He waved his SCARE badge at a sleepy taxi driver and ushered her into the backseat. Mollie was asleep before the driver had the car in gear.

Franny walked the streets of Jokertown.

It was a warm night and the streets were crowded. Jokers sat on stoops, passed cigarettes and conversations. Kids rode skateboards, tossed footballs. The flavors of a hundred different cuisines filled the night air. A pair of deformed joker lovers twined arms and stole kisses while orbiting each other in their wheelchairs. Through open windows the sounds of televisions, radios, and iPods spun their harmonies.

Occasionally there would be the serious tones of a news reader describing rape, murder, people eating their own flesh. And worse. People being changed. The way they had been changed on that long ago day back in ’46 when the wild card virus had been released.

He hurried past those windows because now he had heard it all. And after hearing the tapes he realized the full magnitude of what he had done. The world as they knew it was ending. Knew that death or worse was coming for them all unless a young woman could find a solution.

If he had known would he still have gone to rescue the kidnapped jokers?

He thought about the beaten body of José Neto, the dead joker who had started this entire clusterfuck. The forgotten people had been first to be stolen. The dregs, the derelicts, people no one would miss. Then the losers like José whose family would be ignored when they reported him missing. Eventually Baba Yaga’s claws had snatched away the worthy people, people whose absence would be noticed, and it had finally culminated with IBT and Father Squid.

Preserve and protect. He’d had to go. He didn’t have a choice. And he’d really only accelerated the day of reckoning. The aging body of Hellraiser was going to die. Or Baba Yaga would die without passing on her formula to keep the monster at bay. Franny really hadn’t caused this. The justifications rang hollow.

Organ music sang through the open door of the church of Jesus Christ Joker for indeed this was where his wandering steps had brought him. Word of the priest’s death had clearly spread because there was a carpet of flowers all around the walls of the church and spilling down the steps. Franny hated that he hadn’t thought to buy a bouquet. Of course he still had no money. Tomorrow he was going to have to start the laborious process of reestablishing his identity.

But really, why? What is the point? he thought.