Catfight tonight!
Silent and unseen, she wafted over the trees, going home. The Lady Dana was some distance from the Carnival when she saw the fireball bloom into the sky. That there were no screams meant that so far, whatever was causing trouble was being contained. Stevens and his pulses of normality were keeping the crowds blissfully unaware. She put on a bit more speed, accepting that the effort would cause her to glow visibly. On the road below, she saw a car tearing toward the fairgrounds. Inside, something thrummed with purpose and cold, impersonal determination. Something big.

Dana flitted overhead, skimming over the trees in a slightly more direct route. It would get her there ahead of whatever was down below, and might give her time to warn the good Doctor. She flew as fast as she possibly could, a glowing ghostlight and groaning wind with a purpose.

On arriving, she saw Violent Clay thrown through two vehicles, bursting into flame. The officer who'd shrugged off the Clown's attack seethed with power, inhabited by something awful. Something as purpose-driven as whatever she had sensed in the car, but hotly passionate and gleeful. To her ethereal eyes, it seemed like a huge, fanged maelstrom, shining with dreadful darklight and growing ever larger. It was basking in the violence and rage, in the pain of its host and the blood and the sheer joy of battle, and glorying in the power it granted it. She saw Celestines's visage above the Carnival, and he seemed to be enjoying the show. Couldn't he see what was going on?

No, he might not. This was outside the walls, beyond his sphere of influence. He might not realize that Violent Clay, by his very nature, was mere fuel for this creature. He might not realize that Brick was facing something that mere muscle meant nothing to. She looked back, and saw the car with its dread passenger, pulling into the far lot. And now there were two of them. The other was different, though, more disciplined, and probably didn't feed off bloodlust and violence. She zipped about, to the employee's parking area, just inside the canvas wall toward the rear of the fairgrounds, and came to earth next to Celestine's trusty steed, Molly.

What she was about to do was like declaring Defcon 3 without calling the President. But Brick was out there, innocent people were out there, and Violent Clay was just making it stronger the longer he fought it. She needed to divert the Clown, and perhaps the second abomination in the lot. And there was a weapon here, something Violent Clay hated more than anything else in this or any other world. Something that could be aimed at the incoming creature, and would draw VC like a Mothra to Godzilla.

She composed herself, fading into the ethereal even as her hand passed through the locking mechanism of the trunk, releasing it.

The lid rose, and a chalk-white face peered cautiously out. Dana focused her will, appearing as a blazing doppelganger of Celestine. The face flinched back into the trunk, and she pointed away, past the wall and toward the incoming creature. Its nature was different than the one inside the soulless husk of the police officer. It probably couldn't feed off the Clowns. Go. Kill. Return." she said in a fair approximation of Celestine's voice.

A slender red-pigtailed girl in a Harlequin outfit emerged from the trunk along with a reek of rotten flesh. Her face was painted in a grotesque, leering clown's face, and her sunken eyes glowed with infernal light. It was a face to drive terror into the bravest of men - one of Dante Kelgorian's last works. She smiled, wider than she should have been able to, and her teeth had been filed to points. "Ghost-girl. You don't command me." She scented the wind. "He's hurt. I can smell it. Goodie."

There could be no doubt who Tiffany was talking about. She was as fascinated by Violent Clay as he was repulsed by her. Dana resumed her appearance, glad that her insubstantial body was beyond Tiffany's reach. "There's a creature over there. Kill it, and He will be proud of you."

"I'd like that."

"Go, then. Violent Clay might even help you kill it. You could do it together."

"Families should do things together." She giggled, and clapped her taloned hands together. "I'll do it!"

Dana sagged in relief as the maniac oriented on the correct lot, and stalked away toward the wall. Thank God. If she had gone toward the one in the cop...

"Holy fucking shit!" came a cry from one side. A dark blur streaked inbound, and collided with Tiffany, sending the hell-clown flying into a small tractor. Ania stood there, and Dana groaned. "Boss said there'd be trouble, and here you are. Let's do this, bitch!" Ania was loaded for bear, in her big heavy Harley boots, long leather duster that clanked a bit from the weapons it barely concealed, and she had a long cavalry saber in one hand and a nasty punch dagger in the other.

"Ania, no!" But already Tiffany had hurled the tractor's engine at her new playmate, and came charging along right behind it. Ania ducked, using her left hand to knock the flying mass of steel off its trajectory, even as she lunged forward with the blade. Dana watched the engine arc over a row of parked cars, narrowly missing Celestine's trailer. If Ania had only ducked, it might have punched clean through! Dana recoiled in horror, aghast at the unrestrained engine of violence she had unleashed.

Tiffany danced around the blade, and backhanded the smaller woman with an amazingly loud impact. Ania's head snapped back, her fangs exposed in a grimace, but she rolled with the blow, somersaulting back to her feet, narrowly avoiding another flurry of blows that shook the ground. This was bad. Ania was faster, but Tiffany was so much stronger - and now that she was loose it was only a matter of time before Violent Clay sensed it. And he would come after her. Maybe bringing Officer Monster along with him. What the beast would become with two hell-clowns fueling it, Dana didn't want to even consider. Dana darted forward, trying to catch Ania's attention.

The girls exchanged kicks and blows with blinding speed. Ania connected more often, but Tiffany felt the blows much less. Ania staggered from each impact, cursing, but Tiffany seemed not to even notice the cuts, the daggers that pierced her. She never slowed, never faltered. The saber shot forward, as the harlequin girl was spinning around, and the blade entered her elbow, running along the bones of her arm and erupting from the palm of her right hand. Ania gaped in shock as Tiffany flexed her arm, snapping the blade free from the hilt. Tiffany giggled in glee, waving her arm and admiring the two feet of bloody steel she had gained. "Ania," Dana called. "Take her outside! That way! Past the wall!" Ania ducked, dodging a slash that might have beheaded her.

"Good idea! Hey, bitch!" She jumped as Tiffany tried to cut her off at the knees. "Follow me if you can!" She ducked another head slash, and came down right into Tiffany's kick. She flew thirty feet, landing on Dav's VW bug.

"Okay. You're fun." Tiffany plucked a dagger from where Ania had planted it in her thigh, and hurled it at her opponent. Ania rolled, peeling the roof of the car up and over just in time to deflect the missle. Again, Dana noted, the flight path of the Dagger would have carried it toward the Midway. She was impressed at how well Ania was keeping track of her surroundings, and a bit disconcerted at how naturally Tiffany was using them against her opponent. Tiffany launched away in pursuit, and Dana sighed in relief as Ania leapt off the warped roof of the pink and white car and glided over the canvas wall, leading the insanely laughing Tiffany away from the Carnival. And away from whatever Brick and VC were dealing with.

A heavy hand came down on her shoulder. Dana turned, and looked into the hot stare of the one man who could have taken hold of her like that.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Celestine demanded.