TATTOO YOUR SOUL

"Where am I?"

Amon asked the question of no one. He was lost, lost to the universe and to all existence. The world looked and felt so different, so far away. The man was being carried, lifted up by someone, dragged. They were shouting and yelling harshly, arguing over the man.

He spoke the words, but they just didn't seem to come out. "Where are you taking me?"

The hunter wasn't even sure who it was. He only recalled a familiar sense, a presence that reminded Amon of someone. Who? The name just wouldn't come to him, as if stuck somewhere in his mind. It started with an N…. or maybe an M…. Amon couldn't quite remember exactly who. But it felt warm and comforting, almost relaxing.

The world of the Solomon facility blurred and bled away.

Amon fell to the deep, yawning chasm that was bleak and vast void, scouring the nothingness for something, if that was at all possible. Yet, it was empty and lonely, barren and devoid of all life and consciousness. Amon could almost hear the whistle of a random wind traipsing about, haunting that lost land.

"Is there anyone there?" Amon spun around, searching for someone who he didn't think exactly existed in that forgotten realm.

A voice returned his greeting. "Always here."

He turned, blinking in surprise.

"Kathain….?"

xxxx

Silence.

Robin froze. Silence during any attack from Solomon meant only bad things were on the way. Something wicked always came after a period of silence, like a harsh storm bearing down upon them. She reached out suddenly, grabbed at Raven's shirt and hauling him back in a simple, swift motion, throwing her own weight back to pull the runemal away from the door and out of the line of fire.

"Get down!" She shouted.

Robin threw her own body at the floor, landing in an impossibly deep puddle of water from the sprinkles and a pool of Amon's blood. Copper splattered across her face and pursed lips as something metallic clinked and splashed in the hallway.

The world stopped.

Something rolled in the corridor. Kristo shoved Bear back and withdrew, slipping into the shadows and the abyss as a metal cylinder, more like a canister of sorts slowly, languidly rolled up to the door. It stopped, seemingly conveniently right there in front of them. Nycole felt hope rise within as the canister looked like it was not the bomb she expected it to be, but, still, it went off, spewing dense, white gas.

"Fuck!" Bear, the telekinetic swore, slapping this can away with his mind, striking it back towards the guards gathered at the end of the hall.

The action garnered screams of surprise, shock and horror from the guards as they were driven further back and away from the holding cell. Still, the damage had been done. The gas hung over the air, drifting and swishing about. It stung at the eyes of the witches and burnt at their lungs harshly. Nycole and Brett coughed, feeling the searing rape of their lungs coupling with their asthma. Brett almost doubled over but fought the urge to just collapse as he shouldered Amon's weight.

"We need to get out, now," the fire elemental snarled.

Nycole nodded. "I second the motion."

Kristo gathered up the shadows, spilling them over the group.

And, then, they were gone.

xxxx

"Kathain?"

She seemed so fair and fresh. The girl even glowed, literally, along with her white robes. However, now, her hair hung straight and a pale, almost silvery white. Her eyes shone a crisp, cerulean blue, stranding out strikingly against all that pale color. The girl was so familiar despite those unusual differences. And, yet, there seemed a strangely sweet sophistication to her, a cunning and a predatory grace to her. There seemed an ancient hungering and longing to her.

She was older, too.

The girl shook her head. "No, not really."

Amon's eyes went wide. Her voice had changed, too. No longer did it hold that odd, mildly Yankee-American accent, but it a sweet sort of English lilt, perhaps with a dram of Irish thrown in.

"I don't understand."

The stranger reached out towards him, with a grand, odd gesture, sweeping both of her hands past each side of his face. "That's because you aren't meant to, yet."

xxxx

"STOP!"

Brett screamed the word from within the abyss of Kristo's Craft. The shadow walker's concentration severed, and they were sent spilling and tumbling from the shadows and darkness. The fire elemental almost dropped Amon's form on Robin when they slipped back into the real world, somewhere else in the massive maze of corridors, hallways, and rooms beneath the Vatican. The room seemed to be some sort of abandoned office, with a long desk and many chairs, ready for a business meeting at any time.

Raven shook off the lingering disorientation and haze from the shadow walk. "Why'd we stop? We should be halfway to Venice by now."

"No." The word was more of an order really.

Nycole looked to Brett unsurely. The fire elemental had become distant and stolid, a rock on which the others could find sure footing. He had grown as fiery as the energy of his own Craft, angry and embittered by everything Solomon had put them through. The hand snaked around Amon's side had been balled into a tight, white-knuckled fist.

Kristo shook his head. "We don't have time for this."

"No."

Geoff stared incredulously at his friend. "Now is SO not the time to be getting all vengeful and wrathful on us."

"No," Brett repeated the word again, as if it held all the secrets to the world and to his own thoughts. "No, we are not leaving here. Not yet." The fire elemental shifted his hold on Amon, careful of the man's injuries. "We are not leaving this place until I know where they took Kathain."

"But, Amon…" Robin sounded so sad and worried, before growing steeled and resolved. "You can't put him through anymore without putting him through worse."

Nycole nodded in the fire elemental's direction. "I'm not leaving, either."

"Good." Brett turned to Raven. "Take him." The other man took up Amon's weight as Brett straightened, cracking out his back and neck as he readied himself. "Kristo, get the others out of here." The shadow walker slipped his wakazashi into Brett's hand, offering him the best weapon he knew the elemental could use. "Get out and get safe. I'll find you once I know where she is."

"I'm coming with you!" Nycole argued.

Brett shook his head. "No."

Robin suddenly piped up, jumping. "I'll go."

Brett stopped, staring at the teenage Craft user with a sort of admiration and respect. Robin held deep conviction and determination in her eyes, a steely gaze that lusted for revenge. The girl wanted to help Brett and help get Kathain back, but something within her also craved death. She savored the thought of avenging the many injustices dealt to Amon in the time Solomon held him captive.

The elemental nodded slowly. "Ok."

"Brett?" Geoff went to argue.

The fire elemental practically snarled at the bartender. "No arguments." Brett closed his blue eyes slowly, calming himself and centering. "She knows the layout of this place better than anyone it seems."

"Be careful," Nycole squeezed Robin's hand.

Kristo rolled his eyes and placed his tonto within the teenager's unsteady hands. "Don't cut yourself."

"I won't…"

Brett twirled the wakazashi elegantly in his grasp. "Now, get out of here."

He stepped back with Robin, watching as Kristo drew up the dark. It took more effort, more focus this time, as the clear pain in the shadow walker's shoulder spread. The shadows seemed to be heavier to the warrior's usually clear and sure focus. Brett was almost thankful that he hadn't gone with the others. Nycole waved before Kristo pulled them back and into the abyss, drawing the cloak of night over them. In a heartbeat, they faded away, into nothingness.

The elemental turned to Robin. "Now, where would we find some files?"

xxxx

The pseudo-Kathain wrapped her arms around Amon sweetly. Dare he say affectionately?

"Kathain?"

She giggled and sprang away from him, moving on the balls of her feet and her toes like some sort of a fairy. "I told you, I'm not her."

"Then who in the hell are you?" he demanded.

The illusory creature spun on her foot, her arms outstretched and reaching for the very stars and winds about that vast realm of emptiness. The sprite danced and swirled about, her robes flowing. It caught on the air and wind, rippling and wavering with the loose bits and ribbons.

"Answer me."

The girl stepped up to him lightly, tapping him on the nose cutely. "I am a mental representation of a metaphysical abstraction, incomprehensible by mortal man's thought processes and imagination."

"And what exactly does that mean?"

She shrugged. "It means you have a sick and twisted mind, Amon, my dear."

He gave a laugh, more of a sniff, really. "So, are you supposed to be a spirit guide to whisk me away to the afterlife?"

"Nope." The Not-Kathain laughed again. "Guess again."

Amon sighed. "Then what is all this about, anyway?"

"This is about you and who you are." She put her hand over Amon's heart for but a moment. "And, in time, you will understand who and what you are." The pseudo-Kathain traced an odd sort of shape, a symbol it seemed over his heart, but it could have been just a passing whim. "For you are one of the Thirteen. Know your fate and know your fate."

"Kathain?" he breathed, forgetting who this stranger had said she was.

The girl snickered again. "Don't try to make any sense of this now. Just accept it and go on with your life."

"No… I need more information," Amon pled.

"You have the information you need."

xxxx

Mmm…. Thirteen weirdness abounds.