should have disappeared!"

should have disappeared!"

"Kira!" Modred said, realizing for the first time that she wasn't with them.

"She went after it," said Loomis.

"My God, I know what he did!" said Billy. "Hurry, there's no time to lose!"

He teleported.

"Hold it!" shouted Rosowitz as he and Stanley came running across the plaza. Chamber and Mason

were racing toward them from the other side of the square.

Modred vanished, leaving only Loomis standing there. Loomis acted as if neither Billy nor Modred had

ever even been there. He glanced down at the demon's corpse, then looked up at the Bureau agents.

"It's dead," he said to them. "Good work, boys. You got 'im."

Rosowitz and Stanley exchanged confused looks.

Kira was almost run over by the fleeing crowd as she materialized in the middle of Canyon Road.

People were screaming and running in blind panic down the street as the bellowing demon entity came

bounding after them, bodies strewn in its wake. As the fleeing crowd passed her, Kira held up her hand,

palm out, and the glowing sapphire runestone gave off a brilliant, blinding flash of energy as a bright blue

bolt of thaumaturgic force beamed out from it and struck the charging creature.

It screamed as the energy bolt slammed into it and flew backward, but immediately got up again,

howling with rage, its entire upper body charred and its right arm missing.

"Holy shit!" said Kira. She raised her arm again and the runestone blazed forth another bolt of force.

Megan Leary came running up behind her and stopped dead in her tracks as she took in the scene. For

a moment she was totally confused. Kira was the necromancer, and yet Kira wasfighting the demon

entity! She was throwing out tremendous bolts of thaumaturgic force, expending an incredible amount of

power, and it seemed not to be depleting her at all!

Completely taken aback, Megan simply stood there for a moment, and as it suddenly dawned on her

that she had been all wrong about Kira, all wrong about everything, out of the corner of her eye she

caught a movement. She turned to see a handsome, strangely golden-skinned man with long, flaming red

hair down to his shoulders. He was dressed in a black robe and he held a riotgun in his hands. He was

moving unsteadily, as if in a sort of daze, and as she realized that he was about to fire at Kira, she threw

her arms out in front of her, fingers splayed, and a blue aura of energy crackled from her fingers as the

bolt of force shot out across the street and struck Wulfgar.

Megan saw him stagger, but incredibly, he did not fall! He turned toward her, swinging the shotgun