Blackness enveloped Gersen. He struck back, blasting flame from his hands and mouth. The flames were each comparatively weak, since he had to spread them out, but they worked; the shadow retreated and he could see the streetlight again. What he couldn't see was his assailant, and that worried him. He wasn't stupid; to solidify shadows like this, to control them, that was superhuman level stuff. He couldn't remember seeing any Avengers with stuff like this on the news, and it definitely wasn't Spider-man's thing. The X-Men didn't often get involved in gang warfare, and this wasn't the Punisher's style. That already ruled out a lot of the possibles. So, enough with the good guys - what were the odds the blue-hairs had somehow managed to hire a supervillain?

But he knew next to nothing about most of those, anyway - and the ones he did know about tended to either be the big shots or the ones who were forever getting shoved in the Vault. He was reasonably certain it wasn't any of those.

So, what had he got?

Zilch. This was going to be fun.

He started moving, walking backward down the street with the occasional glance in the direction he was going, waiting for the shadow to catch up with him; waiting - above all - for a shot at whatever was producing this.

Back at the site of his original ambush, Lazarus stood in the shadow, watching Gersen's retreat. One of the blue-hairs emerged from a nearby doorway.

"Sadistic bastard, aren't you?" The tone, though faintly respectful, somehow managed to border on the contemptuous. Lazarus expanded his awareness until he felt the bundled mess of respect and contempt. Pushing down the contempt, he increased the respect.

"What works, works," he said. With that, he stepped back into the shadow.

The youth looked at the darkness speculatively for a moment. Then he stuck one hand in, feeling he was alone - and felt only brick wall. He swore to himself, under his breath. They'd hired a damn mutant...

This time, Gersen answered Slee's call.

"Yeah?"

"What the hell are you playing at, kid? You opened fire on police officers last night!"

"What?"

"You opened fire on police officers." The voice was cold now, condemning.

"I opened fire on a bunch of morons with blue hair. That's all. Who told you I attacked cops?"

"The officers who only just dodged a giant fireball."

"OK..." Gersen paused for a second to think. "Did this fireball by any chance take out a number of the blue-haired idiots en route?"

"Well... yes."

"There you go."

There was a pause. Gersen occupied it by diving away as a shadow near him seemed to flicker, but he wasn't attacked.

"Look, kid, the fact remains you risked the lives of officers in pursuit of their duties."

"You're not usually that up yourself," Gersen replied, picking himself up and getting moving again. "So I'm gonna assume you've bought my story and you're just toeing the official line. So here's an unoffical warning; if I buy it now, and it's not because of a cop, you've got a worse problem on your hands. Some guy's trying to kill me, and he's using the damn shadows!"

Slee paused again. "What?"

"Someone keeps attacking me with living shadow. This is not a pleasant experience. I don't know how good he is but I figure if he beats me he's probably going to be a worse problem for you."

"He hasn't killed thirty people in eleven nights."

"No? Well, eleven nights ago, neither had I. You think that makes me any less dangerous?"

Gersen took the intersection at a run, which ultimately meant he was forced to vault up onto the bonnet of a car, step across, and leap down. He nearly lost his balance on landing, but held it and kept going. Forward motion helped.

It was two in the morning. Where the hell could he go, there wasn't going to be any shadow?

The answer, once it came to him, was obvious. Any public toilet. Try the nearest bar, but good luck getting as far as the lav.

He kept going.

"No. Look, kid-"

"Desert Fire." If he was going down, he'd at least have this cop respect him before he did.

"Desert Fire, fine. Look, if you think you're in this much danger, why don't you turn yourself in?"

"I'd rather go out in a blaze of glory." Gersen hung up and shoved his way past the bouncers, into a club. Looked like an upmarket one, he thought as he kept on going, but damn it. He was gonna hole up in the toilets 'till he'd lost this shadow guy, then bust his way out and head home. They'd call the cops if their bouncers had problems, but he could take a couple patrolmen and be gone, no problem. These guys wouldn't be after Desert Fire, just after some nutcase. It wasn't a problem.

Lazarus emerged from the shadows opposite the club and regarded it for an instant before fading back into darkness and emerging inside the club. He caught the back view of the killer with the ponytail as it disappeared into the brightly-lit toilets.

Good thinking, he thought. Pretty quick on his feet, to have worked out countermeasures by now. Most people would still be trying to figure out what exactly was attacking them - and consequently, they'd be dead by now.

But there are shadows even in the best-lit of places. Behind doors folded back, for instance.

He was about to dissolve back into shadow and emerge in the toilets when he saw the first bouncer crash in after the killer. The second was on his way, but had been delayed by having to pick himself off the floor after Gersen went past. He decided to give it thirty seconds before he entered.

"You kept him talking long enough, boss. We got a trace."

"We know where he was?"

"Yeah."

"OK. Not going to help us on it's own, but get down to Dispatch and keep an ear out for calls in that area." Slee rubbed his tired face. "I got the impression something big was going down where he was, and he was involved. So we've got a chance."

Three minutes later, when the bouncers hadn't dragged the intruder out, the barman discreetly dialled 911.

Lazarus emerged in an empty cubicle, dropping a foot to the floor. The shadow was caused by an open door against the wall of the cubicle, and stopped where the cubicle stopped being solid and became simply supports. Taking the fall meant that he banged against the door, knocking it forwards. He tensed, expecting flames... but Gersen still hadn't quite finished with the bouncers, and the sound went unnoticed as he smacked one of their heads into a sink.

The white porcelain came loose from the wall, and smashed into the floor before Gersen dropped the injured bouncer so that his head struck it. He turned back to deal with the other one, and the world went black.

Gersen flared off his power, driving the darkness back a few feet. He and the bouncer stood in a circle of visibility amid a world of darkness. The circle was only lit by the orb of fire Gersen had suspended between them.

He dropped down below it's level and took the bouncer's feet out from under him with a neat little kick, then reached up and plunged his hand into the ball of fire while getting a solid grip on the man with his other hand.

The light dimmed as he drew the fire back inside, before slamming his palm into the bouncer's face and letting the flame burst forth again. That done, he belched forth another fireball to drive the suffocating darkness back far enough to see the exit, and went with it.

A tendril of blackness snaked out from behind him and caught him around the ankle, yanking him to the floor. He hit with an audible thud, but quickly twisted and directed another jet of flame at the tendril of Darkforce just beyond his ankle. It blazed for a second and he began to scramble up, only to be hit in the face with another limb.

"Let's move," Slee said. "Again."

"We got him?"

Slee hesitated for a moment before nodding. "Yeah," he said. "For once, I genuinely think we've got him."

"About bloody time," his partner said phlegmatically.

Lazarus Jones and Jack Gersen were both pushing their abilities to the limit. Each Darkforce tendril sent forth was burned back. It didn't harm the energy construct, but it did dissipate the darkness that held it together, and that was all Gersen needed.

Lazarus kept trying different emotions on Gersen, but he was fast learning how stubborn the young mutant could be. Fear just made Gersen intensify his flames; an eerie calm made his aim better. Even an air of resignation left Gersen blasting all of the tendrils away, and Lazarus - not for the first time - cursed his inability to use actual telepathy. He wanted to know why Gersen kept blasting when resigned to his fate - and he knew the mutant was; he could sense emotions well enough for that.

The truth was Gersen was already resigned to his fate, but beneath that was a stubborn core. He never intended to go down to an assault without making it a Pyrrhic victory at best. Not to someone he'd already decided was a criminal.

Slee's car pulled up outside the club. The detectives jumped out of the car and ran inside; giving the barman the most cursory flash of their ID possible; the two patrolmen who'd already responded were standing outside the toilet, making their destination obvious. Guns drawn, they ducked inside.

Slee felt for the light switch. He flipped it several times before accepting it wasn't going to make any difference. All there was to guide them was the seemingly random jet of flame Gersen produced every couple of seconds. He sat on the floor, ready to move, watchful, blasting flame into the darkness.

Slee knew it wasn't exactly procedure, but against Gersen he wasn't willing to take chances. He stepped forward and touched the muzzle of his pistol to the back of Gersen's head. "Police, kid. You're under arrest."

He felt the kid tense, but got the impression it wasn't due to him. The kid's head didn't turn in the slightest; whatever had occupied his attention this far continued to occupy it.

"Hello, Detective," he said, evenly. "I already told you, though - it's Desert Fire." He paused, his head cocking slightly. "I was wondering what was going to break the stalemate," he said thoughtfully. "Didn't think it'd be you, somehow. Should have known; with my luck you were bound to find me. I won't ask how."

One of the patrolmen clicked on his Mag-Lite, flicking it's light into the depths of the room. It passed over the unconscious bouncer, rested for a moment on the charred face of his partner, and skipped into a patch of darkness that didn't lighten.

"That's what I'm up against," Gersen said.

"So you're another death up, eh?" Slee muttered.

"I got swamped," Gersen said, simply. "Had to burn to get out of it. Still not out of it now."

"Here," Slee's partner asked, inquiringly, "where's the flamethrower or whatever?"

Gersen raised a hand, palm flatly open. The emptiness reassured the policemen. When his palm faced the ceiling, Jack Gersen unleashed a bolt of fire through it. It burst against the ceiling and blackened the tiles - though this would not be discovered until later; the ceiling was blackness once the flame was consumed.

At the same time as the blast Gersen rolled sideways, out from under Slee's barrel; and that was what sealed the detective's fate. Lazarus, watching the scene, had decided to strike hard, crushing Gersen against the wall. The darkforce construct missed Gersen as he dodged but struck Slee , topping out just below the waist. It shoved him backward, smashing his lower half into the wall. Slee had risen slightly, driven a little up and over by the impact, but still all but lost his legs. The bones were shattered instantly. His pistol clattered to the floor.

"Damn it!" Gersen yelled, unleashing as much flame as he could muster in the direction of the shadow. At the same time, the police opened up with their guns.

Lazarus just made it inside a darkforce shield in time, but the protective sheath he stood in limited his movement severely. The bullets' impact against it stunned him, and he dropped backward. The darkness flickered and went.

Slee, no longer supported by the construct, slumped forward, but his partner caught him just in time.

Gersen heaved a deep sigh. He could try to fight his way out of there, but there was no way in hell he'd get past three guns without being injured - and that'd lead to the finger of suspicion reaching him at work. Apart from which, he'd finally been seen properly by the cops; admittedly only in the light of his own flames, but he could be seen easily now. He rose, hands up. "All right, Detective. You got me."

The patrolmen cuffed the dazed Lazarus and hustled him away. Gersen watched him go, and laid odds on him being out again as soon as he woke up properly. That shadow thing was a damn neat trick...