"What is it?" the vampire pleaded. "What keeps me in this crumbling house of worship? Tell me, damn you!"

A bubbling gurgle escaped the child's body before the demon responded. "Rein in your tongue now, for you speak to your true Master now. We have been thwarted for the moment, and badly. For a brief instant the barriers began to fall and the world that was once ours beckoned - but as Ereshkigal pronounced, it was not our time."

The Master strode over to the body of the child and lifted it from the ground by the front of the pretty party dress. He shook the limp body viciously, glaring into the eyes of shiny black.

"Why can I not leave this place?"

"You dare much, Nest."