Adam rode the black horse through a sea of flowers, red as arterial spray. He had ridden seemingly forever, with only a vision of Alraune before him, waiting at his journey's end.

This was a dream, a deep dream, flesh and spirit torn by powerful magic, they lay in each others' arms, healing.

No wonder he loved her, her hand had been perfectly steady as she turned the third card, foretelling the destiny of the eldritch creature that sat across from her, its face hidden beneath a hood, but its hand, where it rested exposed on the table top, skeletal and dead.

Carrion beetles crawled among the cards.

On this day, the day of lovers, the feast of sweet fever, Adam and Alraune had reveled, then, sated, they ventured out in search of wine to fuel the rites that would greet the dawn. They found no one in Trinsic and so, against wisdom, they went to Vesper, to the Swaggers.

For all they knew, a state of war, a stalemate of honor, maintained between Vesper and Trinsic, but they had friends at the Swaggers and believed they would be welcome there. Welcome they were, by pretty Gia and her bartending companion Kalam, and another man, a Celt whose flirtatious banter Alraune met with thrust and parry, a proper duel for the day of hearts.

When the man invited her to sit in his lap, she told him she already had a lap waiting, and she kissed Adam.

The Celt lapsed into silence. Then wine and talk flowed easily, lulling Adam into the mood of the day, until a scent, a whiff of dry decay made him look up, following the gazes of Alraune and the others to the robed thing that had appeared among them, like a worm among the petals of a rose.

Adam had seen the undead before, at even closer quarters, but he had not been in a tavern where one appeared so boldly in a very long time.

The Swaggers staff were wary but they welcomed the thing and served it and Alraune consented to its wish for a reading of the cards.

Three cards -- dreams, assessment, and a fall.

The eternal story of man.

When she had finished, the creature blustered and fumed and cackled, "Your soul belongs to me."

But Alraune met its gaze, red and lurid as corpselight, and replied, "Sorry, it's already claimed."

Adam felt a chill pass through him, colder than the dread the undead horror sowed.

Then the monster turned the blackened pit of its hooded face on Gia and said it would take her for a lover, stretching out some unnatural power, like flame, to mark and hold her.

All those present gathered around the red-haired girl, to defend her. Adam had no faith in the meager power of his bow to stand against the monster's magic but he hoped that numbers might carry the day.

Then all was carnage, fire and steel, a fight that raged inside the tavern and out, Vesper’s defenders giving chase and the monster summoning spirits to aid it. Adam’s arrows scarcely touched its withered flesh and in moments its magic struck him senseless, even as Alraune tried to aid Gia.

Then Alraune fell too and others of the defenders, while Gia was hiding herself from the creature. Staggered, their senses overwhelmed with magic and pain, Alraune and Adam dragged themselves away from the fight, hoping that enough had been done to save the girl from its bony hands.

And Alraune made a haven of dreams, where they lay, flesh and spirit mending, though Adam wondered if this dream was Alraune's work at all.

The path through the endless red sea stretched before him and he saw Alraune in the clouds and in the passing shadows. She illuminated his world; she was his reason and his light, and desire for her was the spark that would heal him, that would rouse him to face a new sunrise. They had saved each other from unspeakable things.

Alraune was his angel, his purpose.

Distant, so distant that he would never reach it -- not in this dream -- Adam saw a line of blackness where a river cut the crimson plain and he understood that the river was the river of death and that his path lead there and to the land upon the other side, a country unknown and unknowable, a land stranger than the realms of Darkness and Dream, and he did not doubt that his journey would continue beyond it.

But what would be his purpose then?

Would Alraune be his angel?