The taxi sped away from the woman dressed in beige trousers and jacket, her hair covered by a hijab. Walking up the path to the derelict RV parked next to what looked like a well, the woman fished out a pendent shapped like a serpent biting it's tale with gleaming crystals for eyes. Knocking on the door she heard a shutter open and saw suspicious looking eyes staring down at her.

"I'm here in behalf of the Zombie Master." The woman stated as she held the pendant up for the doorsman to see.

"Your late." The doorman croaked as he closed the shutter and oppened the door to reveal a short stocky reptillian figure with bulging yellow eyes dressed in a blue jumpsuit. "The Oracle is already waiting to brief us on the mission."

"You're my partner in this?" The woman sighed in an annoyed voice. "Who exactly are you?"

"Engineer Tolliver, formally of the Tribbitite Third Assault Fleet." The reptillian figure stated as he inflated his chest with an heir of  self importance. "I know who you are, the Grandmaster informed me of your past sins."

"Grandmaster? I remember when Hannigan was a lay witchling with almost no magic." The woman told Tolliver as they entered the RV's main living space. "This has gone..." She stopped as she entered the space, her eyes locking with those of the dark haired greek woman, at least from the waist up, positioned behind a wide open brazier supporting a purple flame.

"..to her butt. That's how the saying goes yes?" Tolliver finished as the Oracle slightly shifted the brown serpent tail streched behind her stealing focus from her beautiful face and the blue and white tunuc that barely contained her ample boosom.

"Come, see the horror of the future." The snake woman ordered as the two visitors clustered around the brazier. As they did an image of a city appeared in the flame, as did a monstorous figure its maw wide open as it swallowed the lights of the buildings, plunging the streets into darkness.

"A photovore?" The woman asked the Oracle as the flames extinguished themselves. "Where is it attacking?"

"And when?" Tolliver added as he put a scaly hand on his chin.

"Paris twenty years from now." The Oracle stated as she fished her own pendent matching the one the woman wore, with Tolliver following suit. "It is why the Order of the Serpentine Ring was resurected by Malcom Drake and Sarah Hannigan, to use less than light magic to combat dark forces. The photovore comes from here, it can be stopped before it emerges."

"I don't have magic." The woman stated as she tried to shake the terrible vision of the future from her mind. "Not after it was taken from me."

"You feign bitterness Barbara Robb, but it was not your magic that Hannigan requires from you." The Oracle announced as flames suddenly shot up engulfing the RV. "By the end you will know what your true gift is." She continued as the RV vanished in the smoke leaving Barbara and Tolliver standing on the sand outside.

"I suppose we should hop to it then." Tolliver suggested as the pair of them walked to the well,

"Was that...nah too easy." Barbara snorted as she watched her partner remove a flare strapped to his waist and threw it down the well. "You're meant to light it first." Barbara suggested as Tolliver peered down the well, as he muttered a few brief calculations.

"It's not a road flare, it's an EM pulsar." Tolliver stated as he dropped into the well, falling to the bottom. "There's a hatch down here." He added as Barbara looked into the well to see the reptilian engineer crouched a full nine feet down the well. "There's a service ladder, I'll send it up." He continued as he unlocked a ladder attached to rails sunk into the stone walls.

"So how did you end up here?" Barbara asked as she began to descended the ladder.

"Originally I was part of a guerilla warfare group." Tolliver replied as he cut the lock of the hatch with a hand held fusion cutter. "I invented a device that could project a mystical dead-zone to use against Earth's wizards. It worked in theory but fell short in the field. Also it turns out your wizards are sadist monsters who torture their prisoners." He added as he kicked the hatch open for dropping six foot to the floor.

"Sounds as nasty as this place smells." Barbara responded as she touched down, something squishy soaking round her legs. Lightning up her torch she saw that the floor was covered in black liquid. "What is this it smells..." She stopped and covered her mouth before looking at Tolliver, the Tribbitite looking as uncomfortable as her stomach felt, "...like rotton human flesh."

"Well, I believe that answers a key Tribbitite question." Tolliver stated nervously as he scanned his gun down the corridor. "Let's get the ritual purging done with and head out," He added as Barbara bent over and vomited on the floor, before groaning in disgust. "I know not one word, you humans are strangely proud of a custom you all practice." He added in a confused voice as the pair of them headed down the corridor.

**

"Here." Barbara whispered as she found the deadbolt release lever, the metal loudly clanking as it was forced open. Heading inside Barbara heard Tolliver close the door behind them, sealing them in what looked like a laboratory.

"Something smells familiar in here." Tolliver announced as Barbara examined a row of bottles, the unusually large arthropod samples well preserved despite the facility having been long abandoned.

"Even my tarantula wasn't as large as these." Barbara mused as Tolliver went over to a row of freezers, before opening one and pulling the tray out.

"Brood hybrids." Tolliver gasped as Barbara walked over and looked at the body of the young man lying there. He was nude and still retained his humanoid shape but there were patches of chitinous armour on his arms and his face didn't look human anymore.

"What is this Tolliver?" Barbara asked as she walked over to a white board attached to the wall covered with drawings of double helices and notes in Arabic.

"The Brood are extragalactic hyper parasites, they implant their eggs into hosts. From there the host is doomed, mutating into new Brood to continue the cycle." Tolliver announced as he pointed out the ligature marks on the man's arms. "These were allowed to develop so far before they were culled."

"Whoever was here was studying DNA, could they have been using the Brood to make somekind of biological weapon?" Barbara asked as Tolliver slid the body back into the drawer.

"To do so is to play with death." Tolliver answered as he removed the board from the wall to reveal a hidden window into a large room with beds bolted to the floor. "What do you suppose this room was? Not a cell it looks more like a ward?"

**

The ward door wasn't bolted, and on entering it was clear why, anyone admitted here was likely chained down. While there was no rot on the floor, the room smelt of afterbirth and human waste. As she reached halfway, Barbara fell to her knees crying and holding her head.

"They took the babies, took them away screaming." She stated between sobs. "There's so many dreams, so many hopes and fears left unfettered." She cried as Tolliver stood over her, obviously embarrassed at the display of emotion. "They then took the mothers, took them to breed again."

"The cycle of infection and transmutation." Tolliver guessed as one of the air vents running along the cealing creeked. "Steal yourself, something else is here." He whispered as he took Barbara's torch and shown it at the doorway. What little he saw of the creature was quickly subsumed by the beast, the light literally sucked out of the torch.

"Right!" Tolliver snapped as he oppened fire, electo-magnetically charged rounds ripping through the room as the attacker charged in. Throwing his gun down, Tolliver lit a pair of EM pulsars, throwing them at the beast before grabbing Barbara and smashing through the uncovered window. "We need to run!" He ordered as Barbara returned to her sense and struggled to her feet. Heading through the door, the creature almost cut them off, a claw raking across Tolliver's back as they ran down a corridor.

"There's a hatch!" Barbara called as they reached a dead-end. Pulling the plate up the pair squeezed in and closed it, just before there attacker could reach them.

"Shit!" Barbara swore as she looked up to see a massive alien insect standing over her.

"Brood, it's stuffed by the looks of it." Tolliver mused as he shook himself before peering into the darkness. "This looks like an archive room."

"Or a seriel killers front room." Barbara stated as she saw caught sight of a plasticised human corpse, cut through the middle to reveal mutations to the internal organs caused by a star like growth that had once been a stomach. "Can you see any files?" She asked as Tolliver stared up at a board of faded photographs all showing pictures of mutated children in an examination room.

"Project Kephi, Project Solifuge, Project Vespa, Project Serket." Tolliver read in the half gloom. "What are these scribblings underneath the name."

Barbara pulled one labelled Project Nemoptera off the board. "Homo sapiens x Nemoptera sinuata x Stellamessoron ferox." Looking at the little girl, Barbara could already see delicate net like wings budding from her back. "I think they took Brood and insect DNA and implanted into human embryos to make..." Suddenly the rotting smell returned and Tolliver collapsed, the wound on his back turned gangerous.

"Any chance they took notes of this?" Tolliver asked as he spat up a bolas of vomit. "And how to cure it?"

"I don't know." Barbara gulped as she looked at the Tribbitite leaning against a long dead computer server. "I don't know why Hannigan chose me, I don't know how I'm going to stop that thing or how to stop you!" She snapped as a scuttling sound could heard outside.

"I know how I planned to stop it." Tolliver groaned as he shifted slightly. "Those EM scramblers detonate when exposed to microwave energy, hopefully the beast ate them ir absorbed the energy. Find my rifle, it will do the job."

"What about getting to your weapon? That thing will rip us apart!"

"No." Tolliver wheezed. "It'll rip me apart while you get to my weapon." He stated as the scuttling sound grew closer and one of the doors into the archive began to shake. "Go know, don't argue and don't look back on this as a failure!" Tolliver ordered as Barbara ran out the safe door seconds before the other one burst open.Getting to his feet Tolliver raised his head and smiled a grim smile. "Come on then, end it here...and now!"

**

Barbara pushed against the fire door at the top of a service staircase just as Tolliver screamed the most earspliting and pained scream.

"I can't do this, not without my magic." She sobbed as she banged on the door, only to feel fabric move under her fingers. Looking up she saw a hooded figure, her corpse like face staring down at where she'd been struck. "Sarah, the astral relm?" Barbara asked as she looked around the stairway at the swirling mist around her.

"Yes, you've asked for help Barbara, and as I've always said since your new life started, I'll always help you." Sarah stated as she took Barbara's hand and smiled.

"Tolliver's dead, I can't do this alone." Barbara announced in a tiny voice. "I don't know why you chose me to join the 'Ring', why you chose me for this mission."

"It wasn't for your magic, it was for what you could always do." Sarah answered as she stepped aside to reveal the door. "You know how to manipulate dreams, what power they can have." Barbara blinked before throwing the doir open as a voice echoed through her head. "Use them."

**

The 'maternity room' hit Barbara like a truck but she endured scooping up Tolliver's weapon and ripping the headscarf off to reveal cropped red locks. Turning she saw the creature step into the room, its part human part arachnid body a shadow even among the darkness.

"Project Solifuge." Barbara hissed as the creature ran at her. "Let me make all your dreams come true." She hissed as her hair blushed pink. With a scream the attacking creature fell to its knees screaming as the weight of the unfulfilled dreams piled into its brain. Struggling with Tolliver's gun, Barbara felt the creature stir as it fought off the mental assault on it.

Dropping the gun Barbara reached out with two hands, the beast still mentally and physically resisting her before it broke free, knocking Barbara to the ground. Pushing herself into a crouch she didn't see the Solifuge looming over her, just the scaly hand picking up the rifle.

"Let's finish this." Tolliver groaned as he smacked the beast back with the butt of his gun. "Together." He announced as Barbara began a mind shattering onslaught on the monster. Seconds later Tolliver opened fire, the beam of energy from his weapon causing the Solifuge to dessicate where it lay before exploding into putrid viscera.

"How did you survive?" Barbara asked as Tolliver helped her to her feet.

"I don't know." Tolliver stated as the pair of them headed into the corridor and back towards the well access point. "I fealt pain so intense, but it was good as if my body was purging the toxin of the monster."

"Solifuge, it was part Camel Spider." Barbara told him smuggly.

"Spiders the size of camels, my your world is savage." Tolliver mused as something moved behind them in the darkness. Once they'd left the figure dressed in a burka stepped into a pool of light leaking from the Solifuge's body, picking up the dropped hijab and holding it close for a moment, before stalking off into the darkness,