The Cat claws through the fabric of reality and leads Smith and Jones into the Umbra, refusing Smith's plea to retrieve his Childer first.

Once in the Umbra, C,S&J find themselves at somewhat of a loss about how to get from Alamut to the orbiting “satelite” of Ninja-vampires of tenth generation (the assamite' glorious “Shaheed-1”). They've learned from the experience with Teddy that moving through the Umbra involves homing in on some emotional resonance, so they try to attune to an emotion of fanatic elation which they feel will connect the wandering mountain of the Assamites to the flying undead pyramid that is the culmination of their insane master plan.

But while trying to do this emotional atunement thing, Magenta finds herself sucked into a nearby miasma of strong emotion, the spiritually resonant remnant of some long-ago battle. When a fanatic sword-weilder comes at her, she evades him by ducking into his emotions, and gets sucked into them.

Smith tries to extract Magenta from her entanglement, but he too gets drawn in, and the pair find themselves re-living some ancient battle to defend an Indian fort from a rebel attack. Again and again they experience these events, always with slight variations, moving back and forth along this timeline to change its course and try to break out of this karmatic bog. Meanwhile, the frustrated Cat circles them, reluctant to engage lest it too be sucked into the mess.

Finally, perhaps through pure reality-attrition or some brilliant move by the Cat, they break free and limp back to Alamut.

Allowing the Cat to lead them this time, they set off again. This time the Cat uses its unerring tracking instincts to laboriously trace Theodore's exact route through the Umbra, including all the detours, and they witness the wave of destruction sweeping across the earth - Tenth Night is raging across the globe, about to sweep all the way back to Shaheed-1 - and then they come across the orbiting Pyramid of vampires itself.

The Cat lets them out of the Umbra and into the vacuum of space, phasing them into material reality practically on top of the components of Sahid-1. They then proceed to engage the (in)human pyramid in melee combat!

In the airless vacuum, Smith is unable to dominate his way to a non-violent resolution, so he punches the pyramid in the face, or stabs it or something. Like an acrobatic fulcrum, the pyramid maintains perfect orbital rotation as it slams Smith off it's surface, hurtling him into space - if not for a fast save by the Cat, which elongates through unseen dimensions to grab him with a (Cathulhuesque?) paw; Magenta pulls a particle cannon out of her bag - no, it's a knife, just a bloody knife. In disgust she considers using something else, but relents and goes stabby. Assamite martyrs ablate into space. The pyramid puts in some cool moves, sacrificing members to spray lethal gouts of cursed blood out at the attackers. But, perhaps in the nick of time, perhaps in vain, all of them die, and only three (un)living things remain, suspended in space so recently occupied by Shaheed-1.

Then, all three are hit by a tremendous rush of power, rising from the earth. They also get a vision of something wearing through the thining surface of reality, some triangle or threefold shape which earlier Magenta perceived as sauron.

Shuddering, they dive back into the Umbra, and the Cat returns them to Alamut.

Back in Alamut, they refresh, and Smith convinces the Cat to return his Childer to him. The Cat does strange things to the mirror in Smith's spartan chamber and withdraws from the non-space behind its surface two figures: a peevish Piven and a staked Marilyn. Smith attempts to discipline his childe, and Piven grows more sullen and seething with inner rebelliousness the more he does so.

Marilyn is revived, everyone refreshes, and they wander off the mountain and down to Hyderabad; Magenta wants to find out what happened to Derek. However, approaching the town they find that it's surrounded by soldiers and roadblocks; they sneak into town but don't find Derek, although there are some supernaturals about, including someone Magenta recalls as a pretty nasty individual known as the potter, a |toreador who has long been suspected of being an assamite spy.

Smith wants to reach New York, where he remembers B leaving a copy of the module. They head for the airport, but are turned back by military guards, who tell them that there are no flights leaving, because India is at war with Pakistan, following a (nuclear?) bomb attack by one on the other (who attacked whom is unclear). Smith wants to commandeer a military plane to fly them out of the country, but it's pretty clear that this will be more trouble than its worth. Magenta suggests they try to evacuate like American civilians would, trusting to Smith or their underground resources to work past any missing paperwork problems.

So they head to the American embassy, which is being mobbed by soldiers and civilians, both Indian and expatriate. Piven uses his awesome presence and actoring skills to present himself as an important but unassuming official, opening their way into the embassy grounds.

As they try to find someone who can get them back to the USA, or at least tell them what the hell is going on, Magenta overhears someone talk in urgent whispers on the phone, saying “its them, they're here!” she signals Smith, who makes that person change his tune, but she clearly hears a voice on the other side of the phone conversation say, in an even more urgent whisper to someone else “they've got to him - they're at the embassy - blow the place! blow it all up!”