A/N: Your feedback has been tremendous. Thank you so much for all your wonderful comments and your encouragement with this story. I'm grateful that you have stayed with me as it has twisted and turned, that you, too, like Thoth and the Morrigan, and above all that you're still reading. You people rock. Special greetings to all my new readers. Welcome to what I privately call "the crazy train." (Ozzy don't sue me.)

"Before you begin on the journey of revenge, dig two graves." ~ Proverb

"An eye for an eye would make the whole world blind."~ Mahatma Gandhi

"Revenge is a confession of pain"~ Latin Proverb quotes

For a moment the three stood frozen in balance, and the only sound was the pattering of water into the fountain. Then the Red Death began to laugh. It was a sound full of insanity and menace, and Mary could feel chills racing up her spine even through the incredible anger surging through her.

"Well, well, lookit what we got here. Two for the price of one. You'll want to be leaving though, bird boy. My fight is not with you unless you force my hand."

Marshall shifted his grip on the spear and took a cautious step forward to stand between Mary and the ghost. "If your fight is with her, your fight is with me."

Holy hell. That's Marshall? You mean I was looking at him half the night and I didn't even recognize him? What IS that costume? Again, Mary felt a flicker of deep recognition blaze up, that feeling like meeting an old acquaintance but not being able to retrieve the name.... She turned her attention back to the grinning skull in front of her. More urgent matters at hand. Figure that out later.

The ghost opened his hands with a theatrical flourish. "I can just as easily end two of you as one, little bird, but again I warn you, my fight is not with you. Go away and live."

Marshall continued to block the ghost's path. "I think not. I don't know exactly what the hell you think she did to you but..."

The scarlet figure lunged forward, anger rolling off it in waves that were very nearly tangible. "Think? THINK?! I'll have you fucking KNOW that what I said is true! She was as much a part of my death as if she'd pulled the damn trigger herself!" The Red Death shook, plume quivering with the force of its emotions.

"Those are some pretty strong words coming from an anonymous figure hiding in a costume," sneered Mary who was edging toward the hedge shears she'd seen earlier. Almost got them...just a few more feet... The inner voice of the Morrigan urged her forward, and silver flickered at the edges of her vision as she felt every sinew of her being filled with a readiness to strike.

"I can satisfy your curiosity with two words. Daniel Morales."

Mary's careful progress toward her makeshift weapon stopped, and the Morrigan's voice silenced in her head. Marshall saw her color visibly pale, even in the moonlight. "Wh-what? What did you say? That's not possible..."

The Red Death took a gliding step forward, ignoring Marshall despite his presence with the long black spear. "I think you know it is. I think you know it's me."

Daniel Morales...it can't be... Mary's mind raced back four years to the troubled young man who couldn't obey any of the rules of WITSEC, who had called death to his own door with his poor decisions and irrational behavior despite all she had done to protect him from himself and others.

His mother and father had brought him into the program with them when his own older brother had gotten mixed up with a local group of outlaws and turned killer. Daniel had lived in staunch denial. He'd blamed his parents, blamed the government, blamed everyone except his brother, especially when WITSEC had been forced to relocate the family so far from everything Daniel had known and held dear. He'd run away twice in the first month of their time in Albuquerque forcing Mary to hunt him and bring him home.

He'd gone so far as to contact secretly that brother he'd worshiped his whole life, despite all the warnings of law enforcement and his parents, despite all common sense and sense of self-preservation, and he'd told his murderous sibling where to find them believing that his brother would "rescue" him. Mary would never forget entering the tiny house to find them all lying close together in the living room where they had been made to kneel before being shot through the head twice, one by one. The coroner said that Daniel had been the last to die. Mary knew his brother who had become one of the creatures of nightmare would have appreciated the sick irony of that, of making him watch, of giving him hope that he would, at last, be saved, before turning the gun on him in the end. She'd always wondered if Daniel had understood what he'd done, had always prayed that somehow he'd been spared that at least....

"Daniel," her voice was weak at first, and she had to clear her throat, "Daniel, you know I tried to keep you alive. You know I tried to save you...."

The Red Death tilted his head as though listening to a far-away sound, then the skull shook sadly. "No. No, Marshal. I'm not listening to any more lies. He told me whose fault it all was before he did it. He explained why he wasn't going to take me. He said it was because I was just like them. A traitor. He wouldn't listen, you see. Even when I told him I tried to get away from them." His tone was petulant, childlike, a little kid denied a desired treat in the middle of a toy store, tantrum imminent. The effect of that voice from that face was somehow even more horrid. Suddenly, the malice came back. "And that's YOUR fault. Yours. So, I've been waiting patiently. And tonight is my chance. I was told. Told. Tonight is my night of vengeance. Say goodbye, Marshal." And he leapt up high into the air toward her.

---

The voice inside Mary's head screamed. It was not fear. It was the sound of metal tearing, of the fabric of reality being shredded in a brutal silver-clawed hand. Mary tasted blood in her mouth, and energy tingled through her arms and legs. As the phantasm pounced, the Morrigan melded with her, took over her already-battle-honed instincts. She hurled herself forward into the air to meet her foe, teeth bared, fingers curling with their gleaming tips.

They met and clashed before they could land. Mary felt a savage gladness singing through her as she struck out at the horrid face in front of her. She shrieked curses at it as she slashed with the claws of one hand while bringing her other fist across in a hard, fast cross. She was completely unaware that the curses falling from her lips were not English, not any form of any language that had been spoken in thousands of years....

As Marshall watched her fly toward her assailant, he found himself able to understand her perfectly, and despite the absolute seriousness of the situation he felt a thread of amusement that she should be cursing in an ancient language and that he should be able to translate it effortlessly. No matter how weird it gets or what outside forces get involved, with us, I guess some things are always going to stay completely the same...

Marshall began looking for some way to assist Mary, some way to strike at the Red Death, but the figures in scarlet and black were now circling and striking at one another in a blur of motion. Too fast, too fast! I can't get in there to help her... That stately, tranquil voice came to him again, and suddenly he knew what to do. Stepping forward, he waved the spear slightly in a circular motion, and it seemed to him that the world took a deep breath and released it slowly. He looked around, slightly dazed. Mary and the Red Death were fighting at a speed that seemed more normal, more mortal to his eyes. The fountain's spray hung in the dim light of the conservatory like tiny shimmering diamonds flung skyward, hanging impossible moments at their zenith before beginning their downward descent slow as feathers gliding in an airless room.

The Red Death caught Mary in the abdomen with a harsh blow, and Marshall saw her bear her teeth, heard the hiss of her escaping breath. She stumbled back a few steps and hunched over, clutching her belly. Marshall stepped forward in alarm, but no sooner had the Red Death lunged after her to pursue his advantage than Marshall and he both learned it was a ruse. Mary nimbly stood and struck out with a strong kick, catching the grinning skull squarely. It was the Red Death's turn to fall back, black hat fluttering to the pebble-covered ground behind them.

But this was no mortal creature they fought, and it was not dazed a moment. The kick that would have disabled a human made the ghost of the pitiful deluded boy who had been Daniel Morales do no more than stagger backwards. He was back on Mary moments later, a deep and inhuman growl issuing from between the teeth of the death's head. The two struggled, and although Marshall looked for some opening to strike with the spear, he could find no moment when he did not fear he would hit Mary by accident.

Suddenly, Morales wrapped his hands around Mary's throat driving her to her knees. He began to squeeze painfully, and Marshall yelled, "NO!" He was moments from stepping in, from throwing down the spear, and grabbing the red specter, but suddenly Mary's eyes met his, and he saw her shake her head minutely. She glanced from Morales to the spear, and suddenly Marshall understood. He shifted his grip on it and prepared. Something was about to happen.....

---

As she fought, Mary reached deep down inside herself to that shimmering pool of black and silver, the source of the voice she'd heard all night, and she cried out for help. I don't know who or what you are or even if you are, but I could sure use a little help here if you're real.

Dark laughter tinged with silver bells.... "You know I'm real. Don't play that game. It honors neither of us. And you don't have to ask, daughter. Take what you need. I give it gladly. You are worthy. And also, that...abomination...offends me."

Mary felt a mighty surge go through her, and despite the force the Red Death was exerting in trying to choke her, she suddenly looked up at it, and she smiled. The ghost of Daniel Morales, a thing undead and unafraid, strong and arrogant with that strength, had just enough time to register that something had changed, that the eyes of the human woman in front of him were not human at all, had gone silver somehow like tarnished mirrors before the rules of the game as he knew it dissolved like paper in water.

Mary pushed upward, broke his hold, hurled him backward through the air toward the place where Marshall stood waiting. Mary advanced on him, teeth still bared in that feral grin, eyes still mirror-silvered, and the thing that had once been a boy shrieked in rage and confusion.

"You should be dying. Dying! No. NO! I was told. Told! Promised!"

Marshall tossed the spear to her because it suddenly felt the right thing to do, saw Mary's hand snap out automatically for it although she did not turn her head to trace its flight.

"Yeah? Well, things don't always turn out the way you plan them, Daniel." She came a little closer, and the figure on the ground scurried backward just a bit, scuttling like an insect trying to escape as she spun the spear toward him.

"Besides, something you should have thought about before you started this," her voice changed, became something not her own, became deeper, older, differently cadenced. "The Queen of Death does not die, boy, especially not at the hands of the likes of you." And with a movement like a lightning strike, the silver head of the spear struck the place where a heart should have been. A piercing wail filled the glass conservatory, and a reddish ball of light appeared at the end of the spear.

Marshall felt an urging from the deep voice inside his head, and he stepped forward. He reached down and cupped his hands around the red ball of light, and he heard the shrieking rise in pitch and terror as it diminished in brightness. The orb struggled against his hands like a large firefly darting madly. He held it firmly, though, and its struggles began to diminish. Gradually, there was no more than a fading ember that weakly pulsated. He lifted that in his palm and closed his hand around it, extinguishing it completely. He heard the deep, calm voice in his head sigh. The water from the fountain suddenly began to fall at its normal speed again.

"And so his heart must now be weighed and measured, will now be rewarded or devoured. It is not always a happy job to stand at the judging of the dead. I must go with him although the escorting of the departed usually belongs to another. Since I have him, I will take him to the judgment seat for better or worse now."

Marshall's head was spinning. He felt the vast power lifting from his shoulders like a warm cloak being drawn away, and he removed the mask at last. He couldn't help but send his thoughts after it once, questioningly, Thoth? Really?

There was a sense of amusement and a momentary tingling return of that calm vastness. "Of course. Who else?"

But...but...why?

"Because you chose me...because you chose us....and we chose you in return...."

And there was a brief and lovely brightness like moonlight on white wings and the presence was gone.

---

Mary felt a savage gladness when the tip of the spear drove through her scarlet-clad enemy and bit deep into the hard-packed earth below the loose pebbles. The head of the spear was driven in all the way up to the shaft. She fought the urge to throw her head back and scream in joy at the defeat of her foe.

"It feels good, does it not, daughter? Feels good to destroy that which tries to destroy you. To control that which tries to control you. For a thousand thousands, I have given those who are mine the might and the strength to end their enemies."

Yeah, it feels good. It feels....RIGHT. Like I was made for this.

"Don't think you weren't. I recognize my own. I would never come to one who was not worthy." Mary felt those tingles of power play across her, somehow soothing like a hand across her hair in a rough caress.

"But now, Mary Shannon, it is time to step away from the battle. The foe is defeated, and there is one here whom you need and who needs you. His bird has flown, and the time is at hand for me to take wing as well." Mary felt the prickles of silver lightning begin to gentle, begin to die down, and she pulled the spear from the ground as she began to become aware of the room around her again. Marshall was staring up at the moonlight streaming through the glass roof as if he was watching something in the night sky, a look of pure wonder on his face.

"A part of me stays with you, daughter of the Morrigan. A part of me has always been in your soul. When you need me, you will find me again." Mary felt the last of the dark power inside her flutter, coalesce, take flight with the rush of a thousand dark wings, exploding up and out of her. The doors of the conservatory banged open, shattering one of the panes of glass, and Mary suddenly collapsed to sit down hard on the ground, exhausted by the incredible events of the evening.

Marshall rushed over to check on her, squatting beside her. "Mary?" His voice was hushed, quiet, awed. "Mary, are you okay? Look at me for a second, Mare." He put his hands on her shoulders, gently feeling her arms and face, looking, Mary knew, for wounds or injuries that had gone unnoticed. His eyes searched hers.

In response, Mary pulled him forward, unbalancing him to make him fall forward and collide with her. Tired and off his best game from the events of the evening himself, he tumbled into her, bracing his weight on his hands as best he could as she fit her mouth to his for a sudden and searing kiss.

I'm alive and he's alive and I'm me and he's him and we're okay and I don't know what in heaven or hell or wherever all of this shit tonight was but I'm alive and he's alive and we're okay and that's all that's important.....

His hands slipped around her, pulled her into his strong arms, and a few moments later he leaned her back onto the path, leaned over her to deepen the kiss, become lost in it as the joy of survival and the desire and need that were always between them bloomed, his fingers tangling gently in the intricate braids of her hair. As the moonlight and the spray from the fountain fell down on them both, she couldn't remember a time when she'd felt more perfectly safe or more perfectly comfortable with anyone than here on a pebbled path next to a muddy spear that had slain a troubled spirit, the masks of all-too-active ancient gods of dead civilizations, and the pieces of a shattered window pane.

---

They were lost in the world that sprung up around them whenever they touched, whenever their lips met, and so they did not hear at first the sounds of Bobby D.'s concerned calls coming from outside the conservatory. Marshall had her beneath him; his hands had found the silver-decorated hem of Mary's tunic and were eagerly caressing her strong, bare thighs from knee to hip. His mouth was trailing hot, wet kisses over her arched neck, and her busy hands, still silver-clawed in their Morrigan gloves, had slipped under the loose linen of the upper part of his costume to trace lightly over the muscles of his back, making him shiver against her. It wasn't until Bobby was outside the main conservatory door that his presence registered.

"Dammit all to hell," groaned Mary, as she felt Marshall jolt in startled realization at the same moment. He laid his head against her shoulder for just a second, his hands tightening on her thighs as though he wasn't going to let her go.

"I am so tired," he said in a level whisper, "of being interrupted. I think we're setting some kind of new record for this."

Mary smiled and ran her hands over his hair to smooth it down gently. He looked up at her, and the frustration and desire gleaming in his eyes she knew were mirrored in her own. Unable to resist it, she pressed a fast kiss to his lips and pulled back. With a sigh, she said, "You're going to have to get up, you know."

Again, there was that dangerous tightening of his fingers on her legs, and this time he slid his palms to the inside of her thighs and started to bring them slowly upward. "Don't have to... Could let Bobby D. find us like this. Besides...." he looked at her and raised that brow, devilish. "I could argue that parts of me are up...."

Mary was well aware of that, and it was part of her frustration. She ignored that and him, tried valiantly to ignore the path his hands were exploring slowly, slowly up her thighs and back down, inching ever closer to where she needed him....

"Look. You need to stop that right now or Bobby D. is going to have all kinds of stories to tell back down at the station house tonight." She grabbed at one of his hands, but he snatched it back out of her grasp and looked at her with an unholy light suddenly glittering in the depths of his eyes.

"You know what, Mare? Now that I think about it, I'm not sure you get to tell me what to do right now." A slow and totally evil grin spread across his face and he brought both of his hands up to pin hers by her head, leaning his weight into her.

"Wha—What the hell are you talking about?" She was distracted both by the fact that Bobby D. had to be somewhere nearby and by the impressive erection straining against her belly. Oh dammit! Go the hell away, Bobby D.! I wonder if I could just yell out, "Hey! We're all fine in here. Don't come in. I'm about to fuck my teasing partner right through the floor. Nothing to see in here. Toodle-loo!"

"It seems to me a bet was won tonight...." Marshall was nuzzling her neck, her ear, just beside her mouth.

Her mind was misting over, clouds before the moon. She couldn't think. "The bet? You're saying...you're saying you won? But you didn't unmask me...." He brought his inquisitive and distracting exploration down to the lowcut neckline of the tunic, to the exposed tops of her breasts. Where is Bobby D.? What the hell is he doing? And do I care? No, I do not....

Marshall laughed softly at her statement, and she felt the little puffs of air against skin that was growing increasingly hot. "Didn't I? Why do you think I came out here to the conservatory? I knew who you were all night long. I unmasked you five minutes after I arrived, sweet Morrigan Mary, sweet Phantom Queen..." He pressed a gentle kiss to the swell of one breast and looked up to meet her eyes. She felt a shiver trace through her at the heat she saw in his.

"Marshall, you have to let me up. Bobby D...."

"Yeah. Bobby D. is coming. You're right. You're absolutely right." He pressed another kiss to the curve of her other breast, still gentle, still soft, still watching her reactions. "But before I let you up, I'm going to hear you say that I won." Her head fell back. She tugged to free her hands from his grip, but he tightened it fractionally, continued to press those little exploring kisses along the bodice of the tunic.

"Why? Why are you doing this now?" she managed.

He brought his mouth back up near her ear. "Because I know how these folk tales go. If you don't get a promise from the goddess before you let her go, she won't do what you want her to. She'll wiggle out of it somehow. You have to get her word while you have her in your power," he murmured, began to work his way slowly down her neck. Kiss, nuzzle. Kiss, suck. Kiss, nibble, kiss. How does he know how to find every spot that makes my toes curl...Oh God, he's going to drive me out of my mind.... She could hear the sound of footsteps on gravel coming closer.

"Okay...okay...Je-sus, Marshall...okay.... you win. You win. Just...please...please..." She wasn't sure what she was asking for anymore, and Marshall was smiling in triumph as he slid his mouth over hers for a last deep kiss. Her mouth voraciously sought his, and he met it with a need that matched her own and inflamed her further. For a moment, they allowed themselves free reign. He slid his hands from her wrists up to lace his fingers with her own, enjoying the way hers instantly gripped his tightly.

A moment later, they heard Bobby D. calling out from a short distance away, and they pulled away from one another. Their breath was coming irregularly, and as they stood up, they fought to calm down and to fix the damage done to their costumes by the battle and by rolling around on the pebbled path. Oddly enough, though, the costumes were not even so much as wrinkled. Both of them had seen far too much this night to even be phased by such a minor miracle, though, and they quickly continued to gather their masks and gear. Mary smoothed her hair into place, grabbed up her cloak and swung it around her, the great black wings of it settling just as Bobby D. and one of his fellow officers entered the heart of the conservatory.

So...that wraps up a few things. More to come. R&R, dahlings. Your responses keep me going.