The Cycle of Axer Carrick
Part IV -- Reading the Endtrails
The Revised Version

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

                                Chapter 14

The brace had been taken off of Duncan's head, allowing his
mouth to move.  The pain was so intense that he didn't even
know where the pain was coming from.  He was moaning in
pain, but even that hurt.

The Inquisitor smiled grandly, "Don't you love my handiwork? 
Now you won't have to worry about tooth decay!  Now, perhaps
you'll tell us the whole story?"

Duncan spat saliva and blood at the Inquisitor, who clapped
his hands with glee.  "Wonderful -- I haven't broken you
yet!  You're going to *LOVE* what happens next!"  Then he
stopped himself, "But it looks like I'll have to let you
heal first..."  He poured out some red, gloppy stuff. 
"Drink this -- it's vegetable juice.  It should make you
heal faster."

Duncan didn't have much of a choice.  He drank it down,
shuddering with pain as each drop entered his lips.  After
an eternity, it ended.  He did start to feel better.

"So your teeth DO heal," muttered the Inquisitor.  "I
thought they would be left alone..."  He became happy once
more, "Then that means I get to play with you some MORE!" 
His face became grim, "Now, you're not going to start
talking and force me to quit playing, are you?"

By now, Duncan's mind was so totally twisted in knots that
he didn't know *what* to think or say.  He just moaned in
pain.

"I guess I'll have to let you heal.  I'll be back tomorrow." 
He walked away, then stopped, grinning wickedly, "Enjoy your
salsa!"

Duncan was now beginning to realize that he had swallowed
half a jar of the hottest Mexican salsa he had ever tasted
-- beyond red salsa.  It never occurred to him that it
tasted like tomato juice only a second before.  His moaning
continued now.

What Duncan couldn't know was at that precise moment, Richie
and Methos had kicked in a solid German door at the precise
moment his door had shut.  The door flew open, cracking down
the middle in a crooked fashion, and the two rushed in.

The only occupant was busy reading the news, but his
reflexes were good enough for him to pull a handgun on them. 
He was a middle-aged man with a worn face, and a bearing
that identified him as a military man.  The look in his face
said that he wouldn't hesitate to blast both their heads
off, and the gun was good enough to do it.

"Who are you?" demanded Hans Kiefer, the Watcher.  "What do
you want?"

Methos, grinning a bit, said.  "I'm Methos, and my friend
here is Richie Ryan, the student of Duncan MacLeod.  And we
want information from you."

Hans knew what that information would be, and he turned
white.  "Methos!  If that's true --"

"It is," interrupted Methos, "but I thought your response
would be more along the lines of: Duncan and Sharpe are at
such and such a place."

"I can't tell you!  I'm an observer -- you can't expect me
to interfere!"

Methos shook his head, looking at Richie, "An honest
Watcher, if you could believe it!"

Richie had enough of all this, so he yelled, "You'll be a
lot less concerned about interfering if you don't tell us
where they are!"

"Is that a threat?"  The gun was still aimed at the two
immortals.  Hans figured that it was the only thing they
could be.

"Yes," growled Richie, moving forward.  His eyes were wide
open with fury, his eyes seeming to glow red -- but that
could have been a trick of the light.

"Hold it!" barked Methos pulling Richie back a touch. 
Richie resisted, but gave in.  Methos looked at Hans, "Look. 
Richie wants to hurt you very badly -- all you have to tell
us is where Sharpe and Duncan are."

Hans kept silent.

Methos sighed, "This isn't a matter of immortals battling
one another.  They were investigating another group of
Hunters -- a new group that none of us knew about.  Does
your idea of noninterference include letting others
interfere."

"Hunters?  Impossible!"  Hans was red with rage.

"If I could prove it to you, would you reconsider?"

A moment of hesitation, "Yes."

******************************************

Scully was grinning foolishly as she started on another cup
of coffee.  She never felt so good in her life.  The same
could be said for everyone else as well.  Even Bill felt
better -- his blood-drained expression was replaced with a
red-faced, red-nosed expression.  He resembled a much
younger Ted Kennedy in appearance -- all he needed was that
'puffed up' look and a ring of dripping keys in his hand.

Joe seemed the only one who kept his head on straight, and
he viewed everyone's gradual changes with amusement.  He was
old enough -- and enough of a drinker -- to figure out what
happened, but he let Coleen play her trick.  The more he
thought about it, the more he admired her deviousness. 
//What better way to make sure people aren't sober enough to
try anything stupid?//  He felt a little pained that she
didn't trust him, but then again he realized that in this
game, trust was a dangerous thing.  //Well, I have a few
tricks up my sleeve as well...//

Nick walked in to the main room and saw them, "Mulder? 
Scully?  What are you doing here?"  Then he saw the two
others.

Mulder got up a little unsteadily, "Allow me to introduce
Joe and Bill -- they're Watchers, and they came here all the
way from Vancouver just to see you."

Nick's eyebrows rose.

"Have a seat," said Joe, "and we'll tell you everything." 
//And we'll have an honest chance to gauge you!//

Nick did sit, "So tell me what brought you out here."

"It all started not that long ago, right outside your very
police station..."

**************************************

Nat's expression was a mixture of utter horror and a
blissful release -- a quite improbable mixture, but possible
given the right encouragement, which Coleen was certainly
giving. She had a "drugged out" look which was slowly
fading,
and her "natural, reflexive reaction" that would normally
be kicking in most certainly wasn't -- or at least, not as 
much as it would in a normal situation.

"See?  I told you so," smiled Coleen.  Her hands were around
Nat's waist, and their heads just inches apart.  Nat was
lost in the green eyes that pulled her in ever closer.

No matter how much her soul screamed in rebellion, she
nodded.  When Coleen leaned in and kissed her on the lips,
Nat didn't resist.  Whether it lasted for minutes or hours,
neither knew, but when it ended, Nat's expression now
included guilt.

But when she looked into Coleen's eyes again, she felt the
guilt wash away.  //My god, what am I doing?//  But it was
Nat who leaned in for the next kiss.

**************************************

Axer was shaking with fright.  "No!  Please don't make me go
back!"  His fear was so strong that he might as well have
been a child begging his mother not to take him to the
dentist.  His face was still buried in her shoulder, his
arms holding on to her as if for dear life.

"You have to face your fears sometime," Kate spoke in a
soothing voice, running her fingers through his hair.  "I've
seen what happens when you don't face them."  ^^Trust me.^^ 
He still held onto her, but he seemed to relax.  A few
moments later, went limp and breathed as if he was asleep. 
Then he breathed, "Great Mother, help me."

"Can you hear me?" she asked.

"Yes," he whispered.  "But I can't see you."

"Don't worry.  I'm here.  Where are you?"

"The same place as before, but it looks a little different." 
His tone was full of wonder, "You won't believe this --
there's a forest off in the distance, and an ocean!  And I
can see mountains -- this wasn't here before!"

"Is there anyone there?" Kate immediately regretted the
question.

"There is, and she's seen me.  GREAT MOTHER!..."

...Axer sank to his knees.  It was her.  //Why does she
always look like Scully?!//

She approached him, and smiled lightly as she reached him. 
"Silly man.  Does any son kneel to his mother?"  She reached
down and pulled him up by the shoulders, then frowned as she
realized that he was a good bit taller than her.

"What are you doing here?"

"Didn't you call my name?  You're acting like I don't belong
here!"

"No, Mother!  I'm just surprised, that's all!"

"I'm just *kidding*," she pinched his cheek a little. 
"You're so *serious*."

For some reason, that stung him badly.  He frowned.

The Great Mother frowned as well, "Why are you afflicted
with this great sadness?  What is it that ails you?"

He was honest, "I think I'm going insane.  When I'm awake, I
have memories that aren't mine and when I'm asleep, I have
the most horrible nightmares.  Men and women I've killed
come back to haunt me."

"It's the memories that haunt you," she nodded.  "You did
things that you regret, don't you?"

Axer nodded, "That's part of it.  But I don't know what to
make of the rest.  I can't go on like this."

"Have you ever considered just letting go?  Do nothing, and
what needs to be done will be done."

"I don't understand?"

"You're FIGHTING.  You're fighting the memories.  You're
fighting the nightmares.  What you're not doing is letting
go and learning what the memories can teach you."

**********************************

Nick leaned back in his chair as Joe finished telling what
he had heard from his informant.  Although Nick was there,
things had been going so fast that hearing it from another
point of view wasn't all that boring.  In fact, it filled in
a few gaps.

"So now that you know about us, what will you do?" asked
Nick.  "We have an organization known as the Enforcers, and
their primary goal is to kill every mortal who knows about
vampires -- or at least any mortal who is a threat to our
existence.  What is your intention?"

That seemed to shock Bill, who would never have considered
such a possibility.  Nick noted that reaction, and also
Joe's lack of one.  It was Joe who spoke, "I think that
particular topic is neither here nor there.  What is
important is the string of murders and these mysterious
third players.  Bill happened to follow Odin up to Canada,
and managed to catch on to what happened.

"I think that this situation is grave enough to pull us in. 
We just can't stand back and watch, since there's a high
chance that any Hunters who are left over from the Horton
incident could be recruited."

"That is an interesting turn," smiled Nick.  "You have an
unspoken thought on your mind."

"Yes.  I might also be able to ferret out some useful
information about this group testing the 'electrogravity'
devices.  We have some extensive contacts, and I think I can
pull up some definite answers in a little while."

"That would be helpful."

Bill suddenly turned green and whispered that he'd be back
in a moment.  Nobody heard the retching sounds.

*****************************************

Axer looked over the endless ocean, an arm over her
shoulder.  It relaxed him, and made him think of simpler
times.

"You see, my son?  It all depends on what you want.  If you
want hell, you get it; if you want this, you get it.  It's
all up to you."

"But how do you explain the nightmares?"

She shook her head sadly, "You've had the answers for all
your immortal life.  You've told them to every student
you've had.  'When you take a head, you also take the
quickening -- all the power and knowledge of an immortal.' 
Where do you think that knowledge goes?  Just because you've
never consciously tapped it, it doesn't mean that the
knowledge isn't there."

I KNEW IT!!

The voice boomed throughout the land, jolting Axer's nerves. 
The Great Mother looked at Axer quizzically.

"It's Kate," he explained.  "She thinks that immortals are
some other kind of vampire that take souls."

She shuddered, "Her analogy is not accurate.  No, you're not
a vampire, because immortals don't *feed* on other
immortals.  Vampires are poor souls who know nothing but
appetite.  Immortals should know better than to let
themselves be ruled by appetite and emotion."

"Do you know *what* I am?  What we are?"

Her eyes were full of sadness, "There are some answers you
must find for yourself."

Axer snorted and turned away, but he didn't yell this time
or throw a tantrum. 

"Axer...  to get answer your earlier question, souls are an
integral part of the quickening.  You've been tapping into
that pool of knowledge, whether you know it or not, but
there's a danger -- you can fall in that pool, and something
altogether different can climb out."

It ended.  Although he was bewildered, he knew he was lucky. 
How many people got to come back from some dreamscape and
reemerge into the real world in the arms of a beautiful
vampire?
                                Chapter 15

Richie drove the car, his eyes narrowed and his breath
coming in short hisses.  He remained silent, not even
talking to Methos as he raced through the streets, barely
even stopping for the lights.  

Methos, rather than being scared by the wild ride, enjoyed
it immensely.  He reveled in the near-collisions, the
pedestrians yelling at Richie to slow down, and the
absent-minded driver who just happened to have good enough
reflexes to avoid a major accident.  Paris is a place that
requires good driving skills -- and this is a good reason
why: you might find Richie coming the other way. 

"You're coming close to the place," warned Methos.  He knew
this part of town very well, so Richie didn't snap anything
at him -- he wasn't so lost in his rage that he didn't pay
attention to good sense.  He slowed down and turned at the
right place.

"Where is it?" asked Richie curtly.  Whatever resemblance he
had to the innocent teenager he was only a few nights ago
was long gone.  He was a maddened time-bomb ready to snap. 
His reddish hair only accented his anger. 

"Turn over there, in the alleyway."

It was an abandoned church -- perhaps built during that era
in the earlier part of the century where the fashion in
architecture was the 'ugly' look.  Looking at all the ruins
and condemned buildings around it, it seemed odd to find a
church here, even if it was as ill-maintained as the rest of
the buildings around it.  

Methos got out of the car and looked at it fondly, "I
remember that church."

Richie grunted, "If Duncan's there, I won't want to remember
it."

Methos shrugged sadly and followed him.  Their senses were
opened for anything, and the fact that they sensed immortals
did not make them feel any better.

Through the vestibule they entered, their swords drawn, and
the only thing that greeted them were dusty, empty pews. 
The pulpit was empty as the air around it.  The cross was
broken and rotted. 

Methos sighed sadly as he approached the pulpit and wiped
some dust on it.  "I guess the German lied to us." 

Richie's eyes glinted.  "I don't think so.  Don't you feel
that?" 

"Feel what?"

Richie didn't listen to him as he walked into one of the
wings and approached a rotten piece of carpet.  He pulled it
up easily -- it was a five by five foot square carpet that
was cut neatly at the edges.  The cuts looked recent. 

Underneath the square of carpet lay a solid steel door with
three locks at the edge.  It was apparently locked, since
Methos couldn't even budge it an inch.  Richie shook his
head sadly and brought out a lock-picking tool kit.  Within
a minute, all three locks were picked, and the door opened.  
Stairs led down to darkness.  The two looked at one another. 
Shrugging, Richie went down first.

*************************************

Nat was in ecstasy, leaning back as Coleen's kisses moved
slowly down from her lips to her cheek, moving ever so
slowly down lower.  Maybe it was her knowledge of vampires
that made her jump in shock when the kisses reached her
neck.  Coleen realized this and chuckled a little bit. 

"See?" smiled Coleen.  "I told you that you'd enjoy it.  You
are, aren't you?" 

"Oh, YES!" breathed Nat, shocked at the pleasures she was
experiencing.

"Just lie back and let it happen."

Coleen gave Nat another injection.

It started again, and Coleen kept moving lower.  Nat was
shocked to find that she was undoing the buttons herself,
quite hastily, in fact.  Her hands gripped Coleen's hair
tightly as her body quivered with nervous pleasure.

********************************************

Axer put on his soft leather boots, lacing the leggings
immaculately.  Kate was making the task impossible by
distracting him in a rather unfair manner -- which was an
understatement. 

"Come back to bed!" pouted Kate.

"Do you realize I've spent more time in bed today than I
have in years?"

She grabbed his shoulders, succeeding in pulling him back on
top of her, "But that's the problem -- you're *never* in
bed!"

"What do you mean?" his voice raised a fraction in pitch.

"For a man in retirement, you're an active man!"

"I have to be!  Do you realize how easy it is to get cabin
fever?"

She sighed, "I know all too well."  She pouted once more,
"Go on!  Get dressed if you want to do that."  Then she
smiled wickedly, "That means I get to pull those clothes off
all over again!"

Axer actually blushed, and Kate was so glad that she forced
him to keep that beard off.  "So you *do* blush," she
teased, "well it looks like I'll have to give you a *real*
reason to blush!" 

She didn't reach for his clothes, but what she did was more
than enough to *really* give Axer a shock, and that's pretty
impressive for someone as old and experienced as Axer. 

She didn't reach for his clothes, but what she did was more
than enough to *really* give Axer a shock, and that's pretty
impressive for someone as old and experienced as Axer.  Any
immortal who's older than a  century -- and not a monk or
nun -- has most likely  seen and done everything.  

As it turned out, Axer *hadn't* seen *everything*.  Kate was
ever so slowly getting dressed, but the way she did it had
Axer breathing heavily and turning white-skinned pretty
fast.

"No you don't!" laughed Kate when Axer reached for her. 
"You're  supposed to be getting up out of bed.  Remember?" 
Axer gritted his teeth and watched the show go on.

***************************************

Nick's cellular phone rang.  Nat had given it to him for
Christmas -- she had been so sick and tired of not being
able to reach him when she needed to.

"Excuse me," he said to Joe, who nodded.  "Hello?"

"Oh Nick!" it was Tracy.  "We've been worried about you! 
Are you sick?"

With a sinking feeling, Nick realized that the day had
passed and turned to night.  He was supposed to be on duty. 
"No," he whispered, "I'm right in the middle of something
hot.  I don't have any time to talk right now."  That was
mostly the truth, and allowed him to keep from completely
lying.  He then hung up the phone before Tracy could say
another word.  What Nick didn't know was that he breathed a
sigh of relief.

"Your wife?" asked Joe, smiling.

"No.  My partner." Nick looked out the now dark window.  "Do
you mind if we carry this conversation somewhere else?"

Joe shrugged, "It doesn't really matter to me."

Bill was still white-faced, "If you don't mind, I'll stay
here."

"Are you sure you're O.K.?" Joe looked concerned.

"Really!" gasped Bill with clipped breath.  "I'll be fine!" 
But he turned another shade of yellow-green.

Scully and Mulder stood up with difficulty, still ignorant
of the fact that they had drunk several cups of masked
Benedictine.  They knew that they felt sick to their
stomachs, and had an odd taste hovering around the gum line,
but were still hazy-brained enough to chalk it up to
exhaustion.  After all, neither of them had much sleep.

"We'll stop by our hotel room," said Scully.  "We both need
some sleep."

"O.K.," nodded Nick.  "We'll drop you off."

When they had left, Bill discreetly ran for the restroom and
heaved, trying to empty his already empty guts into the
toilet.  When the only thing that came out as yellow bile,
he collapsed on the floor, lying next to the toilet.  The
need to vomit would only come in a few more minutes, he
knew...

When Mulder and Scully were dropped off at their hotel, Joe
told Nick, "That Coleen of yours is one twisted individual." 

"Why do you say that?"

"She spiked enough Benedictine in that coffee to kill a
horse.  I've run a bar long enough to recognize anything by
smell and taste.  I didn't say anything, because I thought
it was a nice way to get back at Bill -- that perverted boy
needed *something* to set him on the right track -- but I
thought it was pretty inconsiderate of her to get Mulder and
Scully drunk, not considering that Mulder got warmed up on
scotch back at the hotel room." 

"She did WHAT?" it all sank into Nick.

"Sure, not only that, but she gave Bill an extra shot of
Roman aquavitae with the Benedictine and coffee -- I took a
taste of it.  You *do* know about aquavitae, don't you?  He
drank five cups of coffee before I could stop him."

Nick was shaking his head in shock, "I had no idea that she
had it in her.  I think I'll have to make Axer have a talk
with her!" 

They drove in silence for a little while, before Nick spoke
again, "I think that you won't be forming any Watcher
organizations for my kind." 

Joe nodded, "I knew that there was always a possibility, but
if I have any say, your folk will be left alone." 

"But Bill doesn't feel that way."

"He's a young lad, but he'll learn."

"Not if the Enforcers get to him first.  You need to keep a
tight leash on the boy."

Joe nodded.  "If he makes it to forty, he'll be a legend." 
"How old is he now?"

"Twenty-eight."

"Do you believe in God?"

"I don't know."

Nick sighed, "Then you'd better get to know him -- it's
going to take all your prayers to keep that kid alive if the
Enforcers ever get to him." 

"They'll have to beat Coleen to the punch."

They got to the police station, and met Tracy, who had
actually gotten quite a bit done.  On her desk was a pile of
reports and notes.  She also wasn't too pleased to see him. 
"Perhaps you'd care to tell me what you've been doing since
last night?"

"Like I said," Nick told her, a bit surprised at her
uncharacteristic tone, "I found some leads."

"So did I!" snapped Tracy.  "They're called witness
sightings -- it looks like some of those men with the boxes
were found burned to death, along with the body of an old
bum.  *I* found some witnesses who were able to give me a
composite of the guy who was found running away."

Nick saw the sketch, and for some reason, it looked very
familiar.  Joe gasped when he saw the photo, "I've *seen*
that face before, but I can't remember where!"  He hit
himself in the head with his fist.  "Damnit!  Why can't I
remember?"

Tracy calmed down a bit, and asked, "Who's your friend?"

"Another volunteer.  His name is Joe Dawson, and he came all
the way from Vancouver to help us out."

"What about the FBI agents?"

"We dropped them off at the hotel," said Nick with a
straight face.  "They were pretty tired."

She nodded sympathetically, "They must be used to the day
shift.  Oh well."  She looked at Joe with a direct gaze,
"How will you be able to help us?"

"I have a lot of useful contacts who can probably help us
scare these killers out of the wood work."

Tracy remembered Axer's assessment of what these kind of
people were, and her eyes narrowed.  "What kind of
contacts?"

Joe did his kind-old-uncle expression, "The usual."  It
didn't work, and he sighed, "You name it, and I'll have it. 
I know the bums, and I know the senators."

Tracy nodded with a touch of skepticism.  "There's a phone
and a quiet room you can use.  If you need anything, let us
know."

Nick was a bit shocked at Tracy's sudden 'take charge'
attitude, but he didn't say anything.  He wasn't sure yet
whether this was a good or bad sign.  When Tracy returned
from showing Joe to the room, she let some of her irritation
surface again. 

"You said that you found some things out."  Her eyes were
sharp as flints.

"You'd better sit down," said Nick, "and I think we'll need
a conference room for this one."  For some odd reason, he
started craving coffee and doughnuts.

When they were in the conference room, Nick sat down with a
thump and began to relate all that he had learned in the
torture chamber.  "I was talking to an informant since last
night.  He's dead now."

That changed Tracy's mood really fast.  "I think you'd
better go back to the very beginning."

Nick nodded, and found himself starting with the scene in 
Reece's office, and telling all of the story -- the scene in
Reece's office as he saw it, the fight in the parking lot,
LaCroix' arrival, and the capture of Tim. 

"And so LaCroix took Tim while I took Axer -- we flew to the
Raven, where we questioned Tim.  LaCroix immediately took
charge.  I admit I wanted to scare Tim into talking, but you
know LaCroix -- if he decides he's going to do something,
nothing can stop him."

Tracy nodded sympathetically, and Nick continued, "After a
few attempts at lying, LaCroix managed to convince him not
to lie.  That's when things started to get really strange.  
"He admitted that the black boxes they used were meant to do
horrible things -- control people's minds and emotions from
a distance, like they tried to do to Axer, hold them
immobile in some kind of force field, or completely
disintegrate the nervous system."

Tracy was now sitting on the edge of her seat, "What
happened next?"

"There wasn't a whole lot he could tell us, but he left a
lot of hints.  Apparently, he was just a lowly member of
this organization, but he knew enough.  Whatever this
organization is, it's planning to increase its activities
very soon."

"Why do you look so disturbed?  I mean, even more than I'd
expect?"

"They're fanatics, Tracy.  They believe that the end of the
world has come, and they must prove their worth to Odin by
bringing about utter chaos by destruction.  And before that
happens, they believe they must kill the immortals." 

"That doesn't make any sense!"

"You're preaching to the choir."

Tracy raised an eyebrow.

*********************************************

Mulder and Scully were sharing the same hotel room, but
sleeping in separate areas.  Scully took the bed, and Mulder
took the couch -- they were so accustomed to this
arrangement that they felt perfectly comfortable in these
situations. 

Mulder, however, was tossing and turning in his sleep. 
Sweat rolled down his face as he twitched, then stopped
twitching.  He didn't notice the silent figure who crept up,
and placed all of his ten fingers on Mulder's forehead. 

Scully was snoring in the other room.

Mulder's eyes snapped open, his mouth screaming a silent
scream.  Halscombe's face was triumphant, his eyes full of
mindless glee as he --
                                Chapter 16

Joe sat down at the table, thinking about who he would want
to call.  His first guess would be Kermit, but he knew that
Kermit already did his duty.  //Hmm... who else could I
call?...// An idea entered his mind.  He knew who he would
call.  He pulled out the phone book and found his number
within moments.

"Hello," said the bored voice on the other end. 

"I'd like to speak with Detective Peter Caine." 

The voice had now turned to one of disdain, "Please hold." 
After a few moments of listening to muzak, Peter grabbed the
phone, "Hello."

"Detective Caine?  This is Joe Dawson, and I have to talk
with you about something pretty damned important.  Do you
have about ten minutes to spare?"

"Look -- Joe -- I'm sunk right in the middle of a case. 
Can't this wait?"

"No, goddammit!" yelled Joe with his most abrasive tone. 
"Do I have to tell you that I know that you were with the
team the killed Jin Ming?  Do I have to tell you that Kenny
wasn't an eight year old boy from Wisconsin?  Do I have to
tell you that Kermit won't let you hear the end of it if you
blow me off?  Do you want me to continue?"

That got Peter's attention.  "I'm listening."  His tone was
one of shocked neutrality.

"Look, I'm calling from another precinct nearby.  You might
have even heard of the case.  Look, it's so bad that I need
your help.  I'll have the photos faxed to Kermit, but I'll
tell you the details right now.  They're some pretty bizarre
murders, but we have some basic information..."

*****************

Nick drove the car through the streets, while Tracy sat
pensively in the passenger seat, asking, "Do you think that
Axer's pattern is going to hold out?"

"You mean the smiley face?  It's held so far, long before
Axer discovered it.  All we have to do is hide and wait --
and hope they don't get creative and start embellishing that
face."  He thought for a moment, "The only question I would
have is whether they're going to strike where the missing
eye should be, or if they're going to fill in the smile a
little more."

"Good question."

They drove in silence for a little while longer.  Nick was
still hurt by Tracy's new-found anger and abrasiveness, and
so he didn't say anything more than necessary.  Tracy's
silence came from the fact that she was angry at Nick's
lone-man attitude, secrecy, and lack of teamship.

Nick made the turn and pulled in to an abandoned driveway. 
"I think we should walk from here." 

Tracy nodded, and they made their way down an alley,
climbing a fire escape.  Nobody in the various apartment
rooms seemed to notice their ascent, or even care.

They were at the right place.  It was isolated, in a run-
down neighborhood.  There was only one way in and one way
out.

Their patience and Axer's foresight paid off.  A bum entered
the alley, so blind drunk that it was amazing that he could
even walk.  He gathered some trash and started to stuff it
into the trash can.

A few minutes later, floodlights flicked on all around the
bum from the tops of the buildings.  That surprised Nick,
because he should have been able to spot them before they
switched on, but it was too late to beat his head into the
dashboard.

The bum was shocked by all the lights, and screamed in
fright.  Then he screamed in pain and horror, and kept on
screaming.  Three men dressed in black walked into the open
with black boxes, closing the circle.  The bum couldn't
move, but he could scream.  Whatever was happening to him
must have been indescribably horrible, because while neither
of the detectives could tell what was being done, they knew
that it had to have been that bad to produce such screams. 
"Come on!" snapped Tracy, jumping and sliding down the fire
escapes as nimbly as a monkey.  Still, she was surprised to
see Nick already sprinting at ground level when she reached
the asphalt.  "I'd kill to learn how he does that!" she
snapped to herself.

Before Nick or Tracy reached the scene, which was a good
hundred feet off, someone else arrived on the scene -- a man
that neither one of them recognized.

The man yelled something unintelligible, and though neither
of them could see how it happened, the lights turned off and
the forcefield around the bum released.  The men in black
had jumped back as if they were both startled in surprise
and shocked with several thousand volts simultaneously.  The
bum collapsed on the ground, motionless.

The men in black recovered a moment later, and aimed their
black boxes at the intruder, who didn't seem affected in the
least.  He drew a sword and went after them, killing the
first man in his reach.

"Damn it!" thought Nick as he reached the scene.  Although
he could have arrived here much faster, he didn't want to
leave Tracy behind and risk exposing her to danger -- or
exposing his abilities to the wrong people at this end.

He could spot another immortal when he saw one, and he
kicking himself for not suspecting the presence of more in
this city other than Axer and the occasional visitor that he
knew.

The immortal killed the other two rather quickly, and then
was broad-sided by Nick, who tackled him to the ground,
wrestling his sword away, and handcuffing him.  The immortal
was almost as strong as a vampire, but not quite strong
enough.

"You have a lot of explaining to do," whispered Nick, the
fangs just beginning to protrude.

"So do you," said the man with the thick Minnesota accent,
"such as how you could be so stupid as to arrest the man
who's saving your city for you.  It must be those doughnuts
and coffee."

"You can tell me your story at the station."  Nick called to
Tracy, "Gather the evidence -- I'll secure our immortal."

That shocked Tracy -- she knew about both immortals and
vampires, but she hadn't identified this man as one. 
Perhaps she just thought the guy was a lunatic.

He could hear Tracy making a few calls to dispatch.

*************

Richie and Methos slowly made their way through the
absolutely dark tunnel.  The only way they made their way
was by feeling with their feet and the listening echoes of
their soft footsteps and breathing.  In times of great
doubt, Methos would click his tongue in a way that resembled
dripping water.

How long they traveled this way was a mystery, but
eventually, they reached a solid steel door.  Again it was
locked, and Methos smiled in the dark, "Care to pick this?" 
"Don't sound so smug -- I might not be able to!"

Methos smiled regardless, and his faith in Richie was soon
justified as the door opened.  The door cracked open just
enough for the light to burst forth, ruining whatever vision
they might have had.  For about ten minutes, both were
absolutely blind, but slowly gained their day vision back. 
It was then that they opened the door just a bit more.

Inside was a stairwell, with circular stairs going upwards. 
Looking at one another, they ascended.  As they crept
upwards, they could hear the ever-increasing sound of
clicking.  A few more minutes later, and they could identify
the sounds of a computer keyboard.  Whoever it is was typing
away at light speed.

Curious now, they reached the top of the stairs and found a
single wooden door that was cracked open.  Richie stopped,
his face wrinkled in doubt, until Methos tapped his shoulder
and pointed upwards.  It seemed that the door was kept open
so that the air could circulate, taking advantage of the
vent above.

With that out of the way, they slowly opened up the door,
but Richie froze its motion.  He had the expression of one
waking up in a vat of rotten egg sludge.  Methos' head
tilted in confusion, and Richie did the impression of a
mouse face, pointing up at the hinges.

Methos nodded in sudden understanding, and smiled in a
fashion that frightened Richie.  Methos silently made a fist
and a hammering motion, pointing at the door.

//Oh no!  Not that!// Richie thought, knowing exactly what
that meant.  He wanted to do just that, but his guts
rebelled against it.  He was about to shake his head, when
he realized that he liked the plan after all.  His smile was
much more wicked, and he drew his sword.

On a silent count of three, they stormed through the door,
and found a room full of personal computers, monitors of all
sizes, a few printers, and a solitary old man typing away on
a computer.

He was kindly in appearance, as if he were the grandfather
or uncle that every young boy wishes he had.

"I've known where you were the whole time," said the old
man.  "I knew when you left the boat, and I knew precisely
how you got here.  All you had to do was ask, and I would
have turned on the lights in the tunnel."

That startled both of them, and they jerked as if they had
been shocked with static electricity.  Methos got his
balance and charged over to the old man, "You have some
explaining to do."

"I know," sighed the old man wearily.  "You want to know
where Duncan and Sharpe are.  Can't help you there," his
voice brightened, "but I do have some Taster's Choice!"

Methos shook his head, putting his sword up to the old man's
throat -- the old man didn't care in the least.  "Start
talking.  Please."

Even though Methos had spoken in a dead-neutral tone, the
old man responded, "See?  All you had to do was ask nicely. 
What do you want to know?"

Puzzled, Methos pulled his blade back, "Who are you?"

"How courteous of you!" the old man clapped his hands, "My
name is Pieter van Schouwen, once of Oland Island." 

"Odd," said Methos, "that sounds like a Dutch name, and when
you were talking to yourself, it was in Bayerisch.  Even
your accent is Bayerisch."

"What can I say?" asked Pieter.  "I was moved to Muenchen
when I was a young boy."

"Next question," said Richie.  "What are you doing with all
these computers?"

"Such wonderful, *wonderful* questions!" marveled the old
man.  "You see, these computers receive and process all
kinds of information.  I know where every single vampire and
immortal is on the earth, as well as a few other special
kinds of mortals picked for side experiments.  These can
tell me precisely where they are at every moment -- even if
they're travelling through a tunnel!"

"And what do you do with all this information?"

"I pass it on to the people who need it.  I'm something of a
'useful middle manager', if you can forgive the apparent
paradox.  I'm not quite as low as a foreman, and I'm low
enough not to be an executive."

"And what is done with this information?"

"Why, it's used to hunt down and kill the immortals, of
course!  Why else would this information be painstakingly
gathered?"

"Who are the executives?" asked Richie, on an impulse.

"The Invisible Ones, of course."  He quit his typing, leaned
back, and said with a thick haze in his eyes, "I was a
promising researcher in mathematics and statistics, and they
found me most worthy."

Methos puzzled over the significance of that, until he heard
the sounds of heavy boots.

"You should have stuck with the coffee," suggested Pieter. 
***************

Nat lay on the floor, next to Coleen, her eyes nearly closed
in exhaustion, wearing a blissful smile on her kips.  Coleen
wasn't nearly as worn, and her smile was more of a mixture
of smugness and mischief.  She gazed over Nat's body
admiringly, lightly running her hand down her side.  Though
Nat was half-asleep, she moaned in pleasure.

Before she could do anything else, the door was opened by a
half-dead Bill.  He had finally finished his retching, and
was looking for some forsaken corner to crash into.  His
eyes opened as he realized what he was observing.  He tried
to stutter something, but he wasn't able to get out much,
and didn't really succeed in trying to move either.  His
wide eyes were frozen on the scene.

"Bill -- you bastard!" shrieked a fully-naked and fully-
furious Coleen, grabbing her sword and running after Bill. 
He wasn't in much condition to do anything, but at least he
managed to run down the hallway.  LaCroix had investigated
the source of all the noise, and was shocked to see this
bizarre scene -- a stumbling, severely sick and hung-over
mortal being chased by a naked, furious immortal.  It seemed
like scene out of some dark Renaissance painting. 

LaCroix whispered silently, "And Nick says I have no sense
of humor."

                                Chapter 17

Axer and Kate ran downstairs to see what all the racket was. 
The screaming, yelling, thumping, and crashing sounds were
enough to wake the dead.  They were on their way out of the
bedroom anyway, but this was enough to send them barreling
down the stairs, ready for combat.

What they saw was enough to make them stop, open their eyes
a little wider, and look at one another.

Coleen, naked as the day she was born, had Bill cornered
with a sword in her hand.  Bill had thrown down some tables
between the two of them, and held a chair in his hands,
ready to hold her off for the moment when she got the last
table out of the way. 

Axer, viewing this scene, came to the worst possible
conclusion, and ran over to where the fight was.  "What the
hell's going on here?" he demanded, drawing his own sword
and moving between Coleen and the tables.  He didn't seem to
notice her nudity.  Axer twirled towards Bill, "And you? 
Who are you?  What the hell were you trying to do?!"

"It's not what you think!" Bill was nearly incoherent with
hysteria.  "I didn't mean to-"

In the best of situations, that could be taken in the wrong
way, and this wasn't the best of situations.  "You didn't
mean to WHAT??  You'd better start talking, boy!"

Bill's stomach rebelled again, so instead of explaining
himself, he retched bile.

Axer's eyes opened in comprehension -- he knew what the
cause of it was from direct experience.  He turned back
around towards Coleen, who had just enough time to cool off
a little, "I know I'm missing a few pieces here.  It's your
turn to talk.  For starters, who is he?  And then you can
tell me why he has alcohol poisoning!"

Coleen suddenly lost her voice, stammering as she realized
that she had a *lot* to tell him.  That was when Nat walked
into the room, her hair a mess, and a silly grin on her
face.  Axer noticed Coleen's eyes dart in that direction,
and when Axer saw Nat, he drew the only conclusion.  "You?? 
And NAT??"

Coleen's grin was a little empty and helpless.

Axer's head fell into his hands, where he shook his head
slowly, "Great Mother!  What else do I need to know?"

Bill retched again.

Axer walked over to the bar, muttering to himself about
needing a strong drink.  He rummaged around at the bar, then
stopped suddenly.  Coleen cringed when she heard a yell,
"Coleen!  You get your ass over here right NOW!  You hear
me?!"

***********************************

Joe finished giving Peter Caine the background, and as
Kermit gave him packets of incoming faxes, he whistled
occasionally in shock and amazement.

"Wait a minute!" said Peter eventually.  "Are you telling me
that this has been going on for weeks now, and we didn't
even know about it?"

"What can I say?  -- it wasn't in your district.  The
question is, will you help us?  He have the theories, but
now we need heads -- forgive the pun."

Peter was hesitant, and Joe could almost see him pulling his
hair out -- a good thing they were talking by phone.  "O.K.,
I think I know who I can talk to.  I'll let you know what I
dig up."

"Thanks -- but remember, I need information, and not help. 
You get my meaning?"

"Don't push your luck, Joe."

Peter hung up, and Joe looked at the wall with a pensive
expression.  He made another call, and got a 'this number is
not in service' message.

"Damnit!  Where could he be?"

A few halls down, somebody else was slamming his hand on a
table too.  Nick was face to face with what he believed was
a murderous immortal.  "Answer me, dammit!" yelled Nick, his
face just inches from the immortal's.

The immortal's expression was bored.  "I think I need a
beer."  That might have been true.  From the smell of beer
wafting from his unwashed body, the man practically swam in
the stuff.

The game was bad cop-worse cop, and Nick gave up on being
the bad cop.  Now, it was Tracy's turn, and she was the
worse cop.  The took over the interrogation, "Now look!  We
saw you there, and we saw you kill those men.  So there's no
use in denying anything!"

"If there's no use in denying anything, then you already
know the truth and there's no need for me to say anything." 
Tracy grinned viciously, "Nice try -- but that's a trap too. 
What if we 'know' that you're dead guilty?"

"Then I'm dead," he shrugged.  "You might as well let me go. 
There's not much I can tell you, punishment for crimes in
North America is a joke, and there's nothing you can do to
threaten me.  Where does that leave you?  With nothing."

"You're a brave man, but I think it's all bravado."

"But you can't prove it, can you?" Heimdall lazily picked at
his fingernails, flicking peeled-off bits of fingernail on
the floor.

"You're linked to the crimes -- I think we can push for an
execution."

That got Heimdall's attention.  His jaw dropped and his eyes
widened, "Are you an idiot?  It'll never happen!  The law
never goes for an execution, unless you're in Texas or
Arizona.  Do you hate your jobs bad enough to be made
outcasts?"  He started to laugh hysterically -- with genuine
laughter, not maniacal laughter.

Nick pulled Tracy back for a moment, into the observation
room -- there was only a soundman recording the
interrogation tape.  Nick whispered so that only Tracy could
hear, "I think he's right -- there's no way we can threaten
him."

"Then what do we do?"

"Ask nicely?"

"That might be a good start."  Heimdall leaned back in his
chair, grinning, "I don't talk to cops, but I have been
known to associate with human beings on occasion."

Tracy's eyes flashed, but Nick made a face, making his best
civilized face, "As you wish.  I'm asking you nicely then,
what do you know?"

"Are you sure you want that tape recorder on?  I can tell
you right off that this won't be admissible in court, any
more than you could report everything that you saw earlier
tonight."

The two detectives considered for a moment, and nodded. 
Tracy went into the other room and told the sound man to
take a coffee break.  That tape recorder was turned off, but
not the one in Tracy's pocket.

"So, start talking."

"Turn off the other tape recorder."

Tracy made a face and turned it off.  Nick gave her an odd
look, and she gave him a furious one in return.

Heimdall was either oblivious or uncaring of that exchange. 
"First off, to establish some credibility here, let me state
that I know you're a vampire.  That might make what I have 
to say more believable."

Nick could accept anyone knowing about vampires -- rare
people do learn about them -- but to have an immortal he
never met tell him straight off that his secret is known... 
"That doesn't establish any credibility in itself," Nick
held his surprise well, "but I'm listening."

"Good.  What do you want to know?"

"How was it you came onto the scene tonight?"

"I was hunting for the killers -- the ones your news media
doesn't talk about.  Tonight, I was lucky." 

"What do you know about the killers?"

"What do you know about the Invisible Ones?"

Nick took a seat.  "I know enough about them -- but not how
*you* tie in with this."

"Get me a beer, and I'll start talking."

Nick looked at Tracy pleadingly, who threw her arms up in
the air and muttered, "Alright!  *I'll* go to booking, if
that's what you want!"

Heimdall snickered a little bit at that, but became somber
again when Nick glared at him.  "Like I said, no beer -- no
talk."  He kept by his word too.

When Tracy came back with two bottles of Bud, Heimdall
shivered and made a face, but took them anyway.

"Now that's done," snapped Tracy, "you'd better start
talking!"

"What do you want to know?" Heimdall would certainly make
this as hard as possible.

"What is your relationship with the Invisible Ones?"

"Look, are you *sure* you want to know?"

"Damnit!" Nick slammed his hand on the table, hard enough to
crack it.  "We got you the beer, and you promised you'd
talk!"

"Just making sure," Heimdall said in a soothing voice. 
"Since you want to know so bad, I guess I'll have to tell
you -- but it's a bit of a long story, so you might as well
have a beer yourself."  He ripped off the caps with his
hand.

-----------------------------------------------------------  
                         Heimdall's Story
----------------------------------------------------------- 
The nineteenth century was a pretty bad one to begin with,
I'll let you know that from the start.  I had left Norway
back in 1798 -- things had gotten pretty bad up there in
Scandinavia, so I thought I'd go out to see the world.

I must have reached the Americas in the 1830s.  I'd seen all
kinds of civilizations, but I found the cities of the
Americas to be both frightening and majestic in a way that I
had never experienced before.  There is something about
crowded humanity that shakes the soul as much as it stirs
the soul.

I'd landed in New York City, and I moved up through the
state, up into New England -- mostly New Hampshire and
Vermont.  Nowadays, it's something of a "nice" place to be -
- I'll have you know that even in 1830, it was a still a
harsh frontier.  Farms *had* carved out a good chunk of the
forests, but there was still a lot that remained untouched. 
I was in one of those isolated stretches of Vermont when
something happened to change my life forever.  It must have
been sometime in the middle of the night.  There were heavy
clouds in the sky, but it still didn't keep me from seeing
what occurred.  

The lights that came from the sky lit up the land for miles. 
The clouds only served to spread the light everywhere.  At
first, the light seemed to be coming from all directions,
but after a few moments, I could see that it came from a
single point in the sky that moved across the sky.

I'd seen a lot in my life, but not that.  I followed the
moving light and saw it land in a homestead.  Again, the
lights were too bright to make out any detail, but I could
hear the animals panicking, and then the horrible screams of

the human family that lived there.  

When the lights vanished, I ran down to the farm to see if
there was anything I could do.  The animals were just
scared, and they would forget about this soon enough.  I
entered the house and found a young man and woman asleep on
the bed.  Nothing I could say or do would rouse them. 
Looking around, I could see that a child lived here too, but
the child was gone. 

I wondered if it was taken away by the lights.

The child was returned uneventfully two weeks later, and
none of the family had any idea that anything had happened,
but I kept a watch over them, and discovered something
pretty amazing: the boy, who had been just a regular boy,
had become nothing short of a genius -- but not in a nerdish
sort of way.

He seemed to be a boy beyond his years, having a store of
knowledge and wisdom that would have been impossible for
anyone of even forty years to know.  He even predicted the
future, and it takes a lot to convince me that something
like that is possible.

Time passed, and the young boy became a man.  He hated farm
work, so he moved on.  I had grown bored with being a smith,
so I moved on too -- it was strictly coincidence that we
left on the same day.  As luck would have it -- good or bad,
I would soon see -- we left on the same road, and he became
directly acquainted with me for the first time.  Although I
had most certainly known him, I made sure that few people --
Kerry included -- knew me directly.

His name was Kerry, and though he was born in Vermont, he
seemed to have a bit of Ireland in him.  He also knew a lot
about Scandinavia, without having been there.

We walked north.  I just wanted to move on.  I guess you
could say I was running away from something -- but it seemed
like Kerry was moving *towards* something.  Again, his
staying with me was coincidence.  We might as well have been
moving in the same direction, but a valley or mountain
apart.  It wouldn't have made any difference.

We took a roundabout route -- along the northern rim of the
Great Lakes, north through the middle of Canada, and then to
the lands of the permafrost and Caribou.  It may seem
strange that we might stay together on these aimless
wanderings just for the hell of it -- but we didn't think it
strange.  We were two people traveling the land, and that's
all we needed.

Perhaps we had already crossed the Arctic Circle when we met
this nomadic tribe of Indians.  I know, I'm being
politically incorrect, but I really don't give a damn.  I
think I'm actually showing more courtesy by using a word
that's easy to use and pronounce, than some word I'll choke
on.  I know it annoys me when I hear Tohono O'odham
pronounced like Tohono Oddam -- they should just stick with
Papago: it's been used for centuries and can't be
mispronounced, even if it does mean 'bean eater.'  I figured
they'd feel the same way -- but that's besides the point. 
Look -- *you* started it, so don't look at me that way! 
O.K. -- I'll call them 'Inuit', if that makes you happy, but
I still think you two should get a life!

Fine.  Well, anyway...

They behaved as if they were perimeter guards -- they were
wary of anyone crossing into their territory, and they were
afraid of anyone they didn't know.

I would have chalked it up to paranoia, except for the fact
that every single one wore the tattoo of the spear on their
forearm.  This was something that an Odinsson would do,
except that these men bore no other marks of an Odinsson. 
My curiosity engaged, I performed enough "tricks" to earn
their respect and startle their superstitious minds.  They
were simple things, really, but to a mind such as theirs,
those tricks were sufficient.

Kerry looked at those tricks with wide eyes.  Maybe
something occurred to him that hadn't before.  In
retrospect, I often wonder about the significance of that
event.

========================================================== 
Heimdall stopped talking and took a deep swig of beer. 
"Here's some money, why don't you get some decent beer for a
change?"

Tracy was about to hit the roof, but Nick intercepted her,
"We'll continue this discussion at the Raven.  They'll have
everything you want."

Heimdall's eyebrow raised, and he could barely keep himself
from laughing.  "I would greatly look forward to that."

****************************************

Richie heard the sounds of boots in the tunnel below, and
handcuffed Pieter to the table.  "You're not going
anywhere!"

There were two ways in and out -- one was the way the two
came in, and another door opened into an empty warehouse. 
Methos barricaded that door, and answered Richie's unspoken
question, "We have no idea what's out there -- and the devil
we do know is coming through the best possible door."

Richie looked confused, until Methos added, "It's a narrow
door, so we can control how many come into the room."

The door got blasted open, and the thugs who came through
were dressed completely in black -- black pants, black
boots, black shirts, and black ski masks.  They had clubs
instead of guns, Methos observed, so their orders must have
been to capture only, and not kill.  //They have those
orders, when they *know* we're immortal?//

He wasn't one to question fate.  Although time seemed to
slow for both the immortals as their adrenalin rushed
through their veins, motion speeded up in real time.  There
seemed to be no end of them as Richie glanced through the
door.  Maybe thirty, or maybe more.  But there couldn't be
*too* many to handle... he thought.

What then happened wasn't some stage fight, where every
movement was theatrical.  There was no flashy fencing,
posturing, or witty exchange of words.  Think of it this way
-- it was like watching a Mafia hit.  The killers involved
are down-to-earth and kill their targets by the 'straight
line between two points' approach.  This skirmish took place
in a similar fashion.

Richie and Methos made a good team.  Richie, although
trained by a swordsman who used predominately Oriental
movements and strategies, fought like more like Brian Cullen
-- with skill and grace, but mixed in with some Bronx-style
bluntness.  He didn't use much footwork, and relied on his
youthful strength to pummel the blackies into the ground.

Methos, though the oldest living immortal, had been out of
the game long enough to lose his skill.  For the last few
years, he had subtly entered the game enough to gain back
some basic skills.  He fought more like a reckless solider
-- discipline in his movements, but overruled by a wildness
that he began to feel in the base of his soul.  It almost
felt good to kill again.

The two immortals stood about a foot from the doorway, their
swords acting like scythes, chopping off limbs, ripping out
intestines, punching out lungs, and taking heads.  The blood
sprayed everywhere, covering everything nearby with a thick
coating of blood.

The smell of ruptured intestines assaulted both of their
nostrils as the bodies began to pile up.  When enough bodies
were piled up to block the doorway, the blackies stopped
coming through blindly, but they didn't give up.

Rather, they kept at the base of the stairs.  Sounds from
the other door were heard as well.

Pieter chuckled, "I asked for a lot of backup.  Since you're
the only two immortals left in Paris, I was able to spare
several hundred men."

A loudspeaker boomed from the tunnel, "You are surrounded. 
You have no hope."

Methos looked at one of the monitors that showed a detailed
map of Paris, and an idea of what they would do next.  Then
he chuckled.  "Richie, you're not going to believe this!"

************************

Duncan opened up his eyes.  His teeth and gums finally felt
better, and the effects of the hot salsa had faded.  His
eyes adjusted to the light, and he realized that he was
still in the torture room.  His spirits sank.  Then a jolt
of pain filled his body as he realized that he had just been
injected with something.

"You're finally awake," said the silky voice of the
Inquisitor.  "It's so good that you're awake now."  He paced
back and forth, musing, "You know, I think I've been going
about this the wrong way.  I'd almost believe that you loved
pain, the way you keep asking for it.  So I think I'll try
another approach -- pleasure."

The Inquisitor walked over to the door and escorted in a
young blonde woman, smiling innocently, wearing an
uncomprehending expression.  She looked like she could have
been a top model, and certainly dressed for the part.  One
could almost say that she was almost not-dressed, to be more
accurate. 

"Meet Tasha.  She failed hairdressing school, and now she
works for me."  He directed Tasha to where Duncan hung from
his chains, "Tell me, Tasha, what do you think of my
prisoner?"

Tasha's eyes bulged as she gazed on the now-healed body of
Duncan, breathing heavily as she lightly touched a finger,
running it along his chest.  "He's *wonderful*!  Like a
*stallion*!" 

To Duncan, that touch felt much more intense than it should
have.  He shuddered in a pleasure that he fought with all
his might.  Tasha smiled wickedly.

"Oh yes!" the Inquisitor clapped his hands.  "He's all
yours!"  He winked at Duncan, "I'll leave you two love birds
alone!"

True to his word, the Inquisitor left the room, while Tasha
whispered in Duncan's ear, "Welcome to the *ride* of your
life, 'Stallion'!"

Duncan had already been breathing heavily, and confusion
filled his whole being as he wondered what on earth was
happening.  //Is this a dream?//

The moments passed, and Duncan knew with great certainty
that this was *no* dream.  His eyes closed, and he shuddered
involuntarily as Tasha practiced her craft --  then it ended
suddenly. 

Duncan looked down, where Tasha had been kneeling, "No talk
-- no play.  If you answer my questions, I'll do this some
more."

Duncan's eyes closed again, "God help me."

"God can't help you," she smiled evilly, "but *I* can -- all
you have to do is talk."

******************************
And I leave you with this and your imagination -- may it not
be too naughty! ;)                                Chapter 18

Duncan screamed in ecstasy.  He had never felt such
pleasures in such intensity before.  It was like every nerve
in his body were alive and telling him all at once how much
of a great time they were having.  His heart beat so
strongly he could feel it shake his whole body.  Then it
stopped, and he screamed again.

"Noooo!!!" he cried.  "DON'T STOP -- PLEASE!!!"

Tasha's face was only a half-inch from his.  "Just answer my
question."  Her sweating, naked body rubbed against his own. 
All she had to do was touch him here, and rub him there... 
"Oh GOD!  Please!"

She pulled away, and Duncan sobbed in frustration once more. 
Just then the door burst open, and Richie and Methos barged
through with their swords out.  The two immortals were
covered with blood, as were their swords.

"You're here too soon!" yelled Tasha, snapping at them like
they were movie extras who followed the wrong script.

Methos, unlike Richie, had a pragmatic view about life,
death, and killing.  He thrust the sword through her heart,
ignoring her surprised expression as he asked, "Was it as
good for you as it was for me?"

She fell to her knees, the pain overwhelming her so much
that she couldn't even move her mouth -- it was wide open,
and for some reason, Methos couldn't resist shoving the
sword down her mouth.  "Swallow this!" 

Richie viewed all this with shock and horror -- not only
with the fact that he killed a woman, but the *way* he
killed her.  When he saw Duncan, his expression was only one
of shock, and his earlier reaction was forgotten.

Duncan was bloody, beaten, and panting like he'd been
running a mile.  Exercising every muscle of decency in his
body, he kept his eyes above the waist.  "God -- Mac!  What
did they do to you?"

Duncan, rather than saying, "Thanks" -- or even grunting in
acknowledgement, screamed in a voice of infinite loss, "You
*killed* her!"  Now, he really began to sob uncontrollably,
moreso than when he had lost Tessa or killed Brian Cullen. 
Richie looked at Methos, who nodded.  "Torture by pleasure -
- the Romans mastered it, and every inquisitor ever since
knows how to use it.  I think Duncan's been on a rough
ride."

Duncan was straining in his chains, trying to reach
something -- only God knew what -- and sobbing as if someone
even closer than Tessa had died.

Richie and Methos had a hard time dragging him away.  He
flailed around and fought them, trying to run back to
Tasha's dead body.

"Methos," grunted Richie, "promise me that this is one
little story that stays between the two of us."

**************************************

Mulder stared up at an impossibility.  It was Cancerman
alright, but it was a different Cancerman with something
more -- something different.  It was an aura around him, a
power that he hadn't detected before.

The fingers threatened to bore into his brain.  Though the
pressure wasn't even great enough to punch through paper,
Mulder was screaming in pain and fear.

Something snapped, and Mulder's reflexes kicked in -- even
though his conscious mind was still paralyzed by fear.  His
foot shot out and slammed Cancerman in the groin.  The hands
on his forehead loosened, and Mulder snatched them away,
throwing Cancerman into the couch.  It wouldn't hurt, but it
might slow him down.

"Scully!" yelled Mulder, running over to where his gun was. 
"Scully, wake up!"  He was always neat and orderly to the
point where folks could have fun making up derogatory words
about his orderliness, and so he would certainly have known
where his gun was -- only it wasn't there.  "Shit!"

Cancerman was up by now, and was just within touching-
distance.  Mulder picked up a chair and -- but Cancerman's
foot was on it before he could do anything with it.  Mulder
let go of that and grabbed for a lamp, but Cancerman had
already grabbed it and thrown it to the floor.

"Freeze!" yelled Scully.  She was clad only in her sleeping
clothes, pointing her private home firearm -- a 19th Century
type rifle that shot lead balls -- in Cancerman's direction. 
Maybe it was her frequent association to Mulder, vampires,
and immortals that allowed it -- but she looked at Cancerman
and only sighed deeply in sadness.  "Don't you *ever* die?"

Cancerman had frozen, and when he recognized Scully, he
became afraid.  Without a word, he dashed for the wall, but
Scully shot a lead-ball through his left thigh, blasting a
hole through much of the muscle.  He collapsed on the floor
-- physically affected yet apparently ignoring the wound --
trying to frantically crawl to the door, but Mulder stomped
on his hand.

Cancerman raised his face, howling in pain.  Mulder twisted
his heel, cracking bones and joints.

"...Hey!  There's a fight in there!  Someone call the
police!..."  There was a lot of yelling and panic outside
the door.  Mulder opened up the door, showing his badge to
the folks next door, "FBI Agents!  Everything is under
control!"

"Good God!" yelled another, "Harold!  Call for help, quick! 
It's the FBI!"

"You have no authority over here!" yelled another.  "What
the hell do you think you're doing?"

"Go home!" folks started yelling from all up and down the
hall.  "Go harass some of your politicians for a change!"

"GO HOME!" more people yelled.

Mulder's head started to spin -- they were right: it was
like a German police officer flashing his badge to citizens
of Mexico during a highly questionable situation.  He closed
the door gently, as if that would help defuse the situation. 
"Scully?  I think I made a big mistake -- we have to get out
of here, fast, and we'll have to take Cancerman."

"Where do we go?"

"The Raven.  Where else?"  Mulder leaned against the wall,
holding his head, "Damn, I've got a headache!  Do you think
that coffee might have been spiked?"

Scully blinked, "You know, I've been feeling pretty awful
too, but it's a good thing: if I hadn't have woken up to
vomit, I wouldn't have known Cancerman was here."

Mulder now clutched at his stomach, sinking to his knees,
"I'd like to *kill* Coleen about now!" he snarled in a near-
whisper.

Scully stepped into the light and looked like she was in bad
shape too.  Dark circles hung under her eyes.  "You watch
him while I get ready."

Mulder was a bad sight, holding the rifle in Cancerman's
face while he looked like he honestly wanted to point it at
his own head.  His breathing came in laborious gasps, and
his squinting eyelids threatened to mash his own eyeballs
into mush.

Cancerman was limp now, looking at him with a look of almost
animal-like surrender.  That's why Mulder was so unprepared
when Cancerman -- as instant as the flick of a light switch
-- moved out of the line of fire in a fluid motion and
grabbed the rifle out of Mulder's hands, slamming him in the
cheek with the butt.

Mulder was thrown back to the floor, the room spinning, as
Cancerman ran out the front door.  For the next minute,
Mulder could hear screams coming from up and down the hall,
and it made him redouble his efforts to get up.

When he did get up -- he wanted desperately to crash back
onto the floor and stay there -- the screams had faded, and
when he managed to stumble out the door, everyone in the
hallway had forgotten about his 'transgression' and were
pointing in the direction that Cancerman went.  They didn't
need to, because he left a thick trail of blood.

"Mulder!" he could hear Scully yell in the distance, but he
ignored her.

His breath coming in labored gasps, his eyes aching with
even the slightest movement, and his face feeling like it
was about to explode, Mulder at first trotted in a zombie-
like fashion, then gradually sped up to a run as he leaped
down the stairs several steps at a time.

With every step he took, he could feel the bones of his face
throb -- in perfect rhythm with each breath he took, each
heartbeat, and each time his feet hit the floor or pushed
him forward.  It was agony -- the pressure threatening to
make his very face explode.

After about five minutes, he even managed to catch up with
Cancerman, who had slowed down -- the fact that he could
make it this far with a blasted leg said something about his
determination.  Cancerman flipped the rifle in his
direction, and fired.  Mulder, totally exhausted, tripped on
his own feet and missed the fatal projectile by mere inches. 
The whizzing he heard in his ear was deafening, and smoke
filled the space between them.

"What's going on?" demanded a security guard, sticking his
head through the stairwell door.  

Cancerman fired a round at the security guard, who suddenly
found himself with a head and body, minus a neck.  The man's
head, on hitting the floor, wiggled as the mouth opened and
shut a few times.  When Cancerman aimed the rifle at Mulder
once more and pulled the trigger, it went [click!] [click!]. 
Mulder had managed to get up by now, and he tried to tackle
Cancerman, who twirled out of the way, grabbing Mulder as he
flew by and adding some momentum to his flight into the
wall.  One loud thump, and Mulder was motionless.

"Stop!" screamed Scully from the stairs, aiming a handgun at
Cancerman, who looked at her with an aloof expression as he
raised the rifle at her.  Scully smiled, "I counted three." 
She fired a round into his other leg.

Screaming, Cancerman fell to his knees, but he hadn't given
up yet.  He held the rifle like a sledge hammer, waiting for
her to make a move.  His face was bone-white now from the
bleeding.

With this short pause, Scully had a chance to come to her
senses, and so made the next action in a very deliberate
manner: she shot Cancerman's hands, one by one.  He screamed
and howled, but he dropped the rifle, as his hands were now
ground meat with bones and spraying blood that squirted on
time with his heartbeat -- but he was still alive.

Whoever thought that Scully was soft and gentle hadn't seen
her backed into a corner -- real or figurative.

*****************************************

Axer was staring down into Coleen's eyes, his voice tight
with an honest anger, "Can you explain this?"

"Explain what?"

"It's obvious you don't have enough experience drinking --
do you realize how much Benedictine you gave them?  If you
want an *interesting* experience, you put *one shot* in a
*large* cup of coffee!  You spiked enough in there to get
*me* drunk!  Do you realize Bill isn't just puking his guts
out, but he's got alcohol poisoning?!  You gave him a
*pint*!!!"  His voice was powerful enough to make a drill
sergeant back off with uncertainty.  Coleen was white-
skinned with fright.

Axer continued, "And what the hell were you trying to do,
eh?  I *also* noticed that you used my aquavitae...  ARE YOU
AN IDIOT??  I DON'T ASSOCIATE WITH IDIOTS!  I DON'T EVEN
KNOW WHO YOU ARE!!"  

"Ease up on her, Axer," whispered LaCroix behind him, laying
a rather... *firm* grip on his shoulder.  "She did it for a
good reason -- you've missed out on a great deal the last
few hours, so you might as well listen to what she has to
say."  He looked at Coleen, not quite as unobservant of her
nudity, "You *do* have something to say, don't you?"

Coleen started stammering, "Mulder and Scully came in with
two Watchers.  I didn't trust them, so I offered them
regular coffee, but I didn't tell them it was spiked with
Benedictine.  I thought if I got them drunk enough, they
might be easier to control if they tried anything."

Axer's eyes narrowed, "O.K.  You're clever, I'll grant you
that, but where does aquavitae fit into it?"

"Bill was a pervert..." she explained about that episode in
D.C.  "I just wanted to get back at him." 

"Coleen!" sighed Axer, shaking his head.  "You don't get
even at someone by killing them with alcohol!  I'm going to
keep him from dying, but he's going to be hurting for a few
days at least -- and you're going to be helping him recover
the *whole* time.  You hear me?  Now I want you to get
dressed and get back here in TWO MINUTES!  GO!!"

Coleen bolted off, and anyone with a good batch of hormones
would have a good case of glued-eyes.  Nat's eyes sure were
glued, but nobody noticed that detail.

Axer started to rummage through the food cabinets.  "Where
the hell do you keep the baking soda?!"

"Over there," said LaCroix in a soft tone.  He grabbed it,
and talked while Axer stirred a few liberal tablespoons of
the stuff in a glass of water.  There was so much it would
never dissolve completely.  "What are you doing?"

"Simple chemistry.  The alcohol has done its work, so now I
have to combat the effects until his body can heal.  The
baking soda will fix his pH, the buttered crackers that I'm
going to feed him -- and you'd better have them -- will soak
up some of the remaining alcohol out of his blood stream. 
When he stops puking, I'll make him eat as much greasy
sausage and eggs as I can grab." 

Axer then stopped as if he'd been struck.  "Carafate!"

"Excuse me?" LaCroix shook his head in confusion.

"Look --" he grabbed LaCroix by a lapel, shoving some money
into the vampire's hand, "here's fifty dollars!  Can you
make a run to the pharmacy and get some Carafate?"

That struck LaCroix as being utterly absurd and unexpected. 
He shook his head in confusion.

"Come on!  What are you waiting for?  You can get there fast
than any of us, and you can 'persuade' the pharmacist into
saying 'to hell with the prescription'.  Go on!"

Baffled, LaCroix took the money and left.

By now, Coleen had returned, hurriedly-dressed and still
pale-faced.  "O.K. Coleen," snarled Axer, "time to gain a
practical education in first aid.  Grab a bucket -- there'll
be no rags or mops for you.  Not even a toothbrush!"

"What --" Coleen tried to ask.

"You're going to find *every* spot of vomit and clean it up! 
Go on!  What are you waiting for?"  When she paused, he
yelled, "You have it easy -- you could be *licking* it up!" 

Coleen bolted, looking for a bucket.   "Where the hell's a
bucket around here?!"

"You'd better find out!" Axer's voice floated down the hall. 
Bill vomited bile again, and Coleen cursed.

Axer walked up to Bill with the soda water, and forced him
to drink every drop.  Bill vomited it all up a few moments
later, looking even worse.

"That was uncalled for," said Kate, moving up next to Axer,
"telling Coleen that!"

"Can you take a look at Bill and repeat that?" he asked
softly, pointing at Bill.  "He's a mortal, and she almost
killed him because she thought he was a pervert.  I can
agree with her views -- on this subject -- but I can't agree
with the results of her prank."

Kate frowned, "I get your point, but..." she couldn't finish
the sentence.

The front door opened loudly, and three people came in:
Nick, Tracy, and ...

"Adams?" demanded Axer, "What the hell are you doing here?"
He stared at Heimdall -- whom he knew only as a laid off
craftsman named Doug Adams.  Heimdall shrugged helplessly. 
Axer then noticed the sword hanging from Heimdall's belt,
and made a connection, "Wait a minute -- I can't sense you,
but if you're carrying a *sword* --"

"That's Heimdall, you idiot!" said someone right next to
Axer.

"Who said that?" he demanded, looking around furiously, only
to find that nobody had spoken -- and nobody was anywhere
near the source of the voice.

"Who said what?" asked Nick.

"Said that Adams is Heimdall, and that I was an idiot for
not knowing that!"

Heimdall snickered.  Nick and Tracy looked at one another,
and Tracy said, "You just said that yourself."

"No I didn't!"

"Yes you did!" everyone said at once, except for Bill, who
vomited some more, the sounds of his dry heaves enough
to make most shudder in concern.  However, nobody was paying
any attention to it.  That sent Bill into even more heart-
wrenching dry heaves that everyone ignored.

Axer's head sank into his hands, "Why does this have to
happen to me?..."

Kate put a hand on his forehead, "You aren't running a
fever...  Maybe you ought to sit down -- without a beer."

While Axer and Kate sat down, Nick looked around and saw
that Nat was here.  He moved up to her, "What happened to
you?  What are you doing here?"  He was about to give her a
hello kiss when she backed up.

"Nick," she said hesitantly, "I think we need to talk
somewhere else."

Nick and Nat walked over to the bar, where she said, "I
don't think we can be friends -- like this -- anymore.  I
just can't handle it."

"Nat?"  That utterly shocked Nick.  "What do you mean?"

"Nick?  I don't know how to tell you this, so I'll go ahead
and say it: I'm in love with Coleen, and I don't love you. 
I can't love you when you treat me like a psychiatrist --
and an unpaid one at that."

Just then, as Nick's face went through some contortions,
Janette walked into the front door, looking around, "The
place looks different, somehow -- I hate it.  Is this
LaCroix' doing?"

Nick looked towards the in shock.  "Janette?!"

Nat slapped Nick on the face, "I knew it!  I hope you're
happy!"

Nat walked off while Nick looked at her with total
confusion, holding his hand on the cheek that Nat slapped. 
It hurt as much as a faint touch -- it was the emotion that
he reacted to.

Janette, of course, noticed this little exchange and looked
at Nick with questioning eyes.

Nick groaned, letting his face fall into his hands.

                                Chapter 19

Axer made one of his special drinks: Guiness over Bass over
Absolut.  Sure, the vodka mixed with the Bass pretty
quickly, and it was tasteless, but it would give a hell of a
kick after a while.

Heimdall was pretty pleased as he looked at Axer.  "I'll
have to say you're a great bartender.  I haven't had
anything this good in a long time."  He took a sip and
sighed deeply, "This is *really* good."

Just to be fair to Axer, Heimdall told him what he had told
Nick and Tracy -- during that time, Tracy took a cat nap and
Nick tried unsuccessfully to talk to Nat.  Nat absolutely
refused to talk to him, choosing instead to spend her time
at a table, staring at the corner.

Heimdall finished giving Axer the background information and
then looked around, "Hey -- I thought this place thrived at
night!  Where is everyone?"

Axer nodded over to the door, "Didn't you know?  Whenever we
have a little get-together, LaCroix closes the place down --
he calls it 'inventory time'.  Nobody seems to mind."

"Hmm..." Heimdall drained his imperial pint glass and
reached for a pitcher of beer that Axer had just set down. 
"Oh well."  While he rested his throat with some more beer,
Tracy woke back up and Nick drifted on over.  It worked out
rather neatly, because Heimdall was ready to finish his
story.

Although Nick and Tracy had threatened to pin him with the
murders, he didn't seem to mind.  Taking another draw of
beer, he continued where he had left off at the station. 
"Like I was saying, Kerry and I were up north.  North of the
Arctic Circle..."

============================================================ 
                          Heimdall's Tale
============================================================ 
...and we were making sure that the natives wouldn't treat
us like fresh meat ready to be smoked.  Kerry sure had a
real knack for that skill -- keeping from being smoked, that
is.

We stayed with them for a week, resting our feet from our
most recent road march.  We must have walked for a full week
there, so we really deserved it.  Once a week passed, we
both started to get cabin fever.

That was when we started to get social with the natives.  I
don't have much trouble picking up a language -- that's just
the way I am.  But Kerry -- he was a wonder.  He was able to
make his needs be known from the start, and after a week, he
was having conversations with them.  Of course, it was child
talk, but hell -- I challenge you to pick up a primitive
language in a week!

It took a month for me to catch up to Kerry's skill.  By
this time, we were respected because both of us were crazy
enough to kill polar bear and walrus.  Sure, we weren't the
only ones, but it was still a big deal back then, so it kept
us useful.  It also kept us fed.

In retrospect, I really wish that Kerry hadn't learned their
language so much, because he started nosing around about
their rune tattoos.  One thing led to another, and he
started night-dreaming, looking up at the stars, and talking
about stuff that made no sense to me.  Stuff like 'starry
wisdom', 'smoking mirror', and 'the branches of the tree'. 
Maybe it was the aliens that did it to him.  I still don't
know.  All I know is that he was touched by some sort of
lunatic.

It was a few weeks later, when we were both drowsy from
eating a big feast, that he told me, "There's a cave not far
from here that I want to explore.  The People say that the
Gods left great treasures in there.  I want to see it for
myself."

"Don't you think there's a good reason they'd leave it
alone?" I asked.  I hadn't heard about this cave, but I
figured that legends were better off left as legends instead
of sad facts.

"Don't you want to find out for yourself?!" he stood up and
ranted at me.  "This is *wisdom*!"

Wisdom is not a good word to use around me.  I had more than
enough with wisdom.  I obey my common sense, and that's good
enough for me, and I told him so.

Kerry sulked on his own, and didn't talk to me for a week. 
Time heals, though, and he forgot about his little snit.  He
even seemed to forget about it, and when he made another
suggestion, it was that we go out and hunt some caribou.  It
was that time of the year, and I was all for it.

We went out with a team of hunters, so I thought this would
be hunting as usual.  And you know, it was.  We went out and
killed more caribou than we did in a long time, even on the
way up.  We were on the way back when a storm buried us in
snow, and Kerry and I were separated from the rest of the
group.  They moved on, figuring it was better to reach the
village with the meat than to risk dying in search for us,
and risk leaving the meat out in the field where nobody
would be able to find it before it was too late.

There wasn't any wood out here, so Kerry was starting to
fret, but I must have started laughing and told him not to
worry.  "You know that you can eat this meat raw, you know,"
I told him.  He looked skeptical, so I ate a good chunk of
meat just to show him.  I came from a culture where we ate
raw meat just as much as cooked, so it was like old times
for me.

We ate our meat and tried to move on, but the storm got
worse, and eventually we reached the strangest cave.  Most
caves are set into the sides of hills and mountains -- this
one was a natural cave with a mouth that opened up on flat
ground without any mountains in sight.  It opened up and
sloped gently downwards into the darkness.

Kerry looked at me, saying, "You know that it's the only
thing we can do now.  The cold'll kill us for sure without
any fire."

I was feeling the chill pretty strongly, so I agreed with
him and let him lead the way.  Since we didn't have wood on
either of us, we had to descend slowly enough to let our
eyes adjust as much as possible.  Enough light cracked
through that it was like walking through a house at night. 
There's enough light that you can just barely see.

The cave sloped downward for about a mile, then reached a
man-made door of lead and stone.  It looked almost medieval
in appearance, and I said so.  "This could be almost Roman
in design!"  But I could find no writing or any other
artifact identifying this place.  But then again, it was
dark in there.  Maybe I missed something.

I was curious enough to try opening the door myself, but it
wouldn't budge.  Kerry snickered and opened it himself with
great ease, telling me, "It's all in the touch."

On the other side of the door was a natural source of light
that blinded us for a moment.  It came from some minerals
that created their own light -- faint by our standards in
this room right now, but bright enough to give us headaches
and force us to close our eyes a few minutes until our
vision returned.

When our vision did return, we found ourselves in a great
hall.  It was like being inside of a great Viking feasting
hall, except that instead of wood, it was stone.  It was
obvious that some group of people invested a great deal of
time and energy in carving this room out.  It might have
even explained the cave, except that I still swear that it
looked natural.

Not only did it look like a Viking hall by design, but it
also was filled with Viking relics and artifacts.  The
tables set in the center of the from door to wall, the
swords and shields set on the walls, the Chief's weapons set
against the Head of the Table.

It was like I had traveled back in time and entered the
feasting hall that I knew so well.  I almost expected my
Father to stare me in the eye with his own and ask me what I
had seen during my observations.

But this was empty, and so for me it was like roving through
a graveyard.

"This is it!" cried Kerry with some bit of mania.  "This is
the place that the People were talking about!  See -- at the
far end of the room!"

He ran towards the Chief's chair, grabbing a spear.  I saw
it.  Memories flooded back to me, shaking my nerves pretty
well.  I remember being on my knees somehow as I saw
Gungnir, the spear of Odin.  This was not his hall, but
somehow his spear was here.  I scanned the other weapons and
saw the other belongings of the Aesir.  I saw the bow of
Ullr, the hammer of Thor, the swords of Frey, the Axe of
Loki, and my own sword.  I had either lost it in a bout of
drunkenness -- I believed.

That was in 1066, when I lay collapsed on an English tavern
table.  Hadradi died that very night in an unsuccessful raid
on the shores of Britain.  The king who represented the old
order lay dead.

No, it's not really important.  I was just remembering...

By the looks of it, my sword must have been taken, because I
can't just forget and leave it in a place thousands of miles
from England, to a place I'd never been.

I was shaken from my memories as Kerry yelled, "And I, the
Allfather, will shake Erde and Yggdrasil itself!  I, Odin,
shall bind the many into *ONE*!"

As I stared at this lunatic, I saw many things fall
together.  The coal-black hair that he had allowed to grow
long, the thick beard now on his face, and his now thin and
ropy frame.  He looked exactly like Odin had before he lost
his eye.

That was soon fixed, because Kerry pulled out a belt-knife
and took it out, screaming, "The Well!  Let me drink once
more from the Well!"

I didn't know what was going on, whether this deranged boy
was just that, or the next incarnation of Odin.  I couldn't
take the chance, so I took out my pistol, which I always
kept loaded when I had a chance.  This was during the days
where you had to pack in some gunpowder and a pellet each
time you shot it.

I see you nodding, Nick.  Good to see I'm not the only one
who can remember *that* pleasant little experience...

Well, I shot Kerry in the shoulder.  I hit where I aimed.  I
could have shot a hole in his brains and let them seep out,
but I still felt a pity for the boy.  Taken by who knows
what and living an odd life.  I hoped that I could knock
whatever spirit or demon out of his skull without killing
him.

I was rewarded for my efforts with a loud laugh, "Ever the
pacifist, Heimdall, my son?  You should have used that shot
on my skull, and now you'll ever regret your choice."

Centuries of instincts and reflexes took over as Kerry
attacked me in his madness.  Though the boy had never fought
as I had, his reflexes and instincts said different.  He
nearly ran me through before I could reach my own sword.

All I had to do was touch it, and I felt the ecstasy that I
had not touched for many eons.  Just wrapping my hand about
the grip filled me with power, and I guess I must have been
mad myself when I faced him, actually glad to do so.

However long we fought was a mystery, but it ended suddenly,
I can remember that.  He ran me through.  I didn't die, but
I was so wounded that it took me a week to recover enough to
crawl back out of the cave.  I left my sword behind.

When I did, I found no trace of the snow storm.  I had
enough ammunition to be able to catch enough food to keep
myself fed as I made my way back to the village.

I returned to find almost all the menfolk killed by Kerry,
or I should say now, Odin.  He was possessed by the mad
spirit enough to slaughter every warrior and hunter who
faced him, and he laughed over their bodies.  But oddly
enough, he left the women and children alone.

I stayed for another year, and then I left for the south
once more.

It was about thirty years later that I met up with Odin
again.  He had spent that time adventuring in the Caribbean
and Central America.  The one legend that surrounded him was
that he had been cast aboard, and somehow returned to tell
about it.  Those who knew him said that he had become a
changed man.  For an innocent boy to be taken away and
changed by mysterious beings, then possessed by the mad
spirit of Odin -- to believe that he had changed again was a
bit too hard to swallow.  It was like being told that
someone had come up with a redder red.  It just can't be
done.

I cornered him when he was drunk and pointed a rifle in his
face.  This was one of the 'modern' ones that one didn't
have to repack with every round: this one used bullets.  I
faced him and told him he had a lot of explaining to do.

"I've made a bargain with the Invisible Ones," smiled Odin. 
"They found me on the island, and revealed to me that I was
one of them all along.  They understood my life-long vision
and told me that they had revealed it to me when I drank
from Mimur's Well -- the well that I sacrificed my own eye
to drink from.

"It was they who told me the great act of courage I had
performed by hanging myself from the wind-blown tree to
capture the runes.

"It was they who revealed themselves and told me that if I
wanted to survive, all I had to do was make a pact."

The rest of what he said was gibberish, but what I did
understand filled in a lot of gaps -- concerning both Kerry
and Odin.

I blew out his brains then, and believed that all had been
fixed.  I even threw the spear into the sea.  This was
Baltimore, so it wasn't that hard to get out far enough into
the ocean and drop it straight to the ocean floor.

What I didn't know is that the Invisible Ones had acted.  I
may have killed 'Odin', but they had a large resource pool,
and as it turned out, means of recovering the spear.  You
saw it surface, as did I on many an occasion...

============================================================ 
Heimdall drained yet another beer, "And that's how I began
to learn about the Invisible Ones.  I spent the next fifty
years searching for the clues that Odin left behind, finding
enticing clues -- but only clues.

"I learned that the Invisible Ones were very real. They were
a political power as well as a religious one.  Though they
were not blatantly obvious, their works were well known to
the one who only observed.  I found their fingers in
everything from the Conquest of the Old World to the end of
my own.

"As I learned the truth, I acted on it.  I've tried to seek
out everyone I could find who was connected to the Invisible
Ones.  Where I couldn't get what I needed by observation, I
got it by torture.  When I couldn't get information at all,
I killed.

"I know, it sounds brutal, but you have to understand that
the Invisible Ones are brutal as well.  It's the Invisible
Ones who are behind these series of black box murders, and
it's the Invisible Ones who were responsible for a great
deal of things that make no sense.  

"They're not responsible for *everything*, but they're
directly responsible for a lot of the key events that shaped
our world and history."

Heimdall took another drink.

"I can't believe this!" fumed Tracy, pacing back and forth. 
"It's impossible!"

Heimdall lifted his face up a little, but he didn't look
angry for having his words doubted, "What's so impossible
about it?  You saw what those weapons do to human beings,
and you see impossibilities in this very room.  What can be
so impossible about that?"

"What about aliens?"

"What about them?" Heimdall looked at her steadily.

Before Tracy could say anything, the front door slammed
open, revealing Mulder, Scully, and someone being dragged
along the ground.  Scully looked pale and exhausted, and
Mulder looked like he got a good face-beating.

Axer took a good look at the man being dragged along the
ground, and jumped in shock, "Halscombe!"

Halscombe looked up at him with feral eyes.

Something deep within Axer surged, and he found himself
screaming incoherently, without knowing why.  The reaction
was reflexive -- reacting to something deep within that Axer
couldn't identify.  It took Nick to keep him from killing
Halscombe then and there.

Nick stared into Axer's eyes, slowly restoring sanity, as he
asked, "What is the matter with you?"

"Chain that monster in a padded cell!" Axer panted, his
muscles straining against Nick's relaxed ones.  "Put him in
a strait-jacket and gag him!"

Nick looked at Scully, who nodded, "It's a good start."