At the wall of eyes, Wickett's hand flashed to his pendant. They were too few, in a loose and nervous group. How many left that weren't trying to hold their organs in? They weren't prepared to knot together and hold an attack. Wickett certainly wasn't, not with two decks of cards, up to his knees in corpsewater without any idea of the subway's layout. With Moon, maybe, but they had gambled for power and speed. It had been a bad gamble.

The leader wasn't giving the order to retreat.

Wasn't going to, Wickett realized.

Artifact or bust, house rules.

But if he was dead, he thought evenly, dead like the rest of them, who was to say what orders he gave? His son waited back at the exit portal. Better someone brought the news that it had been a good try, that without time to prepare and riding on instinct and improvisation, they were doing little better than stumbling around in the dark.

And then...?

He would have bought a few minutes, maybe. We're all dead. His final report. That was all the information he would be able to bring back. And then they would be.

He didn't mind being dead. Not really. If he admitted it to himself. There were few points in his life he would call happy. It was this part, the part that came right before it, that made him afraid.

When they pinned him into the water, and chattered to each other, he knew they were going to take a very, very long time about it. The moment of hesitation, when he had pictured his future (dead, only varied by minutes and location), had been enough.

He had been a young man, attending a job fair hosted by his University, and considering the Summer Student Research program for the FDA. He spent the summer trying to kill a monster with a handful of other sweaty, scared candidates. At the time, he thought almost losing his life might help him appreciate it better.

He had come back alive, and blooded, but unchanged.

It was not the first time he had to resort to violence.

He tried to talk, plead, and swallowed some of the water. There were more screams. The creatures began to pick at his clothes, like lovers. Then at his skin.

Her hair was a rich, earthy color, and she had never been a modest dresser. She had a collection of short shorts he could inventory by heart, and she liked to leave her midriff free even in battle. He could inventory the scars puckered there too, imagine the claws and teeth that tore, but did not rend.

Touches, so many touches, but she was always whole again afterwards.

Her skin had been so warm.

He could measure her hips and breasts in handfuls.

And she was always so generous, giving him tokens of affection, small items of clothing and so on, for him to hold, and remember.

He couldn't taste or smell her now. He could barely tell his blood from the other blood that salted the water.

She would be above on the rooftops with Mr. Moore, and both of them had the advantage of the moon division. He would have given a lot to feel the softness of that her hair, instead of the gravel and subway rails.

The Horsemen would be missing someone too. It wasn't the artifacts, and the fear of the new millennium, what they really needed was a World Leader, someone in power, The Beast. And the Earth couldn't- wouldn't end tonight, not all in one stroke. Famine, Pestilence, War, took time. Only Death resided in the indefinable minute, the janitor of the other four, following with the slow patience of something that had existed Before and would exist After. He didn't know if it was a gloomier subject to concentrate on than whether he would bleed out before they disemboweled him.

Wickett wrenched free mangled hands to reach his cards, shaking, his motor functions were giving out. The only card game he could play was a round of 52-card pick up.

Mr. Moore's runes were, in their own way, beautiful. They were ingenious, and efficient, and complex. Curled around the Queen of Diamonds and sewn into the King of Spades's robes, using the cards was easy and natural.

The way swords and guns and hammers had never been. His attempts with them had been clumsy. The throwing knives had been better, and he still kept a pocket knife for utilitarian work. But when it came to fighting shadows...

Weight had nothing to do with slight of hand. Strength was not important at all. Technique was paramount. His eyes mattered more than his muscles.

The cards had older magics, and while not a largely superstitious man, he would often do readings before a mission. While his slippery nature had kept him mostly unscarred, it was Mr. Moore's craft that had kept him alive so long in the first place. Wickett tried to keep tabs on the missions Mr. Moore had been invited on, dissuade him from the more ill-boding ones. Occasionally make sure his diet was something besides the swill in the cafeteria, and that his workplace was not a complete disaster. He was...something like a friend.

The cards hung in the air like fireflies, runes bright and cold and blue. They fell like a hard rain. Finally, shrieking that wasn't human. 52 Card Pick-up. They came down on him, too, but all he could think was your meal this evening is on the House. One buried itself in his throat. He realized, distantly, their cries were more rage than pain. They set on him in full-force than, crunching his fingers apart and severing his arm at the elbow. Biting. Biting and holding and pulling...he couldn't breath, he was drowning and they were trying to to rip him apart before he choked on his own blood.

And the pain, oh how he hated pain, and there would be no later to make them pay for it, they'd glut on his insides and- oh, it was hard to breath, and something was stopping up his ears, but not near enough to stifle the sound like something loudly eating lettuce, and the rrriiiiiip-