*Preacher – the story and all related characters – belong to the writers, cast and crew of the show. I claim no ownership or association to the TV series titled Preacher, based on the comic of the same name.*

Chapter 1
Clones, Bloody Clones!

"I could really go for a Mexican
taco right now."

– Proinsias Cassidy
Preacher, S02E03

From his seat in the rafters, Cassidy watched Starr's people take up positions just outside the perimeter. Twelve in all. Their white silk jackets crisp under the dusty yellow light filtering down from the high warehouse ceiling.

"Bottom line is if cattle move out of this city, I move them. Me. Not me and you," the younger of the two men sitting at the table leaned forward, scowling. "You've come far, Starr, and you think you're hot shit but you're not hot enough to take me out and I think you know that."

Herr Starr nodded, but the motion was more acknowledgement of a point made rather than agreement with it.

One hard finger stabbed the table. "Which is why you and me are going to work this out, if we have to fuckin' sit here 'til dawn."

Starr stared straight ahead, while his cloudy right eye rolled in its socket. A mask of exasperated disinterest deepening the lines on his face.

The unexpectedly close whisper of metal on metal drew Cassidy's gaze to the top of the nearest stack. A prone gunman, his sights sweeping the perimeter of the light, lay half-hidden behind a crate of no-wax vinyl flooring.

Cass pulled his lips off his teeth, enjoying the smooth slide of fangs pressing down.

Starr had the numbers, but White had the high ground.

His attention slid to the shadowed corner where a figure sat slumped – unconscious? – on a crate. Then up, almost directly above the body to where Tulip crouched. Nearly invisible so far outside the circle of light.

Her rifle glinted dully. He doubted anyone else would have caught that black shine; his eyes 'specially attuned to see in the dark. She had a clear line of sight of everyone in the room, her finger resting lightly to the side of the trigger.

She was waiting.

Below, White hissed through his teeth.

"You pompous ass."

Starr only shrugged.

Their table sat in the middle of a cleared area surrounded by forklifts. One section of the overhead lights had been switched on, but they didn't quite manage to illuminate the oil-stained floor. White's guard blended too well into the surrounding shadows.

Anonymous in the dark. Fodder.

A man dressed all in black leaned over White's shoulder, "You don't have to take this!"

It was clear that White agreed, but with a monumental effort he seemed to collect himself. "Let's hear Mr. Starr's suggestion of compromise."

Herr Starr managed a limp smile, "There will be no 'compromise'. You are going to stop."

A manicured hand rose to cut off the protest from his enraged second, "Admittedly, trafficking is a very small part of what I do, but I do not wish to stop doing it. We appear to have reached an impasse."

Something changed.

Nothing moved, no one tensed but a current passed through the air like a charge, yanking every hair on his body erect and Cassidy stood up. Startled.

A 9-mm round from a burst of machine gun fire caught him in the shoulder.

The bullet continued straight through him, missing bone and dense muscle, to kill the man wearing white it was intended for.

A spray of blood and brain misted over cardboard boxes.

Both Starr and White rose from their table, Starr's apathy immediately igniting White's fury. He shouted, "The fuck you playin' at?!" as a silver pistol cleared the holster hidden beneath his jacket.

Hunger roared at his injury as Cassidy dropped to the floor, staggering from the searing pain. Not his first bullet hole. He shrugged off the hurt, secure in the knowledge that nothing they did to him would kill him.

Too late to pretend he wasn't there; the sniper hadn't meant to shoot him. He shouldn't have moved, rushing the whole thing, but he was in play now.

Cassidy vaulted over a stack of shower doors wrapped in foam, and met the cold eyes of one of White's guard. The man swung a submachine gun around.

Too slow.

He caught the man in a punishing embrace and slammed his mouth down on the exposed length of throat. Rough flesh tore under his teeth, a wash of hot blood spilling over the front of both of them.

Cassidy gulped, drinking with greedy abandon as shots pinged off the rafters over his head.

His ears were ringing. Heat slid through his body, heady and intoxicating. He sucked hard and felt the human heart immediately fail at the sudden suction. The blood stopped flowing. Crap.

A burst of fire tore through Cassidy's abdomen. Fierce pain that nearly drove him to his knees. He dropped the body in his arms.

Face and chest sodden with crimson, blood slicked his teeth and he grinned maniacally at the surrounding humans. Men and women both, each armed. All so well-trained that not one flinched away from the sight he knew he must have made.

He snarled.

They raised their guns.

He didn't see the brute looming up behind him, or the length of wood gripped in both beefy hands.

Cass heard the pop of a single silenced shot sear so close to his cheek that he felt the heat of the bullet as it sailed past.

He spun around in time to catch the ridiculous piece of wood fall from nerveless fingers, followed by two hundred pounds of meat – a hole in the man's forehead so neat it might have been put there with a drill . . .

What the hell, Cassidy.

This was not the plan.

Tulip sighted down the length of her scope, the crosshairs moving over Cass' face. She saw bewilderment, quickly followed by understanding as he watched the idiot with a stake (really, a wooden stake?!) collapse like a puppet with its strings cut.

He had the sense not to glance up and give away her position, but she caught his grin and accepted that as thanks for saving his ass. He wouldn't have died, but a stake driven through his heart would have dropped him real fast . . .

She swept the rifle around, eye hovering over the lens of its scope. Searching for the dome of a shiny bald head. Starr was here. She'd had him a second ago, but dropped him to save Cassidy and now couldn't find him again.

There were too many bodies.

Too many people moving around.

Under her, Jesse lay slumped. A black bag over his head. Propped up against a rough wooden crate of something bathroom-related. She didn't know what. Didn't much care. From her vantage, she could protect him. And if she couldn't? The slim knife tucked into her boot would have her dropping straight down from the rafters to cut the throat of anyone who dared get close.

She was not playing.

The air around her seemed to thrum. Like a plucked guitar string. Tulip lifted her face from the rifle, glancing uneasily back over her shoulder. Nobody stood there. Her gaze moved up, scanning the solid steel beams of the exposed rafters.

She was alone.

Both sides realized they had a common enemy at roughly the same time.

This was not the slaughter Sylvester White had planned. Crouched behind a roll of peel-and-stick flooring, he grabbed his second's shoulder and waved his custom silver-plated pistol toward the distant hanger doors.

"Let's get the fuck out of here!"

The other man nodded and they began to make their way down the aisles, back-to-back, each guarding the other's retreat.

Time seemed to slow while bloodlust roared.

Hunger clawing at the underside of Cassidy's skin. Pitiless. His wounds closed with the fresh influx of human blood, but it wasn't enough. He wanted to feel his fangs break through flesh, to gorge on the hot liquid that would spill out. It wasn't even hunger – it'd become need.

That need was two-fold.

It strengthened him. Power ripped through lean, hard muscle, but it also slowed him. Like a shot of adrenaline. He started to shake, growing almost clumsy but that wouldn't stop him as the salt of blood filled his head with something like euphoria. It was a feeling he'd never been able to recreate.

He thought he saw Starr duck behind a crate, closely followed by a flurry of black-coated guards and realized that White was evacuating. The Men in White were not; more bodies spilled from the shadows like ants swarming a wasp.

Herr Starr was nowhere in sight.

Tulip released another well-timed shot. Taking out two women descending on him. Her bullet cut cleanly through one skull, then exploded the second. It was something to see but the fresh bloodscent confused him more.

It wasn't just the ringing in his ears.

His vision swam.

The body in the corner slid from its crate. Boneless.

Yeah, Jesse was unconscious; he made no effort to catch himself. His friend's skull thumped on the floor.

More people. Too many for Tulip to pick them off. He sprinted fearlessly straight into the mob, human bones breaking under his vampire strength, and continued past them. Racing the flurry of gunfire itching between his shoulders.

Cassidy snarled, exalting in the chaos and ducked behind a concrete support. Not a single shot hit him. Not this time. He peeked around the side, the concrete rough under his hands, and scanned the throng.

Tulip was keeping them distracted.

He could hear the subdued crack of each shot.

Deadly efficiency, she never missed and chose her targets with a cold-blooded practicality. He took advantage to slide from his hiding place. Jesse hadn't moved, though Cass caught the rise of his shoulders that showed he was breathing.

Cass dropped to his knees beside the priest, blood-wet hands snatching at the cloth bag pulled tight over Jesse's head.

"I got you, padre," he muttered.

In the split-second it took him to yank the bag off, Cassidy's sharp eyes caught the smooth curve of a breast under a black silk blouse. The narrowness of the hands tied with ropes, twisted cruelly tight behind her back.

Her.

Her back.

Thick dark hair spilled out from under the cloth sack. Long lashes fluttering as she fought toward consciousness.

"Who the hell are you?"

Brown eyes met his. Glossed with incoherence.

"Stop!"

Jesse's voice cut through the deafening cacophony of gunfire and dying screams.

Thoroughly distracted, bewildered, still riding the high of his own bloodlust, Cassidy glanced quickly back over his shoulder to see the preacher stepping into the dim circle of yellow light.

"Surrender."

The air trembled. Like thunder only without sound. As one, the people in white silk jackets set their weapons aside. Mindlessly obedient. It was comical.

Cassidy stood up, peering across at his friend.

He heard Tulip, "Cass!" and had no time to comprehend the warning; a bald figure slid to his side. In the time it took Cassidy to recognize the threat he felt ice scald his skin. So cold that it burned straight through to his bones.

He let out a gasp, hissing through his fangs at the smooth gray cuff that closed around his wrist.

Hazel eyes met Starr's milky white as the man pointed a small handgun – not at him, but at the woman lying helplessly at their feet.

"No," Jess shouted. "No, no, stop him!"

Tulip shifted on the beam above them, struggling to aim her rifle straight down. She reached for her knife.

"Stop him!"

The power of Jesse's Voice rolled through Cassidy's body.

Absolute command. Impossible to disobey.

Fangs flashed.

A shot fired.