Epilogue
Every New Beginning…

      Afreet looked unseen from a rooftop at the weakened Senshi.  The battle had been an amazing spectacle to behold.  However, it was dwarfed by the sheer power of the Silver Crystal.  It had brought three people back to life, and had even healed the Klijargan champion’s deformities.  Oddly enough, it seemed to do nothing for Journeyman.  Perhaps the fires burning in his heart were too hot for healing magic to work.  After all, he had struck several of his allies the previous week.
      While the thought of hunting new prey among the stars had been intriguing, the man who had once been Shihab al Abdul was more interested in harnessing the powers of the Silver Crystal.  With it, the Queen could be resurrected and plunge the world into eternal darkness.  The vampiric race would reign over the humans unopposed as they should have before the Roman Empire murdered her.
      Afreet couldn’t help but wonder what would have happened to him if he had been touched by the magical healing blue light.  Maybe he would have become human again.  He sniffed derisively at the thought.  He had gone through a human relapse a couple of months earlier.  It cost him his most faithful familiar, and all in the name of Allah.  All in the name of a God and an ideal that he had abandoned the day Grendel had bitten him and turned him into the master of fire.
      He shuddered at those horrid memories of killing in the name of a God of peace.  How foolish he had been, and how lucky he had been to survive both the initial bite and the relapse many years later.  He could have easily been cut down by Journeyman or Sailor Mercury.  But, he survived and was able to use black magic to erase his presence from the minds of the police who tried to apprehend him.
      He had been lucky.  No news footage had been taken of him.  It only caught the body of his dead familiar.  He would be avenged.
      “No, not avenged,” Afreet said to himself.  Habib was just a piece of property.  Useful, but unworthy of becoming a vampire.  No, he’d simply kill Journeyman for the sport of it.
      “No vengeance for such a faithful companion?” asked a woman from behind.
      Afreet merely smiled.  One looking at him would be surprised he could still do such a thing.  When examined closely, he was obviously in his late twenties or early thirties.  However, he had a hard-etched face from years of poverty and hatred of himself and those his old beliefs had scapegoated.  It made him look like a fifty-year-old rock man.  The wind blew lightly across his ragged, dark hair and pulled at the cape he sometimes wore when he felt like wearing a cape.  He thought it made him look nobler.
      “I do not coddle my familiars, Harpy.”
      “Familiar.  And now, you don’t have even one to not coddle at all!”
      Afreet finally turned to face the woman.  She was young and attractive.  She wore her long, dark Mediterranean hair freely.  She was not wearing her normal attire, but simple clothes.  Cheap tennis shoes, bland slacks and a T-Shirt that said ‘A Winner Is You.’  Afreet’s smile died.
      “I’m sorry I’m not wearing the outfit you like so much.”
      “As am I.  What brings you here?”
      “It’s nighttime.  Not all of us can walk around in the daytime like you.”
      “You came here just to annoy me?  I’m touched.”
      “The gods must have made a mistake when they gave you the power of fire and Henge the power of Earth.  Henge is such a nice, warm person.  You on the other hand, you’re just plain frigid.”
      “We’ve gone over this before.  Getting involved with another is only asking for emotional complication and heartbreak.  The chances of us both being alive to see Lillith’s revival are slim, and that’s if this Silver Crystal can even be warped to give a deceased, undead woman another chance at this partial life our kind possess.”
      “And what if we do live to see Lillith’s revival?”
      Afreet looked down and smiled sheepishly.  “Must I answer?”
      Harpy turned away, but not in time to hide her own smile.  “I suppose not.”  She started to walk towards the doorway that gave access to the roof.
      “I saw that pretty smile of yours.  Don’t even try to hide it.”
      “So you did.  What of it?”
      “Is what they say about Greek women true?”
      “No.”
      “Is it true of you?”
      “No.”
      “You are sure?  How would you know it isn’t?”
      “Wouldn’t you like to know.”
      “I’d rather find out personally.”
      Harpy reached the door.  She turned to Afreet as she opened it and winked.  Then without another word, she shut the door behind her, leaving the master of fire by himself.
      “May whatever malevolent gods favor us watch over you, Harpy.”  It was getting late.  Even a day walker needed rest.  For tomorrow, there would be new blood to spill.  Or perhaps drink.  It didn’t really matter to one who could control the bloodlust.  All that really did matter was what he felt like doing.  He performed his impossible smile again.  It was good to be a vampire.

      The end of Invasion, and the beginning of Hunted