Topside . . . Robbie had tried keeping things light, but Mindy had been pretty sour all evening. So Robbie and Chris had fallen back together and the redneck wereboar was trying to convince his counterpart why tractor pulls should be an Olympic sport. Jane was still in a mental gloom of her own, thinking back to the funeral service for the fallen Strays. It was the first time she had heard their names, and that was important to her. 'No one should die without someone remembering their name,' she thought. Mindy stormed out a personnel door of Springfield Memorial Hospital with a scowl on her face and a bag in her hand. "I hate flirting with orderlies," she practically spat. "You've got to let them get to second base before they'll take you to the supply room for a quickie. At least then," she added, "I get to knock them out." "Did you . . ." Jane started. "Yeah, I got everything on the list. That's all I'm good for apparently," Mindy bitched. She didn't notice Jane shirk away. Jan

---------------- ------------ Out in the Den . . . ---------------- ------------ Mindy was sitting on the edge of the lower platform, her feet dangling over the tracks as she gnawed on a bit of beef jerky. She heard and smelled someone approached from behind her, but she didn't turn to look. She was still feeling fairly annoyed at herself. "Want to talk about it?" Robbie asked, having a seat next to her. "Or would you rather mope some more?" Arthur added, sitting on the other side. There's nothing someone wallowing in self-degradation hates as much as someone else making fun of them for it. "Kiss off," Mindy muttered. "I think that means she wants to mope," Robbie said, leaning forward and looking at Arthur. It was Arthur's turn to lean forward. "But she did actually speak, which means she may want to talk about it, but in a hostile way." "Mope," Robbie reiterated. "Talk," Arthur countered. "Mope!" "Talk!" "Thumb wrestle to see who's right?" "Jolly good idea!" Both men e

----------- ------------------- Up on the rooftops . . . ----------- ------------------- Jane was peeking over the edge of an apartment complex at two familiar-looking forms, dressed in black suits, white shirts, gloves, and sunglasses with shaven heads. Jane could steel feel the cracking of her ribs when she had been hit by one of these things, and she grew almost nauseous as she remembered ripping one apart down in the Den, then beating another into a fine paste. One of them handed a small back to a young black man they were talking to, who handed them some money and then walked away. Jane wanted to go after the young man, telling him what an idiot he was for throwing his life away. 'Who are you to judge?' she asked of herself. 'You spent just as much time hiding from the pain of living . . . you just didn't use narcotics.' The two hellspawn grumbled between themselves for a minute and then headed down a side street before climbing into a luxury car with dark windows. Jane wishe

---------------- ----------------------- In another part of the Den . . . ---------------- ----------------------- "Hey big guy," Anya said, wandering over to Chris as the big redneck was sitting down for a midnight snack of beef jerky and Dr. Pepper. "Hello Miss Anya ma'am," the lycanthrope replied, standing up as she approached the plastic picnic bench he was using. Anya knew that if it was physically possible, Chris probably would have wandered around and pulled her chair out for her. "Mind if I join you?" "Not at all," he said. "Did you want me tuh get ya somethin' from storage?" "That's all right," she replied, holding up a banana and a bottle of water. "I'm not up for anything much heavier than this right now," she added. "Nervous?" "Not really. A little I guess. Tarloh's pretty worked up." Anya peeled her banana very slowly. "He won't say what he thinks it is that we're up against, and that's making it worse." "The boss knows what he's doin'," Chris replied. He was wat

Jane stood in the alley, her eyes closed to the night-time world. Strands of her magically empowered hair were "sniffing" the air, for all intents and purposes, trying to sense her invisible foe. She felt something brush against a single hair, making her senses dance like a spider at the center of its web. Her eight braids reached out, grabbing debris and garbage cans to use as weapons when . . ."Stop!" came a sharp voice a little further down the alley. Jane's friend, mentor and lover emerged from the darkness. Red looked the younger woman over. "What did you forget to do?"Jane's pretty face was masked by confusion, and then reality seemed to dawn on her. "I went for weapons with everything. I didn't keep anything for defense.""Precisely," Red said, trying to sound soothing. She normally wasn't quite so polite when a trainee made a mistake, but Jane's fragile mental state earned her a few breaks. "Anya, how was her defense up to that point?"A small section of apparently empty spa