The ballad of two
Part ten
Harmony.

/ / /

"My daughter was such a beautiful child."

Keme Red-Eagle's eyes misted over as he stared into space above Mike Silver's head; seeing, in his own mind, through time and it was obvious that he could see his daughter's face as he spoke of her.

"I know that all parents say that, of course," he continued more to himself than to Mike, who sat silently patient as he waited for the older man to get to the point of his visit to the police station. He had already managed to get David Johnston, his new rookie detective, to confirm that he was indeed Jay Phoenix's grandfather but that was as much real detail as he was sure of. Everything else that the elderly Native American had said had been confusing at best. Greek monsters, a link between Phoenix and Ember's DNA and then finally Ember actually being Phoenix. It was all so ludicrous that Mike Silver knew that it couldn't be true.

Just as he knew, as he listened to the old man's voice, that he himself … this self-proclaimed Shaman … believed that it was.

"Sorry?" Mike stammered as he realised that the Shaman was watching him, as if waiting for a reply to something that he obviously hadn't heard. Mike cursed himself, silently, not sure if it was age or just recent events catching up with him that had led to his carelessness. He knew that if one of his men had drifted off while listening to a suspect's confession he would have slapped them around the back off the head and berated them until their knees quaked. The difference was, he knew, that he wasn't a rookie and this man in front of him wasn't a suspect. Just what he was, though, Mike wasn't really sure.

"I said that while all parents say that their children are beautiful," the Shaman repeated, patiently, "in this case it was also the truth." Reaching into his suit jacket pocket he pulled out a smooth leather wallet and after flipping it open he reached inside and pulled out two photographs. Dropping the first one on the table he slid it towards Mike, who picked it up and stared at the two figures captured forever in celluloid colour.

"She is beautiful," Mike Silver agreed honestly. The young woman who stared out at him could have been a model apart from the fact that her easy smile and appearance of ease in her own body didn't seem to harbour an ounce of pride. She was as beautiful as a moonlit night or a wild deer rather than a model. "Who is the man with her?"

"That was her husband, Captain Silver," the Shaman said with a sigh as he took the photograph back and gazed at it for a few seconds. "Jay's parents of course. She was an anthropologist you know, and he was an archaeologist. My People believe in spirits reaching out to each other before they meet, even before they are born and they were living proof of that. They were in love and inseparable from the moment that they first laid eyes on each other and when they looked at each other it was almost too much to watch – their love shone like fire. They are both dead now, the second tragedy to impact on them all."

"I'm sorry," Mike said consolingly, "the file mentioned that you were his next of kin but didn't actually state anything about his parents."

"They were killed in a car crash when Jay was just seven years old," the Shaman clarified softly, the pain still evident in his voice. "It is hard to believe that it has been so many years, it still feels like only yesterday I was holding Jay's hand as we said goodbye to them both." The Shaman's voice faltered as he continued to stare at the photograph.

"The next time that we said goodbye to them," he continued, his voice barely above a whisper, "I knew that it was the last one. It was the day that we buried them."

"It must have been hard for you," Mike prompted, seeing a way to steer the conversation back on track, "having to raise your grandson alone like that."

"Oh I suppose in some ways it was," the Shaman said as he put the first photo away, still holding on to the other, "but in so many other ways it wasn't. I had lost my daughter, Jay had lost his mother and father – but together we survived. We had each other." He handed the second photograph to Mike who took it and smiled back at the Shaman.

"He looks like his mother," Mike said as he stared down at a photo of a youth. It was hard to tell exactly how old he was but Mike noticed instantly that while the child was smiling for the photo his eyes didn't mirror it. Deep and a piercing green they seemed lifeless, hollow; full of loss.

"… but there is enough of his father there to make my heart ache doubly every time I look at my grandson," the Shaman admitted as he took the photo back. "This was taken only a few months after we laid his parents to rest."

Mike nodded, knowing that he was right about the boy's eyes. He had seen it before, many times, when he had had to tell parents that their child had been killed in a drive by shooting, or tell a wife that their husband had been killed in the line of duty. In all his years, however, he had never seen it on anyone so young.

"It must have been a lot for someone so young to deal with," Mike stated finding it hard to shake off the sympathy he felt at a child having to go through the pain of losing both parents like that.

"It was," the Shaman agreed with a sigh, "but it was something that Jay was born dealing with captain." Placing the photo on the table in front of him the Shaman folded his hands neatly beside it, looking directly into the Captain's eyes for the first time in many minutes. Once again Mike Silver was taken aback by the clarity of the man's gaze, by the strength of will he saw contained there.

"I don't understand," he admitted as he glanced away. Looking up at the clock on the wall he realised that David Johnston must surely be on his way back to the room any moment. When the Shaman had first started talking about DNA and Ember and Jay Phoenix not only sharing a link but also actually being the same person … something that the evidence contradicted … he had sent the young detective down to the crime lab to bring up one of the specialists.

"It is like I said earlier," the Shaman said simply, "his parents death was the second tragedy to strike my grandson."

"The second?" Mike queried gently, again hoping to draw the Shaman further.

"Yes," the Shaman continued, the prompting unnecessary, "the first was the death of his twin brother."

/ / /

Three weeks ago

"What the Hell is this?"

"This, doctor, would be a patient who – unless you stop asking inane questions – may just bleed to death on your watch!" John Sinclair managed to put a verbal sneer into his statement as he stood just inside the entrance to one of the City's most prestigious private medical centres. Dressed smartly, in a three-piece Armani suit that he knew had cost more than some of the nurse's monthly salary, he managed to retain an air of calm aloofness even despite the figure that was draped … slumped and barely conscious … over one shoulder and around his neck. As another droplet of claret fell from the man's side to drip on the once pristine floor below, John arched one eyebrow pointedly at the doctor in front of him.

"Just so that you know," Sinclair panted, the strain of physically holding the man vertical starting to tell, "for every drop of blood my client loses on these premises I am taking another thousand of your fee!"

The doctor was galvanised into action … more, Sinclair thought to himself, or at least hoped, simply because his Hippocratic Oath had kicked in and not because of the threat to his no doubt hefty medical bill … and a gurney was brought forth as two nurses helped take the semi-conscious man from Sinclair's grasp. Sinclair sighed in relief, flexing a shoulder as he tried to get the circulation back into his arm. Glancing down he tutted as he saw the blood stains on his jacket.

"What happened?" the doctor asked as he gestured for the gurney to be brought into a side room.

"I would have thought that was obvious," Sinclair said as he wiped at the stains with a handkerchief that he pulled from his lapel pocket, "Ember managed to leak all over me. This won't come out you know; it is ruined. Ruined!"

"I meant what happened to this man!" The doctor said threw clenched teeth as he stared in confusion at the man who lay prone beneath him. Covered from head to foot in a material that looked like it could have been the love child of a wetsuit and a set of biker's leathers there was only a small amount of skin visible; and that was as pale as alabaster. "… and just what the Hell is he wearing?"

"That would be typical fare for a wrestler, one would assume," Sinclair said as he watched the doctor take a pair of scissors in hand and start to cut the skin-tight clothing away from his patient, "and as for what happened to him that is simple. He was shot."

The doctor's hand stopped moving for a fraction of a second and then he started cutting again, with even more speed.

"Get that mask of him," he barked at a nurse before looking back at Sinclair, "and as for you, tell me about this. What was he shot with … when?"

"I recommend that you don't touch that mask," Sinclair said simply and the nurse paused just as she started to peel the material away from the man's face. "My client cherishes his anonymity, you see, and he left standing instructions that his mask was not to be removed. Under any circumstances."

"Even if it costs him his life?" the doctor asked tersely as he finally cut away the material and exposed Ember from his neck right down to just above his groin. His eyes widened as he took in the alabaster skin that was no visible as well as the red raw flesh that framed an array of jagged stitches; blood flowed freely from the hole as pus seeped out slowly.

"Well," Sinclair continued, seemingly oblivious to what was happening in front of him, "he actually never clarified that part. He was, though, very clear about the fact that the removal of his mask could cost me my life."

"What?" the doctor picked up some gauze from a proffered tray and started wiping at the wound, trying to clear the blood and pus away from it so that he could get a better look.

"I don't know if he was serious, of course," Sinclair stated with a shrug of his shoulders, "but he did definitely say that he would kill me if it was removed. I suppose that it could just have been a turn of phrase; a jest if you will."

The doctor placed a clean piece of gauze over the wound and indicated that one of the nurses should hold it in place before he turned to the man in the expensive suit and held one bloody hand up in front of his face, pointing at him as if to punctuate his every word.

"Ok, I want to know just what the Hell is going on here," he said between clenched teeth. "I want to know who you are, who this man is, and what the Hell happened to him … and I want to know right now!"

"There is no need to shout, dear man," Sinclair said as his face wrinkled at the bloody hand directly under his nose, "all you had to do is ask. To answer your questions my name is John Temperance Sinclair the Third and I am 'this man's', as you call him, lawyer. His name is Ember … and before you say anything yes I do realise just how absurd a name that is but as I am sure you have guessed by his garb my client is not exactly your regular Joe. He is, simply put, a wrestler and we have just come from a bout, believe it or not …"

"I don't believe it," the doctor said as he interrupted. "There is no way that this man got injured in a sporting event, he has been shot!!"

"I never said that he got injured in a sporting event, doctor," Sinclair pointed out, "you interrupted before I could answer your last question. 'What the Hell happened to him' wasn't it? You already answered that, he got shot."

"That wound is at least a few days old, possibly even a couple of weeks," the doctor stated as he pointed at Ember's torso, "not only has it started to heal but some butcher has tried to stitch it closed and let it get infected. Just what sort of back street quack did that?"

"Oh," Sinclair said simply, "that would have been Ember himself." The doctor's mouth opened and closed a few times as he tried his best to take this in. He glanced from Ember's wound, to Sinclair and then back again. Shaking his head, as if to clear it, he glared at the man in front of him.

"Are you joking with me?" he asked simply, his voice quiet.

"Not at all my god man," Sinclair said with a smile, "I actually couldn't believe it myself but I watched him stitch that up myself, just so that he could take part in that wrestling match I was telling you about … and then right afterwards, as he came out of the ring, he almost collapsed in my arms."

"Why the Hell would anyone do that?" the doctor asked incredulously.

"I don't know why 'anyone' would do that," Sinclair admitted, "but I can tell you why he did it."

"… and?" the doctor prompted as Sinclair's voice trailed off.

"He is completely crazy!"

/ / /

"When my daughter told me that she was pregnant it was one of the most wonderful days of my life."

Mike Silver rested back in the chair and stared intently at the old man's face as he related his story. He wasn't sure where it was going, in fact he didn't have a clue, but he knew that he was closer at this very moment to finding out just what was going on with Jay Phoenix … with Ember … with the whole case … than he had been at any point since it had been reopened.

"I had only had one child, you see," the Shaman continued, again almost as if he was talking simply to himself, "as my wife had died from cancer just a few years after giving me my daughter. After that she became my World just as, many years later, my grandson became my whole universe."

Mike Silver said nothing, knowing that he didn't need to prompt the Shaman anymore. He knew that the answers to his questions were coming; he just didn't know if they would simply lead to even more.

"This was nearly thirty years ago, of course," he continued, "and there was no such things as ultrasound but we didn't need those things. Our People had been doing without modern medicine for many thousands of years and we still knew enough of the old ways. To my daughter I was not just her father but also her Shaman; her medicine man."

"The look in her eyes, the wonder and delight, when I told her that she was having two sons, is still with me today." The Shaman sighed deeply, moisture visible in his eyes and his mind wandered further back in time, almost as if he was actually reliving it rather than remembering it.

"As much as twins are relatively rare for your people, Captain Silver," the Shaman said with a small smile, "they are actually even more rare among my own."

"Really?" Mike asked softly.

"In many, many generations of my family," the Shaman stated, "there is only mention of one set of twins, a boy and a girl. So on top of the amazing – the unique – honour of bearing twins, of bringing two Spirits in harmony into this World, my daughter also knew that the auguries and portents were clear."

"Sorry," Mike asked in some confusion, "I don't understand."

"The signs in the stars," the Shaman clarified, his voice sounding suddenly a lot like an experienced teacher, "the Spirit of the North Wind, they all pointed to the fact that this birth would be something special indeed." The Shaman nodded to himself and Mike had to force himself not to smile cynically at the man's obvious belief in the supernatural. He had thought that the term 'Shaman' was nothing more than an affectation but now he realised that the man in front of him probably believed that he was indeed a Sham in actuality.

"Ah," Mike said, thinking of nothing better to say, "I see."

"No, you don't," the Shaman told him bluntly, but not unkindly, "but that doesn't matter." The Shaman's voice drifted off as his eyes clouded over slightly. Mike stared at him, discreetly, for a few seconds realising that whatever memory the Shaman was drawing on was causing him considerable pain.

"… but the 'fortune telling' thing wasn't right then?" He asked quietly, "I take it that your other grandson was killed, or died, later on?"

"No, Captain," the Shaman said through clenched teeth, "he died before he was born."

"What?" Mike hadn't meant for the question to just blurt out like that but he couldn't stop himself. He had thought that he had figured out where the Shaman was going but he hadn't guessed that this is what was coming.

"Do you know that my People believe that everyone that has ever lived," the Shaman suddenly asked, as if out of the blue, "or will ever live, is waiting in the Spirit Realm for their chance at life? We believe that there is an existence before we are born, and after we are dead, and that we all exists as Spirits until it is time to be physically born."

"No," Mike stuttered, "I didn't know that."

"To be accurate we believe that everything – living or not – contains a Spirit and as such we respect everything on the Earth," the Shaman said and then almost shook that thought away, "but that doesn't matter. What does matter is the fact that sometimes Spirits choose not to be born, not to leave the Spirit Realm and walk the Earth as flesh and blood."

"Is this relevant …" Mike started to ask, but was interrupted as the Shaman continued as if he hadn't heard him.

"… and sometimes they don't get the chance," he sighed under his breath, "sometimes they get stuck between Here and There."

"I am sorry, Mr Red-Eagle," Mike said, sharper than he intended, "but I have a lot of work to do and I really don't see what this has to do with the case at hand."

"It has everything to do with this case, Captain Silver," the Shaman stated adamantly, "everything! You see when the twins were born we discovered something horrible, something that your modern medicine today would have known much earlier. Something had gone wrong inside my daughter, inside the womb where my grandsons were growing."

"What?" Mike asked, sympathy for the old man making him listen intently once more.

"We … I … didn't know the term for it then," the Shaman admitted quietly, "but when the first child was born we saw that there would be no second. No-one, even today, has been able to tell me why it happened, just that it did."

"What did?" Mike prompted, "what happened?"

"We thought that it was a growth at first, a cancer like the one that had taken my wife from me," the Shaman continued, his voice haunted, " but it wasn't. When they were growing inside my daughter something had happened – perhaps there wasn't enough space for them both, perhaps there wasn't enough sustenance – whatever it was both twins didn't survive. Only one of them did – only Jay did. The other child didn't form properly, or at least started to form and then was …"

The Shaman's voice petered off and Mike glanced up at him and saw tears cascading freely down the older man's face. He didn't know what to do – should he pass him a tissue, should he try to console him – as he was thinking of what to do he was slightly startled as the Shaman continued speaking, his voice strong.

"… subsumed is the term that they used. What should have been two boys became one. What should have been two individuals became one. What should have been two lives became one … just one."

"Fetus in fetu."

Both the Shaman and Mike Silver were startled to hear the unfamiliar voice interrupt them and glanced round to see two men standing in the doorway. With David Johnston was someone unfamiliar to the Shaman but Silver himself knew the speaker well.

"Come in Paul," he said as he waved the two men into the office. "Mr Red-Eagle this is Paul Jenkins, one of the lead criminologists in our crime lab, an expert in DNA."

The Shaman nodded in greeting at the new man as he approached, a gleam in his eyes.

"It is very rare, you know," he continued, excitedly, "less than a hundred cases known about World wide."

"What is?" Mike asked, his confusion evident.

"Fetus in fetu," Jenkins repeated, still not looking away from the Shaman's face, "I already told you that!"

"Yes, you did," Mike admitted calmly, knowing that he had to remain calm with Jenkins. He had worked with the man on many cases and his eccentricity still riled him up. What he couldn't fault, however, was his natural genius for the job. "… but what does it mean?"

"Oh, well in layman's terms," Jenkins stated in a vaguely condescending manner, "it means that one twin enveloped the other … or subsumed as this gentleman put it."

"What?" David Johnston asked in shock, "you mean that one twin ate the other one?"

"Don't be stupid," Jenkins said tersely, "it means literally what I said. One of the foetuses wrapped around the other and made it part of itself. The stronger twin, the survivor if you want, lived while the other one – the weaker of the two – became nothing more than a parasite. It wouldn't have been able to live at all … if you could call its existence 'living'… without remaining connected to its twin."

"What happened next, Mr Red-Eagle?" Mike Silver asked gently, not wanting to know but knowing that he had too – just as he knew that other people gawked at a three-car pile up without really wanting to see the carnage in front of them.

"The hospital removed the … 'parasite'," he stated softly, "and we are able to take Jay home after a few weeks. He was perfectly healthy and even the small scar on his abdomen faded until it was almost unnoticeable."

"That would explain things you know!" Jenkins almost crowed as he slapped the desk in front of him.

"Explain what?" David Johnston asked, completely lost.

"How the DNA from Phoenix's blood didn't match the DNA lifted from Ember's cup, of course," Jenkins stated as if the answer should have been obvious.

"Paul," Mike Silver interjected as he saw David's face start to cloud in rising anger, "why don't you explain it for us, simply and concisely."

"It is simple, Silver," Jenkins reiterated, "you sent Davey here down to get me so that I could listen in on this talk about Greek monsters and missing link in DNA but it is obvious now!"

"It is?" David asked again.

"Of course," Jenkins threw a snide glare at Johnston; "if you had told me that the chimera you were talking about was to do with genetics rather than mythology I could have had this sorted for you much earlier."

"For fuck's sake, you arrogant son of a bitch," Johnston almost shouted, "just tell us what the Hell you are talking about!"

"The DNA lifted from Phoenix's blood and the DNA lifted from Ember were different," Jenkins explained, slowly, knowing that it would annoy Johnston even more, "but they weren't from different people. They were both from the same person … they were both from this Ember guy, or your missing person, Phoenix, if you prefer."

"Paul," Mike said as he ran a hand over his tired eyes, "I have been a cop for a long time and I have never heard of this. It isn't possible!"

"It isn't probable," Jenkins countered, "in fact I have only read about a human chimera … someone who has two sets of chromosomes in his body … never actually seen one myself. Then again I have never met someone who had their frikkin' twin inside them … double jeopardy of the freak world!"

"Jenkins!" Mike shot the reprimand to the other man as the Shaman's eyes clenched in pain at the description of his grandson. "Watch your mouth, you insensitive idiot!"

"Jeez, I am sorry," Jenkins said, no sincerity in his voice, "but you don't understand just how rare this is."

"Well, then," Mike asked pointedly, "why don't you tell me?"

"We are talking about a one in ten million chance, at least, of something like this happening!" Jenkins stated excitedly.

"So," David pointed out, "next to impossible."

"One in fourteen million," the Shaman said quietly, just loud enough to be heard and the three men stopped and stared at him. "One in fourteen million is the chance of winning the lottery, you know, and there have been many people who have done that."

"So, what you are telling me," Silver stated as the facts slowly crept into his brain, "is that the reason that we haven't been able to find your grandson – or link him and Ember together – is because they are the same person. Is that what this is all about, has your grandson flipped out and he is living someone else's life … his dead brother's life?"

"No, Captain Silver, that is not what this is all about," the Shaman said as he leant forward to stare directly into the other man's eyes, locking him their through the intensity of his gaze. "I just wish that it was as 'simple' as that."

Taking a deep breath the Shaman leant forward even more, his voice dropping until it was barely audible.

"In fact it is just the opposite," he whispered, "it is Jay's dead brother living … stealing … his life."

/ / /

To be concluded.