Editor's Note:  Reviews within a few days!  :D  Thank you very much, all.

A very talented artist by the name of BlueFooted has drawn an illustration for this chapter of the story.  How talented?  This one won first place in X-Day 2003.  Though I can't exactly cut and paste it into this, I can give you the link at the end of the text.  Take a look at it: she really captured the mood.  (I'd like to put it in the first part of the story, up front, but everytime I try, it seems to screw up the uploading and eliminate text.  And unless I add spaces between the dots, slashes, and whatnot, it won't show up at all…. :p)

Corruption, part 3

Fred Martin mourned the death of brother Joseph, along with the rest of his Klan brethren and sistren.  Joseph was the first martyr to fall in this holy battle, sliced open by the animal's claws.  The angel had returned them to the inner sanctum of the Jesus Christ of Christ Identity church, where he had first revealed himself.  Now that same angel, his beautiful face strained with sorrow, placed his hands over Joseph's face and closed his dead eyes.  The angel's hand still let off tendrils of black smoke from where the unholy fiend had left his foul bite.

"Knowing the price, you still follow His holy will," the angel said, addressing the small group as a whole.  "You will be rewarded in Heaven when the cleansing is done."

Fred nodded, his eyes burning but refusing to cry.  He rested heavily on his cane.  He wouldn't show weakness.  Joseph wouldn't want them to break down.  They weren't snot-nosed Hammerskins or Neo-Nazis without a lick of sense.  They were the old guard, the veterans of this race war.  They knew to plan, not go off half-cocked.  Joseph would want them strong.  He'd want vengeance.

The angel winced and held his wrist.  A pattern of fine black lines smoked on the back of his hand.

"The demon is strong," he hissed with pain.  "Its touch is anathema.  It still lives."

Sister Clara, the only woman of their group, took a step forward and bent to one knee.  "Tell us where it is, my Lord.  Tell us so that we may slay it in your holy name."

"It will find no shelter among those who fear God. It will perish out in this world, without the sulfurous pits to sustain it.  You smelled the rank stench of evil when it appeared."

Everyone nodded.

"And yet.…"  The angel paused, thinking.  "There is one that could aid it.  One traitor to the race, who lives up in the mountain. It will sense her kindred evil, and it will go there."

The angel looked directly at Fred as he spoke.  Fred's jaw clenched, and the others eyed him warily.  Yes, they all knew of whom the holy one spoke.  Her part of the family had been a thorn in Fred's side for years, to say nothing of a source of embarrassment and shame.  If only he could do something about it.

The angel's gaze softened and he continued, "But you cannot make it up the mountain with your knee so injured, Brother Martin.  Your heart desires to do good, even if your body cannot."

Fred bowed his head and silently cursed his injured knee.  Damn Toshiro for breaking it.  He hoped the little shit would die of his injuries, even if they'd been prevented from finishing the job. 

The angel turned to Clara, who still waited on his word.  He touched her forehead with a blessing, his fingertips light and smooth.

"Go, my child.  You are the only one who knows the mountain as well as Martin himself.  The whore of Babylon must not make contact with the demon.  The Lord has decreed that they both must die."

            *          *          *          *          *                     

Kurt's last coherent memory was that of building anger.  Images of racing down one hill and up another.  The white snow mingled with white hallways.  He slammed into something, bore it to the ground.  There were gunshots.  And suddenly he was in horrendous, biting, agonizing cold with all the air shocked from his lungs.  Someone was holding him underwater.

In a panic, he teleported as far as he could.  He aimed for over two hundred feet up in the air, in the hopes of avoiding any trees, praying that he wouldn't materialize in a mountainside.  He was luckier than he deserved.  The next thing he knew he was tumbling down a snowy embankment and slamming into a tree.  More snow fell on him.  He sprang up, fell to the side, then hauled himself to all fours, shivering too badly to walk.  He had no idea where he was.

Soaked to the skin, cold as ice, lost, and night coming in minutes, Kurt thought.  I'm in trouble.

It took a conscious effort on his part to stop shivering.  The teleport left him more winded than he would have thought possible.  It took fifteen seconds for him to stand.

Dear, merciful God, what have I done? he thought.  What came over me?

It was all a fog.  All he could clearly remember was rage.  Not the victim's face, not the fight itself.  Just blind, uncontainable rage.  If the water hadn't shocked him to his senses, he might still have been fighting.  Someone else could even now be lying dead somewhere, killed by Kurt's hands.  Is this how Logan felt, once the rage was gone?  Was it Logan who held him underwater, in an attempt to snap him out of it?

The sun was on the other side of the mountain.  The sky's hue said actual sunset was only minutes away.  Kurt could see in the dark without trouble, but that was the least of his concerns.  How cold was it supposed to get tonight?  Freezing level?  Twenties?  Teens?  His clothing was useless.  Even his water repellant leg-wrapping was soaked clear through.  He had no idea where base camp was, and no way to start a fire.  His best chance was to get somewhere in the open and hope Ororo could spot him from the air.  He started to walk.

How long he walked, he wasn't certain.  He couldn't feel his feet or his hands.  Twice shivering fits forced him to stop.  His head started to spin.  Balance was harder and harder, and he caught himself grumbling about his lack of coordination.  Stumbles, mumbles, and grumbles; the classic signs of hypothermia.  He shook his head and laughed nervously.  You, Herr Wagner, are in very, very deep trouble.  He kept walking.  After all, he had nothing better up his sleeve.

Some time later he looked up, trying to find stars for orientation.  Just his luck; it was overcast.  Why didn't he notice that before?  Oh, well, it wouldn't make a difference, anyway.  He really had no idea where he was going.  The walk had warmed him up, and he didn't feel the cold anymore.  His shirt was chafing him, though.  Annoyed, he stopped and tried to remove it.  His arms felt clumsy, and he couldn't feel the cloth under his fingers.  The whole process took longer than he thought it should. Finally he managed to pull the long-sleeved flannel over his head and off his arms.  He was about to drop it when he remembered what was in the left pocket.  Can't get rid of that.  He pulled the rosary out, wrapped it around his wrist, tossed the shirt over his shoulder, and kept moving, completely forgetting his plan to stop in the middle of the clearing and wait for help.  Moments later he was under the trees again.

Time passed.  Then he had another shivering fit, and this one was beyond his control.  He fell to the ground as the shivering intensified.  When the fit passed, he was curled up in a ball in the snow, his tail around his chest, and he was so very, very tired.  Then another shivering fit, not as long as the first, left him strangely warm and at peace.  He dimly realized what was happening, just enough to try and fight off the sleepy feeling that washed over him.  He forced his eyes to stay open.  If he closed them, he was lost.  He couldn't feel the rosary beads under his fingers, but he could hear them softly clacking against each other.  He started to pray, his words slurring together.  Either it would keep him alive, or it would help him through death.

A spotlight shone on him.  He blinked and looked around.  A shadow with a rifle fell between him and the light.

A female voice gasped, "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!"

She instantly raised the rifle and aimed it at Kurt.  Kurt closed his eyes.  He didn't need to see the end for himself.  The shot pounded his eardrums, forcing his eyes open again.  Someone else spat a curse, farther behind him, and from that same spot another shot rang out.

"God damn you, Clara, get off my land!" the woman just in front of him screamed.

It slowly dawned on Kurt that the woman wasn't aiming at him.  She was aiming just beyond him.  He forced his head to turn and look that direction.  Another female was aiming at either Kurt or the woman in the spotlight.  He couldn't be sure, and he couldn't do much about it.  The spotlit woman shot first, and the second one fell back, blood splattering on the tree beside her.  As the first one chambered another round, the second dropped her weapon and took off into the darkened woods, clutching her bloody right shoulder.  The first one shot again.

"Raise a gun agin' me and mine?" she screamed after the fleeing opponent.  "Lord have mercy, I'll snap that sixth commandment like a twig!"

Her voice was shaking.  She chambered another round, but did not fire.  After a moment she bolted forward, grabbed the fallen rifle, and floundered back through the snow.  As she did so, Kurt could get a halfway decent look at her.  She wore a bulky coat that did nothing to hide her girth.  She was a big woman.

No, Kurt mused sleepily.  Not fat.  Face is wrong.  Pregnant.

Another shivering spasm.  He felt his teeth chatter, but this time he didn't have the strength to clench them.  Soon he tasted blood.

Beth hauled her "prize" rifle back as fast as she could.  When she heard someone stomping around outside, she ran out, praying it was Toshi, but fearing something worse.  Thank God she grabbed the shotgun on the way, or else Clara might have finished her.  And now she was looking down at someone who was so cold he was actually blue.  He was grimacing with the cold, teeth chattering.  She gasped in shock as she saw how unnaturally sharp those teeth were.  What did he do, file them to points?  And then she saw the tail he had wrapped around his chest, the pointed ears, the strange two-fingered hands, the scars....

Oh my God, she thought.  This is the Oval Office Assassin!

She dropped Clara's rifle and gripped her own shotgun with both hands as the...being in front of her trembled with cold.

No, no, wait.  The warrant was rescinded.  They did that months ago.  The President let him go.  He ain't considered a criminal no more.

Was Clara after her or him?  Could be either.  It didn't matter, though.  The manhunt was called off, the "assassin" somehow cleared.  Shooting him was the same as shooting an innocent man; just plain murder.

Get ahold of yourself, Beth, she thought.  The man's gonna die out here.  He's just another hiker.  Treat him like another lost hiker.

She put down her weapon and bent over the man.  "Sir!  Can you hear me?  What's your name?  Talk to me!  Stay with me!"

The last shiver didn't bother him as much as the others.  The spasms were growing weaker.  The woman was shouting at him, something about his name.

"Khh....Kurt...," he mumbled.

She was moving him, dragging him through the snow, out of the light, through dark, and into another light.  He looked around through eyes half-lidded with exhaustion.  He was inside.

"You stay with me, Kurt," the woman was telling him as she dragged him across the floor.  "Don't you pass out on me, all right?"

"Mommy?  Mommy, he gots a tail, mommy."

Kurt looked to his right at a little girl.  She was staring at him.  Mesmerized or in terror, he couldn't tell.  It was so hard to think right now, and he didn't really want to bother.

"I know he gots a tail, honey," the woman said.  "Mommy needs you to help her.  Mommy needs you to get the hot water bottles, all right?"

"Is he a devil, mommy?"

"No sweetie, he ain't a devil.  You go get those bottles, Amber.  Now!"

The little girl ran off, and the woman was holding Kurt's face in her hands, forcing him to look up at her.

"Kurt, my name's Beth.  We're gonna warm you up, all right?  We're gonna take off those wet clothes and warm you up.  I don't want you to do nothin'.  Just let me move your arms and legs, and you hold on.  Don't you pass out, all right?  You understand me?"

"Ja...," he murmured.

She slowly uncurled his arms, then his legs, talking to him all the while. When she got to his tail, curled around his stomach and lower ribs, she hesitated, then must have decided it wasn't worth the effort.  He vaguely felt the towel she rubbed over his skin.  She sounded like a nurse.  She was too level-headed for anything else.

The little girl ran back.  She held several flaccid rubber containers against her chest with both arms, then dropped them all in a heap on the floor.  Beth grabbed a few, stood up, and went out of Kurt's field of vision, still talking, though he couldn't make out the words.  The little girl was staring at him, but it was with curiosity, not fear.

Wood under him, walls around him, ceiling overhead.  Nurse nearby.  He was safe.  He closed his eyes. 

And was lost.

Beth was filling the water bottles from the sink when Amber started screaming.

"Mommy!  Mommy!  He ain't breathing!  He stopped breathing!"

Beth slammed off the faucet and dropped the half-filled bottle in the sink, warm water splashing everywhere.  She bolted into the front room, where the man laid on the floor, eyes closed.  Somewhere in the back of her mind, she was reciting the cruelest rule of cold rescue; that the most critical time was not before, but after.  Once they felt safe, they relaxed, letting go of whatever strength of will that kept them alive.  Kurt was safe, and Kurt was laying, motionless, on the floor.  She slid to her knees on the hardwood floor and put her ear to his lips, watching his chest.  The skin was so cold and clammy that it was like sticking her face against snow bank.  She tried to find a pulse.  She tried for a full minute, on the chance that he'd just gone into a hypo-metabolic state.  Nothing.  Not only had he stopped breathing, his heart had stopped as well.

She rocked back on her heels, put the heels of her palms over his chest, and started pumping.  One, two, three, four, five...  She went to fifteen, then tilted his head back and was about to go further when she saw that his lips were bloody.  God help her, was he carrying any blood-borne disease?  She hesitated, then pinched his nose shut, inhaled deeply, and breathed for both of them, trying to ignore the tinge of blood in his mouth.

After a second breath, she went back to pumping. 

"Come on, Kurt!" she shouted.  "Don't do this to me!"

Fifteen compressions, two breaths.

"Breathe, dammit!"

Fifteen compressions, two breaths.

"BREATHE!"

TBC….

http:// www. angelfire. com/ art2/ bluefooted/ images/ corr2. jpg