Pride Goeth Before the Fall.

[x-farouk.livejournal.com]

Wanda and Amanda catch up with Farouk and meet his new posse.



Clarity had come as a byproduct of the concussion. Or perhaps the drugs.

Farouk kept his eyes closed and tried out a mental probe, biting his
cheek as the painful feedback hit him in a backwash. No, that path was
closed apparently. Well, it made sense.

Amahl fought the desire to laugh out as he slowly regained his
memories of the past 24 hours and took the depressing stock of his
surroundings. The act of opening his eye was perforce a careful
operation, fraught with fits of dizziness and nausea.

A cave.

But at least he wasn't chained to the wall. That would have been
almost unbearably clichéd.

Not that the physical restraints were
strictly necessary. Whatever it was that McNee fed him, it seemed to
have done the trick of making him completely useless.

Apart from his mind. That seemed to have been cleared of all the dross
by the drugs. Or possibly by the blow to the head he dimly remembered
receiving after he regained consciousness the first time - apparently
at an inopportune moment.

Whatever the paradoxical reason, he hasn't felt this centered and
clear-headed in months. And the clarity made his behavior throughout these same months seems
that much more idiotic.

He should have continued with his tried and true methods.

Really, he deserved this. He'd been behaving like a complete, rank
amateur ever since Pakistan. Letting Trotsky's demise fester and
indulging himself in other pettiness. Letting emotions overrule the
basic tradecraft protocols. The very fact that he decided to play
field man, and without back-up no less...

He should have stuck with Sefton - her conceit and secretiveness
notwithstanding. He should have ignored the well-meaning morons around
her who kept treating him as a crypto child-molester or a stalker. It
wasn't as if he was surprised. The situation had been obvious from his
first conversation with Kane.

Xavier's people operated under the assumption of world's debt to them.
His help was taken gladly, in fact it was assumed. But reciprocity was
always qualified - if it was ever forthcoming at all.

Patience.

It always gave results in the end. Drop by drop, reluctantly - but he
was leeching knowledge from Sefton. Little by little - but he was
getting the glimpses of the world beneath the world.

He should have waited. But than the time *was* short. And the
temptation was great. To actually have the ability for magery spliced
into his DNA. Even now he wasn't sure he could have passed the offer
up.

But he should have been prepared. He should have followed the rules.

But... Esteban's death broke something.

Some basic, ingrained patience module seemed to have given way inside
of him, and he simply ceased to be able to smile and bear it.

Amahl had seen it in himself, had caught himself time and time again
as if a passenger in his own body - unable to stop. Unwilling to keep
up the mask. What he used to say in the safety of his own mind, behind
a polite smile - now tumbled freely off his lips - just for the
pleasure of sneering into Dayspring's face.

He should have recognized the signs and brought himself to heel. But
he didn't. And the inevitable end of the same puerile road was here.

In a cave.

Drugged and mildly concussed.

Typical.

He shook his head and immediately regretted it as the migraine spiked.

"Welcome back, Doctor Farouk. How's the head?" Ian McNee walked into
Farouk's field of vision, robed, cowled and carrying a large fabric
parcel that bulged suspiciously in several different directions. "I'm
afraid I hit you a little harder than I wanted. I've never done that
before. And you have a hard head." He unwrapped the fabric onto a low
flat rock and separated the items in it into two piles, one that was
obviously a collection of magical artifacts - the gilt and etchings
and pieces of bone and ivory and vari-coloured tanned hides would've
given it away. If the sick orange and amber glow hadn't.

The other he put into a pile on the ground, except for a bottle of
water. "Thirsty?" He said, apparently to Farouk. He walked over, set
the plastic bottle down and practically scurried back to the rock.

Amahl quirked an eyebrow at the bottle. "Any surprises this time?" He
kept his voice even and amiable, playing for time - really the only
realistic option available to him at the time, although he was at a
loss as to what opportunities might present themselves. "Last time we
shared a drink, I woke up in a cave."

"Just water." Ian said. "You never asked if there was anything in the
coffee." He continued to sort through his pile of magical objects,
further sorting them into smaller and smaller piles, occasionally
discarding one into the pile on the ground with a muttered 'not good
enough.' comment. "Would it help if I told you I would never hit you
on the head again?"

It was... technically... true, he thought. You couldn't hit someone on
the head if they didn't necessarily have one. Or their head didn't
belong to them anymore.

Farouk looked at the bottle consideringly for a second before
shrugging and reaching for it. "I wonder," he said after slaking his
thirst. "if you’d thought the situation completely through."

He genuinely did wonder. His research on McNee suggested that the man was
strictly small time, albeit perennially eaten by overly-great
ambitions. Connected to Powers That Be, but never part of them.

Still he was supposed to be competent. The very fact that he lasted in
his business that long....

Farouk had relied on him to do basic background check on himself as
well, and let that serve as Amahl's shield. Relying on his reputation
too much had obviously been a mistake, it now seemed. Either McNee
didn't bother digging deep enough or he was dumb enough not to care.
Or he had been promised protection.

Amahl glanced at the Scotsman. "It's not too late, Ian. This hasn't
gone far enough yet to be irreparable. And I am willing to be very
generous in renegotiating our deal. And I assure you - whatever you
were promised, you won't be able to hide from my people forever."

"Forever is a very long time, Doctor." Ian answered. "I don't think I
want forever. Just a few years, sixty or so, that should be enough."
Without the curse. Sixty more years -with- it would drive him mad.
"It's amazing how well you can hide when you can lie." He was so sick
of the dancing around the truth, of pushing the truth to the far edge
of what truth was, of having to compose every sentence like a
symphony.

Farouk considered pointing out that he had no problem with lying and
did so regularly and with great enthusiasm - yet here he was.

In a cave. With a concussion.

He was also briefly tempted to raise the question of McNee's career
which was based primarily on the very curse he apparently hated. But
that would have been pointless. The slightly fixated, glassy look that
entered the other man's eyes when he spoke of ending the curse told
Amahl everything he needed to know.

There would be no walking back the situation from this side. If there
was room for some sort of move it would emerge from McNee's boss.

The walls rattled distracting Amahl for a second, as the metro train
thundered past, the subway's proximity to the catacombs such that the
cave seemed in danger of collapsing for a while. It took Farouk a
moment to realize, when the sound of the train had faded, that the
disorientation he was feeling, the trembling walls, the rippling air
and bitter nausea rising in the back of his throat were not the
effects of the drugs, of the concussion or of the noisy Parisian
underground.

McNee's client had arrived, completely spoiling Farouk's day.

Amahl gasped, the stench which he felt rather than smelled hitting him
like a fist. Farouk blinked rapidly trying to clear the tears and
forced himself to stop when he finally realized that his eyes weren't
watering. His vision wasn't the problem - it was his mind.

Amahl's psi abilities might have been curtailed by the drugs, or the
spell - but he was still a telepath, his awareness of the universe and
himself fundamentally different, still one of those few who had lived
in constant contact with their mind, walked through the world using
immeasurably more senses and instincts than most people.

And sitting there, with his back against the dump cave wall, his body
sluggish and his mind shackled Farouk still knew without a moment's
doubt that whatever the creature before him was it was alien. Too
alien for this world, too alien for his mind to perceive it without
breaking.

The acrid taste of vomit scratched his throat and he swallowed
convulsively, summoning all of his self-control to make his turn
toward McNee slow and measured. "His Grace, the Lord Shagroth, I
presume?"

"Something like that." The creature's name was barely pronounceable
and Ian didn't feel like biting his tongue again trying until he
had to. He wasn't into pain, or blood. If he had been, well,
things would've ended differently a long time ago.

"Sorry about this, Doctor. I really am." And he was, sort of. That he
had to give up what would've likely been a perfectly good regular
client that he could've fleeced for years, that he was entirely sorry
about.

But there were some things - very few things, but some, that were
more important than money. Like not being stuck with this damnable
curse for the rest of his life! The doctor was more valuable as a
resource, as a bargaining chip than he was as a potential source of
income.

"Not half as sorry as I am." Farouk said with odd calmness. "Or as
sorry as you will be."

The creature that was not Shagroth perceived the surroundings.
It was difficult.

Even in this cave, which has been suffused with the essence of
creature's own dimension, his very existence was one of steady and
unrelenting pain. The weight of this world, its ultimate strangeness
was an inescapable weight, a constant almost unbearable pressure.
Every element within and without seemed to want nothing but expulsion
of the creature.

But it had nowhere to go and so it fought.

Not-Shagroth settled itself, willing the hurt away and
perceiving the scramblings of his tool. Its third one.

It took months after the transition for Not-Shagroth to understand the
situation. It had managed to attract several likely servants into the
catacombs and they all died. A rust-colored spot on the wall next to
the Two-Souls was still visible - the mage, whose strength blazed like
a little sun had simply stared at Not-Shagroth for several seconds,
before quite calmly blowing his brains out with a fire-spell.

The second one lasted longer, but wept out most of her blood upon
hearing the creature's voice .

It augured well for the future. This world was simply not equipped to
resist what it would soon face. But at the moment, most of creature's
strength was trapped in limiting itself.

And yet even with the safeguards in place Not-Shagroth dared not to
speak to the servant outright, or even to coalesce into its real form.

That made things... problematic.

It had taken precious time to attune the link, and even now - weeks
later - the communication was much too vague and amorphously
subjective. The servant, surprisingly resilient physically and
mentally, was simply too other to instinctually decipher the cues
being streamed to him by the creature.

Yet, with interminable slowness, the things progressed.

Carefully, Not-Shagroth took in the sense of the other man. Remarkable.

Two souls indeed, aflame with mutual hate yet distinctly
separate. And, yet, the sense of it was unmistakable. This was the
author of the creature's passage. The man who weakened the ley-walls
enough for Not-Shagroth to break through.

Yes.

He would do nicely.

***

Amanda's boots splashed into a puddle and she grimaced at the way her
jeans legs got soaked. Tunnels again. Lovely. And no handy Sarah to
lead the way. Instead, she brushed the damp wall again with her
fingertips, concentrating on the object in her other hand, one of
Farouk's cigar stubs. The spell was imperfect, more a matter of Amanda
skimming the surface energy of Paris and 'asking' for directions, but
it had gotten them this far. "This way," she said, leading them down
another off-shoot tunnel.

"There's something else down here," Wanda replied after a moment of
silence. She had one of the those sinking feeling moments; as if you
were standing behind a door and you just knew that once you opened it,
there was bound to be someone - something - else on the other side. "I
could just be paranoid but we have been doing this far too long to end
up wandering down a filthy tunnel to find Farouk doing nothing more
than having a tea party with some friends."

"One of these days Fate's going to fuck with us and it will be
a tea party or something just as harmless." A rat squeaked and ran
past them and Amanda reflexively flinched - memories of Ignatova's
meat spores under New York. "Still, with McNee involved, I doubt
today's the day."

"Horrible creature." It wasn't clear if Wanda was speaking of either
the rat or McNee, though she could have been speaking of both. "I
detest parasites but we seem to keep running into them."

"Going after Farouk doesn't really fit the profile, either. I mean,
yeah, use him as some kind of sacrifice, but why go to all the bother
of dragging him over here when all you need to do is pick up some kid
at the clubs?" Touching the wall again, Amanda encountered something
cold and slimy and resisted the urge to go "ew!" like one of the kids
at the school. "Unless he's worked out there's more to Farouk than
meets the eye, after that whole Shadow King business." Amanda frowned.
"Only, McNee doesn't have that sort of oomph. We're looking at
something along the lines of Cyttorak - Elder God or such." She
paused, thinking it through. "Fuck."

Wanda grimaced in the dim light. "You are not thinking a low level
like McNee has access to something along those lines? Somehow managed
to figure out that Farouk is a bit more than an interested nonmagic
user -" Like herself, to a point. "- and that there's something
interesting inside his head that will interest something else. Like
whatever is awake, or awakening, beneath Paris." She pinched the
bridge of her nose. "I think Farouk is going to owe me a drink."

***

Amahl watched Ian's preparations with a detached interest of an
amateur, sentenced to horrible cannibalistic death.

#You realize that you are going to get eaten, don't you?# Shadow King
inquired silkily. #Or possessed. Or possessed and eaten.#

#Quiet, figment.# Farouk had long since resigned himself to the fact
that no amount of pain was adequate to shut the Shadow up. In some
ways that was a welcome realization. Since punishment was of no
utility in domesticating it, inflicting pain on his own private demon
had become a purely therapeutic pastime.

He suspected occasionally that Xavier or Grey had a faint inkling of
what he was actually doing while ostensibly engaging in meditation,
but they had no proof and as such no recourse. He had certain concerns
about the habit himself, in all honesty - but so far it did not seem
to presage wider propensity toward sadism. His psyche seemed fairly
satisfied with kicking the bloody excrement out of the Shadow on
regular occasions.

#Do you recognize the ritual?# Farouk's other soul asked with
surprisingly open curiosity #It doesn't look like anything the
witch-bitch was showing us.#"

#Me.# Farouk corrected him absently. #And yes it does. At least in
parts - if you look past the frou-frou.#

Shadow King went quiet for a long moment, unwilling to confess
puzzlement or ask for clarification. But it did not take it long to
see the point behind McNee's fumblings.

#... that ugly horror in the corner thing is planning to eat our
souls, isn't it?#

#Looks that way.# Farouk affirmed.

#That is really going to fuck with my dinner plans.# The Shadow King's
alarm was evident behind the bluster and Farouk's lips quirked. As he
patiently breathed in and out, the sphere of his mental probe
extended almost 20 inches now.

Things were looking up.

#Looking up where? Into the complete ass? Do something!#

***

The tunnel had changed, moving from bricks and mortar to bare rock. A
cave system, down here? Amanda shrugged. Paris was old, as old or
older than London, and its roots went deep. There was something else,
a kind of greasy feel to the air that she had a feeling was related to
Wanda's "something else". "I think we're getting close," she murmured
to the older woman, dropping her voice and watching her step - no
point giving away the surprise.

A light tap fell on Amanda's shoulder - a silent indicator to take the
left side of the cave wall that stretched out while Wanda took the
other. She disregarded even the attempt to converse, no matter how
quietly, because 'thinking' they were close suddenly turned into 'yes,
they were'. A normal person's reaction would have been to turn around
and walk out but she was not normally counted amongst those people -
Wanda's instincts were telling her to go forward.

***

"I wish I could say this won't hurt a bit, but ... really, who ever
believes that?" Ian said, voice too loud to carry over what to him
sounded like a herd of cows in the process of being mutilated by
aliens and really he watched way too much late-night cable.
Especially since the last time he'd done this, he was the only one
hearing the cows.

Ian had finally nearly gotten all of the pieces in place - at least,
all of the conduits for the power that this would take. Not his, of
course. Not his artifacts, and not his power. The artifacts had been
purloined over a series of months. He'd had to spend real money on
them, it wasn't like he could easily con someone out of them, or
replace them with unpowered fakes. That would've been a lie, and
therefore - impossible. So he'd had to work through middlemen and
middle-middle-men and lower-middle-men and people that made his flesh
crawl uncomfortably. All the... piercings. In places that ought not
to be pierced!

He placed one last crystal inside the circle, and traced one final
chalk line in what was a complex shape that seemed to twist around
itself and ribbon under the rocks. The spoken aspect of the ritual was
- unsurprisingly - long and guttural and Farouk could soon see the
real reason that Ian had brought the bottles of water. It wasn't
generosity, or a want for his prisoner's last moments to be adequately
hydrated. It was because otherwise he would've coughed out his own
larynx.

"It's moments like this that you treasure," Amahl observed, doing his
best to ignore the increasingly hysterical voice in his head and the
abomination squatting in the corner, as he watched McNee do his best
to vomit out his lungs. "Who would have known that employing a college
dropout to perform high-order metaphysical equations would create
issues?"

Ian spared a moment to spear the Arab with a hateful glare, presumably
irritated at the dropout appellate. Farouk shrugged, "Do you prefer
expellee? Tricky thing - plagiarism, especially when the prevarication
becomes challenging, I suppose..."

"I'm really going to enjoy watching you get digested," McNee croaked
out finally and with utter honesty. He took a big gulp from the water
bottle and grimaced at the taste in his mouth. "Really. It's going to
be a highlight of my year."

"Not for long," Farouk muttered as he unobtrusively collected himself.
It was beginning to look like things were coming to a head.

McNee stared at him quizzically and Amahl bared his teeth in an
expression that could never be mistaken for a smile. "You little putz.
How long do you think that thing is going to allow you to outlive me?"

***

It was as if there was some kind of weird three way draw - the
summoned creature standing before McNee and Farouk, assessing the
situation. It was obvious that the creature, and not the two men,
would be the ones to break the strained silence that had settled over
the room. Obvious but not accurate, perhaps, as a figure erupted from
the darkness at the mouth of the tunnel, sharp red rings chasing
shadows away as Wanda slid to a stop, putting herself firmly between
the monster and Farouk.

***

"He didn't kill me the last two times." Ian said hastily. Gratitude
was worth something, even to extra dimensional Elder God Things. It had
to be. And now he could watch as Not-Shagroth devoured Dr. Farouk,
hopefully in a single gulp because he was not into blood. The last two
times had not been ideal. The red light staining the walls and stone
floor and practically the air itself was a welcome sign that...

"Uh-oh." His attention was brought sharply to the statuesque woman
glaring at him like he'd personally shot her cat - and he'd never done
any such thing. "I'm in trouble."

Ian McNee was many things, and not among those things was an advocate
of regular healthy exercise gotten by running through the fresh air.
Besides, Paris didn't -have- fresh air and neither did most of the
cities in Europe. And regardless of this, it became the single most
important thing on his mind right then. Run. Very fast.

#Oh good,# Shadow King giggled disbelievingly somewhere deep in the
recesses of Amahl's mind. #It's the fucking cavalry. The situation has
just gone from suck to blow. There's going to be no living with them
after this.#

"Shut up," Farouk muttered absently and concentrated, ignoring the
headache and the wetness that could only be blood running over his
lips. There was no time to warn them (Sefton was guaranteed to be here
somewhere) but Amahl dreaded what would happen if the two mutants
decided to resort to magic. The practicalities of sorcery might have
remained beyond him, but he had no problem grasping the basic theory
behind the operating principles. And there was a small but distinct
possibility that combination of the X-Men's magic would react to the
cave and to the creature much like a small anti-matter bomb.

And the creature was stirring. In fact it was moving with lightning
speed, its shell blurring as it reacted to the intrusion allowing
something of its real nature to come through and register somewhere in
Farouk's subconsciousness. Somewhere to the side McNee was flying, his
reflexes quite admirable - the jump taking him well outside the line
of fire in the time that might have qualified him for the Olympics.

But Amahl had no time to worry about the lackey. There was an outside
chance that he had regained just enough strength...

He swallowed dryly dreading the very thought of what he was about to
do and then denying himself more time for hesitation, sent the mental
spike toward the creature, touching what passed for its mind directly.

No time for fancy maneuvers. No room for subtlety. No strength left
for much of a defense.

The black strangeness of the creature's mind gaped in a fanged and
burning embrace and Farouk felt himself dropping into it, forever.

As his legs gave out, he barely had the time to register the beast's
suddenly arrested progress as it squealed in pain and stumbled in its
leap toward Wanda. And then he was falling.

#God, I hope you don't hit our head again...# The Shadow sounded
somewhat calmer. #I don't really fancy spending the rest of my
existence in a retar... Watch the fucking head! Dammit!#

"Bloody festering fuck," came a new voice as Amanda made her
entrance. She'd hung back long enough to get a feel for the magic
involved, check out the circle and the spells used. All of it spelled
'blind luck' in her book - if it hadn't been for the dimensional
weakness caused by the disaster in trying to save Farouk back in
February, she doubted things would have gotten this far.
Unfortunately, there was so much magic in the air already, she wasn't
sure the cave structure could take much more. Still, something had
hurt it, and from the way Farouk had keeled over like a lady in a
Victorian novel, it wasn't hard to guess who had been responsible.
Kicking over Ian's circle, she caught up a piece of discarded pipe and
waded into the fray, dealing the demon a blow to the snout before it
had a chance to get back up again.

Things could go very badly, very quickly, Wanda suddenly realized.
The message from the strings was clear on that – deep, vibrant red as
far as she could sense. Whatever McNee had done it was a shoddy job at best. Combined with
the fact that the creature should not be there and one wrong move
would send the place crashing down on their heads. She bit back on
her instinct to wade into the fight before pivoting about. Farouk
had been sitting up and looking vaguely coherent but now he was
slumped over, face slack, and she dropped down to crouch beside him.

As gently as she could, she tilted his head back so one hand could
slip down and press against his neck – she sighed in relief when she
felt the steady thrum of his heart under her fingers. A flash of red
in the strings distracted her and she twisted around, still supporting
Farouk's weight in her arms.

"Amanda, watch out!"

Amanda was trying to watch out, but it was difficult when your
opponent had the effect of twisting your brain inside out. The effort
of focusing on it was making her eyes water and a slight prickle in
her nose warned of an impending bleed as her brain tried to deal with
What Shouldn't Be.

Or What Wasn't Really - she realized that the demon was only
half-materialized, as her bar punched harmlessly into the clear gloop
of its body. And there was no way they'd be able to send it back as it
was - you can't close a door with someone's foot in the way. They were
going to have to bring it all the way in, which meant finding some
sort of way to contain it... Flinging herself back from a gaping maw
of serrated shark teeth, Amanda gasped out to Wanda: "Distract it,
long as you can! I need a minute to work something!" Already she was
reaching into her jacket pocket, where several permanent markers
lived.

"Crazy child," Wanda hissed under her breath, in exasperation and
fondness, as she shifted Farouk's dead weight in her arms, sinking
down to her knees. There was so way she was going to let go of the
errant professor – if something went wrong, which it probably would,
her entire plan was to throw him over her shoulder and run. Instead,
her vision of what actually was and what she saw blended together,
overlaying everything with shimmering red strings.

It was a game of careful manipulation as she struggled to keep the
demon from reaching Amanda but at the same time, avoid disturbing the
careful balance of power in the room. It was chancy using chaos
energy with magic but as long as she was careful…

The demon turned his head away from trying to bite Amanda and focused
back on Wanda – the roar that followed shook the very foundations and
walls around them. The older woman grimaced as they were covered in a
sheen of ectoplasm as she shoved her powers against the demon, giving
Amanda the window of opportunity, and time, she needed.

Chanting - well, more like rapping, but she wasn't going to think
about that - under her breath, Amanda pulled the caps off the markers
and started drawing on the floor. It was rough, the markers hated the
surface and one day she was going to look into some kind of paint can
that would fit in her pocket, but Paris was strong and more than
willing to give her the power she needed to remove the
interdimensional squatter. One part mystic sigils, one part graffiti
tags, Amanda finished what McNee had begun, weaving the magic in the
cave into a body for the creature.

Not-Shagroth screamed. The pain - no, the word was pitifully
inadequate, falling far short of describing the agony that convulsed
the creature, the shock of being limited, defined, forced into a
narrow, miniscule form of an earth demon. And physical hurt was
nothing compared to the sense of being blinded, deafened and
castrated. Not-Shagroth wept as the entire universe tilted, his mind
struggling to adjust to the new perceptions.

But some things are universal, and some imperatives transcend
dimensions. And even pain.

Rage.

As the creature's wail faded and it turned toward Amanda, it suddenly
occurred to the young witch that forcing it into the image of a giant
Warwolf might have not have been her most well-thought out foray into
non-standard problem-solving.

With the new form came new things. Anger, hunger - speed and
solidity. Not-Shagroth, bound to earth and wrapped in physical
trappings, did not scream again. It acted. Silver skin glistened
dully in the light as it spun around, an arm reaching for and then
slamming into Amanda. The force knocked her clean off her feet and
straight for the brick wall that eventually turned into rough cave.

The force of the blow with the solid mass of the wall should have been
the end of it, of her, but instead Amanda hit the wall and it broke,
instead of she. Crumbling in as if it had just been waiting for a hit
like that, almost cupping the blond in a bowl of brick and dirt, it
exploded out behind her. And Wanda sagged, eyes half closed, as her
hand dropped back into her lap.

Tucking herself into a ball, Amanda rolled as she hit the ground in a shower of dirt and rubble, until she fetched up against... another wall? Risking the werelight, she grinned to herself as she realized that she'd been shoved right through into one of the Metro tunnels. She was filthy, her ribs ached and she was going to be black and blue in the morning... but now she was on her own turf. Pulling herself up and shoving her hair back, she approached the hole Wanda had created.

"Here, puppy!" she called defiantly at the Warwolf. "Wanna play fetch?"

The Warwolf turned from where it had been stalking Wanda and Farouk, eyes gleaming red as it fixed them on the witch. She'd been the one responsible for this travesty of a form, and her death would be delicious. It padded forward, silver form flexing in the light as Not-Shagrath grew accustomed to the shape, tested its limits. Oh, yes, the witch had made a grave mistake in choosing this predator's form. So intent on Amanda was the Warwolf, it didn't even register the play of light across its skin.

Amanda swallowed as the beast cleared the lip of the hole, backing away as it got closer. She hadn't realized quite how big it was. "C'mon Paris, don't let me down..." she muttered, doing her best not to just up and flee. It was almost a dance, the Warwolf approaching, the witch retreating, step by step. Then her back touched the wall again, and she stopped, trapped.

The Warwolf growled, showing teeth as long as Amanda's forearms. The stench of its breath was overwhelming, and for a minute Amanda thought she'd made another mistake. But then there was the blare of a horn, and a train came barreling out of the darkness. Amanda pressed herself back against the tunnel as flat as she could, wind tearing at her clothes and hair as the train tore past. The beast didn't even have time to blink as it was struck and then flung beneath the metal wheels. For what seemed like eternity the world was filled with noise and wind and the smell of diesel, and then the train was gone, the driver not even aware of what had transpired.

Amanda pushed herself back off the wall and took a deep, shuddering breath, groping in her pocket for a cigarette. "Keep the faith, fucker," she told the fragments of demon scattered on the tracks, and then made her wobbly way back to Wanda and Farouk.