The streetlights flicker and snuff out like doused candlewicks.

Overhead, a radio tuned to a Spanish language station cuts out in the middle of a commercial break.

A single taxi, idling on the sidewalk. The FOR HIRE sign blinks off and the engine dies. The cabbie knows the part of town well. He locks the door and he waits.

A square block of the city turns to darkness and silence. Street sounds pour off like rainwater, collecting in pools of static and noise. Neon fades like old memories of Christmas. Replaced with dullness, lifelessnes.

Only one light is shining now. A sick, green glow coming out from a shadowed form.

The priest has walked these streets a hundred nights before but it feels different now. He used to walk them alone. The young girl at his side is a riot of black and white and curls. Mercy. She's the righteous one. She's the pious one. The priest left behind the dry sands of the desert and the wet hell of green rain forests. This morning was the first time he's spoken English in months. Mercy, waiting for him.

The robed figure steps out into the middle of the streets. Throws back the hood. A narrow-eyed wraith glowing like witchfire. Swamp gas. A will o'the wisp from some southern fairy tale. A light in the distance that promises safety but delivers instead a slow kind of death.

Black Collar shifts his weight onto the balls of his feet. On a night like this, he has to be ready for anything the creature throws at him. He hears Mercy whispers a prayer to the Lord.

He's heard about this one. A demon named Corpselight, arisen from some charnal pit in the chemical wastelands to the south of the city.

Corpselight approaches like a ghost. "Faaatheeeerrrr..." it breathes, as if speaking with its whole body.

The priest is worried. What's to come? Can he defeat this thing? And worse...what then? Surely it's toxic in some way. Cancer. Poison. Some exotic, incurable illness. He's seen children bleeding out from the hantavirus. He's watched villages wiped clean with malaria, cholera, typhoid, smallpox. He's been to hell...he knows what awaits him.

Mercy grits her teeth, hands ready like knives, like the priest taught her. "Father...?"

Black Collar pushes the fear from his mind. That familiar, cold feeling eases over him. Calms him down.

"Do not move, Mercy. Not until I give the word." She's well-trained and he says this not because he distrusts her, but because he needs to reassure himself. He takes a step forward.

"You are the being they call Corpselight, yes?"

The thing shambles forward as if the pavement has turned to ice. It nods. Shadows play on the street, the buildings, the dead cab. The driver watches, praying to the icon on his dashboard.

"Then you know why I am here."

"Prrieeessst..." it whispers.

"Repent and confess, or have justice be brought down upon ye."

Images flash through his mind. A slideshow of disease. Of painkilling drugs. Of ICU wards and nurses in white. Of the day when his flesh slips from his bones and the sheet is pulled up over his head.

Then the creature stops and kneels, bows its head.

A sigh, the tension fades. He sees Mercy's face fall a bit, as if she's dissappointed. Black Collar unzips his armor and drapes a sash across his shoulders. He makes the sign of the cross and he begins.