Nightside 04 - Hex and the City

much. My enemies were trying to kill me in order to save the Nightside, and the world.
    They sat together around a simple iron brazier, huddling around the heat, binding the last remnants of their power together with unsteady words and shaking hands, while from outside the house came horrible, threatening sounds. They paused briefly, listening. I could hear what they heard. Something large and heavy was moving, out in the dark purple night, drawing slowly closer. And from the awful sounds it made, I was glad I couldn't see it. The handful of ragged figures in the room froze where they were, fear written clearly in their malnourished faces, not daring to speak or even move for fear of being detected; but eventually the awful thing outside moved on. Their defences still shielded them, for now.
    Whatever it was that had brought the Nightside down, it wasn't over yet. Though just as clearly, Life was losing. I hung above my enemies, unseen and unsuspected, and listened while they spoke of the monsters from Outside, abroad in the night, everywhere. Apparently there were still other small enclaves of resistance, scattered among the ruins, but they were failing, one by one. Nothing had been heard from them, for months. This small group, in this small room, was quite possibly the last hope of Humanity. If they failed and died, there would be nothing left living in the Nightside but the insects, which were already changing and mutating under the terrible forces released by the War.
    It was hard to look upon the handful of pitiful forms that had once been the major players of my day. Jessica Sorrow, no longer the terrible Unbeliever, looked almost human here, though still painfully skinny. She wore a battered black leather jacket and leggings, and hugged an ancient battered teddy bear in her arms. I'd found the bear for her, to help restore her lost humanity. And now she used it as a focus to help the group locate me in the Past. Next to her was Larry Oblivion, the dead detective, wrapped in the tattered remains of what had once been a very smart suit.
    He said quietly that he wished he could have died fully, like his brother Tommy, rather than witness what the Nightside had come to. Jessica put an arm across his shoulders and hugged him listlessly.
    Count Video warmed his wrinkled hands at the brazier. He'd had his skin stitched back on, after the angel war, the sutures making grotesque designs around the familiar neu-rotech, silicon nodes, and circuitry patches soldered to his flesh. Strange energies formed a shifting halo around his head. He wore nothing but a series of leather straps, crisscrossing his skinny body, tightly buckled. Perhaps they held him together.
    King of Skin was just a man now, stripped of his terrible glamour. Objects of power hung about him on silver chains, half-hidden in the thick pelt of his fur coat. He had a crystal ball in his hands, but it was a poor thing, disfigured with cracks and scorings. He twitched and shuddered at every sudden sound, his eyes rolling pitifully in his head.
    Annie Abattoir wore the remains of a wine-dark evening dress, the cutaway back showing the mystic sigils carved into the flesh between her shoulder blades. I wasn't surprised to see her here. Annie had always been very hard to kill, though many had tried. Six-foot-two, and mostly muscle, even now, she still looked somehow ... diminished. The War had worn her down. She kept a bowl of blood beside her and used it to refresh the lines of the pentacle around the brazier. She refilled the bowl from a vein she'd opened in her arm.
    I listened to them speak, their voices just whispers, drifting to me from far away.
    "The Sending has failed," said Jessica. "Our agents have been destroyed."
    "All twelve?" said Count Video. "That's never happened before. He must have gathered new allies. Powerful companions."
    "Perhaps he grows stronger," said Larry Oblivion. "As his time approaches. Should we try again?"
    "No," said Annie Abattoir. "It's too soon. We're too weak. Wait, and gather strength. There is still time."
    "We always knew forcing our way past Merlin's spells was a risk," said Jessica.
    "I miss him," said King of Skin, his mouth trembling. "He gave us hope. He fought so bravely. When they finally dragged Merlin down, and ate his heart right in front of him, a part of me died with him. He was the best of us, at the end."
    "He always believed Arthur would return, to save us," said Jessica.
    "Well if he is coming back, he'd