Susanna Richards had been a Planetary operative for little over a year.
   Her face was pale, eyes wide and shining with the whispers of unknown
secrets.
   A veil of rain brushed against her soft face as she reached down once
more and tapped her fingers against the solitary Albion terminal, its dark
casing resting on the scorched grass.
   Anya's commlink frequency chimed once and then cut out, the shrill
sound of static filling her ears.
   She sighed deeply and deactivated the terminal. It was no use, she was
still under the umbrella of the city's security.
   The shattered metal and glass looked back up at her from the field in
which they lay, the last remnants of the Goat.
   Darkness encroached as the shadows of various Albionic craft, mostly
transport vehicles and Ark fighters.
   Deep inside of her, she felt the desire to flee from the shadows but
she knew that, in their eyes, it would simply convince them that she had
no reason to be beyond the city's perimeters.
   No, as long as she stayed where she was then she was safe.
   A sudden movement caught her eye and another shadow fell across the dim
illumination of the sun.
   She looked up and gasped. Hanging in the pale blue sky, body motionless
apart from the beating of gentle dove wings was an Angel.
   "I am Hadranel, Angel of the sacred Inner Sanctum and law of Albion.
State your business here." Her voice thundered.
   Susanna faltered, desperately trying to delete the Albion terminal's
temporary files before the Angel noticed.
   "I repeat: State your business." The Angel commanded once more.
   Susanna's mouth was dry, the words stillborn on her tongue.
   The Angel opened her mouth to repeat her commands when her stomach
suddenly opened in a rippling arc of crimson.
   She gasped, eyes widening with shock and wings stirring to compensate
as her hands reached down to her exposed guts.
   "Bless...Blessed be Elysium." She gasped her final words as her hands
came away from the wound stained crimson with her own life.
   Another sudden movement and her head was severed from her body, falling
silently onto the stained grass.
   A dark figure in a long, military overcoat stepped out from behind the
Angel's levitating corpse. The nails of his hands were long, their ebony
colour now stained crimson with her body.
   He smiled at Susanna and rested a hand on the corpse's shoulder, its
wings beating a rhythm that its heart struggled to maintain.
   "Don't worry about her. They're like chickens, you know. Cut their
heads and they'll still spend the next half-hour giving you an impromptu
theology lesson." He smiled broadly and pushed the corpse over onto the
grass. "Greetings, my young friend. I am Isaac."

ANGELS OVER ALBION: IFS ISSUE #9
"MURDER ONE, MURDER ALL"

Written and created by Jacob Milnestein
Edited by Jericho Vilar

CJ created by Alex Cook

Based on concepts and characters created by Neil Gaiman, James O'Barr and
Alan Moore

   "Where am I?" Kuan Yin gasped, her eyes snapping wide open.
   The darkened room blurred into focus, fragile strands of illumination
filtering through from the room next door.
   Aside from the shadows the room was empty, devoid of anything but the
occasional scurrying sound of rats as they crossed the threshold from one
room to another.
   With an effort, she placed her head in her hands, desperately trying to
recall how she had arrived here.
   Images of fire and water, shattered plexiglass and twisted metal and
Raphael's face contorted into a hideous death masque.
   Gingerly she rose to her feet apparently less elegantly than she had
imagined.
   The sound of military issue boots echoed from the room next door and a
tall, dark figure eclipsed the light, casting shadow of Kuan Yin's
previously illuminated features.
   She clasped at her side, bruised hands searching desperately for her
sword.
   "It will be returned in time." The voice announced; a man's voice, the
English heavily accented.
   A wave of aggression clouded the illumination of the other room,
shadows twisting in anger and jealousy.
   "We mean you no harm." The voice continued. "We found your craft downed
in the waters off Island Zero." He paused looking into the white eyes of
the Angel. "I'm afraid your comrade didn't make it."
   Kuan Yin sighed, turning her head away and looking at the pools of damp
moisture that accentuated the cold, stone floor.
   "I know." She whispered. "We were attacked. A Daemonite
warcraft...Raphael was dead before I lost consciousness." Her resolve
hardened, hands coiling into delicate fists yet her expression remained
strangely emotionless.
   "I'm sorry." The voice offered placidly.
   Her head snapped up once more and she returned her gaze to the
silhouetted man.
   "Why am I here?" She demanded, her voice showing none of the sorrow
that had previously haunted her.
   "Because we wish to speak to you." The other replied calmly.
   "About what?" She snapped.
   "Revolution." He answered.

   Ishmael watched the last shadow of night fade away in the
all-encompassing embrace of the grey dawn.
   The stars still hung in the sky, moon pregnant with the night's regrets
as the sun rose over the shores of Albion.
   His hair had grown longer since he left London to meet with Jamie in
Brussels, his smooth, young man's skin now discoloured by a week's worth
of stubble.
   The Parliament's envoy had never shown, leaving him alone in the former
European capitol, stranded and isolated apart from the nightmarish vision
of two days ago...
   ...At the end of the alleyway there were four people, two of them
looked to be children and one was a man. The other was an Angel - the same
Angel he had heard screaming mere moments ago.
   He neck was lowered down to the mouths of the children, who appeared to
be inspecting it and, as he closed in upon the scene, he saw that the
Angel had been cut upon from throat to privates and was impaled upon the
wall by her own staff...
   The creature's name was Isaac, a Hebrew vampir, more commonly referred
to as the Alukah.
   He had first met Isaac in Tel Aviv, when he had been twelve. During
those dark years of empty nothingness, the young boy had made a living
from thieving and selling his body on the streets to the hideous, obese
faceless perverts that wondered every night of every city.
   The nausea hit him once again as he remembered those cold, endless
nights and the shame that came with them.
   One night, when tiredness had all but engulfed his frail, scared body,
he had stumbled through a darkened alley and into a brightly light
building, the stench of hashish and vomit filling the air about it.
   Inside he had discovered a pile of human corpses, each one drained of
blood, empty bowels hanging loosely from bleeding arseholes torn wide
open.
   Sitting upon the two further most corpses had been two ghouls, dressed
in the flesh and aspect of human girls, faces smiling sweetly at him and
stained with the blood of the deceased.
   Silently they raised their arms and still smiling, open their mouths,
speaking in unison:
   "Give, Give!"
   The young boy remained rooted to the spot, eyes wide with terror as his
mind struggled to understand the events laid out before him.
   Suddenly another wrapped its arms about his throat and hauled him from
the ground. He choked, spluttering as he tried to hold down the sickness
that rise within him and his feet kicked out against the air.
   "This one is not for you, my children." His assailant whispered to the
thin, sickly ghouls that were steadily advancing. "He is poison and as
such, will surely bleed your purity from you, as you would drain him."
   The elder turned the struggling child around and Ishmael caught the
first glimpse of the Alukah's face.
   "This is the one who will bring Jihad to Albion, the one who has been
anointed to pave the way for the glorious feast in the halls of Elysium.
He is an unknown brother to you and to me and to all our kind. He shall
not be harmed."
   As the elder vampir let go his grip and Ishmael tumbled onto the warm
mattress of opened human flesh, a shrill scream filled the air, emanating
from the throats of the two ghouls.
   "Remember little one, remember that Isaac saved you from damnation." He
smiled.
   With that, the young boy fell into a nightmarish sleep. When he awoke,
the Alukah were gone, leaving only the mutilated corpses in their wake.
   Ishmael shuddered at the thought, turning his face away from the grey
dawn.
   Outside of the city, the darkness waited.

   He was a tall man, thin almost to the point of malnutrition and hair
naturally darker than the shadows of the room around her.
   "My name is Chow Jones," He explained. "I'm an operative of the
Japanese Rebellion. We brought you here because we want to talk to you."
   "If you're planning to surrender, I'm hardly the person you should be
talking to." Kuan Yin snapped. "There are proper channels for that."
   "We're not planning to surrender." He sighed.
   She looked up at him, studying his face and searching his aura. This
man was about as honest as they come, more so than some of the recent
Angel auras she had had read.
   "So why am I here? Did you bring me here to suggest something
ridiculous like the prospect of me joining you?"
   He smiled coyly.
   "Not exactly. Mister Chance tells us your nation has a rebellion of its
own. For you to side with us and not them would seem.what is the English
word?.ridiculous."
   "Chance?" Kuan Yin exclaimed with amazement. "You know Livingston
Chance?"
   "Yes." Jones offered a slightly confused smile. "You have not met him?"
   "No. Never." She exclaimed. "He's one of Albion's best kept secrets -
the man the Angels can't kill so they deny all knowledge of him."
   "He works for Planetary." Jones continued. "Your friend, Saranyu, I
believe her name is. She says that you have the book which he gave her."
   "Saranyu's alive?" Kuan Yin questioned, rising to her feet in an abrupt
manner. "Where is she?"
   "She is in our medical unit. She has been passing in and out of sleep
since we brought you here. She mutters things of Chance and of Planetary.
Please, would you sit down again?"
   Kuan Yin nodded mutely.
   "Do you still have the book, Miss Yin?" Jones continued.
   "Yes, but." She sighed. "It's empty. The words faded after my.my
visitation."
   "You spoke with the Old Ones?" Jones exclaimed, his face white with
shock.
   "They were gods.the ones that came before us.they were majestic."
   Jones shook his head with amazement.
   "Then there is nothing I can tell you. The Old Ones have said all that
is to be said." He rose from the cold bench they had been sitting upon.
"You must return to Albion and destroy the Inner Sanctum."

   Susanna followed after the tall stranger, her Albion terminal hanging
loosely from her slack fingers.
   Ahead of them lay the long road back into the city, the dawn hanging at
their backs and incinerating the soil behind them.
   She struggled desperately to understand what had happened to her but
from the moment the stranger had bit into the flesh of her neck, shortly
after Hadranel's corpse had fallen to the ground. All she felt was a
strange compulsion to follow this man deep into the city's heart and to
the ends of the earth.
   She felt his smile fill her mind and a wave of pleasure overcame her,
making her moist in the hidden places between her legs.
   Pleasure and safety overwhelmed her all, intermingling as she passed
through the city's gates, treading in his footsteps.
   The vast structure of the city rose up to greet her and Susanna felt
the warmth curdle in her loins and up into her belly.
   Ahead the Ark fighters and cargo craft continued their strange mating
rituals in the skies above her but Susanna Richards no longer cared.
   All that mattered now was her master.

   The shadow of Rijushini Tower drowned out the lights of the city.
   "It's beautiful." Kuan Yin whispered, her voice tainted by awe.
   "It's slavery." Jones responded. "Slavery to a country we've never been
to and a God who is as alien to us as you are. These are not our ways, nor
should they be." He turned and looked at her. "For example, the faces you
wear; are they an aspect of your racial identity or merely a method by
which you integrate yourselves into a society. You look like us and yet
you are not like us. You are shadow, children of a Western civilisation in
the last throes of its sickness. What does it mean to look like us? Is it
just a face you casually assume, like the Daemonites and their ability to
look like us. Are you truly any better than them, any better than
Laeticia, who masqueraded as one of your kind?"
   "No. I don't think we are any better." She turned and looked at him,
eyes moist with tears. "I don't even remember what I truly look like."
   A quiet descended, voices silent and streets echoing with the sound of
distant traffic.
   "What will you do...if I chose not to help you?" She questioned.
   "The same as always." He shrugged. "Go on fighting a war that we can
never hope to win."
   "Albion does not own you." She answered. "We have no claim over Japan."
   "Not officially." Jones replied, closing his eyes to block out the
faded city lights. "Did you know that for years now your Inner Sanctum has
withheld access to Island Zero. Not even their puppets in the government
can get within spitting distance of it."
   "No one told me of this." Kuan Yin admitted, still not sure whether she
could trust him.
   "So the Sanctum hide secrets even from their own?" He smiled. "Just
like any petty dictatorship. You're better at acting human than I gave you
credit for."
   "Why would the Inner Sanctum want to stop you from taking back Island
Zero?" The Angel asked.
   "For the same reason they recently declared your Queen and the Earl of
Leicester fugitives and enemies of Albion. They have too many pieces of
the puzzle, to be exposed to the big picture would give you the key to
understanding the truth - thus they destroy all who get close."
   "They deposed Emilia?" She asked, her mind racing with questions.
"How?"
   "The charges are treason. Our intelligence units haven't been able to
dig much deeper though we do believe Planetary were involved."
   She shook her head sorrowfully. Jones was not lying, she could read it
in his aura and, more importantly, see it in his eyes.
   "Alright." She announced. "I'll do it."

   The man had been walking the streets for hours, face haggard and aged
beyond his years.
   Susanna had been following him for the better part of the day now, just
as her master had instructed. Within her loins she felt the hunger; the
hunger that her master had given her.
   She watched him enter the dark recess of the dilapidated hotel that
currently served as his home and stood outside, watching the light in his
window flicker into life.
   Silently she closed her eyes and summoned the master's children.
   Soon, he would return...

   The walls surrounded them, footsteps echoing against the bastard stone
and metal beneath.
   "We should prepare you." Jones said. "You'll need a ship and weapons
too."
   "I need to see Saranyu." The Angel replied firmly.
   "Pardon?" Jones asked.
   "I need to see Saranyu." She reiterated.
   "She's ill." Jones responded. "There isn't much time left, you'll have
to leave her here with us and then return later."
   "There isn't much time left for Saranyu either. She's dying, Chow, I
can sense it."
   Jones stopped several steps ahead of her, studying her face carefully.
   A moment passed, then another and another and finally he nodded.
   "Okay."

   Ishmael stared at the ice on the outside window. It was impossible to
see anything beyond the reflected light and smeared ice.
   He could hear the insect symphony and could feel the illness within him
and still he remained transfixed by the ice and dirt that obscured his
vision.
   The city slipped silently into night, lights blinking on across through
the darkened towers and cold European standard architecture.
   There was nothing to keep him here and nothing that could save him.

   Saranyu looked up, eyes weak and bleary.
   She could just make out the vague discoloured aura of another Angel,
beyond that stood a man with both blood and truths upon his hands.
   "Chance?" She whispered, her voice dry. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."
   Cold hands upon her brow, the hands of kin, of companionship.
   "It's alright, Saranyu. It's me, it's Kuan Yin." A voice whispered
close to her eye.
   "Kuan Yin? I'm sorry. I...I don't believe anymore, you see. I can't
stand it." She paused, her tongue rubbing against the discomfort of her
dry lips. "I don't want to be an Angel anymore. I want to be...I want to
be me."
   A strange grip tightened around her own hands and for a moment her
vision cleared.
   "Will you do that for me, Kuan Yin? Will you let me be me?"
   "I promise." Yin whispered, her eyes brimming with tears.
   She turned her back on the dying Angel and returned to where Jones
stood.
   "What's happening?" The `terrorist' asked gently.
   "Her wings have been clipped, to use a somewhat sick metaphor." Kuan
Yin replied gravely. "She can't reconcile what she is with what she wants
to be and its killing her."
   "But that's all in the mind, that can't kill you." The other protested.
   "It can when you forged from the living word of God. When you stop
believing in God, when you stop believing in yourself then that disbelief
will begin to invade and corrupt you physically. It's an Angel's curse and
it's why you'll never meet a Fallen Angel that hasn't been augmented with
Hell's sciences. The first epidemic struck the mothers of the Nephilim. In
all our history, Lucifer is the only Angel to have fallen and retained her
original beauty."
   "So what will you do?" Jones asked.
   She turned away, looking at Saranyu's dying form.
   "Give me your gun." Kuan Yin whispered.

   "You've done well, Susanna." Isaac whispered, running his frail, olive
coloured hands through the young woman's hair.
   The blood rushed through to her head, the sound of her heart beating
echoed through her ears and she wanted to scream out as the pleasure broke
in waves over her body. But his eyes held her up, stopped her from
drowning but kept the waves flowing.
   And then suddenly he was gone, his mind withdrawn from hers. She fell
to her hands and knees and groped blindly in the dark,
   "Where are you?" She cried with anguish.
   In the distance she could hear the twisted melody of two young voices.
   "Give, Give!"

   Saranyu seemed to look beyond them, her eyes blank and unfeeling.
   Kuan Yin swallowed hard, choking back the shadows and emotions that
desperately cried out to be appeased.
   Her hands shook as she placed the gun against Saranyu's right temple,
her palms sweating with the sheer fear of what was about to pass.
   No one spoke, the soft reverberation of single bulb strip lights
echoing throughout the empty spaces between them.
   She clicked the safety off and the quantum pistol began to hum its
song.
   Saranyu flinched visibly, not at the fear of the weapon's final action
but at the sudden addition of the new voice to the soft light choir.
   "I'm sorry, Saranyu." A voice whispered inbetween the choir's notes but
it made no sense.
   The hum of the pistol rose steadily.
   Kuan Yin closed her eyes, shadows descending over her pure white
irises.
   Her shaking finger shifted in the small space between guard and trigger
and then slowly she eased the trigger back.
   Light exploded from the weapon in a single pulse and Saranyu's head
flowered in a violet explosion of refracted light and dark liquids. Small
chunks of brain matter and fragments of skull were sheared away from the
main tunnel of the pistol's blast, some scattering about their feet,
others sticking to the walls.
   The quantum pistol slipped from Kuan Yin's hands and slammed against
the cold floor.
   "It's done." She whispered. "It's over."

   A thin line of vomit ran down his chin as he gripped onto the toilet,
knuckles white with exertion, and forced his stomach to double up once
more. It twisted inside of him, moving softly up through his throat and
spilling it out his mouth and into the distilled water of the lavatory.
   Tears streamed down his face, eyes looking blankly beyond the chipped
tiles of the hotel bathroom and seeing nothing but a steady trail of blood
running down the outside of the building and congealing in puddles on the
street.
   Standing behind he heard the whisper of children singing, their voices
both soothing and terrifying him.
   ".Here comes a candle to light you to bed and here comes the chopper to
chop off your head!"
   Firm hands gripping his shoulders and viciously tore him back from the
toilet, throwing up into the air and against the bathroom's far wall.
   Isaac smiled cruelly, his face a distorted tangle of lines and scars.
   "We didn't expect to see you soon, my dear Ishmael." The other purred,
stroking a knife across the palm of his hand. "But still, we're glad you
came, all the same." He turned and looked through the shattered glass of
the room's window. "This used to be Hadranel's city, you know. It's not
anymore, it's mine."
   Ishmael looked deep into the creature's eyes, his mind swimming
painfully as he tried to trace the events that had brought the other here.
He remembered hearing footsteps outside of his room and then the nausea
took over, forcing him face down into the toilet bowl.
   "Once I have let you live, Ishmael. Today will be the second time I
allow you sanctuary from death - the last time." Isaac purred. "The gates
of Elysium are wide open and now is the day for the feast. The time for
prophecy is over, now we begin to shape the future in the image of the
Alukah."
   Ishmael choked, struggling to form words yet not quite knowing what to
say.
   The sudden roar of engines filled the air and the frosted ice window
shattered inwards. Isaac loosened his grip and Ishmael collapsed against
the toilet.
   The vampir made his way to the shattered windows and looked out. A dark
shape filled the skies, xenomorph architecture and gun-ports wide open.
   Ishmael's mouth opened wide as realisation dawned upon him and he began
to understand the hideous shape that filled the skies was of Daemonite
origin.
   "Jesus Christ." He whispered silently, unable to hear his own voice
above the howl of the craft's engines.
   The craft swiftly moved, shifting round in the airspace above Brussels
until he was face to face with it hideous `face'.
   He wanted to scream out but it was too late.
   A moment later, oblivion faded in...

   The remaining members of the Inner Sanctum - Azrael, Basileus, Raguel,
Uriel and Yahriel - gathered within the shit covered walls of the former
House of Lords, haven of the Parliament of Crows.
   "Phase I has failed." Yahriel declared, looking round at the coven of
Angels and carrion birds. "Jack Hawksmoor can not be found and our Queen
has fled her position. We no longer have a figurehead that the people
trust, they are restless, angry. We have failed."
   "Do not be so quick to assign blame." Basileus snapped.
   Raguel coughed politely and all heads turned to face her.
   "We have received reports from Brussels. Hadranel is dead." She
announced.
   Murmurs broke through the crowds, whispers of betrayal and
insurrection.
   "Who hath committed this crime?" Yahriel demanded.
   Raguel smiled thinly.
   "A vampir." She replied.
   The members of the Inner Sanctum turned to face one another, the cowls
of the cloaks covering the majority of each face.
   "The vampirs are planning revolt?" Uriel asked, nervousness in her
voice.
   "It would seem so." Azrael concurred.
   "Then we must enter Phase II immediately." Basileus announced. "We can
not allow sacred ground to fall into the hands of the vampirs."
   "Our temple may have already fallen, we have no way of knowing." Uriel
interjected.
   "We must vote. All in favour?" Yahriel stated.
   Each Angel looked nervously at one another, the eyes of the Parliament
resting upon them, waiting for the decision that would shape not only
their future but the future of two nations.
   Slowly each of them brought the hand up into the air, all apart from
Azrael.
   In turn, all eyes fell upon her and yet still she made no move to raise
her arm.
   "I am Death." She responded to their silent oppression. "I can taste it
in the wind yet that does not mean I welcome it. This path can lead to
nothing but death."
   "Your opinion has been noted." Raguel said carefully as each of the
remaining four Angels turned their backs on her.
   "It is settled then." Yahriel whispered. "Today we return to New York."