“Are you coming with us, Henry?” asked Donna.  “We could use all the help we can get.”

Henry bowed, “I would be honoured to serve.  And I would feel ashamed to stay behind while dear Bunhill risks all with you.”

The CSIS Director agreed that anything to skew the odds in their favour would be wise.  “We’ve never seen anything like this before.  I know it’s likely to get messy, if your recent adventures are anything to judge by.  We’ll back you up with the mundane stuff, just get rid of that bastard.”

“Thanks.  I’ll try to keep the collateral damage to a minimum.”

“Wilhelm is your first and only priority.  Do whatever it takes.  Treat Toronto as already lost.”

“What?”  Donna asked incredulously.

“The ghouls have demonstrated their power, and the damage they’ve already done...  They won’t let go, and you’re our only hope to stop them.”

Donna nodded solemnly.  “I will end him.”

There was little else to say, so they headed up to the roof where Donna had parked her miniature jet.  As she set Henry and Bunhill to shrinking, Gwen brought up the soul protection that Donna had previously set up for Sidney.

Bunhill and Henry readily agreed to anything that might help, so before the jet winged into the sky, all four of them had crystals guarding their essence.

The flight west to Toronto was brief, and interrupted when Donna and Henry simultaneously noticed a knot of darkness ahead, a few miles short of their destination.

“The pattern feels familiar…” said Henry.  “Marcus?  What is he doing here?  We almost never venture outside our seats of power.”

“Do you want to talk to him?” asked Donna as she angled the jet toward the rooftop in question.

“I’ve known him for centuries.  I should be the one.”

Donna landed on a random patch of the rooftop, well away from the concentration of dark energy.  She grew them all to full size, then Henry marched off to meet his old friend.  Bunhill was only a pace behind.  Donna and Gwen hung back, only staying within earshot.

Marcus smiled to see Henry.  “Ah, good.  Maybe we can end this amicably after all.”

“What do you mean?”

“You can’t beat Wilhelm.  None of us have a fraction of his power.  Liam tried to walk away, he died without us even sensing Wilhelm act.”

“Liam?” asked Bunhill from behind Henry.

Henry half-turned to answer her over his shoulder.  “The master of Halifax.  Not many of us left now.”

Marcus pointed behind them at Donna.  “Their fault.  Why do you stand with those who will kill us?”

“They’re defending those you prey on.  Donna offers way out of our centuries-old dilemma.  I no longer need to feed on death.  Come, old friend.  Ours truly is the side of light.”  Henry held a hand out to Marcus, glimmering with lunar power.

Marcus stared at it avariciously, but did not put his hand out.  “I would hear the offer direct from the source.  Have your friends come closer.”

Gwen shook her head, and put  a hand out to keep Donna from stepping forward.  Henry made a similar warding gesture.  “What are you up to?”

“Worth a try.”  Marcus bowed his head.  “I am sorry it has to end this way, mon vieux.”

Gwen shouted “No!” just before the fireball erupted.  Donna’s shield flicked out, barely in time to protect Bunhill…  And too late for Henry, whose body disintegrated under the assault.  Mixed with the explosion was a gout of dark energy that chewed through Donna’s shield in short order, buffeting Bunhill with the dregs of the detonation.

Donna reinforced the shield, and drew Bunhill closer.  As the roar of the explosion died down she pulled the injured bunny-girl into her arms.  “Are you okay?”

“Where’s Henry?” Bunhill demanded, frantically.

A smoking shard of crystal had arced high above them, propelled by the explosion.  Donna drew it to her hand.  “His soul is battered, but the crystal is still mostly intact.”

Bunhill accepted the crystal dubiously.  “Really?  I can’t feel him...”

Donna closed her hands over Bunhill’s.  When she let go the crystal was intact once more, glowing faintly.  “Better?”

“A little.”  Bunhill pressed the crystal over her heart.  “Is this really all that’s left of him?”

“That explosion was laced with death magic.  Everything living it touched was consumed to feed it.  Nasty work, and it nearly got you, too.”

Bunhill winced as she tried to stand.  A touch from Donna set her bruised legs to healing, and the patchy fur became glossy once more.  She bowed to Donna.  “Thank you for saving us.  Can you... fix him?”

“I... haven’t done much work with souls in this shape.  Honestly, you’ve done more good for him than I have.  Can I trust him to your care?  Nurture his soul as you have been doing this past month.”

“How?  He doesn’t have a body to hug.  I can’t talk to him...”

“But you do love him.  That will serve, when nothing else can.  He’s not ready for a body yet.”

Bunhill nodded sadly.  “I’ll do what I can.  Once the fight is over.”

Donna shook her head.  “Go, take him back to his base of power.  He will recover best there.  Another blow like that will kill you both, and I don’t doubt we have worse yet to face.”

“Then I should be with you!” cried Bunhill.  “What good is saving Henry if it means you fall?”

Donna pulled Bunhill and Gwen into a tight hug.  “I’ll do my best to survive.  But the more people I have to shield, the less I can do.”

Bunhill fussed, but accepted the inevitable once Gwen joined in on Donna’s side.  Soon she and Henry’s crystal were winging their way back east in a newly-created jet.

As they watched the jet leave, Gwen sighed.  “Do you really think you can take this guy?  Marcus was terrified of him.”

“The fusion of death magic and technology worries me.  But he has shown what he is capable of, we have to stop him.”

“That’s all well and fine,” argued Gwen as they walked back to the original jet.  “But it’s not a sound basis for strategy.  What’s your plan?”

“Go in hard, nuke the bastard before he knows what hit him.”  Donna smacked a fist into her open palm.  “No more talking.”

Gwen nodded.  “Sounds good.  Ah... you don’t mean an actual nuke, right?”

“Nah, just a blast of lunar energy strong enough to send him into orbit.”

“That takes care of offense.  Defense?”

Donna stopped just short of stepping on the miniature jet, and started them shrinking.  “Layered shields.  Outer ablative layers will give me time to reinforce whatever’s getting eaten by the death magic.  Same for the crystals, if I layer them they can take more.”

Gwen nodded as she felt the change inside her.  “Good.  Let’s go end this.”

They climbed into the the jet, and were soon arrowing westward once more.  As they approached the downtown core of Toronto, they passed some outlying skyscrapers.  Shortly after doing so, Donna cursed and sent the jet into a steep dive.

“What?” cried Gwen.

Donna’s reply was chirped so fast Gwen could barely make it out.  “Something nearly hit... Shit, they’re turning, hold on!”

Donna threw the jet into increasingly violent twists and jinks, trying to shake the two death-fueled missiles closing in on the craft.  Even with her time sense accelerated, it was challenging - no matter how nimble her brain, the jet itself had limits.  Ones she could exceed by pouring magic at it, but the enchanted bullets chasing her were doggedly persistent.

Donna finally managed to lose them by diving under a nearby overpass.  The impacts left gaping holes from the resulting dark explosions, but the bullets were gone.

The jet arced out from under the overpass and directly into the flight path of two more dark bullets approaching from the west.  Donna was out of time and out of room... but never out of ideas.  She flung layered shields around herself and Gwen, only to see the first bullet shatter them like glass.  The second struck Gwen dead center.  The .50 caliber slug was nearly as big as she was and the impact shattered her and her soul-crystal.  The detonation devastated the jet, and blasted Donna clear of the wreckage.

Dia hovered in the air, staring at the falling shards of her beloved, and grabbed at the burned-out remains of Gwen’s soul.

Rage filled them then.  Tracing the four bullets back to their sources at the tops of four tall buildings arranged in a neat kill-box took a fraction of their mind, made easier by the knot of dark energy at the end of each trace.  Ghouls.  Four of them.  Four  white-hot lances of lunar power arrowed their way unerringly to their targets... and splashed harmlessly on silver barricades.

Dia’s inner engineer accepted the challenge so presented.  Hydrogen ripped from the very air around them was weighed, and the heaviest atom isolated.  Lunar power showered onto it, duplicating it again and again to produce a clot of pure deuterium.  It was divided into four smaller clots, and each placed in a marble-sized shell of hardened magic.  The duplication began again, until the marbles swirled dense with solid deuterium.  The shells strained with the pressure, were reinforced, and the doubling continued.  They glowed like miniature suns.

Magic censorship raked at Dia’s mind, but a small part of them pointed out that none of their actions were visible due to magic itself.  The shells and the matter they strained to contain were, separately, invisible.  “Blame physics,” they thought.  Magic censorship grumbled and groused, but the discomfort it could muster was nothing against Dia’s rage.

As Dia continued to build the pressure in the shells, she noted four more firings from the silver-shielded sniper hides.  These bullets did not arc toward her, so they presented no danger.  Once her return fire was spilling neutrons, Dia loosed them toward their targets.  As the miniature suns arrowed away, rage’s grip on Dia’s heart loosened slightly.  Suddenly she could feel Gwen’s soul screaming, screaming in horror at her plan.

It was too late to stop the missiles, but the hammer-blow that would have initiated fusion never arrived.  Their impact on the sniper hides did enough - the magic shells containing the densified deuterium compressed from the impact then vanished, as planned.  Four detonations annihilated the sniper hides and the ghouls within.  They washed the tops of the buildings clean with fire, and the shockwave collapsed the upper stories.  Windows shattered for blocks around each impact, showering the streets with glass.

Donna stared in horror at what she had done.  Blazing wreckage stood where the tops of four buildings had been.  And if she’d taken the final step...  Her mind recoiled at the vivid mental image of all of Toronto consumed by nuclear fireballs.

She hung midair, and reached for the voice that had stopped her.  “Gwen?”

Nothing.  She strained her senses, and felt the faintest of echoes from the cinder within her.  Not gone.  Not quite.  But perilous close.  Everything within her wanted to break down and cry, to hold Gwen close and pour everything she had into trying to heal her friend, her anchor, her priestess.

She felt it once again.  Negation.  Determination.  Donna pulled Gwen tight against her heart, and arrowed west once more, eschewing the jet for a simple crystalline body.

A smudge of darkness drew her to the plaza below Toronto’s most famous landmark, CN Tower.  A solitary figure was standing there.  The dense coils of darkness that had surrounded the snipers was absent here, puzzling her.  Donna flicked a shield of power around the figure, and several more around herself.  She landed near him, returning to human shape but still crystalline.

Standing before her was a sliver-haired man in an impeccably tailored suit that looked half a century out of style.  He had a broad, Teutonic face with clear blue eyes.  He was holding a silver briefcase in one hand, and a short cylinder in the other.  Wilhelm turned to smile at Donna winningly.  “And here we are at last, both of us stripped of all our allies.”

“Why should I not destroy you where you stand?” said Donna.  Her voice was calm and level, but her eyes flared with power and anger.

“Because I’m holding a deadman switch that will kill thousands if the associated bomb goes off?”

In the blink of an eye, Donna analyzed the transmissions from the cylinder in Wilhelm’s hand.  Electromagnetism had become second nature to them in crystalline form, and Duncan easily found the matching receiver and disabled it.  “A bomb under the CN tower?  Nice try, but it wouldn’t kill anyone.  There’s nobody left here but the two of us.”

Wilhelm’s smile broadened slightly.  He tossed the cylinder away, and just after it left his hand it was disintegrated by a bolt of lunar power.  “And it wouldn’t have stopped you even if the threat was real.”

“No.  And don’t start with the ‘we’re both the same’ nonsense, either.”

“Very well.  If you kill me, you’ll never know what happened in Detroit.”

“You know?”  Donna asked in surprise, her form rippling as her focus wavered.

“I know more than you do.  Someone’s been tampering with the Worldstone.”

Donna’s mind sped as she considered the implications of that statement.  Suddenly she felt so very, very tired.  This was too much.  Too...

Gwen’s fear surged through her and a shield snapped shut around dark tentacles of control.  Suddenly alert, Donna reinforced her shields just in time to survive the enormous gout of blackness that splashed over her back.  She spun away from Wilhelm and found what looked to be his clone standing beside one of the decorative pylons that dotted the plaza.  A nimbus of dark power coruscated around him.  “Twins?”

The assault ended while her new assailant bowed to her.  “Ludwig Zimmer, at your service.  You are the first to see me in centuries.  And will not tell the tale.”

Another gout of power lanced out at Donna, and she flung up course after course of shields to keep it from her.  Behind her, she felt more dark power surge.  Wilhelm had dropped his briefcase, and as it fell open thousands of crystals of death energy spilled out.  He drew the power around him, and joined the fight.

Two lances of such immense power at once were more than Donna’s defenses could handle.  She did her best to dodge away, diving behind one of the pylons.  It shattered under the brothers’ assault, and they moved to flank her once more.  Every moment that passed, her shields weakened from having to reinforce both sides at once.  Every time she tried to move out from between them, the brothers moved to counter, their faces rictuses of unholy glee as they could see her struggle, could feel victory in their grasp.

Casting about for anything that could help, Donna recalled what she’d done to Ettie.  She positioned herself carefully, and as the last of her shields crumbled she blinked herself out of existence.

Donna reappeared twenty meters directly above where she’d vanished, and a second afterward.  There was an enormous crater and an expanding could of debris where Ludwig had been standing.  Evidently Wilhelm hadn’t had the presence of mind to pull his strike in time.

Wilhelm fell to his knees, screaming his brother’s name with tortured voice.  He looked up at the sky.  “Damn her to hell.  But at least she is gone.”

When the bubble of power sprung up around him once more, Wilhelm crumpled.  Donna stood before him, gathering power for the bolt that would end his existence.  At the end he smiled, and pointed up.  Then lunar power washed through him, and nothing was left, not even ashes.

Donna gasped with relief, sending her senses out wide to see if any other ghouls lurked.  There was no trace of death magic to be found.

A growling, rumbling noise made her look up, up where Wilhelm had pointed.  Ludwig’s death throes had done what the bomb could not have, and a leg of the CN Tower was missing.  The noise was a hundred thousand tons of concrete and steel already in motion and headed straight toward her.

Donna spent an agonizing moment considering how to stop it.  Nothing she could do, nothing she could build in the second she had could even slow it down.  She arrowed away from the plaza, then turned to watch the tower fall, thankful that nobody was left alive underneath it.

“That was close.  C’mon, Gwen.  Let’s get you home.”

A beat.  Nothing.

“Gwen?”

Donna cast about desperately for her friend’s soul, and found only emptiness.  Her eyes widened in fresh horror as she remembered the fight.  She’d burned power recklessly, drawing on everything she could to simply survive.  In the face of that inferno...

Donna cried out her denial in a voice as big as the sky.  Her wail echoed off the rubble.  She managed a moment of composure, then wondered, “What will I tell Ettie?”

Donna’s eyes widened.  Ettie.  Gwen’s home.  Maybe, just maybe, if she was swift enough...  Dia became shaped crystal, arrowing west under massive acceleration.  Air heated to plasma in their wake, sending shockwaves into what was left of a devastated city.

Duncan drew their course upward, over the worst of the atmosphere, and made sure not to outpace the Moon on their race to the west.  They arrived at Victoria just as the Moon was rising there.  A crystal body fell through the sky just shy of the speed of sound, so they didn’t shatter Victoria the way their departure had done to Toronto.  Donna did crack one window, falling through it into Gwen’s apartment like a meteorite.

Ettie startled at the noise, then realized the import of Donna’s tortured expression.  “No!”

“I am so, so sorry.  She...  She saved me.  More than I can tell.”

“No!  Give her back!” wailed Ettie.

“There’s nothing left,” moaned Donna, going to her knees before the distraught woman.  “Oh, how I wish...”

Ettie knelt before her, face suddenly serious as she peered into Donna’s  “If I wish...  What will it cost?”

“I don’t care,” Donna whispered, eyes tight shut.  “It don’t care if it costs all of me.  She’s worth more than I am.”

“She would never agree,” said Ettie.  “I won’t do this to you.”

“Please,” begged Donna.

“I love her.  I love her sooo much... and she would never, ever do that to you.  She’d hate herself, and hate me, and...  I can’t.  I’m sorry.”

“Then she’s gone.”

“No.”  Ettie’s voice was firm.  She put a hand over Donna’s heart.  “She lives here.”  She put her other hand over her own.  “And here.  As long as we love her...  What is that?”

Faint glows were leaking out from under Ettie’s fingers.  Donna stared, then reached for them, cupping each glow between her hand and Ettie’s.  She brought their hands together, clutching them tight about the faint flickers.  “Please,” Donna whispered.  “If anyone out there is listening... please.”

The flickers faded.  Ettie started to cry, then Donna opened their hands.  Sitting there was a tiny sliver of crystal.

“Is she...”

“I honestly have no idea any more.  Keep her close to your heart.”

Ettie shook her head.  “In my heart.  Do it.”

The crystal sunk into Ettie’s body, and her heart solidified to crystal.  Ettie gasped with pain, but shook off Donna’s concern.  “Finish it!”

A pillar of crystal stood where Ettie had been.  Donna hugged it tight, said prayers to gods she had never believed in, then made her way out of Gwen’s apartment, down the stairs, and into the Blue Vixen.  The sight of her blackened crystal body kept everyone away.  Everyone except Rowan, who fetched Vanessa.

“Donna?” asked Vanessa softly.  “What happened?”

In a low voice Donna told them to check the news.  Once everyone had seen the devastation that was downtown Toronto she explained the fight, and the price paid.

“Oh, Donna,” said Rowan at the end, and wrapped her in a hug despite the crystalline spikes that decorated her body.

Vanessa gathered the girls behind her and started to sing.  The hymn took away the darkness clouding Donna’s form, and the spikes as well.  She thanked Vanessa solemnly, but agreed with Rowan that this was not where she needed to be.

Arwen was not surprised to see a crystalline form appear in her office.  “I’ve been waiting for you.”

“You know?”

“The basics.  Toronto.  And from your expression, worse.”

“Gwen.  Sacrificed herself to save me, even after I’d fucked up and gotten her killed.  Then I nearly annihilated Toronto in my grief at doing so.  Saved me from that, too.”

“Oh, Donna.”  Arwen got up and gave her a hug.  “You need something that I would gladly give, but that you can’t accept from me.  My forgiveness means little to you.  You need absolution.”

Donna laughed bitterly.  “My only faith is that of Goddess Donna, shaper of bodies.  Vanessa is the current ranking priestess, without...”  Her voice cracked, as did part of her body, “Gwen.”  Crystal tears fell like hail onto Arwen’s couch.

“Who else?” asked Arwen, sharply enough to pull Donna out of her funk.  “There must be someone who you respect enough to accept.”

“I...  Doctor O’brien?  If I heal enough people...”

Arwen studied Donna.  “Start there, then.  Come back when you’re done.”

“It might be late...” protested Donna.

Arwen laughed.  “Sweetie.  You just saved the whole damn country, and what you had to do is tearing you to shreds.  I can lose a few hours sleep.  I can lose weeks sleep if I have to.”  She turned serious, and held Donna’s gaze steadily.  “Come back to me when you’re done.  No matter what time it is.”  

“Yes, Doctor,” said Donna softly.  “I’ll be back.”  Her voice hung in the air long after her body had vanished.

Arwen sighed.  “I hope so.”  She put a pot of coffee on, preparing for a long night.

At the hospital, Colin’s reaction to Donna’s appearance was less reserved than Arwen’s had been.  “Faith, woman!  Are ye trying to give me a heart attack?”

“Sorry,” said Donna.  “I...  I just killed thousands of people, to save millions.  Worse, I killed my best... beloved in the process too.”

“Oh, Donna.”

“Would people stop saying that!” snapped Donna.

“Roight then,” said Colin, unperturbed.  “What can I do for you?”

“I need to work.”

Colin studied her, then shook his head.  “No.  You need to come with me to the chapel, first.”

“What?”

“Trust me.”

Donna followed Colin through the halls, making little effort to hide her nature.  The hospital was bustling with activity as the nurses were in the middle of a shift change, but that also meant that someone with glossy skin and a glow leaking out from under her robe got few second glances.

Stepping into the chapel was like going back into time.  Unlike the noise and glare of the hospital, this was an old place, a heritage building that the hospital had grown around.  The lights were dim but inviting, and the chapel smelled of old wood with a hint of incense.  Just entering it made something inside Donna unclench.

A kind-faced man with silver hair and a luxuriant beard greeted them, calling out to Colin with a familiarity bred of years.  “Hullo, Colin.  Who is your friend?”

“Someone in dire need of your services.  Donna, meet Peter.  He’s in charge of the chapel here, and a wiser soul you will not meet this side of the pearly gates.”

“So this is your angel, come to me at last?” asked Peter.

Donna lowered the hood of her robe, more of her inner light spilling out.  Peter’s eyes widened, and he crossed himself.  “What are you?”

“I...”  Donna turned to Colin with lost eyes.  “I don’t know.”

“She was human.  Is now a creature of magic, who has saved lives here at the hospital.”

“And more in Toronto,” whispered Donna.  “Though the price was dire.”

“You’re involved in the mess in Toronto?” asked Peter.

“I ended it.  The butchers are no more, but the bill...”  Donna’s tears welled up, true ones this time.  “More than I know how to bear.  My actions killed...  I don’t know.  Thousands.  Saved millions.  Almost killed those, too, save for the soul of the bitterest price of all.  Gwen stayed my hand before I could wash all of Toronto in fire.  And now she’s gone.”

“Come.  Sit.  And tell me all about it.”

Donna sat.  And talked.  Told of her love for Gwen, of the threat of the ghouls.  Of watching souls leave bodies, going she knew not where.  How they were not the immutable things that her half-remembered religion lessons claimed, but fragile.  “Souls can be broken,” she said in a wavering, low voice.  “Frayed by what they do, especially by the use of death magic.  That same magic can be used as a weapon against them.”

Peter was listening intently.  “Go on,” he urged softly.

“The ghouls fused magic and modern weapons.  A bullet laced with all the darkness they could muster struck Gwen, despite everything I tried to evade, to shield...  I had shrouded her soul in armour, but it shattered that as easily as it broke my other shields.  Still, it spent itself in the effort, and her soul was badly damaged but not destroyed.”

“So you saved her?” asked Colin.

Donna shrugged helplessly.  “You have to understand, a soul is not a person.  Most of what she was, the bullet took.  And precious little of her soul was left.  I took it into myself to protect it... and in the final battle against the ghoul, channeled so much power that I lost it.  She was more precious to me than I can tell, and...”  Donna’s tears flowed anew.

“Would she forgive you?” asked Peter.

“Yes!  Oh, yes, in a heartbeat.  She knew the risks, took them willingly.  Would have...”  Donna’s voice broke.  “Did... give her life for mine without hesitation.  She saved my soul even after she was dead, when my rage would have annihilated a million lives in trade for her killers.  And saved my mind when Wilhelm’s brother infiltrated it.  Again, while dead.”

“She sounds lively for a dead person.  Is she truly gone, then?”

Donna chuckled bitterly.  “That’s the hell of it.  I don’t know.  I did... something with her and someone else who loved her.  Fused them into a single crystal that may yet save her.  But I haven’t the slightest clue what I’m doing.  Maybe I killed both of them instead.  I won’t know for a month.”

“But they’re as safe as you can make them until then?” asked Peter.

Donna nodded, and wiped her tears.  “I’ve done almost everything within my power.  I... think I could have traded my soul for hers, had Ettie wished for it.  To do so would have ended me, but I was willing.  Ettie refused to on the grounds that Gwen would not have wanted it.  And gave her own body instead, to incubate what little was left.”

“But she’ll live?  And you would have died?”

“Yes,” said Donna softly.  “I... would have known if Ettie had been ended by what I did.  Her soul is still fine.  Gwen’s... I don’t know.  Can’t know, not yet.”

Peter looked to Colin then.  The doctor put a hand on Donna’s.  “You’ve done what you can.  Leave it in the hands of a higher power now, and be at peace with yourself.”

Donna drew in a shuddering breath.  “Easy to say.”

“Oddly, it’s just as easy to do.  Let go of your grief.  You have a month, and much can happen in a month.  Ready for your rounds?”

Donna nodded slowly.  “Yes.  Please.”  She stood, then bowed low before Peter.  “Thank you.”

“It was my honour.”  He rested his hand upon her head in benediction.  “Go with grace.”