Chapter 27: Eric Sees Colors
A/N: See prologue for disclaimers/warnings, Alias notes
Lestat: Evil is a point of view. God kills indiscriminately and so shall we. For no creatures under God are as we are, none so like him as ourselves. ---Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
"Injustice is relatively easy to bear; what stings is justice." -- H. L. Mencken
Chapter 27: Eric Sees Colors
INITIATIVE COMPOUND, DARIEN RAIN FOREST, PANAMA
They emerged at last, Dawn looking pale and quiet, Dr. Fields looking raw and bilious, Harris looking pale himself, shaking, his bloody hands held out in front of him, Faith with her arms around his waist, pressing against him as if trying to share a little slayer healing through osmosis, yelling for someone to bring the first aid kit and the redhead, Willow, beat Weiss to it and ran forward, her voice scolding,
"Xander Harris, what on…." Only to have Faith cut her off,
"Don't, Red, not now, just…. not now. Fix him."
And a grim-faced Buffy came last, dragging a battered and unconscious Dr. Martin by one leg like an old doll, which she dropped and let lay as soon as she left the building.
Weiss looked around and saw all the junior slayers staring, startled to see their leaders shaken. Then Buffy took over,
"Dawn," she said, "what do we have to do to get out of here?"
"Caridad," Dawn said, coming out of her stupor, "tell the villagers they can raid the living-quarters. Anything they want, it's theirs. Tell them to start getting ready to move out. Send a couple girls around to the planes, see if they can find some working compasses and some maps and hand those out. And get a headcount. Vi, grab your squad, join the looting party, grab any half-way useful looking books and pile them with the others… let me rephrase, stack them or face the unending complaint of Giles. Mr. Weiss, would you give me a hand in the computer room, please?"
As he started after Dawn Weiss glanced back, saw Faith pull her gaze away from Harris' hands, look around at the sudden activity and grin, she said,
"Nicely done, B." and Weiss watched Buffy duck her head and do the cutest 'Ah, shucks' smile.
"I've been working on my delegation," she said.
"Mr. Weiss?" Dawn said.
"Coming."
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SOMEWHERE NOT AT ALL NICE
Holding the torch out over the water Tippin could see why the …. really quite inflammable man with the big teeth … had brought the girl down to the cavern. White bones gleamed in the firelight, piles of femurs and tibias, humeri and radii, skulls and scattered ribs.…. He pulled the torch back, mesmerizing though the sight was, there was no need to dwell on it or draw the girl's attention.
She was better now. She'd had a brief bout of the all-body shakes, slumping against him as he took the torch in one hand and held her with the other, his nudity wholly irrelevant under the circumstances. But she'd pulled herself together, and now stood watching as he inspected the walls that did indeed show signs of a regularly changing water level…. tides, he chose to believe. Tippin breathed a sigh of relief. There was a passage to an ocean, the question just was whether it was wide and short enough to swim. There was a ledge about a foot below the surface, Tippin tested it, found it solid, held out his hand to help the girl join him.
"I'm Will," he said, "Will Tippin." Smiling as he realized it hadn't even occurred to him to use his new "protected" name. Jonas had a boring 9 to 5 in Milwaukee, he didn't get kidnapped and end up naked in a Colombian cave. Shit like this only happened to Will Tippin.
"I am Leonì," the girl said, enunciating her English carefully. "I am very pleased to meet you."
They worked their way around the rock wall until they came to the far side of the cavern where the water still seemed to glow a little. He held the torch out over the surface and looked down but could not see a floor. He looked back at the girl,
"I guess it's this or going back," he said.
"I am a very good swimmer," she said and without further discussion dropped the remaining rags of the dress she was wearing, said a prayer, took three deep breaths, then a fourth and held it and she dived. He held the torch low over the water, hoping there was enough light to guide her if she needed to come back. He counted slowly to four hundred. Five hundred. She was either through, part fish, or drowned. If it wasn't for the discarded dress he would have already begun to wonder if she hadn't been purely a figment of his imagination, not unlike the mysterious burning man. As it was, he was afraid that any moment now he'd wake up in his cell.
He looked for a place to affix the torch but could find no crevice in the rock big enough to hold it. He eased himself off the ledge and hung in the water, breathing deeply, trying to carefully orient himself. He took a last deep breath, dropped the torch, duck-dived and swam for his life.
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PANAMA CITY
"Bring Mr. Sark in please," Irina said into the intercom. Years of practice kept her exterior calm, controlled, but her heart was beating wildly. The abyss had opened, she still teetered on the brink.
She had misplayed it badly. She had treated Sydney as an agent first and a daughter second, she had won the battle and lost the war… or almost. There was hope yet…
Trust. If she had trusted Sydney when she should have…. Even now they could have been together, her, Jack and Sydney, celebrating the defeat of the Initiative, laughing at Sydney's victory over Arvin. Planning the trip to retrieve the book.
But trust was something that had been crushed out of Irina Derevko long ago.
Even now she was tempted to hold onto Tippin, no matter Sydney's bravado she knew as long as she held Tippin she would control Sydney. Once he was released, she would be at her daughter's mercy. Sydney could change her mind, no doubt for some good and noble she reason, she might decide the book was too dangerous, that Rambaldi was a madness she needed to save her mother from… she might do something stupid like turn it over to the CIA or maybe even the Watchers. And that would be the end.
But Irina understood now, at last, that Sydney was not lying, if something happened to Tippin … there would be no forgiveness. Not even in return for longevity. She would have no daughter. And where Sydney went, Jack followed. She had learned that hell existed, she had in fact learned that there were many … And the hell where she existed knowing she had had their love in her grasp and lost it out of fear and weakness, that was a hell she really didn't want to live in.
She had tried, lord knows, to forget them, to sever Laura Bristow and all who sailed in her from her life. She'd had men, she'd had life and death adventures in dark alleys and glittery ballrooms, and yet instead of fading, year by year Sydney's absence from her life grew larger, left a bigger empty place. More and more she thought of Jack in the wee hours, held long pointless conversations with his image….
It made no sense to her. It wasn't mere biology, she'd seen parents do horrible things to their children without a twinge of conscience. She'd seen women fall desperately in love, hanging on some man's every word and gesture, and six months later have trouble remembering his name. Yet she was stuck.
C'est la vie. And all was not lost. There was a chance yet. Tippin would be freed, unharmed. Sydney would have time to understand her motivations, Sydney would make Jack listen. And if that was not enough, there was the book. If green scaley things that drank yak bile and played poker with kittens could live five hundred years, why not Irina Derevko? And if Irina why not Sydney. And Jack.
And if they lived, why not together? Maybe just for a hundred years or so, but still…
She just hoped achieving immortality didn't involve consuming the still-beating heart of a virgin or somesuch. Jack might go for it, but Sydney…. Well, cross that bridge….
Sark was brought in, looking urbane as always, wearing his prisoner's harness over his khakis like the latest in man's fashion accessories. She had reciprocated his courteous treatment in Cuba, he greeted her politely,
"Irina. Nice to see you again, Sydney," he added but got only a glare from the latter.
"Julian," Irina said, handing him a cell phone, "please arrange for Mr. Tippin's immediate release and transfer to… where?" she turned to Sydney.
"Somewhere safe… but where the hell is safe from…." She paused, Irina felt Sydney's eyes on her, asking, searching, she nodded.
"Bring him here," Sydney said, "and while I'm thinking of it, Mom, I want a weapon, automatic, plenty of ammo."
"Of course. Julian, if you please." Sark punched in a number, waited a moment, then began speaking in Spanish, pleasantly at first, then growing steadily grimmer,
"You damn well better find him."
Irina felt a cold fingers invade her chest, slide around her heart and begin to make a fist.
Sark closed the phone.
"Mr. Tippin seems to have escaped from his…. accommodations."
"Where is he, Julian?"
Sark hesitated.
Irina continued. "I assure you, Julian, your survival depends on Mr. Tippin's prompt retrieval. Whatever retribution you fear from your contacts … is theoretical and …" She stepped forward, looked him in the eye, "Let me put it this way, right now, as far as I'm concerned, Mr. Tippin's health and welfare is the most important thing in the world. Where is he?"
"Isla Boraro," Sark said quickly, added defensively, "It was convenient."
Shit, Irina thought, please let escaped mean escaped, not that one of the guards had gotten a bit peckish. She reached for the phone, hit redial, mouthed "Who?" at Sark who answered,
"Salivaris."
"Sally," she said. "Irina, how are you? Good. The spawn? Oh, sorry to hear that. Well, maybe next year. Listen, Sally, I'm just calling to let you know I'm taking a personal interest in Mr. Tippin. Yes, yes, I do understand, I am familiar with your usual warnings, but this is a special case. I don't know if you've heard the news but I've been traveling in exalted circles lately. Call Cuba and check if you don't believe me but my recent house-guests have included a delightful young couple you may have heard of. A Mr. Xander Harris and his lovely friend Faith. Yes, that Faith. And if Mr. Tippin is harmed in any way, I'm going to tell Mr. Harris where you are, where your mother lives and where last year's spawn goes to school. Are we clear?"
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INITIATIVE COMPOUND, DARIEN RAIN FOREST, PANAMA
"That's disturbing," Faith said.
"What?" Harris asked.
"Dawnie with a clipboard. That's just…. there's no clipboards in slaying, okay? It's just… wrong. I mean, I know this is kind of a special case…"
"No. I know what you mean," Harris said. "People like Martin use clipboards. But since this is technically the post-slayage clean-up let's let it pass, okay? If it starts getting to be thing we'll take care of it."
"Yeah, I didn't mean you had to bust on her or anything."
"Like I'd dare."
"Point."
The disturbing thing, Weiss thought, was that he'd understood the entire conversation. Though he had to repress the urge to assure them they weren't being that efficient, really. But he didn't think the comment would be received in quite the spirit it was intended.
With Harris' hands bandaged, the not unpleasant duty of distributing the dollars found in the safe in scrupulously equal amounts to the happy but still mostly befuddled villagers, had fallen to Weiss. It was fun watching their eyes widen as they counted. It was serious money for that part of the world. Businesses could be started, houses built, classes taken and careers begun. And yeah, Harris had been right, no doubt some of them would flash the wad in the wrong place and get themselves killed for it. But hey, Weiss thought, today the monsters, tomorrow the problem of human stupidity.
After a bit of a debate they'd given them guns and a minimal amount ammo and managed to herd them into the woods in the general direction of Yaviza.
That task finished Weiss retreated to the control room where he found Dawn and the redhead checking over a large stack of books and a small selection of hard drives labeled, "Personnel," "Financial and Suppliers," "Atrocities and Victim Info" and "Kendall."
"What have you got on Kendall?" he asked Dawn.
"He did an inspection," Dawn said, "there's video, so if it comes to it he won't be able to deny knowledge. We've got some footage of him over-seeing some real nasty stuff being done to a vamp. Of course, if you don't know, it's looks like a human so we could go public without too much risk of exposure. But I don't figure that will be necessary, because we also have two hours of Kendall and his assistant in the succubae cage. Blackmail is such a lovely word, don't you think? I'm going to give you a drive to give to Marshall with just enough stuff on it to let Kendall now we're not bluffing. I don't know if we can help you with this bozo Lindsey, but I figure the DSR will ask how high when you guys say jump for awhile."
"All set, Dawnie?" the redhead asked. "Any of the girls going back to jolly old?"
"Nope, take her away, Will."
"Mr. Weiss?" the redhead said.
"Yes?" he answered carefully.
"Would you do me favor?"
"If I can."
"Would you hold your hands out toward the books and say 'abracadabra'."
"What? Seriously?"
"Please?"
Weiss stared at her moment, saw what was coming, but not what to do about it. Whatthehell. He turned, held out his hands and said wearily, "Abracadabra'," and, as expected, the books disappeared, and the redhead went away giggling.
"She hates me, why?" Weiss asked.
"She doesn't hate you Eric," Dawn said, "it's just, you know how some people really hate mimes? Well, when it comes to tormenting magicians Willow just can't help herself. Actually I think she likes you. She hasn't turned your cards into jello squares or your scarves into snakes or anything. She's a sweetheart, really, but sometime she can be a bit callous, and, you know, strange. Witch, after all."
"In other words, I should really, really avoid doing any cups and balls tricks when she's around?"
"I'd advise against it, yes."
"Ah."
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Then when they could avoid it no longer they gathered by the village gate. Weiss watched the informal tribunal slowly form, Harris and Faith, Buffy and Dawn, the redhead, Willow, gathering in the middle, the girls forming a half-circle around and behind them. Jack, Dixon and himself off to one side a little.
Dr. Martin had woken. Dr. Fields had been allowed to clean him up, help him to his feet and walk him down to join the others, they sat now, leaning against the fence, still on the outside. The lead defendants, as it were, their co-conspirators behind them.
Weiss watched Harris rub his bandaged hands together, obviously finding the mild pain a pleasant distraction from the task at hand. He was, Weiss thought, a little annoyed with himself for losing his temper, which might turn out to be a bit of luck for the researchers.
"Jack," Harris said, "what happens if we let them go?"
"They get debriefed. They get warned strongly about keeping their mouths shut, and most get assigned to new projects far away from one another. Two or three will make noises about blowing the whistle and will be quietly eliminated. A few others will develop alcohol or drug problems, and be indiscreet, with the same result….
"Kendall will be forced to resign and be blamed for everything you might use as blackmail material. At best the DSR will be dismantled, and absorbed by other departments, but that is unlikely..."
"A few of these guys, the ones who toe the line and hold their tongues, probably lead by Dr. Martin here, will propose projects to study slayers and will be funded. The behavior chip and longevity programs will be quietly restarted under other names. Ten, fifteen, maybe even twenty years from now you do it all again. Except next time there'll be some dead girls, cause they'll be ready for you."
"Yeah," Harris said casually. "That's pretty much what I was thinking. I guess we'll have to kill them."
This brought a not unexpected chorus of protests. Harris waited for them to die down. One voice managed to reach above the others,
"We are victims too. None…. Well, almost none of us knew what we were getting into, and when we got here and were briefed we weren't allowed to leave."
"Any of you try?" Faith asked.
"Yes. They're dead."
"Dawn? That what it says in the files?" Harris asked.
"Yeah. They were told they be doing experiments on primates. I don't know if that makes any difference. I think it was made pretty clear to them that the reason they were in Panama was to avoid American anti-cruelty laws. The only thing they learned when they got here was that they'd be torturing demons instead of apes.…"
"Not even the point," Buffy said. "We don't kill demons and vamps to punish them for being demons. We kill them to prevent them from killing people. If we had some way of making sure this never happened again…"
There was a chorus of assurances.
"Hey B," Faith said. "How 'bout that? They all really, really promise to be good and never ever do it again. That cool or what?"
"Xan," Willow said, "I could do the memory spell…"
"No, you have enough to do."
"Xan, it's okay. I did those SVU cops….."
"No," Xander snapped. "Munch and them, they were basically good guys. That was for their benefit as much as ours. And all you had to do was erase a week or so. These bastards… you'd have to wipe out seven years or more, from thirty or so people…. and they'd still be basically the same bastards that got into this in the first place. And where would it end? No. I'd rather kill them by hand than put you through that."
"Xan…"
"Hey, I can do the resolve face too..." He stepped forward, walked up and down the line of scientists and soldiers pressed against the fence. He spoke softly,
"You're murderers. Every experiment, every half-human down in that basement started as a whole human once. You kept humans as slaves and fed them to vampires. Systematic, cold blooded murderers. Torturers. Monsters. Immortality is simple. Become a vamp. Oh… but you lose your soul. But damned if I can see a soul among you. But, so help me, I don't want to kill you. Help me out here, you tell me. Give me a reason to let you live."
"Because," said an older man, with askew glasses and a carefully pointed beard, "If you kill us, then you become us."
And that was the heart of it, Weiss thought. And it was false, really. He didn't know Harris well, but the very fact that he even hesitated made him different from the Dr. Martins of the world. Good men doing what was necessary was not the same as doing evil. He'd seen the girls at work, seen their power… Their potential for misuse … and Harris was right to worry about setting dangerous precedents. But he'd traveled with them, with Dawn. Certainly power corrupts, in time he could see Dawn possibly becoming peremptory, impatient, quick to judge. But he could never see her descending to the level of systematic torture and the keeping of slaves. That wasn't in her. Or in Harris. But neither was the systematic execution of human prisoners, no matter how necessary. Perhaps that was just as well.
It was too bad the redhead couldn't do her little magic trick and simply send them all away somewhere…
"Hey," Weiss said, "I've got an idea."
Harris turned toward him, eager,
"I'm listening."
"Make them disappear. You have their passports, all their records, right?"
"Yes?"
"Give them to Marshall, and he'll wipe all trace of them out of the system. The DSR , the IRS, Immigration, Social Security, their schools, their military records. Wipe it all out and leave them here with no money, no citizenship. Persona non grata in the world. You can make sure Kendall doesn't come looking and no one else knows they're here. Let them see the world from the other side for awhile. They'll be to busy getting dinner to worry about sticking chips in someone's brain."
Harris looked around Dawn, at the two senior slayers, at the witch…
"Unless someone's got a better idea….?"
"Abracadabra," Willow said.
Several of the slayers looked up then, one got up and went running into the building, then came out again, shouting,
"Phone for Mr. Bristow. It's Irina."
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And then the lull was over, Jack went running toward the control room with Dixon, Dawn and Buffy trailing after. Willow sent a half dozen slayers off into the forest to find some special kind of tree bark. Faith ripped the gate off the village fence and with a couple of the girls' help lined the staff and soldiers up to walk through single file where Harris made them strip to their skivvies, confiscating a few wallets and ID cards in the process, then sending them on into the forest in the opposite direction from where the villagers had gone. One of the soldiers launched himself at Harris but was interrupted by a slayer's hand that took his arm and twisted, the resulting high-pitched scream serving to take the fight out of the others.
As each Caucasian member of the staff passed through the gauntlet Willow reached over and cut off a lock of hair and added it to her collection. She saw Weiss watching and grinned,
"It may not be PC," she said, "but it's true. Thirty naked white people walking out of the jungle might still cause a bit of a stir, but thirty brown ones….not so much." When the girls came back with the bark she wanted, she broke it up and mixed the pieces with the hair, spoke a few words of Latin and waved her hand and Weiss heard shouting, turned and saw the remaining staffers still in sight staring down in shock at their sudden all body tans.
"And the funny thing is," Weiss said, "you could probably set up shop in LA and make a fortune."
And finally Dr. Martin was the last one left and Harris took his arm, said,
"Sorry Doc, just got a few more questions I want to ask you then you can catch up with the others. We can go in one of the huts here and sit down…"
Weiss stepped forward, blocked them, looked at Harris, said, "I can do this, Xander, you stay with the girls."
"Look, Eric, thanks but…" Harris started but Weiss held up his hand.
"It's okay, I know exactly what to ask him. You have…. More important things to do."
After a moment Harris nodded and let Weiss take Martin's arm and guide him back toward one of the shabby huts.
"You're not one of them, the anarchists, are you?" Martin said as they went inside.
"No," Weiss answered, "CIA."
"Undercover?"
"In a sense."
"He was going to kill me," Martin said.
"Yeah," Weiss said, "he was."
He slipped the knife in smoothly, between the ribs, into the heart. It was quick, Martin barely had time to widen his eyes, gasp,
"Why?" before he faded.
"I you have to ask," Weiss said softly, "you wouldn't understand."
Xxxxxxxx
Dawn and Buffy were in the middle of a discussion when Weiss came back.
"Are not," said Buffy.
"Am too," said Dawn.
Dixon and Jack were carrying weapons and climbing up onto the roof toward the helicopter.
"C'mon girls, circle time," Willow yelled but was ignored, someone squealed,
"Xander hugs!" and there was a quick line formed in front of the one-eyed man as the girls took turns embracing him. Willow stood hands on hip impatient but with the trace of a smile playing on her lips as the line made it half-way through a second round before Harris started laughing, waved his finger at the giggling girls and stepped away. And then someone yelled,
"Eric hugs!" and Weiss found himself the startled recipient of a series of very strong embraces and a cheek-peck or two, and then, having established that they were coming when they were good and ready, all but four of the girls pressed close together, yelled in chorus,
"Bye Dawn," and waved and, as Dawn turned to wave back Willow closed her eyes a moment, nodded her head and the slayers were gone.
Faith came to him then, slapped his shoulder, said, "Nice to meetchya," and Harris held out his hand, said,
"Thanks for everything, Eric."
"My pleasure."
Harris followed Faith up toward the now warming helicopter, Zoey and Caridad stepped in for quick hugs and followed after, Buffy gave him a quick wave and Dawn stepped forward and hugged him hard… "Thanks for everything, Eric, I couldn't have done it without you, you don't understand how much…" she glanced back, yelled at her sister who had leaped up to the roof,
"Don't you even think about it, Buffy! Gotta go," she added, kissed his cheek and turned and ran for the ladder up to the roof, warning Buffy at the top of her voice of the dire consequences of leaving her behind.
And then Weiss was alone with Willow, Vi and Shad, and a box with some files and a couple hard drives.
"That's yours, to give to Marshall," Willow told him, "follow me now." He picked up the box and followed the three women past the broken compound walls to the edge of the woods where a pentagram in a circle had been etched into the bare dirt at the base of particularly large tree. Willow sat herself cross-legged in the center, motioned for Weiss and the two girls to join her within the boundaries, then closed her eyes and began to chant softly.
Then the Huey was rising, straight up through the canopy where it hovered. For awhile nothing happened, slowly Weiss became aware of a rising susurrus competing with the thumping of the helicopter, a hissing, crackling sound. Then the ground in the compound began to heave like a few million baby snakes were just below the surface…. and then the shoots began to break through, vines began climbing the walls, digging into any and all crevices and cracks and forcing them wider. Soon the walls began to crumble, sinking beneath a waving sea of green shoots and bramble, now Weiss could see the buildings inside succumbing to the same wild growth. He glanced down and, at first thought it was a trick of the light, the witch's hair was an olive color now… with brighter avocado hued roots spreading outward. The air smelled rich, fresh mown grass and compost in springtime after a rain…
The main building began to collapse in on itself, the upper floors sinking into the fetid basement. For a brief time the stench of dead things competed with new life, but was soon over-whelmed. For a little longer the compound heaved like the ocean in a squall, ferns shimmered in the invisible breeze, clumps of grass rose and waves of brush washed over them, flowers bloomed, fruited ripened, the air was filled with seeds and spores.
And then the trees came, bursting upwards, rising in great clumps like a handful of bottle rockets, with the weaker trunks falling away, collapsing, turning soft and covering the forest floor with loam as the stronger trees kept climbing and began to spread, filling in the hole in the canopy, the shade grew thicker and Weiss became aware that he could longer tell where the compound had started, where the buildings had stood. It was as if it all had never been.
Overhead he heard the helicopter start to move away and the sound faded. Beside him he heard Willow moan softly. She sagged and Vi knelt down behind her to support her shoulders. Her hair was a deep velvet jade now, her eyes when she opened them to survey her work were emeralds. She reached out and took Weiss' hand, took Shad's in the other, nodded her head and suddenly they were in the Pearson Arms apartment.
Vi was carrying Willow over to seat in her on the couch, there was a swirl of leaves in the air, Weiss saw her fingers sprout twigs that budded, grew leaves and fell off.
"Dwayne!" Vi yelled and suddenly the bearded man came running, he knelt in front of Willow, blew some sort of powder off his hand into her face, and began to chant quickly…
Slowly the green began to fade from her eyes until only the pupils still shown brightly, bit by bit the red began to seep back into her hair. Dwayne sat back, wiped his forehead and stood.
"Welcome to LA, Ms. Rosenburg ," he said, "Can I get you something to…"
Vi clamped her hand over his mouth, "Dwayne," she said, "I don't think now is the moment to start talking about how much you love to eat plants, okay?"
The watcher pulled her hand aside and glowered, said,
"Something to drink, Perrier, maybe?"
"Please."
A green bottle floated out of the kitchen, and settled in Willow's outstretched hand, the cap curled itself off with a hiss,
"Thanks, Dennis," Willow said. "How are you? …. Good."
There was laughter in the kitchen and Tracy appeared, giggling, she said,
"Hey, Dwayne, you know that sprouted wheat bread?"
"Oh no."
"Oh yeah. You're gonna have to mow. And the poppy-seed cake is blooming."
Another bottle, this one brown, appeared in the doorway, zipped across the room and nuzzled at Weiss' hand until he came to his senses and took it.
"Um," he said, "thanks…. Dennis," and felt a cool pat on his shoulder. Weiss took a welcome drink of what would of course turn out to be organic beer, saw Dwayne grinning at him.
"Eric," the watcher said, "welcome to the family."
-30-
Next: -La Morte della Morte, Volume II-
