Muse stood outside, leaning against Isaac’s ‘personal’ car - a shiny black BMW - and watched Isaac leave the house and shrugged on on his long grey coat with the black trim, and adjusted the collar. The man had an uncommon glint in his eyes. He was... amused.

“What?” She didn't like the look - he was up to something.

“Did I interrupt an awkward moment between Aaron and yourself?”

“No,” Muse said ruefully.

“You are a truly abysmal liar,” Isaac said as he opened got into the car, and she followed suit. Muse reached over for the seat belt out of reflex as they started to drive, then laughed at herself internally and let it go.

“Y’know you don’t always need to be insulting me,” Muse narrowed an eye at him.

“That was not an insult.”

She paused. “Hrmph,” was the best she could come up with.

Isaac was quiet as they drove, tuning the radio to a classical station, keeping it rather dialed down. Finally, he spoke. “You and my brother have become fast friends, it seems.”

“I like him. He’s nice. It's strange, he's like an overgrown kid sometimes,” she said, gazing out the window with no particular interest at anything she was looking at.

“He is quick to attach to others. Sometimes, it is not healthy. But, he was always the likable one of the family.”

Muse looked over at him curiously. “If I didn't know better, I'd say you were jealous." All she got out of him for that was silence. "You two really hate each other, don’t you?”

Isaac kept his focus on the road, pushing his glasses up his nose slightly. “He despises me.” A pause. “He has his reasons.”

“Are they good reasons?”

Isaac took in a deep breath. His reply sounded unusually heavy. “Yes.”

“Do you regret it?”

“Regret what?”

“Whatever it is you did.”

“Mm, my dear, it was not just one thing I did to him. It was many. I regret most but not all.”

“BLARH!” came a loud scream from next to her head.

Muse screamed loudly, thrashing in the seat. She whirled around, seeing Eric leaning over between the seats, laughing hysterically.

"Oh - screw you!"

"The look on your face! Oh, man. That's revenge, woman! That's what you get! Now you know what it feels like!"

Muse realized that Eric wasn't the only one laughing - a high pitched giggle was coming from next to him. Lifting her head, she saw Ezekiel sitting next to him, holding the jar in his lap. He waved excitedly at Muse.

"Oh, hey, Ezekiel."

"Hi! Hi Ghosty! Did the ghost lose her air-guitar?"

Muse didn't even know how to respond to that one.

"Are you pleased with the results of your little prank, Eric?" Isaac interrupted, glancing up at the rearview mirror.

"Yeah." Eric leaned back and snickered. "You got to admit that was hysterical, Muse."

"Wait-" Muse turned and shot a look at Isaac in disbelief. "You were in on that?"

"Hard not to be, what with them being in the back seat of my car."

She paused. They were ganging up on her now. "Lame." Muse tried her best to look bitter. She didn't know what was more entertaining - Eric trying to scare her out of revenge, or Isaac quietly going along with it.

They were in the car for what seemed like forever - they must have driven for hours. Muse was afraid to nod off, as she was worried she’d phase out and find herself alone on a highway somewhere when she woke up. Finally, somewhere around one in the morning, Isaac pulled the black BMW into the parking lot of a building whose sign betrayed it as being a natural history museum.

"Ooo, are we going on a school field trip?" Muse piped sarcastically.

"Field trip! I love field trips! I always get to eat the ticket stubs..." Ezekiel's laugh suddenly faded into a wistful sigh. "They taste like paper."

"I guess they would," Muse commented as they climbed out of the car.

Blast goggles secured over his eyes, Eric had a set of metal briefcases in his hands, wasting no time as he walked off into the darkness. He wound around the side of the building and disappeared.

"Where's he going?" she asked Isaac.

"To disable the security system and provide us with any advanced warning should we need it," Isaac pulled his coat closed as a chill wind swirled the dark fabric around him. The night was grey and drizzly, painted an unnatural sickly orange by the street lamps dotting the road.

Ezekiel planted Mr. Blinky firmly onto the back seat of the BMW. "Stay, Mr. Blinky. Don't wander off. It won't be safe in there for you! I know you want to come, but you can't... No, you can't do that either! ... Fine, yes, listen to the radio."

Isaac was walking from the car towards the front of the building, having almost made it the whole distance to the doors while she had been distracted by Ezekiel's 'conversation.' Muse jogged to catch up. "Right... so why are we here again?"

"To retrieve an item of interest."

"You said that. What is it? Why?"

Isaac turned his head to her for a moment, as if debating whether or not to tell her. He walked up to the glass door but didn't attempt to open them, folding his hands behind his back, waiting patiently for some kind of sign. "Very well. I see no harm in telling you. I lost someone of importance. I seek to retrieve them. In order to do so, I need a relic from inside."

"You lost someone. Lost, as in like, misplaced or-" she stopped at the look from Isaac. "Oh." Muse fell silent as they waited. “Oh...” There was a loud click, and Isaac pushed the door open. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry."

"It is appreciated," Isaac replied quietly as they pushed through the second set of doors into the main room of the marble-floored museum. His wing-tip shoes made echoing clips on the polished floor as he walked and peered up thoughtfully at a large dinosaur skeleton in the center of the room.

The displays and statues that dotted the walls cast strange shadows in the dim glow from exit signs and the spare security lights. The shadows looked almost like monsters, the figures of various statues and skeletons looking like twisted childhood nightmares on the marble. Muse stood just barely inside, looking up at the vaulted ceiling and the second story balcony that stretched overhead.

Shuffling in after them, Ezekiel made an 'ooo' noise and started to stray off to the right. Muse quickly grabbed the back of his shirt, tugging him back to her. Muse looked over at Isaac again. "Why'd we bring Zeek?" Not that she minded, but it was a rare thing to bring Ezekiel out and about.

"I need him to identify the correct statue. Come, I need to locate the Egyptian section."

They walked from room to room of the sizable museum, Muse holding onto Ezekiel's hand, tugging him along as he babbled incoherently about bacon, footstools, and footstools made out of bacon. Isaac pulled up short suddenly and Muse nearly bumped into him.

She put her hand over her eyes as a bright light shone on them. Finally squinting past it, she saw that it was a man holding a flashlight just in front of them in the corridor.

"Owww! The sun is too bright!" Ezekiel whimpered.

"Freeze! I don't know who you are, but you're trespassing," came a male voice that did its best to sound official. Focusing past the light, she saw that a man with every sign of ‘security guard’ was pointing a gun at them. She wanted to ask when museum guards got guns, but she never got the chance.

"I would suggest you leave." Isaac began taking slow steps towards the guard, unconcerned by the weapon pointed at him.

"I said freeze, buddy."

Isaac took his glasses off of his nose, folded them up and neatly tucked them into his coat. "I will not give you another chance. Leave now," his footfalls echoed against the walls with the same measured pace.

"I'll shoot, man!"

"I would think not." Isaac suddenly moved - Muse had never seen him go that fast. Both Muse and Ezekiel ducked reflexively as the guard's gun went off, the bullet pinging off of the wall behind them. Isaac grabbed the guard’s arm and wrenched, the gun skittering across the floor under a display of a taxidermy bear. Dragging the man to his knees, Isaac stood over him, the guard's arm wrenched behind his back.

Whimpering, the man stammered. "Please, please man - don't - don't - I've got a wife - I-"

"You had your chance," Isaac said cooly.

Muse knew she would spend years attempting to drag the image she was about to see out of her mind and had a sinking suspicion she'd never succeed.

Isaac placed his palm flat against the man's forehead. Smoke began to curl off of the man's flesh, curling into the air in slow wisps as he screamed. Suddenly, the man's skin caught fire, flames curling up around him. Incinerating, he let out a shriek of pure fear and agony - yet seemed unable to move as his flesh blackened and charred, flaking loose and falling away. His flesh had turned the same color and texture of burned remains on the bottom of an oven. The man’s mouth finally locked open in a silent scream as all sound was taken away. Muscles shriveling and crisping, fire leaped from his mouth and burst through his empty eye sockets. It must have only taken seconds, but to Muse, it felt like forever as the man was reduced to barely anything more than a pile of ash and a few blackened bones.

If she could have vomited, she would have.

Ezekiel let out a trembling sigh. "Roasty toasty... someone's gonna need a dustpan... dustpan, dustpan..."

Isaac brushed the soot off of his hand and wiped it clean on his handkerchief before retrieving his glasses. Looking back at the horrified Muse, his expression never changed.

"You forget who I am." He turned and stepped over the mess further into the museum. "Come."

Ezekiel was the one now dragging Muse along as she forced her eyes away from the pile of ash and the remains of a skull staring up at her. She hugged Ezekiel's arm to her, needing to hold onto something.

"S'okay..." Ezekiel said quietly to her and hugged her arm back. "It was scary, I know... But s'okay."

"How is it okay?" Muse finally managed to drag out of her throat.

"I dunno,” he paused. “Hugs make everything better." Ezekiel threw his arms around her and hugged her tightly. "Ooh, hey! Hey! Shiny!" Ezekiel tore into the darkness suddenly, running down a hallway.

Isaac adjusted his direction, following the chubby little man. For some reason, this time Isaac seemed to trust Ezekiel's guidance. Muse didn't want to walk near him, but sadly realized she had no other choice. She stayed a good distance away, her arms wrapped around herself.

"I have taken many lives in my time, Muse. Most suffered worse fates than he. I know this troubles you, but you will have to adjust. If you wish to bring this up to me at another time, we can discuss it then." There almost seemed to be a tight look of pain on his face, but Muse blamed it on the shadows.

"Right."

She suddenly found herself surrounded by large statues of humans with animal heads, glass cases with beaded jewelry, and ancient pottery. She looked up at the statue of a man with a dog's head, carrying an ankh in one hand. Anubis, she recognized. She wasn't a goth from the 80's without knowing her share of Egyptian mythos. Horus, Ra, Sekhmet, and Thoth had matching statues - scattered amongst the displays.

"Which is it, Ezekiel?" Isaac asked, his soft voice carrying easily in the large room.

The chubby little man was pacing from one statue to another, scratching the back of his neck with one hand. "Anubis, Sekhmet, Thoth, Ra. Anubis-Sekhmet-Thoth-Ra. Anuhkmethothra." Ezekiel giggled and waved his hands frantically up at one of the statues. "No, Roger, no! Don't eat that!"

Isaac looked up thoughtfully at the large dog-headed statue. "Ezekiel, is it Anubis?

"Hee, yeaaah... Yeah, it could, could be. Only, only no, 'cause it's not. Not - because - because Anubis guards the gate to the dead, only guards it. Doesn't like... he takes them there, he's not about bringing them back..." Ezekiel stopped in front of the statue of Ra. "Birdy. Birdy makes the sun rise. Sun rises," he croaked as he threw his arms around the legs of the statue. "Cuddly bird!"

"Can you sense which it is?"

Muse took a few steps back and propped herself up against a glass case. Looking down at whatever she was leaning on, she was staring into the dried and shrunken features of a mummy. The sight of its decay and watching the man die in the hallway made her mind wander to an uncomfortable place. She thought of her own body, lying somewhere in a moldy coffin. Rotted, gooey. Again, she would vomit if she could. Hating the thought and unable to look at the body any longer, she pushed herself away and walked out of the room, not caring what Isaac and Ezekiel were up to. She needed space. She tried to wrest her thought process away from the image of herself lying somewhere in a coffin, decomposed.

Walking past displays of minerals and rocks, she shoved her hands into her pockets. Her feet made almost no noise on the stone as she wound her way around a corner. This room had glass panes lining each wall, behind which she could see taxidermy animals in their poorly painted attempts at a display of their 'natural habitat.' A moose, a bear, a few swans and geese, even a few African animals she thought she might know the names of, although she'd mostly be guessing.

Flopping down onto a bench, she put her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands. She wished Victor were here. He'd cheer her up, he seemed to be good at that.

The barest flicker of blue caught her attention down another corridor. Standing up, she focused her attention, staring intently into the darkness to see what had moved. She saw nothing. Deciding she wanted to make sure, she vanished and floated down the hallway.

Another flash of a bluish glow dashed in front of her down another path. That time she knew what she saw. Oooh crap...

Muse turned around and dashed back to the others, pushing herself through the walls into the room where Isaac and Ezekiel were still discussing the statutes.

"He's here! It's here, whatever!" Muse yelled as she took form.

"Oooh no silly, he's not here yet... he won't be here for a while. You gotta meet him first," Ezekiel snickered and kicked at the leg of the statue of Ra.

"Who's 'he'?" Isaac asked calmly.

"That- That freak in the black rags - Azrael, it's-" Muse was cut off suddenly by the sound of gunfire coming from the main chamber, followed by a pained scream. A scream she recognized as Eric's. "Shit!" Muse dissolved and rushed down the corridor through displays and popped into the main room.

Eric was staggering backwards, his right hand holding his left arm. Well, holding onto some of it. His arm stopped just a few inches down from his shoulder, ending in a stump. Muse cried out and took shape next to him, hoping to help stop the bleeding - only to see he wasn't bleeding. He was... sparking. Wires curled out from his arm and a strange orange liquid was dripping from a tube that was jutting out from the tangled metal mess.

Muse couldn't really register what she was looking at as a gigantic broadsword came whizzing at her face. Throwing Eric out of the way, she managed to phase out just in time as the sword passed uselessly through her.

Turning, she found herself facing the impossible for the third time in fifteen minutes. Michael towered over her, the dim light glinting off of his gold and red burnished armor. "You're dead," she squeaked out. "How the hell are you here?! You're supposed to be dead, I saw you fall out of a window!"

"What manner of monstrosity are you?!" the man hollered with the same metallic twinge to his voice inside the helm.

"Well, okay, I guess I shouldn't bitch. Technically, we're both dead..."

"What?!"

"Boo?" She laughed once, nervously.

"Monster!" Michael rounded for a punch, but his fist simply passed through her. His swing threw him off balance, and he staggered through her, visibly convulsing as he felt static shoot through him.

"Muse! Muse! C'mon, we gotta go!" Eric pulled himself up to his feet, pushing off of the ground with his only hand. Muse took form next to him, staring agog at what remained of his arm. "Not now, I'll explain later!"

Eric took off running down the hallway, Muse following close at his heels. She heard Michael’s heavy metallic footfalls following them through the darkness. It didn't sound like he was rushing. He knows he'll catch up, she realized with a sinking feeling.

Staggering into the room containing the statues, Muse looked around and barely registered what was going on in the chaos. The statue of Ra was laying on the ground in rubble, the chest cavity of the stone having been broken to pieces. Isaac stood with his hand out, glaring down Azrael, who was pacing back and forth at the edge of Isaac's invisible wall. Ezekiel was cowering behind Isaac, hunched over with his hands covering his ears.

"Eric, leave through the fire exit and get the car if you would."

Without any hesitation, Eric ran towards the fire exit that glowed from the corner and pushed the door open. He was quickly greeted by a hail of bullets. With a shriek, he ducked and slammed the door. Ducking to the side against the wall, he flinched away as another rain of bullets began punching holes through the metal of the door. "Uriel!" Eric yelled.

"Three of them, now? God damn it!" Isaac snarled. "Muse, you need to help Eric and Ezekiel get out of here."

"How?!"

"Do something!" he snapped at her. "Now is not the time to debate the value of violence!" Isaac let out a low growl as Azrael jumped at the wall again, causing it to spark and crackle as he flew backwards, repelled by the energy.

Muse yelped as Michael burst into the room, shoving past her and charging straight for Isaac. Muse phased out and appeared between them, not sure what else to do. She only managed to trip him up, crashing him to the ground in a tangle of limbs and metal. "Hey tin-can," she piped from underneath him.

"Get away from me!" the armored man shouted, pushing her violently as he pulled himself to his feet.

Disappearing instead of taking the time to stand up, Muse realized she didn't know where Ezekiel and Eric had gone. Unfortunately, the answer was quick in coming. Shouts echoed from down the hallway, followed by more gunfire.

Isaac stood in the center of the room, fending of Azrael with his wall, and hurling what looked like small black globes of fire at Michael, knocking him back. "Go!" he shouted. He wasn't looking at her, but she knew the order was for her. This time, she didn't complain.

Rushing down the hallway, she found herself in the same taxidermy display room as before. Broken glass littered the floor and she could see Eric's legs sticking out from the swan display. Oh lord, she hoped he was alive. Ezekiel was cowering in a corner, his arms over his head, making a quiet pitiful wailing noise.

A stocky man stood in front of him, green chain mail covering his chest, fishing bullets out of a pouch that was sewn straight to black leather pants. Most notable about the man were a set of large revolvers he had just finished reloading. Clicking the drums back in line with the barrels, he pointed them directly at Ezekiel.

"I am the Archangel of Mercy. These are your last rites."

"No!" Muse shoved the man hard at the last second, sending him reeling to the side. The man turned and faced her, firing off both guns. She looked down and saw a small pattern of holes clustered around her heart. “Good aim...?” The bullets had gone straight through her - she hadn't been able to stop them. If he fired at Ezekiel again, she couldn't keep the bullets from getting to him, no matter if she got in between. "Don't shoot him, man, he's harmless!"

The man narrowed his eyes at her. "What are you?!

"Whatever. What're you doing, picking on Ezekiel?! He wouldn’t hurt a fly!”

"God has judged him, so he will die. If my bullets do no good on you, then I will make sure he at least pays his dues." The man, who she only could assume was Uriel, aimed both guns back at Ezekiel.

Muse's mind raced. Eric was unmoving, maybe dead. Ezekiel was crying. The hideous noises and flashing lights from the other room made it clear that Isaac was still otherwise occupied. Muse had a choice. Either she hurt this man, or he'd kill Zeek.

As he clicked the hammers back, the choice was made for her. She acted on instinct, acted out of need.

Muse disappeared and rushed at the man. Taking form at the last second, her body collided into his. The unnatural inertia of the action knocked him flying back through the air like he had been hit by a car. He crashed through the glass and into another display, toppling over the stuffed corpse of a reindeer. Muse dissipated again and appeared over him as he rolled over, grunting and spitting out blood and what was probably a chunk of glass. “I’m sorry,” she muttered. He looked up just in time to see her fist come down on his head.

The man lay there limp but breathing. Muse pulled in a shuddering breath and backed away.

"Damn Uriel..." Eric murmured from behind her, rubbing the back of his head.

Muse threw her arms around him, relieved. "Thank God you're alive!" She was quickly reminded of the fact that while he was alive, he was missing a limb. "I don't know what the hell's wrong with your arm, but at least you're alive."

"For now," cut in another strained voice. Looking up, Muse saw Isaac stagger into the room, bleeding - and bleeding heavily. A section of his right shoulder had been cleaved through, the wound going past his collarbone and several inches into his chest. Blood stained his grey shirt dark black, sticking it to his skin. He left small bloody imprints on the stone every time he took a step forward.

Muse had never seen him wounded. It scared her, and she wasn't really sure why. "Isaac - are you?"

Isaac stopped walking, and swayed on his feet, his eyes straight ahead but without focusing on anything. "Troublesome." His eyes rolled into the back of his head as his knees gave out from underneath him. Without knowing what she was doing, she suddenly found herself in front of him, catching his weight. She heard the noise of heavy metal boots following through the darkness.

"It’s time to go! " Eric yelled.

Muse started to drag the semi-conscious body of Isaac through the room, followed closely by Ezekiel, but they weren't moving fast enough. "This is stupid. Sorry, Isaac, this isn't exactly-" Using her unnatural strength, Muse threw Isaac over her shoulder fireman style, holding onto his legs. He was so much bigger than her, it was awkward as hell but better than dragging him. "-dignified, but you're going to have to put up with it."

Eric looked behind them as Michael was rounding the corner, the dim light shining off of the steel and burnished gold of his armor. The gold cross on his helm almost looked like it was glowing in the darkness. Pulling a small round object out of his pocket, Eric lobbed it with his only hand at the soldier. The ball clattered and rolled across the floor, letting out a series of beeps. "Go, go, go!" Eric frantically urged.

They burst out through the door of another fire escape as the explosion rocked the building. The force of the blast knocked them forward. Muse only barely managed to keep her footing with Isaac over her shoulder, but Ezekiel and Eric weren't so lucky. Scrambling up, they made their way as fast as possible to the car.

Flames were curling out of the windows of the museum as Muse was trying to speedily, yet carefully, put Isaac into the back seat. The sorcerer was passing in and out of awareness as he slumped into the back of his BMW. Eric climbed into the driver's seat, Muse in the front. Ezekiel sat curled in the other corner of the car, frantically petting Mr. Blinky and rocking back and forth, muttering unintelligibly.

"Eric, you only have one arm, how're you going to drive?!" Muse cried at him.

"I only drive with one hand anyway, woman1! Eric turned the car over and looked back up in time to see the figure of an armored man storm out through the glass doors and stride across the lawn at them, broadsword in hand, only a silhouette against the fire behind. "Oh, fuck me, really?!" Eric jammed the car into reverse and peeled out of there as fast as he could.

Muse sat in silence for a long time, in shock over what had just happened. She heard a low pained moan from behind them, the moan turned into something that sounded like a cross between a howl of rage and a sob.

Twisting around to look back at Isaac, she saw him slumped with his head lying limply against the back dash. It seemed that the bleeding was already slowing down, but he had lost far, far too much blood already.

She thought it was Ezekiel who had made the noise, but no - it had been Isaac that made the weird noise, as he made it again, wailing at the roof of his car.

"Isaac... Isaac you alright...?"

"Mmmh..." was all he could muster at the moment. He lifted his head weakly, bleary-eyed. His face suddenly contorted in pain. "He has it... God damn him!" he roared suddenly, thrashing violently in the seat. Muse recoiled and Ezekiel quickly stopped his muttering, ending in a frightened whimper.

Isaac stopped thrashing, collapsing his head back against the seat again. "Es war von Anfang an eine Lüge...Eine Fälschung. Sie fertigten eine Fälschung. Aber wie, woher konnten sie das wissen?!" he slurred out.

"He's messed up," Eric said to her under his breath, fear tugging at his voice.

Isaac looked delirious. It scared her. He seemed always in control. Was he going to die? "Isaac, you've lost a lot of blood. Just try to relax..." Muse pleaded.

"Sie verstecken, was ich brauche - sie halten sie von mir. Sie verstecken es vor mir - versuchen mich davon fern zu halten- Wie können sie es wagen? Ich nehme sein Schwert und ich werde ihn darauf aufspießen dafür, dass-" he broke off in another sob.

"What the - is that German?"

"Yeah, I think he's from there." Eric did his best to keep driving and remain focused on the road and not the man thrashing in the back seat.

"Hey, Isaac-" Muse waved her hand in front of his face, trying to snap the man out of his ranting.

“Wir hatten eine Abmachung!!”

"Isaac!"

"Was?!" he snapped in reply, blearily glaring at her.

"Are you alright in there?"

"Wir hatten ein Abmachung und sie haben mich reingelegt! Dafür werde ich sie leiden lassen..." Isaac broke off in another growling sob, pounding his good fist into the seat in front of him, causing Muse to pull back further. "Arschlöcher!"

"Did... he just say what I think he said?"

"Probably."

Suddenly snapping out of his violent spell like someone had hit a switch, Isaac laid his back against the headrest. Muse then heard the noise she would have least expected from him. He started laughing. No, it was worse than that. He was giggling. Muse was convinced at this point that the man had not only almost been cleaved in half, but hit his head at the same time.

"Isaac?" Muse asked nervously as his laughter dissipated into quiet chuckling.

"Yes, Muse?" he slurred out.

At least he was speaking English, though his voice had a strange feverish twinge. The last thing she wanted to do was get the man going again, but she had to know. "What's so funny..?"

Isaac started to snort out another laugh, lifting his head to squint down at his blood-stained shirt.

"I'm bleeding on the upholstery."