The Cycle of Axer Carrick
Part VI -- Cats Eyes


           by Henry Wyckoff (wyckoff@Boris.infomagic.com)
                     Written December 1995

                         Chapter 15

Bill was sitting at the bar, slamming doubleshots of the
local whiskey.  By the look on his face, he wasn't enjoying
it all too much.

A rough hand gripped him in the shoulder from behind,
crushing hard enough to grind the joint, but he didn't
react.  "If you want me to move out of your seat, you're not
going to get it."

"I don't want your damned seat!" snapped Coleen, grabbing
the stool next to his.  Some oily strands of hair hung down
the front of her face.  "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Following you.  It's not like I have much of a damned
choice.  I think my bosses were trying to be funny."

Coleen snorted.  "Since when did you acquire such a taste
for liquor?  Last time I checked, you were puking on
Benedictine."

"That was then, this is now."

"It's been less than a week.  I'd sure like to know what
you've been drinking."

He didn't answer.  "Why are you rushing up north faster than
Methos and Richie?"

"None of your damned business."

"Fine."  He kept quiet, but kept on slamming doubleshots. 
By Coleen's count, he had slammed three in the last five
minutes, and she was sure he slammed a few more before she
caught up with him.  Even Axer knew when to draw the line.

"Don't you think you had enough?"  Her tone was sardonic.

"Since when did you get concerned?"

"Since I got you sick the first time.  Do you have any idea
how long Axer made me mop up *your* vomit with my bare
hands?"

"Thanks a lot -- I don't care about you either!"  An odd
expression came over his face then, and he pitched his head
underneath the table.  Bill vomited solidly for a full
minute.  The aftershocks lasted for a few more minutes. 
When his mind fell back on track, he realized that Coleen
had long since left.

The bartender put a solid hand on his shoulder, "What do you
want to do with your life, my son?"

          *              *              *

Coleen was dragging Richie by the arm, dragging him from
where he had been waiting, across the street from the bar,
"Come on!  We have to get out of here *NOW*!!"

He wasn't one to argue, but he did want to know why, "What
happened?"

"Bill's drunk, and I don't think he'll be moving for a few
hours.  I want to get as much of a head start as we can
get!"

They found Methos near the plane, trying to find something
that he dropped.  His expression was one of surprise. 
"What's going on?"

"We *have* to get out of here!"

"But the storm isn't gone yet!"

"Tough shit!  Bill's here!"

"Bill?"

"The most annoying Watcher you ever met!"

Within ten minutes they were off, but they needn't have
hurried, because Bill was in the middle of a dry heave spell
that he wouldn't be leaving for the next few hours.

A Scottish pilot had observed all this, and made the
comment, "Next time, mind you drink a good single malt --
like Glenmorangie!  It's smoother than mother's milk!"

Bill heaved once more.  Everyone in the bar laughed, and a
few offered him 'a hair of the dog.'  A nice gesture, but it
didn't help.

               *              *              *

It was late evening in Paris.  Amanda, Connor, Duncan, and
Lenny waited across the street from the Museum.  They almost
looked like a bunch of Bohemians hanging out.  Lenny
smiled, "It's a good day to steal."

Amanda wasn't smiling.

"The plan's simple: Amanda and I go in, and you two make
sure that nobody disturbs us.  Agreed?"

Connor shrugged.  Duncan didn't feel comfortable at all, but
he didn't protest.  They went their separate directions.  

Duncan couldn't help but feel a mounting unease.  He knew
deep down that something big was about to happen, but he
didn't know what.  

Connor looked unconcerned, "What are you worried about?"

"There's something in the air tonight."

"It must be your nerves.  You haven't done too much breaking
and entering, have you?"

"I've done a lot of it, thank you."

"Like breaking your way through balcony window and entering
the--"

Duncan rapped him pretty sharply on the head, "Don't you go
there!"

Connor laughed pretty loudly at that. 

               *              *              *

The sun had just set in Toronto, and the last of the
afterglow had left.  Axer sat on top of a mailbox, staring
at the very top of the skyscraper.  "Seems like an odd place
for a mayor to have an office.  Shouldn't he be in the
servants' quarters?"

Peter Caine understood his reference, snickering a little,
"Our dear old mayor has a few businesses on the side.  If
the public knew what kinds of businesses, we'd have an even
bigger riot than we just had."

"So," Axer changed the subject, "let me see if I get this
right.  Kate lands on the roof and drops a rope.  We slide
up the outside using these," he held up a motorized climbing
tool, "and we all enter his office from the *top*."  He
shook his head.  "It's too obvious."

That shocked Peter.  "What do you mean?"

"Think about it.  Why else would you have security teams
pacing back and forth up there?"

"What?!" snapped Peter.  "How the hell can you see them?!" 
He ripped open his bag, grabbing for his scope.  "I can't
see anyone up there!"

"They're up there," smiled Axer.  "You have to look for the
occasional blotting of light.  If you look long enough,
you'll find that the blots are moving back and forth about
the same speed as a pacing man."

Peter slammed his scope on his bag.  Axer patted him on the
head, "Don't worry about it.  I imagine Kate is pretty
thirsty right now, and if Surtur runs his organization the
way I think he does, the blame is going to spread around
pretty evenly.  Can't beat swift justice, can you?"

Sudden comprehension dawned in Peter's eyes as he realized
who he had recruited.  Axer didn't catch it.  "The blots are
gone.  I imagine Kate got them all."

Peter felt slightly ill as he realized what that really
meant.  To Axer, they were abstract blots; to Peter, they
were human beings who had just died a horrible death.  He
fought very hard to quell the nausea and the voice inside
that screamed, 'unnatural!'

Heimdall, who had up to this point been leaning up against a
nearby wall and keeping to himself, tapped them both from
behind.  "It's time."

They both nodded, and as a group, they crossed the street. 
Before they reached the other side, Heimdall suddenly
snapped his head to the left.  He could see Powys walking
away, his back to them, whistling loudly.  

"Go ahead.  I've just seen Powys, and I don't think he's up
to any good."

Axer frowned, "Leave him.  If we don't find him, he'll find
us."

Peter disagreed, "I never trusted him.  I say go after him."

After a moment, Axer nodded.

Heimdall took off at a silent, but fast, jog.  Axer and
Peter reached the rope, and Peter strapped the motor-climber
onto Axer.  Axer's expression was like that of a child being
given a new toy.  When the machine turned out to be a dud,
for some odd reason, his expression became one of
irritation.

"Screw it!" snapped Axer, unstrapping the motor-climber,
climbing the rope much faster than he would have pulled up
anyway. 

"You're not serious..." Peter muttered, but he shrugged and
attached his motor-climber.  He certainly didn't move up as
fast as Axer did.  Looking up, he could see that Axer had
reached the sixth floor, and was still climbing.  The roof
looked unreachably high.  "I can't believe this..."

...Meanwhile, Kate was gripping the last of six security
guards by the shoulders.  This must have been his first day. 
He was too young to shave more than once a week, and the
expression in his face was utter terror.  Even though he had
a good rack of muscles, with all his struggling, he couldn't
break out of the grip.  It was like being trapped by two
giant boulders.

Kate was enjoying it immensely.  "What's the matter?" she
pouted. "Don't you like me?"

The guard was stuttering so badly that anything he might
have said was unintelligible.  

Kate leaned her head forward to kiss him in the cheek.  She
did, and startled him so much that he relaxed.  When she
turned that kiss into a deep bite, he screamed and tried to
break free.  The only thing that broke free was his now-
bleeding face.

"Oh, you're hurt," whispered a smiling Kate.  "Let me kiss
it and make it better."

He broke free, not sure whether it was because she let him
free or not.  The drained corpses of his workmates were mere
shadows in his mind as he ran over them on his way to the
stairs.  Nothing mattered except getting out of there.  It
never occurred to him at all that he could have punched the
silent alarm on his side-radio.  

He thought he ditched her, but when he turned the corner to
reach the stairs, he found her standing there, tapping a
booted foot softly.  She was picking some dried blood from
one of her fingernails.  "Don't tell me you're running
away...  I *like* you!"  

The guard was so shaken that he could only back up in
shaking steps.  "How the hell--" he managed to stammer.

"You got it," her smile was dry.  "Hell."

Kate grabbed both of his arms, and raised one wrist to her
mouth.  She bit deeply into the right wrist and sucked in
the violent stream of blood that shot through.  Every single
drop.

The guard's protests were less violent now that he'd been
drained of a pint of blood.  He sank to his knees, a
headache stronger than he'd ever experienced forcing him to
throw back his head.

"Where do you think you're going?" she snarled, yanking his
head forward so that he stared at her with empty eyes.  "You
*look* at me in the eye when I send you to hell!"

By the time Axer reached the roof, all the bodies were
neatly disposed of.  Rubbing his sore forearms, he observed
that there weren't any traces of a fight or blood anywhere.

Kate lounged on the short brick guardwall along the edge of
the root, smiling smugly.  "What took you so long?"

He grabbed her by the hand, pulling her off the wall.  "If
you thought *I* was slow, look down."

Down below, Peter was only half-way up, slowly but steadily
climbing.

"Any trouble up here?"

"None at all.  Quite uneventful, actually."

Axer kissed her on the cheek, "That's good.  I wouldn't want
to have anything happen to you."

Suddenly, Axer felt a strong presence of an immortal from
down below.  It was distant, but strong.  He had been
looking down the side of the building the whole time, and
was shocked to see a bolt-cutter shatter one of the windows
about halfway between the roof and Peter.  It immediately
caught the rope and snapped it.

Gravity, having been taunted by Peter Caine for so many
minutes, smugly taunted Peter, sending him to the ground
faster and faster.  It was too dark now for Axer to see
where or when he landed, but when he did, Kate blew out a
sigh of relief.

"What happened?"

"A trash truck pulled through at the last moment.  He'll
stink for a week, but he'll be O.K."

Axer frowned, "That sounds a bit too unlikely.  It's like
playing blind poker, and beating someone holding a straight
with a royal."  Then he remembered something.  "Powys!  He's
behind it!"

"What do you mean?"  She didn't trust Powys from the
beginning, and now that his most solid backer was having
doubts about the man, she wanted to know what it was that
shook his faith.

"For some reason, all these coincidences and unlikely
happenings occur around Powys.  Maybe he engineered it or
not, but I just don't like it.  For all I know, he may have
set us up too.  After all, he gave Peter the information."

His expression was not too kindly, "I hope to god Heimdall
corners him and pulls the truth out of him one tooth at a
time!"

"Should we abort?"

There was a moment of hesitation, "No.  We're going in --
we're just doing it my way."

               *              *              *

Heimdall caught up with Powys, ever so silently approaching
closer and closer.  His left hand pulled sharply on Powys'
right shoulder, spinning him around.  A right fist was ready
to give him a full slam in the face, only it never came.

It wasn't Powys.

"Can I help you?"  It was a young man who had 'one of those
faces'.  By the pin on his shirt, he was also a Mormon
missionary who didn't believe in fighting back.

Heimdall didn't know who the hell this guy was, and he
didn't care.  "Sorry.  Thought you were someone else.  Have
a good evening."  He turned back the other way.

"Perhaps our meeting was not a chance one," called the
missionary.  "Perhaps you were brought to me so that I may
bring you the word of God!"

Heimdall's face was buried in his hand.  //Damn preachers --
I should have nailed him in the first place!//  His right
fist was clenched.
                         Chapter 16

Nicholas . . .   

Nicholas . . .  

For so long you longed to be human.  Why was it?  Was it
really because you loathed your vampire nature?  Because you
couldn't bear to take another life?

Come now, Nicholas...  Life and death are intertwined.  When
there is life, death must come, and where death must come,
there must come life.  Surely you understood this as a
human, which is why you so desperately wanted to come
across, because you knew that with the necessity of death,
you would remain alive.

You must have understood that the balance of the world would
adjust itself once you crossed over.  Because you were
alive, and would remain so, people would have to die in your
place.

I wonder if even the blood is necessary.  I wonder if you
could sustain your life simply by killing with the
*intention* of maintaining the balance.

It was just a thought...  You can stop glaring at me now.

But no, think about it.  Can you tell me with full sincerity
as well as honesty that as a human you will cease to be a
monster?  Have you ever stopped to think about the havoc
that human beings cause to life?  Imagine the terror that
those poor cattle possess in their very souls as they sit in
cramped boxes, drowning in their own wastes...

You must have heard how much energy goes into a single piece
of toast, but have you ever considered how much terror,
torment, and pain is locked up in a single slab of steak?  

Think about it.  If you truly seek to be human because you
feel guilty about drinking human blood, then you should
rather seek to exit the cycle of life and death.  You should
lose all form, all energy, all consciousness, and become
true nothingness...

I'll leave you to your misery.  You will remember my
thoughts, but you will not remember me... 

Fade to black.

               *              *              *

"I'm sorry, Dr. Lambert, but there's nothing we can do." 
The doctor stood in an almost military posture, her face
rigid in expressionlessness.  Her eyes, however, showed some
semblance of compassion.  For some reason, she reminded Nat
of Janette... but she knew that this woman was not Janette.
She was human, and though her accent was 'French', she had
been around enough native French speakers to distinguish
accents.  The doctor's accent was certainly not any that she
could recognize.

Nat sat in shock, tears openly falling down her face.  She
clamped her mouth shut, afraid that she might say the wrong
thing.  

The doctor left her alone to deal with her grief, saying
nothing before exiting.

"Why?" she screamed to the ceiling, her eyes clenched in
grief.  "All these years, and Nick finally gets his wish,
and then you take it away from him!"  

Nat's head fell into her hands, muffling her uncontrollable
sobs.

"He might have lost his gift, but it *can* be exchanged,"
said a new, crisp voice.  It was one she didn't recognize.

Nat looked up with hooded eyes, and saw a clean-cut man who
looked a little too Nazi-like for comfort.  He didn't wear
any swastikas or Nazi flags, but the cut of his clothes and
his overall bearing screamed 'Nazi!'  If her mind screamed
anything more mild, it was 'clean freak!'  He could probably
wade through a slop pit and come out looking white and
spotless.

His smile was open, almost masking his cold eyes, "I have
the will and the way to heal him, but I'm terribly sorry to
say that he won't remain human... in the accepted sense."

Nat knew that the sun was down now, so she knew who it had
to be.  She whipped out a cross from underneath her blouse,
one she kept for very special occasions such as this.  "Go
away!"  She sobbed.

He smiled even wider, "Right religion; wrong race.  I'm not
a vampire."

"What the hell are you then?"

His eyes narrowed, "I believe you know me as an Invisible
One."

That shook Nat to the soul.  Her earlier feelings now made a
lot more sense.  What she sensed would make a Nazi seem pale
in comparison.  "Why are you here?"

He spread out his arms ostentatiously, "I'm here to improve
the quality of life!  The life of your Nicholas will end
without intervention, so what more need be said?"

"A lot more."  She stood up, an iron focus replacing her
grief.  "What are your *real* motives?"  It was pretty
significant that she didn't tell him to get lost... yet.

"I just told you!"  He didn't show any anger, if he was
angry.  "I'm here to improve the quality of life!  Do you
want me to save him or not?"

Nat's eyes narrowed, "Tell me more.  *How* will you save
him?"

The Invisible One laughed, "How suspicious you are!  I'm
beginning to wonder if you truly care about his life."  He
got the look in her eye, and stopped laughing.  "I'm the one
who gave him the cure... indirectly.  I gave precise
directions that he didn't follow.  I'm truly sorry that the
both of you are going through all this, but am I to be
blamed if he is too forgetful to follow the directions? 
Would you be any less unforgiving than I am?"

Nat stared at him, unsure of what to think.

He continued, "Have you ever wondered what vampirism truly
is?  Of course you have, and still do.  Over the centuries,
I've had an occasional interest in vampirism, and isolated
the specific mechanisms that cause, maintain... and
eliminate vampirism. 

"When a human either becomes or ceases to be a vampire, the
pancreas is one of the organs to be affected.  When he took
the cure his pancreas required a 24 hour fast, which
Nicholas did not maintain.  Thus, he caused irreparable
damage.   I can't undo it, however, I can bring a specialist
who can make him a vampire once more -- an on becoming a
vampire once more, his body will heal."

Nat lost her breath as she paced around in shock.  "I can't
believe what I'm hearing!  He's spent centuries trying to
become human once more, and you're trying to bring him back! 
What kind of monster are you?"

"I'm a very humane monster," said the Invisible One gravely. 
"The question is, what kind of monster are you?  Would you
rather obey your high and mighty morals than save a life?"

"Leave me alone."

He bowed grandly.  "As you wish, but I think I must tell you
one other thing.  The rest of the price is that you must
cross over with him."

               *                   *                   *

"I'll have a Suicide Burger with extra grease!" he snapped,
sitting down.  "And don't give me seeded buns!"  He
muttered, "I *hate* seeds!"

He had lost his excess weight in the recent years, even if
his diet hadn't changed.  His appearance had become somewhat
neater: his face was so cleanly shaved that he didn't even
have a faint shadow, and his hair was slicked back so
precisely that not a single hair was out of place.

He also looked quite alive.  He looked anything but dead. 
Schanke was pretty proud of that.  It took talent to walk
away from a plane crash when not possessing any of the
special gifts that his assignment, or the other brand of
immortals that he had discovered, might have possessed.

"Your greaseburger," muttered the bartender, looking at him
with distaste.  When he realized that Schanke really didn't
care a bit about him one way or the other, he went about his
business, muttering, "He'd better give me a good tip..."

Schanke looked around, snickering under his breath. 
//Pretty amazing...  Looking around, you wouldn't know that
a full-scale riot took place only yesterday, and this place
got trashed by the crowds.  An Invisible One died here... 
Another Invisible One almost got Axer.//

He smiled, //Axer...  Now there's one enigma.  I really
wonder if it would all have turned out differently if he'd
'died' in a more remote alley, or the two Feds didn't get
involved.  Just like you told Nick, 'remember nonlinearity.' 
A pity you wasted such a rich thought on such a dense brick. 
Like I say, you can take a man from the Crusades, but you
can't take the Crusader from the man.  He must have been a
good soldier -- dense as a brick...  I wonder how many
people he had to hypnotize to get to the rank of
detective.//

Schanke started taking big bites from his greaseburger,
reveling in the rich, saturated fats and oils rolling down
his throat.   All the ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, and
Tabasco sauce blended with the grease, blending into a
heavenly taste that brought him to a new level of existence.

A vampire lady -- he *could* pick them out in a crowd -- who
had been eyeing him with interest suddenly got disgusted. 
He looked directly into her eyes from across the room and
chewed with his mouth wide open, red grease rolling
down his chin.  She turned away, utterly revolted.

He laughed loudly at that, and finished his burger.

"You've always been disgusting, but you've really topped it
off."

It was LaCroix, and he wasn't in a good mood.  

Schanke leaned back against the bar, still seated on the
stool, and smiled impudently, "I wondered how long it would
take for you to figure it out."

"Figure out what?"

"That all wasn't as it seemed."  It was odd, seeing Schanke
this way.  It was like watching a possessed man -- his
personality, body language, and everything else changed. 
Nothing was the same.

"You have a lot of conceit if you think you were so
important that I would have noticed."

Schanke shrugged.  "It really doesn't matter to me.  What do
you want?  I know you run the place, and all, but what
brought you over to my neck of the woods?"

LaCroix gripped his hand quite firmly around Schanke's
shoulder, tightening his grip.  "You're coming with me."

Schanke was firmly escorted to one of the back rooms.  The
bartender snickered, "Fate worse than death."

               *                   *              *

Nat softly touched Nick's face.  He was sound asleep, deep
within some nightmare.  He fought whatever it was, his hands
twitching and his face jerking back and forth.  He spoke in
French, but it was so much of a mumble that she couldn't
catch any particular words. 

The skin of his face looked so human... and so unhealthy. 
It was partially red from broken capillaries, and other
parts were white from lack of circulation.  It made him look
so ugly and old, but she looked past it.

"Nick."  She gently shook him awake at the shoulders, her
tears dripping on his chest like rain.  "Wake up."

Nick woke up with a start, his hands reaching to choke Nat,
but he realized who she was, and pulled away at the last
moment.  "Nat?"

"Nick."  She couldn't say anything, and her head dropped on
his chest, where she sobbed so uncontrollably that she
couldn't speak coherently.  The only thing he could catch
was, "I don't know what to do."

"Nat...  Nat..."  He draped his arm around her shoulders,
pulling her in closer.  For some reason, the fact that she
smelled like chamomile seemed more significant than anything
else.  "What happened."

"An Invisible One came.  He said that he could help you, but
the only way he'll do it is by bringing you back across...
and bringing *me* across."

"Damn!" Nick stared up at the ceiling.

"What do I tell him?"  She was frantic.

Nick didn't even hesitate.  "Tell him to move on.  I'm not
interested."

"But you'll *die*!"

Nick's eyes were already dead.  "This is what I've been
waiting for all these years.  I'm mortal once more, and the
last thing I want to do is lose what I've regained."  He
smiled softly, "Time heals all wounds.  I'll be a memory,
and you'll move on."

"DON'T SAY THAT!" she screamed, pounding the wall.  "After
all this time, DON'T quit on me!"

"But how is this quitting?!"

"You're not checking out all the options, that's why."

The soft voice startled them both.  It came from the other
side of the separation curtain.  Apparently there had been
another patient here the whole time.

Nat rushed over and ripped it open.  What she saw nearly
made her shut it again.  It was a young man, perhaps in his
twenties, but at the same time he looked so *old*.  He wore
a medic alert necklace that said, 'diabetic.'  //My god!  He
looks like Nick!//

He didn't look like Nick in appearance, but more in terms of
condition.  Both had the look of hopelessness, and both had
the same cast of skin.

The young man smiled, "You know, all this time I thought you
were a pair of Wiccans, but the more I thought about it, the
less I doubted.  It was a rather grand thought experiment
you've both given me, actually.  What is it that makes a
vampire distinctive from a human?  What kind of changes take
place?  After hearing all about Nick's problems, I realized
that a pancreas problem would be the logical explanation."

That set back Nat a few paces.  "Who are you?  What do you
mean?"

He shrugged.  "I'd rather not have you know my name.  I
don't have the courage to kill myself outright, but I can at
least make sure the world doesn't know me.  As for what I
mean, I meant exactly what I said.  To make a long story
short, the vampire physiology would have to be vastly
different from a human one.  I won't bore you with all the
details, but I have a thought."

He produced a small vial, handing it to Nat.  "I think that
the reason that Nick can't handle insulin is because they've
been giving him the wrong kind.  Try this one.  See if it
pulls down his blood sugar in the next two hours, and if it
does, get a few bags of it."

A look of skeptical hope entered Nat's eyes, but it was hope
nonetheless.  She read the vial, "Beef insulin?"

He shrugged.  "They gave it to me by mistake.  I only use
Humulin, and they gave me that beef insulin crap."  He
laughed, "And they gave Nick the Humulin without even
checking!  I figure, what the hell -- it's worth a shot!"

He leaned back, "God.  I wish to hell I was in his place. 
Luck and bad genes of the Scottish 'll scare the death away
from me..."

Nick frowned, "What do you mean?"

The patient laughed bitterly, "I have Scottish blood in me,
and when I was a young lad, I had hopes.  I did all the
right things, and then it hit: luck and genetics.  I got
diabetes by the time I was nineteen -- nothing I could have
done -- which comes from my Scottish blood.  As for the
luck... you've heard of the luck of the Irish.  Scottish
luck is a lot more gloomy -- it's the luck that ensures
you'll live to see another nightmare day."
                         Chapter 17

Heimdall was muttering to himself as he made his way back to
the office building.  He had tailed someone for a good
twenty minutes -- someone that he believed was Powys -- and
it turned out to be a Mormon.  //Damn Mormons!  What *is* it
about me that draws them to me like iron to a magnet?//

He made his way around the last corner and saw that Axer had
made his way to the top, and that Peter was half way up.  He
was about to climb himself, but moved away from the rope
when he saw a garbage truck come down the way.  Not wanting
to draw attention to himself or the rope, he moved to the 
other side of the alley, backing up against the brick wall.

That's when he heard it: a shattered window followed by a
long scream.  Before the truck had reached him, he was able
to see that Peter Caine was falling quite rapidly, along
with the rope that he was holding.  Someone cut the rope.

He stepped forward reflexively, "No."

Some god of luck must have been around, because Peter fell
right in the center of the load of garbage.  The driver had
no idea that it happened, so he didn't even slow down. 
Caught between choices, Heimdall made an instant decision:
he jumped onto the side of the truck and climbed into the 
garbage, reaching Peter, who was knocked out and sleeping
contentedly like a pig in slop.

               *              *              *

Kate had done her share of sneaking around, but only for the
purpose of finding food.  The fact that they were breaking
into the building to observe, and perhaps kill, someone made
it fell very different... like a new experience.

Axer had done things like this quite a lot, so he had more
of a bored expression on his face with his eyes unfocused.  

"Where do we go?" whispered Kate.

"The thirteenth floor."

A slight pause.  "There isn't a thirteenth floor."

"There's always a thirteenth floor -- most folks just don't
call it that.  In this case, there *is* a thirteenth floor
that the elevator happens to skip."

"Is there something you're not telling me?"

"I don't know.  What am I not telling you?"

They turned the corner of the barren hallway, entering the
stairwell and descending.  The lights were off, but neither
one had any problem.  Axer didn't have vampire eyes, but he
had developed his other senses well enough that he could
negotiate just as well as a vampire.

               *                   *                   *

So, Surtur.  There you sit, staring at the one object you
have left in your life.  

A ring.  A ring that has tarnished with age, but you do not
see the tarnish, because it has developed as you have.  Just
as we do not notice our own changes with time, you have not
noticed the change in your ring.

Who was she?  A loved one?  A prize?  Or have you never made
a distinction, between love and possession?  Did you love
the women you took by force, or were they merely items that
you take and use?  Did you take her from the field as she
was going  about her daily chores?  Did she catch your fancy
from afar, and grip your eyes so tightly that you couldn't
bear to let her from your very sight?  Did you simply ride
up and grab her in passing at a full gallop?  Or did you
kill her family in the process, relishing her screams and
cries of loss, knowing that a year from now, she would be
kneeling at your feet in devotion?

Or was that not the case?  Was she a prize from battle? 
That reminds me...  Did her husband watch before you killed
him?  Perhaps you put out his eyes and let him remain alive
for the rest of his days, whatever they may be.  Perhaps you
let him live with his eyes, but not his hands.  Perhaps he
served you afterwards as a eunuch, or perhaps he served your
new wife such.

How did you lose her?  Did you lose her the same way you
gained her?  I strongly doubt it was old age...

No, I don't judge you.  What is... is.  There is no right or
wrong, only what is, and if that is the case, how can I
judge you?  The only judgements I can say concern tactics,
and I tell the truth when I saw that your tactics are quite
sound.

Wallow in your hypocritical pain as a pig wallows in mud. 
Bathe yourself in rancid anger.  Take the pools of vomit
from your own soul and wash yourself with it.

The last thing I can stand is a man of self-pity, but at
least you serve me well.

Carry on.  You have visitors. 

You never saw me.

I was never here.

You can unglaze your eyes now.

               *                   *                   *

"Wake up."

Peter groaned, rubbing his eyes.  "It's not even six yet. 
Let me sleep."

Heimdall shook him once more, concern in his eyes.  "Don't
do this to me.  You're not safe at home, and it's not even
midnight yet."

Peter opened his eyes, sitting up with a sharp jerk.  "What
the hell?!  I should be dead!"

Heimdall laughed, the strain still there, "You can thank
your god of luck for that.  You fell in the middle of a
garbage truck.  I had to spend the last few minutes hosing
you down -- you smelled bad enough to wake the dead."

He noticed that he was sopping wet, and that he smelled
distinctly like flowers.  Heimdall looked at him with an
apologetic shrug, "The closest place I could find some soap
was a health food store.  I thought you'd rather smell like
chamomile than peaches."

"Hmmph."  He slowly stood up.  "How long has it been?"

"Since you went for a dive?  About an hour.  I figured that
since Axer and Kate haven't aborted the mission, we should
stick around.  Have you made a Plan B?"

Peter scratched his chin.  "Not for anything like this...  I
didn't expect that someone would snap the rope -- or even
know that it was there.  I wasn't expecting it... "  He
slammed his fist into the wall.  "It *has* to be Powys! 
That bastard sold us up the river!  Did you find him?"

"No.  It was some Mormon missionary.  I let him go."

Peter paced back and forth.  "Damn!  We can't go up...  But
maybe we can go down!"

"What do you mean?"

Peter's grin was evil, "We're going through the sewers.  Did
you bring some extra soap?"

"No.  We're not going down there.  That's final."

               *              *              *

"How many floors is that?" panted Axer, nearly out of
breath.

"This should be fourteen."  Kate was smiling at Axer's
discomfort.

"Let's stop here.  There won't be a thirteenth door."

"How will we get in?"

Axer smiled, "Leave that to me."

They made their way through the locked door.  All it took
was a sharp yank by Kate, and they were in.

"Let me rest here for a few moments..."  Axer sat down
against a drywall and closed his eyes.  

Kate smiled and explored the floor on her own.  If she had
stayed a moment longer, she would have seen him twitch
violently, and then stop suddenly.  She would have heard the
muttering in three different languages, none of which she
recognized.

He had thought he had conquered the voices within, but once
more, the wall was breached...

...Axer found himself on one hell of a nightmarescape.  All
the other times he was here, it always had a dreamlike
quality that he could identify.  Now, it was in no way
dreamlike.  All of his senses screamed, 'This is REAL!' 

He was in the middle of a place he recognized very well. 
Dresden.  All of the people around him were running around,
confused, screaming in fright, crying, and dying.  The city
erupted in a firestorm so powerful it seemed that bombs were
exploding where there were none.  Thought it was night, the
fires were so bright that it might as well have been day.

"Axer!" screamed a voice behind him.

Axer turned and saw a ghost.  It was Klaus, a Nazi butcher
who delighted in practicing long-lost torture techniques on
the Jews.  "You monster!"  Though half a century passed, the
memories were still strong in his mind -- the slaughter, the
destruction, and the alien dissociation with all forms of
humanity.  Though Axer had seen many wars in his long life,
he had never seen anything like this, and it still raised an
unmatched anger in his soul.

Klaus looked confused, but Axer didn't give him the time to
respond.  His hand grabbed at Klaus' windpipe, crushing and
separating it from the rest of the throat.  "I haven't
forgotten your handiwork, you bloody monster!  Way wasn't
torture enough?  You had to play with their very souls!"  

Klaus' eyes bulged in confusion.  But it left him instantly,
when he gave Axer a double slam to the temples with his free
hands.  

Axer's eyes widened with the sharp spike of pain, and he
sank to his knees.  When he almost recovered, Klaus followed
up with a solid knee to the face that sent him flying
backwards, hitting the ground...

..."What's gotten into you?" Kate demanded, pulling Axer up
by the shoulders, slamming him into the wall.  Her eyes were
furious and full of hurt.

"Kate?" his eyes widened in confusion.  "What happened?"

Looking at his expression, she began to understand that he
wasn't himself.  "You attacked me for no reason, calling me
things... things that I'd rather not repeat."

Axer winced in pain as he massaged his temples, "I was in
the nightmarescape.  It was Dresden, during the firebombing. 
I found a monster there."

"Are you all right now?"

Axer nodded.  "Let's get going."

It was over, but not forgotten.  Axer knew what he said to
Klaus, but he had no idea what he had supposedly said to
Kate.  He didn't know if he even wanted to know, judging
from the hurt he could still see in her eyes.

                         Chapter 18

Scully felt a shiver move up and down her spine.  It was a
shiver of fear and impending doom, and a sensation that she
was beginning to trust more and more.  She had yet to find a
scientific explanation for it, but she had more pressing
issues on her mind.

"Are you ready?" asked Mr. X.

She nodded.  Then she stopped cold, "After all this time, I
can't believe I ever asked your name."

He smiled openly, "No.  You haven't."

"Well, who are you?  I can't just keep on calling you 'Mr.
X', can I?"

"Why, yes you can."  He walked on towards the house, while
she made one of those 'I'm going to kill him!' faces behind
his back.

She caught up with him.

They hesitated as they stood a few feet from the door.  Most
of the lights were out in the old house except for one in
the attic.  There were no lights on the outside grounds, and
none on the patio.  It was too quiet -- so quiet that the
silence seemed to take on a form of its own.

Mr. X misinterpreted her hesitation.  "Remember your
sister."

Scully ground her teeth, but kept her mouth shut.  It
wouldn't do to get into an argument now.

The front door was like any other German door -- solid, real
wood, with a handle of brass.  Scully put on a surgical
glove and tried the handle.  It was locked.  She looked at
Mr. X, who looked at her with annoyance.

"Move aside," he whispered.  When she did, he pulled out
a high-tech sensor that could have been in a sci-fi movie.
He scanned the doorway and nearby windows.  "No alarms," he
finally said.  The next instrument that he pulled out was a
small flathead screwdriver.  "One thing I've found is that
the best way to break in a place is to keep it simple."

After a few minutes of pulling out screws, the doorknob was
dismantled.  After that, it was a simple matter of opening
the door.  The inside was as quiet as the outside.  There
were no sounds, no signs of movement, or even light.

A faint penlight revealed a near-empty floor.  There were no
signs of habitation -- just a lot of dust on a
plastic-covered floor.  On instinct, Scully looked for signs
of murder on the plastic sheeting, but there were none. 
Ever since she covered a case where an executive would
murder his unsuspecting victims on a sheet of plastic, she
never saw plastic sheets in the same light again.

Mr. X motioned to the stairs, and Scully nodded.  Pulling
out their guns, they made their way upstairs.  The second
floor was as deserted as the first.  Each room was the same
-- empty.

Scully looked at Mr. X with something bordering on
annoyance.  //If this turns out to be a wild goose
chase!...//

They made it to the attic stairs, which were well hidden
within a closet.  The stairs were half-rotten with age and
water damage.  

Scully looked uncertainly at Mr. X, but he shrugged,
whispering, "Not much choice."  He took the first step,
slowly putting his weight on it.  It creaked a little, but
didn't make too much noise... or snap.  They climbed the
stairs in that manner -- slowly, one step at a time.

At the top of the stairs, they could see a faint light
coming from down a hallway.  Scully turned off her penlight. 
The light came from underneath a closed door.  The two
looked at one another, nodded, and silently counted to
three.  Scully opened the door quickly.

What they saw made both of them cover their mouths in shock. 
It was Halscombe, naked and chained to a bed.  He was gagged
and blindfolded, and the expression on his face was not one
of pleasure.  There were many bruises on his body, along
with healed and fresh cut wounds.  They could hear the
muffled sounds of his screaming.  They were the screams of
either a maniac or someone feeling excruciating pain.

Scully looked down a little lower and almost turned red. 
There *was* something causing him excruciating pain, and it
wasn't the type of instrument you could describe in public,
let alone polite company.  Mr. X shook his head in sympathy.

At the far side of the room, there was a tall leather chair
with the back turned towards them.  The only thing visible
was the fragment of a head and a few strands of long, black
hair.  

"You're going to fix that knob before you leave, you know,"
said the person seated.

Though she couldn't see the woman's face, Scully knew who
she was.  Mulder's sister.  Samantha.  Or someone that
Mulder believed was Samantha.  The chair turned, and what
they saw surprised them as much as seeing Halscombe. 
Samantha was dressed in leather and chains, and held a
coiled whip in her hand.  The smile on her face was quite
demented and sinister.

"I knew you were here the whole time.  All you had to do was
knock, and I would have let you in."  For the moment, they
were both speechless. "You're just in time for the show." 
She snapped the whip in the air, cracking it loud enough to
make Halscombe jump.

               *              *              *

Mulder and Skinner walked slowly through the conference
room.  Steinn had to attend to some sudden matters --
something about a 'quantum popcorn maker doing a Guy,' if
Mulder heard correctly.  Whatever it was, it was enough to
make Steinn take off at a full sprint.

"So, where are we now?" asked Mulder, taking on a sterner
tone than he knew he had.  "Sure, now we know about a
society of dwarves, but what good will that do?"

Skinner slammed his palm on the table, "Damn!  I thought I
had it!"

Mulder looked at his boss once more.  The man seemed to have
changed ever since he took up that hammer when they were at
the Landing, but even more so in the last few weeks.  The
changes weren't trivial -- they were dramatic.  It almost
seemed as if Mulder were looking at a stranger.  But
whatever the change, it wasn't happening the same way as 
Krycek's.  And if Krycek's theory was to be believed, it
still wouldn't match Skinner's syndrome because Skinner
wasn't immortal.

...Or was he?

Mulder seemed to remember a story about how Skinner survived
a rather nasty gunfight back in Vietnam.  Skinner had
mentioned that he had thought he had died, and could
remember looking down on his body from above.  Mulder had
filed those facts away in his mind, but hadn't payed much
attention to them, until now.

"Sir, there's something you ought to know...  I met with
Krycek this morning, and he had a rather unique theory about
the weapons."

Skinner's head snapped towards Mulder, his eyes full of
hope.  "What did he say?"

Mulder blew out his breath, sitting down once more.  "It's
like this.  First off, you have to be immortal..."

Skinner looked skeptical from the start, but he listened
calmly.

So did Steinn, who had returned from his emergency.  In one
arm, he held a kitten, and in the other a bag of popcorn. 
The kitten snuggled into his armpit, purring.

               *                   *                   *

In a far colder place, a grimy, bearded, one-eyed man pulled
himself from the snow.  He didn't know how long he had been
there, comatose, but for some reason, it didn't matter.

He felt a long nose nudge its way under his armpit.  It was
one of the wolves, wagging his tail and whimpering.  A few
feet away was a bone.

"All right..." he muttered, getting up.  "If that's what'll
make you happy."  He threw the stick, and the wolf took off
after it.  The other wolf appeared in a spray of snow,
having either been sleeping or hiding under it.

"At least you're both too busy to bug me."  He looked back
to the south, and saw that the storm had cleared.  "Damn
it!"  He still felt that presence, the very same presence
that had given him true fear.

"Still after me, are you?  We'll have to do something about
that..."

He took a look at the ruins, which stood as they had for
centuries.  For only a moment, he saw them as others did. 
Then his eyes refocused, and he saw the ruins as they were. 
In his mind, winter turned to summer, and Yggdrasil
appeared.

Was this insane dream or sane reality?  There was no way to
tell, but Odin didn't care.

"It's not whether it's reality or dream that's important,
but rather the experience that counts."  He remembered
reading that somewhere, and it helped a great deal.  "It
doesn't matter at all."

He often wondered what others saw -- others without his
unique perspective. To Odin, it was the most beautiful,
living road that was ever created.  He stepped on it and
began to skip along the road, laughing merrily.  Then he
reached his destination.

He could see her.  She hadn't been to the Landing before,
but he recognized her as the one who had tried to rattle his
nerves only a few hours before.  She walked down the road --
how she got there was beyond him -- but she was groping
blindly.  

"Humph!"  He snorted, shaking his head sadly.  "Didn't your
mom ever teach you to leave well enough alone?"  His eyes
took on an evil glint.  "This is going to be *fun*."

          *                   *                   *

Coleen was sleeping soundly, sleeping off all the whiskey
from her last stay at the bar.  It was all Richie could do
to keep from shaking his head.

"How does it happen?" wondered Richie aloud.  "I mean, she
must be my age at least, and she's so bitter!  What do you
think caused it?"

Methos smiled, "I think bitterness is an inherited trait,
and not acquired.  I think you've also lived a sheltered
life.  Up until the 1940s, most folks lived a pretty hard
life.  Children barely able to stand up had much worse
attitudes than Coleen has.  But that's not what concerns
you, isn't it?"

Richie nodded reluctantly, "I just can't help but wonder
what it was that Caine told her.  It freaked her out in a
way.  And what's that?"  Curious, he picked up an odd object
from out of her hand.  He didn't think of it as stealing or
prying, because she hadn't taken any pains to hide it.

A moment later, Richie's attention was on Methos, and so he
didn't see her violent twitching, and the grasping motions
her left hand made.

Methos looked at the object, whistling softly.  "It's a
vajra.  It's pretty common in the Orient -- so common that
there's a word for it in every language."

"What is it?"

"A religious symbol, mostly.  It symbolizes either the eagle
or the thunderbolt -- I was never sure which.  Most of the
folks I met didn't want to talk about it."

"I wonder why?"

"That's easy enough -- I was a barbarian.  Barbarians never
appreciate other civilizations."  Methos spoke with a
certain amount of bitterness.

Richie moved to put the vajra back in Coleen's hand.  "What
the hell?!"

"What's wrong?" asked Methos, frustrated that he couldn't
turn around enough to see the problem himself.

"It's Coleen!  She's having convulsions!"

                         Chapter 19

Connor and Duncan were walking silently around the Museum,
keeping their eyes open.  There were people about in the
distance, doing their own business, so it was very hard to
keep guard without being noticed.  They did their best to
appear like two guys killing time, and apparently it was
working.  Nobody seemed to notice that they were even there.

"I was thinking..." said Duncan in the Highland tongue. 
After all these years, he still spoke it.  He even thought
in it a great deal.

"That's news," smiled Connor.

Duncan hit him in the shoulder.  "That's getting old!"  He
sighed, "Have you ever thought about Lenny?  I mean, if he's 
even making any sense?"

That stopped Connor.  "I apologize for ever calling you
crazy.  You're insane."

"Why?" Duncan faced Connor, anger in his eyes.  "He *could*
be telling the truth because he *believes* it, but is he
*right*?  Think about what he's told us: Odin brings some
orb over here, and everything starts breaking loose. 
Doesn't it sound too convenient?"

"Does it?  We're both old enough to see patterns.  When we
were born, everything had been done the same way for as long
as we could remember.  You remember!  If anyone came up with
a new idea, it would be squashed down because folks
preferred to do things the old-fashioned way.  Then three
centuries pass and the world turns upside down!  Can you
come up with a better explanation as to why all this is
happening?"

"Sure.  Natural accumulation of knowledge and plain luck." 
He was about to expand on his statement, but stopped.  They
both felt it.  It was an immortal.

"What's Amanda doing back so soon?" asked Connor.

"It's not Amanda."  Duncan was sure of it.  He just didn't
know how he knew.  

"It's quite a fine evening to be walking about, isn't it?" 
The voice had a slow and easy-going quality to it.  It
sounded like an Irishwoman who had lost most of her accent,
but had enough of it left to identify her.  She stepped out
of the shadows.

For once, it was someone that neither one of them
recognized.  

She dressed in gray baggy clothes, tied down at the wrists,
belt, and ankles with thick leather cords that could almost
act as a layer of armor.  Her boots were of the soft variety
-- an old design with the modern addition of rubber soles. 
She wore a wool half-cloak over her left side, leaving her
right side uncovered.  

Her face was naturally beautiful, with eyes the color of
grass and flowing hair the color of fire, but it also showed
the refinement that comes with living life.  This refinement
took the form of a cynical frown, a sharp scar going down
the right side of her face from scalp to jaw, and clenched
jaws.

Duncan could see Connor's eyes widen as she emerged, and he
fought the urge to elbow him.

Her eyes were wary at the moment, "What would you two be
doing at this time of night in a place like this?"

"We could ask the same of you," smiled Connor, entering his
'flirting' mode.  His whole body language seemed to change. 
The only thing that changed about Duncan was his rising
irritation.

"I live here.  I don't recall seeing you two here before."

"We travel around a lot."

"Then travel on."

"But we like it here," he smiled, holding out his arms.

"I don't care.  Move it or lose it."  She threw back the
half-cloak, revealing a Gaulish leaf-blade.

Connor puffed up his chest subconsciously.  "Are you
threatening us? [Ooopth!]"  He was down on his knees,
holding his guts in.  Looking up, he managed to smile --
just barely, "You're stronger than you look."

The woman looked like she was going to knee him again, but
Duncan stepped in, "Back off."  Snarling, she punched him in
the throat and kicked his legs out from under him.  He
landed with a loud thump next to Connor.

Connor was just starting to recover.  "If that's what you
want, then be my guest."  He drew out his own sword.  It
glistened in the faint light, almost like shimmering water.

"What I want is for you to leave.  Why is that so
difficult?"  They both looked at her warily, saying nothing. 
She nodded bitterly, "I knew it."  

Her kick was so fast that Connor didn't expect it.  It
snapped him back, where he slammed his head on the ground. 
He didn't move.

She looked at Duncan, "If you leave now, you will live."

He noted that she still hadn't drawn her sword.  "I can't
leave."  //Don't provoke her -- you're doing it enough
already.  Try to keep it going.  Telescope it.  Throw away
your expectations.//  The voice, he noticed, didn't sound
like it's own.  He didn't know who it was, or even if it was
speaking English.

"Then you will die."  It was a cold statement without any
sign of humanity.  A few moments, however, and she still
hadn't acted on that warning.

"Who are you?"  It was a question that he realized was
important, but not one he would have asked.

"I am Mev."

"I don't want to fight you, Mev.  What do you have against
us?"

"I am the Custodian.  You are trespassers."

Duncan found himself laughing cynically.  The voice that
came through his mouth was definitely not his own.  It had a
faint Irish accent woven in with a British soldier's accent. 
"There are several successful break-ins a year, and I
wouldn't be surprised if all of them are due to mortals.  If
you were a guardian, there would be *no* break-ins at all. 
I think you're lying."

Her head tilted, her eyes confused, "And I think you're not
telling me the whole story."

//Good.  Telescope it!  Keep *her* asking the questions!//

"What is it that we haven't told you?"

"If I knew that, I wouldn't be asking you."

And so the verbal game of hot potato continued.

               *              *              *

Inside the Museum, Amanda and Lenny were walking on bare
feet, their pants legs tied up to keep them from flapping. 
The barefoot idea was Lenny's.  "I used to be quite a house-
breaker back in India.  The secret of my success was my bare
feet."

Amanda shrugged.  The guy could be pretty annoying, and he
was being excessively annoying at the moment.  "If you tell
me another story, I'll scream!"

"Ssshhh!!"  He put up a finger to his lips, ignoring her
look of rage.  "They'll hear you!"

The museum took on a totally different mood at night, when
everyone was gone.  It almost felt like they were walking
through a tomb, untouched for many centuries.  Even the
mundane items seemed like priceless treasures.

As they walked through many of the exhibits, Amanda couldn't
help but identify them.  Being naturally materialistic, the
pricey items screamed out to be taken, but even the mundane
items screamed out to her. They screamed, "We can provide
the security you lack!  We can take you back to a simpler
time, when you understood your place in life!"

Amanda stopped.  The objects weren't speaking in any
symbolic sense.  They were speaking directly to her.  She
could hear actual words.

A Prussian bedpan spoke to her, "Stop this madness!  Why are
you following this madman to destroy the Seed?  Take me and
forget the Seed!  I can provide you years of security!"

That confused her, "You?  A bedpan?  How can you provide me
years of security?"

"Don't knock it 'til you try it!  I can fetch a few thousand
dollars on the Black Market!"

She sneered at it, "You've *got* to be kidding!"

Lenny looked at her with concern.  "We're here to do a job. 
You can talk with inanimate objects later."

"Didn't you hear it?" she demanded.  "That bedpan just
talked to me!"

He shook his head once more.  "The Seed is alive now, and it
knows our intentions.  Fight these mad illusions, or we'll
never reach it."

Shaking her head, Amanda followed Lenny.  //He's right! 
Bedpans can't talk!//  She nodded, sure her sanity was back
in full force.

Then she heard it call out in anger, "You don't know what
you're turning your back on!  At least *I* won't leave you
the next morning -- I'll *always* be there for you!"

//Bedpans!  What next?//  "This can't be happening!"

"Neither can immortality," muttered Lenny.  "But here we
are.  Immortal.  Would you say that space travel is
impossible because we can't flap our wings and fly?  Where
there's a will, there's a way."

They turned round a corner, and walked through the
Renaissance exhibits.  Figures of Italians wearing bell-
pants calculated sales while a masked clown danced madly in
a room full of plague victims.

This hall frightened Amanda.  Only one more hall to go, and
they'd be home free, but they had to get through this one
first.

"Hey, Amanda!" called the clown, whistling.  "Don't go -- we
have a Masque planned just for you!"

She clawed at her skull, closing her eyes as the sounds of
lutes, recorders, and drums assaulted her senses.  She could
smell roasting pigs, the fires, and the perfumes.  When she
opened her eyes, she was no longer in the museum.  It was a
very large room designed for parties, the same kind of room
and party that she had been in on many an occasion through
the years.

Everything was so authentic that there could be no doubts as
to its reality.  A few more moments, and she forgot about
the Seed.

"Welcome, guest!  Welcome!" cried the clown, grabbing her by
the shoulders and running around the room with her in some
grotesque dance.  "We have such delights prepared for you!"

"Stop!" she threw his hands off her.  "What is this place? 
What's going on?"  She had enough memory to know that
something strange was happening.  She looked down and found
that she was wearing an elaborate dress of all the colors of
the rainbow.  It seemed to strike her was impossible,
thought she no longer knew why.

"Why, it's the Masque!  What other explanation do you need?" 
He danced around the room once more, spinning wildly and
leaping around in the most impossible contortions.  He
stopped, posing like a ballerina, "Here, pleasure and pain
abound!  We'll show you such sensations that you'll never
need to leave these walls!"

Amanda began to smile dreamily, "Yes.  Show me."  She
completely crossed over into whatever this was, dream or
reality.

She began to dance with the clown.  She never noticed that
the whole time, his face was painted in a mask of
unspeakable horror. 

They spun around and around, and when they stopped, she
stood alone on a single pillar.  Attached to it was a very
fine piano wire, stretched to another pillar.  Above her, a
sword dangled from a single thread.  Below her was blackness
fading into blackness, with no end in sight.  In fact, all
directions faded into blackness.

"What's happening?!" she screamed into the nothingness.

The clowns voice echoed, booming like a deity's voice, "Walk
the tightrope..."

"It's razor wire!" she screamed.

"Picky, picky...  The Tyrant of Syracuse didn't have a way
out when he had to sit underneath that sword, and here you
are, with a way out!   What do you want from me?"

The sword dropped.  Screaming, Amanda walked barefoot onto
the wire.  It cut through her feet, and she fell into the
blackness, screaming.

Screaming.

"Amanda!"

"Huh?"  She opened her eyes.  She was back in the museum.

Lenny was slapping her in the face.  "Snap out of it.  One
more hall."

She shook the daze out of her head, grabbing his wrist
before he could slap her again.  "When we get out of this,
I'm going to kill you!"

"Wonderful!" howled the clown, grabbing her away from Lenny,
taking her back into the Masque.  "But we do that *after*
dinner!"

Disoriented, she sank to her knees.  Strong hands picked her
up and carried her to a chair, were a banquet was served.  A
giant smiled at her in a frightening manner, and lifted the
lid covering one of the trays.

It was a head.  Her own.  She screamed in horror.  

The clown laughed in glee, giving her a big hug from the
side, kissing her cheek.  "Isn't it wonderful?  We're going
to have such a wonderful time tonight!"

          *              *              *

Deeper within the museum, an obsidian orb grew a shade
darker.                         Chapter 20

Nat paced back and forth impatiently, looking at the clock
every half-minute.

"It's not going to happen faster by looking at the clock." 
Nick was quite patient and tranquil.  Whether it was the
fact that he had some slim hope of recovery -- as opposed to
none -- wasn't known.  Perhaps even he didn't know.

She stopped, wiping the sweat off her face, "I know!  I just
can't sit still!  One hour left!"

The patient spoke.  Over this last hour, he seemed to be
gaining his spirits.  The apathetic expression had left his
face, and was replaced by a healthy interest in life. 
"Nick.  Do you still feel a dryness in your upper throat and
the back of the roof of your mouth?"

"How did you know about that?" Nick looked surprised.

The patient looked annoyed, "Because we're both diabetic!
You'll be feeling some different sensations, but there are a
lot of things we have in common.  I'd also bet that you feel
like the veins in your hands and feet are about to burst,
that you have very little energy, and that you want to drink
a whole lake."

Nick just stared at him.  "I'd almost say that you enjoy
being what your are."

"Diabetic?  No.  I've just learned everything about it.  I
can say with certainty that I'll be one of the few people in
the world who will know everything about my death as well as
my life.  I know precisely which body parts will stop 
functioning, in which order, and what it will feel like."

"Isn't that a bit morbid?" asked an annoyed Nat.

He shrugged, "Why should it be morbid?  Wouldn't you rather
know the truth than stick your head in the sand?  Besides,
when you have to pinch out pus out of your skin every day,
it ceases to be a gruesome subject."  

He looked upwards, "Who knows...  If I insist for nothing
but the truth, I might even find a better way out of my
situation than a good death.  I'm hoping that if death turns
out to be an angel, and comes for my soul, I can pummel him
into submission and go on my merry way.  I'll make him sign
a promise to make me immortal and ageless, a living illusion
that's untouched by life, and touches nothing."

Nick looked horrified.  "That's a fate worse than death!"

"It's nothing worse than living in a bad dream you can't
wake up from."

The mood in the room suddenly turned colder.  There was a
visitor, and Nat recognized him well.

"So," asked the Invisible One.  If anything, he was sneering
even more.  "What will it be?  Does Nick live or die?"

The patient spoke before Nat or Nick could say anything,
"Nick enjoys his new mortality so much that he passed the
gift onto me, and I have no qualms about it."

The Invisible One looked at him with a mixture of annoyance
and interest.  "Be silent."

The diabetic shrugged, "It was worth a try.  No harm in
that, is there?"  He looked at Nat, "Before you say
anything, would you allow me to perform a fast test?"

"I *told* you to be silent!"

Nat looked at him with distaste, but nodded. 

"*I* make the decisions here!" snapped the Invisible One.

The patient completely ignored him.  "Take this and run a
glucose test."  He pointed to a blood test kit that rested
on the stand next to his bed.  "Do you know how to use it?"

She shook her head.

"O.k.  I'll set everything up -- you just follow my orders." 
The Invisible One looked at all this with fury, but
surprisingly enough, he said nothing and didn't interfere.  
The diabetic assembled everything necessary: the lancet,
cotton, and digital glucose reader.  "Put the lancet against
the fleshy side of his finger.  Press it."  There was a
snap, and Nick flinched for a moment.  "Put the blood drop
on the chemstrip -- don't smear it!  Press start on the
reader.  Let it sit for sixty seconds."  Sixty seconds
passed.  "O.k.  Now rub off the blood with the cotton and
wait sixty more seconds for the color to develop."  

When the time had come, the digital reader beeped, and strip
was inserted into a slot.  A number came out: 600.

The patient shook his head, "It looks like that beef insulin
did the trick.  The question is, do you want to spend the
rest of your life as a diabetic, falling away at the seams? 
Trust me, Dr. Lambert, you might feel relief now, but let a
few years pass, and you'll be wishing he was a *healthy*
vampire."

"I would rather live a life as a diabetic than as a
vampire," swore Nick impulsively.

The patient shook his head once more, "It's your life."

The Invisible One nodded, the muscles along his jaw
clenching and unclenching.  "So you've found a way out.  It
doesn't matter to me either way, but I thought I should let
you know what my alternate plan is."

"What alternate plan?" asked Nick and Nat simultaneously.

"This."  He had been standing with his arms crossed, and
with a flash, he pulled a syringe out of his sleeve.  The
needle slammed into Nat's shoulder, and he punched in all
the syringe's contents.  

Nat fell to her knees, her eyes dazed.  A moment later, her
eyes regained their focus.  "What have you done to me?" she
demanded, slowly getting back to her feet.

"It's called Irony.  Think about it."

The Invisible One left, and the patient began howling with
cynical laughter.  Whatever he said was incoherent on
account of his howls.

"Stop it!" roared Nick.  It didn't do any good.  He looked
at Nat.  "Are you o.k.?"

"I'll live," she managed to stand up.  "I just feel a little
strange."  Her eyes widened, "What the hell?!"  She started
looking around wildly.  

"What's happening?" Nick was a little shocked by her sudden
change, and it was evident in his voice.

"I'm seeing in infrared!"

Nick's head fell back against the pillow.  "No..."

The patient's laughter had eased off, "This is *sooo* rich!"

"What are you talking about?" demanded Nat, whirling on him.

His smile was wide, "My dear, he's just made you a vampire. 
'Ironic,' isn't it?"

"It can't be!" Nat stared at her own hands.

"It is.  I imagine it'll take a few hours for your DNA to
change over, and your organs to start changing their
functions, but you'll certainly see the changes before
sunrise."  He was obviously enjoying this.

"What do *you* know about vampirism?"

His eyes narrowed, "Change me into a vampire, and I'll tell
you."  Nat clenched her fists.  "Or kill me.  Either way, I
don't care."

               *                   *              *

Axer and Kate walked down the hallway hand-in-hand.  Mind
you, this wasn't out of any romantic urge, but rather out of
necessity.  They had to know the instant that one of them
entered a 'zone', and if they held hands, they figured that
one of them would make some odd movement -- such as a sudden
jerk.

Axer coined 'zone' from his time in the sewers the night
before, when an Invisible One had made him run a gauntlet of
illusions that seemed like the genuine article.

Apparently, Surtur was an Invisible One as well, judging by
the illusions that they had both been subjected to.  Either
that, or he'd picked up the art from them.  If Surtur had
restricted them to Axer, it would have been a sound move --
but making Kate go through her own illusionary ordeals was a
tactical blunder.

"The question I have is how he does it?" muttered Kate.  "I
don't see any odd equipment.  No light projectors, no
speakers..."

"That makes me wonder."  He jumped up and pulled some
paneling from the ceiling.  There was nothing unusual.  "I
thought that they might have hidden it up there, but I guess
I was wrong."

"Hidden what?"

"The hologram and force field projectors.  There's got to be
something causing it..."  His eyes suddenly widened, but he
kept the thought to himself.  //It's impossible!//

A ways behind them, a very tall man walked unsensed.  Flame-
red hair hung from his shoulders, and a walrus moustache
hung from his thin and angular face.  He looked at them with
narrowed eyes, frowning.  

"What are you thinking?" asked Kate.

"Nothing..."

She stopped and looked at him straight in the eyes, "I
*know* you, and I know when there's something on your mind. 
Now out with it!"

Axer frowned, "You wouldn't believe it."

"Try me."

"If Surtur is a Jotun, then it makes me wonder if the
descriptions out of mythology have any truth to them."

"What do you mean?"

He shook his head.  "Not yet.  I still have to think about
it..."  He shrugged and moved on.

Kate was frustrated.  //Stubborn as a mule!//  She moved
with him, however, with a stiff arm and a clenched hand.

When they walked through an open door that led into a dark
conference room, the scene totally changed.  They were no
longer in the building, and now stood at the edge of a tall
cliff overlooking a peaceful fishing village.  A pleasant
chill wind blew from the north, the moon was full, and the
surf was calm.

The overall scenery suggested that this might be somewhere
in Norway, south of the Arctic Circle.  There could have
been one or two hundred people down there, and they all were
scurrying about as boats came in to shore.  Torches were lit
all over the village, as well as at the boats' bows.

The fact that it was nighttime didn't strike him as odd,
because he could remember how many villages did their
fishing at night, many times when the boats returned home
long after the sun set.

"We've been taken back in time," murmured Axer.  "I don't
recognize the village, but I know the people."

"Who are they?"

"Vikings.  They're bringing in the fish, and maybe the
loot."

She shook her head, "I know Vikings were tall, but are they
*that* tall?"

"What do you mean?"

"Look at the men, and then look at the horses."

He did, and though his vision wasn't as good as her's, he
could see that the men towered over the few horses in the
village.  They were all used to carry baggage, and they were
carrying some pretty heavy loads.

"They could be ponies."

"Or the men could be fourteen feet tall."

"Jotuns." 

"Exactly."

They watched as the villagers continued their work
unloading.  A sudden event, however, shattered the calm of
the evening.

From the sea came a fleet of longboats filled with countless
men carrying torches, shouting loudly and firing flaming
arrows.

As thatched roofs began to ignite, the villagers reacted as
one, and drew out weapons.  Many returned to the boats and
cast them off.

Within moments, boat was locked with boat, and some of the
invading longboats hit the shore, where the torch-bearing
Vikings began to attack the landed villagers.

"We should do something!" snarled Axer.  He looked down
below, and froze once he realized that he'd have to survive
a hundred-foot fall first.

"And why would you want to do something like that?" asked a
bitter voice behind them.

Both turned around -- they hadn't heard or smelled anyone
coming -- and found the Mayor facing them.  The Mayor,
however, was now fourteen feet tall and wore clothing that
would be more appropriate for the Viking era.  He wore baggy
woolens and a half-cloak.

"It's a massacre, that's why!"

"People die all the time.  Why should you be concerned?"

"Because we don't know what's happening!"

The Mayor sat down at the ledge.  "I'll tell you what's
happening.  The year is 912 A.D.  The villagers from a
neighboring island discovered the fact that this is a more
ideal place for a fishing village, and they want it for
themselves.  They also learned that this is where a tribe of
Jotuns have lived for countless time.  That didn't matter. 
They killed the villagers and took the spot."

"If it makes you feel any better," muttered Axer, "the
Vikings treated everyone like that.  You should have seen
what they did to my own homeland."

The Mayor looked up at him.  "You, a human, presume to
identify with me?"

Axer snorted, fighting an urge to kick him off the ledge, "I
think you've been with yourself for too long."  He looked
below at the slaughter.  "If you hate them so much, why
don't you do something about it?"

"Because you were right all along..."  the Mayor muttered. 
"You wondered if I had the skills of the mythological Jotun.
You are right."  He waved his hand, and the scene was
replaced with a modern conference room.  At the far end of
the room was a stand with coffee and doughnuts.  "Illusion
was our one gift, and I hoped to gauge you."

"Why?"

"Powys.  He warned me of your arrival and said that you came
to kill me.  I don't trust him, and I am beginning to
suspect I was right, though I don't trust you two either." 
He poured himself some coffee, and then looked directly into
their eyes, "I wanted to see for myself whether you are
heartless killers."  He paused, "He was wrong.  If anything,
the two of you are the most red-hearted killers I've ever
encountered in my life.  Time and time again, I threw you
into situations so that I could see what kind of people you
were..."

He sat down, "All I know is that I can trust you enough to
listen to what you have to say.  Convince me why I shouldn't
kill you two right here."

"I don't think you'll do it."  Axer sat down, leaning his
feet on the table.  Kate winced at that, but he didn't care.

"Oh?"  He looked amused.

"Because you're not a killer.  You never were.  The fact
that you're here proves it."

"And what does my being here imply?"

"Tell me if this thought chain is correct:

     (a) -- you are a Jotun;
     (b) -- Jotuns are illusionists;
     (c) -- your fellow Jotun kept Thor and Loki at bay with
            illusions, in the myths;
     (d) -- you 'died' at Ragnarok in a sword fight;

Therefore: you used an illusion at Ragnarok and faked your
death so that you wouldn't have to kill or be killed.  If
you were a killer, either you or Heimdall would be a smoking
corpse.  Both of you are alive and well in this world."

Surtur frowned, "Not quite accurate, but you have the idea. 
How is he, by the way?"

"Well.  Last time I saw him, he was tailing Powys."

               *              *              *

At this very moment, Peter Caine and Heimdall were busy
crawling through the sewers.

"So much for *that* idea," muttered Heimdall.  "I searched
the other end, and I tell you that there's *no* way we can
get into the building through the sewers."

"*$(%*(" Peter slammed the slimy concrete wall.

"Yes, I believe that's what you slammed your hand into."
                         Chapter 21

Coleen stood in the middle of a large, poorly-lit, empty
hall.  A tall oak door was set every five feet, and each one
was closed.  It seemed to have no beginning and no end. 
There were no torches nor any other form of light, which
confused her, because she knew the light had to have some
source, but she couldn't find it.

A little more investigation showed that she couldn't find
her own shadow.

"Ah, a visitor!" said a very excited voice from not far
away.

Startled, Coleen looked up to find a rogue.  He was scruffy,
starved, bearded, and wore half-tattered clothing.  A crude
patch covered one eye.  In his hand, he carried a battle
spear, similar to one she saw in a museum.  A Roman spear. 
His smell wasn't pleasant.

"Odin," she whispered. 

"Why yeeessss!"  He skipped around, giggling madly.  "You
know my name!  The smart little girl gets a kiss for being
so smartie!"  When he yanked up her head and kissed it --
nearly pulling it off in the process -- she was so shocked
and surprised that she couldn't react.  He let go, and she
fell to the ground.

"You're a *$(*# nutcase!" she swore.

"NooOOOoooo!" he corrected, opening a door to the left and
pulling out a disgustingly fat old man wearing only a beer-
stained Iron Maiden shirt, well-worn -- and, ah... used --

underwear, and sandals.  His face had a week old beard, his
skin was sickly pale, and he had a beer gut that blended
well with the can of generic beer he had in his hand.  His
hair was filthy, graying, and uncombed.  He looked quite
shocked and stood passively with his mouth open, his eyes
wavering in a drunken manner.  "*THIS* is a *($$ nutcase!" 
Odin shoved him back through the door and slammed it shut. 
His eyebrows rose, "Sometimes I scare even myself!"

Coleen had to shake her head clear at that one. 

               *                   *              *

Amanda was screaming at the sight of her own head held on a
silver platter.  

The clown was laughing merrily, "Isn't this wonderful!  It
isn't often you face your own death!"  When he saw how
Amanda was fixed on that head, he sighed melodramatically,
"O.K....  I suppose that was out of line...  I forgot how
selfish you immortals are, always willing to take someone
else's head, but never willing to let go of your own."  Then
his face brightened, "How about this?"

Tears streaming down her face, she saw a tall, squared
pillar-frame wrapped by a large, silk tarp.  With a wave of
his hand, the tarp lifted up into the darkness.  Inside of
the frame was a guillotine, with a man locked in place,
ready to be decapitated.  When she saw who it was, she
screamed even louder, "DUNCAN!!"

He smiled at her as if nothing was happening, "Hi, Amanda. 
Are you enjoying yourself?"

"Wh-- Wha--" she couldn't even speak a full word, she was so
rattled.

"The clown convinced me that I'm so tired of walking into
your traps, I might as well finish it off in one of his." 
He grabbed the trip cord on his own, and the blade began to
descend.

"NOO!!" she howled, running forward, hoping to stop the
falling blade -- somehow.  Closer and closer she came... 
Almost there...  "I'm there--"

She didn't know how he did it, but the clown somehow got
there before she did.  She collided full force into him, but
he seemed to be unmoveable as a boulder.  He wrapped his
arms around her tightly and gave her a sound kiss on the
lips.  Amanda struggled to get away -- the horrible taste of
ouzo on his lips giving her the extra incentive.

When she pulled away, the clown was laughing.  "You know how
I hate to kiss and run, but away I go!"  He skipped away
into a wall, vanishing as if he walked through an illusion.

Duncan now lay dead, his head resting in a basket, and his
mouth forming a silly grin.

"You're *DEAD*!" she howled, running after the clown, never
asking why she wasn't receiving a quickening if Duncan was
really there.

          *                   *                   *

Lenny backed up as Amanda approached him with her sword
drawn, a snarl of fury on her face.  "Amanda!" he whispered. 
"What are you doing?!"

"This is for Duncan!" she hissed, swinging at his head. 
"Oopth!"

Lenny stood above her crumpled form, frowning.  "Sorry I had
to do that, but I don't heal as easily as you do, and we
still have a job to do."  He used Amanda's sword to sever
her major arm and leg muscles, "That should keep you
occupied..."

He moved on, knowing that if she remained in her current
mental state, she'd be a serious threat in five minutes at
the soonest.  He hurried.

Lenny turned the last corner, and behind the panel, he found
the Seed, resting on the same white cloth.  He sank to his
knees in horror, his eyes open wide and his jaw dropped. 
"No..."

It was pulsing now.

"No time..."

          *                   *                   *

For a many years, Nat's left knee had given her a little
trouble.  The trouble was gone.  So was that hangnail that
she kept on meaning to get out.  Come to think of it, so
were the seven fillings she had in her back teeth.  One by
one, they were spit out as her teeth seemed to shift.

She looked in amazement at the seven fillings that she now
held in the palm of her hand.

"Feeling pretty good, eh?" asked the patient, his expression
sullen.  "No more aches and pains?"

"Yes..."  She understood all too well the temptation that
vampirism had to offer.  No pain, no sickness, no scars. 
But deep down, she knew better.  Her eyes met the patient's,
and he smiled sadly.

"It gives you a fresh perspective, doesn't it?" he asked.
"Your natural inclination is to throw it all away because
it's 'wrong'... but then you have Nick and myself to bring
you back to earth.  Would you willingly throw away your
health and immortality if you knew that without it, you can
only look forward to seemingly longer years of death and
decay?"

Nat couldn't answer.  She just looked at her hands, which
were bone-white now, and not because of the vampirism.

"My, what happy souls we have here!" said a smug female
voice in a French accent.  Nat turned around and glared at
Janette.

Before she could even say another word, Nat charged at her,
"You witch!  I'll kill you for this!"

Nat tackled the shocked Janette, and they both slid out of
the room on the slick floor.

"I've seen *that* coming for a long time!" said the patient,
leaning back against his pillow. 

"How can you say that?" asked Nick, his forehead wrinkling.

"Just listening to the way you've been talking about this
'Janette'.  You mention the name like a drug -- Dr. Lambert
mentions it like the name of a curse.  Doesn't take much
thought to add up the pieces."

Outside the room, Janette was trapped in a headlock, and Nat
was hammering away at her face.  Nat was screaming with each
punch, "Damn you!  [punch]  It wasn't [punch] enough [punch]
to --"

Just then, a nurse saw what was happening and ran forward,
"Hey!  What the hell's going on?!"

Nat raised her head, and in her fury didn't realize that her
face was now that of a vampire.  The nurse recoiled.  In
that moment of distraction, Janette broke loose and dealt
Nat a powerful elbow to the face that sent her flying to the
ground.  

There were some red bruises on Janette's face that didn't
look too nice.  "All right, child -- if that's the way you
want it, it's fine by me."  As Nat got back up, Janette gave
her a solid punch to the jaw that nearly twisted her neck
around.  Nat didn't get up so quickly this time.  "Now that
you're one of us, you're going to learn to respect your
elders."  She smiled slowly, "I think this is going to hurt
quite a lot."

Nat snarled, "In your dreams."  She got back up and pulled
out a small gun that almost looked like a decorative cigar
lighter.  

Janette was smirking, but the nurse ran off in the other
direction after her few moments of stunned shock.  "Help! 
Someone has a gun!"  Her screams were replaced by Janette's
screams as Nat fired the gun.  

Janette was leaning against a wall, clutching at her
abdomen, which was smoking. 

Nat muttered, "I must have loaded the garlic bullets by
accident..."

Janette walked towards her, snarling.

               *                   *                   *

Scully was fighting off the wave of shock as Samantha
flicked the whip in the air once more.  She had the
strongest urge to pull out her gun and shoot Samantha,
Halscombe, and Mr. X at the same time.  It took a heroic
amount of strength to keep her hands away from the gun.

Mr. X no longer looked shocked, but he did have a slight
look of disapproval on his face.

Samantha smiled, her tone disappointed, "Why the stern face? 
Do you want me to make it better?"  The whip snapped again,
and Mr. X actually flinched.

"What is *he* doing here?" Scully looked over at Halscombe,
who was still grimacing in pain.

Samantha smiled wickedly, "Can you believe I found him
hitchhiking to D.C.?  Hitchhiking??  He must have been in a
bad spot because he hopped right in."  She laughed, "You
should have seen the look on his face when he realized who I
am!"

"And who are you?"

Samantha looked at Scully more directly, "Do you really need
to ask?"

"I think I do."

For some inexplicable reason, Samantha looked annoyed. 
"*He* asked me that too."  Her smirk returned.  "He wondered
why I wasn't taking orders anymore."

A few wires connected in Scully's brain, but she needed more
to work on.  "*Did* you once take orders?"

The annoyance returned, "No.  *I* never took orders from any
mortal."

"So what happened to the real Samantha?" 

She was about to answer, but a gunshot silenced her.  A
single bullet hole had opened her heart to the air.  She
tried to mouth a few words, but made no sound.

Scully looked at Mr. X with horror and fury, but he
shrugged, "Remember, we came here to kill her, and not hear
lies."  He walked back down the stairs, leaving Scully with
Halscombe and a corpse.  Whether he was leaving the house or
attending to something else, she didn't know, and she didn't
care any more.

Halscobe turned his head towards Scully, still gagged and
blindfolded.  He was making some sounds, but wasn't too
successful and making himself understood.

Scully ripped off the blindfold, but not the gag.  His
expression was one of both shock and reassignment.  "It looks
like this isn't your day," she muttered.  "And I don't think
you'll be having any more of 'your' days for a long time."

Whether he would have said something or not, she didn't
know.  But she left the gag in so that she wouldn't have to
find out.