***Grant****

Grant sat up in bed, eyes wide as he was slaughtered a thousand different ways.

“SSSHHIIIT!” He scrambled out of bed, trying to put on pants faster than he ever had in his life, and failing miserably. “Shit, shit, shit, shit!”

***Tom Graves***

Tom sat in the large warded cell, twiddling his thumbs, staring at the heavy door. in many ways, he was in a similar situation to earlier, when Raze had kidnapped him. In many ways, it was completely different.

“It’s four AM.” Carol said, glancing over at him.

Tom did a brief inventory of his platinum and gold doodads, bought with the blood of others.

Ring of Protection: 400SP or $45,200,00.

Ring of Storage (3 items): 200SP or $22,600,00.

Greater Wratz’got Control Ring (Kar’el): 3000SP or $339,000,000 (May have additional collector’s value for people who have grudges against her, which is everyone.)

Ring of Environment – 150SP: $16,950,000.

Grenade wand. – parts and labor, est. $50,000.

Suffocation Ingot – parts and labor, est. $120,000.

Soul Engine (poor) – Parts and Labor, Est. $150,000. Resale value significantly higher.

“I get too many more rings, and I’m gonna look like one of those middle aged ladies who like jewelry a little too much.” Tom muttered to himself, tucking away the engine and the suffocation spell.

“Who says you don’t already?” Carol asked.

“Open the door.” Tom said, standing.

“Finally.”

Carol and another Wratz’got stood on either side of the heavy metal door, then they began to grow, gaining bone armor, dark red skin, and animalistic grins full of teeth.

As they changed, they began to spark as the warding in the room tried ineffectually to zap the magic out of them.

“Hurts so good,” the other Wratz’got said with a smile as the two of them braced themselves and grabbed the door. “I should get one of these for my cock.”

“Now.”

The two demons literally tore the door off its hinges, exposing a slightly overweight guard whose face paled at the sudden appearance of two enormous monsters who barely fit through the door one at a time.

On que, the other thirty doors up and down the warded east hall of the palace were torn away from their hinges.

The doomed man inhaled. Whether that was to sound an alarm or simply scream, it didn’t much matter.

Carol muscled the other Outsider out of the way and dispatched the guard by punching him so hard his head flattened against the marble wall behind him.

“You want a toothpick?” Carol said, drawing the guard’s shortsword out of its sheath with her thumb and forefinger. It truly did look puny compared to the enormous beast holding it.

“Nah, I’ve got my own.” Tom said, ignoring her and strolling down the demon-filled hall of the palace.

No one got in his way.

Strolling down the palace hall, Tom found himself shoulder to shoulder with Nema.

He held out his left arm and the tiny woman looped hers through it.

Suzie tapped his shoulder, looking up at him with puppy eyes.

“Fine,” Tom said, holding out his right arm, which Suzie seized with a grin.

It was tactically unsound, binding up his hands like that, but…Tom caught his reflection in one of the halls floor-to-ceiling mirror’s.

All the baby fat was gone, his body was covered in whipcord muscle, his clothes were dark fitted silks they’d captured from some nobleman’s dresser and saved for the occasion. Gold and platinum dripped from his fingers, and he had a dangerous-looking woman on each arm.

Damn. I look fuckin’ scary.

The three of them walked down the hall, the eye of the storm as Wratz’got pulled doors open, dragging the occupants out and brutally murdering them.

Carol was having a great time.

The palace wasn’t where they wanted to be, though. They wanted the En’hol mansion, which was just a hop, skip and a jump down the road.

Where Ellie is.

***Grant***

Grant sprinted down the hall of the En’hol mansion, just free-birding it. There was no time for pants.

“Aunt Marida,” he said, yanking open the door to his aunt’s bedroom. “The Morkels aren’t Morkels!”

Marida glanced up form where she was shoveled gold and jewelry into a satchel.

“Ya think!?” She demanded, a crazed glint in her eyes as she pushed past him.

“Where are you going?” Grant asked.

“I’m leaving, and if you’ve any sense, you’ll do the same. Better do it before the rest of the family senses what’s coming!” She called over her shoulder as she ran down the hall.

“But…” You’re supposed to be our leader.

The last shreds of respect he had for his aunt were scoured away.

But that did open the door to other avenues. One his aunt had stubbornly refused to engage with because she couldn’t see how it would turn out.

Ellie!

If Grant could give her back to Tom, then maybe he could save the rest of the family. Marida…

Grant shrugged. He didn’t care so much about whether the venomous old woman lived or died.

Time to step up and be the Omniscient.

BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM.

Four explosions rattled the windows and caused the rest of the family to wake with a start. He could hear their distressed voices from behind their doors as they woke to knowledge of their own imminent demise.

No, Grant thought, his skin chilling. No, no, no, no, NOOOO!

He broke into a sprint, chasing after Marida, skidding to a halt in front of the door of Ella’s wet nurse, a kindly young woman who’d lost her own baby in childbirth.

The young woman was dead, her gaze staring out into space, her arms still wrapped protectively around the murdered baby.

“We’re all gonna die,” Grant said, glancing outside at the faint light beginning to flicker in the direction of the palace.

Fire.

***Chris Campbell***

The Endless was a man again. He looked so much like Tom Graves it was uncanny. He’d ceased to shift back and forth a few minutes back, now seemingly settled on male. Add ten or fifteen years and they’d be the same person. He could’ve been an older brother or really young dad to the teen.

Wait a minute. Chris thought as The Endless rode along in the center of the army that stretched from horizon to horizon, the capital a smudge in the distance.

I’m still assuming the laws of physics apply.

“Tom Graves?” Chris asked with a wince, hoping he didn’t piss him off with the wrong name.

“’Sup?” The Endless asked, glancing over at him.

***Sasha Honnuken***

“Why are we doing this again, Immortal?” one of the mercenaries asked, looking up at Sasha.

“Because I have a hunch that something weird is going down tonight.”

Sasha had seen Raze burning a letter with the Morkel seal on it. That meant that whatever was going down had something to do with the two hundred-odd Morkels currently housed in the warded section of the palace.

Whether they were the trouble, or were in trouble remained to be seen. Although, more often than not, they are the trouble.

Either way, Sasha didn’t intend to allow whatever shady maneuvering was set to happen tonight to go unanswered. She and her group of fifty mercenary Alia were perched in an alleyway, ready to defend or attack the palace, as the needs may be.

Sure it was illegal to muster an armed force on the palace doorstep, but since adopting her uncle’s persona, she’d become much bolder than before. People actually listened to her, and the rules only loosely applied to a leader of a Great House.

“This is boring as hell,” one of the mercenaries muttered, taking a swig from his flask.

“We’re getting triple pay to sit on our ass and watch the most secure building in the capital. Quit your bitching,” another merc said.

Sasha scowled at the implication that they went into this expecting not to have to do anything, but she didn’t say anything. these were last-minute hires and there wasn’t much she could do about their attitude in one night.

“Movement,” one of the mercenaries spoke, rising to his feet.

Sasha stood bolt straight and peered around the corner.

It was…Tom.

The young man was strolling down the palace steps like he didn’t have a care in the world, dressed like the villain in a melodrama. There was a Vith girl on one arm, and a brightly colored purple demoness with horns on the other. Her eyes glowed bright green in the dark.

The Morkel were following him in a tight double line, wielding bloody furniture. One of them bore a candelabra the length of a man, with a man impaled on the top.

“What in Dorun’s asshole is going on here?” One of the mercenaries asked, echoing Sasha’s thoughts.

“Whatever it is, it’s bad,” Sasha said. “And it’s our responsibility to stop it!”

The mercenaries glanced at her askance.

“Fine, you’ve been paid to stop it. I’ll distract them, you guys get ready to ambush.”

They nodded, and began climbing the nearby buildings to attack from the rooftops, while Sasha psyched herself up.

“Okay, you’re gonna be fine. You’re the Immortal. You can do this.”

Sasha took a few deep, quick breaths, and stepped out of the alleyway, fists on her hips, chest puffed, jutting out her crotch in her interpretation of masculine confidence.

The line of Morkels came to a halt as Tom stopped in front of her, his head cocking ever so slightly to the left.

“I demand you cease…whatever it is you’re doing, and surrender immediately!” Sasha boomed, her voice a perfect match for her uncles.

“Oh, look, it’s one of the kidnap princesses,” A figure just behind Tom Graves spoke as she stepped forward. It was a slender woman whose pale skin was covered in incredibly detailed tattoos.

“Come to offer himself to us willingly.” The woman said, her voice deepening as she grew to a seven foot tall monstrosity. Behind her, the rest of the Morkel army swelled into similar creatures, baring their fangs with malicious glee.

“Um…” Sasha was momentarily stunned into silence. The Morkels were not Morkels. That could be problematic, but a well, timed ambush could still turn the tide. “Attack!”

Nothing happened.

Sasha glanced up at the empty rooftops where the mercenaries were no doubt hiding from the army of demons.

“Attack?” Any time now.

“Come here, handsome.” The demon said, it’s massive hand clamping down on her waist.

“Fucking mercenaries,” Sasha cursed bitterly as the demon threw her over its shoulder.

“Kill the cowards,” The demon said, and the double line disintegrated as the assembled Outsiders jumped up, climbing the nearby buildings in a heartbeat. A moment later, screaming began to echo from the rooftops.

***Tom Graves***

Aside from that strange interruption, the stroll down to the En’hol mansion was relatively pleasant. The Wratz’got arson was all happening behind them, and provided a decent amount of light, which prevented him from tripping over the strangely uneven cobblestones.

Get some pavement, seriously.

The En’hol mansion itself looked a bit like an insane asylum out of a horror movie, with the aged condition, the clinging moss and drooping trees.

It sounded like one, too. Shrieks of pure terror and panic seemed to ooze out from inside the construction. On the grounds themselves were dozens of people in their nightclothes, running aimlessly with bulging eyes and panicked breaths.

“Round them up,” Tom said as he climbed the staircase. The Wrat’zgot were happy to oblige.

A thin-wristed seer popped out from behind a pillar and tried to stab him, the weak attack entirely resisted by the ring of protection.

Tom grabbed the man by the shoulder and stared into his eyes.

“Where’s my daughter?”

The En’hol’s voice turned into a wail of terror and he jabbed the dagger into his own eye, slumping over in place.

“Huh,” Tom grunted, entering the mansion where the seers were running around like chickens with their heads cut off, a few of them had already taken the easy way out, their bodies slumped over where they had killed themselves.

Others clawed at their eyes or sobbed into their pillows.

Tom didn’t care.

He prowled the halls, up the grand staircase in the main hall, up and down the second story, starting with the wing on the right, then heading down the left-hand hall –

Tom paused.

He took a step back and looked into the room with the open door.

Inside was the corpse of a woman holding Ella. His daughter was little more than a tangle of limbs as she’d been shot by a gun at point blank range.

Tom’s heart stopped, forgetting even to beat.

He took a step forward.

THUMP.

And another.

THUMP.

***Chris Campbell***

The Endless reached out with a hand, his fingers curved into claws.

He grabbed something, and pulled, hard.

The land beneath and the sky above bucked wildly, the sun flickering back and forth.

The land seemed to scroll by like a goddamn computer screen.

Suddenly the capital was much closer.

In front of them was a little old lady, dressed in fine silks, a glock in one hand, and an overflowing satchel of fine jewelry over the other shoulder. She cut a strange figure, hustling down the ancient highway in the dead of night.

She stopped short, her eyes widening.

“Hello, Marida,” Tom said, leaning forward in the saddle. “We finally meet. Missed ya the first time.”

The old lady gaped like a fish.

She raised her gun and unleashed eight rounds into The Endless’s chest, each wound vanishing instantly.

“You done?” he asked.

The old woman shrieked a moment before The Endless snapped his fingers.

The woman burst into bloody chunks, torn asunder by an invisible…something.

He turned to face the horde of angry southerners.

“There’s the capital. The people who killed and raped your people with impunity. Who treated you like animals because of your lineage.

He opened his mouth.

***Tom Graves & The Endless***

“Kill them all!”

***Tom Graves***

Tom’s body flooded with a cold fury unlike anything he’d ever known.

Carol glanced down at Ellie’s brutalized body in Tom’s arms, and left the room without a word.

Carol was always happy committing violence.

Tom had never seen her angry.

She was angry now.

The ones who killed themselves got off easy.