Chapter 7: “One golden glance of what should be, It’s a kind of magic.” A Kind of Magic, Queen

The Abbey, March 1^st

“We need to get her out of here,” Sophie heard Gabriel mutter as he rose to his feet, but her eyes were fixed on the fallen gargoyles, even as she instinctively turned Christophe towards her, hiding his eyes from the scene. From what she had done.

“Come on, Soph,” Caerys rested a hand on her shoulder, raising her voice slightly over the mechanical noises of the guns being set up. Sophie looked up from where she’d been kissing the top of Christophe’s head, his whimpering quivering his frame gently. Behind Caerys a cluster of gun-barrells spun into motion, briefly, with an electric whine. Somewhere in the distance, another dull crump of an explosion sounded, and Gabriel stepped past the shields to speak quietly with the nuns manning the blockade.

“J’ai besoin d’un moment.”

“I’ve got no chance with that,” Caerys squatted down beside her. “You... bonsoir ... good evening?”

“Besoin,” she couldn’t help but chuckle. “Not bonsoir. Besoir, to need.”

“You ... you need a moment. Don’t we all?”

“Marduk does not appear to be intent on giving it to us,” Gabriel interrupted. “Sounds like he’s started an offensive at the rear wall.” Something in his tone caught Sophie’s attention, and she pulled her eyes away from the gargoyles they’d returned to.

“Is that a problem?”

“Depends on how much firepower he’s brough with him,” Gabriel shrugged, “and what the Sisters have managed to reinforce the walls with.”

“But you’re ... I don’t know.”

“He’s confused,” Giselle offered, stepping around the shields of the barricade. “So am I.”

“About what?”

“He’s forced a breach in the wall here already,” Gabriel pointed, Sophie opted not to turn back to the scene. “It makes no sense at all to break off from there, and start another assault against an intact fortification.”

“Could it be a feint?” Giselle asked.

“If it is it’s a bloody good one,” Gabriel shrugged. “He’s committed a significant troop contingent, and by the sounds of it they’d lose a lot of bodies pulling back and trying to reposition back here.”

“Does he have more men somewhere?” Caerys wondered.

“Not that anyone’s spotted,” Gabriel shook his head. “This is ... it’s not like him.”

“He doesn’t normally take risks like this?” Sophie wondered.

“It’s ... he doesn’t take strategic risks at all. He’ll throw men away without a second thought, soldiers to him are the price he pays, but he won’t waste them if there isn’t a clear benefit, and I can’t see what it is here.”

“Maybe he didn’t make this breech?” Giselle suggested. “We know Gilgamesh is out there somewhere, too.”

“The gargoyles have been Marduk’s troops, though,” Gabriel pointed to the scattered bodies.

“They could just have been let loose to cause chaos, though,” Caerys offered, “they don’t seem like the sort of troops you can control if they’re off a fairly short leash.”

“Maybe,” Gabriel sighed, stretching out his neck as Giselle wiped away some blood that had dried on his shoulder - the gash that had produced it was almost closed already. “Come on, we’ll be needed.”

“We?” Giselle asked, archly.

“We,” Gabriel confirmed, taking them all in with a glance. “We all have something to offer.”

Nazgul emerged from the corridor with a long, slender spear in her hands, looking concerned, and flashed a few simple gestures in Caerys’ direction, but she shrugged apologetically.

“It’s finished,” she explained, “the magic doesn’t last that long.” The look of concern briefly flashed to annoyance, but she pointed behind her and mimed shooting, and they understood.

“How long do we have?” Gabriel asked; the response was clear that it could be any time. “Come on,” he knelt in front of Sophie, talking quietly. “We need to move Sophie. Even if you don’t come all the way with us, we’re in the firing line here.”

She started to snap, but knew he was looking out for her, and took a breath. “We’re coming,” she assured him, wrapping Christophe up and lifting him as she stood. Gabriel swiftly moved on to his next task, leaving her to follow along in the gaggle of women behind him. The dull thud of explosions somewhere outside continued intermittently, though none of them seemed close as they wended their way through the narrow, decorated passageways. Nazgul paced Gabriel comfortably, with Giselle bristling behind them - at what Sophie wasn’t entirely sure, although she perhaps felt it should be her at Gabriel’s side - while Caerys had her phone out snapping images of the various frescos and paintings as they passed them.

Clusters of the sisters gathered in most of the rooms they passed; a few showed signs of injury, though none significant, but despite that they appeared defeated, sharing looks ranging from despair to grim resolve.

The walls suddenly shook, and Christophe whimpered into her ear, clutching her fiercely, as one of the explosions came from much closer. Somewhere nearby came the sound of rubble falling, and behind them in the corridor a clump of plaster fell from the ceiling with a loud crash that cut through the surprising silence in the wake of the bomb.

“Can you do that barrier again?” Gabriel asked, half-turning to Nazgul; she smiled and nodded.

A cluster of the nuns hurried along the corridor, pushing past Gabriel and cutting into a side-room between him and Sophie, bearing a bloodied stretcher. Sophie grasped the frame to bring it to a halt, reaching out to the bloodied figure, but she quickly sensed that it was too late. The nun at the front of the stretcher gave a nod of acknowledgement, whilst the nearer sister just frowned and muttered something in a language Sophie didn’t understand, before they set off again.

“We’re close,” Gabriel said, quietly, peering around a nearby corner. “Are you ready?” He looked to Nazgul who spun her spear lazily in a slow figure of eight, nodding without looking at him. She was ready, the nuns were ready, Gabriel was always ready. There were wounded, but none of them were nearby - in truth, this far into things, and Sophie realised she had no idea where the infirmary might be, she’d not even considered asking. She was a Doctor, but that hadn’t really occurred to her since they’d arrived. The things she’d thought she valued - her career, medicine - suddenly didn’t seem so significant. Only Christophe, desperately clinging to her, still held a place. She’d spent years training as a healer, she’d thought that the idea of the Hippocratic Oath was important - she’d not formally signed or stated it, it wasn’t a contract so much as an aspiration. Some few of her colleagues had questioned both the detail and the spirit during their training, but the most of those that did ended up not finishing the course, as she recalled. She’d valued the spirit of it, though, the idea that it wasn’t just her training and education that made her a Doctor, that it was something about her character - she wasn’t just a Doctor, she was a healer, and being a Doctor was just how she manifested that.

But given the power to take that on a step, given the ability to bypass the training and the knowledge and just let loose with her intentions on people, she wasn’t the benign force she’d thought. Knocking Caerys and Gabriel out had been an instinctive move; not harmful, perhaps in keeping with the spirit of the Oath. And then the Gargoyles; that had, again, been an instinct, been the first recourse she took up when she realised the threat. She’d not even visualised what to do, she’d just instinctively shut them down, turned them off, sucked the life out of them. They’d already suffered, already been twisted and broken, reduced to a mockery of the people they’d been, but where a healer’s instinct should have been to try to recover them, to help them find their way back, her instinct, her true self had just stripped them of everything.

“Caerys,” she muttered, and the redhead turned to look at her. “Take Christophe.”

“What’s up?” she whispered, stepping closer and slipping her hands under the boy’s armpits, swinging him around slightly clumsily.

“I’m going to help,” she explained, pointing to where Gabriel was muttering something quietly to Nazgul.

“Are you sure?” Taking a breath, not entirely sure if it was to stop from crying or running away, Sophie nodded and stepped up beside Gabriel.

The Abbey, March 1^st

Christophe struggled briefly as Sophie passed him across, but settled against Caerys’ shoulder easily enough after a moment’s gentle rocking. Sophie spared her a glance and half-smile as he did, then turned back to whatever it was Gabriel was muttering quietly. Although he wasn’t much of a burden, Christophe’s weight was enough to slow her to the point where the nuns passing by started to grunt and nudge into her as he failed to get out of their way, forcing her to back off further into the recess on the opposite side of the corridor.

Gabriel had appropriated a gun from somewhere, a snub-nosed, flat-fronted rectangular thing that looked like a replica of a gun made by someone who’d heard of them but never seen an actual gun. He offered it to Sophie who predictably refused it, although the snort of derision Caerys expected didn’t come, and instead she wrapped her arms around herself, whether for comfort or to avoid the temptation to take it wasn’t clear. Another cluster of nuns passed by, heading the other way, although one of them slowed long enough to toss a few magazines to Gabriel.

“Ready?” he asked, suddenly clear, and Nazgul and Sophie nodded, as Giselle backed away slightly. She held a slate-grey pistol at her side, pointed at the floor, but she seemed familiar with it. From the next room came another of the low, bass crump noises Caerys had come to associate with whatever the bombs or grenades were. Christophe gave a startled yelp and clutched at her, scratching the back of her neck, and when she looked back a billow of dust was spurting through the doorway, lit by sunlight from beyond. A shadow passed over the doorway, and Caerys felt sure someone was going to react, but when she looked Nazgul had one raised fist up, and everyone else was either watching that or simply looking at the doorway.

A figure leapt through the dust, bringing a more conventional looking rifle around as he did, but Gabriel’s rifle chattered briefly and the figure fell back with three holes spattered across his chest. Footsteps scurried from beyond the door, and Gabriel tossed something underarm through the doorway, producing a different bang, and an assortment of pained cries. He followed it up by stepping into the doorway himself, Nazgul close on his heels and Sophie hunched behind them, disappearing into the dust.

A few muffled grunts of exertion came, a startled cry from Sophie at one point, and long moments of silence, and Caerys found herself creeping forward. Christophe flinched with every sound, and she hummed something vaguely musical into his ear as she stepped back away from the doorway. A chatter of gunfire made her jump slightly, and she stepped back into the recess as the Abbess scuttled into view trailing a few of her brethren.

“Where is the Seer?” Caerys just nodded towards the door and the sounds of fighting beyond. “With her Champion?”

“And Althea.” The Abbess turned to the nearest of her entourage.

“Ask Nalatuesha to send reinforcements to the...”

“Abbess,” Delphine interrupted, with an apologetic nod, “by the time reinforcements get here Marduk’s forces will have brought heavy weapons to try to force the breach.” The Abbess’ face tightened for a moment, but she took an obvious breath.

“What do you recommend?” she asked, voice tight.

“We still hold the Peasant’s Gate; if you have a column sent out we can pin them against the Seer and the walls before their support is set up.” Caerys thought she grasped the idea, but didn’t know the layout of the compound well enough to gauge if was a sensible idea. The Abbess either didn’t know any better or concurred, and with a sharp nod sent Delphine on her way again.

“Are you just there to mind the child?” the Abbess turned back to her. “What is it that you do for the Seer, exactly?” Caerys forced herself not to snap at the snide tone, shuffling Christophe across to the other hip as his weight began to drag.

“I do research,” she explained, not dishonestly. “Magical traditions, cultural variations...”

“Anything useful to our current situation?”

“Not that I can see,” she admitted.

“Then it’s probably best if you head to the cellars at this point, that’s our fall back posi...” She was cut off as a larger blast resounded from just beyond the doorway, setting her ears ringing painfully. She was dimly aware that it wasn’t as dramatic as the explosion as they’d approached the Abbey, but it was still enough. Shaking her head to try to clear the sound, she eased Christophe away from her shoulder to check on him; there was no blood that she could see, although his breathing was coming in short, panicked gasps. His eyes were screwed tightly shut, and his fists were screwed into the shoulders of her blouse; she pulled him back in, and tried to stroke his hair as she’d seen Sophie do.

Looking back up, the room was filled with dust; she could barely make out the Abbess a few feet away, staring towards the doorway where the crisp lines had been torn jagged by the blast. The Abbess appeared pale and disoriented, cradling her arm awkwardly as she tried to rouse one of the fallen nuns to action.

“Incoming!” she heard Gabriel’s voice, muffled by the pulsing in her ears; she grabbed the Abbess habit and hauled her backwards as an even louder blast sent the bricks of the wall flying around them.

The Abbess grunted, something Caerys felt more than heard, as the shockwave pushed the older woman into her, carrying them both through the inner doorway and into the corridor. Caerys turned to shield Christophe, and heard an ominous crunch as her shoulder hit the far wall, the Abbess falling from her grasp as her arm went limp. The Abbess’ habit showed dark patches on the back where, presumably, blood was seeping into the material. Christophe started to shift against her good shoulder, and she turned him away from the broken body, looking back towards the door. The sunlight was gone, the darkness oppressive by contrast, but she thought she heard movement.

Forcing herself off the wall with a suppressed hiss of pain, she felt bruises she’d not noticed up her calves as she shuffled over to see what she could make out within the room. One of the nuns’ leg protruded obscenely from the rubble of the outer wall, obviously detached from the rest of her. The other nun was struggling for breath, hunched over against the wall, pinned by a section of masonry and missing a sizeable section of the skin from one side of her face.

Caerys tried to bend down close to her but her knees wobbled, and she remained standing as she shakily sketched out a rune on the nun’s head; it wouldn’t heal her at all, but it would numb the pain slightly. She was tempted to try it on herself as even that subtle movement made her shoulder grate, but the pain actually brought her a degree of clarity. Behind her, in the rubble, she heard movement, and cautiously moved around to see if she could identify who was there; a muttered word and a gently glow appeared around her head, lighting the way.

“Caerys?”

“Sophie!” she almost laughed, trying to speed up, but the pain in her leg was getting worse. “Soph, are you OK?”

“Oui,” she coughed, “mon pied est coincé.”

“Maman?” Christophe brought his head up abruptly, throwing a fresh wave of pain through Caerys’ shoulder, and she stumbled, catching her foot on a rock and tumbling to the floor.

“Caerys.” Sophie’s cool hand stroked a strand of her still glowing hair out of her eyes, sending a cool wave through her head.

“Damn,” the coolness seeped out, flowing through through her neck and pooling in her shoulder briefly. “How long was I out for?”

“Only a few seconds,” Sophie assured her. The coolness carried on down her back, speeding up for a moment until it gathered in her legs. She sat up gingerly, but the pain was gone. Sophie had a few minor cuts here and there, but nothing appeared serious. “Shit, where’s Chr...”

“He’s here,” Sophie smiled, gesturing towards the inner door. “He’s fine. Thank you.”

“The Abbess, too, and one of the...” She looked across, but the shallow gasping of the nun against the wall appeared to have stopped. Sophie lifted a hand in her direction, briefly, but lowered it and shook her head.

Caerys rose to her feet. She was steadier than she’d expected to be, but this time it was the shakiness of adrenaline, not pain or fatigue. She beckoned, and Sophie followed, gently taking Christophe’s hand to pull him along. In the next room Sophie settled down beside the Abbess, reaching out hesitantly at first but quickly speeding up as she drifted her hands up and down the fallen woman’s back for a moment.

She wobbled, slightly, and Caerys reached out a hand onto her shoulder to steady her. “You OK?”

“Oui, c’était plus difficile que prévu.”

“Uh-huh.” Caerys nodded, pretending she’d understood before it hit. “Oh, harder than you...” The Abbess groaned and rolled over, looking up at them.

“What happened, Seer?”

“Nazgul pushed me back as something exploded. She put a... ah ... champs de force ... forcefield around me. The wall came down, they were on the outside.”

“Were they all OK, last you saw?” Caerys asked.

“All?”

“Gabriel, Nazgul and Giselle?”

“Gabriel and Nazgul were fighting, they seemed well,” Sophie nodded. “Giselle remained in here to guard you.”

“No, she...” Caerys thought back, trying to remember. “She wasn’t with us, I thought she’d gone out with you?”

“She said Gabriel had told her to wait with you and Christophe.” Sophie explained, reaching out to help the Abbess back to her feet.

“Seer, you should fall back to the cellar,” she said, a little breathlessly, feeling at the damp patches in her robes.

“Later,” Caerys muttered, distractedly. In her mind she formed the image of Giselle, the detail of her clumpy heavy shoes, the artificially distressed effect of her jeans, the pleats in the heavy cotton men’s cut shirt she wore and the heavy, ominous grey pistol. With the image fixed she settled into her magic, not the learnt spells and incantations, but her heritage, the magic that flowed through her as much as her blood did. Opening her eyes, she fixed them on the point she’d last seen Giselle, and then watched the silvery-green image of footprints trail away.

“Come on, she went this way.” Sophie made to follow, but the Abbess grasped at her sleeve.

“Seer, the cellar is thi...”

“We are following this way,” Sophie said, pointedly, “you’re welcome to join us.” Caerys briefly felt a flicker of a smirk as the Abbess gathered her ragged habit around herself and gestured for them to continue, but turned back to the trail.

“What’s along here?” Caerys asked, half-turning back to make sure the Abbess heard, but not wanting to lose the trail. In a few places there were gaps in the footsteps, as though sections of the flooring had been removed, but there was no signs of any carpets or rugs having been there. It was possible that she’d jumped, but it would have been quite a leap.

“That way is back to the water trial chamber,” the Abbess said, and Caerys caught a flash of an arm pointing to the right, “and this way is the Dining Hall and our command centre.” The footsteps went left.

“Come on,” Caerys muttered. Perhaps for Sophie’s benefit, she told herself, but perhaps for her own. Heading up a half-flight of stairs in the dimly-lit corridor, she found herself slowing as she approached an open doorway, and the muffled sound of voices.

“ ... told. It’s not difficult, Nalatuesha.” Giselle’s voice came through clearer as they drew nearer.

“If we give up the...” a strange, gravelly, woman’s voice responded, but Giselle cut her off.

“I don’t want an opinion, I don’t want your ‘strategy’, I just want you to hold to your oaths and do as you are told.”

“What oaths?” Sophie demanded loudly, startling Caerys as she stepped into the doorway. Giselle darted a glance their way, frowning, and turned back to the dark-skinned nun she’d been addressing.

“Now. Do it.” The woman glanced past them, and Caerys turned slightly to see that she was looking to the Abbess who paused a moment, sighed and nodded reluctantly. Whilst she was obviously unhappy with the situation, Nalatuesha nodded her acceptance and turned to a radio behind her, despatching commands quickly.

“What’s going on, Giselle?” Caerys wondered aloud. “How’d you suddenly take command?”

“It doesn’t seem that sudden,” Sophie offered, not taking her eyes away from Giselle, who paused for a while, eyeing them both as she obviously considered her options.

“I don’t owe either of you an explanation for anything,” she finally decided.

“But you’ll have to come up with something by the time we find Gabriel,” Caerys pointed out. “Or do you plan on making sure that doesn’t happen?”

“Don’t be so melodramatic, Caerys,” she snapped back. “I’m not your enemy.”

“You’re doing a poor job of being a friend,” Sophie pointed out. “We keep having to find out secrets about you.”

“Look, did you really think I was working for Marduk just by accident? I’ve been a part of this order,” she gestured generally around at the Abbey, “for decades.”

“Decades?” Caerys queried, after a moment’s thought. “Don’t take this as a compliment, but you don’t look old enough.”

“We join...” she was interrupted by a grinding, cracking noise as a split appeared in the far wall, daylight spearing through as part of the wall seemed to peel back away from the ceiling.

“Fall back!” Nalatuesha growled at them, grabbing a gun from the table beside her radio. Caerys was already moving, pulling at Sophie’s arm to drag her into motion and scooping Christophe up with the other hand, marvelling at how effectively Sophie had healed the damage.

The Abbess was moving ahead of them, and behind came an impressively loud spurt of automatic gunfire. Giselle overtook her briefly, before turning to fire off two shots with the heavy pistol, rocking slightly with the recoil as it blasted away in the narrow confines of the corridor. Behind them more guns sounded, punctuated by the whine of a ricochet against the wall. Back at the junction Sophie made to head back towards where they’d parted from Gabriel and Nazgul, but Caerys gripped her arm, firmly.

“Abbess!” she called, and the Nun stopped, turning back. “Not that way.”

“I don’t take orders from the likes of you,” she retorted.

“It’s not an order, you snide bitch, it’s a fucking suggestion. You go that way, you’re going to die.”

“Are you sure?” Sophie whispered, and Caerys just nodded, sensing the ill omen growing, darkening her sight of the corridor.

“Katherine,” Giselle callled, “listen to her.” More than a little disgruntled, the Abbess turned back, then started to hurry as the sound of footsteps could be heard approaching from behind her.

“Nala?” she asked as she reached the junction.

“She didn’t make it.” Giselle confirmed, firing another shot back down the corridor.

“Come on.” Caerys set off, feeling the sight starting to settle over her unbidden, and wary of ignoring it. “Hurry.” Something in her tone, she realised, discouraged Sophie from arguing or even trying to take Christophe back, and she sped up a little as Giselle and the Abbess hurried to follow. Coming into the waterfall chamber again she slowed, seeing the fallen bodies of the nuns who had manned the guns.

Behind them the footsteps were growing louder, joined by spurts of gunfire, and past the waters in the hazy, dust-obscured daylight, figures could be seen pacing beyond the rubble.

The Abbey, March 1^st

Gabriel dropped low, peering out from behind the broken stonework slowly, looking for a pattern in the movement of the cluster of gargoyles, but there was nothing obvious. On the opposite side of the breach a small group of the nuns huddled in cover, one of them laid flat, injured at least, if not dead. Nazgul proffered another rifle for him, and he flipped it over quickly, checking it over before shaking his head and sliding the magazine out. He showed her the 5.56mm rounds, NATO standard, then lifted the FN P90 so she could see the different profile of the bullets through the transluscent magazine cover.

Like the green rifle slung over her shoulder, the weapon they’d retrieved from the fallen soldiers looked superficially like an SA-80, already out of place in a central European force, but on closer inspection they’d all turned out to be the cadet rifle, single-shot variant, some of them with crude repairs taking pieces from the non-firing drill variant.

Why the troops would be armed with such ineffective weapons was just one more mystery to add to the nonsense riddling the battlefield. Nothing he’d seen spoke of the overt magic and vested power of Gilgamesh’ involvement, which meant that the troops were likely either his father’s or there was another group involved. The nuns had proven surprisingly effective, although the more Gabriel saw of the poorly equipped and poorly trained troops, the more he realised some of that was down to the opposition. The gargoyles he’d presumed were his father’s too, but they appeared to be entirely undirected, just lashing out at whatever moved closest, hunting anything they could find. The daemonettes seemed more wary, but from the fallen he’d seen they appeared just as willing to strike out at anyone as the gargoyles did.

It was just chaos; there was no obvious goal, no strategy that he could decipher, no obvious target.

Which didn’t give him anything direct to counter. Chaos was either the situation or the goal, and either way the best bet to do something about that was to meet up with the nuns who were, if not actively on his side, then confirmed to not be actively hostile.

Nazgul nudged his back and pointed to where a group of the daemonettes was gathering close to a toppled outbuilding. The gargoyles caught sight, or maybe scent, of them, and immediately leapt in their direction.

“Go,” Gabriel hissed to Nazgul, but she was already on her way to the breach in the wall as Gabriel sprinted across the gap to where the nuns huddled. “Can you move?” he whispered, as he settled against the outside edge of the stonework, keeping his eyes on the gargoyles and daemonettes as they slashed and bit at each other. The gargoyles were larger and stronger, but the daemonettes appeared to cooperate better - whichever way the fight went it was likely to end quickly.

“Sure,” the closest nun nodded with an Australian accent. “Where to, though?” Gabriel turned to the gap blasted in the brickwork, and Nazgul leant out to wave them on.

“Inside, through there,” he gestured, unlimbering the blunt-faced rifle as another of the daemonettes fell. The gargoyles started to slow, not tired but savouring the killing, drawing it out. The nuns didn’t waste any time, two of them grasping their fallen comrade by her arms and dragging her unceremoniously across the scorched grass. As she passed, Gabriel could see the seeping gash in her leg; the lack of blood flowing made him think she was probably gone already, but that could be confirmed once they were inside. The Australian stopped part way, raising her own M-16 towards the melee to cover him as he dropped back. Pausing a moment to be sure the casualty was inside, Gabriel selected single-shot, raised his rifle and pumped three quick rounds into the closest of the gargoyles.

“What the fuck was that?” the Australian asked as he edged back towards her.

“Even the odds up,” he explained, curtly, “it’ll keep them involved longer.” Sure enough, with two of the gargoyles down and one of the others hampered, the four gargoyles remaining didn’t appear quite so confident, and the five daemonettes had managed to regroup. “Go on.”

She appeared like she might argue, but Nazgul reached out from the gap and grabbed her collar, hauling her comfortably into the darkness where Gabriel followed.

Taking a moment to let his eyes adjust, Gabriel paused to see the nuns had dug in between the two layers of wall that remained, one turned inwards towards the dusty interior whilst the other looked out past the entrance towards the sounds of the fight still going on outside. Nazgul held her finger to her lips, pointing inside, and Gabriel settled into the cover of some fallen masonry, trying to make out anything beyond the dust.

There was something, movement, laboured breathing, and running water. Falling water. He tapped the Australian’s hip and pointed, gesturing like rain then miming drinking. The Australian nodded.

Last time he’d been here the place had been reinforced with a couple of nuns manning mounted machine guns, and if that position had been overrun he’d presume that there would be troops piling in through the breach ... but that would be assuming anything made sense.