"Angel... you get the two on the roof while I handle the lock, Jeb cover her and watch for that third round of guards."

Such things of beauty fell into our fingertips. We did it for the aesthetic, for the challenge, for the love, even for the money which was certainly never bad. Challenge after challenge, heist after heist. We were the best of the best. We were masters of our craft and spoken of in hushed tones by those who revered us, and those who feared our deft fingers would find their way to their door.

We were a team, and then one night blew away everything we had created and the world became nightmarish. If I could take back a single night in my life it would be that one. But now I can only atone for it.

It was a beautiful job. So simple and stunning to behold. The guards were taken care of. The entrance on the roof was electronic and the system we set up to avoid the pressure sensors across every square inch of surface were works of pure genius, my own, I might add. My god, it was beautiful. An expert job, and everything went smoothly.

Well, everything went smoothly until the wall behind the Manet we were extracting began to ripple with movement. At first I thought they had set up some elaborate manipulation of lazers and mirrors projecting a wall were there was none, but then I felt an influx of drafts. No, there was a wall there, the wall was just desolidifying. Desolidifying so that a monstrousity from a late night movie and a dozen strangely decorated seventiessci-fi movie stars attached to various spines upon it's back and trying to subdue it with a silvery cord could come crashing through and set off all those sensors we had so lovingly avoided.

"Dammit. I hate it when a job gets messy."

Our mentor Ti Tsung always told us to retreat when a job got messy. I'm not sure this is what he had in mind. I know it's not what I had in mind when our contract was signed at $6.2 million dollars for the retrieval of this particular painting. I need to remind myself to include a personal expenses and danger clause in our contracts.

If someone had been making a movie, I suppose the entrance would have been beautifully dramatic. Tensions would flare and breaths would be held as I did a backflip out of harm's way as the strange crew stumbled in, crashing into the ground I occupied a moment before, covering it in a greenish hued slime and filling the room with pained howls as a few bodies of neo-techno-jumpsuited men still attached to the spines of the creatures were pushed further onto those attrocities and the creature seemed to snarl with glee.

I suppose cameras would zoom in on the horrific picture of the creature tearing into the flesh of one of the strangely garbed men, the sound of bones snapping and tendons ripping never being a pleasant one, made less so, by the harsh calls of his companions and the flares of electricity being jolted into the creature as it snacks. Well, I suppose every prisoner is given a last meal. I certainly hope mine is better cooked.

Jareth was a top of the line rogue. Not only had he managed to free the Manet and get it to relative safety inside a carrying tube, he managed to toss our exit line over to Jeb who hurriedly secured one end about his waist, and began climbing it with the grace of a circus performer, the bastard started his training young, the manet carefully strapped to his back. Jareth, ran Jeb's cover, while I attempted to stay out of the line of vision and fire of our party crashers. Half the floor was covered in goo now, and by the lights that seemed to be revolving and the bells chiming loudly I guessed we had about two minutes before the Maitre'D's entered and asked us which party we were with.

I had to hand it to Jareth though. He managed to save an operation that looked as if it was headed for catastrophe. Jeb made it up the line and signalled for me to lose my wallflower tendencies and make a flourishless exit. Our audience really wasn't the appreciative type.

It appeared I had more attention than I wanted. And my scaling of a pedestal to do a leap and a flip over the entangled mess of creature and zoo-keepers brought on more attention than I needed. It also brought on the strangest gunfire I had ever heard, and a bright burning sensation as a bullet tore through my side and knocked me from the air to the floor and against a wall. Jareth was at my side in an instant, drawing his gun as he covered me and emptying a clip into the constantly moving area of beat and men. Each bullet flew with the beautiful recoil they neevr completely capture on film, the tension severe in his face, the stance of aggression as he fixed his ground in front of me, my reach for my feet unsteady but rapid. The barks from the gun seemed to silence the bells for a time and all I could hear or see was him, and how the light shimmered on his face, each color caught and sparkling on the sweat that glistened. I remember him still as I saw him that moment.

As his clip finished the creature took this moment to engulf another jumpsuited man whose screeches of denial sounded much like the fabled stories of lamb screams before slaughter. Jareth and I seemed to simultaneously decide that the dinner menu was to be shortened by two and it was really time for us to be getting home. It was rather late after all, you know how early mornings can be.

I always insisted on being last up the life line on a job. Partially because my eyesight was the best and if we had ever left a mark I would be first to spot it. Partially because my ascent is easier to quicken then theirs'. Or maybe because I like to be the rear guard, it adds that extra sense of danger to a job, I suppose. Regardless, Jareth slid up the rop as gracefully as he had come down it, my gun covering the entire time. I threw a few shots out for confusion fire and then hooked the line into my belt lock, and gave Jeb the okay signal. I placed one hand up on the rope as they took the line and I started to rise. And as easily as my hand slid about the rope, a strangely cold tentacle slid about my ankle halting my ascent. I'd like to say I faced the manic and hungry eyes of that creature with a cold, aloofness seen only by heros in a movie.

I screamed. And yes, it was a girly scream. I would imagine it was excusable as the tentacle burned like acid and was colder than ice against my skin. I looked down into the gaping jaws of the creature and knew this was the demon sent to take me beyond, I closed my mouth and my eyes and bowed my head to accept my fate.

Next thing I knew I was wrenched out of it's grasp, as I suddenly went flying upwards with rapid speed, the rope actually burning against my flesh. I was nearly catapulted out of the skylight up into the pulley setup, into Jeb's arms, sagging with relief and realization taking far too many moments to fall, the stricken look on his face, my rapid ascent and the abscence of other arms to fall into. I whirled, fighting with Jeb's arms that sought to drag me away from the mouth of hell that skylight had become, the ground rippled again, suggesting the opening of that wall that had led the creature onto us, and I fell before the window's opening in time to see the few remainingmembers of the jumpsuited team roll back into their manifesting archway, my beloved Jareth convulsing within the embrace of that beast.

Deep in my heart, I know by the time I saw him fade into the archway he was long gone, my beloved friend and lifelong partner. His eyes held the truth of a death instantly attained on the impalement of venom kissed fangs. But the nightmarish image of him thrashing about and the screaming danced before my eyes every day of the next few weeks as my rehabilitation dragged on. I saw little of Jeb those next few weeks and I can hardly blame him for burying himself in a bottle as much as I was buried within that private hospital. Jareth was his best friend, a friend, a brother, a partner, everything and my god he was gone. Our world shattered about us, and Jeb worried for days that i would never walk again. I myself wondered if death waited about the corner for me and if Jareth's sacrifice had done little to apease the gods.

Well, the gods must have felt something for us all, for not only did I regain my footing, I healed quickly and had my skills back within a few months. My doctor was a strange man, but ingenius in his work and he seemed to take great delight in treating me. Clucking over my unnatural wounds and seeming amused by the story I told him of how I gained them. Odd, he may have been, but I praise the gods for his skill.

My skills were back, but our team was gone. Jeb never fully recovered from what he saw that night. He and I went together to deliver the painting, condolences were given with the money, but I heard little of them and I doubt Jeb did either. We resigned from his further employ that eve, and before dawn the next morning I told Jeb to take himself away for a time until he could look upon me again and be able to speak. He argued with my injunction for a while but I could see relief behind his blustering.

He left by noon that day and I have seen neither hide nor hair of him since. Sometimes, when I hear of great heists done in foreign lands I wonder if my beloved Jeb tries out his skills there.

I spent perhaps a year or two wandering about in a daze of remorse, than another year travelling to distant places as if hotels and strange lands could make me forget what I had seen. And finally, I spent a year doing nothing but going to the museum and staring up at the wall that hung empty of it's precious Monet.

It was here that I was found by the doctor who had brought me back to health so beautifully. And it was here that he berated me for wasting the skills he had used. And it was here that he furiously insisted his skill was wasted upon those who chose to live a life of the dead.

Perhaps at first it was anger he incited in me. Then perhaps bitterness. But I think, in the end he incited a longing for the adventure that had left my life the very night that Jareth did.

And so I followed him, followed him through the wall of that museum into a grey and extending place known as the Inner Kingdom, the Netherworld. I followed him into a realm of unbelievable horrors and beauty, and I followed him into the begining of a new life.

These days are not like the days of nightmare after Jareth's death. Nor the days of solitude after Jeb's abandonment. They could never hold light against the beautiful hazy days of our partnership, but they promise to be interesting. Perhaps for now, that can be enough.

Read the next story.