across the floor. It took moments for our eyes to adjust. There was a long bar, a dance floor and tables, adorned with upside down chairs. Blythe and I covered the rest of the Team as Nik, O'Bannon and Max checked out the blind spots, calling out "Clear!" as they went.

Screams started echoing off the ceiling. Three figures jumped out of the shadows. Nik raised her hand: "No shooting." They were kids, still in their club gear, scars all down their arms. They bolted toward the stairs that led up. I heard Nik's voice over the comlink. "Follow me," she said. We moved fast, following them up the staircase toward the manager's office.

We caught them halfway to the staircase. They moved like broken dolls, too weak to get any speed. I turned one of them over, a girl, and I stopped. She was the girl in the picture that William Brugaletta's mother clung to, but the honey blonde hair was a flat black, the kind of black that sucks in light, and her eyes were the same. Her lips were trembling, dry and thin. There were brown patches on her skin and sunken shadows on her face. Nik's voice snapped my attention back.

"Back off, Jake. Let O'Bannon do his job."

I did, but my eyes never left the girl. She blinked, her lips curling as the priest approached, raising his cross. "Our Father, who art in Heaven," he began, and they snarled in pain, writhing back against the wall.

"... Hallowed be thy Name..."

They began screaming, as if someone would come to stop their pain.

"... Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be --"

Little Kathy Fowler lunged from the corner of the club at Father O'Bannon, her hands reaching for the priest's throat. I felt my finger flinch on the trigger, but her blonde hair and happy smile flashed at me and I just couldn't do it. She got to the priest, her lips drawing back and white light flashed across the room. For a moment, I thought Max had used one of his flare guns, but when my sight cleared, I saw the priest standing over the girl, his cross glowing with a light that I could feel from across the room. Her head was cast down to the floor, and smoke was pouring out between her fingers as she clawed at her own face.

Then, there was a gunshot and the light died. Father O'Bannon crumpled over and I heard the thud of the crucifix fall to the floor. I looked up and saw a figure standing at the head of the stairs, a pistol in his right hand. Blythe reacted a little faster than I did, but both of us landed our marks in his legs. The figure fell down the staircase and we moved. The girls screamed and Max stopped and cuffed them as the rest of us moved toward the stairs. "Professor," I heard Max whisper over the comlink, "O'Bannon's down. Gunshot. Hold pattern."

"Check," Vincent said.

Nik had grabbed the gunman and flung him against the bar. He screamed, clutching his legs. He was tall, dark and could have been handsome under different circumstances. Nik pulled a bowie knife out from her belt and held it up to his chin. "Tell me where it is," she said.

Pretty Boy tried to say something witty. Nik pulled his right hand up onto the bar and slammed the knife through it up to the hilt. Pretty Boy screamed again. Then she took one of Blythe's pistols and put it against his head.

"Listen to me. I'm only going to say this one time. You've got a forty-four to your temple. Half your head is going to be splattered all over this bar in three seconds if you don't tell me where the thing is. You understand me?"

Pretty Boy didn't say a thing.

"One."

He whimpered and shook his head.

"Two."

He turned his head until the barrel was directly in front of his face, opened his mouth wide and closed his lips around the barrel.

Nik looked up at Blythe with complete disgust. She pulled the gun out and slammed the pistol against his forehead.

"It's downstairs," she said to Blythe. "It's gotta be downstairs. Max, how's O'Bannon?"

"He took one right through the throat, Nik," Max said from just over the still body of the priest. "I'm sorry."

"Get in tight," she said to us then. "We're going downstairs. No more mistakes." We made our way to the corner staircase.

It was cold. We moved down the stairs, two by two. Nik and I were up front while Max and Blythe took up the rear. It got dark very quickly. The lights on our shoulders lit our way down.

The basement was empty. It was a simple dirt floor and concrete walls. Some extra tables and chairs cluttered the corners, but that was all.

"Damn!" Nik cursed.

"Against the far wall," Max said. "That's the wall closest to the sewer tunnels."

Sure enough, against the back wall, behind some broken chairs, there was a plywood sheet. We slid it across and a stench rolled up to meet us.

"A ladder," Nik said. "We can only go down one at a time." She looked at each of us. "Blythe, you have to go first. Cover the rest of us." Nik backed off. "Go quickly, gentlemen." She peeled off the tank on her back and put the torch down next to it. "This isn't going to do us any good down there."

"No," Blythe said as he handed her a shotgun. "But this will." She smiled and Blythe slid down the ladder and into the darkness.

I took position at the edge of the hole. "Blythe, can you hear me?" I whispered into the comlink.

"Nothing down here. Damn cold."

Max slid down next, moving as fast as he could. Nik threw the shotgun strap over her shoulder. I saw her eyes in the dark, just before she disappeared.

My turn.

I gingerly put my feet on the first rung -- and I froze.

Every muscle in my body did not want to go down that hole. Would not go down that hole.

"That thing is down there," something told me from the back of my head. "It'll kill you."

I shut my eyes, feeling the sweat on my brow slide down my skin and I saw the blank eyes of the detective who didn't want to see. The eyes of Brugaletta who didn't want to see what really killed his son.

Then I saw Nik's eyes.

"It'll kill you," the voice said again.

"It killed her," I whispered back.

I slid down the ladder.

It was like jumping into a pool in November. The stink sent shock waves through my stomach. I turned and saw the Team. Then, I saw the thing.

The room was alive. It was as if the walls were made of paper thin skin, black veins pumping just under the surface. All along the floor, bodies were scattered like refuse, dried and decaying. Their skin was peeling away from their bodies.

At the far end of the room, a shadow pulsed, darker than the rest. I couldn't feel anything in my fingers, but I heard the pistols fall to the ground and I heard the soft crunch of a skull. More than anything, I didn't want to see what was there in that shadow. I wanted to run, but I couldn't. I wanted to hide, but there was nowhere to go. My body wasn't mine any more. It belonged to the thing, and it was coming to claim me.

It was coming to...

"She needs you, Jake!"

Coming to...

"You have to be strong for her, Jake!"

I can't hear...

"Don't let her die again. Don't let her die alone!"

Alone.

I felt the tears on my cheek and saw hazel eyes.

"N -- Nik?"

She put something in my hand. It was heavy. I looked up and saw blood on the concrete walls. The concrete walls. They weren't flesh, they were just rock and mortar and they were covered in blood.

And for the first time, I saw the thing.

It was fat. Fat and bloated like a spider. Dirty. Its limbs were too long. It shook, as if palsy pulsed through its muscles. Its black lips made a mewling sound like a dying cat crushed under a car. My hand raised up. I don't remember firing the gun that Nik had put there, but it did. The thing moved, pushing with its long arms and legs, moving faster than it should have been able to. Only a single bullet reached its mark, and a thick black pus leaked out of its belly. Blythe raised both his pistols, aimed at the two opposite corners and started firing, slowly drawing the two guns together. The thing had nowhere to dodge. It moved like a cartoon shadow, sidestepping at impossible angles, never ceasing its inhuman screams.

It leapt forward suddenly, straight into Blythe's line of fire. His whole body fell back, trying to dodge its talons. Max leapt up from behind the thing, putting the barrel of the flaregun against the back of its head. "Max! No!" I heard Nik cry, but too late. The flaregun fired.

The thing's body slammed backward as its head exploded. Blythe was suddenly covered in black ooze. He dropped his pistols and grabbed his eyes, howling in pain. I heard Max's scream as the body fell on him. He was calling to me, begging me to help him. I ran forward.

Nik pushed me out of the way. She put the shotgun against the chest of the thing. The blast blew a hole in the chest and more black blood flew out at us. The legs and arms reached up and grabbed Nik, twisting her body in its grasp. Somewhere, Blythe was screaming. I saw Nik's face suddenly fill with pain, I heard a snap, the shotgun fell from her hands, and her hazel eyes turned to empty glass.

The thing gave one last shudder and didn't move again. Its gangly arms fell to its side. I ran to Max. He'd worked himself halfway out. I grabbed his good arm -- the one that wasn't covered in the black blood -- and pulled. His features twisted in pain, but he didn't make a sound. Three tugs and he was free. Blythe staggered across the room toward us. I grabbed him by the arm. "I can't see," he said. "Where is she?"

I looked at Max. Max shook his head. "She's gone."

He nodded. "Then we'd better get the hell out of here."

A figure fell from the ladder. I looked. It was the pretty boy from upstairs. I looked for a gun. I didn't know where mine had gone. He stumbled like a blind man across the bloody floor, slipping and falling onto the thing's body. "For you," he whispered. "For you, my love." He raised Nik's bloody bowie knife and drew it across his throat, falling on the gaping wound of the thing's chest.

"We have to go now," Max said.

I stood paralyzed. I felt the horror rise in my throat as the wound seemed to drink in the spilled blood. The wound folded up towards him like a hungry mouth, taking the body into itself.

We ran.

I put Blythe's hands on the ladder. He moved faster than a blinded man had a right to move. He kicked something as he climbed. I reached down and grabbed the pistol. I checked the clip.

Three bullets.

I put the clip back into the pistol. "Go, Max."

He didn't argue.

I levelled the pistol at the thing, beginning to raise itself with the half-devoured body in its chest. I put my left hand on the ladder and pulled myself up. I felt hands pulling at me from above. I let go of the ladder, let them pull me away and unloaded the rest of the clip into the thing's belly.

We made it through the cellar and up to the main floor in a blur. Max grabbed O'Bannon. "Where are the kids?" I asked.

"Outside," the comlink told me.

"When we hit the street, you hit the trigger, Professor."

"Heard you the first time," he said.

We hit the daylight, he hit the trigger. The Club Noir fell in on itself in less than thirty seconds. In five minutes, we were surrounded by townsfolk, police and TV reporters.

Now they want to open their eyes.

So here I am, sitting on the remains of the Club Noir, smoking a cigarette. Don't know when I picked that habit up. The police want to take me away. The reporters want me to stay. I think I'll stay for a while. I've got something I want them to see.

You see, I'm pretty sure that thing down there is still moving. If we couldn't kill it, no way an explosion like that would. I know that would probably have ticked Nik off. Sorry, boss.

But Blythe, Max and I are still here, waiting. We've reloaded. We're bandaged up. Blythe's got most of his sight back. We're waiting. It's gotta come up sometime. And when it does, everybody's gonna be looking the right way. Nobody's gonna be able to say "I didn't see it." Nobody's gonna be able to ignore it. It'll be right here. And we'll be right here. And we'll put a stake in the damn thing's heart and cut off its head and let it bake in the sunlight.

And then they'll know. They'll know.

They'll know, Allison. They'll know they can fight.

And they won't look the other way again.