Under the protective shadow of a giant willow tree, Josh waited for Ezekius to speak but was forced to begin their conversation when the demon offered nothing.

"So? What did you want to talk to me about?"

A large bony white hand held up a silencing finger and under his hood, his head tipped to the side. After another pause Ezekius nodded once. "They are working towards understanding. I'm hopeful their relationship will soon be repaired."

Josh stared at his companion blankly, clueless as to what the demon was talking about.

Straightening up, Ezekius sighed. "Nikki and Samuel. They have much to resolve, but they will, given a little time."

Understanding dawned on Josh, bringing with it a substantial dose of anger. "That's what you wanted, me out of the way so they could kiss and make up?"

A tight smile crossed the demons face and he chuckled. "If only you knew the truth in your words."

Balling his hands into fists, Josh cursed. "I'm not in the mood for your riddles."

Dropping his mirth, Ezekius turned back to Josh. "You have much animosity. Towards me, towards Sam, towards Nikki. The list is almost endless. You need to let go of your anger to move forward."

Crossing his arms over his chest, Josh restrained the comment on the tip of his tongue, allowing Ezekius to continue.

"Sam was defenceless when Nikki turned on him. She was channelling an energy as old as time and unable to control herself. She was a puppet until you managed to cut the strings. Not one thing that happened until that point was done by choice. It was a game that had been orchestrated long before she or you were born. None of you stood a chance."

"I don't believe that."

"So you think Nikki meant for this to happen?"

Josh paused, his disjointed thoughts stumbling over one another as he tried to make sense of what the demon was telling him.

"She is a Prophet and always will be. Her bloodlines trace back to the fourth and first Prophets, there is no denying it. However, I believe she was also a Power. Somewhere in her past your elders pre-empted what was coming and intervened. As a Power she was connected to you in ways not even the three Prophets could alter. Without that connection she would have stopped you dead during the battle, but as it is you were able to sever her bonds to the Prophets."

Josh wanted to argue but he couldn't. The explanation Ezekius was offering was making too much sense.

"As her Power grew, her bond with our world strengthened until at its strongest she was merely reacting to subliminal directions from our Kings. The all-encompassing fury that came with her Power was an echo of the feelings ingrained in my kind for yours. But she didn't know this. She had no idea that deep within the recesses of her mind the Prophets were conspiring."

Josh watched as Ezekius' face slipped in to a grotesque mask of regret.

"It took me some time to let go of my loyalties to Latébris, but when they tried to use her, without showing her any of the respect she deserved. When she finally lost herself to their indoctrinate... She sent me away to look out for you, and I knew then that if you could only get to her you might stand a chance of helping. I was supposed to stop you entering the battlefield but without anyone's knowledge I helped. You didn't see me but I fought for you, Guardian. I protected your passage through the town."

Josh thought back to his scramble to get to Nikki. Although the place had been heaving with demons, he'd not come across a single one until he'd been inside the building with Nikki. Was it possible that Ezekius spoke the truth?

"I--"

Ezekius bowed his head. "You saved her by severing her ties to the Prophets. With just three words you undid centuries of planning because no one saw you coming."

The impact of this new information winded Josh. He exhaled sharply and bent double, clutching at his stomach as he tried to breathe. All along he'd thought himself useless, just a nobody who had led her to her death, but now here was his enemy willingly giving him the truth. And with it, absolution.

"You saved her and for that I am eternally grateful."

Josh couldn't take it any longer. He fell to his knees allowing the blame to pour from him as he sobbed openly.

"You should not have blamed yourself." Ezekius whispered. "And I only wish I could have bestowed this upon you earlier but she, she refused to contact you."

Josh fought for composure as his sobs quietened and his breaths became easier. It hadn't been his fault.

"She loves you. She dreams of you often. The hole in her heart only widens with each passing day she is away from you and yet she refused to give in for fear of your safety. I tried to persuade her but she refuted my logic. She wouldn't consider putting you in harms way again but more so she believed she should be punished for her actions and weakness so she inflicted this on herself."

"And what about me? How could she do this to me?"

Again the pity returned to the demons face. "She thought you better off without her, and she believed you would move on."

"What!?"

"Please, don't misunderstand, this was not a reflection of your feelings but an indication of her own self importance and worth. She is unable to comprehend the depths of your feelings for her because in a way, she will always consider herself unworthy. I don't know why, I have spent decades trying to unravel this part of her personality, and to date I cannot understand her self depreciation, but it's there, at her very core and it's that, which gnaws away at her in the darkness. Although she appears strong, she's still the small child who slept uneasily in her cot for fear of monsters. Only now she is the monster."

"This is--" Josh wanted to say ridiculous but everything Ezekius said rang with a truth he couldn't ignore.  "Now what? When she finds out you've told me this?"

The smile returned and Ezekius turned away.

"Whilst she has not mastered the ability to hide things from me, the same cannot be said for my own tallents. If she pressed she would see, but she offers me a great deal of respect and space. Don't worry yourself about such matters. Our secret is safe."

* * *

Sam span around viciously pointing at Nikki, stabbing the air with his pent up rage. "What the hell? I mean, seriously, what the hell? Two years, two long years you put him through hell. And me, I had to watch as his hope of ever finding you died. Have you any idea what that did to him? And all along you were out there, hiding. Damn it, what the hell?" His voice echoed through the cold church, amplifying his anger.

Nikki cringed internally but outwardly she held her composure, barely even blinking.

"He blamed me, you know. He blamed me for letting you go, and I had to let him. I told him you'd hypnotised me but I couldn't tell him how. I couldn't say that you'd kissed me, he was destroyed enough already."

She watched as he paced up and down the aisle, his hands clenching and unclenching as his anger manifested.

Stopping dead Sam turned his glinting eyes and stared her down. "I mean seriously, Nikki, what the fuck?"

Dipping her chin, Nikki sighed and rolled back her sleeve, holding her hand out.

"Save it," he snapped, marching away from her. "I'm not interested." Reaching the end of his pathway, he raked his hands through his long hair and turned back around.

"It wasn't just him, you know. What about me? I thought we were friends? I thought--" Inhaling a shaky breath, sam brought his gaze once more, to meet hers. "I thought we had a special connection. You were my friend, Nikki." His voice hitched with emotion as his words offered Nikki a new point of view on her actions. Again she held out her hand and this time he didn't refuse. He moved hesitantly towards her before finally accepting her outstretched digits. Pulling her gently, he wrapped his hand around hers and towed her in to his waiting embrace.

"We were friends."

It was so easy to lapse back in to the familiarity that came with Sam. Resting her cheek to his chest, Nikki inhaled, breathing him in and steadying herself for the apology she owed him.

"I'm sorry, Sam, everything you said, it's true. I was selfish and I ruined everything, that's one of the reasons I stayed away. Look at the drama I created. Do you really want all that again?"

"Don't you dare," Sam snarled, wrapping his fingers around her shoulders and dragging her back so he could look into her face. "Don't think for one second that you can pull that shit on me again. You won't manipulate me this time, Nikki. Jesus! Get over yourself already, you aren't the be all and end all so stop acting like it." In stark contrast to his words, he closed his arms around her and tucked her under his chin, crushing her in a constricting embrace. "Stop trying to protect us, Nikki, we don't need your protection, we just need you!"

As his words filled the quiet, Nikki closed her eyes and searched his thoughts. Sifting through his recollection of their kiss and various memories of Josh searching for her, one moment kept resurfacing. She bit her lip, worrying the already broken skin as she saw Elizabeth being executed over and over.

"Oh Sam," she sighed into his tortured mind. Stilling her own thoughts she pulled his hand from around her and laced their digits, smothering the chaos in his head with a blanket of peacefulness.

"Let me explain. I owe you that."

She led him to the pew he had recently vacated and sat.

"When I kissed you. When you kissed me, I wasn't myself. When I joined with the Prophets and became Unus it was like my humanity was locked away in a box. I knew what I was doing but I didn't really control myself. I can see now that you were right, they were using me and I wasn't strong enough to fight it." She inhaled, the damp earthy smell that lingered in the church reached the back of her throat and comforted her. It was the smell of home. "I've been tracing my lineage and they were right, I am a direct descendent of the fourth Prophet, but that just meant it was easier for them to get in  my head. The times I lost it, like when I destroyed the car, it was me but it wasn't. If anyone was hypnotised it was me and they had me exactly where they wanted me right up until the end. I was weak and they were clever. I should have listened to you, I should have heard what you said to me when you told me they were using me but I was confused and blinded by fear. I'm sorry. You have no idea how much guilt I live with because of my mistakes." She stopped when a stray thought filtered through Sam's subconscious. Elizabeth.

"Don't be too sure about that," he sighed.

Nikki's heart grew heavier in her chest as she realised the extent of Sam's burden.

"I think that we have more in common than we first thought," he chuckled wryly.

"You know if I could change things—"

Sam grew stiff next to her. "You and me both."

Feeling the sting of his pain, Nikki swallowed down the ball of anguish that had become lodged in her throat. Blinking back the tears threatening to fall, she shook her head in an attempt to clear it.

"I seduced you with the power of Unus and I took advantage of the to get what I needed. At that point I had to get away from you, I needed to get to the square and I wasn't going to let you stand in my way. I played dirty. I... What I did was wrong and I'm so sorry I put you in that position but I really wasn't myself. They had me under their spell and it wasn't until Josh admitted he loved me, the spell shattered around me. That's when I could see it  all for what it really was, an illusion, but by then it was too late."

Growing tired of her feeble explanations, Nikki pushed the words from her mind. Turning her eyes to Sam she caught his gaze and concentrated as hard as she could.

His mouth fell open and his expression changed as she assaulted his mind with a replay of the events. She held her breath as every thought and warring emotion that had consumed her at the time of the battle, was forced on to Sam.

Seconds slipped by, pooling in to minutes as he suffered through her painful memories. She had to make him understand, he had to know that everything she had done was a mistake and that every moment she lived she regretted that day.

She watched his brow creased and a single tear slid down his cheek.

"Jesus Nikki," he gasped, struggling to breathe against the weight of her torment.

"I'm so sorry."

He tore himself away from her and threw his body back against the hard, unforgiving wood. With his chest heaving, he stared, wide-eyed at the demon she had become but Nikki could tell by the softness of his gaze that finally, he understood.

"Don't ever do that to me again," he wheezed, collecting himself and shaking his head, "Please! That was... Intense." Standing up he gripped the back of the seat in front of him, his knuckles turning white with the exertion. "That was too much."

She caught his eye, mouthing "sorry".

He returned her poignant smile and nodded. "I know."

Nikki settled back in the seat and closed her eyes. Redemption was not something she had considered. She had resigned herself to carrying around the guilt for the rest of her unnatural life and yet in those two words, Sam had eased so much of her suffering.

"So what do you intend to do about it?"

His tone was soft but there was an underlying challenge to his question. Nikki's eyes snapped open and she stared up at the Guardian towering over her.

"You could start by working with us, after all we're so much stronger when they aren't dividing us, don't you think?"

A tiny smirk pulled up the corner of her mouth and her eyes flashed dangerously.

Always the same, Sam. She laughed to herself, finding untold comfort in her old friend's unchanged ways. And to think I thought I'd been manipulative

"Don't give me that look." Sam grinned mischievously.

The tension lifted and Sam looked down at her exactly as he had two years previous. Gone was the cool, stand-offish attitude. In its place he wore the heart-warming smile she'd dreamt of seeing again.

"Oh Nikki, I have missed you!" he breathed.

Smiling widely, Nikki was about to let out a carefree laugh when her mind was distracted by a disturbing image. She dropped the smile dead, her joy quickly morphing into panic. Hastily she reached out and slipped her shaking fingers around Sam's wrists.

"Sam there isn't much time. I know this will be hard for you, but you have to trust me. There's something coming and if you know what it is, it will put you in the firing line. Josh, Nate and Joanne are on their way here but you need to intercept them. Take them to the abandoned house on New Row, across town and wait for me." Nikki tried her hardest to stay focussed and not think about the Hunter that was coming straight for them but Ezekius kept forcing the image in to her head.

"What the fuck is that?" Sam asked, a slight tremor in his usually assertive voice.

"Don't think about it! Think about Nate, Josh and Joanne! Get them to the house and stay hidden. Zeke and I will take care of the problem and meet you there, I swear to you, but we need to be quick."

"Nikki, we need to work together—"

"Not with this, this is nothing to do with humans or Guardians, this is all us, Sam. It's after me and Zeke and it's deadly but we can handle it, you wont even be able to see it let alone fight it so please, listen to me and run."

Pulling at his arm, she encouraged him to the window. Hopping up on to the ledge she crouched low and peered out at the early morning. One nod of her head let Sam know the coast was clear before she disappeared out in to the graveyard.

As quick as he could, Sam matched her movements. He wasn't about to let her go, not after he'd promised Josh, but he needn't have worried. Nestled below the branches of a vast willow tree, Nikki reached out through and grabbed his collar.

"Think of me as a two way radio, Zeke has Josh and I have you. When we're all connected we'll be able to hear each other's thoughts. It's going to be a little noisy so I'll act as a filter for you as Zeke will for Josh. I'll convey what's important. Are you ready?"

"What?" Sam shot her a look of utter bemusement.

"I'll take that as a yes. Zeke, how close are you?"

"We're rounding the corner of Jenkinson Avenue."

"I'll send Sam to Groves Street, you meet me at the Dains Monument."

"Wait!" Sam shouted, "What is that thing and why can't we see it?"

"What thing?" Josh's thought's merged with Sam's as the noise level in Nikki's mind soared.

"The less you know, the safer you are. It's coming quick and it wants me and Zeke. You take your Charges to the house where they will be safe and we'll take care of... The thing."

"No!" Sam and Josh replied in unison.

"If she says anymore about the beast it will taint you. Once you are tainted you are walking around with a bullseye on your back, is that what you want for Nate and Joanne?" Ezekius' calm thoughts echoed through their minds, powerfully silencing any other deliberation.

"I promise we will find you. I promise." Nikki chanted as her heartbeat sped.

Sam stiffened under her hand. "I'm sorry Nikki, but we don't trust you anymore. I know this is a ruse to get rid of us—"

"Sam! This is real danger."

"Stay where you are, we can hide them in the tree." Again the patient tones of Ezekius' ancient voice rang through their heads.

"If they see—"

"Then on their heads be it. We have warned them, now let them make their own choice."

"I—"

"We stay!" Sam growled, grabbing her wrist as he glared at Nikki.