Baal-harmon. Destruction’s Regal. The subtle one. Son Of A Bitch. Damn you, Terminus.

What the Hell does Ananda want me for? I can be pretty damned sure that Gwen didn’t manage to attract his attention on her own.

Protocol. Gift? …..no. Too much like sucking up. Besides, what would I give out? Storeyville Resort gift certs? All in all I’d rather not have Murder as a guest.

Wonder how much of City Back’s electrical grid I could curse to hell and gone. Not that I want to. Gwen seems to be unharmed. No gratuitous insults so far. And I’d rather go on breathing.

Huh. Apparently Orochi lost his heart to Radnaghast... literally, what with it being the Tree and All Mythic All the Time there. Gah. Macy convinced Radnaghast -- a city and a fortress -- to give it back and to come along for the giving. The miracle involved gave Macy quite a nasty wound.

So Mace carried the heart in a box, and an avatar of Radnaghast, and me in plasmaform and I boosted her speed with what amounted to an ion drive while frying our scent trail, thus avoiding the Humungous Bees.

Orochi bitched about Macy exceeding her mandate and acted like a frigging teenager about talking to his ex. We made encouraging noises. He finally bit the bullet and talked to Radnaghast. He did acknowledge owing Macy a smallish favor. Probably. We'll see how it goes with the Romance of the Gargantuas.

I carried Macy in to the Chancel, which was completely unnecessary, physically, and installed her in one of the nicest chalets. We learned that Scorn's Regal was requesting the favor of being allowed in to the resort facilities before opening day. I convinced Macy we were better off knowing where he is and using Chancel power to bollix him up. Did Preservations on her secrets (including her location) and on the Chancel's secrets --- on my notion of them vs. outsiders. Put Joktan in another Macy Masterpiece chalet, one distant from Macy but chosen partially by chance. Assigned a ton of former London streetwalkers to attend Scorn's every need, real or imagined, twenty times over, outside of secrets and all. Worth a shot.

Briefed June vis a vis Orochi and Radnaghast, Scorn and Macy. She's still playing chicken with a Strategist. Still alive and kicking, too. Didn't call Terminus. Don't want to know what he's up to.

Made nice to our Cammoran and asked him to find out who Baalharmon was to nettle and what he could about Scorn's character, strengths and weaknesses.

Need to get La Fleur on board for the anti Joktan op.

Will spend some time trying to get a handle on using Thunderbolt more effeciently.

I'm full of Brotherly pride and affection for Macy and June, getting the jobs done, taking hits for the team, wrestling devil gods and living to tell the tale. I'm full of Familial apprehension about whatever Terminus is up to. Is this me becoming one with my Familia? Is it an Amaciel effect? Is there a difference? Regardless, there it is.

The grand opening of the Amaciel Resort at Storeyville looks to be well on its way to a resounding success. Really. What was the boss thinking?

Gwen, a born Action Girl, is about to start climbing the walls. She’s been stuck in Storeyville a while and just knowing that with Orochi out there she can’t leave, except to Excrucian-ridden Locus Noctis, makes it worse. I let her go to New York. Just that she needed permission, or thought she did, riles her. Hell, she’s right, she did need my permission. Hot and cold running Excrucians, Desecration on the prowl, and me about to go seriously beyond normal contact range… So to keep my girlfriend reasonably sane I need to let her go out and play in traffic. She’s good at that sort of thing though.

If Desecration hurts her he’s dead.

The World Tree isn’t as bad as I’d thought it would be. Parts of me like it. I’ll be lucky if I don’t pick up a fast growing red beard. Found a way to zap, which is damned good because my flying speed sucks and it’s a long way to meet up with Macy. Zapping through the Sap – Szapping? – is a lot like getting way too much oxygen though.

Think I know how to deal with the Killer Bees.

Bless the nobles of Locus Noctis. That damned Mimic no longer has my image, and vile things are to be done to him. Just wish I could watch. I catered the ritual to show a little appreciation. Only Fungus presented any problems but it turns out the Graf likes to consume first editions. Fortunately there are lots of first editions of bad books available if you have money.

Conspiracy, predictably, tried to make a big deal of letting me use her family’s library to become a better backup against Excrucians. It’s good to be the thunder god -- but a lot of dumbass, Homeric divine politics go with the job. Anyway, I’m now reasonably well informed about the Enemy. It’s much worse than I thought.

I’m convinced that Terminus is up to no good and that sending Macy off to take care of Orochi’s errand is bound to go badly. The phrase “cluster-fuck” comes to mind, with extra layers of meaning in her case. June is at least doing something useful against the Enemy. Nothing to do with our Grand Opening, but useful. As to how that came about, well Amaciel works in mysterious ways. I guess he wants to watch Nobles at play. Just looking around at my Family and Noble associates, well, I’d rather pass.

I seem to have a new hobby, destroying Blights.

I would have helped Tomas out anyway, though ordinarily I would have let one of his Family do the real work. I don’t want anyone else working on my Family. The idea irritates me. But there might have been delays. Tomas might have died. An Excrucian might have won. With a fucking BLIGHT weapon.

No.

(So now Conspiracy is giving me the hairy eyeball. She’ll either go looking for some darker reasons or figure I’m a dolt for acting on such simple motives. Maybe the request to use their library will make it more palatable for her. She’ll probably have me watched though. No problem.)

The Watergate is something else again. If there’s a heart to the blight, I can blast it out and get rid of it. What if it’s the whole hotel? A Blight lacks everything. Therefore, it shouldn’t really matter what you put back in to attack the blight. Electricity, Reality, Conspiracy, City-ness, Eternity, Imagination, Fungus, every big Domain power I might be able to interest. On second thought, maybe not Fungus, not if we want this thing standing when we’re done. And I do want it standing, bright and cleansed, as a big Up Yours to the Excrucians.

In other news, I knew we shouldn’t have bargained with Orochi. I just couldn’t think of any way to say, “No way Big Snake, you’re gonna try to screw us,” without getting destroyed. Or even hint it to the others. Hope our little psycho bint Macy’s OK.

Some personal notes:

Most of the goddamned Excrucians seem to be Immortal. Think of some indirect but effective ways to use the f**king thunderbolt, and my own powers for that matter.

My -- our -- education regarding how to fight Excrucians is sadly lacking. Maybe there's something useful in our portion of Pen Lo's library. Maybe Pen Lo's head itself will answer questions on that subject.

Attack the toys.

Never jump through a portal without knowing where it leads to.

Amaciel is my God. Amaciel works for a monster, Lord Entropy --- but he's our monster. Dame Necessity is a bitch no matter who or what you are.

Don't stand too close to Terminus.

La Fleur probably won't reciprocate professionalism, but no matter.

This blight crap has got to go.

Walking to the Heart.

And here he is.

Jealousy almost makes me appreciate Terminus. Almost.

I'll have to schedule a business lunch with La Fleur. I seem to be the only one of my familia who doesn't dislike her intensely. She seems to do her job for our Lord well enough and He did see fit to place her in a position of great responsibility. Perhaps my bureaucratic experience has inured me to her type.

We need to expand the chancel quite a bit. Doing so would require a fair amount of coordinated effort by myself, La Fleur, Terminus and June. Difficult. Still, the rewards may be great enough to lure them into cooperation.

We need more high quality hotels or bungalows for our anticipated guests. Macy should be able to design the perfect things, if she can be talked out of decorating every surface with erotica.

Every so often I'm reminded that I'm a young Power. That the Power of Festivals is optimistic about her chances dueling the Power of Strife boggles my mind. Certainly an opportunity for publicizing our... resort.

Doors is extremely useful. Seems to be fairly easy to please, too, with insider information.

We'll need a backup plan or three to explain away the disappearance from mundane Earth of our 1500-odd staff to be. For the authorities -- lots of authorities -- and for their creditors and enemies. Bound to be a certain number of mob or government hitmen involved. Recruit some of them?

7500 paranoid barbarian uberwarriors and 7500 Victorian London streetwalkers. What the hell were my brother and sister thinking? Gah.

Could be worse.

So, is La Rue screwing with me or not?

The liver looks like a Pen Lo part. The mercury/godjuice looks and smells right. I’m tempted to taste but putting little bits of Pen Lo in me, when his severed head can still talk and is still mystically connected to his parts – no.

It doesn’t seem likely that she’d take on four chancels at once, two of them Inquisitors. An alliance with me would benefit us both. War --- we could really fuck each other up.

Pen Lo should know if she tries to do evil to us, and June can probably help him know what’s up with his parts.

Glad to get out of there intact

Citybeck will be useful. Exploring should be a kick in the ass. Many kicks, just to get a notion of what’s there.

Who did the blackout? Should be traceable. Make damned sure I’m not just getting used by La Rue.

Hope there’s clouds between Mexico City and Yucatan. If not, I suppose I’ll have to raid a cash machine and charter something. Or fly commercial. Maybe there’s a fairy ring? I could phone Fungus… no. Crime, dammit. Or…. Maybe I can manage to look like a UFO? Would that count as a violation?

Hard to believe, but Death is even more annoying now that he's more human. Doesn't help that Amaciel is incapable of putting the hammer down on him.

June and I are going to have to work hard and in tandem if we want to keep Storeyville livable. Lust and Death have really bad ideas.

Orochi: I'm dead sure we got screwed in that bargain.

Missing Pen Lo parts: At least they weren't stolen from us.

New Lust vs. Old Lust: Macy is certainly easier on the eyes but... Both Heavenly and Hellish types are increasingly repellant to me. Unnatural. Twisted.

We need Amaciel healed.

Something's off recently. Not quite deja vu but....

Worked on my section of the pavilion and spent all day on a tangent. What with my power, Death's and Reality's, and the strong Voodoo of Storeyville, we could probably gather one hell of an assembly of dead musicians together. I had a ritual half worked out in my head when I recalled that most of them would have reincarnated by now. Say Elvis is now a 13 year old boy in Bangla Desh. OK, which boy? June or Death could find out. A little lightning.... Crap. Some places I don't need to go, even though I can.

Off to get some loa for LaVeau to be a guardian for the chancel. Got a feeling we're gonna need all the muscle we can get, sooner or later. Haven't ever met a loa before that I know of, should be interesting.

THUNDERSTRUCK

While Death, Punishment and Fungus were off a-questing, Mariska, Macy, June and I worried about the army on our doorstep. Some of them were from Locus Nephys and – hopefully – honest and good at their jobs. We had almost nothing to hide, after all. Not if you looked at it the right way, and I did.

Conspiracy, Regret and Justice agreed to meet us at a local oyster bar. Mariska manned the fort while the rest of us met the presumably uncorrupted Inquisitor chancel. They were wary, as were we. Things got tense when June disappeared – summoned – but calmed down pretty quick. That left me or Macy to speak for us -- and Macy is not diplomatic. We had a good hand to play. We’d been working with the injured party, sharing information, dug up some good, damning-to-others facts and generally being our fine upstanding selves. They didn’t need to know about our attempts to put Humpty Dumpy back together. Conspiracy studied me closely. I kept the conversation focused on safe subjects. They agreed to check on our story with Locus Sanguinas and the First Castle. We gave them flowers for contacting Macy or me.

The questers returned with the missing parts… almost for certain. Mariska led us into the chancel’s Heart for the Imperator Reassembling Ritual. It went fine, and then it went wrong. Amaciel was hemorrhaging. Regret prayed to me by flower with an urgent plea for help. He was in Beijing, getting whacked by Pen Lo’s lot. Crap. I sent Gwen to him via fairy ring. Then our people let us know that Storeyville was under attack. Mariska locked down all the entrances. Gwen called with Regret over her shoulder needing to get back in. Punishment got hold of Imagination and asked her to succor Gwen and Regret. Macy, Death, Punishment and I went out to deal with the invaders. Much slayage of Pen Lo’s Chinese soldiers. I got a large group to surrender by running highly visible but low-amp current through them and threatening to toast them.

Death contacted Knives and learned that L. Sanguinas was under attack by Friendship and Sacrifice, and losing. Mariska opened the entrances – Imagination flew in on a dog with Gwen and Regret – so we went there. Ife had the Sword. We piled on, along with those Sanguinites still standing. Sacrifice tried at the end to stop Ife and was Sworded. I didn’t have to use the Thunderbolt. We killed Ife. Justice showed up with the cavalry (Locus Abrolam) too late.

Lost Things, Regret and Jealousy were badly hurt but recovered. Knives, proven innocent, was sent to join Abrolam; now Strife will have someone to talk to. The Estate of Friendship was added to L. Sanguinas, and Sacrifice to L. Nephys.

Right triumphed, Wrong was vanquished, our virtue was proven, our Imperator restored (more or less), we picked up the remnant of Pen Lo’s soldiers for our own, Gwen did great and avoided injury and I didn’t have to use the goddamned Thunderbolt. It’s good to be a thunder god.

FIRE YOUR GUNS
Wild beast, I'll make you mine
Taste your kiss, sweet lips devine
She got moves, drips of sweat
She got eyes of blue, body curves
'n Legs that'll break your nerves

yeah, you want some fun
Gotta fire your guns
Fire your guns (x9)

How do the little familia deal with this? With three of us in Storeyville I still felt vulnerable. And watched. They had to be watching the known entrances. Could they look inside from elsewhere on the New Orleans perimeter? There were techniques for doing that or something like that. I brought it up to Gwen and mentioned we needed some sneaky people to tag the watchers. Bad choice of words: I meant sneaky and expendable. Gwen, one of the world’s better cat burglars, acted hurt and volunteered. I let her go. She was the best choice, skill-wise, short of Macy, Punishment or Terminus.

Talked the same over with Mariska. We need a militia beyond the gargoyles. She did issue an order for all available wizards to cast warding spells.

Waiting. I caused thunder clouds to form and levitated up into them. Practiced zapping from cloud to cloud in proper old-school Electricity style. Wires are better. Still the memories of the Boss urging me to expand my Domain stuck with me. I’m going to work on the ‘spark of interest’ notion soon, if there is a soon, but experimentation showed that I wouldn’t be doing it from a cloud. Not without making intermittent lightnings and thunders.

I was still fooling about in the clouds, waiting for Gwen to get back, when Mariska called for help, Chancel-wide. I zapped into her office and found her fighting Ife Hapura, Domina of Friendship and member of the Bronze Man’s familia. I helped subdue her, resorting to .45s at her forehead and gargoyle backup. Called out a chancel-wide alert. Heard the Bronze Man bellowing – everybody did – and flew out the window to see what I could do about him. Macy had hurt him with her guns but he had one of those Imperator-killer swords and had done some serious damage to her. The Bronze Man claimed to be interested only in retrieving Ife Hapura. Could we take him? Maybe. If I summoned the Z-bolt we’d probably win but he’d probably kill one of us. If his buddy Czerny, the Power of Knives showed up we were all dead meat. If we won, if we killed the Bronze Man and Czerny, Lord Entropy would sic his other Inquisitor familia on us all at once – a Pyrrhic victory at best.

I accepted the offer, Ife in return for him leaving peaceably. Macy didn’t argue, just looked disgusted, which told me she was hurt bad. I claimed that Ife had talked her way in and started the fight. It was probably more or less true. Insults flew about his honor and ours. June showed up and indignently told him about the tamarisk Sword-detecting spell. The Bronze Man seemed disturbed by her words and swore to investigate. I believed him. Gargoyles brought Ife over, mummy-wrapped in heavy chains. Apparently, she and the Bronze Man are an item. They left.

Macy told us that the cut of the Sword had not only hurt her, it had drained some of her protections against damage. Not what I wanted to hear. Still, any landing you can walk away from is a good one.

BACK IN BLACK

Back in black
I hit the sack
I've been too long I'm glad to be back [I bet you know I'm...]
Yes, I'm let loose
From the noose
That's kept me hanging about
I've been looking at the sky
'Cause it's gettin' me high
Forget the hearse 'cause I never die
I got nine lives
Cat's Eyes
Abusin' every one of them and running wild

Back in the back
Of a Cadillac
Number one with a bullet, I'm a power pack
Yes, I'm in a bang
With a gang
They've got to catch me if they want me to hang
Cause I'm back on the track
And I'm beatin' the flack
Nobody's gonna get me on another rap
So look at me now
I'm just makin' my play
Don't try to push your luck, just get out of my way.

A day went by and no one attacked. We waited, debated and prepared the Rite of Rememberance. Well, June and Fungus did. Macy wanted to rescue the old woman from the apartment and make her an anchor. Before that was clear I offered to, shall we say, put her out of her misery. (The age had fallen upon her in moments, she knew too much… oops.) The Bronze Man would be watching though and we didn’t remember enough for more devious methods.

Finally the Rite was ready. We gathered together and did the right things… I remembered conversations with Amaciel. And Amaciel Himself, my beloved lord. He wanted me to broaden the scope of my Domain. The spark of attraction or interest between people, for instance. I wasn’t all that receptive at the time, but now it seemed like an excellent idea. With Macy as Lust I was less likely to crowd her Domain. Maybe I should spend some more time doing the traditional Thunder God thing. Maybe I should get a grip an concentrate on surviving the next few days or weeks.

I have a cat named Fishhook – and I’ve seen her a couple of times giving me the hairy eyeball. Pissed off about the feeding schedule, no doubt. I’d better be careful putting on my shoes. And I collect theramins. I remembered what a bureaucratic rat Mitchell Skinner was. I remembered all Gwen’s favorite things and my fingers tingled. I remembered the weapon I’d inherited from two Electricitys ago, one of Zeus’ lightning bolts. No, really. It might even be true; I had to do a miracle just to pick the thing up without frying. Using it would really hurt.

We all came out of our trances and compared notes. Amaciel had known something criminal was going on and had suspicions of who was responsible. He might have taken steps and attempted to arrange some sort of rebirth. The Graf was part of his power and It did that sort of thing all the time, so maybe.

Macy said that Sisera and Amaciel had arranged for her to succeed as Lust. I wouldn’t put it past the boss, and I couldn’t resent it even though I knew now that Electricity’s avatars did not last all that long compared to most of the others.

Mariska/Guilt remembered a Rite Amaciel had taught her to find the guilty – Punishment’s kind of guilty. She and Punishment and June would be just about perfect to perform it. She had also seen a vision of the Bronze Man, Jealousy and Friendship talking about the sword that would be used to execute Amaciel.

Mariska led the way to the Chancel’s Heart with Fungus, Punishment and I following along. The Boss’ icon was toppled but undamaged, and covered with moss and mold. I thought the fungus was significant. Is there, somewhere, a gigantic fungus slowly becoming Amaciel? The Graf did things to discover what the fungus was linked to, if anything. It was, to a point on the World Tree. A place where Imperators were buried or went to die.

Then Eternity returned my call. They were still being attacked. He still suspected us but seemed a bit swayed by the fact that the Boss was dead and neither we nor he had the kind of powers – timeless void powers – indicated. Eternity said that they had long thought the damage to their Chancel was from the War. Lost Things did a rite that showed the attacks had been going on for two years. (Amaciel had mentioned two years of continuous crimes to Punishment when questioning her on the nature of serial killers.) They reported it to agents of the Valde Bellum. The First Castle Chancel – Sacrifice, Friendship and Knives – looked into it and traced weird foreign flowers from the Locus Sanguinas chancel to Amaciel. I told Eternity that we were investigating and were willing to share information since, in my opinion, we were next on the list. He said he’d try to convince his familia.

Mariska, June and Punishment readied the new rite. Punishment seems to think that if the Boss was guilty, which is possible, then so are we and we deserve to be punished. June was concerned about the guilt issue. Mariska enjoyed the guilt issue, but disagreed like the rest of us with the deserving punishment part.

The Rite showed a sword, very much like the one used to execute Amaciel, floating in a void. None of us knew anything useful about such swords. I contacted a friend of sorts, Byron the Viscount of Birds. (Byron’s master, Fritheswith is the only Imperator who never acknowledged Lord Entropy’s authority. He has, in fact, never spoken since asked to do so. Byron dislikes Entropy and his agents but his familia kick major Excrucian ass on regular occasions. Byron knows a lot and his Imperator is older than the War.) Byron agreed to look into it while pretending to be only marginally aware of our ‘difficulties’.

Byron informed me that there were three such swords, forged for Lord Entropy by Meon, Regal of Desecration. The First Castle had one, Locus Abrolam (home of Strife, Chaos and Borders) had another. Entropy carried the third himself. With one of the swords a mere Noble could execute an Imperator and recover the deceased’s energy. Pen Lo, the Imperator of First Castle, was usually too deep in the War to do such things himself; that’s why they had a Sword. Had one been stolen? Had an Inquisitor chancel gone bad? Might the swords act on their own? Could someone have forged another? Byron said that the Valde Bellum had assigned the Locus Nephys (Conspiracy, Regret and Justice), another Inquisitor chancel, to assist the First Castle after the execution went wrong – after we did not die.

We agreed to offer the Guilt Rite to Locus Sanguinas in exchange for the rite used to implicate Amaciel. I called Eternity – he answered right away – and told him about the three swords and the Rite. He’d had some success in convincing his cohorts to play along. I mentioned that we’d found hints that Amaciel had bee investigating some great crime before he was framed and killed – half the family looked like they wanted to strangle me before I blabbed that the Boss’ death might be temporary. What am I, an infant? I was an FBI agent for 12 years, dammit, -- which might account for why he was fingered. Giving us the other Rite would show their good faith. They agreed to the deal; as the wronged parties and with Lost Things leading the way the Guilt Rite should work for them just fine.

We had to know if the Boss was coming back. Terminus, Punishment and the Graf would walk the World Tree to find out. Terminus and Punishment are stealthy, deadly and fast and the Graf was needed to home in on the fungoid connection. The Graf could always use the Suicide Express option to leave in a hurry. The rest of us would guard the Chancel and work on that rite that pointed to the Boss.

It’s a bitch and a half trying to make plans when your memory is fried. Trying to do that as a brain-fried group is worse, much worse.

After jabbering back and forth with scraps of information we were back to Waiting For June. I mentioned Macy’s shaky membership in our happy family to get it into the open. I didn’t want Punishment to decide to do something about the former Lust’s murder at a bad time. Punishment – everyone else’s name comes naturally to me -- but Sian strikes me as having become her function. It’s a really big stick, up there really far, and it’s been there for a very long time.

Macy took off and got some money and more expensive hooker wear. Can’t decide if she fucked somebody’s brains out or mugged them. Not my business either way.

I meditated, or mentally banged my head against a wall, until I hold of my other “anchor”, Special Agent Skinner. Gwen was right: we don’t like each other. At all. I arranged for some guns – pistols, assault rifles, shotguns – to be made available from the local office in the morning. Military grade stuff will have to wait until we can raid some real whackos, or an arsenal.

June came through – teleported, zapped, appeared, whatever – to Hank in a cute little ritual that involved her knocking back a shot of bad whiskey. June is an older woman, or at least looks that way, with a kind of grandmotherly wisdom about her. What she’s doing in our group…

We learned a little more about what’s up. June didn’t know for sure if Amaciel, our deceased boss, was guilty or not. It bothered her. It bothered Punishment too, I think. Mariska, Macy, Fungus and I were less concerned with guilt (yeah, I see the irony) or innocence and more with Us versus Them.

One interesting point, at least to me, was that the Boss was supposed to have hurt this other Family by breaking off chunks of their Chancel and stuffing them in a “timeless void”. As I understood it, the Boss’ powers were expressed in us. None of us had any such powers.

Then “Death” made an appearance by jumping over from another rooftop. Punishment and Macy were on it before he landed, the rest of us reacting a second or two later. No fight, thank, um, Goodness? The Tree? (Where did that come from?) More jabbering. Other Powers than the Inquisitors and Eternity’s family were taking an interest. This Goose person had helped Terminus – Death – to spite Lord Entropy. The Power of Imagination had what sounded like a professional interest in Punishment, and maybe some of the others.

I went out for flowers over the wires and came back with a large but lightweight selection, trying not to think about just how I turned my clothes and things I was carrying into electricity and back again. Got them in Los Angeles. If I were Them, I’d monitor large, odd purchases from flower shops if I could, and maybe they had the Power of Retail Sales on their side.

I talked to Eternity’s flower – June knew what it was – and left a message questioning the method used to attack them, vis a vis the Boss. Talking to freaking flowers… there are downsides to being a supernatural being.

We adopted my plan. Get the guns, drive to New Orleans and the Chancel, I’d exhaust myself zapping the bad guys in the upper levels via Gwen, The Graf would do horrible things to the intruders on the lower levels through its Anchor and then Terminus, Punishment and Macy would kill, capture or drive out the un-zappable and un-fungusable ones, with Mariska acting as our eyes and ears and June reinforcing the Reality of our inevitable victory. Not, I’ll admit, a plan that would get high marks from Patton or Napoleon or Bobby Fischer, but it did suit most of our desires or compulsions. In my case, my people were being hurt and those responsible had to be stopped, and to suffer.

Guns, cars – they drove from Chicago to New Orleans in an hour and a half --, me zapped down and scouting the perimeter, contact Gwen and find out the bad guys have gone away. Did they go because they knew we were coming and ready to nuke them? Bad – how did they know our plans? Good – they ran. Bad – I want to kill the motherfuckers who pushed my girlfriend around. Yeah, I’m fucking Tarzan. Mr. Primitive. Mr. Natural… crap, that one feels right.

So, what next? Memory, allies, truth, revenge, maybe a nice big bronze statue of Daffy Duck...

HAVE A DRINK ON ME

It’s not as fun being a thunder god when the guy who’s trying to kill you can shrug off monster lightning bolts. I did the turn-into-electricity thing – all this power stuff comes easy to me – and spread myself over much of the room as a big old plasma pancake. Lots of things started to burn and I had high hopes that Mack the Knife had to breathe at least. I didn’t get to find out because he froze – freeze-framed – the blaze in its tracks. So much for Plan A. I hauled ass down an outlet and off to Atlantic City, New Jersey before I could find out if he could make electricity bleed. Why Atlantic City? It was the first place that occurred to me. Vegas was second… would have been first but it was farther away.

I tried scanning the building for people, for electrical auras, and came up empty. Back to the same room to look for ‘clewes’ as Sherlock Holmes might have said, and, dammit, the guy was still there. I asked him to give me a couple of minutes. He offered to help me throw myself on the mercy of some Court for, ah, people like us. No thanks. The phone next to me rang. Rang. Oh, crap: it’s Gwen. (Hey, I remembered her name.) Couldn’t talk with Avrileros listening …. But she said she could reach me through any phone, and it was a good-sized building. I zapped out to the opposite side, top floor. The phone rang and I picked up.

I told Gwen about the dead angel. She said he’d been Lust and that, since his heart was gone, there had to be a new one somewhere. Avrileros was Eternity. Gwen told me who the other members of my familia were and told me to be careful with Death. Death was dangerous. He’d been in the chancel when it was invaded and fought his way out past an Inquisitor. “Things fell down.” One of the ways into the chancel was in New Orleans.

A woman walked in, making no noise at all, good-looking, athletic and I knew right away who the new Lust was. She introduced herself as Macy, said people were closing in on us and we should leave. I could hear two people pounding up the stairs. I told her about the wire trick and she gave me a phone number. She busted out a window and jumped to the next building. Right. Sure, she probably had something to do with cutting the heart out of the old Lust but she could have done me some real damage had she been so inclined. I zapped out – and it went wrong.

I was flesh, not plasma, on a rooftop surrounded by new age hippy weirdos, and a big, hairy guy offering me a bottle of Jack Daniels, and an older, normal looking woman with her own bottle in a lawn chair. Hairy Guy started to explain things to me. I accepted the bottle and took a swig. Hairy Guy – Hank – told me he worked for June/Reality and was Summoning us according to her orders. Fine. “Sorry to drink and run, but I’m supposed to meet with Lust – I’m pretty sure she’s Lust – right about now.” The bulb on a wire I’d apparently come in on was toast but the outlet was still good. “I’ll be back.” I changed, zapped in, found a phone and used the number.

I was in a very expensive and partially trashed apartment next to an ancient woman in designer clothes that didn’t fit her. I switched forms and she took it in stride. She indicated that Macy had gone out the broken window and over the broken balcony rail. Right.

I followed in a nice swan dive and changed well before I hit the ground, flattening out without taking any damage next to a big crater or sinkhole in the street. Macy was in the breached service tunnel fighting a big man who was either wearing a fantastically articulated brass suit or had metal skin. The way he banged into things he might be solid metal all the way through. Macy was holding her own. They were fast, faster than anything human, faster than rattlesnakes and stronger than grizzly bears, trickier than Jackie Chan on the best day of his life. Brass Monkey did tricks. He caused some poor guy to drive his car into the hole at Macy. He didn’t die when I hit him with lightning. He did something to the crowd – there was a crowd by now – and they all rushed me like I was a pop star giving free aurographs. I jumped into the hole before anyone could electrocute himself as Brass Monkey jumped out, and Macy followed. “Jumped out” doesn’t really convey what they did. They didn’t quite ‘leap tall buildings in a single bound’ but it did look like they’d land a block or two away. I grabbed a wire and zapped to a streetlight a block and a half in the right direction.

Macy had gone farther than Brass Monkey. We converged on him for Round 2. He looked hurt but so did she. The civilians all around us dropped to the ground, all the cars, machinery and electricals quit as far as we could see. Brass Monkey fell squawking (you can squawk in a basso profundo voice, if you try hard) into a hole that appeared underneath him. A VOICE (imagine a very angry, 200 foot tall woman) told us to not do anything like this in her city ever again. A phone booth rose out of the ground and she ordered us into it before The Bronze Man’s friends showed up. We did that. It sank back into the ground into calm darkness, then rose out of that rooftop with Hank, his new age accomplices, the older lady and two new additions. A very tough woman was holding a large gun on us and a talking mushroom person was looking on. Punishment and Fungus, right. We were in Chicago. Note to self: City Woman not limited to one city.

Macy snapped at Punishment about where the gun should be pointed. I introduced myself with a smile, a bow and current hopping between fingertips. Fungus wanted to know who Macy was. I described our fight with The Bronze Man and the VOICE. Information was exchanged. I tried the contacting your people mentally thing and soon was looking out of Gwen’s eyes. She was in a warehouse full of our people being guarded by gun-toting intruders. She was in lying low but in considerable danger of being caught. I asked her about other ‘anchors’ I might have. I had one more, an FBI director named Skinner whom I did not like at all. I described the scene and the facts to my, ah, familia. Fungus said she’d work on an herbal cure for amnesia. Myself, I figured we needed guns, lots of guns. I considered my FBI contact and smiled. A couple of stoned New Agers recoiled.

It was hot and muggy and smelly as only the tropics can be. The faces looking at me were South-east Asian, their voices throughout the building and beyond at real Asian beehive level in... Malay. Which I understood. I paused to look at my reflection in a window. I was not Malay, or Asian, I was European, with white hair, though I wasn't old. Late 20's, early 30's. Bleached? No, I didn't think so. Something wrong with the noise. No TV's, no radios, no fans, no phones, no air conditioners. A CD came on, faintly, and another. Battery powered. How did I know that? But not radios.

The street was crowded with people talking about the power outage. It was big, maybe country-wide. Sabatoge? They gave me a wide berth. I located a phone booth with, amazingly, a phone book. I thought I'd leaf through it and see if any adds caught my eye, stirred any memories. As the book opened the phone rang. Again. Silence spread out from the phone booth as everyone turned to look. What the hell, I picked up.

The woman on the line assumed she had the right person. Was I OK? The chancel had been invaded, our people were being gathered up, some had been killed. Huh? She took my amnesia in stride, more or less. She told me I was a sort of superhero, or a god. Of electricity. This struck me as absurd. And right. I trusted that voice, I really liked that girl. The notion that my place, this "chancel" had been invaded and my people (I was apparently a possessive sort) hurt or killed filled me with lively anger instead of leaving me cold or confusing me.

OK. I told her to wait a moment and held my right hand up. Small-G god. Superhero. Electricity. Right. I want a spark between my thumb and forefinger. Nothing. I tried harder. Nada. Very funny. I raised the phone up to say something irritable and tossed off the spark without thinking about it. Stared. Did it again. Made little lightnings dance from finger to finger. It tickled. Go figure.

I started to talk to the girl again and was interrupted by someone tapping on the metal side of the booth. A grinning, wiry punk and five of his street-tough buddies were tapping clubs to palms, playing with butterfly knives, cracking knuckles. I told the girl -- hard 'G' something, I couldn't quite remember -- to wait, put the receiver down and turned to the lead gangbanger, "Are you lost? Do you want to be?" I grinned pure malice and did the electric fingers thing, and something happened with my eyes too. Five ran. One pissed himself and then ran. It's good to be the Thunder God.

Back to my informant. She could phone me and whichever receiver was nearest me would ring, something I'd set up. She suggested I find 'The Others'. Apparently I was a member of a little pantheon. She gave me 'The Angel's' number and had to run off before the invaders caught her. The phone went dead. Right. I decided it would work, and it did. I pushed the call through the power outage all the way to... Europe. It rang. A man with a deep, gravelly voice picked up. He said the Angel was in the shower. Where was I? I reached out to the other phones around him and thought about waking up in a chair under a broken light fixture in a dusty, trackless room. I thought positively about being in the room next to the guy... my hands, my body flashed into lightning and I was there. Very tingly. Gravely Voice was a medium sized tough looking guy with a big, clean knife who introduced himself as Avrileras. No bells. He seemed to know who I was. The Angel, a real fucking angel, near as I could tell, was nailed to a wall and dead. This did not bother me nearly as much as the notion of someone chasing that girl who'd phoned me around. It looked like the Angel's heart had been cut out. Avrileras was not bloody and claimed he hadn't done it. He and his were the injured parties in this matter, my boss had been acting secretly against them for some time and got caught. The Imperator was dead and we, his crew should have died with him. We'd been sentenced to death and it would be a lot easier on me if I stood there and took it like a man.

I laid on some weak bullshit about how the Boss wouldn't do that without our help, that we'd been framed, that Avrileras and Company should be worrying about the real enemy. He wasn't having any, so I suggested that he go one way and I another, "Or we can dance." He wasn't nearly as impressed with me, Thunder God or not, as I'd hoped. He rushed me. Anybody who wasn't impressed by a man with freaky electrical powers needed to be taken seriously, so I hit him with everything I had, enough to maybe blow a big hole through the building wall. It hurt him, shredded his shirt, burned some of his chest, blew off the soles of his shoes, but he grinned with electricity dancing along his teeth and cut at me, giving me a long graze above the hip and more excitement than I really wanted right then. Crap.

A MAN SPRAWLS across a threadbare and badly sprung armchair. A light bulb socket hangs directly overhead, dangling from the ceiling on a cord and holding only the shattered remains of a blackened bulb.

There is dust on the scarred wooden floor, the single windowsill, the radiator next too it, and on the misused armchair itself – all of which seems entirely undisturbed. The room is otherwise empty. Something in the chair is digging into the man’s back.

He is lithe and wiry, the man; lean, with short blonde hair so pale it was almost white. He wears a fine pair of slacks that quite are quite obviously part of an expensive suit, a dark, form-fitting sleeveless shirt somewhere between silk and mesh, and no jacket. A shoulder holster hangs along his left side, empty. He, unlike the room, is not covered in dust.

He raises his other hand (instinct or habit, one might say) to take a drink and discovers he still holds the neck of a whiskey bottle between his fingers. He seems less surprised by the natural inclination of his hand to cling to a bottle even in unconsciousness than he is when he notices that the bottle ends in jagged shards about halfway down.

There is something dark and tacky on the jagged edges of the bottle, and he is not injured (barring the damage the chair is doing). The room does not smell of spilt whiskey, nor does he see broken glass or blood (or footprints… how did I get here?) on the floor as he sits up and looks around.

He stands, wiping the bottle down to erase fingerprints and dropping it on the chair behind him as he looks over the room. Neither his jacket nor the presumably missing pistol are anywhere to be seen so the holster hanging at his side remains both conspicuous and useless. He slips it off, winds the straps around the holster itself and shoves it into a pants pocket where it bulges and ruins the line of his slacks, but does not draw as much attention.

His gaze moves to the bare window and the world beyond. Tenements. Projects. He is certainly not dressed to blend in but, searching his mind, he finds no particular concern about such things. His natural instincts tell him he is more than competent enough to handle the dangers of such places, though he has no idea how or why.

Of course, in searching his mind he finds precious little else in the way of information or memory, which does bother him. He is a well-dressed newborn delivered into an abandoned tenement in an unknown city. The room holds no further information for him beyond that.

Turning to the door he walks into the rest of the world, searching for himself.

[Ambrose Donner, Duke of Lightning, is played by Randy Trimmer]