NOTE: Ok, sorry for the delay guys. I've had such a busy time lately! What with band competitions every Saturday and school and home and brothers and parents and obsessions all boggling my mind, I have had little time to work on my story. However, I know it is unfair to keep you waiting, and thus, I write for you now. Enjoy!

-Momo

THE GARDEN OF EDEN

It had been, give or take, a good two years before it finally happened. He shook, falling to his knees. He swallowed hard. She stood. She stood there, in front of him. She looked at him. Into his eyes. Into his cold, hardened orbs of violet ice. Fire lit his insides. He grew numb in his limbs. He made some sort of half-anguished moan before getting shakily to his feet. Tears of misplaced feeling poured from his eyes. He took her hands.

"Eliza..." he breathed hoarsely, barely able to utter the name from his lips. He brought her hands to his face. She was so cold. She stared vacantly. She was as white as a sheet, paler than himself. Trembling, he leant over gently and kissed her forehead.

"Eliza..." he said again, lips against her skin. He entangled his hands in her thick golden locks and kissed her lips. He locked their bodies together, gathering her into his arms. He did not stop kissing her. Tears spilling down his cheeks, he kissed every inch of her body. He didn't care if she said not a word; she didn't have to. She was there with him, just like he had dreamed of. Was this a dream? Could it be? No...she was there. He was holding her like before. Kissing her like before. Like he'd promised, she was with him now. Forever.

He held her close to his body. They were wrapped tightly in blankets, the bedroom darkened by the late evening. He wanted to feel her warmth, but there was none. Well, he could feel it just fine, but there was none. Her head was nuzzled in close with his collar bone, their bare legs entangled with each other's. He sighed against her freezing skin and kissed her lightly.

"My Eliza...my lovely, lovely Eliza," he breathed. "You and I will finally be together forever, as I promised. We will love forever like this, hold each other like this, my love. Nothing can change that. I promise this. Nothing will I allow to let happen to you anymore. I will keep you safe...here with me."

Frankie lay nuzzled between legs and pillows at the foot of the bed. He looked up at the couple that lay and nudged Faust's leg. He smiled.

"You too, my little friend," he said to the dog. He looked down over at the skeletal dog and cocked his head slightly. Skeletal dog...a dog with no soul...just the frame of his body under the power and control of Faust's own mana. A monster brought back from the dead...

"...like Frankenstein," Faust mumbled. "A Frankenstein dog..."

He looked back at Eliza. She stared blankly. Frankenstein...a mindless monster brought back from the dead. He narrowed his eyes and swallowed. She was with him, here in his arms, alive enough for him...but no. Something was missing.

Before he could register what he was doing. he found himself in the basement again, hovering over the books of his ancestor. Something...what was missing? His beautiful Eliza was here with him now! But what...what went wrong? He scanned over his notes, descriptions, experiments, everything. And then it hit him, quite painfully suddenly.

NO SOUL.

It was written in large handwriting in old German on a tearing page of the journal of Faustus the First. He swallowed hard. No soul, no soul, no soul...

"A puppet...a doll..." he seethed under his breath. She had not said a word...had not moved without him doing it...and he didn't even know if and when he made her do it. She was a puppet on his string. Nothing more. No soul...

He cried out a bloodcurdling scream and slammed his fists hard on the desktop, papers flying and the wood cracking. Why could he never win?! He had stared death in the eyes and spat in its face, but it still had won! Why?

"WHY!!"

He screamed and screamed, mashing things and destroying things all over the lab. And then, in the middle of his destroyed room, he fell to his knees and stayed there, very still, shaking and panting heavily. But there had been hope...a spark of hope...where? Written in the forbidden pages, yes, his ancestor had had hope. But what was the answer? He recalled reading something that he had put aside, thinking of it as non-important for the time. Where was it now? Yes...the shred of hope in the war zone of defying God and all things sensible. Where could that possibly be?

After much searching, frustration, and finally success, he had found what he had been looking for.

"The form known as 'The King of Shamans', going under many other identities...i.e. God...infinite power...dreams fulfilled...blah blah blah...ah!" he read through the pages in his kitchen, drinking a glass of water while Eliza sat in front of him, staring.

"The Shaman Tournament," he breathed. "That's it." He glanced over to Eliza.

"You will see my lovely one," he said to her. "Once I...we...once we become strong enough, we will enter this tournament, and we will kill the competition...kill to get to the top...to win..." He smiled.

"And then I will be able to make you as I had promised, as I had intended..." he began to laugh. "I will finally defeat death..."

He broke into uncontrollable laughter then. He laughed so hard that it began to hurt. Blood poured from his mouth and in spurts through his teeth. And still, his eyes glazed, he laughed. Insanity, at long last…

TO BE CONCLUDED