"On your way? To?"
    We're not sure yet, Adam said. Something evil.
    She did a double-take as she realized that he wasn't actually talking. None of her Eyes had mentioned this!
    "We're probably going to be starting at the saw-mill, which seems to be the source of all evil. Or at least its refining point," Kane told her.
    As they spoke, lights appeared in the sky over Mt. Katahdin.
    "You know, I knew there was something we forgot," the vampire mused. "Got distracted by all the werewolves."
    Astro-Man immediately deduced that the light was not extra-terrestrial in origin, nor was it a meteor shower. "I don't believe it's ball lightning." It might be a very unusual aurora....
    "It's summer; maybe it's swamp gas," Kane opined.
    "I doubt there are swamps up in the mountains." He wasn't quite used to Kane's form of humor yet. "This phenomenon is fascinating; after we defeat the evil I'll have to go and investigate it.
    A woman walked out of the woods. Kane headed off his immediate instinct, which was to point his gun at her.
    "You sent a card," Yasmina Rajid's astral form said.
    "Good evening, ma'am. Just being polite." He hoped.
    "Something has gone very, very wrong. I am checking in now because I have just lost contact with everyone in the town," she informed them. "It is fortunate that you are here; I am too far away to be able to deal with the problem. I trust that I should be able to issue directives to you, and given your position, that they will be followed," her ancient eyes bore calmly into Kane's. "I don't think there are any directives that you would have any particular problems with, merely restore all the townsfolk in as good a condition as you can, prevent the destruction of the world as we know it, and see that the worshippers of Xyrgoth do not rule upon us."
    "No, I don't think either myself, my associates, or any of the people I work for would have problems with those," he agreed. After all, alien invasion was on the form.
    Astro-Man, for his part, assumed that the strange woman worked for the PAA.
    Argus checked her radio. "Terry?"
    "Yes, mistress?"
    "Just checking. How is everything?"
    "I'm getting reports in right now; everything is very strange."
    "Strange how?" she asked nervously.
    "You do realize it's 11:58? You've been in the woods four hours." Pause. "11:59. Midnight. 12:02."
    "Fascinating. I'm surprised we can maintain radio contact under this kind of temporal distortion. They're accelerating local time to meet their deadline."
    "They're probably accelerating local time to keep these wandering weirdoes who show up in town at inappropriate moments from fucking up their plans," Kane diagnosed.
    "Astro-Man, can you estimate how much time we have, at the accelerated rate?" she asked.
    He dropped the invisible force field he had been using and looked at the movement of the sky. The midnight of the new moon would occur in approximately eight hours. "If they're doing this to the whole world this must involve dimensional distortion of some kind...." He would be able to use his planetary aspects for only perhaps ten minutes at a time without risking transformation.
    Do we have enough bullets for three days? Adam wondered.
    "Got lots," Argus assured him, patting her gun.
    "There's plenty back in the room," Kane added.
    "Mistress? People have run back to the store, everyone else in town is gone."
    "Gone?"
    "Gone."
    "Vanished where they were standing, or walked out?"
    "There was a flash of light."
    "Bugger."
    "The hotel is empty," Terry continued. "There was a blurring flash of light, people have disappeared, there only seems--wait a minute--William's dragging Edgar in."
    "Into the store?" Why was he doing that?
    "Getting closer. We may need you here for this, mistress."
    "I'm on my way. We've got trouble in town, guys," she said over her shoulder, putting the bike in gear and heading back along the road.
    Astro-Man followed her with super-speed. "What's wrong?"
    "I'm not entirely sure, but everyone in town disappeared in a flash of light, except apparently for some people I had there. I think they may be in trouble."
    Left behind, Maybe we should go on to Ambajejus? Adam suggested.
    Kane shook his head. "If this is all going down tonight, I think we need more bullets. And the gorilla-sized shotgun."
    That's a good point.
    "Besides, in town we can steal a truck or something," he theorized as they jogged along after the others.
    The glowing lights were still there on the mountain.
    All five of her Eyes were at the store, as there was no one left in town to watch. Two of them were holding down Edgar.
    "You gotta--let me--go!" he yelled, thrashing.
    "Gentlemen," Argus said from the doorway.
    Edgar quieted down, staring at her and Astro-Man. "Who're you people? You gotta let me go!"
    "We found him raving, looked like he was trying to break into the store, get at the alcohol," William explained.
    "I don't suppose you know anything about the disappearance of the rest of the townsfolk?" she asked Edgar.
    "I didn't think it was really gonna happen!"
    "What was really gonna happen? We have very little time, Edgar, please speak clearly."
    "Wolfgang, when he took over, he insisted that everyone move back to Ambajejus, and it kind of sucked Ścause I was used to being the only person there, and then all of the sudden all of my relatives are turning up. And I don't much care for them, and they generally only kept me around because, well, they're not allowed to kill me and all. Um. Even though I knew what they were doing before and then, you know, the old man had died last time, I figured that's it, it's all over, it's not going to happen. Then instead even more foreigners showed up before we could do everything, and they decided--Wolfgang said they were going to go through the whole thing again, it's just this time it was going to be baptism rather than birth, and I don't know whether that's going to be more powerful or not, I don't know! They let me in on all the meetings Ścause they figured I was part of the family and I--I don't know what's going on!" he insisted, almost sobbing.
    "Lovely," she murmured.
     "But they said that they were gonna use everyone who wasn't blood in the town. So...."
    "Where?"
    "Up on top of the mountain. Where things get weird, and...."
    "Where the strange atmospheric conditions are currently?" Astro-Man inquired.
    "Where the lights are. Halfway up the mountain where my plane crashed and where the men who were invisible in the snow KILLED EVERYBODY...."
    Kane and Adam arrived, almost relieved to see Edgar acting the way they considered normal.
    "Evening Edgar," Kane greeted him.
    "Mr. Roberts! They didn't get you."
    "No. I don't suppose you and your gentlemen here would happen to have a truck?" he asked Argus.
    "Why yes, in fact we do. You men stay here," she told her Eyes. "Break out the weapons, keep Edgar here."
    "Yes, mistress."
    "Don't let him drink anything. It's for your own good, Edgar."
    

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