The Don stuck with the Commodore as the Inspector swept clean the front of White Lillies. The old man mowed down a trio of guards as they made a strike for the east side of the house.

They'd parked half a mile down the road and finished their journey on foot, the Don holding the Reverie Bomb dearly to his chest. The plan, unleash Xindii's little box of joy and scale the wall. It wasn't the cleverest of military manoeuvres but the sheer raw power of a pissed off Krazzi and a little dreamurlurgy could go a long way to breach the house and bring Gwendolyn to book.

The Commodore took the butt of his gun and broke the glass, the room leading into a deeper recess of the house. A study of some sort, time and attention was fleeting as a guard swung around the doorway and fired a couple of rounds at the intruders. The old man, aware and nimble for his autumnal age pushed the Tatterfox out of the way and fired a round back at the wall the guard was hiding behind. The Commodore's adversary was playful, firing a volley to complement his lacklustre try. The old man was sure he could hear laughter behind the wall. The Don noticed the Commodore grit his teeth and reached into his jacket pulling forth a Wraith 4.5. The Tatterfox gave him a questionable look and the Watchman shrugged and blew a hole in the wall the size of a grown man's palm, blood trickled through the gaping plaster and render.

'Those things are illegal, Commodore.'

'I know. If you don't tell the Commissioner then I won't.'

'Fair enough.'

The Commodore holstered the Wraith and proceeded into the house, the D-16 ready to please. He scoured the corridor and noticed the still corpse of the boy he had murdered. Once fresh-faced, eager; keen as the day. His career ahead of him. The old Watchman swallowed hard, shaking the boy's shadow from his mind. 'I'll kill that bitch.'

'Commodore? Leave her to me. She must answer for all this. If she dies our mission was in vain.'

'If she lives we will be her neighbours in the Repository, lad. We've committed an act of treason.'

'That may be but this woman is the tip of the coalberg. And she was Xindii's friend.'

The Commodore shook his head. 'Oh aye and when were you going to tell me this?'

'Probably at her trial . . . or never?'

The old man shook the barrel at the Tatterfox. 'Then you better find her first, lad.'

There was no point in arguing with him. The Baroness had a target on her back. She had been responsible for the deaths of those under his command. He wasn't going to let it go.

'So be it. Good luck Commodore . . .'

'You too, lad.'

They parted company, the Don pulled the revolver from his beautifully lined coat and made his way into the confines of White Lillies.

Brick pulled the smoke grenade from his trench coat and lobbed it through the entrance, such a throw from a seven foot stone man made light of the doors, breaking glass and wood. Five seconds later the red smoke billowed like a rust storm, gargled coughs from the interior gave him foresight in the task ahead but as he mounted the steps toward the entrance a duo of green-gilled guards came rushing across the concourse, guns blazing; their aim woeful at best, their resolve to bring down the Krazzi sorely misplaced. Brick saw them, amateurs rushing along the cold cobbles, egging each other on. 'Take him down, take him down, fir –'

Brick sighed deeply and before they could finish the word 'fire' the Krazzi had loaded a slug into each of their chests. They collapsed in heaps of stolen youth, blood turned purple by the night's sky slipping into the groves of the cobbles creating intricate patterns in the shrouded moonlight.

The smoke from Brenda mingled with the red smoke from the grenade, shrouding the guilty Krazzi. They were just kids! Just kids. It would take an age to wash this blood from his hands. They were just doing their job. He sucked in a lungful of smoke.

You're just doing your job, Brick.

He fired a couple of rounds into the entrance, completely blowing the doors asunder, the resulting force throwing a guard across the floor into the marble wall. He had tried to play coy, hiding behind the door, ready to bump the Krazzi full of lead as he progressed up the steps, but Brick had heard him, kneeling on the floor with the wet handkerchief wrapped around his mouth and nose, hoping to catch the Inspector by surprise.

Not a chance. Never try to play a player, son.

He knelt down to check his pulse. He was good. Sleeping. And he would have a hell of a headache when he woke. He would be out for a while, two, maybe three hours.

Brick then picked himself up, hearing more footfalls gathering momentum up the corridor. He holstered Brenda and pulled another smoke grenade from the depths of his coat and pulled the pin, throwing it down the marble stretch akin to a bowling ball. The smoke from his previous grenade was still lingering but he wanted their vision impaired. The footfalls stopped, muffled words with a tinge of sceptiscim and fear.

They're scared shitless, Brick.

They panicked, firing a clip of bullets each into the billowing red, chipping a couple of inches of marble from the wall to Brick's right, chips of which covered the Krazzi as he waited for his moment.

Sorry lads.

Brick flipped a switch on the right side of Brenda, releasing a wafer-thin light from the scope. He closed his eyes for a moment and then pulled himself up and entered the red smog, Brenda out front, supported by the massive hands of the Krazzi behind her. The blue light shimmered and pierced the heaving shroud, searching, probing, seeking a moving target, reading the electrical impulses of frantic hearts, homing in, calculating the distance, registering the capacity and speed needed to stop those hearts from beating. Brenda processed the data in mere seconds and out of courtesy delivered the message to her owner through a small vibration through the grip. The gun fired twice and Brick then heard the bodies drop to the floor. He continued into the cloud, reverting Brenda back into his control.

The smoke started to clear as he made his way deeper into White Lillies, coming to a T junction in the corridor he failed to notice the maid twenty yards to his right. Perhaps it was the white coveralls and the cream wall of marble, creating a ready camouflage for the young woman. She waited patiently as he came into her sight and she didn't hold back, firing her revolver with an insatiable desire. The bullet clipped Brick in the arm. It wasn't the pain that made him falter but the shock, sending the Krazzi to the floor, clutching a splinter of stone from beneath the torn coat arm. He tried to reach for Brenda as she casually marched through the corridor, her sight never leaving his distraught form. The maid pulled up a mere two metres from him and smiled, clutching the revolver more confidently than the guards he had dispatched at the entrance.

'Hope you got enough in there to finish me off,' he smiled. 'I sort of have a rough exterior.'