The return of an old enemy.

[Kolya]

Kolya:
Tanya had given me a call before we left to get Hannah. She said that she was noticing an increased amount of supernatural events going on all around her, and was feeling threatened by them. When we returned from getting Hannah I took Sasha with me to Petersburg and we visited Tanya.

Before we could even get to her front door, there was already some weird shit going on.

I saw something on her door, or maybe in her door. I'm not really sure. If you have observed a cuttlefish or octopus changing its camouflage, then you'd understand what was happening with her door. The colour was sepia of varying shades and tints as its pulsated. I put on my goggles but saw nothing. Sasha shrugged; it had not registered as evil. But I even I can see it pegs the weirdshitometer.

We went inside. I started to get more details from Tanya when Sasha interupted, "something's approaching".

The deal, so to speak, with Sasha is that he can sense these things pretty much automagically; but they can sense him just the same. It results in one of two things: a fight or a chase.

"I should have brought Lyosh," I sighed, standing up to go towards the door. I pulled open the door and there on the ground was a parcel wrapped in brown paper tied off with some white twine. I looked around, there was something floating just in front of the neighbour's door.

Sasha:
"You going to stand there all day?" I asked it.

"If I have to. You'll get hungry or something," it said, smuggly.

I drew my blade from under my jacket and said, "or we can do this now," I said.

At that time Tanya bolted into the corridor and spouting a not-so elegant string of explicatives but creative nonetheless. She gave the floating spirit a punch and actually hurt it; I had no idea she could do that. But it gave her a TK punch that knocked her flat. As I moved in to take a swing at it, the floater sped down through the floor and came up behind Kolya and gave him a hard knock to the back. He stumbled forward and turned around at the same time Tanya had recovered and gave the floater another strike. I was in range too by this time and gave it a good hit as well. I disappeared again into the ground and never came back.

Kolya:
I picked up the parcel and cut the twine. It was a CD with some video files on it. The videos were gruesome footage of people being murdered, mostly having their heads chopped off with a long knife.

She turned away; I can't watch.

"You have to," I explained. "You know anybody in any of these videos so far?" I asked.

"No."

"Recognise the places?"

"No." She stumbled off to the bathroom. I followed her. Every time I meet Tanya something happens that I have to chase her somewhere and force her to do things that neither of want her to actually do. Nobody really wants to watch people have their heads chopped off or get skinned or butchered except for evil people, and, of course, supernasty fuckwads that delight in this sort of demented shit. I started to say something when Sasha interupted.

"Hey, come here," he shouted from the other room.

"Wait here, ok?" Of course it was ok.

I went to Sasha. "We know these people," he cleared his throat, "sort of". He rewinded the video; "look at that guy's t-shirt," he said.

Shortly before the blood and gore saturated his shirt I saw it. "Phi Sig," I said outloud for no real good reason. "Fuck," I snapped. And then I heard a shriek from the other room.

We ran to the other room where Tanya was holding her hands over her eyes shrieking. I grabbed her, "It's ok, it's ok, nothing's hurting you," I reassured her. I dragged her back into the other room and as I did I noticed her walls were doing the same thing her door had done when we first arrived.

But this time instead of just random colourations they were much more specific. Gaping toothy maws that jump out of the dark and rip heads off came and went in the blink of an eye. Sometimes we would see scenes from our past; quite unpleasant scenes, such as a sort of reenactment of how Tanya's son was shot up. It kind of freaked me out, too. I ejected the CD and we left her apartment.

I hauled ass over to the nearest OMON station. That's not very fast given the traffic, but the flashing blue lights and sirens certainly helped us get through. We got to work putting some information together, and the CD was undergoing forensic analysis.

[Kolya]

Reluctantly of course I made the phone call to Galina.

"Allo?" the voice at the other end asked.

"Galya?"

"Yes."

"Kolya here. Hi." I was betting myself that she wouldn't even bother telling me to choke on my dick before hanging up.

"Hi, Kolya," she replied a little coldly. I guess she recognised that I would not be calling unless it was necessary.

"Galya, listen, you're the best at this I know. I need to talk to, uh, somebody. I got his name and everything you'd need to contact him," I said with no small amount of hesitation.

"You and Sasha can't participate, that's the condition," she replied, less cold but still quite frigid.

I rolled my eyes and sighed.

"That's the way it works. Send me the info."

She hung up.

"Kolya?" Tanya started.

"Yes?" I replied.

She had a look of guilt, sorrow, and regret all over her face.

"You're nothing like Galina. Knock it off, ok." I said, but without masking my irritation.

"How did you know?" she stuttered.

"You don't have to be a mind reader to see it," I replied.

She looked out the window, frowning.

"You know me. I tell it like it is. Right." I assured her.

Her eyes flashed my way to acknowledge that she knew but quickly averted them back out the window, perhaps in a lame attempt at defiance nonetheless.

"More tea?" I asked her, grabbing her cup.

"Yes, thanks," she said, barely audible.

I went off to brew more tea. I had to take a break from looking at all those photos and reports filed in dym's bloody wake just over a year ago.

The operation to get Hannah seems to have weighed more heavily on my mind than I original thought. Those images flashing across Tanya's wall were screwing with my mind, too. And then all these broken and torn bodies started to look like meaningless piles of biomatter. Except the faces.

I never have been able to get those twisted, disfigured, pain-wracked faces of my mind's eye. I remember them as clearly as when I first laid eyes upon them. I remember most of their names, too. Most of them are dead because of me.

I returned to Tanya. "There's something outside," she said.

"There's always something outside," I said, robotically, rubbing my eyes.

"I mean right there, 1 meter away," she said.

"What's it doing?" I asked, flipping through the crime scene photos.

"Laughing," she said, her voice cloaked in sorrow and shaking as if she were going to cry.

I closed the folder. "Come with me to get your tea," I said, holding out my hand to help her up from her chair.

Without turning her head from the window she replied, "Yea, ok," and she stood up and followed me to the other room where her tea was ready to go. "What's going on?" she asked.

"It's a long story."

I told her all about dym and the shitstorm that invariably follows him.

[Ron Caliburn]

1) Dym's body count, not yours.

2) What do you mean he's back?

[Kolya]

1) Dym's body count, not yours.

2) What do you mean he's back?

1) I meant all those from my past either the ones under my command or the ones I couldn't save.

2) That CD has dym's greatest hits on it, so to speak. He has singled out Tanya for torment. He's likely looking for some dirt on me. Perhaps he's trying to trap me or lure me into something over my head. Some from both, all of both. I've haven't figured that out just yet. Over the last few months he's been relatively quiet. Something seems to be telling him that he needs to take some initiative before he finds himself dead. Which is the only acceptable outcome. And it's coming.
He seems to have had a run in with Michael T and Bert, too, but I've been unable to confirm that thus far.

[Magdalena]

Sounds Real Bad™.

Be safe, please.

[Ron Caliburn]

1) Soldiers die, that's a part of war, even if it's undeclared. Provided you ddidn't needlessly waste their lives, and I doub you did, their deaths are regretable, but not a bad reflection on you. Likewise those you couldn't save - as long as you made every reasonable effort with the means at your disposal, then those you were unable to save were just that, those you were unable to save. As long as you save those you are able to, you did things right.

2) The Mothman - his ally over there, you don't think he meant dym, do you?

[Kolya]

1) Soldiers die, that's a part of war, even if it's undeclared. Provided you ddidn't needlessly waste their lives, and I doub you did, their deaths are regretable, but not a bad reflection on you. Likewise those you couldn't save - as long as you made every reasonable effort with the means at your disposal, then those you were unable to save were just that, those you were unable to save. As long as you save those you are able to, you did things right.

2) The Mothman - his ally over there, you don't think he meant dym, do you?

1) Yea, I know, you're correct. That's the only thing keeping me sane. That's the only thing that allows me to push those faces out of my mind's eye before falling asleep every time I get to sleep. Someday they're not going to come back.

2) That's my gut feeling. I sorta hope so, too. I hate the unknown.

[Holister]

Good to hear from you Koyla. Stay alive.

[Kolya]

Good to hear from you Koyla. Stay alive.

Hey Holister, it's good to be heard. I'll do everything I can to stay alive.

In the meantime, enjoy retirement you lucky bastard.