Twelve shook his head and said he only witnessed the aftermath. "Three corpses, two male, one female, and all three have the mark on their arms."

"Which means?"

He said he was unsure. "I don't know their blood types, so there is really nothing more than speculation at this point."

"Do you think they could be a part of this now?" Mia asked him.

Twelve looked at her and said they were a part of it the moment they captured James Resnik and tried to kill Cladis. "It's unfortunate that they failed to kill him," Twelve started, "But we managed to gain a few very useful clues. For starters, Cladis can regenerate, which means bullets are useless against him"

"Then how the h.e.l.l are we supposed to handle this?" Bryce blurted out. "We can't just lock him up, but we can't shoot him either, so how are we supposed to stop this guy?"

"That isn't the immediate concern," Twelve stopped him. "At the moment we have a city on the brink of self-destruction because all lines of communication have been removed and as such anarchy is beginning to take hold."

"Are you saying you want us back out there?" Mia asked.

Twelve nodded. "We need to ensure that we can reclaim this city before it becomes lost entirely."

"But why is everyone acting this way?" Bryce asked them.

Twelve let out a breath and told him there wasn't any way to call out for help in the city. "Because communications are down people realize anyone they wrong cannot call for help and the police will not be able to respond to any calls that may come through to the stations via any landlines. Riots and violence have swept through the city and we need to return order as quickly as we can. But I want you both to stay together, alright? There are terrible things happening amid the chaos and the last thing we need is for anything to happen to either of you." He headed toward the window and told them he would keep an eye out for them should anything happen. "We'll talk later, but for now we need to do our part and try to salvage what we can. I can't handle all of this on my own and neither will your police force."

"You mentioned that those people who kidnapped Resnik offered clues?" Mia reminded him. "What are they?"

"When this city is stabilized, we'll talk. For now, focus on helping where you can. That's all we can do for now." Twelve stopped and told the pair that he needed to leave. "Down the hall, there is a man raping his eighteen year old neighbor as we speak." He looked at Bryce and told him to go save her. "I need to help elsewhere, but I would ask that you protect her as well," Twelve told Bryce as he glanced at Mia. "This city isn't safe anymore."

5:15 AM.

London, England A word echoed though Jason's mind, from the all-encompa.s.sing darkness around him. He failed to sense where it originated and couldn't interpret the word with clarity. His body seemed weightless and warm, something he hadn't felt in a long time, a sensation he'd believed was lost. But there was no light. There was nothing. His eyes were closed and a thought, the word he couldn't make out, begged him to consider what existed past the darkness he dwelt within. Once the word faded Jason could only hear a low sound, a hum. The noise grew and soon became so loud he couldn't think anymore.

Jason gasped for air, nearly choking while he swallowed it. His eyes shot open and pain overtook him. He struggled to control his breathing and endure the pain as he pushed aside the debris from the building that covered him. Jason sat up and recalled Todd's attack. The low hum continued to resonate, though he could not find the source.

Where the h.e.l.l is he? The girl's gone too. Must have left. Must have. Wouldn't stay, wouldn't risk it after an explosion. Why am I here? Why hasn't anyone come yet? No police or firemen. But there is a fire, right? He glanced around and saw remains of what looked like a fire, though an extinguisher lay discarded against a wall nearby. Todd must have put them out. Taken the girl. Taken his tools, his weapons. Taken the girl. Taken her...but where?

Jason remained still and listened. He could still hear the hum as well as the indecipherable word that moments earlier echoed in his mind when he was unconscious. He listened but failed to discover where Joshua Todd escaped to.

Can't waste time. Need to move, need to find him, need to stop him, to kill him. To kill him...

The room fell out of focus and Jason felt nausea overcome him. His breathing sharpened and shortened as he tried to recover from Todd's attack. His body was wounded, cut, bruised, and broken even. Jason felt a pointed pain at the back of his skull and upon feeling the area discovered a small puncture wound. He tried to move his other hand to inspect the gash but his arm failed to register his command. Jason looked at his left arm and discovered an almost entire lack of flesh and bone. His arm was gone from nearly the shoulder down.

Jason paled and felt he would faint. Gone? Gone? But, but how? Why? Why would he take it? Jason struggled to his feet and found the world swayed violently as he moved. The room, still in tatters, moved in opposite directions from where he stood and the walls and the door. The door. It wandered away from him and to another wall. d.a.m.n you, get back here. d.a.m.n it d.a.m.n it d.a.m.n it. d.a.m.n YOU!

He grit his teeth and felt for the first time in his life as Ilion a searing and boiling heat. In an instant the building erupted over the surrounding area. Jason remained on his feet in place and watched the fires dance. They swayed from side to side in the darkness in the form of a man. Todd! He ran, he ran and laughed and turned into shadow right before Jason's eyes, just beyond the barrier of fire Jason had created from the annihilation of the old building. Todd's laughter melded in with the unknowable whisper Jason couldn't scrub from his mind. And the ever rising hum grew intolerable.

Not again Todd. Jason snarled, "Not again."

He raced through the fires and toward the endless darkness. Once beyond the fire he found himself alone. The flames vanished as did all the lights of London. The stars and the moon slowly faded and abandoned him on his quest. Jason fell to his knees and groped at the ground and the air before him in search of anything, in search of Todd, in search of the hum or the whisper, in search of the hideous laugh, the cackle, the toothy smile that accompanied it, in search of Joshua Todd.

Jason felt a sudden cold steel and after a moment of fingering the engravings on the plate he remembered what it was to him a long time ago. A portal. He grinned and stifled a chuckle as he tore the metal lid clean off its resting place and cast it aside, far into the oblivion around him. Far into the darkness behind him. Jason slipped inside the newly found gateway and into more shade and shadow. He found water at his feet though and cried out in relief and joy. The stench returned to him and he rushed through the water after his prey.

I've found you Todd! I've found you and there's nothing you can do to save yourself! You are going to beg and plead and cry as I peel the stolen flesh from your still breathing corpse bit by bit you callous wretch. I'll split your tongue and eyes and I'll drown you in this filthy stream and I'll strangle you and rip you to pieces digit by digit bone by bone limb from limb. I will find you Todd and I will kill you I will kill you will kill you Todd kill you Todd...

A sudden and unwelcome light pierced the comfortable darkness and Jason's eyes required a moment to adjust to the intrusion. Yet the illumination proffered one welcome sight. Todd cowered in a corner away from Jason. He was alone and unable to utter a single word against him.

Jason seethed as he slowly stepped toward Joshua. "Todd. Look what you did to me!" he bellowed. "Did you really believe this could stop me? Me?! Your little desecrations mean nothing to me. I will kill you. Do you hear me Todd? You are nothing. Your little G.o.d told you to kill me? He told you to kill me? Me? You, He must know nothing. He is nothing, nothing! Compared to me." Jason lunged forward and seized Todd at his throat. He held him close to his eyes and sneered, "Your G.o.d has failed. I am nothing to be trifled with you cur. You b.a.s.t.a.r.d, you...you..."

Jason wrenched Todd's neck violently for a moment and slammed his head into a wall. Todd ceased moving but Jason continued to bash his skull into the wall until the remains of his head and neck ran through his fingers in a pulp. The hum rose into a high pitch and in a moment the remains of the man became little more than a rat.

A cold sweat came over him and Jason stumbled backward and to the floor.

"Jason?"

The word finally elucidated itself and repeated again.

"Jason?"

His eyes widened and he searched desperately for the source. The laughter fled entirely and he remained hopeless in the catacombs of the city. No, no no no no no. Why now? Why did you have to come and interrupt this? I had him. He was gone and dead and I killed him! Me! I killed the man that tried to kill me and you stole this from me! Where the h.e.l.l are you?

"Jason?" He heard the voice once more. "Jason, I hope you can hear me, and I hope you are alright. I miss you and I can't wait for you to come home. Please, please come home soon."

Audrey? Audrey where are you? You can't be here. Please, I don't want you to see this, to see me kill him. Audrey where are you? Jason stopped for a moment and breathed. Home. She said 'come home.' She's home. But where, where am I? He looked around and saw the rat he mutilated as well as the large, well lit room around him. The sewers. What the h.e.l.l have I been doing? What was that? What came over me? He looked at his hands and realized he was whole again. But, but how? Was any of that real?

Jason rubbed his eyes and face with his bloodied hands and tried to determine his next step. Todd is still on the loose and Lily needs help. I need to save her. She's in trouble, but, but where do I go from here? He gazed about the room once more and found something familiar logged in a stone wall on the other side of the room. Jason hovered to it and examined the item. Todd's blade. He was here then, but where did he go? And what happened here? There's no way he discarded it after all of these years and I doubt he has strength enough to imbed it in stone. He quickly returned to the area where he entered the room and studied the floor. Traces of what Jason guessed were blood led off in one of nearly a dozen paths and without hesitation he raced into the shadowed corridor in search of an exit.

He found a way back to the surface and took it. With any luck there will be another clue. If not though, at least I'm back on the surface. I could return home and meet Audrey and have her patch this costume up. Once he returned to the streets he discovered night was nearly through, but also that the trickles of blood continued to support his trail. Jason soon reached another old building, akin to the one he nearly died in. However the trail led into the bas.e.m.e.nt through a cellar door.

Jason burst through and sped inside. Joshua Todd sat on the edge of a table with a needle in his right arm connected to a bag of blood. The room was dark and barren beyond the table and medical supplies Todd spread around him.

What little color Joshua had in his face left him. He tried to move away from Jason but Jason wasted no time in capturing the elderly man. Todd choked and couldn't breathe with Jason's hand around his neck.

Todd struggled and made a vain attempt at speech before Jason cut him off. "All I want is the girl Todd. Don't tell me you've killed her. Don't tell me I'm too late."

Jason released his grip only enough to illicit a response between Todd's rushed and uncontrollable breaths. "The girl...the girl is gone. Another...she was taken by another like you."

"Who was it?"

"I-I don't know. I swear Jason"

"Who was it Todd?" His grip tightened. "What did they look like?"

Todd failed to answer him. He asked, with terror in his eyes, "How, how did you survive?"

Jason didn't reply. Instead he threw the old man across the room and into a support beam. Todd cried out but Jason m.u.f.fled his voice with his left hand. Jason balled his free hand into a fist and drove it square into the Todd's chest and broke most of his ribs. Jason proceeded to take the man by his elbows and crushed them into splinters. He tore the limbs from the man and quickly finished him by driving the flat of his hand through Joshua Todd's forehead and clear through the other end.

Jason remained still afterward. Todd's blood dripped onto the floor from his hands and from the bag Todd used earlier to give himself new life. After a moment Jason started for the door. He rose into the sky and once he was above the building and on his way home he ignited the building from its roots and allowed it to completely engulf Todd's remains. Jason headed home without a backwards glance.

7:08 PM.

Baltimore, Maryland Mia and Bryce sat in Detective Sage's old office and waited for their turn to report to Chief Johnson about the damages to the Washington Village area. The city only worsened in the short period of time since all wireless transmissions became lost. People realized the severity of the situation, from both the abrupt reality of Cladis to the awareness that salvation would not come for anyone who called for help, and as such anarchy erupted in the form of heightened gang wars, looting, arson, murder, armed theft, and other crimes.

The entire police force of Baltimore tried to manage the situations on the streets, but the crisis wasn't in an isolated area, and because of the panic and violence throughout the city even the riot squads were met with extreme resistance from gangs like the Delta, who carried armor piercing rounds to meet the squads. There were deaths on both sides of the skirmishes, but the crisis had yet to find a lull or moment of rest.

Gangs saw it as an opportunity to take control of the city with little to no resistance, thieves saw it as the perfect moment to take what they wanted, rapists knew no one would heed anyone's cries, and even though there were the few who tried desperately to flee or to remain separated from the chaos, blockades of burning cars, tires, and other rubble made escape nearly impossible.

Bryce sat slouched in a chair and stared dejectedly at the floor. "Do you think we're ever going to be able to fix this?"

Mia said she wasn't sure.

One major part of their forces protected the hospitals from looters looking to steal medical supplies as well as pharmaceutical drugs while another part of their forces that were not on the streets guarded the police station from the rioters.

"Do you think this is going to get worse?" he asked her. "I mean, why haven't things calmed down yet?"

She shrugged and said she didn't know. "This is chaos Maguire, so I'm not sure we're going to see things calm down unless we manage to get outside help. They're scared because they communication is gone and now they know there's a serial killer on the loose, and I imagine part of them realize he has powers of his own, and all of this frightens them. It's panic, that's what it is."

Bryce let out a sigh and muttered his disdain for their job. "I never thought something like this would happen."

"Neither did I."

"What do you think we can do to fix it?"

Mia said she heard a rumor that the National Guard would intervene in an hour or so a.s.suming the matter didn't show progress. "I'm just glad they'll be here soon, considering how bad last night was."

Bryce agreed and ma.s.saged the back of his neck with his right hand. He listened to the sirens and screams right outside their walls and regretted his inability to amend it. "Do you think we're useless?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean do you feel worthless as a cop?" He looked into her eyes and reminded her that they couldn't stop or even hinder Cladis, they couldn't curb gang violence throughout Baltimore, and they couldn't control their panicked city. "I feel like we don't have any power anymore."

Mia frowned and said she often felt that way. "Aside from my ident.i.ty theft crisis I've never worked a true case before, and even in that situation I've yielded poor results, so yeah, I do feel sort of worthless."

Bryce asked if she knew of anyway they could change that. "I don't want to look back in ten years and wonder if I could have done more...or if I did anything at all for that matter."

She told him she was in the dark as well. "If I knew how do that, I wouldn't be here now."

He nodded and muttered that she was right.

Mia shifted in her seat and suddenly asked him what his blood type was.

"O positive." He noted her trepidation and asked her why she brought it up.

Mia bit her bottom lip for a moment before she admitted she had O negative blood. "If those other two people are a part of the pattern, wouldn't O negative be next in the cycle?"

Bryce glanced at the floor, gave the matter a second of thought, and questioned if forensics ever informed her of the Jane and John Does' blood types. She slowly nodded and told him they fit the pattern. "Why didn't you say anything?" he asked.

She shrugged and said it wasn't important at the time.

"Not important?" Bryce repeated. "You might be on death row, how the h.e.l.l isn't that important?"

"There's no guarantee I'm going to die."

"Yeah, well there isn't any surety of you making it either."

"It isn't that serious."

"Yes it is," he spat. "What if you're next?"

"Then we've only got a few days to figure out how to stop him."

"You know we've got no chance then."

"Then I'll die," she snidely told him.

Bryce looked away from her and scowled at the wall. "This isn't a joke you know."

"Why do you care?"

"I care because you and I...We're sort of a team." He left a short pause for her to say something, but Mia failed to utter a word. Bryce waited for something, anything; even recognition of their partnership, but Mia remained silent. Maguire rubbed his eyes and mumbled his additional concerns, his personal wishes for her wellbeing, but dropped the subject as soon as Chief Johnson joined them and asked for a brief update on the area they patrolled.

6:01 PM.

Seattle, Washington Nick sat at the edge of one of the cots and failed to tie his tie properly. He'd only ever worn one on very few occasions, those being funerals and the rare occasions when he'd accompany Ian to church, which he hadn't done in over three years. He found the tie at a second hand shop three blocks from where he, Strom, and Lauren stayed, and though it was relatively inexpensive it proved to be a quality find, despite Nick's inability to wear it presentably.

"You tied it wrong," Strom noted as he flipped a page in his copy of Franny and Zooey.

Nick said he didn't know how to and asked if Strom wouldn't mind helping. Lauren intervened and fixed it for him. "It's not something that's overly complicated Nick." She explained each of the steps to him as she adjusted it. Once the knot was satisfactory, she tightened it, brushed his shirt off, and told him he looked nice before she walked away and retook her seat against a wall a few yards from Strom.

"Thanks."

Strom's cell phone vibrated on the cot next to his left hip. He set his book down, checked the number, and quickly answered it. "Yes?" Strom remained still and listened intently to the caller. He didn't say anything for nearly a minute before he asked if anyone else was aware of the issue. "No? Why not?" His question preceded another pause before Strom sighed and told whoever called that he'd relay the message and thanked him. Strom hung up and told them that Mithra and Melanie were dead.

Nick and Lauren both stopped where they were and processed the information. "How did it happen?" she asked him.

Strom said he wasn't sure on the details. "Bruce called and told me about the situation in Baltimore, which was where their mission was, he told me something went wrong and they were killed."

"Is Mizuno alive?" Nick questioned him.

Strom said he was unsure.

"Why should you care?" Lauren spat. "He's a jerk, so what difference does it make if he lives or dies?"

Nick shrugged and simply said it was a question.

He kicked off his tennis shoes to swap them for dress shoes, which he also acquired at the thrift store with his tie. Lauren helped him get pants, a shirt, the tie, and his shoes, and much to his chagrin she forced him to try on nearly a dozen different combinations before they left the store with the outfit for his and Amy's homecoming date.