Previously in Agents Of Gemini…

At the behest of a pair of mysterious employers, the Shroud has been tasked with retrieving twin halves of the powerful Gemini Key to prevent impending catastrophe. Allied with a band of reluctant companions – Puma, Morbius and Scylla – Shroud’s mission has been hindered by Silver Sable and her team of Slyde,Asp and Werewolf By Night, who have been hired to retrieve the Keys themselves by the enigmatic Vera Gemini.

Traveling via the lethal Darkforce Dimension, Shroud’s team have stolen away both Key halves – one from Silver and one from Gemini, who has revealed herself to be of demonic origin – but in doing so have placed themselves in the path of the fearsome Predator of the dark.

Silver Sable and her companions have been swept up in the Darkforce maelstrom, along with Vera Gemini, and Shroud must also contend with the fact that Puma is suffering from terrible wounds sustained in a battle with the Werewolf. Who will now live and die as the endgame draws near…?

FOLLOW THE THREAD AND THEN TRACE YOUR WAY FREE

By Meriades Rai

Plotted by Steve Seinberg and Meriades Rai

Once Upon A Time…

“In the name of Ankh, the Wind-Giver; Ankh, the Sun-Holder; Ankh, the Cosmic All of our Dimension…”

They stood in a wide circle about a flaming pit, these shadow men of the Brotherhood of Ankh, and they chanted the name of their Creator. They wore robes of scarlet and olive and gold, and some wore gilded masks; to a human eye they would appear human in turn but in truth they were changelings, somewhere between demon and extraterrestrial, and no mortal mind could truly understand their nature any more than it could comprehend this unearthly environment. The Dimension of Ankh simply was what it was, and the Brotherhood toiled here as they ever did.

The Brotherhood worshipped Ankh, and the Brotherhood dabbled in creation as they in turn had been created by Him, and what they molded with their clawed hands was power. They collected it, shaped it, forged it in fire and blood and stone.

What they created this day was a Key. A Key in the hooded cross that was the eternal shape of Ankh, fashioned from some alien substance and glowing and throbbing with some inexplicably potent inner energy.

“In the name of Ankh…”

The Brotherhood raised the finished Key from the flames and allowed it to cool beneath the myriad stars before carrying it aloft and laying it at the feet of the Creator himself, where he sat in his monochrome throne. The Key itself was black on one side and white on the other, although sometimes those positions reversed, for what it was worth. In human tongue, in the unlikely event that these events were to ever be recorded, the artifact would be called the Gemini Key. Imbued with a perfect balance of Order and Chaos in its very essence, this Key was intended to channel the harmony of the universe, of all known reality… but as soon as he laid eyes upon this offering, the Creator knew the artifact for what it was, and he recoiled.

“Too much,” he breathed, already feeling the subtle changes in his environment and in his heart that would quickly become more pronounced, and likely irreversible. “Too much power, too perfect. To achieve balance, there must always be fluctuation. Order must hold sway, then Chaos, and then back, and forth, and back, the infinite pendulum. There must be momentum for harmony to truly matter. Bless you, my children, for your effort… but this Key will be the annihilation ofeverything!”

Without delay, the Creator reached forth and claimed the Gemini Key, but only so he might try to destroy it. He broke it into two symmetrical halves, one white and the other black but identical in every other respect. He held both Keys aloft… but their power was too great even for him to sunder further. The Creator rose from his throne, arms outstretched, one Key segment in each hand.

“Take them,” he commanded. “Ferry them to Earth, where the flux of Order and Chaos has ever been at its greatest, dampening their power. Hide these pieces away, and let them never again be reunited.”

The Brotherhood bowed and did as they were bidden. Two of their number separated from the main pack and each claimed a Key half. They were dispatched from this dimension, their mission paramount, and although neither creature was ever seen again there was no doubt that they’d succeeded, for existence remained stable without ever succumbing to a damnable perfection that would in turn have resulted in a harmony so shrill and violent that nothing could have survived it.

Satisfied that the threat had passed, the Creator settled back in his throne and smiled.

“Try again,” he demanded.

And the Brotherhood did as they were asked, as always, and their next effort was a far greater success. The second Key, in human tongue, would forever be known as the Zodiak Key…

…but that was another tale entirely.

The Darkforce Dimension…

“Shroud! Shroud, do something! Help us…!”

Was that Silver Sable’s voice? Scylla? Asp? Perhaps it was everyone, everyone who’d depended on him, everyone he’d recruited through coercion or otherwise… everyone he’d failed. Because he had failed, hadn’t he? He possessed both halves of the Gemini Key, but their procurement had involved trespassing upon the Darkforce Dimension and awakening its inherent horror, that of the Predator with its fangs and its claws and its endless hunger. He should never have come here, never brought them here, his allies and enemies alike. Only death lay in store for them now. Unless…

“It’s hunger will never be truly slaked,” he breathed to himself. “That’s its curse. But perhaps it can be temporarily sated…?”

Shroud was finding it impossible to keep track of everything that was happening around him, and that was both vexing and unsettling. He was typically a meticulous planner and a great believer in playing the ‘long game’; one only had to consider the years he’d spent infiltrating all corners of the criminal underworld throughout Los Angeles, San Francisco and the rest of the south-west coast to appreciate his painstaking methodology. Having to think on his feet amidst this manner of chaos was therefore anathema to him. Regrettably, as soon as his team had relinquished the Key half on Schwartz’ island and had been forced to travel via the Darkforce Dimension to try and compensate, everything had unraveled spectacularly.

The Predator in the dark was always going to be the cardinal danger. Using his homing device to track one section of the Gemini Key to Symkaria had been risky but ultimately effective, Shroud knew; utilizing the device to then immediately re-cross the earthly plane to collect the second Key half had been impulsive and likely unwise, given that the beast was already hard on their heels. Shroud wasn’t thinking completely clearly though, he had to admit to himself. He was being affected by outside forces, namely the twin ethereal voices that had guided him this far in his mission, and whose influence was now augmented by his ownership of the Key.

At least, that’s what he preferred to believe. How else to explain his reckless endangerment of innocent life back in Symkaria, when he’d flooded a plaza crowded with tourists with Darkforce… and what else could excuse the sacrifice he was now planning?

Your soul will be cursed forever for this, Maximilian Coleridge, he told himself. From now on, everything changes.

But, if that was the price he had to pay, then so be it…

The Predator loomed, and Shroud whirled in the shadows, buffeted somewhat by his localized control of the Darkforce. Remarkably, Silver Sable was still right behind him. He’d taken the second Key half from her minutes before but had underestimated her cussed resilience, and she’d made a lunge for him, refusing to let him slip away into the shadows and out of her sight. He thought he’d done enough to shake her free, but here she was again, spitting anger and doggedness, grabbing great fistfuls of his cloak and holding tight this time. Shroud cursed. Under other circumstances it would have been her whom he fed to the hungering beast bearing down on him, even though a secret part of him would have been aghast to lose her… but he just couldn’t get a handle on her, not enough to dislodge her a second time, and because of this, chances were if she got swallowed by the creature then he would follow; Silver was a damnable woman with preternatural resolve, not to mention sheer bloody-mindedness, and she’d hang on to his cloak to the bitter death, likely dragging him into the beast’s maw even as she was being digested.

No, Shroud needed another distraction. A different sacrifice.

He wheeled in the darkness, his heightened senses narrowing his options.

Michael Morbius was out there somewhere. His friend and ally, apparently cured of his pseudo-vampiric affliction – and there was the woman with the dusky skin who’d affected him so strangely with her toxic touch, the lovely Asp. She was a villain, a thief, an opportunist… who would miss her? Along the same line of thinking there was the one named Slyde, currently slithering on his silver belly through the oily slick of shadows, with an enraged Werewolf on his trail. Shroud didn’t know what Slyde had done to earn Jack Russell’s murderous attentions but if the Werewolf was planning to tear his victim limb from eel-like limb anyway, why not turn that situation to his advantage? If the Predator was to take a fancy to any one of them, its attention would shift away from Shroud, leaving him free to complete his mission. But, curse it, it was fixated on his scent, the smell of his blood. Of his…

…blood?

Well, that was it, wasn’t it? The beast could smell blood as much as fear.

“Shroud! Shroud! You hooded son of a whore, you promised you’d get us out of this, get Thomas to his people so they can heal him! Where are you, you little…?”

The voice grated on his very soul. It was Scylla’s now familiar fury, directed at him from somewhere in the dark. Shroud grimaced behind his cowled mask, his heart in his throat. He should have transported Scylla and Fireheart to safety long before now, but the quest for the Key had consumed him. Not that he should feel guilty. Hadn’t he warned them to leave his city back when he’d first encountered them in San Francisco? Hadn’t he told them specifically not to meddle in his affairs? But Fireheart had been so insistent, so arrogant…

He saw them, then. Scanning the darkness with his otherworldly perception, Shroud became aware of Scylla and Puma – poor, injured, barely conscious Puma – drifting just ahead of him. They hadn’t yet noticed him. Scylla had been yelling at shadows rather than the man who claimed mastery over them… and, as much as it sickened him, that gave him his opening.

The Predator was behind him, gaining fast. He could feel the cold emptiness of its breath, the promise of it feasting upon him for an eternity in the Darkforce. Silver Sable was now clinging to his back, trying to curl an arm about his neck in a chokehold. Trying to bring him down. To make him fail! The two halves of the Key were weighing heavily against his heart. His mission, his mission…

He thought of the voices, goading him on. Something inside him said No, No! You can’t do this, remember who you are, there must be another way, there must be–

But there wasn’t.

Shroud reached out with trembling hands and, before Scylla even registered he was there, he grabbed the near-lifeless body of Thomas Fireheart, the Puma, and tore him from her clutches. Poor Thomas, ripped to shreds by Jack Russell. He’d never been a match for the ferocity of the Werewolf. Given time he could heal… but time had run out, for all of them. With the last of his strength, Shroud dragged Puma away just as Scylla began to turn.

“No!” she shrieked. “Shroud, what–”

“Shroud!” Silver gasped at his ear. “No, you can’t possibly be–”

“Shroud?” Puma snarled, his amber eyes flickering open weakly. “What’s happening? Are we back on Earth yet? The Keys, did you–”

“I’m so sorry,” the Shroud breathed.

I’m so sorry, all of you.

And then he whirled with a grunt, tears cascading down his cheeks beneath his cowl, and he hurled Puma into the path of the oncoming Predator…

Someplace Else, Someplace Far Away
Sometimes Known As The Dimension Of Ankh…

Of the hundreds of thousands of otherworldly realms in existence, the Dimension of Ankh was surely one of the most curious. Like many such unearthly territories its true environment was impossible for the human mind to comprehend without madness ensuing, and so its unfathomable landscape would become populated by more pedestrian terrain – deserts, mountains, canyons and the like – on those few occasions when a mortal would journey here.

One constant, however, was the symmetry with which this world’s Creator had imbued his residence when he had imagined it into being. The Dimension of Ankh was weighted with perfect balance, a reflection of its Master, and for every swirl and arch and gully of pure energy (perceived in the mind’s eye as simple rock or sea or sky), there was a subtle yet unmistakable counterpiece of dimensional matter. To stand in any one location here, and to turn in any direction, caused one’s visual perception to instinctively render a faultless inverse of anything and everything one could not see simultaneously. In short, an observer in this plane of reality would always be beset by the unsettling notion that he or she was standing at the pivot of an infinite mirror than encompassed the entire plane of existence at that given moment.

This world was the quintessential union of the metaphysical laws of Order and Chaos – which was completely logical once one finally appreciated the identity of this world’s progenitor…

The sky opened and belched pure darkness, a cloud of seething black. Swept along on the stygian tide were a number of individuals, dressed in all manner of colorful costumes, and now these strangers fell to the ground below with curious, exaggerated slowness, like so many feathers, an example of how the laws of physics were… different here. They landed softly and remained still where they lay, their senses shot by their sudden manifestation.

All about, demonic creatures of all shapes, sizes and natures looked on in trepidation. Only the Master, both aspects of himself, watched with delight; two pairs of unearthly eyes – diametrically opposed along the equator of this particular landscape, and in eternal balance – consumed every morsel of information, and two pairs of hands rubbed together with glee. It was so extraordinary to have visitors to his/their home, and so very wonderful. But there was more to come!

High above, the Darkforce broiled…

…and when the one named Shroud finally emerged from the dark aperture in space like a black cork from a bottle of smoke, with the silver-garbed woman still clinging to his back, the portal flickered, flickered…and then closed behind them with an abrupt snap, but not before all those watching below glimpsed the gnashing of savage teeth, and a misting of blood and golden fur upon the ether. The Predator, like some unimaginable, prehistoric behemoth, devouring its final meal for the time being. A split second more and that would have been Shroud himself digested, and the Gemini Key along with him. That… well, that would have been a disaster. Instead, some other insignificant pawn had met his fate.

The Master smiled, both halves of him.

“Ah, success! Shadow-Walker, you have claimed-”

“-both halves of the Gemini Key, and thus-”

“-existence as you know it shall not be undermined. Know then-”

“-that you have done us a great service, and your reward-”

“-shall be that we will allow you, and these others-”

“-even those who rallied against you, and therefore us-”

“-to live. We shall return you to–”

“Enough!”

The anguished cry came from the woman with the platinum blonde hair who now released her grip on the Shroud’s cloak and came stumbling forward, one damaged arm hanging limp at her side whilst she clutched a gun in her other gloved hand. Unlike the others she wasn’t rendered temporarily desensitized by her emergence in this other realm; it was fury that drove her on.

“I don’t know who you are, or what the hell you are,” Silver Sable snarled, “but I don’t have to be a girl genius to work out you’re behind all this. And all this double talk, it’s giving me the mother of all ice cream headaches, so if you’d kindly just shut the hell up so I can put a hollow-point bullet in each of you, closely followed by Shroud here…”

“Silver, stop,” Shroud croaked, dragging himself to his feet. “I can explain–”

“Explain how you just fed Puma to whatever creature it was back in that dark world of yours? Really, Max? You have an explanation for murder?”

He was a friend of mine, Silver wanted to yell, but the words were choked back in her throat. More than a friend, once upon a time. And you were, too. But you don’t get away with murder, Shroud…

“You shouldn’t blame him. The poor man-”

“-wasn’t in complete control of his actions. It’s not beneath us-”

“-to influence events here and there, when called upon, especially-”

“-when the fate of all that was, is and will be is under consideration.”

Silver looked away from Shroud and back towards the two beings – or rather, the two halves of the same being – that stood before her. It hurt her eyes to stare at them, but she forced herself to do so anyway. The one on the left, it was a scurry and spit of black images, all curling and bursting and in constant motion, like a thousand television screens or radio channels all tuned to different frequencies being played at once. The one on the left was serene in comparison, but to the infinite degree: so very still, everything in place, no edges, no momentum, no emotion. Draining. It was like staring at polished glass and feeling an existential angst that nothing mattered, that there truly was nothing out there. Noise and silence, movement and immobility. Both hideous, both terrifying. Together there might be some semblance of tranquility, but apart…?

“What are you?” she breathed. “What has this all been about? I… need to know.”

It was Shroud who answered, coming to stand at Silver’s side. “His name? The closest approximation in our language would be In-Betweener,” he said, his voice as soft as shadow. “He… it… is an Abstract. A guardian of balance, created by entities nigh impossible for our minds to conceive but themselves avatars of Order and Chaos. Sometimes it appears as a whole, sometimes as separate half-entities, like this. But its purpose is constant. Equilibrium. As for what this nightmare has been about… well, this is the Gemini Key. The complete Key.”

Shroud withdrew the two Key halves from his cloak, and Silver Sable found herself looking at them as if for the first time. One was pure white, the other black, although neither seemed to be fashioned from any earthly material. They were otherwise identical, in the shape of an ankh. When Shroud now handed them over to the abstract known as the In-Betweener, the entity momentarily placed one ankh upon the other… and, just for that second in time, the two Key halves merged into one. Silver shivered, aware that a gentle ripple had just passed through her, and through this world, and perhaps all of reality itself. The… beginning of something? or an ending…?

The In-Betweener separated the halves once more, and the fleeting tautness that had beset the world about them loosened. The Gemini Keys throbbed wantonly, desperate for union once more. It craved wholeness, but the consequences of that…

“The creatures of this world, my minions,” the In-Betweener sang, its twin voices now harmonized, “you might see them as demons. But they are disciples of balance, not just chaos; better behaved than the denizens of some other, less savory worlds. My Brotherhood, they once created for me an artifact of tremendous power that has since passed into the folklore of your Earth. You humans know this item as the Zodiak Key. The tales spun about this artifact are colorful and plentiful indeed… but such fables aren’t for the telling here. Instead, know that before the Zodiak Key there was another such Key, similarly fashioned in this realm from earth, fire and blood, and intended as a tool for maintaining the harmony of existence. Regrettably, this item was too powerful.

“The Gemini Key channeled the dual energies of Order and Chaos too perfectly. Can you conceive of that, a balance too faultless? I separated the Key into two halves and decreed the pieces to be secured at remote locations on your world. There they would have remained hidden, if not for the machinations of this interloper…”

The In-Betweener flourished a hand, and Shroud and Silver turned to see a figure rise behind them from the midst of their fallen companions. Shroud recognized the woman from Symkaria, the one who had malformed into a winged harpy when he’d taken the Key half from her; Silver hadn’t witnessed that transformation first-hand but she also recognized Vera Gêmeos nonetheless. She gasped now, her blood running to ice. She’d been suspicious of the mysterious woman who’d hired her, of course she had, but she’d never suspected she was something less than human.

“My disciples who traveled to your world with the two Keys, they remained there once their mission was over,” the In-Betweener explained. “Over the centuries they mated with humans partners, spawning numerous half-breed offspring of this kind. Most were benign. Some, like this specimen, displayed more aggressive tendencies. She has been known to call herself Vera Gemini, with some misplaced regard for her legacy; she has, in the past, fraternized with true demons of all descriptions, to your species’ potential detriment. I was unaware, until recently, that she was seeking the fabled Gemini Key for her own ends. Too late I dispatched my creatures to eliminate her and whatever threat she posed, but by then she’d already come into possession of one Key half and was using its power to shield herself against me and those of her own ilk. If she acquired both halves she would become truly dangerous… I couldn’t allow that.”

“And so you hired me, a human, to obstruct her,” Shroud whispered. “Never once telling me the full truth, of course. Because you’re a manipulative imp at heart, aren’t you Ankh? This… is a game to you, regardless of the importance of potential consequence.”

The In-Betweener smiled, its approximation of a face glittering with light and dark. There was a twisted malevolence there, Silver Sable could also see that. She tightened her grip on her weapon, her resolve to fire upon this rather insidious entity now building again.

“It’s true that I’ve wished harm on humans and demons alike in the past,” Vera Gemini said, attracting Silver’s attention once more. “You don’t understand what it’s like, being a divided soul. Part of two worlds, two races, but belonging to neither. I only desired the Gemini Key to eradicate my demonic birthright. I reside on Earth; I wished to be fully human. Is that too much to ask? The Key could accomplish that for me.”

Silver’s eyes narrowed. She glanced back at the In-Betweener, expecting the entity to now offer some counter-claim, but instead the abstract remained serene.

“Very possibly true,” it murmured. “It is… vexing, sometimes, this dual nature some of us are cursed with. But you’re an anomaly, Vera. A mistake. I’m afraid I can’t allow you life of any kind from this moment on. And the same Key you hoped to use to erase one half of your existence can easily obliterate both…”

Vera Gemini cried out in alarm as the In-Betweener raised the two Key halves, directing them towards his winged victim. Silver and Shroud were both startled, exchanging a brief glance… and then both moved forwards as one, placing themselves in the Keys’ intended path of destruction.

“That won’t be happening,” Silver Sable declared. “I’ve no idea if Vera’s telling the truth but I’m damn sure I’m not going to stand by and let you just expunge her.”

“Likewise,” Shroud whispered. “You… you used me. Twisted my mind, in ways I doubt I’ll ever begin to understand. Turned me into a killer. But I won’t let you do that any more!”

The In-Betweener chuckled softly. “Tell yourself that if you must, man of shadows,” it said. “The truth is, for all the black and white of human perception, you are so many, many shades of gray. A man willing to do what he thinks needs to be done, regardless of laws or morality. I like you, Maximillian Coleridge. It’s why I came to you. You, perhaps more than any other human I’ve ever met, embrace the duality of Order and Chaos so completely…”

The In-Betweener returned its attention to Vera Gemini, dismissing both Shroud and Silver, and their defiance, as insignificant. Vera screamed as the twin Keys began to glow…

…and that’s when Silver scowled and locked her wrist in perfect aim, and pulled the trigger. Once, twice, three times.

Three bullets detonated in the In-Betweener’s skull, misting the air with monochromatic matter instead of normal flesh and blood. Its head snapped back, again and again, and it staggered. But it didn’t fall. It turned towards the woman with the gun, obviously angered.

Shroud raised an ebon-gloved hand and called forth the Darkforce, directing a hefty slice of it like a spear. This javelin of living darkness impaled the In-Betweener through the chest, causing him to gasp and convulse. The abstract stared down at its semi-incorporeal body, now confused as much as annoyed.

“You can’t kill me,” it said, its voice quavering. “Do you have the faintest idea what I truly am? What I can do to you? I–”

“You talk too much. Enough for two people, in fact,” snarled Michael Morbius. He was the first of the strange collective of humans to rise from where they’d fallen, and he now stalked forward to stand beside Shroud, his eyes dark and wild and his flesh beginning to pale to a familiar chalky white. If he knew that he was reverting to his diseased state, and that whatever physiological changes Asp’s toxic touch had wrought were now beginning to fade, he wasn’t inclined to dwell on it. Not right now.

“I know what it’s like to have a darkness inside you,” he hissed. “To want to be rid of it, to just be human. There are monsters present here, and no mistake; we know who we are. But you are the worst of them.”

The In-Betweener whirled to face its vampiric foe, but Morbius’ goading had merely been distraction. It gave Scylla the opportunity to lunge forward, lashing with her cybernetic tentacles with such pent-up savagery that she drove her adversary to its knees, shredding more of its ethereal flesh and causing it to shriek with indignation. The Werewolf then thrust in from the other flank, all fur and claw and fang, ripping into his enemy’s spine and shoulders. The In-Betweener flailed, scattering its opponents, but its pain was obvious – and it was about to get worse.

Asp slithered close, pirouetting on the soles of her bare feet, a beautiful and deadly dance of light and shadow. She laid her hands upon the In-Betweener’s face, her thumbs hooking into its eyes and pushing deep, and she smiled wickedly behind the curtain of her onyx black hair, like the jackal goddess made flesh.

“Die,” she purred, pouting as if for a kiss.

And the In-Betweener screamed. It couldn’t die, of course, not in the recognized human sense, but whatever mystic poison this witch was excreting from her velvet pores it was genuinely agonizing. The abstract was wrenched with spasms, and just for a moment its hands fell open, revealing both Keys…

…and allowing Slyde to skate forth, snatching both halves before the In-Betweener knew what was happening. The air crackled with barely constrained power. The In-Betweener roared, shouldering Asp aside and making a grab for Slyde. The entity was growing in stature now, expanding swiftly, until each of its hands were twice as big as Slyde himself… but Slyde was an eel of a man, his suit coated in a unique chemical substance that bordered on the preternatural, and his enemy just couldn’t get a grip.

Slyde slithered out of the In-Betweener’s fingers like a sliver of silver soap, whooping like a loon. He was going to have one hell of a hangover in the morning, if there was a morning, but he couldn’t help thinking it was worth it.

Slyde skated across to where Shroud and Silver Sable were standing with Vera Gemini, her splintered bone wings stretched wide and her eyes blazing.

“Can you use these Keys to get us out of here, back to Earth?” Silver snapped. “And can we trust you?”

Vera scowled. She reached out and collected the twin halves of the Gemini Key from Slyde.

She offered no answer, and for Silver Sable that was no comfort at all. But what choice did they have…?

The In-Betweener shrieked and rushed for them, the world spinning about its Creator in asymmetrical turmoil. Everyone closed their eyes and instinctively huddled together. Slyde was about to offer something characteristically trite and exasperating, along the lines of there’s no place like home, but there wasn’t even time for that.

Vera Gemini raised the Keys above her head and brought them together with a blinding flash…

…and then they were gone.

Epilogue

The Tower Of Shadows, Los Angeles
Two Days Later…

Silver Sablinova sipped at her pinot noir, the flickering amber of an oil lantern reflecting in her shaded blue eyes and in her snow white hair. Across the table from her, leaning forward with his gloved fingers steepled beneath his chin, Maximillian Coleridge brooded beneath the hood of his cowl. His wine sat untouched in its glass. Somewhere, a clock chimed in one of the many darkened corners offered in this edifice of ancient wood and stone. Midnight.

“I don’t know about you,” Silver said, quietly, “but I’m still waiting for the end of the world as we know it. Part of me wonders if I’ll always be waiting.”

The Shroud raised his glass now, his smile grim and humorless within his hood. “A toast to our victory, then… whilst we’re still alive to enjoy it.”

“You think the In-Betweener will take his revenge?”

Shroud sighed. “In the past forty-eight hours I’ve spoken at length with those better versed in such matters than myself, not least Doctor Strange,” he murmured. “The general consensus seems to be that these… abstracts, these otherworldly entities, are distressingly plentiful. We’re proverbial ants, waiting to be crushed beneath a wavering boot, and there’s very little to be gained from worrying about it.”

“Easily said when you’re a sorcerer supreme with easy access to multiple dimensions,” Silver said, with a curt laugh. “Plenty of places to hide.”

“Indeed. But, in answer to your question… yes, I believe that the In-Betweener will come for us all in time. But, then, that’s an occupational hazard we costumed types live with anyway, yes? We’ll deal with that if and when it comes to it. If, as I said, we’re still alive. It’s not the In-Betweener we should be immediately concerned with, is it?”

Silver scowled into the dark mirror of her wine. “Vera Gemini,” she whispered.

“We saved her, she saved us… a fair exchange, on the face of it,” Shroud said. “But after transporting us all back here, to Earth, she was quick to disappear again. With both halves of the Gemini Key. And we all felt it, in that other dimension; the fluctuation when the In-Betweener briefly allowed the Keys to connect. If Vera merges them again, fully this time, in an attempt to fuse her own divided heredity, the results could be catastrophic. Do you think…?”

“That she’ll do it? Damn us all in an obsessive attempt to improve her own lot?” Silver just shrugged. “I actually never got to know her all that well. And that, dear Max, is why you and I are sitting here waiting for doomsday. Cheers.”

“And what of the others?” Shroud asked. “Slyde? Asp?”

“I don’t know where Vera transported them, certainly not to Symkaria with me, but I received electronic contact from Slyde this morning. Brass balls, that man. Wanted his payment for services rendered wired to him, said that he’d fulfilled his duties regardless of anything else. I sent a return message asking if Asp was with him but he seemed disinclined to answer. My guess is that they’re… taking some time apart. And he withheld his physical location from me, for obvious reasons.”

Shroud smirked. “Jack?”

“Slyde’s made himself an enemy there. If he’s bright, he’ll stay out of Jack Russell’s way for, oh… maybe the next forty or fifty years?”

“And Jack himself?”

“Back to New York, as far as I know. I’ve offered to return to Josef Schwartz’ island, with or without him, after my shoulder’s fully healed. I owe him. I owe him that staff. But you know Jack, proud and stubborn to a fault. He doesn’t know who to blame for all of this going wrong, but I don’t think he’s interested in my company just now. How about you? Is Morbius still here in the Tower?”

Shroud shook his head, now taking a sip from his glass. “Michael… his condition, it began to revert, almost immediately after returning to this world. Perhaps even before then, in the In-Betweener’s dimension. He hasn’t taken it well, as you can imagine, having searched for a cure for so long. But he won’t stop. I dare say he’ll attempt to track Asp down, to see if she’ll consent for him to study whatever this poison is that flows through her… and, perhaps, for other reasons. They were close once, apparently. All these strange coincidences and connections, it can be quite fascinating.”

“Yes.”

The two of them fell silent for a moment, lost in the shadows and the flickering lamplight. Silver glanced up through the fringe of her hair, studying Shroud carefully.

“And Scylla?” she asked, eventually. “I can’t help but notice your head is still attached to your shoulders.”

Shroud shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t know where Scylla is, or what she’s planning. As I said. Revenge, an occupational hazard. I’ll deal with that when it comes to it too.”

“She hasn’t contacted you? Tried to get to you?”

“No.”

Silver’s eyes narrowed. “You’re lying. What aren’t you telling me, Max? You’ve said nothing about what happened with Fireheart, and–”

“What is there to say?” Shroud interjected, his voice so very soft and dark. “I sacrificed him to the Predator. For the sake of all of us, not least myself, and for the Key… but a sacrifice nonetheless. I could never expect Scylla to forgive me for that. I’ll never forgive myself.”

“You were being coerced, controlled. You were in an invidious position–”

“Yes, but still. Not blameless, Silver. Never blameless. As the In-Betweener said, so many, many shades of gray.”

Silver looked back to her wine, but she was unsettled by her own dark reflection.

“Did we win?” she asked, eventually. “I’m not sure if that’s what this feels like.”

Shroud merely raised his glass once more, a final toast.

“To staying alive,” he said.

Somewhere Distant…

Vera Gêmeos, sometimes known as Vera Gemini, sat upon a rock on the edge of a wide cliff, far above the raging sea. The sky upon the horizon was dark and forbidding, an approaching storm, but behind the clouds there were occasional shafts of quite brilliant sunlight, always defiant, always obdurate. It was cold out here, and lonely.

Vera wore her human guise, but the demon inside her broiled and squirmed, as desperate for release as it ever was. Her black hair whipped in the wind and stung her eyes. Her shoulders ached, as if desperate to splinter into leathery wings.

In Vera’s lap lay both halves of the Gemini Key, one black and the other white. It was dangerous to keep them this close together. The magnetic pull between them was devilishly strong. It was all Vera could do to keep them apart.

She could, of course, stand upon the rim of the precipice and hurl one Key half into the churning waters far below. Wasn’t that why she’d come here, after all? And then she could travel across the world and discard the other in similar fashion, perhaps inside a volcano, or down some bottomless crevice halfway up a mountain. That’s what the In-Betweener had wanted, to ensure that the halves were kept apart, and to stop her fusing them together. It was her who was the true villain here.

Her selfish desires could damn the world she’d once wished to conquer but which she now merely wanted to belong to, body and soul. Was she willing to bear the cost…?

Vera Gemini stood. She slid one half of the Gemini Key into her jacket pocket. She pulled back her arm and readied herself to throw the other Key, out into the sea, into the storm, into the dark. Tears stung her eyes.

She hesitated.

In the end, there was no one around to observe whether she threw the Key or not…

The Tower Of Shadows

After the best part of two bottles of pinot noir, Shroud had extinguished the oil lantern and the room had fallen into a smooth, easy darkness, a darkness that was all-consuming but still so very different to the empty, soul-devouring black of the Darkforce Dimension. Silver Sable had risen from the table in turn, and sought him out in the comfort of blindness. They were alive. They were thankful. They were lonely. In the dark, they’d found solace in each other, even if it was just for one night amidst so many, many lonely nights.

When Silver was sleeping, Shroud slipped away. In another part of the Tower, he approached a room barred with a locked door. Set into the door was a small, square grille. Behind the grille, something growled.

Shroud stood before the door, head bowed in the dark. It could smell him, the thing beyond the door. It knew he was here. And Shroud could hear the beast smiling, and twitching, and waiting. It was hungry, but it possessed a frightening patience.

What aren’t you telling me, Max?

“I went back,” Shroud whispered, as if Silver could still hear him, back in the room where she now slumbered beneath a fur blanket. “When Vera transported me here, to the Tower, my first thought… was of him. Thomas Fireheart. And I went back for him, back to the Darkforce Dimension. Perhaps, in my grief at what I’d done, it was my second sacrifice to the Predator; my own sacrifice this time. But the darkness had… changed.

“The Predator was gone. I could sense it. Perhaps not absent entirely, but certainly hiding away. Instead, there was something else. Something… familiar, yet not so. Puma wasn’t dead when I cast him back, you see. But he didn’t die thereafter either. The beast in the black did not devour him.”

Shroud reached forward and placed the palm of his gloved hand upon the door. Beyond the grille there came a snuffling and a snarling.

“Your bodyguard, Miss Markham?” Shroud breathed. “She’s given me a period of grace. Time to work out what’s happened to you, and how – if – we can transform you back to the man you once were, instead of what you’ve become.”

Maximillian Coleridge bowed his head then, the forlorn whisper of shadows curling about him like smoke.

“I’ll make this right,” he told the creature behind the door. “Your story isn’t done, Thomas Fireheart, any more than mine, or that of Vera Gemini or the In-Betweener, or any of us. But who knows what the future holds in store? Because, you see, nothing is ever completely black and white…”

NOT THE END…