Death Has No Name

At a time when most sensible members of the public lie lounging in their beds, a single sprightly figure sprints along the rooftop of a London skyscraper.

Behind her an explosion lights up the nighttime sky like the flare of a freshly lit cigarette. Two strange and squamous figures break free from the mass of charred flesh surrounding what once was an elegant doorway and begin loping their way across the roof. Just as the elegant young lady reaches the edge of the building two huge tentacles appear from the opposite corner of the sky scraper and begin squirming their way hungrily towards the three individuals silhouetted against London’s skyline. As she throws herself forward she turns, catching the smooth white stone of the Benson building.

Hearing the inhuman screams of her pursers being scooped up and devoured by the horror waiting below, she tenses her body. Dangling high above the streets of London she concentrates on the sound of the tentacles blindly probing the roof above her and waiting until the very last opportune moment before they reach her, she lets go. Twisting at a wayward angle to do so, she lands awkwardly onto the hard glass elevator she had called for earlier. It hadn’t arrived speedily enough for her purposes while she was attempting to bypass security from the uppermost floor. However at this exact moment it provides her with the perfect refuge for a daring escape. So, as she scrabbles for a better handhold on the machine she pulls a diminutive handgun from her ankle holster and fires three expertly placed bullets into its reinforced roof. Forcing her way through the glass with her feet she crashes heavily down onto the floor below.

Taking a moment to catch her breath and check her body for anything more then superficial damage she pulls herself painfully to her feet and reaches into her coat. Having retrieved a small tube from her inner pocket she plucks its top off to revel the blood red lipstick contained within, she then shakily begins to sketch a strangely branching cross upon the lift’s main window. As she traces the image she begins to mutter to herself under her breath:

“Papa Legba ouvri baye-a pou mwen. Pou mwen pase. Le ma salyie lwa yo.”

As the last syllable of the echoing invocation is uttered the atmosphere in the cramped lift is drastically altered, the previously sharp air of winter is converted almost instantaneously to the dry sweltering heat of a Caribbean summer. Then a blaze of twilight illuminates both her and the unimaginable horror’s tentacles that are squirming downwards. The young woman slams the ground floor button and turns to fire upwards just as a bright white smile appears in the window opposite her. This is quickly followed by dark brown skin, the impression of white hair and an outlandish straw hat.

“Morning Jeanette - or is that evening? I always get so confused crossing inter-dimensional time zones.”  He looks up for a second.  “Ooh, bad time? Maybe I should come back later?”

Jeanette flashes the man in the window an exasperated look and then carries on shooting. “Oh yes, what a fabulous idea Legba. I’m sure I’ll be really useful to you half digested.”

The old man in the window flashes her another, even larger smile. “Oh I don’t know darling, I think you’d look real good whatever happened to you.”  He examines his nails as the lift begins to descend.  “So then Ms. Bonde, why would you be summoning this little old man to your aid?”

“Well Legba, on my mark I need an exit, a short range teleport to somewhere with a good view of this building,” she smiles winningly at him as a tentacle curls down from the roof towards her, “and possibly a very stiff drink.”

He tuts in reply. “And I promise to buy you the best rum and the finest chicken as soon as I can!” Again, a pout from Legba subtly rebukes her. “Alright, fine, a new computer as well. Just get me the hell outta here, please!”

As the lift hits the ground floor and the full bulk of the octopoidal horror squeezes its way into view above her, the window behind her begins to shift and warp. It suddenly changes to reflect the view from a nearby building and as this sudden transformation takes place the lift doors open. Surveying the scene Jeanette Bonde takes a moment to draw the full attention of the unmentionable creatures on the ground floor before her. Then she carefully draws a small round object from her belt and throws it full force into the face of one of her targets. With that she then turns and performs a graceful diving roll through the opaque portal behind her.

Rolling to her feet in the alleyway behind the building, she takes a moment to steady herself before unclipping another smaller device from her belt. Walking around the corner, she discovers to her delight that the building is in fact a rather exquisite-looking wine bar with a rather less pleasant view of the horror clinging to the Benson building nearby. Jeanette Bonde sighs and pushes down a button on the mechanism in her hands. There is a rush of air being sucked in towards the building and the impression of some incalculably large disruption to the essence of time and space before the building and everything in it is compressed into the miniature black hole that has suddenly formed inside it. Then with only a slight catastrophic explosion the whole disruption implodes in upon itself leaving the quiet nighttime air and the sound of several car alarms.

Walking calmly into the bar she passes several stupefied looking customers before sitting down at a table. She nods to a waiter, “Good evening, I was wondering if I could perhaps have a glass of rum and a vodka mar…actually, fuck it, just bring me a whole vodka bottle.”

Within two weeks Bonde is sat inside an extremely well concealed room near the Vauxhall Cross in London. Upon closer inspection she is revealed to be an extremely good looking woman in her mid to late thirties (certain qualities are expected in a 7777 agent and physical attractiveness is one of them). Dark green eyes and tightly wound brown hair are followed by immaculately arched eyebrows and a petite mouth and nose. Only an athletic frame and a scar running down her left leg betray hints of her more unsavory activities. This is the way she wants it, as all of these traits have been designed to mask a ferocious intellect, a peerless martial artist and marksman as well as an extremely powerful voodoo priestess. In short, everything that the paranormal defense branch of British Military Intelligence could hope for. Upon the request of her superior’s secretary, Mr. Dime, she is ushered into a large well lit room with the person she works for, whose face she can never remember.  As a woman with a perfect photographic memory, she found this more than a little confusing.

“Ah good evening Miss Bonde, I take it from your report that your assignment went well?”

“Yes, I’d say the outer incursion has been taken care of but that’s not for lack of trying on their part. Honestly, you’d think that after the last five attempts failed they would have given up and started looking for another world to invade.” She’s fairly sure that she reports to a woman but what gives Bonde this impression is still a mystery.

“Well that’s good, but maybe in the future you could be a little more subtle? The Benson building will be very expensive to replace and it will take even more money to erase what actually happened from any eye witness’s minds. I mean really, how many more times can we expect the excuse that terrorists did it to cut the mustard?” the person in the chair sighs. “Anyway how’s our friend Legba doing? Is he still willing to serve queen and country?”

Jeanette shrugs. “Best guess is yes but you never know with Legba. The man defines the word fickle, but as long as I keep wearing these ridiculously low cut tops I don’t see why not.”

Her superior reaches into the desk and pulls out a slim file. “Well as long as that situation is under control I have a new assignment for you to take care of.”  As Jeanette flips through the file, she continues, “Recently we’ve been getting reports of observers noticing rather unsettling changes in the personalities of several important individuals connected to defense matters in . These changes include signs of memory loss, unsavory eating habits and the withdrawal of information vital to the safety of the country. This has coincided with reports of strange sea creatures being sighted off the north-west coast of and unconfirmed intell. indicating that a large amount of our government’s money is being siphoned into an as yet unknown organization.”

Jeanette closes the file and slides it into a briefcase. “Understood.  How would you like me to approach this situation then?” The person known to Jeanette only as G leans forward.

“As sensitively as possible at this stage, I want this to be information retrieval until you get the go ahead from our end to take a more proactive stance. You’ll find your usual travel arrangements are in place and you’ll be flying out to Belfast tonight.” As Jeanette stands up to leave G adds, “Oh, and Miss Bonde? Good luck.”

On a rather depressing November day a rather attractive new temp arrives at the Central government offices for , Belfast. She is inducted speedily but unfortunately struggles in her role as secretary for the defense minister. After a week she has begun integrating herself into the working environment but still takes to working late into the night in order to catch up on any work she has missed. It had always surprised Jeanette that the best weapon she had in her arsenal was the ability to fain inadequacy. She had always thought that over-performing was far more suspicious then letting your enemies underestimate your abilities. After all who looks too closely at the stupid? So it was that after failing to discover any information through mundane observations of office records or of the minister himself that she began to work late in order to gain access to his personal effects. So it is that after picking the lock on the minister’s door she starts by hacking into his computer and searching through his private files. There are no leads on it however and so she starts to look through several of his restricted filing cabinets. This again ends in failure and so, spurred on by the knowledge that security will be checking this section soon, she begins to disguise her efforts. She is just about to leave the room when she notices that one of the sections of the wall is a slightly different colour to the section next to it. Curiosity aroused she taps on the wall with one gloved hand and after comparing the sound it makes to the section next to it she examines it in more detail to find a hairline crack running down its side. After carefully considering the rest of the office she pulls out her mobile phone and points it at the wall. There are few seconds of bleeping before much to her delight the panel slides open to reveal a small electronic safe, she blows on the top of her phone and puts it away. Next she takes out one her earrings and adjusts it slightly. Attaching it to the safe she steps away, after a few seconds it emits an electro-magnetic pulse that knocks the safe open giving her access to the documents inside. Many of these prove useless but at the very bottom of the safe there is one document that catches her eye, addressed from a company called the Undersea Corporation:

“Dear Renfrew,

 I hope that the arrangements we made in our last discussion are now in place: if not our next conversation may be more aggressive in tone. As for the other matter, the excavation is going well and we should be ready to begin phase two in the next few weeks.

Yours sincerely,

Keir Carden”

Jeanette has enough time to finish the letter before a click alerts her to the gun behind her.

Half an hour later she is being driven across country in handcuffs by a tall, muscular gentleman with piercing blue eyes and icy blond hair.

“Look, how many times do I have to tell you? You’re making a mistake. I work for the same people you do.”

The blond man’s voice has a decidedly icy edge to it. “And how exactly do you know that?”

“I recognize you, you’re MI16. You were involved in the Icarus incident last year, I know because our division was called in to clear up some of the fall out that fell under our jurisdiction.” When he next speaks she detects the slight waver of confusion in his voice

“And how the hell were you involved in that? That was top secret and ours was the only team called in. You talk about your jurisdiction but what is that exactly? Because I haven’t even heard of you or an MI21.” Jeanette just smiles and allows a hint of smugness to enter her voice

“That would be our team doing their job properly. You see, unlike certain other sectors of Military Intelligence we cover our own tracks. If we didn’t then a considerable number of us would be dead by now.”

They spend the rest of the journey in silence. The destination in question turns out to be a small bed and breakfast in Sligo. Before getting out the car Jeanette’s fellow agent makes a quick phone call after which he sourly unlocks her cuffs.

“I’ve been given orders from on high to let you go. We are to work together to infiltrate and uncover as much about the Undersea Corporation as possible. Our aliases will arrive by tomorrow.  We’re going to be laboratory technicians apparently - that shouldn’t be too much of a problem for you, should it?”

With an equal amount of sarcasm she answers him, “Not as long as you have brains to go with all that brawn. So what about our previous covers then…” she looks at his work clothes and ID “…Bob the cleaner?”

He barely bats an eyelid.  “Already taken care of; and it’s Gerard if you must know. Now then - shall we?”

They spend what Jeanette is forced to admit is quite a pleasant evening discovering a local restaurant nearby before retiring to bed. In the morning after receiving a delivery of their uniforms, papers and ID, Jeanette and the gentleman she now knows as Gerard set out for the coast of Sligo. To get to the Undersea Corporation’s main building they have to get a boat from a small village called Mullaghmore. They are almost alone on the water with only a small crew of new recruits to remind them who the vessel belongs to.

As the ferry pulls away from the mainland into an oil slick of sky and sea, Jeanette gripping the rail, shudders slightly.

“Are you cold?” her fellow agent begins to shrug off his jacket.

“No, its nothing. Just the Baron dancing on my grave” Gerard gives her a concerned look. “I’m ok, just tired that’s all. What about you?” His hands are ice white on the cold metal, barely an inch away from her.

“Were you married?” His eyes had slipped to the scarred skin on her right hand when she wasn’t looking and suddenly she is very cold.

“Yes.” she removes the offending hand from sight.

“Do you mind me asking what happened?”

She takes a moment to tell him, then turns and goes back inside.

As the boat pulls into the island a single building offends the eye with its sheer impossibility. A tower so tall it barely seems to fit reality, the Undersea Corporation headquarters and emerging from its top like some half digested hand is a mass of scaffolding holding something unspeakable in its grasp. Jeanette and Gerard make their way to the building in absolute silence and once inside quietly agree to meet again in a week’s time near one of the eating areas. Upon seeing the vacant look on each of the worker’s faces Jeanette slips one of the rings from her fingers and passes it to Gerard.

“Bit early for me to be wearing this, isn’t it?” This raises a wry smile from her.

“Don’t get ideas above your station dear - it’s not like you could afford anything you see anyway. But I do - and I say this with all seriousness - need you to wear this ring at all times.” Gerard having also noticed the dead eyed stares of his fellow workers slips the ring on without further protest, and the two agents quickly become lost in the throng of workers.

The week drags by slowly but Jeanette, always the consummate professional, doesn’t let herself flag for a second and continues noting everything she sees. By the end of the week she is beginning to worry though. Gerard isn’t there when she goes to meet him and she starts to get the worrying feeling that she’s being watched everywhere she goes.

Halfway through the night she wakes too late to stop herself from breathing in the chloroform now smothering her face. When she comes to, she finds she is naked and chained rather uncomfortably to a cold grid floor. The room she is sat in is small and dank and the smell of rotten fish radiates upwards from the floor, when she looks down she see that the below her is a pool of stagnant water. An eerie green light emanates from its vast deeps and much to her discomfort she can see flitting humanoid shadows just below its surface. The scrape of the door opening brings her attention squarely back to the room around her as an extremely large and squat looking man clad in a tight black shirt enters the room.

He begins to talk as two guards enter the room behind him.

“You’re awake then?” His voice is wet and reverberates oddly, and to her disgust something below his skin bulges grotesquely as he talks. “Good. Then I’ll introduce myself: my name is Keir Carden and from what our seers have been able to garner, yours is Jeanette. Unfortunately they weren’t able to get anything else from you, so I gather that whatever powers you have guarding you are quite formidable.”

Jeanette vainly struggles against the chains.  “Why don’t you let me show how formidable they are you slimy…” he smirks and nods to the guards, one of whom pulls out a syringe.

“I think not. Now, unfortunately for you we’ll be needing to take your soul, but I’m sure you can live without it - after all your colleague did indicate you both work for the civil service.” As she struggles against the injection she manages to bite one of the guards and to her surprise tears away some of his skin. As they drag her to her feet large silver scales are reveled under the tear. “Ah you’ve discovered our little…well I would insult someone of your intelligence by using the word ‘secret’. It’s a rather unfortunate result of our recent aquatic incarceration. You see, back when we were rather more human-looking your kind knew us as the formori and until Dannan’s shitty little groin spawn drove us into the sea we ruled Britain.”

They pull her through the door and out onto what she discovers is the upper echelons of the building. What she sees is as beautiful as it is disturbing, for with the exception of a few rooms such as her cell, the whole of the top floors is made from a strange translucent glass filled with water. Swimming through the walls and floors are a number of humanoid looking fish creatures. The building itself is hollow at this top most section and tube shaped and it is into the very centre of the structure that they drag her. Another surprise awaits her here for submerged in a pool at the building’s centre, surrounded by countless other figures is the motionless body of Gerard.

“Don’t worry he’s not dead, just asleep. We still need half of them alive to complete our ritual.”

Jeanette’s voice when it comes out slurs from the sedative. “What ritual?”

The monstrosity’s voice fills with pride and his gaze alights on the horrid form hanging in the scaffolding above them. “The one we’re planning, to bring my race back from their marine prison and to awaken my long dead great-grandfather Balor. You see, his gaze has rather unique and destructive qualities which we plan to take advantage of. Poor chap. Reading must have been a nightmare. He really should have gone to Specsavers...” Bonde struggles to concentrate on what he is saying through the haze of the drug.

“What do you plan to do exactly?”

Keir brings his hands together in excitement.  “Well we obviously couldn’t hit anywhere from all the way out here, so we’re going to open a portal over somewhere important. Perhaps , I don’t think anyone would really miss it. Then we create the illusion of a nuclear weapon heading towards said area and wipe it from the face of the planet. In the ensuing rush for a scapegoat we’ll help place the blame squarely on one of ’s less popular allies, most likely . With a few more well placed illusions of nuclear threats, World War Three gets going and we’re there to pick up the pieces.” All the way through this Jeanette struggles with not only her bonds but also the drug’s effects.

“And…and why are you telling me this? Are you worried about my organization? Are you expecting me to talk?” In response Keir pulls a small gun from behind his back and shoots her in the head. “No, not really.” The guards dump her body unceremoniously into the pool as he begins walking away. “I guess I just like the sound of my own voice”

She continues falling even when her body has long since hit the water, eventually she hits the end of this black river and it swallows her soul.  It drags at her essence, sucking her down into the eye of a beholder so huge it threatens to utterly consume her.  As the last drop her is about to be lost into the great black pupil, something seems to open behind her and a large cane appears from the darkness and pulls her from the black miasma.

She comes to coughing, spraying glowing particles of dust everywhere. Looking around she discovers she is surrounded by an iridescent wasteland of cracked, parched earth that strains her eye with its vastness. Standing like a bastion against the emptiness is a single decaying building covered in posters, and leaning against its wall, grinning like some graying demon, is Papa Legba. As she staggers to her feet he props himself with his cane and begins walking towards her.

“Legba? What’s going on, where am I?”

He looks around him and twirls his cane. “My house. Nice view ain’t it?” In the flesh he is about an inch or two taller then she is, a sinewy looking black man in his mid to late fifties. He wears a simple red and white shirt and dark blue jeans. Perched atop his head at a jaunty angle is a pork-pie hat made of straw and clasped in his crinkling hands is a crooked walking stick. “Sorry about the rough landing girly, only way I could get your ti bon ange away from those batty fish boys.” Jeanette rubs her head

“Legba, am I right in thinking that I was just shot in the head?” Much to her chagrin Legba starts to laugh. Nobody has a laugh quite like Legba.

“Oh girly, Legba can see you’re in an observant mood today!” As he speaks he holds the cane out one side and begins to twirl it faster and faster in his hand. As the cane spins wildly it seems to catch hold of some hidden edge to this reality and with practiced hands he begins to draw a doorway from the ether.

“Where are we going now? Could you please tell me what’s going on?”

He takes her hand and leads her gently through the door. “Well my lady you been dead for bout a week, but I think you’re about to make a miraculous recovery.”

As he pulls her forwards a thousand doorways open before them, and as he steps forwards miles pass with each step. They soar through countless worlds, skim across parallel lives and even skip over time itself. However, no matter how fast they go or where they fly Jeanette still catches the lingering presence of something just out of sight, following them. It is obvious that Legba feels it too because they begin to pick up speed, curving inwards so that their path beings to shadow the events of Bonde’s own life. They flash past her parent’s funeral, through the education she received at Cambridge and the shooting of her late husband. Eventually they settle, alighting like birds upon the events that have occurred just a week after her death. She stands back slightly as the old man next to her raises his cane, ready to perform the impossible.

As he prepares to do so however an impeccably dressed dark skinned gentlemen steps out from the gloom behind them.

“Good evening, cousin. You know, I really hope that for your sake this isn’t what it looks like.”

Legba freezes for a spilt second before starting to rub his cane up and down the timeline in front of him. “Hey… Baron Samedi, good to see you. Afraid you caught me at a not so good moment, doing a spot of cleaning as yer can see… Yer know how dirty these future thingamagigs can get. Oh, have I introduced you to me fellow cleaner over here? Her name’s Jane Doe.”

The imposing man behind them just crosses his arms. “Yeah I’m real familiar with Jeanette Bonde here, was meant to be having a little appointment with her earlier but she never turned up.”

Legba just looks sheepish. “But she’s going to help me stop them Formori, you know what they plan to do don’t you?”

The Baron just sighs. “Yeah, I know what they’re doing. You think that those Souse' Zozo raising Balor would pass me by? But rules are rules, she’s dead so she’s fallen into my realm.” A pout appears on Legba’s face.

“But, but what about spicy chicken and rum. After them things get to blow everything, all there will be to have is mutated fish. I hate mutated fish.”

Samedi shrugs and turns to speak to Jeanette. “What about you Miss Bonde? You know what I am, what I do. My cousin here opens the way and walks many roads. I, however bring the party to a close and all that die come back to me. If I were to make an exception for you would you really be able to make a difference?” The woman before him looks the Baron straight in the eyes and realizes how full of life they are.

“Mr. Samedi, if these things achieve their goals I suspect that for the human race there will be no more parties, no more dancing, no more love of life. Just endless cruelty, and people weeping for death to release them from their suffering. I have a job to do, let me finish it.”

At this the Baron just stares at her and strokes his chin for a few minutes. When he answers he leans forward and a playful smile plays across his lips. “Well then my lady, it’s just as well for you that I like spicy chicken.” He reaches into his pocket and hands something to her that he tells her is for later, then he places a hand over her eyes and removes his top hat…

…and she bursts to the pool’s surface sodden, naked and gasping for air. After checking herself over (no bullet hole in the head and much to her relief no zombification) she swims over the still form of Gerard and attempts to release him from his bondage. Luckily its purpose only seems to be to hold him underwater and so she manages to free him and bring him to the poolside. After a quick prayer she manages to release him from the spell holding him in stasis and with a regretful look back at the other bodies in the pool begins to drag his groggy form up the tower.

The sky overhead is heavy with storm clouds and the lightning that cracks across them bends in spirals around the tower itself. From the light provided she can see that what must be every Formori in the building is gathered upon the top of tower. Once Jeanette judges that they are as close to the top as they are going to get without detection, she tucks Gerard into a well hidden spot within the scaffolding and tells him to wait here until she gets him. Next she turns around and strolls as visibly as possible up to the spire’s peak, all the time clutching at the object around her neck that the Baron had given her.

The corporation’s peak is so tall that its top literally scrapes the clouds above them and at its top hanging from a series of chains and pulleys like some grotesque parody of a sacrificed god is the swollen body of Balor. He is a gigantic, rotten Cyclops hanging from the rafters and is made all the more disgusting by the fact that his one huge eye has been left half hanging from the back of his head. Surrounding his enormous frame like some benthic nightmare are what she estimates to be about a hundred Formori, now without their disguise of human flesh. As she approaches them she pulls the necklace from her neck and closes her hand around it till it bleeds. As she does this a quiet descends over the crowd in front of her, at last one of the Formori chuckles.

“Hey, look - it’s the intruder that Keir said he killed last. Can’t have done that good a job. Still at least it looks like we can get a good amount of meat out of her!” With this he opens his mouth wide to revel a mouth full of sharp teeth and lunges at her, however as he does so Jeanette calmly pulls two guns from the ether around her and blows his head clean off.

“Who you calling a woman, cock sucker? The name’s Ogoun!” The voice that comes from the woman’s mouth is not that of the upper class MI21 agent, but rather that of a foul-mouthed solider, and for a moment Jeanette’s image becomes blurred with that of the spirit possessing her. He drives her forward and as he does so he fires a volley of shots into the creatures rushing him, blowing apart several of them in the process. Their claw rake ineffectually across Jeanette’s supernaturally hardened skin, and as they do so the Lwa raises his foot lazily and kicks one of creature’s spinal cords out through its back. Next he pulls a shotgun from his shoulders and strolls sideways, blasting any Formori that threaten him straight into the waiting arms of the Baron. As he goes he pulls a cigar from thin air and starts to vigorously chew on it. Bringing the butt of the shotgun sharply down on one of the creature’s heads he pulls a grenade out of a metaphysical pocket. Then he drop kicks it into a group of sorcerers on the other side of the tower who are desperately trying to dispel him. The ensuing explosion destroys part of the tower and comes dangerously close to dislodging Balor from the Scaffolding. When he is satisfied he has caused enough carnage, the possessing spirit hands control of her body back to Jeanette.

“My bollocks are turning blue out here so I’m going to fuck off and get some rum. Good luck out there.” Jeanette thanks him and promises to get him some expensive cigars before regaining control over her limbs, as she does so she hears the sound of footsteps coming from behind and whirls round to find the welcome sight of Gerard. However her relief turns to horror as a circular blaze of light appears in the air high above them and in the pool below them.

“What the fuck is happening?!” Gerard’s voice is almost lost in the wind.

“There’s no time to explain! Just grab that chain and help me pull!” She grabs one of the chains that came loose during the fight with the Formori and begins to pull it out to the edge of the roof. She stops however when she sees Gerard standing motionless next to the structure holding Balor. “What the hell do you thing you’re playing at…?” As she walks round she gets a better view of what has happened and she stops dead. Suspended like some horrid spider above Gerard is the glittering form of a Formori, as it starts to speak she recognizes its voice as that of Keir.

“Stop right there. If you come another step closer I’ll rip his head off.” Keir’s hands rest lightly around Gerard’s neck, and its claws are just slightly piercing his skin.  “We completed the ritual some time before you arrived, so now we are going to wait until both portals are fully open and Balor’s soul is back in his body. Raise your hands, now.” Even through the rain coating them she can still see the thin line of blood that forms on Gerard’s neck. She opens her hands and brings them out to her front to make it clear that they are in fact empty. At this Keir begins to laugh.

“Good. Now once I’m done with your boyfriend here, you’re next, you fucking whore.” He slowly beings to squeeze his hands shut. As he does so however, Jeanette brings her hands together, concentrating as she does so. There is a single gunshot and as the smoke curls delicately away from the pistol in Jeanettes hands, the Formori’s body falls to the floor.

“The name’s Bonde, darling.” As soon as this happens she runs over to Gerard’s prone form and begins to check the wound, and as she does Gerard pulls himself to his feet.

“It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s only a flesh wound - he didn’t have time to hit an artery.” She finds to her relief that he’s right and that he only has light wounds. Behind them a gurgled scream from Balor pushes Jeanette into action. Grabbing her fellow agent by the arm she drags him to the chain hanging from Balor’s head and together they begin to loop it around his prone form. Hoping desperately that the chain is strong enough for what she plans, she and Gerard start to feed it into one of the winches holding the rotten form of Balor in place. As they do this the creature’s monstrous eye begins to glow and the two portals above and below them explode into life. As this happens Jeanette pulls down hard on the winch lever causing the chain to begin wrapping tightly around the thing’s neck. Grabbing hold of Gerard’s hand Jeanette begins pulling him towards the edge of the building. As she does so she grabs a piece of glass broken by the fight earlier.

“What the fuck are you doing, are you crazy? If we jump off from here and we’ll die!” Behind them the chain pulls taught and begins sawing through the monster’s flesh, just as the first deadly rays being to project from the creature’s eye. Taking advantage of the distraction behind them Jeanette succeeds in bowling both herself and Gerard from the roof’s edge, just in time for the chain to sever Balor’s head from his shoulders. As the two agents fall the head of the behemoth rolls from its body and as it does so the deadly arcs of light it produces smash their way through the building, shattering the upper levels and cutting the rest in half. Tumbling in a lethal spray of red light it falls towards the open portal below it and hits it just as it would have vaporized Jeanette’s and Gerard’s falling bodies. The full force of it is unleashed upon both the portal and the millions of Formori waiting below, destroying both in its full fury.

As they fell Jeanette had not been inactive, grasping the glass shard tightly she had cut herself across her hand. Now she traces a rough cross upon its surface and throws it downwards, as it travels she screams Legba’s name. As they are about to smash into the rocks below the glass spins and stretches outwards catching her and Gerard’s falling bodies. They land with a bump several miles from the corporation’s main building in a supply hut. They lay there for a few minutes, Gerard dazed and Jeanette out of breath.

“What just happened?” It’s Gerard that breaks the silence.

“Something that you’d probably be better off forgetting.” Jeanette’s voice is calm and steady when she speaks and she moves her head close to his. “It’s the average day’s work for me.”

Gerard sits up. “Why didn’t you tell me?” The lady next to him just sighs.

“Would you have believed me? I mean, I’m not exactly dealing with drug running or terrorism here.”

He stands up to pull some blankets down from a crate above them. “So what happens to me now then?”

She avoids his eyes as she talks. “You probably get your memory wiped and I go back to saving the world on a semi-regular basis.” He finds the light switch and she can see he’s smiling.

“That’s a shame. I was just getting to dislike you.” As he sits down he pulls in close to her. “So what do we do till the morning then?” Jeanette slides his arm up and under her blanket. “Something innately forgettable, darling.” And with that the two agents coil into each other arms.

[And with a roll of her eyes at the blatant James Bond clichéd ending, the Editor fully expects a few Vodou lwa to be calling on the author sometime soon with demands of rum, tobacco, and bananas for the use of their names and personalities in this story…]