Asrael awoke in a soft, warm, lavish bed. His last memories were of his cold hands struggling to keep Lita away from his-

He looked down to see that he was naked- spread eagle on her lavender bed sheets. He could still smell her in the air, he could still feel her warmth linger around his genitalia and his aching hips, and the taste of her lips still lingered on his tongue. His member hung half-flaccid to the side- seeping its post-ejaculate fluids unto the white duvet- answering the question burning in his mind... ‘what did she do?’.

He jerked upright as he remembered her last acts- her last words... she had invaded his mind and taken control of his body with an intent to sate her strange lust for him. Next to the bed, his clothes lay neatly folded on the floor.

“No-… no, I’ve questions! Wait!” Asrael shouted and quickly rolled from the bed to grab his clothing. His mind still spun with her intrusions, but more so with her pain... He had felt their desecration of her still-living flesh- the tortures they had wrought upon her frail, little body, yet... the warmth lingering on his fingertips- those soft, wet lips... they had felt so real.

As he rushed from the room while donning his coat, he relived her tale with his every, decided step. Her capture, her torment- her Purging. He hadn’t a clue why his mind craved for him to descend the stairs, but Lita’s scent was stronger in the direction that led down to the middle tiers of the silent Garrison. “Where are you? What did you do!?” He shouted as he passed a corner, only to find that the guards stationed along the walls kept their forward gazes- ignoring his presence as he passed by them.

The smiles shining from beneath their raised visors nauseated him- it reminded the necromancer that the bestial men that had tortured and mutilated Lita had done so with smiles of their own. As he continued following the scent, he again found himself trying to understand Lita’s puzzling, cryptic messages and the state in which he had found himself as he awoke. He had most definitively been violated- both in mind and body, but most disturbing was the factum it seemed he had... ejaculated- a bodily function he had imagined impossible. His central nervous system had, up until that point, been the only one of his organs he was fairly certain still performed its function- at least to some degree. This... this changed things.

He came to an abrupt halt as he passed by a side corridor leading to a tall set of heavy, iron doors. On either side; two men stood with their heads against the corners and rhythmically tapped their helmeted foreheads against the stone walls. Judging by the pools of blood beneath their feet, they had been locked in this ritual for some time, but it was the interior of the chamber up the steps from where he stood that truly earned his attention. There, beyond the metal doors, Asrael could see something swirling and purple. Another sniff of the lavender-scented air led him to suspect that the girl had intended to lead him there.

He froze. His confusion aside, this was madness- following after a woman who had, obviously, violated him and he did so to seek answers when she had already proven herself incapable or unwilling to answer any of his questions thus far. Even as he followed his nose up the stairs, he wished to stop and turn around- to think about the events preceding his exploration of the Garrison... but even in the knowing that this journey had been brought on by a forced madness, he was powerless to resist reaching for the door.

It creaked open to reveal... Bartholomew... Asrael raised a questioning eyebrow at his shocked and stupefied associate. The handsome man was lost in his own image- staring into a large, reflective, finely adorned mirror.

The room reeked of blood and as Asrael’s naked feet stepped inside, he could feel that something had, recently, bled on the runes on the walls and floor. None knew the feeling of congealing blood better than Asrael and his crew- they had figuratively been swimming in it for weeks.

“What in the Hells...” Bartholomew appeared disgusted and terrified the same as he continued to look into the mirror- either feigning or genuinely unaware of Asrael’s presence. As much as the necromancer wished to study the runes, he needed to find the girl before she could escape and therefore searched the room, only to verify that he and Bartholomew were alone.

“Where is she? Where is that rapist slave of yours?” But Bartholomew remained silent- staring into the mirror with tremoring lips of terror. His forehead dripped with the same beads of sweat that had soaked his hair and in his right hand, he held a golden sword. But not even the Sargerrei’s long, wide blade could hold the Necromancer’s frustrated hands away. He grabbed hold of the devilishly handsome man’s silver chest plate, but before he could spin him to face him, Asrael caught sight of something moving inside the mirror- something purple writhing around in tendrils of purple gasses.

“As...rael...” The mist spoke. The necromancer dropped his grip on the stumped duelist and left him to glare at the mirror. Asrael took a step back to eye the reflective surface with confusion and doubt.

“Did you hear that?” Asrael questioned his entranced companion but to no avail... His body might’ve been there, but his mind was elsewhere- beyond the mirror.

“He cannot... For His service... he is receiving His Boon- as you have received yours.” The purple smoke’s writhing form spoke with a layered voice- as if thousands of people were whispering atop one another. In that chaos of sounds, he could hear men, women- children. Asrael knew better than to enter into debates with creatures inside furniture, but there was something eerily familiar about that voice- about that purple smoke...

“What do you mean, my boon? What are you!? Are you that same creature that I have seen before?” Asrael jerked back as the smoke began to leak out of the mirror.

“The mark... Asrael... your mark- the boon.” The mark- the missing piece to the thousand-year-old puzzle- the piece that had come to him in a dream... Asrael reached for his abdomen and could feel the coarse cuts in his flesh through the shirt. Had this been his payment? But what for- what had he done to earn this boon? As if the Satyr could hear his mind, it laughed its thousand voices and spoke: “Freed... me...”

From where Asrael stood, it still appeared the creature was trapped in the mirror. “What do you mean, freed you? If you wish to speak to me- tell me what you are! Better yet, speak plainly! I tire of your cryptic speech!” Again... it laughed and churned its smoky tendrils. Before Asrael could strike out at the mirror in anger, a melodious voice spoke its calming, collected music:

“Worry not for his plans, my beloved. They are beyond us- even amongst demons, Azazeel’s is a mind of its own.” Of course, it had to be that disfigurement- that monstrous Satyr... At the mention of its name, he could see the mist congeal into the outline of the purple form of a man in a coat. Asrael turned to see that Lita wore a fresh, white robe- this time, back under her hood. But her smile was warmer- her cheeks far fairer and even smoother.

“I have shown you where I began my pilgrimage. But if you are to understand what is to come, then I must show you what the future holds. You need to see what you will unleash upon this world- what we will let loose on this wretched Empire, so that we may begin anew- elsewhere.” Despite her violation of him- despite having abused his unconscious body, he did not fear her... in fact, looking at the gracious form stroking his cheek filled him with calm, rather than terror. She grabbed his free hand and turned him to look at the mirror, where the purple smoke and the monster had disappeared.

In its stead, Asrael and Lita were watching a familiar City from atop the Tower- a view he knew like the back of his hand. Looking out the quadratic portal of the mirror, he could almost feel the smooth, black stone beneath his feet as they took in the beauty of Capita- together. Its tall, ancient buildings, its dusty streets, and the gusts of pink, floral winds, might as well have been an image stolen from his memories- such was its familiarity.

“It was your home. It was mine, too.” Lita spoke. As if the Satyr played to the unheard tune of her voice, the image shifted to display Yurgen’s naked, still form on the Pyre- seen from the crowds and somehow more lifelike than in Asrael’s nightmares. Details he could not remember- faces locked in open-mouthed screams of unmatched fury, the embers in the winds, and that nauseating stench of cooking flesh.

Asrael could feel his blood boil at the sight of his Master’s writhing, pained form- those melancholic and agonized eyes as his blistered feet oozed fat and fluids onto the fires lapping at his feet. So much had happened since then... where he had once ran, he wished for nothing more than to send his men on those crowds and tear every last one of them apart.

Seeing his Master, he imagined that the old man had been right to call his apprentice a fool and scold him for not paying better attention to the common rabble. This insanity had smoldered beneath his nose, but he had been too busy- too ignorant to have seen it coming... but that night- that dreadful night in the Golden Palace had lit the sparks that ultimately set his Master aflame. Asrael had let loose the terrors that now stalked the night- beasts who would steal away girls and pervert them in every conceivable manner.

No... as much as he would have enjoyed taking the credit for signaling the start of this new era, they were the ones who had started it. He had only been its catalyst- the lamb meant to be the first sacrifice. The horrors he had seen in Lita’s mind all but confirmed that they... were the crazed and bloodthirsty- not him.

“I can feel the power of your rage, Asrael. It is every bit as beautiful as He has told me- as he showed me.” His hand tensed in hers- squeezing at her fingers.

A blink was all it took to shift the landscape inside the mirror to stare back out across the endless city. Countless chimneys puffed smoke into the darkness of the night, lowering a blanket of mist and smoke to cover the city’s many lit streets.

“When our eyes first met, I felt that anger- that pain. We are one and the same...” He wished to enjoy the nostalgic sight of the mirror but dared a glance in her direction to see her smile a benign grin back at him. He grimaced and spat:

“If you were anything like me, you would understand that whatever you are trying to do is futile. I have no interest in you- nor do I harbor any feelings of romance for the other girl. You raping me and violating my mind will do nothing to change that. In fact, I-” She giggled- warmly, and tensed her grip on his hand.

“I know, Asrael... Your heart was never meant to love- it was meant to fuel your fury.” She looked back at the distant horizon above the smoking chimneys. He waited for her to continue, but in the ensuing silence-… he could hear something.

He looked down to see a dozen shapes running through the streets. A flash of thunder momentarily stole away their attention and that... was when the screams began.

Every man, woman, and child in Capita awoke to find the streets squirming with dead, green-eyed men and women- associates and colleagues deprived of what little humanity they might once have claimed to possess. They were like ants- crawling over buildings and disappearing into windows in all their pale, green, inscribed glory. Most were familiar to the necromancer- the turned soldiers and civilians sprinting through the streets to leap onto Capita’s panicking citizens with naught but teeth, nails, and claws. Some, however... some of the beasts were different. Modified far beyond what could be called humanoid- they raged tall in Capita’s skies and trampled homes, people and animals with uncaring brutality.

The tall monstrosities were as polymorphic as they were many- hundreds of them, all throughout the city. Some skinless, some hardly anything but skin, but equally frightening. Most impressive of all was an amalgamation of a thousand writhing bodies, raging far taller than all the others. Thousands of bodies- seamlessly melded into a skinless mass of muscle- all screaming with the agony of having their bodies broken and twisted into the larger form’s shape.

And there- down below, in Capita’s main streets- between the frenzied beasts wreaking havoc on the citizens, he could see a dark form traverse a pathway of torn-apart bodies and dismemberment. He wore a black robe- a magus’ robe, with a hood drawn low over his face... but it was a face Asrael could never forget- one that none would ever forget once this day came to pass. The half-eaten upper lip- those bagged, dead, green eyes and the oversized nose...

Asrael watched Capita burn before his eyes as this army- his army of ancient horrors tore through the city- bathing every brick and plank and pane of glass in rivers of blood.

“You- the destroyer of this world, will end this miserable rule. Together, we can remake humanity in your image as a just and fair race. From its ashes, a new Empire will arise- and you, Asrael, will be at its heart.” Asrael took in the destruction raging before his eyes and looked down at his own body from above. Everything about the illusion radiated power and confidence. His green, swirling eyes, the large nose- that ceaseless, malicious grin. With this power- this army, Asrael would be unstoppable. Capita would be his in less than a day- what was left of her, at least.

People screamed for mercy- the same way he had, the same way Lita had, but just as the magi had pleaded for the Inquisition’s benevolence, he would turn his deaf ears on them.

“Is this my boon? Will this Azazeel give me this power?” Again, Lita giggled and shook her head- waving her white hair about.

“No, Asrael... I am your boon- as you are mine. Azazeel granted me the ability to create life, but on one condition.” He turned away from his own, glorious self to look at the radiant, pale Lita. As she led his hand to her flat stomach, she smiled and rubbed his cheek gently.

“I create it with you.”