The Alchemist

by MoSRhyo

This is an AU/AR story about Carlos Manoso, the 17 year-old-son of Ricardo Carlos Manoso and his late wife Stephanie. It was co-written with Kevan S a couple decades ago. It is a dark and angsty fantasy story, but it is also the story of an unlikely friendship. Rated T for violence only, there is zip, nada, no sexual content.

1. Chapter 1

Okay, this is an AU/AR/A-everything from way out in left field. Co-written with Kevan S, I think we wrote this around book 9 or 10, when we were sort of depressed at the direction (or lack thereof) the JE stories had and where the characters were going. I wrote the Prologue (First Wolf) as a short offering to Kevan S and then we thought "where do we go from here?" The answer was clearly "take it and run far, far out of the genre."

This is the story of Carlos Manoso (who is 17/18 in this this story), son of Ricardo Carlos Manoso and his late wife Stephanie, and his adventures in the company of Dante, one of Ranger's old mercenary friends. So it is a Plum (ish) story. This is a dark fantasy story, but it's also the story on an unlikely friendship between a bitter and closed-off mercenary and the son of a man who was once his blood brother. I wrote this with Kevan S and Dante and Sasha are her characters. I wrote the plot outline and most of the Carlos scenes, she wrote the big Dante scenes. It incorporates several scenes/ideas from Kev's other stories, many of which are no longer available – the POW camp at Kinsha that Dante and Ranger (mostly called Ric in this story) were held captive in, the character of Kris, and Dante and Sasha's horrific childhood. You should be able to get the gist without reading her original stories. It is a dark, fairly angsty story in many places (because that is how Kev and I rolled at the time) and while it does have an ending, it's not exactly a HEA.

We had an incredible time writing together and Kev taught me to love the POV shift, something that usually drives me nuts. But it's so useful … I hope you enjoy this.

Prologue – 10 years earlier

First Wolf

Dante relaxed against the cockpit bulkhead, one hand lightly on the wheel as the big sailboat sliced through the sea on a broad reach, the sails full in the steady westerly wind. The wind streamed his dark hair behind him and rippled the light-weight linen shirt he wore. His body was relaxed, calm, still – the only sign of any tension the occasional glance that strayed upward to the small figure climbing the shroud lines, already most of the way to the first spreader. The climbing boy wore swim shorts and a life vest.

From beside him came a deep chuckle. "He'll probably jump, not fall. If that makes you feel any better."

"First spreader is 25 feet up the mast. 30 feet to the waterline. Long way for a small boy." Dante mentioned the distances, knowing as he did so that Ric had already assessed the distance with an accurate eye.

"It is," the boy's father said. "But he would do it because he is not afraid. Hasn't learned what fear truly means." Ric reclined beside him, braced up on his elbows, his long body stretched across the teak cockpit locker. He wore only swim trunks and a long, curved knife strapped to one thigh. He also looked relaxed, but Dante could sense the thread of readiness in him, a readiness that would allow him to be in full motion whenever his child fell or jumped.

Dante watched the boy climb steadily, graceful and sure even though his body still showed the awkward proportions of childhood. "He is like us."

"No," Ric said. "He could be. He is enough like me. But he never will be." He looked out at the water, his mind in another place, another time.

He smoothed the thumb of his right hand across a very faint white scar that crossed the back of his left hand and then curved across his palm. The scar left from the final, desperate knife fight when Dante had come to free him from the prison camp, come to bring his battered body out of that hell. "He will not be tempered at the same forges, Dante. His path will be different." He looked up into Dante's eyes and saw understanding. "That I swear."

Dante considered the laughing boy who now sat on the first spreader, facing into the wind, holding tightly to the shroud line. He thought about his own life, about the things he had already been forced to do by the age of this boy. He nodded. "It already is different, amigo. We were not so free, so young. Ever."

The boy, as if sensing their regard, turned to smile down at them. His eyes were as blue as the Mediterranean beyond. The boy looked down at the deck below him, and Dante saw doubt cloud the clear blue eyes. The small head lifted into the wind again, his eyes on the distant horizon as he took a deep breath and then began to climb down, much more slowly than he had climbed up. Dante found himself smiling at the small act of courage, unusual in one so young.

"His mother?"

Ric looked away. "She and I…" he made a small gesture with his hand which encompassed everything and nothing.

The boy finished his descent and came back to the cockpit to tell them of his adventure, laying a small hand on each of them as he spoke. His skin was the exact color of his father's and his hand seemed to vanish on his father's skin. The small hand on Dante's thigh was slightly darker than Dante's skin. Eventually, his tale told, the boy moved forward in the boat, to lie in front of the mast step and stare up into the sails.

"He will need our kind of guardian until he is a man," Ric said. "I am his wolf now. I will do whatever has to be done for him. Protect him from my past." They had all acquired enemies through the years. Enemies who would think of a small, fragile boy as nothing but a target of convenience.

Dante heard the question in Ric's voice and looked up into the sails of the boat, into that dazzling whiteness, while he thought. He could still feel the warm mark that the boy's hand had left upon the skin of his thigh.

Finally he spoke, his voice pitched low. "I owe you my life and you owe me yours. A debt and a bond, all in one. I will be your son's wolf in your place if it becomes necessary, Ric."

Ric nodded, once. "Thank you, Dante."

The boy returned to the cockpit and lay down between them, stretching to touch both men, asleep almost the moment he put his head down. His father put his hand, fingers spread wide, on the boy's bare back to secure him from rolling, the gesture both possessive and protective.

The two men returned to watching the sea as the boat moved through the open, empty ocean, a thing alive with motion and power and touched with a grace beyond friendship.

The Alchemist – Chapter 1

The open air market was busy and the narrow aisles crowded, but somehow the throng always parted just enough that the crush of humanity swirled around the tall, powerful man and his younger companion, never quite touching them. Occasionally that courtesy of an enlarged personal space was breached and then a glance from cold emerald eyes brought the transgressor to his senses and the cordon of open space continued as they walked.

The two men had completed their market errands, as the list of items they required was small - fresh fruit and vegetables, rice, spices, olive oil, garlic, wine - most of which would be delivered directly to the sailboat, but Dante knew that Carlos would want to walk the market from one end to the other, his young eyes taking in the goods, the people, the foods, the smells, the noise, the heat and dust and rise-and-fall cadences of all the languages. Carlos had an exceptional ear for languages and rapidly picked up key phrases. They had repeated the same pattern in all of the markets they had visited in the last few months, but on that day Dante felt uneasy. The feeling was not one of being watched, but rather a feeling of expectancy, as though something had been put into motion around them. The market seemed peaceful enough, ordinary enough, but, still, Dante watched.

Carlos stopped at an antiquarian bookseller's stall and flipped through a few books, stopping at an aged leather volume with maps and text. Dante watched as he picked the book up and moved further back into the stall, slowly fingering the spines of the books and reading the titles. Dante moved to stand in the shade, his back against a stone wall, both Carlos and the entrances to the market in his field of vision. Despite warnings about the fate of books on boats, Carlos always bought books from the markets, often trading them at the next one, somewhat worse for wear from the salt air and humidity of the sea-going environment on the sailboat.

"Dante," Carlos called over his shoulder, "how much money have we got in local currency?"

No matter how many times he cautioned the boy, he still used Dante's name in public and lapsed into English, even though he also spoke Spanish, Italian and Greek fluently. In that part of the world it would be best for Carlos to be any nationality other than what he was, and Dante had made sure that they carried expertly forged documents that made Carlos a Greek citizen. His mocha-colored skin and long black hair, pulled back in a thick loose braid, could have come from many countries, although his cobalt blue eyes narrowed the list considerably. He no longer looked like an American teenager at first glance, dressed as he was in a loose, coarse white linen pullover shirt and canvas pants that showed signs of having been mended several times. But the casual, slouching walk and the way his leather sandals slapped against the ground gave him away to the expert observer.

Dante's lips twitched and he answered in Greek. " We have enough to pay for our required purchases."

Carlos answered in English. "Oh, come on, I'll pay you back when…" He stopped and twisted his head back to look at Dante, switching to Greek at the sight of Dante's expression. "Was that a joke? From you?" He grinned at Dante. "Well, well. It's working. I'm rubbing off on you."

He smiled tightly, watched the boy smile and laugh, and let the moment pass without comment. Carlos's attempts to make him laugh and loosen up were amusing, though not perhaps in the way Carlos thought they were. He knew Carlos thought him too tightly controlled and unyielding based on the parts of himself he'd chosen to show the boy. Dante had shown only three people more of himself than the boy had already seen, and two of those people had themselves been like Dante - the boy's father was one. But with only one person had he ever been able to completely release all of himself, from the parts that were quiet and closed to the parts that still howled in pain in the night. Only she had been able to reach into the most scarred parts of him and bring out only joy. Unbidden, the memory of her closest to his heart came up - they stood together on the terrace of the villa as the sun set, she in front him, his arms around her and, in his memory, he looked down at her, the colors of the sunset alive in her pale hair as she turned to smile up at him. Dante forced the memory away and returned to watching the market and the boy.

Carlos turned back to the bookseller and began, in idiomatic Arabic, to bargain for the three books he had picked from the stacks. He dropped his leather knapsack on the ground and pulled out several other books to offer and the bargaining began in earnest. Dante listened to the exchange with half his attention, smiling to himself when the bookseller tried to bargain for the braided hair bracelet that Carlos wore on his wrist. Carlos clamped his free hand over the bracelet and shook his head firmly. The bookseller cried out to Dante then, pleading to him as the boy's father to help him bargain fairly with an old man. Neither Dante nor Carlos corrected the assumption that they were father and son. Dante stood only slightly taller than Carlos, and they shared a powerful but lean build. In the nearly four months that they had been traveling together they had come to a relationship close to that of teacher and student as Dante had shown Carlos the small pockets of ancient worlds that still existed on the Mediterranean. But Dante never forgot that the boy had been brought to him for safekeeping and kept watch accordingly.

It was mid-morning but already the merchants had begun to retreat under the canopies of the stalls, the rising heat bringing an air of languor to the market. The noise began to recede as the customers left the market for the cool of the recessed gardens in their own homes and the sound level dropped enough that the water splashing from a fountain into a tiled blue basin could be heard across the square. Carlos sauntered over to Dante after his purchases were completed, having managed to bargain for the books without requiring coin from Dante.

At Carlos's lifted eyebrow, Dante nodded and the two seated themselves in front of a taverna, ordering a small lunch of olives and flatbread and goat cheeses. They ate in companionable silence, both watching the marketplace, but with different eyes and for different reasons. Dante sat in the shade, his chair in the corner, while Carlos sat in the sun, his long legs stretched out in front of him, fingers wrapped around the small, delicate cup that held thick, syrupy, Turkish-style coffee.

"You seem jumpy today. Not like you," Carlos observed, sipping at the coffee.

"There is something…," Dante said softly. The tone in Dante's voice had Carlos sitting up straighter and scanning the market with a less leisurely eye.

Their attention was suddenly caught by the noises a small boy made, splashing in the tiled basin of the fountain, a mongrel dog barking at the shrieking laughter of the boy as he splashed the dog. Carlos smiled.

"We had a fountain like that when I was little, but it had koi in it and I always got in trouble for scaring them when I splashed around in it. My mother would come out and put her hands on her hips and roll her eyes at me and give me the same lecture about the fish every time." As they watched, the boy's mother caught up with him, put her hands on her hips and began to scold him soundly. Carlos laughed. "Maybe that's a universal pose." They watched as the boy hung his head contritely, gave the mongrel dog a quick pat on the head, and then ran after his mother out of the market.

Carlos put the empty cup down on the rough wood table and began to turn it in circles. Dante simply watched him, knowing that the boy had made up his mind to ask a question but hadn't decided the phrasing.

"Dante," he started, and then paused to give the cup a few more turns. He cracked his knuckles and looked off into the market. "Why am I here with you this summer? What did my father say to you before he left?"

The question had been building for months and Dante considered the answer carefully. It was not for him to tell the boy what his father had chosen not to. No matter how ill-advised Dante thought Ric's secrecy was, he would not betray the confidences. "What your father had to say to me was for me to hear. It didn't directly concern you."

Carlos rolled his eyes. "Oh, please. Does he think I don't notice the coincidence? Every year, near the time my mother was murdered, he pawns me off on someone else and goes away for a few weeks. Seven fucking years he's done this, since I was ten years old and she died. This year, though, it's different. Bigger. Darker. I don't know why."

Dante said nothing. They sat in silence and Dante could see and feel the emotions roll off of him. Still young enough to believe the actions that occurred around him were directly related to him, to feel blame when wrongs were done around him.

Carlos raised troubled eyes to Dante. "I remember her and I don't. Fragments, flashes, pieces. But now sometimes I can't remember if something is my own memory or what someone told me about her. It feels..," he shrugged and looked away, "…I don't know, maybe disloyal - like I've forgotten her on purpose."

"I met her." Carlos looked up in surprise and Dante studied him again. His resemblance to his father was very strong, in both body and character, but Dante could see pieces of his mother in him as well - the open, direct, blue eyes, the sideways tilt of his head when he listened, all his senses intent, and the way he attracted people, and sometimes trouble, to him.

"You did? I don't remember you coming to Miami. I remember my father and I came to visit you at the villa - it was probably after the second time they had separated."

Dante shook his head. "It was before you were born. In Trenton. She and your father had not been together long."

"What were you doing in Trenton?"

Dante turned unblinking eyes to him. "I was working. As it happens, a job your father was also working. And there was someone else with another angle." Dante paused, his eyes briefly focused in another time and place. "She was a friend of your mother's."

"She?" Carlos asked, trying to prod him into further speech.

"Her name was Kris. She came to the villa with me and then died there months later, after an illness." It was clear that Dante had said as much as he would on the subject.

Carlos simply stared at him. Very few people ever came to the villa. For Dante to have taken a woman there after just meeting her meant - he wasn't sure what it meant.

He hadn't forgotten Melisande's comment about Dante's reputation as a skilled lover - the courtesan's voice had held enough admiration when she mentioned his father and Dante in that way that he had felt a flash of mixed embarrassment and jealousy - but the Dante that he knew ignored the admiring sideways looks women threw his way as though he had no real interest. Carlos doubted that Dante lived a celibate life, but he seemed to view women distantly - as thought he held them to some internal standard and found them all lacking. It was something he had noted and mentally filed away that the less interest Dante showed, often the more interest women showed.

Carlos tried to envision Dante in a relationship with a woman and failed. Dante was Dante - a powerful, solitary man. Alone. But Carlos had to admit to himself that he had no idea what it took to maintain a relationship. With hindsight, he could see his own parents' relationship for what it was - two stubborn, strong-willed, passionate people who didn't come together quite so much as collide with each other. Not a relationship so much as a test of wills. They had never divorced but had separated several times, finally coming to some agreement that had them seeing each other often but living apart. Until, of course, her life had been ended at the hands of a cartel with a grudge against his father.

But then, Dante and his father were alike in many ways. Carlos had never made the mistake of thinking that the lack of an outward show of emotion on his father's part meant that he did not grieve deeply for his wife. It had marked him in subtle but significant ways, and as Carlos studied Dante, opening his eyes and his heart wide, he could begin to see some of the same markers. Carlos nodded. A powerful love ended by death. He had never been in love himself but could recognize the deep mark it left.

As he sat and thought, in that very open and aware state, he began to feel a tug, as though someone pulled at his sleeve, although he knew that it was not so. He sat up and looked around the market, his eyes falling on a small doorway at the back of it. The door was framed by rough timbers, cracked with age, and a heavy woven curtain, in purples and reds, was pulled slightly back, revealing an inky black opening into the shop beyond. A small hand-lettered sign in several languages was tacked next to the door. Although much like the doorways around it, Carlos felt that it was somehow different, and that inside that door he would see something important. Something he could almost see sitting in the taverna. Briefly he resisted the thought and found that it just came back stronger.

"Alquimica," Carlos murmured. "Spanish for alchemist." He stood, pushed his chair back and walked away, leaving his leather satchel on the ground by his chair, forgetting his books and Dante in the importance of seeing what the shop held.

"Carlos," Dante called softly after him, and then, again, sharper when Carlos continued to walk away without acknowledging him, " Carlos!" He frowned as he watched Carlos walk across the market square, headed directly for the shop door, almost as though he was being pulled in.

The interior of the shop was as dark as the narrow opening had promised and Carlos paused inside the doorway, blinking, as his eyes adjusted in the stale hot dimness. The air in the shop had an odd presence - age and dust and awareness, all in one. Carlos shivered slightly, in spite of the heat. He felt himself being watched and scanned the interior carefully. The tiny shop was filled with shelving and tables holding ceramic jars and bins, all carefully labeled in lettering he couldn't identify. At the back of the shop, two black velvet curtains covered doorways, and as he looked at the curtain on the right, he saw the corner of it twitch.

Carlos moved silently across the shop and pulled the curtain back sharply, revealing a boy, perhaps in his early teens, a few years younger than he was. The area behind the curtain was the shop's living quarters, with two small straw pallets, a charcoal brazier for cooking and a small chest for clothing. The boy had brown skin almost exactly the color of Carlos's, short black hair and huge, wide, frightened black eyes. He wore loose black linen pants and tunic, the tunic heavily embroidered. As Carlos let go of the curtain his hand paused in the air a moment and the boy flinched away from him, as though to avoid a blow.

Carlos frowned and crouched down to be more at eye level with the boy. "Inshallah, little one," he said softly in Arabic. He was not fluent in Arabic and he searched for some other phrase that he might use to further calm the boy. Nothing occurred to him and he reached out his hand, palm open, toward the boy.

The boy leapt backward, stumbling against a table, and the large ceramic jar on it began to topple toward him. Carlos stood quickly and caught the jar, grunting at the awkward weight of it. Behind him he heard an agitated voice in English.

"Ah, young sir, many apologies! The slave boy is clumsy and graceless!" An older man appeared beside him and the two of them shifted the jar back on to the table. The man turned to the boy and began to berate him in a dialect of Arabic that Carlos recognized none of. The boy cringed away again and the taller man backhanded him hard. The boy didn't move or cry out and as the man raised his hand again, Carlos moved forward and grabbed his wrist, yanking it back with enough force to nearly dislocate the man's arm.

The man dropped to the floor, howling in pain, and Carlos paused. "What the hell am I doing here?" he murmured, looking back at the small boy, who peered at the man writhing on the ground with eyes that held both terror and satisfaction.

Simultaneously, Carlos saw the boy prostrate himself, face on the floor, and heard a soft sound behind him. He turned and froze.

The man who stood before him, blocking the path back to the door, was dressed in loose black robes. The Alchemist himself. His face was harsh and lined, his expression cold and menacing. "You've come, my fine young body." His voice was icy and ancient and Carlos felt alarms go off in every sense he possessed. The Alchemist continued to stare at him and Carlos looked into his eyes

The confines of the shop seemed to expand as Carlos looked into those black eyes and felt himself being pulled in to a dark wide world. He tried to move backward, away from the menace in front of him, but could not physically move his feet. A quick anger flared through him and he straightened his shoulders, breaking the eye contact. "Get out of my way," he snarled.

The Alchemist chuckled - a rasping, ancient sound. "Leave if you can, boy." The Alchemist seemed to grow wider and larger, and the doorway behind him seemed to vanish.

He saw a cold smile creep across the Alchemist's face as his eyes shifted sideways. "Ah, the last player enters." The Alchemist moved out of the doorway and bent to help his assistant up as Dante entered the shop.

Carlos could see that something had set Dante on edge, that he was in what Carlos thought of as full predator mode. Dante's hands were low on his body, scant millimeters from where Carlos knew his throwing knives were hidden. His eyes were cold and remote, and when he spoke his voice was low. "Carlos. Leave. Now."

Carlos was startled by the change in the Alchemist. His eyes were lowered to the floor, away from Dante's eyes, and he seemed to have shrunken in upon himself somehow. The waves of menace and ancient power that Carlos had felt had vanished and the shop had returned to simply being small, hot, and dark.

Free to move again, Carlos slipped past the two men and the boy to Dante's side, feeling cleaner as the strong tide of Dante's anger washed over him. Dante's head moved, a barely perceptible nod, and Carlos understood that Dante wanted him to walk out, that Dante would stay at his back. He turned to leave and saw, out of the corner of his eyes, the assistant reach down for the cringing boy again. He tried to go back but Dante's body filled the doorway behind him, pushing against him. Carlos stumbled out into the hot afternoon light, feeling almost drained. He took a few steps across the market square.

Dante caught up to him and Carlos saw that he had calmed some, appearing simply tense. "Why?" Dante asked, his voice sharp.

Carlos blinked. "Why did I go in there?" He tilted his head and thought. "I'm .. not sure. I saw .. something important." He shrugged. "Doesn't matter." He turned back to the shop. "We have to go back, though, and get the boy."

Dante stopped him with a palm against his shoulder. "No. We go back to the boat and finish provisioning. We need to fill the water and diesel tanks and stow the food. We leave at first tide turn tomorrow morning." Dante turned him in the other direction and gave him a small push as he began to walk. The entire incident in the shop had left Dante with an unpleasant and somehow familiar bad taste, and he was feeling keyed and edgy, angry with the boy. He'd been able to feel from the beginning that the boy had a slight touch of extra sight and it made him uneasy when Carlos used it or was used by it, especially since he was sure that Carlos did not realize what it was.

"Dante! Dante, god damn it, come back here! We can't just leave that little kid there. He's a slave!"

Dante turned, regarded him silently for a moment and then shrugged. "If you want your own slave, then you should buy him."

"What?! You can't be serious."

Dante turned back sharply and the expression on his face made Carlos want to back up a step. He didn't. "Carlos, your life has been one of privilege and wealth in a very simplistic culture. Do not presume that the rest of the world operates in that same mode."

Carlos narrowed his eyes and folded his arms across his chest. "Yeah right. Slavery has some merit that my simple eyes can't see. Enlighten me, Dante."

He saw the moment that Dante's temper broke and he knew he was in deep trouble as Dante's hand shot out, grasped his shoulder, and slammed him hard up against the alley wall. His breath left his lungs in a loud wheeze and he found himself pinned against the wall by powerful hands and mesmerized by vivid green eyes, inches from his own. "My father," Dante growled, "sold my youngest brother, body and soul, as a pleasure slave to a friend of his. Do not seek, boy," Dante gave him a small shake for emphasis, "to instruct me on slavery."

Carlos held both of his hands out and up toward Dante in a gesture of apology. He knew he should let it go, leave Dante alone, but he couldn't. He had to know. His father had told him before that it was the trait of his mother's that had gotten her into the most trouble - the need to know something, the inability to drop a subject and let it go, even when pursuing it led to trouble. "What happened to him?"

Dante's eyes were half-closed, an intense green shining through lowered eyelids. "My brother died of fever. When I found out what had happened, I returned and I killed them both, my father and his friend the slaver. My father was an evil man."

They stared at each other for a tense moment and Dante turned on his heel and continued to walk back to the boat. Silently, he cursed himself for caring enough to allow the boy slip under his skin and he cursed Ric for leaving the boy with him while he pursued his revenge. When the boy was small, Ric had brought the boy to him and secured his promise to be the boy's guardian if the need arose. Dante had thought he understood what it would cost him to take on the protection of the boy. Not until that day did he know what Ric had known then - that it would require letting the boy into his heart.

Carlos let his head fall back against the stone of the alley wall. Dante had killed his own father. He brought both of his hands up to his head and slowly ran them over his hair, blowing out a distressed breath. His father had once told him that Dante had survived more than was believable. Carlos knew then that he couldn't even begin to grasp the things that Dante had seen and done. He turned his head and watched Dante walk away. As he looked at the straight, angry line of Dante's back, he felt a sudden rush of sympathy. Some people, undoubtedly, would regard Dante as a monster. Carlos had been able to see, in small flashes, some of the depths of Dante, even though Dante had fought to keep them hidden from him, and knew that there were ugly things deep inside, things he probably didn't want to see. But there was also the strength and transcendence of a survivor that gave Dante a grace and an edge of near-terrible beauty. All of his life Carlos had been told he had an odd way of seeing the world and the people in it. He shrugged, adding Dante to his list of odd things.

Dante stopped at the turn in the alley and simply waited for Carlos, facing away from him. Carlos sighed, pushed away from the wall, and followed.

The Alchemist - Chapter 2

Dante moved swiftly through the narrow, dark alleys, his anger roiling through him with each step. The boy had defied him and he would deal with it swiftly.

The return to the sailboat earlier had been tense. Carlos had continued to argue for freeing the slave boy while Dante had walked ahead of him in silence. By the time they had reached the sailboat, Dante's hold on his temper had been threatening to break, and he had dealt with the problem by commanding the boy to silence and flatly forbidding further discussion of the topic. They stowed the newly-delivered foodstuffs and supplies in silence until the boat lay ready for departure. At nightfall, Dante had left to arrange departure clearances and to have the sailboat's diesel and fresh water tanks filled. He had been gone slightly more than two hours and, when he had returned, Carlos was gone.

Dante paused at the crown of the hill, scanning the narrow alleys that led down toward the market. Carlos's destination was not in question, but he had several choices of routes in and out. The earlier Dante could catch up with him and put a stop to his venture the better. In the low waning moon's light, the alleys on the north side of the market were blanketed in the heaviest shadows, making them the most likely choice. Dante moved to give himself the best view of those northern alleys. Movement caught his eye, far enough away that the two figures he saw were barely recognizable. Dante began to move silently forward, his eyes fixed on the two figures moving furtively up the street. The distance between them began to narrow and he could see the two figures seemed to be having an animated discussion as they walked, the smaller figure trying to pull away from the larger. Dante shook his head. Only Carlos would insist on rescuing the unwilling.

Carlos stopped and pulled off the heavy cloak he wore, bent and wrapped it around the smaller boy's shoulders. As Carlos straightened up, Dante saw a quick swirl of moment behind the young man. Carlos must have been aware of the danger and tried to twist away, but Dante saw a narrow sliver of metal flash in the moonlight as dark hands wrapped it around the boy's neck and Carlos was jerked up and backward, his hands reaching up to his neck.

Dante's fingers moved to his throwing knives, but the distance was too great for accuracy and the attacker stood slightly behind Carlos. The risk of hitting Carlos was too great. He began to run silently, his eyes locked on the two struggling figures. He saw the slave boy begin to beat fiercely at the attacker. Dante abandoned silence as Carlos's struggles began to slow and shouted the boy's name. The attacker turned his hooded head in Dante's direction and jerked sharply with his hands. Carlos went limp and the attacker backhanded the slave boy to the ground. The attacker dropped Carlos and bent over him momentarily, half-turned to Dante, gauging his approach. Dante threw the first knife with unerring accuracy and was rewarded when the attacker flinched. The second knife had already left Dante's fingers when the attacker smoothly rose and turned into a side alley, vanishing in a swirl of dark cloak.

When Dante reached them, Carlos had rolled partly on his side and was taking huge, gasping breaths, moaning on every intake of air. Since the boy seemed whole, Dante passed him and stepped into the alley, hard on the heels of the attacker. Before him the narrow alley stretched out, straight and empty. The attacker was gone.

Gone, as though there had never been a man running in the alley. Dante knew there must be a door or passageway the man had slipped through but the effect was still eerie. Dante could sense no other watchers but the circumstances were odd. He turned back to the corner, where Carlos lay on the ground, still moaning softly with the slave boy perched protectively over him. Carlos was barely conscious, not yet alert. Dante pulled a flashlight out of his pocket and twisted the light on.

As Dante knelt down onto the cobbles, the slave boy flattened his body down over Carlos, blocking Dante's view of Carlos' wounds. At Dante's low snarl he retreated, sitting up on his haunches but still close enough to touch Carlos. Dante noted the slave boy had removed Carlos's cloak and laid it roughly over him, tucking the edges neatly underneath.

The strangler's wire was still partly wrapped around Carlos's neck and where the wire had been pulled tight it remained embedded into the flesh, cutting into the skin and still bleeding sluggishly. Dante hesitated for a moment and then reached down and gently unwound the wire, carefully examining it as he did so. Nearly two feet long, the garrote was made of fine wound wire. At either end of the wire were two steel loops, each large enough for two fingers to slide through and grasp. The wire had tiny sharp metal spikes woven into a short segment and the spikes were what had caused the bleeding. Dante shone the light on one of the spikes that was bare of blood and saw that it was discolored. His lips flattened. Poison or drugs. Definitely not a random street thug attack on the boy.

The assassin had either been careful not to cut the major artery or Carlos had been lucky. Or both. Once the wire was removed, several of the cuts opened up and began to bleed again. Dante pinched the skin closed. In the places where the bleeding was heaviest the blood was smeared across Carlos's neck, as though someone had wiped a heavy cloth across it.

Carlos struggled back to consciousness with a harsh cry, sitting up abruptly, pulling at Dante's hands on his neck. Dante let go of the cuts and grabbed Carlos's hands, firmly holding them away from his neck until he was aware enough to relax against Dante, drawing in a shuddering breath and leaning into the larger man's strength.

Carlos simply sat there for a few moments, his breathing rough, his forehead resting against Dante's chest as he tried to gather his scattered thoughts. "Damn," Carlos muttered, "thought I was dead."

"Very nearly. Another few seconds and you would have been." Dante's voice was low and cold. Flat.

Carlos coughed and winced. "What was that?"

"Strangler's wire," Dante replied, showing him the wire garrote. He wrapped the wire carefully into a leather pouch and stowed it in a pocket of his cloak. "I will keep it for you. It will be yours now. To remind you, should you contemplate something so stupid again."

"Dante, I'm sorry, I …" Carlos stopped speaking at Dante's low growl.

Dante gestured at the still-bleeding, perfect line of cuts that ran more than halfway around his neck. "You'll wear this necklace all of your life, boy, souvenir of a foolish moment in a dark back alley."

That Dante was angry with him had been obvious from the moment he'd first spoken. But Dante had never before called him "boy" with such derision before. Dante had always treated him as an adult, capable of making his own decisions. They'd had disagreements before, but Carlos had always given in to Dante's greater experience and knowledge, not simply because Dante was an adult and Carlos was - something younger.

The slave boy crept closer to the two men. Carlos turned, wincing as he twisted his neck. He could feel the blood starting to run down his chest and back. "Fayed," he said softly and gestured at Dante. " Al-Zaim Dante."

Fayed bowed low to Dante, touching his forehead and palms on the paving stones. Dante grunted. As if one boy wasn't bad enough. Dante stood, pulling Carlos up with him. "Quiet now. There is a safe doctor nearby. You need stitches." Dante bent down to pick up Carlos's cloak but found Fayed there before him, carefully shaking it out and trying to smooth out the wrinkles. Since Carlos normally kept the cloak stuffed into the bottom of his duffle bag, the task was hopeless.

Dante moved away and shone the flashlight on the stones of the alley, looking for other weapons or items the attacker might have left behind.

" Al-Zaim, Al-Zaim!" The slave boy dipped his head nervously at Dante as he tugged at the edges of his cloak, pulling him toward Carlos. Dante looked over to Carlos, who stood swaying, off-balance. Dante gripped him by the elbow and felt Carlos's weight sag against him.

"Dante," he murmured. "I feel strange." Dante gently eased him back down to the ground.

The cuts had begun to bleed freely again. With a curse Dante shut off the flashlight, pulled his cloak off and then unbuttoned his shirt. Using a big knife from his boot, he cut the shirt into strips and wound them together, pressing them tightly against Carlos's neck. Fayed tugged at Dante's arm and offered his tunic, his bare chest shivering in the darkness of the alley.

Dante's eyes narrowed as he assessed the slave boy. He had learned long ago that assassins came in all shapes, genders and sizes, and it was not impossible that the young one in front of him could be potentially dangerous. A plant, to slow them down and keep track of them, if nothing else. Fayed, as though aware of Dante's thoughts, looked at the big knife in Dante's hands and stepped close to its blade, his own hands submissively at his side, his chest pushed out and his eyes closed. Offering himself to Dante's blade. Roughly, Dante pulled the tunic out of the boy's hands and shoved it back against his chest. The slave boy opened his eyes again and they regarded each other. Fayed's eyes were far older than his physical years and an instant recognition flashed between them. Survivors, both. The slave boy dropped his eyes and Dante mused that in that instant the boy had understood Dante's true nature better than Carlos did.

Dante and Fayed lifted Carlos to his feet and the trio began to walk down the alley toward the center of the dock district, their progress not as swift as Dante could wish. They had walked for less than ten minutes when Carlos began to mutter and Dante halted.

Carlos's voice was slurred. "What?" Dante shook him lightly and Carlos opened his eyes. The blue of his eyes had brightened, shining almost luminescent in the half-light of the dark alley. "Are you calling me? Someone is calling my name."

Dante wrapped an arm tighter about him and picked up his pace as Carlos began to struggle weakly against him. "No, this is the wrong way. Can't you hear him?"

They had reached the medical clinic. Dante motioned Fayed to knock on the door while he braced Carlos against the building wall checking the makeshift bandages on Carlos's neck and finding them soaked through in several places.

"Knock harder," he instructed Fayed. The slave boy looked blank for a moment and then looked from Dante to Carlos, taking in the blood, and began to pound on the door with his fists and feet.

"Dante," Carlos said, his voice weak but clear. His eyes were brighter than before, a burning blue, as though lit by an internal fire. "Dante, help..." His eyes rolled back into his head and he took a deep, gasping breath as his body went limp and he collapsed against Dante completely.

Dante swore and picked him up just as an elderly man, dressed only in a night robe, opened the door. Fayed burst into agitated speech and the doctor's eyebrows began to rise. Dante cut in. "I am a friend of the Al-Reis Abdul Badawi. I was given your name as a fair and safe man."

The doctor studied him a moment and looked down at Carlos and then nodded his head. "Come," he said, motioning them in the door, holding it open as they entered and then firmly bolting it behind them. He gestured down the hall toward a lit room and Dante carried Carlos into the room, laying him down gently on the examining table. Fayed began to lay Carlos's cloak over him again.

"He's weak. Delirious. I think he's lost a lot of blood."

The doctor flipped the bright examination light on and snugged the earpieces of his glasses firmly into place. "Are these his only injuries?" At Dante's nod, he began to clean the skin with a soft cloth, removing the remnants of Dante's shirt and applying pressure to the several spots that continued to bleed. "Good then. Several stitches will be required but the wounds are not deep and should heal quickly." He glanced sideways at Dante, shirtless and covered with Carlos's blood. "You'll find a shirt which should fit you in that closet," he pointed with a suture, "and there is a wash basin in the corner."

Dante watched the doctor for a moment, and then, satisfied with the doctor's sure and quick movements, walked to the wash basin, quickly rinsed off, and slipped on a soft white cotton shirt he found in the closet.

"Tell me about the instrument which delivered the wounds," the doctor said in his soft, fluid voice. He was looking at the discolored edges of one of the larger cuts.

"Garrote."

"These are not standard garrote wounds. May I see the instrument?"

Dante opened the leather pouch he had placed the wire in. "Use care. I am sure the spikes are poisoned."

The doctor removed the wire with forceps and held it up under a magnifying lamp. He sighed. "You are correct." He put the wire down on the table and turned to Dante with a speculative look. "What kind of man are you?

Dante stilled. "What do you mean?"

"Are you the kind of man who will believe an aged and learned man when he tells you the truth or will you reject information that may not conform to your beliefs?

Dante locked eyes with the doctor who returned his regard, calm and composed. Not many men had been able to face that gaze, but the doctor was untroubled. "I have no beliefs." Dante's voice was flat and emotionless as a void, as were his emerald eyes.

The doctor nodded thoughtfully. "This is more than just a killing instrument. It is a ritual device, used to bleed and stun the victim. I will have to look more closely to be sure, but I believe that this substance on the cutting edges is bar-alalnafis. I think the closest translation would be soul's bane. It is a powerful trance agent, used in many rituals."

"The effects are not permanent?"

"No. He seems to be extremely sensitive to the drug, however." He carefully checked Carlos's breathing and heartbeat and then rolled his eyelids back to expose the preternaturally bright blue of Carlos's eyes. "Often an indicator of certain... gifts."

"He has a small gift of Sight."

"Yes, that would explain the sensitivity. He is in the trance state - very vulnerable. It is good that his attacker was not able to retain his body or the ritual might have been completed. He will need to stay here a full day to be sure the trance agent clears out of his system."

Dante shook his head. "No. If he is in danger then we leave now."

"That would not be wise. Stay at least the night and in the morning we will see. He will sleep through the night from the effects of the trance agent."

Dante pulled a chair to the corner of the room by Carlos's bedside. Fayed, with a look at Dante, tucked himself on the floor at Dante's feet.

As the doctor prepared to leave the room, Dante's voice stopped him. "What ritual?"

The doctor hesitated. "Possession of a soul. As they do not have the body, it cannot be completed. Unless, of course, it is a very powerful sorcerer." He met Dante's eyes for a moment. "I will be sure that the building is secure against entry."

"I am prepared."

The doctor nodded. "I am sure you will be. If you should need me in the night, my room is at the end of the corridor."

The doctor turned on a dim lamp in the corner and left the room. The bright lights in the hallway shut off and Dante let his eyes adjust to the low light. Distantly he heard the sounds of the building being secured - locks, bars, metal gratings and even the sound of an electronic system. Dante contemplated the nature of some of the doctor's clients that he had such aggressive security measures, especially there, in a part of the world where modern systems were uncommon.

Dante let his mind drift while his senses stayed alert. Over the years he had spent many hours, even days, in the same relaxed but alert mode and he had every confidence that his instincts would guide him again. His thoughts drifted along familiar paths until they reached that place and time that sustained him, that moment at which he had a companion soul that complemented his own, that loved him without reservation.

At the first hissing whisper, Dante came to full attention in his chair. His instincts told him none had entered and yet he heard sibilant voices that did not belong. He eased the large knife out of its boot sheath and silently stood, crossing the room to the door. A quick glance down the hallways showed they were clear and he had stepped into the hallway when he heard Fayed's whisper.

" Al-Zaim!"

The urgency in the boy's voice brought Dante swiftly back. Fayed was standing next to Carlos. Dante switched on the bright overhead light.

Carlos was sweating heavily, his breath coming in short rasping gasps, as though he was struggling hard against something. The indistinct whispering voice seemed loudest near him.

"Fayed, get the doctor." Fayed looked from Carlos to Dante, and Dante impatiently jerked his head toward the door. Comprehension crossed Fayed's face and he bowed low to Dante and hurried out the door.

Dante touched Carlos's bare shoulder and, at the contact, felt a stabbing pain behind his own eyes as a mental image formed - three robed, chanting figures around a third, silent figure, tall and commanding. The figure turned and their eyes met. "Too late, my son, you are too late." The face was not familiar but there was something deeply familiar in the eyes, in the voice.

The image vanished as Carlos cried out, his body arching up against Dante's hands, his eyes opening, focused on some distant sight. Slowly the muscles in his body relaxed as his breath rattled in his chest on one long exhale.

The doctor came in, followed closely by Fayed, and moved to the bedside. Slowly, methodically, he checked Carlos. Finally he sighed, a tired, unhappy sound. "I had thought this was a thing of legend from the ancient texts only. I had hoped this was a thing of legend only."

"His condition?" Dante's voice was clipped, his tone flat.

Carlos lay still and silent, barely breathing. His open eyes, the color previously so bright, had dulled as though coated with a film. "His soul has been pushed from his body. Without the soul, the body will slowly die."

"Who did this?"

The doctor shuddered at Dante's tone. "A powerful sorcerer, to do this from a distance."

Fayed moved from his position at the foot of the bed and knelt at Dante's feet, speaking in rapid tones. Dante looked toward the doctor, who frowned as he translated. "He says this is the work of his former master, the Alchemist. That his master has been watching you and the boy since you arrived."

Dante casually reached down, wrapped his fingers around Fayed's throat and lifted his head. "Ask him what he knows of this." His fingers tightened, his threat clear.

The doctor spoke to Fayed, who answered back in rapid tortured tones. "He says his former master is a sorcerer who stays alive by possessing the bodies of others. The sorcerer had been holding this boy," he gestured at Fayed, "for his future use, but upon your arrival all plans changed."

Fayed met Dante's eyes and spoke again, his voice low and full of despair. The doctor translated again. "He did not know that his new young master would come for him. He begged the new young master to leave him, but he refused."

Dante looked into the depths those young black eyes and saw anguish, pain and fear. He growled down at him. "I will release you but your life is forfeit to his, do you understand?"

Before the doctor could speak, Fayed nodded. " Inshallah, Al-Zaim."

He released the boy's neck and turned to the doctor. "What must be done?"

"It is imperative that the boy's soul be returned to his body, before either the body dies or the sorcerer is able to take possession of it."

"How is this done?" Dante's body was still, his attention focused completely on the doctor.

The doctor considered him. "I have some small experiences with the trance states and projection of souls. His soul has been cast out therefore it cannot return without guidance. I believe that it would be possible to send another soul to directly retrieve his. I can prepare his body to receive his soul, but it must be brought back from the place it has been cast unto."

"You will send me and I will bring him back." There was no hesitation, no doubt in his ability to accomplish the task, in Dante's voice.

"You must understand that I have only read of this in ancient texts." The doctor looked down on the young body on the bed, only half-alive and failing. "I do not know, for fact, that it will be successful. You may both be lost. The texts speak of many perils."

"Are there other options?"

"The boy will die. Within the day. Or the sorcerer will gain access to his body and another soul will live within his body, his own soul permanently lost."

Dante did not even pause to consider. "Then we prepare."

---

Carlos became conscious of two things first - the damp chill that clung to him and the burning feeling of combined terror and dread in the pit of his stomach. He opened his eyes and found he was sitting on a rock ledge above a small landing area on a river.

The landing was filled with silent people, all of them staring out across the river. Cool mists swirled across a barren landscape of gray and black rock cliffs and ledges. Vegetation was sparse, stunted and twisted. The low light was diffuse, with no clear source, though everything cast multiple shadows. The people below were silent but there were sounds in the air that made Carlos shiver - far-away cries and whispers that curled around him like the damp mists.

"Definitely one of the creepiest dreams I've ever had," he said, and nearly startled himself with the odd hollow quality of his voice. He looked at the smooth, black river and saw that a ferry approached the landing. He started down the path along the ledge, when his attention was caught by the land across the river. Brightly lit, as though under full sun, though no sun was visible. Huge, lush green meadows carpeted with wildflowers and lined with tall oaks and olives, a stream winding through the perfectly peaceful setting.

"The River Styx and the Elysian Fields." He laughed. "Okay, knock off the mythology books before bed. No more Bulfinch or Fagan for you." At his laugh, the ferryman on the river raised his head, and even though the distance was too great to make out the man's features, the dread in Carlos's stomach threatened to overpower him. He made his way down to the landing in silence.

The other occupants of the landing stood silent, all eyes on the green land of Elysium on the other side of the river. They all appeared a uniform, washed-out color, as though filmed in sepia tones by a camera with a wavering, blurred lens. Carlos held up his own hand. Not as blurred an outline or as paled a tone as the people around him, but not as rich as in life, either. Carlos shivered at the thought. He noticed that each person around him held a coin, firmly clutched in their hands. The required payment of the dead for passage on the ferry to cross the River Styx.

Carlos shrugged. "This side of the river is definitely too creepy, might as well see what the other side is like." He put his hands in his pockets. No coin. "Great," he muttered. "Some people dream about showing up for exams naked and late and I dream about the Underworld and showing up to cross the River Styx without the money for the Ferryman."

As he looked down toward his empty pockets, he saw that his white shirt was covered in blood. Reluctantly, he lifted his hand to his throat and felt along the cut left by the strangler's wire. "Oh, shit." He pulled his hand away and looked at the blood on it. He remembered his surprise and terror as the wire pulled tight around his neck, the sharp, lancing pain as the wire cut into him and his frantic efforts to loosen it. He shuddered. "This isn't a dream. Dante is going to be pissed. Shit!"

"Were you dead, Dante would grieve for you. And grieve deeply." He spun around toward the voice. "Even now he seeks a way to find you."

The being in front of him was completely different than any of the silent people around him or himself. She glowed with a soft luminescence, as though light leaked through her skin from an inner source. The light had the effect of washing out her coloring and blurring her outline, but his impression was of a young woman, slender and pale-skinned, with pale hair and violet eyes. He narrowed his eyes. There was something just slightly familiar about her.

"What are you?" Somehow it seemed like a better question than asking her who she was.

"I am a friend, Carlos, and I am here to help you in your struggle with evil."

"Struggle? OK, I'm confused. Aren't I ..uh.. dead?" he waived a hand toward the river. "Charon the Ferryman, mists and rock and dark on this side of the river and the sun and the Elysian Fields on the other side of the river. That would be dead." He shook his head to clear it. "Well, dead if we were in a Greek myth."

She smiled and laughed, the happy, sweet sound of her voice taking away the sting of being laughed at. "Is that what you see here? No, you aren't dead yet, Carlos. And we need to keep you that way." she reached for his hand, and with a pulse of warmth and power, pulled him away. "But once you cross this Barrier - however it is you see the Barrier - you will truly be dead. So, come, and stay with me while we wait."

He stepped aside with her and watched as the silent people on the landing shuffled forward, each giving Charon a coin as they stepped aboard. It had appeared to Carlos that there were more people on the landing than there was room in the ferry, but the ferry simply expanded as they shuffled forward. As the last person walked onto the ferry, Charon raised great, empty, black eyes to look at Carlos, who stumbled backward.

"Shit," Carlos yelped. "And I thought only Dante was that scary." Charon lowered his gaze and turned to face the opposite shore and the ferry noiselessly left the landing.

"You just looked into the eyes of Death himself and you compare Dante to him?" He turned back to look at the glowing presence beside him and found she was gazing at him disapprovingly. "I thought you held Dante in your heart better than that."

"I did. I mean, I do," Carlos shook his head to clear it again. It didn't work. "That doesn't mean that sometimes I don't find him scary as hell…" Carlos winced and looked around him. "Can I say stuff like that here?" She simply chuckled at him.

They watched as the ferry drifted across the river to the landing opposite and the silent people shuffled off. A bright light formed and began to grow in the center of the field. As they approached the light Carlos could hear them begin to speak, to laugh and to cry. Even across the distance, the sense of joy and wonder radiating from the contact with the light was palpable and Carlos could feel himself stretching out to embrace it.

Beside him, she spoke softly. "You know you will be met in the light when it is your turn. That there is someone who will rejoice to see you there."

She turned to walk up the hill to the spot where he first became aware, and Carlos followed closely, reluctant to be alone on the cold, misty rocks. "You said we were waiting. What are we waiting for?"

"We await Dante. He will be coming for you. But your soul was wrenched from your body and cast here. Dante will have to come the long, difficult way."

Carlos started to nod and then stopped himself. "I don't understand any of this." He looked down at his bloodstained shirt. "This is real. I remember this." He raised his head to look at his surroundings. "But all of this is unreal."

"What you see around you is what you have decided to see. You have chosen to see the Underworld of the ancient Greeks. The other souls that you saw had their own unique version."

"So everybody sees something different?"

"There are some constants - everyone crosses the Barrier, everyone sees Death, and everyone is taken up into the Light. But how that happens is different for each individual."

"What happens after that?"

She laughed. "I don't know yet, Carlos, I have not been there. Sometimes I can speak to those on the other side of the Light, but we do not discuss what is beyond."

He looked around at the swirling mists. "So if I had imagined something pleasant, instead of this, I could be laying on a beach somewhere."

"No matter how pleasant you had imagined the surroundings there would still be danger for you here. There are things that sense you, things that sense you still possess some of the real life and they will be drawn to you. Do not be tempted to explore. I can protect you here - I was not helpless in life and I am not helpless here - but you must stay close."

"Don't worry about that," he murmured. "I have no intention of wandering off." He looked at her speculatively. "So what do you see?"

"I see a terrace at the moment of sunset. And I sit here," she sat down on the rock ledge and swept her hand, indicating the cold, rocky plain, "and keep watch on my beloved by the Barrier that he will some day pass through."

He sat next to her. "Is it a nice terrace?" he asked, wistfully.

She smiled. "Would you like to sit on my terrace with me?"

"Please."

She reached forward and placed her hands on either side of his face then kissed his forehead lightly, breathed in deeply and exhaled. Carlos closed his eyes. Her breath was warm and sweet and her touch delicate, and he sat and enjoyed the comfort and warmth she offered.

Until he felt the air around him tighten and then rip. His eyes flew open and he stumbled to his feet as he watched the air around him swirl, the solid features of the landscape slide and melt as they reformed into other shapes.

He blinked at the final shapes. He was now standing on a terrace at sunset, looking out at the calm Mediterranean below him. He reached out and touched the solid stone edge of a railing, the stone gritty and real under his fingers. He looked to his left, across the boundaries of the terrace and saw that the land beyond the edges was the Underworld of his own making - a bleak dim rock landscape of swirling, cold mist. But the terrace was real, the air warm and soft, scented by lemon and blood orange trees that grew in large pots.

Slowly he turned, seeking the edges of his new reality as a sense of familiarity blossomed and grew. He knew the terrace. He turned to look behind him, expecting to see Dante's villa. Instead the terrace ended at a rock outcropping.

"You said you weren't helpless in life - so you…" He turned and his voice faltered. She was sitting on one of the stone benches overlooking the sea at the edge of the terrace, smiling up at him. "I've seen you before. But I haven't." It came in a single image. A photograph of a woman, seated in the exact position, smiling up at the photographer. The photograph above the mantle at Dante's villa, the photograph that Dante often stood before at the moment of sunset.

Carlos looked down at her and knew who she had to be.

"Kris."

The Alchemist – Chapter 3

Carlos stared at the woman in front of him. Kris. The woman Dante kept a picture of at his villa – the only personal photo Carlos had seen there. "I recognize you from your picture at the villa."

"It is the only physical reminder he kept. The rest of me exists only in his mind and heart. He is not a person who needs physical things to remember what he holds dear."

"It's just hard to think of Dante in love." He smiled at her to show the absurdity of the concept.

She frowned. "Dante did not accept love easily, but when he did, losing that love devastated him."

"Dante? But... nothing even surprises Dante."

"He tried twice to destroy himself, once with drugs and once by his own hand. The first time your father stopped him and the second his own survival instincts did."

He shook his head, trying desperately to reconcile what she had just told him with the Dante he knew. "But, Dante…"

"Carlos, you do not, you cannot, understand Dante completely. Your own history has not been all smooth, but the forces that combined to shape Dante are beyond your grasp. Know that he purposely seeks to keep parts of himself hidden or in check to avoid alienating you."

"I know that already," he replied impatiently. "Sometimes he just turns away, stops talking, like he walls himself off. I know there's more there. But how bad can it be?"

"Oh, Carlos," she said softly, "The pain and grief and terror he endured growing up are beyond your imagining. You think Fayed a slave, but Dante was more surely a slave than Fayed has ever been. The very one who should have loved and protected him was his tormentor. Much of his personality was formed by those years, just as our childhood shapes us all, but his was not the light and joyous and loving one that yours was. Even Fayed would cringe if he knew what Dante lived through. Neither has his life been easy since. Alone and with your father, many of his experiences have been harsh."

Carlos was thoughtful, trying to understand. He could tell how earnest she was, but he simply couldn't imagine anything worse than what Fayed had experienced. Slowly, he shook his head. "I don't…"

"As I said, you cannot understand completely. He will never speak of these things to you and neither will I tell you more. It would serve no purpose and would cause him great pain to relive them. That you know dark forces have shaped him and that there are dark parts of him and still you accept and love him will be enough."

Carlos went back to stand at the railing on the edge of the terrace and looked out at the sea. Or what looked liked the sea. The light of the sunset had the same strange qualities of the light that appeared in the Elysian Fields across the river. He thought about what she had told him, about dark and light. "You said that you had talked to people on the other side of the Light. What kinds of things do they talk about?"

Kris laid her hand beside his on the rail. "Don't you want to ask who I've talked to," her voice was gentle, "if I've talked to your mother?"

He looked down at her hands, unable to meet her eyes. "Have you?"

"We were friends, Carlos. That doesn't change in death. Her concerns for you and your father reach me. The growing rift between you and your father pains her. Your father has been involved in a vendetta that worries her."

"Vendetta?" Carlos turned to her. "What do you mean by vendetta?"

"Men like your father and Dante live to a powerful internal code of honor. The demands of that code can cause them to be cold men, even cruel men at times. Your father seeks what he feels is balance and at no matter the cost."

"Is he in danger?"

"At this moment, you are in greater danger than he."

Carlos looked around the terrace and then at the lands just beyond. "I don't feel like I'm in great danger."

"Then your instincts are in need of further development. Your body is dying in your reality. Or worse."

He raised an eyebrow. "Worse?"

She touched his hand and that time, unlike the first, her hand seemed to fall through his, leaving a trail of light across his skin. "How did you get here, Carlos?"

"I don't remember." He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "I went back for Fayed. The shop. I was surprised it was so easy to get in. It was so simple it felt wrong."

"Listen to those instincts in the future. It felt wrong because it was wrong. You were under a compulsion to return, into the center of a trap laid just for you."

He nodded. It was the same thing his father and Dante had told him many times – trust his instincts. "Fayed didn't want to leave with me, insisted that I go immediately without him. My Arabic isn't very good and I didn't understand everything he was saying – something about his master and maybe his soul. I felt the draft through the shop when the back door opened and I grabbed Fayed and ran. I knew they were coming for me and I had to get out of there. There were a couple people behind us and we just ran, but then I had to stop because I'd lost my bearings – wasn't sure where I was. Fayed wanted me to go away to safety while he went back to the shop." His hands went to his throat. "Behind me . . that's about the last thing I remember clearly. The rest is just garbled. Someone calling my name, figures in robes, sounds. And his eyes!" He shivered, remembering those awful, empty eyes. "Black eyes, staring at me, and I couldn't turn away, I couldn't move, all I could do was stare back . . and then I was here." His gaze fell again to her hands. "What's going to happen to me?" he asked softly, half-afraid she would tell him and half-afraid she wouldn't.

"I cannot see the future, Carlos – I only see what happens as it unfolds in your reality. From my terrace I keep watch over Dante, and it was from here that I first saw the dark shadow grow and cover you both. I know that you and Dante will face a true evil, the shadow from Dante's past – the same evil that tortured him and nearly broke him when he was a child has returned to stalk him." They fell silent, each absorbed in their own thoughts. Time, impossible to measure, passed.

Despite his earlier words to Kris, Carlos found the pull to explore the edge of the terrace irresistible. He was careful to stay within the bounds of her world though, the occasional glimpses of the twisted forms that moved within the rocks and the mists enough to keep his curiosity in check. At the rock ledges that spread in place of the villa, Carlos climbed the tiered surfaces and looked out across the misted plain. In the distance he could see a figure headed unerringly toward him and the loping gait was familiar.

He turned back and shouted back to Kris. "He's coming!" He rapidly climbed back down the rock face to meet Dante at the opening to the terrace, standing as casually as he could manage, arms folded.

As Dante reached him, Carlos saw relief in his emerald eyes. "Carlos. I found you. We haven't much time, we need to go back."

Carlos pulled away and stepped back onto the terrace. "I think there's someone who needs to talk to you first."

Icy cold fingers gripped Dante's heart at the young man's words. He felt a presence move behind him and knew instantly who it was. His emotions, so tightly controlled, ripped free and a thousand conflicting ones tore through him. Carlos faded from his awareness, as did the surrounding mist and cold and dampness. Everything faded until nothing remained except the sense of her.

Carlos watched, amazed, as raw emotion, more intense than he had ever imagined existed, showed clear on Dante's normally impassive face. There was pain and hunger and joy and fear. The last shook him - Dante was afraid.

"Will you not look at me?" Her voice, the same clear, silvery voice Dante remembered so well, washed over him. I can't! he screamed silently in his mind. I can't live through the pain again! But even as his mind cried out against it, he slowly turned to face her.

Kris. His beloved Kris.

She looked exactly the same as he remembered. Even with the vague fuzziness brought on by the fact there was no real body standing before him, she looked the same, even down to the clothes he had last dressed her in and the necklace he had had made for her and placed around her neck. The luminosity of her white blonde hair was like a softly glowing beacon and her blue-violet eyes, filled with sympathy and understanding, watched him calmly. "My heart." Her words echoed in his mind and he wasn't sure if she had spoken aloud or whether she had spoken to him only in his mind. His knees buckled and he slid to the ground, speech or coherent thought far beyond him.

Raptly, Carlos watched her vague form move forward and kneel, facing Dante and merging with him. She was inside him and he inside her, their forms superimposed on one another, yet at the same time, holding and embracing the other one. Intuitively, Carlos understood that what he saw was far more intimate and profound than any physical joining could ever be. It was the merging of two souls. Suddenly embarrassed, feeling like the lowest sort of voyeur, he averted his eyes and turned away, moving off until he was sure they were out of his sight.

How much time passed, Dante couldn't say. It didn't matter - a second, minutes, hours, decades. Nothing mattered but that he was with his beloved Kris again. She was his again and he hers. The sense of joining he felt when she moved to him was complete. He needed nothing more – not life or air or food or water or any other mortal thing. Simply existing, merged with her, would be enough for eternity.

The decision to stay and wait for him had been the right one, she knew that the second her soul touched his. What were the years of loneliness she had endured compared to the feeling she had at that moment? They were nothing. Eagerly, she embraced him, all of him – the light, shining parts as well as the dark, ugly things that also lived in him. Dante. Her Dark Angel.

No words passed between them, either aloud or in their thoughts. None were necessary. So wholly merged were they in that moment that each knew the other's every desire and emotion.

At last, reluctantly, Kris stirred. "My love…"

"No, not yet," he pleaded.

"Time grows short for the boy. You must take him back soon or his soul will be trapped here and the ancient evil that stalks him will win. You both must go." Dante threw back his head and howled his pain.

The sound that reached Carlos was a mixture of rage and anguish and frustration and loneliness beyond his imagining. He knew for a certainty that if he lived to be an old, old man, he would never hear a more terrible sound. It tore at his heart and soul. Goosebumps pimpled his skin and he shivered.

She was right; Dante knew that. Were it only himself, he would happily remain with her forever, whatever the cost, but there was the boy – Ric's son, whom he had sworn to protect. "Call the boy to us. There is much you must know."

Carlos heard Dante call him. Reluctantly, he returned, unwilling to break into their time together. Kris had explained that he must not remain long after Dante reached them, but after seeing them together, seeing the way they embraced all of the other, how Kris loved and accepted even the darkest, most twisted parts of Dante as no one else ever had, it suddenly seemed too much to separate them again.

As he came into sight of them again, he saw that they were still merged, their shapes flowing together and apart, neither totally becoming one nor totally separating. "Uh, guys, not to be prudish or anything, but this is kind of like watching you two have sex."

Dante growled at him – the alpha warning the young wolf that he pushed too far.

Kris's silvery laughter washed over them as she separated from Dante and the two of them stood, side by side. "I had thought Melisande removed your embarrassment." Carlos started and she smiled. "Yes, I know of your initiation into the realm of pleasure, Carlos." A slight flush crept across his skin as she laughed again and cast a sly teasing sideways glance at Dante. "I did not watch the physical process, Carlos, just as I do not watch Dante during his couplings of the flesh."

Comprehension dawned and Carlos looked at Dante. Kris was telling Dante she knew he had slept with other women since her death. Dante's head was turned away from her, his eyes closed, and an expression that could only be called shame on his face.

"Beloved," Kris said softly, and stroked the side of his face. "I would not deny you physical pleasure in your reality. I am sure of the place I hold in your heart, and I know that in our time together parts of you long denied were let loose – parts that crave a tender touch and a soft smile. Accept the physical comfort offered you for the gentle gift that it is."

Dante made a sound, low in his throat. He reached up for her hand, his face set and pained. Kris shook her head at him and smiled again. "Dante, we do not have time to waste on our sorrows. I merely remarked upon it so you will know that I am pleased that you are keeping all of your skills at their peak."

Carlos tried to choke back his laugh but couldn't and Dante shot him a dark glare before narrowing his eyes at Kris. "I see some things remain constant even after death - you still believe you can withstand me."

Kris glanced mischievously at Carlos, who stood with one hand across his mouth, trying to hide his grin, and then turned to grin at Dante. "Ah yes, the famed Dante death glare. Guaranteed to freeze bad guys in their tracks and send others running for cover. You forget, lover, that I was never intimidated."

Dante ignored the grinning Carlos and stepped closer to Kris, so that their bodies were but a breath apart. "I never needed to intimidate you when I could do this to you." He reached up to tangle one hand in the hair at the base of her neck and his other arm circled her, pulling her hard against him. He bent his head and kissed her, his mouth at once demanding and desperate.

Carlos again turned away, but that time it was because he did not want either of them to see the pain and sorrow he felt for both of them. Long separated, about to be separated again - and because of him.

Behind him, the lovers slowly, lingeringly, broke the kiss. "I forget nothing, Dante; no detail, however great or intimate, I remember all, as I know you do." Kris rested her head against Dante's chest. "But we are running out of time and we have much to discuss." She tightened her grip and led him to one of the stone benches, where she sat. Dante remained standing, his eyes intent on Kris.

She called out to Carlos, who turned reluctantly and joined them. Kris smiled as she watched the young man take a position and stance that nearly mirrored Dante's. She studied both of them for a long, silent moment and her smile faded. Dante shook his head. "That it is bad news we know from your expression. Tell us about the evil we face."

He watched as Kris seemed to tremble slightly at his words. "It is the same being you knew as your father." Kris's quiet voice washed over him, the words not sinking in immediately. When they did, they were like a knife to his heart. His father.

Carlos saw Dante's eyes widen. The same being? he wondered to himself. Kris had said that Dante's childhood had been horrific beyond imagining, but having a monster like the Alchemist, the dark presence who had tried to trap him in the shop on the first day, the one who had terrified Fayed so, for a father? Kris had been right, he couldn't imagine. He also couldn't imagine what Dante was feeling.

Dante was startled by the fact that when he had killed his father, he hadn't understand about what he really was. Being realistic, Dante knew he couldn't have killed the evil soul described by the doctor then, but he disliked the idea that the horror and evil that he and Sasha, and later their youngest brother Nicolo, suffered had probably been visited on countless other innocents. He should have known, should have suspected the truth. A cold rage began to slowly build in him.

He wasn't shocked though. As children, he and Sasha had felt the evil keenly, like a sixth sense. They had often talked about not feeling like their father was human. When he had told Carlos his father was an evil man, he had been speaking the literal truth.

Angry green eyes turned to Kris. "Was he our true father?"

A gentle sorrow creased her brow and he knew the answer before she spoke. "Yes. He displaced the soul of the man born in your father's body several years before you were conceived." Dante's hands clenched into fists. He was the spawn of a monster even more terrible than he had imagined all his life. All the dark, twisted parts of him were his true inheritance.

Carlos flinched at the look that flashed across Dante's face. It wasn't one he could put a name to – pain, fear, self-loathing, embarrassment, resignation. It was all and yet none of those.

"No, my heart." Kris flowed into Dante's arms. Without thinking, he wrapped his arms around her. Their forms didn't merge that time, but held each other tight, her cheek lying against his shoulder. "You are not him, although he shaped you in many ways. The body that sired you provided a blank canvas, untainted by personality. What you are, you were made, not born to. There is darkness and light in you as in all of us."

As always, her touch and her words soothed him and took away his self-loathing. In its place, the rage that had begun building before intensified. It grew until it was a terrible, dark anger at the evil soul that had stolen his childhood and visited such horrors on him and Sasha and Nicolo, that wanted Carlos.

"Tell me what I must do to truly end his existence."

"It will take all three of us to end this – he must be stopped on all levels, and you cannot do that alone. You will stop him on the physical plane and I will stop him here, in this realm, with Carlos's help. We must destroy him completely, body and soul. If we fail, know that the horrors of your childhood will be repeated on others – and that we undertake this battle at peril of our own souls."

"As I have done it before, I will do it again."

Kris nodded at her warrior. "I know you will end this." She pulled away from Dante and went to stand in front of Carlos. "One more thing remains to be done before you must go." She stood close to Carlos and reached out to touch him, her hands gentle, her touch delicate.

As Kris stroked his hair, he heard a low sound behind him and he thought that letting Kris touch him while he stood between her and a wound-up Dante was not a very good idea. He heard Kris's chuckle within his mind as much as out loud. "Foolish boy. Be still."

"Just watch my back for me, okay?" Kris continued to smile and moved her hands from his hair to his forehead, her strokes soothing and calming. Carlos sighed in pleasure and then heard Dante's low growl in reaction to his sigh.

"Beloved, stop growling at him. You are making him nervous and I need him calm."

Carlos heard what could have been a choked laugh behind him. "I would have your hands stroking my body, pleasuring me instead."

"Our time will come again." She smiled at Carlos. Close your eyes, she whispered softly within his mind, her voice clear and silver. And hear my words as I tell you what you must do upon your return.

He obediently closed his eyes and listened to her instructions, the words going straight into his memory to be retrieved later. He felt her palm on his forehead, gently pushing him backward until the back of his head hit Dante's shoulder. There was a moment of resistance and then he felt himself falling completely inside of Dante and a warm, heavy darkness blanketed him.

Dante had moved to stand behind the boy at Kris's nod and caught him as he fell backward. There was a sensation of pressure and the feeling of invasion and then the young man's body was gone. Dante could feel Carlos's confused presence inside him, a core of bright-burning light and life within his own darkness.

"Dante?" a hesitant voice whispered inside of his head. Dante fell to his knees with a spinning sensation of double vision and the feeling of a heavy weight behind his eyes. He shook his head as the moment passed and his vision cleared. He looked up at Kris, who put her hand out to him. He felt a sharp stab of surprise from Carlos. "She was beautiful before, but through your eyes…" Dante felt a flash of irritation at his words and the thought trailed off.

Kris smiled, and they knew that the smile was meant for both of them. "Thank you, Carlos. Now you know how different it is to see with the eyes of a lover." Her face turned serious as she looked down into Dante's eyes. "You must return to the point from which you entered here, Dante. The way out will not be as easy as the way in – there are things that seek to prevent your exit, that seek to trap you here. Some of them have a physical form and will seek to destroy the form you have here. They can harm you, but they are not the ones to be feared – it is the others, who will take the very things you dread most from your own mind to torment you. They try to turn you aside, to trap you in your own horror and pain. I can help you while you are near me, but the closer you get to the end the worse it will become."

Dante stood silent, his resolution to complete the task daunted by the moment that he knew was about to come. He felt Carlos withdraw from contact with him as his anguish began to build. The boy had nowhere to go, nowhere to hide from the pain.

She turned away from them to face the sea. "It is time. You must go."

Dante had known the moment was coming when he would lose her again, but that time, instead of her leaving him, he would have to walk away from her. He doubted his ability to do it. He knew what issues lay waiting, knew the lives that hung in the balance, but as he looked at the straight line of her back and the fine, silken fall of her hair the reality of all else faded and there was only Kris. He took a step toward her and saw that her form shook slightly.

She held up her hand, signaling him to stop. "Know that I see you at the villa each sunset, standing on the terrace, looking toward the sea, and I stand next to you. We are together even as we are apart. While you yet live, through you I am part alive again and can take pleasure in the sunset and the sunrise of every day, take pleasure in the simple art of living."

His arms came around her and she wrapped her hands over his. He turned his face into her hair and they stood together, silent. Gently he kissed her hair, her cheek, the line of her brow. "Then I will see every sunrise and sunset with you in my heart," he murmured, his voice low and aching.

She unwrapped her hands and slowly pulled his arms away from her. "Time grows short and you have a long journey. You must go, my love." His hands smoothed up her arms to her shoulders and he gathered her hair in his fist. He placed small kisses on the side of her neck, his lips lingering between each. "Dante," she whispered, "you must go. Please be my strength now. Go." He paused, and she felt her hair fall as he let go, and then his hands reluctantly slipped away.

When he spoke, his mouth was still near her ear and she felt his breath, warm on her skin. "I do not say goodbye. Beloved, you are with me always." She closed her eyes as she felt him withdraw.

Kris knew the moment he turned away and she stood still as his steady steps took him away from her. When she judged him far enough away that she could keep herself from reaching out for him, she turned back to watch him. Her lover from the breathing world and beyond, the love that kept her from being able to pass on as others before her had, that kept her there, in cold limbo, waiting and watching, living a vicarious half-life. In life she had not been particularly patient, but there she had learned the lesson of the fragility of time and the endurance of love. Dante would be with her soon enough and there was a chance that his tortured soul could be partly healed while he yet lived.

The smile that had been forming faded slightly as she thought about the coming battle. If they failed, they would be lost to each other forever, all three souls cast adrift in a form far less real than that surrounding her. Resolutely she put those thoughts from her and strained to watch Dante's form in the distance. There were many things that had to be overcome, but she placed her faith in Dante. Together they would succeed. There was no other option.

The Alchemist – Chapter 4

Dante walked deliberately, his thoughts as blank and as dead as possible. If he let himself think or feel, he knew his control would break and he wouldn't be able to go forward. Think of nothing, he told himself firmly. No thoughts, no feelings. Only action. The action of putting one foot in front of the other. The action of completing his mission - taking Carlos's soul back to his body. Think nothing. Feel nothing. Do.

Carlos could feel Dante's anguish. He could tell the supreme effort it took not to turn back to Kris, regardless of the consequences. Were it not for himself, Carlos knew Dante would not have returned to the real world. Of course, he also wouldn't have been wherever it was they were to start with and he wouldn't have seen Kris again. He felt Dante flinch slightly when he thought her name and concentrated on keeping his thoughts off of her. To distract himself, he looked around, inspecting their surroundings.

Everything was a flat gray void. There was no color, no texture, no direction, no sounds or sights or smells. Quite a bit different from my hell, he thought wryly, remembering how vivid the river Styx and the Elysian Fields and Charon the ferryman had seemed. Did it indicate a lack of imagination on Dante's part?

"My hells are on earth, Carlos – I did not expect anything in the afterlife but cessation."

"And now you know better." Merged into Dante's body, Carlos could only speak with his mind.

Dante swallowed once. "Yes. Now I know I was wrong – again."

"Again?"

"I have been wrong many times in my life, young wolf. Often, others have paid the price for that."

Intrigued, because in all the months they had spent together Dante had never voluntarily offered any knowledge of a personal nature, Carlos prodded. His own father was a mystery to him and Dante was a very similar man. He had often wondered what drove both of them. "What else have you been wrong about? Besides how this place is, I mean."

"Are you sure your vision is the true one? Do we not all have one that is true for us and us alone?"

"That sounds suspiciously like philosophy or religion, maybe this place is getting to you after all."

"I would admit, young wolf, that this place 'gets to me', as you say, very much. This void is disorienting."

"I liked my Greek Underworld and the ferry dock a lot better."

A memory rose unbidden in Dante's mind. Another time; another dock. Suddenly mists appeared in front of them, swirling and thickening until finally they cleared, revealing a waterfront. The area was familiar, but with the detached feel of an old memory, like a faded sepia photograph – Dante realized that he had been only slightly older than Carlos when he had last seen that same wharf in a small village just north of Athens. The docks were a part of the village where money could be made, and questions about names and identification were never asked. Dante had learned hard lessons there about guarding his back and his wallet, and had also learned how to apply those lessons to others. And as no mercy or quarter had been offered him, so he had given none.

He found himself compelled to enter a familiar squat, dark tavern and he slipped in the doorway, moving quickly to the side and allowing his senses to adjust to the dim light and the smell of stale smoke and alcohol. The tavern was less than half full, though Dante could remember that there had been nights when the building could barely contain the people and noise.

"You came here for entertainment?" Carlos's voice was dubious.

Dante laughed briefly. "No."

Most of the faces were unknown to him, but a group of familiar ones sat clustered around the table closest to the bar, and with that recognition came the memory of what had happened next. One by one, the men stood and began to spread out to surround him. Dante didn't remember what the quarrel had been over – a woman, a job, a remark, money – but he remembered the fight.

"This doesn't look promising."

"Do not distract me, I came close to dying here." He felt Carlos slip backward, deeper and lower into him, until he could barely sense the boy.

Dante shifted his position and examined the men fanning out in front of him for weaknesses. He smiled grimly. The five grown men were no longer facing a boy Carlos's age but a hardened fighter and they would pay for underestimating him.

The opening moments of the fight were brutal and wild as the attackers sought to press the advantage of numbers. Dante swiftly disabused them of the idea of superior force carrying the day as he killed two of the men in the first onslaught, his knives sliding cleanly between their ribs and into their hearts.

He looked down into the closest man's face and saw only his childhood tormentor as he ended the man's life, quickly and cleanly. There were only two men remaining, one circling to Dante's left and the other standing in front of him, well out of reach. Dante locked eyes with the man in front of him.

Dante sensed the moment the man's courage broke and he changed direction to run for the door. Dante readied his throwing knife and shifted his position, prepared to throw at the fleeing man even as he avoided the knife thrust at him by the closest man.

"Dante, no!" At Carlos's mental shout, Dante jerked and the knife stroke that he should have been able to avoid ripped through his shirt, the tip of the blade slicing a broad gash in his arm.

Dante twisted away as his arm began to bleed freely and threw one knife with a quick flick of his wrist. The running man fell soundlessly, two steps from the door and safety. With a snarl, he turned back to the man who had cut him and grasped the haft of the weapon that had cut him. They struggled briefly, their eyes meeting over the knife blade, and again Dante saw only the man who had tormented his childhood as he forced the man's own knife back and into his chest. He let the man drop to the floor and staggered back to lean against the wall. The tavern was silent, the other patrons prudently departing into the night at the beginning of the fight and the sole barkeeper had gone to inspect the backroom supplies.

Dante felt his heart pounding and yet not, and was puzzled by the dual sensation, until he realized what was happening. It was Carlos, his mind thrilled and senses aroused by the fight - exulting to be alive, to be the last man standing, even as he struggled against the necessity of killing. Dante nodded to himself.

The boy had a thick layer of civilization, but underneath it he was kindred, a wild and fierce hunter. The primal parts of Ric had bred true and though Ric had tried to shelter the boy, he would have to learn to deal with what he was.

"Dante, you were.. that was.."

"You seem to be having trouble finishing your sentence, young wolf."

"Dante, they had the same face, both of those men, just as you killed them. They had a different face before, but then…" Carlos let the sentence trail off again. "Dante, I'm sorry I distracted you. I should have kept quiet – but he was running away, why didn't you let him go?"

Dante grunted in annoyance. "In the original fight, I did let him go – I was wounded too badly to stop him. And for granting him his life I was rewarded two weeks later when he arranged to have me beaten unconscious. As I did here, I should have done then. Never leave enemies behind you, young wolf. Either leave them alone or kill them."

Wearily, Dante pushed himself away from the wall, his injured arm throbbing where the knife had cut it. Ripping his sleeve open further, he inspected the wound. It would need stitches, but he'd had worse. Using one of his own knives, he cut the sleeve material off at the elbow and then sliced it into strips that he used to bind the cut.

"How bad is it?"

"I have had worse."

Carlos wished he was in his own body so he could roll his eyes. "Just like my father. Commando extraordinaire. Mr. Macho. Mr. Tough Guy."

"Just like your mother – wise ass."

Carefully, Dante wiped the blades of his knives clean on the fabric of his pants and resheathed them. Carlos had fallen silent and Dante could feel his thoughts swirling.

With a final look around the space, at the bodies on the floor and the scattered and destroyed furniture, Dante turned and left the room. As he walked down the waterfront, the buildings on his right began to waver in and out of focus, finally dimming into nothingness, although the ocean stayed a solid presence on his left, even as it changed properties. Instead of the still bay, smelling of salt and rust and effluvia, the ocean became wilder and cleaner as he walked, long, rolling breakers foaming over dark rocks. The dim light of early dawn brightened and became day.

He saw a rocky coastline with a thin thread of beach tracing along its edge. Waves crashed and receded. Gulls wheeled overhead, screaming harshly. A strong wind blew from the sea. Dante's breath caught in his throat and he stopped moving forward. He knew that stretch of shoreline, knew the small boy running and scrambling frantically over the rocks. It was himself – seven years old and terrified. Running away that day was one of the most cowardly things he had ever done and he had never forgiven himself for it, for the almost paralyzing fear that had engulfed him and made him flee.

He and his brother Sasha had been playing some childish game, running through the corridors and courtyards of the villa they lived in when their father had returned home unexpectedly. They had no idea he was due back anytime soon or they would not have been playing; they would have been hiding, keeping quiet, and hoping to escape his notice. Even though Sasha was only three months older than Dante, he had been a good bit taller and heavier at that time in their lives and he had stepped in front of Dante, trying to shield him, as he often did. As usual, their father's face showed nothing as he grabbed Sasha's arm painfully tight and jerked the boy forward, his eyes glittering insanely. With strong hands, he ripped the thin, lightly woven shirt and loose pants that Sasha wore from his body. Dante could see his brother trembling with fear. They both knew what was next.

It was always the same. Whenever they saw their father, he abused them, either sodomizing or beating them – usually both. Sasha offered no resistance; they had found it only made things worse. His father's free hand moved to his belt and something in Dante snapped. Twisting, he squirmed away from the guard who had come up behind him, reaching for him, and fled. His only thought had been to get away, to avoid the pain. He heard Sasha's screams start and knew whatever their father did would be worse because he had run. Their father's rage would be taken out on Sasha. Still, he couldn't make himself stop and go back. He abandoned his brother, who had tried to protect him, and fled.

He had raced up the rocky coastline, heading for a cave he and Sasha had discovered one day. Scrambling, clawing his way over the sharp rocks, his hands and bare feet were quickly sliced in a hundred places. Eventually, he reached the opening and wriggled through. The cave had only the one small entrance, too small for an adult, but it opened up inside to nearly twelve feet tall and somewhere near twenty feet in diameter. The floor was soft sand, washed in by storm waves over the years and Dante fell on it, curling into a fetal position, sobbing, his brother's screams still ringing in his ears.

Even after so many years, it was in Dante's mind the most cowardly, self-serving thing he had ever done. No one had come after him – not for over a day. Thirst had driven him back to the villa - that and a morbid desire to know how badly their father had hurt Sasha. What he had found was worse than he had feared. Sasha had been beaten almost to death. His cowardice had nearly cost his brother his life. Dante had never forgotten it or forgiven himself, although Sasha had never blamed him. Sasha's understanding and acceptance of what he had done had only made it harder to bear.

The pain and humiliation and embarrassment he had felt then as a young boy returned in full force. Forgive me, Sasha, he pleaded mentally for what might have been the millionth time.

"You know Sasha did. If Sasha can forgive you, why can't you forgive yourself?"

Dante ground his teeth. "These memories are not meant to be shared, Carlos. I do not wish to discuss this."

"Dante, in the fight before – did you see the faces of the men as you fought with them and they died? You saw them all with the same face. Your father's face. That's where your anger belongs, not directed at yourself. Now you know what he was."

Dante didn't answer, but began to walk again, eager to leave the scene and his memories. He knew Carlos was correct, but he also knew that incident was one he would never forgive himself for, no matter how long he lived.

"You have to. If you don't, you're just adding to the darkness in you, but you're doing it to yourself."

Dante stopped, snarling at the young man merged with him. "You know nothing!"

"I know I'm right on this and so do you," Carlos insisted, refusing to be scared by Dante's temper. "The issue was too important. You just don't like it. You've been holding onto your guilt for years, using it to justify why you have to be so strong, why you can't ever show any weakness. It's your justification for taking a lot of the risks you have." Carlos felt Dante's shock as he stopped and buried his face in his hands for a minute.

"When did you get so smart, young wolf?"

"Mom was a lot more than just a smart ass. She saw a lot of stuff about my father – stuff like always having to own everything that happened, always making it personal. It's what you tough guys do." Carlos's thoughts were layered with an accusatory sting and a flash of irritation that Dante had dismissed his mother's insight.

"I know she was more, Carlos." Dante's voice was quiet, serious. "She was much, much more. She was a very special person, one I cared for."

"Then why… Dante! We can't just stand here. We have to keep moving. Kris said we don't have much time. Something is playing with us, trying to distract us."

At the mention of Kris, Dante flinched, but he moved forward again. They had lost the sea and the craggy rocks and crashing waves, and were again in the blank gray void. Dante again concentrated only on the physical act of walking, sensing that they were on track to leave the spirit world they were in.

He had gone perhaps three hundred yards when something soft squelched under his foot and he recoiled. He had discovered that the unexpected was never good news in whatever reality he and Carlos were in. Dante closed his eyes and took a deep breath; he knew what he would see when he opened his eyes. The stench of death and rot told him.

He was right. It was Kinsha. The hell he had already lived through was spread in front of him. Bare rock. No vegetation. No comfort. No place to hide or shelter. Hell. Hell on earth. The men he had been imprisoned with there stared at him, hatred glittering in their eyes. He had lived; they hadn't. It was as simple as that. They had no one to come for them. No one who cared enough to defy the brass and rescue them. Even as countless eyes stared at him in hatred, Dante knew love – the love of Ric and Sasha who had come for him. They had sacrificed everything without a thought and he was alive because of it.

He looked down and saw that the yielding things under his foot were pieces of the lifeless body of Jimmy Fields – the first man whose flesh he had knowingly eaten. Jimmy, who had been so young and helpless and inept, so incapable of taking care of himself. Inside, Dante wept. He had known the young man was doomed, that he would never survive on his own, but Dante had been too weak, too far gone by that point, to try and look out for the youngster.

One day, Jimmy had snapped and tried to escape. Another prisoner, one whose name Dante never knew, had been brutally beaten for nothing more than the amusement of the guards. The others had watched the horrible incident, lending their silent support to the victim, but Dante had simply turned away, knowing there was nothing he could do. Jimmy had come to him afterward and accused him of being a monster for not even watching the man's suffering. He had told Jimmy he cared for no one other than himself, that there was only so much a person could endure before everything was reduced to self-preservation. The loathing and disgust in Jimmy's eyes was still clear in his memory. He remembered as well Jimmy's pronouncement that he would rather die than survive if it meant he would become as unfeeling as Dante. Jimmy had no plan, just an overwhelmingly need to be free of the horrors of Kinsha and he simply ran for the perimeter fence. The guards had overtaken him and hacked him to death with machetes.

He remembered the taste of Jimmy's flesh and bile rose in his throat. He choked it back. Jimmy Fields was dead and there was nothing he could do to change that. He felt Carlos recoil in horror and realized his own control had slipped and the boy was not only seeing the same things he was, but experiencing his emotions. He cursed himself for his lack of control as Carlos tore away from him, his awareness separating itself from Dante's.

Turning, he could see Carlos's vague form backing away from him, eyes filled with revulsion. It was the same look Jimmy had directed at him. Defeat flooded him and he felt his body, or what passed for one in the place he was in, sag. He had failed so many, failed to keep them alive, and he was going to fail Carlos too. And Ric. He was going to fail to keep his promise to Ric to look after his son. Carlos was too horrified by what he was to stay merged with him and that was the only way to deliver Carlos's soul back to his body. The evil that was his father was going to win again, only it was going to be more final than ever before.

Carlos watched as Dante gave up. He could see the resignation, the acceptance of defeat wash over him. In spite of the revulsion he felt at Dante's actions, or lack thereof, he couldn't repress the feeling of sympathy that rose in him.

He is not perfect. Kris's voice sounded in his mind. He is a man. He is not like other men, no. But neither is he a god. He hurts, he fears, he hopes and dreams, just as you do. Look past his actions and see his soul. See what drove him and what it cost him.

Carlos looked again at the man in front of him, only that time he looked with Kris's words ringing in his head and he saw beyond what Dante had done. He saw the pain and grief, and the scars on Dante's soul. He saw how impossible it would have been for Dante to have helped anyone at that point, how sick and hurt and defeated he had been. A tiny bit of understanding grew in Carlos and he stepped closer to Dante, wanting to help him, to comfort him in some way and take away some of the pain he saw so clearly in the older man.

"How did you get out?" It was the only thing he could think of that might have a positive memory attached to it.

Dante swallowed hard. "Your father and my brother came back for me. They disobeyed orders – deserted, really. Not sure how they go there, I just remember their hands, reaching for me. I thought I was dying…" he trailed off.

Carlos closed the remaining distance between them. He was hesitant, but he steeled himself and stepped back into Dante's body, merging their awarenesses once again. Show me.

He saw through Dante's eyes. Felt the sickness that had ravaged his body. Felt the hunger and pain from numerous wounds. Knew the despair of ever escaping the hell of Kinsha. It all slammed into Carlos like a sledgehammer to his soul. He had to fight to keep from screaming and running away. "Show me the hands."

Gradually, the feelings faded and he could feel hands on him as Dante's memories changed. He looked down at his body. Four hands. Two men. He shared Dante's recognition of one pair of hands, identified by the still-new scar from a knife wound its owner had obtained when Dante had helped him escape from Kinsha. Carlos understood that Dante had stayed so that other man might escape.

Suddenly, Carlos's own memory took over. He was twelve years old and on one of his first long hikes, with his father in the Canadian Rockies. They had flown from Florida to have a father and son hiking trip. Carlos had wanted to climb a rock outcropping that was somewhat beyond his skills. His father had agreed and climbed behind him. Carlos stood at the top of the rock outcropping and a sudden blast of wind rocked him and made him nearly lose his footing. Strong hands steadied him. He looked down and his father's hands were spread on either side of him, offering support and keeping him from falling. Carlos saw the same knife scar that Dante had seen, although it was much paler – an old scar by that time. He understood those hands would not have been there, Carlos himself would never have been born, if Dante hadn't gotten Ric out of Kinsha at risk of his own life.

He also realized it had been a time when he and his father were on the best of terms, when those hands were there to catch and support him not, as they had become later, to try to shape and push him.

"He loves you." Dante's voice startled Carlos. He hadn't realized that Dante could see his memories as clearly as he could see Dante's.

"Mom used to say that loving him wasn't the problem, living with him was. I didn't understand it then."

There seemed no reply to Carlos's statement. Dante sighed and began to walk again, but he walked a long distance away from the sights of Kinsha before the smell of that place left him. He became thankful for the void, for the blank gray that enveloped them and draped across his senses, numbing them.

Eventually, slowly, the void began to change, just as it had before the other challenges. The featureless gray gave way to grass and semi-tropical vegetation, sparse at first and then thicker. Dante did not recognize the scene and felt uncomfortable as the vegetation became thick and overgrown, dense enough to hide potential attackers. A crude road began under his feet, the fresh marks of several sets of tires clear in the disturbed gravel. The road began to curve and Dante followed it to a clearing. Within the clearing stood a large metal pole building, big enough to house commercial aircraft. As he walked toward the unfamiliar structure, he felt a wave of panic sweep over him. With a start, he realized that the panic was coming from Carlos, and he heard Carlos's whisper from deeper within his mind as the young man tried to retreat.

"Get out of here, Dante, go a different way! Don't make me do this again. Please, Dante, please!"

"There is no other way, Carlos, we must pass through this." Dante felt Carlos's wordless anguish. He paused in the doorway of the building. For whatever reason, he appeared not to be visible to any of the participants and his entry caused no reaction. A group of men waited, facing the door with varying degrees of patience.

Dante heard the sounds of a car outside the building. Most of the men in the room drew weapons and pointed them at the doorway. He moved to stand to one side, part in shadow, more out of habit than necessity since he wasn't visible, and watched as the scene unfolded before him.

Ricardo Manoso walked into the building, unaccompanied, and allowed the two men closest to the door to search him, removing his knives and guns. Once they had disarmed him, the men waved him into the center of the space and he walked forward to stand in front of the group of twelve waiting men and their guards.

The man who stood at the head of the group spoke, his words directed at Ric. "The Cartel is going to let you live, Manoso, but we need to teach you a lesson and we want it to be one you carry with you. So we'll give you a choice." A door on the far side of the room opened and Stephanie and Carlos were brought in. "Pick one, Manoso."

As Dante stood by Ric, he was able to feel the tension and anger radiating from his friend. Anyone else would have seen only the impassive face, but Dante knew better. His friend was furious, a killing rage coursing through him.

Stephanie and a young Carlos, still just a child, stood, blinking, in the harsh glare of the warehouse lights. Stephanie stood protectively in front of her son, her body between him and the group of heavily armed men. Dante looked at the young Carlos - thin and small for his age, all bony arms and legs and wild black hair that fell into his eyes, despite his constant attempts to toss his head and throw his hair back.

The man who had been taunting Ric began again. "A difficult choice, I'm sure. Estranged wife or son? You and the little woman might get back together, have more children. First-born son, though, those are hard to replace." He gestured to one of the men. "Bring the boy here."

The man holding Carlos's arms twisted them hard as he yanked the boy forward. Carlos tossed his head, flipping his hair out of his eyes. "Leave me alone," he snapped, successfully pulling away.

Dante heard a low moan in the back of his mind. Carlos again. "I started the whole thing, Dante. If I had just shut up, done nothing, waited. . . my father's team and the Feds would have gotten there in time. And she'd still be alive. I was scared, but I didn't want my father to know it and so I mouthed off, screwed up and got my mother killed."

"See what your father knows here, Carlos. Their intention is to kill both of you in front of him. He knows that his team is too far behind to prevent it. Feel every muscle in his body coiling – he's about to move, to try and draw their fire away from the two of you."

"Great. Thanks, Dante. That's even better. Then I would have gotten both of them killed. Wonderful." Carlos could not, would not, let the situation go. "Dante, right now, if I leave you and step into the man next to my mother, I can stop him. I can keep him from shooting her."

"Carlos, your mother is dead. This scene is only a memory. You cannot change the past by changing what happens here."

"No, but I can change it right now. That's all I ask, just once to do the right thing, the smart thing, and keep it all from happening again."

"Carlos, stop! This is what Kris warned us of – this is a diversion, meant to turn us away from the exit."

"Dante, they're going to kill her and it's my fault." Dante did the only thing he could think of and wrapped his mind around the boy, holding him in place. "Let go!"

Dante felt the boy struggle against him and felt only sorrow. Even Carlos, whose presence he felt within him as a tall core of light, had his dark places. "No. I will not."

He watched as the young Carlos before him took another step away from his captors and looked up to meet his father's eyes and then looked away. Dante could read the signal Ric was trying to give the boy – telling him to be calm, quiet, cooperative. Dante knew Ric would have come to the meeting with a plan in place and that he was likely trying to stall for time and let the plan unfold. But Carlos, young and scared and nervous, saw only his father's narrowed eyes and interpreted it as disappointment in him.

The man who had been holding Carlos stepped forward with a snarl, his intent to punish and hurt the boy plain. Carlos skipped backward and eluded him again. At a nod from the Cartel leader, one of the guards quietly clicked his safety off and raised his gun in Carlos's direction. Stephanie heard the noise and spun around to see the weapon raised. Dante saw the moment of decision in her eyes.

She jerked forward, wrenching free from the hands that held her, and reached for her son, wrapping her arms around him as the gunman fired twice. At once the warehouse became a jumble of noise and confusion – two men in the group of guards were Ric's men and they began firing, one of them tossing an extra weapon to Ric. The leaders of the cartel were immediately surrounded by their own personal guards, who moved in a phalanx to the rear exit of the building, removing them from the noise and death in the warehouse. Ric's weapon clicked on empty and he could only watch helplessly as the leaders escaped. Dante felt the blazing heat of Ric's eyes as he took in each face of the rapidly departing men, branding them into his memory.

Dante watched the scene before him but didn't approach. Ric knelt by his wife, reaching down to check her wounds. Dante could see by the sag in the line of his spine the moment he knew the wounds were mortal.

The young Carlos, his face blanched pale and his hands and body covered in his mother's blood, raised panicked eyes. "Dad, you have to do something."

"Carlos… " that one word was drawn out as Ric searched for words of comfort or explanation. Carlos flinched away from his father's eyes, guilt and grief and anger radiating out of the child.

Stephanie moaned once, lightly, and Ric reached down to smooth her hair away from her face, his touch gentle. "Babe," he said softly. She opened her eyes, and Dante watched as Ric looked from one pair of desperate blue eyes to the other, both pleading with him to fix what had gone wrong, to change the outcome. Dante saw it hit Ric as the cruelest kind of blow.

Behind them, Ric's team and the Federal agents sent to arrest the cartel leaders arrived, and the warehouse again became a scene of noise and activity.

"It's happened yet again, Dante." Carlos's voice was flat. "Let's go."

Dante walked past the tableau and felt the slight resistance of a barrier. They were close to the exit from the spirit realm as well.

Carlos said nothing further and tried to keep his thoughts away from Dante's, but the grief and guilt slipped out and washed across Dante's mind as he stepped out of the building and back into the void.

"You were a child, Carlos. None of it is your fault."

Dante felt the boy's disbelief and knew in a moment of clear sight that just as nothing anyone could ever say would remove the guilt he felt over leaving Sasha to take their father's beating, nothing could convince Carlos that he was not responsible for the tragedy that had replayed in front of them. "She lived two more days. She was in ICU and I wasn't allowed in. My father didn't leave her side until after she died. Then he came home and drank himself unconscious."

"How can it be different from what you told me about Sasha? You were a child. You bear no responsibility."

Carlos didn't answer for some time, and when he did, the change of subject surprised Dante. "When I first came to you this summer, you wanted to know why I refused to target shoot with you – that's why. I don't want to have anything to do with guns. I won't."

"Carlos, it was the man behind the weapon that was responsible for the action."

"I don't care. I want nothing to do with guns."

"If you choose your father's life, you will be a danger to yourself and all those around you."

"Then I make my own life, my own way."

Dante sighed. So much had happened in the time spent in the spirit realm that it threatened to overwhelm both of them. The void had begun to close in upon them and each step was getting progressively more difficult. Dante knew he was close to the point he had started from and he stopped a moment, all senses alert, seeking. Suddenly, the correct path became obvious to him, yet he hesitated. So many traps and barriers had been laid for them it seemed very possible that it could be another.

And then he felt a clean presence brush across his mind. I do not say goodbye either, my love. With her voice still in his mind, he closed his eyes and took a step forward and felt himself falling and spinning as he parted from the void.

It was Fayed who became aware of them first and cried out. The doctor looked up and smiled. "Excellent, you return. You were successful?" Dante looked down at his hands and found himself a spectral outline, no more than a hint of presence. He tried to speak and found himself unable to, so he nodded. He moved toward the bed Carlos lay on, his form still, his open eyes nearly white and his skin an off color.

"I look like shit." Dante almost laughed as he felt Carlos slip away from him and watched as a vague shimmering shape entered the supine body. The young man gasped once and then his eyes closed, his features relaxed.

"He will sleep now as the soul and body mend together, as will you. Come, warrior." The doctor gestured to Dante's own body and Dante gratefully sank down into himself, weariness overtaking him at last.

Fayed watched as the doctor checked his two patients and nodded in satisfaction. "It is well," he said. He turned to Fayed. "And now we must wait for the souls to completely rejoin their bodies." He frowned and moved to the large cupboards against the wall, using a key to unlock the smallest of them. He removed a new, sleek, 9mm automatic and two clips, loading one into the weapon. "We will watch over them, for they are weak and vulnerable. Their time of trouble is not yet over." The doctor sat down at the small desk in the room and turned on the green-shaded light. He lay the weapon down, close to hand, and opened a book.

Fayed stood, contemplating the doctor and the two sleeping forms. He moved to stand next to Dante and slipped Dante's largest knife from its sheath, then pulled a hard wooden stool between the two narrow beds and sat down, cross-legged. The knife he lay across his lap and he turned to look at the doorway, his great dark eyes watchful.