“I'm really sorry about this, Frank. I know you were off doing...well, whatever it is you do.”

Frank grunted softly in answer. He really didn't have very much to say at this point as he and Reggie, the man who ran the apartment stack in Darkside that Frank had been calling home both walked up the stairs to the building. Nearby, the men and women of the ghetto haggled and bartered in the Haitian Market, a collection of stalls, tents and kiosks that offered just about anything a person could want. And more than a few things a person probably shouldn't have.

Once upon a time Frank had lived in Finsbury. After the events that saw the restructuring of ARTEMIS, the fall of Inquisitor Grey and Frank's own demotion and prison time, he hadn't been able to afford the place in Finsbury any more. And with Kelly Doyle unable to provide him a temporary home due to interference from her room-mate, Frank had been forced to seek out the only place with rent he could manage: Darkside.

It certainly wasn't the most glamorous location, Frank knew as Reggie pulled keys from his tattered blue coat and opened up the main door to the stack. There were more than a few unsavory characters that called Darkside home; gutter mages, failed occultists, thieves, and so on. The electricity sometimes failed when the trains went over head. Occasional duels between young (and incredibly stupid) society members woke residents at odd hours of the night.

As the two started up the stairs to the second floor, where Frank's apartment was, Frank considered the other side of the Darkside coin. There were also some very hard working, incredibly generous folk here as well. People whose main 'crime' in life was simply not having an overabundance of funds. Young students. Working class men and women who helped keep Ealdwic running so that the monied and magically powerful could enjoy it. Refugees fleeing various corners of the world that had grown too dangerous to continue to call home.

As they came up to his door, the dreadlocked Reggie leading the way, Frank sighed. He'd never had troubles with his neighbors before.

The great grandson of Jamaican immigrants sighed as well, and gestured at the door. When he spoke, it was with the accent of a Londoner born and bred.

“Well, mate. You can see what they did. Just like the pictures I sent you.” Frank nodded.

A Templar cross with a Nazi swastika imposed over it. Frank had heard the usual bullshit from those who would criticize the Hall. 'Fascists.' 'Bigots.' And so on.

As he braced himself for what he'd find inside, Frank began to smirk. Those same people would be screaming for protection if a strigoi was trying to rip out their internal organs.

“Open 'er up, Reg.”

Nodding, Reggie unlocked the door. Out of respect for Frank, he'd kept the place locked up until he could arrive. The door had been swinging open when Reggie discovered what had been done.

It hadn't ended with the graffiti on the door.

The old CRT television was in pieces, the screen nothing more than a fine, silvery dust scattered all over the floor. His small coffee table was split in two. Shattered and splintered too were his lamp and end table. The two men walked slowly through the living room to the kitchen, to find that the few dishes Frank actually owned were now shards and remnants. The only saving grace here was that Frank hadn't left any foodstuffs or drink in his minifridge. At least nothing like that was strewn about as well.

When they reached his bedroom, Frank was dreading what he would find. Things had been bad enough thus far. Shuffling inside, nudging aside bits of splintered furniture that had been tossed this far, his heart sank even further.

The bed had never been anything to write home about; some of his friends had carpet that was more comfortable to sleep on. Now no one would be sleeping on the bed, as it looked like a werewolf had gutted it. A werewolf made of swords, maybe. Shredded and ruined, it sagged in on itself like a corpse.

His chest of drawers, found put out for garbage day in Ealdwic one weekend, had been pulverized into wood fragments and chips. The few spare clothes he had were rags now, tossed about the room like confetti.

Neither of those things, however, were what hurt him the most.

Frank didn't keep many valuables. His weapons and foci were some of the most expensive things monetarily, and he had all of those with him on Solomon Island where he was mentoring a initiate Templar. He didn't have old trophies or expensive souvenirs from around the world.

What he had were picture frames. Images of friends, fellow Templars, and also his family.

All were broken, torn, and destroyed, stomped into the floor. Bending down, Frank found the slivers and torn photograph that had once been his graduation photo with his parents and his sister. It was the only picture he had in London that had Lauren in it. In it, he knew Lauren had linked an arm in his, smiling shyly at the camera from behind a veil of dark brown hair.

It was the only physical thing he had left of his baby sister, he knew as he stood again, holding the ruined pieces in his hands. And now his mystery vandal had taken even that as well. Exhaling a long, mournful breath, Frank let the pieces fall to the floor again and leaned towards a wall, resting his forehead against it.

Reggie retreated from the room, letting him stand in there for a few minutes. Frank stayed put for a time, just breathing in and out raggedly. When he'd first gotten the news from Reggie on the island, his anger had been volcanic. The destruction came a single day after the nonsense of the Illuminati organized 'Keep Ealdwic Neutral' meeting, a shit-stirring 'protest' rally that everyone and their brother knew was just another way for the Hall's enemies to take pot shots at it. Declare that the Reds were trying to conquer Ealdwic. As if the Order hadn't already been watching over the town for centuries.

For how seriously could a protest leader be taken when they loudly proclaimed they were fighting for independence and freedom and tolerance but worked for an organization that psychoconditioned the masses, tampered with the water supply to make people more compliant, and ensured the loyalty of their employees with fucking spinal bombs? And then someone wrecked his apartment, leaving a graffiti calling card suggesting they were 'fighting Templar oppression.'

Oh yes. Frank had been ready to crack one particular Lumies skull especially.

Now that he was here, though, Frank wasn't angry. Not really.

Now he was just weary. And sad. Bone achingly sad.

Leaving behind the tattered remains of better memories, Frank joined Reggie in the hallway.

“Anything?” Reggie had his hands stuffed into his pockets, now and then looking back into the wrecked living room. Frank shook his head.

“Naw. They were...thorough. No one saw anything?”

Shrugging heavily, Reggie waved a hand at the destruction.

“No one, Frank. And, mate, let me tell you: there's some good people still here. If they had seen something, they'd have said. No one saw anything, no one heard anything.”

Grimacing, Frank rested his chin on his chest, putting his hands on his hips.

“Magic.”

“Seems that way. This is Darkside.”

For several moments neither man spoke again, just standing there in the ruins.

“Frank,” Reggie then began slowly, “you don't have to worry about the deposit. That goes without saying. But...”

Drawing up his head once more, Frank looked over at the stack owner.

“But what, Reg?”

“But...the people here are scared now. The protest rally, the Templar patrols that came through here the next night...and now this happens. I think most people here like you, Frank, but now they're afraid violence is going to come again, and next time it might hit them. It'll come again because you're here.”

Giving the dreadlocked man an exasperated look, Frank spread his hands wide.

“Are...are you telling me I can't live here? Seriously, Reggie?”

“I've had a lot of frightened people in my office over the past few hours. I'm not...Frank, I'm not evicting you man, I just...Frank, I think it'd be better for everyone if you left. I'm sorry.”

With a sigh that made him feel like he was completely deflating, Frank perched on the edge of the torn and slashed couch in the living room.

“Give me tonight.”

“I...of course. I'm sorry. I'm sorry about this.”

“Reggie...get out. Just get the hell out.”

Looking more than a little deflated himself, Reggie nodded and went to the door. Before walking out, he looked over the damage one more time.

“Such a waste,” he whispered. “Such a bloody stupid, petty, waste.”

“Stupid fuckin' bitch,” snarled the backwoods Templar as he stared up at the undamaged ceiling light. It was virtually the only thing in his apartment that hadn't been completely undone.

Perhaps whoever did this wanted him to be able to see everything in detail.

Frank took another pull from his...fourth? Fifth? From one of his bottles of cheap beer, anyway. He'd gone into Darkside and bought a six pack of some off-brand that he didn't recognize. Now he was doing his best to put them all away as he sat there cursing the person he held responsible for this.

“All some big joke, huh? Is this a joke too?” He waved his bottle at the debris that had been his home, speaking aloud to the empty air. That Tess Auerbach's 'protest' had been political theater was beyond doubt. Hell, at certain points it was the Punch and Judy of political theater. Most anyone with sense could see it.

And yet there were no doubt elements on all sides that took it seriously. Templars that had always seen Ealdwic and Darkside as some kind of...some kind of foreign soil to assert control over for their own safety surely saw their arguments strengthened in their minds. Dragon or Illuminati or others that just needed an excuse for their mayhem.

He grunted sharply as he took another drink. That was something, also. 'Just needed an excuse.' This could have nothing to do with Tess's shenanigans. Nothing at all. It was a very real possibility, but in his angry, drunken state it wasn't one he much cared for.

“So fuckin' stupid,” he muttered under his breath at the now empty bottle. The attempts to make ones faction look better than another, the competition, the insults, the out and out assassinations and theft and arson and worse...

Didn't people know there was a fucking war on? That if they didn't win, the entire human race lost? Didn't people get that?

No. Not everyone did.

Tova Stolt had told him, on several occasions, that he was dangerously naive. The societies had weathered 'end of the world' scenarios before; this wasn't something new for them. The indomitable Swede had lectured him like a parent to a recalcitrant child.

“Agent Calhoun, the societies continue to struggle against one another because at some point the present crisis will pass. The day will be saved, the world will be more or less intact, and thus still a prize to be fought over. You need to understand this,” she had told him, looking over the rims of her reading glasses as he stood before her desk.

“You need to,” she had continued firmly as he started to object. “Your 'friends' and acquaintances from other factions are just assets to be used. You must see them this way, Agent Calhoun, because they surely see you that way. Good God, man. Look at how we vie against each other within the Order of the Templars. It's much, much worse outside of it.”

His former senior controller from ARTEMIS, now the head of 'Department F' had been proven correct about conflict within the Order when Inquisitor Grey had launched his personal war against their cabal. Lives had been lost, precious resources squandered. Frank put into prison.

If Stolt had been right about that, was she right about this as well?

Frank didn't want her to be right. He wanted to believe that there were men and women that saw past the differences of society to what mattered. He wanted those friendships of his to be real.

He wanted to believe there could be something more than being jerked around on a puppeteers strings.

Giving a short bark of a sardonic laugh, Frank shook his head. Maybe that's what hurt the worst. The idea that maybe Tess really wasn't responsible for this, but was just being pulled to and fro. That he was being pulled to and fro.

That all of them were in the same boat, the same hopeless, stupid boat. And there really wasn't anything to be done but travel on the current towards the falls.

It was then there was a knock at the door. Frank shouted a barely intelligible obscenity and threw the empty bottle at the door.

“Go away!”

A thin, reedy voice answered.

“Ah, okay! Okay Mister Frank! Will be coming back later...”

God damnit. Frank recognized that voice. It was Florian, someone he considered a friend from the neighborhood.

“Jesus,” Frank muttered, then called out more loudly. “Florian! Hang on son, jus'...hang on.”

Heaving himself off what was left of his couch, Frank stumbled through the flotsam and jetsam of his apartment to the door, and threw it open. Florian was already halfway down the hall.

Blajini could really motor when they wanted to.

“Florian...I'm sorry. I thought...hell, I dunno. Thought maybe you was someone else.”

The little fae crept back. Frank had met the diminutive creature and his family the first week he'd been in Darkside. In fact, they'd welcomed him before his human neighbors had. Over the months, he'd gotten to know them better. Florian worked repair and maintenance jobs in Ealdic and Darkside; his small size allowed him to get into spaces far beyond humans and that meant he was paid decently, if not always treated well. His wife Irina stayed at their home on Coal Walk, raising their son and daughter, occasionally picking up extra money knitting.

Florian also played the ukulele. To be more specific, he played it while singing Johnny Cash songs. Frank half-jokingly called him the Blajini in Black as a compliment. Frank was one of the few Darksiders that found the blajini's musical mayhem entertaining.

“Am not someone else, Frank, am myself!” Florian shook his head a bit and looked up at Frank expectantly.

“Florian...c'mon in. Place is...not in great shape right now.” Frank waved his arm vaguely inside the apartment, and Florian followed him inside. Frank pushed the broken bits of the bottle aside with his boot, then cast about for something for the blajini to sit on.

Finally he walked over and grabbed one of the milk crates that had helped keep his TV upright. Not much of a seat for a human, but overturned it was the perfect size for a blajini.

Nodding his thanks, Florian sat down. Only now Frank noticed that he had brought along his ukulele and a basket. Before he could inquire as to what was in there, Florian started to talk again.

“We know,” he began softly, then stopped, folding his hands on his lap. Frank cocked his head, and he started again.

“We know what it is like, blajini. We know what it is like to have to leave. Be forced from your home. In the old country, the monsters would dig down if we lived underneath. They would burn our houses if we built above. Hum. Always taking from us. Our goods...and our neighbors...would lay in the snow...”

His thin voice trailed off, and Frank bowed his head, nodding. The blajini that called Ealdwic or Darkside home had come from Transylvania. Targets of violent predation by larger, more malevolent fae or creatures like strigoi and varculac, some blajini had chosen to say goodbye to their ancestral homes and journey here, the supposed neutral capitol of the secret world.

Some didn't always find the area to be a safe haven. Florian, Irina and their children had been among the newcomers and refugees targeted by a small time occult gang operating in Darkside. The gang tried to run a protection scheme, and given the ghettos marginalized status, neither the Templars nor the special Met detachment in Ealdwic did much about it.

Frank, and a few others, had. There had been no fatalities, but there had been quite a few broken bones and noses before the gang was driven out. The memory caused Frank to bring his head up a bit.

Maybe that was who had done this? Jesus H Christ. The more he thought, the longer the list of potential suspects got.

“So, yes. We know. And you have always been good to us, Mister Frank. When we hear from Mister Reggie that this happened, we want to help, so...”

Florian picked up the basket, and handed it to Frank, rousing him from his suspicious pondering. Anima enhanced senses picked up where his alcohol addled faculties left off. He could smell bread. Taking the small cloth off the basket, Frank found a braided bread that reminded him of a wreath.

“Is colaci,” explained Florian. “Irina made it. Is for holidays, weddings...funerals.”

Frank grunted softly. It was appropriate. And he'd had nothing but booze so far...

He gave Florian a murmured 'thank you' before tearing off a hunk and quickly eating. He was hungrier than he thought. Then Frank noticed there were bottles of water inside the basket as well. Glancing over at his blajini friend, Frank arched an eyebrow.

Florian returned the look with an evasive expression.

“...Mister Reggie said you were also hitting the bottles. So. Water.”

Blinking for a second, Frank then chuckled dryly, nodding as he ate.

“Th' expression is hittin' th' bottle.” Florian looked unconvinced as he noted the number of beer bottles around the couch.

“Mmm. Am thinking I have expression correct.”

Laughing out loud this time, Frank took a bottle of water, conceding the point. He'd likely still have a hell of a hangover tomorrow, but maybe this would help. He then tore some more pieces from the colaci and handed it to Florian, along with some water.

For some time they ate and drank in silence, a small island of normalcy in the maelstrom that was his heavily vandalized apartment. Frank had no idea what time it even was. Given the ebb and flow of life in Darkside, it could have been any time at all.

“I am hearing...that you will not stay here. What will you do, Mister Frank?”

Turning his head to look at Florian, he could see the blajini was watching him intently, small dark eyes bright as he turned over his piece of colaci in his hands, digging claws rotating the bread slowly.

Frank thought that over, his thoughts convoluted. He'd received some offers of assistance so far. Many of those, however, came from members of other societies. Stolt's words came back to him. Were the offers of help really just other ways to string along someone they viewed as 'an asset?' Grunting harshly, Frank shook his head back and forth once.

“I dunno yet, Florian. I really dunno.”

“Mmm.”

As Frank chewed on the bread (it really was pretty good; no wonder it was for special occasions), Florian piped up again.

“You are knowing, I think, how small blajini are.”

Quirking an eyebrow, Frank nodded, taking another slug from his water bottle.

“Uh, yeah, th' fact has not escaped me...”

“Yes. Very small. Here, though, all the houses and apartments are built for the world of men. Is quite funny sometimes! Our family in our new home here, with such a big place! Well. When compared,” Florian said in his heavily accented English, grinning toothily.

“Mmmhmm. I bet it's kinda weird sometimes.”

“It is hard finding blajini sized furniture. But, the point. Ah. Mister Frank...as said, we blajini are very small, and our home is built for larger people...we have...extra room...”

Realization finally dawned on Frank and he blinked at Florian in surprise. The little fae gave him an earnest look, mole-like face wrinkling up in sincerity.

“You will not be homeless. If things are bad, well...you will come live with us. You will come live with my Irina and my children. We will make a home for you, Mister Frank.”

Frank was at a loss for words. Mistaking his silence for doubt, Florian rolled on ahead.

“Irina and I have already discussed this! We have room! Yes, no human sized furniture, but that will be an easier find than blajini! Though...will probably look funny, mismatched furniture...”

For a moment, Frank was completely overwhelmed, and he felt he might just start crying right there. Part of that was the beer.

Part of that was while his other friends made offers of help from places of abundance, Florian and his family were acting from a place of scarcity. And still, they were willing to open their home to him. Finally Frank was able to speak again.

“I'm...obliged, Florian. I'm obliged and grateful somethin' powerful,” he croaked out, running a hand over his eyes. As he did, he remembered what Florian had said about their life in the old country.

“But...Florian, I do not want t' put m'self in a position t' take from y'all.”

Florian tutted, waving a hand at Frank.

“Oh, Mister Frank Calhoun. It is not you taking. Is us giving. There is much, much difference.”

Grinning crookedly back at Florian, Frank nodded, a plan suddenly forming in his head.

“Fair 'nuff. But I'm still gonna have t' decline. I'm not gonna put that kinda strain on you and yours...however.”

The blajini cocked his head to the side, small eyes inquisitive.

“You mentionin' mismatched stuff...an' givin'... has given me an idea. An idea 'bout how I can let folks like you help me...an' me not put a strain on you or anyone else.”

“Ah! Well, that is good! That is good, yes?”

“Yeah. It's good.” With that Frank lifted his water bottle in a toast, and Florian tapped his own bottle to Frank's with a plastic sounding 'clack.'

“Then I am pleased. But what is the idea?”

Frank winked back.

“It's a surprise.”