The Island, part 2

The Island

Part 2

Addu Island

Maldives

Avalon Resort

11:41 PM

Bruce and Alex plummeted through the night sky like angels of darkness.

The world beneath them was unimaginably beautiful. The ocean shimmered as a sea of stars, and the island glowed with pleasant, warm light. A long, straight road arced through a small city built upon the breathtaking beaches. From that, Avalon Resort loomed.

The weather was warm, a welcome change from Antarctica, and the warriors took a moment to enjoy the gentle night air as they fell. Then the dark blue waters of the Maldives welcomed them, and they plunged into darkness.

Bruce shot down much further than Alex, vanishing into the deep. Unsure of what to expect, Alex waited, hovering under the gently lapping waves. The pulse and pull of the ocean felt good to her powerful body, almost like a massage, and she smiled, despite herself.

The ocean churned, and bubbles rose from the depths. A moment later, Bruce rocketed past Alex, blades spinning from his lower body like a turbine. He broke the surface, and Alex followed, watching in amazement as Bruce flew into the air, his legs a whirl of shifting, transforming machinery. He hit the ground a split second after his feet finished forming, and the earth trembled beneath his weight.

Alex rose soundlessly from the ocean. Tiki torches lined the beach, casting soft, flickering shadows, and Alex danced between them to Bruce's side. She avoided the light as if it were a game, and strangely enough to Bruce, the light seemed to shy away as well.

As the pair of Sanguine Knights came together, the sand beneath their feet shifted, and the island trembled as though caught in the throes of an earthquake.

Bruce's heavy eyebrows narrowed.

"Are earthquakes common in the Maldives?" Alex asked.

"Common? No. Possible? Yes," Bruce answered, looking around.

The beachfront that they occupied was quiet.

Addu Island was small, home to a single utility village that provided essential support for the tourist economy, but it was dark in the distance and strangely empty. Bonfires dotted the beach, around which huddled humans nestled lovingly in one anothers arms, taking in the gently lapping waves and nighttime ambiance.

Surprisingly, none noticed Bruce's colossal arrival or remarked on the quaking of the island.

Alex caught Bruce's eye and shrugged. The two agents closed in and quietly made their way up the beach towards the road, and the glittering, pulsing hotel in the distance.

As they got closer, the sounds of revelry grew louder until, as they set foot on the paved road to Avalon, the knights saw what they'd been hearing.

"Oh, shit," Alex said, her blue eyes widening in surprise.

The road to Avalon, and the hotel itself, was in full revelry.

Plazas filled with people lounging and loving decorated the road. DJ booths blasted suggestive, rhythmic music across the sands, and throngs of people danced with reckless abandon.

To either side of the main thoroughfare, dozens of pop-up bars flourished, serving everything from drinks and weed to pills and hard drugs. Charbroil grills that served sizzling meats, fruits, and veggies on juicy kabobs dazzled the senses, and there was sex everywhere; shameless, exorbitant, and thrilling.

For a moment, Bruce and Alex simply stared, processing the overabundance of nudity and depravity.

There was another scent- one that Alex's finely-tuned predatory senses picked up with glee. Blood. It mingled with the salt breeze, heady and thick.

Alex swallowed hard, a very human gesture. Bruce's augmented sensors, adjusted for heightened acuity regarding vampires, picked it up.

"You ok, kid?" Bruce asked.

His brow furrowed like a falling anvil.

Sighing, Alex closed her eyes, inviting darkness into her mind. Behind the sanctity of her eyelids, she waited, with crooked teeth and smile; The living shadow, the witch of the wicked wood.

The cool stillness of eternity washed over Alex, and she calmed. She could still scent the heavy blood in the air and taste the depravity that swept this perverse island, but she shared these sensations with the entity within and received renewed stability in return, at least for the moment.

The thing that walked with Alex, her second shadow, ran a hand along her temple and whispered soothing nothings in her native Russian tongue.

"I am fine," Alex said, reopening her eyes.

For a split second, Bruce thought he saw a completely different set of eyes, more weathered, worn, and hard. They had been as gray as a stormy sky, with the barest hint of green, like forest moss. Then they were gone, and Alex stared at him quizzically.

"See something you like?" She asked with a slight smile.

If Bruce could blush, he might have. Instead, his machine body tensed, and he crossed his arms defensively.

"Ahem," Bruce fake coughed, focusing his attention on the madness around him. "Let's stay on task."

He pointed past the sea of convulsing human bodies at the hotel in the distance.

"That would be Avalon. From here, we're gonna split up but remain in communication. We might need to regroup if shit goes downhill, so don't go too quiet," Bruce said.

Alex smirked and rested her hands on her hips.

"Split ways? The tedious three-hour mission briefing was very clear that we were to stick together," Alex said.

Bruce grunted.

"You like it when your vampires question your orders, Field Commander of Nine?"

Alex's smirk widened, and her fangs glinted in the tiki torch firelight.

"Point taken, Knight-Master. Tell me your plan."

Bruce smiled. He liked Alex. More than the other vampires he'd worked with. Privately he wished that he'd met her sooner. Maybe with someone like her on the team, X wouldn't have...

The Knight-Captain caught himself. It wouldn't do to dwell on the past. The mission was now. Every single mortal caught in the throes of Avalon was in danger. Though Addu Island looked like a paradise, Bruce knew it was anything but.

"Getting right down to it, as covered in the mission briefing, we don't know what the real danger of Avalon is," Bruce said.

His cold, machine eyes roved over the writhing masses, plucking facial scans and close-up, high-definition fingerprints from every greasy, available surface.

"It could be an earthbound entity from Faerie, or a spell of some kind, cast by some smart-ass, modern wizard," Bruce continued. "I've met spirits that can wreck this kind of havoc on humanity and angels that can inspire true love and undying devotion in a man's heart. We're gonna have to get to the source of whatever this is before we can slay it."

Alex nodded.

"So reconnaissance," She said. "This is something of a specialty of mine."

"So I've heard. I'm counting on it," Bruce said. "You go stealth. Move quietly, unseen. Talk to the revelers, draw out some confessions. See how the people really feel. Try to avoid Avalon staff if you can."

The flickering shadows of the beach, cast by bonfires and the line of torches dotting the single road through Addu, pulsed and swirled, swaying on the sands with the fluidity of palm trees in the wind. The marvel went unnoticed by all but the most addlebrained of party-goers and Bruce, who cataloged the phenomenon staunchly.

"How are you doing that?" Bruce asked. "I've never seen one of your kind with such abilities."

Alex nodded and stared off down the road.

"And while I gather intelligence, what will you be doing?" She asked, changing the topic.

Bruce smirked and lowered his head. He raised it a moment later, refocused.

"I will also be gathering intelligence of a more direct nature. You see what you can learn; I'll see what I can draw out. Call if you find anything," Bruce said.

The big metal man rolled his titanium-alloy shoulders and started off down the road towards Avalon.

Alex watched a moment longer before calling the shadows to her, like a mother beckoning her children home.

"Discover the culprit, unveil its weakness," Alex whispered to the night.

She felt the pull of darkness in her blood and released her hold on her material self. With a set of sighs, one significantly older, Alex collapsed into shadow and drifted across the beach.

Bruce looked over his shoulder, but Alex was already gone.

"A team of five of her, and you could change the world in one night," Bruce muttered.

The heavy reverberations of his boots felt strangely good on the rough pavement, and Bruce found himself enjoying the nighttime Island walk more than he meant to. The music was decent, though a little too electronic for Bruce's old-timey tastes, and he had to admit, the laughter and revelry were a bit infectious. The air was sweet, with just the right combination of warm and cool, and the night sky above was damned beautiful.

"Ah! You there, sir!" A nearby bartender called, waving to Bruce. "Might I get you a drink? Those hands look empty!"

Bruce turned and studied the barkeep. He was a tall, thin fellow who looked like he could use a good meal and a nap, probably in that order. His hair was scraggly and wild, and his eyes were dark from lack of sleep. Despite that, he looked exuberant and waved Bruce over with a smile.

"Hello, sir! I have not seen you around before. Can I offer you a drink?" The wired young man asked.

Bruce walked over and leaned against the pop-up bar, careful to handle his tremendous weight so as not to topple the fragile structure. He leveled stoic, steel eyes at the barkeep.

"You remember every customer you serve on a resort island?" Bruce asked.

The barkeeps eyes widened slightly, but he smiled quickly.

"Not all, but I have a keen eye for the needy, and you look to have a need," He said.

He was astoundingly clearheaded, Bruce realized. Compared to the glassy-eyed multitudes around him, and despite what looked to be tremendous fatigue, the man was sharp and astute, suspiciously so.

Bruce feigned an easygoing smile.

"No thanks, friend. I don't drink. Hey, check-in's that way, right?" Bruce asked, pointing at the hotel in the distance.

The young man frowned.

"Yes, sir. Have you not checked in yet, sir?" He asked.

Bruce patted the pop-up bar lovingly. It shook violently and threatened to shatter with each hearty thump.

"Thanks for your help," Bruce said with a cold smile and an iron wink.

Without waiting for a response, the Knight-Captain began to stride toward the gleaming hotel.

"Enjoy your stay at Avalon!" The Bartender called after him.

Then, discreetly, when he was sure the large man was out of earshot, he picked up the phone and dialed the resort.

* * *

Alex Kyznetsov stalked the quiet shadows of the beach. She listened and watched, moving from shadow to shadow, stepping into the company of drunks unseen and passing without a trace. Through the writhing penumbras of lovers and the lustful, Alex danced, gracefully dipping into the fireside dusk of heroin addicts and then on to makeshift gambling dens and starlight lounges.

A whisper on the wind, a brush of lips, and she was gone, taking what she needed to understand. It was always the same. A universal bliss, an infectious aura that every individual on the island possessed. To every human happily trapped on Avalon, the resort was heaven, and the island was a paradise.

Though interesting, this was not new information to Alex or the Sanguine government. None who came here left, though it was a bit of a shock to find the human populace sated and satisfied, if overindulgent.

Alex plucked a young man from a makeshift dance lounge and spun him into her arms. He was more than happy to oblige, and began grinding and wriggling his hips in what he believed was dancing. He had a mop of dirty blonde hair and glassy, light brown eyes.

The young man smiled slowly, a stupid, intoxicated grin. Alex smiled back and brushed the hair from his eyes.

"How is your experience with Avalon so far?" Alex asked.

The man's hands roved where they shouldn't, and Alex firmly moved them back to her hips.

"Avalon is a paradise, babe," He said, slurring slightly. "It's a little slice of Heaven."

Alex frowned. The shadows within her squirmed. Something about the way the man had said that and the glassy sparkle in his eyes bothered Alex.

"Heaven, you say?" Alex prompted.

"With just the right amount of Hell," The man added, swaying to the beat. "Total bliss. I've never felt more at ease and taken care of."

'Give in', a voice in her ear whispered.

Alex turned in the man's arms. There were dozens of dancers around her, though none appeared to be paying her any mind. Goosebumps lined her dead flesh, and a sudden trill of unrest shot up her spine.

'Give in. Experience true joy,' the voice whispered again.

It was a man's voice- rich and more resonant than any Alex had ever heard. Not so much a suggestion, but a command, smooth and compelling.

The hunger came over Alex, a sudden, uncontrollable urge to feed, to prey upon the foolish thing swaying in her arms. There was a moment of resistance, and then the gates of abandon swung open.

With a gleeful snarl, Alex dipped her fangs into the young man's neck. The gentle pop of his skin was euphoric, and the sudden, hot rush of blood in her mouth was divine. It electrified her senses and fueled her vampire nature.

Her tongue probed and pulled as the young man shuddered in her arms, pulsing to the beat of his heart. He moaned something, a word, but there was no protest, only an addictive, intoxicating head-rush that Alex wanted to never end.

His musk was all around her. Alex was lost in the details, in the experience of again taking without care or consideration. The sickly-sweet taste of his sweat on her tongue, the way his hands roved the stone statue that was her undead body, seeking the hard curves with ever-decreasing strength.

The blood was all that mattered. Rich, telling, the story of an entire life conveyed wordlessly through a violent, crimson stream. A million feelings, each snapping aggressively into the next like contorting, flickering flames, passed into Alex, crashing against her memories like waves on rocks.

She was an orphan and an heir, she was alone yet she had never known loneliness. Together, with this stranger, she was loveless and a lover, for they were one,

Alex pulled hard, eliciting a shuddering gasp, and then suddenly, the pounding drum of the nameless man's heart grew weak and stopped. His hands fell from her body, and his neck rolled back lifeless.

All at once, sound returned to Alex- as well as a sense of power and control. She looked down and found herself holding the lifeless body of a beautiful young man. The fresh infusion of his blood pumped hot and hard through her dead heart, invigorating her. Alex felt her body grow flush and warm, a stark contrast to the cold feeling of dread forming in the back of her mind.

With a hiss of disgust, Alex dropped the body. It struck the floor with an ugly thud, the man's head cracking violently against the polished plywood. She hadn't meant to lose control like that. Alex straightened, looking around.

None of the people on the dance floor seemed to notice or care about what had happened. Their wild feet struck the man's body repeatedly, and they trampled over him, laughing and moving to the music.

Alex looked down at the pool of blood forming on the dance floor. Her reflection stared back at her. Then, it frowned disapprovingly and shook its head.

* * *

Bruce made his way up the road to the central destination on the island.

Avalon loomed before him, a well-lit, glittering jewel of a compound. Spacious and expansive, it offered views of the ocean on either side of the hotel and walkways along the water that lead to seaside huts and private villas. In one of them, a family watched a movie together on a lavish couch, the film projected against a fold-out screen.

The scene brought Bruce a slight smile. His Ash-tech eyes offered him views from nearby security cameras, but Bruce dismissed the suggestion. In many ways, the Knight-Captain was still a traditional hunter, and preferred to do things the old-fashioned way.

With a mechanical hiss, the front doors to Avalon Resort slid open, and Bruce found himself walking through a bright, inviting lobby with a pair of love seats sequestered in the corner. His mechanical body and heavy boots clacked loudly on the polished wood floor, drawing the attention of the individual behind the simple help desk.

"Hello!" the man called, waving Bruce near. "Hello, hello, and welcome to Avalon! My, oh my, it is so nice to finally make your acquaintance. You must know, we've been expecting you for some time. As is the Avalon custom, we have taken the liberty of preparing the Master Suite for our most esteemed guest."

The man smiled, a broad, engaging gesture that stretched his cheeks and showed off his brilliantly white teeth. Strangely, the smile didn't seem to reach his ocean-blue eyes, which looked strained and bloodshot. He had short, semi-curly brown-blonde hair and wore a blue-striped, tailored, three-piece suit. His accent was British and clipped. A small metal tag over his left breast pocket read MANAGER in etched, steel letters.

Bruce sauntered over to the help desk and eyed it warily, as though it would explode into fragments if he but leaned on it wrong. He settled his heavy gaze on the eager manager and allowed the Ashtech programs whirring within to run medical diagnostics. If he wasn't human, Bruce would know in a moment.

"You know me?" Bruce asked, now towering over the thin, well-dressed man.

Smiling wide, the manager stood up and spread his arms in a show of open honesty.

"My dear man, of course, we know you," He said. "We know who you are and what you do. And, towards that end, what you have come to do."

Bruce narrowed his eyes. His brow lowered like tolling clock hands, and he crossed his arms over his chest with a heavy clang.

"Which is why we would like to give you the opportunity of a lifetime! A chance to see this whole thing differently," the manager added quickly.

He stepped around the desk with the poise of a salesman.

"Listen, Bruce. I know what you're thinking. There's something wrong with this island. This guy is trying to play me. Don't trust him. Am I right?"

Bruce held a hand out to stop him from getting any closer.

"You're on the right track," Bruce grumbled. "But get to your point. If you know what I've come to do, then get the fuck out of my way and let me do it."

The manager laughed, a pure-hearted, innocent sound, and Bruce found his lips curling in the hint of a smile.

"Oh, you! There's that devil's wit I've heard so much about," He said, wagging a finger at Bruce. "I'll tell you what. Come see the room we've prepared for you. Sit, rest, and enjoy some of our luxuries; Lord knows the Sanguine aren't affording you any."

Bruce cleared his throat.

The manager smiled and continued quickly.

"And, at the end of a few hours, if you still wish to carry out your puppet mission of needless annihilation, well, there's not much we could do to stop you, now is there?"

Bruce stared hard at the pleasant man before him.

His Ashtech eyes concluded their medical diagnosis, and a read-out flashed across the Knight Captain's head's up display. Male, human, late thirties. The manager's blood pressure was high, and there were marked levels of stress and physical fatigue throughout his form. There was something else too, a feeling of familiarity that Bruce couldn't shake, and a scent, distant but beckoning.

It reminded him of different times, better times.

"Fine," Bruce said at last. "I'll take your offer. Just know that the investigation into Avalon is still ongoing. This changes nothing."

The manager smiled wide and gestured for Bruce to follow him.

The walk through Avalon proper was gorgeous, and Bruce had to admit, the place was beautiful. Avalon Resort was a large, single-floor compound. Fish tanks lined the hallways. Their shimmering, oceanic glow cast hazy blue light against the wooden floor. Gently, Bruce could feel the push and pull of the ocean beneath them. He breathed in the salty air and reminded himself to stay focused.

Luxuries be damned, he still had a job to do.

"Right this way, sir," The manager intoned.

Bruce's room was about a minute's walk from the front desk. The manager stopped before a plain, unassuming wooden door with a polished brass handle.

There was music within, rhythm and blues, a song from the late nineties. All My Life, by K-Ci and Jojo.

The Knight-Captain frowned. He knew that song. Goosebumps lined his metallic skin, and he turned to the manager, his steel-gray eyes flashing with malice.

"What is the meaning of this?" Bruce snarled.

He snatched the small man by his suit and lifted him off the floor with one arm.

"WHY IS THAT SONG PLAYING!?"

The manager smiled weakly and shrugged.

"Each room is different, sir. Avalon was designed to be a paradise for the mortal soul. Perhaps, this song has significant meaning to you?"

Bruce nodded slowly and set the man down. He straightened his suit and reached for the handle.

"Why don't you take a moment and see if the room is to your liking?" The manager suggested.

He turned the handle and gave a slight push. Soulful music spilled into the hallway, and memories that Bruce had buried threatened to resurface.

The Knight-Captain stood staring at the gorgeous, wood-paneled room.

The floor was made of reinforced glass windows that allowed a breathtaking view of the neon-lit ocean, and Bruce had the impression of walking on water as he entered. The bed was a magnificent Alaskan King and rested on a huge, sturdy-looking cedar frame. At a glance, Bruce knew it had been built to his exact weight and height specifications.

"It's...lovely," Bruce said with a scowl.

"Fantastic," the manager beamed. "Room service is on the house. I'll send someone out shortly."

Bruce moved to say that it wouldn't be necessary, but the spindly and energetic man had already spun on his heels and was halfway down the hallway.

With a sigh, Bruce shut the door and turned around.

The room was peaceful; there was no denying that. A profound sense of isolation came over the Sanguine Knight, and he stood still for a moment, taking it in. The song finished and transitioned cleanly into the next, a gentle, Spanish guitar tune that Bruce used to play fondly in the days before government life.

Back then, he had been a simple man, made of flesh and blood. He'd given his heart to a simple woman, and they had been happy. That had all been ripped from him.

Bruce closed his eyes and willed the memories to stop. In the darkness behind his steel eyelids, his computer mind told him the room was clean. No runes, etchings, blood-stains, unusual patterns, or technological traps that his software could detect. There was, however, a low and somewhat magical aura about Avalon that he could feel now that he was in the heart of it. It was familiar, but he couldn't recall the last time he'd felt it.

"Analyze," Bruce commanded in a low voice.

He felt a low hum within as his Ashtech body and brain complied.

"What are you, Avalon?"

Before the analysis was complete, there was a knock at the door. Bruce turned and stared at it, a sense of foreboding growing at the top of his spine. He wanted to use his eyes to see through the door, but he didn't dare. Dread closed around his heart with an icy grip.

The knock came again, two soft raps, plaintive, gentle. Light flooded the doorframe- as though pure radiance waited on the other side.

Bruce shook his head and gathered himself. Whatever was on the other side of that door, he would face it as Knight-Captain of the Sanguis Custodes. The warframe that was his body came to life as Bruce stared at the magnificent, pulsing light.

Primary weapon systems: active.

Bruce stepped to the door. His hand rested just above the glowing brass handle.

Mana systems: charged. Aether flow: steady. Azoc transmutatives: mercurial.

The Knight-Captain steeled himself. Then, when he was ready, Bruce grabbed the handle and tore the door from the wall.

* * *

Though she crept through the darkness, one with the shade, Alex could feel their eyes upon her. She'd left her victim where he fell and had fled, wiping the blood from her mouth with the back of her gloved hand. The still and quiet of the dark places welcomed her, but then something shifted. Something changed.

Pressure that hadn't been there before, cold as a black, silk sheet, fell upon the island. Alex felt it as a temperature drop in her blood and paused beneath the bending leaves of a coconut palm tree.

A group of people danced nearby in total abandon. The smell of their sweat and the laughter on their lips was intoxicating, and Alex chided herself, slinking further into the shadows.

She hadn't meant to feed when she did, and having tasted the freedom of the island, and whatever force controlled it, Alex found herself eager for more.

And disgusted by it.

Though her role as Field Commander of Nine had more than prepared her for combat against her own kind, whatever was on Addu was a different monster. A cunning creature with command over weakness and desire. It had managed to override her carefully constructed prison of self-control. If it threw open the gates again...

'Child,' the matronly shadows about her whispered. 'Look!'

Alex raised her head and froze.

Though music swept joyously through the air, the dancers on the beach had all stopped. One by one, glassy-eyed and fatigued, the crowd of thirty or so all turned and stared directly at her.

A human chill crept down Alex's spine. She stayed perfectly still, one with the dark of night. No sources of light shone near her. There was no way those people could see her.

And yet, as though listening to something only they could hear, the mob of dancers stumbled from the safety of the beach towards the shadows where she hid. They walked like unfocused drunks, their eyes shining with a strange, eerie light.

"Shit," Alex cursed.

She looked behind her, tracing the dark pools for seclusion. The horde was drawing nearer. Some raised fingers to point in her direction and others picked up speed, rushing towards the deadly still creature of the night.

Gritting her teeth in frustration, Alex bolted from beneath the palm tree. Her feet were a blur beneath her, and her soul danced with the deep darkness of the island. She was darkness given physical form, and in seconds, the horrid drone of the afflicted mob fell away, replaced by the gentle chirp of insects and the soft rustling of the swaying trees.

When she was confident that she'd lost them, the young vampire dipped back into the world and took stock of her surroundings. Alex gathered she was near the center of the island, where resort workers and villagers lived. Close enough to support Avalon but out eyesight of curious tourists.

She was in a clearing, alone save for a ramshackle simple wooden building nearly reclaimed by nature. The building dominated the small grove, resting between two massive palm trees pressed against the rotten wood like chopsticks. If not for the support of those trees, Alex supposed the dilapidated building would have collapsed years ago.

The front door was a mess. Someone had given the old door a fresh coat of blue paint in an effort to brighten the building up, but the wood beneath was cracked and rotten.

An old wooden cross lay in the dirt near the entrance. It looked as if it had been torn from the front of the building by a windstorm. The scar where it had hung still remained, a blackened, rotten section of wood that drew Alex's eyes. Compared to the peeling white paint of the hidden building, it looked like an infected wound.

"A church?" Alex asked aloud.

The sound of distant snapping branches gave Alex pause. She listened, motionless. Another came, then another. The rustling of bushes and the crunch of twigs snapping underfoot reached her, and Alex knew the mob was close.

'How?' Alex wondered, looking around frantically. 'How is this fucking island doing this?'

Suppressing a groan of frustration, Alex darted for the ragged blue door before her. Her hand tightened around the door handle. Grunting, she yanked it open.

The sound of the dancers drew closer. Alex could hear their hammering heartbeats and the sluggish blood in their veins. They were moving faster now, shambling through the brush on a direct course to her.

Alex shut the door and put her back to it, closing out the island and the approaching horde. She shut her eyes and stilled her body, thankful for the ease with which her dead body obeyed. Her trained mind went to her senses.

The smell of iron, thick and heavy, coupled with the overarching scent of decay, was everywhere. Alex wrinkled her nose. She caught a sound, a frantic, familiar lapping noise, like that of an animal on all fours, and Alex opened her eyes.

She would have screamed if not for the soothing embrace of the shadows, holding her tight and reminding her that she was not alone.

The little island church had become a horror scene.

Jesus gazed woefully at Alex from the cross, upside down and horribly defaced. Bodies lined the pews, brutalized and desecrated. A fine, red mist hung in the air. Rivers of blood flowed down the isles, growing caked and caustic. There was evidence of madness, sexual depravity, and murderous sadism everywhere Alex looked.

And the longer she looked, the more she saw.

Beneath the altar, on all fours, was a pastor, dressed in blood-soaked ceremonial robes of white and gold. He had short black hair and coppery skin, and his veins, which stood out, prominent and stressed, glowed with a pulsing red light. He paid Alex no mind and lapped at the blood as it flowed to him, his back arching horribly with each frenetic lick.

Alex glanced at a shard of broken glass at her feet, remnants of a hand mirror that had been shattered to make slicing tools. There, in the bloodied reflective surface of the glass, her crone passenger glowered, taking in the desecration as Alex did.

"Do you know what this is, Crone Mother?" Alex whispered to the glass.

At the sound of her voice, the pastor's head whipped up unnaturally. He lowered an intense gaze at Alex and smiled sadistically. His eyes smoldered as though burning from within, and smoke trailed from the corners of his mouth. The blood on his bright red lips bubbled, and he wrung his hands as he rose.

"Well, well," The pastor said. "What do we have here?"

His voice was that of many, all speaking in unison, and it echoed in ways it shouldn't. His smile stretched to the far corners of his face, and his teeth were stained red.

'That is a demon, child. A lower spawn of Hell. Servant to the true evil roosting in the soil,' Alex's shadowy passenger answered.

When the Crone Mother spoke, Alex felt the words in her soul rather than her mind- as though they floated up from somewhere deep and mystical within. The knowledge that she was now facing demonic forces should have frightened the Field Commander. Instead, she stilled her nerves and put a finger to her ear, pressing on the small communication device embedded there.

"Bruce, we have a problem. The thing on the island; it is a demon," Alex said.

The pastor cocked his head to the side hard, and a bone snapped with a sickening crunch. Alex shook her head and drew two big combat knives, each the size of her forearm. The shadows in the room swam to her side and clung about her like a cloak. Though she had no real experience with the forces of hell, her dark passenger had more than prepared her to deal with anything. Alex steadied her nerves and dropped into a combat stance.

"Servant of evil, give me the name of your master!" Alex commanded.

The shadows around her pulsed with aggression, and the field commander took a careful step forward, gauging her opponent's response.

There wasn't one. The deranged pastor smiled eerie and still at her, its head held at that horrible angle. Blood pooled down one of his eyes, and the smoke from his lips curled to the blackened ceiling.

"Give? That is not what you desire, daughter of Russia," The demon said, twisting the pastor's face in an impossible smile. "I know desire. I know the violence your dead heart craves, young vampire. Let us start by being honest in this house god has left. I could give you the name of my master, but I think you would rather make me."

There was a pulse deep within Alex, and she felt the Crone Mother start to crawl her way to the surface.

No!' Alex thought, pressing down with all of her being. 'I can do this.'

She felt a force behind her brow and the light pressure of a withered hand on her shoulders. The impression of an old woman looking out of her eyes like tower windows came to Alex suddenly, and she smiled.

A calmness came over her, dreadful and pure. Alex exhaled the last of the air in her lungs and did not bother to take another breath. Dark magic flowed through her dead veins, and her wicked heart pumped vampiric prowess to her limbs and senses. She tuned out the corpses around her and the steady trickle of old blood, focusing her predatory nature on the demon roosting deep in the flesh of the pastor.

"You are correct, hellspawn," Alex said. She spun her knives in a quick flourish. "I would rather make you."

The field commander of Nine dashed into motion, and the shadows surged to follow.

* * *

Bruce looked upon the love of his life.

Maria Adora Carowitz, fifteen years dead, leaned against the door frame and crossed her arms over her chest. A smirk played at the corners of her expressive lips. She wore a strapless red dress of shimmering satin with a plunging front that left little to the imagination, not that Bruce could ever forget such beauty. She smelled of rose oil and Lily of the Valley, Maria's favorite scents, and Bruce's systems took them in, scanning against the Knight-Captains memory.

His Ashtech eyes read Maria's vitals, confirming that what stood before him was a flesh and blood human, not a fabrication or an illusion.

"Maria?" Bruce said, at last- his deep voice faltering.

The beauty before him pushed from the wall and into his arms. Maria's soft body pressed against his titanium war frame. She wrapped her arms around him as far as they would go. Her soft sigh as she leaned her ear against his chest was everything Bruce had wished for these long and lonely years, and he bent down to kiss her head.

"You are bigger than you used to be," Maria whispered, closing her eyes. "Heavier, more muscular."

She sighed softly, and Bruce felt his face grow flush and hot. He wanted to cry but knew that he couldn't. There wasn't any reason for a weapon that could cry. The good doctors had removed his damaged tear ducts.

Hundreds of complex emotions raged through Bruce's mechanical mind, not the least of which was the impossibility of the situation. The woman in his arms had left this world. On the day of Maria's funeral, Bruce Carowitz died, and Bruce Ironside was born.

But as Bruce looked down at the woman of his dreams, he remembered the nightmare she'd put him through in the weeks before her death. His grasp on her slender, voluptuous body grew rigid and stiff, and Maria looked up at him with questioning eyes.

"My love?" She asked, her lips pouty and inviting.

"You died," Bruce said gruffly, struggling to process.

Maria laughed and shook her head.

"That was a lifetime ago," She said, tracing a finger along his chest. "In Avalon, for you, I am here, and I am real. Isn't that enough?"

"Of course it is," Bruce said, faltering. "It's just..."

An old anger rose behind the love, achy like a phantom wound- yet unresolved and fresh. The hurt followed, and Bruce furrowed his brow. He closed his eyes, the heavy lids clanging against his metallic flesh like security gates. When he opened them again, they were cold and steely, the eyes of a husband who'd lost his wife to the horrors of the night.

"You cheated on me," Bruce said. He looked deep into Maria's shimmering brown eyes. "I thought it was a man until you disappeared. I was always working late, spending too much time with the force. I'd come home late, you'd come home later, marks on your neck..."

Maria nodded. A tear rolled down her cheek. She shook her head against the terrible memory.

"It was no man, my love," Maria said with a shudder. "It looked like a man, but..."

"I know," Bruce said, careful not to crush her in his metal arms. "You fell under the sway of a vampire. I didn't know it then. I was tormented, furious. I drank and raged, drank and raged. All I did was drive you further away."

Maria closed her eyes and leaned against Bruce. He could feel the warmth of her body, the gentle thud of her heart against his metal chest.

"When you vanished, I went looking. I followed a trail and..."

Bruce was unable to finish. Though he could not cry, sorrow welled within like a great numbing wave, and for a moment, his entire system went into shock. The Knight-Captain went perfectly still as the memory of his wife's body, slashed and torn, drained of blood, and brutalized, passed before his eyes in horribly precise detail.

"You found me," Maria finished for him.

The terrible stasis faded, and with it, the preserved memory. Bruce looked down at Maria and at the black wedding band, he still wore.

"I found you," Bruce agreed.

Several moments passed. The two reunited lovers swayed in the broken doorway, eyes only for each other. Nothing else in the world mattered. Not the mission, not the island, nothing.

"I killed him, you know," Bruce said with a sad smile. "The leech that took you from me. I torched the church he slept under and staked him and his entire troupe as they ran. Made a rifle that shot wooden stakes. Cut down each of them and then waded through the ash to make sure. Got my invitation to Sanguine the very next night."

Maria closed her eyes and smiled- as though the violence Bruce spoke of was perfectly normal. She swayed in the Knight-Captain's arms, and he breathed her in, cherishing the moment for everything it was worth.

"Do you remember our flat in New York?" Maria asked breathily. The music switched to soft, beachside Ukulele. "Our honeymoon in Hawaii?"

"Mmhm," Bruce mumbled, burying his face in her neck.

"This is so much like it. A second chance together, a gift of the angels," Maria whispered.

Bruce wrapped his arms around his wife and closed his eyes. The HUD remained, a flashing visual overlay that provided information, objectives, and more. A pulsing white message shone bright with his eyes closed, and Bruce acknowledged it.

Incoming transmission, receiving.

* * *

"Knight-Captain, if you can hear this, I've got a situation on my hands," Alex said.

The priest lunged at her, drenched in gore, hands outstretched like claws. His eyes glowed bright red, as if an inferno raged within his skull.

Alex slipped into a nearby shadow, reappearing behind the priest as he clattered into a row of pews, displacing mauled bodies in familiar black stealth suits.

"Sanguine Knights," Alex realized as she sent power to her limbs.

She spun in a feral crouch, the shadows twirling about her lithe frame like a cloak, and dashed after the possessed priest. He whirled to face her, but Alex was faster. She drove one knife through the creature's throat and the other straight through its heart, savoring the choking closeness, the intimacy of violence, and the surprise bleeding from the hellspawn's eyes.

"Y-you!" The priest stammered.

"Me," Alex whispered.

She ripped the huge blades from the priest's body and kicked him square in the chest. The blow shot the air from his lungs, and he flew across the tiny room, cracking and nearly destroying the decrepit church walls.

"Tell me the name of your master, demon. I can do this all night," Alex said with a smug smile.

The possessed priest roiled on the dirty floor, writhing as though his skin were ablaze. It gasped and wretched, spitting blood and crawling back to its feet, heedless of the holes in its heart and throat. With bloodshot, wide eyes, the priest cackled, and threw its head back.

"A whore and a fool! Runaway orphan! You should have stayed and died in those foreclosed houses. Now you throw your life away, condemned to eternity in Hell at my hands!" The demon howled.

"Shut up!" Alex screamed.

Laughing, the possessed priest tore across the ruined chapel, hurling pews from his path like couch pillows.

Alex braced herself, feeling the cold, cool spectral hand of her shadowy passenger on her shoulder. A voice, like a breeze through dried, winter branches, found her ear, and she listened, growing still.

'End the demons hold on the body, and it will show itself,' the Crone Mother whispered.

Alex felt her eyes lift to the onrushing priest's intact skull, and she nodded, understanding. She lowered them to the bastard's shadow, deep, dark, and welcoming.

"I will swallow your soul!" The burning priest screamed.

He closed the distance in the blink of an eye and swung with claws that trailed fire.

The heat was intense, and it took all of Alex's considerable self-control not to react as the predatory monster she was. She dodged the first blow, then the second, her smug smile never faltering.

The demon flew into a frenzy, swinging wildly and screaming. It crushed the bodies of its victims underfoot as it trampled at Alex, a whirlwind of barbed curses and lethal fire.

Alex slowed purposefully, drawing the priest in. The burning claw shot towards her chest, just as she expected, and she danced into shadow, allowing the horrid appendage to pass through her harmlessly. The dark behind the priest was like water, and she emerged, a creature of the night, an apex predator of the nocturnal world.

"Swallow this," Alex said mirthlessly, and rammed both blades through the sizzling priest's ears.

The sound of steel piercing bone split the night, and the possessed priest stilled, shuddering to a stop between two lengths of unrelenting metal. With finesse and power, Alex ripped the huge knives from his skull and watched as the priest slumped to the bloodied floor.

'Distance, child,' the Crone Mother cautioned, her advice bubbling from the depths of Alex's soul.

With a kick, Alex sent the lifeless body hurling across the small church. The priest clattered against what remained of the altar and began to smolder and spasm. The altar caught fire, and the dry, rotted wood took it in. Gradually, it began to spread.

Amidst the flames, smoke poured from the priest's eyes and open mouth in huge volumes, blackening the church in an amorphic haze.

As Alex watched, amazed, a pair of great, horrible eyes manifested in the plume, followed by an expressive, twisted mouth that leered down at her angrily. The smoke continued to billow and pour until finally, the priest let out a wheezing gasp and went limp, well and truly dead. Flames consumed the mangled corpse as though it were kindling.

Instead of expanding to fill the small church, the smoke poised over the corpse below it, gradually taking shape until the horrible whole was revealed.

Alex took a step back, eyes wide.

A demon hovered before her, free of its flesh vessel and manifest. Fear rocketed through her. Alex again chastised herself for her loss of control, but recognized that she couldn't help it. The demon was a timeless entity and a sign of things far greater and older than she.

Its hazy, infernal eyes narrowed in the choking smoke, barbed and hateful. They glowed with an ethereal light that Alex found both alluring and disconcerting.

Glancing down, Alex saw that her shadow had perfectly split in two, and she felt the Crone Mother's hands on her shoulders.

The shadow demon's expressive, manifest eyes narrowed maliciously, and it billowed back as if afraid.

"You!" The smoke fiend spat, its voice like a dozen disjointed whispers. "Not you. You should not be here!"

'Child,' The Crone Mother said. 'Let me.'

As though surrendering herself to sleep, Alex lowered her gaze and allowed her vision to unfocus. She drifted almost instantly as if in a dream, relinquishing control to the eldritch entity that lived within.

The smoky church grew ever darker until Alex could no longer see the wispy crackling of flames, or hear the whooshing voice of her enemy. There was only blessed darkness, and it wrapped about Alex like a blanket, sheltering her from the terrible creature she had become.

The smoky demon rushed back, putting distance between itself and Alex, who had lowered her head and was now gazing at the fiend with eerie, glowing yellow eyes.

A long, dark tongue forked between her pouty lips and tasted the air.

"Fear," the entity that was not Alex whispered, salivating.

Alex's mouth and lower jaw twisted unnaturally, elongating into a wide sneer. The Crone Mother smiled and sheathed Alex's bloody knives at her waist.

"I know you," She said.

Her old voice crept like moss, then rushed from Alex's lips like the wind through dead trees. It was raspy and wise, yet youthful and bold, empowered by the might of her vampiric host.

"I know you, Succor-Beleth; pale horse rider, pleasure seeker, fallen whore," The Crone Mother continued, chuckling softly to herself. "You, who once commanded eighty-five legions of Hell, why are you here?"

* * *

Bruce swayed in the arms of his love, wishing he couldn't hear the truth unfolding in his ear. Sounds of battle registered, and Bruce closed his eyes. He pressed his face into Maria's neck, breathing deep even as The Knight-Captain within stirred to life.

"I know you, Succor-Beleth," the voice that did not belong to Alex said.

It was an old woman's voice, weathered but stern. The crisp, dated cadence and chiding Russian accent made the Knight-Captain's artificial skin crawl.

A sigh escaped Bruce, and he looked to the ceiling. His computer mind searched and located the name Succor-Beleth in the Sanguine Archives, and as all recorded information on it flooded through him, guiding his actions, Bruce sighed again, this time more audibly. The words 'Objective complete' flashed briefly over his HUD.

"What is it? I know that sigh," Maria said, her voice soft and sweet, as only a lie could be.

Bruce smiled sadly. She weighed nothing in his arms. Her brown eyes held his with absolute love and adoration, but there was something else there; something wicked, buried, and dangerous.

"I wish this was the work of an angel," Bruce said, taking Maria's hands in his. "I wish we could stay like this, without consequences or cares."

Maria's smile wavered. She made to pull from Bruce's grasp, but his grip was iron, and he held her there.

"Bruce?" She questioned.

"But you aren't an angel- not anymore, are you, Succor-Beleth?" Bruce asked coldly.

All warmth left the Knight-Captain's metal features as Maria's eyes flashed unnaturally gold. Her neck snapped violently to the left at the mention of the name, and her body grew thin and hard.

Bruce let go and watched with impassive eyes as his wifes body turned chitinous and brown. Convulsing, it threw itself to the ground, its spine arching horribly. A red line, a brutal gash, split from Maria's skull to her belly. A hissing sound filled the room, followed by an acrid stench, and then Maria's carapace body split open in a shower of gore.

For a moment, it lay there twitching- a scene of mind-bending carnage that Bruce was all too desensitized to. Then, hesitant as a newborn, a fat, gray slug with pus-covered eyes and a spiraling gullet of teeth emerged and tasted the air. It shook in fear at Bruce's powerful, metallic form and then made for the door, slopping from the corpse in jerky, wriggling motions.

The body of Maria, what Bruce realized to be nothing more than a shell, lay still, its blank eyes wide and staring.

Bruce shook his head and took a decisive step forward.

"You disgust me," He said, his voice as iron. "But thanks for the memories, if only for a moment."

The world went black for the demon slug as tremendous pressure crushed it from this world. A spout of tar-like, red paste dripped from the Knight-Captain's boot before bursting into flame around his ankle. The purple-black fire spat and licked, then turned to acrid smoke in seconds.

"Demons," Bruce grumbled, stepping past the twitching shell of Maria and out into the hallway. "Great."

With practiced ease, Bruce rifled through different modes of vision. He cast his gaze across the realms of the dead, passing briefly through the realms spiritual, before settling on the domain of demons and devils, sometimes called Pandemonium, more often thought of as Hell.

Now that Bruce knew what he was looking for, the island of Avalon felt steeped in demonic essence. The Manager, likely no more than a voice box for the demonic offender, was nowhere to be found.

Bruce strolled through the empty front lobby and out the locked doors without bothering to open them. The shower of glass about his shoulders and the groaning of wood as it disintegrated beneath him felt good, and Bruce relished the destruction.

Looking up at the glittering stars, Bruce radioed Alex. A second later, her voice sounded in his ears.

"Meet me at the drop point," Bruce commanded.

Alex sounded strange and breathy. She didn't answer with anything more than a grunt, and a shiver of apprehension made its way up Bruce's metal spine.

"Alex? Are you there?"

* * *

Alex Kyznetsov and Bruce Carowitz will return in The Island, part 3.