The light gleamed off the point of his letter opener, and Rod found himself staring over it and into the pleading emerald eyes and pain-twisted face of the woman from his dream, the blood-drenched stumps of her severed wings jutting up from her shoulders.

She was on her hands and knees on the end of his bed, trembling violently, amid a dark red sea of soaked sheets and dripping, hanging-down innards. Skin whiter than his sheets where it wasn't dark with gore, long black hair tangled and matted… and those eyes.

Her jaw quivered in pain as she gasped, "Dark Lord! Help me!"

Rod stared at her in disbelief, shaking his head without really noticing. This couldn't be happening, this… He must still be dreaming, this must all be part of it…

Dark Lord? "I–I'll-"

I'll what? What the hell would I do, if I were awake?

"I'll get an ambulance," Rod snapped, striding across the room to the phone. Letter opener down, receiver up; an old, ugly rotary, heavy and solid and black, reassuring to hold on to in this crazy drea-

Something silver flashed bright moonlight as it spun past his cheek to thunk solidly into the wall. Something that left severed coils of phone cord dancing in Rod's face, and the dial tone of the heavy receiver in his hand suddenly silent. He whirled to face whatever it was in the direction it had come from, aiming his flashlight like a gun.

Rod found himself looking at the blood-slicked, clenched and trembling hands of the woman on his bed, who promptly cried, "No! No one here must know, or your power will be ended, and with it all our hope! Dark Lord, you must undo the evil you have wrought on us!"

Rod Everlar stared at her, dazedly wondering why he'd never bought a gun, and then wondering what he'd do with one right now, if he had it. She was dying, she should be dead already, and… and women didn't have wings and snow-white skin, and didn't swing swords while wearing armor. Or hurl daggers, either.