The plan seemed solid enough to trust, though her natural skepticism was getting in the way of things. Calm down, she told herself. The vision doesn't have to come true. Its just light in water. You don't know if it was true or even if it meant anything. She took a breath and conceded. "Its better than any plan that I'd have come up with." She was good at wild theories and making remote connections to the paranormal, but when it came to a concrete plan of attack she had very little in the way of suggestions.

Once she put her trust issues at a temporary ease, she found her appetite had come back and began to eat at a more steady pace. Oddly enough, the grease from the unclean grill had made her chicken taste better. She didn't recall the last time she'd had fast food, or really anything that didn't come from a box including the word "instant." She could feel the shaking stop as her stomach began to fill.

She put the receiver to her mouth again and called to her brother. "Whenever you're ready, we've got a plan."

"Aw, really? SWEET!" Within a matter of minutes, Martin was back from the sporting goods section with several pairs of mud-stomping boots and an impressive length of rope. "I'm ready to kill some zombies!"

Lixi smiled and moved her feet back off the bench to leave room for Martin to sit back down if he chose and gave him the cliff notes version of her plan, still giving the little note book most of her attention. Jason, meanwhile, had gotten up and wandered out. He returned a few minutes later with a huge roll of industrial contractor strength trash bags and began wrapping the lap top bag up in several layers of them, taping each layer off with some duct tape before proceeding to the next. By the time he was done, the package he'd constructed looked more like a big black marshmallow than an electronics bag. He then stuffed the whole thing into a large duffel he'd drug back with him.

"What?" he snipped at the curious look Lixi gave him. "Our adventures tend to be less than tech friendly. I know you're from before the dark ages and all, but even you should know that computers no likey water." He drew the last bit out in a slow childish way that Lixi assumed was meant to insult her.

"Thank you for that Mr. Wizard." The kid was beginning to try even her patience, which was hard to do. "Safe to assume you're on board then?"

"I just want to get Sophia back. Whatever it takes."

Lixi smiled a rather sinister smile. She contemplated how wicked it would be of her to ask the Thelemites to open the portal to wherever Arminos had taken her, then tell Jason to go find her himself. No matter how tempting the thought was right now, she'd never condemn the poor kid like that.

"Well then, I guess we can head out whenever everyone is ready."

Adja actually chuckled at Jason's never-ending quest to save both his laptop and his girlfriend. She wondered, perhaps, if maybe he should be more devoted to one or the other, lest he be spread so thin. But that passed quickly and it was back down to business. "According to this map, the boat hub you were talking about is that way" she said, pointing out to the front doors. "If what you're saying is true, and the place is cleared for now, we can leave out the front doors and head straight for the river."

Martin polished off his sausage ((oh wait... that sounds wrong... eh... I'll keep it.)) and proceeded to gather his loot with that stupid grin on his face. "Ho, MAN am I ready," he said, excitable as a puppy. "Start the day out killin' zombies and now we get to floatin' up the river. I'm waitin' to see where this takes us next. I can handle it, yee-uh!" It was clear that he was bored with looting and wanted to get back into the action. It only vaguely bothered him that he wasn't bothered by this at all, but then it all boiled down to the fact that he was practically living his dream of being a comic book hero... but without the spandex and a lot more killing.

Well, he supposed that would have made him a villain, but times had changed.

Lixi stood and stretched as lazily as an old house cat before retrieving her gear from the booth where she'd left it. She did a quick check to make sure all weapons were easily accessible as she'd hoped, then tossed each of her companions a few of the thermals from the box. "Here, you'll need these. If you hear a helicopter coming, find cover, and wrap up as fast as possible in one of these."

She headed to the door, and looked out apprehensively. Nothing seemed to be moving in the parking lot. It was about 5 now, so they still had roughly 4 hours till dark. The heat seeking heli bothered her more than anything as to the survival of any of the people they were trying to reach. She reminded herself that the clean up crew wouldn't be so careless as to take it in to directly confront Joel so long as he was still doing whatever the hell he was doing on the roof top of one of the taller buildings in down town, so there was hope that maybe a paranoid shut in could still be undiscovered if he'd been careful enough.

"Just this place was clean. The store itself and maybe the surrounding hundred yards or so. Doesn't mean we won't run into more of them closer to the docks. If we're lucky, they're regrouping and resting up before nightfall right now though." She waited till the rest of the group had gathered in the foyer-esq area, and then pulled the pin to start the doors in motion once more. Peeking just her head out at first, she checked the lot for additional zombies or any other threat. Everything was silent to the overly so, super creepy level once more. No gun fire. No shuffling of Zombie feet. No churring or buzzing of the usual summer insects. No chirping of birds. The sheer volume of the silence was almost maddening to her. She swore she couldn't even here the wind blowing in the nearby decorative trees.

She whispered a silent prayer to the earth gods her friends at Roanoke had taught her, and stepped out into the hot afternoon sun. The air of unrest in the stagnant lack of air outside made her want to run back in. What the hell is this now. This isn't right, even for as wrong as an apocalypse inherently is. This is something different. She briefly entertained the idea of going back in and trying to contact Joel herself, to speak with him in that ethereal dream space he'd haunted her in for so long, but she knew that wouldn't do any good. IF he knew what was going on, he'd never tell her. If this wasn't his doing, he wouldn't give her the satisfaction of knowing he was confused about it as well. "Guess we press on then..." She mumbled outloud.

Adja noticed the hesitance to go back out and understood it, though judging from the previous gung-ho attitude this was a little off-character. Something was wrong, and once she followed Lixi out the door she could feel it, too. It wasn't just the eery silence that took her, but it was like being in a black hole. She felt as though the air were heavier and that if she should say anything, she would choke on her words. She supposed that it was all in her mind, but only for a minute while her brain caught up and started running the calculations of events in her head. Files were being opened in her brain, cataloguing.

Ever happy to play the fool card, Martin traipsed unperturbed into the unknown. Although, he didn't have any witty remarks this time around. Even though he was ready to go and nothing outwardly bothered him, the eery silence of the outside world was influencing him and his attitude sank from overtly positive to watchful. He kept his golf club ready, feeling that something around them was hostile, even if he couldn't see it. Jason, they were certain, also felt the oppressive feeling, because for once he managed to keep quiet.

Vulture felt as though she were rising on a bubble.

It wasn't long before the four of them reached the un-owned swatches of land that separated the supermarket from the rest of the outskirts of town. If there was any need to take cover, the grasses were tall enough to conceal anyone. Once they got closer to the river, though, they would need to find other means of taking cover.

Lixi tried to speak, but her words caught like sand in her throat as they entered the grass. She wasn't sure if this was her minds own doing or if this really was the presence of something sinister near by. I don't like this. Somethings really off. Are any of you getting this? Can anyone speak? she did her best to push her thoughts into her companions heads, but felt as though they hit a brick wall and never were able to leave her own mind. A vague red blur felt like it was hanging in her peripheral vision, but stayed just out of sight every time she tried to look. Another demon maybe?

Not wanting to wait around to find out, she pressed on a little faster. The only sound was the sound of there own footsteps and the blades of tall grass brushing across their legs. She came to a sudden stop and held her arms out to the side to stop the others when something between them and there destination caught her eye.

A zombie, or what was left of it, was staggering toward them. It's body was bloated to the point of nearly bursting from it's skin, and it's skin was a very unnatural shade of pink-ish red. Large spots of it's skin looked scorched, but without any kind of charring. What the hell is wrong with that thing? It can't be radiation, or the plants would be wilting already. If it was boiled, there would be more blisters on the skin, and directly burning it would leave the skin charred and cracked. It looks like someone microwaved the damn thing till it was about to pop. The creature seemed to pay no attention to them at all, even after having looked directly at them. By the time it reached them, she could see the brown tones of the spots of it's flesh that literally looked like they'd been slowly cooked. Even though it tried to stagger past them with little incident, Lixi felt the need to take pity on the creature and end it mercifully. She pulled out one of the claw hammers and approached it from behind, digging it deeply into it's skull. The bone and tissue were already fragile from whatever had happened to it, so the blow was almost effortless, and shattered the skull cleanly in two.

As the body hit the dirt, it's abdominal cavity split open from the lack of muscular tension to hold the bloated organs in an longer. Lixi recoiled and covered her face, expecting the rotted smell of decay to come wafting out. Instead, the aroma was more like that of the grills they'd just left back at the store. Miscellaneous meat and byproducts cooked together. She shuddered and started walking through the tall grass once more, at a pace that was bordering on running. The buildings around the docks were coming into view at least, just beyond a section of overpass leading to one of the larger bridges. She broke and ran for the low bit of cover where the bridge came down closest to the ground, hoping maybe there they would be able to speak enough to formulate the net step of the plan.

The smell was cloying: a sickly sweet smell of cooked pork. Adja gagged at the thought of the scent of cooked rotting flesh being... appetizing.

Both Adja and Martin heard, in varying degrees of understanding, Lixi's plea for noise. They tried to respond, but choked on the silence. Feeling betrayed by his own voice, Martin let out a yell. The sound was thrown back into his throat. He clenched his jaw and grated his teeth in frustration. Adja simply shook her head and followed Lixi as they broke into a run. Everyone seemed effected except...

"Why are we running?"

They all turned to stare at him. Adja grabbed his wrist and tugged, motioning for him to run, and pointing to the buildings at the end of the field as their destination. She put a finger to her lips, indicating that he should stay quiet. She had theories.

The short run across a purely flat field left Lixi winded, which unsettled her all the more. Jason's sudden burst of speech had felt almost deafening in this silence, like close thunder in a quiet night. Once under the bridge, she quickly leaned her back against the wall in the shade and slid down to a sitting position. She tried to speak again, but nothing came out but the dry wheeze of her breath. She glared at Jason, suddenly very suspicious of this innocent brats real standings.

She picked up a stick and scrawled quick, big letters as deep into the dirt at her feet. Any clue what's going on?!? I can barely breath. Can't speak at all. Feel like I can't even think straight. Nothing I've ever encountered before. Anyone have any ideas?

Adja motioned for her turn with the stick. Jason not affected because he's not touched the same way we are, she wrote, not sure if this was a good time to reveal Martin's coexistence with the enemy to the only person in the group who had nothing supernaturally remarkable about them. Jason was already mad at him for various reasons. Adding another layer of distrust would have just made things worse.

Only seems to work outside. Either a weapon by the Cleanup Crew or by Joel's comrades. If by CC, then to single out humans as the only ones who can make noise. If by J, then to keep us inside and away from him, or to deter CC. She held the stick out to anyone with opinions. Martin was too busy fighting the urge to scream and swinging his nine-iron to blow off some steam. Though his mouth made no noise, the grunting sounds of frustration were very clearly implied.

Lixi shrugged and nodded. Adja could well be right. It's not like Lixi had exactly been in the group. Just because she hadn't encountered it didn't mean it wasn't angelic in nature. She tried to focus in on Martin for a moment, but he was blurry to her at the moment, even at only a few yards. Everything had a faint yellow hew to it now, especially the sky. She wanted to take the stick and ask if anyone else thought the sky looked a deep, burnt yellow, but her head was hurting to much, best to just keep moving and get back inside somewhere as soon as they could. If whatever was causing this was also having the strange microwaved effect on the zombies, she was sure she didn't want to have herself or the most human group out in it for longer than necessary either.

She pushed herself to focus and tried to stand, but nearly doubled over in the process. Whatever was going on was making her feel physically ill. She very nearly puked before she got herself righted, but eventually managed to do so. The world felt heavy all around her, like it was weighing on her so heavily she may collapse. Lixi staggered forward, and nearly crashed into Martin, catching herself on his arm instead.

Martin was, to say the very least concerned, and took a moment from his frustration at the situation to look over at the rest of them. Upon seeing that Lixi was feeling ill, he rushed to her side, much to Jason's chagrin. He wanted to ask her if she was feeling alright, but choked on the heaviness of the air. Instead he offered himself as support, letting his actions work in lieu of words.

It was then that Adja noticed that Lixi was looking at the sky. She followed her gaze, but didn't see anything out of the ordinary. The sky was an off-color: about the same color that it gets when there's about to be a tornado, a sick yellow. But it had been getting towards that color all day. She had been expecting that there be one of the helicopters or something flying overhead. She looked to Martin and Jason and shrugged, perplexed.

Vulture had resurfaced, but was far from taking control again. Perhaps it was this sinister change in atmosphere that brought her back from being buried in Martin's subconscious, or perhaps it was simply time to wake up. Now would be a good time to explain the way the double-consciousness works. Imagine that both Martin and Vulture are separate entities with separate minds and separate pairs of eyes. Now simply set them on top of each other: seeing the same thing from the same body but in two completely different ways. Martin, being the strongest in personality, controls the head that both sets of eyes rest upon.

Now, with that explained, Martin saw the sky as being yellow, just as his sister saw it. But Vulture? She saw it as turning a tainted gold. Her astral head swirled, and felt as though she had been woken up simply to vomit. Martin did not feel her illness, but an unease washed over him. Lixi, clearly, was experiencing similar symptoms, but was it the same? The sickness was not simply a disease; it was as though she were being overpowered with an archaic energy. And a great hush fell over the world, she said, unable to keep her thoughts guarded for the time. A world forfeit, silence not meant for them.

What, Martin asked, panicking. These words were foreign to him. He was beginning to, for the first time, wonder who was saying them. What the hell does that mean? What the hell is going on?

Safety in shade, she said enigmatically. Quickly, now.

He motioned to Jason and Adja, pointing to Lixi and then to the cluster of now abandoned buildings, that they needed to get Lixi inside. Through hand gestures, he appointed Adja to be their cover and keep an eye out for more of those zombies and for Jason to carry Lixi's legs while he carried her torso. They burst through the door of what appeared to be a former podiatrist clinic and as soon as they were inside and set Lixi down, Adja sticking a stray broomhandle between the looped door handles to serve as a temporary lock.

By the time Martin and Jason had half drug, half carried her into the building, Lixi was nearly unconscious. The air in the building felt cooler though, lighter. Reason slowly came back to her, though she was still dizzy and felt sick. She looked up at the rest from where she was laying on the floor, and tried to listen for any speech. She didn't think she heard any, but wasn't sure if they weren't talking, or if she just couldn't hear it now. She half rolled, half crawled past the receptionist desk in the main lobby area and crawled under the long desk that was there, where she curled up in a ball, and shut her eyes tightly.

After a few moments she willed herself to try to speak. "Can anyone hear me now?" Her words came out raspy and barely audible. Water... I need water... she thought to herself. The dizziness had begun to subside, so she ventured to peek up over the desk to see if anyone else was speaking or had heard her. Fairly certain they'd at least heard her, she tried to smile and comment smuggly. "I think we need a plan b"

Adja fished around in her bag of supplies for a bottle of water and slipped it under the receptionist desk. "I... I don't know what that was," she said, her voice sounding like thunder in her own head. "I have never come across anything like that." And by the looks of it, neither had Lixi. Her brain was already cataloguing things that she knew were true. One; Lixi seemed the most affected by it. Two; Jason seemed the least affected by it. Three; it only worked outside. At its most potent, it could knock someone off their feet. At its least potent, it seemed just to make one feel uneasy. At first, she'd assumed that it had to do with how touched by the supernatural they were, but it could have just as easily been age. Lixi was by far the oldest, and Jason still seemed to be in his 20's.

Yes. They would need a Plan B.

Martin was rubbing his head, trying to get used to noise. His heart was pounding in his ears and his head hurt something horrible. Now that they were out of the effects of the... disease? Spell? Now that they were away from it, his head was swimming. Vulture seemed to be spouting off words that made no sense; just a jumble of nonsense to him. And then there came a Great Hush over the world, a world forfeit from The Meek, a silence not meant for them but for those at war. He held his head in his hands, trying to force the voice out, but to no avail. The Sun becomes foe; to weaken those who might oppose, reveal those of favor, to become Acolytes of the new Power.

"Shut up," he said to the voice in his head, but there was still more.

Aeons War to come to finale, bring forth a new Era. The Meek inherit the dirt-

"STOP IT." Vulture stopped. The runoff energy from whatever it was that happened outside had come to a lull. Martin was now aware that everyone was staring at him. He didn't know what to do; how to explain that he was talking to the voice inside his head, which had been spouting off nonsense about a Great Hush. He felt very uncharacteristically small. For about the first time in a long time, he was genuinely beginning to question his sanity.

Lixi drank at the water greedily as she watched Martin. Judging by the duress on his face, and the audible mumbling to what she knew to be vulture, she assumed his parasite was agitated enough from whatever what was effecting her to be causing some kind of conflict. She more or less crawled across the floor to him. Still kneeling for stability, she stretched her frame up, reaching for his elbow, and grasped his arm lightly, trying to pull him down to sit beside her. From the contact, she picked up on the last words of what Vulture had been practically shouting in Martins head. It wasn't hard to hear her if you had any kind of connection to him, as she no longer seemed to be hiding her presence.

Lixi hung her head as she processed what she'd just heard, still clinging to Martin, more in the absent minded way of a frightened child now than the comforting purpose she'd originally had. "Save the weak, slaves to the power. Punish those that could rise. Is that what you imply?" She asked aloud, staring at the floor.

When spoken to, directly, she could not avoid the question. Martin's eyes glazed over, but did not lose the frantic look on his face. "Yes, but not me." This was not like the time when he was asleep and Vulture took control. Nor was it akin to when he was unconscious. There were, this time, two people in control.

"What is wrong with me," he asked no one in particular. He could feel his hands shaking, but he couldn't calm down. His legs felt weak, and at Lixi's minuscule tug he felt the floor come up beneath him. "Oh GOD what is wrong with me?" He continued shaking, holding his head in his hands, kneeling, then sitting on the cold linoleum floor.

"I'd like to know the answer to that question, too," Jason offered unhelpfully.

"There's a voice in my head," he said. Whether it was in answer to Jason's inquiry or not was uncertain. He seemed to be in a far-off place, trying to deal with this new development. "I just... and its... its telling me things... I don't know what they mean. And... just now... that wasn't me talking. It wasn't me..."

Vulture had stopped reciting, and only echoes of whatever text she was evoking remained, but she was still there. She had revealed that she was there and there was no sense in going back to sleep. She was filled with the power of this force that had kept them from speaking, and the energy from it left her buzzing.

"This is your friend Joel's work, or someone with him. He is using the sun as a means to use this curse, to keep your people at bay." His eyes got that glazed-over look again, but it was clear that that was all Vulture was willing to control for now. His anxiety attack was still going strong in the rest of his body. "It won't be long, now.

The glassy look diminished and Martin looked at Lixi, shaking his head slowly and mouthing the words "that wasn't me."

"Uh... when did this happen," Jason interjected, still fixated on the fact that there were two voices coming out of Martin's mouth.

"Let's just say that Martin eats for two," Adja said enigmatically, not wanting to explain her brother's situation twice in twenty-four hours. She walked over to her shivering brother with her skillet in hand. She held it behind her brother's head threateningly. "How do we fight this curse?"

Martin's head turned towards her. "Oh, if you think that I have the answer to that question, then it shows how little you know of your precious magic." The look on his face looked very frightened. "Please don't hit me with that," Martin said in a small, by comparison, voice.

Lixi wrapped her arms tightly around Martin, putting what energy she could muster into comforting him. She lay a cool hand on the arm with which Adja held the skillet. "It's alright Adja. She's as fucked as me right now I think. Remember, just because she's talking doesn't mean your brother isn't still there." To both the occupants of Martin's body she whispered internally. Will you let me mediate now? Secrets won't make this run any smoother. She let her body relax, and began reaching for the cool, dark space beyond the world that she walked in her sleep. The place she had even managed to take Joel when last he threatened her dreams. One of you come with me... the other stays to talk to Adja. None of us get through this if we panic. I may be weaker than ever, but we can still talk, and we can fix this somehow. I know we can. Now come. "Adja will talk to whoever stays behind. Play nice. No violence." She let herself fall down through the consciousness of her body into the world she knew so much better than the alien looking earth, dragging hard at both consciousnesses that she clung to. She'd not slip the rest of the way till one came along with her. She needed to separate them for a moment, to talk to one or the other. Having them at odds would only lengthen Martin's rejection of Vulture, rendering them both more or less useless, and him possibly permanently twisted. Damage control needed to be done if this was going to be salvaged.

When at least she felt her feet sinking slowly into the cool sand, she stretched her hands upward toward the always full moon. The beautiful oasis was as comforting as ever. She felt the one who'd fallowed her quickly materializing into her little space, but she didn't look back to see who it was. Instead she walked forward toward the cool, still water of the small wooded patch amidst the rubble of the fallen city. "Welcome to Irem... or what was left of it after the last old one I encountered."

Vulture could not leave. There were rules and consequences preventing her, so with Lixi's offer for one of them to leave Martin's body, the freer soul was the one that went.

When Martin appeared at the oasis, he was, naturally, unsure of his surroundings. "Irem," he repeated in awe. He looked around, feeling lost, but oddly at home. He breathed in the cool night air as if he were coming home from a long journey. But when his brain caught up with him, he was frightened, confused. "Lixi, what just happened? One minute I'm talkin' to myself and another I'm here..." He threw his hands up in frustration, not knowing how to finish his sentence. He noticed that his hands had stopped shaking. And that the voice in his head was gone. Not just silent or sleeping, but gone. This day just kept getting weirder and weirder.


Meanwhile, Vulture was stuck with his body. "That skillet looks heavy. Aren't your skinny human arms tired?" There was no sense in hiding which one of them left and which one of them stayed. Try as she might, she simply couldn't bring herself to speak on Martin's base level. She cracked his neck, which had become sore from all of his shaking.

Adja lowered her weapon. "Why did you stay behind? You could have gone with the angel and led her on to believe that you were on her side. Why make my brother go?"

"Oh, you know there's no way she could trust what I say, regardless of what form I take. I could be a dove and she'd want to smack me against the wall. Secondly," she lowered his head and quirked an eyebrow. "You know as well as I do that once bound to a body its more than a matter of simply leaving."

Jason shook his head. He'd seen weird things in his time working with Sophia, but this was a whole new level. Adja was talking to Martin, who presumably was not actually Martin. Lixi was worthless now, and had apparently passed out. And, to top it all off, they were stuck in some damn doctors office because of some invisible threat that only seemed to affect the half of the party he cared the least about. Every minute that passed was another minute for Sophia to get further away, and for the them to get closer to some horrible death at the hands of angels or zombies or god knows what else.

He scoffed loudly at the thought of 'god'. If what Lixi was saying was true, he was the one that set this whole mess into motion. Why couldn't he fix it? "Some great being you must be." he murmured as he spun one of the heavy, uncomfortable looking waiting room chairs around to face out the window. He could care less what 'Not Martin' and Adja had to talk about. It was all horse shit and mumbo jumbo to him anyway. He slid the duffel off his shoulder and set to work gingerly unwrapping his new laptop, hoping to be able to seal it back up should he still have to get wet. Movement outside caught his attention, and he watched for a while as one of the disoriented zombies shuffled into view. Jason worked faster to retrieve his little hand gun in the event that the creature proved to be an actual problem.


Lixi, floating almost liquidly to Martins side, seeming almost to gush up next to him like a wave, crashing gently, and warmly against his form, engulfing him with her arms and her presence. She could do what she pleased here, defy her physical bounds, even make herself as warm as a normal human would be to his perception. "Hush dear, hush. It's all alright for now. Come sit with me and I'll explain." In this place, all the harsh jadedness of her usual self didn't exist. She could be as feminine and delicate as she chose, motherly almost. A soft, sleeveless gown of soft cotton muslin fluttered about her legs in an in perceivable breeze as she led him by the hand thru the tree's and low desert brush.

The oasis was surprisingly bright within the trees, and the light of the moon danced off the rippling surface of the water, even though the water was still and had nothing to disturb it's serene surface. The reflected light shimmered and danced across the trees around them and both their faces. "Someday, I'll bring you back here when there's time for me to truly show you all the beauty of this place. Now, sadly ,there's little time, and much you need to hear in it." She sat at the waters edge, on a large, smooth rock that overhung the small pool that was a symbol of life itself. The reflections of two large, polished statues of a deep black marble splayed across the water, casting the only real shadows in the whole pace. Lixi paused to stair at them for a moment. It had taken her decades of sleep and meditation to carve them into her dreams. Her two lost guardians from the real world, immortalized as the silent guardians of her dreams. The whimsical face of broad shouldered angel, dressed in the leather battle harness of the ancient Egyptians watched the water, for he had been here in real life, and never foresaw the danger beyond their little space. A proud Native American warrior in his fully adorned bone armor and battle painted body faced away from them, out into the desert, for he had always watched away, and failed to see the threat coming from within.

Lixi sighed and motioned for martin to sit with her. Staring into the dark cave at the bottom of the pools depths, she pondered where to begin. "You're not crazy Martin... she's real, and she's been with you for a very, very long time"

The way Lixi moved in this spectral place made his heart melt. He felt like she was a different person here: not that she didn't still possess the qualities about her that he'd come to love, but the softness was oddly jarring. He hardly ever saw her like this and... well, quite frankly, it threw him for a loop. As they moved in liquid motion across the landscape, Martin could feel himself calming down. With the threat of his body being taken over by an alien voice out of sight, he simply lived in the moment. He sat down on the rock with Lixi, staring down at his awkward reflection. As awesome as he often thought he was, he still hated the way he looked in the mirror.

He rested his forehead on his palm. "I thought she was just like.. my ego... or somethin'. Thought... maybe everyone had one." he took a deep breath, feeling very much like an idiot. There was no voice in his head to tell him otherwise this time. "What is she? Why is she coming out now?"


"Very well," Adja said, conceding to the truth in the statement. "Why didn't you kill me back at the gas station?"

"Because your little tag-along pushed me out of the way before I had a chance." She said, looking at her host body's nails. Ew. Even for someone who has been fighting the undead, this is disgusting. She began picking the dried blood and grime out from beneath them, making a disgusted face each time she saw just how much of it was there.

"No, you hesitated," she said, pointing at him... her? "You had a chance, but you stopped yourself.

"Sudden change of heart?" She had posed it as a question, but could see in Adja's face that she wasn't buying it. "Would hardly do me any good to kill you and tack another thousands of years onto my sentence. Besides, you're useful to me for now. I was simply overcome with a temporary bout of rage, seeing as you've been making my already miserable existence particularly hellish. All those tests with the salt... do you have any idea how much that stuff hurts? Just walking down your hallway gave me a bloody migraine with the amount of basil you kept lying around. Add some tomatoes and you'd make a nice pasta sauce."

"To be honest, I don't know exactly what she is. She calls herself vulture, which seems appropriate honestly." Lixi leaned her head against Martins shoulder as she spoke, but kept her gaze fixed on the dancing surface of the water. Images of the great carrion birds of the accent world, long since extinct, rippled across it's surface. Great, fierce birds, ten times the size of their rather timid modern decedents. The were mobile scavengers, feeding off anything convenient. Be it something already killed by another cause, or simply something quickly and easily picked off for it's own weakness. "You're sister was her original target, but Adja thwarted her, and bound her to the nearest person strong enough to handle her presence. The fact that you can contain her is a great testament to you, love, both of physique and character." The water shifted, showing the cave paintings of some ancient society. Crudely drawn humans were shown chanting around one of their tribesmen, as a massive black, humanoid shaped cloud was forced down into him. Next to him was the body of another human, apparently torn in two by the same process. "Many such unknown dark forces were deliberately bound to human bodies, as Adja did to vulture, because the spirit becomes totally dependent upon the host. If you were to die, she would dissipate into the world around you, and it could take her several human lifetimes to reconstruct herself enough to be able to do anything again.

"I believe," Lixi Sighed deeply, wishing she knew more of what she was about to say, and wasn't just going on blind speculation from limited observances. "... I think... that in the current bound state, you are still the dominant personality. From what I've noticed, you have to be weakened substantially, either by exhaustion or injury, or something of that sort, for her to be able to take control of your faculties. So long as you are capable of holding control of your own body, all she can do is whisper at you, pestering you from within. If you can learn to control your perception of that, tune her out so to speak, or just learn to live with it as you have been doing, then this could be very much to your advantage Martin. She may not be a demon in the sense of my fallen brothers, but she is a malignant spirit. Few and far between are the devils with whom bargains can't be struck." in the blink of an eye she moved his hand away from his face and fluidly slid her body up onto his lap.

"And, as you should well have figured out by now, I'll do anything you ask of me to assist you in this process." she tipper her head to the side and brought her lips to his for a soft moment. "You've got an alli in me, even if the rest of the world winds up damned. Now granted, I don't know how much use I can be out in the light as long as I'm affected by whatever's going on. I can still try to get to Joel from in here, lord knows he's drug me around in my head enough to deserve it, but that's not much." She curled up in a ball on his lap and wrapped her arms around him, bringing her head to rest on his shoulder once again. She gently kissed his neck before nuzzling in and relaxing. The world was dying around her body, but at least in this space she could breath for a moment and relax.


Outside the gas station, the thing Jason had spotted was staggering closer. He'd finally torn through enough of his water proofing to get to his small pistol, chiding himself all the while for not having removed it before packaging. As the thing shambled closer, he noticed the strange military markings on it's undamaged camo uniform. It's skin was a boiled lobster shade of red now, and vomit was still stuck around it's mouth and on it's chest. It's eyes looked as though they were about to burst out of it's head, making their pure onyx shade all the more visible.

"Hey guys..." his voice was a little shaky as he looked at the odd spectacle that was headed right for the building they were in. "You might wanna take a look at this. I think it's one of Lixi's angel buddies, or at least, it used to be."

They both looked out the window and saw the former cleanup crew stumbling towards them. A regular zombie was something that they knew that they could handle, but one that had been an angel previously? What would it mean for them? Would this twice-undead creature possess both the hunger of the zombie and the marble-hardness of skin that Lixi's kind did? Adja did not want to find out. She pulled Jason by the collar of his shirt. "Hide," she said in his ear.

"Whoever you are in there," she said vindictively to the creature that inhabited her brother's body. "Grab Lixi and hide in one of the operating rooms." She expected to hear a rise of refusal, but when she turned to push the order she found that he was already unsteadily trying to carry her over his shoulder. She pondered this, wondering if she could really pinpoint his inhabitant as a purely evil being that she had up until now. It was harder, now, to tell where anyone stood.

With the three of them already heading down the hall, she reached into her bag and pulled out a box of salt and drew a thin line across the width of the hall. She said a prayer in her pigeon language of French and Arabic, and followed the other down the hall.



Even in this place of peace, even with the warmth of (what was to him) quite possibly the most attractive woman he had met in a long time, even with her being so close to her that under normal circumstances he would have lost his senses... Martin was having a hard time grasping all of his feelings. To be honest, he did feel flattered: she had implied strength of him that he could carry the burden of another being for all these years without losing himself. But with that came the feeling that he'd been used his whole life; just a vessel for something bigger than himself, just a tool for other people. Did he really have a will of his own after all, or did he just do what people told him do his entire life?

Anger. His own sister had been keeping secrets from him this long. Why? Didn't she think he could handle the truth? Didn't she trust him? Not even to let him in on something that directly involved him... did she think that she could keep him in the dark forever? Maybe his fellow thugs were right all along and that he was just a dumb schmuck who was lucky enough to still be alive.

But again... with the voice... Vulture as she'd called it... gone, there was nothing to tell him otherwise. He hated this secret, but without her whispering in his head that he was capable of things beyond himself, he felt emptiness. In this place, he had to be honest with himself... and it scared him how much the honesty hurt him.

He balled his fists in anger, but then released them; putting an arm around Lixi and pulling her closer. His throat was sore, tight in anger, despair. He very much did not want to cry. "How can you help me," he said breaking his silence. "If you don't even know what she is?"

The creature stumbled up to the window itself, and fell forward onto it, breaking the pain of the glass as the weight of it's body hit. The shattered glass caught it's leg as it fell through, and sliced it open, leaving a trail of bright red blood as it fought and struggled to crawl the few short feet it managed to get across the floor before it utterly collapsed. It lay there bleeding for a long while, utterly silent, and motionless aside from the deep, raspy breaths it was still drawing. Fifteen minutes passed as it lie in the silence of a presumed slumber. It's skin had faded ever so slightly to the pink of a bad sunburn, and the bloating seemed to go down slightly in it's flesh.

Something seemed to jar it, or rather, him, back awake, and it lifted it's head once more. Crawling still, but with a little more energy this time, he moved raggedly forward to the empty water cooler in the far corner of the waiting room. Clumsily the mangled angel fought to get something out of it, though his efforts were futile. "damn..it...damnit...DAMNIT!" His angry snarls were hoarse, and barely audible.

It was now that he spied the bad with Lixi's supplies and the other traces of life that had been left in the lobby. One of the foil blankets had fallen out, and lay folded but unwrapped beside her pack. He grabbed it, and hastily cacooned himself in it, then set to work fishing through the bag. "Is anyone here?" he groaned hoarsely. "Please... I don't care who you are. I don't have any weapons left. Please. Help me. I'll do whatever you want, just help me... please... just some water..."


Lixi could feel the tension and anger running through Martin as he held her, and grasped him all the tighter in response. "That's for you to decide love. I'll answer any questions I can for you, though I'm far from well informed on this. She dwells in you, which means you have the ability to know her in a way no one else can. She can be tricked, just like anything else. As it stands, she needs you, and will be far more likely to barter. I don't know how to tell you to do it, but you'll find a way to get the answers from her you seek. I know you well. You're so much more resourceful than you've ever realized. I think she probably kept you feeling rather in the dark for her own safety." She leaned back and looked him in the eyes. "You have a world of potential waiting in you, and now, now that you know what darkness has been feeding off you this whole time, now you have the keys to unlocking it. You just have to pick the right doors. In the mean time, it may be best to use her to your advantage. She could be wildly useful to you now."

She thought long and hard before letting the next line come out of her mouth, for to Lixi, what she was about to say sounded silver tongued, and manipulative in the way of a true fallen angel. To praise and persuade someone in Martin's state felt wrong to her, but she could think of no truer way to help him right then. "She's used you for far to long. You're stronger than her, and she needs you, not the other way around. Why not dish it back to her, use her to your will." The last part she'd leaned in closer to whisper into his ear, not knowing if she could say it with her eyes open. The smooth flattery, and prompting for such self gratifying action sent chills through Lixi's spine, both of intrigue and repulsion. Was she slipping in this end time? Was she finally loosing herself to the darker side of her kinds nature? No... she thought to herself. He needed to hear that... it's to help him. I've nothing to gain in this. she reminded herself. It's for his own good... She almost believed herself.

Martin held her, unfeeling... trying to decide what to feel. He was still angry at Adja, and as stupidly forgiving as he normally was, it was going to take some time to make things right between them. The first time that a person feels truly betrayed by someone close to them, no matter how strong their bond may have been it is always a struggle to bring it back. He didn't know if he could look at his sister anymore without seeing her as an enemy, at least not for awhile.

He took a deep breath and clenched his teeth, letting all his muscles tense and then slowly loosen. This was going to be hard to deal with once he got back to his body. It was easy now, with Lixi whispering in his ear and in this place of nothing but calm, but once he was back in his own body with someone else whispering in his ear...

He let go of that. He would cross that bridge when he came to it. That's how he usually solved these things, and they always turned out right.

But that begged the question: was he the reason things always turned out right... or was it Vulture? He couldn't let thoughts like that get in the way Lixi believed he could do it. Lixi believed in him! Lixi, the wild-eyed, zombie-killing, world-saving, redheaded girl of his dreams believed in him! That mattered. That was the only thing that mattered.

He let go of his doubts, even if just for now, and kissed Lixi on the forehead. "Ain't no evil spirit gonna bring me down."



Meanwhile, there was a silent argument going on. Without words, it was clear that they were at a disagreement. Adja wanted severely to just hide and wait for whoever it was to lose interest and leave. Jason wanted to confront the stranger, armed of course, because military or not it was at least sentient and worth negotiation. Vulture simply didn't give a crap and wished she could put Lixi down. There were pros and cons here: putting her down would mean breaking contact with her and leaving Vulture in Martin's body unhindered by its indigenous person. However, she still was having trouble controlling his freakish legs. She could probably figure them out in time, but time was not something they seemed to have a lot of and who knew what would happen to the body if the host was gone too long? She had her theories, and not a single one of them benefitted her.

A decision had been made, rather by force. Jason held the pistol out in front of him and walked out into the hall.

Click-k.

"Hands where I can see them," he said, trying his best to look intimidating to a man who could easily rip him in half with his thumbs. It was clear that he might lose his nerve with the way his hands were shaking, not that that made him any less dangerous. With the decision already made, the others followed him out into sight.

"You heard the man," Vulture said, simply refusing to let the man-child have the floor just because he had the shiniest toy. "Go on, then. No funny business."

"Damn right." Lix muttered audibly, and even managed a little smile. She shifted a few times and turned her body to sit facing him completely, wrapping her legs around his body for stability. She held onto his arms and leaned back, stretching out over the water. "So love," her voice bounced of the surface of the water as she let herself dangle out over it, Martin serving to anchor her to the rock they were sitting on. The surface responded as though an earth quake were going on about it, erupting into violently vibrating ripples. The gray walls of the medical building became barely visible in there turmoil. "...Did you want to talk about anything else while we have the peace of the oasis? Or are you ready to wake up?"


The large angel spread his hands up above his head, and lay flat on his back. "Please. I just want some water and a place to wait till nightfall, then I'll go and leave you in peace. All of my people... we're dying out there. I watched one of them broil up and explode. I've never seen anything like this before. Please, just don't make me go back out there. If you wont let me stay, at least kill me. Please... just don't make me die like that."

Of course he had a ton of questions: he was talking to an angel and for once didn't have the threat of humanity lingering in the back of his mind while he was doing it. He could ask her any question he wanted: about Earth, about Heaven, Hell, all the places in between.

But he'd never been one for big questions with big answers.

"If we get through this," he said, feeling his old self again. "How you feel about a date?"


"Until nightfall?" Vulture supposed she couldn't be the only one that knew that the curse would only work during the day, but judging by how clueless Lixi was when she'd begun spouting off the details of it she could only assume that the other angels hadn't caught wind of it. But she then supposed that perhaps the Cleanup Crew had better intel... or a traitor of their own even.

"Adja, give him a bottle of water," Jason ordered, still shaking.

"How do we know we can trust him," she said, reaching into her bag to the water bottle, but also keeping a firm hand on her skillet.

"For the love of Christ, its just a bottle of water," Vulture snapped. Adja glared and rolled the bottle across the ground to him, prepared to keep her distance. It seemed to be in mutual agreement that they not mention anything about their affiliations. "Who are you," Vulture asked, beginning the interrogation on the most simple of levels.