Jesse was on a run south of Toskey and decided to stop in at Grayling, after completing his job. He went to Stockton, and didn't find anyone, then went back to Grayling and asked if anyone had seen either Celia or Lionel about. No one seemed to want to talk about the ghoul, but neither person had been sighted recently. Jesse was only curious because he wanted to tell the bitch off for kicking him in the nuts and, if she had gone back to Lionel, Amos would be so pissed.

The town doctor was the only folk who was even remotely concerned about the girl and the ghoul. She pulled him aside and offered to take him out to the shack where Lionel lived. Jesse shrugged, and figured it wouldn't hurt to check it out.

Dr. Jen didn't talk much as she led him up through a winding path in the trees, and around some rocks into a hiding hole. He swore when they came out onto a disaster scene, a metal shack collapsed to pieces, almost.

"My God," the doctor said, looking at the mess. It was like someone had smashed the shack with a massive hammer. "Lionel?" she called.

A pattering noise came from somewhere under the fallen roof of the shack. Dr. Jen stepped inside and swore something that made Jesse blush.

"What happened?" he asked her, and climbed over the metal sheets.

"Help me, here," she said, and started removing sheets of metal and bits of wood from a pile. Jesse held one end of a large sheet and moved it away for her. Lionel lay on the ground underneath, covered in blood and mangled-looking. Something had obviously tried to chew on him, and there was a crowbar sticking out of his stomach, having been pinned under the metal sheet.

"Holy shit, chick," Jesse said. "Is he―?"

"Fine," Lionel said, weakly. "The roof," he added, with a little grunting laugh.

"You old bastard," Dr. Jen said, removing more bits of wood from around him. "You never did fix your damn roof, did you?" She eyed the crowbar, then looked at his chest. A hole on the right side of his chest gaped.

"You mad," he wheezed. "At? Me?"

"Personal opinion has no bearing on treatment of injury," she said, mildly. "And, no, I'm not."

He grunted in pain, tensing up. Dark blood bubbled up around the crowbar and Jesse cringed. "Jesse―" Lionel said, turning his head.

"Alright, we've got to get you back to Grayling," Dr. Jen said. "The lung isn't so terrible, but you've been run through the stomach."

"No!" Lionel said, with more energy than he would seem to have.

"What? Lionel, don't be an idiot." Dr. Jen looked around and pulled a piece of metal to his side, laying it flat. "No one's gonna shoot you. Lilian isn't even around, anymore."

Jesse wondered what that meant. "You thinking radiation?" he asked the doctor.

"It would help but there isn't any for miles," she said, "so we'll just have to do this the old-fashioned way." She grabbed Lionel under his shoulders and directed Jesse to move his legs. They moved him onto the sheet.

"Jesse," Lionel said again.

"Yeah, man."

"Ce―" he started coughing, and spat out some nasty black clots.

"Okay, let's go!" Dr. Jen said in a no-nonsense voice, and grabbed the metal sheet to carry him away.

Jesse helped her get the ghoul back to Grayling, and answered a few questions, and wondered a lot about what was going on. It appeared that the roof of his shack had collapsed, and the ants got to Lionel while he was indisposed. Dr. Jen was curious as to Jesse's story. She was aware that Celia, Lilian, and Lionel had left together. She didn't think it was an issue. Lilian had come home with a fantastic story that Dr. Jen didn't quite believe.

"I didn't tell anyone that they were gone," the doctor said, handing him a cup of coffee. Lionel was hooked up to a machine, sedated. "Lionel was frightened, even. It's very rare to see him get scared."

"What, scared of the soldiers? Or because the one was threatening Celia?" Jesse asked, pointedly.

"Given the way Lilian acted before she fled town this last time, I'd say the latter." Dr. Jen sighed. "Poor Lionel."

"Why?"

She glanced at him and shook her head. "Boy, you got a box of rocks for a head?" she asked, imitating the gruff ghoul. Jesse grinned and knocked himself on the forehead. "It appears that he fell hard, for Celia," Dr. Jen went on. "With my mother around, it would have been torturous. Lilian is... a bit like a windstorm, when she's angry. Very pushy, knocking things around. All you can do is wait her out."

"Yeah, I know," Jesse agreed. He remembered the trip back from Gladstone with Lilian Swanton.

Dr. Jen nodded. "Lionel didn't want to help her," she said, remembering. "He was angry and lonely and would have stayed by himself forever. I made him take her in."

"He listens better to ladies," Jesse laughed.

"He does, and that's why he caved to Celia," Dr. Jen said. "She was white as a sheet when she came through here."

Jesse told Dr. Jen about the trip to St. James, and how Celia had radiation sickness. He explained what it had looked like to Amos and him. Dr. Jen shook with laughter. "That's so terrible!" she moaned. "Oh, I can't imagine how awful it must have been."

Jesse also told her about Lilian pushing Lionel into the lake and the fist-fight between the women. Dr. Jen only shook her head and remarked that it was a good thing that Lilian hadn't stayed in Grayling for very long, once she'd returned with Jesse and Avery.

"Where is Celia, then?" Jesse wondered.

"I expect Lionel knows. We'll have to wait until he wakes up," Dr. Jen said.

The entrance to the Sepulchre was a thick stone wall with a large metal door set firmly into the side of a hill. Someone had taken red paint and drawn a skull onto the door, with a large ban symbol beside it, and the word "GOLGOTHA" was written under the symbols. Celia fought against her hand cuffs, hyperventilating.

"Welcome to Golgotha!" one of the soldiers guarding the door called out, drawing out the vowels. The other snickered loudly. "Hope you enjoy your stay!" the first soldier said, sarcastically.

She was brought inside a metal bunker, handed off to another soldier by Bradley, who marched away. The other led her further into the bunker, and she could hear the wails and moaning in the distance, a thousand trapped souls crying out for rest. She shuddered, felt her wrists chafing, and quailed against the soldier's push. It grew darker the further they went, and she could hear dripping noises and a low hum pulsing through the conduits on the walls.

She was led onto an old subway platform. Four generator pylons, with a resonance barrier between them, stretched from one side of the room to the other, and blocked off the open mezzanine to the lower level. The stairs had been knocked down and were crumbling on the level below. Several soldiers stood around the room, two on either side of a pulley system attached to a metal cage beyond the barrier.

"Present for Phaeton!" the soldier leading her called out. He pushed her out into the room.

"Celia Landis," a familiar voice said, and laughter echoed in a metal helmet. She was numb with terror, or she would have fainted. "How nice of you to stop by."

She stood, stiff as a board. "I'm afraid this isn't a social visit," she whispered, trying to be brave.

Mayer chuckled. It bounced around his helmet again, and out into the subway platform, ringing off the walls. "Too bad," he said. "I could have taught you so many interesting things."

She shuddered. The soldiers around him laughed. "Let's go," one of them said, and turned off the barrier. She was pushed forward into the metal cage, and the barrier turned back on. The cage lowered to the floor, jerkily, and the door swung open.

She stepped forward into the gloom of the lower level, hearing growling in the tunnels ahead of her.

"Start walking," Mayer called out. "Wouldn't want to keep Phaeton waiting."

Celia turned herself toward the tunnel ahead and walked forward, without looking back.