DAY TWENTYFOUR 21:00PM

To Everything There Is A Time

Stone turned off the ignition. Three blocks ahead of him, the skyscraper rose up into the night. The low clouds were glowing with the dull-orange of reflected light from the city. It looked the sky was about to combust. 

He could feel the fire inside him. Looking at the tower. The smooth black glass. The logo of the LEGACY Corporation. He was burning inside.

What terrible things were happening inside right now? The terrible things he had read about on the laptop. And then things Max had shown him yesterday. 

He didn’t regret contacting him.  He already knew the world was a bad place – the job had taught him that – but Max had shown him just how bad. Stone wanted to know, though: it’s why he had become a detective. So he could learn the true ways of the world.

They were so much stranger and so much darker than he ever imagined. 

Maybe that’s what started the fire inside him. Or maybe it had been smoldering for years. Too many years of crime scenes, of blood and ashes, of the powerful abusing the weak, of the system brutalizing the wounded.

So it had all come down to an open investigation and a laptop, a mind-bending conspiracy and a man named Max. 

He knew how things really worked now, what sorts of crimes were really being committed. Entire lives and worlds used in nameless agendas. Experiments, violations, nightmares. Secrets that could save the world and make fairy tales come true hoarded and corrupted for greed and terror.

So now he had to do something about it. 

He turned the key. The car started. The flames in him flickered.

The car moved down the street towards the skyscraper. 

Stone glanced at the cell phone in the passenger seat. Riveta’s number was cued up.

His sidearm was beside it. The fire surged. 

He approached the tower.

DAY TWENTYFOUR 17:51PM

Ashes Of Immortality

It had been a long day of tracking and hunting, thousands of leads and yet nothing. Simon was exhausted. He opened up the door to his apartment and the first thing he could smell was cigarette smoke. 

He quickly slipped into the room and closed the door behind him, and took out his revolver.

Silently, like a panther, he walked along the edge of the wall toward the kitchen. His nostrils could pick up the scent of coffee as well. 

He did a quick glance into the kitchen and saw no one, but he could feel the breeze coming through an open window somewhere in his apartment.

On the kitchen table sat a smoldering cigarette and a cup of coffee from the local franchise. Whoever was here had sat down, had a smoke, and raided his fridge.

DAY TWENTYFOUR 10:43AM

Samsara 

Pretty George sighed. "Honestly Suki..." 

Suki took a sip from the tea. "I figured your place would be more cluttered." She looked around at the small apartment. Dust in the corners, stains on the floor. A fly buzzing in the kitchenette. She had sent the reverend and her sidekick out for sandwiches; Pretty looked like he could use a meal.

He sighed again. "You're trying to change the subject." 

Suki looked squarely at him. "It's a reflex I have when I feel I'm about to be disappointed."

Pretty held her gaze. She looked good, she looked healthy. She had always seemed so aloof, cold even, when she was young. Initiated so early. The edge was still there, maybe even sharpened, but it was sheathed in something a little softer now. He had no idea where Suki had been all these years, but it seemed to agree with her. 

"Why are you back?" he asked her.

"Now you're changing the subject." 

"You haven't been in the game for a while now. I can tell. You look too happy."

"I was happy when I was playing too," Suki said, perhaps a little defensively. 

"That feeling you felt, that wasn't happiness and you know it. That rush, that charge. Purpose, yeah. Power, yeah. Strangeness, definitely. Mana maybe. But it wasn't happiness."

"Meeting Max was the best thing that ever happened to me," Suki said. 

"Me too," Pretty said. "And the worst."

They each took a sip of their tea. Pretty listened to the sound of the buzzing. Suki glanced about the dingy room. Things felt heavy. 

"Fine," Pretty said. "I'll get it for you."

DAY TWENTYFOUR 10:03AM

Countdown To Eternity

Suki rapped on the door once again. This time a little louder, a little more impatiently. Father Donnelly had donned a hooded sweater, looking more like a homeless beggar than the regal priest that he was. 

"You sure he's here?" Scorpio asked. He was constantly scanning the alleyway. He didn't like having too many blind spots. "You trust him."

"With my life on many occasions," Suki replied; she banged on the door again. 

"Keep your pants on," a hoarse voice shouted.

"Yeah, he's here," Suki said with a smile as she heard some movement inside. 

The sound of a keyboard, plus several bolts sliding from their safeties, as a door opened up partial.

"Suki?" a gruff looking man asked. Looked like he was just getting out of bed. "Suki! Sweet Jesus it is you!" 

"Sorry to bother you, Pretty, but I need your magick touch," Suki said. She looked over at the others in her party. "We need your help!"