Screams filled the air as he felt himself falling. He struck the ground with such force, knocking the wind out of him. He watched in seeming detachment at the blurry images of panicked, running feet, scrambling to get away from the source of the chaos. He tried to breathe—and realized that he couldn't. A vise had been hammered into his chest, and he felt his consciousness fading—

"Stay with me, boy!" The voice was deep and commanding, filled with an otherworldly power. It reached into the spreading darkness in his mind and grasped it, and for a moment his vision cleared. Blessed numbness replaced the burning in his chest.

A man was bent over him. His face was discernible, but the rest of him was cloaked in shadows. It was a hawk-like face, handsome despite the puckered scar that ran from his left temple to just above the jawline, a face that was permanently set into lines of worry and grim determination. The silver-gray eyes held his, and for one instant he could see reflected in those eyes all the suffering of a world gone mad with grief. Only for an instant, for the man shifted his position above him, his right hand poised above the gaping wound on his chest, and from that very hand a pale, blue glow ensued.

A rush of air as his lungs heaved. One breath . . . then another . . . the metallic taste of blood rising in his throat . . . wail of sirens and red ambulance lights . . . the strange man fading, replaced by a man in white, urgency in his every word. Then nothing but agony like a thousand driven nails piercing his flesh, his silent screams one with the screams of dying children reflected in the stranger's eyes.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

David woke with a vision of tortured gray eyes staring at him. It startled him out of fitful sleep and jerked him into full awareness, heart pounding painfully.

Now that he had recovered from shock, his memory was returning. That man—was he friend or foe? He hoped fervently for the former. 'Lord knows I have very few friends left to turn to',  he thought with a catch in his throat as he remembered the plight of his grandparents.

The scarred man had helped him, somehow. He knew he wouldn't be alive right now if not for that man. 'Nothing else matters',  the boy thought desperately. 'He has the answers, whoever he is. I have to find him, and fast, before—'

He didn't know what would happen next, or what he would do. His entire world had crumbled in a way that was frightening and inexplicable, so suddenly that he felt lost. Why, why would someone want to kill him, let alone his grandparents? There was nothing extraordinary about him or either of them. The boy sighed, his questions only going round and round in circles, without any hope of answers. But a sense of urgency gripped him, a sense of impending danger and death that he couldn't shake. What do the shrinks call it? Yes, paranoia. That was probably it, probably nothing more than the delusions of a much-bewildered and worn out kid.

The boy looked at the small window by his left, at the city lights and the rapidly darkening sky. He hadn't expected to be out this long, but his constant worry and troubled thoughts always seemed to drain him of what little strength he had gained.

Again, he felt the perception of danger, stronger this time, and impossible to ignore. His entire frame tensed.

From somewhere outside his room he heard a muffled cry, quickly extinguished. Cold terror like icy fingers ran along his spine. 'No, this can't be happening again. This isn't real!'  Panicked thought was replaced by silent, half-crazed laughter-- 'You've been watching too many movies, kid. This is real! . . . Get up and get the hell out, now!'

Gritting his teeth, he tried to rise, his arms shaking from weakness. The room was spinning crazily as his hands grasped the bed rails. He pulled himself up—and blacked out.

When he came to, he was sprawled on the cold tiled floor, sheets tangled about his limbs. He tried to move and groaned as pain sliced along his ribs. His right arm throbbed where one of the I.V. catheters was wrenched violently from his fall. A bad fall, he thought muzzily as his vision swirled. The monitors' leads had been dislodged from their attachments, and the tiny red light was blinking frantically. Strangely, no one came to check on the alarms.

Something was wrong with his eyes—they weren't focusing well. He knew he was going to pass out again and he fought for consciousness. Through the haze that clouded his sight he saw the door slide open on silent hinges—to a scene from one of his childhood nightmares.

The body of a cop was slumped on the hallway floor, horror-filled eyes staring vacantly. Then a black shape stepped over the body, black cloak trailing blood.

David closed his eyes tightly, willing the nightmare away. 'No, this is a dream. Anytime I'll wake up and it'll go away.'

But when he opened his eyes the vision did not fade.

This was a different man, taller and paler, but with the same dark, malevolent eyes that heralded death. As the man drew near, the boy saw that this was something other than human. It glided, rather than walked, and its cloak was like a second skin, an exoskeleton that was supple and leathery. It had only four bloody fingers on each hand, and the fingers were tapered into long, razor-sharp claws. Something constantly moved within the cloak, like the writhing of a hundred snakes.

: So we finally meet, Child of Night.: