"My name is Erin," spoke the raven-haired midnight beauty. "I require lodging for the day."

"Of course," stammered the innkeeper, caught fully off guard by the directness of the woman who had walked into his inn shortly before dawn. "You understand that this is most unusual . . . "

"I will pay whatever you require. It is not a problem."

"I will get a room prepared." The innkeeper hurried off, overwhelmed by the very presence of the woman who had walked in on him.

She stood 5'10, her hair and eyes the darkest black imaginable. Her face bore no marks or lines to beget age. Before one looked into her eyes, she seemed to be young enough that she would be sheltered and not yet betrothed, yet when one looked into those eyes, she suddenly seemed to be as old as the very earth. Her body was lean and strong, but utterly feminine. There was a hardness to it, and especially to her hands, which had numerous callouses, betraying her skills as that of the warrior, although there were no weapons visible on her save a small dagger in her belt. One could easily imagine her commanding a legion of warriors in battle. Her presence, the power of it, was easily the equal of any military commander.

She waited patiently for the innkeeper to return, hardly a muscle twitching as she leaned against the desk. Her eyes roved the small entrance, making note of everything, and she subtly positioned herself to keep her eyes able to see both the door, window and passageway. When the innkeeper returned, he had recovered some of his willpower and composure, and led her to a room near the back of the inn. She thanked him and he left her to it.

She sat upon the bed and removed her boots, then undressed and examined two wounds on her right leg, cuts stretching the length of the calf. She unwrapped the bandages she'd put upon them earlier, and from a small pouch, removed a package of herbs. She found a kettle of boiling water in the fireplace, and poured a cup of it over the crushed herbs in a small tin. She waited for it to cool, then soaked a small cloth in it and swabbed the wounds clean, gritting her teeth against the pain. She then soaked several more cloths in the liquid and packed the twin cuts with them, and wrapped them in bandages again and curled up in the bed to sleep.

When she awoke, her leg still numbed by the herbs, she dressed again, throwing the old bandages in the fire. It was near dusk, and she exited her room to find a tray of fruits and a bowl of soup on the floor. She picked them up and examined them. Finding them to her liking, she ate, and slept again.

It was nearly dawn when she awoke again, a bundle of clothes at the door and more fruit. Her leg was throbbing and burning with infection, as it had when she arrived. She ignored it, as then, and ate again, saving only a single fruit, which she sliced into small pieces and squeezed into a small cup. She prepared her herbal mixture again, unwrapped the injured leg and examined it. The spreading red lines from the wound concerned her, but she pushed it from her mind. She gritted her teeth and poured most of the juice from the fruit over the wound, biting back the pain as the sour liquid burned at the injuries. She waited until the pain subsided, and then poured the remainder over the wound again. Then she cleaned the wounds again with the numbing herbal mixture and wrapped her leg again.

Gritting her teeth, she stood slowly and experimentally. Her leg buckled and she fell onto the floor. Dragging herself back onto the chair, she touched a tiny pendant over her breast, and began praying, for the first time in almost a year. It was the same as then, none of the sense that one was listening that she had been so accustomed to in her earlier life. Erin prayed for almost an hour before the pain from the wound on her leg became too much, even for her own formidable will to suppress, and she wept with it. She drifted to sleep with the pain, and was engulfed in a burning fever by the next morning.

The innkeeper found her at noon, sweating and shaking in the chair. He called his wife and a healer, and the three of them moved her to a bed. The healer examined the wounds while the innkeeper's wife wiped the unconscious Erin's forehead with a cold, damp cloth. The healer touched the leg on one of the red lines, and pulled his hand back as though it was burned.

"No mortal blade did this. It is beyond any of my powers to heal. If you want to save this girl, find another, I cannot do anything except perhaps numb the pain some."

The innkeeper started, "No mortal blade? Then what?"

"Does it matter? This girl will be dead in less then a day at the rate the wound is spreading its infection. If you want to save her, find someone with a different discipline then mine. Find a healer of the gods, or someone who can remove all the infection." The healer put a hand on Erin's forehead. "It might be her only chance."

The innkeeper moved out of the inn and mounted his horse, and rode into the forest to a temple dedicated to a god of kindness. He found the temple shattered, the priests and healers slain, and the statues and symbols defiled. He searched the temple for survivors, and found none. None escaped the carnage, not even a babe in the nursery. He returned to his in with dread in his heart, and walked into the town for a surgeon. It was near dusk when the man arrived. He examined the wound on Erin's leg for himself.

"If she is to survive, and the healers of the gods are slain, then she will have to lose the leg." He left his hand on the wound, wrapped again, wondering at the cause of the infection that burned like fire in the limb, its red lines now reaching her thigh. "Bring her to my home, I will go prepare it." There was resignation in his voice, a weariness of inflicting hurt upon people to save their lives.

He turned to leave when he saw the man standing in the doorway.

The man stood tall in the doorway. He was garbed only in black, and his eyes fixed on the surgeons. "Go home," they seemed to say, "forget what you have seen and heard here." The surgeon left without a word. He walked over to Erin and the innkeeper. Softly, he spoke, "If you wish her to survive, leave now, and do not enter under any circumstances until she and I both have left. And then only enter to open the windows fully at noon."

The innkeeper nodded, seeing a power in the man's eyes and stance that was unlike any he had ever seen before. He hurried out of the room and bared the door. The man sat beside Erin's bed. "Well, Night's Angel, it seems that you have caused yourself yet another hurt, this time one even you can't heal without help. But why have your kindred not aided you? Why has not your lord restored your form? This beckons much thought." He placed a hand upon her forehead, and his eyes turned black with magic. He started, "Alone? Exiled and stripped of your wings and magic? It seems my debt to you is about to be repaid."

He took a knife from his hip and cut the bandages from her leg, throwing them into the fire. He examined the wound closely, and nodded, recognizing the marks for what they were. "Not so evil after all," was all he whispered, as he invoked his magic to cover the blade in a shadowy light. He slit the tip of his finger, and lightly touched a drop of his blood to her forehead, and drew a circle of blood around her thigh as a barrier to keep the lines of infection from rising into her torso. Then he made two cuts, identical to hers, upon his own leg. His eyes matched his blade in colour as he touched her wounds and drew the infection back towards the cuts. Slowly, all the infection drained into the wounds, a sickly magic still bound to her as its chosen victim.

He held his own cut leg close to hers, and used magic to make it a more tempting victim. The infection leapt from her to him, and his magic captured it in midair. He drew it up, away from her and him, and channeled magical energy into it, destroying it instantly.

He easedl onto the bed next to her, his own powers drained and exhausted, and he slept the sleep of the dead. They awoke together, she recovered from the infection, though still suffering the injuries to her leg. Himself, unharmed now, though his strength drained to the point where even his human appearance was weakening. His face was black-skinned, and only more apparently so by the uniformity with the black he wore. A shadow with numberless tentacles was faintly visible on his shoulder. Erin spoke first.

"You destroyed the infection. Why?"

The response was quiet, tired, "I owed you a debt of honour."

It was quiet for a moment. Then Erin spoke again.

"You owed me little. Now I am put in your debt, and I can tell you have discovered what happened to me, so I cannot afford to be in anyone's debt."

He turned to look at her, his eyes betraying a thirst that he struggled to repress.

"I do not know what happened to you, only what you became."

Erin turned to look at him, seeing his thirst and ignoring it for a moment.

"I was cast out from the ranks of the angels for abandoning another angel to your kind. Now I am mortal, human. I have none of the powers I did before, and I cannot even pray for forgiveness. Because of what I did for you, I was given no trust in my story. They felt I would have let an angel suffer and feed your kin, because I was willing to help you once."

He whispered in response, "You know I did not ask you to feed me. You offered, and gave me the choice of letting my child die or having the strength to break the fever."

Her voice rose slightly, "Do not bring the child into this. Now feed again, before my gratitude to you for saving me collapses under my good sense and I let you starve, demon."

He turned to look at her, his eyes changing slightly to black orbs as the tendrils of his demon-familiar spread out and wrapped around her head. More tendrils flowed out from him and linked to her, until she was covered in faint tendrils of blackness. She shivered under the tendrils as his mind touched hers and brought her secret dreams to the surface. She dreamt for hours, the energy brought from those dreams restoring him. Finally the tendrils retracted, and she sighed, the dreams fading into faint wisps of memory. He stood, his lighter colour and the illusion of humanity restored. Lightly he kissed her. "You are better to feed from then any other. You soul brings forth more energy in the dreamscape then any other." He touched her leg and the remaining wisps of dreams causing her to shiver under his touch. The wounds closed slowly under the faint touch of magic. He walked out of the inn into the night and vanished, leaving the innkeeper to wonder about the sighs in the night and the stranger who saved a woman he did not think could survive.

Erin awoke with no memory of the dreams he fed from, to find her leg healed, infection gone, and herself alone. She shivered as a part of her remembered the kiss and touch, and she wondered at how he was able to bring that response out of her. She slid under the covers of her bed, scarcely noticing her lack of any garment, and slept, wrapped in the blankets, only to dream of a touch that all of the essence of her that remembered what she was screamed to forget. Her own strength and willpower restored itself slower, and she slept for almost two days before she was well enough to continue her journey.

She rode alone into the forest, to the east away from the inn, having left a purse of gold for the innkeeper. She would have no need of it, and he had earned the coin. The trees seemed to sway in time with her horses steps, and she rode most of the day without stopping towards the mountains in the distance, to the site where her kindred angel had been used to feed a pack of demons. She stopped for the night in a clearing, surrounded by a perpetual forest, and tethered her steed to a tree lightly, weak enough that should something come which would raise enough fear, it would be able to free itself. She killed a small animal and made her fire, eating quickly and curling up to sleep in a horse-blanket.

This time, her dream was less a dream and more a message. One of her kin stood before her, speaking slowly, "Erin," he said, "You are the last. We have fallen, the one who truly let Cirmora be slain betrayed us all, and we are fallen into our doom. Beware all who wear the guise of an angel . . . " She struggled to ask who the betrayer was, but her voice did not work. She felt herself nodding in her sleep. The figure changed into an ebony-skinned human, covered in writhing shadowy tentacles on his shoulder with fires of blackness for eyes. "Erin," he spoke, "your kindred are dead. You alone are left to stop the last incursion. You must journey to the gates of the world, the Tree of the Dead, and bar the way. Do not fail."

She awoke then, remembering the dream, and knowing that it meant that she was the only one left to bar the way. She recalled the last time the damned had come forth. It had taken five angels and twenty mortal warriors, pure in purpose, to hold the gates shut. She alone survived the ordeal and felt herself rebelling. What right had they to decide her fate? They had cast her out from the order of angels, she was mortal now, and she was alone. What right had they to say she could not go to the land of her birth to die? Why where they after her to give her life, when there were thousands of mortals with the strength of will to hold the gates closed? She wept into the blanket as she fell back into sleep.

She awoke at the crack of dawn, the dream still in the back of her mind, even though she forgot the power of its purpose. She ate a small supply of rations, saddled her horse and rode again towards the east and the home of her childhood, the land of her birth. I will die in the land I was born, she thought, They can't deny me that. I gave them three thousand years of strength and existence, I deserve the kiss of death and the peace it brings. She rode hard all day, and still the mountains did not seem closer. When she stopped again for the night, it was with a slight bit of trepidation that she curled up again to sleep in her horse blanket.

The time, her dream was only the demon. "Why do you resist your duty? The angels have fallen through treachery, the armies of men are broken and divided. Only you are left to bar the way." This time, she found her voice.

"I gave up my life to bar the way once!" She cried, "I'm alone now, just let me go home and die in peace . . . They all think I killed her, maybe I did . . . please just let me die in peace . . . "

She awoke in the morning, not refreshed, but full of doubts and quiet fears. She rode for an hour until she met a road, then she followed it. When night came, and she had still not seen a single soldier. That night, as she curled up to sleep, her doubts became a nightmare.

She was a dreamchild, alone and afraid. Her mother had told her that she would be right back, she just had to go and find her baby brother. It seemed she had been alone all night. The screams had stopped a while ago, and her stomach was starting to hurt. She got up from the bottom of the closet her mother had put her in and looked outside. She saw a lady in the distance, kneeling over something. When she walked over, she saw that the lady was crying. She tugged on the lady's sleeve, "Why are you crying, lady?" Her voice seemed tiny compared to the sound of the tears coming from the woman.

"Go away, little girl. Leave me be." The voice sounded harsh, distorted.

"Please help me find my mommy. She went to find the baby, and I miss her." Slowly, the lady turned her head, and the dream filled with a mounting sense of dread.

Erin awoke in a cold sweat. Her heartbeat, normally steady, was thready and fast. The first rays of the dawn where striking her eyes, blinding her. She clutched at the blanket in terror, not knowing what it was that filled her with the fear.

She rode harder that day then she had ridden in any time previous. Though the foothills of the mountains seemed to be farther then the sun, she made them by the end of the day. She left her horse there, with a farmer, and began a climb in the late hours of the day. She climbed even after dark, unwilling to sleep for fear the dreams would come again. That prospect held irrational terror for her. It was near midnight before she succumbed to exhaustion. And still, the dreams followed her.

She was the dreamchild again. She hid in a small closet, crouched on the floor. She heard weeping in the distance, and slowly peeked out of the door. A woman was kneeling beside the form on the ground, her face hidden in a cloak. Walking towards the woman, she heard a pleading sound in the tears. "Why do you cry, lady?"

"Go away child, leave me to my grief." The dreamchild pulled on the woman's sleeve,

"Please lady, I'm all alone and I miss my mommy. She went to find the baby and now she's lost to."

Erin awoke again, curled up in a ball, tense with terror and coated in a cold sweat. The moon was just rising, and she stayed curled in that position for the rest of the night, afraid to move. When dawn came, she still stayed curled there, and even as the daylight warmed her, she was chilled down to her very core. It was near noon when she finally found the courage to stand, and she ran along the trails towards over the mountain, afraid to look back for fear the dream would return. She ran until her legs screamed in protest and her lungs burned in the thin air. When she could finally run no further, she fell forward and dragged herself until her hands fell on a hard surface, and she could find no purchase for her fingers. She was still, on her stomach, when the girl found her, and got her mother.

Again she was the dreamchild, and the dream did not change. She was alone, hidden in a closet. Fear and loneliness plagued her. She heard a weeping outside. Slowly she opened the door, and she walked out of the house, along the stone path. She saw a woman kneeling before something, a hooded cloak masking her appearance. "Why do you cry, Lady?"

"Go away child, leave me to my failure." A gentle tugging on the sleeve, a plaintive sound,

"Please Lady, I'm all alone and I miss my mommy. She went to find the baby and now she's lost to." The figure turned slightly and the hood fell backwards, showing a flaming brand.

She awoke in a bed, drenched in a cold sweat. A young woman sat next to her.

"Water . . . " Erin managed to gasp. The woman started, and handed Erin a metal mug filled with water. Erin sipped the water, trying to calm down from the nightmare. She looked at the woman, trying to read something of what had happened to her, where she was. The woman apparently read her thoughts.

"My daughter found you. You were lying across our walkway. You'd passed out, it looked like you'd been running for a long time. Jana got me, and I carried you here. You are in my bed, and it's near dawn. Tomorrow, from when Jana found you."

A little girl stuck her head in, "Mommy, the baby's hungry!"

The woman laughed, not noticing the startled and fearful look on Erin's face. "I'm Fiara. That is Jana, my daughter. She'll stay with you and get you anything while I take care of Dern."

Erin clutched the blanket to her, seeing echoes of her dreams all around her. Jana walked over to her and sat on the edge of the bed. "You're a pretty lady." Jana swung her legs on the edge of the bed. "Are you an angel?" Erin's heart took a leap. "Because we need an angel around here."

Erin went pale, the first dream echoing back into the core of her being.

"Jana, why do you need an angel?"

"Mommy says we do. She says that if we don't have an angel then we'll have to leave here and go someplace else to live, because without an angel, the bad people will come." Jana seemed unconcerned, still swinging her feet and smiling. "Want to play a game?"

"No Jana . . . I'm not an angel."

"Oh, ok lady. You just look really pretty like one." Erin blushed, despite the fact that the child's voice sounded exactly like the voice in her dream.

"Thank you."

"Are you sad?"

"Yes Jana, I am sad." Jana hugged Erin.

"Why, Lady?"

"I don't know why I'm sad."

Fiara returned, with a small baby in her arms. She smiled at Erin.

"Has Jana been keeping you company?" Erin smiled, in spite of herself. Mother, son and daughter together were a sight she had not seen for a long time.

"She has, Fiara." Erin studied the woman before her. "There is something I need to ask you, but right now . . . " she interrupted with a yawn. "I've been traveling for almost a week . . . "

Fiara smiled. "Don't worry about it. Sleep as much as you need. There is fruit out at the table if you get hungry. I expect Jana will be around enough that she'll get you something if you ask her."

"I don't know how to repay you for your kindness. I don't have any wealth to speak of."

"Don't worry about it. We have to leave this place soon anyway, so it is best we do something good with the time we have left. Rest now. We can talk more later."

Fiara and Jana left, carrying Dern, and Erin slipped into sleep again, a sense of dread burning her.

Again she was the dreamchild. She walked to the woman weeping on the ground.

"Why do you cry lady? Why are you sad?"

"Leave me alone with my failure child."

The dreamchild tugged on the lady's sleeve.

"Please lady, mommy went to find the baby and now she's lost too, and now I'm all alone."

The lady turned, her face obscured by a hooded cloak, a flaming brand showing against the blackness. The hood fell back and the dreamchild stared into Erin's face, red with tears.

Erin woke quickly, another's scream of terror raising her to her feet before she realized what she was doing. She dashed in the direction of the scream, and saw three men, marked with the brand of the damned, fighting with Fiara. Erin did not pause as she grabbed the first weapon she saw, a longsword on the fireplace, and ran out. She struck down the first of the damned with a single blow, and drove the second back with the hilt. She struck the third with a blow from her other hand, and turned to strike with her blade.

She stopped when she saw the demon in the place of Fiara, and knew that she had been beaten. She spun and struck down the two remaining damned, and turned to face the demon. He laughed at her.

"The Night's Angel indeed. The last of the guardians is a mortal woman, and she is alone." He struck her with his hand, and she flew backwards, striking a tree. Struggling to her feet, she raised her blade in a silent challenge. The demon laughed again and opened an image in front of her, of Fiara and Dern in the realm of the damned, bearing the marks of those taken, the lost. Erin dove at the demon, her blade stretched out, only to find that he was not where she thought he was, and to be struck from behind as he vanished.

"The Night's Angel, last of the guardians, who can't even help a single mortal mother and son. How do you expect to keep me from taking your realm?"Erin fell to the ground, her dreams and his words striking a deeper wound then any she'd experienced. She wept, kneeling on the ground, trying to pray, as the demon faded fully.

She heard Jana's voice behind her, in her mind.

"Lady, why do you cry?" The echoes of her dreams shook her as she heard herself say.

"Leave me to my failure child. Leave me . . . "

Erin felt a nonexistent pulling on her sleeve.

"Please Lady, we need an angel, mommy went to find the baby and now she's lost too."

Erin turned where she was seated, seeing nothing, and slowly raised her hand to her forehead, afraid to see the mark of the damned on her own brow. It felt the same, and she fell forward to weep. She stood at night, and walked back into the house, looking through every closet and room for Jana. She found her in a small closet in the back, curled up and terrified. Jana stammered,

"A-are you a-an angel? Am I dead?" Erin shook her head.

"No, Jana, I'm not an angel. Not anymore." She held Jana and carried her out of the house, to a nearby village and purchased a horse. She held Jana in her arms as they rode, Jana seeming to sense that she was alone now, even as Erin looked outward, trying not to let herself break until she reached the village where she knew several good people lived. People that she could trust to keep Jana safe. People that would be able to raise her.

She rode all day, until the village was in sight. She stopped at the home of one of her oldest friends, exhausted, Jana asleep against her chest. A young boy took one look at the horse, helped Erin off, and led the animal to the stables. Erin looked around, and quickly, a wizened old man walked out of the house.

"Erin, dearheart, it's good to see you again." He hugged her close, dropping the staff he leaned on. "You are not here for the pleasure of my company. What is wrong?"

"Dij . . . I need your help again old friend . . . " Erin hugged the man back. "Things are getting worse by the day it seems."

"You have an odd burden, Ka'dora . . . come inside, you know I'll always do my poor best for you. After all, aren't you the one who went past the gates of hell to get me back?" Erin smiled faintly and shuddered.

"Don't remind me, Dij . . . "

The two of them walked into the house, where the massed hordes of young children were kept at bay by the rest of the family, who were just as anxious to see Erin again. A young woman took Jana and carried her to a bed upstairs, and Dij led Erin to a room in the back.

"Now Erin, tell me what happened." He sat in a comfortable chair looked at her with an intensity that belied his years. "Start at the beginning." Erin took a deep breath.

"About 50 years ago, there was a mission . . . a child under my protection had been infected with a magical illness that I did not have the skill to treat. None of the angels did. We were stumped, in every sense of the word. The child was one of my charges, so I took a chance. I prayed openly to all who could hear, for one who could help. I wasn't expecting an answer, I was desperate, but I received one. The child's father actually. One of the lerach, one of the demons. He came in the guise of a human to examine her, and recognized the cause of her sickness. He had known what it was before, I think . . . " Erin's mind wandered back in time to that night.

"Who are you?"

"My name is not of importance. This child is my daughter. Why have you called me to

her again? I could not help her before, why now?"

"Do you know what causes her sickness?" Erin insisted. He looked at her.

"I do. I tried to heal it once already. It is beyond my strength to heal. And now you call

me to watch her die." His voice was hard, his eyes harder. There was a strength and difference about him

"You are one of the lerach." He drew taller.

"I am one of the first, Night's Angel. Do not attempt to challenge me."

"If you are one of the first, then take more strength from me. She was labeled my charge, it is my duty to help." He startled. "Do it Lerach." Her voice was at least as hard as his.

"You do not know what you offer." His eyes looked at her with a naked thirst.

"Nor do I care, now feed." Erin stood tall in front of him, lowering her angelic protections from touch of demons, and stared into his eyes, which suddenly darkened more, becoming a part of the night which flowed out around her, and left her with no memory of what next transpired.

When Erin awoke, the child's illness was gone, and she was recovering. It was near dawn. She found her protections were still down, and tried to examine her memory of the events, but the only image she could call up was his eyes, and a nameless longing.

"I let one of the demons take strength from me, feed from me, without my protections. None of my kindred said anything to me, but their actions . . . they suspected that I had made a pact with the darkness to help a half-breed. I was tainted, and none trusted me as before."

Dij looked at her, sadness in his eyes. "Even amongst angels, doubt is a terrible thing. What happened next?" Erin's mind leapt into the year past.

Her kindred stood around her, their eyes damning her before she even had a chance to

speak her side. She numbly heard the Lord of Angels pronounce a sentence. Exile, and the stripping of her wings and powers, her protections and weapons, her strength and fire. For the betrayal of her kindred, she was cast out, made mortal. Because one angel had gone to see if she could help one of Erin's charges when Erin was standing watch over the Tree of the Dead. Because one angel had attempted to challenge a grouping of demons that Erin had not known were within her territory of wardship. Because she had failed somehow.

Erin walked for what seemed ages, cast out of the heavens at the very spot her sister had

perished. She had wept there for hours, it seemed. She walked through the forest now known as Darkness for most of a year until she came across a nest of the damned that had slipped out of the Tree of the Dead when she was on trial. She pulled a longsword from their first victim and fell upon them, killing them all. Then she walked again, through the forest, searching, even though she did not know what.

She found another nest of the damned, and fell upon them also, fighting and killing. She fought with an abandon, a reckless desire to fall in battle. This group of the damned was larger then the first, and there was a lesser demon with it. She killed then damned quickly, her skills as sharp and powerful as before. The demon leapt at her, it's wings, fangs and claws outstretched, attempting to take her head and life. She struck hard against it, and took one of its arms. It fell forward, two fingers tearing parallel gashes in her leg, and she took its head with a blow.

Her leg buckled under the strain of supporting her. Despite this, she walked until she found a horse, and then she rode, her mind not functioning, the only thought being a desire to reach the land of her birth, to die where she was born. She rode until she could ride no more, and reached an inn in a small town.

"I nearly died in that inn. The wounds on my leg were magical, of a nature my small skill with herbs could not even slow, let alone treat. To save my life, they were going to remove my leg. To save my life they would cripple me." She laughed morbidly. "Luck was with me that day. The Lerach that had fed from me before came again. He felt that he owed me a debt of honour, for giving him the strength to save his daughter. He healed my leg and left me." Erin did not tell Dij that she had fed him again, nor of the longing that thinking of him raised in her.

Dij looked at her again, his eyes softening slightly.

"What of the child you brought to me? What is her sad tale?" Erin's eyes fell to the floor.

"My failure . . . I rode far once I recovered from the wound to my leg. I . . . my sleep was disturbed by nightmares that I could not make sense of. Irrational fears. I panicked at one point . . . ran on foot for most of a day and night. Jana found me. I was lying on the walkway near her house. She and her mother brought me in, fed me, let me rest...and I failed." She took a deep, trembling breath. "I was asleep when they came first. They took the mother, and her baby. Then they came again. One demon...a strong one, and three of the damned. The demon took the guise of the mother and had his servants attack him. I woke up and came running out to help. I beat the damned, but the demon chose then to show its true form . . . I'd failed Fiara, I hadn't . . . I couldn't fight him, didn't wake in time to fight him when she might have been saved. He nearly killed me . . . he didn't because he wants me to suffer . . . wants to torment me . . . Gods Dij, I'm so afraid . . . "

Dij leaned over and held her close as she wept. She cried hard for a time, soaking Dij's shoulder with tears of fear and loss. Dij comforted her as best he could, stroking her hair and whispering softly to her. Eventually, the tears stopped and she slept, held in the arms of an ageless friend that did not care about anything save her.

Erin did not dream that night. There was magic about Dij, a magic of healing hurts to the soul and mind, and his presence brought quiet to her. They talked much about him, what he did now, how he taught children. He was the schoolmaster here, and gave training in whatever the children needed to know. Jana settled in with the rest of the children quickly, and Erin was glad. Her heart hurt too much for her to stay close to Jana. She and Dij made a silent agreement not to discuss her past, what had happened, and the only thing that Dij said on the topic was that Erin could stay as long as she needed.

Erin chose not to take Dij up on the offer. She chose to leave as early as she could, although Dij did insist that she stay for a time, to let her horse recover. Erin helped Dij around the school for almost a week, feeling out of place, but ignoring it, relishing the dreamless sleep that Dij's presence brought. A week after she arrived, they spoke alone again.

"I can't stay Dij."

"I know you can't. You have duties still, even though you don't want to acknowledge them." Erin smiled. "How do you know me so well?" Dij took a sheet of paper from a package on his hip.

"One of my students wrote this. I don't know what it means really, but I thought of you when I read it. May haps it holds something that you need to know?"

"It might, old friend." She took the sheet of paper and read it quietly to herself, the words echoing in her mind.

One mortal woman stands alone,

Upon the gates of hell.

One mortal woman stands alone,

To bar the damned's way.

One mortal woman stands alone,

Where armies of angels fought.

One mortal woman with nothing to lose and less to gain,

Stands alone for us on judgement day.

One ageless demon walks alone,

In the darkest hours of the night.

One ageless demon walks alone,

Using his inner sight.

One ageless demon walks alone,

And sees more then black and white.

One ageless demon walks alone,

And would stand on the side of right.

Two warriors fight apart,

And apart they will both fall.

Once Heaven's Angel, mortal now,

She fights to stall.

The Damned's strongest demon,

A drinker of lust and love,

Held by hostages against a wall.

Two warriors fight apart,

And apart will they both fail.

Two warriors fight apart,

Bound by past and sin.

Two warriors fight apart,

When together, they might win.

Erin was silent when she finished reading the verses. Dij spoke only a few short sentences. "He is my best pupil, a seer when he writes. He writes of the future and past, and gives possibilities always. This is the full version of what he wrote. Remember it, Erin, it might someday hold a way for you to find what you seek. Good luck in love Erin." He smiled. "I suspect you will need it."

Erin was silent when she embraced Dij. "Thank you, old friend . . . Live a while yet, the world needs more of you." She turned and walked away, mounting the horse she'd ridden to exhaustion before. "Goodbye . . ." They both sensed that the likely would never meet again, even though neither knew what the fates held in store for Erin.

Erin rode for most of a day before stopping. By rough reckoning, she figured that she had only to another day's ride before she reached her destination. She ate a meal of a rabbit she killed, and made camp for the night. As she curled up to sleep, she began to dream again.

One of her kindred stood before her. A young angel, one she didn't recognize

"Night's Angel, you are the last left. You have to bar the way from the Tree of the Dead. You must bar the damned's path."

"I can't!" She cried out. "I'm alone, I'm mortal! I failed, the angels have to do it, I don't have the strength!"

"The angels have fallen through treachery. Beware those who wear their guise. You are the last who can bar the way. It is your charge. Only the traitor wears the mask of angelhood. The armies of men are broken, the Traitor has divided them, none are left to bar the way. Only you, Night's Angel, only you are left to bar the path. You have to."

"I can't!" she sobbed. "Not alone . . . "

"Erin, you are only as alone as you wish to be . . . " His face softened with kindness. "Trust your heart, it is what makes you stronger then the rest of us. Even mortal, the Traitor cannot taint your heart . . . Trust yourself, for there is only one who can claim the name 'angel' now."

She felt a tugging on her sleeve.

"Please lady, you have to help . . . We're all alone, Daddy tried to hide us but he found us and now we're all alone here and we need your help . . . "

She turned to see a family, five, ten, fifteen children, ages ranging from three to ten, guarded by the damned, all of them showing the signs of demonic heritage. The one pulling on her arm was the Lerach's daughter that she fed him to save. As she looked into the child's eyes, she saw her own reflection, and the flaming brand of the damned.

She looked away again, and was alone. She felt a shadowy touch that sent shivers through her body. A faint, gentle kiss and her knees melted. She opened her eyes and saw the Lerach. He smiled at her.

"Trust your heart, for the mind can be distracted by sight. Don't look with your eyes, they are blinded by illusion. Don't look with your mind, for it is blinded by prejudice. Don't look with your soul, for it leaves you vulnerable. Look with your heart, for it sees the truth."

She felt the kiss again, and turned to see herself standing alone at the Tree of the Dead. She stood alone in front of it, calling with all her heart. She waited, hoping against hope that he would make it. The tree began cracking open as the damned began coming forth. A gentle pulling on her sleeve.

Erin woke, strangely rested. She felt a gentle tugging on her sleeve again, the gentle pulling of a child.

"I know . . . " She smiled, resigned to her fate, and stood up. She quickly readied her horse again, and rode the rest of the way to the village. When she halted her steed, she saw a figure in black walk out of the trees, staying carefully in the shadows. "I was wondering when I would find you, Lerach. You know what I have been charged with."

"I know that you are supposed to stop the damned from coming forward. Don't bother. You will just be killed, and I won't be able to help you this time."

"Why not, Lerach? I'm not your daughter, is that it? Or is your honour satisfied?" Her voice was slightly hurt, harder then she intended.

"I cannot. You will understand eventually. Goodbye, Night's Angel . . . " He turned to leave, his voice betraying a deeper hurt then could be seen in his human mask.

"Wait . . . I'm sorry . . . " He was already gone.

She took a deep breath and walked to the house. She found it wrecked, shattered. All around the house were the marks of battle, of war and death. Her heart full of dread, she went inside the house. She walked from room to room, looking in them. She found only two bodies. One human, one the damned. It was a bitter irony that they were both in the same room. The damned had been strangling her, and she had gutted it with a small dagger. The child's room was empty. Slowly, Erin's mind pieced everything together. A part of one of Dij's verses came to her mind.

"He took them . . . to keep me alone . . . "

She walked outside to her horse and rode again, searching for the Lerach. She found him sitting upon a hill after dark.

"Who took your children, Lerach? They are why you cannot help me, aren't they?" His smile was full of bitter irony.

"So swift you figure it out. I can either help you and suffer my family, my children, to cruel deaths, or save my family and watch you die."

"And if I go to them, and bring your family to safety?" His face was an image of surprise. He passed her idea off out of hand.

"You would be killed before you even got close." An image from her dream came to her.

"Not if you marked me." To this, he had no response. "Come on, you have that power. You can mark me that they see myself as one of them."

"I can."

"Then do that, and help me to them. You won't even have to help. I will get your children out, and give you someplace safe to send them. Then you will be free."

"No." His voice was soft, but cold. "No. I won't mark you as one of the damned. For you to get close enough to have a chance, the mark would have to be the real thing, not able to be removed. You would be marked forever."

"Does that matter? Either mark me now or not, I will go after your family. If you don't help me, it will take longer, and I won't likely succeed. They might die alongside me." His anger came to the surface.

"So be it, Night's Angel." His voice was ice.

Dropping his human guise, he stood tall before her. Unmasked, his demon familiar resting upon his shoulders, his face a black wall, the familiar's tentacles wrapped around his forehead, one touching each eye's pupil, staining it black. His hands were human, crafted purely of an ebony black material, as was his face, which was as beautiful as a god's, save for the tentacle around his forehead and touching his eyes. His body was sculpted of the same material as his hands and face, and nearly as perfectly. He smiled at her, a sinister smile, and touched her forehead with a finger, a tentacle of the demon familiar running along it to touch her forehead at the same time.

She screamed as the mark burned itself onto her skin. The heat of it was like nothing she had ever experienced, and the pain was her undoing as she fought to memorize his appearance. She buckled under the strain, and fell to the ground, and he reformed his mask of humanity, even as the pain from the mark faded under a wisp of power.

"Make ready yourself, Night's Angel, for you journey to the realm of the damned now." His voice hardened as he built a single portal open, a portal of blackness, fed and tamed by the demon familiar.

Erin stood, and looked him in the eyes. "How will I bring them back to you?"

He silently handed her a black orb. "Shatter this, and a single portal will open to a cave near here. I will be waiting there." She turned, and walked into the portal, ignoring the twisting that occurred in her stomach as the demonic portal carried her to the realm of the damned.

She had been there twice before, in her long life. The first time, she had been mortal, a child. Tormented and in pain from the attentions of a single demon, who took the guise of whatever pleased him. She had been unmarked then, because it left her with hope, and every time she failed to escape, that failed hope made her failure more pleasing to him. She was eventually freed by an angel, who sensed the presence of one unmarked inside the realm. He braved torments worse then any she had experienced, and came to her in a dream.

"Are you an angel?" Erin the child whispered.

He nodded. "That I am, child." He held out one hand. "Do you want to go home?"

"I . . . I want to go to mommy . . . " Erin the child began weeping, not taking his hand.

"Your mommy is with us child, she misses you a lot." His face looked soft. "Take my hand and I'll bring you to her."

"I can't!" Her face was a mask of tears. "He'll find me again!"

"I'll stop him. Tell me your name, child." His face still looked calm.

"Her name is Erin." Spoke a voice, awaking Erin from sleep, and showing that indeed there was an angel before her. "My brother claimed her for his own."

"Stand aside, Lerach." The angel's voice held a strength and purpose that were easily greater then any Erin the child had heard before.

The Lerach smiled. "If you want to take her from here, I will hold him back until you can get to the Tree of the Dead."

"Why, Lerach? Why would you betray your kin?"

"My brother is a monster. I am one of the first. I remember a time before our wars, now take the child and go." The Lerach turned, and let his familiar strengthen him for a battle against his kin. "Go!".

The angel bundled Erin up in his arms. "Thank you, Lerach." He took to the air, using his wings to fly at his full speed to the Tree of the Dead, the portal between the two realms.

Erin never did return to her former life. She was alone in that existence, and would be

forever there. She had seen too much, learned too much about death and the end, to be human. Instead, she took on angelhood, and claimed her wings.

The second time she returned to that realm was a bitter memory, an evil one. She was going into the realm for a friend. She had promised that he would have a chance to help the children he longed to, and her honour would not let her release herself from the promise, and so she went into the realm after him, to free him. Ignoring her instincts that it was a trap for her, because she could sense that he had not been marked.

It was a trap. She had flown into it and grabbed Dij by the collar at high speed, pulling

him up and away from the demons. She was nearing the Tree of the Dead when her guard slipped. He revealed himself by latching onto her with demon tentacles from his familiar, and dragging her to the ground. Her own powers were useless to her then, she had only her wings and her sword skills in this realm, and her wings had been fouled by the tentacles. The demon smiled and a thousand wounds opened on her where his tentacles had touched her, and more tentacles sprang from his mouth as he drained her of her blood. Desperate, she struck at him with her sword. Weakly, did she sever a tentacle, and many more came out in its place. She fought back with little strength, and was weakening as the demon drained more and more of her blood away. She was nearly passed out when she felt the tentacles loosen. She heard the demon scream as someone, something, struck him from behind. She saw a nightmare image behind him, another demon, the Lerach, his demon-familiar fighting with the demon who had been draining her. She feigned unconsciousness, until the demon turned his tentacles upon the Lerach. Then she struck with her own blade once, and dealt him a wound upon the back that would leave him upon the ground, bleeding and weakened. The Lerach turned,

"Your friend is being held three leagues farther then you went. He has two guards, both

of this demon's form." He touched her forehead and her blood seemed to restore itself. "Fly swiftly, Night's Angel, he does not have much time."

"Why are you helping me, Lerach?" she asked as her wings carried her into the air again.

"I remember a time before our peoples fought, Night's Angel. I am not the monster my brother is. Now go, you will need all your speed if you are to succeed."

She flew faster then she had before, the blood restored to her granting her greater speed, and rendering her beyond the powers she had before. She struck with great speed and tore the head of the first demon guarding Dij from his shoulders. The second turned to suffer her blade through him. Dij stood slowly from his prone position.

"Are you real, or are you another of their illusions?" Erin showed him the scars of the tentacles.

"I am as real as you, old friend. It is time to go." She lifted him into her arms again, and

flew with all her speed again to the Tree of the Dead. She nearly failed again when she saw the Lerach tending the wounds of the demon who had nearly killed her. He looked up at her with tormented eyes, and seemed to silently whisper, "good fortune" to her. He seemed familiar to Erin for some reason, but she could not remember it even as she passed through the Tree of the Dead with Dij.

Her memory of the realm had not faded, as she walked through the portal, and appeared

a small cave, masked and shielded only by the flaming brand labeling her as one of the damned. She slowly walked out, holding only the longsword she had taken from Fiara's home a time ago. Slowly, she began searching for the children. She searched for almost a day before finding the first traces of them. Her human hunger began taking its tole on her, but she followed the trail until she could see the children. None of the damned stopped her, or questioned her, their ability to think destroyed before they had been given the mark. She walked directly up to them, and felt a twinge in her heart as she recognized one of her wards before her exile. As she walked towards them, she saw that they were not guarded by the damned, but the lost, and a single master demon, not a Lerach, but a Dezok, a pure familiar that had consumed his or her human partner. He recognized her for not one of the damned but someone who could still reason, and sent three of the lost at her with a thought.

Erin sensed that her disguise was useless now, and struck down the first of the lost with her longsword. The second came at her with an axe, and she parried and moved past him, and ended face to face with Fiara. She froze, her heart quailing, and was struck with a hammer-blow to the chest. She was flung backward and somehow managed to redirect her blade into the lost axeman behind her. Fiara stood over her as she was on the body.

"Please Fiara . . . " Erin's voice was a whisper. "Fight it Fiara!"

For an instant, Fiara shook, and her eyes became those of the mother who had given Erin shelter. "I . . . I can't, Erin." The power of the demon-control over the lost reasserted itself, and Tiara drew her hand up for a blow that would leave Erin numb, and allow Tiara to strangle her.

Erin struggled to draw her long sword out from the body behind her, sick in the heart, but was unable to pull it free. As Tiara struck down, Erin rolled, and the blow was absorbed into the body behind her. Erin came to her feet. She drew her only weapon left, the dagger she always wore, and looked at Tiara, with eyes filled with pain, "I . . . I'm sorry Tiara."

Erin readied herself to give her friend the only freedom she could, and destroy the demon-controlled form, when the demon-control shifted slightly, and masked itself. Fiara's form shifted slightly, hiding the marks of the lost, showing only her friend, save in the eyes and words.

"You failed me, Erin. You let me be taken. Coward! Failure! You call yourself a person! You could not even try and help someone who gave you shelter. You are no angel, you are not even a human being!"

The words tore into Erin's soul, destroying the fragile peace she held with herself. She curled up on the ground, eyes wet with her tears. Again Fiara spoke, "I can make the pain go away . . . I can give you peace again . . . All you have to do is join with me . . . Take me into you . . . " Erin looked up, a wordless longing in her eyes. "I can give you back what you lost. I can make you strong again, Night's Angel."

The last two words spoken where the demon-controlled Fiara's mistake and undoing. Erin's mind began working for an instant. She had never told Fiara that she was the Night's Angel, and there was no way she could have known that. Only the demon's, and her kin knew that, and a few mortals. Still sick at heart, but seeing that this was not her friend anymore, she stood. "No."

Fiara swung again at Erin, who moved again, avoiding the blow, and slowly leading Fiara around. She dodged and rolled, still with her dagger in her belt, until she was directly opposite the Dezok, Fiara in between them. She spun past Fiara, and hurled her dagger into the Dezok, inflicting a grievous wound upon it.

There was a terrible screaming as it pulled back all it's control over the lost, who swarmed upon it. They hacked and stabbed and tore, its torments of them finding release onto its own form. Fiara herself led the attack and tore Erin's dagger from it to wield. The Dezok threw some of the lost off itself, and struck back against them with its hooked tentacles, leaving many dead in truth. It struck and struck and they died in droves, unable to match its fury or powers. Erin drew her longsword out of the body it was in, and watched as the Dezok killed the last of the lost, Fiara. It tore her open with a slash from one tentacle. Erin walked towards it, as it bled from the many wounds, and hurled the longsword into its last eye at a distance of five feet. It died in a bellow of pain.

Erin walked to the body of her friend, and knelt.

"I'm sorry I couldn't save you Fiara . . . " She was crying again. Fiara smiled.

"You did Erin . . . you just did . . . " Fiara's eyes froze. "Thank you . . . "

She died there. Erin wept openly upon her body, ignoring the burning of her brand, and the presence of a demon nearby. She felt a tugging on her sleeve, not the phantom tugging inside her mind, but the tugging of a child. She turned, red-faced, to see the child she saw in her dream. She fumbled with her tunic and drew out the gem the Lerach had given her and broke it open on the ground. A single portal opened up. She herded the children through it, and paused for an instant to look at the body of her friend. Then she stepped through it into an empty cave, with only a black sword on the ground, and her horse saddled and made ready for her.

The sword was crafted of an ebony black metal, with engravings of silver in the hilt. It held the weight of the ages upon it. Erin felt a shadow pulling on her sleeve, and nodded.

"I know. It's time to go to the Tree." She mounted the horse, and began riding towards the place she knew the tree of the dead remained.

She rode for days on end, dreamlessly sleeping when she had need, shielded from the nightmares that had plagued her by a presence she could not see, only feel. She arrived at the Tree of the Dead a scare week later, and sat in front of it, staring at the form of it as it began dying again in preparation to open the barrier between the two realms. She knelt down, and began trying to remember everything that had happened when she had helped to bar the way the first time.

It happened at dusk. The last of the living leaves had fallen only a few short hours ago. There were twenty-five of them kneeling around the tree. Twenty-five chosen warriors and others to bar the way of the damned. Twenty mortal fighters and healers, five angels, including her. She was to be the focus, it was her time, and her strength was what would bar the way. The others were simply to anchor her, shield her, and feed her more power as she held the tree closed. She was alone that day. It was her trial, and none of the others knew anything to say or do that could relieve her of her burden. She accepted that burden freely, and did not resist it. She was the Night's Angel, it was her burden and her duty, and it was her time. She would not fail herself or her people and the homes she held wardship upon.

Slowly, the skies began losing their light as, one by one, the stars blinked out of existence, and the moon was cast under a shadow of darkness.

The darkness was overpowering. The others mumbled that they had not been warned. The Night's Angel pushed it from her mind. She could not be distracted. Finally, a pinpoint of light opened as the tip of a black sword pierced the tree from the inside. It was time.

The Night's Angel prepared herself, and began her spell and duty. She wove strands of herself into the tree, making it part of her, and her part of it. Slowly, the sword cut down the tree, and she felt the blade as if upon herself. The other chosen ones began also, building shield upon shield over her if that was their power, or standing around her, back to back, if that was their skill. No one turned to run. They all knew their duty and did not flinch from it.

The tree was split by a bolt of lightning as the sword touched the ground, and fell in two. Legion upon legion of the damned poured forth, and the chosen warriors now did flinch, but they stood their ground, and struck down any that came towards the Night's Angel. She worked and wove herself more into the Tree, and still it was not enough. Soon, a thousand damned warriors had come forth, and many of their demon-masters.

The armies arrived then. They had been delayed by ill weather, and only the angels had been there in time for the beginning. They had fought to keep the damned in the Valley of the Tree. When the armies of man arrived, they fell forward in battle and into the Valley to crush the damned, as was their purpose. Many men fell. The damned were fierce warriors, greater then even the mightiest of the men, but the men were many, and the damned were few in comparison. The demons were fewer still, but they were stronger even then the armies, and slew more men then any other force in the battle. It was then that the angels fell forward from their ledges into the fray, sensing the tide turning. They fell upon the demons, and the fighting was more fierce then before. The men destroyed the damned, though half their number did fall. The angels drove back the demons and surrounded them in the centre of the Valley, and destroyed them.

The Night's Angel could sense her foe coming forth. He was greater then any other demon. He was the first demon, the first of the first, and his power was great and terrible. He stood taller then the Tree he himself had split with his sword and lightning, and he was broader then ten mortal warriors. His sword was the blackest ebony, and his eyes were colder then the arctic night. His power was in fear, and in death, and it sprang from those he killed. He fell upon the chosen guardians as she wove more of herself into the Tree. He struck down the chosen with ease as she finally wove enough of herself into the Tree. The last chosen fell as the Tree began to close, and cut the demons off from their realm and power. When the demonlord stood tall over her kneeling form, the Tree sealed, and he and his minions fell down in power, becoming only their lesser forms, and the Night's Angel stood.

She was garbed in red, he in black. Her robes were those of the chosen, the healer and protector. He was garbed as the destroyer. She held no weapon, he held a great and terrible blade. Her face held a calm determination. His, a blood rage.

Her wings fluttered slightly as she lifted into the sky. He swung at her, and she flew around him, using only her wings to move, and navigate. His rage grew and grew with each blow. Her calm determination stayed the same. Finally, she landed, in front of the Tree, and faced him, calm, her arms at her side, and her wings outstretched. The demonlord lunged at her.

In that instant, all possible fates were in balance. All could happen. If he struck her down, he could reopen the Tree, and there would be no way to stop the damned and demons from coming forth again. As his blade came driving for her heart, she raised her face, and the Night's Angel did behold her foe, and he her. In that split second, she took to the air again, and he did crash through the Tree back into his own realm again.

The memory did not bring a smile to Erin's face. It had been her strategy to return the demonlord to his own realm without raising a blade directly against him, but many good people and angels had fallen to bring it about. She knew that this time, she was alone, and she was a mortal woman now, without wings or magic, and so she had no means to defeat him when he came forth.

She studied the Tree again. It was already showing the marks of age, and would not survive another day. Already, some of the leaves were falling, even though it was midsummer. Erin knew in her heart that she did not have the time to relearn how to heal the tree. She resisted the urge of hopelessness, and the ease of it, and pushed from her mind that never had any but an angel healed it.

Erin touched the black blade that had been left for her. The silver engravings upon it caught her eye, and she raised them to the light. A glimmering of light caught them, and they dazzled in her eyes. The light edged around them, and Erin could see an angel. The wings spread out to the sides along the hilt, the robes down the handle, and the face upturned to the blade. The blade itself, she now saw, was covered with tiny flecks of silver, creating a starlit night.

Erin wondered at this, but drove it from her mind as she turned to watch the tree. She knelt, and began to pray again. This time, she felt a presence around her again, a child's presence, and prayed more. She felt a gentle hand on her shoulder, and turned slightly, seeing the hilt of a white blade. The blade of an angel. A faint touch raised her hand to clasp the hilt, and Erin grew calmer. She held the white blade next to the black, and saw that this blade held flecks of black along the blade, and ebony metal lines were drawn into the silver hilt. In them, she saw a man, with a demon-familiar upon his shoulder. The tentacles spread out the sides of the hilt, and his face turned up to the blade. And Erin herself wondered.

She turned forward again to watch the tree, and saw her once leader, the Lord of the Angels, before her. He stood, tall and terrible, before her.

"Be gone from this place Erin. You are not chosen, and you have been stripped of your wings. It is not your duty."

"It is my duty. I will always be my duty." Her voice was soft compared to his. Soft, silken, and at peace.

"You are no longer an angel. Begone from here!" His voice was rising in anger.

"I cannot." She remained kneeling, holding both blades across her lap.

"You failed as an angel. You betrayed your kin. Begone from this place. Return to your homeland to die." Erin ignored the pain his words tore into her.

"I did not betray my kin. I did my duty and stood watch over the tree, as is my duty, my responsibility, even before my wardship was."

"You left your kin to die! She was doing your duty, she was cleansing your wardship of the demons you let in there to feed!"

"I did not." Her voice was still calm, still quiet. She rested her hands upon the blades.

"Begone from here Erin. You are the traitor, you let your kin die. This is no different, so be gone and let your demon-lovers come forth."

"I am no traitor, and I have no demon-lover." The Lord of the Angels grew taller and more terrible still.

"Then I pronounce the sentence I should have given you before, Night's Angel. Death." His voice was icy calm, and full of hatred. Erin felt her heart leap once, but held herself still.

"Do you pronounce it upon her, or yourself?" A new voice spoke. Another voice from her dream. A phantom angel. "You are the one who let those demons free, Lord, and you exiled the angel who would have barred the way again. You are the one who divided us, and killed us all."

The Lord of the Angels flew into the Tree of the Dead then, and the phantom angel walked over to Erin. "You are the last, Erin Night's Angel. You have to bar the way forever, for there will be no angels once you are gone."

"I know. I will be ready."

"Can you make the sacrifice Erin? Forever is eternity, and eternity will be a long time alone. You were wronged once by us, and we would understand if you do not wish that sacrifice. It is your choice, as it always was Erin. You will make it when you must Erin." The phantom angel vanished, leaving only the Tree of the Dead, with one last leaf.

Erin stood, both blades in hand, the black and the white. Her heart leapt as she saw the last leaf fall to the ground, and the Tree die. Her heart beat faster and faster as she prayed silently for the Lerach to come, that he might indeed come to help her. Slowly the moon vanished under shadow once again, leaving only the light of the stars as the sun set. The stars began vanishing, and the darkness became overwhelming.

It remained an icy blackness for almost a minute before the point of red light as the demonlord's sword began cutting the Tree from the inside. The Lord of the Angels flew out, garbed in black, a demon-familiar on his shoulder, and fell upon Erin. She parried him away with her white sword. The Tree open further. Again the Lord of Angels flew at her. This time, she blocked him with the white blade and struck him with the black. He fell to the ground, one wing cut through halfway up it.

A lightning bolt struck the Tree and split it in two and Erin flinched forward as the damned and demons came out again. Her heart called to the Lerach to speed to her, and she faced the Lord of the Angels again. She struck him with her white blade and dealt him a wound again. He tried to lift into the air, and she severed his other wing with her black blade. Her eyes were calm as he leapt at her, intent on striking her dead with his own hands. She struck him with both blades in the face and he lie on the ground. She turned to face the damned.

There were a thousand of them. She ignored the sense of hopelessness in her heart and waded into them, cutting them down with every stroke. Twice did she feel their blows, and twice she shrugged them off with her formidable fighting willpower. She fought her way to the centre, and found herself face to face with a demon. She struck with both blades. He shifted around one, but the other found purchase in his chest and he fell. Many of the damned fell with that blow, and she turned again to find a new demon, her mind sensing that in killing them, the damned would perish also.

She felt another demon behind her, and turned, striking it down with a blow. Again she sought a demon, and again she slew it. Again and again, before the last demon fell, his damned minions falling alongside him. She turned.

The Tree lay cleaved in two, and a blood-red portal had opened. Slowly, the demonlord came out of it, and her memory leapt back into the time of the child, and she recognized him as the demon who had taken her once. She turned to look at the Lord of the Angels and saw a twisted parody of the one who saved her. He stood, and his familiar spread out around him, staining him black and rebuilding him into a demon-visage, scaled wings, and his fingers twisted into fighting claws, black fangs growing out of his face.

"So Erin, you finally remember. Good, it will be good watching you die with the memory."

Erin turned pale, but raised her swords. She charged at the Lord of Angels, and she heard a bellow of pain from the demonlord as someone struck at it. She struck at the Lord of the Angels with her blade, and he blocked it with one hand, still changing and becoming more the demon. She struck again, and he drove her back with his counter. Slowly, she was pushed back under his counters, her own skills failing her under his onslaught.

She heard another below of pain, and turned, instinctively, when she recognized it as the Lerach's. She saw him fighting the demonlord, a wound down his chest, his familiar expanded out to protect him. He met her eyes for an instant, and she saw the demonlord ready a blow to take his familiar from his shoulders. She dove, striking his wrist with her blade and coming up from the ground with a roll, even as the Lerach leapt at the Lord of the Angels.

She parried the demonlord's blows with her blades, and held her ground for an instant, before she slipped in a patch of demon blood. The demonlord stood over her, and prepared to drive his hand through her as she drove her black sword into one of his knees. She rolled out underneath him and saw the Lerach fighting against the Lord of the Angels. She hurled him her white sword, and he caught it with one hand, smiling faintly.

The demonlord struck at her again, and she dodged to the side, her blade still embedded in his knee. She sensed the child's presence beside her, and dodged again. Slowly but surely, the demonlord worked into more and more a rage, as Erin again leapt from his blows unharmed. Finally, she stood between him and the portal, and he through another blow at her.

She dodged to the side, grabbing her blade and pulling it from his knee. He staggered forward and she spun, slashing deeply into the other leg, and the demonlord fell forward, his hand falling through the portal, which began closing, dragging him alongside it. She turned to see the Lerach strike the Lord of the Angels a terrible blow, sending him flying through the portal with it.

As the portal dragged the demonlord through it, Erin watched as the Tree turned to ashes.

"It's not over."

"No, it isn't Erin... Night's Angel."

"We have to bar it forever. For eternity."

"It will take a sacrifice."

"I know it will." Erin's voice was calm. "You are a drinker of love, are you not?"

"I am," the Lerach spoke softly.

"Can you feel it then?"

"I have felt it for many centuries Erin. Millennia."

Erin smiled. "Then eternity will not be so long, will it?"

The Lerach nodded slowly.

"Eternity will not be so long."

The Lerach's demon-familiar spread itself out around the two of them, touching Erin's forehead, even as Erin felt a child pulling on her sleeve, weaving something through the two of them. Erin smiled at the Lerach.

"When you fought your brother to give me a chance at freedom . . . why did you do that?"

The Lerach smiled back. "Because I knew that I loved you, Erin Night's Angel."

He wrapped his arms around her, and the familiar and presence wove the two of them together. Ashes from the Tree swirled up around them as they stepped to the spot where the portal had closed. In a whirlwind of the ashes, the Lerach bent down and kissed her very gently, and they vanished in the whirlwind, even as the faintest traces of the portal bound around them. The ashes and portal bound to them, and they became a forever seal upon the realms, breaking the realms apart and barring the way forever.

Slowly, the bodies of the damned and lost revived. Each as they were before they had become damned or lost. The demons revived into the night as the moon and stars reappeared, and the world settled. They stood, unsure of everything, as if their memory of many years had vanished. The realm on the other side of the Tree had emptied itself of its minions, and only two had returned. Erin and the Lerach together had broken the bond of the realm upon those taken by it, and they had been made free. A phantom angel appeared out of the night, and then another, and another. Thousands appeared, one for each of the demons. Every demon slowly appeared, demons from ages past, demons from the now, and they numbered exactly the amount of the angels. Slowly, they paired up with each other, one demon to one angel, and vanished, leaving nothing in the realm but man.

This tale is forgotten by most. It was witnessed by few, though Dij and his pupils for many years came to the Valley in search of what had happened. None discovered the truth save one, and he vowed only to remember it in a single song, as befitting Erin and the Lerach, whom he, and any other, could sense if they stood at the spot where the tree once grew. His song is not known, for it was sung only once, at the spot where the tree grew, but sometimes, it is heard by one who sits long enough at that spot, sang by the Lerach and Erin, the Night's Angel.