Chapter 5

A/N: Once more, I don't own Koudelka or Shadow Hearts. But I'm selling James: Cheap! I don't think Darkannex ) would recognize his copy of Koudelka's script, but I thank him anyway. And thank you's go out to those intrepid readers who have braved this story – and reviewed.

With shouts of surprise, the three fell down into the dark as the ancient floor collapsed under their weight. They landed with a crunch onto a pile of old and brittle bones and broken stones and Yuri, lying on top, opened his eyes in time to see a shadow move above them in the old storage room.

"Hey!" he shouted, sitting up. "Hey you! Get back here!" but the shadow moved off leaving the three of them to sort out where they were.

"What was that all about?" James asked, sitting up and looking around, his coat dusty with shattered bones.

"I saw someone above," Yuri said, "but he's gone now." Yuri looked around the room and sighed. "Tsk, another damned cage; this place is full of prison cells!" he complained as he stood up, one booted heel crushing into a skull. Behind him, James was also rising and snorted with disgust.

The cell was large, affording room for nearly a dozen prisoners at one time; however now it was piled high with mummified corpses and skeletons. A miasma of death floated over the cell and the three prisoners checked for an escape route. One wall held chains for securing prisoners, their links red with dried blood and rust, while next to them were the cell bars, huge poles of metal still solid in their age; a door was also there, but locked. Koudelka pushed on the cell door.

"Oh, no good," she said, "it's solid."

James shook his head. "What do you mean? We can't get out?"

"Why don't you ask these guys?" Koudelka said, pointing at the piles of corpses.

"How hard can it be for thieves like you to get us out of a place like this?" James asked his face set in a sneer of contempt.

"James, stuff yerself!" Yuri said from across the cell. He had climbed over the pile of debris and corpses to investigate the other wall and, finding nothing, went to other vacant wall kicking at it in frustration before deciding to join Koudelka at the barred door. He knelt down to look inside the lock, and then looked around for something to pry it open.

"Say, do you have a knife I can maybe ruin?" he asked, reluctant to part with the dagger he had from before.

Koudelka pulled a thin bladed knife from her pack. "Here, but what do you think you can do?" she asked.

Yuri shrugged. "Don't know until I try. I might be able to pry the lock open." He slipped the dagger into the lock, twisting it around, trying to catch it on the inside lock, but it was rusted shut. He tried again but then stood, kicking the door with a curse.

"Ah shit; no good, damn it!"

"Yeah," Koudelka agreed, bending down to look at the lock and Yuri could smell her, the worn clothing a bit musty, and another scent, like spice. "You'd need the strength of a bear to break those bars with your hands," she commented. She looked at Yuri with a sharpness that told him she was thinking of something and he smiled.

"Or a fusion monster?" he responded quietly and for a moment, was lost in her eyes before she blinked and moved away. James snorted, shaking his head, and indicating Yuri and Koudelka with an angry gesture.

"I can't believe I'm wasting my time on you," he commented.

"Nobody asked you to," Yuri offered snidely but James continued, ignoring him.

"I'm on a mission from God…"

Before either Koudelka or Yuri could comment further however, familiar laughter tinkled in the air, sending shivers down Yuri's spine. He looked up, outside the cell, and watched as a young girl materialized in the air, floating just on the other side of the bars. It was the same young girl he had seen upstairs, the one with the long silver blonde hair.

"What a waste… a terrible waste," she said and her voice echoed as if from a long way away. "My name is Charlotte," she said with a touch of coquetry in her voice, "not that it means anything; not that you have a prayer," she said and floated closer to the bars, an amused look on her delicate features. She laughed again and a hint of sarcasm entered her voice, "I'm talking to three dead people. No one's going to save you - no one."

Koudelka stepped closer to the bars and looked at the shimmering specter of a child. She still held her doll close in one hand, its face painted on white bisque, with ruby lips, and vacant eyes; and Koudelka gestured toward the girl.

"So, you died here as well?"

The spectral child nodded, her silver-blonde locks floating like gossamer behind her.

"Yes, I died here too - hundreds and hundreds of years ago. My mother left me here the day that I was born," her voice was soft and wistful but then turned hard and dripped with sarcasm. "They beheaded me the day I turned nine. 'Happy Birthday'. I've been trapped here ever since, and no one even knows who I am."

James came closer to the bars and reached a hand through, fingers extended toward Charlotte.

"My poor, little angel," he said softly.

"Angel?" Charlotte said, her hollow voice becoming shrill. "Save your pity for yourselves; you'll all be dead in three days."

Undeterred, James reached further toward the ghostly girl. "I don't know what your circumstances were, but I know that your mother loved you very, very much," he said, his voice placating.

"My mother?" Charlotte exclaimed, a look of hate filling her nearly lavender eyes, and she stared hard at the priest. "I don't know her face, her name, where she came from … nothing." Charlotte's voice dripped with her bitter anger and she looked at Yuri, Koudelka, and James with flashing eyes. "From the day I was born 'til the day I died, no one ever loved me. And I never want to be loved! Just die! All of you, just die!" her voice rose to a shrill screech before she faded into nothingness.

"Well, that was …" Yuri started and then, hearing something rustle behind him, spun around to see a shadow beginning to manifest in the room. "Uh-oh, we got company!" he cried and pulled the dagger from his coat pocket. Koudelka and James spun around in time to see Yuri attack. What he faced was something akin to a ghost; a tall noble looking dead man, a yellow-feathered hat on his head, and a long saber held upright in his left hand. Even as Yuri leapt forward, the nobleman raised his sword and thrust at the fusionist, forcing Yuri to swerve and only land a glancing blow against the nobleman's satin clothing.

Koudelka began to murmur, summoning her flare magic, and James pulled out the pistol and unloaded into their attacker. Yuri spun around as the last shots died away and scissored his long legs into the nobleman, spinning him around and forcing him to reset himself before he could lunge at James. The creature made a grunt of frustration and then sliced downward with his sword, grazing Yuri's coat as he spun away again.

"Damnit! That's my favorite coat!" he cursed and then vented his anger with a series of vicious punches and kicks that moved the ghostly grandee back against the empty stone wall.

"Yuri, move!" Koudelka called and let fly with her summoned magic, sending a cascade of fire bursting over the aristocrat. The spectral creature growled in renewed frustration, raised his sword, this time to summon his own magic, which appeared quickly as a barrage of lightening that sent Koudelka and James to their knees, and knocked Yuri face down on the filthy floor.

"God damned stupid shit - damn," Yuri muttered and climbed to his feet, taking the dagger in hand once more and surging forward, slicing and stabbing at the blue blood. Behind him, he could hear James's muttered deprecations about his swearing and ignored it, instead concentrating on slicing upward inside the nobleman's guard and hacking a chunk out of his sword arm. The creature dropped his sword down, turning the movement into an attack and slicing through Yuri's back, cutting his trench coat to ribbons.

Yuri fell to one knee, awash in pain even as James's pistol once more sent reports into the echoing prison cell. Koudelka leapt forward as well, one foot shoving Yuri aside as she swung the pipe downward and into the noble's head, smashing the skull. With a moan, the nobleman collapsed to the floor and vanished. Koudelka knelt beside Yuri, pulling the slivers of trench coat away from his back and checking the damage.

"You'll live but your back looks terrible," she said and put down the pipe. "Here, I owe you this." She raised her hands over Yuri's now prostrate form and concentrated, pulling magical energy into her hands and sending it down in a shower of green tinted health into his body. Yuri groaned, the magic's raw effect of knitting his sliced flesh and muscles, causing as much pain as the initial injury. After a minute Koudelka sighed and stood.

"Say, look at the wall," James said and Koudelka turned to look. James was standing by the stone wall, once vacant and now cracked and pockmarked with striations. "If we try we should be able to dislodge some of this stonework," James said and tried pushing against the wall, to no avail. Yuri climbed to his feet, pocketing the knife, and shrugging his shoulders to loosen them.

"Here, let me," he said and climbed a small pile of corpses to get closer to the wall. He pushed against it, and then turned to Koudelka. "Let me have that pipe, will you?" And when Koudelka relinquished the pipe, he jammed it into a crack in the wall and pushed against it. Dust and bits of stone rustled then shifted, falling inward to pile at Yuri's booted feet along with the now bent pipe. Yuri looked through the hole in the wall and grimaced.

"It's another prison cell – sort of. Hold yer nose though," he said and climbed through.

They climbed through the broken wall and stepped down into a torture chamber. To their left was a vertical rack, a corpse hanging from it, parts of its body still hanging in tatters and slivers, the meat still fresh. And on a table in front of them lay a female, her body stripped and hacked, her arms severed at the joints, her belly slit open and her entrails sliding down the side of the table. Flies still swarmed around the thick sticky pools of blood that congealed beneath the table.

"Still a little too fresh," Yuri said, sniffing. Koudelka and James both covered their mouths and noses, crossing the room to the far door as quickly as possible. On his way to join them Yuri spotted a mace leaning against the dissection table and picked it up, then climbed the stairs and followed James through to a dark chamber; a door to their right was sealed shut, with no sign of a key.

"This place is like a rat's nest," Yuri muttered.

Koudelka had moved ahead and pushed open another door at the bottom of a shallow stair. "This way," she called and stepped through into an underground tunnel.

"I am beginning to agree with Yuri," James said with a sigh. "It's like a maze down here."

Yuri snorted as he followed Koudelka through the dim and green-cast tunnel. The walls looked like they had been hand carved from their birth rock and there was a greenish cast to the stone that, when Yuri looked closer, appeared a bit like lichen, glowing with its own feeble light. A pile of bones was on one side, the moldering remains of clothing indicated these had been here for centuries. At the end of the corridor was another door and Yuri opened it quickly, hoping for fresh air or stairs – both disappointed him, and instead they were faced with another chamber, this one darker than the corridor they had just left. On their right was a large metal container with a spigot. James looked at the markings on the container and shrugged.

"Acid," he said. "A septic tank."

Yuri was standing at a rusting chain guard that ran around a deep depression in the earth; far below, he could see the dark surge of water, and listening, he thought he heard the surf. But the crevasse itself was dark, broken in many places and smelled of sewage. Behind them, Koudelka had taken the left hand path, following it around to the other side of the crevasse and a broken door. She tried to peer through but could see nothing on the other side, so she returned toward the others; that's when she spotted a glimmer of light.

"In here," she called and Yuri looked up to see her disappear between two broken pillars. A moment later, she screamed.

When Yuri and James rounded the pillars, they skidded to a halt, frozen by a nightmare. Koudelka stood on a platform, all carved with runes and sigils. Beyond her was a large fountain and pool awash in blood-red water and writhing in front of her was a being of pure insanity. Roughly humanoid, it towered nearly ten feet in height, with its head in its chest, one mad yellow eye wiggling in its socket, its mouth open in a soundless scream, while on its hunched shoulders rose another head, sightless. Instead of two arms with hands, it had appendages with two fleshy skulls for hands that writhed and wriggled as if trying to escape. It seemed to float over the seal platform, its bottom half was insect-like with several smaller legs with pinchers and two front legs, longer than the others, with long, sharp pinchers; the over-all appearance was of a man merged with a mutant, wingless fly.

"Sweet Jesus preserve us," James said, crossing himself.

"Amen," Yuri agreed then, hefting the mace, jumped up to Koudelka's side. She was muttering - summoning magic even as he and James deployed to either side and Yuri leapt forward, mace swinging.

His first blow was glancing as the mad flying insect turned to avoid his attack, but Yuri let the momentum carry him forward and he turned around, still swinging, and landed a hard blow to the creature's gut, just below its gap-mouthed face. It made a moaning sound, and its skull hands wiggled and gyrated and Yuri managed to duck just in time as it swung at him and instead, met Koudelka's flame attack. Behind him, James had crossed himself again and he too was muttering, summoning magic. Yuri spared a smirk of satisfaction at the priest's capitulation.

James' spell was complete and Yuri felt the freezing cold of ice as it formed above the monk and he moved aside as a cascade of ice shards fell from above, their razor sharp points slicing into the fly and Yuri followed through with another swing of his mace, hard into the mad creature's gut. With a snap, the haft broke and the momentum of his swing sent Yuri into the monster's grasp. Strange alien hands, like ectoplasm, grabbed him and began to shake him like a rag doll while the lower pinchers came up and tried to eviscerate him. Yuri felt his teeth rattling in his head and he yelled out a warning to Koudelka and James.

"Stay back!" Ignoring the pain of the mauling he was receiving, Yuri reached in and merged with a fusion soul. His body elongated, long fingered claws replacing his hands, a strong, muscular tail growing from his backside, his skin became cold, clammy and blue and his vision changed to multi-faceted hues as he fused to a water monster, Egil, and with a slash of his tail and a rake of his claws, he freed himself from the mad thing's grasp. With a flip, he somersaulted away, landing in front of Koudelka and James.

Large tail lashing in eager delight, Egil swayed for a moment, working his own magic, which manifested as a rainbow of light washing over him, helping his natural agility and offering a little healing. He then jumped forward again, lashing with his tail, pummeling the mad apparition several times before slipping away even as it tried to retaliate. With his mouth open, razor sharp teeth exposed, Egil looked like he was grinning in amusement; he then hunkered low, summoning a more powerful magic, bringing forth an icy cascade – spikes of ice thrust down onto the creature, piercing its body and its scream of pain and madness was painful to the ears.

Koudelka had moved to one side, avoiding the fusion's tail and began a fire summoning, trusting that the monster in front of her wouldn't turn and attack her next. James, even more unsure than usual, had pulled further back, offering instead to support and heal if need be, even as he loaded another round of cartridges into his pistol.

Koudelka's flare burst over the mad monstrosity and seconds later, another icy assault pounded it. Almost at once the fly-like creature retaliated, sending out a cry that brought forth dark energies that clouded above their heads, and then crashed down, leaving James and Koudelka wheezing, both poisoned. Egil's tail came back around and slammed into the crazy fly, pushing it back a few feet; he then moved back to Koudelka and James. With one sharp claw he indicated Koudelka's pouch, but the lady shook her head.

"No, I used the last of the antidote on you," she said.

The blue-skinned fusion shook its head, multi-faceted eyes looking from her and then back to the monster, before shrugging its massive shoulders. A moment later the form blurred, melting down into Yuri once more.

"I can fix that, but I'll need some listel when I'm done; and then we'll both have to pound that thing for all we're worth," he said.

"All right," Koudelka agreed. "I- I trust you."

"Good," Yuri said with a grin. "You should."

Once again he reached within and in a heartbeat his body began to blur, growing to nearly seven feet. Muscular, massive, fiery red, Yuri stood before them now as his fusion Inferno, and before James could scream in wide-eyed panic, he summoned his warm healing energies and bathed them both, Koudelka first then James. Instantly the poisons running through their bodies dissipated and both were returned to good health, if a little weak. Then with a nod of his massive head, Inferno returned to the attack, his four heavily muscled arms pounding and gouging into the creature's body, giving Koudelka and James time to summon their own magical attacks. And once they were ready, Inferno moved back, letting their magic soften up the creature for his own fire magic. Koudelka hit the monstrosity with her fiery flare, James used an icy cascade, and before it could react again, Inferno summoned a huge fireball and sent it exploding into the monster. With a screech, the mad flying monstrosity shivered, faded, and then vanished and Yuri released the fusion, falling to one knee to catch his breath.

Ahead, the blood-red waters gurgled then shimmered, changing to purest blue and revealing a statue of a beautiful woman standing against the far wall, arms reaching out in benediction. James went to the font and, kneeling down, took up a handful of the water and washed his face, murmuring a prayer of thanksgiving, while Koudelka took a small bottle of listel and offered it to Yuri.

"Thanks," he said and sat down, putting his back to a broken pillar.

Koudelka knelt beside him, looking him over carefully, healing his wounds, even as he popped the cork of the aromatic rose wine and took a gulp.

"Yuri, just what are you," she asked.

Yuri sighed and offered her a sip of the wine as well. "I'm a man." He watched her drink, catching the delicate movement of her white throat against the black lace on her neck, and his eyes followed that down to the black lace bustier that nestled softly around her comely breasts.

Koudelka took a drink of the fruity wine and handed it back to him. "Not like any other man," she said, ignoring his eyes. "Not like James."

"God I hope not," he said with a soft laugh. "You gotta promise not to freak, Koudelka. If I tell ya, you can't freak on me. I – I couldn't stand it if you did," he said, watching her closely. Eyes cast down in thought, she looked so beautiful and he wanted to reach out and caress her, but then her eyes rose and looked deeply into his own and he felt a strange tingling in his mind and his body.

'There's so much I want to know; so much I want to ask … he's dangerous,' she was thought. "All right, I promise," she said.

"I – you know how you hear voices and all? It's 'cause yer psychotic," he began.

Koudelka laughed. "Psychic; but sometimes you're right."

Yuri grinned. "Well, I hear 'em too sometimes; an' I see things. Ghosts, spirits; zombies, that kinda shit. It's cuz I'm a harmonixer. I can take the souls of those creatures I kill and use 'em to form fusion monsters. Like Inferno there, or Egil. It's still me, but I have the powers they would have had in life; and their strengths and weaknesses too."

"And in the priest's quarters - what was that thing you fought? And that thing you became? Was that you too?"

Yuri nodded, finishing the listel and setting the bottle down. "Yeah; that was Amon. He's not a fusion soul; he's a monster that I killed – capturing its soul to use as my own weapon." Yuri's mouth formed a crooked smile and he cocked his head to one side. "He's dangerous. But I like him; he's powerful too."

Koudelka nodded and looked over toward James who was now kneeling in silent prayer at the fountain.

"Why are you here, Yuri? I want to know. I know it's not my business, and I said I wouldn't ask but – why are you here?"

Yuri looked up at the beautifully exotic gypsy woman kneeling by his side and he felt his smile melt away at her words.

"I told ya, I'm trying to fix what I messed up."

With a sigh, Koudelka settled back on her heels, her hands folding into her lap.

"So tell me, what did you mess up?"

Yuri sighed and looked down at his shredded trench coat, the same coat he had worn all the way from China; he was supposed to replace it, but…

"I accidentally killed someone; someone important - and now everything's changing – changed. My wife is dead," he began, and the last words brought him a choking sob, his throat suddenly tight. "My wife, and our baby, is dead… and, and I can't even remember who she is, what she looked like." He pulled his legs up and put his head down on his knees, covering his face with his arms, trying to stifle the sobs that threatened to erupt from deep within him. Why was he crying, he wondered. He hardly remembered…

"Try to remember Yuri; what was her name?" Koudelka asked.

Yuri closed his eyes, shutting them shut tightly, holding his breath as he tried to pull a memory, an image, anything from his mind. "I - I can't remember. I can't…" he paused, raising his head and took a deep breath. "Something about Charlotte reminds me of her, but I can't… I've got to fix it, 'cause that one death changed everything. My wife and baby, me… Hell!" he exclaimed, "the whole fuckin' world!"

Koudelka frowned at his words and then tilted her head slightly, trying to see his face and he caught her eyes, shining with an inner light of their own.

"I came from China, ya know?" he said. "My mom was killed and my dad never came back; he was dead too and I was on my own until I heard a voice tell me what to do. God I hated that voice!" and he rubbed the back of his neck avoiding Koudelka's gaze for a moment for he did remember, inexplicably, that the voice had been her's. "But it told me things to do, and I got strong. And then there was the train. I," he hesitated, frowning – screwing up his eyes to try to see back just two years ago. "I was supposed to protect someone. But now that person's dead - killed by a mad warlock in Shanghai and me, me I'm dead too I suppose and shit, the whole world's next unless I fix my mess."

Koudelka sighed. "You are a confused young man, Yuri," she said.

"Heh, I'm older than you!" he said and dropped his head back to his knees again.

"I – I can almost see the vortex of changes around you," she said softly, and reached out to place her hands on either side of his head. Yuri looked up and found himself face to face with Koudelka, her eyes suddenly pupil-less and pulsing with a power that made his heart flutter.

"You are the eye of whatever this storm is, Yuri. Whatever this death was… whatever it was you did or did not do, it's making changes even as we speak."

"Yeah," he said softly. "I know; and he's dead too."

"Who?" Koudelka asked, startled.

"Edward. That was another mistake." He jerked back suddenly, hearing the scrape of shoes along the platform. James had risen and approached silently, sitting at the edge of the sigils platform and listening. Yuri looked back at Koudelka. "It's all my fault somehow. I don't know how to fix it, Koudelka, but maybe by the time this is all over, I will. And meantime, I'll protect you. Both of you. You'll come out of this alive and well, I promise."

"I believe you," Koudelka said, touching his hand and rose to her feet. "I suppose we should be going. Are you all right, James?"

James nodded, his eyes never leaving Yuri. "Yes. Yes, by the grace of God."

Together they left the font and followed the underground passage to another door, pushing it inward they found yet another corridor, aglow and sickly green with lichen. This one too had its share of corpses, ancient and broken; and a string of chains along one side of the floor that made them speculate over unknown horrors. Yuri stopped and picked up another box of cartridges, offering them to James who silently put them in his pouch. After a few minutes they reached the end, and yet another door greeted them, and Yuri stopped Koudelka from pushing it.

"I swear, if this leads to another corridor, I'm grabbing the gun and shooting James," he said with a grin and then pushed open the door. Looking around he saw a large storage room, piled high with gleaming treasure: crates, cases, and boxes all filled with art, paintings, bolts of cloth and glittering gold and jewels. "Nah James, you got off lucky," Yuri said and chuckled.

James frowned as he pushed past Yuri and came to a dead stop in front of him. His eyes widened in surprise and amazement as he took in the contents of the chamber. Slowly he wandered around the room, poking into first one crate, then a nearby barrel. A cloth-covered pile was to his right and he pulled off the dusty, filthy material to reveal a stack of paintings, all standing on their gilded frames.

"This is amazing; absolutely amazing," he said with tones of wonder in his voice. "I can't believe these treasures are in this monastery." He bent low to look at one painting. "Is that Montagna's signature? Oh! That's a Caravaggio… unbelievable! Truly! Why have these treasures been left here and forgotten?"

Koudelka watched as James wandered around the room and snorted with derision at his question. "Treasures?" she scoffed. "Do you remember what this place is James?" she demanded.

"Yes, I know what this place is. But – if these lost treasures could be contributed to the Vatican, their value to Christianity would be unquantifiable!"

"Idiot," Yuri muttered from across the room. He had been rummaging through the bins and pulled a quiver filled with quarrels: long, thin, straight arrows. Curious he continued his searching.

"This place was a prison James!" Koudelka continued. "People were executed for fighting each other for supremacy! These treasures must have been taken from them. Soaked with curses and hatred; these treasures are cursed, and you'll be cursed if you worship those things." James, however, was not listening. He continued to check the paintings until Yuri, in disgust, came over behind him and booted him in the butt. James spun around and caught Yuri's swallowed laughter.

"I am a busy man that does not have the time or the patience to teach you the things of faith," he said to Koudelka and with a glare at Yuri added, "But I will tell you why we have found these things… it could only have come from the guidance of God. God sees all, He knows all."

"An' I kicked his ugly ass," Yuri muttered.

James turned in disgust and walked toward the two waiting doors. His dramatic exit was stymied however when the first door refused to open, so he opened the second and stepped through. Koudelka turned amused eyes onto her remaining companion.

"You kicked God's ugly ass?" she asked.

"Yup; one of my better days," Yuri answered. "Hey!" he exclaimed, spotting a strange weapon sitting in the shadows behind her. "Ah, so that's what it is," he said as he hefted a large bow gun and showed Koudelka the quiver of arrows.

"Hm, hold on to those, Yuri," she said. "We may need them."

"Okay, but we better catch up to Mister 'I am on a mission from God' before something decides to send him heavenward." Yuri slung the bow gun from his shoulder and stepped through into the next room. James was investigating a plaque in the wall.

"It appears to be a statue, plastered into the wall," he said. "How strange."

Yuri ignored it and took the staircase at the other end of the room. "Come on James; above ground finally," Yuri said with a grin.

Another door was at the top of the stairs and, on the doorpost, was painted several symbols. Yuri paused, staring at the symbols until James came up and walked through. Koudelka joined Yuri and they looked at the symbols.

"A bottle, a pitchfork, a mirror and an eyeball? These people are strange," Yuri commented.

Koudelka sighed. "Must mean something," she said.

"Yeah, but what? The people who live here … why would they draw it? What's it for?"

"I don't know Yuri."

With a shrug Yuri followed James into the next room in time to see James pulling a stone slab from the nearby wall.

"Oh, so now you're a thief, James?"

"Heathen," James growled.

Yuri laughed. "Preach to the converted. And don't be walkin' off alone James - it's dangerous."

"Do you really care, heathen?" James asked, inspecting the stone tablet. Yuri was walking around the room, picking up cushions from the furniture and scrounging for anything useful.

"You know, I don't really care one way or the other about you, priest, so save me the holy crap."

"I believe these dead thieves are better than you two," James responded, a scowl deepening his already lined face. "At least they appreciated true value."

Koudelka too had begun investigating the room and stopped at a small table; a stuffed bear was sitting on the edge, with a letter pinned to its belly.

"Instead of preaching, I want you to understand something okay?" Koudelka said from across the room. "You can't label all those dead bodies as thieves hunting treasure. I saw plenty of dead women that were chopped up and mixed in with the mummies. And they were pretty fresh."

"Yeah, it's strange. If I weren't used to seeing dead bodies, I'd be vomiting," Yuri said.

"So it is that couple…" Koudelka muttered and read the letter pinned to the bear, then folded it and put it in her pouch.

"Fools! How could such a kind and faithful couple be cold-hearted killers? This is the work of - jealousy and greed, and pagans born of savagery, and - and immigrants. I will not be a party to such abusive slander. This is… this is so unpleasant…" James shook his head, his face wrinkled with disgust and he placed the tablet in his pouch.

"Not half as unpleasant as ending up dead, or roasting on a spit, or churning up inside some monster's belly, or…"

"Yuri," Koudelka interrupted. "Shut up."

A/N: one brave reviewer thought this was a "lovely story". Um, I don't know what Incredible One thinks is lovely, but hopefully this hasn't scared her (?) off. This piece will be long, and I apologize up front for any delays; I am further along that this, believe me! We all know the drill: Life Interferes!