[FFML] [fanfic][AMG][XOVER] Drunkard's Walk V, Chapter 6

[Bob Schroeck]

Well... it took over a year and a couple bouts with writers'
block, but Chris and I overcame.  Here it is, the penultimate
chapter of DW5.  Enjoy.

-- Bob

===========================================================================
Robert M. Schroeck        rms at eclipse.net       http://www.eclipse.net/~rms
===========================================================================
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
===========================================================================

Disclaimer and credits will be found after the end of the
chapter.




            DRUNKARD'S WALK V / OH! MY BROTHER! BOOK II:
             ANOTHER DIVINE MESS YOU'VE GOTTEN ME INTO

            by Robert M. Schroeck and Christopher Angel





6.  In Which I Change My Mind About Several Things, And Get
Myself In Deeper Thereby


I don't want to start any blasphemous rumors,
But I think that God has a sick sense of humor,
And when I die I expect to find him laughing....
-- Depeche Mode, "Blasphemous Rumors"

The deluding passions are inexhaustible; I vow to destroy them.
The Dharma gates are manifold; I vow to know them.
The Buddha way is supreme; I vow to master it.
Sentient beings are numberless; I vow to save them.
-- The Four Great Vows of Mahayana Buddhism

You know your stripper from your paint
You know your sinner from your saint
Whenever Heaven's doors are shut
You kick them open, but
I know you.
-- Peter Gabriel, "Steam"




Tarikihonganji Temple Complex, Friday, May 30, 1997, 6:54 PM

Chris stood with a blank expression on his face, his arms
crossed, his breath whistling from his nose as he tried to keep
himself calm.  Before him, Belldandy worked furiously on Mara's
injured form, barking orders to Urd, who dashed in and out of the
temple.  A few feet away, Doug sat on the sidewalk in a sloppy
seiza, staring blankly at Bell's first aid efforts, his face a
study in shock.  *Doug's gone bye-bye, Egon.*  Chris absently
noted that he still held the quarterstaff, its two-meter length
now inexplicably shrunken to a six-inch hunk of wood.

The occasional passers-by walked unseeing around them, gently
guided past by a glamour that one of his sisters -- he hadn't
noticed which one -- had quickly cast.

He felt a soft touch on his arm.  "Oniichan?"  Chris turned
slightly and saw Skuld standing hesitantly beside him, with a
frowning Megumi hovering a couple of meters behind her.  "Are you
okay?"

"*When*," he began with a snarl, and Skuld recoiled slightly from
his anger.  Megumi actually growled and balled her fists at the
sound.  He stopped, closed his eyes, and took a long breath in
and out through his nose.  In a more controlled tone, he started
again.  "When *exactly* were you three planning on telling me
about this?"  He continued on, his voice becoming harsher as he
gritted his teeth.  "Did it never maybe occur to you I might want
to know that I was busy trying to maim my fucking *sister*?!"

"We were going to tell you, Chris, and soon," Belldandy stated
matter-of-factly, as her hands seemed to vanish into Mara's
chest.  The demon moaned softly.  "We simply did not expect
matters to get so... out of hand."

Chris gave a bark of humorless laughter.  "'Out of hand'.  That's
a good word for it."  He fixed his eyes on Mara.  "It could have
been me.  I could have done this to her."

"No," Urd said as she reappeared through the gate and handed a
small vial to Belldandy.  "No, you couldn't have."

Although intent on her patient, Belldandy still managed a small
nod.  "The worst you might have done would be to eject her from
her corporeal vessel.  She would not have been truly harmed.
This..." And here she lifted her gaze to Doug, her brow faintly
wrinkling in what Chris knew to be the closest thing Belldandy
had to a full-blown scowl short of her battle-rage.  "This... is
something completely different."

Skuld's lower lip quivered as she looked at the two.  "Oneesan?"

Belldandy abruptly stood, the now-empty vial in her hand.
"Enough.  She is stable and can be moved now.  When we get back
inside we can continue this."  She felt a tug on her dress and
looked down to see Mara reaching up with a trembling arm.
Belldandy knelt back down.  "Yes, Mara?"

"Damn you... Belldandy..." the demon whispered hoarsely.  "You're
always... too good... to me.  Even... went out of... your way
to... make me look good... to Hell.  You should just... let
me... die..."  She wrapped her hand around Belldandy's.  "That
way... you finally... win."

Belldandy smiled sadly as she gently squeezed Mara's hand.  "If
you die, no one wins, sister.  We all lose."  She looked up.
"Chris, would you please carry Mara into the house?  Gently."

Chris roused himself and nodded.  "Sure.  But we're not done
here, Bell."  He stepped toward Mara, who still lay shivering on
the concrete, but stopped and turned to Doug, who still seemed to
be in shock.  With a growl Chris gave the older man a swift kick
to the shoulder, nearly bowling him over.  "All right, you,
enough with the mental malfunction.  Move, Captain Kill-em-all!!"

Then he knelt at Mara's side and carefully slid his arms under
her shoulders and knees before standing back up with her in his
arms.  She made a few soft mewling sounds that might have been
protests, a grimace of pain flickering across her face.  To his
surprise, she snuggled up to his chest as soon as he was on his
feet, and he marveled for a moment at how light she felt.

Then he looked over at Belldandy.  "Which bedroom are we putting
her in?"

"Mine, please," Belldandy replied.  Chris nodded slightly in
affirmation, and with almost fanatical care carried his burden
into and through the temple yard.  His sisters and their guests
followed behind him, their footsteps echoing dully from the
flagstones of the walkway.  As he turned toward the house, the
gate clattered shut.

                               * * *

Hidden within a slash of shadow cast by the temple wall, the imp
Senbei lurked, his customary black leather doing as much to help
him blend in as his blonde hair did to hinder it.  His large eyes
were unreadable as he watched the serene but frantic treatment
his mistress Mara received at the hands of the middle goddess.

When the once-mortal godling began shouting, Senbei shrank back
further into the shadow which cloaked him.  He knew he was no
match for even the goddess-child, who could strike him down and
snuff him out without a second thought, let alone the warlike
Celestial newcomer.  But his greatest fears were not of either of
them -- it was, instead, facing either of the mortals.  The
servitor would not just kill him, had she the chance -- Senbei
instinctively knew she would gleefully make him *hurt* first.
And the wizard...  Senbei simply shuddered and refused to imagine
the awful possibilities.

The imp curled up deeper into the narrow wedge of shadow when the
middle sister stood abruptly, silencing the godling's anger.  His
eyes lost their expressionless cast and grew wide when Paradox
knelt and with extraordinary gentleness lifted Mara into his arms.
"Mistress..." he breathed as Paradox then led the rest back into
the temple.

For a moment, Senbei was torn.  The temple was holy ground --
anathema to his kind, even with its wards shattered.  But his
mistress was being brought inside its bounds.  Two impulses
warred within him for a moment, until the fear gave way.

He carefully waited until the last of the inhabitants had
disappeared inside the distant house.  Then Senbei held a breath
he did not actually need and slipped through the hole that had
been blasted through the temple wall.  When holy power did not
strike him down for his effrontery, he released his breath and
scampered over to the closest window.

                               * * *

Chris paused at the front door to let Belldandy open and hold it
for him.  With exquisite care he slowly threaded Mara and himself
through the entrance, then continued on to Belldandy's room.
Once more he stood to one side, letting said sister ahead of him
again to open the door and prepare the bed.

He laid Mara gently on the bed, and as she reclined he gazed at
his newest sister with an unreadable expression.  With an almost
tender motion he smoothed the hair back from her face.  At the
touch, Mara's eyes opened and she stared up at him with a dazed
smile on her face.  "Thanks, ototo-kun," she murmured, and patted
his hand clumsily before falling back into unconsciousness.

Filled with a sudden, overwhelming need to leave right now, Chris
turned and fled the room, roughly shouldering aside Skuld and
Megumi in his haste.  And only Doug's inhuman reflexes kept him
from being run down as Chris flung himself out the front door and
into the yard.

Back in the bedroom, both Belldandy and Urd had watched Chris's
departure with identical expressions of concern.  Then Urd ducked
her head for a moment as Belldandy worried her lower lip with her
teeth.  "'Niichan..." Urd breathed.

Belldandy closed her eyes for a moment.  "As if matters were not
hard enough for Oniisan already.  He is not taking this well."

Urd lifted her head and favored her younger sister with a raised
eyebrow.  "Oh, you think?"

"Urd," Belldandy sighed.  "Sarcasm doesn't help anyone right
now."

"Then don't retreat into an airhead Captain Obvious persona,
little sister," Urd riposted.  "We have too much on our plates
for that."

Belldandy nodded.  "True enough."  She reached out and brushed a
curling lock of blonde hair away from Mara's face.  "Though
there is precious little we can do about much of it."

Urd turned her eyes upon Mara and studied her intently.  "She
*is* that bad off?"

"Yes."  Belldandy caressed the sleeping demon's cheek.  "The
complications from her Fall combined with the damage from that...
*weapon*..."  She made the word sound like an obscenity before
turning a stern gaze upon her sister.  "Where did that staff
come from, Urd?  It was not in Doug's possession before today."

Urd grimaced.  "Heaven."

Belldandy folded her arms and simply looked at her.

"I'm serious, sister," Urd continued.  "It was in a box of random
ensorcelled junk that Skuld brought down some weeks ago.  It's
been sitting on my side bench ever since.  I'd been meaning to go
through it and identify it all, but never got around to it."  She
frowned as a suspicion dawned.  "You don't think..."

"I don't think it really matters one way or another," Belldandy
replied, shaking her head.  "Not at the moment.  Afterwards,
maybe..."

"So what do we do now?" Urd asked.  "About Mara, and about
everything else?"

"For Mara?"  Belldandy sighed softly.  "We've already done all we
can.  And it will not be enough.  So we will gather everyone
together and let them know."

Urd shook her head.  "Poor Chris."

"Yes," Belldandy agreed.  "Poor Chris."  She caressed her
sleeping sister's cheek once more.  "And poor Mara."  She studied
the demon.

Urd was sure she saw a glimmer of moisture at the corners of
Belldandy's eyes.

"And poor us."

                               * * *

As the door slammed behind Chris, Megumi and Skuld exchanged
looks.

Then they stepped to the door, opened it just enough to peer
out, and watched the young god's retreating back.

"'Niichan..." Skuld breathed, then shook her head.  "He's not
going to want anyone going after him."

"Then I'm probably the best choice to do it," Doug's voice came
from behind them.  They both started, having forgotten he was
there in the emotion of the moment.

"'Scuse me," he continued as he slipped between them and out the
door.

They watched for a few moments more as Doug raced after Chris,
and both men vanished through the gate, one after the other.

Skuld let the door close, then turned and slumped against the
wall next to it.  Megumi did the same on the other side, and
let herself slide down to sit on the floor.  A moment later,
Skuld followed her down.

The hallway was quiet for several minutes, with only the faint
whisper of Urd and Belldandy's voices, unintelligible but audible,
drifting down its length.

Megumi took a deep breath.  "She's really your sister?"

"Yeah," Skuld said softly, and a little sadly.

Megumi shook her head.  "Well, shit."

"Yeah," Skuld said, her eyes moist.  "Yeah".  She stood up
suddenly.  "C'mon, I have to get out of here, too," she announced
and stepped outside.

Megumi blinked, then scrambled to her feet and followed,
catching up with the girl quickly enough.

They crossed the temple yard almost all the way to the front
gate.  Skuld's determined march, and the matching expression on
her face, inspired a strange mix of apprehension and amusement in
Megumi.  It was still hard sometimes to think of the girl as the
goddess she was, and at moments like that, some of Skuld's more
serious mannerisms seemed almost funny.

When they finally stopped -- well out of earshot of the house,
Megumi noted -- Skuld turned to her and without preamble
declared, "I should have said this to you days ago, but I forgot
about it in all the excitement -- I'm sorry about the command I
gave you when 'Niichan had his... seizure.  I shouldn't've done
that without warning you it was even possible."

Megumi studied the girl for a few moments.  "It was damned scary,
Skuld.  It was like someone else was running my body and I was
just a passenger."

Skuld nodded contritely, ending with her head bowed and her face
shrouded by her long hair.  "Yeah, and I'm really sorry I did
that to you.  All I can say is that it was an accident, 'cause I
was worried about 'Niichan, and if I'd had time to think about it
I would never have done it.  But things were just happening too
fast."  She peered up through her bangs at the older girl, her
eyes mournful and glistening.  "You're not mad at me, are you?"

For a moment, Megumi almost burst out in hysterical laughter.
Skuld was ultimately one of the oldest and most powerful
goddesses in any pantheon, someone who held the fates of every
living creature in her hands.  And at the same time she was a
rueful child hoping she hadn't alienated a friend.  The contrast
was almost more than she could take.  She drew a deep breath,
then smiled and reached out to ruffle Skuld's cowlick.  "No,
kiddo, I'm not mad at you.  Ooof!"  Skuld had thrown herself at
Megumi and clamped her arms around the older girl.  Absently,
Megumi noticed that the top of Skuld's head reached her
shoulders.  *She'd definitely starting to grow up.*

"I'm so glad!  I didn't want you upset!" Skuld mumbled into
Megumi's upper arm.

"Well," she slowly admitted, "I was, for a little while.  Like I
said, scary.  But I got over it.  And anyway, you *did* warn me
about it."  Over the top of Skuld's head, Megumi grimaced.
"Maybe I didn't quite understand exactly what you were trying to
tell me, and maybe I should have asked more questions about what
I was getting myself into.  But I thought that losing some of my
free will meant, you know, agreeing to take orders from you like
a soldier in the Defense Force takes orders."

Skuld loosened her grip and leaned back enough to look up at her.
"Well yeah," she said with a sniff, and quickly scrubbed at her
nose with the back of one hand.  "It did... does.  But there's
just a little more to it than that."

In spite of herself, Megumi laughed.  "I should have remembered.
If I've learned anything from you and your sisters, there's
*always* a little bit more to it.  For *everything*."

Skuld giggled.  "Yeah, I guess."

Megumi ruffled her cowlick again.  "Part and parcel of you guys
being gods, I guess."  She grew pensive once more.  "Still, it
was my responsibility, and my choice.  I can't really be mad at
anyone but myself, and that gets kinda boring after a while."

The little goddess giggled again, then hiccupped.  "Are we okay
then?" she asked softly.

"Yeah," Megumi said, stepping back to look down into Skuld's
eyes.  "Yeah, we're okay."  She smirked, and a bit of mischief
twinkled in her eye.  "Boss."

"Oh, *don't*," Skuld whined, and lightly smacked Megumi's arm.
"It's not going to be like that.  It's *not* like that now."

"I know."  Megumi grinned down at her.  "I just like yanking your
chain.  Makes me feel more like an equal in this relationship."

Skuld stepped back, scowling, and shook a finger at her.  "Keep
it up, and I'll ask Freya to find you a boyfriend.  Or worse,
*Aphrodite*.  Trust me, you *don't* want that."

Megumi blinked, then chuckled.  "I'll take your word on it."  She
looked back at the house and sobered as her mind turned back to
Mara and the events around her.  "Now what happens?" she asked in
a softer, more tentative voice.

Skuld's scowl vanished, and her eyes began to glisten again.  "I
don't know.  We'll have to ask Belldandy."

"And is Chris going to be all right?" Megumi asked in an even
softer voice.

"I hope so."

                               * * *

Senbei ducked back down into the bushes.  It sounded like the
Mistress was still alive, but badly injured.  He bit his lip as
he considered this.  It was almost impossible to learn anything
of his Mistress' fate out here.  But he dare not enter the house
proper -- the goddesses would surely detect him as soon as he
tried.

He would just have to lurk at windows until he found the right
one.  Senbei gave a little nod as he came to the decision.

That settled, he slipped back to the house, retracing his steps
along the circuitous but sheltered route that he had used to
follow the goddess and her servant.

                               * * *

I would have followed Chris at a respectful distance as he left
the temple, had he cared to cooperate with a mere mortal, but the
SOB cheated.  Even though I was mere seconds behind him, he was
already nowhere to be seen when I barreled through the gate and
out onto the street.

Looking around, I growled softly when I realized he'd almost
certainly invoked a timestop and then buggered off.  He could
have already been literally anywhere on earth or in heaven before
I'd even reached the sidewalk.

"<Shit,>" I swore softly, looking up into the late afternoon
sky.  Unbidden, the image came to my mind's eye of a cartoon-
style fluffy-cloud Heaven somewhere up there suddenly invaded by
a fuming Chris, barreling past a protesting Saint Peter and
bursting through the Pearly Gates as panic-stricken angels leapt
out of his way.

I couldn't help myself; I smiled and snorted in amusement.  Still
smiling, I shook my head.  "Good luck, guy," I murmured, then
turned to head back into the temple.  My amusement vanished.
Time to face the music.

I had just closed the temple gate behind me when I heard the
sound of running footsteps on the sidewalk outside.

                               * * *

There was a faint creak as the front gate to the temple eased
open a bare crack, just enough to reveal a hazel-hued human eye.
It flicked left and right, then up, just to be sure.

"What d'ya see?" Rachel's voice hissed from somewhere beyond the
gate.

The eye (no doubt accompanied by its hidden partner) rolled once,
squeezed shut, and then reopened after a two-count.  "Nothing,"
Ami hissed back.

"*Nothing?*  With all the freakin' blood smears out on the
sidewalk?"  The coed's voice carried her incredulity clearly.
"It looks like they were practically having a war out here!"

"Well, they *aren't* having a war in *here*," Ami snapped.  The
gate suddenly swung wide, propelled by a vicious shove that left
Ami with her arm outstretched.

Behind her, Rachel peered over her shoulder.  "Huh."  She
shouldered her way past the policewoman and began to stride
along the walkway to the house with a determined gait.  "Okay,
let's find out what happened."

"Screw that," Ami snarled.  "I want to talk to Chris' boss about
messing with our dates.  I swear He's doing it on purpose."

"He may well be," said a voice.  Behind them, the gate suddenly
slammed shut.  They spun around, driven by shock and surprise, to
find Doug rubbing his nose and standing about where the gate had
stopped when she'd shoved it open.  "Ow," he added without any
heat before giving the tip of his nose a final rub.  "From what
I've heard, it sounds like Chris's boss is a real asshole.  I
wouldn't put it past him to be jerking you guys around just for
shits and giggles.  But this isn't really a good time."

"The hell with 'good time'!" she spat.

Rachel nodded vigorously.  "What she said!"

Ami shot her a grin, then turned her attention back to Doug.
"We're trying to make this damned arrangement work, and he's
stacking the deck against all three of us!  Neither of us
particularly feels like being a toy for his amusement!"

"Yeah!"

Doug sighed.  "Look.  I know that.  I'm the one who suggested
trying things this way, remember?"  He rubbed his eyes, and
Rachel realized that he was far more subdued than she'd ever seen
him.  "Believe me, I support your right to say and do this, and
under any other circumstances I'd happily hold your jacket while
you went to work on the Big Guy with a billy club, but like I
said, this is a *really* bad time."

Ami opened her mouth to snarl another rejoinder, but snapped it
shut when Rachel suddenly laid a hand on her shoulder.  "Bad
how?" the coed asked.

Doug took a deep breath.  "Bad as in family tragedy."

Both girls' eyes went wide.  "Who...?" Ami asked as Rachel
demanded, "What happened?"

"A sister Chris didn't know he had," Doug replied softly.  "And
I almost killed her.  I may still have."  For a moment he stared
sadly at his hands; then he looked back up at the two of them.

"Marller!" Rachel breathed.

Doug frowned.  "No, *Mara*."

"But he said..." Rachel began, before Ami silenced her with a
wave of a hand.

"The *demon* he told us about?" she asked in a low tone.  "The
one he's had so much trouble with?  She's *another* sister?"

Doug gave them a sad smile.  "Every family has its black sheep,
y'know?"

Ami glanced across at Rachel.  "You really want these people for
in-laws?"

Rachel shrugged.  "I was actually kinda half-expecting something
like this, so, yeah, I'm actually cool with it, more or less."
She peered closely at Ami.  "What about you?"

"Feh."  Ami dismissed the idea with another wave.  "After my
asshole cousin Jiro, I think I can cope with a demon sister-in-
law."

"You might not have to," Doug pointed out solemnly.

Rachel's eyes widened again, and she raised a hand to her mouth
as realization set in.  "Oh, god, Chris must be feeling *awful*."
She shared a look with Ami, and the two nodded.

"You just missed him, but he should be back soon," Doug said
before they could ask.  "I'm sure you're welcome to wait for him
in the house."

Judging from the look on his face, the hug Rachel enveloped him
in had caught Doug by surprise.  She held him tightly and
murmured, "Thank you.  And don't worry, I'm sure they don't blame
you."

His eyebrows shot up, and Ami smiled.  "And if Chris does blame
you, we'll set him straight," she said as she added her own
awkward but companionable one-armed hug to the mix.

                               * * *

After giving me a completely unexpected double hug, the two girls
took off at a run for the house.  In spite of the seriousness of
events, I had to smile -- briefly -- at their energy.  With a
shake of my head I headed for the house myself, wondering what
was going to happen next.

When I got back inside, Chris was, of course, already there.  His
shoes were off and in their cubby, and he was speaking in low
tones with Belldandy and Urd as his girls quietly bracketed him.

I blinked in momentary surprise.

For just an instant I suspected Chris of merely running around to
the back of the temple and slipping in through the postern gate
in the rear wall, but then I took a good look at him.  His
clothes were wrinkled and stained with sweat, and his face was
darkened by a five o'clock shadow that hadn't been in existence
only a few minutes earlier by my personal clock.

He was also about three orders of magnitude calmer than he'd been
when he'd stormed out.

So, immediate obvious conclusion:  He'd spent several subjective
hours (at a minimum) in his timestop, venting somehow.  Probably
just screaming or swearing or something, as the goofy conditions
of his particular godly gift (as I understood it) would pop him
immediately back into normal time if he tried to touch -- or
punch, or break -- something solid.

(Other than the ground under his feet, I guess.  Or did he
unconsciously fly just *above* the ground when timestopped?  And
why didn't *air* hitting his body make him... oh, hell, let's
just note that I never asked him, and at this late date it's all
academic anyway.  Not to mention it's nowhere near relevant to
the topic at hand.  Speaking of which...)

After receiving a kiss on the cheek from each of his sisters, he
headed off for the bath without a glance in my direction, escorted
by Rachel and Ami -- who, I noted, did *not* follow him into the
furoba.

Belldandy *did* glance in my direction, though, and gave me a
smile so faint and sad that her lips were almost in a straight
line -- a rare expression for her indeed, in my experience.
"Doug," she said softly, "there will be a family meeting about
Mara's condition in the dining room just as soon as Chris gets
cleaned up and dressed."

I nodded.  "I understand.  I'll make myself scarce."

"Oh, no."  She shook her head.  "That's not necessary.  On the
contrary, we would like you to take part."

Uh-oh.

                               * * *

Tarikihonganji Temple Complex, Friday, May 30, 1997, 7:40 PM

"I must be frank," Belldandy declared quietly.  "Mara is dying."

Up until this point, their family meetings -- at least those that
I had been aware of -- had all taken place in the kitchen, with
the door shut and obvious (to me) wards raised against potential
eavesdroppers.  *This* meeting, though, took place in the dining
room, with everyone in their accustomed seats.

Including Megumi and myself, and to my momentary surprise, Rachel
and Ami.

Now Megumi's presence was understandable, as she was family twice
over -- once by blood to Keiichi, and once again by virtue of her
service to Skuld.

And Rachel and Ami, I realized with a moment's thought, were both
bound to Chris by various divine shenanigans.  They may not have
been Servitors, but their connections to him were apparently of
similar strength or status.  Not to mention that at least one of
them was *guaranteed* to become a family member eventually.

But me?  No, I was just the annoying house guest.  As I took my
usual place next to Skuld, I knew that I was not here as family.
In fact, I rather suspected that I was there as defendant.

Some rather morose thoughts following along those lines were
temporarily discarded when Belldandy began the meeting with her
simple declaration.  Looking up, I studied Belldandy's face,
noticing out of the corners of my eyes the shocked expressions on
almost everyone else.  She had spoken without raising her eyes
from where her hands lay clasped in her lap, so it was harder to
read her expression, but I was pretty sure she was close to
tears.

"She's stable and comfortable, for the moment," Urd took over
from her younger sister, "but 'stable' isn't the same thing as
'recovering'."

I glanced around the table as silence answered her.  Outside, a
bird sang gaily for a moment, stopped, and sang again.  Megumi
did nothing to hide her obvious and malicious glee at Belldandy's
announcement, but Skuld was biting her lower lip, her eyes wide
and glistening with tears that threatened to spill out at any
moment.  Chris scowled furiously, his fists clenched so tightly
that their knuckles were yellow-white against the surrounding
red-flushed skin.  Ami noticed, and laid her hand over his, while
Rachel wrapped an arm around his shoulders.

"I thought you healed her wounds?" Keiichi asked cautiously.  I
nodded.  I'd hurt her badly -- it would have certainly been fatal
without treatment -- but I hadn't killed her outright.  With the
powers available to them, the goddesses should have been able to
restore her with little trouble.

"We have," Belldandy said.  "While regenerating her physical body
is somewhat tiring, it was not at all difficult.  But that isn't
the true problem."

"Then what is?" I asked in growing confusion.

"The... weapon you used," her eyes darted almost fearfully toward
the staff, now collapsed again and peeking out of my pocket,
"affected her on more than just the physical level.  It has
somehow damaged her already-weakened Celestial structure, the web
of forces and energies that make up her true being.  They are
unraveling... slowly, but not slowly enough."  Her voice
quavered and cracked, and she stopped.  She covered her eyes with
her hand, hiding the visible distress that I saw there.

"In a day, maybe less," Urd picked up, "all that our sister is
will evaporate back into the primal energies of the multiverse."

Before they could say anything more, Chris abruptly stood up
and walked out of the room, his face stone.

                               * * *

Exchanging a quick glance, Ami and Rachel stood and chased after
him, into the evening twilight of the yard.  Reaching her hand up
to touch his arm, Ami stepped towards him, but found Rachel's
stopping her.  Looking over, Ami saw Rachel shaking her head
slowly.

"Chris?" Ami said, choosing to try speaking first.  "What's
wrong?"

No answer.

"Chris?" Rachel echoed.

Chris didn't say anything for a minute, but then sighed and began
to shift idly back and forth on his feet, like he wanted to walk
somewhere and stay where he was at the same time.  He took a
breath as if to speak, but just ended up holding it for a couple
seconds, before letting it out explosively.  He lifted a hand up,
and noticed his fist was clenched and trembling.  With quick
steps, he strode to a nearby bench and sat, leaning forward,
elbows on knees, his face in his hands.

"Do you two know what I was, a year and change ago?  I was a
nerd, who went to his job, came home, played video games and
watched anime. That was it.  I had one or two really good
friends, and one brother.  Then, all of a sudden, I have three
sisters.  I have semi-brothers.  I have loads of people who want
to be my friend, for reasons both pure and impure.  Oh yeah, did
I mention I'm suddenly a fucking god, too?  And suddenly the
dateless wonder had not one, but *two* hot women after him.  And
you know what?  That was okay.  I could deal with that.  Hell,  I
could even *like* it, and *love* my sisters, and maybe make
something with those two women.  And I could almost forget that
weeks would go by and I wouldn't talk to my parents, or I'd never
even think of my brother or my old friends."

Ami sat down beside him, and began gently rubbing his back, as
Rachel went to kneel in front of him.

"Even the enemies we got weren't so bad, even if half the time I
wanted to, and sometimes even tried to, eviscerate some of them.
Then finally, someone goes and *does* do that to one of them --
the one I would have told you this morning I hated most -- the
same thing I was going to do, and lo and behold, she's another
fucking sister!  And now she's going to die, and... and... I just
don't know.  How am I supposed to deal with this?  What else is
That Jerk going to pile on me before I can't deal?"

His shoulders began to jerk, as he was fighting to not sob.  Ami
continued to rub his back, pressing herself to his side, while
Rachel grabbed Chris's hands and pulled them from his face.  "Oh
Chris," she said softly, "whatever it is, whatever happens, you
can stand it.  You're stronger than you realize.  And no matter
what..." she trailed off and exchanged a glance with Ami, who
nodded slightly, "we'll both be there to help you."

                               * * *

Megumi took advantage of the family meeting's collapse to slip
out of the dining room.  Skuld of course noticed, but Megumi just
mouthed "Toilet" and the little goddess nodded understandingly.

Padding down the hallway, though, Megumi passed by the facilities
without a glance.  She'd swing by there on the way back to
maintain the technical truth behind her absence, just in case
Skuld could tell somehow through their bond.  Megumi wasn't sure
any more just how much she'd really put in Skuld's hands with her
oath of service, but after what happened during Chris' seizure
she wasn't going to take any chances.  She was probably going to
take some flak as it was; no need to make it worse.

With almost no conscious thought, Megumi halted at the door to
Belldandy's room.  She stared at it for a moment, then slid it
open as silently as she could.  Then she took one step and halted
on the threshold.

Megumi stood in the doorway and stared at the figure on the
futon.  In the dim light of the hallway lamp shining in through
the door, the blonde hair looked greyish, the pale skin all but
white.  Only the demon marks on her face, burning red like
inflamed, fresh scars over her closed eyes, seemed to give Mara
any color.

"I know you're there," Mara whispered.  Her eyes remained
closed.

"Yeah," Megumi spat.

"You've got every right to be angry with me," the demon said. "If
it helps at all, I'm actually sorry I did what I did to you. It
wasn't anything personal, you know.  You were just...
convenient."

"Convenient?"  Rage bubbled up inside her, and Megumi struggled
to control it.  "I was a handy tool, that's all?" she hissed.
"Used and thrown away when you were done with me?"

"I *said* I'm sorry about that."  Mara's voice, though weak,
still managed to sound annoyed.

Megumi slid entirely into the room.  "Well, *I* *don't* *care*
that you're sorry," she snarled.  She dropped to her knees,
leaned over, and spoke directly into Mara's ear.  "I'm going to
*enjoy* watching you vanish into nothingness."

Mara turned her head and looked directly into Megumi's eyes, and
her expression changed from one of resigned annoyance to a look
of horror mixed with shocked recognition, as if she were truly
*seeing* something for the first time.  Then her head fell back
on the pillow as she looked up at the ceiling and her focus
changed, as if she were looking at something a great distance
away from her.  When next she spoke, her voice was nothing but an
infinitely tired whisper.  But Megumi heard it clearly, as if
echoing up from a well.

"Y'know, it's that kind of attitude that got me where I am now."

"Megumi."

Belldandy's voice never deviated from its usual mild tones, but
it struck Megumi like a whipcrack.  She shot to her feet and spun
to face the goddess, shame flooding her as her cheeks began to
burn with its flush.

Belldandy stood in the bedroom doorway much as Megumi had a few
moments before, a look of such intense *disappointment* on her
face that Megumi's shame grew to include almost crippling guilt.
She caught Megumi with her gaze and held her there for a moment
before shaking her head sadly.  "This is not worthy of you,"
she said simply, before stepping fully into the room.  "Go back
to Skuld and tell her what you've done."

As if propelled by a shove from behind, Megumi sprinted from the
room without saying another word.

Belldandy watched her go, and shook her head sadly.  Then she
turned her attention back to Mara.  "Oneesan..." she began.

"Can it, Bell," Mara snapped.  "You don't need to say anything.
Morisato's sister already let the cat out of the bag.  Besides, I
can feel it eating away at me.  I'm dying.  Finally.  After all
this time."

Wordlessly, Belldandy nodded as a single tear slid down her
cheek.

Mara grit her teeth.  "So.  How long?"

"Less than a day, we think."  Belldandy stared at her, eyes
filled with a terrible agony.  "Certainly by sundown
tomorrow."

"I knew this was coming," Mara continued.  "I knew that sooner or
later my luck would run out.  Nobody's survived as long as I
have, after all.  Not that I expected it to happen this way," she
added with a sardonic chuckle.

"We'll do everything we can to make you comfortable, oneesan,"
Belldandy whispered.

"It's my own fault that I Fell, anyway," Mara continued as though
she hadn't heard.  "Foolishness and a hot head broke me.  It's
only fitting that they finally do me in, too.  Still..."  She
closed her eyes and sighed.

Belldandy reached out and touched her hand.  "Mara?"

"You know what I want, Belldandy?"  As Mara closed her fingers
around Belldandy's, she opened her eyes again to stare at the
ceiling above her.  "I'd really like one last look at home,
before I go."  She turned her head and gazed into her sister's
eyes.  "Bell...  I want to see Heaven once more before I die."

Belldandy's eyes went wide.  "Are you saying what I think you're
saying?"

Mara bit her lip and nodded.  "I've spent far too many centuries
taking my self-hatred out on you three, and then on Morisato, and
after him Christopher -- especially Christopher, for getting *so*
easily what I lost, and for not being... for not being *worthy*
of what he received from his wish.  I regret it all.  I miss you
three.  I miss Home.  I know I won't have either for long after,
but...  I want to Redeem."  Her grip on Belldandy's hand
tightened with an almost desperate intensity. "While I still have
the chance."

"Redemption..." Belldandy breathed.

Mara nodded.  "Will you ask Father, please?  Ask him to let me
come home, just long enough to die there?"

Belldandy smiled, and squeezed Mara's hand once more.  "Of course
I will, oneesan."

                               * * *

Outside, Senbei lurked just below the window sill as he
eavesdropped.  Although by the laws of Hell and his own nature he
was forbidden to have unselfish concern for the welfare of
another, they did permit him to care for Mara's fate when it was
cast in terms of his own self-interest; should his Mistress die,
at best he would be reassigned to another demon first class, and
at worst he would be shredded into his component Forces by her
rivals and enemies.

But Senbei was very concerned for his Mistress, in ways that
would have resulted in his permanent dissolution had any of the
Pit's enforcers peered into his mind at that moment.

As Belldandy's had, his eyes widened when he heard Mara declare
her intent to defect.  Then his small face collapsed in despair
and pain.  Loyal he may have been to his Mistress.  But other,
greater, loyalties were literally woven into the fabric of his
being -- loyalties he could not defy.

Slowly, reluctantly, Senbei worked the magicks that would take
him back to Hell.

                               * * *

After Belldandy left, Mara had only a few moments' peace before
she sensed yet another visitor slipping into the room.  He had
ghosted in far more subtly than Megumi had, but she was not yet
so far gone that she would miss a presence like his.

"Sangnoir," she said tonelessly, not bothering to open her eyes
again.

"Yeah," he replied quietly.

"So," she let some of the resentment she felt at her fate bleed
into her voice, "you here to sneer and gloat at me like
Morisato's sister?"

There was the briefest pause.  "No, I'm here to apologize."

Mara opened one eye and studied him.  The arrogance that had
infused his every movement whenever she'd watched him before
seemed to have fled him.  "For what?" she asked after a moment.

That got a raised eyebrow which spoiled the borderline penitent
image he presented.  "Well, for killing you, more or less."

"Feh," she said with a weak wave of her hand.  "Fortunes of war.
Not your fault.  I let my temper get the better of me again, and
suffered for it."  Then, more softly, she added, "Like always.
That's the story of my life, after all."

For a long moment neither said anything more.

Then Sangnoir shifted slightly, and what remained of his faint
air of penitence seemed to evaporate.  "I overheard what you said
to Belldandy."

She closed her eye again.  "Did you, then."

"Were you serious?"

Mara sincerely wished she had the energy to give a really good
snarl at that moment.  "Of course not.  It's actually part of a
diabolically clever plot.  I will take advantage of my younger
sister's trusting nature in order to storm and conquer Heaven
entirely by myself in the few hours I have left before my wounded
and weakened Celestial structure loses all coherence and I vanish
into nothingness, reduced to my component energies."

There was another long moment of silence.

"I think I might see one or two very small flaws in that plan,"
Sangnoir said finally, in such deadpan tones of absolute
seriousness that Mara could not resist a faint smile.

"Oh well, then," she said, matching his tone, "maybe I should
come up with something else instead."

"Maybe you should."  That same deadpan seriousness lasted only
a few more moments before he gave in to a good-natured chuckle.
"Okay, yeah, dumb question.  It's just that..."

"Yes?"

Sangnoir paused for a moment before continuing.  When he did, his
voice was underlaid with an open vein of raw pain that only the
day before Mara would have jumped to exploit.  "I know what it's
like to be trapped far from home, with no way to get back.  To be
dying there...  That's something I don't even want to think
about.  If you're sincere about this, then I'll do everything in
my power to help."

For the first time since he'd entered the room, Mara opened both
eyes.  She looked him over.  Dying she may be, but she could
still read a mortal.  He meant what he said.

She narrowed her eyes at him.  "Who *are* you, anyway?  I thought
I knew all the spellcasters active on Earth at the moment.  And
Hell can't find any records of you that aren't spying reports
from the last few weeks."

Sangnoir smiled sheepishly.  "Sorry.  I'm a dimensional traveler,
from a parallel Earth."  He paused and frowned in thought for a
moment.  "Or maybe not so parallel.  But an Earth, no doubt about
it.  That's why you can't find anything on me.  I'm not a local."

Mara nodded slowly.  "Explorer?"

He shook his head.  "Refugee."  The pain had returned to his
voice.  "I was tossed out of my universe by an enemy, and I've
been trying to find my way back for a decade now."  For a moment
he grit his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut, before relaxing
again.  "So believe me, I really do know what it's like for you.
Intimately.  So you'll have all the help I can give, without
reservation."

In spite of herself -- in spite of habits and reflexes learned
through agony and betrayal over centuries uncountable in the
service of Hell -- Mara was genuinely touched by the offer.  It
was almost certain that he was making it in complete ignorance of
what he offered, but the fact that a mortal -- one whom she had
literally tried to vaporize not an hour earlier -- was willing to
help her evoked long-forgotten feelings in her, feelings of
gratitude... and shame.

"Thank you," she finally whispered.

Sangnoir sketched a small bow which while light-hearted in
execution was anything but mocking.  "All part of the service."

                               * * *

Tarikihonganji Temple Complex, Friday, May 30, 1997, 7:56 PM

*And so it comes to this,* Belldandy thought, one hand on the
telephone as she looked around the room.  They were all there
with her.  Ami and Rachel sat on either side of Chris, their
constant feud suspended as they both supported him.  Even Megumi
was here, although her hostility toward Mara was almost a
palpable darkness in the corner where she sat near Skuld.

And almost diametrically across the room from the younger
Morisato sat Doug.  To her immense surprise, he did not mirror
Megumi's enmity.  Instead, one corner of his mouth flicked up in
a ghost of a smile when he spotted her looking at him; he nodded
fractionally, as though to confirm that he approved the course of
action she was about to undertake.

Confused but grateful, she returned the smile before glancing
finally at Keiichi, who sat by her side.  He, too, nodded
encouragingly.  For a moment Belldandy wondered at her growing
uncertainty, hoping it wasn't an intuition -- or worse, a portent
of a future near enough to *almost* be the present.  Never before
had she felt so keenly the lack of the omniscience possessed by
so many of her other selves throughout the multiverse.  The
uncertainty was agonizing.

Before she could let herself dwell further on that, Belldandy
forced herself to pick up the receiver and dial the long, long
number that would connect her to Heaven.

                               * * *

I watched in frank fascination as Belldandy simply picked up the
very mundane telephone and punched at least twenty digits into
its keypad.  I resisted the urge to shake my head, but geeze, the
way Celestials did things in this universe.  Every time I thought
I understood them, there was a new twist.

A *telephone* link to Heaven?

"Weird" just did *not* cover it.

But I made a mental note to try the redial if I had a chance.

(What?  I had -- have -- more than a couple philosophical
questions about the nature of mortal existence that I think are
rather important, and if I could reach some kind of Customer
Service department, I fully intended to *ask* them.

Yes, politely.

Well, at least at first.

Anyway...)

Belldandy finished dialing with a little flick of the fingers
that would have meant nothing for anyone else, but which for her
understated style was practically a grand flourish.  She
straightened up from the half-bow she'd made over the phone, and
suddenly she radiated a confidence and determination that she
hadn't had a few moments before.

"Hello, Megaera, it's Belldandy," she said firmly.  "May I speak
to Father, please?"

Whatever Megaera said in reply (and don't think I didn't raise an
eyebrow at Bell talking to another aspect of the Three like a
separate person), it wasn't what Belldandy was expecting.  Some
of that confidence evaporated.  "Meg-chan, it's *important*.
Could you please... Oh, wait!  Don't transfer..."

Her face fell.  This wasn't looking good, and I wasn't the only
one who felt that way -- Urd and Skuld were exchanging worried
glances.

Megumi had picked up on the change in the atmosphere and looked
positively gleeful.  First Chris and now Mara...  Someone really
needed to give that girl a good talking-to, and I decided I'd
whisper a word or two of advice in Skuld's ear after the current
mess was cleared up.

Meanwhile, Belldandy had gathered her dignity and confidence
again, and was standing tall and straight once more as she spoke
into the receiver.  "This is Belldandy, goddess first class,
unlimited license.  I need to speak to Father immedi... oh,
please!"  She almost wilted.

Across the room, Chris growled, prompting Ami and Rachel to hold
his hands tightly and lean into him.  "Are they giving you a
runaround, Bell?" he asked in low, dangerous tones.

The expression in her eyes was bleak.  "They put me on hold!  I
*never* get put on hold!"

In any other circumstances it might have been funny, but not now,
not with Mara's life trickling away entirely too quickly.  Skuld
suddenly jumped and stared at me, and I realized that like Chris,
I too had just growled in anger and frustration.

Belldandy's attention swiveled back to the phone.  "Yes!  Yes,
please, I...  Yes, I understand."  Her shoulders slumped and the
energy seemed to drain out of her entirely.  After a few more
moments she spoke again, almost mechanically.  "Father, this is
Belldandy.  Mara is dying and wants to Redeem.  Please respond as
soon as you can."

Slowly, she hung up the phone and turned back to us.  "They...
I..." she began, and gestured vaguely, helplessly with her hands.
Keiichi was there in an instant, and put his arms around her
shoulders.

"They handed you off to voice mail," I said, and it wasn't until
I'd spoken that I realized the cold anger I felt that betrayed
itself through my words.  (Only much later would I even be able
to think about the fundamental humor and weirdness of phone tag
and voice mail in *Heaven*.)

"Yes," Belldandy whispered, and bit her lip -- something I'd
never seen her do before.  "I don't understand.  Requests for a
Redemption *always* have priority.  And Father always takes them
personally.  Something is *very* wrong here."

Chris emitted another wordless growl, and both of his girls
wrapped their arms around him in an attempt to comfort and calm
him.  Absently, I noted how good it was to know I wasn't the only
one feeling that way.

"So now what?" Megumi asked (a little too eagerly, if you ask me)
from the corner where she'd been sitting -- and grinning --
quietly.

"Now," Belldandy replied softly, "we wait."

A moment later, an explosive crack of thunder set the room
shaking as a brilliant flash of purplish-white light flooded the
room through the window.  When our sight cleared and our ears
stopped ringing, the eight of us sat dumbly for a few moments
trading stunned looks as the scent of ozone filled the room.

Then Belldandy gasped and rushed out.

A moment later everyone else leapt from their seats and followed.
At the end of the hallway, the door out to the yard was just
slamming shut.

I was the first to reach it, although Chris was bare centimeters
behind me.  I flung it open, then stood to one side as everyone
else piled through it first.  Rachel and Ami were the last two,
and I followed them out, closing the door behind me.

As I did, I glanced up just to confirm I what I thought I
remembered.  Clear, starry night sky, with a few wisps of cloud
lit by the city lights.

And we'd just had a lightning strike in the yard.

I figured that the odds that this was a natural event were right
up there with the chance that Arcanum would become a Buddhist
monk, shave his head, and take vows of nonviolence and poverty.

A moment later, when I joined the circle that had formed, I saw
that my supposition had been right on the money.  Instead of the
blackened and slagged blob of fused soil that natural lightning
would have left behind, the bolt -- if it *had* been a lightning
bolt at all -- had instead seared crisp, clear characters from an
alphabet I'd never seen before into the grass and earth.  Wisps
of smoke drifted up lazily from their edges and tickled my nose
with its burnt-leaves odor.

I looked around at the shocked and, yes, even despairing faces of
the goddesses and resisted my first urge, which was to clap my
hand to my chest, make a sound like an arrow hitting a target,
and announce "'Message for you, sir!'" in a British accent.  If
there had been any hint that it would have been appreciated,
I'd've jumped on it in an instant.  But I didn't have to even
look at the goddesses' faces to know it would have been worse
than tasteless, because the message was far, far too short to be
anything but...

"'No'," Urd whispered.

"'No'?"  Keiichi looked a little ill.

"That's all it says," Megumi said, staring at the charred
characters.  I wondered if she'd even realized yet that she'd
just discovered another benefit of her service to Skuld -- the
ability to read whatever "native" language the gods used in this
universe.

Belldandy stood straight but closed her eyes.  "Father has
declined to Redeem Mara."  She tried to take a deep breath, but
it turned into a little hiccup-sob sound.  Then she opened her
eyes and looked directly at me.  "Father has *never* declined a
Redemption before.  Ever."  Anger washed over me like a cascade
of ice water.

Ami turned to Chris.  "You know, your Boss is a real dick."

Chris growled again, but it was an agreement.

"Okay," I asked, doing my best to keep my voice calm and steady,
but failing.  It came out more like a snarl.  "*Now* what?  We
just let her lay there and die, far away from home?"  I couldn't
believe that God or whoever had just refused.  I *could* imagine
how I would feel in the same situation, and it drove me to levels
of anger that I hadn't felt in weeks.  *This* was why I hated
gods, this whimsical, arbitrary cruelty.

"At least she will be with family."  In the face of my anger,
Belldandy had regained some of her determination.  The near-
collapse she'd exhibited a moment before was completely gone.

"No," Skuld declared firmly, a strange look that was equal parts
determined and sly on her face.  "We have one last thing we can
try."

"What?" Urd demanded.

"'One last thing'?" Belldandy asked, concern and maybe a little
dread seeping into her eyes.  "Little sister, what do you mean?"

                               * * *

Five minutes later, as many of us as could had squeezed into
Skuld's room and around her computer.  Seated right in front
where they could best see the screen were Keiichi and Belldandy
on Skuld's left, and Chris and Urd on her right.  Ami, Rachel and
I stood just behind them and hovered over their shoulders, which
gave us almost as good a view of the monitor.  Megumi hung to the
rear and loitered in the doorway, apparently unwilling to either
leave or join the group proper.

"Now, little sister," Belldandy asked sternly once we were all
settled into our places, "Explain.  What did you mean, 'We have
one last thing we can try'?"

Skuld sighed and taptaptapped away at her keyboard.  The screen
blanked, and an intricate three-dimensional webwork of glowing
lines quickly sketched itself in -- a webwork I realized that I
had seen once before, peering through Skuld's barely-open door
late at night. "Okay.  This is the Redemption program."

Chris's head snapped up.  "What?"

Belldandy's eyes went wide.  "Skuld!  How did you get that?  Only
Father..."

Skuld shrugged.  "A little poking here, a little poking there.
I've been sitting on it for a while."

My brow furrowed of its own accord as I studied her.  "If no
one's ever had a Redemption turned down before, why do you have
it?"

She rolled her eyes.  "Well, duh.  Because I wanted to see how it
worked.  And see if I could make it so that we could run it, just
because."  Her disdain collapsed into a despondency that filled
her eyes with unshed tears.  "I never thought we'd actually
*need* it, it was j-just an in-intellectual ex-ex-exercise..."

As Chris's expression softened, Belldandy gathered Skuld up in a
silent but evocative hug; I thought I heard a single muffled sob
from within her embrace.  Chris reached around and over Urd to
clumsily stroke her long black hair.

Meanwhile, Urd had leaned in to study the monitor screen.
"Mmmm," she grunted.  "Damn, that's complicated."  She glanced
to her right.  "Chris?"

Chris turned to her without stopping his part in comforting
Skuld.  "You're asking me?  *Me*?  Need I remind you of my
wonderful tendency to blow things up when I attempt spellcraft?"

I snorted, getting me an annoyed glance as I bent down over their
heads and studied the screen more closely.  It didn't look like
any source code I'd ever seen.  In fact, it looked more like
something that could have been drawn by a medieval scribe
equipped with a Spirograph, a French curve, and a glow-in-the-
dark pen.  "So just what *is* this?" I asked.  "It looks more
like some bizarre 3-D Hermetic ritual circle than a program."

"It's the way we do things here," Urd replied in a throaty
whisper.  "Or rather, in this case, the way Father does things."
She shook her head.  "I'm not sure we can pull this off.  Between
the *three* of us," and here she gave Chris a pointed look, "we
can either stabilize the program *or* power it, but not both."

I frowned.  "I don't understand.  What makes it so difficult?"

"Everything."  Skuld's voice, muffled at first by Belldandy's
sweater, emerged like a submarine from below the surface of the
ocean.  "The program essentially takes her apart, strips out the
Infernal influences, and then puts her back together again.  If
anything goes wrong at any point..."  She bit her lip.

"I can guess."  I could more than guess:  any number of nightmare
scenarios -- ranging from a simple painful death, to Mara coming
back as a brain dead, mindwiped stranger -- danced in my fertile
imagination.  I tried to push them away and put up a cheerful
front for the three goddesses and their brother.  "Well, we'll
just have to make sure nothing goes wrong with the hardware, eh?
Let me at it -- there's no system I can't improve."  I rubbed my
hands together briskly as I tried to adopt an air of casual
confidence.

Belldandy looked at me over Skuld's raven tresses and shook her
head sadly.  "That will not be possible."

I stopped rubbing my hands.  "Why not?"

"Because the program would be running on *us*," Skuld whispered.
"*We're* the hardware."

"We must sing its flow into existence within our divine natures,
and control that flow with our voices and wills," Belldandy
elaborated.

"And at the same time, we must do the same to draw on and
regulate the energies we must employ," Urd added.

"Both tasks," Belldandy continued softly as her eyes flicked over
to the screen and its tumbling image, "are of such magnitude that
they each require our combined full attention and strength,
*without* our limiters."  Skuld began to sob in her arms again.
"It is an impossible challenge, even for us."

"Not to mention that it'll get His Nibs royally pissed off at
us," Chris concluded sourly.

"Oh, you know I do that all the time," said Urd breezily.

Skuld looked to glare at her sister in her time-honored way.
"That's why you never made first class."

Well, if Skuld could still snipe at Urd, I supposed things
weren't completely hopeless.  I almost smiled at that.

"So what happens after you succeed?" I asked.

An expression of fierce determination displaced Belldandy's
normal domestic cheerfulness.  "Then I will immediately take her
to the gates of Heaven, so that she may at least die within sight
of the Eternal City.  I can do no less."

Skuld stifled a sob.

"And if you don't?" I pressed.

If anything, Belldandy's determined look doubled in intensity.
"The same, Doug.  The same.  It will merely take less time."

I frowned.  "If it comes to that," I said seriously, "then you're
going to take me, as well."

"Why?"

"Because I will have some *words* to say to the cruel bastard
who'd do this to her, even if it means breaking down the doors of
Heaven to deliver them."

                               * * *

There wasn't a vote or anything -- just the quiet, automatic
assumption on everyone's parts that the goddesses would be going
ahead with an attempt to Redeem Mara all by themselves,
regardless of the risks.  (And while no one said anything aloud,
I could decode enough of that Escher's nightmare of a spell
diagram to realize that a failure would be disastrous not just
for Mara, but for everyone else involved in the ritual.)  We just
segued into a discussion of the logistics of the attempt.

The first priority, it quickly evolved, was getting the temple
wards back up since my new toy had brought them down on its way
to my hand.  This wasn't just to protect the temple and the folks
in it -- the wards acted as a filter against external spiritual
influences that might disrupt the program regardless of the
goddesses' level of control.  So Urd left the planning session to
take care of this and dragged Chris along with her to help,
despite his protests about his lack of skill with magic.

To my surprise, Ami and Rachel dropped into the seats they had
vacated.  I turned to them and raised an eyebrow.

"What?" Rachel demanded.  "We're a part of this family, too."

"Yeah!" Ami chimed in.  "Besides, Chris is going to need to know
what got covered while he was gone."

I shrugged.  "I'm not objecting."  And I wasn't.  I was just
amused by the speed with which they took over the open seats.

Still, I glanced over to Belldandy, who was beaming for the first
time in several minutes.  "Oh, of *course* you can sit in!"
Well, had there been any real problem, that would have settled it.

I nodded to myself.  They'd probably need interpretations and
explanations for any of the more esoteric stuff, but I figured I
could provide whatever they needed.  It *was* one of my
specialties, after all.

However, there was something else to take care of first, as I
recalled the phrase "already-damaged Celestial structure", and a
suspicion I hadn't known I'd had suddenly gelled in my mind.
"Belldandy," I said softly, "what *weren't* you three telling us
before about Mara's situation?"

Her eyes widened slightly in surprise, then she inclined her head
to me slightly.  "That is very perceptive of you, Doug.  But I
should have realized you'd notice."

I shrugged.  "To be honest, it was more a guess than anything
else.  Based on things said and not said."  I held my gaze steady
on her.  "What is it?"

She studied me for a moment, then said, "You are familiar with
the true nature of the gods, with our overselves, I believe."

I nodded.  "Kind of hard not to be, with my boss.  The one back
home, I mean."

"Of course."  Belldandy closed her eyes and drew a breath.
"Millennia ago, when Mara Fell, it... *broke* her in a way that
has rarely been seen.  Her overself was... fractured.  Few
Celestials have suffered such a thing.  Fewer still have
survived, let alone as long as Mara has."

Hearing that, I risked a quick glance over at Ami and Rachel.
They were sharing a look of dawning comprehension.

"Think of it as a kind of like a split personality," Skuld added
quietly.  "To the tenth power."

Belldandy nodded in agreement.  "Each of her faces in each
universe operates all but independently of the others.  Some are
still Divine.  Most of the rest are Infernal."

"And a few are trapped in mortal reincarnation cycles," Skuld
added with a visible shudder. "She's been just barely holding
onto mere existence all this time."  Her voice was a bare
whisper.

"Until now," Belldandy amended, looking at me.  "The damage she
suffered at your hands has upset the delicate balance by which
she's survived for so long.  The frayed and tattered structure of
her greater soul is finally coming apart, permanently."  She
paused and sighed.  "All that really means, though, is that she
is finally dying.  She, and all her counterparts throughout the
multiverse."

I absently chewed on my lower lip again as I thought about that.
Knowing what I knew at that point about Chris's condition, I
could understand why they didn't want to have to explain Mara's
full situation and thus open *that* whole can of worms around
him.  Chris wasn't exactly volatile, but he *did* have a bit of a
temper, and the revelation about Mara's sister status still had
him on edge.  And he'd already had one storm-out-of-the-house
blowup that day.  I thought some more, extrapolating his likely
actions, and came to the same conclusion the goddesses likely
had:  the repercussions of *this* new revelation, coming right on
the heels of the last one, might have sent him storming out
*again,* possibly permanently -- not just angry, but feeling like
he'd been betrayed and lied to for over a year.

Best to follow the goddesses' lead, then, and let it lay until
there were a better time to address it.  I gave Belldandy a look
and a nod to indicate that I understood.  Then I turned my
attention back to the problem at hand, and took another look at
the spell diagram.  "Mm.  Skuld?  Bell?  What's so difficult
about regulating the power going to this?"

Belldandy answered right away.  "It's mainly a question of
coordinating and balancing the flows.  Any *one* of us could
provide all the power the process needs, but it would be...
unbalanced, for lack of a better term.  In order to control the
execution of the program and its effect on Mara, the three of us
need to be equidistant from both each other and the center of the
ritual space -- but the power flow needs to be balanced across
that space as well. If the energy needed were to flow in from
only one side, the Redemption would fail catastrophically."

I considered that, suppressing a wince at how her words echoed my
earlier thoughts.  Instead, I studied the image still tumbling
slowly on the computer screen.  "Then, if I'm reading this thing
correctly, it was originally designed to make use of a single
power source at the *center* of the ritual."  I pointed at one of
the "knots" where several lines of code intersected.  "Right
here, I'd wager."

Skuld nodded.  "Exactly.  That's the way it's *supposed* to work.
When Father Redeems someone, He feeds His own power into the
process at that point.  The perimeter feeds are my hack to the
program, to let us run it ourselves.  But then the power has to
be perfectly smooth and perfectly balanced.  That's what's so
hard."

Without taking them off the screen, I narrowed my eyes.  "How
perfect is 'perfect'?"

The grimace that had to have been on Skuld's face was audible in
her voice.  "All three feeds have to be within no more than a few
thousandths of a percent of each other in both intensity and
flow."

Ah.  Yeah.  Suddenly the problem came into a somewhat clearer
focus.

With that in mind, I studied the program/spell diagram a bit
more, grabbing and rotating it with the mouse to study it from
several other (stationary) angles.  I couldn't read the actual
code itself, but I could see the paths along which the energy was
supposed to flow.  "So..." I mused aloud as I traced a particular
line with a fingertip, "you said you need all *three* of you to
control the execution, right?"

"Right," Skuld answered.

"That's why you didn't hack this to support *two* controllers
and one power source, then."

"Yeah."  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Skuld worry her
lower lip with her teeth.

I considered our options.  "Is there a reason you can't just hook
it directly to an... um... environmental power source?"  Like a
certain weird mana fountain spewing out in the temple that I knew
of.

Skuld narrowed her eyes and shook her head.  "No, that would be
bad."

I tilted my head and stared at both her and Belldandy.  "Define
'bad'."

"Natural sources of power are too wild," Belldandy answered.
"They are given to unpredictable surges and drops.  The
Redemption needs a smooth, constant flow or else it will fail."

"Catastrophically?" I asked, echoing her *last* mention of
failure, along with my earlier evaluation of the spell's rather
less-than-satisfactory ABEND handling.

"For Mara, at the very least," Belldandy answered soberly.

Right.  "So you need to be acting like a power filter as well.
Hmmm."  I chewed my lip for a moment as I considered what I had
just learned.  "You know, if it'll accept a mortal hooking up to
its input, and I find the right song to do it, I bet I could tap
into that funky node in the temple and act as the central feed
for this thing."  It would be far more power than I could
actually *use*, but I just needed to be a conduit, after all.
I figured that I should be able to handle that, at least for
the few minutes a song would last.  After all, I did that kind
of thing any time I linked a song effect directly to a node or
ley line.

"That 'funky node'," Belldandy said cautiously, "is a Tether,
a line of Divine power feeding directly into Heaven."

I made note of *that* little tidbit of information and grinned
broadly.  "Even better.  Now the real question becomes, if I were
able to tap it, could I channel enough power to your spell for
long enough?"

Skuld's eyes went wide, and she squirmed her way out of
Belldandy's arms.  She dove into a pile of random electronic junk
behind the computer desk, pawed through it for a moment, and
pulled out a gizmo that looked like a half-baked cross between a
Geiger counter and an old Panasonic cassette player.  She hit a
button on it and waved it over me.

It bleeped a few times, then made a chiming noise.  She bent over
the device, her long black hair screening it from sight as she
studied something on its back, presumably a display or readout.
Then Skuld raised her head, a look of dawning hope in her eyes.
"It just might work," she breathed.

"Skuld?" Belldandy whispered, and Skuld handed her the gadget.
Bell studied the display for a few moments before exclaiming,
"Oh, my, yes!"  She looked up at me with the same growing hope.
"You would be pushing your limits, Doug, and it would be just
*barely* enough at that, but you could conceivably provide us
with the power we need."

"Well, then," I said, standing.  "There's only one thing for me
to do now."

                               * * *

"You know," Chris growled at Urd, "you could have just *said*
all you wanted from me was to stand guard while you repaired the
wall and reset the wards."

Urd smirked at him.  "Where's the fun in that?  Besides, tell me
you didn't learn something."

Chris resisted the urge to snarl at her.  "I learned that despite
how much wards are different from spells, they're still magic and
I shouldn't be allowed *near* them."  He lifted his hand and
studied its reddened fingertips as the pain of their minor burns
vied for his attention.

His sister sniffed.  "I told you not to touch that runestone
until I had it properly set."

"Yeah, yeah."

"And that's not all you learned, 'Niichan."  Urd stopped and
studied him intently for a moment.  "Assuming you paid attention,
of course."

Chris rolled his eyes.  "Yes, yes, I paid attention.  I can now
erect a basic ward with six pebbles and a felt-tip marker,
assuming I don't cause a small fissile explosion first."  He
frowned.  "I still can't believe you don't need some special ink
made from wyvern's blood or something."

Urd looked shocked.  "Are you kidding?  That stuff is *expensive*
and it doesn't last more than a couple days.  And a Sharpie is
*permanent* in a way few mystic materials are."  She shrugged.
"Besides, as you should already know, outside of alchemy it's not
always the ingredients, it's the *intent* that focuses magic."

"Speaking of intent," Chris decided to change the topic before he
got yet *another* lecture on spellcraft, "is *this* ward going to
hold up if Doug's toy decides to make with the hurting and the
causing of the pain again?"

Urd nodded.  "The old ward was set up only to defend against
attacks from *outside* the temple.  That staff punched through
its weak underbelly, you might say, popping it like a pin through
a balloon."  She grinned confidently.  "The one I just put up is
two-faced.  It'll hold up to attacks from both sides.  About the
only thing that we'd have to worry about now is a wardcracker."

Chris raised an eyebrow at her.  "What's a wardcracker?"

She smirked.  "Just what it sounds like.  It's the magical
equivalent of a siege engine -- attach it to a ward and it will
basically try to pound its way through, overstressing the
protections and eventually bringing them down.  But," she added
with a casual, dismissive gesture, "they're hard to come by, and
only used in major pitched battles.  Nothing we have to worry
about."

"Good."  Chris turned and studied the perimeter wall as though he
could see the wards.  "I don't want to have to..."  Movement
across the yard caught his eye.  "Wait a minute.  *Now* what's he
up to?"

Stalking from the house to the temple was Doug, his helmet slung
over the crook of his arm by its chin strap.  He radiated a deep
determination that was almost palpable, even at that distance.

"Urd, go in and check on Mara for me," Chris said without taking
his eyes off Doug.  "I'm going to go see what disaster Mr. Music
Man's causing now."

                               * * *

Tarikihonganji Temple, Friday, May 30, 1997, 8:17 PM

"Yo," Chris said as he stepped into the temple.

"Hey," Doug replied absently.  To Chris' mild concern, he had
already pulled on his helmet and was sitting down indian-style in
the middle of the floor, well away from just about everything and
with his back directly in line with the door.

Chris began to slowly circle the older man, studying him from all
sides.  "So what, precisely, are you doing?" he asked.

Doug lifted his head and turned it in Chris' general direction.
It was impossible to see his eyes behind those black goggles, but
Chris didn't have to see them to know the older man was looking
at him.  "I'm on a mission from goddess," he said in a fair
approximation of a young Dan Ackroyd.  Chris snorted, and Doug
favored him with what appeared to be a grin underneath the
helmet.  "Have you heard the latest?"

Shaking his head, Chris kept pacing.  "No.  Urd and I had just
finished with the wards before I spotted you and followed you in
here."

"Ah."  Doug turned back to whatever he had been doing.  "'Kay,
then, here's the Reader's Digest version.  I've volunteered to
play power strip to the girls' computer."

Chris stopped pacing.  "Say what?"

Without turning his head, Doug gestured at empty air.  "I'm going
to try to tap that node-thing, that... 'tether', Belldandy called
it, and I'll be feeding the power I get from it to the girls so
they can use it to sanitize Mara's soul."

"The tether?  Really?"  Chris looked at the empty air in front of
Doug.  His sisters had spoken of it, though not often, and he had
never felt the need to investigate it.  Grimacing, Chris shifted
his focus out of the mortal realm as Belldandy and Urd had
painstakingly taught him months before.

The world blurred and spun, then snapped back into a clarity
beyond human sight.  No longer was he looking at a room fashioned
of polished wood and dimly lit by candle flames; instead, Chris
now perceived the deeper reality below the physical world, a
domain of fields and forces, expressed in terms of their
fundamental mathematics and rendered into lines and tubes of
geometric precision.  And even these were not fundaments, for
each element was at once energy, program code and data, all bound
together in a complicated superposition of states.

It always made his eyes ache to do this.  Chris privately thought
of it as similar to what it felt like to wear a pair of glasses
whose prescription was just slightly wrong for him.

Ignoring the faint throb that was already beginning to build
behind his eyes, Chris turned his focus onto the center of the
room where, sure enough, there it was -- a single but massive
line of execution, fed by a myriad of tiny threads stretching out
to the horizon in all directions.  It wasn't regular or
consistent -- knots of code would swirl by, forcing the huge
streamer of light to bulge where they passed.  Their sizes and
intervals were just random enough to tease him into looking for a
pattern he was sure wasn't actually there.

Next to it was the much smaller but far more intricate weave of
datastreams and energies that indicated a living being, aglow
with the warm golden-orange light of the soul within.  *Doug,*
Chris thought unnecessarily, noting that even for a living
creature, Doug's structure was extraordinarily complex and
energetic, but shot through with wispy tendrils of a cloudlike
darkness.  *Huh.  Must have to do with his powers.*

Above and in front of Doug's structure, not a part but loosely
linked to it, though, was another construct, much smaller but
nearly as dense.  *Must be the Mark of Favor the girls were
talking about.*  It was a tangled mess of energy, mostly sharp
angles and straight lines.

Intrigued, Chris slowly walked around Doug, tilting his head,
closing first one eye and then the other, studying the Mark from
all sides.  From some angles, Chris thought it might look a
little like a cubist's vision of some great raptor.  From others,
it seemed like an eye.  From still others, it was just an
extraordinarily complex spell diagram.

Chris narrowed his aching eyes as he examined the complicated
knot of data; it took a moment, but the facility with languages
he'd received upon becoming a god applied even here.  The knot
was a glyph:  name, image and warning all wrapped in one compact,
efficient package.  And he was sure that wasn't all -- the
Celestial Mark seemed to pulse with barely-contained power, far
more than seemed necessary for a simple tag on a favorite
follower.

Not to mention that he had the strangest sensation that it was
*watching* him.

Maybe Urd was right and it *was* some kind of channel...

Chris shook his head.  Whoever the Stormsdaughter was, he hoped
she didn't hold any grudges over his battle with Doug when he
first arrived -- but he suspected he was out of luck on that
count, based on the impression the construct gave of her.  *And
here I thought some of the Aesir were freakin' scary...*  He sent
reassuring, friendly thoughts toward the Mark, just on general
principles, and turned his attention back to the one who bore it.

As he studied Doug's complicated pattern, he was surprised to see
a thin datastream stretch forth from the older man's central
core, reaching out for the execution path of the tether.  Almost
immediately, a much thicker tendril of code from the tether
mirrored it, stretching back toward Doug.  The two met.

To Chris' vast surprise, nothing terrible happened.  Energies
began flowing along the link and into Doug's pattern, where they
circulated and transformed.  Some of the energies were channeled
by a particularly densely-wound knot of code at Doug's core, then
directed back out -- a quick glance at the outbound execution
path showed mostly coding for visible light.

An almost equal amount of the siphoned energies, though, simply
circulated within Doug's structure.  Some seemed to be absorbed
into his structure, but the rest slowly diffused outward through
its boundary datastreams into the space beyond.  Huh.

"Well," Doug suddenly said, and the unexpected sound jolted Chris
out of his altered perceptions and back into his normal ones.
The unexpected transition felt almost like a rubber band snapping
back, and Chris stood blinking rapidly for several seconds as he
tried to get used to polished wood and candles again.

"Well," Doug repeated, then groaned as he flowed to his feet and
stretched, the popping of his various joints echoing through the
temple. "It worked.  I can tap the node."  He pulled off his
helmet, rubbed his eyes and sighed.  "And let me just say, oh,
joy, I get to drink from the fire hose."

The room was finally beginning to look normal again to Chris. He
blinked his eyes a few more times, then managed to focus on Doug.
"What's that mean?"

"It means," Doug groaned as he stretched again, his helmet
dangling from one hand, "that whatever the hell it is that this
tether thing is actually carrying, as far as I'm concerned it's
like mana on steroids."  He shook his head.  "It's going to take
everything I've got to hold on to the flow."

"But you can handle it, right?" Chris pressed.

Doug smirked.  "No worries there.  Tough -- but doable."

"Good," Chris said with a curt nod.  "So now what?"

Doug shrugged and grimaced.  "Now comes the grunt work.  I have
to find a song that will let me be a power conduit for the
goddesses."  He shook his head and lifted his helmet to don it
once more.  "This might take a while."

                               * * *

In fact, it took almost two hours, as best as Chris could
determine.  It also took nearly three dozen songs, seven light
shows, two fireworks displays, a brief ankle-deep flood of
faintly green fish-smelling seawater, one accidentally-summoned
air elemental, and a rather substantial explosion that had
startled Chris into manifesting his armor, sent Doug tumbling
backwards into a wall, and left a short-lived soot on everything
in sight.

"Right," the older man had muttered to himself while still laying
on his back after that last.  "No more trying to force a song to
do the job."

Chris wasn't exactly sure why he stayed and watched as Doug
quietly and determinedly worked his way through song after song.
The two of them did not speak to each other, and unless an
unexpected power threatened to get out of hand Doug did not even
acknowledge Chris' presence in the temple after that initial
exchange.  Even so, though, the atmosphere was cordial, welcoming
even, as though Doug appreciated the company.  Or perhaps the
backup.

Chris couldn't deny that there was something strangely
fascinating in the meticulous, even rigorous way in which Doug
had searched though what seemed like an enormous library of
music.  The crisp, precise manner in which he snapped out verbal
instructions to the computer in his helmet was very much at odds
with the relaxed, even sloppy, persona Doug presented most of the
time.  There was a focus and discipline in it that Chris, to his
surprise, recognized from his months of training with the warrior
gods of a dozen pantheons -- for the first time since his arrival
in the temple, Chris could look at Doug and really *believe* that
he was a member of a paramilitary force as he had claimed,
instead of just a super-powered nutjob.

It was a fierce determination, Chris realized, coupled with an
unexpected sense of ... protectiveness for Mara.  Both were
radiating from the man in waves that he could almost feel
physically.  He had no doubt that if he were to switch back to
his Celestial senses again that he would actually be able to see
it as code and energy emitted from Doug's structure and soul.

For the first time, Chris felt that he could actually
*understand* Doug.  Understand... and empathize.

It was well past nine-thirty at night when Doug suddenly rose to
his feet with one impossibly smooth and graceful movement.  Chris
didn't fail to notice that he had gone from sitting cross-legged
on the floor to standing without either using his hands or having
to bend over or kneel first -- and without any signs of cramping
or muscle pain.  It was the little things like that which
emphasized at times how different from a normal human -- and some
gods -- Doug was.

Chris shoved the irrelevant thought aside as he pushed off the
support pillar against which he had been leaning for the last
fifteen minutes.  "Well?" he asked as Doug began unfastening the
chin strap of his helmet.

Doug pulled the helmet off completely.  The bird's nest it had
left his hair in was a strange and comfortingly humorous contrast
to the satisfied but almost grim expression on his face.  "I've
got it."

Chris nodded.  "Time to tell the girls, then."

                               * * *

Tarikihonganji Temple Complex, Friday, May 30, 1997, 9:58 PM

We marched back to Skuld's room, where three goddesses and
three mortal girls were still poring over the Redemption
program.

Or maybe just two mortal girls.  Megumi was still loitering in
the doorway when Chris and I got back.  Seeing that, I suspected
that she had never actually stepped into the room even after I'd
left earlier.  I glanced at her as she moved aside to let us in,
and I could see a scowl hidden deep in her eyes, where she
thought maybe no one could see it.

It didn't take a genius to realize that no matter what happened
in the next 24 hours, Megumi wasn't likely to forgive Mara
any time soon for what the demoness had done to her.

Anyway, we stepped past her and stopped just inside the door.
All five of them were clustered around the screen, still
energetically discussing the redemption process.  I had no idea
what either of Chris's girls could have had to contribute to the
planning session, but whatever it was, the goddesses were clearly
listening to it and taking it seriously.

Good for them.  All of them.

All that discussion ceased when they saw us.  Belldandy turned an
expectant, hopeful gaze upon me, one that was also filled with
the fear that those hopes were about to be dashed.

I hesitated a moment, not from any intent to maintain the
suspense, but from the almost visceral impact of that gaze.  I
had not been blind to the responsibility I'd taken on with my
simple offer, but somehow that one look from Bell brought it into
such sharp focus that I was intensely grateful that I would not
be disappointing her.  Before her face could fall because of my
delay, I smiled.  "I've got a song," I said softly.

Relief washed over them all.  "Thank Father," Belldandy
whispered, an odd sentiment given the circumstances, but probably
more an automatic response than anything else.  Urd was smiling,
one knuckle still to her lips in a leftover expression of
uncertainty that was oddly endearing.  And Skuld started crying
again, but this time they were tears of joy instead of despair;
I'd seen them on the faces of innocents rescued by the Warriors
far too many times to mistake them for anything else.

Ami and Rachel grinned at each other, then Rachel gave me a
thumbs-up.  I shot them a quick smile and a two-fingered, Boy
Scout-style salute.  Then I pushed Chris toward them.  "Go, sit
with your girls," I murmured such that only he could hear me.

Then I turned back to the goddesses.  "The performers could be
viewed as a Christian rock band.  Is that likely to cause a
problem?  Is it going to step on Anyone's toes?"

"No," Belldandy replied immediately.  "That should not be a
problem at all."

I nodded.  "Good.  Then let's talk numbers.  I can give you...
hmm.  Call it five minutes and ten seconds of full power.  The
song's actually about 15 seconds longer than that, but it gives
us a little margin for error.  Will that be enough?"

"It should be," Skuld said, wiping her face with the back of her
hand and smiling.

"Good.  Will you need it right from the beginning?"

Belldandy and Urd conferred with Skuld.  Then Bell looked back
at me.  "No.  Much of the first part of the ritual is...
initialization.  It is only when we get to the second stage that
we will need the power."

I nodded.  "Okay, then.  You just give me the high sign about ten
seconds before you actually need it.  You'll have to do something
visual, though, as I'll need to have my external microphones cut
off to keep your song from interfering with mine.  I'll be
watching you -- just give a wave or something."

She nodded back.  "That will be workable."

Skuld, her face now dry and eyes sparking with renewed energy and
determination, leapt in.  "Now that we have everything we need,
we can finalize the ritual layout and everyone's positions within
it."

I chuckled at the sight of her restored spirit.  "Choreography
phase, huh?  Okay, maestro, where do we stand?"

"Skuld is exaggerating," Belldandy said with a tolerant smile.
"Our positions are already determined by the very structure of
the program.  The ritual space will be formed around a modified
greater Seal of Solomon inscribed on the temple floor.  We three
will be occupying our own subcircles at three of the six points,
forming an equilateral triangle."

"A standard thaumaturgical triangle overlaying the Seal?" I
asked, trying to visualize how the physical layout would
correspond and coordinate with the spell diagram -- and how the
magical influences would stack and reinforce.  "The Seal to
contain, the triangle to focus?"

"Yes."

Absently, I rubbed my chin and nodded.  "Chris won't be taking
part, then."  Which of course made sense given what I'd learned
of his lack of magical skill.

"Not if you want this to work," he growled, and the girls -- all
six of them -- giggled for a moment.  Chris frowned at the sound
of it, which just spawned another round of girlish laughter.

When the giggles subsided, Bell continued.  "Now because she is
the subject of the spell, Mara will of course need to be at the
exact center of the pattern.  Where under normal circumstances
Father would also be positioned."  Belldandy looked up from the
diagram and gave me a cryptic look.

"Well, yeah.  That's pretty much *expected*."  I didn't give her
expression any thought.  "And *I'll* need to be at or near the
diagram's power input, where your Father would plug in.  Although
I don't have to be standing on the tether as long as I can see it
with my magesight, that still means I'll have to be..."  Then I
caught on.  "Hey, that puts me..."

"Yes," Belldandy replied.  "In the same place as Mara."  She
smiled, one of those, "Oh, I have a big favor to ask, and I just
*know* you won't mind" smiles that always mean trouble.  "Mara
needs to be positioned about a meter to a meter and a half above
the plane of inscription when the ritual starts; I was hoping you
might support her during the process?"

I blinked.  "I'm going to have to be at ground zero."  Three
simultaneous nods.  "For a spell that burns through its subject,
sorts through her component energies and throws away the bits you
don't want?" Three more nods.  "And you want me to *hold* her
during this?" Another simultaneous nod.  "One question," I said
in a calm, quiet tone of voice that belied exactly how I felt
about this prospect.

"Yes?" Urd said.

"Just what is the ritual going to do to *me*?"

Skuld grabbed my hands in both of hers.  "Nothing," she said.
"We think."

"Skuld!" Belldandy scolded, then turned back to me.  "Doug, we
*know* it will do nothing to you.  Mara's Celestial signature
will be a fundamental parameter of the ritual, and it will be
unable to shift its focus from her, even by accident."  She
stared directly into my eyes while taking my right hand from
Skuld and holding it in hers. "By the oath I swore to you, Doug,
the ritual will do you no harm."

"I was just covering all our bases," Skuld grumped, releasing
my other hand.

"In that case," I said, ignoring her, "I would be honored."

To my complete and utter shock, Belldandy rose to her feet and
hugged me.

"Thank you," she murmured in my ear as I went stock-still.
Belldandy smelled faintly of chrysanthemums and brown sugar.  The
warmth of her breath playing across my skin and the lush softness
of her corporeal vessel against my body suddenly reminded me of
Maggie.  I felt a fleeting surge of entirely inappropriate
arousal that was both achingly sweet and wrenchingly painful at
the same time -- the latter all the more so because I realized at
that moment that I hadn't thought of my wife in some days, not
even to bid her photo good night.

"Um," I stammered as she released me and stepped back half a
pace.  "You're welcome?"  It took all my willpower to stand there
entirely still, neither fleeing from the weight of my guilt nor
giving in to a sudden need to ... ahem ... readjust my clothing.

I believe I may also have blushed, but no one commented on it,
not even Chris.

Dear gods, I miss my wife.

Seeking some way -- any way -- to change the subject and divert
the attention focused on me, I took refuge in my usual operating
persona.  "So, are the stars right for this ritual?" I asked
with badly-forced facetiousness.

"If they are not," Belldandy replied with a quiet but earnest
determination, "I will make them so."  She fingered her earring
meaningfully.

The calm confidence in that one statement unnerved me even more
than the hug had.  Belldandy was not one for grandiloquent
pronouncements, so the placid reminder of just how much power she
could wield if she so chose threw into sharp relief just what I
was getting into.  It didn't escape my attention that Belldandy
had sworn only that the *ritual* would do me no harm; there was
still a very real possibility that none of us had even spoken of,
that channeling the power that they needed might well still be
far more dangerous.

I didn't want to think about what the ritual might do to me that
wouldn't be considered "harm", either.

I couldn't let myself dwell on those possibilities, though, or
I'd surely lose my nerve.  Instead, I simply asked, "So, when do
we do this?  The earliest I can manage would be just after
midnight; that's when my metagift's 'clock' resets and I can use
the song again."

Belldandy shook her head.  "No, I think not.  We needn't rush
quite that much."

"Right," Urd added.  "Mara's got more than twenty hours before
her deterioration goes critical, by our best estimates."

"That's enough to let everyone have a good night's sleep,"
Belldandy continued, nodding to her sister.  "It's best if we
attempt this well-rested."  By which, presumably, she meant *me*,
because I suspected that no matter how human their bodies seemed,
they could probably go without sleep for far more than one night
if they needed it.

"So, when, then?" I asked.

The three goddesses glanced from one another, then Belldandy
turned back to me.  "Ten in the morning should be sufficient."
She beamed.  "There's no need to skip breakfast, either."

Which I suppose is Belldandy in a nutshell.  It may be a family
emergency, with the impending death of a Celestial and defying
the will of the Lord God Almighty thrown in for good measure, but
no one's going to lose sleep or miss the most important meal of
the day if *she* has anything to say about it.

Chris chuckled.  "Looks like Skuld and I are blowing off our
morning classes, though."

"This is *way* more important," the little goddess huffed.

He nodded.  "No argument there."

                               * * *

On a branch outside the window of Skuld's room, hidden by the
enshrouding cloak of night, a raven cocked its head first to one
side, then to the other.  Then it spread its wings and launched
itself into the star-strewn sky.

                               * * *

Tarikihonganji Temple Complex, Friday, May 30, 1997, 10:16 PM

"I don't think so, Skuld."

Megumi hadn't been fast enough, and Skuld had ambushed her right
at the front gate.  *That's what I get for lingering too long,*
the older girl thought with more than a touch of annoyance.

"Please, Megumi?"  Skuld turned puppy-dog eyes on her, but
Megumi's hardened resolve withstood the assault.  "It's our first
major working since you became my Servitor, and I'd really,
really like you to be there."

Megumi let out a puff of breath and tried not to look as angry as
she felt.  "Why?" she asked in a carefully-regulated tone.
"What's so important about me being there?"

Confused and puzzled, Skuld just looked up at her and scuffed the
toe of one shoe against the polished flagstone.  "*Because!*
Someday you're going to have to help me with a ritual, and I want
you to see what one looks like.  And you're kinda like my
representative, so it's something you ought to know a little
about.  And besides, it's a *Redemption* -- that's something no
mortal's *ever* had the chance to see before.  I'd think you'd be
*thrilled*!"

Megumi closed her eyes and counted to ten, then opened them again
to stare at the little goddess.  "If it were anyone else," she
began with a cold calmness that she certainly did not feel, "I
might be thrilled.  But for Mara?  No."  She bowed her head and
her eyes disappeared behind the fringe of her bangs.  "Unless
it's an order?"

"What?"  Skuld's eyes were wide with surprise and perhaps a
little fear.

"I told you how I feel about Mara, Skuld, not an hour and a half
ago," Megumi whispered.  "What she did to me...  and the doubts I
had about my own sanity afterward, when none of you would tell me
the truth...  I'm not going to get over it just because she's
your sister, and she's dying.  It may mean that I'm petty, too
petty to be your Servitor, but I can't forgive her."  She lifted
her head again and studied the girl for a moment.  "Unless you're
going to do that order thing and *force* me."

Skuld paled.  "No!  I told you I wasn't going to do that to you!"
She wrapped her arms around herself; Megumi thought for a moment
that she was actually shaking.  "I'm not going to steal your free
will like that, Megumi.  I'm not going to make you do anything
you don't want to."

Megumi nodded once, sharply.  "Then I guess it's good night,
Skuld."  She yanked the gate open, but paused just as she was
about to cross the threshold.  "I'll see you..."  She glanced
back over her shoulder.  "Actually, I'm not sure when I'll see
you next.  Soon, I hope."

She stepped out and shut the gate behind her.  It wasn't *quite*
a slam.

Skuld stared at the gate, and bit her lip.

                               * * *

Hidden in the shadow of the temple bell's sheltering roof,
Belldandy and Keiichi watched as Megumi and Skuld spoke briefly
at the gate. Keiichi stood behind Belldandy with his arms wrapped
around her waist and his chin -- barely -- resting on her
shoulder; her hands were clasped over his, and she had inclined
her head slightly so that her temple rested against Keiichi's
cheek.

They were too far away to hear the discussion, nor would they
have made the effort to eavesdrop if they could, but even at this
distance they could see the vehemence and anger in Megumi's
expression.  As Megumi marched through the gate, Belldandy made a
wordless sound of concern, and Keiichi gave her the faintest
gentle squeeze in equally wordless reassurance.

The two watched in silence as Skuld slowly made her way back to
the house.  When the door had shut behind her, Belldandy turned
in Keiichi's arms to face him and he relaxed his embrace to let
her; before she could speak, though, he leaned forward and
kissed her.

Drawing back, he looked deep into her eyes, which were filled
with fear and worry.

"I know what you're going to say," he said softly.  "No."

"But..." she began.

Keiichi shook his head.  "I'm not going to leave.  I don't care
how dangerous this might get."  He reached down and took her
hand in his; raising it to his lips, he kissed her knuckles and
then squeezed it gently.  "Together, forever, remember?  That
doesn't just mean you staying with me.  It means *me* staying
with *you*, too."  He kissed her hand again.  "No matter what."

A tremulous smile slowly materialized on her lips as her eyes
began to shine.  "Oh, Keiichi."

"Whither thou goest," he whispered, "there go I."

                               * * *

"I mean, I don't remember all that much after so many rebirth
cycles," Skuld said softly, "but I do remember that you gave
really good advice before...  before..."  She trailed off
uncomfortably.

"Before I Fell," Mara finished, her voice barely above a whisper
but rich and dark with bitterness and anger.  Her eyes were
closed.

"Yeah."  Skuld ran a finger along the edge of the chair in which
she sat, letting her long black hair drape down around her face
to keep her from looking at her long-lost elder sister on the bed
next to her.  Mara lay still, almost unnaturally so, and with her
eyes closed she resembled nothing so much as a corpse laid out
for viewing; only when she spoke did the illusion break.  The
rest of the time Skuld couldn't bring herself to even glance at
her; the present was too painfully close to any of a dozen or
more potential futures that hovered at the edges of her inner
vision.

"You don't want advice from me, Skuld."  Mara's voice held just
the faintest hint of a snarl.  "Not now.  I don't have the right
perspective for what you want to hear."

"I don't care!"  Skuld viciously yanked her attention away from
the potential futures surrounding them and dragged it back to the
present.  "I took a servitor," she blurted a moment later.

Mara's eyes narrowed.  "The Morisato girl," she growled.

Skuld nodded without lifting her head, and watched her hair
ripple with the movement.  "Yeah."

"I could feel your Mark on her when she was in here before," Mara
rasped, irritation audible in every syllable.  "She's a good
choice.  Smart, creative.  For a *mortal,* at least."  The
demon's breath whistled in a ghost of laughter, but it had a
sharp, brittle undertone that set Skuld's teeth on edge.
"Impudent, too, the little bitch.  She'll keep you on your toes,
that's for sure.  If I didn't want to kill her for that tanuki
stunt, I probably could come to like her."

"Well, you did do some pretty nasty things to her," Skuld
growled.

Mara turned her head to look at the girl.  "Well, duh.  What part
of 'demon' did you not get, kid?  It's not my job to hand out
lollipops and kittens, you know."

Skuld lifted her head and met Mara's eyes.  Above and between
them, her demon marks seethed and glowed like iron fresh from a
forge, the only color in a deathly pale face.  "You did your job
well, then, Neesan.  She *hates* you.  She hates you so much I
can hear it in her Symphony.  I don't *want* her to hate you.
I'm afraid it's going to do something to her, twist her or..."
She dropped her head and hid behind her hair once more. "But I
don't know how to make her not hate you without forcing it on
her.  And I promised her I wouldn't take away any more of her
free will."

"Well, you're in luck, then, kid," Mara spat.  "The problem's
gonna solve itself soon enough.  Don't worry about it."

Skuld's head snapped back up.  "What do you mean the...  Oh!
Oh, Marl- Mara!"  Her eyes glistened.

Mara bared her teeth in an expression that only slightly
resembled a smile.  "She won't cry when I die, kid.  And when I'm
gone, she'll've gotten what she wants -- some peace, knowing I'm
not going to screw with her ever again.  The hate will fade away
eventually and you'll've gotten what *you* want.  Then she'll be
happy, and you'll be happy, and every-*fucking*-one will be
happy."

Tears welled up in Skuld's eyes and ran down her cheeks as she
leapt to her feet.  "Oh, Neesan!  I don't *want* to be happy
because you're dead!" she wailed, then turned and fled the room.

Mara watched her go.  Abruptly, her demon marks faded, and the
fury drained from her eyes.  "Better that than having you mourn
for me, kiddo," she whispered to herself.

                               * * *

Chris wasn't sure what Rachel and Ami might have contributed to
the planning session while he and Urd had been dealing with the
wards, but whatever it had been, it'd led to an obvious deepening
of the relationship between them and his sisters.

Case in point:  When it came time for the pair to leave, Chris
had expected that, as was usual, they would simply say their
goodbyes, and then he would walk with them to the gate.  To his
mild surprise, though, Urd rose from her inelegant sprawl to
accompany them to the front door -- where to his far greater
surprise she hugged Rachel and Ami in turn for the first time
ever, at least that he could recall.  And not a quick,
perfunctory hug, either, he noticed with some small astonishment,
but a long, heartfelt embrace that was returned in kind by each
of his girlfriends.

The scene was repeated on the doorstep when Keiichi and Belldandy
emerged from the shadows of the yard to stand in the wedge of
warm yellow light shining out through the doorway.  "Oh, you're
leaving," Bell said.  "I hadn't realized it was quite so late."

"'Fraid so," Ami said with a small smile.

Rachel smirked.  "We've got a busy day tomorrow.  We need our
beauty sleep."

Belldandy's laughter echoed musically around them.  "Of course.
Get home safely and have a good night, then."  And with that she,
too, embraced first Ami and then Rachel, just as warmly and
unselfconsciously as Urd had, while Keiichi stood to the side and
smiled approvingly at them all.

Chris blinked when he overheard her murmur "Thank you again!" in
each girl's ear.

Releasing Rachel, Belldandy stepped back.  With a smile that bore
the faintest touch of an uncharacteristic melancholy, she said,
"I believe that Skuld's sitting with Mara right now, otherwise
I'm sure she'd be out here to say goodnight as well."

Ami shook her head and waved her hand dismissively.  "That's
okay."

Rachel shared a glance with her and added, "We understand,
really."

"She'll be unhappy that she missed you, though," Belldandy
added.

The two girls traded grins, then Ami said, "We'll be seeing her
tomorrow, so no harm, no foul."

"Right!" Rachel added as Chris narrowed his eyes.

He cleared his throat before anyone said anything more.  "Well,"
he began.

"Wait, wait, wait!"  Skuld came barreling out of the house and
slammed into Rachel, wrapping her arms around the taller girl as
she skidded to a halt.  "Good!  I didn't miss you!"

Rachel chuckled, and Ami reached over to ruffle the little
goddess' hair.  "Almost, though," Ami said with a touch of
laughter in her voice.

Skuld squeezed Rachel quickly, then did the same with Ami.  "Good
night, and thanks!"

At the moment Chris realized that Skuld's face bore the tracks of
fresh tears, Rachel leaned down and wiped them away with a thumb.
"You okay?"

Skuld put on a smile and nodded, then scrubbed at her face with
the back of one hand.  "Yeah.  Just worried about Mara, that's
all."

Rachel leaned back in and, to Chris' additional surprise, she
kissed Skuld's cheek.  "It's all going to work out.  Trust us."

"Right."  Ami stepped closer and ruffled Skuld's hair once more.
"Have some confidence in yourself and your sisters, imouto-chan."

Chris gaped at the unexpected term of affection as Skuld suddenly
burst into tears again and, with a wordless cry, wrapped her arms
tightly around both of his girlfriends.  They in turn wrapped
theirs around her, dropping to their knees as one to put
themselves closer to her level.  Although Urd was smiling broadly
and Belldandy was beaming at the group hug -- and even Keiichi
was nodding approvingly -- Chris found himself feeling
uncomfortable, as though he were intruding on an intensely
private moment.

*When the fnord did they all get so close?* he wondered as he
turned away slightly to give them the privacy that they didn't
seem to think they needed. *They've been friendly with each other
before, sure, but this is a whole new level.  Did this all happen
just tonight, or did I somehow miss seeing it building up?*  He
resisted the urge to look around for Rod Serling about to deliver
a "Twilight Zone" monologue.

As Skuld's tears and the hug continued, Chris turned it over and
over in his mind.  He knew that he ought to think it was a good
thing without reservation, but some dark, paranoid corner of his
consciousness persisted in suspicions and misgivings.

Finally, after overhearing another murmured "thanks", Chris
turned back in time to see Skuld releasing Rachel and Ami, the
wide smile on her face a stark contrast to the newer tear stains
there.  Rachel gently cupped her cheek for a moment, then she and
Ami looked up at him expectantly.

"Right," he managed to get out, then coughed and cleared his
throat.  "Right.  Let me walk you two to the gate."

As they stood and took up positions on either side of him and
slipped their arms through his, his sisters vanished back inside
and closed the door, leaving the three of them to the night and
the starlight. Overhead, the moon was a thin crescent, well on
its way to the new moon and shedding only a bare fraction of the
light it would at fullness.  It took a couple minutes for their
eyes to adjust, during which time the girls surprised him again
by leaning their heads on his shoulders in an unspoken synchrony.

"So," he said, clearing his throat again.  "Weird day."

They both giggled softly.  "Yeah, you could say that," Ami
offered.

There was a couple seconds' silence, and then he said, "I hope it
doesn't have to become a *bad* day."

The three stopped at the gate.  Ami turned and laid a hand on his
chest.  "It'll all be okay, Chris.  Your sisters say so, and we
trust them."

"Damned straight," Rachel murmured from where her head still lay
on his shoulder.

Then there came a long moment of companionable silence, during
which Ami resumed her position mirroring Rachel.  Chris closed
his eyes and savored the moment -- no sound but the faint traces
of distant traffic and the light breeze rustling the trees above,
the warmth of Rachel and Ami's bodies enveloping his, the
unexpected feeling of... contentment.  This -- this was what he'd
been wanting.  And this was something he didn't want to risk.  He
wracked his brain for the right way to tell them.

"You two seem to have made quite the impression on my sisters
tonight," he murmured absently while he tried to find the right
words for what he really wanted to say.  "What did you say to
them while I was out?"

He felt rather than saw Ami smile.  "Oh, you know, *things.*"

"Right."  Rachel gave his upper arm a squeeze.  "Just girl talk,
Chris."

Unseen by the girls, he rolled his eyes.  "I'm not going to get
a straight answer if I press you two, am I?"

The only response was another matched pair of giggles.

Without thinking about it, he slid his arms around their backs
and squeezed them tightly.  On impulse he pulled both girls
around and in close, turning their loose line into a tight double
hug that Rachel and Ami immediately returned without complaint.
Chris looked down at the tops of their heads, right below his
chin where both had pressed their faces to his chest.  After a
moment's hesitation, he planted quick, almost furtive kisses on
first Rachel's head, and then Ami's.  The only response he got
was a pair of pleased sighs and a moment of snuggling that
tightened their collective grip on him.

The feeling of contentment only intensified; he basked in it,
knowing how brief it was sure to be.  *Is it wrong to want *both*
of them?* one traitorous corner of his mind asked, not for the
first time.  *Of course it is!* another corner immediately
responded as a mental picture formed of himself clad in a blue
hakama, wielding a bokken and self-importantly reciting poetry.
Disgusted at the image, he shoved the moment of selfish desire
aside and forced himself back to the *far* more important matter
at hand.

He gave the two girls another gentle squeeze, then began, "Ami,
Rachel..."

"No, Chris," Rachel calmly and quietly said into his chest,
"we're not going to stay home tomorrow."

"Or anywhere else away from the temple, for that matter," Ami
added, just as calmly.

Chris, in his opinion, had had a less than optimal evening.  A
dual date that had already been stressful because of the
uncharacteristic cooperation between his girlfriends, ruined by
his Full Manifestation shouldering its way into control of his
body.  Said Manifestation hurtling back to the temple at
something near supersonic speeds to find Doug about to kill Mara.
Discovering Mara was his *sister*.  Discovering that she was
doomed anyway, and that Heaven -- read, the Boss -- wouldn't help
even to grant her last dying wish.  And that his other sisters
were going to defy the Boss to perform a ritual that, regardless
of their reassurances otherwise, he had more than a sneaking
suspicion was, if not profoundly dangerous, at least far more
dangerous than anyone was willing to tell him.  And they were
going to be relying on *Doug* for a critical part of it.

Too much had been completely out of his control over the past few
hours.

No more.  If there was one thing he still had control over, it
was this.

It had *better* be this.

"The *HELL* you aren't!" he bellowed as his temper boiled over
for the third and worst time that day.  "I want you two *far*
away from here in case anything goes wrong!"

As if they had teleported, the girls were suddenly out of his
arms.  They exchanged a glance and as one narrowed their eyes,
and in that moment, Chris's burning rage guttered and flickered.
They were supposed to be intimidated, and agree immediately, if
not willingly, with his demands.  This wasn't going according to
the script.

The rage flared back up.  He'd *make* it go according to the
script.  He took a deep breath in preparation for another bellow.

"That's as may be, Mister."  Rachel scowled at him while poking
him in the chest with her fingertip hard enough to make him
exhale unexpectedly.  "But it's *not* your choice to make."

"What?" Chris began, then tried to regain his momentum.  "Now
wait just a second..."

"No."  Ami joined Rachel in poking him.  "Let us explain
something to you, Mister.  When we, the two of us, got caught up
in this whole wish mess, we didn't just get involved with *you*.
We got involved with your sisters, and the Morisatos, and yeah,
with Mara as well."

"Right!" Rachel said with a curt nod, her expression stern,
verging on furious.  She caught his eyes with hers, and Chris was
paralyzed by the depth of seriousness he saw in them.  "In case
you haven't *noticed,* buster, we're all *family* here!"

"Maybe not formally," Ami allowed as Chris snapped his attention
back to her.  "Not yet, at least.  But one of us *will be*,
sooner or later."

"Regardless," Rachel jumped in before Chris could interject
anything, "*both* of us think of your sisters as family already --
and vice versa!"

"And win or lose, neither of us is going to walk away from that,"
Ami declared firmly.

"Damned straight," Rachel repeated.

Chris blinked.  This was not going the way he had expected it
would.  "But..."

"Family stands by family," Rachel growled.  "So we'll be here,
even if it's only to offer moral support."

The two of them stood shoulder-to-shoulder and crossed their arms
across their chests -- the predictable result of which distracted
Chris so much that what little anger he had managed to hold on to
all but evaporated.  As he tried to gather his thoughts, not to
mention return his eyes to their faces, the two of them scowled a
challenge at him.  Just *try* to make us stay away, their
expressions said.  You won't like the results.

Chris opened his mouth, tried to think of an response, and then
closed it again as a sudden cascade of possibilities and
probabilities played out in his mind's eye.  There was nothing he
could say to object or dissuade them, he realized, that would not
get him in trouble in one way or another.  And they'd still show
up anyway, no doubt about it.

"I'm not going to be able to talk you out of this, am I?" he
asked, more rhetorically than anything.

If anything, Rachel's scowl grew deeper.  "Not a chance in hell,
Chris."

"You can rant and rave and do all the macho posturing you want,"
Ami added, "but it won't make a damned bit of difference."

"Um," Chris temporized.

Ami hmphed, causing another distracting ripple through her
superstructure.  "Besides, we heard the whole story from your
sisters.  You're going to need mortal witnesses."

He frowned.  "Did one of them tell you that?"

She shook her head.  "No.  We decided it ourselves.  Your boss is
trying to sweep this under the rug for some reason.  We won't let
him."

That gave Chris pause.  The Boss *was* acting squirrelly about
this one.  He didn't need to see Belldandy's distress to realize
that.  He considered the matter for several moments.

"Okay," he finally said.  "I'm not going to tell you to stay
away.  I won't say I'll be happy if you're here.  I really would
rather you two be somewhere far away from ground zero -- like the
other side of the planet, maybe -- but I'm not going to try and
argue you into it."

Ami stepped forward and cupped his cheek with her hand.  "It's
very sweet of you to be worried about us, Chris, but we're big
girls.  Thank you for respecting our right to decide things like
this for ourselves."  She raised herself up on tiptoes and kissed
him briefly.  "We'll see you in the morning."

"Right," Rachel said as Ami stepped back, then took her own turn
at kissing him.  "Good night, Chris."

"Good night, ladies," he murmured through a faint smile, and they
stepped through the gate.  Catching it in one hand, he watched as
they walked away, keeping an eye on them until they turned a
corner and disappeared.  His smile vanished as well.  Taking a
deep breath, he gently closed the gate and lowered the latch
slowly so that it didn't clatter.

*I wonder how fast I can get a good, solid lock on this thing,*
Chris thought to himself grimly.  *Or maybe I can get Urd to
spell it shut so they can't open it.*  He turned back toward the
house. *Hmmm.  I wonder if Skuld could hack the school and police
computers to send them off on some wild goose chases tomorrow
morning...*  He allowed himself a narrow grin -- he didn't have
to argue them into staying away if he could arrange it that they
couldn't be here in the first place.

                               * * *

Akihabara, Saturday, May 31, 1997, 12:17 AM

"Just a moment, girls, just a moment," Takano Watanabe chuckled
as he wormed his hand around the young lady clinging to his right
shoulder.  He paused to pinch her ass through the thin silken
skirt that barely covered it, eliciting a startled squeak
followed by a drunken titter, before continuing on to his jacket
pocket, in which he fished for -- and eventually found -- his
keys.

"'Scuse me, ladies."  He flashed his most charming smile to his
left and right as he extricated himself from their grips to a
pair of matched pouts.  "Gotta open the door after all, right?
Be a shame to come all this way and not actually go inside."  As
he slid the key into the lock he looked over his shoulder at his
two companions and added with a waggle of his eyebrows and a
naughty grin, "Besides, we might scandalize my poor neighbors."

The two girls -- for the life of him, Takano couldn't remember
their names now (not that it mattered, really) -- giggled in
chorus.  It was a pleasant sound, and he took a moment as he
swung open the door to his apartment to imagine what other,
equally pleasant, sounds they might also make in chorus.  As he
guided the two giggling, drunk women into his apartment, his grin
broadened into a full, slightly evil smile.  Takano loved his
job, he really did.  An incubus assigned to the mortal world?  A
Hellborn's life couldn't get any better than that.

It *could* get worse, though, he reflected when his phone began
ringing almost as though it had been waiting for him to come
home.  "Bedroom's over there, ladies," he gestured with a waggle
of his brows so over-the-top that it spawned another round of
giggles.  "I'll meet you there in just a minute," he added as he
reached for the receiver, which gave another insistent ring.

As the girls sashayed down the hall arm-in-arm, their hips
swinging in time with each other, Takano grinned a private little
grin of anticipation, then snagged the handset off the
insistently-ringing phone.  "Watanabe here, and it better be
worth it," he snapped, peevish at the interruption of his
combined work and pleasure.

"Zerethuel," said a deep, gravelly voice, and Takano stiffened
while at the same time giving an inner groan.  Only one of his
superiors in the Infernal power structure would address him by
his true name in a phone call.  And that voice belonged to
Razielaingor, a superior considerably up the line from him.  This
didn't bode well.

"Yes, sir," he replied as deferentially as he could.

"Drop everything you're doing and report to the regional ops
office in Nakano.  We have a major defection in progress and
we're assembling a little delegation to express our displeasure
with it.  You're part of it as of right now."

*Shit!*  "Gotcha.  I'll be there in half an hour -- I have a
couple guests that I need to dispose of."

"Hurry it up," Razielaingor growled.  "And don't blow us off for
one of your bimbos again.  You do, and I'll yank your assignment
to the mortal world so fast your head will spin -- and that's
*before* I snap your fucking neck for thinking only with your
dick.  This is a *priority one* redeployment, got that?"

"Um..."  Takano glanced longingly down the hall to his master
bedroom.  "Understood."

"Good."  There was a violent click as Razielaingor hung up.

Takano stood stock still for a moment as his mind raced.  *A
major defection?  That could only mean a first class unlimited
was running to the Other Side...*  And *that* meant that this
"delegation" was a *war party*, because a defector of that level
was *always* protected by a fucking legion of angels until the
process was done and they could bugger off to Heaven.
Razielaingor was probably calling in every demon in the Kanto
Plain, and then some.

Takano groaned.  He really *hated* going up against angels.  He
was a lover, not a fighter; no matter how you cut it, he was
screwed -- and not in the way he liked.  *So much for this
Vessel...  And just when things were going so good, too.*

"Um, ladies..." he called out apologetically as he turned and
headed for the master bedroom, "something's come up.  Looks like
I'm going to have to take a rain check..."

                               * * *

Tarikihonganji Temple Complex, Saturday, May 31, 1997, 4:27 AM

Despite Belldandy's best intentions, I did *not* get a good,
restful eight hours of sleep.  Instead, I got about an hour of
lying wide-awake in the dark, four hours of troubled dozing, and
another hour or so of tossing and turning on my futon, futilely
trying to get back to sleep after being jolted awake by a rather
unpleasant dream.

Finally I just gave up on getting any further rest.  I plodded
down the hall to the bathroom, freshened up a bit, then came back
to my bedroom and dressed.  That done, I stole silently outside
and swung myself up onto the roof as quietly as I could manage.
I sat myself down facing the east and waited for dawn.  At that
time of year, sunrise in the vicinity of Tokyo takes place just
about 4:30 in the morning, so I didn't have long to wait.

I took the time to lean back, close my eyes, and bask in those
first warming rays of light.  For a lot of reasons both symbolic
and literal, daybreak is a very important time magically and
metaphysically, and I'm certainly not one to turn down anything
that might give me an edge, especially with something so critical
as Mara's Redemption less than six hours later.  As I basked, I
spent the next ninety minutes or so thinking about the coming
ritual and my part in it.

Don't misunderstand -- I wasn't having second thoughts.  Far from
it -- I was debugging the Redemption in my head, trying to
eliminate all possible complications, problems and pitfalls from
my part of the process, to make my contribution as perfect as
possible.  It might seem to the casual outside observer that I
had relatively little to do -- not much more than show up and
stand in the right place -- but that would be a deceptive
oversimplification.  I would be playing just as active a part in
the process as any of the goddesses were, and more could go wrong
on my end than simply not having enough power, or not enough
power for long enough.

So I spent the next hour and a half building a fault tree in my
head for my part in the ritual.  I ruthlessly identified all the
possible things that could go wrong and tracked them back to
potential causes, then revised my mental plans for the ritual to
eliminate -- or account for -- those causes.

By the time I heard Belldandy rise and begin her day, I had
pared down the list of faults to a handful of things I could do
nothing about, and *one* last thing that I could -- with help.

I hopped down off the roof and went looking for Bell.

                               * * *

Tarikihonganji Temple, Saturday, May 31, 1997, 8:47 AM

"Okay, Bell, c'mon, what's this all about?" Chris demanded as
they filed into the cool dryness of the temple after breakfast.
Whatever it was, Belldandy had not taken the time to wash the
dishes first before leading them in here, and in his experience
any break that Belldandy made from her familiar routine was
something to worry about.

"And what's *he* doing here?" Chris added after his eyes had
adapted to the dim candlelight, and he realized that Doug was
kneeling at the far end of the temple, facing the door.
Belldandy shushed him and he winced; that had come out a bit more
sharply than he'd intended.

"Thank you for coming, all of you," Doug said in a firm but calm
voice, loud enough to carry through the entire temple.  "Before
we can start the ritual later this morning, there's something I
need to do, if only to calm my mind before we start."  One corner
of his mouth twitched almost into a half-smile, as though he were
amused at the thought.  "I've always been something of an anti-
theist," he continued.  "But as Chris already knows, I'm that
rarest of beasts, the Roman Catholic Jew."

This time he did smile, and it was a smirking, self-deprecating
one.  "So believe me when I tell you, I know from guilt."  The
smirk disappeared.  "Now, while I'd like to think that I'm a
*good* person, I know for a fact that I'm not necessarily a
*nice* one."

"Oh, Doug," Belldandy interjected, "I've told you that's not so."

He held up a hand.  "No, no, hear me out, okay?  You haven't seen
me in a real battle, or doing something distasteful because it's
my duty.  I try my best to be ethical, but I can't always afford
to be *moral*."  He chewed on his lower lip for a moment.  "The
important thing is, I'm thinking I need to address that before I
get involved in something as inherently... well, *holy,* as a
Redemption.  Therefore, I believe it's absolutely necessary that
I do this."

He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and then very clearly
enunciated, "Bless me, Lord and Ladies, for I have sinned.  It
has been over thirty years since my last confession."

"Now, wait just a freaking minute!" Chris bellowed even as Skuld
and Urd voiced their own objections.  It took him a moment to
realize that Belldandy was *not* objecting.  "Bell?" he asked,
turning to her.  Next to him, Urd and Skuld fell silent and
looked to her.

Belldandy studied Chris's face for a moment.  "Doug came to me
before breakfast to ask for this.  While I do not believe that it
is at all necessary, Doug *does*, and it will do us no harm --
and him some good -- if we hear him out."

"I'm not a freakin' priest, Bell," Chris growled.

"No, you're a *god*," Doug said from where he still knelt,
unmoving.  "You outrank a priest by a fair amount, you know."

"I'm not Catholic either, you!" the younger man shot back.

Doug laughed.  "Neither am I any more, technically.  I'm just
using a familiar form."  His mirth vanished, and for a moment it
seemed like the shadows around him thickened a bit.  "When we do
this thing in a little more than an hour, I do not want to risk
*anything* going wrong on my side.  And for my peace of mind,
that includes getting myself into as close to something like a
state of grace as I can get."  He chuckled again, but darkly.
"You can take the boy out of the Roman Catholic Church, but you
can't always take the Roman Catholic Church out of the boy..."

Chris looked to either side of himself.  Urd's face held a
thoughtful, speculative look; and Skuld, though frowning, was
nodding apparently in agreement.  Turning back to Belldandy he
hissed, "You *can't* be serious."

His sister inclined her head and blinked at him.  "Of course I
am."  She stared at him, a tiny wrinkle forming between her
eyebrows.  "If you do not wish to take part, you don't have to.
You can walk out the door right now.  But I have agreed to do
this."

"I'm in," Urd murmured, a thoughtful expression on her face.  "It
feels right."

Skuld nodded.  "Yeah, me, too."  She looked up at Chris.
"'Niichan?"

He looked at his sisters and shook his head.  Somehow, it seemed
almost... *blasphemous* for him to take part in this.  At the
same time, though, he realized that this was the most *godlike*
thing anyone had ever asked of him, even counting the one wish
he'd granted.  It was, he discovered as he thought about it, a
bit intimidating -- and maybe even frightening, more so even than
his first visit to Heaven and the Boss's office.  He wondered why
that was for a moment, before it dawned on him.

In all of the real "god stuff" in his life so far, he had been
totally passive -- it all had happened, or been done, *to* him.
Even with Ami's wish (for all that granting it had changed and
transformed him) he had still been little more than a vessel, at
best a glorified delivery boy.  All through everything he could
tell himself, "I'm still Christopher Angel, I'm still an ordinary
guy from 'Toon Town, Canada."

But Doug's simple request -- "let me tell you all the bad things
I've done" -- carried with it the implicit subtext, "because
you're a god, and I need you to forgive me in a way that is real
and effective on a metaphysical level -- I need you to wipe the
register of my evil deeds clean."  It demanded that Chris *be* a
god in a way he hadn't ever tried to be one before:  something,
some*one* more than a guy who had acquired some beautiful sisters
and who hung out with Thor and who got to fly.  It meant suddenly
taking a very real responsibility for the state of Doug's soul,
however temporarily.  Whatever *that* meant.

It meant, for the first time, actually *believing* he really
*was* a god, instead of just some dork with superpowers and
oddball friends.  And doing something with it.

If only he knew *what*.

The whirlwind of thought that had raced through his mind must
have been visible on his face, for Belldandy's faint expression
of annoyance had vanished entirely, wiped away by concern and
compassion.  "Chris?"

"Bell," he whispered.  "How do I... *what* do I do?  I don't have
a *clue* here."

Belldandy's eyes widened slightly, and her mouth formed an "O" of
surprise.  Then she nodded as if to herself, raised a hand and
with infinite gentleness cupped his cheek.  "Watch and learn,
Oniisan."  She turned from him back to Doug, who still knelt
patiently at the back of the temple.

Urd tapped Chris on the shoulder.  "Celestial sight, 'Niichan,"
she grinned, tapping the side of her face next to her right eye
with a forefinger.  "Don't worry if you don't understand right
away.  Just... go with the flow, okay?"

He shook his head.  "Whatever you say."

"You'll do fine, 'Niichan," Skuld added, quickly hugging him
around the waist before joining her sisters in facing Doug.

"Whenever you're ready, Doug," Chris heard Belldandy say as he
concentrated on activating his Celestial senses for the second
time in a day.

Somewhere in the background, as the physical world gave way to
its counterpart of energies and code, Chris heard Doug reply
softly, "Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my
heart be acceptable in thy sight."

"Amen," murmured his sisters in unison, and Chris echoed them,
half a beat behind.

"Bless me, Lord and Ladies, for I have sinned," Doug began again,
and this time Chris paid attention on the celestial level as the
older man seemed to settle into an almost trancelike calm.  "It
has been over thirty years since my last confession."

*Not since his teens...* Chris thought as Doug quietly launched
into a careful and inexorable litany of sins.

"By my best estimate," he began quietly, "I have killed or
contributed to the deaths of no less than seven hundred sentient
beings, human and otherwise.  All but one were in the course of
executing my duty as I saw it at the time.  The one who wasn't
was also my first kill.  That happened in London when I was 24,
and it was an accident in a street fight caused by my
carelessness..."

As Doug launched into a catalog of death that stunned him with
both its breadth and detail, Chris's first reaction was an almost
palpable revulsion.  *This is the guy I was starting to think of
as almost a friend?  He's a freaking psychopath!  I can't believe
that I've been leaving Skuld alone with him!*

"...I disintegrated the space suits from around a pair of hostile
aliens while they were in hard vacuum..."

But even as he thought that, he felt... the only way he could
describe it was that an almost-visible mantle of divinity had
settled over his sisters.  They had somehow become... *more*.
Studying the changes in their auras he realized, in a way that he
knew he would never be able to verbalize, just what they had
done.  And he did the same.

"...By rotting the bindings on the ballista I caused it to
explode violently, killing most of its crew -- which was my
intention..."

The world of fields and forces, code and energy, seemed to twist
and warp, and then accelerate *past* him as his Celestial senses
dove through them and into an entirely new level of reality.
Chris reeled; the last thing he had expected was *another* shift
in his perceptions.  *How much more is there to being a god that
I haven't even had a clue about?*  He felt a momentary flash of
anger at his sisters, then chastised himself.  No one had ever
told him being a god was a simple and uncomplicated thing, and
during his training some of the Aesir -- Thor, a couple others he
thought of as stand-up types -- had gone out of their way to tell
him the exact opposite.  And there had never been a point when
his sisters had said "That's it, there's no more."  He really
didn't have a reason to complain.

But dammit, it would have been nice to have a syllabus, or a
schedule of expected milestones, or *something* to give him an
idea what to expect and when!

"...not realizing that they were enslaved sentient beings, I
murdered at least twenty-one combat androids..."

Shaking his head, he glanced over at Urd, Skuld and Belldandy.
On this level of perception they were no longer human figures,
but intense, tightly-constrained fields of highly-organized
energy; despite this, he found he could easily tell them apart.

A thought struck him, and he glanced down at himself.

Yup.  Energy field.  The weird thing, though, was that it looked
*right*.  Familiar even -- like an old photo of himself that he
hadn't looked at in a long time.

*Um.  Yeah,* he thought before he turned his attention back to
his sisters.  They were not, as he had half-expected, passively
listening to Doug's recitation.  Instead, they were somehow...
*interacting* with it.  As Doug continued to pour forth accounts
of death after bloody death, bits of that wispy darkness in his
soul would rise to its surface one after another, where with a
flicker of their energies his sisters would somehow draw them out
of him. Tiny clouds of darkness swirled through the space around
Doug, then vanished in bursts of ethereal golden fire.

"...I deliberately killed an elderly man by disconnecting his
life support mechanisms while taunting him..."

"What are you...?"  Chris's voice echoed strangely in this level
of reality.  Not that it was actually a "voice", he realized
absently.

"Doug's guilt poisons his soul," Belldandy said simply.

"It festers and swells, like a boil," Urd added.

"We lance it and drain it, and he grows healthier," Skuld
concluded.

"Wonderful images, there, guys," Chris groaned.

"...I slaughtered seventeen of Hanoi Xan's minions with a Gurkha
kukri and a pair of chopsticks before I found my helmet..."

"You, too," he muttered in Doug's general direction as the
metaphorical pool of blood around the older man grew several
centimeters deeper.  "I thought you said he didn't need this,"
Chris murmured to Belldandy.

"He doesn't," she replied, "not for Mara's Redemption.  His long-
term mental health, however, is a different matter."

"And it's important enough to do *now*?" Chris pressed.

"Yes," she said with a finality which told Chris that the topic
was *not* open to argument or discussion.

"...I often select the most vicious and bloody means at my
disposal in order to terrorize and demoralize my opponents..."

Chris idly noted that Doug had apparently run out of killings and
was now embarking on a catalog of his lesser sins.  The clouds
of darkness drawn from his soul, consequently, seemed smaller and
less substantial.

"Okay," he sighed.  "Let me see if I can help."

"...I have committed the sin of Pride on an almost hourly
basis..."

The process was entirely too close to magic for his comfort, but
nothing *seemed* to go wrong -- which only made him more nervous.
But prompted by Belldandy's whispered instructions, vague as they
were, Chris added his own efforts to his sisters'.

He wasn't quite sure exactly what it was he was doing; he
suspected he lacked not only the vocabulary but even the proper
frame of reference to truly understand the process, and that the
"dark clouds" and "golden fire" were little more than metaphors,
his mind's attempts to interpret sensory -- or maybe
*meta*sensory -- input from a level of reality it had never been
intended to handle.  Chris made a mental note to find out if what
his sisters saw and what *he* saw even bore any resemblance to
each other.

Regardless, though, it did seem that he was doing *something*.
Following Bell's instructions, he was able to extract one of the
little black clouds from Doug's structure.  The next step, well,
it didn't even have any kind of analogue in the physical world he
preferred; he wasn't even precisely sure *what* it was that Bell
was leading him through.  All he knew was that the whatever-it-
was that looked like a dark mist -- some measure of Doug's guilt
over some act, if his sisters' descriptions were as literal as he
was afraid they were -- seemed almost to catch fire, flashing
into a golden energy.  Part of that energy rushed back into Doug,
he noted absently... and part of it went into himself.

"...I have entertained the thought of breaking my wedding
vows to gain temporary comfort during my exile..."

Chris almost panicked when he realized that the energies were
joining themselves to his own.  Months before, the power he'd
invoked by granting Ami's wish had run wild through him like a
raging torrent, carving away parts of his mortal identity and
replacing them with the stuff of godhood.  For a moment, he
feared that more of his original self was being burned away by
his godly actions, turning him into even more of a stranger to
himself.

Almost as soon as the fear had coalesced in his mind, though, it
was rendered moot.  He felt the energy born of... whatever it was
they were doing... flowing into his very being, but instead of
displacing him, it added itself *to* him.  Instead of the dreaded
sensation of becoming even more *alien*, Chris discovered that he
was instead becoming... more of himself.  He was not changing, he
was *growing* -- yet at the same time, centering himself and
almost *anchoring* himself within the world.

"Whoa," he breathed.  "What *was* that?"

The energy pattern that was Skuld paused to shift its attention
to him and did something that his brain interpreted as a smile.
"That, 'Niichan, is one of the things we get from mortals."  Her
smile broadened into a grin when she saw the surprise cross his
face.  "What, did you think it was all one-way?"

Chris shrugged as, once again following Belldandy's instructions
by rote, he drew out another cloud of darkness and transmuted it
in golden fire.  "I, uh, actually I never really thought about
it."  He closed his eyes and breathed in sharply as another jolt
of the golden energy suffused his being.

"...Worst of all, I sometimes give in to despair that I will
never get home..."

"In the far distant past, 'Niichan, gods and mortals made a
bargain," Urd said, burning away another darkness.  "This ancient
Covenant was the first contract, and like any good contract, both
parties get something out of the deal."

"And this is the gods' share of the deal?" he asked.

Urd-as-energy did the same smile-analogue that Skuld-as-energy
had.  "It's part of it."  With a flash of golden light, the last
small darkness vanished.

Skuld did something to him that felt like getting elbowed in the
side.  "Sssh!  He's done!"

As if by prearranged signal, the state of altered perception in
which Chris had been collapsed into a cascade of colored streaks
of light that accelerated, blurred and resolved themselves back
into the temple interior.  For a moment the polished and painted
wood of the candlelit structure looked strange and uncanny,
somehow alien to his sight, until he shook his head and forced
himself to remember what was *normal* and what wasn't.  *The
physical world, dammit,* he thought. *This is normality.  Nothing
else.*

When his perceptions settled down, he turned his attention back
to Doug, who sat with bowed head.  "For these and all of my sins,
I am sorry," he intoned quietly but with a sincerity that
surprised Chris.  "Have mercy on me, a sinner."

For a moment there was a stillness, a moment that seemed to fill
the temple with an exquisite, palpable sense of peace.  It was so
physical a sensation that for a moment, Chris thought he could
reach out a hand and curl his fingers around a bit of it, that he
could then slide into his pocket and keep.

His hand twitched with the urge to do just that, and he had just
begun to open his fingers when Belldandy stepped forward and
cupped Doug's face in her hands, tilting it upward as she leaned
down to him.  Even on his knees, Doug's head still reached almost
to her shoulders, so she didn't have far to bend to place a
gentle kiss in the center of his forehead.  Doug's eyes widened
in surprise, and then shut as he drew a long, slow breath.

"Forgiven," Belldandy breathed when she broke the kiss, somehow
less than a whisper and yet filling the temple to overflowing
with the sound of her voice.  Doug's eyes remained shut as she
stepped back and Urd took her place before him.

Chris suppressed a groan of mixed annoyance and amusement when
his eldest sister -- no, next-to-eldest now, he'd have to
remember that -- leaned down and kissed Doug squarely on the
lips.  Doug's eyes shot open wide in surprise, but before he
could react further, Urd broke the kiss.  "Forgiven," she intoned
in a smoky voice that seemed to raise the temperature in the
temple by five degrees.  Then she straightened up and stepped
back.

He glanced at his youngest sister.  After a moment's hesitation,
Skuld darted across the floor and stood before Doug. She took his
face in her hands just as Bell had, and looked deeply into his
eyes.  She searched the older man's eyes thoroughly, though Chris
had no idea what she might be looking for, before nodding to
herself.  Releasing her hold on his face, Skuld leaned down to
quickly peck Doug on the cheek.  "Forgiven," she squeaked, then
turned around to dash back to her siblings and past them out the
door of the temple.  As she passed, Chris noted the glow of a
blush spreading across her cheeks and the bridge of her nose.

Belldandy and Urd shared a glance and a giggle, then followed her
out.

Chris turned back and for the third time that day turned on his
Celestial senses.  Almost all the darkness was gone from Doug's
aura.  Not all of it, though; buried deep were still traces of
something faint but old, wrapped firmly around the center of his
soul.  *Huh.  Wonder what that is... something he won't admit
to?* Chris thought.  *Or is that original sin?  *Is* there really
such a thing as original sin?  Gotta ask Bell.*

He dropped back into normal sight to note Doug, still kneeling,
was gazing at him expectantly.  Chris tilted his head and
considered scowling for a moment.  "If you think *I'm* going to
kiss you..."

Doug's face suddenly contorted like a rubber mask as he affected
an exaggeratedly effeminate pout.  "Oh, please?" he simpered, but
his eyes twinkled with mischief.

"Sorry, no," Chris managed to grind out, uncertain whether to
growl or laugh.  "You're not my type."

Looking mournfully down at the flat expanse of his very male
chest, Doug replied, in a more normal voice, "No, I suppose not."

Chris narrowed his eyes.  "What do you mean by that?"

Doug looked up at him, eyes still twinkling.  "Just that it's
pretty damned obvious from your girlfriends that you and Russ
Meyer are spiritual brothers."

"Russ...?" he began with a scowl before the name sparked a
memory.  He turned the rest of the question into a choked cough
as Doug simply stood by, grinning.  "Russ Meyer.  Right."  He
groaned slightly as a series of images flashed across his mind.
"Thanks a *lot*, guy.  The last thing I need to think about right
now is *Valley of the Supervixens.*  I don't need the freakin'
distraction."

Doug shook his head, grinning ruefully and chuckling.  "No, I
suppose you don't."  He rose to his feet with that same boneless
inhuman grace, stepped forward, and held out his hand.  "Sorry
'bout that."

"I'll cope," Chris said firmly.  He took Doug's hand and they
shook. "Now, I don't have much of a handle on this part of the
job, but if they say you're forgiven, you're forgiven.  Okay?"

"Right."

"Good."  Chris then motioned toward the door with his head.
"C'mon, let's clear out and give the girls a chance to set up
the ritual."

Doug nodded.  "Right."  Together they strode to the door.

"So... what was that like for you?" Chris asked as he stepped
aside to let Doug exit first.

Doug paused on the threshold and considered, closing his eyes for
a few moments as he thought.  He opened them again and said, "I
don't think I could really describe it properly.  All I know is,
I'm a bit more at peace now than I've been in quite a while."  He
chuckled.  "But if that's the way a confession is *supposed* to
go, every Catholic priest I've ever encountered has been doing it
wrong."  He frowned.  "They didn't give me a penance to do."

Chris snorted.  "Trust me.  Living with this bunch is penance
enough, sometimes."

Doug emitted a sharp bark of laughter.  "If you say so."  He
peered at Chris in the sunlight that streamed through the door.
"How about you?  What was it like on your side of things?"

Chris tilted his head.  "I don't think," he said after several
moments, "that I can really describe it either."  He nodded,
mostly to himself, as he considered the new, deeper feeling of
being *himself* that he now had.  "But I think it was a good
thing that I took part."

                               * * *

Doug parted company with him as soon as they were in the
courtyard, claiming to want to meditate and center himself in the
time they had before the last preparations for the ritual, and
Chris found himself at loose ends.  As his sisters bustled into
the temple with bags and boxes of ritual materials in their arms
he tried not to be in their way -- which, he was annoyed to
discover, merely meant that he had to dodge out of their paths
twice as often as he would have had he just admitted his
curiosity and watched from the door.

Too proud to admit that, though, Chris forced himself away from
the temple and back into the house.  Lacking any other place to
actually go, he found himself in the kitchen, surrounded by the
unwashed dishes from the morning's breakfast.  Doug's
"confession" had taken so long that Belldandy hadn't had the time
to come back and clean up as she had no doubt planned.  That said
something about the scope of Doug's sins, Chris thought as he
turned on the sink faucet and let the water heat up.

*Over seven hundred dead at his hands.*  Chris shook his head as
he picked up the long-handled scrub brush Belldandy preferred,
ran hot water over its head, then squirted dishwashing liquid
onto it.  *And he could remember each and every one of them.  And
the way he was talking, I'll bet he can remember all of their
faces.*

Testing the stream from the faucet with the side of his hand, he
found it a bit too hot and spun open the cold tap a bit, then
shook the water off his fingers.  *If that'd been Thor or Modi,
or even Sif, it would have been a boast, a recitation of just how
badass they were.*  Checking again, he nodded at the more
tolerable temperature.  Without really thinking about it, Chris
took the first of the dishes and began scrubbing it with the
brush under the stream.  *This was more like a list of... of his
failures.  Except for the first, Doug didn't regret any of the
deaths so much as he regretted not being able to find
alternatives that accomplished his goals just as well but left
them alive.*

He absently rinsed and racked the first plate, and reached for
the next while considering what he'd learned during the
confession.  *Doug's very definitely someone who'll kill without
a qualm if there's no better alternative available.  And he's got
some pretty strict criteria for "better".*  Chris shook his head
without lifting his eyes from the task before him.  *That's
a pretty twisted way of looking at things, if you ask me.*

"Here, let us."  Chris started as the feminine hand reached
around him and snatched the plate out of his hand.  Rachel
squeezed around and in front of him, shooting him a quick smile
as she then relieved him of the brush.  "You've been scrubbing
that plate for the last couple minutes."

"And ignoring us trying to talk to you," Ami breathed into the
ear on the other side before shouldering him aside to take up a
station next to her rival, dish towel in hand.

"Wha...?"  Chris blinked in confusion for a moment before his
heart fell.  *Aw, crap.  I got so caught up in things that I
forgot to find a way to keep them out.*

Ami shared a quick grin with Rachel.  "That's what I love about
him -- the eloquence that never deserts him even in the worst
situations."

"Well," Rachel pronounced loftily as she rinsed the plate and
handed to Ami, "he *is* a silver-tongued devil."

"Gah."  Chris glowered at them for a moment, then spun on his
heel and stalked out of the kitchen.  Before he'd gotten five
steps down the hallway, a matched pair of giggles chased after
him.

He growled -- softly -- at the sound.  *I can't decide which is
worse -- the two of them sniping at each other like they used
to, or the way they team up to tease me now.*

He burst through the door to the yard only to stop short.

"Hi, guy!"

Chris groaned and resisted the urge to facepalm.  "What are
*you* four doing here today?"

It was the entire god squad -- Juhachi, Louis, Hiroshi and
Takeshi, smugly grinning at him.  Louis had his hand out to the
door -- whether to open it or knock, Chris had no idea and quite
frankly didn't care.  *We *so* need a freaking huge lock on the
gate.*

"We heard you're having a little party here today," Juhachi
replied with a smirk.

Takeshi laughed.  "You don't think we'd miss out on a chance to
see your mysterious house guest in action, do you?"

Chris grimaced, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment as he
gritted his teeth.  "How the fnord did you find out about this?"

"Oh, a little bird told us."  Louis pointed up and over Chris'
head.  He spun in place and looked up at the edge of the roof to
see an annoyingly familiar raven, which greeted him with a raised
wing and a single mocking caw.  Behind it, another couple dozen
of the birds dropped down out of the sky to silently perch
themselves in an unnaturally even row along the roof's ridge
line.

Drawing a deep breath as he felt a surge of irritation well up in
his chest, Chris turned back to his friends.  Louis's grin grew
even wider as he added, "Keferael there happened to overhear part
of your planning session last night and let us know what was up."

"I'm not going to let you bozos stop this," Chris grated.

As Louis and Takeshi shared an amused look, Juhachi chuckled and
Hiroshi actually broke out in genuine laughter, short-circuiting
Chris' growing anger and just leaving him confused.  *Again.*

"Stop you?" Takeshi asked incredulously.  "We're not here to
*stop* you -- we're here to *help* you."

Louis elbowed him.  "Watch him."

"Watch him -- you," Takeshi echoed automatically, then gave Louis
a mock glare.  "We're none of us passing the word back to the
home office about this, that's helping him."

"Well, yeah, I suppose..."

"Guys..." Chris groaned.  "I really *don't* need this right now."

"Look, Chris," Juhachi said softly, interrupting Louis and
Takeshi, who promptly fell silent.  "There are certain ways that
things are done.  And what's taking place this morning...  well,
*protocol* calls for an honor guard.  More than just you, I
mean."  He held out his hand.  "*We're* your honor guard."  He
smiled again.  "Well, the rest of it."

Chris glared at Juhachi's hand as though it were an alien thing
of unknown habits that might bite him, and did his best to put
aside his gut reactions.  They were serious, the Boss help him.

Deep within his soul, something stirred.  *Trust them.*

Chris blinked.  That... communication... had felt suspiciously
like his Full Manifestation.  But it had never bothered to *talk*
to him before.  That alone was enough to make him nervous.
Still, he had no reason to doubt the advice of something that
Bell had repeatedly insisted was nothing but *him*.

Even if he didn't entirely buy that.

Mentally shrugging, he reached out and grasped Juhachi's wrist in
the ancient manner, and Juhachi closed his hand around Chris'.
Chris allowed a smile, the first in a while, to cross his face.
"Thanks," he said, all he trusted himself to say at first.  "It's
good to have you guys here.  We're not ready to start yet, so
c'mon inside."

                               * * *

It had belatedly occurred to Chris that Rachel and Ami had never
met the borderline-Celestial crowd he hung around with during his
"guy time".  Maybe he had a chance to correct that before the
ritual started.

"Guys, pull up a seat," he said, waving at the kitchen table.  At
the sink, the girls turned around with identical expressions of
surprised curiosity on their faces.  They looked so much alike in
that moment that Chris could have laughed.  Reaching out, he took
each by the (slightly damp) hand and pulled them away from the
sink.

Setting them down in their own seats with a quick introduction,
Chris then turned his attention to the coffee Bell had already
brewed earlier that morning, hoping there was enough left to fill
six new mugs and top off the one he'd used at breakfast.  It was
suspiciously sufficient for the task, and Chris wondered whether
it was conspiracy or divine foreknowledge -- even with the most
guileless of his sisters, it was sometimes hard to tell.

He returned to the table with his fingers laced through the
handles of seven mugs.  Miraculously avoiding painful spills, he
distributed cups all around, took his own seat, and -- with a
certain amount of satisfaction -- rescued the other six from the
awkward silence that had fallen after the initial round of
greetings had petered out.

                               * * *

By the time Belldandy slipped into the kitchen to announce that
the ritual space was ready, Chris had -- much to his surprise and
pleasure -- made considerable progress in uniting these two
separate parts of his life.  For once, he had navigated a
potentially disastrous social situation without putting his foot
in his mouth.  Better yet, he'd managed to start a group
conversation that took off and carried itself along without his
intervention, allowing him to sit back and simply enjoy watching
his girlfriends and his guy friends get to know each other.

When the door finally opened to reveal a solemn Belldandy, the
kitchen was ringing with merry laughter spawned by Rachel and Ami
stumbling over each other to tell a somewhat embarrassing
anecdote about one of his early, disastrous attempts at a detente
between the two girls.  It was far from the first such story
recounted by either side, but Chris couldn't bring himself to be
upset.  *A little embarrassment,* he thought, *isn't that bad a
price to pay if this is the result.*  Evidently Bell agreed,
judging from the pleased (and somewhat ominously mischievous)
smile she favored the boisterous table with after catching his
eye.

As the laughter faded away naturally, her quiet announcement of
"We're ready" cut across the room.  It didn't dispel the
merriment so much as put it on hold with an implicit promise of
more later.  Despite the sudden solemnity, Chris felt his lips
curve ever-so-slightly into a faint, approving smile. He gave a
curt nod, more to himself than anything, and said softly, "Okay,
let's do this."

Belldandy returned the nod.  "Onii-san, Doug's already in Mara's
room with a stretcher.  If you'll help him bring her into the
temple, I'll lead everyone else to their places."

"Right."  He turned to Ami and Rachel, and quickly kissed each
one.  "I'll see you after.  Behave," he added with mock
sternness.

"Who, us?" Ami retorted, while Rachel merely attempted a look of
offended innocence.  Chris rolled his eyes.  He turned back to
Belldandy, and leaned down to peck her cheek.  "Good luck, Bell."

She beamed at him.  "Thank you, Chris."

He nodded again, more to himself than to her.  "Right, then," he
declared as he stepped to the kitchen door, "I'll see you all in
the temple."

He got perhaps five steps down the hall before he frowned in
puzzlement.  *We have a stretcher?*

                               * * *

Doug and Mara were speaking in hushed tones, and looked up with
identical expressions of startlement when Chris knocked on the
doorjamb.  "It's time," he said simply.

Doug turned back to Mara, took her hand and squeezed it gently,
and said, "Showtime it is, then.  Good luck."

"I'll need it," she rasped as he laid her hand back down on the
bed, and Chris was shocked to realize that she must not have the
strength to lift it herself.  In daylight she had at first glance
seemed healthier-looking than she had the night before, but it
was an illusion shattered by a closer look -- her skin was an
ashen shade that reflected the warm glow of morning without
contributing anything to it.

To cover up the sudden surge of concern and fear, Chris blurted,
"Bell said there's a stretcher."

Doug motioned with his head.  "In the corner.  Set it up while I
bundle up our customer here?"

Chris nodded and retrieved the stretcher from where it leaned
against the wall.  It looked simple enough -- two two-meter
wooden poles and a canvas sling with tubes sewn into its long
sides.

"Customer?"  Mara's voice held neither heat nor strength -- a
weary curiosity was all that its hoarse whisper carried.

"Sure!" Doug proclaimed with a cheerfulness that Chris could have
sworn was genuine as he began tucking the sheets around her,
turning her into a lightly-wrapped mummy.  "Doug and Chris's
exclusive taxi service."  He wagged an admonishing forefinger at
her.  "And don't think you're getting away without giving us a
generous tip, lady!"

Chris laid the sling on the floor and slid the poles into
position. There was just enough open space on the floor to
accommodate it, although Doug had to hop around a bit to avoid
getting cracked on the ankle or shin in the process.  He snapped
his head up at the sound of Mara's labored breathing, but he
realized a moment later that she was laughing as best she could
with her dwindling strength.

"You want a tip?" she asked as Chris stood.  "Bet on Finnegan's
Folly to win in the fourth at Belmont!"  She tried to laugh again
but instead began to cough.

Doug took her hand again as Chris slid in beside him.  "And here
I am nowhere near OTB," he murmured with a faint grin.  "Some
tip."  He glanced up at Chris.  "I *like* her.  She's silly."

Chris rolled his eyes.  "C'mon, we're ready here."

Doug nodded and waved at the bed.  "We'll lift her with the
bottom sheet -- you take the end by her feet, and I'll take the
one by her head, and we'll just pick her up and lay her down on
the stretcher, sheets and all, in one smooth motion.  Easiest and
most comfortable way to do this, I think."

Chris nodded.  "Right.  Whenever you're ready."

                               * * *

Transferring Mara to the stretcher was as easily accomplished as
it had been described, much to Chris' relief.  Only as they
lowered her to the floor did Mara make any sound; she whimpered
faintly in response to the slight bounce, but then dismissed
their concern with a weak smile.

Once they had hoisted the stretcher between them, Chris had
feared the prospect of navigating the doors, but somebody --
almost certainly Belldandy, Chris decided -- had anticipated
their need, and had left every door between the bedroom and the
yard wide open.

Even taking extra time so as not to jostle Mara unnecessarily, it
took them less than a minute to carry her out of the house,
across the empty, still yard, and into the temple.  Once inside,
they carefully negotiated a narrow corridor of blank floor that
led into the very center of the complex pattern of lines and
symbols that had been painstakingly chalked onto the gleaming
floorboards.  There, to one side of a bare circle no more than a
couple meters across, Doug's helmet waited for them.

Chris took a moment to glance around.  The God Squad was
stationed at the four quarters, facing outward, waiting calmly at
attention with no fidgeting, to his considerable surprise.
Rachel and Ami were sitting on a bench against the south wall,
well away from the circle.  Keiichi stood not far from them,
intent on Belldandy's every move.

Chris' attention was drawn back to the task at hand when they
stopped in the heart of the design.  Doug caught his eye and
nodded, and they carefully lowered Mara to the floor.  As they
did, Doug called out cheerily, "Delivery!  I have a delivery for
a Miss Belldandy!  Is there a Miss Belldandy in the house?"

Chris stifled a groan but his sisters -- even Mara, judging by
the pained smile on her face -- were clearly amused by Doug's
attempt to lighten the atmosphere.  Belldandy glided over,
carefully staying within the unmarked "lane".  With that same
mischievous grin she'd worn earlier she innocently replied, "I'm
Belldandy.  Where do I sign?", prompting Chris to groan again.
*Doug is infecting my sisters with his sense of humor, no doubt
about it.*

Doug made a grand show of checking his pockets.  "Clipboard,
clipboard... I knew I had a clipboard when I left the office this
morning."  He patted his chest, as if the mythical clipboard
might be hiding in a breast pocket, then donned an exceedingly
overwrought look of despair.  "I seem to have forgotten..."

He was interrupted by a deep, loud ring that sounded like it came
from a gong.  At the sound of it, Chris involuntarily snapped to
attention, standing ramrod straight.

"What...?" Doug began.

"The wards!" Urd cried.

"We're under attack," Chris declared almost before he knew *how*
he knew.  From their bench, Ami and Rachel surged to their feet,
and he waved them to stay put.

Belldandy's smile vanished and her eyes narrowed.  "Somehow
Mara's superiors must have learned of what we're attempting, and
want to stop it."

Urd frowned as her eyes grew distant, then snapped wide in alarm.
"They have a wardcracker!  I can feel the feedback!"

"A wardcracker?" Keiichi asked.

"Damn, damn, damn!"  Doug clenched his fists and grimaced.  "I
knew I should have added something to the protections when I had
the time!  Damn me for a fool!"

Skuld angrily muttered something that Chris couldn't make out.
Belldandy apparently had no such problem, because she looked
shocked and snapped, "Skuld!  Language!"

"Sorry, oneesama," his youngest sister murmured.  "But what are
we going to do?"

Chris felt a wellspring of confidence and determination surge
up into him from some unknown source.  "You," he found himself
saying, "are going to take your places and start the ritual."

Belldandy studied him for a moment, then nodded once, sharply.
"Yes, of course."

He laid a hand on Doug's shoulder.  The older man was still angry
and agitated, muttering a string of epithets under his breath.
"You," Chris said, "are going to calm yourself down and get to
work right along with them."

"Yes."  Doug grit his teeth and closed his eyes before taking a
long, deep breath through his nose.  He held it for what seemed to
Chris an uncomfortably long time before letting it out slowly and
carefully.  His eyes opened and met Chris', and in that moment
Chris saw all the masks and deceptive lunacy fall away from him,
and suddenly felt a deep and unexpected kinship with this man --
one warrior to another, each doing his best to fulfil the duty
that defined him.  Without words, Doug already knew what Chris
was intending, and approved.

Before he knew it, the two of them were clasping hands.
"Thanks," Doug said with a cocky grin.  "I won't let them down.
I swear it."

Chris nodded.  "I'll hold you to that."

Doug's grip on him tightened for a moment, then released.  Chris
released his own grip.  "Good luck out there," Doug breathed,
then turned away to pick up his helmet.

The ward alarm rang again.  As the deep ringing tone faded away,
Chris spun on his heel and left the circle.  Out of the corner of
his eye he could see Urd, a stick of chalk in hand, beginning the
process of completing the monstrously complex pattern which would
define and anchor the tremendous energies they would be
unleashing in a few minutes.

Just past the outermost ring of glyphs and runes, Chris turned to
his left.  His eyes fell upon Hiroshi, Takeshi, Juhachi and
Louis, who had left their posts at the circle's compass points.
A raven -- no doubt one of Keferael's vessels -- sat on Takeshi's
shoulder.

He tilted his head.  "Guys?"

Hiroshi glanced at his fellows and back at him. "We're with you,
Chris.  *All* of us."

Chris regarded them solemnly for a moment.  "Thanks," he finally
said.  "I need you to be my rear guard.  Stay in here.  Don't let
anything in until the ritual ends."  His eyes flickered over
toward Rachel and Ami.  "I'm leaving everyone here I love in your
hands."

"You can count on us," Juhachi replied without hesitation.

Chris nodded.  "Thank you."

Without another word, he stepped past them to stand in front of
Ami and Rachel.  "Chris..." Rachel began, but Chris held up a
hand and she bit back whatever she had intended to say.

Chris leaned in and kissed first Rachel, and then Ami, gently,
deeply, and confidently.  When he leaned back, he found both
girls gazing at him with shimmering eyes.  "Stay in here,"
he said softly.  "Whatever you do, don't go outside until I
say it's clear.  Understand?"

Wordlessly, they nodded.

"Promise me," he insisted.

"I promise," they said in near-unison.  Chris smiled approvingly.
It wasn't a wish-level agreement, but he knew they meant it --
this was a promise they would keep.

"Good girls."  Chris reached out and cupped their faces -- Rachel
with his left hand, Ami with his right.  "I'll be back for you
two.  I promise."

He was not surprised to feel the "click" of a contract locking
into place.

Before the looks on their faces could convince him to stay,
Chris spun and strode for the door.

                               * * *

With a slow deliberate tread, Chris stepped through the temple door,
and positioned himself halfway down the stairs to the yard below.

The warning gong rang again.  Its deep, rich tone seemed somehow
more insistent, more demanding.

*Today,* he thought with a calmness that surprised him, *is the
day I earn my keep.*

Chris closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and willed his armor
into existence around him.  The weight of the cool metal was a
comfortable reassurance, and without opening his eyes he stepped
through the first few positions of an old and long-familiar kata.

Behind him, in the temple, he could hear his sisters beginning
the chant which initialized the ritual.  Their voices were
strong and sweet, and filled his heart with the palpable
sensation of their presence.  He couldn't help but smile.

There was a flutter of wings, and a raven dropped down to perch
on the railing next to him.  As he glanced over at it, the bird
cawed, then slowly winked one eye at him.

Chris chuckled.  "You got it, buddy," he said.  Then he turned
his attention back to the gate.  He shook his head, still smiling
faintly.  "No point in putting it off," he murmured, and closed
his eyes once more.

Turning all his attention within, Chris reached out, and for the
first time ever, deliberately invited and embraced his Full
Manifestation.

END OF CHAPTER SIX

------------------------------------

This work of fiction is copyright (C) 2008, by Robert M. Schroeck
and Christopher Angel.

"Oh! My Goddess", and the settings and the characters thereof,
are copyright by and trademarks of Kosuke Fujishima, KISS and
Kodansha Ltd., and are used without permission.

"Douglas Q. Sangnoir," "Looney Toons", "The Loon" and any
representations thereof are copyright by and trademarks of Robert
M. Schroeck.

"Christopher 'Paradox' Angel" and any representations thereof are
copyright by and trademarks of Christopher Angel.

"Maggie 'Shadowwalker' Viel" and any representations thereof are
copyright by and a trademark of Peggy Schroeck.

"The Warriors", "Warriors' World", "Warriors International" and
"Warriors Alpha" are all jointly-held trademarks of The Warriors
Group.

All quotes are included in this fiction without permission under
the "fair use" provisions of international copyright law.

For a full explanation of the references and hidden tidbits in
this story, see the Drunkard's Walk V Concordance at:

         http://www.eclipse.net/~rms/dw5conc.html

Other chapters of this story can be found at:

         http://www.eclipse.net/~rms/dw5.html

"Oh! My Brother!" can be found at:

	http://www.yggdrasil.org/omg/index.html

The Drunkard's Walk discussion forums are open for those who wish
to trade thoughts and comments with other readers, as well as
with the author:

         http://drunkardswalkforums.yuku.com/

Many thanks to our prereaders on this story:  Kathleen Avins,
Nathan Baxter, Ed Becerra, Andrew Carr, Kevin Cody, Logan
Darklighter, Helen Imre, Josh Megerman, Berg Oswell, and Peggy
Schroeck.

C&C gratefully accepted.