Calina felt her own fire now, growing within her until the blazing torrent filled her, blotting out her senses so that she could see only darkness and the dazzling spots behind her own eyes. This fire was far too big; it could not possibly be hers. Her body couldn't even handle it. She felt her insides burn as the fire pressed against her like the contents of a boiler far past its safe temperature and ready to explode. Her head spun and the brilliantly colored spots continued to pop in her eyes as her lungs' heaving dwindled to the faintest wheeze; she was sure this was what it must feel like to be strangled to death.

And suddenly the flame burst through her skin and lit her up like a human torch, but only for an instant...

So, Calina...

Her eyes slid open again, her vision astonishingly clear and her body miraculously intact, betraying no sign of the inferno that had just surged out of it. Between the cold, white hospital beds that flanked Calina, and barely a yard away from her, loomed a dragon, its eyes glowing redder than the brightest coals above eight feet of smoky, coiled body.

So, Calina, it hissed, you want to know the secret behind the flames?

"No...it can't be..." How could it know? That is what she had been thinking when she saw this creature in the flames of the cathedral, moments before she'd felt the hot presence enter her. Had it been this dragon all along inside of her? Had it read her thoughts? Calina was too preoccupied to notice that she could not see Nickolai's and Maximillian's flames anymore.

Dr. Ricks stepped forward to face the dragon, whose hazy form was slowly becoming more opaque, more tangible. "Ah, yes, your little pyromania. You should consider yourself lucky, dear girl, for you are in the presence of the source of all flames, and soon he will once again be complete."

Across the city, the body of a young woman was gently lifted from the pavement and wrapped in a solemn white sheet, the police having collected all the evidence they needed and left the anonymous victim in the care of a sad, lonely undertaker.

"Poor lass," he murmured as he laid the body carefully in the back of his van. Her grubby skin and greasy, frizzed hair suggested that she hadn't bathed in several days, despite the fact that, as the police had ascertained, she had been living in the topmost suite of the upscale hotel that now towered over her. "What made her jump?"

"Prophet," said Maximillian, rising from his bed to join the other two. "I'm afraid we must press on a little ahead of schedule."

"No!" shouted Nickolai from his bed, straining harder against the clamps that bound him.

"I had hoped," Max continued as though there had been no interruption, "to wait for Nickolai to join me before completing my incarnation, but I fear he is much stronger than his brother. I believe it is time to use my full power, to make certain he will turn."

"No!" Nickolai bellowed again.

Dr. Ricks inclined his head toward Maximillian and grinned. "As you wish." Calina still lay crumpled on the floor, too stunned to move. As she watched, Dr. Ricks stood full-face in front of Maximillian and, with the tip of a syringe pulled from his pocket, carved a symbol on the man's forehead, ignoring the blood that began to drip onto his hand. Calina could not see what he had carved.

When he was finished, Dr. Ricks handed the bloody needle to Max and stepped back, still facing him, with his palms outstretched toward his cohort. "The Hour of the Beast has come at last," he began, his voice beginning steadily and rising in a grand crescendo as he spoke. "Arise from the depths and take back your power. Come to claim your kingdom! Megatherion, awaken to your true form!"

"NO!" roared Nickolai a third time, wrenching himself free with a burst of adrenaline, heedless of his tearing flesh, eyes flashing.

THIS is the power of the flame! sibilated the dragon with the spitting sound of boiling oil.

Maximillian's body seemed to burst into flame just as Calina's had done. Nickolai launched himself at Dr. Ricks and the two slammed into the floor. Unlike Calina's, Max's entire body seemed to be growing with the inferno and he towered over them as Dr. Ricks's jaw cracked under the force of Nickolai's fist.

Searing across Max's forehead, the symbol Dr. Ricks had carved burned even more brightly than the fire raging across his whole body. Finally he turned so that the symbol was within full view: Calina saw a dragon etched into his skull, each wing a swoop emanating from the two angled rings that formed its body, the neck a shorter swoop ending in the head's O.

"Brother!" bellowed Nickolai, turning from the mangled doctor. "No!"

Maximillian smirked. "I could say the same to you."

The woman's autopsy showed nothing unexpected: trauma, crushing, internal bleeding. Her unkempt appearance made it easy to believe she had been suffering from depression. Classic signs of a jumper.

However, in her last moments just a few hours before, suicide had not even entered the woman's mind.

She tossed in her sleep. No matter where she tried to run, she always found herself trapped. A barbed wire fence sprung up in front of her; the trees closed their branches to prevent her escape. The sharp twigs tore her clothing. Meanwhile, they were always right behind her, just too far for their straining arms to reach. Foiled wherever she went and panting for breath, it was all she could do to dash almost blindly, always barely ahead of their flowing brown monks' robes and flapping doctors' coats. She couldn't see any of their faces. They were all obscured by shadow.

Gasping, she jolted upright, her eyes flying open. It was only a dream, but her heart continued pounding.

Yes, it thought, watching her. Just a little more. She is a tasty one. Strong and defiant...and how much more delicious eating her from the inside, attacking her from the one path to her mind she has left open: her heart.

She stared wildly around the room. Shadows, there were too many shadows, and in all of them all she could see was them. For days it had been like this. She had not turned off a single light in the room for the better part of a week, but she could not get rid of the shadows; they were always there, in a corner, under the bed, behind her back.

She had to get out. She could not let herself be caught. The roof--she would go up, up, toward the rising sun. Surely they could not get her there. She ran up the stairs, hastened further by the dank, dim light of the stairwell. She flung open the door at the top, her sprint unchecked--and as she hit the wall on the edge of the building, her momentum carried her forward, over the top, and down, down, down...

In the hospital, miles away, Maximillian's spirit had flickered out as he saw, through the eyes of the beast, the one person who could still give him the willpower to resist, splattered on the pavement.

In that same hospital now, Maximillian's flaming body suddenly went out and turned black as night, spined wings bursting from his back. Calina watched in horror as he towered over her, and knew instantly from the wave of terrible heat that swept over her that this was the creature that had saved Nickolai from the river.

And now, Nickolai did the one thing that Calina, despite the short time in which she had known him, had been absolutely certain was not permitted by his character--he ran. He sprinted from the hospital room, grabbing Calina's wrist and dragging her along as if not even aware that he was doing so, perhaps in some way to atone for the innocents he had failed to protect. She cried out as she was knocked against walls and then dragged along concrete, trying in vain to get her own feet under her but managing to do little more than the bare minimum needed to keep herself from being dragged to death.

They were no match for the speed of the beast soaring after them, but the dragon was still not entirely corporeal and could barely keep up. Calina did not understand why the beast did not simply swoop down and take them--perhaps he was still waiting for Nickolai to turn, and did not want to slaughter him yet? Perhaps it would die if he did? That would explain why it did not let him drown. But somehow Calina could not picture the huge, powerful creature that was easily chasing them down, disappearing due to the death of a mere man. Even a demon-infected man.

After what seemed like ages, Nickolai stopped running abruptly and flung Calina to the ground. She landed on crunching, frozen grass, and the rushing of the beast's wings through the air seemed to intensify. As she looked up, she realized that the rushing was not air at all--Nickolai had brought them to the bank of the river, barely downstream of the bridge from which he'd jumped.

"Megatherion!" he cried, his voice hoarse, his arms flung wide as he stared down the impossibly terrible beast that had once been his brother. "I, who believe in God and who have studied long years to take up the cloth under Him; I, who have devoted my life to the Lord so that I might be able to defeat you; call upon the might of the Father, the compassion of the Son, and the guidance of the Spirit to banish you from whence you came!" After that, he began chanting in some language that Calina did not know. From the ground where she lay, looking up at his golden hair gleaming in the light of the beast's glowing red eyes and his white hospital robe, Calina thought he looked almost like a priest--or an angel. The beast seemed to ail, to struggle...but when Nickolai had finished it was still standing. The man collapsed. The beast staggered; it appeared to be attempting to regain its composure.

"No...good..." Nickolai wheezed. "I'm too weak to defeat it."

"Then why did you waste all that energy running all the way to the river?" Calina demanded.

Nickolai looked at her disdainfully. "Don't you know? Haven't you noticed that the river is the only place you can't see fire?"

Calina looked at the recovering beast. "So the river has some sort of power to defeat it?"

"Yes," Nickolai spat. "Not that it helped. Wait--stop!" he cried, for upon hearing his answer Calina had sprung up at the beast, taking advantage of its weakness while it was still off-balance. She threw all her weight against it, and it staggered and tripped on the bank.

"Don't kill my brother!" Nickolai snarled as the beast splashed into the water. He sprang to his feet and delivered a harsh blow across Calina's face, knocking her limply to the grass.

For the second time that night, Nickolai threw himself into the river.