It was difficult to do an augury in New York City these days, to meet at midnight and see the reflection of the full moon in the pool of Mars, white moon reflected on blood. Columbia had been a hotbed of protest against martial law and Quartz’s authority over the city, and for the moment, Quartz was not exactly kind to challenges. Nonetheless, Miranda Wildstar (not her real name) had managed to gather seven acolytes together to perform the ceremony - and to have an orgy, after the ceremony, once they’d gotten sufficiently drunk.

Miranda moaned. She moaned like a lioness in heat (or so she thought of herself). "Lord of the beautiful darkness!" she cried, gasping in an orgasmic sob. "Kindler of the eternal flame of pain. Oh, Calydrys, father, master, tyrant of Hell, tell us what to do!"

"I ain’t Calydrys, but I got an idea," spoke a black robed figure who appeared out of the shadows. Miranda gasped, and this time not from a feigned orgasm. "You can die, you demon-hugging bastards."

The figure was not alone, and it was armed. Miranda screamed, and tried to open a vial of potion. Before she could gulp it down, she was shot twice in the gut. How odd, a gun that fired quietly...a magic silence. Miranda Evenstar, or Terri Gibson (as the IRS called her), realized that she was dying, and cried out to her master for salvation. That, too, was silence, magical silence.

The other cultists objected, but their knowledge of magic was rudimentary at best. They were outnumbered, and the newcomers were seasoned acolytes. It was no contest.

"You want Hell on Earth so bad..." It was a woman’s voice, a pleasant voice shaped by a harsh purpose, and she chanted a spell in Old French, her language of choice. The remaining Calydrysites screamed and fell to the floor in fetal positions, screaming.

"Okay, we know what to do." A young man’s voice began instructing the cultists. "We need chaos markings over this area. Let the cult of Calydrys knows who’s responsible for this carnage..."

"Two hours late." John K. Stevens muttered. "I don’t know why I even went with you. You and your big mouth, pretending to be a terrorist in front of the Quartz guys."

"It was only a joke." Kurt Loftgren shrugged, a feeble attempt to make the incident seem less important than it was.

"We’d probably be in jail if it hadn’t been for a little magical persuasion." John K. frowned. "And if the Face ever discovers we used magic to sidestep the law..."

"Contrition is Hell." Kurt said. "But Quartz is False Law. Don’t you remember what the Lesser Serpent said in the last sermon?"

"He said it held the possibility of being false law, and that we would have to wait for a revelation from Lordruu to determine whether they were or not."

"Okay, there was that." Kurt frowned. "Man, I am going to hate the confessional flogging even more next time."

"Bonjour, gentlemen." Alex Rossini stated, entering the room with a shake of brown curls, followed. "How is this gathering of murderers and cutthroats doing?"

John K. scowled. Kurt sat back. "You’re early," he lied. "And as long as we’re killing off the followers of that bloodthirsty bastard Calydrys, we’re styling."

"Styling?" John K. snorted. "Man, that word’s obsolete."

"Maybe." Kurt leaned back and stretched. "I’m about as street-smart as Bill Gates." He turned back to Rossini. "We got detained by the Cubic Zirconians. We’re not good enough for martial law, or so it seems."

"We ain’t no killers." John K. stated, staring into space.

"Don’t sweat it." Kurt put his hand on John K.’s shoulder. "It wasn’t us. It was Happy Boy, Mad Dog Decomo. He’s the triggerman."

Alex Rossini straightened, partially annoyed, partially out of a sense of superiority. "For worshippers of a serpent of Law, we could sure use a Law major or two in our little club. Do you have any idea what "accessory to murder" means?"

"It means we’re in big trouble if we get caught." Chalice Green joined the group, her right arm in a sling and a slightly swollen face. "Where were you guys? We were supposed to get together two hours ago. You missed the protest."

"Sorry. We had our own problems with the Q-Warts." Kurt shrugged.

"What happened to you?" John K. asked. "I saw them bringing in a bunch of people..."

"A couple of agents overreacted." Chalice shook her head. "Some of the Quartz supporters were egging them on. ‘Get the ‘Meta-lovers’. Like it’s the supers who are the problem. I seem to recall that Apocalypse Now were mostly norms."

"It stinks of hypocrisy." Alex Rossini muttered. "They were saying that Paco Llypse was plotting the destruction of a corrupt civilization, but the guy was living it up in the best clubs and having sex on a scale that would put President Clinton to shame. He was more decadent than the people he was trying to destroy."

"I wish I could get my hands on him." Kurt Loftgren snorted. "If it weren’t for John K’s snake leaping out of his mouth and curing me, I’d be dead right now."

"Well, you can be a useful guy to have around." John K. said.

"That’s debatable." Chalice said.

"Occasionally." John K. ribbed.

"Has anyone come to question you about your pet?" Rossini asked. John K. shook his head. "I heard rumors about a guy in black sniffing around campus."

"There’s always rumors about a man in black." Chalice said.

"This one’s getting around." Rossini countered. "A flying water snake that cures sixty people and then neutralizes a cloud of poison gas. I can imagine it’d attract a lot of attention in the occult world."

"Maybe." Chalice didn’t want to consider it. "So what are we going to do about Quartz?"

"Nothing." John K. said emphatically. "The only way to fight them is to get enough people who hate what they’re doing together. Magic will only make the situation worse."

"What’s wrong with making it worse?" Kurt asked.

"It’s not our place to judge. That’s the job of someone bigger than anyone else." John K. shook his head and decided to come to terms with something that he’d been avoiding for some time. An unpleasant truth. "We aren’t that much different than Apocalypse Now, folks. They wanted to destroy corruption and kill a lot of people. We want to destroy corruption and when judgment day comes, a lot of people will die. The fundamental difference between us and those murderers is that we aren’t the judges. We aren’t the executioners. We’re just the prosecutors."

"Except for Decomo." Rossini snickered.

"AAAAAAAGRRRRR!" Anthony Decomo had lost count of the lashes. His back was bloody, and he fought his way through the pain.

"Fight the pain if you wish, Mr. Decomo." The Golden Face held the bloody lash and let the pain sink in. "Death requires a high atonement if you are to be purified. In the end there will be penance, contrition. As Lordruu wills, so mote it be."

"Bastard... bastard..." Decomo said, fighting a sob.

"Speak the words." The Golden Face said. "Let the demon of your heart receive voice, so it may be silenced. Only then you can be pure again."

"Twice… a… virgin…" Decomo said.

"One’s carnal state is a poor benchmark for purity, Mr. Decomo." The Golden Face said. "The promiscuous may be pure of heart, the virgin may be a vessel of wickedness. I speak of purity of spirit.

Suddenly, there was laughter, dark and evil laughter, erupting all around them. The mask of Lordruu contorted into a hate-filled shape, contorted so quickly that it gave the person who wore it extreme pain. The Golden Face turned, and spotted a man in black robes, watching.

"Such exquisite hypocrisy." The Dark Man said. "You realize that in the end you will lose them all."

"They are not mine to lose." The Golden Face responded. "We are the common servants of a higher cause."

"Oh… how pithy…" The Dark Man mocked.

"You doubt there is sincerity in the world?" the Golden Face said.

"There is no such thing as sincerity." The Dark Man laughed. "Only self-delusion, ignorance, or justification."

"Then do not believe that my hatred for you is genuine." The Golden Face said, pulling out a revolver. The Dark Man roared with laughter.

"No weapon forged can harm me." the Dark Man said. "And this is truly the heart of hypocrisy. You punish your acolyte for murder, and yet you would murder me?"

"I shall not kill you. Mr. Decomo, it is your kill…" The Golden Face handed the revolver to his tortured acolyte. The Dark Man roared again.

"Theodore Decomo, know thy enemy! He who has given you pain! He who uses you as a weapon, then punishes you for it! An opportunity is at hand for retribution. Kill the Golden Face of Lordruu…"

It was a dark and stormy night. A shot rang out. And the Dark Man crumpled to the ground and began to rot and shrink into a withered mockery of a human that shrieked in an inhuman voice.

"No weapon forged." The Golden Face said. "The tip of the bullet is a lump of cold iron, homunculus. Not forged, but quite deadly against your kind. And do not think your master will avenge you. One of my followers is a precognitive who saw your arrival. She who sees through your eyes saw that which I wished her to see."

"No…" the imp whimpered and it faded away in a puff of black smoke.

"Will I be punished for this?" Decomo asked, still feeling the sting on his back.

"If Lordruu wills it. But I doubt it." the Golden Face stated. "To take the life of one with a soul is always a grave matter. A homunculus, on the other hand, is the enemy of the soul, a corruptor. Against them, murder becomes a virtue." The Golden Face took a brief sigh.

"I could have shot you." Decomo said.

"Where would you have gone?" the Golden Face asked. There was a long silence. "Since you made the correct choice, I will end your punishment and declare the purification complete. If Lordruu disapproves, I will endure the flaying in your place."

"Uh. Thanks." Decomo said.

"Our operations should set our mystical rivals in this area at each other’s throats." The Golden Face said. "And we can mop up the rest. Now we must turn our attention to the second document of Law. The Code of Hammurabi."

"Where’s that?" Decomo asked.

"I do not know." The Golden Face frowned. "But I know where the oldest known copy is. If we acquire it and perform the proper ritual, the Code’s location will be revealed to us."

"And where’s the copy?" Decomo was wondering what trouble they were going to get into this time.

"Paris. The Louvre." The Golden Face said.

[To Be Continued]

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