He had tried to hold it together for a lot of reasons over the past days. The pub had become a focal point for everyone who had stayed behind, for the women without partners to look for comfort and to give support to the other men. Chili and he knew that all they could realistically do was to keep up spirits, supply drink, food and good cheer, give a shoulder when it was needed and an ear when someone wanted to talk. That's the sort of thing you did in this job. There were times when a bar owner was a bit like a priest or a hairdresser. You were the one people invariably chose to divulge their secrets.

Most of the time, he was fine with that. By nature, Paul liked nothing better that to be in the 'know', endlessly curious about other people's lives and also enjoying the feeling that he was trusted. Some people respond well to nurturing others and he was one of them. For too long he had needed people to need him. Now he had an abundance of friends who saw him as someone they could rely on. He would not let them down.

But this time, it had not been easy to keep a smile on his face and find a positive comment for everyone. He was as deeply shocked and concerned as everyone else. The emergency threatened his world, too. All he wanted to do was find a way he could help.

Yet how could a guy like him think he could prevail if men like Maximus and Terry did not? Compared to all those other alpha guys, he was just a waste of space. He knew that. Who was he anyway? Just a bloke who ran a bar where these people came to socialize. He wasn't a Crowe and he wasn't a partner. How could he claim the same emotional burden as women who were lovers, wives, mothers to these men and their children who under threat? It seemed he had no rights to the way he was feeling.

It didn't stop him hurting inside, though. He had two major worries, as well as the ones that inevitably came with any of his friends being at risk. First there was Sonia. He didn't know how much this shadowy Mephisto Corp. knew about the individual men. Had they worked out that her baby had been fathered by one of the Crowes? Could she be at risk? It had been on his mind for days. Sonia wasn't interested in it all. She rolled her eyes when he tried to broach the subject and told him they were all completely nuts. The baby was due in a couple of weeks, just after Christmas. He'd sent her home to stay with Mum and Dad. She was better off with her mother anyway at such a time. And he kept his fingers crossed she would be safe.

Then there was Jeff. He knew he had no rights over Jeff anymore and wasn't trying to claim he had but you can't stop loving someone just because they don't love you back. The only thing that had kept him sane these past few months, apart from Astrid and his excitement over the baby, had been the knowledge that Jeff at least was happy in his new life and love. Paul felt he could accept most things if he knew that somewhere out there Jeff was doing okay. But Jeff was at risk as they all were now. How could he relax thinking he might be taken next?

Jeff had come back with Andy and Uma. Paul knew that couldn't have been easy for him but it was a mark of the kind of guy Jeff was. The last place he wanted to be was anywhere near Paul and yet, for the others, he had put aside his feelings and shown up. He drank at the bar most nights, sitting in a booth towards the back of the room, chatting with Andy or a few of the single blokes. Everyone was studiously avoiding the obvious and no one mentioned Jeff to him - or vice versa. It seemed their former relationship had become the white elephant in the corner. They both pretended they were strangers for the most part, exchanging just an occasional pleasantry at the bar and the rest of the time acting as if the other was not there.

It seemed to Paul that keeping all that together these past days had been like juggling with live snakes. He was weary of having to be the one with the smile on his face, the quick line in repartee, the strong shoulder for those who were finding it all too much. There were nights when he could barely drag himself up the stairs at the end of a session, feeling sick to his core and so desperately alone and afraid that he didn't mind admitting he had cried himself to sleep at times.

That was before the recent news came in.  Maximus had died in the assault on Mephisto, felled ludicrously by a firearm wielded by a geek who had probably never even shot more than a pop gun before. The rest had made it and other than the one loss, it had been a successful operation. One loss? It was as if time had stopped still and the earth had ceased turning. What sense did anything make without Maximus?

Initially, Paul wasn't sure he had felt anything. Shock hits you like that. You just hear the words, go through the motions and don't realize that a part of you has simply detached itself from reality. It's the only way you can deal with the unthinkable. He had thought it bad enough back then when he had had to relay the news about Ann to Terry.  Announcing the death of Maximus to a group of people already at their wits' end had been the hardest thing he had ever done.

He recalled the moments after as the cruel news began to sink in to the traumatized audience allowing, just for a second, his eyes to wander to where Jeff was sitting. Paul expected to see him distraught, crying even. But, although his eyes had been wet, Jeff was looking straight back at him steadily. Paul had wondered then what had been passing through his mind. He knew what was in his. What's the point in all this, Jeff? It might all be over tomorrow. We thought we had all the time in the world. What are we doing wasting the little bit that's left to us?

Of course he hadn't said anything. There had just been that moment when their eyes had met. He's lonely too. More now that ever. How does he deal with this alone? Everyone else has somebody. Not Jeff. Maximus meant so much to him. I wonder where his bloke is? That Toby guy? Why didn't he stick around when Jeff needed him? Not that Paul took any comfort from knowing that Jeff had been abandoned. It just made it all the sadder.

It was morning. Everyone had left last night and he doubted he would see many of them today. To all intents and purposes the worst of it was over. Whatever had been threatening them, it seemed to have passed. Maximus' sacrifice had been enough, it seemed. He had saved everyone again at the cost of his own future. He would never have that happiness he so deserved with his new wife and the child that would soon be born. It was the cruelest of fates for them both - and a pretty bleak reminder to all of them how insubstantial their existences here might be. Was that what this place was about? Would each man's story merely reduplicate itself endlessly until they all paid the ultimate price?

Paul hadn't slept last night. He doubted if he had been the only one to toss and turn until dawn. He couldn't even cry. If he had, he thought he would feel better. But there was a cold place inside him, full of anger and hopelessness, that made emotional release impossible. All he could do was polish glasses and wait until the party overseas came back and needed him again. It was the only thing he was good for.

The phone rang. He picked it up, already dreading what he was going to hear. These days it was never good.

"Paul?"

"Speaking. Who is it?"

There was a silence on the line. 

"Who is this? I'm not in the mood for arsing about, mate..." he snapped.

"My name is not important, Paul. Are you alone?"

"Pardon?"

"I asked you if you were alone..."

The question worried him. He knew there was still some Mephisto guy on the loose. Who knew if there hadn't been more behind it all and perhaps the danger was still present?

"No...I've got fifteen big strong men in here with me..."

The voice laughed softly. "I don't think so. In fact I know you haven't..." The lights went off. It was a gloomy winter morning. Visibility was poor. Paul went to check the fuse box, the receiver stuck between his ear and shoulder.

"You don't need the phone anymore, Paul."

The voice was just behind him, standing in the poky corridor that led from the bar past the office to the kitchen.  Paul dropped the phone in shock and spun round, staring into the inky blackness trying to make out its source. How come the gloom had now become almost total darkness as if it were the middle of the night?

"What the fuck's going on...?" Paul stepped back and reached behind him under the counter where he kept a baseball bat. Just in case. One never knew when one might need to defend oneself in the pub trade.

"Don't...please don't even try..." The voice had a soporific quality, soft and hypnotic, drawing him to listen even when he wished he could drive it from his brain. The accent was hard to place, not really being any that he recognised, although the words were enunciated more carefully that a native speaker would.  It was hard to tell if it was a man or a woman's tone. It was somewhere in between.

Paul could just make out the shadowy figure ahead if he concentrated very hard. It was average height, slim build but apparently featureless, dressed in something dark and loose. He was scared, a cold finger of fear trickling down his spine. And yet...and yet...somewhere deep within him, he believed he knew who this person was. An uncanny sense of déjà vu passed through him. He had never consciously met someone like this person and yet he knew he had been here before. Or known this day would come.

How weird was that?

Lunging forward, a perverse refusal to let himself be lured further driving him, he raised his right hand and brought the club down hard on the head of the intruder, his unease winning out over his instinct. But he never made contact. Something with a grip as hard and cold as steel seemed to take hold of his wrist and leave his arm hovering helplessly above the spectral figure. "Please...it is not my intention to hurt you, Paul. Just relax. You know you want to. Listen to me..."

The fight went out of him then. It was not that he was afraid but that he suddenly had a feeling that he could trust the voice. He had no idea how he knew that. But he knew it meant him no harm. It had a purpose and its purpose included him. This was his chance to do what he could for the others. He was unsure how he knew that so certainly.

"Sit down. On the stool behind the bar. Get yourself a brandy. I'll have one, too," the voice suggested.

He did what it said and moments afterwards, found himself sitting at the bar, leaning there with his head in his hand, swilling the brandy around the glass and listening to the bewitching voice.

"This place is very special, Paul. These people are very special. No one is here without a reason. You know how it began?"

Paul nodded. "Uma met Maximus. Something pulled him across. Maybe he was just so strong a presence...no one really knows...then the others started to follow like there was a door opened in reality...something like that..."

"That will do for now. It is more complex by far than that, but what you have said is essentially true. Uma and Maximus together. It was synchronicity. There was only a fleeting moment in time when if many factors had not lined up correctly... instantaneously, then none of it could have occurred. Such happenings are unpredictable but there are those of us who are always watching for them. Cosmic forces, supernatural signposts in time...like the combination of a safe. Reality is not as real as you think. If the correct circumstances occur then a shift in the fabric of nature as we perceive it takes place - and we must always be ready..."

"What the fuck you talking about?" Paul ran a hand back through his hair. The guy had lost him at 'cosmic.'

The voice laughed somewhat more merrily than he would have expected. "I think you understand me rather better than you are letting yourself believe. Paul, it is not just the men from the celluloid existence who are here for a reason. All of you are. But your reasons are not all the same..."

"You mean the girls were attracted to come here not by chance? I think we already guessed that..."

"Not exactly. I don't just mean the girls...you are not a girl. But you were brought here for a reason..."

Paul shrugged. "I used to go out with Jeff. It didn't work out. In that sense I am a girl...I mean...I was a partner. Not all the relationships make it...That's life. Some of us are not the right ones...the guys move on...the girls leave..."

"Oh no...to the contrary...no one is ever a mistake. No experience is ever for nothing. Everything leads to something else."

Paul let him have it. He couldn't exactly deny the logic. Both he and Jeff had learnt a lot through their time together. It would never be wasted. "Okay...so I was here because Jeff needed me then...now I run the bar...that my purpose?"

"No, Paul. That is your function. Purpose is something quite different..."

That made Paul laugh. "If you say so, mate. I'm not that hot on words..."

"...Do not belittle yourself. That is what I am here to remind you. This existence requires many sacrifices of its denizens. Very few of you have had an easy time since it began for you. Some have found what they were looking for, some are still searching..."

"...yeah, and some have lost everything...sacrifices...we know all about them..." Paul broke in bitterly.

"Indeed. And your current grief is my grief too. Have faith, Paul. Walk into the light. This is a very special place...very special things are meant to happen here...but there is always a price to pay..."

"Haven't we paid enough?"

A soft chuckle. "Not yet...because you have not gained enough yet either..."

"Can't you talk in English? Why do you have to use riddles?"

"If you heard it all it would blow your mind. Enough for now..."

"Enough? But you haven't told me anything? I mean, what is my purpose? You said I had a purpose but you didn't say what it is..."

"You are here to watch over them all. You are the eye of the storm. Uma and Maximus...they are the storm...watch, Paul. That is all you have to do. Watch and when the moment comes, you will know what to do. Know that you are not alone. We are with you through it all and the danger is passed. Those who sought to harm you will be dealt with soon. There are always many forces of evil which would destroy such a place. But everything has balance, too. The Yin and Yang. Do not underestimate the power of good..."

It was Paul's turn to chuckle. "No one ever called me the good guy before..."

"That is their misfortune then...I know you have suffered. I promise you one day you too will walk in the light. Have faith. Nothing worthwhile ever came without suffering..."

"Yeah...I wax regularly...you cannot tell me anything about suffering..." Paul replied but for all his irreverent jauntiness, his tone betrayed how much he was affected. "Am I going mad? Are you real? How do I know for sure?"

"What is reality, Paul? All perception is real to he who perceives it. Even the crazy fool is as sure of his delusion as the sane man his open vision. Is one man's reality another's? Hardly ever. But if you are asking me whether this moment is true then there is only one way you can ever be sure. Listen to your heart. It knows everything. You only have to learn its language..."

A cold wind blew through the bar and a door slammed shut somewhere out the back. The lights came back on, blinding him momentarily.

The bar was empty. Not a sound could he heard. 

But there were two brandy glasses on the bar top. And both of them were empty.

He never believed in turning back. It was not his style. He did not live with the past in the way that so many people did ... in that way that weighed you down until you could not see that life had to fucking go on.

Once, he'd died. You talk about having to move beyond the past? He could give you a lesson in that.

All during the flight, he had stared inside the private space he kept close to him. When all was said and done with his life, if it had ended in Tennessee, would it have mattered? It should have been him. He would trade places with no second thought, even now. There would be no one mourning him in the same wordless, absolute manner in which she mourned Maximus.

He stood and stretched in the quiet of the cabin as the plane passed over some know-nothing towns to which he would not give a second thought today. She sat in the middle of the cabin, alone on a couch that was much too big for her. He grabbed a blanket and a pillow from the cabinet he passed. He'd noticed them there earlier when he'd stored a bit of gear at Dino's direction.

"Here," he said to her, his voice hushed, as if these times deserved a reverence he was uncomfortable with normally and now did not know if he was hitting the mark right.

Ann was pulled from her own inner space and looked up in surprise at Hando.

"You should take a rest. Good for the baby, isn't it? That's right ... there you go with you," Hando told her as she let him lift her ankles to the couch and coax her into a prone position.

He opened the blanket and placed it over her as she put her head into the pillow. Her cool hand touched his as he pulled the edge of the blanket over her shoulders. "You meant so much to him. Thank you for all you did for him," she said softly.

Hando nodded, brisk. What he felt like saying he could not ... for to do so would have meant he'd have to talk through the emotional knot in his throat. Instead, he continued on his way toward the galley. Inside there, he stared at the plane's curved side for a long time.

In the far back of the plane, there was a bedroom that was separate from the cabin. They had tried to get Ann to lie in there on the small bed. She wanted anything but to be alone, she told them. Yet for all she was really aware of what was going on around her, she was alone with whatever filled her senses and her mind.

Instead, Dino and Ralph had gone into the bedroom, leaving Hando to keep an eye on Ann in case she needed anything.

"I called her mom," Ralph said, his eyes on the door handle.

"I need to call Paul, let him know when we are due in," Dino said. His fingers touched the cell phone they'd picked up in New York. His voice dropped to a vulnerable softness. "I want to call Heather again. Need to hear her. Just one word ..."

"Her mom said she'd be there by the time we got to the farm. Pete's driving her over from Mamou. You haven't met Pete ... my brother."

"Yeah. I remember." Dino leaned back on the bed and gazed over at Ralph, sitting in one of the chairs, his elbows on his knees. "There's so much needs doing ... and so much is so wrong with this picture."

"They are still a threat. As long as one of them is out there ..."

"Terry will have considered what he can do about the ones in France. Maybe Paul will have news."

"One is on the run over here. He's the one scares me."

"Yeah."

"The ones still alive ... and then the records ... this whole thing is a shit storm, any way we look at it."

"Paul said they are on their way back from France. Let's leave the heavy lifting for when we are back together, man."

"I cannot believe he is gone."

"She will need you to be there for her ... we will all watch out for her, of course, but she's going to need you there every day."

"I promised him. I will not let him down. Ever."

"I know. But just so you know ... if it's ever a matter of money or anything else ... I'm a phone call away, you got me?"

"Sure."

How dare they threaten him?

As if they could?

Sid slid into a seat on the bus and looked around him at the miscreants sharing this late night ride. Why was it that he felt someone was watching him? And not just one of the booze hounds or tired hags riding along with him. Someone else ... a force ... a living intelligence he could feel as if it was another heart beating next to him.

Turning in his seat, he looked carefully at the three people riding in seats behind him. One looked as mentally deficit as the other, he thought. He swiveled his head to study the backs of those seated in front of his. No, it could be none of them.

He looked out the window, picking up his reflection in the scattered city lights bouncing on the plane of safety glass there. He smiled and adjusted his puce tie.

Why was he worrying, he asked himself. Who'd be after him? The Scooby Gang had other things on their hands at this point ... by the time they got around to wondering where he was, it'd be well after the funeral for the General. He had some time, didn't he?

Yet, he frowned. His handsome face perhaps more handsome when he was pensive. He stared at his frown in the reflection and considered this.

Then he thought about why he'd taken the bus. It had been because he'd had the feeling someone was shadowing him. 

He'd materialized at a cute little Internet café near his home. He'd decided against going home immediately, figuring if the Scoobies had really sent another Scooby after Myra and Sid, Jr., then they could have been waiting on him. So instead, he figured he'd emerge at the café then take a taxi home or maybe steal a car if he could not find a suitable taxi.

But that sense of being stalked hit him like a foul odor the moment he hit the chair in front of the computer. He'd left as soon as he could ... hailed a cab ... but then it was as if he "felt" someone approving of this action. So spooky! He'd turned on his heel, walking quickly away from the taxi's open door, and instead stepped aboard the approaching bus as soon as it pulled to a sluggish halt at the nearby bus stand.

But none of these people had been in the café, Sid realized. So obviously, he was imagining things.

He still didn't like the feeling though.

The moment the bus let him off, alone, on the corner near his home, he took off running. He covered the ground between the corner and his home in minutes. From his neighbor's yard, he studied the house. Everything appeared normal. No one seemed to be watching the house.

So in he went ... to be greeted enthusiastically at first then quickly chastised for his absence ... and for the fact that Myra had gone to the pub only to be told her husband had to be involved in whatever was going on ...

What is going on, Myra had asked him, because I defended you to them and told them they'd have to give you your due now ... Babes? You did something that will prove you should be the true leader of the group, right?"

He'd done something all right, he'd said and then told her to pack some things for her and Sid Jr. That they were going on a family outing.

Myra was not fooled. If she didn't know him as she did, she'd say Sid was a trifle nervous.

It took her maybe two hours to get packed and ready. Then they left in Sid's car. He hit the road and headed north.

All he wanted was to put distance between his family and the danger he sensed but could not see.

Danger doesn't always want to be seen, after all.

But that doesn't mean it's not there.

Waiting for you.

Even waiting for Sid.

It was dusk as they approached the farm. Ann stared out the side window, sitting in the passenger seat next to Ralph, who was driving a road he knew better than perhaps any in his life.

He fell into the trap of a memory as they turned in. He glanced at the side of Ann's face and noticed the drawn features behind sunglasses. And some trick of his mind saw another day when he'd been driving back along this road knowing he'd never again see someone with whom he had lived there on the farm. If he could have saved Ann the time ahead, the loneliness, the grief, the separateness ... but there was no saving her this time. Not from this, he knew.

There were cars parked in front of the house. More than he expected. He glanced in the rearview mirror at Dino, who appeared unperturbed at the sight. Ralph recognized his brother's truck. He recognized Chili's caddie. He even recognized a Lexus he now knew belonged to Thorne. Other than that, he didn't know who had come in the other two cars. For some reason, this did not seem welcoming but ominous.

If it fazed Ann, she did not show it. It took a moment after Dino had opened her car door and then she was out, walking before them into the house.

Her house.

No longer theirs, she thought suddenly, blinded by the weight but too proud to let Max down by falling apart. She would not shame him. She would show that she could be the woman he thought she was.

Her son had been so gentle with her. Perhaps he was swallowing her grief for her and if so, she felt this was wrong. She just wasn't sure she had the energy to face whatever the solution would be.

Inside the house, the first person she saw was Chili. He swallowed her inside the bulk of his hug. Her hands gentled at his waist. Then she patted his back and pulled away with a smile, her hand smoothing down his cheek and giving him thanks for being there.

The living room was largely empty ... everyone seemed gathered in the kitchen. Her mother ushered her to the table, stroking her hair. What Ann wanted was to not be taken care of. She wanted to figure out what she should be doing but didn't know how. The only thing she really knew was that she was now the homeowner and had her duties to see to her guests and this is what she would focus upon.

One look at her mother's face told her the strain this had been on her. She needed to get her upstairs, to lie down, sleep if she could. Max would never stand for it if someone did not take care of her mother ... their mother.

Others were there, needing a place to join together to deal with the loss of Maximus. Terry kissed at her cheek. She loved the smell of his cologne as he hugged her. She whispered to him that her mother needed attention ... could he take her upstairs ... charm her into resting for a while? The strain ... not good for her health ...

He did Ann's bidding and short moments later, he had guided her mother out and the last Ann saw of them was Terry with his arm around her mom's shoulder and it reminded her of that time Max had ...

No.

She would not think of those times yet. Those were her gifts from him and she wasn't ready to open them yet. She would do it when she was alone.

Cort and Bou were out in the stable, she learned. Showing Faith the horses. How Max would have loved to see that, Ann said out loud and couldn't help but notice several people looked down at the floor.

Andy stood at the window, the one that faced the back of the property, the gentle slope down to the Little Tchefuncte. He gazed out there, lost in thoughts perhaps, or perhaps just uncomfortable with the heavy feeling inside this house.

Ann heard noises upstairs and knew this was her mother and Terry but for just a second ... she almost thought ...

"It just occurred to me ... was everything okay in France?" Ann asked, looking about her and noticing that all those here were present when they had last been at this house and were about to set out on the mission that would decide the group's fate.

"It worked out. It was a bit more complicated than we'd thought but it all worked out," Cullen said. 

He stood leaning against the counter and it drew Ann's attention to what lurked atop the counter ... evidence of her mother's work and the generosity of neighbors. She knew what would be in the freezer and for some reason, it made her smile.

"John?" she asked. And then Cullen told her what had happened ... and she had been so out of it all, she realized. While she'd been so selfishly involved in her own situation, others had been at greater risk, of course. "I'm so relieved they are both okay ... and that all the rest of you did so much for us."

Another silence seemed to deny that the kitchen was now filled with such an assortment of people. It made her feel ... nervous, anxious. She looked around the room. Those who met her eyes showed bald sympathy and ... pity. The one person she did not see in there was Uma and when she asked, Andy pointed out the window he was looking through ... and this is how she found her friend ... out on the back deck, under Andy's watchful eye.

Pacing.

Eyes bloodshot and puffy.

Seeing Ann walking through the door toward her, Uma felt a well of grief. Perhaps she did not even have the right to show her grief over Max's death in Ann's presence, Uma suddenly thought, and yet there it was inside her ... an uncertainty what she'd do now without that mountain she had always known loomed there in the background of her life but now was gone.

"I just wanted to check on you. Besides, everyone in there is afraid to even talk to me," Ann said, her voice even and measured. Her smile was bland. When she neared, her hand smoothed Uma's hair and she took in the evidence of crying she found on Uma's face. She drew her toward the big bench that formed an edge of the deck. "Come sit with me ... I seem to get so tired lately. My feet are swelling ..."

"Ann ... I am so sorry ... It is all so unbelievable and so awful ... but how are you? Can I do anything? You just have to ask ..."

"I know, Uma. You will be there for me and I know that. So does Max."

"What? Ann ..."

Ann looked off. Her mind drifted and then snapped back ... almost surprised to remember where she was and who she was with. "Have I ever told you how grateful I am to you? I don't think I have ... I was thinking about this on the flight home ... that I can't believe I have probably never told you that."

"Grateful? To me?"

"You took care of him when he got here. He was so confused and so destroyed but you helped him. I think he found it hard to say ... that you were still so very important to him ... I don't know what happened, the details, between the two of you but I do know he always felt a strong connection was never broken between you. He knew you sacrificed for him and I know he regretted that it ended up that you were not easy with each other. You were always so very special to him."

"Once ... once we loved ... but I was not as good to him as you may imagine ... you may give me too much credit."

"I'm only telling you how Max felt about you. I wasn't there so I don't know except how he viewed it."

"I have always thought that he didn't know how much he meant to me."

"I think he knew ... I truly do. It could be so difficult for him to show his true feelings sometimes. But you know that."

"Oh, Ann ..."

"It's okay to cry, Uma. You have to cry ... and then you have to remember ..."

"I have been remembering so much."

"I have as well. I won't ever forget. Ever."

Uma looked at her friend. She had expected Ann to be a wreck, to be inconsolable ... to be unable to function without the group there to care for her. But instead, Ann seemed almost serene. Uma opened her mouth, was about to say that it was okay for Ann to break down herself ... that they were all there for her ... but Ann spoke into the void between them.

"I am so lucky ..." Ann said softly, looking off toward the river where a row of trees heralded the stream's contours, as if she knew what Uma was going to say and wished to head her off. "I wish I'd had him here longer but, God, I am so lucky I knew him, even for a day. And ... and you made it happen, you know that, right? If not for you, I'd never have met him."

"You made him happy."

"Then we were even. But somehow, I think I got the better end of the deal."

For a while, the visitors to the farm gathered in small bunches throughout the ground floor, clutching glasses and sipping as they spoke in hushes about different pieces of business or concerns. Those here had more on their shoulders than simply watching over a new widow and sharing grief over the loss of a friend.

Ann moved slowly, unobtrusively seeking out areas where others were not. It was not so much a conscious design as it was simply where her body took her. The problem was that every time she approached one of the groups, the knot of voices disappeared and they all turned to look at her with those pitiful looks on their faces. It made it hard for her to keep faking the strength she wanted to be showing.

She ended up climbing the stairs and realized she was heading to the artist's studio where some instinct must have told her she might find relief. But once she was there, she found it made her uncomfortable. Inside was where they had been making a home for their baby ... cheerful yellow walls and all these accents of different sorts of teals and then the furniture was lovely teak wood ... and this was supposed to be what it had all been about for them but now he'd never see their child inside this room, would he? Turning, she slowly and carefully began retracing her steps but then stopped before a closed door leading to the next room.

Max's office.

That retreat everyone needs inside their home.

She looked at the door and thought of the times she'd passed by here, looking in to see him before his desk ... and how he'd call her in if she so much as paused. His little gestures like that were all part of how he made her feel special to him.

Her hand was on the knob. She took a deep breath and then entered, closing the door softly behind her. She swallowed hard and looked around, her back against the door.

This is so inconceivable, she thought to herself. Memories of him alive inside this room flooded her.

It was as if he could walk in right now and life would start again for her. Except it wasn't going to happen, was it?

It seemed to her that she floated across the room and landed in his chair, looking down at the top of the desk before even realizing she had sat down. The chair was so big. The desk was so neat. Everything had its particular place. Her fingers ran over items tucked in their appointed positions. She smiled at the mouse he touched to work the computer. Her fingers traced over the keyboard where his fingers had once touched at.

She went to open the front drawer of the desk and remembered he kept the drawers locked whenever he traveled. There was a key elsewhere in the house in case she had needed to get in it ... where was it he kept it for her again? Oh ... in the safe in the master bedroom ... that's right. The only other copy was on his key ring.

She saw it in her mind. His key ring. The last she'd seen it ... in the bag of items Dino had given her, not long after they'd taken her from Levon's cabin. A plane had met them at an airport nearby. The pilot had handed Dino the bag, small and brown, like a lunch bag almost. And a file, a grey file. They had been in the air a short while. Ann sitting on the couch, staring at her toes clad in the white Keds that Levon had bought her.

Dino had sat next to her and handed her the bag. Max's "effects," he'd said to her.

What a word that is, Ann thought. His effects ... so cold and clinical.

She had opened the bag and looked inside. His watch. His wallet. His keys. A handkerchief. Some change that must have been in one of his pockets. The figurine of her he had always carried when traveling. His wedding ring. His leather thong with alligator teeth and the gold key to her heart she'd given him. To be honest, she had not examined the bag's contents in detail, just took in the items that hit her in the heart the hardest. The evidence of him ... the tokens of his everyday life.

The wedding ring had been the only thing she'd taken out of the bag. Everything else, she'd left inside, rolling the bag's open edge over and over until everything would be safe during the journey home.

She had slipped off her wedding band, the one he'd given her, and put his ring on that finger, thinking she'd put her ring on after it, and that it would hold his in place so she could wear them together. But his ring had been too big to stay in place. So she'd undone the band of her watch and slipped it on there.

Now, she turned her wrist over and looked at his ring, where it rested along the veins that ran straight to her heart.

And this is when it hit her.

Instantly, she pushed herself up and in minutes, she had found Dino in the kitchen. She barely noticed that others were in there.

"Where is Max?" she asked Dino and then shook her head. "I mean, where is his body? I forgot to ask. I have to arrange his funeral and burial ... I should have asked, I know, but I forgot."

Dino hesitated. And then, "They had to hold his body until the crime scene work was done ... but it didn't take long ... it was obvious what had happened ... by the time they finished with our statements and all ..."

"I guess I call the funeral home? They'll make the arrangements to bring him back, you think?" she asked, her mind already ahead and missing his look to someone behind her. "I can't believe I forgot him like that."

"There is no more body," Hando said.

Ann turned to look at him. "What do you mean ... no more body?"

"When they were finished ... I told them I was his brother and told them to cremate him," Hando said, his eyes fastened on hers.

Her voice was hushed. "You ... you told them to burn him? Without asking me?"

"After what had happened ... to Biebe ... to you ... I wasn't letting anyone else ever touch his body. No way was I letting anyone experiment with him ... not even dead. I told them to burn him so no one would ever desecrate him."

His words more than stunned her. They devastated her sense of purpose ... she had not even been given the right to decide how he would be cared for in his death. But she was staring in Hando's eyes and read his pain ... and she read that what he had done, he'd done out of loyalty to her husband. And though she wished he had not done this without her, had not assumed her responsibility to care for Max, she realized she was so tired. She couldn't even muster up an emotion that really could deal with this moment.

Instead, she put a hand on his chest. And held his eyes as she said, "You did the right thing, Hando. Thank you for looking out for him like that."

He had expected her to slap him. To throw a fit. To cry and make him feel he'd wounded her forever. Anything but this ... and in this gesture from her, he found his own form of acceptance. He put a hand over hers.

She let it stay there a moment and then smoothly pulled it away.

As if coming out of a trance, she glanced around the room and her eye caught on the counter, where rolls and a tray of fruit sat untouched.

"Well, I imagine everyone could do with a bit of food along about now," she said, her voice a bit more bright than it had been since she'd come back. "Mom said the neighbors had dropped off casseroles ... let me get a few thawed out and then we'll be eating shortly."

Almost in unison, Bou and Uma tried to get Ann to let them take care of dinner but she just smiled, said she'd be fine and headed for the utility room where she knew she'd find casseroles in the freezer.

There was uneasy silence in her absence.

"I thought she'd be prostrate with grief," Chili said.

"She is taking care of us instead of the other way round," Uma said.

"I'm shocked by how calm she's being ..." Cort said.

Terry shook his head and looked toward the doorway she'd left through. "She's not even here. God knows where she is, but it's not here. Happens sometimes ... grief over a sudden loss ... just trying to survive the shock."

In the utility room, Ann stared at the freezer for long minutes before remembering what she was doing in there.

She paused before rejoining the others. And thought of how much this would mean in the future, when she could see this time and not turn away from the pain of it all. What mattered most was that they were all there ... there to mark what Maximus had meant to the group and to the individuals.

And she didn't have his body ... she had no one to bury ... what now?

She was sitting on a window seat when he finally came up to bed. The women had retired earlier as soon as Ann had been encouraged to get some rest, her body betraying her at last. Bou had settled down with Faith. The men had sat on talking quietly over a few bottles of malt. Maximus had always known the good stuff. It had been a subdued gathering of men who were used to death and loss. But even they seemed to be stunned and lost without him in a way that was hard to credit.

Terry had been tightlipped and mostly silent, drinking steadily without appearing to show any effect other than an over-bright gleam in his eye. Cullen had been melancholy in that Celtic way of his, sitting in a corner, strumming a guitar and humming some mournful dirge to himself, dark circles below his eyes his thick hair messy and his stubble dark on his face, yet still looking younger than he was, like a lost boy.

Dino had talked a lot but not really said much. It was the way you knew a man like he was really hurting, using the front of black humour and pithy retorts to cover his utter desolation and impotence in the face of sorrow. Cort was calm and contemplative, not thrusting prayer down the throats of men who for the most part had rejected any conventional god, but his very presence offering the others the balm of his soul. He had seen enough in his life not to ask of any god the question 'Why?' The work of man could never be laid at the foot of God. But God would have a purpose for them all. Of this he was sure.

Ralph seemed bruised and battered, as if his very frame had shrunken under the burden of this loss. There was something very personal in how he had taken it. Maximus had been his friend. This place was his world. He could not escape from what came ahead and he knew already too well what it would cost all of them.  Hando paced the edges of the room, lost in some place of his own. While the others bonded in their fashion, he held himself apart. Emotion was difficult for him; if he let it in, it would bring him to his knees.

Chili was almost statesmanlike in his grief with that dignity that seems to be part of that hierarchy of gangsters. There is honour among thieves. They understand the importance of ritual and observing the traditions. He was solemn and venerable like some respected older uncle, sagely offering his thoughts and gently presenting his shoulder.

Andy had not quite known what to do amidst this company of men. Inside he was struggling with a certain amount of shame, which even if he knew was misplaced, still troubled him. Nobody had said anything to him, but he believed that some of the reasons for why this had come to pass ought to be laid at his door. His immature jealousy had been the reason she had left. Had that opened the floodgates to disaster?

He had resented the fact that she had past history with Maximus, always fearing that it might rear up again, that indefinable thing called love that they had once felt for each other. It seemed mean spirited and naïve of him now. He had mistrusted Terry and his friendship with her, seeking to keep them apart. What right had he ever had to come between friends for his own selfish reasons? Even his guilt now seemed pathetic as if he had to claim some greater hurt in this than he deserved. Uma loved him. Why had he forced her to give up everything she cared about before he would believe her? She had never placed any restriction on his hopes and dreams. He had destroyed hers.

He wasn't really used to death, unlike the others. His life had never revolved around war and dangerous lifestyles, guns and undercover missions. He had never been a soldier or an agent or a shady underworld figure. He was a modern kid, raised in a reasonably comfortable urban setting. The nearest he ever came to danger was a fight in the pub on a Friday night. He remembered when his granddad died. He'd been a child. His memories were hazy. Old people died. He never gave death much thought. In one devastating moment, all his certainties, his sense of immortality, had been ripped from him.

He couldn't really make sense of how he felt about Maximus, that he would never see him again. It was too vast an emotional trip for his head to compute. All he could think of was: how would I live without her? What if I lost her? If something happened to me and I never got to know our child? Why have we waited without making it formal? What is so important about work and external things that we neglect the very most central things of our lives? It could all be over tomorrow and what would we have to show for it all in the end?

So while the others sank the malt and dealt with it in their own ways, Andy went into the kitchen and cleared up the plates, put away food, loaded the dishwasher, cleaned all the surfaces, mopped the floor, reorganized the fridge, made a simple supper for the others and laid the breakfast table. You do what you know how.

He felt as if he was finding reasons not to go to her. He was. If he couldn't cope with his own mixed up emotions, what the hell could he offer to her? He knew she was devastated. The pinched look on her face, her eyes wild with panic, that 'deer in the headlights look' told him that she was at the edge of despair clinging on only for the sake of others. For Ann. She was unable to allow herself to give way to grief as if she had no right to claim another woman's tragedy, instead channeling it into some role she clung to as a friend and ally. He knew he should be with her. But he was scared to see her tears. He wasn't sure he could contain his own if she cried.

She was sitting on a window seat when he finally came up to bed, leaving the other men, those without partners still down there. As the door clicked behind him, she turned. "That you? It's so late...I couldn't sleep..."

"You okay?"

"You know me..." she answered obliquely.

Without a word, he joined her on the seat, slipping an arm about her, drawing her close, needing the touch, to feel her living breathing flesh, warm and quick beneath his hands. A silvery moon splashed its pale light on the nighttime garden. How can beauty still exist at such times?

"She is not accepting that he's dead..... She needed a body..."

"That's ghoulish..."

"No, it isn't. If she saw him dead, she would know. She needed that. Hando didn't understand. I can see why he did it, but...you have to prepare the body. That is how it prepares you...you take your leave of the one you loved because it isn't them anymore. Just an empty shell. She can't do that, you see...." He heard the catch in her voice.

"How do you really feel, baby?"

"Oh....I can't...I don't have the words...it's too...you know?"

"I know. I feel like that too. Yet I hardly knew him. Compared to you..."

Uma took his hand and held it to her face, he could feel the wet track of tears. "I loved him, you know?"

"I know..."

"...No, that's not right... I love him. It's not past tense. It never was. I mean, we didn't get on well for a long time but it didn't change the fact that I love him. Real love isn't something that passes. I wouldn't want it to be.  She says he always cared for me. She understands that. Welcomes it, even. I never thought there would be a time when he wouldn't be there. We shouldn't have cut each other out of our lives so deeply...Andy, I think I may have caused this somehow...I think Maximus and I should have stayed closer together...it's my fault!"

"Don't talk crap! You didn't do it any more than I did. I made you leave...maybe I'm the guilty one...?"

"We're all guilty. We have so many gifts and we squander them each and every day. The thief of time is complacency...oh, Andy, we must treasure every moment together...!"

She crawled into his arms, and he held her close, her body seeming frail and vulnerable. She shuddered but did not cry. "I know. I know...I want to marry you...have babies with you...I know this isn't the time but..."

"Was there ever a better? I can't deal with it now, Andy. Not for a while yet. Ann needs me too much. The others need me too. But it doesn't mean I take you for granted. Or that I don't want those things with you. Without you, I would probably run away now. Do you really know how much you mean to me? I'm not talking just love and stuff. You are the foundation of all I want to be. Ann's right, though. Even if it was all taken, I would still think I was lucky for what we've had. Even for a moment, Andy...it was worth it...never forget that...

...Somewhere ... he knew not where ... but he knew where he was not.

He looked about, wary. What lurked here ... just out of reach?

Something stalked him. Anger curled inside his gut, the coil of it seeking something to strike. An odor suddenly assailed his every sense. A smell so foul and unmistakable ... he could taste it, see its stark edges, hear its sharp cutting strike, could put his hand out right now and touch it ... more than a smell ... a presence.

One he'd witnessed in battle.

Death.

The underworld's stank warriors ... they stalked him.

Death sought to claim him.

A fog bank roiled around him and he saw the outlines of shadow forces. He hit out and then charged, full throated battle cries tore from his throat until he felt surely he must be screaming down to the bitter depths of the underworld.

"You will not claim this man!" he screamed, bloodlust flooding his senses as he thrashed and cut and hewed against enemies in the fog.

"If you want your freedom ..." came a slinky breath of a voice from the fog that roiled around the now lurking shadow forms.

"My freedom is not yours to grant," he grunted and hit out to his left, hacking viciously and feeling his sword connect. Where had the sword come from? He cared not ... it was given to him and he would use it ... they would learn the might of his fury.

"Your life ... is it mine to grant?"

"No! It belongs to me ... you have toyed with it long enough ... I will not be taken ... not yet!"

"I beg to differ, man. You are no different than any other I summon here."

"I shall give you something different ... and you shall choke on it," he said, his voice now a soft purring growl of the warrior on the charge.

The shadows advanced ... he knew only one way to battle against such odds ... the berserker was on the loose.

Slicing ... yelling ... grunting with fury ... slashing ... hoarse with rage.

They came at him as an undulating force ... he came at them as the sword of vengeance and righteousness.

"Warrior ..." the voice slid across space and time toward him.

He suddenly found himself alone. In a field of red grass and green sky. Slowly, he circled, wary for the next danger ... his hands both on the hilt of his sword.

"Warrior!"

"Show yourself! I fear you not."

"What is it you want?"

"To face you."

"You will regret it."

"I think it is you who will feel regret. Face me. Now."

No shadow fell. Only faceless shapes he knew were underworld henchmen appeared on the near horizon, riding toward where he stood his ground.

He would fight them all.

He would take on every god and every goddess if this was to be his fate ... but he would never surrender.

Not this time.

They had a different man they played with now.

Ann and Uma were walking toward the Little Tchefuncte. They took an easy pace. Ann wanted to remain active and keep ready for the birth but even she had to admit that some considerations had to be made for the baby's larger size.

Buck stayed near even though Ann had taken him off his leash. He had seldom left her side since Tulip and Egan had brought him home to her that morning. They had been the ones to volunteer to drive and get him when someone at the police department in Moro Bay had put it all together. That the dog that had mysteriously shown up at the vet's the same night the woman went missing was hers.

By that point, Chili had been released and escorted home by Jack Corbett. It had taken another day before the mistake with his records had been found and corrected.

He did not want to return to Moro Bay, Arkansas. Tulip, who had formed a friendship with Buck during a visit to the farm, volunteered and Egan had not objected. Truth be told, Egan had felt it was not such a bad idea to not be standing around in their normal spot, waiting to be taken. They'd only returned that morning and had learned of the death when they'd stopped in at the pub.

When they had come to the farm, Ann almost cried with the relief of seeing Buck was okay.

There were still so many people about the farm. Even though some had finally left the night before to go to their own beds, they were coming and going this new day. She wasn't exactly sure what they were expecting from her but she had the nagging feeling whatever it was, she wasn't up to it. Even seeing John and Clarity Biebe that morning had been a challenge ... imagine them coming there after their ordeal to be with her ... even after a night at home to rest in a familiar bed, they still appeared so subdued and withdrawn. And yet they sought to comfort her. How can people be so selfless, Ann thought to herself ... after all, they had been the ones in true danger ... they had been the ones undergoing experiments.

Andy and Uma had spent the night. Ann had found Paul at the kitchen table in the morning and Andy was cooking eggs. Before long, others came by ... Terry and Dino with news. Others with solace. She hadn't really been ready for either one and had left for a walk, inviting Uma to come along.

"I want to have a memorial service for him," Ann said into the quiet of the midmorning walk.

Uma glanced at her. "That might be good for everyone."

"He deserves it," she said. "He mattered."

"Of course."

They walked until they reached the sand of the small beach that had been formed along the river's shore. Buck investigated a heron's tracks, pressed into the soft, damp sand.

"I wish I had his body to bury," Ann said suddenly, looking up into the sun that was filtered through bare branches.

"Did Max ever talk to you about Roman customs of death?" Uma asked her, and as soon as it was out of her mouth, regretted the remark. Maybe this was the last thing Ann needed ...

"I don't think he did. I don't remember if so. Why?"

"Romans burned the bodies of their loved ones. The body is not in this world any longer but they come back whole in the afterlife," she said. "Cremation was what Max would have wanted. It would free him. I thought maybe to know that would help."

For long moments, Ann looked off into the distance, seeking the source of the incessant tapping on a tree that could not be far ... the echoes of the tapping ... had to be a pileated woodpecker to be so loud, she thought to herself, surprised to know that. Max had taught her that.

"Thank you. That actually makes it right," she said finally. "I have been thinking about what to do with his ashes."

"Have you?"

"I don't want to keep them with me. I would like to take them to where you first met him. Leave them there. Will you take me? Someday soon?"

"Of course."

"I am not supposed to fly at this stage ... I didn't tell Dino ... I just wanted to be away from there. Actually, I wasn't thinking clearly. I don't know ... but I don't think I should tempt fate more than it has been already. So I had this idea ... that maybe we could go through the pub ... and come out nearby ... you know? Use the pub for our own purposes ... and why shouldn't we?"

"We can do that. Maybe after the memorial service?"

"Just us, Uma. Okay? I need to be with him ... I need to see ... I can't explain. I just feel it." Her voice drifted away. "There is something about what Dino told me ... about Max's final words ... they weren't right ... but Ralph told me exactly what Max said and it changes everything ..."

He remembered ... her ... and ... a life ... the voice could play with him but could never rob him of her. As long as he held tight to the memory ...

Maximus prowled ... he was in the darkness again and he moved through the grey shapes, the lingering mists, the shifting shadows ... and he knew one memory would never leave him: that she had loved him for all time.

For how long he paused inside this memory, he did not know. It drifted around him. Until he abruptly remembered the searing pain ... the bullet ... felt his final act ... and felt himself fall ... first to his knees. He remembered looking up, seeing Ralph's eyes ... then a hand covered in blood loomed into his vision and he fell, heavily, to his back.

He remembered ... what else?

When his eyes had seen into the distance, he had not seen Elysium, the gate, his family waiting for him. He had seen only darkness ... he needed her to know ... that whatever had happened to him, it was not the expected path home ... she was the one he believed would need to know this ...

Grief welled up inside him. He had to believe she was alive but if she was then she was alone. He wanted only to be there, touching her, holding her, to crawl up inside her.

"Warrior?" the voice slid across time and fog toward him. "Warrior, have you surrendered?"

"Never," he muttered. His chin rose. He assumed the position of waiting to strike at what the shadow voice would next send his way. His voice rose ... that haughty tone he employed to such exact measure roared out: "I am waiting ..."

"Yes, you are ... but do you have any idea for what it is you wait?"

"Whatever it is ... I am more than its master."

"Oh, Warrior. There's that pride of yours ... about to get you into trouble again, perhaps? Have you learned nothing?"

"Holding up?"

"You?"

"Not really."

"Well, that's progress. At least you're not trying to be the tough soldier boy this time..."

Uma patted the seat next to her on the verandah. After their walk she had encouraged Ann to lie down for a while. For once she seemed compliant. Somehow the decision to take Maximus' ashes back to where he had first appeared had allowed her to relax for the first time in days.

It had only made Uma more tense.

Terry settled down next to her. She noticed he left a safe distance. There had been a time when he would not have done that. 

"You must be doing it tough. I know how you felt about him..."

"I am. So are a lot of people, you included. Thank God, I have Andy. I couldn't do this alone..." Uma replied. She was not going to let him swallow all this.

"Yeah, well..." he answered vaguely.

"Terry...you have to sort things out with Gaia. This is destroying you both...!"

He cleared his throat. "It's complicated..."

"Fuck, complicated....! Max is DEAD. How much more complicated do you want? Nothing else matters. Go and get the girl. Don't waste time..."

"I...it's...I have other priorities now...things devolve on me, I think...I have to make plans for the others..."

Uma turned her head and surveyed him thoughtfully. "Oh you do, do you? So who made you the king of the world?"

Terry laughed ruefully, looking down at his hands, rubbing them down his legs absently. "It's what I do. It replaces the need for emotion. You should try it some time. With any luck you might become as emotionally stunted as I am..."

"Terry, if you know the answer, then what are you doing still asking the bloody question? Stop talking in vague Sphinx-like utterances. Why did she kick you out?"

"I don't know."

"Oh, come on!"

"I don't know...if I did I would tell you. At this point I've got nothing to hide. Not from you anyway. After she left...I fooled around with a barmaid one night...I didn't screw her...okay? We just... you know? Then I knew it was a mistake. She was a nice kid. So I scared her off for her own good. But that was way after Gaia left...I swear it...I never messed her about...I love her, Ums...I don't know how I got it so wrong...I really worked hard at it this time..."

Uma scoffed. Terry smiled. He should have known that sexual misbehaviour never featured very highly on Uma's list of deadly sins. "So your girl dumps you and you go on the pull? That what's bothering you? Who are you, Mother Teresa's younger and more saintly brother?  Who doesn't fuck about when you've got a broken heart? You should see how many unwise one night stands I had after he walked out...oh God....I didn't mean to say that...I mean, it was tasteless...totally...Oh Christ! Me and my big mouth...!" she cringed at her own words, Maximus the unspoken name hovering above her implication.

Somehow the distance between them narrowed then. Terry shunted along the seat and slipped his arm about her narrow shoulders. "Everything's so mixed up. The last time Gaia and I were together...I did something I shouldn't have.  Now I can't get past it."

"Get past it, Terry!  Say it was you we'd brought back dead? It could have been...you seriously imagine she wouldn't be helpless with grief now? What's the point? Nothing matters but finding love...please, Terry, just don't give up on it! You're the bravest man I know and yet...you run from love...why is that?"

"I'm not very good at it." He didn't even offer a proper defence.

"No one is! That's the whole point. You learn it on the job, you nong! Terry, promise me you'll try...?"

He shrugged.

"Promise me!"

"Okay, okay...I promise...but if she knocks my front teeth out, you're getting the bill...."

"Deal...!" Uma smiled softly at him. "And talking about bill...what are we going to do next? That little cretin, Caulfield, is still out there. We don't know how much Mephisto kept locked away in vaults or computer files either...I mean, the pub isn't even safe anymore. They found it...who's to say there aren't other cells just waiting to put Phase Two into operation?"

"Why you asking me? Who made me the king of the world...?" Terry grinned; she pushed him away playfully.

"You know you are! You always were the king of the world! Look, Terry...I don't know how this all sounds but we've got to accept that I am some key to what happened here. Maximus and I together created some spooky vortex...Christ, it's like straight to video schlock horror stuff this, isn't it? But Max is gone and I am alone. I can't do it alone..."

"...You're not alone. You have Andy..."

"Andy is my lover. He's my friend. He's my partner. He's the father of my babies..."

"You pregnant?" Terry chuckled like it was the most absurd thing he'd ever heard.

"No, I am not but if I were...I'd be the hottest damn mother around, mate..."

"I have no doubts about that, sweetheart..."

"Good...What I was trying to say, before you so rudely interrupted, was...Andy is not the powerful uber-man with the scary force that somehow joins with me on an astral plane to make all sorts of weird things happen..."

"Well, neither am I, darlin'. I'd look so silly in tights...very unflattering to a man of my build..."

Uma started to laugh. Terry joined her and for a while, a manic hysteria possessed them. It gave them both the release that had been denied them by inability to cry. When the laughter subsided, Terry began to speak.

"I know what's still out there and I understand that this Mephisto thing is still lurking. I've got people onto it. When I get hold of Sid, who appears to have disappeared into some cyber black hole of his own - a sure sign he's guilty of something - I am going to chain his blue ass to the chair until he wipes every possible strand of connection he can find in cyberspace. But, you're right. The pub is no longer secret. However, I think we should still continue to meet there. If we don't, and someone is watching, then we will draw attention to the fact we have gone underground - and people can always be found, if you look hard enough..."

"So what do you suggest? You want Andy and me to move back to the pub? Sell the business? Much as I would hate to ask that of him, I doubt he'll argue now. And I think we need to stay close to each other, in regular contact...If I am in any way a factor, I must be near the others from now on...especially since Max is...." Her voice trailed off. It wasn't easy to say the word 'dead' even if you knew it was true.

"No...that's not what I was thinking. We must not appear to change in any way. You live in Melbourne. So live there. You've got a business to run...So run it... Maybe even start thinking of expanding, you know...?"

"Huh?"

"You found a portal in Oz...we need to have control of that...then we can all pop over as easily as saying: 'Beam me up, Scottie...' And to be fair...I am a partner in your business. I ought to drop in once a week really to check on my assets...I wouldn't put it past you to be falsifying accounts and doing me out of my profits...and people do miss Andy's cooking..."

Uma thought about what he was saying. "You mean...we have a second gathering place...a secret one? In Oz? An escape hatch via the pub? That's pretty damn smart....but that old establishment is a wreck, Terry...it would need major investment...months of work..."

"It's a good job I've got more money than sense - and no dependents, isn't it...? Christ, my saving in Aubade alone would probably pay for it..."

"Terry, you promised...!"

"That was a joke...!"

"A very sick one..."

"You know me...warped sense of humour...You up for this, Ums?"

She nodded. "What about Ann? I can't leave her alone here..."

"Take her back with you then...she'll have you two and Jeff, everybody's favourite uncle, and we can pop over whenever we like...what do you think?"

"She might say no."

"She might say yes...don't be so negative..."

"I am not negative...you're the pessimist, not me!" He gave her his look. She grinned. "Ann wants me to go to England with her to where I found Max. I think she's harbouring some vain hope that she can get him back..."

"Yeah? Do what she asks. It will fail and she will realize in time that he is gone...that's when she will need you most... and then you take her back...Uma, Dino saw the body. He was dead. Really dead..." Uma nodded, not trusting herself to words. Even she had been grasping some invisible skein of hope that maybe Ann was right. Then she suddenly knelt up on the chair, pushing him back against the cushions. "Did I ever tell you, that you're wonderful, Terrence Thorne?"

He smiled fondly at her. "No, you did not. Mostly you told me I was a dickhead...that was one of the more polite terms you used..."

"Well, dickhead for sure...but a wonderful one all the same...! Terry, we have our work cut out for us in the months ahead. But we mustn't forget our own lives..."

"..I hear you...and that goes for you too. I expect that young love god of yours to put a bun in your oven within the next twelve months...you're getting old, love...no time to waste...know what I mean?"

She curled up against his chest as he wrapped his arms around her. "I hear you, boss...loud and clear, sir...none of us have a moment to lose, as dear Jack would say..."

Huddled together outside on the wide gallery that wrapped around the front and side of the old house, Terry and Dino seemed both desperate to talk and uncomfortable to be so businesslike on this day of days.

But the truth was, the world did not stop spinning even on such days.

And the other truth was, the danger to the group was an onrushing wave that would drown them all if a solution was not found.

"While they're all here ... we'll have to discuss it," Dino was saying. "It has to be done. We can help each other but we are also each responsible for our own interests."

Terry frowned and tugged on a cigarette. Finally, he said, "We can't give them options ... if one is found, the rest are in danger ... we have to all agree but those who resist must be forced if need be."

"I doubt there will be a need. They are scared ... you can see it, feel it. They know the danger is still out there as long as Danny Caulfield is at large ... and as long as we do not know definitely where all the records and tests might be."

"Who would ever really believe it?"

"We cannot take that chance. Didn't Max's death teach us just how much we have to lose?"

"Our people are tracking what they can ... but if Sid helped them hide the information on us, then we may have little chance to retrieve it."

"And Caulfield?"

"He's on the run ... eventually, we'll get him ... it's just that the longer he's out there, the more desperate he is ... and the more chances he may take."

"We don't know what he was able to take with him on us."

"We have to presume the worst, Dino."

"Exactly."

Just then, they watched as Ralph drove up with a van-load of new arrivals. Dr. Wigand. Karen. Zack. Carol. Bud. Bridgid. They shook hands with the men, hugged the women, as each person made their way up the stairs, on their way inside.

Zack hung back, holding the door open for the others and then motioning to Carol to go on without him for a moment. He leaned toward Terry and Dino to say, "I have news. Good news, in fact."

"Then spill it, man, 'cause we can use it," Dino said, his hand coming to rest on Zack's arm.

"I don't have the details yet but a raid started at Mephisto Corporation in Chattanooga, Tennessee about an hour ago. Someone sent me a text message and I put in a call to the area supervisor ... it's being led by a joint team of FBI and ATF."

"A federal raid? On Mephisto? Jesus, that isn't good news."

"Would it be good news to know that the moment they breached the outer security, a series of detonations went off and the entire complex was apparently destroyed?"

Terry and Dino stared at Zack, mouth's open. Then looked at each other.

"Was anyone hurt?"

"Not on our team. They're still putting out the hot spots at the complex ... we don't know if anyone was inside."

"Caulfield?" Dino asked Terry.

"Or something Dunnell rigged as a failsafe ... to be set off by his security forces?"

"All the employees had been shut out of the plant ... my guess is they had a procedure in place and with all the owners either dead or unaccounted for, plus their security chief dead, they must have just shut it down until they got other instructions," Zack said.

"Could we be that lucky?"

"Maybe someone's watching out for us ... this time."

"We have to know the records were all destroyed before we declare the threat is neutralized," Terry said tersely.

Nodding, Zack said, "They will notify me when they get in to really look. Plus, apparently our Internet intelligence unit is working on this ... so far, nothing about me in there so I figure maybe ..."

"Then maybe nothing about the rest?"

"Not even Max?"

"I'll know soon enough, guys."