And he was there to adopt them, to scrutinize and explore their wonders, trying to reanimate and engender that vitality in him. But, of course, secrets reviled were no longer secrets, their intensity gone, their magic.

Still he hunted them, for was there not, however slight, a possibility that they noticed him, his intensity, his yearning to be surrounded by their magic?

Oh, indeed there was, and in the house before him, whose fence they had just parked outside, here awaited the teller of the tale that with time would unravel all he was, and make him apart of the stories, apart of the wonders.

The woman who opened the door was planted in an old fashioned wheelchair. Abnormally tall. Gray hair hung like faded curtains unveiling a long and squared forehead. Grey-blue dead eyes, sunken into their sockets, stared beneath. A white blanket with red elephants covered her legs.

"Amanda Peterson?"

She made a slurping sound, sucking in spittle, keeping her head slightly tipped backward, presumably to prevent her slack mouth from drooling.

"Hello...I'm Theresa Zane and this is Lance Blix, we're the reporters from Phenomena. You called us earlier about-"

"I know damn well why I called," she snapped on a slurring voice. Seemed only to be talking from the left side of her tilted, crooked, mouth.

Amanda looked from Theresa to Lance and back at Theresa, sucked once more and started turning the chair round.

"Hurry and close the door, don't want Henry runnin’ about."

They did as instructed, stepping into a hallway filled with a stale and heavy air, a pungent stench of cat urine was on it.

The lounge, which she'd wheeled into, was securely sealed in from the day; first with white translucent curtains, though had apparently been inadequate and reinforced with thick purple fabrics. The room was small, walls covered by shelves and books. Two lamps with leather hats, of the kind you had to smear oil on every so often, shed dull light over their immediate area.

Amanda took place behind a shiny brown and thick table, nourishing a glass of some silvery contents which she was escorting to her mouth with both trembling hands. Took a small sip, slurping it in.

She gestured a thin freckled hand in the general direction of the two chairs on their side of the table.

"You want anything to drink?" she asked flatly, just stating it not offering.

They both mumbled they were fine and took place in each their chair.

There was an issue of the newest Phenomena lying on the table which Amanda now reached out for, awkwardly bowing and twisting her body out of the chair to do so. Smacked her hand on top of it, as if catching something alive and kicking, and dragged it in.

She opened the first page and sucked repeatedly while scrutinising it. The page, fluttering in her trembling hand, displayed to his point of view the shadowy figure of a man, above him was red letters melodramatically stating What you are not allowed to know!

"Theresa Zane," she mused " is it supposed to be a joke?"

"Pardon?"

"Zane!" Her dead eyes shot Theresa a glance, head slightly shuddering.

"Oh...No, no it’s my real name."

Amanda was silent for some time, scowling, then spat almost challenging,

"It'd be a shitty one!"

Theresa made a slow uncertain nod.

Amanda held her arrested in her gaze for a little while longer, then brought it back down at the magazine.

"Don't see you in here Blix," she finally uttered accusingly.

"Ah...no" he admitted, clearing his throat "Actually I'm just a friend of Theresa. I do personal research on the subject...if it's a problem I-"

"Why?"

"Why I do...?" he trailed off as her head was lolling in a nod. Lance shrugged. "Fascination, I suppose."

She threw the magazine back on the table.

"Why though?" she pressed.

Lance let his eyes dance a little from woman to murky surroundings, not able to still them on her.

"I…I don’t know. It’s just something that-"

"Yes, you do," came the reply without a trace of doubt. And, of course, there was a reason for his fascination, a point in his life where he had discovered, or in truth, been discovered and embraced by the paranormal. Which would prove leading into an obsession toward unexplained related matters.

"So?"

"I don't think it's-"

"A tale for a tell."

"What?"

"A tale for a tell, a tale for a tell."

Lance glanced at Theresa, who nodded.

"….All right. It, my fascination on those subjects," he pointed toward the magazine "started by witnessing a spontaneous human combustion. It means that a body starts burning by itself. Although... this was not really spontaneous."

She let her head glide forward, waiting for more. Only the face approaching uncannily, the rest of her body holding its place.

In this movement her head fell slightly downward and a droplet of saliva escaped her suck. Running out from the tilted mouth, down her chin and splashed in the glass. Its silvery contents sloshing and a few drops jumping over board and onto the table.

All three of them were looking down at it.

Amanda let out a long hiss and delicately picked up the glass in both hands, putting it back down turned on its head, the liquid flooding everywhere, dripping down on the floor.

A trio of ice cubes lay trapped under the glass.

She straightened her elephant blanket, looking as casual as though she'd merely moved it an inch or two.

"Yes?" she said, encouraging him to pick up the tale.

Lance swallowed bewildered, trying to gather his thoughts.

"...Well, I witnessed this," he cleared his throat "this-"

"Burning body."

"Yes. Four...about four years ago. I was a doctor then, in Nemon... and one day this man was rolled into the emergency room his person so warm that smoke streamed out from the pores of his skin. And kept escalating no matter what we did in attempt to prevent it. Suddenly his hair and flesh was ablaze..." he trailed off unnerved by the intensity in Amanda's stare, and proved with good reason, as to his horror the voice of the past spoke across time, through her crooked mouth:

"I did this," she uttered as the man had once uttered "I did this, and you know why? Because I can. I made my flesh burn. I for one will be held under its limitations no longer."

Lance was trembling now, seeing both Amanda's squared contorting face and that of the mans. Smiling as he was swallowed in his fire, eye-balls licked by the blue pulsing flames.

He could smell the burned hair and flesh.

The whole face broke in an enormous grin and said,

"And you know what? I love every second of it... This is how it is, these are the flesh consuming powers."

And Lance had tasted it, sensed the pleasure of such power as he inhaled the smoke. And felt, understood, the urge, the need, to use it.

"Stop!" he burst out, heart racing in chest and head.

Amanda let her mouth open wide, there was no sound at first, but by and by the breath exuding carried the suggestion of a hissing cryptic chuckle. The intense gray eyes fixed on him.

"…Didn’t mean to pry in your head there Blix, sometimes things just have a way of flowing through me." She was still grinning.

Lance looked over at Theresa, who slack-faced glanced back at him. Then gathered herself enough to ask on a very pale tone:

"What…what is it you wanted to tell us?"

Amanda’s grin faded. She was staring down at the steadily melting ice cubes.

"Well," made a thoughtful suck "Faith and I, she’s my nurse, saw some creature yesterday. We were up in Princewood, on the path there, Faith pushin’ the chair, and suddenly this brown creature crossed the path. It was thin, on all fours, but with more human features than animal."

"Fur?" Theresa asked.

"No. No hair at all. Its skin looked sort of burned, thick and wrinkly. Though I don’t mean appearing to have been burned, just the way it looked. And the bizarre thing was that it, the skin, seemed to be moving around it, like... like a creature of its own. The wrinkles moving as worms; a blanket of worms sewn together squirming around its torso."

Her attitude had lightened up considerablly, now being enthuasm on her tone.

"On all fours, arms and legs very skinny…oh, I’ve said that. Well, ah, its mouth, its mouth was at least twice as wide as that of a person’s, and slightly ajar, enough to glimpse rows of small round teeth... Then its eyes," she let out a soft sigh bringing her hand up to her moth pondering it "I'm not sure how to describe `em. Maybe like glass balls with layers of white fluid streaming inside, and unblinking."

"Where on the path was this?" Theresa asked.

"Beginning of the meadow…You know, the main thing, the main impression I was left with, was that it was so..." she struggled for words " So very alive. That's the only thing I can find suiting its presence, utterly alive. As though I was looking at a creature in reality from the scenery of a fiction."

This statment found its way right into Lance waking up and reminding him of feeling something like that in the climax of the burning man. That the man departed into the real world and Lance stuck here in the reflection of that place, its shadow.

"So what happened after it saw you?" Theresa was saying.

"Just glanced at us and kept going into the meadow."

Whatever fervour and life there had been in her gray eyes was now extinguished as the most vital juncture of the account was reviled and exhausted; she'd told what her tale had to offer.

Amanda gave them directions to the path and Princewood. Of which involved a pointy and round erected rock, a green house whose garden was littered with a variety of car skeletons and a dirt-track. When finding this track, she said, they needed only to follow it as it ended in a small parking lot where the path began.

The day was a little shy of six when leaving Amanda. Taking place in the car, Theresa leaned her knees up against the dash with a notebook propped up against her thighs, starting to sketch the creature. She would always illustrate the observations; even those so ludicrous they deserved no attention. It mattered not at all, she'd dutifully put them down and ended up using some in the magazine. Though usally despoiled them considerably from that of her original concept; making them vaguer so as to let people have greater freedom with the images. Her profession, however, was a photographer, or as she was found of voicing it: an immortalizer of the stories. But rarely more than the surroundings, the empty hushed stages and scenery of where the performances claimed to have taken place, that became objects of her immortalizing.

Neither of them commented the conversation they’d had with Amanda. Both being of the mentality that it was rather irrelevant what their belief or disbelief toward a story was. If they found something they did. And even for himself he tried staying true to this, not judging and analyzing so as to keep things as free and flexible as possible.

Lance located the rock and they were soon out of the residential area. The green house eventually presented itself as well, and to the left of it the dirt-track. Theresa had to stop sketching here as the car bumped and rocked on the uneven ground. She'd already produced a creature who shamed and eclipsed the one his mind had conjure up.

After following the track for about ten minutes they arrived at a small parking lot which had room for about a dozen cars. Theirs, however, was its sole occupant this evening. A brown wooden sign stood beside the place they'd parked, saying Princewood with foot-tall white letters. And a map over the forest was displayed underneath. To the right of this started the narrow path. Wounding through primarily pine woods. Amanda had said the meadow was waiting a few minutes walk from here.

Stepping out of the car, Lance was gripped by a certainty that the day had an hidden agenda; something was about to happen, the air felt charged with it...something extraordinary was afoot. And he believed his companion to sense the same hint of intuition, both balancing on the verge of whatever miracle it was they were seeking.

They stared at each other for a strange, clear, moment and without exchanging any dialogue headed in on the path.

It took them a handful minutes reaching the glade, which was in the seize of a modest football field.

The path itself, mostly littered with needles, would, of course, leave no traces. The grass in the meadow, however, sprang from a soft muddy ground with occasional bald patches discouraging growth, which still could have visible prints. So they made their way in, with meticulous care, brushing the knee-high grass aside scrutinizing the ground.

It was a slow process and the steadily darkening sky would not show much patience.

"Hey!" Theresa yelled after some time "Hey, I think I've found something Lance," the tone of her voice was trembling with eager excitement. "Get over here!"

That was, however, not done as quickly as he wanted to. There was some ground to cover and had to look carefully where he stepped, so as to not stomp out anything of significance.

Holding the grass aside with her legs and bowing down she started snapping pictures of her found.

"See," she said when he was close enough "it looks like feet."

Lance hunched down. It did indeed look like the edges of human feet, stamped with surprisingly good signatures.

"Only four toes," he remarked.

They searched the spot for further imprints and was not disappointed, discovered a second foot at a yard’s distance from the first. And a few yards further still; what appeared to be hands, thin hands with four long fingers.

While behind the lens of the camera, Theresa said, "This is just" she strove for words which finally exploded in "Incredible."

It was great. It meant Amanda and the nurse really had seen it.

While firing off three or four pictures, and parting grass she observed:

"Hands, Lance, hands."

He nodded.

"Yeah." He looked up at her from where he was crouched "This is indubitable wha…"

Lance trailed off as Theresa suddenly rose to her feet, letting go of the camera, which hung around her neck with a leather strap, and exclaimed:

"Oh... God."

She was no longer looking down but straight ahead, of what lay behind him. Her face loosing all trace of both eagerness and color, replaced by something near shock.

Lance turned to see. Feeling his legs instantly weakening under him and stomach the same.

Out from the woods, staggering into the glade, emerged a man, dripping with blood. It streamed from a wound in his head, covering most of his face; hair lying dark and glued to each side. Blood also gushed from his right arm which he was waving about as though on fire, filling the air with droplet patterns of red fluid. His bulging white eyes staring at them, bloody lips forming words.

Lance rose on watery legs. Theresa stood completely still staring, face white, eyes wide.

"Go get help," he instructed from a dry mouth, then began running through the field toward the man. He turned his head after a few strides and saw that she was still just standing there.

"Go!" he yelled, and this time she got her mind together. Swallowing continuously she nodded and headed back to the car.

The skies were bathing in yellow, orange and crimson firing liquid that leant the morbid picture a surreal touch. As he approached the man all around them appeared to be aglow. The brown grass producing golden luminescence, the mans blood slick stumbling features lustrous.

Lance reached out trying to take hold of his wounded arm, but it was waved free of his grip and jerked up. Hitting him in the face hard enough to numb his jaw. Smearing his cheek and chin with the warm fluid.

He seized new hold and this time had it arrested. The wrist artery was open; torn open.

"...East..." he muttered.

Lance instantly begun removing his belt and was about to take off his shirt, to bind the arm with, when the man suddenly lost balance and stumbled over him, sending them both in the ground. He landed sitting with the man

in his lap, chest down.

Lance managed with some efforts to turn him around.

"...East..." he repeated with a wet voice.

"East?" Lance said, while stripping off his shirt.

Was he trying to tell where it had happened?

The man shook his head.

"B...B-east...had t-to feed...feed beast," he used so much force pronouncing the last syllable that he sprayed Lance's face with saliva and blood.

"Try to hold your arm still," he instructed, attempting to attach the shirt, but with difficulties as it was pulled and jerked around.

"Angel...the angel, helped me...it helped me through it... Helped me for-get...myself. W-while fed the beast."

Lance pulled the belt as tight as he could, and since there was no way of tying it up like this, had to keep pulling it with all the strength he could muster till help arrived.

Meanwhile, the mans talk continued.

"I had to torture...im-him. The beast made-made me."

The bulging white eyes, beyond the contorting red mask, were two large O`s fixed on him. Staring from such a haunted expression Lance had to look up at the darkening skies, also drowning in crimson liquid.

The blood and spittle on his face was drying into a stiff skin. And ceaselessly the man gasped and gurgled about the angel and the beast.

"It...it had to hide, the...angel had to hide while I-I...tortured him. And then...then the beast ate him."

And that was it. He felt the mans last ragged breath of life streaming out and meeting his stiff face with fluttering soft strokes.

Lance was still sitting there, holding the body, when the ambulances arrived.

His pants glued to his skin with the cooling fluid. The stench of the mans bladder and bowels surrender hung in a thick aura around them.

He had closed the mans lids, to prevent the blank gaze from staring up at him. But its haunted intensity still stared from his mind’s eye. And whispering echoes were telling gaspingly of angels.

"It helped me forget myself" the phantom voiced with its wet tones "it hid while I tortured him, and then the beast ate him."

He saw this in his floating mind, saw the angel hiding. In all its glorious light, hiding behind the trunk of a tree, because it couldn't witness the cruelty that took place, that the beast made him do. But neither could it desert him. It made him forget himself, making the task less horrendous.

The police came as well, and they brought Lance back to the station in Plymont.

After he had showered in their gym, and been donated a sweat suit to replace the filthy clothing, he was escorted to a small office, by a man named Thomas Nasad.

Lance sat on a two seated couch (under a bookshelf carrying such a burden it seemed ready to take a fall any given moment, which might not have been all that bad, might have done just the trick beating out the voice still echoing in his head) to the left of the chaotic desk Nasad was behind.

"You feelin’ okay...?" asked Nasad on a deep voice. He was a large man, with an enormous belly intact in a black double breasted suit. And a thick black beard to top off a strong resemblance to Pavarotti.

"Yes, I'm all right," Lance replied, blowing on the white plastic cup of coffee he'd been given. He did feel better after the shower and change of clothes. The condition of the man and the blood was, of course, something which he'd seen hundreds of times before, so on a superficial level this did not distress that much. Albeit quite a difference meeting it under such circumstances.

Nasad nodded and leaned back in his chair, which grunted and screamed under his weight.

He had a blue piercing gaze bespeaking a man that offered a negligible chance of being deflated. There was some indefinable and intriguing charisma surrounding him, Lance thought. Something that engendered a wish of approval. Showing no trace of the megalomaniac indifference and arrogance police persons tended to exude, but genuinely interest in Lance's presence.

"You worked as a surgeon in Nemon, right?"

"Right, about four years ago."

"And now?"

"...Eh, self-employed."

The man smiled, showing white teeth beneath the black combed beard. His eyes twinkling.

"Okay...And Theresa Zane, friend of yours?"

Lance nodded sipping the coffee.

"Yeah..." then -since talk had been on occupation and all eventually was bound leading to her work- added "She's a reporter for a magazine called Phenomena."

"A tabloid?"

"Yes. It... aims on unexplained events and paranormal activity."

Nasad stretched out his legs, crossing them, and folded his hands over his vast abdomen, if he'd started humming a merry tune or whistled Lance would not have been surprised. Instead though, asked:

"Have you seen strange things?"

A bit bewildered over the question, Lance filled his upper lip with a mouthful of air, showing his empty palms around the cup.

"Some...I guess."

"But not as strange as you wish, I gather."

"No," he said honestly "though I've had a few moments this day."

Thomas nodded.

"Yes, so have I. And I might have even more to add your lot."

"Oh?"

"First, add mine. Tell me what happened."

"...Okay. Well, as I said, Theresa is a reporter, and we were interviewing a woman earlier to day who claimed to have seen...Ah," he said, as Nasad showed him the drawing Theresa had made.

"What happened after you found the prints?"

Lance told him what the man had uttered, childishly hoping to rivet. Nasad stared at the wall throughout the telling and only when he was finished did he muse meditatively:

"Angel..."

He looked over at Lance.

"All right... the remanding part, so far, is that there was another body

found in Princewood to day, after your incident."

"Really?"

He nodded slowly.

"Eaten to the bones."

"Eaten?" Lance asked grimacing perplexed "Completely?"

"Completely," Nasad confirmed "From foot to skull."

"Jesus."

And the beast ate him.

"His artery," Lance said "it seemed as though bitten open."

Thomas nodded again.

"Yeah. Of course, it's too early drawing much conclusions of anything, but from how it looks so far, he was not mauled. They say he bit it open himself."

"What about the wound, the wound in the head?"

"They found bark in it. Probably fell and beat it against a tree. Fuelled by a desperate wish for death, huh?"

"Yeah...Were there traces of torturing?"

Thomas thought it over for a few moments; whether or not he should impart this information, or just hauling out the moment savoring his last card.

Probably the latter.

"Again, all is very uncertain, but from what I've been told of immediate impressions, yes, there were. He seemed to have used his teeth on more than himself."

"He'd bitten the other?"

"Bitten and clawed off pieces from the person’s face and head."

Lance frowned, emptying the now stale coffee, not really wanting it but unaware of what he was doing before it ran down his throat, making him pull a face.

"And how will this be justified?" he asked cynically, too familiar with how they dealt with what surrounded this incident.

"Well, the most likely scenario that you'll see from media coverage, is that the man killed and mutilated the other man, an animal came by, caught the smell of blood and started dining...Then the killer got guilty enough to commit suicide."

"Case closed."

"Case closed," Nasad agreed.

"So what do you believe?" Lance asked.

Petting his beard he said:

"I'm not sure. Things haven't found their connections just yet," he tapped his right temple "It's all lurking beneath the surface and I wait for it to rise in its own good time, not forcing it up unfinished."

"That's a calm notion."

"Yes, but then I also receive all answers at once."

"But you have to do something, I mean if the story goes as you said, you

have to prevent people from wandering-"

"Yes, yes, naturally. There are some already out there, searching for the animal."

"And the pictures of the foot prints, won`t make it to the general public of course."

"No..." he said, staring at Lance, the blue eyes seeming to smile. "Animal or demon beast though, why does one get tortured and eaten complete. The mutilator not even touched, and kills himself?...Then, the angel."

He didn't appear to wonder aloud, as much as telling the rules of the riddle.

And then giving the truth to this asked,

"Did it evolve the strangeness, Blix?"

Before Lance could muster a reply Nasad rephrased the question on a healthy grin.

"Did it please you?"

Although he felt pity for the one who'd been eaten and the other driven far enough out of his wits to open himself like that, truth to tell, it did please him, because there was no doubt in his mind that there was a real beast, a demon, out there. And maybe, just maybe, an angel as well.

"Yes," he said.

Nasad kept his grin and nodded in agreement.

"Yeah, there is indeed something strange going on," he sigh " I

feel it ready to unveil before me Blix. And I think the revelation is going to be quite...sublime."

This was odd talk coming from the lips of a police man, especially with

thought of what he was connecting the sublime with.

He caught Lance's look, and laughed a short musical laughter.

"I do get carried away. I'm a poet by heart. True. I write poems to soothe myself."

He pointed at a red thick book on the top of the littered desk.

"To capture and inspire moods I-"

He was interrupted by the phone, which he picked up and engaged in a short conversation.

Then rose from behind the desk.

"My good man... I think the unraveling is starting."

Nasad followed him to where Theresa was waiting. They shook hands and the odd man was gone.

Lance was holding up the sweat pants with both hands, as it was generous enough in its seize to house a family on four.

After the formality of making sure he was all right, Theresa told him in a irritated tone that they had confiscated the film.

As the two made their way out of the police station he related the conversations he'd had with both men.

"Do you believe him?" she asked, coming out into the parking lot and heading for each their side of her car.

He gave her a look. Well, there was no point trying to let this be more free and flexible.

"About what?"

"The angel. Or at least the presence of somebody."

She put the key in the slot and turned it around, but did not open the door, just stared at him from the other side of the roof waiting for an answer.

"I'm not sure yet," he replied, borrowing Nasad`s line.

Theresa made a questioning face but satisfied enough to open the door and get in, then leaned over the passenger seat unlocking the door.

The skies were completely black now, a clear blackness with a scatter of stars looking down at him.

It didn't take long before his answer surfaced. As they drove out of the lot he said:

"I think I do."

Tasting the words and finding them to his approval, he repeated them:

"Yeah, I think I do."

Although searching for the paranormal opened minded, and seeing himself a fanatic, he still believed himself capable of discriminating a none skeptic eye from a blinded. And also that there might be a line crossing between the two, that was to say the possibility of delusions in the midst of something that indeed was unnatural or supernatural. Like this, even if there was a monster lurking about, the mans angel could very well be a delusion. But, of course, the question then arose that if one could accept the demon beast, why couldn't there also be an angel? Perhaps all of them had angels by there side; angels that could not interfere with the demons actions, but could make its victims suffer less by, for example, have them forget themselves.

The more vexed question was why would this demon beast make one of its victims a perpetrator in the crime -indeed how?- and then not even touch him afterward? And if this beast was so hostile, and hungry, why had it not looked twice at the women?

The women, he thought.

"Did you by any chance catch the nurse’s last name?"

"Ah, Faith…Quinn, yeah Quinn I believe. Why? You think we should find out if she saw more than Amanda?"

"Yeah."

She nodded.

"Might as well. Let's head over to my place and check the files. Who knows, maybe there's more who’ve seen and reported it."

"Would you stop at mine first though, have to get some real clothes on."

He felt uncomfortably loose under this baggy thing, as he had neither T-shirt nor boxer shorts on, and his feet were bare in the bloodied shoes.

"Sure. You better bring an extra set too, because I think we'll be there for a while, and I would like to return to Princewood at dawn," she glanced at him to see his reaction.

Lance, of course, nodded agreeably.

This was the second man who had presented enigmatic messages to him while dying. And both changing his life profoundly. One showing him the door and the other, he at least suspected, opening it.

The elevator in his apartment building was out of order again, and so he had

to climb up the seven stairs, while clinging to his saggy pants. Reaching the last, completely out of breath, he produced the keys and hurried in.

He found a bag and packed some clothes, toiletries, and the .38.

Stopped by the kitchen were he stood in the murk looking out at Plymont while drinking a glass of orange juice. Damn how fast this deluge of incidents had happened, he thought, he'd been sitting here ignorant of all this mere hours before, and now his bank of experiences was gained by a conversation with some kind of psychic, witnessing a death, and currently on the search of both a demon and an angel.

And then it was time to leave the safety of the kitchen and apartment again, certain that the next time he'd be standing here he would have more still to reflect upon.

"You want some pizza to take home?" she asked when he'd resumed his place in the car.

"Yeah sure."

She nodded and called up a pizza place in the area of where she lived, placing an order so that it would be ready by the time they got there.

It was more than ready by that time.

Due to an accident blocking the main road they had to take a detour that was jammed with traffic.

They stopped outside by the long stone flight leading up to Theresa's apartment. Which lay in the extremities of a complex that had a curious triangle shape, from roof and all the way to the foot. Giving the white building the look of a Troblerone chocolate bar.

Lance stepped out and took a deep breath of the night, mostly smelling of the warm pizza-box in his hands.

Inside, Theresa checked her messages which all were from people whose names meant nothing to him, save for that of her editor, a gentleman by the name of Yaphet Summino, who also were the only one she called back.

While she engaged in this conversation, Lance went into the lounge and took place on the sofa, turning on the television to see what they'd say about the incident on the news.

He heard Theresa telling Yaphet of what had happened, and had to repeat the part about the missing film, with the foot prints, about four times. And even though she sat across the room, in the hallway, he could hear Yaphet yelling something involving conspiracy, bastards and suing. Theresa only mumbled agreeably by way of reply. When it was over she joined him on the sofa.

"Not too happy `bout the pictures, I gathered?"

"To say the least... Some good might come out of it though, Yap`s quite the hacker, and equally pissed off at the moment, so he’s going to search around where he’s not allowed, by way of revenge."

"What about the reports...of possible witnesses to the creature?"

"He’s checking in on that too, so we just have to wait for him to call back."

And so they did. Starting to eat of the pizza.

After a short time the accident they'd been blocked by earlier came on the news, presented by an on-live reporter with an unsuitable excessive vocabulary, explaining dramatically that it had been a high speed pursuit where certain passengers had held on for dare life, but none, apparently, made it out alive. Following that, a female newscaster told the basic events at Princewood. But, of course, casting no doubt over it being an animal responsible of the deed, and there was no mentioning of any foot prints.

The explanation went pretty much as Nasad had predicted. She did, however, warn people to stay away from the Princewood area, when the animal was still at large.

Theresa grunted annoyed.

"That should keep the fragile minds at peace...You mind if I take a quick shower."

He shook his head and told her that was perfectly all right, he'd even help her scrub her back if she wanted, which remark was rewarded with a crooked grin.

"You wish."

"No, not really just being polite."

"Jack-ass."

With that, she vanished into the bathroom.

Lance decided to try and get a hold of Faith Quinn. Had just started searching the phone book when the phone, on the little table he sat by in the hall, began ringing, he watched it, waiting for the machine to pick it up, and when it did the voice of Yaphet penetrated.

"Dammit where are you...got something fo-"

Lance took it.

"Who the hell you?" Yaphet wanted to know.

"Ah, Lance, friend of-"

"Lance, eh? You was there no?"

"Yes."

"Where she now?"

"She's in the shower."

"Oh..." Yaphet said, no doubt imagining just that " well, I can tell you, I guess."

He sounded to enthused not to, and Lance was equally eager for him to do

so.

"Yes."

"See, what happen to you...happen before."

"...What?"

"The murder, eaten to bones, suicide, happen before. Several times."

"Several times?"

"Yes, yes."

He made questioning grimace.

"When?"

"The latest I found, only month ago."

"A month? In Princewood? "

"No, no. Other places."

"...Such as?"

"Well, see, I found five cases, but got caught, so got nothing to show for it, can't get back in either... And the only one I saw where had happen was that a month ago, in Nemon."

"Nemon?"

"Yes, that what I say, Nemon."

"How the hell..."

"Don't know. But think the others might have been farther still, see."

"No, I don't," he said mildly frustrated.

Yaphet not placing the comment uttered:

"Eh?"

"Where did you find this?"

"Police records."

"...Are you-" he interrupted himself with a sigh, about to ask if he was sure about this, but thought the better of wasting breath on skepticism and asked instead, "What more did they say?"

"Ah, no talk of angel and beast, because none of the people killing themselves left any...any statements. There might even be more cases. More can have killed themselves, but not near by and so they don't make connection, but take them as different cases."

Theresa returned now in an aura of shampoo. Dressed in a gray sweat suit with a hooded sweater.

Putting her dark wet hair behind her ears she took over the conversation.

Lance went back into the lounge and sat himself down with a blank face of confusion, assessing this new information.

Nemon, he thought, shaking his head, it was ludicrous. It took about four hours to drive to Nemon. And it was a huge city for God's sake, now how the hell could a thing like that be running about suburbia? Never mind the prospect of the travelling.

"Yeah, I`ll call you back later," Theresa finished, and hanging up, came back in.

"It has to be a mistake," he said looking up at her as she took place in the sofa, crossing one leg under the one in sitting position.

"I mean, with an appearance as Amanda said, how could it have crossed such distance?"

She shook her head, biting in half of her lip.

"I...don't know."

Theresa frowned deeply, staring at him while pondering.

"But I believe that more than that it has lived peacefully and undetected up in Princewood."

"...I suppose," he agreed on a sigh. "Well, let's say that Yaphet`s information is genuine, that it indeed came here from somewhere; just passing through. That would mean it repeats the pattern every time: torture, eating and suicide."

"Would seem that way, yes."

"But why would all of them do the former and latter? How could it make them all do it, and why?"

All good questions.

Which she could only shake her head too.

"It makes no sense."

They sat silent for a while.

"Maybe we should give Faith a try, eh?" Theresa suggested.

"Yes, I was about to that when Yaphet called. I`ll do it now."

He took place by the phone again and found her number. It took a half dozen rings before she answered:

"Faith."

"Hi. My name is Lance Blix. I wondered if I may ask you a few questions concerning what you and Amanda Peterson witnessed yesterday?"

There was silence, then:

"You from that magazine?"

"Yes."

She sigh.

"I told her not to mention me dammit...And I'm sure I have no information to add what she's told you Mr..."

"Blix, Lance Blix."

"Mr. Fix. I rather just-"

"That's B-lix, and you haven't seen the news have you?"

"News, no. Why? What happened?"

"Its eaten someone."

"Eaten?"

"Yes."

"Oh good God... Dead?"

"Yes."

There was a long silence which he let her have, as the grim news of the creatures deeds mounted, engendering obligation to share her knowledge.

"I... First of Blix, I don't want my name or anything in that magazine, okay?"

"No, of course not, it will be completely confidential," he assured her with a small smile.

"Not the police either."

"None."

"Good...Well, the truth is that I went back later on, yesterday. And saw it...or actually, saw them."

Them? Lance thought, you saw the angel?

"W-what...what did they look like?"

"It's a bit hard to find the vocabulary...But...I have painted them."

"...You have?"

"Yeah. I guess if you want, you can come by and see it. It's a damn sight easier than describing them at least."

"Yes. I would appreciate that very much."

He got the address and jotted it down.

"Green Street," he said looking up at Theresa who was standing in front him, and now uttering, "Green Street. That's only a couple of blocks away."

"We're only a few blocks away," he transferred.

"Is that right."

"Yeah we're in-"

"Pan Street," Theresa prompt."

"Pan Street."

"Oh," said Faith " you know what, if it's just the same, I think I`ll just pop over with it instead. Got some errands anyway."

"Sure, yeah."

He gave her the precise directions and hung up.

"What?" Theresa asked.

"She's painted them."

"Them?"

He nodded.

"She has painted the angel," Lance mused. Shaking his head with an overwhelmed expression that told he had no idea what the statement really meant.

Theresa just looked at him for some time.

"Let's hope she's talented, eh?"

"Yeah, and let's hope she's quick too."

Thankfully she was. Few minutes passed before a small blue Seat stopped down on the street. And from each their side by the wide lounge window, they saw a blond woman stepping out, gazing up at the apartments. Then turned and hauled out a canvas from the back seat. And started up the flight.

They both went to the front door.

Faith stopped a yard from the door looking at them with nervous eyes. She seemed to be in her early twenties, both the shirt and pants she wore were stained with paint.

Lance stared at the canvas, which she held sideways, trying to get a glimpse of what it featured, but could thus far only see a dominating color of green.

"Come in," Theresa invited, but the woman declined shaking her head warily.

"Ah...no. I got some things to do...I just" she trailed off, turning the picture.

It took almost half the length of the doorway.

His eyes danced around for a while trying to drink it all in, and a slow gasp of astonishment emptied his lungs.

"Didn't have all that much time on it..." she shrugged "Been up most of the night though."

Her modesty was indefensible by what was displayed in her hands. There was no doubt of her talent, nor to the nature of this creation; that it was done with the intensity of a person who needed to transfer the image from mind to matter. Either the process of an artistic and creative obsession toward the vision. Or to simply get it out of her mind and apart of reality, in fright, perhaps, that it had no home there.

As a stroke of genius, or just restlessness, she had painted the surroundings in more of a blur, and out of focus, while the objects of interest executed with uncannily meticulous details. (With thought of what Amanda had explained of feeling that it was a creature from reality.)

There was a lake in the foreground. On the other side of this, by the edge of the woods stood two identical creatures, (she'd apparently decided one of them wasn't enough) of whom looked neither like he nor Theresa had imagined.

He saw the other creature among the trees as well, but forced his gaze to study these first, so as to take in one gift at a time. Lance was down on his knees by now, a foot from the painting. Staring in awe. It was stunningly well captured, he could almost see their skin moving, crawling, around them. Their eyes were white and picking up reflections from the lake. And it seemed as though the two wide mouths were grinning at him.

Then he could scrutinize them no further, but let his gaze go to the place of its will. Where between the trees stood a man, head turned around looking at him. He seemed to be very tall (judging from the surroundings) with white shoulder long hair and ecru transparent skin, which he could see a purple fluid beneath, appearing to circulate.

The white man was staring at him with silver eyes, formed with eerie intensity.

The angel.

Ice coursed up Lance's back, his scalp tingling.

He noticed now that there were a third of the brown creatures, among the

trees, standing beside the white man.

He looked up at Faith.

"Where was it, the brown creature, originally?"

Faith shook her head.

"They were there all three... Everything's as I remember it."

"You're telling me all three..." he finished the sentence waving his hands at them.

She nodded.

"Yes."

So by them she had meant all four of them, not just it and the angel.

He glanced up at Theresa. Who unglued her eyes from the painting meeting his, then aimed them at Faith.

"...Ah, would you mind if we borrowed it Faith. I`d really like to take some pictures," she hastily added "Not for the magazine, for myself. It's a damn good painting."

"Thanks. Yeah, you can borrow it..." she got a sweetly shy expression and added " you know, if you'd like, you could buy it."

"Yes. Yes, I would like that very much."

"Really?" she said beaming at the prospect "that'd be my first real sale to people I don't know."

Theresa went to find her check book.

Lance sat studying the silver eyes of the white man. He swallowed dryly. How many wonders of what he yearned for had these eyes seen? Though seeing them, was, of course, a good start for his. A damn fine start.

Faith had named the picture Wanderers.

It now stood propped up against the table, a yard in front of the sofa where they had been sitting in silence, just watching it, for at least fifteen minutes.

"Are they blind to it?" Theresa finally asked, referring to if the trio could not see the white one.

"To the angel?"

"Yeah."

"No. I think they know its there."

Theresa sigh and covered her face, then said behind the mask of fingers, "Since they are three, why would they possible have let one go? I mean..."

"That's the pattern, if we're to believe what Yaphet found, always one that gets away and commits suicide"

Looking at them, judging from how Faith had seen them, they seemed little like sadistic demons, savage perhaps, but not inventive fiends in that way.

"The question is why don't they just attack and eat? Why the games?"

"And why not even a snarl at them. I mean, Faith went back and saw this. All of them seeing her."

"Never mind how this quartet gets from place to place."

They fell to silence again. It seemed as though there were no revelations forthcoming just dividing questions.

Theresa asked after some time if they were still going to Princewood in the morning.

He nodded.

"Okay, let's check in on Yap," she said "maybe he's dug up something more. Why don't you listen to the phone in the hall and I`ll call him from the bedroom.

He went to the hall, waited a short while and picked up the receiver, it was ringing.

"Yeah," Yaphet answered in no more than a whisper.

"Theresa. Listen, we've just gotten hold of-"

"No time talkin’, call you later."

"Wait, why?"

"I think its here."

"What?"

"It here. Or coming, on its way."

"What makes you say that?"

"Feel it. And it feel me...Know why?"

She let out a small sigh.

"No, why?"

"Because it feel itself."

"Uh-huh."

"Yeah. It feel itself in my thoughts, and it don't much like it."

"Do...do you want me to come over or-"

"No!" he yelled "No you stay away, this time my turn. Don't want you here. Its coming to me!"

And with that, he hung up.

She came out of the bedroom with an irritated expression.

"Selfish bastard."

Lance wasn't sure what to think, he knew he didn't much like it. Then remembered something of the man which caused a trembling wave to course through him.

"Doesn't he have some psychic abilities, premonitions or something? It says so in the magazine, right?"

"Yeah, even makes predictions at times. Though..." she let out a sour laugh "if he posses some, its probably covered in a thick layer of idiocy."

Lance just stared questioning at her, not able to feel so easy about it.

"Where does he live."

"Listen, Lance, he’s just full of drink and shit in equal measure... And he lives in the middle of Plymont, not far from you actually."

"Well, according to the other cases it matters little living in a town."

"Yeah, okay, and why the hell would it bother coming for him...I mean," she threw up her hands "its moronic. And how? Feeling thoughts?"

He shrugged.

"Some telepathic-"

"Lance, although he would like to think it, he's no grand player. It's just bullshit, because it, or they, didn't even look twice at the women who saw it, so why would it care about him?"

All arguments became rather groundless to this logic and so he let the whole thing sink with a deep sigh and nodded.

She consulted her watch.

"Maybe we should try and get a few hours of sleep before light arrives."

Shortly afterward found himself on the sofa, where he managed a couple of hours worth of peaceful sleep. Then was back in the glade seeing the blood spilling man emerging from the trees with the darkening yellow skies in background.

And suddenly, in the flashing sequence of dreams, the man was lying in his lap and Lance asking why he had tortured the man. What promises or threats had the beast presented to make him do that.

The mans haunted face broke in an almighty grin as he said:

"Why? Because I can, of course...It's just flesh," he purposely triggered a shower of spittle "just flesh, Lance."

Blue flames waved up his eyeballs.

"And I can do what I want with it."

With that, he was on full fire, to emphasize his point, staring up at Lance, chuckling.

"Oh, but you want it. I can see it in you Lance, you want this power, want

it to consume you. You're...burning up for it."

Then out of nowhere Amanda came rolling, her thin long and pale body pushing the wheels through the meadow. Yelling something unintelligible and closing in on him rapidly. Her squared face gliding toward him. The crooked mouth dripping spittle.

Just as Amanda was about colliding with him, Lance jerked himself to wakefulness, staring up at the ceiling in Theresa's living room.

When pulse and heart began resuming a more normal rhythm and the dream drifted off, he sat up and decided that would have to do with sleep.

He turned on the television with a volume barley audible, so as to not wake up Theresa, and watched from nearly the beginning of Videodrome.

Theresa came out from the bedroom after few minutes.

"Oh," he said "did it disturb you?"

"No, couldn't sleep. My head's too full of things to ponder. Mind if I join you?"

"Take place."

The only light on was that of the flickering from the television. They ate cold left over pizza and were entertained by such elements as stomachs gaping open swallowing guns and video tapes, and TV's breathing and bursting, flooding innards.

By the time the movie was finished, they decided to start packing. Even though it was still dark it took quite some time to get there.

"You think they'll be still looking, the police I mean? Maybe blocking of the roads as well." Theresa said putting some food together.

"Probably blocked off the parking lot and so on...But there won't be anyone there. And since their looking for an animal they won't expect it to sit still in that part of the woods waiting for them. It's a big forest."

She nodded.

"...Well, I think that's it, you ready?"