Once Upon An Altered Time by Pete Bertino - HTML preview

Above the head board was a shelf with a scattering of books book ended by a pair of statutes depicting stone gargoyles reading books. They were books about mostly traditional witchcraft, written by actual witches. One had the a federal prohibition stamp on its outside cover in its customary red ink.

She sat on the bed and thumbed one of the books feeling at peace for once. Since she had entered the cabin and felt some of her unease melt away like ice in the sun. She also felt tired and 231 ONCE UPON AN ALTERED TIME

mouthed a great wide yawn. She removed her boots and with her hoody as a pillow she laid down and fell fast asleep.

She awoke many hours later as evening slowly crept back over the forest. She sat up and felt refreshed and began to wonder if she shouldn’t perhaps stay indefinitely. But she shook the thought away as useless, there was a pump for water outside she noticed from the bedroom window. But what about food, and when the weather grew foul and icy?

The city was dangerous but had advantages that she had learned to be dependent on, in the city most homes were heated by electricity. Here she would need to chop wood, and how much could she cut down before someone noticed the dwindling number of trees and the smoke coming from the middle of nowhere. It was a lovely, romantic idea but not a practical one.

She put her hoody and boots back on and walked back to the state park in the ever deepening shadows of night, and made her way to the exit gate and waited for a large enough vehicle heading south she could hide on. After twenty minutes an elderly couple driving a Winnebago fifty feet long hauling an ORV on a hitch slowly banked south away from the park.

Galadriel crouched ran to the vehicle being hauled and opened the door to the back seat staying as low as possible as the behemoth of a vehicle trekked its way towards Philadelphia.

Officers Amish and Bilby sat once again across from the apartment on Kimball, the suspect left yesterday morning around dawn and more than twenty four hours later still hadn’t returned. Veasy had been down their necks since last night when she still didn’t show. He had been radioing in every hour asking if they had seen her. Each time Amish would show his radio the bird after answering.

It had been fifteen minutes since his last check in while they sat playing rummy casting a glance through the curtains. They sat right up against

the windows, giving up on keeping on the down low, when she returned.

Bilby almost dropped his walkie letting Veasy know she was entering her apartment. Across town ten minutes later John Noah received a text from Detective Veasy. He texted back the code word to get the swat ready. He sent the text then called his brother.

Twenty minutes later a SWAT truck left the 1st district armory with eight men including Tom Noah, who was miked directly to his brother, next to Tom was Veasy looking uncomfortable in the heavy armored gear. John sat at home slowly swirled bourbon in a fine crystal snifter.

Tom sneered at the detective, leaning into his ear he said: “Remember mother fucker, I’m calling the shots. We do this right you be knee deep in the bitches.”

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Veasy smiled uneasily at the lunatic eyes and nodded. Two patrol cars with lights dark and sirens quiet sped forward towards Kimball street.

One car blocked off the east end of the block to traffic, the second blocked the west and only moved once to allow the armored car through.

The night was late and no pedestrians or neighbors walked about.

The double doors at the rear opened, Tom and the eight others were dressed in heavy armor and helmets, four carried riot shields the others handled police special twelve gauge shotguns. Tom gestured with his hand and a ram was taken out by two of the unshielded officers who followed Tom through the front door. He crept up the steps, his hand up as he went.

As his head peeked above the riser the step under his foot squeaked and he ducked back down, but no one stirred. He gestured again and the two carrying the battering ram went up past him skipping the creaky step. The two officers holding the battering ram stood in front of the door while Tom stood beside the door.

stood beside the door.

He gestured and pointed at his eyes, then put up three fingers. The officers nodded and pulled back once, twice, three times and pushed the ram forward with all their strength.

Galadriel had been at ease until she reached her front door, that's when she felt something was off. It was slow at first and she thought it was just paranoia, but when she tried to ignore the feeling it grew over her mind until she she began to hear their thoughts. There was more than one coming, many were coming, here now!

She heard their hearts beating erratically in their bodies followed by scattered thoughts of gun fire and death. They were pigs, filled with fear and hate. She looked out the window and saw in front of her building a police SWAT vehicle, both ends of Kimball had been book ended with squad cars.

She quickly pushed her couch into the kitchen and her table against the far wall to keep the area between her and the door wide open. She saw their shadows under the door, many shadows. She looked through the peephole and saw two of the cops standing in front of her door.

One of them nodded before he raised a battering ram, she caught one of their thoughts clearly as they entered: one, two, THREE!!! She stepped back and had one of her bangs around the knob and opened the door as the pair charged forward and fell to the floor. One carrying a shotgun stepped in and gasped as he lowered his shotgun and fired.

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He and the one standing on the other side of the door saw her take the slug in left shoulder. The force of the hit pushed her back a few feet as her shoulder took on an unnatural bent as her arm hung slightly lower than the other. The hole in her shoulder was fist sized but didn’t go very

than the other. The hole in her shoulder was fist sized but didn’t go very deep.

She quickly threw her injured shoulder forward, the slug flew out and fell to the floor as her arm appeared to recede to its natural length.

“Box her in! Box her in!” said the one that was unarmed.

Four cops with riot shields charged in lining up side by side, she quickly turned away from them running for the wall then up it pushing off with both feet, somersaulting into a back flip getting behind the charging police. She landed on her hands and knees, low to the floor as she sent a bang ankle high across the floor tripping the four to the floor. The officer who shot her ran in with his gun pointed at her head, a bang suddenly hit the barrel up at the ceiling as it discharged.

Her hair gripped the gun and pulled with great force, his hands were welded to the shotgun from fear and he was thrown into a wall nearly crashing through it to the bathroom on the other side. When she stood, she felt pressure on her neck and threw an elbow into whoever was behind her. He fell to the floor with a grunt, his face upturned towards her. She looked at him and realized she knew the face but didn’t know how.

As she looked down at him, the sound of a round being chambered behind her grabbed her attention. She turned lightening quick and took the shotgun with one hand and punched a cop in the stomach with the other. The officer gasped loudly as he fell clutching his stomach unable to breathe. One of the officers carrying the shield charged again, brandishing his nightstick.

He took a feeble swing and missed as another with a nightstick charged swinging. She played defense, ducking and maneuvering around the swing of their batons. A third had risen but instead of fighting he ran from behind and grabbed her in a neck hold she felt pressure and multiple stings on her neck. She easily tossed him over her shoulder though she began to feel like she was slowing down.

Each move or punch she threw felt sluggish and weak, like punching through mud. One of the officers swung the baton hitting her shoulder.

She grabbed the officer and destroyed his nose with a quick head butt.

The weariness was progressing, her body felt like it was dipped in cement that was hardening quickly.

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An ever darkening cloud came over her vision as she tried to continue fighting, she wanted to kill them all slowly and painfully for coming into her home. But sleep wanted to take her, the one officer with the familiar face stood closest to her, smiling a predatory sharks grin brandishing an odd looking device shaped like a pistol. His cold dead smile was the last thing she saw before all went dark.

John had everything set up long before the SWAT had captured her confident they would succeed, though he had been slightly worried when the guns started blazing. No cops had been killed though one of them had got put through a wall and could barely walk, it was a small price to pay John thought.

A private ambulance came and strapped her unconscious body to a gurney and drove off minus lights and sirens. A few of the neighbors had come out, most still in night clothes, when the gunfire erupted a few uniformed police handled them easily. John had Lou drive to the back of the apartment on Kimball and went through the alley and into the backyard where Tom stood smoking a blunt, his face winching he had a hand on his stomach.

“What the fuck you doin here? Though you’d be playin doctor by now.”

“She’ll be out for a while. I want to see her home. You OK?”

“Yeah, bitch elbowed me.”

“How’s Veasy?”

“He’ll live.” Tom shrugged. “Broken ankle.”

He had his body armor off and lifted his black shirt revealing a deep purple bruise on his abdomen.

“How much did you inject in her?” he said grimacing at his brothers stomach.

Tom took the toy like pistol from his pocket and handed it to John.

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“It’s almost empty!” he said sounding more cross than he intended.

“Shit, bro. The fuck you want from me? Bitch had everybody on their ass in ten seconds!” he said furiously.

John was silent a moment and nodded slightly handing the pistol back.

“I’m sorry, Tom. I’m glad you’re OK. You’ve done admirably.” he said putting his hand on his brother shoulder.

“Shit, man. All in a days work, you can keep the early morning hours though.” he said.

Tom lead his brother up the stairs to the apartment. Three SWAT and two uniformed were still in the apartment.

“Alright, anybody with a badge get the fuck out!” Tom said and the officers quickly exited.

Tom stepped outside while his brother looked around. He saw the hole in the wall that the cop had to be pulled out of and went in the bathroom were a large section of the wall opposite bowed. He went back into the living room, the floor was open and the couple pieces of furniture in the room had been hastily moved.

“Did you move this?” John asked.

“Huh?” Tom said from the doorway in a cloud of smoke.

“The furniture. Who moved it?”

“I don’t fuckin know. It was like that when we got here.” he said and disappeared behind more smoke.

She knew, they had been quiet enough but still she heard them, heard them thinking. He walked further into the room towards a bookshelf. He enjoyed books and believed you could learn much 236 ONCE UPON AN ALTERED TIME

about a person from their reading. He looked at them feeling compelled to glance the title of each one.

They were mostly fantasy stories, the type with heroes, villains, monsters and magic. There was also some classics such as Shakespeare and Chaucer. There was also a collection of Tolkien. On the shelf were two of the three rings books.

John turned from the shelf and saw the missing rings book on the couch opened and face down. He picked it up and read from of a page with a paper clip attached as a marker. It was the scene where Frodo offers the ring to Galadriel.

‘All shall love me and despair!’

He put the book back down in the exact same place. He wanted a glimpse into the witch’s psyche, and felt he had gotten a lot of information by just reading that one page. He walked to the kitchen and found a book on the counter, the ‘Techno Cook Book.’ Beside the book were a small array of tools and the innards of some electronic device.

Smart, self sufficient and blood thirsty. John had yet to meet her and already had a begrudging respect for her. He wondered if she would even consider his proposal, she was apt to start ripping off heads the moment she woke up. He’d have to keep her locked tight and have as many samples of her as possible before she woke up.

Dr Fischer sat at his desk in his office breathing in a shaky rattle, removing his glasses and rubbing the bridge of his nose and his eyes. He pulled of flask from a drawer and took a small sip of a rich brandy. He had spent hours with the witch who was in a sedate so deep he could barely detect a heart beat so he attached a sticky tab for a heart monitor but it would malfunction sporadically. He tried to take her temperature but the digital thermometer’s battery kept dying. He made an attempt to put her through an MRI but the machine barked and gasped before she got through and shorted it out dramatically with a ball of smoke.

He went into his private office and brought out a compass he had since his goose stepping days and brought it into the examination room, and held it close to her. He was not surprised, the needle of the compass spun erratically. He decided to forgo the fancy equipment and do things the old fashion way with a needle. However the needles he used to take injections would nearly break the surface of the skin before it would heal and push the needle back out.

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He attempted to removed a hair sample but the roots were unbreakable and impervious to his cutting tools. He hissed at frustration and walked around the body laying on the gurney, trying to ignore the armed guards surrounding them, it was like Germany all over again but the pay was better and he could wear a normal suit.

He rummaged in one of the standing drawers just out side the operating room lights, and removed a motorized hand held bone saw with a diamond encrusted blade. He unscrewed the circular blade and tossed the heavy device on top of the standing drawers it clanged loudly one of the guards gasped.

He grabbed the witches arm and firmed a grip on her wrist with one bony hand while holding the diamond blade in the other.

hand while holding the diamond blade in the other.

“Eimer geben!” he shouted at one of the guards.

“Huh?” said one with a face as pale as cheese.

“Geben! Geben! Get mutter ficken bucket!” he said lapsing back and forth from German to English.

The cheese faced guard grabbed a stainless steel bucket that was small enough to be considered a cup, and tried to hand it to the doctor.

“Nein, nein,” he said sounding a little calmer. “under the wrist, hold.”

He placed it just below the wrist as the doctor put the blade right on a vein and cut along it with a slight pull. A small river of blood gurgled out into the bucket for thirty seconds before it healed, he repeated the process until he had a pint. He had no assistants other than the guards and had to trust them to take the sample to the lab upstairs.

“Don’t drop it.” he hissed at the man before he had continued.

He took another device from the standing drawers that was similar in design to the bone saw called a heat laser. It was new type of cutting laser that could melt steel when the laser was 238 ONCE UPON AN ALTERED TIME

properly focused. Instead of a blade at its end there was a tiny needle with a hollow end, he set the focus knob to half way and pressed a button on its under side.

He held the laser a few inches above her shoulder and held it there until the skin was blackened and charred. She stirred and one of her bangs flutter to the floor, the guards raised their guns. The doctor didn’t notice, he turned off the laser and with a pocket watch counted the seconds until the burn healed. In just two and a half minutes the smoky black hole was just a shiny red welt, after another two minutes the skin was once again fair and unblemished.

He went to her face and examined her ears nose and mouth, and the eyes last. Although she was sedated her eyes were showing REM. He removed an eyes scope and lifted the lid of her eye with the light focused on her eye which suddenly ceased its movement. The pupils were slowly retracting from the light, he hissed a slow breath as the iris began to waver like water in a ripple while the green flared slightly.

He found himself back in Austria its 1941 again. He is administering shots into the eye of man wearing striped clothes with a yellow star sewn on, in a lab with with rusty blades and poor lighting. The Juden, a man who was young but looked old, was tied to a chair and was not given any thing for pain prior to the procedure, his rake thin chest is made thinner still by his heavy breathing.

The doctor can count each of his ribs with a quick glance, and he smiles.

He had used a needle to remove the brown of his eye and was attempting to inject blue dye into his eyes with another needle to force a change, the man screams until his vocal cords rupture. He continues giving the shots until the man dies, then he tells his nurse to note the time of death and leaves for the day.

He is young, the experiments for the most part are succeeding and he is glad. There are guards keeping an eye on his guinea pigs and smiles at there slowly hollowing faces. This had been his best day before the war

there slowly hollowing faces. This had been his best day before the war went bad, he saw their misery and felt a black joy even though they were casting him angry glances.

That doesn’t seem right, he thought. A Juden here would die slowly for even a perceived dirty look. He walks by a section of the camp that is just giant square surrounded by gates and barb wire on all sides. In the middle are rows of trenches half filled with bodies, mostly it is filled with the living who are slowly shambling up to him watching him.

All of their eyes are green, they stare at him, he stares back and begins screaming at them to go away but more approach the fence and leer at him.

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“Schieben!” he shouts to an SS guard, but he doesn’t shoot.

He charges the man standing face to face with him, his eyes are closed.

“Schieben!” he shouts.

The guard opens his eyes and they are green. He is thrown from the memory and drops the eye scope, he backs away in a stupor from the witch in a dry gasp. The pale faced guard approached but was waved away. His breathing was scratchy and uneven as he eyed her closely.

“I’m done with her.”

A pair of guards proceeded to chain her arms and legs down while another put a helmet made of titanium adorned with a metallic loop upon her head, were a half dozen chains were clasped and locked tight to keep her hair contained. When she had been restrained Fischer went to

keep her hair contained. When she had been restrained Fischer went to his office and took a swig from a snifter filled with brandy he hid in his drawer.

His mind thought back to that memory that had turned false, the Juden eyeing him, marking him even. Those eyes were her eyes, did she know who she was looking at? He was brought out of his thoughts suddenly by the ring of his cellular. He took it out and glared at it, Herr Noah had sent a text.

He stabbed a finger at the tiny envelope on the tap screen, but it did not open. He swore in German as he stabbed again but the envelope opened.

‘When you’re done come see me, Lou will be waiting out front to give you a lift’

He laughed a laugh that was genuine. Herr Noah was sending his personal driver, he was hopeful for good news. An hour later the doctor was in Johns home sitting opposite him at his large desk.

“Is it true? Is she invincible?” John asked before he had even sat down.

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“Nein, however she heals quickly. I administered a third degree burn on the shoulder and it healed in five minutes.”

“You burned her?” John asked feeling slightly chilled by his off handedness.

“For science, Herr Noah. I will have to analyze the DNA to know why it is happening.”

“My brother swears a twelve gauge nearly ripped her arm off and it...” but he couldn’t finish and asked: “Can she be killed?”

“I am a man of science, and and you ask me how to kill a witch.” he said laughing in dry cackle.

He then sighed heavily and answered when John neither laugh nor smiled.

“Cut her head off, and burn her at the stake, much like your pilgrim fore fathers, ja.”

John thought he was making another joke, but his ancient wrinkled face was grave and with out humor.

“Why doesn’t she show up on pictures and video?” he asked sipping on a tumbler filled with whiskey.

“She is emitting electromagnetic waves, which is not unusual. All humans do but a very small amount, too small to even be detectable. This Fraulein her’s is high but it...”

He tried searching for the English word he wanted, he growled dryly and waved his hand up and down.

“It fluctuates.” John said picking up his meaning.

“Danke. It fluc...varies. It only rises when she performs her abilities, the hallucinations are from emf.”

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“Hallucinations? Do you mean the mind control is in their heads?”

“In Austria, during the war I worked on project Ahnenerbe. It was an attempt to find people with strangeness. Looking for subjects alleged to be psychic, telekinetic...”

He said it telekikneetic, the old man’s English was particularly bad today, John noticed.

“Did you ever find anyone with those abilities?” John asked finding himself drawn in by the story.

“Some, nothing like this woman of course. She emits high levels of electro magnetism, exposure to high emf can cause paranoia, physical cramps, burning of the skin and the eyes, and hallucinations. She uses this in such away to see their thoughts and memories, as does anyone with such unusual talent, but even those I examined in Austria emitted piddling amounts. The subjects would only get glimpses of peoples thoughts, like seeing a leaf caught in a high wind. She is powerful enough to draw the leaf to her, touch it and change the way another would see it while she possesses it.”

“She can really see inside peoples minds, control them even?”

The doctor continued as if he hadn’t asked.

“I could not give her proper examination. However I was able to acquire blood and a small tissue sample.”

“Can I see it?” he asked.

“Pointless, a microscope will be needed for observation.”

“How much blood?”

“About five hundred ml.”

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John looked confused, the doctor sigh heavily.

“Pint, a ficken pint.”

John slammed a fist on his desk.

“A god damn pint, is that enough...”

The doctor raised a hand in an easy wave to him.

“It is more than enough. I will see what we have, you will need to give me

“It is more than enough. I will see what we have, you will need to give me time this will be a slow process.”

“How long before you’ll know something?” John asked irritably.

“Patience, Herr Noah,” the doctor said with another easy wave. “It took me twenty five years to develop your Viagra for Fraulein, eleven for asthma cure. You will wait only a few days for me to analyze her DNA, to make the samples viable for experimentation will take longer, how much longer I can not say.”

“Yes, patience.” He said as he sipped on his whiskey and remembered telling his brother the same thing.

“You plan on engaging her?” the doctor asked.

“She might be beneficial to us. You don’t agree?”

The doctor shrugged his hunched shoulder.

“It is your business, Herr Noah, how you proceed.”

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“Do you think she really is getting inside peoples heads, controlling them?” John asked again wondering if the witch didn’t somehow get a glimpse in the doctor mind while still under.

The doctor was quiet and he thought Fischer would ignore the question again, but he answered in his gravelly dusky voice.

again, but he answered in his gravelly dusky voice.

“Guard your mind.”

John had Lulu call a cab for the doctor while Lou took him to a piece of property he owned at Wolf and Water streets under I-95. It was a two story factory building that had once been an industrial foundry in the 20‘s and 30‘s. In front of the building were a pair of black ORV’s used by his private security.

The outside of the building was a gray stucco that was awash in many colors of graffiti, one large piece written in a deft hand said: 'Death is the fuel for Life’ followed by a crude caricature of the current BNP

presidential candidate done up in orange and yellow spray paint, with a caption spray painted next to it that said: He will save us, and all the world!’ The windows had long since been boarded over and were warped from the elements. Everything about the building screamed derelict except the gleaming steel door with double locks that had been put up just hours ago.

A man wearing an outfit similar to a SWAT member stood alone at the door keeping guard with a Colt semi automatic rifle. He opened the door for John promptly and continued his sentry duty. The factory had later in life housed a family garage that had gone under, some broken wrenches and a hydraulic car lift that was dusty was all that remained of this failed American dream.

The lights had been replaced as well with lines of florescent plug ins that hung over the chained body of Galadriel. A group of men dressed similar to the man outside stood just out of the shine of the florescent talking quietly, his brother Tom stood among them. John walked over to him and noticed his brother looking nervous.

“What is it?”

“I think she’s waking up, they keep hearing voices and freaking everyone out.”

Tom didn’t say he if he was hearing voices or freaked out but John could tell his brother was on edge.

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“I guess I better do my pitch. Excuse me.” he said with his salesman voice.

He entered the bright circle cast by the humming tubes above. The light on her skin did nothing to take from her beauty. Her skin was clean and fair, it didn’t look to have a single mole, blemish or even pores. As if her skin was cast in silk, he thought oddly.

‘Guard your mind.’ the doctor said.

She appeared to be still under, but her breathing was regular and the ever increasing feeling of energy seemed to fill the room. Her eyes began to flutter, he put a wall over his thoughts and waited for her to fully wake up.

Everything had gone still for a moment, even her breathing had gone still.

He thought perhaps she had died, when her eyes snapped open showing smoldering green iris’s. John felt the eyes on him, searching his mind, searching for a way inside.

“I’m John Noah. I am going to assume you know who I am since your from here, Ms Darrow.” he said and held up the keys the held her chains.

“I am going to use this key to let you out. I have no wish to keep you prisoner or to hurt you.”

Her eyes still searching him, she lifted both of her arms but was held down by the chains. Her eyes brightened and John felt his brain being poked. Tom or one of the guards put up his gun and approached, he quickly held up his hand towards them.

“You were chained down to protect us from you and I apologize about that. I don’t care about the people you killed, or how it is you can do what you do. I want you to look around.” he said stepping aside holding up his arm.

“Your not in jail or being held by police, certainly not the TL or the Feds.

With me is my twin brother, I ordered him to capture you because I didn’t think you would come willingly. I admit it was an unnecessarily aggressive move, and I was impressed by your ability and didn’t wish to take any chances.”

Her eyes hadn’t dulled as she turned her head slightly left and right and looked back at John again who approached her slowly still holding the key.

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“I understand you maybe reluctant to trust me because of the SWAT, but I am going to prove you can trust me by letting you go.”

Her eyes remained on him, still bright. His brother was voicing a concern but John waved him off. He unlocked first the chains holding down her legs as he continued his speech.

legs as he continued his speech.

“I’m sure you’re still angry,” he said as one chain clanked to the concrete floor. “I’m sure you could kill everyone here quickly and with little fuss.”

The chain holding her other legs fell. John noticed her legs tense but continued.

“I’ve seen video of you taking out the garbage. You did things the police certainly couldn’t accomplish.”

He slowly unlocked and unwrapped the chain around her arm, he was very close and could feel her searching his mind but not with the same effort, the fingers poking at his mind seemed less there. The chain fell as she flexed her arm someone pulled a glock on a gun. John kept his eyes on her as he passed in front of her to undo the other arm.

“I have no quarrel with you, part of the reason I did what I did is that I love this city and want to know who the garbage man, or the woman in this case, is that’s cleaning up the neighborhood. I have some connections to the police, I had a detective locate you through surveillance and we were unsure if you’d be hostile. I try to do right by people, I am proud to be from here, as I’m sure you are as well. And let me say, I have showed more compassion than the police or the Feds would show you, I hope you’ll take that into account after I release you.

“The TL would want you to burn at the stake or to try and dunk you in the Delaware to see if you float, and the Feds, Christ they’d of had you on a table poking and prodding and cutting you open to see what makes you tick. I know what makes you tick just by watching you. Eradicating filth, the scum, rapists, thieves, murderers. If I were commissioner I’d give you a god damn medal and a beach front in Miami.” he said the last part with a smile that he used when selling big pieces of land to those unsure.

a smile that he used when selling big pieces of land to those unsure.

The second chain fell, she kept still as John stepped behind her to unlock the chains from the helmet. He quickly pulled each chain from the loop on the helmet, as the last chain fell her hands pushed the helmet off as she quickly got off the gurney standing face to face with John her eyes 246 ONCE UPON AN ALTERED TIME

bright. Another glock sounded as she stood staring at him, she put her hood up and promptly went to the door.

“Now, I should tell you,” he said freezing her at the door. “and this is only a friendly warning, once you leave I can’t guarantee what will happen to you. As I said I have no quarrel with you, I applaud you, but there are others who feel very differently about you. Two of those hitter you rid the neighborhood of were with the Letuzzi family, someone else has seen you in action and will most likely retaliate. I have police connections but so do they.”

She turned to look at him as he spoke watching him slowly approach her.

“Maybe you could leave town, but if the election in November goes the way it seems there’ll be boarder walls up by this time next year. He even plans on bringing back citizen cards, though you look too young to remember that. Yes by the look of things traveling even across state lines will be near impossible for even the average citizen.”

He stood just a few feet from her sounding something close to sympathetic.

“And what would you suggest?” she asked watching him closely.

“Stay here, work for me.”

She uttered a jagged laugh.

“That’s funny to you? You’d be doing the city a service. I know why you did what you did at the Byberry. The place was nightmare for children, everyone knows the rumors but are powerless to stop it, but not you.”

John stopped and looked closely at her.

“Your father, he was Jake Darrow, The Sledgehammer, correct?”

She started at that but didn’t speak so John continued.

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“I can see it in the face some, your file listed his name but I didn’t realize it until just now. And it makes sense your his daughter. He was an honorable man, when my brother ran numbers for the Irish mob on 2nd street in the early 70‘s he watched a few his matches. The family said they’d given him a shot at the title if he threw a fight, but he said no. He was a true warrior, I prefer cage fighting but I saw him fight a large man called The Tank and ruptured the oafs guts.”

He sighed heavily and rubbed his forehead in agitation.

“If you run you’d never stop. Stay here, live the life you want in solitude.

Here.”

He went into a pocket of his suit coat and handed her a small real estate

He went into a pocket of his suit coat and handed her a small real estate magazine with his last name and company logo on the cover. He held it out to her until she relented and took it.

“That’s every property I own in the city. Town houses, condos, penthouses, just pick one and you it’ll be your new home. I don’t want your soul or a loyalty oath, I want to clean up this city. I want to spare the lives of the citizens and the police. There are drugs, speak easies...”

“You run a casino.” she challenged.

He stopped and gave a cold smile.

“My casino’s are a legitimate business, yes there is drinking and gambling but there is no illegal music or sex and no armed gooks and niggers on a street corner working alley security. I’ve provided jobs and a safe clean environment for people to enjoy a fine meal or take in a show.

What’s wrong with a shot of Kentucky bourbon and Black Jack in a licensed business. Look, if you work for me, you might have to do private security there if a group terrorists come blazing in or the mob tries something, but what I and our city needs from you is to keep the streets clean. I can keep the TL and the police off you the SWAT member you hurt will live and the incident at Washington avenue according to the lead detective on the case believes it was an attempted robbery gone wrong, Liberty Pharmaceutical paid the family members to keep them calm while the investigation goes cold.”

She looked away from him and rubbed the pocket that still held the brass key. She didn’t want to run, this had been her only home. She had never felt so lonely as she did then, her mind and her heart ached, a pain that would probably never heal.

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“I know it is hard to trust someone, you’ve been exploited by everyone including the police. The police stated to the city morgue that your mother died of a drug overdose. But we know that’s bullshit, I doubt The Sledgehammer would have been with her if she had a drug problem. No, the police that night had their own motives and so the cycle continued.

Someone like you can stop it, Ms Darrow.”

“Galadriel.” she said looking at him again her eyes just a flickering green light.

“You want it to stop, I want to stop it too, Galadriel. Help me do it.” he said extending his hand to hers.

She extended her own and shook. She had tried to see in his mind but it was impossible. She didn’t know what to do about it, some had their minds shut tight even in a panic. It didn’t necessarily mean he couldn’t be trusted, did it?

“Excellent. Here, take this.” he said handing her a flip phone from the same pocket he held the listings. “You can keep it, my number is on speed dial, text me an address and I’ll have an agent set you up with a new home in no time. I’ll text you when I need you so keep it nearby. And here have an advance”

He handed her a thick wad of bills that looked like mostly large denominations and then nodded his head.

“Enjoy.” he said.

Galadriel went out the door, as the door shut John followed her out but

Galadriel went out the door, as the door shut John followed her out but she was already gone, the outside sentry hadn’t even caught a glimpse of her. She was fast, she was powerful and would be hard to control.

He held a brick wall up in his mind while he parlayed with her, it took considerable effort but he had a strong mind. He had found her modified cellular and watched the fight video and incorporated the story into his pitch and it had worked, he’d heard the rumors back in the day about The Sledgehammer’s refusal to throw a fight, hence why he retired from fighting while still in his prime. John believed the rumors, her father had a conscience he was an honorable man, but the honorable men were always the ones that got in the way.

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Like father, like daughter. And like him, John judged she wouldn’t be pushed around either. He couldn’t kill her though, not yet. Not until Fischer had what he needed, maybe not even then John considered. He sent the SWAT team and was glad, he wanted her to see he could take her if necessary. He was great at keeping his doings in the dark, her attempts to see inside his mind were a bother some but she had given up quickly.

She was already cleaning up the neighborhood, he would give her an incentive to continue and aim her wrath in the right direction not push her but nudge her. There was no one else after her, the the two hitters hired by Rocko weren’t connected to the mob but had extensive criminal records. Just three less assholes to tie up traffic, John figured.

He watched the skyline slowly light up as the sun set from the back seat as Lou drove him home. He had planned on spending the rest of the decade causing the crime families and gangs of Philadelphia to drench the city in blood going to war with each other, a war he would as usual instigate. And the blood would be from the innocent civilians and police, and he would rouse the people up into a frenzy looking heroic, much like he had after the Move bombing, and he had hoped to play a similar roll

he had after the Move bombing, and he had hoped to play a similar roll again but this time ride it to a political office.

Since the end of James Africa and his group, the citizens needed a new group to fear. And he had taken up a similar stance, though less vocal, to that of the current BNP presidential candidate about protecting our borders from black and gay immigrants trying to invade from the break away republics on both coasts. With Galadriel, it would only take a few years and actually save tax payers money, he realized with a laugh.

And now he held more strings with the police than he did back in the 80‘s. Perhaps it was time to leak the video of the commissioner engaging in his habit and putting Veasy up for his seat when election time rolled around. He had done well and was injured during the capture of the witch, and everyone loves voting for local cops injured in the line of duty.

He could easily have it written up as a raid on a crack house or some nonsense painting him as a gallant and smart officer as opposed to the gambling addicted piece of dog shit he really was.

With Veasy in that roll he would have the entire police force at his beck and call. Everything would still fall into place and much sooner now. He would continue to play the role of South Philly’s favorite son while his wealth climbed up in the global market. He could become the future of the BNP and maybe one day grace the Oval Office as an occupant himself, he thought it was possible. A smile curled his lips as the car entered the dawning city.

When night reclaimed the sky Galadriel went to her apartment on Kimball, the door was shut but not locked. She went in and looked slowly around at the destroyed living room. She went 250 ONCE UPON AN ALTERED TIME

searching her bedroom closet for her backpack. She thought about just taking the cash and running away to the cabin.

But how long could she stomach the solitude? In Philly she was already hiding, the only human contact she had was with the pig half of the human race. Was John Noah any better? His brother guarded his mind but she could still see Tom’s aura, a bright hyper red that screamed blood.

John had been sharp and his mind focused on her and her alone. She could read the honest desire to let her go and felt it hard to refuse his offer. She kneeled down in front of her bed and pulled out the footlocker beneath. The backpack was a simple pink nylon bag she had used during her final year in grade school before she got sick.

It was small and would hold very little, but she wanted only a few items.

She took one of her mothers albums and a few of her fathers shirts and a few birthday and Christmas cards from Paul. She would buy new clothes instead of packing her old stuff, blood stains were a real bitch to remove.

She closed the footlocker and stood up looking around for her modded cellular. She searched the kitchen and bathroom and the living room twice but assumed it had been lost in the raid.

She put in her Tolkien books and the Techno Cook Book and her radio player before zippering it closed and looked around for the last time at her home. She felt at war between sadness and joy for this place, she thought it would be the last place she would ever live and felt a sudden surge of terror and happiness fill her at the thought of going somewhere new. She could be free if she stayed and worked for him, she wouldn’t have to hide in shadows.

And he could keep the police and the Feds away, as well as the TL. She could tell he had little use for them just by the interview she had seen him give on TV a while back. His reasons for not getting along with them were vastly different from hers, she had once read a book with an ancient

vastly different from hers, she had once read a book with an ancient proverb stating: ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend.’ That was something that rang true to her and embraced it readily.

Could he really be trusted though? She hadn’t been taken to a jail cell or a lab. She had been under a deep deep for at least half the day and it hadn’t been dreamless. At first she kept seeing a white haired old man wearing black spectacles, the skin of his face was green and wrinkled with sunken eyes magnified by his glasses. His teeth were a crooked yellow mess.

Then the green face grew young and the scraggly long strands of white shortened and became a dark chestnut shade. He wore black clothes and a shiny black hat that reflected the sun light. He 251 ONCE UPON AN ALTERED TIME

was walking across a large yard surrounded on all sides by fence and barb wire. Inside the man in black strode between squares of more barbed wire fences surrounding scores of people dressed in stripped clothes.

She looked around an saw everything was surrounded by great large trees, a forest much denser and older than anything she had ever seen.

Inside the fenced in squares were lines and lines of trenches that were filled with bodies. She turned from the trenches and approached the fence, but that was all she remembered.

She didn’t know if it was a dream or someones memory, the face was old and green and she kept wanting to place him in a doctors coat for some reason. Had she been taken to a hospital or lab? She reasoned it was possible but to what use?

He was a real estate mogul and casino owner who had civic pride but was a realist about how to get things done. Maybe he was a civic minded

citizen with a heavy hand, sometimes pigs needed a heavy hand. The Byberry had been a government facility and look what had happened to her and the others. She had power and no one would stop her, no one could stop her.

John couldn’t stop her, she felt sure of that. He didn’t kill her probably because he couldn’t, that was why he had guarded his mind so well. She smiled as she pulled the door shut behind her and left her former home, sure of her invincibility.

Tom stood in front of the two story building on Quarry street, between 2nd and 3rd streets. It was more like an alley than a street, an it was not paved but was made of cobblestone and brick. The building was short and squat and had a minuscule parking lot with just four slots that were empty.

The red brick building was fronting as a business called Wong Heating A/C. The real business was heroin, the head of the Chinese gang Hue Wong was in charge. Wong had come to America when only two and had slowly climbed the ranks among the dope pushers in Chinatown to get on top and stay there. Chinatown unofficially began on 2nd between Arch and Vine street around the block from the Betsy Ross house and extended all the way west to Broad street, that was more than twelve city blocks long and six wide filled with every type of Asian.

Hue Wong handled his business and was a mythic figure to the gooks in Chinatown much like Tom’s brother was for the rest of the city, he was nearly as untouchable for police, but the fact he wasn’t white didn’t help him. Numerous attacks from hitters set up as SWAT by Tom had failed 252 ONCE UPON AN ALTERED TIME

ever to get inside before they could destroy or hide their powder. Too bad they don’t do meth, thought Tom, they could lay down fire until the whole works blew up.

works blew up.

Tonight Tom tried a more subtle approach.

Bang...bang...bang... Tom slammed his fist on the steel door.

“Open up mutha fucka, police!” he shouted with a lunatic smile.

He as well as the other undercover police men with him were armed.

Though Tom seemed joyous to poke the hornets nest, the two officers looked grim and held up their fire arms hastily when he shouted.

“Open it up you fuckin chink bastards don’t make me...”

Tom heard the familiar click of a fire arm and ducked. As he dropped the door opened wide and a bright flame from a muzzle bloomed, followed by a great roar that cut the two officers in half. Tom got up firing his revolver as he ran backwards a half block away where the armored SWAT wagon sat with more officers waiting.

In the streets a few screams were heard from the gun fire, in the distance a police siren wail was drawing closer. Tom and another cop crept back towards the other end of the street, before the lights on both floors were ablaze with yellow light and the sound of shouting and running feet were unmistakable. The cop edged closer to the building that was now dark and quiet.

“Maybe they...” he said before getting shot at from the second story window.

Tom knew they hadn’t left yet, they needed to move the supplies through the sewers below. The police had tried for years to locate the tunnels they used to move drugs and bootleg merchandise, going through sewers and old subway lines but the tunnels below the city had been built and expanded upon over the decades by the same Chinese families that ruled over the neighborhood now. It would be like playing hide and seek blindfolded in their backyard.

They had to get in, and fast. The building was a fort and the only entrance was covered heavily as were the windows. Tom was brought out of his thoughts by the chirp of his cellular.

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“Shit.” he said when he saw it was his brother calling.

He answered with a grimace.

“What the hell are you doing?” asked John in a tight voice of fury.

“The fuck you think?”

“Did you even find out if Hue is in there? You can’t lose two cops for a pack of drug dealers.”

One of the cops had been keeping John informed in real time Tom assumed.

“Yeah his brother is in there, his Benz is parked out front.”

“God damn it then send in the SWAT!”

“I can’t...”

Gunfire erupted again this time from the second story of the building, Tom sprawled down still holding his cellular, John was yelling on the other end.

“Hold on baby bro!” he shouted back as he crawled out of sight of the building.

“...the SWAT.”

“I said I can’t, there’s only one door and they got it covered, the only windows are on the second floor and the fire escape ain’t got a fuckin ladder.”

John was quiet for a moment, he could hear the wail of sirens and sporadic pops of gun fire on Tom’s end. He thought now was the time.

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“Has anyone called for back up?” John asked.

“No, there’s a couple squad cars comin now though.”

“Have the patrol cars cap off both ends of Quarry street, no one in or out, I’ll send someone in to handle it.”

“Who nigga?” asked Tom but was hung up on.

John left his house and texted Galadriel and told her to meet him at the Race street Pier, Lou raced him there and made it in under fifteen minutes. It was a dark night, no moon shown in the sky, the water of the Delaware was a black rippling void. Lou opened the door for John who walked to the edge of the pier’s entrance under the Ben Franklin bridge that stood high above looking down on the water.

Front street was empty of life besides the withered elms that had been planted every dozen feet in squares of dirt that was gray and dusty. The pier that was in front of him was wide enough to drive a pair of Mack trucks side by side and extended many feet over the river aimed at New Jersey like a middle finger. If a border wall went up it would make seeing New Jersey harder, no great loss there thought John. Years ago when his father still ran the streets, you could find shops here during the summer.

They were usually just pop up tents of bright colors set on stacks of wooden crates by families that had come over from Italy and Greece once upon a time, selling salt water taffy, soft pretzels, books that were against the law and more often than not were racy. A few would have a grill blazing, cooking some spicy meats and exotic veggies skewered on a wooden stick dripping with a sweet glaze.

He visited here with his mother many times when he and his brother were just lads in matching short pants, the memories of the people walking alongside the shops, sipping on an RC when it still came in a glass bottle and dipping pretzel rods into a melting gelato never left him. And there was always some one performing magic or reading palms or Tarot cards.

The home of those memories had suffered greatly from the great economic collapses of the 70s and 80s, when a gallon of milk was four

dollars but a gallon of 87 octane was still under seventy five cents.

He hoped one day to bring back the Race street pier to its former glory.

Tonight all that stood on

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the pier were sporadic piles of trash that had accumulated during the last garbage strike and were emitting a noxious smell, only crack whores and rats walked the pier now.

A breeze stirred, the diseased elms rattled mournfully, ten minutes passed but she still hadn’t arrived. He had been about to text her again when she walked from out of the shadow of a tree. Her hoody was black and she wore her hood up, her face looked ghostly. Her shorts were black, as well as the steel toe boots upon her feet that looked too heavy for her but she walked in them as easily as if they were sandals.

“Reliving the past?” she asked.

“Something like that,” he said coldly and redoubled the wall over his mind. “I’m having trouble in Chinatown.”

They walked to the car, Lou opened the door to let in John and gasped at Galadriel who stared at him for a brief moment.

“Leave her alone, she told you she doesn’t want you.” she said just above a whisper.

Lou’s face was pale as his mouth unhinged in a wide o. John stuck his head out and saw them staring at each other.

“Get in the car.” he said briskly.

She unlocked him from her gaze and got in the car. A moment later Lou got in behind the wheel and took a deep breath and started the car avoiding the rear view mirror reflecting where she sat.

“Maybe you should get your own ride if you plan on mind fucking my driver.”

They drove just a few blocks in silence before they stopped in front of a store of some kind with a sign in the window written in bright red Chinese characters with a brightly smiling Asian woman holding a cellular to her ear. John removed a folded piece of paper from an inner pocket of his suit and gave it to her.

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It was a picture of two Asian men approaching elderly, that bore a resemblance to each other.

“The one on the left is Hue Wong he runs women, counterfeit goods, a bunch a chop shops downtown, he also deals in heroin, that's his bread and butter.”

“Wouldn’t the police be more suited?” she asked.

“This isn’t a drug bust, those never stick anyway. By the time SWAT gets through he’ll have it all hid, he’s dealt that shit in my neighborhood for far too long. Hue isn’t there but the man on the right, Chen his brother is there now. He’s one of Hue’s top lieutenants. Do what you have to, but I

there now. He’s one of Hue’s top lieutenants. Do what you have to, but I want Chen alive, Tom will have a message for him. 216 Quarry street, and hurry they have ways of disappearing.”

Tom stood out of sight of the building chewing on the end of a blunt waiting for his brother or a tank to come rolling down this narrow ass street. He heard footsteps approaching behind him and turned to see a dark figure walk from behind the armored vehicle. Her eyes smoldered as she gave him a quick glare.

“The fuck he send you here for!?” Tom shouted.

“Don’t send in a boy to do a woman’s job.”

Before he could respond she was in the line of fire, but as the first shot rang out, she became a blur in his eyes. In a blink she had leaped from the ground up to the second story window, pushing her legs into the gun man as she came through. His scream of pain was cut short as he crashed into the room.

The unlit room she stood in was small and filled with office furniture, the man guarding the window had his neck broken when she jumped through and sent him crashing into a steel chair and desk combo. The door leading out of the room stood open. Beyond it she could hear panicky voices speaking rapidly, she crept to the door way listening when suddenly a man in a dark suit appeared holding a rifle.

He sucked in a breath to either scream or shout, before he could do either she grabbed him by the throat with her hand and threw him across the room and out the window she entered, she heard him scream loudly when he hit the ground. She quickly left the room and was in a much larger

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room that was almost as dark. She could see the glare from the street lights out side and could make out a door at the far side of the room.

Suddenly two Asian men smartly dressed appeared, coming from the direction of the far side door. One of them pulled out a pistol from a shoulder holster, but she quickly knocked it out of his nervous hand.

The other removed a butterfly knife with a confident hand and began to strike at her with it in a fluid fighting stance while the other held up his fists in a similar style. She ducked the arch of the knife as the other swung his fist downward, she easily caught his fist and held it as the knife wielder came from behind and stabbed downward into her back. He held the knife with both fists forcing the blade to go deep.

The man holding down the knife screamed as strands of black hair suddenly began covering his hands and squeezing his hands painfully.

The hair began pulling the hand and knife out with increasing force while the fist she held was being pulverized, the bones shattered like glass.

From somewhere deeper in the room a voice cried out and another figure appeared from the far side brandishing a large gun he tried to point in all directions.

She saw a tattered mental image of his fear of clowns. She released the two and dropped to the floor as she made him see the other two as clowns with a face full of white greasepaint and bright red noses. They held sticks and told him they were going to dig out the worms living in his ears.

He squealed hysterically and shot the clowns full of holes, trying to forget those painted smiles that made him think of bloody screams. He walked backwards, suddenly sure there were more clowns. Clowns with pointed sticks to dig out the worms in his head, laughing a screechy laugh each

sticks to dig out the worms in his head, laughing a screechy laugh each time a gray lump of his fleshy brain got picked out by mistake.

The laughing was like nails on a chalk board, so loud he could feel the sound in his teeth. He covered his ears but the laughing grew louder and louder making his ears ring. He knew the sound would never stop, it would drive him mad and still never stop. He fumbled out his hand gun and held it to his temple and blew his brains out. Galadriel stayed low and crept to the door.

Behind the door was a hallway that lead down stairs to the door out back that was covered by SWAT. Chen sat in the corner of the dark hallway, with his personal bodyguard standing in front of him. He held his automatic nervously while staring at the door leading back inside.

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Most of the guards had gone down to face the cops while the others kept Chen safe. They were evacuating easily then suddenly it had all turn to shit in the next room. There was gunfire and screams of terror, he stood in front of the door but didn’t move.

Chen shouted at him to open the door. He reached out and turned the knob, nudging it open with barrel of rifle. Chen watched as his body guard leaned slightly forward into the doorway inquisitively. His brow furrowed then his eyes widened as his legs were pulled out from under him and was being pulled inside.

He screamed and dropped his rifle and held onto the door, his face was pallid and panic stricken. Chen looked into his eyes that were wet with fright and pain. He screamed a word, Yaoguai, the Chinese words for demon, in a high wail before he lost his grip on the door and was swallowed by darkness.

Chen sat shaking with fright, he held his hands over his mouth so he didn’t scream. He pulled his hands away so he could breath and they shook uncontrollably. He wanted to dash by the door and take his chances with the police. He was a superstitious man from the old country and the old ways held to him, it was unlucky to cross the doorway of a demon.

He crawled on his hands and knees slowly towards the door that stood open. He leaned passed the doors edge and looked into the room. If he saw nothing he would cross, as he looked his eyes adjusted to the dark.

He saw a hooded figure sitting cross legged just a few feet from the door.

He could see just a faint outline of a face, it looked young and feminine, he could almost make out the jade of her eyes. He felt a numb for a moment as the head of the figure titled up slowly and the outline of her face began to melt. Her facial features melded and changed shape as her lips and mouth began to stretch out into a bony white snout, her nose broke into a pair of holes on her cheeks that exhaled hot steam.

The jade of her eyes melted into her sclera, becoming a pool of lights, the eyes spreading farther apart and protruded under her growing brow. Her teeth melted into sharp fangs that lined the mouth that had stretched to a length of six inches. She leaned forward suddenly and her arms shot out, with hands covered in coarse hair and sharp black claws that sat upon very long fingers.

She began to crawl forward, with arms bending at unnatural joints and angles. A black bang escaped from her hood and it became a snake that was midnight black and was adorned with many tiny spots of jade like her eyes, it slithered towards him, flashing its forked tongue. He screamed as the snake made a strike at him.

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Tom stood in the lot with a few of Chen’s men who had been fighting it

Tom stood in the lot with a few of Chen’s men who had been fighting it out on the first floor and had given up when the body guard fell from above. It was only a minute or so after the last scream when the door leading out was kicked open and Chen was tossed from the doorway like a laundry sack, screaming and crying but alive. Galadriel stepped out and the loud screams and cries of Chen redoubled.

“Yaoguai! Yaoguai!”

He kept screaming, pointing with a finger on one hand while trying to hide his tears with the other. She walked closer to him while Tom grabbed him.

“Yo,” he said giving Chen a loud smack in the cheek, Chen was immediately silent. “you cry like that again, I’m a lock you up in somebody’s basement wit the witch.”

Tom nodded at her, and he looked at her and couldn’t look away. Tom shook him roughly.

“You feel me? Good, now get the fuck up we goin for a ride.”

They had been lined up, frisked, cuffed then put into a waiting police van. Another van with city emblem arrived and took away the dead, no ambulance came for those who had been hurt, they were all being taken.

Tom got in the passenger side of the patrol wagon and closed the door, Galadriel approached him as he lit up a blunt.

“Go ride your broom home,” he said dragging on the smoldering cigar. “I take care of these assholes.”

“Are you taking them to jail?” she asked.

He smiled slowly with many teeth and said: “They goin somewhere.”

His mind was closed tight but his aura was the shade of fire trucks and blood, a bright red that screamed violence, and murder. The SWAT van pulled away and went downtown, while the wagon went in the opposite direction. She left in the same direction she had arrived, John’s car still sat there as she passed the window in the back went down.

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“Good work.” he said leaning out slightly.

“What will you do to them?” she asked.

“Advise them to go somewhere else.”

“Where?”

“They can go to New Jersey for all I care, but they will not stay in my city.”

“And if they don’t leave, what then?”

“They’ll leave.” he said with a nod “Well, I’d offer you a ride home but my driver Lou informed me he would retire immediately if you got back in the car and a good driver is hard to find. Besides having you seen in my personal vehicle would be hard to explain, especially considering some of the places I may have to send you. The police may not care, but

some of the places I may have to send you. The police may not care, but there are others we all need to be weary of, good night.”

The window went up and the car pulled away into the night, she watched it until the red brake lights winked out. She wanted to feel glad she had done what she had, but she felt neither joy nor sadness by her actions.

She knew they would all be killed, and tried to reason with herself it was bad, but the blood on her hands was red, a bright ghastly red.

She was nothing short of a hitter for the mob. No, she reasoned. She had killed pigs and criminals. It might be seen as murder though to some, such as the TL who didn’t get along with John. It wouldn’t be too far fetched to assume the TL might have a close eye on him, they had members on the police and every where else. She thought of Paul and an icy chill gripped her insides.

The chill was heated up when she thought of the suffering she wrought upon them. They were all pigs, the TL, the street thugs, the drug runners, they would be gone and if there were less drugs and violence around that was a good thing wasn’t it? Of course it was, she told herself, they were the rapists of children and the eaters of women, disease merchants that infected heart and soul. They were the agents of the same type, and therefore, pigs. She let the void inside her fill with the dark satisfaction that they had been pigs after all, before she walked away into the night.

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The next text she received came at the end of summer, it was an address for a speakeasy on 4th street posing as a business that sold vinyl siding.

The text said he didn’t care about the illegal booze and music, but the owner was making and selling PCP.

‘SWAT will be there if you need back up,’ he texted followed up by how to get inside.

“Send SWAT then,” she said to herself.

She didn’t mind exercising her powers though. She had no doubt they would keep at their pig ways while the wheels of the system slowly turned and produced unjust results. The store front was all glass, and was covered with sporadic canary yellow vinyl stickers with exclamations such as: SELL AND TRADE USED SIDING! and VINYL 50 YEAR

GUARANTEE!

A few siding samples hung in the window that looked dusty and sun washed. Behind the glass all was dark and quiet. The building was three stories with houses sitting on either side of it, she went around the corner down a street called Orianna that was just an alley surrounded by the backs of other houses fenced in yards. She was behind the vinyl store and found a set of steps that descended below the pavement.

She walked down and found a short stone corridor that ended abruptly at a steel door that had a mail slot set at eye level. She approached the door and knocked.

Purdy Dunlap worked the door with the slot, a .44 sat oiled and ready in his holster. The room was a large vestibule, that sat between the door outside and the club behind the door on the other side of the room. It was lit by a single sixty watt bulb that hung from the center of the ceiling. In front of that door was Mario Marchetti, he was collecting the cover charge which varied from person to person while he sat on a tall stool, behind which was a double barrel shot gun loaded with buck shot. Purdy would open the slot to check them over, ask for the password and let them in if they had it. If they didn’t well, that rarely happened and was usually neighborhood punks fuckin around when it did.

The club was run for the Letuzzi family by Mario’s cousin Nicky Decosta.

The club was run for the Letuzzi family by Mario’s cousin Nicky Decosta.

He was a captain for the family and was in charge running this place as a private drinking club while making PCP in the basement next store, both properties were connected by an underground tunnel that extended to the waterfront where booze usually from Canada was moved out of freighters and transferred to the club. It had never been raided, because nobody fucked with the Letuzzi’s, not even the five oh.

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The floor was wide enough to get a pretty good crowd dancing, there was a bar at the back were a pair of armed guards did sentry duty for the buxom bar tender. On the left wall was a door to the bathroom where another crew member stood. On the right wall was the door leading to the tunnel connecting the properties, beside that was a DJ booth that had only a sound system and played music from a hard drive plugged into the systems serial port. The entire floor was dimly lit with low watt bulbs so patrons felt more anonymous.

The music wasn’t what he’d call his type of music. The shit playing now sounding like a bunch of assholes screaming like lunatics. It was an outlaw metal band from Texas known as CFH. The crowd was mostly young men and women, most were wearing jeans and flannel shirts and smelled like ass and shitty weed, though some of the women were pretty fuckin hot.

When the DJ started playing that CFH shit they all started running and crashing into each other even the women, he heard it while at the door and charged down with the shotgun thinking the crowd was stampeding.

No one noticed him as he blundered down so he lowered the gun, though he had kept a weary eye on the crowd. But after a few minutes he went back up to watch the door with Purdy.

Besides the rowdy head shakers the job was easy and paid well, he was getting all the trim he wanted giving free samples of product and milking the cover charge for nobodies that wandered in. Other nights they would play hip hop from California or European Techno, some of that

play hip hop from California or European Techno, some of that music was OK. Tonight was fairly busy but it had slackened off enough for he and Purdy to talk politics.

“So you tellin me that mutha fucka is really gonna build a god damn wall round the whole fuckin country?” asked Purdy sitting on a stool.

“Why the fuck not? They got that big wall over in China to keep the other fuckin gooks out. We’re American’s and we can build one better to keep the fruits and the nigs out. Make America Safe Again.” he said proudly.

“You really believe all that shit he says?”

“Yeah, why would he lie? He got rich by being smart, don’t you know that? If he says a wall will protect us than he’s right, he knows.”

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“How the fuck can he know a wall will help if he never built one before?”

he asked.

“Because, he’s got millions of fuckin dollars and he built all kinds of other shit. He’ll save us from those god damn Nixonian republicans. Everybody else is yellow news.”

“Shit you know all tha fuckin slogans.” he said as a knock came from the door.

He opened the slot and asked for the password, the bulb above flickered some as Mario continued while Purdy stood stone still, oblivious to the tears coming from Purdy’s eyes. He pulled the bolt on the door then

tears coming from Purdy’s eyes. He pulled the bolt on the door then turned facing Mario, who finally stopped his political commentary.

“Purdy, what the fuck...” he said with an awkward laugh.

“It was my fault.” he said in hoarse whisper before pulling the revolver and shooting Mario.

He put the gun to his temple and pulled the trigger. One of the bouncers on the dance floor had been circling the area to keep an eye on the rowdy dancers and had been passing the door when he heard two shots.

The music was deafening but he heard it and recognized the sound from his days when still on the force.

He opened the door to the vestibule and was shocked to see the light off and the door hanging ajar, giving the rooms only light in a small wedge.

He looked back towards the bar where an armed crew member of the family stood flirting with the barmaid. He noticed the bouncer looking and stood up as the bouncer looked into the dark vestibule.

The door leading outside shut suddenly as a pair of violent green eyes appeared before him in the dark. He had taken in a large gulp of breath before his head was twisted around by strands of black hair. A small group near the door saw the bouncer standing with his head on backwards and stopped their mosh dance, trying to compute the image they saw.

The bouncer took a step back, one of his eyes rolled up to its whites before he collapsed. Suddenly someone shrieked in the small group as the armed guard at the bar charged through the dancers unaware of what was happening. She stepped onto the dance floor, as some began to understand and ran for the exit. The crew member had taken out his gun and fired accidentally into the ceiling sending a stampeding panic

and fired accidentally into the ceiling sending a stampeding panic towards her.

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Most saw her bright eyes and went around her, a few had been knocked flat when they ran into her. When the majority had exited the crewmen had been joined by the other bar sentry both held up their pistols. They saw just a figure in black with glowing eyes and began firing when their feet had been pulled out from under them.

The crewman working at the bathroom ran to the bar and jumped over it and fell behind it out of sight, as the black figure darted forward. She kicked a table out of her way and marched to the bar when the guard rose from behind brandishing a large automatic rifle. She darted quickly to her left behind a wide load bearing post as he unleashed a storm of lead filling the area with smoke.

The two on the floor had sought refuge behind a table across the dance floor as the barrage ensued. When he stopped firing the two behind her moved forward firing in a crouching run, she kicked the table she knocked over, it sailed across the floor and knocked them both down.

One screamed holding his leg while the other hardly moved at all.

She peeked her head out in front of her and was greeted by the whiz of a passing bullet. She crouched low as the firing continued and looked around her at the collection of ceramic ashtrays and liquor bottles and pint glasses. She peaked again just enough to see above the bar where scores of wine glasses hung. She looked back at the glass littered about and saw herself tossing them with her hands, not just a pair of hands but many.

The litter of bottles and tumblers and pints began firing at the guard, who began firing everywhere at once in a flustered panic as objects began pelting him under their own power. He

pelting him under their own power. He was screaming in a high girlish scream as more flying glass came. A thick hunk of glass from an ashtray came from nowhere, the corner of the broken end crashed into his eye crushing the left side of his face.

He fell to the floor screaming as the guts of his ocular cavity fell into his cupped hand when he pulled it from his face. As he looked up and on the bar stood the black figure looking down upon him, her face a pale shadow surrounded by blackness. He saw her face become more defined and features showed, he thought she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen as her boot came down and crushed his skull.

The room were the PCP was made was empty and silent, the pair of guards watching the spot had grown tired of the screaming music and retreated to the tunnel going far enough to smell the water of the Delaware. If the music hadn’t been so loud the waves could be heard lapping when

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there wasn’t cars going by above ground. Between them they shared a thick joint, it cast a red glow upon their faces.

“Shit my head is pounding.” said the one holding his cellular with the flashlight on.

“Yeah mine too, this shit ain’t helpin either.” he said holding a drag in and releasing it on the word either in a thick stream.

“Your head still pounding too much for some snatch.” his friend asked switching his hand to take the joint.

“Shit no. I’ll be bangin my aches away tonight, eatin pussy is good for migraines.”

migraines.”

“Go on up and get us some broads, them two wearing coochie cutters waiting in line for the bathroom looked ready to fuck.”

“Shit you go up, I’m the one who got the weed. Besides you got the fancy Tap Screen with the light. Ask the guy workin the bathroom, Reggie, he’s cool.”

“You know him better than I do...”

“Don’t be lazy man, if it weren’t for me you wouldn’t be smokin shit.”

“Ah you fuck,” he said but they both laughed. “if there’s a red head she’s mine.”

“Fine bitch, they don’t have souls anyway. Meet me at the other end, they like the sea side view.” he said laughing as he walked the other way towards the pinhole of light coming from the pier.

He laughed giving his friend the bird as he walked away holding the cellular up. There was no lights on in the basement so he walked slowly so as not too trip on the doorway when he reached it. He looked back and the light from the pier was blotted out by his friends receding figure so he walked on keeping his cellular high. He reached the door way and could hear the music roaring away, as he entered the basement that was unlit.

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The drug room was connected by doorway in the corner which had bright florescent bulbs lighting the room, they were new bulbs he had replaced

florescent bulbs lighting the room, they were new bulbs he had replaced them just last week. Now however it flickered like a strobe light, he also heard steps coming from the flickering room. He listened closely and heard the scraping of moving feet as the light flickered faster.

He felt his stomach get hot and tight as he heard the scrape of the feet again and began wishing he had a gun. He watched the flicker of lights and felt his heart pound painfully in his chest, he heard footsteps but saw no one. He felt chills rattle his spine, he took a deep breath and spoke in a firm voice.

“Hey who the fuck is there?”

As the last word left his mouth the light of his cellular winked out, then the florescent brightened greatly before it popped loudly sending the drug room into darkness, a few sparks scattered about and burned out quickly.

He let out a short bark of fright and almost fell over. He could taste blood in his throat as his pulse raced.

He took a shaky breath, but inhaled sharply when the scraping sound came again much closer this time. In the dark he struck his hand on the cellular willing the light to return, it lit feebly for a second then went dark again. He uttered a squeaky breath as he struck it again and it lit fully as another scrape came out of the darkness.

The light shined directly into his eyes, he cried out and dropped it to the ground, it cracked loudly and went dark. He saw after images of bright colors from the light as he stumbled around, leaving him ignorant of the green eyes glowing and watching him. He stood still for a moment trying to rub the glares out of his eyes as he looked upon the shining iris’s. He stared at them silently holding his breath, realizing they were real and alive he screamed and ran down the tunnel in a clumsy awkward run.

He looked back once unsure if the eyes were still there or the flashlight was still affecting his eyes. He ran forward arms out screaming hysterically when he saw them again burning bright in the dark behind him, stumbling on the debris that littered the tunnel floor but never falling down. His side was burning with pain when he crashed into his friend who grabbed him, he flicked a lighter and held it up, the flame wavered in his hand.

“Chill, man chill the fuck out! What, what the fuck is it?!”

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“It’s coming, it’s COMING!” he shouted.

“Man who? Who’s comin, is it the fuckin cops...”

Suddenly his voice and the light he held were cut short, the sound of the lighter clattering to ground was hollow. There followed a choked gurgling sound, then the thud of something heavy. He had stopped shouting hysterically and pissed his pants as he did a duck walk backwards, heading to the lights of the piers beyond.

“Please....oh god....please...” he mumbled in a watery voice.

He walked slowly hoping it would leave him alone, but a pair of bright emerald eyes regarded him. He howled as the horror of those eyes darted at him, his heart seized and he died with his face frozen in a scowl of fright.

The cool weather came early that year, the frost was already coating the windshields of cars early in the morning by the first week of October.

windshields of cars early in the morning by the first week of October.

Galadriel stilled worked sporadically. for John Noah, she even scaled back her own hunting expeditions. It was just as well, it seemed that most of the pigs hid once the weather got cold. Not that it was quiet, the temperatures cooled but not the blood of the pigs.

She practiced her magic, learning how to go inside her own mind and built a castle made of memories and stone. An indoor courtyard of great cobblestones on the ground, and high gray stone walls with three arched windows on each wall made of carnival glass. One wall had a huge fire place filled with logs burning brightly, the flames were warm and the charred wood crackled softly.

On the mantle above the great fire place were many pictures from her mothers album. One was a picture of Paul with a handsome smile.

Another was of her parents arms about each other at picnic when her mother was still carrying her in her body,they both looked young and immortal. Her favorite one was just a picture of her and her mom, when she was about five.

They weren’t looking at the camera but at each other with matching smiles. This picture made her feel happy and sad like the dream lyrics she still heard sometimes. Across from the fire place on the opposite wall was a mirror in an onyx frame as dark as her hair. The mirror was dark as if made from black glass and would show her in whatever way the mind she entered imagined her, mixed with the imaginer’s own wants and desires.

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A large arched door of ancient oak with an iron knob and hinges holding it to the doorway, stood beside the framed hanging mirror, solid and heavy. The door opened as wide as the persons mind could be opened, it made the attempts to get inside much easier. She strengthened the muscles of her mind as well.

She could lift upwards of two hundred pounds with enough concentration and send smaller, lighter objects and great speeds and over great distances. It was difficult to simply hold objects still and she could only hold on for a short while, and if she tried to move objects sedately her ability to move things stopped once something was six feet or so away from her. Minor short comings that bothered her very little.

Her new home was simple townhouse on a back street called Roseberry near the industrial area of Philadelphia, far to the east and away from too many people. She modded a Tap Screen which surfed the net better than her old flip model, the serial ports made modding them easier and could interface seamlessly with Thin Screen’s as well, she had large one now that had come with house as well as furniture and all the latest modern home appliances. One night while searching fruitlessly for witches, she searched for wizards instead, and had come up with an unexpected result. She found a net link to a site titled geezer geek forum.

There were numerous discussions mostly about computers and video games, held in boxes of text that expanded when an arrow icon was clicked. There were hundreds of discussions being held in each of the forums, long ones with posts dating back to the mid 80‘s. At the bottom of the net site was a chat box that had a green dot next to the word live, beside that was an icon of a purple Wretchhog holding the severed head of Nixon, under that was the word ADMIN followed by a blinking cursor and a space to type in a question. She typed in a question, not sure if she would get a serious response, the question sounded foolish in her own mind.

‘is there a wizard here?’

After a moment or so an answered appeared, just below and to the left of her question in a lighter shade of font than her’s.

‘no, he don’t come round here no more :( he built this site’

‘does he know magic?’

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It was a few minutes before another answer appeared.

‘magic? I don’t know, he knowz how 2 talk 2 computers, so i guess its magic if ur a noob, :) lulz’

She thought for a moment before asking another question.

‘what’s his real name?’

His next response was quicker.

‘he goes by lots names, Chief, The Tall Dude, Editor, The Coder, The Wizard On Top Of The Mountain, Howdy The Green etc...etc...no one knowz his real name, he wuz supposedly arrested by the feds cuz he was under a terror watch list, but that was yellow newz i think’

‘was he killed by the feds, maybe they covered up?’

It was more than five minutes before the response came, she imagined the person on the other end of the conversation was thinking hard about what the admin believed versus what the admin felt was true.

‘doubt it, i don’t think the feds got him, they wood made a big deal bout it, they never had a pic of him, it never been proven for sure but he was arrested once in 75 or 76 for illegal modification of a cellular device, the arrest sheet had no name but a description that said he was an old man, like with a white beard and long white hair, that's y sum call him a wizard, he got away at some point an he stayed on the run, he got snatched by somebody at some point tho, he stole from important people n companies, that's how he got on the feds shit list, he was active supposedly on this site up until 88 or so, the other adminz say he prolly not real anywayz, just a couple a guys pretendin to be one guy to fuck wit the feds, g2g bb’

The green dot disappeared as did the word live, she typed another question but after twenty minutes with no reply she gave up. She gave up figuring out if there were others special like her, she accepted the fact she would be alone. It was a loveless world anyhow and she had a lusting for blood that could be easily satisfied.

She didn’t let it bother her, it just meant no one was stronger than she.

She needed no one else,

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darkness was her companion and solitude her lover. She felt a pleasant cold shiver touch her heart and stood up and went to a window to cast her eyes upon the frosty night air over the city anxious to do more hunting.

The last week of October had been a blur for John, the day before Saints Eve was nothing but meetings with potential sellers of a big slice of Bucks County that was right along the highway and was big enough to hold as many as two dozen lots for departments stores and entertainment centers. The stretch of highway led to the popular tourist attraction of Amish country just a few mile further along.

There had been five or six separate meetings he had through out the day concerning casino security in West Philly and the Cove on Petty’s Island.

He had a private luncheon with a few local BNP party members that were hosting the arrival of their presidential candidate who held a big lead over the GOP ticket. He had even asked for John by name and wanted to meet personally with him during his visit the next day at a BNP clubhouse on Spruce street downtown.

Since he added that fat fuckin preacher from Virginia, who who held a high position on the TL, his lead in the polls doubled, religious people were worried about his morals and ethics because of his famous vulgarity and womanizing. Adding the Fatwell guy had apparently alleviated their worries. John met him one on one for twenty minutes before he held a rally in Center City. John had felt honored and intrigued by the man from New York who was the master of real estate like him.

After their meeting, John was flummoxed by his juvenile vulgarity and failure to go more than a minute with out talking about himself.

‘Is that really your secretary, those tits, my god what is she?’ ‘French-Canadian, Christ the frogs have such beautiful women. I screw hot ones like her all the time.’

He asked John if he was a sports fan, when he said yes, he promised an invite for John to join him at his penthouse in Manhattan the next time the Giants and the Phillies play Monday Night Football.

‘It’s huge my penthouse, huge solid gold faucets and a big window, beautiful solid gold frames, beautiful view of the city. I have a pool table there, my name in gold letters, real 24kt ink right on the felt, beautiful you should see it.’

should see it.’

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John asked him about what was better leasing or buying per square foot in land for a local business chain and he rambled for a minute or so about how that was a smart question turning it into a story about the three brand new digital Thin Screens he had at his golf club in Florida to watch when it was raining too much to play a round. Despite his dizzying nonsensical answers to basic business questions, he was more on point when it came to the city’s black population.

‘That’s all I see is niggers downtown, how many murders did you guys have? Five hundred, a thousand? We gotta push them right back once they got uppity. They’re just wandering around down here, when I get in I’ll fix that. We’re gonna bring back the citizen cards, and reinforce the Jim Crow laws up north. This used to be such a beautiful city, you remember that? I’ll mention you in my speech today. Despite the niggers, it’s not as bad as the fags though, ask Jerry about it, he’s excited to be my VP, if we get in there he’s ready to hang them all.’

John could hardly believe such a man could possibly wind up president.

When John saw him speak that afternoon he understood how he might do it, he was a natural at getting the crowd up into a frenzy, saying some of the things he said to John earlier, but with a thicker vehemence. He accentuated words sometimes with wild arm gestures and pointing, as well as facial contortions that had the crowd in hysterical laughter. He did mention John some what when he spent fifteen minutes rambling on about cheese steaks and Ben Franklin and looked towards John and said:

“You remember what I said, about Ben and the cheese steaks?”

John nodded dutifully, though he couldn’t figure out what the hell he was talking about, neither one of them had talked about cheese steaks or Ben

talking about, neither one of them had talked about cheese steaks or Ben Franklin. Directly from the subject of steaks on Italian bread he promised to save the bakers job from all the fags coming from California taking all the baking jobs. The people jumped and screamed when he mentioned the name of a local family bakery on Ritner street.

From there he got on the subject some how of BNP founder President Rockefeller, and how America was safer under his strong leadership and how he was the only one who could bring it back to that golden time. By nine o’clock that night he was exhausted and dug out his cellular for the first time since early afternoon while nursing a tumbler of whiskey at his downtown office and saw he had two dozen new text messages. Most were congratulations from friends and business associates on being mentioned in the big speech, the rest were from his brother repeatedly asking him to call.

“What is it, I’ve had a long day?”

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“Sorry honey, but not over the phone.” his brother replied back sharply.

Twenty minutes later he walked into his home office were a desk lamp glowed. Tom sat holding a smoky blunt in one hand and a white envelope in the other.

“God damn it, Tom if this is about some new god damn strain of weed I’ll...”

He stopped short when his brother held up the envelope which was adorned with his name underneath a Chinese character that John recognized as the symbol for war.

recognized as the symbol for war.

“Why is it addressed to me?”

“I guess they know who really callin the shots, baby bro.” Tom said

“You said they left.” John said tightly.

“Yeah we’ll I guess they didn’t. Look I took Chen to the bay, I shot everyone in the head but him and dumped them in the river. He was shittin an cryin all over sayin they’d leave.”

“Then what the fuck is this!?” he said taking the envelope from him.

“I don’t fuckin know I didn’t open it, that shit’s a federal offense.” he said taking a hit and guffawing a laugh as he exhaled.

“Fucking retard.” he said as he opened the envelope.

He sat as he read it, and swallowed the rest of his whiskey in one gulp.

“What the fuck is a come a day?” Tom asked.

“Kumite. It’s like cage fighting, except it goes on until one of the fighters are dead. Their held usually in far out places like Thailand, South America, The Mexican Territories.”

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“So who she fighting?” he said before taking a long drag on his blunt.

“Put that thing out it’s giving me a head ache.” John said taking it and stubbing it out roughly in an ashtray.

“Shit man, relax. Who she fighting?”

“Jin Kang, he’s also called The Ogre because he’s covered in scars, he’s a three time 100 man Kumite champion.”

“Aw, Hue Wong is full a shit.

“No he isn’t, Kang is the real McCoy. He’s killed men bigger than himself, I’ve seen his fights on the deep net. He’s a fucking monster.”

“He hired a fighter, I wonder how much he payin him? Shit they both Chinese they probably related, fuckin slope heads all look the same.”

“Crude estimate but probably not far off. They’re families both came from the Tai’an village, a small place made up of poppy farmers in back woods of China. I’m sure Hue convinced him this was personal for both of them.

That could be bad.” John said rubbing his chin with his brow furrowed in deep thought.

“So, she get killed, one less fuckin problem. You got me and the SWAT

team to ice that gook motha fucka!” he said.

“Like the Italians?” John said quickly.

After a pair of raids by Galadriel on the speakeasies run by the Italians, they had scaled back on all their in town operations. The SWAT teams had done dozens of raids and it never stopped the Letuzzi’s for very long.

He assumed that Hue would cry uncle, most of his business fronts had shuttered and the amount of women coming out of Chinatown dwindled to almost nothing, but

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he been regrouping and was ready for round two. If Galadriel defeated their fighter, Hue would leave the city, if she lost then they were back to square one minus the witch.

“Yeah whatever. You gonna let her throw down wit their chink fighter?”

“It would save us trouble in the end if she wins. Unless he’s trying to entrap me into something, Hue’s a cunning bastard. Dad made devices for his crew years back, when they say war they mean it.”

John sat in his car while Lou drove into the heart of Chinatown on Race street, the asphalt glistened from an earlier downpour and reflected the neon in ghastly bright swirls. The neighborhood was a nighttime sea of Asian faces bathed in the bright neon of the restaurants and tea houses and markets that were alive with business. The car careened through clusters of taxis and rickshaws pulling along the excited white tourists who were not to likely to end up at one of his casinos.

They passed a restaurant on the corner called The Jade Harbor and turned on 10th going half a block then turning behind a narrow street directly behind The Jade Harbor. John texted Galadriel the situation and to meet him here, the alley was quiet and dark as he sat.

She didn’t appear until John got out of the car, approaching him directly from behind. He sucked in a startled breath and exhaled deeply.

“We’re waiting for my brother. He’ll have a few men with you just in case.”

“You said he would leave. You were wrong.” she said sounding a little too smug in John’s opinion. “When I win what makes you sure he’ll leave?”

“You let me worry about that. You worry about if you can beat him.” he said sounding unconvinced she could win and thinking it loudly as well.

Her eyes flashed a bright electric green and spoke in a savage whisper:

“I’ll break him.”

Before John could respond Tom’s black Lexus pulled up behind them, the doors opened and a cloud of smoke billowed out as Tom and three others stepped out.

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“Tom you and your crew go with her, Hue’s expecting me to watch in his office. Don’t let these yellow fucks push you around. OK?”

“Got it, baby bro. No problem.”

Lou dropped him off in front and was told to keep circling. He entered the brightly lit eatery with white walls decorated with murals of koi ponds and rice paddy farms, there were many tables but currently had just a pair of customers eating noodles silently towards the back, with their heads down. He went through a glassed in vestibule, beyond that was a podium

down. He went through a glassed in vestibule, beyond that was a podium were a young Asian woman in a tight black mini dress stood looking sexy and submissive.

Her face became more doey eyed when he said his name. She nodded and led him to a door that opened to a carpeted set of steps. He went up alone and entered a parlor room, with walls adorned with framed silk scrolls decorated in colorful symbols and animals on three of the four walls that were wallpapered red.

On the fourth wall was a large thin screen that showed an empty cage. In front of the thin screen stood the Chen brothers and two armed guards each carrying a holstered pistol. They surrounded a mini bar that held a tall bottle filled with a brown liquid, beside it were a pair of shot glasses.

Hue Wong the brains, brawn and leader of the family for decades approached John, his eyes were smoldering with contempt. They met in the middle of the room, John gave the slightest nod and a surely smile.

“Mr Wong.”

“I know you are the one who pushed out on my businesses, you use police...”

“Mr Wong, I don’t have any idea...” John tried to say, caught off guard by Hue’s fluid English.

“Please, cut the shit Mr Noah.” he said raising his hand in disgust. “I am not trying to entrap you, I have no use for police. The police are of benefit to you, you carry their souls in your pocket, while a demon carries your soul in her own.”

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“You’re a superstitious old man, Wong.” John said with a smile.

He could sense the old man was not confident his boy would win. He started off looking right into Johns eyes, when Hue mentioned the demon his eyes looked away, sounding more afraid than angry at that moment.

Hue continued attempting to sound more defiant.

“No, I am a businessman, like you. You and I are alike, we both strive for the American dream.” Hue said going to the mini bar.

“Your father worked for me for a time. He was a good man, respectful and a hard worker. We should not fight among ourselves when we, both desire the same things. We can help each other, when I arrived here I was a boy and my father told me about the great melting pot of America.

Would you like a drink?”

He held up the bottle that held not only liquor but a large cobra head.

John looked closely at the bottle and looked to Hue inquisitively.

“Vietnamese tequila,” Hue said pouring some in both glasses with a wintry smile. “as I was saying the melting pot...”

“Wong,” John said taking the shot glass from Hue. “I appreciate your tale of love for America, however the melting pot has boiled over and is starting a fire. You and I may enjoy expensive suits, personal drivers, and fine wines but we are nothing alike. This is a white mans country, and my father only worked for you so one day I’d never have too. This isn’t racism or even personal spite on my part, it’s just business.”

He swallowed the tequila and sat the glass back down with a slight grimace.

“Christ, tequila like that I’m amazed those guys lost the war.” John said rubbing the moisture off his lips. “Now here’s whats happening. If your guy loses, you leave and never come back, if you don’t leave you will be forced out by the souls I carry in my pocket or the one who carries mine if you prefer. Right, Chen?”

Chen started visibly as Hue scowled and looked away, swallowing his drink, and gave a curt nod towards the thin screen. Not asking what happens if The Ogre wins.

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Tom waited until the car was out of sight before he went to the back door of the restaurant. The door was bright blue and covered with Chinese graffiti, it was thin and looked like it was made of plywood. Tom gave the door a swift pound with a fist and a moment later the door opened a couple of inches.

Tom stood close to the door and spoke to someone in a few quick words, Galadriel saw only a shadowy glimpse of the face before the door closed again. It opened again a few seconds later, and they were all rushed inside by an obese Chinese man with very few teeth, yelling in a mix of Chinese and English.

“Yo dawg, your breath smells like an anchovies cunt.” Tom said to the man who nodded politely as if in thanks.

He kept pointing to a door just past the kitchen that looked like a large pantry, and said what sounded like the word hurry. Galadriel gave him a

pantry, and said what sounded like the word hurry. Galadriel gave him a quick glimpse and the man was instantly silent as his face went white. A chef and a pair of bus boys no older than ten watched wide eyed as she went to the false pantry that was a door that opened to a set of concrete stairs heading down to a wide corridor made entirely of red bricks and mortar, voices could be heard down below.

They sounded rambunctious and ready for a fight. As they walked, the hall widened out and ended abruptly and opened out into a spacious room with over a thousand square feet. Along the red brick walls were scatterings of steel folding chairs and card tables folded and unused and a green chalk board with number and Chinese characters written on it.

There were a few dozen chairs and a half dozen tables that were surrounding an immense cage made of chain link that sat upon an octagon fighting ring its canvas was brown with old blood stains and torn and ripped through out.

Despite the spaciousness, the room still stunk of blood and sweat and mold. The smell over lying that was pure hostility, Galadriel saw red mist without trying very hard to see it. Most sat watching and talking quietly, sneering and spiting, drinking hard liquor and smoking stinky cigars. A few hisses were thrown their way as an ancient looking man with a long white mustache hobbled to them.

He barked something in his own language at Tom. And pointed at the ring, in the far corner stood a very tall Asian man with arms that were large slabs of muscles. His legs were as thick as tree trunks and his feet were of extreme length and width. His neck was an avalanche of meaty muscular flesh, and though he was said to be only in his late twenties his face was made old from the pain and scars of three Kumite championships.

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His face was ghastly with a pair of criss crossing scars on his head forming a crude x, another wider swath of scar tissue went down the right side of his face. He looked at her and smiled, the scar tissue made his

side of his face. He looked at her and smiled, the scar tissue made his grin look melted and broken, he cracked his knuckles in a mirthless chuckle. He was a halo of red that vibrated with each breath he took.

“Yeah nigga shut up. Take off your hoody, he thinks it’s a weapon and don’t want it in his ring.”

The crowd was becoming anxious as they spoke, they were ready for blood and to place bets. Most held wrinkled clusters of dollar bills waving it and shouting at a skinny little boy wearing a Yellow Jackets wool knit hat who ran into the crowd taking someones money then ran to the green chalk board writing their name and a number. Everyone sounded hysterical and drunk until she took off her hoody.

The crowd went silent as they looked upon her, one or two old men mumbled something and left in a running hurry. The old man with the mustache sighed fearfully and hobbled to the cage and opened its gated door. They murmured just above a whisper as she handed her hoody off to Tom and ascended the steps.

She could feel their thoughts coming at her in every direction, there emotions were at war with each other, stuck between fear and hatred.

Wong meant to these people what Noah meant to the whites, Galadriel could see those thoughts easily. They knew what this fight was really about and had more than money riding on it.

She felt nervous as she stepped inside and turned to watch the gate close. Suddenly she was knocked across the ring and to the ground with murderous force. The crowd had resurrected and began cheering wildly.

As she started to rise she was kicked in the rib cage and hit the chain link wall and fell to her face.

He stood and raised his arms that were blue with many tattoos and engraved with jagged scars. He roared aloud and the crowd rushed the cage shaking it, some climbed it and stood watching. As he approached Galadriel sent her bangs to his arm.

Before they could grip his arm properly, he grabbed it with both hands and pulled. Because she was so light he tossed her body around by the hair as if she were a rag doll. He repeatedly threw her against the cage, each throw she hit harder than the last, letting out a gasp each time, making the crowd ravenous for her blood. After the fourth throw he released her and she collapsed feeling dizzy and light headed and wracked with pain all over.

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She rolled onto her back and felt actual pain for the first time in a long while, she laid as the crowd jeered her. As she began to gather herself to move, the fighter charged towards her. Each step he took was an attempt to smash her face, each one missed as she rolled escaping each booted foot by a breath. When she hit the end of the cage she was on her back and was just in time to catch his foot less than an inch above her face.

The crowed made an oh sound when she caught his foot just in time, the sound grew as he tried to step down. His mind was too focused to invade and he showed no exploitable fears, he was a mental vault. She held a firm grip on his foot and he couldn’t go any farther down, she began to turn his foot in an attempt to break it, she had even gotten her bangs to lock around his foot.

All she managed to do though was throw him off and caused him a bad sprain at most. He fell backwards grimacing but was up before she was and delivered a solid knee to her ribs and a full on punch into her face.

The hit was so hard she rolled head over heels and landed face down.

The crowd was vicious and screaming murder, as the fighter raised his arms again.

arms again.

A sudden surge of anger filled Galadriel as she picked her self up and felt a dribble of wetness touch her lips. She placed a finger just under her nose and it came away bloody, the tickle from the nose bleed was already gone but the sight of it filled her with an insane rage. She stood on booth feet facing the large Kumite champion, he gazed back unafraid of her jade fire.

He stared her down and then with a great roar he charged. She charged but her movements were quick, quicker than his, she’d never know that as she went toe to toe with the champion that she took her fathers fighting stance. She ducked a whistling left hook and unleashed a dozen blows to his ribs in less than five seconds, the punches were just a blur to everyone's eyes.

The crowd moaned with disbelief at the supernatural barrage. The fighter let out a sound of some sort and threw a heavy right and before it reached her, she was behind him and unloaded two dozen jabs into his kidneys in only ten seconds. The crowd had gotten subdued as she came around the front again. He threw a downward swing and missed falling to one knee, she ran up as he attempted a rabbit punch.

She jumped just a few feet over his swinging arm, and came down with both fists locked into one and brought it down upon the knee holding him up. She felt the knee cap explode and everything below it give and shatter, a great howl of pain from The Ogre silenced the already demure crowd. The champion fell over holding his leg just above the knee, the leg laid in a bizarre twisted angle in a puddle of blood like a deflated balloon.

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She stared upon the beaten fighter and suddenly the old man with the long mustache was there screaming and pointing at her. She punched him in the face out of surprise, he squawked and fell down holding his nose looking at her silent and fearful, the crowed was still silent and

nose looking at her silent and fearful, the crowed was still silent and hardly anyone breathed, only The Ogre was heard, but even his wails became a back drop as they regarded the witch, Galadriel.

“Let’s go.” Tom said opening the gate and tossing her hoody to her.

They left with the cries of The Ogre echoing in the tunnel.

“Good luck in your future ventures, Hue.” John said with a devilish smile.

Hue growled as his brother wept openly. John nodded and went for the steps.

“The demon has your soul, Mr Noah! You will pay her in your own blood!”

he shouted at John’s back.

“Good night, Hue.” John said as he left.

He saw the woman in the mini dress again, he always had a thing for Asian women in stockings and approached her, he very softly asked her: Do you know who I am?”

She nodded timidly and he handed her a business card.

“When this place closes, call me and I’ll have you working at finer place than this for white wages. That is one of my personal numbers, and I am almost always available.”

She took the card and hid it away in the podium, smiling bashfully as he slightly caressed her forearm with a finger while handing over his card.

He left feeling like he was king of the world and that great things were coming. A few days later the BNP was back in the White House in a landslide victory as well as many other elections nation wide.

A great change was stirring, the TL held a massive celebratory parade down Broad street the following week, in which the president elect had sent a thank you text to the local TL

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headquarters for all their support, which was read aloud to the cheering crowd. John had seen many people that day as he made a cameo at the parade grounds, being interviewed by local news as a large picture of the president elects face with the caption: Make America Safe Again, in the back ground.

He had left the chaos of downtown for home when he received a text from Lulu warning him that he had a dinner scheduled with Rosemary Edith. She was in the local TL’s hierarchy and had read the thank you text from the president at the parade. She was the only TL member that was friendly to John because she had been a close friend of his mother since they were children.

She had been the one to sit with his mother, Lucy, as she was dying of cancer in a hospital while he went to college and his brother went to jail.

She was an annoying bitch and was constantly on him about any and every problem in the old neighborhood. Normally he would have Lulu give some excuse and cancel, but today had been productive and he was feeling gracious.

She was a tiny woman that looked like she was nothing but wrinkles. Her hair was a screaming white that contrasted loudly with her dark blue blouse and black sweater. She clucked pleasantly over the shrimp. It was

blouse and black sweater. She clucked pleasantly over the shrimp. It was from Delaware and caught fresh that morning, it would have been cheaper to get shrimp from New Jersey but to John Jersey shrimp tasted like it had been crawling in a radioactive swamp.

She went on about Jesus and church, scolded him for not having a tighter rein on his brother.

“As Cain said unto God: Am I my brother’s keeper? Well John, your mother Lucy is in heaven, you must be his keeper. Have him go to church with me some Sunday afternoon.”

John had to bite down on his tongue to keep from laughing out loud at the image of Tom toking a blunt with his feet up on the pew and an arm around Mrs Edith saying: ‘What the shit you mean, body and blood, I ain’t eaten that shit!’

“I’ll mention it to him if I see him on Thanksgiving.” John said nodding at the idea as if it were ingenious.

He also took the dinner because she was the only TL member that was friendly towards him. It was wise to have at least one friend in that group he believed. So he nodded politely when she spoke and said amen when it was appropriate and accepted her criticisms with his salesman 282 ONCE UPON AN ALTERED TIME

smile. She would go on for hours about any subject no matter how mundane, tonight was the same as she went on about juvenile delinquents hanging out on the corner.

To an observer he looked like he was listening raptly, but his mind was on a few meetings he had tomorrow morning and the Asian woman from the other night. It wasn’t until he heard her say one word in particular that

the other night. It wasn’t until he heard her say one word in particular that she had his full attention.

“I’m sorry Mrs Edith, what did you just say?” he asked sitting up a little straighter.

“Witches, Johnathan. A young girl from East Passyunk last week, painted her hair with black shoe polish and cut her step fathers throat.”

“Why?” John asked.

“Because she’s a witch, girls are weaker as was Eve therefore are more inclined to Satan’s dark magic, Johnathan.” Mrs Edith said gravely.

“I see. Was she sent to prison?”

“No, because of her claim she was sent to a conversion facility in Darby, she was exorcised when she kept spouting lies about her step father sexually engaging her.”

“Did he?” John asked.

“Of course he didn’t, Johnathan. He’s a Christian man and is in the TL

watch alliance. She was lying, she was a witch, Johnathan.” she said haughtily.

“She said she was a witch? That’s what she told you?” John asked tightly.

“Are you all right, Johnathan?” Mrs Edith asked noticing the change of his demeanor.

“Yes, of course Mrs Edith. Continue.” he said flashing his salesman smile that had made him rich.

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“Well she claimed to be part of a coven of witches. She was one of the children who escaped the Byberry earlier this Summer when it was burnt down. They vandalized private property and one of our offices on Broad street.”

“What kind of vandalism?”

“Graffiti. They wrote unchristian slang with green spray paint and adorned it with a pentagram.”

“What is a pentagram?”

“A symbol of Satan.” she said somberly.

Before he could say anything else, his cellular vibrated. He quickly and discreetly took it from his pocket and saw it was a text from Fischer which said: see me when you have a moment. An hour later after his driver returned from taking Mrs Edith home, John finally made it to Fischer’s office.

Fischer sat over his desk looking closely at a collection of pictures, he held a pen in his hand and was pointing at one of the pictures mumbling

held a pen in his hand and was pointing at one of the pictures mumbling as John sat down in a chair opposite the doctor.

“I thought you were not coming, Herr Noah.” Fischer said still looking at the pictures.

“I’m here now, what is it?”

Without speaking Fischer slid the three by five picture he had been looking at over to John. He picked up the picture and sucked his breath and hissed.

“What the Christ is this?” he said trying to understand what he saw.

He made out what looked like a mouth with sharp white fangs, above the mouth the face was obscured by a piece of ragged flesh bound over the creatures nose and eyes.

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“That is just a close up.” Fischer said sliding another picture over.

This picture was taken from further back, it showed the head and lower torso with no limbs bound to the back of another animal. The mouth was opened wider and showed the pink strip of muscle that was its tongue.

Judging by the moist look of the tongue, the head and torso were alive and had been fused by its spine to the spine of the other.

The third picture showed the entire body of the two headed beast. The second head was bigger and had a wide mouth with rows of teeth that were sharp and pointy. Its eyes were black marbles and had a pair of ears that were just flaps.

ears that were just flaps.

The torso to this head was brown and white fur that was growing in patches, through out it was marred with scar tissue from repeated surgical procedures. The limbs were obviously not its own, their matted brown fur were fused grotesquely to the torso. It had all of its paws replaced with primate like hands at each end.

“What the hell is this?” John said feeling his stomach do turns and twists.

“Primate, mostly.” Fischer said gathering up the pictures.

“That’s a friggin monkey?!”

“Mostly, I injected the spinal fluids with the witch’s blood and a metabolic steroid to accelerate growth.”

“What did you do to it?”

“Vivisection, a colleague from Germany introduced it to me. It is a dead branch of science, however with a sample from the witch, I have resurrected it. The witch’s blood makes the fusion of lifeforms possible.”

“Why did you do this?” John asked numbly.

“The samples were too much for one animal, the thing you see there has two sets of lungs, two

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hearts besides two heads. I’ll need to synthesis samples for further tests.

This experiment has exhausted a bit of the sample. At least there was progress.”

“Does it heal itself then?” John asked excitedly.

“Nein.”

He handed John a close up of the animal that showed a bleeding gash. It looked raw and slightly scabbed over.

“Great, so this thing is good for what?” he said tossing the picture down.

“Herr Noah, the results are good. The wound did not become infected, even when we tried to make the creature sick. It is also flea resistant, they animal will not carry diseases. I spent months experimenting even vivisection was failing until I used only female specimens and provided steroidal growth.”

“It made a difference when they were female?”

“Yes. Females, both human and animal are biologically stronger than their male counterparts. They create and carry life, create sustenance for their spawn.”

“How large? Where is this thing?”

“I’ll show you.”

They left Fischer’s office and went to the elevator down the hall. They got into a car and Fischer removed a key from his pocket. Next to the button that was marked B for basement was a button with a key hole set in it.

The elevator door closed as Fischer inserted the key and the button lit up and began a swift descent.

John had known about the underground lab but had never been down here. His stomach dropped with car as it went. He felt the temperature drop as they went down into the bowels of the city.

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The elevator dinged softly and the door slid open to a hallway that was hospital white and clean. They stepped out into a long wide hallway that ran far in both directions, a few people in white smocks holding clipboards exited a room near by laughing and went though a door across the hall. John wasn’t worried about being recognized since all employees are required to sign non disclosure agreements upon day of hire and could risk prison time if the agreement was broken.

Fischer walked quickly despite his advanced age and a limp from arthritis eating away at his right knee, as he rummaged in his pocket for another key. They passed closed doors with stark one word names written in black on frosted glass such as: Virology, Neurology, Hematology.

Between a few doors were windows looking into different rooms some were empty, some held cages with various small and medium sized animals.

Some of the rooms had doctors or chemists looking into cages, some took samples from the more sedate animals. To John it looked like most of the animals were of a vermin type. A few cages however held cats and dogs.

They stopped in front of a window looking into a room that was dark.

They stood close to the glass looking into a dark maw trying to see.

“Turn a light on, I’m paying the bill.”

“Nein. It does not like the light and becomes violent to it self trying to escape it.”

John cupped his hands around his face as he peered in waiting for his eyes to adjust to the blackness. In the corner John picked up slight movement and could make out the reflection of the hall light in the creatures seeing eyes. John could see little else.

“It is usually more active at night, but our being here has put it on alert. It is very aggressive and does not trust me.”

“I wonder why?” John asked not very seriously. “How long are you keeping it for?”

“I will take more samples and run more experiments until it is no longer viable. Feeding this thing is trying on my patience. I think it would be wise to start human trials soon.”

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“What have you been feeding it?”

“Sewer rats, we have a problem with rats coming through the pipes. Two birds with one stone you could say.”

There was more movement in the dark room. John could make out the long body as it moved slowly deeper into the dark. A deep throaty noise came from the darkness.

“You’re sure you can hold this thing in here?” John asked.

“Yes, it is a small space and makes feeding difficult. I have a pair of orderlies to do it.”

Long after John left, Fischer sat at a desk still in the underground lab going over the file for the two headed creature when there was a hurried knock at his door.

“Come!” he shouted.

A tall middle aged man in orderly whites entered the office, his eyes were glassy with apprehension and fear, one of his white sleeves was wet with blood. Fischer had barely picked his head up when the orderly entered, he was writing fast and gestured furiously at him to speak.

“It got out.”

That was all he said, and Fischer knew what he was talking about. He got up and hobbled to the beasts holding room, the door, which was made of only wood, was torn free and broken almost in half. On the floor was the body of the other orderly, the face was a hideous pulp of black red flesh and blood. Every square inch of the body was covered with blood, part of an arm stuck up stiffly as if in defense.

A sudden cry like a roaring banshee echoed from farther down the hall followed by a scream of horror suddenly cut short. Fischer ran towards the scream, the orderly did not follow him. Fischer stopped in front of an elevator where another body laid, the lower jaw had been bitten off the person as he stepped off the elevator, which hadn’t closed because of the body’s leg obstructing the door.

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The door kept trying to close, so Fischer held it open as he stepped over the body. His back was to the car when he heard the elevator car shake.

Fischer quickly turned and looked up and saw the emergency hatch had been ripped off as well as a part of the cars roof. Suddenly the elevator rose just the slightest as if loosing a great deal of weight, followed by a series of noises that sounded inhuman and began to diminish before fading out completely.

John had been in bed with the Asian hostess when he found out about the escape of the Chimera.

“What happened?” he asked on his cellular as the hostess gnawed on his neck.

“It has gotten into the elevator shaft. From there I believe it has gotten into the sewers.”

“You lost this thing? What the Christ...”

“You have very little faith in me, Herr Noah. It requires a high caloric diet and is ignorant of how to hunt. It will starve before long and quickly because it is so large.”

“Exactly how big is it?”

“On its back limbs about two meters high.”

John hissed frustration even as the hostess continued her feeding. “What if someone catches it...”

Fischer barked his dry dusty laughter.

“Anyone would be a fool to try and would be killed. It is as I said...”

“Yes, highly aggressive which means....”

“...which means the more energy it exerts the quicker it will starve and die, Herr Noah. I wouldn’t have told you this if I was not confident about such.”

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John sat holding the cellular to one ear while the hostess spoke dirty to him in Cantonese in the other.

“This is a big fuck up, Fischer. No more of them. Are we clear?”

“Of course, Herr Noah. Enjoy your Chinese.” he said with a dusky chuckle before hanging up.

His laughter stopped when the call ended. He wasn’t entirely confident the thing would starve, they had been feeding it live rats and it had escaped into the same sewers they had been feeding it from. The beast was so big and on so many steroid injections it was always hungry and agitated.

It probably would be able to hunt since it was able to escape. Fischer felt confident though it would die eventually as it would try to sustain its abnormal hunger, it maybe immune to disease but not breaking bones and bleeding cuts and lack of food. It would require pound and pounds of flesh to sate its hunger, not rat flesh but real meat.

Fischer wasn’t too concerned though. He knew regardless he would be safe, he was as valuable here as he was to his fatherland during the war.

Here was much better though, the Americans used the TL group much like his people did the SS in Germany. The work would be easier to do and results would come quicker as well since there would be no armies to run from this time.

And Noah didn’t know everything about the biotic and how it was made or where. He asked many questions about the drug but not all the right ones. If he had asked he would have lied anyway about it, but he was a capitalist and an American, hasty and worried about the bottom dollar. But it still was better than working for the government the high pay was great too. He realized suddenly that made him a capitalist as well, and laughed in a dusky bark.

John put the cellular down as the hostess continued her enticement. He took her arm gently and kissed her hand.

“Continue without me for a minute.”

She pouted but consented and laid back on his silk sheets and slowly masturbated. He got up and put on a robe and went through the dining room to his desk to make a drink. The dinner was his 290 ONCE UPON AN ALTERED TIME

second tonight and had been picked over for a few minutes before he and his guest decided to skip right to the dessert. The maid would be here by five AM to clean up.

In his den the TV was still on, showing a rebroadcast of the eleven o’clock news. He ignored it as he thought about the thing that had been let loose. He’d have some blank checks to hand out, that wouldn’t be chump change either. He poured the brown liquid and savored a quick sniff before swallowing.

He felt a little more at ease, things couldn’t always go perfect he reminded himself. In another year the commissioners seat would be up for grabs and Veasy had been riding high on the hero train and with John as conductor Veasy would ride it right up to the top of local law enforcement. He put the glass down and nodded. He felt OK, until he looked on the thin screen and watched the news.

[Reporter:...two men brutally murdered last week. The suspects names are being with held because they are minors.]

[Anchor: Dave, do the police know for sure these two girls are the suspects?]

[Reporter: Yes, Lisa they are. If you look behind me the police went through the trash cans of the suspects home after police received an anonymous tip and found the murder weapon, a hatchet. It was found

anonymous tip and found the murder weapon, a hatchet. It was found wrapped in a bath towel and the blood on it has already been matched to one of the victims and the prints of both the suspects was found on the handle.]

[Anchor: Is it true the TL is involved with the investigation as well?]

[Reporter: Yes, one thing we can confirm about the suspects is that they claim to be witches and it is believed these suspects might be involved with a number of other crimes in the city, ranging from vandalism all the way up to murder. The TL plans on going to the district attorney to ask to prosecute the case them selves. The DA is a member and is expected to give his approval...]

John turned off the TV, he had a sudden case of heartburn. He poured another drink but nursed it as he went back to the master bedroom. One the bed the hostess had sped up her playing, purring under her breath.

John swirled his drink trying to enjoy the show, but he thought back to his conversation with Mrs Edith.

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Was Galadriel doing this? Obviously it was, but was she directly involved.

John would have bet both his casinos some neighborhood girls had seen her tearing men to pieces at some point. The Byberry had scarred her but the mental scars probably didn’t heal, these young girls see her fighting back could be bad. She can dress in black all she wanted but some neighborhoods in Philly were like small towns, eyes everywhere and gossip on every corner. If she was building an army of crazy pubescent skanks then he’d have to watch himself.

Sending the SWAT was bold and aggressive but he knew it needed done. She had to be reminded that at the end of the day it was a mans world. And killing all the rapists and pedophiles in the neighborhood wouldn’t change that.

wouldn’t change that.

He didn’t bother with surveillance, if she wanted to split town she easily could. He had been reluctant to help her purchase a motorcycle but if he said no it would look suspicious. So he did it and got it for her at a discount. If she brought enough heat down on herself the feds might get her if the TL didn’t first.

Either way she would probably be out of the picture at some point if this kept up. Also Fischer got what he needed from her, they were going to make some of the biggest medical breakthroughs since they invented Viagra back in the 50‘s. The hostess moaned loudly and writhed on the bed. John smiled and swallowed the rest of his drink and was jumped on by the hostess as he laid back down.

Megan Torelli sat on the edge of her bed listening for the tell tale snores of her parents in the next room over. Her cellular vibrated on her lap when she got a third text from her boyfriend.

‘u cumin or what?’

‘leaving in five’

She texted back promptly and looked at the digital clock on her dresser that said it was 11:55 PM. She didn’t want to keep Derrick waiting, though he was already. The last Orange Line left Broad and Oregon station at 12:15. She had to take the train to the Lombard South street station a few blocks from Derrick’s crib on Bainbridge.

She had been seeing Derrick secretly since the fourth of July when they first met watching the fireworks at Veterans Stadium. He was wearing a

first met watching the fireworks at Veterans Stadium. He was wearing a leather jacket and his hair had been slicked

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back into a short pony tail. He was nineteen and didn’t care that she was a high school sophomore.

He was smart and didn’t drink beer like the douche bag guys on the corner, he drank wine and knew all kinds of bitchin poetry. He was the coolest guy she’d ever met, so she always had a hard time saying no to him. She had done everything with him except go all the way because she was in love with him and didn’t want to lose him to an older more experienced girl.

If her parents found out about Derrick they would probably send her away and have Derrick arrested. She told him that and he said he didn’t care, that she was worth the risk. When he said that she was sure she loved him and he loved her.

‘were u at, Im sooo lonely :(‘

‘Im walkin out the door now :) <3‘

She stepped lightly to her bedroom door and opened it listening. She looked to the room on her left and could hear the quiet snores of her parents, she smiled and moved a little quicker. She looked to the right and saw her brothers door closed and could hear his bear like snore.

She crept down the living room stairs and went to the kitchen beyond.

The doors both front and back were locked and her keys hung on a wall mounted hook next to the front door. She would have never been able to take the keys and walk out, if one of her parents came down and saw her keys missing that would be bad.

keys missing that would be bad.

All the windows had locks but the window over the kitchen sink was broke and not even her oaf of a brother Nick knew. It turned but didn’t hold the window, it was through here that she had been sneaking out to see Derrick late at night. Her parents were almost always in bed by eleven and didn’t get up until six AM when her father went to work.

It was harder sneaking out when school started again, she had spent many school nights at his place fooling around and listening to FAR

music on his radio player. She was sleeping so much during class she had almost been put on academic probation and it was still the first marking period. Her mom and dad weren’t freaking out yet, but they had been keeping a closer eye on her.

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She told Derrick they had to cool it for a while, she expected him to get angry but he was cool about it for the most part. After a month of more nights at home her grades rebounded and her mom stopped forcing her to go to the TL Junior League meetings, thinking that was one of the reasons for her drop off in school work. So it was an added bonus to everything.

Now that school was out for Christmas she could spend some more nights with him. She had a good enough relationship with her parents enough to look forward to Mom’s annual Christmas Eve party. Her mom would pull out all the stops for it, ordering a huge deli tray and every kind of snack and finger food splayed out like an ad for a restaurant.

There would be tons of eggnog and gallons of coco with with marshmallows and dozens of cookies. Chocolate Chip, Gingerbread, Sugar cookies with red and green frosting, and huge hunks of rich creamy fudge filled with macadamia nuts. Every year her mom would fill

creamy fudge filled with macadamia nuts. Every year her mom would fill a giant salad bowl with caramel creams that Nick would hog every year.

Despite her brother stealing all the caramel, she was excited for the party. She smiled again and felt a nervous flutter in her stomach as she crawled out the window and carefully placed a foot on the ground. She stood on both feet in her yard and pushed the window shut after fixing her blouse. The backyard was a simple square fenced off with chain link fence from the houses on either side.

The far wall was cinder block and a rain warped wooden door that opened into an alleyway. She opened the wooden door which screeched loudly against the ground, she gasped and waited for someone to stir.

After a moment she squeaked when her cellular vibrated in her pocket.

‘maybe I’ll just go to the bar 2nite :/’

“Shit,” she said louder than she had intended.

‘no baby, I cumin, I wanna give you an early Xmas prezent ;)’

She texted desperately and after a moment got a text with a smiley face.

With that she went into the alley and came to the iron gate that was pad locked but had wide enough bars she was still skinny enough to pop through. She thought of Nick trying to get his big ass through the narrow bars and laughed.

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She felt a sudden tinge of guilt about that thought. Sure he was a dorky oaf sometimes, but he always made funny faces at her during the bible drills at TL Junior meetings that made her laugh, or would blow a raspberry on his hand when someone sat down or bent over. Or the time

raspberry on his hand when someone sat down or bent over. Or the time she was ten and she had lost her allowance walking to Pop’s to get a gelato, and Nick had handed over his and mom or dad hadn’t even been there to make him do it, she wondered if she wasn’t being unfair about the caramel creams. She quickly ran to the corner looking for police or TL

patrols in both directions as she crossed 15th street, she looked at the time on her cellular. 12:04 AM, still time to catch the train.

She walked along Oregon avenue with her hood up and her head down, the neighborhood was quiet but there was always somebody around in South Philly. A bus heading eastbound on Oregon passed its stop without slowing as she crossed Oregon at Broad street. The entrance would be gated by now and the only way down was through a turnstile missing an arm on the exit terminal across the street.

Even if the entrance was open she was a minor and they could call the cops or the TL on her for being out after curfew. She walked hurriedly towards the exit terminal with a park on her right side that was black and looked like a forest drawn in blue and black ink, the trees were winter time skeletal and rattled in the December wind. She reached Broad and although there was no traffic, she waited for a green light.

A few people stood near the terminal, but then a few more appeared, then a few more. It was as she stood there that she realized the train was early and unloading passengers. As she ran across Broad street a taxi suddenly screeched in front of her, its head lights casting her in white.

The taxi halted and the door flew open.

“You dumb fuckin whore!” he shouted.

Megan’s fear of being caught evaporated as she stuck up her middle finger at the driver.

“Aw fuck you lady!” he said getting back in his vehicle as she hurried off.

Her body was shaking and felt like she was about to vomit when she remembered the last train had come. The people that had exited were already gone, she reached the turnstile and turned it frantically looking for the missing arm. She spun it twice before she found it at the very bottom, if it had been any lower it would have made sneaking through impossible.

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She had her body halfway through when she heard a great swoosh echo from below. She was carrying a green shoulder bag purse that was stuck on the turnstiles bolt holding her in place. She heard another swoosh and panicked.

“Wait, oh shit, wait!”

She cried out and began pulling herself forward. She realized what was holding her and began to pull at her purse strap.

“Come on,” she said through her teeth.

There was a tearing sound and she was free, she was through and racing down the unmoving escalator steps, her broken purse strap whacking her face with each downward step stinging her cold cheeks.

She felt her sudden relief wash away when the train began moving.

“No, wait!” she shouted racing after the train that was far ahead.

The train never slowed and went with a honk of its horn. Megan ran her hands through her curly blond hair, screaming in frustration. Her cellular said it was ten after, so the train arrived early and left even earlier. She wanted to rip her hair out and scream some more but was interrupted by her vibrating cellular.

‘baby I thought u were cumin :/’

‘runnin l8, b there soon!’

She stood for a minute thinking what to do. She couldn’t take a bus and didn’t have money for a cab which meant she would have to walk. It would only take an hour, she had done it before after school sometimes, but that had been during the day. It was after midnight and it wasn’t just the cops and the TL she had to worry about.

Her mother constantly warned her against sex loonies that raped children both on the streets and in the subway below. Megan thought of the face her mother would make if she had found out her little girl was riding the subway after curfew to fool around with a guy and laughed. She felt a little better but it didn’t change the situation.

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She though about texting Derrick again saying she’d see him tomorrow night but that wouldn’t work because it was Christmas Eve tomorrow.

She swore again loudly when she remembered that and the text he’d sent about going to a bar and relented.

‘have to walk, b there in a bit’

She sent the text and put her cellular in her purse and walked to a set of

She sent the text and put her cellular in her purse and walked to a set of greasy iron steps that led to the tracks below. It was about two miles from her guess and it would be quick since there would be no trains to dodge or police asking for ID. She heard her brother and one of his friends talking about walking down the tracks all the time, but she wasn’t sure if they were being serious or not.

Nick could be a real bull shit artist when his friends were around, she felt the old irritation with him rise up as she went down into darkness. She stepped onto a concrete walkway and was nearly at eye level with the platform. She turned away and looked into the northbound tunnel and felt apprehension.

The tunnel was dimly lit by yellow bulbs hanging at fifty feet intervals as far as she could see, the electrified third rail was opposite her across the tracks. The light of the bulbs were pale and put her in mind of old cheese.

She removed her cellular and tapped the flashlight proggie casting a narrow bright light ahead of her. She held the light in one hand while holding her broken purse in the other and began her walk.

She didn’t hear any rats but she tucked her jeans into her shoes and aimed her light low as she walked quickly, ignoring the dark shadows that loomed darkly, thinking about Derrick. She felt relief after only walking a few dozen yards when she saw the light of the Snyder station looming ahead.

She continued with her brisk pace ignoring the idea of going topside and heading home, she almost did give up. The red exit sign burning brightly to the right of her on the Snyder platform looked to be screaming at her with its color, warning her. She walked closer to another set of steps leading up to the platform, she veered away from them at the last second and continued on into the dark of the tunnel which began to curve slightly to the right.

After a dozen feet the lights of Snyder station had been cut off by the curve of the tunnel. She turned back and could see only a ghost of the platforms lights. She looked ahead and saw

nothing but more tunnel bathed in dim lights and shadows. She heard a scurrying sound and uttered a quiet squeak from her mouth in fear, it echoed ghostly down the tunnel.

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Just a rat! She scolded herself and put on a weak smile as her heart slammed away in her chest from fright. Just a dumb diseased rat. It sounded big though, maybe it’s time to turn back.

“No,” she said. “just a dirty rat.”

But it sounded bigger than a rat, she reasoned to herself.

“An alley cat then.” she said desperately.

She walked a little faster looking around her feet for rats and breathing heavily as she struggled with her broken purse. She walked with her head down moving forward ignoring the pulse of danger she felt when she heard the scurrying sound again, much closer and the distinct sound of heavy panting. Megan felt her heart stop and froze in mid stride as the sound drew closer again and the heavy breathing became clearer.

She took a deep breath and began to shake uncontrollably feeling like she was being watched, the sound of whatever was nearby sounded bigger than a cat. She began to move again at the same pace which became a run when the most horrifying and beastly growl she had ever heard came from some where behind her.

She let out another weak cry that was more of a howl and ran forward holding her cellular and purse with icy hands that were slimy with fear.

She ran on the concrete walkway and slipped off and onto the tracks when she felt something swipe the back of her foot with great force. She screamed as she stumbled forward towards the third rail.

She kept her footing and avoided the third rail, trying to run back onto the concrete walkway but tripped on its slight incline and fell face first cutting her head badly. As she tried to shake the stars out of her head the unnatural growl bellowed again as something bit down on her ankle. She screamed as a torrent of blood flooded her sneaker and looked over her shoulder and saw an animal bigger than the biggest Saint Bernard with a long mouth filled with rows of sharp teeth that were embedded in her leg.

She didn’t know or understand what she was seeing, only the pain in her foot and her head. In pure panic and with pure luck she used her free leg and kicked the monster right upon its nose

causing it to release her as she screamed in mortal terror. She left her purse where it was but still held grimly to her cellular, although its screen was cracked its light was still working.

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She ran down the tunnel center miraculously not tripping on any cross ties as she screamed. She heard the growl again and its rapid approach, the next stop was still not in sight. She looked back once and saw the thing coming and she wet herself. Not because it was coming, though she was afraid, it was that on the creatures back was what appeared to be a second head.

She wailed a cry and ran on her damaged ankle, her voice a weak howl as the thing came closer. She looked to her right and saw an wide opening in between a pair of pillars stamped with the PGW logo and quickly limped through. She felt her heart jump with joy when she saw an

exit sign like the one on the Snyder platform looming ahead in bold back lit red letters.

The room was nearly pitch black, the only other light was from a street light twenty feet above coming through a vent lined into the sidewalk above ground. The exit sign was parallel to a set of iron rungs sticking into the wall like a ladder leading up to the vent. She tried to scream for help but her voice was raw and her cries were like the croak of a frog.

She hobbled to the iron rungs not looking back again hoping the thing wasn’t following, but she heard its panting breath and began climbing, she dropped her cellular but didn’t notice. She ignored the fire in her ankle and forced herself up the ladder. She didn’t think about the pain or the blood or how she would explain to her mother what had happened to her, she just wanted to stand under the street light high above her, in the light away from the dark.

She was halfway up when she chanced a look down, telling her self she was safe because what ever it was, it was an animal and animals can’t climb ladders. But to her deep horror she saw that the animal was indeed climbing, and quickly. She saw it had actual hands that gripped the rungs easily and felt her bladder release again as it caught up to her.

The creature grabbed at her good leg, Megan held on to the iron rung biting down on her lips. She let out a breathless cry of pain as her leg was being chewed below the knee. She looked up at the street light shining down on her face. The beast climbed up and grabbed her by the torso ripping her in half at the waist, her last thoughts were of her brother and caramel creams.

Galadriel awoke with a scream building up behind her lips. She sat up holding her comforter close to her chest as her heart pounded away, still wishing it was just the ecstasy she had taken that was doing this to her.

wishing it was just the ecstasy she had taken that was doing this to her.

The drug had affected her, but it hadn’t created the monster she dreamed about, it was real.

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And the drugs effects lasted a few hours at most, she had taken it once a month earlier. She had been traveling the burned down wilderness of West Philly that had never been rebuilt since the Move bombing. She strolled down a street once called Chester avenue that was once mostly student housing and section eight homes but were now just burnt and broken skeletons shaking in the late fall winds.

She was on the hunt for trouble but nary could a pig be found. Only the roaches and the rats stirred that chilly night. She walked with only the wind in her ears until she reached the corner of 48th street. The wind had changed direction and on it she heard a repetitive thumping beat.

She stood still and listened, recognizing the music as techno. She went down 48th and walked slowly trying to judge the direction the music came from. She was halfway down the block that was as burnt and skeletal as Chester avenue when she found a side street called Trinity nestled between two houses that were burned badly but still standing.

She went between the houses and down the street too narrow for even a small car to drive through as the rhythmic bass became more pronounced. The narrow street was long and had only ivy covered chain link fences on either side of its cobble stone lane. Only one street light stood and it cast a purple light at the streets middle.

As she passed the purple light the chain link fence ended on her right at a two story building that still had doors and windows with heavy curtains drawn. The music was clear enough she could make out some of the lyrics.

lyrics.

‘please don’t stop,

please don’t stop,

please don’t stop the music’

She went between the house and the fence and found a path through the over grown weeds and followed it around to the back. She expected a back yard like the ones in her old neighborhood, just a few square feet of concrete surrounded by cinder block. This back yard was bigger and had grass growing on the grounds surrounding the home. The yard was not surrounded by cinder block walls or chain link fence but grass and trash weeds that had grown thick and high.

If there had been lawn furniture and a fire it would have looked like a camp site in the woods. The backyard was lit by a battery powered lantern sitting on a windows ledge, where an old black man sat on a folding chair with a ammo box in his hand, although it was night he wore a pair of dark sun glasses. His head was down as he sat and looked to be sleeping.

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When she approached though his head went up and he looked in her direction, the light beside him showed not surprise or fright but a smile that looked warm. He rattled the box towards her and said:"For the cover charge, whatevers y’all can spare.”

Galadriel was quiet for a moment, confused.

The old man smiled still and spoke again.

“Want no troubles, just to help the young ones get off tha shit heap.”

She rummaged in a pocket and found a few bills and stuffed them into the metal box. The smile on the man doubled as he put the ammo box under his chair and stuck his hand out on the window ledge feeling it with steady fingers. His fingers caressed the lantern and it almost fell, but the old man grabbed its handle before it could tumble to the ground.

“Been blind for near twenty damn years but I ain’t dropped dis thing yet.”

he said with a head shake and gestured for her to follow.

He held the lantern high as they walked to the other side of the house were a pair of heavy steel doors lay at a slant against the house. The music grew louder at they approached the storm doors, and although they looked heavy the old man grabbed the handle to one with a free hand and lifted it easily, music as well as pink light poured out. He stepped aside and held the door open for her gesturing with the lantern to the steps below.

She looked down but could see only concrete steps bathed in pinkish light, she could feel the bass vibrating through the ground and into the soles of her boots.

“Thank you.” she said and walked down.

“Watch yer head.” he said as he closed the door above her.

She went down the steps and came through a doorway into a dark room that was sporadically. lit by a dancing rainbow of colors like a living kaleidoscope from the glass faces of foot long black tubes hanging at the corners of each room. The bass of the music moved in sync with a

flashing white orb hanging at the center of the ceiling.

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Just to her right, two men stood at a long wooden table on which was a sleek looking mixing board with dozens of dials, toggle switches, and scores of buttons that lit up in a variety of colors. The board was hard wired to a PC and a monitor which showed Mnemonic The Wretchhog b-boying at a violent pace, killing soldiers as he danced in a bloody pixelated glory.

One of the men at the mixing board was white and pudgy with a close clean hair cut and a smooth baby face, he wore a pair of black leather pants and a white v neck T shirt which said ‘I’m a virgin’. He shook his hips in unison to the beats. Beside him stood a tall lanky black teenager wearing a fedora and a work shirt and black cargo pants.

He ran his finger across a dinner plate sized circle on the board that was a bright cobalt color, as he touched it the circle rippled like water with purple waves. It did something to the music as well when he touched it, sometimes slowing it down or speeding it up to a near frantic pace or repeat a certain lyric multiple times. He bounced his head in sync with the music.

“This is good beats.” the DJ said.

“Good?” said the virgin. “It’s the best!”

They both saw Galadriel and nodded to her as the music played. The place was wide open with walls of concrete and a floor made of wood. On the dance floor a few people, mostly women, danced energetically to the fast and furious beats. Others just sat along the wall or by the DJ booth enjoying the music and talking.

A pair of old hippie men sat shoulder to shoulder passing a joint between themselves. One of them looked over at her and flashed a peace sign at her. Galadriel nodded quickly and walked by them. She had come to the edge of the dance floor when a young woman wearing a long black gown and a top hat went dancing by her.

Her face had an expression of serenity that became wide eyed interest when she looked upon her. She stopped dancing, her hands went to her chest as if in adoration, she approached Galadriel with eyes displaying innocence and desire. She was kissing close to Galadriel before she spoke.

“You’re eyes are so beautiful.”

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Her finger touched one of her bangs, Galadriel allowed it because of her demure actions and the positivity she radiated from her in pink waves.

Everyone here was showing an aura that was

mostly bright and happy. A pinkish white color that rose high above the people in here, it was joy everyone here was feeling.

She would sometimes see such colors around very young children and infants most often. She had never felt so much of this kind of energy radiating at once before and it frightened her a little.

“Can I be with you?” the young woman, probably not much older than her asked.

“I, uh, I’m not a...” Galadriel said feeling flushed.

She didn’t desire women the way Paul did men. She didn’t feel desire for men either, all the ones she had gotten to know since her change were pigs. The young woman frowned just the slightest, but her eyes sparkled just the same.

“I’ll still love you anyway, in my dreams. Who are you?”

“Galadriel.”

The young woman kneeled suddenly and took both of her hands in her own and placed something small in one of her palms, and stood again.

She looked and saw a tiny blue star in her hand.

“An offering to the lady of the light,” she said before Galadriel could ask anything. “it will let you see the music.”

She ran back to the dance floor and into the mincing shadows. The music thumped loudly as the lights flashed and flickered against the mirror on the back wall painting the dancers in a hyper colored rainbow. Galadriel looked at the pill she held again wanting to just cast it aside, feeling foolish for even taking such a thing from a stranger. What if the woman was trying to hurt her, she knew from personal experience women could be as piggish as men, sometimes worse.

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But the radiating pinks and whites coming off everyone here was hard to ignore. This was a place that was not made for anything else other than to enjoy music. Although there were some drugs here, it was of a recreational sort and there didn’t appear to be any alcohol here.

recreational sort and there didn’t appear to be any alcohol here.

This place would be void of people come dawn and maybe whoever organized it would be a little closer to getting off the shit heap. She looked at the pill and quickly swallowed it, the pill was so small she hardly felt it go down. What if you over dose? She thought suddenly.

She shrugged and ignored the paranoia, she had felled many and doubted a small blue pill would be her death. She coasted the dance floor in slow methodical steps, colors in a varying shades of green, blue, purple red and yellow that bloomed and exploded into gold and silver all around her. The music thumped and bumped with a building momentum that was so loud it shook the auras around those dancing.

Galadriel felt the vibrations pumping out the beats from the tall speakers at each of the corners that sat below the tubes, she watched the woofers go in and out of the speaker box and could see the sound being pushed out. She walked slower as the music reverberated around the room, she could feel the music like a breeze. Another song started with a hard fast beat, the woofers pounded as dancers undulated and grooved.

Galadriel saw the woofer moved in and out of the speaker faster as pink and white rings popped out of the woofers with each bass drop. The rings of aura floated to the ceiling, each ring hit and dispersed into a mist of pink, each ring added to the mist making it thicker and brighter. She was transfixed watching the high pink fog grow.

She felt hypnotized by the sight and watched the aura with a relaxed mind, enchanted by the pulse of the fog that flowed in sync to the music.

The song faded out as another faded in, a song that began with an electric organ like sound. It was harder and faster in beat than the previous song.

It was a female voice, a young voice but firm and powerful. The gyrations on the dance floor, already deeply sexual, became nearly pornographic when the song reached its chorus.

‘break on through to the other side,

break on through to the other side,

break on through to the other side’

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She felt warmth spread across her body like a blanket as the pink and white aura clouds rippled to the beats, some of it sank down to the dance floor and cruised between the legs of the dancers smoothly in snake like movements. The music beat harder as the song reached a fevered pitch, she could hear the dancers moan as the electric piano burned away.

Galadriel closed her eyes and could still see the auras that haloed the dancers, expanding and retracting quickly to the beats. Her skin had a tingly feel as if every pore of her skin was absorbing the music like water.

The hairs on her head felt like they were filled with electricity, her heart beat had sped up but it was not unpleasant.

‘break on,

break on,

break on

throoooooooooough!’

‘yeah,

come on,

yeah’

She placed a hand over her chest to feel the beating of her heart and

She placed a hand over her chest to feel the beating of her heart and was amazed by the feel of her own skin as her hand grazed her body.

She opened her eyes and twirled her hand this way and that trying to understand why it felt so alive, so real. The feeling was similar to when she first changed, but different in a way she didn’t understand.

“You’re on drugs,” she said with a sudden bubble of laughter following the comment.

On drugs she was, but she knew she was special as well, magical even.

She concentrated on a thick pink plume that had pooled on the floor and imagined Smaug flying over head as he did over Lake Town, she laughed when the pink fog grew a tale and wings and rose over the dancers first hovering then circling.

“Look, a dragon!” said someone on the dance floor.

Galadriel sent the pink Smaug around in tight circles as a few of the dancers stopped and oohed and ahhed. The dragon opened its mouth and more pink erupted out followed by a few squeals of joy.

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“Hey I though you said the fog machine was broke?” the DJ asked his virgin associate who just shrugged and continued dancing.

Galadriel felt joy turn to confusion then fear when a few people standing near by gasped in fright.

“Jesus Christ, look at her hair!” said someone close by.

She turned and saw the person speaking looking at her and pointing, his face was worried and pale. Another man stood with him, his eyes were

face was worried and pale. Another man stood with him, his eyes were wide and frightened. Galadriel looked across from her and saw most of the dancers still going but a few had turned and looked in her direction with wide eyes filled with fear and confusion.

It was then Galadriel looked to her right at the mirrored wall and saw that some of her hairs had turned green, a hyper green like her iris’ which were also blazing bright. A few strands but with her hair so black and the room to dim it was hard to miss. Galadriel left quickly before anyone approached her. When she had returned to her home her hair and eyes were no longer ablaze, she swore to never experiment with drugs again.

She blamed the nightmare she had on it because she never had it before she took the drug. After a week she decided the drug had nothing to do with it when she researched the blue pill on the deep net. The dream was just a few bright lights filled with terrible pain at first.

She had the dream again and again, each time seeing a little more and feeling a pain that roared like a great hunger. She saw bright lights from a distance that hurt to look at when too close. After two weeks she began writing down what she saw or felt, usually it was just blinding lights and that rumble of pain that growled in her guts, hunger.

She started to see tunnels filled with garbage and could hear water sometimes running loudly, other dreams she heard only a loud horn like on a semi truck. Some dreams were just darkness and the only sound was the snapping of bones and squeals of pain, sometimes followed by more of the blinding lights and always that terrible howl of hunger. This night she sat still on the bed, reliving the dream that had awoken her and had bathed her sleep with cold terror sweats.

She saw a girl running away, her face covered with tears and panic. She was far away at first, just a figure coated in pale light. Galadriel could see

was far away at first, just a figure coated in pale light. Galadriel could see her aura and it was deep blue surrounding her 306 ONCE UPON AN ALTERED TIME

like a bad stench. The dream had gone dark then she saw the young girl again climbing a ladder bolted into a wall.

Her faced soaked with sweat and orange from a street light above grimaced as something grabbed her. Above the girl, Galadriel saw a pair of street signs through the vent below the street light. The orange arc sodium lights made the green street sign look brown, the one on top said Broad street.

The one below it was slightly obscured by the shadow of the other, but the first three letters McK were visible. Galadriel knew the street was McKean. She knew it was real, the face of that young girl had convinced her of that. The fear and the pain in those dreams were real, there was some kind of monster under the streets of South Philly.

She dressed and went outside. In front of her home sat a black bodied Indian Motorcycle. In the weeks since her new employment she had acquired a good deal of wealth and purchased this motorcycle through a dealership John had connections with, after spending hours on mytube watching tutorials on how to ride and maintain motor bikes becoming a fairly good grease monkey, her only regret was not having a garage to store it in. She had discovered that most things could be learned by watching mytube tutorials, she had even learned various fighting styles and maneuvers as well weapons crafting.

It was after her battle with The Ogre when she realized she could still feel pain and that she could be killed possibly. She had so far made a pair of gauntlets from layers of industrial leather, sandwiched between the leather was a mail of heavy metal. They fit her up to the forearms evenly after numerous attempts.

She placed a helmet on her that was as black as her bike, which she come to think of as her broom stick. She wore the helmet not for protection but for anonymity, the bike was not street legal and some streets were thick with cameras. She knew she interfered with cameras but not always and felt safer behind the polarized glass shield of her helmet, if the cops tried to pull her over, well she’d worry about it when the time came.

She kicked her broom stick into noisy life and rode off heading south towards her old neighborhood through nearly deserted neighborhoods under the sickly orange light of arc sodium. She was on the south end of Broad street twenty minutes later and pulled over at the corner of Broad and McKean. Only the occasional car passed by and no pedestrians were around. Galadriel walked across the street and came to a large vent that took up the entire pavement and gave off a faint smell of sewage.

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She stood over the vent looking down in, she saw the rungs leading down into the dark below but nothing else. Galadriel looked south then north and saw an entrance to the subway on Morris street. She went down the concrete and iron steps and kicked down the locked gate with out missing a step.

She didn’t know what she was dreaming about, what it was or why she was seeing through its eyes, only that she had to face it, like Gandalf faced The Balrog at Durin’s Tower. She came upon the empty platform and stood silently listening but hearing nothing, she went to the edge of the platform. The ground below the tracks were strewn with garbage though she could clearly see someone had walked through here very recently.

She jumped down to the tracks and walked through the fresh path, following it with a beating heart. She walked into pools of light going in

following it with a beating heart. She walked into pools of light going in further, as the light behind her was cut off from the curving tunnel Galadriel found a wide entrance sitting between two pillars. She went inside and saw the pale orange light glaring against a puddle of dark liquid.

She drew closer and saw it was blood, a hunk of something small and meaty looking sat beside it. She walked around it to the wall mounted ladder, just a foot away was a cellular with a shattered screen, when she picked it up, the flash light fluttered on. She turned it towards the grisly puddle, close by was a small splash of blood. She cast the light farther in and saw a blood trail heading into a narrow tunnel.

She stepped quietly down the tunnel that was dusty and smelled moldy.

After twenty feet the tunnel widened again and the ground became more even. In the distance she could hear water flowing. The cellulars light flickered off and on and then finally died completely.

She cast it aside and walked on in the dark reluctant to use her gift should the monster be near. After a minute of walking with out stretched hands her eyes seemed to adjust to the dark, but as the sound of water drew closer so did a dim light. After a hundred feet the ground was flat and she could see enough to put her arms down.

The walls and ceiling above her were nothing but pipes of various bores and dark colors coated with thick dust. The light in the distance appeared to be a flood light of ancient vintage powered by a gas valve. As she got closer her foot hit something heavy that made a squishy sound.

Galadriel looked down and saw it was a bright pink high top sneaker with silver laces, she reached down and touched the heel slightly. She pulled her hand back quickly when she saw the

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sneaker still held a foot. She looked towards the floor under the light and saw more trails of blood.

When she reached the gas light she saw the tunnel turned to the right and saw a collection of bones, most small, scattered along the wall. The floor was stained horribly with blood both old and fresh, it had coagulated into a grimy sludge. She stood over it and saw a strange print that looked vaguely human, it was large and had fingers and a thumb.

She stepped over the print and heard something snap loudly farther ahead. She walked slowly and heard another snap, followed by a the sound of something wet and heavy tearing. She walked further and as the light faded she saw some hulk of fur just beyond the lights reach. It was shaking back in forth like a dog playing tug of war.

She heard the snap and wet tearing sound again and felt her arms break out in goose bumps. She stood silently as the beast chewed on something in the dark greedily. Its jaws crunched down on something and Galadriel could hear the thing grunt as a piece of something broke off.

She took in a slight breath and the creature went still and quiet.

Galadriel could see its head rise from its meal and see the light glare off its black eyes. It stepped over the mess of its kill and walked a few feet before stopping with a deep throaty growl. She thought of it as a monster, but seeing it made the word meaningless. It was an abominable two headed beast, a living nightmare with strange limbs attached to its scared body.

This massacred thing stood upon four stout limbs, its head was covered in fur with a wide mouth filled with countless sharp teeth and a set of fangs four inches long. The second head was half the size of the dominate head its eyes and nose had been covered over in a grisly band

dominate head its eyes and nose had been covered over in a grisly band of flesh, its mouth was filled with dozens of needle like teeth. The head shrieked when the mouth opened.

It was hungry and was protecting its food, it uttered another throaty growl at her. Galadriel could sense pain and anger coming off it like a strong breeze. It was filled with another kind of pain, not of hunger but of everything around it. Its couldn’t escape from the roaring trains or avoid the light burning its eyes like fire.

It saw the eyes burning with green light and believed this was the bringer of light, the maker of pain, the stealer of food. Both of its heads roared as it charged her. The creature stood on its back limbs when it reached her.

Its mouth found her shoulder and bit down as its front limbs gripped her sides. She screamed in pain as its teeth sunk down into her flesh.

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She quickly began punching the head biting her, her arm slipped and the smaller head on its back caught the leather of the gauntlet. It snarled and pulled with surprising strength. Galadriel continued to punch with her free hand as her bangs wrapped around the torso of the monster.

She let out a roar as she freed her other arm and pummeled the head of the thing sacrificing speed for power. The bangs squeezed as the mouth finally released, she fell down gripping her shoulder. The abomination lunged at her and got her leg in its mouth up at the calf muscle, its teeth got just skin deep before she swiftly kicked its head with her free foot.

It rolled over on its back but was up quickly, the monster charged again trying to bite the already healing shoulder. Galadriel grabbed the creatures head squeezing, one of its human like hands grabbed her by the throat and squeezed with murderous force. They stood still for a moment, as she gasped for breath while the beast snapped and snarled.

Black spots formed in her eyes as she tried to take a breath, the thought of suffocation panicked her, she began pushing back against the thing, hoping to drive it into a wall and force it to release her, they went backwards for a few feet and suddenly they were falling. They fell through the air into darkness, the monster let go but she had only a moment to breath as they suddenly crashed into water.

Galadriel saw nothing but murky blackness, the water was deep and cold. She felt her body suddenly get pulled with a great force and was sucked into a deep tunnel that was sucking the water like a vacuum. She caught a glimpse of a light as she broke the surface briefly and tried to take hold of something. She grabbed out into the darkness and felt only a slick and slimy surface.

Then she fell out of the narrow tunnel down a waterfall of gray and smelly water onto a floor that was metal grating. It was a short drop but she hit hard and saw stars for a moment as the water crashed over her and went down below through the grating where the water collected. The room she was in was for drainage, its tile walls were covered with thick green moss in some places, high above was a light casting everything in a urine color.

Below her she could hear water lapping against the walls even over the water cascading down from the bore of the man size pipe above. The room smelled dank and shitty, the air was foul and tasted oily. Galadriel tried to stand and felt a sharp pain in her lower leg and saw a deep gash that had exposed the bone just below her knee.

Before she could register the pain a growl came from above as the two headed thing fell out in a growling tumble. It landed on her and bit down on her arm, she tried to push away but her leg 310 ONCE UPON AN ALTERED TIME

was still useless for the moment. She tried to pry its mouth open but it was holding on firmly as its smaller head shrieked. When her leg was moving again she wrapped them around its mid section and squeezed as she continued to barrage its larger head with punches from her free hand.

When it let go of her arm she put both legs under the beast and pistoning it and sending the monster against the wall. Tile exploded behind it sending shrapnel everywhere. Galadriel rose as the two headed perversion regained itself on its freak limbs. She caught only the vaguest feelings from it, it was a female, whatever it was and it was filled with an ever increasing pain that shouted one word: Hunger.

It slowly crept forward growling deep in its throat, its smaller head wailed in shrieked as if in great pain or rage.

“You hungry, bitch? Come and get it.”

She sent out both bangs and grasped the limbs of the thing pulling it forward. Its larger head snapped and twisted violently back and forth.

Galadriel moved quickly and stepped behind it grabbing its large head just under the neck. Its neck muscles were thick and rippled under her arms and wrapped both arms around it, the neck was too big for her hands to meet.

The large head roared as she held its in a bear hug grip. As she put pressure around its neck and throat its roars diminished in volume but not in intensity. The smaller head shrieked even louder making her ears ring.

She clenched her arms tighter determined not to stop until both hands reached.

The pulse in the beasts neck was huge and she could feel it pulsating

The pulse in the beasts neck was huge and she could feel it pulsating against her chest almost in sync with her own heartbeat. She could feel the blood flowing just under its neck and felt revulsion and clenched harder, she could already touch finger tips. The large head tried to shake her off, she screamed with rage and with all the strength she had reached hands and heard a tear of flesh followed by a shriek of pain from the large head.

Galadriel felt the things hot blood coat her arms and hands in a grizzly bath. She screamed again filling the drainage room with a bright hyper green light coming from her eyes like spotlights. She pulled and the larger head went silent as its head and body became two separate things. On its back the smaller head continued to scream in a high pitched tone.

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Galadriel dropped the head and brought her booted foot upon the smaller head. Its screams were finally cut short as she twisted her boot and heard something under it crack. Part of its face stuck to the waffle of her soles like gum. She scraped it off on the wall and regained her breath and composure. She looked upon the two heads of the creature.

What was it? She at first thought it was some kind of vermin, perhaps rabid. But rabies didn’t make animals grow in size. She wondered if it wasn’t something from one of the radioactive swamps of New Jersey, much of the ecology was altered from years of processing nuclear energy. It didn’t look natural that was for certain, its limbs were in disproportion to its body. It looked as if it had grown limbs that belonged to some other kind of animal.

Then she thought about that scar tissue, for that's what it was she realized, she had been plagued with scar tissue and knew its tell tale signs easily. It looked like it had been put together like a toy with all the wrong parts. It had put her in mind of a very old book that was banned because the lead character sewed body parts together to create a man

because the lead character sewed body parts together to create a man and brought it back to life. It was one of her favorites because it had been written by a woman.

Was that what this was? And why was she seeing through its eyes? Was it because they were both unnatural links of an abnormal chain? Just another mystery, like the dream lyrics she

surmised. She didn’t have clear understanding of herself even. She touched death, was that why she was what she was? Or was it the biotic alone that gave her her preternatural abilities?

She left the drainage room and eventually came out above ground through a outflow tunnel just below Delaware Avenue. She stepped out onto catwalk that ended at an iron staircase that went up to a pier leading to north Front street, she’d have to walk a few miles to retrieve her broom stick. She looked out upon the river that reflected blackly for a half mile until the waves caught the golden lights of Black Beards Cove. Its reflection looked like a blight on the silky black water, she could hear the cries of delight and cheers coming from arena built there as well.

That brought her to mind of John Noah. She still didn’t trust him completely, though he was a very generous employer. It was his brother she was most uneasy about, you didn’t need to be a witch or a physic to see the murder in those eyes. She knew she had killed someone close to him, his hate and aura were too bright to doubt that theory.

There would always be treachery she guessed, the streets were filled with pigs some cunning and violent. She wasn’t living in a fairy tale world.

Just as well she thought walking down the catwalk her eyes slightly burning. In fairy tales witches always met a gruesome end, burned at the stake, drowned, hung.

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The TL would probably love to see her on a stake dressed in flames.

They might try and take her one day as they had Paul, they would die slowly and painfully for their efforts, she still had the key to the cabin in the woods given to her by another witch and felt a little more at ease.

Though she almost hoped it would come to fight against the TL, and laughed a dark hollow laughter as she ascended the stairs into the night.