Volume I - Episode 100 Where: Potsdam, Germany When: 25 days after E-Day, 7:31 am Rob and Cathy Frazer crept through the burnt out ruins. Cathy was angry. "We should have come last night. We should have come as soon as we saw the smoke." "There's no way we could have stopped them." "We could have tried." "We don't know how many of them there were. There could have been dozens." "Good!" "They would have killed us, Cathy." "Ha!" Cathy said. "I would like to have seen them try." She touched the leather pouch at her hip. Rob knew better than to question his wife's lethality. Both of them were armed, but his 9mm automatic pistol was no match for the firepower of Cathy's oaken wand. His dear lady wife, who he had met in a West Virginian church some nine years earlier, was one of the most powerful spellslingers in Europe. They climbed through the wreckage of the firebombed house's living room. Burning embers singed the soles of their shoes. The blackened skeleton of the house creaked and crackled around them, stinking of smoke and death. The top floor had collapsed during the night, scattering debris and plaster in every direction. "Oh no," Cathy said suddenly. "There she is." Leaning against the dining room wall, covered in ash, blood and broken glass, lay Sarah Bachmeier's corpse. "Oh dear," Cathy said. "They shot her. Oh Rob, look - she was pregnant." Rob stood back, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot. Suddenly the morning felt much too cold. The air seemed to press in around him. He realised he wanted to get out of here, fast. Cathy sensed her husband's urgency. She stood, but was unable to tear her eyes from the poor, murdered girl lying in the ruins of the burnt out house. I wish we could bury her. But there's no time. Be with her, Jesus. Take her into Your Kingdom. Cathy removed the cross from her neck and pressed it into Sarah's hand, trying her hardest not to notice how cold and stiff the young woman's fingers were. "We have to go," Rob said. "I know." They climbed out of the ruins, ran across the road and turned left. Their car waited for them ten kilometres to the south, hidden in a forest just outside of town. "I can't understand why they'd do that," Rob said. "A young pregnant girl. I mean, what the heck did she do to them?" "They're evil, Rob. That's pretty much all there is to it." Rob pondered this. They crossed a small car park and jumped the fence into a deserted school. "We have to stop them," he said finally. "We will," Cathy said, holding back a broken length of chain link fence for Rob to climb through. "When the Committee finds out what's been going on here, there'll definitely be retribution. Definitely. Clearly the Hexenjägern have declared war against spellcasters. Well, that's fine. If it's a war they want, it's a war they'll get. The Committee won't stand for what's been going on here. The Academy won't stand for it." Rob fell silent for another short while before speaking again. "I wonder how far the Hexenjägern have spread? I hope they're not in Cologne yet." "I'm sure we'll hear once Paul and Angela get there. They were still in the Netherlands last night, but they're making their way down." "Maybe we could just duck over there and check? It would only take, what...five, six hours to get to Cologne from here." [CONTINUED IN COMMENTS BELOW]