Heading North...

As the Conclave broke up, Jim’s house was bustling with activity. Everyone seemed to feel the tick tock of an internal clock as all-too-critical time slipped away. There was a growing sense of foreboding that dampened even Alexa’s easy grins and giggles.

Ravyn, Herne and Alexa were the first to be ready to leave. Herne had grabbed an overloaded diaper bag of essential clothes, favorite toys, fresh diapers, Naomi’s jewelry box and powdered formula and slung it over one shoulder. He then picked up Alexa in the other arm.

Ravyn, meanwhile, had already collected another bag containing some books that she had borrowed from Jim for herself and for Alexa’s story times. But she had also collected a rather large envelope stuffed with funds for expenses. Jim had grumbled about how much had been contained in that envelope, while Ravyn had remarked about how light it felt.

Once they were both ready, Ravyn and Herne slipped out into the back yard and disappeared in one of Ravyn’s customary flashes of smoke and fire.

After they had left, I sat down at Jim’s lap top computer and began typing in the address and directions to Daniel’s hidden genetic laboratory, providing instructions and passcodes for the alarms at the various doors. The laboratory was in West Virginia, tucked away in a small, nearly abandoned former coal mining town. Daniel hadn’t trusted anyone else with the codes to get into his lab, so I made all of the notes I could to help Jim figure out where everything was and what computer passwords he would need once he actually got in. It was just the kind of place that Jim could lose himslf in for days on end.

Cerrydwen had made some calls and arranged for a large rental car to be delivered to the house.

The sun was already beginning to set by the time the car was delivered, loaded and ready to roll for the journey to the sacred place that Cerrydwen had picked out in the Upper Peninsula. From the Frau’s complaints, I could tell that the air was still warm and heavy with moisture. The clouds overhead looked ominous. The two urns were back in the duffle back, wrapped in heavy towels and packed away in the trunk of the car.

With a final farewell for Jim from the Frau, a curt nod of acknowledgement from Cerrydwen, and hand shake from me, we were off.

The first rain drops hit the windshield as I backed the car out of the narrow driveway.

The ride north was a quiet one. Cerrydwen rode in the back seat and had indicated without really saying anything that she wished to be left alone. The Frau took off her glasses, pulled her jacket up over her torso like a blanket and was soon asleep.

The steady whoosh-thump-wheesh, whoosh-thump-wheesh of the windshield wipers was almost mesmerizing. The rhythmic noises and motion of the car, the silence of my companions and the several hour duration of the strange journey we had undertaken all conspired to make for period of introspection...

My thoughts were a jumbled mess that only began to sort themselves out as we were crossing the magnificent span of the Mackinac Bridge, a five mile long suspension bridge that connected the Upper and the Lower Peninsulas of Michigan across the Straits of Mackinac-the point where Lakes Michigan and Huron met.

The toll taker at the base of the bridge had warned that the weather was not very good and suggested that we wait until morning, but Cerrydwen’s voice had been firm from the back seat. “No. This cannot wait.”

“Alright then, I would recommend that you keep your speed down, the faster you are going, the harder it will be to control your vehicle up there. You all be careful now. Have a good night.”

We were the only car heading north at the time, the strong but steady rain had now turned into a bonafide autumn thunder storm. The water below us was only visible for brief moments, when great flashes of lightning ripped across the horizon, revealing rolling whitecaps far below. Great gusts of wind alternated between pushing the car to the side and boosting our speed by blowing from behind us. It was almost as if there were competing forces at work, one trying to help us get to our destination quicker, and another thrying to thwart us from making our goal...

Conclave...Part 9

A moment of silence stretched into a seeming eternity after I had stopped talking.

The Professor took a long, deliberate swig from his ever present two-liter of Diet Pepsi and began to speak. “So, it doesn’t look like Daniel opened up either urn. We can also figure that Drake still wants them back. Now that he has some of your ability to manipulate and travel through Shadow, he will be even harder to locate or predict. Finally, we also have Alexa to consider. We now know that she was the product of some sort of twisted genetic program of Daniel’s and Drake’s devising, so I sincerely doubt that Drake is going to let us raise her in peace in the way that we would choose. What do we do with these urns? How do we protect ourselves from a vengeful Vampire with the powers of a Demigod? And how do we protect Alexa long enough to let her grow up into the young woman she’s quite possibly destined to be? Those are the questions we need to resolve. Does anyone have any answers?”

Cerrydwen pushed herself free from the corner she had been lurking in and stepped forward to the edge of our little circle, a wicked grin on her face. “I say we release the Spirits in the urns.”

An uproar of voices met this suggestion. “What...?” “Why would we do that...?” “Not in my house...!”

Herne’s was the only voice that remained calm and quiet as his statement cut through the cries of everyone else. “I agree with Cerrydwen. Release those Spirits, it’s not right to hold them imprisoned in this way.”

Cerrywen raised a single hand, forehead furrowed like the noise of everyone speaking gave her headache. When everyone quieted down, she began to speak again. “Herne’s right. It’s wrong to leave those Spirits imprisoned. I had been wondering why I had been feeling so ill since they were brought out, but I can tell you that there are two very unhappy entities trapped within them. I can feel their pain. But, Jim, I am not suggesting that they be opened here in your home, or anywhere near where Alexa is.”

Jim piped in. “Damn straight.”

Cerrydwen nodded in acknowledgement and continued on. “Releasing these two Spirits serves a number of purposes. First, Drake won’t be hunting for them if they no longer contain the Spirits of his trapped parents. Second, if what we have heard of these two Spirits is anywhere close to accurate--remember we are getting this information third hand and as a product of Daniel torturing that poor woman--then Drake might be put off balance and on the run for a bit himself. That could give us some precious time to make arrangements for Alexa. Finally, if any genetic material does survive inside those things, we very well gain that critical DNA evidence to see if Drake really is an ancestor of any of us. Rusty, you’ve still got Daniel’s memories, right?”

I nodded, mulling over everything she had just said.

“Good. Then you probably also know where Daniel’s equipment is and how to use it, right?”

“Yes.”

“Excellent. So here’s my plan--Rusty, you need to give Jim here the address and directions to Daniel’s lab and information he needs to access Daniel’s computer files and lab notes. If he needs any special identification or permissions to get inside, you need to make arrangements for those as well. Jim, you’ll want to get there and start puzzling out how to use the equipment and see about gathering up all of the genetic data on Casters and all of the other subjects of their genetic program, but be ready to test some samples when we return with them.

“Rusty, Frau and I will take the urns to a place I know about in the Upper Peninsula where we can perform a series of rituals prior to releasing the Spirits in the urns.”

“What about me?” Ravyn asked, almost plaintively.

Cerrydwen actually smiled at that. “Ravyn, sis, you’ve had your share of excitement lately. It’s time to let some of the rest of us play around in your sandbox. Besides, we really do need to be concerned about Drake’s new abilities, so someone with Power needs to be near Alexa, just in case. I was thinking of asking you to accompany Herne back to Colorado with Alexa. Herne and Moira are experienced parents and can easily handle the mundane chores of taking care of a young child. Herne can handle himself against almost any magickal threat as well, but if Drake comes for her, he has no way to escape with Alexa to safety like you do.”

Ravyn looked almost sullen for a moment, then perked up as Bob floated down to nuzzle her neck. “Well, at least I won’t have to babysit a Zombie, I can actually babysit for a real baby this time! Betsy does need some time to heal up as well, that damn dragon’s acid was potent.”

Looking around at everyone’s thoughtful faces, Cerrydwen nodded. “It appears to be settled then. I think we all have some prep work to do to get ready, right?”

Conclave...Part 8

Staring down at the two archaic, cuneiform-inscribed, sealed bronze urns, I rubbed my hands together in a nervous fashion and started speaking again.

“It was only when Mrs. Al Farhan presented herself and claimed a connection with Drake and his past that Daniel began to piece together the fact that the two great mysteries he had been struggling with were intimately connected. Mrs. Al Farhan had hoped to earn her freedom by revealing her connection with Drake. Instead, she descended into a Hell that rivaled anything done at Abu Ghraib either by Saddam and his twisted sons, or by the misguided American soldiers who made that name famous again.

“It’s painful for me to recall all of the details of how he got her talk about all she had learned, so I will just summarize it without adding in any of those gruesome details.

“These two bronze urns contain the dessicated remains of Drake’s parents. The one on the left, the one inscribed with great dragon Tiamat on it contains his mother’s remains, while the one on the right contains the body of the human avatar Dracaar, that his father used at the time of Drake’s birth.”

“Wait a minute!” That was Ravyn. “Didn’t you just say that his father was some sort of same type of being as Ma Grendel was? What is this avatar crap? Was the man human or not?”

“I’m not real sure I understand the concept yet myself, but from my understanding through Daniel and Mrs. Al Farhan is that the body in this urn, is or at least was, mostly human. It seems that this type of beings can take human form when they choose to, but for the time that they do so, they take on the mantle of mortal existence and may be killed. From my memories of Ma Grendel, this death is not in any way permanent, she has been slain or died a number of times over the eons.

“But the importance of these urns is that each of them contains not only the physical remains of his parents, but also the Spirit of each.”

The Professor leaned forward, pointing to the urns. “So, you’re saying that at least one of these urns contains the Spirit of a god-like critter...and you brought them to my house?”

All eyes were on the two ancient urns. The room suddenly seemed slightly darker, by the shivers of the others, it also appeared to be colder.

“Well, uh, yes. That is why Drake is so desperate to have them back. The last thing he wants is for either of these Spirits to get loose. That is what he had been looking for when he first met Mrs. Al Farhan, and why he wanted them back from Daniel. You see, Daniel didn’t put much stock in ‘spirits’ being trapped in bronze urns. He was after the genetic material in the physical remains themselves.

“Knowing from his questioning of Mrs. Al Farhan that Drake fathered hundreds of children over the milennia, and having recovered a sample of Drake’s hair from Mrs. Al Farhan that she had received as a keepsake, Daniel was desperate to prove his new theory that the common ancestor of most Casters alive today was Drake himself--but even with the hair sample, his sample set was incomplete--he needed to test the remains of Drake’s parents to be sure.”

Conclave...Part 7

Herne tilted his head and interjected, “What price is that?”

“Drake discovered his talent while laying mortally wounded on a large field of battle buried underneath several other foot soldiers, one of whom was slowly bleeding to death, the blood dripping onto Drake’s lips. Even as he was dying, he could feel a stirring of his Will, but there was a terrible thirst that had to be quenched before his Talent would respond to his Will. He succumbed to the thirst and drank of the fluid that was there for the taking.

“To make a long story slightly shorter, Drake discovered thatr by drinking blood, human blood in particular, he could repair even the direst of wounds to his own body. He was able to get up from under that pile of bodies and walk away from that battlefield unscathed, but forever changed.

“He didn’t, however, fight any more battles for Ur. Instead, he slipped away for several years to learn more and more about his talent, but the more he experimented with it, the more insatiable his Thirst became.”

Frau shifted in her chair, clucked her tongue and added, “He became a Vampire. That’s one critter I had hoped was but a legend.”

“Indeed, Drake’s exploits over the milennia have been the basis for most of the legends about Vampires in a number of cultures.”

Herne spoke up again, “So, his control over his body is so good that he doesn’t age, makes him stronger than any man I’ve met, and makes him almost impossible to kill?”

“Yes. So long as he has a sufficient supply of human blood to feed his Talent, he can do all of that and more. He has had thousands of years of practice and training in every conceivable martial art and form of combat known to mankind to hone his reflexes and become an ultra-effective killing machine, when he chooses to do so. He can essentially control every muscle and nerve in his body to such a degree that he can perform superhuman feats of strength, stamina and speed. He has also modified his own body, doing many of things to his own body by force of his Will and his Talent that he had done to mine with technology and magick. His bones are denser, his muscles far stronger and faster than any mere human.”

Ravyn was getting impatient. She stood up to stretch, moved around behind her chair and leaned over before interrupting. “So Drake’s a Vampire, big damn deal. What’s this got to do with him being related to any of us, and what the heck does this have to do with Bernstein’s experiments? Let’s get this story moving, Zombie-boy, the rest of us here don’t have the patience of the dead!”

“Boy, isn’t that the truth.” I quipped back at her. “OK, OK, I’ll move this along...”

Conclave...Part 6

“It was only when Daniel was sent to Iraq that the answers he was seeking about both Drake and that mysterious common ancestor of most Casters literally fell into his hands.”

“That Iraqi woman, Mrs. Al Farhan?” That was the Frau.

I nodded. “He had no idea that two great mysteries he was trying to puzzle out were actually related, literally. But once Mrs. Al Farhan came under his control, and once she offered up her knowledge of Drake in an attempt to gain her freedom, Daniel couldn’t resist...taking it from her in some very unpleasnat ways.”

Cerrydwen’s eyes narrowed as she broke into the narrative. “You mean he raped that poor woman in just about every way that can be done.”

I shifted uncomfortably. “Yes, he raped her...brutally raped her...in a number of ways, all of which are now resting in my memories. Once he learned that she had the Talent that she did, and that she had the chance to use the Talent on Drake, his greed to know more and more became unquenchable.”

Ravyn piped in now. “That’s still no excuse for what he did to her!”

I held up my hands. “True. Trust me, I am offering up no excuses for that wretched excuse of a man. But, because of what he did, I have a much fuller understanding of Drake’s history and just how great this challenge is going to be. I have pieced together a good portion of his history now between Mrs. Al Farhan, Daniel’s memories, Ma Grendel’s memories and Drake’s own statements to me over time. It makes for a Hell of story, one I’m not sure I entirely believe, but one that I need to tell you all so that you can see what exactly it is that we are facing. I will also then tie it in to what Daniel then learned of the genetic question he had been pursuing.

“Drake was born between 5,000 and 6,000 years ago in the ancient city-state of Ur, one of the first great cities to rise in Mesopotamia, the place we now know of as Iraq. His mother was a powerful society woman who was also a secret priestess of Tiamat, the great She-Dragon of middle eastern mythology. Her Order was actually forbidden by the ruling powers in the city, since Tiamat was seen as a powerful evil force and as representing primal chaos.

“His mother, however, was in no real danger due to her membership in that Order because she was the mistress of one of the most powerful men in the city, the King’s most trusted general and advisor- a man who went by the name of Dracaar. This would have made Drake a very powerful man in his own right, except that things are even stranger than that. It turns out that his father was no mere human. His father was a being of the same ilk as Ma Grendel...one of a number of such beings who have taken on human guises over the years and even mated with humans.”

The Frau furrowed her brow, parsed her lips and spoke up. “A creature of Ma Grendel’s strength would have been seen pretty much as a god at that time.”

“Indeed. From those memories of hers that I still have, Ma Grendel herself has been worshipped in many societies as a powerful goddess and feared in even more as a demoness. Those memories also show that her exploits have become the basis for a number of myths and legends. We even continue to refer to her even now by a name that one of her children acquired through the legend of Beowulf.”

It was the Professor’s turn to scratch his head and chime in. “So, you’re saying that Drake’s father was a god-like creature similar in power to that of this Ma Grendel you fought in New York. Wouldn’t that make Drake a demi-god of sorts? That might explain why he appears to be almost unkillable.”

“Yes and no. When Mrs. Al Farhan touched Drake, she absorbed much of this early history from him, but she also learned that his apparent immortality is something that he acquired only when he learned how to utilize the Talent that he actually had. You see, his father actually considered Drake a failure because he didn’t seem to have any of the magickal talents that most children of such unions had. He sent the young Drake away from Ur to serve in the army as a foot soldier since he didn’t have the apparent talent to become anything more useful.

“But it was in the course of that life as a soldier that Drake discovered his Talent. He had a unique ability to control his body, even down to a cellular level. Utilizing that Talent to its fullest extent however, came with a terrible price...”

Conclave...Part 5

I stopped speaking for a moment, taking time to look at each of my companions before dropping the bombshell that was about to come out. Each of them was clearly absorbed in what I had been saying, but they all seemed to sense that a change was coming as well.

I leaned forward a little bit, looking down at the floor before continuing. “Daniel Bernstein had the goods on Drake, right down to a genetic profile of the man that identified a very scary fact, one that may impact each of you. Mrs. Al Farhan is not the only known relative of Drake.”

Ravyn piped in. “What? Who else is related to that abominable man?”

“Well, darling, you are almost definitely related to him, probably less distantly than most other Casters, given how strong your talent is.”

“You can’t be serious! Can you?”

I held up my hands at sounds of derision and anger that everyone was starting to make. “Unfortunately, I am. But let me explain a little bit.”

They all settled back, most with looks of confusion or doubt clearly expressed on their faces.

“Daniel was first and foremost, a first class geneticist. He actually had a number of different specialties for a man his age, but his true love of science fell in the field of genetics. He was doing a lot of work for Drake under the guise of the Omega Project. He had several teams of people out there gathering genetic samples from several sources.

“First, he had a team that was offering free genetic screenings for young women and couples looking to have children, ostensibly screening for various diseases and carrier genes that might cause problems. They provided some of that information to those potential parents, but they retained a great deal more for Daniel’s secret library.

“A second team was out doing research using various media sources to gather signs of what might be considered ‘magickal incidents’ and tracking down the names of the people involved. Then using the resources of the Bureau and operating under the auspices of certain shady provisions of the Patriot Act, they set about obtaining genetic samples from any available source. These ranged from taking samples that folks gave up voluntarily to their doctors, such as when they had blood tests done to even using sneak and peek searches of the homes of people who were gone at the time so that they could collect hair follicles from hair brushes or even tooth brushes.

“Finally, other teams were out infiltrating known groups of Casters, such as this one, using every possible way to collect further genetic samples, up to and including arranging the snatching of folks off the street, drugging them into unconsciousness, and taking samples before releasing them in out of the way locations.”

Cerrydwen interjected this time, with more than a little sarcasm dripping from her voice. “So, how does this relate to Drake being my long lost great, great grandfather?”

“I’m getting to it. Anyway, as he began to analyze his data, he began to notice certain common markers that almost every tested Caster shared to one degree or another, something that pointed to a common ancestor, even among seemingly disparate cultural and ethnic groups.

“Daniel had had a suspicion that Drake was hiding something for a long time. He had noted how Drake never actually ate a meal in his presence, and never seemed to drink anything other than occasional sips of water over the course of their many years of working together. He suspected that Drake was a Caster of some sort as well, but whenever he tried to broach the subject, Drake just smiled, shrugged and usually ignored answering the question altogether. When he did offer an answer, it was more in the form of a question-’Have you ever seen me use magick?’ or ‘Why would you think that, Bernstein?’

To be continued...

Conclave...Part 4

Despite the lighthearted banter and joking as the Frau continued to remove fragments of Drake’s sword from my body, I could see the obvious concern on the faces of my companions. The news that Drake had acquired at least some of my mastery over Shadow was more than a little disconcerting to everyone present.

Using more of her unsurpassed seamstress skills than her Healing talents, the Frau quickly patched up my gut innards, using copious amounts of thick, sinew-like fishing line that Jim had had sitting in his garage. Finally, she closed up the leather like flesh of my stomach using big, looping stitches to close the jagged wound.

As she was finishing her work, my consciousness sunk inwards, as I set in motion my own internal mechanisms for patching things up. It was no longer a process that happened automatically, but one that now took a great deal of concentration and energy.

The Frau tut-tutted again as she pulled away from me, her hands a mess of sticky, presumably stinky goo. The others avoided her with wrinkled noses and mutters as she toddled off to go wash up.

I sat up slowly, rolling my left shoulder and stretching that arm out gingerly, making a fist and opening the hand back up carefully. I was glad to see that the paralysis was only temporary.

I stood up from the floor where I had been laying on an old, now ruined blanket and moved over to an empty stool. Herne quickly bent down and rolled it up in to a sodden, soiled taco and removed it, showing little reaction to what had to be a nasty job.

Frau came back in the room and moved to her own comfortable chair, signalling the others to take their own places around the circle.

Jim had grabbed a laptop and a pile of file folders, notes and loose papers from his den and brought the whole mess to his seat, next to an already cluttered table. In one practiced motion, he swept the stack of newspapersd and magazines from the table and sat down with a grunt.

Ravyn had taken the time to clean the smoke, dirt and blood from her face and arms. She had also found, much to my disappointment, a pair of jeans and a t-shirt to replace her rather distracting Faire costume. She was now sitting directly across from me in the semi-circle arrangement, too tired to be her normal bouncy self. Her eyes, however, burned with an intensity that indicated that she was fully prepared to say her piece when given the chance.

Cerrydwen hovered near the outer edge of the group, not sitting so much as she was leaning against a sturdy book case. She was her normal brooding self, intent on watching everything and everyone at the same time. She made no secret of the fact that with one bounding step she could be up the stairs and on her way to Alexa’s room, should the need arise.

Herne, in the meantime, had slipped back into the room without anyone really noticing him and was seated next to the Frau. He had one of his long hunting knives out and was calmly inspecting the blade for any sign of a blemish.

The dusty duffle bag and the two archaic cannisters sat in the middle of the gathering.

Once I noticed that everyone was in place, I began a dry, mechanical re-telling of my journeys since I had left for the Tree, starting with the meeting of Alexa’s mother there and ending up with battle with Drake.

Ravyn piped in here and there when I left out an embarassing detail or two.

Once I finished with that generic tale of just the events as they happened, it was time to get down to the nitty gritty details of some of the secrets I had learned when I finally unlocked the walls around Daniel’s memories...

To be continued...

Conclave...Part 3

The journey from the Faire to the Professor’s home was done in multiple stages, but it took place so quickly, it was almost a blur.

First, we landed at the stone circle outside of the community home near Chicago. I was barely standing at that point, finding it hard to maintain my own balance. I was still leaning on Ravyn, who was grunting under the combined strain of supporting my weight and managing the complexc task of making sure we arrived safely.

“Hey, I have rather fond memories of this place.”

“Keep it up, buster, and you’ll be crawling your way home!”

“Yes, ma’am.”

We hurriedly stumbled into the house, gathered up the duffle bag full of cash, and made our way to the basement without much notice. We stepped into a dark room, where we hoped that my own powers over the Shadow were put to the test.

Luckily, Drake hadn’t been able to drain those abilities from me completely before Herlinda had stopped him, so I was able to muster enough strength to take us to the place where I had hidden the cannisters and then take us to Jim’s place before collapsing.

I regained cosnciousness to find the Frau tut-tutting over me as she was pulling the broken pieces of Drake’s blade from my gut, all the while listening to Ravyn’s tale of the events at the Faire.

Jim, Cerrydwen, and Herne were all there listening in as well, all of them were also watching Frau’s less than delicate surgery on my gut with keen interest.

When she noticed that I had come around again, Frau chuckled and added a little humor to the event, “Ah yes, it looks like our patient has rejoined us in the Land of the Living. You let me know if any of this hurts now, OK?”

“Very funny, Frau. How bad is the damage?”

“Oh, he cut into you pretty deep there, Rusty, but I really have no idea how much of this stuff in here is essential to your functioning. You are, however, the first patient I’ve worked on who didn’t need any anesthetic.”

Jim’s face hovered into view, looking more than a little green. His nose was also scrunched up. “Rusty, do you really think it was a good idea to go confront Drake without letting us know what was going on? You have other responsibilities now, you can’t just go galivanting off without a plan.”

“Hey, I had a plan...it just didn’t work as well I thought it would. Besides, I asked Ravyn to go along!”

Ravyn’s smoke smudged face quickly poked into my view. She was wagging her finger in that way of hers. “It was all your idea, bub. I went along to save your bacon, as usual. Don’t even try to say that I sanctioned this adventure of yours!”

To be continued...

Showdown at the OK Corral...Epilogue

The following passages are excerpts from an article I found on the ‘Showdown Incident’ from the September 12, 2005 MichiWire News Service:

HOLLY-A spokeswoman for the Michigan Renaissance Festival released a statement this morning denying responsibility for a particularly dangerous pyrotechnic display that took place yesterday afternoon. The statement reads in part: “The Michigan Renaissance Festival takes great pride in offering great family entertainment in a safe atmosphere. Management of the Festival did not plan for, nor participate in any way in the dangerous pyrotechnic display that took place on Sunday, September 11, 2006. The actors in that event were not employees of the Festival, nor were their actions in any way sanctioned by the Festival.” The statement did not elaborate on the incidnet itself, however dozens of eyewitnesses reported watching what they believed was a sanctioned performance when two men apparently began to duel near the jousting field of the event.

The duel, however, began only after the actors managed to create the illusion of a large black dragon. Spectators report that this illusory dragon was defeated in battle by a great bird of fire, presumably the legendary Phoenix. While the mythical creatures were illusory, the unknown band of actors did employ prodigious amounts of pyrotechnic fireworks that led to a number of the participants, as well as three bystanders, being injured in the display.

The Holly Fire Department was called upon to put out the fires caused by the incident. Holly Fire Chief Jack Denson provided the following brief statement when asked by this reporter: “People really should learn to respect the danger that such powerful fireworks pose to innocent bystanders. I really hope that the lawmakers in Lansing will rise to the occasion and will make it harder for people to get ahold of these things.” He also reported that nearly a dozen of the alleged perpetrators were transported to the University of Michigan Burn Center in Ann Arbor for treatment for injuries that ranged from 2nd degree burns and broken bones to in one case a man suffering 3rd degree burns over 40% of his body. Those suspects not still at the Burn Center as of this morning are undxergoing questioning by detectives of the Oakland County Sheriff’s Department. The investigating deputies have also recovered several clues from the scene and are running forensic tests on those items, including the remains of what appears to be two of the swords involved in the duel. Deputies refused to disclose the details of the other items recovered, indicating that the investigation remained open. Several of the main actors in the stunt appear to have left the scene prior the arrival of the authorities and remain at large.

The injuries to the three bystanders were all minor, including cuts and abrasions with some minor first degree burns.

Witnesses relate that damages to the Festival itself are minor, comprising solely of a destroyed fence around the jousting arena and several small trees. The Festival spokeswoman indicated that all damages would be repaired this week and that the Festival would be open for business as usual for next weekend. She did indicate that festival-goers will have to submit to additional searches at the entrance when the Festival reopens, but that such searches would result in increased security for the benefit of all participants. She also related that the ban on customers bringing their own weapons such as swords and knives, will be strictly enforced.

Despite the out of control fireworks, most eyewitnesses claimed that the stunt was the best event of the day, one woman exclaimed, “It was like being there in the middle of movie like Lord of the Rings or Star Wars, that was so cool. I can’t wait to see what happens next week!”

Showdown at the OK Corral...Finale

By 2:30 we were on our third circuit of the fair grounds. Between us, we identified at least twenty possible goons in waiting, often hanging around in pairs. Since it was a Sunday, and they were apparently trying to blend in the general population of tourists, the chosen style of dress was pure goon casual--polo shirts, khaki colored pants and loafers--while they ‘concealed’ their weapons within the ubiquitous rip-away type fanny packs so common with law enforcement types.

There were also several Casters in the crowd, although neither Ravyn or I recognized any of them either from the ORC’s or from previous encounters with Drake’s henchmen, so it was impossible to tell if they were here on Drake’s behalf or just enjoying the festival itself. Until one or more of them showed themselves as a threat, we decided to leave those folks out of the equation.

As the sun moved closer to it’s 3 o’clock position, we parted company as we left a small jewelry shop and took different routes to head towards the jousting field. Sauntering through the still vibrant crowds as they streamed away from a just completed jousting match, I noticed a few of the goon contingents subtly shifting into positions around the emptying area.

A single dark figure stood near the wood fence separating the main thoroughfare from the field where the jousters had so recently been demonstrating their skills. His back was to me, as leaned with his arms crossed on the top bar of the fence, his left foot propped up on a bale of hay, completely at leisure, seemingly lost in thought.

Seeing Drake again actually sent a shiver through my Spirit. This was the first time we had come face to face since we had battled in the Everglades. His pale skin contrasted all the more with his black shirt and pants. His dark hair was slicked back into a small pony tail, the first time I can remember seeing him with longer hair.

As interesting as it was to see Drake again, however, something drew my eyes even more than he did, something that emanated a sense of Power unlike anything I had only ever felt with Witchbane Blades. Leaning up against the fence next to him was a tall, thick cane that was topped with a dragon’s head. The shaft of the cane was made of some strange, light absorbing material that was not quite wood and not quite stone, but something unbelievably ancient nonetheless. The dragon’s head at the top of the cane was made of ethereal silver metal that reflected light. The eyes of the dragon were rubies that shone with a fire all their own. Just below the dragon’s head the mounting brace could easily have doubled as a...hilt....as I looked at it, I could just sense that the shaft was actually a sheath for a blade of some sort.

Determined not to show any hesitation that might be construed as fear, I sauntered up to the fence next to him, leaning my own considerable weight on it.

We sat there for several moments watching the stablehands take care of the horses at the far end of the field, neither of us willing to break the uneasy silence.

“You understand, Bones, that I will have what is rightfully mine, don’t you?”

“Why are they so important to you, Drake?”

“That’s none of your business. The only thing you need to know is that they belong to me and that I will stop at nothing to get them back.”

“Funny, they were fairly easy to acquire, are you telling me that Daniel truly had you over the barrel over these things?”

“Bernstein was a close associate of mine, Bones. We worked together for a number of years. I never saw the hidden strength he had developed until it was too late. Your reckless and needless assault on my organization ruined a number of plans. Surely you didn’t drag me to this pageant of fools to trade banter with me. What do you want for the cannisters?”

“I’m not entirely sure that I will give them up to you yet, Drake. First of all, I’m not giving you a God-damned thing until I know what it is. Second, I have very little faith that you will actually live up to any agreement we make in regards to these items. If I give them to you, what will keep you to your word? Finally, as you can probably tell, I’ve changed a lot since our last meeting, but one thing hasn’t changed, and that is my burning desire to destroy you.”

“If you wish to slay me so badly, why are you waiting? You and I are both here, just the two of us. If you think you are ready, you will not get another chance so easily.”

“Well, I’d rather not risk hurting any innocents, and besides, as long as I have your precious containers, I know you’ll come to me whenever I desire.”

He looked over at me for the first time. His soulless eyes burrowing deep into my own. “Bones, don’t be such a fool. This is your last chance to agree to turn over to me what is mine, or I will unleash a terrible war upon you and all that you hold dear that will leave everything and everyone you have ever loved in smoking ruins. So I ask you one last time, what do you want for these containers?”

A shadow fell over us as his words finished. I didn’t think much of it at first, until I felt a strange tingling deep inside, like a part of me recognized something was coming...

“RUSTY!!! WATCH OUT!!!”

With Ravyn’s shout, and the excited screams of dozens of nearby folks, I swung around just in time to see that shadow coalesce into a tall dragon like form that towered over us, it’s black scales solidifying into a glistening black metal as I looked on stunned. Drake was no longer next to me, but had somehow slipped behind the 30’ long, 15’ tall creature.

It’s head was nearly as large as I was, its mouth was agape, it’s ivory colored fangs dripping a liquid that left smoking holes in everything that it dripped on.

Time slowed in those fleeting few moments...I was fumbling to draw Herlinda and Diego from their sheaths...I saw Ravyn throwing a bolt of fire that easily outdid anything else I had ever seen her throw right at the back of the beast’s head, but even that fire seemed to move in slow motion...As the fire was lancing out towards the creature, a stream of it’s thick acid was heading towards me...People all around were screaming in fear and panic while two dozen goons were moving in towards us, many towards Ravyn, now revealed...A piercing cry from above told me that Betsy was entering the fray...

In the instant before the stream of acid reached me, I instinctively grabbed Shadow and wrapped myself in its cocoon, transporting myself to a position right behind the smiling Drake.

Both blades came free just as I emerged from the Shadow, Diego practically dancing in my fingers for a chance to get at the man responsible for his centuries of imprisonment...

The blast of intense fire struck the dragon in the head, sending the beast reeling forward and roaring in pain as it crashed writhing and twitching into the now smoking remains of the fence...

Drake had sensed my move and was whirling even as I was trying to plunge both blades into his back, in one practiced motion, he parried both blades with that cane he had been carrying, sending me staggering past as he drew the blade portion in his second movement, leaving him holding the wicked looking, razor thin blade in one hand, the solid black sheath in another...

As I regained my balance and swung around to face my arch nemesis, I had one quick glance of Ravyn raising a ring of fire around her as a half dozen burly goons tried to close in on her. They leaped back with cries of pain...

Drake took that opportunity to feint with the blade and lash out with the sheath in an attempt to knock Herlinda from my left hand. The crushing blow would have shattered the bones of a normal person, but it only pushed that hand down momentarily. It was almost enough for him to slip his blade into my chest. He was as lightning fast as I remembered, but this time, Diego was faster, as he crashed the blade away with a ringing parry...

We circled after that exchange, giving me a ringside seat to witness a blazing phoenix crash down on the head of the dragon as it tried to rise, Betsy’s talons, beak and blazing feathers creating a flurry of attacks that the still dazed dragon was unable to stop...

Drake launched another flurry of blows with his blade and sheath, each of which was just barely parried or dodged as I struggled to counter his greater skill, reach and speed...

We continued to circle, with him pushing the fight onto me. My glances of Ravyn, the dragon and and the phoenix, the goons, and the growing crowd of wildly cheering Faire-goers were getting fewer and fewer as I spent more and more energy trying to defend myself by the determined blows of Drake...

I did manage to see Ravyn get saved by ‘Bob’ as he crashed into a particularly large goon who had come up from behind her as she faced down two others. His dive into the poor bastards’ gut was strong enough to lift him off of his feet and throw him past the row of spectators that had formed around that fray...

Drake seemed to get both faster and stronger as the fight went on. He was smiling the entire time, though he remained blissfully silent as he obviously enjoyed watching me struggle to fend of his blows. Luckily, I wasn’t going to tire either.

Diego hated to be forced into defense. He tried to guide my hand into lashing out at Drake, but Drake was too fast, batting aside the thrusts with ease with his longer, more agile blade.

Drake smiled as we exchanged another series of blows. “Ah yes, I remember these blades. They served their purpose, but I have a better weapon now.”

I barely turned his latest thrust, but used my momentum to spin and land what felt like a glancing blow with Herlinda’s hilt on Drake’s head...he stumbled, off balance for the first time in my memory...I continued my spin, bringing Diego down for a killing thrust, only to be deflected by a wild bat with the sheath as Drake tumbled into a better defensive position.

I was shocked to see blood trickling down Drake’s high cheek bone. It was my turn to smile. “You’re getting cocky Drake, these blades remember you as well, they are sworn to take but one more soul with them...yours!”

Seeking to press an advantage, I waded in on the attack. Another flurry of blows, this time with Drake backing down, circling to his left...

A flash of flame signalled the end of the struggle between legendary creatures as Betsy rose in triumphant flame crowing her victory, though not without cost as large portions of her feather plume and one taloned foot were missing, victims of the acid of the dragon...

Drake brushed the trickle of blood from his cheek with the back of his sheath hand, glanced at the blood smear and smiled up at me. “I’m impressed Bones, it has been many decades since I’ve seen my own blood. You have grown in ways I could not have imagined even a year ago. But you still have much to learn.”

With that he began a swirling, darting series of attacks that pushed me back. I was whacked several times by the sheath before I could see the pattern of his attack, but just as I shifted to adjust to that pattern, the blade became harder to see until his flurry of attacks ended with his blade thrusting into my gut, sinking a third of the way up my gut...

Lancing, shooting, wracking pain laced through my very being, pain like I hadn’t felt since the merge with the remnants of Ma Grendel. For the briefest of moments, the whispers deep inside me shrieked in glee and in release before I felt a sucking sensation through the wound and into the blade.

I looked up to see Ravyn’s flames dying down as she had driven back the last of Drake’s goon squad, her face bloodied and bruised, her eyes flashing anger and then concern as she saw what was happening to me.

“Rusty!!!”

I stood there for the briefest of moments, unable to free myself from the blade as the darkness inside seemed to stream down the blade and into Drake. Drake’s smile grew colder, more evil, as he appeared to drink in my very essence...

Herlinda stirred in my hand, driving me to strike down at the base of Drake’s blade with her own blade. The force of the blow as the longer, slimmer blade was trapped by my own body and the armor that I wore caused both blades to shatter, creating a blast of released energies that threw both Drake and I backwards ten feet each onto our backs...

The crowd gasped, then roared at the sheer spectacle of the battle. Somehow, they must have felt that the legendary beasts, the blasts of flame and acid, the epic battle of magickal blades and undead beings was a grand show put on for their benefit, a spectacle that surpassed any other show at the Faire.

Weakened by the loss of Spirit from that damnable blade of Drake’s and the loss of Herlinda, I struggled to sit back up. When I finally did, I saw Drake rise, dust himself off, and start to come toawrds me again, his tattered and blood drenched sword arm dangling uselessly at his side...

I managed to stagger back to my feet, Diego still in my other hand. The arm and hand that had held Herlinda also hung limp at my side. I could sense more than feel the gaping wound in my gut where the blade had exploded...

Ravyn was half running, half limping as she was forcing her way through the larger crowd around us...

Drake stopped three paces away, looked contempuously at the now useless sheath in his good arm, discarded it, then looked up at me, grinning strangely. “We are more alike than you will ever know, Rusty. We shall meet again soon to continue this discussion, but first I must test these new talents you have bequeathed to me...” His cackling laughter faded as he drew the Shadow about himself and disappeared...

“Holy fucking shit...” was all I managed to say as Ravyn stumbled over to me, her face mirroring my concern.

Ravyn reached into a pouch at her belt and pulled out a small ruby. “Let’s get out of here.” She crushed the stone and we disappeared in a flash of fire.

Showdown at the OK Corral...Part 3

Dressed in Ravyn’s best attempt at a 2 hour Medieval-chic makeover, I felt like quite the Genghis Khan as I strode through the mid-September crowds near the entrance to the festival. as I stomped through the crowds glowering through my dark mask, I glimpsed flashes of Ravyn practically dancing among the throngs, sharing quick laughs and saucy smiles with the various male gawkers who enjoyed her low cut top and short, flouncy skirts.

She had chosen that outfit from among dozens of costumes she had at the community house precisely because it created such a contrast with the one she had chosen for me. When I commented that the outfit looked a little on the distracting side for the kind of meeting we were headed to, she flashed that devilish grin of her and retorted, “That’s why it’s such a good choice. Drake may not be so easily distracted, but the kind of men he employs are. If they are looking at my ‘assets’, they won’t consider me the threat that they ought to.”

“Well, I certainly won’t complain!”

She harrumphed a bit as she stepped behind the screen to change. I had shuffled off to make my own less spectacular transformation.

It was relatively easy for me to push my way through all of the people. One look at my menacing appearance first gave onlookers a pause, then caused them to stumble back a step as they took in the entire picture. I was taller than normal, between the tall, shiny black leather boots with a slight heel to them and black metal and leather helmet that came to a slight point. My long black cloak billowed out behind me in the breeze as I stalked through the grounds looking for any sign of Drake or his men. Over each shoulder, the hilts of Diego and Herlinda poked out from under the cloak, the leather straps that served as ‘peace bonds’ more for show than actually restraining me from drawing either blade. The studded leather breast plate and greaves added even more to my already formidable bulk. I clanked and creaked as I moved. Luckily, I didn’t have to worry about getting overheated or about sweating inside this get-up, and I was very glad to not have to smell the sweat of all of the previous wearers mixing with my own odors...there are advantages to being dead after all! The only way I knew it smelled was by watching Ravyns nose crinkle as she had set it out for me. All in all, I went from being a rough looking character to being a pure medieval badass.

Ravyn, on the other hand, had transformed from her normally modest and reserved looking self to a stunning vision in peasant wench-chic. From her gauzy white top that slipped off of shoulders, always seeming on the edge of revealing too much, to her short, layered skirts that came to just above her knees, her appearance just screamed ‘bawdy tavern-wench’.

So while we each drew attention as we walked about the festival leading up to our scheduled meeting with Drake, that attention actually worked to our advantage. Those men who didn’t back down from my menacing presence and challenging appraisal marked themselves as potential tough guys for further observation, while those men who didn’t trade flirty smiles with Ravyn were either also potential targets, or were just in view of jealous wives.

As we circled throughout the grounds of the Faire though, my mind was only half on the people around me. The rest of my consciousness was absorbed in playing out the phone conversation I had had with Drake to set this meeting up and how much things could go badly wrong with this whole encounter.

The conversation itself had been fairly short, but as always with Drake, had taken place on multiple levels, leaving so much open to speculation and interpretation:

The phone had only rung once before he answered, “Bernstein, you’d better have a good explanation for disappearing. You know you won’t be able to hide from me forever.” His voice was cold and hard, but with a slight edge of something else to it...desperation?

“Drake, Daniel’s a little busy at the moment, I thought I would speak to you on his behalf.”

There was just the smallest of pauses before he spoke again, with an almost imperceptible hitch to it. “Rusty, how nice of Bernstein to give you this number. What have you done to him?”

“I didn’t call you to talk about one of your former flunkies, Drake. We’ve got some things to discuss, face to face.”

I could almost sense his cold, evil smile through the phone. “You want to see me again. Ah, yes, I should like that very much. Shall we catch up on old times together? How’s your new daughter doing, by the way?”

“She’s one of the things we need to discuss, you bastard. But this time, I’m not the only one with family members to discuss.”

A longer pause this time. That smile was gone by the time he spoke again. “Whatever are you talking about?”

“Let’s just say that Daniel was playing some dangerous games of his own, one that I have ended prematurely. Those items he had been trying to blackmail you with are now solidly in my possession. I also rescued a relative of yours from a particularly nasty fate.”

“What have you done with those items?”

“I thought you would be more concerned about those than you would be about Zenni. She’ll be so very disappointed to hear that.”

His words were coming quickly now. “Bones, you have no idea what kind of danger you are putting those you love in by holding onto those containers. Are the seals still intact?!?!”

I couldn’t help but to pause a little in hearing his voice this strained. “Drake, somehow I don’t think you are all that concerned about my loved ones. I have the cannisters, they are still sealed-for the moment. We need to come to some form of...agreement...before I decide what to do with these things. So, we need to meet, face to face.”

“Will you be bringing the containers?”

“Sorry, but I’m no longer that naive. They are well guarded in a place I know you can’t reach, so if you ever want to see them again, you better be on your best damn behavior. Meet me this Sunday, at 3 PM at the Michigan Renaissance Festival near the jousting field. Just you and me, so keep your goons in check. Got it?”

“I’ll be there.”

“Oh, don’t even think of bringing El Diablito with you this time. The next time I see that little cripple, I’ll finish the job that was started in New Orleans.”

The phone went dead...

Showdown at the OK Corral...Part 2

It is not an easy thing to try and find a place to meet one’s arch enemy. It has to be somewhere public enough that neither party can rig the situation very easily, but it can’t be so public that your meeting will draw unwanted attention. Of course, it doesn’t much help when you are trying to set up such a meeting between a Herman Muenster/Frankenstein zombie and a vampiric looking bastard who is at least four thousand years old and travels with an entourage of thugs and goons that even Dick Cheney would envy-- the task becomes nigh impossible to manage.

Luckily, there is one place where this kind of freak show meeting could take place and be public enough to serve our needs, but in reality go unnoticed by the surrounding people...the Michigan Renaissance Festival in Holly--taking place just about every weekend in August and September.

One disadvantage of this choice of meeting places was when Ravyn clapped her hands together and exclaimed, “Oh goody- I have just the costume for you!” Remembering the Keith Richard’s like get-up that she and the Frau had trundled me into on our way to Vegas, I was more than a little leery. Once I saw the outfit though, my fears were slightly allayed-it was mostly black studded leather armor and boots, with a barbarian looking helmet to cover my rather ghoulish appearance. One major advantage of this outfit was that I would be able to wear the Witchbane blades of Diego and Herlinda out in plain view-they just had to be peace bonded, or at least APPEAR to be peace-bonded...

Another advantage, at least in mind, was that if the shit hit the fan at this place and Ravyn had to start throwing Fire, it would look like some sort of planned event that would really wow the crowd. But, I was sure hoping things wouldn’t go that wrong in the first place.

Drake was surprisingly amenable to a meeting, letting me name the place, date and time for our encounter. I was able to reach him by drawing upon one of Daniel’s rather recent memories of when he had called Drake up to plead for his life.

With Ravyn easily agreeing to watch my back, and Drake easily agreeing to my choices for the time, date and place of the meeting, it actually started to look like a plan was about to fall into place...

But, as I learned in the military, even the best laid plans last only until the first shot is fired...then all Hell breaks loose...

Showdown at the OK Corral...Part 1

I emerged from the Shadow in the small stone circle at the community house that Ravyn ran in the suburbs of Chicago. It was a dark night, so the transition had been exceptionally easy.

I was carrying the duffle bag that I had taken from that house in Jordan. It was still packed full, although the contents had been adjusted somewhat since I had left Jordan for the Merlin’s place in that other world with Zenni Al Farhan in my arms. I was returning alone, well, at least as far as any observer could tell anyway.

I made my way from the circle to the back door that I knew would be unlocked-- Ravyn wasn’t too worried about unwanted intruders-- plus this was a center of a lot of activity in any event.

I found Ravyn in the library that she had first brought me into more than 6 months ago. It was a comforting sight to see her relaxing on one of those enormous sofas reading a book. It was a rare thing to find her taking time for herself anymore.

There were a couple of other students in the room when I entered, but they quickly decided to seek their answers elsewhere when I entered the room. I moved to a sofa across from where she was stretched out and set the duffle bag down and took a seat.

Like a cat woken from a nap, she stretched and yawned as she put the book down and sat up, looking at me without speaking. Her eyes drank in all of the details of my appearance, like she could deduce where I had been and what I had been doing from the dust and dirt on my clothes.

We sat in silence for a few moments, before I finally spoke. “You look well rested. I take it the spa was good?”

She smiled, that kind of cat-that-caught-the-canary-grin, but as quick as it came, it disappeared behind a sterner look. “It was good. I finally feel like a human being again.”

“Glad to hear that.”

The pleasantries were over that quick. She turned all business. “It’s almost time for the Conclave, where have you been all of this time?”

I sighed. “Well, that’s a long story.”

“I’m ready to listen.”

I gave her a brief summary of the events that had taken place, starting with my meeting with the spirit of Alexa’s mother at Yggsdrasil and ending with the events of my last post. She sat silently through the story, her jaw tightening at various points when describing what had happened to Mrs. Al Farhan while in the custody of Daniel Bernstein.

When I finished, she stated, “I don’t know how I will be able to work with that man again. I can’t believe he had been so cruel to that woman.”

“He’s still here?”

She looked away in disgust. “Yes, he’s pretty much healed up from the physical wounds. I don’t think he has regained any of his memories that you took from him though. He has the mental maturity of a teen-ager, but the body of a middle aged man. He’s been helping out with some janitorial work and has been raiding the library here every night, taking book after book to read.”

“I can take him elsewhere if you would like.”

“We’ll see, Rusty. I hate what he did to that woman, but I know that we can’t let him go in good conscience. Who knows what Drake will do to him if he finds him. I doubt that Drake will believe that his memories are completely gone. I’m not even sure I believe it either.”

It was my turn to look away for a moment. But I looked back at her when she finished. “Speaking of Drake, I need a favor.”

Her eyes became suddenly fiery, flashing in anger. “What about him? What kind of favor?”

“I’m going to reach out to Drake. I need to make a deal with him.”

“What?!?!?! Have you gone insane????”

“I know. It sounds crazy, but it has to be done. I need to do it for Alexa’s sake.”

“How can you even think of dealing with that man again? Hasn’t he screwed with you and your family enough? How can you trust him to follow through on any agreement? And how can you expect any meeting not to be a trap?”

I leaned forward, patted the duffle bag at my feet. “I don’t trust that...man...at all. But I finally have some things that he wants, needs even, more than he wants to fuck with me and my family. I finally have some leverage and I intend to use it.”

“What was in those containers? Are you going to tell him about this Zenni woman as well? By the way, where is she?”

I smiled, sat back a little bit. I had left out the details as to what was in those containers. “Well, I can’t tell you everything just yet. But I can tell you that Mrs. Al Farhan is safe, she will not be part of any deal with Drake.”

“You’re damn right she won’t be!” Her anger was up again. As fast it rose, however, it cooled down again. “So what exactly is this favor you want from me?”

It was right as that question came out that the other entity with me chose that moment to grow restless. The duffle bag gave off a puff of thick dust as it shifted inside. A muffled squeak from inside accompanied the movement, causing Ravyn to just about jump out of her skin.

“What did you bring with you in there?” Her bare feet had been pulled back from the now rustling bag, up onto the sofa with the rest of her, but her right hand was extended in a familiar gesture that I knew meant that she was ready to ‘throw fire’.

I held out my hand. “Wait a minute. It’s nothing bad. I brought someone for you to meet.”

“You have someone in that bag?”

“Yes, his name is Bobinaximantheral, Bob for short.” I was reaching down slowly to loose the clasp on the bag. “He’s a little impatient, he’s a youngling among his kind, and was very curious to meet you.”

I opened the bag and a bright light spilled forth as ‘Bob’ leaped out into the air, spinning and circling happily as he squeaked in joy at being let loose from that dark, nasty bag.

Ravyn’s shriek of surprise turned into a cry of joy. “Rusty, you remembered!”

The Orb known as ‘Bob’ continued to circle around her head. It was obvious that he enjoyed her as much as she would enjoy being around him.

“Like I was saying, his name is Bob. He’s young for his kind, I think he’s only a thousand of our years old, and he’s been very eager to meet the ‘Fire Lady’ I had been telling him about while I was at the Merlin’s. He would like to know if he can stay with you for a while and experience our world...which I knew you’d be more than willing to accommodate.”

If she was hearing anything I was saying, I couldn’t be sure. She was entranced with him. She reached out one hand into the air. Bob slowed down and floated near it. He seemed to get slightly brighter as he approached her fingers, almost like he was a pet, sniffing to see if she was ‘ok’.

When he touched her, she didn’t flinch. Her eyes were transfixed on the softly glowing orb that was actually a living being. “He’s so warm to the touch!”

Soft cooing sounds were coming from the pair as they examined each other. I couldn’t tell if it was her or him.

Bob floated downward along her arm. I could see goose pimples raise on her arm is he came down and floated in front of her eyes. She reached out with both hands, gingerly touching him on opposite sides. They seemed to be communicating on a number of levels.

After a few moments she nodded and pulled her hands away, he bobbed in the air and zipped up towards the ceiling rafters of the library.

I watched him settle up in the shadows above, dimming as he did so to the approximate brightness of a candle, he was probably recharging a bit after the excitement. I was just about to close the duffle bag back up when Ravyn bounded off of her sofa and wrapped me in one of her trademark bear hugs.

“Thank you.” She whispered, sounding like she was choking up a bit. “You have just made me very happy!”

As she let me go and settled back onto the sofa, I closed up the bag to keep anything else from spilling out. “I’m glad to hear that. Now, about that favor I need from you...”

I had to duck a flung cushion....

Decisions, Decisions...

We sat there for a few moments in silence.

“What if I were to take you back to your family in Iraq? Those thugs won’t be after you anymore and Dr. Bernstein will no longer have any interest in you, that I can guarantee.”

Tears welled up in her eyes, streaked down her dirt-smeared cheeks. She looked down at the ground, sobbing, before she gained the strength to speak again. “I...I...I wish that were possible. But those evil men killed my husband and the members of his family that we were staying with after the war.”

I wanted to reach out and offer some form of human comfort, but something stopped me. Instead, I asked, “What about other family members, perhaps any adult children, cousins, your side of the family?”

She looked back up at me, shoulders still wracked with sobs. “I have no children. I have never been able to have any. No, I have no one else left in Iraq. Because of my ties to the former regime, I have enemies who will be glad to make an example of me. My parents died in the Iran/Iraq war. I was an only child, so I have no brothers or sisters. The only living relative I have...is your mortal enemy.”

“Damn, I was afraid of that.”

My choices were not very good. I could take her back to Ravyn’s farm, but there were a great number of problems with that. First, she would come face to face with Daniel again and there was no way of telling what would happen with that! Second, she still had some reasons to hold tight to her loyalty to Drake, so that could be like inviting the fox into the chicken coop. Finally, how happy would Ravyn be with another injured foundling dropped off at her doorstep?

So, taking her to Ravyn’s was pretty much out of the question. I certainly couldn’t leave her here in this place and I couldn’t kill her, it’s just not in my nature to do so.

I ran through all of the other options I could come up with on short notice...

The Professor was taking care of Alexa, so I couldn’t take her there...

The Frau and Cerrydwen were helping the Professor, so they were out...

Everyone else I knew in the ORC’s would be in danger if I left her with them, given Drake’s talent at finding out things you didn’t want him to know...

I couldn’t turn her over to the government, they would see her past involvement in the Baath party and her service in the Mukhbarat as potential threats and probably send her off to Gitmo...

I certainly couldn’t turn her over Drake, even if I could locate him, after using her Talent on me, she knew too many secrets that I didn’t want him to know, and I certainly wasn’t going to turn over this money or these artifacts him either...

She needed to have a chance to heal up, to recover from her wounds and her losses while also being beyond the reach of Drake.

So, after looking at and discarding all of these other options, I decided that it was time to take her on a visit to a place I had been taken when I needed a chance to heal...to the Merlin, if he would take her...

Further Discoveries...

“Knowing what you must about know about Drake, why have you helped him in his search?”

She hesitated before answering, but she did not look away. “That is not an easy answer to give. When you get to ‘know’ people in the way that I do when I use my Talent, you learn that nearly everyone is more complex than they seem. When I first met Drake Kampmann, I knew him only as a wealthy foreign scientist who was looking into the same field that I wanted to go into, the ancient past, into the very origins of human society. It wasn’t until I touched him though, that I got that first glance into incredible complexities of a person who was ALIVE at that time. I couldn’t believe my own senses and thought that I must have been dreaming when I received the first images of his youth and the incredible drive that had kept him...alive, in some way until the present.”

As she spoke, she seemed to come alive herself in a way that neither I, nor Daniel, had seen since he had first ravaged her. I wanted to ask more questions, to get the answers I truly wanted, but I felt it was more important to let her keep talking...

“It wasn’t until the second time I touched him that I discovered that he was actually a direct ancestor of mine. He was probably the first person I had ever touched that could sense what was happening when I touched him, but he was definitely the first to have the ability to shield things from me that he didn’t want me to know, at least after the first time anyway.”

I couldn’t restrain myself at that point. “But surely, you must have seen the evil that he has done throughout his...existence?”

She sighed. “When you have the ability to know the deepest, darkest secrets of everyone around you for all of your life, and you get to relive them every time you touch someone, you come to know that we all carry the seeds of both our own destruction and our redemption within. Yes, I could see much of the evil he had made within this world, but I could also see that there is goodness in there as well.

“When I touched you, Mr. Bones, I sense that you contain within you the seed of a great Evil, the remnants of a being so ancient and so powerful that I fear that one day your humanity will no longer be able to hold it back. But I can also feel that for now, you have found ways of coping with and containing that Evil.”

It was my turn to look away for a moment, to collect my own thoughts. She had learned so much in one momentary touch!

“The man you call Drake is your enemy, he started the process to create what you have become, but it is you who have taken that beginning and become so much more than even he could have imagined. But that man is my ancestor, my patron, the one who taught me that there are other people in the world who have strange talents like I do, people who use those skills for good and bad. He was the first person who I felt safe with all of the secrets I had been keeping. You see, there are many taboos in this part of the world against people with powers like I possess. People with unexplainable powers get stoned to death here, if they are discovered.

“Drake taught me that I could use my powers in small, secret ways to further my career. It was he who convinced me to use my abilities to become an archaelogist and an agent within the Mukhbarat.”

“Why would you serve in that agency, as an agent of Saddam Hussein’s government?”

“It’s simple, really. As an agent I could keep other archaelogists from selling away Iraq’s heritage to the highest bidder, but I could also control which secrets I actually revealed to the other, more enforcement minded agents. I could get information from suspects with no harm being done to them, and I could protect the secrets of those who truly needed and deserved protection because I had such a reputation for finding the truth.”

“You know, you really aren’t making my decision any easier.”

“In the faith of my people, Shaitan, there are no choices, but the will of Allah.”

“Well, if there is an Allah, then he has left you in the hands of a pissed off dead man with an axe to grind with your damn ancestor...”

“Hopefully, that is better than being in the hands of living rapist who had an axe to grind with my damn ancestor.”

M.A.D--Mutually Assured Discovery

The Shadow engulfed us and took me to that familiar place, the plateau that I had taken Daniel to within the World of Shadow.

It was not a comforting place to take Mrs. Al Farhan to, but I didn’t want to comfort her just yet. We had some...issues...to work out first.

You see, one of the secrets that I had learned from Daniel, though by no means the most explosive or the most important, was that Mrs. Al Farhan was a direct descendant of Drake’s. She had discovered this strange fact by accidentally touching his skin with her bare fingers back when she had worked with him on that archaelogical dig in southern Iraq.

Ever since that time, she and Drake had become as close as Drake allowed anyone to be with him. She had assisted him in searching for those items he had so desperately wanted from the ancient and buried ruins near Ur, while he did everything he could to assist and protect her with his extensive contacts within Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.

Of course, this relationship was the very reason that Daniel did the vile things he had done to her, and was the reason that he had her seized again by the band of thugs I had just disposed of. She was to be his last bargaining chip in the event that the negotiations between Drake and him broke down...until I screwed that up for him.

I had been careful in picking her up so as to not present her an opportunity to touch my skin with her fingertips, since I knew that was how she accessed her own Talent. This plan had worked fine up to this point, but fell apart as I tried to put her down in a way so as to not cause further harm to her damaged body.

As I knelt to put her down, the duffle bag shifted awkwardly, forcing me to catch myself from falling on her. This provided her an opportunity to reach out with one small hand and touch the leather like skin of my face.

Her Talent was powerful, irresistible. For the briefest of moments, I felt the sheer terror of having my most private self being laid bare...just as Daniel had felt when he realized what I had been doing to him. But unlike Daniel, I had the power and the Will to close off that portal, although not before she was able to gain significant insight into who, and what, I was.

Realizing that I had cut off her access to that knowledge, she took her fingers from my face, keeping her eyes locked on mine. I finished setting her down before placing the bag down and then settling to a seated position right in front of her.

We sat there in silence for many minutes, each assessing the other. Having only spoken a few sentences between us, we already knew more about each other than most married couples learned in a lifetime.

It was an awkward way to begin a conversation.

She broke the silence first. “You are sworn to kill him.”

It wasn’t a question, but I answered anyway. “Yes.”

“Yet, you saved me from those animals. Why did you come for me?”

“Once I learned those crimes were still taking place, I couldn’t let them continue. This is the place, right here on this very rock, where Daniel Bernstein paid for those and many other crimes.”

She looked away for a moment, surveyed the small barren plateau, and picked up one of the expended glowsticks. She looked back me, tears flowing down her now wet cheeks. “Thank you.”

We sat in silence for a few more moments while she wiped her face dry with one sleeve of her tattered robe. She then took a moment to remove her hijab, which surprised me. Her hair was unkempt and dirty from what looked like at least a week without washing. She ran her fingers through her long, dark hair, seeking in vain to smooth the tangles.

When she gave up on making her hair presentable she looked at the equally dirty and tattered hijab and sighed, setting it aside. She looked back at me with a strength and a resolution that I found surprising and asked, “So, what will you do with me now?”

...To The Other Side

As the last of the cold-blooded killers collapsed into a gurgling heap, I wiped both Herlinda and Diego down on his desert camouflaged jacket. They weren’t truly clean, but I would have time for that later.

I sheathed the blades before searching out for the one survivor among the mercenary band. Luckily, the one Mrs. Al Farhan called Andrew was one of the first I had encountered in the fray, I had been able to pummel him into unconsciousness before I got too caught up in battle to be particular about who died.

It worked out well, since I now had a prisoner to question as to the whereabouts of the things I had come for.

I picked him up by the front of his uniform with one hand and half carried, half dragged him to the kitchen area. I propped him up into an armchair and splashed water on across his bruised face. With the third pan full of cold water, he came sputtering to.

“Who are you...?” He managed to spit out a semi-coherent question.

I was not in a very charitable mood, so I quickly set the ground rules. “It is not your place to be asking the questions here, boy. I ask, you answer. If I am satisfied with your answers, you will live. Is that clear?”

He wasn’t restrained physically from acting in any way, but his eyes showed that he understood that I didn’t consider him a threat. He nodded.

“Good. Then let’s begin.”

After a few moments of polite conversation, I had all of the information I needed from him.

I left him sittng in that chair still as I calmly gathered up the items I needed from the various rooms where they were kept. I found the briefcase full of bundles of cash, in the form of $100 bills and high denomination euro notes that the group was using for their operating capital in the leaders room. I recovered the two sealed, bowling ball sized cannisters from the room Andrew stayed in, placing them in the heavy duty duffle bag that he had used to lug them around. Finally, I used the keys that Andrew had to unlock the room that they had kept Mrs. Al Farhan in.

She looked out miserably from the corner where she had been curled up in as the door opened. She blinked at the sudden light from the outer room.

“Can you walk?” This time I spoke to her in English, a language that I knew that she was fluent in from Daniel’s memories.

She shook her head, then futilely tried to pull her hijab back over her unkempt hair, a small attempt at modesty despite her wretched condition. “No.”

“Then I will carry you. I will be back in a moment.”

I turned to return to the kitchen, only to face Andrew staring at me down the length of a fully loaded automatic rifle. “I don’t know what kind of monster you are, but you will not hurt her!”

I looked from him, back into the cell, and back to him. “I think your chivalry is a little late, boy. I did not come here to harm this woman, but to save her from the likes of your comrades. Put down the gun and leave this place alive, while you still can.”

He stared me down for almost a minute. I could see him sweating as he gauged whether or not he thought the gun would even harm me and whether or not he could finally help the woman he had watched his comrades ravage, time and again. His face was anguished, the guilt of a thousand ‘should haves’ washing over it in visible waves as each memory flashed through his mind.

Finally, he backed away slowly, still pointing the gun in my direction.

As he backed up, I walked over to the kitchen table where the duffle bag and briefcase waited. The barrel of the rifle followed me, but remained as silent as we did.

I snapped the briefcase open and pulled out stack of euros that was probably worth about $10,000 and tossed it at his feet before putting the rest of the money into the duffle back with the cannisters. His eyes stayed on me as I said, “Take that and go home. You’ve done all you can here. I will take her to safety. Dr. Bernstein will no longer require your services.”

He looked down at the money on the floor and paled as he noted the blood pooled up nearby from one of his former comrades. He shook his head and swallowed hard. “No. I will not take that money. I will not leave her in your hands either. How do I know you won’t harm her?”

I was losing my patience with the boy. I zipped the duffle bag closed and hoisted it onto my shoulder. “You can stay if you like, but I’m leaving and I’m taking her with me.”

He made a move to step between me and the cell door, holding the gun like a club than a firearm, like he thought it might be more useful that way. He didn’t say anything as I walked right up to him.

“I admire your bravery boy, however misguided it might be. You are only alive right now because she asked me not to kill you. If you don’t get out my way, you will have wasted the grace that she has granted you, despite your inability to keep her safe from your comrades. Trying to stop me from helping her is not going to be your redemption. You will only find that through a lifetime of service to those in true need.”

He still hesitated, his face torn with grief and despair.

Looking deep into his eyes, I made one last appeal. “You have a good soul, boy, and a unique talent to bring solace and comfort to those who are suffering. This path of the soldier, the warrior, is not for you. Stand aside, and you will have the chance to develop that talent and help many others. The choice is yours, die now, a participant and a witness to rape, torture and blackmail. Or live and have a chance to give succor and to heal.”

His shoulders slumped, the gun clattered to the floor.

“Good choice.” I pushed past him and moved to the bruised and battered woman he had failed to protect until now. I bent over and gently scooped her frail form into my arms. I looked back as I began to gather the shadow about us, I could see the poor kid sobbing in the doorway.

Maybe he would use this second life to become something better. Maybe.

Breaking through...

After hours of replaying this and other reprehensible memory sequences from his time in Iraq, I was able to unravel enough clues to crack open that damnable wall.

Pushing in the last of the nearly invisible keys, the steel wall melted away like a stick of butter in a searing hot pan. Despite all of the time and energy I had spent trying to get to the secrets behind this wall, I was completely unprepared for the mother-lode of information I was about to receive. It also took me a while to get my mind around the enormity of the secrets that he had been keeping not only from Drake, but also from himself....but before I discuss these, I needed to take care of some ‘bidness’...

The other mindblowing revelation was that Daniel had been running a sting operation of sorts on Drake, having hired a band of mercenary thugs in Iraq (westernized contractor types) who were even now (at least as recent as a week before I snatched these memories from him) holding Mrs. Al Farhan, and Drake’s precious artifacts as well, hostage in an attempt to extort money from Drake.

At first, I couldn’t actually believe that he had pulled this off against Drake, but the more I analyzed the now complete set of memories from this...weasel...the more I came to the conclusion that I had been giving him way too much fucking credit for being under Drake’s sway.

Daniel Bernstein had his own agenda in all of this...and he was more than willing to let Drake take the fall for being the main ‘bad guy’ and play at being an innocent scientist caught up in the swirl of something larger than himself.

Once things snapped into place, I found myself flying back to my body at a breakneck speed through the Spirit World.

As I settled into my body, I was already galvanized for action.

From Daniel’s memories, I knew that his team of hired thugs and killers was currently hiding out in a small, unmapped village in the deserts of Jordan, not far from the Iraqi border. The last thing Daniel knew, they had recently returned from southern Iraq with Mrs. Al Farhan as a captive again, she was intended to be Daniel’s last bargaining chip with Drake.

This was going to end, and end now.

I gathered my weapons and summoned the Shadow, slipping easily into that world where my powers over darkness and my senses were the strongest. Once there, I called forth everything I could of Mrs. Al Farhan’s aura from what little senstitivity Daniel had. Luckily, it was just enough.

I slipped from the world of Shadow into the dark room where she was kept. She lay in fetal position, whimpering in a corner, her clothes torn. Even though the room was dark, I could see her clearly. As soon as I appeared and turned towards her, I could hear the crying stop.

In between ragged gasps for breath, she whispered her question in Arabic, “Shaitan? Have you come to avenge me?”

Seeing that she had clearly been ravaged even further by these mercenaries, I gave her a one word answer in that same language (a language, mind you, that I did not remember either speaking or understanding until then-more on that in future posts), “Yes.”

A sharp intake of her breath preceded her reply, “Good. Then I can die.”

“No. Thou shall not perish this evening, that fate falls to these others for their crimes.” Sorry, but that was the literal translation, it turns out that my knowledge of that language was rather archaic.

I turned from where she now was sitting up and moved towards the door. Before I could get any further, her whispered cry halted me in my tracks. “Shaitan?”

I turned my head back towards her, saw her flinch as she saw my fiery eyes again. I must have looked very much like the crazed killer I would soon become. “Aye?”

“There is a young man out there, his name is Andrew, he is the tall, red headed one with the sweet face. Please,...spare him. He is the only one who has been...kind to me, and he is good at heart.”

“If he is wise and lucky...he will live, but I make no promises.”

In the darkness of that room, I was able to expand my senses and get a feel for the rest of the building. It was night, but I could feel that all ten of the men in the fortified house were awake and active. Good. I wanted them to know what was coming. I did feel that one of the men seemed to be more than a little different than the rest. A kinder, gentler soul among a gathering of tainted, darker souls that would not normally be found outside of a prison. I marked where that one was.

Drawing the Shadow about me, I stepped from the cell into the midst of some very startled men.

“What the fu..!”

“Who the Hell are...!”

“Sonovabit...”

The shouts all ended in brief screams or gurgled grunts. I was quick, efficient and absolutely ruthless. It was over in a matter of moments...

Unclean Memories

I have meditated on this post for several days now. I have wrestled with issues great and small in deciding how to proceed from where I last left off.

There is no good way to describe the events that transpired with Zenni Al Farhan at the hands of Daniel Bernstein. Even knowing the reasons that Daniel used to convince himself that he was justified in taking the actions he took, I cannot comprehend how a man can do the things that he did.

I have always hated rapists more than just about any other kind of criminal. As a cop, I have confronted more than my share of such criminals, always taking great pleasure from arresting those scumbags and putting them behind bars. Usually after making sure they have a few more bumps and bruises than I found them with.

Having these memories in my head made me feel unclean, made me feel like a participant in his crime. Worse yet, I had to replay them more than once to learn the clues to solving the puzzle he had created inside his own head. The information he learned from Zenni Al Farhan, and the objects he recovered using that information were so dangerous to his own survival that he had to create a maze within his own memories to shield those secrets from accidental disclosure.

So, in order to discover the key to unlocking what those secrets might be, I had to relive this experience more than once in order to move forward.

I will conclude this short post by saying that Mrs. Al Farhan did survive that night, but Daniel’s actions that night left her broken and disabled to such an extent that he felt that she was no longer a danger of revealing her secrets to anyone else.

I vowed to exact some measure of vengeance on Daniel, on those who eventually helped him to perpetrate those crimes against Mrs. Al Farhan, and of course, ultimately on Drake, who, in the end, is the root the cause of so much evil in this world.

I also vowed to see if Mrs. Al Farhan still lived and to see if there was any aid that I could bring to help her heal from these wounds.

The Temptation of Dr. Geek

Her name had been Zenni Al Farhan. She was a quiet, slight woman with haunted eyes and fine features. She was an expert in antiquities, famous for being able to spot truly ancient artifacts from even the most artful fakes with a simple touch of her fingers. Her secret, of course, was that she was an especially talented Caster who could gain information from people and objects that she touched with her bare fingers. Her talent was as much a curse as a blessing however, since everything (and everyone) she touched with her fingers would flood her mind with images and emotions. Because of this, she wore gloves almost all of the time.

As an agent of the Mukhbarat, she had used her talents to keep a tight rein on other members of the Ministry of Culture from selling off Iraq’s rich cultural heritage on the black market for easy cash. As a truly talented and trusted academic expert, she had had more freedom to travel to foreign conferences than many of her colleagues.

With the American invasion, her status as an agent of the secret police brought her under the scrutiny of the Americans. She had turned herself in in the hopes of clearing her name and resuming her post in the academic ranks as soon as possible.

When she was brought before Daniel that first time, they had recognized each other from their brief encounter years before. Possibly hoping to use this past connection to secure her release, Zenni had asked him for a private meeting, if he could arrange it.

Curious, and more than a little attracted to the diminutive woman, Daniel had her delivered to an interrogation room late one evening and then dismissed the guards to wait outside of the sealed room.

At first she had looked frightened, but when she saw the guards depart and Daniel remain with her, she became visibly relieved. “Dr. Bernstein, I want to thank you for this meeting. I was so afraid when they came for me this late at night.” As she spoke, she shivered and pulled her shawl closer over her disheveled hair.

“My pleasure, Mrs. Al Farhan. I am most curious as what you think I might be able to do for you.” It was disgusting, reliving these memories of his, because I could ‘feel’ his desire for this woman, I could tell that this could only end badly. Daniel’s memories had already revealed him to be a man of little self-control.

Unfortunately, the woman was apparently blind to his lust, or too desperate to care. “Dr. Bernstein, I was wondering if you could perhaps use your influence here to have me released from this place. I have very important work to attend to.”

“Well, ah...Zenni...I am afraid you may have overestimated my position here, I am not an officer in the military. My role here is more an observational role.”

She stood up, clasped her gloved hands together in a sort prayerful gesture and moved closer to him. “Please, Dr. Bernstein, you must listen and see if there is a way you can help me, as well as your associate, Dr. Kampmann.”

That name cooled his lusts like a bucket of water dousing a small campfire, although the embers still glowed underneath. “What did you say about Drake Kampmann?”

She moved even closer, closer than most Americans would be comfortable with in normal conversations. Her eyes were intense, even hopeful. “If you help me to leave this place, it will also help Dr. Kampmann.”

“How exactly will my helping you also help Dr. Kampmann?” His curiosity was overtaking his physical lusts.

She stepped back, looked down briefly before looking up into his eyes again. “I have found some things he has been looking for. Things that have been lost for a very, very long time.”

Now he was really curious. He stepped forward, touched her lightly on each shoulder, ignoring her instinctive flinch at the touch of a man who was not a relative. “Tell me, Mrs. Al Farhan, what are these things that he was looking for? And how did you come about them in this...place?”

She pulled away from his grasp, turned her back to him. Her voice came out in halting, soft tones, just barely above a whisper. “Years ago, even before we had met at that conference, I served as a translator and as a guide to foreign dignitaries when they came to visit our historical sites. On one such occasion, I was assigned to work with Dr. Kampmann on an archaelogical dig near the ancient city of Ur. He and I worked together for many weeks. He came to know of my special talent to discover the truth of things and people by touching them with my hands. During our time together, we came to know each other very well, and after he had to leave without finding what he had been looking for, I promised to continue looking for it.”

Daniel couldn’t contain his excitement and determination to know more. He grabbed her by the shoulders again and turned her back around to face him. “Tell me, what was he looking for in this God-forsaken country?”

She looked away from his face, even as he held her in his suddenly harsh grasp. Her voice came out in a raspy, choking whisper. “Home. He was looking for his home.”

“What?” His disappointment ran deep. “What are you talking about, woman? Drake Kampmann is not from Iraq. He’s an American, born in New York to immigrant parents!”

She was frightened at his sudden coldness, his doubt. “You don’t know him as well as you think, Dr. Bernstein. Dr. Kampmann has many, many secrets. But these are not mine to tell, if he has not shared them with you. But you must believe me when I tell you this, I have found what he was looking for. I have some very, very important items that I recovered from the site, items that he must have returned to him. But I have not told anyone else where they are, I must be freed so that I can recover them and return that which is rightfully his.”

Now, Daniel’s lusts were ignited on multiple levels. He knew he must have her, and he must know more about Drake’s secrets.

He released her from his grip and backed away. “Yes. I can see that I must find a way to help you then.” He turned away from her and reached into an interior pocket of his white lab coat, pulling out a sealed needle where she could not see his hand. He slipped the cover off of the needle nose and squirted a small fraction of the liquid out to clear any air bubbles from the mixture.

Hiding the hand that held the needle, he turned back around and approached her in a more comforting manner. “Let me talk to the commander, then, and see if there is some accomodation I can make for you.”

As he finished speaking, he brought the needle down and behind her before she could react. With a swift jab of the needle, it pierced her clothing and sank into the softer flesh of her bottom. He held her close, preventing her from jerking away as he injected her with one of his ‘special drugs’.

Her struggles quickly ended as she slumped into his arms, soft and pliant to his will, but fully conscious.

He pulled the needle out and discarded it on the floor as he lifted her now totally limp weight and placed her on the long wooden bench along the far wall.

“I am sorry, my dear Zenni, but you are going to have to provide more answers to my questions. You should know that your voluntary muscles below your neck will be beyond your control for several hours now. You can still speak, but you will be unable to escape until I apply the antidote to this drug, or it wears off in the morning.”

“D...D...Dr....B...Bernstein, w...w...why are you doing this? P...p...please do not do anything you or I will regret later.”

“Well, I for one, will not regret this one bit. You may not either, if you cooperate and answer my questions fully. You may even enjoy the encore.”

She understood his meaning. “I...I...I am a married woman, please don’t do this.”

“Cooperate with me fully and you may have some new tricks to take home to your husband.” With that, Daniel began to slake both of his lusts...the purely physical, and the lust he didn’t even realize that he had before, to gain a measure of power over Drake...

Enigmatic Engrams

No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t bust through the steel wall that Daniel had built around the secrets that he had kept even from Drake. It was there in my head now, that much was maddeningly obvious, but I couldn’t find the key I needed to unlock this last line of defense he had raised against some Caster barging into his head and stealing his secrets...yeah, sort of like I did to him.

The harder I tried to just force my way through by sheer force of Will, the louder the voices deep inside clamored to be let loose.

I decided to end that course of action. It was tempting to rush back to my body and head for Ravyn’s farm where I could grab the knucklehead by the shoulders again and see if I could force the key out of his body, but somehow I knew that would be useless. The poor bastard was wiped pretty clean in my search. I sincerely doubted the answer lay within him any more.

That meant the answer had to be here somewhere.

The more I worked around that barrier, the more images I began to get of what I could only describe as ‘current events’...mostly images of soldiers in dusty, tan Middle Eastern villages, tanks and trucks and other military vehicles moving.

Strange, Daniel had never been a soldier, but he certainly had a lot of engram fragments relating to the military, especially in Iraq. Many of the images and memories had the feel of someone who had watched the events from afar, like on a television, but more than a few had a sense of...reality...about them that might have meant that they were personal memories of experienced events.

I began to focus on those fragments, the ones that evoked real memories and some pieces of a very strange puzzle began to fall into place.

It must have taken hours of being wrapped up in another man’s memories, but the fragments were gradually pieced back together into a set of cohesive memories that now made more sense. Ironically enough, it was one of my own memories that helped make it all possible.

In the six months or so before I had been killed, Daniel had been absent from the NecroLab. His absence had been notable because he was the primary guy who usually ran a rather large battery of medical tests on each of the program participants. He would then give us our assigned prescription of pills and supplements that was to prepare our bodies for the rigors of the program. But during this time that he was gone, one of his underlings had taken over. Whenever any of us had asked where Dr. Geek was, we were told that he had been sent on assignment by the Bureau to Iraq. Why he was sent to Iraq, no one would tell us, but we all assumed that it was to help wounded soldiers, since Daniel was seen as an expert in restoring connections between badly damaged nerves and fixing shattered bodies.

But seeing things from Daniel’s perspective, I gained a whole new set of insights into the depths of evil that Drake had sunk down to.

It turns out that Daniel was indeed over in Iraq and he was using his unique skills in ‘support’ of the war effort, but in a far ghastlier way than I had ever expected. Drake had offered Daniel’s expertise on the workings of the human body and its various strengths and frailties to the administration to assist in the ‘rendering’ of captive Iraqis. He had spent his time there torturing hundreds of Iraqis. Granted, many of the victims of his torture sessions had been officials in the Baath Party, Iraqi military officers, or agents from the Mukhbarat (the Iraqi secret police), but more than a few had turned out to be innocent victims.

Those memories were horrible enough, but to actually feel how much pleasure he had taken in administering doses of excruciating but precisely measured pain to other human beings made me sick. I certainly felt a Hell of a lot less sorry about what I had done to him.

Things became really interesting, though, when I discovered the shards of a particular memory that Daniel had tried very hard to forget. As I pieced it back together, I began to get a glimpse of just what might be behind that steel wall he had tried so hard to build in his own mind.

This engram was about an extracurricular torture session he had engineered to take place on a particular prisoner, an agent in the Mukhbarat who had also been assigned to the Ministry of Culture, someone whom he had met years before at an academic conference after being introduced by Drake.