Bane rose, weary. Fleeting memory betrayed him, the last moments in his mind were only entering the adit, and the overwhelming sensation of dizziness.

He was up now, though, flickering torches lighting the way of the hall. Up, and onto his heavy, water saturated boots. His soaked clothes were heavy on him, his vest heavy weighing heavy on his shoulders.

Bane stared down at his hands, small pinhole wounds in each wrist.

"I saved your life."

Bane turned on his heel, stumbling only a small bit, his pistols drawn.

The woman, pale in the light, opened her hands. There was a metallic chime as Bane's spent rounds, and full, fell against the black glass floor of the hall. "I saved your life. It wouldn't be fair if you took mine to repay me for my trouble."

The front of her threadbare clothes were covered in blood, and black, thick stains.

"I've repaid would-be saviors as much, many times over."

"Not me."

"Not yet." Bane holstered his pistols.

"Not ever. Sandra. Sandra Sevilla... or I used to be."

Bane shrugged. "Don't care."

"I saved your life." She said, taking a cautious step back.

Bane tilted his head, staring at her through his mask, fighting against the savage impulse to destroy her.

"Quiet type." She smiled.

Bane rested his palms on the gripes of his pistols.

"If you kill me, you're only a monster. I want to be more than a monster. I think you do, too."

Bane saw himself unsheathing his blades, driving them into her, and splitting her into two. He saw the blood spray out of her, the upper half of her struggling to claw herself away from him. He saw himself lunging onto what remained of Sandra Sevilla, stabbing, cutting and slicing away at her until there was nothing left.

He saw it, but he did not do it.

"Yeah. There's humanity somewhere there inside you, isn't there?"

Bane stepped back one solitary step.

Sandra stepped a single step forward. "Who are you beneath that mask?"

Her voice echoed in his head.

"Not a monster. Not a man, no... but could you be... could you truly be mine?"

Bane shook his head in a sharp motion. "Stop."

Sandra took another step toward him. "All that life inside you. You want to share that life, don't you?"

She was closer now. Close. Close enough to touch him.

Bane lashed out, and punched her in the jaw, felt the impact, felt the his knuckles connect with flesh and bone.

Her head moved, if only a little. "So you're not a man, then."

Bane stared at her a moment, then to his fist, then to his fists.

"Oh, yes. Yes, yes, yes." She smiled, rubbing her jaw. "Please."

Bane charged in, swinging heavy punches - not wild haymakers - the punches Jonathan knew. Precision strikes, timed strikes, each calculated to hit and break bone.

Each strike, she dodged. She watched his fists in distances measured by millimeters.

Bane continued forward, and Sandra dodged, parried, and sidestepped each punch, each kick as though there were no attack at all.

Sandra moved in a blur of preternatural speed, and thrust her palm into Bane's chest. Bane felt.his boots leave the ground, felt himself falling in a horizontal arc away from the woman shaped creature. He landed heavy on the black glass floor, and slid to a stop.

"You don't tire, do you?"

Bane sat upright, and pushed himself to his feet. He flexed his shoulders, and cracked his neck. Bane unsheathed his daggers.

Sandra's eyes widened. "I drew the poison out of you. I saved your life!"

"Your last mistake." Bane moved with the grace of Nakhash, and fury of Tannin, his blades like their claws and talons.

Sandra winced, the first cut landing across her palms, the next across her forearms. The wounds opened, bled, and sealed fast as he delivered the next series of strikes.

"If you can bleed..."

"Wait!"

Bane stopped. Sandra stared him in the eyes. "You don't want to destroy me."

Bane narrowed his eyes. Beneath his bone mask, spinning his blades in his hands, inverting them, and thrust them into her, through her each shoulder, and into the carved wall behind her. The blades did not sink into the wall, did not stick. Still, he held her there.

"Kill me..."

"...that's the idea."

Sandra ignored him, ignored the excruciating pain in her shoulders. Her canines crept to length. "Kill me, and you won't know why!"

"You are an abomination. That's why."

Sandra struggled, and felt his blades scrape against bone. "Why you're here!"

Her scream echoed through the hall.

Bane lifted his blades, and Sandra rose up the wall. She bellowed, her anguished cries echoing around them.

"Tell me," Bane twisted his blades in her shoulders, and smiled when she screamed. "Why am I here?"

✟ ☧ ✟

"I've no patience."

Sandra stared up at Bane from his feet, blood tinted tears streaking her cheeks. He had her arms in his hands. "That's for goddamned sure."

Bane clubbed her across the face with one of her arms. "There is not bargaining. There is no parlay. You will die. Later, than sooner if you do not tell me what I want to know."

"Fuck you."

"We'll start with a foot, then." He dropped her arms, and knelt down before her. Bane clutched her ankle, and unsheathed a blade.

"Why are you like this?"

"Business first." Bane pushed his dagger through her Achilles tendon.

"Fuck! You!"

Bane pulled his blade down through her tendon, cut through it with little effort. Sandra bawled. He turned her ankle, twisted it until he heard bone break. He pulled until he heard it pop, and began sawing in slow, deliberate strokes with the blade of his dagger. By the time her foot came free, Sandra's screaming became a whistling, silent cry stuck in her throat. "Why I am here? What is it I need to find?"

"I'm a prisoner, motherfucker!" Her voice was dry, cracking.

"Below the knee, then."

"Stop! The black desert!"

Bane stopped, the blade of his dagger resting behind her knee. "What about it."

"They're coming through the black desert."

He stood, and wiped the dagger on his coat, sheathing the blade. "Can you be repaired?"

"You're not going to kill me?"

Bane shook his head. "Not yet."

✟ ☧ ✟

Bane stared over the rolling black dunes, the flickering torches glinting over the glittering black sands. "This is not the black desert."

"It is." Sandra rubbed her shoulders, and limped up next to him.

"I have seen the black desert, the tusken towers of the dead god. I saw the the ever sprawling expanse of eternity, and I could calculate their limits. Why do the torches stop?"

"I don't go farther than this."

Bane turned his head and stared down at her.

"There's something out there."

"This is facsimile. Facade. Nothing more." Bane stared back out at the desert. "You are going to continue on."

"No."

"We could start over, you and I. We can make it slow. Fingers. Hands. Arms to the elbows. I can take you apart piece by piece, and scatter them. I will eat your wretched heart while you watch, and when the light fades from your abominable eyes, I will leave you here, forgotten by all."

"My masters won't appreciate that."

"Your masters."

"The judge, the motherfucker who put me here."

Bane clenched his jaw. "You're a slave."

"To their fucking Inquisition."

"...yet you live."

"I died years ago." Sandra stared out to into the pitch black.

"...yet you live."

"They promised me a cure, if there is one. I knew better. It was a death sentence. Die out there, or die in here. Eventually they'd be done with this horrible place, and I'd have no use."

"Go out there, and I will follow you."

"I am afraid." Sandra shuffled her feet through the black glass sands. "I'm more afraid of what is out there than I am of them. Or you."

Bane shook his head, and stopped himself from scratching at the back of his neck.

"Say something. Anything."

"We are going out there." Bane took a step forward.

"This is how they get in. This is how they get into our world."

"...how do they get past you?" Bane turned, and pulled her up off of her feet, holding her near his mask. "I fought you. You are faster. Stronger than I. I killed two so far."

Sandra frowned. "Why should I stop them? What did the judge ever do for me? What has anyone in Driftwood ever done for me? What has Driftwood done for me?"

"You would let these things destroy everything because you don't care for anything?"

Sandra nodded, a new blood tinted tear rolling down her cheek. "I am afraid to die. I am afraid to live. I want to destroy everything."

Bane saw Celeena's eyes in his mind, the baby. He wondered, and only for a fleeting moment, if she were still in Driftwood, or if Suheila returned her to some hidden place where she could be safe. Celeena Sharif, helpless, and very much alive. What would the Emim do to a child born from one of their own, and if not one of their own, something or someone like them? "You call me a monster."

Sandra blubbered a string of unintelligible apologies.

Bane clenched his teeth, his jaw, flexing under his mask. He felt something new, something unfamiliar. "You..."

"...don't. Please."

Bane threw her beyond the torches. He drew his pistols, opened the cylinders, emptied and began reloading them. "I'm thinking you run. I'm going to shoot at you. Maybe they shoot. Maybe they don't. I don't think these will kill you, even if they do. They'll hurt."

"...just." Sandra shook her head. "Just let me go. I'll leave Driftwood. I'll never return."

"...and you'll wreak the plague you are everywhere else. If there is nothing out there, you have nothing to fear. If there is something out there, you can fight it. Win, you live. Lose, and you die a worthy death."

"Just kill me."

"You're not good enough for that. Now, run." Bane pointed his pistols at each her eyes, and lowered them until they were aimed over her knees.

"Please."

Bane fired his pistols. The cylinders turned, and the hammers clicked into place. Nothing happened. "Run."

"No."

Bane stepped in and pistol whipped Sandra across the forehead. "I can make this last forever. Piece by piece, and torture what remains."

"Monster."

"Abomination." Bane clubbed her again.

Sandra turned, and began to run.

✟ ☧ ✟

David.

David, open your eyes.

David opened his eyes to the darkness of their room. It was hot, the air was dry. His voice was groggy, and dry. "Karen?"

David felt her hands over his chest, searching over his nightclothes, the muscle beneath them. Her hands moved in slow circles, slow from his chest to his stomach. From his stomach to his thighs. "There we go, you're awake..."

"Karen, it's so early."

"Not Karen, David."

It was not Karen's voice, not Karen's whisper.

David sat upright, but she was fast. Faster. Stronger. Her hands were back on his chest, pinning him down to the bed. "Fuck you!"

"Language, beloved."

"Ammielle, no. You're not here. You're back there. Back there."

"Shhh, shh, shh." She soothed. "I just needed your attention."

"Where's Karen?" David felt around the bed with his right arm, spreading the fingers in his hand open wide.

"She's alright, David. She's alright. When you wake, she'll be right where she was when you went to sleep."

"I'm sleeping..."

"Yes. No. Somewhere in between."

David frowned. He was not dreaming, then. At least, it was not a dream in the traditional sense of a dream. Not some non-linear data dump from the day's events, or lingering stress of his day-to-day life. "Why are you here?"

"Why am I here? I never left you David. You bear my mark. You left there. You took me with you." She pushed a finger over his heart. "I am here."

"Possession?"

"Attachment. I needed out. I knew you could get me there."

"I thought you found grace..."

"...oh, you doubting Thomas." She smiled in the darkness between them. "I did."

David felt heat on his forehead, the place where once Ammielle placed a kiss on his forehead. "Why here? Why now?"

"Beloved, there are dark times ahead. I worry for you, and I know I should not."

"Worried, what about?"

"I have seen it happen, and I have to show you." He could smell the faint smell or sulfur, which meant Ammielle was crying.

"What did you see?"

"This is going to alarm you, but I say this as your own, as the one charged to protect you, do not be afraid."

"If you want me fearless, you're doing a shit job, Ammielle! Tell me!"

She gushed him again. "I cannot tell you. I have to show you... and after I show you, you have to forget it u til you are ready. If I show you, when the time comes, I know you will be."

Ammielle ran her hands up David's chest, up this throat, over his cheeks, and covered his eyes.

All at once there was a bright flash, cold night air, panic, fear - horror - and a decision. Decisions, decisions.

Then it was gone, and David

✟ ☧ ✟

woke with a start, sweat soaked in his night clothes, his forehead warm in that self same place where once he was kissed by an angel.

Karen was already up, her arms around him, her voice in his ear, not a whisper, not a shout. "It's alright! It's alright David, you're home! You're here, with me!"

David could smell the faint scent of sulfur in the air, and the last remnants of a dream fading into the recesses of memory. He gulped, and heaved out a breathe of air. "Karen..."

"You're here, David. I'm here. You're alright. You were screaming."

"I don't..." David did not know why he would scream. "I can't remember."

"It's nearly time to patrol. Those conjuring assholes aren't going to hunt themselves."

David nodded in the darkness of their room, rain pelting the window, sounds of outside, and inside, and everything around him returning as sleep left him and his senses sharpened.

"Let's get up. I'll make you breakfast."

"I need a shower, first." He was still breathing so fast, heart beating so fast, dread built over something he could not define. David placed his right hand over his heart. "Not yet. Just a little longer. Let me be a father."

"David, baby?"

Karen's voice carried up the stairs, up into their room.

David stared out their open door. For a moment he saw a flicker of movement, pink, and a red ribbon. Only a moment. All he needed was a moment. Perhaps the shower could wait. David called back, not loud as he might were they hard of hearing, older, and retired with grown children. Grandchildren, maybe.. "A moment, please."

✟ ☧ ✟

The torches flickered on the glittering black dunes. She was gone a long time. Perhaps this was no facsimile after all.

No screaming, no crying, no echoes of battle across the vast expanse.

The torches flickered again, and pair-by-pair they went out.

There was a word for this, one he learned from the dead boy's memories. "Ah, shit."

It charged toward him, its horned nose lowered, its thick armored pale skin, and deadlocked mane rippling down its muscular back.

"Karnaf."

It grunted, and exhaled a sharp breath through its nose, blowing the fine grains of black glass away from its heavy lipped muzzle. Karnaf, the horned one. The armored terror of Ehts, the mother tree. Its clawed partial hooves threw up the black sand in its wake.

This was going to be bad.

Karnaf, no larger than any of the other Emim, was upon him. Bane side stepped it, grasped its horned face and used its momentum to throw it.

Karnaf coasted over the dune, crashing through the smoldering torches.

It righted itself, shaking the sand from its thick armored hide, and bared its rows of blunted teeth, and thick tongue. "Gharakh i niin ane, o gharakh i niin anun e entu va Yan'shuf."

Bane nodded. "You remembered."

"Ivu i nu gha nun dal e Yan'shuf shinul."

"Dead at the hands of man. Like you."

Karnaf choked out laughter, and dug at the sands with his clawed hooves. "Shinu ni ut."

Karnaf charged forward again. Bane drew his pistols and sighted in on Karnaf's large head. Right between those tiny eyes. He fired, and the shots struck home. Karnaf's head plunged into the sands, its body flipping over itself, and skidding to a halt at Bane's feet.

"Weak."

Karnaf burst from the sands, winding around itself and tearing out of the sands, its head rearing up sidelong into Bane. Bane felt the impact. He really felt it.

Until he hit the sands, he did not realize his boots ever left the ground.

Karnaf was already there, horns lifting Bane up into the air. Bane spun through the air, landing behind the charging Emim.

Bane was back on his feet. It was hard to breathe. Ribs tight, lungs freezing inside him, refusing to suck air. His pistols were emptied. There was no time to reload.

Bane holstered his pistols, and unsheathed his blades.

Bane forced himself to breathe, his lungs sucking in air that burned hotter than fire. He could taste blood in his throat, feel it pooling beneath his Kevlar vest - soaking through it - and he charged toward Karnaf as Karnaf charged at him.

Just as Karnaf was upon him, it rose up onto its hind legs, and Bane grasped the Emim, wrapping his arms around its body, driving his blades into its hide, and spinning it over himself into the sands. Bane drew his blades back to find them free of any blood.

He slashed at Karnaf's belly, but the blades made not even so much as a scratch. Bane slashed, stabbed, and dug at Karnaf, but his blades had no effect.

He plunged them into the sands, and began his assault in a long series of strikes.

Karnaf kicked, and clawed at him, and Bane felt every laceration, and every cut.

Karnaf struggled, but with it on its back, Bane had the advantage. He climbed up its truncated body, and pulled at its horned nose. Bane pulled its head to the left, and then sharp 5o the right. Karnaf's neck cracked. Bane pulled again, and there was a louder crack.

Karnaf, the horned one, the armored terror of Ehts, was dead.

Bane stood, and coughed up blood and spittle.

The enemy was here, or rather there.

That's where he needed to be.