She just smiled, the bonny thing, and raised her sight to the middle of his forehead, but the next shot he heard wasn't the bullet from hers! He watched the maid's body spiral in a ninety degree spin of relentless pain as she slammed into the wall broken, the blood from the shot splayed across the ornate marble. The empty torso, huddled and hunched collapsed to the floor. Strings cut.

Brick reached for Brenda and found her, her recognition passed by a faint purr akin to a kitten. He tried to pull himself up from the floor as the footsteps grew closer. The Tatterfox came into view, his revolver held high. He just nodded at the Krazzi and Brick nodded back.

'This is a blood bath,' the Inspector declared, pointing to the broken maid, 'she can't be more than sixteen. Kids.'

'I know, Brick. That's part of the game isn't it? That we would sink so low to kill children just to save the world.'

'We got to take this bitch out, now.'

The Tatterfox nodded. 'You good?'

'I'll live, and I've had worse.'

The Don sniffed the air and looked about. Brick didn't like the concern on the augment's face.

'What?'

'Pawns . . . I have the distinct feeling we were expected.'

The Commodore was light on his feet for an old man, only moments ago a couple of young guards had tried to pin him down in a store cupboard, hailing the wall and door with a torrent of bullets. He'd dived for cover behind an old metal locker that was falling apart at the seams. He'd dived into the storeroom for cover as his exits were blocked, pulled the locker down from its upright position and waited out the barrage. He heard them reload and pulled the Wraith from his jacket and fired. It was pot luck. He had no idea where they were standing. A loud tirade of pistol fire confirmed his doubts and he hunched down to the floor again. Once over, he fired another round from the Wraith this time striking lucky. The muffled cries of pain and despair were an over familiar chorus for this seasoned soldier.

He pulled a wrench from the battered locker and threw it out into the open corridor to distract the other guard. It worked, a small torrent of gunfire embellished the ancient tool and the Commodore sought his moment, ploughing through the storeroom and firing a couple of shots for luck through the brick wall and then sliding out into the corridor on the smooth marble on his left hand side to finish the job. He ploughed a bullet dead centre into the boy's brain.

He took a moment to take a breather, enjoying the cool temperature of the floor.

Get up you old fart.

He crept along the corridors of White Lillies and then felt the warm tickle of sweat down the side of his temple. He dabbed at it with his hand and was shocked to notice the sweat was red. He must have clipped something in the storeroom, unaware in the furore of adrenaline. No handkerchief at hand he dabbed his head on the cuff of his jacket and then he heard the slight rumblings of quieted voices from the door to his left. He readied the D-16 and pulled his ear to the door. He risked the door creaking and the scent of hot air, slightly perfumed titillated his nostrils.

The darkened doorway led further down into some kind of cellar where he proceeded to enter, carefully placing his feet on the cobwebbed stairwell he descended, his trigger happy finger eager and spry.

The lighting was subdued, soft; a violet haze that turned the stonework and the font at the centre of the room an alluring glowing grey. The old man approached cautiously, curious to know the sound of the tidal surge lapping at the lip of the font.

He heard gunfire from another part of the house and suddenly did an about turn. Perhaps Brick and the lad needed help. He looked to the font again and felt his curiosity urge him to take a peek. He heard the thunderous shot from Brenda, Brick's gun. It was finite, any following fire was not forthcoming leaving him to believe everything was under control.

The Commodore peered into the font, into the violet hued milk which lapped at the basin wall, small, dark red specks the size of a household mouse emerged from the thriving surf to breach now and again, as if they were waiting for something. They weren't mice. Razor sharp teeth that hung like a rusty fork and black beady eyes that sent a shiver down the old man's neck.

It reminded him of something, years ago when he had toured with the Baroness's father in Cantland. He'd took a fishing trip off the coast to hunt Garrolox. The captain had spent nearly an hour hauling chow into the sea waiting for the predators to rear their heads for feeding time. Those same black eyes, relentless, cold; calculating.

Feeding time?

'Such an opportune moment,' the silky voice from the shadows declared.

The Commodore raised the D-16 and pointed it at the small, fat frame of the Baroness's PA.

'Oh please, Commodore. Shoot me if you desire but rest assured you won't get out of here alive.'

The old man paused for thought and then brought up the barrel of his pride and joy, aiming it at the fat head of Grendal Odatt. The Commodore then saw the smug fat smile of his opponent as two gun barrels pressed themselves into the old man's skull.

He sighed deeply and handed over the D-16 to the petite maid to his right. She was tiny, no more than five feet in stature, probably sixteen in age. He made a casual glance to his right and noticed the slim redhead. A maid also, probably the same age. Prim, proper; breakable. The Commodore reached for the redhead's neck but she saw his retaliation in the breath of his nostrils and blocked his strike, taking his hand in her finger and thumb, her strength, like that of a Darkland Ox; no struggle, no give. Taking her other hand to his she willed her dominance into the old man, taking the pressure point in his wrist and applying some faint pressure which made the Commodore buckle, his body succumbing to her unnatural strength. Grendal looked on amused, enjoying the theatre before him.

Without so much as any prompting the redhead took his index finger and pulled it back. A sheer break, the old man beaten, falling to the floor, clutching his broken finger with the unadulterated shock of his other.

'Well,' Grendal interjected, 'now that we have exchanged pleasantries . . .'

The pain was sheer electric. He sobbed for what seemed hours but was only seconds as the two maids pulled him up to face the amused features of Odatt.

'My dear fellow, if you seek an audience with the Baroness a knock on the door would have surely sufficed.'

Spit lined the Commodore's white beard and he just shook his head. 'You're a piece of work, Grendal you know that.'

'So I've been told, darling.'

'You haven't got a hope in hell, Grendal. We will have this place locked down in mere minutes.'

Odatt nodded. 'And what will you do then? How do you explain to your superiors that you lead a full blown assault on White Lillies and murdered the leader of the Socialist Party and her staff? Please. I'm begging to hear it.'

The Commodore didn't have an answer. And Grendal knew it. The fat little man smiled. 'Even now at the end of time you are nothing but sheep, aren't you? Hoping to make a difference with bullets and sweat. You are a pitiful race?'

Race?

'What are you Grendal?'

Odatt turned his back on the Commodore and walked toward the font. 'Every new order demands its foot soldiers, Commodore, and we are no different.'

The old man watched him from behind, unbuttoning his elegant blue jacket and linen pressed shirt. Shivering delightfully in the cool powdered air, enjoying the bareness of his skin. He turned slightly to face the Commodore again. 'We waited patiently in that cold dark desert for millennia, waiting for our saviour to come, our general, to deliver us from the black tundra. He brought us back into the light and the warm so we may grow and multiply, to serve under his guidance and that of his king.'

He could see him now in all his fetid glory, the stomach, pink and round, the tits, heaving and raw, grey worm-like veins riddled the sagging flesh as a violet milk seeped from the red fat nipples, leaking profusely creating a damp sheen over the fat belly which now convulsed and heaved. Something stretched inside, bruising the stomach lining, pulling the fat of Grendal's gut, bathing in the warm liquids of the grotesque's pit. It forced the muscle, peering through the pink film of flesh, a brown smear that was momentarily interested in the outside world.

Grendal moved over to the font and placed his slippery tits over the edge and squeezed the queen's milk into the basin. The process was painful yet elevating, the teats raw to the point of bleeding but he fought through the pain, secretly relishing his task in providing for the infant fleas which bathed in the milk of mother. It was almost sensual for him, at times arousing, unleashing the vitamins in which the fleas needed to survive, a deep sense of duty to succour.

'Your time in the sun is over, Grendal. This place is gonna burn.'

Odatt smiled. 'Oh Commodore. Your sense of duty is commendable. Do you really think we would have let you gain access to White Lillies so freely?'

The Commodore looked lost, belittled.

His tits ran dry and he pulled himself from the font, pulling a handkerchief from his top pocket and dabbed the sore teats and surrounding breast. He walked toward the restrained Watchman and proceeded to button his shirt.

'We have infiltrated many parts of Testament but not all of it my sweet man, there are avenues we have yet to breach.'

'It was a trap. A ruse?'

'A means to a beautiful end. The university of Varosium and its elite . . . oh what doors we could unlock there, our influence could spread far and wide.'

The Lad.

'The Don?'

Odatt smiled. 'The Don of Varosium, the cleverest man alive. The world is definitely our oyster.'

The Commodore smiled.

'Is there something amusing, Commodore?'

'You're forgetting something.'

Grendal frowned at him, his eyes beckoning him on.

'You've got one pissed off Krazzi out there. A walking tank of stone with authoritarian issues.'

'Is that it? Inspector Brick? Your faith is seriously misplaced my dear man.'

'We'll see.'

'Indeed we shall,' he responded, turning his back and walking to the font, 'perhaps . . . perhaps your view will change. Maybe we should take off those rose tinted glasses of yours . . .'

Grendal placed his hand into the wavering milk and one of the nourished fleas eagerly climbed onboard the chubby raft of his hand. 'Hold him.'

The redhead held his head while the blonde pried open his jaw, one hand slipped beneath the upper line of his teeth, pressing deep into the hard wet roof of his mouth, the other, long nails holding down his tongue. Grendal approached with the flea, hovering over the Commodore with a flourishing fervor, a joyful longing to see one of his brethren born anew.

The old Watchman screamed and pulled the stiletto from his boot, forcing it up through the blonde's left leg. There was no scream, just an unusual screech and a kick to his ribs, his dagger stolen from his grasp and then ploughed into the soft tissue of his shoulder where the redhead pried his collarbone away.

The Commodore screamed and Odatt, smiling, held the old soldier's mouth open as the fascinated flea hopped into the warm and dank tunnel where it burrowed into the back of his throat with eager teeth, pulling away the purple meat in its frantic journey to the base of his brain.