O.K. This is a shared fic a friend and I have been doing on and off for a
while. The parts that he's done are marked with a (D) the parts I've done
with a (S).


Rachael Meets Albion
All Hell Breaks Loose
(D)

	Smoke drifted from an ashtray in a long lazy spiral, bunching up and
twisting into tenuous, fleeting patterns as it hit a draft from the open
window.  The silent ballet went unnoticed in the empty room.  A red light
winked out and the door beneath it slammed open.  A tall auburn-haired
woman in faded blue jeans and an old Bill-the-cat sweatshirt burst into the
room holding aloft a dripping strip of celluloid.  She turned in the
direction of the window and squinted against the light, pulling the film
upward past large emerald eyes in a rapid motion.
	"Damn," she said tightly, pulling faster on the film.  "Damn!" again,
louder and more distinctly, hurling the wet ribbon across the room to join
others littering the floor.  "Every blasted one of them!"
	She wheeled and dropped to perch tensely on the edge of a tattered
sofa.
With a smoker's radar she reached for a cigarette; the topmost of a
graveyard of cold butts and ashes all but obscuring the ashtray underneath.
Only the butt came away.  She sat looking at the trail of ash topping the
pile; a silent line of neglect.
	"Why do I even light the damn things?  I never get to smoke them." She
considered leaving well enough alone, then dropped the butt and began to
rummage through the books, papers, pamphlets, un-opened bills and other
assorted odds and ends which littered the wobbly coffee table.
	"I cannot believe that every blasted one of them is garbage," she
muttered
angrily.  "I worked all weekend on that shoot.  I should have heeded my
horror-scope and stayed in bed... Ah hah!"  Her hand closed on the desired
object.  The crumpled pack held one lone cigarette, bent in the middle and
losing half its tobacco.  She shoved the crooked stick into her mouth and
reached for a pack of matches.  Once the cigarette was alight, she stood
and began to pace.
	"C'mon Shaw, where's the old spark?  Where's that old prize-winning
imagination?  Where's the old survival instinct?  Do you like living on
peanut butter and saltines?  Nobody is interested in bag ladies and
skinheads anymore.  Think, lady, think!  There has to be something you
haven't tried."  She stopped at the sight of her own reflection staring
back at her from the full length mirror on the bedroom door.
	"So?  What are you staring at?"
	Frowning, she stepped across the growing pile of laundry and pulled the
door shut.  She studied the reflection expectantly, eyeing it as one would
a questionable ally.
	The reflection assumed a thoughtful pose.  "Well, Rachael," it said,
mimicking her every movement perfectly.  "Obviously what you need is
something unusual to shoot.  Something from left field.  Real Twilight Zone
stuff.  That's it, think weird.  Think like Rod Serling.  Think...
think..."
	She sighed.  "Oh, what's the use?  Where are you going to find
something
that unusual in a society where chic looks like something from the Rocky
Horror Picture Show and vomiting in public is considered fashionable?"  She
stared into her own troubled green eyes and, finding no answers, sighed
again.
	"Maybe what I need right now is a drink."  Turning from the mirror she
picked her way across the littered floor and into the kitchen.  Disaster
confronted her, heralded by the smell of stale fish and boiled eggs.
	"Phew!  What I need is a maid.  A cold glass of carrot juice, and a
maid.
At least one of those is within my budget.  The other will just have to
wait.  This mess isn't going anywhere fast."
	Trying to ignore the mess, Rachael turned to the refrigerator.
Wrinkling
her nose, she opened the door and reached inside.  A scream from the next
room made her lose her grip on the bottle of carrot juice and send it
crashing to the floor.  She jerked her head out to peer around the
refrigerator door.
	The scream had been loud.  Too loud.  Frozen with fear, she waited.
And
waited.  Silence.  Slowly she began to relax.
	Exhaling loudly, she looked down at the mess at her feet.  "Maybe
what I
need is a vacation.  Something to get me away from all this tension."
Squatting, she began to pick up the larger fragments of wet glass from the
floor.  "I swear, if it isn't one thing it's another.  If I'm not trying to
starve myself with ca-ca work, I'm breaking things.  What else could
possibly go wrong..."
	The next scream was even louder than the first.  Instinctively, Rachael
stood and began to rummage along the cluttered counter for a weapon.
Dishes toppled over, crashing to the floor.  A two-pronged barbecue fork
found her questing fingers and she grabbed it enthusiastically.  "I had to
ask," she said, moving slowly toward the doorway to seek out the intruder.

	Her eyes widened as they fell on the fair-haired intruder laying
face down
in the middle of her laundry.  Where he'd come from she hadn't a clue.
Blood was soaking into the clothes around him.
	Stepping back to the relative safety of the kitchen doorway,
Rachael began
to scan the room beyond for signs of the dead man's attacker.  Nobody else
in the room.  Front door locked and bolted.  Her eyes fell on the camera
hanging by its strap on a hook next to the front door, then flicked quickly
to the prone figure on the floor.
	"God, Rachael, what a morbid thought!" she whispered.  "At least
wait to
make sure the murderer isn't hiding behind the couch or something..."
	Never leaving the safety of the doorway, she continued her quest for
answers.  The main entrance was clear across the room and the angle of the
body clearly discounted that possibility.  Judging from the red trail
through her whites and what bit of the carpet she could see, the man
appeared to have crawled out of her bedroom.   Yet the bedroom door was
still closed and the condition of the body discounted his having opened it,
stepped through and closed it behind him before collapsing.
	She sucked in her breath as the realization hit her.  If the victim
hadn't
closed the door, his attacker must have!  Which meant that the murderer
must still be in the bedroom!  Panic engulfed her.  She had to pass by the
bedroom and over the body to get to the front door.
	A moan from the center of the room completely shattered her
concentration.
	The man wasn't dead.  All thoughts of her own safety left her as
Rachael
moved quickly to the side of the wounded man on her floor.  She put him
between herself and the bedroom door and kept the fork raised in a
defensive posture.  With her free hand, she reached out to touch the
stranger, noting for the first time the unusual way in which he was
dressed.  Unusual even by her own society's standards.
	She hadn't seen a man wearing tights since her last visit to the
ballet.
But these weren't costume tights.  They were thicker and coarser, and had a
well-worn look to them.  On his feet were a pair of knee-length, soft
leather boots, sporting large cuffs with some sort of metal thread braiding
along the edge.  The jacket he wore was long, with split tails splayed open
by his position.  It appeared to be made from some soft wool material, with
padded shoulders and button cuffs.  The one hand she could see wore no
rings.  Long golden hair lay tangled across his shoulders, back and
slightly turned face.  She moved her hand to brush it away.  The man moaned
again and she pulled back.
	She inhaled deeply, giving an anxious glance toward the mirrored
door, and
reached out to touch him again.  With a speed impossible for a dying man he
rolled over onto his side and wrapped a strong, long-fingered hand around
her wrist.  Screaming, Rachael lashed out and stabbed him with the fork.
He released her and she bolted backwards, darting her eyes between the man
and the door.
	This time the stranger had fallen face upwards and was staring at
her with
large golden eyes full of pain and confusion.  His face was beautiful.  A
photographer's dream, with a fine-boned structure and flawless skin.  Her
eyes didn't linger, however.  Blood soaked the front of the man's slashed
t-shirt, obliterating the design which had once advertised the taste of New
Coke.  Scratches lined his neck and part of his right cheek.  Yet all of
his attention was focused on the two tiny puncture marks on his left hand.
Guilt rose up unexpectedly to gnaw at Rachael.
	"I'm sorry," she whispered.  "I didn't mean to hurt you.  You
scared me.
You shouldn't've grabbed me like that..."  The beautiful stranger continued
to stare at her with his disturbing golden eyes, while rubbing at the fork
wound.
	Licking her lips and glancing apprehensively toward the bedroom door,
Rachael tried to stifle the fear that was threatening to overpower her.
"Who are you?" she asked, keeping her voice low.  "Who hurt you?  Is he
still here?"
	The man didn't answer.  His eyes never left hers and the door remained
uncomfortably silent.
	"Look, should I call the police or something?  I mean, what should
I..."
	A third scream rent the air and the man stiffened, turning to stare
wide-eyed at the bedroom door.
	Rachael moved into action.  Never losing her grip on the barbecue fork,
she grabbed a handful of the stranger's jacket and began to drag him toward
the front door.  Her eyes fixed on the receding bedroom door and she
realized with a start that a transformation was taking place in the mirror.
Awestruck, she saw it begin to shift and darken, then bulge like melting
plastic, crackling as if from intense heat.
	"By all the Elder Gods!" the stranger croaked in a thickly accented
voice.
"They're burning through!  They've learned how to burn through!"
	Rachael had no time to guess at the cryptic remark.  She saw a
movement in
the destroyed mirror, then watched in horror as the first creature stepped
through.  Two more followed, as though the mirror were a doorway itself.
	The trio of nightmares glared at her with tiny ruby eyes filled with
hatred and barely contained rage.  They looked like twisted versions of a
child's teddy bear, with tiny jagged teeth set in ugly shark-like mouths.
Teetering on hind legs, they brandished twisted four-fingered hands with
stiletto claws.
	As Rachael stared at them wide-eyed, the creatures began to
shape-shift.
Their new form was even more terrifying than the first.  They became
thinner and more feline, with sloped, primal brows, and sinewy muscles
rippling across their chests.  Their arms and legs stretched, elongating
and becoming powerfully muscular.  Within seconds the  transformation was
complete.  The creatures assumed a crouching position and began moving in
for the kill.







Lions, Tigers And Beasts... Oh, My!
(S)

	The sound reverberated through Rachael's body, snapping the bond of
panic
which held her in place.  Only one thought occupied her whole being as she
continued to back away, the injured stranger a dead weight dragging at her
arms.  That was to put as much distance between herself and those horrors
as possible.
	They advanced cautiously, spreading out to surround her.  She was
rapidly
running out of living room.  Her gaze darted around the room, panic
replaced by blind inspiration as her attention was caught by a glitter of
silver.  Rachael erupted into motion, loosening her hold on the stranger
and lunging for the coffee table where a tangle of keys perched
precariously on a pile of junk.
	The nearest of the beasts sprang in response to her sudden movement
with a
basso snarl, just as the fingers of her left hand closed around the
keyring.  This new sound brought her head whipping up and, for an
immeasurable amount of time which she was sure bordered on eons, she stared
past the long dagger tipped fingers into that oversized mouth filled with
too many sharp teeth.
	Instinct finally took over as she angled her body slightly to the
left and
stepped backwards.  The thing missed her chest, slamming instead into her
shoulder and side and knocking all of the air out of her body.  She stabbed
at it blindly with the barbecue fork as the force of the impact flung them
both onto the sofa.
	The beast rolled away from her with a grunt, fell off the end of
the sofa
clutching the fork firmly implanted in it's middle.  All Rachael could do
was lay  in a heap--sure she was doing a marvelous impression of a beached
fish--while her flattened lungs tried desperately to re-inflate themselves.
	The other two beasts were coming for her now and she frantically
started
trying to convince her bruised and winded body that it had to move.  One
leaped onto the coffee table and her body, which categorically had refused
to do anything two seconds earlier, responded.  She lashed out with both
feet, sending the table and its occupant crashing over and creating an
incredible cloud of ashes, paper and embers.
	She pushed off the sofa as the third beast launched, took a few
staggers
sideways and headed for the floor as her feet entangled themselves with the
stranger who had been crawling for the door.
	That mishap saved her life.  The third beast, trying unsuccessfully to
change its trajectory in a twisting graceful ballet, thudded into the wall
with enough force to knock it senseless.
	Rachael now found herself wedged between the stranger and the sofa.  As
the stranger struggled back onto hands and knees, she used the arm of the
sofa to drag herself up onto shaky legs.  There she found herself looking
across its length into two fire-filled eyes rising over the opposing arm,
her barbecue fork clutched in one clawed hand.
	That was too much.  In one movement, she flung open the door, grabbed a
handful of coat and heaved the stranger out, half-fell after him dragging
the door shut behind her.  Inside, unnoticed, a sparkling ember floated
down into a nest filled with various kinds of paper and a pile of recently
discarded film, where it began to smolder with new life.
	Outside, Rachael discovered, much to her amazement, that the
keyring was
still in her left hand.  Holding the door shut with her right and waiting
for the yank from the inside which she knew would come any second, she
fumbled left-handed through the cold metal bars until her trembling fingers
found the familiar square head of the deadbolt key.  It took two tries,
accompanied by a great deal of cussed pleading, to get the key into the
lock.  The bolt slid home with its soft hissing clunk and Rachael slid to
her knees against the barrier with rubber legged relief.
	The knob turned violently under her hand and she threw herself back
as a
howl, only slightly muffled, surged through the door accompanied by the
shriek of tearing wood.  A light touch on her shoulder sent her back toward
the door with a small scream.
	She whirled to face the wounded man who was leaning heavily against
the floral iron railing the ran the length of the balcony.
	"You must go.  They'll be through that," he made a graceful gesture
with
his hand at the door, "in no time."
	All she could do was stare at him, pale and blood-covered and
swaying so
badly he could barely keep his feet.
	"Go!" he snapped, stepping toward her and going to one knee as his legs
betrayed him.  Rachael squatted down to help as he struggled to rise.
	"Get out of here, woman, before you get hurt!"  His voice was a
harsh hiss
of combined pain and effort.
	As if on cue, a long claw stabbed through the door.  Rachael pulled
one of
his arms across her shoulders.  "We're going to stand up on three, 'kay?"
	The stranger nodded as she set her feet.
	"One, two, THREE!"
	With a heave, they were up and heading for the covered stairway at
the far
end of the balcony, staggering like drunks, the echoing howls beating with
almost physical force against their backs.