The Lord of Nightmares appeared in Zellas Metallium’s laboratory just in time for Zelgadis to regain consciousness and tell his captors in no uncertain terms exactly what he thought of them. Even L-Sama gaped in shock, her half-finished cigarette hanging limply from her lower lip, but the looks on the Metalliums’ faces were so priceless, she soon recovered. They had the soon-to-be Dark Lord secured to a lab table with a battery of metal cuffs down each arm and leg, across his chest and over his forehead. Per usual Beast Master procedure, the only thing preserving Zelgadis’ dignity was one of the metal straps that held him to the table. "Pervert," L-Sama muttered under her breath with a smirk.
        The two Mozuko noticed her at the same time and all but slammed themselves to the ground in worship. L-Sama smiled graciously as she approached the table, bypassing the prostrate Metalliums (and ignoring them because she could). She stood at Zelgadis’ shoulder and looked down upon his battered face, noting with some irritation that no one had bothered to do anything about his injuries. "That looks like it hurts," she drawled and blew smoke away from him, over her shoulder.
        Zelgadis gave her a detailed suggestion of an alternative way to amuse herself and where she should go to do it.
        "Tsk-tsk! Such language!" L-Sama shook her head and pursed her lips impatiently. "I’m not your enemy, Zelgadis. Would you like me to heal those?"
        Pause. He regarded her with open skepticism as he considered her offer, then tried to nod agreement, only to find the restraint on his forehead prevented any kind of head movement. "Yes," he said but continued to be suspicious, wondering if there was some hidden sub-meaning behind her question, or if he’d misunderstood what she’d meant by "those" and would be worse off for finding out what she’d really been referring to. The way his luck (or lack thereof) had been running lately, Zel wasn’t too sanguine about her intentions.
        She sucked on her cigarette, blew more smoke over her shoulder, then smiled at him and spread her palm over his face. "Do you know who I am, Zelgadis?" She asked, almost sweetly.
        "I think so," he replied. "You’re the Lord of Nightmares…aren’t you?"
        Healing completed, L-Sama withdrew her hand. She tossed her cigarette butt onto the stone floor, ground it beneath her boot, then pulled another one out of the air, stuck it between her lips and willed it to ignite on its own. "Yes," she replied finally, blowing out smoke with her words, "I am. Very good. But we’ve met before, haven’t we?"
        "More or less, I suppose." She’d been too busy possessing Lina Inverse and blasting Phibrizio off the face of the planet to formally introduce herself. So, it’d been more of an encounter than a meeting, per se. Zelgadis wished he could get his hands loose so he could touch his face and make sure healing was, in fact, what’s she’d done to it. It did feel better, no pain, no itching or anything, but that could just be an illusion.
        L-Sama smiled at him with the side of her mouth not occupied with a cigarette. She glanced over the table to find the Metalliums still face-down on the floor, waiting for her permission to rise. "Zelgadis, what should I do about Zellas and Xellos, hm?"
        "Kill ‘em."
        The Lord of Nightmares rolled her eyes, though that’s exactly the answer she’d expected. "No, I don’t think so." To her worshippers, she said in a regal voice: "You may rise, my servants."
        They did. Beast Master didn’t disguise her irritation well, but Xellos failed even worse. Frowning, he brushed himself off, pausing to examine what looked like the beginning of a hole in the knee of his pants, then straightened and inclined his head politely at L-Sama. His cool expression quickly changed to one of nervous humility when her face darkened and her hand came up threateningly. Having made her point, she went back to ignoring them in favor of Zelgadis.
        She smirked. "By the way, Zelgadis, why are you naked?"
        "Because your servant is a fu—" Zel suddenly remembered who he was talking to and shifted gears with an embarrassed cough. "Because Beast Master wanted to know if I still had a--If I’m still a man. That’s what she said."
        L-Sama turned an unreadable look upon Zellas Metallium, who self-consciously rubbed the back of her head and coughed, not meeting her master’s eyes. "H-his clothes were…in simply abominable condition, Master…I, er, couldn’t—"
        "A blanket would have sufficed," L-Sama cut her off sharply. Zellas turned pink and nodded.
        There was an extremely long pause, after that, filled by the sounds of the blanket L-Sama summoned fluffing down upon Zelgadis, then his mumbled thanks. The silence continued while the Lord of Nightmares regarded him thoughtfully and smoked. Finally, she asked: "Well, are you?"
        Zelgadis blinked. "My Lady?"
        "Are you still a man?"
        The Metalliums’ eyes bugged at that, and Xellos choked on his effort not to laugh out loud. Zelgadis’ mouth worked in soundless outrage for a few moments as his face reddened, then he blurted: "Of course I am! I don’t believe this! I’m about to turn into a world-devouring Dark Lord, and all you people want to know is if I’ve still got all of my plumbing!? Why doesn't anybody ask Laughing Boy over there? He slept with me!" Suddenly, Zelgadis had a terrifying thought: What if that issue was relevant? Maybe the key to destroying the evil power growing within him was to *gulp* castrate him! Zel shivered with the horror of it. He knew Rezo had been one sick, twisted nutcase, but would he make that the proverbial "abort" mechanism? It sounded to Zelgadis more like something Xellos might dream up. Rezo had always seemed so…asexual, even though he obviously wasn’t, since Zelgadis was his direct descendant. And Xellos (in the form of the lovely Dr. Sorez) had seduced him, hadn’t he? Maybe it was important. "It is irrelevant, isn’t it?" He asked them in a tiny voice.
        The Lord of Nightmares was on cigarette number three now. "I’d need more data before I could give you a definitive answer."
        Xellos lost it completely at that, his athletic imagination conjuring a dozen possible things L-Sama might have meant by that and a dozen more ways she might do the actual collecting of "more data". To his credit, he made a masterful effort to keep from doubling over with laughter at the innuendo and the effect it was having on Zelgadis. Xellos clutched his sides, his face screwing up into a comical expression as he sweated and tears spilled out of his eyes, but it was just too funny. "’More data’! Hee-hee-heeee!" The Trickster Priest plopped onto his butt and laughed so hard tears flowed freely down his face and soaked his shirt.
        Zellas was mortified and tried to placate the Lord of Nightmares, who’s expression was getting more and more ominous the longer she watched Xellos’ mirth. "Forgive him, My Lady! He’s just a happy moron I keep around for entertainment purposes—a sort of court jester! He means nothing by it!" She came around the table as she spoke and fell to the knees before L-Sama, hands clasped and face uplifted in fervent prayer.
        "Excuse me?!" That snapped Xellos out of his fit. "’Happy moron’? ‘Court jester’?!" He jumped to his feet in a righteous huff and almost tore into his boss right then and there but then he remembered who else was in the room and pulled himself together. "I am not a moron, happy or otherwise! And I’m a trickster, not a jester—and your most powerful servant, My Lady!" He spat those last words out like poison.
        The Lord of Nightmares sighed. "Now I remember why I don’t visit," she thought wearily, "I seem to bring out the worst in these two." On to cigarette number four. That was how L-Sama ranked the people she dealt with, by how many cigarettes she needed to cope with their little foibles. Zellas Metallium was usually a six-smoke encounter, eight or nine if Xellos was with her. On his own, Xellos was just a three or four-smoke. L-Sama chuckled to herself: Maybe that was because he was kind of cute, in a really warped, evil kind of way. "He should change his hair, though," she thought.
        Zellas was still praying to her to spare her impertinent—what had she called him? Happy moron? She had to admit she agreed with Xellos: He was no moron, not even when he was deliriously amused. "Get up, Zellas, you’re making a fool of yourself!" Beast Master hurried to comply, keeping her eyes averted humbly, but her gaze shot back up to her Master’s face with a start when L-Sama declared: "I’m taking Zelgadis off your hands. He’s more than the two of you can handle."
        "Wh—Master?!" Zellas and Xellos protested at the same time. Zellas wanted to scream "he’s ours, you can’t have him", but what L-Sama wanted, L-Sama got, and those who refused her were crushed like one of her used up cigarettes. Instead, Zellas and her "happy moron" bit their lips and dropped their eyes, hiding their outrage and frustration in that gesture of submission. Not that anyone could fool the Lord of Nightmares, but if they made the effort to be humble she might forgive their true feelings and not kill them. "Yes, Master," Zellas whispered, "your will be done."
        "Damn right, my will be done!" L-Sama thought triumphantly but what she said aloud was: "Thank you for capturing and restraining him. Good work."
        "Thank you, Master," they said meekly and bowed, then watched miserably as the Lord of Nightmares released Zelgadis with a glance, then disappeared with him into thin air. For a few more frustrated moments they watched the place where she’d stood, failing utterly to cope with the fact that all their planning and scheming, all their hard work—even Xellos’ humiliation and near-death—had been for nothing. The prize was stolen, the game lost.
        "Master?" Xellos asked, his voice sounding a bit hollow in the wake of the Lord of Nightmare’s awesome presence that had recently filled the laboratory. Happy moron, indeed! Her court jester? Ha! How dare she call him that—to L-Sama, of all people, and in front of Zelgadis?! Xellos fumed. Beside him, Zellas quivered in dazed silence. A single tear trickled down her cheek, trailing black kohl eye makeup in its wake. Her lip trembled, and she bit it hard enough to draw blood, while at her sides she’d balled her fists so tight, her palms bled from the pressure of her fingernails. "Yes, Xellos?" She choked.
        Xellos put a hand on her slender shoulder and squeezed. "Never mind."

        She’d been extremely polite in the laboratory of Zellas Metallium but as soon as she had Zelgadis safely in her own lair, the Lord of Nightmares dropped the condescending courtesy schtick and slapped a restraining spell on Zelgadis so fast it knocked the wind out of him. "There. That should hold you." She tossed the words at him like scraps to a dog. As she puffed on yet another cigarette, L-Sama wriggled out of her soft leather jacket and tossed it over a nearby chair. She unbuttoned the cuffs of her cream-colored silk shirt, then went to work on the rest of its ivory buttons.
        Zel looked around using only his eyes, since the restraining spell kept him from moving his head. There was the chair with her jacket over one of its velvet-upholstered arms, and its matching dove gray velvet footstool in front of it. The chair was placed beside a large window without any kind of dressing, through which Zelgadis could see a thick blanket of stars and a half moon. The room was lit by a source that was out of his sphere of sight, possibly a chandelier, since the light seemed to be coming from above him. Beneath his feet was soft carpet in the exact same muted shade of gray as the chair. The walls were done in the same color, covered with what looked like damask silk in a pattern of intertwining dragons. At the farthest periphery of his right eye he could see an immense wardrobe that rose almost to the high ceiling. It was painted white and decorated with carvings of dragons and astronomical bodies. Zel strained his eyes leftward and would have gasped if the restraining spell hadn’t kept his lips from moving. He tried to shut his eyes against what he was seeing, but the spell prevented that mercy, as well. So he started to cry instead, desperately focusing his will on her spell but failing to so much as put a dent in it. "Oh, gods," he thought, panicked, "this can’t be happening…" At the very edge of his left eye’s line of sight was the lower corner of the Lord of Nightmare’s bed, and from the look of that one corner, the bed was huge. It was swathed in white silk and soft gray velvet. Zelgadis could see one of four posts from where he was: It was as big around as a young tree and fashioned to look like one, with the gnarled bark of an oak and branches that spread over the bed. The canopy was draped with wide, gauzy strips of the white and gray silk L-Sama so obviously favored.
        Zelgadis found himself wishing he would just turn into that blood thirsty Dark Lord he’d dreamed about and get it over with. Then the Lord of Nightmares would be too busy keeping him from destroying the world to even think about what she was obviously planning to do to him. "I really, really hate my life," Zelgadis thought in abject misery as he watched each piece of L-Sama’s ensemble land on the arm of the elegant chair: Blouse, trousers, stockings, lace-trimmed cream-colored teddy. Now completely naked, she reached up to pull a pearly comb out of her hair, giving Zelgadis an eyeful he didn’t really want but had no choice but to observe. Her golden tresses tumbled over her shoulders and breasts and down her back to just below her hips. When she shook her head and ruffled her fingers through it, her hair glittered in the light from overhead as if coated with diamond dust. "Oh…my…gods…" Zel thought with a sickening chill in his belly that had to war against the heat rising from just below it. The combined sensation was nauseating.
        The Lord of Nightmares walked with unselfconscious confidence between her one-chimera audience and the window, then behind him. He heard chair legs shuff over carpet, heard her sit down and pull the chair across the carpet again. The next sound puzzled him for a moment, since it was an activity he hadn’t indulged in since his transformation, then he placed it: She was brushing her hair. Zelgadis listened, finding himself enraptured by the sound of the bristles moving through her hair and unable to keep from counting each stroke until she stopped at one hundred. He heard the brush being set down on a wooden surface, then a drawer opened, its contents were rattled about, then the drawer was closed again. Soft patting noises followed and suddenly the room was filled with the delicate fragrance of Jasmine. "Powder?" Zelgadis mused. Yes, that had to be what it was by the faint tinge of dust that came with the scent. A lid popped off something, there was silence for a few moments, then the lid was replaced. The drawer opened, something was dropped into it to clatter amidst whatever else was in there, then the drawer was shut again. Now he could smell strawberries. "What in the hell is she doing?" Jasmine? Strawberries? The chair moved through the carpet nap as L-Sama got up and passed through and out of his vision again in the direction of the bed. He heard the bedspread being tossed back and caught the movement out of the corner of his eye. The mattress sighed and shifted as she lay down on it, then the bedspread was yanked out of his view.
        "Zelgadis," she said in a voice that radiated more power than he had ever dreamed existed, "it’s time to collect that data."
        He heard her pat the mattress, then the restraining spell was replaced by a different spell, and Zelgadis found himself wanting nothing more than to obey her every whim. Her first whim being that he discard the blanket she’d summoned for him at Beast Master’s and lay down beside her beneath the carved oaks and gossamer silk. It occurred to him that she was a truly stunning woman as she slipped her arms around him and kissed him. "Oh," thought Zel muzzily, "strawberries!" That was followed by the awe inspiring realization that he was in bed with the god who had created his whole world and could snuff it with a thought if she wanted to. Furthermore, she was quite possibly the only person who could "fix" the damage Rezo had done to him, even remove the spell that was transforming him into a full-fledged, insatiably evil demon. If all she wanted in exchange for that was an night in the sack with him, who was he to argue with his supreme god? So Zel did what any young, red-blooded chimera would do when faced with a god who wanted to make love with him: He obliged her. However, her lovemaking felt…strange. As if his life force was being slowly drained from his body with every passionate contact, until, when it came time for the actual mating part, he was too exhausted to do more than lay there and let her finish for both of them.
        Just before he lost consciousness, he saw what he thought was sadness in her eyes and, though he couldn’t hear her, he was almost certain her lips formed the words: "What a waste."

        Lina itched with the desire to storm Zellas Metallium’s lair and challenge Zelgadis’ kidnappers face-to-face. Gourry had told her very firmly that she’d only get herself killed, but Lina wasn’t one to listen to reason when one of her best friends was in the hands of The Enemy (and was about to become The Enemy, himself). So, now she was pinned to Gourry’s lap by his arms, which were as strong as steel after a lifetime of sword-slinging. Even kicking his shins to a pulp with her boot heels couldn’t break his resolve, so now Lina just sat there and sulked, while Amelia wept and threw out rescue plans as fast her hyperactive mind could think of them. Sylph had long ago lost her fight against fatigue and was asleep in Urlich’s lap, still wrapped in a blanket. Jaz the vampire sat on the ottoman next to Amelia, occasionally condemning the Princess’ plans but mostly listening in angry silence, cursing herself (Lina was sure, since that’s what she would do) for losing Zelgadis to Xellos so easily. Zhara’s new hires paced the floor and smoked, sometimes, giving the Princess their opinions of her plans and other times offering suggestions. Zhara drank in a chair by the fireplace and seemed to be in very deep thought.
        "Amelia, will you just shut up!" Lina snarled after enduring an entire half hour of the Princess’ hopeless ideas for saving her beloved Zelgadis. The ideas weren’t so bad, it was Amelia’s insistence upon making a little speech about the "eternal love" she’d deluded herself into believing she and Zelgadis shared that was driving Lina nuts. Though her arms were held against her body by Gourry’s, Lina still managed to hold up her fingers to tick off the digits as she spoke: "Number one: We’ve been over this—he doesn’t love you, not now and certainly not for eternity—I said ‘shut up’! Number two: Those are the stupidest plans I’ve ever heard! You have to think about plans, Amelia, you don’t just go with whatever falls off the top of your head! Number three: WHY THE HELL ARE WE JUST SITTING HERE?! Xellos probably took Zelgadis to his master, so all we have to do is go there, fight them and get Zel back! What’s to discuss?! Zhara, you and Url have to know where Beast Master’s lair is! Just take me there, and I’ll—"
        "You’ll what?" Zhara asked in a voice so calm it took all the wind out of Lina’s sails. "Kill them both?"
        "Sure, if I have to!" Lina shot back, trying to keep up her momentum and not quite succeeding. "Why not? What’s one less Dark Lord?" The words were past her lips before Lina could stop them from coming out of her brain. She blushed and scrambled to apologize. "I—I didn’t mean it like that! I’m sorry, it just came out! I’ve been fighting them for so—I mean, Xellos, but…um…I mean, he’s the enemy this time, but—"
        Gourry rolled his eyes. Amelia buried her face in her hands and muttered: "Would you like fries with that foot, Miss Lina?"
        Garroll, Nik and Lenzer glanced between Zhara and Urlich, looking like they were ready to break for the nearest exit. Jaz rested her chin on her knuckles and regarded Lina with undistilled disgust. "Are you always this stupid, or does Xellos just bring out the best in you?"
        Lina’s eyes flared, but a squeeze from Gourry kept her from retaliating for once. "I said I’m sorry…" She looked over at Url. Judging from his expression of absolute hatred, she was glad he had Sylph in his lap to keep him from coming at her. Zhara was more blase, however.
        "Maybe next time you and I will be on opposite sides of the fence," she said coolly, but her eyes sparkled with a veiled threat. "You seem to take both enemies and friends as they come, depending upon how well they can further your own agenda. We think alike in that." She rose and went to refill her goblet. "Right now, you’re useful to me. After this is over, you might get in my way." Her glass refreshed, Xellos’ daughter turned and covered the ground between herself and Lina in two long-legged steps. Over the rim of her goblet as she took a sip of wine, she added softly: "I kill people who get in my way."
        Her answer put a smug look on Urlich’s face and, satisfied that Lina had been subdued, he went back to snuggling Sylph. Lina, however, wasn’t so easily cowed, and nobody threatened her like that and got away with it. "Ooh," she mocked, "I’m so scared. I’ve faced damn near every Dark Lord this world can throw at me, and guess which of us is still walking around?! Do you see Shabranigdo? Phibrizio? Zanaffar? NO! I, Lina Inverse, destroyed them all!"
        Gourry coughed: "Actually, the Lord of Nightmares killed—"
        But Lina was on a roll. "—And you think you can scare me? Who are you? You’re just the offspring of a servant of a Dark Lord! So you made a city and some freaks to live in it—big deal!"
        "Here we go!" Gourry threw Lina off his lap to free up his sword hand. "Lina, I really think you should shut up now…" Directly across the room from him, Garroll was holding Nik and Lenzer back with his outstretched arms. Jaz was on her feet but was kept from attacking by Amelia, who had her arms wrapped around the vampire’s legs. Urlich had gotten up and was just settling the still-sleeping Sylph back onto the cushions when all of a sudden, he froze.
        "Zhara!"
        His sister stood in the middle of the room with her eyes closed, concentrating. "I feel it."
        "Feel what?" Asked all but Urlich and the still-slumbering Sylph.
        Zhara’s eyes opened but she didn’t seem to see her surroundings, as if she was someplace else. "They’re here. They want to talk."
        "Who’s here?" Lina demanded. "Who ‘wants to talk’?"
        Zhara gulped down the last of her wine and went to set the goblet on the mantelpiece, a troubled expression on her face. Urlich said: "Zellas Metallium and Xellos."
        Stunned silence settled on the room, and Lina’s harsh words were utterly and suddenly forgotten. "Do you think they want a ransom, or something like that?" Gourry asked, but Lina barely heard him. The icy hollowness in her stomach was all she needed to tell her what had happened and why the Metalliums had come to Marrigan to talk to them. Lina swallowed, but her mouth was so dry it made her cough instead. Her hands and her voice shook with rage and fear as she said: "They’ve lost Zelgadis."
       The Princess of Seyruun uttered a most uncharacteristic expletive.