The wolf and the panther strode through the jungle side by side, as they always have. Yet, they noticed that there were no birds in the trees. Strange, they thought. Suddenly, the panther stiffened, scenting something amiss in the air. The wolf scanned their flank, becoming aware of something moving through the jungle. He barked a warning to the panther, whose hackles raised as if in challenge to this unknown. The challenge was answered with a reptilian hiss and a roar that was like a shriek from the darkest pit of Hell. There was a sound like thunder as the unknown beast strode through the thick brush, and the foliage snapped beneath its predatory stride. It walked on its hind legs, with a lithe gait that was death in liquid motion and the wolf and the panther beheld its cold countenance. It shrieked again, showing a double mouthful of dagger-like teeth. The wolf whined as it backed away from this horror, and the panther arched itself in preparation to give as best as it could against this nightmare made flesh. The wolf knew it was a hopeless cause, but the panther refused to accept it. The beast's eyes narrowed as it seemed to appraise the two that stood in its path, and then it snarled. It was a snarl that seemed to relay that this abomination had decided that there would be another, more advantageous time, and that it could afford to spare these two for now... A message that seemed to say, as the beast turned and strode back into the jungle...

    "You're welcome... See you SOON..."

    Blair Sandburg sat bolt upright, unaware that he was screaming. Ten seconds later his door came crashing open and his roommate, Detective Jim Ellison, came through the door with his pistol drawn. Blair yelped in surprise, and dove out of the bed and onto the floor shouting, "Don't SHOOT!"
Jim scowled as he lowered his pistol, obviously annoyed at the false alarm - yet still wary. "You okay, Chief? I heard you caterwauling and thought maybe something got past me."
    "No... No... Sorry, Jim, it was some kind of nightmare," stammered Blair sheepishly.
    "Oh... Well, then, I'll just go and try to get back to sleep. Only four hours until we go face the big, bad world. You should get back to sleep yourself... Partner."
    "Jim? I've been wondering..."
    "Wonder tomorrow, Chief. Sleep tonight..."
    "But -"
    "Sleep! TONIGHT!"
    "Alright, alright! Cut down on the red meat someday, would you?"
    "Grrr..."
    "Just a suggestion! Sheesh!"
    "ENOUGH! Christ, you get a case of the babbles and there's no shutting you up!"
    "So..."
    Jim raised his hands in surrender to forces beyond his control, "I give up. What were you wondering? BRIEFLY."
    "Do you think that maybe there are others out there like you? But NOT like you?"
    "Other Sentinels? Anything's possible, Chief. But until NOW I never lost any sleep over it. Why?"
    Blair shook his head as he clarified his question. "No, not just other Sentinels. We've contended with that with Alex, remember?"
    Jim winced at the mention of her name. "Cut me a break, Chief, it's two in the morning," he protested.
    "No, I mean a Sentinel that was MORE than you..."
    Jim pondered the question before he asked, "In what way?"
    "I'm not sure," Blair confessed. "Just MORE."
    "Well, much as I'd like to discuss my shortcomings in comparison to a rhetorical example, it's LATE. I need rest... I'd rather wait until normal business hours to trot down the Primrose Path, okay?"
    "Okay... Sorry, Jim. Good night, okay?"
    "Just more, he says," spat Jim as he closed the door. But it was a long time before Blair got back to sleep.

    We've been wandering for a long while... Seven days by our estimation... By now the officials will have noticed that the warden and his guards never made it back from their 'symposium', and will eventually find what we left of them in that empty warehouse in San Dimas. However, it will still be a while before they think to check on the monster that's supposed to be in the catacombs... We're almost sad that the warden met justice before his superiors could find out about his innovations in overcrowding control... Ah, well... We see a sign ahead, keeping watch for travelers such as ourselves... We read it in the wan moonlight at its distant post... 'Welcome to Cascade', eh? Thank you... Thank you, kindly... It's been a long time since we were welcome anywhere... A long time, indeed...
 

    Several men chased a frightened woman down the dark street. She cried hysterically as she vainly sought escape, and the men laughed harshly at her plight. She wheeled on them, "I gave you my purse!" she cried.
    "I gave you my purse! It's all I have!"
    "No, it isn't, sweetheart," one of them snarled. "You have something else for us."
    "Yes, for ALL of us," chimed in another. "You can't keep something THAT nice all to yourself. You have to SHARE."
    "Yeah," added a third. "It feels GOOD to share... You'll feel good... WE'LL feel good."
    "No," she sobbed. "No. Please..."
    "Aw, she doesn't WANT to share with us, fellas," scowled the fourth. "She's GREEDY."
    "Now THAT'S a bad thing," sighed the first. "Greedy people get HURT."
    "Please leave me alone! I'll scream!"
    "Go ahead, Greedy. No one will hear you," mocked the second one. "WAAAAAA!" he screamed in demonstration. "See?"
    "Yeah, you can scream," laughed the fourth one. "I scream, you scream, we all scream for Ice Cream."
    "Yeah, ice cream..," nodded the third one. "I like to lick ice cream. Can I lick YOUR ice cream, Greedy?"
    "Please... No... Don't... I gave you my purse...," she sobbed.
    "But we TOLD you, Greedy. We want MORE," scolded the first one.
    "Then more you shall HAVE," said a voice from the shadows. "Enough for ALL... AND to SPARE..."
    "What the hell? Someone else down here? Back off, you! We saw her first. The FOUR of us."
    "But four's a crowd - And NOT ALLOWED," admonished the shadows.
    "Man, FUCK YOU," challenged the first one. "You think you some kinda hero? We KILL heroes, bitch!"
    "Hero? No, we're not a hero... You will learn what we are... You ALL will."

    "What do we have here, Simon?" asked Ellison as he scanned about to assess the situation.
    "Four dead men, one live woman - obviously in shock...," scowled Simon as he chomped on his cigar. "She was about to be the evening's entertainment for the four guys, but from what she says an Angel saved her."
    "W-waitasec," stammered Blair in disbelief. "An angel? You sure she didn't say a Samaritan?"
    "No, Sandburg, she said ANGEL," replied Simon flatly. "And as far as I can tell this 'Angel' made those four miserable bastards look like they fell from a plane. Look over there, gentlemen, the coroner is SPONGING whatever this 'Angel' has left of these guys off of sixty square yards of alley wall." He spat angrily. "We WANT whoever this 'Angel' is, boys. BAD. We're keeping a lid on the particulars media-wise, but this kinda crap has got to be reined in before it inspires a whole PILE of closet crazies and we have a SERIOUS problem."
    "Understood," Jim nodded curtly. "But I don't see anything around here that could have been used to inflict the sort of damage you're talking about these guys being put through. No knives, no blunt instruments, no pistols, nothing."
    "You won't find any either, except the ones that were on the four victims," grimaced Simon. "Whoever this 'Angel' was, he went at them with his bare hands."
    "You've got to be kidding me, Simon," protested Blair. "One guy took on four armed men?"
    "No, Sandburg," sighed Simon. "One guy took OUT four armed men. BIG difference."
    "That's just unbelievable," argued Blair. "Not even JIM has THAT much training..."
    "Can we talk to the woman in question?" asked Jim, growing annoyed. "Maybe get something we can use to track this psycho?"
    "Sure, but take it easy," cautioned Simon. "She was pretty shook up BEFORE the incident, and it didn't help her much..."
    "Check," nodded Jim. "Let's go, Chief." The two walked over to the woman, who was clutching something in her hands like it meant the world to her, and the world wanted to take it away. "Ma'am?" asked Jim.
    "Can you tell me what happened here?"
    "An Angel saved me," she said in shellshocked monotone. "Bad men came after me... They wanted to hurt me... I gave them my purse, and they still wanted to hurt me... I tried to scream for help, but nobody heard me... All I could do was ask God to make it stop, and He did..."
    "God did?" asked Blair incredulously. "I was under the impression that he was more hands-free than that."
    "God sent the Angel to save me," continued the woman. "The bad men tried to hurt the Angel, but he was part of the shadows... They couldn't stop him... One by one they fell, as God's Angel punished their wickedness... There was a lot of blood and screaming... Then some strange crunching sounds as the Angel took them away... Are they dead?"
    Blair and Jim recoiled at the question. "You don't know?" asked Jim. "Four men were torn to pieces in front of you, and you don't know whether they're DEAD?"
    "Jim, hold on...," cautioned Blair. "Maybe her subconscious is blocking that memory."
    "Listen, Chief," growled Jim. "Four men are DEAD, and if we're gonna be able to put this guy away for it, we need a little more than that supressed memory pop-psych mumbo-jumbo."
    "Jim, come on. She's been through hell..."
    "I don't know if they're dead because I don't KNOW if they're dead," insisted the woman. "The Angel said he needed to use them, to send a message... Dead men can't do that, can they?"
    "Depends on the message," grimaced Jim as he jerked a thumb to the wall of the alley that coroner was carefully gathering samples from.
    "I should feel bad that they've died," droned the woman. "But they were bad, and I can't... Does that make ME bad?"
    "Nobody's THAT bad, lady," retorted Jim. "Those four men died in a world of pain. We may NEVER even IDENTIFY them!"
    "Jim, Jim, Jim," broke in Blair. "The perp SPOKE to her..."
    "Right. So, aside from saying he was gonna use them to send a message, ma'am, did the 'Angel' say or do anything else?"
    "Yes," she said flatly. "He gave me back my purse and said, 'We heard you, little one. You're welcome. See you soon.'"
    Blair fainted dead away.

    He found himself in the jungle, and looked around worriedly. "Jim?" he asked shakily. There was no answer. He looked around again, and to the east he saw the Temple of the Sentinels and shivered. "This is NEVER good," he whined. A wolf came out of the underbrush, and stared at Blair. "What's going on?" Blair asked his Spirit Guide.
    "There is another that moves," replied the wolf.
    "Another what?" asked Blair.
    "You have seen it, have you not?" replied the wolf. "The lizard that walks as a man?"
    "That was a dream!" protested Blair.
    "Like this?"
    "Point taken," sighed Blair. "Are you saying that this monster I saw is another Sentinel? Like Jim?"
    "This creature is NOT like Jim; he is MORE. The lizard that walks as a man does so alone..."
    "What? Is that possible?" gasped Blair. "I thought all Sentinels had Guides."
    "Not all. This one has no need."
    "How? What about the 'Zone-Out Factor'?"
    "Somehow, the lizard that walks as a man has learned to adapt. Your Sentinel must oppose him, but I fear how it may end."
    "You don't know?"
    "The things to come are not for such as I to see; only the things that ARE. To think of the future takes away focus from the present, and your Blessed Protector will need all the help you can offer if he is to survive this threat."
    "So this big lizard IS a threat. But to Jim, or to me?"
    "To ALL. The lizard who walks as a man is an enemy to all... But be warned, lizards have great guile, and this one moreso than any. In the jungle, those that hunt do so for a purpose. This beast is different in that his purpose IS to hunt. No other beast is like it in this Age..."
    "Wait, you're saying that this Enemy is a throwback to a time in the past?"
    "You know... Seek out the knowledge... It's your only chance... And his..."
    "His? His who? Hey! WHO?"
 

On to the Next Chapter....