Chapter 4

It was night. No sights came to her eyes in those first moments, as she stood ensnared in her blindness, sweating and cringing. Only very slowly did her vision adjust to an enveloping darkness that was lit only by starlight through a loose canopy of scrubby trees. There was no moon. This night felt possessed of a sinister living spirit. It triggered Valerie's racial memory, afflicting her with a primal nyctophobia reminiscent of childhood. Even after her pupils had dilated completely and her retinas shifted solely to their rod shaped receptors, even then it was only with difficulty that she could make out her hand before her face. Her other hand was clasped around Kate's palm in a death grip.

Valerie felt a summer's heated humidity blanketing her skin. The sounds of nearby water constantly lapping at some unseen "Plutonian shore" provided an undercurrent for the buzzing of insects and a flittering of leathery wings. Several species of frogs belched mating calls from grotesquely ballooning throats while crickets mindlessly sawed songs from their own wings. (Their chirping prompted a childhood memory in Valerie; that of seeing a cricket whose body had been severed at mid-thorax. The bug had instinctively turned and begun feeding on tasty wet viscera, self-cannibalizing its own spilled entrails. Incredibly, the uncoordinated abdomen had tried to flee on its two attached hind legs, but the voracious forequarters had relentlessly pursued it with busy mouthparts.)

Valerie took a quick breath, thick with moisture and ripe with scents. She could almost taste the exhalation of the rich loam she stood on, seasoned with growth and decay, and stirred by the movements of her feet. Puffs of sullen breeze grudgingly rustling among nearby leaves wafted traces of a detergent fragrance from her perspiration-dampened clothing. Beneath the laboratory flask floral bouquet, Val could smell her own fear.

We must be somewhere outside the city; at least that much she'd figured out. Val had no certainty of how this could be, so she went with her instincts and conjured up hastily rationalized suspicions formulated for psychic comfort. For example, maybe her coffee had been drugged and she'd been brought her here while she was unconscious. Maybe Kate had hypnotized her and suggested that she forget their trip completely. Maybe she was still on that comfortable couch in the library, dreaming it all up. Maybe she'd willingly come here with Kate and then suffered a lapse of memory due to pranic overload. Maybe it was all a nasty fugue and she'd become a mental type sick girl.

Perhaps they were actually near the Amtrak lines, somewhere in those swamps outside of Metro Park or Newark. Valerie expected that she'd be viciously mosquito bitten and end up with malaria or that viral bird fever the city had been spraying everyone with Malathion for…chickenpox, was that it? She was confused. All she knew for sure was that her consciousness was miles from Nightwings, nearly blind in the dark, and very scared. Beside her, Kate had begun chuckling…probably at her wild suppositions.

"Where are we, Kate?" Valerie asked in a tremulous whisper, unwilling to chance antagonizing the surrounding darkness by raising her voice.

"Here, my lovely vampire, with the true night about us," Kate told her, (answering her own interpretation of the question), "free of the ambient light that will someday diffuse across the world from cities and towns. Not even your great-grandmother knew a night such as this, I suppose." Kate sounded deeply satisfied, their situation restoring some pleasant memory to her. "Walk with me now and I shall show you a great wonder."

Letting Kate guide her by the hand, Valerie plodded blindly forward, quickly noticing that their path led uphill. Behind them the sounds of the water were diminishing in the distance. As before, Kate commented on her unspoken realizations.

"Perhaps you hear the waters of a stream flowing into the River Zab, running down from the Zagros Mountains to the east? One day Nineveh will stand fifty miles to the west…for a while." She sounded wistful now, speaking softly.

Nineveh was definitely not in any part of New Jersey that Valerie knew, and she'd never heard of the Zab-A-Dab-A-Do River or The Gross Mountains either. She was going to ask Kate about that, hoping to stave off a panic attack, but before she could, they came to a halt. The sounds of the water and frogs had grown faint, lying at a distance somewhere below and behind them. A relative silence had loomed up to replace the babbled voice of the stream, adding its menace to the threat of the darkness.

Valerie realized that they were no longer standing among trees and shrubs. They'd entered an open field with intermittently bare soil underfoot. She was standing on a patch of it now. Kate sighed and released her hand, moving away a few paces and turning in a circle. Her arms were partially outstretched and her head was tilted back, her gaze directed to the night sky. The starlight in the open allowed Valerie to finally see a little bit more clearly; at least enough to know that Kate hadn't wandered off and left her by the Zab-A-Dee-Ah River, and the ZAGAT…whatever. She didn't take her eyes off the Gothic woman for an instant. She did, however, blink.

In the instant when her eyes were closed, Kate completed her circle and an explosion of flames blasted Valerie's eyes. At least that's how it seemed to her as she reflexively recoiled, squinted, blinked again, and teared up. When she could finally see, (through eyes opened just barely a slit), she saw Kate standing nonchalantly a few feet away, bearing a pair of smoky sputtering torches, one in each hand. The flames weren't even really all that bright, as though what was burning was maybe tar, inner tube rubber, or greasy French-fries. They produced generous quantities of a heavy black smoke. Still, in contrast to the almost complete pitch black, (or so Valerie had considered it), the wavering orange of partial combustion from the torches seemed blindingly bright. The image of a woman holding paired torches seemed familiar to the vampire.

"Impressive, don't you think?" Kate asked, glancing at the torches, "of course, I never really got credit for this." She sounded momentarily perturbed. "I gave them bitumen and pitch but later people only thanked Prometheus. Ah well. Of course at first they considered these magic, so at least they got that much right. You should take a look around while you can, I suppose. This really is rather epochal."

Valerie obediently gazed at the surrounding patches of turned earth and the scattering of miserable scrawny shoots that the circle of torchlight revealed. The slender green sprouts were growing in random clumps rather than in any kind of tilled rows. It really wasn't very impressive at all. In fact, she was quite willing to dismiss the pathetic field in favor of trying to clarify what Kate's rant over the torches had been about. For that matter, where had she gotten them in the first place? It wasn't as though Valerie was unhappy about their presence either. At least she could finally see. But what the hell was bitumen? She shook her head and looked back at the Goth with a confused expression.

"Not overwhelmed, I see. Perhaps we should have come later in the summer when the shoots have grown taller…" Kate sighed, realizing that Valerie was a city girl and had no way to relate to what she was seeing. She decided to try a more straightforward tact.

"What we have here is one of mankind's first attempts at farming. This is emmer wheat, planted from seeds that were gathered during the yearly migrations these hunter/gatherers have followed for the last, shall we say, 250,000 years. Valerie, what you are seeing here shall truly change the world. From these unimpressive plants, a whole new way of life will grow…sedentary life, village life, and eventually, cities, nations, and empires."

Valerie got the distinct impression that Kate was speaking with a sense of personal pride in the achievement. That was odd, since the vampire couldn't picture the sophisticated Gothic woman as a closet farm girl. Kate continued her explanation.

"You see, the people here are bona fide primitives. They have not yet learned how to write, fire clay, smelt ores, or breed livestock. Their parents lived almost the same basic lifestyle that their ancestors had lived since they came out of Africa only partially human. Change has come only slowly so far…mostly through refinements in flint knapping and survival crafts. The last great advance before this was when they learned how to make and use fire."

In a brilliant insight, Valerie decided that Kate had somehow brought her to the NY State Renaissance Fair and that it was deserted at night. Once again, denial had prompted Val to rationalize a mundane solution to a mystery. With amazement, she realized that she must have been out cold for hours to get so far up the Hudson Valley from the city.

Kate looked at the shock on Valerie's face, and then made a sweeping gesture with the torch in her right hand. "This is Mesolithic Karim Shahir, and it is 10,437 BC, almost 12,500 years before you will be born. You cannot imagine what life here is like. At your age, you would be an esteemed elder, or more likely, you would already be dead. The people of this time have only a few friends, fire, change, and…."

In the near distance the rapid approach of barking dogs could be clearly heard. It was a hunting pack, intent on bringing down the source of the light in the field, which could only signify the presence of strangers. In this time and place, strangers were probably also enemies. Friends did not skulk around in the dark, sharing the night with demons, ghosts, and evil spirits. The semi-domesticated dogs did not sound friendly at all. They sounded mean and hungry. It was hard to believe they were even the same species as the happy dog that had been struck and killed at the entrance to the Holland Tunnel.

Terrifying visions from news stories, in which people were mauled by pit bulls or rottwielers, played in Valerie's head. She could imagine them both being torn limb from limb in a matter of seconds. Val was confused, but worse, she was scared to death. She felt the gateway inside her beginning to open in defense, searching for prana. That doubled her panic. The only person anywhere nearby was her strange kind friend.

Kate planted the burning torches in the dirt at her feet and moved to take Valerie's hand.

"We should be leaving now, I suppose," she said calmly, "I'm sure you'd rather not stay here to vampirize these dogs." A small smile tugged at the corners of her lips. She seemed totally fearless of their situation, and unconcerned by Valerie's lethal powers.

The dogs could be dimly seen now as rampaging shadows about twenty yards away, closing fast. The red-orange flames glinted on their fangs and shone in their eyes, turning them into demonic hounds with ravening bloody mouths. Kate gently took Valerie's hand and made a gesture of rejection towards the vicious pack just as the beasts leapt into the flickering circle of torchlight. The field of mankind's first farm disappeared.

"I realize that I am causing you some discomfort," Kate offered apologetically, "and for that, I am sorry. The romantic darkness of the old stories is not for everyone, I suppose."

They were standing in bright afternoon sunlight. It was hot again, but this time it was a dry heat. The soil beneath their feet was a rich black. Valerie could smell an undertone of rotting vegetation beneath a topnote of stale water and putrid fish, all carried on a constant arid breeze. A hundred yards away lay the banks of a great river, edged by rows of date palms, while a mile off in the opposite direction, sandstone cliffs rose. Their sheer faces were cast deep in harsh shadows that also fell on the bottomlands at their base. Between those cliffs and where they stood lay greening fields of millet, wheat, and cotton, and a collection of crude reed huts daubed with mud. Kate indicated one of them with the long index finger of her unadorned right hand.

"I am called and will have a duty to perform there shortly. Join me?"

"I am not letting you out of my sight! Would you be willing to tell me where we are this time?" Valerie asked with a rising note of panic. They had just gone from night to day in the blink of an eye. She'd begun entertaining serious doubts about the last locale having been the RenFair, and this place didn't look like anything she'd seen except in museum dioramas. She watched Kate sweep the area with serene eyes that took in a familiar time and place, and reflected memories of sorrow.

"Six thousand years have passed since we stood at Karim Shahir," Kate began. "It is now 4,351 BC, and this is Kemet, the land of the Nile Valley before it became the nation of Egypt. In about 1,200 years, Narmer will unify the country. In about 1,700 years, Pharaoh Khufu will build the great pyramid." For a moment, Kate seemed to falter. "I…made a mistake here. I presented myself piecemeal…and reaped the consequences."

From the hut Kate had pointed out, a series of bloodcurdling screams rent the dry air, each seemingly torn individually from some woman's throat by a rusty fishhook lodged through her tongue and deeply into bone. Valerie could feel the pain squeeze her teeth and bring water to her eyes. She shivered despite the heat, imagining a genital mutilation or limb amputation in progress. Surely they would find something horrifying and primitive going on inside that hovel. Kate took a last look at the indisruptable flow of the river, the gentle swaying of the palms, and then began making her way rapidly towards the hut. Valerie hastened to keep up. Drawing nearer, she noticed that it was ringed with bales of kindling. She was already dreading what she'd be forced to see.

Another series of screams had just begun when they reached the hut. From inside came a stench of excrement and rotting flesh so strong that it made Val gag. No collection of urban garbage cans had ever generated a reek approaching even the square root of this. She swore that she'd never again complain on trash night. Now that they stood by the doorway, Val could see that the hut and its kindling had been splashed with oil…vegetable oil, not petroleum, but flammable nevertheless. They were close enough to hear a constant dirge of muttered prayers sifting through the woven mat hanging across the entrance. Kate ignored the miasma and swept the mat aside. She quickly entered the dark reeking interior with Valerie following hesitantly behind. It took a few merciful moments for Val's eyes to adjust to the gloom.

It had to be the vilest environment the vampire had ever experienced. Even the zoo's old monkey house paled in comparison. Inside the hut, the day's heat was magnified because the woven, mud-sealed walls and the low conical ceiling admitted no breath of air. With incredulity Val noted that a smoky fire, (fueled with dried ox dung that burned like incense), had been kindled in the ring-like clay hearth at the center of the claustrophobic space. Compounding the heat and smoke was an intense and nauseating biotic malodor. This even dwarfed the suffering of the summer heat aboard the city's old #7 trains to Flushing, in a car filled with the unwashed homeless. It was the exhalation of triumphant pestilence and creeping necrosis. Another scream jerked Valerie's eyes to the heart-rending source of the stench.

Beside an inclined pallet on which an obviously pregnant woman had been tied, knelt a midwife, rocking and swaying, her eyes tightly shut as she ceaselessly chanted prayers. She was completely ignoring her naked patient, who was lashed down, immobilized at the wrists, shoulders, knees, and ankles. A sweat-soaked blindfold covered the mother's eyes, but she had long since chewed through her gag. Valerie's eyes bulged at the inhumanity of the spectacle. The birthing mother was delirious; feebly struggling against her bonds and screaming in response to the contractions that convulsed her bloated abdomen in clenching spasms. It seemed that these people had no knowledge of hygiene or sanitation either. Below her splayed legs, a trail of excrement, pus laced birth waters, and blood had stained the pallet and the floor. It was evident that she'd been restrained for quite some time. Valerie looked for heating containers of water, towels, medicinal herbs, or any of the expected paraphernalia for the delivery, and she saw nothing.

"And you shall not, because this birth is doomed," Kate whispered. "This woman damaged herself attempting an abortion almost a moon ago and the dead fetus has been decomposing inside her body. Now the mother is feverish with septicemia and gangrene. The blindfold protects others from her evil eye; the gag was intended to foil her curses. She has also been ostracized and is considered possessed, hence the impending immolation of the hut instead of a burial. She is to be damned in the afterlife as well." Kate shook her head sadly as she surveyed the scene again. "The midwife prays only for a merciful end. I answer her with my presence, because here, you see, I am her patron."

Kate's words were punctuated by the flatulent blast of an air so fetid that the midwife broke from her prayer and gagged. There was a wet tearing sound. The mother screamed as her gassy belly deflated and the blackened head of her dead child presented between her legs in a pint of grayish clotted pus. It was too much. The horror drove Valerie to her knees, crying and retching. She lost a cup of coffee, two pirouettes, and a portion of herbed chicken breast. Her regurgitation perturbed the eddies and currents of history and time more profoundly than the fluttering of a butterfly in a rainforest giving rise to a hurricane a continent away. Through her tears, she watched as Kate placed a gentle hand on the mother's brow. With a whispered word from the Goth, the doomed woman instantly calmed, falling limp even as the ghost of a smile graced her cracked lips. The midwife's prayers continued, just a pleading repetition of a single word that lodged in the vampire's ears, "Heqit, Heqit, Heqit". Heck w'it…? There was so much she didn't understand about what she'd seen, and she was in no condition to figure it out.

Kate moved to Valerie's side and laid a soothing hand on her shoulder as she spat to clear her mouth. The welcome contact calmed the vampire and she briefly closed her eyes to blink away her tears. There was a warmth of spirit in Kate's touch that Valerie could feel as clearly as the desert's heat. It was, she realized, just a small fraction of the merciful power that the Goth had extended to the doomed mother. The comfort Kate gifted to Val was in proportion to her distress, and that act reflected a microcosm of the absolution and deliverance visited on the suffering woman. She heard the Goth sigh. Looking up, she saw that Kate's expression was positively funereal.

"Eighteen millennia of heartbreak," Kate whispered in a voice that embodied endless sadness, "and yet more to come. Perhaps some things do not change so very much."

Valerie sensed that the horrific scene she'd witnessed had been played out in many variations over thousands of years in the land of Kemet, under the scorching sun between the unstoppable river and the immovable cliffs, and Kate looked as if she'd seen it all. The mortal vampire couldn't help but viscerally perceive the weight on her friend's soul. It dwarfed the short-lived torment of the dead mother; as would the ceaseless cycling of the seasons eclipse a single life. The Gothic woman gently took Valerie's hand, helping to raise her to her feet, and with a gesture, the hut of the damned was no more.

"Look at the color of the sea, my lovely vampire, for its hue also lives in your eyes," Kate said, turning Valerie to view the shallows below the promontory on which they stood. The blue-green water lay placidly, submerging a bed of limestone just beyond a narrow white sand beach. Overhead, the brilliant Mediterranean sun whitewashed the same limestone that composed the island with an eye-blinding glare. Everything around them was bright; the heavens, the land, and the sea. Valerie blinked while her eyes adjusted, desperately wishing for sunscreen and a good pair of UV filtering sunglasses. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply of the salty sea air. She held her breath for a long moment, thankfully purging the stench of the hut from her nose and throat, and then she exhaled as she opened her eyes. Kate stood beside her, looking out over the water towards something far beyond any horizon they could see, and finally she turned back to the present and captured Val's gaze.

"Of all the places I have seen, these islands confer, perhaps, the closest thing to joy that my soul has known," Kate confessed. "This is the island of Aeaea. Just through the woods behind us stands a stone house," Kate continued, turning to point inland where ancient cedar trees covered the higher ground. The fingers of her right hand bore no ring. "It is the home of a devotee from Corinth. Come, let us go and visit."

A devotee of what, the vampire wondered for a moment, before they began to move.

Valerie followed Kate into the woods, thankful that finally she was in a comfortable and pleasant setting of great beauty. Cedar needles carpeted the path beneath their feet, while the trees lent a balsamic fragrance to the air. The vampire inhaled greedily, feeling the soul deep cleansing and contentment that only unspoiled nature can inspire. She was slowly calming from their horrific visit to Kemet. This time she didn't even attempt to deny where she was or understand how she'd arrived. They walked uphill in shade that was much easier on the eyes, until rather abruptly, they came upon the home that Kate had mentioned.

The place looked like a well-to-do country estate house set in a forest clearing, with its own well, granary, barns, and sheds. It appeared idyllic to Valerie, rustic, peaceful and charmingly picturesque. A number of farm animals, including horses, cows, pigs, and dogs, lounged together in the yards. Near the front door, a cute blonde girl and a striking red headed woman sat on a bench together as the woman instructed the girl in the use of the herbs overflowing from a basket at their feet.

"Ah, young Medea is visiting her aunt," Kate remarked. "Her training began here and she learned her lessons well." There was pride in her voice. "Never before did I meet a mortal so irrepressible or so determined to immerse herself in the waters of her emotions. Medea was nothing if not supremely passionate, I suppose." Valerie realized that the girl had the same name as the hostess she'd met at Nightwings. "Yes, the same," Kate agreed.

The vampire and the Goth stood in front of the two, unnoticed at first, but after a few moments the older woman looked at them, gave Kate a warm smile, and then returned to her conversation with the girl. Kate led Valerie around the side of the house, where they found a shaggy, cream and black dog sitting in the shade, talking with a pig. The animals spoke with human voices, but in a language Valerie couldn't understand.

"How do they do that?" Valerie asked in surprise, her head swinging back and forth following the enchanted conversation. "What are they saying? I can't understand a word, but they seem to understand each other well enough."

"They should," Kate said, "they were neighbors before they came here, searching for their lost friend Picus. It's all certainly witchcraft…intentional manipulation of the mysteries behind the veil of shadows. To mortals, their speech sounds like the grunting of animals, but they can speak to each other in their native tongue, in this case, the dialect of Latium in Italia. We're eavesdropping, though of course, it's all Greek to you. Don't worry, they're just griping…tiresome bores."

Kate smiled and winked, as she looked Valerie in the eyes. She seemed much more lighthearted than she ever had before. Weird as the animals were, the vampire felt happy for the Gothic woman, glad to see a less serious side of her. She was even more beautiful when she relaxed and smiled. Valerie wished that her enigmatic friend could know much more such happiness. The sorrow and resignation that she'd revealed in the hut in Kemet was heartbreaking as well as cryptic, and Val was sure that there had been more to that visitation than she understood. At that moment a metallic green hummingbird flitted past them on its way to a patch of honeysuckle.

"Ha! There goes Picus himself, the very one so many of these others came to find. Unfortunately, those hummingbirds have no call and can't speak in any language. Circe has quite a sense of humor," Kate chuckled to herself before muttering, "I almost feel bad about her nightmares, but it's only the due she's earned for indulging in too much of a good thing. Hehe. You should see what she did to pretty little Scylla."

Kate was still chuckling when she took Valerie's hand, and with a simple gesture, the barnyard disappeared.

It was night again, but instead of a pitch-black swamp, they were inside a torch-lit temple. The warm dry air was redolent of incense, circulating on a gentle breeze from pendant bronze censors hanging on chains. They were standing in the center of a wide stylobate of black granite, between the dipteral colonnades of the pteron. The columns were tall and massive, unadorned limestone shafts, rising from simple pedestals to capitols that supported lintels hidden in the shadows high overhead. At the far end of the space stood an altar of gold, and behind it a monstrous colossus representing a pagan deity. The polychrome idol bore three heads, dog, serpent, and horse, above a tripled female body draped in robes.

"You'll have to excuse the likeness," Kate told Valerie, who was staring at the statue with a disturbed sense of awe, "the ancients had rampant imaginations and a flare for the grandiose. I tell myself it was only for the purpose of overwhelming the worshippers."

At the front of the temple, a young woman wearing flowing robes walked in swiftly from a side entrance and stood before the altar. She thrust her arms upward in supplication and the hood fell away from her head, revealing long, pale blonde hair. The vampire guessed that she was about sixteen or seventeen and already heartbreakingly beautiful. She began a low chanting, but at their distance, Valerie couldn't make out the words.

"Medea, High Priestess of Colchis," Kate narrated, adding in an aside, "she's certainly come a long way from the little girl that we saw learning herbology on her aunt's farm. Medea seeks the guidance and blessings of her goddess." She resumed the translation, "I, Medea, blah, blah, blah…seek your counsel, O Hekate, of Titans born, patron of witches, guardian of the shadowed crossroads, and author of change, who is powerful in the heavens, on earth, and in the underworld, blah, blah, blah… I am guided by my heart to aid the purpose of the Argonauts, for my love is given to Jason. Yet if I follow my heart, I must act against my father, King Aeetes, and allow Jason to bear away the Golden Fleece to his homeland of Iolcus." Kate was smiling indulgently.

"Typical story of youthful rebellion combined with impulsive love," Kate commented, "and why does she ask for advice…her mind was made up the first time they did it."

Valerie had been listening to Kate, wondering why they were here. Her friend seemed to know Medea's motives, though that would be natural enough since she could read minds. The vampire took her eyes off the priestess and glanced around again, thinking, …and just look at this place! That statue is pretty nightmarish. I recognize the Golden Fleece and the Argonauts from some Greek mythology we studied in world history class. If I'm to believe what I'm seeing, it wasn't all just myth. So, there was an actual kernel of truth behind the story way back then. Who'd have believed it? Certainly not me.

While she'd been ruminating, Kate had walked off and was standing with her back to the altar in front of Medea. She was whispering rapidly to the priestess and the young woman was nodding, her posture revealing that her attention was intensely focused on Kate's words. So now what, Val wondered, is Kate giving her advice on how to become a star and make Euripides a rich man? As Valerie continued watching, Kate leaned forward and gave Medea a gentle kiss. The priestess responded with a desperate hug, then quickly fled back the way she'd originally come in. The scene made Val feel an unpleasant twinge of jealousy. That surprised her at first, but she quickly admitted to herself that she was becoming ever more attached to the Gothic woman. Before she could obsess over her feelings, Kate beckoned Valerie forward to join her at the altar.

"Well, I've sent her off on a great tragedy, I suppose," Kate said, seeming a bit pensive, "and I wouldn't have it any other way. Follow your heart and all that." Kate took Valerie's hand and this time she gave it a gentle squeeze. "Let's see how the tawdry affair progresses, shall we?" She made her now familiar gesture and the temple vanished.

"Corinth, 1,262 BC," Kate announced as they appeared inside a richly appointed palace hallway, "Jason and Medea have been exiled from his homeland of Iolcus after Medea arranged for the death of the usurper, King Pelias. In my opinion, he deserved it, but…ah well. Corinth was the home of Medea's father, King Aeetes, and her aunt, Circe, the redhead whom you met on the farm. I must say, sweet little Medea turned out to have a murderous streak; King Pelias, her own brother, Apsyrtus…and she's far from finished."

From somewhere nearby terrified screams broke out, along with yelling, cursing, and a general pandemonium. Kate rolled her eyes at the outburst of noise while several palace guards rushed past. A faint scent of smoke filtered through the air to their noses.

"Medea strikes again," Kate observed.

"What happened?" Valerie asked. She couldn't exactly remember the sequence of events she'd studied in her classes a decade before, but she knew it was going to be bad. The sudden onset of this new setting for half-recalled historic disasters drove her curiosity about the peculiar scene in the temple into the background of her consciousness.

"Well, betrayal and jealousy for starters, I suppose," Kate answered as she began to lead Valerie towards a chamber further down a passage. "You see, Medea really loved Jason, but after ten years together, he decided he wanted a younger woman. Of course, the fact that the younger woman is also a fellow royal Greek rather than a foreign witch encouraged his adultery. Today he was to marry Glauce, the daughter of King Creon of Corinth. I think that plan just went up in flames, so to speak," Kate chuckled, as several soldiers ran down the passage, leading Jason towards the disturbance.

"If I know Medea, and I think I do, she's used the old incendiary robe trick to immolate the bride." Kate and Valerie reached the chamber where the screaming had come from and gazed through the door at the aftermath. It had been the princess' dressing room, and it smelled like roast pork. The Goth nodded her head in approval, taking in the scene.

"I should say that Creon suffered much the same fate as his daughter," Kate observed, nodding to a pattern of ashes and grease stains on the floor that outlined a second body and was accompanied by a crown, "probably while trying to extinguish the flames."

The horror of the scene that Kate described so lightly was pretty upsetting to Valerie. Rich interiors in flames and immolated human remains had no place in her comfort zone. She noted that the bodies had been entirely consumed and she had to agree with Kate's opinion that the fire's origin wasn't natural. Accelerants, she thought in a stupefied daze, Medea must have used accelerants. The annoying recollection of a tabloid news story on spontaneous human combustion briefly intruded into her mind as well. The vampire watched the guards ineffectually stamping at the growing fire and trampling the charred remains of a wedding dress, while Jason cursed and moaned in bereavement from the sidelines. Valerie looked at Kate, who had the trace of a smile on her lips.

"Rather a drastic solution, I suppose," she admitted, before adding, "ahhh well, Jason intended bigamy. It's hardly heroic…he really should have known better."

Jason seemed to collect himself into a rage and stormed out the door past them, paying them no notice at all. They followed him at a distance, watching as he practically lunged into the last room opening onto the corridor.

When they got to the door they saw Jason reading from a scroll that had been left on a table beside the bed. Tears were running freely down the ex-hero's cheeks. The bed sheets were drenched in the darkening blood of two children, whose bodies lay with their throats cut. Valerie gasped in shock just as Jason crumpled the note and screamed at the top of his lungs. It was the throat-tearing howl of an animal's pain and anger. He screamed again, but this time the sentiment was more of hatred than of anguish, somehow a more primal human sound. Then he gathered the slain children into his arms and wept bitterly, stroking their stiffening backs and caressing their limp hair. The note lay forgotten on the tabletop and Kate moved to retrieve it, reading over the words hastily before handing it to Valerie. The vampire couldn't understand the letters and she gave Kate a questioning glance. Kate took back the note and explained.

"It's the original 'Dear Jason' breakup note. In so many words, Medea says that after giving the bride her wedding gift, she felt it only appropriate to leave something for the groom as well. At the same time, she thought it fitting that the gift should be symbolic of scorned love and her return to unmarried life, hence the killing of their children. She quotes the belief that the sins of the father are visited upon the sons, along with some other philosophical nonsense. She predicts that Jason will die beneath the wreckage of the Argo, his old ship, which was so instrumental in the genesis of their own love. Parallel symbolisms…how poetic. It's all rather nasty. Talk about burning your bridges behind you." She let the note fall to the floor and looked at the stunned Valerie, whose eyes were glued to the dead children and their grieving father. Kate shrugged and said, "It's Greece. Tragedy's a way of life here…hubris, the clash of wills and the fall of flawed heroes too big for their britches and all that. It provided grist for centuries of muses, I suppose."

Kate's blasé attitude disturbed Valerie almost as much as the killings. The extremes of the Goth's behavior seemed almost inhuman to the vampire. How could she be so caring at one moment and so callous the next? Val had seen both sides of her friend and she was having a hard time reconciling the behavioral disparities she'd witnessed. Could Kate suffer from MPD on top of everything else? Kate seemed to be displaying resignation or detachment in relation to the events they'd witnessed, as though none of it was a surprise and the best and worst events were both long familiar. Did she live with a dissociative complex, figuratively feeling nothing more than skin deep? This time Valerie honestly didn't know where to begin rationalizing away her discomfort. She was sincerely worried for Kate. She'd seen her sadness, her capacity for compassion, her enjoyment of nature, and she'd yet to see her do anything out of hatred or evil. But she had to wonder, could she truly feel anything deeply?

Outside the bedchamber, the sounds of panicky yelling voices, pounding footfalls, and spreading flames were increasing. Guards were running back and forth down the corridor and the smell of smoke was spreading fast.

"Enough of this," Kate declared, taking Valerie's hand, "Medea is long gone and on her way to Athens." With a wave of dismissal, the room disappeared. It was only then that Valerie idly noticed that Kate's familiar ring was absent from her finger.

To Be Continued