Author's Notes: Okies... the chapter that will decide all. Be honest in your reviews.

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Raziel opened his eyes to a world of muted sunlight that reminded him of Nosgoth so much that he swore that he had awoken in his stronghold chambers, exhausted and nearly bloodless. He felt a warm hand touch his and gently shaking him.

"...zle. Razzle, wake up."

She was there next to him, and fragments of memory came painfully together. He opened his eyes, which glowed and she covered them quickly, whispering to him, "Jesus! What kind of dream did you have? Your eyes are like fire..."

She finally removed her hands once the bustle of other passengers washed by them. He blinked against the light spilling in through the window at his left. She stood up and stretched, before gathering her things. A blast of desert heat smacked Amanda in the face and she quickly removed her jacket, beads of sweat jumping up on her brow. She swiped a hand through her hair. The airport was small, but as she looked around she chanced upon seeing a small tourist shop that included T-shirts and capri pants.

"I'll just take a minute. No peaking, eh?" she said, winking at the confounded Raziel.

She changed in the ladies bathroom. Emerging, she wore a tee-shirt and capris, with the pant legs rolled up just a little more with her outrageously huge sneakers. Having looked at herself in the mirror, she thought she looked like a role-playing game poster child, with her wild short hair tossed in every direction, her sleeves rolled up and her T-shirt tied off at the side to make it tighter around her hips. She carried her bag, having dumped her winter clothes the garbage.

"They would only get in the way," she answered before he could ask. "Besides... somehow I think... I won't be going home." Her eyes became jaded now. And for once, Raziel felt a prick of regret.

All of this for me. She has no regrets, though. She would never have come this far.

They strode toward the edges of the building and stepped out into the rising Egyptian sun. It was already ten in the morning and soon there would be more people than ever before. Raziel remained close at her side, his eyes ever darting all over the place. Egypt certainly was a desolate place.

-=-=-=-=-=-

They took a taxi to the Nile. It was only a few minutes away... and as they mounted a rocky crevasse, Raziel sucked in a breath of air as he saw the green pastures and the flowing blue snake that twisted its way among buildings like that of Boston, only fewer and far in between.

Amanda was just as awestruck. She'd never even been to Egypt before. She swallowed and held her breath, because it dawned on her that she really 'was' here. People with robes and turbans actually walked the streets, and occasionally a man with jeans and a t-shirt strode past their slow-moving car.

"Pull up. Stop here!" she blurted to the driver.

She opened the door and stumbled out, gasping for air. Raziel knelt behind her, his hand resting against her back. "What is it?"

"Just... too much. I didn't even sleep one bit. So tired..." She leaned toward him, and he took her under his arm and pressed her close. He could feel the exhaustion in her the way her body quaked as she forced her muscles to do her bidding.

He led her through the alley ways of the lesser village. The sun rose higher in the sky, until even he could feel the tingling heat in the air. Amanda followed along with his guidance until she stopped and turned sharply, pulling out of his arms. She knocked on a door, hidden under a sloping roof of rust-eaten metal. She leaned a little against the wall, until the door opened. A smiling young boy stood there, turned and called in a foreign tongue to his mother.

It turned out that Amanda, by some whisper of Fate, was bound to come here. Part of her exhausted body was rooted to her magic, and if her will wasn't strong her magic worked miracles of its own accord. The mother had three children, two daughters and one son, her youngest. She gladly accepted Amanda into her home, casting wary glances at the imposing vampiric figure behind her.

Raziel was free at last to explore this strange city and its mysteries. Once Amanda was put safely to sleep in the cool, clean cot in the guest room of the old house, Raziel thanked the woman who seemed to stare at him with a mixture of worship and awe. He left the comfort of the hidden haven and strode into the village, which darkened almost as quickly as the sun had come up.

Ten minutes later, sloughing rain came hissing down from all directions. He hardly minded. He discarded his jacket to someone who needed it more, a lowly decadent who looked as cold and miserable as a lost stray dog. His black tee-shirt stuck to his chest and his hair was equally adhesive with the pouring rain. He tossed his head, flicking his hair out of his eyes that burned in the dimmed daylight.

There, in the narrow dirty streets of this desert oasis, he found his prey. A vampire. He felt its presence by the sensation in his body when the Reaver scouted it out as well. Due to the unleashed storm, the sunlight was muted and therefore less harmful. And when the Reaver quickened, he had no power to stop it. It roused itself and pierced through the shadows as he crept closer. Any true mortal life was far away, clearly out of earshot.

He pounced, driving the Reaver through the back of the interloper. His scream cut short as Raziel's free hand came to his head and snapped his neck to end any noise, regardless of them being completely alone. The death was soundless and the pain-filled sweetness of it filled him with more rapture than ever the drinking of blood had. Raziel needn't pull down his cowl - he breathed in the tingling breath of spiritual energy and felt it work its cursed magic on his body. He looked better, more alive again, and his human features freshened.

So few... so very few vampires would be so careless... yet I should not dirty my good fortune with needless worries. Still... this place. It feels so familiar to me. Perhaps it is my imagination.

Giddy with the feeding, the Reaver was hardly finished. But sated for the moment, he forced the glowing entity back into safe-keeping and watched the vampire's body crumble into dust and become washed away down a rivulet of rainwater that ended in a drain at the bottom of the hill. He licked his lips for no reason, tasting the bitter rain of an alien world and felt more alone now than he ever had.

He treaded into the desert, feeling the ground give way beneath his feet occasionally. He sat atop a high out-cropping, crouching with the rain pounding against his back and the daylight sifting in between breaks in the clouds as the storm rolled overhead.

After awhile, he began to think of the Elder God. He longed for someone to talk to. But it was not for the Elder God's grating commands, nor his insinuating cruelty. No. He wanted Amanda. He wanted to know what troubled her so much about him. She seemed distant, as if the closer they came to their supposed solution, the more distraught she appeared.

"What manner of creature are you?" came a voice behind him. Raziel stood up sharply, but in doing so slipped on the wet stone and nearly fell down the side of the jagged hill if he hadn't gripped the stone with his talons. He clambored up again, eyes burning into the night.

"Speak," Raziel commanded. "Show yourself to me, or die."

The hilltop was flat, interrupted by several wind-blasted stones and among them stood a dark figure, wearing a long brown cloak that was whipped about in the gusting rain. A bolt of lightning cracked the sky and for a moment Raziel saw his face more clearly.

"Vampire or man? Demon or... messiah?" The word made him quiver. They struck a familiar chord. Raziel was not sure he liked it.

"Answer me, villain!" Raziel snarled, raising his voice. "Who are you?"

The man came forward slowly, every motion like dark poetry. Raziel felt him drip with vampirism and once again the Soul Reaver exerted its unfathomble will. And the result was unexpected. The vampire intruder recoiled as if repelled by sunlight itself but not quite. He recovered, and crouched as if prepping for an attack. "Magic..." the intruder snorted disgustedly. "You and your witch child have no power here. Go back to New York and don't return!"

"I have previous engagements I must attend. And I believe you are in no position to command. Look carefully, and see that your doom is approaching." Raziel motioned with the Reaver. Indeed, the storm that had taken hold of the land so quickly was nearing its swift end. The vampire turned, narrowing his cold blue eyes at the horizon. Then he backed away, staying in the shadow of a huge rock.

"My master shan't be pleased," came the angry hiss. The next instant he had leapt the stone and was gone, rushing off into the unknown.

Raziel stood in the dawning brightness. He felt the moisture being sucked away out of his clothes, leaving him hot and clammy. Nothing could have dampened his spirits more. But as the day progressed, he saw no more of the vampires and he was free to ponder at the existence of yet another Vampire Master to bar his progress.

When night started falling again, he carefully avoided human contact. The least he did was wander and watch, feeling no inclination to go explore the Spectral Realm. However, the city was a smorgasbord for exploration. He leapt from alcove to alcove, leaving his tattered wings tucked neatly inside his black shirt as he scrambled up brick walls and dropped down on the other side only to be faced with incredible obstacles. He never wandered far from Amanda's resting place.

Finally, when the edge of the golden sun touched the horizon, did Raziel make his way to the house where Amanda sat, comfortable on a blanketed cushion, eating food with the rest of the family. When the soul devourer entered, he was met with four pairs of alarmed eyes. Only Amanda seemed unperturbed, and seemed to care about as much as she would about a fly coming in through a window.

"I must speak with Amanda. Alone, please."

The mother gestured to a room, smiling anxiously as she drew her youngest son close to her side.

Amanda faced Raziel in the privacy of the dim guest room. Her arms were folded across her chest and she still looked sleepy, but rested. "What is it?"

"I saw another vampire."

"So?"

"He knew who we were. It disturbs me that at every turn, we find someone determined to disturb deter out quest. But the storm passed before I could ask him who he was. I did not recognize him. He had dark, wavy hair and eyes like coals."

"It's going to be night soon. Did you piss him off much?"

"I needn't have tried. He was angry just by us being here. If we are to explore further, we'd better get moving now." Painfully aware that she still regarded him with regret and anguish, he continued quietly. "We'll take our time. There's no use annihilating our chances of success by rushing headlong into imminent danger."

"Raziel," she whispered, softly and carefully. "Uhh..." She seemed positively ill. But she straightened, choking out her statement. "I don't want you to go back to Nosgoth."

"It can't be helped... you've come all this way now. Why are you turning back?"

"I didn't say I was turning back," she answered coldly. "I... I don't know what I'm talking about."

"Obviously."

Amanda clenched her fists before throwing her hand up in the air irritably. "Well... I think I've memorized the spell... I don't need to carry my books now. Just these." She lifted a belt, strategically placed pouches all around it, with her many sorceress ingredients. She picked up a necklace from low circle table by the cot. She put it around her neck, brushing her fingers over the metal. "...this is important."

"You shouldn't lose it."

She secured the belt. His eyes watched her hands work at the simple, but sturdy mechanism. When she finally clasped it together at the front of her slightly exposed navel, the two halves of the belt-buckle came together to depict, of all things, wings. "What is the necklace for?"

"It's something Egyptian that the lady gave me. It's something between an ankh and something else. I'm not certain what. But it's supposed to work against vampires."

Suddenly she noticed where his eyes were, and where they were aimed at. Blushing, but nonplussed, she stepped forward and nuzzled his chest, wrapping her arms around his ribs. Her hands met against his shoulder blades, where she fingered through the damp tee-shirt the non-existent joints where his once glorious wings would have been.

"I wish I could have fixed them, too." Her whisper was like a winter caress in the stuffy heat of this one room. It made him quiver like barren oak boughs in the throes of blasting frigid wind. "I could still try..."

"Please," Raziel whispered coarsely. Why did his throat stick that way? "You've done so much already. Save your strength for future trials."

The once vampire heeded his own advice and proceeded to detach her from him. She needed little persuasion. She pulled away with a look of mild anguish and brushed past him, shoving his arm out of the way. Aggravated, he turned to glare at her back and then the door as it closed.

Acting out because of a choice that she herself had made didn't seem very mature to him. If she didn't want to be here, that was her own fault, not his, unless her actions were telling him something else - no, he wouldn't dare go so far as to think that. She hardly felt that way about him. Just as a friend, maybe not even that anymore. Perhaps he was just an annoyance to be aided and then be rid of as soon as the task was done.

Very well. If that was the way the witch felt, and he certainly didn't mind--

Oh yes, you do. You mind it very much, Soul Reaver.

Maybe he did. But that didn't excuse the blazing fact that he needed to return to Nosgoth. He trusted Amanda enough to get him there. That was all.