Nagi had already filled his mug with hot chocolate and wandered into the living room before he realized that the apartment was absolutely, spookily empty. A quick check of Crawford's, Schuldich's, and Farfarello's rooms revealed that all three of them were out somewhere, Crawford probably accompanying Takatori to some lavish opera or dinner and Schu and Farf having a night out on the town. Nagi wryly made a mental note to check the papers in the morning, in case any clergy had been violently dismembered.

He tried to sit quietly in the darkened living room with his drink, but without anyone around, he felt inexplicably restless. He'd just managed to pull himself out of the sucking embrace of the virtual world, his last night of freedom before Crawford set him on the task of tracking down The One. It wasn't so much their location he would be searching for, but information on other psychics who had achieved this sort of telepathic collective, what the weaknesses of the link were, and what they could expect from those possessed by it. It promised to be interesting reading, but Nagi's eyes were tired, and he felt isolated without his laptop in front of him, connecting him to the entire world by virtue of a single cable. If only somebody had been around, perhaps Schuldich, who toyed with Nagi far too much for his liking, but in all seriousness was still his friend. Perhaps Crawford, with his calming presence and the quiet, intelligent conversation he knew they could have had.

At least they don't think I need a babysitter, he observed to himself, smiling at the thought.

A noise from another room captured his attention and he stood. He knew it wasn't from any of the rooms he had already checked and he realized he had forgotten about Sabbath entirely. He knocked at the door to her room, thinking that maybe at this late hour, she would be asleep. But her voice, sounding strained, drifted out from behind the door.

"Come in."

He cracked the door open and peeked inside, noting the ritual circle with some curiosity. Her telepath friend lay in it, and Sabbath sat outside of it, the candles burned down to stumps and her body curled over itself, head resting on her knees.

"Sabbath?" he said quietly, taking one step into the room, socks whispering on the hardwood floor. "Is something wrong?"

She sighed and sat back on her hands, finally turning her head to look up at him. "His soul was fractured," she explained matter-of-factly. Her dark eyes were grim. "It couldn't anchor successfully back to his body because The Collective already had a piece of it. And he was stuck in limbo because of it, going mad from the split."

Nagi's eyes widened slightly and he stepped fully into the room, looking at the circle, and at the body.

The dead body.

"You killed him?" His tone was flat, empty of accusation. They had known from the beginning that this might be necessary, after all. And he hadn't known this telepath, so the blonde's death meant very little to him.

Sabbath shrugged. "I don't know that you could really say that. I cut his soul's connection to his body. Sometimes the body can live on after that, but in this case, the shock of separation sent him into cardiac arrest. I couldn't have saved him and there was no reason to try; without a soul, he's just a corpse that breathes, anyway."

Nagi nodded once, in understanding, and hesitated. His toes curled on the floor, feeling the uneven wood beneath them. Finally, he broke the heavy silence. "Would you like some help with the body?"

Sabbath's gaze snapped back to him and she smirked, and he returned it. There was irony in the emotions they both SHOULD have been feeling, standing over such an empty-looking corpse on the floor. Human beings had natural reactions toward death, feelings of loss, of sadness, of fear. He didn't know what Sabbath felt about her friend's death. Schuldich had told him that Sabbath had violently murdered the three members of the Collective who had done this to him. Perhaps she had been concerned about him then, but three days of sitting with his comatose body had distanced her from him. Or perhaps she was just not emotional about death. The latter seemed to him to be the truth. Death was a common occurrence in his life, in the lives of Schwarz. Even Nagi had killed over a dozen times, and his presence on the field was rarely required.

"Thank you, Nagi," she said quietly, standing and looking over the circle. With a single, abrupt motion, she dragged her foot through the chalk lines, smearing and to a degree erasing them. "The circle is open but never broken," she said quietly. "So mote it be."

Nagi watched as she picked up and put away her supplies. The top of her altar was a lid that lifted, revealing stacked shelves. She threw away the candles and set aside the tools, pulling out a ceramic bowl and setting it on top of the altar. "I did my best, but I failed, and that failure will linger with me," she explained to him as she placed the crystals and her athame, which Nagi suddenly realized had probably been used to sever her friend's soul from his body, into the bowl. "My tools will need to be cleansed. I don't know that we can bury him…" she turned her gaze back toward the body. "Most cemeteries keep a sharp lookout for disturbances to the graves. And I don't want to just leave him somewhere. The trail might lead back to Schwarz if he's found."

"And to you," Nagi pointed out, and Sabbath laughed.

"I'm irrelevant. It isn't likely anyway… there isn't a mark on him. It looks like he had heart failure, which is the truth. But just in case…"

"The ocean," Nagi suggested. "We could take him there."

"It's a long way to go," Sabbath warned him. "A long way to lug a body, and Ray's not small." She motioned to his six-foot frame, easily over two-hundred pounds. "I guess if we could find a big enough suitcase, we could break his spine."

Nagi had to shudder slightly at the casual way she said that, but he agreed that it would be the easiest way to transport the body. "I think Farf has a large one that rolls. Don't ask me why… he never fills it." Nagi slipped off to find the suitcase, hoping rather selfishly that Sabbath could snap her own friend's body in half by herself rather than requiring him to do it. When he returned, pulling the suitcase, she was in the process of trying very hard to break his spine in the middle, mostly by planting a foot on his lower back and pulling up on his shoulders.

Nagi took pity on her, even though she didn't look like it bothered her to be doing it. "Here." Reaching out with his Power, he brought a sharp and precise blow down on the bones and heard them crack.

Sabbath smiled at him with genuine warmth, and he felt oddly gratified. "Thanks."

"No problem," he told her, shrugging and levitating the body into the suitcase, as tightly folded as he could get it. The suitcase still bulged, but it closed when Nagi let Sabbath try to zipper it. He'd noticed that women always seemed to be able to stuff suitcases fuller than men. Or maybe Sabbath just had the witch's touch with zippers. She pushed on the front of the suitcase to flatten it, so it wasn't so obviously a body inside, and stood up. "Is there a car we can take or will it have to be the bus?"

"We only have one official driver, and he would be with Crawford," Nagi told her. "It will have to be the bus."

She nodded. "Go and pack a backpack. It doesn't have to be heavy, just full. And get your laptop case."

Used to obeying orders and somewhat comforted by the calm, efficient way Sabbath gave them, he moved away to do just that. He stuffed a blanket into his backpack and filled the other compartment with clothes, so that it looked lumpy and full, but weighed very little. When he returned to her with his bags in tow, she already had a large duffle back stuffed with something, probably clothing, and her purse with the strap across her chest. She was no longer in her flowing black ritual garb, having slipped into black sweatpants and a light blue Care Bears hoody. He had to smirk at the rainbow and the smiling stars that decorated the front. It was so like her, and yet so unlike her, a weird and misleading paradox. Looking at those stars, one could almost believe she was innocent.

Sabbath picked up the lever on the suitcase and nodded to him. "Let's go. It's a long ride to the waterfront and we'll have to change busses a time or two."

He nodded and they locked the apartment behind them, taking the elevator down and slipping out the back way to avoid the office. They had to walk for several blocks before they could catch a bus and they did so in silence, Nagi giving the suitcase a small levitational push to help Sabbath get it onto the bus when it stopped.

They sat in the middle, Sabbath leaning against the window and staring at something only she could see, Nagi with his blank gaze focused down the aisle. They were the only people on the bus this late, and it was sort of comforting, the quiet and the steady rattle of the vehicle as it made its way through the streets.

"Are you sorry he's dead?" Nagi asked abruptly, startling Sabbath from her daydream. She tilted her head at him and looked thoughtful, then nodded.

"Yes. But I did my best. Dead is dead, and honestly, I was fairly certain I wouldn't be able to bring him back. We couldn't get back the piece they stole from him, so I sent him to the Summerlands. And now he's whole."

"The Summerlands? Is that like Heaven?"

She smiled. "No. It's more like a very nice waiting room. We all have several chances at life, and in between lives, we stay there, to rest, to reflect on what we've learned, and to decide when we'll return to earth again. If we return."

"So you believe in reincarnation."

Sabbath laughed. "Don't you?" she inquired, her eyes dancing with knowledge she had and he didn't. "You're an old soul, Nagi. I'm surprised you don't know it."

He turned cerulean-blue eyes on her, vaguely puzzled. "What do you mean, 'I'm an old soul'?"

Sabbath stretched in the plastic seat and it creaked under her as the lights of the street passed them by. Slightly surreal, almost spiritual, this late-night exodus. Nagi felt almost high. "You've lived a few times already, accumulated an Old Soul's quiet disposition. You're older in spirit than you are in body, and very little really surprises you or wrings an emotional response from you. And it isn't because you're jaded. It's because even though you don't remember it up here…" she tapped her forehead, in the center, just above her eyes. "You've done most of this before."

"Schuldich doesn't seem to have trouble surprising me," Nagi pointed out with a shred of humor.

Sabbath threw her head back and laughed, and he was somewhat taken aback by the strength of her reaction. "I don't think there are two of Schuldich in all the world or throughout history," Sabbath told him when she'd calmed enough to speak. "Schuldich, like me, is a BRAND new soul. He often acts immaturely and doesn't usually seem to comprehend the full weight of his actions. He doesn't realize, or believe, that karmic justice will find him someday."

"So you're a brand new soul?" Nagi inquired. Something about that didn't quite mesh with him. She was too old for her age to be brand new, but sometimes she acted so incredibly young, he didn't know.

"I've done this once before," she told him solemnly. "Maybe twice. I haven't delved into my past lives. Very much is still new to me, but there are things I know a great deal about already, the important things. A lot of enthusiasm and a few shreds of wisdom, I suppose you could say. I like the combination, personally, but I've noticed it tends to confuse others." She smiled at him.

Nagi gave her a sort of half-smile, in return. "I know Crawford is old," he said quietly. "But tell me something… what do you think of Farfarello?"

"Mm," Sabbath said, nodding as she considered his question. "Farf's a hard one to pin down. Pain, loss, and hatred aged him before his time. No child should experience what little I understand of what he experienced. None the less, I think he's young. Very young. Because an old soul would not have so easily broken under the strain of what he suffered and gone mad, and an old soul's hatred of God would have been tempered by experience, remembered or not. In fact, like Schu… I'm rather certain this is Farf's first time. He had the ultimate trust of a true child and when it shattered, so did he."

Nagi considered that for a moment. "There are times," he said slowly, hands folded in his lap, "when he makes perfect sense. When he's almost sane. Fairly often, actually, and he's just quiet and very smart."

Sabbath smiled. "Wisdom and intelligence are two different things, Nagi, as any gamer will tell you. Would you like to venture a guess as to my IQ?"

Nagi blinked. "Um… one hundred and… thirt…y?"

She laughed. "Don't worry, I'm not going to be offended." Settling down, she pinned him under her gaze, brown eyes sparkling. "One hundred sixty-three."

"But that's…."

"Genius level. Yes, I know. Remember what I said? Wisdom and intelligence are NOT the same thing. Farf's IQ could be off the chart, and it probably is when he's thinking in a straight line, but that doesn't mean he's mature. The hatred he holds toward God is not a sign of wisdom, it's a childish need for revenge." She smiled. "I'm very immature a good deal of the time. The only thing that keeps me in check, often, is the hand of the Goddess on my life. I draw on Her wisdom and She helps me to avoid the largest pitfalls."

"It must be nice to be able to talk to her so clearly in your head, like you were when Schu tried to barge in," Nagi said, thinking wistfully of what it would be like to have a deity watching over you, a wise one that loved you and was close to you and touched your life so directly that, like Sabbath, you could do magick.

Sabbath smiled. "Yes, it is. She will always be there, in the appropriate guise, for those who seek Her. She has many aspects and many forms, but those who seek Her will always know Her and there is always a place for them at Her feet."

"Do you think…" He stopped, unwilling to even broach the subject. He half felt as though Farfarello would appear behind him and slit his throat for toying with the madman's emotions so.

"Go ahead," Sabbath said quietly.

"Do you think Farfarello might get better if he believed in a different God? One like yours?" Nagi blurted out. "Do you think it might help him if he could… I don't know, not believe in Christianity anymore?"

Sabbath did not answer him at first. They rode for twenty minutes in silence and then got off to change busses and still she said nothing. When they were on a bus bound for the waterside, she finally stirred in her seat and spoke slowly, the weight of emotion and wisdom behind her words.

"I don't think it would help him. I don't really know why. Logically, I suppose it should. But I've got a feeling, call it Witch's Intuition: Farf's demons go beyond God and deeper, and changing deities won't fix them as easily as any of us would like." She smiled and he felt her fingers play with a wisp or two of his hair. "It's kind of you to care so much."

Nagi flushed slightly and looked away. "Well… he's… part of my team. And when he's feeling mostly sane, he's usually very nice to me. He doesn't treat me like I'm a child. Schu and Crawford still do that a lot of the time."

Sabbath nodded. "He doesn't treat me like I'M a child either. I'm only two years older than you, you realize, and Farfarello is only a year or two older than me."

"He's that young?" Nagi's lips pursed. "How do you know?"

She laughed. "The scars, and the eye, make him look older, don't they? But he has naturally young features, so if I'm estimating his age, I'd say he's two years older than I am, at the most. Probably only one."

"Oh." Nagi paused and appraised her. "How old are you, exactly?"

"I'm eighteen," she told him quietly. "I'll be nineteen in a few days, on the tenth."

"Really? You're only eighteen?" Nagi smiled weakly at her. "I thought you were older."

"Changes things a bit, doesn't it?" She laughed.

"Happy Birthday," he told her earnestly. "I know it's early."

"I don't give a shit. Thanks."

"You're welcome."

The bus pulled to a stop and they hauled their luggage off, trudging together along the waterfront. To any observers, they might have looked like siblings returning home from the airport, or perhaps a sleepover. That was precisely the image Sabbath had been trying to cultivate by getting Nagi to bring a backpack and his laptop case along.

They found a stretch of water that was uninhabited and quickly bundled Ray's body out of the suitcase. "Take it out far," Sabbath whispered to Nagi. "And sink it deep." Her hands settled on his shoulders and somehow, he found that it was easier to concentrate that way. Telekinesis at a distance was usually very difficult for him, but everything felt sharply focused, as though his eyesight, and his range, had extended. He floated the corpse out over the water, barely a foot above the choppy waves, until it was just a speck to both of them. With a mental heave, he forced it down into the water, pushing it deep when it wanted to float, until he felt the bottom of the harbor under his mind's hand. He pushed silt up over it, gritting his teeth with the effort, pinning a limb or two down with a stone before finally releasing it and stumbling back into Sabbath with a gasp. Precision work at such distance, without being able to see what he was doing, was straining to him. She seemed to understand that, and kept an arm around him as she stood up and headed back for the bus stop. They would have to sit for about twenty minutes before the next bus came along, here in the quiet night.

"Shouldn't we throw the suitcase away?" Nagi wondered as they found a bench.

Sabbath gave him a knowing smirk. "Somehow, I doubt Farfarello will mind that there was another dead body in it."

"Another dead body?"

"Well, think, Nagi. Why do you think Farfarello needs such a big suitcase?"

Nagi chose not to answer that.

X-X-X

Nagi had to admit; Sabbath made an excellent cup of tea. He wasn't entirely sure what he was drinking, but he noticed that it warmed him from the inside out and seemed to calm the jitters he'd had all night. He was as relaxed as only his computer made him, sitting low in the plush armchair with Sabbath curled up on the couch across from him. There was a very small white candle burning on the low table between them, standing in a shallow dish of water. It was a tiny flame, but it was amazing how much light it shed on the darkened living room. And this light was kinder than the electric light Nagi could have gotten by turning on the lamp. It made the room look alive and somewhat mysterious.

"So there's no damnation for witches?" he asked quietly, turning his mug between his hands. "No hell?"

She smiled. "Well, there's Hel, but that's only Norse mythology. No, witches do not damn anyone. There is no Hell, there is no lake of fire. We come to earth, we live, we learn, we die for a while and we return again until we understand. Until we are mature enough to live in harmony with all things, without having to rape the earth or hurt each other."

"But what about murderers and rapists? They don't get punished?"

She laughed. "You haven't been listening. Punishment does not occur in the afterlife, it occurs in LIFE. People who hurt others bring down karmic retribution on their own heads, either in that life or the next, or even the next. It might take time, but justice will ALWAYS be done because nature, and The Goddess, are always fair."

Nagi pondered that. "So… if someone raped you tomorrow, and got away from the authorities, you wouldn't worry because you know that someday he'll still be punished."

Sabbath smirked. "Karmic justice takes many forms. There's nothing stopping me from hunting him down and raping him… with a broadsword."

"The law," Nagi pointed out, wincing at the phantom pain produced by the image.

Sabbath shrugged. "Who says I'd get caught? Justice is justice. Then again, my motives would not be pure, so it's unlikely that I'd be the instrument of justice in that case unless he was pretty much handed to me. Wouldn't want ME to rack up some bad points in trying to even things out. There's a fine line between justice and revenge, and it's a line best walked by She who is wise enough to judge between them."

"So you just… deliver justice into the hands of your goddess and leave it?" Disbelief laced his tone.

Sabbath smiled at him. "I could. I trust that she would bring it about for me. But She helps those who help themselves. If I really wanted Justice, and if I really wanted to prove that I am greater than he who wounded me, I wouldn't go after him myself. Instead, I would do a binding. I would tie his hands, magickally, stop him from doing harm, and send him stumbling into the hands of the police."

He shook his head. "That sounds too virtuous for you. I think you'd just hunt him down and kill him."

She laughed. "Well… all right, maybe. But binding him and getting him caught would be the RIGHT thing to do. And believe it or not, most of the time I DO try to do the right thing, whatever that is. It's just that to me, the 'right thing' is not based on the Ten Commandments or any derivative thereof. It's based on Her judgment and my own discretion, which She allows me."

"And how do you know if you make the right choice?"

She shook her head. "Experience. Wisdom. It's how we learn, by making choices. And if I make a mistake, I will gladly take the consequences for it. That is what separates a true witch from one who wields magick for their own ends; our willingness to own up to our own actions, be they positive or negative, and our goal throughout everything that no matter what, none should be harmed. It's our law, our Rede: An ye harm none, do as ye will."

"So, as long as you're not hurting anybody, you get to do anything you want to?"

"Yep. Drink myself stupid, trip on acid, sleep with every boy on the block and a few of the girls as well, prance around naked and dye my hair bright blue. Of course, 'an ye harm none' also includes yourself, so a few of those activities would require some caution in the undertaking. Do you understand?"

"I think so." He took another sip of his tea. "But you don't follow that law. You killed all those Collective…."

She shook her head. "First, they are already dead. There is no soul there, no spirit, only Power and body. Second, given how many unwilling souls they have expelled from their bodies, how many lives they have stolen, they have it coming. Third, if I don't kill them, they will kill me, so it's also self-defense. But that's only in the case of the Collective. I will admit… I share my Mother's hunger for blood and death. I try to keep it under control, but I am a violent person and I always have been."

"Your mother? I thought she was about life."

"When I say 'my mother', Nagi, I'm speaking of my patron Goddess, Kali Ma. She's the Hindu goddess of death and destruction. That may sound evil, but death is a natural part of life, and in order to create, something must always be destroyed first. She is the balance and the darkness, from which we all came and to whom we will all eventually return. She delights in destruction but in all things upholds the balance of the universe." She chewed at a fingernail. "Of course, Kali, being a Mother, is very protective of her children. If there is revenge needed, or strength to overcome an adversary, she's an excellent patron."

"Does she want you to kill?" Nagi inquired, and for a moment, Sabbath considered.

"She wants me to live. She does not mind if I kill."

Nagi nodded and they sat in silence for a while as he mulled over the conversation they'd been having for the last two hours. Her religion was a strange one, mostly because it seemed to allow for everything and refused to outright condemn anything or anyone. Even death was not condemnation because there was no hell, just another life waiting beyond the white tunnel.

"So what happens when we're all enlightened?" he asked suddenly. "What happens when everybody is harmonious and nobody wants to hurt anybody anymore?"

"Well, opinions on that differ," she told him. "We could shed our bodies permanently and become part of The Goddess, return to her. Or we could live in paradise for a while. Personally, I don't want to live in paradise. Paradise would be pleasant for a few minutes and unendingly boring after that. A world full of pain is where I belong, as Her hands."

"Are you trying to ease pain?"

She smiled. "Maybe. Tell me something, Nagi. Does it hurt to be invisible?"

He set his cup down with a clatter. "Wha… what?"

"Does it hurt to be invisible? You rarely speak, you blend with the shadows, you do as you're told without rocking the boat. And in return for your cooperation, you are mostly ignored, pushed aside, made little of. Does it hurt to be invisible or is that what you want?"

Nagi blinked, then looked at the floor. "I don't… I didn't…."

"Hush," she said gently, and he looked up in apprehension to see her smiling knowingly at him. "It's all right. There's a lot of wickedness aimed at Schwarz, surrounding all of you. Some of it of your own making. Your behavior ensures that most of it passes harmlessly over you. But listen to me; so far, nothing has been important enough to you to require your involvement. But someday, something will touch you. And when it does… do not sit quietly and take orders. Speak. Do. Dare to use your own discretion. Others aren't always the ones who know what's best for you." She held up her fingers and thumbs, forming a triangle. "We witches have a pyramid, four sides that lead to success: To Know, to Will, to Dare, and to Be Silent. When you know, and you WILL know, trust your own will, dare to defy others, and take solace in your own discretion."

He shook his head. "But Schwarz is my family. I won't do anything that causes risk to them."

"Maybe you will, maybe you won't. But they're big boys, Nagi, and they're survivors. When you see something you want, reach out with both hands. You're just as deserving to get what you want as everyone else in this world." She smirked. "And contrary to popular opinion, everyone deserves to be happy."

He shook his head and stood slowly. "Thank you for the tea," he said quietly. "I'll think about it. But I think you're wrong." He turned and moved slowly toward his room. He half expected that she would call him back or say something else, but she did not, and when his door closed behind him, he felt a peculiar lack of desire to sit down with his laptop.

Instead, he went to bed and tried to think of something that would ever make him defy Crawford, or risk Schwarz.

X-X-X