Chapter 18
A/N Don't own Shadow Hearts or Koudelka – life is sooooooo unfair!
The three sat at the hearth of the fireplace in the kitchen, Yuri with his back to the wall while Roger squatted on a low stool near the firedogs. A large pot bubbled on the spit and roger occasionally reached in with a wooden spoon to stir the contents. Tantalizing aromas of meat and spices drifted up from the pot and Koudelka more than once wiped saliva from her anticipatory lips. Yuri's stomach rumbled loudly and he finally nudged Roger's stool with his boot, getting the old man's attention.
"When's chow – I'm starving here," he said and gave Roger his best I'm-hungry-feed-the-puppy look. Roger looked up at the fighter and laughed.
"When it is done Yuri, and not before."
"Well, I am with Yuri on this one, Roger. I'm hungry too," Koudelka added and then chuckled. Yuri was putting on an I-am-so-starved-I'm-fading-away pantomime behind Roger's back and it brought a grin then laughter to the gypsy woman. "You are incorrigible, aren't you, Yuri?"
"Yeah, well I don't take much encouraging, at least so I've heard," the fusionist said with a grin and rose to bring the bowls and tray with bread and cheese over to the hearth. "My mom used to laugh at my antics too, only it always worked with her. Now my dad…" Yuri's voice faded off as he offered cheese and bread to Koudelka.
She looked up as she bit into the piquant cheese to see Yuri's suddenly serious face.
"You and your father not get along?" she asked.
"Well," he said with a shrug and sat down again, a piece of bread folded in two with a bit of cheese between. "I had a powerful hate on him for the longest time; he always traveled for work and it upset mom no end. I got so I wanted to kick his ass – but of course, I couldn't. Then one winter, he didn't come back from work – he got killed – an' monsters came an'... well," he shrugged and went silent, cramming the bread and cheese into his mouth and chewing thoughtfully. Why he was telling her all of this puzzled him. Maybe it was because they had lived together for so long; he still felt love for this woman, felt it in his chest and in his empty arms and in his need for her body. He shuddered suddenly, feeling her hands on his body with ghostly fingers. He choked on the bread and coughed, spitting out bits of cheese and crust. Get a-hold of yourself Yuri, this is not your wife; well, she is, but she doesn't know it yet. He looked across the hearth at the play of light and shadows on her auburn hair and the flicker of the firelight burnished it even darker. He liked the firelight on her skin - how the shadows made it dusky, and the mystery it leant to her shadowy eyes.
'Man, I gotta get a-hold of myself.' Yet even as he thought it, his eyes did not leave her, watching her tear pieces of bread and cheese, biting each one and thoughtfully chewing.
"All right," Roger said, giving the pot a final stir. "Supper's ready."
Yuri wiped the crumbs from his face and snatched up two bowls, letting Roger fill them both. He offered one to Koudelka and then gave the second one to Roger himself. The old monk nodded and began to spoon hot stew into his mouth. Yuri took the last bowl and filled it before sitting back against the hearth. Without thinking, he spooned stew into his mouth, his eyes suddenly growing wide and he opened his mouth, blowing across the hot food on his tongue.
"Damnth's hot!" he exclaimed through the mouthful before quickly swallowing.
Koudelka sighed.
"You could blow on it before you stuff your face," she said.
Yuri grinned. "Yeah, so yer always tellin' me," he remarked and missed Koudelka's confused look as he blew on the stew this time before shoveling it in. When he'd finished he stretched expansively and yawned. "I dunno about you two, but I'm sleepy."
Roger nodded and nudged Yuri with his sandaled foot.
"After that performance in the church, I should think so. But Yuri," the old man leaned over and put his face in Yuri's line of sight. Yuri moved back, startled.
"Wha-?"
"We need to have a little talk, you and I. There are things that need to be done, yes. And much as I think I can trust you, youngster, I have unanswered questions about you."
Yuri smirked then wiped it off his face with the back of his sleeve. "Okay, I got it. I maybe said things I shouldn'ta, right?"
Koudelka rose from her spot behind Roger and took up the bowls, carrying them to the large wooden table.
"Amongst other things," she said. "We both have questions about you; but even more, I want to know about those stones – how you got them, and that one you say was sealed here at Nemeton... that I sealed here."
Yuri nodded, climbing to his feet and stretching again.
"Yeah, I can see that. How about we do all this talkin' in the morning. Wake me if something happens, otherwise, I'll see ya," he turned and, with a negligent wave, took the stairs to the hallway and left the kitchen.
Roger and Koudelka both remained behind, silent until they heard the slamming of the other door leading to the beds. Roger, seated by the fire, picked up the poker and prodded one blackened log, causing sparks to fly up the flume. He looked like his dinner didn't agree with him, a sour expression causing his brows to beetle in concentration. Koudelka had not moved from her place by the table; she was pressing her finger against breadcrumbs and smashing them one after another, lost in thought.
"Do you think he's right, Koudelka?" Roger asked from his stool. She didn't turn around, shrugging her uncertainty and continued picking at the crumbs. "I would love to know if my idea is right," he said then hesitated and looked askance at the gypsy girl.
"What idea, Roger."
The old man rose to his feet with creaking joints and hobbled over to the table. He touched her wrist with one bony hand and caught her attention.
"He disturbs you, doesn't he? It's almost as if you know him – like he says. I have a theory and, tomorrow I intend to ask him some questions. But I think I already know the answer."
Koudelka looked down at Roger, his clear eyes large in the dark room.
"Tell me," she said.
Roger sighed, pulling down on his tattered robes and tightening the rope cinch at his waist. "I think he came from the future."
"Oh come on!" Koudelka exclaimed. "That's impossible."
"Is it? Then how do you explain his knowledge of things not yet happening, hmmm?"
Koudelka shook her head. "I don't know. I have a feeling about him. I sense he's ... he's telling the truth, but he's hiding something too."
"It is my humble belief," the old man said, "that all men hide something; some more than others. Except for myself of course – I am quite open and honest."
Koudelka looked at the old monk with a crooked eyebrow.
"Do tell," she said and they both laughed.
"There, you see? Life is too short to be upset. Tomorrow we will have our answers and you, I think, will know more about him than you wanted to." And at Koudelka's questioning look, "he seems to like you – a lot."
Koudelka's brows lowered into a frown and she looked at the door leading to the caretaker's rooms. She didn't know what to say, never mind think, about the young man who had suddenly appeared at the monastery. He said he was an adventurer, but so far he had proven to be more than that; there was something mysterious about him and dangerous. He could turn into monsters; that alone made his motives suspicious. Her teacher used to say that one had to discern the real from the false, but with Yuri, that discerning was more difficult. His words spoken in jest were more truthful and honest than his heart-felt remarks. How could one judge such a man? How could she know his true heart?
"I'm going to sleep, Roger. Don't stay up all night, okay?" she said and slowly crossed the kitchen floor toward the stairs.
Roger chuckled behind her. "What matters sleep to me? I just woke up from a century long nap." And Roger's continued soliloquy followed her down the stairs and into the hallway.
The next day dawned to rain and hail. A hard storm had driven in with the sea winds and was pummeling the ruinous monastery with the sea-born ire. Rain washed through the broken and burned church, flushing the ash into the inner grounds and creating quagmires of blackened mud, while the fires, now extinguished, left their oily smoke hovering like fog along the ground. The sky itself was low and black with clouds and the wind howled like a banshee.
Roger stood at the entrance to the church sanctuary, a ragged cloak pulled close about him, and next to him was Koudelka and Yuri, the younger man coatless as he had offered up his trench coat to the gypsy woman. Roger was looking for the casket that had once marked the entrance to the underground crypt but with the fire erupting in the sanctuary and the explosion in the crypt itself, he wasn't recognizing anything. With a gesture and a shrug, he turned toward Yuri.
"I'm sorry Yuri, but I just can't make it out in here. It may be ruined or buried beyond finding," he said, his voice quavery in the howling wind.
Yuri squinted at the wrecked inner church, trying to remember what it had looked like two years ago when he had last been here. He moved past Roger, climbing over fallen bricks and foundation stones, shoving charred wooden beams aside to make his slow way into the sanctuary. He stopped near the center, looking up at the remains of the pipe organ whose once burnished bronze pipes were melted and twisted into a nightmare of metallic ooze that had puddled at the base of the now burned staircase. The stained glass windows, which had once looked outside on God's creation, were gone, shattered and rendered to dust, the entire apse blown to kingdom come. Looking to his left, up to where the choir loft had been, with the sick flower that had given birth to the monstrous Elaine, Yuri was greeted with blacked char and cracked marble. Gone was the loft, the Tree of Life growing through its once sacred floor. But he knew now where the crypt should be and he climbed over even more sacred detritus to the center of the sanctuary. There, buried beneath tons of marble blocks, was the crypt, and Yuri sighed with the need for more hard work.
"Damn," he muttered. "Well, I'll just have to get the moving crew." He turned back toward Roger. "You both might as well wait someplace warm; I'm gonna clean up here." He waited until they moved back, taking a shortcut to the arbor; the abattoir was still intact, if surrounded by debris, and the inside was still awash in blood, but it was dry. Yuri watched their retreating forms for a moment then turned to assess the work.
"Man, I'm gonna need some heavy lifting here," he grumbled then snorted. "Oh, what the hell." He pulled his fire fusion Forron from deep in his soul and fused. The giant fire monster stood nearly seven feet tall and with his four strong arms, could lift and move the heavy stones without Yuri having to break a sweat. For the next few hours Forron hefted, shoved, and burned his way through the collapsed roof, wall stones, and other matter that had settled on top of the crypt doorway and, by midday, he had cleared enough of the garbage away to reveal the bent and battered door and stairs.
Reverting to Yuri, he let fly a whistle that resounded shrilly in the ruins, bouncing from wall to wall and reaching Koudelka and Roger inside the arbor. They had industriously moved the stinking corpses of the caretakers and placed them outside, knowing full well the wildlife of the monastery would make clean work of them shortly, then Koudelka took an old broom to the floor, sweeping out the dried blood, giving them both a place to sit. When they heard Yuri's whistled call, they both scrambled back over the ruins to the sanctuary.
When they caught up to Yuri again he was standing next to an opening in the church floor, his arms akimbo and a grin on his tired face.
"Well, lookie what I found," he said and chuckled. Both Koudelka and Roger ignored him and Roger made his way down the stairs into the dark crypt. "Fine then," Yuri muttered and followed.
The crypt was considerably changed from the last time Yuri had been there. The cauldron was black and torn, great rents in its metal sides exposing the greenish metal within, and the lip of the pot was curled down in several places and melted like wax. The chamber, once small, had blown open a stone wall in the far end and revealed a metal door, black with age, but undamaged. Roger exclaimed in surprise and ran for the door before Koudelka could summon light.
"Whoa, it's kinda like before…" Yuri muttered and stood at the foot of the stairs, his eyes darting from the burnt out cauldron to the metal doors and around the chamber with its surviving columns. Curious, Koudelka turned toward him, her summoned light a mere flicker of white flame in the palm of her hand.
"Do you remember this place?" she asked, wondering how he could unless he had been there before the fire. But one look at his face told her he was seeing something other than the chamber, for his eyes were wide open, and had shifted from quiet amber to a fierce red. She shuddered at the thought that this man was possessed of a demon and he might now be losing all control.
For his part, Yuri was seeing the crypt as it had once been. Images flashed in his mind of his earlier visit, with James holding the arm of St. Daniel over the cauldron, the tree of life growing thick and heavy from the primordial ooze bubbling in the pot. He could still see the mummy of Patrick Heyworth wrapped in roots at the cauldron's base. Blinking, he heard James's intonations as he prayed for strength to the dead saint and, at the same time, he could see old Roger walking down the steps behind him, his yellow suit and straw hat an odd sight in the ancient ruins.
They had descended the stairs to the basement of the old monastery and Roger Bacon - the real Roger Bacon - had lead them there, nattering on about ruins and ghosts and all sorts of silly stuff. Yuri shook his head and just wished the old man would get on with it. But once they descended the stairs, the atmosphere changed. Alice clutched her hands to her breast and collapsed to her knees, panting. Yuri was there instantly, his own heart racing in concern for the lovely exorcist.
"Alice, are you okay?" he asked, one hand reaching out to tentatively touch her shoulder. Alice was quivering, her thin body shaking with whatever she was feeling.
"Wh-what is this place? It's full of evil spirits," she asked, breathless and the old hermit came back and nodded sagely.
"So you can sense the atmosphere of curse and chaos that remains here eh? I'm proud of you," he said and gestured toward the bronze doors on the other side of the chamber. "Koudelka's power sealed him, but his spirit remains."
Yuri blinked, watching as Roger walked across the chamber and tapped the bronze door, and at the same time he could see Koudelka gesturing over the cauldron, James holding up the mummy's arm.
"Is it soup yet?" he heard himself say, and caught his own figure shrouded in shadows just past the cauldron. Suddenly he felt dizzy, the crypt chamber spinning around him in a swirl of light and dark and he sank to the stairs, Koudelka and Roger both forgotten in the play of images racing through his mind.
Gone was the dark crypt, the dank and dusty atmosphere replaced with the stinking smells of sweat, urine and rice beer. The bar was a den of iniquity, and the bright stage lights aimed at the fading scarlet curtain were certainly no improvement. Tables had been knocked aside and the old man, Zhuzhen, was collapsed on his knees on the dirty floor, the grinning face of Wugui looking down on him.
"I was thinking of allowing you a quick death, but as usual you had to open your mouth. Well then, I'll just have to cut out that wagging tongue of yours," the Chinese thug was saying, his lips pulled back in a nasty sneer.
Yuri took the stairs three at a time, landing with a thud on the floor, the young woman, Quihua, right behind him. In a moment, he'd assessed the situation and went to Zhuzhen's side, kneeling down.
"You half dead, pops? This guy do this to you?" He stood up, ignoring Zhuzhen for the moment and looking Wugui up and down, seeing an over-dressed pompous thug. It didn't matter if this guy had special abilities or not: he had hurt Zhuzhen, and worked for Dehuai, and that was enough for Yuri. Before the black haired gangster could move, Yuri was on him, a fury of fists and feet that, in a couple of minutes, had the gangster kneeling on the dirty bar floor, panting and bloody.
"Wh-who are you?" he asked, panting.
"Doesn't matter, bastard. You go back to that dog you work for and you tell him – he better hide all his girlie magazines, cuz I'm coming to get him an' he could get killed any day now," Yuri replied, with a mixture of anger and bravado that made Wugui shudder before he staggered to his feet and fled.
"Yuri!" Alice cried, her voice weak but her heart reaching out to the man who had protected her these past days.
"Alice!" Yuri took the stairs at a bound but skidded to a stop when Dehuai confronted him. The old crippled sage stood between him and the woman hanging on the mechanized cross and Yuri, seeing the young lady sagging, her life nearly gone, felt an enormous rage fill him. He growled his hatred of the old wizard and donned his fighting claws.
"I'm gonna smear your ass all over this floor," he said and leapt toward the rising demon. The skies above were a miasma of clouds and energy, lightening playing across the cloud cover and sending strikes toward the ground. The wind whipped like a tornado around the top of Kuihai Tower and Yuri's coat flapped around his knees. He was not taking any more guff from these bastard wizards! He saw the monster, the God of the Earth that Dehuai and the warlock Bacon had summoned rising on the winds, the spiraling gate that lead to the monster's realm dancing above the Mandala of Hell on the roof of the tower. Somehow, he had to stop that thing. And so he ran, rising on the wings of his own power and met the summoned God, and fused with the summoned God and…
His world fractured, shattering like a thousand glass shards riding a wind. He had the thing, held it in his hands, and in his mind, for a fraction of a heartbeat and then – it beheld him and his mind shattered, his soul screamed, gibbering in terror and the man who would fuse with a god found himself swallowed up by that very same deity.
"Yuri?"
The swirl of light and dark before his eyes began to ease and Yuri blinked, suddenly aware he had slumped down onto the dusty stairs. He looked up to see a pair of concerned golden eyes, and Koudelka kneeling beside him.
"Whoa, sorry," he muttered. "What did I miss?"
"You just suddenly... stopped. Are you all right?"
The fusionist scoured his face with roughened hands and sighed. "Yeah, I – I guess I felt dizzy or somethin'," he said. He took a deep breath, tasting the dust and death in the crypt and looked around for Roger. The old hermit had opened the bronze door beyond the burned out chamber and gone on alone. "Damn, I wish he'd wait before takin' off like that."
Yuri rose to his feet and crossed the crypt, moving past the cauldron with little more than a glance and a suppressed shudder. He pushed open the door and paused, mouth open in awe at the remains of the Nemeton basement. What had once been the kitchen and lower basement areas, with bridges and chambers locked away by heavy doors, was now several large chambers, walls reduced to melted and slagged rock and metal, with columns of stone and lintels of building blocks from the lower levels of the church. Ahead, were the old ovens, their metal melted into pools and their stone faces burnt black; they lay on their sides with pools of dark green water flowing slowly around them. Just past the ovens was a chamber with a tide pool, deep blue and green water rose from below, and Yuri could catch just the faintest hint of sea life making their home inside.
"I don't recognize the pool," he said as they wandered carefully and slowly through the basement. "I don't remember seeing it."
"I did; I found it occupied by a monster," Koudelka said. "But I was able to defeat it, and the path beyond lead to the graveyard. Now…"
Yuri nodded. "Ah, but what about that door?"
Roger and Koudelka both paused in their explorations and looked back at Yuri.
"What door?" Roger asked.
"The big bronze one that leads off from the pool," Yuri said. "Is it still there?"
Koudelka looked surprised. "I thought you hadn't seen this pool before," she said.
Yuri shook his head. "I have seen this pool, I just haven't seen where it came from." He looked ahead and blinked into the dim distance. "Oh yeah, it's just ahead, I remember now."
Yuri walked ahead ignoring the startled and puzzled looks shared by Roger and Koudelka. His mind was swimming with memories of that first time, the spooky ghost-filled atmosphere, the cries of dead souls filling the air, and the scuttle and creak of insects and monsters in the noisome dark. And that girl… the one with silver hair. He squinted as he walked, remembering her as she walked ahead of him, her pert little behind enticing him with blue velvet and white lace. Damn! Her name was on the tip of his tongue!
Kicking past debris and brackish standing water, Yuri made his way through the basement; it didn't look quite as it had all those years ago, since the ground then had been dry, and the writing on the walls... he paused at one alcove and stared at the flat walls. He distinctly remembered there had been words carved into the walls there - words to direct whomever on what to do to break the seals.
"Oh, yeah, we haven't done 'em yet," he said aloud and laughed.
"What was that?" Koudelka asked from behind him.
"The seals, we haven't done 'em so of course we haven't written how to undo them yet," he answered and gestured toward the alcove. "The seal is flame it used to say an' I remember repeating it to myself the whole time I was down here. Drove ol' Zhuzhen crazy," he said and laughed.
"The seal is flame, hum? It sounds like you used magic to seal something, but why leave clues to its undoing?" Roger asked.
Yuri paused in the dark passage, looking over toward a pool of water; a tumble of support blocks made an impromptu bridge to an outcrop and Yuri remembered seeing a trick chest there before. The whole basement brought back such memories for him – the fighting for his life, his fear that if he didn't clear the malice he'd lose ... lose... Snorting, he turned away.
"Yeah, well, that's cuz we'd need to unseal the whole mess ya know," he said and continued down the passage, crossing over water pooled around a tumble of blocks and taking the left hand path. "It's up here." He led them around a bend and down a steep path and stopped at another alcove. This one was small, with a pool of boiling water bubbling and steaming madly in the center. "I never understood why it's hot here," he said and indicated the pool, "but this is where I found the stone."
Koudelka passed him and stepped into the stone alcove, looking over the bubbling pit.
"It shouldn't be too hard," she said quietly.
"Let the soul of destruction be sealed to this land… Let the power of destruction be released, as all seals are broken," Yuri said just as quietly, staring at the reddish steam rising into the chamber. "I fretted over that for almost the whole night; we were resting by the doors, preparing ourselves for the fight we knew we would face. Simon had taken the witch an' was gonna use her powers. We had to stop him, but getting here had been one fight after another, and those damned Masks kept popping up. I had a hella time keeping it under control," Yuri's voice was level, his eyes blurred as if seeing things from far away. "Finally I got it. I understood what we had missed – opening the last seal opened up this one too an' I got the stone. When we faced Simon, he used the power of Amon, an' when we defeated him, I got the fusion," he finished, and a smile was playing across his lips as he remembered that day – how the power of the fusion had filled him and how he felt that nothing, nothing could ever stop him.
Roger had joined Koudelka at the pool and looked up at Yuri's foolish expression, his own brows coming down in a frown.
"You – speak as if this has already happened," he said. "How can that be?"
Yuri, his eyes still unfocused, looked down on the little monk. "You an' yer damned time machines. You sent me back; an' I fucked everything up. But I fixed it. Now all I gotta do is help you set the seals, an' then, then maybe I can go home to..." he frowned suddenly, his eyes squinting and he grit his teeth. "To..." an image filled his mind suddenly, the blue clad female of his dreams and nightmares. The perky ass swishing too and fro, her silvery hair a shimmer in the moonlight... her voice, light and airy, and her name – so cute... His hands came up and rubbed his face, abrading the skin with roughened fingers, and he groaned, his mind reaching for the name, which slipped like water between his fingers.
"Damn!" he shouted and, tossing the stone toward Koudelka, he turned and fled into the dark recesses of the basement.
Roger and Koudelka watched in confusion as Yuri ran off and Koudelka held the stone with her fingertips, a feeling of nausea warring within. Finally, she looked down at the dark piece of rock and set it on the verge of the pool. The water within bubbled softly, steam rising to the roof and she dipped her hand in quickly, sluicing it clean.
"Are you all right child?" Roger asked, puzzled at the young man's action, his words, and now Koudelka.
"I- I suppose. Hot springs?" she asked inanely and at Roger's nod, took up another handful and washed her face. "He confuses me. It's like he knows me and assumes I know what he's talking about."
Roger nodded. "Yes. I was right in my early guessing; he has been here before. And met us." And Koudelka raised her head, startled. "Yes, I had plans, long ago, to build such a machine. It is possible, but as it circumvents God's just and righteous laws, I abstained. We're not ready for such a machine now. Perhaps later, in the future."
Koudelka wiped away the hot mineral water from her face and looked down at the stone sitting on the lip of the pool. It had gotten wet and glistened softly, reflecting dimly the magical light on its surface.
"So he came from the future? And has done something to change the past," she said thoughtfully. "And he's been here before – more than tomorrow but yesterday. He's been here long enough to know this monastery well – before the fire," she said. And when Roger nodded. "Do you trust him, Roger?" she asked.
The old man shrugged, the loose robe sliding down one shoulder, exposing skin drawn tight and browned with age.
"I do not know. Something about him seems to indicate we should; he's done no harm here."
"Yet he's quite mad you know," she finished up for him.
"Perhaps, but that has been said of me as well," Roger remarked.
Yuri ran until he could go no further, the darkened passage splitting off again and yet again and he ended up nose to metal, his face pressed against an ancient bronze door – the one beyond the water font and leading up to the ancient graveyard and Neameto. He leaned on the cold, moist metal, the bosses pressing into his cheek and the cold metal burning his face. Unheeded, tears coursed from his eyes and sobs wracked his chest. He cried, yet why he felt such sorrow, he didn't know. Something nagged at him, not the least was the name of the pretty girl he'd let die in Shanghai.
The thought rested like ice on his mind… the girl in Shanghai, the same one on the train…and again in the basement. How could they all be the same if she died in China, he wondered. Sliding down, he sat against the door, putting the cold metal to his back, his knees pulled up and his arms wrapped around them, his eyes peering into the dark around him, but seeing something else, somewhere else.
He had awoken early because of a headache. He'd stood at the hotel window, the autumn air thick with mists and he silently cursed the voice and the pain. He had no money; he was not going to catch the train… why the hell should he? No, no, he had caught the train, that's right. He'd awoken in the fields, sleeping on a hillside because he was tight with a yuan and saw no reason to spend it on a bed. The train's whistle had blown and he sat up, suddenly aware he had almost overslept. Looking up he saw the autumn stars and judged, by the full moon, that it was shortly after nightfall.
He rubbed his face with a gloved hand and then, knocking dirt from his trench coat, he set off for the train station. The platform was empty, any travelers having caught an earlier train, and with a grin, he looked down the tracks and wondered about the train and all the places it had traveled. Briefly, he wondered if he'd ever ride that train to its starting point in Europe, then he shook his head, laughing softly at himself. Yeah, like I'd do that, he thought.
Once the train arrived he boarded and noted the two cars at the end jammed with kids, dogs, goats and a few rifle toting Russians. He eyed them carefully before taking his sweet time walking up toward the salon car. Getting there he paused, peering in through the dirty glass in the door – yup, Japanese soldiers. Now what the hell they doin' here, he wondered. Cursing silently he took one of the first benches and, putting his back to the aisle, lay down for a nap, the trench coat pulled up over his ears, shielding his face from prying eyes. They didn't need to know he wasn't really sleeping.
He didn't have long to wait. The train had been chugging its way through the autumn night and was fast approaching the plains outside Jilin when footsteps alerted Yuri that someone was approaching. He squinted his eyes, watching the figure as he passed behind him, his reflection in the carriage glass showing a Western gentleman with top hat and tails. Besides being dressed oddly for the region, he also felt odd to Yuri, reeking of darkness class magic and ill intent. A second later, he knew he was right when gunshots came from the nearby car and Yuri leapt from his seat to kick open the car door. At the far end, where he had earlier seen the two Japanese soldiers, now lay two bleeding corpses, their heads severed and rolled part way down the isle.
He didn't hesitate even seeing that; the voice had told him to board the train and protect… exactly whom he didn't know. But something was going down and he wanted to be a part of it. He stepped over the blood, and opened the salon door, even as the echo of repeated gunshots dinned in the small carriage. The salon car too was awash now in blood, three more Japanese lying in pools of the crimson liquid and the man with the top hat gesturing toward –
As he stepped into the car, he felt a sharp pain. Something, some little demon, had attacked him! He caught its quick movements out of the corner of his eye and grabbed, catching the demonic thing and crushing its head. The little shit had severed his left arm and that hurt!
The western man spoke, his voice cultured, and Yuri heard him say he'd killed his favorite demon. Tough shit, he thought, the little bastard had cut his arm off. He bent down, retrieving the bloody appendage and, with a surge of power, reattached his left arm. Flexing the muscle, he turned a self-satisfied smirk onto the warlock, and then he spotted the girl. She was small, petite, with silver blonde hair pulled up into a braid secured by a blue bow. She was dressed in a very revealing outfit: short skirt with white lace ruffles and thigh high stockings but what caught his attention beyond her bust was her eyes – she had the most hauntingly blue eyes he had ever seen.
"Alice..."
He jerked up, eyes snapped open, half expecting a monster to be chewing on his leg. He looked around and spotted the old monk and Koudelka sitting a short distance away.
"Yo," he said and rose to his feet. "When did you two get here?"
"About an hour ago," Roger answered. "You were sleeping so we thought we'd let you rest."
"Are you all right, Yuri?" Koudelka asked and even in the near darkness, Yuri could make out the concern in her eyes. He rubbed the back of his neck as he joined them, squatting down to be at eye level.
"Yeah, I just ... needed to get some things into order. Sorry if I worried you."
"You do more than worry us," Koudelka remarked.
"Yuri," Roger interrupted, "did you travel through time to reach this place?"
Yuri blinked then snorted, swallowing the laugh that threatened to burst forth. "Damn, you just come right out, don't you," he said, then sighed. "Yeah, I guess that's what I did. You oughta know, it was your machine that did it to me. But I admit, it was me that did the messing up."
Roger nodded, his long, stringy hair falling into his face. "As I thought. At some time I must have built the device that I once dreamed of. And as result, you came here."
"So you didn't just arrive here, did you?" Koudelka asked.
With another sigh, Yuri sat down, folding his legs beneath him. "No, no I didn't. I don't know if I should tell ya this, cuz you're both involved. But it was an accident. I screwed up somehow and ended up here. And I heard fighting goin' on in the church and went to help. And stupid me, I got you killed." He looked up at Koudelka, her small glowing light wobbling slightly, casting pale silvery light and making even darker shadows. "By the time I helped roger build his house an' get the machine made, I had to go back and fix it, ya know?"
"Well, obviously you did... somehow," Koudelka said with a quirk to her lips.
"Yeah," he said and looked down at his leather-clad legs, picking at a bit of dried blood on one knee. "But I still had trouble too; an' I had to go back again... an' now I think everything is right. I hope," that last said with a breathy sigh. He refused to look up at the two and waited for them to comment. After long minutes he finally peeked through his lashes at Roger; the old monk was staring at him, a look of calculation on his wizened features. "What?"
"If what you say is true, Yuri, then you've changed history," Roger said.
Yuri opened his mouth to speak, but his voice refused to work. His jaw opened and closed a few times and then he shrugged. "Well, yeah. I guess. I mean, I was tryin' not to. But I fixed it. An' really, I think we're supposed to be doing this," and he gestured around them at the dark basement of the monastery.
"Why?"
"Cuz I remember alla this from before."
"When you first came here by accident?" Koudelka asked.
"No, when I first came here with Alice." He paused, letting the sound of the name sooth his breast, his memory of her washing over him like a balm and he lost his train of thought as the sights and sounds of her filled his mind: that night on the plains, when he tried to touch her, and she squeaked in fear and outrage; then the long walk to Fengtian - and how much he admired her spunk after fighting in the village of the damned. Her dedication and devotion to him on the boat ride from Dalian to Shanghai, and how she had looked that day when he'd rescued her from Dehuai's damned spirit machine. That old perv of a warlock had said things to her that Yuri wished he had skinned the old bastard alive for uttering - and threats too. But Alice's greatest gift to him had been in Romania, in Keith's castle and oh, how he wished he were back home with her right this very minute! Sighing deeply, he continued.
"We came here to look you up, Roger. Koudelka had told us to come to you because of someone we were fighting. We ended up here, in the monastery fighting this warlock an' well, there were seals and such, and the stone of course. But really, even alla that started in China with you," and he looked up at Koudelka. "I don't know how you knew about me, or how you knew to find me. But your voice, your mind, reached out to me in a really dark time an' guided me. Sent me to help people an' I got stronger and better, and when the time came, I was there, ready to help Alice. For that, I'll always be grateful."
"Is this Alice someone special to you?" she asked from the shadows, the implications of what he had just admitted not lost on her. She had just been told of her future: that she would know him and touch his life from half a world away.
Yuri grinned, and his smile lit his face. "Yeah, she's my savior, my lover... my wife; and the mother of my kid." And the thought crossed his mind that this woman too was his lover and the mother of his twin children, but that now, in this time and place, now she would never be that and a part of him cried silently for love lost.
"You left her behind then, when you got sent back," Koudelka said softly. "I'm sorry. Will you be able to return? Is it even possible?"
Yuri shrugged. "Let's finish the seals and shit, an' I'll think about that for a while."
"That sounds like an excellent idea," Roger said. "Much as I am curious about this wonderful machine you say I built, and for the things that happened in the future, we still must deal with today, and I don't like this place at all," Roger finished.
Standing, Yuri looked around, his amber eyes focusing on the bronze doors. "Yeah, neither do I." He turned his gaze onto the diminutive monk and laughed. "It gives me the creeps."
They set to work building the elaborate seals that Yuri remembered from before – setting the Stone of Destruction in the bubbling waters, putting some items and weapons in chests to help hold the seals intact. Then, finally, writing cryptic clues on the stone walls. Yuri repeated several times the words he'd read on these same walls fifteen years in the future, and Koudelka and Roger carved them into stone. Finally, they all climbed back to the surface to discover they'd spent the night in the basement and the sun was peeking out of the clouds in the east.
"Well, I'm for sleep," Yuri said, not even trying to stifle his huge yawn. Without another word, he headed back to the caretaker's quarters, leaving Koudelka and Roger to follow behind.