Nearby the corpse lay his carbine. Scoped and laser-sighted, the carbine possessed a more heavy-caliber chamber than she expected. It was a .338 Lapua Magnum.

The logo on the side read El Paso Lathe - Urban Parameter Defender in English. It repeated in Spanish on the opposite side.

El Paso Lathe, a fine, reliable brand.

The gas block in the carbine's assembly was adjustable. Tasìa took a minute to reset it to make the recoil as forgiving as the assembly would allow.

On the corpse, she recovered three magazine with six rounds in each. A full magazine was chambered.

Finally, satisfied that she could make use of the carbine, she slung the strap over her shoulder.

Now she eyed the fractured skull of the golden-ghoul. With her hands still gloved, Tasìa bent down and spread out the hole of a greasy wound just beneath the corpse's left ear.

It wasn't morbid curiosity that motivated her to do this.

She wanted to know how the ascospore managed to invade the golden-ghoul's mind.

After all, she had witnessed him in the thrall of the Silent Dragon just before the rat-swarm consumed him.

To Tasìa, it was likely those rats played hosts to an invasive species in control of their necrotic bodies. What would be revealed if she sliced one of the rats open?

The indention beneath the ear was inlaid with six evenly grooved ridges forming a tight sphincter. The impression suggested that something with a sucking appendage bore into the corpse's skull for no other purpose than to deliver to her a message.

A message designed to fuck with her head.

Tasìa spat as she recalled the illusion she witnessed in the woods. She muttered a curse in anger at the blatant attempt to manipulate her state of mind and unravel her already compromised emotional well-being.

Here, once more, the ascospore, under God only knew what guidance, attempted to mislead her like a tactical feint in a duel. For what purpose? To recruit her to its side in the greater conflict?

Those last words of the golden-ghoul - all she ever wanted was for her Sweetest Sunshine to know she loved him - gave Tasìa pause as she made a summary of her predicament.

The same hidden intelligence that created the fairy mound illusion also created the rat-swarm.

It was commonly believed there existed little in the way of independent agency in the ascospores.

Thought to be merely the grunts in the Cull Spore invasion no one was even certain how they communicated with one another, much less doing so with the nanospores and AI entities.

What was their purpose?

They were programmed to spread madness in men and to test the laws of nature until they broke.

Theorists and spooks had a term for this latter impetus and its methodology - el densidad.

Though well educated, Tasìa understood little of this aspect of information theory beyond its effects on her life.

Here she was in the middle of a violent struggle between opposing forces using nanospore based bio-warfare.

Unfortunately, they had chosen this spot for their skirmish tonight, but what choice did she have now with this insanity encroaching upon her but to go deeper into the compound?

Though the rooftop gave her the best position to surveille the surrounding brownstones and the interior court, the windows on the second and third stories were her best chance to remain stealthy.

She could not account for the sighting positions where spotters were likely to be on the surrounding rooftops. That meant the rooftop was best avoided, for now.

There had been no movement at all from the cult members except for the one dead ghoul on this side of the complex.

Tasìa climbed up to the third story window ensconced furthest away from the fenced-in lot.

From the crane rail that she had climbed previously, Tasìa acquired a thorough surveille of the upper stories due to there not being much of anything to spot inside them in the first place.

A corridor with paced gas lamps connected by a brassy pipe mounted on the wall ran the entire length of both floors on this, the north side, of the brownstone building.

If someone did chance upon her as she attempted to enter through the windows, she would see the movement of his shadow well before he had a chance to spot her.

She brought with her B&E (breaking and entering) equipment. From her fanny-pack Tasìa grabbed a silvery package containing an incision sponge. Two dozen packs of them came with the medical station she had stolen in the Esconda Vida.

They were used to absorb blood and stabilize the internal organs of open chest cavities, the sponges also suctioned extremely well on glass surfaces.

Only soaking the sponges in ethyl acetate could remove them from glass surfaces.

She found using the sponges to remove glass from windows to be a more effective and inconspicuous means than bringing a plunger along with her. No matter how well she disassembled the plungers their bulk always proved to be inconvenient.

After centering the sponge out on the bottom quadrant of the window surface, Tasìa began to cut.

She did so with some reluctance. She would prefer to enter, snatch and grab, and egress with no one the wiser she was ever there, but there was already a casualty.

Due haste was the operational modus at this point.

It took several engravings on all four sides, in long, even-tempered strokes to weaken the glass sufficiently.

She was careful not to sever the piece entirely.

Tasìa put the diamond cutter back in its sheath and back in the fanny-pack.

With a tight grip on the sponge, Tasìa yanked it towards her. The piece of glass popped out. She caught it by its lengthwise edges.

As she held the glass, Tasìa kept her body in position by firmly planting her knees against the bottom protruding edge beneath the window as her feet remained tightly pressed against the brownstone.

She decided she would stand the glass up against the uncut quadrant. If it fell, it would likely draw attention.

Before she did so, the reflection that she gazed upon defied her eyes. Behind the familiar but shaded outline of her own face, stood a regale woman with thick honied-blonde hair pushed up in a duchess' fold.

Thick lashes dripped teary, her complexion set in sorrow's red. Her eyes curved elegant; cheeks beneath slanted severe. Thoroughly elven.

She held a bundle in her arms. Tasìa could not see what lay within the bundle, but a golden hewed dappled in a crest along the woman's bosom and neck.

The woman spoke to Tasìa.

"He was chosen to save our world, but chance was set against him. It was not to be."

Tears dropped down on the bundle. She vanished.

In a near state of shock, Tasìa dropped the piece of glass.

"Shit," she muttered as she lost her grip.

Her right leg reacted to this by thrusting up. Her slip-on kicked through the glass that remained in the pane.

Tasìa was forced to tumble vertically down and re-establish her grip.

Her newly acquired carbine fell in a twisted tangle back down on to the asphalt.

The piece of glass shattered violently beside the golden-ghoul's corpse.

She heard the heavy tread of boots.

From a mere fifteen yards away, a voice boomed out from just around the corner of the corridor.

"Hector, what's going on? Report in, already, damn it!"

Tasìa scurried up the wall and threw herself to grip the rooftop eaves.

The man's voice boomed once more.

"Get the whole crew over here. Something has happened to Hector!"

Tasìa raised up on her knees. Three of the Hijos Lux guards hastenly scuttled around on the brownstone to her south. It was a floor level higher than the rooftop she now crouched. The guards climbed a mounted ladder down to an annex.

They did not seem to be reacting to her. She jerked her head around, searching for a cover position. Just a yard away, a pair of dead, milky blue eyes slanted down on her.

The ram's head bent in a backward thrust as if it had been electrocuted.