"Yes. Yes I am." Feenai shook her head, unable to loosen the nagging feeling that she should run far away, and just get away from everyone and everything. She grit her teeth and marched along after the others regardless, letting Rue's taunting voice echo in her head to remind her to not run away.

Amaymon smirked as he looked at Cain, he held no fear for the being and he was growing tired of this silly game.

"We will show you who the 'Cur' is here, Cain. In the end, you will bow at our feet!" Her voice echoed in the Basilica, now sounding both of Asasiah and Amaymon. She glanced toward Asmodai raising her hand, her sword flew back into it. Purple and red flame swirled around the blade. She began her approach as ethereal wings, one black and the other white, sprouted from her she rose her arm to shield her from the onslaught of rock and ruin, each one crumbling to pieces as it hit her. Terrible power began to seep from her in waves, no one could of guessed that she was hiding so much. Or perhaps she hadn't been, this must have been what she was meant to be.

"Come Asmodai, it is time we ended this."

Na'lsa went quietly, his form completely eradicated by the barrage of debris and sand. At first he became less and less, and then he was swept away in a cloud of red, and then nothing. His body was gone, his flesh and blood mixed with the sands that swept with the storm.

"The murderer..."

His voice whispered to no one in its sickly oily tone. As the sand on the wind battered harmlessly against Cain, it left traces of the blood it carried. Little at first, barely noticeable. Just a few cells, but the sheer amount was slowly becoming more and more visible. Faint tinges of red splatter were just visible against flesh, and in the same moment sunk in to every pore they could find. The tinges of blood seemed to be...burrowing.

Asmodai's pain had no affect on Asasiah, the being was just a pawn on her board. A distraction was all she would need, and as Cain became clumsy she grinned. Taking her chance her ethereal wings spread behind her and she rushed forward with a powerful boost from the appendages. She slammed into Cain with enough force to send them both flying into the air. She swiftly slid her sword around his near invisible being using it to pull him tight against her as she rolled into the air with him. Seconds later she used the momentum to throw Cain downward. As his form hit the surface he sunk in sending cracks across the ground. Pulling the flaming weapon up she flung herself down and the sword sunk into Cain's being pinning him to the crevice ridden surface.

"I suppose we were wrong, you aren't bowing at my feet...You're laying like the dog you are!" Her wild eyes looked down on Cain, the only emotions riddled with hated in the gaze. She had no remorse for him, no pity. Kneeling down she drove her sword deeper into him.

"I told you in the end...there would be only me..." Asasiah leaned over the wraiths form, illusions of humanity disappearing when she took the first bite.

NOW!

The moment gleams with horrendous promise, frozen possibilities splayed stark before his prowling gaze. As the sword descends, injecting toxic light into the spirit, Shealtiel seizes upon the sudden weakness in the Murderer. The ancient soul lies exposed, helpless, made mortal by the cursed blood tethering him to this realm.

Gnarled fingers reach out in rictus, bones bulging and snapping as unearthly powers course out of their tips. Cracked teeth groaning and splitting, exploding in bursts of blood and marrow as living darkness erupts from the necromancer's mouth. His eyes detonate, spraying ichor into the haze, leaving gaping holes into Sheol's pits behind.

As the torrent of sorcery mingles with Uriel's fire, Shealtiel's body dissolves, divesting itself of not only the life-energy he was gifted by Asasiah, but of the very vitality of his soul. He has taken the final step from the world of the living, letting the energies of Abaddon embrace him at his deepest essence, opening a conduit between himself and the dying Emim.

As the flesh sloughs from his bones, as bones wither to dust, Shealtiel begins to feast...

"I AM YOUR PLAGUE, CAIN. I HAVE NOT YET RAN MY COURSE!"

All at once the particles of Na'lsa's body began to stir, moving through Cain's 'body'. Gorging on the inside, they quickly grew in to much more massive proportions, the body no longer able to contain them as his chest burst open. It was followed by the hand of Na'lsa, gripping something covered in gore. The rest of the chest contorted wildly as Na'lsa made Cain's flesh his own, weaving blood and tissue together to form his upper torso as he wrenched himself free from the chest. For the moment, he was skinless. Blood and muscle glistened across bone, freshly produced organs pumping furiously. Eyes not held back by skin glared down at Cain in a wide and unframed grin-like expression. Na'lsa placed a bony hand upon the skin of Cain, and with a great heave it gave way. In a matter of moments he rose completely from the quickly fading body, and with a flourish of the flesh he had stripped, he pulled it around his shoulders. There was a horrible creaking sound. Skin tightened, pulled itself over bone, oozed downward like melted wax.

He cackled. His face was as it was, before he had left himself to the wind. Everything below the neck was something else. Patchworks of skin, stretch marks, crisscrossing scars. Buildups of tissue that had quickly fused together. But the skin he wore was still different, something besides scars and scrapes. He hadn't just consumed a source of power. He had woven it in to himself. He bore the flesh of Cain.

His essence dwindling by the second, Cain has no time for aught but the most ephemeral reflections on his death. His last words echo hollowly through the devastated chamber.

THUS DO WE INHERIT THIS GODLESS WORLD. MAY IT BE BLESSED. MY DEAR KILLERS... GIVE MY REGARDS TO SETH.

The presence fades, the fell sense of otherworldly will that blighted the chamber since their arrival is gone. The Murderer is dead.

Asasiah gorged on the form her eyes glowing red as the inky essence of Cain dripped from her cold lips. She felt her insides burning, revolting against her at every bite she took. She had to stop. Grabbing her stomach she shuddered her ethereal wings spreading open above her crouched form before exploding in a blast of dark light. When the haze finally settled, Asasiah lay unconscious on the ground.

The rumblings outside what was left of the Basilica walls indicated the arrival of the others in the APC, though whether anyone inside the Basilica was lucid enough to notice remained to be seen.

Opening the door, Dara stepped cautiously out of the vehicle. Lacking any ability to sense anything supernatural, she took her usual careful approach to the area. No one was immediately visible, but it was obvious something big had happened. She picked her way carefully over broken stones, carefull of the walls that appeared to be teetering against each other for their only support, found a hole, and looked in.

For a good several minutes she just stood by the wall, staring. Eventually she found her voice again to ask,

"What happened?"

Dante groaned as he clambered out and tried his best to follow Dara, eventually giving up at just yelling in her general direction. "I hope you're not asking me..." he called, rubbing his temple.

He dropped his voice and muttered to himself, "...though if anything's mutated or deformed, I'm not getting within ten feet of them..."

He turned his head back, checking on Andy and Feenai. I wonder if she'll be okay. It might be best for her to stay in there. I also don't fully trust that half-demon... But there were more pressing matters at hand, and he carefully and reluctantly made his way towards Dara, stumbling on stones and fragments of pillars.

Feenai sat in the corner of the APC, fighting off the urge to vomit. She had gotten a very clear psychic picture as they drove closer, and she had no desire to see it in person.

She heard both Dara's and Dante's words, but didn't process them well. The feelings she sensed from their minds told a better picture of Dara's confusion and Dante's mistrust and distaste. She felt horrible about it but she also knew if she moved, what little food was in her stomach would leave.

Crowned with thorns... and pain... was he. Raised our hands, and slew him. Utterly.

In shaken silence, the group finally departs Thasos, those who remain alive boarding the APC scarcely comprehending what they have been witness to. Asasiah is laid across several seats to rest, no efforts by any of them able to rouse her from the coma that has claimed her, but she seems to be in no danger. They leave the dead behind.

A course is set, finally, for Anatolia and the bastion offered by the Seven Churches. It will be a day and more before they arrive on land, with a long trek into the dominions of Per'gammum ahead.

Feenai drove, thankful for the opportunity to do something even if it failed to completely erase the scene from her mind. She didn't want to imagine what it would have been like if she had actually gone to see with her eyes rather than her mind, but the driving was not distracting enough to stop her mind from working.

Do I really want to know what happened? What happened to Michael, Shealtiel, and Na'lsa? And who is this other woman? Feenai shook her head and sighed audibly. Who am I kidding...of course I want to know. They...they're my friends.