Hello, again, and welcome to a new chapter of this story! I'm sorry for taking so long, writers block is a bitch... Also, I'm having second thoughts about a Sherlock fic I'm writing, but I don't think anyone cares, and I have no idea why I'm writing that... Oh, and my little brother is now officially a marine! Yay! You don't care, anyways! Man, I'm bored... anywho, here goes nothin'!

ch. 10

Harry found himself alone. Worried, and alone. He hated that. It would be very nice if he could have gone with Bob into the radio, but then again, he'd have to be dead, and then what good could he do?

He could tell something was wrong. The problem was, he didn't know if he wanted to ask him about it or not. The Merlin thing, though, that was the kicker. He didn't like coming back to it when everything else seemed so uncomfortable, but it kept popping back into his head. Repeatedly. Eventually, it consumed his thoughts to the point that he couldn't continue looking at the medical files in his hands, and decided ultimately that he was going to look some stuff up about him while Bob was gone. If everyone thought he was being trained by the man, there had to be more than just presumption, right? To the books, then.

Dropping the files on the table in front of him, he got up and went to the lab. From the shelves within, he pulled down every book he could think of that had some sort of mention of Merlin or even Arthur in it. He found a lot. Way too much, in fact, but he thought he might be able to handle looking some things up before Bob got back if he could just figure out the most important bits. Some books didn't have much to say about him, other than what everyone knew. He could see the future, he was the one that told Uther what to do with Arthur when he was a baby, got the sword in the stone set up, had him pull it out, yadda yadda, and so on and so forth. Apparently, he was capable of things Harry had never even heard of otherwise. But it wasn't anything no one else knew about to some degree.

And then... He was gone.

There was a huge amount of conflicting stories in regards to this. The lady from the lake, who had given Arthur Excalibur, on Merlins' request, of course, apparently seduced him so that she could learn his spells, and then imprisoned him... Somewhere. There was the idea that he was in the sky, or the water, or that he was trapped in a tree somewhere, and then there was the most believable one, which was that he died in battle and was buried somewhere near Arthur, so that he could return with him when it was time for them to come back.

But all of these things pointed in the same direction. That he was just... gone. Since the records he had weren't in the best condition or order, he couldn't tell when this happened, though, so he had no real way of telling if it actually had been true. Of course, if he really had intentionally blacked himself out for whatever reason, and had changed his name to Duncan, then wouldn't people still have recognized him? Unless it had happened so long before then that no one remembered what he looked like... But if that was so, then how old was he, exactly? Was he immortal or something? There wasn't anything that said that...

He gave up. The only way he might be able to find anything out about him that wasn't already known or skewed in all sorts of different directions would be to look into the Records. And now the only person he knew of who could look into them and who would do so at his request was dead. Or at least gone. A new surge of anger welled up at this thought, and he clenched a hand into a fist. He was going to find who had commissioned those things to do what they did, and he was going to make them pay.

His anger made him slam one of the books he'd been perusing shut, and it caused some others to fall on the floor. Groaning, he bent to pick them up. He had gotten most of them through inheritance, and had kept as many as he had because he wanted to burn as few as possible. He had felt at the time that he had to burn Bobs' grimoire so that he himself wouldn't be tempted to use it, and also because he was of the opinion that his uncle had used so much of it's contents that they might as well have been written by him. In hindsight, he did feel sort of bad for burning it, but it was something he couldn't reverse.

As a result of his inheriting the books instead of buying them, some were incredibly old. This was emphasized by the fact that one of them, the one that hit the floor hardest, fell apart, and some of it's pages flew away from it, across the floor. He sighed, put the others back on the table, and then began the laborious process of finding the pages and putting them back in order, which really sucked, since they weren't even numbered, which showed the age of the book right there. After what felt like an hour or more, he was about to put that book back on the table as well, until he noticed something. Two or three of the pages had slid under a nearby bookshelf. Thinking nothing of this, he went to retrieve these as well, and then saw something that caught his eye. Behind the shelves, jammed between the back of the lowest one and the wall, was a small, dusty volume of something. He stared at it for a bit, not sure why. It was probably one of the ones he had had, but never read, so it shouldn't really matter, but he just kept staring at it. Glancing up at the desk, he placed the papers on top of the book that had lost them, and then reached as far back as his arm would stretch, having to keep the rest of his body flat just to go far enough. When he could just brush it with the tips of his fingers, but couldn't reach any further, he let out a puff of air, then focused a spell at it so it flew to his hand. Flew being a metaphorical word, of course, he just made it un-stick itself and move forward a few centimeters.

Looking at it in slight confusion, he got back up, turning it over in his hands. It was about the right size and shape for a journal of sorts, and it looked incredibly old. There were no markings on it, and the binding consisted of a few cords holding it together. The back cover was missing. There was only one loose page here, and he found himself carefully opening the book to that page in order to put it back. As he did this, the page opposite this one caught his eye. There was a drawing here, something he had never seen before.

In the bottom corner, and occasionally at the ends of some little lines pointing to various different parts of the object, like a diagram, were a few letters in a writing he felt he recognized. He couldn't place where he had seen it before, though, or what the letters were. They were partially faded, and hard to make out beyond a certain point. The drawing, however, was interesting, and he wanted to know what exactly it was here for. It was just a piece of jewelry. He glared at the letters in the corner, and at the ones around the picture, as though willing them to translate themselves.

When this had no effect, he dropped it on the table in annoyance, and decided to go back to his search about all things Merlin, in case he had missed something, struck by a sudden inexplicable urge to continue.

X

Traveling through radio waves was a strange state to be in. He was still aware of himself, of course, but there was also the knowledge that he was no longer in his usual form. This was not a problem. He went on.

It was possible to get to know other spirits through this method of travel, and over the years, Bob was pleased to say he had made some friends here and there, though there were not very many. Normally, if he wasn't so worried, or if the situation weren't so urgent, he might have stopped to visit some of the others, or even messed around with some ghost hunting team using a spirit box, or whatever they called them. Those little things that scanned a few hundred radio stations at exactly the same time, normally resulting in what was just a lot of loud noise resembling static, unless some spirit or other got bored or wanted to convey a message. In that case, they would talk to them through the waves in question, and sometimes the result of this was hilarious, depending on who was listening, or what they had said. Usually a lot of cries of oh my God and jumping around in some cases... Stupid, really, but fun all the same.

Right now, however, he had no interest in this. He was looking for some sign of anything at all that might tell him what was going on. He was worried, however, that he didn't need to look for it, that he already knew exactly what he was looking for. Eventually, to his shock, he found it after about an hour of traveling.

They had kept the radio on here for a reason.

He knew that.

In fact, he wouldn't be surprised if they had done so to find him, not at all. Someone would be expecting him, if he knew. And he suspected that he did. They were waiting for him.

He would make no noise, and would try to enter their wavelength as subtly as he possibly could. He had no real choice, if he wanted to ultimately confirm his fears.

It was on the lowest volume setting. It was sitting on a shelf of some sort, in a building that was either abandoned or simply empty at the moment. He could not see the same way he did back home, but in a sort of haze. Dark shapes against a fuzzy background, like a television that wasn't on the right setting.

There was a man in a chair. He was tied to it, and didn't appear to be conscious. Being extremely careful, he reached the signal out a tad bit more, just enough so he could tell something about the person. It was the equivalent of hiding behind a wall, or in a closet, and peering out between the slats or around the corner. He was pleased to note that it didn't seem to make any noise. He did his best to try to figure out who he was looking at. If the recent fight in the alley was any indication, he had an idea... Yes. He had only met the man once, maybe twice, and did not know him well, but he could recall the feeling of what he was. Fay, approximately three hundred or so years old, and currently bleeding a bit, very weak, and barely awake. Chris. He had found Harrys' friend.

He waited.

He knew they were expecting him. The radio wouldn't be on if they weren't. He simply would have to try and make it so they didn't know he was here. Finding him would be very bad, indeed.

It was some time before anyone came in. He toned himself down, ducking behind his metaphorical wall. He listened and watched the static.

And there he was. He was alone as far as he could tell. Normally, he would have thought that foolish, but he knew him too well for that. He stood in front of Chris and spoke.

"You really thought you could help him? Really?" Whatever was said in response to this was too weak for him to hear. "What? Sorry?" He crouched down in front of the chair and looked up into the face above his. "Say again?"

God, his voice was weak... "I did. He knows."

"Oh, DOES he? All of it?"

"Yes."

He looked down, probably licking his lips the way he sometimes did when annoyed. It was disgusting to Bob that he could still remember this all well enough to picture it. He looked back up, and grabbed his face, ignoring the whimper this resulted in.

"I don't think you di-id," he said, the last word in a singsong voice. "No, I don't think you told him EVERYTHING at ALL, sir." He shook his head, then got up very quickly, violently jerking Chris' head to the side as he let go of him. He began walking about the room, coming very close to the radio, and it was all Bob could do not to angrily try to jump the man, which, in his current state, would have been impossible to do in any case. The more he heard him speak, the more angry he became, now that he was here in front of him. And yet, he was still irrevocably afraid of him as well. Damn him.

"Because, you see, if you had told him absolutely everything, then he would have figured it out by now, wouldn't he, Aeolith? Yes, he would have, and then that wouldn't have been at all pleasant for any of us, I should think. I mean, we would still win, but it wouldn't play out even remotely the same way as I would have liked."

That was how he could hold him. The man knew his real name... How the hell had he figured that one out?

"You won't win," Chris said hoarsely, "The others will see to that."

The man stopped somewhere, picking at something on a shelf or a bureau of some kind. He laughed.

"You honestly think that they'll even try? I have the leash in my hand, they can't do a damned thing! All I have to do with some of them is say that they have a lovely wife, or husband, or child, or any other relative they care for in the right tone of voice, and give them a taste of what I can do, and they shut right up and do exactly as I say. It's quite easy, you know, treating them like the cattle they are. So simple..."

"That means nothing. There are others who can stop you."

"Oh, PLEASE! You are bleeding and tied to a CHAIR! Now is no time to bother with that sort of thing, darling, really it isn't. Especially since you helped me get started in the first place, don't you think? Little bit... Oh, what's the word..." He snapped his fingers, trying to remember the word he had wanted to use.

"You tricked me! I would NEVER have done ANY of that had I known!"

"Oh, now, see you made me forget the word I was going to use... Oh, but you know what I meant, don't you? Of course you do."

Silence, probably accompanied by a glare of some kind.

With a small laugh that suggested he was giving a tight-lipped smile, he went back to the man on the chair and crouched in front of him again. "You're in my band, now, Aeolith. Whether you want to be or not, and I suggest you stick to it lest you loose everything you ever had."

"What I have means nothing to me. Not now."

There was an ominous pause. "No," he said quietly, "I don't see how it could. But I can MAKE it worth something to you. All I need is the last bit of information needed to get what I want. All you have to do is tell me how to get it. That's it. You can travel between worlds as you please, I, despite my power, cannot, and all I need you to do is fetch me the last bit." During this speech, he had stood up, and was walking about again. Now he came back to the chair and paused next to it to whisper in it's occupants' ear. "I can give you your precious sister. I can bring her back. I can give you that one thing, that one, little thing, that means so very much to you. You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

"...Yes."

"I knew you would. And I can get that one thing for you if you just... Tell me..."

He looked right into his eyes, never, ever a good idea with people like this, and said, very certainly, "No."

Clearly, he was shocked. But he did a very good job of coming back from this. A pause, which never meant anything pleasant, and then he straightened out. More silence for a bit, and then, "Fine. Very well. But I'm sure we can come to some agreement sooner or later." Back in his face again, from the front. "I would normally kill you now, boy. But... I think I'll keep you for just a little longer... I might need you for bait... It's alright, though. I have other ways of getting the Amulet." He stood as he said this, and then Bob went cold, if that was at all possible, as he turned and looked directly at the radio... And smiled. "Very good ways... In fact."

He saw him. He didn't know how, but he saw him, and he knew just where he had to look to be looking directly into where his eyes would be. He backed away, and shot off as fast as he was allowed. He needed to get back to Harry, and he needed to explain to him what he could... He knew what he was after now, and he knew what it would cause.

X

Once he was far enough out, the man who had smiled at the radio dropped a shield that had been up, just the right kind to keep the ghost from sensing the other presence in the room.

"Follow him. Confirm their location is exactly where it's said to be, and then asses what type of defenses are in use, if any. If you must observe for a few days, keep it to as few as possible. Then come back here and inform me. We'll move from there." As he said this, he put on a coat from a nearby rack, and now, finishing putting on the gloves that went with it, he left the room.

The entity did as it was told.