The thundering stops and is replaced by a silence more deafening. Smoke rises from where the great beast's hooves rest on the ground.

Made for motion and not for posing, it shifts its weight impatiently from leg to leg. The wizard is astride him, frowning, and a minion clasps tightly to maintain balance.

He frowns at me. They both do.

"Where do you want to start?" I ask.

"I fear I'm busy at the moment."

I raise my hand and a blinding sliver of light appears. Out of the sliver steps a demon. Not a very imposing looking demon. Not even a very demony looking demon, appearing rather like a slightly too-slender bald man with eyes slightly too large. If not for the fangs, forked tongue, and demonic tattoos, it could easily pass for a human.

The demon draws two hilts from it's belt and they grow blades so dark that the light simply collaspes around them. It advances towards the warrior, limbs flowing as if the bones were liquid.

"Have fun warrior." I will the stead foward and the landscape accelerates to a blur. I am too close to waste time with any more distractions.

The balance needed to be tilted towards the dark, but the wizard refuses my help.

As blade meets blade meets blade, the part of my brain unconcerned with fighting for my life pokes at the fabric of Blood to see how it shifts.

The demon's swords spin and crash towards me again. It's taut. I duck one and block the other, grimacing as the shock reverberates up my arm. But how taut? I dart aside, spin behind, and slide a blade between his ribs. Maybe the wizard can win on his own. The demon's not hurt, but being impaled is what's important -- now I can slice its head off from behind.

There's a pop, a sizzle, and an extremely noxious spell as the body falls apart around my longer blade.

Well, if I'm not going to aid evil, the least I can do is have a really long hot shower.

The wolf looks up at me.

"What? You heard him!"

"No, no he can't do it on his own. But I don't have to care precisely exactly right now, do I? Thank you."

Jasmine, I'm thinking.

I've been in possession of this place for about a month now. A three-storey house in the Georgian style (though it's apparently called al-Nahr'eysh -- it's not far from the border with the Medina), it presents an image of having reached some state of quiet equilibrium, and so has lost the need to keep pace with the changing world. The large first-floor windows welcome light and air into the house, while the smaller windows of the second floor allow me to watch some of the goings-on in the neighbourhood with a modicum of privacy. They also provide an uninterrupted view of the grounds attached to this property.

These are substantial. Dalrymple experienced its heyday when it was the centre of Sang Sacre's gay community. Since then it's struggled to find a new identity, and so the housing here is surprisingly affordable given its location. Al-Nahr'eysh used to be two separate residences, each fairly large in its own right. Yet it's located at the end of a cul-de-sac; for all its size the street frontage is no wider than that of a row house. It's roughly triangular, with the front gate at the apex. At the far end there's some river-frontage, and a stream cuts one corner of the property away from the rest. From the top floor the back yard would be about as large as a small park; but from ground level this isn't apparent. Hedges and birch-stick fencework has turned the better part of it into a maze of paths overgrown with flowering creepers, winding between numerous distinct sections. It's hard to tell just what the previous owner hoped to achieve; it has a slightly unfinished feel to it. But it's perfect for my purposes.

I've been busy with the gardens especially; most of my belongings remain packed in crates inside the house. They can wait; but with the delivery coming today, the grounds need to be ready. More than I could do on my own, of course.

Took a crew of four the better part of a fortnight to get it all in place. Good workers too, didn't ask too many questions; though they clearly thought one or two of the gardens were ill-advised, at best. People, I find, have an instinctive sense of balance. Even if they can't quite articulate it, imbalance makes them feel ill-at-ease. Apparent imbalance, I should say. It can be so hard to see the big picture sometimes.

In any case, I'm grateful for Sang Sacre's accommodating climate; there aren't many places such a diversity of vegetation could be expected to take root. Granted, they would only need to hold out for a week or so. The weather here won't be such a concern thereafter.

I can hardly wait.

Ugh. If the ad execs who first said "There's always room for Jell-O" were here, I'd grind them into gelatin.

"Is that the last of them?" Penny asks as one of the Insta-Golems peels a strawberry-flavored rib cage (complete with imbedded bananas) from the door of Miracleman's apartment.

I try to answer but belch instead. I think the skeletons are still fighting me. Lucky I have a stone stomach.

Zar scratches at Miracleman's door.

When I surface again from the strange world in which my dreams are mixed with those of the house, I can feel that the Balance is swaying madly. Carefully (my head still aches a little) I sit up, and observe the measuring implements on the table. The minature scales appear to be dancing the conga.

By Eris. We're in trouble.

With embedded pear-and-banana slices.

"It's done boss."

I look over the work that Deimos has finished. It looks good, all the symbols appear to be in the correct place. "Good work. Let's get this done before we have any more distractions."

"Ya know boss, I don't think that last warrior meant to attack us."

"I don't pay you to think." Nonetheless, I decide to send a shade to talk with the warrior after I finish here. It never hurts to take some help when someone offers it. You can always betray them latter.

"You don't pay me at all."

"It's just an expression. Unicorn horn." Deimos hands me the horn and I plunge it into my urn. The horn turns a deep red as expected. I take the horn and impale the earth at the center of the symbols my minion has laid out for me. The earth trembles in pain from the wound and a wave of darkness explodes outward, chilling my bones as it passes through me.

Deimos shivers. "What was that?"

"A rather interesting side effect that one gets from using a Unicorn horn to make the wound." I go over to a chest and pull out a speical mirror while the earth continues to crack at give way under the symbols. I show the dark surface of the mirror that still shows my reflection.

"Why does your reflection have leather pants and a goatee?" Asks my minion.

"The wave will darken all the mirrors in the city like this. Afterwards they will only reflect the darkest and most evil elements of one's soul. The best part is that with an ordinary mirror, the reflection will step out of the mirror when the reflectee looks away. Soon this city will be much more to my liking."

Deimos looks back to where the hole in the earth continue to grow. A reddish light emerges from beneath. "So what't the primary effect boss?"

"Evil 101 my slow witted friend, a gateway to hell. Now I can summon more nasty things to throw at my foe. Starting with that." I point to where a demon is riding up an escalator that has appeared in the hole.

The demon gets off of the escalator and dusts some brimstone flakes from it's pen-striped suit. "So who's the target?" It asks.

"Miracleman."

"Ah." The demon walks over to a table and sets down it's briefcase. From inside the case, it removes a thick file folder.

I examine the lovely briefcase. "Is this real human skin? It feels alive."

"Yes, and it is." Says the demon while shuffling through the file. "I think we have plenty of grounds for litigation. Look at this, just yesterday he performed an unlicensed transmutation to a trademarked product."

"Excellent."

The demon puts the file folder back into the briefcase. "I'll pay this Miracleman a visit immediately."

"Do you think that'll do it boss?" Asks my minion as the demon lawyer leaves on it's task.

"There's nothing he can do Deimos. Strike down one, and another will litigate in it's place. Hell has no shortage of those beasts."

Some more demons come up the escalator. They are wearing hard hats and are carrying rolled up blueprints.

"More guests Deimos. Go fetch some more chairs."

I hear a scratching at my door. Looking through the peephole, I see Penny B., three or four of her Instagolems (tm) and...a big...stone giant or something. And a ghostly dog.

Well. Okay.

I open the door. "Thank you. I wasn't sure how I was going to get the stains off the sidewalk. An innovative and neat solu--"

"Excuse me! Miracleman?"

I look past Penny B. and the stone giant. A weaselly little man in a dark suit and a pinched expression is sidling up the walkway. He bears a light-toned briefcase and is waving...official looking papers.

"Gods!" I exclaim. "Inside, quickly! The dog, too!"

As Penny B., the stone man and the spectral hound rush past me, I summon my staff to my hand and wield it threateningly.

"My client..." begins the demon, but I cut him off.

"You cannot pass!" I bellow. "I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the flame of Anor. You cannot pass. The dark fire will not avail you, litigator of Udun. Go back to the Shadow! I am represented by Herville, Montoby and Pratt, Attorneys at Law! YOU! CANNOT! PASS!"

I slam my staff down on the porch-step and it flares with an unearthly blue light. The lawyer-demon blinks and steps back. Then, with a set expression of determination, he steps forward again.

The porch crumbles beneath him, and he falls into the Abyss below. I turn to go in.

Just as I'm shutting the door, however, a blue folded piece of paper flies over my shoulder and lands in my hand.

"Damn."

"What is it?" Penny B. asks.

"A summons."

The porch crumbles beneath him, and he falls into the Abyss below.

Quite an image. Cat-In-The-Hat mixed with Lord-of-the-Rings. Brain!

Yes boss?

Shut up about 'Not in a pit, not in the air."

t new greeting on answering machine

"I know I'm supposed to be out fighting evil right now, but someone quite correctly reminded me that, for all the neat toys I have, I'm still at heart a porn writer, not a warrior. Then he demanded to be punished again for interfering in my destiny. Leave a message at the beep."