Texas 1874

Kwai Chang Caine walked up to the house that he had left three years previous. His leaving had weighed heavy on his heart, and his dreams had been filled with images of Li- Na since that night. Strange dreams set in places he had never imagined much less seen. She was so beautiful and looked at him with so much love in her eyes that it took his breath away. Now that he had found his American family, there was a safe place for her, a home. He could marry her now without fear of the Emperor's men, so he had returned as promised.

He knocked on the door and was surprised when it was answered by a pretty blonde woman who looked to be in her mid-thirties.

"May I help you?" She asked.

"I am looking for the Yeoh family," Caine said politely. "Have they moved?"

"I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but… well… when my husband purchased the farm we were told that there had been a massacre here. "

"They are… dead?" He asked, his heart shattered. He should have taken her with him against her grandfather's wishes. Then she would still be alive. No. He should have never come there in the first place. He should have kept walking and never stayed with them. He had killed her the moment he laid eyes on her, the moment his infatuation and loneliness had led him to protect her in the town and escort her and her brother home. He had killed her as surely as he had killed the emperor's nephew.

"I am so sorry." The woman said. "Is there anything I can do for you?" It made her sad to watch his expression fill with such sorrow.

He shook his head. "No, thank you." He said and backed down the steps.

"Wait- please." She said and when he stopped at the base of the porch steps she went back into the house. When she returned she brought out a small sandalwood box. "I found this under one of the floorboards. You're the first person I've met that knew the family that lived here. I suppose this should belong to you now."

"Thank you." He said with a small bow. "I am sorry to have troubled you."

"It's alright. It's getting late, do you have a place to stay for the night? I can't invite you in, of course, my husband isn't home, but you're welcome to use the barn."

He shook his head. "No… I cannot accept your offer. Thank you." He said.

Caine retreated to the road, holding the box close as he walked. He continued to walk until his legs would carry him no further. He left the road and made his camp among the scrub oak.

While his simple meal of rice was cooking he opened the sandalwood box. Within were pale pink and blue ribbons, pieces of colored glass made rough by wind and sand, stips of yellow paper made to look like fulu, with the characters made in red ink in an unsteady childlike hand. Iridescent black feathers and porcupine quills. A little girl's treasures, hidden and long forgotten.

Kwai Chang Caine allowed himself to cry. "In another life, I will find you, Li Na. I swear it, I will find you."

(0)(0)(0)(0)(0)(0)(0)(0)(0)(0)(0)(0)(0)(0)(0)(0)(0)(0)(0)(0)(0)(0)(0)(0)(0)(0)(0)

Leanne sipped at her tea. "I don't understand any of this." She said. "I have studied his books and any other texts I could find and I was never able to wrap my brain around how it was possible. I have memorized the recipe." She told Peter and his father. "The ingredients are esoteric. I've tracked down what most of them are. The last one that eludes me has several possibilities. The essence of monkey. Several plants have Monkey in the name. He never answered me when I asked what that ingredient was, he left a small amount of the extract when last I saw him… I think that was 1917. I haven't dared experiment to find out what it is. Do you think that it is the souls the Ancient was referring to?"

"I do not know," Caine said. "I do not know that it was indeed Lo Si that said it. I only know what I was told by Master Yuan."

She nodded. "If he is right, my grandfather hasn't just done terrible things… he is evil." She said. And if he was evil he could have sent Hu Li to kill her without a second thought. "She said I'm not the one he needs." Leanne looked at Peter. "If he is after something from you then you need to go somewhere safe."

"I'm not going anywhere," Peter said. "I don't run. There is no future in it. Strategic retreat sure but once you start running, it's all you do for the rest of your life. Look where that got my great-grandfather."

"Alive and free," Leanne said getting up to walk out onto Caine's terrace.

Peter followed her. "Alone, unhappy, a life filled with regrets, missing most of my grandfather's early childhood… until he stopped running. Then he was able to be happy. He was my dad's age when that happened."

"Did he do that before or after they stopped chasing him in the first place?" She asked. "This is my fault…"

"How do you come to that conclusion?" Peter asked gently. He wondered how hard it would be to choke the life out of an immortal… if that was what her grandfather truly was. He was willing to give it a shot.

"You are in my grandfather's crosshairs because I fell in love with your great-grandfather and promised to marry him. He could not choose another to continue the family line it had to be your great-grandfather."

"Hate to break it to him, but that requires you being alive too. Hard to help continue the bloodline without you." He said standing behind her, pulling her back against him, and closing his arms around her. "In fact, I would say impossible."

"I am a woman, Peter."

"I am, happily, well aware of that fact," Peter said.

"You don't understand." She sighed "You may be part Chinese but you are completely American. Women do not bring children into their father's family, they bring them into their husband's family. Only men make the sacrifices to their ancestors and not to their mothers or grandmothers. They sacrifice to their fathers and their father's fathers. Women tend to the elderly of their husband's family, not to their own. Why do you think that Chinese orphanages have a disproportionate number of female children since the single-child laws? When my brother was killed he used my betrothal to Kwai Chang to claim him as his heir. So I am not his heir, Peter, you are."

"That is insane," Peter said.

She shrugged. "I never said it wasn't. I never said I agreed with it. I merely said it was how things are."

"Yeah well, the only thing of his I am interested in is you." Peter said "Anything else he can keep. Besides, he's immortal, not like he's going to need someone to light incense or pass things on to."

"I don't think it's going to be that simple." She said.

"Sure it is." Peter shrugged. "You see, I have a father, and I have male ancestors to light incense for and make offerings to. You are joining my family. The day we are married you are no longer part of his, by his own customs. Whatever foolishness he thinks he laid on my great-grandfather, was never accepted by my great-grandfather. I'm pretty sure he would have told me if it was anything more than the promise of you becoming his wife… my wife."

"I don't know what he has done. I don't know who he is anymore. I don't know what I am anymore."

"Hey," Peter said, turning her around to face him, "What do you mean you don't know what you are anymore? You're the same person you've always been. What he did doesn't change who you are."

"Didn't it?" She asked. "He gave me that elixir, that potion made from stolen lives. I am still alive because someone else died, I don't even know how many people died so that I could live this long."

"Okay, yeah, but you didn't know, how could you? And like my father said we don't know if that is even what happened. We have one man's word for that, a man that made my father uncomfortable. That doesn't happen often."

"We don't know that it isn't what happened either. After everything else we're learning about him it wouldn't surprise me if that was exactly what he has done."

"Yeah, but I've always found that whole sins of the father thing to be thin. Sins of the grandfather is downright transparent." Peter said.

"But what has it done to me… to my qi… to carry someone else's soul in such a way? What has it done to that soul to be trapped inside me?"

He wiped the tears from her eyes. "I don't know about the soul. If there is even one to know about is still unproven, okay. I need you to remember that. As for your qi… how about you let those walls down and let my father see your qi. Pretty sure he could tell you if there was anything you need to worry about."

"Maybe." She said and sighed. "But if he changes his mind about me, remember that this was your idea."

"If he changes his mind about you, we'll get married at city hall by a justice of the peace this weekend, move to Rome and convert to catholicism … or something."

"Are you threatening him or me?" She asked, laughing around the tears.

Peter laughed "The point was that I'm going to marry you no matter what anyone else thinks. The only person that can stop that is you."

She nodded. "Okay… we'll find out what your father sees."

They returned to the main room, where Caine was grinding herbs in his mortar and pestle.

"Hey, Pop, I have a request," Peter said. He laughed a little at the look he got from his father. "Sorry, I have a request, Father."

"You have but to ask," Caine said, adding another herb to the mortar.

"Leanne is worried about the effect of the elixir on her qi, or soul. Can you have a look-see at it and maybe tell her what you find. It would go a long way toward putting her mind at ease."

Caine nodded "Yes." He said putting the mixture into a teapot and pouring hot water over it. "Just as soon as this steeps." He had anticipated the request although he was certain it was unnecessary. The girl was about as evil as a glass of water. An evil person would not have hesitated to kill the one who had attacked them even if they were unarmed. The girl would have been dead long before he and Peter had come upon the scene. The fact that she worried about it was also a good sign that she was not her grandfather's agent.

He poured two cups of tea, one for himself and one for Leanne. "Come with me." He said. "Peter will wait here for us."

Peter opened his mouth to object but closed it again at the look he got from his father.

"I'll be alright," Leanne said and followed Caine to the room he had set up for meditation. When they were seated Caine handed her a cup of tea.

"It will help us to meditate together. It will allow me to see … you. As you are." He said gently. "And you will see me as I am."

"Neither of us needs to use mystic means to see Peter as he truly is," Leanne said as she began to drink the tea.

"He has not yet learned to shield any part of himself," Caine said. "It is how he has always been. As much as it is worrisome, it is pleasing. I think it is part of what draws you to him."

She nodded. "Yes." She said, and she was just as certain that it was what had made him an easy target at the orphanage. "It is. It makes him easy to trust. I think everyone who truly knows him wants to protect him because of it."

"Or kill him," Caine said as he finished his cup of tea and set it aside.

"He does inspire that reaction too. Hero types always do." She set her cup on the floor and settled in cross-legged in front of Caine, closing her eyes. She listened for Caine's breathing, slow and steady, and matched her rhythm to his, to facilitate the merged meditation.

Caine guided the meditation until they were both in a deep meditative trance. Slowly he opened his eyes and studied the woman in front of him. He first looked for signs of the stolen souls that were supposed to be the key to her immortality. He didn't see anything but if he were honest he didn't know what to look for. What he did see was that her qi was vibrant and strong, like looking at light through a prism. He could see no darkness or taint.

"Li Na." He said quietly. "Open your eyes."

She slowly obeyed and smiled. If she had to describe Caine's aura or qi, it would be as light dancing on swirling water. Powerful yet calm and soothing. "So tell me, Doc, what do you see?"

"You are not tainted." He said. "I do not see another essence or presence. But I do not know what it would look like exactly. All I see is you."

"Then maybe there isn't a problem… the man you spoke to could be wrong about the source."

"It is possible. Do you still have the sample you were given of this final ingredient?"

"Yes. I keep it in the box with my grandmother's wedding things." She said. "They didn't find it when they wrecked the apartment because I keep those hidden under the floorboards in my apothecary."

"I would like to see that if you trust me," Caine said.

"I trust you." She said. "I can bring it here tomorrow if you like."

"Yes. Please." He said."Now, let us rejoin my son." He directed the meditation once more to bring them back to the waking world. He rose and offered his hands to Leanne to help her to her feet.

"Thank you." She said.

"My Pleasure." He said and gently touched her face.

(0)(0)(0)(0)(0)(0)(0)(0)(0)(0)(0)(0)(0)(0)(0)(0)(0)(0)(0)(0)(0)(0)(0)(0)(0)(0)

"I hate this realm." Hu Li said. "I always feel naked here."

"Did you get anything more than a beating from my granddaughter?" Yulong Yeoh asked. He was frustrated that the fox had come back empty-handed, but he was pleased that his granddaughter remembered her training. It was a shame that she had been born female. She should have been the one to die, not her twin.

"She said, and I quote, 'Tell whomever actually sent you that the book is safe and shall remain so.' I told you she wouldn't believe that you sent me." Hu Li resented the hell out of this assignment. But what else could she do? The old wizard had her kin where she couldn't find them. She could only hope that they were still alive.

"Did you follow her as I told you?"

"She went across the street to that brownstone with her boy toy and his dad. She's not going after the book."

"Unless it is in that brownstone," Yeoh said. "And do not refer to him as a … boy toy."

"You mean the Spanish Peacock isn't infallible? Say it ain't so."

He rolled his eyes. For all that she claimed to hate the mortal realm, she was heavily influenced by it and it annoyed him. There was only so far being an adorable creature would get her in the end. Although as Annoying as it was, he still couldn't fault her opinion of Javier Navarro.

"I want you to get back out there and follow them for as long as it takes to find where they have hidden the book."

"You do realize that multiple tails doesn't mean I can split into multiple versions of myself. If they separate I can only follow one." She said.

"Have you always been this difficult? I do not remember you being this difficult before." He sighed.

"That's because I wasn't stuck in this foul-smelling realm before." She said. "I used to get to go home between assignments."

"If you ever want to make it back to Kunlun Shan, you will go find that book. Otherwise, you should start looking for a job because you'll be here for a very long time."

Hu Li got up. "Right, Boss." She said rolling her eyes. "Cause it's not like you couldn't just go and ask her for it or anything like that." She walked toward the door.

"At the moment I cannot be certain of her loyalty. She's too infatuated with the boy."

"I thought that was what you wanted."

"I wanted him infatuated with her." Unfortunately, Li Na had become a very modern woman, adapting to the eras as they came and went. If she had found the original Caine as he had commanded then she would still be a loyal and devoted granddaughter instead of whoring herself to a man she was not yet married to. He was … disappointed.

"Trust me the infatuation is mutual. If it wasn't for him I would be the headless vixen right now." She said, "If you want me to keep playing messenger to that girl I am going to need hazardous duty pay."

"You're going to be shy a few tails if you don't do as I tell you. Now!"

"Alright, alright. Sheesh." Hu li left the hotel room. "What an asshole." She said and began whistling a tune as she walked toward the elevator.